Limits of an Infinite Self

Greetings of love and peace to you all, my family of Earth-incarnated souls-in-awakening. I've had the grace opportunity to spend four weeks this July on a trip through Finland, hitchhiking with a dear friend and meeting many beautiful brothers and sisters along the way. The trip culminated in two timeless weeks of communion and healing at the Finnish Rainbow Gathering in Hailuoto, an island paradise just a few kilometres from where I live. I've wanted to share something of what I've experienced here with you, but I still don't know what I could possibly say that wouldn't bore the hell out of you to read it... ;-) so I'll just dive in and write something anyway.

Hitchhiking has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager, riding with my dad on long road trips to the wild hunting grounds of northern British Columbia and the sunny, fertile orchards of the Interior. I would gaze at the scenic mountain highway and imagine walking there, far from home, thumbing rides from sympathetic truck drivers and other like-minded motorists. This summer, thanks to fate and a fearless visionary sister who accompanied and supported me, I was able to realize that dream for the first time. Our way brought its share of small trials, but mostly it was miracle after miracle and gift upon gift.

We started by going to the giant happening known as suviseurat, a gathering of the conservative Laestadian "revival movement" in which I was raised. Having more recently, since leaving on my own spiritual path three years ago, made the acquaintance of many whose childhood and youth were much harder than my own, I've come to appreciate more deeply what a gift it was to be able to grow up in such a safe environment, with such a large and close-knit family, both in the nuclear sense (parents and 13 younger siblings) and in the faith community. In the six-plus years I've been in Finland, I've been to all the suvis but one, last year. Each time has been more enjoyable and rewarding than the last, or so it seems looking back. (This year's event in Lumijoki drew a record 90,000 guests.) It may be the fact that I've had time to intellectually explore and sort through the world on my own and experience life from an outside-the-box perspective while seeking answers to life's fundamental questions that now allows me to receive from what's preached there the kernels of wisdom and truth on a deeper level than before. In any case, many of the sermons and songs there touched my heart and soul at least as powerfully as they ever did when I was a believer, but now with a greater clarity and conviction. The rest, I admit, went largely in one ear and out the other (grin). Not worth getting hung up on points of disagreement when there's so much to enjoy otherwise just by being present with the beauty of the moment: the skies, the moods, the people...

My friend and I found a ride leaving the grounds on Monday for Jyväskylä in central Finland. Along the way we had an interesting conversation with a believing lady in her 60s whose present career is in reflexology. Proof, I guess, that a conservative religious belief system need not exclude the use of alternative healing modalities. (I knew a believing woman some years ago who practiced NLP as well. Come to think of it, a high proportion of the believers I know are quite broad-minded and self-aware individuals in spite of the dogmatic, patriarchal nature of the movement's leadership. Application of the "sheeple" epithet in any case might reveal more the arrogance/bitterness/frustration of the one using the term...) Our conversation ended on a rather sad note, however, once the subject of faith came up. It was no surprise to me, but my friend was disappointed to see how unaccepted was her personal faith on the basis of differences of view, and on her latitude of view on what makes a valid spiritual path. It's the "just us" fundie element that probably causes the most needless misery and conflict in connection with the movement. (sigh) Anyway, pointless rant, moving on.

Jyväskylä is a beautiful area with lakes and (almost) mountains that remind me of home in BC. It's also my birthplace and a former hometown of my travel companion. We spent a couple of nights there, one camping out next to the ski jump made famous by Matti Nykänen, and the other at a friend's place. (The ski jump also happens to be the site of my near-attempt at suicide three years ago, chronicled here.) Lovely people were met, important things happened, and our road continued to open up with good fortune in the way of rides and happy times. We made it to Joensuu, eastern Finland, in one evening. There we stayed two days and three nights camping, chilling with a local friend and enjoying the town. Then it was back on the road to Kuopio by thumb, and Paukarlahti by bus.

