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On the path of pilgrimage,
one must be prepared to engage God,
themselves, and the unexpected.
16 April 2013
Leigh’s flat, Eugene,
Oregon, noon.
I drove thirteen hundred
miles northwest of my desert home to get some breathing room. Funny thing is down
in Arizona with all that spacious blue sky above, even when I climb to the top
of a small butte, sometimes there still isn’t enough room for me.
I came to get away. I came
because I wouldn’t have to pay rent at my aunt’s place, I had a flat of my own
and free wireless. Jesse, my partner on the path and love of my life, came
because I asked him to and he had time off from work. Some people back home
thought I was running away; others thought I should have left Arizona years
ago. I tried my best to create this journey North as a pilgrimage for myself,
rather than leaving in order to prove others right or wrong. We left in a hurry
because I was afraid if I waited, I might change my mind.
It was lightly raining as we
pulled into parking space #47, our four-door white Corolla filled with
suitcases, snack food, water bottles, shoes and jackets shed during the drive
hours before. Jesse and I had driven the coastal highway from San Francisco and
before that from the high desert of Paulden, Arizona. Now that I’m here, I
realize it’s no wonder so many artists find their way to this part of the
country—It’s lush and abundant with wildlife. Water flows on top of the Earth,
it’s green, and fruit grows freely on bushes and trees near the side of the
road. The desert has its own splendor, for sure, yet it’s masked in spines and
prickly things and hides out in the middle of the day. One has to look for it
in the pause before daybreak and listen in the dead of night as that bowl of
stars whispers into our ear. The Oregon coast wears her riches on the surface,
like all the women in India who wear their wealth in gold: nose rings, anklets,
bangles and necklaces for everyone to see. Here, tide pools house a multitude
of universes, contained between the hollows in the rock. I wonder is it just
coincidence I find myself in the Pacific Northwest on a Tuesday in April, with
so much life around me?
The luxury I have to take
the next six weeks just to sit here with my MacBook and write these words to
you is overwhelming. Nevertheless, this is what I’ve been given, and I’m trying
my damndest to make good use of the blessings being showered upon me. I’ve
worked hard in this lifetime to live to tell a story—what story I’m supposed to
tell I’m not entirely sure, yet it’s a true story all the same. This story is about
God. This story is about losing everything, twice. This story is about living
my life AS Pilgrimage and finding
reflections of myself and God in the most unexpected places.
ð
The first time I joined the
club of “loss and stolen,” I was three years old and the bag of books my mom
kept in her car to keep me entertained while we drove around doing errands was
taken from the back seat. I remember the heavy feelings I had of sorrow and
disbelief. I couldn’t understand yet why someone would take those books. The
second time was this past winter, 22 years later, when my backpack was stolen
on a train in India. I recognized those same feelings of “Why me? Why now?” rise
to the surface and now with some life experience and awareness I was faced with
a choice: Do I continue to feel victimized or do I use this opportunity for
transformation?
That night on the train I
lost everything and the next day I realized none of it mattered. In the moment,
I screamed until I had no voice left because someone had taken my
belongings—they were mine, not theirs to have. I needed them. I wanted them.
These possessions in my backpack had been imbued with my essence. They’d
traveled with me for months. They were a part of me. Some of those things were
not even mine; they were borrowed from someone else; I was only their keeper.
Now what? It was 3A.M. on the night
train from Mysore to Chennai. I was with Jesse returning from visiting my aunt
Leigh, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives at a monastery in the south of India
teaching English to the resident monks, among many other note-worthy projects.
I had fallen asleep with my bag under my seat. I hadn’t bothered to lock it up
that night because we’d been on trains a dozen times already and previously had
no trouble. Except this time there were no other bags but mine under the bench
and that bright blue backpack was a prime target.
I stepped off the train with
nothing but cash and my passport in a small, zippered purse around my neck. I
felt hollow and withdrawn. The most devastating thing (especially for a writer)
was the loss of my notebook, which held all the accounts of my journey. I was preparing
to write a book so I had taken the big journal instead of the small one, get
the picture? That, along with expensive health supplements so as to keep from
getting wretchedly ill, my dirty underwear, a few gifts and my favorite poetry
books; all gone. At first I blamed India for having violated my personhood. I
was angry and hurt; this loss was significant for me.
Returning to my friend’s
apartment, a true sanctuary in the middle of the city, gradually the anger
subsided and my tears stopped, and I realized how grateful I actually was at
having had this experience. Two days later, before I left India and flew back
to America, I kissed the ground, thanking Her for taking these things away.
Essentially She had done the job for me, catapulted me into a whole new way of
being—lighter, more free, less encumbered by “stuff.” Grateful.
When I got back to the
States I managed to piece together most of the facts of my journey and add from
memory the details and tenor of the places we visited while in India. Three
weeks after arriving back in Arizona, I opened my computer to continue working
on the 25-page essay I’d started, but it was not to be found. The document was
not in any of the places I had saved it on my laptop. All my writing was gone,
once again. All that time spent thinking of the right word and ironing out the
details, wasted.
I felt my world coming apart
at the edges. To start all over again was the only thing I could do. I was
consumed with doubt, worry, and frustration at having worked so hard at
something, only to have it wiped clean, like the last stage of a Tibetan sand
mandala. The monks who make the design might spend years working on one
painting and when they finish, with one stroke if their hand—the whole thing is
destroyed. And if I put it that way, I really have nothing to complain about
because their art is objective and my attempts at art had been mostly whining
and complaining, with a few interjections of clarity.
Nevertheless, I chose to
continue, and this time to pay more attention to writing from a place of objectivity.
From what I’ve read in my practice of study, this is all part of the process—First
one must arrive at nothing before the pilgrimage may begin. I have nothing. I’m
at zero… and yet, I sit with so much abundance around me, in me, through me. I
have this story inside me already, I just have to get it down on paper, and
really, “It is already written,” reminds R. Ryan, a mentor, friend, and
personal heroine.
ð
The thing is, each time I
have to start again, each time I come to the page, I am new. I am not the same
person I was when I sat down to write a month ago. My task is to remember what
I have learned and continue to be informed and transformed as I move through
life. To do this, I must pay attention!
I make journeys, not to find
myself, but to uncover what is already in existence. I travel to gain new
perspective and look from different vantage points onto life as-it-is. I am
already here: I need not look elsewhere for myself. Yet, as I place one foot in
front of the other allowing myself to be moved by Grace, I am consenting to
that same momentum to place my attention on the Heart of what is Real.
ð
Eugene is my sixth physical
location in five months. It’s April 30th and being mobile is grand,
but it also has its price. I have to get light, meaning I must illuminate,
uncover, unearth, get rid of, throw out, clarify, dispel myself of cumbersome
material both physical and psychological. I have a lot of shit to purge, like
old clothes and the need to “fix people.” Both of those I can afford get rid of
permanently. I want to be able to move with ease and clutter weighs on the
cells and makes for a very cumbersome travelling companion.
Tomorrow I’ll head back to
Arizona for my college graduation. I’ll also go through my storage unit and
clear out some serious clutter. I’m using this time away to get lucid in my
head and my heart about what it is that I really want.
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