An Insight,memory and lesson for teens

[Twig]

As I looked at my double-self in the parallax of the aged mirror of the library bathroom I thought that time must have somehow frozen here about a decade ago. The books were all familiar, basically the same as they had been since I moved here in `67 and I realised that through 5 short years I had moved from sitting on the childrens section floor to kneeling in the young adult section and now was frustratedly combing my (too long for school young man!) hair, thinking back on what this crone who had been my gentle guide through all these years had just said.

"Bobby, I'm afraid you have outgrown this little collection we have here. These haysee.....these farmers `round here don't want to know about I Ching, astrology, witchcraft or Budda. (~4000 pop.) You'll be better off going to the Portland library or the college. Or, you COULD ask them across the street!" jabbing a thumb towards the Hillsboro First Baptist Church outside the window. With that we BOTH had a good laugh because she understood full well that the questions I had been trying to get answered for these last few weeks would NOT be met well by THAT congregation. ;)

Looking out at the church that had been babysitter to me those last 5 years I realised I was looking OVER the bookshelves at it! It was then that I knew that yes, I HAD outgrown this quaint place and the town I called home. Not only physically but mentally as well.

Lightly caressing the shelves as I walked out I felt sad, for I knew I would never see this place again with quite the same wonder of a childs eyes. Suddenly, looking up at the brick building and white cross that defined what I had come to question so intently lately, I knew I had stepped off of the familiar narrow road that everyone I knew took in their life. I had stepped from the road to a Path it seemed ;):D. No more familiar signs and traffic control t keep the peace for me. No, this was not on the map that others would have me follow without question. I was truly on my own now.

I turned around and strode back in the library and as Mrs. Peters (:) I still remember her name. ) looked up I choked back the tears I felt welling up and whispered Thank You to her for the last time.

And so began my journey.

Peace.
Twig
:elf:

[Myrddyn Emrys]

As usual, Twig, you wind up hitting on a topic that has been running through the briar patch of my mind. When did we realize that this was our path?

As of late, with trying soo hard to decipher the roadsigns left for me by the Gods for the past few years, I just stopped trying. I've merely let the signs appear in front of me, and then followed, no questions, just followed. And life is turning out good!

But, as Druids do, I digress, so onto the topic.

Growing up, I was lucky. My Grandparents who raised me were religious, but I was ALWAYS told as a child to keep an open mind. Just because I went to a Catholic Church with my Grandpa on sundays, they always told me that if when I got older, this wasn't for me, then, follow another path. My Great Grandmother was a "Holy Roller" and gave me a bible for my 14th birthday, which I still have and cherish to this day. I have read it. I never really felt it was for me, though, just something I was supposed to have and know about.

Then came the turning point. Nynnianne and I had been together for a few months, and she was away in California visiting relatives. I was shot, nerely losing my life. My mother flew Nynn here ASAP. When she arrived at the hospital I was not out of the woods yet.

When Nynn stepped into my room in ICU, is when it happened.

Picture this; A dark door frame, looking just like the lintels of Stonehenge. Black frame, bright, white light pouring through it. Suddenly, a female figure steps into the light, no features discernable, just shilouetted in the lintel. But you know that it's someone you know, then again not, but you feel this overpowering all-warming love radiating from this vision. I knew it was Nynn, but, I knew it was my Godess as well, working through her. I knew I was at the start of my path.

Myrddyn

[Raydreamer]

To know you are destined for something, is, as many of you will know, like looking into a thick fog and knowing the lighthouse is somewhere out there. Even though the light is broken, you know that someone or something has lit a candle up in that dark room for you to find your way home by. It isn't much, but you can see it anyway. Everyone else took a bus, but you chose the boat. They said storms would come and you would be blown of your course, or worse, crash into the rocks. But if it is the rocks you're destined for, then to the rocks you go I say. Better to have taken the boat and seen the little candle flame and known something then, then to have taken the bus and and slept throughout the entire journey.

;)

[Cev'aq]

Twig, I had an experience eerily similar to yours when I "outgrew" my hometown library.

I have so many fond memories of that place... especially checking out the maximum number of books (7) and returning them all the next morning... I had to assure the librarian frequently that I *was* reading them. :)

About two years ago, I returned to the library, just to see if anything had changed. Not much had changed at all, except that the young adult shelves seemed so small, while in my memories, they were huge. ;)