With Humility And Receptiveness, We Wait

When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality – the reality, I tell you – fades. The inner truth is hidden – luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching me.
-       Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

People who live close to the land attribute success not to skill or shrewdness, but to humility. The hunter should always be grateful. The emotional posture behind reason, even today, is humility. Where do you get humility? You get it from being alone and unarmed in places where you are in the food chain. Where we can encounter grizzly bears and mountain lions. We need that humility.
Can you imagine a situation where you either learn or you perish, where you either have a fundamental receptiveness or you don't make it?  
-       Doug Peacock, author, grizzly bear man, eco-warrior, real life person on which Ed Abbey’s Hayduke is based (The Monkey Wrench Gang, Hayduke Lives!). For more from Doug Peacock interviews see the Journal Page on the Heron Dance website.

. . .

 Waiting for a vision.

 The operative word is “waiting.” I wait. I can’t impose or feel bad if nothing comes.

 The underworld, the inner world, is its own boss. It comes and goes as it wishes. We need to serve it before it will serve us.   It is shy, reticent and powerful.

Approach it with reverence, with humility. Ask for its guidance. Don’t tell it what you want. It won’t work if we try to impose on it our vision of success or our vision of the ideal outcome.

We meditate. We offer ourselves. Like ancient hunters in search of food for survival, we approach it with humility and receptiveness.

We listen. If it feels welcome, feels it has something to contribute over the cacophony of our lives, it says its piece. Often that comes in images and colors whose meaning is not readily apparent. The meaning will emerge over time.

So we wait.