A digest for conscious living
Its finally here! Tomorrow I will be taking my first days off from work since last Christmas. I’m super excited about what lies ahead for the next week: I have a friend who owns a cabin in a very secluded area deep in the mountains, and I have made plans to stay there alone for one week. I tried this for the first time a year ago and enjoyed it so much that I decided to try to make it a yearly event. Of course it is by its nature a very spiritual retreat, but I also plan to do my practice twice a day while I am there. I will also be hiking and doing copious amounts of reading.
A whole week of solitude in Nature… no phone, no internet, no electricity, nothing but the slow steady flow of life in the mountain forest. Wilderness is my temple.
I had an extraordinary experience while preparing for my trip today. I have been wanting to do a long fast for some time now, but finding an opportunity is always difficult. I had thought that my time in the mountains would be the perfect time and setting, and up until today had been planning to fast (a controlled and prepared refraining from eating any food whatsoever) during my time there. Since yesterday however, the weather has taken a bad turn. The weather forecast is for persistent rain throughout the next week. This made me begin to reconsider whether I should actually go without eating, because although in general I have found fasting to be a very positive experience, it can be quite difficult at times. The thought of being rained into a cabin, alone and hungry definitely curbed my enthusiasm.
I had been indecisive all day about whether or not to do it, aware that my decision about whether or not to fast would have implications on my packing and preparations. Unable to make up my mind, I decided to ask the Dreamer , the Universe, for a sign as to what I should do. By the early afternoon I had not recognized anything as particularly symbolic that might point me in the right direction. I was at the kitchen table with my wife asking her for her input when I had and idea.
“I know, I will ask Joseph Campbell!” I said to her as I got up to get his book, The Power of Myth from the bookshelf.
“Go for it!” she chuckled.
I figured the master of symbols would have some insight for me. I got the book, brought it back to the kitchen and mentally asked the question: “Should I fast this week?” I then opened the book randomly and read the first words that I saw on the page. At this point, its worth mentioning that although I was looking for a sign, I was actually expecting to have to read through a few pages before coming to a passage that I might somehow be able to correlate with the question I was posing. I thought there might be some subtle hint that I might be able to relate to my query that would reveal itself if I read a few passages. These are the first words that I read when my eyes hit the page:
“ ‘Oh wonderful, oh wonderful, oh wonderful, I am food, I am food, I am food! I am an eater of food, I am an eater of food, I am an eater of food.’”
Are you serious? I literally gasped as goose bumps rolled up my arms and neck and down over my body. A cynic might chalk something like this up to coincidence, chance. But for me right now, practicing Lucid Living, there is no such thing. This was my subconscious, the Dreamer, providing me with a direct response to my question… I planted a seed by asking for a sign earlier today and it germinated and finally flowered into a real tangible manifestation. I will be sure to ask for this sort of guidance more often in the future!
I will not be able to post for the next week, as I will be disconnected, but I will continue my practice and will write my entries and post them when I return.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau
Goodnight,
Kikta
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That’s what happens when you ask for assistance…