And right now.
Kristin and I spent some time this week at the ocean off the Oregon coast. The weather on our first full day there was an outright balmy 60°F—I have an affinity for winter storms at the ocean, but 60° in November, on the coast, with nary a cloud above? What the heck is THAT about?
(Okay, exactly that is leading up to my point here. Hang in with me.)
Not that long ago, were you to ask me “Kert, where would you love to go right now if you could go anywhere in the world,” I’d have said anywhere with easy access, like REALLY easy access, like “walk-out-the-door-and-there-it-is” easy access, to an ocean beach. Any beach, any where, but next to the ocean. Kudos if it involved air travel to an exotic setting. Us farm boys from Moxee didn’t have much opportunity to play in any surf growing up. Dad could never get away from the hops during the entirety of the growing season; and my parents valued (this is my choice in belief) school so highly that we were never really taken out of school for the frivolity of family vacations during Dad’s offseason.
Family vacations were somewhat of a rare thing—certainly with all five of the kids at the same time. In fact, I cannot remember all five of us, with mom and dad, on vacation anywhere when I was growing up. This may be due to faulty memory—I have glimpses of memories of the family being at Seaside Oregon when I was maybe six or seven years old (maybe my first taste of the addictive ocean air!), and we have some faded pictures somewhere of that trip, but for the life of me, I can’t remember Clary being there—he’d have been well into his late teens by then and, well, if you know teenagers….
It surprised the heck out of Trevor and me when mom and dad, after hop harvest, took us out of high school my senior year for a week in Hawaii—to this day I still wonder why, and how.
But I digress.
With Kristin, and then with my own two kids, we’ve made it a priority to get to the ocean as often as possible. Disneyland notwithstanding. I could go into great detail as to the WHY of the ocean for me (there are some profound reasons). But I think that would be boring for you—even if you love the ocean as well, our WHYs, the way you’d speak of that love, would be unique to your life experience just as much as mine is to me. Plus, that’s not today’s point.
Today’s point:
My spiritual practice and learning is taking me to newer places. “Better” places. More calming and meaningful places. Less expensive but more priceless places….
In actuality, it is just one place, kinda. A place that moves and that transcends time.
And although I’ve been carving regret out of my life for good, this place is the kind of place I do wish I had known about a lot sooner in my life. I would have been spared a lot of money, time, and angst had I gotten to this place more often:
The “where I am, wherever and whenever I am,” place.
It is a journey, and it is a destination. And when I do get there, I’m still not often there. But, THAT is my practice. For when I AM there, in the way spirit intends, life then becomes one of deep gratefulness.
I hope now, no matter where you and I would actually be (in the middle of a hop field in July, in a rainstorm in Lake Stevens, in Manzanita Oregon in November on a 60° day with no socks or shoes on, stuck on I-90 at the pass during winter travel, or, okay, even Hawaii, double okay Disneyland), were you to ask me my favorite place in all the world, the one place I would love to go to for its beauty, peace, meaning, attraction, scenery, abundance, fun, history, exhilaration, or any of the other myriad reasons for why we travel to the places we travel, I am learning the only appropriate response, for a lifetime of peace and grace and gratefulness and overwhelming abundance, would be to say:
“Exactly right here, right now. And fully.”
Getting Away to Right Here
It’s all about that “fully” part. Sometimes, it’s the hardest journey to undertake—even though you don’t really go anywhere…’cept in.
For me, this IS my now life practice. It’s not a quaint phrase or idealistic aphorism. It has become my mission, my philosophy, my WHY. Some of my teachers call this THE spiritual path—to come back to your center of consciousness, before thinking occurs, or behind it as its witness when thinking inevitably happens, in order to inhabit the present moment fully; allowing life’s reality to be exactly how it is, no matter how it is, requiring only your full presence, respect, and reverence.
There be abundance and beauty to be found. But you gotta get there first.
“You have to understand that it is your attempt to get special experiences from life that makes you miss the actual experience of life.”
~ Michael A. Singer
There was a time in my life when I’d say (and mean it), that I need to “get away.” You get this, you understand—you’ve likely said it yourself. But now, that’s not a need for me. Because I’m learning to better BE where I am, fully present to the moments that arise, just as they are, without tainting them with my insane judgments and opinions. The more I inhabit the present moment with full presence, the less I “need” to be anywhere else as part of some yearning or fantasy, if only psychologically let alone physically (after all, the more I want to be some place else, the less I am actually where I am. And that’s a prescription to suffer.)
Now, trips to the ocean, especially with your Love and your pet (yeah, Sammy came too), are still fun. But know that while we were there, at an idyllic beach south of Cannon Beach, for most of our visit, I was exactly there, where I was, in most of the moments that arose, fully. The weather didn’t matter because the weather experienced externally is always what it is. And there is always abundance and beauty in whatever the atmosphere brings anyway. The next day after that 60° clear sky day, it rained. Which was perfect too.
So YES it was beautiful. But simply because…
…it simply was. And I was there.
No different than right now, and exactly where you are as well.
(But even you’ve gotta get there first, too!)
This has become a major part of my Alchemy—the life I’m cooking up from the available ingredients and components found in each moment. Yep, there is abundance and beauty to be found; and yep, I gotta keep putting myself back on the path to get there because I still, all too often, get pre-occupied by thoughts I think are important, but really aren’t. Cuz they’re not real.
When I do get to that place though, the views are spectacular. I really should stay there more often. I’m trying.
And in each moment, by remembering, I do. Shoes always optional.
The only place better than being at the beach at sunset is to be fully present wherever you happen to be.
Always and Ubuntu,
~ k
🙏🏼
PS: Michael A. Singer expresses this journey better than me. Spoiler alert for all you golfers and tennis players: analogies get made. Do you have 9 minutes to invest in you?
And an offering in thanksgiving for you
Finally, we’re a week out from Thanksgiving—perhaps my favorite holiday (see what I did there? Did it again!). We celebrate food, family, and football (maybe not in that order, maybe), with the bonus this year of the Hawks playing while we bask in a tryptophan haze (veganized for some of us) as we are given a national timeout to give thanks—we should take advantage of the moment, right? FULL advantage! Since the next post is post T-day, here’s an offering for you aligned with everything said above. If you can carve out the time, and think you would benefit from going deeper into the astounding benefits of gratitude, I offer you this—a link to a free, full-length film on gratitude by the award winning documentarian Louis Schwartzberg:
Gratitude Revealed full-length movie
It’s so worth the time. If the link doesn’t take you directly to the film, you can easily search for it from there. If the site asks you to register first, you can do so for free. Again, it’s so worth it.
Here’s the trailer:
May you make your Thanksgiving everything you need it to be to connect with your deeper self, and to all those whose lives you touch.
You touch mine, so I give thanks to you.
~ k
Happy Thanksgiving.