Russia: Idols be Gone - completing the loops

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

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:

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.

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.

~~~Robert Frost
.......

You are soooo tall! Once again, I was in awe with Russian pines!