Cascade Head, OR Coast: 12.21.08


Enclosed in our fire-stoked corner room sauna,
we gaze out at the roiling churn of waves dashing against
the smooth worn dark stone below our windowed glaze.
It is winter solstice, a turning of the tide, a swapping of sides,
the outside storms spawning that which we hold inside too tight to spill forth
which serve such sweet releasing, even if they are but a flimsy thought
tried on for the last time, its britches stretching and popping
as the fabric of its belief no longer fits our larger-seeing eyes,
cosmic in our vision we see oursleves holding the breadth of the world,
the breath of our mother filling us every time we open our heart and lungs to feel her.

She is there, unwavering in the fruitful support of her strong supple wings,
magically diaphanous in their sublime strength & amorphous resilience,
they enfold us like the rain-sparkled branches within a tight grove
of ocean-borne evergreens we wandered innocently upon,
which held the wayfaring strangers gently in its hearthful grasp
as we sought shelter from the storm.
Feeling forth for the little folk as we brushed past the ferns and lichen-laced
sentinels of the coastal wood, we sang songs to the crashing waves far below
while watching the elk graze in the meadowed hollow of the massive headland
on which we all found ourselves, sharing this idyllic picturesque setting
in the midst of a full-on winter tempest brought us home to the extremes
we inhabit as blessed members of this paradoxical plane.
Dancing, skipping & singing did we delight in the bubble of warmth, youthful vigor
& rain-clearanced calm we called in to protect and comfortify
ourselves with envisioned intent before leaving the car
long before in the midst of a seismically strung maelstrom.
At light's nearing end, our confidence, surrender and trust
were most evident as we ran headlong down
the mountainside through slickety winding muddy trails,
between and betwixt stoic elder groves
and dark brooding giants of the sacred council's glen.
Seeing bare enough to fly gracefully & swiftly over the rocks and roots of the serpentine
path in the waning light of dusk on a stormy winter night, the longest night no less,
the two playful young guardians glided and glistened through the glades
as if they knew exactly where each obstacle arose and abided,
as if each turn, rise and fall were the cellular array of their own aural quilt,
a patchwork of chills, spills and gratitude thrills to summon forth the bounty
of untold splendor and limitless possibility in the cold aeons to come,
for they held and spoke of such wonders of the wood and the world
for the good of all whose soulful call the tidal currents that did rise and fall
did invoke in their shrill blustery sing-song squall.

In the epiphanous symmetrical unfolding of the day did we arrive back home to ourselves
in the nick of time to feel into the love of our freedom to love,
and to write what the bright sweetness inside longs to whisper to the flowering world
of our mischievously anointed humble worship, a grandiose dove,
while the dreaming dawn of a new year rounds the coastal altar mound to be unfurled . . . .

I have been incredibly sad these last few days, and I feel ashamed of it because I imagine my life appears so blessed and full from outside that who am I to gripe? I know that admitting this shame feels silly, and that merely adds to the shame. In short, I feel I am wasting my life and am neglecting simply going for it because I want to know exacty what it is I should be going for. Yes, I'm writitng a book, and that is wondrous and huge and rewardingly impeccable to feel I am truly standing in my truth when I am working on it and fulfilling my purpose for being here, at least one of them. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm coasting and waiting to be shown what it is exactly I should full apply myself to, and this waiting has gone on interminably to where I now feel almost terrified of the "outside world" and my ambition feels almost atrophied. Some Capricorn I turned out to be -- I'm a rebel to the point of even rebelling against my own sign.
But the dissatisfaction and self-loathing arising out of this is becoming ever more pronounced and nauseating to face. I know it is my spirit crying out to me with ever greater urging to take a stand for what inspires me and would bring me fulfillment, contentment and joy, but sometimes my spirit's calling is so full and bright, I feel numb and overwhelmed to the point of paralysis to try and meet its needs and embody the glory I know my soul signed up for in coming here.

