June 23, 2012 Blog #24

I only see what I am looking for.

Lost in familiar places.

I awoke on my second day in Santorini, and stepped out on the small balcony that overlooked more than 180 degrees of coastline, blue Ionian Sea, on the side of the island away from the caldera steep cliffs. I had picked up some breakfast supplies from a small grocery store the previous night and put them in my backpack before I got lost in the dark. I sat at the table on the balcony and slowly enjoyed my Nescafé, cereal with banana and yogurt, and ripe apricots. I caught up with email. I had finished Kazantazakis’ Zorba the Greek and was now reading his book, “Alexander the Great”, along with a little Rumi, and Greek history. I relaxed in the morning and waited for my rent a car to be delivered to the hotel. It arrived about an hour late, but was a small blue Chevy Movi?? that would work well for the narrow island roads. I completed the paper work, gathered up my gear, and headed down the winding path to Amoudi beach, on a small boat harborage just inside the edge of the caldera, sheltered by a small island from the strong wind and whitecaps. I snorkeled around the little bay for an hour or so and then got out to dry in the late afternoon sun. I was sitting on a very small concrete pier with steps. Soon, a series of medium sized ships started coming in directly to where I was sitting. They were tour boats, each carrying perhaps 50-60 passengers who had been our for the day, touring the islands in the caldera and swimming or snorkeling. I watched them come in and unload, one by one, tired and wind blown, but happy tourists stepping or jumping across from boat to pier, for an hour.

Relaxed and smiling to myself after my swim and snorkel, I walked back up the small winding road on which I had parked when I came to swim. I scanned the side of the road up the hill and did ‘t see my car. I walked up the road and continued 100-200 meters further, thinking maybe I had parked up further than I remembered. I carefully walked down again, looking carefully for the car. I scrutinized the landing area where I had been swimming. I wondered if for some reason I had gotten towed away. I searched up the winding road twice more, further each time. I was baffled. I have not heard of theft much at all in these Greek Islands. Besides, why would anyone take a tiny used rental car among the thousands everywhere on the island? Had I forgotten to lock it and perhaps some teenage joyriders taken it? I realized that I was stranded down at Amoudi Bay and my IPhone had been in my daypack in the car, along with my wallet, camera, and other essential content. I realized I would have to walk or hitchhike back to my apartment, 3-4 km away and up a steep climb? I rehearsed in my mind, what I would say when I called the police to make a report, in order to trigger the car insurance. As I trudged uphill, I went through the mental checklist of the Visa and MasterCard and debit cards that I would have to cancel, realizing that I now had no phone. I considered the need to replace my drivers license. Health insurance card, AARP, Alaska mileage card, etc. would not present difficulties. I considered my onward travel options. Without a drivers license, I could not rent a car. Although I had some dollars in cash that could take me forward for a week or two. How or where could the replacement credit and debit cards be mailed? I already had an airline reservation to fly to Istanbul, that was paid for and a hotel reservation. Should I continue on my sabbatical into Turkey without these essential items? I had copies of my lost cards in another location in my bags, so I could reserve an airline flight home on line. Was it time to head for home? What was the meaning or learning that I was supposed to take from this experience?

Yet, some part of me thought that it was some mistake. As I trudged up the hot asphalt road in the 6:30ish solstice sun, I was increasingly thirsty, sweating heavily, as I climbed up and up. At length a car came laboring up the hill, an older mustachioed Greek man in an old, faded, beat up, dented car filled with cigarette smoke. I waved and he stopped and gave me a ride the rest of the way up the hill and for about another kilometer before he turned off. I walked the rest of the way to the turnoff, then down the hill for 1 km. about 7:15 in the evening. Embarrassed, I talked with Christos, the proprietor and he was concerned, but low key about it. He phoned the rent a car guy who had brought the car out to me that afternoon, who said that all of their rental cars had special wheel locks that made theft impossible, without the key. This reassured Christos and I began to question myself more, still having no idea of what had happened. The rental car guy lived close by and said he would come over and pick me up to drive down to search for the car. He came about 20 minutes later, and we drove back down toward the bay. As we approached, I showed him where I had been parked. He said, well there it is, right there! I looked and didn’t see what he was pointing toward. He stopped and said, “that’s the car”. I looked into it and saw my daypack with all of my valued possessions intact.