Paukarlahti County was the location of last year's European Rainbow, quite a large gathering which I unfortunately missed at the time. We were out of the loop as to where the Finnish Rainbow was being held this year, so Paukarlahti was our best shot at finding it. But first we had to find the right place! Walked all night looking for it, checking every side road along the whole length of the rural municipality. Exhausted, we finally gave up and made camp next to the cemetery... and in the morning, discovered that we'd actually found the right place by accident! We met the lady of the farm, who invited us to stay on the Rainbow site proper and informed us of this year's location in Hailuoto. The day and night we spent at the Paukarlahti site felt like an entire week - it was such a magical place and we lived so fully in the moment.

More hitchhiking adventure and answered prayers took us to Hailuoto, and that is where the story continues....

I received this letter from a friend who is traveling light through Europe. It touched me deeply, and it is my pleasure to share it here with you. Kiitos, my friend!


Dearest, loveliest, brightest beings of my life

I prefer a hello to a goodbye,
a hug to a handshake,
a smile to a frown

and these things are always sweetest when shared,
so this is a note appreciating the encounters I have recently engaged in,
since packing my life in a bag again and raising my thumb on the roadside.

Straight from dental surgery to the road, with a tooth less of wisdom, my first ride took me all the way to my next destination. I spent time with an old friend whom i used to bake mudcakes with and swing and sing and play and all those childhood things... now we both restrict the play time to our work, which keeps us both young at heart, I think.
Early on on the way, I was swallowed by Helsinki culture for a week. I found new beautiful people, a stone shop and some sunshine spots perfect for reading wise words from prophets and storytellers. Even though on the road it is difficult to find time on my own, I've been lucky enough to receive such generosity that allows me to soak in a bath with a book and spend a night watching late tv - both luxuries to me as such..

I saw my cousins in Turku, and got to peek into their lives and enjoy ice cream in the park with a very charming 3yr old. My uncle offered to take me to Oslo and so I jumped on a truck within a few hours notice and sailed and sat my way to Norway. First night I slept at the hospital, visiting my old neighbor and friend from college. Eating ice cream, taking the ferry back and forth in the Oslo fjord and adventuring off into greenery became my new routine. Then, I met the amazing elves and fairies of Oslo, suddenly smiles, brighteyes and love was all around, melodies, visions and connections grew through the night into a moment eternalized - happiness.

For those friends who don't consider themselves 'brighteyed' I can only say that this is my way of life, I lead my own journey with an open heart, I trust strangers, but most of all my instincts and I consider each and everyone worth the same, immeasurable value. People can learn from each other, both happy and hurtful things, but what matters is the peace of mind inside you. These communities made of 'alternative' people who live their little eccentric lives in relative harmony, out of the masses' way, are so full of beauty, creativity and trust that they are like recharge places for my little lantern of positivity and goodness.
It has become my lifeline, to be conscious about the energy people emit and how it influences the events in their lives. Hearing stories from you, my friends, has convinced me, on top of my own experience, that the attitude you reflect will also be reflected back to you. Some people are mirrors, others are chaos, yet others are stars and some even try to turn into stone. Whatever form and frame of mind you choose to occupy will influence the decisions and thoughts as well as directions and destinations you end up taking. Of course I am only running experiments with this theory at the moment, practicing 'being free' to the fullest extent I can..

Can you picture freedom? Is it really something we can 'have' or 'be'? Essentially I think it is freedom from thought patterns, certain repetitions of screwed up formulas we normally function by. Is routine the opposite of spontaneous living? and if so, we should still be free to choose routine, if we so wanted and that made us happy. Is freedom about happiness though?

As you can see, I am still struggling with freedom. It is so vast and full of choices that I try to avoid making, letting the natural course of things take hold and steer my ship. I am free to go or to stay, to have whatever I want for dinner, to spend my time as I best see.. Our lives are based on some basic freedom, but to extend it, I chose to leave my beloved community in Oulu and venture once again to places old and new. I am free, no work, no home, no obligations for the time being, enough money to survive and plenty of friends, all unique and precious in their own way. I am free to also have moments of doubt, whether I chose to leave or ran away, I long to go back sometimes, just a few steps, stay, enjoy this being-together for a while longer, whether I should...

