For the past several months, I have found respite in a tiny little cafe in Santa Barbara California that has been selling wholesome food to the nuts and berries crowd since 1978. This oasis in the confusion is called the Sojourner Cafe. My experience there has been exquisitely revealing.
What I have discovered is profound. It has to do with Karma and the reversal of Karmic interest. The Karmic interests that I refer to are most probably not my own, but rather, like karmic lint have been clinging to me as I have made my own sojourn across the planet. No surprise I suppose, the name of this way station – the sojourner.
I believe that at a very basic genetic level, recorded in each person’s genetic material are certain events both local and global which directly effect that individual’s karma. In essence, not only are we paddling upstream in the viscus fluid of our own karmic making but we are trying to move our karmic kanoe through a veritable morass of everyone else’s shite. Yep you heard it right. And there’s simply no telling what karmic lint you have accumulated in your journey. It is uniquely yours. However….we are all well served to remember (as bipeds on this tiny spinning planet) that not only what we do….but what other’s do…can get on us…and in us. In effect, the price we must pay is not strictly speaking of our own making.
This brings me to the Soj. After a lifetime of tumbling around in the clothes-dryer of the universe without so much as a lint trap or a dryer sheet….I found myself covered with negative karma. Not only were the voices in my head constantly negative, but the voices in THEIR heads were negative as well. (props to Doug for that one). I had been steering a course away from the very thing that I needed to point the bow into – my own sadness, my own darkness, my own sorrow, my own pain and my own neglect. And it was very simple. I needed to Karmically course correct. I needed the SOJ. I had to give up the vanity project that my life had become, and become a servant. I needed to be a maî⋅tre d’ A waiter.
Karmic repairs done while you wait….
Spending a lifetime pushing back against life every time that life would push me; taught me the wrong lesson. Even when doing so resulted in cancer and my own mortal realization….I still insisted on pushing back. Then came the SOJ. Being a servant is not something that you can do and push back. In fact, just the opposite is true. You have to accept the pushing. Gently guide it without it effecting you. Redirect the negative energy and return a smile. Positive to replace negative. Which is…after all the very nature of physics, of magnetism and electromechanical force.
I have been waiting to write this addition to the Trifling Blog, because I have needed time for the right words to settle. Like silt at the bottom of the tank. For those of you who have never worked in the service industry – I highly recommend it. It could save your life. More importantly, it could save your soul. And course correct your karma.
Namaste
This was a blessing to read. This talent for soulfulness has always been strong in you, and a true magnet to those you have come in contact. But now, your settled, your breathing. I would love to hear what this does to the performer in you, the artist.
That touched me more than I expected.