Fear and Baboozlement in Byron Bay (Part 1)

Hey Family,

I’ve got 30 minutes before I’m on baby duty, and so I decided to follow the advice of a friend who said “Just keep writing!” (thanks Lisa).

So, Im gonna let these fingers fly across the keyboard for a hot 30 minutes, and see where it takes us.

Goodness me, it’s been a big chapter of life.

29 months ago life felt pretty stable. Married, just bought 12 acres of beautiful land, surrounded by community. Then I did what felt true, in my heart of hearts, and closed that chapter.

Ever since then, life has felt anything but stable. Against the backdrop of viruses, mandates, travel bans, floods, my heart has led me on the journey I needed to go on to break apart. Again and again.

I’ve fallen in love again, and become a father, created a nest for my gorgeous daughter to grow up in.

And at the same time, I’ve unravelled, hit rock bottom, then found another level of rock bottom, then got the pneumatic drill out to excavate the ground of what I thought was rock bottom…. then finally realising “rock bottom” is just a story and there is no bottom…

… then realising that if there is no fucking bottom to this bottomless pit of despair I better learn to fly rather than fall, then realising my wings don’t work, but I’m a ocean being anyway, and actually I just want to plummet deeper and deeper and deeper into the dark oceanic abyss.

That’s what I’ve been up to this past year and a bit.

Interestingly, the process began as soon as Ch’aska was seeded in the womb. Of course thats the way it was: something must die for something else to be born.

Just as we were celebrating all that we had manifested, and “preparing” for parenthood, life served me up one of those cups of medicines that takes 4 attempts, and a spew in the mouth to get down, because theres so much , sludgy sediment at the bottom, and said “the best way to prepare to be a father my friend, is to let the boy die.”

It’s one thing to talk about dark nights of the soul, or mid-life crisis, or whatever term you want to use for getting utterly owned and dismantled by the universe, quite another to do the dying.

I don’t know how many times I talked to people about the need to “surrender”, let go of the old identities that no longer serve…. almost as though this deep work of coming un-done was as casual as taking off a hoodie.

The experience of shedding identities, what I flippantly have called “ego-death” a million times, is no joke. The best word I can use for my recent experience is:

BAMBOOZLED.

If the last year was a movie it would be called “ Fear and Baboozlement in Byron Bay”.

I’ve been utterly bamboozled. One day, I felt like I had life pretty sorted, the next I’m barely able to function.

From feeling connected to source, to ancestry, to spirit, in belonging with nature…. to suddenly feeling like there is no source, there is no spirit, there is no soul, there is no great mystery.

From 5D to 3D, from connected to the all to flailing in aloneness…. my spark extinguished, trust, faith and knowing hanging by a thread… life going from splendid and miraculous to bleak, mundane, horrendous, awful, in the blink of an eye.

It felt like I’d had some kind of accident, viral infection or brain injury that just wiped out the part of my awareness that contained my essence, my core, my innermost truth, and left behind only my thinking, worrying, anxiety-riddled mind.

And yet….. and yet…. there was so much beauty…

It’s so wild how much beauty can exist, even in disconnection, pain and destruction. How fertility arises from death. How contraction and collapse, demolition and disintegration is natures way of preparing us for expansion, creation and new dreamings.

To be honest, part of me is still wrangling with the paradox of it all.

Well, thats the end of part 1, because the baby is calling out for me.

Tune in part deux, to hear about how our intrepid journeyer made his way back from the depths.

haha, thanks for reading my rambles.

Love, Jiro