Africa, God, and what you (really) want

Six weeks ago I moved back to Africa. South Africa to be precise.

Eight years away. Seven in New Zealand, one in Australia.

So what brought me back?

About half-way through my time away from Africa, I began to realize that staying away was not what I wanted to do forever. The fascinating thing about this thought was what accompanied it. A feeling in the bones, in the blood. A pushing in the heart, stronger as each year passed. A pushing that simply would not go away.

Eventually, this deep-in-the-chest-inspired-contemplation became an enormity. Unignorable. Back to Africa? Really?

So it seemed.

In The Story of Q. (soon to be re-released as Abwûn), Master Lael teaches Mateo about the difference between conscience and instinct.

“Now,” Master Lael said to the boy, “it is important to understand that conscience and instinct are not the same thing.” The old man held his hands, as if in one he held ‘conscience’ and in the other he held ‘instinct’. “Your ‘instinct’,” he said, “is the voice of God within…this, you are born with…”

This instinct, he elaborates, is the thing that leads us on our journey. If we listen to it, we find ourselves in places that ‘feel’ right.

When we listen to this mysteriously accurate, mysteriously omnipotent aspect of ourselves we ‘know’ – our senses ‘know’ – our body and breath ‘know’ – this is where I’m supposed to be. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. What I’m supposed to do.

The first morning after we landed I woke before sunrise and went for a run on the eco-estate where we were staying. My bones moved and swayed, my body extended roots as I ran that curled and flowed down into the ground not just beneath my feet but all around me and I knew, this is where I’m meant to be. My heart beat more in time with each step. Life and the journey, instinct, all came into sync. I felt this with a completeness I have never felt before. I decided then that I wouldn’t question what I was being ‘told’ in that moment. I would simply Be in the reality of it. Life begun (perhaps life waiting…)

My question is, What are your bones telling you?

Not your fears or your ego, your anger or your pride, but the place in you that feels like the marrow of your being? The pure space between muddled thinking? Can you find it? Have you found it? Connected? Are you, as Master Lael says, Listening

If as Master Lael says, our instinct really is the voice of God, what is God telling you today? About yourself…about who you are or are not allowing yourself to be…

How will you walk to meet yourself?

 

 

(Abwûn – Cynren Press, Spring 2019)