Freedom is difficult to master. I may not pay electricity bills, but I do lose my money in other ways. I may be a strong, independent woman but I can still gamble my heart away and chase daydreams...

Believe it or not, perhaps I am waiting for someone to tell me to 'Stay'.

But, mostly, freedom is about listening to your heart.

I left Oslo, like I left Oulu, and I hitchhiked to Gothenburg and spend some delightful time with two bright souls living happily in Sweden. I had a pressing agenda though, to get back to Holland, where most of my college friends still are, so many places in distant timelines that carry great memory value to me. It is wonderful to visit the past and notice it has become the future. It has been two weeks now, of soaking under the blanket of dutch clouds, being safe amongst the people I once lived, loved and shared with. I soak on sunlight, soak in culinary feasts, soak in substances distorting my sense of time and space, inducing myself into a condition where I can take off...once again...to the next place, to the next shining light of my life.

I was going to write about the midnight bonfire in Lapland, and the songs in the streets and how I danced into another dimension, again, the other day.. I was going to write to you about the people and what we did, but I realize that those things are not mine to tell, they can be shared, created anew, when we next meet.

Question your decisions, practice freedom (for it takes a lot of practice) and hopefully, we are all one step closer to harmony.

Tell me about it :)

Love, peace, all those warm n fuzzy things..

□□□ [anonymous for now!]

Soundtrack: Deep Forest - Boheme

A richly woven carpet of sand, reindeer lichen, heather, bilberry, lingonberry, pinecones and needles caresses my bare feet as I wend my way over the rises and falls of the forest floor. I marvel at the abundance of tiny, smoke-purple-winged butterflies in these high-summer woods, and taste the first bilberries of the season. I bury my face in the soft, fuzzy green leaves of a waist-high sapling and give thanks for the ever-loving, ever-giving nature of trees.

During my walk, I realize that this rebirthing that I'm going through is a continuous process. Little by little, that which is unreal within me dies away, so that the real can arise. Or, to put it another way, the power of the unreal over me diminishes as my awareness of it grows. I become more able to choose the real over the unreal. But this is all very vague and abstract.

In more specific terms, what I've gone through in recent days has been a painful stripping away of my denial of some very ugly aspects of myself. Narcissism. Hypocrisy. The list goes on. I begin to awaken to the full reality of the deep karmic debt which I've incurred in this life. The people I've treated as objects for ego gratification. The parasitical behaviour, taking everything that's offered and giving only when it's convenient. The refusal to take responsibility for my own situation and change it. The attitude that this world somehow owes me for being so alien to what I'd prefer it to be. The idea that I can just go on doing whatever I feel like with no regard for other human beings or the reality in which I live. Playing games to get what I want. Bending the truth, glossing over inconvenient facts. Gossiping behind people's backs. Using my spiritual and intellectual gifts as a cloak for all of the above, instead of truly devoting and applying them for the good of all beings. I've known all this on some level already, but it took two destroyed relationships in one day, and the frank rebuke of both individuals concerned, to finally break through my denial.

Whatever else this blog has been to those who read it, for me it's been a toy. A game. A diversion. All ego, with just enough Spirit to have some small justification for its existence. I've been playing a role that's only part of who I really am. And this idea that I'm on some kind of spiritual path, that's bullshit. I've done all that, it's not what I need to concern myself with in this life. I've got gifts, and I sure as hell ought to use them when the opportunity presents itself, but this monologue is the least of the ways I can do that. Practically insignificant.

If you want to talk about spiritual or esoteric topics with me, you're more than welcome to send me an email. Whatever insight I have to offer is at your disposal.

I've recently had the opportunity to begin reacquainting myself with my inborn energy-healing abilities. This is an area in which I see myself developing and being of service in the future.

I don't know what the future shape of this blog will be. I will leave it up, and I will post whatever I feel prompted to post, as I've always done. The blogs you see listed on the right are all excellent and worth checking out.

