Old Shoes, New Shoes                          From Marauder #8 - January 2013

It’s a common phrase and these days highly overlooked; To put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This is one of the most important things one can do as they walk the planet searching for their own truth. No matter your position in life, weather still ‘learning’, looking for a job, or engulfed in a busy ‘career’ that is deemed successful and gives you the happiness. Even in a job that you despise that makes you feel like you’re stuck in a rut that you can’t get out of, whether you are in a great relationship, flying solo or running a beautiful family, it’s something that everyone should remember and actively try out!
 
People build their own worlds around their lives, friends, neighbors, routines but they sometimes forget or don’t make time to get out of their comfort zone, out of the ‘bubble’ we’re used to. As the New Year approaches, and we survived yet another teethclenching end-of-the-world scare, I urge you to plan something different. With or without the people closest to you, something you might not have even thought of before. It could be an experience or a destination that wasn’t in any bucket list. Meet people who travel a completely different walk of life, volunteer for something that you might be interested or truly care about. Talk to someone who might not have all that you have and hear their story. Each person has a story to tell and many have had it harder than you. It’s sort of a reality check because it’s someone else’s reality and I promise it will be more rewarding than you think. You can always help someone, as there is always someone who is in a worse position. The term “Why Me” will never be a justified thought and we are all privileged just to exist and lucky that we get choices and opinions!
 
Let’s all appreciate our own existence along with everyone else’s, as life is fragile and special. The world we live in is something unique and exciting that has so much for us to learn and experience. As the planets align and spin in a beautiful unison, don’t forget to be part of the rhythm that life creates.

 
 

I’d like to truly thank everyone we have met on the road, everyone we have seen and communicated even from our past lives. You have made our journey fruitful and as a stranger once told me “You must be rich a man” and he pointed to his head. You’ve made me and us as travelers rich; a unique wealth that nobody can experience unless they were there! Good luck in this next New Year! Always positive always happy, no matter what!

- Photography Courtesy of Philip Al-Hajj

- Written by Philip Al-Hajj

Revisiting – Reconnecting                     From Marauder #7 - December 2012

Sometimes we are LUCKY enough that the road we are on brings us back to places and people that were once new. It’s a sort of affirmation of their significance in our expedition to travel and be present in places that we once never knew existed. Seeing the familiar faces, remembering their names and hearing of the changes that have happened since our first visit gives the traveler the sense of real life reality that we all once had; something that is always present but is easier to get away from when constantly moving to different places. With Round 2 of our European tour one amazing thing that sticks out is the excitement and anticipation in everyone’s energy of us ‘being back’ and playing our music for them once again. It is humbling and something that can sometimes be hard to recognize but it is this that feeds the soul. It is this energy that all people need to learn how to cultivate and use to push the boundaries of comfort and familiarity for the greater picture, for the larger purpose of our existence. Sure some of these luxuries (ie: anything more than what we need to survive as human beings) are hard to rid of, but we can at least lessen their importance in role of the whole purpose. The reason I feel that this subject is something very important to be recognized is that we are starting to be enslaved by these luxuries instead of using them as tools. Many people in the past have predicted a generation of individuals who forget the importance of human interaction and are stuck with an electronic luxury that interacts for you, or gives you it’s own perception of how interaction should be. Plug in, click here, type here, upload here. Where does energy, the energy we have in us that we need to share in order to connect with our own universe come into play here? It’s an obvious decoy that is distracting everyone away from reality and creates the virtual reality that now plays a larger and more important role than the purity of looking in a person’s eyes and exchanging a smile.

Of course these tools we have at our disposal are very good to keep in touch with people far away, just like the hand written letter you used to send once upon a time with a postage stamp and a return address. Or was that a whole different thing? Finding the paper you want to write on, looking for a working pen or a sharpened pencil, physically engraving the paper with individual letters to make up the words that you are thinking and feeling. Licking the stamp and envelope, writing a name and address off the last letter you received. Walking to the mail box and letting the letter disappear; anxiously hoping that it will be sent and received and when the night falls looking up at a star and thinking about what you sent out, feeling the energy that you are receiving back. Yea, I would call this something very different and almost ancient. Much more energy and personality required to do something like that. 
In any case, we accept that things are changed, things are easier now but we have all that left over self-energy. What do we do with it? Maybe this gives us a chance to redirect it to something else, something better? We need to understand that we need to give in order to receive. We now have more energy and knowledge than ever before and a lot of it unfortunately turns into distracting noise. Instead of falling victim to noise, use that energy to clear the mind, clear the body, be as present in the real more than ever before. It could be the cure humanity needs. We all have the remedy within us and after we reach our personal silence and internal peace by recycling this internal power we are given by the universe through real communication with others. Only then will we be able to understand and be understood. Be accepting and become accepted; truly revisit the pure and liberating concept we call life. The eyes hold the truth and connecting them share the truth with the people you encounter, the people you make your family. No words or noise necessary. Like in the silence that exists in space and in the stars. A simultaneous peace, cycle and presence of everything.
Be aware and respectful of the greater picture that you are part of. Don’t waste, learn, connect, and re-connect so that we can all build the world we want it to be. As unique beings created by all these connected random events in a Time we call NOW. That brings us to our next destination; completely planned and left to fate (or chance if you prefer).



- Pictures courtesy of Chris Evans Photography, Philip Al-Hajj, Freddie Al-Hajj
- Written by Philip Al-Hajj