Synchronicity

Okay i don't know if i spelled synchronicity right, which is probably a good way to start my blog (if not the best possible way)

So we start our story on wednesday. woke up like any other day. a bit cool in the morning, i decided that the day was more hazy than grey.  The peacocks were crying in the garden as i watched the sun stretch its arms over the land and smile. Everything was as it always should be.

No, just kidding i'm not going into that much detail.

Okay so i was in silence that day. Its a practice i was doing to monitor my thoughts and reactions to things as they came up.  For me i found out that i deal with a lot of things in a verbal way, diffusing situations with humor or the like when they were uncomfortable- but when you're silent you have to face the situation internally, so its a powerful tool to get in contact with the inner workings of your mind. 

It really really helped me become a bit calmer -as it put internal monologue on the forefront, and now its more noticable and easier to stay in the moment- highly recommended.

It is also so, so amusing listening to how some people talk without you in the conversation. My god i walked with these 2 characters for about a mile- up and down the main enterence hill to the institute.  They were talking so much that i was able to close my eyes and actually use their voices as fence posts on the way down .  Well I used their voices and their bodies -

They were talking about everything from Phi (the golden mean stuff) to the fact that we must also deal with our parents issues, to the necessity of having the architypical bad guy growing up...

Oh man, and its so great getting into your body when you're in silence for an extended period of time. Senses come alive (if you look for it i guess, i bet it would drive some people batty). 

One internal monologue i did remember having during this period was a memory, - on the same hill we were walking on i bumped into Panditji a month before - and i had told him i was going home in a few days to find out a few things about my future- to talk with great friends about starting up a biodiesel innitiative along with their recycling business, just kind of see where i was supposed to be- i felt like leaving the institute, but didn't know if that was what was best for me ...kind of "waiting for a sign about what to do next" is what i dubbed it... 

So he said to me, with the purest smile you've ever seen (this guys' great) "good, go home and follow your heart. if it says do that, do that- if not i will send you to Uganda to learn about farming of the pongamia tree, and you will teach the world how to farm biodiesel"  -

Yeah. I thanked him and he drove off...

If you were curious- what i learned from that was that i don't need to be living in delaware or the surrounding area. Too many ties ot the old me.  so then back to the institute i went, with really no plans besides I WANT TO MAKE BIODIESEL.

So  back to the present (well the present that this story is taking place in currently- wednesday).  I bumped into Panditji (for those who dont' know him - here's a few links  on creating a meditation practice and on the humanitarian projects that the Himalayan Institute is doing.

He says to me - "how was your trip home? did you find out what you wanted to find out?"
and then all of a sudden he sees my name tag that had written on it "in silence.  I was wearing it so people didn't feel offended that I wasn't talking to them.  As soon as he saw the tag his tone changes.

"what do you think you're doing, in silence.  You don't need to be in silence until you are 40 years old - how old are you?"
"23 " I answer
"You need to be working. how do you expect to work .  YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.  What are you doing with your life. you're wasting your time here and i'm serious. you must think this over and soon.  what are you doing?"
"friday i will be having the first meeting with a co-p that we are starting to produce biodiesel for the community here, create a new community..."
he cuts me off "how many gallons, how big is the community.  Ishan and i will be producing a billion liters in 10 years of biodiesel in India and Uganda. how many hundred will you make.  You need to go back to school, you need to start a business, you need to make millions of gallons of biodiesel, something of this fashion, not little projects. It takes just as much energy to do something big as it does to do something small"

and he walks away..

so i take off my silence badge and with a grin walk away shaking my head.  the sign i've been waiting for?
so i called my mom that night, we talked it over, she wants me to leave too- but where?
am i ready? baby bird taking flight!!!

So then the day rolls over and its thursday. at night me and  a friend nathaniel who is a herbalist and wildcrafter (knows what to eat in the wild) and this guy Olaf went and picked fiddleheads (the sprouting shoot of an ostritch fern) and ate them for dinner.  they're awesome! it was my last solid meal, as i'm doing a juice fast right now.

so later that night
i memorize a poem by RUmi called


                   Looking into the Creek

                       

The way the soul is with the senses and intellect
is like a creek.
                      When desire weeds grow thick,
intelligence can't flow,
                                    and soul creatures stay hidden.
But sometimes, the reasonable clarity
                                                       runs so strong,
it sweeps the clogged stream open.
                                                  No longer weeping
and frustrated, your being grows as powerful
as your wantings were before,
                                          more so.  Laughing
and satisfied, the masterful flow lets
creatures of the soul appear.
                                            You look down,
and it's lucid dreaming.
                                  The gates made of light
swing open.
                    You see in.


I comment to myself about lucid dreaming- a state of consciousness i've never known and always wished for(It's when you're fully aware that you're dreaming, and therefore able to control your dream in any way imaginable).

