Part IV:
Awakening
to Beauty
Paris
2006
Integration and Change
Within a month of returning from China, my relationship with Max ended. In the weeks leading up to that inevitable decision, a lot of turmoil erupted in my life. I began to realize how hard the China trip had been on me, mentally and emotionally. I started to see that I had been avoiding dealing with the lingering trauma of the assault in Bolivia. I also could no longer ignore the fact that I had been in a difficult and unsatisfying relationship for nearly a year. These realizations dealt a significant blow, and I found myself struggling to make sense of it all. What had my life become? What did it all mean? I was lost and sad and didn’t know where to begin.
I spent a lot of time thinking, attempting to sort through the difficult experiences from my journey in China. I recalled my other journeys. Returning home had always been difficult, filled with significant transitions, and I was always out of sync with my “regular” life for a while. But this transition was the hardest, by far. I began to see some of the major differences between my first two journeys and the one in China. In China I had not been able to travel with the same spirit that I had in the previous two. I had chosen to make compromises for the peace of my relationship, and that had deeply compromised the intentions and integrity of my journey. I had spent precious little time writing in my journal and more time drinking beer and trying to negotiate the next stage of our travel plans. I spent more time in convenience stores than in Buddhist Temples, and the pace and tone of the journey were frantic and aimless.
I had always suspected that by travelling alone I had opened myself to an entirely different kind of journey, one in which I could be as free as my mind would allow me to be, and without any accountability to anyone but myself. And as much as I had known that compromise would be necessary in making a journey with my boyfriend, I hadn’t considered that the difficulties that I had encountered in the relationship would be exponentially greater when travelling together in a completely foreign culture. Sure, China had been a difficult culture to enter and travel through, but I began to realize that just as much of my anger was a result of compromising my heartfelt intentions for the journey for the sake of maintaining a relationship that was already faltering as we left the country. I was angry with myself for not having the courage to make the journey what I had imagined, and angry that I had agreed to travel with someone who was so ill-suited to me, and who didn’t share my interests and values. I was angry with myself for being willing to make these compromises just to travel with someone who made me feel safe, since I had yet to face the damages that had been done on many levels when I had been assaulted.
***
Post-China Journals
***
August 21, 2006
I am a sensitive being. I have not become desensitized to the world or to my feelings. My emotions flow freely with little resistance, but I’m not always sure of how to experience emotion in an environment that is completely desensitized and harsh. I think that’s why China was so difficult. Both Max and the Chinese culture were so fast-paced and insensitive, I often felt crushed by the combination of the two.
I don’t like the way I’ve been living. I met Max in the wake of my own most damaging experience of violence. I wasn’t in a place of trust, I was in a state of disconnect. In China, I stopped listening to the wise voice within me. Now, I really feel the need to change some things. To experience silence and stillness. In dealing with - or avoiding - my own trauma, I have been influenced by some of Max’s own self-destructive tendencies, and now that I see how I’ve changed, I must stop the self-destructiveness. I am thirsting for nurture on every level.
***
I believe very strongly that my initial awakening experience was a gift. I was shown the landscape of my inner world, the bliss of being clear and heart-centered and connected to the eternal, divine energy of life. So what has happened since then? It seems to me that it’s been a gradual un-doing of that bliss. Of really seeing myself little by little, and becoming aware of parts of myself that were repressed or hidden or of which I was totally unaware. My thoughts, my feelings, my behavior, my patterns, my tendencies. Observing the struggles and learning what it’s all really about. For as difficult as travelling in China was, it showed me parts of myself that I need to be aware of. My anger. My dissociation. For that, I’m grateful. I’m not stuck anymore.
***
August 23, 2006
For the first time in a long time, I feel alive in the fullest sense. The space around me is pregnant, pulsing, tingling. I am full of all the energy of fire, but it is no longer raging. It has settled into a slow, radiating pulse, a glowing field of energy. When I awoke today and was lying there in bed, I felt a radiance - it was warm like honey, warm like sunshine. It was also a healing, nourishing cocoon. I felt that I was the source of the energy and that I was being restored by it, drinking it in through my roots, which seemed to cover my body like a membrane. As I lay in bed, I imagined myself in a cool, damp forest, lush and green, moist, dense and dark. I was lying on the ground, drinking it all in.
***
Ever since I returned from China, I’ve been continually running myself, always on the go, push, push, push. I feel dry, I feel like an empty gas tank. My own inner fire - and along with it, my violence and anger - has been ravaging me. I can see the way that my whole existence has moved into that cyclone, that raging inferno. The way I move, the way I speak, the whirling of my mind, chattering and twitching. Even though I’ve been back from China for nearly a month, I can’t seem to break away from the frantic state of being I entered into while there.
Recently my level of intolerance and judgment soared to new heights. I have been quick to react, often with anger, frustration, or lack of understanding. I have felt like I’ve been running people over, plowing them down, interrupting them. A reaction to the chaotic, polluted, endlessly noisy world that whirled around me, especially in those last weeks in China? Yes, I really feel like that’s been a huge part of this defensive, hardened state of being that I’ve been experiencing. It’s scary to be open and vulnerable in a world that is in such a hurry, and it’s easy to get all wrapped up in confusion and not know anything, to get caught up in a force that’s bigger than me with a velocity all its own. That’s honestly where I’ve been for a while. Until recently I’d forgotten how to listen to my body, my heart. But now I’m feeling things begin to shift.
***
August 25, 2006
What’s important to me right now is taking back my own life, getting back to my center, my grounding. In the last year - at least since returning from Bolivia in November 2005 - I have been accustomed to really putting myself out there in public, in social situations, surrounding myself with people. I’m sure that stems from the assault. Though my rational mind hates to admit it, the truth is that I became afraid of being alone after that. Ever since that incident, I’ve hardly done anything by myself. I’m almost always with people, or hoping to meet up with someone I might know. My fear is primal, it’s in my body. Even in situations where there is virtually no threat, I feel myself gripping for safety through contact with others. And since I met Max in the wake of that incident, he was probably imprinted in my brain as my protector. For much of my life I have felt strong, independent, and fearless, and it’s strange to now identify this pattern of behavior in myself.
Quite honestly, a break from everyone and everything might be just right. I feel the need to cocoon. Part of me wants to say that I’m confused, but really I’m not. While here, at home in familiar territory, there are so many ways to keep myself distracted. Part of me wants to flail about, call everyone I know, surround myself with people. To fill up the emptiness inside me with whoever or whatever I can. Friends, acquaintances, even people I hardly know. To fill up my time with wildness. I really believe that what I need right now is to be alone without any outside influences to allow myself to heal.
***
August 28, 2006
Throughout much of my life, often between my July birthday and the fall, I enter into a period of “shedding my skin.” It began, as far as I can remember, around my twentieth birthday. That was around the time that I really started living on my own, having my own apartment. I remember being out with two friends one night and feeling really off. I ended up bursting into tears by the side of my friend’s truck. It’s not just the blues or depression, it’s like a mid-year crisis that I have now experienced nearly every year, and usually around the same time of year, late summer into the fall. Since I’m sensitive, perhaps it has something to do with the circadian rhythm of fall, and when the trees begin getting the signal to change colors and lose their leaves, I am triggered in this process.
***
The way I see it, once a person makes a commitment to following a spiritual path, there’s no stopping the process. There’s no way out, it’s for life or lifetimes, as the case may be. When my “awakening” happened, also in late summer, I believe that the universe was showing me just how limitless the possibilities are. Now, by making pilgrimage journeys, I feel like I’m telling the universe that I don’t merely expect my evolution to be an involuntary process that I’ll passively submit myself to, but instead that I’ll meet it halfway, I’ll take the responsibility for my own growth. I’ll gladly be an active participant in that process. I now understand that that is one of the reasons why I go on pilgrimage.
I am not powerless, this “shedding” is my process to move with, to own. It is certainly guided by my higher nature, but the really important part of this inner journey is to be an active, conscious part of it, not to merely allow it to happen to me.
***
A Healing Retreat
In the midst of sorting through a lot of difficult feelings and experiences, and seeking to interpret them with a perspective that would honor the spirit that took me to China, I began to have fantasies about a proper retreat, a journey that was in alignment with my intentions, a journey that would refresh my spirit and allow me the opportunity to make sense of my life. A journey that would return me to my center. A journey that was true to what I had come to value: travel as spiritual practice.
In those difficult weeks after returning from China, I spent a lot of time writing in my local coffee shop. One day I was approached by a friend, Abby. It seemed that her daughter, who lived in Paris with her husband, was heading off to Greece for a couple of weeks, and couldn’t locate a trustworthy and available catsitter in all of Europe. Would I be interested?
My initial response was “that’s crazy, who goes to Paris to catsit?!” I’d always wanted to go there and I had been to France twice before, but never made it to Paris. To me, Paris was the quintessential artist’s city. I had fantasized for years about wandering those streets, with flowers spilling over window boxes, narrow cobblestone lanes and gorgeous architecture. I had dreamed of wandering, bittersweet, along the Seine, lingering in sidewalk cafes with a pot of tea, deeply engrossed in writing. Abby’s invitation lingered in my mind, and as crazy as it had originally seemed, I began to reconsider my hasty response. By the next afternoon, I realized that the universe had conspired to bring me the very retreat I had been imagining. I had just enough extra money in savings to cover the airfare and basic expenses, and I agreed to do it. With less than two weeks notice, I booked the ticket and prepared to walk out of my confusing life at home and fly to Paris.
***
August 29, 2006
The universe was listening to all the requests I made regarding the need to cocoon by myself for a while. I managed to manifest a trip to Paris for two weeks with a free place to stay! Until now, I’m not sure that I would have listened to the voice inside of me telling me that I need this retreat. I’ve been thinking it and asking for it and denying myself the reality of having it. But now, the very cocoon I’ve been wishing for has fallen into my lap. My “shedding” and healing will continue, alone, in Paris! I’m leaving in less than two weeks, I’ve booked the ticket and found my passport.
***
September 1, 2006
I am affected by my environment, that became abundantly clear in China. I believe that I am a very sensitive, that all of us are sensitive, really. But so many people become hardened, desensitized. It’s a defense mechanism that is born out of some kind of emotional necessity. I believe that the nature of all beings is sensitivity, and that varying degrees of defensiveness are part of our nurture. For whatever it’s worth, I never developed a strong sense of hardness. Not until China.
***
I got lost in my relationship with Max. I’m sure that after I was assaulted I was content to avoid being alone and independent as much as possible. I fell into his arms. I was fully ready to sacrifice everything that was important to me - my philosophy, my spiritual path, my independence. What was the point anyway? Roaming the world with no fears, an open heart, a big smile, and the taste of enlightenment always on the tip of my tongue. What did that get me? Strangled out of consciousness, robbed and tossed aside.
***
In this moment I am overcome by compassion for myself and the path that my life has taken in the past year. I have been blaming myself for the whole thing, but now I forgive myself for all of it.
***
Just now I went home to get the candies that the man from the hotel in LaPaz gave me that night after the incident. I don’t know why I held on to them all this time, but today I unwrapped them all and threw them into the river. It was an act of releasing myself from this cycle of fear and avoidance that’s been ruling my life for almost a year. I hold no anger toward myself, not anymore. Funny, I never held any anger or blame for my attackers, I never felt it that way. But I can see now how I held a lot of blame and contempt for myself. There was a voice in my mind that gruffly stated, “See what all this enlightenment bullshit gets you? Not a damn thing. Attacked and nearly killed. Isn’t it time you gave up these idealistic fantasies anyway? I mean, really!”
For the last year, I retreated into the protection of my mind. A year of escapism. I continued along my same path, but I can now see that it was inertia that kept me going, not my devotion to my own discovery and evolution. China was the crowning glory of it all, too. The total loss of faith I experienced in China was really me seeing my own derailment. China got me to see how I had lost faith in my own journey, in my spiritual path, in the world. The fact that my life crashed recently was merely the culmination of the way in which I’d been torn for nearly a year. My life fell apart when the rift had grown so deep and wide that the parts were irreconcilable.
***
September 6, 2006
The chains of association, the strings of experience and reaction, they all form and break, and that goes on indefinitely. The inner world. The outer world. The world of the Divine. The world of humanity. The world of transcendence. The world of limitations. The world of the spirit. The world of the material. The world that is eternal, the world that is finite. The world that expands me beyond myself. The world that makes me feel isolated, alone and abandoned. A world of freedom, or a world of imprisonment?
The point of connection between worlds. That is what interests me most. For that is the point from which my experience begins. The brink of heaven and earth, light and dark, ethereal and gross. That is the place where I am, a point as infinitely large as the whole universe and as infinitesimally small as the point of a needle. It is the nether region, the point of suspension, the brink of madness, and the edge of invisibility. It is being at the point of no return, but without any clear path forward. This is the result of pilgrimage.
I am committed to a path of understanding. That is my spiritual practice. Not just an understanding of mind, an understanding that is rooted in the heart. I want to know myself more deeply every day. I want to know the nature of my being - my body, my soul, my mind, all of it. I want to know its tendencies, its traps, its patterns. I want to see them all, to understand those elements of myself, to leave no rock unturned within me. I am a student of myself and am committed to remaining a student in this way for my entire life - that’s how long it takes! Every day is different, and change is continual. I’m pretty sure it was Socrates who said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” That is pretty much my philosophy. Pilgrimage, for me, is a retreat from my ordinary life, my usual surroundings and responsibilities, in order to spend time examining my life more deeply. It allows me to shine a light into all my darkest places, and very often it brings up parts of me that I am not aware of. That is my path. I now understand more fully why I must go to Paris!
