I hope I’ve prepared enough for this trip. My flight leaves in two days.
Logistics have not been my specialty lately. I’ve been in a very introspective place for a few months, and spending so much time inward has made it harder to focus outward. I have basic things like a flight, a visa, and a rough plan, but the rest I expect to improvise.
I feel more mentally prepared than logistically, and I guess I’m counting on that to supply the extra fuel needed to fly by the seat of my pants. I haven’t worked for a few months and I do feel rested, not wobbly like at first. My rhythm has changed. It’s slower, but I think sharper, and it conserves a lot of energy that I never realized I was spending.
I‘m excited to join rhythms with Thailand, to meet its people and learn its geography, and to visit the places that it takes me within myself. Right now I’d be content just to exist there, just to have a new headspace, but I know that so much more than raw existence is in store.
The way Skip designed the trip (he gets all the credit for this) is an appealing parlay of rich experience and simple existence. It’s what really sold me on it.
For the first two weeks we’re to travel, experiencing and soaking up all the culture, people and food we can. The next six weeks are different. They’ll be spent in just one setting, a remote village outside of Khon Kaen affiliated with a Buddhist monastery. We’re volunteering for the Mindfulness Project, a community eco-project that promotes permaculture and mindful living. It’s this leg’s rhythm I’m most excited about, faithful to nature and ancient wisdom, and I’ll have six full weeks to synchronize with it, internalize it, and just be with it.
A friend of mine, aware of my restless tendencies, gave me some wisdom to take on this trip: “Remember we are human beings, not human doings. You don’t always have to do. It’s ok to just be.”