I’ve done a number of hitchabouts, aligned with the concept of the Aboriginal walkabout. There are always elements of mystery involved, and degrees to which one must maintain one’s awareness and intuition. But in contrast to this right-of-passage, survival journey of young boys venturing into manhood, my hitchabouts are a means of reaching a geographical destination at no cost, with the added benefit of gathering information along the way through the people I meet; whom otherwise I wouldn’t have contact with. This story spiraled however, into a dimension I only began to be aware of during the process of reflecting and exploring. I only began to recognize one after another synchronicity that had happened, after the fact, within hours of my return to my destination. It has evolved into a cross-breeding of neurological concepts regarding the way our central nervous system and brain communicate with one another, and the spiritual concepts of the indigenous North and South American Indians’, who believe that we are constantly involved in a transmission of thought and information, that occurs back-and-forth between individuals and the cosmos.
This hitch-a-bout began a few days following Christmas 2009, departing the southwest of Germany, en route to Berlin. My German boyfriend walked with me the short distance from his parents’ home to the place on the highway where there was space for vehicles to pull over. We had arrived a few minutes earlier to this starting point, as he smoked his cigarette leaning against a rail, trying to remain somewhat concealed a few feet from me. I had just finished commenting “this is a pretty conservative area isn’t it?” thinking that it would be tough to get a ride, to which he nodded and responded “yeah”. Within a minute a car pulled over, and I was running to the passenger door.
By virtue of the fact that I’ve been living in Berlin, Germany for over 5 years, I can converse in the language. This extends my capacity to learn about the people and the area that I’m traversing through, besides making it more interesting for everyone involved. The first ride was a friendly man who teaches Chemistry and Biology locally, where he’s also the Director of the school. He was cordial and sunny. After introducing myself, I mentioned to him that my last name, as well as those of many families and towns in the region I’m from – the State of Pennsylvania in the United States – are of German origin. This prevalence, because the Germans who arrived several 100 years ago discovered a remarkably similar landscape and climate, thus the familiarity breeding an inclination to settle. I perceived this same familiarity traveling across Germany. I also mentioned I had hiked around the Burg (Fortress) in the area where he had picked me up. He pointed out that we were driving in the vicinity of the Schwäbische Alb, a low mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, named after the region of Swabia. These mountains are this areas’ ‘mini Alps’. After a short ride he let me off in the next bigger town, Tübingen, at a place where he assured me the highway continued north towards Stuttgart.
From this point on, the rides started to reveal uncanny synchronicities. The next one was with a man of Slovakian origin, Peter, who was driving to a destination northwest of Stuttgart. He had been living for a large chunk of his life in Germany and spoke the language fluently as well as some English. He talked of how he had been instigated to learn Turkish because of working among some immigrants, and that he had surprised and delighted them with his effort to learn their language. He explained that it was his desire to integrate with them, as well as the fact that the process of learning a language in itself, is one of the most effective mental exercises a person can do, to expand their brains’ neural networks.
He talked non-stop and with a lot of enthusiasm; about life, the interconnectedness of things, of his love and appreciation of nature and of his inclination to not harbor prejudice towards people of any race or color. Triggered by the topic of language, our talk went specifically in the direction of the brain’s capacity for learning and of the magic of the brain’s ability to heal itself. He mentioned that though previously it was assumed that the brain stops growing at around the age of nine – just as various muscle groups and bones stop growing at various ages around puberty – more recent discoveries discern that the brain is continuously developing. The process of learning stimulates neural growth, as new neural connections are being created. His voice laughed with delight as he exclaimed, “the brain WANTS to keep growing”.
http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/weekly/aa121399.htm
http://www.lumosity.com/
I had a book with me which I’d randomly picked off a shelf a few weeks earlier, which was wedged in my pack. Written by a professor of Neuroscience, Antonio Damasio, “Descartes’ Error”. The author talks about the interdependence of emotions, in the reasoning process. I mentioned to him with anticipation that I also had recently been introduced to the concept of neuroplasticity, which theorizes that the brain is continually making new connections and building new neural networks. And that various functions are not merely located in specific regions of the brain, but that in the process of formulating new thoughts or tasks, the brain creates convoluted neural networks spanning different lobes, encoded across different regions, depending on the different associations that are being built in the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
Peter excitedly described an experiment that had been conducted in which a paralyzed patient who could only move one side of his body, had his functioning arm and hand tied to his body. Within a short period of time, perhaps a matter of weeks, due to the new neural re-wiring the brain was vigorously involved in, in order to compensate for this lack of response and immobility of the previously cooperative side, soon the fingers of the paralyzed hand began to wiggle.
