Spirit Community

I was taught that spirituality is developed in community and relationships.  This was a hard pill for me to swallow.  Being stubbornly independent, I don't like being told that I can't do something alone.  But as I started to contemplate the necessity of community, I discovered the truth behind this lesson and that it doesn't just apply to spirituality.  It applies to any walk of life you choose to take.  If you walk it alone, you are more likely to lose your way than if you are walking alongside others who share your same destination.  I will continue to struggle with this lesson mostly because there are not a lot of people choosing the same path as me.  Many times I have left communities and friends in pursuit of what I believed to be my calling.  The first time that I left my community is when I was 12 years old and my parents took me out of school on a journey around New Zealand.  I cried and cried and told them that they were ruining my life.  I would lose my friends and miss out on all the great parties and school events.  After three months in New Zealand, I cried and cried about having to go home.  I knew that I no longer belonged in the community that I had left behind.  My most recent experience of leaving my community was one year ago from today.  At 28 years old living in small town Colorado, I was watching all of my friends get married, build houses, start businesses and have babies.  I knew this wasn't my way, so, once again, I picked up and left this community behind.  I have moved 20 times since I was 18.  This was not the goal but the side effect of the lifestyle I have chosen.  I have followed my curiosity across the globe and never turned down an opportunity to learn and explore.  Along the way, I have collected a handful of friends who are connected to my spirit.  These connections are different than the type of community we usually think of.  Usually, we create our community with those who live in close proximity and share our daily existence.  Because I have never had a consistent daily existence for more than a few years at a time, this type of community is not possible for me. In questioning my life choices and how they have been the cause of my rupture with so many communities, I have had to reexamine how I define community.  What are its defining features?  In search of answers, I looked at some of the relationships that carry me forward on my path.  Has my physical presence been necessary for the strength of our bonds to remain?  Have my life choices hurt or helped our bonds?  In creating distance, do I harm our relationships?  There are a few friendships that help me to define my community and reassure me that it remains possible to maintain even when following my dreams across the world.  These friends, who are scattered across the globe, form a type of community that works with my lifestyle.  They are connected to my heart by strings of love and I consider them to be my spirit community.

The first of these spirit friends is my dear soul sister Caitlin who I met in Washington DC as we anxiously awaited our departure for our year abroad in Switzerland.  We were two awkward 16 year olds embarking on a journey that would shape the rest of our lives.  She was short and adorable and embraced the creative side of life.  She would make me beautiful collages of images, poems, and laughter that brightened up my world.  I was tall, lanky, and sporty.  I shared with her my love for the mountains and adventure.  After 13 years of friendship, we have watched each other grow and change into the more complete versions of ourselves.  She is now running half marathons, and I am now a blogging artist.  It never escapes me that we were each other's link to this other side of our personalities.  Although we live thousands of miles apart, our souls are linked by a common thread of love.  I await our skype dates with anticipation of the life questions we will discuss and never completely solve.  She is like candy to my soul and always leaves me feeling less alone in this big world.

The second soul sister that I have is my beloved friend Whitney.  I will never forget when she walked through the doors of the cafe where I was working with her bohemian flowing dress and feathers in her hair.  My first thought was "probably another phony trust fund hippy."  Boy was I wrong.  Whitney is one of the truest free spirits I know, who remains grounded to the world by her drive to succeed.  The first summer of our friendship she was living in an old school bus painted with bright flowers.  She graced our little mountain town with beautiful music that linked the human world to the spiritual one.  We tramped around the mountains together, crying at sunsets and conquering rock walls.  She is as beautiful inside as out and never misses an opportunity to support her friends in their artistic dreams.  Her teaching skills inspire me to continue developing my own.  Although she has chosen a different vessel for her spiritual beliefs, we are able to share the global ideas of religion and spirituality exploring commonalities and differences.  She is my link to my carefree bohemian side and no distance could divide us.

