Michael Meade: At Each Turning Point In Life, We Must Face Our Deepest Fears In Order To Grow

At any meaningful turning point in life, we must face our deepest fears in order to grow. And typically a turning point can feel like the worst thing that could happen to us. At one level we are at a collective turning point, we're at a place where we must stop and listen to the body of humanity, even listen to the voice of the earth. We have to stop despite the fears of the stock market crashing and in spite of the common belief that everything must keep expanding, so that we must avoid all possibilities of a major descent.

And yet, we may have already reached that point where individual travel is being restricted for the benefit of all. Where instead of rushing about, flying about, we are being asked, not just to stop and hold in place, but in a way to turn inward. For we don't know how long all the journeys of life must come to a stop. Not just that people have to cancel vacations. But pilgrimages to holy places become dangerous, not just for the seeker, but for everyone in contact with those who seek. It's a strange thing. But the human soul is always seeking to grow and transform. That's what usually sets us off on a journey or a pilgrimage. But the essence of a pilgrimage is not simply that we arrive at some Holy Grail place somewhere in the world. Rather, the outward journey is intended to separate us from the daily rounds of life, in order that we might make that great journey, which is the inward journey.

The real aim of any pilgrimage is to arrive at the place of the deep self and soul. And all those holy places outside us are at some level symbolic of the holy place inside ourselves that we are intended to find on this strange journey of life. There may be a great crowd of seekers if we should arrive at the holy place, and yet, each seeker is alone in what they find. Each sees the Holy Temple of the great stone from their own vantage point and in their own way, and each awakens to a deep sense of self, or soul, that albeit is found in that aloneness, tells them they are never alone."

— Michael Meade

https://www.mosaicvoices.org/