Intermountain Touchfeeling

I have done a bunch of these ten-day Vipassana Meditation courses by now, both sitting them and serving them. This one feels different to me. It might be because this one comes at a particularly changeful time in my life, and frankly, it felt crucial to me to get the most out of this course this time. I am hoping that writing about my experience with this course can help me to sort out my thoughts, feelings and insights from this course. 

I went into this course with a clear sense of purpose: to get a handle on my own problems with anxiety. This past year or so I have had a lot of struggles with anxiety, and these problems have only gotten worse as time has progressed. It's gotten so bad that I realized that I needed to take action to deal with it directly. I have seen psychotherapists before, but I have not found them to be particularly helpful for me in this area. I also was clear within myself that I do not want to go the path of medications and chemical substances. These may or may not always be effective, but regardless of that, people and things are not always there available to support you. Anxiety and panic attacks can strike anytime and anywhere, and I wanted something that I could use that could meet this reality. Vipassana is something that I already had personal experience with, and I knew that it was something that I could always use, regardless of my circumstances. My problem was that I was not established in my practice of Vipassana. My experience thus far was a whole series of intense experiences with various meditation courses, not something that I had integrated into my daily experience with life. So that then was my mission going into this course: to get established with my Vipassana practice to have it be integrated into my daily life.

When a big chunk of time opened up due to shifting plans, Liz and I then chose to use that time to go pursue sitting and serving at a Vipassana meditation center somewhere. We chose Dhamma Pasava, aka the Intermountain Vipassana Center, located in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. We chose this location because it is in a part of the country that neither of us had pre-existing personal experience with, because it was a Vipassana Meditation center that I had never been to before, because it is a relatively new center, and because it is located close by to some natural hot springs that we could go soak in after the various meditation courses were over. When I saw that a fellow NGL person chose to go away on a Buddhist meditation retreat during the time period around the U.S. presidential elections, I was inspired and decided to follow their example with that. The U.S. presidential elections were one big consistent stimulus for a lot of the anxiety that I was experiencing and I loved the idea of being somewhere peaceful and supportive when all the hubbub surrounding it reached it’s crescendo. So our plans were made, we were to do two ten-day Vipassana Meditation courses consecutively before and after the time of the U.S. presidential elections. When the time came we set out on the big trip to Idaho.

The drive out to Idaho took us through a lot of places that I had never gone to before but had long heard about, namely, Sioux Falls, Wall Drug and Sturgis in South Dakota, as well as through the cowboy-themed state of Wyoming, with it's vast desolate plains and sprawling mountains. We finally arrived at our hotel in Pocatello, Idaho the night before our first Vipassana Meditation course was scheduled to begin. I was quite impressed by the vast mountain landscape surrounding us there, something that was consistent throughout our entire time in Idaho. We had dinner from an Indian restaurant that night, which was reminiscent of our time spent at the Dhamma Sikhara Vipassana Meditation Centre located in the Himalayan Mountains of India exactly ten years previous. That night I had a bad panic attack and could barely get any sleep. The next morning we went to the Intermountain Vipassana Center, me feeling bleary-eyed and beleaguered.

When we arrived there I discovered that they had me assigned to be the male student manager for the course, which is a role that I have served countless times before in the past and knew well. It is a high-intensity high-responsibility job of essentially being the point-person, go-between, and caregiver for all the male students who are sitting the course. I was reluctant to take on this job, since I knew how low-capacity I felt due to my current mental and emotional state. Begrudgingly, out of a desire to be helpful and contribute to others, I accepted this role. However after having a conversation with the Vipassana teacher the night of Day 0 about my personal struggles with anxiety and panic attacks over this past year, the teacher then changed his mind about that assignment the next day. I then switched over to working in the kitchen, mainly washing many many dishes by hand, which I did so joyfully. I then proceeded to have a very nourishing experience serving at that course. It turned out that the combination of meditating 3+ hours a day, having regular interviews with the teacher, reading Vipassana books from the center library, having great conversations with other servers, breathing the cool fresh mountain air and having a stunning backdrop of the Rocky Mountains was a winning combination for me. I re-entered the outside world with it now being a new month, a new daylight savings time, and also now a year older due to my birthday taking place during this course.

We then spent a couple of days at an Airbnb in nearby Pocatello where we got to catch up some on emails and messages received while we were at the Vipassana course. We went back to the Vipassana center on November 5th, Election Day, which was also the day before the next course started. I timed it that way so that I would be out of the media loop when all the news flurry around the election happened. The environment at the Vipassana center happened to be super-busy that day as well, since when we arrived at the center the kitchen and dining room were in the process of being packed up and moved up the mountain to a new building that was built specifically to be the new kitchen and dining room for the center. Dishes and supplies were being packed and moved up, as were some appliances. I worked together with the Vipassana teacher and bunch of other volunteers to move some heavy refrigerators out of the old kitchen building and into the new one. It was a hectic day of activity and I often had little understanding of what the greater picture was for how everything was supposed to play out.

