jeudi 17 avril 2014

Rebecca's story





Rebecca and I.
Rebecca Is a woman I met at plaza de Armas. It is a bizarre place, beautiful and it would be a perfect place to relax if it were not for sustained harrowing of itinerary street vendors. Even in nearby plazas with less of a crowd I can hardly finish a chapter without being offered to buy whichever object. I find it tiring, especially since I dislike the word no strongly and it is always a bit hard emotionally to refuse time after time after time, I have caught myself at the limit of courtesy sometimes. But I really do enjoy being able to walk freely under the sky listening to music being uninterrupted.

            Anyways, as I was listening to freshly composed sounds at a strategic point in the plaza, as not to be bothered. A woman comes up to me and offers to buy some jewelry, I respectfully decline and she starts with the usual maneuvers “where do you come from?” .
            La suiza, she knows the languages we speak, as we sit down the discussion evolves, I take a closer look at her jewelry as I am looking for a pendant, nothing there. One is made of turquoise, I ask the price, it is way beyond what I have with me. (since I first arrived here I have got to learn some tourists walk around with large amounts of cash, it is almost as if they are ready to shop whatever wherever whenever).
            Here is her story. 1986, 28 years ago 23 members of her family have been executed by terrorists in front of her in Ayacucho, sole survivor.
 She moves to Cuzco one week later. Life goes on, she gets married, has kids. Her husband divorces and takes everything with him. leaving her, quite literally bed less, with four kids. Her tears are real and ancient. I give her a hug and the whooping 14 soles in my pockets, laundry can wait (as it often does in my life anyways). We agree to meet again she invited me to her place to meet her children.

Half of their living space

            As we meet on decided upon date I express my emotional unavailability, I just had a powerful reiki healing and need some alone time. She produces a document with all the necessary school items, more than 15 books per kid. Two of her kids do not have shoes and she is three months rent late, She did not sell anything since a week . Tears and hugs. Mixed feelings arise, I feel manipulated (I care about pretty much everything), but am humbled nonetheless, it would be hard for me to ask for money, I feel her sadness, it has been eating at her since a long time (or she is an evil extremely good actress, but being very sensitive I usually get a good read on people)  We convene of another meeting.
            Today I withdraw some amount of cash, 200 soles should be enough for two pair of shoes, plus a bit more for food upcoming days.
            I meet her and we go to her place. She pays 300 soles per month for one room, they are 5 living in there, one bed and an air mattress at night, looks pretty much like a basement storage room, apparent cement and cold white electric light. They rent a kitchen too, and share the bathroom with another family. Sometimes they can use the living room for homework when the other family is there. As humans, she and I are very different, we find ourselves in the room with nothing to talk about, sits me on the bed, she cries and tells me how her husband took everything, even the bed. Her poverty is real. I don’t know how so I simply ask if I can take pictures. I feel ashamed and voyeuristic, still I want to share I know some would like to see. An object does not judge, it has no sense of value, but I cannot avoid judging myself. She says it’s okay, just makes me promise I won’t show them to anybody that works on the main plaza.

Other half, one bed for 5.

Arise the desire to fund for blankets, paint and shoes, yet I realize it is futile to buy her more stuff if she is thrown out in the streets. I am taken aback when I give her the equivalent of one rent and she directly asks for more. What the heck, I decide to empty my pockets again and retain money for taxi only. I am not comfortable; I just gave her a full rent and yet feel greedy. She keeps crying. That’s what bothers me, the depth of her sadness. And my mind, doubting if she is playing me. I feel the guilt that I would allow myself to believe that.
She is not playing me. In truth, she needs that money and must ask for it for the survival of her family, but I was not invited as a gesture, there is no tea, nothing offered, not even immaterial, she is not interested in me, in who I am or my story, she s not interested in sharing, she has nothing to say. I am here to see, she is proving her poverty to me, and waits. She puts herself at my mercy. Gives me a power I never asked for, she surrenders while I have nothing to do with the situation. The hardest is that she remains inaccessible to my true wish, hugs do her good, but she won’t let her grief go. In the most important aspect she will not have help. Her tears keep her company, maybe she believes she needs them to “own” my help.
            She thanks me, truthfully, but instead of happiness of having one less month of rent to pay she chooses to be sad of having to pay still two. The most horrible feeling of not giving enough resonates with the ancient feeling of not being enough. My help feels voided. Feels like I dropped a pebble to fill up a crater. I can’t help her, she needs something else, I leave useless. Must be one of the rare occasions in my life where wealth shared or offered feels less than its worth. The difference in cost of living excruciates the vertigo. As I leave, the two kids I have met are waiting behind the door. The situation makes me feel as if their mother just sold herself to me. I have a hard time letting go of my feelings, of my judgment. How come I just helped somebody in need and feel ashamed and useless?

