Photo by Galyna Andrushko

Find yourself in solitude. Everybody hears this time and time again.

From the punishment of youth when sent on “timeout” to the isolation every individual needs in order to hibernate with one’s emotions. Even through days of work, locking the mind and body behind concealed doors in order to cram a semester’s final paper or spurn a creative project.

Isolation, solitude, being alone-these words derive a connotation of growth and progress. They emphasize a deeper understanding not only of one’s surroundings, but also of the most significant and empowering quality-finding oneself within the present moment.

Who are you, I dare ask? Where are you? What are you doing, exactly? Why?

To find out I’ve a suggestion: quit work, take a leave of absence from work or school, and buy that one-way ticket to nowhere.

To travel alone is to find the answers you’ve been seeking and discover the questions to all your unfounded thoughts. It is your world. It is your adventure.

1. Responsibility

The one thing carrying the most weight, the quality of personality that enabled you-the solo traveler-to get here in the first place, is responsibility.

To take one’s life within one’s hands and have the freedom and maturity to mold it into shapes, forms and experiences of one’s desires is to embrace this basic knowledge. On the actual day we take responsibility for ourselves, our lives begin to change.

We witness how we are responsible for everything we do-each thought, word, action and emotion. This acceptance of our own responsibility for the life we lead provides us with the power to change. We become the artists of our lives.

In the words of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, “Why should I deem myself to be a chisel when I could be the artist?”

2. Self-reliance

After the hurdle of self-responsibility there evolves a new respect and a new dimension toward living. Self-reliance is the response.

See it as the art of flotation after leaping into the air and clearing the hurdle of responsibility. It’s the sense of lightness and contentment. It’s a joy of accomplishment surpassing those worldly possessions left behind. “I am Lion! This is my Life! Hear me roar!”

3. Independence

Welcome to independence as you come down after the initial high and hit the ground running. You are now shaved of everything but your Self.

You are living your independence. No longer do you require anything other than yourself for happiness. No longer do you search for those outside fulfillments.

From the start, you were already alone. You were most likely in mother’s womb alone. And now you’re traveling, embracing this solitude, allowing you and only you to make all your decisions; what to eat, where to sleep, which train to catch and at what bus stop to depart.

You are the captain in your very own captain’s chair. Want to sleep in the middle of the day, read on a bench the rest of the afternoon, take long midnight strolls out under the stars? Fine. Do it, because no one is stopping you except your hesitation.

4. Likes & Dislikes

Now through these various layers of your evolution of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth-the solo-wanderer comes to terms with likes and dislikes.

Traveling alone affords the individual solitude in order to step out of society’s role-playing games. It absolves all expectations of you. You don’t have to listen to anyone. You don’t have to meet anyone’s needs. You have no schedules, appointments, meetings or deadlines with projects, papers, exams, etc.

It’s just you. And through the sifter of the mind you begin to remember who you are, remember which elements and ingredients in life you enjoyed the most and those you enjoyed the least. Then, without hesitation (you must drop this), you leap upon the likes and forever discard the dislikes.

5. Emotions

Emotions are a combination of mind and body sending you messages. They tell you where you are on a physical and emotional level. They inform you where you need to be-again, physically and mentally-in order to be healthy and whole.

With a continued awareness of what turns you on and off, emotions arise. They are not your friend’s emotions, your roommate’s, or your lover’s no matter how you might wish otherwise. Those persons aren’t here. You’re alone.

Emotions are the parts to your totality-the inner psyche-and in seclusion may one best decipher their keys sounded from the past.

The solo-artist may come to terms with the depth of Ralph Waldo Emerson when he said, “None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”

6. Patterns & Reactions

Photo by Cam Karsten

Stepping out of our routines and daily lives clears the traveler’s vision. So often we live in the past or future. We do not stop to see and be the present moment-our present moment.

Indeed, it’s a gift, and to let this gift slide away over and over again is to miss the beauty of the day, the hour, of the minute and its seconds. They will never come again.

Patterns and our reactions to these patterns are what prevent us from living and taking part in the beauty we are gifted. By frolicking in the unknown we’re able to witness these patterns from afar and see how we react to them.

With a continued awareness we can prevent ourselves from falling into old habits and bygone ways. Each new day is our rebirth and each new breath can be as if we are inhaling for the very first time.

7. Past Analyzation

You’re soaking in the Andaman Sea off Thailand’s western shore. You see a woman walking the beach who reminds you of an old lover, a past friend, someone against whom you’ve carried a grudge for too long.

You’re alone. You have that isolation to observe your thoughts. Therefore, you reach deep into the past and sift through the relationship’s components.

These moments of past analyzation allow one to heal sore spots, to lick old wounds and overcome the pain still carrying into today, whether exhibited upon themselves or others.

Through this process of self-healing, the solo-sojourner may reunite with another and develop a more mature relationship; one more natural and unconditionally loving for the benefit of both parties, which includes the surrounding environs.

Past analyzation while traveling alone affords the adventurer a journey into the past to reclaim forgotten lessons and repressed emotions.

8. Future Dreams

Next we leap out of the past, through the flicker of the present and into the vastness of the future. Here, unfettered possibility rests. The future is boundless. It is borderless.

It is imagination free of any construct built by the past and not portrayed by the present. The future is your dreams’ playground.

During travel, see the future as everything and nothing. It’s your empty canvas, and there’s no better time to wallow in hopes, dreams and possibilities. So extract your journal and write, draw, scribble and dabble the imaginary creating anything the heart desires, no matter how selfish or selfless.

It’s the Law of Attraction – all that is necessary in life is asking, believing and then receiving with gratitude.

9. Care for Oneself

The above eight steps are not concrete. They are not rules or dictations. They are mere ideas thrown out into a world of utter possibility and endless variety.

In essence however, they are the steps of an evolutionary journey, which can be taken at anytime, anywhere, by anyone. Yet a personal journey is best undergone in the silence of one’s own presence, and traveling alone promotes this introspection with ease.

Solo travel teaches the pilgrim to care for their own self – because it’s only when one masters self-care that the individual will be able to advance. Only when peace is established at home will one be able to spread peace throughout the world.

10. How to Love

The finale is love itself. Love is the master. When living with love, all thought, word, action and emotion radiate from this core of our being-that being love.

Through solo-travel, and through the varying evolutionary processes of the pilgrim’s own psyche, he/she rides the expressway into the heart and splashes in an indescribable feeling of love and peace.

And from the words of one final sage upon the doorsteps of this last stage of personal growth spoken by Joseph Campbell, “You are that mystery which you are seeking to know.”

You are the love you first sought, whether conscious of it or not. Your personal journey, either in this lifetime or another in the future, will bring you to this center within yourself. Traveling alone upon a solo-quest is the perfect catalyst for this grand voyage given to the human being as a birthright.

So go find yourself in solitude where the inner landscapes of personality become most audible within a world of possibility.

What have you learned about yourself from solo travel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo courtesy of Cam Karsten

Yoga is the art of release. It is the study of one’s concentration upon the diverse layers of the body, mind and spirit.

This ancient tradition of breath, movement and meditation, developed within the Hindu culture of the Indian subcontinent, becomes the practitioner’s sacred ritual.

Finding the right yoga retreat is just as important a part of one’s practice as a particular inhalation of breath, an exhalation into a specific posture, or the proper stillness of silent observation.

Only by choosing the right retreat will you achieve the relaxation necessary to let go and discover the true depths of your yogic journey.

The Destination Is Also The Journey

There are thousands of yoga retreats to choose from. They come in all different shapes, sizes, destinations and packages.

Some retreats offer 24/7 yoga, strict meal guidelines, and absolute silence. Others begin the day with a series of opening postures (or asanas in Sanskrit), and then immerse participants in the local culture of the region, with plenty of restorative downtime before a final series of relaxation poses.

So, how do you find the right retreat for you?

First, close your eyes…

Now, take a long inhalation through the nose. Hold. Now release all breath out of the mouth. Settle into your seat and relax.

Imagine yourself doing yoga. Imagine the setting. Where are you?

Here’s where I am. I’m on a beach. I’m not in the Himalayas watching a fast approaching lightning storm upside down while shaking in Sirsha-asana (head-stand pose).

No. I’m in the tropics, half naked (okay… completely naked) on warm sands, listening to the sound of the ocean’s waves cresting upon a coral reef. Breezy palm fronds rustle overhead and their shadows offer refreshing shelters.

I am far from the office, the phone calls, the expectations others’ harbor of me. These distractions are long gone and far out of mind. I am relaxed, warm, at peace and loving life.

Your perfect yoga setting might be different from mine – or not. No matter, it’s your yoga practice (as the conscious instructor reiterates); therefore it’s your yoga retreat.

Take Me To Your Leader

Photo courtesy of Cam Karsten

OK. Now the next important element of the practice is picking your instructor.

Who is it that will lead you through the doorways of your “guesthouse” as the Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi referred to when speaking of the body? Whose guidance will you trust and surrender to?

At best, if a professional institution certifies the teacher you have no reason to doubt their practice and capabilities. However, each person’s style of teaching is unique and each system of yoga is different.

Search their name on the Internet, and read their website. If they’re local, try one of their regular classes. Acquire feedback and read their students’ testimonials. Where have they led retreats before?

Most importantly, find an instructor whose style of practice and system of yoga aligns with your needs. But how do you do that? There can’t be that many traditions of yoga…

Oh yes there are. Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Flow Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Bikram Yoga – the list goes on.

The most fitting yoga retreat for you is one where the type of yoga fits your personal style and experience.

For example, let’s say you’re looking to work yourself. You want to physically sweat, strain, push and endure your entire body-muscles, joints, ligaments, bones and all. Find a retreat that offers a vigorous Ashtanga practice.

Or say you’re seeking peace and tranquility-long restorative postures. You should look for a retreat that focuses on a form of Yin Yoga. The choices are as many as the thoughts within the mind.

Your Life, Your Retreat

With a destination and style of yoga pinned down, then it’s up to you to find out what is being offered beyond your guesthouse’s doorstep.

Check the local studios for flyers. Browse through conscientious periodicals and publications that focus on spirituality and self-improvement.

Search the Internet for retreats in specific destinations or in a certain tradition of practice.

Ask your friends. Ask the universe. Ask yourself.

A yoga retreat is a sacred offering to your body, your temple. It is time removed from the daily frivolities of “making-a-living.” It is time to honor and embrace who you are; in order to develop the mind, body and soul and move closer to a state of relaxation and peace.

In essence, yoga is learning how to accept and love oneself whole-heartedly and unconditionally.

Practice your yoga practice. Observe your breath and welcome all sensations of the body. Let the mind go and visualize your perfect yoga retreat – then go out and find it.

