Hi Muttley,

I hear and recognise your frustration and I have also frequently wondered at the suffering in this world. What is it all about and why does it need to happen?

However, the more I experience life with its turbelent ups and downs, the more I realise that we are all here to discover more about ourselves and who we truly are. I can now recognise that sometimes the wonderous gifts of life are in clever disguise! I can see how the really challenging times in my life have brought with them the greatest lessons, insights and appreciations.

Might I suggest that this homeless person, is exactly where he needs to be, that his current experience is exactly perfect for him at this time. Perhaps he had been attached to materialism and wealth or had been taking things for granted or something else among a myriad of possibilities. Perhaps he needed to experience living on the streets as part of his life journey, for his own spiritual growth.

Perhaps he was offering the police officer an opportunity to express her compassion. I love how you noted that she had come down to his level and was apparently empathising.

One of my favourite sayings is that you need both sun and rain to make a rainbow. How can we truly know and appreciate the light if we've not experienced the darkness?

Thank you for sharing, with much love and gratitude for all the wonderful souls that care and shine their light, Fiona

Om shanti

Hi Muttley and Fiona,

I like how you put your words, and I agree with Fiona when she says that this person may just be where he needs to be on his journey right now. We all have our own path to walk, Muttley is it time you looked inwards rather than at the injustices of others??!!

I was involved with the external for a long time but I have found that looking inside to me is where to find the answers to my questions about my world. I still have a long way to go and it is tough but to quote someone I have no memory who and have lost half of the words probably "to not get on the path in the first place is the biggest crime to ourselves on our spiritual journey.

No I would not like to be living on the streets and I have always had a massive respect for housing, if I was in a different country I would have lost my children and my home to my husband when my marriage finished. As it was I kicked him out of our daily lives and got some freedom within myself to see things straight without his constant interference with my thoughts.

Are you about in December to come to the kings hall?? It would be really interesting to meet you!!

Love to all

Kerry

Can I make a suggestion to you please??

How often do you go back to your previous posts and reread them??

I have found this really valuable at times to go back and re look at what I have previously written, it is like a diary of my thoughts of that time, you may even pick up some patterns of thinking that you were not aware of before.

I wish you a good journey anyway

Love Kerry

Hi,
This is what I think about homelessness and suffering in general:

1. Did anybody see the movie "les amants du pont-neuf"?
(The lovers on the bridge)

In this movie life of homeless people is shown...I don't want to spoil, that's why I'll only briefly say, that it shows the freedom of these people, and that actually they choose to be this way.

It won't be like this for anybody homeless, of course, but there's a point....in freedom in being homeless.

2. You wanted to tell the guy it's all illusion, but why didn't you say that to yourself, when seeing him and feeling bad?

I would say that to see that it's all an illusion can barely help, but to recall that we are those who actually design everything in our lives, might be somewhat useful. To ask why is this happening to me? Why is he there on the street and not Muttley, for example

3. In my view, suffering is only a way to interpret, to feel the reality. It's not the reality itself. I'm sure there are homeless people who are happy with their homelessness. And there are people who would look totally poor in someone else's eyes, but it wouldn't bother them.

When I was small, for example, we lived in very hard conditions in Ukraine. I was raised by single mother, in a country that you would wait for 5-6 hours to buy food, clothes, if there are things to buy at all and if you have money to afford them.

But I don't remember myself suffering. And even now when I remember it, I don't feel it was so terrible. Even when we were without gas, electricity and water for months, also in -10C cold, wearing coats at home, during our last year there (I was 13).

3. Also I want to say that during last months I don't see things this way anymore. If I see something, like parents of the guy who killed himself, very sad, and I also feel sad, and frustrated, but I don't say "poor guy's parents", I ask:
Why do i feel this way?
Which buttons did this situation push inside me?
Why am I here?
etc.

For this situation: Am I worried about the homeless guy? Or am I afraid to find myself in this position myself? Why do I feel that this world is injust? Why do I critisize suffering? In nature physical and mental suffering are present naturally...

Am I that small in my perception that I dare to critisize what I can't even understand?

... etc etc

hate to be a downer but in my opinion "this homeless person, is exactly where he needs to be" is a major cop out. I think you use this as an excuse to forget about the suffering and guilt you feel for being privileged. It
makes your realities much easier to comprehend as you seem to be so sheltered and sensitive that the slightest
aggravation and bad thought sets you spiraling into depression.

