To thine own self be true

I am lying on a couch, leg in a splint, broken unexpectedly while schussing down a ski mountain. Life plans halt, or at least a momentary pause. While kicking myself for the accident and trying to accept it at the same time, my spiritual mentor suggests I spend this time to meditate. The question is assigned: “Who am I?”

For several days, I avoid the answer that keeps rising up—an image that came to me more than 7 years ago, during a time of upheaval and transformation. Midway through a yoga class, I am stretching down, eyes closed, flowing mindlessly… stretching up… paying attention to the now and letting all else go. I am folding over again to touch my toes when my mind’s eye fills with an image… a bright, happy blue flower I have never seen before but seem to know. And my higher power speaks to me, “This is you. The inner you. How I see you. Your core. Your essence. You. Now. Always.” My inner eye is full of the image— powerful and gentle, brilliant, real— with room for nothing else. The knowing is complete and peaceful.

I go home and look for the flower that matches this image, sure there will be one. And there it is: gentiana verna— the spring gentian… “a species of the genus Gentiana and one of its smallest members … the conspicuous vivid blue flowers are produced in late spring to early summer … found on sunny alpine meadows and moorland … In northern Europe, it is very rare, confined to Teesdale in northern England and a handful of locations in western Ireland. Its scarcity has led to protection in a number of European countries as an endangered species...”

Fascinated, I reflect on my love of high-alpine meadows and the feeling of being most myself when lying among their grasses, face up to the sun, 10,000 feet above sea level, looking at a sky as blue as my gentian. Cherishing my seemingly insignificant smallness in the vastness of creation while, at the same time, being intimately one with it through touch and smell as God’s power flows through my senses.

As it happens, I will be near Teesdale in a few weeks. After a business meeting in Edinburgh, I plan to visit the Northumbria community in nearby Nether Springs, a worldwide community that follows a monastic tradition of daily office and prayer centered on the Celtic spirituality of original blessings. A friend recently pointed me there in my search for deeper spiritual foundations to support the transformative changes necessary in my life.

The more I reflect on this image, the more I feel connected to God’s presence, and I embrace my flower vision as a call to discover and love myself more intimately, as I really am, from the inside out. This call grows more insistent, urging me to venture out in faith along unknown paths to search for my flower in its setting, willing to learn more about who I am from the journey.

I scan the internet for any additional information to better locate my little gentian, but no new details surface.  I will have to rely on what little I have been given – a vision reinforced by a few serendipitous snippets of information that align with where I am already headed.  

I conducted my meeting in Edinburgh successfully. Basking in the glow of its high-powered achievements, I depart on my personal quest, guided by and relying on a different kind of higher power. Spiritual life can sometimes surprise and humor us with little inside jokes like that when we listen.

I easily find the Northumbria community and spend three wonderful days in prayer, meditation, reading, and exploring holy sites. The community is warm and welcoming, and everyone is interested in my vision quest. But none can provide more information on where to find my flower. No maps, no books, no authoritative references point the way. Till the last day. The housekeeper comes in, having heard of my quest. She is from Teesdale and knows exactly which cow path to take from which farmer’s dirt road, past which little gate, over that little spring in this little village… to find the car park and nature path along the top of the moor at the top of the world in just the right part of Northumbria… where I may perhaps see the little flower in bloom.  

I take off in my rental car and find it all just as she says. I park the car high on craggy moors, with low clouds scuttling by and a cold, damp breeze. I am alone. I walk the path through the high country for an hour or so, never seeing a sign of color or life. Just vast aloneness, gray rocks and heather, the stern side of nature where every bit of warmth must be wrested forth with great difficulty. Magnificent, awesome, and intimidating. Finally, I reach the highest point around and look down into another valley with a lake, a river, and more of the same vastness and aloneness.  

I stop and weep.

This is not what I wanted to find. I look up at the heavens and challenge all that is loving and good to explain, “Why I must find myself in such desolation?”  Is this where I must thrive? If so, I don’t want it. I cry out and turn around, angry. I reject this vision quest. I want to get back to my warm car and get away. To the comfort and solace of friends, fireplaces, and gentle music…not the piercing damp wind on a high, solitary moor. 