Additional Resources:

• Yoga Nidra, Vinyasa, & Flow Yoga by Laura DeFreitas
• 2008 Yoga Retreat & Festival Season in Bali
• The Yoga Journal

Christmas has always been about family, yet in the same context, Christmas has been about the spirit of giving-in many different ways.

When I say giving, I am referring to a scale of giving; from honest care to its’ opposite, or shall we say mass consumption and the hoards of consumers, entering shops and browsing online catalogs with as deep or as shallow of pockets permissible.

This holiday season I experienced both worlds, but fortunately, there was a choice, and on the family side of things we removed ourselves from ritualistic spending and nonsensical wasting of resources. Instead, we decided to give back, both with thought and action.

There is a way to find balance. With the Christmas spirit, it is to be thoughtful in all one gives and possibly volunteer for those less fortunate.

The Corporate Holiday

Spending the fall and winter seasons in the midst of corporate America did not elevate my excitement for the holidays. Whether it was the exhausting rush of Thanksgiving sales, the merciless orgy of Black Friday, to the final week before Christmas, I clocked my hours at Seattle’s REI Flagship store as a snow-sports specialist.

I sold snowboards, packaging the hard-goods with boots and bindings to push a 10% discount. I rearranged, organized and picked up after customers in the helmets and goggles department where plastic and cardboard boxes splayed across shelves. I answered phones, ordered unavailable products, put others on hold, and directed individuals to their desirous locales, pointing at signs clearly posted but apparently lost to the sights of shoppers too cluttered to notice.

The retail world roundabout the holiday season: I came, I went, and I shall never return.

Likewise, for a month straight I heard Christmas carols echoing from the wooden rafters. From Michael Bolton to Alvin & The Chipmunks and way back with Doctor Demento-they bounced off nuts and bolts, across metal air ducts and through vast open spaces.

My head spun with cheesy saxophones and piercing voices and jangling bells, along with the questions, services, projects, areas to tidy, customers to greet. Influenced by this madness, the idea of Christmas was appalling. And yet I still needed to shop.

Therefore, my hours were minimal. Having lived the false spirit of Christmas via retail with maddened shoppers who believe the higher the price, the more love received, the more gratitude awarded-I went homegrown.

Back Home

The best gift is one with heart and soul. It is a gift with thought, personalized with the flavor of the giver and the appetite of the receiver. Since youth, my mother has reminded me: “The best gift is one made by you and your imagination alone.”

So I lived the consumption at work, and in the end I quit, giving my two weeks notice long before December 25th arrived. I had to leave.

Back home I spurred my imagination into creativity, thinking of family and friends, lovers near and lovers far. I mended my Grinch-filled spirit so as not to steal away the blessings of Christmas and I designed my own gifts.

I wrote poetry and prose. I concocted a blend of organic hot cocoa mix, baked sweet yummy banana-carob goodness bread, and shared music to continue the dance of life. In essence, I stayed away from the money-frenzied Western culture and supplied the core of Christmas giving with my own two hands and my own open mind, combining their creativity into one.

Assuaged from corporate nightmares, the spirit of Christmas was born again.

A Spiritual Rebirth

Morning arrived: December 25th, 2007. All shopping ceased. All those long lists of desires, wants and dreams shortened until tomorrow, next week, the year’s resolutions.

Yet, nestled within a small home, my family and I drank tea and coffee as we sat on the couch and watched two dogs bound upon one other. There was no Christmas tree. There were no lights, no stuffed Santa Clauses, no ornaments and no scents of cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves from fresh batches of Egg Nog.

There was only family and the call within each of our hearts to reunite from our individual lives and be near each other. The sun rose, and shortly we were off.

What truly rings clear not only during the holidays, but every day, is that spirit of sharing. Having so much, granted the ability to experience many things, there comes an alignment within oneself to give back and actively show appreciation.

As a family, we wanted to share our energies with those most in need.

To emerge from the bubble of one’s single-track lifestyle and share oneself with others less fortunate is the best gift, not only to give to those asking for help, but to oneself as well.

Coming Full Circle

At 9:30 Christmas morning we unloaded and stepped into a large grassy park in southern California. The sun was shining, the air comfortable with a short breeze, and all around were hundreds of volunteers busily organizing themselves and preparing for the annual Christmas feed.

Stepping up to the volunteer table, we presented ourselves and set to work in the spirit of giving, one not of monetary means, clothes, jewelry or cars, but simply of our time, our concern and our compassion.

We filled and tied balloons. We decorated. Others set up chairs and tables, cones for lines, stalls of beverages, collected donations of food and carved slices of honey ham. Yams were plentiful, as were the pies, peas and sweet corn. Cars drove up and provided more food, more gifts and more love.

The spirit of giving-a true Christmas-was alive and well.

From the wastelands of consumerism to the return of Christmas and the spirit of giving, sharing, and gratitude. The holiday season can come full circle, traveling through the polar opposites of living and the joys and pains it can bring.

With all things in life, in each moment, there are choices to be made, and whether from motherly advice or individual participation, the holiday season can be one of humble creativity and compassionate giving.

As members of the human family, we all have to learn to cherish each other; this includes ourselves as well as those nearest to, and farthest from, our circle of understanding.

Come again, sweet holidays, and bring with you the joy of giving, the gratitude of receiving, and the spirit of sharing.

Cameron Karsten writes spiritual and health travel columns for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

The essence of a journey is this strange process of return-where one travels beyond the expected destination and learns to embrace change; its strange faces and cultures and unspoken encounters with fate.

The road of the journey is as mysterious and as mystical as life itself. The journey is life at its core and life is a journey at heart, yet oddly, having departed and returned, the traveler glimpses the circulatory nature of all things-back to a new square one.

Mountaineer Greg Mortenson left his western roots for another mountain on another expedition across the planet. His sights were set on K2; a spire of beatific magnitude that forces the mind to discard the idea of impossibility.

K2 is a towering cliff of rock, ice, uncertainty and death, located in the Karakoram Range of northeastern Pakistan. The world’s second highest peak, K2 is not just another summit within the boundaries of your state’s park system.

K2 is the adventurer’s dream – a climber’s paradise of long-distance travel that requires hours of planning and coordination, research and resources in order to achieve the slight prospect of an indeterminate outcome.

And being a technical route, which requires not only adept skill in mountaineering, but rock and ice climbing as well, the climber must surrender to a life of insecurity in preparation for the peak.

To Tackle A Dream

The summer of 1992. Greg leaves his homeless reality in Berkeley, California to tackle a dream in honor of his dead sister. The ascent was obvious – goals clearly defined – but where he would be led on the descent was the looming question.

First, he had to survive a frozen night after wandering from discreet trails of ice and crevasses. Second, he would have to overcome the tests his philanthropic future determined for him. And third, he would need to delve into the heart of Western and Eastern politics and emerge unscathed to continue his push for change.

Mortenson would be summiting mountains more tumultuous than any earthly spire. His quest traversed a range of humanity, with crags of expectations, manipulations, and desires, connecting together the races of our species and the unique beliefs we hold too securely in our minds.

Greg Mortenson would eventually become the link between education, respect and peace.

A Long Journey

The Central Asia Institute (CAI) is the result of the journey Greg began by returning off K2 – a journey of flights in perpetuity, sleepless days and nights, and the missed and irreplaceable moments with a growing family. Greg, a onetime mountaineer transformed into a philanthropist, began to build schools.

Flying from the Western United States to the deep abysses of Asia, to presentations at inanimate chair-backs and an anxious detention within a cell in the center of southern Afghanistan’s rising jihad – these experiences characterized Mortenson’s new life.

The first CAI school was raised in Korphe, and then a second and a third as Baltistani locals witnessed the care and concern of a few foreigners who came to their mountainous region with one goal on their minds.

From the outset, Greg was known to be different, different from previous mountaineers, different from most western minds. In his ultimatum is the reunion of the Asian cultures-their systems of belief, religion and lifestyles-with the broadening world of education.

Steadiness And Grace

With steadiness and fierce grace that befuddles the ordinary businessman and politician, Mortenson exposes the problems of terrorism and resolutely proposes a cure with his school-building projects: Education.

Countering the widespread dissemination of madrassas, or strict Islamic religious institutions for youths with little to no opportunities, Greg sends a clear message of universal education for both male and female children alike as the world’s cure to poverty, disease and war.

And he sets a perilous new goal as he ventures from the northern reaches of Pakistan across the Khyber Pass into the heart of Osama bin Laden’s mountainous Afghanistan, where warlords and opium growers begin to accept his view of an educated society, the East and West together.

Three Cups of Tea harnesses his tireless spirit and initiates readers into his world of unbeatable determination.

As with climbing mountains, Greg continually surrenders himself to a system of education, seeking to bring those less fortunate into a world of opportunity. Yet with so little time, how could he begin the arduous process of putting the journey down on paper?

Greg leaves that to ghostwriter David Oliver Relin, while he surges forward with steam.

From the first departure toward conquering the world’s highest mountains in the most inhospitable atmospheres, Mortenson returns to his roots, battling strict forms of belief in order to implement a society of educated boys and girls.

Click here to buy Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time

Cameron Karsten writes spiritual and health travel columns for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

Hunger is a necessary experience of travel (and life). When blessed with a budget, there is very little fear of hunger.

It is commonplace in a strange land, on a strange form of transportation that might last for days, to wonder when you’ll stop for your next meal.

True, the local markets do provide wonderfully, as with the vendors along the streets and the friendly strangers who invite you in to quench your thirst, and hopefully (cross your fingers), feed you.

Yet there is never a guarantee, and to eat is a necessity. So whip out your wallet of traveler’s checks and foreign currencies and start paying. Or… put it away and enjoy the feast.

Let me tell you something: food comes free in many more ways than one.

Taking The Dive

Olympic diving is a sport. Like swimming.

The type of diving I speak of however, does not require water. And its’ only purpose is food: to satiate that shrinking belly of yours while the traveling road surges forward.

So you dive, and dive deep, often you come up with more than one meal. In fact, it’s possible the smart diver can feed a whole family for several days.

Are you ready my fellow travelers? Are you ready to go dumpster diving?

I have found it to be an art form. There is a method to come away clean, smelling fresh and carrying a bagful of healthy, wholesome, satiating rations. But let me first lay down the definition of dumpster diving.

Dumpster diving is just that. To take the plunge into a dumpster in search of practically anything. But today we focus on foodstuffs, because we’re travelers and we’re hungry.

Everyone must eat, therefore a diver can never be letdown. And with food, there is a certain identification tag that works to benefit all: the expiration date.

Most people in society today live by this expiration date. Their ablutophobia prohibits them from eating a morsel of bread with a speck of mold or a plump pear with an inch of bruising.

