I say the day, meaning the first time we talked face to face, or rather on Skype. It was monumental, I think we both felt that from the moment we started talking. The entirety of this blog may not be able to cover the topics covered in our first conversation. The amount of acceptance and positivity felt that day was unalterably one of the most freeing moments I'd had. Then the next two weeks happened.
My memory is more like an impressionist painting than anything else. There's not actually a whole lot there, but the more you look at it the more you'll see. I'm going to have to sit with my memory for a while. But hey, at least it's something pleasing to stare at!
Samwise Gamgee Leaves The Shire
The summer after 8th grade I started reading. Reading everything. Mostly nature essays, adventure, accounts of journeys, classics, poetry, philosophy, and scientific and textbook writings. I started to get really into expanding my mind, dreaming about amazing things that I could do with my life. Instead of venturing into the woods only when I could find a reason, I would go just to be there. That's where I preferred to be. Simply experiencing the naturalism. I began to derive my values from what I saw in nature. Survival of the fittest, seeking our your own life through what was around you, patience, and being calm. This was also the time that I learned I didn't need to think the way everyone else did. Not only did almost every great person from my books think differently than the people around them, but all the people in my books from different eras thought differently than my people. Classic books taught me the relativity of human kind, culture and society. I was then able to see through the veil I had been wearing that told me to dress, act, and think in certain ways. From this point on I saw the different masks people would wear, or the walls that would put up that tried to show they were something more than human. I became a human. I became a free-thinker.
Mother Nature Opens my Third Eye
Freshman year of high school I discovered Buddhism and shortly after opened myself to many Eastern religions. The first change in reality was the thought that everything is impermanent. Not only was death inevitable but even the particles that made up my body were changing. I started to feel much more present, and actively happy in my life. The most vivid experience I had was in a nature preserve near the house I grew up in. I would climb up a tree as high as I could in an area where people don't normally go. That specific day I found myself feeling a deep emotional connection to that tree. All of the sudden I was re-experiencing the texture of it's bark, and the gentle rocking of the trunk in the wind, all as if it was alive as any human. Mostly running my hand over the bark felt like the skin of a human. I felt a deep connection with that tree that was unlike any connection before. I saw every aspect of that tree; roots, truck, branches, leaves, xylem, phloem, bark, etc. in a symbolic nature and learned a lot about what it means to be alive. Compassion, patience, simplicity and all the basic principles of Buddhism became something I continually worked for.
Through this entire progression, and in the continuing parts of this narrative, my growth was realized only beneath my life. I played many sports and had some friends but I didn't think about those thinks until I was alone. The difference with the rest of the story is that I started to become aware of the other side of my life while I was being active. Very slowly, some of those things stated to have an effect on who I was in front of people.
Love Writes a Letter to Hate
In sophomore year of high-school I met Anna. We were very different people but she liked me despite my shoulder length hair. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was enough for me to totally ignore our differences. I quickly became thickly intertwined with her family. I gave my entire self to remedying the suffering she was experiencing through a dying family member and subsequently an immediate family that was temporarily dysfunctional. Looking back, it felt good to accept the suffering of someone else and live totally outside myself. Eventually though I started to feel repressed, stir crazy, and guilty for the inevitable pain I would eventually cause Anna and possibly others. Inexorably, I broke ties with Anna in an experience that was extremely painful for me, mostly to see her pain as well as the letting go of the close bond I had developed with her family members. Nonetheless, I felt like an uncaged bird.
Apple Meets Head
The resulting few months I spent analyzing my feelings towards other girls. I developed relationships about four or five times. Each experience I found the amount of love or compassion I was willing to provide was far too much, ill spent, and sometimes ill received. Meanwhile I spent all my extra time pushing the boundaries of philosophical thought. I toyed with ideas about perception (How do we know objects exist when we see them, or touch them? How do we know the brain isn't constructing a different reality, or manipulating the one that we live in? Why color, why sound? I realized all the senses are picking at the same whole and are simply processed differently. Sight, sound and also touch all react to frequencies and vibrations.), dimensional existence (What does it mean to be three dimensional? Is it possible to perceive what existence would be like in a lower or higher dimension? Are we actually even three dimensional?) The most concrete changes that occurred at this time were a real love for science and logical thought. I started to fall into the reality of a cause and effect existence. God, to me, was matter and the law of physics. Buddhism and my spirituality fit neatly into this thought process as well.
Wanderlust or Bust!
In senior year of high school I met Cassady. we had a lot in common and saw eye to eye on a lot of topics. We very quickly developed a meaningful relationship. For an entire summer, I was nothing but happy. I found exuberance in music, being childish, and so forth. Looking back I again immediately gave all of myself to Cassady. It turned out that most of our similarities were on the surface. This is where to beginning of the story come in I went to college and everything that was in my life undernearth the surface began to explode into my everyday life. BURNING PASSION for being EXACTLY who I wanted to be and nothing else. I wanted adventure and nature. Love, and absolute kindness and care. Indescribable amounts of energy and longing for so much. I became very unhappy with the current state of my life and I wanted change. I disregarded money, possessions, and the grasping to myself, or what I thought I should be. Cassady had decided to go to school quite far from me. We found that are differences were too great and our relationship had become strained. It was a mutual division which ended in a period of relaxed care for each other until we grew further apart.
Arriving Home and The Solar Eclipse
So far my school hadn't provided me with much more than a whole lot of time to think about who I really was. The area, and the students, were generally not like minded, but even more so were closed minded. Upon discovering myself I felt more alone than ever.
What I found my junior year of college was not affirmation or like mindedness. If was a group of people with a common notion that you don't need to be similar to love each other. My school friends became true family and we rejoiced in our differences and likenesses with a general regard for enjoying the outdoors and ourselves. Beautiful souls, every one of em'. Particularly K, S, Z, P, A, J, and N. This continues through to this day! I began making my desire to live a simple life a reality. Giving many things away. I started sleeping on the ground. I (to this day) started to ween off my car, and bought myself a bike that could make long distance transportation possible. Through K, I rediscovered my creativity. My passion for permaculture was born out of this era as well. I started getting involved with organic farming, and my interests for such topics exploded. These interests quickly became the vision of my future, beyond traveling and finding what it's really like to be human. Though, something occurred and I have not been able to identify whether it was only me or a shared experience. I started to identify with the reckless hedonism in our lives. Because I was happy I had met people I really loved I allowed my life to run away from me. I lost sight of what I wanted to be. I would have moments of clarity in the middle of parties thinking "What the fuck are we doing? We're simply being obnoxious." I realized I had been using alcohol excessively for a few years and I was almost unable to let go of that habit. A general unrest occurred in which I strived go seek new things in my life, but kept getting sucked into the life of strictly sensual pleasure. In the weeks before I met Sunshine I had been struggling with frustration with my life, boredom, and apathy for things I knew I truly loved. The result need not be explained, rather the aftermath is intended to be documented through this blog. What I'm experiencing now is a rebirth of all my passions, love, and energy. A connection I previously didn't know was possible and a true openness to experience. Those moments of clarity I had turned into a shared meaning.
. -Moonbeam
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