My mom welcomed me home with loving arms. I noticed how she kept herself busy with work, remodeling the house, and projects within her community and I felt like she would be a good example to model. However, I was still in the midst of the turmoil that was my life and I got into the habit of playing a victim. I started working for a different pizza place, and I wasn't making the same kind of money I was used to making up in Santa Cruz, and I quickly found myself falling even more into that hole. I owed credit cards even more money now, and I was an emotional wreck. Instead of landing on my feet, I felt as though I had landed on my ass.
Luckily I had started going to school again. Taking classes at a community college learning Spanish, Biotechnology, and Hatha Yoga. Time was passing but I was frustrated at the world, and at myself. Nothing seemed to be working. I had graduated so why was I still going to school instead of holding down a steady job?! I decided then to give up on school, to quit my pizza job, and to start working as a mover for a friend from high school. My friend from high school, had now become my boss. At first he was skeptical that a tall skinny surfer was going to work out in his company, but after working with his top employee for a month he became pleased by how quickly I was picking up the nuances of being a mover.
For the next 3 months, I was homeless, occasionally finding shelter at my grandmother's, a friends house, but most nights you would be able to find me parked in my car somewhere down near the beach. I had a lot of time to reflect on why life seemed so cruel, and realized that I was creating more problems that I needed to. I was still working as a mover, and taking yoga when I had the time off. My life wasn't that horrible. I mean look around the world! Around this time I started to realize that despite my lonely feelings that I wasn't ever totally alone. I had had friends all along that were there to support me through the rough times. The kind of friends who didn't let me give up on my dreams, and who believed in me even when my stubbornness and moodiness would push them away.
Now, looking back on all these events I see that my friends were all vibrating at a similar level that I was. Most of us lived at home with our parents. We held all held steady jobs, but usually the work we found was completely unrelated to what we studied in college. We were grumpy with the world and each other.
The summer before I was kicked out of home my best friends' father passed from brain cancer. The grief I was experiencing from the loss of my friend's dad, being homeless, working as a mover, and just the state that my life was in inspired a close friend of mine to buy an extra ticket to a festival that had saved his little brothers life back in 2009. Burning Man.
 |
| the Man 2010 |
One day I went to a party out in the desert, with these two friends of mine. The older brother told me that the ticket he bought he got for me, hoping that I go with him so we could experience our first burn together. I told him I would gladly pay him back, but he insisted that in the spirit of burning man that wouldn't owe him a dime for it as long as I paid it forward. At first I was overwhelmed with excitement, to go and see, to experience the wonder. The glory. The spectacle!
But slowly I became more and more skeptical that it wasn't the smartest thing for me to do. After all there was no way it would have the same kind of impact on me that it did on his brother, right?? (spoiler alert, I was wrong) But I didn't know I was wrong then. So, I was back and forth like this for months leading up to the event. Excited! Skeptical. Happy! Worried. Grateful! Depressed. The month leading up to the event my grandfather on my dad's side passed away from pneumonia and other health complications in a hospital surrounded by his family in Los Angeles. I was driving to visit him a couple times a month, for I feared I was going to be loosing him soon and that I wanted to spend some quality time with him even if we was a gruff and grumpy old fart. Love you Dzia-Dzia.
When he passed in early August, I knew that Burning Man was the place I needed to go next. I was excited to go because I had heard about sacred temples that is built every year. Sacred temples where you can go to write prayers for loved ones who had passed in our lives. The sacred temples are then lit on fire at the end of the each event. I had never been religious, in fact I had never even been to church before this event. However, the more into my yoga I got, the more it felt appropriate to honor the way I was feeling by participating in some sort of sacred ceremony like this one. One day came when my friend with the ticket needed to know. Was I committed to going? He wanted to know so the ticket could go to some one willing. That was the day I made the final decision to go. I was willing to do whatever it took to get out of the habitual patterns of my life. And burning man was sounding like the perfect place to let go of those habits. Plus with the way I was feeling after the deaths in my life, I was now even more fully committed than before. So my friends and I got all our stuff packed and hit the road for Nevada at the end of that very same month. I was on a love's path.
