Onward again

..and just like that, after a six and a half month commitment to shining boats, a festival in the forest, and a phone call at 11:00pm we take to the road.

Three days before we left

to look for America

there is a nostalgic smile i see in certain people's eyes when we talk about this upcoming adventure across much of North and Central America.  i'm drawn to the generation which grew up in the 60's and their understanding of our need to be free on the open road.  i'm not drawn in pointless admiration for music and style as i'm very aware of the hardships of the era, yet it seems that something from the people of that time called wild souls to explore the unknown.  the idea to modify a minivan and recreate a home for myself and my leaf-in-the-breeze girlfriend hits close to home as young people in the 60's and 70's felt a need to head west and reestablish their own ideas of community.

something feels very different about this age.  it seems in a way that this sense of freedom is almost a ghost wandering the post-apocalyptic modern world and for years people had forgotten that "freedom is just another word for nothing less to lose."  maybe it's my own actions in the past or perhaps my lifelong thirst to explore the planet that naturally brings me to the road but maybe i just listened well enough to the calling in my head that has beckoned me for so many years.  maybe this is also the spirit which guided explorers and ancient scouts who had a hunch that there is much to discover across the hills and seas.  whatever it is, i can maintain that it is the most exciting thing to ever happen to a person, the feeling of waking up in a foreign land and realizing that somehow you made it out into the world.  you are free.  there is nobody to stop you from walking this planet like it is yours.

why are we so unhappy here?  perhaps i want to look passed the cookie cutter suburbs and fast food boulevards seeing sign after sign of burger king, wal-mart and taco bell.  maybe it's not the food or the dull paintings of buildings but the fact that the United States of America has isolated itself from the rest of the world.  Americans feel as if it is 'us and them' when viewing the rest of the world.  people always ask me such silly questions and for a long time i just thought they were only making conversation but there is a massive feeling here that we are alone in the world.  maybe that is why anxiety has leaked its way into our culture and perhaps this is to blame with current political mistrust but i'm sick of criticizing.  the USA is a phenomenal country with endless potential and if the people who belong to this populous would only embrace their freedom to wander to other countries and to learn the ways of the world without turning to the media then perhaps things could be better around here.

we're making a movie.  it's not a movie it's a documentary.  it's not a documentary, it's a project.  i don't know what it is but when it comes to be i consent that it is my offering to the culture from which i hail in hopes that somebody sees it and realizes that there are others who have uprooted from their homes to explore the unknown.  i hope i can do my intentions justice and i can't wait to share some of the beauty of this continent.

fear is always going to be there, it is an airborne disease.  it is going to sink into your veins and it will wrap itself around your brain like the squeezing vines of a strangler tree and at times we don't even realize that we are infected.  i watch fear sneak into my blood in these last few days i get to spend at home.  i doubt my finances at times and worry about finding a job in Guatemala.  i worry that my friends think i'm too far separated.  i can't let these things go untreated for to long, my spirit cannot permit fear to find its way between my wings.  it is in that fear, or understanding of fear, that i wish to continue writing in this blog.  this blog has served as a gateway between my absence and my thoughts which i have shared from all corners of the globe.  much of my energy will of course be put towards the film project yet i will continue to write in here and to connect with those of you who have been faithful to me for so long in their kind words and appreciation for my wanderings.  thank you.

like an endless river

it was a few days ago during that pink moment of dusk when i caught a reflection of the bottom of my shoe from the passenger side mirror.  we were driving slow enough for me to have my foot out the window and the haunting lyrics of an old song we are all familiar with hums, 'too much walkin' shoes worn thin'.  it occurred to me in that beautiful moment that many of my worries were about to be left behind.

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however this last week hit me hard and hollowed me out like a log.  spare the typically esoteric nature of my blog, i can't help but hide my feelings in my strange words.  i want to ask, 'what the hell man?' and i want to ask it to two friends.  the first i would ask will not respond because he has left the corporal form which allows speech (at least in the type we recognize).  the second i would ask might not get to hear me ask that for a long time and that's a shame.  yet i look at the holes in my shoes like they are supposed to represent me somehow.

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making a film is really exciting.  i see the world differently when it is in time-lapsed cloudy sky beauty and the drops of water which separate from the falling waters in slow motion always make me feel free.

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don't vote for trump.  come on.