Im not saying you should feel guilty or do anything, but i believe our purpose is to help others and come together not run off into the woods and dance around like idiots. How many people in this world actually have this privilege? Im sure if more people had this option they would also find themselves "enlightened "too.

I dont feel im getting caught up in others injustice, im just saying you should take these opportunities to help others as they will in turn inspire you. I beleive people go through suffering to learn compassion and therefore help others and not turn your backs and pretend "its all just a dream".

Seriously, what "path" are you talking about?? This seems like such a buzz word for you guys. Ignoring those in need is the greatest crime to your spiritual growth.

Yes a rant indeed Jamie.

I don't think anyone is 'ignoring' those in need at all. You seem so wide of the mark. There is a difference between keeping people locked in a spiral of victimisation and helping people find true meaning in their lives.

I've been homeless. I've lost everything. I've been on deaths door more than once. It is exactly these things that helped me find serenity in the storm, the path to my evolutionary unfolding.

Trinity

Hi Jamie,
you write: "to forget about the suffering" - I find it a little arrogant, since suffering is now an everyday way of existence for most people, no matter what they have or have not, and defining which suffering is more "sufferable" is really a subjective thing. There are more suicide attempts (statistically) in 'well-being' countries now then in 3-d world places. What does it say to us? For me it says that physical conditions are not a measure of neither happiness nor suffering. Therefore, I'd rather not judge by how it looks externally. I've seen joyous people in the most terrible situations keeping the head up and rich people frustrated and depressed, loosing direction and hope, so...I can really confidently say that EVERYBODY carries his sack with stones, i.e. we all have our 'suffering' to deal with, and then everybody needs us to help them.

If the consciousness is the one that determines the reality, then it's really no matter how the body feels/thinks, this situation is there because something inside really wants it. This is how I see it. Like all the crumbling down because in collective consciousness, in the deepest truth, people are fed up with this 'lifestyle', and all the 'revolutions' and turbulence around can be interpreted as a reflection of this state.

Just how many times I myself feel sick with all the stuff around, HOW MUCH STUFF DO I NEED??!!! This is crazy. This frustration might bring me some day to a point of getting rid of it all and finding myself on the street, and I'm ready to accept it despite the fear, if that's what to come.

Another thing - you write "should...help" - And how will you choose, by which parameters, to whom to run to help? Homeless? Special needs kids? Hospitalized in mental institutions teenagers? 'Ordinary' from the first look people out there, carrying their lives and suffering from emptiness, loneliness and depression under the surface?

And what if I serve most doing something else? I mean who is there to define what is the best thing to do, how and to whom to help?

And WHY? I can go out now to help people because of my moral frame, out of fear, pity, ideology. Why SHOULD I do THIS? Maybe my work is to see what message it sends me, and give me a fuel for MY evolution, give me strength to follow MY inner truth, just like this homeless person did, but without judging my situation, without letting the frame-reference decide for me how to cope with the situation?

How do you decide? And how do you decide to leave all those suffering aside and choose ony one "group"? and how are you sure THIS is what will make a difference? How do you know it will do things better?

My mom used to be a very 'helpful' person. I learned a lot on her bitter experience. She would get people out the dirt, broken, sick, lost. And they hated her for it, even harmed her afterwards. I came to conclusion that this happened because:

1. HELP, as a definition, is disempowering. If a person doesn't feel he got out by himself, maybe with some support, then he feels, righteously, that soemthing was taken from him. Especially if the motives are not 'pure', i.e. her motive (unawarely
) was to feel better with herself, better than those she was helping to, pity, disagreement with the suffering, pain and injustice as a part of her ideological approach to reality, which obviously couldn't fit it, loneliness and running away from her own pain.

2. The person was there in the first place for some reason, maybe as a part of the mozaik, doing his 'work', fulfilling his part in the chain (even though it might looke not 'cool'/as a suffering in other people's eyes); or he brought himself to this place - maybe to run away from something that is even worse than this state, like living in society as a model-citizen and following the 'order'. ALso self-destructive mechanisms even in psychology are defined as 'gaining' mechanisms. Which means, that a person 'enjoys' in some way the suffering, conflicts, etc. there is a gain.

