listening

my brain is mush. i sent off the last of my summer session work today - 21+ pages through e-mail... what a crazy world.

i got up and did a victory dance in my living room. hard to believe a year of school has flown by.

Today i was thinking a lot about fate and free will. i seem to ponder this one quite often.

I bumped into zen-pirate in the grocery store. she was clutching several bottles of wine, with one cradled in her motorcycle helmet. "Hey!" we grinned at each other. "i just love it when i meet people, and then start running into them all the time." she said "i'm gearing up for this wedding this weekend.. i should have gotten a basket!" We chatted a moment, hugged and parted ways. i always seem to run into the right people at the right time. yet, i realized that the more this happens, the more it is because i am acting on instinct, or something that is deep within me rather than "what makes sense" in the brain department.

I know i am an active participant in my own life and my own decisions. My aim is to follow my heart, follow the very root of myself, my spirit calling through the insanity of the everyday world. And, at the same time, i have this feeling that when i am following that true part of myself i am walking on a path that was laid out long ago - as though i am choosing to step into my destiny.

Just today i remembered that almost exactly 2yrs ago i had the only 'real' psychic reading i've ever had. i started remembering all these things this guy was telling me.. that it was likely i would go back to school in the next year or two, that the money would be available... that i generally had a big chance to make some big changes. i remember thinking that he probably wasn't right.. that i wasn't ready to hit the books again for a while. And i remember he wanted to tell me some things about my relationships, but i didn't care; i felt secure where i was.

Now i remember this - after all these changes have happened. He was right! i moved, i went back to school.. i pushed myself out into the world and into my own heart.. and i believe he may have even predicted my break-up too.

And when i look back on it all.. all the changes i went through in that time, i see my greatest struggle was to keep listening to God, to keep following the call of my own heart. it's not easy, but to come into conscious contact with your own Self, your own Spirit, is the greatest gift. and it is all a journey. some days i feel just terrible, and it is ok. i just keep looking for that quiet voice at the heart of it all, the One who knows.