Home ... by Another Way

[Photo Credit: Danny Howe on Unsplash]

Was there only one course my life could have taken? Looking back, all the branching points do seem to have a certain symmetry to them, as if all those painful departures from the straight and narrow were somehow necessary, corrective even, as if both the path and its destination were predetermined. But might there have been another path, another way?

Mythologist Joseph Campbell, before he began characterizing the world's myths by the adage, "Follow your bliss," spoke of following one's wyrd. It's an Old English word, meaning fate or destiny, though it became the basis for our familiar, modern-day word, 'weird.' The connection, of course, is that to follow our destiny requires the discovery of a unique path, unlike that of any other person, ensuring that along the way we will become at least a little eccentric, a little weird. We're not meant to be like other people, nor is our way meant to be like theirs.

My question is whether we would have found this particular way of being in the world, our eco-niche, as Bill Plotkin calls it, if we'd taken some other path than the one we took? My own journey has led me into convention and out of it again. It has had me preaching the community's story in church but then, also, telling my own in books and songs. It has featured false starts and devastating dead ends and, like the mythic hero on his quest, I have been wounded along the way. But I seem to have arrived at a place where, at long last, I am living with a measure of congruence between my inner and outer worlds and I am witnessing the peace that such congruence produces. So, does it matter, the path that brought me here? Would I have ended up here anyway?

When I hear my children talk about their own paths, I find myself living vicariously through them. What if, like my daughter Heather, I'd chosen a creative and conscientious role within the corporate world, rather than watching from the sidelines where, from a safe distance, I could cast aspersions upon it? What if, like my sons, Rob and Ben, I'd immersed myself in the spirit of the age, being the sixties' zeitgeist of "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," rather than in the Spirit of the Church, which took me off in a more careful, not to say more chaste, direction? Taking either route, would I still have ended up in the same place I am today, or in another?

Admitting the possibility that my children are realizing, in their lives, my own unlived life, I see each of them navigating their way without any loyalty to the conventional religion in which they were brought up. This might disappoint me, that my children were not hooked by the bait I was throwing out, Sunday by Sunday. Instead, I am proud of them. They are choosing the road less travelled, the path less well marked, as I imagine I might otherwise have done myself.

My daughter Heather is the family genealogist who shares my interest in spiritualism, our ancestors being kept alive for our benefit through her. She and her husband Chad maintain a loose connection with the church. This is partly because two of the communications contracts that make up Chad's gig-styled work life are with churches. It is also so that their two daughters might have some appreciation for the Christian part of their family heritage. (The other day, the younger of the two, having just turned five, wanted to know how the first person on earth was born. So, in terms of their spiritual curiosity, they're already well on their way.)

My sons, Rob and Ben, have forged a new path altogether, a path that is unique to each of them but, also, shared. In their late thirties now, they've taken their portion of mind-expanding drugs; they've performed the music of their generation, one as a songwriter, the other as a DJ; they've read esoteric texts and engaged in deep philosophical inquiries to understand the cosmos and how it works. And all along, they've found a vast network, a veritable tribe of fellow seekers, to join them on their journey.

The beliefs and practices Rob and Ben now claim for themselves are more Occult than anything recognizably Christian. But the actual principles by which they live--paying attention to the rhythms of the natural world; taking responsibility for their actions and for their vision of Reality; defaulting to kindness, thoughtfulness, and generosity in their dealings with others--these sound strangely and reassuringly familiar to me.

Perhaps, the path is not important. Perhaps, in the end, we must each find our own way "home."

To listen to my recent conversation with Rob and Ben for The Mystic Cave, about their fascinating, uncharted, spiritual journey, click on the Play button, below.