MyLifeYoga

Mildred Norman was an authentic American saint. But she was also a simple woman who like all of us struggled to match her actions to her beliefs. Yet unlike most of us, she went to great lengths to live according to her beliefs. One reason she was able to do so was that she gained her spiritual insights on her own through direct experience. She later said, “As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me.”

Mildred believed that we make spiritual progress when we live according to the calling of our “higher self” that she called as our “God-center”. She believed that when we submit to the “higher self” then our “mission in life” is also revealed to us. In her words: “Yes all humans have a calling, which is revealed to them through the awakening of their God-centered nature.”

For Mildred her mission in life came to her when she decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. On April 26 1952 Mildred began her walk and she walked for the next seven months. By the time she was done in October she knew what she had to do for the rest of her life and she also achieved complete inner peace. She had trekked more than 2000 miles and became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one season. Equipped only with one shirt, a pair of slacks, one blanket, and two plastic sheets, she lived outdoors throughout her trek. Her menu, morning and evening, was two cups of uncooked oatmeal soaked in water and flavored with brown sugar; at noon, two cups of double strength dried milk, plus any berries, nuts or greens that she found in the woods.

We covered Mildred’s story of her early life in a previous post. The story took us from her early life till when she got a vision for her mission for the rest of her life. After this vision she knew that for the rest of her life she would be walking alone from city to city all across the United States of America. She got this vision while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Now as she hiked alone to finish the trail, it became clear to her that to be successful she had to reduce what she carried with her even further. This was the hardest part for her. She would have to make the leap from being a giver to being a taker. She had lived the previous 15 years of life dedicated to service of others. But now her next steps would take her into an unknown realm. She would depend entirely on the kindness of strangers. She would have to become comfortable with receiving help rather than giving it. She decided that she would walk alone without a penny in her pocket. She would eat only when offered food and take shelter only when offered one. Otherwise she would go hungry or sleep outside. The only things she would carry with her, besides the clothes she wore, would be a toothbrush, a pen, and a comb, along with a few pamphlets about her mission. Continue reading →