Misha Vanya

A short bus ride or three later and I was in India. And India is a spectacular land which demands, and has inspired, books and books of its own to attempt to describe the colors, the sights, the smells and the sounds of this place, and this is not that type of blog. Sure I was in India, but at this time I wasn’t in India because I wanted to be in India, I was in India because I was meeting Michelle. For those who don’t understand what im talking about here is a -

****short recap****

While I was teaching English in Costa Rica, ’07, I met an amazing woman named Michelle. We recognized in each other a distinct way of seeing the world – a desire to live, truly. To embrace the world in all its’ splendor – both positive and negative. To look past the surface and to find the depths within, to bring those out and to create the type of world we wanted to live in, not to settle for the suffering that is so common. We loved each other nearly immediately. She came to live with me in Sandalo for 4 months, and then went back to Canada for 2 months to make some money, and then we met again in Venezuela. We traveled together in South America for 6 months. Our love was passionate, true and powerful. But something went wrong. From the time that we were in Peru onwards things didn’t feel the same, and 2 weeks before our trip was to end she broke up with

me. I have thought about my part in that drama probably (I know Jalice would say, “definitely”) too much, and I think what happened was that I began to take her for granted. I think that this habit is one of the worst afflictions that plagues humanity – I was told by a friend that, in general, the ninth time we experience something it looses its original power. How sad is that? Remember, if you will, the first time you experienced the ocean, or climbed a mountain, or your first kiss… remember the intensity of the awe, the wonder, the joy that filled your being? Zen Buddhists call that feeling ‘satori’ and it’s a glimpse of enlightenment. And now, how many of us take for granted kissing, mountains or the ocean? True, to operate normally in the world we need to be able to desensitize ourselves – if every sensation was as powerful as the first time we experienced it we would often be unable to do anything, merely standing in the middle of the street gawking. A

nd yet, how sad is it that we desensitize ourselves so much that we forget how to allow that understanding back into our beings? And that is what happened, from my side at least, with my Misha. Months passed and eventually we began to email each other, to talk on the phone occasionally, to recreate our friendship. But always lingering in my mind was that other affliction of mankind, “what if…..?”

****end recap****

I was about to find out “what if”. It would be nearly two years since we had seen each other, we had both dated other people, we were good friends, but what if? I didn’t even know what I wanted – did I want to be together again? Did I want to just be friends? And what did she want? I knew that, no matter what, I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship, but I knew that seeing each other would settle a lot of these uncertaincies. And even more confusing, she invited me to join her in a course on Tantra Yoga – sexual yoga. Now my mind was projecting all sorts of things…

So what happened? I arrived in Rishikesh and we when we hugged everything felt right. We were together for just over a week, and in that time we were sexually intimate, but not in the beginning, and not at the end. The tantra class was cancelled, so we spent our time doing yoga, going to meditation, searching through the market for various gifts and eating the wonderful food that can be found in Ram Jula.

More than anything I was impressed and inspired by her – how much she had grown in the time since we had seen each other last. She had dedicated herself to a spiritual life as an Osho Sannyasin and chosen a new name, in

this recreation or rededication of herself. She had grown so much in her understanding of herself and her feminity – she learned that she loved to dance and wasn’t afraid to do so anymore, embraced being a woman and explored what that meant within herself and to others. So much more confident, creative and radiant. And she began confronting her demons with meditation, yoga and primal deconditioning. She learned more about who she is, what she wants, where she came from and where she is going. I don’t mean these as blithe comments – truly. She used all her courage to ask herself the really scary questions and has come out stronger and more beautiful. She’s an inspiration. And I hope to follow in her footsteps. Really look at myself and where im going. Why do I travel? Do I really want to reach a spritiual understanding in my life? Will I ever deal with and heal the issues of my fa

ther and sister? Why do I regress in a relationship? These questions prompted me to set and intention into the cosmos –

With my strengthened determination and willpower, I will immerse myself in this pilgrimage. I am open and receptive to new ideas and energies. I have the courage to proceed in the face of my fears and am alive in love.

The day that she left Rishekesh I did a two card tarot reading for myself and what I pulled was the 2 of Cups (Love) and the 3 of Swords (Mourning). There are many ways to interpret this reading, but what felt intuitively right was that I was mourning the loss of our romantic love, that I knew that we were friends and friends only, for ever more, and I was a bit saddened by that – not that we were only to be friends, I was ecstatic about our strengthened friendship, but a bit saddened that I no longer yearned for a romantic relationship between us. So much of my identity over the last few years had been built around her and our relationship and I was letting that go. B

ut letting go I was, and our time together was exactly as it needed to be. We expressed our love for each other, and we made love. And both of those acts were true and honest. But we were not in love with each other anymore, and we both knew it. We parted as friends, not lovers, and I have no regrets about that.

