withinUverse

Alright… what a week… hehe… where to even begin… well let’s just say I think I have a better idea of where I am right now… at this moment. I think I’m rushing into the romantic life… I don’t think that’s where we are right now. And I’m interested in building a relationship, but more on the friendship and professional side of things. It’s funny because I mentioned this to him and he said that the romantic and vulnerable side is something that comes easy for him.. but I don’t feel romance coming from him. I’m not even sure if I see the vulnerability either. I see the honesty and I see him being friendly and we even had a hot make out sessions… however, the “romance” isn’t what I feel right now… I feel distance. I mean I thought I was going to have to seduce him because he’s friendly with everyone and so I thought he was just being friendly with me and was surprised when he started the make out session with me. I mean I had a lot of fun and it was very exciting… but ultimately I think he’s keeping me a secret… which makes sense since we’re new to one another… but how romantic and vulnerable is a secret… hehe… so what was I learning this week? I saw that it’s still a challenge for me to balance work and rest… I found myself alone at the farmhouse for a few days and I had a project that I could work on… and I got hooked into it. There are six rooms here at the farmhouse for the staff and I patched holes and repainted the rooms. I am also challenged when I’m around so much activity. When there are many people who are at the house… it’s hard for my mind to stay focused. I find when I go to the library which is a separate home on the property I can take a bath and have silence…. It feels really good to have stillness and I wanted to take advantage of that much more than I did. I got fixated into the project… and I do this at times especially when I’m working on artwork. I get so deep into the project that I don’t eat or sleep… and I got into that zone… I wanted to finish the rooms and stayed longer to do this… also to have more time to spend with him since he was traveling quite a bit. We actually spoke about things we get fixated on and I mentioned this… and then I saw myself doing it. And there was a day that I didn’t eat when I was alone… and I kept waking up early to continue the project.. I’d do the other projects with the group and in the afternoon… but I was doing quite a bit and I just like to get things done and once I start a project I’d like to finish it. So… I finally asked to take a half day off to rest a bit and also I knew I wasn’t taking care of my hygiene and so I wanted to pamper myself… and we had a slow start to the day… and then we ended up hanging out by going shopping and the young staff member is learning how to drive so we let her practice on the country roads… it was fun… but also I was tired and wanted to get a few projects that I wanted to complete and then again… pamper and rest… however, by being part of the community I was able to eventually but not in the pace I would have chosen if I was by myself. I’d like to figure out how to be in this type of space but also being in a more free form of movement of activity… there are some schedules that seems to get me to pressure myself instead of just going with the flow. I understand that this is something I’m working on but I”m wondering how much I’m going to bend? I also noticed that the guests that were visiting seemed to draw my attention far more than anticipated. I was very interesting… I’m very into hospitality… world class hospitality… and this isn’t a strong concern for this hostel it seems… it’s almost as if this community doesn’t engage much with guests. They will have dinner with them and have gratitude circle with them before dinner… and if they are around for our morning head and heart then the guests can participate… which are great moments to introduce guests to the community life style. But I hear comments about not really our responsibility to entertain the guests… which again at the time I appreciated however… the guests were really interesting and I couldn’t stop myself from hanging out with them and wanting to know more… and three of the six guests I ended up exchange contact information. And I can see myself hanging out with them more than the people at the hostel… interesting… it seems like the guests were far more interested in getting to know who I am as well… it felt good… and even felt like I was finding more community with the guests than with the hostel family… I mean I’m gaining community in both areas really… but I am finding myself getting into the nurturing mode with the hostel community… I want to clean and organize and work a lot… there’s a lot of projects going on and the winter it closes… so I wanted to make things progress at an efficient rate. Most of the staff is warn out at the end of the season so I can come in with fresh energy to help in this area… and I see the appreciation… but there seems to be a little space between us. We’re getting closer but it still feels like there’s a gap… and I wasn’t feeling like that with the guests. The first guest that really caught my eye was a woman around my age who recently became homeless by leaving her boyfriend. I didn’t ask her permission to talk about all the things.. but let’s just say in the first half hour she mentioned “llamas”, “peacocks”, and “ayahuasca” without me telling anything about myself…. Hehe… I was like what the hell… ok… well let’s get to know her. And she’s an amazing woman and I do want to get to know her more… but she deeply needed to rest and ground herself. And so she wanted to contribute but she paid to be a guest so I told her to take this time to relax and rest.. and ground… and she did and she felt so much better when she left. We went roller skating together and it was fun… I hadn’t skated for years now and it was rough start… but it was fun to see her in her element. Next time I hang out with her I’ll see if I can say more about our conversations… But I had a feeling and so did she that we were attracted to meet one another here and now… and she’s been doing her spiritual work… of course there’s areas she’s not ready to address… but she’ll get there. There’s another couple who is here for their anniversary… and I really clicked with them. I didn’t get their permission either but I just want to mention that I ended up teaching them how to dance with each other and they absolutely loved it.. and so did I… they did really great and the woman said she had two left feet and admitted it was all in her head… and she did wonderfully.. he was really good from the start… they’re great! They hold festivals in their front yard in an area in Indy which is known for live music and local artists… so we spoke a lot about this. I told them that I’d love to help them find sponsors for their event in June… and supposed to start asking businesses in January when they get their money for the year and they can allocated it for donations… and I said I’d love to learn how to do this… and they’re just learning as well… so they said yes they’d love that. They also said they’d love for me to be the mc for the festival… I said we’ll see… I’m good at performing and entertaining… I’m not afraid to speak to big crowds… but I”m really good at the back of the house type of things… and that’s what I’d like to learn too. I actually performed a song I was working on… I recently said that I want my mindset to change to being a musician instead of wanting to learn music more… there are some breakthrough moments with music and instruments for me… and so I’m just going to keep attracting more of these moments… It was fun to play and sing for them… But yeah… they’ll be leaving tomorrow and so will I… so I’m looking forward to seeing them before we all head out. Such a sweet couple! Alright who am I kidding… I want to get to my reaction to how I was responding to my potential romantic interest… I did get his permission to speak about what has gone down with us as long as I don’t link him… so where do I begin? So I already said that I told him that I’d like to have conversations with him to get to know him more… and we do but not really… in this environment… it doesn’t allow privacy and I”m not sure he wants to have privacy with me right now anyway. We did have one night of privacy without staff members which is why we had our sexual play encounter.. but again I didn’t know it was going to happen. He is very affectionate with all the people. So there wasn’t any indication that his affection towards me was any different than the affection he shares with someone else. Is this what he considers romantic? I feel like it’s just his nature… I didn’t see it as romantic… when I think of romance that it’s something that seems to be a bit extra than normal conduct. Only when we were by ourselves did there become something extra… and I’m not sure if that was romantic either. It was sexy, but not romantic… I mean in a way it had a romantic flare to it… because he was extremely patient and wasn’t rushing any of our time together… but his confidence was sexy and I know I loved what was going on… but I was a bit surprised and I did feel like I was holding back a little… I’m not sure if it’s because it’s just such a new thing.. or if it’s because we really haven’t had much time together to get to know one another still.. and so there’s a connection.. but not the type of connection I want to be romantic. But again I was loving what he was doing and it was sexy… and of course I have these feelings for him and so I didn’t want to stop what we were doing and wanted to see where it was going to lead. Most of the time I wasn’t thinking of the destination which was good… but I did find myself starting to think about it the closer we got to possible intercourse… again in my head I was wondering if I was going to go for the penetration or not… well… long story short… I did allow him to penetrate me…and even then I didn’t know that’s where it was going because the entire time we were playing and so I thought it was just going to continue… hehe… but all of a sudden we were there and I enjoyed it and I don’t feel bad about it.. but I started to ask if this is really what I wanted to do at the moment? There was a moment that I thought I was just going to break it off with him because he’s not really ready to take anything serious with me… and I asked him to pound my pussy so hard that it’s raw so she can get out some wild expression and be satisfied for awhile because who knows when I’ll have sex again… hehe… I told him that I found some scarves for props and let’s just see where it goes and we can focus on just being friends and business team… and he didn’t want to at the hostel and asked me to come to his house instead after the weekend. I am not available… I’ve been gone for a week and I want to get back to my cat and also find some rest that I haven’t been able to find successfully here at the hostel. But again… that’s the only time he invited me to his home… if we are going to be engaging in sexual play… it’s not like he’s asked me on a date… yeah… we aren’t dating right now… hehe… and so yes I”m rushing all of this. And it doesn’t seem like I’m putting him in a good light… but he’s very sweet and charismatic and an all-around great guy… but I’m just wondering why I was getting all these messages about him… hehe… what really is there about him that is making me want to explore him more? Right now I feel like his heart is unavailable… and my heart wants to explore this… but the make out session we didn’t even stay in the same bed… and I hear his voice in the morning in my dreams… I guess that’s a way to say it… I wasn’t really dreaming about him.. I just heard his voice come out and it sounded like, “slow down sib”… and I was like sib? Maybe it was sis? Anyway… it was him saying slow down… or it was me saying it regardless.. it was saying I was rushing things.. and it was too late to slow down on having sex with him. But yes… right now I want to slow down and even almost halt with going forward romantically. I thought originally that I was going to be coming down the Friday after Thanksgiving… but I think I’m going to wait until the following weekend after the hostel is closed. The current manager is having a dinner party and he wants to play the Chicken game which is the sexual group play. I want to bring my girl friend down to check out the hostel and she’s interested in playing this game.. so maybe I’ll just come for that event instead of spending an entire week here again. Plus I’m not sure who is all going to be involved.. but yeah… I want to play around and get attention that isn’t so secretive… and I’m not ready to have sex again and so I just want to have sexual play with people who just want to have fun with everyone. So that sounds more of where I am right now. I know that’s two weeks away but at this moment that’s what I”m tentatively planning for. I’ve got a diversity drum circle event tomorrow that I’m excited about. There’s several cultures who will be demonstrating their dance, drumming, outfits, and instruments… and I’ve done this a few times now and I enjoy myself fully when I’m there… so I’m looking forward to participating and hoping to get a lot of video footage… they’re going to want me to participate and I’m hoping I can find a balance to do both. There are going to be drummers there that I want to speak with… I’m hoping to join drum circles again. The drum troupe I was playing with the last time I was here is having practice on Tuesday next week and so I’ll go and see them too which I’m looking forward to playing with them and visiting with them again… great people! I’m also wanting to figure out when I’m going to visit the guy who is an app builder who I want to ask questions about the difference between the capabilities of a website to an app… and he’s wanting to have a conversation to see if he can help. But there is a conversation I ended up having with the romantic interest that I want to mention real quick… I’ve been trying to tell him that I’ve crossed over into the Awakening… he isn’t understanding what I’m saying and I”m trying to make it plain as day… and I think I finally got through to him but of course he doesn’t believe me. Which again is understandable… but it was a good conversation and I said i’t’s not fair that I want to be so expressive and upfront with him… when normally I would take my time and see where he’s at before blabbing everything out. But I also was thinking about how someone would feel when hearing this… well I can understand that holy shit this chick is crazy… but what if they actually question… what if she’s telling the truth? What would go through their minds if they ask that question… should that make a difference? Ideally I’d think it shouldn’t however I feel like there is a quite a bit of difference though. I’m not sure what all I can express at this time… because I have gotten messages to not express my dreams at this time… and to hold off and so I’m guessing that’s with this forum and to anyone at this time… I just give bits and pieces and not the entire scope. lol… not that I can get to the entire scope… I thought of a way to explain it but I think it’s to drastic for most to handle and I’d just have negative energy against my visions that I should just keep to myself and express things that people can find digestible. But when it comes to a partner I want to have… what would it be like for them? What was I thinking when I was telling him this and thoughts afterwards? I was telling him there’s going to be huge changes.. and I have a feeling that monetary growth is going to be a part of this.. and I wonder why do I want a partner who would want to be engaged with me romantically before this happens? Why do I want to make sure that the monetary concerns isn’t a part of the relationship that is such a factor to make or break us… In my mind… if we don’t connect or start to connect deeply romantically before than there’s something in my mind that will question the intentions behind motivations. I mean… messages are changing and more strong lately… but it always seems this way too… but it does seem to be noticeable changing and deepening… and I’m almost to the point of allowing my higher self checkmating me. No one will get this reference unless you’ve been reading from the beginning… but I know that eventually I want my higher self to check mate me… and instead of my higher self just doing it immediately… it slowly allows me to set myself up to be in the position of… yes I’m ready for transformation… I”m ready to receive and I’m ready to fly. It’s getting late and I’m trying to bullet my thoughts so I can give a bit of context of what went down… and so I do want to mention that I was helping store and inventory of the event equipment here.. and it looks like that have enough for around 140 people… he said that they had a 200 guest wedding there and so I was thinking about my 25 year reunion this year… and I think it would be a fun idea to have an adult summer camp for the reunion. I just started thinking about this maybe with the past 30 hours.. but I was thinking that I could probably talk to my high school and see what I can do to rent a few buses for the event. Our hometown is three hours away and I think it would be cool to get people back into the vibe of school days by taking a bus down to the hostel… even though I don’t drink… I was thinking of having a party bus feel but not crazy partying because i don’t really want to encourage sloppy drunkenness… I’m going to see how to legally do this.. but my bus driver actually had a son who graduated with me… and I think I’d talk to her and see if she has someone else she would refer to hire as the bus drivers for the event and invite them to join in on the festivities… I loved her and she’d have a blast. I’m not sure if I’m going to allow a family event or adults only… I might even have one day for family and one for adults? I’m not sure.. but there are quite a bit of activities around this hostel and I think it would be a blast dropping of a bus of adults to different places and people could possibly have one drink an hour type of thing… again they can drink but not excessively and also say that we will ask them to leave the event if it gets out of hand. I’m going to encourage not to bring your own alcohol.. but I’d like to pay for everything.. we’ll see if that’s what happens but I would love for everyone to come… they helped shaped our character and I appreciate all of them and they all played a role…and I’d love to celebrate and party with them. I gave them options of where to go last time for our 15 year, but this time I’m just going to tell him that we’re going to go here… and then there are choices of what activities they want to participate in… it’s fun here at the hostel.. but yeah there’s diverse activities around as well. I thought maybe I’d have a bus that would only stay one night in case people cannot stay the entire time… but I’d love to have the entire weekend with everyone and limit the vehicles that are on property… I want it to be whatever happens will stay there… and really see if we can relax and enjoy everyone’s company…. I’m really getting excited to plan this event out for everyone in our class. I think the summer would be the best time to take advantage of the clay lagoon which is clothing optional… and the buses should be more available since it’s not during school sessions. So anyway I just wanted to mention this so I don’t forget and be able to build on this… I’m wanting to send out a message soon to the class to give them a heads up that the plans are starting… and give them some dates to choose from so people have what six months to plan in advance and able to get time off and/or watch the kids. But yes… I’m exhausted and cannot wait to melt when I get back home with Elvis… so I’m going to wrap this up… until next time… enjoy and have a great night… by the way I’m surprised I didn’t go into detail about the sex play…hehe… it was very fun… but I guess it’s something I don’t want to share… hmmm

Interesting… for the last two mornings I’ve been waking up with my shirt around my wrists… I’m at the hostel and we’ve been making fires for our heat… in the night I’m getting hot so I start to strip but it seems like when I take off my shirt I’m not taking it completely off… I’ve been keeping it around my wrists and I’m just falling asleep before I take remove it. And I’m waking up thinking about my romantic interest… it’s almost as if I’m thinking about how much I trust or want to work to trust him completely. I guess I was thinking about the situation I was in when I was younger and I had an older cousin who was treating me in appropriately… but the main issue was feeling like I had no control.. I had no control but it was a situation that the person I was encountering was not a safe space and wasn’t allowing me to express myself openly… he was taking away my consent. And maybe in my head I have something inside that wants to give consent even though there’s an impression of loss of control. I’m just wondering if this is something I’d be interesting in trying it out. I’m not sure if he’s interested in rope play… but maybe because I was speaking with a couple who do enjoy it and I also so photography of this kind of play… maybe it’s triggering a desire for me. I was thinking about this… because I don’t think it’s very attractive in the appearance of someone who is tied up… that doesn’t really excited me sexually… but as I think about this… what I think is sexy is the trust that goes into allowing this… I could see myself doing this as a way to demonstrate the trust I have in my partner. It’s like whatever you do… I trust you. And I’m not certain why ropes or getting tied up is a part of my psyche… but it’s something I’m waking up to. So I just wanted to address it and think about it a bit more. Again… the look of someone who is tied up doesn’t really look aesthetically pleasing to me… and I even thought that if I was to be tied up… I’m not sure if I’d like to use a rope… I see aerial acrobats with silks and that’s beautiful for me… so yes I’d like to get tied up but probably with items that are aesthetically beautiful and also tacitly comfortable or soothing on my skin. I’ve done a little tying in the bedroom… but not much… but I use like silky ties… it feels good on the skin.. there was a partner that would like me to tie him up… so yeah he trusted me and I don’t remember if I enjoyed tying him up really… I just remember that he enjoyed it and I wanted to do things he wanted to try in the bedroom… I remember we tied multiple ties together and he asked if I could do a little asphyxiation to him… So what we ended up doing was tying a tie around his neck… we looped the ties over the clothes rack bar and I pulled down slightly on the ties to get it to tighten around his neck and again get that sensation he was looking for… and I went down on him while i was doing this. I remember the action of this but again I don’t really remember if I enjoyed it, but he enjoyed this. So yeah… I guess there seems to be a desire to try this out but I’m not sure to what extent. What I was thinking this morning is there’s a combination inside me that is wanting to reach a state of complete surrender and trust and so my psyche is suggesting to use rope or being tied up… but with someone who I trust and has created a safe space for me… I don’t think this is the only way but it might be more of an extreme way for me to be ok with losing control within a safe space. Which is what I continue to work on with the Universe… and maybe I can do this with my romantic partner to allow full surrender… again this might be all symbolic which will just be fine with me… but also it might be something I want to work towards. There is something else that I was thinking which again might be triggering when I saw photos of people suspended in the air all tied up. Again… looking at this didn’t really get me excited or aroused… however, sensory deprivation is coming up to mind… I’ve been interested in caving because I’ve heard about opportunities to experience sensory deprivation. When I was in the space it was obvious to lose my visual senses… and I ended up seeing light and at times no blackness at all… but I could still hear all the sounds of the water moving… a few squeaks from the bat near by… I also could feel my weight sitting or lying on the ground… so it wasn’t total sensory deprivation.. however I thought if I was floating in water inside a cave would help this sensation. Similar to a float tank… but I guess I have a feeling that this suspension could help with sensory deprivation of weight… along with blindfolds and earplugs… so yes trying ways to experience total sensory deprivation sounds so enticing. Something is calling for me to experience this. And I’m wondering how this will come through.. I saw these pictures of women mostly tied up and suspended… but I mean I also think about learning about vertical climbing of ropes and that was keeping me suspended… but i do remember I felt the weight around my harness that was holding my body up. But I’ve also known in the past that there are some sex swings I saw… Never used but thought it would be something I’d enjoy… being weightless and easy for my partner to hold me up… actually they wouldn’t have to hold me up but we could do positions that might not be doable without a swing.. I don’t know it’s something that I woke up thinking about so I thought I’d start with this before recalling what’s been going on these past few days since arriving to the hostel. So… Thursday I left around 6:15 ish… to get to the hostel… I was trying to get there early so I could actually help with the projects they’re doing and also get as much time as I could to be with my romantic interest before he left. He told me he was going to be gone for the weekend but would be able to see me Thursday and most likely Monday night or Tuesday when he gets back. I planned on staying until Tuesday so we’ll see how things play out. But everyone was surprised I made it for the head and heart meeting. The founder wasn’t there in person he was driving and was on a video chat while we were talking about the morning expression of how our head and heart is feeling… I was expressing my head is running thoughts of a project that I’ve been thinking about… I’ve started reaching out to people who might be able to direct me or even join me to get this project going… I’m curious if this is the right time… I didn’t go into detail of the project but this community network website and app is what I was thinking about. And I said that my heart is grateful that I’m starting to listen without always questioning every step. And I said for my personal ambitions I wanted to play the piano and also wanted to dance. I said I’d love to teach anyone who might want to learn partner dancing and I was implying the manager and the girl staff member who are the staff at this time… The founder was going to be leaving so I knew he wouldn’t be joining us… but if any or both would be interested I’d love to share that with them… but if not… I just want to dance sometime today. The founder has a question of the day at the end of the meeting and he asked if there is something that’s going on in our lives that no body here would know about. And the class reunion popped into my mind… I said I just realized a few nights ago that it’s going to be 2025 and it will be our 25 year high school reunion… I had wanted to do a reunion for this and I had forgotten about it… and since I was class president I want to start making plans to host a wonderful reunion. He asked me if I knew what I was going to do… I said I hadn’t yet… but now I’m going to be looking for ideas… last time I gave them two options and they chose the bar and drinking one.. and so this time I’m not certain I’ll give any options and just choose the event I want to host and hope they enjoy themselves. He asked… are you going to give them all psychedelics? I said I’m very picky with whom I share ceremony with… so I wouldn’t be considering it… and he said you could be giving them the psychedelics but don’t have to participate with them…and then I said I’m not a distributor either… I’m out a dealer… and he said he was just joking… and I said I realize that you’re just joking… but ceremony isn’t something I wouldn’t like to relate it to a joke, because it’s not a joke and it’s transformative. This reminds me of a brief occasion that he called Aya a drug. I didn’t address it but it did give me a hint that maybe he’s uncomfortable with “drugs”… which isn’t what I wold call Aya or many psychedelics… but I hope we get time to talk about it. The thing he said that we wouldn’t know about him is that he’s been telling everyone he’s taking a week off once the hostel is closed… but he’s been thinking about it and is going to take an entire month off… and the Pacific Northwest seems to be calling to him. And I was happy to hear he’s going to take time for himself… said good for you… he deserves to self care and relax… I mean he has three months off… take as long as he needs without putting a timeline on it. As much as I’d like to spend time with him on his break… i also know that our time will come when it comes and if he needs solitude to get to where he needs to open up to us more…then do what you gotta do babe. that’s funny actually I almost called him a pet name while we were working… I caught myself but i did think that was unusually and a little startling that I was wanting to call him a pet name and we’ve barely spent time together and yes we haven’t been talking about pet names… he just happened to be talking to me from another room and I was telling him ok I’ll do it… but was about to call him I can’t remember if it was babe, baby, honey… something of this nature but I stopped myself before it came out. So yes… we had a break after the meeting to eat breakfast and stuff before we actually go as a group to work on the project. So he was able to join us at this time and we were going to the manager’s house to continue remodeling. I’ve learned that I need time in a space to get a feel for what the project is and what’s the expectation of quality… so I’ve been here a few times now and I can feel myself more comfortable in the space…and we actually spent most of the day here. The founder and I seemed to be more willing to do this type of work… we did it a bit longer than the other two. But we all worked on the house and it continues to feel and look better each time I visit. The founder is all work when he gets in there and I am too… we find a few moments to have some privacy and I’m trying to see how I responde to him.. but there is a bit of hesitancy and awkwardness but I was able to figure out… and I told him later when we were together… I’m extremely attracted to him; however, I don’t really know him.. so my mind needs to understand the attraction… the more I have conversations with him and the more I’m just around him.. the more I understand and enjoy myself and able to show my affection more. I’m definitely needing privacy to show affection but I feel like it’s getting better. The girl staff member saw me hugging him from behind while he was sitting and she came in to let us know something… and I stood up… not abruptly but I stood up and she said that I don’t need to stop… and I said thank you I understand but I enjoy privacy right now to show my affection. Again… I’m just observing how I am right now and I find it interesting. Let’s see… I was hanging curtains which looker really nice with beads and draping going on… and then I was mixing old paints that didn’t have much left to make it’s only color to use for the laundry room. I didn’t paint that day just mixed the paint to get it ready. Mostly we were working on electrical projects… removing the old fixtures and placing new ones up. He noticed how much I enjoy myself and told him a little more about me studying interior design, architecture, and art in college… i haven’t had too many opportunities to actually build but I found a master carpenter who has let me him in projects… an old school mountain builder… I asked how he got into remodeling and it started when he bought an old Lutheran church in Indy and remodeled it so it was an event for weddings and specifically for his wedding photography business he was in. He said he didn’t have money to hire people to remodel… so he did it himself and he enjoyed it. He has this hostel and so he’s been building here and continues to learn more… I’ve done a little electrical but he showed me how to do the things he needed.. and yes I do enjoy how thorough he is in his explanation but he started to get the idea that he didn’t have to go through all the details he’s used to explaining to his volunteer and said I’m sure you actually understand..and so it was nice to see us working as a team..and I do enjoy being around him. I think I noticed that he saw me a bit hesitant with him, but when I was talking to the girl staff that it seemed like we were more friendly with one another.. which makes sense to me… because I’ve been spending more time with her while I’m here then getting the chance to spend with my romantic interest. This is why I wanted to come on a weekend where there wasn’t an event hoping there would be more opportunity to share together. But again I can’t explain how intuitive he is.. so he just started to ask me more questions and establishing a rapport and I wasn’t so hesitant and however much I want to touch and be physically attentive towards him… I also feel myself holding back because he’s still processing his separation…and so there’s a part of me saying that’s it’s not time to truly surrender to him… wait but not being cold about it… being warm but also communicating that we haven’t actually officially going on in with each other. Without going into great detail of the entire day… we worked until the evening and headed back to the farmhouse. I was surprised he had stayed this long… I thought he would be leaving sooner and he thought he was too… but he’s enjoying his time and felt like he wanted to continue enjoying it. So it was the three of us who were at the farmhouse this evening.. the manager lives at the manager’s house so he didn’t join us after we shared the gratitude circle.. he wasn’t feeling social. the founder said he’s willing to stick around and doing something with us.. but it seemed like people were leaving and girl staff was going to sleep but when he said he’d stick around a little longer she was interested in hanging out. She’s 19 and she was homeless before getting here. Her grandmother told her about this hostel through word of mouth… and she applied and was doing interviews with the founder… and he was close to her location and asked if she’s wanting to join he’d love to have her… he’s driving by Wisconsin so he’ll pick her up and take her to the hostel if she’s ready. And so they came back together. She’s going to do her three months here and I can see how amazing he’s been in her life. He’s a safe space and she was looking for that and wasn’t getting much support from her family she said… so… I was trying to allow space for them… Again I understand how magnetizing he is and how people want his attention.. he’s been trying to line up work opportunities for her so she can get to her next volunteer job in Asheville. He was able to find people who need things done around and are willing to pay her for her help… some donated money… anyway he got off the phone with one of them and so I started cooking my dinner and just taking me time in doing it.. it was in a different room and so they could talk with one another without me hovering over them… plus I was tying not to listen in even though I did hear a little bit…they’re very playful together.. such a sibling vibe or even parental but very respectful and fun. I finally joined them so I can eat at the table. He bought her a used vehicle so she can drive to Asheville and is giving her time to pay him back.. but she loves the car and wants to decorate it.. I have pillows I’m going to be giving her and hoping to help decorate however she seems to do most of the work. She asked me what i wanted to do… and I said I’d love to dance… that’s one of my personal ambitions today… and I still want to… she said she doesn’t have the energy to dance and I said it doesn’t have to be an energetic dance.. and maybe the founder will join us since he’s here… you guys can partner up and I can teach. So we were talking a little bit and he said he wasn’t feeling like dancing either… and he started to go into more detail and I think we ended up alone while he was expressing this. He said that last two months he’s been partner dancing… it was like a last attempt for his exe to reestablish our connection and he wasn’t finding it very fun. He said he’s tried to partner dance a few times now and each time he wants to be hopeful that he’ll enjoy himself but gets let down… he said he wants to either fully enjoy the music and/or fully enjoy his partner… and he doesn’t experience this with dance lessons in person or online. I was able to explain to him how passionate I am about dancing and how I was a ballroom instructor… he wanted to know the dish and just letting him know how much I enjoyed helping gain confidence with singles and couples… letting couples know whether they’re still wanting to make themselves work as a team or not…just a lot… I’m very passionate about dance and if anyone has read any of my stuff I go into details and rambles about how much I love dancing…and he noticed my passion it’s hard to miss when I get a chance to talk about it. We were talking about the desire and time to actually dance leads to confident good dancers… anyway… I ended up telling him that I’ve been wanting to come up with a new way to teach dance that doesn’t have patterns. I realize patterns are an easy way to build confidence if confidence is what people are looking for.. but I want to teach more intuitively. He said continue…and I said well that’s about as fas as I’ve gotten… I haven’t had a partner to practice this idea on… it’s just a thought at this time. I was looking in his eyes and said I would love to dance with you.. no expectations… we don’t have to have music I’ll just listen to you and your body. He said this evening would not be the time he would like to dance with me… but he will one day. Actually this morning I got a message from him saying that he will dance with me… made me feel good when i woke up…and I responded i will love that… whenever he is ready… and whenever he wants to really surrender to our romantic partnering exploration… we’re both hesitant but open… he was driving to New York and it was late but he reassured me that he’ll drive until he can’t and he’ll pull over and rest…he has a bed setup in the back of his car because he’s use to traveling… and it's not a problem to rest when he needs to… I do notice myself in nurture mode when I’m with him… I’m keeping myself in check though because I don’t want it to feel I like mothering.. because I trust him… I just want to make sure he’s not too careless with endangering himself… like I have any room to talk because I’m pretty confident and many say careless… but I just trust myself in many ways and I can see this in him too. I just feel like I want to promote self care as much as possible to him. And it does seem like he takes time for himself… but I also feel like there’s just so many thoughts and projects on his mind… I really wonder how much time is in silence and not doing anything? I know the more I’m around him th more I’ll get a better picture of how I can assist…. I know he enjoys me around as well… my energy is inviting and comforting when energies are aligned…. Why is this happening at the moment? It’s because we’ve both been doing the work… and our energies recognize this and wants us to share happiness and joy with one another… the Universe will get the opportunity to experience love and life through us and I’m looking forward to see what it is like as well. After he left for New York.. it was me and the girl staff left alone. We were hanging out and I told her I’d still love to dance… if she wanted to dance with me… she didn’t want it to be energetic and I said I’ll keep it slow… and she said she’d give it a try. We were building a fire together and I was setting up the mood with slow blues music.. and turning off most of the lights and dimming lights… she knew of lights hanging that reacted to sound and would change colors… so yeah it was really nice and we started dancing. She hasn’t had much experience with partner dancing… however, she was amazing at it… she was following and not try to lead… only a few moments did she and she caught herself… I told her if there’s two people trying to lead it becomes a wrestling match… but what i didn’t say… is when I feel her lead… then I’ll let her… no intentional wrestling when I share dance. But it was quite a magical moment for the both of us. Again she’s 19 and we’ve been able to get to understand a little more about ourselves. The last time i was here there were three of us girl staff and she said that she thinks she’s a lesbian. she’s not sure because she got hurt real heavy with her boyfriend so she might just be traumatized right now… but she feels more comfortable and safe with women. And so I also wanted to show her I’m a safe space as well. She actually has two energies… both masculine and feminine who are a safe space for her… and care about her… she’s got trust issues too and letting her guard down is something she’s working on like all of us… and it’s nice to see how well we moved and communicated with the music. She said she really enjoyed herself and was grateful we danced… I reciprocated the same feelings I’m just more verbally expressive about it. I encouraged her to continue learning and practicing… because she’s got it going on…hehe… she did so well intuitively that I did move to a few different patterns and she picked everything up so well.. but we were both getting tired.. I headed upstairs for the first time to sleep in a room in the farmhouse instead of sleeping in the van. I did pick up a ukelele however to just tune it and learn a few notes… I downloaded an app for free for 7 days…and I ended up playing for at least an hour… it was so fun and easy compared to a guitar… just the size of it is so much easier to handle.. but also the strings seem easier to press down as well. I love all the instruments here.. I love having access! Ok… I feel like I’m getting sleepy again… I went to bed early around 9:30 … slept six hours… but I have time to take another rest for a few hours before waking up waking up for the day… ok… until next time… enjoy

