The Wild, Wild East

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." ~Carl Jung

As within, so without.

Somewhere in the northern mountains of Laos between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang I'm lying on the ground staring up at every woman in the small Hmong village. They all stare and smile and giggle at me like I'm some strange novelty fallen from the sky. Oddly comforting given my position there on the ground, far from anything familiar. Feet from me Hmong rebels walk up and down Route 13, machine guns slung over their shoulders, hard eyes staring down every passerby. I'm hours away from anywhere resembling civilization as I know it. This is the wild, wild east after all--remote and untethered and timeless.

Landlocked and full of dense jungle and rivers and waterfalls, there is an unsettling energy about Laos that is hard to pin down. For two weeks, I moved slow through the breathtakingly, surreal landscape, breathing in the vast, open wild. It was as though I'd fallen off the edge of the earth into the far reaches of this wild east. Hmong in Laos, I discovered, means Free, and it is this raw freedom that feels so unbounded and otherworldly.

I fall in love with stories about the unknown--my imagination moving across adventures in distant landscapes, places I've never been--from the stories of Indiana Jones and Firefly, to the ones of Kira Salak and Lawrence Blair. I'm suddenly transported to the here and now, terra incognita, land unknown, on the ground, staring up at the bluest sky. Days ago I'd been staring up at the same sky with the warmth of sun on my skin and the frigid water of the Nam Song around my dangling feet as my inner tube lazily floated down river. Life is but a dream.  

Few roads cut through northern Laos. To experience it you need to walk or take a boat or simply teleport about. This wilderness is protected by nothing but rebels with guns and un-exploded bombs scattered over the country. To wander into the thickness of it, could mean never returning--literal or otherwise. The greenery closing up tight from behind with each step forward, with each step inward. Here be dragons. 

To travel to other realms and worlds, you only need to walk through the opaque clutter of your own thoughts, navigate landmines, and sit in the still, dark, ether until you arrive. Listen, learn, integrate. This is the final frontier. Terra incognita. Here be dragons. 

I crash to Earth and lift myself. I move on. I move slow. On the mend in more ways than one. I will continue to explore this mysterious world--the one inside of me and the one outside of me--and share my stories. The entire Universe is inside each of us--and outside of us. As within, so without.

Inching my way back to the familiar on a two day slow boat up the Mekong River. Misty karst covered hillsides, scattering of villages along the banks, vast silence, wild magic.  Life is but a dream.

As we roll over into 2019, think about how your outer world is reflecting your inner world--and vice versa. Are they in harmony? What do you think would happen to your outer world the further and deeper you explored your inner one? Become explorers of the unknown. Experiment with this and see what begins to shift.

This will be my last post of 2018! I'm looking forward to new adventures in 2019 as I continue to follow this curious path. What visions do you have for 2019?