The event was magical. Inspiring. I camped with a group of yoga instructors, energy healers, one cuddle therapist, a lawyer, an inventor, a couple of scholars, and musicians. We were all artists in our own genius way. Prior to the meeting my friends who took me to burning man, I thought that the festival was just a hippie gathering where you did drugs and tripped out to electronic music in the desert. While that is available to you if that is what you are seeking, there is so much more going on there. First of all, over 50,000 people come from all over the world to witness it. The booklet you receive when you get past the greeters is filled with things to do. There are maps to theme camps who sponsor events all week. Topics range from exploring your sexuality, to yoga and meditation, to spoken word and political discussions, to fun games and debauchery. There are bars and clubs where the booze flows as free as water and the music blasts until the sun comes up. And there are quiet areas where you and your friends can be sober and find sober people, and places where kid's and families can play and explore and be free for a week.
Personally witnessing the power that this experience has on people who muster up the courage to go was one of the most valued moments of my life. I learned so much from every one who made it possible. I learned to broaden my mind and accept that some ideas that we believe are impossible to accomplish can become possible if we all get together and contribute to the community. I learned how magical life really is if people of all shapes, colors, & sexualities are accepted and loved equally and shown that genuine gratitude just for being who they are. Because I was accepted there, I realized that what I was struggling with in the "default world" was trying to fit in to mold. I was viewing my success as contingent upon money. Upon my ability to be a certain way. Life these days in the default world we are confronted with forces that try to keep us from being who we really are. And if you are willing to stand up for yourself despite that, and in the face of those forces, you will be inspiring others to do stand up for themselves as well.
On the way back home I was stranded for an extra 2 days in the mountains between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. I was a little bit bummed out that the event was only a week long and that it was over already, and that I was running out of supplies, money, and tolerance for what was happening. We survived off on McDonald's, each other's friendship, and the infinite energy of the universe for those 2 days. There were actually some very beautiful and peaceful moments during our time stranded in the mountains. After all we weren't in that much of a rush to rejoin the default world. Even if we had to postpone taking that luxurious shower for an couple days, it was worth it. When our truck was finally fixed, and we were on our way back to San Diego, I came up with the plan for how I was going to get my life back.
I called my mom and told her I was stranded but doing okay. I would be home, and would love to share with her my story of how the event had changed me. I felt confident that I could convince her not only by telling her my plan, but through my actions, that I was a different person than before. I was honest about how I felt, how I was going to start treating her with more respect and that if she would have me back, I was ready to live under the same roof again. She said that as long as I could hold a steady job and not be a bloody volcano in the mornings that I was welcome home.
Ironically I was immediately fired from my moving job. I had contracted the help of my friend to get this last move done, and my boss decided that he needed to send his still half drunk band member along for the ride to "help". My friend and I busted a move and got the client's truck loaded down and secured for his long distance move to Chicago while the drunken band member napped in the shade. On the way home I got the sense of something that was wrong in the universe. Sure enough, when I got back to the bosses house, he claimed he had no money in his account to pay my friend or myself for the drive up to LA and back plus the work we did. I was a little annoyed, but my friend was livid. When I demanded that he pay me, he fired me for demanding to get paid. Haha. Eventually he wrote us both a check, and I was able to wash my hands of that job. What a joke.
While I was waiting for the boss to get around to writing me the check, as he promised he would do as soon as he got money in his account, I got a new job at a liquor store with the very same friend who I had contracted for the extra help on the move. I worked there for the rest of the year, grateful to be working with a friend who had common sense, and for the steady income. Plus it looked good to my mom, who loves her some wine after work.