3. Victims - some might see that a person didn't choose anythng, but a victim of circumstances. But then I would ask this: why then the way of dealing with the same situatin depends on who is in the situation. Why one will be calm and take it 'phylosophically', the other will have a nervous breakdown, etc etc. Shouldn't then everybody feel the same if thats so absolute? So 'victim' is a feeling, not a reality, it's a reaction, a choice in some way. So, who is there to help then?

BUT, all that doesn't mean, that I won't help as a rule. what I mean to say is that, like I said to my professor, when we discussed this topic...You can never know what consequences your action will lead to. Therefore any way of decision, be it rational or based on emotions, is insecure. How do I know then? I simply do. I know that this is what to be done, or feel such strong pull that I can't do otherwise. I simply won't interfere till I'm sure it's coming from this place, clean of MY stuff.

The motives are the most important here, in my opinion.

With love,
Yulia

wide of the mark is putting it politely.

never mind being on a different page, I would say your reading the wrong book Jamie.

It is not a question of ignoring those in need but feeling for yourself how you feel to act in every circumstance. That maybe to give some money, maybe offer food or whatever you feel moved to do. There is quite a difference between helping and disempowering.

As for "dancing around the woods like idiots", yes I can happily say dancing round the woods brings me a lot of joy and I may even look like an idiot, but I find it brings me ever deeper into connecting and discovering who I really am, is there anything more worth while than that?.

David

is so liberating!

I've also noticed it's contagious

Not only that I dance around the woods here in Binyamina, but I also teeter all around each time I have an opportunity, which by the way has a miraculous effect on my chakras (despite me worrying sometimes that the seesaw won't hold my weight hhhh, when it's making strange sounds krrrrr krrrr). Actually I was "caught" in action yesterday by a woman, when standing and hugging a tree hhhhhhhhhhhh. It was funny.
Not to mention hugging myself, making weird hypnic jerks, walking with head rotated 90 degrees back from the torso (because I look up) and not falling or hitting anything (that must look really weird, that's not what Darwin expected will happen to a humanoid skeleton in his theory), and dancing classical ballet with absolutely not 'classical' figure (really funny)...

Anyway, even if to leave the inner individual alignment and to look at the things in terms of logic, I don't see how this has to do with the topic of this thread. It's as if one is not allowed to be happy because somebody in the world is suffering, and also claiming to be sure it's not helping anything, that people find a way to be happy despite whatever they are going through.

Even if I were not deeply sure in it, I would rather 'believe' that happiness, joy, openness and 'innocence' will 'save the world', rather than pity and forced artificial interference in natural order of things on the morality basis, or any other frames and models created by humanity for its convenience.

And how about homeless dancing like idiots?
Here, I already mentioned this beautiful movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g10TTjAeu94

Well Muttley 2 things .. 1 acceptance, you have to be accepting to stay centered in yourself. Put the words in your mind aside because if there were answers in the words then the PROBLEM would be SOLVED, but it doesnt work that way does it ? 2 follow your pull... maybe you help what you notice in some way or maybe not, but trust that things are there for a reason, and that reason is speaking to you, and keep in mind that at different moments its speaking to you differently...THERE ARE NO SET WAYS so try not to have a fixed idea/pattern or specific feeling on it, just open your heart to WHAT IS and if you pause enough, you will FEEL your pull...TRUST the UNIVERSE and TRUST YOURSELF...
HEY there Someone....(dancing classical ballet with absolutely not 'classical' figure ...) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT, HOW TOTALLY AWESOME! I sing to my dog in these really stupid high pitched wavering voices that I resonate this major excitement energy with,it creates an unbelievable flow for both of us, and is truly embarrassing but who cares!
Love
-Bill

Ive just had an experience which left me contemplating homlessness.
On the way home from glasonbury this weekend I ended up in Bristol unsure wheather to go to Leamington via train or Birmingham on the coach. Eventual feeling the pull to buy a ticket to Birmingham I was given a ticket to London by mistake, I went back to the booth the first time enquiring about how to get it changed and was directed to a coach bay and the london bus turned up. Went back a second time and I was told to wait, in that time it crossed my mind "just go for it" and then the logic kicked in "but where will you stop?!" "you've got an essay in tomorrow, what if you dont make it back on time?!" I caught myself at this point and just let go and got on the coch.
it kept running through my mind on the coach the sharings over the weekend and wonderfull stories of how people unsure of why they were going somewhere but just following the pull, the power of the universe working itself though the matrix.
Got to London and spent the night just walking round the city and getting moved on whilst trying to sleep in corners. Eventual made my way to oxford by night bus, and in the early hours of the morning found a spot tucked away under a tree in a corner somwhere to rest for a few while untill eventualy getting a train ticket at 4:30 and falling asleep in the train station. I felt like a whole other world I'd not experienced with many mixed emotions and i feel like im still intergrating and taking the experience in

