Suddenly I realize I am lost in the woods. 
I have followed one of those disappearing paths
The ones that seem, perhaps, to be the way
And, yet, lead only into a bramble.

I stand there, looking one way and another.
The fear begins to prickle at my neck
And I know that I am lost
Unable to find my way home

My panic casts around for guidance
I wonder if I can orient myself by finding the sun,
By marking a shadow, 
By listening for the stream. 

I imagine that I can think the lostness away
That I can retrace my steps 
Or just expand the field of my vision
Far enough to find my place.

But none of this works.
Indeed, it threatens to deepen my panic
And lead me further astray.
I am helpless … I cannot save myself.

I sit down upon a nearby boulder 
And my soul collapses within me
I put my head in my hands and weep.
This, this, is the lonely, helpless truth. 

I must wait
And hope
For rescue. 

The stone beneath me is cold. 
The sky is threatening dark. 
My heart is screaming so loudly within me
That I almost mistake your voice for my own.

And yet, my panic is a scream
And your assurance is a whisper.
It rises from somewhere deep within. 
Not from within me, but from within reality itself. 

I try to quiet myself
To move myself aside, if that is possible, 
When it is me that must do the moving. 
How can I use my power to relinquish that very power? 

It is an ongoing mystery,
This process of un-doing. 
This gritting of my teeth 
In order to let go. 

It is as if the deepest part of me
Is not me at all, but part of something larger.
As if, in the center of my very essence, 
There is a subterranean tunnel to the ALL. 

Can that be?
Are you deep within the ALL?
Within us all? 
Me, too?



[image by jane cornwell per cc 2.0 from Flickr.  The quotation is from Dante's Inferno ]