Around the Bend
by Patricia & Stanley Walsh-Haluska
With the uneventful turn of the millennium, we breathed a collective sigh of
relief that the world continues and civilization as we know it had not come
to an end. Our fears are now neatly locked away in the back of out minds. We
go about our lives pretending we are not concerned about our destiny, yet
the messages of economic, technological and social collapse still echo in
our collective consciousness. The turning over of the ³odometer in time² to
a new millennium has resurrected our deepest inquiries about human
existence, its origin and purpose.
If human existence is analogous to a journey, which by definition has a
beginning and an ending, then at the very least the new millennium has
indicated a bend in the road. Throughout our lives be it going to the
grocery store, to work, or on vacation, we segment our activities into a
parade of beginnings and endings. These fragments of existence allow us to
maintain focus and purpose in the activities of our lives. It has been said
that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Most would
agree that humanity is long past that first step. The long ago chosen
destination of why we began the journey has been hidden by the seemingly
arduous path we have chosen. Yet somewhere deep within the inner recesses of
our beings is an innate knowing that we are about to arrive, but what and
where is the question at hand.
Prophets have prophesied, philosophers have philosophized and speculators
have speculated on the "final destination" of human existence. Humanity's
existence has been seen as a march toward the precipice of the unknown,
analogous to a stick thrown into a creek that bobs and bounces toward a
cascading waterfall before plunging into the quiet pool below. Our human
psyche anticipates that plunge and our inner awareness hears the splashing
waters of our destiny ahead. There are cries of doomsday, awakening, chaos
and rapture. How do we sift through the flood of messages inundating our
awareness to the point of being drowned on the very journey we agreed to
take?
In the physical world we see beginnings and endings, starts and finishes,
depths and heights; everything is measured and quantified. This limited
perception blinds us from the deeper meaning of our lives and the greater
awareness of our purpose. If we would be perceptive, there is a myriad of
reflections of the true nature of existence‹the rising and setting of the
sun, the seasons, the seemingly endless revolution of the earth, the gentle
floating of a leaf to the ground and its rebirth in the blooms of the
following spring. Einstein spoke of the circular nature of the universe; if
we could travel long and far enough, we would return to the very place from
which we began. Siddhartha, pondering the journeys of his life, observed
that life was like circle‹we return to where we began and we see it for the
very first time.
Could it be that the cycle of life and death reflects the origin and destiny
of human existence returning us to where we began? Perhaps existence is
simply the process of self-awareness; the eternal pursuit of understanding
ourselves by revealing the choices which have led us to this present moment.
Perhaps the rumblings in the back of our psyches, the unexplained
anticipation of something about to happen can be likened to when we have
taken a long journey and are approaching the outskirts of our
hometown‹things begin to feel familiar. We know the landmarks, we feel safe
and secure. Imagine if we didn't consciously know it was our hometown yet we
were experiencing all the feelings of familiarity, welcome and safety.
Humanity has taken a turn in the road where our hometown can be seen in the
distance. Why did we take the journey? How did we forget? Did we need to
take the journey? Could we have gone without forgetting? These answers lie
deep within the purpose and intent of this march through time that we agreed
to take so many eons ago, remembering that existence is always and has
always been an exploration of itself. In that eternal moment of infinite
potential and possibility, we stepped out into the frontier of a newly
created universe to explore ourselves. We return home to the reality and
awareness of All That Is which waits around the bend of our awareness, we
will return home and see it for the very first time.
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