"Why do you go there?" Boy asked during our last Skype conversation. "Why not just go to Samsara?"
"Because Jesus has couches and outlets. There are no couches or outlets at Samsara."
Also, although I don't exactly dig the music or the evangelizing baristas, even this heathen can recognize a cup of purely divine coffee. The three pound roaster in the window in which The Refuge roasts all its local coffee beans does a damn fine job.
The last few days have been on and off lonely, on and off so stimulating that I forget the loneliness in a moment of, "CAN I REALLY BUY A TAMALE THE SIZE OF A CHIPOTLE BURRITO WITH GUACAMOLE AND SALAD FOR SIXTY CENTS?"
Holy cow.
HOLY COW.
I've spent a lot of time bumming around coffee shops, Skyping Boy, contacting future hosts and putting a few finishing touches on the month long yoga retreat I've designed for my stay at The Yoga Forest in San Marcos. I can imagine this next month being the most intensive, exhausting experience of my career as a yoga teacher thus far, because a) I'll be teaching three hours of yoga every day b) I'll be teaching an hour of meditation every day and c) I'll be teaching the same people for the entire month.
Which means I can't do what I did in La Punta and just, you know, have two or three slightly different routines that I taught to all the tourists passing through.
When not curled up in The Bagle Barn, Samsara or The Refuge with some manner of hot drink, I'm out walking. I spent nearly six hours walking the other day. Through the streets, through the parks, through the food market and through the artisans market. I make a point to never walk with more than fifty Q in my bag -- not because I'm afraid it will be stolen, but because I'm afraid I'll spend it on some deliciously comfortable pants.
While browsing the artisans market on Monday, I spent a moment too long lusting after a pair of blue, red and green comfortable pants. The teenage girl running the shop immediately accosted me with, "You like? They are handmade. All handmade. In Guatemala. Beautiful, no?"
"Very beautiful," I nodded almost reverently.
"How much would you pay for them?"
"I don't have any money on me today. I'm only looking."
"Business is business. How much would you pay for them?"
"Well... I'd probably pay about a hundred Q," I quailed under the young girl's overwhelming intensity.
"These pants sell for one hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five. But for you, I make special price. For you, it is one hundred and twenty-five."
"Umm... well, I really just don't have any money with me today. I'm sorry."
"American money?"
"No."
"Visa? Credit card?"
"No, I don't have any money today."
"Will you come back?"
"If I can find your place..." I looked around the maze of the market and wondered how in the world I'd find the little stall again.
"Here is the card. I am number 232. If you come back, I make for you good price."
"Okay," I turned to walk away.
"If you PROMISE to come back, I give you the pants for eighty Q. And you can tell all your friends that I give you good price."
"Umm... okay. I'll come back tomorrow."
"You PROMISE?"
"Yeah. See you."
And this is the story of how Aimee was forced into haggling for the first time in her life. But only because she really, honestly had no money on her.
I went back the next day and bought the pants for eighty Q. Which is about ten dollars and is indeed, a very good price.
During my walking, I also discovered that crossing the street in Antigua is an unprecedented act of faith. Most streets don't even have stop signs, so drivers do a lot of waving at each other... slowing down... speeding up... in a way they all seem to understand very well, but I never fully know when it's MY turn to cross the street. However, the positive thing about the streets in Antigua is that since they are cobbled and positively RIFE with tourists, the only drivers who hurtle along at over fifteen miles an hour are those crazily careening through the streets in their tuk-tuks.
Beware the tuk-tuk. And just have faith that the other cars and bicycles and ice cream wheelbarrow thingies will stop in time.
I've been struggling with getting terribly irritated by street vendors and catcalling blokes. And have been getting even more annoyed with myself for the negative attitude the invasion on my personal space creates in me. I severely dislike living in a state of perpetual pissed off.
So I experimented.
I've been studying the seven chakras pretty intensively in order to prepare for my time teaching in San Marcos. An aspect of the seventh chakra is the realization and appreciation that we are all connected. And that love and compassion can be practiced with ease when this realization of "oneness" is reached.
I thought of an Albert Einstein quote.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, his feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
And I went through the day with the intention of liberating myself from that prison and widening the circle.
I tried to look at -- really look at -- every person I saw that day. And I would say to myself, "I am a part of you. You are a part of me."
I said this (in my mind) to the mango ladies. To the whistling men. To the beggars missing arms and to the chubby children playing in the fountains. To the street performers painted as clowns and to the throngs of babbling American tourists.
And I had a wonderful day.
