picking up the pieces

I dropped off the face of the blog planet a little bit I think.

 

So my psyche got shattered a bit in Rishikesh. A bit, that sounds funny to me. I can't say exactly what happened or why, but on a day where I was just taking a cooking class, thinkign a bit too much about plans and visiting a cool art exhibit the world just seemed o catch up with me. I hadn't been participating too heavilly with the spiritual vibration in Rishikesh, I had mostly just been going on nice long relaxing walks, eating good food and hanging out. I think the spiritual vibration, however, was participating with me. This particular day I found myself inexpectantly swimming in a sea of old patterns of chaos, spiritual emergence and shattering. Stories spilled out from all corners of my life to try and explain the unexopected deviation from my center, but there wasn't really a lot of explanatiopn to be found. Racing energy in my chest and heart, inexhaustable panic...

 

well gee, that wasn't supposed to happen!

 

I was supposed to be grounded, centered, that was the condition of this whole thing, right? Apparently not.

 

I was, afterall, bathing everyday in the Ganges, doing yoga, I h\visited Kumbh Mela, for goodness sake. And I can't really ignore the spiritual vibration. I may have been hanging out with a young English girl who didn't fully understand the significance of things around her, but I did, and even while I was just hanging out and talking about other things, it was still flowing through me and I was still present with it.

 

So what to do, what to do. I was NOT ready to go somewhere new, my travel buddies were dispersing off to different locations and I really had no idea what to do or where to go or what was going to unfold, so in a moment of panic and needing a solution I called my parents and we decided it was a wise decision to go back to Dharamsala, a place I was familiar with and felt safer.

 

And this is where I am now. I think even the idea of coming here calmed me down. The chaos has mostly subsided. I feel more grounded, but with that groundedness I can feel my fragility. I am picking up the pieces of my shattered psyche and in doing that I am being far more inward, exploring inner terrain. I realize I was evaluation myself and my travel experience in a very masculine, yong way, as many travelers in this part of the world do. It being all about how many places you go and see, what you do there and how you get there. I am now realizing I need to be more concerned with responding to what I need in the moment and learning more about myself, my boundaries and my needs, even if that is outwardly less exciting. Frankly for the moment I don't know if I can handle that much stimulation.

 

Exploring rhythms, exploring mapping, exploring the heart, exploring the connection to home and tribe (Tribe, I am FEELING YOU GUYS RIGHT NOW, STRONGLY!), getting a lot of massages, paying $6 for hotel rooms instead of $2 and then finding out the next day that my room was given away to someone else, havign the usual characters recognize me on the street and getting a mixture of reactions, my favorite of which was from Amir, who was surprisingly happy to see me...

 

Went to Sonam's glass blowing studio today where he works and saw the work that he and his colleagues do. The owner was really nice to me, and was surprisingly willing to let me try making beads when I told him I wanted to try it (I imagine that would so not fly in the states). I loved watching the glass become embodied by the flame and interacting as an entity with the glassblower. Amazing watching skilled fingers guiding the molten being into different shapes and intricate swirling patterns. I had great fun trying it. I can't tell if I did well of shitty, my first few beads were unsurprisingly lopsided, but I quickly got the hang of it began experimenting with different patterns and styles. I only sent pieces of burning glass flying into my skin once, so this seems fairly successful. I got to keep the beads I made, too.

 

So yes... don't know what will happen (but nothing new there), feeling somewhat safer, but still on slightly tumultuous ground, and enjoyign the increased connection with myself, even though it brings me more in contact with pain.

 

In the words of a Guru in Rishikesh I surprisingly resonated with, and who;s words seemed to speak directly to my experience and my soul, "The world has never been in such great need of your love. The world has never been in such great need of the unique way love expresses itself through you."   Thanks, Prembaba