So my mom was happy, and I was working and living at home again. Still not quite what I had in mind of where I wanted to be after graduating college and going to burning man. Yet I felt that it was at least taking steps in the right direction and that I was going to work hard at making the most of the lessons that place had to offer me. Around this time I started to get Reiki therapy from a friend who I had met at burning man in 2010 and who had moved from Oakland down to San Diego. And in January, 2011 my yoga teacher from the community college I had been going to prior to being a mover opened up a new studio called Light and Love Yoga that was structured in such a way where I could pick up where I had
 |
| Light and Love Yoga Encinitas, CA |
So one day, on a whim, I quit. That next morning I sat down and meditated. While meditating I saw a pink and yellow lotus flower blossom in my mind's eye. I was instantly struck with peace, knowing for certain that I had made the right decision by quitting on a whim like that. That even though I was giving up working with a good friend and getting my mom discounts on her wine, the next place I would work would offer me something similar if not more valuable for all parties involved in my story. A few days later, something dawned on me about my meditation. Weren't the colors of the actual lotus flower symbol for the Lotus Cafe (my favorite restaurant at the time) the same pink and yellow that were in the image of the lotus flower that came to me during my meditation? I laughed, it seemed that playa magic was still working with me. I was filled with the hope that if I applied there I would solve the problem I was now facing: I still needed to have a job to pay for yoga school! (Also, having a job is part of the conditions for me being able to continue living at home)So I walked in that week, wearing my best interview clothes, and handed the manager at the time my application. She smiled, shook my hand, asked me a few routine questions. Then she told me that she thought I would be perfect for the job, that what comes next is for me to go home and wait for them to call me back in a couple of days once they had a chance to look at the schedule and see where the can fit in someone new into it. Ecstatic I left. I waited patiently for 2 days... 3 days... 4 days.
On the 4th day, I had enough of being patient. My friend suggested that I walk in just to follow up on the job hunt. After all wouldn't I like to know if I needed to apply elsewhere or not? When I got there the crowd was chaotic, the line was stretching out the door, kids were giggling and shouting, and there was a buzzing energy all around. The manager seemed to me to be stressed out, and way too busy to stop to talk. I almost left, but I decided I had come all the way from home, so I told him quickly why I had came in, and then disappeared feeling a little down on life when he told me to come back later and to talk to a different manager. I let 2 more days pass, and right when I gave up caring about Lotus Cafe and was about to go apply else where, I got a voicemail from the owners telling me to come in for an interview.
It was then April, 2011. I walked back into Lotus Cafe, in my second best set of clothes and nailed the interview. I was nervous and sweating through the entire process. The worst part was when the owners told me how they thought my nickname "Swami" meant that I had a big ego and might not be as perfect for the job as the other manager had initially thought. Despite that little hick-up, I convinced them that I was humble, that I wouldn't let my ego get in the way of doing what the job entailed, and I got the job! Again I quickly rose in ranks. Starting out bussing tables, and working my way to serving food, cashiering, and making fruit smoothies in the back. I found that working for a restaurant brought with it a new set of challenges, but for once the combination of what I was spending my days doing was making sense to me. Going to school to learn yoga while working at a liquor store didn't resonate with me, but working at a health food cafe and learning yoga... Now that felt good!
I graduated in May 2011, meaning I became a certified Hatha Yoga instructor. I had already purchased my ticket to attend the Rites of Passage Burning Man, so I had more freedom of where I got to choose where to spend the money I was making. I had graduated with my 200-hr certificate, but my yoga teacher had plans to open the 500-hr teacher training program in June. At first I was set on taking a break from the program, but after meditating on it for a few weeks I realized that I would really enjoy staying with the community even if most of the people who I had graduated with in May had already left the city and started teaching jobs of their own. So yoga school, lotus cafe, and preparing for burning man were my new priorities and I was finally happier than ever. In July I met a girl who I had previously known in elementary and high-school, but hadn't seen in years. We started to date, and I started having high hopes.
Then the day before the burn came, (reference my last blog "Manifestation"). I had manifested the day off of work, so that I could prepare for the burn, pack my suitcases, teach a friend yoga on the beach, and then hang out with my lady friend. However, the day didn't go exactly how I thought it was going to go. I got a text from her saying "we need to talk" and I immediately thought, uh-oh. she doesn't want to see me any more. So I called her, and she said she and I were at two different points in our lives and that it was best for us both if we didn't continue seeing each other. I normally might have reacted to being broken up with over the phone like that with resistance, but I was having such an awesome day prior to that and I was all ready for burning man that I didn't feel like letting myself go there. I calmly explained to her that she was probably right, and that I was shocked, but understood what she was saying.
