I was earning nearly two million dollars a year for the company. As a Designer, it was my privilege to use my gifts to support an extended family of employees. I had a plum job with benefits– paid travel and vacations, health insurance, 401K, a nice office, work sold coast to coast in retail and wholesale, even royalties on the work I created. I had earned it, and it was killing me.
Then one day I walked away.
I had to give myself permission –to walk, permission to dream; for in dreams comes insight.
For ten years I walked in mountains, singing mantras for Enlightenment, Healing, and Abundance. It was a pilgrimage to myself, to wholeness, and holiness. In that time I walked over 7,500 miles, like walking from New York to Los Angeles and back.
Walking is falling. Walking is surrender. It is an invitation to engage with the pace of life. A call to remember the dew rising and falling, a spider web being drawn into space.
The rise of the vireo song, and whirl of the drumming grouse. The opening of the blackberry blossom, the swirl of mosquitoes. The tumble of the pebble through water, a regatta of leaves around the pond. The column of gnats turning in the sun, the rise of fireflies. The arc of the briar rose, and the wobble of bees. The reach of the grape vine, the slow turn of the maple. The reach of the moon, the run of the sun’s shadow. The nodding of grass, the new green of the pine. The chorus of crickets and cicada drone. The deer’s bark, and coyote’s howl.
With true steps we turn the earth.