I love this David Whyte poem (one of many I love) in which he mentions the "tiny but frightening requests" we hear when we take the time to listen. I believe that the soul often calls out to us with tiny requests that really are sometimes frightening. They may be asking us to consider the life we are currently leading - question the way we are living each day, what we are neglecting, who we are loving, how we are loving... all things that can be pretty scary to question. It takes courage to seek out and make space for this deeper kind of listening. This is where we find the road that leads everywhere.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,

who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,

you come to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

9-14-18 addendum

I came across this quote posted on IG by a friend that I think is a great addition to the post above. Not knowing is frightening - unless we can assure ourselves it is an essential part of the journey toward knowing.

““It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is one that sings.”
- Wendell Berry
”