I’ve set out on this journey… and a few of you, as well. I thank you for the company.

Some days it feels as though we’ve cast out far from shore, making headway to new lands within us and without. Other days I’m certain we’ve only imagined rowing, and are still on dry land, with sore muscles from stirring the sand.

As I was going through some recent writings of mine, I found the following. It’s a good thing to share, I think, as we embark (and re-embark, and re-embark, again) on our respective courses…

 

One does not recalibrate a compass.

Like the heart, it is not a machine to be wrenched nor a scale to be reckoned. It is obliged to magnetism, compelled by a pull beyond its reason and perhaps sometimes, too, against its most obstinate will.

A compass can only pulse and wiggle residing in the hand of its bearer; a constant ally when trusted or idle coxswain when unemployed. Like the heart beating now beneath your breast, each flutter will, if you attend, implore you to its home, coerce your calculated maps, and issue a course of its own choosing.

What then, is the bearer to do when his mind and body must navigate a terrain, altered and inhospitable, at the command of such a capricious star? Is there no arguing with this ceaseless needle? Are we rendered agents of whim?

As for this traveler, I risk assent to the pulls of poles and pray the path does not devastate. I endeavor to trust that my heart, like a needle in her glass dome, will not be so easily swayed from its final destination and that if heeded, will not leave me lost in a wilderness of good intent.

 

 

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As we go, I wish you guiding winds, kind seas, hearty anchors to rest above, and song, song, song,
sung heartily on the decks.

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