Follow Your Own Map - Mark Nepo

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 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
summons 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...

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...

Mark Nepo
From: The Book of Awakening

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
(Scrapbooking paper)