This way or that way

Yesterday I was cycling my electric bike from Vazon to Pleinmont, with Elijah on the back. It was windy and I was having to cycle into it, which started to becoming annoying, because it was hard work and because the wind aggravates me, as it does for so many.

It crossed my mind that rather than be annoyed and irritated by it (as it was not going to change the situation reacting like this), I might just go with the flow of it. Yet I wondered how I might go with the flow of wind that is blowing against me, I could hardly turn around, although I did wonder if this was a sign that I was going the wrong way, off to a school outing.

I turned inland when I could, to escape the wind, and it was here, on the brow of a hill that I passed a crossroads and saw a sign someone had made that said, “This way”, “That way”, “Other Way”, “Wrong way”. This made me laugh. Which way was I going? I was going this way, but it could be that way, or it could be the other way, it could also be the wrong way. How do we know?

So much of our lives is spent trying to navigate the ‘right’ way. I have spent hours running questioning which way I am going. Sometimes it might feel like life is going the right way, and sometimes it feels that it is going the wrong way. regardless, it is going on anyway.

We walked out to the fairy ring out at Pleinmont and Elijah spotted a fishing boat and we wondered which way it was going. All I really saw were the orange buoys, which made me think about the times I tried to explain to both my boys the nature of buoys, “they are called buoys, but they are not boys as in, you are a boy, it’s a different buoy”. It was confusing, and still is, even though they know that a buoy is a buoy, they do still ask me why, why is a buoy and a boy so similar in sound. I can’t answer that, just like I can’t answer the reason that “sea” and “see’ sound the same, but are spelt differently.

We lost sight of the boat and never did know which way it was going as we were distracted by the tiny fairy door that someone has placed on a stone near the fairy ring itself. Is that a way too? I like to think so, into a world that is yet unknown. The wind was whipping around this extremity, it’s always windy here, as if the wind itself is leading the way to the fairy ring, because once you get around the corner it calms a little, and you can make a wish without being blown away.

I don’t know that there is a right way anymore than there is a wrong way. My life has been about navigating between the two, because my mind like’s to distinguish the good from the bad, as if I might be judged by some higher power, as if life is a game of snakes and ladders, and who wants to land on a snake, let’s be honest. I’ve become less certain about this, about anything, is there really any certainty?

There have been times in my life when my soul has suffered because of the decisions I have made. When I have not been paying attention, because I didn’t know that I had a choice, so what was the point in being attentive if I was going to have to do what I was going to have to do because it was expected of me, or because I didn’t even question it. Or did I?

Perhaps it is age that brings with it a different perspective, or perhaps it’s a shifting relationship to the soul, as one realises that the way was compromising something, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it, until it screamed at you in the dead of night, it is always the dead of night, when we have lost the soul that we might recognise it. There is something about this witching hour, as if it might be a portal to all those lost bits of ourselves. I heard an owl, I was pretty certain I could hear an owl, that other worldly sound, maybe the moon as up, I can’t be sure, I didn’t know that back then. But I did know that something didn’t feel quite right.

If only I had know then what I know now. Perhaps then there might not have been so much suffering. At the end of yoga classes, I regularly repeat, “may all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering”. Recently it has crossed my mind and sometimes I even say it, “may all beings be free from their suffering and the causes of their suffering”. Because we create our own suffering. Our mind creates our suffering. This way, that way, which way. The mind loves to debate, question, wonder, ponder, make sense.

Am I going the right way? I can’t be sure. It’s a way, that’s all I know. The moon is rising later. I know that too. Later and later each evening. Until it rises in the morning. Is that the right way? It’s just it’s way. That’s the way it is. I see the sea. The sea I see. It’s just the way it is. It’s liberating, lets us off the hook, to know that it is not about being right or wrong, this way or that, who cares, as long as we can make a decision and be OK with that. It’s the inability to make a decision, to continuously question which way might be best to the extent that we never make a decision, it’s this that harms us the most.

The wind blew me the way I needed to go, to see what I needed to see, to think differently. I didn’t notice much on that journey, my head was down mainly, desperate to get to the destination in time - don’t even get me started on how much of our lives are defined by the ticking of a clock - but it did open my mind, free it a little. The flow will take us where we need to go, even if we feel that we might be going against it, we will get there, somehow, it is up to us how much we suffer in the process.