Then the day for the next Vipassana course started and I eventually discovered that I was going to be sitting that course as a student, that I wasn’t going to be working as a server for that course. Originally both Liz and I signed up to be servers working at that course, but during the previous course both the Vipassana teacher and myself came to the same conclusion that it would probably be a good idea for me to sit that course as a student. This was because we agreed that in order for me to strengthen my personal practice of Vipassana meditation that me sitting another 10-day course could probably help me with that. So I moved into my new dorm room, waited around for a lot of that day, and met a bunch of the other guys who were also sitting that course with me. I was surprised to find that I connected a lot with a bunch of the other students who were sitting that course. A lot of people really opened up in these initial conversations with me: one guy told me about his problems in his marriage, another guy told me about his discomfort and questions about staying with his job and the place he was living at, another guy shared how he’s had a difficult year. Connecting with these guys then, along with the fact that I already knew the teachers, student managers and center managers from the previous course that just happened there, gave me a really solid foundation going into this course. Noble Silence then began, the initial Anapana meditation instructions were given, and the course was on.

The first day of the course, I felt super confident and sure of myself with this course. I was certain that I was going to learn a lot in this course and that everything was going to be smooth sailing for me with this. I felt like a Vipassana superhero.

The second day of the course I was an emotional mess. I was questioning myself, my Vipassana abilities, and my whole life direction in general. It eventually got to the point where it was one of the scheduled break times and instead of taking a nap like I intended, I was just laying in bed crying my eyes out. I then decided to try to have a last-minute conversation with the teacher, which I was able to do in a desperate frantic state right before he left the interview room. The teacher reassured me that all things are impermanent, including my emotional struggles, and that it was good that I have been able to tap into some real experiences so early on here. Talking with him was a great help, and I was eventually able to settle down and meditate more calmly the rest of that day.

The third day of the course I came to the conclusion that there was no point in me even thinking about going to the 5pm Tea Break in the dining hall, and that my time was instead better spent walking around the mountainous trails outside within the course boundaries. The teacher told me that getting physical exercise is a good strategy for addressing anxiety, plus the mountain scenery was wonderful and I loved the cool mountain air, so I just went for it. Walking around outside at 5pm became a part of my new daily routine.

After the evening group sit was over that night I excitedly approached the teacher in the meditation hall and said, “I think that I have finally gotten the hang of Anapana meditation! It’s like a car that is driving down the road and my body’s automatic breathing process is in the driver’s seat and my conscious awareness is sitting in the back seat.” He then replied, “that is a good analogy and it is good if that helps you. But remember that at some point that analogy will go away and that you will again have to bring your attention back to your breathing.”

The fourth day I spent the first half waiting with much anticipation for the initial Vipassana instructions to be given. With every Vipassana course that I have ever been a part of, either as a student or as a server, I have been somehow personally moved by the Vipassana instructions given on Day 4. This particular day also happened to be the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, so I anticipated this one to be a particularly moving experience for me in some way. The time eventually came, I followed the instructions the best I could, but I felt nonplussed. The instructions then ended with Goenka closing it all with saying “Be Happy”, and then it hit me like a punch in the gut. The students slowly filed out of the meditation hall and I remained there, feeling wave after wave of emotion wash over me. I eventually left the meditation hall and went for a walk outside. I felt surprisingly peaceful.

I could not get much sleep on the night of day four / morning of day five and as a result of this I spent day five in a grumpy, impatient and irritable mood. I had difficult focusing that day, my meditation practice sucked, and at one point I inadvertently slammed the table in the dining room that I sat at while some of the other students were still eating there. I felt guilty for doing that, while also feeling pissed at the situation, and pissed at the whole world too for that matter.

Day six I started noticing a bad smell in the meditation hall, which was beginning to be distracting to me. I asked the male student manager about it, and he said that there was a problem with the drainage system in the new kitchen. He said that one of the center managers was working on addressing it. I was relieved to know that that smell did not exist only in my mind and that it was a real-life thing that other people also noticed.

On day seven there was one of the most spectacular sunsets that I have ever seen. This happened at around 5pm and I was lucky to have been able to watch it all while standing on the side of a mountain. I was moved to tears by this sunset, which I suppose now makes me the kind of guy who cries at sunsets. This sunset was shortly followed by a moonrise on the other side of the sky. I was beaming with joy at having witnessed all of this.

I decided to have another private conversation with the Vipassana teacher on day eight. I talked with him about my problems with anxiety and he told me: “This anxiety that you have, THIS is your meditation.” I then gave the smartass reply, “What, an anxiety meditation? Is there a term for that in the Pali language?” He smiled and then explained that when I am feeling my anxiety to just stop and feel the sensations in my body that correspond with that. He said to notice where in my body that anxiety shows up most as distinct sensations, and to also notice the other sensations that I am feeling as well that do not relate to that anxiety. To just feel it all, notice it all, without any need to label or judge these sensations or to try to change any of it. In other words, to practice Vipassana meditation, but with a special anxiety theme to it. I left feeling energized by this talk, I somehow loved the thought that this anxiety that I have is MY meditation.

The morning of day nine one of the male students came into the meditation hall during the early morning group meditation and asked to speak with the teacher. The two of them went into the private meeting room, and the student then eventually left that room smiling and gave the thumbs-up sign. Later on during the morning group sit I heard the sounds of a car pulling up outside, doors open and shut, and eventually the sound of the car driving away. I later on asked the male student manager if that particular student had left the course, and he said that he did. I was really bummed out by that, since I felt like I had really connected with this guy on Day 0 and I was looking forward to talking with him again on Day 10 once Noble Silence was over.

