Happy Holidays!
Sorry if I seem to have dropped off the map for a while ~ 2009 was a wild year in my world! Fortunately I've crossed paths with a few of you on my global walkabout, or we've 'kept in touch' through email, letters, postcards, or phonecalls, so perhaps you've already heard part of this story; but just in case, (and assuming you care), here's what's been going on in my life lately:
I was on a 10 day Vipassana (silent meditation) retreat as I entered the year, and spent the first four months roaming around Australia - up the east coast from Byron to Brisbane, down to Tasmania, across to Melbourne, along the Great Ocean road to Adelaide, and then off on an outback roadtrip with a couple friends (incl. Coober Pedy, King's Canyon, Uluru, and Alice Springs, etc.)
At the beginning of May I flew straight from autumn in Australia to spring in Alaska to speak at another Rotary District Conference. The sudden transition was completely surreal, but Alaska was awesome! I was hosted in the home of a local family, met a lot of wonderful people, and even had the opportunity to go 'flight-seeing' in a small plane through the mountains around Denali (aka Mt. McKinley - the highest peak in North America), dropping down to fly through a canyon of solid ice at one point, and actually landing on one of the glaciers!
Getting home was my next adventure: First I took the ferry from Juneau (Alaska) to Prince Rupert (BC) through the inside passage, a beautiful 36hr journey I'd wanted to do for years. I then found myself standing by the highway at 8am, with a fairly long walk into town ahead of me, watching everybody else drive away... So obviously, I started hitchhiking. I stopped to spend a week Hazelton, reconnecting with two old friends I hadn't seen in a while, but it basically took me three days to hitchhike diagonally across BC, roughly 1600kms. After seven months in Australia I found the mountains, lakes, and forests of Northern BC absolutely breathtaking, and I was acutely aware of everybody's delightful Canadian accent/dialect.
I eventually made it home to Kimberley, where I spent June and July enjoying summer in the Rockies ~ lots of fresh air and sunshine, hiking in the mountains, swimming in clear lakes and cold rivers, etc. Spending some 'quality time' with my parents was my main priority, and it was great to get to know each other again, share a few stories, and create some new memories together. It was a very good summer, and I crossed paths with a few friends from highschool that were also returning to paradise with a fresh perspective follwing various adventures abroad. Although I was tempted to stay, other opportunities arose and I felt a strong urge to return to Wales, complete the circle, and perhaps gain a sense of clarity and closure on that chapter of my life (i.e. the whole PhD process). So I left Canada again on Aug. 5th with a one-way ticket to Manchester and a clear intention to redevelop a deeper awareness of my own intuition, surrender to its guidance, and see where it led me...
The first week was completely surreal, but also tremendously beneficial: I went straight off a trans-atlantic flight and into an 'Enlightenment Intensive' ~ five days sleeping on the ground under sheepskins in a teepee, swimming in clear emerald pools beneath stunning waterfalls in a lush Welsh valley, and contemplating deep questions such as "Who am I?" and "What is life?" around the fire with new friends. It was undeniably intense, but it woke me up in unexpected ways and I experienced some moments of profound clarity and personal insight... Highly recommended, if you're into that sort of thing.
After that I embarked on a vague and open-ended quest to reconnect with various friends now scattered throughout Europe. This particular phase of my journey/life seems to be much more about crossing paths with specific people at certain moments in time rather than actively exploring the history, culture, or geography of any particular place. I'm all about one-way tickets at the moment, and I rarely make 'plans' more than three days in advance - usually motivated by a discount train fare. Here's how it's all unfolded so far:
- three weeks in Wales (Enlightenment Intensive + a week in North Wales with friends + volunteering at the Greenman festival...)
- two weeks in the Netherlands, (visiting my brother and his family; kick-boxing with my neice, playing with my nephews + lots of good conversations, quality family time, and long casual bike rides...)
- three weeks in Switzerland, (overnight train from Amsterdam; visiting friends in Zurich and Bern, a bit of hiking in the Alps, and mostly just enjoying the adventure of everyday life in an unfamiliar city/culture/language ~ buying groceries, baking muffins, swimming in rivers, sitting in parks, meeting new people and briefly getting a glimpse into their lives...)
* An afternoon in Lichtenstein, simply because it's there! (A tiny yet independent nation ruled by a Prince who lives in a cliff-top castle overlooking the capital city ~ how cool is that?! I'm fascinated by the whole idea of 'Noble Families' and would love to understand how their children are taught to see the world...)
- most of October in Germany, (Oktoberfest with an international group of Rotary Foundation alumni, which was ridiculous and wonderful + a week exploring Munich; then reunited with a former Rotary youth-exchange student/host-brother I hadn't seen since 1998 + three weeks enjoying autumn in a lovely rural village in a beautiful valley lined with vinyards...)
