The Sacred Path

Life is full of decisions, some easy, some not so easy, and some where there simply isn’t a clear choice. You can meditate on it, talk to “The Guys Upstairs,” make lists of pros and cons, nothing you do gives you a clear answer. In those cases, you simply have to take a deep breath and step off the curb – after looking both ways to make sure there isn’t a bus bearing down on you at 35mph (56 Kilometers per hour). You just have to trust that “you will find the answers as you go.”

A while ago, my good friend Dirk sent me a link to The Archdruid Report, a blog by John Michael Greer, the Grand Achdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) titled Solivitur Ambulando. According to John Michael Greer, loosely translated, this Latin phrase means, “you will find the answers as you go.” In his post he talks about the fact that we are going to be facing some turning points and that solutions to some of these problems are probably not going to be clear and that sometimes the best course of action is simply to take a step.

Over the past decade or two instead of moving forward toward solutions to the growing crises that are looming, we seem content to stand still and debate the issues into the ground like a bunch of adolescents arguing over which gaming console is better: Nintendo Wii or XBox. Solutions to our problems are not going to come running up to us, we have to move toward the solutions by making choices. Mistakes will be made, but if we are honest with ourselves about whether or not our path is leading us where we need to go, we can make adjustments and changes to our path. In other words, we will find the answers as we go.

I have not yet read all of John Michael Greer’s posts, but the several that I have read have lead me to include his blog in my blogroll. He has a wonderful writing style, and more importantly, he makes sense. I suggest you stop by his blog and give it a read. I think you will be glad you did.

My friend Frank DeMarco recently posted TGU on choice, where in response to a friend’s question on choices, he asked his guides, “The Guys Upstairs,” to comment. Not being the least bit shy, they of course did, and it’s worth reading.

Life is not a passive but an active endeavor and can more or less be boiled down to making choices and then living with the consequences, good, bad or neutral. Daily I would think we make thousands of choices and obviously not all of them consciously. The subconscious choices we make are typically lower priority decisions that will not alter or change our paths, while the high priority choices that flow up into consciousness are the ones that could or will directly affect our life (personal, family, work, etc.).

When faced with making an active choice, we can be presented with any number of possibilities. In some instances, for whatever reason, we may decide not to make an active choice. It could be that we cannot see a clear choice, or perhaps we may fear making the wrong decision, or a myriad of other reasons, but not making a choice is still a choice.