Seattle Girl on Cape Cod: Winds of CHANGE

"Sometimes we can only find our true direction when we let the winds of change carry us."—Mimi Novice

Hello fellow Earthlings!

It's been a very long time since I've been here on this blog. How have you been? There is no way I can fully recount all that has happened in the one year and 8 months since I've been here. Perhaps it was a period of ENGAGEMENT in the world for me and a step away from introspection and this blog. I did in fact get engaged and married during my time away. I got married on September 30, 2023 to my beloved Scott Walsh. A beautiful gathering of friends and family came to Cape Cod to witness our union. It was a time of love, excitement, gatherings, beauty, travel—it was an extroverted time after having been introverted for so long due to the pandemic. By 2023, we were really ready to be part of the world again. We led two retreats to Italy during that time (one in September 2023 and one in May 2024) and had an opportunity to also travel to Greece, a lifelong dream, and visit Athens, Santorini, Delphi and Meteora. On the more somber side of things, Scott's 100 and half year old mom died on September 25, 2024, 5 days before our one year anniversary. Luckily, she was able to attend our wedding and I still feel her presence since her transition to the other side. I am so happy that Scott has had these past four years with his mom on Cape Cod. They became very close and saw each other every week and it changed both of them for the better. So much has happened and I am still in the process of downloading and integrating all of these things.

But to fully understand it all, I am feeling a call to go inward again. I am feeling the winds of change coming on strong again. It's no accident that I live on a strip of sand in the Atlantic Ocean where the wind is constantly shaping and changing the landscape. Today on my walk with Scott, it was whipping across the blank canvas before us. The beach stretched out as far as the eye could see. If it weren't for the striking contrast between the white sand and deep blue sea, It would seem like we were in the desert.

The weather seemed to depict the current state of the world: wavy, windy, changeable, unsettled, unpredictable, chaotic at times. Even the temperature has been all over the map here. On October 21st, I swam in those waves because it was a balmy 73 degrees outside. Then the next day it was fall and I needed a jacket, and then again summer, fall, summer, fall....up, down, up, down, up, down. Whoa!

I made an announcement on Facebook, which I'm on a lot, that I'll just be posting links to blog posts every now and then, but I think I need to delete my account and hope that people will bookmark this blog and come here to interact. The heaviness and crazy wave making going on on social media is more than this girl can take. I'm extremely empathic and feel everything. I need to work on boundaries much more so that I can function better in this crazy world and be of better service to myself and my fellow Earthlings. 

I'm being asked by my guides to step through a door again and what is on the other side is completely UNKNOWN to me right now. I am not unfamiliar with the unknown and have stepped through these mysterious doors many times. By now you'd think it would be easy, but I'm afraid. However, I'm going to do it. 

I have learned that when something deep inside me calls for a change, it's usually for a very important reason and to not take action would be worse than embracing the mystery that lies on the other side.

So what is this change, you ask? Part of it has to do with finding our "tribe" as I like to call it, so that we can do the work we came here to do. We have been part of many circles, the two of us, and have found that working with other like-minded people is very helpful. I foresee that working in "tribes" or "circles" is going to be extremely beneficial to many people in the coming decade and may even completely change how people operate. Historically, it was common for people to be part of  smaller circles and tribes and it allowed them to be more efficient in working towards common goals. I also foresee a shift away from social media and MEDIA all together, which tends to tell us what to think. I feel the need to "deprogram" myself a bit from what I've learned and be in tune more and in acceptance more of what is "coming through" me. And there is so much coming through right now. It's hard to even put in to words what is coming through.

Stay tuned here as I navigate this change and step through this door. Maybe you are also feeling the winds of change happening in your own life. I'm feeling that if I heed this call of my heart I can't go wrong. Listening deeply to my heart and following it has never, ever led me astray, but it does take quite a bit of trust and stepping out of my comfort zone. Here I go....

In love & light,

Katherine

Riding the Winds of Change

"Sometimes in the winds of change, we find our true direction."—Unknown

 For two days straight, the wind blew shaking the windows in their frames. The howling through the trees surrounding our house on Cape Cod kept me up at night. The entire atmosphere was charged with the energy this wind had created. Two nights ago, my partner lay next to me sleeping, and I lay on my back staring at the ceiling wide awake. I was calm and safe inside, but there were moments when I felt like the wind might just pick up this house and blow it over Cape Cod Bay out into the open sea. I wasn't afraid, I was awake. 