Day ten then finally arrived and Noble Silence was over. I then talked with many different people that day, I had no rest breaks, and by the end of the day I was totally exhausted. The evening of that day I told another student that I still did not know who won the presidential election and he asked me if I wanted to know. I said “Yes” and he said “Trump”. That news hit me. He then went on to tell me about how the results of the election in some sense are pretty meaningless to him because of the Israel / Palestine war. He said that he has friends and former coworkers in Palestine who are in danger or possibly dead because of what Israel is doing there and that he can’t exactly bring himself to be a Kamala Harris supporter because of that. I then remembered something that I saw once on Facebook: “The entire US system must be dismantled if burning children alive in a hospital is the lesser evil”.

Day eleven came about the next morning, the closing formalities of the course occurred and I then volunteered to wash a bunch of dishes in the kitchen. Liz and I then went to soak in the nearby natural hot springs and we ran into a few of the students who had just sat the course there. I was surprised to see that one of the guys whom I really connected with was there and we noticed that both of us have anarchist tattoos on our chests. Upon returning to the Vipassana center after that and hanging out there some, Liz and I decided to finally leave the center to avoid an oncoming snowstorm. I later discovered that driving the car on the highway again while listening to news stories on the radio turned out to be too much for me. I then had another panic attack occur. Liz took over driving the car while I closed my eyes and practiced Vipassana in the passenger seat til we arrived at a hotel to stay at for the night.

The day after that was also quite challenging for me emotionally. I suppose that this is a “re-integration” problem resulting from my having been at the Vipassana center for 25 days, which is the longest that I have ever been at any Vipassana center. Being in a beautiful peaceful environment for an extended period of time, practicing meditation regularly every day and being around lots of different people who share similar values that I have for self-improvement, compassion for all, and liberation from suffering lead to me to be very much out-of-sync with what was going on for the rest of the world. I was reconciling myself to the new reality that now outside that little Vipassana bubble, Donald Trump was now again elected president of the U.S., this time winning both the electoral vote as well as the popular vote, in addition to winning the House as well as the Senate. I was also reconciling myself to the news from the wars in Palestine, Lebanon and Ukraine with what I had just experienced in that little haven of peace and reflection nestled away in the Rocky Mountains. It was all a bit much for me, and I felt at times paralyzed by these stark contrasts.

So that’s a lot of stuff, what did I learn from all of this, how did it change me, and most importantly, was my problem with anxiety fixed? My answer is “I don’t know and no”. Perhaps unfortunately, no climactic moment of profound revelation and/or transformation occured for me at this course. I do have a few thoughts though, perhaps more than a few. My biggest takeaway is from my meeting with the Vipassana teacher on day eight: anxiety is my meditation. When I feel it, when I experience panic attacks, when I notice it controlling my life, my job is to just notice it and be with it. Basically, feeling anxiety is a sign that I need to meditate. Anxiety can strike anytime anywhere, and likewise anytime anywhere can be a place for me to meditate. I have noticed a remarkable effects on my anxiety when I meditate, it does reduce quite a bit, sometimes it even goes away. However, it is all impermanent, since it does come back again later on. Everything is impermanent, both anxiety and the lack thereof.

The big prescription of what I am to do next is that I should establish a practice of Vipassana meditation of sitting for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening every day. This is a message that I received from the recordings of Goenka during the course, from my teacher of the course, and from my fellow students and servers. I have already failed at this task since leaving the center. However, I do intend on establishing this routine in the future. The way I look at it, I have already experienced plenty of Vipassana meditation courses now, both as a student and as a server, and that my next big scary difficult Vipassana meditation experience is to have a daily practice of one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. In a way, this prospect intimidates me more than doing another course does. It involves a reorganizing of my daily life and a rearranging of my life’s priorities. It is much easier for me to go to some exotic new place, have a wild and crazy adventure, and then go back home and write about it.

As far as the new world that I have found myself in, well, that is another difficult thing for me to come to terms with as well. I remember when I was informed of who won the presidential election on Day Ten of this course, one of the things that I said after that was “these Vipassana courses emphasize is the concept of “anicca”, impermanence. All things are impermanent. What this election results points to is the impermanence of the USA. It’s all going away.” Relatedly, the song The Day The World Went Away by Nine Inch Nails has been playing in my head a lot since I heard the news from this election.

I would add that this concept of anicca applies on all levels, across the board. The loved ones in my life are impermanent, as evidenced by the death of my father. My own youth is impermanent, as shown by the birthday that I had while at the Vipassana center. These Vipassana courses are impermanent, as shown by the fact that this course is now over, despite the fact that at times it felt like it was going on forever. All things are impermanent, that’s one of the difficult lessons to learn that keeps on coming up, again and again.

I do feel as if I have now entered a new era of U.S. history, as well as an another period of my life. For one, I notice that my interest in following politics has diminished. I used to have a great desire to consume lots of political news, analysis and commentary, across all media. I now notice that that simply does not interest me as much. I just don’t see the point in it any longer. Instead of this, it seems much more important for me to focus on my own mental health and emotional state, the ways that I can better support and contribute to the relationships that are important to me and the projects that I am committed to. Politics now seems to me to be on par with all of the audio/visual entertainment that I have so voraciously consumed these past few years: a distraction from what’s real and what’s important in my life.