Ok… so I just got off a video chat with a friend I met in a karaoke bar in Utah… It was funny because our group entered the bar and was showing our IDs and he was on stage singing “Creep” by Radiohead… he was doing a fabulous job and I thought right away if I do a duet tonight i’m going to ask if he’ll join me. And that’s exactly what I did… I approached him and his friend and we all went to the patio so I could smoke while we got to know one another. I was asking him if he knew the song “Crusin’ Together” by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow… holy crap.. I was going to help my dad outside real quick and I was so excited I jumped to type… hehe… I’ll be back.. Alright… I’m back… and I’m so excited to write about my ideas but also there’s a part of me that’s wondering how much should I be sharing… I’m trying to gather a team to start working on the building website sites and application and cyber security side of things… I’m just wondering if someone has the means if they’d want to go ahead and do it before we get the chance? I mean I was looking at some of these places that deal with volunteers and they aren’t going to approach it the way I’d like to approach it… so even if I tell everyone my ideas… it’s not like I would want to compete with anyone… I’d probably ask to collaborate together… the more people taking a look at this from different angles is exactly what I would love to have happen to try to create something more holistically than one person’s view. So… let’s just give it a go. So back to the story… he did not know that song but he said he’d give it his best attempt…. He never sings songs without practicing but with my enthusiasm… he’s going to give it a try and we had fun attempting our first duet together…. We met up again at the temple to have a chat and that’s when I found out he was in the cyber security field. We spoke about many things but I didn’t ask his permission to discuss personal details so I’ll have to do that some other time maybe. But I think I mentioned a few days back that my girl friend who was a ballroom instructor with me wants to do cyber security and I gave her his information, but she hadn’t reached out yet. So I apologized to him that she got distracted and might be a little shy because she wishes she knew the answers she’s going to ask him. I told him I have a project that I want to start where I want people to be completely vulnerable with themselves and everyone who would have access to their information.. If we have cyber security in mind from the get go this might help people feel more comfortable doing this… and since I want to be as intentional as possible I’m going to see how much I can push them out of their comfort zones… this is where the real magic is… but also I would like this to be a recommendation or referral program to where we see the pros and cons of each person… but also see how they are developing… What I would describe myself ten years ago is not the same as I would describe myself now… and people’s opinions have changed I’m sure as well… and honestly I’m not a people pleaser anymore so it might be presumed I’m not as nice anymore but really I respect myself more and value myself and energy… but these things might not have the chance to be recognized from a brief encounter… so anyway… he told me his credentials of over twenty years experience…and his list includes working with Stanford University, Facebook on a global security project and NASA… I was like holy shit ok… I’m glad I’m talking to you about this then… seems like you know your shit… hehe… but I wasn’t really prepared… i was babbling and we happened to be free so we did a video chat… but I’m going to send him an email that will give him more information about what I’m looking to start and what questions I have for him. I know that when I say I want people to give their information I was hoping somehow this could help people from around the world to travel to different countries so recruiting volunteers or communities could be possible and help them get their visas to travel.. and when they’re in a new country how to get SIM cards, transportation… just make it as simple as we can. So I thought… let’s go journal about it and see if I can get better paragraphs out to him instead of my rambling chaotic manner i write. Hehe… this reminds me of the conversation I had with my potential romantic interests I had earlie… well hell might as well get that off my chest too. So I’ll keep it brief as I can because I didn’t get his permission to spill the details but I’ll definitely express my side of things but again not in too much detail…. Hehe I’ll try my best too. So I was in a state of limbo right now… After seven years of not being in a relationship in person mostly with a imaginary idea of an Australian man who I’d been having messages for the four years with … he’s not imaginary but the ideal of him was imaginary… he wasn’t reciprocating mutual feelings except at the beginning and he was not a safe space to express my feeling to and pretty much he thought I needed to see a psychiatrist because I was expressing my feeling for him honestly. I wasn’t really ready to jump all in and so I was holding onto something that would actually help me stay celibate and learn to love and respect myself and not to mention focus to be in the Awakening… so thank you for that.. but now I’m ready to go all in full blown vulnerability and expressing my crazy to see whom I might attract. Well.. my body was communicating that there seems to be a gentleman I reconnected with after five years. I only knew him for about a week visiting his hostel and the rest has been random FB posts that we’d see… His posts were attracting my attention and so before I arrived to Indiana I planned to visit with him. This is a broken record but I don’t know how much context I need to be including before I just go with it… I can’t find a way to find anything I’ve been able to say on here without having to go through all of it… so I figured if people don’t want to read through all of my entries.. I can give a little summary. So long story short my body was showing me how extremely unusual I am when I am speaking to him specifically because of an attraction that seems to be far more deeper than I’ve had with anyone else I had spoken with in person. So… I fumbled and bumbled around with words but I got it out to him that I was attracted to him more than friendship or business partnership… what I didn’t know when I told him this is that he was going through a breakup with one of his current partners… they had been together for over a year and none of us were prepared for the attraction and even though I’d like to explore this with him.. he needs time to process his feelings. He doesn’t really know me from Eve… and so we also have the work trade volunteer boss relationship going too. So I’m going to help tomorrow but I wanted to clarify to him that even though I enjoy contributing to his community the main reason I’m going is to hopefully get a chance to have some conversations with him.. real conversation and prefer more on the private side. I know he’s going through a break up so I want to give him space to do what he needs to do… I still need more time to clear out my energies to allow myself to receive him fully so I understand but excited as well. But I went ahead and gave it a go to see how he would handle my crazy… to wrap it up quickly I’ll just say… we had actual back and forth conversations… I’d write out well thought out communication and he would reciprocate with his well thought out communication. I was vulnerable enough to share my crazy and he didn’t think I was psychotic and needed to go speak to a therapist… in fact he’s looking for a “truly transformative, soul-entangling intimacy/sexuality/romance”… and I said well… you just found one… hello there… it’s nice to finally meet you… I’ve been searching for you too… we chuckled over our conversation but he also said he just needs his solitude to figure his mess out right now but he notices the chemistry, finds me wildly attractive and easy to be around… and anyone he finds who has goals towards spirituality, karma, and big picture lifestyles he’s intersted in connect with… so I’m very satisfied at this time because he clearly communicated his needs at this time and I was able to do the same. I’ve got this project on my mind right now.. so I can focus on that and see if and when we give this a shot. So… the project… geesh… again I feel like I have to give context because damn it I’ve been talking about this for a long time now but I don’t remember what all I disclosed and again it’s not like I can say go to this topic in my conversations because this isn’t setup like that. So I guess I’ll just have to begin as if you don’t know what I had said in the past. So I’m an Enlightenment shaman who is following her guidance from the Universe. I’ve been intentionally working on removing attachment to labels that keep me in a human mind set instead of Universal mindset. We are the Universe waiting to realize this within ourselves. This is the path we’e always been on and many are ready to Realize this… I mean you’re on actualized.org forum page… I think you know what Leo’s all about… well I am too… and I’m hoping you are too. I do have messages on how to assist in people to get to the Awakening through preparation and deconstruction, Ayahuasca and ceremonies, but mostly through the integration work. But this hasn’t been my true calling… My messages are what happens after we Awaken? So I’m not worried about people being able to Awaken… this is already happening… it’s just going through the process of Awakening for the last three years… I’m very fresh to what all I have been doing to process this transformation… it was necessary for me and I’m grateful I’ve been preparing myself to allow the freedom and time to process. So yes… I’m planning on people Awakening when we’re ready to… but also ready to arrange things to allow the aftermath of Awakening… I cannot assume it’s going to be the same, but I have found tools and locations that might be helpful to assist in this time we’ll find ourselves in. It’s happening and I’m excited and we’re all doing our thing… and this is my thing I’m working with the Universe on… at this stage it’s a system to network communities and volunteers. In the bigger picture I’d like to establish this as a nonprofit so people over the world can travel easier with having borders they have to cross… not that the religous nonprofit will automatically do this, but right now that seems to be the easiest way for international travelers coming from third world countries. We are the Universe… we can learn and benefit from anyone at anytime anywhere… as long as we are intentional and at higher degrees of consciousness. So… people who are going to be involved with this system will agree to be on this mindset of growth and expansion for themselves and the collective. This is where the idea switches away from what I see is out there right now. My thinking is I don’t want everyone to be able to create an account, login, and not be involved actively. Of course I don’t want to remove this population… but also I want to encourage stepping out of our comfort zones and engage… this is where the juice is… and so there will probably be a limit of stagnancy built in where if someone hasn’t logged in for a long duration… then they’re account will be removed. I’m not sure how to get people to not have several accounts either.. especially since this is going to be a transparent community and if they start getting what could be considered negative marks… they might want to give up on the original account to start a new one… but this is about growth not perfection… so what if we get negative marks on us… we don’t want to run and hide and make things up… we want to own our current state of character and be inspired and motivated to make changes to mature and elevate our conscious levels. I’m not sure how to do this thing while trying to keep the energies cleared and not crowded with toxic people creating drama because they’re bored and want attention. I was thinking there’s going to be referral program… again where people can’t just sign up freely… they have to earn credibility somehow… I think this has been a concept in this Forum and I see why the attempt and I’m not afraid to attempt it again. Not only do i want to maintain credibility to individuals but also to communities who want to be involved. Yesterday I said I don’t want to assume a community is conscious enough to host intentional volunteers so I didn’t want to promote them… but maybe there’s a referral system but also maintain a level of credibility to stay an option for intentional volunteers. I’ve been wanting nonprofits to work together why not communities too? If we aren’t familiar with a particular area we’re struggling with… why not network with our community to get answers, workshops, and volunteers to get the challenge addressed and find multiple solutions and start to go through them until we’re satisfied with our results. If we are tearing down structures or digging dirt or have extra llama hair and dung… why not let other communities know that there’s excess of something we have and if someone wants to use these supplies it’s available. Transportation would also be something I’d like to include to make it easier to go from one community to another. Again how do we use what’s already in the play and collaborate together… extend and connect the communities that are already in existence but want to intentionally work together and learn… I feel many of us are ready for this… and those who are not… are not being forced to.. in fact I hope they’re not attracted to our system… just to cause problems. Geesh I don’t like to assume any of this.. but it was shocking when I came onto this forum and was reading some of the posts… and I too live in a world where some of us are not ready to trust and share… but those who are ready… why not make it easier to find one another. We’re out here… we’re doing the work… we’re looking for more of us… and we’re attracting one another… can this be an additional tool to use? I think I can give this more thought and see if I can start reaching out to my known network of friends and family… and see if we can start creating brainstorming events to give feedback and also make it happen. this is where I’m at… and I have the energy and time to dive into more… but not at this exact moment… hehe… I’m hungry and my eyes are hurting a bit… I’m doing some digital art and I think I want to go play around some more for this evening… it’s very relaxing and I want to leave early tomorrow. Ok.. this is good for now.. until next… enjoy ourselves

Good morning… I woke up thinking about dancing… so I think I’ll begin here. So… I was thinking if I am going all on in with a romantic partnership… I’d like to share my passion of dance. I love to dance and I used to instruct but there are some dances that I don’t know as much as others… and they’re really calling to me and more improvisation. So I’d like to see if we have a conversation of what we’re wanting out of our relationship I have many ideas to talk about but for now in the Journal I will say I want to introduce dancing as part of a way to increase our partnering, sensuality, and fun. I have two dances in mind that I’m hoping he might find as something he would like to learn and share with me…. Argentine Tango and West Coast Swing. I have a dancing buddy who owns a studio close to the location I am now, but I feel like we’ll be closer to where my romantic interest lives which is three hours away. From his location it’s almost four hour drive to my buddy’s studio. So I messaged my buddy to see if he has any recommendations of top notch instructors in the Louisville area… it’ll only be an hour away. I just sent the message and haven’t heard back but my buddy dances competitions and travels a lot to areas so I’m hoping his network would include some great dancers in this specific area. He hosts traveling instructors at his studio and I enjoy watching his posts. He specifically hosts West Coast events… so I asked him about this, but I’ll add the A. tango when we chat. So I looked up Tango studios and it looks like there’s a few options in that city… but I also ran into a video of a couple from Buenos Aires who is offering a dance event in Argentina for 13 days… it’s from April through May but this wouldn’t be a good time for us since his hostel would be opening up at this time. But that has definitely been at the top of my list of locations to go. I want to dance the tango everywhere in Buenos Aires… I think I’ve mentioned this before but I fantasize everyone dancing in the restaurants and the streets all over the city… I’d love to go and do this. I used to drink Malbec and I mention that if I ever get to Argentina… I feel like I’d be much more open to drinking alcohol just to have Malbec from where it originates. I don’t know if I’d be interested in drinking when I get there… but I could entertain the idea of possibly. But I’d love to dance where I travel. Anyway… I would love to introduce him to the magic that dance can bring into our lives. I figured we’d start off with taking beginner classes together. I might have a lot of dance experience and instruction experience, but I don’t necessarily want to start our dance relationship in a teacher/ student dynamic. I’d much rather be a student/student dynamic and possibly why I’m interested in learning dances I don’t know as much. I’d like it to be like date nights. As a teacher I kind of know how it goes when one of the partners are in the teacher mode and yes… I want to set us up for success and enjoyment. To be honest I don’t know if he knows how to dance already… I could see it… he’s very musically inclined and most musicians that I’ve met have a tendency to be able to pick up dancing easier… and he looks like he’s athletic as well… so I think he might pick up fairly quickly but I don’t know if he’d have the desire to learn with me or not. But it is something I’m going to suggest. West Coast is danced to a variety of music… it’s a smooth improvisation and moments of playfulness throughout. Sometimes it can get sensual but not always. I guess I do want to mention that I did see blues swing dance as well which I’ve dropped into classes a few times and I enjoy. But I remember when I was talking to him about his singing… he said his voice is fitting for blues and jazz which he really doesn’t listen to and wished he could mature his singing to fit other genres. I know I enjoy listening to his music and of course I don’t know any of the artists or the songs… which is quite normal for me… hehe… but I’m so glad I don’t know them because he’s going to be introducing me to a whole new range of music which excites me. Also… if this is improvisation dancing… it’s good to have the lead have a better understanding of the musicality while I can just follow his lead. Ideally both would know but that’s not necessary… my body will hear the music and do it’s thing anyway.. hehe… but I want to focus on my partnership development. I feel like I might be a little slower getting into the down and dirty intimacy… who knows.. but if so… I definitely would like to demonstrate my energy while I’m dancing…because… I know its attractive and can be quite powerful for my partners… I just get so damn excited… and when I let loose it’s so fucking fun! That’s what I want to show him which I might not be able to demonstrate outside of this setting. I’m going to work my way here… but it does seem like I’m a bit stiff right now…hehe… And it’s just because I haven’t had people to really play with… no I’m not going to blame anyone else… I just have been focused on my spiritual work and sometimes I’m bit more on the strict side with myself. since my transition I’ve gone off the deep end of strictness and was like fuck… it’s time to relax and enjoy now… and I do to some extent but I can do this more and it’s become more obvious how stiff I am compared to him especially. Argentine Tango is a very passionate and sensual dance… I absolutely adore this dance and want to have more opportunities to learn. We taught this style of dance but yes it felt like it had too much structure to this free flowing dance… I mean structure is necessary when beginning to gain confidence and learn how to communicate with partner.. but with this dance it’s for lovers to explore this style of nonverbal communications… how to speak with our bodies and I’m so excited to hear what he has to say… and I’ve got some things to tell him too… hehe… yes I’d love to see if he’s interested. Of course I find that this would be great for us to do together and build a bond through… however I am looking down the road for him too. I’d love for him to have more tools in his belt to enjoy himself whenever and wherever he is. He travels to different cities and countries… so possibly if I introduce him to something he didn’t realize he would enjoy… He can find dancing while he moves with the flow of life. The dance community usually isn’t a stingy group… we love to dance with our romantic partner yes, but we also love to dance with everyone! And I have a feeling he’d absolutely love this as well. So I want to be very intentional with him. I’m not wanting to make any excuses or have fear to stop me from expressing what I’m looking for in a committed partnership… if we choose that we want to move in this direction then I’m not going to hold back.. this is something I want to share with him. And I’m definitely interested and open to activities he wants to introduce to me as well. He enjoys caving and I was introduced to this through his hostel and i loved it and could definitely see myself doing it more. I was hoping to have trips with him but I found myself in other groups and we’ll have plenty of time to find opportunities to share trips together. I’m hoping he’s a taking his time caver…hehe… we’ll see when it happens. But he seems so fascinating… and who knows what he has up his sleeve… I’d love to hear what he thinks is something that can build a bond together… maybe there’s a secret desire to learn something with a romantic partner that he hasn’t tried yet… for some reason I feel like he probably hasn’t hesitated to try things out romantically but who knows until we have a conversation. We might have a brief time to say hello this Thursday and maybe Tuesday… he’ll be traveling and so this won’t be the time to talk to him… but I’m still trying to give him space from his separation. I’ve been trying to flirt but in a very subtle and minimal manner right now. Again I have that shit going on that I’m going to be too much or too intense… but I have a volume button and right now it’s on low… and intuitively this is the right move right now. Honestly I need this time as well for myself… I have been clearing out romantic energy of past energies myself. I’ve been doing this for awhile now.. and have been successful except I can feel a bit of lingering going on with the Aussie man. I feel like he too will have some remaining from this nest mate. I think if we’re honest about this… it will help us not feel bad if there’s a lingering that exists, but I hope our chemistry can spark us to inspire us to have a desire to get to know one another where we can clear those past energies in a short period of time. I do need to know what he’s looking for in a relationship. If he’s wanting to not have anything serious or just wants a fling… then I don’t think we’ll be able to move into a romantic connection. I want to attract someone who is on a similar page. I’m not looking for a fling and I’m hoping if I go into this fully then we’ll be building a relationship for our lives. People might think this is pretty extreme but it’s where I am. I’m not saying I want to get married right now.. but I’m saying… I’m looking to build a bond for life and as life flows we’ll work and dance with it together. Again… I’d love it to be romantic, but I feel like we’ll be amazing friends and business partners… so our relationship for life doesn’t have to be specific in one area compared to another… but flexible to change while we grow… and not having to plan everything out from the start but be as open and authentic to see where our relationship leads. So yeah I’m looking forward to talking with him, but I’m patient to see when we’ll actually get a chance to engage fully and privately… hehe… until then I know I have more own energy to clear to set up a better start to our journey together. So… I finished the drafts for the communities from the intention convention event last weekend. I’ve been wanting to get into this and finally I’ve gotten there. I don’t think I’ve said much about the convention except for the moment of bliss drumming around the fire. So how to begin? Ok… so there were eight definitive communities represented. We had guests who are involved with other communities but weren’t really representing the same information as the eight communities.. most of them were founders, shareholders, and board members… they have a bit more skin into the community i guess. My romantic interest asked me if I’d like to be the meetings note taker… I thought about it and said that yes… I can give that a try… I’m curious to hear what everyone has to say and what everyone wants to talk about…. I know I have my ideas of where it can lead… but if I’m a note taker then I won’t talk much and mostly just listen. I hadn’t really had much experience in this except for the owner at the temple who would have me type out her words for different communications she had. So I guess I started to have a little bit of experience. But anyway… I keep saying how intuitive he is… he might not realize this but for some reason his suggestions for me seems to benefit me highly and I’m so appreciative of this. Hehe… it was intense trying to keep up with the conversations. He got two of us to be note takers and we both were focused at trying to get as many words down that we could. We now realize for next time that having a mic and amp would be very beneficial. Sometimes it was hard to hear people, plus we want to sync a transcribing program for ease. However, this was very beneficial for me to take these notes. I was using my iPad along with my portable keyboard… so I’m sitting there clacking away on the keys trying to keep up… We had long meeting sessions… so both sessions my iPad died on me… hehe… we were in the middle of the woods in a Greek theater setting… it’s beautiful actually but I didn’t have any extra battery bank with me… I mean I do but I don’t have the cord to charge my iPad… hehe… any way once my iPad dies I’d move to hand written notes… the first session I didn’t realize how many words would be spoken and I only got a fraction. But I only brought three pieces of paper thinking I’ll just type everything out. Well.. I filled those pages and couldn’t get all of it down but there wasn’t much before we broke for lunch. The same thing happened during the second session except I had enough paper with me to continue recording until the end of the session. The problem that I had was I was using loose paper… it wasn’t in a notebook and I didn’t number the pages either… so when I was putting the information on the paper onto the iPad… it wasn’t in order… hehe… but it didn’t actually stop me from how I approached the information I wanted to deliver. So… i guess I didn’t really understand what was expected from me and the other note taker… I think she was a bit more familiar in doing this… she was talking about taking minutes and is very detailed oriented on formal procedures… hehe… ummm… ok… yeah that isn’t really what I was thinking of doing. But we were supposed to work together.. and I wasn’t sure how other than posting my information that I had typed out… it wasn’t in order all the way but she created a shared document and she was hand writing the entire time so it was going to take her time to enter her data in. She’s a full time student and is trying to launch her first issue for a magazine she’s trying to publish. So yes formality and grammar and editing skills is right up her alley… and it’s funny that she gets partnered with me who is not good with any of these areas… lol… but she was very stressed out about the note and the time of submission. I admit that I had that feeling at first as well… I don’t know if any of you read a few submissions back when I got back.. but after that session I was able to relax because I was the only one pressuring myself to get things out for the community members… hehe… and so I was trying my best to let her know that she doesn’t need to be frantic that nobody is breathing down our necks except us doing it to ourselves. She said she’s been busy in many ways in her life and I said to not worry… do your things… I get the vibe from the people involved are just appreciative of how we were wanting to help… and they’ll be happy with whatever we share with them. We had another girl who did end up creating an audio recording… so she’s going to continue her formal submission which is going to take her a few weeks to finish up with her schedule and just the tedious nature of this style of record keeping. I’m not sure how our relationship is going really… she is hostel fam… so she’s involved with the hostel and is close to the founder. She is in fact the other lady he sandwiched himself between and the whole opportunity for me to touch his hand… hehe.. i was the timid side he was dealing with while she was the comfortable side and the whole massaging of the head and everything.. so yes no issues of demonstrating affection… hehe. But I met her for the first time at the caving event. She was one of the guides and so she’s an avid caver as well.. and I like she’s a bit more on the professional side of things.. so yeah I recognize a bit of stiffness like I see in myself.. but I’m thinking it’s more on the distrusting some… I guess I feel like specifically she doesn’t know if she can trust me. I could definitely be projecting but I did feel this so I was keeping space and allow reality to have us engage whenever that time happens to be. I might have a bit of projection going on but not fully… to me I can explain it in the way she started her note taking.. hehe… she had everyone’s name listed and she had these elaborate and flowering words to describe everyone present. Even to the ones who were wanting to get more information about intentional communities and weren’t directly involved in sustaining a community…anyways when I got down to my name the only words she had for me is “note taker”… lol… so yeah she wasn’t really interested in anything I was sharing during the event. But granted I didn’t know she was on her way of publishing a magazine either… but I feel like I overheard a little conversation in regards to this but it seems like she wasn’t sure if she should let the group know what she wants to do… or maybe waiting for the appropriate time to let us know… I’m not sure but I didn’t think too much about it because if I’m to know I’ll get that chance to let it unfold in the appropriate timing for myself. So really… I feel like there’s a weird girl jealousy thing going on between us I think… I’m not use to dealing with this much anymore… not that I haven’t danced this dance before… but yeah… I think that’s why she has a distrust in me… of course I don’t know but this is my Journal so this is a great space to purge my thoughts regardless of how accurate it is… I want to get her out of my thoughts.. hehe… not that I don’t want her out of my thoughts completely because I told her that I have more information beyond the words spoken at the meeting because I have ideas I want to present with possibly brainstorming for solutions to network everyone for the coming year. She was trying to understand what I was doing with my notes… oh yeah… I didn’t even get to what I was doing with my notes… hehe.. tangents. So yes she was going to focus on the formal side… and I wanted to focus on how does this information help us understand what was said…. So in my opinion the first thing to do to help with clarity is to separate the communities and have a general summary of what the community shared with us. So I’d start with one community and I’d copy and paste all the members words of that community together so I can use their words to summarize their information. So this is what I was saying I didn’t need to have everything organized in order to do this. In fact many speak like me where answers weren’t given during a specific questions but was spread throughout the entire time of their speaking. Similar to myself I might have heard the questions but it wasn’t until later did I realize my answer so yeah… I found reading through their words a bit more scrambled around… helped me actually get their summary out by deciphering my crazy notes… hehe… a few times I’m like what the hell did I type and what’s being said… I didn’t run into many situations like that but it was fun. So yes if we have a summary we don’t have to read down through the entire conversation of the meeting to find an answer. I think I did a fair job summarizing their information together. What I really enjoyed when I was taking their notes were the words people were saying… it makes me giggle just thinking about it. Our character and personality I was trying to keep as I was summarizing… so yeah for me formal recording wasn’t what I enjoyed… I felt like this was a family meeting and so to remember everyone’s character I loved keeping their quirkiness… it’s absolutely adorable. I found myself laughing out loud when I was trying to get their message out… when I submitted my drafts to the specific communities to review and edit for accuracy… I got a few laughs back… they laughed that I used the actual words they were saying… I said I don’t mind what was said as long as it’s authentic… we’re family so I don’t think anyone will get offended… I mean this was how we were talking anyway… of course I have some of my language in the mix since i was editing their information… so I wanted to make sure they were happy with what I had to represent them. I also know there are areas such as the financials that went over my head… hehe… words I’ve heard before but not really any understanding in the context and so I wanted them to better explain what I couldn’t do for them. Plus there were a few communities who didn’t say much during the meetings… so I wanted to give them another opportunity to share more… it’s possible it was overwhelming to be in such a large group and finding a chance to express yourself… the founder was giving people the opportunity, but again didn’t mean they were confident and comfortable expressing… maybe now they’re back in their space they can find the words without any pressure on them. Yes… I’ve been loving the opportunity to gain rapport with the individual communities as well.. I didn’t know how I would approach all of this… but during the meeting we are taking about networking.. so I was going to see how comfortable people are by sharing conversations through online messages. I’d like to start to get to know who I’m working with as well… I know how group chats going with each community… I’ve sent out the drafts and I”m waiting to have them returned their edited version. So yes… the fellow note taker wanted to understand what I was doing so I was able to let her know and she has access to my summaries in the shared document so I figured she would understand what I was doing. And she did say that it seems like this is not a requirement for me to do, but I told her it’s something I want to do. I’ll get to know the communities there a little better with this summary… because it was fairly chaotic trying to keep up with the words…hehe. And the founder also told both of us that he didn’t expect us to do these extras… he thought he was going to receive our chicken scratches and submit them for people to decipher for themselves… but he’s appreciative of our initiative mannerism we both share. I told her I’m enjoying myself and since I’ve done this I’m starting to find connections between them which is what I’m more concerned with. So I told her that I’m not a good editor…for my second project I’ll type it out and she can go back and edit it if she wants to. But I told her she seems like she’s got her hands full with the transcribing already which will take a few weeks… that it’s not necessary. She wanted to edit the summaries I wrote but I told her that I’d like the communities to do the editing. I saw a few of her edits and yeah it was missing the character of the person speaking. I guess it was too formal for me… and honestly I don’t want her to make my content so formal either… I want my character to come out as well.. and my heart and my passion… this is part of my passion project and I’m super grateful to have this opportunity right now. I’ll get into this.. well.. if you’ve been following along for the past six months I don’t have to continue repeating myself of my desire to help communities and connect a network of communities globally… but there’s some lingering baggage when it comes to her specifically so let me get this out for a little bit… so the girl jealousy thing is what I’m wanting to address… so of course I don’t know anyone’s relationship to one another. Before I move on I want to continue to warn people this is a space for me to purge my thoughts.. she is not a bad person.. in fact if she’s been introduced into my life right now I’m excited to see how our relationship develops. So keep that in mind… I find it fascinating how relationships evolve and I ultimately have hope for us to bond eventually… but I”m pretty patient to see that… I’d hope within this year things can completely change but if it takes five years from now… then I’m fine with that too.. I don’t want to have to prove myself and I don’t expect her to prove herself either… I just want to get my initial baggage out so I can open my mind to find a different perspective… which I’ve already been noticing and I want to share but I start from the chaos before clarity… hence my title… its a beautiful chaos and I appreciate this process… so ok… why do I think there’s a girl jealousy thing going on? So I met her at the caving event… I knew I went there to specifically get an opportunity to talk to the founder but I noticed how needy people are of his attention and so I laid back during the weekend and thought possibly we’d have a chance during the few days after I planned to volunteer… so yes I could see he wanting his attention… and she wasn’t completely needy… she has a relationship that’s been developing so he’s more willing to give her attention. but I wasn’t sure if I saw her desire for a possible romantic attention… I’m not sure why I think this.. but I think that’s what i was getting the vibe originally of why she was wondering why I was at the event… maybe she was wondering if I was there because of a romantic interest too… so possibly why she didn’t care to get to know me… which in turn I reciprocated. Again I was observing her and I liked how informative she was when she was getting everyone ready to cave… she went to the same cave as I did however there were two groups and I was in the meditative while she was guiding the adventurous one. we had an incident during the caving the third group in this same area had a girl who got a cut on her leg which was more like a puncture wound and needed to go to the hospital. She wasn’t present when the founder brought her back to take her but when she returned with her group we informed her. It was again interesting to see her reaction. I definitely would describe it as professional yes, but also filled with worry and concern and even anxiety of making the correct steps forward at this point. She was the only staff member at the location now… she’s the leader and she knew she wanted to make the correct decisions which makes sense. We were all tryin got help her get to the results we got too… I feel like I was reminding everyone that it’s not a life a death situation… not using these words of course.. but the one of the girls I was with who helped the founder get the girl inside the car and had a staff member join them to watch her in the car while they went to the hospital… she was a bit frantic as well… when I saw the mannerism of the founder with the injured lady… at first I got up and wondered the degree of severity it was… he was quite calm and had it under control… she’s got a minor injury that needs to be looked at. So I didn’t react… in fact I allowed the people who jumped into help and I continued with my conversations. So the frantic one addressed the note taker partner…and again I can see how she wanted the energies to elevate to degrees which isn’t necessary… to help the frantic one I asked her how close is the hospital and it was like 10 minutes away… she thought it was going to be hours away and thought there was going to be such a huge blood loss etc etc… once she saw that it was right down the road she felt better.. and so again when they were both together she couldn’t help herself wanting to elevate the energy but I felt like I was able to keep it calm and stable for the leader to understand that it wasn’t a life or death emergency. She wasn’t sure again who to trust at that moment but she kept her cool and started to focus on the logistics… she was the only staff and there was a group who didn’t have a staff guide. She questioned if she should go and get them… she feared that they shouldn’t be alone… I reminded her that it’s more of the advanced group… there were many experienced cavers there who are confident in their skills and should be fine for them to get back out when they’re ready. Many confirmed the people present in their group and she recognized some of the descriptions and finally she said ok… she doesn’t need to get them. But then she started to look around to the vehicles… the founder’s truck is here and he will not be returning to get it back… so we’ll need to return it to the hostel. She wondered if all the vehicles present part of our group. I said yes every car came with us… again a question whether to trust me… and so I got out my iPad’s footage and said I recorded everyone arriving because many of us are first timers so there was electricity in the air… so ok… all of the cars are there… one car was missing so how many additional cars do we need. This is when she decided that she’s going to stay back while the two groups who are finished can return to the hostel… sh’ell drive the truck back and any person who needs to ride with her. Good solution and again good observation. we really didn’t have any more interaction that stands out in my mind… we just move to this weekend event and the first memory is the founder talking to her and asking if she remembers me… and she looked up and said oh yeah I remember her and we both just shared a simple smile… hehe… not grand affection for one another and again I will reciprocate… and I completely understand. But yeah… I see there is an affection between them but I also don’t sense a romantic chemistry or spark there either… polyamory being so present gets me wondering who is partnering with who…lol.. like it’s my business… and actually that’s not what I’m asking myself.. I’m asking who is he partners with… but I did see her celebrating a ten year anniversary with her partner on FB and so that’s was cute to see… and yeah I’m not sure why there was a thing for a second… I’ll see how it unfolds… ok.. I feel good leaving that behind so let’s move into the insights I’m getting from the note taking. Since I’ve been involved with the temple farm in Utah I’ve already been brainstorming ideas of what suggestions I’d have for that particular property but again it always leads back on how to scale it to other properties and eventually globally… and again with me not talking at the event and taking notes I found it interesting to hear commonalities and differences in each approach. At the end of the meetings I had a brief moment with the founder to ask how he thought it went and of course he said it went well but he can see things he wants to change for next time. The setup had people arriving Friday afternoon or Saturday morning… the meetings were scheduled longer with both during Saturday before and after lunch.. people will leave at leisure on Sunday. He thought splitting it up through out the weekend would be best… four shorter sessions one on Friday and Sunday and two on Saturday.. I’m sure there were more details he thought of but that’s all that was said at the time. I agreed because I felt we only got to know communities and we really didn’t get to any action steps of solutions for areas of concern. And I think that’s what’s going on right now while I’m deciphering these notes. I guess there’s something I want to address real quick before the details is that at the end of the session there was a collective agreement for the properties wanting to create a blueprint of the function of a community… talking about an outside mediator.. and who would be interested visiting properties to find network opportunities… inside I wanted to say that that’s exactly what I’d be interested in, but I didn’t want to commit to only these properties… so I waited to see who would volunteer or be interested… and there was someone who said she’d be interested… and it was very interesting to see how everyone responded to wanting to support her to do this. She already travels between many communities… I believe she has seven on her list for next season already… and only one was present during this event… so is she saying she’s going to add another seven? I spoke to her one on one… because of course I’d love to support her as well and I wanted to see how she was thinking of approaching this… i love her passion and enthusiasm towards problem solving solutions for her communities.. and I can relate a lot to her.. I found myself reminding her that self care is important if she wants to do this. Ok… I just got done eating a spaghetti lunch with my pops… I feel better using him as a soundboard at this time because it’s not so much spiritual stuff like Aya and deep shit… it’s language he can understand again if he’s not really passionate about but there’s more feedback from him…hehe… and by talking I knew I was missing something… I didn’t know what but I think I figured something out… I want to help these communities and right now I’d like them to focus on self care of course but they’re really wanting a body of intentional volunteers… I was seeing where my nonprofit comes into play.. I’ve got high standards of the communities I’m involved with… right at this time I have communities I adore but all but one are places I would recommend to friends and family to freely go to without my presence… I know it sounds a bit…whatever the word is… but I’ve got high standards and I want my recommendations to be valued because of intentional results… just as an example… I love the temple farm but with the personality that runs this space and there rules… i don’ know much of my friends and families who would enjoy themselves alone, but if i was there to put things into perspective it would be a different situation… same thing applies to the shamans that I work with… a few months ago someone was wanting me to write a FB review on their retreat and I said I wasn’t able to do this because I don't think they’re recommendable at this time. Not that I’m not going to continue me work with everyone… but once they’re ready then I’ll recommend them… but if they’re not there yet… then whomever is attracted to work with them without my recommendations is how it’s supposed to go since that’s what’s happening. I want to build skills to enhance my understanding of what I’d like to do for WithinUverse nonprofit and I was thinking I was going to be recommending these particular communities… but I don’t really know these communities right now… and so I don’t know where there standards are…. But what I could see WithinUverse backing up right now that can help these communities… finding volunteers who are intentional and desire to contribute… I can see creating a program to find these volunteers… I’ve met volunteers I would put on the list already… and possibly it’s going to be a recommendation program… not everyone can go on to the site and sign up with their details… somebody has to recommend them to join… and this tool can also be used as a reference for volunteers to find opportunities. So yes I see I can put my focus in this area at this time. Everyone want to know how to get volunteers to actually work.. and there’s a concern they’re just looking for a free place to live so they’re not homeless… and I would consider myself as a work trader and I can see how these could be a perception to look at but that’s going to limit volunteer opportunity because of the lack of trust. Now the people I know doesn’t mean they’re all completely perfect volunteers… we have our pros and cons; however… they’re intentional to grow and learn and connect… so I’d recommend them to be volunteers for these communities… even though I’m not sure I’m recommending the communities until I actually have time to understand where they are. Another factor that seems to be in the way is that these communities don’t always have housing for these volunteers… so this will need to be addressed. WithinUverse would love to have a collection of intentional volunteers and to start a system to start gathering these people I find will be very beneficial. Interesting… it’s going to be nice to narrow down my focus right now… so where do I start? Hehe So… what are programs that are already out there that seem like it’s the same thing or similar? Let me do a search real quick… right now I’m thinking workaway, woofing, couchsurfing…. Things of this nature and I also remember LDS has a website dedicated to finding volunteer opportunities… but there’s more out there I’m sure… lets see what I can find… so actually I think I’ll finish this session here so I can do some research… sweet… until next time… enjoy!