While obvsiously important to my life, why did I include this in my spiritual blog? For a few reasons. Firstly I believe that love and spirituality are intricately tied together if not the same thing. "Love isn't a portal (to enlightenment); its what comes through the portal into this world." Understanding one helps one to understand the other. Achieving one helps one to achieve the other. Accepting one helps one to accept the other. Being open to one helps one to be open to the other. And secondly because it was affirming and inspiring to me to discover another, so close to myself, on the same path as I was. It is a wonderful feeling to know that I can call her up with any spiritual trouble I have and she will understand, she will know what I mean and perhaps have a suggestion from her own life or from the writings of a guru to point me towards. It is wonderful to know that I am creating my own sangha, my own spiritual community.

Thank you Misha Vanya, for everything.

NEVER ENDING PEACE AND LOVE

NEPAL = NEVER ENDING PEACE AND LOVE

I find it very hard to write about my time in Nepal, because of a strange dichotomy. That is, Nepal was the place that, so far at least, along my pilgrimage I both thought the least about spirituality and felt the most connected to the divine. Which I don’t think is always the case – some of the most devout people in the world do nothing but think about God, but it certainly was for me here. Why this is I think has to do with a few factors, each of which I will expound upon a bit.

In my limited experience I find that in developing countries there is much more emphasis and connection to real life. This doesn’t always manifest as a connection to the divine, but for these people life is more visceral, more real than it seems to be in developed nations. This seems to be less true in the city centers than in the rural areas, but even there it seems to be the case. In the countryside it’s obvious – the lives of people are still impossible to separate from the cycles of nature, and people are much more in touch with the Earth itself. And with fewer distractions, people seem much more focused on the little things in life, and spend much less time focused on the future, on what they desire, on what they want. So many times I have seen people just sitting, just doing nothing but not bored, not contemplating what they will buy with their next paycheck, not even looking at the clouds and finding forms within them, but just sitting in contentment. This profound connection to life still leads to plenty of suffering, especially when it manifests as extremely poor and disenfranchised people who suffer for lack of food, clean water or the like. But it seems to provide a space in which it is easier to connect to the divine - a neutral ground for the mind and god to meet, a platform from which one can easily move in a spiritual direction.

Nepal in specific is the most religious of any developing nation I have been to – filled with temples, shrines, icons and symbols of devotion, wandering holy men and a rich tradition of myths and stories that gives another dimension to life. Most names seem to be derived from scripture, for instance, and everyone is part of some religious tradition, be it Hindu, Islam or Buddhism. It’s interesting for a westerner because people in the east have a different understanding of belief and in the divine. For example, one of the myths of the creation of the Katmandu valley goes something like this –

This entire valley was once a beautiful lake, cradled in the mountains. And on the lake floated a perfect, incandescent lotus. Parvati wanted the flower for herself, so Shiva drank the waters of the lake, only to discover that they were poison, and so he drank up the entire lake and then spit it out into the ocean.

The people don’t literally believe that Shiva came down, personified, and drank the water from the valley. And yet that does not make it untrue in their understanding. And by allowing something to at once be a fiction and to be an ultimate truth is what gives myth power, and what helps to inform the lives of the people in a spiritual direction.

Here maybe I should clarify a point. I am not an advocate of organized religion. There are some manifestations which are beautiful and working towards truth, but too many times these “religions” have been the attempts of humans to use spirituality to control and enslave their fellow humans. This, too, is evident in Nepal, where the caste system is still a part of the culture. I never saw a time where it directly caused the suffering of someone, but I know that that is because of my lack of familiarity with the culture and language, not because it doesn’t exist. And it is a double edged sword – in the rural areas these negative traditions hold their most power, while in the city people often come to throw off these clinging associations but at the same time loose touch with the essential, true aspects that the religions offer. The best example of that is a friend of mine, a couchsurfer who lives in Katmandu and is part of the tourist industry, but is part of the Brahmin (priest) caste and was raised in that tradition. He knows all the myths, can probably recite half of the Vedas (Hindu scriptures) by heart, and he rebelled against that life and moved to the city to choose a much different life – one that lets him determine his place in society based on his skills, but also one that comes with all the pitfalls and traps of a secular society - alcoholism, infidelity and self induced suffering. So I’m not suggesting that we should all up and join a religion, or that I ever will identify myself with a particular belief system. I am looking for a way to enter into dialogue with the divine in as honest a manner as possible. Some can still find that possibility in an established religion and that’s wonderful.

So the first factor that contributed to my closer connection without active thought is that seems to exemplify the lives of the people here – many of them make their ritual actions, their divine worship, without conscious thought, its just accepted that every morning you light incense and place it in front of the statue of Ganesha, for example. But unlike the west, where ritual actions done without intent become hollow and meaningless, because the people here allow a story and a myth to be both true and untrue at the same time, these rituals still carry power and connect them to the divine. And without realizing it, I was influenced by this same mentality.