In fact nathaniel and I were talking about lucid dreaming when we were making maple syrup back in february on those cold long nights.  He was telling me about experiments with consciousness that will help you get to that state.  Like- you jump and really feel what it feels like to land, so that when you're dreaming, if you jump you  can tell the difference.   I bet u can research online techniques to fascilitate lucid dreaming... anyhow.  so i get the poem DOWN thursday night. like i can recite it well.
and go to sleep.

Wake up and make a juice at 615 or so.. and then go back to my room and do some Yoga, then decide i want to go back to sleep for a bit.

So i do. and have a lucid dream. FIRST ONE EVER

All of a sudden say to myself-i'm dreaming.
and am then able to control where the dream is taking me.
I fly around the room i was in. I conjured up a girl from college i haven't spoken to for a long time, we go flying together and talking...till i realize- why are we flying in a room?
so then i start thinking too much and wake up.  it was cool, next one i wanna conjure up the buddha or jesus and ask them some questions. hopefully my consciousness will remember that in that moment, instead of something a little less wholesome....  so so so...

that leads us to friday. day starts good. chopping onions for the soup i'm making. (12 onions, 75 cloves of garlic, 3 1/2 tablespoons of cumin, 14 cups lentils, 1/2 case swiss chard,  1 tablespoon ....) big soup, if u didnt catch that. its actually the soup from Ali Babba on main st, newark. for those who know, great soup- they gave me the recipe. 

This woman Sujatta came in at around 12 and told me we have to meet that day. She's in charge of residential here at the institute that i live at. i told her i had a busy day, but could meet right at 5,. she said cool.

So then at lunch time me and nathaniel go to pick up a hot water heater- as we're making an appleseed biodiesel processor.(homemade kit to make bioidiesel).. and a hot water heater's one of the parts you need - that and all these valves and pumps and stuff. I bought a kit that contained all the other parts.

Then after we returned from getting the water heater, i had to sweep and mop and clean the kitchen and clean the sinks, etc. the usual routine.  At 5 i went to talk to sujata, and this guy Brian came to the door at the same time, and we did one of those getting stuck in the door routines (classic). It was funny, i swear.

he's a good guy. and then we both sat down, I had thought we were both joking and that in fact had seperate meetings but he was late or early, but no, evidently i was wrong

They were both there to tell me that the residential board had met and decided not to renew my stipend for next year(I've lived here a year). They thought it was time for me to take my visions elsewhere and do my work in the world. i told them how synchronistic that was, and they were as amazed as I. I laughed and smiled and thanked them.  So june 1 is the date.

Okay

Then i had dishes ... and i'm laughing and cackling and yelling WHAT and clapping for the whole time. Just living in that smiling weird shocked blown open state where it seems like it's not just nearly coincidence anymore.
What does this world have in store for me? type of thinking. where to?

So then the dish shift drags on, and i yelll to olaf, who's still in the kitchen for some reason- i think he was cutting the butter "how long do i do this for" as i've never done that  particular dish shift - and some dish shifts you only do like, 2 hours and then quit and the next shift takes over. 

He says "until you're done"

I sighed, as i wanted to rest before my 730 meeting at nathaniels farm (35 mintues away) for the whole biodiesel coop.

just then, a woman walks into the dish room, denise, and tells me she wants to help (denise, i know , is a missplaced modifier...but i like it so...who cares, the dish room is obviously not named denise so get over it)... i smile at my great fortune. we finish
i go to the farm

we meet. and tomorrow we are putting together the reactor vessel to make biodiesel
hopefully by june 1 i'll be putting it in my car and driving away.



sooo that leaves me...where ?
stay and keep this co-op of people together, lead them. thats what they want me to do. 8 great people who really want to do this for all the right reasons... who have great ideas and are really inspired.
do i move to New York and try to do all of my community action ideas while somehow supporting myself without selling drugs (ugh!- live in washington square park? play my 10 guitar songs i know to make cash?be a model or actor? )

Do i move to LA to work with Zaadz people - to help them set up a network of actions, teaching sessions, functions and projects that can be initiated to grow physical community in towns across the country (definitely the sweetest option if i can pull that one off) 
Staying here to work out this biiodiesel thing is another one.

But it takes just as much effort to do big things as it does to do small things.  Why not create the network through Zaadz to set up nationwide biodiesel coops- teach people how to do that themselves. Create the community that I could in my town, all over the world. Create a counter-cultural revolution.  Sounds good aye.

 They'll call the other people the counter culture, right?

Also, lastly, I have been growing my hair to cut and donate to Locks of Love. It is right about the 10 inches necessary to donate. So when i leave, its possible I'll be able to cut it all off, and like the Buddha, leave behind the internal world for the world of commerce and love.  Baldy.