Watershed
I just turned twenty five years old and I am currently in the heart of what os left of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Coming here took me twenty five years and I have no doubt that this is where I am supposed to be.
Old enough to understand that everything is relative and in motion. Old enough to know that I am most likely not the centre of the universe but still a part of everything. Not yet old enough to have figured out exactly what life is for me. That will take a whole life time, no more and no less.
I often ask myself: why do I write? The answer lingers. Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector said that as long as there are questions to which there are no answers she will go on writing. I write because it is one of the only things that for me makes any sense. I write to understand. To make it clear to potiential future readers that: we are many who know this world is crazy and I do not go along with this lunacy!
For whom do I write? I write to whomever might be reading. I write, in the romantic hope that one day some of my words on a piece of paper will make a connection of understanding between me and you, a connection that may transcend the borders of time and space.
Every day offers new insights for those willing to accept them. The Wajãpi people of the Amazon say that when a person thinks alot, her soul travels to other places, while her body remains in the hammock. They call this person I’äga, she who travels and flies in her dreams. They say this person doesn’t die.
The Wajãpis also speak of the vital principal. They call it i’ä and although it can be explained with many words it talks of our soul, memories and experiences. These make out the vital principal. They say that in life we always create with our hands, houses, arrows, handicraft. They say that the marks on our hands and our souls stay forever with the artefacts we create.
I am constantly seeking. Insights, context, meetings, experiences in nature, friends, intimacy, solitude, belongingness, creativity, connection. A will to create something that lasts or grows drives me forward like an invisible and unresistable force.
I understand that there is nothing to understand. My perception is but a chard of a mirror floating in the universe. And yet for me, there is nothing else aside from this. My way in the world is staggering, but I see a light in the distance and I walk towards it. Life is generous to those who are open to receiving and willing to offer everything in return. Epicuros the philosopher said: natural abundance is limited and easy to obtain while those who seek material riches will never find a limit. The epicurians believed that what keeps us from experiencing peace of mind is our false preconceptions regarding life, death and the final jugdement.
Truth is, there is no judgement and there is no trial in life but life itself.
Life happens only once. There may be such a thing as reincarnation or parallell universe, but your life, my life, what is happening now, happens only once and that is now. Eckhart Tolle says: There is no point in imagining some point in the future because there will never be a future. The only thing that has ever been, and the only thing that will ever be is the Now.
I have always felt like air. Never making out part of something actual but always moving in between – feeilng distressed, joyous, anxious, astonished, mesmerized by the mysteries of life.
Idle conformity keeps me light-footed, always near escape. The misfits also invoke a certain resentment.. With knowledge of the divine still acting as if not conscious, always in need of more medicine.. again and again forgetting the lessons of nature and of life.
But resentment and anger does not flourish. Only grow and grow and not surrender until it has taken over. So I leave her in the shade of my mind’s garden and instead I water those plants that I believe will bear sweet fruits.
