Have You Been Called?
by Tracey Forest
Did your first calling come as small child? Mine did.
I am a woman who has largely followed her soul's longings and passion for Earth since childhood. Behind my father's house was a woodland that I loved, and it called my name in whispers.
When I entered that sacred forest, I crossed a threshold into another world. I knew it in my bare feet that padded along deer trails, following an invisible pull deeper into mysteries of the woods. I knew it in my hands that reached out with longing to touch the rough bark of trees; I knew it in my body as I lay down among grasses and twigs, longing to merge with something unnamed, something visceral that surely didn't exist in my suburban life.
I brought pocketfuls of seeds and got squirrels to eat from my hand. I learned the vast love Gaia has for her children by curling up in the bows of Mother Tree and feeling completely embraced and held.
One of the most potent experiences of those days is the apprenticeship I did with two numinous beings I met in the forest when I was 9 or 10 years old. I heard my name being called on one of my sojourns on a summer afternoon. Following my inner compass and leaving the pathways I knew, I stumbled upon an old stone chimney and hearth where a cabin had once been.
When I approached the hearth, I went into a reverie where primitive walls enclosed the space, a flame came to life in the fireplace where a pot was simmering, and an old bearded man (think mountain man/medicine man) and a young girl with blonde hair (around ten years old) welcomed me, sat me at their table, and said they would teach me "the language of the forest."
Were they physically there? No. But did they become my teachers of listening to plants and trees, animals and stones? Yes. Did they help me cultivate a deep reciprocal relationship with Mystery, with other-than-humans, with the living breathing Earth? Absolutely. Have I followed the clues of my soul stream my whole life? Without a doubt.
We all have moments where we have been called by Mystery, and if we follow them, they guide us in the deeper rivers of life, toward our most soul-infused ways of being. If we look back over our life, not as an autobiography, but as a Terrain of Mystery, we can see the threads of Soul at workâthrough dreams, extraordinary encounters, longings, meetings in nature with other-than-humans.
What I shared above is one of many such holy moments for me, one that set me on a life-long pursuit of Earth's dream and my place in that dream....
Now I am a guide to helping others uncover their own deeper soul stories, their own mythos, so they can live their most authentic lives and become agents of the creation of the new dream.
What about you?