Finding Our Way Home to Soul

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”

– Rumi

What was your favourite bedtime story as a kid?

One of my fondest childhood memories of my dad was him telling me, night after night, variations of the book, “The Enormous Egg,” by Oliver Butterworth. The story was about a kid who finds a huge egg in their chicken coop one morning, then watches, day after day, as the egg grows bigger and bigger. Then, one morning, the kid goes to check on the now-enormous egg, to find it has finally hatched – into a dinosaur! Chaos breaks out.

Sometimes my dad would shake things up a little and change the details of the story. But one thing he never messed with was the ending, probably because he knew how much I loved it…or at least, the ritual of hearing it. Because now that I think about it, my dad’s version of the ending was pretty darn sad for a kid’s bedtime story!

At the end of every variation of “The Enormous Egg” story, my dad always had the sad and lonely, not-so-little baby dinosaur walk to the very edge of the cliff and look down. At which point, my dad would smile, pause a moment (for maximum effect), then ask me: “And what did the dinosaur say, Maryanne?”

“It’s a long way to Tipperary!” I’d cry, cheerful as all get-out…considering the likely-fatal dinosaur leap that was about to happen. Always the optimist, even as a kid.

Then my dad would sing me the first part of the song, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”:

It’s a long way to Tipperary,

It’s a long way to go.

It’s a long way to Tipperary…

To the sweetest girl I know.

Goodbye Picadilly…

Fairwell, Leicester Square,

It’s a long, long way to Picadilly…

But my heart’s right there.

– Jack Judge & Harry Williams

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-fifties that I took some time and reflected on this childhood memory. And when I did, it occurred to me that “The Enormous Egg” story is pretty much what grief had felt like to me when I was widowed suddenly at the age of thirty-two…when most of my friends were happily married and starting families.

I was an oddity – and a broken-hearted one at that. I felt rather like the sad, lonely and confused baby dinosaur standing on the edge of a huge cliff, looking down and wondering how the heck am I going to get down?

How am I going to find my way back to being happy again after losing the person I had chosen to spend my life with? Did I even have to go down? Couldn’t I just stay at the top – at the surface of my life – and hope that time, as they say, would heal all wounds?

Leaping off the cliff’s edge wasn’t a great option – because it would end in my own death.

Learning to fly wasn’t an option (for me or the baby dinosaur – because it was a Triceratops!).

Alas, slowing making my own way down, inch by painstaking inch, seemed my best option…but certainly not the easiest (nor the most fun).

And yet I fairly quickly discovered that:

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” 

– Rumi

Once we find the courage and knowledge to consciously begin our journey to creating a more joyful, meaningful and soul-inspired life, other forces seem to kick in and help illuminate our path.

But we do have to keep paying attention to the gentle – and sometimes not so gentle – guidance that is, I suspect, continuously being offered to us. And the best way to pay attention is to stay present, even during the more difficult moments…especially during the more difficult moments, even though these are the ones we usually try to get away from as fast as possible.

“All the sensations we feel are interesting, even the unpleasant ones,” writes Lachlan Brown in his book, “Hidden Secrets of Buddhism. “And while our minds race from one thing to another, dreaming of escape, wishing to be anywhere but where we are now, the whole world goes on around us. And if we’re not careful, we can miss it all. Mindfulness is how we prevent our entire lives passing us by.”

“Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Skillfully made, choices lead to freedom.”

– Bhante Gunarantana

It IS a long way to Tipperary – to becoming a happy, healthy, balanced individual fulfilling their dreams, destiny & purpose. I think the journey is supposed to take as long as it needs to take because that’s how we learn what we need to learn, for the road ahead.

And yet, just as the song says, although it’s a long way to Tipperary, our heart is already right there. In other words, the journey is the destination.

So how do we find our way home to soul?

“Go where the love is.”

– Edie Brickell

One slow, mindful, soul-guided step at a time 🙂

Maryanne Pope is the author of “A Widow’s Awakening.” She also writes screenplays, playscripts & blogs. Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Co-Founder of  the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. To receive her blog, “Weekly Words of Wisdom,” please subscribe here. And be sure to visit our PinkGazelleCards Etsy shop.