It's amazing I was able to function normally after coming back to North America from Asia. It was a shock to my entire being, I only realize this now after reflecting back almost a year later. The complicated way we live here with so much more than we need and so many damn rules. There is a rule for everything here, it gets very tiring. Man is a free creature, naturally, but somehow society has convinced us that we have to live a certain way. For example we are conditioned we need to live in the city to survive and we believe the only option for living is in an apartment or a house, with a day job starting from 9am and ending at 5pm. But once you get out of the city mentality you see there are a million ways to live. We are always free to make this choice but we are so conditioned from our upbringing to live in this limited mind state, this is exactly what the illusion wants us to believe. If we knew we were free the system couldn't continue to survive off the mass consumption of city dwellers and the power would be distributed evenly rather than consilidated amongst a few ultra elite.
I love looking back at my old journals. It shows me where I have come from, where I've been and who I've become. Like tonight, I checked out a journal I had been writing last August when I arrived back to Vancouver from the Philippines. After living for 8 months on a tropical island in which I can only describe as paradise, in the most simplest and purest conditions imaginable. Jo and I were living on a modest monthly allowance that allowed us the freedom and ability to have everything we pretty much needed. I wasn't required to work or follow any rules, there was no system or society to abide by in the small beach town we lived in. Just complete freedom to do what I daily wanted to do. But in that, somehow, I found it incomplete or maybe it was just me, I felt incomplete. I think it's because I felt that I wasn't really using my energy to serve or share with the world in any way, I wasn't contributing. That is mostly why I started this blog while I was there, to keep my outlet with the oustide world least I fade away into perpetual beach bum mode and dissappear into the jungles.
When I arrived home from the Philippines in August 2011, I went to the bank for the first time in 2 years. Even the year previous, in 2010, being the owner of an all organic raw food cafe, I never owned a personal bank account. If I did, it never had any money in it. What's crazy is with all the things I've done and all I've owned, I've never had any money of my own. But I've always had EVERYTHING I needed when I needed it. So many times I looked upon myself as poor. Do you know what Paramahansa Yogananda's definition of wealth is? Having the ability to manifest at will what you daily need.
When I got back from the Philippines in August, I had -$5.25 in my bank account. I went in to change my pin number because I had forgotten it. I changed the password to love, in numbers and they gave me an immediate $15 credit for some inexplicable reason. I bought some fruit and bread with it. I had no cell phone, no money, no home. Here I was in my home city again, back to square one, again, after giving up everything one year earlier. Oh man, how many times have I given away everything and started all over. Depressing was not the word, but it was extremely difficult for sure.
I decided quickly that I had to do something and I decided I would go to film school, something I had always wanted to do. I wrote an essay about my life, sent it to the Art Institute and was granted a $5,000 scholarship for the film program. I was approved for $20,000 in loans and immediately after decided I didn't want to be trapped in debt for several years of my life. After praying and meditating I was given an answer as to how to pay for the classes myself so I could keep my freedom. I was able to pay cash for the classes I wanted and I did that until December. I lived in the guest room of my grandmother's basement throughout the rainy, dark Vancouver winter. It was a trying and enlightening time in which I spent all my alone time on my yoga mat, with my crystals and on Skype crying to Jo, wondering if I had made the right decision to leave my tropical paraside of a home. It was a hard, dark and lonely winter in Vancouver. How or why I made it through, I can only give thanks to the Divine mother of the universe for getting me through that. It was a time of facing myself and life, for the first time standing on my own two feet.
Everytime I really needed something, it showed up. A winter coat, boots, sweaters,blankets, socks, food, a ride, school money, bus money, headphones. It was all there everytime I needed it. In between I was blessed by meditations at the chapel and the occasional sweat lodge. I didn't see my friends much but when I did, I greatly appreciated it and I cherished the times we did have together. I was able to sit up all night in one teepee ceremony and also 2 days in a daime ceremony. I hung out with old friends, and I re-connected with a couple new friends that really blessed and enriched my world. It was such a painfully, bittersweet time there in Vancouver.
So many blessings and so many times of hardship. So many days where I had to really watch what I would eat because I had to make it last. Days when I would only have some lentils or boiled beans on plain rice, without any spices because I couldn't afford it. Days when I was working on my business plan, sick as a dog, no food in the fridge or bus fare to get around. But those days were few and I know it was nothing but a test because I was always blessed shortly after. Someone would show up and take me grocery shopping and pay the bill or hand me much needed money right at the time it was needed. Even the government paid me to go to school and paid for me to do spiritual work (they didn't know that part ).
Now after all that time, here I am, in my community, the thing I have craved most for years. Today, I felt free, I felt like I spent the entire day with a friend even though I was alone. It was because I decided to spend this Sunday with God. It was a really beautiful day.
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