This works to our advantage…if our fear is minimal.

The Art of a Full Grocer’s Bag

Dumpsters are full of provisions with passed expiration dates, everything from breads to jars of jams and sauces to fruits and vegetables and boxes of snacks. People throw their things away carelessly to make room for the new.

And the adage-one’s waste is another’s treasure-applies well in this particular circumstance. To sum up, dumpster diving is the art of claiming others’ waste, and free food is an easy source of protein.

Like I said, it is an artform, and to make it an artform there must be a few rules and techniques. The following will help one become a seasoned dumpster diver and benefit from a society obsessed with creating waste:

1. Scout out your dumpster

It is risky to immediately walk up to a dumpster’s plank and dive in. Many times there are cameras on surveillance, or hazardous wastes nearby, therefore causing the goods inside to be potentially unhealthy.

Once outside Marks & Spencer in the UK, a security guard caught a friend and me. We played dumb, told him we were making a project to reveal how much edible food is disgracefully thrown away. He smiled and told us to leave.

2. Go for large supermarkets

They stick to a strict code of tossing food that has passed its’ expiration date. Also, the bakeries inside will often deposit their day-old breads. (At a Tescos in Nottingham, England my backpack was filled with loaves of sandwich and Irish soda bread).

3. Come Around Again

Once the dumpster has been scouted, return to it at an appropriate hour when traffic is minimal.

Walk up to the dumpster with confidence; do not portray any suspicions. But quickly, forage and collect what you can. Also, carrying a grocer’s bag from the market can help conceal your actions.

4. Move Swiftly

With a full bag move out quickly. Back home, check the provisions over and wash carefully. Here is where you can discard any products you feel are not edible.

In the end, it is under your discretion of what to eat and what to toss.

Also, it is good to note whether or not any other divers are at the dumpster. For example, if a community of homeless resides near a source, be respectful and leave it to them.

These are the foundations of dumpster diving, or reaping off what other people call “waste” when, in actuality, it can be spared and used as necessary fuel.

Treat it as an art form and you will soon find yourself with a free meal, and an intriguing way of discovering how to travel, eat and live on a budget.

Put your wallets away, save your traveler’s checks and foreign currencies, and take the dive.

Cameron Karsten writes spiritual and health travel columns for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

Have you ever tried dumpster diving? Share you stories in the comments!

His name was Pablo Falcon, a Native American healer living in New Mexico. He was on a show called Human Urine-Elixir for Good Health? airing on the National Geographic Channel, showcasing an ancient healing tradition: the practice of drinking one’s own urine.

Yes, he drank his own urine; a cup a day, usually in the morning, catching the first stream in mid discharge.

He drank it straight, like a shot of whiskey, but sometimes sipped it like a hot toddy on a cold moonless night. It was Pablo Falcon’s preventative medicine-urine therapy, or uropathy.

I was young. That’s disgusting, I thought. Years later, I re-discovered Pablo’s delinquency, but until then I remained ignorant of my body’s golden elixir as though it was an enigma, hidden from the alchemy of health within a toxic world.

To others it’s tradition, but among a modernizing world tradition is perceived as primitive.

At The Mercy Of Sickness

Out in the world, I forgot about Pablo. I forgot about the ways of the warrior, the ways of the body, and its own powerful remedies.

I forgot about these things because I was falling apart. I was in India, and my body was aching, my head spinning, my nose divulging a sinewy greenness, my intestines constricting, my sphincter bleeding.

But I did not forget about Gandhi.

I was participating in the 75th anniversary of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s Salt March, and here I was falling apart, literally bleeding out of multiple orifices.

And what could I do? Whine? Complain? Go to a hospital because I wasn’t feeling well? The Peace Walk wasn’t about me, or about any of the other walkers from nine different nations. The Peace Walk was for those of India, and a universal Peace for Mother Earth and Her inhabitants.

A young Japanese living in Nepal came up to me. He was Morita and he saw through to my pain. The man I hardly knew handed me a plastic cup as we took lunch. “Take this,” he said in a hush. Around us others slept. “Go pee, and drink as much of it as you can.”

I was stunned. I had forgotten Pablo Falcon. I had forgotten my own body and its power. At that time, I was only cursing it. “What?”

“You want to get better?” Morita asked.
I nodded.

“Then pee and drink.”

The First World Conference

In 1996, a group of urine therapists put on the First World Conference of Urine Therapy.

Held in India, the conference on the art of drinking urine brought together doctors, scientists, practitioners and believers into one room to exalt the benefits, seek out the contradictions, and bring awareness, drive and inspiration to a deepened scientific study of this clandestine cure.

They read testimonials of miraculous recoveries. They reviewed the studies of urine and its components. They compared their own experiences, treatments and applications. They found no contradictions.

Found in the ancient Vedic culture of Hinduism, urine therapy holds another name, Shivambu Kalpa Vidhi, or The Waters of Shiva. In the five thousand year-old Damar Tantra text, the writings recall Shiva as he unleashes his secrets of a healthy mind, body and soul to his wife, Parvati.

The text, or sutra, is one of the oldest known documents on healing, one that directly encompasses one’s own body-the ailment and the cure as one. It claims no association with external remedies, but solely describes the power and wisdom of the body under healthy eating habits.

It was Mahatma Gandhi who spoke:

The human body is the best portrayal of the universe in miniature. Whatever does not exist in the human body cannot be found in the universe, and whatever exists in the universe can be found in the human body.

Not only does the Vedic culture find complete truth within one’s own being, but ancient medical scriptures of the Egyptians, Chinese, Aztecs and Christians hint at this secret. In Proverbs 5:15 of the Old Testament, it is He who lets it be known: Drink water from thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well.

The Workings Of The Body

What comes to mind is shit and piss, two ways of excreting toxins from the body.

The former-yes.
The latter-no.

When it comes to the process of making urine, there is one large misunderstood nomenclature: Urine is dirty. It picks up all your body’s dirty liquids and whizzes them into a smelly bowl. It’s crap. But what you forgot about is this baroque process.

We eat. We drink. We ingest and we digest. Solid matter is sent into the stomach, churned, macerated and spit out from the intestinal tracks after absorbing the good, the bad and the ugly. With liquids, most, if not all, are absorbed into the bloodstream.

From there they flow around, swimming like Chinese fighting fish. Through the limbs, the core, from the spine into the skull, within the tongue and around-the substances of our blood are everywhere before entering its first cleansing phase. This would be the liver.

With health, all things operate accordingly; on time, in rhythm. As the blood enters the liver it becomes the stone within the refinery. The liver is the detoxifier of our blood, removing poisonous products, secreting them or storing waste in the gall bladder, which ends up as bile.

From here, the blood flows to the kidneys. Coen van der Kroon, in his urine therapy guide Golden Fountain, describes how “they remove all superfluous vital substances from the blood, and filter out a surplus of water.”

These leftovers are the diamonds emerging from the refinement. They are the matter that form urine-simply the leftovers from the body’s water and nutrients. And a healthy diet is key.

A Cure For Life’s Ills?

Despite varying ranges of lifestyles, urine at best is an elixir; it is the water of life.

In J.W. Armstrong’s The Water of Life, homeopath and naturopath Ellis Barker quotes that “our body distills the most wonderful medicines and provides the most perfect serums and antibodies.” In fact, the list of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and hormones runs long.

One of these powerful byproducts is urea; an organic compound of carbamide containing carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen.

With this knowledge, pharmaceuticals have discreetly capitalized on urine’s power, incorporating urine in anti-cancer prescriptions as well as blood-clot dissolvers, ointments, hand creams, lotions and soaps.

Your very own urine is known to have a significant effect on the following diseases:

Adrenal failure, AIDS/HIV, allergies, cancer, candida, colds & flu symptoms, colitis, dandruff, diabetes, diarrhea, ear & eye troubles, eczema, gangrene, gout, heart disease, hepatitis, herpes, hyperactivity, jaundice, lupus, mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis, pancreatic insufficiency, psoriasis, rashes, rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, warts and more.

Research remains limited, and the guesses as to why are as many as urine’s benefits. If humankind began sipping, fasting, massaging, gargling, douching, eye and ear-dropping, sniffing, injecting, compressing, rubbing, bathing, shampooing and giving oneself an enema all with one’s own urine, doctors would become unneccesary.

The pharmaceutical industry would collapse. Chemicals would be cleansed from peoples’ bodies. Man & woman would be healthy, strong and immune. And the billions of dollars going toward the chemical-dependent world could be spent on more worthwhile causes – like education.

A holy temple. An elixir. The cause and effect in one. The ailment and medicament together.

Your body’s urine is anything but wasteful. It is the gift, sanctified through the internal processes and given to you once more for complete health, detoxification and rejuvenation.

To learn more, visit:

• The Miracles Of Urine Therapy
• Urine Therapy
• Healing With Urine Therapy
• Earth Clinic – Urine Therapy

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

What do you think? Curious? Disgusted? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The enlightened prince 500-some years before the birth of Jesus knew what he was talking about.

He spoke of the path of life; a winding tumultuous trail of crags, thorns, mountains and exquisite vistas that all creatures must travel on Earth.

New York Times contributor Perry Garfinkel was on the path, though he didn’t know it when National Geographic accepted Perry’s pitch to travel around the world documenting the chronology of Buddhism and its revival as the 21st century’s “engaged” Buddhist Movement-all expenses paid.

It was a dream job for any writer — a “cosmic bailout” of constant movement, interviews, hours of taxi rides and plane flights, with swarms of luggage, language barriers and a precarious lumbar structure. The journey would land Perry a 24-page spread in one of the world’s most renowned periodicals and the book, Buddha or Bust.

Perry Garfinkel began as another American seeking answers to the insatiatable materialism of the West. He sets out from his mother’s New Jersey home eastward in search of the modern world’s Buddhism.

The cold reality of Auschwitz is Perry’s first hard awakening. Dug within the shallow grave of his Jewish lineage, he comes face-to-face with his own denial. From the start, the ego continues its play, dominating the truth, meaning, happiness and true healing.

Perry’s experiences undermine his ability to remain on the meditation cushion in the face of such suffering and horror.

He continues into the heart of the East. India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Hong Kong and China, Tibet, Japan’s Kyoto and Tokyo, exploring how Buddhism has confronted the daily suffering in the world.

Through the directions and words of various Eastern philosophies, Perry Garfinkel’s questions are never answered. He is instead filled with ponderings of possibility.

The Buddha has as many faces as he does sutras. He exhibits as many ways to smile upon the world as the number of steps in which Gandhi trekked. If one thing is true today, it’s that citizens continue to strive for a more compassionate world.

