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Something You Didn’t Know You Wanted(Unfinished)

Interbeing - A state of connectedness and interdependence of all phenomena.

I landed in San Antonio one lunar cycle ago. The plane wheels screamed as the aircraft touched the flat Texas landscape. All I could see were lights, buildings, the intermittent tree and no mountains. I could see no mountains, no rivers, no bays, I could see cars passing and people moving. I could see neighborhoods and wide multistory structures. The abundant flickering of multicolored lights wrapped around tree limbs and along roof edges. I was back home or rather what felt like a pseudo home. In location, yes this was my home but I hadn't yet found home in this place.

Since landing, planting my body in the midst of the constant background sound of cars roaring down streets and the light polluted night sky, I realized I was truly somewhere else. I was stepping into a place that didn't lack nature, trees, animals, a neighborhood smile, kind daily gestures, or even streams and bodies of water but stepping into a place where people barely noticed them. The distractions, the movement, the busyness has never supported our desire for the patient and gentle attention that we need to notice the unique moments of connection that we could have with the life that surrounds us.

I reflect back on the beginnings of my meditation journey. Four years ago, witnessing my grandmother’s passing, healing residual and lingering guilt, I worked in a sandwich shop prepping meat in the mornings. At the time, I was reading a book called Everyday Tao that taught me how to process the inner workings of my brain, the voices and the sad stories they were telling that I gradually realized I was affirming myself with. The repetition, grab, weigh, wrap ,place and repeat, aided the almost computational processing of forgiveness, letting go and unlearning. How mundane this routine was but it was the start that led me to opening space to notice the life around me and my connection to it. 

Later, still in San Antonio, I constructed a morning routine that supported this journey. The routine went: wake up, climb out of the tent into my carpeted empty apartment room, stretch my limbs and joints out, enjoy a short silent meditation and indulge in a neighborhood walk. On my walk, I would stay conscious of my breathing, notice the overarching trees reaching from yards, the bugs and insects on the ground around me that were looking for the next bite or making their way home. I was training my brain for pure, in the moment, intentional presence and one morning on my way back home from my routinely walk, a fluttering butterfly caught my attention. I greeted them, called them friend, and for the remaining five minutes of my returning stroll, they accompanied me to my front door. This interaction left me with a deepening feeling of returning, striking the bell of my heart that led me to an inner home. When I reached my front door I knew I made contact with something more than the life I had come to know but had realized I never truly knew. A remarkably uncommon and extraordinary occurrence in a lifetime of unremarkably common occurrences. This was interbeing.

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Abundance

Abundance - an extremely plentiful or over sufficient quantity or supply.

Do you feel the need to chain up your dog or chain up your mind to the pains of your past, your traumas? Is there a feeling of needing to hurt yourself because you weren’t good enough in that one moment that you made a series of wrong decisions? How ingrained in us are the tools of self inflicted pain to keep our minds at bay and keep our inner child from making the same mistakes again? 

How often do we come back to the moments over and over again where we can no longer see the joy of who we can be without the need to make ourselves suffer? 

How often do we search for that love that could possibly cut the chain for us from our own attachment to our eating disorder, self harm, down talking ourselves or torturing ourselves with memories but then keeps us chained?

What is your addiction? What is your memory, trauma, greatest fear, biggest regret that keeps you from realizing that you’ve chained yourself up to this addiction of alcohol, relationships, weed, masturbating, eating, social media?

When do we begin realizing that we’ve been doing this to ourselves this whole time? When can we see “without eyes clouded by hate” that it wasn’t just luck but a mixture of luck and our own creation of our world? 

Is it when you can see that you’ve created this, this world of yours, that you can finally begin to free yourself? What does freeing yourself even mean? Do you start by listening to what you say? Do you start by paying attention to what you do? 

One of my biggest questions is ,”why do people feel the need to turn to jesus when they have everything that they need?” 

Does it all start with one question then? What is that question that helps us see that we can and do live in abundance outside of these chains that we created for ourselves? If I created these chains as a reaction to everything I’ve ever done to myself and anytime someone has done something to hurt me then is it not me who needs to realize them and break them myself? Is that not our responsibility as individuals?

So when are you going to stop telling yourself that you’re not good enough? So when are you going to realize that you’ve created this world of sadness, anger and pain?

When does your journey of realizing start? Has it started? 

What can you do today to start it or to let go?

When will you cut your own chains and walk free in the forest amongst all beings?

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Leaving Home to Travel

“The only Zen we have, is the zen that we brought with us.” - Alan Watts

When traveling, it is necessary to have security within yourself. It is absolutely necessary to be able to adapt to your surroundings and be okay with who you are. This is an active statement I am making because it is so easy to identify with the wonderful places we visit, the welcoming people we meet, the amazing structures we see or even the food we eat. There is a natural judgement that can surface so easily because of the perception we carry. Our actions directly correlate with how we view the locations we visit.

Wonder how? What do you do as soon as you wake up in the morning? What do you do before you go to bed at night? What are you telling yourself on a daily basis. These things really matter in how we see the world around us, even when we are not traveling.

