Weaving Life through Divides

by Richard Reeve on July 18, 2009

in AziMuth

What a tangled web we weave.....
Image by Pandiyan via Flickr

I’ve had the chance to revisit in memory, artifact and in body, various passages of my life during the past year. And often our dreams are linked to past events.  If we follow the markers the dream render, often the lesson within is extremely relevant to the situations unfolding today.

Next weekend I have a few days while traveling to revisit Paradise Valley, Montana on the North side of Yellowstone Park.  Ten years ago I camped one night there and distinctly remember the mournful call of a wolf from a mountain high above where I sat in the darkness.

It was also my first trip across the Continental Divide.  My friend Doug and I talk frequently about the spiritual implications contained within the geography of every divide.  As I recall my own state of mind during that journey, it was cluttered with a sense of grandiosity.  It was unconsciously identified with the shadow.

So a return visit to that divide with a different set of eyes, with a different sense of purpose, with a different relationship to the two great bodies all waters from that place travel toward.  Touching that place I’ll be reconnecting, and in many ways re-preforming, a certain mystery of my soul which I know did not go off well when i first visited ten years ago.

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  • Doug Robins

    I was thinking of climbing Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch this year to revisit the site where the Old Man of the Mountain now isn't. Would you be interested in doing that with me in October? (Merrimack - Connecticut Divide)

  • Certainly!...I so look forward to hiking into that part of your story Doug.

  • Returning to any point in our lives that represents an explicit moment for personal life-long enlightenment - no matter how glorious or painful - can be extremely healing and nourishing. As we say, hindsight is always better, although we are not looking at the new event with such innocence as the first time and what it all means in that moment. In a way, you are adding color to this new page in advance, so be careful too or you may find some level of disappointment. We all tend to do that to an extent. But knowing how you are, I'm sure you'll rediscover the essence of that magical moment, and deepen your understanding of what a natural "divide" represents for you in that moment. Will it remain in the shadow? Or will it reveal another side?

    The howl of the wolf feels lonely, and maybe that vibration struck a cord with who the young Richard was present at that moment, but one who lacked the understanding and wisdom you have now. You just didn't know then, and that's part of the journey too isn't it? So maybe the trip last time "that didn't go off well" was just how it was supposed to be to illuminate the contrast in life, to fuel other things. It will be fascinating to see what else you see, hear and feel along the way this time around, and how that will continue to affect on your path ahead.

    Thanks Richard, it is always great to stop in and see what you're up to.

  • Hi Juliann,
    Great to hear from you and thanks for sharing your perspective. There

    was a time when it seemed the best strategy for living was to plow

    forward without looking back...but these days, the act of weaving back

    though (have I mentioned that the verb Reeve is a nautical term for

    tieing down with a rope through a hole) has been really useful.

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