Paradise

 It had been more than 6 months after the adventures in my last blog. I was seated in my old familiar chair in the Netherlands. My many books held my attention from time to time and the old room where i grew up became ever more accustomed to my presence. It was here where i hid away from the world and the magic of every moment was put in normal daily practises that were shared by the majority of the population in the world. I worked in a cartire factory and as a dishwasher in the favourite vegan restaurant. I had seen a few girls and had visited some old friends. Time passed by as the winter expressed its emotions. But time came knocking on my door on one unexpected midday. It came in the form of a girl with a sentence: "I missed you for four years. I am ready. To live in paradise with you." Okay, she gave me more that a few sentences but this was what awoke me from my slumber. Slowly I recalled a moment four years ago. 

 There was a friend of her who hugged me in a forest that made it all happen. she had ran to Istanbul, took Odin by the hand and said to her that she had to meet a guy in a forest. We met under precarious curcumstances. She had a monogomous relationship, I was a young boy. We were not supposed to meet. But love could be tricky.

I had kissed and danced with more women but no one touched me quite like her. There was something about her that resonated with me. Something about her voice and vision brought me back to a feeling I had lost a long time ago. It was time to liberate myself from the shackles of pain and guilt that I had acquired, perhaps, in the vast openess of landscapes, I could find true freedom. A freedom not contingent on options, choices, people, or situations that rescued me from my own turmoil.; I had left many feelings behind that posessed me when I was a kid because they seemed unreachable when I got older but I could maybe invite my own passion to take control of them again. 


I knew that I would have to return to the feeling of blisfulness; There was a tenderness involved. And even though I lived on, some tenderness had gone away from me as I tried to be part of this world. I had hoped that my lingering resentment towards living in this world had faded away at this point but it remained as a feeling that kept me from making certain connections with the reality around me. The memory of Odin reminded me of the wish to see a vision come to fruition; It was time to stand for who I was and follow the honor of my own dreams. Odin reminded me that I was good enough as I was. And I started to prepare as every year to travel Europe. Every year it was the same routine. But this time I hoped that it was going to be a journey of inspiration that could make me belief in connection again. 

It all started long ago. I had been four years old when I wanted to explain my vision of life. I couldn't speak. Silently I could not help crying. for the past that I needed to leave behind but created me and the future where I didn't live for. It was time to bring the moment into awareness that I only cared for the feeling that happened to exist in my heart and I believed, reality shifted with that care. Even though it was hard to understand and accept that my tears could only be shed for the beauty and the agony of the present, my family around me never had a priority to give extra importance to the moment, it was the moment that captivated me. And whatever feeling came to the surface or whichever road appeared before me, I would enjoy and suffer to deligate my personality into an symbiosis with the road that appeared. 

This blogpost begins when my grandma died. A century of culture died with her. And the spirit that she had possesed was released in the athmosphere. Sadness came over my family like a warm blanket that made us remember what Grandma taught us. We couldn't rely anymore on her to keep us protected. Our differences would not have the wine of grandma to remember that they were forgiven. I always felt that Grandma gave us the chance to accept our own weirdness and I often came to her whenever I felt that the world had mistaken my weirdness for an attack. I used that acceptance as the beginning of a road towards paradise . She was the beginning of openess. Now that she had died, I felt that she released me from my need to visit her every year. She gave me the permission to continue the journey of openess that she had started and she wanted to come with me to the borders of the earth and expand the vision of acceptance that she had seeded within me. My grandma had spend a good time of her teenage years in a Japanese warcamp in Indonesia. She had been scared of the finite experience of life and she had neglected misery as best as she could because she just wanted to spend her time believing in the positive side of everything which she believed in every moment that she could. At the age of 92 she still went to the underground Amsterdam rap concert of my brother. I know that she rests now in the infinite time and space that surrounds us and she integrated with the energy waves of grandpa, making love till the universe would seize to exist and I would honor them by being honest about my own limitations but still hold space and be patient. When I watched over my grandma's body, Odin came to me with the news that she had gone to Copenhagen and met Abe. When she first had mentioned that she would go to Copenhagen, she was curious if I had some friends there and I introduced her to Abe. I was very excited how their meeting had gone and my vision of paradise was truly not prepared for the beauty of what they had to share. Before Odin came to copenhagen I had a remarkable sense of enlightment and it told me that Odin and Abe were perfect for eachother. I told them both to let the universe guide them to the pureness of observation and whatever happened was okay. For some days I had not heard any news and now Odin called me up with a shyness that I didn't yet encounter from her. The next words that she shared at that moment were giving me the affirmation that life wanted to be shared. Life wanted to be an open possibility to look for some kind of reflection that would make us feel at home and safe and honored. I felt immense relieve wash over me when Odin gave me the news that she and Abe had made love and rolled around in the grass as two newly crazy in love lovers. And there was the emotion of pleasure that I was aware of because I celebrated their succes in finding eachother. I felt that the world had given us the beginning. It starts with belief, and a vision and it can grow into the reality of our lives and bloom. It is a constant belief and surrender to the openness and power of life and the many ways in which it can bloom and show it's face. Everyone needs a hug or a compliment that fits with their own expectations, to see that their ego is also okay and very invited to live within life. I loved so immensly the infinite faces that life could have that I admired the stretch of possibilities and I wanted to rest in the infinite time and space and integrate with the energy waves of my loved ones, giving them love, peace and understanding. Right about now, I imagined that the universe had given me Odin and Odin had given me the universe to realize that it was time to realize how the world experienced love.

