Facing The Unknown Journey

A meditation for finding grounding in vulnerable, current times of uncertainty and unknown. Join Hero's Journey® Foundation founder and teacher Michael Mervosh in meeting the unexpected with calm courage for the Journey today.

Transcript

Today,

Today,

Again it's like any other day,

Rumi says.

Today,

Like any other day,

We wake up how we wake up.

Sometimes calm,

Sometimes empty,

Sometimes anxious,

Sometimes these days bewildered,

Bewildered.

Rumi advises us don't go,

Don't go into the study and start reading.

He means don't go into our heads and start ruminating.

Take out the music,

Take out the body movement.

Move,

Let's get ourselves moving inwardly.

Let the music we love be what we do.

Let the music we love be what we do.

If we're being honest with ourselves,

We love being a part of something.

We love being a part of something.

We love being connected,

We love being useful.

We love being present to what's happening and experiencing it happening to us.

We all carry this innate human aspect of desire.

And we all know,

We all know how we suffer from our desires.

We suffer from our longings going unfulfilled.

We suffer from being disappointed,

Frustrated.

Our loneliness aches at us,

Especially among people.

And it's inevitable in the times that we're in that we'll have a given moment of anxiety and uncertainty where we question ourselves and our reality.

The nature of being human.

So today in our work together,

We revisit,

We slow down even more just this morning,

If for no other time in our lives,

Just this morning to look deeply out of the horizonless future.

And how unknown this territory is for all of us.

How incomprehensible it is,

Unknowable yet.

And we'll bear that together.

But because those of us here understand that we have been on a journey,

That we have chosen for ourselves,

Though we have said yes to,

We don't determine which ordeals or adventures we take they're provided now for us.

When we have wholeheartedly said yes to the journey,

We are no longer the determiners of which ordeals or adventures we will have.

They're simply provided.

So a question,

A quest that we are capable of and a quest that may be daunting for us is what do these exact circumstances create for us?

These exact circumstances before us now,

What do they create for us?

What conditions are right to change,

To truly change some aspect of our own nature?

What could truly change in us that needs to change or wants to change?

Just feel the weight and the possibility of that quest,

Of calling that question forward.

What could change now that couldn't possibly change before,

But has changed?

What couldn't possibly change before,

But has the right conditions,

The necessary and prolonged ordeal has arrived that we cannot foresee the end to?

Each one of us has done backpedaling.

We've treaded water with when we can get back to where we once were,

When we can get back to this,

We can get back to that so that we can get back to a familiar territory.

And what if we don't hold that posture so tightly anymore?

And what if the question is now,

Where am I going?

Where am I going and who's going with me?

Where am I going?

Who's going with me?

Let's begin with having no idea.

No idea.

But if we can say,

I'll resist my impulses to go back to where I was and how I've always been.

And I'm ready,

I'm readying myself now for a chance,

For a cubic centimeter of chance,

As Carlos Castaneda will say,

To have something subtly or subtly or subtly,

To have something subtly and inexorably cross the threshold of my being and point me into a new orientation towards my life that I have failed at before,

Turned away from before,

Failed to sustain before now.

What direction and exactly how would I lean in right now beyond anything I've done before?

That's the question before us,

Each and every one of us here.

That's the question the Knights at the Round Table would have perhaps poured forth to one another before they each went into the woods,

Their own way where the path was darkest,

As a point of honor and to begin their quest for the Holy Grail.

Again,

Holding in your mind and your embodied presence here,

A quest.

There are very few opportunities in our lives where things are so dramatically different that something so dramatically different could happen within us and change us in a way that makes us better able to love or live or serve.

And that time is now here.

Many of our prior journeys have just been window dressing for this one.

Again,

Feel the disorientation of the past,

Of having no immediate answer to that quest,

To that question.

Having no idea,

Wondering about that.

And in these,

This month ahead,

Because it looks like at least another month ahead of sheltering in place,

Can we make sure that we're not sheltering in the same place?

Can we make sure that we're not sheltering in the same old place over and over again?

We can come back to the solid ground of our being,

The fluid nature of our breath,

And open our minds and change them in some fundamental way,

Some slight way now that alters the course and the direction of how our future takes shape.

And when we feel lost,

We feel like we're lost.

And when we feel lost and disoriented,

What does David Wagner tell us to do about that?

But to sit still.

All of us have this growing ability to quiet ourselves,

To ground ourselves,

And to become still.

Knowing that the trees ahead and the bushes beside us,

The birds overhead,

They are not lost.

And wherever we are now,

Wherever we are is called here.

Each of us,

Wherever we are right now,

It's called here,

And we must treat it like a powerful stranger.

David Wagner says that to us.

Treat it like a powerful stranger.

And ask permission to be known and to be known by it.

What's possible now?

What could begin to change?

How could we change our shape?

What would we need to change,

Want to change about ourselves?

What's going to take some time,

Some gradualness?

Just feel into that question again.

Because it's here,

The conditions are ripe for it.

Every day,

We're going to be able to change.

The conditions are ripe for it.

Everything is so foreign,

So the most foreign aspects of your own nature now begin to reveal themselves to you.

The forest itself breathes.

The environment around you is breathing.

You're in a living universe.

Do you know that?

The universe says to us,

I have made this place around you.

I have made this place here.

I have made this place here.

I have made this place here.

I have made this place around you.

I have made this place here.

Just keep coming back by saying here.

Listen,

The forest knows where you are.

The universe knows where you are.

Let it come to you.

Let it reveal itself to you.

Let it find you.

Reviews

voice is a bit too silent, but everything he said had a huge impact
thank you!

STRAIGHTFORWARD SIMPLE
FELT

Great

I love this meditation. So thought provoking and helpful. Thank you so much

Quite wonderful 😊😎🕊🕊🕊

Very powerful thought.. the universe knows where I am.

Truly outstanding!! Just what I need right now, my nature is to move--but it is time to be still and listen. ❤️🙏

A beautiful framing for the day in the pandemic and always. I am here.

Absolutely powerful and mind changing experience! I have The Hero's Journey and The Hero With A Thousand Faces books by Joseph Campbell. Love, love, love!!! Namaste 🙏🏾

Beautiful and timely 🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼

This is perfect.

🙏🏼💕Thank you soooo very much for this

A steady reflection of these current times we are all living through. So grateful for this meditation! 🙏🏼

Soul soothing as I calm anxious thinking and move to more peaceful and productive narratives while living through and observing the current global crisis. This is my first meditation with Hero's Journey Foundation; Namaste.

You put words to so much of what I have been feeling. I feel less alone with my thoughts, here. Thank you 🕉☮️🕊

This was one of the most beautiful and uplifting messages I have heard in a while especially during this time! Thank you Michael!

Nice meditation for reflexion . thanks a lot.