January's gifts - leading to a rant on possessions, Faith and Choice

1. Book about 2012

2. Underwear

3. New backpack, huge

4. Clothes, various 

5. Obsidian crystal, iridescent, heart-shaped

6. Wire, to make obsidian into a pendant

7. A painting (left - entitled Hula in my honour -
see more of Dave's pics here)

8. A pair of poi

9. A tattoo

Most of the above followed me saying (largely to myself - thus most are coincidental) that I wanted that particular thing. On every occasion I have found exactly what I need. I am possessed with a confidence that everything is borrowed and there is no need to become possessive over possessions. They are just possessions. In Dan's words:

Everything we have achieved in this life, everything we've acquired, all the things we've lusted after and obtained... eventually... we have to give it all back.

Worrying about them not being there simply manifests insufficiency. I know that I will get everything I need, in time. I simply need to relax about it.

Everywhere I go I receive the help that I need. Even today, I am trying to make new hula hoops to give away to Frank and Tracey, at every stage of the operation someone has either done it for me or given me the help I need without me having to ask.

I feel myself mentally putting my hands up in surrender. I am letting go to whatever forces affect life and seeing where they take me and what they bring.

Travelling has given me the time and space to observe what is going on and also to take me away from the pulls and pushes of daily routine, necessity, time deficit. By observing all of this I find a new peace, knowing - not just believing, knowing - that I will get what I need.

People describe me as 'lucky'. I say wholeheartedly that it is not luck that brings me these things but faith and choice; in combination: intentionality. I choose what mental state to maintain and what to listen to, and I have faith that my choice, because it is a product of my intuition, will bring me through.


When I left England, the vast majority of people said something along the lines of; "You're so lucky and I'm so jealous! I wish that I could do what you are doing." All the time, I was thinking; How is it 'luck' that takes me from my well-paid job and 'secure' surroundings to the other side of the world, with no plan, no idea of the future, no guide, little savings? I put my whole being into this. I didn't go out for months. I didn't buy myself a thing. I wound my friends up by refusing to even pay a pound for the bus across town.


I have nothing to go back to. I even gave away most of my clothes. I remember the look of my boss when I told him I was leaving to 'go travelling'. There was no way he could hide the incredulity and condescension over my decision. 'How irresponsible, to leave, in the middle of a financial crisis and just when you are getting somewhere?!' He didn't even try to argue, for in my declaration I had simultaneously demonstrated myself to be just the sort of person he didn't want in his straight-jacket of a company.


Luck is the easiest way we can describe the visible pattern of someone doing well. I believe we use the word luck to label the events of a person's life when that person is in their flow. It is inconceivable to many people how one person can have so much 'luck' and another can be stuck in a seemingly everlasting series of misfortunes. The reality is the mental state. When things go right, the person grows into the mindspace of things going right, thus elevating them to an energy space that attracts good things. When things go wrong, a person feels like the world is against them and consequently attracts more misfortune.


I do not mean to say that people deserve misfortunes, but that by changing an attitude, you can change your life.


It is choice - choosing to buy a plane ticket instead of a new iPod, choosing to live from a bag, eat sporadically, experience poverty, exist in transience. Choosing to listen to the intuitions I receive.

And with the choice comes faith - knowing that I was right, knowing deep enough to really let go.


I knew the world I was in was stifling my spirit, and that I would find what I was looking for, as long as I made myself free to be steered by the winds of the world. A position where I am able to listen to the clues that have been provided, and do what I need to do to follow my instincts, instead of hemming myself in with constraints brought on by the need for a routine, for possessions, for security.

It can be hard to do that. Of course I am in the fortunate position of having no ties. Or rather, I was able to cut myself off from everything. My family is self-sufficient and exists in separate worlds to me, and my friends have their own agendas. I did not own a house, a car, a husband, a child.