Why could I not see it? It was a blue car and I was searching for a gray car. I had had a gray rental car in Ireland. The car that I rode in Dighty with Ceile de monastery friends was gray. And the rental car that I drove for 3 weeks in Crete was gray. Having just received the car a few hours before I lost it, I had not mentally registered it as a blue car….. I was only looking for a gray car; I walked past that little blue Chevy Mobi at least 4 times without looking at it. There were 3-4 other gray cars parked in the same line beside the road that I had examined carefully. I was deeply embarrassed, humiliated really. But, it was what it was. Was I developing Alzheimer’s ? Just stressed out from traveling and constant new things to which to adapt? Not for the first or last time, I asked myself, “what is wrong with me?” :~>) The rental car guy and Christos were both gracious. It was all good news, none of my fears had come to pass. Everything was ok, why was I feeling so awful, yet grateful at the same time?

My mentor, Richard Rohr always says that everyone of us needs our daily humiliations, in order to get out of ourselves, remember not to trust our ego, “small self”, but be reminded to trust in our “big Self”, in God, who we really are separated from by our busy mind and performance, mistakes, achievements, or foolishness. It was also such a startling, raw demonstration of how we only see what we are looking for. Our foregone conclusions, our premature judgements, our opinions all are clouded by the inner belief, template, expectation, prism that we look out from. Police men know this when they are asking different witnesses abut the same incident. Our own preexisting neural networks determine much of what we see and how we interpret it, far more than we realize. As one wise man has said, we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are”. We all see a different world, depending upon our own individual lens. No wonder there is so much conflict and alienation in our world. No wonder there is so much fighting and treating the “other” as the enemy, “not like us”. This experience was a reminder to me that we all, every person on the planet, has a different, unique point of view, a different reality. Reality is actually totally subjective. We can only know it through our own individual sensory and neural apparatus. It is very humbling to realize that we all are blind men who see a different part of the elephant, and can never truly know what is “objective reality”, what a real elephant looks like, if such a thing exists. Yet, we can be totally sure our opinion and perspective is the right one and fight to the death over our differing beliefs and realities. Beware of people who think they really know.

Consider the ramifications of this issue. None of us can really know anything for sure, only our own experience of it. If we all realized what we don’t know and can never truly know, we might be free from the delusion of “I know the answer and you don’t.” The archetypal sin, (called original sin) of Adam and Eve was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since the beginning, we have all wanted to have a “God’s eye view”, and know the “truth”. We all want and mostly think we have God-like knowledge and wisdom (idolatry). It is very humbling, perhaps humiliating to be mere creatures, with very limited capacities for awareness and knowledge, to only see our own tiny purview.

How much more peaceful and real would our world be if we all accepted the truth of limitations of our tiny brains and mental apparatus, if we had compassion for one a other, with our shared limitations and delusions? What if there is Truth in the universe which we can never know? What if there is love beyond what we can comprehend? What if there is “good” beyond what we can even approach? Maybe, our appreciation of beauty is a small “bread crumb” indicating the way to this awareness beyond our human apprehension. Richard Rohr says and quotes the Scholastic philosophers as saying that “harmony of the ultimate truth, love, and goodness results in beauty”, no matter how painful the truth, devastating the loss of love, or elusive the goodness.

The Music. Rumi

For 60 years I have been forgetful,
every moment, but not for a second
has thi flowing toward me slowed
or stopped.

I deserve nothing. Today I recognize
that I am the guest the mystics talk
about.
I play this living music for my host.
Everything today is for my host.

And another by Rumi

This Market

Can you find another market like
this?
Where, with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose
gardens?
Where, for one seed you get
a whole wilderness? For one weak
breath, the divine wind?