Russia: Idols be Gone - completing the loops

Obninsk train tracks....I've traveled from here so many times!

7-15-2011 - written in Bali, Seminyak

Dates of visit to Russia: 3-21-2011 - 4-20-2011

Idols be Gone - completing the loops

I journeyed to Russia to see my family. Little did I know how many
surprising, beautiful and profound gifts I would find there. After
missing that flight from Thailand, I really felt eager to see my folks
- you know, that feeling of a lollipop being yonked out of your hand
just before licking.....and then a new one given after some time.
Though, I must admit, doing a Vipassana at Suan Mokkh Dharma Hermitage
really turned out to be a grounding/wise thing to do before visiting
family. It gave me the anchor of solid meditation practice and morning
yoga.....which I held onto throughout the month-long stay in Russia.
It helped navigate the sea of sometimes tumultuous ancient family
dynamics. You know what I mean. Everybody's got one....umpa-umpa....
The Beatles got it right.

I stayed with my grandparents in the still-frozen Obninsk that was
gently warming up to spring......the ice was still solid on the Protva
river, and many-a-walrus-men dove into the ice well butt-naked close
to the place I walked every day. Some fishermen sat around the little
burred holes patiently watching their bobs - sometimes with a little
fire nearby where they'd fry up some rye bread with salty lard - so
yummy in Russia! I walked on the thick ice for quite some time - it's
really been since my childhood that I've done that.

That's the thing about this part of the journey - I had a chance to
revisit so many things from my childhood in a completely new way. I
forgot how beautiful the puddles of melting snow in the still-barren
forests were.....even if interspersed with some shattered emerald
glass of champagne bottles.....and how tall the naked trees could look
against the bottomless blue sky.....and how that endlessness with
neuronal pattern of the branches over it innocently reflected in the
puddles before my [appropriate for the weather] orange Gore-Tex
boots....they felt like the only item of colour for miles sometimes.
The stark black-and-white scapes of the Russian winter still found a
way under my skin. As did the stillness of them - silent birch forests
above the river awaiting the snow-melt and ice breaking.....gentle,
stern, deep anticipation. I could feel in my bones why this was truly
a land of the mystics, and why so many Russians are still hopeless
pagans - even with the cover of "Christianity." Nature is the true God
there, me feels.

I forgot just how many colours the thick river ice turns before it
melts.....and the not-so-abominable kid-made snow-men watch it do so
day after day....until the City opens the dam downstream and the ice
is like it never was. The flow is there again. I went to watch it
every day. Until one day I came, and I could see the river - for the
first time that year.

I journeyed over to my beloved school - Dubravushka......and connected
with the our little house [every grade had its own "house" in the
evergreen forest].
http://dubravushka.ru/detaileng.htm [this is what she's like now]
After I had a chat with its current director, who
graciously told me about the new twists and turns in the path of the
school, I had the opportunity to share gratitude for the
almost-mythically excellent education that this place has gifted me
with, and the dreams it has allowed me to manifest - all gathered
neatly in the Alumni book. The director has also expressed interest in
possibly haning some of my paintings there. Full circle - I love that
feeling.

I walked up the slope of the "alpine hill," where I first learned to
mountain-ski with my Papa. The snow was still there in patches, and it
took a lot of muddy trenches and walking on thin ice to get there from
the river side [I went there by bus from the City side when I was a
kid], but I did make it to the top and found a nice little log to
plant my bottom on and observe the peaceful slope with a river
panorama and not a soul in sight, but a few jolly spring birds
chirping in the birches. I meditated there for a bit - a strange,
surreal feeling of meditating amidst my childhood melting ski
slope.....Sooooo peaceful! It was 15 years or so since I've been
there, and it was nice to be the only soul there and really connect
with the place.

One of the most profound moments was that of reconnecting with my Papa
live – and speaking my truth for the first time, perhaps, ever [oh,
those moments of "scary authenticity"!]. I felt that we have drifted
apart – and the gap has become wider than the Grand Canyon after my
transformation/paradigm shift – out of the
strictly-material-[I-can-touch-it-therefore-it-exists] paradigm. My
rapid transition from the cerebrally-dominated world into the
heart-centered one [and therefore a deep desire for the heart
connection with everyone close to me] has left a few of my closest
people baffled. No fault of anyone – just what was.

I shared some of these observations with my Papa, and he has
generously agreed to give me a "reality check" from his side. He was
also not feeling the heart connection from me, and therefore was not
letting me in. We sat on a thick tree branch over the frozen river
near the dam – a place we used to go to often in my childhood – and
spoke the truth of where each of us was internally. He said something
about the "Lost world" - and I remarked that it was kind of like
this....we were in it. There are moments like these – where we can
feel the inconsequential nature of the concept of time.....and the
timeline collapses to a point – that moment. Past-present-future all
at the same time. Like the Trafalmadorian world view [Vonnegut,
"Slaughterhouse 5," anyone, anyone?].

I asked him where he saw us going from here, and what were his
desires. From his heart, he shared that he saw us as trains diverging
farther and farther apart – that small degree difference in the rails
[thanks to the "arrow changes" at my moving to the U.S., and then at
my death 3 years ago] becoming more and more apparent with
time/distance. "Probable, almost certain future," - some would say. He
did not have much desire to do anything about it. I said that I did. I
wanted a heart connection.

