Reentry to the "Real World"- #41

Coming back to Earth without burning up in the atmosphere

Aloha! Nice to see you back here after my week off.

Now we arrive at the midpoint of 1997, and nearing the end of the six years about which I plan to write. I truly appreciate you making this journey with me. Since this is memoir, the episode is not standalone - it follows from previous ones. I do try to provide some links to much earlier posts that newer readers might have missed. You can find all the posts in the Archives. And if you have not yet subscribed, you can also hit the button below, entering your email address to get a list of previous posts and then have new ones delivered by email. It is free - but you are welcome to support me and pay if you can afford it.

Anyone who has completed a meditation retreat, 3-day, 10-day or longer - or taken a weeklong backpacking trip in the high country - or indulged in a horse trek through the Snowy River outback of Australia - knows that re-entry to everyday life can be tough. Sure there might have been that point in the retreat or trek where stuff came up. External discomfort from the elements, maybe a snowstorm in August covering the trail. Internal, deeply buried emotional shit - shame or anger or grief - slapping you in the face. But there was nowhere to go except through it, and beyond that moment was a tumble into stillness, the respite of nothing beyond the breath followed in meditation or straining for oxygen at 14,000 feet. Momentary presence. The nervous system finally at rest.

So yeah, actually this is me on a Snowy Mountain Ride in Australia over a decade before this time, but it was one of those magical interludes that sprang to mind to illustrate my point.

I had learned from shorter wilderness experiences and definitely from my trip to the Himalayas with Vijali, that it would be wise not to fly directly from Kahului to JFK airport (not that there was or is a direct flight) intending to dig right in to my new ventures. I gave myself the month of June to gradually adapt. Another June of reentry, echoing my return to Manhattan from my five weeks of travel five years before.

After a brief check in with the gang on Oʻahu, I flew to my point of departure, which had actually been Denver, not Manhattan. My patient parents were visibly relieved to know that their daughterʻs gap “year” aka pre-midlife practice retirement was coming to an end. Marlies and Prageet had retrieved the RV and picked up the girls from their father. The family was camped at an RV park in southwestern Colorado that also had cabins for rent. I booked one and drove down to celebrate Maluʻs birthday. After that the girls would be returning with their dad to Paradox for the summer, and Marlies and Prageet were off to begin their workshop itinerary.

The setting of the RV park was lovely, but the cabin was a bit dreary with dark log cabin walls and tired faux-Pendleton horse blanket decor. I immediately set to work using the techniques Iʻd learned from Marlies to uplift the frequency and set a protective energetic space. She came by for a chat and shortly thereafter Prageet joined us. He plopped down in an armchair and promptly dozed off. Marlies and I looked at him in amusement. “Are you two not getting enough sleep?” I asked. “Itʻs not that,” Marlies explained. “You and I have gotten used to a frequency that most other people cannot handle. Typically when people come into that refined energy they feel sleepy or else get uncomfortable and make an excuse to leave. Or sometimes they make some kind of mess to drop the frequency to a more comfortable level.”

I moved some objects around to relax the space. Prageet woke up with an expression like Sleeping Beauty or Rip Van Winkle in the fairy tales - not even aware that things had changed while heʻd been knocked out. Whoa.

He could be intense and controlling but both Prageet and his guide Alcazar did have a playful side. Maluʻs birthday dinner ended with all of us chasing each other around with aerosol cans of Reddi-wip, theoretically purchased to top the birthday cake and ice cream. The girls were glowing in the summer twilight, secure in the commitment of their expanded parental circle. And I was ready to move on.

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I decided to land in New York just before the 4th of July weekend. I had given up my apartment on St Lukes Place, but over the holiday weekend Nancy would not be using the East Village apartment/office where I was renting her downstairs space to store my landing gear, and I would be undisturbed for the first few days. That seemed like a reasonable plan to make a quiet reentry to the bustle of Manhattan and begin looking for a new perch.

My flight landed well after dark. I took a taxi to East Tenth Street and crashed hard. The next morning was the holiday itself. I woke up and ventured out onto the avenue, hoping to find a quiet coffee shop for breakfast. Ironically, the only place open was a Starbucks. The sheer level of movement on the streets - people, cars, taxis, busses - combined with the bright commercial cheer of the Starbucks, assaulted my inner sense of stability. I was almost trembling as I walked with my tall black coffee and breakfast sandwich a few short blocks back to the apartment.

Caffeinated and restabilized, I pondered. In a single block I was seeing and feeling the energy of more people than I would encounter in a week on Maui. This, then, was my next task. To be able to remain centered - or at least come back to center - no matter what was happening in the environment. Surely I would need this in both the ventures I was taking on - bringing Carmanʻs music to a larger audience through an alliance with Whitney Houstonʻs management team, and taking over International Skye and its educational programs for high net worth families.

It was time to retrieve my business world skill set and unpack my Hermes scarves and Ferragamo pumps. The task was to reengage in the entertainment and finance worlds of Manhattan, but with the inner calm of a Buddhist nun emerging from cave retreat. Or so I thought. The reality would continue to be a lot more complex.

To be honest, 25 years later I still get thrown by external forces. I still work on this practice. Almost daily. Itʻs the very nature of the job. My job is not to be a channel, a recluse, the Happy Medium watching the world from afar through her crystal ball. Iʻm more one of the Mrs - Whatsit, Which and Who. I mean, if you are reading this perhaps you are also one of those celestial beings incarnated to serve in the thick of things as Warriors of the Light. (If the reference to the Mrs of A Wrinkle in Time is confusing, you might want to read my What Happened Before What Happens Happens post).

To engage in the world while being truly present to it, with open heart and listening ears, holding its complexity and paradox and possibility, the ugliness and the beauty - that is the work of a lifetime.

When I left The Bank at the end of 1994 I thought I would be applying my business skills to the world of the arts. I was only halfway there in my understanding. Two and a half years later, I understood I was to become a walker - or maybe a unicycle rider - on the thin line between even more disparate worlds. The training wheels were coming off and my next chapter was about to begin.