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A Final Manifestation: Wandering Chicago & Journals from an Epic 175 Day Adventure

Published 2012/06/28 by Andrew M. Crusoe with 3 Comments
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Today is an especially auspicious day, for today is the completion of the story of my West Coast Adventure.

That’s right. After so many dozens of entries, covering hidden gems, incredible landmarks, and lessons learned, we’ve finally come to the end of the West Coast Adventure series. (Though never fear. There are many more adventures coming up soon, including a wonderful second-look at Chicago, and an epic East Coast Adventure after that.)

Yet before I finally set foot in Wisconsin again, I took a final photo set during a brief exploration of Chicago with a new friend (selections from this photoset can be found farther down). And, in honor of this being the final article in the series, I’m going to do something I don’t normally do. I’m going to share with you some private entries from my personal log.

As you’ll soon learn, my short time in Chicago went extremely well. Here’s what I had to say about it on the final day of my adventure:

Direct from the Journal

2009.11.12; 13.13
Chicago, IL

My last host was and is a truly excellent final host for this trip. Her name is Alyssa, and we have a series of improbable things in common. Yesterday we went around, just walking downtown taking photos of the oddities of this Second City called Chicago. We even found an enclosed alley with a black iron staircase going up to a few small patios tucked away in the middle of the block. We went to a man-made beach near Navy Pier. We bought fruits, vegetables, and tortillas. But we parted ways after, I heading back to her place to prepare the rice (which takes the longest). She wanted to go to a yoga class. I returned home; but about 15 minutes later, she walked in.

She told me she decided to do some yoga at home instead, and I was so happy. This meant that I would have enough time to show her how to prepare and sauté the vegetables and to show her the delicacies of cooking rice to perfection. We had a great evening and even had time to watch the first 25 minutes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie that she had never seen before. She was really enjoying it. Too bad she started falling asleep. (She’s an early riser because of her teaching job. In fact, staying here has helped me go to sleep earlier.)

It seems my intentions are really starting to manifest now.
Only 3 days before, I wrote this intention:

I set out the intention that I’ll have more energy than I’ve had over the past couple days, that at the perfect time I’ll find a ride that can drop me off in Wisconsin, and that my remaining hosts will be wonderful, encouraging, and caring.

Energy, check.
Ride (even better than I anticipated), check.
Wonderful host, check.

I may go back and add entries from my new intention journal.

Booyah.

Looking back, this was one of my best early experiences with consciously using Intention-Manifestation while travelling, and things worked out incredibly well. I can only attribute my positive experience with a positive attitude, combined with proactive actions (such as posting on Craigslist and keeping an eye out for others posting), and not being too attached to one specific outcome. These three attributes served me immeasurably during my travels. And writing these down in an intention journal helped me clarify them and release the intentions out into the Universe. :)

Still, November 12th was my 175th day, and I knew things would never be the same. I wasn’t the same person who had left from Wisconsin over 5 months previously. And even before I arrived in Chicago, I contemplated this:

2009.11.02; 13.47
Denver, CO
Sometimes I wonder how life will be when I return. Certainly things won’t ever be the same, at least not within me. This trip has changed me, in some ways more subtly than others. I feel well-rounded, more confident, and every day I feel more that this trip was meant to be, that it was part of a path that I was meant to walk down, though I had to choose it.

As Within, So Without

And I am eternally grateful that I did. Now that I look back on that incredible, ineffable experience that the West Coast Adventure was, I am so grateful that I took a chance, relied on the kindness of “strangers”, and pushed myself to grow. In the end, I realized that I hadn’t only been exploring the United States for the past 5 months. I had been exploring myself. My desires, my limits, and my values. In fact, as I was doing research for this article, I came across this small entry that I made when I was back in California, two months before my adventure came to a close.

And I can’t say it much better than I did back in that blustery September:

2009 September
Bay Area, CA

I was born in a place of blue skies. Some of the bluest blue you’ve ever seen. With greens that kept their green, even into Autumn. I was young when I left, and now I find myself back, the sum total of an uncounted number of small decisions and works of Providence.

I have been exploring lately, and at first I thought I was exploring the land. Now I see that I’ve been exploring myself all the while, what I’m capable of, what I really want, what drives me in this current existence that people call a Life.

I’ve been learning self-honesty and self-acceptance.

I seek to blow all my assumptions about life out of the water. I will experience life more fully, more lovingly, and more powerfully than I ever have before.

I GROW,
Andrew

And I did. :)

Photos

Vertical House above garage

Hidden Alley between buildings

Packed streets of Downtown Chicago

— Bonus —

Marco appears in all 6 photos in the accompanying photo gallery. If you’re new to the “Where’s Marco” game, it’s similar to “Where’s Waldo” or “I Spy”. Don’t worry. He’s bright in every photo, so be sure to look for him in the bright spots.

Learn how to play —>
Then find him in the photos! —>

Epilogue

Hilariously enough, I arrived at 11.22PM on 2009.11.12. (I’d found a ride passing near where I live, the craigslist ad of which was posted ironically enough at 11.11AM.) For those of you who don’t really care about number significance, you can safely ignore this, but I found it amusingly synchronistic.

Being November in Wisconsin, I wasn’t surprised that there was a chill in the air that night. But that was alright. I was home. After 175 days, I was finally home.

