“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to
your adventure.”
~ Joseph Campbell

Nelson is a difficult town for me to leave behind.  In so many ways Nelson embodies creativity, community, communion, and so much else of what I love.  Last week I peeled myself away from her embrace, three weeks later than I had planned to leave, and headed back out on the road.  It was especially difficult because I can’t say for sure when I will be back.

I had thought I would return to Nelson in a month or two.  However, things shifted for me when I took part in a shamanic ceremony in which I was shown the door to the unknown and invited to take a large step through.  I was given a strong reminder that moving towards the unknown can be a wildly enlivening and magical journey, and, of course, a scary one too.  Breath and presence.  Presence and breath.  When I forget breath and presence and try to figure out how it will work, the energy of the unknown gets squeezed out by the constriction of control.

At one point in my shamanic journey, I saw myself leaving immediately towards the unknown - in the opposite direction that I had planned to go - south, out of Canada and into the U.S.  I had no clear strategies for how I would financially support myself in the U.S. and fear welled up.  And why wouldn’t it?  Aren’t we taught over and over to buy and build up the trappings of security; the more of them we have the less illusory security seems and the more we can convince ourselves that we are in control.  And so I breathed, breathed as deeply as I could.  Then I took another breath, stretching up and back in order to let in as much air as possible.

I breathed my way down to the fear, not to change it or fix it, just to be with it.  Fear and I stared at each other through the darkness.  And then fear laughed.  It could not believe I wasn’t there to try and convince it of anything.  Fear couldn’t help but be intrigued by the spaciousness of being.  As I sat there breathing a remarkable thing happened.  Fear took a breath, stretched its arms out, and transformed into a yoga instructor-princess.  She winked at me, lifted herself into a handstand, and set off into the unknown.  What could I do but follow.

But here I am, still in Canada, back in the north, in Haida Gwaii as I write this.  Seagulls are calling each other as the first light of day comes over the inlet that I can see through my window.  Rain joins the song.  The wind rushes in excited about the day.  All was so dark and still only moments ago.

It was too much for me to drop everything at once and leap right in to the unknown.  I continue to slip back and forth between the me that wants to know and the me that is willing to not know.  And I breathe as much as I can.  I don’t know if it works to negotiate with the unknown, but I tried, and I’m still trying.  I decided to complete workshops and engagements I had committed to and then…  Then I’ll see how well I’m breathing.  I can’t deny the taste of full aliveness that I had during my shamanic journey, and that aliveness is where I am committed to keep opening towards.
Years ago, while traveling in Central America, I took a ferry from the mainland of Honduras to the Caribbean Island Roatan.  The waters were rough and I barely managed to hold down my breakfast; many others were not as lucky.  I sat there inside the boat with a roomful of green faces, enduring the crashing, roller coaster ride and the smell of vomit.  Then a young man came into the room from the outside deck.  His eyes were wide with joy and a wet smile was on his face.   He stood open and invigorated, completely in contrast to the huddled mass of the rest of us.  I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like, “Come outside!  It’s incredible!  I don’t feel sick at all out there.”  That I didn’t follow his inspired advice is testament to how much I can fear the unknown and hold onto the familiar, even when it smells bad and saps my vitality.

Last summer when I was here on Haida Gwaii, I ran on the beach, directly into a gale of a wind. Together the wind and I celebrated the adventure of life.  The wind is blowing again, but it’s colder now and raining. I could stay inside, warm a dry with the companionship of my computer.  Or I can answer the call of wild aliveness.

From the road,
Eric