Tourists at Iguaçu Falls, Brazil. Photo by Henrique Felix.
Aedgar's voice is written like this.
Nerida's voice is written this way.
You know we live in a tourist town.
Yeah. It can be quite a noisy, unpleasant place. It does have beauty.
Yes, we have to confess, we’ve been around a few times, having a little gaze around. It is interesting, but there is a lot of disturbance there.
It’s a wrong kind of place. There’s this going back and forth and back and forth, all the time.
Mmm. It’s jarring.
Yes. There are a lot of spirits there that don’t know what to do.
Tourists at the Temple. Photo by Milada Vigerova.
If you go to a strong spiritual place, you go there because you feel strongly attracted to it. This is the time when you can learn from it — growing energy by gaining more knowledge.
If you go there because everybody else goes there, you won’t get anything out of it.
It can even be disturbing for some, if they are within a group that just goes there because everybody needs to go there as a temporary craze or fashion. We think fashion is something different — it‘s got to do with style. This has nothing to do with style.
It’s about sheep following each other. If you’re the only one attracted to that spiritual place, you might be the only little black sheep within all the white sheep. You’re different.
All these white sheep, they lift you out as being different. Yes, you get selected — put out there because you’re not like them. Because they follow everybody else. They might deprive that poor little black sheep from a spiritual experience.
Black and white and proud. Photo by Sabine Löwer
That little black sheep gets so attracted. It can still get some energy and knowledge out of it. But some of the energy and knowledge might be taken away by the ones that follow everybody else.
Some people have itineraries. You should not confuse it with a path, you know?
If you make a plan, to go from here, to here, to there, to there, this is not your path.
To find your path you need to listen to what’s inside of you. You need to watch for signs. You’ll be shown signs around you.
If someone else puts an itinerary there — or you do it yourself with other people who are the same sort of ‘We go there because everybody else goes there,’ people — it makes no sense for individuals.
Mind you, I would not say it’s not fun for those people. But, for them, not matter how spiritual, how sacred these places are, it’s just another distraction. You understand?
'For them... it will be just another distraction' Photo of Macchu Pichu by Scott Umstattd.
Yes, I do.
You need to be on a certain level to get in tune with the vibes that come from there towards you. If they are not interested, it’ll all just bounce off them.
If you’re in the middle of these people you won’t get any of those vibes because they have bounced off already. You might get that little bit that comes from the top, raining down on you. But you don’t get the whole experience.
Is it literally like that? Like that the energy that comes from the place is physically blocked by the consciousness of the white sheep surrounding you? Or, it’s not literally like that — that’s kind of a picture you’re painting for us?
I’m painting a picture for you.
But there are times when it’s more literally —
When a place is radiating a kind of energy —
Yes.
Pause
There might be people who say, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a trip here.’ And then they come to a crossing, for example, and it’s like, ‘We should go straight ahead. I wanna turn right. I’m not quite sure why. I just need to turn right.’
They will have a great learning experience, which could go either way — fast or not so fast. But it’s somewhere that they should go. They follow their intention.
If you just follow the path that others have created, because everybody else goes there, you don’t have that experience.
Sometimes, what you literally call a detour can lead you back to a different path — that you should be on.
The winding road. Sometimes a detour leads to your path. Pic by Georg Nietsche.
Whilst if you follow that straight line, there might be these white sheep ahead. And it’s not gonna happen as it should. Even if you go to the same place in the end, there was some experience that you were meant to have in this area, that you missed out on because you did the detour, or did not take the detour.
Do you understand? It’s not like you need to have a detour. You need to have an intention and a feeling and you follow it. You understand?
I do. I’ve been thinking about intention quite a lot, lately.
Yeah. It’s about feelings. Trust your feelings, some people might say.
If you feel thirsty, you drink water. Or wine, for that matter, if its not too much —
Or tea [Pouring herself a small cup of tea]
You would get better at it because you’d followed that feeling.
Or, you know, you get the intuition and the intention ‘I think I’ll turn right here.’ Or left. And you do the right thing. And you get rewarded for it.
You might take the straight line. You might get a flat tyre on your poor means of transportation.
You understand?
I do.
Good.
Birds singing outside
Wonderful little friends.
Aren’t they?
Talking a lot! Yeah.