The threefold awareness in transformation

What does a year of living out of suitcases, a year without furniture or a home address teach you? How do you see the world when you have no tripod or fixed point of view. This is not the post I set out to write, but somehow it is the one that emerged as words started flowing. In a way it is only fitting as this year was not a journey that was planned, strategic or intentional.

I am you

The year has been filled with friendship. Old friends whom I hadn't seen for 26 years, new friends with whom a deep spiritual connection must have existed before we even met. The year has included (in chronological order) Costa Rica, London, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Stockholm, Berlin, Tegernsee, Munich, Derby, Bali, Singapore, New Zealand, Nuremberg, Mallorca, Berliiiiiiin, New York, Denver, Medford, Portland OR, Middletown CA, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Mt Hood, Open tent somewhere in Utah desert, Helsinki, Cape Town, Kalk bay, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Magaliesburg, Pilanesburg, Lodz, Buxton, Leeds. (Duplications and miles and miles of mountain walks not noted).

In connecting to so many people in so many places the most persistent thought is the sense of genuine connection we all share through our humanity. The journey I am undertaking is the journey everyone undertakes on a day to day basis. The distorted lens of flights and passport controls has only served to bring this basic human quest in focus. No matter where or who you are, we are all on a journey to add meaning and substance to the life we have been given.

Once in a meeting with Stefano Marzano I thanked him for taking the time out of his schedule. His answer: "we all have the same number of hours in the day." A profound insight about the choices we make in filling each hour with substance. In this instance it made me acutely aware of my responsibility towards him; to fill the hour with 60 minutes worth of value. In this regard every one of use faces every day with the challenge of filling it with our unique biography, a contribution that transcends the escape velocity of the hours lent to it by creating a substantial shift in the people around us. The value of the journey is not measured by the places you have seen, it is measured by the lives you have touched.

So, you are me. The travel catalogue of daily adventures mapping kindness, generosity and the conversations people will have, when you are not there.

I am not you
Having roots, a home and the network of support that grows organically from seeing the same sights every morning, provides a sense of stability. Time and again I have seen peace in the eyes of those who have lived in the same place, dwelled along the same paths, all their lives. Is it an innate sense of calm that leads one to feel content with your home environment, eschewing adventure, like Bilbo Baggins? Or does having a home create the calm that fills these environments with a content happiness? I don't know which way the causality runs but a foundation gives you more than the obvious stability, it gives you a calm energy.

This calm energy is well suited for constructive arts. The patience of building a house, watching a community develop. The patience of waiting for the seasons to carry a crop to bare.

Over the past year my energies have been channeled into facilitation, connection and contradiction. By not being embedded in a fulcrum of production, the "touch and go" contributions I have been able to make feel like the platinum plate of a catalytic convertor; consumed in and by its use, leaving nothing behind but an altered quality of experience. The delivery of the experience, the real value has to be realized by someone who takes anchor and works with the now, the space and the physical possibilities of the "sit-you-ation."

You are not you

A long time ago I had a vision of an individual life's trajectory. I imagined a thin glowing white silken line stretched between someone's parents, and their counterpoint. Looking at this thin line I saw how people were running back and forth on this thin white line, to either manifest what their parents represented (in the words of the Cowboy Junkies: "become their mothers and fathers without a sound") or to try hell for leather to be the opposite. How strange I thought that no one dared to step outside the silken thread of two dimensional connection. How many alternate versions of you could there be if neither one of these two poles was an actual definition of your destiny.

By being on the shiny certainty of confirmation/contradiction we are mostly blinded by the binary nature of our "yes/no" choices. But there lies a universe beyond what we see in front of use. The choice you face today is not: "shall I go to work or stay at home." The choice is rather, how many different places are there out there where my true potential could illuminate a more meaningful contribution.

We underestimate who we are and the true power of our thoughts and actions because for the most part, the measure of success and meaning is flawed. If there is one thing the past year has taught me, it is that staying in Plato's cave turns you into a caveman. Once you let go of what you hold to be manifest truth, a new version of you emerges that has not been defined by the "accepted" interplay of light and darkness. The image of you reflected in your job, your family or your immediate set of friends are not the whole truth of who you are. When you let go of the silken strand of identity, you immediately embrace something much bigger.