JUMP ..and the net will appear (Buddha).
Accept not-knowing. Embrace mystery. Indulge the invisible!
Shedding layers (I carry all the identity I can… on my back… in a pack)
Slowing. Simplifying (Liberated. Uncommitted.).
My concentration focused in each moment (pace).
Step at a time.
Find food (walk) find camp (walk).
My mind sometimes remembers to freak out (WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!).
Safety always!
Use a public bathroom. (Don’t use the mirror!)
I return to the blankness of full presence (unravelling unconsciousness),
In this moment.
Only one grain of sand passes through the hourglass @ its narrowest point.
That is now.
There’s nothing to be done, mostly its just distraction.
Life’s gonna figure itself out, so don\’t worry,
Better just to be here now.
(I surrender to possibility.)
Back on the beach – run!
I remain in the presence of this one, divine, ever-expanding instance.
Seconds,
Where the patterns (cycles) of time,
Carry me.
So, I have dropped out of my role as a functioning member of society – just momentarily – to catch my breath and take a look around. I decided not to fly home to Baltimore where a cozy, loving home waits, with a nice, well-paid super supportive job setting on the side. Instead, I choose to train as a tri-athlete: couch-hopping, lawn-surfing & beach-bagging. There is a freedom here, one that I welcomed in choosing this new path. Wearing my life on my back, I face down my fears, and theirs. Some see. That is an exciting spark. That spark in me has begun to grow. I see that when I greet someone with greater enthusiasm, they mirror it back at me, and we are both expanded. It gives me the courage for the next endeavor.
I have decided that I want to remain nowhere, or now here. I have shed many layers of identification with all the distractions in life and a greater understanding of my own being. In retrospect, I see how stressed out I made myself in my east coast mentality: I wasn’t eating! This shift has catalyzed that realization. I feel cleansed, and tired, but more fully involved in each moment. It takes a lot of work just for the bare necessities, but the satisfaction is well earned at the close of each day. I’m getting down and dirty. I walk everywhere. I sleep on the beach if at all possible. And I am grateful (GRATITUDE BURSTING) with the arrival of each morning! I feel more and more grounded. I FEEL more and more!
I’ve never enjoyed the ocean so much as I do right now – never been as totally liberated & freed by its ever-changing current. Never before been healed so fully in a single moment. This is a step in/to Divinity. When I walked out the door PRACTICING CONSCIOUSNESS for a simple vacation into this new ‘scape, I never expected that I was so ripe to follow the tides and go – let my toes lift off from the earth (although they do still tip toe along the way) but I’m lifted! Base Case. Basic, simple– rustic! I’m resounding! I’m where I want to be and all I could ask for is available to me, is healed, is here, even in this moment where uncertainty abound – a great mystery (rather than a fearful thought). I’m on my own; learning through the unknown!
Any who, this rant will have to be cont’d at a later date – it is time for me to be moving along!
Listen to your personal omens,
ONE LOVE
blessed be
case
8/19/21: I wanted to write an updated passage here to expand on the memories I have from this really special time in my life. This was the beginning of many adventures for me as a young person out in the world on my own. I took a vacation from working at a natural pharmacy at home in Maryland. I was travelling to visit a good friend from high school who was living at Chagdud Gonpa Rigdzin Ling in Junction City, California. He worked in their little retail store and we cooked out of a communal kitchen. His girlfriend rented a house up the road and worked for the parks department. His sister lived at the gonpa too. Everyone had their own little bungalow on the land. Some were yurts, some camps and some rooms in the main house. I had my own camp site on the hill and set up my hammock there. We were both into astrology and I was leant the book, Making the Gods Work for You, by Caroline Casey. We went to a fair in the nearby town of Weaverville where my buddy and his band played music.
It was a blissful little trip, until the fires came dangerously close. We got an evacuation order and packed up to leave. On the drive down, there was no A/C in the car and the smoke was claustrophobic. When we got to the coast, the wet, salty air was a relief.
Three of us camped out in the backyard of my friend’s friend in the Sunny brae neighborhood. We met their friendly local raccoon as he visited the compost pile. We walked up into the redwood forest at night and played guitar and tambourine as we went. We put a wig on the McKinley statue in the square (which was quite a climb, especially when you are inebriated.) We visited the farmer’s market and Eureka Natural Foods. We found a yellow chalk banana while exploring thrift and book stores in Old Town Eureka. This is how I became acquainted with Humboldt County, California.
When evacuation orders lifted, my gonpa friends returned inland. My vacation was supposed to be ending, but I was inspired to keep traveling with just a backpack. I called to quit my job, extended my stay in the Sunny brae backyard for a bit, and then hiked the area- into the forest and down to the beach at Manila.
Space Case 