Cristina Rai

I started my second day in Bran, by drinking coffee in the swing for a couple of hours. The sun is shining, the dogs are lying around the swing sleeping in the sun, on the hill in front of me there are few cows enjoying their lunch. The air is warm, infusing with warmth even the silence I feel around me.

Later on, Julia, offered herself to join me to the castle. I don’t know so much about it and I am curious about my own experience of it. We walk slowly to the center of the village there the castle is and a tour though the centuries starts as soon I put my feet there.

I take few hours of wandering through the castle. I like the feeling I get of being there. In a way it feels like I lived there. The state I experience changes with the different parts I visit. In some of the there is obvious that has been a room of a woman or a man, despite the fact that the furniture is minimal.

I take some time to read about the story of this place. It fascinates me that so many people has owned it and has lived here and has passed through it – not to speak about all the visitors it has today – because of the fantasy story of the vampires based on Stoker’s roman since 18th centuries. Today the castle is privately owned by the descendants of the last queen living there.

But the castel it has its own story, if you just listen to it. It is stored in the stones of the walls, in the floor, in the land it is build on. Each room has the story of the people who have lived there – a different story. My state changes and show me around, letting me know more about this people and their song.

I leave the place with a sense of richness given by a deeper awareness about how alive everything is around us.

This weekend I followed my intuition and went to Bran, the village there Bran castle – known in the western countries as Dracula castle, was erected in the beginning at 13th centuries. I think this is the first time I travel alone as a turist in Romania – and it felt even more exciting and maked me more curious about my visit.

At the beginning – I thought that I am going there for a weekend of relaxation and silence, away from all noise and agglomeration I experience by living in city and by having family and friends around me all the time. It seems I was wrong!

As soon as I arrive in Bran, I am picked up by a nine years old girl and her nanny who is not older than 18. They guide me on a way, few minutes from the center of the village to the pension there I choose, also by intuition, to stay for the two nights. At the pension, I am welcomed by not more than five dogs, barking and swinging their tales around me. This would be a joy for many people, but not for me, who suddenly grasp the older girl’s arm and shaking in all my body while I whisper to them that I feel really afraid. The owner of the pension, Cosmin, is assuring me as soon as I am entering their house that their dogs are very kind and nothing would happen.

Choosing the fear and running away or staying there and accessing the trust and the relaxation in me? This is what goes one in my mind, when Cosmin takes my hand and put it on the head of Biluta – one of the dogs. ”You see, he says, the dog wants just some attention and love!”

”It’s your choice, he continues, but you’re more welcomed to stay! We could all play cards tonight, and let me show you what stone I have found in the backyard!” he says while pointing to a big stone in the middle of the garden. ”For me, it looks, like a city in miniature!”

There is something so warm and familiar in these people’s way of being. And I really like the simlicity and the realaxation in being that I sense. I decide to stay. The accommodation is simple but clean and welcoming!

The village itself, along the main street is not so big, the castle is just in the centre of the village, giving everything a sense of magic and mystic. To my horror I find out that there is going to be hollowen this weekend! What am I doing here, right now? What is it right about this that I cannot see now? I ask myself while I am sitting by myself in the only cafe bar I could found in the village, later in the evening.

I am almost at the pension when I see two big dogs, running to me and barking loudly. A woman’s warm voice make them turn around and the barking continues from behing the fence. And so I get to know even the neighbor: Aurora is a long woman, with amazing deep, black eyes that reminds me of roots of a tree. We start speaking, while she follows with me to the place I stay. There is a familiar feeling of being with her also, and the conversation continues around the table, there the girls and the man, are waiting for me to play cards with popcorn, ice tea and sun flower roasted seeds.

it seems that we could speak for hours and hours, and there is such a warm feeling of being with this people. The man’s mother is joining us also, even she is blind and can just sit and listen to us. The card game gets more and more intensive, everybody is having fun.

”Let’s eat something!” Cosmin says, and a short while later I am sitting around the table with all these new people eating from the same plate, with our hands, like we are brothers and sisters.

This is where I come from, this is how I grew up: surrounded by simple, warm hearted people. They would offer theirs heart to you!

I go to bed late, after more speaking, singing, storytelling and joyful atmosphere!

How does it get better than this?

The theme for my last days exploration has been connectiviness (this word does’t exist ). Allowing all points of view to be as they are is allowing the points of view of everyone I come in contact with. In a big city – is quite a challenge – for me!

