Seeing with New Eyes
‘Try to see with new eyes’, was the message my dear Australian sister and travel companion got… from this beautiful, young, Aboriginal woman. This resonated immediately with me. I felt the invitation to approach the mountain we were going to walk, these huge sacred rocks we were going to visit, with the utmost humility, admiration and openness… without expectation, without judgement. With new eyes. My friend visited this place 10 years before; it was my first time. I didn’t meet her personally, but this special Aboriginal lady already taught us so much in the past 24 hours. We thought (assumed ;-)), that we agreed to meet her, to guide us on the mountain. With our Western, heady, lineair way of thinking, we were sure we had an agreement: we’ll meet at 8.30 at the bottom of the mountain, to walk up, together…
The day before, I felt she would not come. Gut feeling. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she felt we were meant to walk up by ourselves. And she was right.
I, trained these new eyes, unconsciously, shortly before arriving here. I spent a few days, by myself, in the Blue Mountains. It made me remember how amazing it is to be, by yourself, in a new, breathtaking, environment in nature. It is as if your body connects to the Earth, almost melts with it, resetting, throwing out all unnecessary stuff, revitalizing our body, our Essence. And that opens our system to experience life through freshness, newness, openness, new eyes.
I thought I embodied this newness already… I wrote a blog about it, just before I left for this life changing trip last summer. Creating the New Anew, was what I felt coming. No clue what it meant. I am ‘back’ (‘kinda’ ;-)) now for four months… I still don’t have a lot of clue. It does feel though, as if I experience everything…different…and I realize more and more, that is because these new eyes seem to be anchored in my being-ness.
The first month of this new year felt different as well; it feels like there is a lot of newness to experience. Even very familiar things feel new this year: like my family, my country, my relationship to a lot of things, to work, to our systems, to the world, even to my husband. The last few, say about three, years, seem to have been about ‘installing’ new eyes and getting used to them. Learning how to use them. Eyes that are open, flexible, resilient, loving, humble and curious; eyes that see every thing in every moment anew. That is how a new world is being created. By seeing with new eyes, collectively. That is why I now, finally, started to write my book: Living Natural Law. Because I felt it was time to share this invitation to see with new eyes, with as many people as possible. Especially in these challenging times. Because this new is about sharing, co-creating, community: manifesting a new world, together. And I have said this before: maybe this new is some of the most ancient wisdom available to humanity… that is how it feels to me, when being around any original people in the world.
After the upset of realizing we were on ourselves to walk the mountain, we decided to do so in silence. A few meters behind each other, we climbed for a few hours. About halfway, Uncle Max, the late Aboriginal Elder who had always been guardian of this mountain, appeared quite strongly in my presence. I kept hearing the same question over and over again: ‘When stepping into our elderhood, are we ready to leave behind all kinds of victimhood?’. The question was for both of us. I had to share it with my friend and so I did: braking the silence to throw this question in the mix…it did create some turbulence ;-). When continuing our climb, I could see and sense, we were now two walking processes in human form, dealing with all kinds of emotions that this question had stirred up in us. When reaching the rocks, it felt as if we had done a pilgrimage and had thrown off some layers in the process. Before entering the sacred site, where the rocks reside for thousands and thousands, maybe millions of years, we sat down to prepare ourselves. We knew we were to go in ‘as pure as possible’ and, without saying so, we were emptying ourselves from any remnants of processing this question. When we entered the site, apart from being in awe of the breathtaking magnificence of the rocks, we received so many gifts coming in as pure wisdom and inspiration. Real and deep learning, always happens in hindsight. I now understand, we were guided on this mountain, by both the Aboriginal young woman and the elder, Uncle Max. Just not in the way we expected to be guided. But in a much richer, purer, loving way than we could ever have imagined. To learn how to truly see with new eyes…