Like an underground river

How many dimensions has reality? How many layers of meaning are there?

Reality is like a book which has various layers of meaning. It can be read like a story, like a novel, with all its characters and happenings. It can also give profound teachings hidden in the folds of a simple story. And lastly, in the deepest layer it can take you into the main core of reality, which is not visible to our eyes, not detected by our regular senses. In this layer you become the writer and the book magically talks about you. You become writer and reader at the same time. A concept that i feel and live everyday traveling and especially here in this place and this moment, on the shore of Victoria lake.

I came here as the first stage of a new phase, that is traveling alone and independent for a while. It's pouring with rain while i'm writing and a moment ago watching the rain fall ,rippling the surface of the lake, which shortly before was as flat as a board, i think about reality and the deep layers it contains that we keep on missing all the time. We tend to override every moment like with a tank, frantic and greedy of new moments which we will again override in our wild ride. It's like eating a course and already thinking about the next, without tasting and enjoying the one right under our nose. We are always projected in the next moment, loosing the magic and the message that the present one contains, which indeed is a “present”, a gift. It's the famous “here and the now”. So it's exactly in a place like this with not much to do, lot of nature and free time that we realize how we are unable to stop the world, our inner world that determines then the external world. Every single moment our mind tells us a story, starting from external inputs. Sounds, smells, images and situations. Our mind really does contain the best of everything to tell us our own story, to teach us how we need to react to these inputs. And there we have reality, our own freshly-baked reality made of considerations and impressions that only we live. Our mind needs continous inputs to keep telling its story, its illusion, and to keep us distracted from that deep layer that flows like a river under the veil of reality. The Mind gets tired of the same inputs and so to take revenge, it starts projecting images from its huge collection piled up along a lifetime. And here comes opposing emotions of frustration, nervousness and a need of new things, adrenaline to feel alive, active. And here is how a place, that a moment ago seemed perfect to find yourself, can become like a small prison from which we want to run away. But this is where the fun starts. It's overcoming this first stage that allows the magic to begin. Traveling is not only a physical journey through new lands and sleeping every night under a new moon. Traveling is also taking a journey inside ourselves, drifting into our own personal deepness bringing light down to the depths of our soul, helped by the considerations that the journey induces and from the projection of ourselves that bounces back from meeting others. Yesterday before lunch there was a wonderful light, and on the horizon huge and soft white clouds lit by the sun.

The clouds, ahhh how beautiful!! I have passed all my life admiring them, especially the huge and creamy ones lit up by the sunset. I have often dreamed of flying around and through them, and once tired sitting down on one of them to watch a fiery sunset and the sun being swallowed by the horizon. The clouds...a perfect example of something ever changing, never static. How many of us have passed endless moments lying on a lawn with friends watching the strange and funny shapes they gradually took, and to see how a picture turned into something else??...Magic!!

Yesterday i was looking at this view and i was reflecting about the trip i'm making, about my being here. I left Mbale a few days ago, a town that has been my home for over a month, and after three wonderful days with a friend in Kampala here i am in this corner of paradise. Here, inspired by the landscape i enjoy my present and try to break down the future. That future that our mind keeps projecting, making you feel nervous, late with your plans, ideas and everything. I think about how this journey began, more like a way to save my life, to react and get back on my feet after an hard knock down. And now i see me, here in Africa in the front of Victoria lake, studying Swahili, enjoying a present full of emotions and not feeling too worried about the next step to take. As many know i still don't have a return ticket ..and for the moment i still don't want to look at flights and think about a possible return, even so it's probable I will be home for Christmas. I think about this while watching the landscape, and suddenly, as if by magic, my mind steps aside; i follow with my gaze the birds playing above the lake, i see an eagle on a branch 2 meters above my head. I become a simple observer and i think what else could an human being ask for. And so i ask myself, why should i really go back? Maybe i should stay here until i feel that i have had enough, maybe there's something for me here, and that's why i came. Life is ironic and travel is its best representation. I'm letting myself be crossed and shaped by everything, carried by the current, this is what i feel now and it's a crazy feeling, giving me shivers, like i never felt before. Because sometimes when traveling alone, i had been holding on thinking about my return. This time its different, i'm flying, embroiled in people, places, situations and already no longer the same and even with a return ticket in my hand i know that i will never really come back. This is the mood i want to keep now, and live this experience as if there was no tomorrow, making it timeless, making it “life”, as if i would stay here forever.

Finally i leave you with a passage from the book “The never ending story”, a true masterpiece that contains various layers of deepness put together with art. This passage of the book represents perfectly everything that i'm living in this moment.

Premise: Bastian is in Goab, the multicolour desert which was born from the wood of Perelun “created” by him, and talks woth Graogramàn, the mighty lion master of the desert.

<<Grogramàn,>> he said after a long silence. <<May I ask you a question?>> <<Your servant is listening.>> <<Is it true that you've always been here?>> <<Always!>> <<And the desert of Goab has always existed?>> <<Yes, the desert too. Why do you ask?>> Bastian pondered. <<I don't get it,>> he finally confessed. <<I'd have bet it wasn't here before yesterday morning.>> <<What makes you think that, master?>> Then Bastian told him everything that had happened since he met Moon Child. <<It's all so strange,>> he concluded. <<A wish comes into my head, and then something always happens that makes the wish come true. I haven't made this up, you know. I wouldn't be able to. I could never have invented all the different night plants in Perilin. Or the colors of Goab-or you! It's all much more wonderful and real than anything I could never have made up. But all the same, nothing is there until I've wished it.>> <<That,>> said the lion, <<is because you're carryin AURYN, the Gem.>> <<But does all thi exist only after I've wished it? Or was it all there before?>> <<Both,>> said Grogramàn. <<How can that be?>> Bastian cried almost impatiently. <<You've been here in Goab, the Desert of Colors, since heaven knows when. The room in your place was waiting for me since the beginning of time. So, too, was the sword Sikanda. You told me so yourself.>> <<That is true, master.>> <<But I-I've only been in Fantastica since last night! So it can't be true that all these things have existed only since I came here.>> <<Master,>> the lion replied calmly. <<Didn't you know that Fantastica is the land of stories? A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story.>> <<Then Perilin, too, must always have been there,>> said the perplexed Bastian. <<Beginning at the moment when you gave it its name,<< Grogramàn replied, <<it has existed forever.>> <<You mean that I created it?>> The lion was silent for a while. Then he said: <<Only yhr Childlike Empress can tell you that. It is she who has given you everything.>>