Follow Your Own Footsteps - Nepo & Machado

Every time we talk to someone,
there comes back to us a map of expectation
as to how we should respond.

We share a confusion;
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given an instruction.

We share a desire:
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps
should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation
we move in and out of govern most of our
thinking and summon most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans,
pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging,
the next step is truly unknown... [and our own].

Thus, our spiritual charge is
to maintain the wonder of the singular explorer
that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when
we are brave enough to land at the end
of what little we know,
breathing in new air,
in reaction to no one,
in wonder at
  what is...

Mark Nepo
From: The Book of Awakening

(Mark's words, my format)

~*~

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more...

Wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking...

Antonio Machado

~

Photo - taken by my father
c. 1952/53
his own footsteps