Danyo's Bowls

There was a silent meditation retreat during my last days at Indralaya. About 15 people partook, and it was perfect to end my time on the island in an atmosphere of deliberate silence. 

The meditator who I will remember most from the retreat was a Somalian man named Danyo. His complexion was so dark that it was almost purple, and he wore loose white robes. He walked slowly, with a sort of hulking grace. Before the vow of silence was taken, Danyo told a story about how he sustained a compound fracture in his upper arm running from a hippopotamus in the swamps of Somalia. 

The first evening of the retreat we all gathered in the library to enter into silence together, and Danyo unveiled his bowls. He had seven bronze bowls of various shapes and sizes. Wrapped lovingly in burlap, they were nested inside of one another like Russian dolls. He took them out one by one with an astonishing gentleness, and arranged them around his folded knees. And then he told us the story of his bowls.

Danyo told us how he moved from Somalia to Manhattan, and then got a job as a taxi driver. One day, when he was driving around the city, he passed a shop that was owned by a Tibetan couple--it sold traditional Tibetan items like thangka paintings and incense, and Danyo was immediately attracted to the place. That very day he parked his cab and walked inside. "It was like I was going home. I loved the bowls as soon as I saw them," he told us. His accented voice was rich and sweet like honey. 

Over time Danyo saved enough money to buy his bowls. Now he knows each of their voices like they are his brothers. He calls himself the steward of the bowls, and he lives only to let their singing lead people toward truth. To begin our silence, he rang the largest of the bowls. He struck the thick brass with a wooden mallet again and again, and I could feel the deep ringing in my chest. This was a sound that a whale would understand; a sound that a mountain might utter over the course of eons. And then everything was quiet. 

Now I'm not exactly sure about my status on reincarnation... I tend to believe very little, but lately I've been trying to remind myself that believing nothing gives me the space to accept everything. Why shouldn't Danyo be a reincarnation of a Tibetan lama? It really would make perfect sense. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a Romanian Religious Studies professor that I met on the train in Tibet, when I was leaving Lhasa. After briefly discussing the clouds and their meaning, this middle-aged Romanian woman relayed to me her experience in a Tibetan monastery. She told me how, upon entering the walls of the monastery, she immediately fell to her knees and dissolved into tears of joy. She told me that, before that moment, she had never felt like she belonged anywhere.

Why not?

I left Indralaya at dawn, before the silence was broken. The sun rose as the ferry bore me across the sea to the mainland. It's sort of a scary thing, "the mainland." It's a land of job markets and graduate school applications; a land where I could see the Bellingham oil refinery belching out plumes of dirty smoke over the Pacific. But we all have to return to the mainland, I guess. We have to take the peace and light that we gather on our respective islands and bring it home with us, bottled up somewhere inside of us. We have to share it to the best of our ability, cuz it's far too easy to get lost in the fog. At least that's what I'm trying to do. 

When I focus I can still let myself hear Danyo's largest bowl resonate. Or at least I can still imagine the vibration, somewhere near the pit of my stomach.

 

Written for an Indralaya Publication:

I grew up coming to family camp at Indralaya with my mother and brother. I vividly remember the sense of magic that permeated my experience of this place: we would always stay in Apple Cabin, and the carpets of my secret workshop that I built during guided meditations were deep purple. All year long I would look forward to painting my nails for the Sock Hop, or watching my intricate beach mandala vanish in the tide. That was back when I thought that “ferry” and “fairy” were the same word. It was easy for me to see the halos around trees.

A decade has intervened since my last visit to Indralaya. I started High School and then I graduated; I enrolled in college and emerged with a degree in Religious Studies and Neuroscience. I’ve studied in Egypt and Turkey, taught English in Tibet, practiced Buddhist meditation in India, and hitchhiked across South America. I’ve engaged critically with the questions that I find beautiful, been lost and confused, and grappled with the implications of my own freedom. I don’t know about “growing up” but I’m twenty-three now. I’m striving to carve out a place for myself in a chaotic world.

And now, ten years later, I have returned to Orcas Island to spend six weeks at Indralaya as an intern. And it’s beautiful. Again. I meditate in the morning, comparing bells with gulls and remembering the limitations of my analytical mind. I’ve laughed in the basil patch, made gallons of pesto, and stuck my face into plum trees in search of their perfect purple fruits. There have been moments where time collapses, and where I sense the presence my childhood self—the girl who believed that anything is possible. After being swept away in a whirlwind of continents, résumés, and unanswerable questions, it is so relieving to plunge my hands into freshly turned earth and breathe.

Of course my path is still loosely defined, and my thoughts still get the better of me. But my hands are stained with beet juice, and the other day I watched bioluminescent lights kiss and spin in the nighttime ocean. I’m remembering exactly how deep a moment goes. Although many years separate me from wide-eyed childhood wonder, Indralaya continues to be a beautiful place for me to plant my feet and remember my spirit.

What now, T.S. Eliot?