I did meet someone after I bought the ticket but again he, like me, has made the choice to follow his intuition and join me. He arrives in three weeks. He has chosen to redirect his life and abandon himself to the flow, because he felt, even though it is a huge and terrifying change, that it was the right thing.


And as if to encourage these theories, the synchronicities are already rolling out the red carpet for him too. Ever since he made the choice to come, information, gifts, inspiration and business fortune have come his way.


In short, he has become very 'lucky'.


I'm not really sure where I'm going with this as I hadn't really intended to write about this in the first place. For those of you looking for another episode of Julia's nice story book, I apologise. I merely wanted to thank the world for bringing me all the things I wrote in the list and all the other blessings I haven't.


But I guess on reflection I am not-so-subtly trying to encourage everyone that reads this to have faith in their instincts and the courage to make the choices they need. It may not be travelling. But it will definitely involve tuning in to the 'greater power,' i.e. whatever your guts are telling you. The more you resist it, the less malleable you will find your situation. The moment you abandon yourself to the flow, the "coincidences" will pour out of you and you will draw everything you need to you like a magnet.

Abandon the self, and there you are.



1 was given by Taylor following the coincidence described in Breaking Boundaries. It is siezed upon excitedly by companions everywhere I go - Dan has even admitted to wanting to follow me travel or as long as it takes him to read the book.



2 was given shortly after a private soliloquy of frustration at not having what I needed



3 was given by Dan. Bag packing had become stressful enough to reverse even the most loving of moods, my bag being at least 20 Litres too small for all the things I'd collected. I know I am a true traveller when fitting my camping pan and hammock actually inside my bag is enough to keep me flying high all day.



4 were bestowed on me by a variety of people. Dina wanted me to hula hoop in her dress. Dan watched me break my shorts and released his favourite, beaten jeans to replace them with. And Carrie gave me an entire outfit to wear after she told me to remove all my clothes and throw them in with her laundry.



5 is an iridescent gold/black stone that is meant to absorb bad energy. It was given to me by nomads who spread out their collection and told myself and Dina to pick one each. Just days before, I'd commented on a piece of obsidian on a friend's neck and said I'd like some. I wanted to put it on a pendant but did not have the means to, so Catia, a girl at the Hostelito Inn, bought me 6 when she saw it in a shop. This was immediately taken out of my hands by Frank who just happened to be trained by artisanos, who after several 'chinga mi perro, hijo de putas' strung it neatly on a necklace.



7 was painted by Dave from Seattle, an artist who stayed in the Hostelito Inn for a month to exude his creativity in sprays of colour and strange form all over the hostel. Each one was an explosion of different mediums - paint, pen, dripped, sponged, sprayed, splodged. I've never really thought about buying art before but if I hadn't been trying to conserve money, and if I had a place to hang it, I would definitely have bought some of his. I asked him if he would do me a doodle on a piece of notepaper. Instead he gave me a beautiful canvas that will forever remind me of the vibrancy of that place.

8 was given to me, bizarrely, by a shaman. He saw my hula hoops and asked me if I could spin poi. I said no. He gave them to me anyway. Now I have to learn.

9 was undoubtedly the most emotional, the most significant and the most life-changing of these gifts. So significant in fact that it deserves its very own blog entry.

N.B. A NOTE ON FOOD. Food is something very important to me. It is received with shiny-eyed gratitude, always. The day when I just don't want to cook, someone offers to cook for me. The day when I'm ill in bed, someone delivers me pills, water, a meal - whatever I want. And then there is the food that amusingly and sometimes unnervingly follows my cravings. The day I wished for grilled fish, the world's response being that I was invited to a free house with an enormous Sarandeado Red Snapper cooked on an open fire. Eva and I looking at our dinner of crackers and maizena and saying 'what we need is a rich old man who gives us a free dinner but doesn't crack on to us'. Few days later being given a free dinner and cocktails in the best restaurant in town by a rich old man that treated us like daughters (thank you for coming, safe travels, go separate ways) with the bonus of being incredibly interesting to talk to.