Warrior of the Light

The Warrior knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment, and sometimes, with just a touch of madness.

It’s funny. I always used to cling to the idea that you should not forget the past. Past wrongs, past mistakes, past situations. I believed fervently that to forget the past was to forget where you came from, and to forget what you were capable of.

This latter part was of particular importance to me, as I was trying to improve myself and my life. I therefore decided that the only way to improve was to continuously flagellate myself with my past mistakes, to continuously relive them and punish myself for them, in the hope that I would never commit the same crime again.

Of course, I did. Numerous times. Because I didn’t know why I was committing the crimes in the first place. You cannot cure the response; it is not the response that is the issue. It is what is behind the response, the reason behind the decision making process that leads to you repeating the actions that do no good.

So, eventually we realised that hanging onto the past is not such a good idea. But, I found a book today (actually this is about the third time I’ve found it) that played a critically significant role in my discovery of a healing path. Without this book, that just happened to be tucked at the back of an old bookshelf in a dilapidated house in the middle of the South American mountains, and I just happened to find it, I genuinely believe I would not have taken my first steps down the road to recovery and release from my personal hell.

I know why I have shunned reading it again. It is from a time in my life that I don’t wish to return to, but, running away never solved anything. Even now I am eyeing the little scraps of paper that I tucked into the pages all those years ago to mark certain passages, with an amount of trepidation. And I’ve already read them once, for goodness sake. But this is an important and positive part of my past, and one that I am a little ashamed to have forgotten for so long. It introduced me to my guardian angel, without whom, I would never have come as far as I have. Secretly I think that she placed the book there for me to find, but she has yet to admit to any role in the sequence of events that led to my epiphany all those years ago.

The intention of this post was to share some of the quotes, where those little scraps of paper lie, which had the greatest impact on my life and helped me start my journey of change.

But.

As I read the quotes, I realised that, I had no comprehension as to why some of them had been so important to me. I am not the person who found this book. Maybe I am not even close to the person who found this book. What had turned my life around then, I cannot understand now.

Well, if you needed proof of impermanence then there you have it! I feel liberated, a little proud, but also a little sad. It does feel like I have lost something. For all my supposed learning and talking the talk, I still hold onto the idea of a fixed self, something that makes me me. And I thought that person, on that Andean mountain, still existed in part. Hell if she didn’t, wouldn’t I have everything sorted by now?

But of course, it doesn’t work like that. Life continues, bringing new challenges, new ideas, new things to scream over and new things to wonder at. It is forever in motion. My personal level of crazy changes and evolves along with everything else, despite my continued and frankly ridiculous determination, to allow my past to dictate my present responses.

Still, I am even less sure now of why I really do this still. Maybe, it is just habit....

So, dear readers, I share with you instead a small selection of quotes from Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho, which rang true to the paganhorsegirl as she exists at 15:54 on the 24^th May 2010. I try to live my life with the empathy and authenticity that these quotes promote, and, despite all the change that lies ahead, hopefully these ideals will continue to stick in some form or another.

No one knows the consequences of his own cruelty

The cup of suffering is not the same size for everyone

A Warrior does not try to appear one way or another.

And finally:

You can recognise a Warrior of the Light by the look in his eye. Warriors of the Light are in the world, they form part of the world, and they were sent into the world without saddlebags or sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always act correctly. Warriors of the Light are wounded by the most foolish things, they worry about trivialities, they believe themselves incapable of growing. Warriors of the Light sometimes believe themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle. Warriors of the Light often ask themselves what they are doing here. Often they find their lives meaningless.

That is why they are Warriors of the Light. Because they fail. Because they ask questions. Because they keep looking for a meaning. And in the end, they will find it.

This last passage I dedicate to Thermetics, a true Warrior of the Light, who fights the Good Fight with admirable humility, sensitivity, and a cracking sense of humour.