A phrase came to my mind while meditating once, “start where you’re at and work with what you’ve got”. I originally thought of that as being a principle to work with when trying to practice Vipassana meditation, but I now feel like that has much more significance. Yatha bhuta, as it is.

Travels and Transitions

Quite a lot has happened since I posted that last blog post filled with eagerness and yearning to travel. For one, I did indeed travel. At the end of June I went out to the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB) in Asheville, North Carolina. This was the first big public in-person explicitly anarchist event that I have attended in over ten years. I kind of drifted away from going to big public in-person explicitly anarchist events due to the ongoing prevalence of messy public controversies and physical altercations that tend to accompany such events, and not to my surprise there was just such an occurrence at this event as well. Regardless of that, however, I had a great time at this event! I reconnected with a number of different people whom I have known for a long time and who have been important parts of my life, and I met a number of different wonderful people there as well. It was also encouraging for me to see in-person that there are indeed still anarchists in this world, that anarchists are not just apparitions on a screen and notes in a history book, that they are indeed real people who live, love and fight.   

Upon returning to Minneapolis we then went through the long arduous process of packing up and moving out of our apartment. As expected, this process was more elaborate and complicated than expected. We lived in that apartment for eight years, which is the longest that I have ever lived in one place my entire life. A lot of different material possessions accumulated throughout the course of our time there, many of which were given away to new homes to hopefully find new lives there, and many of which were packed into boxes and moved into the purgatory of an old attic. 

Then eventually our cross-country travels began in earnest. First we drove to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then to northern Michigan, and then to the Detroit / Ann Arbor metro area. We saw my brother whom I haven't seen in years, we spent time with many different relatives, we met some people associated with NGL (Nonviolent Global Liberation) and we saw the new headstone for my father's burial plot. We met up with an old friend in Goshen, Indiana and then crossed into Canada to meet an NGL friend in Kingston, Ontario.

The beginning of August then marked the beginning of our time concentrated in the New England region. We were graciously hosted for a month by friends who have a lifesharing home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. This served as our home base while we explored the variety of different Camphill intentional communities that are in that area, visited other affiliated lifesharing homes, met up with other NGL people in New England, and explored the rich local history that encompasses everything from old Shaker villages, Norman Rockwell, Shays's Rebellion and Alice's Restaurant Massacree. Also during this time period I spent a few days volunteering at Dhamma Dharā, the first and largest Vipassana Meditation center in North America, which was quite an inspiring and rejuvenating experience for me. 

Further time in New York State then resulted in us visiting two different intentional communities that are not Camphill communities but are still based in Anthroposophy, spending time with a new NGL friend and an old anarchist friend, meeting up with the NVC / Restorative Justice superstar Dominic Barter and staying at the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Rochester, New York. 

We then spent a week in Camphill Village Kimberton Hills where we reconnected with old friends, met a bunch of people who were new to us, and generally immersed ourselves in the Camphill lifestyle. The week after that was spent in Pittsburgh where we visited with relatives there, celebrated Liz' birthday and ate some wonderful Eastern European vegan food. We also had a foray into West Virginia where we met up with an old friend of mine who was pivotal in my first getting involved with egalitarian communities and then later Nonviolent Communication. 

Next we went to southern Ohio where we visited a friend who does the Hobo's Collective podcasts, and then went to Huntsville, Alabama where we visited a friend who did the Immediatism podcast. Also while in Huntsville we visited the gravesite for my father's father, as well as other relatives that are also buried out there. I have never visited my paternal grandfather's grave before, and seeing these gravesites in Alabama felt like the last installment of a whole series of deaths, funerals and gravesite visitations that began for me in September of last year. 

The whole reconciling-with-my-past phase was not over for this trip, however, since we then did the long drive out to Lawton, Oklahoma to see the place where I was born and spent the first eight years of my life. We timed our trip there to see the annual International Festival that takes place there. This event is something that my father first helped create 45 years ago and that I have fond memories of attending back when I was a small child. I am amazed that this event still continues on after all this time, and I made sure to inform the organizers of the event of my father's passing. During the opening ceremony of the International Festival the news of my father's death was mentioned and Liz & I stood up before the crowd as honored guests for the occasion. I found this whole experience to be quite moving. 

The final leg of the journey was going to Fayetteville, Arkansas where we spent a couple of days with an NGL friend and then Springfield, Missouri where we spent a couple of days with a friend from the intentional community scene whom I've known for a long time. While in Springfield, we also recorded an episode of the Cults I'd Join podcast together. You can find this episode here.

This then brings me to where I am at now, back in Minneapolis. The initial period of vagabonding is over, and now is the time for rest, reorienting, figuring out next steps. Some steps have already been discerned, namely:

We plan on going out to Idaho for about a month for me to volunteer at a Vipassana Meditation center that's there. I am really wanting to do this so that I can better establish for myself a regular ongoing daily practice of meditation, which is something that I have struggled with and repeatedly failed at achieving for years now. This year in particular has been quite difficult for me with regard to dealing with my own anxieties, and I really want to develop within myself greater capacity for achieving inner peace and stability, without relying on other people or chemical substances. Having a solid Vipassana Meditation practice seems like a good way to do that. Likewise, having that sense of inner peace, consistent stability and nonreactive discernment seems like a good foundation from which I can then build up all of the other projects that I want to engage with. 

