North Platte, NE
I’ve had a rough couple of days on this Yellow Brick Road. Even though I’m now back at daily work on The Lost Horse of Bryn Doon (a fifth story in my Legend of Q’ntana fantasy series) and that has markedly improved my emotional state (writing helps; try it some time!), I’ve been stressing about the seemingly infinite nature of this journey and very finite-feeling nature of the resources required to maintain it.
Perhaps my mind has viewed the emptiness of these prairie landscapes as something that needs filling. So it fills it with anxiety. Or perhaps I’ve been feeling the travel fatigue that comes over me now and again…more frequently the longer I’m at this. (It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that in nine days, I will have been at it for 16 months.)
Why don’t I stop? I wonder this, too, sometimes. In practical terms, I lack the resources. Yes, it’s more expensive to stay in hotels and to keep my fuel tank filled for all this driving. But those are day-to-day expenses that don’t require large, upfront outlays each month, not to mention onerous move-in costs. A succession of miracles, both large and small (and many from you), has helped me manage the former from one day to the next. The larger miracles, those that would facilitate a more permanent “landing,” have yet to materialize.
They will. I’m certain of it. Some sort of miracle has brought each of the open-ended journeys I’ve undertaken over the past 27 years to a satisfying conclusion. Despite my occasional doubts, I have no reason to believe that this journey will not end similarly.
That’s the practical reason I’m still following my Yellow Brick Road after 474 days.
There are deeper reasons, though, reasons I have been aware of through much of this traveling time, even as it’s often easy to forget them. Which is why I was so grateful this morning to have been reminded of some of those deeper reasons during a phone conversation with a close friend.
I’ll come back to that conversation in a minute. First, a brief recap…
When I left Sedona with Kyri 474 days ago, pretty much everything I owned was jammed into the back of my Prius. I didn’t know where I was going, nor did I have any sense how long this journey would last. (I sure as hell didn’t think it would last this long!)
And I did it (and am still doing it) with no fixed home to return to, and with no savings, no regular income and minimal credit…in other words, with no financial security of any sort.
With no worldly security of any sort. That word “worldly” is important. Because at deeper levels, I have all the security I need.
You could say I’m walking (or driving) a radical version of everything I have ever taught, coached and written…of everything I have lived for the past 30-some years, including the Muse Stream technique I developed and with which I write my books. More directly, it’s that “way of the Fool” I describe in the three of my books that carry that name. Just as the tarot Fool appears to be doing in most representations of the deck’s first card, I’m doing my best to live in the moment, taking one leap of faith after the next after the next after the next.
Sounds great, at least in theory. But why am I still at it?
A few months ago, an online friend who knew only the broad outlines of this journey of mine asked what my raison d’être was. It was a great question, one I had never directly addressed. So a few days later in an Albuquerque Starbucks, I let the Muse Stream write an answer. What follows is an edited version of what emerged…
“The life you live is your raison d’être. The words you write are your raison d’être. The stories that find their way onto the page, of course, but also the way those stories find their way into the page: your ‘Muse Stream.’ And although the stories you tell are paramount, your other writings are nearly as powerful, for they offer practical tools not only for writing in the moment with the uncertainty that is the truth-reality of authentic creation but for living in the moment with the uncertainty that is the truth-reality of authentic existence.
“Of course, what and how you write and what and how you live offer powerful examples to others, eloquently inspire others to see possibilities in their own lives of which they had previously been ignorant, to which they had been previously blind. Yet as potent a raison d’être as that is, what you are doing at deeper levels — through what and how you live and create — is to forge and lay down energetic templates that touch people and institutions far beyond your limited human ability to reach directly through even your words on a page…as powerfully transformational as those words can be.
“In times of uncertainty, the only currency that has any real and lasting value is trust and surrender. Trust in what and surrender to whom? To the infinite indwelling presence that is simultaneously your wisest aspect and the ineffable universality that is the sum of all that is. You can call it God, Higher Self, Spirit, the Universe or your preferred ‘wisest self’ from Dialogues with the Divine. The name doesn’t matter.
“As you trust in that wisest, intuitive, heartful self — as you do it through each act, choice and decision — you are living your raison d’être and expressing not only your life’s purpose in this lifetime but your soul’s purpose in the infinity that is All Creation.
“You know what you must do, what you are called to do. You know that you must do it, though individual and societal voices ‘keep shouting their bad advice,’ as poet Mary Oliver put it. You know who and what you must be, who you are called to be…what you have been called into this lifetime to be. You know that you must be it…that you must surrender to it. This is what you are called to live. This is your raison d’être.”
I’d forgotten that powerful message in recent days. Instead, I have been worrying, mostly about money, which (not for the first time on this journey) appears to be running out. Worry, of course, pulls me out of the present moment and demonstrates a lack of trust. After all, if I acknowledge that I’m fine in this moment and trust that I will be taken care of in the next, then there is no need to worry.
That’s all well and good, but why am I still on the road after 474 days? The answer is simple, though not always welcome: That’s what I sense I’m to do, from that “indwelling presence,” that “wisest self.”
That same wisest self keeps me largely in the moment, refusing any guidance or direction that is not immediately required. On this Yellow Brick Road journey (as on the larger journey that is my life), I’m called to operate on a strict need-to-know basis. That’s why I rarely know from one day to the next which road I’m to take or where I’m to spend the night. And when guidance/direction does come, I surrender to it (if sometimes grudgingly) because I recognize from three decades’ experience with it that this wisest self is my wisest aspect.
If you have read any of my books on writing or have taken any of my workshops, that last paragraph will sound familiar. It’s the same philosophy I apply to my writing and to what I teach about writing. When I say “my stories are smarter than I am,” I’m really saying that my wisest self is smarter and than my conscious mind…in life as much as in writing.
All of which brings me back to that phone conversation I had this morning.
“What you are doing and how you’re doing it is so important right now,” my friend declared, then proceeded to repeat pretty much everything that had come through during my “raison d’être” writings. Yet what made the biggest difference for me this morning, what brought tears to my eyes and shifted my mood and energy, was when she said, simply, “It inspires me. You inspire me.”
Whether this journey lasts another day or another 474 days, I need to remember that what I’m doing is making a difference. It may not always be the kind of visible, demonstrable difference my conscious mind would prefer. It may not show up in books sales or coaching clients. Yet the fact that it isn’t always visible or demonstrable simply forces me to trust that much more. And whether I’m on the road or off, trust is what I’m all about.
“There will be more acts of surrender after this one,” I wrote in my Acts of Surrender memoir more than a decade ago. “There always are. Each one will push me harder than the last. Each one will nudge me closer to my essential truth. Each one will require a greater leap of faith. And through each, I will continue to trust in the story. Whether it’s the story I’m writing or the story I’m living, it always knows best.”
Photos: 1/ The storyteller and his storied dog (Kyri is named after a character in The MoonQuest) in Iowa’s aptly named Story City. 2/ It’s January 2023, and Kyri is making sure he’s also packed for the journey!
••• If my journey inspires you in some way and you feel moved to contribute to the miracles that keep it (and me) going, I gratefully welcome your support, however you choose to offer it — be it through book purchases, coaching sessions, workshop bookings and paying speaking gigs, as well as, of course, through direct donations using any of the following…
Zelle (via my cellphone number)
Facebook Messenger
ApplePay Cash (iMessage via my cellphone number)
Credit/debit card (contact me for details)
Regardless, just as my friend’s did this morning, your heartfelt cheerleading always helps!