Trust your Heart, and Trust your story.

with deep gratitude to Neil Gaiman, Terri Windling, and the IAF.

photos in this post taken over the last year.

Neil Gaiman wrote a wonderful poem called, "Instructions," which tells you how to navigate the world, should you find yourself in a fairy tale.

Remember your name.

Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.

Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped

to help you in their turn.

Trust dreams.

Trust your heart, and trust your story.

When you come back, return the way you came.

Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.

Do not forget your manners.

Do not look back.

Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).

Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).

Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).

It is extremely good advice, all of it.  Please go read the poem here, and then come back.  

Really, I'll wait.


Sometimes, I think about taking advice I read once from Havi Brooks, to have a Book of Me.  In it, there would be all kinds of useful advice on how to manage this strange and wonderful creature, the Sara, and help her to attain magnificence.  Clearly, there are times when I desperately need such a book.

I've been a little off-kilter this week.  Small Son has been sleeping badly.  I've been sleeping badly.  There was an anniversary this past week, the anniversary of my world turning inside out and upside down.  Time and again, I wonder what would have been different if I had taken the leap of turning the world myself, or of choosing a different path altogether, but that way lies a lot of useless time and energy.  Vanity and a striving after wind, people.

From the back garden you will be able to see the

wild wood.

The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's

realm;

there is another land at the bottom of it.

If you turn around here,

you can walk back, safely;

you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

Sometimes, that's hard to remember: that every step forward or back is a conscious choice.  Sometimes it is a choice simply to continue living.  Sometimes a choice to stop living as we have.  

And that the choice is free.  No compulsion.

So I do wish, sometimes, for my own list of instructions and the wit to remember to read them.  But then, sometimes I find my way just fine without a map.

Trust dreams.

Trust your heart, and trust your story.