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Published: August 10th 2011
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Camping on the edge of the world, Cape Flattery in the distance, the edge of the continent…brings me to the edge of myself. I blend with the serious depth of the Pacific crash, rushing in, receding. It is the same as city traffic sounds fluid, but organic. I’ve emerged from the Ashland Hakomi circle into the wilderness with a friend- out one chute, into another. We’ve decided to make this Olympic Trek together Olympia to Victoria, BC in 4 days.
He takes time now to do what he needs to do, what this remoteness inspires him to do. I sit on this abandoned driftwood and write surround by mist….
There is something churning and curious about the Pacific coast this far north, mythic…ethereal. The grey is bright and warming, although the air is cool, and angular rocks pierce fog like epiphanies. I only barely remembered the evocations primed by this part of the country before beginning the ring around the peninsula this time. My first travels to this part of the country were 14 years ago. At 17, I could barely negotiate the difference between evergreen and rain forest, and here the biomes change so rapidly that the forms
can prompt a psychedelic response. The Sitka spruce sheen, like silver gilding on the mountain edge, and then a bend, and the rainforest begins…with hanging moss, and aquamarine rivers. Turning left behind some trees the ocean crashes a sandy beach…where I stand it is raining and full of clouds, and a ½ mile away it is sunny, and someone is eating an ice cream cone. I am glad I’ve invited a friend as a point of reference for this sweeping panorama. Merging with such rapidly changing biomes is a unique trip.
A dozen black wet suits emerge from the sand bank and run with boards into the surf.
The trek around the peninsula has been a transitional time. Stepping out of the work in Ashland where we spend days with one another in Hakomi in close quarters…intimate, engaging …and heading out into the vastness of this space…can only be just this. I seek ways in which the natural world can hold me close in compassionate presence…I find many serving places on the way of travel. However, the Pacific is not an easy lover. I am okay with this being as it is, tempermental and all. It evokes wide compassion
in me, especially when the nature of the Pacific brings this deep shifting mood out of me.
I’ve another reflection about traveling in and out of the Hakomi world and into the natural, conversational world of questions, answers, and stories. It is always somewhat shocking the first time someone engages me in a deep standard conversation with questions and stories of the past and present after I’ve been in the Hakomi frame. In the practice of Hakomi, as Ron used to say about this work, we are involved in the art of not having a conversation. It feels right when we are working with one another in Hakomi seeing beyond the story to the human being who is there waiting to be acknowledged beyond mental formations. However, it is not smooth, and less serving to be in this frame with someone who is coming to greet you in a culturally standard way and asks,
“Hi, how are you?” I try not to break down as the gears grind from making a contact statement and
beginning the process and muster a moment to contact myself….how am I - -hmmmm I don’t really know.
“um I’m in transition….a real
natural transition…I’m not sure”
I notice how I yearn to keep the lush spaciousness from the work, and naturally take some time to warm up to having mental formations rebuild my mind..not ready just yet. Somewhere in my journey mind, I know I am on the way to the second ½ of my Hakomi immersion and desire to keep the not knowing mind open. Like the shifting temperament of the Olympic…I am okay with this being as it is.
I am fortunate that my traveling companion is of a wide heart and good nature. Although our base representation in the world, the story we are living, the systems we are entwined with are so different, we are content to allow ourselves to be harmonious without force. Our basic natures, agrees we are content to allow each other to be, the best we can. We drive, dive, walk, ride. So, he emerges from a busy law office in Iowa through Chicago into the woods, and I emerge from the hi-desert of a widening Hakomi week…what a miraculous melding, broad with grace. And yes, his tolerance for my slow pace one at a time processing is matched by my tolerance
of his innate chatter, my spacey stare into the distance, his get up and go gusto.....somehow we’ve found common ground in the movement from one place to another. 1,000 pictures and 12 sandwiches later we realize that it is in a moment of both noticing the sign for “Cock-a-Doodle Donuts” everything has come together just as it was meant to be. Gratitude.
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