Yes!!! Singing with stupid voices is fuuun!!! I also bark sometimes, or make other animals' voices, it is really quite an experience, a joyful one!! hhhhh

Sleeping on the streets. I slept several times on the streets in my teen-years. My mom used to throw me out of the house or I ran away on my own, so, my friends used to give me a pillow and a blanket and I was sleeping on benches.

And about a month ago I sat at the roots of the tree in Ganey Tikva to rest, and fell asleep there, feeling really home and protected. No bed gives this kind of feeling. Somebody woke me up, asking if I'm ok

Now here an idiotic picture of a woman I don't know, who clearly didn't care how she looked (during the wedding of my friend):

https://picasaweb.google.com/114174186640749102158/10#5573582894544284786

I find her hat better than Jean Paul Gaultier hats

a role model hhhhhh

Yulia, I truly FEEL your OPEN FREEDOM... Im so moved, I went to re-read some of your posts and I have to say Im really touched by your essence... Im so glad to get to FEEL the FLOW of your energy. I know being a beautiful child-like being is an amazing thing, I am one, how wonderful, and yet you show me that its even more beautiful than I could have ever FELT on my own...
Love
-Bill

I feel glad to give rise to such inspiration Now you inspire me back. I guess that's what positive loops in communication are Thanks!!!

Hi Dale (loudguitar),

I just loved your story - wonderful and inspirational for all - well done!!!

Following the pull no matter what the logic might say. Trusting that you'll be looked after. There was a time when myslf Trinity and our son Ocean were homeless too - sleeping under an old Army tarpaulin - a basher. It was immensely liberating.

I wouldn't belittle the plight of the homeless, I don't live that way all the time. But some - including me - would find living in a house has many challenges too. In many ways I'd prefer the freedom to keep moving but my destiny is where I am right now.

If we look for it, we can find freedom, inspiration and truth wherever we are.

Thanks for sharing all!

Chris

Following our Flow ...WOW, I spent the day yesterday walking my errands instead of finding a ride, around this small town I live, stopping to sit whenever I seemed to be invited to, I took myself away from TIME...no hurry at all. just watching, experiencing, I came home and felt so solemn, with this lite vibe in my chest, I went to sleep and felt that flow even stronger through every toss n turn while sleeping ... I had a dream Trinity, you were in it, you took me and 2 other men to UK and I remember being up really high on some flat perch looking down on some people event, feeling so light so content from this internal lite vibration... I woke up and noticed I was laying there with my chest just HUMMING, I sat up and tears poured... crying not from the dream but more from unnoticable feeling in my chest, I knew I FELT my pull but actually following yesterday has done SO MUCH MORE to me than to go into a theme of feeling inside/direction/action , it really is EXPERIENCE...Im ready to go out today again and FEEL my way around.... COMPLETELY MAGICAL
Love
-Bill

Im still attached I have to go into this more... In my dream Trinity you took us to a Very high sitting flat perch... I was watching people down below running, I was lying on my stomach noticing how lite I felt ... I remember wondering, is it the UK ? What is this feeling, why am I opening ... then I moved away from the were I was as I was so getting nervous to be so high up, you then stepped to where I was at and started talking to us with your back to the edge, as you were talking you were unconsciously stepping backwards when I jumped and yelled Trinity Stop ! You turned and looked at the edge and smiled as if nothing happened meanwhile my heart was fluttering from the close call... Thats all I can recount...
I feel like Im gonna just blast off into the air and start exploding and sparkling just like fireworks... I dont know what it means but I am liking these shifting feelings...EXPERIENCES...
Love
-Bill

I'm Homeless!
I'm not out here by choice as some people seem to want to think that by the brainwashing of society. I have valuable skills and the ability and desire to apply them. There's more behind the scenes than you or we are told. You might want to look up info on the dark side of things and understand what's realy happening. Seeing and recognizing negative situations in truth like "David Icke" does will help you grow stronger and know what to do positivily. Can't be positive without knowing the negative! Ken

Very aware for many years now that there is lots going on behind the scenes After 20 years or so you can get pretty saturated with 'all of that stuff'. There comes a time when we even move beyond that.

