The world fractured a little when Bowie left the mortal coil. My grandmother used to tell me I wasn't 'bad' I just had the unique ability to step over the boundary of decency without remorse sometimes. And that people like me were necessary to bridge the gap between the worlds. I didn't understand that at all until I got older and started doing end-of-life care. Frankly friend, the fog never clears for most of us. It's just a place we reside until it's time to step one way or the other.
Wendy, that’s a holy inheritance. Your grandmother saw the trickster in you, and she wasn’t wrong. Some of us aren’t here to keep the rules tidy, but to walk the fault lines and hold the torch in the fog.
I agree, the fog doesn’t clear. It becomes the landscape. What matters is learning to breathe there, to notice the souls at the threshold, and to know that crossing is less about clarity and more about courage.
Funny you should say that...I am undertaking the most difficult walk home with my best friend of 35 years now. We don't have long. I can control every physical aspect - he pain, the general vibe of her atmosphere, her oxygen levels...but I have no reign over the fear and it pisses me off really bad. I want hand to hand combat with it, but it's not mine...I just have to bob and weave with her through it. It's very aggravating for a mean old broad like me. You don't know how often your pieces calm that hateful old thing. I found you because I needed you. And you're funny as hell.
Wendy, that’s the truest fight. You can manage the wires, the meds, the air itself, but not the terror sitting in her chest. That’s hers. I can only imagine how infuriating it is to stand guard and not be able to wrestle it down.
But bobbing and weaving with her through fear is the most ferocious love there is. Not conquest. Companionship. You’re already doing hand to hand combat, just not the way you imagined.
Blessed be the ones who cuss at fear and sit in its shadow anyway. They are the fiercest saints we have.
This certainly captures the beginning (27 years ago) and never-ending middle of my own spiritual journey and is the best synopsis of the path I have ever read. I love the analogy of the fog and the spiral. If I start quoting my favorite lines I'd simply be cutting and pasting the entire article. As always, thank you for your clarity, honesty, and humor.
So lovely. I think I am getting more and more comfortable with not only spiraling but also with not knowing. It was/is not easy letting go of straight lines but one worth the effort. Bless you and thank you.
I love my spiritual fog, it feels exciting not knowing where things are, where the ordinary is transformed into the unknown, where things appear and disappear without notice. Certainty is, and always has been, an illusion.
Steve, that’s it. Fog isn’t failure, it’s initiation. The mind panics when the map dissolves, but the soul finally has room to breathe. Certainty is the ego’s security blanket. Mystery is God’s actual language.
🙏 There’s a line from a Ricky Skaggs song that says something like “I wasted my youth in search of truth”. And that’s exactly how it feels sometimes. Wasted time.
My traveling companion changes the “I“ to “we” because we’ve done this journey together. But our soul work has been alone - alone together.
No human is the same. We are like snowflakes. The same substance but unique designs. We share the struggle but our “issues” are our own. We’ve wandered in this “fog” off and on for 50 years together (in spirit. There were several years of separation. Shit happens.) My journey has lasted 68 years, his 70.
There have been many long years in “fog”. There have been times when we broke through into the sun but those times were not a period at the end of a sentence, only a comma.
We’ve accepted that the destination IS the journey. We’ve learned to live with “chronic pain” and stopped trying to escape it. To embrace Love is to open one’s heart to unspeakable pain. But we wouldn’t live any other way.
The alternatives we’ve admittedly tasted at times are not for us. They bring no lasting peace, no joy. We’ve found those desires in the “fog” ironically.
Prayer is no longer rote words, it’s simply breathing in Presence. Learning to critically think, to let go of suggestions that there is a difference between sacred and secular, to come to terms with knowing what we long for is not a point of black and white concrete where we can finally set up camp and settle but instead an eternal both/and - takes time and willingness to suffer.
The journey involves both sleepless nights and refreshing rest, both indescribable joy and unspeakable grief. Our experiences have not been the same but we’ve gained volumes of wisdom as we’ve shared what we’ve learned.
We are old and weary now but in quiet moments with hot drinks in hand and only the music of songbirds and squawking crows, trees glimmering in the breeze and the scent of water from a nearby creek to accompany our blessed savoring of the moment reminiscing, we agree that we wouldn’t have what we’ve experienced any other way. Our journey has grown us, shaped us, honed us and we both like who we are, together and alone, as well as who we are still becoming.
When Spirit draws others into our circle of influence for encouragement, they rarely stay with us because we can’t tell them what they want to hear. They don’t like it when we try to tell them the destination IS the journey. They don’t like to hear that though you have seasons in the sun the rainy seasons will eventually return IF you continue to seek what your heart hungers for.