That night, dreams came. They brought me back to my childhood. I was once again a kid who could not speak. In my dreams, I saw that the heart that I had owned as a young kid was filled with these gifts of love. My whole heart was an organism that used expression to highlight certain areas of itself. I was amazed as the dreams invited me further into the depths of this discovery. It told me that that heart knew that it needed to be loved in order for it to flourish. All expression was a means to an end and hopefully we use the right expressions to be understood. It brought me to tears. Because I knew how utterly misunderstood we all were. And when I woke up, I suddenly cried because my dream explained me what it meant to be found: If all expression was just an attempt for us to be loved, than we just have to find the persons who understand that, all what we do is an attempt at love. And an athmosphere of togetherness clouded my judgment as soon as I became aware of that statement. A feeling that the emptiness inside of me filled itself with light overwhelmed me and the feeling of laughter presented my spirit with the outrageous permission to fill my body with a wholeness. The kid who couldn't speak spoke with a vengeance to the grown version of himself and the spirit and the mind came together. I understood finally that my Paradise was hidden in the understanding of the intricate dungeon we created for ourselves, just because we tried to be loved and the only thing we want is to find an exit to our selfmade dungeon and kiss the love that awaits us there. I had been on the look out for togetherness, understanding and the occasional spark of acceptance and it was, as soon as I became self aware of my own strength, right in front of me. I woke up with the knowledge that that kid was proud of me. He was so proud in fact, that  he forgave my indiscretions: He had seen me throw my life away at the whim of love, uprooted my status in reality time and time again for the craziest adventures, and he had become slightly worried that all of that whimsical behaviour led to nothing. He had been worried that I would end up broken and alone, always chasing a dream of a perfect image that I could not share with anyone. But now, Oh my gosh! It saw for the first time that it could be shared, that I was not crazy! There were people out there who actually believed in the foolish dream of a madman. And with the finding of that belief, I could interact with the world in a very different way. More compassion flowed from me, more patience and understanding for the people. With the knowledge that my own paradise was being fulfilled right in front of my eyes, I could have more empathy for the world around me. As if I had been afraid that people could take my paradise from me if I didn't posses it yet. And I knew ofcourse that this was just the beginning of my paradise but it was a special and important step in the right direction. We live in a time where love should flow with an immensity that hasn't been witnissed since a long time. This intense river of love is visible throught acts of conversations that heals the soul, the sharing of our most precious possesions and the readiness to sacrifice these possesions without objection. the river of love will wash away the stench of entitled people, liberate countries and spread wealth in this earth. And it begins with the simplicity that we can give to our own dreams. 

So I began on my quest yet again that I had abandoned partly four years ago. A vigor rose in me, a spark and an inspiration to start again the search for my queen. I never did understand why I desperatly scoured the earth in search of her. I think it is because I am an impossible romantic. Four years ago I had found her, only to know that she was in a relationship with a man who didn't want to share. So this was my second chance, to not only find her again but actually dive in the reflection that she gives and learn and mature while we discovered eachother. This was everything I ever wanted. And this was also the only way in which I could resurface from the bachelor lifestyle: If I had begun a relationship with anyone else, I would have had a lingering taste that was never really satisfied. So it was a gift far beyond mere pleasantry that Odin gave me. And from that day forward, I began to repay that gift by paying attention to my dream that forgave everyone and co created a world where love crossed to the land of undefined territory while making it less scary to travel there and far more appealing because the world of love had been explored more thoroughly. In short, I felt the inspiration again to embark on a road that treated the roots of pain and healed the wounds of it. I was unaware of the impact Odin would have on my outlook on life but in the months to come, the road where I embarked on made me mature far beyond my imagination. It is like, catching the whiff of a good story and never want to finish the book the story is in, but instead, the story sits inside a human and thus making it all the more real, interesting and far more elusive. It is like an addiction. But Odin didn't like it. She said that I had too high expectations and while I was reading the book that she was, I neglected the book that w could write together, and the one she was writing. So I made a promise to her that the book I was reading about her had come to an end. We did a small ceremony where I spoke to the universe and agreed that my search fot a fairytale had come to an end: I found my queen and now it was time to meet Odin. This ceremony did not only make her feel good and happy but I felt that my first lesson had begun, my fantasy was truly over and I said goodbye to the on-going process of my addiction to be afraid of real sensations.I thanked my past immensely for all the things it had done and but it was time to open myself up to people. It was time to write a new story.