Cairn of Rememberance

So Much Forgotten

So Much to Forget

So Much More to Remember

So Much to Learn
So Much to Unlearn
So Much to Relearn

So much we think we know!

The word “remember” has become more and more significant in my life. So much of what we learn is lost too quickly and so we must find ways to remind ourselves what is important and what we learned through the pain and heartbreak of life. Sometimes it is more important to forget or to unlearn also. For me, there are very specific times that are like a paradigm shift, an eye opener, an awakening. But even when it is something that we must learn to forget, that is also something important to remember. I have a mantra that carries some of this learning: “Much of life is remembering what we already know.”

We are a very forgetful people globally and historically; beginning individually. I’ve been noticing that this is not a modern or a local phenomenon. It goes back to the very First People in each continent where we have discovered and recovered rituals and practices to remind us to remember and the importance of remembering.

For me, since I first began blogging in 2006, my first image was the Open Hand and the significance of that. So most of my posts are reminders of ways of Living with Open Hands as an expression of an Open Mind, an Open Heart, and an Open Will. To take this symbology a step further, I began to visualize each blog post as a cairn of remembrance, my pile of rocks, a monument to which I would return so that I could remember. I describe this further at the end of this post. But first, I’m interested in exploring how humankind has been using these monuments or cairns in a way that reminds and guides them along the way. As I kept blogging, I was reminded of the biblical story of the Israelites in the wilderness, a feeling I could relate to as I entered my Dark Night of the Soul in 2008. The way I understood the story is that they were on a journey to the promised land. But it seems that they kept getting lost along the way. Or, if not lost, they would get distracted and go their own way. Sometimes, I wondered if they even knew what their destination was, so they continued to wander,

wondering as they go. Often I refer to myself as a wondering wanderer and a wandering wonderer. As I describe below, these cairn posts are for me to remember the lessons I learned at that time and place. Often it was not an answer but rather a more clearly expressed question that was significant to me at that time and place. Something I must remember. And so, I found myself going back to these cairns of remembrance and rereading them so I would not forget.