Fear & Loathing in Saigon

Relentless traffic, hard stares, unforgiving intense energy that curls itself around your body and squeezes--this is Saigon. I don't feel unsafe. I feel uptight. I feel the weight of war and devastation and extreme poverty. There aren't many places here in the deep south of Vietnam where it isn't in your face. The doors to this country have only been open to US citizens since 1995. And from what I've seen and felt and experienced, I'm surprised they were opened at all.

You can turn a blind eye to it like you can most anything and find the charm and beauty behind the pain and tough exterior. The comforts of a soft bed in a cute city homestay. The picturesque charm of the villages throughout the Mekong Delta. The architecture of the tall, thin old buildings squished between new, shiny skyscrapers. The pieces of light escaping through the dark scars.

Within my first 24 hours in Saigon I got crazy lost, locked out of my homestay, and for the life of me, couldn't communicate with anyone--google translations as foreign as I was. And for the first time in my 2 years I've been in Southeast Asia, I actually felt like I was in Southeast Asia, a foreigner in a very foreign country. The Western world kept at an arms length distance hasn't infused its way into the culture here like it has in other places. Or it has, but not in a way that makes you all that comfortable. 

I stared at the pictures for a long time--real-life once-removed by a camera. Hanging on the walls of the War Museum are pictures of freelance photographers killed or long gone missing because they were chasing a passion for adventure not one of war. Romanticized characters filtered through the lenses of writers and film makers. That's all I know. That's all I can know. All roads lead back to literature.

None of these writers or visionaries paint a pretty picture of Vietnam so what is it that gets lost in translation from real life to page or film? Michael Herr's memoir reads more like a drug induced walk through the jungle than the story of a man caught in the throes of war. In the novel the Beach, Richard's obsession with Vietnam and war hinge on the delusional. Walking carelessly through an armed area of a Thai jungle Richard can only think: the only missing element was a Doors soundtrack. 

All roads lead back to literature. The horror, the horror. It doesn't seem to matter when you're so far removed from the horror. It becomes art. It becomes the source of light escaped through the dark scars. Richard never did get the reference the horror, but he reminds us at the end of his story that he's left with a thousand-yard stare and a lot of scars.

I think about the horrors I've witnessed and experienced in my life, and I often wonder how they will come across when I begin to write about them. Ultimately, you can't control how others will interpret your story though you can certainly try to manipulate how they will. Perhaps luring all the magic and miracles from the heart of darkness instead of the horror is simply how I've learned to deal with human life.

My last night in Saigon I stand on the corner at a busy intersection where the sheer volume of people and traffic and noise is dizzying, where homes and closed businesses hide behind cage-like gates and people watch you through the thick bars. I walk back to my homestay along the Saigon River and through narrow, winding alleyways that dead-end. Lost again. A woman steps out from the shadows of her home, and I show her my map. She smiles and points left, straight, left again, and I find my way back.

This post does not end in the horror, but in a peaceful walk along the river, the kindness of a stranger, and in a cozy homestay nestled in a narrow alleyway offset from the intensity that is Saigon.

How does art and literature skew your view of reality? Are you able to see the art, the light escaping through the darkness of the subject matter? 

Jungle Life

The jungle is far louder than the city though it's not as noticeable. Sounds that put you to sleep, sounds that wake you up, sounds that belong. The crickets, the roosters, the frogs, the bees, the wild dogs, the geckos that live in the walls, the mice that run across the roof. I rarely hear human voices though I have a number of close neighbors. Thunderstorms sweep through and the monsoon brings rain that lasts for days and days and days.

I've nothing to do most days except learn to listen to my inner world until it is louder than the outer world. And from this space is where intuition strengthens and the heart knows better than the mind. Moldavite dreams and timeless memories, jungle greens and crystal blues, boundless and ever present.

My birth chart is so full of water I've spent a good chunk of my life nearly drowning. I never did learn to swim, but to simply move in sync with my soul, to feel my way through indecision and tough questions instead of attempting to think my way through them. This is where lightness resides, a lightness that allows me to float and see with a new kind of clarity.

