Know Place Like Home: Enjoying the Unpredictable Marriage of Surrender and Trust

What it would it take to fully allow ourselves to, say, practice the art of something like Surrender and Trust--on an ongoing basis? What it would it take to remain married to them? And what it would take to let go of having things be a certain way so that we are comfortable?
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It was brought to my attention recently that I could very well have mastered the art of serial dating. But not with human beings -- with spirituality and my own spiritual unfolding.

That the suggestion came from the depths of my own intuition was illuminating -- okay, rude perhaps! -- however it did force me to take pause and question a few things.

In our ongoing spiritual quests, how often do we take the time to stop and assess whether we are truly integrating and implementing the events and spiritual wisdoms we have so rigorously sought out? Are we "getting" all those Carolyn Myss/Wayne Dyer/Deepak Chopra/Paul Shealy classes or You Tube videos we watch? What happens when we realize we could be spiritual flirts, rather than, say, somebody fully committed to embarking on a bona fide spiritual path?

And what would it take to actually commit to pursuing that spiritual path?

What it would it take to fully allow ourselves to, say, practice the art of something like Surrender and Trust -- on an ongoing basis? What would it take to remain married to them? And what it would take to let go of having things be a certain way so that we remain comfortable?

Heady questions, sure, but for me these come at such a curious turning point.

I have spent nearly 15 years writing about celebrities and the entertainment industry. I would have kept doing so until a series of unlikely events lured me to explore something less glamorous -- my Polish family's unique odyssey surviving Stalin's mass deportations of the 1940s. The 75th anniversary of those events is actually this year. After my book, Grace Revealed, was released in winter, I embarked on a series of book talks and also arranged a vigil on the exact day -- the actual 75th anniversary -- of the deportations, Feb. 10. The event was held at a Polish center in Chicago, near railroad tracks -- fitting as more than a million Poles were deported via boxcars and sent to the bitter depths of Siberian slave labor.

After Chicago, a series of book events called for me in Northern California, and after that, major burnout set in -- from writing the book, and also from running a newspaper for 14 years. Were it not for a serendipitous email from a colleague I had not seen or heard from in more than a year, I would have stepped right back into another corporate media job and, to some extent, another swirl of "doing, doing, doing" and "getting, getting, getting" chased back with large shots of "is there enough yet?" and "are we there yet?"

My colleague had invited me to oversee her property in Maui for the summer. There, 293 olive trees needed babysitting and, I suppose, so did my heart and soul. I took a leap of faith and with little resources, ventured off to Maui, trusting, as best I could, that somewhere down the line -- somewhere beyond monitoring book sales and "career advancement" and getting ahead in a Corporate Media Bounce House -- that things would make sense. I set out to explore the idea of home and place, too -- where it is, what it is, and how can we come to know it better.

I have been chronicling my adventures here and on my blog for nearly two months.

Recent events have given me more opportunities to "play" outside of the mind.

A recent sojourn took me to the Kula Farmers' Market in bucolic upcountry Maui. It was here that organic food, local farmers and a plethora of personalities stood out. Oh, there were other notables, too. I met two young men at a small farm stand. One of them, a lanky lad no more than 21, told me he was studying shamanism ... to which I asked: "So, what is the most interesting thing you are learning along your Shamanic journey?"

The young man smiled and said: "It's not so much about learning right now as it is about unlearning what came before this."

I nearly fell to my knees. Oh, Young Shaman, yes you are!

I kept on, all the while asking: What happens when your NON-CAREER becomes your "career?" What happens when you finally leave the corner office, the cubicle, the "push," the drive to "GET THERE" -- whatever -- and decide to chuck the illusion of security that comes in the form of 401k's and their ilk, and are asked, very blatantly to simply TRUST the Universe and begin interacting more with the world and locals who chop coconuts with machetes? Furthermore, what happens when you are asked to "serve" differently? What happens when you realize you may not have any more answers to all of the "old" questions you have spent a lifetime asking?

My attention was diverted somewhat as I came upon a booth with freshly-baked bread. The husband-and-wife couple behind the table, Sybil and Nader I was later informed, had used magic marker to paint handlebar mustaches above their lips. Charming. Of course, I stopped and we began a discussion. I turned to Sybil -- so beautiful, so happy and serene -- and asked: "So, what brought you to Maui?" The woman smiled and placed her hands in prayer. Her right hand moved and and landed directly over her heart: "Spirit," was her reply.

Jesus, I gulped. Somebody get me a tissue!

When I asked Nader how he met Sybil, he told me it was not that long ago ... and that after three days, he got down on one knee and asked Sybil to marry him. I turned back to Sybil. She was grinning ear to ear. She shrugged: "When you know ... you just know.

Seriously, where was that tissue?

Well, the newlyweds began baking bread -- all organic, gluten-free if I recall correctly and with hints of rosemary, thyme or cranberry. "We put love in all our bread," Nader told me, and who was I to argue. It was evident. I immediately purchased a loaf -- this couple does for freshly-baked loaves of bread what author Laura Esquivel did for chocolate.

