At the Centre of the Compass

Icarus at the crossroads-2

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”

– Antoine De Saint-Exupery

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

It isn’t easy being Libran.

I think that there may be some things for which we Librans have an instinctive loathing or perhaps fear. One of those would have to be the crossroad. We get to a crossroad and we must  make a decision. We must choose.  This of course throws most Librans into a spin, for making a choice implies committing oneself to a particular course of action and living with the consequences. They may work out well. Or they may not. We may have made the ” right” choice or we may have added up two plus two and given ourselves an answer of five. We will set out, confident we’ve made the best possible choice, only to find out later on that it was not the right one. And then we are faced with either being told we are wrong or, worse still, sitting there in the darkness, telling ourselves we were wrong, that we should have taken an altogether different route, made another,  in hindsight, wiser choice. Perhaps the fear lies not so much in the act of choosing but rather in the consequences of the choice and the possibility of a future self-beat-up.

Crossroads come, of course, in minor versions, where we can probably live with the consequences of either option. We may go to the movies and, after buying our tickets, order an ice cream. We opt for a scoop of Neapolitan teamed up with a scoop of triple spearmint rum and raisin, because at the time it seems like a good idea. An hour or two later our whole body is telling us that there was not the best choice, and that  and that the consequence of that particular flavour combination is making us feel distinctly nauseous. If we make it through the night without throwing up however, we will probably emerge the following morning somewhat rueful but otherwise unscathed. Several glasses of water and the memory fades quickly. We will probably never order this particular flavour combination again, but then again we may do just that. Either way there is little or no impact other than on our waistlines.

Making an unwise choice of clothing store may lead to us feeling foolish, regretting spending the money on something which has served only to deflate rather than inflate our ego. In that sense, if we recognise that the choice we made was based on a perception of self quite at odds with the reality, if we learn that, for example, we do not suit harem pants, or that skintight jeans make us look about as alluring as a freshly-plucked chicken, and thereafter wear a style that works for us rather than lining the pockets of a mass-produced delusion, then the choice was worth making and the harm is minimal.

For those are low-grade crossroads. Those choices can be made in a way  which will impact less upon our future. It is the big crossroads, the ones where we have to choose without really having any real idea of the outcome which truly terrifying SuperLibrans.

There is a film, a favourite of mine, called Crossroads, starring Ralph (Karate Kid) Macchio who plays the part of Eugene,  a young wannabe blues player. After an unhappy experience with the Juilliard School, Eugene goes on the road, determined to become one of the great blues guitarists, and  he seeks out blues legend Willie Brown to help him. However, the film takes its name from a crossroads in the Deep South where, according to legend, the great blues player Robert Johnson (sic, Willie Brown) made a Faustian pact with the Devil. The crossroads is presented as a barren, grainy sepia place with no road signs to speak of. He waits, guitar slung over a shoulder, until eventually the Ancient One arrives to offer him the contract. He has manifested his desires, to Satan turns out to offer him what he think he wants. Of course, like all Faustian pacts, the contract has a sting in the tail, and things are not what they seem. Inevitably, in contracts of this kind, the applicant gets to lose. Be careful what you wish for. So it is with Willie. Bitter experience has taught him much, and it is left to Eugene to save him.

I have often wondered why that film has such an extraordinary attraction for me. It is probably because in many senses it is a 20th century morality play, one which points out allegorically the link between cause and effect, between choice and consequence. Crossroads are, as I said, potentially terrifying things for Librans. Or indeed, for anybody who sees choice as a potential adversary. Librans, for example.

I have come to realise that the vexation lies in the fact that Big Crossroads offer choice without a manual. They don’t have road signs indicating where the choices lead, or the potential destination. There is no clear roadmap to indicate that if I take this road, I can expect x to happen and logically y and z to follow. Many of the crossroads (small crossroads) we meet in our lives have this sequentially alphabetic structure to them. If I study hard for this exam, and pass it, then I will be able to go to university, where I will be able to get a degree, followed by a Ph.D., which will lead me to a very comfortable existence working in a research laboratory in Ulan Bator. This is a crossroads with alphabetically sequential road signs. Whichever option I choose, the results are relatively predictable (leaving out acts of God, terrorist activity or being hit by a transcontinental road train).

