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Travel, Friendship, and Living Up To Yourself

"wherever I go, here I am'

Travel, Friendship, and Living Up To Yourself

On Monday, I accompanied my dear spirit-brother M. to Santa Fe! We got home last night (Wednesday) around 1am, having put over 1100 miles on his trusty trooper of a car, having experienced awe-inspiring (and awe-ful and inspiring) natural and manmade beauty through all our senses, having experienced non-beautiful aspects of nature and man also, and having recognized that this, too, is part of the beauty that is existence.

This lady pictured, in her Egyptian-esque skirt, is a ponderosa-tall witness on the side of the highway through Malpais National Monument. Always watching, if we care to notice.

My primary role for this trip was as witness to M. as he checked out the school program and the place that might be--that, turns out, surely will be--host to the next stage in his unfolding. However, I had also to witness myself witnessing, and to see myself, normally a singleton, in constant company for three days.

In addition to the powerful question mentioned in the last post, another sign on my front door that I always see on the way out states:

Wherever I go, here I am.

As we both went through this adventure, I found myself recalling those words frequently and appreciating their truth.

Here we were, in this oldest capital city in the US (founded 1610), over 7000ft up in the mountains, the farthest I had ever been from an ocean yet torrented with intense inland water energy. New Mexico is at the end of its wettest spring in many years. On our first evening we were applauded with auspicious thunder, lit up with lightning. Thanks to AirBnB, we were blessed to stay 30 minute outside of town in a rustic cabin named The Chameleon (apt for a couple of shapeshifters such as ourselves) whose back patio has steps right down to the now-torrential Pecos river. We slept to water roaring. Our morning meditations were inhalations of water vapor and the witnessing of thoughts and events carried from us and brought to us.

malpais arch 200

On the way home, too, the natural arch was a roadside symbol of our energy being borne from one place to the next.

Here we were, meeting ourselves in this new space, seeing this space and its residents creating us. Everyone seemed to recognize M. already and know him for part of the place and all its spiritual complexity.

At this time, I'm being called more and more to work with Spirit. I move more and more toward gentleness, witness, and solitude, and I struggle with judgment (including of other people sometimes), self-blame, and anxiety of how to stay in integrity when being social/in the mesh of other energy. Briefly alone in Santa Fe our first evening there, I had an encounter with a person/being which forced me to step into the larger-than-life scary/angry version of myself that can scare away threats and malign characters.

It's been a long time since I've had to do that, and initially I thought I could handle the situation, the invasion of my space, simply by being light and friendly. After I had made the person leave, after he pretty much dissolved, I felt grateful for the reminder that sometimes we have to call forth more discordant harmonies, that sometimes creating boundaries involves righteous-angry power, and for the reminder that I have that power.  

In this old city, contended over by so many different peoples,  M. and I both could see many such influences, as visible if you're looking as that skirted lady in the rockface. Surface objects/people/encounters often are not what they seem.

 Other parts of myself, always within me, not normally seen: Tuesday and Wednesday, two days in a row, I ate three meals a day! Not normal for me now, but has been normal at other times, and so remains a potential within me, along with the other former norm of eating as primarily a social act.  Food for thought here: provided that I take care of my special needs and don't get sick (it only happened once), eating socially might remove some of the anxiety and thus make it a more spiritual activity by functionally muting some of the obsession/distraction.

Another part: thanks to M. and many hours in the car, I sang and laughed a lot more than usual, and the singing was joy and laughter and devoid of striving or judgment. Wherever we go, here we are--and look who we are!

mp e 200

Watching a dear friend continue to grow into himself, continue to see how he can best serve and be more, watching myself witness and experience, the phrase that came to me is that I want to live up to myself, wherever I go. So, that's a new question I'm asking myself moment to moment. Wherever I go, here I am. Am I living up to myself?

About the Author

Ela Harrison

Ela is a wordsmith and herb lover who has lived in many places and currently resides in Tucson, AZ.

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