Our dialogue was so reciprocal with our mutual interest in the subjects, that he wound up driving out of his way around the perimeter ‘ring’ highway of Stuttgart, to leave me off at precisely the highway gas station/restaurant which my boyfriend had designated as the best target, to the northeast. Peter had sported sun glasses the entire ride, and I only got a glimpse of his fair blue eyes after we reached the end point, when he handed me a couple of his pre-hand rolled cigarettes ‘for the road’, which he pulled out of a slim sliver case.
I found the theme of our conversation about the brain’s neural networking fascinating, and ironically, the next driver I would soon discover, works in the field of neurology! It was at this highway “” (fueling station for vehicles and bodies) where I waited the longest during the trip – an hour or two. There I met the next driver, with whom I felt an instant rapport. Upon my inquiry for a ride, she took the time to unhurriedly re-open her auto to consult a map, to show me her destination. As I hadn’t found a ride during the time that she and her passenger were in the restaurant, when they returned they warmly greeted me and started reshuffling the baskets of food and gifts laying on the back seat to make room for me. She exuded kindness and compassion, just as the former driver had.
Felicitas and her daughter Sarah were returning from a Christmas gathering among siblings at her parents’ home in the Black Forest, where she was born and raised. The three of us talked without pause about many subjects. Felicitas (her name meaning happiness or bliss), was unperturbed by an incident in which she had taken a wrong exit, and we were spun into this web within the downtown area of a town which we couldn’t seem to extract ourselves from. We kept circling the same area and her daughter kept amusingly pointing out that we were driving by the same ‘Hotel Ibis’, again. The mother remained undaunted and cheerful.
She does rehabilitation therapy with patients who are victims of neurological disorders, through injury or disease. She said that she loves the work and is fascinated about the constant new discoveries happening in the field. At one point in our conversation, she showed me this CD soundtrack in her car called “Der Weisse Weg”/ “The White Road”, and emphatically recommended that I see the video, which documents a gathering of different tribes of Native American Indians, from both North and South America, which took place in 2003.
By the time they dropped me off at a gas station (recommended via cell phone by her boyfriend), it was already dark. I sensed that it was a little far from the autobahn, but I was grateful as we said our good-byes. Half a minute later, they drove up and Felicitas said that she didn’t have a good gut feeling about leaving me there, would I like to join them for the night and start my journey again the next morning? I was in no hurry and was pleased to join.
Within minutes I was helping them to unload their car, then shredding carrots for a salad that would be part of the dinner she prepared; a homemade pasta made by her sister-in-law. We all sat at their kitchen dining table, sharing more conversation and a bottle of red wine. Felicitas and I continued talking enthusiastically after her daughter left; about each of our lives…and we went on talking about life, dreams, pursuits, relationships, fears.
The next morning, I awoke after dreaming about it being “too late” to call my boyfriend before he boarded his international flight. I immediately reached for the phone to look at the time, and saw that I had only a 30 minute time window before I would have been too late. I was leaning out the window, overlooking the street as I talked to him, sensing that the reception wasn’t good, when I saw Felicitas crossing the street towards home, returning from the bakery.
As we ate breakfast together I mentioned to Sarah who likes to draw, that I do as well, particularly portraits. Her mother responded excitedly that she has been wanting to have a portrait of her daughter for years, and would I be inclined to do one? We exchanged emails and I showed the two of them my websites with my drawings and music, to which Felicitas proclaimed with surprise, “ah, you’re an artist!”
http://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/parcel-of-my-portfolio/
http://www.myspace.com/nomadbeatz
and same, same, but different http://www.reverbnation.com/nomadbeatz
Soon a block of water color paper was placed in front of me at the kitchen table, and I proceeded with a blank slate to draw a portrait, which they both were pleased with when I finished 30 minutes or so later. She instructed her daughter about where to get a photocopy and buy a frame, and Sarah mentioned that this was going to be her Christmas gift to her Dad, whom she was going to meet with that afternoon. After I had finished, we got in the car and went to the first rest park place along the highway not far from her home, where she handed me the CD soundtrack “The White Way” as a gift.
This is a video documentary of an event in which various Native American tribes gathered in 2003, in order to spread their knowledge to the rest of mankind about the shift that is taking place as we’re approaching 2012, corresponding to the Mayan Calendar. The indigenous people are certain that not only is all past information of the universe stored in our bodies, but that we are constantly provided with new information from the Cosmos. It flows through us so that we can consciously perceive the information, tune into it and learn to understand it. They perceive that at the present time, doors are opening to different dimensions, and as multi-dimensional beings, it is up to us to now move through them, and leave the prison of our limited consciousness behind. Quite an alternative and non-cataclysmic view (compared to Hollywood’s recent release) of the approach of 2012.