Muttley,
I would have seen and felt what you did, I have so much compassion for the homeless, and I don't see why in a world of obscene abundance there are so many without. I think the frustration is leaving me though, because I see that until each and everyone of us changes from within, these aweful things will just keep happening. And yep been there, slept in cars, at a flop house for a short while, none of lasted long. And yes I agree some have given up and that is where they want to be now, and that is ok also, but we don't know where they are or where they are going. And if waking up means not having compassion? Then I don't want it! But I don't see it that way. I think as a very new awakening soul that all these things, whether it be helping or dancing in the woods, has to have some kind of balance and with that comes responsibilities. Not out of guilt or having too, just because it is right! Because our soul tells us to help.
I love where you say "However much I tried I just couldn't bring myself to say to him 'don't worry matey, it's all just an illusion this reality thingy!'"

Like Trinity and others, I have also been in situations that could be called homeless. One of the most illuminating and blissful experiences of my life came during one of those times, in a junkyard on Maui where my wife and I camped for a night. The evening sun reflected red and gold off the rusty metal of the junkyard, and we were filled with the awareness of inner joy.

My feeling is to offer assistance when there is a feeling to do so, and to not feel guilty or obligated to offer when there is not. Sometimes the best way to help people is to allow them to go through their own experience and not interfere.

People who think they have to always help someone they perceive to be in need may be simply participating in the club of victim-hood, where people gather in tribal groups to suffer together.

It is according to the situation, to the moment, to listening to the inner wisdom which knows what to do or not do for the best in the larger picture.

Beautiful story Vision River - you are so right - very inspiring.

I remember similar experiences wild camping with Trinity and our son Ocean when we were homeless for a short period.

Currently I'm out traveling - camping out in Devon and Cornwall in South West England. Last night I was drawn to a particular Tor on Dartmoor. It was windy and raining, thick billowing black rain clouds. It would have been easy to be put off by the challenging physicality of things.

But this night felt very special. I felt a close proximity of the guiding "Team" that I work with. I found myself dancing on a rock high up above the moors. It was stirring the energies within me, deeply upwelling from my soul - it became ecstatic.

I found myself swirling with the wind which seemed to strengthen as I moved. Then the clouds parted and a brilliant shaft of golden sunlight lit the ground in front of me. A short while later, the clouds closed but then opened again revealing a sword shaped form of golden sunlight in the sky. In my heart I knew exactly what it was - the sword of truth - Excalibur.

Chris

Also a beautiful and inspiring story, Chris, ringing with the quality of truth.

Kati and I have spoken often of such moments over the past eleven years since we met. In 2000, she was in America on a tourist visa from Europe and could not stay. One day she saw me wearing a t-shirt with the state of Idaho printed, and said, 'That is where we will go!'

I had been in the Idaho wilderness thirty years before as a 15 year old, hiking the river trails with my dog, as a sort of exile and 'rehabilitation' in response from my parents to a treatise I wrote titled 'Man,' stating how I felt about man treating animals and his fellow man as objects and possessions. Not knowing what to do with me, they thought it would help me to appreciate society by being out of it for awhile.

Kati and I had the idea to go into the wilderness to fast and seek clarity for our next step. It becomes a longer story than a post. Briefly, we hiked 30 miles into the deep wilderness to an outpost ranch owned now by the university as a research center. The managers knew my Dad, who had done Bighorn Sheep studies in that river basin. So they invited us to stay and the next day pack downriver and to the other side. That is the second place we felt that earthbound souls were asking us to help them go free. We had no prior experience, but just knew what to do. Later we learned that a peaceful tribe of native Americans had lived in this river basin for hundreds of years and were 'wiped out' by the military which just needed something to do. We understood that the reason we were drawn to this place was to do the work with the earthbound souls. After the wilderness experience, we sold both our vans and flew to India, then Spain where Kati had lived before after leaving the former East Germany. In Spain we did energy healing work and had many magical experiences.