The other thing that we have planned is for us to spend a few months out in northern Missouri to try living together with some other people who are also a part of NGL and are interested in establishing a new intentional community based on NGL somewhere in the U.S. NGL is something that I have studied and talked about a lot these past few years, but so far it is not something that I have actually lived together with other people in-person. So I am wanting to have a lived experience of it all, and I am also wanting to see if these other people who are wanting to create a new intentional community are people whom I can live and work together with in-person in ways that are fulfilling for everyone. It's an ongoing step-by-step process, learning & integrating new things, as well as meeting and getting to know people, and this time in Missouri will all be a part of that process. 

Ultimately what I want this whole "process" to lead me to would be some kind of living situation that I am a part of where people are living and working together in non-hierarchical collaborative ways, supporting one another in meeting everyone's needs. I would like for there to be explicit and robust systems & agreements in place to support the group's flow of information, resources, feedback, decision making and conflict when it arises. I would like for the group to be oriented towards service, particularly with regards to supporting people who are in need of special care of some kind. The "caregiving" that takes place I would like to be carried out in a way that focuses on integration of the person receiving care with the wider web of life in it's many different expressions, and I would like for it to be holistic in nature with the many different types of needs and aspects of one's humanity acknowledged & cared for. I would also like for the people who are committed to supporting such a group to have a personal commitment to ongoing development of one's own capacities for self-awareness, somatic attunement and empowered choice. 

Reading this last paragraph, it strikes me that what I am looking for is quite a tall order, like what I am seeking is some kind of mythical & mystical unicorn. But I in the end do believe that what I am seeking is possible, that underlying all of it are distinct identifiable skillsets and capacities that people can choose to learn, develop and practice. What I am doing now is trying to identify and build up all these capacities within myself, and my hope is that in the process of doing this that I will come into contact with other people who have similar commitments within themselves. From the meeting and building up of relationships with such people, new community projects can eventually be built. 

Since we have visited these places, change has continued apace. For one, the wonderful Asheville, North Carolina area that we visited at the end of June was devastated by Hurricane Helene at the end of September. Likewise, one of the people connected with the Camphill movement who we saw while visiting Pennsylvania passed away just a few days ago. And who knows what is in store for us all, considering the upcoming elections, ongoing wars, and global climate change. It increasingly seems to me like trying to predict the future, and relying on these predictions, is not a firm basis for anything. Throughout all of this, I take inspiration from the story of Karl König and the people who first created the Camphill movement. They created Camphill in the context of the Great Depression and World War 2, fleeing persecution from the Nazi regime in Central Europe and facing internment for being refugees in a foreign land, yet they were still able to create this wonderful movement which survives to this day and has enriched the lives of countless people throughout the world. 

So I don't know where I am going to wind up in the end. I've spoken some here about where I've been, and where I hope to go. I hope to write more as I continue along my way. And I hope to meet you somewhere along the journey.

42 Days

Perhaps my last blog post left people hanging... My partner Liz had her surgery, it went well, and it was determined that she does not have cancer. She had her recovery from all of that at home, and now that whole episode, which was so intense for us emotionally at the time, is now pretty much a thing of the past. Her surgery was 42 days ago.

I feel like I am now in a state of preparation for another big transition in my life. We plan on moving out of our apartment six weeks from now, i.e. in 42 days. This feels like a big transition for me. We have lived at the apartment that I am at since 2016, and starting in six weeks I will enter a new period of vagabonding. Ultimately, my big focus is on what I want to transition to.

Basically, I want to live in an intentional community. I want to live a life that is more integrated together with the lives of other people, where there is more cooperation, sharing and collective decision-making. I am wanting to live a life where there is more active mutual support, people looking out for each other's well-being, assisting where there are limitations, empathically listening when that's needed, etc. Since I have lived in intentional communities before in the past, I know that this kind of thing is certainly not always the case for intentional community living. I suppose that what I am talking about here, what I am personally longing for, is to be a part of a special certain kind of intentional community where these things are present.

I do think that it is possible to intentionally create social situations where these kinds of relationships are in place. This requires a lot of awareness of what behavior patterns and actions are taking place between people, making clear and specific agreements and also having a clear and reliable means to give feedback to one another. There's certainly more that can be said about this topic, but now is not the time to go into all of this.

I am also wanting a community that has an orientation of service to others, as well as a holistic view of people. I would also like for the community to be what Twin Oaks Community calls "income-sharing" and what Nonviolent Global Liberation (aka "NGL") calls "risk sharing". I would also like for the place to be intergenerational, with a focus on dialogue and connection. So far the Camphill model for intentional communities is what I have found that comes the closest to the kind of thing that I am looking for. My ideal would be to have a Camphill-style intentional community that is based on NGL instead of Anthroposophy.

Right now however, I am confronted with the fact that I am accustomed to living a much more isolated mainstream life. I am habituated to separation from others, essentially. I have lived in intentional communities before in the past, yes, but that was quite some time ago, and to put it bluntly: I am just not used to it now. I certainly have much learning, skills development and personal growth to do in this area.