I’m glad I went to play disc golf… I really do enjoy you woods in my hometown.. but I forgot there was a tournament playing on Saturday mornings… but I pulled and parked and went to the shelter house because it looked like one of the main guys who takes care of the land was there. And I wanted to say hello and see what’s going on with the event… some were finished with their round of 27 holes… but some were still playing so I wanted to wait until it was finished before I threw. But it was fun to see familiar faces from last time I started disc golf… there are some that I somewhat watch on FB when their posts come on up and i’m scanning through… but one guy likes to hike and adventure around and he was there and it was nice to see him… in a week he’s going to Red River Gorge and I told him that this location has been on my mind as a place I’d like to go visit while I’m here this year. There’s a few posts from different people and yeah it looks like a great spot… this particular guy kind of goes off trail and finds hidden waterfalls and areas that the public doesn’t go.. so the pictures he gets aren’t the normal picture… he’s a great photographer as well. But yes I’m glad I went because it’s fun to do something a bit different to switch up activities to use the mind and body in a variety of ways… i actually really like it when I throw the disc and I have to go find it… for some reason I feel like this is a good skill to continue to build even though I’d like to build the skill to throw better and stay in the clearing… hehe both applies. I sat around chatting for the most part and I went ahead and threw a round of 14 holes before I went back to the house to do some cleaning. For some reason it seems like I’m always looking at my belongings and ask if I really need this at this time… and so I put a few piles separated from one another… I was putting things that I know I’m using currently… but I started a pile that I put in a drawer of belongings that I’ll be donating to the hostel mostly sewing supplies and a second pile of things I don’t know if I need anymore and most likely donate. I was thinking about going back to Indy to visit friends but I wasn’t really sure when that would be. But I reached out to my last housemate to see if he was available to hang out… he’s married now and I’d like to meet them and he’s just a funny and great guy and want to catch up while I’m around… we actually met because we were both on a coed softball team called the Fireballers… we were all in the mix of having a great time playing and not so much on the competitive side… many of our players hadn’t even played the game before… hehe… and yes back then we were drinking fairly heavy during and after the games. But he’s like… do you think its time for a Fireball reunion? And I said I’m definitely down… I’d absolutely love to share time with everyone… I’ve been watching many of these people as well on FB and there were two members that actually got married and have a daughter now… there will be much change from when was that? Eight years ago? It’s challenging for me to even remember that person I was then… hehe… but yes I’d love to have a reunion with them and he said he’s going to work on it. I was also thinking about the girl group that I use to hangout with a lot while I was living in Indy and I also watch them and I”d love to have a little girls reunion too… maybe a Friendsgiving maybe? But it’s just around the corner and I’m not sure if it’s too late of notice but I’ll see what happens. This also brings up the fact that I went to go to another childhood friend’s house last night since we hadn’t seen each other since I returned… but when I was leaving we were talking about the new year being right around the corner and can’t believe it’s going to be 2025… all of a sudden it hit me… oh wait… I was going to host a 25 year reunion… and wow… that would be next year… I’m the class president and I’ve only hosted one reunion in 2015… but I thought the next time would be 25.. so I guess that’s the year coming up… hehe… and I’m going to be around… so cool… I’ll be planning on figuring out where we’ll go and what we’ll do… last time I put out two ideas for people to vote on… one was going to a woodsy area that is setup for large gatherings and I thought maybe we’d cook together.. have opportunities to have social area and have classes to meet their children with art and dance.. but allow moments for private conversations and doing some type of lantern ceremony at night… this was my vote… hehe… but we chose to go to a local Elks club, hired a band, and people wanted to eat the prepared food there and mostly drink. I don’t think I’m going to put a choice up this year… hehe… or I’m going to not have a drinking at the bar as an option… not that I won’t allow drinking to be involved I just don’t want that to be the main focus. I literally just remembered this year is upon us… so I’ll need to see what kind of ideas come up… it’ll be fun to see anyone who shows up… many people on FB are from my hometown and especially from my graduating class.. so it’ll be fun to see everyone. I also enjoyed spending time with my girl friend… we went to a brewery which had a very large backyard that had several fire pits and was able to find one where we had it on our own… not at first but the group ended up leaving… and we enjoyed our privacy. A very family oriented brewery with kids running around but they didn’t seem like they were that out of control.. mostly throwing football or tag… so I didn’t mind the atmosphere… but I definitely didn’t want to be inside because yes it was crowded and watching the Indiana State football game… I wanted to be intentional in our conversations and sitting by the fire seems far mor desirable and it was wonderful. Of course we were catching up… I hadn’t been around for a year and we might have caught up four times online during this time… but we got to get more details of what’s going on… I was impressed how I was able to get through the year in a concise manner especially for me… hehe.. but she was able to do as well… What I was wanting to get to and what she was most interested in is this whole move towards wanting to share a romantic relationship with the intentional community host. She really gets surprised when I tell her how long I haven’t had sexual relationships or any other touch in a sensual manner…. Right she’s known me from childhood and just like myself just can’t imagine I’ve gone this long… this is reminding me of my video chat with my buddy who I stay with in Colorado who retires in Cabo for the winter.. I told him that I want to date this winter and he about passed out and mentioned how that sounds so weird coming out of my mouth… so he’s only known me when I intentionally been working on Spiritual Enlightenment.. so he’s seen me remove distractions… discipline of making changes… and even through the point of me relaxing… anyway…he’s seen me change through this process but was excited for me that I’m making these moves.. I told him to wish me luck and he said he will but I won’t need it… it’s only going to be newish for a short time and I’ll fall right into with flying colors. And that’s what my girl friend was encouraging me as well.. and I have that same understanding too. But I was liking to talk about the process and she was able to give her feedback… she was able to talk about her personal experience with her long-term relationships which has been a similar story I’ve been hearing but it’s obvious she’s been noticing her negative thoughts and moving intentionally to redirect her self talk. And she looks happier and she is more concerned about her self care which is always a good sign. I didn’t get her permission to discuss her details so I won’t go into it… but what I will go into was our conversation about me meeting people from the kink community. I did get their permission to discuss… so I’ll continue there I’ve met different people in this scene and I enjoy how open they’ve been in sharing their opinions with me. I’m only been on the fringe of this scene but it has been something I’ve been curious about. I mean I see everything as an opportunity to gain spiritual growth and understanding and sex is not separate from this… I want to learn more and excited when I get opportunities to step in this direction even if it’s just talking about it. I know the way I’m going to gain experience is waiting to share itself to me when I’m ready and when the people align with sharing this with me. I dated a guy for a few months who taught me about polyamory and kink… he was from my graduating class and there were three of us from our hometown would get together and hangout and it started to continue from there. I was getting out of my 13 year relationship and was looking to see what I didn’t know about myself in romantic relationships and the concepts of polyamorous really resonated with me. I mean I didn’t know if the multiple partners was my thing.. but all the other principles of transparency, integrity, communication, and consent was something all people should be practicing with people in general but especially romantically. He implied to me that this scene doesn’t really put a focus on sexual penetration of genitalia. He was drawn to the scene where they wanted to see how many ways we could get sexual arousal and satisfaction without actually having genitalia penetration. I found that interesting but I could see how that applies for him… and when we were dating we didn’t really do a lot of sexual sharings… I did ask him to tie me up because that was something he seemed to really enjoy.. he had a trunk of treasures which involved ropes. I remember how exciting it was for me to have him do this to me… he was very good at making me feel comfortable but I didn’t really have any reservations at the time and I trusted him… and he went slowly and did a very basic tie… I didn’t have any unusual body positions just the basics around my torso and my hands… but yes his approach of slowly wrapping it around me and circling my body and watching my reactions the entire time.. it was fun and I remember it and I enjoyed it. Well… I met more ropers… I don’t know the terms and I already know that I’m not going to be using the accurate terminology but hey thats again just how I go… but I wanted to hear what kink means to them and how they approach it as a couple and they were very open to sharing. They’ve been together for three and half years now and the first time they met was at a kink party… when it comes to their basic physical structure she’s short and curvy while he’s tall and solid… so she said he stood out in the crowd. They spoke a little during that first event of meeting but it wasn’t until later that they started to want to build something deeper. She found that she’s a “Demi-sexual”. I asked what that was and she said that it takes her a long time to be sexually attractive to someone because an emotional connection has to be developed before she becomes attractive. So I’m assuming that she doesn’t find people just physically attractive.. however she said that their are two types of men she seems to be attracted to are one that their androgynous where they aren’t clearly masculine of feminine but a beautiful mixture of that.. or two a man that’s literally going to break me in half…with a chuckle.. and she said when they first met she wasn’t really sure if they were going to make it because her partner was very active with several partners and she told him that if he wanted to engage with her in a sexual manner that he would have to pretty much stop playing with other partners until they gained a foundation of trust. And at first he continued to play because he enjoyed it, but he came back to her and said that he’s definitely willing to do this to get to know her more and so they started to be exclusive with one another… and again it took months of getting to know one another before they engaged in sexual exploration with one another. She said she was a jealous type at the beginning so this foundation really set up trust and it took her awhile to open up to sharing which is something he’s interested in but they took the slow steps to introduce a third party into the mix…and what she was surprised by is the fact that it’s pleasurable to watch her partner with another partner. She said that technically she doesn’t really especially wants to always have sexual genitalia penetration and I’m not sure how far they go with a threesome but she does admit that she likes to watch him. But she said that thus far they’ve only had two females and one male and she’d be curious to see how it would be with two males and one female. She also admitted that not all the time she enjoys the threesomes because she’s not mutually attracted to the female… but again this was wonderful to hear. They were saying that the kink scene is extremely diverse so you’ll have some parties where sexual genitalia penetration is accepted and expected while other parties absolutely won’t allow that as part of the party. They were mentioning all kind of terms… they educate the public about boundaries, communication, consent, and signs of predator behavior which unfortunately exists in this scene. As much we’d like to hope everyone has elevated their consciousness to respect and honor all the guests with best intentions… that isn’t the case at this time. He said that the most common fetish that seems to be around is “impact” which again i wanted him to explain… he said like spanking and pressure and I’m sure he gave more examples but this was a language that’s not familiar so I can only remember a snippet of information given because I don’t have any experience in the context… but he himself is interested in rope as well. I asked him how this developed… and he said it was actually through his exe’s ex-boyfriend. He himself was very conservative for most of his life and when he was with his exe they were fairly… hehe… cannot remember the term they used… but it was “bland” or you know what I mean unflavorable? I don’t remember but they did start to introduce some toys eventually. So they had a box of play toys they had used together and when they separated his exe kept the box. But he eventually got introduced to a Japanese sexual rope play… it starts with an S… let me look this up real quick… ok called Shibari.. and he ended up messaging his exe to see if she was using any of those toys and if not can he use the rope… and she commented that yes she doesn’t use any of the toys… her current boyfriend has his own ropes… and this stood out to him.. he has his own rope…and eventually he got the chance to ask him about it… and the boyfriend was open to share this with him and it’s built from their. He really like to take photography of the rope bondage and Shibari especially and shared some of his work with me which I saw the beauty and artistry that took place in the bondage and photography… and so it was interesting to have this introduced for me to think about. He also admitted they like the dominant/submissive thing as well… I’m sure there’s a term that I don’t remember… but he said that many engage with this but there’s a few variations with this kink… first of all some may play this role only when at parties… while some may do this all the times in their life… there are people who have a set dominant and a set submissive while others choose to change the roles throughout the play… they didn’t specifically say what their role was but just by observing them… I saw the female seemed to be the submissive I saw he would ask her to do things for him and she was not hesitant to do them for him… but again this isn’t necessarily saying this to be true.. I just didn’t dig any deeper into this with them. They were saying that the kink doesn’t necessarily tie to polyamory either… there are many couples who only play with each other.. but they happen to like voyeurism Holy cow! My iPad died on me and I lost so much content that I was writing… and I thought i plugged it in but it wasn’t charging… and at these moments I feel like what I was sharing wasn’t all necessarily meant to be shared… it goes through my process of purging to gain insights.. and I felt a moment where I was tightening up again and hitting that cord… and it was beautiful… I still want to continue to write but I’m going to just put some key insights in instead of the process for me to get there… so I’ll try to continue where I left off… it didn’t erase everything… but yeah while I was waiting for enough juice to power it up I was like… what is going to be left of my session? And I was hoping everything would still be there.. but it wasn’t… but I’m ok with that and I’ll see how I’m going to proceed and what I”m drawn to recall… so interesting of what should be shared or not… ok where did the entry leave off? Voyeurism… now this has an implication that it’s secretive and without consent but that does not apply for a kink party it’s open and fully consensual but the act of enjoying being watched and watching sexual activities. I am interested in both of these areas… when it comes to this though I feel like it’s not only for gratification but for educational purposes too. Where am i right now and what do I see could be steps to move forward with my lessons at this time? I am ready to go all in and be as completely vulnerable and trusting that I’m attracting a deep partnership where not only are we going to express fully our attraction but also our desire to share in each other’s passions. I realize that I’m afraid that my intensity and passion is too much and I’ve played myself down so I can be accepted and received but that’s no longer my approach because I don’t want to play games and waste anyone’s time… if my authenticity is something that can be received at this time.. then I don’t need to wait to be received… I’ll continue to do the work to attract this bond of depthless that I’ve been truly wanting to experience and I’m now ready to experience. I’ve had to do a lot of work to be able to unconditionally love myself and this romantic depthless is not something I want to keep from myself any longer. My body and mind are on the same page of fully giving this a chance… a balance of logic and emotion… a balance of directness and softness… I’m excited to see where Reality will lead me as I walk this path intentionally. I’m very hopeful but will be also listening to any flags that might arise in this process. I originally thought that I might have a rule of no penis penetration into my vagina or my anus to start with… but I don’t want to have anything stopping us from how we express and learn together.. I thought possibly my creativity and motivation would be stunted if I share my powerful sexual energy and I’ve had to clear energies of past partners.. but honestly there’s nothing to be afraid of… I embody these qualities and it’s not dependent on my sexual energy. In fact I feel like if I’m able to express my sexual energy deeply with my partner… is only going to lead to more strength and more grace… and be a better teacher and guide. Not that I want to immediately step into the penetration right away… I want to start with communication. I mean honestly have conversations where we want to not assume we understand by our own definitions of words but willing to have conversations more than a sentence long to want to understand what our partner is trying to express at the time. I don’t take words for granted and I will continue to ask for clarification and I’m hoping he will find this endearing that I really want to understand him… we have different programming and nuanced differences in each word… so the desire to understand and communicate is where I’d like to begin. And when it comes to sexual interactions… I’m wanting to learn to not have an expectation of destination… I want to just immerse myself fully into whatever transpires. I was sharing an intimate moment of touching one another’s hands… I mean I could see how powerful it was to have this brief encounter but I wasn’t in the setting that would have allowed me to explore and express… but I found pleasure to do this with him.. and I’d like to share more of these moments in privacy until however long it is for me to be able to display it differently. I was saying I already know he’s polyamorous and this is something I do not want to take away from him… but I’m hoping he might be open to giving me a few months of time to see if there’s chemistry between us before he adds a new partner.. and if we can build this then I would understand if the new partner would need this as well.. I don’t know what he needs but i want to know. And right now I’m sure he just need space and time to process his separation. And I want to give him this. I want to learn how to support him in the way he wants but also in the ways I can. I’m very grateful I’m moving forward with more intention and direction of what I want to add into the mix of my fucking amazing life that I’m so grateful to be experiencing. Regardless of the results… we will be able to learn so much from one another and grow ourselves which is a value we both share. Man it feel like I’m just not in the flow like I was earlier before the iPad died… there are things I was going to write and I’m not sure i”m in the zone any longer. I guess I’ll just try to briefly put in a few things and see if it starts to ignite inspiration to continue. Yesterday when I was cleaning i came across some of my tarot cards and I thought why not see what messages I get… I chose two decks which I don’t necessarily have to pull out the book to read the messages.. I’ll just go with the little that’s written on the front. So I started with the Angels and Crystal oracle cards… and two cards flew out… the first was Rodocrisita : Be kind to yourself. You’ve been through a lot and you need time to heal and recover. The second was Tanzanite: You are ready to love again. Your heart has healed from the wounds of the past and is open to love again. I grabbed the Love Angels oracle deck and got more cards (1) Chemistry: Feel a strong magnetic attraction. (2) Open your mind: Your soulmate may be different from the type of person you expect to meet. (3) Honeymoon: Appreciate the charm of a couple's holiday. (4) Give your relationship a chance: Make time for your partner. (5) Flirtation: Give your carefree energy to others! I asked if there is anymore clarification that can be given at this time and three more cards fell (6) Forgive and Let go: By releasing the past, you live much more love in the present moment. (7) Separation: A period away from your partner is announced. (8) He deserves love: He is worthy of being loved! I can feel like my attention is straying and so I’ll just mention this morning I was thinking about ways I would approach the Chicken game differently and remembered the book I want to write about exploring sexuality.. I’ll just put it down to maybe pickup at another time. Until next time… enjoy!

Good morning… so interesting I was just finding myself doing a physical purge is something minor but it’s a sign for me and I”ve found myself doing this quite often lately… it sounds maybe a bit odd.. but it’s belching or burping… I wasn’t going to start this session with this but literally when I was signing in and scrolling to get to this session to write I was doing this and this is something subtle but it does communicate to me… and for me by participating in Aya ceremonies… I’ve noticed the many ways of purging and this is one of them… to me it’s allowing space and room for me to release the old and open to experience the new… so I guess I wanted to mention this. So when I started with so interesting at the start of this… I wasn’t going to say anything about burping but that’s what I wrote… what I was going to say was interesting is that I fell asleep shortly after my post last night which was fairly early in the night and I slept until I woke up at 2:22am in the morning… I used the restroom and my dad was getting ready for bed… and I thought maybe I was just wanting time to be awake and be the only one to be awake in the house for some solitude in an essence… I thought maybe this is the time I can dive into deciphering the notes from the weekend… but I found myself coming to this forum and I started to read my first entries when I began this Journal. Gosh I didn’t remember who quickly I got into exposing myself with areas of trauma that I had when I was younger… but I was reading and I felt like I was getting tired again… so I went back to sleep and while I was sleeping I started to get some insights of where I can explore my attempt to express why my body is recognizing something.. my body is recognizing safe space… and trust is something to look into more as well. So.. how do I begin? So I was reading about the events I had when I was a child and there were inappropriate engagements that I shared with older relatives… there was one who restrained me and overpowered me when I didn’t want to be with him. I’m sure this is something that has been subconsciously assisting me of not fully trusting people. However much I have a desire to find safe spaces… I have so many stipulations that mind has that doubts or suspects foul play behind people’s intention.. Geesh when I write this out it sounds like it’s so extreme but that’s not how I perceive it… for the most time I do not feel like this but I think specifically when it comes to exploring and expressing my sexuality… this is where I haven’t felt a safe space before. Again wanting to have this was always a mind chatter of wondering if this is a safe opportunity… but if feels right now… that my mind wasn’t really ready to understand what a safe space is… it’s my body who seems to feel like it has more understanding… these are not separate and they work together… but to explain this it makes more sense to split it up… my body seems to be stepping up with clear communication that is more evident to notice… while if I kept it as a mind masturbation… it would be the same old thing… so yes Realities communication seems to be clearer and I’m so grateful I’ve become open enough to receive these communications. Not only was I feeling like there’s an opportunity for a safe space for my sexuality… but at the fire circle… again… there was a safe space for me to surrender and express myself through the drum and voice… I’ve been looking for safe space… and I’ve found it. And I’m excited to see what my potential will be when I have a safe space… holy shit I feel like I’m going to transform drastically and exponentially right onto my path with a much deeper confidence and trust in myself not only the Universe… again which isn’t separated but there’s a humanness that seems to be addressed. There’s a human side to me that needs deeper understanding before it can transition in these areas as Universal love. Hehe… if anyone starts to read this Journal near the end there’s a lot of context that is missing when I’m typing… Enlightenment exploration is what I do and how I try to explain the benefits of transitioning from human to Universal mindsets… when our identity switches… we communicate with the Universe in a manner where messages are being given in massively diverse ways… but once it clicks that this is guidance… there’s no hesitation of oh… when am I going to start working on this? It’s like ok… thank you there is something I’m going to work on now.. and the benefits of working on what’s stopping us from moving forward with authenticity is far more desirable then waiting… I no this is challenging for me to explain… but that’s why my rambling goes through this process… there’s in between the lines that communicates as much as direct words that are coming out. We’ve got to be using our intuition and intelligence to gather the data and gain the understanding. I’m working on figuring out how to speak with clarity and conciseness that I’m heading towards… but this is the process and I’m learning through the process. And even though I said that it seems like we don’t want to wait to go through the lessons but I’ve been getting messages to prepare me to work in this area… so it wasn’t quite immediate… but I guess it’s been patient for me to prepare myself to make these changes… and it’s clearing up room to allow me to be ready to be ready… and I guess once I realize all of the factors that are in alignment… and then I realize… ok I’m ready to do this. So… yes it excites me to see what has challenged me in the past… I’m so much more confident that it’s not going to be as challenging as I think it is… I’m ok with challenge because it’s so worth it to get into it and see the benefits of the results of facing the challenge and embodying the results that are gained through facing… so yes… I enjoy the communication and relationship with the Universe… I’m so blessed to have reached this state of union… it’s what I’ve always desired but didn’t know until I was in it. We’re in it folks… we just don’t realize it until we do… and to do so we have to make commitments to be more intentional in all areas of our life. Ok… let’s get back to safe space and trust. Let’s go into trust real quick… it’s a bit funny but I’ve always been on the side of trusting in my life however I didn’t realize the balance of finding a safe space to really be able to trust. What am I saying? Let’s just bring up the Australian man again… I had gotten so many messages about him and I cannot express how much I trust the Universe and when I was receiving these messages I’ve been demonstrating to the Universe just how much I trust it by overcoming fears.. and when I notice areas of fear I want to explore and discover so the fear can dissolve.. or at least reduced… so we shared intimacy when we met and we met through Aya ceremonies where safe space was present… we were able to be vulnerable and explore and express in this safe space… but when we found ourselves out of the safe space… things changed. I wanted to continue the vulnerability and exploration to continue… my communication didn’t change, but for him… it was different when he returned back to the real world… his communication changed and his opinion of me changed as well. When I went to visit him there were details that he was expressing that he’s not ready to be vulnerable right now.. he was going through a divorce and even though we wanted to see and visit with one another… there was a wall up… and yes safe space wasn’t present but I wanted to trust and still went through the motions that I needed to to get the experience to learn from. But holy shit… I continued to trust because I continued to receive messages… and I’d try to reach out and express with my heart and I didn’t really realize he wasn’t able to create safe space for me. I know I felt this but I wanted to trust that the Universe is wanting me to engage with him… but the Universe was also telling me to be patient and wait… and I felt like I was doing this… but I’ve gain so many insights while I was dealing with him. And it’s to the point where his energy is not needed in my energy right now… I’m moving forward towards growth and if I continue to try to hold on.. that’s going to prevent me from growth… and I desire growth far more than a human. Finally the Universe was able to communicate to my thick skull that it’s time to cut the cord between us. Getting to a point of understanding that I trust the Universe completely and trust it will guide me through the unknown… and I trust myself to be able to walk the steps necessary for my human to learn through experience. I rarely opened up to expressing my romantic side to him… I knew he was not ready for that however we’ve been in our relationship for seven years.. so I thought we’d be able to get to a point where we could talk more deeply… but that wasn’t the case… and I’m not going to wait for him to be ready… in fact I’m ok to remove him and see who and what the Universe wants me to experience. That’s why I think again I was tearing up… tearing up and crying doesn’t come easy but it’s starting to flow much easier than the past… but the Universe knows my deepest desires.. and even though I know this is a deep desire I have… I get in the way and the Universe wants me to allow myself to experience the best and I’m just so thankful that it’s never given up on me… The Universe never gives up on us and knows our deepest desires and wants us to experience these desires… but it also understands the complexity we’ve woven around our hearts to be able to be ready to allow this bliss to enter our lives… I trust the Universe… I’ve been able to trust myself which in turn allows me to trust “others” which again in a way doesn’t exist.. but most people I’m speaking with right now are humans so the concept of others is a thing… so I was thinking about my current romantic interest now… He has been a safe space right from the get go… but of course my mind was not certain… it’s doing it’s thing of observing and contemplating… again.. there’s a desire for safe space to open up freely but again… my mind thinks it’s going to take time for observation before determining through thought to discern whether its a safe space or not… and just to let you know… it’s not like I knew I was looking for a safe space… hehe.. I’m satisfied being with my own energy and even though I want to find “other’ energies to connect and bond with… I’m not desperate and very picky and more patient. I’m noticing that I too have one foot out the door to escape if I feel the need to… and that’s what I’m understanding again by noticing that my body is speaking louder than my thought right now. It’s recognizing something that it wants the mind to understand… when I speak with the man I see that I want to be as honestly expressive than most… it’s hard to explain because I do this on the regular but I also know see there’s a deeper degree that can be embodied and its drawing me into a deep desire to explore right here and right now. My body recognized he is a safe space… I wonder how similar we are to each other when it comes to this… I wonder if he also found himself wanting to trust and find safe space to move into deeper levels of expression. To me from the brief observation that he seems to be well on his way of doing this comfortably and easily… like I was say might be something people perceive of me… but he admits that there is a messiness that he knows he wants to address and so maybe he hasn’t felt that safe space to explore depths to these degrees that we intuitive know exists but finding the combination of divine timing of preparing ourselves to be ready to be ready to open and surrender deeper. I want to be that safe space for him. But he says it’s hard for him to trust and so I understand there’s going to be a process of building this trust. And again… maybe he hasn’t had the loud communication of his body speaking to him like I have… and so maybe I can assume his mind and thoughts are what is speaking to him which makes him want to question everything and as hopefully he wants to be… doubt creeps in and it speaks strongly to carefully maneuver in the Reality in these areas… if this is the case then I completely understand. I’ve been slowly trying to interject to him that I’m not wanting to have a foot out the door right now. I want to keep both doors in… I’m wanting to completely surrender to getting to know one another and see how much growth we can find by committing to explore and surrender depths to allow benefits we don’t understand at this point but intuitively want to experience. I want to have both feet in but there’s also a side of me that is wanting him to know that there is a purpose that I’m involved in that involves universal connections… global connections is how I explain for a human to understand… I’m telling him I can give him a year which might be interpreted differently than what I’m trying to say. I am motivated to move in my purpose that’s universal… there’s something quite profound and grand that I’m involved with and I want this to be understood. Why I am saying a year I can give right now is because… I have a calling that will take me away from Indiana… from the States… into lands I haven’t known as this human body. But the quality of intention isn’t understood right away. I continue to walk with intention at all times. An example from the weekend would be when one of the guests gives readings using his crystals… I noticed people were sitting in the same room and when it was my turn I didn’t want to be difficult or rude.. I like everyone who was present.. but I didn’t want this experience to be public. I wanted it to be far more intimate… I wanted to remove ourselves from possible distractions… I wanted to focus and get myself to ground and receive… we moved into an area where no one present…and he commented on how he loves to see how intentional I am with this reading.. and it makes me chuckle because yes… I understand that the Universe communicates in many ways and if the Universe intentionally becomes intentional then clarity of communication arises… and sometimes not.. but again this is something subtle but sharing time together its understood… removing distractions allows intention as well… declutterring activities that surround the situation… I’m moving back to the moments we shared on the couch… even though I know I gained understanding by sharing this with him and everyone else in the space… but I also gained an understanding that where I am right now… I desire privacy and not a public display. And it wasn’t like anyone was watching us as if they were the audience to see what our interaction was going to lead to… but again I didn’t want to express myself in this environment. As much as I enjoyed enjoying the touching we shared… I was distracted with activities and I felt I couldn’t explore my intentions as deeply as I would like to. I mean this doesn’t automatically assume that when we are alone that I’ll be open either.. hehe… I just don’t know how things are going to play out. But I also don’t know if he has a desire to spend quality alone time with me either… but again I don’t think he knows whether he wants to either. We don’t know one another… and there’s a woman who came into his life expressing at surprised attraction towards him… he maybe wondering why? Maybe he’s wondering if I have alternative reasons? But I also noticed that he didn’t automatically close the door on me either. And I think being able to be around each other’s energy he was communicating that he’s willing to take some baby steps to see if there is a connection or attraction between us. But yes… he’s got a lot on his plate not only all the hostel stuff but his heart is occupied in dealing heavy feelings. I’m not in a rush… there’s nowhere I want to be right now except right here and right now. What I desire is to be intentionally present with him to build strength in trust. I feel there’s something far deeper than just romantic depths… that’s just the cherry on top… and if we find romantically isn’t where we connect or bond… then that’s fine as well… I see us partnering up far longer than the year I am committing to. I feel this year will allow an honest and realistic understanding of where we are and how we work together in multiple aspects of our lives. Many may think that a year isn’t that long of time…but holy shit it can be a life time of experience when living with intention. There’s been transformation from the year I spent in Utah and Colorado which was a year… but again there was an element of missing the feeling of a safe space… I can imagine that having a year of intent, trust, and safe space will again be the perfect combination from tangible growth that won’t be as subtle as in the past. When I say I want to be here for a year… doesn’t mean thats where it will end… in fact I want it to be the beginning of our journey together… allowing us the time and space to get to understand one another… if it goes even a hint of what I’m feeling and intuiting… we’ll want to choose to spend time together outside of Indiana to help support one another. I feel I can gain so many benefits to support him and his empire he’s been creating and it’s amazing and impressive… I’d love to dive deeper into his creative mind and be an assistant to allow him to remember to self-care and clear energies that linger and unnecessary… Even though I would love to support him, I’m also not wanting to lose my empire I am wanting as well… I know this is unshakable and I won’t forget but also communicating that I’m not wishy-washy about my purpose… but people want me to explain it through words and that’s challenging but hopefully I’ll find the words soon… or really when it comes it will come and until then I can express my passion for purpose can be understood by spending time with me. I don’t really know at this point but I have an intuitive nudge that this man has been working towards transitioning from human mind to Universal mind… and that’s where my line of work comes into play… I hope that through my support with his visions for a year will allow him to understand why he might want to support my vision as well… which isn’t excluding him… it’s going to be showing him the potentials that he might not have imagined quite yet… he’s brilliant and creative and has been manifesting larger than what an average human thinks is possible…and I have a feeling he’s confident to give back more to the larger community collective… I’ve made commitments in my purpose that has allowed me to move freely between communities learning about detachment which is not void of unconditional love.. but in my understanding that I’m willing to make sacrifices to create a connected whole ultimately… but my idea of sacrifice continues to mature and I don’t need to sacrifice to degrees where I don’t allow myself to enjoy opportunities I want to explore. I’m over whipping myself to be motivated and disciplined… these are things I am and graceful to the degrees I allow at different times when I fluctuate. Learning to dance to the art of Reality is becoming more masterful… and strategy is looking for that point of a degree of impetuous… I do care but I want to go all in because I recognize the potential results. And I have a feeling it’s far more that what I can imagine at this time but what I’m imagining it’s going to be worth it! And damn it I’m worth it too! I’ve been working to get to this point and I’m grateful how much doubt is clearing away… So again it seems like sex is a main focus right now and I don’t want it to be such a focal point but it’s an area that I’ve been setting on the side so yeah it’s now become important for me to address.. it’s been waiting to be addressed and now I see an opportunity. So in this environment there seems to be many who are involved who are open to sexual play. And they are not shy in their expression but very respectful. I’m sure they can smell it on me… that curiosity of exploration… I think they witnessed moments of raw honesty of bliss with ones that I’ve found to surrender and express…usually when it was in smaller groups that’s where I’m comfortable right now. This is reminding me of a message exchange with one of the guests during the weekend.. she was so sweet and expressive of how she appreciated meeting me and sharing time together… I’ll share the screenshot of part of the conversation. But I bond with people in smaller groups and with time to bond and express… that’s something I’ve noticed with this man the founder… I was able to build bonds with the guests and staff more than I could with him because of time shared… as much as I would like to go right now and share time with him… his attention is on work related issues… and again I’m wondering if he’s more attracted to dealing with me because of what I can help with his work? And I know I can help with him in his work… but I want to get to know him personally outside of work context. I don’t want to piece together who this man is through other peoples interpretations and stories of him… I want to go directly to the source and have my own experiences to create the picture through our shared time together. I feel he wants this balance and is taking tangible steps to create the opportunities to find the balance. I trust he’s already doing what he needs to to realize it for himself. And I also realize that there’s a part of me who wants to prove my worthiness. What have I been doing to make me think this? So… I’m very excited to be meeting the people I’ve been getting introduced to specifically at the hostel. I mean I’ve spent half my time there so they are the ones I’m getting interested in and I enjoyed myself. I notice that in a group setting I’m not as expressive but I also found amazing in depth conversations and bonding when it was one to one and smaller groups.. and those few have a better understanding of who I am because it was the space and time I needed to share myself openly. But again I didn’t get to everyone.. it was only over the weekend which didn’t allow time for me to get to everyone and I know people are attracted to one another and so I’ve been wanting to keep in touch with these people. So how do I show them a part of me that I wasn’t able to express through words? I love to make these video clips of a story I lived and I do this already but it was one way to demonstrate that hey… I’m worthy to get to know better… see… I’m creative and I don’t actually put a lot of effort into these videos… but I’m going to be more intentional in the quality but there is still a degree of intention at play but this will mature… and then I was inspired to create storytelling artwork to capture the event through digital art.. which again is something I haven’t really had the time to explore much but I have a degree of confidence in art that it can be presented with some degree of approval… another subtle way of worthiness through creativity… but then there was another event with more people who I want to get to know and also the case I didn’t get to everyone personally but desire to make arrangements to have that alone time to understand one another more… but I was a note taker… and I placed the timeline of getting the information out in a timely manner that again was a way to demonstrate my worthiness as an allí for this next year and also wanting to get a piece of art out during the honeymoon phase… but I’m rushing the process… I mean I like the artwork but it’s not really at the point that I’m like ok.. .this is why I’m trying this out… and I am concerned that this honeymoon phase is a short lived time period… why? I feel like I’m half assing things because of this perceived timeline I’ve place us on. I’m worthy and damn it if no one wants to find that out then why am I giving so much effort to prove my worthiness? And how many people am I trying to prove to? Again… it’s like what I dealt with in art in general… I hated when i was doing art when I was thinking what does the audience want from me? Let me brainstorm what they want… when I transitioned to not caring what they want and focus on what i want… it’s much more satisfying and fulfilling to approach art this way… and that applies now… and it also applies to showing my worthiness to the people I’ve met. It applies to my romantic interest as well… what does he want so I can prove my worthiness to get to know me better? I mean it’s easy to have the enthusiasm to help with projects around the hostel which can show my worthiness to be a part of the hostel… but there’s far more that I can help with than labor. I’m just used to showing worthiness through labor and results and efficiency. But I’m more sensitive now and I’ve found myself exhausted. And I’m getting messages that my role is changing.. and I’m not sure exactly what that means… but I have a degree of understanding that labor isn’t all that I’m good at… and labor is a very tangible degree to determine worthiness and a blunt way to notice… but I work in the subtleties… and I’d much rather follow what I want to do at each moment without pressuring myself of what i should do to show my worthiness… I’m trying to figure out how to weed out people who are not aligned with me at this time. I’m trying to maintain my energies and wanting to focus energy towards my purpose which encompasses many facets… but I’ve been thinking about temples… I thought that staying in one place limits the potential of ready people to find one another… but that isn’t the case. I found many amazing people by being at a temple… it was attracting the people together and we were recognizing one another… and so my original thoughts of me having to go and travel to find the people… that’s not always the case… many people I’m looking for are in areas that don’t allow the opportunity and freedom for international travel so I know I’ll be going to them… but right now I’m feeling of grounding my roots for awhile… and allowing the opportunity for people to find me. when I come to Indiana especially there are so many amazing people that I hope are ready to move forward to Universal mind… so I have lists of people I want to go and visit and spend time with… but I want to focus my energies… and I don’t know when people are ready… I just know I”m ready to expand.. and why don’t I see who gets attracted to the location I’m at? I mean I’ve always been impressed with the people I’ve met at the hostel… and it was clear it attracts amazing people just like the temple… the founder has built this vortex of attraction… and why not be able to work with this magnetism? He’s extremely magnetic however I feel like I am too… so why not increase the magnetism? I do enjoy labor admittedly… I’m so excited there’s a wood shop here at the hostel… and I haven’t had an opportunity to enjoy a wood shop before except for brief moments in college… the wood shop calls to me and the professors were noticing my affinity to wood and was trying to pull me into their department… I have some experience with carpentry and construction but to not great degrees… I studied architecture and interior design.. so building is something I want to build experience in… and I’m hoping this could allow opportunities… but when I was laying the floor I felt this pressure of getting the thing done in two hours… i felt tension in team members and I found it very challenging to be satisfied with my results… I was distracted with all the factors… and I’m not satisfied with the quality I settled with… but this is a skill I can foresee to build if I was able to be a part of this community for a year… but again skewing the schedule a bit… two hours of construction and woodworking isn’t much time for me to process and create comfortableness. Yeah… that’s something I noticed in the temple when it came to duties of labor… she had a long list of items on the labor list but it wasn’t available for everyone to know what was on the list. I’m not sure why but I could see having a vision of where the community is going is something I’d find valuable and motivating to contribute to that vision. But she also looked at her volunteers as laborers … I’m not saying she’s bad by any means… but she has a lot on her plate that she wants done and so she had a tendency to see laborers for items on her list. She wasn’t really getting to know the volunteers who came onto property… she didn’t really understand what value they have in this environment… she just knew they were there for a temporary period of time and then they’ll move on.. so she’s going to get as much labor as she can even if it’s half assed because at least it’s getting done even though we’ll have to rebuild shortly after… I started to see that if people had specific skills in building she would have projects for them to work on which again wasn’t on a list anyone knew about only herself… so I’d ask the volunteers who came to the temple by court for community hours to give if they have a skill relating to building and so she was able to get specific tasks done by specialized volunteers you know like electrical issues and such… again labor seems to be an easy qualifier of value of someone’s worth… but we all understand that life and communities are so much more nuanced than that. I’d like to look at the nuisance more in this community. I feel like I want to find a recruiting system in the pool of volunteers. I’d like to see what all websites that are out there for people prone to volunteer work… I know there were a few that I learned from the LDS which I browsed through… but I’d like to personally do some outreach to the local population too… geesh I’ve got so many ideas of how I would like to approach this community… but I literally don’t know who I’m working with at this moment. I just have a strong desire to get the chance to know him more. Let’s just stop right here and understand that I have not spoken to him about his visions and goals in a deep manner… I heard what people shared during the meetings but I want to read between the lines… they are so immersed in the community that sometimes it takes an outsider to observe something about the community that it cannot see for themselves… that applies to individuals as well… so thankful for the people I meet who are honest about what they see in me that I couldn’t see for myself.. it’s helpful. But I’m going to stop entertaining visions of what I’d like to help the property with until I actually get the quality time I need for understanding. I do like hearing what they’re sharing but we didn’t get to a point of steps to move forward… some questions seemed easy to answer… but again I like to work with subtleties and nuance… and observing and feeling out a community will give me far more understanding then listening to the words that were shared. And even though I love the people I met.. I also know there is so many lovely people I’ve met and have been building a relationship here in Indiana… again… maybe I’l be more patient to who I’m drawn and attracted to work with instead of just thinking about everyone and narrowing my focus to the ones who are magnetic and attractive. My communication with the Universe is expanding and I’ve realized an example of what that communication looks like with this hostel for example and it’s founder. I felt the draw and wanted to visit these events before i came here… so the lines of communication are open and there just expanding the ways of communication and I willing to expand my communication as well. Music is calling to me… nature is calling to me.. deep bonds are calling to me… transformation is calling to me… building is calling to me… safe space is calling to me… I feel like safe space is becoming more apparent and the different ways that can be applied to my life right now… in a physical manner… no matter how much I love and respect my father… his house is not a safe space to feel comfortable in. It’s again challenging to explain because he is a safe space… he’s been a safe space for me all my life and why we’ve become so close… but his actual home is not a safe space. It’s cluttered and dirty which is distracting and time consuming and tedious especially when I know the efforts and energy I place into it will only last a limited period of time since this isn’t a concern for him right now… but it’s been really challenging for me to cook and even clean myself while I’m here… there’s no running water… which again shouldn’t be that big of deal… this isn’t the only place I’ve stayed in that doesn’t have running water… but the care for cleanliness isn’t present right now… only in very specific areas… but I went eight months without a kitchen at the temple… when I spent two months with my buddy in Colorado we were having the best of time cooking together… how much i underestimated the value of having access to a kitchen will not be taken for granted… just like spending a year here with my pops with out a bathtub… I only took two to three showers when I was in Utah… I took baths.. I find it so beneficial and healing for my soul and so I didn’t want to take it for granted and when I knew I was coming back to Indiana… I knew I wasn’t going to have baths often and I also knew the condition of the kitchen I’d be working with… and I feel myself more resistant to stay in the place… I was able to create a degree of cleanliness when I was here last but it took over a year to accomplish this.. and when I returned.. it was back to where it was… i mean not exactly I see steps of improvements… but I just see so much energy to get it back to where I feel comfortable to be in this space. In fact maybe that’s what I’ll be doing today… just start cleaning again… I’m not sure how long I’ll be here and I cannot assume that I’ll attract somewhere different… so work with what I have and get it to a point where I’ll be able to maneuver easier. I seem to be working with my relationship with the cold a little more too… when I was in Colorado in the airstream I wasn’t as cold as one would assume… it took a little bit of adjustments but I found I was able to sleep and be comfortable in the cold… my dad is also concerned about me being cold because there’s no central heating but he has portable heaters and he keeps wanting me to use them and has given me a heated blanket… and i’m grateful for the concern and tools to keep warm.. but I also feel like the cold isn’t affecting me in the same manner. There time for adjustments and then I’m comfortable. I know I do appreciate him holding on to all of his clothes though…hehe… I’ve gotten rid of most of my belongings and I raided one of his closets to find some sweaters to wear since fall is ending shortly and winter will be upon us. I’ve got plenty to choose from… and I’m grateful… I do enjoy being with my pops… he said last year that he doesn’t want to spend the whole winter here at the house because it’s challenging and we aren’t really invited to the holidays with my brother and the grand kiddos… so it’s just not worth toughing it out the winter and wants to go to New Orleans to visit a cousin who recently moved there. He wants to go for the food…he loves to cook Cajun and wants to enjoy authentic Cajun… he asked me to go… but I said I’d go for the food but I don’t want to go to New Orleans.. I’d want to go to the bayou… in the boondocks… no man’s land… hehe… I can do both but I wouldn’t want to spend much time in the city… i know I’ll find enjoyment there… but I’d like to focus my time in the country… also I’m not certain I’m too thrilled to visit with the cousin… again something in small doses would be good but not a heaping helping…hehe… love her but energy is pretty intense… I know it will help me see where I’m at with dealing with this style of energy but I’ve already had that with someone who lives in my hometown… he’s got intense energy that’s also needy… and the result is I’ve told him to stop reaching out to me at this time… he’s going to have to wait until I reach out to him.. he’s repelling me with that type of energy… it’s really the neediness and desperation of attention… it’s not something I have the energy to share with this person. and subtlety and nuance just goes right over his head so I have to be straightforward and firm. He does the same thing to my childhood girl friend and that’s how he was introduced to him again he’s a neighbor of hers… but she hasn’t made it clear to him where her boundaries are and was complaining about the frequency of his communication and asked if I’m still dealing with it… and I was happy to say no I’m not dealing with it… I was clear in my communication for him to not reach out and I’ll reach out to him instead. I’ll probably go and play a round of disc golf one day with him… but not at this moment… however… hmmm… maybe that’s something I’d like to do right now and then come back to cleaning… yes… nature calls to me and I love the woods here where I play disc golf… yeah… that’s what I feel like doing right now. Ok.. cool… I think this was a good session again… until next time… enjoy

