This is an excerpt from a letter I emailed to a friend about Seattle. It answers the question I hear so frequently: "Why did you go to Seattle of all places?!"
I went to Seattle at the gentle nudging of the Shabda. For some reason, one day, the Shabda said to me, "Go to Seattle". I don't know why. I wasn't particularly for or against the idea, consciously. I'd never been to Seattle before, and I knew very very little about it (though I did know that the tech industry was strong here). But, if the Shabda says "Go to Seattle", I go to Seattle. =^_^=
After being here for a day, I decided that I absolutely *LOVED* Seattle, and that's still true to this day, and probably will be the truth for many years to come.
I absolutely Love this place. This is the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. The mountains are tremendous, powerful, gorgeous. The peaks of the mountains look like the models from the most beautiful Romantic paintings; that is, the paintings that often formed the backgrounds for the Romantic plays: Radient White snow capped mountains with jutting brown rock exposed from underneath, lush green fields and small hills, deep growths of dark, mysterious forests, and crystal clear waters reflecting the lightly clouded skies. I can almost hear the symphonies, the bells, the refrain from "Final Fantasy" whenever I look out at the mountains here.
When the fog rolls in, everything becomes a mysterious grey, and liquid manifests itself from the sky. It doesn't rain; Rather, water hangs in the sky. As you walk through it, it collects on you. The air feels sharp, when you breath it, and refreshingly cool. If you wear a jacket, you can feel the warmth. If you go without, the frost will force you alert, awake. Cold has an intelligence to it. I think that the rays of our thought sustain themselves off of the cold. I understand that the mental regions are icy, unfeeling. The diagrams of concepts are made manifest in snow flakes; miniature kaleidascopes of design. I have observed countless thoughts trace through the circuitry of the mind while gazing.
Seattle is the hinge between Canada and the United States of America. It is a port city; There are many boats, harbors, ships. At the Green Tortoise, where I am staying, there are many fishermen back from long dreamlike periods of work at sea. They describe their living conditions and their lives to me; they are harsh and extreme. Some are going to work on land, many will return to the ocean. Airplanes come to and from Japan, Alaska, Canada. We get a mish-mesh of asian and arctic cultures here. There are jokes about Canada. I had never before heard jokes about Canada. But they have them here. For some reason, I like all of this. It is like a tavern that I frequently imagine Rumi and Shams conversing in, except rather than desert, it is aquatic. The symbols of Seattle are Water, Rain, Drops, Ripples.
I feel that there is a powerful mystery in this place. Again, because of the cold, and because there is harsh interaction with the elements. The Japanese word that comes to my mind is "Fu*shi*gi": "Not", "Mind", and "Talking About" are the elements of the word. It means: Deep, mysterious, awesome, powerful. Wherever people struggle to survive, there is always an influx of spirit, be it desert or tundra. People no longer struggle to survive here (save the homeless, who get by with the underground newsletter, "Real Change"), but there is still the essence of the struggle. I remember seeing in the stairway up to the monorail, a tile that had a child's depiction of a man with an umbrella looking up at the sky saying, "Come on, rain! We can take it!"
Some day, I will follow the compass furthur North. I will probably take a vacation in the Northernmost regions of Alaska, so that I may properly see the Aurora Borialis. There are 4 wins, their names are Borialis, the God of the Northern Wind, Zephyr, the God of the Western Wind, Austrius, the God of the Southern Wind, and Eurus, the God of the Eastern Wind. "Aurora" means "glow". In the polar regions, there are lights that appear in the sky at night. They are like sheets of light that drift and ripple. I hear that they start small, but quickly fan out to fill the horizon.
Some people say that they hear them. "I heard a high pitch ringing sound", one person said to me, who had lived in Alaska for several years. I have read accounts of other people: they say that it sounds like a buzzing, electrical sound.
Is there a connection between the lights and sounds of the Aurora, and the lights and sounds of meditation? Have you ever tried to depict for someone the lights or sounds that you see when you repeat the Shabda? The Aurora is the closest that I have ever seen to such a depiction on the outer; I would like to see it for myself to compare the two, side by side.
Actually, tonight, due to unusual sunspot activity, Seattle may be witness to the Aurora Borialis. I am going to try to get away from the city a ways, so that I may see them. Like the Eternal Light and Sound, the Aurora Borialis is dissipated by the glow of the city. But once the glow of the city is gone, I should be able to see the Aurora, just as we can see the Light and hear the Sound when we retreat from the world in our daily meditation.