How I lived in New York metropolis and what triggered my search for answers.
I was a young professional living in New York, single with no kids while making a six figure salary. My college education was finally paying off, and in a few years I hardly had any student debt left to repay. My language skills got a lot better after college, and I was more comfortable mingling with people from other cultures. Money came to me easily and I didn’t value it appropriately, spending most of it freely on restaurants, nightlife, and other entertainment. I often shared pleasant company with young women, visiting bars and nightclubs, allowing myself to taste the pleasures of being young and single in a city where money was the defining culture.
Right after college, I settled in Brooklyn for a few years, doing my daily train commute into the city. Morning rush hour was a lot of fun, and I quickly learned how to use my elbows efficiently to get into and out of the train packed with people. Standing there, barely holding on to a nearby handle for forty five minutes, squeezed from each side by other people also trying to get comfortable, I often contemplated on the meaning of my life and where it is heading. On the one hand I was smart and good looking, had a promising career, plenty of good friends and female company. On the other, I was missing something that kept calling to me, as if a distant voice from long ago, which kept me awake at nights thinking about adventure beyond trains and rectangular walls I was so accustomed to by now. This deep longing often made me distant and my behavior sometimes unpredictable, confusing the people around me with silly explanations. I couldn’t help it, trying to reconcile my feelings was a difficult task, I tried pretending as if they weren’t there, but eventually realized it was a futile effort.
I lived right on the bay in Bay Ridge, which was an upscale area with a pricey real estate, good selection of restaurants, and excellent views on the Verrazzano Bridge. I had access to the rooftop of my apartment building, and often came up there with my friends appreciating Brooklyn landscapes and the city lights at night. I rented a one bedroom apartment, which was spacious but minimalistic, mostly avoiding any extra furniture and other amenities. It was just enough for me to enjoy life with a bit of style, without the overhead of unnecessary worries or shopping trips.
I had a fun orange SUV with a convertible top, which made it a perfect car for occasional getaways with friends and girlfriends. I loved driving it around with the top off on sunny days, crossing bridges and passing scenic views of the city and the surrounding areas. I also used it for visiting Manhattan nightclubs at night, often enduring traffics and formidable efforts of finding parking spots. None of that mattered, life was still fun and we all enjoyed the city atmosphere the best we could, later sharing our night adventures with close friends over coffee or beer.
We often hung out at my place watching movies, drinking or smoking weed, and talking about life. My close circle of friends was still mostly Russian speaking, but I did start making new friends, especially at work, that were not. Some of them liked psychedelic music and were well informed about the underground party scene. This quickly caught my interest, and I gradually shifted my focus and attention from restaurants and mainstream nightclubs into the psychedelic parties and culture, which was very different in both mindset and behavior. My friends who didn’t share this new interest slowly faded away, and I became fully immersed into the psychedelic scene, amazed at the mind opening qualities of the music and the evolutionary ideas that it presented. It also came with its fair share of mind altering substances, which I mostly avoided at the time, worried about their potential negative effects on my health and psyche.
Psychedelic music was unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, gradually transforming my life from an ordinary person into an open-minded space traveler, and it still accompanies me until this very day. The underground party scene usually took place in warehouses, under the bridges or on the beaches, always generously decorated with all kinds of mind-altering artwork. The people who listened to this type of music were very different, almost spiritual in nature, as this culture meant a lot to them. They were hippies and nomads, energy and light workers who enjoyed this realm by opening up their dimensional horizons and those of other people. Parties often lasted through the night, where everyone danced, meditated, mingled with others, and took naps in the cozy chill-out sections. These people soon replaced my close circle of friends, and I became one of them, attending many parties and even helping organize some of them.
