Walkabout

Walkabout (noun): a short period of wandering bush life, engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work.   (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Be especially relentless when it comes to reverence.

A voice inside you is singing.  Listen.  You are following the song lines, you are singing the world into being as you walk through it, you are composing what Walt Whitman called the “Song of Myself”.

We are surrounded by teachers: the paths we take, the wind, the water, the sandstone, the people on the street, the people we know, the ones who make us crazy, the ones we admire, pity, envy, the ones we can’t relate to at all.

Sometimes it’s “how will this work, I can’t do this anymore, I’m so tired, this is my life”.  Meanwhile the sun rises, incredibly, and planet earth whirls, spins.  The wind blows, the birds sing, evening settles – a miracle of the seemingly uneventful.

And then – you don’t know how you know, you just do – it’s time to go on walkabout again.  Time to return to the song lines again.  Time to remember that everything we do, we do on sand.  By all means, worship the house, but please don’t neglect to pray to the sand it’s built on.  And be especially relentless when it comes to reverence.

When you arrive, however weather-beaten, at the place where your voice has been waiting for you all this time, you will find that you know the sound of your voice just as you know the meaning of your name.  That’s the walkabout magic.

Alone as you feel, you are with all the world.