For the first time, I was able to hear his truth straight and without
the feeling of rejection – simply from the place of "I accept your
reality. I accept what is. I stand for another reality manifesting
between us." It was the most powerful and authentic place I've ever
felt in our connection since our disconnect more than 10 years ago – I
felt so grateful that he has met me in that new place and was at least
willing to have an authentic conversation. It was deeply healing and
transformative for me.

Then there was a moment of transition with my dear grandparents.
In a way, they – especially my beacon-like Grandma – the Matriarch of
the family – were my idols/role models throughout growing up. Though,
when I moved to the U.S. As a child, their images have become "static"
the way the mind of a child can make people into
cartoons/caricatures....those easily-grasped projections. Well, when
one grows up, those images no longer serve – they confine the person
projecting and one who is projected upon. My projections upon those
wonderful people have well outserved their shelf-life. Time for an
upgrade.

Grandma has expressed to me towards the end of my stay that she is not
too comfortable with a "vagabond" in the family. In her eyes, I have
not achieved anything that she considered of value.....I did not
possess a car, a house or a 9-5 job[I have given up all those things
by choice before I left for my journey], a husband or kids. I did not
know where I was going. My path looked amorphous and uncertain to her.

I was at once struck by just how much she did not see me....for who I
was, but instead – for who I was not. There is a BIG difference. It is
simply the way folks are measured in the Russian culture – I was hit
by how much I was not of it anymore.

I felt the tremendous gap between our value systems and our life
paradigms. I have surrendered the "shoulds" and any pretense of
knowing the way a while ago.....and much of them – during this
journey. I felt that I have finally bumped up against HER projection
that I could now see clearly. I wasn't the only one
projecting/idealizing her. She did one on me too. She later admitted
that she really doesn't know my life after the age of 13, since I left
the country, and the distance has left its mark.

There was this feeling of standing across a dear person that I did not
know because of my ancient projection....nor was known by because of
her ancient projection – an almost-palpable glass wall separating me
from the person I loved and aspired to most viscerally..... I cried
for nearly a day and had a LOOONG meditation by the river – in the
silence of my dear birch forest. Then my body has fallen ill for a day
from that impact.

[Aside: songs that come to mind]:

And, if you can handle another minor-key Russian songs [try finding others! ;o)]

In that day, she has become human to me again – falling off a pedestal
[that I have invented as a child] has its benefits. We could be real
with each other again. I groked that I would probably never fit any of
her expectations/projections.....and that I did not need to keep her
on a pedestal anymore – I could surrender my projection of a "hero"
that she never really signed up for – I forced it upon her. There is a
time when we simply don't need our idols anymore. Then they can become
humans to us again and we can relate to them from the heart with love
and compassion – not from below with distant reverence. And that can
be a birth of an authentic connection.

Then slowly, I began to fill in the blank in her knowledge of my life
in the time we've lived in different countries.....including the
important point of me dying a few years ago and the way that has
impacted my world-view and everything else in this illusion of life.
And when she began seeing some of these pieces, she all of a sudden
said [instead of the previous worrying of where I would end up or the
geometry of my path]: "well, if that's how things are.....then, take
all the time you need with your journey – even if it is 10 years." She
said that with compassion.....and in here words there was simple
honoring of my path regardless of whether she understood it. A
fundamentally new way of relating in our connection. Though, by that
point, I truly did not need the approval/endorsement/understanding.
Isn't it funny how just when we let go of the need for something, it
shows up out of the blue?

Yuri Kukin's words come to mind:

"Не хочу я бродить по свету,

А на месте сидеть не могу.

Вот иду и беседую с ветром -

Я ему никогда не лгу.

И чем горы важней всех на свете,
И что это совсем не беда -

Есть красивые взрослые дети

И играют они в поезда.

Нахожу на дорогах подковы,
Заполняю собой города...

Человек из меня толковый

Не получится никогда...

Вы пришлите в красивом конверте
Теплых слов шелестящий шелк.
Ну а мне вы не верьте, не верьте,
Я такой - я взял и ушел..."

With nearly every dear person in Russia, we've had this new kind of a

conversation. It was one of the biggest tests of transformation I've
ever experienced – truly, all the pieces falling into place, all the
work up to this point paying off in unexpected ways. I felt at once
humbled, proud and deeply grateful that the people I care about were
willing to meet me in this experience so gracefully and authentically,
for such morphing of relationships are not for the faint of heart.
Once again I've appreciated the remarkable open-mindeness of my family
– and the fact that it can exist within the contemporary [sometimes
rather conservative] Russian culture.

Interestingly, when I've shared with my close ones that this is the
time in my journey where material contribution would be most helpful,
my Grandparents, my papa and sister have shown up in unexpected and
beautiful ways. My Grandparents have contributed to my journey to
Nepal and the yoga school, and my Papa has gifted me the camera of my
dreams, as my faithful Cybershot has died a warrior's death right
before arriving to Russia [he was the first one to gift me my first –
still film – camera when I was 10 years old, and to teach me
photography.....isn't it interesting that it was he who gifted me my
lens that I were to view my Himalayan dream through!].

They chose to help on my journey even without understanding its
"geometry" and purpose or believing in it.....perchance that is what
unconditional love is like. I stand touched by their kindness to this
day.

So many loops got completed....so many new loops – born. I feel like I
lost another "onion skin" [or absorbed another layer of the
shadow?]....I left with a relief, my heart getting lighter by the
minute as I approached the sacred mountains, but there was deep
gladness in my heart that I spent this time in Russia. There was
completeness there that never has been before.

The way to Grandma/Grandpa's home from the river

The way to the River [Protva]

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.....
......

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.