From Strength to Strength
Where do you think the strength in us all comes from? Maybe the well-spring of some quiet pool deep in our heart’s forest do you think? Or bubbling up from an underground spa where no-one knows its source or beginning? I’m not sure either. What I am sure of though, is it comes to us when we need it most. Slipping its hand in ours and gently guiding us away from danger.
Even the most timid among us can manage, on occasions, to summons the strength in us all to push forward from the Valley of Bacca. Where? The Valley of Bacca. It’s the Place of Tears.
Never heard of it? Actually, it’s the original one horse town, the place that you pass through, it’s not a place many settle in and put down roots, well, it’s never meant to be, it has a higher than average annual rainfall and it can be quite cold in the winter months. It’s more your wayside truck stop if any thing.
And what is strength really? Is it weakness turned on its head, or some emotional or physically thuggish behaviour meant to show everyone else whose boss? What makes it such an important pick-me-up? Maybe it’s the fiercely protective stance it takes not just against our natural enemies but against all enemies.
I think it has very chameleon-like qualities, those kind that blend in with the background in order to keep a person from being eaten by marauding predators. And what does it look like? Maybe, Everyman?
All I know is that having found the strength in me once I’ve had occasion to have to find it again and again. Some years more than others. And the thing about that is that each time I need to find it, I realise that my path there has become a little more worn so going back to the source has become less difficult.
Native wild flowers have sprung up along the path now and I wonder when that happened. I realise my attentions had been so focused on getting to the source before, and now, well now it just feels somehow quite different, more familiar.
I like that there are no heady fragrances (like the kind that you can get stuck with in an elevator and simply have nowhere to go until the woman wearing it thankfully reaches her floor before you do) and that give you that instant headache or a migraine for the rest of the day. There’s none of that.
And the source is different too, there is a lushness about it now that was never evident in the beginning. A quiet serenity that has come to rest around my neck like a south pacific lei, fragrant and gentle.
I think back to how it used to be this place around this source and gone is the matted, unkempt and straggly hair. I hardly recognise it but I know now, this is where we get the strength in us all, this is where I get my strength. Here in this place. And I wonder if you’ve noticed lately what flowers are growing along your path now?
