Land of Entrapment

While their license plates say that New Mexico is the Land of Enchantment, I've heard more than once from more than one independent source that New Mexico is the Land of Entrapment. It's felt like the Hotel California: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

I have been trying to leave for two days now.

Yesterday, I tried to leave, and I made it from Santa Fe, where I have been staying, to Albuquerque, almost 45 minutes away, before I turned around and went back to Santa Fe. I decided to leave yesterday because I had a schedule to keep and places I planned to see. I'd already delayed a day. I have a car to return in a couple weeks. I had almost 8,000 miles to cover. I have friends who have lives and schedules and they want to see me, and I want to see them. They have bosses and jobs and all that nonsense that I had to respect. I had to get going. That was my thinking when I decided to leave.

Gratefully, I did not get too far down the road before I was struck by an idea. It honestly felt like a divine inspiration. I'll prefer to think that it was from the Land of Enchantment/Entrapment...or call it God, if you're inclined. I'll just say that it felt like something bigger than me was lovingly slapping me upside the head and saying, "Hey Chica, WTF are you doing? You say you took this trip to get answers to some of life's hard questions, to do new things, to explore new paradigms, to get a new framework for looking at and living life. And you're leaving because you are afraid that you won't get enough of your arbitrarily set mileage under your wheels, because your supposed friends would -- what? -- stop talking to you if your schedules did not mesh up? This is about putting on your own air mask first, Chica. You have good friends. They will be there for you, whether it works to see them now or not. This is not about your schedule, a schedule that you made up and you can change, by the way. You need to take care of yourself right now." That's what the voice -- except I get "messages from God" as feelings, not voices -- that's what the feeling said to me.

I have actually been learning and exploring a lot about myself and my questions here in Santa Fe, and when I have wanted to leave, it hasn't felt right so far. In fact, while my friends were perfectly willing to let me go if I wanted to, it felt like they were begging me to stay. (They're pretty intuitive friends.) And I have wanted to go, or said I wanted to go, to keep my schedule and my goals intact. Yet, I've done things like engaged in extremely stimulating hours-long conversations about esoteric, intellectual ideals for just long enough that leaving at that later hour seemed impractical. I think my higher self was sabotaging my plans knowing that I enjoy few things more than stimulating conversation. I did get some good personal insights along the way, so it wasn't totally just mental masturbation!

Actually, I had quite a full day yesterday. When I unpacked again at my friends' house for yet another night, I was spent. I took a long nap and then slept a full night on top of it. It seemed like my body just needed time to integrate all the new insights. I'd spent a lot of time yesterday with my friend, Judy, at the Scher Center for Wellbeing, and I have been staying with my friends, Srideep and Laura. Laura is also a practitioner at the Center. After I talked (and cried) with both of them yesterday, I realized what they do for a living and what they were doing, very intensively, for/with me, was precisely what I'd been looking for. It added to all the other things I have been doing here in Santa Fe.

I think I will leave today, to see my friends in California, but it will be with a lot of new wisdom about me; how I make choices; which kinds of choices work for me and which don't; how I think and act when I am/am not living from a energized, resourceful place; how to stay energized; why that matters, etc. I know a lot of this stuff, since I have also been studying it for the past few years, but I forget. Like many people, I sometimes get sucked into what we tend to call life, and I forget what living is all about.

I am definitely not saying that I have the answers to the questions I set out to seek, and I am not sure they will come in such a stark way. Right now, I am working on BEING in a most authentic way, and I expect the answers will come. In fact, I fully expect that the "questions" will change in such a way that what I am referring to here as "answers" will probably be irrelevant. New questions will come instead.

I've officially decided to scrap the schedule and itinerary. I think I am leaving Santa Fe, for now, but I might be back. It is the Land of Entrapment, after all. I really want to see my friends in California. This stop has been just what I needed. I trust that I will know what I need to do when I need to do it next, and I trust it will come to me at just the right moment.