Almost all of their possessions.
I miss the blessing, I lack the gratefulness, not necessarily to me, or to my ego. It simply is that I have been accustomed to make people happy, that’s part of my job, it’s what I came here for.
That’s what hurts. I did not manage to bring her happiness, nor by hugs, nor by listening, nor by talking, nor by giving her what she asked for, nor by creating a opportunity for her to feel grateful. . Gratefulness is a grate feeling.
I met a sadness for which I was truly ineffective. I feel shamed that it feels wrong I did not manage to make her smile. Her sorrow, maybe she believes is the only companion she has left.
            It is a part of life, and I am grateful we met. Maybe, I somewhere did help her (I truly hope she’ll be able to retain use of their room) and she offered an opportunity to know myself more. I remembered something about me thanks to her.

Yet I do not care for sorrow.
I summon the basics of my soul.
Judgment withers in comparison to the beauty of the sky.

I keep on walking, thankful for my life.
Thankful I can care,
Thankful I know I care so much,
Thankful for friends and family,
Thankful I can love,
Thankful I do,
Thankful nothing can ever change that,
It is who I am, in truth as absolute as can be.
Thankful for so much more.


And now I am going to spend an afternoon hugging orphans!

Much love.

Scott

lundi 7 avril 2014

Powers!



Face and snake traveling around

            We all have powers, some mental, some physical, some emotional, some spiritual and, of course, some metaphysic. It is impossible to not have power as much as it is not possible to withdraw from matter. Of course you can suicide yourself, but in my regards suicide pertains to mental illness or extreme spirituality, seldom has one taken his own life in a manner to avoid matter, that would die because (s)he did not like matter itself.

Four shadows and an encounter
For example: randomness! I do not belive randomness exists. Quite simple really, if it did exist, how could atoms ever bind? how could there be stable relationship between different elements? could they even establish a bond? There would be no physical correlation, my body could not take form through time, It would shift endlessly with no stability. I would want to say cookie but instead a dinosaur would appear out of thin air in Uzbekistan, that would be true randomness. 

Stability in the flow of time

We can perceive things as being random, if robbed from the fact that every situation in our life is direct consequence of our choices. As written before, every death is simply the end of a series of choices, in a manner your death is consequence of choices, some of you realize I translate, for death is and can only be your choice. It is more obvious with the example such as lung cancer in a human that smokes poison or a drunken reckless car crash. Looking back can be beneficial in that way. In “present state” when we have to make choices pertaining to future plans there seems to be so many paths, but looking back the illusion shifts to “one path”, the path taken. It quite clear then what choices lead to the situations you were to experience. There is only path that has been carved by your choices. Your life is of your own devising, there is no other truth. We are ultimately free, we are born without prejudice, for every situation we find ourselves, we can choose to simply leave the situation. It is always a choice to experience a situation, even the situations that appear injust ask for quite an elaborate series of events, confinement, in which ever way, is the result of a series of choices.

Mindlessness

The best compass for your true path, is that feeling of “this is crazy, I should not be doing this but this is so cool, this is who I'd choose to be!” the feeling that it would be a very strong choice to do such thing, with the tingle that you are about to “change your life forever”. Nothing will ever be the same and that with that action you could actually live the dream. That feeling that will most probably bring on quite some anticipation, and doubt right before entering the moment in which you confirm your choice, the moment when you are just about to experience everything that you have walked up to. You’ll want to withdraw, strong moments can be intimidating, but by going through with it, choosing to actively shape your life, your passage into this existence, you make a statement of who you are, how you interact with others. Who you choose to be is more than enough a message to help others along their own path. Not only trying to be someone else will deserve yourself but others too. Most importantly you deserve to be yourself, there is nothing else to do.

A bat in the Night
A big and common concern when going further, deeper and higher in you own path is the one of disassociating with “the masses”. I tell you this, your community of spirit exists ultimately, there will always be others to meet, you can only meet like wise souls. With making the choices your heart yearn for, it will naturally follow you will spend time with those adequate. There is no need to actively avoid “bad people for you” when you follow your heart. Fear not of climbing that mountain of yours, because there would be less people on the summit, the ones you share summits with are more than enough. The summit itself is enough and you will shift from needing others to being there for them, the nourishment will become mutual, free and more than the sum of its parts, encounters will grow you personal freedom instead of coercing your mind-brain-thingy into thinking you can not have freedom. I tell you this, you cannot not be free, but you are free to believe you are not. Your freedom creates the impact of choice, everything is your choice, if you were not free you could not have choice. But choice is much more direct than expectations. If you expect a direct consequence in mental logic, alike if I give something I am to receive something back, be prepared to be deceived. There is no exchange, you can only give freely and receive freely, but they are as far apart as searching and finding are. If you search there is no guarantee that you will find, if you know what to look for then you are not searching you already have found, merely enjoying putting the act off for later. You do not need to search to find. If you “give”, in hope of receiving, then you are not giving merely playing a game of manipulation trying to entice another into your world of expectations. Don’t refrain from giving but do allow yourself the pleasure of offering freely, it is so gratifying. Furthermore you will not bind yourself to expectations. Hope for the best but remain free of expectations of it. Never wait, there is so much to experience. Yet you can enjoy the scenery whilst rejoicing in the fact you choose to meet another soul soon, in the place you are now.

Choice is the biggest power of all.

Our consciousness gives rise to the shapes of our experience.

Much love

Scott