Strength in Sustainability

I arrived at True Nature Farm nearly two weeks ago where I am blessed to take up residence for the next six months. My tent sits on the ridge above our small community of eight. It is a sacred spot, only yards from a grave site full of animal bones. there was fresh deer scat at the spot when I arrived. I meditated in the area and asked for permission to say and received a resounding yes. I am humbled each time I return to my new 'home'.

I am surprised by my physical strength as I work in the garden, digging new beds, lifting loaded wheel barrows, or working with the Israeli ho, which have proved to be very therapeutic. I keep expecting to wake up with the familiar ache I have come accustomed to and to my relief, it does not happen. My body, which has had a difficult time keeping up with my ever shifting Self, seems to finally be meeting up with my spirit, although I am still re-membering and learning to trust my physical being again.

In addition to learning about Permaculture and sustainability, I continue to work on personal sustainability. Weekly we have a dream tracking group and sit in council together weekly as well. I am grateful that my longing for council will be met here, in our small community at the farm and the greater community of Boulder, Utah.  This past week I was reminded of how one persons dream can affect someone else (in this case myself) on a deeply profound level.

I attempt to visit my sit spot daily but the last couple of days have been full with the garden, council, a potluck and movie in Boulder Town, a community I can easily see myself falling in love with. Right now I am sitting at the Kiva Koffehouse watching the snow dump on top of the Red Rock, full of gratitude and only slightly concerned about how my tent is holding up in the weather.

What about the how?

Although it's been a great week I'm feeling tired and a little defeated today. I've come down with a chest cold, aches and chills and the whole bit. It's made me extra sensitive and I'm easily irritated or brought to tears. The other night I was watching the Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford commencement address. As he spoke about following your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, trusting that the dots will connect, I sobbed, "I'm trying to follow heart". I'm trying.

"Should I being doing more?" I kept asking today. A couple of opportunities have come up to make more money, but none of them have come through.  It's not about doing, I'm doing what I can. I'm not perfect, I may have gone out to dinner when I shouldn't or maybe I should have worked a full day yesterday even though I'm sick. I can see myself  in what my heart is moving me towards. Will that be enough? "Go forward with an open heart". Here I am. Raw, naked, with all of my beautiful flaws and trusting and yes, I get scared.

It's not that I really want to live in a tent for six months. There is nothing romantic about using an outhouse for the same amount of time. It's just that I feel in my heart this apprenticeship to be an important part of my path. All of the work I've done has confirmed it. I can't help but ask, how will I get there?

Comfort came from an unexpected source. A conversation with my father. My Dad is the best man I've ever known. It's not easy for him to reach out to me these days, yet he did. A simple, five minute phone call inquiring about how my plans are going, But not only that, when I went into the reasons the farm fits my path, he seemed to understand and trust me. As I hung up the phone I felt, for the first time in weeks that I'll get there. And if not, I'm learning A LOT along the way.

So I'll go forward with my plans not knowing but trusting. I'll show up with my stories and my gratitude, wherever that may be. And whether or not my path leads me to where I believe it is meant to go, I'll know I did everything I could to get there.

I happened upon a poem tonight, written by one of my favorites, that really struck a chord.

Loaves and Fishes

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

~David Whyte

I have a lot to say, I've yet to find my voice.

Teacher to Teacher

I did not make any new years resolutions. Last month, I began a practice of setting intentions on every new moon, and releasing every full moon. I think setting intentions monthly does not call for any shallow ambitions to be made January 1st, most likely unrealized or unpracticed by February only to be brought up again or even forgotten by next year.  I will practice being gentle with my Self, an ongoing practice too significant for 2012 alone. A friend of mine mentioned that she likes to pick a word for the year. I like this and picked two today: Gratitude and Amazement.

This week alone a good word for me is humility as I cling onto old habits. One particular habit that I did not, until recently, know that I had any chance of going back too. Even as I write tonight I'm listening to a heart wrenching Cat Power song and finding comfort in the grief that resonates through the melody. But, being gentle, I'm giving myself permission to listen to sad songs for an hour or so. Winter is a time of turning inward and I am so in it. But I did not choose to do my work because I thought it would be easy and it certainly isn't as I go even deeper. I have no regrets.

Back to the gratitude part. I am so grateful for and in awe of the incredible teachers that have shown up in my life. I was working with one such teacher tonight who has become very dear to me. We dug into my past. There's more?! Of course there's more. But before we started he asked in what ways I thought I affected him. I thought about it for a moment. "Laughter", I answered. "And tenderness. You can be kind of a hard ass and I am somehow able to get past that, bring out your gentle side." We moved onto to the work but thinking about this later, I was amazed. One of the intentions I set during my last ceremony was to be shown ways to bring my gifts into this world. I forget sometimes (okay often times) that I am always sharing my gifts, although they are sometimes subtle and I can be to stubborn to see. I also recognized that this teacher was saying you teach me.

One doesn't have to work with a Shaman or a mentor to have teachers. A teacher may take the form of a lover, a friend, an enemy or a bird in the wild or someone that has gone before us. Once I opened myself up to being taught I began to realize that we are all teachers, yes, including me. 

