Confessions of a Wanderer

 "Be a wanderer." ~Jesus, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

"The grail knights thought it a disgrace to quest in a group. So each entered the forest where there was no path, and where it was darkest."
~La Queste del Saint Graal, 13th C. 

Up until the age of seven, I wandered. Then I began to buy the propaganda of my school. The teachers insisted that if I wanted to grow up I had better get life all figured out, and learn to be a success. Of course, they were just passing along to the next generation their own fear of failure.

Took me the next half century to realize that they were pretending. Absolutely every adult I met was pretending to know. Over the years I too pretended, and played the role of knower. So that I could be a successful do-er.

Now I know that I don't know. And the more I don't know, I know who I am. And the more I am, I do. Because it is not the do-er who does, but Being.

If you've found the true path, congratulations: please don't guide me. If you've found the movement that will finally save humanity, congratulations: please don't sign me up. Because what I have found is the courage to wander again.

I have abandoned the compass of technique. Now I enter the ancient forest precisely where the trees are unfelled. I have no desire to super-impose any map of consolation over this unfathomably green mystery.

Meandering like a bee, I'm glad for any honey I can selve from the unselved sweetness of the sacred garden. When good and lost, I no longer move toward the center: I am the center, wherever I may stumble or stand. It's when I join the movement that I get stuck, and stop moving.

You and I rest by a spring in the forest. The spring is our gaze. We drink from each other. My sparkling ignorance encircles you, and you are at home.

The blossom of Correct Teaching withers away: we are the fragrance that remains. Just by admitting we know nothing, we sigh together and breathe life.

Letting go of our search, we meet each other where we get lost, and arrive at our destination.


Photo: Took this in the Carbon River rain forest near Mt. Rainier.