Category: ASOWYA

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ASOWYA: Know it When You Feel It

Redwoods, Crescent City, California

Know It When You Feel It

ASOWYA

March 11, 2021

At different points along the trail in this life, you may find that you will, with no intention, gain a sense of where you are.

ASOWYA. A Sense of Where You Are. The Sense.

For me it is not only my specific place on a map, but my place in time, in view of where I have been and where I hope to go. It is close to that odd sensation of having been in a given place or situation before, as though in a dream. 

Déjà vu. 

But it is more than the moment being familiar, it is the significance of the moment in the context of everything I have ever known and ever hope to know. The sense is not particularly intellectual, offering contemplation. It is rather fleeting really. It’s just a sense of moving along my path, and also if that path has heart. You know it when you feel it.

Since about the age of nineteen or twenty I have loved being outside and walking real, tangible paths. This, more than anything else, has brought me the most happiness and kept me as sane as is possible. And the debate rages as to just how sane I am or am likely to be. I also like walking a path as a metaphor for passing through this mortal world. The ultimate thru hike. The grand adventures that spring up and make me glad I am alive. The others that cause me to wonder if the discomfort is temporary and an inevitable short term reality to push through, or if I should make a course correction. And for me, this is where ASOWYA creeps in telling me something, in an intuitive way, about the path I am traveling.

When everything resonates, I feel energetic, aware and blessed. In the zone, as it were. I eagerly look toward the next stretch of trail. Alternatively, when it feels I have somehow gotten off the path with heart, it is damned tough slogging. Sadly, it is seldom possible really, to go back to where I made the misstep. It is in another time. Passed. I bet you know what I mean. Perhaps I can bushwhack along a changed trajectory to regain what was once abandoned? Hard work, but perhaps necessary? 

Regardless, I try to be mindful of it. And this blog intends to offer the simple-minded musings that come my way as I alternately saunter, spring and crawl my way through paths real and intuitive. Perhaps mostly for my own entertainment and therapy. Perhaps a genuine nugget will show up. Dunno. I’ll see where the path leads as I go along.

Happy trails!

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ASOWYA: A Sense of Where You Are

Big Bend National Park, Texas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASOWYA: A Sense of Where You Are

February 19, 2021

“Where am I?

“Right here, directly above the center of the Earth.”

“But that is where I always am.”

“Yes, but it is where you are.”

“There must be more to it than that!”

“True, there are many things that fix one’s position. Some surround us, and some are within us.”

“Is that really something that can be clear? At all times?”

“No, but you can have a sense of where you are.”

“That sounds wise.”

“It is, but it is not from me. Bill Bradley, a prophet from the hardwood floors, a basketball player, observed 

‘When you have played basketball for a while, you don’t need to look at the basket when you are in close like this, you develop a sense of where you are.’ 

This is so wise that John McPhee, the legendary writer, used this as the title of a book about Bradley.”

“So this sense of where you are can be learned?”

“Not learned so much as cultivated. Through time and observation, it becomes intuitive, and with close inspection yields details as grains of truth.”

“Then it is worth paying attention.”

“It is.”