Goddess Kali showing me, in the chaos, there is always some gold.

Trying to make sense of life when you are in the middle of it, is like trying to read a book whilst swimming. Plain crazy to think one can experience life and understand what the experience is about or what it is teaching us at the same time.  I guess this is why “life” is a series of events and experiences that shape us and create who we are.  Always ebbing and flowing, oscillating between positive and negative, two forces pushing and pulling us to move and take form. The part I dislike about this sometimes is I have brief moments, where I forget temporarily that my reaction to something is from my past.  Awareness is a funny thing and even though I might realise it midway through the experience, like being in a lucid dream that you suddenly become aware that you can manifest a sword and slay the dragon instead of running from it.  However even though the awareness comes it is still very hard to shake yourself free of the destructive thought patterns… After expressing these thoughts they seem to abate. Im always afraid of tainting somebody else’s field with my negativity… like projecting my fears on them… why do I always feel like I am not worthy of expressing my fears and worries to others because I want to protect them from my destructive patterns? Yet for some reason I always have room for others to share  and allow them the space to do so… As an empath it’s a hard habit to break… Making it ok for everyone, yet I’m always the hardest on myself.  Holding myself in, always controlling so much of myself. 

One of the beautiful things about being in Nepal is the simplicity here, also for me, the language barrier which allows me to be a little ignorant, and even in the moments where I do find myself in a destructive pattern, its easy to see and I can move out of it and go back to being and accepting… I have realised that is one of the amazing gifts I am being given every moment here… yet as soon as I let somebody from my past in or connect with me and question what I am doing here, the guilt immediately arises, its like I’m instantly dragged back in to the land of doing, succeeding and shoulds.  IN here, it seems people are ok with

being… people are ok with spending the day chatting, connecting, feeling, sharing and working around the house.   People don’t seem to be in such a hurry to get somewhere or be somebody.  In here they just want acceptance from their peers and community and most of all their families.  Isn’t it all any of us really want, beneath the consumerism and crazy busy lifestyles in the developed countries?  In here of course people desire, like any human desires, however there is a quiet acceptance that exists that life can be in equal measure negative and positive, creative and destructive and with this acceptance there is more inner peace perhaps, or an understanding that despite suffering there is also joy.  Pain here is not suppressed, oppressed or medicated. It seems to be more acceptable to “feel”.  Its like there is a deep understanding of something universal that connects everyone and therefore people here are community orientated instead of individualistic and this creates connection, this seems to minimise feelings of isolation, separation and disconnection which ultimately leads to depression.  I’m not saying that people here don’t have depression, of course there are still people here that would experience those things, I’m merely saying there seems to be less of it or more natural ways of dealing with it, due to the communal way of life instead of medicating and suppression.

Somewhere out there when I left the crystal castle of my childhood, I got lost.  I forgot how to be… Children are free, exploring their world unhibited and full of acceptance and love. A child can play with another child and be so full of joy and love and not even know, the child’s name and or worry about if they will ever see that child again. Whilst they are playing, time is eternal and there are no thoughts of the future or past, complete presence….. Pure bliss…. I feel that being here. It is like coming home somehow, coming back to that place… Coming home to myself, slowing the pace down, learning what is important and who is important to me… It is simplifying my perception and allowing me to accept my past and not worry so much about my future.

"Every child has known god, Not the god of names, Not the god of don'ts, Not the god who never does anything weird, But the god who knows only 4 words And keeps repeating them, saying: "Come Dance with Me."
- Hafiz

Intention is a funny thing, often misinterpreted and I feel that for many, they are not even aware of their intentions.  Which can be interesting for someone like me, who is often so aware of others intentions that I can allow and forgive people because even though the results of their actions may have been negative their intentions were good.  But then again who am I to judge if their intentions are good or bad, and if this is the case, that I am aware of people’s agendas and intentions why have I been given this gift, if not to do something with it??  I often ponder this.  It might be why living in a foreign country and falling in love with a foreign man works for me, the culture and peoples are so different that I am not so aware of agendas and intentions and therefore I can have relationships that are deeper as I can not see so much??? Or be consumed by such thoughts, that really don’t serve me very well.

As an energetic being I can easily move from the past to the future and back again, its as easy as flipping a coin.  I’ve had to learn to know where I am in every moment and feel that this has certainly helped with my depression and anxiety.  I can now flip it and move myself back to the present allowing expansion and opportunity, instead of narrowing and stretching the view so far ahead as to leave no room for any other manifestation other than the point of fixation… eg: Looking at a long road ahead it narrows into a small point in either direction, the largest part of the road with the biggest vision is right here in front of you where the car is….all the possibilities exist right there in the present.This is one of the reasons dance is so meditative for me… It allows me to move energy and all that pent up frustration, blocks and anxieties out and bring me to the present, into my body, into the space I occupy as I move my body and allow my soul to follow and flow with the music.  Music allows the soul to journey without fixation… this why its so healing and so primal.. It allows expansion and contraction to flow in equal measure, because the music exists in the spaces between the sounds.  Which I believe is why in every culture, dance and music is such a major part of their life and traditions, and is equally connected to the spirituality of every race.  Something my Meditation teacher in Pokhara Nepal confirmed to me when in the middle of meditation he turned the music up so loud and told us all to get up and dance!!! Such amazing energy followed, and then laughter…. Also the best medicine.

Sometimes we can have the best of intentions, I came back here to do more relief work and give my heart and soul to Nepal, God knows they needed it at this time, so I thought… a judgement perhaps? I mean how arrogant of me to think that “I” could come here and help these people… Did they need it? Do they want it?  It is interesting that we feel so much guilt as citizens from developed countries when we visit places like Nepal that all we think to do is help or give money.  Never stopping to ask or think,  maybe we need the help?  Maybe there is something we need to learn from them?  I mean have you ever stopped and wondered how you would survive in Australia if there was an earthquake and it destroyed our power, deprived us of our petrol and our homes and buildings were destroyed….?? Hmmmm, it is something we don’t often think about, but I guarantee you, that we would seriously be in a predicament. 

Many of us without even the basic knowledge of how to cook from scratch, how to grow food, how to kill a beast, how to build shelter, how to be resourceful and without fuel and power, then what??  What I’ve learnt from Nepal and the people here is that I need them, more than they need me…

There is so much to learn from these people, the way they think, the way they live and function as a society that supports one another and copes in the midst of negligent governments and natural disasters.  Every day here, I feel more like a child on this planet, who knows absolutely nothing. Every day I am surrounded by the most resilient and loving people that I’ve ever met, that despite adversity and the difficulties they face living each day in an under developed country, the communities band together and try their best to keep going and support one another.  I’m not saying that people here don’t suffer and don’t have many problems that could be transformed with more support, I am just saying that we need to appreciate the equality among men to learn from each other and recognise the perfection in the imperfection. 

We can learn from each other swapping knowledge and sharing cultures and ways to help build better communities… There is so much more to assisting people than to volunteer or build a school or offer money or wait for big organisations and governments to take action. There is so much more to learn about our world from each other, from other cultures, we need to start to see the gifts.  We can do so much more as individuals supporting each other with compassion and kindness in every day actions.  So much of the volunteer experience is intentionally good, but we have expectations that come from our egos, which can cloud the experience and prevent us from really growing and learning on both sides.  There needs to be more of a focus on sharing. Sometimes the quartz rock is so big that it is difficult to spot the gold, but the specks are there and then if you follow it and dig deeper, you will find the big piece, the golden nugget, often elusively hidden in the recesses, needing destruction and dynamite to get to it.