My journey going forward will be to see what communal living is like again, to travel places, meet people, have conversations, and figure things out gradually with the hopes of eventually being able to approximate the kind of life that I want to have.

Until I can get started on that, however, I have an apartment to clear out, plans to make and logistics to juggle. I do feel like I am slowly taking actions to move towards the kind of life that I want to live, and I need to continually remind myself to be patient and not move faster than I am able. If I move too fast, I tend to make hasty decisions and can easily make avoidable mistakes. I am excited for the future to come, and at the same time I am repeatedly needing to ground myself in the present moment, in the here & now. It's the ongoing dance between the vision of what I am wanting and acceptance for where I am at right now.

At the same time as all of this, there is the ongoing flood of news of what is going on in the world. There's the ongoing global climate catastrophe, the continuing horrors coming out of Gaza, the looming threat of nuclear war with Russia, ongoing threats of violence related to this year's U.S. Presidential Election and the possibility of a new Trump fascist dictatorship. Closer to home for me now, there was a mass shooting in Minneapolis recently close to an apartment building that I used to live at, as well as a bunch of animal abuses uncovered right down the street from where I live currently. My own sensitivity to and compassion for the suffering of others can sometimes seem like a curse to me, because I frequently get overwhelmed with grief and despair over all of these things. I hate this shit. This is not the kind of world that I want to live in.

My hope is to find other people with whom I can work with who more or less share the same kind of vision, purpose and values that I have who are interested and able to work together with me to create the kind of world that I want to live in. Or at the very least, create a little tiny social setting that reflects that new "world". This is what my vagabonding will be about. It will not be travel for the sake of travel, learning for the sake of learning. I want to find my people, to find my comrades, in person. And once we find each other, we would have far more capacity to create together the kind of world that we want.

Transition Phases

It seems to me as if my life is at something of a crossroads right now. I figure that for the sake of my own inner clarity it would help to spell out some of what all is going on. Perhaps putting it all into writing could help with you, dear reader, understanding more of where I am coming from as well. These are my hopes, at least. 

It all started for me around September of last year (2023) when a client at the group home that I was working at was sent to the hospital, and then eventually was released from the hospital and put on hospice. I saw the hospice program operating up close in it's full compassionate glory over the course of a few weeks, along with seeing various relatives and former staff coming to visit the group home to be present for the dying process of this client and to say their "good-bye" to the client. Eventually this client passed away on September 22nd. That happened to take place during a shift that I was working, so I saw this client die in-person. This was the first time that I have ever seen a human being die in real life. Later on that day, I spoke with my father on the phone where I told him about what had happened. Little did I know, that phone conversation would be the last conversation that I would ever have with my father. 

A funeral took place shortly thereafter for this deceased client. I attended this funeral, as did my wife Liz, my coworkers, other clients, my boss at that time, as well as some of my past bosses, and of course various relatives of the client. I found that funeral service to be very nice, very touching. It was a respectful good-bye to a person whose life touched many. 

The day after that funeral took place, another event took place that was organized by my employer where I got to see many different people whom I worked with before in various different group homes in the past. It was at this event that I found out about the death of a previous client who I supported at a previous group home that I worked at. This client passed away on February 28th, 2023, but I only found out about it at that event in September. This client died in a rather horrific manner due to the negligence of the staff and management who were supposed to be caring for him at the time. I did some investigating into the manner, and found out that no funeral, memorial service or obituary was ever had for this person. I then visited the group home in person where this client lived and died at, a place that I had worked at for over four years. I confirmed that this person did indeed die there, right before I was kicked out of that house due to not receiving the permission of the management to be there ahead of time. This happened on October 7th, at the same time that the Hamas attacks on Israel were taking place. 

The war between Israel and Hamas that started on October 7th, and the subsequent genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli military has horrified me, enraged me, and left me feeling increasingly untethered from the social / political / economic world that we live in. After all, if both major political parties in the U.S. support this, and U.S. taxpayer money goes to support this, and everyday people are able to successfully block this all out from their conscious awareness, just like they do so many other atrocities that take place across the world, then... Then what? 

I was personally very shaken up by these events. In the days that followed, my mental and emotional health deteriorated, culminating in a breakdown at work where I just lost it and cried in front of my boss and coworkers. I sought the support of a grief counselor, which was quite helpful for me at that time. 

Then on November 10th my father passed away. I found out the news about this while I was at work, and upon hearing the news I just left my workplace mid-shift (after getting the consent from my other coworker on duty) and went home, booked a plane flight to Phoenix, Arizona (where my father lived and died), and Liz and I flew out to the next day. We got seats in the back of the crowded plane. I was seated next to a crying baby. Both of us were crying during that flight.

While there, Liz and I were able to work on my father's apartment and clear it out & clean it up, such that by the time that we were done it was all empty. We were able to arrange for a cremation to take place, and we viewed and said good-bye to the body. We retrieved, sorted through and dealt with the possessions that he had with him at the medical facility that he passed away at, and we sold his car. We informed his neighbors of his passing, and we settled up with his landlord. I feel incredibly grateful for the support network that came together to support me during this difficult time. Friends and relatives in the Phoenix area itself, as well as people further away, were of great help to me in numerous ways. A number of people in my father's apartment complex itself also spontaneously offered their assistance in the enormous task of clearing out my father's apartment. I feel quite moved by all of this. 