Where is the sunshine of alpine meadows and brilliant colors? Is it self-pity I feel, or fear propelling me along the path? Fear of being alone, of never “being found”? 

I stumble back along the path, anguish in my heart. And then there it is… a small fence around a patch of ground smaller than my living room at home. No signpost, nothing to make one stop and take notice. But I do. Because I know there is something special up here on this moor. I have been led here, from a yoga studio in a desert far across the ocean, through boardrooms and meetings with high-powered officials, to housekeeping help in the kitchen of an out-of-the-way retreat center, past the farmer’s cow and over the bridge that is over a nameless spring running through a nameless village— to right here, to this small fence high on a rock outcrop in the piercing wind, without another soul in sight…

And there they are—the tiny alpine flowers. So small that even when you know they are there, you have to look hard to see them in all their exquisite beauty. They bloom for two weeks each year. Brilliant blue, delicate petals stand up fiercely to the biting wind, punctuating the drab landscape with color. I stand in awe. My rage, my rebellion dissolve, replaced by a deep longing. I stretch as far as I can, touching my toes, trying to fill my eyes with the real flower. The yoga studio is miles and months away. Yet here I am in the middle of the same vision. Within my truest self, naked in the midst of this vast creation on top of the world. Surrounded, protected, comforted, nourished. I am not alone.  

I leave the moor quiet, feeling slightly reprimanded. Who am I to challenge God’s vision of me? I can run from that, and have, many times.   I don’t want to be “special,” hard to find, to see, to know.  Yet in some way, we all are, just as we all long to be found.   To do so, we must first know and embrace ourselves, trusting the spiritual guides who show us the way… trusting that they will come, that their knowledge will be true, that their message will be what we need to hear, and that the invitations they call us to will take us where we need to go.

I returned home from that trip still rebellious. I told my amazing flower story once or twice, then promptly forgot the message, more often than not, hopping on roller coasters from which I would reach for brass bells flying by… fearful of finding myself alone on the moor and desperately wanting anything but that.  

And yet… and yet… the flower has remained with me, and the lessons of the journey have slowly been sinking in. I have been happy for the past four years, or so I thought, learning to live in the now and being satisfied with what I have. Trusting that I have what I need and doing the best with it, with purpose. Accepting the generosity of the universe along the way. Trusting my higher power… a little… but knowing I have been holding back more than I offer up. 

This accident that has sidelined me comes at a time of grand plans and emotional stirrings; it has left me powerless to run from who I am…a delicate, vulnerable, if resilient and strong, little flower who may be hard to find out there on the craggy moors, but still reachable and findable to those who seek. Seek and ye shall find. As I meditate, I realize the journey has never ended - there are other seekers on this path - I have already met some of them this week – old friends here along the sidelines – and there will be more…many more. Whether I know them or see them does not matter…I am the gentiana verna and my purpose is to bloom.

I will turn my face toward the sun each day, knowing it is there whether I see it or feel its warmth. And I will do so in faith, trusting that it is my purpose to do just that. Bloom. Does not have to be a reason. Birds sing their songs because that is who they are. We all serve our purpose in the universe by contributing to the flow, grace, and beauty of life. We never know who will be walking along the path, needing to be touched by our grace, or who will reach down to touch us, at any moment. We just must be who we are, because that is who we are. That is my purpose. Being. Being me. 

I think of the smiles of the children I have known in Ethiopia, who have nothing but the joy they share freely. It blooms in their eyes just as my flower blooms in my own mind’s eye. I accept this joy, and all the suffering and aloneness necessary for it to grow.

This purpose.  This path, whatever it is and wherever it takes me.

Life is good today. I am finally coming home from my vision quest, embracing the lesson, embracing who I am. Whenever I forget, may the smiles of the children remind me … I am life, I am beauty, I am resilience, I am fortitude and joy and blessing and extravagance and simplicity and softness amidst harsh reality. I am grace. I am springtime in January. On a crag, an alpine meadow, or a desert floor. I am hope. I am love, and I will surround those who find me with a blue sky so brilliant that darkness will not overcome it. Grounded in ancient truths and granite outcrops of high peaks, with marvelous complexity embedded in beautiful and simple symmetry, I will respond to vulnerability with tenacity and tenderness. Being true to myself, I will bloom with joy even when fed only by sadness.