My City in Winter

by Sharda Chaitanya

Wow, wow, wow...the energy these days has been awesome!  

Ever since December 12, 2012, I have been directly sensing terrific and deep energy, and in recent days, it is playfully responding to whatever I do.  Right around the 12/12 portal, when we were receiving new downloads, I was knocked off my feet - but in a very cosmic way. So each time I come back, it is as though I am observing a more integrated sensibility - I am given a new way to see something in my life.  And the feeling of the energy changes every few days.  Most recently, I went out of town, which resulted in feeling more grounded - out of my head and in my body.  I am clearer and have a renewed sense of several important aspects of my life.

 I managed to unplug for a few days and spend some time up in Woodstock, New York.  I was in a somewhat remote area, surrounded by trees, hudled in the hills.  I got away from the noise and pace of the City, and was up there alone, with a fireplace, my books and a journal.  It was the best therapy I could have had.  After five days, though, I was ready to come home.  As charming as it all was, when I had my fill, I was ready to return.  Coincidentally, a big storm was heading that way, and provided the perfect segue back to Manhattan.

Each time I leave and return, I gain a new appreciation for my life and what it offers.  Sometimes I hate it and want to run away, pulling my hair and screaming.  It isn't that I hate it so much it's that I have been getting restless and feel it's time for a change.  And so I try to make one.  Or else I sit and wait for one to happen.  It never does.  So I try something new again.  It doesn't take.  So I sit and wait for a change, an outward one, to manifest.  Again, no go.  This has been the cycle. 

This last attempt, my going to the Hudson River Valley to extend my beingness beyond the 10-block radius that is my world, proved interesting.  I thought this is IT,  Baby, I'm headin' outta town and nobody's gonna try an' stop me!  Where was I going, exactly?  I didn't know, but I was sure I would find it when I got there.  What I went to do, i.e., work on a project I am developing, did NOT go as planned.  I wrote down a few pages of notes, then got distracted by... something, most likely by the fireplace needing to be stoked.   And I thought I would meditate more, and better, now that I was surrounded by nature.  Umm, no, not really.  Or at least I would commune with nature and receive a much-needed message, one that would rock my world and give me the answer to at least one of my burning questions.  Nope, again - nothing up there spoke to me.  

Lake George by J.W. Casilear

What did keep going through my mind was, could I live up here, or some place like here, permanently?   Am I ready to leave the Big Apple for the small apple?  Few locations on the planet, in my opinion, are as charming as the Hudson Valley.  Every time I see  a painting by one of the Hudson River School artists, I must stop to take it in.   The sublime and etheric quality, the muted colors, the rich emotion of the natural settings, the perspective and depth of field, all coalesce to make a statement that my emotions and senses can barely contain.  This was the land that the Native Americans called home.  I imagine them, I see them, walking the land, living in tepees, thriving on the abundantly available supply of fish from the river - and I am transported.  I have a deep connection to that time and place, which is one of the reasons I am drawn there, to be sure.

 

This effort to make an external change, I realize, is a symptom of something I want, which I don't know how to get.  The change that I truly want is one of expanded consciousness.  I want knowledge and access and answers.  I want to communicate with other star races, travel beyond the third dimension and know what I am without this body.  I feel like I have to keep on dialing it down in order to maintain this mundane existence.  I feel like so much of what I've recently experienced, that is, these past 5 years of intense transitioning and healing, has reached its completion.  Therefore, where do I go?  Where am I even to look?  Do I need to change locations, or just perspective?  I grapple with these questions - not so much as conscious thought, but as background chatter of my supraconscious mind.  And so since I can't go to Venus right now, I settled for Woodstock. 

Day 2 - Deer Let Me Take a Picture

 Again, what I aimed to do did not get done - all my honest attempts at busy-ness did not transpire.  Just as well, it's not really my forte.  My forte is my intuitive creativity, my meditation and my long hours of quiet stillness where I can hear the sounds of my own truth.  What did get done took me by surprise.  Part of me did not want to go up there - the part that didn't want to confront the phobias that have been lingering way too long was more comfortable staying home and stewing in "what-ifs".  But go I did.  Much to my surprise, after a day and a half, the phobia I thought I had never came to mind.  How did that happen?  Moreover, I was the recipient of wonderful synchronicities, and manifestations and helpers that showed up when I needed something - all of this in a few short days.  Short only in time, but very long if we measure the duration of our journey and how far we have had to come to be part of the bounty of Creator's compassion.  A little bit of Divine Alchemy goes a long way in restoring one's faith.

Back at home, I woke up very early and headed out the door to my usual spot for a coffee and a croissant.  Journal in hand, I spend the morning writing and thinking, while around me the din of conversation and smell of coffee created the perfect ambiance.  I made headway with my project and debriefed my journal about recent events. It was still early afternoon when I finally made it back to my apartment.  I sat at my computer and looked out the window to see the snow becoming heavier and accumulating rapidly.  Across the way are all the usual apartment windows of the same buildings, and on the street people hurrying to get home, as the wind gusts and they struggle with the cold.  A noisy, outdated orange snowplow lumbers down the narrow street, pushing snow against parked cars, who's owner will loudly bitch about when the time comes to move them.  Ahh, my city in Winter - I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.