We perceive the world around us to be good or bad based on our state of mind but it seems that visiting other places can shift this. We learn new ways of living, different ways of thinking that we didn’t understand before we became of this lifestyle. Although the hindering thoughts that plagued us in our hometown can and will follow us if we allow it. Our responsibility is to respond to this and help that person we have always been to let go of the things we should leave behind. The truth of the matter is that we might not be fully okay with ourselves and where have been for most of our lives.

Letting go of everything before we travel is a real challenge. Knowing that you don’t really have anything to go back to is difficult when leaving your home city. It is where you have become comfortable with consistent friends, family to hold you up but I know that we have to create this for ourselves before we venture off. A sense of home within your heart is a true journey of self discovery. That is what this traveling thing becomes all about, self discovery.

You need to be comfortable with who you are, if you can do that… you’re on the right track.

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Guanajuato, GTO, Mexico

The first time I heard about this wonderful city, I was at a starbucks in San Antonio,Texas telling a friend of mine I was moving to mexico. I had to ask him where I should go considering he had lived in mexico. He declared to me that this was his favorite city in all the world. At this moment, I promised myself I had to make it to Mexico’s prettiest city. I have to say, I have no regrets and when I leave, I will be leaving with so much more than I came with.

Finding things to do in this city was not so easy for me. I am the type of traveler that doesn’t like to get a tour guide. I typically end up creating an itinerary with my partner of things that simply interest us. We hit some main attractions so far like the mummy museum, monumento al pipila, the city center market,callejon del beso and we even went out for a hike on the La Bufa trail (which I highly suggest if you like to hike even a little.

Top of La Bufa trail.

Callejon Del Beso

There is so much to SEE here. The city is absolutely amazing and rich with color and spectacles of underground streets. They used to be tunnels for water that were eventually turned into streets. There are various ways to get down that include these interesting stairways where you can grab a bus or avoid the people in the streets.

I highly suggest hopping on the busses, grabbing a taxi or an uber to get around town because then you would be able to see these wild bridges and tunnels that kept me awestruck.

We still have a few plans here in Guanajuato. We are actually getting stick and poke tattoos from a guy here in the city. We caught his poster in a hostel and his insta name is @nomade_handpoke . We also plan on going to this museum called Ex Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera. They apparently have a wonderful garden there we can check out. There are also a few art museums we are planning on seeing but tonight we are going to see a Bach concert at the Teatro Juarez. I feel like I am living here, doing cool activities, grabbing a coffee at Cafe Tal, a vegan bite at Santo Cafe. Some of the restaurants here are vegan friendly but a lot of them are not. I suggest Habibiti falafel, Santo cafe(most vegan options with great coffee), there is also a Banh mi place with some options, and Tuk Tuk. These are a few but I highly suggest cooking as much as you can because it will save you money! 

^^ Santo cafe has vegan cheese, yummy vegan options, great coffee and a great view where you can sit on a BRIDGE in the city. Check it out. 

If you decide to head to guanajuato, or if you want to, let me know if you want anymore insight about the city! I’d be happy to share. 

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Making a plan to move to your next destination can be quite a challenge but the challenge is what makes all of this absolutely worth it. Getting out of Tampico almost feels as though there is a chain holding us down because of the comfortability of her family here. It is a wonderful city but difficult to navigate as an american. Knowing the native language makes all of the difference in a city like this. I do have to say that the culture here in Tampico has been very welcoming and warm hearted. Because of the internet, people stay open minded to ideas like veganism and there is a rather growing community. I am grateful to have resided here for the past two months, learning the little bit of spanish I can now speak and having appreciation for different aspects of living. 

A shift in who I am is a moving feature of distance between me and the place I am from. I once felt like I am the place I live in, my physical home. This place might just be where you family resides or where your loved one resides but not for me. I am growing into my own skin like a beautiful butterfly ready to spread its wings when things look dark. I am ready to meditate myself through this life and onto the next destination where I will love each moment, sight, smell, taste, flavor, person, animal and experience that comes my way. I am ready for the future to come because I will carry home within me.

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Hey internet!

I am on this voyage. I am on a journey that is so immense and unconventional it defies most understandings of what life is suppose to be. Many will say, “...no no no.. life is just what you make of it,” but I feel it differently. Life is who you are. Life is not a making, it is a living. Life is the way you live, the way you think, life is all that you are experiencing right now. When I was in san antonio, life was there... a place in my head where I hurt myself so often but also a new life. Austin was a fast life with plenty of vigor and excitement but not a place I needed to leave. The place I needed to leave was internal... 

That is where I find myself today, in the life of this moment, in Mexico. I just returned from a visit to Texas after residing in Tampico, Mexico for a little bit over two months. The appreciation I felt returning to the states made me want to leave again, not stay in Texas. I want to see all that is to see in this world. The humans, the plants, the animals, the pets, the air is all so unique in each city, town, village, road you traverse through. This life is a life that will continue to give and all I have to do is receive it... live it ... give it and I will be living my best life. 

My life is within and with my partner.  Remember to believe in yourself, reader.