Back to See the Whole Field: A Return to the Third Eye

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Our first stop heading back down the ladder towards manifestation returns us to the third eye. It was only a month ago that we were here, but knowing the direction that we are heading, it feels a little bit different. When I think of liberation I think of a sigh and a wave of the hand. It’s a letting go of what needs to be done and an opening up to whatever happens. Manifestation feels like a narrowing of the tunnel from infinite possibilities towards one final achievable goal. So the focus point, or vision, of this month would appear to be deciding where exactly it is that I am heading. Where can I place a big bright red X on my metaphorical map and begin taking my steps in that direction. Well, to decide on a destination, let’s first open our eyes to the whole map in front of us.

The western view of time is linear. We are born. We mature. We grow old. We die. Along the way we fill the gaps with a little thing called life, but it seems fairly certain that this is the direction we are going. There’s no stopping the train. This seems simple enough, but it’s possible that it does not encapsulate the whole story, just one tiny point of view. Take for example, the seasons. Spring starts the new year, which turns to the fullness of summer, the waning of autumn and the inevitable death of winter. Linear.

Kind of.

Because then the cycle begins again. You can mess with your starting or your ending, but since time immemorial, summer follows spring. One might say that time is more cyclical than we as humans are led to believe.

Soccer was the first sport that I ever played. I was one of those toddlers that ran around kicking and throwing balls every change he got, so once my parents were able to sign me up for a sport they did. I can’t say that I remember much about the early days other than I was good, and I loved it. If you ever watch small children play organized soccer, it’s a swarm of bees. The ball is in front being randomly kicked by one child or another and the rest of the kids follow along in a pack. The better kids stay at the front, and the stragglers lag behind. The smartest kids hang just to the outside of the swarm. That way when the ball spits out, they can get to it unencumbered by the rest of the group and score a goal. This was the way I did it. As I got older the games became more in depth and more competitive. Somewhere around the age of eight or nine we were introduced to a mind blowing concept. The back pass.

Up until this time, it was forward, forward, forward.

The goal was in one direction, and that was the way you should be going. To be honest, at that age I think the pass was something we didn’t truly believe in either. My dad once lined up all of our fastest players on the team to see if any of us could run faster than the ball could be kicked. It sought to prove the point that by working together and passing, we could cover more distance. Some of our better players took this to heart, but it still seemed silly that we would use one of these new-fangled passes to go backwards instead of forwards. I had guys I played with for years that never really got the hang of it. I was lucky enough to play with some teammates who understood the concept, so not only did I make some back passes, but I was also the recipient of some. The funny thing about the back pass is that it opens up the field.

This month I went back to the east coast to attend some weddings. The schedule was such that I’d fly in and go to a wedding somewhere in western Massachusetts, drive down to Staten Island, New York to spend some time with my family and then drive back up to Cape Cod for the second weekend before flying back out. All in all I’d be away for ten days and have quite a bit of driving to do once I got in. The trip itself was also coming at a fairly hectic time. You may not know this, but I’m getting married in October! With the wedding so close, my fiancée didn’t feel comfortable making the trip so I was riding solo.

When I got to Boston, I couldn’t help but take a little detour past my old school. I passed the dorms I moved into freshman year and the house that I shared with the two guys getting married that week. I drove past The Museum of Fine Art and through the Fens Park where I spent time as a student. I took a quick walk through campus and saw how the school was changing. Then I shot out west for the wedding. Afterwards I took the four-hour drive south back to where I grew up. Staten Island is technically part of New York City, but it’s really its own thing. The south shore has ponds and woods with trails to run in and beautiful parks all over the place. Each morning that I was there I went for a run at a different spot. At one time or another, each of these had been my primary run. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I’m at an interesting moment in my life.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll become a husband. I’m not really nervous about it. I made this decision a long time ago and have been taking the steps that I believe are necessary to embody this new title. There is, however, a bit of unknown. I’ve spent years with the carefree, no worries approach that I know all of my readers have come to know and love. I’ve always been able to chase away any fears or concerns for the future with the idea that I could take care of myself and adjust accordingly to whatever life throws my way. I still believe that. It’s just that it’s not going to be just me anymore. It's now us. In the not so distant future there could even be more of us. I want to be a good husband and I want to be a good father, if the universe deems that my next role. That is as clear of a red X on my map as can be. I’m just not always so sure what that means I should do right now.

On one of my runs, I saw a trail that I had not seen before. I didn’t have anything to do that day so I figured why not go out exploring. I ran for a while down the trail ducking under branches and hopping over roots. At times I could see out through the trees to the streets around me, but the further I got into the woods the more it was just me and the trees. I took turns based on feel and what I thought looked like a trail, but inevitably I got a little turned around. I came to a clearing where the trail seemed to end and I couldn’t really pick it back up again. As I looked, I realized I wasn’t all that sure of what trail I came in on either. At that moment, my watch buzzed. It’s connected to a heart rate monitor that I wear for these long runs and it lets me know when I’ve jumped out of the range that I want to be in. The watch was letting me know that my heart rate was elevated. I had stopped running and was just looking around at my surroundings and my heart rate was elevated. Because I was worried. Nothing was happening around me that was all that dangerous, but I was worried about what I might do next and my heart responded accordingly.

The buzz of the watch and the realization that I was worried made me laugh. I wasn’t in the back country or some wildly dangerous trail. I was in my own old backyard woods probably less than half a mile from a major highway. I took a breath and looked around me. One path looked promising so I put one foot in front of the other. Before you know it, my heart rate had stabilized and I was running through the trees with the sun shooting in from the canopy above. I made it out of the woods in ten minutes.

Vision in the case of manifestation can seem like a lot. It may feel like we have to lock into a goal and everything that we do moving forward is strategically set to get us to one singular point. The weight of all that can paralyze us into stillness. But with one step back, maybe into our past to see where we came from, the map opens up and new trails appear to get us where we are going.

Thanks for seeing me through this month.

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