Perhaps I've become an antevasin, one who lives at the border between village and forest--not quite a conventional householder, not quite a hermit. Or in my case, living with one foot in the modern world, the other at the edge of the jungle, ever moving toward the unknown, the mysterious, never letting it out of my sight. Or in the words of Liz Gilbert, "...this is a border that is always moving...the mysterious forest of the unknown always stays a few feet ahead of you, so you have to travel light in order to keep following it."

Perhaps I've always been an antevasian, never quite getting a grip on how to live in the world, yet never quite letting my head to go so far under I drown, my eyes always on the horizon of the new, the unknown, the mysterious. And the deeper I sink into this existence the more it feels like the true path of my soul, the more it feels like home.

Are you living the path your soul came here to live? If not, what would it take for you to align with it? 

The Blue of Distance

"The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, of the complexity of the terrain we traverse, and with the years of travel...Blue is the color of longing for the distances you will never arrive in."  ~Rebecca Solnit

I had been dozing in and out of consciousness and finally came to when I heard a voice. Take your time, the voice said. The last thing I remember was pointing to a lawn chair in the distance and saying something like I'm just gonna go lay down for a bit. Apparently, I had wandered from the small poolside cafe onto someone's bungalow and collapsed. The result of walking 5.5 kilometers midday in the equatorial sun to the only bookshop in Amed.

I'd like to think this is an isolated story of misfortune or bad planning, but as my track record shows, this is just how I function. There are countless examples here in this blog and throughout my life in general (some of which will never be discussed outside of the small circle of folks involved). The point isn't about the incidences themselves, but the miracles and lessons and stories that unfolded from them. And from this unfolding, something unknown and new emerges. The result, I'd like the think, of being curious, my compass always pointing toward the blue of distance.

I landed on Bali with no plan, too much luggage, and an urge to get lost in the magic of the island. I wasn't out to repeat any of my experiences from the months I had spent there in 2016, but to find something (as I mentioned in my previous post) that was completely unknown to me.

In four weeks time, I moved across the island from Canggu to Ubud to Amed to Sanur connecting with old and new friends along the way--some of them completely unexpected, all of them surreal as though we were all plucked from our lives and brought together on an island that only half exists in the real world. In these moments of connection, I learned a little more about the dynamics of souls coming together and sharing stories and energy. Sometimes what we give or take away from a place or another person isn't always obvious, not at first anyway. It's that lingering feeling that something has shifted, that we have somehow stepped closer to those very things we never knew we needed.

I've been back in Chiang Mai a month now, but it's not the Chiang Mai I left. I wasn't returning to my old job or my old apartment in the city, but to those things far more important to me--only when I returned, those things weren't here waiting for me at all. They had drifted out over the horizon where everything fades to shades of blue, but never completely disappears. I had somehow landed in a Chiang Mai completely unknown to me.

I stepped off the plane onto what I thought was familiar solid ground only to find myself swimming in the open ocean of possibility. Over this past month, my life here slipped from one of the most dynamic and busy existences to one of ungrounded solitude. But those new (and until now unknown) things and people emerging from this space are those very things I need to move in unknown directions. If this blog is truly about chasing miracles and following curiosity, then I need to allow the unknown to flourish and release all those things I've come to associate with Chiang Mai into the inaccessible blue of distance where memories and dreams live.

Here in a small teak hut in the jungle pressed against the base of Doi Suthop I awake each morning to a surreal life that feels like a new chapter has only just begun. The monsoon wind and rains wash out everything that no longer belongs. What is left? The glistening deep jungle greens and the blue of distance. Everything that keeps me chasing fireflies and miracles.

What is it that keeps you moving forward? Does something need to give you a push? Or does it come from a curiosity, a longing for the unattainable, the unknown, the blue of distance?

South of the Equator, East of the Past

I am driving down a dark, desolate street in the village of Penestanan just west of Ubud when I abruptly stop and look up at the sky. It is not the sky of my Ohio childhood full of fireflies and telescopes, nor the sky of my post-collage Wyoming summers nor of my Big Sur and Clearlake midnight escapades chasing meteor showers and miracles, but it is the sky here on an island 8 degrees south of the equator, somewhere east of everything that came before.

