Crashing and Burning at The End of The World

Dear fellow Earthlings,

While I sit on a log on Dungeness Spit in the Pacific Northwest, with 40 mile an hour winds whipping at my face and waves crashing on the shore, I'm thinking about Australia burning. Just the other day a friend said on a blog post she shared with me said,
"THE WORLD IS GOING CRAZY!"

It's a very strange feeling to be way out here where nearly a dozen deer come to my window and graze on the grass each day. These docile, gentle beings remind me that there is still softness in the world, while in other parts there is FIRE burning all around!

As I see my Australian friends' pictures from their backyards of air that is thick with gray smoke and hear them speak about itchy throats and teary eyes, I feel hopeless. I am here in the Pacific Northwest in winter where it mostly rains. However, I have strong memories of the fires that blazed through our own forests all the way down to the California coast the past several summers. I remember sitting at Carkeek Park looking at a couple sitting on a log in the haze and a man in the distance wading up to his waist in Puget Sound. He looked like he was baptizing himself for the end of times.

What are we to do?

And now there is talk of war. Facebook, news and social media sites are buzzing with opinions and theories and fear and anger and...

I have to turn it off.

Throwing my own energy into the fire will only stir it up even more.

The way inside is very subtle. I find it in the forest next to two huge cedar trees with bark graying from the dampness of the air. They are like very old, wise grandfathers. They must be more than 200 years old. Their top branches sway in the wind, but they are grounded with deep roots that I imagine reach the core of he Earth. They call me to stand still and listen. I breathe in the air and raise my hands over head for a minute and then bring them down to hold my heart in gratitude for being with these elders.

I tread further down the moist, pine-needled path to the ocean that roars with tsunami-like waves. They crash through my chest and blow me wide open so that all of the molecules that make up who I am are now blowing in the wind across the Sound and when I sit down on a log with the wind whipping at my face, those same molecules come back into place as if the log were a buoy pulling everything back to its center.

Crashing, Crashing....the waves are relentless in their fury. Fallen trees that are now logs riding the waves come barreling on to the shore. Even the seagulls hunker down behind old stumps and sticks in the sand. Walking down the spit was easy, but when I turn around to walk back to the forest, every inch of me has to fight the wind. I cover my face with my scarf and pull my hat down so I only have a tiny window for my eyes which are shut tight and wet with salty tears.

When I reach the upward slope back to the forest from the Sound, I lift my gaze past the waves and I almost detect a calm smoothness out between the Spit and the land mass on the other side. And then my mind imagines sitting on the bottom of the ocean with the sea creatures there. All of the bottom fish barely moving while so much activity happens on the surface.

 If it is the end of the world as we know it, I don't want to be crashing and burning and fighting and fearing. I don't want to add fuel to the fire. I don't want to predict, judge, criticize, hypothesize  or even proselytize.

The only thing I can do now is look up when I hear the piercing shrill of an eagle overhead. He swoops down and lands right on a high branch of a cedar tree above me. When he lands, he does not move, but stares with that all-knowing gaze that actually brings me a deep peace for the moment.

Maui Musings Day 28: Living in Love

Good evening fellow Earthlings,

I've been out here on the farm in Maui for almost 28 days. About 23 days of that time has been alone. I've done silent meditation courses of 45 days, but nothing tops this. When you are on a meditation course, all your needs are taken care of. If you need a softer cushion for your butt, the management will fetch it for you. If you need to eat a gluten-free diet, the kitchen staff will prepare it for you. If you are going through a mental breakdown, the teachers on staff will walk you through it or get you the help you need.

Out here alone on the farm, it's "fend for yourself," for the most part. I'm alone, I make my food, harvest the veggies and fruit, gather chicken eggs, feed the dogs, do the wash, take the garbage down to the landfill, and spend A LOT of time by myself. There is a local living down by the gate if there are any emergencies, and there have been a few.