The next factor was that I had little time to think, comparatively with the other places I had traveled so far! For the first 10 days or so I was the constant companion of a friend I met in Korea, Amy, who is very much an ENFJ (http://www.myersbriggs.org/), and combined with the limited time she had in Nepal it meant that we were constantly on the move. Waking up early spending the day seeing sights, meeting people, trying new foods and exploring the area focused my attention outward rather than inward. Because I was/am still a prisoner of the ego this meant that I did a lot of identifying, categorizing and judging (this is like that, I don’t like this or this is great!!) rather than just accepting, so the opportunity to connect that this outward focus gifted me was left wanting for the most part. Instead of being really present, really aware of my surroundings and environment, and accepting them for what they are, I tried to put them into a frame of reference which made sense to me. Which is the same thing I do during my internal foci as well, it’s just then that the objects I am classifying then are my thoughts, rather than external forms. What I had yet to learn, and yet to effectively put into practice even now, is this presence, to observe without judgment, to interact without attachment, to simply live and love. But this time was valuable to serve as a counterpoint to my earlier time in the north of Asia in which I was thinking so much.

Amy and another friend of ours Aaron (INFP) were pretty much the 3 musketeers for the beginning of the trip, and after Amy left Aaron and I were constant companions. And the theme that runs through my entire time in Nepal is amazing conversations with these two people – both of whom are incredibly intelligent and very engaged in the world that surrounds us. While not many of our conversations were directly focused on the spiritual, they all contained at least the seed of it within. We talked about everything from politics to poetry, the caste system to rhinos, the meaning of love to our negative patterns in relationships, from couchsurfing as a form of activism to women’s rights in developing nations. Many of these conversations have had a profound impact on my life and I want to specifically thank the participants. Thank you Amy! Thank you Aaron! A few that have stood out –

The first was Amy describing her relationship with her partner, one that is really based on love. The way that they interact and the stories she told it is obvious that they are together because they care for each other, they truly put the others needs ahead of their own, and support each other. They allow each other to be who they are without seeking to change each other, and yet challenge each other to be better people and to grow. The way that her face and demeanor changed when she talked about her lover and their relationship forced me to really think about my past relationships and how I interacted. And what I discovered is that, for the most part, I have been much too self centered in my relationships, much too attached. Yes I have loved, but that love has been conditional on the other person loving me back, or stroking my ego, etc. rather than just a gift to the world that love should truly be. I had left a short but intense relationship in Portland that failed spectacularly and Amy’s relationship became an example to me what a relationship could be between two people. And I began to earnestly think about how I needed to change and grow before I could ever be in such a relationship.

Another was a conversation with Aaron in which I told him a theory of mine –

That there are four different types of attraction, and for a relationship to be perfect, for true love to have a chance to exist, each person in that relationship needs to be attracted to the other on all four levels. Those are –

*physical* *mental* *emotional* *spiritual*

Physical attraction is, unfortunately for me at least, an obvious truth and necessity in any intimate relationship. Mental is the intellectual realm, there needs to exist a similar interest and ability to discuss abstract ideas, to talk about art, etc. The emotional realm is how your basic personalities interact and how you get along. And the spiritual was the one that Aaron had never considered, but has always been important to me. But as I told him them, I still don’t know exactly what that means. Just that a potential lover must have a yearning for a spiritual life, to get closer to divine truth and love, however that manifests.

If you notice that both of the conversations that really struck me deal with romantic relationships it is not a coincidence – I knew that in a short time I would be meeting my ex-girlfriend, Michelle, in India, for the first time since we had broken up. My thoughts were often there already, thinking of what had gone wrong in our relationship, wondering what would happen when we met, if we had a possibility to reunite as lovers or if we would be able to be true friends. I wasn’t sure what I wanted even, but was constantly thinking about it. What happened between us I will talk about in the next installment of “spiraling towards the center” but I bring it up now to discuss another aspect of my spiritual quest, and that is my inability to, as Wayne puts it, “live in the now!” On my couchsurfing profile I describe myself as a “future dweller” and it is true – the vast majority of my time I am either imagining or fantasizing about various futures, or thinking about the past and what could have been. Every spiritual guru and religious leader will tell you that the divine doesn’t exist in the past or the future, but only NOW, in this instant, and so a true aspirant must learn to live in awareness. Eckhart Tolle asks you to ask yourself, “What is my relationship with the present moment?” and Thick Nhat Hanh insists that this awareness is the key to happiness. This realization is one of those that I know, logically, but yet is very hard to actively put into practice in my life.

The final factor that heavily contributed to my connection in Nepal was access to the wonders of nature. What is spirituality? What does it mean to be spiritual? These are questions that I think of often, and I'm still not sure of the answers, but in Nepal I knew that I would test one of my ideas – that spirituality is a connection with the Earth. Nepal is dominated by the Himalayas, and of course I went trekking while I was there. My friend Aaron and I decided to do the Tamang heritage trek and then the Lantang base camp trek, almost directly north of Katmandu, which would be about 11 days total. To say that I was excited was a bit of an understatement, this was really the first time I would be getting “out into nature” since my time in Hawaii, 4 months before. And while the hike itself was very challenging, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I realize now that there are few “wild spaces” left in Asia, people have been living here so long, but I was expecting to be a bit farther from human contact than we were. In the end though, we decided that rather than trekking farther we would rather spend time in one of the villages and get to know a bit more intimately, the culture of the area. Our logic was that there are mountains in the US as well that we can climb. Even still every day we would hike for hours in the area, sit on the hillside, or Dangle our feet in the mountain streams. At one point we witnessed an entire troop of monkeys running down the mountain, we came into close contact with many amazing birds and butterflies and flowers, and in another part of the country, even rhinos and elephants! So I still don’t know exactly how being in nature affects ones relationship to the divine, but it definitely plays a part. I will explore this more when I return to the states, but I’d love to hear others thoughts on the matter.