Yesterday I was gathered amongst so many near and dear friends and my new precious lover, and I felt this deep immovable sadness at feeling I don't measure up to them for if asked what I am doing with my life, I imagine feeling shame at how little I can offer in response. I almost felt udeserving of the beauty all around me, as if I didn't measure up and was unworthy. And I felt so insufferably tired which allowed my bully-oriented thoughts to rally against me full force so that I might surrender and turn to its monkey-minded advice for more support and encourage this self-loathing cyclically hopeless whirlpool indefinitely. Hell if I ever knew one.
I'm tired of whining about the same old thing and I want to just jump in and say yes, as Ruba suggested, to all of it, unknowing of what it looks like, alesson I am receiving more and more often, for I know that when you commit to a shift the universe will open doors that were once not even known to exist to support you -- if you are committed.
I feel the intensity of knowing we have the power to co-create our reality, and I have long shyed from that intensity, allowing it to seem ever more insurmountable the longer I have given my power away to it. But as a friend said yesterday, when we look into another's eyes, unflinching, meeting, open and unconditional in the awe-invoking vastness of that moment, that is when we can see our power reflected back at us and meet that power and the fear it rustles forth in a powerfully held container of intimacy. That is the chance to claim it with the impeccable softness that such an intimate exchange asks of its participants. I have no trouble making eye contact and appreciate the vulnerability it evokes and honor that in my holding of the space between myself and whomever I'm sharing such connection with. Yet when I see the seeming void that awaits my decision to claim my truth, my dream, my desire, fully and without bargaining or compromise, I almost feel paralyzed like a child in a nightmare.
I feel this Buddhist-oriented part of me that knows there is nothing to be done, nothing to be achieved, and that things are unfolding as they will in the blossomng dance of the cosmos. But this is becoming ever more of a copout to action and the dis-ease I feel inside me grows like a throbbing guttural deafening scream that terrifies me by its strength and demand for action. Yes, I do feel inspired by it, but it feels so powerful and so long neglected that to merely jump on board its energetic tide feels almost entirely incongruent to my present state of being. But then that's just me arguing and making myself small and feigning rebellious indiffference out of fear . . . or some such oceanically large bullshit.
So then I want to run with reckless gleeful abandon in the spontaneous pretend that anything can happen in my attempted convincing that I'm not in control because I don't want that much responsibility. It's the same old song and dance of wanting someone to come in and rescue me because that was how I was born, starving and strangled by the umbilical cord, unwilling and unable to emerge tilll hands reached in and untangled and unwound me. I know this pattern well, and I'm ready to stop letting it be my crutch for inaction or procrastination. I'm ready to be reborn into claiming my own freedom and pulling off my own choking limiting bonds.
Far too much valuable time has been spent waiting for someone to show me the answer or point the way or remind me of what I'm capable of, neglecting my own internal guidance which aches to be heard. Now is the time to trust, and to pull in the oars and float with the flow of life -- stepping up to steer but no longer trying to row against the tide to gain a futile sense of achievement or my own worth, abandoning that old school belief that the harder one works the more one will feel having achieved something. Nor do I want to wait any longer on the banks for an invitation to join the juicy surging flow of life. I want to jump in, and I want to feel like I can ask for help and no longer allow myself to disappear on the sidelines because I can handle it all myself and I don't want to lie that everything is fine because I don't want to go into it or be seen and I don't want to admit that I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to be doing and that I'm wasting time waiting for an answer and I just want to scream and cry because I just have too much lifeforce and passion to be playing this outdated boring game.

whew!

