How absence can get you your heart’s desire
I’m already talking about my next Himalayan walk. Am I mad? When you read my book you’ll know the main thing I struggled with was the absence of air. This is Toohey forest and in here we have Mount Gravatt. I climbed Mount Gravatt often during the training just for the slopes, but Mount Gravatt is not the Himalayas and the altitude of Mount Gravatt is 184 metres above sea level. We started our walk at about 2000 meters above sea level. So it was a huge jump in altitude.
One of the issues, I’m had with my book was that I find it really I’ve been finding it really hard to write any personal stuff in there. Is it because after a lifetime in tech writing, I keep myself out of the content? I’m thinking oh people are going to be bored with this personal stuff and do I really want to reveal so much of myself. It’’s really easy as a technical writer to give solutions, and in a guidebook like in my Camino book, it was instructions to follow the yellow arrow. But in a personal book like my Himalayan book, you need to show up and be present, warts and all. Presence and absence again!
How present are you in your conversations and in your book writing? Are you there or are you somewhere off with the fairies?
I was talking about Presence and Absence. I was unable to do a Facebook live in the forest yesterday because there was no Wi-Fi. So today I am in a place where you can still hear a bit of traffic noise but it does seem a bit dark over here I need more light!
I was talking today with Keith about altitude sickness, and I asked if he had altitude sickness, because when I’m looking at the pictures his face looks a bit swollen, and that’s one of the signs of mountain sickness. If you think I’m looking fat in the photographs it’s because of the altitude. Just getting that out of the way right now.
Keith’s said, of course! Whaaat? I had no idea at all. This is a man, they don’t communicate at all. He said he was exhausted after the trek, I’m not sure is that’s altitude sickness or recovery. My altitude sickness had all the classic symptoms, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and I bouts of nausea and vertigo. All the time. I had altitude sickness, I think Keith had attitude sickness…
At Kim Ellis’s meetup, Becs Thompson was talking about how to be really present and how to be how to be absent. When you are talking to some person if you are up in your head all the time, you’re not really paying attention to them. You need to be centred into your solar plexus chakra to be present. What about when people are talking rubbish, I asked, and I take no notice?
Apparently that is something which I need to consider – why do I want to cut myself off and not listen to some people? There might be some deep spiritual reason to it or it might be just that they’re boring and I’m really horrible! Read and decide!
Thanks for being part of my Himalayan journey.