Tonight I’m finding myself facing the reality of being back in one’s childhood home.

I’ve been here now for nearly a month. Most recently I had returned from 4.5 months in India, and prior to that, 1.5 years in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

I still feel like I haven’t quite landed, since all my points of reference during traveling, have been replaced by points of reference from my childhood and teenage years. I feel like I have time-travelled backwards as well. And being again face-to-face with all the emotions that being here brings up in me, has been so far one of the most intense challenges of my life. Even more intense than being alone in unknown places, in the middle of nowhere, with no transportation and no working phone.

What has all the experiences of traveling taught me, that can help me now?

There were many situations during traveling that reminded me of the challenges I faced during my childhood and teenage years.

But none of them has prepared me totally for what I am facing and feeling now.

It’s like standing on the edge of a deep and steep abyss, and slowly having to pry open my own eyes, and stop pretending to myself that there isn’t an abyss down there.

How do I find my way from living in the boundaries of my fears, to carving out my own terms of existence and path of life?

Path of peace?

This time, I’ve felt it was important - and I finally felt ready - to clear up the misunderstandings. So one night last week, I opened up the Pandora’s Box…

And as I am facing these truths - the childish dream of a perfect world and a perfect family is falling away. Finally, after so many years, I can bring myself to accept that tragedy happens in life - it is almost a fact of every life. It is only a matter of when, where, and how it will occur.

What makes something tragic, anyway? What defines tragedy? Something untimingly, or unexpectedly occurring that causes tremendous pain or sense of loss, or ending of life. Tragedy is the loss of innocence in our picture of the world. The loss of the rainbow after the storm, or the loss of our hope. The shattering of our sweetness, our dreams.

No matter how much we try to shield ourselves or protect our loved ones, tragedy is always there - it is all around us these days. We live in a world full of tragedy, and built of the advantage of those blinding themselves intentionally to the tragic outcomes of their actions.

I’m a human being… and even though I might be more ‘unique’ a bit than most, I’m still normal, as far as being a human being.

And maybe I’m not even that ‘unique’. Maybe we’re all equally ‘unique’. There’s nothing about us that makes us more ‘special’ than anyone else.

We’re all facing the same truths. With different tools and skills, abilities and intelligences.

And when it comes down to tragedy, there is only one tool we really have that can help us - which is acceptance. It is like when the moment of death, or passing out of the body, comes, and the only thing we can do then is surrender.

We’re unique, but not special. There is no guarantee of happiness or salvation for any of us. No god who will come and love us and save us.

It is we who can save and love ourselves through bringing ourselves to the edge of our fear, time and time again. facing it, accepting, and surrendering to the truth behind it.

And in this realization that I’m not special, I feel a twinge of fear: oh, I’m all alone! I’m free-falling in space, there’s no one who will watch over me or catch me… and it’s true, there isn’t. And as the emotion wells up from my heart, and my eyes overflow with tears, and my nose drips with boogies… I begin to feel a charge of energy in the center of my chest getting stronger and stronger… and I feel as if my awareness is dissolving into the soul itself… and it’s like I’m witnessing and experiencing my physical existence from within, and also from a long way away, at the same time. And in this intense squeeze… I feel my heart breaking open, like a vessel bursting and spilling its contents… and it feels like there is only this present moment of connection between the soul and a universal Source… it feels we are One. Like a great soul reaching through this transparent and almost non-existent form, and infusing this soul with energy and light… so bright! There is only Now.

I feel safe, and held in this energy and light. The tears start flowing again, more and more…

I feel the truth of eternal love. It has always been there, and will always be… underlying all the mind-made fears, doubts and notions of being.

True innocent love. This is our saving grace. Surrendering to intuitive innocence.

I know I’ve got to let them go, let them all walk their own journeys of life - including anyone I’ve ever wished to help...

And through accepting the sense of tragedy, I’m gonna learn more intimately what it means to be human… and how to really be compassionate,

And I’m gonna feel more clearly the eternal presence of love, hope and innocence, which is all that really matters in the end.