I love an old Celtic name for God, the Three-of-My-Love. They have been our constant companions. Even when it doesn’t feel like it at times, They are ALWAYS with us. They ARE the journey. 🙏♥️♥️♥️🙏
Today promises to be another warm sunny day with periods of cloud cover. BOTH/AND. And as God said at the very beginning of creation “it is good”. It’s ALL good believe it or not. 😌🙏
I hate these liminal periods. Sigh. I moved north, away from the home/house I shared with my now deceased husband to retake the calling and career I had set aside when we moved there. I had/have a plan to get moved in, to get connected with a spiritual and denominational community, to get organized with a seminary degree.
Instead I have broken an ankle while mowing the grass. I am temporarily limited to my home. I cannot even walk the dog let alone drive a car.
So I wake up in the night replaying my bad behavior in my earlier life and I think, "Why am I thinking of that?" I am listing my regrets to the dog and cat. They say, "give us pets now, instead." And I try to unpack boxes, a few minutes at a time because I can't be on my feet for extended periods.
I hate these liminal times but by now, you would think I would know how to relate to them as there have been so many.
Janee, the ankle isn’t punishment. It’s initiation. You’ve been forced into the monastery of your own living room, with a dog for your confessor and a cat for your abbot.
The regrets that circle at 3am aren’t there to torment you. They’re smoke rising off old wood finally catching fire. Limbo is where the alchemy starts, the breaking down before the becoming.
You already know how to walk these thresholds. The body just made sure you couldn’t run past this one.
This post resonated with me; for my journey has been a rather foggy spiral movement. Having travelled through several religious and monastic traditions, I have no remorse for any of my decisions. You make very valuable and pertinent points here and I hope it benefits those who feel stuck in the fog of confusion. 🙏♥️
Universal Monk, spirals are holy geometry. Every loop looked like confusion until you realized you weren’t circling—you were deepening. No remorse needed. Every tradition was a rung, every fog-bank a veil thinning.
This hit. I am most certainly in the fog. My world has crumbled and completely fallen apart. I am in the fog. The only thing I am left with is my moral compass and I will follow it, as it always brings me back to love and the light. It feels HORRIBLE, but this is where I get back in touch with myself and my values. I’m oddly grateful to be in the fog? As devastating as it is right now. Thank you for this article, once again it provides a sense of comfort for what I must go through. Sending you much love, and eternal gratitude. 😊
What to Remember in the Mist makes a to-do list so primitive & is a lifesaver for my powerful forgetter
The Conclusion: The Good News for the lost (me) lights the spark - even if I can’t see it, I can feel it. If it disappears, I will just wait for it to reappear. Because I know it will.
Beth Ann, that “powerful forgetter” of yours might be holier than you think. The saints called it kenosis. Emptying. Letting even memory go slack so the spark can sneak back in without being manhandled.
You’re right. The spark always reappears. Not because we chased it down but because it was never really gone. It just needed us to stop clutching.
I have clutched my whole life. losing so much so quickly without knowing whether I’ll get it back was exhausting. Too exhausting to have the energy to clutch anymore. Blessing in disguise. Trust and let go. ❣️
Wow! This article really impacted me hugely. I totally resonate with the fog analogy and the confusion and waiting. This is just what I needed. Thank you.
Appreciated these words this morning - I’ve been feeling a great longing lately, which is a kind of fog I think…. Fog can have its own kind of beauty I realise.
Thanks for this, friend. It lands hard. Been a while since I was in that fog, but I remember it well - who am I? why am I here? where is 'here' anyway? And I thought God was supposed to be around here somewhere....! Yes, it was sacred time, and it brought me someplace pretty wonderful, after a while.
The world fractured a little when Bowie left the mortal coil. My grandmother used to tell me I wasn't 'bad' I just had the unique ability to step over the boundary of decency without remorse sometimes. And that people like me were necessary to bridge the gap between the worlds. I didn't understand that at all until I got older and started doing end-of-life care. Frankly friend, the fog never clears for most of us. It's just a place we reside until it's time to step one way or the other.
Wendy, that’s a holy inheritance. Your grandmother saw the trickster in you, and she wasn’t wrong. Some of us aren’t here to keep the rules tidy, but to walk the fault lines and hold the torch in the fog.
I agree, the fog doesn’t clear. It becomes the landscape. What matters is learning to breathe there, to notice the souls at the threshold, and to know that crossing is less about clarity and more about courage.