Japan!

Disclaimer: I apologize to all my readers for the frequency of these posts. I can only blame my laziness in not writing earlier, for I have had ample time and opportunity, it was just one of those things that was always easy to put off till tomorrow. I guess today is tomorrow, since I'm finally writing this blog! However, I cannot say that nothing has come from it, because distance often creates perspective, and so by being so far removed from my time in Japan I have a removed vantage point. This will allow me to look back on my time with a more detached and therefore more honest view of my time and experiences, and truly some time is needed to integrate and truly understand the lessons learned. 3 months removed, I’ve had some time, but I’m sure were I to write a blog 3 years after the fact I would understand even better what I gained/came to understand/let go of. Of course, with this distance I may loose some of the details, and will be working on memories, which we all know are often hazy, prejudiced or just outright fabricated. And so I will endeavor to make the following blog posts come in a much more timely matter.

When last we left our intrepid hero he was taking a ferry from Busan Korea to Osaka Japan. There was one notable occurrence that happened on the ferry, in terms of my personal and spiritual growth. Being billed as a “cruise” the ship was amply stocked with the convienences that suit the Asian mind, and so there was a sauna and bathroom on board. And the custom is to bathe nude. So one enters the changing room, disrobes, and stores their clothes in a locker. Then one enters the shower room and washes the body thoroughly with soap and shampoo. Generally there are tiny stools that you can sit on, facing the wall, but these stalls are all around the room, so you are in full sight of others during the entire process. And once one is clean you enter the bath. I have never been comfortable with nudity, seeming to have fully inherited the protestant shame of the body. Always as a youth I was able to avoid, or win, those games of strip poker that high school kids play, for instance. So I was daunted, but I was determined. And I found that it was like many things – the idea of the act, the mental preparation and all the fear that accompanies it, is much worse than the actual act. So once I worked up the courage I stripped down and sudded up, and then took a wonderful, cleansing steam and soak in the hot water, with a view from the window of the coastline of Japan at night. Later in my time in Japan I even went with a group of couchsurfers to a bathhouse and was naked not just in front of strangers but in front of friends without a problem. This may not seem like much, and in truth it isn’t, but every fear conquered helps me to remember that fears are unfounded, self created prisons with self created wardens.

The ferry left me off at Osaka which I had a few hours to explore, really doing my best to be open and to soak up the energy of the country, I found my way to an ancient palace, and sitting in the apricot orchard, I did a tarot reading and some journaling, really setting into motion my intention to connect more to the spiritual in Japan. The tarot, as always, was bluntly truthful, and basically stated that I would plant a few seeds of connection in Japan, but that I wouldn’t be truly connecting with the divine. And that is for the most part what happened.

In general though I found Japan to be a welcome change from Korea. Still very much a country based on wealth and capitalism, affluence and abundance are obvious in Japan, and all the trappings that come with that – the same chain of stores that can be found on the beaches of Waikiki, on 5^th Avenue and in Paris and in Milan, and the ever expanding system of shops catering to every whim and desire. But, much more so than in Korea, or the States for that matter, spiritual devotion is hidden all over Japan, if one just keeps half an eye out for it. And in Kyoto, it’s nearly impossible not to run into manifestations of this devotion on every street, in every alley and in between. There are so many shrines and temples in Kyoto, and they are all beautiful. There is the Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji, which is literally covered in gold as an offering to the spirits and built in the middle of a lake which creates a reflection that is even more beautiful than the temple itself. There is the Fushimi-Inari shrine, which is an entire hilltop covered in the orange Tori gates placed so close to each other that they create tunnels leading to the summit, interspersed with altar after altar, shrine after shrine, thousands of statues of the spirit foxes kitsune, of Buddhas wearing red aprons and cloaks, and hundreds of sticks of incense all burning together to create a wondrous smell. And there are the personal shrines – built aside peoples houses, in alleyways or in their window boxes, many of those more infused with spirit than the large complexes. Japan in general, and Kyoto in particular is a wonderful blend of so many traditions – Shinto, Buddhism and Christianity are all followed in great numbers and often blended together without the same contradictions we would have in the west. I did my best to attune myself to the spirit of devotion in Japan, to offer gratitude to the spirits and kamis that inhabited the land. Following local tradition, at every shrine I would clap my hands three times to gain the attention of the spirit, then wave the beautifully colored rope that rung the bell, and offering my gratitude and energy with hands clasped in the prayer position. I must admit that oftentimes I did this out of mere ritual, often I felt hokey and embarrassed by this act, but occasionally felt a glimmer of connection, the energy of the place alive and participatory.

