Dad just sent this to me. His comment was, “Somebody must’ve read ‘The Trust Walk.’” It made me nervous as I started to read, trusting, yet not knowing where the story was headed. Here’s the story:
Cherokee Legend
Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of Passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him an leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN. He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.
The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him . Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man! Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.
It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.
If you know the story of “The Trust Walk,” you’ll know it was based on a true experience with my dad when I was a little girl, in which he took me to the edge of the forest, and let me walk into it all by myself, as far as I could. I had to trust he wouldn’t leave me, and trust that I would be safe. As I walked, it grew darker and darker. I called out to him, and he reassured me that he was still there. When I finally got so scared of the ‘what-if’ monsters, I screamed very loudly, but Dad’s reassuring words, “Don’t worry, honey - I’m still right here” calmed me. It’s no different now that I’m grown. I still get scared, but I just need to think of Dad and his words, and I know it’s all right.
Whether someone read TW and wrote this ‘legend,’ or whether we’re all just connected to that same place of inspiration, I’m not sure, and I don’t really care. They’re both powerful stories. I’m not especially fond of the blindfold aspect of the Cherokee legend, but I understand it, and in some ways that symbolism is even more apropos in our times. We FEEL blindfolded in our lives, unable to see anything that’s in front of us or around us. That not-knowing can paralyze us into inaction. But when we get to the point in our lives when we feel the ‘sun’ or Spirit gently shining on us, we feel confident that we can remove our ‘blindfold’ and see what’s really going on. We come to understand that our Father has never really left us at all. He was right there next to us, guarding and protecting us, keeping us from harm. Even if WE believe we can get into trouble, we come to realize that we are never alone. Father is always with us (whatever the concept of Father means to you - I don’t believe that God’s an old guy with a white beard). I love my dad, and I love that he took the time to send that story to me. I know that writing and publishing “The Trust Walk” meant a lot to him, to know that his actions made an impact on my life in such a profound way.
It’s tough sometimes. It really is. We get tired, discouraged, frustrated, scared, bored, paralyzed. But if we remember that we just need to keep taking off our self-imposed blindfolds, we might be able to keep SEEING the world as it really is, and not just as we’re afraid it is. Who’s sitting next to you on that stump? Just remember - you’re never alone.