Spiritual Journey ends on a town's market, thats right!

Most of us carry a wound. Not necessarily some dramatic trauma, but a painful sense that something is wrong with us, that we are not quite okay as we are. Sometimes it appears as anxiety, loneliness, tension, or a vague dissatisfaction that follows us through life. And naturally, we look for relief. Some drink. Some use substances. Some work endlessly. Some distract themselves with entertainment, relationships, or constant activity. Or we build a personality of authority and hide in there. Anything that allows us, even temporarily, not to feel the pain. Eventually many discover that these remedies do not last. And so some of us turn toward spirituality. Perhaps we have already exhausted other options. We realize that temporary bandages will never bring lasting peace. We are willing to go all the way. We are ready to transcend suffering itself ! But here we encounter a great disillusionment: Transcendent experiences do not heal the wound. Years of spiritual practice do not heal the wound. Even the most profound enlightenment experiences do not heal the wound. In fact, as many sincere seekers discover, the pain may become even more intense. The structures and defenses that once protected us begin to fall away, and what we spent our lives avoiding may stand before us more naked than ever. So what is it that we are really seeking? The ability to simply be ourselves without tension. Peace of mind. Contentment. Who worries about enlightenment when they are deeply content? Who thinks about transcendence when there is simple peace? Perhaps what keeps us in perpetual suffering is not the wound itself. It is the endless effort to avoid feeling it. And healing begins not when the wound disappears, but when we stop running. What we have always wanted was never some extraordinary state. We simply wanted permission to be here. Exactly as we are. Without tension. Without inner war. Without having to become somebody else.  Without hiding our beautiful, vulnerable self.

One of my neighbors at the Carmel Valley farmers market is Peter, 79 year old woodworker who makes black and white photography framed in raw wood. There is something about his work I really enjoy. The subtlety of black and white. The texture of unfinished wood. Nothing flashy. Nothing trying too hard to impress anyone. Every Sunday he quietly arrives at the market with his photographs and wooden frames. He could easily stay home at his age, but instead he keeps showing up. I noticed something about him recently. Peter never rushes. Not physically. Not psychologically. In a world where everybody is optimizing, accelerating and reacting to constant stimulation, there is something deeply human about an old craftsman simply continuing to show up with pieces of wood, black and white photographs, and his quiet presence. This photo somehow captures two humans showing up every Sunday with our strange offerings in the middle of the Hay Universe . Peter looks like a man who quietly sanded wood for 60 years and made peace with reality. I look like a festival piñata that escaped containment in a parking lot

When I first learned reading runes, I was guided in my dream to a teacher in Russia, a Mage. I am deeply grateful for that period, he gave me the initial insight and understanding in rune interpretations I needed. My relationship with the runes never became static. It wasn't a matter of memorizing meanings and applying them forever. It continues to evolve. I notice patterns. The runes notice how I see those patterns. Meaning emerges through the relationship itself. This is not something anyone taught me. There is a living participation taking place. At some point, my teacher and I naturally went our separate ways, because I could no longer allow someone else's insights to override my own direct experience. Many traditions speak about this moment in different ways. In Buddhism there is a famous saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." , because eventually one must stop following someone else's realization and walk one's own path. Mastery, to me, is not the perfect repetition of what we have learned from others. That may produce skill. But art begins when something more immediate appears. When there is direct communication with Reality itself. Then the art becomes alive. And perhaps the learning never really ends. It simply becomes a conversation.

People sometimes assume that market sessions are "little sessions" and private consultations are the "real thing" or somehow deeper. I don't see it that way. The difference isn't depth. At the market, sessions are focused mostly on one inquiry. We look at the runes first. Then I ask questions, people answer, and together we interpret the runes and bring clarity to what is happening. There is not much unnecessary wandering. The process itself is very concentrated. Life becomes clearer, and then I move on to the next person. The tent belongs to more than one human being. Private sessions are different, but not because they are deeper. There is simply more space. More room for people to tell their story. More room for tears and connections. Sometimes people need to tell their stories, even if this is not necessary for interpreting the runes. Sometimes people have multiple inquiries. Different parts of their lives need attention. We move from one area of life to another as the conversation unfolds naturally, allowing each part to receive the attention it needs. In the market, the session serves the flow of humanity. In private, the session serves the spaciousness of humanity. Neither one is a lesser version of the other. They are simply different environments. And perhaps this is why I never saw the markets as a way to lead people somewhere else. The purple tent was never meant to be a doorway to a "next level." It is already whole in itself. Private consultations are not an upgrade. They simply provide a different kind of room for what people may need.

