F.A.Q's
1) What will you be Blogging about?This Blog is a journal of sorts, primarily meant for close friends and family. After the break down of my long term relationship/marriage of 11 years and being laid off from my career as teacher, I decided to go on a personal Mecca of self discovery. Kind of like an Eat, Pray, Love sort of journey but with a twist...SUNLOTUS style. Yes, Sunlotus is my pen name.
2) Are you going to Blog about me?
If you are in my life and a close personal friend or family member, the answer is yes! But don't worry, I will change names to protect the innocent. Except for SHAWNA RUSSO who wants everyone to know how fabulous she is...and she is BTW! If you detest the thought of being Blogged about publicly then I suggest you not interact with me.
3) Where are you going?
These last few months have been spent in private and sometimes not so private introspection. I woke up one day and realized that my life was my own, not by mother's or my husband's, but my own. I then asked the standard question all people ask when they finally come to this realization. "If I were to die tomorrow what would I do with the time I have left?" The first thought that popped into my mind was TRAVEL! Initially I wanted to travel to Brazil, since I have two close friends who live there. The itinerary quickly expanded to Peru, the Amazon Jungle, the African continent, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, & finally Nepal. If all goes as planned, the journey should culminate with me, standing at the foot of the heavens, looking up at the tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest.
This adventure was inspired primarily from a quote that I read a few years ago: "An important thing is that you concentrate on developing yourself. Whatever others may say or do, those who have established their own solid identity will triumph in the end. The great Japanese author Eiji Yoshikawa (1892-1962) wrote in his novel Miyamoto Musashi [an account of the 17th century master swordsman of the same name]: 'Rather than worrying about your future, thinking, 'Perhaps I should become this or perhaps I should become that,' first be still and build a self that is as solid and unmoving as Mount Fuji" (Daisaku Ikeda). After I read this quote, I immediately thought "that's what I want to be; as still, as solid, as unmoving as the tallest mountain on Earth." After all, if I am to do what I plan to do before I die, then Mt. Everest would be mountain to model myself after.
4) Why are you going?
Well, to answer this question I have to quote Nietzsche. This excerpt is from "The Wanderer" Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Third Part, which was graciously supplied by the person who probably knows the inner workings of my heart the best, my dear cousin, soul sister, and fellow wanderer MS. DIVA SHIT, Roll Dawg's genius sister.
"I am a wanderer and a mountain climber, he said to his heart; I do not like the plains, and it seems I cannot sit still for long. And whatever may yet come to me as destiny and experience will include some wandering and mountain climbing: in the end, one experiences only oneself. The time is gone when mere accidents could still happen to me; and what could still come to me now that was not mine already? What returns, what finally comes home to me, is my own self and what of myself has long been in strange lands and scattered among all things and accidents. And one further thing I know: I stand before my final peak now and before that which has been saved up for me the longest. Alas, now I must face my hardest path! Alas, I have begun my loneliest walk! But whoever is of my kind cannot escape such an hour—the hour which says to him:
'Only now are you going your way to greatness! Peak and abyss—they are now joined together.
'You are going your way to greatness: now that which has hitherto been your ultimate danger has become your ultimate refuge.
'You are going your way to greatness: now this must give you the greatest courage that there is no longer any path behind you.
'You are going your way to greatness: here nobody shall sneak after you. Your own foot has effaced the path behind you, and over it there is written: impossibility.
'And if you now lack all ladders, then you must know how to climb on your own head: how else would you want to climb upward? On your own head and away over your own heart! Now what was gentlest in you must still become the hardest. He who has always spared himself much will in the end become sickly of so much consideration. Praised be what hardens! I do not praise the land where butter and honey flow.
'One must learn to look away from oneself in order to see much: this hardness is necessary to every climber of mountains.
'But the lover of knowledge who is obtrusive with his eyes—how could he see more of all things than their foregrounds? But you, O Zarathustra, wanted to see the ground and background of all things; hence you must climb over yourself—upward, up until even your stars are under you!'
Indeed, to look down upon myself and even upon my stars, that alone I should call my peak; that has remained for me as my ultimate peak."
Need I say more? My German namesake basically said it all. The trek to the foot of the heavens might seem to most an outside endeavor but the outside is a mere reflection of an internal process that is happening deep within. Regardless of all the trappings of an external reality "in the end, one experiences only oneself."
When I first started this journey last October, I initially dreaded the thought of being alone but now this "ultimate danger" has become my "ultimate refuge." We are born alone and we die alone, why allow the fear of lonesomeness shackle you to a certain hell? As Osho aptly puts it, "Aloneness is a flower, a lotus blooming in your heart. Aloneness is positive, aloneness is health."
Thus, I have now begun to recover a part of myself that I left behind oh so many years ago. Yes folks, the wanderer is back, and this time I'm climbing upward, "upward, until even the stars are under" me.
5) How will you fund your journey?
One of my personal tenants gleaned from my Buddhist practice is that internal shifts in one's mind/heart create external shifts in one's reality. Since all phenomenon arise form ones mind/heart, if one decides deep down that something will happen, then most likely it will. The key is to not let your inner negativity or doubt take over because that (the negativity or doubt) then becomes the internal reality that is reflected externally. So, after being laid off, I decided to heed the advice from a dear friend and create an amazing opportunity from the chaos that was my life and go on an ADVENTURE! I also decided that somehow, someway, this adventure was going to be funded. My initial plan was to become a substitute teacher & travel during the breaks, but something more fitting came along. A close friend of mine, who I shall refer to as MS. GURU, offered me a position in her company selling designer yoga-wear in Asia. The job is primarily web-based which will allow me to work from anywhere in the planet. To further supplement my traveling income, I also plan to become a certified Yoga instructor. I figured if I can teach a room full of 30+ hormonal teenagers from a "ghetto school" then I can certainly teach a room full of adults who pay to take the class.
5) Why are you traveling again?
Lots of reasons; meet old friends, make new ones, get a pulse on what is happening around the planet, experience different cultures, learn to cook a new dish or two, conduct my pre-Doctoral studies fieldwork, enjoy nature, marvel at the scenery, find my true self, and of course update my Facebook profile pictures.
Let the journey begin...
