How to “abandon these shoes” and find a “different way to tread?”

First, by naming and releasing fear. Fear of not having enough, of not knowing enough, of not being enough in the eyes of others.

Second, by letting go of regret. Regret for not knowing who I was or what I needed. Regret for not knowing I was with the right woman all along and letting her go. Regret for not choosing medicine or for not having started my own business when I could have 25 years ago. Regret for not having bought that oceanside property when it was possible. Regret is heavy baggage; letting it go will free me, I hope, to ‘find a different way to tread.’

Reading ‘Finisterre’ takes me back again to lines from one of David’s earlier poem, ‘Sweet Darkness’:

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

Personally, I’m astonished by how long I’ve spent doing work that’s been too small for me; by how much mental effort I’ve invested over the years in distractions and rationalizations to repress that awareness. Ten years have gone by, ten years of playing it safe, all the while yearning for something new, something that would consume all of me and what I have to offer. What that is I have yet to discover.

One things I need to leave behind in order to go forward is my work as a teacher. There was a chapter in my life when teaching children left me happy and spent; when the responsibilities and the rewards were a delight. That time is gone now, and if I am honest, has been gone for eight years. I need to leave that identity behind and go forward under a new name. What that new name will be, though, is entirely unclear to me. Wellness retreat leader and psychotherapist have tremendous appeal and are both names I am qualified to wear. But anxiety about my financial future and retirement savings have so far kept me from abandoning teaching and making the leap. So for now I continue to inhabit this liminal space, this place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Patience and trust are what I need, I know, but some days they are in very short supply.

“Wholeheartedness” is the quality of feeling fully alive and present without ever needing to check.

It means working in the world in a way that is so all-consuming that it leaves nothing but ash behind.

It is a way of being in the world that is ‘undivided’ in the sense meant by Parker Palmer. The inner self and the outer presentation are in complete alignment.

I am most present and most wholehearted when I am out hiking in the woods or up in mountains. I’m also at my best when in deep conversation with someone outdoors in nature; when I am helping a person overhear themselves say something that they have long known to be true, but could never quite articulate. To witness a person speaking their truth aloud to themselves for the first time is a precious gift and a sacred responsibility. It is work that I am truly wholehearted about.

Unfortunately, the school counselling environments in which I have worked in the last eight years have not let me work wholeheartedly. Some of this has to do with the nature of the institutional settings themselves.. Airless, windowless spaces with artificial light are deadening to me, I’ve come to realize, and I need to get away from them. I’ve also felt increasingly stifled by the inherent limitations of working with young children, who simply aren’t ready for the kinds of conversations that enliven me. Finally, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to be wholehearted about the industrial model of education. The prevailing batch-processing approach has no time or interest in relationship-building that real education requires, and I’m deeply bothered by my participation in it.