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the suburbs are a very conservative place, i'm into it.. but i don't alter my appearance to pretend that i am part of this system here and that means people are going to surprise me once in a while with fear, doubt and offensive questions.  'oh you're going to mexico?  didn't those two guys just DIE in mexico when they were passing through?'  dude that shit gets to me.. i'll never be able to handle this place and it sucks a bit.  i'll never be able to overcome the anxiety, maybe i do belong in the jungle..

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i went to a festival two weeks ago among some of the most open-minded people i've ever met.  it restored my faith in people for a while.  i'm not against the masses i just wish people would remember that they too are only animals.  it's true.  we are animals and we wear pants but we are indeed beast.  from the moment we are born we are shaped into the norms and standards of whatever group governs us be rest assured we aren't more than the animal kingdom.  yet when i went to this festival i saw us, the human-animal, in the light of the goddess (our universe).

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i'm no more found today that i was when i started this journey many years ago.  i'm sorry if i've let any readers of this blog down as i've asked the same questions for years.  perhaps my silence of questioning has been indicative of a new knowledge which has permitted me to wipe my slate clean.  i have since taken everything that i thought i believed and wiped it clean only to form new a new perspective of the world around me.. yet i can't figure it out.  what's happened to us?  when did we become so out of tune?

Sean Wakeley

My friend,

None of us have it, any answer or any indication that we have a reason to be here at all.  Sometimes I think the distance I've been away from home and the millions of lifetimes I've watched with my eyes are but milliseconds in this crazy universe and I have a hard time thinking it really matters in the long run.  Yet laughter catches us off guard at times and the contagious spirits of our friends keep us reinvented and afresh, no longer alone in our uncertainties.  We lost a good human being from this earth today. Thanks for bringing me smiles and a few steps closer to understanding this world.

See you down the river, Sean 

Vecinos (Neighbors)

Curiosity has fueled my existence since I've been old enough to follow my dreams.  A certain whisper has called through my ears in an inviting tone and for a very long time it has beckoned me to visit various parts of this planet.  I do this so I can learn and teach and continue my flow through a very curious life, it has always lead me to understand people and culture with love and inspiration.

Today this curiosity moves me back again to a corner of the globe which has forever been welcoming and intriguing to me.  It is a colorful place, rather series of places, that seems to be a great mystery to the people of my home country here in the United States.  I speak of Latin America.

From the beginning of one's travels stretching anywhere between Argentina and Mexico there is an apprehension to claim being from 'America' and the reason for this is often overlooked.  I like to think of America as a massive apartment complex with 35 doors, one for each of it's own respected sovereign countries.   Residents of America are neighbors by all means and each resident is a functioning member of a greater community.

I think sometimes people from my country forget that we are all in the same building.

This blog has been silent for a few months.  I'm working.  I'm working and I'm gathering resources to fund what will be perhaps one of my most ambitious projects I've set out on in a long time but these things take time.  It's time for me to prepare.

The project I'm preparing for is a journey with a film that will take the viewer from here in Detroit north into the beautiful upper peninsula of my state.  From there we will perhaps head west and eventually into western Canada, the west coast of the United States, through Mexico, Belize and into Guatemala.  I would like to spend two or three months on the road filming the people who make up the population of this fascinating and diverse apartment complex.  I want to make the documentary that I've always wanted to watch, I want to show people that we are all neighbors and although we have various perspectives of this world and these massive continents which we call home, that we have much to celebrate in our differences.

A conversation with a good friend of mine revealed to me the idea to form a series of questions which could be asked openly to the people I'll be interviewing for the film.  The questions are based on one of my favorite books and this is all the information I'm going to be leaking at this point, much of this project is still in its formation.

I don't know.. I came out to this hemisphere about a year ago after some wild circumstances in life.  Maybe I came here out of reasons beyond my control or perhaps I was sent to re-tune my ears to be more perceptive to the callings which take me on my adventures.  More realistically I'm growing in my consciousness towards our planet and I'm even more fascinated by it than ever and I would like to take the opportunity to share some things with the world.  People inspire me, they have such wild imaginations to create so many different cultures and even though we live in a world that is so connected through technology we are still seemingly lost for knowledge about the people who live right next door to us.  I want to share my love of this great apartment complex with everybody and should my patience and hard work keep me in good spirits then this coming summer I'm off to begin the next chapter of my story, one that the world needs to hear.