Often a cup a coffee, less likely one of wine, but even better than Joe, a little Kerouac, Eggers or Robins churns my mind with caffeinated flow. It is the first time I have opened a piece of fiction in weeks; too busy writing my own story I could say, but it’s a lazy excuse, and, like taking off my running shoes after miles of neglect, I can’t believe I went so long without breathing. How did I not suffocate? We humans are silly things to make such great leaps of fast enlightenment without having ever known we were sitting in the dark. And even then, we look down and ponder how it could have ever been, without looking simultaneously up, to wonder of which, certainly equally unenlightened room, we have leapt in.

Kerouac. He’s on a train. Sipping cheap wine and warming beans in the can. He calls himself a Dharma bum and I know, too well, the references and run on sentences of a man, whose expertise of a foreign era, normally confuses me. Really? I’m a dharma bum? Thinking myself some sort of spiritual elite for braving a Western mind on Eastern turf, or worse, and Eastern whim in the Western world? No. No. I’ve grown old. Walked to the end of that path and turned around. Tired of my ideas. Exhausted of others. I’d rather just sit and watch the fire or listen to the water. And if this makes me an idiot, I will be fine. Fine with my simple life. Fine with a big sky, content to watch, and not to chase the shadows of that which I’ve never caught up to, but am still certain, sits between us and the sun, and continues to cast its shape, upon the cement, in our best rendition of what we love to call, reality.

I don’t know. For all my searching, for all my questions, for all my mentors, for all my meditations, for all my travels, I still don’t know. And I do give up. But giving up means not so much to me any more. Giving up has the soft and modest glow of a white flag, that in the silence shouts: “You win! You are so much bigger than me! And you win!!! And thank god that if I know nothing else, I know that! So I surrender! Just let me keep the grass, and the sky, and the leaves that navigate from one to the other. That is all I want. The rest you keep. And I will happily bow down and kiss the earth and thank this day for being nothing more than, ‘another of loving.’ That is it. You take the rest. You take me. And I am happy for the relief.”

It seems I am even lighter than the bottle of beer I drink. For here I ramble. And to whom I wonder. But perhaps a more honest question, though, is of the true direction of my obvious projection. The question is not to whom I ramble, but from whom. Who is it that walks in circles, scratching his chin, pulling a word from one pocket and trying to fit it to a thought from his other? Who is that that looks up with every ounce of alcohol I take down? That reaches towards that ray of light like it is an angel of the sun? Who is that crazy old man fool? And what’s he doing kicking dusty circles inside of me?

Oh sigh. I suppose circles are needed to propel life, and so long as I am given the earth and sky, then I suppose I will always right myself up even when spun so dizzy, I fall down. As I’m undoubtedly being urged, I’ll put both my beer and thoughts to rest. And pick Kerovac up, where he left off; hitching both trains and thoughts, not in circles, but West.

(Buddhism was the first Eastern religion I encountered on my travels and when reincarnation was explained to me, it changed my world in the way it did mapmakers when they were told the earth was round. But it did not so much, “explain” as it, “told me the story I felt to have always known” through mental experience. In any case, I’ve explained my ideas on life-after-life in prior posts. Where my own beliefs in the continuum of life differ from Buddhism is that I “imagine” that we choose our lives, or rather we choose our “lessons”; the lessons that will further our (individual and cumulative) evolution and the circumstances that will ripen that fruit. But there is no proof and neither am I out to find or make it. The following is just a spiral of thoughts, rationalizations and appreciations…)