Alright… so let’s see what can be brought out… I got back with dinner with my pops and I’m in a more relaxed state and I’m curious to see what’s going on… so I did want to mention that these moments of fear again aren’t scary for me… in fact I haven’t been aware of these moments for awhile now… that’s been a strategy of mine to do so many activities which is out of my comfort zone so I can live a life without fear… so just as I saw this squirmish thing happening.. I now see that there’s a fear I’m going to be working on as well. I tell people that I look forward when I’m in situations and I get triggered because its a flag for me to see that there’s something to work on and so this is another flag that I want to address. It wasn’t extremes amount of fear but even the subltlest of fears seems to be noticed which is a great thing. So… let’s see how to approach this. When I was in this state earlier there were some thoughts that were bring brought up that I noticed… deserving of love and worthiness… so I’m guessing this is the area that I’ll need to explore more into. Again it’s not that I don’t work on this but specifically when it comes to romantic situations…. I’ll have to address this. Another thing I want to mention at this time is there’s so much inspiration I have from the intentional community event… but I feel like this is something that is occupying my mind and I’d like to purge for a little while so I can free up space to address community networking opportunities. So… where was I before I noticed my body’s reaction… I was talking about my romantic interest having a foundational partner which allowed a buffer for me to approach this. It’s funny all of this is… because I had an idea I’d be working on this in my life and been getting messages to help prepare me, but living through it… doesn’t seem to be anything I could have prepared for but I do see that it’s not hard to walk myself through these challenges.. and it also feels like it’s not really challenging… it’s just something that needs to be addressed and I’m actually looking forward to remove any blockages that remain. So… why does my mind want to make this something completely different than my original thoughts? When I heard he was going through a separation there were thoughts and emotions about this. Let’s see if I can express them… so like I said it was heavy energy and I want to be someone who can hold that space but I also realize I haven’t built that trust to be that space for him. He did mention that it’s hard for him to trust people and that was something said in passing and not directly towards me, but there’s ways of communicating in a group setting that still allows people to get a better understanding of where we are right now. I also remember that there was an approach in that morning meeting to speak with him in a way that was directed towards him but also in a casual way that most won’t really get all the information I’m eluding towards. He was expressing himself and how it’s going to get messy… and I guess I felt to express myself as I’ve literally in front of him address and express issues I’m working on and it was definitely messy and not as smooth as I hoped but it was necessary to see how I authentically feel at the time so I can get a better understanding where I’m at. I was telling him that in a short time he’s been able to get me to express messy emotions and thoughts and not only did I observe all the mess and squirminess… he did too… and he was brilliant at holding the space for me to do this. And I didn’t go into too much detail of what our conversation was because that was personal and it’s not time to talk about this with fam staff or guests. We have no clue what this is and we don’t either… so yes just hinting that messy is going to be so worth it because of the growth that’s going to be gained from it… we’re both passionate about growth and we’ve found this in our own ways but it seems like we’ve been successful at approaching growth and apparent that it’s going to be something we’ll be able to hold the space for growth to happen. He responded that he loved to be part of watching the squirming thing I was going through etcétera etcetera… in the moment I was like what is happening and why are you reacting this way… but I also see how brilliant it was to be as transparent as I could be at that moment. So again what’s the difference between him being involved with his partner or not? Well… I guess if he had a tight bond with a partner… I assumed that maybe that would allow buffering to where his attention wouldn’t be focused on me… I obviously don’t know exactly how he approaches his life or relationships but I figured that there could be an attraction and bonding but again the intensity wouldn’t be there because he already has someone he has built a bond with. So I’m not sure who else he might be talking with or dating or has relationship with… we haven’t spoken about this with him… I only knew of his nesting partner and the girl he brought to visit the hostel.. and so I don’t know what’s going on there either. Hell I don’t know what’s going on with us either… that’s the thing this has come out of nowhere.. and hasn’t slowly built up.. I mean the slow build up would be only noticeable with myself.. I knew his posts were attracting my attention which was making sense that he’s an amazing man… but I didn’t think about having this amazing man as a potential romantic partner. I thought he’s a potential for Enlightenment work that I do… and usually even with these people it’s a long term slow relationship… many are not ready to dive deep and allow themselves the time to work on spiritual work… so I guess I’m always assuming that I’ll spend my time with them as much as I can while I’m around but I’ll need to continue moving on to find more people to network with and to add to my list of potential Enlightenment workers. So yes it came as a surprise that I was finding him more attractive once I was in his presence. He’s handsome, yes, but his magnetism has to be felt. And observing how he manages his attention with all the people involved in his hostel.. is remarkable… however yeah it seems like there so many attentive people… hehe… its’ not a bad thing but to me when I watch this.. it was tiring just vicariously living through him through observation and I’ve only been observing for what 8 to ten days now… it’s not much time and he does this for eight months out of the year… again I’m exhausted just imagining it… but he’s found his way of moving in this and he might be more on the extroverted side where he gets energy from all of these interactions… I’m not sure but I hope to find out. So… there’s hesitation in me right now because in my mind… he’s going to need time to process this breakup… She was important in his life and if she’s being removed there will need to be attention to understanding and processing where we are at without them in our lives. I mean I’ve been going through this myself just weeks ago I have cutoff the Australian man in my life… and I’m super surprised at how quickly I’m able to entertain romance… I know I want to share intimacy and vulnerability in a romantic relationship but I have been getting more grounded in my relationship with the Universe and we’ve been communicating that this present moment I’m only keeping myself back from trying to pursue someone who doesn’t reciprocate or have mutual feelings, limited communication, and literally half way across the world. So again.. was I clinging onto something I couldn’t have to keep myself in a forever land of buffering? The visions in ceremony are strong so that wasn’t wrong… but it’s always had messages for me to be patient and as my communication deepens with the Universe the more trust and confidence I have to make changes and it does seem like it’s not taking me long to make those changes…. In fact every time I make changes the more I appreciate that the Universe has always had my back and continues to show unconditional love for me. And I feel when I was tearing up earlier was just that… I’ve been wanting this opportunity and I’m grateful that this has been getting addressed in my experience. It allows me to see that I’ve been doing the work to understand I do deserve happiness in all ways… romance is not something I have to live without anymore. I’m a bit bewildered because it’s been noticeable of who I’m actually attracted in this manner.. I was debating if I was to start dating again that it would be persons that I’ve already been building a relationship with … not someone I spent a brief few days with six years ago. I guess with the people I was thinking about was just that… I was almost thinking that certain people I already knew which one would be a good pick… but that was all it was… me thinking I should do it and I should just think about who that someone is… and when I’m around these persons… my body didn’t show any signs of recognition of deeper feelings or a deeper connection… right now… even though I’ve been asking my body what’s wrong with it… but it’s been clearly acting in a behavior that is not regular and yes there seems to be a recognition of the potential for something far deeper then I’ve been willing to allow myself to experience. But again… he’s going through a break up… and so I don’t want him to think I could be a good rebound for him to get over his feelings. I told him I was attracted to him before I knew he was going through a separation… I’m not looking for a short term fun hookup… I didn’t know originally what I was looking for but it’s again becoming more and more obvious that a deep connection for the long term is what I’m looking for… and what I’ll be attracting into my life… and quite possibly is what’s happening right now. So… I’m also stepping softly right now because I’m not certain how he sees me right now. He’s only had a few days to gain any opinion of me as a person. I mean I can find myself being eager to get more time with him because I’d love to get to know him better, but again as a buffer I can use the hostel as an excuse to spend time with him. And I do like to help and most owners of any business that meets me usually would love me around to assist in their business professionally… and so that is keeping me in check as well… he asked if I have anything going on to where I don’t spend more time here at the hostel… and I told him that the biggest thing that is stopping me from sticking around for longer is that I am unable to bring my cat with me. I’ll leave him with my pops for up to five days or so… but not much longer than this… I’ve already been out and about a lot since we returned to Indiana and he’s been freaking out and seems to be laying on me almost the entire time we are together because he’s missing me and also afraid that I’ll be leaving him. So he said if he could find a solution for my cat… I’d consider helping out for the last month before they close down for the winter… and I said yes that’s the main thing that’s preventing me from staying longer. As much as I’d like to think he wants me around to get to know me, but a more realistic part of me is also thinking that he really wants me help remodel the manager’s house… and I enjoy doing this… but I’m not sure how I can get to know him in a deeper manner as a staff member persona… right… first of all there are not many opportunities to have privacy together… he’s who everyone wants attention from… if I’m there as a staff member will I just be working to only get a few moments a week to get some quality alone time with him? That’s what I really want is to actually date him… I feel like spending a day with him would be so much more satisfying then then twenty minutes here and there throughout a week. I don’t need his attention everyday… but I could definitely give him a day of full attention… hehe… I’m thinking of getting him out into the middle of nowhere where we cannot get a signal and we’re completely cut off from getting distracted. I wonder if he’d be interesting in trying that out with me. I have a feeling we wouldn’t be bored together… I’m thinking if wee go camping or something like that where we are present in the immediate space around us… we aren’t talking to the people on the phone.. but talking with the people who are there and sharing the experience with us.. they could be strangers but getting to know the strangers and getting to know each other… exploring the surroundings and also allowing time for us to do our own thing… I could see him enjoying reading a book… hmmm… he’s an artist… I don’t know carry some art supplies to allow him the opportunity for him to create. This is reminding me what I said to him when we had a conversation before he left. I was telling him how much I’d love to spoil him… I feel like he deserves this… caretaking for so many people… I want to take care of the caretakers… and I’d love to have the opportunity to spoil him… and I’m not sure if he’d be able to trust me enough to allow that to happen… I also don’t know him well so I wouldn’t even know how to spoil him… my first gut feeling is to remove distractions and clearing out his energies… so he can just be with his own energy and help him relax into getting spoiled…. So yes I tend to think of soaking in baths or hot springs and a lot of massaging… I love giving massages but I also realized while I”m doing this that not everyone is as receptive with massages as I’d hope. Maybe there’s an expectation of what a massage would be like.. and maybe that’s something I should ask but I just go with whatever I’m feeling at the moment. I do ask… but most just leave it up to me without direction… and honestly that’s how I am too. I haven’t had many massages in my life and so yeah i don’t have experience to give direction… i feel like it’s better to communicate while I’m in the middle of it… hehe… and I also try to enjoy myself regardless. He’s a photographer and he captures beauty which seems effortlessly and so finding a setting that inspires him to shoot as long as he’d like to… hmmm… bringin his hello out into the dessert.. hehe… there seems like there’s a lot of creativity he’s been developing and maybe he does find the time to do this already in season, but just in case they get set to the wayside… I’d highly encourage him to allow time for creative self-care. Hehe… removing distractions… I told him that I haven’t used a phone consistently for seven years now… it’s been very healing to not be as easily accessible to everyone… I’d at least would like to suggest to keep the phone at home at times… Enjoying moments where there aren’t bings and chimes of someone who wants your time, energy, and attention… allowing himself to give his time, energy,and attention to himself… hehe… so yeah… maybe as much as I’d like to do this with him… maybe he just needs to do this alone. He said he was taking a few days off.. but he’s still active in the hostel chat… so he didn’t completely remove himself away from work. I’m still trying to see what I can observe with his approach to work. It’s been interesting watching his relationship with his staff… it’s been evident that there’s mutual respect but I’ve also seen a bit of tension in one of the staff members… they’re respectful with one another but there’s friction… because of the frequency in chatting in the FB chat, the admittance of having a hard time to trust people… I wonder if he has challenges in control issues or micromanaging… which could be present slightly but I don’t think tha’s what’s going on at least the only thing that’s going on… so yes right I’m not interviewing anyone to get details of what’s going on… I just gather bits and pieces that I hear to put a picture together… i have far more opportunities to talk with the staff and I’m able to get more details.. so the person with a tendency to have friction has mentioned some puzzle pieces… he mentioned that there was a second manager he worked with but I don’t know if it was supposed to be originally a two manager situation for this season or not. I feel like there’s movement in this hostel and so flexibility has to be developed in this environment. This person also admitted that they don’t have experience in hospitality and social settings isn’t their forte and so grateful to have this opportunity but also sees how it’s worn on them. It sounds like he’s been giving great effort through the season… but I’m coming at the end of the season and I understand that a lot of energy has been used for managing people which can be challenging and I feel for them. But I’ve also noticed how detail oriented they are as well when it comes to direction… it seems like the directions have to have a step one to step two before going to step three… and it seems like there’s also a lot of asking for permission to have confidence to trust they can do what’s asked of them. Not that I see them as needy… but there are tendencies there and as much as I think they want to be independent their approach seems like they’re not there yet and there’s a struggle to want it one way but not able or comfortable enough to work in the desired way of the mind. Because the confidence is not there. So yes… Ican see why he’s so hands on… He’s so intuitive that’s extremely sexy to me.. there’s been so many times that I see how intuitive he is so I’m sure he has to be flexible with the staff that happens to be there at the time. He’s been saying how he’s wanting to hand over responsibilities to his staff, but I think because of the current staff structure he has to be more of the leader for them to be confident to make decisions for action. I love the conversation that I’ve been sharing with everyone there. I can see how I approach conversation changes whenI ’m dealing diverse individuals… which also will apply to diverse teams that most likely shifts throughout the season… ok I feel like I’m on a tangent again and want to reel it back but I’m also feeling quite tired as well… my eyes are barely open… hehe… I want to dive in deep but I also feel like I don’t actually have the energy to do this at this time. My mind is wandering as well… so yeah… I’m going to go ahead and stop for tonight and rest. I feel good with the processing I allowed myself to do today… alright… until next time… enjoy!