Upon returning back to Minnesota, I discovered that another client at the group home I worked at had been hospitalized while I was away in Arizona. Shortly after returning, he entered hospice. Unlike the previous client, this one was moved to his family's home in another town for him to go through the dying process there. 

In December of last year I went to Michigan, where I stayed at the home of my aunt and uncle, saw my mother who flew in for the holidays, and saw numerous other relatives from both sides of my family. Shortly after arriving in Michigan, I discovered that the client who was on hospice passed away on December 12th. I visited the grave sites of various deceased relatives, saw the newly cremated remains of my father and I had a number of intense personal conversations during that time. I felt a lot of grief, experienced a lot of intensity, and went through a lot of mourning.  I also got really sick during that time as well, and by the end of that Michigan visit it took all the energy I had to go out and see relatives for various family events. This was perhaps the most intense holiday time period I ever experienced, due to my mental, emotional and physical state at that time. After returning to Minnesota from this trip, I went to Urgent Care to see a doctor, due to my concerns over my illness. Eventually I got better.

The following few months I did much reflecting and introspection about my life, due to my experiences over the previous few months. I had a number of different insights as a result of this, one of which being that I no longer felt like it is in integrity for me to continue doing caregiving work in a traditional mainstream group home context. The idea behind having people with developmental disabilities residing in group home settings was to help with integrating these folks into local communities, to have them meet and interact with a variety of different people and to engage in a variety of different activities. The reality that I encountered, time and again in these group homes, was that the clients would stay within their homes and only leave to go on medical appointments. I would take clients out of the house to do various things, but I was usually the only staff who did this. People would applaud me for doing this, but were also not inspired to do the same thing themselves. I began to yearn for social environments where having clients engage in a variety of different activities with a variety of different people was integrated in with the very model of the institution.

I then remembered the Camphill movement, of which I was a part of years ago, and I started to appreciate it more and more for having the qualities that I was looking for in a healthy caregiving social environment. I then decided to quit my job. I had worked at this job for nine and a half years in total, and in multiple different group homes run by my employer, and now, I finally feel done with it. I had reached my limit.

My last day employed working at the group home was March 12th of this year, 2024. The following day, March 13th, I started a ten-day silent Vipassana Meditation course in Illinois. I had a lot of past experience with these Vipassana Meditation courses, both as a student and as a volunteer, but it had been about ten years since I previously was involved with these. This particular course turned out to be a very intense one for me, I got in touch with a lot of grief through the process of doing this course, and I was lucky enough to have a teacher guiding that course who was very supportive in the periodic interviews that we had. I left that course feeling much lighter and more grounded with my Vipassana Meditation practice. 

While driving back home to Minnesota from Illinois I received a phone call from Liz where I found out that Liz had seen a doctor and that an unidentified "mass" was detected in Liz' abdomen area. After receiving both an ultrasound and an MRI scan it was determined that it will need to be surgically removed. They do not know if it is cancerous or not, they will only be able to tell that once it is removed and they can examine it more closely. The date for the surgery was scheduled for April 23rd, and it will take up to six weeks for recovery from the surgery afterwards. 

Shortly after returning to Minnesota, we went back to Michigan for my father's memorial service and the burial of his remains. I wrote a eulogy for my father that I read out loud at his memorial service, which I am including for you here: 

My Eulogy For My Father

In my first memories of my father, Randy Mayes, he was the master of this majestic and wonderful world called "McMahon Auditorium", which was the municipal performing arts center for the City of Lawton, Oklahoma. I would run around, play, and explore all over that enormous building. Occasionally my father would stop whatever work-tasks he was doing and show me rooms and spaces in that building that I was previously unaware of. The awe and wonder of that place seemed infinite. My father would also introduce me to different people, both local and from far away, who would pass through the McMahon Auditorium. I saw plays, dances, operas, concerts and art exhibitions there, all organized by my father. And when he could, my father would introduce me to the performers and artists who were the honored guests of the moment. One of my fondest memories there as a little boy was when my father once took me to see a traveling theater troupe who were on a cigarette break together outside behind the building, and I got to sit in on the casual conversation of these performers. I was so thrilled by that, I felt like I was a real grown-up then, just hanging out with other grown-ups who just so happened to travel the world performing spectacular acts to large audiences.

My father's influence on Lawton extended well beyond the McMahon Auditorium as well. For example, my father helped bring a number of different sculpture art displays to Lawton at various public locations. My father also helped create the annual International Festival for Lawton. That festival still exists today, introducing many people to the arts, crafts, foods, music and more from different cultures all around the world. I attribute my attending that festival every year back then as being something that helped encourage in me, at a very young age, an appreciation for the diversity that can be found in people from all kinds of different countries.

When I was eight years old my parents divorced, which I believe was the biggest heart-break in my father's life. Through that difficult time my father was able to eventually rebuild himself, he went back to college and got an MBA degree, and he found jobs in other places. My father worked in many different places, all across the U.S., but regardless of where he worked he always had essentially the same role: he was the manager of a performing arts center. He was one of those rare people who worked in the same field throughout his career that he went to university to study.

