I have taken these past months to work on myself and my growth. Hence why it was abandoned, I am usually more inspired to write here when I help a fellow traveler on the road instead of helping myself. Such is the imbalance of my perception towards self vs others.

I had traveled quite a bit since my last entry. If people are reading sequentially, I mentioned that I will be going towards the route of monkhood and perusing this avenue. The formal goal of the travels was to visit my parents and ask for their permission to go forth into homelessness, taking on the bowl and robes. As any journey, one sets out to do one thing, but ends up getting into other kinds of adventures. Maybe it speaks to how narrow sighted we are as a species with our initial plans.

Arizona

I visited my American parents. It’s quite extraordinary what you can say and how open you can be to your parents when you feel that you may never visit them again. I don’t think it’s quite exactly like knowing that you are about to die, but the experience may have been close. I told them what I wanted to tell them for a while. I enjoyed spending time with them no matter where we went. I wish this feeling would never go away, but at the time of writing, I feel that I mostly lost it. “Reality” has a way of bringing you back down, or maybe it just speaks to my lack of roots in the practice of maintenance of such thought processes.

New Mexico

I saw a good friend of mine from college. I don’t believe he took my monkhood idea very well. I don’t really think anyone had, most just had not shown it at the time. I regained my composure staying with him though, was even meditating more than working. Started the practice as it were. At the end I sort of lost some of that composure after seeing my forgotten/lost love connection. Of course it had to be at that time (the very last week) that she decided to visit my friend all the way from Washington. Let’s just say I believe things are not always random in this world.

Chicago

I believe the previous encounter with my loved one sparked some sort of need for intimacy. At the time I was not aware of this, but it was already slowly creeping into my conscious. It also shows the lack of self-understanding and the amount of repression which had to be enforced over time. I am talking about  sexual repression, it has been brainwashed into the society for a long time. At the point where we police ourselves over such subjects. A taboo only to be shared with the closest one, but usually, not even with them. In fear of the so called shameful thoughts had led to yet another block on self-expression. I frankly do not think I would have made it as a monk, at least not more than a couple of years. This theme is just recurring, and it won’t go away by wishing it to.

Estonia

My connection with my sister cannot be called strained per say. I try to not engage with her on the subject of Christianity and more detailed beliefs as they trigger resistance in my subconscious. Despite me trying to move closer to accepting all religions. There are just some parts I truly don’t endorse and that leads me to have blockages towards the whole subject. So I just listen, but speaking would be definitely unprofitable. At the moment, the subject remains untouched by me, when I resolve my issues, I think I will be able to reconnect with my sister on her level.

St. Petersburg

Well, I finally made it to Russia. For as long as I remember I had internal resistance to coming here. Traumas from long past have led me to avoiding my demons, but here I was. My father is part of other traumas which I yet to fully understand, and therefore have not resolved. The problems are easy to notice if one reflects on one’s behavior. Avoidance of eye contact, slight anger spikes over some remarks, unhappiness where one would normally be happy. My father knows about all of this and is trying to mend it in the best way he knows how. I appreciate him trying.  It will take some more time to resolve these though. So we shall be back next year for more fun and adventures. Also, almost forgot, I did not quite ask my father about the monkhood path, but he used quite a lot of strong words to discourage me in going there. He also disapproves all organized anything and calls them all cults. It was not a rejection, because in his possible attempt to reconcile with me he would have agreed, or maybe not, who knows. At any rate, I feel like holding a gun while asking to make a decision as if there was a choice in the matter.

I am skipping my trip to Finland as it is not of importance to my growth, but hopefully of importance to the ones I visited.

France

Visiting my mom. You see, just like my father, before coming over I had not really thought that there were any issues to resolve. However, I found first hand that my behavior was almost exactly the same as with my father. I was closed off and distant. After a lot of retrospecting I came to the conclusion that there are definitely abandonment issues that need work on. Not to mention all the possible others.

We all have our own grievances with the people we’ve spent enough time with. Be it parents, friends companions or intimate ones. I think it is best to realize that there is damage no matter how swell it seems. Afterwards work on resolving those grievances at your own pace. I am noting that there is no better way other than striving towards resolution, which is basically forgiveness of others and self. Avoidance will not work for long as any new relationship will be affected by the precognition from the past experiences. This is nothing new, people had been suggesting to take time off from relationships after a break up all the time. People know from past experiences that it works, but not many people know how it works or what needs to happen during that time of healing.