Funny you should say that...I am undertaking the most difficult walk home with my best friend of 35 years now. We don't have long. I can control every physical aspect - he pain, the general vibe of her atmosphere, her oxygen levels...but I have no reign over the fear and it pisses me off really bad. I want hand to hand combat with it, but it's not mine...I just have to bob and weave with her through it. It's very aggravating for a mean old broad like me. You don't know how often your pieces calm that hateful old thing. I found you because I needed you. And you're funny as hell.
Wendy, that’s the truest fight. You can manage the wires, the meds, the air itself, but not the terror sitting in her chest. That’s hers. I can only imagine how infuriating it is to stand guard and not be able to wrestle it down.
But bobbing and weaving with her through fear is the most ferocious love there is. Not conquest. Companionship. You’re already doing hand to hand combat, just not the way you imagined.
Blessed be the ones who cuss at fear and sit in its shadow anyway. They are the fiercest saints we have.
Well I thought I couldn’t love you any more but I do so I’m compelled to go find something to make fun of. Thank you, again.
This certainly captures the beginning (27 years ago) and never-ending middle of my own spiritual journey and is the best synopsis of the path I have ever read. I love the analogy of the fog and the spiral. If I start quoting my favorite lines I'd simply be cutting and pasting the entire article. As always, thank you for your clarity, honesty, and humor.
Theresa, I’m grateful it spoke to your own long road. The fog and the spiral are old companions for all of us who refuse the straight lines.
Blessed be the ones still circling after decades, who know the middle is where the gold is.
So lovely. I think I am getting more and more comfortable with not only spiraling but also with not knowing. It was/is not easy letting go of straight lines but one worth the effort. Bless you and thank you.
I love my spiritual fog, it feels exciting not knowing where things are, where the ordinary is transformed into the unknown, where things appear and disappear without notice. Certainty is, and always has been, an illusion.
Steve, that’s it. Fog isn’t failure, it’s initiation. The mind panics when the map dissolves, but the soul finally has room to breathe. Certainty is the ego’s security blanket. Mystery is God’s actual language.
🙏 There’s a line from a Ricky Skaggs song that says something like “I wasted my youth in search of truth”. And that’s exactly how it feels sometimes. Wasted time.
My traveling companion changes the “I“ to “we” because we’ve done this journey together. But our soul work has been alone - alone together.
No human is the same. We are like snowflakes. The same substance but unique designs. We share the struggle but our “issues” are our own. We’ve wandered in this “fog” off and on for 50 years together (in spirit. There were several years of separation. Shit happens.) My journey has lasted 68 years, his 70.
There have been many long years in “fog”. There have been times when we broke through into the sun but those times were not a period at the end of a sentence, only a comma.
We’ve accepted that the destination IS the journey. We’ve learned to live with “chronic pain” and stopped trying to escape it. To embrace Love is to open one’s heart to unspeakable pain. But we wouldn’t live any other way.
The alternatives we’ve admittedly tasted at times are not for us. They bring no lasting peace, no joy. We’ve found those desires in the “fog” ironically.
Prayer is no longer rote words, it’s simply breathing in Presence. Learning to critically think, to let go of suggestions that there is a difference between sacred and secular, to come to terms with knowing what we long for is not a point of black and white concrete where we can finally set up camp and settle but instead an eternal both/and - takes time and willingness to suffer.
The journey involves both sleepless nights and refreshing rest, both indescribable joy and unspeakable grief. Our experiences have not been the same but we’ve gained volumes of wisdom as we’ve shared what we’ve learned.
We are old and weary now but in quiet moments with hot drinks in hand and only the music of songbirds and squawking crows, trees glimmering in the breeze and the scent of water from a nearby creek to accompany our blessed savoring of the moment reminiscing, we agree that we wouldn’t have what we’ve experienced any other way. Our journey has grown us, shaped us, honed us and we both like who we are, together and alone, as well as who we are still becoming.
When Spirit draws others into our circle of influence for encouragement, they rarely stay with us because we can’t tell them what they want to hear. They don’t like it when we try to tell them the destination IS the journey. They don’t like to hear that though you have seasons in the sun the rainy seasons will eventually return IF you continue to seek what your heart hungers for.
I love an old Celtic name for God, the Three-of-My-Love. They have been our constant companions. Even when it doesn’t feel like it at times, They are ALWAYS with us. They ARE the journey. 🙏♥️♥️♥️🙏
Today promises to be another warm sunny day with periods of cloud cover. BOTH/AND. And as God said at the very beginning of creation “it is good”. It’s ALL good believe it or not. 😌🙏
You’ve named the scandal of grace—the destination is the journey. Both the crows and the songbirds belong at the table.
