It was the calling of new beginnings.

I always knew that a theater as the form of art just wasn’t for me. But even though me stepping foot into a theater was a rarity, I still felt it getting closer and closer to me. A few years ago, it was so close that I decided to buy a membership at the Lithuanian National Drama Theater and find out for myself what it wanted from me. Or maybe what it wanted for me. A few days after the appearance of this thought in my mind, my friend K. called me in the middle of the night with an offer to work at the Lithuanian National Drama Theater. This new beginning was strong. It was calling out for me.

Similarly, as the summer of 2014 was approaching, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hide away from the sea. With the minimal financial resources I had and with my already planned trips in mind, I was just about to buy a freight ferry ticket from Georgia to Ukraine. But then a few days before I was going to buy the tickets, my friend M. (who once had the daunting task of sharing a tent with me at the Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark) called me and invited me to spend the August nights sailing in the Baltic sea with the last existing sailing ship in Lithuania, Brabander. This new beginning called out for me itself.

By now, you should be starting to understand what the calling of new beginnings is.

Thanks God that even though I was excited about the sea, I didn’t really expect anything from it and didn’t prepare too much. I knew that if a new beginning was calling out for me, I would have to devote my whole self to it, listen, and communicate with it. The fact that I didn’t expect anything was the reason why this powerful new beginning instantly and completely overwhelmed me. First of all - physically. But I probably don’t need to tell you that physicality is but a mere reflection of everything.

As I began sailing in Brabander, I wondered if a seasickness would also call out for me. I egoistically believed that if this beginning was putting so much effort to call out for me, then maybe it wouldn’t be so physically harsh. However, even at this moment, I can easily say that I’ve never felt as physically horribly throughout my entire life as I did then, even considering all of my childhood games that led to broken noses and legs. You just want to die, fall asleep, or maybe wake up? Pretty much anything that would pull you out of that agony of a moment, but you can’t do anything not only at that moment but also in the approaching myriads of them. Although there were plenty of younger people on the ship, I certainly had the worst of it.

There was one mundane mistake that added to this - as you’re in your watch (a 4-hour working shift on a ship), you eat a penny-sized piece of bread, drink 50 ml of water, and puke everything out 20 minutes later. Then, you repeat the process. And then once your watch is over, all you want to do is lay down, after which you dread the thought of putting anything in your mouth. Once you have nothing to puke out, you begin to puke out gastric acid. Basically, you put your body through complete hell and it just keeps getting worse.

Of course, neither this mundane mistake nor the statements of my acquaintances that every person’s vestibular system individually defines and determines a certain “degree of seasickness”, didn’t seem like acceptable explanations for seasickness. With that logic, you could also say that some drug dealer died of heart damage, which happened after his heart was hit by a bullet. No. His death was the materialization of a series of self-harming factors, the energetics of which surfaced in the real world, where many physical principles exist.

One thing was for sure - the sea had expressed its cardinal position before me. And at this moment still, I leave it for the future to find out the direction of this position. In part, the sea seemed to be stating very clearly that my place was on land. But then again, how many of the closest people in my life did I have an instant connection with from the very beginning? Not all of them. Some relationships would often start off cold. I look forward to having more conversations with this new beginning.

If there weren’t any strong storms, each young person on board the ship had to spend at least one hour out of their 4-hour watch (each of us had two a day) standing at the helm and steering the ship. I was standing at the helm on one sunny day when a girl came up to me and asked me if I realized that I was steering a ship in the middle of the Baltic sea.

This was when I first felt the true magic of the sea. In one of my previous travel posts, I mentioned my game of a non-focused gaze, which allowed me to take everything in using my senses while accepting the views and the energetically-weak people as part of the game’s scenography.

Even at the moment that you write in a 0 for the swell score in the logbook, you still feel quite a bit of rocking. And when your body is rocking, you can’t fully focus your gaze on anything – several times, we sailed past huge cargo ships, which were supposed to be a truly spectacular view. But whenever you’d try to focus your eyes on them, you’d feel like you’re in a dream because you just couldn’t focus your gaze.

So as you try to communicate with the sea, you feel like you’re constantly in a dream or a surreal space. I was happy to realize this because I always try to live similarly on land, and the sea effortlessly demonstrated the surrealism of everything around me without me even putting in any effort.

So my answer to the girl was no. I didn’t realize that I was steering a ship in the middle of the Baltic sea. How could you possibly focus your mind on such a thought when you’re surrounded by such a surrealistic reality?

