August 2004 Newsletter
Online Issue # 7
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The Front Page
Being Both Finder and Found
"Believing there is an exquisite pattern that I am part of,
that keeps finding me, that I keep glimpsing....
Opening to being both finder and found,
and not worrying which is which."
-Laurie Mattila, March 2004
(from my notebook)
The lines above surfaced in one of my own writing experiments earlier this year, but then disappeared among the pages accumulating in my notebooks. On a recent long weekend I had time to go on a hunt, searching for the place I had used the phrase "finder and found" that was now circling in my thoughts. I felt pulled to see for myself and read again my own earlier knowing.
In some areas of life I have the delicious experience of easily being both the finder and the found; books are one example. I can go on a vague or specific quest for just the right good book feeling confident that I'll find one, probably more. I am just as easily found by books that appear in my life, usually mentioned by at least three people in a short period of time. Books also find me when they call to me from the shelves in bookstores or at home. It seems that when I am ready, the book appears. It's like the familiar saying, "When the student is ready the teacher appears." For books and for teachers, I believe; and for clients and students, engaging ideas and office space, used station wagons and vacation rentals.
But in other areas I am a struggling seeker who sometimes worries about never being found. Right now, I'm holding my vision of a small, pristine piece of land in some northern place that is trying to find me just as I try to find it. I've written an affirmation that captures my heart's intent. "Our land longs for us, calls for us, just as we long and call for it. We find each other magically." I currently tend the financial details that can make it possible. I share my vision with others who offer encouragement. I placed an ad looking for "Land Wanted to Buy" and will run it again. I check internet real estate listings and print ads. Now I need to talk more with people who know land and can help.
I tell myself I've begun the search, and I truly have; but because it's early in the process and I don't know how and when, and because I can't yet believe some of the details, I grapple with unknowns and with myself. I too easily lean toward worry. Will we ever find it? Will it ever find us?
In my work I am called to honor mysterious forces of attraction, powerful shapers of the soul's imagination and our lives. I feel privileged to glimpse this work in process, playing itself out like some uncharted and unchartable dance of attraction between a person and their longing. At first it resembles hesitant, self-conscious here-then-there movements, later a more deliberate rehearsal of actual patterns repeating and evolving, eventually a leaping-spinning balanced outpouring of life's purest energies. This is joy, a miracle finally coming into focus, where the finder that was seeking is now found. And no one worries which is which.
As often happens, the very help I need finds me through my helping others. As I listen to stories of longing and searching for good work, companionship, opportunity, place, meaning, purpose, acceptance—I begin to hear the next chapters in my own story more clearly. As I work with individuals and groups who dare to voice their dreams, I dare to voice new dreams of my own. In affirming the worthiness of possibilities begging to be explored, I grow more skilled at voicing, pursuing and believing my own. In my role as witness and guide, I too am guided. This is always a lifelong process, mastered only by beginners willing to begin and to begin again.
With gratitude,
Laurie
NOTE: You can use this link to find the Listening-Writing Experiment mentioned at the beginning of this article.
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