I went home and fell asleep that night. My gear was near the mouth of the garage and ready to go. I woke up at 4:30 that Friday morning and immediately set about my morning routine. A little yoga stretching, yawning, splashing my face with water, and using of the boys room. While clipping my toenails my friend who was giving me a ride to the Rites of Passage came a tapping at my window. That apparently was my signal that the time had finally come. What I have been waiting for all year. Time to hit the road and leave for burning man!
Our mission was to go pick up the truck down in Clairemont, come back to Encinitas get our stuff and the stuff we were bringing for Devachan Camp (kitchen, lounge, and shower facility), drive back to Clairemont and pick up some generators and the trailer we were to deliver to the event, and finally meet someone in Oceanside where we would gas up where we would start hauling our way up to Reno where we would only be able to get a few hours of sleep in the trailer outside of the Sand's Regancy Hotel and Casino before getting woken up by the boss man's crew to go gather supplies that we would need or want for the week out on the playa (water, juice, beer, glow-sticks, cigarettes, etc.). Phew.
We were already behind schedule after getting pulled over in California for not having working brake lights during the night and taking more than your average amount of pit-stops along the way out of sheer necessity. After all we were so bleary eyed most of the time we were in the car from doing nothing but packing and driving the whole day. We rolled into Reno at 5 am, meaning we had both officially been awake for a solid 24 hours. After being woken up after only 2 hours of rest by the boss's goons, and getting the supplies we still needed at the Save-Mart, we decided that before leaving Reno for good, we both be served well by taking one more little nap. So we used the boss's hotel room to take stretch out and relax after the heralding 24 hour trip that the day before had become. Before we knew it 4 hours had passed and we woke up both realizing we now only had a limited amount of day light left in the day, and we needed to start making some progress towards the burn, after all our camp mates were depending on us.
 |
| sleep deprived but excited |
This is where the theme Rites of Passage first started to sink in. The boss man sends us a short text message that instructs us to "keep our eyes peeled for his truck" and that we "better not miss him". The deal was that the event officially started on that Monday, and it still being the Saturday before the event we needed a special pass to get in and set up. The boss man had said special passes. But the boss man didn't know the rules. And neither did we! So about 2 hours out of Reno we see his truck, and wave him down. We pull off to the side of the road and wait for his truck to pull up behind us and out of the way of traffic. We get out to stretch, and I bust out some yoga moves. My friend then proceeds to exchange the tickets we had bought (complete with stubs) for the special early entry passes and stub-less vendor tickets that had gotten the boss and one of his cronies in earlier that same day. What we didn't know, but found out later, was that he was supposed to hand us some bracelets that symbolized we were part of his crew and that we were vendors and not burners. So naively we get in line, and wait it out for the 3 hours that it took until we get to the front of the line right around midnight. The greeter stopped us, and radios for the manager to come and deal with us. The manager, was the awesomely gorgeous, and fierce looking lady. She kindly told us what we needed to get in. We had the special passes we needed, we even had tickets, but no bracelets. She told us we didn't need bracelets actually we just needed to have held onto our original tickets and that would have worked.
It was one of the worst let downs, to have stayed up for 24 hours the day before, and then get up and drive to the gate of the event only to get turned around. We were really grumpy, and pissed off at the boss man, who wasn't answering his phone because he had proceeded to get drunk and pass out back in his hotel room in Reno. We were determined. On a love's path. My friend dropped the trailer in Gerlach for the 6 hours we would need to drive back to Reno and back so that we could get our tickets back, or bracelets, from "el jefe". (the boss for all you non-spanish speakers out there) We pulled up to Reno, got our tickets back, got a few more supplies at the Save-Mart (coffee, snacks, breakfast), and hauled our asses back to Gerlach where we re-hitched the trailer to the truck and tried our luck a second time. Or was it us trying our luck for a third time by this point? Anyone keeping track?
