Letting Go

Morning Meditation

So... I'm wiffle waffling and angsting over the blogs - the picture blogs in particular - but they do seem to be tangled up with the others as well.

When I did my morning meditation I asked specifically if I could get some insight into what to do about them.

I turned to Tsatsalatksa - a strong, beautiful, Skokomish woman. She wouldn't make direct eye contact with me. She kept looking over my head off into the distance. As I merged into the picture I found myself standing with her on a road at the top of a hill.

In the "dream" I was a child, she the mother. I was looking backward, she was looking forward. Gently, she reached down and with her hands on my shoulders, she turned me around.

Far on the horizon was a beautiful city. She said, "Do you see that?" And I knew that was where we were headed. We started walking and trailing behind me was a wagon piled high with my various stuff.

I thought to myself, this is too apt, too symbolic, I must be making it up. So I tried to forget about the stuff, to NOT see it, to NOT imagine it, but still the wagon full of stuff persisted. So finally, I gave in and accepted that it was there for a reason and a purpose.

The woman looked down at me and said, "Let it go." and I said, "But I need it." and she said, "Let it go." and I said, "But I need it." and she said, "Let it go." and I said, "But I want it."

She was very patient. The dialogue continued. She would say, "Let it go." And I would say, "But I like it." "But what if I need it." "But what if it comes in handy later?" "But what about other people who like it." "But I love it." "But it's fun and interesting." "But... But.... But..."

And to each "But.." She would reply, "Let it go."

Finally, she reached down and unclenched my fingers from the handle of the wagon. The whole time, I'm saying, "But... But..."

And even when I wasn't hanging on to the wagon any more, the stuff was still following us, attached by a string that I was holding in my pocket.

She said, "Really, you must let it go."

And I did try, but I just couldn't seem to cut myself off from it. So she stopped and pointed at the beautiful city on the horizon, glowing and shimmering with golden light. "That's where we are going, you need to let this other go."

She pointed down the hill, and I saw before us valleys and forests, cliffs and dangerous territory. I knew that if I tried to drag my noisy, bulky, heavy wagon through all that - we would surely fail. Maybe even die.

That journey looked exciting, and interesting, adventuresome and dangerous. I let go of the string and the wagon. It felt so scary and vulnerable to do that.

We started off again. "But wait," I said. "I need some stuff. I need to get some stuff out of it to take with us." She didn't let go of my hand so that I could run back and rifle through the wagon.

She smiled and said, "What do you have in your pockets?" And suddenly they were bulging with stuff.

The first thing I pulled out was a whistle. "You can take this," she said, "it might come in handy." I had a small flash of being in a dark scary forest, playing the whistle and finding courage, maybe even faeries.

She insisted that I empty my pockets. So much stuff - a candle, knives, sticks, gum, lots of stuff.

The only thing she let me keep was the whistle. I felt very naked as we turned and began to walk down the hill.

NOTE: I'm thinking that whistle is this one little blog.

What is the Morning Meditation?