To The Trail

This blog is a little different from what I typically write. Nothing about letting go of proving, pleasing, and perfecting. No breaking the rules and expectations we've been taught. No questions or reflection exercises.

Today I write to the trail.

My friend Lauren says, "the trail provides." Although I've always loved to hike, I don't think I fully, deeply understood what this meant until this past year.

The trail has become my salvation.

The place I go to find myself, to find my spirit.

The second I set foot on the trail, my soul is free.

My feet are connected to the earth while my hair whips in the wind.

I am both grounded and boundless in the same moment.

The puzzle pieces of my life magically find their edges and fit back together.

The trail reminds me of my smallness, while also reminding me, in the words of Sue Monk Kidd, to bless the largeness inside of me.

I am never too much or not enough on the trail.

I just am.

I walk in heightened awareness of me in the world, separate and totally connected at the same time.

Gliding through the air, feeling its breath on my skin.

Living in breath. Breathing in life.

So fully in my body and spirit that I just exist.

Sometimes I stop and watch butterflies dance between wildflowers for an inordinate amount of time.

Sometimes I listen to the collective hum of bees devouring wild phlox, feeling their life.

Sometimes I inch closer to a great blue heron, wanting to be near the kind of elegant magic only that bird possesses.

Sometimes I look up at the clouds with a smile on my face and sing the first verse of Both Sides Now, "Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere..."

Sometimes I propel my body up a mountain, the effort required making presence the only option.

Sometimes I'm quiet on the trail, allowing my mind to empty into stillness.

Sometimes I cry, tears overflowing from some deep place I didn't know needed to be released.

The trail uncovers my broken pieces and heals them, step by step by step.

I find the trail. And it finds me.

Every step in the dirt is a step back to myself.

Every time.