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.

Divine Earthly Experience 7: Who are YOU?

 "You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need."—Jerry Gillies

 Hello fellow Earthlings:

 Lately I've been thinking about identity.

Who are YOU?

Or more precisely, I've recently asked, "Who am I?"

It's the age-old question and I'm sure there are many answers, but I believe almost ALL of it has to do with programming.

 When you were born, depending on what you believe, you came into this world with whatever was leftover from your past lives OR as a blank slate. Well, not completely blank, because I believe our true nature is something we each have that can't be carried over or even learned.

That innocence you had as a newborn. Can you remember any part of it?

Strangely, I remember lying in green grass as a baby. I remember the warmth of the sun and a soft blanket under me. I remember lying on my belly and clutching fistfuls of fresh green grass, testing out my grip. I remember the herbaceous aroma, so soft on my bare skin. I lived through my senses and I remember feeling elated to be alive. I remember seeing through my baby eyes with a sense of wonder and awe, but also with a slight hint of familiarity...I'd been here before!

And then the programming set in. The programming came first from my parents: "Don't touch that!" and "Don't go there!" or "If you are good, I'll give you a cookie." And I remember that there were rewards and punishments for things and it got confused with my parents' own emotions and their states of mind. Sometimes I was rewarded or punished for things that weren't consistent. I didn't want to rock the boat because there was enough turmoil in my life as a child. My parents ended up divorcing when I was young, around six, and I forever tried to please them. I grew up trying to please my mother and be a good girl. I learned a lot of behavior that simply was NOT MINE. I took on my parents', friends' and society's behavior. I conformed. I did what was expected of me given my home life, where I lived, where I went to school, etc.

All of this was my programming. I took it on. I became it and believed that's the way things were. I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve. I wasn't good enough unless I was checking things off my list. I went to high school and became the "Outstanding Journalist of the Year" upon graduating. I got into college and before I left, during my senior year, we were asked to write down what we expected we'd be doing in 10 years. I wrote down my plans on a little slip of paper that was carefully placed in a film canister (time capsule). I was told I'd receive that canister back at my 10-year reunion.

I missed my 10-year high school reunion. I was thousands of miles away living in a tiny, Japanese, tatami-mat apartment in Sendai where I taught English. I lived in the suburbs and had few friends. I was lonely. Maybe the loneliest I'd ever been. My best friend from high school mailed me my film canister. I remember that day the mail man slipped the envelope through the mail slot. It fell on the freezing cold concrete floor that was my kitchen. My apartment smelled of Kerosene and was freezing.  With gloved hands, I ripped open the envelope and read the letter from my girlfriend and then carefully opened the canister, which had been sealed for 10 years. I took out the little piece of paper from the canister and read:

"I will be married with 2 children (a boy and a girl), I will drive an SUV and live in the suburbs and have an MBA or Masters in Journalism."

Shit! Here I was in my squat Japanese apartment, single, the owner of a BICYCLE with no masters degree in anything. What happened?

I am not really sure, but somewhere along the line, maybe after graduation from college, I had had an identity crisis. I did not know what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want. I did NOT WANT TO SETTLE DOWN and live the life I was destined (or programmed) to live. I felt I needed to get FAR AWAY from everything I knew in order to find out who I really was. I traveled all over Asia. I went to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, India, Tibet, etc. I studied Buddhism and I eventually married a Buddhist monk, moved back to Seattle, wrote a book (Lessons from the Monk I Married, Seal Press 2012) and
settled into a wonderful life of traveling, writing, teaching, etc. I felt so elated. I felt like I knew who I was. All the risks I took were worth it. I let go of a lot and found out what really called to me.

And then my husband left.

He ran off with a younger woman and left our 20-year partnership.

So much of my IDENTITY, the one I thought I really OWNED, was enmeshed with my husband. Who was I without him? I had built my life around this person. I had written a book about this person. NOW WHAT?

And I began to suffer an even BIGGER identity crisis. I was floating in a vast sea looking for anything somewhat stable to grab onto—a stick, a tire, a log. It was dark and lonely...lonelier than my time in Japan even.

I felt nothing. I felt I was nothing. Nothing to offer. I went into a shell. I went into hiding. I stopped writing and reaching out. I was in what some people call the "dark night of the soul" period. I didn't post on Facebook, I didn't write on my blog. I reached out to just a small handful of people eventually. That was it.

At some point it dawned on me, maybe 5 months or so down the line, that I had a gift. I could now be WHOEVER I WANTED TO BE. I didn't need to live by any other person's rules but my own. I took ownership of who I was. I decided to take a Burlesque class. I became VENUS ON FIRE. I have a stage name. I am sexy, fiery, strong, passionate, alive. I dance in high heels and sometimes dye my hair red. I wear sexy dresses and skirts and leggings and a flower in my hair. I buy myself fresh flowers once a week and get massages and drink fancy cocktails with names like "purple skirt" and "sex on the beach" and those very cocktails became sign posts pointing the way of my future. I would wear a purple skirt and have sex on the beach in the most passionate, romance-novel way you can imagine.

Who woulda thunk it? Well, I did. I CREATED IT.

We don't have to live PROGRAMMED lives. We can be whoever we want to be. We can create whatever identity we want and live a life that is our own.

I feel like when we are young, we accept all the programming that is around us because we need the experience, and as we get older, we have to DE-PROGRAM ourselves to find out who we really are or what we are drawn too.

One thing I uncovered about myself, that I don't think was programmed, is that I'm HIGHLY INTUITIVE and I was always afraid of this side of myself because being psychic is not something that was encouraged or accepted early on by my family or peers. Now, I've found my people. I am in an 11-month Clairvoyant Awareness Program at Psychic Awakenings in Seattle and I give weekly hour-long psychic readings to people along with my teacher and other class members. I have developed this side of myself that I always hid from before. Now, I am offering useful and valuable information to people that can help them on their journeys. And I'm still creating and uncovering parts of myself. I get to write my story and that's EXCITING!

Who are YOU?

Is it a question you care to know about? Do you feel you are leading a life that you created that is YOUR OWN or have you been programmed or influenced to lead a life based on your family, society and the people around you? Did you know you have a choice?