START HERE-- > Marking the trail

I guess this is where to start.

In this blog I'd like to leave messages, writings and other snippets that I can use to keep a map of where I've been and where I'm going on this Crooked Road Home (as I've decided to name my journey). To me it is helpful to keep a map of where I've been and why, and what I've learned. It felt necessary in order to reinforce a sense of forward motion, of progress, however indirect, along a path. Without this I feel as though I would inevitably conclude that I have been walking in circles.

If you were ever in the Cub Scouts or had a similar outdoor learning experience, you may remember marking your trail as you explored in the woods. The reason was several fold: to find your way back home, to guide you on future deeper explorations, and for others to find and use to trace your steps.

Seems to me this blog (which is really just newer version of a set of computer document files, which was a new version of a physical journal, which still sits on my bedside table) is exactly the same as what I used in Cub Scouts all those years ago. The purpose is mostly for myself, but perhaps others may benefit as well. If so, that would make it even more valuable.

During the course of my search I've learned a lot, and in the process have reached many conclusions. I am in a very different place now than I was at the beginning. In this blog I'll try not to skip ahead to where I am now, but rather start at the beginning, where I was essentially trying to see what evidence exists that points to a non-physical aspect to reality. I think this is a better way to cover this rather than to jump ahead. I think it brings a sense of incremental discovery, as this is the experience I am having, and not an epiphany that I reached suddenly. Those who have (for whatever reason) already concluded that we are more than our physical body, will probably just jump over the incremental discovery work (which they may see as obvious) and get to "the good stuff". That's fine.

I feel like I'm making my way home to the place from where I came and where perhaps a part of me always resides. Like most of us, I can't actually remember this home. I didn't even have a sense that it existed until a few years ago. And now as time passes and I turn over more and more rocks along the trail, I discover more and more, and my sense of things grows more clear. As I turn over the rocks I invariably uncover things that fill in gaps, explain lingering questions, and help illuminate the path ahead.

If you are so inclined, please take what feels true, and discard the rest. Keep in mind though, what doesn't feel true today, may feel true later on. That's how things seem to be unfolding for me.

So I would advise, while you stroll down your path: Stay clam. Stay open. Stay alert.

If you are skeptical, I would go through these posts in chronological order (or I may actually start numbering them) so you can follow the flow from my skeptical starting point.

Happy travels.

-Jake