It has been a challenge for me since I got to Romania, three weeks ago. For the first is that I got sick, quite fast, and it surprised me. After few days of exploration I could see through my sickness as a strategy, which I wrote about last week.
Anyway, since I got here, I have noticed that every morning I wake up having a lot thoughts of judgement for myself, for my body, for my lifestyle, for everything I am. Sliding almost into believing it.

Few nights ago, I just got the idea to check some of the videos with Dain Heer and I got a good reminder: ”Who does this belong to?”. I kept asking myself that question for a while and I got lighter and lighter. My state is changing every moment depending where I am and whom I am with. Points of view passing through, affecting me as soon as I make them mine and I start searching for a reason or for a story about them.

My environment has changed since I left Ängsbacka in the beginning of October and I am surrounded by people every day that are caring a lot of judgement about themselves, believing it and making it to their reality.

I discovered myself waking up in the morning, standing in front of the mirror with a lot of judgements about my body, I discovered myself walking around looking for solutions about how to be a better person, I discovered myself going to bed with the thought that I am not good enough, from a moment in another I turn from joy and ease to emotions of depressions and meaningless… until I wake up again and I realize that these are points of view that haven’t been guests of my consciousness in a long time. I recognize them from that time when I use to believe in them letting them drive me to deep depression, I recognize them from that time there I tried to understand them and find a story about them in my life, I recognize them from the time when I just notice them as body sensations, letting them arise, unfold and disappear.

And what is the difference right now? The density is bigger now, the vibration lower, the intensity of this heaviness is higher.

So grateful to have contact with so many different people and so many different spaces, because that showed my also how the points of view coming into me: the thoughts, the sensations, the emotions change so sudden. The nature and density of the points of view arising in me changed with every person I was in contact with, from very dense and judgmental in contact with some people to almost no-points of view and resting into being with others. From noisy voices to the smooth sound!

I had the idea of taking my backpack and hike up in the Romanian mountains until I will find a small cottage there I can stay for the coming two weeks. An idea born from the longing of relaxation and freedom of these agglomeration of points of view arising in me every moment.

Today, I started the day with a Zen Coaching exploration with Annette Tjorhom, I got even more clarity about how the connection with everything around me, manifests into my body and I got a deeper understanding about what ease is and how connected into one we all are, like fingers of the same hand.

In clarity I also could see through the separation in my mind between chosing what works for me, what contributes to my life and connection with all that is, as it is and understand the limitation of the mind to percieve that choosing away what doesn’t contribute to my life is not the same with rejection.

And if ease and joy will make my next choice – where would I BE and what would I BE doing?

Do I really need to stay in the middle of the noise to discover that it is still my choice if it affect me or not?

It’s not about reaching a point there i don’t need anything anymore! It’a about having access to all I need in the moment in me. Sometimes I ask for it and is there sometimes I ask for it and it takes some tears, some insights, some understanding, a decision based on strong will and some action …and is still there!

This is one of the misbelieves I had for a while in my life, maybe for my whole life. So grateful for the reminder I get right now by being with my mom and dad!

Not needing anything from my surroundings, from the people around me, from anything or anybody has always been true for me. And indeed there is a truth in it as in anything else.

As long as I remember ”I don’t need you!” or ”I don’t need it” has been my strategy in avoiding the feeling of rejection ”I don’t feel that you love me mom, I don’t need you anymore, I can take care of myself”

I don’t need all these kids to play with me! I am better off by myself”

Or what about ”you’re not here for me mom and dad! I can’t connect to you – I don’t trust that I can access what I get from you in any ways” this is a strong one! One of the miss-believes that has been my blockage from accessing all my essence all my true potential. Mistrusting it when it showed up when doing what I loved, mistrusting everything that showed that is possible but still longing for it with the strong will of the warrior that dent want to need anything and anyone.

The self instinct of a few years old child has always been right but it transformed in a game of power, a game of ”being strong” and ”showing off” that I don’t need anybody or anything.

I realize today that the only times I have said that I don’t need anything were the times i needed something but I didn’t have the trust that is going to be there. Because when I have full access to what I need in the moment there is no need to make it a need. It just unfolds in my being.

So grateful today for the warrior side of this kind of being. It has taken me all the way down into the emptiness of life and up again in it’s fullness and up and down until one day – I could see it! I understand it, I feel it in my body.