For those of you who have kept up with this series and have provided feedback or left comments, I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU. As I said above, there are many more adventures coming up soon, including a wonderful second-look at Chicago, and an epic East Coast Adventure after that. Not to mention some interviews with some of my favorite travel writers of all time! So stay tuned, and stay in touch. :)

A Hint of What’s To Come

2009.11.17; 17.37
Once again, November 17th holds significance. Today I started my novel, for real this time. Sure, I’ve had a few false starts in the past, but now I’m really feeling it. The basic idea of the novel is that I am actually creating a universe as I write. Not all authors acknowledge this, but they all do it.

However, I do acknowledge that I’m creating a universe, and have therefore named the book PROTOVERSE, at least tentatively. The name may already be taken, but for now that’s its code name.

Not gonna lie: the book has already been written and is currently being edited. I’m pretty excited; and if you like SF/Adventure/Philosophy as a genre, you may be in for a surprise quite soon.

*sigh* Time to make another website… ;)

— — —

See how the West Coast Adventure started ↩

— — —

All accompanying photos are in the Wandering Chicago photo gallery. With so much free, high-quality content, why not tell a friend and share this article?

Or select a city to explore its attractions:

USA West Coast map

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How I used Intention-Manifestation to stop an Identity Theft (& had fun doing it)

Published 2011/12/14 by Andrew M. Crusoe with 6 Comments
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On Sunday afternoon, I went on a rescue mission.

It’s not often that my explorations have such a narrowly defined end-goal. Usually, they’re more open-ended in nature. But this time, someone’s identity was at stake; so I ventured out into the brisk December air, focused on accomplishing my goal.

The nature of the mission was simple: retrieve a lost social security card that had gone mysteriously missing. It must be kept from falling into the wrong hands. And in the process of searching, I instinctively used the intention-manifestation model of reality (also known as the Law of Attraction) to help me find it, soon realizing that sometimes finding what you really want is more effortless than finding what you don’t.

The card belonged to my brother, who lives nearby; and he had been very concerned since it had gone missing. I can’t say I blame him. After all, identity theft is a serious concern. And even though electronic identity theft gets a lot of attention these days, the majority of theft still occurs through paper means.

Clearly, retrieving this social security card was paramount. (The last thing anyone needs is someone pretending to be them.) And since I had some extra time on Sunday, I decided to wander around the place where he thought he’d lost it. What I didn’t realize until later was that I had instinctively used the intention-manifestation mindset… with unexpected results.

How to use Intention-Manifestation

I’ve already written about how I used the intention-manifestation model to get paid to travel 1,000 miles, but I’m going to restate it here in case you haven’t read that article yet.

Here’s how it works:

  • I made the decision
  • From that decision, I stated what I wanted to happen: “I will find the SSN card.”
  • I had faith that this would be resolved. I let the universe “Make It So.”
  • I let the intention go. I didn’t cling to it. (This is very important for it to work.)

The best theory was that the card had been placed, along with some other documents, atop a car and then forgotten about. Thankfully, he already had a good idea of where he might have lost it, so I began doing a wide sweep of that area. It had rained recently, but everything had since dried, leaving everything a bit cleaner than usual.

I walked for some time, shuffling through small piles of leaves along the road with my foot. On my way around the block, I came across a small piece of paper in the middle of the road. It was the right size, but was it his card?

No. It was a tiny promotion for some new pop album, and I continued my search. Along the way, I came across other fragments of paper, but they were always receipts or bits of wrapper.

A Clue that Followed Clarity

Nearly back at where I’d started, I finally saw something interesting. With a slightly different vantage point, I now saw a fragment of something white covered in leaves on the edge of the street. I ran over and brushed the leaves aside. It was my brother’s latest bank statement!

“Look gang, a clue!”

He must have had his SSN card folded up inside of it, but it wasn’t in there now. I knew I was close. I could smell victory. I began walking along the edge of the street for a moment, but for some reason stepped up and began walking down the sidewalk. And then, I was stunned by what I saw.

Lying atop green grass, in perfect plain sight, was the social security card.

My eyes widened as I crouched down and picked it up. I had actually found it. With a combination of persistence, faith, and clarity, I had manifested what I was looking for; and when I returned it to him, my brother was quite relieved to have it back. (In case you’re not familiar with social security numbers, I should explain that if I hadn’t found the card, it’s possible that someone could have taken is social security number off of the card and damaged his credit, or worse.)

Make It So!

Only later did I realize that I had used the intention-manifestation model to accomplish my mission. Nowadays it’s become a habit of mine to state what I want verbally and then release the intention with faith. Often, this produces some surprising results. The key is to remember that if you doubt it in your mind, then you’ll find doubt all around you. But by being very clear about what I wanted, releasing the intention with faith, and putting in focused effort toward my goal, I manifested the outcome I wanted with much less effort than I would have ever guessed. In fact, using intention-manifestation can be a blast if you maintain a playful attitude. :)

Have you ever used the intention-manifestation model? Remember that when you do, it’s key to release your desire with faith. There can be no clinging to a specific outcome. When you release it with faith, you have faith that it will manifest in the most natural way possible.

What about you? What’s your goal? Say it out loud right now, and then tell the universe, “Make it so.” Strange coincidences and synchronicities will arrive, and when they do, follow them.

They may even seem strange, but by following them, you allow your goal to manifest.

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