The Spirit of Bagger Vance

One of my favorite movies of all time is, The Legend of Bagger Vance. The movie has been around a while, but it has a wonderful message about finding your inner spirit and using it to guide your life. The story itself is about three famous golfers from the 1940's who are playing in a tournament in Savannah, Georgia. One of the golfers, Randolf Juneau, has just returned from the war where his whole platoon perished and he was the only survivor. He returned home feeling like he had lost his spirit, his inner compass. Before going to war, he had been a world class golfer and was finally convinced to be the third golfer for this tournament. He agreed under much protest as he had lost his will to live much less to play golf. But he had agreed, a promise was a promise. He found his clubs, hit a few balls and seriously questioned his decision. It was then that someone named Bagger Vance appeared out of nowhere and agreed to be his caddy. Along the way he offers him a lot of advice but not really about golf.

At first his advice is about overcoming his obstacles and at one crucial juncture where the course got hard and it looked like the shot was impossible, Bagger said, you will have to choose...Everyone has one true purpose and you will have to choose to align yourself with that purpose if you intend to play this game. His advice to Juneau all along had been about going inside to find his center and allow that to guide him, but the game is was talking about was life itself.

That is why this is such a great movie, because this is good advice for us too. Our life is not much different,we all have obstacles to get over. There are times when things get hard and it is difficult to see our way. We all need to find our center; that place where spirit resides and we can access the wisdom that is waiting for us. I like to think this is the place to live life from...a place of integrity, compassion and love. To live from this place you have to choose just like the advice Bagger gave;to align yourself with your inner most self and there you will find your purpose.

In the movie, Juneau comes to a place in the tournament where he has to choose to tell the truth even though it might mean he will lose this tournament. His golf ball moved ever slightly and to tell the truth he had to call a penalty on himself. That same thing happens to us every day...something happens and we have to decide if we will honor our spirits and what we know or let it slip by. Even his opponents in the golf game wanted to let it slide but he said, " I will know and so will you. " Every time we let something slip by, we chip away at our spirit and soon we find that we too have lost touch with the very thing that acts as our compass and guides our way.

Events in life continually ask us to live out what we believe. We are beckoned to find our center, embrace our spirits and live in alighment with that. That is why I have chosen a picture of a labyrinth. It is a tool by which we can find our center and reside there for a bit. There are many places where you can walk a labyrinth but you can also get personal ones you can trace with your finger. I have added two links where you can get information on labyrinth's and print off one to use. It does not matter how you decide to do it just that you do it. Consider this an invitation to find find some quiet time, light a candle and trace your spirit back to your center and allow it to guide your life.

For more information about who we are and what we do visit us at http://www.counselingandhealing.com/

Blessings,

Sandy

http://www.labyrinthsociety.org/assets/pdf/ChartresLabyrinth.pdf to print a personal labyrinth or for more information on labyrinth's go to http://www.labyrinthsociety.org/html/about_labyrinths.html