Here’s a trailer of the documentary in English.
The White Road – Visions of the Indigenous People of the Americas.
Concerned that I get a lift before she took off, Felicitas approached a number of people asking if they were headed towards Berlin. After several declines, she walked over to a parked truck. I hadn’t yet made my way towards him, and followed her to then peer up at the driver. Intuitively, he felt safe, and he agreed to give me a ride after his 15 minute break. Feeling confident that she wasn’t leaving me stranded, Felicitas then left after we hugged and said good-bye.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as I got into the truck, and quickly realized that the driver, Daniel, was serene and gentle. I noticed immediately a dream catcher dangling in his truck, then another. He said the truck wasn’t his, but of an Italian friend. I knew vaguely of dream catchers, made by Indians, after having lived in Taos, New Mexico; where the Native American Taos Pueblo Indians have lived long before the Spaniards arrived from Spain a few centuries ago, and then artists, new age folks and skiers. Dream catchers are like a web woven of willow in a perfect circle with a hole in the center, through which people can project their dreams and visions. When one has faith in the Great Spirit, the web will catch the good ideas, and let the negative one’s go through the hole.
http://www.realmagick.com/articles/17/117.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_catcher
Daniel was of Romanian, Greek and Russian origin. He talked incessantly, as did each of the former drivers! I guess a lot of people want to tell their stories and are happy to have an audience ;-)) And I have to admit that I tend to ask a lot of questions, which prompt responses! He’d been born in Romania but also lived in Greece, and had been living in Germany for the last several years. He’d seen much of the world while working on ships navigating the world of commerce, then worked at a port in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and now as a trucker based in Germany. His mostly monologue continued as the truck chugged along the countryside, as cars sped by. I brushed off the thought that I was in too slow of a vehicle; and remained content and patient, happy to be moving. When I asked him whether he would ever return to live again in his home country Romania, he responded saying no, that it’s too corrupted as well as difficult to survive with the same living standards that he’s been able to enjoy. I basically listened intently to Daniel’s entire life story, past, present and future plans.
Soon after he pulled up his truck at a highway gas/restaurant stop to sleep for the evening at 6pm or so, I sat to smoke one last cigarette with him, (I was offered to smoke a ridiculous amount of cigarettes in some of these rides which I shared !-) just to chat for once when he wasn’t busy looking ahead, and to thank him for the ride. I have learned that haste to get the next ride is not what the world of hitch-hiking is all about, but settling to trusting the timing of whatever comes up next. The flow that a person is in, is the only thing that one has to attune to.
Many people whom I approached at this gas station had cars filled to capacity. I slowly walked towards the restaurant, holding my Berlin sign, when the second person whom I intercepted was a businessman, returning to his car. It was dark, I mentioned Berlin, he glanced at my sign and hesitated only a fraction of a second as he scanned me, before casually mentioning which subway station in Berlin he could drop me off at. He opened the trunk of his car for me to place my backpack there, which I’m sure is as much a gesture of security for the driver, as it is a way of providing space. He then proceeded to remove papers from the passenger seat.
Andreas was very matter-of-fact. He didn’t exude warmth like the others, but maintained a business-like emphasis. I felt completely relaxed, sensing he was definitively trustworthy. He was to me, an archetypal German; direct, precise, soberly executing his actions, systematically moving towards his aim. This exactness is precisely why there have been so many successfully produced German products over the last decades. He was born and raised in Berlin, and has lived for the last few years in Munich, which he loves. He was going to visit his dad. He bracketed his positive appraisal of Munich with how clean it is, with a list of other qualities in between. Berlin he said, is dirty, falling apart, and muttered something about it being full of Turkish people…
We spoke in German from the start, then switched to English – I thought I’d do him the favor of speaking in English for his own practice, or of saving him from having to endure my German, strewn with syntax and grammatical errors. He had found a sales niche via his wife, who’s friend has an exporting business based in London. Andreas’s part in this partnership is to create and maintain a database of more than 3,600 hospitals in Germany, in order to contact them to acquire and purchase new or used micro-cameras used for internal probes in operations. He approaches the CEO’s of the hospitals as well as directors of the surgical departments, inquiring if they have any endoscopes – first produced by the Japanese camera manufacturer Canon. He then visits the hospitals to inspect and then ship the devices to his partner, whom he said has vast connections internationally. They are subsequently repaired, if necessary, then resold all over the world.
