The Arch of Experience

“. . .Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move . . .” from the poem, Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

I went to see the movie, The Odyssey, this week. Fabulous film. Like many, I read and studied the epic poems in school but, unlike many perhaps, what really stirred my soul was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses. The lines I quote here are Tennyson’s imaginings of Ulysses’ words to Telemachus as he passes his kingdom to his son. The idea of experience being an arch to an untraveled world captivated me. It was an arch I was eager to travel through.

Since then I have often thought about where the experiences of my life are leading me. When I was younger, the destination, though changeable, seemed fixed. In college, the destination was a diploma and a first job. In my twenties, the destination was each step up the corporate ladder. In my thirties and forties, the destination was having a corporate job that allowed me to travel the world. Then, at fifty, the destination was again an unknown world. As I left my corporate job, I stepped into a new version of the arch. The margins had moved quite a bit.

Destinations continued to flow to me as I moved. A PhD in Metaphysics, training as a Reiki Master, a Hypnotherapist, a move north along the Hudson River and then the opening of my own holistic wellness center. Now that I look back where I’ve traveled, I can see the theme. It is an extended one of healing, a journey that took me back through the arch into the past many times. Each time I would emerge and set off again, like Ulysses, I would get distracted on the island of the lotus eaters and forget my path or I would be lured by the siren’s call where my dreams would get dashed along the rocks of life.

I still wonder where that untraveled world lies. My soul says it is within, and my soul is usually right. As I embraced yet another new destination several years ago, that of being a writer, the margins continued to move. And each time they moved, I had to do battle with doubt, with fear and with my own limited beliefs about what was possible for me. I think battling the Cyclops would have been easier. One good stab in the eye, followed by a lot of running. The metaphors in both of the Homeric epic poems are not lost on me. Only today, with so much experience behind me, can I clearly see the parallels with my own life.

Like Ulysses I am contemplating my life in the final chapter. I am no longer looking for purpose. I know my purpose. Now I look for smooth seas and westerly winds to gently carry me along towards the horizon. I look for inspiration and imagination to fill my sails. I trust that my life is unfolding exactly as intended, and that understanding brings me such peace and contentment. The destination is no longer unknown. However many years I have until I arrive, I know that I am going home. And that fills my heart with the deepest bliss.

With love,

Cathleen