My immediate future appears to hold a trip to southern Spain. During my stay there I will get back into a balanced lifestyle and weigh my options for what to do next. I must ultimately follow my heart. Signs have seemed to be pointing to Africa, but that could just as well mean nothing. I expect to return to both Finland and Canada. I have karmic debts to repay in both places.

A new world is coming. At some point, some of us may find ourselves moving between different dimensions within that new world, or even between planets. All of us who survive will, in whatever capacity, contribute to building that new world. That new world is already here as a blueprint, waiting to be made manifest. The transition is ongoing. It began a long time ago. Everything is under control. There is no need to try to anticipate or stress over what's coming down the pike. All we need concern ourselves with is following the still, small voice within, making the sometimes drastic and difficult changes in our own lives that we need to make. You have a role that you came here to play. It's up to you to discover it and play it to the fullest. And the fact is, you will, whether you consciously decide to or not.

So I indulged in a little sermon after all. Take it as you will, or don't. It's a fart in a hurricane, a desperate cry to have my significance acknowledged. Don't encourage me and for heaven's sake, don't assume that I'm right. Listen to your own truth. It's inside you and nowhere else.

From here on in, I stick to what I know. If I do start spouting nonsense that I can't back up, I pray for someone to write me a comment saying the emperor has no clothes.



Blessings to all.

Over and out.

On the one hand, this is a superfluous entry, because I have nothing to say. But then, would that be so very different from any other entry? Anything in this blog actually worth the bits and pixels it takes up isn't from me, but merely passes through me on its way here from somewhere else. And I'll be first to call bullshit on that and admit that it's all ego, all the time... except for what isn't. Make sense? Good either way. It is what it is.

So I'm leaving everything I know behind in just a matter of days now. Certain details are probably best left unbroadcast in order not to attract the wrong kind of attention, but if I've got it coming, then there's nothing I can do to stop that either. "Irresponsible" and "reckless" would be the judgment pronounced upon me by most people, but I'm just doing what I have to do. Playing my part, from the heart. To do anything else would be unthinkable.

I've been doing a great deal of soul-searching, shining light on some deep, dark issues of the psyche. Issues of self-doubt versus self-confidence, intellect versus intuition, demanding versus allowing, my relationship with the Divine (most acutely with its Feminine aspect), and most confusing of all, sex. I have no idea how these issues are going to be resolved, or how quickly. It will be a natural process of unfolding, more likely longer than shorter. My impatience to be done with all these things helps not at all. And that's another issue in itself.

Self-acceptance, embracing the moment as the perfection that it is from the viewpoint of the Absolute... the presence of the One... gratitude and love. These are the things of which I must constantly re-mind myself. And quite often am re-minded through no effort of my own, but by the grace of God manifest in my life and in the world around me. A glorious sunset, arrayed like a masterpiece of Classical hyperreality and utterly indifferent to my petty thoughts of melancholy self-pity... little things, even insects, so full of significance. The invisible speaking through the visible, revealing itself moment by moment, piece by piece. I need this. I cannot live without it. And to live is to strive toward it.

To my old friends, I say thank you for all that we've been able to share. You'll always be with me in my heart, and I with you. To those new friends whom I have yet to meet, I welcome you in advance and look forward to the fun and the learning we will have together.

That's all for now. There will be more.

Life has been kicking ass for me lately. I even recorded my first video blog where I went on about that. Hilarious thing, though: as soon as I got it into my ego like that – Boom! – life started (gently but firmly) kicking my ass. I couldn't get a picture to show up in Windows Movie Maker (could only get audio, and a crappy audio it was), and that got me thinking that maybe vlogging hadn't been such a hot idea after all. The more I thought about the video I'd recorded, the more I thought how embarrassing it'd be. I'm not too terribly awkward on camera, but my speaking skills aren't up to a level where I can just go off-the-cuff and have it come out how I want it. Not that I'm so vain that I can't let people see me as I am, but if the point is to make a point, then I want to do it as well as I can and not waste people's time with my halting speech and half-formed thoughts.

Perhaps I will still make a video blog at some point, but it would probably be either me reading stuff aloud or be a private video as a letter home to my family. I think those options would help me be less self-conscious, too. Seeing oneself on the screen simultaneously rather tends to have that effect, unfortunately. I'd rather not feed my ego that way if I can help it.