***
September 14, 2006
In contemplating my intentions for the journey to Paris, I decided this morning that it would be a truly novel idea to explore being. In this moment for example, I have nothing to be unhappy about. I only feel unhappy in moments when I feel that my life is not what it should be, that some past experience was better or worse, or during some future time things could be better or worse. It’s the clinging and the fear that things will keep changing, that nothing lasts, which is true.
This is the truth of the Buddhist concept of groundlessness - the fact that things are always changing and will continue to change. Like many others, crave the “good” stuff and want to avoid the “bad” stuff, being attached to favorable outcomes, being drawn to the things that produce a “good” feeling. What a radical idea, to look beyond all that duality of good and bad, consciously choosing not to indulge thinking patterns that either reinforce pleasure or misery in any way. Just pure acceptance.
I’m starting to see that this doesn’t mean that I won’t feel what I feel in the moment, or that I won’t enjoy any of it. Not at all. Instead, I will be more free to feel what I feel completely in each moment, and then as it changes, I’ll be free to stay with that feeling. Fantasizing about some future state or way of being throws away the present moment. My own greater poison, though, is drifting back into the past. Memories of the good always supersede the state of things in the present moment, and when the good moments from the past outweigh the current state of things, I feel a sense of sadness and loss, and am spun into misery. This is exceptionally more powerful when my feelings are in conflict. But I can choose whether or not to continue to indulge that kind of destructive thinking pattern.
***
A Writing Retreat ... and more
Paris was going to be a working retreat, that’s all. It would be a well deserved retreat from all the difficult situations in my life, a time to gain perspective, to read, to write, and to explore a city that I had had fantasies about for many years. I had imagined myself sitting at a sidewalk cafe, dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans, sipping an espresso or herbal tea, and writing in my notebook. Writing whatever needed to be written. Poetry? Philosophy? The content of the writing had never been part of the fantasy. I had imagined Paris to be an extraordinarily beautiful and romantic place, as many people do. I looked forward to spending my days enjoying grand old architecture, contemplating great art, and wandering along quiet streets and through sprawling parks, all the while, feeding my artist’s soul.
I went to Paris in a state of deep sadness and confusion. I wasn’t sure what to think about being in the world’s most romantic city while heartbroken. I also wasn’t sure how I felt about being alone in a major European city, especially after dark, in the process of coming to terms with having been assaulted in Bolivia. But this opportunity had presented itself with perfect timing. I’d be staying in an apartment with access to a kitchen, which made the trip incredibly affordable. My only expenses would be food, which I planned on cooking myself, a daily pot of tea to sip in tiny cafes, and entrance fees to various galleries and museums. I had been wishing for a retreat, after all, not merely as an escape from the things that were troubling me. I longed for an extended period of solitude and contemplation so that I could immerse myself in healing and growing out of the fragile state that I had been in for a long time. I needed to get centered. I needed to clear away the clutter from my mind and heart. I needed...
(a pilgrimage)
I had not planned for my journey in Paris to be a pilgrimage. I knew I would be reading and writing and working, sleeping in and spending loads of time alone. I hoped to visit many famous art galleries, linger in cafes, and roam the Paris streets, immersing myself in the energy of the place. I planned to visit Paris’ grand cathedrals, as well, but I had spent enough time contemplating the meaning of pilgrimage to know that a mere visit to a cathedral doesn’t mean very much. What I hadn’t yet realized is that my very approach to travel had become centered in spiritual awakening and renewal, and that my entire perspective had come to shift while travelling, a shift into “pilgrimage mode.” In fact, pilgrimage had become my way of life, and the root of my spiritual practice. The words that I had often heard on the Camino, “once a pilgrim, always a pilgrim,” began to ring true in my first days in Paris, as I immersed myself in contemplating and questioning, facing the deepest, darkest parts of myself as I sought to understand my life.
***
September 15, 2006
I can hardly believe today's the day! It still seems unbelievable that I'm going to Paris so spontaneously. To catsit. It's been years since I travelled anywhere with a home base. With the degree of unsettledness I've been feeling since returning from China, there has been a little voice in my head that said, "please, can we just stay home?" I think that one of the major reasons I agreed to travelling right now is because I'll have a home to stay in, not a hotel or hostel. But I also feel that this journey will be a breath of fresh air. All the turmoil I've been feeling for the last few weeks is settling down, both internally and externally. I feel at peace with myself, with the people in my life, and with my path. Things change. People change. But the flow of the universe is eternal.
***
September 16, 2006
(brief landing in Reykjavik, Iceland)
Half an hour prior to landing, sunrise on the horizon. Lines of bold, fiery color ... at the base, the smoky charcoal of earth or sea, still invisible. The next layers, deep orange, olive, then blue. More a hint of dawn than sunrise. And then one tiny light. Many layers of cloud cover, many shades of gray. But one light. A lighthouse?
Then a finger of deeper charcoal, the suggestion of land. Where do the clouds end and the fog and mist begin? It's impossible to know for sure. Shades of gray shift in the not quite darkness, and the terrain below is illuminated with a sprinkle of orange lights. Civilization.
This land is barren, both gentle and rugged simultaneously. Even from the window of the airport, fields of tall, brown, windswept grass extend, between runways, into the distance. Beyond the grasslands, a few stark hills. This land is volcanic, both roiling and cool at once. It is a womb, a place of nurture and wildness. The feeling of this land is quite indescribable.
A journey of rebirth, a perfect descent into that. Down, down from the darkness into the burning, yet cool horizon. I am enveloped in this cocoon of morning and damp, hazy sky. There is no hurry, I have become like the fog, moving slowly but with intention into this journey's bardo. First light has given way to daybreak, and the gray sky is illuminated. In the distance, mist swirls at the foot of the hills, and billows of steam remind me that this stark land is born in the earth's hot belly. So far north, this place is on the fringe of the world ... it remains the land of the earth, only barely the land of humans.
Here there is stark contrast, deep stillness. Though I've never left the steel, glass, and wood structure of this airport, it is clear that here there is the space to breathe.
***
Paris Journals
***
September 16, 2006
In Paris. Feeling lonely. There’s a little voice in the back of my mind that is telling me to go out, do something wild and adventurous. Get out there, do all you can, have an adventure. That’s my own fiery drive speaking. The feeling in me to bolt, to get out there, not to waste a moment of my Paris trip lounging around. But it isn’t fueled by a sincere desire to go out and wander, but by the desire to escape my feelings of loneliness that have little to do with being in Paris alone. This goes right back to the idea of just being present, of not getting caught up in memories or thinking traps. I realized, even before leaving for Paris, that this was going to be more than a reading and writing retreat. This was the perfectly timed opportunity to face my fears of travelling and being alone that have dominated my life during the past year. Though I’m not actually viscerally afraid for my well being in a perfectly safe apartment in a perfectly safe neighborhood in Paris, I’m irrationally feeling a lot of fear of being alone. In that sense, this journey has become an incredible pilgrimage of its own. It will be an arena for confronting the assault, of having the opportunity to really face all the feelings and reactions I experience along the way, and to slowly let it all go.
This trip, above all else, is an awesome opportunity to become really happy by myself again. To remember the joy of my own company, to get comfortable in aloneness again, to be able to recognize my wholeness within. Not to suggest that I don’t want to enjoy the company of others while I’m here, or in my everyday life. I’ve forgotten how to be alone. So, I dedicate this trip to remembering the joy of aloneness, the luxurious pleasure of my own company. Because only by remembering this can I experience true freedom.
***
September 17, 2006
(Cafe Ariel, Oberkampf)
Paris is a place that I have romanticized and idealized for much of my life, and as a result there are many preconceived ideas clouding my vision. I vow to be aware of my own idealistic, romantic tendencies as I wander around Paris. Fortunately, jetlag exhausts one’s ability to see with rose-colored glasses, and I have been plunged into my first day’s exploration of Paris with tired, yet open senses.
***
It was a delightful first day in Paris. It has been gray for the most part, with a slight chill in the air. Leaves are beginning to fall from the trees, and the sound of leaves rustling and crunching on the sidewalk is a comforting sound to me. After a good, solid ten hours of sleep, I arose this morning and began my day. My intentions were undefined, with the exception of doing some reading and writing, as well as exploring the city. This spontaneous jaunt to Paris was only possible because I'd have a free place to stay, as well as a kitchen, so I decided that I'd start the day by finding the Sunday market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir. Alas, by the time I got a shower and found the proper street, the market was finished for the day.
I wandered and wandered. I stopped in a park to write and smell the roses ... well, the wildflowers anyway. I smiled at little old ladies and was greeted with song and dance by a North African man. Sunday is a perfect day to begin wandering in Paris, too. Almost everything is closed. For me, that means less people are out and I'm more apt to stay present. It also means that with fewer distractions of stores trying to sell stuff, I am able to really see Parisians, feel the pace of life when business isn't the driving force, and really get the lay of the land. I got off-track of the path I'd initially decided to wander, but it didn't matter. I'm in Paris, after all, with no intention of go-go-go, but instead, to really slow down, to allow the rebirth I've been experiencing for the last month to fully integrate. I'm here to just be, flow, breathe.
I may have missed the Sunday market, but I found plenty of small markets in which to buy glorious food. I entered one of the markets, one overflowing with peppers and potatoes and squash and apples. I purchased some vegetables for making soup from a smiling man with glasses and a mustache, then bought a baguette and pain au chocolat from an attractive young man at the boulangerie, and finally found beer, goat cheese, and eggs from a tiny shop run by an Arab man. He noticed the Tennessee driver's license in my wallet and began speaking to me in English. Clearly people know Jack Daniels all over the world. When I told him that you can't drink Jack Daniels in the town where it's made, I thought he'd fall out of his chair. I'm pretty sure that the French can't imagine the idea of a "dry" county.
Once I had bought all the stuff for dinner, my task for the day was done. I found myself in the middle of one of Paris’ famous Sunday flea markets, which covered about four blocks of sidewalks near the apartment. There was everything from furniture, African arts and crafts, antiques, old books, records and postcards, glassware, tacky plastic jewelry, toys, and various antiques. I wandered among the Parisian bargain hunters, just taking it all in.
It was late in the afternoon, and I decided that dinner could wait. I wandered back out into the flea market crowd and stumbled across a delightful corner cafe that I had missed before. Cafe Ariel. I chose a table and sat down. For a moment, I was nervous, trying to recall how to order in French, but I ordered a pot of tea without any issues and began to relax. The cafe was right on the street where the flea market was happening, and I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and watching the last of the day’s bargaining from my table just inside from the sidewalk.
A middle aged man tried on a leather motorcycle vest, and posed for his two female companions, seeking their opinion. They both smiled, stifling giggles, and in that moment he caught my eye. I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up signal. He nodded in my direction, puffing up his chest and throwing back his shoulders as he straightened the vest. Pleased, he paid the merchant. As he and his friends walked past me, he offered me his “merci beaucoup!” for the approval. I smiled and nodded to him as they went on their way.
In that moment, I felt like I had been embraced. I was no longer merely a jetlagged traveller seeking her place in a foreign city. I was an anonymous woman, and I felt my identity slip away. Here I knew no one, I could be anyone I wanted. Or, more importantly, I could be myself. I pulled out my journal and began to write, capturing the essence of the moment and the place. I stopped for a moment, having been intrigued by a thought: Why don’t I feel this way at home? Beyond the basic Frenchness, that is. I began to consider the differences in both the place that surrounded me as well as my inner experience. What is it that shifts within me and fills me with this feeling of connectedness even as my own sense of my identity slips away? After all, I spend a lot of time in my daily life writing in public places, often observing the flow of people and happenings in much the same way as I was that afternoon. I continued to write, feeling no clear answer. As the market began to close and the cafe owner brought in tables from the sidewalk, I wrapped up my writing, vowing to explore these questions further.
I wandered to the church nearby, St. Ambroise, and sat in the park right in front of it. Some kids were playing a passionate game of football. The evening Mass ended, and people poured out of the church. On my way home, I walked past the side of the church. A man raised his arms above his head as he looked in my direction and declared something, and from the quality of his expression, it must have been about how beautiful I am. He crossed the street and began speaking to me rapidly in a very warm, engaging way. I managed to utter that I speak only a little French, and he kept on talking. He kissed both my cheeks and wrapped his arms around me, beginning to massage my back a bit. He wasn't homeless or crazy looking, and what was I to say to a man who was overwhelmed by the glorious essence of me? I couldn't think in French, especially not while he was talking, and I think I managed to something in Spanish, which he mistook to mean that I was Spanish myself! Finally, I declined his offer of coffee and wandered home, feeling flattered. The funny thing? My first impression was that he wanted to rob me. I even checked my bag after I was away from him to make sure everything was there.
Dinner was divine. I made some soup with fresh veggies and lentils, which went really well with the baguette spread with goat cheese. Followed by decadent beer and pain au chocolat. If this is the French life, then I'm all for it. For the first time in a long time, I have felt really happy all day.
***
September 18, 2006
(Ile Saint-Louis)
I awoke to the sound of rain pattering against the ledge outside my window. I decided that that was as good a reason as any to keep sleeping, and when I finally rolled out of bed, I felt a modicum of guilt for sleeping so late. My guilt dissolved when I looked out the window, finding a pale blue sky dotted by puffy clouds, and the sun was out. Happy that the rain had gone, I made breakfast and headed out for the day's adventures.
