I Love You for What You Will Become

Two days ago I had a conversation with a new friend, and her words have left dents inside my heart..  
We were talking about travelling, about exploring the vastness and beauty of America and other countries;  she is well-travelled and offered some incredible stories!     At some point during our conversation, I asked her if she had ever visited the South..  I invited her to come to Alabama.
"That place scares me", she said, "I can't think of any reason to visit there..  I've heard terrible things."     
Those words were a sledge hammer against the strings of my heart.    As much as I wanted to disagree with her and vehemently protect the ego of my home..   I just stared back at her with a hot sadness.  Because although in many ways she is right...  she doesn't know what I know about my home - that there is hope.    I feel sometimes it is impossible to accurately describe hope to someone who doesn't have the will yet to believe in it.   

I come from a place that many people do not associate with enlightenment or positive vibes..   truthfully my friend's comment is not an isolated thought..   she shares the same view as many people.   The South, and especially Alabama are places that have a reputation as backwards-thinking, non-progressive, severely racist, uneducated, and hopeless..     our past has not given us room for a second breath..  we are still choking a bit on the influence of previous generations.  
But...   we will not stay that way.    Change is happening.  Right.  Now.     

The only reason a place stays the same is if the people living there remain the same. 
There are no spells holding a city or a community, or a state, or a culture to its past..   there is nothing in the land that says,  "You must always be this way."     
Our future is malleable, it is merely a reflection of our own presence or absence.  
I believe that many of us are born into cultures - and it seems as if the present way of thought is all that has ever existed.   We often don't question the ability for change,  because (in our minds)  that culture seems so permanent and so rooted in a place.     But that is an illusion!
The only thing required for changing a place, is loving it -  bringing affection to it, and not abandoning it to its past.  


I have a vision for my home.  For Montevallo, for Alabama, for the South,  for the New South.   I believe in the transformation of our culture from the inside out; not losing our traditions, or our 'Southern-ness'..   but becoming a place that generates goodness and no longer apathy.      I am discovering friends with the same vision, who share the same hostility towards repression..   friends who are investing their abilities and intention into our home.   That gives me so much raging joy!
I think that before we can fully love anyone or any other place in the world..  we must first begin to love the place we are from.    The more desperate it is..  the more love you must create for it.           
   
My home..  Alabama. 
I love you for what you will become.





Andrew Tipton

/Oriah

"..Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiraling down into the ache within the ache,
and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.
Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.
Tell me a story of who you are,
and see who I am in the stories I live.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.
Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next. . ." 

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Ambitions for the Wanderous

_  traveller
    there is never a need to fear the abandonment of love.  
Such an insecurity that plays tricks with our minds sometimes..  the thought, that if we wander too far or let a beautiful relationship out of our presence, it means we are abandoning our love for a person,.. or that we are losing theirs'. 
love never abandons itself.     

 _  traveller  
   know that you when you release love..   it is like releasing a faithful animal friend, who longs to return to you and play at your side.   when we release a person from our love..  we are not withdrawing from them..  we are offering them our affection without boundaries.   
We are saying, "You are free.  here is my adoration,  please take it with you wherever you go. 
we will see each other again soon."   






Andrew Tipton

Street Poet Erin

 

"Feathers"

'Rake the air as if it's clay
touch my face like mother's
fingertips
come from nowhere.
go on journeys
we know nothing about.'




-Andrew Tipton

Friends with Boats

 

 

_Julia, acting the model.   There are so many connections to sailing here,   I feel blessed to be in a circle of people who are excited about travel and the thought of adventurous crusades.    You have to remember that friends want you to succeed..  we are all hoping for dreamers with balls.   

 



Andrew Tipton

The Traveller Paradox

As travel has become an intimate part of my existence,  I've begun to realize as "travellers" we are allowed an incredible gift -   the ability to powerfully and intimately connect with new people.  I feel this is a direct result of our temporary stay.     The traveller's life is a mirror in which people look and experience their own impermanence.. it opens the door to the eagerness that resides in all of us.    Our transience makes us susceptible to the generosity and emotional receptiveness of strangers.        We are permitted to fall in love within moments..  we are permitted to venture into the deep-beautiful spaces within a person that usually take months or years to discover.    As a traveller, I've witnessed the barriers and limitations of normal relationships utterly dissolve.     I think that when we're aware of our temporary time,  it literally alters our level of communication.. creating an earnest longing to experience truth and open-ness. The walls of normal interaction disappear.. and we can address a person at their purest state.
The love experienced by a traveller is unmatched.  

THE TRAVELLER PARADOX; 
As travellers we are allowed a direct connection into the deepest most fulfilling relationships that life has to offer. And ironically, it is our destiny to let them go.
I am discovering this balance.. to unconditionally offer love, and then to unconditionally "release" people from it.    We are given the gift of finding extraordinary friends, and then we must accept that our paths part ways.   It is a unique and often difficult way of living..  as so much of our life is often devoted to "safety" and "maintaining" our possessions.    It seems counter intuitive to find greatness and then set it free..    
yet, I feel that this paradox must exist. 
I believe this is how universe balances itself..  discovering and releasing -  and in neither, holding back.    



Andrew Tipton

Journal Entry, 4/6

Journal Entry,
April 6th.



Spent the last few hours surfing some incredible wind and waves!
23mph steady from the Southeast.  
As the sunset came, the entire surface of the ocean become a mess of vibrant color and magnificent distorted reflections.   The board under my feet, I felt as though I was painting long, sweeping calligraphy through a wet and morphing canvas..
  As I surfed, I sang as loud as I could.. to the wind, to god, to myself..   the words spilled out from a shrouded and wonderful place.  
Once I made it back to shore,   I pulled on my red fleece jacket, and leaned against the catamarans to watch the final colors of twilight fade away.     My shoulders ache, my hair is a tangled mess falling in my eyes..   I am warm, and I feel engulfed by a sublime calmness.
  I feel very much awake.   I feel true.     

there is a path..  it is mine, and I am on it.

 

Andrew Tipton