I am scared. The future beckons me with a sunshine finger. All that I have ever wanted is laid out before me. I feel the hush in the world - the pause in the flow of life as the birds and the trees stop mid pulse to see what I will do. The Universe is saying this is all for you...but I am scared. What if it's a mean trick and the moment I reach for it, it dissolves or gets snatched away in a cackle of taunting laughter. What if there's bad luck or disaster waiting just beyond that first step. What if my family suffer and I have to bear the sight of their sad tearful faces as the enormity of what I have done settles upon my shoulders.
I have heard the land calling me. She rumbles and sings my name with every footstep across her lush verdant skin. She is bountiful and she is brave, but she is wounded. And she is asking me to tend her wounds with the gifts that only I can give. She has been patient, tending this patch and that. But the waiting is over. She says the time is now. I am to give up my life entirely in service to the one who is Mother to us all. I cannot do it from afar. Like a spiritual doula I must be by her side as she transforms and transcends into higher light. Bring back the Heart, she says. Bring back the Divine Feminine, she calls. And says all this while looking at me. Humble, forgettable, ordinary me. Declare yourself in the game. Put all of you into the fight. Be as one with Life and let it transform you as it is transforming me. But I dwell too much on the friendly smiling faces that I see day to day. I am comfortable here. I know the routine. I am settled in this place. Life here is predictable and safe. It will continue to be this way ad infinitum until my children leave home and I salve the loneliness of their departure with the garden and walks with the dog.
The thumping beat in my chest tells a different story. Why can't we do this. We must do this. Let's run towards it, arms outstretched, laughing, giggling, exuberant, and excited that it has all come true. I knew it to be so. I told you it was so. Dreams really do come true. The land fills my eyes with lazy days in wildflower meadows, tenderly kissing my Spirit like the delicate feet of a baby wren landing gently on my head. I want this. Of course I want this. But I'm scared that the moment I choose, the thunderclouds will come, and thunder and lightning will wash the dream away. I feel something lurking. A shadow in the wings, that smiles wickedly, holding its breath as it seduces me ever closer to the snare of scorned and vengeful females that seek to possess and destroy this very land. This magical dream comes with a price, and it is a price I'm not sure that I am willing to pay.
And yet she is patient. She knows I will come, for it is written in the signs that I will come to this place and do the work my soul was birthed to do. It is the gamble and the chance of it all that stills me, suspends my foot mid air before it makes that final contact with the ground. For someone who has strived to control all life, who has fervently sought out stability and routine, this feels like stepping off the edge of a cliff with crashing waves and jagged rocks beneath. Believing that yes, I do have wings, and yes, I can fly. Madness. Utter madness. I look up as I feel the gentle touch of Spirit against the back of my hand and the wind around me stills.. Now choose.