Often times though, it was just a glimmer. I met a fabulous woman while I was in Japan, she was a host of mine on couchsurfing, and we had some incredible talks, and looking back I realize that I missed some opportunities towards the divine with her. She is one of those people that is innately more connected, would be described as psychic or attuned or delusional depending on whom you talk to – she has had conversations with the dead, with angels and with benevolent presences from beyond earth. She opened herself to me and shared many of these experiences during our time and I often just wasn’t receptive. Too much of that rational part of my brain telling me she was imagining things, that these things are impossible, or that they may happen for her but not for me, that the connection she had with the cosmic consciousness was beyond what I could ever achieve. Much too often during our conversations I was spending more time listening to my ego debase her than what she was actually telling me. And though I learned a lot from her, especially her bravery in being so open about something so easy to dismiss and mock but so important, I feel that I missed an opportunity to learn a lot more from her. I wanted to offer her a tarot reading, but felt intimidated, fearing that she would judge me. I could have asked her more about her experiences and perhaps opened my 3^rd eye and 6^th sense a bit more, but I didn’t. Still, I must have made some impression on her, for as I left Kyoto she gifted me a seashell that she carried with her from Spain, a symbolic symbol for my pilgrimage, the same shell that all pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. Take with them on their journey to act as a touchstone, a constant reminder of the path of the divine in their life. Thank you Lisy. Thank you for being you, for being open, for being a guide and an example in my life.

I have often been told by those close to me that I am overly critical of myself. And I understand why they have this feeling – I tend to highlight my failures more than my successes. This is for a few reasons.

1. I hold myself to a high standard. I am constantly striving to be a better person, to grow, to learn, to transcend. However I forgive myself when I make mistakes, when I slip, when I regress. I believe I come across much more stringent with my life than I actually am.

2. I have a hard time discussing my successes without feeling pride, without the ego praising itself, basking in its glory and asking for adoration from others. Therefore it is easier for me to act humble in the presence of others. I am endeavoring to disassociate from the ego, and to accept praise without a feeling of pride, but I have not yet succeeded. Not that I can always accept criticism with equanimity, but I much better at avoiding the input of the ego when it comes to criticism than with praise.

I say this because I don’t want to give the impression that I live a life devoid of contact with the divine. I do have moments of unity and pure devotion, every once in a while even bliss, or at the least moments of yearning in which my separation from God is so explicit and understood that it’s agonizingly painful. Examples to follow, working from the latter to the former.

I have long felt that discussing religious matters is vitally important, as is journaling, for the reason that I often don’t even know what I actually think, or believe, until I try to express it, to put it into words, to make it clear. To take these unformed, ephemeral, hazy impressions and make them into concrete, living ideas and beliefs. One rainy day in Kyoto I attempted to do this very thing. I asked myself,

“What is my world view? What are my beliefs? What are my life goals? What do I hope to accomplish on this pilgrimage and what steps do I need to take to do so? And there’s the rub. I cannot be “all theory and no action”. Once I have enunciated my thoughts I no longer have the excuse – I don’t know. Its then up to me to do my best to bring this about. To hold myself accountable, to not be lazy, cowardly or wasteful, with my time or energy. And that’s scary. Why both Christianity and sects of Buddhism turned from examples to follow, action based philosophies, to religions of blind faith. I feel daunted even to begin. I’m not as intelligent as Thoreau, as well read as Campbell. I fear ridicule from myself and others. I fear failure. I fear to learn that my limitations are so much closer that I imagined. If one only thinks about swimming across wide lakes or powerful rivers its one thing. But to actually swim, though, demonstrates quickly and perhaps lethally exactly how far one can go. Still, it is only by swimming again and again that one gets the strength and fortitude to actually forge those rushing waters. So, feet first hopefully, maybe head first, but probably a belly flop, here I go –

1. I believe that actions are more important that beliefs. All this talk up to now elucidates this point. It’s easy to believe, to imagine, to think, much another to do. Of course I think there is a type of belief or a way of believing and imaging that becomes active but that is not what is commonly referred to, or what I refer to as belief.

2. I do not know if there is a god. If exist in any form angles, spirits, ghosts, kami, faeries, ufos or any of the myriad other ideas out there. I want to say that I am open to believing this but I often find my rational mind gently mocking those ideas. For example, last night, while talking with my host, when she gave me stories about her “master” I couldn’t help but put mental quotation marks around the idea. Some alien being is contacting you in your dreams? And about things as mundane as going to Argentina to see your lover or leaving China to welcome your brother? And yet I’ve had mystical experiences that when I explain to others I know they are doing the same – humoring me while holding me apart in their heads. I think tied together in my skepticism is even my experiences. I pull tarot cards everyday, carry stones on my person at nearly all times. Why? Do I actually believe I can tell the future or even divine (how did I never notice that correlation before?) the present? That citrine will actually bring me good luck and good fortune? I think the answer is; sometimes. Partly. When I can ignore that voice in my head, what Julia Cameron calls the internal censor, the mocking voice so common in the west – show me proof! So, a refinement of #2 is necessary. How about –

2) I do not know what I believe when it comes to the spiritual, the mythic, the mystical, the divine. But I will do my best to learn to listen with my soul and ignore the ego. Cosmos, hear me now. I am open, receptive.

