And Now What?

I've begun thinking about what I would do when we spend a longer term in one location here in Thailand. Right now I'm imagining October, November, December and January in Pai, then a month or more at TWL Beach and/or Cha Am, and finally a month or so at Sherabling in April. I don't know if this will fit into our visa requirements, but assuming we could make that work, this schedule now is starting to make more sense to me. This would be 7 months away from the US. We'd see my mom at the beginning – late September, say – and at the end – late April, say - of our time away.(Nancy and I are already experiencing conflicting needs regarding this version of our schedule. She wants to be in Sherabling during parts of next October and November for teachings from Situ Rimpoche, while I'm wanting to be in Pai. We shall see.)

So the question of how to be of service has arisen for me, and really for us. How to make a contribution while “living abroad”, as Heather, Nancy's astrological consultant, has characterized our time. Now that we've explored, and discovered places that we would want to be longer term, and gotten ourselves acclimated to Thailand, so that not every breath and every action is a consuming adventure that occupies us considerably, how can I spend meaningful time other than planning where to eat our meals, for example.

If I'm retiring as a therapist, at least in the US, at least as I've known it, would I want to provide some kind of related service to people in Thailand? Expats in Pai? Would there be any need for this service? (Clearly there is always the need; but would there be any demand?)

What are my gifts and talents that would lend themselves both to serving others in some way of alleviating some suffering, and serving myself with meaningful engagement?

These are questions about what to do when you live somewhere, and are not just traveling and passing through. Given who I am and how I operate, not the networker that Nancy is for example, how can this question take shape and be answered gracefully? What will God lead me to? That's the real question here. So having begun asking the question, almost immediately....................

we keep meeting wonderful people. Last night I met Glen, a black French man, I think, married to a Thai woman who sells “burritos” and lasagnas on the walking street each nite, and father of two adorable small children, and, as it turns out, a pretty skilled and educated jazz guitarist. When I walked up to Glen's wife's cart last night to order a vegetarian burrito, I saw Glen behind the cart, and he saw me, and he got up and said to me: Do I know you from somewhere? I don't know, I said, and he said, maybe from around here, on the street, and I said maybe so. An entirely unexpected and brief encounter, and we each went on with our business. Later that evenning, after checking out some live music at one of the many bars in Pai, with Kelly and Nancy and David Kinschie, a very old friend of Nancy's from the Seventies, and leaving because I didn't care for what was being offered, I walked back up the street to where I had seen Glen noodling on an acoustic guitar a few minutes before, and had liked what I'd heard, and he was still at it, as I'd hoped he would be. I stopped and asked if he would mind if I listened, and of course we got to talking, and eventually he asked if I played, and I told him I was a percussionist, and that my foundation in drumming was jazz, and this caught his surprised attention. We talked a bit more, and he told me about an open mike on Sunday nights at Over Hear, and that there was a drum kit there, and I thought that would be great fun, and he asked me if I was “ok with something like this” and riffed off into a fast swinging little set of changes and I began beat boxing the rhythm to his guitar, and we swung for a few minutes that way, and we were both smiling broadly and clearly enjoying the exchange. Today I saw him again as he passed by on his motorbike with his guitar case slung across his back, and we exchanged waves and peace signs.

Today, at Pai Laguna, we met Rakaia and Chris, two thirty somethings just here from India for some R and R. These two grew up together in Utah, and are best friends today. Chris is a photographer and film maker, and his current project, over the last two years in India and Nepal, is an independent documentary film about human trafficking. Very heavy stuff, and he's in the dangerous trenches with it, pretty much on his own, and is of course being effected by it with secondary trauma and ptsd. Rakaia is his support person and sometime traveling companion, and is a body worker, energy healer and photographer as well. They landed at Pai Laguna the night before, spent, in need of a quiet place to regroup emotionally and physically. As it turned out though, it's too cold here for Chris, which has been triggering some trauma reactions, and he has already left for warmer Thai climes and a piece of photography work to make some needed money. 

Nancy and I were just sitting out on the wonderful patio/hanging/dining area next to one of the two ponds, warming ourselves in the morning sun, and Chris and Rakaia were sitting at a nearby table doing the same. Of course soon enough we got to talking, and Chris at first reluctantly began sharing his experience of the past two years. Reluctantly because he knows that this kind of sharing can easily be trumatizing to others, and because not too many people would want to hear about it anyway. Once he learned that Nancy and I work with trauma professionally, the exchange deepened, and between that morning and the next, when we saw them again, he was sharing an idea that he's had for a long while about starting an NGO to work with the survivors of trafficking sex slavery, and offering Nancy and I an opportunity to be a part of this. (Chris said he's worked already with over 50 NGO's in India, and that some of what he's seen in the way of “therapy” has often been re-traumatizing for the victims. He's seen, he said, a lot of what works and a lot of what doesn't, and he wants to start his NGO to build on what does. ) This was based on the almost instant connection and spiritual bond that we'd formed in a couple of hours time, and his deep respect for Nancy and I and how we approach our work. 

We were both blown away by this suggestion and offer. Overwhelmed, really. Both by the thought of what this could involve professionally, and by the level of personal connection implied by the overture itself. Of course, nothing is decided; only the idea has been presented. We're in no hurry to think about what this might mean, except to acknowledge it as an opening into something related to the new kind of questioning I'm doing. Nancy for her part has been worrying about how and where she will get to do her Flower Essence work, her calling and her love, if we aren't in the States, or don't have a permanent home. And this possibility presents itself "out of the blue". Just an affirmation that we don't really need to be worrying about the how or the where, or even the what, but to continue to stay open to what is coming to us freely. 

Another level of our experience is being deeply heartened by some of the twenty and thirty-something's we've met who are “carrying the torch” as we're putting it, of what we and many others were involved with starting in the Sixties or Seventies. The old “hippy” values of peace and love, of service, of creating a new world based on a deeper experiential spirituality, are being lived and extended by new generations of people with similar sensibilities. We don't always get to see this, and I think we sometimes lose sight of what is happening amidst all the horror that we can encounter everywhere through the media propaganda designed to serve the 1%, if you like. People who have the courage to challenge power; to live lives of commitment to truth and mutual respect and wellbeing. People not afraid to make personal sacrifices in the service of their larger human family. Wow. This is a deeply emotional and heart warming experience for us.

                                                                                                               

We are questioning what our new roles as elders will be in this next stage of our lives. What “work” will we do to contribute to the ongoing and greater individual and planetary healing? How will we share our own hard earned wisdom, insight, understanding, humanity, devotion and dedication? What is it exactly that we have to offer, and how best to offer it? For Nancy and me, there have always come points in our joint lives when we have had to ask: And now what? We've done this, and we've done that, and it's been wonderful and blessed and creative and meaningful. And then it's over, in some real sense. Another stage arises, another time with another agenda required. And now what? We're in the process of discovering what this answer will be, and are feeling so blessed and privileged and honored to be able to live the questions, and to receive what is next in store, un-imagined, unexpected, unplanned, for us. For this adventure too, we're.......................leaving it open.