The Journey Stick

An interesting envelope was delivered last week. It was white and light. Very light. There was a sender’s name on it, which I won’t share with you. Inside the envelope was a stick. Yes, just a stick with no covering letter. Just the stick.

A couple of weeks ago I enrolled on a meditation and relaxation online course. It was something to do with the elements and a compass and finding out compass directions, facing them as we drifted into a meditation. Earth, air, fire, water, little bit of new-agism and directing healing energy to someone who wasn’t well. New-agism aside, it was space to reconnect with me. If my whole body, and not just my tongue, was talking it would have been saying, ‘Hello there. Gosh, it is nice to spend time with you.’ Yes, I am one of the few on this planet that says, ‘Gosh’. I don’t stretch is to, ‘Golly gosh. So often I am busy and when I am not so busy, I am knitting. I am not generally rolling my feet over a massage ball.

This morning it was constructing a ribbon stick. The ribbons and the twine were in last week’s envelope. It was not a hard thing to do. I am still battling to make my pompom from a different project I’m signed up to. I had a mixture of elastic bands, wool and tapestry thread to secure my ribbons to the stick. I was humming Ian Drury’s ‘Hit me with your rhythm stick’ as I was working, replacing ‘rhythm’ with ‘ribbon’.

I pictured myself younger, slimmer and more athletic as I moved about the kitchen with my stick, pretending I was a gymnast doing a rhythm routine. I twirled. I span around. I waved. All with ribbons rippling beside and above me. I got dizzy and I had to sit down.

I am reading my way through ‘365 Days Wild.’ It is about finding ways each day to connect with nature. Yesterday I was supposed to be eating rainbow coloured fruit and veg. I think the curry vaguely qualified for the orange day.  I haven’t plucked up the courage yet to make today’s suggestion of nettle soup. A few days back I was asked to make a journey stick.

I was sharing with the ladies at the relaxation class what a journey stick was. It was all about getting outside and taking a walk. Armed with a stick and a dozen pieces of string, I was supposed to be tying interesting things to my stick. A feather perhaps, a leaf, a curl of lichen. You get the picture. The bits of string are still in the pocket. It is still on the to-do list. You were supposed to arrive back home with a fully covered journey stick. Noticing things. The little details the eyes wash over.

This afternoon, speaking with friends I was thinking about the journey stick. A walking through life journey stick and what we end up tying to it. There are a lot of ‘can’t do’ and ‘it just wouldn’t work’ and ‘nothing will change’. Lots of negatives. I had a conversation with a friend on the phone the other day about all the things that will never change. It is too easy to hold an inner dialogue of the impossibilities of life. It there had been a journey stick, I could have seen myself untying some of those things. There has to be a better conversation going on inside.

Every so often, mostly when my phone battery needs recharging and I don’t have access to my Bible study app, I read instead ‘A Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer’. What can I say? I am a bit of a liturgy girl. The font is very small but nothing a magnifying glass can’t cope with. This is one of the morning songs. I don’t know the tune so I don’t sing it, but when it comes around it speaks to my heart.

‘I bind unto myself today

The strong Name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same

The Three in One and One in Three…

 

‘I bind unto myself today

The power of God to hold and lead,

His eye to watch, His might to stay,

His ear to hearken to my need.

The wisdom of my God to teach,

His hand to guide, His shield to ward;

The word of God to give me speech,

His heav’nly host to be my guard…

 

There are a lot more verses than my little book contains, about wielding the power God gives to stand up against the enemy and his hellish plans. It is all part of St. Patrick’s Breastplate.

It is just the binding to myself that concerns me. That and my journey stick. The walking through life journey stick. I don’t know that I could handle the whole tying a leaf or bit of lichen bit to a real stick. But what do I tie to my life metaphorically? What am I holding on to that hinders me? What am I tying to my life that is positive and encouraging?

At the weekend I untied a particular church from my life. I had been looking for a new church family and was determined to give things time to see if I fitted there, or if they fitted into my way of doing church. Someone had posted a Facebook word that we don’t just go to a church we like bit need to go to a church that we can build with. The church I had been trying out turned out to be not one that I could build with. So I untied it. It wasn’t arrogance, or presumption on my part but just listening to my heart that told me I wasn’t home – not yet.

When something you tied to yourself a long time ago, and perhaps needs to be untied and cast away, it’s not so easy. The Holy Spirit is the one to talk to about it.

I am a person that actually enjoys untying knots. Just watch my patience when it comes to a tangled ball of knitting wool.