Thermopolis, WY

Headed out of Portland, after a few months there working as a laborer with a small remodeling company. I have not spoken of certain areas of my life on this blog, and yet perhaps those very areas have had some of the largest influence on the course of my life in the past years. Two relationships ended in a year with similarities undeniable. Leaving me a writhing ball of struggles, blame, guilt, hurt. Like last year, I headed to Vipassana to find whatever it was I needed to find. And although the similarities, even the timing, seems familiar, my experience sitting was not the same. This was likely my easiest sit yet. I reached a point in the 10 days, where I thought my dedication to the practice had reached its end, and somehow in that moment a different understanding arose.

To catch up my readers a little more, after spending 4 months in meditation centers last year, I took a vow of sila, or simple morality, setting myself in a position to continue meditating two hours per day. I kept that up for a number of months, yet was unable to find balance with full time work and dance. So as I sat this year, I started to see what has changed within myself. I find less militancy in myself, and it is replaced by a firmer conviction in my views - a dedication that finds less satisfaction in proclamations and more in action. This has been a large part of the reason I have not been blogging.

The most significant change for the upcoming year symbolically occurred on the last night of the meditation course. I finally integrated all the scattered pieces of dreams I have been collecting over the past 2-3 years. I arrived in Portland with a vague desire to follow Brenda's footsteps and become a great dancer. That blind ambition lead me to question what my actual purpose has been. It has sometimes felt like a purposeless or selfish path - to be disregarding societal pressures. But as I now believe, I could not live my life as called without determining these desires.

I don't know what's going to happen now. I see a vision, and I have no idea how to accomplish it. I often feel like I'm headed in all the wrong directions. Currently I'm headed to Thermopolis, WY to study Tai Chi with someone I met last March. I am trying to put faith and confidence in the fact that I feel called here. The one thing I can say about the progress of my life over the past 5 years is that I feel myself on a path that feels right. I feel like I have been putting more and more trust in this path - living my life as I'm being called to live it. And now, leaving Portland with a little money and no plans made further than a few weeks out, I feel a sense of abandon and adventure in which faith and trust are my only supports.