Just Keep Walking

Lately my sister's been teaching me a little something about how to just keep walking...

A few weeks back she sent me a book to read. I saved it for the first warm, green-grassed, sun's-ablazin' Saturday in September, took myself to my favorite chair in the field below the raspberry patch and promised not to leave that chair until I closed that book for having read it all. (I savor those time when I can wrap myself in a tiny cocoon of perfect pleasure and remain for as long as I like - and this was one of those times!)
I stayed in that chair and read until I came to the last chapter. I really didn't want the story to end and decided to save the last bit for the following morning and the big, leather chair in our living room. It was a quick read that's for certain, but the process of reflection has taken weeks...

Two Old Women is an Athabaskan folktale of two old women, Star and Chickadee bird, who must stand up and walk forward or die in cold desertion under the bow of a cedar tree. It's a story steeped in the themes of steely self determination and intense internal strength. It's a story of courage; of walking forward into the amazing potenial and gifts that lie hidden within each one of us. The sweet glaze of the story is that of ultimate forgiveness - that's the 'life' of it all; that's what makes it work.

Walking forward is a choice we make - it's a simple thing - like opening a door and saying yes to going through it. Most of the time we don't give it a lot of thought - we don't have to - it's easy. But then there's that ONE day when it all changes and it's not ordinary anymore; it isn't easy and every breath is effortful. But the choice is to 'sit under the bow of the cedar tree' and to never move again, or to get up and start walking into a place you've never been before. If we decide to stand and take steps forward, it will be to THAT place where a strength, a level of courage and giftedness we never knew existed is found.

For the past five months my sister's been walking into a place she never dreamed she'd go. It's been hard - a kind of hard I've never known.
But I do know this about my sister- no matter how deep the water, no matter how dark the place or how unsure her very next step may feel, she'll lock arms with the strength and courage she has within her and she'll keeping opening each door, walking through it and taking the next step...she'll just keep walking!

She's my sister and I love her.