So much to say from this one, but for now I want to share a powerfully youthful moment I had the other day at a swimming hole with some beautiful people I'd just met at a music festival in California. The weather was seriously hot so a bunch of us went to escape the festival chaos and chill multilaterally in a cool river that was blissfully accessible but a 10 minute drive from the fest. While there, I said yes to a desire I had and felt worthy of experiencing. But it involved facing fear and impulsive uncertainties which weighed against my youthful desire for an edge of newfound experience and spontaneous thrill.
The group of us were attending the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA, where once again the threat of a steadily growing forest fire loomed a few ridges south of us. It seemed the element of fire was keen on staying with me for a while longer. 2 of the 4 days the wind brought the smoke of it upon us in a ubiquitous haze that stung our eyes and made us cough. The setting was glorious though as 4 stages of music alternatively played some of the best ass-kicking music you could ever hope to throw down to.
And the camp of people who welcomed me into their midst after being invited to join in by a friend I'd made 18 months before was super sweet and nurturing. My new temporary tent community of revellers passionately embodied the fire energy that followed me around the state reminding me of what wanted to burn down and off me and what wanted to ingite and take flight like the ashes of the Phoenix. Fire of connection creation connections dancing alongside wilderness destruction sparking looming infrastructure transformation permutated and balanced each other as compatible hosts for individual catharsis.
Anyway, back to the swimming hole. While there I saw a young man doing backflips off a rock ledge into the water 10 feet below. I felt such a definitive urge to try it, it was almost irresistible. It felt like the little boy in me needed to experience that, while the older man in me was pretty anxious and scared to try it. Precious was the dance of their meeting in a place of committing to face fears that had usually paralyzed or left me ineffectively prostrate, feeling safe but essentially dissatisfied. I was determined not to back down and I called upon how youthfully alive I felt in my core with the fullness of summer to follow through with my wild-haired inclination.
The fear came on strong as I walked up to the ledge and put my back to the drop behind me, which suddenly loomed fathoms deep in the unknown of what lay behind me, out of sight, awaiting my leap of faith. I'd never done a backflip before, ot even off a diving board, but somehow this has been my style. If I'm gonna go for something exciting and new, It's usually done when there's the chance for a dramatic way of crossing the threshold -- and this was no exception. The simple fear of launching backwards into the unknown was nearly paralyzing. I too easily and clearly could envision myself bailing and turning and just jumping into the water below, brushing off my desire as frivolous, recklessly unimportant and not worth injuring myself for. But that was just too damn easy --I'm through with the easy way out that I'd regret long after. And there was just a yes inside me that demanded to be heard oh so fucking bad.
I desired to take a stand for the confidence that I knew I could do this. I would not back down and surrender to my fears as I had done so many times in my life, for whatever pain I might inflict upon myself by hitting the water wrong seemed insurmountable to the dismalness of once again backing down and leaving that which longed to feel free and alive in that moment unfulfilled. Unh-uh. Not on this watch. Not no more.
Perhaps it very likely was a dramatic staving off of the feeling that I'm getting too old for stunts like this, but more likely it was simply my desire to feel alive. To recharge my soul fire in that. On a deep level I stood at a threshold of facing my fear and stepping it up to take a risk, a leap of faith, and above all to youthfully take a spontaneous stand for newfound joy in the liberation of going for it and ignoring those antiquated crotchety wrinkled voices urging me to take the easy way out and that there was nothing to prove. Yes, nothing to prove, but a whole lot to live.

So I counted to 3 in my head and committed to jumping off at 3 -- notgiving myself too much time to think myself out of it but enough time to prepare. On 3 I went. Most ungracefully at best as I had a bodily misgiving at the last minute that caused me to go back sideways so I could see where I was going, not having fully committed to the unknown, wanting to see where I was headed, and this made me awkwardly slap the wate rat astrnage angle, but I was fine and only more inspired to heed the mistake, so I quickly scrambled back up to the ledge and went again. It took 3 flips to get it and then I did one more to cinch the deal.
The fact that the 1 year anniversary of being jumped by 4 young men in Brazil had just passed nicely corroborated my claim to freedom at that moment, for that's how it truly felt. Yes it may very well have been seen as foolishly boyish, reckless and stupid, but despite any easy outwardly opinionable appearances, it was a deeply poignant moment of me truly saying yes!, "fuck yeah!", and stepping up to face my fear and in so doing, coming out bigger in my claim to joy, trust and unbridled inner expression as I vibrated youthfully in my passionate embrace of freedom by jumping in backwards.