Anyways, we get back into the line to get in, but there are literally only 2 other vehicles in line with us. One sped by and kicked up dust, and the other was already at the gate by the time we were drawing close enough to see it. Then the universe presented us with a sign that the BS was over, that we had made it to the event finally and we were going in. There at the greeter station were our camp-mates running towards us ready to give us hugs and welcome us home. The fact that our own Devachan Camp was there to greet us, filled me with the peace of knowing I could relax and enjoy myself for a week.
We got in! We drove over to Devachan's coordinates and found out where to temporarily set up our tents and drop our supplies off. After doing that we left because we still had to drop of the trailer at the RV yard. After doing that we drove back to our camp where I busted a move to help set up kitchen and lounge areas while my friend busied himself doing something else (I honestly couldn't tell you what he did or was doing while we erected the shade structures simply because I was enjoying helping set up camp so much and meeting my camp mates) After setting things up, I felt like exploring on a solo mission, so I road my bike out the man and the temple, stopping to chat with the occasional burner and then running into someone I had met a month ago back in the default world. (I recognized his awesome pink hair) After parting ways with Mr. Pink I started to get my self oriented with the lay of land. The city was still a skeleton compared to what it would look like a few days later, but I was already started to get a sense of the wonder that was to come. I biked home, ate some food, started massaging campers who were showing up and looking weary from their drives, and ended up drifting off into one of the most peaceful nights of sleep I had had in a long time.
 |
| The Temple of Transition 2011 |
The staff at the medical stations at these events are so awesome and friendly. They know when its appropriate to be serious, and when laughing and shooting the shit is too. The nurse who took care of me, seemed interested in the yoga classes I told her I was offering, but I never saw her come by all week. Hopefully she got her loving in! One of the best things about Devachan camp is the fact that we all some of the most loving and accepting people you will meet on the playa. Granted we sometimes see someone in a small argument, the kind of support we give to all those who grace the corner of 5 and D, whether we know you or not, it is some of the most genuine love and support that you may feel all year round!
I could go on and on, and on, and on about all the awesome things I did all week. But I may just have to post another blog just to do my 2011 Rites of Passage the justice I feel it deserves. But I wanted to end by telling you about my trip home. Many of my camp-mates where there when I was pulling out at 3am that Sunday. Many of them saw me sobbing, clutching the dust with my fingers, and unleashing a primal scream in the night. I just felt like posting this blog so that those of you who were confused by the shift in my energy could understand why I broke down crying so hard. My parents went through a divorce when I was away at college, and ever since then coming back to my house in Encinitas felt different. Almost as if it wasn't really my home anymore, even though it looked the same and had the same layout. When I got to Devachan I really felt like that was my home. I felt so blessed just to have a little tent, under the rickety shade structure I had gotten at Ralph's for $40, under a parachute that provided me with some shade throughout half the day, next to my friend's rented Kia minivan, next to my friends' tents, and a geometric dome that some of them had constructed. When I was leaving I was struck by how despite finding closure on the ending of my relationship with my lady friend, I didn't want to go back to the default world just yet, and on top of that I didn't appreciate the way my friend was yelling at me to help him.
The temple itself this year was breath-takingly beautiful. I was brought to tears when I first saw it appear out of the dust on my first solo mission I mentioned earlier. I had written a few prayers on the walls myself to send my love for all the people I have known who had passed (including my best friends' father and my grandfather again). I also had a few mystical experiences through out the week whenever I would get close to the temple or when I could muster up the energy and companionship I desired to make it all the way to the temple and see what was going on inside. But back to the story. As I watched it go up in flames that Sunday night a lady approached me who just needed a hug. We hugged and after she let go I started to cry. I felt suddenly sick to my stomach, and I didn't want to hurry back to camp to continue packing. Yet the temple had collapsed and people were starting to push past me, and I didn't want to post-pone the inevitable and remain there while people pushed their way past me and off into the night. So I trotted home by myself. When I got there I felt like I was the only one home. I went about tearing down my shade structure, and was starting to get frustrated when my friends showed up and helped me get everything else I needed to get done for myself done.