I got to know many different parts of the U.S. through my father, both through visiting him over the years at the various places he lived at, as well as because of various road trips that we would go on together from time to time. I remember that together we visited all of the major battlefields of the American Civil War, we also visited the Alamo in San Antonio, saw Times Square together in New York City, we hiked some of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and we visited the ancient buildings that are on the sides of mountain cliffs that the Ancestral Puebloans built long ago in Arizona. These are just a few of the places that we went to together.

Underlying all of this was an appreciation for learning about the world and the universe around us. When I was little we had a subscription to National Geographic magazine and together we would look through different issues and he would read to me what was said in each article, explain to me whatever concepts I did not understand, and answer whatever questions I had. We talked about matters related to history, geography, space science, politics, biology, religion, geology and more. I think that so much of my own interest in these different topics today stems from the foundation that he created through those conversations I had with him at a very young age.

Our conversations continued too after the divorce, each weekend we would have a conversation over the phone, regardless of where he was living. As the Cold War ended and new periods of history came about for the U.S. and the world at large, my father was there as a regular presence for me in my life, explaining and commenting on everything that was happening as it happened. Right up to the very end, to one of the last few conversations we ever had, my father was there, explaining and commenting on this weird and wonderful world that we live in.

It wasn't just my life, however, many people's lives were touched by my father. After my father's passing I reached out to as many of his friends & colleagues as I could, informing them of his passing, and I found people who live all over the place, having met him through a variety of different circumstances. People spoke of his kindness, his warmth, his willingness to help others. For example, one man from the Netherlands told me about my father giving him a cane when he injured his foot, back when they were both at Perdue University. Others told me of how he was a supportive presence for them as they went through difficult periods of their life. Through the variety of different places across the country that my father worked at, combined with the decades that my father worked in that field, my father definitely made himself known in the world of performing arts management.

And then to the end of his life as well, when my father was living in an apartment complex in Phoenix, Arizona, I found there a vibrant scene of community that my father was a part of. People there knew my father, cared about him, and missed him when he was gone. Before my father's health issues started getting really intense, my father also worked some in the Phoenix area public schools as a substitute teacher, and there too he told me about the different kids that he worked with, how he enjoyed being a part of their lives, and how they came to get to know him and were happy when he would show up as a substitute for their class. My father certainly did have a skill of being able to connect with different people from a variety of different backgrounds.

I admit that, as an adult, I certainly did have my difficulties with maintaining our connection. I know that this was difficult for my father, as it was for me as well. I appreciate that my father never gave up on our relationship, that he forgave me for my shortcomings, and that when I requested having someone come in to mediate a dialogue between us, he agreed. No matter how hard things got, my father was always open to dialogue with me. I always knew that he loved me, regardless of where we were at.

And up to the very end, even after he lost most of his ability to hear, I always had a hope, a kind of faith, that this dialogue between us would continue, that our conversations about the world would continue to happen.

But then, like all things, that too came to an end, when he passed away. I suppose that the conversations can still continue though, in a different form, through maintaining an interest and curiosity about the world around us. Through getting to know different kinds of people. Through asking questions. I think that this is one lasting gift that my father gave me.  

I do miss him. I do love him. May he rest in peace.    

After Michigan we went to Indiana, where I met up with an old friend whom I had not seen in many years. From there we went to a cheap motel in a small town outside of Cleveland, Ohio where we saw the solar eclipse in the path of totality. I saw it with Liz in a field next to a farm and the shore of Lake Erie. It was amazing! Here is a picture of me there wearing my eclipse glasses:

This all brings me to where I am right now. The big thing that I am waiting for is Liz' surgery that is coming up. That is the main focus of my attention at the moment. This is because that surgery, Liz' recovery from it, and the discernment of whether or not Liz has cancer will determine much of what I do and where I will go next. I had many ideas on what I was going to do before Liz' medical situation came up, and now I am left in a state of complete not-knowing. 

Assuming that everything goes well, I do have ideas on where I would like to go and what I would like to do. I would like to travel around the U.S. and the world in general. I did this in 2014/2015, and I did the same in 2004 as well. So now my "ten year itch" is up and I would like to hit the road again. 

In particular, I would like to travel with three different "guiding lights", if you will, that would inform my travel destinations. These three are Camphill intentional communities, Vipassana Meditation centers, and people associated with Nonviolent Global Liberation. These types of destinations are informed by my life's purpose, which is two-fold:

"To support the creation and proliferation of utopian anarchist communities."

and

"Supporting people who are in need of special care".

I have been able to get clarity on this Purpose of mine through working with the Vision Mobilization framework for a few years now. 

I view Nonviolent Global Liberation, or "NGL" for short, as being the closest group/ideology out there that I am aware of that is working towards what I have in mind when I talk about utopian anarchism. I view Camphill communities as being the best model that I have come across so far that supports people in need of special care in ways that are truly holistic in outlook and integrated in approach. And I view Vipassana Meditation as being the foundational practice to help ensure being grounded, self-aware, and equanimous through the infinite complexity, uncertainty and changing nature of life. 

So this is where I am right now. I do not know where I am going, but I have more clarity on where I want to go now more than ever before. I feel much uncertainty and anxiety right now, but I also feel quite free and connected with various different people who care about me. Sadness and tears have been a regular part of my life these past few months, but so has empowerment, awe and wonder. I am indeed in a transitional phase right now.