Currently we are something like houseparents for two individuals with developmental disabilities, in Silicon Valley. We have learned much about ourselves and opened our eyes more to the actual state of human society. After nine months of conflict with the regulating agencies, we have given notice and will soon go back into the Great Unknown. It is invigorating to the spirit and frightening to the ego to be without the safety net of house and income, and trusting each day to know where to go and what to do. We have been there before, in the Unknown, and it feels more alive to us than a life of habit and automated behavior. Our bones are more tired now, but then again we have our new artwork in our hands to bring out to the world.

Very impressive word!

better for me not use it where it might be not understood and invite some 'sword-fight' :S

Homelessness...

The first time it appeared here I moved out of my place two months later.

During two recent months already I get a sense that I am going to move again, have no idea where and how, just feel some 'excitation' in the air, sell and give away everything I can, don't know why... And now it is here again... the timing is... spooky :T

Excalibur!

Keep following the flow Vision River - I know you will.

What a way to live

Chris

hi guys

well I'm technically 'homeless' at the moment (at least I guess it could be described as such). and have been for a while. Its not the first time, but I think its the longest time so far I've been living on the road with all the material possessions I own. I must say it certainly fluctuates in how I experience it. When I was first homeless for a time (some time ago) I found it very destabilising and challenging. I resented the people telling me I was 'living the dream' and free..etc, because i certainly didn't feel it. Over the years the times I've been homeless my experience of it has changed so that I've been able to find more centredness within it. Recently I've been feeling much more of an 'okayness' with the situation. Sometimes it feels very challenging and destabilising, at others peaceful and liberating and joyous!

For a start it seems this is what I'm given to do right now, so I make a choice to follow that. There is the feeling of ungroundedness and lack of security or certainty still at times. For example I don't know where I'll be sleeping tonight, but I don't feel I need to be as tough on myself as I may have been in the past. Though I still find it challenging - In recent times my accomodation has varied from bed and breakfasts to sleeping on the beach. Though mainly in a vehicle.

Even though technically I could rent a room somewhere, it feels like I haven't been presented with that place as yet, and so am working with what's presented. I've found it quite easy in the past to feel directionless, and as if I'm floating on the breeze without purpose or centre. I still feel that at times, but also can work to find my centre within this experience. In the past it has also stopped me from really engaging with the places and people I've found myself in, and I'm beginning to see that its possible to do that even without having firm footing (in terms of a home) somewhere.

In some ways I (and as others have mentioned) I've felt 'homeless' or 'far from home' in various ways at various times in my life - the sense of not belonging, not being understood, not knowing why I'm here, looking for who I really am etc.

My process around this feels quite deep at the moment, and so its so synchonistic that this thread was activated again! THANKYOU!

I can see that in being homeless there is an invitation to find 'home' within, and as such a physical 'home' may or may not be presented but really it doesn't matter at that stage! (well that's how it feels!) I've only just recognised that, and so feels like I'm still working to realise it.

My feeling is that in having some kind of a 'base' whether it be energetic (like a strong connection to the earth, or authenitc sense of Higher Self), physical, or as part of community, this can be profoundly beneficially place from which to 'launch' ourselves as it were, to engage, express and evolve.

So I feel it can be very challenging, but also very liberating.
trust this may be of interest - perhaps I'll post more as it unfolds.

with love

Ben

Hi Ben,

Your post is rich reading material. You sum it up well with "My feeling is that in having some kind of a 'base' whether it be energetic (like a strong connection to the earth, or authentic sense of Higher Self), physical, or as part of community, this can be profoundly beneficially place from which to 'launch' ourselves as it were, to engage, express and evolve."

'Homeless' is still a stigma in some minds. And it does seem to me a state of mind. Can a person be without an Amazon shipping address and still be respected for who he/she is?

My lifepath partner and I have experienced 'homelessness' in various ways also. On Maui, we had done reflexology and healing work in a remote jungle village (Hana), as community service.

After hitchhiking out we had walked a ways from the campground where we'd spent the night and were just sitting with our backpacks. A woman driving a well-used sedan asked if we would like a ride. She took us to the Salvation Army where we shared meals with other 'homeless' people. One woman wrote a beautiful poem for us. We saw two rough-looking men, beaten up by life, gently help a third to his feet so he could come to breakfast.

