Warm Friends, Couch Surfing, and traveling....
9 days before our adventure cycling in China, my random thought:
It is a windy and rainy morning here in the Hokianga.
Which is OK with me.... I can use a day in the studio, painting.
Yesterday we were invited to an Easter dinner at a fellow artist's home.
It was such a wonderful gathering, filled with lovely people, good food and good wine.
It felt so heart warming to spend time and to share a meal, with kind and interesting souls....
Many years ago, when I moved to Manhatten to live with my sister, I experienced the same feelings.
On the holidays, my sister used to invite people to her house, to celebrate together.
Most were friends and neigbhors, who did not have family around them, since they lived far away from their families and original homes.
Yesterday night, felt the same.....friends and neighbors gathered together to celebrate and to share good time, under the warm hospitality and generous spirits of Monika and John.
You always hear interesting stories when you get together with people...
Yesterday night, a funny and generous woman, came over with two german girls.
She told us that she enrolled in an internet program, called "Couch Surfing", in which you invite people to sleep in your spare bedroom, or on your couch, for free.
She peppered her story with jokes, as she told us that you can write and read references about one another......., about the experience,....... and both sides have no other obligations to one another...
You do not have to pick them up, or feed them........... And they do not have to work, as a means of repaying for their room....
It is just a generous way to enable people who have little money, to travel and to see the world....
Of course New Zealand, being one of the MOST hospitable places on the face of the earth.... Has many people who are willing to take in travelers.
(There is another program which is called: WWOOF program, which is also worldwide, and it means: "Willing Workers On Organic Farms".
This program enable travelers who want to see the world and to learn about organic farming, to visit, learn and stay in small farms.
In exchange for 4 hours of labor daily.
They get a free place to stay, and food, as well as gain experience and knowledge of living and working with the land.)
Since I am on the subject of traveling, I reflected that in actuality, ALL traveling is a process of stretching one's views and expanding one's horizons.....
Traveling is about taking in through the senses, the diversity and beauty of the Earth and of the people and cultures living on it...
But I want to say.... That ULTIMATELY......
There is NO JOURNEY except for the journey INWARDS...
Unless we make a CONSCIOUS effort to expand our views......Wherever we go, we bring with us our own ways of seeing and understanding the world.... Our own ways of processing information....
Even more than this,...... our own energies are those which will attract to us, our experiences.
This is why the saying "whoever you go, there you are!" - is so true.
Wherever we go, we encounter ourselves.
The external world, becomes a mirror of what we see inside, and the people we encounter, will mirror back to us, the labels and behaviors we PRE assigned to them.
When embarking on a long journey, or a pilgrimage, one bring with her, all of her past ideas and even limitations,..... with the hope of transforming them along the way,....... into insights and greater understandings.
I have a yellow old copy of a book that I plan to re-read on this trip.
It is the famous and VERY misunderstood book: "If you meet Buddha on the road-kill him."
The book is a wise reflection on the Pilgrimage of understanding your own Psyche..... And the discovery, that your journey into healing... Your journey towards greater understanding, is a SOLO journey... That you do not need any leaders to show you the way....
You should NOT give your powers away... nor expect anyone to think for you.... To show you the way.....to solve all the riddles for you....to 'fix' your broken world...
You need to discover and understand YOURSELF.....how you think, process, feel, operate....
It is a journey to discover YOURSELF..... and a journey to remember your own higher powers.... And your own greater wisdom... And your own worthiness and beauty......
No gurus and no spiritual leaders are needed.... You have to do it...for yourself.
I will conclude with a sentence from this book, in which he uses 'traveling,' as a metaphor for 'traveling inwardly'...... (He quotes here Carl Jung about the 'cost of the journey.')
"Remember, that you can stay home, safe in the familiar illusion of certainty.
Do not set out without realizing that,
Everything good is costly,
and the development of your personality,
is one of the MOST costly of all things.
It will cost you your innocence,
Your illusions,
Your certainty."
— (If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients- Sheldon B. Kopp)
Of course he should have added... That what you GAIN, is so much MORE than the little temporary cost.... You gain the whole world... In return for so little.......