I chose my father so that I could inherit his overly sensitive heart. I chose my mother to model the potential of a self-reliant, spiritual and determined life. I chose to be born in Alaska, so that the discomfort of the cold would always nip at my heels and chase me to places warmer. I chose to be raised in Oregon so that heavy gray skies would turn me inward and push me beyond its, and my, borders. I chose brown hair, eyes and skin, so that I could travel the world without special recognition. I chose to be the third child, so that my parents would be happy enough with the successes of the others in order to be okay with one slipping away. I chose parents who were raised with financial hardships, so that a respect for resources earned and saved would always be given with unsaid, but clearly communicated, appreciation. I chose a natural disposition of aversion to attachment, so that I could say goodbyes with calm and ease. I chose to be a slow learner, so that I would be driven to seek the direct experiences that would take my hand and walk me through each of my lessons. I chose to be an introvert, so that my independence would not divert, but fuel the progression of my path. I accepted being painfully self-conscious, because it came with a critical eye for all persons, communities, and social institutions that surround me. I chose the United States so that I would have a passport and the political permissions to be able to freely transit to and from the country where I was born. I chose parents committed to providing a stable home free of both clingy attachments and vice addictions, so that I would be granted the confidence and curiosity necessary to venture out into a world of unstable conditions. I chose a house with a forest in the backyard, so that my inclination toward exploration could easily be fostered. And I chose parents who were too busy to be bothered, so that my wonder, for unchecked hours, could wander everyday there. I chose a family that adventured on countless road trips so that, as a childhood habit, I learned to treasure every minute spent in transit. And I chose modest parents happy with humble camping tents, so that I too would learn the logistics of, and love for, travelling “close to the ground.” Through my schooling youth, I chose a quick understanding of math and numbers so that being baffled by their nature was not the same as being academically challenged by their function. And throughout the later grades, A’s came easy, so that I would know there was much more to each subject than this or that teacher’s projection and/or interpretation. I chose to be born to a time and place where I would never know hunger, thirst, fear or abandon – so that I would not have to live my adult life recoiling or running from the memory of these pains. I chose the early 21st century, because I knew it would be the battleground for the future of humanity and, of all my lives, I knew it would be a particularly exciting one. I chose a female form because I knew it was one of the first centuries where, with careful choice of birth country, the spiritual and logistical advantages of being a woman would finally outweigh those of being a man. I chose a healthy and disease free body, so that I would not be hindered from helping others. I chose to spend many years blindly socially abiding so that I would know and understand the appeals of that confusion intimately. I chose not to be naturally talented in any one subject or skill, so that I would not be tempted by only one obsession. I chose not to be conceptually bright to prove that the things I would come to understand are inherently simple.

I chose my life. I choose my life. I take responsibility for all that has passed, is and will come to be. Under meditative investigation, all the qualities that fuel my self-pity and -hate, I find to have grown from — rarely obvious but — always altruistic reason. And I am so grateful; for my family, parents, friends, health, wealth and even my century and country; for all the work it took to tend the fields and ripen the circumstances into which I have chosen to have this life born. And I thank also this Life. For while I did choose it, it had the choice, and did not reject, but accepted my proposal. And I know, I know, I have a lot of my life contract yet to fulfill, and that all the care and love put into me, was done so in the faith that I would one day reflect back, and multiply that within, the mirror. And my signature, at the bottom of Life’s contract, also attests to my understanding that I will one day drop from its tree and die. And nourish the earth with this life’s sacrifice. So that I too, may take a turn at the fields, ripening the circumstances, for another’s birth.

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.

I’m mentally disturbed by how quickly I forget the things I know.

Only by the patient curiosity of the finger twirling creation ringlets in its hair (and thus into my life), do I get the opportunity to wake up (again and again) in the same bed, to the same set of realizations, wondering, “…didn’t I already come to these conclusions?” and if so, where did they go?

They fell into my life like Siddhartha’s stone; plunk! Sinking to my soul and, in the process, making waves against my physical shores. I thought those stones sat stacked, at my core, like little sacred cairns pointing clearly toward this or that permanent direction.

But now I look in, and am shocked (or am I just covering my blush with feigned surprise?) — to find that these cairns have crumbled! But why should I be surprised? I too have contemplated the nature of Siddhartha’s river: I’ve seen storms, above and below, come and go, push and pull, and know that no cairn stands forever, not even – well, especially not – on the bed of a pond or river.

Oh. Unorganized, sticky webs of words. I do that too, when I’m confused. But I’ve been left alone, to my own, and now this is what you get…

For I’m on the fifth day of a silent meditation retreat at a Buddhist teaching center.

The gong rings: time for me to return to the teachings.

We’ll see what settles when my mind has fully spun out…

(this, by the way, is the “spinning out” part; if my sentence spirals dizzy you, know that it’s only my “I” sitting storm-center)

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*sol bows her “namaste” and gratitude to World Nomads Travel Insurance, ThinkHost and Merc for their ever-supporting roles in the realization of her dream.