28th April 2021
I am sitting in a cafe in the middle of the sea, eating french onion soup and drinking tea that has an aftertaste of fish.
Last night, I was lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the ocean, the humming of the ship‘s motor and the increasing physical distance from my life as I know it. And I slept like a baby.
Not that my life as I know it was in any way bad.
Not at all.
In fact, it was wonderful. Amazing. Full of love, friendships and adventures.
I lived in a beautiful house on 2 1/2 acres of garden, had a kind husband who – even through our separation – turned out to be a great friend and was running successful Yoga studio and Ayurvedic practice from home.
I was able to do what I love to do on a daily basis.
I have two wonderful grown children and 3 equally wonderful grown step-children (who now have a holiday home in Bavaria)
And I am lucky enough to have met friends that aren‘t just friends but soulmates (they, too have now a holiday home in Bavaria).
And I‘m leaving all of that behind.
Why?
Not because I want to leave but because I want to arrive.
Because I want to complete the circle, the hero‘s journey that I have been on and I want to return home with all the magical gifts and treasures I‘ve gathered along the way.
And now is the right time.
It‘s the right time for transformation, for completion, for a journey home, and for a journey into the unknown because it‘s where we are all heading.
This time is a time of renewal, of metamorphosis, a cocooning of our souls so that they can emerge as butterflies – or moths or falcons or whatever winged creatures we‘d like to be. We are all undergoing changes right now and I believe it‘s for the best to use the energy of that current in the ocean of our lives and go with it! As my old Yin Yoga teacher Josh Summers used to say – suffering equals pain times resistance. So, let‘s not resist. Let‘s release instead. Releasing resistance to life, to change, to renewal and to transformation. Releasing fear of leaving our comfort zones. Because magical treasures aren‘t usually discovered under our couch. Unless we have a cat, maybe.
The best treasures are found in the danger zone – the dark places, the caves, the depths of oceans, guarded by dragons, mermaids and witches. And it‘s up to us to unearth them, to fight the demons that sit on them, to befriend the spirits that live in the deep, dark corners of our minds. Only when we leave our comfort zones, when we go on adventures and accept the shadows and dangers as part of our life, as allies and teachers, can we release the energy that otherwise stays blocked by our fears and conditionings and false believes of our Self.
And that energy is the treasure of the hero‘s quest. It is the potentiality of being, of the infinite source of power of creation we all have inside of us.
It seems significant that I am crossing the ocean under a full moon.
Vedic mythology has many stories about the ocean and the moon. The beautiful image of Vishnu asleep on a coiled up snake, floating on a vast body of water tells a story. It’s the story of consciousness, as it lies dormant on the ocean of potentiality, where anything could grow, but has not yet manifested beyond a dream, an idea, a faint desire for something unnamed. It sleeps on the coiled up essence of energy that one day will become manifestation and matter. One day. When we‘ve dreamed enough. When our dreams become reality. But for now it is just waiting, coiled up in a spiral, until it begins to move. When the nameless desire is named. When we are called to action.
Anything we create – even if it is an image inside our head – becomes reality somewhere, in some other dimension. It becomes a seed that is planted and if we water it and feed it carefully, then one day, when the sun shines on it enough, it will grow and manifest in our life.
So – dreaming is important. It‘s the basis of everything.
The root cause of life as we know it.
Without first dreaming, unconsciously creating desires, wishes and ideas, nothing will manifest. It all starts with a dream. An unconscious desire.
Why are you here? What made you read this blog post right now? What‘s the reason for it? What made you open your laptop or phone? What made you interested? What was the original impulse for that interest? How far back can you trace the chain of action and re-action, of Karma?
Back to a few years ago? Back to your birth?
Back to when you were inside your mother‘s womb, dreaming?
Where do our dreams originate?
My current dream started 50 years ago in Bavaria, when my mother, at age 16, had her very first sexual encounter. They used protection. But apparently, I didn‘t care about protection, or latex barriers or age. I emerged from this particular dream that began to manifest on the 1.May 1971.
The seeds of this life are written in the stars the moment we are born. The stars and constellations that – if we were able to read them – tell the story of our mind, our human condition, the sleeping consciousness that will eventually unfold into a story, a reality, another dream. The night sky is what our unconscious mind looks like, deep inside. It reflects our Karma, our story, the personal drama – or comedy, or tragedy – of our life, the divine play, the Lila.
In this divine play, I was born under the protection of a waxing cancer moon.
The moon, in Jyotish (the Vedic science of light) stands for the mind. The vast, boundless space where our thoughts, emotions, ideas, evaluations, judgements and reactions come from. The space that contains our unconscious conditioning, our thought patterns, our believes. And when it is full, it is illuminated, full of light, brightness, beauty.
There are many stories about Chandra, the moon.
Chandra, the beautiful prince of the gods, who is full of desire for experience, desire to unite with life, with nature. So full in fact, that he ended up with 27 wives – the 27 Nakshatras, or lunar constellations.
But among these 27, there was only one who was his true love: Rohini, a constellation in Taurus. He spent all of his time with her, until the others grew jealous and restless, feeling neglected by Chandra. They complained to Daksha, their father about this and Daksha cursed Chandra to fade and loose his beauty. So, Chandra waned and grew thinner and darker every day. When he had almost disappeared, he called on Shiva for help. Shiva – unable to lift the curse fully – could only limit the damage. Thanks to him, Chandra did not fade away completely. He only wanes for half of his cycle and returns to his full splendour for the other half. And now he visits everyone of his wives in equal measures, spending a day with each of them during his journey across the sky. But Rohini remains his favourite, which is why the moon is exalted and at it‘s strongest when he is in Taurus.
The moon – the mind – the beautiful container of our dreams, our desires, our stories. It illuminates the night, the unconscious mind, the darkness of our being and enables us to see, to feel, to experience.
I‘m leaving Ireland behind and the life I‘ve made here for the past 23 years with all of it’s memories. And there are so many. My first encounters with the wonderful (perceived) weirdness of the Irish as I watched them hang up their laundry outside in the drizzling rain. Why? Because why not. It will stop raining eventually. And they are right. It will always stop raining eventually. The sun will always shine again. And wet clothes will eventually be dry. So let‘s just hang them up whenever it suits us, whenever we have time, regardless of the weather. And when we are done, let‘s go in and have a cup of tea.
A full moon over the ocean – a significant journey through the night.
A journey into the future, back to where my own dream began, in my mother‘s womb, 50 years ago, in Bavaria. Back to an equally (perceived) weird culture, a town (my home town of Dorfen) who has always been peaceful and sleepy and mostly concerned with life‘s comfort and whose only war in history was about the price increase of beer. A town who still, since centuries, celebrate the coming of spring by burning a gigantic straw doll on the market square, the whole population dressed in snowy white gowns to chase away winter.
Maybe next year I‘ll be among them.
I‘m on a journey back to my roots, blessed by the moon, a fully illuminated mind, conscious and aware, at least to a greater extend than when I first left. The whole purpose of any journey – to increase awareness, gather experiential knowledge, in a non-linear way, the spiral way of life. Being aware of the importance of stories, images, symbols and metaphor – the only language our soul really speaks.
The constellations in the night sky, the symbolism of a journey across the ocean, the stories of our lives can tell us more than words and logic alone.
So these are the treasures I‘ll be bringing back home. But as always, where one story ends, another is only beginning. A new dream, blessed by the moon.