The crossroads to which I refer are the ones which have few or no road signs, which are completely devoid of any alphabetic sequentiality, and which promise nothing. They are even scarier because we know that whichever choice we make (and make it we do-or it is made for us), there is absolutely no sense of where it may lead or what we can expect as a consequence of making that decision. Deep within ourselves we know that the road we take will have an effect upon the remainder of our lives, with no possibility of retracing our footsteps. Fortunately, I believe, for most of us those choices, these particular crossroads occur only rarely. As the Libran, I would rather they did not occur at all.

But choose we must. The longer we tarry at those crossroads, the longer we dither, the more unhappy and out of balance we become. We are compelled to make a choice or one will be made for us. The Universe does not stop simply because we do. If we are to travel smoothly on the river of Divine Intention, then we must be prepared to go with it, to follow it downstream. Sooner or later the beaver dam which we are naturally inclined to build is going to back up so much pressure behind it that the river will sweep it away. At that point the consequences for us can be devastating. Making a choice, especially when there is no clear sense of where it may lead can be a very painful process. And therein perhaps lies the whole point of the crossroads.

For often, when we come to those moments of decision in our lives, it is because we chose to do so. We needed to arrive at a crossroads where we would have to choose without certainty of the outcome. We may perhaps have been testing our faith (in our Creator or indeed ourselves… or both) or perhaps want to reaffirm a sense of ownership in our own journey. Whichever path we choose, we can thereafter say that it was our decision. Times like this can bring a lot of fear, but also a lot of ownership and self empowerment.

Twice in my life I’ve come to such crossroads. Actually I’ve come to them often, but only on two occasions can I remember that the experience was both literal and symbolic. The first one occurred when I was leaving a town I used to visit frequently. My life had quite frankly got itself into a major mess (as it tends to do from time to time). I pulled up at a crossroads and was confronted with a choice. If I continued on, I would return to my existing life and the difficulties would compound. I knew it couldn’t last, but to continue straight ahead would allow me a little more breathing time before it all unravelled. If I turned right at the intersection I would take a different path and everything would change. Things would never be the same again. Deep down, at an instinctual level, I was aware that whichever road I chose would impact upon the remainder of my life. One road was the same old, same old, while the other, painful though I knew it would be, offered me an opportunity to start again. I had no idea of the consequences that would ensue if I chose option b, so for 10 or 15 minutes I sat there. Then I gave in, tossed a coin, and followed my heart.

I was right. Things did change, and remarkably quickly.

If I reflect back, I can see that it was indeed the only choice I could make. The question however becomes: faced with the same situation again, would I make the same choice?

I would like to say a resounding: yes. But I am not so sure.

The photograph of this article came about because I reached another crossroads the other day. A Big Crossroads. Remarkably, it was the same as the other one in construction and layout. I pulled up because instinctively I recognised that here I was again. A crossroads with big decisions to make.

I got out, this time with my camera, and walked around for 10 minutes, photographing the road markings and tar seal. It enabled me, as photography for me so often does, to step away from myself and see things in a different way, in a way that it once objective, at once allegorical. Somewhere in the process of the 50 odd pictures I made, I got a sense that I had gained a little more insight, that I might be emerging from the shadow of my current confusion…

I realised that the lesson in crossroads lies not in the decisions we make and how they will impact upon us, but rather in being willing to make a decision at all. It lies in realising that we are empowered by the act of choice and that the power lies in the acting. When we do this we are moving in harmony with a Higher Purpose, exercising the Extraordinary Gift of Choice given to each and every one of us. It is when we attempt to plot the consequences of Big Crossroads that we get in our own way, our false selves interfere and we make choices that do not work well for us.

And Big Crossroads, for all the terror and confusion which can accompany them, are a rare gift, to be treasured and honoured.