Do I dare 

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

...so asks T.S. Eliot, in his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." And I, in turn, ask myself, "Do I dare?" This question can mean so many things. When is a risk beautiful? What is freedom? On how many levels can one rattle the foundations of this universe and perceive new inklings of beauty?

I'm musing about Mr. Eliot because of Major Life Decisions, unsurprisingly. I'm musing because I just decided not to go to Alaska. I decided instead to move home to Eugene, Oregon and overwinter conceivably close to my family, listening to the sound of rain. "WHAT?!?" you ask, "Is this the Caitlin I know, the Caitlin who climbed an Egyptian pyramid in secret and stalked alpaca in the high Andes?" I dunno... the Buddha said that the self is an illusion. I just know that I'm not quite sure what "home" means anymore, and that I've been running for a long time. I know that after I bought my plane ticket to Alaska, things just didn't feel right. I've been to the plateau of Tibet and, spurred by some intangible itch of the soul, sprinted down the Friendship Highway through a nighttime thunderstorm. Everything has been preposterously beautiful, but I feel a bit lost and I can't pinpoint what I'm looking for. Yesterday when I was breaking up clods of earth in the garden beds it occurred to me that I need to be grounded for a while; to get in touch with my roots. 

So I'm going home. 

"Home."

Home?

...to the rain. The Northern Lights will wait.

Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Geography and Other Frontiers

There is something inevitably metaphorical about islands. I mean, to get to the island where I'm currently living, I have to board a ferry and motor across buoyant sea-scapes and gleaming clouds. Then, when I disembark, my feet encounter something new. The secret coves with their purple and orange starfish, the fragrant forests, the gnarled orchards drooping with fruit: they are beautiful in their own right, but, beyond that, they're gleaming with luminous ideas. There's more space here for people to bring their far-flung notions and bring them to life (or cast them out to sea). There's a fierce independence to islands, like their making some sort of noble last stand against the corruption of civilization. I feel like I'm living on a real frontier. And the stark geography can push me to the boundaries of my mind.

Today I walked with some friends down the beach through a fierce gale. I wore rubber boots and tromped through the seaweed while the wind ran like vast invisible herds of horses over the surface of the Pacific. It's fall here now, suddenly--the blustering wind felled pine needles and apples by the dozen. This morning I made the sad discovery that most poems about autumn are terribly preoccupied with mortality. Poets love to muse about fleeting moments and impending frost in the fall. They talk a lot about final flairs and shadows. But I dunno, even in the rain storm I felt a beautiful golden texture to the turning of the seasons. Yesterday I plucked a ripe fig from the orchard, and today I pulled perfect smooth clay from the seaside. Both were malleable and fleshy, earthbound, beautiful. I'm not quite sure what I'm saying. There is still clay under my fingernails, and the fruit is ripe. I feel optimistic about autumn.

Pesto and Walruses

So I made 68 cups of pesto. If you are curious, 68 cups is equal to 4.25 gallons. I realize that this is a great feat, and I am proud. In Wisteria, the cabin where my friend Kendra and I reside, you can still catch the occasional fragrant whiff of basil.

It is worth mentioning that I met Kendra at a national park in Patagonia (for a reflection on that experience, you can glance at this post from the archives). We last parted ways in Bolivia, and then I sent her this e-mail saying, "So I'm going to this island in the fall... wanna come?" And, miraculously, it worked out. I picked her up in Seattle and now we're here, unfathomable latitudes from our meeting-place, laughing in the basil-patch. And we also happened to meet a bunch of Chileans on the ferry and practiced our Spanish in the open water at ridiculous odds.

Being back at camp Indralaya is beautiful. It's been exactly a decade since I was last here, and I can feel the presence of the past selves of my childhood here--the Caitlins that believed in magic. I've been meditating every morning with the resident managers and my co-volunteers, listening to vast silence punctuated by the occasional airplane or soulful loon. I've been thinking a lot lately about the crazy mental barriers we so often insist on building... you know, barriers against freedom, or magic, or love. I've been thinking about breaking them down.

Oh and NEWS FLASH: I've been informed of an unfathomably exciting volunteer opportunity. Apparently a marine wildlife rescue center outside of Anchorage, AK is currently seeking volunteers to spoon with baby walruses. I am not kidding. There are baby orphan walruses that need humans in walrus suits to cuddle with them. I'm currently scheming ways to incorporate walrus-cuddling into my Alaska winter. It just makes sense.

Forward ho!

So after a bit of a hiatus, I've decided to resuscitate this narrative. Because I'm a million percent convinced that I can find something beautiful in every moment that's worth writing about and reflecting on. And, of course, my life continues to be ridiculous. I'm trying on questions and lifestyles like so many hats; traveling still; trying at once to figure out my future and rejoice in the present moment. Reminding myself that bewilderment is sacred.

