How to get there

A pilgrim muses on Michael Leunig's poem How to get there

Go to the end of the path until you get to the gate.
Go through the gate and head straight out towards the horizon.
Keep going towards the horizon.
Sit down and have a rest every now and again,
But keep on going, just keep on with it.
Keep on going as far as you can.
That’s how you get there.

'Go to the end of the path until you get to the gate...'

The path - the track well-worn by habitual ways of being? I think of the gate as the control point bordering my safe haven - the threshold where I let others in and that I can cross to head out on adventure. How to get there? Well, first it seems, I have to get to the end of something - a self-enclosing protective way of being perhaps? I need to get to the threshold, the point of transition.

Getting to the gate is relatively simple; going through it can be hard. Yes, it’s the door to adventure, but there’s a whole world on the other side and a lot we don’t know. Out there we’re vulnerable.

Who will we encounter? What will befall us? What will be asked of us, and given?

I’m reminded of a scene early in ‘The Lord of the Rings’, Sam is walking through the fields of his beloved Shire with Frodo and suddenly he stops.

Sam - This is it.

Frodo - This is what?

Sam - If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been.

Frodo - Come on, Sam. Remember what Bilbo used to say: 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.'

It’s a risk going through that gate; and a necessity if ever we are to get there…

To head straight out towards the horizon is to journey unerringly away from where you are in the direction of the most distant point in sight. It sounds straightforward, although of course the horizon is a line (not a point), which means there are many possible directions to head.

The more I pondered this the more puzzled I became. The two clearest things this line suggests to me are that the journey to get there is long, and that it will take us to the edge of what we can currently see.

‘...Keep going towards the horizon...'

Because the horizon keeps extending away as we move towards it, it’s tempting to think we’re not getting anywhere and that we can or will only go so far. But on this journey it seems, we don’t get to decide where the destination is or how far we’ll go, the choice we have is to keep going as we are drawn ever farther onwards. ‘Where life [the journey?] is the task’, Kierkegaard wrote, ‘for you to be finished with life before life has finished with you is precisely not to have finished the task’.

‘...Sit down and have a rest every now and again…'

This is so typical of Leunig and I love it. Yes, persistence is required, we need to keep at it, but it’s not a ruthless and driven form of journeying that will get us there. We’re not machines, we need to rest from time to time, to recuperate and take stock, to remember what’s important and where we’ve come from, to contemplate the places we find ourselves in and to savour the simple supplies we may have with us – to make a feast of the moment.On this journey, paradoxically, times of sitting and stillness are as important as movement.

So what is it that prevents us from resting? Is it guilt or shame or anxiety, the fear of inadequacy or of being left behind? Is it pride - an overblown sense of our own importance? Pondering this, I was reminded of an interchange between Leunig’s wise and humble sage, Mr Curly and his friend Vasco Pyjama. Vasco writes to Mr Curly asking: What is worth doing and what is worth having? And Mt Curly replies:

Dear Vasco,In response to your question ‘what is worth doing and what is worth having?’ I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you must rest Vasco – otherwise you will become RESTLESS!I believe the world is sick with exhaustion and dying of restlessness. While it is true that periods of weariness help the Spirit to grow, the prolonged, ongoing state of fatigue to which the world seems to be rapidly adapting is ultimately soul destroying as well as earth destroying. The ecology of evil flourishes and love cannot take root in this sad situation.Tiredness is one of our strongest, most noble and instructive feelings. It is an important aspect of our CONSCIENCE and must be heeded or else we will not survive. When you are tired you must HAVE that feeling and you must act upon it sensibly – you MUST rest like the trees and animals do.

Yet tiredness has become a matter of shame! This is a dangerous development. Tiredness has become the most suppressed feeling in the world. Everywhere we see people overcoming their exhaustion and pushing on with intensity – cultivating the great mass mania which all round is making life so hard and so ugly – so cruel and meaningless – so utterly graceless – and being congratulated for overcoming it and pushing it deep down inside themselves as if it were a virtue to do this. And of course Vasco, you know what happens when such strong and natural feelings are denied – they turn into the most powerful and bitter poisons with dreadful consequences. We live in a world of these consequences and then wonder why we are so unhappy.

So I gently urge you Vasco, do as we do in Curly Flat – learn to curl up and rest – feel your noble tiredness – learn about it and make a generous place for it in your life and enjoyment will surely follow. I repeat: it’s worth doing nothing and having a rest.

Yours sleepily, 

Mr. Curly XX  

               from The Curly Pyjama Letters by Michael Leuning (2001) Viking

'...But keep on going...'

Resting is a necessary and noble practice if we are going to get there; the encouragement to sit down (pause) and rest is central in this poem (the middle line). But resting doesn’t mean stopping permanently. A rest only makes sense if there’s something we’re resting from; in this poem it’s ‘going’. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water; after resting: keep on going.

‘…Just keep on with it.'

Some days are easier than others. When the wind is howling and the raining is falling or the sun is scorching (literally or metaphorically), when the terrain is difficult and and progress is slow it can mess with your head, you can start to question the point of it all. Leunig surely knows this experience.

Perseverance is important on days like this … just keep on with it. Given the earlier injunction to rest, I don’t imagine he means just trudging on with resignation or in heroic defiance (both of which make it all about us) but rather pressing on with quiet courage and fidelity.

‘…Keep on going…’

All up, the word ‘keep’ is repeated four times in this little poem. It's an interesting word. It comes from the old English and has the sense of ‘to seek after, desire’ and also ‘to observe or carry out in practice; look out for, regard, pay attention to, to continue or persist’. This range of meaning adds richness to Leunig’s fourfold encouragement.

For example, the sense of ‘look out for’ suggests to me that the encouragement to ‘keep on going’ is about continuing mindfully. Laurence Freeman (the Benedictine teacher of Christian meditation) talks about the difference between ‘mechanical’ and ‘faithful’ repetition. Faithful repetition requires us to give ourselves to the task - to be present (to show up), whereas mechanical repetition is more just going through the motions. Mechanical repetition is not in “keeping” with the tenor of this poem, it won't get us there ‘cause WE're not in it, not actually on the way!!

How often in life (at work, in relationships…) do I go 'missing in action'?

‘…As far as you can.’

Not all the way or as far as someone else might be able to go,

not as far as someone (or you) thinks you SHOULD be able to go... as far as you can.

This little phrase reminds us that there are limits and that these need discerning. Sometimes we can go further than we think and sometimes we need to acknowledge that for whatever reason this is a far as we can go today, and that it's time for one of those little rests.

Beware of being too attached to (identified with) judgments of success or achievement (positive or negative). How far do you go? As far as you can.

‘...That’s how you get there.’ 

That’s HOW we get there except that we don’t! The final line of this poem is a delicious paradox – it speaks of arrival and leaves us still journeying. And maybe that’s as it needs to be.

If you’re cramped in a plane on a long haul flight then arrival can be a great relief. But do we ever ‘arrive’ when it comes to love or reconciliation or raising a child ? The really important journeys are lifelong and on these, poet David Whyte suggests, ‘you [are] more marvellous in your simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach’.

Writer Roger Housden claims (perhaps paraphrasing Robert Bly) that ‘poetry is a form of energy’. This little poem energises me to keep going, and I hope sharing it and these reflections energises you too.

 Buen camino!