In Transit

It felt good to leave the bay.. I arrived in NoHo this morning.. (not north of houston either) That's North Hollywood on the Greyhound at 6:30am.. Went to Starbucks to wash the bus off me and wait for the wee elf that was coming to scoop me up.

Got scooped and now in Escondido, a town that I still don't know the exact whereabouts of where I am geographically,... although, again at a Starbucks using the internet while the wee elf is working. Soon we'll be headed to Poway, the deserts of San Diego for a few days before the great sit begins..

I keep thinking.. If you go on your journey, keep going until you are ready to stop. The bay has been a nice incubator for me.. I've enjoyed the comfort of the transition. And- I know there is more for me to see and experience.. like the wind, I must let myself go with it. Werner would apparently say (b/c I wasn't born yet to see him) 'ride the direction the horse is going.'  I feel that.

It's kinda also like that saying, 'The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.' Well, if you're going to go on that journey-don't stop at mile marker 317. It's easy to become complacent and turn around, or just stay put.  Fear lurks in the shadows and the more I put myself out there into the wild the greater the light grows, and the greater the darkness is revealed... Just how far into the vastness can we go into ourselves and into the world?...I feel it's endless AND there is an end for us,.. it's when we say we're tired, or it's time, or whatever/whenever. The lesson here; if you need to go-go, and make sure you you keep going because only you know what's inside that is calling to become expressed.

It's all so paradoxic at the same time, for instance-let's take Forest Gump; The guy just felt like running! Don't be haters, cut the guy some slack-he was following his bliss. But one day he just realized, in the moment-it was time to turn around. That's knowing thyself, at least for me it is. He didn't say to himself, 'gee, i should keparadep on going because i have all these people behind me who are counting on me, some of which just joined the ride back in so-and-so. I should at least go to the ocean again, you know-for them!' 


Nope. He just chose to stop and turn around. I'm somewhere in all of that above... somewhere.

~B

On My Way Back Home~

If home is where the heart is, then I'm on my way. Starting this Wednesday I'll be heading into a silent meditation retreat at Joshua Tree. That's no talking, texting or anything of the like for 10 days. I'm using this time to get myself clear... With so many distractions in the world today, like Judgement Day yesterday (we made it!?), Facebook, noise pollution, television commercials, the millions of people that surround us and all that chatter in our minds, it's going to be a true vacation to sit in silence for really, the first time in my life.

It's kind of hard to imagine that in my 33rd year I haven't even spent 1-day in silence and I'm jumping into 10! I can't wait. It's been an adventure of a life so far and to tell you all the truth, I am getting tired. I've lived in 10 houses since last September split between New York and California. I got the feeling to come out here last May after Hawaii and the location astrologer (julian lee-link to site) was the final push for me to come out here, although as many of you know it was his recommendation to go to LA. 

Initially I gaffed at that idea and after visiting a few times now it's become more of a possibility. And, I love the bay area too. I've been wondering if I'm at a place in my life now where I can love wherever I'm at, b/c that's what's been happening. I love it up here, I think I could love it down there.. I don't really think its the location of our homes that dictates how happy we are in life, not invalidating our locals by any means. I just mean our happiness and love for our lives, for me, comes from being present and fully accepting where we are in the moment. This is my medicine.

Any other internal chatter that we should be living someplace else or we don't want to be living where we are right now is just that-chatter. And it takes us away from seeing and being appreciative for what we do have. The meditation is a chance, maybe once in a lifetime chance to quiet the mind and be all heart. So, I'm going home, to my heart so I can listen fully without distraction on what it wants, which is to say-what I want.

I'm going to the desert, to the stillness and clarity that the desert provides to go home, inside my heart, where I've been having to find my center repeatedly over the last year or so to get myself clear; Where to live? What to do? All the questions that many of us dare to ask and few dare to answer. Because answering these, as Matisyahu says in his song 'Silence' "I will crush my fantasy on how this life is supposed to be" means that we may find answers that we don't think are really us, that maybe we are avoiding or resisting becoming but we know we really are. Crush the fantasy and become who you really are. 

He also says in the song which I'm going to have to post now is "bring my broken heart to an invisible king with the hopes one day he might answer me..."  The invisible king is us and it's silent b/c the king energy or archetype resides for the most part hidden and governs over our actions in the most noble of ways if we can access it or even identify our inner king. The heart is broken repeatedly over a lifetime and after a while we live to protect it which is no way of living, we start to become inauthentic in our actions and in our lives. If we can access our inner guides, our inner king or queen energy we can shine our hearts into the world in action and being w/o the risk of it being broken or us wounded. The inner king is your highest power of yourself, your true self that no one can mess with, and it's a state of being that only you can connect with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNkhH1RIFS8

After the silent meditation I intend to go somewhere and reside. It's that simple for me. Because I want to now. And I also know that I have no idea what I'm going to come up with during this sacred space I'll be in, but I'm ready. See ya in a few weeks.

~B

Didgeridoo Album is in effect!

So much for not following through~ 

I have completed the first round of my didgeridoo album making, I have 6 tracks recorded as a 'demo' that I am selling to raise money for the completion of the editing and mixing, artwork and packaging.. $10 suggested donation gets you this weird but shamanic cd complete with me on didg, percussion and beatbox, and friends on crystal singing bowls, guitar, native flute, electric violin, synth loop pads and harmonium.

It's been an amazingly fun process and my soul has been expressed in so many ways throughout.. So now I'm proud that I will have a completed project sometime this summer. 

Order right here~ 

Transitioning

Hey all..

In any great transition, there are many small transitions that take place. Paulo Coelho says in The Warrior Of The Light that any great battle is won by a series of small battles that go seemingly unnoticed, then the warrior manages to triumph 'all of a sudden', surprising even him/herself and is being free from blame for having taken so long to arrive. Am I in a battle?

You bet.

The journey has been epic, and it's getting personal. Many houses, jobs, even a few girlfriends, which really surmount to my own capacity to be in and out of relationships as I learn along the way. In short, it's been a journey of the mind and a journey of the heart; a journey of spirit and of freedom. As I have watched myself untangle from life in New York/New Jersey, it's been purposeful. I wanted to come out here and let myself go.

Interesting that this is what I have wanted and now it's no longer serving me. Essentially I have been 'riding the fence'... watching myself go from job to job, scaling down to what works for me, which are 2 p/t flexible jobs. I have lived in eight different homes in six months. Yeah, I'm tired of it. It's been me looking on both sides of the fence of settling down, settling in, AND the other side of letting all of that go for some other way of life that I know is possible but am having trouble finding it.

I've discovered that it's now time to go on another journey. A journey inward. My new roommate Allan, who is a Siddha Yogi says that I have great skill at being external, connecting to the outer world, but little resource internally for being centered. I concur. The last month living here with him in his quiet, meditative house has shown me all of my inner chatter and just how little ground there has been. I've been seeing things way more clearly and am now ready to confront all the stuff inside that has been pulling me along for some time now.

It's said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Well everyone has been my teacher lately; The bike mechanic, the new lady in my life, my roommate Allan, EVERYONE.

So now that I've said all of this what I really want to say is that May is my month of transition. I'm coming back (and am now back) to the east coast for 10-days and then at the end of the month will be traveling down to Joshua Tree for a Vipassana Meditation, which is a 10-day silent sit.

I feel I'm more unclear and unknowing what the answers are.. and I kinda like that. I feel better being in the question without having to find the answers and learning how to be centered in this great mystery.

~B