Destiny
noun
fate, over-ruling necessity, the irresistible tendency of certain events to come about; inexorable force that shapes and controls lives and events;
also, “that which is predetermined and sure to come true"
It’s not every day that I think about Destiny, but today is one of those days. In fact, my last meditative journal prompt was titled Destiny Diaries, so I suppose it’s been floating around my subconscious for a while. It might have something to do with the resurgence of Y2K, a time when words like miracle, peace, angel, and juicy, were sold to us in the form of t-shirts and pencil cases.
As a teenager, destiny became more than a graphic print tee. It became something that I would journal about, often obsessively. It was a reason for things to be okay, in the midst of utter chaos. When the world feels so very out of your control (which it always is) there is a major comfort in believing that you know what destiny has in store.
I’d hear tales about performers who would practice their award show speech in front of the mirror, clutching their shampoo bottle in lieu of a microphone. I thought, if that worked for them, I’ll do something similar. I’d envision certain specific things and think, that is my destiny. In the midst of these visualizations, I’d feel powerful, in control and that would affirm my beliefs. I thought, if I feel this good while imagining these things, it must be a confirmation of my life’s trajectory.
Of course, my life up to this point has been very different from those imaginings. Sure there’s still time for the Malibu dream house and the world tour with me as a Millennial Joni Mitchell???
But I can honestly tell you, that I now feel more myself than I ever did during those visualizations. This time it’s in a grounded way. While real life has diverged greatly from expectations, time spent creating that world wasn’t wasted. Imagining dreams can open space for the unimaginable to come to light.
It is imperative that we have our imagined destiny, but hold it in a way that one would hold a cloud. Clouds will shift, they will fall into the earth and be reborn again by the strength of the sun. They will travel farther than we can imagine and they will sometimes hold us in one place for longer than we would like. No matter what form they take, clouds are alluring and joyful.
We cannot touch a cloud, but we feel it when we’re soaring high high up in the air. The plane—the vessel which we must use to travel—is tossed about by those transitory forces, we experience turbulence. But this doesn’t take us down. Turbulence merely shakes us up, wakes us and causes us to check the flight path. Perhaps we’ve been diverted and the ground below is far different from the one we knew before, but we will reach our destination.
Both destiny and destination come from the same latin root:
Destinaire: make firm, establish, appoint, choose, determine.
From the perspective of my younger self, I would interpret that as: we determine and appoint things that will guide our destiny. It all rides on our ability to determine what we want and establish it through envisioning and action.
Now I look at Destinaire and the word that jumps out is choose. We cannot pick our destiny. We will try out certain things and we should do them all with passion. It should be a process of discovery and joyful exploration. But when it comes down to it, external forces will guide us, provide us with detours when there are road blocks.
Truly, the only choice in our power is how we react to what occurs.
Can we choose to find the sacred in even the most mundane or painful moments?
Can we continually turn ourselves over to the ambiguous chaos that streams through the universe?
Can we embrace the clouds, even when we cannot touch them?
Destiny is still relevant, but now I perceive it as something that is slowly showing itself to me. Bit by bit, revealing layers of new awareness. It is not something that I can define on my own, instead I have a relationship with it. Like everything, I cannot hold it to a set of expectations. I can only ask and listen, listen, listen.
Asking comes in many forms. It is through daydreams. It is receiving experiences without judgement, remaining open to instinctual feedback. It is action without attachment to the result. It is gratitude when the results are pleasurable.
Listening to what the world shows you, to who shows up for you, to what these things make you feel in the core of your being.
It’s ever so gradual, this listening. I’m still tuning the dials to get the best reception. But for me, it’s no longer about when, it’s about how.
That’s all for today.
xx,
James
If you find yourself struck by a moment of complete presence, send it to me in either image or word form: momentsfornow@gmail.com.
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