Following my Soul’s Direction
It is five days before Christmas and I am on a little plane flying through the darkness…
The orange dawn is streaking across the sky…
I am flying through the black into the light of another dawning day…
One of the losses and gains as I make my way across the time span of this earthly journey, is that I find I don’t believe in planning anymore, or being able to ‘plan to make anything happen…’
I used to ‘know’ I could make anything I wanted happen…
But then I learnt that what I wanted to happen wasn’t always the best thing for me!
And I had to unravel what I had created….
I used to enjoy the excitement of a mission ahead… A direction to set off in, things to be done…
I could dupe myself in this way to a certain extent…!
But now I don’t believe this anymore and so I can’t distract myself with a ‘plan’… I was drinking coffee with Anadi saying this to him one morning this week…
‘It feels like a loss in some ways’ I mused… ‘I used to rather enjoy the excitement of a plan…’
‘Yes’, he said, ‘I think it goes with clearing away the tension…’
This doesn’t mean I don’t plan or listen to my soul, and hear where it wants to direct my energy..
And I have booked us up for most of the coming year, destinations to travel to, races to be run… Which of course looks like planning!
But I can’t get the feeling I used to… It was like a feeling of ‘this is it’… And I could hide for awhile from the truth; which is I have no idea at all what anything is….
I no longer know what the callings of my heart, the stirrings of my soul are about, what the journeying will reveal…
The plans that arise of where to travel to next, the decision to get fit for races ahead – which ones to run in – the ideas for books or articles…I don’t know what it is all about until each moment reveals something new, strips something away…
And I see…
Pale blue sky, pinky steaks, grey wisps of cloud… Green fields, towns, houses scattered… Roads and brown earth…The land below coming nearer to meet us.
Another day, no idea of what the future holds…
But I have adjusted to the loss of the excitement, I understand…
Touch down….
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
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