3. Though I'm not entirely accepting of the ideas of reincarnation (see #2) I do not reject them either. However I feel that still the current incarnation of most of us living on the planet today is in a state of suffering. Caused by desire, distance from God, removal from Nature, what have you, this “distraction from distraction” this wasteland is of our own device. Generally created by fear and laziness, compounded by ignorance and practiced deceit from the “elite” we “zigzag our way, through the boredom and pain, occasionally glancing up through the rain”. I pledge here and now to embark on my own grail quest. To heal not just my own, internal wasteland, but to help as many of my fellow humans as possible. How to do this exactly I don’t know, whether they are mutually exclusive goals I hope not. By setting foot on the path I have faith the path will appear. Though I struggle with the question of selfishness I feel I must start by first making some discoveries for myself. Answer, at least partially some of these nagging questions. I will use as clues those who have gone before me. Follow the words and footsteps of prior pilgrims from all parts of the world. And while I may not be actively helping others at this time I’m reminded of a comment of Thick Nhat Hanh’s – I will paraphrase here because I don’t have the text with me – that “to heal the world the activist must first heal the self”. And that brings me to my next tenet.

4. We are, if not one being, at least one people, one earth, one planet, one family. And the sickness that is present in many of us is reflected in the state of the planet – our mother, Gaia. Call it global warming, the fifth age, the return of Quetzalcoatl, or by any other name we are at a pivotal point in Earthling history. And yes I understand millennialism, how people throughout time have always felt they are in a “special time” a “sacred crossroads”, the “apocalypse”, the “return” – and that’s because they were! And we are now! Time is an illusion, a construct. We continually have the opportunity for salvation, for enlightenment, and so every age rightfully understands theirs to be a time of power. I need to find where I read it so I can cite the source but, it’s like the Japanese proverb, “The master of a house inquires of his gardener – when is the best time to plant a tree? The gardener responds – a hundred years ago, but the second best time is now”. Now is the only time we have. Every now is an apocalypse, a crisis. Crisis in Chinese is made of two characters – disaster and opportunity. Still I am not so enlightened that I can see past this specific incarnation of life, and so I want to do my best to alleviate the suffering of all life on Earth and to heal the Earth itself. And the unique challenge we have is that the world is so much bigger today than it has ever been – through technology we are becoming a human culture, and it is only through a combined human effort that we will heal the Earth. (Will the next stage of evolution be an Earthling culture, where we once again recognize the “four – legged people” and the “standing people”? where the issues of the day are no longer women’s rights, racism and classism etc [hopefully we will have solved those] but speciesism? Animal rights and plants rights? And not as pets but as empowered beings?) So I believe it is necessary, for me at least, to help on both a personal and a planetary scale. How do I do that if I’m not involved with Greenpeace or some similar organization? I hope, I trust, that an answer will present itself.

That’s all I can think of at this moment for my guiding principles, my mission statement. I’m sure these will change again and again as I follow this pilgrimage, as I spiral towards the center.

The most powerful spiritual experience that I had in Japan though came very near the end. I was in the town of Kamakura, an hour south of Tokyo on the coast. It’s famous for having the largest statue of the Buddha in Japan, so large in fact that they sell entrance to the inside of the statue. I was on the way to visit this temple, walking down the street, when my attention was caught by an alleyway. I’m not sure why, there was nothing significantly different about this alley from where I could see, but I decided to walk up it. After a minute walk I could see that the alley lead to a large staircase, leading up to a hillside shrine. As I climbed the steps I nodded at a man walking down them, and he returned the gesture. I got to the shrine, a simple, beautiful building, and made the customary gestures to the altar. Then I saw that there was another, smaller shrine a bit farther up the hill and felt a rush of exhilaration. I climbed to that shrine too and made an offering to the kami, to the divine. And yet… I felt a bit disappointed … I realized that I had a sense that this was going to be something different, and now the experience, just like so many others I had had, felt empty, lacking. I walked back down to the first shrine, to the tree I had leant my walking stick against when I saw a small path leading in another direction on the hillside. And crouched there, half hidden in the bushes and half visible on the path, was a pure white cat. I knew from my sister that cats are considered lucky in Japan and that feeling came back, tentatively. I began walking towards it. The cat waited until I got about halfway, then ran farther up the path. Then stopped. Turned. Looking directly at me. Not crouched in that way that felines can where it’s obvious that all of its muscles are ready to spring away at the direction of its mind, but rather casually, expectantly. Feeling like Huma following the white stag I followed the cat for a few more minutes, crossed through a hole in a barbed wire fence and started climbing down the other side of the hill. At some point the cat went on its own way, but I no longer needed its guidance. I could see a small cave, really just an indentation in the very steep face of the hillside and traveled towards it. As I got close I realized that there were stone markers inside of the cave, all lined up against the back wall. A small staircase lead down into it. Obviously another shrine, much different from any other I had seen in Japan but imbued with a sense of power. I was slightly afraid as I entered, not of the power of the place but that I was breaking human conventions. But entered I did, and immediately I felt a connection with Tina. The Japanese are one of those cultures that, in ages past at least, worshiped the dead. Had I been more open maybe I could have communicated with her, but still it was overwhelming to me to even get this glimpse. It could have been just a powerful presence that was similar to Tina’s energy, and so I projected my own impressions on it, but I there was more energy in that little cave than in most of the shrines I had been to in Japan. The disclaimer is becoming even more important now because this experience, more so than any other in my time in Japan, is both not yet fully integrated and already starting to become very hazy… its almost as if, for me at least, these liminal experiences, so hard to grasp by the conscious, rational mind, are earmarked for early memory erosion. The conscious doesn’t know what to do with it so would rather forget it…

