nomadic emergence....

Under the veil of restlessness the Nomad felt the air closing in. She had been in one place for far too long and felt her brain rotting from lack of open space diversions. She was born this way.....incapable of feeling cloistered. In fact, she can't remember a time when she was able to sit quietly in the same place for too long unless it had a flow of wonder in its air-breath. It made her itchy and uncomfortable to a point where her spirits would begin to sag.

Movement was the only cure for stirring melancholy and as soon as her feet would touch the ground, her thoughts would begin to flow again. Sometimes it was physical movement, and other times it was an internal changing of gears which allowed it to happen. And as we all know, change one's thought patterns and change ones feelings. There is a lifeline umbilical chord inside us all which ties the two together that acts like an air exchanger. The Nomad knew it was time to circulate her senses. For this human being, it always happened beyond the walls.

She has worn out many pairs of shoes over the years. Long ago, she read somewhere that if you climb the mountains you will acquire their good tidings. If you seek out nature's peace, it will flow into you as sunshine flows through the branches of the tall pine trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop into the tidal pools of the sea of surrender.

Just thinking about the healing powers of nature, she knows how true this is. When walking and absorbing the medicinal components of the world around her, she always feels the strong guiding hand of God. She wonders if all human beings are nomadic, in search of that loving Hand? Perhaps the desire for travel and exploration is in the blood of everyone. We build dwellings with the intent on settling into a sense of belonging, like somehow the walls hold some magical elixirs inside the plaster and in the concrete buttresses that hold up the high ceiling.

Yet, there are times when they seem to do the opposite....these dwellings.......vacuuming up oxygen into its pores leaving only the stale remnant thoughts of misguided pilgrims intent on sermonizing implausible fear mongering messages to the others caught inside. Those poor travellers, she thinks, for they have no room to breathe enough fresh air to emerge out of the fire and brimstone weeping out of the hearth. Stuck listening to stories, backs aching from the hardwood pews in unmovable rows, they begin to believe it at face value without the human gift of doubting. They listen without question. They sing when they are told. They kneel when the pilgrim nods and pray, eyes closed......hands in a fold.

"I wonder," she says to herself, "how do they know what to pray if they haven't taken the time to listen to their souls? Can they feel the words of a hymn chosen only because it "fits" with the theme rather than the mood? Does any of it mean anything if it isn't tied to life outside the walls?" hmmmm...... "maybe they are afraid to be different than the others around them. Maybe they have lost their nerve to question the messages bouncing off the walls inside the dwelling. Maybe they have forgotten that God is in all of us?"

Her own thoughts leave her feeling very claustrophic as she looks around the room, to a point where she feels her energy draining. Loneliness is beckoning like the coo of a lost dove. To combat the suffocation of thoughts, the Nomad closes her eyes and breathes in her vision of salt air from the sea, her imagination and strong will move her out into the colour of the sky, to a place where she knows there is a Hand waiting to be held.

Breathe in..........
Breathe out........
Calm......

And as she leans forward to tie her walking shoes, she smiles knowing a Friend is waiting for her out in the wild who has a few stories to share of His own. She can listen to them much better when they float amongst the mysticism of the stars.