I'm in Seattle now, part nest after an intense month, part springboard to Asia. It's been a relaxing 24 hours with my friend Liam, a welcome respite from 10 days of powerful connections, goodbyes, and the hectic, draining work of closing up my house and putting everything I own either in storage, on the street, or into the hands of a dozen friends.
I was super busy, and yet for some reason I remained excited about documenting as much of my last week as possible. I shot probably 2 hours worth of footage on my little Cannon Elf.
I'm not sure what I'll do with all of it, if I'll even have the time. I did take a few hours to string together a 2 and a half minute short today that combines my love of Star Wars with the bizarre world of storage facilities. God it was so fun to make. I think you'll enjoy it!
My last 10 days in Marin may have been the richest of my life. My intention was to soak up everything and everyone I loved, and to love deeply in return, and to say goodbye with heart.
And that's what I did. The amount of love I felt emanating from me, and coming to me, felt flabbergasting. I treasured, deeply, every moment I spent with my dear community of friends, through precious one-on-one time, small gatherings, dinners, dances, walks and a big going away party. And while there was a lot of work to do, I did my best to have fun and remember the meaning beneath it all.
What a joy it was to be able to love and be loved by so many wonderful beings. Words cannot express it. Perhaps a large, glowing smile can. And to soak in the forest, the tree-lined streets, our downtown. To continue to laugh and dance (so much!) and engage in crazy projects throughout it all.
And to close down my house. The place where I spent 3 and a half years. Loving housemates and struggling with some of them. Growing, so much. Laughing my head off, bawling, screaming, cuddling, making love, suffering, feeling intense joy, making sweet music, dancing, preparing delicious meals, sharing food, organizing gatherings, resting in peace after a hard day of work.
One of my last acts was to say goodbye to the place that was home for so long for me. I entered each room, and felt that room, and allowed images of what had happened there to race through my mind. I cried deeply in each room, especially my bedroom, and caressed the hardwood floors, and then returned to each room with sage, to say, "Thank you for all you gave me and everyone who passed through here. May you bless the next people who come through here." Then I kissed the doorway and walked out for the last time.
I've shared barely anything about my Vision Quest on this blog, in part because I've been busy, in part because it's hard to find the words to do such a profound experience justice, and in part, because it may be a story that wants to be told more one on one, in snippets, over time.
But my Quest help deepen inside me a few important themes that were at the forefront of my leaving, and here are three of them.
The first is to see and remember and treasure the meaning and sacredness in everything and everyone. It can be easy to overlook these of course. But someone helping you move is not just a helper, she is there to help you end, and that is sacred. Friends who drive you to airports and pick you up and welcome you into their homes are not just helping you with practical concerns, they are emissaries, guides, carriers, deep supports. People who agree to hold onto your plants and your bed and your dining room table while you are away are not just taking stuff, they are caretakers, and they are holding part of you.
Rooms are not just 2 by 4s and sheet rock, they are sanctuaries, keepers of memories, guardians. Forests are not just stunning ecosystems, they are protectors, expressions of the divine, and sanctuaries as well. Communities are not just groups of people, they are essential, indispensable, and beautiful expressions of our humanity. Dance is not simply an activity, it as a place where our souls can run free.
The second theme is that everything that we go through has purpose and gives us something. That activities and processes and moments in time are not simply events to get through, they are key to reaching the next step, and they add to us regardless of what the next step is. And that these experiences are to be welcomed as much as possible, the joys as well as the challenges, rather than resisted, even when they are hard. So everything that has come up and that I've faced in leaving - fear, caring, letting go, saying goodbyes, some of them quite difficult - has infused me more awareness and strength and with love I will carry forever and a deeper sense of what it means to be human.
And that is the third and most important theme for me this past month: love. Love for my whole self and everyone around me and trees and warm weather and dance and even inanimate objects like a house. That while it may sound cliche, especially in Marin, to me it has become far more clear, in a very deep place, that we exist to love, and be loved. That for some reason all I've been through and done these past few years, and what I experienced in the desert, and the facing of death there, and the facing of death in leaving, has made it even more clear how much I love and how much I value and need to love and be loved and how that is, by far, the most important thing there is. By far.
When you spend 4 and half days with no food, and 3 days and 3 nights alone, in the rocky desert wilderness, with no shelter and no books and no company and the thought that you might die, you realize more fully that life is too short to focus on what isn't there or what triggers us. While some conflict and disappointment are normal, I've found myself focusing so much more on what I love about people and about life. And this has made a tremendous difference, and it has sprung from a very authentic place.
What a paradox, or irony, that in facing death we value even more what is important in life. And again, this sounds cliche, but to me it has become so much more real. In leaving and letting go, bravely and with heart, in consciously marking an ending what is ending becomes so much more rich and wonderful. So we must leave what we love from time to time, perhaps, to realize its value, to deepen our connection to it, and one day, on some level, to return.
And I feel that the more we can reach the point where we can let go - consciously, connected to our hearts - and that has taken me a lot of work - it is at this point that the love we give and receive is even more fulfilling. Because then it is far less about holding on, possessing, controlling, worrying - all of which I've known quite well - and more about being, deeply, in the experience, and giving all we have, which becomes such a joy, and then, I've found, getting so much more of it in return, which is priceless.
So I don't think it is about just holding on or just about letting go. Either one alone is far easier than the balance of both.
And it's interesting and incredible often how people and the universe respond when you are in this place. How those around you open their hearts more as you do. How someone who has avoided you can bravely admit his fear and extend his hand. How a partner you have avoided for months appears out of thin air on your second to last day in town, and gives you the opportunity to take another step toward completion, and how you can muster the heart and the courage to walk up to her and to smile and give her a hug and see her heart again and share a sweet goodbye.
A few days before I left I walked in the forest with my dear friend Sarah, and something profound sunk in. Once again, I have to give the cliche disclaimer here :-). Or maybe I don't need to, because this became real for me for the first time.
And that is that perhaps we really are here for many, many lifetimes. And that each lifetime, we are here to learn one important lesson, or maybe more. And that this lesson, if we can learn it, helps us to fully embody our humanity and give a tremendous gift to the world.
I think one of my great works in this lifetime is this: to love so deeply, with all my heart, to gather and hold passionately and tenderly, to cherish and treasure, and then, when the time comes, to let go. To let go with the same presence, with the same intention, the same blessing, the same authenticity and the same sense of liberation.
I was reminded today of the words of the poet Mary Oliver:
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.The letting go part has been especially hard for me - with lovers, with convictions, with experiences - and it will probably be a lifelong practice. What a relief that I don't have to learn it by next year! :-) What a relief to view this as my sacred life's work instead of something wrong with me I need to fix.
And now a smile crosses my face. I have left Marin and I am about to leave this country for a great unknown. For new languages and exotic cultures and flow and solitude and new people and loneliness and mountains and forests and monestaries and lushness and starkness and who knows what else. I am leaving home, filled with love, and excitement and fear and curiosity and longing and so much of what it means to be human.
And that's it. To be human. All parts of me. As open hearted as I can be.
So much love and my deepest gratitude to all of you for letting me love you and for loving me and for all the support you have showed and the presence you have showered on me as I depart.
Roni
To celebrate my seventh day here in Thailand, I splurged ($15!) for an hour long trip a top this incredible creature. 
I'm experiencing more of rural Thailand, and it is beautiful. Riding through little villages, rice fields, hills and windy roads. Past school kids and old men tending crops and mothers carrying babies on motorbikes. 
I'm the only one staying on the property. This morning I woke to the sound of hundreds of song birds, and also a bastard rooster who wouldn't stop screeching all night. 