All in all my time in Japan was a good for my spiritual development. I learned quite a bit and held true to my intention to be open to possibilities, for the most part. In Tokyo especially I lost sight of my goal for a bit, so easy to do in cities I feel.

PBTWYDNL

A few days before Christmas I flew from Honolulu to Seoul, South Korea. I found it striking, having been reading about soulful travel, when the stewardess announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to S(e)oul”. With that omen I made a vow to make my time in Korea more soulful than my time in Hawaii was.

Unfortunately I failed.

I should have listened to some of the advice I had recently received – “pass by that which you do not love”.

Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed my time in Korea, made a decent bit of money and got to spend quite a bit of time with my sister Jalice and her new boyfriend Thor. Jalice and I had so many great moments, conversations, arguments and laughing fits that the time was well spent, though it could have been invested with a bit more of the divine.

The positive
• I continued my habit of doing a daily tarot reading, using the cards not so much as divination tools but as tools of self discovery. I also did many readings for Jalice and Thor and feel that my understanding of the cards, and myself, is improving.
• I was surrounded by kids, especially Juyoung, and if there is ever a reminder to live in the moment and to enjoy life, it can be found by watching children.
• I went to a Buddhist Temple for a temple stay (thanks Jalice!) and got a sense of the life of a monk. I was amazed by their dedication, their perseverance and their smiles. I left with two convictions – 1. I do not want to be a monk. Although it’s called spiritual practice and there is no better place or way to practice than a monastery, I do not reject the world. I am not trying to be a Buddha or a prophet, but merely to make the world a better place, for others and for myself. 2. I need to create/find/join a sangha, or holy community. To be surrounded by like – minded individuals who are working towards a spiritual life is incredibly helpful. This blog is part of the attempt towards this end. Do you ask yourself some of the same questions that I do? Then lets work together to discover the answers!

The rest –
• I had planned to be in Korea for at least two weeks, and found myself there for 6. The reason? $$$CA$H$MONEY$FUNDAGE$$$ I was able to pick up some classes teaching English for a good salary, and so once again was tempted, and failed. By being seduced by scraps of paper I was caught in a land that sought to heal all the wounds created by horrible war after war by working hand in hand with the American democracy&capitalism agenda. South Korea has wonderfully succeeded at this goal, skyrocketing up into a “first world nation” with an incredibly strong economy. However I feel that they have overshot the mark and never really healed the deep wounds in the psyche and heart of the people, instead they’ve covered them with glittering Band-Aids and distracted the people with all the stuff they could buy. It may be that I have never seen the extent from an outsider’s perspective, but their eagerness to buy things seems to outdo that even of Americans. Its as if they have decided to make up for all the time that they have missed in malls, all the auctions they never had a chance to compete for on eBay, and all the clutter that accompanies it – NOW. I have never been so overwhelmed by commercialism. By the time I left, it was all I could see around me.

So remember –

“pass by that which you do not love”

Reading Rainbow

Cousineau, Phil. The Art of Pilgrimage: A Seekers Guide to Making Travel Sacred
A week before I left on this journey I was walking through Powell’s with a mission – to buy a book for a friend and not spend any more money. (Un)fortunately my eye was caught by the title of this book and I lost the willpower roll. I bought it and am imminently glad that I did.

The Art of Pilgrimage is like many “self help” books, or books to help inspire your creativity. Many of the points, observations and ideas are common knowledge or obvious. If you’re anything like me though, you will agree that having them in print, expounded on, phrased from a slightly different point of view, more encompassing, ordered and just there make them that much more powerful. I feel that (and this is a definite catalyst for this blog) one often doesn’t understand how they feel or think about anything/person until they attempt to put those thoughts or feelings into words.