I feel both inspired and intimidated by some of my male friends who seem to embody being a man so well, so naturally. It's inspring because I know them and love them and am learning from them as they are from me, and I am committed to having more of such positive role models and "dancers" to engage this dance of growth and expansion that we call life amongst. It's intimidating because I sometimes feel I'm navigating the realm of what it means to be a man with tender stuttering steps. I explore tentatively, and then with fiery abandon when I'm tired of holding back, jump into what it means to love, authentically, passionately, unconditionally, opening to what I can allow in as fully as possible, free of all the antiquated trappings I have accrued from insecure beliefs and doubts of my own worth within community, within the world, when I have tried to remain safe in the cozy familiar of being tiny, alone and unseen. In trying to extricate myself from such previous self-imposed constrictions and addictions to feeling small, I sometimes lash out with reckless abandon, even when my intentions and communications are as masterfully aligned with as much honor, consciousness and integrity as I can possibly offer those concerned by my actions.
It is such a gigantic dance, this honoring of my heart that has a logic that logic knows not of, and which sometimes feels huge enough to hold all the pain of the world inside, but which holds so much passion and fire that can burn a tad uncontrollably at times, and maybe I'm left to clean up some charred remnants in the process, a cleanup I'm committed to avoiding for I much prefer to leave behind petals of validation, acknowledgment and camaraderie in my wake instead of the ashes of disregard, imbalance and haste. Finding the real juice is in returning to center, to honor those in my sphere as best I can, meaning what I say, honoring what I feel, wanting to hold as much conscious compassion and respect for others but not wanting to surrender it for myself in believing others needs should come before mine so that maybe I'll be loved, no longer subscribing to be an automatic caretaker in oreder to be acknowledged or feeling I've some past due or burden to make amends for. Trying to find the balance, between expanding and contracting, the exhale and the inhale, the fulfillment of desire and the grace of retreat and decline, wanting to feel all of it for what it is, no matter how much it hurts.

Wow. I feel a tsunami of thoughts arising and surging on this, and I feel such gratitude for the aspirations to awareness I see unfolding all around me in my growing and intimately weave-woven community, but I also feel fear at the open staged setting I see occurring around arenas of the heart, trust and truth that feel very sacred to me and which quiver in inclinations to shrink and contract under a more public scrutiny. I also feel anger and rebellion on a soul level to stand for what my heart burns for, and in the pain and fear of potentially and sensingly being portrayed as someone I strive not to be, that rebellious streak can lash out in the frustration of feeling both terrified of others trying to make manifest my worst fears of being unwanted or unloved, as well as ecstatic in the embracing of it in chaotic freefall by being reckless in love. But I don't want to be reckless for my heart and spirit and everything in between has had enough of that pretension and pretending that it doesn't matter. Old identities are shriveling and sloughing off me with constant regularity right now, and in forging a new one I can feel content with throughout my entire being, who I am is constantly being called into question and I'm really trying to navigate that rediscovery and reintegration with the utmost of grace.

But I'm also committing to facing fear as much as I can, for it's never as big as it once seemed when you turn to look at what it's all about and can recognize what it has to offer. And apparently, I still have a lot of fear around stepping up and being the man I came here to be in this world.

And I am in love . . .

As the morning bell chimes somewhere in the periphery
a gathering is summoned, a calling from the stillness deep inside
that longs for release, expression and communal revelry.

The magic of music, so oft overlooked in its ubiquitous day to day presence
is suddenly transformed in the holding of sacred space
when our entire being is perhaps jilted,
even if but for a precious nanosecond,
into the fully embodied realization of our limitless fire bouncing
sturdily and surely against our physical frames with chaotic glee
amidst the friction of inspired tension
as we embrace our surrender.

Following in the footsteps of ancestors long past but whose vital example
aches to resonate in the continuing lucidity of our reverberating souls,
we all join together in the dance, a flash in the pan,
a cosmic awakening that is invoked as only the dance can.
Who feels it, knows it,
whoever breathes it, holds it.

Unbridled passion, expressed in sensuous safety
with no certain measure of unchecked enthusiasm,
the sweat pours out, our hearts heaving gloriously big and wide,
while the music does infinitely hold us in its unfurling bosom,
pulsing and channeling through us,
conjuring forth the stagnation that soon cannot hide
and which gets expelled thru sheer vital vibration.

Perhaps we scream in ecstasy at the chance to share in this chaos,
this stillness, this birthright of dancing the dance that is solely our own
and which gloriously never needs defending or explanation,
but which cannot be separated from the resonant entrainment
reborn in screams and tears of unrestrainable gratitude all around and through us
~like a giant flowing silk sari that wraps itself around our corporeal form
that as we break free of our conditioning,
sheds and slips off us in an explosion
of dancing fireflies that alights uncontrollably forth from our core
to remind us that in finding our earthen joy, our magma fire
and our liquid tempest of desperate tears, the world will mirror our truths
and hold us in rhythmical delight as our spirits push the edge of what was known,

and the antiquated restraint that was forged in darkness
becomes its newfound potential as
an unchecked bounty of life
as we dance our essence back to its blissful home.

