I end this blog on the sentiment on which this trip began. I wrote this in December, before I left:

Maybe the muse stems from our deepest wounds, wanting to fill us with all that is us. Maybe the muse is the parts of our soul we lost early on, beckoning to us to come retrieve them, but we can only do so by journeying back to the source. Narcissus, when he looked at the reflection in the stream, didn't think he was looking at himself, he thought he was seeing someone else, and fell deeply in love with the beauty of it. Perhaps the love for the muse is the love for our own image that we have disassociated from, and the courting is the trepidations yet intoxicating path back to reclaiming the divine in us.

Maybe the divine is ours.

This doesn't make a lot of sense, I just need an outlet for all the crazy things I'm feeling right now.

Well, I'm home... It feels really fucking weird. Definitely in the throws of some extreme reverse culture shock. In addition to the normal levels of reverse culture shock that I should be experiencing, I am also kind of dealing with the trauma and confusion of the way that my trip ended... I don't necessarily want to get into the specifics of that. Just all isn't what I would have expected, not that I ever had any strong expectations in mind for what it would be like coming home, or how my trip should come to a close. I must say, it all happened very fast, and in a very odd rush.

Feeling emotional extremes, crying a lot... also feeling nothing... not sure how I can exactly be experiencing both at once.

Got in in the afternoon yesterday. My body had no idea what time it was, and rather than try and stay up until evening and go to sleep at a normal time I just passed out. I slept most of the afternoon, got up in the evening to eat, and went back to sleep. Slept very intermittently. Had a lot of weird dreams, including driving and there being cows on the freeway (which in India wouldn't be that weird...) Driving... I don't know if I even remember how to drive a car...

What do I do here? I'm sure everything will go back to "normal" and things will start making some sense again soon, but for now... I don't know. I don't really feel ready to be happy and exuberant right now. I feel really reserved for the moment. Not ready to receive the world... not ready to actually be here... be home. Be in the present moment. Not ready to be in my experience...

I know there is much to receive. So much love from everyone. Means so much to hear that people are happy I'm home and want to see me. I don't really know what I need right now... Do I need to push myself into the world again? Do I need to just let myself sit here and cry and process? I don't know. I wish I could take my focus off myself and the uncertainty around what I need right now.

Well... hmm... Leslie reminds me that not being sure if things are ok or not is certainly an improvement from being sure that they're not ok. Yes. Perspective.

Ok... advice to self... breath. Relax. Don't be hard on yourself. At all. Let yourself rest, even excessively. Stop getting so lost in ideas. The answer is, and has always been... come back to the present moment, the breath... everything is ok. Everything is as it should be. (Thanks Jo)

Bangkok is quiet. Sometimes I resonate with the quiet, sometimes it amplifies my dis ease. The vibe of dis ease and disharmony is tangible in the air due to al the protests. Trying not to get to close to any of that, I have burnt out my ability to cope with the world, and that kind of information for sure surely doesn't sit well with me.

Keep going, moment by moment. Maybe I'll come home son, I can;t realy gauge what I can or can't do right now. I just know that I'm burnt out and tired and not getting what I need at the moment.

Missing everyone at home and hoping that they'll stil love me and care about me no matter what state I find myself home in. Could be anything.

India, one more thought before I go to sleep, and surely not as eloquant as I'd like it to be, but I have to be up really early in the morning.

 

I really can see now the incredible clarity the extent to which you are a mirror. You have managed to reflect back to me some giant unconscious patterns that have been playing themselves out my entire life. You amplify them, you bring them to the surface with your powerful vibrations. You bring us back to our oldest, most unconscious aspects of dealing with life amidst the parade of energy in every stage of living and dying. For those willing to deeply look within, all is available.

 

Thank you for being what you are. I say this with sincerity and love.

 

Now please don't mind the fact that I'm going to get the hell out of here, and know that I do so in a manner of lovingly responding to what is right in the moment.

Heading back to Thailand...

 

I didn't want it to be like this, this feeling of running away. It doesn't do India justice as the amazing place it is. India, know that I love you and don't want you to be anything you're not.

 

I just need to feel as though I am responding to what is appropriate for me in the moment.

Sonam's letter

"My name is Sonam Dhondup, aged 25 yrs. old, escaped from Tibet in the year 2003; except  me, the rest of my family members are in Tibet. I can only talk to them occasionally but I don't know when I can see them again. Ever since coming into exile, I have always wanted to go on a year long pilgrimage to major Buddhist sacred sites in India and Nepal, doing prostration at those sacred places for the sake of world peace and prosperity. I wish to accumulate approximately 36000 prostrations in a year.

   I have had done prostration along with my sister and parents when I was 11 years old, from my hometown of Tawu, eastern Tibet to Lhasa visiting all the pilgrimage sites on the way, which took 3 years and 7 months. Then again, I repeated the same procedure when I was 16 yrs. old.

   Now that after being 7 years in India, I have learned enough passable Hindi. So, I think it's the right time for me to fulfill the wishes of my parents to go on a pilgrimage by doing prostration in the land of Buddha.

   In order to accomplish this great journey, I am ready to leave my decent job but still the major obstacle is that I just need some money to sustain me during this period of more than 1 year. Therefore, I humbly beg and entreat you with folded palms to sponsor for this genuine cause."

 

 

 

I really want to try hard and help this dear friend of mine get sponsorship for this journey.

 

You are the creator, sustainer, destroyer.

Car and Bus rides are always contemplative times.

 

Saying goodbye again... This time really meaning it. To Dharamsala. To Sonam. A place and person who changed my life in ways I can't yet imagine.

 

I seem to be somewhat back in the flow? Whatever that means. I was waiting for a signal from the universe to move, and it seemed to come. Go to Manali, so I did. Stunning cab ride through mountains and canyons and little Indian villages. There was a Kali festival happening in one of the villages. Kali... Had a lot of her energy in my life for awhile there. Interesting how the void mysteriously opens up and then just as mysteriously closes, leaving the haunting memory and feeling of unease.

 

I made some really good friends in Dharamsala before I left. I am supposed to meet up with them (supposedly tomorrow) in Kullu to go to the village of Malana. Every time I try their cell however I get a message saying it is switched off, and they haven't responded to my email, so I may be on my own.

 

Rolling into this town yesterday it wasn't exactly what I expected. All the different parts of town are rather far away from each other, and it was actually cold! Haven't been cold in awhile... Staying in a nice guesthouse that friends reccommended. People seem nice there.

 

Today took a rickshaw to Vashisht and went to the hotsprings... The hotsprings were a temple with public baths, which were rather dirty and too hot to get into. I dipped my feet in and out and sat with some older Israeli women for a little while. I then started walking around and found the trail to the waterfall. The waterfall and little temple below it were pretty stunning. I then had lunch and walked back on my own, which was about 3 k. I explored New Manali a bit and then returned to Old Manali, where I'm staying.

 

Feeling the sting at the moment of being on my own. Of again not knowing what I'm going to be doing. For some reason I have a really hard time just being on my own without much input from other people. I was fine during the day but it just feels like it is building up now.

 

I did, however, see my first Yak today. I realized earlier today I didn't actually know what a Yak looked like, which was a surprising realization since I'd been talking about Yaks with Tibetan people for a month!