Wowzers… ok… so I had an amazing time at the event this weekend and there seems to be so much that’s running through my mind at this time. Hehe… I have some work to do but I felt like I should start writing before I dive back into it. So how do I begin? I guess I’ll start with the moment of bliss that I had during the event… not that the entire time was fabulous.. but there was a break through moment and I’ll start with that. So there’s some context that I’ll give to set things up. This hostel that I’ve been going to the events seems to have an energy that allows for a safe space which is pretty normal for a location, but what’s really special is the people who are here. I am noticing myself letting loose a bit more. I seem to enter a space and observe to see how far I can open up with the people I’m with. I understand there are different levels of consciousness we could say and so some environments are a bit more open compared to others. So I have been noticing myself feeling out this space. I guess a good example of this… is I went a few days earlier to help out and so technically I was a staff member at this time… and I was doing jobs and such like laying floor tiles and cleaning out the compost toilets.. so I was technically working as a staff member however… it didn’t really dawn on me until Saturday night… my awareness noticed a shift in me where… holy shit.. I am a team member for this hostel… hehe.. I’m trying to explain something that is subtle. But again during the event I was doing the duties asked from me… I was one of the note takers for the meetings, cooking and cleaning for our guests. But after we had a drum circle where I’ll get to in awhile which was my break through moment… but there were guests who needed assistance with their rooms and questions… and I started to see myself actually shifting into team mode without anyone asking me to do so. There actually were two staff members inside that I could’ve asked to help… but I just started to do it myself and most things I didn’t know how to do.. like looking at the computer system to check people in and see what rooms are available.. yes… I just hadn’t got to these types of positions yet because there’s normally staff who is there doing it… but I started to get into the nurturing mode.. and felt like these guests aren’t just the hostel’s guest, but they became my guest and I wanted to help them to the best of my ability… and I also noticed since I didn’t know too many details about the procedures and where all the rooms are and their names… so I felt like I was doing my best but I can definitely learn more to do better next time. But yes… I could see areas where I was still wanting to be an outside observer with this space. I feel like I was really trying to see who really am I working with… do their values align with my values? And so again… it felt like I started to notice and allow myself to get in deeper with this community. It’s really interesting also because I usually can express myself openly and honestly; however… I’ve been noticing moments where I still have hesitancy and this place will help me with this. Everyone seems to be very receptive without initial judgements and just a safe space… I don’t want to have to decipher if each space is ok to express openly and I can see me gaining more experience while I’m here. And I can see this becoming a part of who I am… and I understand that I’ve been working on this already and I’ve seen improvements.. I just notice the potential to expand in this area will definitely increase here. There is a shift of not playing small any longer. I can feel myself not wanting to play this game any longer. And I’m ready to embody this in a much deeper and consistent way. So… I’ve been playing instruments since I came to the hostel and I absolutely adore the fact there are available instruments to play with. We have head and heart morning meetings and part of this is saying our daily personal ambitions.. and on Saturday I said I wanted drumming to be my personal ambition. The communities that came to this event actually are very familiar with drum circles around the fire… and I was hoping to get one going that night. I started to seed this idea during our break where I needed my own space since it’s a very social event. But I grabbed a djembe went to a picnic table away from the group to just practice drum beats I’ve learned. I wish I could remember more of the rhythms but there seems to be three that stand out and the others I’d have to look up the recording to remember… but anyway… I wanted to seed the drum… Before dinner I was asking questions about events with drum circles and said it would be nice to get one started tonight… one participant said that her husband will be more then likely will want to participate. He had arrived later and I hadn’t had anytime to share any time with him. He actually cooked all the guests an Indian dinner which was delicious… I was talking with one of the staff members about possibly grabbing some instruments and bringing them to the fire circle… but I think we got shy and decided to not do it at that moment. It started to get late and many were already heading back to their space to rest… and then the husband came outside to the fire with a steel drum.. I was like Yesss, finally… he played in the background as people shared conversations.. and finally I approached him and asked if I could play along with him? He was very open to it and so I grabbed another steel drum and sat next to him. Now I have played this style of drum before, but still very new. So I asked if he could give me a few tips… and he said that I can just focus on the heart beat… always remember the heart beat. And so we had a steady slow heart beat and I was hitting the other tones to hear the sounds to compliment the bass heart beat… and he was playing easily next to me.. and I had to remember the heart beat… as I started to experiment more… hehe… I had to keep remember the heart beat… and for the most part I was doing well but missed the beat too..hehe… but then there was marijuana that was being passed around the circle. Normally it’s an automatic no for me since I passed out four times last time I tried and slept for six hours in the middle of the day because it just didn’t mix well with my chemistry… but there is a specific situation that I seem to find that I do enjoy participating. I said… ok… one… I am staying where I’m smoking… so if I need to sleep or pass out… then I can just walk to my bed and I can sleep.. so the setting was here. And the second requirement would be having an instrument in my hands. I don’t smoke marijuana anymore but from time to time I try to see if I can still do it because in the past I was an avid smoker and thought I wasn’t normal without it… but that was different substance then it is now… but when I’m playing instruments… my mind stops over thinking and it seems like I start to play music very naturally and as if I’ve been practicing with the instrument that’s in my hands at the time. I remember I found Shwag in Cusco and I found a guitar in my hands… which again I’ve had opportunities to play but nothing extensively… and normally playing rhythm on the guitar is challenging only when I’m not smoking shwag… when I smoked it… it seems like I’m just very comfortable and it comes very natural and I sound harmonious with the instrument… even though it’s not complex.. the simplicity I can find at these moments are quite blissful. Last time I was in Indiana I found myself drumming at a friend’s place and again I smoke with him… and by the way I want to let you know what smoke means to me… I take a hit… and mostly a half a hit…lol.. I don’t take much in because it doesn’t take much for me to feel it and also I’m not trying to numb out so yes a half a hit is what I enjoy if I can sleep and create music… but while together we had an amazing drums session together… I mean even his high school son ended up coming out of his room to join us on his drum kit… and it was so awesome! The only thing about this past occasion I had to drive back home and I remember getting lost and driving extremely under the influence and I hated it. But back to the story… I went ahead and took the half hit and it did just that… allowed me to surrender to the experience without doubt but filled with curiosity. So yes… I just started to get far more into the drumming… it seemed like I found a rhythm and then everyone started to sync around that… at first it was just the husband and I …. And then we had someone come in with a smaller djembe… and then more and more grabbed instruments and joined in… and it was wonderful… once people got the beat and was able to keep with it… I started to experiment and explore and it felt effortless to do this… and that heart beat was there in my mind but I didn’t have to keep it with the drum at all times… I could hear all of the space to play and then return back to it. I could feel everyone really getting into the same zone… I started to notice people dancing along to the music… I have played in drum circles before and it doesn’t seem that everyone’s on the same page. To me many times it seems like there are people who are tying to play with one another but then we’ll also get the ones that don’t hear the community drummers and they just start playing their own thing which isn’t as harmonious then trying to compliment everyone around them. That’s actually why I joined a drum troupe last time I was here… because I wanted to be harmonious with a team of drummers… and this was more structured where each song has around six different rhythms created to work together… and so it was easy to feel like you’re a part of the team… and it felt really good to be working together with everyone in the drum circle… but this night… this was the first time i was sitting with a group of drummers and players who I hadn’t met before this event… and everyone was trying to cooperate with one another… and not only was it harmonious… I mean it really could’ve been a song… it felt so good to be a part of this. I started to get excited and I felt everyone else was getting excited as well… and so we continued. The second round I was listening to the new beat that was being created… it didn’t start right away… but yeah you could feel everyone trying to find how they were going to be a part of the new song… and then all of a sudden… I started to hear the connecting music in my mind… I started to hummm… and I tried to play the music I was hearing with the drum but it wasn’t coming out the way I was hearing it.. and so I stopped drumming and started to sing the rhythm instead… it was absolutely fucking amazing… I didn’t have lyrics.. but just sounds of rhythms that seemed to bond the drum beats together… I hadn’t have that happen to me before… I mean when I’m in Aya ceremonies… I have had this experience where I just know how to sing… I feel Ike it comes out so naturally that I don’t notice any steps to get to that comfort level.. I guess there are times where I’m more exploring with my voice and so I do see playing with the sounds… but in these past situations… it was just my song… i guess I have tried to sync with my shamans Icaros as well but not as successful as it was this Saturday night… It was just different… I hadn’t experienced it before but it just came out of nowhere and I do want to thank for the safe space for me to participate in smoking which is rare thing… but this substance helps me to stop overthinking when playing music and I loved it… and a little after I was singing the rhythms… the husband’s wife said she has a chant that she could teach me…and I told her that I’m already in my zone.. if you want to join us, please feel free to do so… and shortly after… she started to sing with us… oh my god! We were making a song and it was so satisfying and blissful… I’m getting goosebumps just by thinking of it… She has a beautiful voice and I cannot wait to be able to get together again and see how this harmony develops. I was buzzing and continued to buzz until the next morning… however it was after the drum circle that I started to feel like I was a hostel family member. I noticed checking in with people before I went to bed… and when I woke I was checking on the ones I ran into to see how their experience is going. I took a soak in the tub and I was trying to do this quickly because I was trying to make our morning head and heart meeting. People wanted to visit with me and I wanted to enjoy a moment and finally I was afraid I was going to be late… and I was a few minutes late… we happened to have the meeting out on the roof this morning… I’m buzzing and filled with bliss and gratitude and curiosity to what the near future is going to bring… and I sit down and start to listen to what is being discussed… the founder was sharing and he seemed to be cumbersome… he’s going through a separation with his core partner… his nest partner… and I was like holy hell… what did I just walk into? There was a heaviness in his posture and voice… it seemed like he wasn’t prepared for this extent of exchanging their belongings back from one another… He was telling us that he planned on taking a week off once the hostel closes for the winter, but he’s going to take a few days off now so he can handle the exchange and emotional work that goes into situations like this and time to process this gravity on him. He finished with hope and positivity but it hadn’t reached his heart yet… it felt like his mind knows things will work out eventually but his heart hurts and wasn’t ready to get over it.. but feeling the need to express and digest and process and however long that will take… I’m not certain a few days will be enough time to go through this weight… I’m sure it will be lighter to some degree… but definitely not floating. A few other family members weren’t feeling the best either… and it made me think maybe I shouldn’t be so happy then… again.. maybe I should dim my light just in case it’s not easy to handle when feeling down. I decided I wasn’t going to not be grateful and express how much the drum circle did a breakthrough for me somehow… it was expressed in a more calm and collected manner instead of overflowing with excessive energy. The founder was able to get a little time to talk with us personally before he left and we had a good conversation… but yes… I’m just happy I was able to give him a comforting hug… he admitted that he’s a delayed processor… right now he cannot get out of the need to be the collected boss and director… he can wait to allow himself that time to process… and I understand this… I think I’m going to switch into my observations when it comes to my romantic feelings that have been bubbling up when I’m with him. I’ve been able to process quite a bit, but I feel like I’d like to see if there is something I’m missing as well because there’s just so much activity I’m processing and so many spotlights on growth that I’d like to focus in this area right now… because I know this is something I’ve been wanting to work on and I”m finally get that change to observe myself to see what messages I can gain to guide me. So… how do I start? Well… the last time I wrote I mentioned how much I was squirming… I mean that was a huge indicator of something new in my awareness that I’m not comfortable with because it just doesn’t happen… hehe… ok… so this has given me an understanding of the true attraction level I have for him. I don’t find myself talking with other people.. I might even be talking about my sexuality with others and I don’t squirm… it’s as if it’s quite normal to talk about my sexuality because its something that might seem like an intimate situation talking about it… but there isn’t a potential to have an experience to dig deeper into my relationship to sexuality. I can recall when I was on that date night… I told him about this and I remember I wasn’t squirming when I was with the date. I feel in my subconscious it knew I wasn’t wanting to build something deep with this encounter… it was more of like an experiment to see how I was going to behave instead of approaching it as if it was something I was going to be committing to depth. I already stated that it felt like it was a performance and it wasn’t a natural curiosity of not caring where it leads just pure exploration… I was in my head trying to figure out how I should be performing for this person. I also had another conversation with a participant at the event which led to talking about working on my sexual relationship and he had asked me if I wanted to join him in a sensual meditation together that night. I immediately asked him what that would involve? He attempted to explain and all of a sudden I interrupted him and said… wait… I don’t want to know? I’ve been saying recently that I don’t want expectations or a destination when it comes to learning about my sexuality… I would much prefer to go in without having to hear expectations. I apologized for interrupting but I’m trying to make changes and I just caught myself going in a repeated pattern. He looked at me and said this is not the first time you’ve corrected yourself in front of me… it’s so refreshing to actually witness you doing active work in the middle of a sentence. It’s really aspirational. We continued our conversation and we didn’t have a sensual meditation together. It was in the back of my mind as a possibility which I am curious to see where it would have led.. but I’m understanding that my body didn’t react in a manner of depthness that I’m looking for. It was only when I was with my potential romantic partner… when I was talking with him… that’s where I saw my body and mind squirming to try to be confident in the conversation which wasn’t as easy as it usually is when I’m talking to people. Again this doesn’t happen to me… and so it was quite obvious that this was different. Observing myself I was in a bit of shock of wondering why it’s so challenging for me to talk about topics that doesn’t seem to be challenging to talk about… why with him? It’s because we have an actual possibility to build depth with one another. This is out of my comfort zone… and it’s hard to explain because this is what I do with everyone I meet… but this vulnerableness that I’m trying to express is far deeper then the degrees I’ve already been able to develop… I’m excited but also hesitant… hehe… at least I thought I would be hesitant but I’ve been finding I cannot sugar coat or avoid or distract when I’m speaking with him. We started our conversation with Enlightenment work and found reassured of the measure of Spiritual work he’s been able to reach thus far… and in this situation it was more on the lines of professional work… this is what I do and I talk about and gaining more confidence in speaking this way with everyone regardless of whom I’m speaking with. This is what I do and I take it seriously and I understand that this is a way to allow people to understand who I am and what I’m all about. But then he asked me what am I working on right now? And then the hesitation came… and the overthinking came..and the squirming came… Integrity is what I’m becoming and I could see myself asking if I should just do a roundabout way of answering the question… because I was uncertain how far I would express myself… I didn’t expect to tell him that I’m attracted to him within the first few hours of arrival. I figured I needed more time to observe him to validate to myself that he is someone I’m attracted to and make more calculated steps to approach this with him. Again… if I wasn’t really interested in building a deeper relationship with him… I wouldn’t have had the hesitation and just express my relationship to sex is a huge lesson I’m working on right now. But there’s something about him that my soul is recognizing and so the squirming about was quite present. I see that I don’t want to have mundane conversations where growth is not happening… so I can say that I could’ve brought up areas that aren’t deep... just mention easy topics to talk about… but it was quite obvious that I couldn’t do this and no matter how much that my thought that this is an option… there was nothing in my mind except to talk about my sexuality… there was no room in my mind to come up with any other idea… because this is the profound lesson that is strongest in my reality at this time… and damn it… reality likes to push me into areas of uncomfortableness to communicate where I am and is confident that I can process and make the necessary changes to allow myself to stop getting in my own way. If I continue to delay and observe with him… is just getting in the way… let him know there’s an attraction that is present… I let him know far better through the squirming by not being able to look at him.. I was looking at the trees and talking to them.. I was a mess… which demonstrated more communication then I did with my words.. but yes I was able to get it out without grace present… hehe… and he could see me blushing the entire time… Honestly I think he really enjoyed me in this squirmish state… it was honest and raw… i think he appreciated to see how I approach conversations with him. I appreciate it too but didn’t think or guess this was how it was going to unfold. So… I guess he’s going to know that I’m attracted to him from the start… so there’s no way for me to be smooth after this display… hehe So… what else did I notice being around him? Well… I noticed that we don’t get times alone together which actually stopped me from be squirmish around him the whole time. In fact i could definitely see the potential of how well we can work together in a professional manner… I like trying to explain how I like to be the surgeon’s assistant when I’m working with bosses… anticipating their needs and getting it for them to be successful and efficient… I enjoy being the right hand man… so far work wise… I seem encouraged. But let’s explore this a little more… because there are definitely rules set in place that doesn’t seem so easy for me to be in alignment with right off the back… I know most of this will stem from me not being a part of this community for a period of time… I’ve got a lot of freedom from my day to day and so there’s adjustments to make to be able to work in his system. So what am I talking about? So… I didn’t demonstrate punctuality well during this event… which is funny because I feel like I’m fairly decent with this… but again this might be in part that I wasn’t knowing that I was allowing space to be separate from the hostel family… but I feel like I had to apologize three times for being late… and two of them was due to taking a soak in the tub. Soaking in a tub gives me so much benefits and I will continue to do this for my self-care, but scheduling it better so I have time to make it on time. I hardly use a watch. I don’t have a phone and I carry around my iPad but time doesn’t usually play a huge role in my life. The system uses FB chat where they are communicating often to one another… I mean all of the time to me it seems because I rarely have that much engagement in this style. Right when I’m working at a location of with someone… I’m there with them and I try to remove as many distractions as possible to be present with Reality. I enjoy being intentional and focused… I can give quality contribution in this manner and I understand that I won’t lose this quality… I just understand that I’m going to have to make adjustments to be in this system. I already told a fam member that it looks like I’m going to have to get a phone again with a chuckle… this seems like a more obvious way for me to get a phone because normally I lose my phones within six months of having one and so I stop trying to get one because I guess the Unvierse implies it’s not necessary and I guess I haven’t gained enough experience to balance my attention when having one. So now… I’ll be needing a phone… the last time I had one I saw benefits of convenience when I’m in search of convenience however I didn’t like how convenient I am to everyone wanting my attention. It’s nice to tell people that I don’t have a phone.. I don’t have to feel pressure of answering someone right away because they understand that I’m not fully accessible at times… I’ve been able to respond when I have the time and desire… I don’t know why I wouldn’t still be able to do this even when I have a phone… removing distractions is an effective and easy solution… but I also understand when you introduce that distraction back into our lives… we really see our relationship to that distraction and not have a delusion of what the relationship is by our thoughts. So sweet… I’ll see how my relationship to a phone is going to go and how well I balance my relationship to it. I’ve also been noticing how much energy goes into being a community member too… right…. It’s far more social then what i’ve been accustomed to lately. I was at the temple farm for eight months… but thankfully for my cat we we’re able to stay pretty much to ourselves. It was ashram time for me… so I knew I wanted equal if not more time to myself than with the community. I was transitioning to more community than alone time by the time I left… but again I see this is something I’ll need to be aware of. So… again their schedule is everyday with one day off… this seems daunting for me… spreading my energy out instead of having it focused and then allowing enough time to process and relax for a few days… I mean in the meeting founders understand the importance of intentional volunteers… few number of intentional volunteers can out preform a bus load of unintentional volunteers. The same applies in hours of work as well… When there’s an intentional worker… working on the same project as an unintentional worker… things get done quicker and with better quality… for me this applies however… without rest and processing time the quality starts to diminish. I understood this at the temple and was able to get the six hours for four days having three days off… and I was able to find progress for work but also myself personally. I mean having only one day off I don’t even know if I could process anything… I mean I have to be relaxed to process and it might take an entire day to get relaxed enough to process. Yesterday I wanted to do more revising and deciphering of the notes from the meeting but I ended up finalizing designs from the caving event and so I was drawing on the iPad all day and messing with editing videos… I mean I was communicating with people from the event.. but I didn’t do the notes which I thought I should be doing… and even today I think I should be doing it as well….but also intuitively I knew I have things I want to process and I was able to find relaxation yesterday… and so now it’s the day of processing… after i get this information purged and out of my mind… I’ll be better ready to get back to deciphering notes and sending them to the communities for feedback and revision. So they have a schedule in the morning to meet, usually an hour to break before working for two hours together… we’ll take maybe a three hour break before we reconvene on what chore we are doing for the evening, then a gratitude circle before dinner we eat together sometimes…. Definitely if there’s a guest onsite. So… I’ve been able to find moments to myself on these breaks and they help… but I also found that there’s so many opportunities to have conversations and there’s such sweet and interesting people that I just want to spend as much time with them as possible… but I feel like my mind is flooding over with information for me to process… and because I’m excited a part of me is like wanting to go on this crazy rollercoaster but another part is saying slow down and process… and so right at this moment… I have to process when I’m alone with many many hours needed and most likely days. I arrived back at my dads late Tuesday… and had to babysit my cousin’s two year old and people were asking me if I want to hangout with them… and I just said no… I’ve been in social mode a lot lately… Thursday will be my first day alone… and damn it… I need this time… in fact… with what I want to get done at this time… I want to spend the whole weekend alone too… I mean it sounds good to me… in my head right now it seems like I’m placing a timeline on getting the things I have on my plate done soon… which would be nice because I feel like there’s more I want to put my energy into… but as a note taker I have this pressure that people from the event are waiting to see the notes… hehe… I’ve sent out rough drafts to two properties to revise and I haven’t seen any changes in the rough draft yet… hehe… it doesn’t seem like they’re not in a state of urgency…hehe… so why am I? I think because I want to work with these people I want to show them my professionalism… but I’m not sure if I’m able to show my values through flaming away… hehe… I guess I just need to release this perceived deadline I have in my head… I know I’ll find moments of inspiration and get a shit ton done… but be patient to have it come into my Reality when I’m ready… I also want to create storytelling artwork for this intention convention event… I’m enjoying doing this but I also felt this pressure yesterday when I was making the caving designs… I started to add tasks so I wanted to get this off my plate…and I feel like normally if I was doing this for myself… I’d enjoy exploring more with different ideas. I felt like I wanted to make sure I got their attention through the honeymoon phase, right… most likely a month after the event the excitement weens and I thought they wuoldn’t care to have artwork from the event anymore… but this stops being enjoyable for me and I want to remove this pressure. I thought making artwork will be building skills I’m wanting to build but I also thought it could be a way to make a little side cash too… but yeah… this is why I don’t usually like to make art for profit… I start to think what do they want instead of what do I want… I’m thinking they want something right now for the honeymoon phase…and I’d just rather not have a time limit and explore ideas and whenever it comes out it’ll come out and I can share it at that time regardless if they want to buy it. Ok… good… I’m feeling much better and more relaxed… I’ll get it done but I don’t have to get it done now… and getting it done now won’t be as quality as I would like to present. that happened to me when. Was laying the floor down… I was absent minded that day… it was hard for me to focus… Honestly I felt there was a bit of tension going on with team members and it was hard for me to not feel the tension… it was effecting my attention… I was cutting and measuring and wasn’t getting the results I wanted and so did it again… by the time I was getting into the groove it was time to put things away and leave… so again I felt like I was pressuring myself to just get it done… and in the middle of picking up I was like.. no… I’m not going to leave this undone… I want to finish it and I’ll walk back when I’m done… of course everyone was like no we’ll wait… and I’m like please don’t… I’m not afraid of walking alone… working alone… in fact in carpentry situations it’s really nice to be able to do this… I know they were being nice… but what I really wanted was to be alone with my own energy and just slow down and refocus… but they continued to clean up and so I’m sitting there debating whether i should recut the flooring because I wasn’t satisfied with its quality but the table saw was put up and things put away… should I just submit a half-assed submission? Yeah… I don’t see how I can do much carpentry work or any detailed focused work done in two hours… maybe if I’m in the middle of a project that I’ve been involved with for a period of time… but to come into a space with new heys and not understanding the direction of where things are leading… two hours won’t be the desired time for me. If I have to… I will but I’d like to show how much quality goes up with working in time needed to create quality… and after the rustiness wears off the speed of time will increase. Ok… I think I have processed enough to be able to address the romantic partnership I am wanting to process through… So what did I notice are areas of uncomfortableness that I found myself in? I noticed how uncomfortable I was with touch and watching displays of affection come so easily to most who were present. lol… in my mind touch has been a main love language that I crave in the past but it seems celibacy has removed my desire to touch or more like my hesitancy and limited my touch being nonchalant. I’m a hugger and I’ve found that hugging is still something I can do easily but I remember a time where I’ve stopped myself from hugging people. But yeah touch has been a way for me to express myself and I felt myself being uncomfortable touching… and I guess it again wasn’t in general touching.. it was touching my romantic interest when I saw my hesitancy and foreignness. And I mentioned that I was uncomfortable watching displays of affection which also makes me curious as to why? The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is because I’ve lost the consistency of having touch as a part of my life that now it’s become odd? Again.. it seems like it really depends on my mindset whether I’m comfortable or not.. because I do not hesitate to touch or help someone and using touch to assist in the situation… not anything to think about because it becomes me and quite comfortable but what are the moments of touch that is standing out right now… it was the moment I was sitting on the couch… we were about to have our morning meeting Saturday morning before all the big meetings… we were waiting for one of the fam staff to finish up his breakfast to join us, but he was very engaged in the conversation and didn’t notice us waiting for him… but three of us were early and we were sitting on the couch… nothing odd there… my romantic interest came in and asked if there’s room for him to sit in between us as so the two girls moved over to give him space to join us on the couch. We were sitting like three ducks in a row and when he came in he wanted to be more in a lounging position… hehe.. so he was trying to get himself comfortable so he leaned on the girl who was next to me and so his posture was facing me and I felt myself wanting to relax and get comfortable but I felt a bit stiff and rigid. The girl and him have no reservations of touching one another affectionately and they seemed to have a bond where they were easily open to share affectionate… I’m not even sure what they were doing because of my stiffness I wasn’t even able to turn my head much because of my awkwardness…. Hehe… I glanced a bit and I think she was using her fingers to play with his hair and bit of a massage for him… and maybe she was only doing this with one hand because I saw his other hand was playing with her fingers in her other hand… and he placed his other hand on my knee and asked if I’m ok with him doing this… and I said yes, but then I started to watch how I was behaving in this moment. I didn’t really know what to do… hehe… I feel like I moved my hand out of the way and I eventually slowly placed my hand on top of his… it wasn’t in an affectionate way… it was as if I was a corpse that placed my hand on top of another and it was just laying there motionless… hehe… it’s funny because we haven’t really shared moments of affection before and my first opportunity was sitting on the couch the four of us and then there’s about twenty people sitting at the dining table eating their breakfast deep in conversations… so of course I’m glad that I’m getting the opportunity but again surprised by when and how it was unfolding… hehe… I’m a mess but I know I’m going to work through this but it’s funny to see things play out. We were chatting all of us together and we decided to go on with the meeting without the one at the table… he’s in the zone and I’m just trying to act like this is normal to be in this situation… but again I know through observation that this was an act of normalcy… .in reality I was in a moment of fear… not drastic degree or anything but I’m not sure what word to call it right now… it’s not fear but I was reluctant… I’m super happy we were all talking because it made me feel like this isn’t such a big deal and just fucking relax… and slowly I started to make some subtle movements with my fingers which he reciprocated back. I eventually had held his hand in between mine and was enjoying the slow movements of my fingers along his skin and my skin enjoying the touch not knowing where they’d be touch or how because it was a touch from someone other than myself. The sensation of my fingers sliding through his fingers again ever so slowly was very sensual to me however I was a bit distracted with all the moving parts and conversations that were surrounding the situation. I was sandwiched between two guys and I felt like I was holding myself back in a way because I thought and asked if I should be sharing this with both of them… but that was a fleeting thought because I didn’t want to do that.. I was enjoying but also wanting to get away at the same time…hehe… I was happy to get a chance, but this is not my ideal situation to exchange affection at this time. So I saw an opportunity to find the excuse to get up to help a guest in the kitchen and as I was getting up I was able to touch his calf and slide my fingers up his skin… ummm… I do want to touch all over him but with this setting and most likely because we haven’t had much quality time together… I’m not ready yet to openly explore this with him. Later I was thinking about how flexibly dexterous he was in between us… hehe.. I remembered how I enjoyed dancing and playing with couples where my hands and feet and body had all their own minds working together… I was chuckling how well he did splitting up the conversation in two manners… one was having a conversation with someone he’s built a relationship with and was at a state of comfortableness and affection… while his other conversation was with me… hehe.. first the stiff as a board silent treatment intro… to I’d like to try this… how does this work? To ok… yes I feel like there’s reciprocity and patience… to slow sensual sensations… which led to ok.. this is enough for now but I enjoyed my time and open for more. Yes… holy cow… I am open and ready to actually explore this… again… there’s a difference for me to prepare myself to be ready and then realizing when I’m actually ready… I’m literally starting to tear up right now… I cannot believe I’ve been able to get here… I’m ready to be open to a romantically intimate relationship. Holy shit… this is something I’ve wanted but I haven’t been allowing to experience. I had this expectation that if I was going to do this it was only going to be with a specific person from my visions… but there was not reciprocation… and I understand that I seem to in the past want to create buffer room to even attempt a romantic relationship… not at all times of my life, but yeah… buffer room seems to be the way I allow myself to even take steps forward. I think that’s the case with my romantically intimate interest too… I knew he was polyamorous and that he had a staple foundational partner established… and me hearing this I think I felt like this was the buffer space that I needed to be able to attempt… of course not the only reasons but I cannot explain but will attempt.. but once I started to tear up My body has gone stiff as a board… it’s like I’m holding my breath right now as if I’m searching through dark corners that I’m uncertain I want to reveal about myself. and I don’t know if I’m going to but I’m going to have to take a smoke break to relax at little because yes my body is acting strange… and even signs of being in a fear state… which again is obvious because this doesn’t happen anymore until right now and it’s happening… so I’m going to smoke real quick Alright… smoked, used the restroom, and helped my dad take some nets off his raspberry bushes… oh and took a look at the progress of his underground bunker/cellar… So it seems like I’m hitting a cord right now.. and earlier when I said it wasn’t fear it was reluctance. After being in my own space and witnessing my bodies reaction to this… it was a moment of fear and I’m going to continue but I think my pops wants me to go pick up a pizza… so I’m going to go ahead and allow myself some grace and time before I dive in again… so I’ll go ahead and post this and come back to it… until next time… enjoy

Good morning… it’s still a dark sky out and the stars are out. I got up to use the restroom and I grabbed a. Smoke and when I was taking a break I saw a shooting star… it’s been awhile since I’ve noticed one. I was sleeping and it’s a bit cool out and so Ididn’t want to get out of the bed in the back of the van but I was thinking about the community app… so before I forget I wanted to record the few thoughts that I was thinking about. So this app that I”m thinking about is going to help each individual property however, I can see that it can be linked to a larger data base so the content from one property is recorders and seen in essence on all platforms. So as an example last night I was carving the pumpkin and of course I start to think about making it all fancy but it’s a tiny pumpkin and I was getting tired so I just made a face and the mouth had a part of the logo of the property here… but when she used the inside of the pumpkin she placed it in her vegetarian curry… and wanted to give it a twist and also more aligned with the season… it was delicious and we had a great conversation together. In fact last time I was here it was hard for me to find a connection with her… we spoke briefly and we did a little volunteer work at the manager’s house together alone and so there was some connection that started but it’s obvious this time that she’s more open to conversation even though she does admit she’s a woman of few words and doesn’t necessarily talk a lot about herself. Well she was able to share and it was nice to get more than three words out of her. But there are a few things that I can gather from our conversations which I’m thinking I’d like to find a way to apply to the app. So we were talking about not having the best time making resumes and that we are both better at in person conversation and that many times the resume doesn’t really focus on what our skills are many times its years of experience… but sometimes that doesn’t always look impressive in a resume style format… of course this was our opinion.. and many can probably do this for themselves in a resume format but this is something we found to be true with each other. And also when I was speaking to her about her exploration in cooking it was fun to hear her express herself how she’s not afraid to experiment with spices and feeling her way into the ingredients she ends up using for the dish. I feel this would be great information to be able to share with people in this app possibly. So we’re about to start this intention convention and intentional having conversations where we find snippets of who someone is would be great to record… I as the person that is giving say a recommendation have to find the words that would express my experience that I feel would be good for the collective to know about someone… and the someone who is receiving these comments also gets a better idea of what people find valuable in them. Now I know we don’t need validation but sometimes in our lives its nice to hear confirmations… and I”m guessing it would be a mix of what we can say are positive and negative comments but isn’t that helpful to know. Sometimes we’re so close to ourselves that people may perceive something that we’re blind to. And constructive criticism isn’t a bad thing… but it could possibly give an opportunity for feedback as well. Hmmm… in the van I was thinking about their gratitude circle. Each night they try their best to get together and give gratitude… yesterday was more on the unusual side because everyone was more of like on a restful osolitary state. But when the founder and I got back he was telling me again it’s going to be a slow and quiet night so most likely we won’t have a group gratitude circle or dinner together. But he said we can have our own little circle. Of course I’m grateful for many things but specifically after having the conversation I had… I was grateful that he was inquisitive enough to ask penetrating questions that allowed me to be more transparent of where I am and what I”m working with and how he has an intuitive nature of curiosity which I’m grateful for… and I also said I was grateful for myself for not being too shy and avoiding an opportunity to express myself even though I wasn’t comfortable in sharing at first. So I thought maybe thee could be an opportunity for people to give out gratitude points to people they meet in these communities. So yesterday because most of my engagement were with these two individuals I”d be able to give out two gratitude points to them and also get the chance to explain why I”m grateful to have shared this experience with them. Not only will we be able to see how the current community finds value in sharing their company for a period of time but maybe we can also have general categories that also can be linked to each individual where again maybe there are icons or just a list of qualities that are repetitive in interactions that can be seen on a persons profile without having to dig deep into their profile to find. I took a break because I’m sitting in the art room which is in sun room patio area enclosed in windows and it’s nice to see the change of darkness to the morning sunrise. there’s a fog surrounding the property and I can hear the birds chirping and it was a nice moment to share… but let’s continue on So in this app… again when I was thinking about specific properties I thought it could be a way to record volunteer hours. So I’m not certain what the required hours of work here at this property but for the ashram temple farm she required 24 hours of work for the week. Most of the time volunteers would work for four hours in the morning and have the afternoon off for themselves and they would work for six days with one day off. Before I moved onto property I wanted to figure out where I could help the founder of the temple with her schedule. It was winter when I arrived there and I had heard she would love more time in her art room and she’s an amazing painter who was taught classical Indian painting and her artwork is everywhere in the temple and they’re remarkable. I know how valuable art is in my life and how many benefits I get from having more time to dedicate to this part of me and so I wanted to allow her more time for this, but again it’s up to her what she does with this time. I also knew that the ashram aspect of the temple was calling to me as well and I wanted much more solitary time and so we agreed that I could put in longer hours in fewer days so I could get more days of rest away from everyone. And I needed that especially when I first arrived this is how i found out about the National Geographic’s grant and was able to apply. I was also very well rested and able to take on social and physical activities in a much more receptive manner. And when I found that I had more energy to share I would work a few hours on my days off too… because I enjoyed contributing… I did a lot of tours while I was there and this also fell under her responsibilities and as she saw I was more involved and had more energy it wasn’t a problem for her to ask me specific times to come on my days off to assist with these areas. I’ve also been looking into the requirements of hosting on workaway. They too had a similar structure of expectation for the host and it’s guests and possibly how the temple came to it’s arrangements for the time requirement. So… maybe that can be implemented into the structure of the app… some of us enjoy contributing in different ways.. and allowing us to record the hours of volunteer work would allow the founders or managers to see that they are in fact not taking advantage of the property’s hospitality but also I’m not sure recording hours really tells the value of their presence. I’m not sure if I’m going to be wording this properly but yeah when I was talking about the resume keeping a record of time to show some type of experience gained in areas… but it doesn’t relay the quality of work… but I do know you’re supposed to express rewards and such but I’ve worked in many diverse positions encountering many diverse people.. and the range is huge. I guess a way I can explain it is… say when I was a dance instructor… many people would ask my how long I had been dancing… first of all that was hard to answer because I had been dancing since I learned how to move…hehe… it was quite natural but I knew they were asking more specifically about ballroom dancing since that was what I was teaching. I would let them know and I really wondered what the amount of years would let them know? There were instructors who started the same time as I did… but the degree of competence in dance wasn’t evident by the amount of time we could say we shared. There was context of history that couldn’t be determined from these numbers and in fact many students wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t had many more years than what I expressed. Some had been dancing far longe that myself and they couldn’t understand why ther was a difference in ability level. The easiest answer I would explain is that the years didn’t disclose the hours of dedication. Students would range from dancing from three hours a week to 20 hours a week… but as a teacher we were putting in close to 40 if not 60 hours of dance a week because we absolutely immerse ourselves into it and deeply want to learn and better understand our passion of say dance in this example. So let’s use some extremes numbers here so someone could have a year worth of dance but only danced 3 hours a week of 52 weeks of the year so 150 hours of dedication compared to say someone who dedicated 40 hours in 52 weeks… 2080 hours in the same year. Technically they’ve only danced a year but there’s a drastic difference in the amount of intention that went into to learning this craft. In fact how many weeks did it take the second person to hit the 150 hours? Hehe… In one month they had already put in 160 hours… so in their mind they could technically say that the first person only put in a month of dedication in the year they’ve danced… right? Well… I’m trying to use that as an example with recording hours of experience… the degree of intentionality should have some type of measure as well. I’m not sure at this time what or how to do this but I’ve also noticed when I’m working a 40 hour work week at a location… my 40 hours don’t have the same results as someone else. And working with more attention and intention and desire can have the same results in a shorter amount of time than someone else. I know we understand this but again I”m trying to figure out how to record this in the app so again people and communities can gain a better understanding of who we are and if we are going to share time together that we have a better idea even though experience in sharing will reveal far more than the theory of who someone is before they arrive on property. There’s many factors in play here and how to collect data to give a bigger picture would be something I’d like to work on. I was just thinking of my childhood girl friend and her dealing with her disabilities at this time. She’s not confident in say walking right now. Because she’s in this state I could imagine that she feels like she wouldn’t be able t o contribute much to volunteering because of physical restraints… but I find so much value when sharing time with her and it doesn’t involve her being physically capable. A value of a person isn’t necessarily determined by the hours of work that’s being recorded. Ok food for thought to dive into deeper. I’m wanting to get ready for the day and possibly get in a little piano time before the day starts. We’re going to get a better idea of how the weekend is going to be structured. I think tomorrow we have dedicated workshops that is going to be more structured while other times it’s more sporadic and possibly perceived as chaotic. The founder is getting prepared to manage powerful personalities and energies and so allowing us to better know what he plans on doing will help us see where we can help out in areas. So yeah… I think that’s good for now… so… until next time… enjoy!

Okie dokie now… lol… so I’m here at the hostel and let’s just say I didn’t start off so smooth liked I”d hope, but it was good… but I’ll go ahead and start from before I got here… so what happened… I did all the packing of clothes and the van to head on out… it takes about three hours and I needed to stop by my aunt’s place to pick up a pineapple cookie recipe that my dad has been wanting.. it’s their mother’s recipe and he’s been talking about them forever and I reached out to get it since I’ve been in the baking mood. My childhood girlfriend wanted me to message here before I left to give me encouragement… hehe… and what did I say… let’s see. “I’ll be heading out soon… I’m really calm and collected and confident ❤️ I’ll get ahold of you when I get back. Tell (her daughter) and (daughter’s boyfriend) thanks again for the wigs and I hope everyone enjoys Halloween. Love you!” So yes that’s how I felt when I left and through the drive. I arrived and it was pretty quiet here with no active bodies I could see… so I wanted to walk around the property. Last time I was here I didn’t walk the labyrinth, check out the theater, or walk the arrow path… and so I took a few pictures and some video footage… I felt like I was thinking of ideas already for storytelling artwork and it was nice to get different angles that I didn’t capture from last time. The scenery is different as well… the ground is covered in all the wonderful colors of fall and it has been raining off and on today so was trying to capture the moisture and the changes of colors from the last time here. It started to rain when I was on the arrow path and when it started to pick up heavier… I decided to go back to the farmhouse and see where people are at. I had been thinking about playing the piano again.. I love they have an instrument area that’s open for anyone to use… so last time I was here when I was about to leave I started playing the piano. At first I saw the manager was on there practicing and I noticed he wasn’t reading music… he was using Youtube and it was something similar to like a game… what is it called… oh guitar hero… and I thought well that seems like fun. I wouldn’t have to try to remember sheet music which is always the case when I run into a piano that’s open to play. And also the night before I left a young man arrived who is an absolutely amazing pianist so it was easy to be inspired to go ahead and jump onto the keys and give it a try. So it was the sound of silence that I ended up playing it’s the easy version however it does use both hands which is what i wanted. In 24 hours I got pretty comfortable with it.. and so I wanted to see if I could remember any of the sequences since it’s been two weeks ago… it was rough the first go at it, but then I started picking up again. But I didn’t want to be here alone playing the piano if everyone was somewhere working and so I messaged the founder and asked if everyone’s working or is it relaxation time… he said it’s very slow at the moment but he’s at the manager’s house which is where the remodel is taking place… so I went over to help. He was the only one working.. and everything was fine… it was good to see him and there is a little storage area or possibly the once utility closet.. I’m not sure what exactly when on or what’s going on currently but I did some of the installation of the walls and now they are laying down flooring. So I didn’t do much because I was literally babbling most of the time and that’s where I’m leading to was what I had witnessed in myself which again wasn’t as smooth as I liked… but I was able to sweep up some of the dirt and dust and use cleaner to pick up the dust so the floor adhesive would hold better. And so… our conversation began… of course these should be simple questions and simple answers… but maybe because I was a bit uncertain how anything is going to play out I felt like I just jumped into the questions and they didn’t end up being simple at all… hehe… ok I can admit that I was a bit nervous? I also wanted him to get a better idea of who I am and so i didn’t want to answer the question how are you as… ohh… I’m good… you? So I was telling him that I”m excited about my life and find myself very passionate about it… seems like things are lining up for me to understand what I can be working on right now. He encouraged me to continue and go deeper if I would like but if it’s a secret than it’s not a problem… and transparency is the ongoing practice and so I led in that I had applied for a proposal with National Geographic’s for their storytelling grant. So I’m already learning how to be a better storytelling through writing in the Journal, and I create short videos, and now I’m working on storytelling through art because I would like to add art into my life more often than it has been and so it’s been fun learning how to use the digital art program I found I can use my finger instead of a stylus. So… he asked what’s the story that I’m trying to tell and I said well I have an interesting life and it’s my story and I primarily work with Enlightenment and hoping to find research into this. And so he replied with two points from his understanding… People who are drawn to this area of study begin to understand that they know nothing and that there’s is not an authority over their understanding. Which was brilliant in my opinion which makes me happy that he has this understanding. I said that I felt like I was the only one talking so it’s his turn… what’s going on in his world at the moment. He said he’s super happy with all the things… he said that there’s a million things that has equal priority in his life that he wants to do, but he only has time to do half a million… he needs to do some gardening but he hasn’t been good at it… so he plans to disappear for a week and not talk to anyone so he can get his thought aligned. With the season about to close.. of course that would be beneficial for him and highly recommend he should do just that… hehe. And so far… things are good… he asked what about Enlightenment have I experienced that would shock him. And I said that it will sound unusual and maybe a bit absurd but it’s something that cannot be explained unless we’ve gone through it to get an understanding… but I said that I have experienced not being human. He automatically said something to the sorts of… oh ok yeah. At this time the manager came out of the house and was saying hello and making sure we didn’t need to use the restroom any time soon because he’s going to take a bath… and we said that we’re both fine. And so I turned back to the founder and chuckled… what do you mean ok yeah… what does this mean to you? And he said that he’s never really identified as human but hasn’t identified as anything else either.. but these bodies are just temporary. He sees us returning back to where we came and that we would have a karmic cycle whatever that looks like… and my response was when it comes to something that I haven’t experienced then it’s just thoughts and I can think and imagine many thoughts and many scenarios… but I prefer to understand what I’ve been able to experience because that’s where I learn more of what we are. By the way there are moments of silence going on while we’re doing this… and again he’s mostly doing the work at this time I did grab the flooring so he can cut and install but after I cleaned and grabbed the boards… I wasn’t doing much help. But I was definitely engaged in the conversation fully. So I was trying to see what his definition of human was but he wasn’t sure what I was trying to ask. And so it wasn’t a good questions but what I can say when I say I have experienced human how I try to explain it is… the human comes with this body..and with this body we experience thought, emotions, using our senses with these bodies…and memories and context. In this experience all of this was gone.. during the experience I didn’t even realize any of this it wasn’t until the human condition came back to me that I realized all of that was missing… and he asked if this is something that happens multiple times while in Aya ceremonies and I said it’s only been the one. And then he said if Aya is the only thing that will get us to experience it and I said no… it’s said that the practice of Buddhism and Hinduism can also achieve these results but I’m pretty sure there are many ways to get there. It was such a profound experience that I’ve been spending the last three years observing myself to understand the transformation that has happened. I said that no one tells you what happens…and if they did I didn’t read any scripture to know.. but I forget his words but what’s the fun in that I think is what he said… and precisely… it wouldn’t be fun at all and I much rather learn through my experience to gain the benefits of depth that I’ve been understanding. So again… this is shamana mode and I’m very comfortable in this position and this is what I do with anyone willing to have conversation with me. It might not look exactly like this… but again… very good and loved how receptive he was but also understood a bit more of what he’s been learning as well… so what made me start to squirm? He asked a direct and simple answer… I could have had a direct and simple answer but again fluffing it off and being secretive isn’t how I roll these days. So he asked what am I currently learning now? And I admitted that I learn frequently lately while in the back of my mind I’m like holy shit… I know exactly what I”m learning but I was trying to figure out other areas that I’m learning about but it’s obvious my relationship to sexuality is what I”m working on right now. And as I’m saying this.. was like holy shit am I going to be confessing everything I’ve been thinking of right now… the first conversation we have together… and of course I cannot keep this inside of my head… I’m speaking this out loud to him… and he’s trying to make it a safe space and adding humor to get me to relax and I see this but I also am feeling how I’m responding in the moment. So I knew I was going to tell him most of what’s going on… but if there’s room for me to keep a little back specifically when it came to him… then I’ll attempt to do this… spoiler alert… I failed at keeping it to myself but it did take to the end of the conversation before I just let him know… and couldn’t believe how semi-resistant I was of getting to the point.. lol ok… I’m going to take a little break.. I already went out to take a smoke break and loved on one of the cats here.. and when I got back in a sweet young girl who is a staff member used the inside of the pumpkin and asked if I’m feel creative and if I would like to carve a pumpkin since it’s the last chance to do it… it’s Halloween today after all… so I’m going to go ahead and do that. So I’m going to go ahead and finish this for now and see if I get back on afterwards… until next time

