What’s going on here on the Light Tour is so enormous, and so subtle, and so ridiculous, and so inexplicable, that I want to try to describe it. As I’m being lured into a realm beyond myself, I want to take a bit of myself with me to watch all the new universes light up and reveal their secrets.

I said we were going to get up at 4:30 am but I lied; we left at 4:00 am. We went to Jordan, through the border crossing at Aqaba and into Petra and then Wadi Rum, home of Lawrence of Arabia’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and back again, all in a day.

Nothing is what it seems, and it’s even less what it seems when you’re around spiritual energy. The “seems” part fades into insignificance and the reality shows its silhouette, then its shape, then its details, just like the sunrise that we watch from the van as we drive through the desert.

The trip, which involves hours of driving and which very few people attempt to do in a day, seems like the skewed dream of a madman. In reality Jsu asked J-R if it was clear, he said yes, and we entered the Traveler “bubble.” The bubble adds weightlessness, repels concern, and manifests mostly as either jokes or silence. It also creates a much wider tolerance for things that don’t make sense to the mind or the ego, like driving all day through the desert to spend a relatively short period of time in some beautiful scenery.

Our five person crew is led by our boisterous elf-on-acid and ex-PAT IV guide Shraga, who spontaneously bursts into song and jokes, and sometimes dance, at any opportunity; and Jsu, equally boisterous but less elf-like and more like an angel attempting to act the part of a Latin revolutionary/dictator, outwardly breaking up all forms of social order while inwardly staying true to his cause, which is following the constantly-moving Spirit; and true to his strategy, which is a refusal to recognize or understand the rules that humans use to restrict themselves. That disregarding of limitation includes a zero-tolerance of any form of complaining, whining, and bodily self-indulgence, like frequent bathroom breaks or food-lust. The result is a feeling of freedom that comes from letting go of distractions, agendas and demands. It’s amazing what happens to people when they let go of that stuff. They become relaxed and funny. We have a really good time in the van.

That devotion to Spirit doesn’t mean that Jsu, or any of us, is any less crazy or negative than anyone else. All it means is that we’re not judging it so much, and the lack of judgment lowers pressure enough so that it pops the cork and all that bottled-up stuff can find its own level and drain off, so that there is a flow both within each person and throughout the group. Even when we have trouble getting our camera equipment across the border and Jsu gets feisty with the agents, something renders it all harmless and humorous and the agent gives up and gets someone else to deal with him. It’s either his high-involvement combined with low-attachment, or the fact that he’s a fool and J-R is watching over him…or it’s both. And is there really any difference between the two?

The “reason” for the trip? There has to be a reason. All levels have to be taken into account, even the most lowly like reason. Jsu is trying to find Sheik Eid, a desert tribal leader who was his source of extras and film locations for the movie “Spiritual Warriors” in 2004, and our generous dinner host in 2009, in order to give him a copy of the “Mystical Traveler” movie. It’s a people-centric reason, the best of all, and in our backwards spiritual viewpoint, looking at the world through the “wrong” end of the telescope, each individual soul, and even a single kind gesture, is more important than worldly considerations like distance and desire, pleasure and planning. Along the way we meet more delightful people, a Jordanian tour guide who hasn’t seen his old friend Shraga in years; some guy who gets on our bus for a second to help us find the Sheik and who has a beautiful light in his eyes; an old Bedouin and his wife who live near Little Petra; a restaurant owner who feeds us some of the best fresh bread, hummus and baba ghanoush we’ve ever had.

What was the “real” reason for the trip? We were there to facilitate the reunion of Shraga and his old friend. No, we were there to look into the eyes of the Sheik’s wife and exchange gifts (we never did find the Sheik). No, we were there to shake up a few border control agents. No, we were there to absorb and amplify the accumulated love of generations of Bedouin nomads for the quiet, airy desert. No, we were there to be with some mystery-man named John-Roger, who wasn’t even there physically, but who said a couple of words, “It’s clear,” and a whole day’s experience was moved to a different planet that’s a perfect replica of this one physically, but where the normal ascendancy of matter over spirit is reversed, and where the clarity of our intention, coupled with J-R’s participation, transforms the taking-in of experience into the giving-out of light.

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