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Days pass slowly here. Time feels different, not linear anymore. My companions are the sound of the waves, the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, the sound of my breath. I practice everyday some kind of Yoga; maybe not so much asana/postures, as before, but just being in union with what is. The shadow, the darkness, the knowledge of the Life-Death-Life cycle is everywhere. Nothing to do but confront it every second. When I feel angry or frustrated, I must just feel it. If there is a solution to the problem, I take it. If there isn’t, or it isn’t under my control, what else can I do? Just sit in anger/frustration/sadness until I transmute it to something else. Island life teaches many lessons. Things don’t disappear. They wait there patiently until you face them. There is no way through, but through…. Deep, deep into the caves of our souls. I feel I am growing old in my heart, and it isn’t a bad thing; nothing is bad or good anymore, it just is. My body feels young, like never before, but my soul has the hunger that old souls have; a longing to Be, a longing to come back Home.

Photo by me in Indonesia

Life is so full of surprises. I realised that it’s true, if we are not happy right where we are, where else do we think we are going to find happiness? Happiness is a state of being, it isn’t something that we search for and find, it is a state we choose to dive right into and stay there… It doesn’t matter that I live in a piece of paradise, and that all seems beautiful and perfect. Nothing is. There are a lot of other things that happen daily that get to me and stress me, and I am not always happy and smiling. Sometimes I hurt, sometimes I cry, sometimes I get really frustrated that things don’t go the way I plan… But this is life. There cannot be light without darkness. And even when the light is so bright it blinds us, the shadows are always there reminding us that all is necessary. The eternal paradox of existence is as it is. It is the acceptance of change that makes our lives peaceful. And it all comes back to us, it is our choice.

Photo of me

Today was a hard day for me. Emotionally. This coming back to “the real world” for a few days was harder than I thought. It’s not hard in the sense of commodities and living (here I have even more than I need, and maybe that’s the problem), but it opened my eyes once more to what we think a “normal life” is. How is it possible that the world revolves around so so many things, objects, material possessions that people think will make them happy? What hurts me deep inside is knowing that most of those things are tinted in blood and suffering. And in the end, it isn’t even going to be sold. Most things will end up being thrown away and forgotten. Forgotten the same way as we forget the unjust trade that is behind most of the things we buy. And our Mother Earth??? Is it really necessary to make her suffer this way? Cutting her open again and again, making her scream… and then, we will be the ones screaming and crying in terror asking why she fights back… I don’t know… Today I feel angry, but mostly sad. I feel like my 15 year old self crying all the time because I can’t hold the weight of the world on my shoulders. Sure you will tell me it mustn’t affect me so much, it mustn’t affect me that millions of people are refugees in one point of the world with nothing, not even a country!, while others are just filling their homes with things. I used to believe that too. I repeated for many years ‘don’t be too sensitive’. Now I understand that fighting it doesn’t serve ME personally. I cried today. But I also understood a deeper truth about myself: I NEED and WANT it to affect me. I don’t want to ignore the pain. I want it to be here by my side, suffering and pain, because they make me stronger and more able to fight to make myself, and whomever I can help, a better version of themselves. This pain only makes me want to do something more. And if that is the purpose of my suffering right now, it is more than welcome to stay.

 Photo by me in Vietnam

If I died right now, my life would have been worth living with all its ups and all its downs. You see, I used to be terrified of Death. My own death, but especially the death of people close to me. But now, I’m not afraid anymore. I understand that without Death, life wouldn’t exist. I understand that darkness is more necessary than light sometimes, because only Emptiness can contain Something, Everything. I’ve decided that I am done. I am done fighting to change things, done trying to do or be something for me or for anyone. Done. I am just going to flow and see where every moment takes me. Death is only another fancy word for change. Really, it doesn’t exist. Change is the only thing that I can trust forever. I guess this is what they mean when they say Surrender? I don’t even need tags or words anymore. Just being is enough now.

  
••• Photo by Hinton Faram •••

After yesterday’s powerful equinox, today we welcome officially Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Let us all feel this change in our environmental reality and let it produce the greatest change inside us making us realise and recognise the true nature of our minds, and therefore, of our very own existence. Like the leaves that will be falling off the trees in half of our beloved Gaia, Mother Earth, let us not grasp or cling to anything and learn to let go of every cause of suffering that we might be creating for ourselves. And like the rebirth of flowers and trees in the other half of the Earth, let love and compassion blossom in your heart towards all sentient beings. Nothing ever dies because everything, in the end, is only eternal change, action, movement, what we call Karma. Happy change of season for everyone! Shanti Om.