Prologue Pt. II

If you missed my introduction that lays out why you might want to sit through all of this and where we’re headed, feel free to catch up here. Navigate past and future chapters via the Table of Contents, including part one of this prologue. Note that I will pepper my prose with occasional subscribe or comment buttons — I want reader input! So I invite you to stick around and journey with me; share some tea and stories. Thank you for being here.

Right about now would have been the ideal inner parenting moment to gently step in and say something like: Heeeyyy sweetie, remember that wild time a few years back when we covered this whole not-forcing-outcomes-and-answers thing…? But she was mysteriously nowhere to be found on this occasion; I imagine my ego locked the door while she was in the bathroom or something. Thus, I still had not yet learned my lesson from the Moroccan bootleg book incident.

As the character Wanda from the adult animated series Bojack Horseman put it: “When you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.” Well, same goes for idealising situations. In my desperation to see exactly what I wanted to, I missed glaring red flags that a Spanish bull would have trampled me to catch.

The bus, while unquestionably a fine DIY fit-out purchased secondhand, did not adhere to certain building codes and could not be driven again until they were fixed. Our once-abundant funds flatlined when the project leader’s cryptocurrency platform of choice — literally the only place he kept his savings, or so we were told — went insolvent. Crew members dropped out one by one, including the other videographer who supplied the network of contacts we intended to connect with along our route; people we could interview, places we could stay, events we could attend, potential leads, all went with her.

To top it all off, our departure date got postponed three times...and when we finally settled on one that stuck, a light bombshell was dropped on our heads in the form of a dishevelled-looking woman with three cats in a caravan, whom our leader had seemingly “rescued”1 and would now be joining us — one week out, despite the rest of us never having met her before, and all previous trip-related decisions being put to the whole team in full transparency.

Needless to say, tensions were reaching an angry simmer (if not yet a full rolling boil), and disquieting questions bubbled to the surface of our minds.

Even still, I couldn’t bring myself to back out — despite everything that once excited me about the trip beginning to fracture and blow apart, like a window smashing in high-definition, ultra slow-motion; despite mounting and unnerving hearsay surrounding the leader’s intentions and his cause we were helping promote. I came to realise too late, with a twinge of nausea, that my ego had stumbled into this mess like a drunken surgeon and sutured my identity (along with a sizeable chunk of my self-worth) to the outcome of this opportunity.

What made all the sense in the world merely weeks before mutated into something I no longer recognised…and now I was stuck. I had tanked half my money, coagulated my creative and financial flow like a beaver building a dam in the river, and was very much locked in as one of few remaining loyal crew. I felt like a fool and a failure, like a terrified rat clinging to the side of a sinking ship, unaware it could simply jump off and swim determinedly in its own direction.

So be it. I consoled myself with the prospect of some interesting stops pinned for our North Queensland route (we agreed to at least get that far and take it from there), a region I had not visited since my childhood. I pledged (through gritted teeth) to trust where I was being led, and simply suck it and see. At least for the first month — which proved mostly to be about as chaotic and tail-chasing as one might guess, given the circumstances.

Amidst the exasperating confusion, frustration, and heartbreaking sense of sunk investment, there was a glimmering beacon of hope: a trance and psychedelic music festival in far North Queensland called Orin Aya.

I could not tell you why I had such a strong affinity towards getting there. Maybe it was because Orin Aya had always been a non-negotiable fixture in our otherwise multi-car-pileup of an itinerary. Maybe it was because I knew there would be familiar company in attendance — other friends, anybody that was not somebody I had been sharing a claustrophobic, passive-aggressive six-by-two-metre space with for the past month. Either way, by the time we got there I was gagging for release into the wild. I pitched my swag as far away from the bus as I could realistically manage and threw myself into that musical jungle, willing to believe in any kind of universe magic that could swoop in and save me from my situation.

And boy...did it ever.

(For anybody raising an eyebrow or rolling their eyes over the mention of magic, I assure you: if you ever set foot in one of these spaces — be that in the travel, spiritual, or music festival realms — you will understand that magic, in absolutely the most literal and mystical of terms, is possible. I cannot entirely explain it to you how it happens; I urge you to simply go and experience for yourself, and keep an open mind. For those of you who have stepped in and experienced it — you get it.)

I won’t further blow out my word count with descriptions of every weird, wonderful, and unexpected encounter that happened that weekend. However, the peak synchronicity took place on the final day, in a secluded creek spot at the edge of the festival grounds I stumbled on the day before 2.

Like many a jaw-dropping, too-wild-to-be-believed coincidence, this one very nearly did not happen. I was keen for one last dip but it was an uncharacteristically windy, chilly morning for far North Queensland, and I walked in circles and halfway back to my campsite before thinking fuck it and turning back around — I was going for a freshwater swim amid luscious jungle, to hell with the cold. It was still early and I had the space to myself, so I stripped off my clothes — because why not? The water was shallow, only just covering my naked chest. I shivered and slowly adjusted to the temperature for a few minutes in wild and isolated bliss. Then...

