20210922W Day 631: Holding the Tension between the Head and the Heart

20210906M-1414-AustinTX-OPAs

It’s been a few days since returning from a 9 day road trip with Zae. We learned we can travel together in a free flowing state. Zae is very much in the moment. She is more free flowing than me and being with her gives me a taste of what it might be like for other’s to be with me when I’m in a free flowing state. I often would be planning ahead when she would interject “Do we need to decide that now?”. We were 4 hours from Austin, and 1 hour from checking out of the camper we had rented for the night when she asked “Can we stay another night?”. As in many cases before, I found myself quickly scanning the set of universes around me and focusing on the two major sets – staying or leaving – and feeling into my body as I resonated with the energy of each set. Being so close, time wise, to the two sets of universes did give me a stronger body sensation of each set of universes. This is one thing I learned from the trip, that while it is possible to quantum sense multiple futures that are days, weeks, months, or years away, it is easier to quantum sense multiple futures when they are minutes or hours away. A related corollary is that the larger the differences in the two sets of universes, the stronger the difference in feeling it will have in my body when I’m quantum sensing each set of universes.

Our trip started out with a long drive to Roswell, NM, on Sept. 8, 2021. Along the way, we were talking about “would of, could of, should of” and how that really doesn’t serve us, and how we have both come to this point in the present moment from different paths and experiences. We then saw this church sign on the side of the road with the message “It is not where you’ve been, but where you are going”. Of course, there are lots of different messages in these words. The message we heard was to live fully in the present moment.

We continued our drive, making a few rests stops along the way, but still on the road at sunset.

We got in late and checked into the Day’s Inn. Feeling hungry, we almost ordered takeout from the nearby Pasta Cafe, but for some reason decided not to. It was a bit synchronistic that we ended up eating at the same Pasta Cafe on the way back home a week later, having the spaghetti with home made meat balls and the green chili alfredo, and then driving back later for chocolate cake dessert.

We decided to skip the first day of the festival and camp at Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgway, CO. On Friday, we took our time driving to the festival, stopping to enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery.

The festival was at Tico Time Resort at the northern border of New Mexico. When we got there, the performers were testing their equipment and most people were cooling off in the river running through the property.

We decided against camping at the festival and instead stayed at a hotel nearby in Aztec, NM, the Presidential Suites – one of the few hotels allowing pets. The double queen bed room was the one we ultimately found to be the most roomy and comfortable for both of us. I found myself drawn to one of the books that Zae brought with her, “The Little Book of Stoicism”, by Jonas Salzgeber.

In reading the book on Stoicism, I understand now that Stoicism is not about the suppression of emotion, which seems to be a common assumption. Even the google definition #1 says “the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.” The second definition is only slightly better, still stressing an indifference to pleasure and pain:

Stoicism: an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.

Google definition from https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

What I came to believe from reading a few pages, is that Stoicism is about being present with, and not possessed by, our natural emotions, however strongly they are. For instance, on our road trip, there were a few times when I felt very strong emotions. I want to encourage myself to feel these emotions, and feel the debts of these emotions, and be present with them as they move through my body. Even if I am feeling emotions based on grieving the perceived loss of a future possibility, or an unrealized expectation, these emotions are valid and I want to feel them fully. However, I don’t want to have those emotions take me down a rabbit hole of depressions that affects the rest of my trip. I want to observe them as they pass through my body and know that by being present with them, and feeling them as if in meditation, that they will not remain stuck in my body.

Some quotes on Stoicism from wikipedia seem relevant to post here:

The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul; it is this same world’s guiding principle, operating in mind and reason, together with the common nature of things and the totality that embraces all existence; then the foreordained might and necessity of the future; then fire and the principle of aether; then those elements whose natural state is one of flux and transition, such as water, earth, and air; then the sun, the moon, the stars; and the universal existence in which all things are contained.

Chrysippus, in Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 39

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the structure of the web.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, iv. 40

This quote from wikipedia on Stoicism seems consistent with the model I use for universe surfing:

Stoic theology is a fatalistic and naturalistic pantheism: God is never fully transcendent but always immanent, and identified with Nature. Abrahamic religions personalize God as a world-creating entity, but Stoicism equates God with the totality of the universe; according to Stoic cosmology, which is very similar to the Hindu conception of existence, there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. Similarly, the space and Universe have neither start nor end, rather they are cyclical. The current Universe is a phase in the present cycle, preceded by an infinite number of Universes, doomed to be destroyed (“ekpyrōsis“, conflagration) and re-created again,^[27] and to be followed by another infinite number of Universes. Stoicism considers all existence as cyclical, the cosmos as eternally self-creating and self-destroying (see also Eternal return).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism, Sept. 22, 2021

This quote also resonates with my own personal spirituality:

A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism; according to the Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should live in brotherly love and readily help one another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism, Sept. 22, 2021

Back to the trip, we stopped at Echo Pavilion where Zae played the ukulele and had a photo shoot.

On the way back to Austin, we stopped at the Inn at the Delta. Before we checked out, we discussed staying another night but due to not being in a very Stoic state, our emotions led us to get on the road. Later, after our emotions calmed, we both regretted the decision as it was quite a nice place to stay. Maybe we will return another day.

We made our way back to Roswell for the night and in the morning went to Bottomless Lakes State Park. Olli was living his herd dog instincts to protect us from the dangers of the deep.

We did another photo shoot before getting back on the road towards Austin.

We found a camper for the night in Garden City, TX, which is where we hung our artwork shown at the beginning of this blog post. Upon checkout, we decided last minute to stay another night even though we were only 4 hours from Austin. It felt relaxing to have a “free day” to not be on the road and was a reminder to me to insert rest days into my future road trips.

On the way home, we stopped at a park in Eden as we did at the beginning of our road trip.

I’m noticing a desire to be a bit more public in posting pictures from my trip. To date, I’ve kept posts absent of personal pictures and details. I can sense that in the future, I do post without these restrictions.

Head versus heart – my head says that our trip was quite perfect in all ways – healing, grounding, free flowing, intimate, loving, romantic in a friendship way and centered in the universe with which I feel most alignment and seems most aligned with Zae’s wishes. My heart feels desire for more romance, deeper intimacy, and an attachment to limitless possibilities of future growth together with Zae.