Firstplace is where I leave when I awaken. I actually do not leave firstplace for secondplace, but I experience a departure I describe as awakening. To be clear, this is not an actual departure or a movement of any sort; it is a disturbance that I experience as movement. A disturbance that I am convinced is something other than it is. A disturbance I call life, but which is actually only a state of confusion.
While I have created a fixed sanctuary where I can be who I am, I have imagined a moment when my sanctuary was not a fixed place; when I take it with me in all my various movements in thirdself. A time when I could be anywhere in secondplace and still maintain the peace and perspective I find when I am Home, in my sanctuary.
In my moment now I am traveling in Nepal, far from my Indian cottage. And when I think of the peace of my cottage, I understand that I do not need it. I do not need to be there. I can build my temple around me wherever I am in secondplace. My temple is always with me. My temple is a state; a set of convictions that I am who I am. With that conviction, it does not matter what my thirdself looks like. It does not matter what country I believe I am in, or what people surround me. I build my temple out of conviction, not the materials of thirdself. If I know who and what I am, it matters not what my thirdself looks like.
I am always in firstplace. I need only sense it gathering around my thirdself as a penumbra, ready to envelop me when I close my thirdself eyes, shutting out the light and motion. Thirdself eyes closed, I then need only close my secondself eyes; the eyes which open from firstself into secondself. To do that, I must be aware of what lies beyond my thoughts, feelings, aspirations. What is just beyond them? What is adjacent to them, but not them. What is right on the horizon of my thoughts? Again, that is firstself, gathered along the edges like an ancient forest waiting to reclaim the land cleared by civilization.
I close my thirdself eyes and the dark peace of firstself joins back together. I close my secondself eyes and the dark peace of firstself joins back together. Firstself is an infinite dark cloud of peace enshrouding me; my awakening is a disturbance that painfully pierces those clouds like surgical retractors. I am always in firstplace. I am not here, in secondplace.
…