(Spanish)

I am preparing to go to a foreign land. It's a place I've been before, a place that I love as home. But each time I travel there I know I will be going on a safari into the uncharted territory of my Self. I feel excited knowing that I will be transformed as a result of this journey, yet I believe it is important to go without expectations. So I watch my fantasies…

Expectations can lead to suffering.

I am going on this trip to advance my career; to deepen my training in a psychotherapeutic, creative process. In the "big picture," I am going there to show up as Love "in here" - inside my own Being. When I am there I will watch everything from my Soul's perspective. Now, I am watching my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies prepare by playing out possibilities, desires, and hopes. By watching them, I can consciously release them, so that I may arrive as an empty vessel, available for Life to unfold through me. The more I let go of all needs and desires as to how I want things to look, the more opportunities I create to Awaken and express previously untapped resources in my Being. This is what is so exciting about the Unknown. In addition to this inner work of becoming aware of my fantasies and inviting unconscious patterns to be revealed, I am compelled to go more deeply into my body. My physical body will be conducting a lot of energy. Transformation can feel exhausting if the physical body is not strong. I believe that many fear change because they have been stagnant so long that when change is inevitable, they create it through crisis, which is physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausting.

My body is going through deep changes as I restrict my diet to foods that build my immune system. Food is medicine. It is a challenge, but having this journey ahead inspires me to take herbs, vitamins, eat lots of protein, not too many carbohydrates - prepare, prepare - take echinacia before getting on the plane for ten hours. I am finally back into exercising - aerobics, hiking, yoga, deep breathing. It's amazing how scheduling this trip has focused and inspired me to prepare to be present in the moment.

In the Mystery School traditions and shamanic training paths, the initiate participates in rigorous rituals of purification and preparation to enter the temple or begin a Vision Quest. There is a knowing in these traditions of consciously preparing. You are cleansing internal and external chaos, so that you can be fully present and available when "lightening strikes." The doors to the unconscious open to reveal yet another disowned part of yourself. The veils of identity part. You are transported into the cosmos awareness of the interconnectedness of all Life - of the Unity of Being which you are. You just never know when God will come knocking.

How would it be to live in this heightened state of preparation all the time? No need to schedule a trip, or a performance, or a seminar, but to see every ordinary day as holding the possibility for tremendous transformation. Doing whatever it takes to prepare to be fully present. It's almost a paradox in terms, because "to prepare" means that we are holding the future in mind. We are preparing for the next moment. So, the challenge is in living moment to moment, fully present in the preparation of Being fully present. The doing of a practice, like mediation or exercising, is not to accomplish a future goal, but rather to be in the "isness" of the practice, appreciating its value in preparing you to be even more fully present in each moment.

We are often motivated to empty, to let go, and make space within, when we sense something new is coming. It takes Trust to follow the impulse to release that which no longer feels in alignment with our Truth. Often we don't know what will fill the emptiness. Creating space is a great spiritual practice. I remind myself of that as I finally, at the end of January, empty my 1998 files, put papers into boxes and to make space for the 1999 papers. By the time I leave for my trip, my desk will be organized, the kitchen and bathroom floor mopped, and all the clothes draped over the chair in my bedroom hung in the closet. Well, I have a house-sitter coming. I would like to give her my space to fill.

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