Friday, October 7, 2011

Shoot again

The Joseph Campbell "Facebook fan page" had this quote this morning, from A Joseph Campbell Companion:
"Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center."
Well, he was certainly thinking about us M.S.ers, wasn't he? 'Course, for us, the floor gave way and we fell into the cave rather than walking into it. Especially the way many of us "walk." And stumble. And M.S. does seem to have become "the center," usually more often than we'd like it to be.

But it is our treasure.

Learning how to see that truth is harder than dealing with bladder malfunctions, or medications, or the mobility, or a-bility, that is ours no longer.

But it is our treasure. And that is the great "inner jihad"—to own that truth.

Sometimes, I feel like I really understand that. Sometimes, I'm not even close.

But as my archery teacher says, whether the arrow you shot was good or bad... "Shoot again."

So that's what I'm going to do, for the rest of tonight. And, maybe even tomorrow. And after that... we'll see. It's easy to say that I will, somehow it turns out to be hard to do. But we'll see.

Shoot again.

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