In my garden this year the weeds are plentiful. Especially one kind of weed that is very satisfying to find and pull out. It is wide and can spread out its lush and large tendrils for several feet in all directions but at its base is a small ball and if you are lucky and pull it out just right you get the very deep central small single minuscule little root. I am always amazed that such a small yet tenacious root can give rise to such a prolific plant. Buckets of this weed come out of my garden and into the compost. A Taproot, as it is called, turns out is the first root to appear from the seed and remains the central root of the plant.
I love this as a metaphor.
While we may, in our lives, spread out in many directions with flashy, fleshy greenery we have one central root to our lives and it has always been true. In the Pathwork this is called our Soul Task. The promise is that finding this task and staying true to it is the secret to a satisfying life. Recently, my husband Tom found a letter that I wrote him in 1988. We had been married for 7 years and I was about to turn 35. In the letter I say that I feel like I have checked important boxes in my life: kids, self employment and married for life. While all this is great I go on in the letter to answer a question Tom has asked me the week before. He asked, “Do you think we will ever make the Big Time.” He is referring our fledgling technology business at the time. Reading it all these years later, I am pretty astonished at my answer . I write, “I think we will — but on a different track than what we are on now. I think the contribution we can really make is to share with others who we are and how we are and that is our most marketable product!” I go on to say that I am clear I can only keep going in this business for two more years….