Love rises to the surface ...

I left the market feeling the bliss rising, too.

Several days later, I finished an early morning meditation and walked down toward the lower level of the property I was overseeing in Kula. It was time for my morning olive grove run. I had to see how the olive trees were doing. But then I remembered how windy it gets in Kula in the afternoons and I wanted to turn on the sprinklers by the pool. Watering down the unlandscaped grounds prevents dirt from drifting into the pool. As I bent down to turn the irrigation switch, I noticed that there was a dead bird lying on the ground nearby. It wasn't quite a bluebird. Perhaps a Myna bird.

I took one look at the poor creature and frowned. "Oh no! Buddy, what happened to you?"

It may have been the wind, I thought, which had been quite powerful lately.

I was torn. What to do? My first thought was to leave the bird there ... for an animal or something. Mother Nature knows what she is doing and if the bird was still there in a day, I would do something with it. But as I walked away, I felt that little Myna bird pulling me back. I spun around right there in the red-lava(esque) dirt and when I did, I noticed a small shovel nearby. Much of the grounds on the lower level of the property was still in the process of being created and a few tools were lying around.

I shot the bird a look. And then my eyes traveled back to the shovel.

"Okay, let's do this!"

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To the best of my ability, with the shovel, I scooped up the Myna and as I did, it turned upside down and just lie there atop of it -- beak up.

"Oh for God's sake!" I groaned. "Seriously?"

Chuckling through a frown, I told the bird that we were going to give it a proper burial. And as I walked over to a giant tree off to the side, I looked up to the heavens.

"Maui, you have lost one of your own ... so now, we shall give this creature a proper send-off."

I wasn't sure if Maui heard me, but what the hell. It seemed fitting.

There was plenty of shade underneath the tree and I set the Myna down and thought for a moment. Well, the situation absolutely begged for musical accompaniment.

I set my iPhone on a rock and pressed the first playlist on it. A moment later, ABBA's "Fernando," began playing. (What can I say: You can take the gay, cultured career-driven, mood-swinging male out of the Mainland but you simply cannot take ABBA out of him -- ever!)

"Can you hear the drums Fernando," ABBA crooned.

I looked down at the Myna. "Well, Fernando, can you?"

Using the shovel, I dug a shallow grave. I placed "Fernando" inside of it. And then, bit by bit, I covered Fernando with dirt. "Go back to Maui, baby."

Afterward I stood there. Something didn't feel quite right. Fernando required a marker for his grave. I looked around me. I found a large branch, shaped like a wishbone. How positively fitting. I rested it against the tree behind Fernando's grave and searched for two small sticks. Fernando needed a cross.

Meanwhile, ABBA sang: "There was something in the air that night ... The stars were bright ... Fernando ... They were shining there for you and me ... for liberty, Fernando."

"Hear that, Fernando?" I shot back. "For liberty. This is all good, buddy."

Well, my attempts to make a cross failed miserably. What can I say? I was never a good Boy Scout and I could hardly tie two pieces of wood together now to make a proper cross, even with using the sturdy grass strands nearby.

"Maybe it's for the best, Fernando," I sighed. "Besides, look at what the world has done with crosses. You know what you need? A smaller wishbone branch to rest right there in front of you."

And then ... from the nether regions of mind I heard this: Good God, Greg. You're talking to a dead bird! What the hell are you doing? A funeral service for fowl? Is this why you pressed pause on everything? Is it? To listen to ABBA near a deceased Myna? I hardly recognize you!

I thanked my EGO for sharing and went back to the task at hand. (Oh EGO, sometimes, it just needs to be heard, but like any good partner, sometimes, you just have to let it talk. None of us are required to abide by our EGO's commands -- or our loved one's for that matter. And should your "loved one" command anything, maybe it's time to put things into perspective. But let's save that story for another time.)

I shoved the wishbone branch deeply into Maui's fertile ground, stood up and took a step back. It looked like that proverbial fork in the road.

"Metaphoric, don't you think, Fernando?"

ABBA crooned on.

Well, I couldn't leave it like that. There must be something more I could do. And then I recalled my experience the day prior. I had found a small Stupa in the town of Paia. The Buddhist's idea is to walk around in a circle in a Stupa, and in prayer. Every time you make one full round, a bell rings. Basically, you send out good juju with your walk around the Stupa.

My gaze shifted to the tree. Wonderful. I'll walk around the tree, like a Stupa, and in prayer, just as I did in the Stupa 24 hours ago. But first, I acknowledged Fernando for the life he flew, the breezes he felt under his wings, for ... well, you know -- his bird life.

And, somewhere around the part ABBA began singing, "If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend, Fernando ... " I began my circular pilgrimage around the tree, and with each and every cycle around, I realized more vividly how different this life I was living was from the life I had been living prior to arriving on Maui. But I dared not focus to much on that -- on the past. The moment called for trust; to be right in The Now.

For Fernando, after all. So round and round I went ...

... for the bird.

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