I first came to Bali two years ago and planted myself in the heart of Ubud whose intense energy un-grounded me and un-nerved me and forced me to surrender to it before I short circuited. And in surrendering, I found a stillness and peace that lead me to getting lost in the energy and finding the unexpected mystery and magic of not only Ubud, but in the raw and wild energy spread across the island.

Two years later I've eased my way back. I started on the west coast in Canggu then headed east toward Ubud, but not quite Ubud, just west of Ubud in the quite village of Penestanan where I can look up into a dark sky and see stars and forget where I am, where I can get lost wandering through rice fields or driving through the jungle, where I can lose track of time, lose track of place, lose track of everything that came before.

I have been on Bali for two weeks now, and I cannot stop thinking about Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost. The book begins with Meno's question: How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you? And like a meandering and haunting guided meditation, Solnit lures you into her ever shifting world of personal stories and historical landscapes, leading you to those unexpected things you find while lost in the unknown, terra incognita.

I first read the book in March 2012 during a thunderstorm on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Then I re-read it on the flight back to San Francisco after having been stuck at JFK for over 24 hours. Somewhere in the sky over middle America moving at hundreds of miles per hour west, I intuitively knew that coming back to California was walking into certain unknown doom. I had left California living one life; I would return to live out a completely different one. Losing everything that came before is where I began to find those things whose nature was at one time totally unknown to me--those things of strength and forgiveness and grace and ultimately freedom and serenity.

Perhaps getting lost is the only place where we find those things we never knew could be found--those indescribable moments and scenes and feelings that cannot be captured by words or a picture. That point of transformation you never knew could be possible until you surrender to losing everything that came before.

What does getting lost mean to you? Like Solnit, do you see it as a point of transformation, finding those things totally unknown to you? Or something else entirely? 

Where Expansion Begins

I stood in the doorway and gazed around the class--memorizing the way they look and move and bounce around the room. I opened my mouth to shout at him--my favorite--but the words got caught in my throat. Two steps forward, three back, then I turned and ran. I couldn't get out of the building fast enough. I barely made it out the front gate before the flood of tears came. I sat on my scooter sobbing.

What have I done?

What have I done? 

Through all the sadness is a clarity--a crystal box--in which I hold all the reasons I'm doing this. Many of them are deeply personal. What started as the perfect job began to wear and diminish into something I simply did not align with. Over the course of this year, my eyes have been opened to an ingrained system that I could no longer show up to each day and turn a blind eye.

Let it go. Let it go. Let it go, I told myself most days. It got me through the first year, and at some point during the second year, I hit a wall. At what point do we stop telling ourselves to let it go and take action? As a foreigner in a government school system, the only action I could take was to walk away.

Though I did fulfill my contract, and I left on good terms with promises of visiting over the summer before I leave Chiang Mai, none of this was easy. In fact, it was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, and I've made some pretty tough life decisions in my time. But with it comes a lightness that I haven't felt since I first left the US. A lightness one only feels when you are in alignment with your core values, integrity, love, and purpose.

During the ceremony on the last day of school, the students line up and the teachers bless them. Say something, he leaned in and whispered after I tied the white thread around his wrist and sprinkled the water on his head. Was I suppose to say something? Baa na rak dok mei, I said because what else is there to say? And for the first time, he actually laughed when I said it to him. Famous last words.

This past week I finally got around to watching one of the videos my yoga teacher back in California sent to our online group. She explained that the 40 day sadhana we are currently doing involves working with both Jupiter and Saturn energy--the energy of expansion and contraction which will help us align with our soul's calling. It just so happened that in midst of this kriya was when my job came to an end, and I'm now stepping into the world again with the time and space to focus on expanding creatively--which will take discipline (the expansion and contraction working together)!

This powerful synchronicity can not go un-noticed or un-documented. This is where expansion begins--taking note of these synchronicities, recognizing what you are not aligned with, sitting in stillness long enough to know that the next step doesn't need to be in the perfect direction, but the right direction.

