Below Zero Days

I’m still the same as the seven year old boy in the photograph on my desk, a little bit scared, excited, happy, hopeful. Yep, still the same, except when I forget to catch myself drifting away from me, living outside myself, letting go a little, day by day, not even looking, and one morning I wake up lost, looking at a below zero day.

That’s when I take The Journey.

I’ve walked the same steps so many times, lost, or with a broken heart, crushed. I’ve stumbled down the path, sick and alone, numb with grief for the ones who are gone, taken by time, a father, a mother, a brother and sister, a beautiful boy, a friend.

I’ve gone to find love, to find hope, to get my smile back, to reset, to be reborn, to remember, to let someone go, to heal, to dance around a fire.

I’ve set off from my house, a hotel room, a broken down car, from different lands. It can take minutes, or hours, or just as long as need be, but once I’ve started out, I never turn back.

It’s a journey I know so well, I need no map, I can take it with my eyes shut, and do, mostly.

I open the wooden gate, into a field of cornflowers, as blue as the skies, as blue as the boy’s eyes, and I walk. I know where I’m going, and what I’m going to do, and who I’ll meet, but I’m not thinking of any of that, I’m just walking.

My breathing settles alongside my steps, slow and sure, calming me, and I head across the vast sea of blue towards the tree in the distance.

It’s an oak, huge, welcoming, a thousand years old, and remembers every day of it. I touch my forehead to its massive trunk, and feel better in a moment, finding the part of me that wants to be better.

There’s a swing, a piece of wood tied to a rope, tied to a branch, set way too high for me to reach, so I wait, listening to the leaves, feeling the rhythm of my breath, and soon enough, effortlessly, I’m on the wood on the rope, swinging like a little kid, laughing. You would laugh too.

Sometime later I find myself sleeping on a beach, holding a stick, and remember why I came, and set off towards a fire burning along the sands, a single person sat by it, waiting for me, and I wonder why I forgot about her, and I know I’ll be ok.

So many years ago, I listened to a guided meditation on finding your guide, I think a meditation with a clear purpose appealed to me! The Journey is my meditation when I have troubles, and it isn’t a quick fix, and it isn’t the answer, but it’s the thing I always do first, and it shows me where to look for answers, and it always helps, I always come back better than I went. It takes about 10, maybe 15 minutes, about the same time it’s taken you to read this blog.

Dear Reader, your mission this week, seriously, is to try a guided meditation, and report back. As if.

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