I decided that it was time to head into the heart of Paris, and I wandered toward the Seine. For me, the Paris of my imagination is not the Eiffel Tower and Arc du Triomphe. Paris, to me, is the Notre Dame Cathedral. I geared my wandering in that general direction. I wandered out along Avenue de la Republique, to Rue Oberkampf, then down Boulevard Richard Lenoir all the way to Bastille. I sat on the steps of the Paris Opera, an abnormally modern looking building in the middle of beautiful Parisian architecture, and watched people for a while. I played my new favorite game, “Guess Who is French and Who is Not.” Though I don't feel conspicuous as a tourist or foreigner here, they can often tell. Even when I don't open my mouth. It baffles me. Anyway, I sat there and watched and wrote for a while, especially entertained by a group of Parisian teenagers who were part of a tour of some kind. Very amusing. Bastille itself isn't very interesting. There's a giant phallic tower with a golden angel perched on top, a monument to the French Revolution where a giant fortress once stood. Now, it's a cobblestone traffic circle surrounded by cafes and shops and the Paris Opera.
I roamed further into the city, following the route I had planned toward Notre Dame. Having no reason to hurry, I lingered here and there to write, to enjoy the rich and abundant flowers, to sit on a bench and watch the world go by. The day was warm, the early autumn sun was gentle and cast a golden glow on everything. In a short time, I found myself breathing more deeply and feeling calm.
I continued my wandering down Boulevard Henry IV, which is framed by even more beautiful and extravagant architecture. After a short walk, the Seine was in sight, and I walked onto the bridge and stood in the middle taking it all in. A giant tour boat rolled by. Off in the distance, some boring mid-rise buildings were visible. In the other direction, the river disappeared along a curve, along with the highway that runs beside it. For whatever reason, none of that bothered me. For a city of two million people, Paris is really calme.
***
Finding Notre Dame
I approached the bridge that led over the Seine, the river I had often imagined walking along, the wind in my hair. I had imagined myself there, wandering alone, bittersweet. The river that I had imagined had not, however, been along a somewhat busy highway. I recalled my reactions to the busyness of China, and how viscerally offended I had been by so many rivers that were overtaken by the developments of humans. I considered my response to this river, asking myself how I was feeling about it. Somehow, I felt all right. I stood in the middle of the bridge over the Seine, watching, questioning my own apparent double standard. Was I more comfortable in Paris because it was a culture that was familiar to me? Was I in a totally different state of mind? Or was there more to it than that? These questions duly noted, I proceeded to the other side of the bridge and descended the uneven stone steps so that I could walk riverside.
The sun was bright, and the day was warm, the wind in my hair was just as I had imagined. Trees leaned gracefully over the walkway. There were large metal rings along the stone wall beside of me, for anchoring boats, perhaps? My senses were alive, noticing everything. The smell of water, the feeling of sun on my skin, the chill of the breeze, the sounds of the river lapping against the sides of the canal, the feeling of uneven cobblestones beneath my sandaled feet. I walked slowly, deliberately. I encountered no one. The air around me was electric, my senses were heightened, the highway across the river made no difference, I couldn’t hear or see any of it from my riverside walkway. There are moments in life that are engraved in one’s mind and heart forever, and the experience of them suspends ordinary awareness and leaves a person in a state that feels super-alive. Walking by the Seine was just like that for me. Brief, powerful, and deeply moving. The kind of experience that can’t be choreographed or planned, but swept me away into an unexpected trance, leaving a lasting impact.
Eventually I came upon another set of uneven stone steps, and ascended to street level once again. This side of the river was completely different, everything was older, smaller, well-kept, and perfectly picturesque: Ile Saint-Louis, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Paris, full of its original medieval splendor with quaint shops boasting the finest of Parisian life. Chocolatier, boulangerie, patisserie, all one after the other. This was the Paris I had imagined, and it seemed that I had emerged from the Seine into the image of my Parisian fantasies. I could barely contain my enthusiasm. At the end of the street, another bridge emerged, and the spire of Notre Dame Cathedral became visible. My mind became quiet, and a little smile spread across my face. Only a few days before I had been feeling miserable and lost, as if my life would never be good again. How quickly things change!
***
While some people envision the Eiffel Tower and Champs d’Elysses when they first think of Paris, the first thing that comes to my mind is Notre Dame. When I was in college, a friend’s mother had travelled to Paris and sent me a postcard of the Notre Dame Cathedral. At the time, I was an avid postcard collector, and it was my first postcard from Paris. I posted it on my wall and my attention was regularly drawn to it. The following year, she sent another, a different perspective of the famous cathedral. I loved them and often dreamed of going there. When I imagined the first thing I would do upon arriving in Paris, I knew immediately: I’d find that cathedral.
***
I continued to follow the twisting, turning labyrinth of streets and watched as spires rose out of the sky. I approached another bridge across the Seine. I passed by sprawling cafes toward the bridge, and finally, Notre Dame Cathedral was invisible in its entirety. I stood for a moment, savoring my first view of the glorious structure. Then, I crossed the bridge and approached the cathedral from the back. I walked slowly through the gardens, leaning in to the roses and kneeling toward the pansies. Trees lined the grounds, and their foliage had been manicured into perfect squares. I lingered in their welcome shade, turning to follow the black iron gate that surrounded the inner grounds of the cathedral. Vines and flowers, a softly manicured lawn, ancient doors with heavy iron detailing, sun-dappled shade, kittens napping. My eyes roamed over the exterior of the building, and a wonderful sense of anticipation filled me. The rosettes of stained glass sparkled like diamonds in the afternoon sun, though none of their color was visible from outside. I soon found myself in the plaza that sprawled in front of Notre Dame. Prolonging my entry for a few more minutes, I wandered into the center of the plaza, and gazed up at the cathedral.
Finally feeling that I had lingered long enough, I made my way to the line of people entering the cathedral, and was ushered into the dark coolness that I had come to love about old European churches. The place was filled with people milling about, snapping photographs, and sharing conversations in a variety of languages. I stepped aside, waiting for the crowds to flow past so that I could move through the space more slowly. I found it hard to get any sense of the place itself, with so many people wandering around. I allowed myself to become swept back into the flow of wandering visitors, and I lingered here and there to inspect various statues. I was particularly drawn to the one of Jeanne d’Arc. The statue had been erected in honor of her martyrdom, and I contemplated the incredible courage it must have taken for a young woman to die for her beliefs. It was at Notre Dame that her reputation was "officially" rehabilitated from that of witch and heretic to that of saint. I dropped a few coins into a donation box and chose a small candle to light in her honor. I offered a prayer to the universe that I would be inspired by her courage, and hold on to my highest ideals and values in the face of all adversity. It crossed my mind that in a much smaller way, that was one of the purposes of my journey in Paris, to reconnect with my heart, to remember what was truly important in my life.
Near the altar at the front of the Cathedral, there were swarms of people hovering over tables. I lingered for a moment, watching, wondering what are they doing? The crowd cleared briefly and I noticed a sign explained in several languages that on these tables were blank books containing the prayers of anyone who chose to offer them, part of the cathedral's Book of Life. People write their prayers and messages inside. The books would be kept in the archives of the cathedral permanently. I gasped, and tears welled up in my eyes. What a beautiful thing, to write a prayer in these books, free to be answered, together among the prayers of thousands of other people! The same feeling that I had experienced as I walked along the Seine came over me again, of tingling inside of my belly, of timelessness, and of connection. Until that moment, Notre Dame Cathedral had been nothing more than a beautiful old building to me. But in that moment, I entered sacred space. I sat down on a wooden bench, watching, breathing, considering what I wanted to say in my prayer.
Shortly after I had finished writing my prayer, a few attendants began moving the tables away and blocking off the altar area, setting up for something. Mass, perhaps? Having enjoyed Mass a few times along the Camino, I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity for me to meditate on the prayer that I had just offered. Sure, I wouldn’t understand most of the ceremony, since it would be offered in French, I recalled that that had never been a problem in Spain. The energy of the ritual would transcend the language barrier, and with all these people gathered for the purpose of worship and meditation, sacred space would be created. I found a seat and waited quietly, placing my attention on my breathing.
In. Pause.
Out. Pause.
In. Pause.
Out. Pause.
In a few minutes, a small woman in a robe appeared on the altar. A female priest? Really? I watched attentively. A man sat down near her at the organ, and another older man appeared wearing a robe as well. Music began, and the woman’s voice soared into every corner of the cathedral, strong and crystalline and pure. This wasn’t Mass, but Vespers! I closed my eyes and allowed her voice to wash over me and it was perfect. I unconsciously held my breath, not wanting to distract my hearing even slightly from her stunning voice. Eventually everyone rose, and the chanteuse guided us through singing the lines of the ceremony. I sang along, uncomfortable at first, hearing my own rough, low voice in complete contrast to hers. Slowly, the beauty of the space, of being surrounded by a sea of people singing along in smooth, lyrical French began to fill me up with such joy that my self-consciousness began to fade. I felt fortunate to be there in that perfect moment, experiencing Notre Dame Cathedral as it had been intended.
***
As I was sitting in the Notre Dame Catedral after Vespers, I pulled out my journal to write. As I wrote, a dull ache arose within me. What is this feeling? As I continued to explore it, I came to an important realization that was the first of many while in Paris. I realized that I was, indeed, out of place in this cathedral. I am no more at home here in this Catholic Church than in a Buddhist Temple. My spirituality has no home in any religion. Regardless of the fact that my culture is primarily Christian, Christianity has never been a significant part of my life. The number of actual church services I’ve attended is rather small, especially considering that I grew up in the Bible Belt of Appalachia.
As I was attending Vespers, that’s when it struck me. This is not my religion. Not just Catholicism, but Christianity. It struck me with a sense of sadness. I’ve long since given up really caring that I’m a religious wayfarer, I’ve accepted that that’s my way.
I am not Catholic, nor Christian, but there's something about glorious cathedrals and churches (and temples and mosques) that just renders me speechless. Sure, the resources used to build these unbelievable structures were taken from the people by force in many cases, and many people suffered so that these cathedrals could be built. But that aside, there is something powerful in the devotion that is behind that kind of action. People offered everything they had in order to create an immaculate space in which to worship what they considered the holiest of holy. That idea seems lost in the world today.
***
September 18, 2006
(Outside of Notre Dame Cathedral)
Ah, the sunset is a delightful pale pink, corks are popping off bottles of wine, and the smells of dinner are surrounding me. I feel like I’m doing well with being in the moment. In this moment? I’m in Paris! I have no obligations other than to myself. To wander, to explore, to honor myself, to honor my heart. To begin the romance with aloneness anew, from which all clarity will hopefully emerge.
***
Parisians know how to hang out. In fact, I wonder when people work and for how long. In front of the cathedral, people were lounging about, feeding the pigeons, napping and reading. On my way to find a cafe to continue writing, I was approached by a very attractive French man, the second of the day. He didn't speak much English, and it was a great opportunity for me to practice my French beyond just ordering tea or paying at the market. We wandered to the bridge over the Seine and chatted for a while. He pointed out several other beautiful places that I should visit, as well as where he lived. e was charming, and I might have continued our conversation if communicating in French hadn't been so exhausting. I wandered on alone, in search of a good cafe.
***
September 19, 2006
(Musee Rodin)
After breakfast I headed across the street to the metro. The Rodin Museum is rather far from the apartment, but I was whisked half a city away to Boulevard des Invalides. I ascended from the metro into a street shaded by tall maple trees, just beginning to drop a few slightly yellowing leaves. I wandered to the end of the block just to enjoy the trees, then crossed the street into a small, verdant city park.
***
In addition to sitting here in the sun-dappled shade on a glorious afternoon, I caught my first glimpse of Le Tour Eiffel. This small park is full of flowers, the lawn is perfectly manicured, and sure, there’s traffic and cars and city noises. But it’s so humane. The air is full of ease. Even though the morning began with a real chill and was totally overcast, around noon the sun burst through. Another gorgeous day.
Ordinarily, I'm not much of a city girl. I appreciate the intellectual stimulation of the city, but without elements of the natural world, I wither. In China, I utterly loathed cities. I returned home and declared that I’d never enjoy a city again. Yet I have fallen in love with Paris. Beijing or Shanghai and Paris, culturally speaking, are as different as cities could possibly be. What was it about China that evoked such a visceral and violent reaction to being in urban environments? What was it about Paris that has utterly dissolved that loathing? How much of that reaction is based entirely on my state of mind while experiencing each place?
Paris has unbelievably beautiful parks everywhere. Perfectly manicured lawns adorned with colorful flowers and shrubbery, all partially shaded by elegant tall trees. After sitting in the park for a while, I headed on to the Rodin Museum, just around the corner.
The museum is housed on the grounds of a beautiful mansion, though it wasn't clear to me if it was once Rodin's home as well. Once past the glass and steel building that served as the entrance, I wandered outside onto the grounds of the estate. Suddenly, I could hardly remember where I was, or why I was there, because all I could see were roses, the most wonderful rose gardens lined the path to the mansion. Red, pink, yellow, champagne, white, roses of every color. I was lured into them, their silky petals caressing my face as I leaned in to greet them. Their fragrances were all so different, and after a few minutes of taking them in, I looked up, feeling slightly intoxicated by their sweetness. Before me was the famous sculpture, The Thinker. I had no clue that it would be right in the middle of a rose garden, but there he was, the naked guy sitting on a rock, head perched on his hand. I was really moved. Perhaps the roses had drowned my mind and awakened my heart a little more fully, but my first response to The Thinker was to sit down in the soft grass among the roses and cry. But I breathed it in. This piece is a symbol that strikes a chord in me - the one who ponders. Rodin himself seems like quite the ponderer.
