I’m walking, but my mind is restless. It’s not unpleasant, just unsettled—like the surface of a creek rippling in the wind. There’s a subtle impatience, a feeling that I’m not quite where I want to be. Not physically, but in my mood, in my state of mind. I want stillness, clarity, the sense of simply being here without needing to adjust or refine anything. But instead, my thoughts are circling, looking for something just out of reach.
It reminds me of standing beside a tall building with a wall in front of me. I know there’s something on the other side, a different space, a different feeling, but I’m not quite there. I could walk around the block—take the long way, analyzing, deconstructing, trying to figure out how to shift my state of mind. Or I could find the door, the direct way in. And then there’s the shortest way—simply recognizing that I can step through, that the barrier is only there if I believe it is.
Maybe that’s the problem. If I keep searching for the right way in, I might never realize I’m already there. I stop walking for a moment and just breathe, feeling the ground beneath me, the air on my skin. The wind slows. The creek quiets.
I take another step, but something holds me back. Not the ground beneath me, not anything outside—something in my mind. I can see the way through, the door standing open, yet I don’t move. It’s as if I have to undo something first.
I’ve been here before, I know that much. I’ve touched the stillness, stepped into it fully, and for a moment, I was exactly where I wanted to be. But now, it feels distant, as if I have to find it all over again. That’s the trick of it—it was never lost, just forgotten. I don’t need to discover it. I just need to remember.
But remembering isn’t as simple as turning a key. It’s more like passing through a long series of gates. I think of The Thorn Birds, how the character had to cross pasture after pasture, stopping at each gate, getting out of his car, opening it, driving through, stopping again, closing it behind him. Sixteen times. It wasn’t enough just to know where he was going—he had to pass through each gate, one by one.
That’s how this feels. The door ahead may be open, but first, I have to move through each internal gate—old thoughts, habits, things left unresolved. The temptation is to skip it, to take the shortcut. A button I could press, an electronic control that lifts every gate at once. Like a calculator that solves the problem for me.
But if I skip the journey, will I even recognize where I’m going when I get there? Maybe walking around the block serves a purpose. Maybe each gate I open and close brings me closer to remembering.
I stand still for a moment. The creek shimmers in the sunlight. The wind moves through the trees. I’ve been here before. The feeling stirs at the edges of my awareness, just out of reach. I don’t need to find it. I just need to let it return.
Spiritual Gravity 