I find myself back in Richmond, Virginia for a brief layover at the greyhound station as I return to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. The last time I visited this city I was a freelancer, acting as web designer, chief technical officer, and chief communications officer for a property management corporation that fed off the student debt bubble. They had properties in three cities nearby to Universities. Here in Richmond, the university is VCU – Go Rams. However, achieving a ‘higher’ education at university in America has become yet another path to debt servitude for the civilization that makes us sick.
It was through that experience of knowingly obtaining a paycheck via the exploitation of the masses for the purpose of education that led me to change my business practices, and eventually became another contributing factor to my current lifestyle. No longer do I live out of alignment with this planet, or with my own physical and spiritual manifestation of human Being.
Living in alignment is difficult at times, especially given the programming we receive from the society that has been created. Yet, we can heal; we can ‘unlearn all the facts that we’ve learned, as we sat in their chairs while our synapses burned’ (to paraphrase an old song). We can grow together and mature as a species so that we don’t destroy our home.
I look forward to my relatively unknown and potentially unstable future. There is a mild anxiety that goes along with such a free-spirited life, and yet, it dissipates when I remind myself that we are short-lived, talking primates on a spherical spaceship corkscrewing its way through the vast stretches of the cosmos around a fiery ball of matter. So, as Douglas Adams would say, “Don’t Panic” my friends. … And feel free to join me in the forest!
Soon, I will make a formal announcement about guiding Shinrin Yoku Walks to Abrams Falls. Until then, enjoy this cute picture of an owl that paid me a visit earlier in the year. :-*
