I was pretty young when the idea of a “life-plan” entered my universe. My mother subscribed to a small religious magazine called “Guideposts” and I was probably in third grade when I read an article and discovered that God had a plan for me and my life. I doubt if I really knew what that meant then, since I still struggle with it now. But I found it strangely comforting that I might be on a train with a definite track and direction.
I got away from organized religion when I became a teenager, just as I began deepening my spirituality, but the idea that I might have angels looking out for me and guiding me on my way remained a comfort, even if it was an illusion. Eventually I settled into my present belief that there is a lot more to existence than meets the eye and ear, and that just maybe my conscious self is a tiny tip of a deeper and broader iceberg.
I spent a lot of time as a youth traveling around the United States, Europe and North Africa, usually, but not always, with nothing but an outstretched thumb and a dusty backpack. I learned through that process to trust the universe. I surrendered to fate and the parade of strangers who also had faith in the kindness of connection. From age 17 to 20 I learned to love the road and the sheer thrill of freedom. I needed nearly nothing and enjoyed nearly everything as one adventure led to another and another and yet another.
I carried with me three small books that I read incessantly: the “New Testament”, the “Bhagavad Gita” and “A Flower Does Not Talk”, a book of Zen essays by Zenkei Shibayama. And I trusted the universe to guide me. It is a tired cliché, of course, that reminds us we are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience, but it is helpful to remember this.
Our time here is brief and it helps to believe we have a purpose. There is a point. It is fraught with meaning. There is a grand tapestry of which we are a part, like golden thread woven into its heart. And we are not insignificant. The whole is stronger because we are. If we think small, we are small and if we think big, we are big. Our thoughts define us but we must not forget to define our thoughts. And to remember we are a piece of larger thoughts. Learning to listen to our inner guides and obey them is crucial to success in this life. But to do that we have to get quiet and settle into a willing place.
As a psychologist I have the great honor to sit with people in pain. They share with me their deepest concerns, their darkest thoughts and their saddest losses. We sit together with those events and feelings like they are hot coals and precious jewels, loved and loathed, sought and rejected, consumed and consuming. And we walk those terrible roads together and often emerge like new creatures, relieved somehow of a burden we no longer need.
I do believe in magic because I have known love. I was probably 17 or 18 when I had an important dream. I slept in a house in Athens, a small, beautiful college town tucked in the foothills of the Appalachias in southeast Ohio. My brother Jim was a student at Ohio University and I loved to visit him get a taste of the coming freedom I was certain I’d enjoy. The dream was of a woman whom I could not see. She was serene and patient and would wait for me. I woke up knowing that I was free and someday I would meet her and we would see.
I didn’t have any doubt. None. And that nudge, like others along the way, whispered that I am not alone. And it’s going to be okay. And it has.
We are surrounded by people who are confused, afraid and angry. And sometimes we join in the madness. We forget who we are and why we are here and what the world needs us to do. And that’s okay. Ultimately it is about the learning. And even if we have to repeat grades, the lesson eventually sinks in and we can move on.
I have been blessed beyond imagining this time around.
May you find your own blessings.
Doug Craig graduated from college in Ohio with a journalism degree and got married during the Carter administration. He graduated from graduate school with a doctorate in Psychology, got divorced, moved to Redding, re-married and started his private practice during the Reagan administration. He had his kids during the first Bush administration. Since then he has done nothing noteworthy besides write a little poetry, survive a motorcycle crash, buy and sell an electric car, raise his kids, manage to stay married and maintain his practice for almost 25 years. He believes in magic and is a Sacramento Kings fan.