Alright… good morning… so where am I going to start… well the first thing that’s sticking out in my mind is I heard from the reading yesterday was “what are you waiting for?” So… I was asking myself that as well… so I got a hold of the founder to see if I can come a day early for the weekend… I wanted to see if he’d need help setting up and also just be available to help during the event as well… so I could get a break down about the structure that’s being played out during the intentional convention. And he said he’d love that. It’s going to be Halloween and so I asked if I should wear a costume… hehe.. I don’t actually have anything really but he said there will be some type of fuckery going on but nothing has been planned out or discussed yet. When I was staying with my girl friend over the weekend I accidentally left my shampoo so I was going to pick it up from her on my way down and she also mentioned she might have a basic witch outfit and she’ll leave that out for me too and so I’ll swing by and grab that just in case. I did think I could possibly go as Bob Ross though because my childhood girl friend has a daughter who went to a party with her boyfriend and they were the “stepbrothers”… and they got those wigs with a fro… and I thought maybe that could be something else I could do. It’s been awhile since I’ve dressed up… when I was here in Indiana I made homemade costumes for my nieces and nephews it was a Moana theme… but we were also celebrating the passing of their great grandma who when I was younger she would make all our Halloween costumes through elementary school and to celebrate her memory we did this but also I found a wig of the hair cut she use to wear… so actually dressing up dressing up… been probably four to five years… and why not have a bit more fun right now… I know I’d like to add more play into my life because it’s something I value and I don’t find myself doing this as much as I’d like. I mean I have fun but I’m thinking goofy fun… I love to be goofy and I guess I don’t let that side of me show as much as I’d like. Just a side note… I guess my nieces and nephews aren’t going to be celebrating Halloween anymore… I guess this holiday is now considered a devilish holiday… geesh… but I’m not going to go into family life right now but it was interesting to hear… I’m glad we had our time last time I was here because all of us were enjoying doing this together. But anyway… I’m going to redirect… what am I waiting for? So during the weekend especially talking with my girl friend I started to click together that maybe I’ll go ahead and stay here in Indiana for a year. I was saying that I could see so much potential if I help out with the hostel for the next season around April to October… I can see benefits for knowing a time frame of how long I’ll be here. I feel like I’d be able to settle in and relax into my space knowing this. I spent eight months at the temple in Utah, but I didn’t know I was going to be there for that long and it felt like I was wondering if I was going to be leaving each month… and I think that assisted in me not giving my 100% as well… if I join this community here in Indiana and I know I’ll be here for the entire season… I’d be much more likely to give much more. I hear that he has two positions that he’s hiring for… one is the manager and the other is the executive director. I’m really not certain what the duties are involved, but I don’t think I’d be interested in either position… why? We’ll the executive director position is what I hear is going to be a minimum of a four to six years commitment and I’m not willing to commit to that timing so that’s an automatic no in my mind. But when it comes to the manager… I thought maybe this is something I can do and it’s only for a season which I know I’m ok with this timing… I feel like I could be good at this position, but really I had to look at what I think this position involves. In my head most of the time the manager is going to be managing people… specifically the volunteer staff or work trade visitors… of course when there are events there will be guests…and it’s a hostel so any guests that arrive. So… I love people and I do well with people… but I also know being around people constantly and managing energies would absolutely drain my energy. I don’t even know how the time schedule works out here… when I volunteered it seemed like there was one day off and then each day we’d wake up and have head and heart sharing together say at 9 am… we’d let everyone know where we are currently in our head and heart state. We would also put a personal goal we’d like to accomplish for the day that isn’t related to working on the property… examples people said they’d like to take a nap, or do yoga, or painting… reading… this type of thing… so each morning everyone would observe where they’re out at before starting the day together and become more aware of what self care wants to be done for the day… which I can see as beneficial. Also in this meeting they’d let us know the gist of what work activities need to be done for the day… usually seems that we all work together the fist half of the day and the second half of the day they’re more of a solo task and can be done at our own timing before dinner is served. After the gathering we’d have like an hour break to eat breakfast or really wake up and then we would go to the first half of work. So when I was there we were continuing the remodeling of the manager’s house… well I guess eventually this house will be the executive director’s house and there’s a thought to build a hut/cabin for the manager on property in the woods… it’s a fairly big space… I wouldn’t see why not both positions could share the space… but I understand having personal space as well. Any who… it was construction and cleaning jobs. I’m not sure how long this shift is… I don’t have a phone to carry around and monitor time… I have my iPad usually to see if there are any opportunities to make a video but yeah I rarely think to look at the time. But I’m thinking it was a max of three hours? I’m guessing 10-1pm again we’d have another break where we can get lunch… so the second half we have more daily duties to get done say… laundry, supper, turning compost in the garden and bathrooms… but then there might be tasks that came up that need to take care of such as solar light box was damaged and needs repaired… a brick on the well wall fell off and needs to be secured… so again it’s more free for the timing… some may do it right away while others wait and find the time later. The first day I helped I was a little surprised that I wasn’t going to go back to the construction house to finish my project I was working on the morning… I was able to go back the next day in the morning…but I’m pretty good at construction and it’s something I enjoy and they noticed and added going back to the house on the second day on the second half of the day so I did this and I was able to get quite a bit done having a full day over there. I was only there for two volunteer days and I’m guessing there’s people who visit that also would have a temporary time visiting. I wonder if there could be a master list of projects that need to be done… and if someone visits who has a specialty or interest in a specific area they could do these tasks as there main focus to help out with since they don’t have much time with them and it won’t be left for someone else to come and finish who might not know what to do. I dealt with volunteers at the temple as well and it was definitely tricky to organize and maybe that’ where I’ll look at right now. So what type of volunteers came to the temple? Let’s start with long term first… these are the devotees who want to stay for months to years… the longest devotee other than the founders, builders, owners the husband and wife was a lady who had lived there close to twelve years. That was not the norm but I feel most want to stay two to ten years possibly. I guess I’ll go ahead and address that if I was to assist in this property I would reduce the amount of time and give it a limit for a long term volunteer to stay probably up to two years… what I noticed with the 12 year volunteer and honestly the owners… they created a bubble inside the temple grounds and was a bit disconnected to the outside world. I don’t think two years is the only time allowed at the temple… but two years at a time… so say a devotee does devotional work for two years at this temple… we’d ask them to create space from this location… go get some more diverse experience for at least a year maybe before they can return. I don’t know all the details but yes I’d encourage this community to feel like they have time to share their gifts but also know that their projects are going to continue beyond their presence so encouraging other volunteers being involved so when your time is up the vision will continue. That was a huge noticeable issue that I saw at the temple was how the founders built their baby, the temple and grounds, and didn’t trust anyone to be able to take care of it as well as they did… and so they’ve been trying to find a manager for at least a decade and hasn’t had any success because they have so many rules and people don’t feel like they have any space to grow. The founders are now in their early 70s and wanting to rest after 40 dedicated years building this ashram temple… possessiveness and distrust was apparent… which also seems ironic to me since these are key areas of spiritual growth that should be addressed… we hear about nonattachment vs. possessiveness… and we’ve spoken about this in the past but possibly a simple way I can explain this in enlightenment terms which I’ll say human vs the universe… the human wants possessions while the universe wants nonattachment because it doesn’t have a lack mentality that they are the only ones to know what to do to take care of a project… it also knows that it will eventually go through changes and that’s growth as time goes by… so again it just allows space. And when it comes to trust vs. distrust… the human can distrust while the universe would trust because it understands that this reality is perfection… there’s nothing it needs to be scared of… everything is the Divine and so these seemingly untrustful people we may encounter actually is there to give lessons for us to learn which is a good thing… hehe… any way again…. Doing spiritual work and observing ourselves through this process things start to stick out when dealing with people… again I respect the owners but I also knew that they haven’t traversed through to the Enlightenment phase because much of their embodiment concerns were very human which isn’t Universal which is what happens with we traverse. I can possibly theorize why I think this is the case… well maybe I’ll go that they hadn’t set up system in their ashram structure that promoted them to stop and take time to develop themselves so they can continue to grow their teachings and again they would be able to see a different structure that could benefit them and the future stewards. Ok… I left to pick up supplies with my pops, but I’m back now… and when I was talking on the road I think I’ve got to narrow down a little more about what I know about this location… there is a few similarities from the ashram temple then this community. And I know I’ll have some feedback that will help from Utah, but I’d like to wrap my mind with the community I”d like to engage with. So I went to their website to take a look of what they publicize to the public. So… Lost River Hostel is the entity that I’m familiar with but it is also the under the umbrella of the Lost River Foundation … So right now I feel like I’m going to assume that I can help the founder and the creative of these since this is what I did for the founder at the ashram temple… there were two of them but mainly it was the wife who ran the show and knew what needed to be done and made sure things did get done. I was able to make it easier for her so she could find time to relax and be more energized and also allow herself to realize the importance of rest… now I couldn’t help myself and imagine the changes I would implement into the community but this is something I did not tell her because she wasn’t looking for suggestions. So I’m definitely in the unknown zone about this community but again I’m going to be assuming that I’ll help try to troubleshoot to help the founder here too. So… I’ve already seen a difference between the founders… the founder here in Indiana is all about growth and community… play, rest, creativity is something that comes naturally it seems… so this isn’t where I’ll need to assist. Where the temple founder only realized at 60 that she wanted to start giving away some of the responsibilities for the temple farm so she can find rest and this space will continue beyond her life in this body… I already see that Indiana founder is taking the steps to share his responsibilities and allow more time for him to focus on other areas of life. I believe next season will be the first time he’s going to be hiring an executive director. This position is to hopefully relieve duties he has to do… he wants to enjoy his community more… and I haven’t really discussed anything with him but I’m trying to brainstorm and I’ve got assumptions right now.. but clarity will increase when I actually have that time to share. But in my head I feel like he’s got a larger vision of community beyond the hostel. He has a foundation that is building but if he’s so hands on at the property… he has less energy for his creativity to flourish in broader areas… so of course this is his passion and his babies… so it’s not like he wants to remove himself completely… he just wants to find ways to continue to be passionate and creative in these areas. So how I assume when you’re constantly involved in a project or community… eventually we notice that we might have to get a break and remove ourselves from it so we can regroup and recharge… and that space away seems to have value when returning there’s a bit more of skip in our steps… so that’s what he’s wanting to find. I mean his hostel is designed for this… when he invites his staff, work traders, and guests to come… it’s to do just this… they’re taking a break from their routine to unwind and regroup and reconnect… well this space has become his routine and so even though it has amazing qualities to support these values… when it becomes a routine then the opposite applies. Creating space to be able to be energized while at the hostel… not being tied to it which unfortunately can get draining even though its a space you hold so dear. So I’m sure he’s got many ideas of how to do this… and I’m very interested to hear what he has already. In fact if he knows then I can just help implement them…but I think I might be able to brainstorm if he’s open to them. So I feel something I am going to be looking at would be how to have the hostel be self-sustaining…. Right? To the point where there doesn't need to be a permanent fixture to have it run and maintain smoothly. What are the areas the hostel offers? So there is the (1) staff… it looks like he has a rotating staff that stays at the hostel for three months at a time. The manager is part of the staff but is assumed to be there for the entire season which is eight months and so their involvement will be more inclusive and broad say compared to the staff that’s there for a third of a season. The new position of executive director again is part of the staff but increased responsibilities and more of a commitment for now years of building this community. The next group would be (2) hotel and event guests… they would be staying a night or two to enjoy themselves in the natural landscape in unique housing options… and opportunities for socializing and joining activities with amazing people who draw here. The last group would be (3) work trade people who can stay up to one week and volunteer in trade of room and board. So… where do these people sleep when they are here? I don’t know the exact numbers but I’m going to do an estimate. The manager and executive director will have their own space off property but close… I feel like this is a good idea and something I wanted to implement on the temple farm… the longer the commitment to stay the farther from the activities areas to feel like there can be a way to disconnect from “work” and feel like they can rest. The (1) staff has rooms that they share at the localized and primary farm house. This is where I do not know how many rooms are available here… I think there are six to seven rooms at the farm house. This is definitely centrally located… this is the space where everyone goes to eat together… the fire area, the art room, and where we gather to have meetings… this is where most things happen and where things are stored so ideally having them in this area helps secure safety of any items that are shared with the community. (2) the guests have options and again I don’t have all the exact numbers but I’ve got a round about idea of the numbers… there is two private nests and there seemed to be around six possibly at the nest village (eight), there’s a pop top tree house (nine), the tower… its a two story space that has what… possible three rooms on each floor? So we’re up to fifteen and then there is one room at the library so there’s about sixteen rental rooms. (3) work traders… I do not know where they stay… there’s a lot of space for camping so it that where they stay? I know during the event I went to and even the event I’m going to I opted for the camping option and stayed in my van… but on the map there looks to be large areas of camping available. So yeah maybe it depends on availability most likely… maybe they allow work traders to stay in rentals if they’re free? I’m not sure how the system goes… but I could see this as part of the program. I’m not sure if there are rooms available in the house for work traders or not… I was there six years ago and there were hardly any rooms to rent.. I can only remember the tower being built so… I stayed in the hobbit hole which I had to crawl into at the top of the stairs in the farm house… but I saw that the upstairs was designated to the staff only so I don’t believe this area would be open for work traders. So I remember hearing that more tree top rentals are wanting to be built and I think the manager’s hut is also wanting to be built. I’m not sure if there’s going to be more nests or not but I’m assuming so…. There’s around 30 acres and I know that they want to keep a lot of the land, but available housing opportunities I’m assuming is wanted. So that might be one area that might be missing and could be addressed is the (3) work traders housing… maybe it might be a good idea to offer housing maybe even closer to the camping area to have for the work traders… in my opinion this is a group that could really help build the property. They’re only allowed to come up to a week but if they’re there to work then that can help get things done around the hostel. Most of the people that are here are to relax and connect… but possibly we can attract a group that wants to get things done and that could definitely create a balance. I’m wondering if he has any groups that he’s tied to that draws in volunteers for work? At the temple farm she used Workaway International and WWOOFing to have a steady flow of volunteers who I believed had to have a six week commitment to come and work at the farm for free room and board. I absolutely love the people I met and of course I loved all the international travelers that came through to be able share with one another about their cultures and I’m keeping in communication with them so hopefully we’ll reconnect somewhere and possibly their home country. I’m not sure if this is something he would consider since he’s only wanting this group to stay for up to a week. I wonder if they came through these avenues if he’d allow them to stay up to say a month so they could get some good experience here in the US and actually be able to finish some projects while they are here. They expect to be working through these avenues and I always seems to talk to the international travelers to try locations that aren’t necessarily the huge cities… to me the magic can be found in rural areas and especially the beauty… not that I’m hating on big cities… this is just an opinion and just a brief one anyway… but this spot here in southern indiana is gorgeous… I mean I’m going to spend two weekends out of four down there because it’s breathtakingly beautiful especially in the fall. But this is something to talk to him about… I mean I’m always an advocate for Couchsurfers but I’m not sure they would be applicable in this scenario… I mean if I saw this as an opportunity I”d like to do it because I love to volunteer… it has opportunities for great conversations… and when traveling it’d be great to find a spot that will allow you to stay for a week before finding the next location… so yeah… If he’d consider looking at his work trad section maybe this could be adjusted. I mean… this would be the area I’d be most likely wanting to be a part of. I don’t want to commit four years… I don’t want to manage people… I don’t want to live in the farm house… but I do want to work and help establish a system to make the property grow and maintained but yeah currently I’d only be available to stay for a week. And what could I really accomplish in a week? not much… and to me it looks like there could be several projects that could be looked at to have better structure and have volunteers who would love to share their knowledge and talents. I mean an example would be their garden… I guess there wasn’t much interest in it so they didn’t have much to yield this season. I feel like adding wwoofing into the mix there would be opportunity to really get it going and have willing volunteers to make sure it is sustained. So yeah… what areas of focus will be allocated to each group? well…. (2) guests… there focus is to absolutely enjoy their experience so they can spread the word to the friends and family about how special this location is and keep the rentals booked. (1) the staff excluding the managers could focus on daily tasks that mostly involve maintain the property for exception guest experience. They are here to connect but also as the hostel is a business… having them focus on say making sure the rental rooms are top notch cleaned up… paths cleared… restrooms cleaned… bathtub and shower areas spotless and working optimally… trash, laundry.. these areas… and (3) work traders can focus on the behind the scenes of building structures and maintaining the farming and land? I heard of a few projects that might be in the works… remodeling the manager’s house, building more tree top rentals, there’s a cave under the property and at the entrance there’s a large boulder so they’re going to find people for dynamite and an excavator, there’s a billiard space going up in the woods, and I saw there was a theater somewhere… but when I was walking around I didn’t see it… I’ll have to take a look again, but possibly it isn’t completed either. And just in case he’d go for my idea of being a part of these groups to get more volunteers who are involved with the working background stuff then we might also add in building housing options for these people. Hmmm… maybe they wouldn’t be in the camping area…. I feel like they would need to be offered WiFi especially when it comes to international travelers because changing sims can be a little troublesome but being closer to possibly the central farm house might be a bit more reasonable so even if they have to walk for WiFi it would be relatively close for them. Anyway… I could see helping in this area… and possibly finding people who would like to come and specifically build next season… i know I love to build but I haven’t had too much of actually building any of my designs… and I’d love that opportunity. I’d be able to find people who could be more practical in execution. I loved being the master carpenter’s assistant… because they had the experience and I just was able to get it done for him while he could rest more as he’s aging. lol… so I originally thought I could help out with the events too… maybe that’s what the executive director is supposed to do… but in my gathering I believe the founder is the one who gets and organizes the events and the staff assists on getting them accomplished. Again…. Possibly something trainable so this is off the founder’s plate… but could open up his creativity to different event options… I mean I feel like there would be so many people who would be attracted to this space and I don’t know what events are held on the calendar but I’ve got many ideas that would be probably out of the norm and I’m also concerned that it might draw larger groups then the space can handle… but they host festivals where most would be camping… but yeah i can help in this area and I have things I’d love to teach if he’s interested… i feel like that was part of what I liked when I was first visiting… It seemed like the staff that was there also had a time where people taught talents they wanted to share… I remember doing a little bit of capoeira in the house…. That was a lot of fun! Maybe that’s something else that can be offered to the longer term volunteers… assigning them classes to share with the community… and allow the longer term work traders to share as well… there’s so many talented people with diverse interests… it might just spark a new interest in us… but also getting people to try different and new things is always going to assist in growth in all areas of life. lol… ok… so I’m going to go back into a little bit of the romantic or maybe more accurately possibly it’s the nurturing side of myself… I remember talking with the founder’s new partner that came to visit. I really enjoyed meeting her and I remember I thanked her for coming and she didn’t know why because she didn’t think she was doing anything… she thought she should be helping out more… and I said that your big help is just by being here and letting him feel like a man instead of the boss… this can be huge for his and his staff’s moral. Funny at the temple farm… the founder was a no touching person and I think I was the only one that got a hug from her… they threw a going away party which was super sweet but I had to ask, but she still said yes and allowed me to give her a hug… touching can be healing when appropriate. And I’d love to be available to do that for him… I don’t know… full body massage each week… oooh maybe a nuru massage… hehe… something to pamper him a bit… I mean… I’d love all of us to get pampered and possibly adding that as part of a thing we all do could be nice to have but yeah… anyway give him opportunities to feel like a man instead of the boss I’m sure could help out… and that’s even being able to take some responsibilities off his plate so he has time to get space away from the hostel to share with his lover’s would have a wonderful impact. And again… I don’t know the dynamics this was literally observing through what five days of being there…so I’m assuming these things and again… I should get a better idea soon I hope.. and I about forgot to mention that he might also enjoy helping me feel like a woman instead of a shaman as well… If he’s anything like me he enjoys touch, quality attention, and service… and maybe this would be something he’d consider and hopefully enjoy with me So I’m not sure what he thinks about having some automation going on but I know how much I thought having a temple farm app for the property would be extremely beneficial. And possibly it might be something that can be implemented here as well… I feel having an area where the work traders go so they can see the projection of what is the vision for the future and current projects that are being executed so they know what they can be doing as they stay… to the point of what equipment should be used and where to find them… I think I mentioned having a game type version so when they return equipment they can get points for returning it to the accurate place… like a bullseye… because no one at the temple farm cleaned up after themselves and then it was wasting time trying to find things. But inserting videos of how to do things.. and so yeah it doesn’t always have to be someone there watching and getting things for them… empowering them to figure things out on their own… and rate the tasks and some will need more than one person while other tasks could be a solo job. But this could also let people know who is coming from said groups to volunteer for work they can possibly reserve their spot especially if they’re coming from out of the country… it would be reassuring to guarantee a stay before they arrive. I meet it could definitely be a place to get to know the upcoming volunteers as well.. it can be a space where people can show the activities going on to past volunteers or current/ past guests… right there was a group page that went on FB for caving.. well I’m sure this could be included in the app for that type of involvement. I was already thinking of having a community board where people can leave their information but people can setup a profile and say someone happens to be looking to talk to an Ayahuasca shaman… they literally could find me in the data base and know how to get a hold of me… The people are amazing here and so I’d love to chat more and network… open it up to networking without having to always be the middle man… have it easily accessible. But if we have special classes each day that the staff wants to share with willing participants have a calendar and possibly a sign up so everyone knows how to prepare for them.. and when guests are there they have opportunities to be social, solitary, learning mode… whatever… it allows them more options and gets a better idea of the people who happen to be hosting them… I know I see all the time on the Lost River websites… it’s the people here that really makes this place magical… so giving opportunities for their lights to shine! I guess more opportunities… having this along with booking might get a few folks to book on specific days… or even get the locals involved to attend these unique classes that continuously revolve… Have people purchase monthly passes or something i don’t know but there’s a new space in the library that they want for concert areas but it could be a great space for classes… I’m not sure how they feel about hosting children classes… but again the opportunities are boundless and constantly changing… and if there’s talent again for people offsite in the local areas maybe offering rental space to host their classes could be something? Ok… I’m going into my brainstorming phase and I can just keep going but let’s try to arrange a bit more of the broader picture again… So what’s the broader picture I’m wanting to share with him? First of all he’s just attractive… he’s attracted my attention and I want to explore this. Again I originally thought about asking him to join my interests as well… that takes time to get to know him and feel where he’s at and if he’s open to it or not. So I’m still in my observation phase… I have a really strong feeling about him and I can observe him from online… and even go and visit for a few days at a time with possibly leaving in a short stent here in Indiana… or I can really get the chance to observe him by partnering up and see what we can discover in a year together… normally it takes time for people to get to know me and my potential as well… I mean I can make a great first impression but the depth starts to show through time. I know many of the devotees and the founders would’ve loved for me to stay and manage… but their requirements on me wasn’t things I was willing to change. So I figure it’s just not the time to take those steps yet… they need more time to see the larger vision I have by connecting the globe… hehe… which is already connected but in a more tangible way… but that takes time for me to discover as well… but many don’t understand what the effects of Enlightenment are and these are things that are hard to explain… but through observation through time… things start to stand out that seems quite different then using just our human mind… we tap into Universal… but actually once you’ve crossed over… you are in Universal mind most of the time… and increasing this awareness is learned quite quickly. People enjoy my company and they also seem to enjoy how they make them feel but they just assume I’m just a nice person with loving energy to share… but I think there’s more to it and it’s the authenticity and ease of life I live regardless if people might say the hardships the challenges… it just doesn’t affect in the same manner… and being in this state is not designated to a select few… it’s available for us all… I know I’m going around finding the few… hehe…but that’s because some are ready now… and so I’d like to focus majority of energy for these few… but doesn’t mean I don’t support everyone else… I just don’t have much of lack of time going on right now… when the time is ready…we’ll meet up.. and it feels like he’s ready, but I’m always hopeful and so spending time with me will give me a deeper understanding and he happens to have already established interested that I share and so I know I gain more opportunities to develop my skills further in a short amount of time. I seem to be quite a quick learner… and I’m looking forward to how different my world will be after a year in this partnership. But hopefully in that year he might better understand what I’m also trying to create. And possibly it would be up his alley as well… but he also might not have the desire to expand globally… and that’s what we can find out. So I feel like I’m going to be getting off here soon… but I’ll go back to my original questions… what am I waiting for? So I figured since the hostel only has one month left before it closes for the winter and that I’d just have to wait until the spring to assist… but really I could see I can start right away… I’m not sure what that looks like at this point but I feel like I can get a better idea once we chat. Ok that’s good for me… until next time… thank you

