Going Off-Grid

For about two months, I've been off Facebook and a bit off-grid. I'm currently living in a tiny house on a bluff overlooking Discovery Bay in Port Townsend. Before that, I lived for a month out on Bush Point on Whidbey Island overlooking the water. Ever since my classes went online due to the Coronavirus, I haven't felt the desire to be in the city. For the most part, I've lived pretty unplugged and it's been the biggest blessing. Some may say that I don't care about what's going on. It really depends on your perspective of things.  I've felt called to work more inwardly than outwardly. One is not better than the other. It is just what you feel called to do. That is IT! I'm not here to judge what you are doing and hopefully you are not here to judge what I'm doing. Hopefully we can see the benefit of all of it. Hopefully we can reach a place where we value what each human is moved to do or be, regardless of whether it fits into our ideas of things. As long as we are not intentionally harming anyone and the motivation is one of love, I think all paths are valid.

Out here in the tiny house, I'm called each day to hike down the bluff to the water and walk the long stretch of beach that is virtually empty of people. Every now and then I may see a soul or two, but not often. Instead of people, I'm communing with the blue herons, eagles, hawks, ravens, otters and seals. For some time now, I've been communing with wild animals. They seem to speak a language that I understand or am beginning to understand. Today a blue heron landed in a pine branch above my head. Have you ever seen a blue heron land in front of you. Those things are mammoth and look like pterodactyls. The energy of this animal is amazing. And to witness a bald eagle eye-level with me on the bluff as I sit quietly in a chair on the edge of the cliff, well, there's no other place I'd rather be.

The eagle speaks to me these days. He's the symbol of our times. Well, the eagle is the symbol of our country, yet maybe we've forgotten what it symbolizes on a spiritual level. The eagle sits high above the fray. It observes. It doesn't jump into this or that easily, it looks at the big picture. It witnesses with keen eyes that see all. It knows precisely when to make a move and precisely when not to make a move. A few days ago I sat with my morning coffee high up on the bluff witnessing the eagle. Two crows swooped down on the eagle and were being very menacing. They seemed to want to get its attention or get it to move, but it sat with its talons clinging firmly to a pine branch. It did not move or was not swayed by these birds. It observed their behavior with amusement, it seemed. I even felt a sense of compassion for the crows. How they wanted the attention the eagle so desperately, but the eagle wasn't there to amuse them. It was there to watch over all that was going on. What a powerful bird the eagle is. How majestic it is when it lifts off from a branch to soar high above the earth. How keen its eyes are to really SEE.

I think that's it. I'm here to SEE. Not to see what you are doing or what everyone else is doing or to follow the latest news, but to go inward and feel what I am personally moved to do.

And out here, I'm moved to meditate, commune with nature, witness, observe, feel, sense, intuit. I'm here to work from the inside out. So much attention is given to what is happening outside. What about what's happening inside? Recently I've found that that is exactly where all the answers are. At least for me.

Living in a tiny house for a month has also been eye-opening. I love it! What more do I need? Over the years I've slowly whittled down my belongings. I have a small storage unit and no permanent home to speak of. I dream of owning a piece of land  near water with a self-sufficient tiny home. I don't need much, really.

For now, I'm content in the "not knowing," I'm okay in the now. I am flowing with each day and each day brings new things. What a miracle it is just to be alive. How lucky we are to be here on Earth! What an amazing thing that is.

At night, out here on Cape George Road, there are a million stars. Jupiter and Saturn have been so bright in the night sky. I can see tiny stars between bigger stars and the Milky Way swirls above me. One night, after visiting my boyfriend for a night in the city (we actually went to Sunset Hill Park at night and saw the comet Neowise), we took a night ferry boat to Kingston  and arrived after dark at the tiny house. All was quiet up on the bluff and the stars made us stop and pull up chairs and sit with our heads straight up in silence. A few shooting stars moved across the night sky. How small we all are. How short our time here is. Yet we live on in one form or another for eternity. The animals and the stars and the plants have no agenda but to "be". Their being-ness draws me in and speaks to me. Speaks about a time when we did not need words or computers or TV or money. We knew. We moved the way animals move. We understood without speaking. We knew the direction of the wind and understood where we were by the position of stars. The earth was not something to tame for human consumption, it was a part of us and we a part of it.

I'm called back to remember. I want to hear this soundless sound again. I want to bear witness to the eagle in me and me in the eagle. I want to taste the thimble berries now juicy and ripe on the branch and pluck huckleberries growing out of old-growth tree stumps. I want to put my ear to a shell I find in the smooth, soft sand and hear the wild ocean and I want to taste the salty sea on me. I'm not afraid to jump into the frigid waves and stick my head down under the seaweed-ed bay and dive to the bottom and touch the earth there where it's quiet and soundless. I will dry myself off on a log on the beach and lay there until I'm moved to rise. Do I have time? Do I have time to just be? What else is there to DO actually?

And so this is what I'm doing out here. I'm teaching online and tuning in and feeling each moment and allowing it to guide me. I'm not moving in fear, I'm moving in FLOW and flow has so much to teach me. All of life is actually a flow. It's the mind that clings and attaches and insists. It's the mind, our prize possession, that can stop the flow of life. 

Was it the Buddhists who said, "If you want to be free, remove your head?" I get that. 

Life is not linear, it is happening all at once on many levels. What you are witnessing now is no accident. It was precisely designed for YOU to witness. Are you witnessing? Reacting? Are you in fear or in flow? 

The flow is shifting for me soon. Rationally, it doesn't make a lot of sense. If I try to wrap my head around all the details, I don't get very far. But in the moment, all is quite beautiful and amazing and there is a tremendous love and gratitude inside. I feel very blessed and am not afraid. I feel guided. And even if what I do does not make sense to many, It makes sense to me. I'm going to let go and keep following this flow....