My most recent encounter with a member of my soul community was very unexpected and I am still exploring and questioning it.  I met him at an ecology and mindfulness retreat at Plum Village and instantly felt like I had known him before and would know him forever.  Never before have my own thoughts been so clearly expressed in the words of someone else.  After our last meeting, all I could do was cry out of bewilderment and wonder at the possibility of this type of connection existing.  Sitting next to him, I felt as though my spirit had found a home, as though a need had been met that I didn't even know existed.  A feeling of relief and fear came simultaneously.  Relief that I was no longer alone on my spiritual path and fear of the distance that will always be between us on a common life level.  It reminded me of the definition of my spirit community and letting go of trying to make it fit the mold of a normal one.  Despite the standard definition of community, physical presence is not needed for the bonds to remain strong.

Of course I would love to give these friends a huge hug everyday, have tea with them, climb a mountain with them, or just sit and be with them.  The maintenance of a relationship requires effort and distance complicates things.  I hope to find myself near enough to my spirit community to hug them everyday at some point in my life, but for now, I am trying to embrace the support and comfort I get just from knowing that they are in the world following a path similar to my own.

I love you my spirit community!!!! 

Deep Holes

I heard an analogy the other day that applies to how most of us live our lives.  "We are digging deep holes where there is no water."  I have done this in so many ways.  Looking for relief in places where none is to be found.  Continuing down a path thinking that I am getting closer to an answer that is at the end of a different rainbow.  Constant reminders of these false holes are all around me.  The son of my good friends in Chamonix is a professional para-glider and is surrounded by individuals who cling to adrenaline and athletic achievement for purpose in life.  I painted this painting for them after their long time instructor died in a para-gliding accident flying around Mt. Blanc.  It is a flight that every strong para-glider esteems to do and for which the conditions are rarely optimal.  The winds were turbulent and threw her into the mountainside.  When I asked my friend if it brought up fear or doubt about what he does, he told me that he knows his skill level and knows the risks.  These illusions that we feed ourselves to ease our doubts are endless.  We chase feelings, success, and material wealth hoping that it will satisfy this craving that we have deep in our gut.  The lies make us feel better about our lives and give us a false sense of purpose.  I am here to be the best para-glider in the world, I am here to be a nurturing mother, I am here to be a world leader, I am here to invent the next greatest advancement in technology, I am here to have the biggest house and fastest car.  But these lies have to continue past the achievement of what we wanted because as soon as we get it we realize that it did not solve all of our problems and we are no happier than we were before we had it.  So we continue digging deeper and deeper in our hole hoping to find the water where there is none.  I also have a friend who spends all of his time training for triathlons and bike races.  He is always working towards the next level and says that it's frustrating and motivating to know that someone is always better than him.  When I asked him what he was chasing after, he told me the feeling of accomplishment.  I asked him if he ever satisfied his craving for that sensation and he replied, "no there is always more I could do."  The purpose and joy in life do not come from these outside sources that form mirages of happiness.  Yet we spend our lives running after them blindly stumbling towards what we hope will give us pleasure.  We all need to stop running and take a moment to look.  We contain the true spring to quench our thirst within us and would find it if we simply take our heads out of these holes we are digging and reconnect with our souls.     

Doors

 

My mom recently told me to look for the doors in my life.  The theme followed me around Croatia as I saw the different forms that doors can take. 

Some are dark and haunting

some new and enticing

 some broken and discouraging. 

  
 
Not knowing what was hidden behind the doors made them all the more intriguing.  They were beautiful representations of the options we are given in life.  Do we always walk through the doors that sit perfectly on their hinges and swing with no creak?  What would happen if we walked through the lopsided door with cobwebs hanging in the corner?  Is one more suited for us than the other? I love the expression that when one door closes another opens, but it is not so simple.  We are never presented with just one door sitting perfectly in front of us with a light shining on it guiding us through.  There are usually several doors each one with its own unique zing.  The crooked door covered in vines always seems to draw my attention more than the perfectly manicured one.  I imagine more adventure behind the wild doors.  The ugliest doors lead to the secret gardens!  It's just a bit scary taking the first step through the cobwebs.