On Calling

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

One day, years ago, I walked into my office, with its full wall of books. As I glanced at the colors and the spines, I experienced an intuitive knowing that made me shudder: I would one day no longer work in books. It was not an easy impression. My livelihood and way of being at the time were based on books, knowledge, smarts, and intellect.

Not long after, a friend told me that what was buried in my subconscious "wears the pants," and I knew this nagging feeling was doing more than just nagging. 

I had no idea what to do with it. It was still vague. My mind wanted more.

All my life I had had a nagging feeling I wasn't doing the right thing. It was a constant off-ness, even with work and hobbies that were a part of my talents, beliefs, and opportunities. The off-ness was too vague to answer, like that feeling that I’d forgotten something important on my way out of the house, but I had no idea what it was.

I wanted the path to be known. I wanted to know where I was going and to see it clearly. But there was no teacher, there was no clear opportunity, and I just plodded forward, experiencing year after year of depression and hardship because my soul felt the lack of direction.

There is a concept that James Hillman wrote about in The Soul's Code called the daimon. This being or energy acts as your guide, but specifically, the guide that helps you fulfill your purposes. The one that makes sure you do the thing you came to do. It can ride you, haunt you, nag you if you're not fulfilling what you came to do. In the midst of this slow awakening, my father died, adding grief to the mix. The daimon’s nagging became loud and unavoidable.

I wrestled. I denied. I pleaded for clarity or an obvious next step. There was nothing but lots of grief and confusion, and a boatload of writing work that made me miserable. No clarity. Just an understanding that something wasn't right. I had done more for my business than I had for my soul.

One day, about a year after my dad died, I had a dream. I dreamt that I had come to a world that was filled with rock and hard angles, sort of primitive looking, with the intention of changing it. I came knowing it was not okay and that work needed to be done. I had felt the wrongness of it when I arrived. Then years passed in the blink of an eye, and over time I came to like it. The parties, the events, the people.

In the dream, I know all of this context when I arrive at the mouth of a cave with an angled rock guarding it, and there is a woman there who looks as if all races influence her features. She is my age or older and wrapped in dark robes. She is stern; this is not a happy meeting that I have been called to attend.

She tells me without words that I have gotten lost in this place, or that I have forgotten. She reminds me that there was a reason I came here. It is as if in the dream, I have awoken from a dream nestled within a dream and I realize my error. The last visual is of a hand in my face, as if saying "You must stop."  

Like so many of my dreams, I wrote it down but it floated from my mind.

Soon after, I wrestled with the difficulties of the business and the life I had created. It was becoming undeniable that it didn't work. That I was a hairsbreadth away from saying I was done, and yet even though it was clear—clarity finally—I couldn't give it up.

So strong was the tension between what my soul wanted and what my ego wanted. What would it mean to give it up? I didn't know. It felt like failure. It felt like destitution.

Who would I be? Would I still be a writer? What would I say about my work when people would inevitably ask? An entire identity was crumbling.

So I clung and battled, and I had one last bump. The business swelled in and I was back in it for a bit, but at the end of a large chunk of work, I realized... this is it, isn't it? This is all it will ever be. If I continue working this way, there will always be feasts and there will always be famines, and the work will look like this till the end of my days.

It was that simple. I was done. It was the most anticlimactic moment ever after a year and a half of wrestling, but that was it. The very same day, I said yes to becoming an apprentice in a shamanic healing training. Two days later, I reread my dream journal and stumbled across that dream. I shuddered, wondering if I was on time.

Nearly right away, things started to change and shift. I experienced encouraging headwinds. Things moved. I wrestled with many practical aspects of what I had decided to do. It wasn't easy and it caused financial problems, but I don't regret it.

I've spent the last year tearing down, building, tearing down again, letting go, grieving the old, celebrating the new, and feeling more joy than I probably ever have in my life. In a strange way, it has come full circle: I have figured out a new way to engage with writing that earns me an income so that I can have time to study and practice the healing work that I love. What I had let go, the universe gave back to me in a new and improved version, something similar but entirely different than what I had been doing before.

Life is not magically better. It is not easy, and I am very much in the early days of figuring out a new way of being. But finally having answered the call, there is a sudden lack of the constant nagging feeling of being out of place, of not being on path. The absence of that is like balm to me. Refreshing, indescribable. My life still carries quite a lot of uncertainty and unknowns, as well as a lot of risk, but it also contains more depth and meaning than it ever has, and that is reward enough. 

It might be too early to say this, but I’m starting to think this is what it feels like when you answer a call. Answering the call is not easy and not comfortable. And yet, not answering costs far more.

Calling is opaque though, and as I described above, it felt vague and unclear. My friend Andrea Jones shared something with me that I thought was wonderfully clear and simple, and at least offers some points to think about when considering calling. She said that there are five elements of a calling:

1. The calling has to be real for you.

2. The calling is grounded in your own direct experience.

3. The calling creates a world for people and is inclusive.

4. You are the source of the calling, and it is not limited to you.

5. The calling is actionable at any moment and in any circumstance.

I might also add that there is a soul cry involved with calling. There is something that constantly pulls you back, no matter how far away you might consciously or unconsciously move away from it. It is almost as if it won’t leave you alone. That was spirituality and healing work for me—a constant presence in the back of my mind.

So, what does calling mean to you? And how do you answer it?