“People don’t take trips — trips take people” — John Steinback
Though it’s been a while since my last trip to Europe, travelling during and post-covid is a whole different story! Though we all did our best staying alive and even attempting to have some fun either travelling locally or around the country (which for Canada means up to 5 or more hours flights depending on the destination). But this trip is special. And not just because I had to travel because my dad ended up in the hospital in Kyiv and I had to book the last-minute flight to Ukraine, but because it’s also my birthplace where everything started.
And then the travel. I love to travel with all my heart! Even when the weather is not good, the flights are delayed or things don’t go as planned. Travel to me is like a snapshot of life itself, the short story from the beginning to the end, with its twists and turns and unpredictable events that sometimes change one’s path or sometimes change the whole life.
A friend of mine said that it was meant to be and I was bound to go to Ukraine now. I don’t know why and what I will find there that I need to know, but I agree with her. And flying across the world, taking off from Toronto under the bright starts competing with the city light pollution over Greenland, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe when the whole world seems to be painted in the bright fall colours with majestic orange, red, yellow and green of the forests, dark blue of the water and the bright blue skies over the clouds with the gentle curve of the Earth’s horizon is a special treat!
Our planet is looking smaller and smaller the higher we go. Just before I left I was watching the news with William Shatner going up to space and getting emotionally overwhelmed with this humble experience telling CNN how much more we can do to protect this planet, our only planet that, in its Universal wisdom sheltered us for millennia from radiation, terrestrial bodies and other harmful forces that could potentially wipe out the whole carefully established balance developed over a very long period of time bringing us to today, the top of the evolution of all species and yet us, almost as young and careless as I was 25 years ago when I last visited my homeland.
It’s a trip in time as much as it is in distance, taking me back a quarter of the century to my former and much younger self. I wish I could speak to her and tell her what I learned over time: to be humble, to be patient with myself and others (as I learned from Dr. Hawkings), to stop competing with the whole world and invest more time in your future self (Dr. Benjamin Hardy) and that there are no turning points in life but rather the chain of the everyday choices that makes all the difference in the long run (Alex Banayan). As Dr. Joe Dispenza mentioned in one of his meditations: better choices always lead to a better life.
I walk through the rooms where I was growing up, overwhelmed with care with which all the things have been preserved telling my and my family’s story. Everything here: the wallpaper, the furniture, the tea and dish sets in the glazed-door slides called “gorkas” and the simple art on the walls are talking to my and my parent’s young age when, despite all uncertainty, revolutions and breaking from the deathly grip of the Soviet empire we found joy, friendship, peace, purpose and unwavering will for a better life. For our sake, for our kids’ sake, for our now elderly parents’ sake. And I understood that all these little things, my old books, my piano, my diaries talk about love. It’s love that keeps us together, it’s love that makes us strive for unimaginable horizons, it’s love that gives us energy, determination and patience necessary to get through the resistance, difficulties and time so that we can learn. This experience to learn what really matters IS life. Have you seen The Egg — A Short Story on YouTube? I wonder if this is why we are here: to learn what we need to learn so that we can grow. As a child, as a person, as a human being. To get kinder to self and others, to give rather than take, to observe and absorb rather than voice opinion, to appreciate things as they are, as they meant to be: laughing child, smiling face of old lady curved with wrinkles, proud parents watching their child skating for the first time, a playful dog looking adorably at you, flower blooming, leafs changing colours, seasons carefully following each other and rising every day Sun, day in day out, steady and reliably, our irreplaceable source of energy and light, our planet’s past, present and future without which none of this would be possible.
The funny part is that, despite getting seemingly smarter, we remain completely blind and somehow still believe that we are better and far more superior than other species on this planet. In fairly short recent years we learned that fish can feel and fear death, whales talk to each other, trees can communicate, team up to defend themselves and migrate to better living areas with some living over 10 times longer than we do. We know that mountains rising from the ocean floor are born and die; the continents move and stones, not just corals, are the living organisms with their life spanning thousands of years, yet in our human shortsighted ignorance we still think that we are in a better position to decide what future all these wonderful living things deserve. Blessed naive novices, when will we learn that the only way to dominate is to protect, nurture and love, give as much care and freedom for all things to grow and watch the magic happen! Even as parents we have a hard time learning this simple truth. We think we have a responsibility to teach the future human beings while we, ourselves, merely know what’s better for us even less following that very advice by continuing struggling with unhealthy habits, clouded thinking and sometimes addictions that we sometimes value more than the life itself.
Yet the Universe in its wisdom created us, like everything else, to be a part of the whole. Though it’s often hard to see throughout each of our lives and we always give it to the historical figures that “make the difference”, we are all part of the bigger (much bigger!) picture. The way we think, how caring or harmful we are, how competitive and consuming we are, how wasteful and selfish we are vs. giving and loving: all make a difference in the Universal energy. Everything is connected and, therefore, everything and everyone influences everything and everyone else.
The sooner we as species recognize and acknowledge that the more long-term our choices will become. And with each next generation of the younger, more energetic and frankly very short-living species we have an opportunity to learn faster than trees and stones. And you, the young one, is the Universe’s next hope! You’re smarter, faster, brighter than me, you, not me, is now the top of evolution. And whether you know or not, or whether you want it or not, you ARE changing this planet. You’re the force that will either take this tiny spaceship named Earth to the unprecedented horizons or you will drive it into the massive ball of dust, making you the most wasteful top of the evolution species in the Universe. Or perhaps in its wisdom the Universe will decide differently and will remove the short-sighted invasive species to give rise to the wiser ones who will take better care of all living things. The choice is yours. For now. And remember: good choices ALWAYS lead to a better life!