Weakness and strength is just a game of words, there they coexist and balance each other as yin and yang. No needing – is a truth in the meaning that nothing or nobody can fill me from outside with what I need.

Needing is a gift – when that means the will of accessing what I am more and more.” I need love” – is there any ways I can be more love than I am right now! I need clarity – is there any ways of seeing this situation more clearly right now? ”is there any way of accessing the whole of me right now?”

And indeed I don’t need anything or anybody else anymore when I can access what I NEED in me .. Most of the time. When not …I give you a call!

I am longing. I have been asking myself what I am longing for and I can’t find an answer anymore. Like my mind can not comprehend this longing. There are no words to express it. There is sorrow and joy happening in me in the same time, there is love and hate, there is clarity and confusion, bitterness and sweetness. Nothing makes sense anymore.
I have started from my longing of intimacy and relating to somebody in the most deepest way I have experiences so far. ”What does intimacy give me?” I ask myself and try to guide myself through the emotions arising in the moment. My body relaxes and my mind gets quiet, all my body is pulsating like it’s dancing a dance – on a song of love. The realization comes along. It didn’t gave me anything. It gave me everything. In my moments of total intimacy, of opening up with deep trust and total allowance, in those moments, I do not observe myself anymore, I do not feel those feelings. I am them. There is no separation between the feeling arising in me and me experiencing it. I am love and passion and compassion and everything else. In those moments everything happens in the same time: that ”me” – whatever it is – arising, expressing itself, experiencing itself. So what does it stop me from being so intimate with myself now? What choice do I make right now that doesn’t allow myself to be one with that it is in me?
Relating come into my mind! I don’t understand it. I sit quiet but curious for an answer. An image comes into my mind! An image that gives me the understanding that having a space there I could give myself, share myself is what made it possible. Trust and love – a space of trust and love.
A space like when somebody listen to me with compassion and curiosity, like when somebody else is embracing me with a open heart and I feel how we melt into each other, like that moment of total expansion in the communion with another being.
But what if this somebody or something is not here right now? I have a thought that is not possible without relating. Is like communion and aloneness are separated from each other. What would it take for me to be the communion and aloneness in the same time?
Contractions and expansions in the body takes me through a journey I could not imagine and suddenly it feels like I am in nobody’s land.

I live in a community since one year back, and i knew since i got here that my choice of living here is based on my longing to connect deeper to all I am and find what i really am and a way of expression.
This longing has taken me into different situations I would have never could imagine before, allowing me to see things as they really are but also to discover what is unique about me and what works for me.

For the last weeks, the big topic of the discussions in the community has been unity: creating a space there no separations exists in between different groups working here, a space there the unique gifts everyone has to give are used to their fully potential. There have been discussions about the intention of the group, the way we communicate and make decisions, the possibilities to contribute so that it still is to the benefit of all.

This is all I also wanted for the last months. I spent hours by writing emails to the board and discussing with likeminded people these issues and now when is happening, I notice myself taking a step back. More than this: I observe myself reacting on all the people exclaiming how much love they feel and how much they would like to support the winter team. What is going on? What in me is resisting? To what? Why my involvement is going down?

life is just magnificent! Just ask a question and the answer is there. Maybe not always in the way, I expect it to. So here I am lying in my bed, floating in my own sweat, body burning in fever, pain making me aware of my body! I inform some of my friends here, and the people I work with that I am sick and I fell down into a two days journey of sadness, pain, fever, acceptance, more sadness, fear, love, laughter and so on.
I am living in a community, there around twenty people are active right now, just two flours from my room. Some of them know I am sick, some of them don’t know , and the only caring I got, it has been a text message from one of my closest friends here: ”warm hug from me!”
I looked at the message and I felt into how much it does help me that hug, and i realized that an orange or a lemon juice is what I actually need right now. But have I asked for it? NO! Here I am not really allowing myself to tell anyone that today I had so much pain in my body that I barely can move. Why? ”Not to disturb them” the answer came into my head. But today I dared to ask. I asked my neighbor to bring me some orange juice.

So with the background of putting all the energy in being together here in these community, caring for each other, doing things together, sharing our gifts, I observe that I don’t dare to ask for it or to believe that i deserve it, but I am not offered that either. I remember suddenly of few people being sick here the last week. Have I done anything for them? NO! I didn’t even know that some of them were sick. And my questions starts arising in my head: ”what is then all these care about?” ”why haven’t I heard about these people being sick?” ”Do they know about me being sick?” and ”when we know about it, isn’t one of the most obvious situations of caring for each other?”