The howling, whipping wind felt appropriate for what is going on on the OUTSIDE, out there in the world. I feel the heavy energy of the world out on the periphery. I'm not close to it, being that I'm choosing to live here out on a sand bar in the ocean. The ocean has a way of softening the sharp edges. It cleanses and reshapes. It has a way of taking all that's solid and stuck and making it flow again. I couldn't think of a better place to be right now, honestly.  Nature speaks to me all the time out here. It's where I get my news these days. 

I haven't checked the election results. I have no idea who is president of our country. I'm choosing to linger in the unknown. It's the only place any of us can really be sure of anyway. What do we know? Looking to nature for the news this morning, like I usually do, the headline to match the experience was CALM AFTER THE STORM.

I woke up to sun streaming through all 6 large, bedroom windows. Our room sits up high in the tree tops on the second floor. I could see blue birds and finches happily fluttering about the tops of the trees singing their songs. My boyfriend was already downstairs brewing coffee and singing a tune. He called up to me, "Hey, wanna go for a walk on the beach?" I pulled on some jeans, a fleece sweatshirt, wool socks and headed downstairs. We drank coffee together and chatted, but he soon realized there wasn't time for a beach walk, he had to head out to work. He's been working with his college friend in his carpentry business for the last two months since we got here. It's one of the reasons we were able to move here for the off-season. My job at Edmonds College in Washington State went online after the pandemic hit, so I can work from anywhere. Scott was finishing up carpentry jobs in Washington, so he was in a good position to move. So, at the end of August, we packed up all of our worldly possessions, some went into a tiny storage unit, one for each of us, and the rest traveled across county with us in Scott's truck. I sold my car to come here. Being car-less has forced me to use my body to get around and to be creative. I walk or bike lots of places. Thankfully, we live near a beach and there is a 26-mile bike trail near our house that goes to several nearby towns. Scott has been loving working outside in Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans on the Lower Cape. Most of the home owners are gone for the season, so they spend their time sanding and refinishing decks and siding, pulling up beach stairs, putting storm windows on houses and repairing this or that. He sometimes sends me pictures of where he is working: a gorgeous house right on the cliff of a beach or an artsy house hidden in the trees. It's really a dream come true for both of us to be here. The fact that Scott's 96-year-old mom lives in Sandwich and that his brother and cousin live out here, along with several friends, made it easy for us to come.

And our house, well it's also a dream. A dream that we are currently living in anyway. We found a longterm rental in Eastham, near the beach that normally goes for $12,000 a month in the high season. We got it for 10 times less in the off-season. It was cheaper for us to come here than rent in Seattle. Our house is big for the two of us. But after living in tiny, one-room basement dwellings together, it is so nice to have all the space. We have not one, but three bathrooms. We are loving every minute of being here. I love the ocean being so close. I love that I am living on a sand bar with wild nature all around.

So Scott headed off to work and I wandered down the seashell path from our house to the beach.

 All the beach stairs along our private beach have been hoisted up for the season. The windows on the houses facing the bay have been boarded up and storm-proofed. I have to walk the wooden stairs halfway down to a rock landing and then scramble down over boulders the rest of the way to the beach.

 I can't believe that on October 22nd, I launched myself off one of those boulders into the warm bay waters where I lay on my back for what seemed like an hour, letting the buoyant salt water hold me up. Now, a chill was in the air and I donned a long, lightweight down jacket. The sun was bright in the sky and and the waning full moon was still out. I stumbled down onto the gold sand. The water had soft ripples, but otherwise was flat and calm. I walked down on the sand. The tide was coming in. By 1pm, it would be up to the beach steps. The calm in the air was so gentle. The seagulls sat motionless on the beach and little sand pipers were actively eating bugs and algae by a patch of beach grass. A rippled sand bar stretched out for a mile. I walked out on it mesmerized by the intricate, grooved pattern in the sand. How these patterns form and then are washed away was symbolic to me. The sand glistened in the warm sun and little gold specks popped out. I picked up a handful of these tiny grains and let them sift through my fingers. So small, these grains of sand are, that make up the beauty of the the beach. The wild ocean and winds were always molding, shaping and changing the environment. Who knows, really, if this little sand bar known as Cape Cod would be here in the future? Well, it's here now. And I am here now.

Somehow I was able to ride the wind out and enjoy the calm after the storm. Our house is still standing and there wasn't any devastation. I knew that if I went INSIDE, deep within myself, I'd be just fine. I didn't need to get pulled into its fury or curse its sound. I could listen to it objectively, knowing that it wouldn't last forever. None of this is forever. And that, somehow brought me great peace and allowed me to step out into the calmness of the day today, fully present and fully alive. What a gift it is to be here now.