Engaged Buddhism continues to hold the one true purpose: a means to look inward upon one’s Self. After the months of movement, Perry recognizes his own inner light, where his questions have been leading him all along.

Here, only in the present moment, beneath all judgment and self-righteous assurance of who he thinks he is, does the simple joy of being reside. He is Perry Garfinkel: writer, author, world traveler, and spiritual practitioner.

With keen observance, Perry believes the Buddha’s message continues to thrive. The question is: are we willing to stop and listen?

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

I rose from the television, my evening’s indulgence. I walked through the crystal glare of the screen and entered the kitchen.

Flicking on the lights, I reached the pantry, opened its wooden doors and pulled down two contents: a can of Equal Exchange Organic Hot Cocoa, and a plastic bag of Western Family Marshmallows-jumbo.

Outside, a layer of clouds blocked the night sky. A sheet of rain piddled on the patio. As the teakettle came to a boil, I turned down the gas flame and filled my mug.

I stirred in the powdered chocolate and white puffs of sugar. As the marshmallows dissolved to sweet perfection, I wondered: is true sustainability ever possible?

A Sickness At The Root

Back in the television room, I continued watching the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Directed by Robert Greenwald, the film captures the stories of employees and those affected across the United States.

It is a story of American capitalism gone awry. Like David versus Goliath, the box-store behemoth slams into a community and entices families with its cheap plastic products. We hear from an employed mother forced to seek government-assisted healthcare to raise her children, and a family-owned hardware store crushed by the neighboring Wal-Mart superstructure.

The movie recalled my recent journey to Mazatlan, Mexico and the newly razed soil to accommodate the acres of asphalt and the high ceilings of cheap Wal-Mart goods. Not only has the corporation captured the minds and bodies of Americans, but now it extends to Mexico, Europe, and countless other countries.

Wal-Mart imports an outrageous amount of products from overseas. On November 29, 2004, Jiang Jingjing of China Daily reported, “The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit US$18 billion this year, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 per cent consistent over two years.”

That’s an estimated $18 billion pumped out from sweatshop factories employing young, naïve women, men and children living in poor provinces. According to Global Exchange, Wal-Mart employs 400,000 workers overseas.

It’s everywhere. At the beginning of this year, just 15.59 miles from my doorstep, a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened its doors on January 31 in Poulsbo, WA. It’s 203,000 sq. ft. store provides 525 new jobs in 36 departments that remains open to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What’s most amazing, apart from the $35,000 donated to local organizations through its Good Works community involvement program, is the fact that twelve miles down the road there is another Wal-Mart Supercenter located in Silverdale, Washington.

The Accomplice In The Mirror

As always, my cocoa was most delicious. Let it be known hot cocoa without marshmallows is not the same. Plainly, it sucks.

But as I continued to watch the film, I felt a pang of guilt. Here I was, drinking organic hot cocoa fairly traded through the worldwide network of small farmers and co-ops, yet topped with gigantic, jumbo-puffed, white-oozing, falsified sugar marshmallows.

No, the marshmallows were not organic, fairly trade, or manufactured with conscious decisions. They were packed, shipped, stacked and stored for months. They were not sustainable, the plastic bag unsalvageable-America’s weak recycling programs will not help this time.

The movie ended. I went to the kitchen sink and washed my brown, sugar-stained mug. I opened the pantry and perused its contents. I took note of the products: most were organic, purchased in bulk. They were stored in containers able for reuse or recycling.

They were fresh and limited; only the necessities and a few luxuries, not piled with the excesses of your average soccer-crazed Mom with an over-zealous fear of Judgment Day. But still…those marshmallows.

Despite my reassurance about the impact I was making on the world, I felt a needed to do more (or less). This yearning carries me into each and every experience. It is one of caring for the world, caring for our family of brothers and sisters.

It is a desire to look forward into the future and make sure we have preserved the beauty of the land and its resources for the generations to come.

What more can I do? What more can we do to better our minds and lifestyles? And what more can we do to make a difference in the way economies run so economic tyrants like Wal-Mart return to their more modest roots.

Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder, once said, “You can’t create a team spirit when the situation is so one-sided, when management gets so much and workers get so little of the pie.” I wonder if today’s CEO Lee Scott remembers his words?

The Karmic Consquences

In Mexico, I overheard a woman who had been traveling to Mazatlan for twenty-five years. She was grateful for the new Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Now just a mere five-minute pulmonia ride, she buys all her groceries as if she were back home. “We arrive. We shop at Sam’s Club.”

That night, I found myself in the heart of Old Mazatlan wandering the Centro Historic in Mercado Pino Suarez. This was Mexico.

The large market houses vendors from traditional foods of homebrewed recipes to clothing and appliances. It felt real. It is a culture supporting people. It is their livelihoods mingling with their tradition of agriculture, textiles and cooking.

Purchases made, a small-town local supported.

Back home, the US continues to expand and dominate other regions from the Latin world, to China, India and Bangladesh, to Europe and beyond.

There are those among us who condemn this expansion, who believe in a higher standard, not of income or consumption, but in something far surpassing the physical world. We’ve come to recognize Mother Earth’s life. If some don’t take notice, it’s bound to fall into hands far more omniscient.

On March 15, the Wal-Mart of Poulsbo saw a glimpse resistance. The Seattle Times reported a suspicious fire that broke out in the women’s undergarment department causing one million dollars of damage. Nobody was injured and officials are looking into suspected arson.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal website.

Mazatlan, Mexico. It conjures a precision of memories. For many years my family met once a year to live, laugh, eat and drink and recount memories together.

We lounged, strolled, swam, shopped the Zona Dorada, rode horses and para sailed. It was our yearly home at The Inn at Mazatlan, one of relaxation and adventure as a family conglomerate stuck together for a week or more by the sticky juices of squeezed limes and empty Margarita mixes.

Due to my own direction and the various travels, I missed the last three revivals under the Mexican sun, and so I looked forward to my reintroduction to a culture buried within the memories of youth.

As I sat in the back of the taxi from Mazatlan’s international airport, heat and the dust drew in through the open windows. A faded CD flashed in my eyes, as Jesus Mother Mary spun from the driver’s rear view mirror.

An Unrecognizable Return

I watched a beloved Mexico and its culture, passing high-walled penitentiaries and catching the drafts of burning trash and piles of rubber.

The noise and debris, the rising dust-clouds into the eternal heat, the rapturous signals, the stoplights and padded feet across cracked pavement before the next race of holy exhaust pipes flood the streets.

I breathed in, and as tin and brick turned to unfinished concrete with spikes of re bar, the city-center approached.

A culture, historic in its patternless flow of work, family, tradition, rice, beans, corn tortillas and cervezas, with mother dodging traffic as she interlinks her arms throughout her five children, and the federales rolling in their crisp black ‘06 GMC pickup trucks and Ford Mustangs, fat signs and stripped lands of acres of sweating asphalt surrounded by cheap simplicities.

Gorging, the corporations find their way as Mexico expands with the faces of Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

My heart skipped a beat. But I drew another inhale, observed the life around, and continued to witness Mexico thrive. Dust tickled my throat. I coughed.

How unburdened can a culture remain? I was about to find out.

Arrival At the Inn

The Inn dresses as usual, elegant in contrast with the streets beyond its whitewashed walls. A new tower, more rooms, larger pools and fully-functioning waterfalls. Yoga classes in the morning provide a stretch and increased prajna after a night of drinks, chips, salsa and guacamole.

There’s painting classes, weekly Bingo for the crowds with accompanying time-shares in Branson, Missouri as well as Mexican piñata fiesta for the kin every Wednesday night at seven. With a restaurant on premise, the Inn is a self-sufficient community of lounge-chair potatoes here for whatever is available.

As I search a seafood menu for a vegetarian plate-Mazatlan has risen to its highest, finest, and hottest between the periods of Pacific NW whiteness to burning lobster-red, into the pain and peeling, the lathering of aloe vera in gelatinous greenness to a final golden brown.

Culture? I ask: ¿La cultura? ¿Dónde está la cultura?

Indeed, it won’t be found within the walls of the large resorts and hotels fabricated for the broadening American and Canadian tourists, unless, say, you practice your Spanish with the maids and various workers.

But outside, in the heat and noise, Mexico awaits.

Mazatlan Idol

One evening the family piled in two pulmonias (the equivalent of a crazed golf-cart blaring an ungodly noise of music ranging from YMCA to CCR’s Bad Moon Rising). We drove north to Costa Marinara.

Inside the seafood restaurant/factory, I scanned for a vegetarian plate and came up empty. Drink, talk, laughs of the previous evening, and then to eating. After our meal, the American music toned down and the DJ slapped on your classic Mexican rhythms.

Suddenly, as if transformed into Mexico’s next “American Idol,” a waiter stepped onto the patio platform with microphone in hand. He held it tight, not out of nervousness, but out of passion. Yes, it was Mexico’s one-and-only Tom Jones.

With reverence, he sung his heart out, swooning the customers (who responded often with grimaces) in his love songs of Latino descent. One local, loaded with two of his buddies at a chess table of empty green beer bottles, joined in, grumbling to the melody. We cringed.

“Thomas Joñas,” my sister exclaimed. This was his Mexican stage name, but we knew it was Tom Jones in disguise after his fallout from the Vegas scene. He was reborn and alive, down in Mazatlan to have any and all fall in love with him.

In all the years we had been coming to this restaurant by the sea, we never saw the bills paid and tables emptied as quickly as they did that night.

A Visit From The Country

Señor Joñas wasn’t the only performance. Directly afterwards, six blonde children dressed as Midwestern cowboys and -girls appeared.

Between the ages of five and fifteen years, they seemed out of place from the average Mexican. Not only the pressed red-squared collared shirts, the jeans and boots, the chaps, bandannas and dresses, but also their faces.

These six little children seemed to have just come off the beaches of Santa Cruz with tanned white skin and sandy hair. Let alone, it was nearing ten o’clock on a school night. Depressing and odd.

The DJ queued the music. Georgia-born Alan Jackson, in a thick country singer’s accent, rolled with “Chattahoochee”. The six, in practiced timing, kicked their boots’ heels in a square dance — instantly we were transported on a stagecoach time machine to a backwoods Utah bar.

An American woman, apparently from a similar locale, clapped in a dramatized exuberance. “I love this song! I love it!” I looked over. Her Margarita bowl was at its most bottom slurp.

At the end of their dance, the youngest three did their habituated action and took off their plastic cowboy hats. They turned them upside down and walked to each table, making as little eye contact as possible, pouting, pleading for money.

Smiles were replaced with large eyes and quickened Gracias for one’s generosity.

