Signposts

I am looking for signposts. I have come to a point in a question where I am graciously requesting answers, from within. I am asking them to come forth, because I do understand that for all the questions that seem to emerge from events external to me and my control, there is an internal clarity, a yes or a no. Resounding, crystalline.
As much as I am able I am ready to hear the scalding or uplifting truth now. Perhaps it will be both of these things. I have circumnavigated this question, backed off many times in getting closer to the source of it, feeling the heat of this truth too close for comfort. Letting go of attachment is juxtaposed with a sense that I am clinging to something that has no or little substance at this moment. At other times it has seemed to be unquestionable, but I have not had the courage to believe either answer and so have arrived at this place of continued mystery. I am ready to be deeply uncomfortable. I think. As best as I am able. Ready to receive.

I found these flowers living in the clouds. Above treeline, deep in the alpine, in a place of rocky footfalls, cairns, and the cries of ptarmigan. Mine are island mountains, often shrouded in the west coast vapour that rises from the confluence of sea and slope. The cloud flowers started coming up in tenacious clumps near the summit I was climbing last week, after a stretch of stunted heather and ground willow gave way to nothing but rocky outcrops. It was a short time to go on faith, but it told me that some time walking  without cairns, signs, or anything that validates your location in the world is a necessary thing as it forces, or enables you to keep going. You learn to pay attention to different things, things that you may not have noticed or known existed before.

In this silence and place of focus you put one foot in front of the other, shift down into the present moment, and discover the truth that blossoms beneath you.

"Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That is where the light enters you." 

~ Rumi