Fear and the Warrior's Path

A friend came over last weekend and I was whining that I didn't feel well. She does Rieki, so she offered to give me a quick tune-up. I immediately felt worse; a pressure in my chest and a rising fever. I said to her, no - mumbled - "do I have a fever?" but she heard; "do I have a fear?"

She told me that, and I promptly went to the bathroom to be sick, which I did a lot more of later that night. Then I got better!
And I had some time to lay in bed and reflect, about what fears have been eating my soul.

As I've said on here before, I was a shy, quiet kid (look out for the quiet ones!). After I left to hitch-hike across Canada when I was 19, from Halifax, my "friends"(the bastards) had a funeral for me. It wasn't a joke - they genuinely thought they'd never see me again. But after I got back, having pushed through the veil of Fear twice - once at Sussex, NB, the other at Vancouver, BC (through to Tofino - the destination I hadn't known existed when I set out, except that I wanted to go to "the end,") those friends, some of them, and others who heard about it - approached me, quietly, on the side, at parties or on the street, and they said, eager for the knowledge because they too had a passion inside, "how'd you do it?, weren't you afraid?"

And I'd say, "of course I was afraid, if you're not afraid - you're an idiot: stay home." Sometimes I'd go beyond that, and try to analyse something more, but I'm sure I never put it in these words; "How else would you know your path (was worthy of you)?"

Like following your bliss, follow your fear. Your fear is a flashing neon sign down a dark alley at night, advertising - "Salvation."
Your fear will lead you home, beyond yourself.
But you don't live with it, you just stand, when faced with choices, they are like archways surrounding you: walk through the one you fear most, into the "forest adventurous." Of course, at times you'll be a brash youth, like Luke Skywalker in Empire, in Yoda's swamp; "I'm not afraid." And I'll say to you, if you choose the right path, what Yoda said to Luke - "you will be."

But, like Luke, once you've moved through that, and like me when I was 19, after I decided to leave Sussex, and Vancouver, to keep going west, into the unknown - then you move beyond fear again. Then you have to be like the skateboarder in Stephen King's "It."

In It these people come back to their home town, and are confronting their demons again, but now as adults. The main guy and girl characters are walking down a hill and a kid whips by on a skateboard. The kid reminds the guy of himself, and the guys yells, "be careful, kid!" The kid yells back, "you can't be careful on a skateboard, mister!"
The guy reflects - it's true, you need everything you've got to skateboard well, if you put the least bit of your attention on - "being careful" you're screwed. It all has to go into skateboarding.

Such is life. It's acceptable to be afraid. But move through it - and then act, without any thought or attachment to outcomes. All of your attention goes into, as Yoda said, "where he is, what he is doing."

I've been afraid of failure. That I finally got to this place I wanted to be, and wasn't going to make it. Wasn't going to make enough money to make it fly, no-one would wanna work with me, etc. They call it "Tuffcity" for a reason. I was also afraid of my own heart - the "darkest one", that I had hurt,and had to be afraid of love.
Your fear will lead you home. I don't care if I succeed here. I don't care if I'm incapable or unworthy of love in some harsh universe that judges people afterall.

Just let me see my prey, and like an eagle shaking dust from his feathers of too long in the nest, drop and open my wings. To move truly in the world. Like a race car driver, in the "golden moment."
The outcome is irrelevant, but to be - the unmoving axle, and the moving wheel. You just have to do it, I guess.

Night or day, whate'er befall,
  I must walk that desert land,
Until I dare my fear, and call
  The lion out to lick my hand!

"Enter your feathers"...