Although our sailing ship was being guided by an extremely strong wolfpack of a team (more on the guide’s importance later), I was mostly fascinated by the fact that during storms, none of us were one-hundred-percent sure that we would survive. Of course, I’m not suggesting that there was any panic, bad decision-making, or unprofessionalism. There wasn’t any of this. I’m talking about what I could energetically read off of the crew. It was precisely this feeling of knowing the small probability that you could die that kept attracting the wolves back to the sea. After all, life should always be exciting. And what could be more exciting than going all-in with everything you have?

Let’s get back to the guide - the meaning and importance of having a guide is very rarely noticed. We spend a huge part of our lives consciously, or sometimes unconsciously, choosing guides and moving forward in our own paths using their thoughts and ideas.

I remember when I was about eighteen years old and it seemed that because of my youthful energy and a need for maximalism, I could live without relying on any contexts, on any role models, and just move forward at my own discretion. But even back then, I still had certain guides that were actually my role models. I had a very clear feeling of where I needed to be. But in order to get where you want, you need a clear plan and you need to know the steps you need to take, which will always require some sort of guide.

At a similar age, in 11th grade, I remember describing a feeling I was having as getting into the holy inner circle. All of the powerful authors I had read would always leave references to other powerful authors in their works. Similarly, I became surrounded by a few powerful people in my life, who would point out essential books, musicians, and people in the movie world. In order to further strengthen this game of direction within myself, I promised myself back then that I would only devote my time to those works, thoughts, and places that I would find out about from at least one of my powerful acquaintances and at least from one authors or artists.

I’m now happy because it was this conscious, or sometimes unconscious, journey with the guides in my life that brought me to where I am today.

One of the biggest problems that humanity is faced with today is the disastrous overload of information. This is precisely what causes noise and prevents people from discovering their own role models, their own guides. This all leads to people becoming sets of thoughts of random, pseudo role models - TV presenters, ads, pseudo internet heroes, energetically and spiritually weak politicians, as well as other weak, noisy sources.

Unfortunately, most people don’t get to experience the happiness of being part of the holy inner circle, and never will.

Also, I noticed that this holy inner circle model can be applied not only in the context of books but also in the context of the real world. In this case, you’re not only naturally brought to the highest-class works or books but also to great and powerful people. This is precisely what happened during my trip last summer. My sudden realization of the importance of a guide, which I just described to you, made me thank God for sending me a captain as amazing as V.

Of course, V. had many responsibilities on board, so he didn’t have the time to build strong connections with all of the dozen people on board. Lucky for me, we got along perfectly from the very beginning. I would never miss the opportunity to have a chat with V. when he was at the wheel. And he did the same when I was at the wheel. Oh, the things we talked about. From how V. dealt with one of the most dangerous criminal gangs in Lithuania at the time when he was the mayor of Panevėžys, to my journeys with my bagpipes.

If I were to describe another person’s experiences throughout this journey, who most likely didn’t even question the meaning of every single minor event, then you’d get a 20-page description of all of the events and adventures that took place. There were certainly plenty of mundane things, as well. However, as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I like to extract something big and absolute from the small, mundane things. After all, another huge problem these days is the inability to observe ourselves and our environment from the perspective of absolute time and eternity. Nevertheless, as this post comes to an end, I can’t resist mentioning a few beautiful and mundane things and events from this journey.

First of all, I was fascinated by the ship as a means of traveling. It was a true pleasure to dock in Gdynia, Gdansk, the capital of Gotland island - Visby, or in any other city and enjoy everything it had to offer, knowing that your floating hotel was right there waiting for you. You really begin to understand and feel what it’s like to be a sailor.

Of course, it’s hard to imagine any trip of mine without music. It was a pleasure to begin each morning on board raising the flag and playing my bagpipes, just as much of a pleasure as it was to spend many evenings in different cities also playing my bagpipes. I was especially inspired by G., who absolutely excelled at his guitar and perfectly complemented my guitar and singing. We felt amazing when playing our music at night by the Gdansk city gates, when arranging a concert for the Polish and Lithuanian ship crews by the Swedish islands, or just when playing around with our music each night.

It was a true honor to get to meet the legend of the ship - the 70-year-old cook V. When he found out on our very first day that I didn’t eat meat, he said to me, no joke, that he wouldn’t cook for invalids. But after a few days of getting to know each other, he would cook separate meals for me and serve them to me personally:)

It feels great to sit here, exactly one year later, and describe the events of the last summer. I don’t feel sad that it’s all in the past, and I don’t feel sad that I’ll probably never see the legendary cook V. ever again. I’m totally calm about both of these things because I know that all of this will always exist in that surreal space, in that exact moment - V. baking patties, M. climbing up the mast, the captain standing at the wheel, looking far into the horizon.

It’s good to communicate with forms more powerful than yourself.