Feeling to go to a Wayne Dyer talk on the college campus, we slept the next night, before the talk, behind a park bench. After a long night with two young men sitting on the bench to take drugs and being frightened when they sensed our presence behind them, loud party music, and clouds of mosquitoes, we went into the public restrooms to wash up. A man made a cynical comment to me about using the public restroom. I recognized the public attitude towards homelessness.

After the illuminating experience in the junkyard told earlier, we dropped back into the fear for survival and got into jobs and a car. Now we are going to make a more conscious choice to be outside the illusion of the safety net and club of belonging, of a house and paycheck. We will do our best not to whine in moments of discomfort. Each step we've taken has led us on the path of learning and integrating.

Ben, you seem to me to be well-centered on your way. Would love to hear more of your story!

hello vision river

" Can a person be without an Amazon shipping address and still be respected for who he/she is?"

this made me laugh!

thanks for the feedback and support vision. I don't know if homeless is a state of mind. perhaps at times it might be an authentic state of being until we really come home to who we really are? What does it really mean anyway? when everything changes moment by moment, and yet our true self remains the same? It feels like a question of relative and absolute perspectives again. and as I said finding home within. But again, just words.
thanks, and maybe I'll share more at some point soon...

Ben

Hi Ben - still singing in the woods I hope!

To Vision River: What a great definition of 21st century homelessness. Love it.

I have a stable home now - useful if you have 3 children - but had a pretty nomadic past. I still find I yearn for the days when everything I owned fitted in the back of my VW Polo. I often feel like I'm drowning under 'stuff' and have huge clearouts which seem to work on many levels. I think you have a point that it is in part a state of mind - at least a reflection of a state of mind.

Becky

Ben and Becky,

So rare to find such conversation as your posts. Reminds me of when Kati and I met 11 years ago. From Germany, she knew little English [and I knew none of the German language.] As we walked and talked the first night, she turned to me and said, not knowing what to say, 'I am from another star system. I am looking for people from the same star.' This forum is the closest I have found with people from the same star system, or as Kati might say, on a similar length of wave.

Ben, you wrote eloquently, "I don't know if homeless is a state of mind. perhaps at times it might be an authentic state of being...." Exactly. My apologies for always bringing this around to my experience, but when I went with Kati to her homeland for a year, I taught English for awhile in a German middle school. At the end of that term, a student asked, 'When are you going home?' I really had to pause in myself, and ask 'Where is home?' Not that it was a wise or complete or the best answer, but what I replied was, 'Home is wherever I am.'

There is not time now to write all that has been churning in my mind, it was going to be a conversation with myself, that is between G1 and G2, where G stands for Gary not Gollum or God.

It went something like this:

G1: Gary, you wrote that the man in the restroom on Maui judged you. What he said was, 'Nice that there is a public restroom [interpret, for people like you] to use.' But do you really know that his comment was cynical?'

G2: Uh, no, I cannot say for sure. He may have meant it sincerely. I may have been feeling low self worth and had a defensive attitude, coloring his comment with my interpretation.

G1: And what was your motivation for telling that you had been doing community service? To say that you contributed selflessly and deserved better? Looking for a little sympathy, a pat on the back?

G2: Ouch. Got me there.

And so the conversation goes, getting a little tougher on G2, giving opportunities to see, learn, integrate. Wonderful stuff, this path of authentic living.

Becky, you wrote that you lived from a VW Polo. We will be going from our three bedroom, two bath duplex with what we carry in our VW Jetta wagon. No sympathy sought. Thank you for sharing your story, I enjoyed reading it.

Peace Pilgrim and Ed the Waver were called to living outside the box of house and paycheck. We met Ed the Waver in Sedona a few years ago, another story. After Peace Pilgrim passed, people who saw her light continued her message. The last I knew, they still publish her book and make it available free of charge. We do not have the same calling as they, but still look to both as models for their expression of an authentic 'homeless' lifestyle.

Hi Vision River

Ooh, that sort of conversation sounds familiar - I find that happening a lot! Sometimes my eldest son, who is nearly 16, is the 'questioner' of my words, actions and motives and that can be even more uncomfortable!

Bless the Jetta - I've had one of those too in days gone by .. and a VW Campervan & Golf - been thru a lotta VWs!

I wish you & Kati all the best on the road to wherever. What an incredible time to be setting off on such an adventure.

Becky

ps great picture - so many images combined in one