Our table supplied three dollars, distributed between los niños pequinos. Afterwards, with the silenced laughs and smiles, we sat around the table and did the best thing we could think of: ordered dessert.

Old Streets, The Same Bathrooms

I walked back that evening with my uncle on the main Avenue Cameron Sabalo. We passed restaurants of Japanese sushi, American burger joints, tapas of Spain, and I thought of the real Mexican dishes in the pueblos and mountains: the simple rice and beans of Mexico.

The previous day, my mother recalled the sole brilliance of the establishment known in more languages as simply… McDonalds: “At least we can rely on a clean bathroom no matter where we might find ourselves in the world.”

Yes, Home Sweet McDonalds, along with the other chains, soon to include Dairy Queen, Domino’s Pizza, Subway, Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Culture. Mazatlan. The input of the West’s dominance and money, yet out on the streets, it is Mexico at its finest.

Yesterday’s Today

Blocks are now splashed with the primary colors of the restaurants’ and consumer stores’ facades, but the dust still rises, the trash still burns, the Chevy trucks, the workers down in the shades and the mothers sprinting across the traffic with young flailing and babies wailing.

Things and their monsters. They let loose to dilute the beauty of this original style of living and culture. Yet cervezas and the guacamole, no matter how diluted, still bring in the Mexican culture of memory to the old and young.

Culture is life. Life is change. Change is Culture.

It is the beauty of the world, no matter how desperate, no matter how congested and overflowing, omnipresent like a McDo baño.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal photography website.

Life revolves; as the motion of the sun, as the pleating horizon and its contrasting hues from light to darkness and back. The individual, from their own perspective, is the traveler. And upon all travels, there is a road to follow.

But the road is full of choices. Which fork will you choose?

I’ve chosen the revolving life as a professional traveler. I decided, amidst my turbulent pubescent youth, that the road will always be mine, and thus found the lifestyle to support this decision.

And today, as I prepare to follow the winding road once again, I’m reminded of a phase I heard long ago: “If there’s a fork in the road, take it.”

The quote was read to me out of a book written by Pat Riley (one of the top ten NBA coaches of all-time according to NBA.com) entitled The Winner Within. I was nine, and hadn’t the slightest clue as to the significance behind the man’s word.

I now see it in its full light.

Experience is based on our personal choices, and we can bring as much or as little choice into the matter as we wish.

The Life Of A Student

Paris-its ancient European splendor often only found on one’s lap in turning pages of the finest of books.

Five months I signed my life away and gave my word to family, friends, and Paris – that I would be a student. But five months for the traveler is eternity.

The French classes, the homestay with a lone parisienne mère, and the intense independence of the traveler buried throughout my consciousness. The forks a many, came and left offering choices in every direction.

Stay in Paris-the marooned traveler locked in a conceived commitment like a child to a heavy, hot-milked nipple. Or-my mind, body and Soul fancied- return home for a rest bit before the lingering dusty lane of the lone wanderer catches his scent afar once again.

I couldn’t help but sink beyond my nasal utterances into the wordless images of the road, that long curving path of travel, of familiarity within the unknown, which I’ve accustomed my psyche to. Where was I?

From the start and before the birth of my Parisian immersion, I collected my forks – every choice in the road that led to enrichment of adventure, shaped in spontaneity.

My present moment, my future, and my past rolled into one-they were in my hands and they slid upon my tongue.

The Manufacturing Of Commitment

As I said, I’m dedicated-to the softness of the pavement beneath my feet, as to the crisp steel shaping the idiom’s many forms. I’m dedicated to the life of the traveler. Paris’ time was up, and I clearly saw my fork.

When a choice is made there is a manufacturing of commitment. “I will do this.” You tell yourself. You tell others. There’s a response from all: Yes you will, or possibly the contrary.

And the word spreads round as you convince yourself of its necessity, its permanence within you. A bond is created. A thought, into speech, turned action.

However, a choice remains at its origin as that plain thought, and then its gone. But here lies the trouble: perhaps you can’t let go. You’re stuck because you took it so seriously, so whole-mindedly that there was nothing else ever to get in the way.

A thought is a thought. Leave it at that and move on in your flow.

A Return To The Road

Although I thought about Paris from the beginning, shared it, and created it as my reality, five months was whose commitment? Mine? The stone of life and its magical impossibility of revolving and evolving? (Even stones get the blues when they erode).

My five months is two months too long.

I stop, take in a breath, and feel the current circumstances I am fighting against. A perceived commitment, which never existed, vanishes for good as my current becomes unblocked. I let go and I flow, far from Paris.

No, I’m not married to any single thought. I never was, and I never made a commitment. There never was one in any of the forks I came upon because indubitably, as my road revolves and evolves, new choices are made, affecting the current life circumstances.

I don’t allow someone or something else to begin collecting my forks for me. They’re mine-it’s my life.

In other words, it all comes down to this: Bundled in a ball, simple enough for a nine year old to play with, Pat Riley also said, “Don’t let other people tell you what you want.” Deliberately take it upon yourself to recognize and embrace your life’s choices.

If there’s a fork in the road, take it.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. He left his formal classroom studies to indulge in dreams of travel at 19 years old, and has been wandering ever since. Visit his personal photography website.

Paris is a meat-feasting city — not to say the rest of the world is any different. The French love their food, especially flesh, but slowly, rising in different quartiers across the city like a revival of the arts, the “biologique” producers are opening their doors.

I must admit, my stomach joins the choir, moaning as I catch scents through the wafting doorways. But I’m on my way to my own market, a representation of the home I know while traveling, for as a vegetarian on the road, my needs can often be demanding.

Beyond more restaurants, past the ethnic shops of couscous and kebabs, I take another road, where on the corner of a side street I step inside and enter my destination.

La Vie Claire and its homely shop, tucked with the whole goods of any village baker. Small petite tiles decorate the floor as if laid by the shop owner himself, leading to clustered stacks of wooden shelves.

Along the walls are the arrangements of the morning’s whole grain breads, undressed fruits and vegetables off their seasonal nods, and a chilled cabinet humming with the freshness of organic cheeses, yogurts, blocks of raw tofu and even soymilk.

I inhale as I weave around the baskets guarding the door, greeting the owner with an exchange of “Bon jour!” I taste the flavors of Earth upon my palette. As I meander, smelling, feeling the homely ambiance and the energies of sustenance in the air, I am reminded of consciousness.

It consumes me, this art of conscientious living, and it is fueled by one image: Mother Earth, green and blue in her luster; spinning round with her diversity.

Being A Human, Right?

I emphasize home for one reason. We each have our own on different levels-the things were most familiar with. I call my family and friends home, as well as this specific lifestyle of conscious consuming. And the one home we can all relate to is that spherical image of the Earth.

To be aware and conscious of our existence is when we allow life itself to thrive to its fullest, most beneficial potential. Any home supplies us with the support of life. As our Mother Earth, this planet provides us with all of it-a place of habitation, gravity, light and darkness, as well as the necessities of air and food.

After all, food is one of these primary sources of life. As is the act of breathing, food is the other-they’re one and the same. Without these two sustaining forces, we would no longer inhabit our physical home. Our very planet provides this, along with the beauty of nature that induces the influence of inspiration, joy and freedom.

However, while living within these laws of physicality upon this planet, we are all conscious of our experience as a human being-or so we hope.

The Art of Eating, Living & Being

Living is an art form, and to create any form of art, we must be aware and focus our attention into the act of creation. To be aware and conscious of our existence is when we allow life itself to thrive to its fullest, most beneficial potential.

Being conscious of our feelings, thoughts, speech and actions, of the movements around us, and of what we eat creates an appreciation for the present moment. And consciousness in our food and breath (the two sources of life), likewise, create a whole new dimension of being.

When we draw our thoughts and awareness to our food, we create a relationship with it and the body in which it enters. This is a deep sense of Self, a deeper sense of awareness.

Specifically, food eaten consciously provides us with more energy and strength, as does conscious breathing. For example, take the practice of meditation. Meditation heightens our awareness and gives us more energy, and as one could say, it focuses our life.

So by eating consciously, we receive the same transformations in our life as we would while practicing meditation, while creating art, while focusing our whole selves upon the things that bring us joy and happiness.

To eat consciously simply entails being aware of what we eat-what it is and where it came from. All food-fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and meats-have life-force. The more life-force, the more awareness. With more awareness one won’t have to eat as much, bypassing the issues with health that many face today.

What retains the life-force within food, within all sustenance, is the originality of it, its natural state.

The Clear & The Natural Life

Food comes from the Earth-the largest source of physical life-force. Therefore, natural foods (organic, bio, homegrown, farmer’s market fresh) contain the most life-force.

They are not sprayed with chemicals. They are not genetically modified. They are not frozen and shipped across land and sea. Instead, they are cultivated, planted, grown, picked, harvested and sold within the very air you breathe, the water you drink and the Earth’s soil you tread upon.

Thus, not only do we benefit from receiving the maximum life-force within food that provides the energy to carry out our purpose on this planet, but also our local growers are supported. And further, the soil they cultivate and the animals they raise are cared for because we’re giving back the love and nourishment our Mother Earth continuously provides.

Transport across country and sea are reduced. Less oil is extracted. Fossil fuels become a decreased demand. The blood of the Earth remains within her core as we collectively begin to cure the wound of addiction, as we collectively begin to care for ourselves.

And yes, we’re caring for the planet. Health and those qualities of abundance, joy and strength are cultivated throughout life.

All these factors are a part of life, a life of many different elements. Put together, these elements are home, making it all possible. Mother Earth is our home and we live upon it. We feed from it. We’re sustained by it. Therefore, we have a responsibility to care for it.

Now I’m Consciously Consumed

By eating consciously, buy visiting and shopping at the local farmer’s market or biologique/organic grocers, one retains the maximum life-force provided within food. And as a source of this life-force, life’s best potentials are released from within as we each strive for the abundance, joy and strength available to all.

With a backpack light on the shoulders carrying a jar of miel biologique, a trio of apples and a block of raw tofu, I return to the boulevard from which I first came. I find the cafés, brasseries and restaurants still full, their windows more foggy then before.

A breeze picks up, stirring the city’s debris in a lost arrangement of un-timed minuets. Stepping through the whirlwinds of man, I move over the waste of his domesticated pets, and I take out an apple. I wrap my jaws around its crisp skin and progress through the Paris I’ve come to know.

Wherever the road leads, I find the home-away-from-home. Whether Paris, Athens, Dharamsala, Bangkok, Monteverde or Bainbridge Island, home is a place where I continuously learn to care for myself and the planet Earth in which I travel upon.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. Each week he explores the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel. To read his previous columns, see the “also in this series” links below.