Early into our conversation, I made a comment about German Bureaucracy, to which he went into a lengthy explanation of its origins. He was knowledgeable about the subject and precise in his delivery of information. “This bureaucratic system is specifically a German tradition”, he articulated, “which evolved from the Middle Ages”. People who worked in whatever type of craft, protected their jobs and raised the standards of their work, by enforcing a policy requiring people within the trade, to not only study intensively, but also to systematically do apprenticeships in different parts of the country over a period of several years. At the present time, no one can obtain employment in any trade without having a certificate which demonstrates these years of training. Or, if someone starts a business, they must have someone working for them who has this certificate; thus authorizing them with this stamp of quality. I mentioned, and he concurred, that this isn’t necessary in the USA. Despite the fact that we also have degree programs in higher learning institutions, basically if a person acquires a skill or knowledge of a particular subject, he doesn’t have to plow through so many road-blocks, preventing him from applying these skills and putting them to use; no miles of red tape.
He talked about his experiences having gone to Hong Kong for business, and how different it is dealing with Chinese, where for example if you were to negotiate with a manufacturer and point blankly ask him to produce a product for less money than he quoted, it could result in his losing-face, through feeling dramatically insulted, not to mention it would kill the deal. So what is critically important is the manner in which one words the request, such as; to ask if he could ‘find a way’ to cut specifically this or that cost – with included suggestions – in order to produce the item at ones’ proposed target. Subtle, yet dramatically different.
He went on to talk about the two emerging world economic powers, China and India, by virtue of how enormous their populations are. China is well under way in its industrialization he claimed, whereas India is still in the nascent stages of its information technology boom, mostly due to its poor infrastructure of roads. He mentioned that China is already becoming quite wealthy, and is growing exponentially, because it has a middle class who are able to afford buying and consuming goods, which re-vitalizes their economy. I was quite happy to be the recipient of his experience and expertise and the stimulating conversation. Already ideas about how to apply my Cultural Anthropology studies towards becoming an international business consultant were percolating in my head. He dropped me off at exactly the place he’d mentioned within the first seconds of our meeting, and with no ceremony of extensive good-byes, was off, after he gestured towards the local subway station at the corner.
My recognition of the two themes which recurred – Neurology and Native American Spirituality – emerged in retrospect, only after I started reading this other book upon reaching my home that evening, entitled “Brida” by Paulo Coelho. This book’s subject of the world of magic, probed me into looking into the spiritual beliefs behind Shamanism, and the Dream catcher, The White Way…And the more I investigated, the more I saw another theme that rose above these two: the importance of thought and intent.
It was only after I was well underway documenting my story when, after a bunch of synapses between google and wiki links, that this other concept started to acquire a life of its own. The faint recognition of this similarity in the way the actors in these two systems communicate with each other, in a two-way transmission. And I also honed into the medium that is being transferred, waves of pure thought.
From the neurological point of view, the process of creating thoughts, and the essential nature of the meaning behind a thought, respectively, can not only expand our minds, but also in essence, affect the rest of our body, beneficially or harmfully. So too, is the power of thought acknowledged in the Native American Indian traditions, to be of quintessential importance; as one envisions, one thus shapes and creates ones’ life. Through attracting to oneself what one is able to conceive – life then manifests situations and events and the meeting of individuals or ideas which occur. This all can of course be positive or negative in nature.
I venture to call these experiences that I’m recalling here, synchronistic events. A term devised by the Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, following years of research with his patients, in which incidences of a similar nature happened with frequency. Synchronicity is the simultaneous occurrence of events that have no foreseen cause in the physical world, yet which are related in meaning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
I have at challenging times in my life – when confronted with major decisions or a realization that I wasn’t making enough progress towards goals that I wanted to achieve – oscillated from conviction in my own beliefs, to letting fears and doubts obscure my focus. Recent experiences had enhanced this awareness. I propose that a thought wave generated from within me, sent impulses – similar in content and meaning – to a wave pattern existing outside of me. And that these, resonant in meaning and intent, intercepted one another. And that this story, came from these outward influences as much as from me. And that my thought, or intention to grow to a healthier, more balanced place, drew these symbolic messages to me, which reverberated in meaning, resulting in giving me information; which if I was prepared to listen, would engage me to learn about the message.
