Gail Boenning , I’ve been thinking about what you said and I’ve come to the conclusion that you are spot on correct. You said, “….I was thinking about philosophy and ideology — it is easier to experience harmony when you are with others who believe what you believe….”

Yes, it is easier. I know this from experience. But is ‘easier’ necessarily the best way? Does it provide the greatest growth potential?

For over six years now I have been living in a small rural farming town that is populated almost exclusively by gun-toting, bible-thumping, extreme ultra right wing redneck Trump-lovers. My philosophies and ideologies are in extremely sharp contrast to almost every single human living in this community. I’m like a solitary goldfish living in a fish tank full of sharks. In over six years I have yet to find a single person who even comes close to sharing my philosophies, ideologies and perspectives. Not one!

Not one!

Over the course of my life I have lived in numerous communities that were progressive, free-thinking, tree-hugging, artsy-fartsy, new agey, and well educated. And yes, yes, yes! It would be so much easier on me to be living in one of those communities and a big part of me really, really misses those communities. For over six years I have been asking myself what the gosh darn bloody hell am I doing here.

Is the universe punishing me? Am I punishing myself?

Or am I being challenged to the very core of my being?

In hindsight, looking back over these last six-plus years I realize that it has most certainly not been easy. It has been one of the most challenging times of my life. But over that time I have also experienced mind boggling growth. I don’t think I could possibly have experienced a comparable amount of growth in a comparable amount of time in any of the like-minded communities I’ve lived in before.

I have not had the support and nurturing of like-minded friends and acquaintances so I was forced to self-nurture. I have not had the comfort and peace of gathering with people who shared my weirdness so I’ve had to find comfort and peace in nature and alone-ness. While being alone, a solitary goldfish in a fish tank full of sharks, I was forced to overcome loneliness by embracing that alone-ness. It has been a profound education.

The truth is that I’ve had more spiritual epiphanies in this human wasteland on the Great Plains than I’ve ever had in any other comparable time frame in my life — all in a place where I was completely out of my element, alone in a sea of dissonant energy.

I’ve lived all over America and the only places in which I have ever felt “at home” have been in the West; in either the Great American Desert Southwest, high up in the Rocky Mountains, or on the West Coast. But a little over six years ago I went against the natural flow of spirituality, of spiritual energy. I went EAST! I moved eastward onto the Great Plains. I went against the natural flow of spiritual energy. I’ve felt like a salmon swimming upstream against the natural flow of water.

It is in the friction of moving against, opposite of the natural flow that the heat and intensity was ignited that brought about the change and growth I’ve experienced.

My old tattered dictionary defines harmony as, “The pleasing combination of tones in a chord.” The important part of that is that there is a combination, a diversity of tones which, together, provide a pleasing chord. Am I here in redneck country to provide a tone that is sorely lacking and needed to round out the prevailing chord? Or do I personally need the tones which I have always perceived as dissonant in order to bring out my own tone in order to find harmony? When we live in a community where everyone is broadcasting the very same tone that is not harmony. It is a monotone.

There will come a time (hopefully soon) when I stop swimming upstream against the natural flow and I will turn around and once again start swimming with the flow. I will once again head west with the natural flow of spiritual energy. I might be an old fool but I know that once I start heading West again I will still have plenty of time before I reach San Francisco Bay and disappear under the Golden Gate Bridge into the west. And in that journey westward I will be enjoying a delightful harmony that I picked up in my brief journey eastward against the flow.