A THREAD RUNS THROUGH IT

Fly Fishing, Missoula, Montana

Spirit Line, Four Corners NM

We all unconsciously weave a tapestry of life with a thread of infinite length which supersedes this mortal life.

Joseph Campbell encourages us to “Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else…People say what we're all seeking is the meaning of life...I think what we're seeking is the experience of being alive."  

Life is a great adventure and death is the last great adventure. In the meantime, we are in pursuit of the divine that is within all of us and the fulfillment that the adventure brings. Campbell notes that if you have embarked on a well-worn path, it is not your path. Seek out your own path in life that has been mapped out exclusively for you. When your life seems to be in rhythm with the heartbeat of the universe, you have found your path to divine destiny.

Robert Frost concluded his famous poem The Road Less Taken with:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

The Pulitzer Prize nominated book by Norman Maclean titled A River Runs Through It and the subsequent movie directed by Robert Redford illuminated the spiritual experience of fly fishing on a Montana trout river for an American family.  Once immersed in the experience their soul became one with their beautiful environment.

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters.”

The river less traveled is where we’re meant to be.

Jill Bolte Taylor writing in My Stroke of Insight perceived life through the restricted lens of only her right brain after a stroke incapacitated her left hemisphere. She observed that her self-concept was no longer a solid with boundaries, but a fluid. Operating without the constant "brain chatter" from her left hemisphere left her feeling one with the universe. Mystics and serious practitioners can also reach that ultimate present moment state of nirvana. Could it be that we are all in fact continuously in that state, but we simply do not generally experience that awareness?

"My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea… Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us, and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry. Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you—regardless of where we are."

We are not only IN this universe, but we are OF this universe. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he writes, "There is one body and one spirit...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (4:4-5)."

Perceived from the altitude of a commercial airliner, rivers that crisscross this great planet have the look of threads that wind their way back to their origins in the vast oceans.  So too, the threads of our lives follow the path of our destiny into the eternal flow.  

All creative artists put their heart and soul into their unique works.  Navajo weavers are no exception and frequently add what seems to be a flaw or mistake.  We almost passed on purchasing a rug years ago because of this anomaly. Only later did we discover that this “spirit line” or thread was purposely woven into a corner of the rug to allow the artist’s spirit an exit path once the rug (or the life) was completed.