The flashing of cameras snapped me from my reverie, and I quickly realized that I wasn't the only person there. At least twenty or thirty other people were photographing The Thinker. I might have even walked in front of them, unknowingly. I took a deep breath, didn't cry, and slowly walked all around. The work is stunning. Almost all of Rodin's works are stunning, especially in their capacity to express strength and lightness simultaneously. Most of his works are nudes, some smooth and realistic, others a little more rugged and sharp. Regardless, though, with all his stone and metal, Rodin makes me feel alive in my own skin. I'm not sure quite how, some of his works are stark and others are quite sensual, but they all make me feel more at home in my own body. His images span a wide range of feelings, they are at once wholly human and mystical.
After feeling satisfied with my visit inside the mansion, I headed to the sprawling lawns behind. There were more sculptures there, but I was far more drawn to the natural setting. Paths lined with ancient oaks, smaller, well-maintained trees, perfectly manicured shrubbery. Flowers dotted the lawns, and there were arches of ivy near the back of the estate. I found a bench in the shade of some trees and became lost in an afternoon of reverie.
***
These gardens are heaven. This is paradise. If the rose gardens weren’t stunning enough, these sprawling lawns adorned with some of the greatest sculptures in history? Yeah, that will do it.
I’ve been drifting in and out of napping, daydreaming, people watching, and cloud watching. I can clearly remember the last time I spent an afternoon watching the clouds drift by. I was twenty-two and I had the day off. It was in my first year out of college, my year of reading and wondering, and I remember lying on a bench just watching the clouds roll by.
***
After a bit more daydreaming and writing, I slowly made my way toward the exit. The energy of Paris is slowly seeping into me. The most important things? Love and beauty. They go a lot deeper into the culture of Paris than merely romance and fashion models, that's for sure. Love and beauty, that's the symbolic essence of a rose. I can imagine that being here with someone you love could be an intoxicating experience, for sure. For me, though, one of the most important elements of this trip is becoming more fully myself. My time in Paris is a romance with the neglected or newly discovered parts of myself. I don't think there's anyplace more perfect for healing.
After exiting the Rodin Museum, I decided to walk past a beautiful building I'd seen earlier in the day. Les Invalides, once a hospital and church with an incredible guilded dome. I read that Napoleon Bonaparte is buried there. I continued past Les Invalides, noticing the Eiffel Tower looming closer, and thought about walking further in that direction. I made it a couple blocks but decided that I'd had enough for one day.
***
Romancing Old Stones
There were a few significant differences between my journey in Paris and the previous ones. I was rooted in one place for the entire two weeks I was there, and due to financial limitations, couldn’t venture out of the city very much. I was staying in a small apartment in a trendy, not at all touristy neighborhood. I was thrilled to be able to experience a depth of Paris that most travellers never get to enjoy when just passing through for a few days. I would be able to slowly explore the city over the course of two weeks, taking my time and immersing myself in Parisian life.
I made a plan. To avoid becoming overwhelmed and exhausted by visiting to many museums in a short period of time, I would space things out. On alternating days I would either visit museums and galleries or linger in one of Paris’ many neighborhoods. Early in the trip, I decided that it would be a wise idea to explore the neighborhood that I was briefly living in, Oberkampf.
Late one morning, I made a left out of my front door, passing bakeries and salons, cafes and small markets. The sun was out in full force, the warmest day yet. I walked at a leisurely pace, enjoying the radiance of the golden sunlight in autumn. I wandered along Avenue de la Republique to the circle a few blocks away, and I approached the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, the final resting place of a number of well known artists, including Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison. Having always had a fascination with cemeteries, I crossed the street and entered the gate, ascending the stone steps. Enclosed within high stone walls were thousands of graves, all divided by narrow cobblestone pathways. I headed straight for the posted map, guiding visitors to the graves of famous writers, politicians, musicians, and artists. I scoffed at the tourists lined up outside to buy maps. This map was plenty! I wrote down the locations of those graves I wanted to find and then headed on my merry way. After fifteen minutes had passed, I had yet to locate even the first grave: Rossini, the Italian opera composer. Realizing that finding these graves might take the rest of my time in Paris if I were to continue unaided, I turned around and headed for the entrance, feeling humbled. I bought a map like everyone else.
The map was tremendously helpful. Liberated from a frustrating search among the graves, my attention became free to really absorb my surroundings. I am a great lover of cemeteries, and have visited many at home and in my travels, but Pere Lachaise was the most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen. Winding cobblestone streets snaked throughout the park, shaded by giant, gnarled chestnut trees in various degrees of autumnal color. Cedar trees, lime trees, others that I couldn't name, all draped graciously along the graves and pathways. I wandered along one of the outer cobblestone lanes. The graves were entirely above ground. The simplest ones were merely stone tombs with inscriptions and flowers. Many were tiny telephone-booth-sized rooms with elaborate doors and inscription plaques honoring all the family members buried within. Some were as elaborate as tiny chapels, with altars and stained glass, others were decorated with ornate metalwork on the doors and windows. Some were smooth stone crypts, covered in a fine layer of soft, green moss, others were inscribed with poetry and dedications. Some were unimaginably grandiose, and seemed like miniature monuments, or even temples, with statues and sculptures, gargoyles and pillars. Some were crumbling and caving in, others had gardens of flowers or shrubbery planted within them. The whole place was beautiful and soft, the crisp autumn leaves were blowing about on the cobblestone paths, the graves were really gorgeous. In the waning afternoon light, I was filled with an indescribable sense of joy, wistfulness, coziness, and nostalgia.
The chestnut trees were loaded with their harvest, and now and then, prickly green fruit fell crashing to the ground. I picked up one after another, fascinated by their unusual texture. I filled my bag with them as I wandered, and here and there, left chestnut offerings on the graves, a symbol of gratitude for the lives and work of so many gifted people. I contemplated this kind of act, of offering some small token of gratitude or recognition to beings long since passed from the world. What’s the point of it all? I wondered to myself. All of this, the graves, the statues, the monuments, the flowers, the offerings, they are not for the dead at all, but for the living. Such care is given to the creation and maintenance of these graves, they are works of art in themselves. Is it just a part of our human attempt to accept the loss of those we love, or are we attempting to come to terms with our own inevitable demise? Yes, perhaps these graves were created as an act of hope that we won’t be forgotten, that even beyond the reach of our lifetimes, after our bodies have withered and decayed, that there will still be a single place on Earth where we will remain, not entirely forgotten. Somehow, wandering in the midst of these graves, I found myself feeling reassured, comforted, and connected.
Though I visited the graves of many famous people, including Proust, Balzac, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Chopin, and Abelard & Heloise, it was Jim Morrison's famous grave that has often attracted the most attention. It was guarded and blocked off by metal barricades. There were flowers on the grave, as well as a small framed poster of The Doors, but the grave itself was nothing extraordinary compared to its surroundings. The most wonderful of all was Oscar Wilde's grave. A monument of cement adorned with an Egyptian figure, the name Oscar Wilde was barely noticeable for all the lipstick kiss-prints that covered the grave. I don't know anything about the tradition that seems to have developed, but there was even a plaque that begged visitors not to deface the grave. That said, if a human body could reach a spot on the stone surface, there was a kiss-print. People had written their names and je t'aime all over the grave, mostly in lipstick. It was really moving to see such devotion. I'd rather have my grave graffitied in a loving way than stand crumbling in a cemetery any day.
While this cemetery was filled with the rotting bones of people I never knew, I was moved to tears by the beauty of the place. Tall, sturdy chestnut and oak trees leaned over the rows of graves, casting gentle shade and providing relief from the intense midday sun. Drops of sunlight sparkled here and there, and as the afternoon hours waned into evening, a brilliant rose-gold light bathed the whole place in its radiance. I wandered through the cemetery late into the afternoon, then headed to a little corner cafe to write and watch the world go by. I sat there sipping my tea until the sun sank behind the buildings, and a bronze glow began to emanate from behind them. As the evening chill set in, I wandered home.
***
September 20, 2006
(Pere Lachaise Cemetery)
***
Have just left the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. It was so lovely! If I lived here, I’d go all the time. Towering trees, winding cobblestone lanes, gorgeous graves, some with statues and ironwork. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. To spend a fall day strolling about in the sun, honoring the graves of artists, poets, and musicians ... this just might have been my most unexpected romantic fantasy.
Paris is a pilgrimage to the heart - to love and beauty. In being here, alone, I am honoring love that has no object but is overflowing, the beauty that infuses the spark of life. I’m feeling good in my skin.
***
September 21, 2006
(The Latin Quarter)
On Thursdays, Musee d'Orsay is open late, so today I enjoyed the morning at my leisure, and in the early afternoon made my way into Paris' museum district, perched between two famous parts of town: the Marais and Latin Quarter districts. I took the metro most of the way, exiting at the Chatelet stop, right on the Seine, within walking distance of both Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre. When I made it to street level, I was swept away in the bustling crowds of people hanging out, rollerblading, walking swiftly in every direction.
From the Chatelet circle, I wandered in the direction of the Seine. I knew that I'd need to head to the right in order to get to the Orsay, which was right across the river from the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens. The day was really warm, and tons of people were lounging on the banks of the Seine. I could see the spires of Notre Dame from my position, and headed inward toward the other glorious church on the island. Sainte Chapelle, which was closed for lunch. I continued walking, enjoying the sun and cloudless blue sky.
I soon reached the bank of the Seine. The exclusive Rive Gauche stretched along the far side of the river, fancy shops selling furniture, home decor, and ancient art. I wandered by a gorgeous building for a while, le Palais de Justice, and finally found myself at the end of a bridge that definitely didn't look like the others. Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris. Different from the other modern, somewhat utilitarian bridges, this one had little areas for sitting that curved out over the water, as well as beautiful lamp posts. I could just imagine those sitting areas filled with flowers for sale on a beautiful spring day, or painters capturing the scene. I made my way across the bridge and headed further west, now along the Rive Gauche.
In Paris, you can't walk for five minutes without seeing something that takes your breath away, whether it's a beautiful park, an amazing building, or a stunning face. I wandered along with gorgeous historic buildings to my left, and the river to my right, and I'm pretty sure that there was a busy street in the middle somewhere, but it didn't really matter. Cafes dotted the sidewalk and vendors selling art prints and vintage postcards were scattered beside the river walk. I was totally content, I desired nothing more than walking right there. I didn't want to buy anything at all, but to just exist in that moment, warm but shaded, with little rays of sunlight peeking through the maple leaves, and a slightly cool autumn breeze dancing all about. You can't buy that kind of souvenir ... a timeless moment in a beautiful place.
I eventually made it to Musee d’Orsay, paid my entry, and found myself in a vast space that was once a train station. It has been immaculately restored and was full of light, quiet, very open in feel. Filled with French art from the mid 1800s to early 1900s, this museum is famous for its collection of Impressionist art, but is also filled with sculptures and works from the school of realism. Still life kind of stuff, bowls of fruit, portraits, recently killed pheasants and the gun too, war scenes, biblical scenes. Not much color, but incredible quality of light.
In this school of art, I began to wonder why is it that so many artists chose to paint either still life, portraits of important-looking men fully clothed, or women totally nude. I appreciate the naked female form, I have one after all. I also can hypothesize that by painting the naked female form that men were offering worshipful reverence and attempting to understand the mysteries of woman. I don't feel like these images were intended to be exploitive in any way. After a while, though, I began to feel irritated, enervated, downright bothered by the number of naked chicks that made up the collection. I found myself criticizing the works. Why would all these naked chicks be picnicking with a bunch of men in suits and top hats?
I was grateful to finally enter the Impressionist galleries. It felt like a breath of fresh air, encouraging the viewer's subjective point-of-view. For me, Impressionism instantly evokes feeling. Landscapes that offer the artist's impression and feeling, images that suggest instead of demand. Bright and pale colors, space, freedom. The feeling of springtime or fall, the in-between times that are so full of uncertainty and pregnant with possibilities and changes. The Impressionist gallery was housed on the top floor of the building, with a lot of natural light pouring in. Extraordinary.
I exited the museum into the hot late afternoon. I found a cafe and began to write. That cafe closed. I wandered a bit further and found myself on the edge of the Latin Quarter, on Boulevard Saint Michel. I found a second cafe and continued writing until it was dark. I wrote about art, about aesthetics. Then I found myself thinking about my previous journeys, exploring the nature of pilgrimage, the importance of aloneness, and reasons why vacations don't succeed in rejuvenating people. I was on fire, I must have written for nearly four hours.
***
In the sense that pilgrimage “returns me to my center,” as I have so often said, this journey in Paris is more of a pilgrimage than China was. I am alone, spending much of my time in comparative silence. I’m not speaking as often as I do at home, and from that verbal rest I find that my mind gets quieter too. I have spoken very little today, a few words here and there. And now, sitting here on this busy city boulevard, with all its noisy traffic and tons of people wandering by, I feel pretty quiet internally.
This is a very different journey from China and the others. I’m travelling alone, staying relatively in one place, not travelling long distances, I’m staying in an apartment, and my days are easy and meandering, not see-all-you-can.