A curly-haired, olive-skinned man suddenly appeared through the trees.

Now, normally, my shame-stamped Western sensibilities would cause me to tense up, cover myself, and stammer awkward apologies for being caught in such a state. But that did not happen. If anything, I relaxed and responded with warmth and curiosity when he said hello to me, took off his own clothes (I looked away), and slipped into the water respectably downstream from me. We began exchanging the usual information — our names, where we are from, what we are doing in the world and so on — in somewhat stunted fashion, because he was a recent traveller to Australia from Israel with developing English and younger than me; at the same time, as casually as if we had bumped into each other at the supermarket or something. Our conversation never felt forced or awkward, despite our…erm, Garden of Eden-like position.

I honestly feel it would not have mattered much if we did not talk at all; there was something about him, and our budding connection, that seemed to transcend spoken language and the prescribed social process. Amateur as I consider myself in regards to energy reading and that boss-level spiritual stuff, I could not deny there was something…ethereal, surreal, sparkly even — words aren’t pulling their weight here; a bit special, shall we say — about him, and between us, from the moment he emerged through the trees. Whether this was some visual projection of the surprise I was silently experiencing (having very recently dreamed about a curly-haired stranger with whom I felt instantly, intimately relaxed and at home), I have no idea. Nor whether he registered any such effects, though I sensed they were mutually well-perceived.

All I know for sure is: as he edged closer throughout our conversation, to the point where we were touching goosebumped shoulders — apparently my tattoos were not clearly visible — and he slowly, wordlessly, leaned in to kiss me…I did not object. Not even close.

More specifically, when we were soon shivering unavoidably from the cold (and perhaps elevated hormone levels) and he suggested we go to his van to warm up, I willingly followed with the quiet confidence and settled nervous system of somebody who had been through the motions with this man for a long time — not merely ten minutes or so.

You must understand: I am, decidedly and truthfully, not a woman who goes…to van?…with men she has just met. Quite the opposite; I am a woman who struggles intimately with men she has known, and dated, for quite some time (for reasons I’ll keep between me and my therapists). So this behaviour was highly, highly unusual for me — ask my friends and the nonplussed dudes at parties who’ve tried their luck and watched me run away.

I relished a delicious inner simmer of defiance and surprised audacity as I followed this gentle Middle Eastern man to his temporary Australian home. When we arrived, I suppressed an outburst of laughter at what I saw: his Facebook Marketplace-variety, dinged-up, white backpacker van, nestled between two cars with telling numbers on their plates — 777 and 999.

Another “yeah whatever” spiritual tidbit for you:

I look to repetitive — or spirit, if you don’t mind the woo-woo — numbers for confirmation and support in my daily life. They can pop up anywhere, anytime, in seriously trippy and hilarious ways, like this example here. Most have many potential meanings depending on the unique interpretation and context of the seer. However, I consider 777 and 999 to be fairly unambiguous in their messaging.

Sevens in numerology, especially repetitive sevens like 777, hint at big luck, inner awareness, perfect divine alignment, new ways forward and exploration of the unknown, “yes” circumstances and levelling up — ultimately, “wildcard” spiritual energy with the potential for fortuitous windfall. I also see 777s as a sign of encouragement and to look inward for strength and guidance. Nines, and 999, signal completion, the end of current cycles of growth and change, clearing space for new opportunities.

I always get excited when I see 777s because I seriously dig wildcard energy and relentless self-improvement. However, I would have been even more excited by the 999 if I knew what “completion” was waiting for me inside that van. Perhaps this is why I found it so easy to be led there.

I’ll leave the details about my time in the van with the curly-haired man to the imagination. Let’s just say, it was a fun and soul-satiating time. We lingered afterwards, curled around each other and wherever we could fit — backpacker vans aren’t exactly mansions — and regained our body temperature in his cluttered, though cleaner-than-average, warm wooden space; him showing me some drawings he had been working on, and me perusing his small, elastic band-secured bookshelf.

My gaze settled — and eyes widened — upon seeing a lovingly worn, ornate vermilion red and sun-yellow cover, like a cross between an old map and a mandala tapestry.

“You’ve read The Alchemist?” I asked him.

He confirmed yes, he had, looking curious as to why I asked. I told him the story of how my dad had instructed me to read it all those years ago, and how I was still waiting patiently to let it find me first. The curly-haired man smiled softly.

“Well, now it has found you. I would like you to have it...it’s yours.”

We exchanged little else beyond that point, aside from warm parting words and a hug or two. No phone numbers, not much chance of future contact. I was happier that way. There aren’t many things in life you can experience as though within a lucid dream, and I would not taint the crystalline magic of this one with the unsightly oil sheen of reality that inevitably comes with “Let’s do this again sometime!”

However, I couldn’t resist doubling back later with the book and a request for some kind of a note to be written inside — to render him, and our encounter, just a touch more real. He seemed undaunted by the request and fetched a pencil from his drawing collection, closed his eyes and thought deeply for a few moments, and inscribed a short passage in Hebrew inside the back cover. I did not ask him at the time what he wrote, merely waited for fate to deliver me into the company of somebody with the ability to translate 3.

