This Place Where I Am

The fourteenth century mystic and poet, Hafiz, wrote: “This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.”

     I have days when I resist what is happening in my life, and I believe that at one time or another we all are capable of wishing life was different. This line from Hafiz is a good reminder to pay attention.
     The place, the situation and the circumstances of where we are in any given moment, is a part of the grand design of life. There is soul-growth and spiritual expansion available to us in every moment. We are granted the choice, in every instant, to determine our personal focus.
      “This place where you are right now” is certainly about the chair where you are reading this, and the building or outdoor space where you are scrolling the screen. The physical place where you are is more, too. This place has a geographic label, and is likely removed from the place where you grew up. Perhaps you are now across town from your childhood, perhaps you are across the continent or over an ocean, maybe you have moved halfway around the world.
      Your physical location is the result of choices or compromises you have made. It might be the only place where you can work in a job you love. It might be the closest you can get to family members whose presence is important to you. Whatever the place ‘where you are right now’ there are conditions which caused it, and owning your part in your arrival is a step towards understanding the complexity of your Life Intention.
     “This place where you are right now” is also a state of mental and emotional being. Are you bathed in joy when you approach a new day? Are you grateful and excited to face what comes next? Do you feel depressed or oppressed, weighed down with worry? Do you wish for some other way of being? This emotional place is circled on a map for you in the Intention you created for this life. However you are thinking and feeling right now is exactly correct for you on this day and month and year.
     Sometimes we are so rooted in the physical that we forget to look at our emotions. Or we are determined to develop spiritually and we deny the niggling mental activity that could change – and align -- our objectives.
     The place you are in right now might be sitting on a cross-country bus in North America, thinking about the backlog of work in your office, feeling overwhelmed and unhappy, and totally disconnected from anything greater than the vehicle.
     Or you may be on your knees in a place of worship, thinking about an ailing loved one, feeling sorrowful and apprehensive about the future, and yet open to such insights as might be granted by your prayers
     In either case, you are at that place circled on the map. When you key in to the truth that your life is lived in all four planes and each of them serves you in the deepest of ways, then you are already progressing your Soul Growth.
     At any moment it is possible to shift our view from the illusions around us to seeing the circle on the map of life.
     Perhaps there is a single overarching aim to the journey we take within the four planes of human experience. Our physical, mental emotional and spiritual planes are each responding to the life we intended. It may be that simply recognizing the Path of Life is a destination worth seeking.
     The path we walk weaves back and forth around the full awareness of this fact, and still we move ever closer to the central tasks we laid out for ourselves before we entered into linear time.
     Developing habits and practices where we connect to the quiet knowledge within us will allow us to see the circle on the map, and to gain the astonishing and colossal rewards of the Now.

     Jo Leath has been supporting clients through change and growth since the 1980s.
     For a consultation, in person or by Skype click here
    The labyrinth is a tool well-suited for exploring the four planes. Arrange a walk here.
    For a free printable labyrinth click here