There is a Russian saying: “Я прошла огонь, воду и медные трубы. ”Literally:
“I went through fire, water and brass pipes. It sounds strange and dramatic :)
Fire and water I understand. But why brass pipes? Fire is suffering.
Water is instability and life itself.
But brass pipes are glory, praise, self-importance, ego inflation. Sometimes the brass pipes are harder to survive than the fire. Pain can humble people.
Success can intoxicate them. This is why Russian sayings sound like someone survived:
war, heartbreak, revolution, betrayal, spiritual crisis and three symbolic deaths 😄 Meanwhile Americans say:
“I’ve been around the block.” Russians go through fire, water and brass pipes.
Americans just stroll around the block :). But both probably point to the same thing:
life eventually educates everyone.

I have a strange relationship with time. People often say things like: "Good morning." "Good night." "Long time no see." Somewhere inside, those things never carried much weight for me. Even as a child, I remember having a difficult time adapting to formal social greetings. It wasn't rebellion. I wasn't trying to be difficult. I simply didn't understand why so much attention was being given to the doorway when we could already be inside the house. Years later, while studying Runic Diagnostics with rune master in Russia, I noticed the same thing. We worked together every day for months. Each morning he would begin with "Good morning", and it took me a while to adapt to that ritual. I simply did not experience our interaction as something that had stopped. Yesterday we were discussing runes, life, dreams, symbols, and human beings. Today we were discussing the same things. For me it felt like one continuous conversation. The same thing happens when I reconnect with people after years apart. Someone will say: "Wow, it's been ten years." And of course I know it has been ten years, but internally it often feels more like: "Ah, there you are. Anyway, where were we?" The conversation continues. The relationship continues. Life moves on. The calendar feels less important than whatever is actually alive between people. Over the years I have realized that this is also how I work with people. When someone sits down with me for a consultation, I am usually not very interested in introductions, roles, titles, or credentials. Those things have their place, but my attention naturally moves toward the person, toward what is actually happening, toward the living reality beneath the story. Sometimes after only ten minutes of conversation, people begin speaking about things they have not spoken about with anyone for years. Perhaps because I do not experience them as strangers for very long. Suddenly two human beings are talking about something real. This immediacy has become a framework for much of my life. It is probably why I enjoy the farmers markets and coffee shops as places for my work with people. It is probably why I can reconnect with someone after years and feel as though we are continuing a conversation that simply paused for a while. And perhaps that is why "long time no see" has never felt quite accurate to me. The conversation was still there waiting patiently for us to continue.

Real, down to earth, simple changes matters as much as huge transformative experiences. Sometimes people just need a real conversation, a little clarity, a little perspective, and permission to relax out of the compressed version of themselves for a moment. These are actual messages I received in the last two days after sessions: “After our conversation I relaxed more.” “I sleep better.” “Kуча позитивных эмоций. Спасибо вам большое!” ("Tons of positive emotions, thank you so much!") “You inspired my daughter to continue studying!” “Elena, because of our talk, it helped me stay strong and not text him yesterday!” “You see the highest potential of the person and show it to us in the most positive way.” Honestly, these full-on hay testimonials 🙂 make me smile because underneath all the mystical language, runes, symbols, psychology, and strange Purple Tent atmosphere, what people seem to experience most is simple human relief. And I think people are much more tired, emotionally compressed, and overstimulated than we fully realize. Sometimes a real conversation changes the direction of a whole day, or even a life.

I used to think I was a bit anti-social. I loved being alone, solitude was my way of life. But looking back, I think a lot of it was simply sensitivity without enough grounding. I withdrew for many years into inner worlds, spirituality, observation. The deep depression in the past couple of years completely changed me. I gave up all the defenses because I had no choice. And at this point in my life, I feel more human than ever. Not because I became less sensitive. It feels as if I got a center of gravity that contains and directs that sensitivity where it belongs: to feel in the immediacy of the moment and be useful with my sensitivity to another human being. Now I enjoy people. I enjoy real conversations and simple human contact. Just sitting with another while life untangles a little for them is a gift. 

Vicissitudes of life made me much more human. Not through spirituality, but through shock, disillusionment, grief, loss of direction, loss of spark, and slowly finding my way back into life again. After going through certain things, it becomes much harder to divide people into categories like conscious/unconscious, awakened/asleep, evolved/not evolved. Life can break anyone. And people can also come back even from very dark places. I think this is part of why I ended up at local markets open to anybody who feels drawn to come and talk. Not because I have everything figured out. Maybe almost the opposite. Something softened after going through enough reality. Now when people sit across from me confused, looping, grieving, ashamed, lost or unable to see clearly, I don’t feel above them. I simply understand what it means to be human.  This made life feel more real and more meaningful than many grand ideas ever did.