For the final week or so of the trip, I chose to sit in the wreckage of this “documentary making” venture beneath as many palm trees on as many tropical beaches we travelled to as possible. I dug my toes into their slippery white sands and foraged fresh coconuts and had them cracked open by backpackers with machetes — and I devoured this book all over again, from start to finish.

Almost exactly four years since I was denied my own treasure in the form of the story’s closing pages, while Santiago was digging for his – and however many more since my dad first handed down the mission – I beheld the gold and jewels that were the final sentences. The final effort-quenching steps through this self-referencing desert I’d been trudging; the juicy, delectable palm dates of the oasis.

Tears poured freely from my eyes as I correlated the teachings of the alchemist (the character) to uncanny wisdom I had recently gained along my own spiritual pilgrimage; and at last, the knowledge of the boy’s treasure he travelled so far and endured so much to seek.

(Here is where the spoilers start. Skip the next couple of paragraphs if you would rather not know.)

In short: Santiago finds nothing buried in the sand. He is discovered in his process of digging by two tribal war soldiers who beat him, believing he is hiding gold. And realises — through the chance passing of information by one of the soldiers — that his treasure was located back where he started his journey, beneath a sycamore tree growing through the sacristy in his old herding fields in Andalusia.

While digging yet another hole back on home soil, he enters a short yet climactic dialogue with “a voice on the wind”4 — an exchange of information that walloped my heart and soul and served as The Alchemist’s standing ovation moment, at least to me at the time. These simple yet potent sentences proved to be the ultimate sense-maker of not only this cock-up of a career move I had been lamenting to no end…

but my entire wayfaring, rudderless, disorderly, contrarian, and divinely unresolved life to date; which I had been navigating until now as though through thick fog with only a lantern held out in front of me, seemingly without rhyme or reason or discernible plan, and with much internalised shame for never really having “got” the point of Life and how to do it:

“You old sorcerer,” the boy shouted up to the sky. “You knew the whole story. You even left a bit of gold at the monastery so I could get back to this church. The monk laughed when he saw me come back in tatters. Couldn’t you have saved me from that?”

“No,” he heard a voice on the wind say. “If I had told you, you wouldn’t have seen the Pyramids. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

(Okay, skippers, you can come back now.)

With a tearful giggle and sigh, I realised all the “mistakes” of leaving my comfort zone and going north on this bus trip, however ridiculously it did not go according to plan, were undeniably necessary along my journey. Because if they had not happened, I never would have come into my copy of The Alchemist in such a profoundly beautiful (and hilarious) way.

Nor been shown, through unforgettable lived experience — as had the boy in his own meandering way — why anything we put ourselves through in this unhinged bloody ride through life makes perfect sense. Why our suffering contains pivotal information and priceless meaning, the mere hint of which can comfort and liberate us from less-than-desirable circumstances, and allow us to circle back on ourselves, and our life circumstances, with renewed appreciation and awareness we might never have known otherwise. (At least, not in such wildly remarkable fashion that sticks with us for life via complete DNA reconstruction, as per Elizabeth Gilbert’s earlier description.)

It did not matter, all of a sudden, that I left behind a version of life that would be considered, in the minds of many, a pretty sweet deal (and I still miss sometimes). I could not deny I had been feeling restless — a little too comfortably uncomfortable — and itching to make a move for reasons I could not put my finger on. What had previously been my questionably (shamefully) drifting, difficult-to-connect-the-dots life choices were instantly validated in one fell swoop.

I recalled the gift I was given by an American man I once travelled around Thailand with for several weeks: a rough-cut opal necklace with holes in the back of it, which he metaphorised to teach me about the inherent beauty in imperfection; wisdom I had clearly since forgotten. And, yet another quote from my favourite Liz Gilbert 5 in conversation with Krista Tippett 6 that has long stuck with me:

“Sometimes following your curiosity will lead you to your passion. Sometimes it won’t, and then, guess what, that’s still totally fine. You’ve lived a life following your curiosity, you’ve created a life that’s very interesting and different from anybody else’s, and your life itself then becomes the work of art — not so much contingent on what you’ve produced but about a certain spirit of being that I think is a lot more interesting and a lot more sustainable.”

Reading those final lines in The Alchemist was, at last, the thing that wove these sentiments into my molecular make-up in a way that could not be unravelled. And was only made possible because I chose to listen to my heart and trust in the unusual opportunity presented to me, even when everything from the neck-up was pulling its neural hairs out and making pretty big claims as to the absence of my sanity...which paid off tenfold over the safe and comfortable life I left behind. Hell, I could even start to feel gratitude toward this trip, toward the people I’d been frustrated and enraged with who had nevertheless helped me get to this point of sheer, kismet perfection. I kind of owed them one.

And so, like the boy, my heart was quiet for an entire afternoon. Though, perhaps predictably, would not be so for long. Hence how this book began to very slowly take shape — and, perhaps just as predictably, what I honestly thought would be the end of it all was merely a new beginning.

TBC.