What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner. -M.K. Gandhi

It’s Saturday. I’ve been fasting for over twenty-four hours. My last meal was back on Wednesday evening. However, my statement is truthfully a lie.

Last night, for a final supper in Paris before heading back home for the holidays, I forced a small bowl of vegetable soup down my throat. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I would have disappointed Madame Joffres by skipping out on my final Parisian dinner of the year.

So, broke my fast-going all day Thursday into Friday, until an evening’s bowl of soup. Now today: Saturday afternoon. I come to my present condition.

Above a rain slick Paris and flying northward over an expanse of whiteness, the sun is welcomed, but noticeably, it increases the irregular internal heat of my body. My cheeks feel burnt, my flesh cooking from within, my nose feels as though it’s being squeezed by a wrench. My head is heavy. My eyes are sunken and somber.

Above all, I’m exhausted as the toxins are purged from my system. I question whether it is time to fully break this fast…but over airline food?

The Best Of All Medicines

It is not easy to convince someone to change his or her habits for the good of all sentient beings by starving yourself to death. In the first place, those who are committing a disagreeable act are doing so out of their own will, whether it’s harming one person or multiple beings. Therefore, what would they care if another person starved?

Principally, fasting is performed under the accords of the practitioner desiring not external change, but internal transformation.

The body is constantly bombarded by action, sensation and work in one form or another. From time to time it’s beneficial for physical and mental health to eliminate as much stimulation as possible in order to rest and cleanse itself of its collected work. Here is where fasting’s role comes to play when practiced with the best intentions.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting.”

In such regards, caring for the mind and body is to awaken oneself to the day’s highest potential, and the practice of fasting is a spiritual endeavor. It is its own spiritual retreat as time, effort and strength are honored and one withdraws into inner discipline.

For me, my fast was designed for it all. It was my own protest against the enormity of the modern world’s food consumption, equally as it was my retreat center of self-purification; a cleanse of the mind, body and soul for a variety of personal reasons. In Gandhi’s words, my fast was the eyes into my inner soul.

Fasting As A Force For Change

Mohandas K. Gandhi was an avid man of fasts. The small Hindu man who lived in the deserts of Gujarati lived this principal more fully than any other man. He was the ideal figure for the precepts he stood for as far as non-violence and the power of change.

Gandhi commenced a daily fast once a week, as a practice for the people as well as himself. He would allow his body absolute rest for one whole day, fasting and going so far as to prohibit speech. He cleansed himself, purifying his mind and body by washing away its accumulated toxins, which in turn renewed his strength.

During a fast, Gandhi often found himself lying in bed after a week or more. He rested to conserve his energy, but fought ardently, standing up for the people of his country. His intention during each fast was to provoke change within the British colonial rule and liberate the India of his heart.

He fervently encouraged his followers to remain firm to the precepts of non-violence, for Gandhi was a believer, above all; believing that anything could be done if one puts their mind, body and soul to it. We all know the phrase-turned bumper sticker, refrigerator magnet and IKEA print poster: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

As he broke his fast and eased back into the intake of food, he would sip orange juice with a relaxed and clean internal system. The thin frail-looking man was charged with new energy.

The Roots of Reverance

Apart from Gandhi, other cultures have practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting. In fact, fasting has a history stretching as far back to the first records of mankind.

In the Far East fasting was known for its cultivation of wisdom and spiritual knowledge, as well as self-purification. In the West, it was-and remains to be-a source of religious penance, though a practice dispersed far underground in the modern consumption of today’s society.

Likewise, tribal religions around the world fasted as a form of sacrifice towards the gods, allowing their humanness to dissolve as they fed off and nourished themselves with prayer and worship.

When America’s overachiever, Ben Franklin, remarked about fasting’s health benefits, he was speaking from his Christian origins. He realized the power behind the purge; opening the mind, body and soul to the will of God. While Jesus lived on earth, he spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting, preparing his Self for Satan’s fated temptations.

My Kind of Re-education

As the purposes of the fast remain broad, so to are the ideas for the cleanse. To reiterate this signifying factor of the fast, it is important to point out how necessary it is, from time-to-time, to stop and renew.

The human mind and body benefit when we halt all intake and drop our life’s brush so we may splash a whole new layer of crisp white paint upon our canvas. It’s as though we start anew when we abstain from food and drink.

It’s a re-breath of fresh air as we re-teach ourselves a different style of survival. We’re reminded of the presence of the non-physical and the strength we may find there when only we look and believe.

It brings us a clarity that has faded in the governing eyes of the world.

When we’re faced with change, movement, dramatic stops and starts, a fast can come in handy by giving us that option to start anew. It’s scraping out the old and replacing it with the new. It’s weeding the garden in order to cultivate next season’s growth. From the end of one year, and now-a year older and a year wiser-into the next and onward.

You become light, lean and spirited for this jump. You’re ready for the change. You’ve been reborn by your own strength, determination and inner discipline.

This was my fast: a self-controlled method to bring about awareness and gratefulness as I honored the recent, as well as the old, which carried me into the present moment. It was self-purification for the healthful and joyousness in life.

Firm As An Empty Stomach

I skip lunch and soon we descend upon Copenhagen. It’s my first and last layover before hopping on a plane direct to Seattle.
I tune in to the awareness of my body as the plane moves down through the clouds and into the lower atmosphere. I feel light, almost numb.

I inhale, fill my lungs, pressing deep into my empty stomach, and exhale. I reflect on the year as it comes to a close and give my Self a silent affirmation:

I’m ready for all that is and all that will be offered in this coming year. I withdraw into my center of spiritual retreat and honor my Self, giving thanks to the blessings of this world. I stand inward with my fast, choosing not to eat with those who have no choice in the matter.

I open the heart and soul to my surroundings, enabling my Self to learn to give more freely. I’m here today with my whole being-living, loving, breathing and fasting into the eyes of my inner soul. I am ready. I am the creator of my life.

My fast continues the following nine hours as I fly across the Atlantic and over North America to Seattle.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. Each week he will explore the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel. To read his previous columns, see the “also in this series” links below.

The world is a storm and always has been. Many choose to drop it and head out into the unknown, journeying as much through exotic lands as their own inner terrain. These travelers recognize that life provides countless opportunies for inner exploration and conscious evolution, and actively seek out experiences of a spiritual nature.

A recent article “Easing the Inward Journey, With Modern Amenities” (registration required) writes of Mirabai Bush, one of the first Westerners who made their way to India in search of spiritual fulfillment. These explorers had little money, often carrying only dog-eared copies of “Journey to the East” and their sleeping bags for the monastery floors.

As a child I remember stories from my family and their friends retelling their own travels during the 60s and 70s, while being introduced to books like Be Here Now by Ram Das and music by Jefferson Airplane, Carmen and The Doors.

But these first spiritual tourists have now paved the way for the birth of today’s booming spiritual market.

The new breed of spiritual travelers “used to be the Lonely Planet crowd,” Raymond Bickson, managing director of Taj Hotels and Resorts, based in Mumbai, [says], referring to the guidebooks aimed at those who prefer to experience a place the way the locals do.

“Now, still at the cutting edge of the New Age, wellness and spiritual frontiers, they continue to travel to feed their souls. They just want to do it without giving up their creature comforts.”

Ms. Bush would certainly fit into this new breed:

On her latest pilgrimage to India two years ago … she found that enlightenment and luxury were not mutually exclusive. She and a friend stayed at Ananda, a luxury spa in the Himalayan foothills overlooking Rishikesh, the holy Hindu city near the source of the Ganges River. Rates there ranged from $430 for single rooms to $1,600 for suites.”

Yoga Journal, Tricycle, Ode Magazine and names like Light of Consciousness and Hinduism Today present a variety of resources, articles, lifestyles and ideas exploring this form of expensive spirituality.

For example, an article by Judith Fein entitled “Purity in Portugal” describes the region of Algarve, and a retreat center called Moinhos Velhos.

In Judith’s words, southern coastal Portugal entrances the mind with visions of “white-sand beaches ringed by striking dune-colored cliffs and dotted with deliciously fabulous seaside restaurants.” Uh-uh. This was a retreat from society, but also simplicity at a price.

Judith spent 14 days at the center detoxifying, rising at 6:45 in the morning for chants, meditation and yoga, which continued throughout the day for a mere $3,230 to $4,540 (depending on the choice of accommodation). In her words: “…inspiring.”

Mirabai Bush’s Ananda journey or Judith Fein’s Portuguese retreat-today’s lifestyles allow the experience of the divine in its many varieties. With a willingness to spend money held with the intent of “what goes around comes around”-another method of giving and receiving-the seeker may explore all the possibilities for some form of the spiritual.

While navigating life’s storm, the more options the better. Whether you like it rugged, or whether you prefer the pampered suite with ambrosial oils and a five course vegetarian detoxifying meal…it’s out there.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. Each week he will explore the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel. To read his previous columns, see the “also in this series” links below.

I met her years ago. She was quiet, calm, beautiful in a manner of complete respect. There were things about her I knew I would never know, things that were hers, forever hers.

I had been traveling for sometime. I was on my own pilgrimage, discovering a path of the soul, paving a trail away from the family and friends I knew, and emerging into a world within my own dreams.

The journey up until that time was of isolation, rowing across empty seas, ascending the nomadic hillsides of the hermit’s region. Yes, I was alone, and I believed it.

You might be experiencing these feelings. You might think you’re so far along on your own personal journey that no one else could possibly be near you, at your side and available for support. Nope. Wrong. Can I give you a hint?

In the summer of 2005 an opportunity crossed my path.

I was reading the Seattle Weekly and my eyes ran upon an intriguing title: Walk for Peace. I read the short press release detailing an expedition from central Washington onto the state’s western peninsula to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Lead by two Buddhist monks, the peace walk would be honoring the dead and those effected who suffered innocently within the injustices of war. My eyes scarcely reached the article’s end before I grabbed the phone, dialed, and was aboard.

Soul-Mates On The Road

She was Ishikawa Kaori. With jet-black hair, brown eyes, and a Buddha’s round smile upon broad shoulders, she was small but with a strength originating from far within.

Yet at this moment, she knelt before the black asphalt and cried, moved to compassion as we stood before Area 200 located outside Richmond, WA. Surrounded by fields of barbed wire, wrapping the legality of consanguine chain-link, Area 200 was the plant that manufactured the plutonium for Fat Man, the bomb destined to devastate Japan’s seaside Nagasaki.

During my first peace walk, walking and living for peace, within a community, each person had their story to tell. All ears were curious. We wanted to know as much as we could of one another, which as a result strengthened our purpose.

