Dear friends,
Some reflections on the final stop of my trip away in August. Just before writing, I’d narrowly avoided a disastrous accident when a car had insouciantly swung around the corner on the wrong side of the road. Chance conspired with instinct, and somehow I managed to thread Donna through the needle between the oncoming car and the cliff face. Immediately afterwards, shaken, I found one of those impossible spots, parking up on the crest of Lac des Settons and losing my thoughts to a gentle, ever-lasting sunset. In these moments we’re pincered between past, present and future; suspended, caught, etherized - made whole? Here’s what came up. I also have a companion piece which I will send to my paid subscribers next Wednesday.
Thank you all for the support,
Jim
I’m on the last stop of my great round trip back to Berlin.
After such a busy year it’s been a joy to let go awhile.
No, that is not exactly right.
Much of this year has been about building a new consistency in my approach to working life. It’s been about reinventing, developing structures and opening up to new possibilities.
Structures require discipline and discipline requires hard work.
Over time, these form into habits; and habits become a scaffolding to Self.
Modern gurus bang on about these mantras to the point where they become weary clichés: discipline, systems, grind…blah blah blah.
And yet, I’m happy to adapt them.
But only if I can lace the foundations with TNT.
Scaffolding becomes a crutch.
And sometimes you have to break down what you are in order to become that which you could be.
The trouble is, we’re so bound by the decisions of yesterday that we don’t notice what we are becoming today.
And so, yesterday becomes a dictator.
Who are we if we don’t fulfil the vows we make to ourselves?
And yet yesterday was a different version of ourselves.
Are we so sure that it still fits?
The danger is that we live by tyrannical ego rather than a living sense of Self.
It’s why time in the van has become so important to me.
To Un-Be.
Our ego is important. It’s how we take what we find in ourselves and implement it in the world. It is our societal face and serves an important function.
But it is not the thing itself.
This has many names…
Brahman Tao HaShem Logos Krishna Ishvara Numen Individuation
I think of it as the Living Self.
That which is you, beyond you.
“The face you had before you were born” as the Zen Buddhists memorably put it.
Unlinking from the Ego often posits a rupture.
Who is the “I” in my current state?
Simpler: Who am I today?
Is it driven by yesterday?
Does it fit today?
Is it forming a path ahead that feels right for me?
What I have learnt is that some questions will never be answered until we make space for them.
If not we can’t even hear the questions.
Sometimes we consciously repress them because we’re afraid of judgment.
Change equals rupture.
Yes, society admires the ego’s drive - because society itself is constructed out of how we choose to present ourselves rather than what it is we truly are.
Yet the more we worry about society the more un-ourselves we risk becoming.
One of my heroes, Joseph Campbell spent 5 years living in a cabin, just reading. The world thought he was a waster.
Yet it was the Great Depression, jobs were scarce and he had something to follow. Later, he wrote about how his whole life’s work was built upon what he learned during this time.
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
His lesson?
Follow your Bliss.
And yet in modern life, we plan everything, each action imbued with an intentionality.
When did we so marry ourselves to control?
My purpose in the van is to let go of purpose.
And dam.
Every time I start, my ego rails like hell.
I want my lists.
I want my order.
I want my routine.
Yet a van has other plans for you.
Many of these are not comfortable but reveal something about you.
Yesterday a car careened around a corner on the wrong side of the road. I mean, completely on my side, and with no seeming intention of diverting. I yanked the steering wheel to the right, shouting “FUUUUUCCCKKKK” from my gut, bracing for impact. Donna careered onto the dirt track, squeezing past the car with the crazed sunglassed woman, shaving the cliff face. I eventually got the van under control and brought her to a stop in the next lay-by.
Yesterday was my death. Today is my life.
I circled around the Lac des Settons and found a miracle spot.
Swam out into the water, felt the bliss of resurrection. Howled aloud then hunkered down.
During the night a storm lashed the van and I felt a rare peace.
I woke up and realised that my life remains a puzzle to unlock.
So many precious elements. Yet not all fit.
In the uncomfortable space of dreaming, I witnessed them clash upon my spirit.
I understood that it’s the friction itself I must take better care of.
You who chase all things will be atomised.
Recognising this atomisation I gain knowledge of my centre.
Your Gravity is Self.
The paradox is that in trying to express it authentically, you can end up chasing all things.
And so in August, I gave myself to three things:
to the listening
to the noticing
to the returning
I lived with no fixed plan and formed no fixed plan. But I have at least recognised the question I must answer.
It is the space that posits it.
And so today, I begin my journey back to Berlin.
I have torn down the scaffolding.
I have conversed with the “I” of yesterday.
Some of it I bring, some of it I relinquish.
I am not yet ready for the city.
Or for society for that matter.
But equally, it is the way of life that our dreaming must know restrictions.
Or perhaps we would never come back at all.
With love,
Jim