A wonderful mountain hut trip, beautiful views, and the ridge life in Bulgaria (October 2022)

Artha had the idea of spending a few days in the Bulgarian mountains: enjoying nature, hiking, chilling, and sleeping in the mountain huts. She wanted to show her brother the mountains, and when she asked me if I would like to accompany them, I was immediately enthusiastic about the idea.

We packed our backpacks and took two trains from Varna to Dobrinishte in the Pirin national park. For me, it was the first time I went hiking and mountaineering with a big backpack, and when we got on the train, I felt that I had taken too much stuff. The train was super cool. In Germany, it’s super rare to get a real train. A train that makes noises, rattles in its own beat over the rails, and lets its horn shout before it passes a street. And after we changed to the second train, it got even better! This one got really, really slow and crawled up the mountains at about 40 km/h or less through tight corners, forests, past cliffs and the views were fantastic. We saw a beautiful sunrise and the ten to eleven hour train ride felt like a good transition from the city to the mountains.

From Dobrinishte we hiked and hitched to the base of Mount Bezbog. When I had been on that mountain with Rosinante, I drove all the way to the Bezbog hut (open the post about that), and this time we hiked there. It was interesting to feel the difference between these two ways.

We planned to stay one night at the Bezbog hut, but since it was still quite early, we continued on our way to the Bezbog summit. I loved how easy and straightforward we made this change of plans. Lake Bezbog was as beautiful as I remembered and the weather was perfect. From Bezbog peak we went to Polezhan peak. And there we changed our plan and headed for Demyanitsa hut.

But instead of taking the main trails, we chose the more direct route. The view was breathtaking, but as time went by the path became more and more difficult and the trail markings became less and less. We climbed down over large rocks and loose, icy slopes. We lost the trail and it took us hours to cover a few kilometers. It felt exciting and super adventurous. But I noticed I was unfocused and slipped a little several times. Artha and her brother felt the same way, and we all felt the hours we had already hiked. But as the sunlight dimmed, we had done the tricky part and I felt very good. At this point, I felt super good with my big backpack. It almost felt like a part of me.

I had never hiked in the mountains in the dark before and felt like would prefer not doing it. But as darkness fell, it felt super easy and it was nice to explore the mountains in a different way. The sounds felt more intense and it was wonderful. When we arrived at the Demyanitsa hut, we were tired and super hungry. The hut seemed empty, but then we met a woman and were overjoyed to find the kitchen still in operation. The bean soup, the fries, and the bread tasted so good… At that point there could not have been any better.

After a refreshing and vital night, we continued our journey. The next destination was the Vihren hut. On the way there, I felt the connection between Artha and me change (as I described in the last post), but this time I felt very different about it. Instead of thinking and in a way telling myself that it’s all good, I felt pure compassion for her and me and a strong equanimity. Before it had been feeling like I was calming myself with thoughts on mental comments. Now it felt pure and loveful. I felt happy about it. Relieved and happy. But a part of me was desperate to share this new way that felt so healthy and good. And the person I most wanted to share it with, I couldn’t reach out to.

On our way to Vihren hut, we came along beautiful lakes, peaks, and trails, took breaks to meditate and the weather was still perfect.

The next morning, we got up very early before sunrise because the route we had planned was the longest of our mountain tour. I had never seen a sunrise while hiking up a peak. It was wonderful! The sun crept slowly over peaks, her light cast moving shadows on cliffs and slopes, and the colors and their changes were magnificent.

When I had been at Vihren summit on my own, there had been absolutely no view (open the post about it). This time we had a magnificent view and even better, our route took us to a neighboring peak where we had a gorgeous view of the rock face of Vihren Peak that I loved so much. From there, we took a route along the most beautiful ridge I’ve ever seen. I love ridges and hiking on them. This one was fantastic!

Our route took us down the mountain to Yavorov hut, where we spent our last night in the mountains. The next day we hiked to Razlog and spent some time there until our first train would leave. There, a funny thing happened. It seemed to me that Artha was opening towards me again, but I still had the impression that she was looking for a fight or something. It was strange, but interesting. In the end, we had a fight. But a completely over-the-top, silly one that was more fun than anything else. And it felt liberating and compassionate. And again there was this transformation of heavy energy into something else.

We took the slow train down the mountains and it was super cool again. On the train that took us back to Varna, we slept for most of the ride.

All the days of this trip I felt super fit and like I could go on and on. I thought about what it would be like to travel with a mule again.

Mutual triggering, pain patterns, and the analytical way (October 2022)

When I was not in Varna, I spent my time at that magnificent beach, which Artha and I had discovered on our trip to the south. This place was just perfect for beach life and life in nature. I found an awesome spot for Rosinante right between the beach and the sand dunes.