Thank you for the reassuring, reaffirming post. I’ve fallen so short of my own expectations. Plain as day, for all to see.
Shirley, the falling short you see as failure is often just the raw material of grace. Expectations crack. That’s how light gets through.
Blessed be the ones who stumble in public and still keep walking. They show us the way.
Glorious! Your writing has such depth.
I hate these liminal periods. Sigh. I moved north, away from the home/house I shared with my now deceased husband to retake the calling and career I had set aside when we moved there. I had/have a plan to get moved in, to get connected with a spiritual and denominational community, to get organized with a seminary degree.
Instead I have broken an ankle while mowing the grass. I am temporarily limited to my home. I cannot even walk the dog let alone drive a car.
So I wake up in the night replaying my bad behavior in my earlier life and I think, "Why am I thinking of that?" I am listing my regrets to the dog and cat. They say, "give us pets now, instead." And I try to unpack boxes, a few minutes at a time because I can't be on my feet for extended periods.
I hate these liminal times but by now, you would think I would know how to relate to them as there have been so many.
Janee, the ankle isn’t punishment. It’s initiation. You’ve been forced into the monastery of your own living room, with a dog for your confessor and a cat for your abbot.
The regrets that circle at 3am aren’t there to torment you. They’re smoke rising off old wood finally catching fire. Limbo is where the alchemy starts, the breaking down before the becoming.
You already know how to walk these thresholds. The body just made sure you couldn’t run past this one.
This post resonated with me; for my journey has been a rather foggy spiral movement. Having travelled through several religious and monastic traditions, I have no remorse for any of my decisions. You make very valuable and pertinent points here and I hope it benefits those who feel stuck in the fog of confusion. 🙏♥️
Universal Monk, spirals are holy geometry. Every loop looked like confusion until you realized you weren’t circling—you were deepening. No remorse needed. Every tradition was a rung, every fog-bank a veil thinning.
Oh how this resonated with me! Thank you for offering me hope. It’s been a long journey in fog.
KB, the long walk through fog is its own pilgrimage.
This hit. I am most certainly in the fog. My world has crumbled and completely fallen apart. I am in the fog. The only thing I am left with is my moral compass and I will follow it, as it always brings me back to love and the light. It feels HORRIBLE, but this is where I get back in touch with myself and my values. I’m oddly grateful to be in the fog? As devastating as it is right now. Thank you for this article, once again it provides a sense of comfort for what I must go through. Sending you much love, and eternal gratitude. 😊
Jennifer, gratitude in the middle of devastation is already resurrection. Blessed be the ones who can say “thank you” with tears still on their face.
This post felt like a love letter. My heart skipped more than once for the recognition of how I feel and where I'm spending my time. The fog.
An insightful and consoling clarity into the in-between, revealing presence and fermentation.
I like: “The fog is not exile from God. It is God’s workshop.”
Yes, the path is woven within the fog itself. Thank you for a fine read... 🙏🙏
What to Remember in the Mist makes a to-do list so primitive & is a lifesaver for my powerful forgetter
The Conclusion: The Good News for the lost (me) lights the spark - even if I can’t see it, I can feel it. If it disappears, I will just wait for it to reappear. Because I know it will.
More thanx than the law allows….
Beth Ann, that “powerful forgetter” of yours might be holier than you think. The saints called it kenosis. Emptying. Letting even memory go slack so the spark can sneak back in without being manhandled.
You’re right. The spark always reappears. Not because we chased it down but because it was never really gone. It just needed us to stop clutching.
I have clutched my whole life. losing so much so quickly without knowing whether I’ll get it back was exhausting. Too exhausting to have the energy to clutch anymore. Blessing in disguise. Trust and let go. ❣️
Wow! This article really impacted me hugely. I totally resonate with the fog analogy and the confusion and waiting. This is just what I needed. Thank you.
Nils, the fog isn’t a detour. It’s initiation. The waiting and confusion are what soften the old armor so presence can seep in.
Appreciated these words this morning - I’ve been feeling a great longing lately, which is a kind of fog I think…. Fog can have its own kind of beauty I realise.
Thanks for this, friend. It lands hard. Been a while since I was in that fog, but I remember it well - who am I? why am I here? where is 'here' anyway? And I thought God was supposed to be around here somewhere....! Yes, it was sacred time, and it brought me someplace pretty wonderful, after a while.