“All people who share this world carry pain and need to be healed,” Kaori spoke to me. We shared ourselves along that peace walk, learning of the ways we keep ourselves going amidst a world of suffering. She continued:

“Before I joined the peace walks and began my own spiritual path, I realized I used to be narrow-minded, controlled by my fears and worries. I use to blame someone or something else when I experienced pain in my heart, but I realized I was the one doing it to myself.

I feel I have become more strong in my belief toward creating peace in the world by trusting myself and the Creator who watches our every movement.”

I realized I was no longer alone. I was together with family, with friends, and by allowing our paths to cross, I suddenly knew there would always be others. “As soon as I accepted myself for who I was, a lot of pain arose in my heart. I realized I had to be healed alongside all people of this world.”

My ideals and beliefs were supported not only by my own inner strength, but by that found within others. I discovered that the more I shared and opened myself up to the people surrounding me, the more I accepted the community of the human soul, the more powerful I felt and the more faithful I became to my purpose.

Most of all, this understanding created balance between solitude and community, where we would share our stories together from the beginning to the end.

Connecting With One’s Higher Belief

I asked Kaori of her practices that enable her to delve deeper into her path.

“I do meditations,” she began, “and I perform rituals in different ways, creating the time to make prayers for all our relations. I try to remind myself that everything I do is prayer. For example, I think cooking a meal is one form of prayer, and I remember this in order to pray.”

Likewise, I held my prayers throughout the walk. We rose at 5:30 in the morning and prayed, and now at home I rise before dawn to practice my yoga, stretch my body and expand the mind into meditation.

Before meals, in front of the faces of loved ones, I clasp my hands in the spirit of prayer, just as Kaori and others, giving thanks to the blessings, the health, the beauty and the possibilities in the life we have today.

Together or alone, one or multiplied by the infinite, the paths and their methods are illimitable, and when shared, they only strengthen and grow.

Are You Still Alone?

It comes down to one thing. Alone or within a community, we find support and strength, we find our means of inspiration to progress onwards. It is a conviction within the heart; and when connected to this source, our ability is unwavering. Nothing may break our equanimity.

Albeit, we hold beliefs within our mind and I was curious of Kaori’s. She allowed me to see what manifested from her practices and the life of peace she lead:

“I feel that we are in big transition, where each individual’s intentions will be affected in different ways. The world is like mud,” she described, “with beautiful lotus flowers.” The image painted itself in my mind as she blossomed, releasing her fragrance into a world crying for help.

“It’s hard to believe,” Kaori related, “that this world can quickly change towards a harmonized and balanced planet, but I do believe that it can and what we do, what we think and feel, will be passed on to the next generation.”

“We may not be able to see the change in this lifetime, but we are still able to leave our healthy intentions behind. To create this, it takes doing our work here today. We are not here just for ourselves, but for others and those who come after us.”

We are not here alone, despite how diverse and different our beliefs might be. We are here together, living everyday as one family. One may be the loneliest number, but one wouldn’t exist without two, three or four.

For me to recognize this, it took a peace walk and a coming together within a community of individuals living under one belief:

You are never alone. One does not exist without the other.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. Each week he will explore the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel. To read his previous columns, see the “also in this series” links below.

I’m soaked, damp, wet, sticking with my own fluids and gritty under a haze-laden sun. Or say I’m in Nepal, trekking alone within the Himalayas. A snowstorm descends upon me and I’m instantly lost, wandering from the trail by blinding white winds.

This is the present moment. This is the only situation that exists.

You’re in it, alone or accompanied, and it’s that which you’re experiencing. Whatever the circumstances might be, you have access to inspiration, you have the key to its discovery.

What do you need? You need nothing. You are the experience and the experiencer. But inevitably your energy is zapped, and life suddenly teeters on a ledge. One side leaning towards life and the other down into an unfathomable abyss. You’re not ready for the latter, so you breathe.

This is your inspiration.

The root of the word inspiration originates from Latin: inspiration(n-). The noun forms from its verb inspirare, which has a duel meaning.

First, it is that imaginary force of mental stimulation luring toward the potentials of illimitable creativity. Second, inspiration is simply the drawing in of the breath. In other words: to inhale and fill the lungs with air.

Breath is the key to life. With each observed inhale, our awareness is renewed and deepened. We honor the present moment and whatever situation we find ourselves in. Equipped with breath and awareness, the fundamentals of our internal search are created and the tools for life and inspiration are in our hands.

Every morning we rise from our beds, glide upon our weighted feet, with the potential to pursue further, harder, deeper and with more conviction into each day’s possibilities.

This force of mental stimulation is inspiration – as real as your own skin, and as impermanent as your own bitten nails. It is the drive toward maximum creativity into that which you live for and that which you thrive upon.

But then, suddenly it’s gone.

Drained, we find ourselves rummaging our own streets or the debris in our pockets, wondering how we accidentally threw this force out the window.

If we grasp it too hard, if we claim it as ours and only ours, a slap in the face will remind us that inspiration is a fine balance. When we have something in our possession then lose it, we realize its importance, how necessary it was to carry and sustain us among our life’s journey.

Without inspiration, we come to believe we’re lost, stuck in the swamp of mind’s banality.

Suddenly, we realized we stopped breathing.

There comes a soft ticking to our ears. It’s gentle, peaceful amidst the cacaphony, subtly resounding within our body. The blood feels it. Our heart vibrates as the arteries contract and dilate. Within our observance, the awareness returns to the source of this heart’s beat and we’re breathing.

Our breath, the awareness. Hello present moment.

No map is good or bad. There isn’t one out there without the capability of leading us to how we uncover our own inspiration. But here is one to start on:

You’re at the center of your being; breathing, living, recognizing the moment in your life that is directly before you. It’s a piece of art. It’s nature and the solemn mountains in your backyard. It’s the smile on your child’s face and the beauty within the pages of your tattered book.

Whatever it is, wherever you are, your present moment is the inspiration, and as you watch your breath and become aware of its life-giving force, the pumping of the heart stimulates the mind.

By letting go of everything else but the present moment, creativity is at your fingertips.

While embarking on a new business idea, a new relationship, or exploring the damp, dank corners of India, these are the experiences that force you to stop and touch your inspiration: inhale and live.

The mind is the pick, the heart is the hammer, and they chisel as one, directing your will into the vastness of creativity that lies within your soul. The hammer and the pick-they’re yours.

Cameron Karsten writes a weekly spiritual travel column for Brave New Traveler. Each week he will explore the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel. To read his previous columns, see the “also in this series” links below.

Technorati Tags: spiritual+travel, inspiration, creativity, backpacking

Where do you draw your own inspiration from? How do you develop your own creativity?

You’re at home. Priorities, concerns, handling of money and dealing with the collection of physical accoutrements are placed before you. You observe life, you fall into it, and then suddenly one day a choice presents itself.

You feel a desire to leave everything: your work, your friends, your life behind. It is the inevitable moment of choice: shall you choose the same rigorous routine, or a whole new dream, unknown and only imagined.

Which will you push aside?

There was the time in my life when the choice arose. I remember it specifically: I could have shrug my shoulders and assumed that playing the role of a “normal” life is what I had been selected to play; or I could instead drop everything and disregard the responsibilities that beckoned me into a deepening well of apathy.

I regarded the two choices (go with it or change it) with all my senses, and then I threw them aside. I decided to follow the choice presenting the illimitable possibilities within this world.

I listened to my heart and soul and disregarded the insignificant. I dreamed of travel. I yearned for the freedom of exploration. My heart and soul whispered of tales abroad among a new life of transformation.

It was simple.

I packed the few possessions I thought I needed and left with a flexible ticket to the Orient.

There, I realized I didn’t need anything I had first suspected, and so I emptied my sack of all the perceived necessities and placed myself in the hands of my new environment.

With my mind lightened and my worries about necessities eased, my awareness expanded away from the pack upon my shoulders to my surroundings. This observance immediately came full circle, returning me to an original recognition of the potential that rested within me.

Suddenly, traveling became an immersion into inner experience.

My lifestyle transformed from the ordinary railway line of dead-ahead tracks that began with my birth (ending with my inevitable death) — to that of something entirely different.

Prior to my traveling transition, I longed to see as far ahead into the future as possible. From as early as I can remember to as recent as the present day, society told me what to do, where to go and what to aspire towards.

I was assured through this dependence that the highest education and the most respected career would bring me happiness. The future was what I needed: that was where my happiness lied, and subsequently, would forever be. I sincerely believed it.

But then my lifestyle became an inner journey.

I no longer strained to peer into a remote future, but stopped far short and inhaled. I breathed in the present moment and realized that in this very slice of existence-right before me, existing nowhere else-happiness prevailed and awaited inside me.

Travel, and the immersion into an inner experience, begets more and more-and more-travel. It’s not an addiction. Nor is it a habit of escapism. It is a transformation of lifestyles. True travel is a place of opening yourself to the processes of inner journeying.

It is laying down the arms of ordinary life and undertaking a new style wholly involving oneself and the world abroad. It is a return to the recognition of who you are, where you came from and where you’re going within the mass of global evolution.

I was traveling and this was my dream. With this simple decision to follow my heart, I reclaimed my own destiny. Without it I was not myself, and with it I could do anything.

My life became a spiritual journey.

Cameron Karsten is the new spiritual travel editor for Brave New Traveler. Each week he will explore the emerging art and practices of spiritual travel.

Have you ever been faced with a similar choice in your life? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Like a roasted pepper, you’re done: well cooked, charred on the outside, burnt, spent. But on the inside, hidden within the veil of life’s fire-burner, you’re soft and ready-anticipating for more.

However, it doesn’t come all that easy. After the months, weeks, or often only the days of travel, you return home to the accustomed life once left behind, and there, piled with new baggage you thought you were ready to unpack, you find yourself overloaded with a new beginning.

And despite how many times you attempt to escape from this, seeking the bliss of freedom discovered upon the open road, mixed within the world’s vast cultures-leaving, returning, leaving, returning-you are met face to face time and time again with this long winding path returning home. It stares at you. It tempts you.

Upon returning, afflictive emotions once erased resurface (they never erase, only transform). In order to take this road, you know you must begin this new journey with your new bags; keep on traveling, keep on truckin’ to peel away your charred surface layers to reach that core you initially sought and prepared for.

You must emerge from the cultures of the ancient times of open-air fires and stone and brick ovens to reveal a modern complexity of steal and chrome. The time allotted is the progress made, and until then the core will not be exposed. Instead, the fires will continue to char, and char, and char returning you back to the start of that winding path, through and through. Call it culture hopping.

And You Are?

Whether Africa, Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, North America, or some distant cardinal tropic marooned from the flanks of one’s accustomed culture, the traveler is an explorer in the miasmic layers, colors and spices of the world’s cultures. To have that desire for taste, for preparation and creative roast is to obtain the initial interest of discovering a lifestyle other than one’s own.