Is this a pilgrimage? By official standards, I’d say probably not. I am visiting sacred places that many people visit in pilgrimage: Notre Dame, Chartres, Sacre Coeur, and a number of secular pilgrimage sites as well, including Pere Lachaise Cemetery. But my purpose for being here in Paris has nothing to do with visiting religious structures. So what is pilgrimage, then? If it doesn’t necessarily involve physical difficulty or hardship, if modern transport is acceptable, if I’m not begging and sleeping on the streets, but instead using a modest amount of money, if it doesn’t involve self-flagellation or deprivation ... it sounds to me like all the core elements of traditional pilgrimage have been dismissed, at least insofar as external elements are concerned. In every way I can imagine, pilgrimage today is visually indistinguishable from mere travel. Honestly, I expected this trip to be ordinary travel (if there is any such thing!), but I’m finding it a lot more transformative in my own felt sense, inside myself.
I feel like I’m beginning to touch on something big here. What better way to explore the inner experience of pilgrimage than from within the midst of my own spontaneous pilgrimage to Paris?
***
I am seated in a sidewalk cafe, have had two teas, and am in the midst of a famous historic hangout of intellectuals - The Latin Quarter - which is now also a trendy shopping district. Cars go by, busses stop. I notice. People walk by in both directions, which I notice more because I’m seated at the end of a row of tables. But I am not swept away in all of it. As a sensitive person who is greatly affected by her environment, why is it that I am not miserable and weeping now, as I was so often in China? Is it the difference in cultures? The size of the population? I’m sure those factors can’t be ignored. But I’m also convinced that it has plenty to do with my own inner silence, which in this moment feels unshakable.
Is it possible to get to this feeling of inner stillness at home? For me, I’d have to say no, not at this point in my life. Several reasons. First, anonymity. I know no one here, and therefore, there are no personal expectations of me. Does the language barrier help? I’d say yes. I am even less inclined to get into conversations with strangers when I can’t speak their language. Not only that, it is easier to retreat into silence when I can’t understand most of what’s being said around me. My attention ceases to be directed externally, and is then free to move inward.
Second, the unknown. I’m in a new, totally foreign place. I don’t know my way around, so it’s essential that I pay closer attention to my surroundings. By necessity, this kind of attention provides me with the opportunity to observe. How much I observe, of course, is dependent upon my degree of inner mental and emotional activity. And to the degree that my surroundings are in contrast with my usual surroundings, my desire to observe is sparked. Hence, the need for both wandering and cafe sitting.
Third, exploration. The desire to observe more and more of the unknown fuels further exploration. This is also where inner contemplation comes into play, and a dialogue is begun with myself: Ooh, this or that is interesting ... compare and contrast it to what is known to me ... how does that make me feel? Voila, internal reflection begins. I believe that a great deal of peace comes from spending time in exploring myself, from inner reflection. So much of the way that people live today is from point A to point B, doing what has to be done, going through the motions, merely existing. Vacations are nice, but I believe that they rarely give a person the kind of shift that is necessary for real rest to occur. The change of scenery is a good start, but is rarely for long enough a time to really be beneficial.
Fourth, aloneness. I believe that solitude is a key element in the experience. Not that everyone should necessarily travel alone, but for me, a degree of aloneness without having to be committed to the usual elements of one’s personality and relationships is crucial. A break from being who the world expects every day - a break from personality in exchanged for merely being! But people don’t tend to vacation alone. Too scary, too hard, too strange, not possible, the excuses are endless, really. Too many expectations, too many voices in our heads, too many reasons not to be alone. People have a lot of negative ideas associated with being alone. Most people are unconsciously afraid of what they’ll discover if they spend too much time alone, with themselves, their own thoughts.
Finally, integration. New knowledge and understanding are gained. The results of both outer and inner exploration, the broadened perspective. Often the most difficult step. All the expectations of personality return. All the demands of the world return. The reverie ends. The world expects you back, and you go back. But the degree of difficulty in returning home is parallel to the degree of the shifts that have occurred.
***
I always feel like myself, but in making a journey or pilgrimage alone, I return to an even stronger sense of who I am. I’m all I have, and I’m never different in my deepest essence. By removing all the external stuff that is mine, I am left as only me. I’ve usually travelled very lightly, with only a couple changes of clothes. During pilgrimage, possessions are chosen for their utility and necessity, nothing extraneous. And there’s a distinct lightness that comes from this, by stripping away the layers of not me, but mine. The objects remain objects, and my subjective self-sense becomes my only true possession. Other than a few necessities and enough money to provide simple food and shelter, I am stripped of everything. The world is no longer a possession, but a mirror to reflect me inward, more and more deeply.
***
September 22, 2006
(Chartres)
Abby, a friend, fellow writer, and the mother of the woman I'm catsitting for here, sat down with me on the afternoon that I left for Paris. She wanted to tell me all the best places to visit, and in the midst of bakeries and boutiques, she stopped at the page in my travel guide that held a map of Chartres. She told me in the most clear voice, “go there.” A beautiful town, a grand cathedral, and a famous labyrinth. Once in Paris I conducted a bit of investigation and learned that the only day of the week when a person can walk the famous labyrinth inside the cathedral is Friday.
Upon arriving at Gare Montparnasse, the gray morning clouds gave way to steady rain. As I bought my ticket, I kept hoping that Chartres, 60 kilometers away, would be sunny. When I looked for the schedule of trains, I realized that the next one didn’t arrive for more than an hour. The neighborhood surrounding the train station was soggy in the morning rain, and I settled into a chair to write.
People milled about, arriving, departing, waiting, smoking, drinking coffee in the sidewalk cafes. Military guards armed with semiautomatic weapons patrolled the station. I did my best to ignore them each time they strolled by, and waited for my own train. Eventually the time arrived, and I boarded. I took a window seat.
Each time the train halted, I looked at the sign at the station. Chartres? No, not Chartres. About ten minutes before arriving there, I felt a surge of ridiculously disproportionate happiness. The kind that makes you want to dance in the street and hug strangers. I knew then that it was the next station. True to my intuition, as we pulled into the next charming town, the massive spires of the cathedral dominated the sky, which had indeed become blue just before arriving in Chartres.
Instantly I fell in love with Chartres. The streets are all small and winding, and the lovely medieval architecture is totally true to nature without having been gentrified one bit. Bakeries, restaurants, cheese shops, cafes, and boutiques lined the streets, which seemed to be totally absent of any trace of gridlike planning. Shutters and doors were painted in bright colors, a delightful contrast to the stone of the buildings. Many windows were adorned with geraniums and vines, still vibrant though it's nearly October.
According to my map, the cathedral was about three blocks from the train station. With the spires as my guide, I began wandering. Within a block from the cathedral, I stopped suddenly upon seeing an all-too-familiar image in the sidewalk: the famous scallop shell that is a symbol of El Camino de Santiago! A surge of emotion filled me. I knew that bright blue background and yellow shell figure all too well, since I had followed it for 500 miles across Spain. Little did I know that along the Camino in France, Chartres is a major destination. Maybe that's why I felt so powerfully drawn to travel to Chartres ... once a pilgrim to Santiago, always a pilgrim. I walked the last few blocks to the cathedral.
I spent a little time outside before going in, knowing that I'd probably be glued to the labyrinth the moment I saw it. After a few minutes of staring up toward the sky and trying to take it all in, I made my way inside. I've been to many cathedrals in my travels and I love them all. I could sit in an old church all day, loving it more and more, the coolness, the darkness, the smell of candles and old wood. But only once before did I ever want to fall onto the floor in utter rapture upon entering a cathedral. I was beside myself when I entered Chartres Cathedral. There is some feeling in the air, maybe it's related to the actual physical location in addition to the devotion of so many people and their prayers. I don't know. Many of the cathedrals I've visited feel like museums of religion. Few have felt truly sacred. But Chartres was incredible.
I felt inclined to watch people walking the labyrinth before I participated myself. In the midst of observing and taking a few photos, the batteries of my camera died. For the following twenty minutes, I wandered from one shop to the next in search of two AA batteries, and finally found some at a small tabac. I went back to the cathedral and was greeted by a charming older French man outside. He carried a few sprigs of lavender and a tiny yellow flower in his hands, and held the door open for people as they entered the church. Part of me wondered if he was a beggar at first ... yet he wasn't dirty and tattered, and he asked for nothing. He was most likely a local man with not too much to do, and a lot of love for the Chartres Cathedral.
Back inside the cathedral, its familiar darkness enveloping me, I changed my batteries and put my camera away. It was time to do what I'd come to Chartres to do ... walk the labyrinth! Before beginning, I lighted a candle in a tiny red cup and placed it among all the others. I offered a prayer that this experience would light my path, and then approached the labyrinth. This labyrinth was not a maze-of-sorts, but merely a path created by the stones on the floor, a circular path with twists and turns leading to a six-sided flower shape in the center. It was beautiful and walking it was an intensely powerful experience.
***
Thoughts following the first walking of the Labyrinth:
There are sudden twists and turns in life’s path. Sometimes there are long periods in which there are no turns - no changes - but when they are least expected they appear. The closer I come to the center, the more sweeping and fluid the path becomes. But the journey to the center is only half. I must then go back to the world. What happens then is the real test! The path goes here and there, I feel like I’m getting somewhere, then I’m far away, then so many twists and turns - the goal is the path itself. Regardless of the twists and turns, regardless of how close to the center I feel I am, it does no good to think of those things. There is only the path. I have the opportunity to savor every step, but that requires incredible discipline. It is also easy for the mind to wander away.
There are so many other people too! All walking at different speeds, varying degrees of purpose and concentration. Some don’t acknowledge the path at all. They walk over the labyrinth as if it weren’t even there, or stand on it unknowingly. It is not the path they chose, that is neither good or bad, it merely is what it is. But there are those of us on the path together, too. Sometimes we never meet, we are merely walking in the same direction. Sometimes our paths come near each other and part again just as quickly. Sometimes we meet, going in opposite directions, and must let each other pass. And sometimes those of us on the path meet those who are not, and must negotiate our ways around each other. But we all must honor our own chosen paths consciously in order to learn and grow along the way. What does this path have to teach me?
***
Thoughts following the second walking of the Labyrinth:
One begins to get a sense of the path. I did, anyway. At first, the initial discovery being gone, everything is a distraction. Itches, noises, people, thoughts of five minutes ago or last week, and of this afternoon. Indeed, distractions all. The nature of undisciplined attention is to always want to be elsewhere.
Music is coming from somewhere ... is it outside?
But when my attention settles down and my intelligence reminds me that I chose this path, the second stage is about becoming more aware of little things. Things that were there all along, but the distractions were too many. The fragrance of burning candles, the scent of soap or perfume of someone nearby. The size of each stone laid to create the labyrinth, the different shapes, their smooth texture, the dents and cracks, the apparent burn marks - or whatever the discolorations - the similarities from one stone to the next, as well as the differences. The marks of the path themselves become more and more interesting, and beautiful in their own way. That’s when I began to smile and feel happy, peaceful, joyful. All this occurred before reaching the center.
When there is a straight part - near the entry/exit and leading to the center - my whole body felt a rush. Both adrenaline to get there as well as excitement at having reached a defining point in the path. Oh, how the mind craves destinations! But destinations are merely markers, reminders, placeholders. The flow of the path is continuous, never-ending.
Even after going so far, reaching the coveted center, it is probable that the attention will go back to its usual business of distraction. The path, too, has become familiar at this point. All along the way it is essential to lead my mind back to the path when it wanders. That is its nature, and great training is necessary to break this pattern.
The beauty of familiarity grows. People come, they go. The seem to be going in the same direction as me, then they aren’t. It all just keeps moving, changing. That is the labyrinth, it is a microcosm of life.
I must go find this music!
***
After walking the labyrinth only twice, both to the center and out again, I was in a completely different state of awareness. When I finished my second walk, the labyrinth was relatively empty. A perfect moment for photos of the labyrinth itself. And my camera began to fail again. I wandered through the cathedral, hoping to figure out what the problem was. I happened to look down at the battery gauge, and they were nearly dead. I suppose that these old batteries had been sitting around for too long and had become drained. I left the cathedral and headed back to the tabac where I'd bought them. The woman at the bar remembered me, but when I attempted to explain that the batteries were bad in my feeble French, she looked at me with disdain, and she insisted that my camera, not her batteries were the problem. Eventually, though she gave me a refund. I wandered away from the cathedral, and eventually found more batteries, and my camera problem was solved.
I'm actually quite glad that the battery incident happened. If it hadn't, my entire experience of Chartres might have been limited to the heavily touristed few blocks between the train station and the cathedral. But somehow on my way back to the cathedral, I ended up getting a little lost. I wandered around Chartres for the next two hours, down tiny alleys and lanes with beautiful houses, I ended up past the river and off the map. This part of Chartres was lovely, a perfect blending of the old and the new. Cars were parked outside of cheese shops with huge wooden doors. Willow trees draped over the small river, flowers flowed out of window boxes, and roses crept up the corners of old stone houses. While wandering I discovered an ancient church that was all boarded up. Chartres Cathedral, too, is in varying states of disrepair. Some of the stained glass windows are broken, some of the stone carvings inside are crumbling, this is clearly not a wealthy, well-maintained place, and it was a strange contrast to China, where they are going to great lengths to make the Forbidden City look as if it were built last week. Is the crumbling, medieval authenticity part of what brought such great joy to my heart in experiencing Chartres? But of what good is a crumbling cathedral if it falls into such a state of disrepair that no one will be able to enjoy it? And what is the middle ground between creating a plastified, touristy hell, without a shred of authenticity left and allowing a beautiful old cathedral to fall into ruins for lack of funds? I just don't know.
