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I know I’ve been on this mountain road before at night but it’s different this time. Maybe, because I’m dreaming and sense there’s a reason. Funny (you think?), that in this dream it takes place where we’ve just left the voting polls and we’re on the road to get onto the main highway for home but it’s shut down. There’s been some type of roll over, and, in the mountains that could mean hours.

I remember some years ago, when a logging truck lost it’s load, it took a good part of the day before it opened up again. There was another time when some type of tanker truck was in an accident and the highway was shut down for cleanup. It took hours to get home from work when traffic was rerouted weaving for miles through forest access roads to get around it.

What do we do now? We thought maybe we would see how far we’d get by walking; at least, it was doing something rather than just sitting in the car. There was one of two routes we could choose. One was go back to the car and back to the voting polls where we came from or walk out to the highway.

We chose to walk out to the highway – maybe not such a good choice, but everything was gridlocked and no traffic was moving. So, we began walking, for a couple of miles it seemed, up Crow Hill. After walking awhile past people sitting in their cars, it seemed senseless that we left our car like that. It was time to rethink this decision.

I wanted to continue on and hubby wanted to go back to the car and turn around to get back home from there. So, we decided to do both. We’d split up and I would go on and he’d go back and somehow we’d meet in the middle or at home. This is where a message began to form infused more with feelings.

This was not a random dream that just happened to come to me on election night. I sensed more in my heart for my neighbors, family and friends in our neighborhoods and across our country where we were at a crossroads with the choices we’re making. There’s not just a high road or low road – just choices. We make them all the time and find ourselves in the strangest places wondering how we got there.

Even now, as I sit here to write this the next day, rather than 4:30 am, I still feel the gentle tenderness of the message: that is, look at where I am and pay attention to how I got there. It’s not necessarily a bad thing – just navigation and choice. Most of the time, we get sidetracked, take a shortcut or we lose things along the way and have to go back and get them before we can begin again.

If we don’t notice, we can be way off course and it may take longer and be more difficult to get back. But, in the end somehow we’ll always find our home, that field beyond – together. It’s our choice and we can work together to make it easier.

Out Beyond Ideas

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense ~~ Rumi

(Excerpt from the translations of Coleman Barks © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes)

Pat from the ol’ kitchen table