Good morning… alright things seem to be lining up and it’s getting me excited… which seems to be a regular thing for me… but I need to get some thoughts out and see if I can clarify my thoughts a bit more…so I thought it’s time to Journal again. But where to begin? Hmmm…. Well I’ve been having some amazing experiences since I’ve returned back to my home state of Indiana. Last time I wrote was after my cousin’s wedding and the following weekend I went to my buddy’s hostel for the inaugural caving invent. I had such a fun time. So I knew I was going to enjoy myself… I wanted to talk to the founder, my buddy whom I’ve been watching for the past six years. He’s been very impressive when seeing what he’s building in his community and his creativity… so he’s been standing out and his two events on caving and intentional communities were on my radar before arriving to Indiana. The last time I was there was six years ago but it was impressionable on my subconscious… I’m not sure if I said how I met him but to my memory we met through a mutual friend who is a shaman from Mexico who specializes in sound healing with his sound bowls. I feel like we were talking as we were there and as he was talking about his hostel we left our friend’s place to go visit his community that next day. Not only did I enjoy his property, but the community he was attracting was very impressive. So I knew I was excited to see whom I would meet at this event. Again another Mecca of amazing and creative minds draw here… and needless to say my expectations for conversations were far more than I could’ve imagined. But the caving experience itself was also far more than I could’ve imagined. Caving has been something I’ve been wanting to explore. I feel like this setting would be amazing for meditation and hopefully ceremony in the future. But I wanted to see how it went. I was oddly extremely comfortable in this space. I felt like a child playing in the subterranean world of the unknown… and I felt like I could do much much more of this. So the setup was to choose from beginner, intermediate, advanced, or meditative. Originally I thought my friend was leading the meditative trip so I signed up for this…. But also I thought I wanted to be more intentional on the first adventure before I would be more explorative on the second day. Of course it’s hard to not have a little expectation on what a meditative trip in the caving world would be… but I tried my best to just keep it open since meditation is subjective. There were only four guests that had chosen this style and I think it was assumed that the ones who chose this were beginners who were a bit hesitant or even scared to be inside caves. I guess in a way that makes sense, but of course that wasn’t the case for myself. I guess it’s easier to explain that when I go hiking… I don’t normally enjoy going with people whom just want to get to a destination and back. I’m much more wanting to enjoy and immerse myself into the environment and take my time to allow the environment to speak to me and feel my way through. So that’s how I wanted to approach the caving situation as well. I also brought my flute and drum with me… so I thought it would be nice to bring with me for the meditation. I had mentioned this to the group leader and it was interesting to see how seemingly uncomfortable she was to have me to my belongings with me. I could see it in her face but she didn’t address it right away. It wasn’t until we were at the location in the parking lot that she said she was thinking and asked her management about it… and it’s recommended to not bring it. They also recommended to not bring any phones or things to record because of safety and obviously they didn’t want anything to happen to our property. But the thing is… it is our property and I’d definitely take responsibility if any damages came to them without blaming them for my choices. I briefly asked her of what I had heard about the trips. I had heard our trip was going to be shorter than any other trip. And everyone car pooled so we were going to have to wait for the other groups to return before we would be able to leave. So I asked if I took full responsibility for my belongings… I wanted to have the opportunity to play my instruments in a meditative way once our trip was done and we have to wait for others to return. I told her that I don’t ’want to disturb anyone with my music, but there should be a way I can do this alone for myself. And she said that was up to me, but she doesn’t recommend it. It didn’t take much thought for me… I was taking it… I knew it was going to be extremely easy trek for the meditative trip and I was confident I wouldn’t have any issues with my iPad or my instruments…. So they came with me. To begin our trip we sat in a circle outside of the entry to the cave to relax and regain focus and connection. We were asked to explain why we had chosen the meditative trip instead of another. I was explaining a little bit of my background as an Enlightenment shaman, intentional spaces of exploration before trying to get to a destination, but also this was a weekend of caving so why not start with a meditative trip and then step it up a notch for the following day. I listened to the other three guests and one had stood out to me was a guy who was with his friend who emphasized that spirituality comes first in his life and that triggered me to want to find a chance to see what he means by this…. And it was easy to discuss because they were curious about my background… so we all had great conversations throughout our time inside and out of the cave, especially when we were waiting for the other groups for an hour. So we were walking to the entrance using the restroom before we entered… I heard a few times from different staff that some basic rules of caving is to not go number two inside and also try your best not to touch anything as much as possible so our oils don’t deconstruct that natural formations that’s been creating themselves for centuries. That all made complete sense… this was the first time I had a helmet and light to go exploring inside a cave. And I knew how important a helmet would be for me because I know I’d get pretty excited in there so bumping my head would definitely be expected… hehe Ok… a little unexpected interruption to the train of thought… I am trying to arrange this weekend with my friend and he and I had a great conversation that I’d like to write about real quick. But… I actually have to call my girl friend to discuss… so I’ll be right back. alright… I’m back… so where to go… so I saw a post from my friend who founded the hostel who is hosting his first intentional community event at his property. He mentioned that if anyone is interested in joining to contact him. It was late… so I waited til this morning to remind him that I’m very interested in attending, but I also was wanting to take a friend with me and also hoping to arrange a time for us to talk one on one for a possibility to partner up for his next season. So originally he was open for us to join and said that he would like to send some information for my friend to get more details of what a work trade program would be like for his community and asked for her email. So I got her email and sent it over to him. After awhile he ended up sending me another message to the roundabouts of he’s not sure how I’ll respond to his inquiry but how well do I know this friend of mine? Is it an enthusiastic yes I know them and would be able to be confident in their participation or am I kind of a crossing my fingers that it goes well. I was chuckling at this message… because it was very intentional and insightful… and pretty much something I’ve been working through as well. So I responded to him by saying that both applies… hehe… Yes I enthusiastically know and adore my friend I’ve known since sixth grade… she’s super sweet and inquisitive and would add value IF she’s comfortable… so I do have my fingers crossed as well because I wasn’t sure if this was the event to take her to meet my friend and visit the community. In fact I had given her an assignment to see if she was really ready to go to this event or not. I asked her if she could think about what intentional community means to her, and if she was wanting to be a part of one… what would her expectations be to be or how would she think it would be like. I didn’t really give her much more information than this to see how she interpreted the questions… in fact the first thing she said is she’s like to talk to me about it first… and I said I’d like for her to see where her thoughts go before we discuss. We plan on making cream puffs together this week and we’ll discuss it then… giving her a few days to think about it. And I told him about it… I too was uncertain that this event was going to be the correct time to bring her and since I’m so close to her and want to introduce her to experience the hostel and my friend its hard not to want to invite her to everything. I would have loved to have her go with me to the caving event there but she’s currently struggling with an ailment with her leg and has to where a brace when she walks long distance and recently got a cane which seems to be embarrassing for her. We’re trying to convince her mind that this doesn’t have to stop her from having a fulfilling life. She’s strong and she’s been able to overcome obstacles specifically her addiction to drugs that is very impressive. But since she has come to the other side… she hasn’t found how to be the new person she’s become. She’s trying to figure that out but doesn’t have much direction to find that out. So socially she’s getting challenged for years now. She continues to live in our small town from childhood and so there are the same people that have helped in her addiction and she’s removed most out of her life. But a few still linger around whom respect her changes… but also doesn’t want her to change to an extent that makes them comfortable. Needless to say… I’m trying to motivate her to meet new people. With her circumstances with her drug addiction it has put some challenges in her path that is now what she’s trying to overcome. At the time she was engaging in drugs this led her to having seizures. I was there when she had her first seizure and I remember how everyone reacted when it went down. We were at her current boyfriend’s house and he had roommates… and we were there having a good time partying… and we flipped on the lights to a room we were entering and all of a sudden she went collapsing down and shaking. I have a cousin who has seizures and the first thought was to call the hospital and make sure she’s not biting or trying to swallow her tongue. So yes I was asking everyone there to call 911 and get the ambulance there while I was trying to get a spoon to place into her mouth. And the response from the people there was they were too afraid of getting into any trouble because they’re partying with underage people and if the police comes they thought they would go to jail or get into trouble. I remember being so upset that no one was willing to call 911… I mean that was the time that we used home phones… I didn’t have a cell phone and all I know is that I need to get her help and I need to get it as soon as possible. It’s not my house and they don’t want the ambulance at their house. I said well I’m going to take her to the emergency room then. And there was only one other person who was there that was willing to help… and no it wasn’t her boyfriend. It was our classmate friend and he helped me pick her up, put her into the car, and got her into the emergency room to help. Fast forward… because her drug use continued and amplified I had to make a decision to not have as much contact in fact we went several years not talking. I believe I might’ve discussed this last year when I was starting this Journal… but I reached out a few years back and saw a difference. I told her that she’s not stoned or wasted right now.. and that’s when she told me she’s been sober from drugs for about two years now. And that’s when our relationship continued. To bring it back to the thoughts I was talking about… .because of her seizures they continued and got worse. When we were not in communication she was working somewhere where her seizures were often enough that the company she was working for recommended she goes onto disability. And without knowing the consequences or options… she went through with it. And I admit at this time… I would say she was definitely at a state that would be considered fully disabled to function a normal life at that time. But now that she’s off of her abdications…. Being on the fully disabled list doesn’t apply. With this on her record… she’s unable to work unless it’s getting paid under the table, she’s unable to drive, she’s unable to even have her own bank account… so even though she wants to move forward with her life…she doesn’t even know where to begin to get out of this hole. I continue to encourage her that there are options to find out there… and steps to take… but I’m not the one to take these steps… she’s going to want to do it for herself… and she’s at the point of wanting to but again the actions steps aren’t known and so it’s prolonging the progression… but of course this is the period of time that is getting her to be ready… there’s progression but it’s not obvious because it’s not manifesting physically but mentally it’s progressing forward… and again when I’m around I’m looking for opportunities to help her… in some way I can give her a bit more confidence and I’m not afraid of making steps or mistakes.. so I suggest things that might help her out in many avenues in her life. But we will focus on is this specific event. So I was telling my friend that she has situational confidence and this will be perceived as something that is going to be out of her comfort zone by going to a new place… meeting new people… nervous about being socially awkward…. Nervous she’s going to be a burden because she’s having issues with her leg… and the fact she’s not even aware of intentional communities… that I’m not sure that this would be the right time… but I told him that in the next few days I’ll get a better idea if she would be an asset or not. I also had to admit to him that I’m not sure of what her degree of neediness would be while we’re there. When we’re out of our comfort zone, we tend to be a bit more needy to the ones you know and trust… so I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be as fully engaged in conversation because I’ll be concerned of her comfort ability. If she gets there and relaxes and enjoys herself… she won’t be needy, but if that’s not the case… then neediness will be there and since I adore her… and introducing her to this new situation I’d feel responsible to help her through that. Just to mention… I did not say all of this to my friend… but in a shorter version… but definitely not as concise as one would normally… that’s not my communication at this time. But his response was a relief… in fact this entire conversation was very intuitive and I love that! he said that if it’s not an absolute yes at this time… why don’t we arrange a different time for us to visit together… is that good for me? And admittedly… it was a relief and thankful for his communication and curiosity to our situation… he said that this is a different event… most of what he hosts are fun and social but this Intention Convention is another animal… it’s more intense and professional and serious.. the group that’s going to be there are fun and social people… but when we find people who shares in the same passions… we can geek out on it… and we want participants to all want to geek out on it… he assumes it’s going to be a bit chaotic and if he removes any wildcard variables it would make much more sense… and honestly I’m grateful that my friend is letting me join too because I don’t own or manage an intentional community but I’m looking to connect a network of intentional communities globally. I’ve been able to gather information from my observations from the communities I’ve been involved with and I feel like I’d have insights to contribute to the conversation. Most recently at the ashram temple in Utah… they wanted me to manage their community but by doing this there were implications that I’d have to be something I am not and have a thumb on top of me not allowing the freedom and creativity that is the main asset I bring to situations. In fact one of the reasons I’d like to address here during this Journal entry.. but there’s other moving parts I’d like to address as well while I’m here today. I responded simply that we will arrange another time that we can come and visit together… I’ll be there and super excited… and that is quite an understatement… hehe… this is a huge part of my purpose and I’m looking forward to meeting other passionate people in intentional communities… I had confessed to my friend and his staff during a staff discussion where I briefly mentioned that some may see easily that I”m a community minded individual, but what they don’t see easily.. is that I’m a global communities minded… I didn’t get into much detail because of brevity but I hope to discuss with him when we get time to share with one another. Hehe… a little interruption… I was hanging out with another girl friend this weekend and she’s been curious about cyber security specifically with ICAC and I have two contacts that I met with connections to different types of cyber security and I reached out to one and waiting for the next one… but he’s monitoring voter fraud in Colorado elections… so yes he’s swamped… but I’m going to get to this weekend which was very insightful and fully of clarity especially after talking to this friend in particular… hehe… many moving parts in my head right now… and I’m trying to figure out how to write it all out in a not so chaotic manner… but I guess that’s not what’s going to happen right now… but I want to just say… the caving event went extremely well. I know I’m going to dive deeper into meditation and ceremony in caving situations… It was fun to go in a group setting but I also had the desire to find a way to go by myself… the way I approach space and my intention doesn’t have to be compromised when I’m solo. My friend who is the founder actually drew out a cave that he recommends going to if we want to go alone… it’s one of his meditation areas… and after going I can see why. He shared this with a few of us… one girl went the day before I did and she ended up in a field and a bit lost… so I was wondering how the directions would be for me too. But honestly she didn’t even take a picture of the map he drew out… she said she would remember it… and we chuckled knowing that wouldn’t help find the cave entrance… but the map worked well… I found myself taking notes and videos as I was following the map becuase I absolutely love map making.. and I can already see a map I can draw to make it easier for people to find. But sometimes that’s part of it… it’s not supposed to be that easy for everyone… it takes courage and effort to get the results.. but I had an amazing time going alone and exploring this area. I didn’t have much time… I spent a few hours but I was heading back home which is three hours away and I needed to stop at my cousin’s house too while I headed back home. She accidentally broke our grandmother’s pearl necklace and I fixed it for her and needed to drop it off. But there was a beautiful green pond that looked inviting but I didn’t take a dip at this time… but as i like orienteering it was fun to not know what I’m looking for and just follow the map. I thought it was fairly easy to follow… except there was something that I questioned… there were marking to cave entrances and I know he probably said things specifically to the one we enter but I couldn’t recall and when I looked at the map I was questioning whether the third entrance was it? Or did I have to go around and find another entrance on the other side? So the third entrance looked like what he described by going down at a 45 degree angle to enter and leads to the underground river…. Which is what it was… but again if I just looked at the map I questioned and so I took a look around to make sure I’m not missing another entry point… after looking for awhile I decided that the third entrance has to be it… and it was! I didn’t have a helmet with me this time… just a head lamp. I had to climb down rocks before I found the cavern dome where the beginning of the river was seen. I sat down and I could hear the rushing water in the distant tunnel ahead… it was calling to me… begging me to explore… I didn’t know at this time whether I was going to go or not… in fact I thought I was going to but I sat first… I especially enjoy lights out in a cave and so I wanted to do this here. When I first heard of a friend who enjoyed caving he described moments of sensory deprivation… I feel like I have a memory where he was wedged into a crack and it seemed liked he was suspended in space, but I also feel like if I was submerged into water with lights out could really get the feeling of sensory deprivation. I had mentioned this during our initial meditative introduction of why I chose this… sensory deprivation opportunities to see what can be observed or possibly awakened… excites me! I’ve had messages about ceremonies in caves… so this weekend was my next steps into exploring this. But I chose to lay in silence and pitch blackness on some rocks next to the river… I love it! In the silence except for the music coming from the running water what I could assume is rushing down the rocks dropping in elevation… I found that I decided this would not be the time to explore… I don’t have a helmet and I definitely will need a helmet… hehe… also I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get wet at this time either… this was like my last pair of clean clothes and I need to drive still so I was just going to spend time here in the cave at the entrance of the unknown… ok with it being the unknown until I return. So I was curious to see what I would see in the darkness. At few interesting things happened the days ahead when I was in the caves with the groups… the meditative group trip we went to a place to do our guided meditation… again it’s always interesting to experience everyone’s take on what they think meditation is and how to approach it. So our guide decided she was to guid us in a meditation… which seemed that there was a projection that we might have stresses in our life that we are trying to be ok with and at this time if we notice any troublesome thoughts to notice it but also be open to have it dissolve… which again is all well intentioned and helpful but specifically if we are all in this state… which I was not. I love meditation in silence for me to be able to observe myself internally I usually do not opt for guided meditation… for me that’s more like visualization practices at least the whole thing about a person talking the entire time and asking you questions and just talking…which again isn’t as helpful for me to get into a deep internal state of connection with the All that we find ourselves in…. But I witnessed my response to the talking… I saw that I wasn’t as irritable as I might’ve been in the past being opinionated that meditative practices in my experience is best in silence but this wasn’t my guided tour… this was hers and so I respect that and she did a great job… but I did attempt to mute her out… and connect to the surroundings and see what I could discover for myself. So I took off my helmet and everyone had their lights off and I laid on the dirt with direct contact with the earth. It was cool but I didn’t get cold… I was warned to take extra layers of clothes because once you stop in a cave most people get cold… I’m glad that I didn’t need this at the time… and I just relaxed into the moment and connected… it was funny to me that even though I was in complete darkness I decided to close my eyes still.. maybe it’s just a habit I’ve learned… but this is what I found myself doing and I allowed it and waited and watched… shortly after I started to see a very faint light almost as if it was a flashlight that was running out of batteries… this light seemed to cross the ceiling of the cave very very slowly and it continued to the point I started to think and question… did someone turn their flashlight on? And so I opened up my eyes and saw that no one had.. and so I went to closing my eyes and observing… It continued… this slow roaming dim light as if looking at the details of the rock texture of the ceiling. The details couldn’t be seen but that seemed to be what I was trying to do. I wasn’t able to continue doing this because the guided meditation was over and I think people were getting cold… but I remember the guide saying to take as much time to become aware of the present moment and to move slowly from our positions until we’re ready to turn on the lights and continue the trip. I definitely took my time… hehe… but also aware that I”m not alone and to respect the other parties involved… but again a longing to just be slower in my experience was desired… again hinting at wanting to be there alone without having to go with the crowd. On the second cave adventure which our guide classified as an intermediate to beginner trip there was another opportunity for lights out. I didn’t bring it up but of course I was excited about it. And it was funny this time because I assumed when it’s lights out that also meant to imply no talking… this wasn’t a meditative trip so there wasn’t going to be a guided meditation so I was hoping for silence in the darkness…and for a few brief moments there was no talking… again easy to here any water echoing off the cave walls and as if water is plunging on top of itself falling from rocks that are higher then the stream the water fell onto…and awwww…. It was very pleasant… but again I understand these moments I wait to be in but most will feel impatient or uncomfortable… so two people started talking… they started talking about the tales of cave monsters that people tell… again I observed my response to their conversation not really caring what they were talking about… just the fact theirs conversation going on in a brilliant moment to connect to our surroundings in a different manner… a deeper manner in my opinion… a respectful manner to the environment we find ourselves in. The inhabitants and the earth, rocks, water… whatever is normally in this space does not usually have humans there… and humans seem to appreciate their environments but to what degrees? It would’ve been nice to experience how this space is in it’s normal circumstances… because they were talking more people started talking after they told their monster story… and someone mentioned they could hear the bats… we found a single bat over the area we were in which was cool… but I was thinking to myself… darn it… I didn’t hear the bat with those few moments of silence before the talking came into play… I was thinking so much about how I wished they’d stop talking that I didn’t hear the bats… so at this moment I didn’t want to not say something… I apologized but I asked if there was anyway that we could stop talking and sit in silence with the lights out for at least a minute… I just want to be able to see what I can observe at this time and be with the environment. I didn’t want to be rude or bossy but it did feel that way just to ask if there could be a minute of silence with lights out…and I felt like some were like why do we have to sit in silence… but others thanked me for voicing my requests because they wanted to ask the same thing… these others were a newly wed couple who joined us who were not directly involved with the caving event from the hostel.. they were naturalists and I was absolutely thrilled to have them join our adventure and found myself relating more to them then the few individuals I came with from the hostel. I observed that they were wanting to explore the cave as I’d like to… take their time… looking at all the details… it was fascinating hearing them talk about all the rock and animal life we ran into. And as I am recording… because they took their time… I got the best footage recording them… and I was grateful to capture their footage. And I was able to thank them as well after the wife found me on facebook… they just got married the night before and this caving adventure was part of their honeymoon… which I was so delighted to here and again after experiencing this with them… so thankful to have met…and who knows if our paths will meet again in the future… I hope so. But in those maybe 90 seconds of silence in the darkness… I did focus enough to hear a little chitter that could be a bat… I heard the water again… and it allowed for a brief light show similar to the one I saw the first day in the meditative trip. I was enjoying myself and it seemed like everyone was waiting for me to be ready to say that it’s ok to talk again… hehe… as much as I could’ve sat there longer I said that I was thankful they allowed that time because I enjoyed there cooperation and appreciate it. We continued as we did afterwards… but so that night when I went to bed and as I watched the darkness behind my closed eye lids I found those lights returning to my vision. Instead of it being a small circle of lights that were dim slowly moving across the ceiling… it was a little different… it seemed like the light was far larger… I’m think eight times larger than in the caves… it still moved very slowly as if looking at all the details that were hard to see but it also seemed like it wasn’t scanning over the ceiling anymore… it was as if I was walking or most likely crawling it seemed to go over a hump of clay into a hole of darkness and the light got swallowed up in the darkness and the dim light disappeared. All of this is interesting to me and I look forward to see what happens when I’m alone and have the freedom to literally sit in the darkness and semi-silence for as long as I want. So I was sitting at the entrance of the river in the darkness wondering if I was going to see any lights this time… At this time… there was nothing… and I just continued to lie in peace for awhile. Eventually the thought of playing my instruments in this space came to me…and so I turned on my head lamp to get my flute and drum out to play. I grabbed my flute first… I played the sequence that I seem to be finding myself playing when I grab the flute… it varies each time but it’s very similar to what I play… this instrument is still new to me but I loved it bellowing into the dome… there are times where it gets hard to play the flute because of moisture… mostly from what I assume is my spit… but I also think in this case because of the dampness of the cave as well which wasn’t as helpful for flute play. But I played it until it didn’t want to play anymore… and so I moved to my drum. I remember a few rhythms from last summer being a part of the drum troupe… and so I find myself practicing and tying to remember these patterns and so I usually start off slow and then pick up the pace as I relax into the rhythm… I decided that I’ll go ahead and record some of the music I’m playing and placed the light and camera onto the ceiling and continued playing. Drumming is so satisfying… again taking steps to be more confident in my play… After time passed I placed the drum and flute back into my bag and pulled out my pipe… ground my experience with tobacco and how much pleasure I get when I’m conscious with my smoking… I decided to go into pitch blackness again for awhile… this time I didn’t close my eyes… I kept them open and watched and waited to see if I could see anything… this time I did.. but it wasn’t like my times before… there was very subtle moments that I started to see… let’s say everything was black well the color was a dark grayish i guess… it didn’t stand out… but there seemed to be movement similar to what I would see actually if I have my eyes closed. I guess I could try to describe seeing the reflection off the water onto plants and rocks that capture the lights reflection? I understand but not certain the words to describe it now, but again… i was enjoying this movement aware that this wasn’t behind my eye lids but with my eyes open observing the space. All of a sudden in the corner of my eye there was a glow that started to become in my awareness… I looked at it and it looked as if there was something glowing underneath something… so it wasn’t all over and super bright.. but definitely stood out… I looked away to see if I would still see it when I looked back and it was still glowing and this time there was no movement… it was one specific spot that was glowing… after a few moments I noticed another area where I saw glowing but it was a bit different and after observing and thinking about the layout of the room… these were lights of daylight reflecting off the rocks near the entrance. I wasn’t far from the entrance but there’s a descension and a turn to the left so at first I didn’t notice that there was any daylight anywhere… at first it was black… the glowing I was first describing wasn’t anywhere near the other lights… the glow wasn’t far from me which couldn’t have been daylight… I didn’t know what it meant but I thought… I’m going to see where this spot is… and so I looked at the glow and turned on my head lamp to see where it was… it seemed to be a single rock in the water… I located it and I made my way there and placed my left hand on it… I turned the lights off again and observed the environment to see what would happen… and after a few minutes of acclamation the space was no longer black… it was light gray and similar movements that I saw as if reflections off the water but the brightness was increasing in size and took over my entire vision… it was a bit overwhelming and unusual that I didn’t see any blackness right now… but it also didn’t look like a cave anymore… I closed my eyes to breathe in slowly and opened them again… and it seemed like it was the same thing going on… and so I decided to turn on my lights. It was crazy to think that being in this space for this amount of time that I didn’t even see the darkness anymore, but I also didn’t see any details of the space either… so I didn’t know where the water or rocks were. But my vision is different even when I’m in Aya ceremonies.. and so I was curious to see what my vision would be like in a cave… again all of this helps excite me for integration steps to help assist my performance with Ayahuasca. I felt amazing when I climbed out of the cave back into the light of the sun and surrounded by the woods… almost a bit dizzy once I started to retrace my steps back to the pond. I looked at the time knowing that I probably didn’t have time to go to the second cave he put on the map… but I thought I’d walk around the area to see if I could spot the area he had mapped out… but I think there might be a little flaw in the hand drawn map… but I enjoyed taking my time leaving the space… I saw about three blue jays flying around from one tree to the other going back and forth… and once I got back to the van to head out… I knew caving is something I’d like to attract more of in my future… but specifically intentional caving Ok.. I think that might be where I’ll switch away from the caving and head into the next focal I wanted to share today… the unexpected chicken game at the hostel… hehe… so I’ve already been talking about preparing myself to having more possible romantic or sexual encounters for the past six months… it’s been apparent that I’m trying to get myself ready for opportunities to explore this. This is an area I need to work on and I guess this is a time that I can be more deliberate on my practice to explore my relationship to sexuality. When I was in Colorado and I was trying to create the event with sexual adult play… I found out that the community I was in wasn’t quite ready for this event and also I didn’t have the time either. I realized when it comes to large gatherings of sexuality it doesn’t make me uncomfortable… but thinking about being completely vulnerable and sexually intimate and expressive is the area I am out of my comfort zone… which again is the area I need to work on and so I wait to see how it will introduce itself to me. I’ve been talking to friends and I’ve kind of found a way to explain it a little… I started getting messages that sexuality was going to be addressed in my reality and so I know I’ve kept that door closed for years now, but for six months I’ve cracked the door open… but I was going to kick it wide open when it came to the sexual entertainment party I was going to host… but I wasn’t able to kick the door open… and so it was still cracked waiting to see how things play out… when I finally spoke and verified with the Australian that we are not mutually wanting the same things that door I had closed wasn’t going to be closed any longer… I know I’m feeling I’m looking for affection and intimacy again… but how was reality going to introduce this back into my Reality and how was going to handle it? lol… well I guess it introduced it back with a little game of Chicken. So… the founder is absolutely brilliant man who is very creative and comfortable in his sexuality. This board game is something he offers to guests that he thinks will be open and curious to play and there were ten of us in this group which were down to see what it was about. Let’s explain the rules which again I think is interpretive depending who is leading the group to how it’s played. So the guy leading explains… there are eight levels with it’s own designation of cards… it starts out at level one which has a single chicken on it and moves up to level eight which is called extreme I believe. And so as we choose the cards, we can choose to stay in the lower range which could just be answering questions as what’s your favorite color or to give a simple kiss a peck on the cheek or the mouth… more of the tame activities while if we continue to go higher the cards start to ask for more daring encounters with the participants involved which I hear can get pretty damn extreme.. hehe. Well…. The group dynamic determines who wild it gets and how quickly the wildness will come… but in reality it can stay pretty tame if the group wants it… and so I found it interesting to be there with this particular group… I had a fun time. But anyway… another part of the rules is that we try to get an equal amount of genders to play… we had six girls and four boys… but one boy and one girl was nonbinary… and what I’m trying to say is that it was pretty even. One of the die had curved corners for the females and the sharp corners for the males. There can be up to twelve players and everyone gets designated a number. I was number two on the curved die. So.. when we play if the person who is choosing the card gets an activity card not a question card then they role the dies to see who the choices are to participants of said activity. So again this group leader said that consent is of utmost importance and so if you who chooses the card doesn’t want to do the activity or answer the question then you can choose to drink alcoholic or not or choose two cards from lower levels. If you are chosen as the participant for activity, you can too decide to say no and use your words to express this in a nonjudgemental manner… everyone should be expressing if it’s a mutual exchange of experience. So… I won’t go into details of what all was being done.. but I want to focus on was my thoughts and observations of myself while I was playing this game… and I might go into some personal ones that the game asked from me. So first of all… most should know by now if following any of my Journal… I’ve been practicing celibacy for seven years now and the last time I kissed someone was about four years ago. At that time there was still a bit of the pandemic I was dealing with and my stepdad had passed and I wanted to get a ticket to Hawaii to attend his funeral. I didn’t have much time or options when it came to work… so I decided to become an exotic dancer for a few months. All my life people have asked if I was an exotic dancer… hehe… and now I can say yes for a few months I was. But I ended up kissing a girl for the first time while I was in the club. I hadn’t had any sexual encounters directly with females before this… the only thing was my girl friend back in middle/ high school days would make out with our partners in the same room together. But I didn’t even notice them since I was in my own world at the time… but once we played with her boyfriend which was just running our hands and fingers along his body… nothing too crazy I’d say… but that’s not what I”m going to go on a tangent about right now… hehe… but I first got to experience a girl in a sexual manner was a man asked me to dance with friend who was a girl. She was attracted to women and she found me attractive and would like a lap dance. I said that would be fun and so i did… while I was dancing he interrupted and said that he’d like to watch me dance with her and his girlfriend at the same time… and so I went with it… and goodness… it was fun! Women are so soft and ooey gooey… hehe I remember thinking I can understand why men enjoy snuggling up on us. Girls also seem to be more expressive of their enjoyment then I found men to be which added to the excitement. And so eventually working here I started to get the opportunities to work with couples… I didn’t know how well I’d enjoy working with couples in fact that was far more fun for me personally then just men I think.. I guess it depends on each situation.. but it was new and I liked it. Well… I’m just as honest as an exotic dancer as I am anywhere so the first couple I danced with in privacy I admitted that I had never kissed a girl before. They were surprised because I seemed quite confident and good at pleasure the girl but the girl asked me if she could be my first… and I was enjoying myself with them and so I did… I ended up kissing one more girl while I was a dancer but yes… that has been four years ago… and I finally got an opportunity to possibly kiss again in this game… hehe… so what did I observe in myself during the game. First of all, I felt very comfortable… when it comes to games and groups… I see it all as entertainment and I’m confident in being a good performer. So I was looking forward to entertain and please. What I also found out is that it took more than half of the game to go by without my number being rolled… hehe… I found that I was kind of a little disappointed that I wasn’t an option for anyone to play with me directly… hehe… people were choosing me to participate with others… but curved number two wasn’t showing itself and I thought that I’m too willing and this game is tame… so just relax and enjoy it… which I was able to…but when someone finally rolled my number I had to let everyone know that I had been waiting there patiently enjoying myself watching but we’re about over and I finally get a chance to be a choice to choose from… lol… so of course the person who rolled said well would you like to participate in the activity, then… and I said of course… and so I got to make out for the first time in a long time and for me it was fun because I felt like this game was more performance than anything else. Another interesting point I’d like to share for myself in this game is that I got the questions… who are you most attractive to who is playing the game with you right now? And I had to laugh because I did have to answer the favorite color card too… and I said remember how I answered that questions… I said probably shades of green… hehe… I should’ve said rainbow… so yeah picking out favorites is not my thing… so everyone agreed that I could pick my top two instead of one. So again I couldn’t just answer because looking around I didn’t know who to choose at first… so I was delaying my decision and was confessing that I find almost everyone attractive… and I know I’ve disclosed this information before… but its true attraction for me isn’t just physical… everyone I meet I seem to find an attractiveness for in one way or more… so I was telling everyone this and I was specifically looking at everyone’s eyes… so I was saying that I find them all attractive and it’s true but to be able to pick the top two of this group I thought… to be honest I have spoken to two of you more then the others in the group and so right now I find you guys more attractive… I said and touched one girl that we have been having great conversation to and from the caves… and then I said and touched the one guy who shared the meditative trip with me and with an hour of waiting on the groups to return we were really able to dive much deeper in our spirituality which is attractive. I believe because of this one card… it led to an engagement this past weekend which I’ll be discussing I guess next… hehe… so after this game I was buzzing a bit… and curious to see how different my life is going to be by having this door cracked open a bit. And I started to definitely see a difference in myself and my thoughts. They’ll come out but I’m going through the steps of how I understood them more than I did just two weeks ago at this event. So how does this unfold? Well… I stayed after a few days from the weekend event to volunteer… I love community and helping out and I have time to see how things run on the daily… I’m curious. I’ve been watching my friend the founder for six years now through social media and he’s been standing out in my attention and I’ve been impressed again already wanting to attend his two events of caving and intentional communities. But I also was offline when I was there. So as I was exchanging my information I’d mention that I wanted to be offline while I was there so I can immerse myself fully and to just get a break from online activity. I believe it was late Monday that I finally got connected and I was getting several messages. When I got back home I felt like I had much more time to give my full attention and that’s when the guy I chose as one of the most attractive during the game asked if we can meet up. We thought the following weekend but I told him that I’d like to stay home for a weekend because I’ve only been back two weeks and I’d just like to adjust a bit more and honestly wanted to spend time with my cat who is freaking out right now because I’ve been gone so many days since we arrived back to Indiana… he’s doing fine, but he’s also not leaving my side when I’m back at my dad’s place where we are staying at the moment. I also told him if I go to Indy area that I’d like to spend a few days there and so I want to make plans with friends… this will give me a week to do this and he was fine with it. So I was able to reach a few friends that I wanted to see first and spend time with… and so we decided that Friday night will be our night to hang… when we were deciding what to do I didn’t originally think of this as a date… but as it continued… I was like is this a date? I guess this could be considered a date… hehe… I just haven’t thought about hanging out with people as an opportunity for something sexual or romantic to be involved in such a long time… when I started to question if this was a date that’s when my mind became weird… hehe… I was like holy shit… I’m awkward as hell when I think of being romantic or sexual with someone… and I’m telling you this is something new to me… before my shamanism journey I felt like I was confident in this area of my life… I’m realizing that all of those memories and moments in the past I was just really good at performing or acting… even so much so that I didn’t even know I was performing for myself. I wasn’t really ever ready to give myself fully to a relationship even though I thought I was… I’m sure more insights will come out.. but anyway how did our conversation go setting up this ”date”. He sent over some ideas to do together and mostly involving haunted houses… and so I told him that it sounded like fun but really I just want to talk to him and get to know him better… in my mind at first I’m still thinking he might be someone I’d like to invite to join in Ayahuasca ceremonies… hehe… I told him let me look around and see if there’s anything that doesn’t involve so much money that we can enjoy together… I haven’t looked for a gig since I’ve been back and so money is tight right now… and as I was looking… which it wasn’t as successful in the option I was seeing since everything I wanted to do also costed money and not much difference than the haunted house… and while I was searching he said it would not be a problem for him to pay for it… in fact to not worry about cost… he just wanted to have time to share and get to know me better as well… and so I said if it’s ok with him then it’ll be ok with me too. He said that with his kids and his parents spending the weekend at his place… we can meet at his place but after the haunted house we could go to one of his friend’s house or go to a hotel or find something to do to talk. I told him I’m open and all of the above would work for me. If nothing else I’ll be taking blankets and pillows with me and I’ll sleep in the van if I have to. He laughed and said there’s no way I’m going to be sleeping in the van, but a girl does what she has to… and it would be great to not sleep in the van, but if I have to I will and it wouldn’t bother me… there’s ton of space in there… hehe. So we said let’s get a hotel… he found a bed and breakfast which looked gorgeous and one of the pictures showed a large jacuzzi tub and of course I had to mention how a bath would be awesome. He called to book it and I guess they had a two night minimum… I told him I could look for spots on Airbnb… maybe there’s options there… which I wasn’t successful at finding but as I was looking he said he found a hotel that had a whirlpool tub in the space… and if he should book it… I told him that we don’t have to have a tub… but I love soaking in them and I figured we could maybe have some fun enjoying it together… there I go this is when I was like is this a date? But he immediately said… yessss booking it now… lol… unfortunately there wasn’t a tub in the room… the people he was talking to wasn’t actually onsite and there was a pool and hot tub but none in a room… so I was hoping to have some fun with him in the tub… I was going to pick up some oils and see if he’d like a nuru massage… oiling each other up and using all of my body to massage his without focusing on using my hands… I love to slip and slide… this would probably be the closest thing to a fetish that I might have even though I haven't actually had many sexually experiences with this involved. But afterwards I was going to get some bath salts and suds with some candles and we could bathe each other while we soaked. I guess bath time and shower time has been the closest things I’ve done a bit to my slippery fantasizes… I’ve done nuru twice but again for professional activities not personal pleasure. I was running late to meet him and so I didn’t stop and get the supplies I went straight to the hotel and only being five minutes late I found him talking to the front desk asking if there’s a room that has a tub in it.. but they didn’t have such things at this location. So I found out I didn’t need to go buy these items anyway… and again it wasn’t necessary to enjoy ourselves. In my mind it was going to be an easier way for me to relax and enjoy myself in sexual play… as if I needed something to help me into this zone. We had fun at the haunted house and we went to visit his friend which I had a good time… I guess I was bringing up conversations that he didn’t know about his buddy… we had top notch conversations about spirituality and he doesn’t find anyone to talk this way with. He’s a philosophical theologian. And throughly enjoyed our talks in fact I told him I’m glad I wasn’t the driver because I would have pulled over to talk than to try to drive… hehe… he missed a few exits too while we were talking because it was noticeable we enjoyed our conversations. Also I noted his friend is pretty cool… he designs apps and is into psychedelics both recreationally and spiritually… these things I noticed because maybe I can see how intentional he’d like psychedelics to be… but no rush… I’ll see if it comes up in the future. But then we returned to the hotel… and it was a lovely room with a king sized bed which also came with a king sized television… lol… he was watching the goonies when I arrived back from the bathroom. I didn’t care what we were watching… I was to much engaged with talking more if he was up to it. I had things I had to talk to him about especially if we were going to go where we anticipated it to be leading to… I told him how seriously I’ve taken my spiritual practice specifically when it came to my sexuality… celibacy has given me so much insight but that game we played might have given him the wrong impression… one on one I feel like I’m going to be more scared and awkward… and that I didn’t know where my boundaries are at this time. Admittedly I didn’t tell him that I figured I wasn’t going to have sexual intercourse with him… I think I was challenging myself and seeing how I was going to respond in this situation… if I was going to cave in or not…but I just wanted to see how it went and again respond in the moment. So I don’t think I’m going to go into all the details of what we did… in fact I haven’t gotten his consent to discuss much details on what we talked about and activities we mutually shared together… so I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible but enough information to get my thoughts out. First of all… I wasn’t as scared or awkward in this position… just like it was a surprise for the guy I made out with during the game that he was the first person I’ve kissed in years… he probably wouldn’t have known I hadn’t been in this situation for closer to six years when I attempted a sexual encounter with a friend I met in the Florida airport and met up with wile traveling in Peru and met up again in Colorado… but I think I went through those details before and not relevant for this conversation… well.. actually it is relevant because I remember how crazy I did feel in those moments… I was so new to practicing celibacy and it was a huge internal battle of wanting to and not wanting to… that battle was intense and I felt a bit crazy while I was in it.. but that wasn’t the case this time… I wasn’t battling much… I did notice how responsive my body was to this encounter… like holy shit girl finally… you know you enjoy this… but I did have thoughts going on asking are you actually wanting to have sex with him? If you’re not going to have sex with him… how are you going to tell him? Are you going to voice your thoughts? And so I found myself telling him that I’m down for pretty much anything but I am not ready to actually have intercourse with penetration by his member into me… lol… I probably chose the wrong time to state my boundaries but I know for next time when I find myself in this situation again. He definitely wanted to penetrate and I was allowing his fingers to and he loved how wet and tight I was… I started chuckling and was like yeah… I’m not lying to you…. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this position. But I wasn’t going to let him go unsatisfied… I do love to please… and so I think I might have introduced to him a new position for going down on him that seemed to give him enjoyment. Again the next morning I was buzzing… my body was tingling and it almost felt like I had sex the night before… I can see how much my body and mind enjoy being in this unknown territory… but once we parted I was better able to contemplate what all went down and what all I observed in myself. I didn’t realize all of this until I was talking to my girl friend I went to visit on Saturday night. But there’s a few encounters before this so I’ll continue and express insights while talking with her. So I was meeting with my friend whom I also visit when I’m back in Indiana… we actually met each other in the salsa dancing scene… and he met me when I was in my polyamorous phase and there was a short stent of sexual encounters we shared… but this has been nine years ago now… very close to it at least… but our relationship has gotten stronger and more depth because of course I’ve become more spiritual and intentional and so this deepens our bonds. But right…. Going to meetup with him… i didn’t see this as a date… this is my friend and I care for him deeply but I haven’t been looking at him in this manner for years now… but of course we are catching up… talking about what’s has happened this past year when I went to Utah and what insights and direction I’ve been able to find there… so I went into that but of course I told the most confusing thing going on in my life is my relationship to sex. So again… I haven’t gotten permission or consent so I’ll try to keep it mostly to my thoughts as much as possible. Let’s just say I’ve been blunt and open to all the things that go on in my thoughts as I was leading up to the date the night before. I got to the point where I thought I was going to be awkward and scared… and how I don’t feel like I’m good at one to one engagements anymore but when it comes to sexual entertainment in groups that I’m fine… we both laughed because we both remember our past sexual encounters and said I know it might sound crazy but that’s how I feel now… he was laughing and said he can’t believe what I’m saying because there’s no way he’d believe I wasn’t confident in this area. He had a blast… I told him about the game I found myself in at the hostel which really got him going. He found a walking trail alongside a community with beautiful neon colored fall trees… loved it! We sat on the bench as we were heading out and he said… tell me more about you kissing girls… lol… I laughed and said well… I haven’t kissed many girls… told him how I started and some details about the game but I told him that kissing a girl does seem to have differences to the men I’ve kissed. I mean there’s nuances but in general there seems to be a difference. And so he wanted to know. I said that when I’m kissing a guy… there seems to be an expectation that this kiss is leading to a destination… and honestly maybe that’s a projection I have on myself but that’s how I explained it… and when I kiss a girl that expectation of a destination isn’t there…. It’s as if we’re ok if the destination is just to being kissing and enjoying the kiss we’re sharing in the moment. This subtlety makes a difference. And honestly I don’t really know if this is a gender thing… I’m sure to guarantee that it’s an individual thing… but I was talking with my buddy and was just having a conversation casually and not thinking about being political correct or something. I just was expressing my opinion at the time. I told him that I’d like to be a master of foreplay… where the destination isn’t the point… almost similar to the idea I get from people who I know who talk about the kink scene… to have mutual pleasure in as many ways other than intercourse… intercourse isn’t there intention going into a sexual sharing. He laughed at me and said that he’s definitely down to be a partner if I’m looking for one. We have a history and he enjoys foreplay as well. I looked at him and asked how his girlfriend would feel about this? Is she open to this? Are these things you’ve talked to her about? And he said that he’s brought things up like this to her before… he implied that she doesn’t seem to be interested in sharing sexual experiences with girls but might consider sexual experiences with other partners… he didn’t go into much detail and I figured we’d be talking more and so maybe I’ll get more out of him the more we talk. And so I said that I don’t want anything I do to be a secret or hidden. I respect you but I also respect your girlfriend… I’m not going to be doing anything behind her back. He said he’d love to watch me and his girl together… he said that he doesn’t know of any guy who doesn’t fantasize about this. I told him that I’m not really sexually attracted to women. I tried to explain that I find women beautiful and attractive yes… but when it comes to sex… kissing on their lips and maybe neck and shoulders… massaging and running my fingers on their skin… this seems fine with me yet not something I’m going to go seek out… but if I find myself in this situation I can engage with it and enjoy myself… but I don’t actually want to get dirty with women… I want to get dirty with guys…hehe… I don’t see myself wanting to go down on a girl or sucking on her nipples… or fingering a girl… I mean things can change but that doesn’t seem to be where I’m at and again I don’t have an interest in going to find that experience. We were able to get away from this topic and go more in depth in spiritual matters which I’m usually pretty at steering towards… but he said that he’d like to see if he can set something up with his girl or someone else when he left… oh my goodness… I’m literally kicking the door open and seeing what the hell I’l respond too… but is that really what I want? Oh…. At the beginning of the weekend I didn’t plan on meeting another gentleman I met at the caving event. He messaged me right before I was leaving on my date Friday. He said that he had work in Ohio and he was driving through Indy to get back home. Would I be available to hangout this weekend. I told him that I was planning on being in Indy this weekend but I have made plans so I’d be available Sunday… we jumped back and forth of possibly doing a group activity on Saturday night but we finalized eating lunch Sunday before he headed out and I needed to be at a drum cicle. So yeah I just wanted to add to the dynamics of holy shit… I met this man at the hostel… and we had some deep conversations as well the first night there… at the end he was asking if I wanted to join him in his rental spot because it was going to be a cold night. I told him that I want to sleep alone tonight… but let’s see how tomorrow night goes… and that’s when we played chicken and he wasn’t a participant and I don’t think we finished until 4am… so it didn’t work out.. but I thought there was a possible attraction there… and I was like wow… when I had this door closed to my sexuality… it seemed like I was so easy to keep my boundaries and state clearly where I’m at. And now that I’ve cracked the door open… I wonder if I”m literally sending out vibes like I’m single and ready to mingle or something… because I feel like I’m not really doing that but something is going on… and since I’m ready to face this challenge in my life I want to observe myself in these situations… but also these are fascinating people and i know I’ll enjoy my time with them. So why wouldn’t I want to meet up with them. But we’ll get to our encounter after I move to my girl friend I went to see after I left my salsa friend. She lives with three dogs… two boxer terriers and a little chihuahua…. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them and oh how excited we all were to be together… hehe… the big boys don’t know how big they are and want to be lap dogs… hehe… but I love them so much and they’re like the cherry on top when I go to visit my girl friend. Now… once again I haven’t gotten her consent to talk about all the things we were discussing but when we talk to one another… it’s absolutely phenomenal of what we can release and process together. Since we are still in the sexual sides of things I’ll probably continue this string of thought… but we were able to engage in far more and specifically a particular gentleman and intentional communities… but those will be in the next chapter to today’s entry… lol… I knew I needed to express myself in this Journal today…. I just didn’t know how long it was going to take…hehe… it’s good for me though… and honestly most of this had been worked out after speaking with her… but they’re still lingering and so I wanted to purge it out… so what was I able to express to her that I was only thinking about and hadn’t had the contemplation time to digest until I was with her? Back to the date night… so it seemed like I wasn’t as scared or awkward in this encounter… but definitely expressing where my boundaries are at this time before we start is definitely the most appropriate time instead of in the middle of the engagement… but I found out that I was able to do this but to be respectful and intentional with my partner… being able to make informed decisions without unknown expectations would be appreciated for everyone. I’d like to know where the boundaries are for my partner too if any. I also found out that it was a bit too fast and too casual for me. I admitted that I felt like it was still a performance in a way… while I was kissing him I was thinking a lot of what I should do next? Where should I touch him? How far will this go and how far do I want compared to how far he wants? So to please I wanted to do the things that I think are pleasurable for him… how I can describe it is as if I am performing sexually… I really don’t know if I can remember not performing during sexual activities. When I’ve been engaged in meditative intentional sex without expectations and truly engaged in unknown possibilities and with no time restriction or no destination. I know I’ve spoken many times about not having an easy time having orgasms… and I know it was very mental block.. but I placed an expectation and destination on myself and partners too… I expected it was going to be hard for me to orgasm and my destination is to fucking have an orgasm… hehe… and when it came to my expectation and destination for my partner… I expect that I’m going to do my best to please my partner and the destination is for them to have an orgasm. How many destinations have I placed on myself when it comes to having sex? Sexual intercourse, mutual orgasm, intuitive pleaser and expressive communicator. I can see this could be accomplished but if I remove this destination idea maybe some of these things might start to naturally occur? How do I not be a performer? I was talking to my girl friend about this… I think the first thing that I notice to not be a performer that was obvious when I was playing the game or on my date… is the depth of getting to know the people involved. I hadn’t known them long I don’t know much about their history or their purpose or dreams for the future… and it wasn’t like a natural sexual attraction I’d say. I wasn’t really looking at my haunted house buddy as a sexual partner until we started to take things to a sexual play date… and I wasn’t going to engage in sexual play date with any of the participants of the game before they asked if I wanted to join in on the adventure. So I would say that yeah it wasn’t a natural sexual attraction. And specifically even though I find the haunted house buddy to be physically attractive… I found myself not really responding naturally while we were making out because… I don’t know him… i wanted to perform and make sure it was a fun time for him… but honestly it’s not how I want to continue my sexual exploration. I told my salsa buddy the next morning as well that i”m not interested in having a three way engagement with me and another girl… it would be so much pressure and expectation… if the three of us are alone in a space and we are to start something… I feel like what I’d like to do with the girl wouldn’t be all the satisfying for all the parties and I’d feel like I’d have to go to places I didn’t want to go. I also told him that I’m not ready to reignite a sexual relationship with him either. Talking with my girl friend… I did realize and admit to her and specifically to myself that there is a partner that I’m attracted to. I started to express how I self sabotage in the past when I liked someone starting all the way back in high school… I had tendencies to like someone but I’d try to get my girl friend to date them instead… because they’re both amazing and I want them to be happy… I just didn’t think I’d deserve that happiness. Now this varies in degrees and I’ve been happy with partners and was attracted to my partners… but I do remember occasions where I would do this. I remember when I started to want to have sex I was dating a guy whom I really liked who already had sex before and I was a virgin… I broke up with him because I didn’t think it was fair for him to be dating someone who wasn’t experienced… I had a one night stand with a friend for my first time… and I dated someone my senior year where we were rabbits… it wasn’t until my freshman year in college did I reach back out to the guy I broke up with because I felt like I could give him a good time now that I have some sexual experience. I mean we stayed together for 13 years… but even then I didn’t have a clue what I was doing… and in a way I still don’t… it feels like I’m starting over as a virgin… but in a way… my muscle memory in my body is still there… it knows what its doing… but I’ve noticed how I was trying to self sabotage myself in just these past few weeks. I noticed it but I hadn’t really admitted to myself that I wanted to pursue a potential romantic relationship with him though either to myself. I guess it wasn’t really apparent until I saw him and was observing how he was engaging with people and when he expressed himself so openly and clearly. I mean… this is where I saw my conditioning of toxicity from my past become aware to me. So… I’ve been observing him and he’s been attracting my attention… he’s gotten many similar attributes that I share but of course the difference intrigue me. He’s extremely creative… I’ve enjoyed looking at his photography and his paintings and his digital art… he possibly produced, shot, and scored an indie film… I haven’t asked the details but I wouldn’t be surprised. What I’ve seen him be able to build within the last six years has been awesome… what can be obvious on social media is how many structures that have been built but also able to see how the structure of his staff’s interactions and daily implementations shows just how much he cares for his community. And just his commitment to building communities of course rings all the right bells because I find myself loving this passion as well. He’s openly polyamorous which also makes me attracted to him at this time too. I don’t think I’m going to be labeling myself at this time… but having experience in polyamory and monogamy and celibacy… I find them all to be valuable… for me at different times in my life. It looks as if he has had a steady partner that is his foundation. I don’t much about her or their relationship but I don’t know much about him either… just what I can gather and interpret. But I’m definitely interested in getting to know him more. When I originally saw these qualities in him… I was yes… he’s someone I want to get to know more and partner up with… I want to ask him more about his spirituality and how open he is for spiritual practices because I want to invite him to join the team of Aya ceremonies to Enlightenment expeditions, to linking communities, and possibly the nonprofit… I mean absolute checks all the boxes… and so confident I go into his environment and have all the intention to find time to speak with him about these things… lol… but when I get there I see just how much attention he’s trying to share with everyone. Everyone is attracted to him and wants his guidance. He’s good at what he does… I figured I’d get time to spend with him after the event and so I didn’t really engage with him much directly. But again I’m always in observation mode and he’s hard not to notice. I found myself a bit shy I would say… I know no one would think that this would describe me… but for me.. I know when I tend to get shy because it stands out to me as well… I seemed to be shy around him. But before I left I was trying to figure out when to return… I knew I wanted to come back and I thought as soon as possible so his next event was an art event. So I asked more about the art event… I was thinking multiple art mediums… music, dance, painting, sewing, sculpture… to call it an art event… but I found it was a single mural painter who was teaching… for the price she wanted I didn’t think I’d like to participate… but the intentional convention was already in my radar so I can wait a few weeks and go back then. So what has seemed to change from then to now? Well… first of all when I was watching him through social media I was watching him with my door closed phase. I saw him as someone I have to talk with because he’d be perfect for future partnerships… and so I was confident to go and chat… then it moved to holy cow… my door is not closed anymore… it’s been creaked open to get me ready to address changes I”m going to be working on… hehe… it’s already been kicked open to see how I responded… but now I find my door is half way at this moment. I want to not kick the door open but intentionally push the door open slowly most likely but feeling my way on the pace not predicting it. This is what I was able to admit to myself when I speaking with my girl friend. My confidence was strong when I thought of him with my door closed… and now that the door is opening my confidence started to waiver… I mean once I started to actually experience that I am available for romantic/sexual intimacy into my life it’s like i don’t know what to do right now…. lol… I know I’ll figure it out quickly I’ve already done a ton in just one weekend to gain clarity… but I didn’t realize how I was questioning my confidence… I was assuming that I was going to be my past self with my past memories… and since I’ve gone this long shouldn’t I be scared? Shouldn’t I be awkward? But after this weekend… this is not the case… I saw tendencies of thinking of different dear girl friends of mine who would find him amazing and thinking of possibly getting them down there to meet him to see if they could have a spark together… at the time I also wasn’t sure how long I was going to be staying in Indiana too… I spoke with my girl friend earlier before I arrived to Indiana about how I want to have a romantic relationship…and she was asking if I’m ready to change my traveling decisions? I told her at the time that I’d need to attract someone who understands passion and purpose. I’m not just traveling to be traveling… there’s strategy even though it’s not a specific planned out strategy… but there’s a bigger purpose to my travels. And I’ll find someone who would understand this and would not want to keep me put for selfish reasons… I don’t see how I could attract anyone who would want that for me… I love myself too much to want to settle for less than I deserve… and I deserve to follow my spiritual path… but as I was talking to her I did start clicking into place that… well.. I have a ticket in to Indiana but I don’t have a ticket out… everyone wants and expects me to tell them my exact plan how long I’m staying where I’m going… details and details… I try to explain this is not the way I’ve been taught through my spiritual understanding. I listen for intuitive conversations and nudges to direct my choices. I do have a vision but the details aren’t given and I love spontaneity so I honestly don’t want all of that information most of the time. We discussed how my brother in Hawaii wants to buy my ticket back to help him build willpower for his obesity but it’s something I don’t want to do at this time because he’s not ready to make the changes and steps yet… in a physical manner… I can see the steps playing out in his mental body… but his physical body is not ready and he thinks I can go there and be a militant guru for him but that doesn’t sound like anything I’d like to do really. And he still lives with my mom and there’s not an ounce of me that wants to live with her again. I’ll go and visit and enjoy myself but I don’t want to obligated to live with her because I’m short on financial resources at this time. Hawaii is definitely in my future but it’s not only to share time with family… but I’ve got my own explorations to discover there… I want to go to the outer islands and volunteer and see whom I find and what communities I’ll find… I’d like to go on my own terms… and as much as I don’t want to spend another winter in my dad’s house… I don’t want to go to Hawaii right now. With the ideas I’ve been thinking… I. Can make some money here in Indiana for a year and when I return to Hawaii I can do just that… visit with family and spend time and share love… but then continue on my purpose and explorations… before I go to Japan…etc. until Nepal. But anyway… she said about not traveling… I told her I’m willing to spend time to see if a relationship can grow, but I’m not going to stay in one spot forever… at least not right now. I agree that time spent together to get to know one another and building a relationship and a bond needs time… I can give a year to this but I’ve got a calling. And I don’t want to just stay for a romantic relationship either. There are too many opportunities for me to develop skills that I want to build to better prepare me for my future endeavors that would be easily found here too. The first thing is to find time…some one on one time with him and see where he’s at and if there can be an agreement. Regardless if it’s not a romantic relationship… I’m completely down for a professional relationship and we’ll both get value from that as well. I found myself at the temple in Utah and I didn’t know where I was going to fit in but it became apparent to me that I was there to help the leader of the temple… to give her confidence in someone she can trust to help run the temple to give her rest. I feel like she saw the value of rest and how much it’s just as important as progression and actions. I found ways to help which wasn’t part of her agenda she usually has for volunteers… she’s so close to the situation that having a outsider who is intelligent and aware and creative come in and see the gaps that aren’t noticed but extremely effective was appreciated by the time I left. I will continue to observe them… but I know I’ll be returning as well to check the status and help when I’m there in the areas needed. I didn’t give her my 100%… i was using the space as an ashram so I gave 50 to her and 50 to myself. She wanted me to be different to who I am… I became an exception for her… I didn’t come to her in the normal terms she’s used to… I came out of no where… she didn’t allow pets but she made an exception… she didn’t allow smoking, but we made agreements… I showed her my potential before we spoke about me moving in…and because what she saw… she was willing to take the chance to make me an exceptions… and she doesn’t regret a thing and got so much more than she expected. Next time… I’d love to give her my 100… I’m taking the steps to better understand to sustain my energies the more I know myself the better I can help the ones I’m engaged with when I see the tendencies I found myself doing. I’m going to go much deeper into the intentional communities to prepare myself for the weekend… but man… I’ve been on here a long time and I’ve been able to express quite a bit and I feel satisfied leaving it here for now. I hope to continue tomorrow… I’ll be helping my dad pick up supplies for his cellar/shelter… I’ll be making cream puffs with my girl friend on Wednesday… I’m thinking that I might ask if there’s a Halloween party maybe going on at the hostel for Thursday… maybe I’ll go a day early? We’ll see… I don’t have any outfit or anything but maybe that’s not really necessary. Ok.. until next time… thank you