I eventually found my way back to the cathedral and went inside. I prepared to walk the labyrinth again. It was relatively deserted, and the only person walking was barefoot and held prayer beads. I followed suit, also walking barefoot. The familiarity of the path, though I'd only walked it twice before, felt like coming home. The inner silence came quickly, and feeling the cool stone beneath my feet was powerful. I really took my time, worked to keep my mind present, and felt each step. When I finished, I sat down to write.
***
Thoughts following the third walking of the Labyrinth:
Feels familiar, this time barefoot. The whole energy of the experience is magical - it is mediation, it is the motion of silence, it is a dance. It is stillness, though it is motion. My mind still wanders, but each time I return to the present moment I am overcome by gratitude for the opportunity to know this experience. I am moved to tears.
The cool stone under my feet is a delight. The silence inside of me, a luxury. I let the tears stream down my face in joy. I forgot whether I was going toward the center or toward the exit - I figured it out the moment I tried of course, but then let it go. Really in the moment. Walking, breathing, being.
Some struggle of self-consciousness with openly crying. I let it go. Thoughts of walking, of moving. We do it anyway, but we have the choice to make it our practice, an experience that is conscious. Movement merely is. What we do with it, that’s where the real power is.
***
The other barefoot labyrinth walker, with prayer beads in hand, really caught my attention. As he walked past me, I noticed that he wore the famous Camino shell, and not knowing what language to speak, I blurted out "peregrino de Camino de Santiago?!" It turns out that he’s a pilgrim, he wears the scallop shell because he, too, walked the Camino de Santiago. He’s Italian, doing his own self-styled Camino of sorts. When I told him that I too had walked the path, he sat down next to me. Our language in common was Spanish (he was Italian), so we both were able to talk about the Camino a little. Mostly, we just sat there next to each other. That's the way it has been every time I have met a fellow pilgrim of the Camino, both on the path and elsewhere. It goes beyond anything I can explain, it doesn't even matter if we know each other's names. But sharing the company of a fellow pilgrim in silence is like sitting with The Way itself. Eventually my pilgrim companion had to leave, he was making his own pilgrimage around France to all the Notre Dame cathedrals.
I felt drawn to just keep walking the labyrinth over and over, but I decided not to walk the labyrinth a fourth time, allowing the experience to end there. It was time for Vespers, and I decided to leave the cathedral. My time as a pelerin at Chartres was complete, and I got a cup of tea in the cafe across the street and did a little more writing. This whole day has been an inspiration.
***
For as beautiful as this trip has been, every day with something incredible, today has really been the best of the best. Chartres is an amazing town. I don’t feel like being here for too much longer, but I’m not going to hurry either. I feel so happy, so content, so fulfilled by this day. The town itself is so beautiful, still full of authenticity. The old and the new, not one or the other. It doesn’t feel like a touristy sellout. It’s a small town with a gorgeous, famous cathedral, and the people here are just going about their lives. I’m totally smitten.
I’d somehow forgotten how incredibly beautiful Europe is. Maybe I never felt it so deeply before. But compared to China, wow, Europe is the rose of roses. Perhaps some part of the allure of the Andes was a mixture of the indigenous culture with the European. But China was totally another world.
I was just thinking a few minutes ago how unbelievable it would be to share this kind of adventure with another person, someone who is really in sync with me. I honestly don’t know if that’s possible. To wander, to write, to be totally free? I love the idea, but I can’t imagine feeling so free with another person. By nature, travelling with another person is not a journey to one’s center, at best it’s a journey to the center of two. And at its worst, it holds back both people involved. I think that in the future I’ll have to clearly distinguish between what I want to do alone and what I might consider sharing. Now I know the difference, and I’m grateful to know the truth of that difference from experience.
For now, it’s time to catch the train back to Paris!
***
September 23, 2006
(Pompidou Center)
After spending the day in Chartres, and being thoroughly enchanted by its medieval splendor, I felt that a serious change of scene might be in order. For today, I chose one of the city's most controversial spots to spend my Saturday afternoon: the Pompidou Center.
The Pompidou is an ultra-contemporary building (an eyesore, some Parisians believe) that houses both a huge public library, as well as a famous gallery of contemporary art. Unfortunately the exhibit that my guidebook mentioned - a piano bashed to bits and glued onto the wall - was no longer on display.
The Pompidou is on the edge of the trendy Marais neighborhood, not too far from my apartment, so I decided to walk. It was a warm, partly-sunny afternoon, and I headed along Avenue de la Republique and took it all in: salons, clothing boutiques, people having brunch, and people just hanging out on Saturday afternoon.
I headed toward Place Republique and into the Marais. I could tell that I was almost at the Pompidou when, from inbetween the stone buildings and their beautiful, traditional architecture, I noticed the edges of a structure that looked like something between legos and a waterpark. As I approached, it was obvious that this was the building that was so controversial among Parisians. I followed the signs to the entrance. In front of the museum was a huge esplanade of pavement where people sprawled about with their laptops. Upon closer inspection I noticed the enormous letters WIFI were painted in bright yellow. Fitting for a center of the contemporary, for sure! The building was a glass and steel structure, with green pipes that indicated water, blue indicated air, and red was elevators. The escalators were enclosed in glass tubes that ran along the outside of the building, slightly reminiscent of medical equipment. If it hadn't been so fun-looking and appealing to my inner child, I'd have hated it too!
I've been to a few contemporary museums before, and I must say that I usually love them. They challenge my imagination, show me the vast array of creative ideas, and usually make me feel really free and limitless. While there were moments in the Pompidou that fulfilled that part of me, for the most part, the place was damn depressing! The primary installation was centered around the use of film in video art. A few images caught in my mind: a film using mostly silhouettes, one hand passing an egg gently to the other, over and over, until the second hand decided to crush the egg. Another interesting set were photographs, shot in sequence, all of families or couples, many of them rather intimate, and some of them blatantly sexual. But a smashed car from the 70s? A room painted pink with billowing walls and a giant red high-heeled shoe? A film that shot close-ups of a man's hairy arm, moving back and forth across its surface? There were many unmemorable ones that made me roll my eyes, or worse, just walk by feeling nothing at all. I especially enjoyed the display of sofas covered in oriental rugs ... an “installation” that the public was invited to recline upon. I did. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
There was a time when I was super-interested in contemporary forms of creative expression. When I was in music school, I was the flutist that composers would come to because I could and would play nearly anything. I once played a piece by a Korean woman in which I had to interface with a computer during the performance and scream in Korean. I once did a performance art piece in which I smashed 100 panes of glass with a metal rod while wearing work boots and a welding mask. I love the "out-there" stuff, and I love a lot of contemporary art that challenges the boundaries of expression. But while wandering at the Pompidou I realized that much of this kind of art is much more fulfilling to the creator than the audience, and most of it is much better conceptually than as an actual work or installation. Not that people shouldn't create what they feel the need to create ... I'm highly supportive of following one's crazy passions. But my own emotional response to most of this art was bored disinterest. Different just to be different. More technically experimental than creative. Defiant, immature, bombastic. But not really heartfelt. Perhaps this kind of art, though, is an excellent reflection of the state of humanity today.
By the time I left the museum, it was raining pretty hard. I didn't take a sweater with me since it had been so warm earlier. Fortunately there was a metro station right there, and I ducked into it. By the time I arrived home, I was thoroughly soaked and freezing. My plans of heading back out to take in a little of Paris' night life turned into my curling up in bed, cozy and warm, while the rain pattered on the windowsill.
***
September 24, 2006
(Montmartre)
This morning the sky kept threatening rain, dropping little showers here and there. My plan was to take the metro to Montmartre and spend the day wandering around. There's another famous cemetery there, also filled with famous dead people, as well as the Sacre Coeur Basilica, perched on top of a hill overlooking the illustrious Pigalle district, home of the Moulin Rouge. I figured that I'd check out all three areas, with some quality cafe sitting in the middle somewhere.
I emerged from the ninety-two steps that lead out of the metro station, and the flat Paris I'd become accustomed to disappeared into something more like San-Francisco. At the exit of the metro station was another set of steps that led up, up, up ... entrances to apartments were even scattered along them. I headed in the direction of the Montmartre Cemetery until the rain began again. Not strong, but definitely enough rain to call for a change of plan. I turned into another set of steep steps and headed up. I found myself wandering around Montmartre, slowly making my way toward Sacre Coeur.
Montmartre was touristy but completely charming. The wide, sprawling lanes that typify Paris were replaced by tiny, winding streets. And the terrain was a welcome change. With there being so many hills, I never knew what was going to be around the next turn, and Sacre Coeur remained hidden until I was already at the top of the Montmartre Butte, as they call it. I wandered around Place du Tertre, a tiny square filled with cafes and artists, their easels set up and displaying their incredible work. I decided to return there later to sit in a cafe and write, and proceeded to a small church, Eglise St. Pierre and its tiny adjacent cemetery. From between the graves I caught my first glimpses of the Basilica.
I pried myself from the mossy old graves and proceeded to the front entrance to Sacre Coeur. It was mobbed with people, just hanging out on a gray, slightly rainy Sunday afternoon. I glanced back down the stairs and an incredible view spread out before me. I could see the ridiculous looking Pompidou Center sitting there in the midst of Paris' glorious old buildings, as well as the Montparnasse Tower, Paris' closest thing to a skyscraper, and the Eiffel Tower was partially obscured in the trees. After taking in the view for a moment, I entered the church.
After the gothic architecture of Chartres, Sacre Coeur seemed rather simple. Instead of intricate stone carvings, the domed interior was covered with colorful mosaics. Most impressive of all, was a massive mural of Jesus, his disciples, and several saints spread across one of the domed areas. It was stunning. Hordes of tourists flocked around the outer edges of the room, and I decided to enter the sitting space, “reserved for prayer,” to take it all in. I was just in time for Vespers, led by about ten nuns. It was a gorgeous ceremony, the sound of song filling those stone domes for all they were worth. I stayed right there, enjoying the quiet stillness of the church, occasionally gazing up at the giant mosaic Jesus, and experiencing Sacre Coeur in my own way. When the service was finished, I joined the flock of tourists, made my circumambulation, and made a candle offering. Feeling satiated with my experience, I headed outside.
I wandered down the steep stairs in front of Sacre Coeur. A young man played the guitar and crowds of people sat around on the steps and chatted. People munched on delicious looking crepes filled with Nutella. I took a few vista photos, then headed back to Place du Tertre.
I wound up sitting in a fabulous little cafe right on the square. I spent a couple hours there sipping tea and watching. The owner of the cafe stood right in front of me on the street, wishing passersby a cheery, musical bonsoir! As the afternoon faded into evening, the sun came out for a while. Long shadows stretched across the cobblestone street, and the rosy golden sunlight illuminated the top story of windows to my left. So lovely. I paid for my tea and headed out.
Pigalle, the red-light district of Paris, is known for its seediness, full of pickpockets, topless bars, and cabaret shows, and most notably, the Moulin Rouge. I really wanted to check it out, but never made it beyond the edges before dark. Knowing the reputation of the area, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk of being pickpocketed. I hopped on the metro and made my way home just as the rain began to fall again.
***
For now, I want to spend some time acknowledging the small, childlike part of myself whose voice has been calling out to me since I arrived in Paris. I want to spend some time listening to Angela Child.
I am creative. I love flowers, I love to play. I love to surround myself in bright colors. I give lots of hugs and smiles, and I love these French windows filled with geraniums! They are beautiful, and that’s what matters most to me: beauty and love.
I have faith in everything, and I believe that anything is possible. I love to do nothing at all, to just hang out, or to do playful things that don’t require too much thinking. I love to wander aimlessly. I love to draw colorful pictures, to play with earthworms, to splash in streams, to lie in the grass, to smell flowers, to be in the sunshine. I love to catch people in moments when their guard is down, to watch them being totally natural, especially when they are smiling and happy. In fact, that’s the most important thing to me, to be happy and to make other people happy. I am small, I am fragile, I am sweet and tender and vulnerable. I am like a new, tiny flower, starving for sunlight and nourishment from the soil. But the world can be big and harsh and scary. I’m all heart! I feel things so powerfully, and I want to feel safe, I want to feel cared for and loved. I’m sensitive, and there’s nothing bad about that. And when the outside world becomes too harsh, I feel crushed.
I was messed up after those men strangled me in Bolivia. The happiness and playfulness went away, and that has made me deeply sad. It doesn’t matter what the world tells me. They can’t console me. They can try to rationalize with me, convince me to forget about it, beat me into submission. But they can’t really kill my feelings. But regardless of the rest of the world, I need to send this message to the rest of myself: don’t try to ignore me. Sit down with me. Listen to me, talk with me. I only want to be heard. I’ll feel better after a little bit of attention. I might even feel happy again in a couple of minutes. Who knows, feelings change so quickly. But if you neglect me, I’ll feel worse and worse.