I share this with my friend and my sister in Romania, who have been online with me most of the time the last two days. They couldn’t bring me a glass of juice, but they’ve been checking on me, from time to time, just to see how I am.
”Look” I said to them today, ”I feel like puking when I lay here in my bed, sick, and I read all these emails about people who want to support and care about each other but I see that we are not able to give a hand when sick. How is this going to happen? How much truth is in this?”

And when speaking I saw my reaction and its source in me. ”we are trying to create here a place there we care, love and accept each other exactly as we are, living together in harmony, being exactly as we are! But isn’t it what a healthy family is about?”
But what is a healthy family for me? And in that moment I could see how I project my longing of being totally home in myself and being me wherever I go in living and contributing to a community. ”How am I going to be able to accept, love and care of all these people with an open heart, if I am not able to do that with my own family? Is this projection going to help me anyhow if I don’t bring it home in me, stopping trying to recreate the same thing I already have?”

PS and as soon as I was done with this post, my neighbor knocked at the door. ”How is it going with you?” he asked. I told him that today there is more pain in the body than the other day. He offered to bring me up something to eat. My heart opened up and a ray of light passed through.

24 hours after I left Cape Town, I land i Brussel – my last stop before Stockholm. My body is tired, my skin dry and my nose is blooding. I need fresh air! I find my way out from the airport and here I am, in the morning sun. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Something is different. I can’t really point it out but something is really different.
I sit down for a while looking at the people around me. There is something mechanical in their movements, there is something that make all this picture in front of me look like a scene from a cartoon.
”Excuse me, do you know what time it is?” I ask the woman standing few steps away from me. ”It’s nine o’clock” she says after trowing an eye at her watch. she looks at me with a big smile and there is a sense of warmth in this short, impersonal meeting.
So what makes it that I perceive this world so unnatural or inauthentic?

Back in the airport I use my time writing down ideas about how to reorganize the marketing activities at Ängsbacka. This is the first time I think work since i left Sweden, 11th of August. I find quite fast that there is a longing in me to find out what is the best way for me to express myself in this world. Thinking organisation doesn’t give me the answer. Thinking moving away – doesn’t give me a purpose.

I notice that my longing in finding something I really love doing, something I become one with, like a complete physical expression of who I am is projecting in one of my plans of starting a company aimed to support people to find and express what is authentic in them and help them promote themselves, inspire others and strengthen their network. This idea has been growing in me for a while and starts fading in the moment I see it for what it is – a projection.

While on the plane it takes just few minutes until I fall into a deep trance. I am aware of me sleeping, the plane taking off, the stewardesses going around, serving, me dreaming. We land after just few hours, the dreams disappeared as fast as the cloulds on the sky, a windy day. I leave the plane with a sense of not knowing – that right now is as comfortable as it can be.

So here I am on the Bazbus with 8 other backpackers who want to feel safe on their trip. I don’t like the fact that there is a black border in the middle of the window. I either have to raise my head up or almost to lie down in my chair in order to see something outside. So at the next stop I ask the driver to move in the front of the minibus.
There is another life in the front. I take my shoes off and put my legs up on the chair in lotus position. I start speking with the driver about how life in south Africa is and the big differences between the classes.

We are passing by the township areas there people are living in cartons with no conditions. It breaks my heart to see these areas and I notice my tendency of ignoring the pain I am sensing by watching my thoughts.  I ask myself if I will be able to live here having a nice life knowing that next door there are people not having at least a ceiling over their head.

The driver, whose name is Sydney is bringing me back on earth soon: the government is trying to help this people by giving them houses. But they are moving a lot and there is no control over who is living where. And suddenly they have two, three places to live in different townships.”

I understand soon that the situation is beyond my understanding since I dont know all the variables of the equation. One thing is clear for me. These people are segregated either because their color or background, have no education and no jobs. They’re moving around depending of the possibilities to make a living.
I wonder at what level the small entrepreneurs are encouraged to put up businesses and also to hire black people who are willing to learn a job or to follow a job training.

I forget soon about the situation of the poor people in south Africa when my sight is taken by the nature around. I get quiet and I notice myself landing more here and now, present with my body sensations.
”Why are you staying in Wilderness” the driver asks there are so many other places along the garden route you will enjoy better.”

