Where is the Quest going?

Something is starting to become a Soul-Knowing.  I left last May, went on my quest to discover myself and the world and bliss, and came home… different.

I came home in such a way that what I left – no longer fits me.  My niche, my cove of beauty and rhythm and magic has shifted and the only thing I can think to describe it is, I turned into a woman, and my girlhood clothes don’t fit me anymore. 

I left scared and came home empowered.

I packed up my apartment and drove toward an unspecified destination – and came back knowing home.

I drove away with a sense of all my weakness and came back stronger.

I left timid and returned bolder. 

I went questing for bliss and found it, and brought it back with me.

I left having a sense of other’s expectations for my success or failure – and returned unsympathetic to their disappointments with my choices.

I walked away from that which I knew was comfortable at the time, to prove to myself I could – and therefore I would never again settle for the comfortable at the expense of my freedom to create my own life – and I believe I came home successful.

I left with grief and came home wiser. 

I challenged my fears and retuned with fewer anxieties to hold me back.

I drove away abashed at myself and came back – unapologetic.

While I was gone I discovered that the world is bigger than I ever imagined – and yet feels claustrophobically small. 

I learned that there are fabulous people and magnificent odds and that living in this instant is the only guarantee of anything, and there’s a profound beauty in that knowledge. 

I learned to speak the language of flowers, and chased spirits in a city that, at first, terrified me – and I did it anyway. 

I wrote books when I wasn’t sure I could and drove 15,600 miles over desert, along the Pacific Ocean, through forests and over mountains. 

I conquered my fear of alcohol. 

I watched glaciers calve with a sound like distant thunder and slept on the moss under an ancient spruce. 

I sang, danced, laughed, drank, cried and created. 

And above all, I loved.  I loved my family, and my friends and the strangers I met.  I loved the road and the sky and the ribbon of asphalt potential that could take me anywhere I wanted to go.  I loved the adventure, the un-surety and the openness and the freedom.  I loved the healing and the evolution – I love that I feel open again to the idea of love, in any form.

While this will never seem as profound to anyone else as it is to me, although I came back scattered with parts strewn out along the road I now feel that as they re-assimilate, I have returned to Portland whole.  This is such a pleasant surprise, because I didn’t even realize how not-whole I was.

I came home with my shoulders back and looking forward when I walk, rather than at my toes or the pavement.  All this, in less than a year.

That is not to say that these lessons are a sudden new permanence in my life.  I’m sure that even though I’ve discovered them, they will continue to flit in and out of knowing until they stabilize in my belief system and become my truth, but the understanding that they are there – and that I have come back bigger, faster, and more energized for the next big adventure, means to me that if I have learned nothing else – this one thing has been true for my entire quest for Bliss…

I will always quest for bliss.  I will always search for joy.  I will always try newer and harder and more exciting things to stretch myself to a new evolution, whereupon I will be inspired to chase a new level of Bliss.

I think when I left I had the juvenile idea that I would find joy in a neatly wrapped package.  An object or an equation or a solid-unchanging form.  The most amazing discovery is that – Bliss moves with you, just barely ahead.  When you achieve a level there is suddenly a newer and more profound level to reach for. This evolution, this journey is somehow; whether you realize it or not, the actual – ultimate – joy.

The journey is the destination.             

The pathway, if you allow it, is the actual expression of Bliss in its most basic and nourishing form.  So the key here, as I’ve come to understand it, is not only to “Follow your Bliss” but to follow your bliss with an awareness of your present moment and how amazing and glorious it is, while traveling toward that which your heart truly desires to feel fulfilled.

It’s funny as I write this, that I can’t help but shake my head that I didn’t understand this before I left.  How could I not have seen something so ridiculously obvious?

When Harley asked me, “So now what will happen to the BlissQuest now that you’re home?”

I shrugged, “The BlissQuest will never be over.  There’s always something new, as I evolve, my Bliss evolves and therefore – I will always Quest after it.”

Harley smiled, showing a radiant blaze of teeth through his beard, “I could have told you that before you left, but you needed to discover it yourself.”

“You could have told me,” I replied. “But, you’re right, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

So to make an eleven-month-long story short, I have only this question for you, whoever you are, wherever you are:

When all is said and done, it is only you that chooses to do or not do for yourself what it is that will accomplish your ultimate joy.  So, if you don’t follow your Bliss – who will?