Signs Part 1

You know how schizophrenics feel like the vowels in every license plate on the cars that drive by and the direction in which the grass is blowing is perfectly interconnecting in a sequence that proves that the universe is conspiring against them? well I feel the same way except that everything is interconnecting in the exact sequence to make my life absolutely perfect

The first day I arrived in Shambhala Fe, I took this photo after checking into my long term rented out Airbnb to flex my view on my drive to the grocery store. It was a worthy flex. On this day, I felt a sense of elation I had only accessed within a handful of times before. Every road sign in Santa Fe is speaking to me in its own special way. Every license plate has a message. But the road signs are especially prescient — and this sign was the first.

I drove up to Santa Fe from Albuquerque in my retarded Chevy Spark, the back of it packed to the brim with the suitcases I’ve been living out of for the last year and tote bags stuffed with books. Before I check into my Airbnb, I had something to do first: an introductory course to Transcendental Meditation.

I had scheduled this class weeks prior, on a day where I was sad in a coffee shop after David Lynch’s passing. I thought to myself, I need to have a creative practice. Why am I so writer’s blocked all the time? I can sit and write posts on X all day but I cannot access that which is in me to really write. So I Googled “Transcendental Meditation Near Me”, trusting Lynch as an artist and a person, scheduling my $500 introductory class in the hopes that this $500 spent would take me to that same internal place Lynch was able to access to create beautiful art. I’m an artist I tell myself over and over and over again, months ago I was still trying to convince myself. Maybe this Transcendental Meditation class would turn me into some creative genius and it’d make me being an ARTIST real. I would be the girl David Lynch. I was certain of it.

Anyways. I had specifically scheduled this Transcendental Meditation class on the same day I was set to arrive in Santa Fe. I pull up into the driveway of an unassuming adobe house. I walk in and it’s incredibly beautiful. Open floor plan, plants, desert light streaming in, textiles of natural fibers. My instructor greeted me - an elder woman with short hair and pink rimmed glasses. She is from the Netherlands. We talk a bit, she initiates me into the secret esoteric mantras and ritual that one must do to gain access to this PRIMORDIAL STATE OF BEING! That' will be $500 please, an extra $20 cash in an envelope for “taxes”. But the money didn’t matter to me. I was going come out of this house reborn as an Artist, the spirit of David Lynch possessing me. I lived in Santa Fe now. I was an ARTIST. After the 2 hour session, I came out of that adobe house feeling like I was floating. I am a meditator now. I am a meditator and it is going to turn me into a real artist. A real writer. My writer’s block will be cured. I am about to check into the expensive Airbnb I just paid for on my American Express card. I am about to drive up the mountain to Shambhala. I escaped from the demonic underworld of Albuquerque and I am on top of the world. Back into my car I go for my journey up the mountain.

I check into my Airbnb and realized I needed to drive back down the mountain to go grocery shopping at the local hippie co-op for some raw milk and kimchi. I snap the photo of the mountain overlook with the sign in front of me, not particularly framed in the shot on purpose:

REDUCE SPEED AHEAD

I shared this photo on X, and one of my friends told me that the “schizo sign in the photo had a message for me”. I believed her, but I didn’t really know what the message was yet. Everything so good was happening so fast - why would I want to reduce speed in any way?

My life up until the point of arriving in Shambhala Fe felt like it was doing nothing but accelerating. “Clout” acceleration, “friend” acceleration, “money” acceleration, LIFE acceleration. I was going going going and never stopping. Fast romance, fast attention, fast traveling, instant gratification existence of getting anything you want by clicking. I could refresh the timeline and there would be 10 new posts for me to read — I could refresh my life whenever I wanted and there were 10 new experiences waiting for me. I could discard the past people and the past experiences and move onto the next. I was always looking ahead to the next thing that would happen. BE HERE NOW was some hippie shit I knew that was real but I didn’t want to listen to. I wanted to go fast.

After my drive up the mountain, I have now come to a jarring halt. It is impossible to go fast here. The fastest my life has felt since coming here has been in the passenger seat of my friend’s vintage Porsche 911, speeding down the desert roads at dusk. That may have been the only time I felt like the self I am familiar with, giggling maniacally inside and out at the risk of danger and chaos, the wind blowing through my hair. I need to be throttled around in the passenger seat of a car going very fast every couple of months in order to feel like I am living. That’s just how it’s always been for me. I don’t know if that means something is wrong with me or if I am one of the ones with real recognition for what it means to access aliveness.

Leading up to Santa Fe, there was a specific something that I was hoping to attain. It was airdropped into my life almost as if by God himself, but almost as soon as I had attained it, it was taken away from me for a certain duration of time. I pleaded with God, WHY? Why must You give me everything I want and then rip it out of my hands? I knew that God was teaching me the virtue of patience, something I had never been able to cultivate. I have always been an impatient brat. If I want something I want it fast, if I want something I want it now, if I want something I want it with every fiber of my being and if I have to take no for an answer I throw a fit. If I want something I manipulate every single instance of reality so that everything will fall into place of me attaining my desire. I was the Magician rearranging and bending reality to my favor. But these attainments were always temporary, they were never Real. God has bestowed upon me the perfect scenario in which all I can do is wait in order to have something Real.

I went to the Holy site of Chimayo. There are benches outside with the virtues carved into them. I happened to sit on PATIENCE without knowing. Thank you for another Sign.

After some months, the waiting period ended. I thought, yes, I finally get to attain the object of my desire. I have waited and waited and now I have earned it. But God had laughed, God had humbled me. He let me have it, but not in the capacity I was expecting. I had to realize that just because I waited a certain period of time for something does mean that I am owed that thing as soon as it comes available. Reducing my speed ahead does not mean accelerating towards something at full speed after the waiting period. Slow is a way of life here in the desert mountains. Every single situation, relationship, and challenge must be approached with a spirit of slowness, of patience, of detachment.

To overcome my default state of going fast, out of fear of the slow drip of patient life, I must look within to overcome Hope itself. Eradicating and transcending Hope will be a war within that will take years out here to confront and kill. It sounds bad, killing Hope. But it must be done, if I am to bear through the act of patience. Hope slays patience on sight so I must slay Hope to attain Patience.

When one realizes that going fast is not working for you, you naturally revert to moving slow without necessarily having any real thought behind it. This is the way of the desert sage warrior post-egirl artist writer I trekked up the mountain to be. Going slow, being patient, and reducing my speed ahead will be one of the most challenging lessons Shambhala has to teach me. It is really painful, the slowness of it all. I feel like I’m bleeding out up here some days.

But I’ll bleed out slow. Lying on the ground, velvety blood pooling around me that grows a tiny bit larger by the minute without notice is a much more poetic scene than striking an artery and gushing gallons of blood out everywhere in what feels like an instant — a messy scene for everyone. My slow bleeding out will be an act of poetry, of art, of calculation. I’ll be the girl Lynch after all.