In the dream that is the dance,
we are all players in the dream of Source,
allowing the limitless perfection of itself to experience the intrigue of limitation through us,
and so we choose to come together and dance
so that we may again return
to that which we already are . . . limitless joy, abundance and perfection.

Here's to invoking the poetry of our becoming into being,
and dancing the dream into its awakening . . . .

To all of you still plugged in, I wish you many winter heartfelt holiday blessings.

love
Chris

I am in love. Feels really good to feel my giddy heart quiver.

I was genuinely touched by many in my ecstatic dance community who came up to express their appreciation for the words I shared from my journey on the sacred circle dance email while I was traveling the last six months. I only shared myself on this email about three times or so, and so was heartfully impacted that so many remembered my offerings and their appreciation of them, as few as they were.
I had a powerful realization around this recently, for while on my sojourn, I made my blog available on the internet for practically anyone to read, for I had the intention of being transparent and open to being seen by any and all. 'Here I am, this is me, nothing to hide' guided many a way for me.
However, I realize now I did not post much at all of my posts with my beloved dance community, those I considered closest to me, because of issues of self-worth and believing I would be taking up valuable space on the email posts that could be served otherwise. So, it turns out I was making myself openly seeable, but only to the world at large and not by those I supposedly had the biggest heart~connection to.
However, being the Gemini rising that I am, I am able to immediately jump over to the other side and see with absolute clarity that not posting my site so openly was my way of honoring myself and respecting my own boundaries, as well as those of my community by not assuming they wanted me posted so vividly on their emails.
This is all relatively interesting and there's a lot there for me to look at, but I know my sense of worth has shifted since, and now I am trying to fully embrace and claim how proud I am of myself for the journey i just undertook, for it was a rite (and right) of passage and the crossing of a threshold and no small matter in the course of my evolution.

Now that I'm back, I see that I censor myself less, which allows me the potential to have a richer sense of humor. Just yesterday i was aying goodbye to a dear friend and in the pause we shared as we lingered in the energy of goodbye, I felt the energy of a kiss with such acuity that I barely hesitated and leaned over and we softly kissed. We are simply good friends, who at one time dated briefly, but such history is irrelevant to the beauty of simply having felt into an energy that was clearly felt by both of us and I simply engaged and honored its presence it without question or doubt. There is such beauty to be had in the uncensored expression of showing love. Gratitude abounds for my friend who knew it as we felt it. No apologies, no explanations, just love and honor and spontaneous whimsical youthful life.

Moving to the other extreme now, to be fair, I struggle with many things going on here in the US, but one issue in particular really stings my open heart. The thick underlying fear that pervades nearly everything and everyone here is so rampant that I find myself trying to stay consciously abreast and afloat upon it so as not to lose my newfound passion, breadth and lucid calm in this dismal suffocatory tide. On my journey, I realized just how conscious and pro-active so many in the world are about helping one another and how inspiringly beautiful that was to be around such people. And now I am realizing just how backwards and off-track so many Americans are in their little material-snatching bubbles of greed, fear, suspicion and denial. I know, such old topics, but ever growing worse it seems. Now that the pioneering exploratory charitable nature of my random international companions is gone, I am increasingly and sensitively compelled to surround myself with those to mirror such qualities of inspirational action in my own being. It's all so rich, but so important to distinguish between the energies that expand and those that retreat within which to abandon into glorious immersion and blissful resonance.

My reentry back home has been incredibly full and rich and discombobulating. Not knowing who I am as reflected in the eyes of those I know I love, I find myself so easily and embraceably full of gratitude to see, hold and hug them all again, letting my disconcertment dissolve into my unknowable center within their embrace. Discovering such bliss in the unknowing immersion in their welcome. Riding the wave of opening and contracting as my energies yield, merge and retreat to incorporate this newness of juiciness flowing at me from my community, I fumble into it ecstatically, knowing my home holds me even if I don't quite recognize it.

