Hi all! I was inspired to write a short story about a traveler discovering something greater about herself, and coming full circle in life. I’ll be sending out these types of audio stories every once in a while, so I hope you enjoy it!
In a small village where the sun gently shined and warmed the earth beneath it, a young traveler continued her journey down an old, winding path.
Her mind was filled with visions of excitement and adventure; she was untroubled by the unknown that lay before her. Every step she took simply echoed in her head as a call to embrace the possibilities of life.
As she wandered through the village, she passed through a marketplace bustling with people, where laughter mingled with the aroma of spices and leathers. She walked among the marketgoers, enjoying the energy of children playing hide and seek and mothers chasing after them.
She paused on an old sage. His eyes sparkled like the stars and approached her with a parchment in his hands.
The sage gifted her a map—its icons and legend were nearly worn out with use, and criss-crossing lines and marks became a maze of old scratchings—yet it was vibrant with promises of discovery.
With the map in her hands, she knew that this was something different than her usual travels, with a very different destination than the one she’d been headed toward for so many years.
With this map, she knew that this was a start to a journey of self-discovery.
The sage smiled and pointed toward a chariot with ornate decorations, drawn by two strong, majestic horses. The traveler accepted these gifts with much graciousness.
She stepped onto the chariot, and right as she reached for the horse’s ropes, they surged forward, carrying her for hours to the sea, arriving at cliffs overlooking an endless expanse of water. The waves crashed against the rocks below with thunderous noise.
The fierce winds howled around her; she felt uneasy tip-toeing near the edge of the cliff, and backed off, but this didn’t shake her resolve.
The horses stood still among the chaos of sound. The traveler learned to harness the wind’s power, balancing her ambitions with the might of her surroundings.
Relationships she held dear flurried about in her mind: She felt pangs of guilt about the impatience she held with others, and how she always left in such a hurry. The traveler vowed to steer this chariot on a journey of measured intention; she had been channeling her energies with haste for far too long.
As she departed from the cliffs, she slowed the chariot down, and spent two days on the path. The map continued to puzzle her, as it never seemed to fit with the trails before her. But as the day turned into dusk, the chariot brought her to a quiet meadow illuminated by the soft glow of fireflies.
Among the grass, the traveler’s mind lightened with introspection, and she found a cozy nook against an old tree to settle into her thoughts.
The whispers of her heart began to unravel the tangled threads of past relationships—the moments where impulsiveness or lack of patience emerged from the shadows. She felt the small disappointments of siblings, parents, and romances—these connections with others that lit up and dimmed away like the tiny bugs that danced around her.
A small light bloomed within her. At first it was just a flicker, and she couldn’t understand why she felt so warm among the coldness of her past.
But as her heart opened, the light brightened, the traveler discovered small corners, small pockets she’d never seen before—there were icicles in these pockets, shining against the light of her heart. She smiled into these pockets of darkness, and soon the icicles trickled into pools that reflected her smile as warmth enveloped every corner of her being.
As she recognized the value of these silent lessons that stemmed from an opening heart, the elusive qualities of vulnerability and understanding revealed themselves before her.
With clarity in her heart and a renewed sense of direction, the traveler realized that she didn’t need a map and chariot right now. She needed a place to find herself at home.
For days afterward, the traveler walked with the horses back to the cliffs.
She arrived by the morning, and the winds had died down. All the traveler could hear were the sloshes of water against the rocks far below. Feeling more secure in footing, she looked down the length of the cliffs, and discovered there were steps carved out of the rocks, leading to a cave.
When she entered the cave, she found the sage, smiling as he did before. His hands were outstretched, as if waiting to receive something. The traveler handed back the map. Right as she placed it in his hands, the map turned to dust. The sage told her to leave the horses back at the marketplace. She headed back.
The traveler arrived at the village after three days of walking beside the horses. While it had only been a week since she visited, it felt like a century.
It was after dusk, and the marketplace was dying down, but she noticed there was something different about the village. The entrance to each home was decorated with a small sculpture of a firefly, with a candle placed in each sculpture so it could illuminate the front porch.
It was odd because her home had the same firefly sculpture. But as she walked by one of the houses, an old friend stepped out of the door and greeted her.
She gasped. He laughed, and the traveler started to laugh as well. She felt so embarrassed—how did she not know she was home all along? But they embraced and the embarrassment flew away. All she needed to know is that she is home.
She moved back among those she loved with a gentle and courageous spirit, ready to share her newfound insights of vulnerability and empathy. Each interaction became less about achieving a victory and more about nurturing the roots of connection.
As her heart opened, her patience opened, and the possibilities of connection opened as well.
The traveler thought about the sage’s map—it was this mess of criss-crossing lines and dashes. When she looked upon a map of her village, she suddenly realized—this was the path of all her friends and family and neighbors, and how they crossed each other every day.
She redrew the map from memory, and now added her own path as it crossed her neighbor, her nephew, her healer, her friend… The path was messy and chaotic, but it also felt like a path back home.
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