People smiled at me for the sake of smiling and sat with me for the sake of sitting with me. I spent twenty minutes talking to a painter about his love of history and soccer (there's a big game today at three o'clock. All of Antigua will be there. Apparently).
When I'm not walking, I'm sitting in Central Park writing or eating an enchilada on the fountain in the courtyard of Merced Church.
I've had a lot of time to think. Something that's come up frequently during the last two months of pushback has been that I believe I can find my own truth instead of understanding that there is the truth.
So whilst eating my tamales with guacamole or mangos covered with some manner of befuddling spices, I've thought about truth. And why the aforementioned comments always seemed to rub me the wrong way.
I've actually spent a lot of the last few years trying to understand the concept of "truth".
Truth
noun
- that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
I understand and appreciate truth in the context of science and mathematics and such. I'm not writing this article to argue that during my time hitchhiking through the Balkans and couchsurfing in Morocco, I discovered that two + two = a floating, disgruntled hippopotamus.
What I don't understand is how a black and white, right and wrong, unchanging definition of truth applies to people.
But I used to know what truth looked like when applied to people. In fact, I knew exactly what truth should look like on everyone. I knew that truth for all people was loving Jesus and loving each other. I knew that the entire truth for the entire world existed in a single book (albeit a ginormous book). I knew that it was wrong to steal, wrong to lie, wrong to have sex before marriage and wrong to marry someone of the same sex.
My world was full of absolutes. Black and white, right and wrong.
Ever since I relinquished my hold on these absolutes eight years ago, I've been doing my best to understand what it means to be someone who holds onto no one thing (or person) as absolute. And goodness gracious, it is not easy. I didn't deny the old absolutes because I was lazy or lustful or wanted to steal makeup from Walmart without feeling bad afterwards. I did so because I wanted to reach a place of understanding.
Which is very different from "knowing."
Releasing myself and the people in my life from "the truth" created more space than I knew what to do with. It was as if I'd spent the first eighteen years of my life swimming laps in a pool and had suddenly found myself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Where kickboards and noodles aren't exactly in vast supply.
At first, swimming in the Pacific simply took away my sense of direction: there were none of those floaty things dividing the ocean into lanes. It took away my sense of purpose: what's the point of floating around if I'm not really going anywhere in particular? My sense of self-importance: I could no longer measure how many laps I'd swum and feel good about it later. My sense of pride: I could no longer measure how many laps I'd swum against how many laps you'd swum.
Ocean swimming opened up my life enough so that I was able to choose for myself what resonated as healing and what resonated as toxic. Loving and unloving. I had to develop my own moral code rooted in myself and not in a ginormous book. In the freedom of this openness, I discovered that becoming a more loving human being was the bottom line for me. And I began to wonder whether or not a single definition of truth was even important in regards to marvelously beautiful, unique human beings.
And I don't think it is.
Pursuit of a black and white truth that applies to all will not help me become a more loving -- which is my bottom line. In my experience, this pursuit takes away from my open appreciation of how the people around me manifest their colorful relationships with life. So in regard to human beings, I like to view truth the way I view light. And I like to view people as the surfaces against which light bounces, creating a fascinating world of vibrant personalities and purposes. This means there is no one-size-fits-all truth, because light reflects something very different off of each and every one of us.
To me, we are each living our personal truth when we surrender our empty-handed, open-hearted selves to this light.
Empty-handed = without grasping the absolutes handed to us by our culture.
Open-hearted = receptive and willing to learn.
Black and white doesn't seem relevant in this situation.
But relationship does.
The relationship between light and the object. And this relationship is never the same from one object to another.
We all call the light something different. I call the light some hippie dippy form of "divine consciousness." Boy calls the light "Jesus." My dear friend Rudy at one time referred to the light as the "Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster."
I don't think it matters what we call the light. If Jesus is the light, I'm sure he couldn't give a floating, disgruntled hippopotamus if a precocious 12-year-old boy calls him a spaghetti monster or a devout Muslim calls him Allah. And neither would the divine consciousness, should that be the light. The only thing that seems at all relevant in this equation is the relationship between the object and light. The honesty, the openness, the vulnerability, the receptivity.
The relationship Boy has with Jesus manifests itself in some of the most beautiful love for humanity I've ever seen. And because I'm not interested in a black and white truth, it's utterly irrelevant that I don't call this light "Jesus." It is only relevant that I appreciate and encourage his relationship because of the remarkable love it creates in his life. Which is my bottom line.
Thus, discovering a black and white "truth" isn't important to me.
Instead, I prefer to ask questions:
How can I become more loving?
How can I become more honest?
How can I become more vulnerable?
How can I become more receptive?
How can I better appreciate the colors of those around me?
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