i love this invitation, dear dominic!
it came at quite an interesting time, as i am on a long walk this month, carrying on my back only what i'd decided that i needed to have with me. i'm traveling alone, so, most days, everyone i see is a stranger.
after getting your e-mail, i pulled my bag of special, magical, treasury (to me) kinds of things out of the depths of my pack. before i left home, i'd picked up each item on my altar, one at a time, and put all of the ones that my heart said needed to come on this trip into this special little bag. though bringing them seemed so impractical, i had chosen to carry them anyway to support me in connecting with my deepest reasons for walking - my longing to participate ever more fully.. consciously... responsibly.. powerfully...lovingly...truthfully... in Life.
nervously, i placed the little purple bag at the top of my big pack, so that i could easily reach in and pull out whichever of the objects inside seemed right to give to whichever stranger i thought would find one of them meaningful. i must admit i was wavering on whether it might be better to give away my headlamp or pocket knife or something like that. but, while i certainly value those practical items, i don't love them like i love the things in my magic bag. giving them wouldn't be a gift of myself. i thought about how i read the spirit of the invitation you made, and i knew i wanted to give something that had built-in vulnerability for me. something i felt uncertain about giving away, scared both to lose it and to reveal myself through it. "intentional vulnerability." a phrase i learned from you through an interview i read before we ever actually met. invisibly, that phrase is also in my precious purple bag, one of the many gifts that you may not even know you have given me.
for two days, i asked myself when i met someone, "is this the stranger who i'll give dom's birthday gift to?" sometimes i thought maybe it was, but then i doubted whether they would see beauty in and experience resonance with the gift. i noticed i was pretty attached to having it received by someone who would either treasure it or say 'no, thanks' when i offered it. playing it safe, i walked away without mentioning your birthday or my magic bag. (what a very un-dom-like attitude, i told myself, with a chuckle and a nod to how i see the very notion of something being un-dom-like as being, itself, un-dom-like in its over-simplicity. why would i think i know how you would behave in a context i've not seen you in?)
then, on friday, i walked into rome, new york around 5:30 pm. the sun would set soon, and it was still 93 degrees (farenheit) outside. i'd walked almost 20 miles that day in the heat, with a big backpack. both my appearance and my odor seemed, i think, unusual to many and offensive to some. i was exhausted. i wanted to find a place to charge my phone, check my e-mail, look at a map, and get cooled off before walking out of town under the full moon. since the library was closed, i thought i might find a cafe with wireless internet, but i wasn't much in the mood for wandering the streets until i saw one. so i stopped in a health food store to ask where to look.
brenda, the owner, behind the counter, greeted me with warmth and curiosity. when i told her what i was looking for, she invited me to sit in the back room of the store and do what i needed to do there. she showed me around, gave me some home-made kombucha, a banana and some peanut brittle, and told me about her recent transition from farming to running this little store that wasn't yet bringing in enough money to keep her shelves fully stocked. i gave her a bit of honey from the bees at ness and told her why i was walking.
i knew i wanted to give her something from my magic bag, both because i wanted to honor and participate in the sharing that was already happening between us and because i thought she might find meaning and value in my special things. i told her about your birthday and the invitation to your party. i pulled out a silkscreened patch that my dear friend amara made. (pictured in my previous post, both by itself and with brenda holding it.) she accepted it with tears in her eyes and told me she would frame it and hang it on the wall of the store. she said she hoped i'd come back someday if i was passing nearby and see it hanging there. we talked about the seed time, the gestation of dreams, and the unexpected twists and turns our lives take when we let them.
the moment had a sacredness to it for me, and, i think, for her too.
that night, i hurt my foot and decided to hitch to a friends' house the next day (your birthday party day) to give it a bit of a rest. i think it was the best day of hitching i've ever had! i found much more willingness, even eagerness, to reveal more of myself, more openly, to those who picked me up. and i loved what flowed from there. what a gift!
the way i travel invites a lot of very obvious and visible generosity from strangers. the trust i now often take for granted was learned through many, many experiences of receiving this generosity over the last 8 years.
friday and saturday felt different. a way of being on the road that i experienced more as that kind of flow of giving where the distinction between giving and receiving blurs. and i'm wondering what i could learn from some years of traveling like that! maybe i will get to find out....
thank you, dominic, for the invitation. the inspiration.
thank you for reminding me, over and over in so many different ways, to notice and question my assumptions, not only because it can be a fun word game but because it is possible to stretch out beyond them into a great unknowing, with contents that don't exist yet.
there are so, so many reasons why i celebrate you being alive. in this moment, what stands out is a sense of curiosity and discovery, of life as a laboratory and yourself as a learner. the way that you extrapolate learning from your experiences... the way you articulate what you've learned when you choose to articulate it (a poetry of precision, to my ears)... and your willingness (is it a preference? a tolerance?) not to articulate it when doing so seems like it might interfere with it revealing itself fully - as something that is possibly quite distinct from what you already thought when you started out with whatever experience the learning comes wrapped in this time.
happy birthday, dear one! here's to another revolution!
