our school is requiring us to record our responses regarding deep travel, an activity we participated in during the experience and meaning™ workshop. below is my response (i promise the things i post on here will be more interesting after this).
the first thing i noticed was the dog park (we were sitting across from it), i’m a sucker for dogs. one guy caught my eye in particular, though. he was a big buddy, taller than all his friends, with sleek grey fur and distinguished features, standing majestically on an octagonal wooden bench. it was unclear which human was his owner, most likely because he was so clearly his own master. the exercise was to pick a subject and draw it, then sit quietly with No Phones for ten minutes, and then draw it again, so i chose him. i suppose then that the “sense that dominated” was sight, cause i could not stop looking at him.
the questions i asked to ˜*create the wonder induction*˜ are as follows: why are there dog parks? why do some dogs stand out more than others? why do we domesticate animals? what is significant about this moment? am i doing this right (i probably wasn’t)??
the unique thing about that moment to me was not that i Achieved Deep Travel, cause i’m pretty sure i didn’t, but that i felt that i was exactly where i was supposed to be. all my life because of my nontraditional educational background, i’ve been so worried about being behind or in the wrong place academically. for me college is a huge affirmation that i am in the right place and not in fact behind my peers at all. sitting in that park, watching the dogs, after just having recently moved into my new home, making friends and feeling hopeful in a city i already love made me feel like i had made it, which was pretty damn unique.
the things i noticed because of my identity, personality and personal history were these; i wondered if the two women sitting on a bench together were dating, because i’m queer and assume the world is gay as fuck at all times. i focused heavily on the dogs because obviously i love every dog on this damn earth to the point of being extra. i noticed the design elements in the park like the cool shaped bench around the tree etc because of my ˜*art background*˜ (lol).
i don’t really think i “moved beyond thinking and questioning and entered into free attention.” it’s hard for me to get out of my head, especially with a planned exercise like the one we did. i remember being a kid and my mom trying to meditate with me and being so concerned with Doing It Right that i could never actually meditate. this felt a lot like that. i wish i was the type of person who could slip into deep travel, or meditate, or have an out of body experience or something, but i guess i’m just not there yet.
i have included the pictures of the dog for your amusement.
