Treasure Trails

   

Deep within our hearts' desires, our greatest longings, lies buried a treasure of incomparable wealth waiting for each of us.  It's not exactly pirate lootey.  It's more precious than gold and yet we may search the world over all of our lives only to find it's right back where we started from.  

Ancient mystics referred to that ultimate wealth as a pearl of great price.  It is the gift waiting for us that our lives were born to find.  None of life is a mistake.  We are not random results of eons of evolution, meaningless, without purpose.  We are so much more.  We have each been fired into being with a madness and purpose.  We have a kind of soul purpose and it seems, today, as always, the trail to the treasure is illusive and vague at times, even as challenging as Ullysees' odyssey.  

It twists and turns, upsets, turns your life upside down, as a custom designed maze and life-long obstacle course, which might as well have a sign at the beginning that reads,"only the brave and bold, mad or delerious dare enter."  It will test everything you ever believed, every fiber of your wit and resolve.  It will shake you out of bed in the middle of the night, cause you to wear out the carpet

In Paul Coelho's beautiful book, The Alchemist, the gift is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It's finding and living out your "personal legend," what I've called our passionaate purpose.  That personal legend or passionate purpose is found by following clues on the treasure map of life, listening to the omens, following those hunches, being willing to give up everything materially, even violate traditional taboos, face the winds and allow all these to change you, to make you over and over and over again until the one who signed on for the journey in the beginning returns a changed person.  

I wonder if that changed person now contains the treasure, has become the treasure, glistening with golden light and radiant power.  I wonder if that which was once buried within, dormant, sleeping without even a whisper revealing its existence, has been found, unleashed and at the helm of your soul.  

Cohello's alchemist urges the young boy of the story to listen to his heart - that's where his treasure is.  Listen hard, go where your heart leads. Your heart has a profound and brilliant intelligence that speaks and answers in a whole new language, and is capable of hearing wisdom in the wind, counsel from the birds, whisperings from the deer, truth in the moonlight. All of nature will conspire to speak to you if you will listen with a pure heart. 

If we're aware enough to even pick up on the omens in our lives, the next step is understanding what the omen is telling us. Our intellect might interpret the message one way, but we want to hear from our hearts.  Our hearts know where the deeper truth is buried, under the sea or down the road less traveled.  Sometimes you just know and following it may ask you to leave a partner you love, or move across country, or quit a job. It seems to not be bound or defined by our conventional laws or society's status quo.  It will teach you courage to face your fears, listen to your own integrity and honor yourself before you can contribute anything to the larger life.

But, warning!  It is a jealous lover, it will want everything you have and it will mess up your comfortable, conventional life.  In the end, the gift is why you ever came here in the first place.  Don't delay, Coelho seems to say, too many wait too long, put off living their passion until it's too late, only to find that the omens stop coming, their passion diminishes, their wisdom lags longing only for material wealth, accepting the false over the genuine.  Wisdom knows the difference. Your heart won't wait forever.