Right in front of my nose_
About 15 years ago, my wife, my best friend and I decided to go to the beach in the middle of the night to see the stars. We grabbed the truck and went to a deserted beach. We lied down on the windshield on one of the clearest (and darkest) nights to see the sky. There were millions of stars.
But I couldn’t handle it.
I was frightened in a way I had never been before. I was intimidated. I panicked.
I took the keys and we went to sleep. I never spoke of this. Now that I write about it I realize that I never really processed it. Because who has the language to be able to process something this big?
A few days ago we finished the Course/Workshop/Community for Co-Creation of a New Paradigm in Human-Planetary Healing. When we wrote the syllabus a few months ago, we stated that the course would be full of: “theory, numbers, biology, sociology, medicine, laughter, anthropology, poetry, tears, languages, experiences, silences, alternative medicine, meditation and crazy ideas.” Today that the course ended, I can’t believe that this is exactly what we had. Somehow everything felt surprising and at the same time completely natural.
The last class we danced over Zoom, and I could say that the previous 8 sessions we did too. I had never been in a zoom where all the attendees get speechless and just keep staring at the screen. And, as the minutes passed, the silence said it all. Some cried, others had their minds racing with ideas, others felt like they were in a deep trance. Without coffee, without consciousness-altering substances, it seemed like there was a connection to everyone and everything. Just as we called it in the course: “We were in Interbeing”
I write these words to process the experience. To remind me that it was real. To remind me that I am in Interbeing all the time and that I can continue creating myself in this way. We saw each other on Wednesdays and Fridays at 12 pm, right in the middle of the day and the week, where there is no time to pause to do anything but work. There is no time to pause to know that we are not pausing, but living. To know that this is exactly what we want to be doing and feeling, but above all: being.
One of the questions that resonated the most in the workshop was: “How does it feel to be me?” Today the old Victor feels different. Not better, not worse, not more than, not less than, just different. Yesterday morning there was a big spider in my daughter’s room. I couldn’t even imagine killing her as I have instinctively been doing since I was a child. I shared what was happening to me (not in human language, of course) and took her to the garden so that she could continue with her day.
In the masterclass before launching the course, I remembered a Chinese saying that says that everything is as far as the horizon, as well as right in front of your nose. I believe that this course was exactly that. And that the new paradigm for human-planetary healing is as far on the horizon and, at the same time, so present in what I already am. Yoga teachers always say that you have to strive to achieve the posture, but without effort. I am now understanding and feeling what that means.
The creation of this course was for me an example of spontaneity, creativity, taking risks, jumping into an unknown space only with the vibration that something attracts you and that you need it, but you don’t even know what it is.
The nine sessions were crafted impromptu and at the same time have been in the making for many years. This I was able to verify with the poems that I read in each session. I didn’t prepare any poem in advance, for some reason I couldn’t think of any appropriate ones when planning the classes, so I decided not to force it. But when we were in session, somehow the perfect poem arrived and when I read it, it seemed that only that poem could have been there. It seemed choreographed, but it wasn’t. And the best of all is that everyone heard a different poem. Because the meaning is in what we create in the moment, not in what we are supposed to inherit from the outside world or from someone else. And I feel that healing — and I dare to continue using this word — is precisely that. A spontaneity and not a planning. A present creativity and not a 10-step plan to change the world.
With all my complex, critical, multidisciplinary and systemic thinking that I boast of having, -and teaching-, the power of love makes it real, makes it tangible, makes it present. The power of a shared meditation makes you feel your own and not someone else’s. They make one feel abundant and not in scarcity. They make you feel like a living system, someone who knows and celebrates himself, feels compassion, cares for himself. Sometimes it seems that the birds that that fly in flocks understand all these things too. As well as the trees that allow us to tear them down.
Living doesn’t have to be difficult. It doesn’t have to be easy. And you can’t be a stranger in your own garden.
You know what this means? (I’m asking myself).
What it means is that I have the great gift of knowing that I can choose to try to live this way. Live on the edge of meaning, live in the creation of the moment. Each conversation a possibility, each meeting a space for discovery, each email an expression of the self. I have the privilege of feeling and knowing this. I have the responsibility of feeling and knowing this.
This is the “space between stories” that Eisenstein talks about and that I was teaching in class. It is an empty space, but full of possibilities. And the fear is removed (or it is not removed, but I feel brave). Brave to create in creativity, to find a way to articulate all my wellbeing spheres and give money the expression that I know it can have and that my conditioning and biological fear have made me live in a different way.
Yes. I want to create conferences, courses, workshops, books, articles, podcasts, consultancies, coaching. I want to live from that and for that. I don’t want the attention. I don´t want the networking. I don’t want clients, I don’t want followers, I don’t want subscribers. I want friends. I want mirrors. I want the constant reminder that we are alive, alive, alive.
Of course, resignifying the way I see money will have to change. From being a measure of value to an expression of value; Of course, learning to calibrate the times of how to distribute the agenda will continue to be a constant struggle and sometimes I will stretch it too much; Of course anxiety will also be part of the process, as well as dualism, ambiguity, Excel calculations and bank fees. But everything is here. I cannot be a stranger, or a victim, in my own backyard.
Last Saturday I went to a bookstore. I hadn’t done it for over two years. I started reading the front and back covers, I started flipping through them and I was uncomfortably overwhelmed. I want to devour them, I want to spend my life here, reading.
So. I sat down. I began to observe my surroundings and observe myself. So many books. So many worlds. So much space. I want to be completely here for this moment. Here, knowing that I will be interrupted before I finish. Here, knowing that I will always be starting-off, that everything is a dance step, a staircase that does not go up nor down, an opportunity to see the sky and feel small and big at the same time.
I am excited to feel what it is to be myself. I am excited to feel in possibility. I am moved that this mystical experience is full of concepts, clear words, and logic. That there is no good or evil, and that dualistic thinking is beautiful just like holistic thinking is. And that, in this space between stories, I can use a verb that sometimes only the gods are allowed to use: Create. And in my capacity as god, as the god that we all are, we will continue to co-create.