way open

Pausing over night in Rabanel (or at least, that's where I think I was), I stayed at a refugio staffed by a hospitalera who also spoke English. I wasn't always around English speakers as a I walked the Camino, so it was a welcome respite to sit and speak freely. By this point, my blisters were so numerous that I had long since stopped counting them. Stopping was always such a joy, mixed with a large fear; if I stopped, could I ever get up, let alone keep going?

That night, we were talking about walking the Camino. The hospitalera talked about making the Way. El Camino de Santiago literally translates as The Way of St. James (Santiago was the Spanish name for St. James). Not walking the Way, but making the Way. I make the Way and the Way makes me. Deep, deep truth in those words. I bear the physical marks on my body of having made that particular Way.

So it is with fullness that I have re-encountered the phrase 'Way open'. I first came across that phrasing in Parker Palmer's book "Let Your Life Speak". It is a Quaker phrase to refer to how the Divine works. Way open. Way close. This is not a passive or dismissive waiting. It is an active, alive, believing waiting. I think that it is a convergence of the Divine, of me - my skills, willingness, talents, and of circumstances - shaped by both of us. And it's damn hard.

I've got to say, this new area of my life is confusing. No, the old way of believing and acting wasn't particularly working for me. I get cranky and confined when I use those old ways of compartmentalizing and boxing things up. But this new phase, moving towards active mindfulness, is hard. My old friends don't know this part of me and I'm scared to tell them and let them in. I feel like I need to protect my butterfly wings very carefully. And I'm scared about what I'll lose in these new ways of being and seeing. But I am also like this new Way. I like being made by the Way, as I'm making the way. I am waiting for Way Open - in so many areas of my life.