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More often than not, we feel so enmeshed in the life we have that the prospect of change appears remote or impossible. Thus, we continue on the tracks that we have laid down for ourselves, We are unable to think in new ways and we gradually teach ourselves to forget the other horizons. We unlearn desire. Quietly, over time, we succumb to the dependable script of the expected life and become masters of the middle way. We avoid extremes and after a while we no longer even notice the pathways off to the side and no longer sense the danger and disturbance that could be experienced "out there." We learn to fit our chosen world with alarming precision and regularity. Often it takes a huge crisis or trauma to crack the dead shell that has grown ever more solid around us. Painful as that can be, it does resurrect the longing of the neglected soul. It makes a clearance. Again we can see the horizons and feel their attraction. Though we may wince with vulnerability as we taste the exhilaration of freedom, we feel alive!
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John O'Donohue
from The Invisible Embrace: Beauty
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I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
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And nothing
happens! Nothing... Silence... Waves...
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-Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
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~ Juan Ramon Jimenez
translated by Robert Bly
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