I'm being invited to job interviews, and the schools that are calling are representative of the institutions I dreamed of when I decided to become a teacher. I'm being invited to the fringes of our culture. I'm being invited to the places I envisioned myself at as a boy.
I've been invited to a small school in northern Mendocino County that serves the Native Americans on the Round Valley Reservation. I've been invited to south Monterrey County, and the schools that serve the children of migrant farm workers. And I was invited to Bear River in the Sierra foothills.
Although I can't go to any until my youngest son is out of high school, my place in the world has been confirmed. The envy I felt toward people who seemed to take their place before me has reconvened into the astonished giddiness of having been correct about where mine was. I arrived here, from a very distant there, aided only by an archaic compass called intuition.
Sometimes the major achievements of our lives aren't the ones others observe. Sometimes, they're just the vapor of a fifty-year resolve.
Children, Repeat After Me
Being invited to interview doesn't guarantee a job, I know that. I've been out of the classroom for a year. I'll need to use the proper lexicon of academia if I hope to convince prospective Principals that I'm really a teacher. I'll have to stand by the desk of the talkative kid as I lecture, and bite my tongue for as long as it takes to get students to swallow theirs. Most daunting of all, I'll need to come up with a way to integrate who I'm becoming with who I left behind.
Contrary to my initial point of view, I was never unemployed. I was a samanera in a Buddhist monastery. I was a busboy at Denny's. I was the last kid picked for kickball. I was a lost child in the parking lot of Earth.
I was busy with the work at hand, and the work at hand was internal. If I'm offered a job the past year will change shape. What appeared challenging, and shameful, in one light, will be held in celebration for the gift it contained, under another. I may even give it a name as a commemorator. The "Year of My Collapse" will mark the highest elevation in the topography of my existence.
Life isn't what we were promised.
It's what we chose.
Pre-Existence/Near-Death
Unfortunately, I still don't know whether I chose cohesion, or collapse. I don't know if the symmetry I see in my path is extraordinary, or common. Sorting it out has been a meditation, but the tranquility it brought wasn't real. I recognize where I am because it's the same place I've always been.
I need to make a decision about who I am. A transformation of any size isn't anchored until you anchor yourself within it, and the choice to do that remains frightening. The courage I need is more than I have. I need to dig down a little deeper.
I'm going to close this post with my most recent excavations. I found them on a website called "Knowledge Sharing Tool", after a Google search for the symbolic meaning of rivers. They prompted the consideration that what I've considered has been aimed at what's safe. They made me reconsider everything, again.
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The purpose for our Earth lives includes the opportunity to pay and receive karmic debts from family members. We plan to connect once again with members of our soul family on Earth because of our love for them. (Edgar Cayce)*
"Our stations in life are based upon the objectives of completing our missions. We bonded with family and friends to help us in completing them." (Betty Eadie)*
"The fact that we are born here shows that we are on the path to developing an individual consciousness. Ultimately, we will find God within ourselves because this is our true identity." (Mellen-Thomas Benedict)*
"If we were born with our pre-birth knowledge intact, our resulting choices would be predictable and would be a violation of our free will. Free will is a highly important power given to us by God. Almost all of our choices must be made according to it." (Hal)*
"Our missions mainly have to do with love, but the purpose of life is also to experience joy, gain spiritual understanding and self-awareness, play with the joyful abandon of a child, absorb ourselves in the delight of each moment, let go of obligation and duty, and live for the pure joy of being." (Jan Price)*
*Knowledge Sharing Tool Website
