This is a good subject for this board. This is why I travel to India, because it disturbs me on a depth level like no other place. I feel my guts churning at the thought of it. India pushes me to my limit, and beyond.
It is so nice where I live, and today we bought an old caravan to put out the back for a study and guests. I have a nice work scene, and lots of toys, and plenty of bushland around, with creeks to swim in and high hills to climb. Places to play my drums at 2 am, and we never lock our doors.
But it won't do - it makes me soft and mushy.
Our preparations have been a nightmare - everything has been three times more difficult than it should have been. Things have gone wrong or broke. And yet, in every instance, the outcome has been successful - it has just taken so much more of my energy and time. Last week the Post Office lost our passports, despite being registered mail. The Indian Embassy where we had sent them for visas refused to answer the phone - after three days I finally asked to speak to the Consul himself - surprise! he sorted out their part in the farce quick smart.
New Tevas - local shop sold out, search over the internet, and found a supplier - box arrived at their store with only one sandal for Julie - much fuss and phone calls. Usual story, after a lot of effort, all was resolved.
Just two examples of hundreds of small tasks that have been made difficult, then resolved after pushing through. I feel like I'm in India already.
And although there is only two and a half weeks to go, we still may get stumped, like Julie's mother getting sick, or some massive world hiccup etc.
The thing about India, is that it pushes my link with spirit. Many many times, even in a single day, I will be completely witless, with no answer, and will have to 'call' help from spirit. This refines my link, but in such a torturous way!
A journey is a living being in itself. From the moment we get the inspiration, the journey begins, and if we can hold true to it's road, it's tasks, it's demands, it leads us out into fields we never believed existed in our wildest dreams.
Honour the journey. Stay the course - don't split the moment things get nasty. Let it strip away all the precious little attitudes and comforts we cling to unconsciously.
The new hot water system is now working beautifully - that was a sequence of good and bad luck. We now have a very interesting woman to house sit - another saga. Money keeps coming in from god knows where. The paddocks are not a high fire danger here this year. I had a dream recently that I was running, and running well, so that I just out ran every obstacle and person that tried to waylay me, until I ran into the sea and began playing in the water with animals.
At two recent dinners, were men whose lives had been pulled up sharp - one had a blood clot (he was feeling top shape gust before it hit his lungs), and the other found fraud at his business from which he had to wind up his very successful operations and find hundreds of thousands to pay out. At the uni where I work, people are being sacked all over the place. I feel like the world is falling all around me as I jog on through. How long can I escape my own demise?
Inside I am younger and sharper than I have ever been. But the body is not an indestructible affair. Dom's recent dream of seeing me self-immolate in the street has me wondering.
I feel I'm on a slippery slide into a swamp. And a swamp thousands of years old. This journey is also to seek a materialisation of what has been marching towards me for thousands of years. The time is drawing nigh - will I live that long?
Shiva has popped up once again as on the previous trip, so I feel I am in good hands - I am connected. Too dangerous otherwise.
My nervous system is stable on the outside, and in chaos underneath. Only way to go.
m