Fuerteventura, May 24, 2014
After what seems like endless amounts of airplane rides, take off, after landing, after take off, and getting lost in the haze of security lines and jet lag, I arrive on Fuerteventura to clear, open skies, an undulating landscape of dry and shapely mountains, and stillness.
I am dropped at the small rental of a friend of a friend. It is made of stone and plaster, powered by solar and windmill. I am either lucky or cursed that almost everywhere I go, I feel I have come home. How many homes can a person have? I’m still counting.
Settling into Fuerteventura, I am settling in to space - the vast terrain and the endless sky speak with the space inside me. Blessed in the middle of nowhere, with no car, telephone or wifi, I tackle the initially daunting task of just being here, now. Nothing to do, and no one to engage except myself and this vast new home.
The land here has a powerful resonance. There is a rolling softness to it, and a heightened intelligence — at least these are my visceral perceptions.
I walk along the gravel road towards a nearby set of twin volcanos. Sitting on a short stone wall, it feels good to be still with these two giant presences. After a while, it feels as if I am breathing with them. It feels as if they are gazing back at me. It feels as if we are remembering each other. I am once again in awe of this sacred space of Life meeting Life, and so grateful for the blood of my ancestors that guides me to recognize the Life in all things.
The thought floats through my brain that it is important to remember, on a visceral level, our origins. At the same time, the already present wind picks up to mini tornado for a few seconds....my thought confirmed by the wind....perhaps.
I am aware that I can’t try to remember, can’t think my way home, can’t create scenarios of my origins and then make the logical choice. I start at the place of truth: that I don’t know, that maybe no one knows, and that I am open to the discovery.
Ancient Indigenous wisdom, including Kahuna Sciences, recognize the intelligence and interconnectedness of the whole. We are guided to come back into contact with parts of ourselves that have been banished as less-than or unimportant: sensations, emotions, hopes, dreams, impressions. In these less defined aspects of ourselves are shades of our expanded identity, waiting to be experienced. I have had the honorable opportunity to feel the ever expanding edges of these often overlooked doorways and dive below, deeper and deeper, uncovering new dimensions of my Self, new opportunities for growth, awarenesses that expand in my daily life without effort.
To the uninitiated, this may sound like nonsense. However, there is a reason that legends of myth and magic are found in every indigenous culture. It is because vast possibilities exist, far beyond our perceptions. These new vistas make sense in the context of the awakening whole, but from a modern ‘Western-Mind’ perspective, they seem ‘magical’ or impossible.
If we were to present cell phones to our ancestors of only 100 years ago, this too would seem like some kind of impossible phenomenon. Ancient Wisdom guides us to pay attention to the matrix of our being, the background in which our beliefs are set. The beginnings of these can be found in the rhythms, sensations, feelings and shapes inside the body which we generally take for granted, or ignore. If we can open to this different, and even opposite perspective, we are ushered into a world beyond our current perception, which is informing how we perceive on every level. Here is where subconscious and unconscious beliefs can rapidly change and resonate into daily life.
For me, this is the path guiding me to my Original Self. As my teacher has said, ‘it is a path beyond time.’
On this small stone wall on the edge of the Atlantic, I am struck once again by the profundity of this Ancient Magic which is ‘closer than breath’ in all of us. And I am grateful for this land which has welcomed me home.