Shoes

Once she had walked for two miles in her own shoes, she began to understand herself. She ceased to judge herself. She saw that her feet were sore and that her shoes had grown muddy. She saw how her wrinkled toes reminded her of ape toes. She also saw how they were awesomely sculpted, with their calluses and oddly shaped nails, their bony parts and their innate ability to balance her upright. They were feet that she could walk tall in. They were blessed feet, Buddha feet, feet of the Divine Mother.

They were her feet to take her the places that she was directed to go. They were gifts, just as she was a gift. And once she considered that-- after walking two miles in her own shoes-- once she really considered that her very being was a gift from the Almighty, from the tips of her toes all the way to the crown of her head...a gift unequal to any other gift, and that the world was full of billions and billions of such gifts, with none being exactly the same but all of them equally precious... once she considered this, all of the fear that had bound her simply vanished.

Once this fear was gone, she walked as a noble woman would walk. For she was truly noble. She had walked two miles in her own shoes, which was the same as walking a mile in the shoes of each and every man and woman on earth. Because below the surface of things, is the path that unites all of us. Understanding the Self that resides within, we understand the Self that resides in everyone and everything.

So this is how she walked for the rest of her days on earth. Rooted in her own shoes, which is to say, embracing the life that unfolded from within her own heart, she walked in the shoes of all of humanity. Love blossomed as lotus flowers with each of her steps. Love became the path that she walked, until one morning, she walked the path of the ancient ones and woke up as Love itself.