- Two more weeks in the Netherlands (with family);
- Five days in Denmark (deliberately crossing paths with a friend in Copenhagen);
- Five days in Sweden (listening to ABBA and eating meatballs in IKEA with a friend from primary school);
I flew back to the UK in early December, took a lovely little roadtrip down through Devon and Cornwall, spent a week living in a gypsy caravan by a pond (no, not with real gypsies), spent another week living on an 18th century Dutch sailing barge in the centre of London beside Tower Bridge and the Tower of London... and lately I've been hanging out in Brighton, a funky little city on the coast of southern England. My 'plans' for the holidays include spending Christmas with a friend here in Brighton, (swimming in the sea on Christmas day?!), then heading over to Ireland around New Years to wander around for a few weeks...
What more can I say? It's all good!
At one point I changed my facebook status to read: "Tom Ristimaki has no idea what he 'does for a living'..." and responses ranged from "you travel and do awesome things" and "you are a networker of the lands" to "you simply Live Life - and you do it well!" Other helpful suggestions included gypsy and guru, but then I discovered that the Germans have already come up with a label for people like me: Lebenskünstler ~ 'Life Artist' or 'connoisseur of the art of living'.
I often wonder, how was I convinced to spend so many years of my life in a classroom when THE WORLD is so much more exciting and inspiring?! In the past year I've been to absolutely mind-blowing museums, libraries, and art galleries all over the planet (Sydney, Melbourne, Munich, Bern, London, Brighton) - magical buildings full everything from moon rocks and dinosaurs to ancient texts, historical artefacts, and thought-provoking artwork... Not to mention places like the Eden Project in Devon or Anne Frank's House in Amsterdam, or the stunning landscape and dynamic living cultures all these places are embedded in...
I'm still passionate about 'experiential education' (Experience + Reflection = Learning) and actively exploring/challenging the perception of (im)possibility in a wide range of contexts; however, it's not always easy living the way I do right now, and I don't expect this phase of my journey to last forever. (Afterall, change is the nature of the universe.) Although people often seem to assosciate my life with 'freedom' and 'adventure' I suspect few of them would actually choose to live it, because the uncertainty and lack of 'structure' or 'stability' can be scary, challenging, and acutely uncomfortable sometimes. (Yes, even for me; I've just had a lot of practice dealing with it.) It's difficult to feel different all the time, and repeatedly responding to simple social banter in an authentic way can be challenging because it brings up the big questions again and again ~ Who am I? Why am I here?
Even the 'easy' questions often lead to awkward answers:
Where are you from? - Canada
Where do you live? - Here; Now, (in this moment at least)
How long will you be here? - I don't know
Where are you going next? - I don't know
When are you going home? - I don't know
What do you do for a living? - I don't know
Don't you have a job or something? - No
Don't you NEED a job?! - No, apparently not (at this moment in time anyway)
WTF?! How does that work?! - I don't know/long answer...
I could easily make up answers to these questions and nobody would ever notice. But instead I try to answer honestly and give people a glimpse into who I am and what I do, which takes a lot of work. From one perspective I'm 30, homeless, and unemployed - no wife, no house, no car, no kids... (no worries!); from another perspective I'm successfully self-employed as a globe-trotting independent speaker/consultant; or if you prefer, just a lighthearted and slightly eccentric lebenskünstler freely roaming the earth on a self-directed spiritual quest in search of wisdom, compassion, beauty, magic, intuitive insight, enlightenment, god... or whatever I happen to find along the way!
I find it interesting that people associate me or my current life(style) with things like freedom and adventure, when from my perspective it seems to be composed of an unpredictable series of perfectly 'ordinary' moments - sitting on a bench under a big leafy tree; enjoying the afternoon sunshine, a warm autumn breeze, or the first snow of winter; eating homemade pumpkin soup and a fresh salad in the home of a friend; biking through a forest, swiming in a river, and exploring the exotic yoghurt options as I shop for groceries in a foreign language - it's (merely?) the adventure of daily life unfolding, paying attention to the novelty of this irreplaceable moment of life experience, and the sense of freedom is simply a reflection of being consciously aware that wherever I am, I am there by choice ~ here, now, by conscious choice...
Why do I choose to live like this? Because I honestly can't think of a better way to spend my time. (But I'm always open to suggestions!) I've basically been living out of a small travel pack for over a year now, wandering the earth at my own pace, allowing life to unfold, and encountering the most extraordinary people along the way ~ warm, friendly, incredibly generous, and genuinely inspiring people! I cannot find the right words to adequately express the depth of my gratitude and appreciation for these people... Regardless of how you know me or when we last saw each other, if I've sent you this it's because you're one of them ~ Independence is a myth, an ego-centric illusion sustained by misperception. We are inextricably woven into this biosphere, fundamentally inseparable from the natural ecosystems and human communities we are immersed in and rely upon. The life I seem to live would be impossible without people like you. My own unique journey and worldview has been shaped in some way by your personal influence and involvement in my life, so THANK YOU! For everything, for existing, for making the world a better and more beautiful place by being here...
with a warm hug, genuine gratitude, and best wishes for you and your loved ones,
love tom
Ps - a simple gift acquired on my journey, wisdom worth sharing:
"When you realise that enough is enough, then you will be truly rich."
~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is Thank You, it will be enough."
~ Meister Eckhart, 13th century German mystic/theologian/philosopher