It is a windy and rainy morning here in the Hokianga.
Which is OK with me.... I can use a day in the studio, painting.
Yesterday we were invited to an Easter dinner at a fellow artist's home.
It was such a wonderful gathering, filled with lovely people, good food and good wine.
It felt so heart warming to spend time and to share a meal, with kind and interesting souls....
Many years ago, when I moved to Manhatten to live with my sister, I experienced the same feelings.
On the holidays, my sister used to invite people to her house, to celebrate together.
Most were friends and neigbhors, who did not have family around them, since they lived far away from their families and original homes.
Yesterday night, felt the same.....friends and neighbors gathered together to celebrate and to share good time, under the warm hospitality and generous spirits of Monika and John.
You always hear interesting stories when you get together with people...
Yesterday night, a funny and generous woman, came over with two german girls.
She told us that she enrolled in an internet program, called "Couch Surfing", in which you invite people to sleep in your spare bedroom, or on your couch, for free.
She peppered her story with jokes, as she told us that you can write and read references about one another......., about the experience,....... and both sides have no other obligations to one another...
You do not have to pick them up, or feed them........... And they do not have to work, as a means of repaying for their room....
It is just a generous way to enable people who have little money, to travel and to see the world....
Of course New Zealand, being one of the MOST hospitable places on the face of the earth.... Has many people who are willing to take in travelers.
(There is another program which is called: WWOOF program, which is also worldwide, and it means: "Willing Workers On Organic Farms".
This program enable travelers who want to see the world and to learn about organic farming, to visit, learn and stay in small farms.
In exchange for 4 hours of labor daily.
They get a free place to stay, and food, as well as gain experience and knowledge of living and working with the land.)
Since I am on the subject of traveling, I reflected that in actuality, ALL traveling is a process of stretching one's views and expanding one's horizons.....
Traveling is about taking in through the senses, the diversity and beauty of the Earth and of the people and cultures living on it...
But I want to say.... That ULTIMATELY......
There is NO JOURNEY except for the journey INWARDS...
Unless we make a CONSCIOUS effort to expand our views......Wherever we go, we bring with us our own ways of seeing and understanding the world.... Our own ways of processing information....
Even more than this,...... our own energies are those which will attract to us, our experiences.
This is why the saying "whoever you go, there you are!" - is so true.
Wherever we go, we encounter ourselves.
The external world, becomes a mirror of what we see inside, and the people we encounter, will mirror back to us, the labels and behaviors we PRE assigned to them.
When embarking on a long journey, or a pilgrimage, one bring with her, all of her past ideas and even limitations,..... with the hope of transforming them along the way,....... into insights and greater understandings.
I have a yellow old copy of a book that I plan to re-read on this trip.
It is the famous and VERY misunderstood book: "If you meet Buddha on the road-kill him."
The book is a wise reflection on the Pilgrimage of understanding your own Psyche..... And the discovery, that your journey into healing... Your journey towards greater understanding, is a SOLO journey... That you do not need any leaders to show you the way....
You should NOT give your powers away... nor expect anyone to think for you.... To show you the way.....to solve all the riddles for you....to 'fix' your broken world...
You need to discover and understand YOURSELF.....how you think, process, feel, operate....
It is a journey to discover YOURSELF..... and a journey to remember your own higher powers.... And your own greater wisdom... And your own worthiness and beauty......
No gurus and no spiritual leaders are needed.... You have to do it...for yourself.
I will conclude with a sentence from this book, in which he uses 'traveling,' as a metaphor for 'traveling inwardly'...... (He quotes here Carl Jung about the 'cost of the journey.')
"Remember, that you can stay home, safe in the familiar illusion of certainty.
Do not set out without realizing that,
Everything good is costly,
and the development of your personality,
is one of the MOST costly of all things.
It will cost you your innocence,
Your illusions,
Your certainty."
— (If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients- Sheldon B. Kopp)
Of course he should have added... That what you GAIN, is so much MORE than the little temporary cost.... You gain the whole world... In return for so little.......
