peace path

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Read these as a meditation. Each of them individually then maybe later as separate thoughts- or however you want- read these as openly as you can.

Who is witnessing what is seen?

What spoils the experience?

Who creates the experience of life?

Who determines the setting of experience?

Are they responsible?

What is there to fear?

What is perception?

Is it shared?

In what ways?

What connects the mind to the body?

Can you be still?

Start with arms wide.

“Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency”

Sometimes we hold on to something, take it as the ultimate.

We are moved by the fantasy, captivated by the possibility.

Soothed by the safety, everything is a beacon.

“if i wash the small thread, it moves, it might as well be gone”

thats the kind of time that im interested. unbroken passage into each new sigh.

Instead I colorblock time, sometimes.

“Here and here I act this way for this long at this place”

I think about having enough time.

I'm just realizing that it has been years since the days of the week became softer and softer structures. Right now I have long stretches of time on my own.

Having this type of freedom I relish now was unbelievably hard for me when I first stopped working as a researcher, stopped having meetings or long term detailed plans for the future.

Relief came in waves.

First I had about a month living in my car in the central valley.

Waking up early at a seaside campground that was empty during the week, packed on the weekends. I made several thick pbjs and would drive inland to a disc golf course and move my body in the sun for hours. Stay up late every night making a big fire and reading sci-fi. Repeat.

It felt great and I also felt longing. I understood in parts of me I’d only begun to hear that this was temporary, the future was uncertain and each moment that passed felt empty.

I’d yet to understand myself, or know myself well enough to hang out with me. The opposite of this feels like a cornerstone of personal freedom.

Very interesting because this was something i was born with. Both as human and an only child- I knew a lot about being with me, intuitively.

Instead I’d become obsessed with noise. Chatter. Smokescreens that kept me from relaxing into any form of true peace or spaciousness.

I was obsessed with them.

I had hope that some single thing would come into my life, all make sense, and require my absolute devotion (time) and I would no longer have long stretches of this personal freedom that had been cool but also weird, and lonely.

Then I went to the ashram.

30 days, 5am to 8pm, practice, learning, meditating, meals, forest, heat, mountaintop. Tons of internal and external opportunities to bypass quiet knowing & freedom in space, in their stead I had rigor.

It meant something on some calculator that I was fully devoted to the experience.

Which I was.

Which is cool.

But…

Another critical element of personal freedom is to be doing anything, everything with little attachment.

30 days wore down the attachment.

I got tired of trying to figure out who I was supposed to be, presenting to this outside world of strangers around me who themselves were on their own paths of shedding.

I had my first real experience of not having to be anybody.

Then I let go and everything got alot easier, alot lighter for me

I began to feel more comfortable exploring who I was.

I began to learn what was important to me, and how to reassess frequently.

Then I began to feel free, and feel into long stretches of separation from paradigms that had dictated my life until that point.

I worked in exchange for a beautiful little cabin in the woods, meals, and the opportunity to stay around other people doing their own dances with personal freedom.

Every other day I’d need to show up and wash dishes, or cut a tree, or serve a meal and then I could go for a walk, take in a sunset, stare at a tree, do whatever.

Liv and I met there, we’d often joke about and relish in that we couldn’t imagine having a television, there wasn't enough time in the day.

I’m so exceptionally grateful for my life, how it is, how it has been, and how it will be.

To look back and see how in just this one aspect of my internal world I’ve experienced so much change is a gift. To know that older versions of me will be looking back at this time I am in now with love and appreciation, moving.

Not a thing matters more in each of our own worlds then our own freedom.

To know ourselves deeply, to examine our life and follow what draws us is of the highest pursuit.

may the Sun fade me,

Bholenath

Also If you’d like to talk about earth, rest, burning man, reiki, san francisco, bodywork, psychedelic integration, or something else, please please, please reach out via the link below- it is free 

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Altar Of Now, based in San Francisco, is the work and calling of Bholenath.