I’ve been wandering in the woods for several months now.
Every time I see a clearing, a place where I can see the sun, I am drawn back in.
It all began with a diagnosis. And then another and then another and soon I began to wonder if these diseases defined me. If there was no longer a Sookton just a Sickton. Why was all this happening to me? Hadn’t I been a good person? Was there something I was doing wrong?
The path is often crooked with no clear end in sight.
We can’t know the ending because then we can’t experience the middle.
I went into surgery on April 6th. Two weeks later I was back at the doctor, positive, motivated and ready for the next step. I had no idea he had bad news. I had no idea there was more surgery in my future.
And so I went back in the woods.
On the way home I cried, a deep sobbing sighing type of cry. It felt like a ten pound stone was sitting on my heart. I hadn’t cried like that since I was young. But somehow it felt great at the same time.
When I went home I cried more. And the next morning, and while driving, and at night. I just cried.
Then one night I had a dream that I was walking through the woods and it was cold. I wanted to find my way out but I was lost. The trees were all dead and bare, there was snow on the ground.
According to Dreammoods, dreaming of the woods “represent life, fertility, rejuvenation, and spring. Alternatively, the woods symbolize the unknown and the unconscious.
To dream that you are walking through the woods signify your return to an aspect of yourself that is innocent and spiritual. If you are walking out of the woods, then the dream may be a literal depiction of being “out of the woods” or being in the clear of some situation.
To dream that you are lost in the woods indicates that you are starting a new phase in your life. You are expressing some anxiety about leaving behind what is familiar to you.
To dream that the woods are dry or dying suggests that there is a situation in your life that has not yet been resolved. You are overwhelmed with a problem or issue.”
Waking up that day I realized that I was not stuck in the woods. This was just the path I needed to take.
For much of my life I have been consumed with anxiety and stress and finally my body has had enough. No longer will she take the abuse.
I can’t blame her.
The woods, my spiritual path, might be scary, it might be long and tedious, but so is life! How many times have I endured hardships only to be greatly rewarded in the end?
So all I have to do — as simple as it sounds– is to find my way out of these woods.
It may take a while but I’m prepared for a fight. No longer will I let anyone or anything define me. I define me.
And I’m taking this path on the woods, until I find my way out.
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” ~John Muir, 1913
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