Anyway, I've had a lot on my mind, even as I've been flying high on a creative roll on the magic carpet of universal love that makes everything go my way. The blogs/websites of a number of highly conscious individuals (links on the right if you're reading this on my Blogspot) have provided plenty of food for thought recently, but I've mostly been wrestling with a very personal issue: my hobby.

First I should tell you why it's become such an issue. You see, my plan at this point is to leave the country by the end of June, which will mark five years since I left my family in Vancouver and moved to the land of my birth to see what experiences it might hold for me. These five years have been incredibly transformative and full of different phases. My life situation has undergone radical changes by the year:

Year zero: leave job and hometown in Canada to enlist in Finnish conscript military as an adventure and a requirement for keeping my dual citizenship.

Year one: discharged with rank of 2nd lieutenant. Begin studies in Forestry at Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences.

Year two: summer of love. Relationship with girlfriend at its peak. Active social life. Internship at building supply warehouse provides financial security and chance to work largely outdoors, serving customers. Everything is great.

Year three: everything falls apart. Plans to switch field of study to Theology come to naught as I discover that the Christianity I was raised into has been a weapon of mass deception and no longer serves my spiritual needs. Quit Forestry, break up with girlfriend. Truth-seeking begins in earnest. Job at call center pays the bills but eats at the soul. Breakdown on the job prompts move to Oulu, an area with many relatives and friends. Find new job as personal assistant to severely disabled father of six, an ex-con and ex-hockey player whose wife left the same faith movement as me (conservative Laestadian Lutheran) to marry him.

Year four: fired from job in spring, after six months. Had been too wrapped up in myself and my inner life to really engage fully and integrate into the family's home. (The ex-Laestadian girl who succeeded me apparently serves the family's needs much better, for which I am very glad.) Desire to find another regular job is zilch, as interest in being really independent has taken off. Start translating business. Find that I really don't have what it takes, but deny reality until savings run out in the fall and I am forced to shut it down and apply for government social aid. The emotional support of close friends plays a key role.

Year five (now): jettisoning most material possessions with intent to go on a trip of indeterminate length, starting with Sweden and continental Europe and ending in Vancouver. Money will likely run out along the way, at which point (barring some kind of temporary employment) I will be entirely at the mercy of God and my fellow human beings. That thought scares me a lot less than it would probably scare most people.

So now the trouble here is that the only thing I've ever become really good at – the hobby (socially still rather marginal, although the public awareness and acceptance of it are constantly increasing) of building original creations out of Lego bricks, for which I still have as unrepentant a passion as ever – is up against the compelling need to drop everything and hit the road. Shipping my entire Lego parts collection to Vancouver would be very costly due to the weight, so I must now significantly reduce its size. Selling it all off wholesale would be the rational thing to do, but as I mentioned, my passion for building is as yet unabated (despite occasional bouts of disillusionment with it all and an ever-present awareness that none of it matters in the end). Lately, I've been in a veritable frenzy of building in preparation for my first exhibition down in Helsinki next month. I also have a prospective buyer who has offered to pay 13 euros per kilo for sorted, bulk Lego parts. So I am left to separate the wheat, so to speak, from the chaff. Which parts are superfluous and which ones am I going to need for my projects in progress? It's a tough call to make, but I have to make it. Which explains my anxiety.

Well, that's a load off my chest already, to have laid out the situation in words like this. I think it's now clear to me that I would be wisest to enlist the help of a friend or friends in this process. The idea of doing it alone is just too daunting. And I guess that simple epiphany is what I was getting at with this whole entry, though I only realize it now. I do hope that anyone who took the time to read this will send supportive thoughts my way, be they voiced or silent. Advice and compassion are always appreciated, and I won't bite your head off even if you're in total disagreement with what I'm doing. Hey, maybe I am crazy... but that's still a subjective judgment. I'm just doing what seems to be the right thing for me personally. So... wish me luck?

- Not that I believe in luck. (grin)