My first steps across this bridge were marked by the unexpected, volcanic eruption of our septic system. Chunks of drywall that obstructed the pipes four years ago still persisted as sediment, quietly coalescing into rock hard pipe-blocking-snowballs over the years. Nothing had been moving in that neck of the woods for some time. Apparently this crossing required that past issues be cleared immediately.

     I wrote about the bridge a few weeks ago  when I  first dreamt of it. I didn’t know then its name was Trust, that came to me at 2 am, as I was gazing into our fosterlings eyes during a feeding. My life, this next phase, relies upon trust in my own spirit. Trust had become tangible to me in the wee hours of the morning, like a loosely tied balloon around my wrist, so easily untethered but hard to miss as it floated away. I needed to retrieve trust to make this crossing.

I had to jump back five feet when I uncorked the first septic trap to escape the high pressure geiser.

“Yes I can do this. It is possible to fix your own septic system. You just have to feel {bleh} your way through it.”

     I started noticing then how many places trust is missing from my life. One of my most cherished spiritual relationships has suffered from mistrust. Some of my most casual relationships are based in mistrust. Why is trust so elusive sometimes?

     It took a few days to get to the bottom of the septic clogs, just in time for the truck to arrive to pump it dry. A new homesteading merit badge for me: “Fearless in the face of shit.” I was house-hero all week long.

     I’m midway on the bridge, betwixt and between. I feel a cool updraft as the river rushes below. The lessons I find here are all lessons of the heart. Amanda Foulger teaches about the heart and shamanism, through a brief experience with her I came to understand the reality of the heart as a presence that knows no limits. It was there on a journey to the Kingdom of the Heart that my trust was restored.

     Hearts can encompass everything and be encompassed by everything all at once. As trust has been restored I feel my heart and those it holds so clearly. Now when I tell my Mom “I’m holding you in my heart” I can really feel it. We nest within each other, lovers, children, family and friends, building our bonds with twigs and strands of spiders web. Perhaps Trust is simply the absence of fear that clouds the power of our hearts to take their rightful place as an integral part of everything.

     Our foster guest sends out her beautiful shoots weaving me closer to her. She’s ours and she’s not, betwixt and between. There is spaciousness here, dangling between the worlds the presence of love is inescapable.