***
Today I began to feel a little lonely. I haven’t had a substantial conversation in the entire time I’ve been in Paris. While I have travelled alone many times and really love it, I have always been surrounded by other travellers by staying in hostels and guesthouses, and there have always people around to converse with, just in case I want to talk. Here, while I'm enjoying feeling like a local, I am certainly not one. I have met few travellers. My ability to communicate in French is quite basic, and while that's enough to get around, it isn't enough to fulfill my need for good conversation. I haven't actually had a decent conversation since I left the States. That's a strange feeling, too! This is something I never encountered before in my travels, this sense of solitude. Sometimes it’s nice. I suppose that even now, if I really wanted to, I could go to a very touristy spot or find a hostel to linger around. But this, my Paris retreat, has been just that. A retreat with my own company, for better or worse.
***
September 25, 2006
(Belleville and Pigalle)
I decided that today I'd explore a totally non-touristy part of town: Belleville. I headed out the door and made a right turn onto Rue Oberkampf, a street I had only gone left onto before. In both directions, a street full of trendy cafes, tiny boutiques, and ethnic restaurants. The sun was out in full force, and I enjoyed walking. The street wound around to a broad boulevard, Boulevard de Belleville, and I was instantly dumped from the trendy and chic into a neighborhood that was run down and mostly deserted. The architecture, while it was surely tremendous in its day, was crumbling and patched up in very basic, practical ways. The promenade in the middle of the Boulevard was not full of flowers and relaxing people. There were a few people lurking about, and trash blew around on the ground. People walked quickly past, avoiding eye contact. The streets were winding and hilly, though not as much as Montmartre, and the whole atmosphere was filled with a touch of seediness.
As I wandered down the street, I began to notice an odd combination of shops and restaurants. One shop offered Kosher food, the next one Tunisian style food, the next one Chinese. The variety went on and on and I began to understand that Belleville is a modest immigrant community of North African Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Chinese. Almost everything was closed.
I meandered through Belleville, halfway up Rue des Pyrenees. The atmosphere remained the same. Not a lot of laughter, not a lot of high spirits. This is a side of Paris that most travelers don't see. I contemplated staying a while in hope of finding a decently priced pot of tea, but when they started paving Rue de Belleville, the whole neighborhood smelled like asphalt. I headed out, wondering what to do with the remainder of the day.
Pigalle wasn’t too far away by metro, and since I had missed before, I decided that it would be my next destination. I took the metro to the stop right across the street from the Moulin Rouge, and emerged from the station in the middle of Paris' sex scene. By daylight, the place seemed ridiculous. It's a grand display of peep shows, sex shops, and cabarets. Maybe it's the drama of the cabarets that has made Pigalle so famous, it's the Broadway of the sex industry. I sat down in the promenade to observe.
I was almost instantly approached by a tall black man who spoke to me in French. I didn't feel like chatting, and I told him that I didn't speak French. He automatically began conversing with me in English. It came as no surprise that he wanted to know me better. Was I travelling alone? I told him yes, and I liked it that way. He asked if he could see me again, what was I doing on Saturday? I suggested that we leave it up to destiny. I think he got the picture, he bid me farewell and left.
I wandered down the street, amused by all of the sex shops, and I actually considered going into the Museum of Erotica. I ended up back in Montmartre, near the metro. A glowing carousel spun round and round, though I could barely see it from where I stood, and Sacre Coeur shone from the top of the hill.
Today was not the most exciting day in the world, but nice nonetheless. No pressure to hurry, to see it all before the time runs out. That gets tiring. I still have plenty more to see and explore in the four days ahead of me, and today was a welcome break from the pace of wandering that has made up my days so far.
I'm noticing that by staying in one place for a while, I'm really becoming familiar with the city and I can at least understand a lot of the French that's coming my way. Most of all, I'm reconsidering my sweeping post-China declaration I hate cities! Really, Paris is the most humane city I’ve ever experienced.
***
September 26, 2006
(Le Marais)
I headed out of the apartment early in the afternoon, feeling full of childlike spirit. I wandered down Avenue de la Republique in the direction of Place Republique. I took my time, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. I took photographs of flowers in flower shops, watched people walk by, smiled at dogs. I was happy to be walking down a familiar street.
The neighborhood was rather quiet, and when I arrived at the front doors of the museum I realized why: the Picasso Museum is closed on Tuesdays. I decided to explore the neighborhood a little further, and was baffled to discover that I was in the heart of an import/export district. You can't buy one necklace or handbag from these shops, but you can buy twenty or a hundred items for your store. It seemed bizarre that people would rent storefronts instead of warehouse space to make their business transactions.
I stopped at a cafe on a quiet street on the edge of the Marais. Not much traffic in the way of cars or people, and though there was some kind of construction or restoration going on across the street, there was no noise. I sipped a cup of tea for an hour or so, until the street became filled with kids just leaving school. That was my cue to move along.
I wandered back in the direction of the Pompidou. Artists sat around sketching in charcoal, portrait artists tried to solicit business, people sat around a fountain filled with colorful, whimsical sculptures, and one odd man was doing some kind of dance with a broom. I laughed to myself as I made a mental note: this is where the out-of-the-box creative people must feel most at home.
I made my way toward the Hotel de Ville, yet another unbelievably gorgeous building in the city. I then made my way through the tiny streets of Le Marais, the Soho of Paris, all housed in charming medieval buildings. The most picture-perfect cafes. The tiniest boutiques. I wandered into one store, and the woman making a purchase at the register put down over 600 euros for some pajamas and towels. I almost fell over in shock!
My wandering snaked all through Le Marais until I found myself back at the Bastille, with the Paris Opera right across the circle from me. Slowly, a Paris map is growing in my mind. I don't feel like a tourist or a traveller so much right now. I feel like I just moved here and am learning my way around. I guess in some small way I did, but I'll be moving out again on Saturday.
***
Coming to Paris spontaneously has been a really good thing for me. Maybe one of the wisest choices I’ve ever made. It has given me a lot of time to get used to being really on my own again in two ways: outside of a relationship, as well as in a foreign country. No escape from my own company. Kudos to me for having enough courage to take this risk, to come here. To feel the loneliness and to face it. That’s both brave and wise. I offer my gratitude to all the amazing people in my life who convinced me that this was a good idea, even after my heart said yes and my mind was telling me no.
***
September 27, 2006
(The Louvre/Le Marais)
The reality of the near completion of this journey really hit home yesterday. I hadn’t made it to the Louvre yet, and today was the day. It was my incredible luck that Wednesday is the day the Louvre was open late, and I made my way from the metro into the enormous complex that comprises the Louvre. The building itself is worth some serious time, even from the outside. It is a massive, U-shaped palace with incredibly beautiful architecture. In the center are several fountains and the famous glass pyramids, a bizarre juxtaposition of two distinctly different types of architecture. I spent about twenty minutes outside, taking it all in. Then, I descended into the biggest glass pyramid to enter the museum.
I picked up a map and tried to decide where to begin. Ancient Egypt, Persia, Arabia.
were the places that captivated my interest immediately, so off I went. I wandered among thousands of years of art from the Arabic world. From ancient pottery to metal carving, the style of these works throughout thousands of years is beautiful, feminine. Intricate scrollwork, wood and pearl inlays, tiny flower patterns. The pottery was the most delicate, the patterning was the most complex, the artistry was finer than anything I'd ever seen. There were tile works, silk carpets, jade mirrors decorated with fine rubies and emeralds. Even the armor for battle was adorned with the most incredible vines and flowers carved into the several different types of metal.
The rooms, in their presentation of these works, went both back in time and forward again, throughout Persia, ancient Egypt, Cyprus, and Babylon, to the regions that comprise Lebanon and Syria through the Arabian Peninsula, over North Africa, and the Mediterranean all the way to the edges of Spain. There were pillars from ancient temples, one nearly fifty feet high, a giant bull poised on top, and nearly six feet across, and was merely the top adornment of the complete pillar. While the modern world may look back at these ancient civilizations and consider them warlike heathens and pagans, this work is far more stunning than anything from our current civilization that might stand the test of time. These ancient civilizations left behind beauty. What will we be leaving behind?
Seeing all of these ancient works sent my mind spinning in many directions. In China, I visited a number of famous UNESCO World Heritage sites. One of the greatest disappointments was that a number of them didn't house actual museums, but merely photo galleries that displayed items that would be housed in museums if those items were still there. Most notably, inside of The Forbidden City. In fact, in China, the only actual museum experience that I recall was inside the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. In the Music Department, instruments of all kinds were displayed and some of them were made accessible to visitors to try to play. Where are all those items from the palace of the Forbidden City? The furniture, the antiquities, the art? In other museums, that's where. And in the process of trying to preserve and honor those invaluable items at all costs, have we forgotten that they are often most valuable remaining in their own cultures? Is there an ancient temple missing its columns, a site formerly known as a temple, that's now just photographs? All so that these things could be properly preserved inside the Louvre? Where do we draw those boundaries? I have no idea. On the other side, though, how many priceless artifacts have been sold or destroyed by people who don’t understand the cultural and historic value of such objects? It’s definitely not a simple question.
After wandering through these sections of the museum, I was exhausted. I decided that I'd better find my way to the Mona Lisa, see what all the fuss is about, and then bolt. The part of the museum that houses the Italian Painters was terribly crowded. Tours in every language were led by guides carrying umbrellas, and there were hordes of people everywhere. The building was so beautiful, there were ornate carvings and paintings on the ceiling and walls, and it struck me once more that the Louvre itself is an amazing work of art.
On my way to the Italian gallery, I passed by a famous sculpture that I'd seen represented before, called in the guide The Winged Victory of Samothrace. A headless, armless, winged angelic figure draped in cloth, slightly larger than human size. It was really beautiful, but surrounded by an international gallery of photo-snapping tourists. I moved along. The Italian gallery was full of incredible works, most of which I noticed while strolling by. For whatever reason, I decided to duck into a small side gallery, the one next to the gallery with the Mona Lisa. It filled with small medieval religious paintings, and they were wonderful. Many painted in rich colors and gold leaf. The images were creative expressions of famous religious stories or figures, and many of them were tiny, but their impact on me was more powerful than the giant paintings that lined the hallway outside.
I continued on to the fated gallery that housed the Mona Lisa. Behind a wooden rail, two nylon barricades, two armed security guards, and the protection of bulletproof glass lies the infamous painting. Made even more famous by The Da Vinci Code, it was nearly impossible to get close enough to the relatively small painting to really appreciate it. It is displayed on a freestanding wall to allow the flow of traffic to pass. After spending a few minutes trying to observe the Louvre’s most famous painting, my original question remained. What’s the big deal with the Mona Lisa? What makes throngs of people crowd around a few works while entire galleries were empty? Just because they’re famous? Because somebody else declared at some point in the past that these works were special? People don’t tend to want to think for themselves, so they cling to what they hear from other people. Things that get famous are rarely famous due to their intrinsic specialness, and more often because they somehow managed to get people talking. Good advertising. Good publicity. In the case of these ancient arts, wealthy sponsors. There are so many amazing works of art in the Louvre, but this one certainly gets the most security and visitors.
Feeling not-so-impressed, I wandered around the rest of the room, and feeling more disappointed by images of royalty and war, I headed out. Only two things warranted my staying around any longer. The Venus de Milo, another famous sculpture, and the crowned jewels. The Venus de Milo was familiar but didn’t really move me. I walked on. The crowned jewels, though, were unbelievable! Inside this incredible hall there were murals painted on the ceiling and walls, gilded carvings everywhere, and glass cases of royal treasures. At the end of the room was a case full of pieces of wearable art containing emeralds, rubies and sapphires bigger than anything I have ever seen. For a moment I imagined what it would have been to live in a royal palace and wear such pieces, but that fantasy didn't last too long, as I decided that I was done and stumbled back into the street wearing my baggy jeans and sweater. Whale bone corset and giant emeralds or jeans and sandals? That's a pretty easy choice for me.
I wandered through the streets of the Marais looking for a quiet cafe in which to write and unwind from the overstimulation. I sipped a pot of tea, then wandered from one boutique to another, and eventually hopped the metro to go home. I got off one stop early in order to pick up a baguette from my favorite neighborhood baker, and it was still warm. I ate almost half of it before I'd reached the front door. It was a good night, I made some hearty soup and then enjoyed a hot bath.
***
September 28, 2006
(Le Marais, near the Picasso Museum)
The words of Pablo Picasso, from an exhibit in the Picasso Museum:
“I have the impression that time is speeding on past me more and more rapidly. I’m like a river that rolls on, dragging with it the trees that grow too close to its banks or dead calves one might have thrown into it or any kind of microbes that develop in it. I carry all that along with me and go on. It’s the movement of painting that interests me, the dramatic movement from one effort to the next, even if those efforts are perhaps not pushed to their ultimate end. I have less and less time, and yet I have more and more to say, and what I have to say is, increasingly, something about what goes on in the movement of my thought.”
***
September 30, 2006
(Le Marais, my last day in Paris)
Somewhere along the path of my life, I got the idea that some things aren’t worth thinking about or acknowledging because they are of a lesser nature, that I’m above them, or, at least, I should be. Not that I don’t still think about those things, but I have tended to judge them as bad for whatever reason, and I have often felt guilt or shame or frustration - conflict - with those thoughts. Maybe it would be useful to make a list of things that, at least at some point in my life, I’ve considered worthy and unworthy of my thought.
Things worthy of my thought: knowledge, religion, history, spirituality, culture, growth, art, creativity, expression, intellectual pursuits, asceticism, utility, seriousness, philosophy, the high arts, the search for meaning, extreme health, travel, adventure, literature, transcendence, mysticism, and consciousness, both as an idea itself and in my own life.