Poetry from Peru

There was one who became love
Who became knowing
Like a ravenous river slowed down
by nature's source
Coming out of the eddy
Unattached to any branch or stone
In her own beautiful way
She manifests a story without words
Tending to the same garden
Nurturing the same soil
By the wind she dances
Without comparison or admiration
In awe of the movement that
belongs to stillness
She once bore a name that is no longer hers
____

I woke this morning to the sound of Rooster
And I am blessed again with the opportunity
to witness the day come alive.
I hear pounding in my chest and know that it
belongs to my Self and the morning dawn.
Padreo and Luna my eyes know yours.
Although you may not remember me
you will know a visitor held you here.
Home wherever I go
I may return to this place where I
lost my Self and remembered everything
Here, I took courage.
____

I could spend a thousand days like this one
Lost in the stillness of my own heart
Charged by the sun
And words I don't understand
____

In you I've loved, hardly laughed and nearly died
With all of my being I thank you
Knowing you did the best you knew how
I love you and I give you to Madre Titicacca
With a stillness, a peace in my heart and with
gratitude

I'll make no more apologies for you or for me
All the beauty in this life belongs to both of us
If you refuse to look, you will not see
_____

My Love, My Heart
Where the Earth dances and the moon calls herself Luna
I came to sing your story
To know it as a river running through me
In the web that makes up this life
I've only began to weave without you
Watch over me as I you
Now without weight, without strings
I give to you your wings
And in gratitude I too take flight
With Grace

Practices and Peru

Wow. I am going to Peru at the end of the month. In my heart, I've known that I am going but it just became official last week. The Peru thing has  been such a journey for me already and the physical journey is over three weeks away. Oh my God, it's only three weeks away!

Here are some gifts that my journey with Peru has helped me remember and continue to put into practice.

• Don't be attached to the outcome. This has been a great one for me and takes a lot of practice. Peru started with a possible job offer that I was really excited about. Said job would incorporate my previous experience and fit the some of the criteria I had not even specified until job offer got put on hold. Which leads me to the next little pearl I've received from Peru.....
• I have a greater understanding what it is that I want. This is not necessarily something that Peru can take credit for but when the job offer seemed like it had fallen through a dear friend asked me what had attracted me to Peru. I listed off five or six things pretty quickly and realized, "Oh, this is exactly what I want to create". A year ago when I left my job I had know idea what that was. My life experience (particularly in the last year) has helped me to refine that list.
• It is okay to ask for help. This is an ongoing journey for me and I know it will continue to show up until I figure it out. I have the ability to make things happen and sometimes that consists of reaching out for support.
• Anything you can plan is too small. So I'm not planning a lot. The first two weeks in Peru will consist of "tours" with Theo, Nancy and some others. This will involve visiting archeological sites, ceremony, spiritual growth, and so much more yet to be discovered. For the second half of the trip I am on my own with only a place to stay and a small budget and pray that I will have the courage to open my heart to whatever is in store.  
• The present is the greatest gift we have. This goes along with with "anything you can plan....". No, I do not know what I'm going to do after Peru, although that was immediately where I went once my ticket was booked.  I've since pulled those reins in. It is so important that I be present with this in order to be open to the gifts that wait for me in Peru. I have a couple of ideas of what I'd like to do next but as I've learned, Mystery may have other plans. I know that I have a return ticket to Salt Lake City on November 4th although I have know idea where or what I'm returning to. This is how I've living my life the last year, not knowing specifics but trusting the path.
• Gratutitude. Thank you to those of you that have shown me love, support and trust in this. Trusting that this trip is an important part of my journey although I am not certain what it has in store for me other than I believe in my heart that it has an important role in cultivating my gifts. Specifically, thanks to Nancy, Dave, Blake and Steph for your outpouring of support. Also to my friends, old an new for your encouragement.

I'm scared but I know when the time comes I will step into this journey with strength of spirit and heart, thinking beautifully :)

With Gratitude

I go into this month full of gratitude. As I recognize my gratitude the tears well up. After a week of spiritual healing and growth I feel a strength inside of me and it is so good to be in that place. All of it, everything I need, love or want to create, it's all inside of me.

Of recent, I have known grief, and I've know the love that comes after grief. Big love. I've not had a home but have found home wherever I go, with new and old friends, family that I've loved and family that I'm just getting to know. Relationships have shifted and there has been loss. As difficult as this is, the shift in old relationships has made way for new ones. My body has been through a great shift, a detox of sorts and it has changed. It is softer and looks different and I'm starting to see my Self differently. There are no more secrets and in the place of secrets is strength and authenticity. I am loving in a way I had forgotten that I knew how. I have re-membered. Two of my favorite people have vowed to be partners today, two people that were always going to be together.

I am learning to work with my gifts. Many of them do not have a name. There are beautiful goings on around me. I know my name. A year ago I did not know what I wanted to be or even what I was walking away from. Now I know what I walk toward and I do so with my head held high and a spark in my eyes. "Pathmaker, there is no path. The path is made by walking."