It is a yearning for experience, for knowledge, for an accumulation of wealth that can never be bought, never be taught or sought in books: It’s the potential growth of the soul that comes with willingness, dedication and an awareness given the time and space to be sown in the soils of one’s consciousness.

Through the journey beyond, an epic tale of letting go and allowing those fires to char on their own accord, experience becomes wisdom. It becomes that seed enriched with appreciation for life, a life involving a continued exploration of man, woman, Nature and their intriguing interwoven dynamics. Alone, this path cultivates and further roasts one’s seed of awareness allowing the pepper to blossom and the fires to cook.

Certain characters are necessary for the traveler to embark and take upon these fires when ready: Such one loves the unknown.

He or she loves taking this upon destiny like a parasite caught in flesh. It is a necessity, a fertilizer sucked from the deepest soils, where the senses abide to the farthest root tips; stretching, distending, growing further and reaching for that appreciation of life, its beauty and the diversity which flourishes. These cultures of humanity define the sustenance of life, and without their firsthand experience there would be no worth to the traveler in the life surrounding.

For such a traveler, life is the essential ingredient. Within mind, body and soul there contains all components and it’s only fed when the traveler throws oneself into this very unknown. This is where life itself revolves.

And so, with a firm grip upon an adventurous nature, a character ready and willing to let it all go for something without any future at all, the traveler within me tossed this mind, body and soul into the deep soils of the earth. Seed planted, sustenance fed-my pepper of various layers, colors and spices began to sprout. The fire was already provided. I began my culture hopping.

Cultures Revealed, The Culture Transformed

I went abroad, explored the cultures of islands, of development and riches, of poverty and those stricken with the despair of unjust treatment to their basic human rights. I went abroad and found turmoiled markets unlike my hometown grocer’s. I was ingrained within them like a fly caught in a web where I wove my thread with theirs, calm and observant with the people of Africa, Asia, south-north-east-west and beyond. I spun more, throwing an innocuous trust within my surroundings.

Further, I found isolated pockets of forest, tropical with malarial mosquitoes and monkeys. I saw fauna and flora of the imagination, and I let my own wander to color my thoughts with its fragrance.

Things filled my senses. Life invaded me. From one culture to the next, I let go, stepping deeper into the unknown. I let go once more.

Literally it all consumed me, and as the small seed, a sponge underneath the flowing faucet, I soaked in it. I was free. I was the traveler. I absorbed this flow-people, thoughts, situations and circumstances, foreign politics, cuisines and their palates, lifestyles and manners. They became a part of who I was, and who I sought to become.

From one individual to the next, from village to village, city to city, via bicycle, rickshaw, tuk-tuk, taxi, bus, train, boat-or by foot-I was culture hopping. I was experiencing this life I knew and never knew. It was withdrawn from within me where I allowed an awareness to manifest the road ahead. And on every step, the journey started anew as the flames were fueled, the fires turning hotter.

Eventually, I was done.

The pepper: blackened, charred, burnt on the outside. Work was now necessary to peel away the layers, and so the traveler returned home to the culture left behind. There, after faced with one phenomenon to the next, culture hopping at its finest
(the pepper well-done, the fly entombed, a sponge oozing the sustenance of life), explorations changed courses and routes led homeward to the familiar lifestyle. But through each interlope and interchange of culture there was that reunion affected by this so-called hopping.

It was a reemergence with the traveler’s old self-again, bags ready to unpack before discovering there were still more bags to be carried.

Still Traveling

Often it’s unexpected, meeting this thing left behind which is now present; all around you, within family and friends and customs and routines. It is the traveler of the past; the traveler before the traveler was ever a “traveler”. In essence it is the mind, body and soul in which everyone knew and everything expected despite the change.

But now, unexpected, the new traveler facing the old traveler before the traveler was ever a traveler becomes paralyzed. He or she is overwhelmed with the past culture amounting to that of the new various cultures adopted. Known collectively as “culture shock”, there is no turning back.

The old sages comment, “Easy is the choice to begin or not, but once begun, better finish.”

And like a dish of foie gras to a vegetarian consciousness, like a Russian bath for the Hawaiian local, culture shock throws you into a chasm where the lights are dimmed to view only the faint silhouettes ahead. There is nothing left behind. You must continue and accept a responsibility, for this very shock is the effect of your culture hopping. It stuns, saddens-and more significantly-paralyzes the senses and any feeling of centeredness.

Questions arise again, afflictive emotions stir as remorse composes a symphony of disgust, despair and pain before the next layer of the pepper becomes charred. There is never the chance of having the opportunity to live the life of its soft sweet flesh. This is the case involving a reemergence into Western society.

Returning from Southeast Asia to southern California, my confidence and belief within my own self and the direction I was heading hit a steel-plated wall. All happiness faded. What I remember most having returned from the months abroad was entering that Ralph’s “superstore” on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

Culture shock as loaves of bagged bread-signed, sealed and delivered-shook with a consumerism’s shopping rage. It was like an exemplified spree; carts with gargantuan mouths, open and wired to the teeth. They could be stuffed full, occupying up to ten bags if willed. There were meats, animals to be more specific, which now took the form of slice after slice, shank and steak and thigh and breast-or why not whole? My eyes witnessed the abundant glory to what a Newari family in the Nepalese Himalayas might perceive: I’m in heaven!

No. To me, having experienced the impoverished of India, Africa and Asia; having walked the mountains and beaches where a family was considered lucky if a porter succeeded in bringing what they requested, this mass production of animals, genetically modified fruits and vegetables, and aisles upon aisles of sugared dumplings called Ding-Dongs and Twinkies hit my lower abdomen with an iron cudgel.

Cheeses and yogurts fermented beyond their expiration date. Fizzing bottles of Coca-Cola and Tab blew their tops. Bottles of water became dirty.

What happened to the market? To morality? What happened to globalization and our care for others’ well-being?

No, I concluded, there was never a moral concern for life. And there never will be. What the hell am I doing here? I was culture shocked.

A Welcome Home

It’s the most difficult stretch of the journey; to return home to family and friends, to routine-to life as you once knew it-and apply successfully all the lessons of travel. People look at you as they did in the past, but you say, you stand up for yourself: No, I’ve changed.

The world revolves.

You see the news. You have the luxuries you once forgot and indeed took advantage of in the past. Daily life causes its stresses. Anger, confusion, and all the other emotions come to greet you with a slap in the face, smiling like they’ve never done before. Even those plates of food adorning your dining table are a blessing-truly-but no one else seems to see.

Likewise, you yourself begin to struggle. In your silent prayers you return your conscience back to your center and thank the sustenance before you and your family. You thank the Universe for this life compared to others witnessed far away, an observance you’re beginning to forget.

As with most, the first return and its adaptation is the hardest. You cope with it, you deal with it and you hopefully take in the lessons for your growth. The second and third become easier due to experience, and with the appropriate placement of the lessons recalled, your life, whether traveling or at “home” in your own culture, becomes a continued journey of culture hopping.

You are the traveler and you feed this, caring for yourself with the practice of your experiences from the places you’ve been. It is your new culture in which you live and grow from. But how do you get passed the initial return, and the second and the third?

Over my travels an unknown quote to an unreligious individual has reminded me of strength and courage: “God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.” It is a message interpreted as there is always more growth to be had-top is never the top.

Greeted with the eruption of past habits and routines, I have taken the journey of reentering the life I left behind as a whole new opportunity to evolve further to that infinite goal. And what keeps me sane throughout the process is the remembrance of the journey passed and how it’s still in its entirety churning within me.

Therefore, I’m brought to the present, the internal traveler awoken within to become the traveler of the present moment no matter what road I might be on. I see family and friends; they might mistake me for someone of the past.

Sure, I’m still that person, but now I’m that person including this new traveler.

I see shelves of abundance in a culture appearing oblivious to the rest of humanity’s infirmities and I become grateful to have that awareness of the resources in my life, their precious blessings, and how most persons round the globe might not have such a luxury as the basic necessity of shelter to plates to eat upon, or surviving family and a network of friends.

I remember how I used to take things for granted, including as a boy that dumpling of sugar, the Twinkie. Hence, there is no need to despise it, but be appreciative of the options and leave it for others who might harbor interest. And I’m grateful for the world’s diversity and the cultures out there to be explored.

Though what remains most important, disregarding the adventure of external discovery, is the magnitude of a continued internal exploration. It is an application of one’s new understanding and belief into mainstream life that keeps this cyclone of the Self gyrating.

Barriers are discovered, analyzed and then toppled; passed through to advance further into the conscious Self.

Each step hosts the opportunity for growth-mentally, emotionally and spiritually-and with the continued practice of one’s lifestyle within the new surroundings of home, obstacles of daily living no longer appear as they once did. Instead they take the form of that flame, licking the edges of skin to provide a tool to peel away the outer layers in order to reach its core. That fire is of love and peace, as is the core-as is the practice, the people and places-as are those once termed “obstacles”.

And So, To Hopping

Today, there is more of Asia, West Africa, Europe and more Central America, including my own culture, within me.

As a traveler with a continuous yearning for growth through an experience of culture hopping, and a lessening culture shock, I have come to peer through a cleared perception, recognizing the differences and similarities of each land and its people. I have come to accept these cultural barriers as a part of this physical world, established in total for our growth. Beyond these barriers, they dissolve and I perceive a life with the oneness of all peoples. My heart opens as I remind myself and take recognition. Happiness returns.

Yes, I’m still traveling.

Life keeps churning, and as a morsel within the stew-that spice-as a bubble in a boiling pot, we have only so long before we leave and transform, before we are eaten by our own creation.

In order to fill this duty with its finest, in order to allow the fires to masterfully complete its roast, a strive to dig deeper attains progress. It is the act of reaffirming the underlying connection between people and their cultures. It is the subtle continued establishment within the mind that they-we-have founded this very life and that we are here together to share it. Through this realization, carrying for myself and reawakening from sleep each fleeting moment, the afflictive emotions associated with the road and the return into daily life subsides.

A roasted pepper, charred skin peeled, I am now ready to continue with the ingredients of this infinite stew of culture, traveling deeper into the feast of life. Culture hopping is my vehicle of choice.

Ambitious and driven, Cameron Karsten left for SE Asia at 19 years of age, alone with his journal, camera, some clothes and few photos to remind him of where he began. He left to follow a dream. And what led him from there was the whisperings of his own heart and the push and pull of life’s current. Visit his personal website at www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/cam2yogi

Technorati Tags: travel+articles, backpacking, culture

What did you think of this article? Please share your thoughts in the comments.