To the Norse, Fate (Wyrd) determined the course of events set about since creation. They believed there was nothng random that happens in our world wihout it being fate. But, there was something that was higher, and it was a trio of divine feminine beings, called the Norns, who created fate in the first place. They were the ultimate crators of all things and carried great magic. It is said that the Norns set into motion the fate of all things down here on Mother Earth and that includes you and I. The Norns had no animosity, no judgement, they simply set what is to happen, what happened, and what is happening now in our world. For us, it is simply, “it is what it is”. We cannot change ou fate and it is useless to try. It is why we should stay present and slog thorugh what must be slogged through and learn the lessons of slogging.
The Norse believed that Fate was not as important as what one did with one’s Fate. This brings me to the wonder abut Fate versus Free Will. Fate refers to the idea that we each have a destiny. Free Will means that we have choics within that destiny, Fate gives us a silent purpose. Free Will is what we use to decide to go on that adenture or not, or how we might accep[t that purpoe or how we reach it, if we do. Life gives you many options and even if we take the option, we cannot be sure we will reach whatever environment you hope to be at or in. Free will is bantied about iin religions so it is difficult to define the word without quoting some doctorine we have been taught. Fate can come into your ife by magic, it seems. Thee ia serendipity and you feel like you have known this person, place or thing, forever, for many lifetimes. We are living a life of “ which door will you choose”; door number oner, door number two, door number, and so on. Sometimes Fate grabs you by the shoulders and gives you a shake,”Look, listen, there is something in this for you!” If we are not fully present, we might miss the nudge. I have not only ‘missed, a few crossroads along this journey, I have ignored the call an gone wandering off on long and lonely roads. Literally.
I have learned a great deal about Fate and the serendipity and, of course, the ominous feelings of something or someone being “off”. I was put through a “test” by an important Elder, a Medicine Man, Dean of Native American Studies, who took me under his wing to teach me. I asked him, years later why he chose me and he said, “I had a feeling”. The thing that brought me to his notice is that , in NAS 1000, I had to do some instant writing. I wrote about my daughter (Native American / Black-heritage daughter who was gifted to me by her grandmother (another moment of Fate stepping in). I wrote about her doing a drawing, in grade foiur, of a naming blanket her grandmother left for her, that was tied up in brown paper sacking, and that my daughter knew nothing about, nor had she ever seen the exact patterns on her naming blanket. The patterns were not Blackfoot, my daughter’s heritage; the pattern was Navajo. The blanket had been put away and never brought out, as I was told to do, and only given to her when her first child was born. I passed in my paper. I got an A+ but more than that, I was asked to go up to the Dean’s office. I had a sense something was in the wind, as I walked down a quiet corridor to his office. He invited me in and then exp[lained he wanted to mentor me. He said he had a dream in a ceremony. He said he was going to help me help te people I would eventually live and work with. I had no idea, but the sense of it being ‘right’ wa s strong. He taught me, inspired me, gave me educational oportunities not offered to my peers. He took me to ceremonies. He gave me experiences I had never even heard of, let alone every been too. That paper was a huge time of Fate, of me being offered choices and my free will was to choose to simply follow spirit. I could never have dreamed where it would take me. My career was more than what I learned in University. It was spirit driven and spirit given. I had learned to follow inspiration and intuition. It was through all this that I happened to continue to choose the right choices and accepted and surrendeered to some choices I would have rather not made but in the end became blessinsg to me and me being blessing to others. All because I ‘happened\ to be inspired to do some instant writing in a first year course. Or was it? Was I always destined to do the work I would choose and choose, again and again, to do? Some time in my lifwline, there was a moment of offered fate. I had taken that choice and I can not tell you the extreme push and pull that I was constantly under as I worked for 23 wonderful years in isolated and semi-isolated First One of the greatest changes in my life direction happened because of some kind of Fate and my choosing to follow it to Nations’ communities. I faced great sacrifice, first, before I entered University. I had left a 19 year arriage taken my seven children on an adventure of a lifetime. The traumas and chaos of such led me to University an to a whole new kind of life full of great love given and received.
Over those three years at University ( where I completed 5 years in three and a half years), I learned to pay attention to the ‘whisperings’ of Fate. I learned to take risks and to overcome odds in order to remain on the path that Fate led me. I learned that, if I did not make the right choices, I would lose my direction. I learned to lvie a spirit-led life full of Fate and Free Will.
Examine your life. Nothing is random. When has Fate interceded? When did you use your Free Will to follow the stirrings of your soul? It has been there, if you do not recoggnize it, go and follow the string of life back until you find when Fate offered you something that changed your directin in lfie. Aho.
©Carol Desjarlais 3.24.22
No comments:
Post a Comment