Every morning, I took a run on the beach, through the dunes, and through the forest. And these mornings were super magical: when the sun hit the ocean wafting clouds of water emerged from it to dissolve shortly after in a soft breath of the wind. There were only a few other people from time to time and life there felt good, calm, and profound. For one week, I had neighbors from Germany and France who lived about two kilometers down the beach. We had nice and interesting conversations about the minimalistic and cheap car life.

For weeks I switched between Varna and the beach and it felt like this life at that beach allowed me to deeply feel, digest, and process the experiences of the city life with Artha.

As strong as the unconditional love and connection between Artha and me was, as strong was our mutual triggering. Sometimes it felt like the universe had brought us together to let us grow with each other. That we just were the perfect match in all regards. Including our triggers. The energies between us were so dynamic and strong… I remember that I told a friend that with Artha and me everything was possible. Even killing each other I could not rule out. We were never aggressive toward each other, but it just felt like really everything was possible.

Artha and I had profound conversations about our feelings, emotions, past, triggers, and everything else and this exchange felt so intense and healing to me than very few things or times in my life had been before. I believe that it felt like that because this unconditional love and compassion between us was always present and undoubted.

For example, I described to her how some of my triggers
in romantic relationships had been working. A big part of my life these patterns had been very strong. At that time in Bulgaria with Artha, the triggers did not go so hard and mostly the process stopped pretty early in this cascade of emotions, triggers, and thoughts.

But still, I described the whole thing: I was feeling very stressed for a good part of my past. These stress levels went up and down like waves. The reasons for feeling stressed may arise when I was adding a lot of ego stuff to the things I was doing and experiencing. When I was feeling stressed, a habit/ mechanism/ pattern got triggered more easily. But most easily it got triggered when a deeply loved person changed the behavior she is showing towards me in a way that my ego perceived as negative and unpleasant. When my small ego added stories based on my fears to this change of behavior the triggering got intense. The closer I felt connected to a person, the higher the potential of the triggering to happen got and the higher the potential of strength got. I thought it was like that because the fear increases if the ego feels like there is more to lose.

Once triggered, I felt insufficient and like I was not capable of being right, doing things right, or being enough and therefore I felt like I did not deserve the love of anybody. If I did not recognize and accept this arising of doubt, I was feeling like I’ll lose the love of the other person. Mostly this made me feel sad. It triggered a fear of being alone and not loved in me. When I was not triggered, I felt not strongly dependent on external love but when I was triggered, this feeling of dependence arose strongly.

I was starting to feel annoyed by this feeling of my inability and that started frustrating and stressing me. And this stress even triggered me more. I was losing the love and compassion for myself which added to the triggering and a whirlwind of heavy energy caught me.

Shortly after that, I was transforming/ projecting this annoyance from myself onto the other person. So I start to feel annoyed with the other person. I started to search for “mistakes” the other person made. For something that my ego resonated with and that made it feel attacked. It felt like a protective mechanism to make me feel better and somehow tell myself that it is not me who is wrong but the other person.

From there on a part of me was searching for mistakes and “wrong” things about the other person. The perceiving of the behaviors, opinions, and basically everything I had loved about the other person, would now turn completely. I was getting annoyed by basically everything the other person was doing. I got mad at her and sometimes I even started to hate her. Sometimes I recognized this unfair twist and that did even add strength to the trigger because then I was feeling mad and annoyed by myself as well.

A part of me started searching for reasons that would show me that I did not like or need the other person. So that if the other person would leave me, I would be fine with that and I would even appreciate it. A part of me started to persuade itself that I did not want to have whatever relationship with that person in the first place.

I was starting to reject that person to protect myself from getting hurt if she would reject me. So basically this whole thing seems to be about the fear of getting rejected, not loved, and being alone.

When or through what I had established this mechanism, I don’t know. I think at least a part of it is like a basic human pattern that gets pushed by the small mind/ ego.

Right now as I’m writing this all of that sounds so analytical and thoughtful. Like desperately searching for an intellectual, logical explanation that gives a sense to whatever happens. And I guess, that at least partly it was exactly that.

Artha and I were opening more and more to each other. And it felt like this opening would never stop. Like we dived together into each other and everything was possible. And this process felt like healing unhealthy patterns and concepts nested deep, deep inside of me. But it was very challenging and demanding as well. Sometimes I felt I would like to flee. I thought about running away from everything and just continuing to travel somewhere south. But at the same time that did just not feel right. And I loved Artha so much in so many ways and that strong connection between us felt so unique and profound.

To be continued…