Things unworthy of my thought: physical appearance, gender roles, vanity, entertainment, sexuality, romance, play, laughter, fun, pop culture, fads, frivolity, concern with how others see me, taking it easy, appearances, delicacy, tenderness, gentleness, vulnerability, femininity, self-love, being grounded, the value of aesthetics, and materialism.
I’m noticing that the unworthy things are not absent from my life, and are mostly things that I do still think about, feel, and deal with in my life. The difference is that I have often avoided them. Sometimes outright, but often unconsciously or with an attitude of secrecy or privacy. The problem is not private thoughts, for everyone has them. The problem is in the feeling that forces those certain things into hiding. Some are cultural and societal. But much of it is personal. And they all involve conflict between what I’m actually thinking or feeling, and what I believe that I should be thinking or feeling.
***
I’m no longer feeling urgent. I don’t feel sad and abandoned anymore. In fact, the sadness and loneliness really went after my first week here in Paris. And now I feel okay. Good even. I’m ready to just relax and breathe and be, to listen to my heart and mind, to not continue to create conflict in my thoughts and actions. To take it a step further, to meet my experiences with responsibility and greater consciousness. To listen to the quiet voice of wisdom that is clear in me. With less mental clutter, I’m feeling more in tune with my intuition. In this moment, nearing the end of my journey to Paris, my spirit feels more balanced than it has in years.
***
My Sacred Space:
The Cafe
What began as a retreat from my life’s present difficulty, in exchange for caring for an easygoing white cat, became the space for me to explore not only the heartache and distress that was pushing my limits, but also the ground for me to observe and explore the very essence of a sacred journey or pilgrimage from its midst. Day after day, I plunged into the depths of my experience, making observations of every kind, from thoughts that surfaced, reactions and overreactions, miseries, surprises, suffering, joy, happiness, and time, to the rhythm of the days and seasons, and contemplations encompassing every aspect of my life and mind. Much of it unfolded over a steaming pot of Earl Gray.
Day after day. Cafe after cafe. Fancy, expensive ones on trendy streets. Quiet, abandoned ones in residential neighborhoods. Busy ones near bus stops and intersections. Good, friendly service. Arrogant, bad service. Tiny china teapots, big metal teapots, lumps of sugar, packets of sugar, milk, and cream. Small round tables, chairs facing the street. American tourists wearing new t-shirts and speaking loudly while eating lunch. Boisterous Parisians sipping an afternoon espresso or glass of wine. Cigarette smoke. Auto exhaust. People walking by, faces changing, speeds differing, voices lost in the din. And me, always watching, always writing.
I began to wonder more deeply what it was all about for me. One small pot of black tea with sugar and milk, perhaps two or three teacups full. A small table and chair. My notebook. This was what I had always imagined myself doing in Paris, day after day, but there was more to it than fulfilling a writer’s fantasy. After all, this activity wasn’t that different from my daily life while at home. But while in Paris, the whole process felt different. Richer. Slower. Somehow more electric.
It slowly began to make sense to me. Writing is one of my sacred practices, and while on a journey, I devote even more attention and energy to the process of writing than usual. The monotony of daily distractions are removed, allowing me fuller attention to offer to my chosen spiritual practice. Writing slows down my mind, opens my senses, gives me grounding, and provides me the time and space to observe and reflect. Writing, for me, is meditation. The table, my altar. The tea, my elixir. The cafe, my temple.
***
Reflections
***
Change
Change. That’s what is at the center of everything. Philosophically, I am more than aware that everything in the world is constantly changing. Sometimes imperceptibly, occasionally in great waves. I have often embraced change inside of myself, and I believe that it is the cure for stuckness of all kinds. It is the path to growth and personal evolution. Indeed, this is the source behind my life as a pilgrim, the desire to consciously offer my life to change and learn by opening up myself to the universe, to the Divine, to Spirit.
I want to continue to be happy in my aloneness, in myself. It seems to be so much easier in a new place, another country, than at home, where my habits and patterns are reinforced. It is very easy to just go back to the way things were before, to return to normal. But things keep moving, changing, even at home. It is so much more enjoyable and easy to flow with change when there’s no sense of “the way things are,” but merely drifting form one place to another. In travelling, there’s nothing but change. But at home, things tend to feel like they aren’t changing, that they are always pretty much the same. That’s not true, it’s merely that I become stuck, accustomed to the way things often seem the same. The truth is that I forget to see, I lose my freshness, I forget to stay in the moment.
***
Healing
What does it mean that I was assaulted at the end of my quest in Peru and Bolivia? Perhaps what is more important is how I choose to interpret it. Part of me has always understood that the event was random, not personal. It had nothing to do with my actions or my journey. I was merely in the place where I was, and I, the white North American, was an ideal target. Being female and alone added to that vulnerability. While I can see beyond myself to the bigger picture, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t affect me in deeply personal ways. I’ve made great efforts to identify them, and the healing will go on for a while, maybe for years. I now see that I’ve felt that I must have deserved it in some way, and have punished myself for it.
How many people over the years have questioned or discouraged my travelling alone? Many. Some out of fear for my safety. Some out of their own fear of aloneness. As for the second, I’m plenty happy to face my aloneness, to embrace it. As for the first, I’ve often naively refused to entertain the whole thought of my safety. I’ve never been a big worrier - you can never know that something will happen in advance, and given the choice to either enjoy life or waste energy worrying, the decision has always been easy for me. I have always had great faith that I’ll be fine, that I am protected, that if something happens I’ll be taken care of. Every time anything has happened - injury, illness, or emergency - I have always been taken care of. Even in this most awful incident, the experience was a twofold mixture: a horrible event that strips away trust and faith, followed by the incredible blessings of beautiful souls who appeared to help me in my time of crisis, to restore that trust and faith. Certainly, it has been the most incredible test of my faith and trust in the universe. Can I recover from such an intense challenge involving the innate vulnerability of life?
I now know that the answer is yes.
***
Epilogue
It’s been more than a year since I returned from my journey to Paris, and four years since my first awakening experience occurred. When I look back over my life in these last few years, my life as a pilgrim, so many things come to mind. One thing that seems clear to me, intuitively, is that these four journeys were tied together, not only by my study of pilgrimage, but by the series of lessons that life was ready to present to me. In that way, it seems to me that my four pilgrimages followed a greater structure that echoes the phases I previously outlined. My awakening was my the spark, which lead me to undeniable knowing that my time had come to walk the Camino. The Camino was Phase One, the undoing of my previous way of life, and the clearing of the mental and emotional clutter that had accrued over my lifetime, which lead to a second journey in Peru and Bolivia, Phase Two. While there, I was able to uncover passions and ideas and feelings that awakened a sense of comfort in myself that was joyful and grounded. I was never happier. Then the assault shattered my reverie. While that seems in a lot of ways like a clear point of no return, it was in fact, only the beginning of a much more difficult struggle through a relationship and a third journey to China, Phase Three. The anger and violence I experienced within myself in reaction to a world that just didn’t make sense to me were indeed the point of no return, and in many ways, my return home, to the sense of home within myself, didn’t begin until I began to wander the streets of Paris. Strangely, Phase Four and the return home also were experienced as a journey. And now, a year later, the process of adapting and integrating the experiences of my pilgrimage-life continues.
What is clear is that I have been initiated into a path that has changed my life in significant ways. I am simply more awake than I was before I began to journey as a pilgrim. My senses are more alive, bringing me back to present moment awareness time and again as the hectic pace of the world around me urges me to just hurry up. But more than that, my sense of connectedness to people and places has expanded. I am now a citizen of the world, not merely content to live without acknowledging my connection to faraway places, ignoring the inherent relatedness of all people and places in a world intent on globalization. And while globalization definitely has its problems, some not unlike the conquest and subsequent colonization of previous eras, through the opportunity of travelling, I now understand that everything that I do inevitably affects someone else, near or far. In the process of making journeys to foster spiritual growth, I have come to embrace a responsibility that is very much rooted in the human world. And I now see that the two are not separate.
I remember as a kid I often wondered about magic tricks. I wanted to know how they worked, not believing that anything was really magical. The few times people actually offered to teach me how the trick worked, though, I remember feeling a sense of panic and hesitating to learn. While I was sure that there was no such thing as magic, I also knew that by learning the trick, it would lose some of its thrill. Not knowing the secret was sometimes more exciting. Years later, as I began to study music theory, I was instantly reminded of my feeling about learning magic tricks. Would learning the secrets to harmony and form spoil the whole listening experience? Would Bach continue to inspire me? I was only peripherally concerned, since I had already decided to pursue a degree in music, and the study of music theory was required. What became clear was that by understanding the harmony and form I was able to listen even more fully than before, really attuned to the intricacies of each work. There was definitely some loss of wonder, since I became able to listen with greater intelligence, but I have rarely lamented that loss. The wonder I have grown to experience is far richer than before, and I am able to know music in a much more intimate way.
Having the opportunity to engage in an in-depth study of pilgrimage has felt much the same. I stumbled into my first few journeys with fresh eyes and great spirit, and I had done my research so that I’d know what I was getting myself into. But now, in much the same way as with music, I can see the elements that come into play in pilgrimage. I’ve read hundreds of personal stories, and considered perspectives from a variety of related fields, as well as studying my own four remarkable journeys. In my study of pilgrimage, I have come to see that while every journey is unique, there is a subtle form that emerges. I feel especially grateful that I was able to experience that, at least in a small way, while on a journey in Paris. Coming to understand pilgrimage while in the midst of that journey brought these ideas from my mind into my own experience. True to my initial mantra, prove it, I was shown these ideas from the inside, and even today I feel the truth within them.
Indeed, both this study and these journeys have changed me. Pilgrimage has become an integral part of my spiritual practice. Now that these four journeys (and this study) are complete, I have begun to feel a new call to the path. My previous journeys have all been rooted in personal exploration, envisioned as a form of retreat from my ordinary life, and this yearning will most likely continue. However, as a citizen of the world, I am feeling called to pilgrimage in a new way, along the path of service to humanity.
In August 2007 my computer’s hard drive crashed. I was without a computer for two weeks, but went to the library every few days to keep up with e-mail. One day, I received a short e-mail from Robert, my travel companion from Pisco, Peru. Had I heard about the earthquake in Pisco? Most likely the balcony where we shared dinner was history, since most of the center of town had collapsed. I was stunned, but had only a few minutes on the public computer. I made a mental note to investigate the details of the earthquake when I got my computer back.
The night I picked up my repaired computer, I headed to my local coffee shop. I ordered tea and sat down to investigate the details of the earthquake. News articles, personal accounts, and photographs filled my screen. The earthquake had happened on August, 15, 2007. It was an 8.0 in magnitude. Pisco was the epicenter. And it was destroyed. I began to feel out-of-body. My hands went icy cold. I continued reading. The Plaza de Armas, where I had shared a flute lesson with Oscar was gone. The town’s beautiful cathedral, too, had been destroyed, collapsing on over 100 people inside. Hundreds were killed. Hundreds of thousands were homeless. Paracas, too, was affected. The town had been hit by a small tsunami and was suffering significant damage. Inside of Paracas Nature Reserve, La Catedral, the glorious arching cave that I had stood beneath only two years before, had collapsed and crashed into the sea. As I read the details of the devastation, I began to tremble and tears filled my eyes (as they do even now as I’m writing this). I tried to hold back my sobs since I was in public, but just couldn’t. This beautiful place that embraced me so warmly at the beginning of my pilgrimage in Peru and Bolivia was destroyed, and so many people were suffering. I had no way of contacting any of the kind people that I had met in Pisco and Paracas, no way of knowing if they were all right. My heart went out to the whole community, but I felt powerless to help.
A week later, still very much concerned about the situation in Pisco, I began searching the Internet to learn of the ways that my country was helping Peru. While the American government donated a puny $150,000 to the cause, less than almost every other country, I stumbled upon a website for an interesting American organization: Hands On Disaster Response. They were based in Boston and had assisted in the early months of recovery in a variety of major disasters, including the tsunami in Southeast Asia and my own country’s Hurricane Katrina. Now, HODR was setting up in Peru. They were calling for volunteers from all over the world. It would be hard labor, basically assisting with the removal of collapsed buildings, digging trenches to restore water to communities, and planting trees. Whatever needed to be done to help clean up Pisco so that they can begin to rebuild. In that moment, I felt a flash of hope. Maybe I didn’t have to be powerless to help!
At the time, I was in the middle of finishing this thesis project, and it appeared that HODR might only be in Peru through December 2007. I e-mailed the director of the program anyway, and asked him to keep me included in updates about the program. In a few weeks, I received a response that stated HODR would be helping in Peru through the end of January 2008, and welcoming me to join the efforts if I could. In that moment I knew where my next journey would be taking me!
As I finish this thesis, I have a plane ticket to Peru that leaves the week before Christmas. I, along with a friend, will spend several weeks working as a volunteer with Hands On Disaster Response in Pisco. In the spirit of Christmas, I am honored to be able to travel to a place I love and offer my time and energy to a community in great need of help. It will be hard to return there, knowing that the Pisco that lingers in my mind is gone, but this time it’s not about me. It’s about contributing my energy to something much bigger than my own life and spiritual growth. I suppose one of the greatest lessons that I am learning, even now, is that in order to meet the Divine in the world, sometimes solitary retreat is the answer, and other times, I can meet the Divine more fully through serving my fellow human beings. The journey continues ...
No comments:
Post a Comment