This is what I will tell you: Never again carry an itinerary.

Okay, have a landing pad and a departure pad

as anchors if you must.

But that is all.

Allow each moment to inform the next.

Nowhere to go; no place to be, except

right here

for as long as you decide.

And in that moment, recognize

that the casual, chance encounter you’ve just had

with a boutique owner, or a father and his three freckle-faced boys,

or a sign-post

might be a pointer

toward what is next.

South or north; mountains or seashore.

No one to tell you which way is “right”.

Holding your own expectations

(try as you might, to be without).

With quiet mouth, quiet mind, open heart, empty vessel

as your mantra –

over and over a reminder

and only guide–

allow a pathway to spill open,

perfect in all its

ambiguous revealings.

And while you’re at it, in the frantic freedom of it all —

never again go by car. Or train. Or plane.

Oh sure, you will have to get from here to there

but then —

walk.

Walk as expansively as you can on the land.

See her differently. See her

in the most intimate way you are able,

boots absorbing her soft, mossy, feminine, woodland paths

or her stony, bare, masculine summits.

Accompanied by the hazel walking stick that has found you –

hazel, the wood of wisdom; the wood of divination —

your ears attuned to the melodies

of her beings here and now:

birdsong; breezes; water falling or flowing or crashing;

children’s screeches of playful mirth.

Or perhaps hearing whispers

from the ancestors before.

Eyes, scanning in amusement or wonder

or surprise or terror at whatever lies before them –

a picture they have never seen before.

Remind yourself you have everything you need;

you always have.

And in a moment —

(you will know it when you are in it) —

like when you find your eroded path inches from the cliffs of Moher,

revealing the wild Atlantic thirty meters below,

and a high, unscalable embankment on the opposite side –

remember to recite your innocent childhood prayers,

and believe you are cradled.

That every indiscernible moment has led you

to this one.

And God will not let you fall.

When you are out the other side

do not hesitate to get on your knees

in gratitude;

the safe, soggy, cow pasture of nirvana.

Or sing Clancy Brothers’ songs at the top of your lungs

with crusty, old fishermen at O’Connell’s Pub.

Or smile from ear to ear as you walk

to the hostel where you dwell

for the night.

Certain you have been gifted everything this day.

Everything

you did not even know

you needed.

©2015 Jennifer Comeau. All rights reserved.