One of my friends introduced me to a Peruvian shaman, who was visiting New York at the time, and I was invited for a trip to Peru. This was a dream come true, and I quickly embraced this opportunity, taking time off at work and diving into the depth of the Inca culture. Many of my friends were curious about my travels, but I had no time to share most of it, things were happening too quickly and I tried my best to keep up with this new adventure. I ended up visiting Peru multiple times during the next few years, juggling my life in New York with amazing mind-altering experiences of shamanic transmission in the heart of the late Inca empire.
After coming back from my most recent Peruvian trip, I realized that my Brooklyn days are no longer tolerable, and I needed to move to Manhattan island. I did just that within a few months, renting rooms in various upscale places around the city. Manhattan life was great, many dreamed to live there but couldn’t, and I felt fortunate enough to figure out a way to do it. My morning commute transformed into a speed walk of less than half an hour along Park avenue, passing some of the best spots New York has to offer. I sold my car and quietly enjoyed more personal time free from crowded rush hour subways. I loved walking around the city, street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood, observing the density of amazing places and people of all colors and religions, interacting with each other. I had my favorite places to eat, and soon enough, I started feeling like I belonged there. Manhattan was no longer strange and unfriendly, it was my home and I knew it well.
One of my favorite places was China town, I loved walking around there, checking into different shops with all kinds of weird and amazing stuff, local street markets with vegetables and daily fresh seafood. I loved the way it felt, as if it was a country within a city, perhaps it reminded me of my previous lives in Asia, it was all so mysterious and interesting to me. I often took out my roller-blades on the streets of Manhattan, cruising through traffic and dodging pedestrians, surprising myself with developing courage and agility. Taxi drivers were most notorious for breaking rules, and I often had to slam their windows to let them know I mean business, so they show me some respect on the road. This type of behavior was normal in New York city, in fact it was expected, being vocal and bold was the way to survive there, in the city that never sleeps.
Central park was a joy to have around, and I tried renting rooms not too far away from it, living on both the east and west side of the island. I went for walks there, marveling at the beauty of the exposed bedrock, often used by the visiting kids for climbing. It reminded me of being a kid too, and I adored it, having my favorite hideout spots where I could relax and tune into nature for a bit. I often imagined what it was like to live here before the Europeans arrived, living in tipis and using rivers for transportation, escaping from my present reality and drifting into other timelines. I was discovering my abilities as a dreamer, and needed more imprints to boost my imagination.
Spending too much time in the city I started longing for open spaces, and soon found myself feeling claustrophobic. There was a special place at the far end of Long Island called Montauk, I discovered it accidentally by looking for surf spots nearby. It was reasonably close by and I began spending my entire weekends there, surfing and enjoying life next to the ocean. I loved the thick fog that would roll in during morning hours, creating a magical and eerie feeling, with the pulsating sound of the lighthouse somewhere far in the distance. The surf was only good for a few months out of the year, and I used this time for polishing my skills and hanging out, while often upsetting other surfers for not following proper surf etiquette on the waves.
The food there was amazing, I loved having seafood dinners and often indulged in big plates of fish, crustaceans and clam chowder with a nice glass of local beer. Hotels were pricey, providing me with an opportunity to practice my car sleeping skills, which in a way marked the beginning of my nomadic life, where I started enjoying the taste of freedom. I was no longer interested in most of my Brooklyn friends, their lives and conversations were lacking a spiritual uplift for me. I had a few girlfriends that I saw from time to time, but that could hardly replace the ocean breeze that I learned to love so much.
Inspired by the amazing ocean energy around Montauk, I made my first environmental offering on the far side of the beach next to the Oyster Pond. It was a suitable remote place, where I could have enough privacy to put together a mandala out of fruit, herbs, and some other personal items. I asked the spirits for guidance and protection, as I was going through some conflicting emotions that troubled my peace of mind. That same night, while sleeping in my car on the parking lot next to the lighthouse, I had an amazing dream. A large scarab beetle, venerated in Egyptian culture, crawled under the skin on my leg, and ate away all impurities from my body. I woke up a bit scared, but then accepted it as a blessing, allowing the purifying energy to pass through me.