So as I was typing last night in this Journal the entry went ahead and submitted itself but I wasn’t quite done but it was getting late so I just went with it without editing… but I’m going to go ahead and continue my line of thoughts at this time. Let’s see… let’s go ahead and address National Geographic proposal for a little bit. I’m glad that I took the time and energy to apply and to try to break down the equipment list… it has gotten me to think about areas that I hadn’t before and open my mind to opportunities that are out there that I had not thought to approach. I admit that my proposal wasn’t as thought out or as clear as a submission would have been preferred.. but that’s the thing I continued to gain clarity as I continued the exploration of what would be involved in this style of endeavor. I really cannot remember how much I have spoken about the proposal but again I’ve been going back and forth as to what to share and what not to share and I”m still thinking about it so I’ll go ahead and share again if I kept it back these past six months. It was a storytelling grant… they have few different categories and as much as I’d like to have applied to the research proposal… my style of research isn’t something that has been really refined. I am trying to propose an Enlightenment research that isn’t clinical. As I’m writing this I feel like I might have mentioned this but we’ll repeat if we have to. But I had been looking into what kind of research has been done in this area, and there isn’t much to find. There was one paper which kind of narrowed down my thoughts about enlightenment research… that there really isn’t any existing research on to why ones pursue Enlightenment… primarily only focused on a small group of Buddhist monks as to where they would collect their data. In doing so they found it challenging because most of their information was based off of reports of personal stories about their experiences to enlightening and some to Enlightenment… and then the peers with their own experiences would determine whether the personal stories were valid proof or not to actually having these degrees or not. Which I can see how the scientific mind doesn’t know exactly how to quantify the results. This paper was saying they would like to continue to find a system to research this subject but understands that the personal stories will have to be an integral part of it. So… this is what I’d like to explore. It’s part experiment and part research but mostly opening up a way to view Enlightenment in a manner that isn’t idealized. I definitely had an idealistic view of what Enlightenment was and now I see it far more mysterious than before.. however, it’s far more normalized as well now… lol. I’m getting more comfortable and more grounded and getting the hang of it. There is far more that I don’t understand than what I am understanding while life is playing out but I’m also gaining much more clarity and understanding after contemplating groupings of time. All I know is that the current state of consciousness is only capable of understanding certain degrees of understanding… but when we’re on the consistent path of deepening the understanding than our capacity is stretched and open to continue the path with increased awareness so it doesn’t take as long to make adjustments. So there is so much that my current state of consciousness that is curious to explore. I have an understanding that what I think is possible may not be the same as what reality will unfold… however, I just want to continue on the path and continue to increase my awareness and see how this all progresses. So again here comes some more crazy but again I don’t really give any fucks to what people judge about this… possibly we’re not making bold moves because we care too much of what others think and so I’m looking to just be as trusting that regardless I’m going to be gaining from my experiences and will be able to admit when I was in states of delusion but just because there is a capacity to be delusional won’t stop me from exploring what my mind has to go through and process. So I have a deep calling and draw to travel and it seems like there are certain areas I’ll be going. Along the way I’ve been getting the visions of people I’ll be meeting. Obviously I’ll be meeting people but these are specific people and for some reason I feel like these ones are ones who have been able to transition over to Enlightenment. When I saw them it wasn’t apparent at first but eventually it seemed like they were acknowledging that they have recognized me as well. So I’m curious if this is accurate or a delusion, but again how would i know unless I continue the path and see where it leads. I know I had written the details of what I had seen in these visions… there were I cannot remember the exact numbers but around 10 beings that I had seen… we would label them as women and men of all ages… I think the youngest would be around the age of five and the oldest could have been in there late sixties to seventies… the color of their skin varied and the situations that I saw them were diverse as well. Because of this… I feel like I’ll be attracting them as they will be attracting me too. I don’t know if I’ll start to recognize the meetings before they happen… I have a feeling it won’t be until I see them in the setting of my visions to have it click like… holy shit.. this is the deja vu moment that I saw before it happened. And who knows maybe none of them will be experienced but again I know that not doing anything isn’t going to stop this force pulling me to explore. And it quite possibly be that my state of consciousness just wants to explore and the desire to find these people are just what I need to get out and enjoy the greater part of this world we can have an opportunity to explore. And I already know getting myself out of my comfort zone exploring is going to do a wealth of growth opportunities so there’s nothing that will be lost by going forward any way. But I am thinking about integration before I return to ceremonies. I know that I have been finding my Icaros when I’m in ceremony. And normally I seem to make progress inside ceremonies with it, but I also have an inkling that if I continue to build confidence in musicality would only amplify my growth into developing my Icaros inside of ceremony. I’ve known that I’ve been wanting to develop this but it seemed like it just wasn’t falling into place as easily as I’d like.. but I feel more confident to just jump into situations and put my voice out there. I can do better, and I know I will continue to get better at this… but this is what I’d like to include in my travels. First adding more singing onto the to do lists as I travel. And with good reason I want to pick up more instruments and start to accompany musicians. I’d love to find places where I can build instruments as well… so of course I assume this would be more indigenous instruments that are being handmade.. but I’m definitely open for any opportunity. There are so many instruments that I don’t even know exist and I’m excited to see what I can find. And certainly this isn’t on a timeline so even if more of this starts to get included will be satisfying… but again this gives a little more direction when going into a new country or area to look for these types of opportunities. I love different types of artwork as well… even when it comes to fashion, crafts, construction, cooking, dancing… there is a plethora of creative activities to draw my attention again to help steer direction of focus and attention. And Natural settings and wildlife would be another draw as well… I’m not certain there isn’t a terrain I wouldn’t be down to explore… or opportunities to volunteer caring for animals… especially for temporary periods of time. And opening myself up to far more social opportunities that I haven’t been doing so much these past few years… but traveling in unknown places… opening up to locals will bring me to people and places that would be a bit more challenging to find by myself. I just have to remember how much privacy or solo time is required for my wellbeing too. So there is a specific destination that came out in a dream of mine that I cannot forget. Nepal… When I get to Nepal I’d like to be open to spend as much time as I can with my visa. I’ve looked into the reciprocal visitors visa which can allow up to six months each year for the next five years which might be the option I’ll opt for. This again is not definite that this is the exact location to be honest… in my dream it was what I said but then I did ask if that’s correct and there was not a definite answer. But I have a feeling it’s around this area so possibly Tibet, Bhutan, India… around the Himalayas I think now… but again I’d like to go and explore and see. So I started to get visions of land and when I first got this style of vision… it showed me pieces of the land that I had my dieta for three months. I had been there and walked around and paid enough attention that when I got a vision in my ceremony that it wasn’t just a bunch of trees that looked just like one another… it stood out to me and knew exactly where that tree cluster was… the exact area it was on the property… so again because I got a taste of that and the name Nepal… I’d like to include this in my integration process before I return to the jungle… I’d like to explore the area just in case if I continue to get messages about this land that I’ll have data to have ceremony communicate to me specifically. Ha, normally I’d just be returning to Aya ceremonies before Awakening… but since this happened messages changed the way it communicated and because it knows how much I take integration seriously… is that there is no desire for me to return without this data. Yes I’ll get more information and wisdom, but I feel like I’d cut myself short of the potential of what I’d receive by being better prepared and patient. And I didn’t address why I’m trying to build skills as a shaman for ceremony. Many might not understand that each shaman or person has their own skills and focus. I’ve worked with a few shamans and they all were different but I now have a better understanding that my focus is Awakening and how to build after the Awakening. Some may focus on say healing and I guess it can be perceived this way but I haven’t had to do much healing for my own body so I don’t see how I can help any who has these desires. But I can say… my shaman I was working with helped me get to the point of Awakening during ceremony. Now it wasn’t successful because I misinterpreted and didn’t understand what was happening… but it was still very apparent he was able to get me there. And I have a feeling that if he can do this… and I was able to figure out how to get myself there in around four ceremonies later… I might just have a skill to be able to do this with others who are wanting to consciously create their experience to this too. So again by witnessing how I work inside ceremony these are areas I can work on outside of ceremony as well. And I’ve already have a list of guests that I’d like to invite to ceremonies when I return to the jungle. I feel like I haven’t even began with this list either… as I continue on this path… more will be added. And I also understand that even though I have this long list only a fraction will actually make it there and be present to share ceremony which will be a significant step to feel more of where people are at. So getting them to ceremony will only be a step… observing their energies during ceremonies will be another step. I at this time feel like I’m going to be creating these spiritual walkabouts or vision quests to focus on Enlightenment. I have a feeling this won’t be taking place only in the jungle but taking Aya to the mountains as well. Again all of this is through exploring the messages I’ve received and it could definitely change as it goes along but again it doesn’t matter what Reality might show… I have to go with what I’m drawn to at this time to get me going into the direction to increase my awareness. Because I have a feeling there is going to be spiritual expeditions this also leads me to explore land, animals, and skills that I feel would help assist in future expeditions. Just as an example I have been having visions of horses and I’m still not certain what it really means but I seem to be running into a line of thinking that I’d like to take animals such as horses with us in the expeditions. During the expeditions I can see us staying out there for months at a time and so there will be base camp setups as we travel and we can stay at locations for possibly weeks before receiving messages to go to the next location. And so I had some time with llama packers and I loved the fact that they are pretty self sufficient. We wouldn’t have to carry extra food for them… they are capable of finding their own food in the mountains. And when I hear about the horses around the States… all I hear is how expensive it is to feed these horses… do I really want to have to pack so much food for them? I will if that’s what needs to be done, but I have a feeling there are horses that are just as self sufficient as the llamas. That’s why I’m wanting to go to Mongolia. In my mind and to some research and talking to people who have already visited… there’s still a bit of nomadic blood there and they travel with generations of family members, sheep, yaks, and horses… along with their belongings. Logically I feel this would be a great location to go and visit and see how this works for them. I have a feeling these horses don’t need to have loads and loads of food that needs to be taken from one location to the next… they find their food and that food can sustain them. Also when it comes to llamas to horses… horses have the capabilities to hold humans while llamas would only be for supplies. I love animals and I’d love to learn more about them and at this time including them as part of the expeditions would be ideal. And yes I’ve been seeing different healers using horses to assist in the healing and so of course this draws my attention as well. I ran into a woman and her husband who heard about shamans in Mongolia used horses to heal a young boy of autism in around five to six weeks… it was quite remarkable but believable… but I’d like to see what the capacities for myself. When it comes to them being able to break down their homes and transport it to the next location I’d like to see their construction as well. So needless to say… there was a lot of moving parts to my proposal…. Because I know that what I’m seeing will come into fruition in the future starts now. It’s not a check list one by one… I’m working on all of it at the same time. And so I know i”ve already been starting to discuss these global communities bridges opening up borders with a possible nonprofit organization… this also is something that is in the back of my mind… and the more locations I can go… the sooner I can start to build relationships and add to the list of potential communities that can open doors for people to come and share their skills and themselves to benefit communities. When it came to this specific proposal, they said I wouldn’t be able to submit the same proposal again. And so this puts a better perspective of how far I’ll have to progress on this path before I can reapply. And I also have a better idea of what I’d like to get better at and gain more experience in before I submit again. I keep saying that the real proposal that I’d like to have assistance from National Geographic is during the spiritual expeditions. This was not part of the proposal that I submitted so this would be a key spot to get myself better prepared and gain more experience to demonstrate competence before that time arises. I also hope to already get support from different avenues to where there partnership would be an added bonus but it wouldn’t make or break anything… just like now… hehe… but in a different degree. Alright.. I’ve been able to give a bit more clarity without going overboard I feel… and currently I’ve been in Indiana for a week now… I’ve gotten a hold of a gentleman whom I’ve been watching for the past five years… I’ve been impressed as to how he’s been building his community and his interests he shares with us through FB. He’s going to be at his community this weekend leading meditative caving trips which I’m going to go check out. I feel like I mentioned that I had a snippet of a vision in ceremony where having ceremony inside a cave will be extremely powerful. I’ve also had friends who enjoy spelunking and how there is an experience of sensory deprivation which intrigues me. Activities like this would be included in the spiritual expeditions and yes most likely adding elements of Aya ceremonies to see how this effects our group… hopefully in a powerful and beneficial manner but finding ones who are willing to give it a go instead of allowing the mind to talk us out of it. But I don’t know how long I’ll be in Indiana… my brother in Hawaii and I have already been talking. He is currently in the hospital because of shooting pains in his heart and last year he admitted himself for the first time but not a whole lot of change has happened other then they have moved to a single floor location. His habits haven’t changed for him to help his obesity. He said he’s over 600 pounds right now and he didn’t imagine that he’d let it go this far, but now that he has… he sees how much he manipulates mom and sis to get what his “fat guy” inside wants. He’s asking if I come to visit and want to help that I can’t allow him to guilt me… I told him that if he’s not really ready to change; it doesn’t matter what I do to help… it won’t be sustainable… he said he wants to try. There’s a lot of baggage that comes with me returning to Hawaii and we have been talking about it for the past two days. I agreed that I’ll be coming but I’m not certain when it will be or how long I’ll be staying with them. But again I feel like I’ve been getting better a purifying my energy and residual holdups… and I feel there is a lot to work on with my mom and so i’m wanting to go and address this… not really knowing how these understandings will reveal itself. But for now… there are people here in Indiana that I’d like to go visit and see where they’re at and see how open they are to meeting back again in Peru for ceremony. It might not even get that far in conversation based upon what is being observed… but there are a few I’ve been watching and thinking about so I’d like to spend time with them while I’m here. Oh goodness… my buddy Elvis is always in the back of my mind as well. When I thought I’d have a timeline with National Geographic… I was willing to keep him behind with say my dad while I traveled… but now that I have freedom to spend as much time as I’d like then that gets me to look at my buddy again. Could I just take him with me? If we’ll be staying at locations saying an average of three months at a time… I don’t want to leave him behind for years… months felt doable, but years… I’m not certain I’m willing to do that to him or myself. He’s been here a week and I feel like he’s been trying to find a way to get outside… he really loved his freedom in Colorado… we’ve got neighborhood cats that run this block and I saw how they treated him last time… and so I’m hesitant to give it a go again… but we’ll see how it plays out. Cats aren’t allowed at my buddies retreat center for the caving… so Elvis and my pops will be alone together for a few days… and I’d like to hear how that goes. We were gone for three nights for the wedding and he was crying for awhile when I returned because he was so lonely… it does break my heart to have him feel like I abandoned him or something. I know this is another attachment that I’m working with… but he’s still a fur baby of mine and so I’m not sure what the best way to proceed will be. I’m staying open… or trying to at least.. hehe.. ok… this seems like a good amount of processing for tonight…. Until next time…

Alright… so wow… there’s been some clarity in this past week or so that has been deepening my Bhakti yoga understanding… in the manner of my personal interpretation I had listened to some of the scripture in the Gita at the Krishna temple that I heard and had an understanding but now I see myself going through this process personally… there were moments where it was implying that service might require to remove the attachments from family, friends, teachers, any who are not on the current trajectory at this time. I see where I’m removing cords of attachment and feeling more free and weightless as I continue this purification process. Again there are many things that I’ve been working on but there seems to be loose ends that still remain and I gain more awareness that these do not need to be there any more. And even though I see these degrees as of now doesn’t mean that there will be more to be aware of but Reality has patience to allow the time and space for realizations. I’ve already been noticing that I feel like I”m saying my goodbyes to a certain degree to people and communities. I’m not saying that this will be finales forever but I’m also not saying that this isn’t the finale either… but in a state of trusting whatever comes is the way and not having extreme emotional attachments to it. It’s been challenging for me to determine what I should say aloud in this Journal and what I should keep to myself and write in my personal journal… and I know that I’ll continue to discern but I feel like I’m going to spill out a bit right now because its really helpful to be able to express my craziness without shame… I really don’t care right now what anyone thinks or feels about my interpretations… all I know is how helpful it is for me to go through the process of purging… and I feel this is a great way for me to do this. So…. What’s happened in the last week that seems to strengthen my trust in Union to the Divine? Well the first would be me reaching out to that certain Ozzie mate… I took the brave step to open up my craziness to him and said how I wished we could see one another in person. The craziness goes even deeper because I said I could imagine asking him to join me at my cousin’s wedding to get a chance to have new beginnings with the electrified energy of new love… I didn’t really invite him but I told him how I would fantasize of the different ways we’d be able to meet again. There was a lot that I expressed and this isn’t the first time but within seven years of knowing each other… I think this might have been the third or fourth time clearly stating my desire to have the chance to get to know him deeper. Honestly he’s been wonderful at expressing himself truthfully at his state and he was able to do so this time again… and currently he has no desire to build a romantic relationship with me at this time. He still thinks my confessions of Awakening is something that is insane and still whole heartedly recommends I go to a therapist to talk about it. Haha… I understand his concern… most would assume my possible insanity as well… but I don’t have that doubt within me… not that I hadn’t in the past… but not to degrees that I thought I should see a therapist… just to degrees to wonder how in the hell I didn’t realize what I’ve been realizing as I deepen my spirituality and how so many of us are not digging as deep to find this truth out for ourselves. I”m getting over that too… There’s good reason why most aren’t this way… there’s a “physical” reality that has to be embedded in our psyche to have existence and experiences… which for some reason ultimately the perfection of reality to have us be for now. Anyway I told him that if we’re still not on the same page then I’ll have to do what I need to do that will be necessary for my growth and move on. So after his reply I told him I understand and thanked him. And I unfollowed him so I don’t continue to monitor his posts and stories. After I returned from the weekend wedding… I noticed he stopped following me as well… so we’ve finally cut this style of cord… and again it doesn’t make me sad… I feel more liberated. Just like I mentioned before it’s not that I’m saying goodbye to him forever, but I’m also not saying that this might be the finale… it doesn’t matter right now… I just want to move forward with my journey without this attachment and I keep wanting to include him and more in and its been obvious for awhile that many are not on the same page. It’s kind of funny, because I had a vision that he wasn’t even going to be a part of my journey until I reached Nepal area… not that he was going to be on the way towards Nepal… but that was the funny part that I was ok with this… I thought.. but then I started to hope that it was sooner and so I started to try to make that happen.. .haha… and what I really needed to find out that I’m ready to stop making moves thinking he is right around the corner. Again… he may or may not, but honestly right now I’m ok with whatever happens. This doesn’t mean that I stopped having feelings for him, I can just feel like the attachment of having him now and a part of my journey is not necessary. And regardless of what happens… I want to enjoy it to the fullest and look forward to how things play out without having to expend energy of what would be appropriate to his liking. I also mentioned to him that if our crosses path in the future… my attention won’t be so easily given. And that’s exactly how I feel right now. I don’t want to continue to have a seed of desperation to have particular people in my life. This leads me to two of my siblings…. My brother and sister have been also on the same boat of trying to win over my acceptance to be who I am and to love me for that for itself sake. We all attended this weekend wedding for our cousin and as much as I would have liked to spend time with them… it was obvious that my presence with them was not desired so I kept my distance and did this to make sure that everyone continued to enjoy themselves. It’s a bit comical to observe how our family behaves… haha… from different generations and degrees there is separation going on. My aunt and uncle were talking about some trivial family drama and asked my opinion and I said that I just am not that bored to fuel drama. I’m not here all the time and I just want to enjoy the time I spend with the people I”m around. I don’t really wish to talk about people who aren’t around to engage in the conversation. And I don’t know details of the story so my opinion won’t be accurate anyway. As much as I love my family… I can see again that most are not on the same page. But many aren’t as influential as the acceptance of my sister and especially my brother. But then again… it was more apparent in my awareness that I”m tired and have no desire to have a hint of desperation for affection or acceptance or attention for who doesn’t want to offer it to me freely. And I find there are many that are… and I’d like to reciprocate that energy. Oh! I did hear back from National Geographic… I received an email to say unfortunately they did not want to back up the proposal that I submitted. And as much as it would be great to work with them… I also know that there was a part of me that wanted it to just get a step toward respect from my family. And why am I still wanting that from them? Well… I did want this but right now in my state… I’m just over it… hehe… it can be quite exhausting and how much energy do I have to give to these walls…

Oh my goodness… who am I kidding… hehe… I’m absolutely smitten with the Australian… I guess I still had residual curiosities about being open to be sexual intimate with others, but it’s even more obvious that it really doesn’t interest me anymore. I’ve been more aware that the memories of who I was… isn't who I am now. Regardless of how time works with my romantic relationship… I’m going to trust it’s exactly what is necessary to be in complete bliss in our union. It’s going to be worth the wait, and I’m patient now… I continue to accept and understand myself more to who I am now. I started to work on my visions after I stopped working construction. I found myself drawn to drawing out visions now. I was drawing with a pad and pencil going through equipment I’d like to have to continue what I’d like to share and express in this journey that is drawing me. But as I was doing this I started to ask if there is a program on my iPad that I could draw using my finger instead of a stylus… hehe I’m not sure why I didn’t look at this before, but yes indeed there are and I’ve gotten swept away drawing on the pad now. It came about because in this documentary I’d like to create I was looking at even the clothes I’d like to wear that represents how I integrate and gain more insights… one way is drawing… I had works of art that I thought I’d just place on Tshirts to wear… as I was placing them onto the program… I started to realize I can continue to extend the visions further or with more clarity. The first design my buddy wanted a shirt as well… so yesterday we spoke to a local who can print it for us. We ordered some shirts… it will be arriving the day I fly out to Indiana, but he’ll get it printed and mail out my shirt to me. I’m working on a second design now and possibly if I get this done before he heads out to Mexico… I’ll go ahead and get this printed out too from the same guy here. I shared a Bufo ceremony with my buddy and it was quite beautiful… he realized just how strong our friendship is… I’m a true friend and it’s was very satisfying him release his emotions and tensions during ceremony. It was again showing me how my normal state seems to be the case even when I’m in the Bufo state. I’ve shared several ceremonies with him so I decided to go first instead of last to see if I can demonstrate how to smoke it better than just describing. I saw that it was easy for me to still assist in him lighting his dose for him and again it was very beautiful. I love him so much and so excited for him as he realizes that he’s wanting to make changes and explore who he is now. We talked about how I wish I could tell him what he needs to do, but that’s his responsibility… and he’s finally realizing he’s more confident into figuring it out for himself. He’s already a confident man… he’s had three successful businesses since he was in his late twenties… and he knows he can figure it out but admits he’s not been as motivated to make changes and that’s just fine… keep at his own pace. He’s also on the verge of selling his home here in this little mountain town… this winter will determine whether he’ll keep his condo on the shores of Mexico… he feels like many opportunities are beckoning him… and he’s aware that his anxiety levels are minimum. I know we’ll be working together in future projects. Maybe he’ll be a part of our “Houston” control center for the awakening spiritual expeditions… maybe who knows for now. The first thing is to get him ready to join us in Aya ceremonies… since he’s back to drinking, he’s back on his blood pressure medicine which doesn’t mix with ceremony. So he went two years without the medication went he stopped drinking… he can figure out how to do it again… if he truly wants to. But if not, I still love him and figure we’ll still find ways to share time together. last weekend we were celebrating Constitution week in our little village. A girl friend of mine asked to help her take pictures of the parade. She gave me her backup camera, a Cannon 60d… and I’m not use to using this type of equipment. I tried practicing at my buddies 71st birthday party as he was singing in a bar, but wow did I suck at adjusting the settings… and the automatic wasn’t that good either hehe… but the parade was in sunny light and I just told her automatic is where I’ll go and hope for the best. Having that camera around my neck did something to me… I started looking at the surrounding area much differently… framing shots to be more creative and harmonious composition wise. It felt like I could be a bit more confident in stepping into locations to “get the shot” that I don’t usually do recording with my iPad… it felt like people posed more for the shot too… not that I really liked posed shots… but with this camera many more we’re open to getting their picture taken. I loved it and it’s funny because I didn’t have it on my equipment list for my upcoming project… but it does have me questioning whether I should add one or not. I’m not good at it now, but I know I will get better with practice. We’ll see how it goes… it’s beautiful right now with the leaves changing colors…. The air has a brisk chill in the morning, but the sun still comes through with its warmth in the morning. My little Elvis is in heaven, but he’s not aware that we’ll be moving along to our next destination. He’s unlikely to be able to go outside since there are neighborhood cats that have already marked my dads house as their territory. But it’s been extremely obvious how much happiness he’s living right now as he has his freedom to roam. He’s such a good cat… comes back when it gets dark… asking to get back out in the mornings when the sun starts to lighten up our little space. I hope to find him a space he’ll continue to enjoy his freedom… we’ll see how it goes. There’s an ideal spot for him, but I’m uncertain it’s timing is now or not… so I’m keeping alternative options open of course. Four days left up here in the mountains… and then back to farmlands of Indiana. The first weekend will be my cousins wedding in the state park… and thinking about going to a meditative cave exploration the second weekend but it’s not set in stone… looking forward to spending time with family again. It’s rocky, but I’m still looking forward to it… going in hopeful. i’ll attach the front photos of my shirt designs I’m working on 😊