I am aware of not wanting to fall into old habits and lose my worldly amorphous identity, which is really no identity at all, both the concern and the bliss coming on at once. Falling into old patterns almost feels like sliding backwards down a slope of rocks and scree, down to the person I once was but who I allowed to die a shamanic death somewhere along the way. To allow myself to fall there unleashes fears that I would nullify the climb I made up to that point. But I also grant that the most graceful path is the one made without trying to paddle upstream, but one where the oars are brought in and the culminating flow of what we have come to desire is embraced as we let it take us downstream with ease and relish.

I am also trying to be careful not to say too much about my journey, to keep the stories to an absolute minimum. I sense that if I were to say too much, I might leak the energy of my journey here and there, and the juiciness of my traveled essence will begin to evaporate.
My one day guru in India, as I like to call him, said not to speak of what I get out of meditation to others, for that will dissipate its essence. I feel the same about sharing my experiences now that I'm back home. My concern is that they will be solidified and concretized as I say them, and that I may also solidly concretize myself as those statements of what I experienced and who I am as a result, and I do now want that. I feel amorphous, vast, and full of breadth, depth, juice and possibility, and I want to preserve that and let that flow out unhindred or compartmentalized by too many stories or verdicts of what my sojourn was for me. My form and essence feel [eacefully content in this flowing place and words seem too rigid to encompass it. They seem more suited to encapsulation and I am not ready to be enclosed in any shape or form whatsoever. My need for freedom of being and exploring what has been shaped and reborn so as to most authentically integrate it requires as absolute a separation from labels and particulars as is possible.

In my flow, I feel especially susceptible to entrainment and arrangement by energies, words and concepts, knowing that the spoken word is continually gathering greater power towards being made manifest in the world. So if I declare some truth or realization or possibility about myself, I'm afraid I may have just limited myself to that and closed myself off to the limitlessness of the unspoken. This is the vastness I feel and am trying to convey, whether or not you understand this is of a whole separate nature. If I make such a statement and that is how I'm then seen, the reflection I might henceforward receive could very well begin holding me accountable to who I may have proclaimed to be in a moment of illusory conviction. This is not what I want for I am still changing so much as the journey unfolds for me in this still molting stage of its unfolding. I do not want to become the energies I encounter and vulnerably desire to engage with if they tend to move toward shaping me into their expectations and conclusions based on my words.
I want to be vigilant about maintaining my own mystery, most of all to myself, for limiting myself is the biggest danger of all. So as few spoken words as possible do I wish to share just now, but photos, exploratory writings and hugs are all up for grabs.

This expansive breath I am embodying deserves better than a conversion into randomly occurring concepts and notions of who my brain thinks I may or may not be at this moment. I am undefinable by words or thought right now, and I wish to allow this to continue, allowing my identity to be in the flow of what is, with no separation or dichotomous discrepancy to be had.

Unfortunately, many friends want to know exactly this -- how it changed me, what were the places that changed me or touched me the deepest, what were my spiritual epiphanies, etc, etc. It all seems so trite to discuss or summarize in a few words, but I do want to share. I really do. I would like to simply smile in response to all my beloved's questions and inquiries, but usually more is expected. Finding the balance in it all, that is the shape my reentry is being molded from.

*****
Attending an ecstatic dance class yesterday was huge, with a surge of so many friends and smiling faces to reacquaint with. It was overwhelming and I had to find a balance of honoring my need for space and letting myself be immersed in the tide of love and feeling of being welcomed back. A dance in itself. So beautiful, the challenge. Though I am beginning to feel a deep sadness under the surface around what to do now. Yes, I still am going to write my book, but I feel overwhelmed and still very tired.

I'm finally licking this cough, turns out it was much deeper than just a simple virus. I think I picked up some energy sucking entities in India that were draining me, and the cough kept getting activated by simply talking as if I had a spasm in my diaphragm. My good friend gave me a Craniosacral session which helped immeasurably -- so grateful for my healer friends that I get to do trades with! So I'm much better now, but my insides still ache from having been chaotically coughed about for two weeks now.
Another of my priorities is the need to take a walk in the woods, but I've also have been enjoying visiting with friends bit by bit, and reconnecting with those I haven't shared with in quite a long time.

Today I go to see my mom, a joyous grounding into my blood, my relation, my family, my lifelong friend and companion. To ground in the desert with her, this will be good. So much love, so much gratitude, so much endless possisbility, joy and magic, may it never stop . . .

