The traveler is traveling against the stream of figures approaching through the thick fog. No one is acknowledging him. It is as if he doesn’t exist. “They must be focusing on the destination”, he thinks to himself.
The ground below him is slippery, but he tries his best to step on solid stones and rocks to get some traction. He cannot see any landmarks. This must be a type of flatland area, but which direction is he going?
He continues to continue, but less and less people are seemingly coming his way, so he’s possibly starting to go in circles, ever widening ones. Night has fallen and he looks to the sky, but no stars can be seen.
The traveler reaches for his ancient copper compass, to check his navigation. It must be at the bottom of his bag. With a shock he recalls that he had traded it for fashionable accessories. He had then subsequently traded those for doses of tonic. It made sense doing that then.
“Well, let me just keep on going for a while and see if the landscape changes.”; he reasons. After a few miles he finds himself to be deeply apprehensive about his current direction and for a second he impulsively considers turning back.
“There’s people, tonic and maps back there!” his mind is screaming. A few seconds later the impulse is gone. He’s been experiencing highs and lows in his moods, but at least the pain is not as bad as before. During the lows he can’t imagine continuing without tonic and during the highs he can’t imagine why on earth he would care about tonic at all.
With some relief, he thinks about how he still has his trusty old pocket watch, given to him as a gift years ago by a guide in the Himalayas. It was handed down to the guide by a famous explorer who had journeyed there all the way from Outer Mongolia.
Fortunately a traditional analogue watch can be used in conjunction with the sun to determine north, just like a compass. It’s been ages since he’s used any traditional methods of navigation, but where did he store his pocket watch? He used to have it sown into his coat’s inner pocket.
He never loses things, but it’s not there and after searching high and low, he eventually gives up. It might have come loose over time and could have dropped out of his pocket that time when he tripped and fell. That time when it felt like time had stopped.
The traveler instinctively feels like he’s in bigger trouble than ever before. Yet, a certain feeling of contentment has remained since he turned around and it is present whenever he focuses on it. Whenever he is not experiencing pain or missing the tonic, the contentment is there.
“Maybe I should focus on it more”, he decides.
It’s almost like a sense of knowing that other rules apply or are more relevant now. Like the rules have changed. He’s intrigued by this, because it’s as if his instincts belong to a more primitive side of himself.
“Is this a key? Should I override my own instincts at times? Have they become dated in a way? But couldn’t this be extremely dangerous? Yet, I should be in an extreme state of panic and fear right now, but I’m not.”
The traveler must have turned off somewhere, because there are no other travelers in sight. The fog has cleared sufficiently for him to make out a narrow walkway below his feet and there is a crispness in the air.
He is engulfed once again by a strong sense of déjà vu. This path is unfamiliar territory, yet a sense of familiarity is slowly but surely filtering into his consciousness. It’s a type of belonging, although he has never been here before.
The lack-of-tonic-or-something-else sensation he often has, is being infiltrated by a feeling of lightness in the air. The air is quite thin up here he realizes. He’s been walking at an incline for some time.
It becomes apparent to him now that he won’t be meeting other travelers further on this road. The initial loneliness and lack of contact is now feeling therapeutic. The pain is still lingering in the back of his head, from time to time, but more as an afterthought, as a reminder.
The traveler is noticing details around him again. His five senses are starting to return fully. But it’s still dark.
Thoughts of tonic are becoming more conspicuous by their absence. The traveler’s mind is feeling much less locked-up by paradox, mental wrangling and inner tension. The short-cut map rules and instructions he studied way back, are dissipating.
They are being replaced with comfortable mental sensations. Imagery, symbols and insights which make sense to him. More sense than anything else. So much sense, that it’s almost like they are parts or components of him which were issued at birth.
“Was I brainwashed? Did I brainwash myself? How much have I lost? How much can be regained?”; wonders the traveler.
The stars are out. “It has been a long night”; he thinks to himself. “I should get ready for dawn.”
In this moment the feeling of contentment is strikingly powerful. He decides to rest. He dreams like never before. In his dream, he has a dream of priming himself on his journey and getting ready for an event to come.
At dawn the experienced explorer wakes up to an oasis of calm and to a walled circular city looming large, just ahead of him. A sign says: “Welcome to Eroc Retou.”
By Jean-Jacques @ Gypsy Café. © 2012. All Rights Reserved.
This is Part 2 of 3
We all have our own personal journey, yet I would like to propose that evolving is part of everyone’s path. Going beyond geographical borders is as easy as buying travel tickets, but not everybody is affected by the process in the same way. We don’t all travel for the same reasons and we are not all here for the same reasons. Or are we? Unlike other species our self awareness, consciousness and a certain sense of being part of something much bigger out there, might prompt us to probe these questions further. To do so we have to tear ourselves away from a multitude of modern distractions. We are bogged down with modern conveniences, appliances, games and applications and we have more forms of entertainment than time. We are highly advanced and at the same time stagnant. Despite everything we have or have achieved we may occasionally become aware that our current environment might not readily allow the type of further individual growth we sometimes crave for. There are many ways of going beyond personal borders, but travelling purposefully is arguably the ideal method.
South sides in a forty five minute radius. Another week down the road I knew I was in trouble. I would only be able to last a few more days. The guy at the Rainbow’s reception offered to let me stay “off the books”, if I promised to pay up later. Not knowing whether I would be able to do so, I agreed. I did the circle for yet another three days and despair set in. It was drizzling incessantly and the single figure temperatures blackened my mood.
they walked through the doors and their drinks knowingly poured. Ideally, by the time they had sat down their dram of whiskey were already in its glass on its placemat and their pint of Guinness was settling under the tap almost ready for its head to be topped-up.
