“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. In the silence, there is a sacred mystery, a path that shows the way not with words but with the heart’s yearning.”
Rumi
This just spoke to me...on so many levels. Like almost brought me to tears in the Phoenix airport...
To begin, "let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love..."
As I age, I am becoming hyper aware of exactly what it is I love. It is my parents, my children, my pets, my friends, my work, peace and quiet, walking alone with the dog in ancient woods, it is travel, it is pushing my body to be more efficient...it is books, it is writing, it is being home with my people (furried and fleshy). It is white flowers in the Spring, the smell of fir trees in the winter, the gathering leaves in Fall and the crash of waves in Summer.
It is the way my life now organizes itself around the dawning sunlight of morning and the quiet hush of nightfall. This is my new timekeeping mechanism...
I feel like everything I did before now was leading me to this place and astray was an island I spent a great deal of time and energy exploring...to my own detriment and demise, repeatedly.
But these things, I have moved toward, these things I really love. They have been the stalwart guardians of my peace, my serenity, my joy and my becoming. It is in seeking out these things I really love, that I have been brought all the way around to a place hidden deep within me, that has been there all along but I was just too absorbed in the pursuit of things that I only liked or liked me to really see all that was laid before me.
So I have come to trust that my heart’s yearning is enough. I do not need your approval or your consent. I can and will allow the things I really love to guide me from here. They are a heart song sung by my infatuation with the path. I am led forward bravely, trusting that all that is meant for me will find me, eventually. And all that is not must come to fall away. So much of my life wasted on the shores of things that were never meant for me. Pursued and occupied by my own stubborn insistence that I knew better...wholly ignoring all the things I really loved that politely demurred until I came to my senses.
And so begins the silent pull towards whatever comes next, holding those I love close to me, which now includes me. I sat on the outskirts of my own love, attention, companionship and life, waiting, always waiting for something outside myself to occur, to happen, to bring my life into full flower. Today I know that as I move forward, all that matters is I hold dear all that I truly love and that I love it with all that I am, scrimping nothing, holding back absolutely nothing. To love all the beings, things, places that have carved their place in my ever loving heart and to allow them to pull me forward into the full blossom of my existence. Loving. That is the purpose of this life. And allowing all that you really love to be the only guide you need.
Rumi knew this. He wrote it down so we would know. But we fail to notice his instruction, perhaps his warnings, his poetry and writings a map, a guide to how to make a beautiful life, not just for yourself, but for all whom you encounter.
So when you feel that silent pull, allow it to tractor beam you to your new reality toward the things you really love. And never, ever settle for anything less, while always remembering never to allow yourself to give anything less either. Really loving requires a balancing of giving and receiving in order to remain healthy. Natural things require a delicate balancing of ebb and flow, and on occasion, tip too far in one direction or another. As do we, this is how we operate also. However, it seems now that it is really more simple than I ever made it appear, just allow into your life all the things you really love, then do you best to honor their presence. Again, still.