Portland, Oregon, USA
Home. Safe and sound and shiveringly adjusting to suddenly being thrown into winter after the balmy pollution shroud of India. But after a 21 hour flight from start to finish, when I got off that last plane and caught the unmistakable scent of evergreens on the brisk breeze that seemed to blow right through my bones as I walked across the tarmac to the terminal, I knew I was home. In that smell of firs and pine, I knew I had arrived; physically anyway. Psychologically and energetically, it might take a little time.

After having arranged to come home earlier than originally planned from my journey so I could see Ozzy rock Portland old-school style, among other reasons, I found myself too wiped out to attend. Ozzy's like Keith Richard's though, I think he'll be around longer than anyone could imagine.
I was too tired to attend partly because I still have a lingering cough that seems determined to stay with me as my lasting travel companion, and which has drained me through sheer tenacity. Below that, I feel a deep melancholy under the surface level splash of gratification for having made it home. The melancholy seems attributable to many things, most of them the result of old mind patterns that I thought I'd worked through and left behind but which seemed to have coincidingly popped up along with my familiar surroundings. I question if I changed at all from my journey, and then feel a complete lack of attachment to whether I have or not, along with the understanding that I could never honestly tell how much I've changed or not, being that I'm always with myself, but these are just more of the same humdrum chasing tail thoughts that offer nothing but self-questioning time-death.

I feel a mild anxiety that says I should jump right in and reintegrate into my community and my city in a radical way, but I'm still very tired and I know I need to just ground here before I can truly do anything worthwhile.

Thoughts of failure and disconnection assail me regularly. Notions of having wasted so much time and so much money, and for what? All these are running rampant in my overtired brain that seems bent on self-criticism for fuel. Now that I've stopped moving, the demons of my mind seem all the more apparent, and so the process of self-discovery and improvement continues in earnest, if I can only remember to be light on myself most of all. That is the biggest challenge for me sometimes.

It is good to be home, but even better is the ability to be still now. To integrate this. Me. The need to dance the new me out of its hibernatory chrysalis into the butterfly that longs to fly. Finding my stillpoint within ecstatic motion and release, that is where it's at for me. And to savour, as modestly as I can, any touch that might come my way, for I feel quite touch deprived at the moment and welcome any and all hugs unconditionally as my new fix.

Random trickles . . .
Reintegration continues to be a subtle but pervasive struggle. I attended my first dance yesterday, my usual back to back classes that was my Sunday morning ritual before I left. It was so great to be tackled by a few cherished friends as I was stretching unobtrusively in the corner, but had a moment when I wanted to flee because the energy and the proximal meshing of bodies was too overwhelming to merge into. But then I managed to have a deep one on one dance with a familar someone and that grounded me further home into center so that I could more easily handle the touch that came flitting this way and that around me. The entire experience was still overwhelming, but it was a beautiful start and reconnection with my community. And a good chance to sweat more of this still lingering cough out of my lungs.

I forgot to mention that when I was flying home on the leg from Delhi to Hong Kong, I saw Everest!!!! I glanced up out of my window and lo and behold, there were the Himalayas shining exquisitely brightly on the horizon atop the ocean of clouds that shrouded the northern Indian plateau. And I have seen enough photos of the big one to recognize its shape, besides the fact that it and another peak right next to it, Mt. Makalu, completely dominated the heights. And I just knew it was Everest. It was a very cool sendoff to see the highest point on the planet as I was just settling into a nice long meditation on the finer points and highs of homecoming.
Just east of Everest is Mt. Makalu, which is only the fifth highest peak in the world, but standing seemingly alongside one another from my plane quite a bit south, they were majestically huge together.

I keep dreaming of India. In fact, I think India has figured in my dreams for the past ten days solid. Usually, I am with someone and we're usually in a slum, but I'm content to behold the meagerness of the environment along with the wonder that so many know this as their home. And that such acceptance is never far away in the limitless attunement and capacity the human has to adapt, acclimate and surrender to. But the fact that India has played such a cornerstone in my dreamworld makes me think that it represents an archetype of my psyche with many depths to plumb.
India rather feels like a microcosm of my entire journey, along with the resonances, realizations and riveting reflections of its impact that I'm sure will ripple forth through my expanding being for sonme time to come.