That Place Inside Me

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Trip Start Apr 28, 2010 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 19, 2010

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Hey There,

Well I thought I would do one more post before I sign off on my Nepal blog! Closure, y'know?

It may be kinda weird to those people whose email addresses I've just added ...who didn't know I was even in Nepal or who didn't know I was blogging about it! First of all, sorry I missed getting your name on earlier and second ...feel free to read the earlier posts to give you an idea what the hell it is I'm talking about in this post! Special Namaste to all my travelling friends who I've just added. Again, my bad for not adding you sooner.

Also before I begin ...I would like to say a short word about the pictures attached to this posting: I haven't taken any photos lately and plain text is boring, so I thought I would share some colour I've been adding to my journal! My dad gifted me his set of oil pastels that he used at the Banff and Vancouver School of Arts way back in the day (circa 1959) ...so yeah I'm drawing with pastels that are older than I am! What an honour it is to use them. Thanks Dad! I doodled all of these pictures while at a 10 day retreat in July. I have absolutely no illusions that I have any talent in the area of drawing. I just enjoy it! I blocked out the writing that surrounds the picture using Microsoft Paint. Guess I'm not ready to share the voice I write to myself with!

Okay, so here we gooooooo!
It has been some time since my last post and I am very ...home! Very home indeed. I landed with a thud and I'm still shaking off the effects of that rough landing! In many ways though my rough landing has been good, I've made some very critical decision about my life thanks to my venture to Nepal and thanks to the feelings I've had since being home.

It seems that I've created the conditions that make it feasible and desirable to wrap up my life here and follow my heart to go wander the planet and express myself through writing!

I'll expand that if the profundity of it was lost in it's brevity!

First though, it feels necessary to explain what 'landing with a thud' means to me. I can sum it up with the vision or lucid dream I had my first full day back from Nepal. I saw and felt myself in a grave, it was damp and smelled earthy. Shovelfuls of dirt were being thrown down on me, essentially burying me alive. I didn't move a muscle to help myself. Just laid there and experienced myself being buried. The fear and the weight of the dirt manifesting as a heaviness in my chest, 'burying' the lightness of flow I had rediscovered during my trip. 

As these new(old) feelings of fear intermingled and began to supersede the feeling of flow still very fresh in my heart, I had a realization. I realized that I am gripped by something far bigger than me, something that causes me to feel buried. Something that, despite some very diligent effort to move past, remains deeply rooted. Bottom line ...whatever that heaviness is, it inhibits me from really living an inspired life here. 

THUD! 

And with that flash of clarity I also realized that if I were to stay in Calgary, this feeling of being buried, this heaviness in my chest would persist no matter how much growth work I continue to dive headlong into!

Whoa! You would think by reading this that I walk around with a little rain cloud over my head ...hmmm... sometimes! Though I think this vision has more to do with how expansive my heart has become and how much of a need I feel to express myself, to live a truly inspired life ...and how little room in my day to day life there is to do this.

Nepal for me was a gift. It awakened, with thunder, the pull lying dormant inside me to express myself creatively. I have had shades of this, though until this trip, I hadn't fully realized that it was mine for the taking. As I look back, I see the places where I ignored the call to be creative, to express myself, to live from an inspired place. Maybe I wasn't ready? This time I feel the call, I hear it ...booming! And I'm ready, more than ready to listen!

OOHHH! And I'm JUST getting this piece --> Perhaps the heaviness I felt that first day back, (and still do) is a result of the world I created here with a mind that was hooked into survival? status? fear? lack? All of the above? This makes sense. I think going away is more about leaving that mindset behind than it is about the place itself. And returning home from such a freeing adventure in Nepal, that old world kinda closed in on me. Yes this most definitely is it! I get it. And the heaviness I feel is also the result of perceiving my canvas of expression here to be limited, minuscule, non-existent even.

Great! I don't need to go anywhere now!!! Just need to tweak my perspective a little! Perceive a bigger canvas here at home... Wow! ...this will be far more practical than indefinite world travel!

Kidding!

I think I've found my canvas of expression. No I know I've found it. And it isn't here in Calgary. It is out there on the open road (or donkey trail), with my pen, journal, camera and cheap Internet access! That's where and how I choose to create and express!!! And touch that place inside me that bursts with life.

Where to from here?
Welcome to my new beginning! As a writer? blogger? I don't even know what to call myself! How about expressionist? How about crazy man? Either way I'm in the midst of some pretty serious transition. A freakin' big-ass crazy roller-coaster ride!! To be more descriptive. And I want to write about it! My uncle Norm posted a comment on my last post that went something like: "Don't stop writing. You do not need a mountain trek for your genuine sharing of your life and passions." Okay, done ...thanks Norm! I won't stop writing. I will continue to share my life and passions ...my experience of transitioning, of expanding my canvas... !

I intend to express myself initially through a new blog in my Travelpod account to anyone who is interested. What? Don't I need to be travelling to write a travel blog? Well I suppose. Call it creative license! I like how easy Travelpod is to use. Hopefully the Travelpod police don't bust me!
 
Closing thoughts
As the picture above titled 'Puking' and the text accompanying it would suggest, I'm kinda putting myself out there with all this, far far far beyond my comfort zone. Far far far far beyond. I am trusting that the inspiration and passion I felt that led me to the decision to leave all that is safe and comfortable and stagnant in order to follow my dreams will carry me through whatever obstacles present themselves. My wild-ass theory, the big experiment being that in order to come home to that place inside me that bursts with life, I need to be actively engaged in following my passions, blowing past the fear that keeps me small. And that once I'm doing that, the rest will just fall into place. That's my theory! I realize that I may be completely, absolutely completely wrong! I realize this and accept the consequences ...because my heart is telling me emphatically "DO THIS!!". And I know that if I don't do this thing now ...while the stars are all lined up, I will have huge regrets!!

Thanks again for being a part of my journey. It has been and I'm sure will continue to be a blast!

Warmest Regards,

Darren xx

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