“When you become the means and the other becomes the end, this is love. When you are the end, and the other is used as a means, this is lust.”
“Meditation is this earth, it is here and now; the very moment you can spread your roots, do it. And once roots are there, your wings will reach to the highest sky possible. Compassion is the sky, meditation is the earth. And when meditation and compassion meet, a buddha is born.”
-Osho, “Life, Love, Laughter”
I have been learning much every day about the meaning and blessing of silence and the power of words. Unable to speak to the locals or the visitors, I remain largely silent. I am not able to join into conversation, I am not able to brag or to tell wild stories or to scratch my way up over all of the voices to say, “look at me! look at me!”
Instead, I am largely quiet. I smile a lot. I always try to find the courage to say hello, either in french or english or spanish, because this is the one phrase I know, and so much can be communicated in such small words. Otherwise, I largely spend my day a little humbled my my limitations, and a little embarrassed that I have come to a country unequipped to even order my own lunch without help.
I have noticed though- I awake in the morning and I am not regretful or shameful of the things I said the day before, like I am when I am at home. I have not spent the whole night drinking wine and spewing out loads of toxic, ridiculous conversation. I have only my times with Marjo, and I feel no need to be anything but wholly myself with her, since she knows me already and I have nothing at all to prove.
I wonder why I am here for such a long time. I wake up in the morning and I fall in to my routine. I brush my teeth and wash my face, I dress and go out to the front of the hotel where a cabana has been set up with chairs and hammocks and pillows to lay on. I read some Osho, I meditate on his words, and then I write, waiting for the coffee to be ready. After breakfast, more reading or writing, some time in the sun, maybe a shower or a swim in the pool. Then a play in the ocean or a nap after lunch, and then it's time for dinner, conversation, and finally more reading or writing and bed.
Each day the same...and yet I sense that this is only temporary- that over the next week, I will find the days unfortunately speeding up. Maybe more people will arrive who speak english, maybe the relationships that I do have here will experience a deepening. Perhaps it is a time for me to practice being still, finding communion with my self again, drawing deep from within my self for my entertainment, instead of always looking outside, seeking stimulation from around me.
In re-reading this, I find that I am actually describing my perfect day, though I have always imagined it in Whistler, and not here in El Salvador. I find when I really look at it that I am not bored but guilty. I should be working! Or doing chores! Surely there is some laundry I could be washing? Or tidying my room? But no- here everything is looked after, and I have such a sparse compliment of clothing and personal effects that they require little to no maintenance. The only thing I really need to do in any given day is to get up, and even that only because to waste a day here in bed would be such a crime.
I have no limitations No boundaries. Nothing expected or asked of me. I am equipped with a good challenging book, a lighter work of fiction, a trashy magazine, a lap top and a never ending source of coffee. In the evenings I have good conversations with Marjo, and I am free at all times to carry out my whims of listening to this tree or that path or the waves who wake me sometimes and call to me at night like sirens from the deep.
It seems as though I have some how stumbled into Writer's Heaven. There is so much here to stimulate my imagination, and unlimited time to indulge it.
These past few days have been a wonderful time of self reflection, of fantasies and discovery and generally flaky stuff. A few small revelations, one or two weighty ones that I'll carry around for awhile, but mostly the makings of surface area observations. What I would really love is to get into a character and start writing, writing, writing- where I wake in the middle of the night and I can't wait for the computer to start up so that I can start to tell more of the story in my head.
I have the character of Lulu who came to me when I was in the woods in June. She was so strong then, and I can still recall her conflicts and her loves and challenges and victories, but it seems so strange to write of my coastal mountain girl when I am so far out of her natural element. Maybe if I just remain open, listening to my heart, something will come.
I'm off to day dream....
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