Where I’d rather be…
and where I am.
I’m on a trip. I’m tripping. We use (or used to use) that phrase to mean leaving ordinary consciousness with the help of drugs. Traveling can do that too.
When I was a very young woman (still a teenager), travel was my most successful technique for interior realignment. Getting out of my own/known culture into places where I had few or no clues about what was going on threw me back upon my own resources—it allowed me to experience my courage and creativity in a way that was harder for me to access under the shadow of the familiar. The unknown, even danger, concentrates the mind/body/spirit wonderfully well. Without the rails of a known culture, understood social rules and behaviors, being here now, of necessity, comes to the fore.
The trick is figuring out how to do that without leaving home. What I want is the courage to leave my cosy interior habitation for a foreign land—a land where I can function in a new way, leaving behind patterns of feeling and thinking that no longer serve me—a land where I can grow and change easily and have the rich experience that comes from letting go and embracing the unknown.
Only it’s not a place; it’s a process. When I was young, travel was an advanced course in meeting the unknown. It gave me confidence in my ability to do that. The interior unknown is far more expansive and mysterious than the greatest wonders of the world.
To explore the interior universe is to create bridges of understanding between worlds. Between the interior and exterior world, and even more significantly, the worlds within myself… my scared self, my wounded self, my Wonder Woman self, my joy-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach self. We make a great team.
I’d rather be here now
I’d rather be here now is a phrase I have used for many years. It’s a lament. When I say ‘I’d rather be here now,’ I’m talking about my relationship with reality — with all the sources of information — internal and external, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, that I know are available to me in the absence of fear and in the presence of humility. What I’m lamenting is that most of the time I’m too afraid and too full of bullshit (aka fear) to listen, to hear, to be as present as I want to be. And I wish it were otherwise.
I’m not knocking fear. Fear is my fuzzy little friend. Fuzzy does its best to keep me safe from harm — to goad me into self-protection and self-maintenance. But in the absence of hungry tigers and tsunamis, fear doesn’t inspire me to movement; it freezes me into stasis. The ‘how can I stay safe’ filter suppresses too much. It’s a little panic room without windows.
What’s so incredibly fun and amazing about being here now is that, without any actual threats to life and limb, there is no fear. And without fear the world opens up.
I want to be able to stand on the solid ground of the eternal NOW, under the wide sky of the eternal NOW. That’s where I find the greatest space for creative action. That’s where I’d rather be.
Ah. Music to my ears. Thank you, Janina.