So here's the lowdown of what has happened in the four month gap since I last wrote: I flew from Peru to Minnesota, where I visited Carleton for about a week, and then I flew to Seattle and took the train down the Pacific coast to my hometown of Eugene, Oregon. There I used my dwindling funds to purchase a car (a 1995 Subaru, Delilah), and proceeded to drive down the interstate to my summer job in the mountains of Southern California. After spending 11 crazy/wonderful weeks working with kids and reveling in starlight, I drove back up to Eugene by way of San Francisco, said "Hey," and then promptly filled Delilah's trunk to the brim with anything I could possibly ever want and drove up to the San Juan Islands in Northern Washington. I'm currently living on Orcas Island, working at a beautiful camp where I used to come when I was young. I'm making pesto, drying plums, eating ripe figs off the tree... and in my spare time applying to graduate school. Days ago I accepted a job working with sled dogs in Alaska for the winter, and that's another adventure looming on the horizon. The Northern Lights.

The other night I was sitting at the beach at Indralaya, the camp where I'm working, with my co-interns. We watched the sun sink and the almost-full moon rise, marveling at the way celestial reflections slither on the ocean without ever moving. Then, one by one, bioluminescent particles came to life in the tides. The little lights were a violent shade of aqua, and they darted about almost playfully -- they kissed and swirled, and then, without warning, extinguished. I've had Joni Mitchell's "Circle Game" stuck in my head incessantly since my arrival on the island, and I can't get over the smell of things. I'm excited about everything unfolding (with a healthy amount of fear and confusion for spice).

So that's that. It's all boundless, and I'm writing again. Stay tuned for stories.

...and then we flew.

Cuzco and Maccu Picchu were a story of impossible, ancient mortar. That is to say, the Incas did not use mortar. They used magic. After a 12 hour bus ride (in which more than one pickle per hour was consumed) Nathaniel and I excited Bolivia for good (only one day over the visa limit!) and arrived in the ancient capital of the Incan empire. There was a peculiar misty light in Cuzco, which strangely seemed to sharpen the edges of things... and many stairs. Many, many stairs. 123 stairs to get to our hostel, in fact. Magic mortar mingled with modernity on the city streets, and we enjoyed museums and wandering and markets.

And then we journeyed to the iconic ruins of Maccu Picchu. We did the Extreme Budget Version (total cost: $100). This is what the Extreme Budget Version of Maccu Picchu entails: On the first day we awoke at 3:42 a.m. to take a series of harrowing taxi rides to a hydroelectric plant in the middle of the jungle where we had to walk on some railroad tracks for three hours to get to the town at the base of the iconic ruins. Exhausted, we fell asleep at 7:00 p.m., only to get up the next day at 3:42 a.m. to sprint up 600 vertical meters of stairs to be the first people in line at Maccu Picchu so we can climb another mountain (i.e. more stairs).  It was crazy, but it was beautiful. We communed with llamas. Nathaniel juggled. I really have no idea what the Incas were thinking building a city up there with the clouds and lots of vertical cliffs, but wowzers. Even after so much travel I am still overwhelmed by these "postcard moments."

We splurged on train tickets to return to Cuzco, where we proceeded to treat ourselves to full body massages with hot rocks and pedicures for $15. That's right, my toenails are now something verging on hot pink. We finished Philip Pulman's His Dark Materials trilogy on a park bench in the pigeon-filled Cuzco plaza, I baked banana bread, and then we took an absolutely mind-numbing 22 hour bus ride to Lima. (I actually wanted to strangle myself with the complimentary blanket after we had to watch the ad about the award-winning prescription lens company for the 27th time... but we made it). 

And now we're in Lima, in a hostel overrun with delightful hippies that get by selling hand-made crafts. It smells unmistakably like the ocean here, and it's cuz the Pacific's only a few blocks away. We've run along the seafront in the mornings (so much oxygen!), seen an extremely excellent ancient library that monks used to use, and failed at visiting two museums (par for the course). And today is our last day in South America. Tomorrow we fly to Chicago... what? I really can't believe it. But rituals help. You know, Meaningful Things like blowing out candles or wearing robes. So, after some consideration, we decided to commemorate the past seven and a half months with flight.

...and then we flew. Or more technically, paraglided (paraglid?). I believe that my experience of those 12 minutes--those moments spent hanging silently over the Lima coastline with my trusty parachute pilot Marcelo--is the closest I will ever come to understanding what it is like to be a bird. Every flying dream I've ever had merged with reality as I watched my feet soar over city streets and regarded premium Lima pent-house apartments up close. Walking is so bumbling and lame in comparison.

And tomorrow I get to fly in a roaring mechanical behemoth; a machine that will bear me back to my mother country. It really is strange. I find myself wishing  for something concrete to lend it all meaning... When Nathaniel and I finished reading The Amber Spyglass out loud, there was a whole page imprinted simply with two words: "The End." There were ornate designs squiggling above and below those words. It was almost monumental. How can you find that in life? I sure don't know. Instead of two clear words with text ornaments, I know that life will give me an overwhelming whirlwind of airports and friends and family and places, and that I will be left grasping for threads to orient me in the flood. I'll unpack my backpack, start thinking about my summer job, say goodbye to Nathaniel. Be confused for a while. But it has been beautiful. I don't know if I'll ever make sense of it, but I have flown. And I will fly. Tomorrow, and again and again.