where to live
by Jack Crompton

11/5/2006

I used to think much like many do.... "if only I could get myself into the right location, my life would work and make sense!" I'm reminded of a line in the Jackson Browne song, 'Your Bright Baby Blues': 'No matter where I am, I can't help feeling I'm just a day away from where I want to be."

But in my experience, its a moot point. Sure, sometimes we are 'guided' to be in one place or another and that guidance comes through our feelings. But it never has anything to do with the particular place. We all too easily forget, that we only attract to us the people and life situations that mirror our internal state.

So, I'm musing in this moment a new thought: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE. If you are human and living somewhere on the planet, you will attract hell if you are hellish inside, and you will attract bliss if you are blissfull inside. No exceptions! (although there is a buffer of time between what we project and what we experience as reality).

In 1995, I was strongly guided to move from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Scottsdale, Arizona - both beautiful places but as different from each other as two different planets. It was a move that profoundly changed my life, but in my spirit it was like a 'green light' went off as my internal yearnings and synchronistic events lined up to point the way for this to happen. But it wasn't easy... I was like a fish into the frying pan in terms of my personal changes and challenges. For years, I questioned why my higher self had put me in this place, and I questioned my own clarity of perception.

But, in hindsight, it all kind of makes sense now. There were important lessons for me to learn and integrate and we always get exactly what we need for our own personal evolvement, in the time we need it. And, it's not always pleasant going.

There is plenty of higher consciousness awareness in Arizona, but also what might be labelled 'pod people' in droves, but I suspect that's true for whatever area you are in. Remember, 'pod people' (those who awareness goes no further than the 9-5 'tick tock' world) —are involved with their own evolutionary journey too, and those of greater spiritual awareness provide an important 'entrainment' and balancing function in any given community. And when you get right down to it, who is to say who is the student and who is the teacher?! A good measure of humility will keep us on a healthy path.

Also, cultural stereotypes can be completely bogus. I always (subconsciously) thought of the deep south as somewhat 'backward' due to the racial attitudes of the past, etc. Yet, I recently have gotten to know someone from Birmingham, Alabama and have made a couple of trips there for some extended time this fall and I never suspected that that area would have such a vibrant, higher consciousness community of loving individuals, well versed in the mechanics of consciousness and metaphysics. Yet, it does! Right there in the heart of the traditional 'Bible Belt'. But I'm realizing that I'm attracting myself into these situations because of where I'm at in terms of my own consciousness, and not because of any other outside circumstances. Alabama is still Alabama and Arizona is still Arizona. And people are people!

But the wonderful adventure of life is that we always get to choose. I"m still here in the Phoenix area, but lately, I"ve felt a restlessness that is making my spirit yearn to live in a much smaller community, out in the country. Something more authentic, healthful, and less 'homogenized'. So, my higher self may be preparing me for a move in the near future and I'm 'paying attention' as I strive to be mindful of what I wish to create for myself.

One thing I've learned in my 11 years here, is that our lives are never about our external environments. It's about our inner state of being. It's never about events, other people or even geo/politics. It's about what we are creating through our own attention and focus. It is oh so easy to get distracted from the fact that we are masters of our own destiny. And, in truth, there is a big responsibility there and many people don't want it, and would rather put it on something or someone 'out there'.

So, I just offer this as something to ponder. Heaven or Hell is ours to create wherever we are. We should be humbled as to having been entrusted with such power.