I make the analogy of the nervous systems of human beings to that of a thought precept on the macro scale, in which information is continually being processed and transmitted back and forth between the two poles, or end sources. A nerve ending from any point in the body, continually transmits impulses to the brain; which is a constellation of neural passageways that intertwine and interconnect, sending impulses back to the nerve endings. Similarly, individual brains produce thought waves, which send impulses that form a collective body of interwoven waves of thought, existing in a dimension of our universe of curved space-time; consisting of all thoughts that ever existed throughout time, intertwining and interconnecting en masse, forming this mind sphere, which simultaneously transmits waves of thought back to the source. Just as there’s a continual two-way interaction occurring between neurons firing in the brain back and forth to nerves throughout the body, there is also an ongoing two-way interchange occurring of thought wave impulses, moving back and forth from a mass complex of all of the conscious as well as unconscious thought that ever existed comprising a sort of weak electro-magnetic wave sphere, reciprocally communicating with the thoughts of human beings on the planet.
This would imply that a single thought, is not merely something that arises from within one’s own brain, inside of you. But that it is also coming from outside of you, through this simultaneous two-way communication stream; to and from a ‘sphere of thought’ or ‘mind sphere’ or ‘collective psyche’, outside of you. The degree to which a person can be receptive to these signals, would depend on how many other waves are present to potentially clutter or pollute one’s clarity and perceptiveness. I think that maybe a lot of this is a transmission of symbols, like pure thought, before words.
This would explain phenomena such as psychic abilities, precognition, extrasensory perception, clairvoyance and telepathy, but also the cases of simultaneous or multiple discoveries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
… as a result of neural waves of the ‘collective thought brain’ ferried back and forth to ‘individual brains’; with impulse waves transferring continuously between the two.
In my search I came upon the concept of a ‘mind sphere’ or ‘sphere of thought’, called the Noosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere
Perhaps a thought arrived to me, because of how inextricably connected all life forms are to one another, with thoughts forming a mass of energy that enfolds and encircles the planet. These waves formulating an organism in itself, that innately wants to not only expand, but to evolve towards a healthy state; balancing intent and harmonious affect. Human technology is like a corollary to this precept; an extension of the organic process of human creativity from the individual level, that evolves as the continuous conscious and unconscious transfer of similar a priori constructs, or thoughts, are transmitted from and to our collective psyches. Maybe that’s why technology has been changing at such an exponential rate, further augmenting itself as the information expands.
|| || || || On December 13th, 2014, I ‘synchronistically’ clicked on this video: “The Heart’s Intuitive Intelligence: A path to personal, social an global coherence
Institute of HeartMath connecting hearts and minds
It describes what I was communicating, in my convoluted way above, as a stated scientific fact. I decided to insert this addendum!-)
It talks about a feedback loop existing between all humans and species and the earth’s energetic systems.
feedback loop between humans and earths energetic systems
The concept comes from Doc Childre, who founded the institute of HeartMath. It’s all about the magnetic field strength of the heart, and the process of generating a coherence between the heart and mind. And that one can strive for this in a state of personal coherence, among others to form a social coherence and ultimately, reaching to a global coherence. They state that “a collective opening of the heart increases the social and subsequently global coherence.”
Global Coherence Initiative
Not only does earth’s magnetic field affects humans, but humans as a collective, affect the earth’s field. They are performing a study with 17 magnetic sensors distributed throughout the planet, measuring resonances.
Ultimately, they speak of ‘heart-based living’, which involves takeing responsibility for your own energy, the thoughts, feelings and attitudes that you are feeding into the field every day…
Doc Childre HeartMath
.”
I think I’ll stop this thought here, and let you respond and see if any of you have ideas, comments or suggestions about the subject. Then we can expand on it, via cyberspace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace
“Through its electromagnetic nature, cyberspace integrates a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, controllers) and generates a virtual interactive experience accessed for the purpose of communication and control regardless of a geographic location.”
This interactive nature kept coming up, repeatedly, as well as what it implied, how critical in essence, simply the formation of a thought is! In another tangental google search along the lines of Native American Shamanism, I came onto this interpretation of the “7 Shamanic Principles” which make sense, even if it does have a new agey coating: It speaks of the fact that thought is how you create your world; by projecting and attracting ideas that resonate with each other, which in turn shape your sphere. And basically of the principle that like attracts like, and energy flows where attention goes.
http://www.realmagick.com/articles/18/118.html
I can’t help but end with this quote of Mahatma Ghandi, as it demonstrates the overwhelming importance of recognizing the power of thought:
Keep your thoughts positive, because they become your words.
Keep your words positive, because they become your behavior.
Keep your behavior positive, because it becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive, because they become your values.
Keep your values positive, because they become your destiny.
-.-.-.-.-.-.
11 pages posted on 01.11.10
digesthis 