“all we need do is reimagine the way we travel. If we truly want to know the secret of soulful travel we need to believe that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey”

“for a journey without challenge has no meaning, one without purpose has no soul”

“pass by that which you do not love”

The five excellent practices of pilgrimages –
practice the arts of attention and listening
practice renewing yourself every day
practice meandering towards the center of every place
practice the ritual of reading sacred texts
practice gratitude and praise – singing

For anyone undertaking any sort of travel I highly recommend this book. It has been my bible along my journey, acting as a touchstone to remind me to practice.

Hawaii

I went to Hawaii to wwoof on a farm (if you don’t know what that is, check out www.wwoof.org) with the intention of connecting more with the earth, learning to farm, getting my hands dirty and working to align my soul with that of the lands. Unfortunately that is not exactly what happened – the farm that I was on was a kava farm that had been fallow for years, and so rather than learning to farm I was mostly tearing up elephant grass by hand, cleaning out the hothouse and using the weedeater to destroy anything in my path. I worked enough to tire myself, had some great conversations with my hosts about Hawaii and had plenty of time to do whatever I chose. Here are a few things I accomplished during that time, some of them enhancing my spiritual mission, others much more earth based, or even hellish –

*I read the book “Little, Big” – faeries do exist! Thank you Ana – Coffee soon?

*Painted and created some gifts for friends

*Watched every season of “the Office”

*hiked, contemplated the ocean, allowed the moon and stars to fill my being

*Read my tarot every day, explored my new deck and was surprised at how many times I pulled the moon

There were two experiences, though, that stand out, and I would like to share.

The first was when we went to Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea is one of the volcanoes on the big island of Hawaii and has a unique status in the world – because of its height and the fact that its in the middle of the ocean, the most remote island chain in the world if you believe the locals, it is one of the best observatories in the world. The top is filled with astronomy students and the giant telescopes they operate and treasure. Louie, Mel, Slade and I ventured up there in the truck, and it was epic! Here are the notes that I took atop the mountain -

Serpentine spiralling layers of two colored rockers – as if we were winding our way up a sleeping dragon, the jutting slate color its spine, spiraling up, as a cosmic stairway

To dr seuss landscapes filed with giant anthills – volcano sized with gorgeous rolling plains cloud layer upon cloud layer

Feel the magic of the mountaintop the home of pele I come to thank you goddess for allowing me to arrive at this moment

Like the sun is blowing smoke rings at me, the perfect platinum disk sinking beneath the spirit mountains, ghost of the fallen, Hawaiin valkyries sail past on wings of mist

The tao te ching dragons in the clouds a gold flying away from me and a silver passing by

Cotton candy colored sunset

The other was when I went scuba diving. The dives themselves were great, although not revolutionary. I saw a few octopi (uuuggghhh!), almost touched a manta ray, some nudibranch and a lionfish, but the site that touched me the most was the sunset. It was the first time I saw a sunset from underwater. I don’t have a picture to share with you, but imagine this –

Amber colored lights breaking apart into blues and greens, swirling back and forth, around and into each other. The golden colors tended to wander in the center of my vision, the rays of white light and the darker blues and purples towards the periphery, though at any moment they could choose to abandon their fellows and take a journey of their own. Occasionally pinks and peach colors would join the party, but all of it was transitory, shades and hues being born and dying, ecstatically, as the sun itself died that night. It was one of those moments in which I was truly alive, felt connected to the earth, to the water, to myself and to every living being in the cosmos.

i dont exactly know where to begin, or where the beginning was, or when. On november 10th i left for hawaii. in june i left for europe. in 2008 i moved to portland. in 2007 i went to costa rica. before that i did lots of things; college, boy scouts, art school. before that i was a kid, a baby. before that, mayhap, i lived other lives. so who knows where it begins. but i geuss it all comes out of the feeling that there must be more to life than the "distractions from distraction". that those brief, ecstatic, glimpses of the divine, those "i and thou" moments, must be what life is truly about. that our waking life can be filled with wonder, awe, joy, enthusiam and love, in every single moment. i am no longer content to live a life of contentment, i will no longer suffer a life filled with suffering. and so, like so many before me, i have set out on a pilgrimage. it could have been to anywhere, because a pilgrim in one that journeys towards the sacred.

my goal - to be able to make frantis lyrics my reality that, "every bit of land is a holy land and every drop of water holy water". to realize thick nhat hanhs vision of mindfulness, to make wayne proud of my ability to "live in the now!". of course i will fail spectacularily at times. but hopefully, every so often, i will succeed. and with the practice to follow the intent, hopefully, "every so often" will happen more and more.

the guidelines laid out for me by phil cousineau in "the art of the pilgrimage" -

practice the arts of attention and listening

practice renewing yourself every day

practice meandering towards the center of every place

practice the ritual of reading sacred texts

practice gratitude and praise - singing

and most importantly -

pass by that which you do not love

i endeavor to follow these tenets everyday. often i fail, often i forget. but sometimes i remember, or have no need of remembering and just do. and those times, those brief, flitting moments, are indescribable. are infinite. are love. are life. i just hope to always be spiralling towards the center.