Then my friend shows up and is in a similar funk, not happy about leaving, and definitely not looking forward to tearing down his stuff and loading up the truck. I try to help him, but feel like I am causing more complications than its worth having him snap orders at me. So I start hanging with my friends Luna, Shay, Dandelion, and Emily. We are laughing and saying our good byes, when I see my friend fall over sideways into the big pool of grey water the camp had been collecting behind the kitchen. He gets up and is pissed off and wet. I go over to see what I can do, but it already looks as if he's got it under control. I go back to hanging out with Luna, when this little lady appears out of the night and launches into this horrific story about how she was getting beaten up, stolen from, and verbally abused out by her camp mates and was hungry and cold. Being the camp that we are, and being who Luna and I are, we immediately started to care for this little lady, giving her food and water, and just letting her know she was safe with us. She kept launching into more and more details of the things that had happened to her, and both Luna and I didn't know what to do anymore. We needed some help from the rest of the camp, and quick. Luckily more and more people were showing up, and the little lady found a group of people who had the time and energy to give her what she needed. Through out this process my friend had started to bark orders at me, and I started to feel weak in the knees like I was approaching my limit of what I could handle in one day, or in one week. I end up seeing my friend appear out of the thin blue air and ask him if he will comfort Luna while I continue packing. I was almost good, but then my friend snapped at me one more time and I lost it. I started sobbing, and cursing, and acting like a baby. I was angry at the people who had abused the poor lady who had happened by our camp that night, I was annoyed at my friend for blaming me for not hanging out with him enough, and on top of it I wanted to cuddle with Luna and I wasn't ready to leave until I truly had my cry.
My friends then came to my rescue and allowed me to say whatever I needed to say. It was too much to hold inside, and I didn't want to get into the truck with my friend after he had been snapping at me the way he was. Especially after I had been doing everything I could to meet his deadline for the 2am departure, and to get my closure with my camp after enjoying a phenomenally awesome year at burning man. After I got to tell Luna what I really wanted to tell her, I felt it was time to go, so I crawled into the trailer (which smelled like rotten eggs and beer) and fell asleep. I had a lot of anger, but the more I sat with it as I tried to fall asleep in such a ugly environment the more I felt I was letting go of my attachment for things to be a certain way. Eventually all the lights went out and I woke up in the back of the trailer as we pulled off to get gas in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno).
The plan was to go dump the sewage, and then meet our friends for breakfast. My friend was starting to realize that he had snapped at me at the wrong time, and was apologizing for the way the events had transpired last night. But I didn't really want to hear it, I just smoked a cigarette and looked around for burners who I could go and chit-chat with while he dumped the sewage. The plan again wasn't going as smoothly as my friend had hoped it would, and the dump hose wasn't functional so we had to give up on that plan and just go meet our friends for breakfast before dropping off one of the girls who my friend had decided to give a ride to at the Sand's Regency in Reno. At breakfast one of my camp mates approached me out side of the restaurant and told me that if I wanted to get a ride with someone else from the San Diego area that she could help make that happen. I said that yes I really thought that would be better for me, and after everyone was done eating I told my friend I was getting a lift with someone else and that it was better this way.I got my essential pack of toiletries, books, and things I need in the default world and got into the back seat of my camp mates vehicle and sped away. The drive home was so much more peaceful. I got to massage the people who weren't driving, give Reiki, and take naps whenever I pleased. I got to help with the driving, and if I needed or wanted to be silent it was never an issue. We rolled up to my street at midnight that same night. My mom woke up and I got to share with her the brief version of the true story from start to finish, but while I was sharing with her I was starting to worry about the safety of the friend I had left behind and was still on the road. Knowing him for two years now I know that he likes to push himself too hard sometimes. Part of why we had so much drama at the end was because when I was around him I felt like he was trying to get me to push myself as hard as well. Still, I worried that he wouldn't drive safe, and get rest when his body was demanding. But luckily he had an awesome yoga instructor with him, who from what I heard was un-phaseably cheerful the entire way home, and they eventually did make it home to the default world.
And that my friends is this story of love's path.
No comments:
Post a Comment