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I wrote this little card following a hike on the Oregon Coast last summer.

Rachelle planned this trip and called me every week until I gathered the nerve to buy my ticket. The idea was that we would hole up in Deborah’s cabin and get some major work done. The whole idea felt so scandalous–what mother of small children can get away with this kind of stuff?

I didn’t tell my closest friends I was coming for fear that I wouldn’t write down one word, but it hardly mattered. One look at those jagged rocks on that stormy coast and there was no way I could stay inside. Day after day I hiked and explored, while Rachelle poured brilliance on reams of paper. At first I felt horribly guilty, so I called Mahasti for reassurance. She was literally in the process of pouring molten metal into a mold when I called, so her husband Lincoln answered. “Oh Jen,” he said, complete wisdom in a sentence. “I don’t know about you, but if I don’t dig into my environment, my art looks just like the art I make when I’m at home.” This is a man who knows how to run a micro-forge for the sake of sculpture. He had just the kind of street cred to make me listen.

I got off my cell phone that instant and turned back to the state park where two sister cliffs protected a quiet beach and a sleepy cove. Tall fir trees grew along the side of each mountain, pacific blue ocean the perfect backdrop to their stunning silhouette. A lovely path wound straight to the top of the outlook north of the cove.

Ever since living in Nagasaki, I’ve had a weakness for Japanese woodblock prints, and now I was in one.

I walked that path, taking in the sights below, until the firs gave way to a field of huckleberries, perfectly ripe for my hungry heart. I didn’t realize at first that this was where the path ended until I stepped past one bush and almost walked straight off the cliff! The whole experience was surreal.

The next day I promised myself I’d write, and I think Rachelle breathed a sigh of relief. All these miles! All that way! And all Jen would have to show for it would be sore legs and a sun-kissed face. Who would understand?

That morning I filled thirty little cards with all the kindness I had soaked in the days before. Writing those words felt like magic, like someone else’s pen was flying across the page. All my life I had been striving to make my mark, to not waste my life, to be known as a dear soul on the earth. In all my efforts to love and to be remembered well, I was secretly afraid that No One was watching, that my story was too small for divine attention, if such a presence existed at all.

I did not want to find out in one dark unattended moment that my worst fears were indeed true.

Climbing that path to those huckleberries waiting for me, my resistance to the Truth melted away with each step. The whole earth was full of deep and abiding glory. I was working hard to find love, to cultivate it, to make it live and grow, but all the while the Universe growing me. Holding me in a deep embrace of total care, total love. I could resist with the noblest of efforts, but no matter. All the love I could ever need and more was tending my soul whether I accepted it or not. All the love I could ever desire to give was being knit into the very fabric of my being.

I wish I could say what happened that day. All these words can’t hold those moments. But I need to remember. Especially today–when I’m a little scared of my longings, my dreams and all the ways I resist the Truth that makes me fearless and free.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 12:37 am and is filed under Blessings, Journal, Stories, a little fortune cookie from the universe, beauty, faith, hope, inspiration, joy, travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.