Navigating a new tarot deck, a new home, new adventures, and a new way of working and approaching the world. I'm excited to share it with you all.

Have you ever had to make a tough decision to keep yourself aligned with your core values and everything you believe? Tell me your stories.       

Stepping into Expansion

In four weeks time, my job here in Chiang Mai will come to an end. In seven weeks time, I will be off on another adventure of re-establishing my life as a writer and a collector of stories and visions. Curiosity has gotten me this far. Let's see where it takes me now.

I have tried on this life as a teacher at an elementary school here in Chiang Mai, and after a year and a half, it's time to go in a new direction. I can't express how much I have learned from this experience--the people I've worked with and the kids I've taught. They have all brought a value into my life that cannot be replaced, that I could not have discovered in any other way.

At the end of each day, I sit with myself and my feelings, and I ask: do I feel good about what I am doing? Are my core values being met? Is my inner world expanding? And as this school year has worn on, the answers to these questions have been a resounding no. I can no longer sink back and disappear into a system I don't align with, that doesn't bring out the best in me. I can no longer deny myself the freedom and serenity I can find by moving in a different direction.

I plan to return to Chiang Mai after burning season where I will spend the summer continuing to grow as a writer, a yoga instructor, and Tarot reader. I will revisit practices that I've abandoned since falling into my ever too busy life here in Chiang Mai.

Above all, this feels right. Not questioning this intuitive knowing that I need to step toward expansion. Of my options at this point, this is the one that lights me up, this is the one that I can wholeheartedly embrace and say, this is me.

At the end of each day, do you check in with yourself and ask how you feel? Do you ask if your core values are being met or in what ways your inner world is expanding? Experiment with me! Start checking in with yourself at the end of each day and let me know what you learn. 

The Stirring

The stirring begins as a small rumble under the surface. The shifting of a tectonic plate. Non-existent doors slamming a little too hard. 2018 got my attention pretty quickly. A lot of strange input. No time to process. My distant and not so distant past slammed up against my present. Big lessons in soul contracts and soul missions. Attachment and detachment. Alignment and misalignment. How I use and protect my vital energy and how to fully live from a place of intention and light.

Sadie, Bard, and I slowly walked around the grounds of Wat Pong Noi, looping the temples like a labyrinth. Trying to answer the questions: Who are you and what do you do? Because these questions make all the difference, these questions shape the future. The Universe listens.

I can't say for sure how many times we had looped when an old monk standing outside his hut sweeping leaves first invited us onto his porch for water and bananas then moments later invited us into his home for a New Year's blessing. He gave us each old antique Thai coins for good luck and prayed for us.

This was not an insignificant, random moment. It is not insignificant to be blessed by a monk in his home. It is not insignificant to be reminded by a psychic energy healer days later that when we don't align with our soul's purpose we will suffer again and again. And when we do align with our soul's mission, we can deal with karmic lessons and those things out of our control with much more grace and faith.

It has become clear over this past year that Chiang Mai is a place where people end up who need to align with their purpose. People end up here to accomplish those things they never could anywhere else in the world. The gentle energy pulsating through these city streets and jungle paths work on cultivating those parts of you most needed in the world. Points of light are brought here to gain the strength they need to move through the world with intention and grace and faith.

The people I've met and the things I have seen and experienced and learned since I've been here could not have happened anywhere else. Or at least not with such power to force me to re-examine and re-align with the questions: Who am I and what do I do?

If 2016 was all about impermanence and 2017 was all about grounding and ritual, what does 2018 hold? I already know. I've felt it coming for months now. Part of me is sad everything will soon be changing again. Part of me is excited for new opportunities and growth. To align with your soul's mission sometimes means to let go of things that you know deep down aren't in alignment with who you are and who you're meant to be. Sometimes letting go means holding ritual and making it official, letting the shadows fall behind us so we can fully step into our light.

My path has been one of twists and turns and constant change, a stirring and a push. With each step and each turn and each so called set back, it has always been exactly where I needed to be to take the next step toward the light.

Who are you and what do you do? Does your answer align with your Truth? Are you fully embracing it and living it?