I explain to him that I am mostly interested to rest for a couple of days and therefore not willing to pay for traveling further then that. He tells me about a Cosy place the town next to wilderness. At the beginning I get interested but soon enough I catch his wiliness to promote his friends backpackers hostel.
”Look, he says, after a while when started to sense me doubting about staying at the place he recommended. ”You can travel with me, all the way to Port Elisabeth, check the places on the way and then tomorrow, you travel back with the bazbus and decide where you want to stay.”

The thought of seeing all Garden Route and east coast is giggling and my tiredness is losing power. I decide to go with this idea and the next moment I am watching the next episode of ”how dangerous is this” tv-show of my mind. Plenty of suspicious thoughts are passing my mind, some of them transforming faster than I sometimes notice into horror stories. I decide to be careful but continue on this decision.
I will never know what really was in this drivers head but one thing I am sure about it: it must have give him something to take such a risk. Beside this I think that he even changed his schedule in order to be driving all the way to port Elisabeth that night.
I could notice how my state changed in just a minute: from receiving this person with all my heart when the situation was perceived by my mind as safe  based on earlier experiences to closing out this person as soon as the situation that arose came out of the known, safe zone. When exploring myself in this situation I could notice that at the bottom of it is the longing for trusting myself being able to stand up for my needs and wishes and not fall out of that in order to please others. Trusting myself to stand up for my truth whatever that is.
Old similar situations came up into my mind and helped to see my strategies with clarity. Usually I am either being harsh and set clearly the rules of the game, closing totally my heart from feeling the heart of the other person or I just give up what I want to do empowering the fear of being drawn in something I wouldn’t like or choose by myself. And either the first or the second situation I stop following my flow of life. The first strategy is genius because as soon as I close out the people involved I will also close out the possibilities of sensing what their motivation is and how can I meet them in the best way while I am not giving up my own needs and wishes.
We arrived late in port Elisabeth. Something has changed in me just by seeing how I am biting myself in the tail. From not even smiling anymore to this man who offered me the possibility of traveling for free half way I hear myself saying to him:

”Sydney, thank you so much for offering me to travel all the way to P.E. I am so grateful for having this opportunity. This gives me a lot of joy and another way of relating to south Africa.”

This was my truth and these words coming from my heart was all I could offer him to pay back. My thoughts of paying him a couple of rands started to fade out and my relaxation to grow.

I woke up early today since I wanted to to catch a bus to Wilderness and see a little bit of the garden route. I messed up the bus stations and there I am in at a gas station with a paid ticket and no bus coming. I realized quite fast that I can take the next bus at 8 from the place I was on the way to but something told me that is going to be worth it if I take the Bazbus. Bazbus is a bus company mostly for tourists which comes and picks you up at the hostel and drops you at the next one along the south africaan east coast. Very convenient but also very expensive. Yesterday I got to know from the girl at the Wilderness beach hostel that Bazbus has something called match price. This will be matching the price of the other bus company and adding just 50 rand. So here I am waiting at the gas station for the bazbus. I’ve been waiting a while when an old black women comes and joins me at the table I sit at.

 ”Are you wating for the bus?”, she asks and look at me with that kind of eyes I recognize with the black grannies in American movies.

 We start a nice conversation and so I find out that she is waiting for an appointment she had in an half an hour for a job in a shop. She is almost 60 and has three children, one in my age. We speak about everything that come into our minds and from time to time she will look at the watch.

 ”Is almost half past now” she said, ”but I will wait with you for the bus.

 ”You going to be late” I said a little but worried.

 ”It’s not so bad”, she said and didn’t show any signs in trying to move from the bench we were sitting on. I turn quiet. I don’t understand and I’m not trying too either. I am just receiving her kindness. Few thoughts about what reasons she may have pass through my mind and I just akownledge that the thought with the most power is however is dangerous for me to waiting alone at a very busy gas station early in the morning. A smile comes up on my face. These thoughts are still coming and going. We are sitting quiet for a while: me – noticing my fearful thoughts, she – singing quietly. Suddenly I notice something else. A feeling of being hold and cared arises in me and grows slowly. I am filled with compassion. I am swinging my body from side to side on the bench at the melody of her song.

 ”Here is the bus” I say standing up and lifting up my bag. I feel like jumping in her arms and giving her a big hug like saying good by to a dear auntie but I find myself stretching out my hand to her. She takes slowly her hand from her heart and holds mine for a moment with a big smile.