Seeking the Source

Some say seeking the source can be exactly what we don’t want to do. The Indigo Girls immortalized this concept in their song ​Closer to Fine​. Many an African explorer met their undoing chasing the source of the Nile or Congo. The Buddhists believe something along the lines of the ‘Seeker’ is seeking relief from suffering. Yet suffering arises from the act of grasping for a self. So there is that...

I begin this epic journey parked on the tarmac of Denver International Airport preparing to fly almost 10,000 miles and nearly half way around the world to an almost mythical (to me) continent that I have known of and read about my entire life, yet never expected to visit.

The ‘dark continent’ - Africa - so called by Henry Stanley and other 19th century explorers because for more than a century while the coasts and beginnings of rivers were mapped, the heart of Africa remained mostly a dark uncharted unknown on the exploration maps of the time.

David Livingstone gave decades and eventually his life to exploring the dark heart of this continent in search of the ‘true’ source of the Nile. In the process he mapped out more of the heart of Africa than any and maybe all before him. Including mapping the Zambezi river and the ‘discovery’ of Victoria Falls - one of the seven natural wonders.

The concept of discovery in Western Civilization has always amused me. How do you truly discover something that indigenous cultures have known of and lived in for thousands of years. Talk about an over-inflated sense of self. However, sometimes discovering something for your self for the first time can be personally transformative. I believe this was the case for both Stanley and Livingstone in Africa.

I begin this journey not to ‘discover’ some external source and definitely not as a tourist, but more of a continuation of a journey I started - or more accurately re-started - about a decade ago when I became shockingly aware that I had lost most of my sense of self - and not in the positive way of Buddha. I had become disconnected from those around me, my life and my authentic self.

That journey over the past decade has had significant revelations along with some stagnation and new lows. Like any journey. Like life. But it has brought me from the suburban sprawl of humanity that is now Seattle where I felt lost, disconnected and empty more often than not, to my home in the mountains near Boulder Colorado where I have found a little piece of serenity in the quiet stillness of the Rocky Mountains and a stronger connection to self, fortified by a closer connection to the nature and beauty around me.

Journeys introduce us to newness. New places, people and perspectives. These can lead to new revelations, philosophies and even beliefs. And solo journeys allow even more room for external ‘discoveries’ (if not new, new to me) and the space to reflect those internally.

So, I begin my solo journey to the dark continent - purportedly one of the most wild and natural places left on the planet - not to discover a source of a river, a mountain or people, but to discover what effect experiencing this - still mythical to me - place will have on revealing more of what may lie in my own internal dark continent of my heart and soul.

Some 20 hours later.....

Goodnight Cape Town...