During the winter months, when surfing was not an option, I picked up snowboarding, making it my new hobby. There were a few tour buses leaving Manhattan each weekend, heading over to ski mountain resorts in upstate New York. It was a day trip, starting early in the morning and ending late at night, tiring but worth it. My first year of snowboarding was difficult, I made a lot of mistakes and paid for them with painful bruises, but I pressed on. There was something about the snow and high altitude that I loved so very much, a certain clarity of mind that allowed me to see through difficult problems easier, it was just what I needed.
People that knew me often wondered about my lifestyle, they couldn’t understand the logic behind my actions, approaching from a financial and cultural point of view. I wasn’t planning for my future, easily let go of connections from my past that no longer served me, and mostly concentrated my attention on the present, where things made sense to me. This was strange to them, but my newly developed senses guided me to keep going in this direction. My soul searched for things that my mind had a difficult time explaining, and I often found myself trying to justify my actions within an intellectual frame of reference, avoiding any possible negative consequences the best I could.
At that time, I was a sales engineer, working in an office on Park avenue. I was mostly a technical geek, but also interacted with clients and traveled quite a bit helping sell company’s products. I worked alongside some very influential sales people, where most of the business was done in a pub across the street. They navigated the financial sector with such ease, that I often marveled at their skill and agility. They often invited me to hang out with them, which I gladly accepted, drinking premium beers and participating in expensive nightlife which they paid for. This was their way to do business, the clients loved it, and my presence was important to answer any technical questions, which often came up while we were all happily intoxicated. It was a dreamy job, and I enjoyed it for a while, ripping many social benefits not available to others with my skills.
My last living arrangement in Manhattan was a dreamy place, as I was fortunate enough to land a studio on the top 27th floor of an apartment building with a door man for only one thousand dollars per month. It was on the West side, one block away from Central Park, overlooking the Hudson River from huge wall-to-wall windows. At night, I loved turning off all the lights in the house and observing the majestic view of the river, it was so peaceful up there, as if I no longer lived in one of the busiest cities on Earth. This was truly a gift from above, and I had no shame in enjoying every bit of it, often inviting my curious girlfriends for a wonderful night of romance in the city. Surprisingly I also had access to the roof of that building and spent many wonderful summer mornings up there, sipping my coffee, doing kung fu practices, reading, and simply appreciating life.
My enchantment with New York city soon came to an end, as I started noticing how my growing alignment with nature was conflicting with my existing lifestyle. I couldn’t share my daily joys with the people I knew, and soon found myself being slowly rejected by the city itself. I accepted my new direction with a sense of adventure after a few unfortunate incidents, and decided to move out of the city. This was not an easy task, and I ended up finding a place in Woodstock NY, close to a famous Buddhist monastery and a skiing resort. It was perfect for a while, I insisted on working from home and used most of my free time snowboarding or hiking nearby mountains.
The town of Woodstock had most peculiar people living in it, as if half of them reincarnated from some kind of a Utopian world and now wondered what the heck they are doing here on this planet. For someone who just came from New York, it was quite a culture shock, but I welcomed it with an open heart and tried to absorb as much as possible while being there. In the beginning, I visited the Buddhist monastery almost on a daily basis, enjoying the atmosphere of tranquility and doing a few morning pujas with the monks, which helped me adapt to my new surroundings. Their bookstore was amazing, and I ended up getting a few very interesting scriptures, some of which I still have with me.
Working from home had its benefits, but it was also difficult to concentrate, and my manager ended up asking me to move to Oregon if I wanted to keep my job. I kindly refused, which marked the end of my career at that company. Working from home was a scarce opportunity back then, and I needed something to do, which prompted me to gather my things and drive across the United States all the way into Santa Cruz, a place of a legendary surf culture and a nearby Silicon Valley, where I was sure to find a job fitting my technical skill set.
This marked the end of my days on the East coast, followed by even more captivating adventures on the West Coast and ultimately Hawaii.