There were plans to paint the dome, so I moved into the big house. Two days later a large limb from a tree, that was the size of a tree itself, came crashing down and hit the dome and wiped out the yoga gazebo. I heard a huge crack, like thunder, and went out to investigate. When I saw what the tree-like limb had done, I was stunned. What if I'd been in the bathroom or on my way to the bathroom? What if the dogs had been walking back there? I thought. It was so fortunate that I had already moved to the big house. I really felt someone was looking out for me.

I knew it was Pele, Goddess of Volcanoes. I have felt her presence here the entire time I've been here. Every time a huge fear comes up or something big happens, she is standing next to me reminding me to live in love, not fear.

Again and again, I feel fears rise up and I'm able to tune into the energy of Pele or my higher self and release those fears and bring in gold light or a ring of fire around the property for protection. And then I bring in love.

I think love is the opposite of fear. When you are living in love and filled up with love from the inside, it's hard for any fears to stick around for long. It's hard to stay in a disagreement with anyone for any length of time. Usually, after a day or so, I want to make up with a person. But I realize that making up with another person can be a one-way street. If I extend love or I open the door for communication and the other person shuts that door, there's not much I can do except to continue to send love out and realize that each person is working out there own things in this life and it's nothing personal.

I am not perfect, so I will tell you that when my husband cheated on me with a younger yoga student and left our 12-plus year marriage, it was very hard to extend love or forgiveness. Instead, I felt a burning rage. I felt like Kali, Goddess of Destruction. I felt like a fire-breathing dragon ready to wipe out everything in my husband and his new-found girlfriend's path. The anger covered up a very deep, deep hurt.

It took awhile to crawl out of that hole. It took time to see the light again and to see that there was still love all around me. The only thing I was committed to at that time was loving, nurturing and healing myself. During that time, I realized that living in love did not depend on another person or situation or perfect location or right connections. Living in love started with myself.

Love was not outside myself. It is never outside myself. When I began to see love in me, I started to see the reflection of that all around me too.

Eventually, I did walk around Greenlake with my ex and I didn't want to kill him. It was a huge step! I actually wished him well, even though I did not understand his actions and had no wish to communicate on a regular basis. I felt our paths had diverged for a reason and we were on our way to becoming two very different people.

Living in love, for me, also means not always pleasing people or having people understand you. I have always wanted to get along with people. I tend to avoid conflict at all costs. But more and more, I am speaking up for what I want and not worrying or caring what others think about it.

How can you live in love when you are doing something you hate just because everyone else is doing it? What's wrong with tuning into yourself and saying, "I'm not really feeling like doing that or being that or going there." Living in love means asking yourself what you need and honoring it even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else.

I have also found that it is very counter productive to beat yourself up for not having what everyone else has. Each of us are unique individuals on the planet. Each of our lives may not look like everyone else's, but we are ALL capable and deserving of love.

Some may feel that living in love means doing things for others, but if you are not taking care of yourself, than everything will be done in vain.

Others may feel that having the perfect partner is living in love. But what if that partner betrays you or leaves you or doesn't measure up to your idea of what living in love is. Then you are left empty or angry or sad.

Coming out here to Maui to live alone and write was something I wanted to do. It was a way of honoring myself, despite all my fears about it. Again and again I have faced those fears and kept coming back to love. I have a great appreciation for myself now and my ability to be self-reliant and give myself what I need. I see that it's okay that I'm not perfect or that I don't please everyone I meet. I see that it's okay that I don't have my entire book written by now.

Being here and tuning into the land and myself was quite huge. I know I went deep and uncovered so much in these past 28 days. I have faced so many things out here on my own. I didn't resort to talking to a volleyball and I didn't go crazy. That's big!

So tonight I am honoring and loving myself for just being out here alone. I did it. I'm capable of living out in nature for 23 days with no other humans close by.

And I can also say that I'm ready for my boyfriend to visit. He will come the day after tomorrow. It will be an interesting transition after being on my own for so long, but it's a transition I'm welcoming and look forward to.

Have you ever spent any long length of time living alone out in nature? Where were you and how did it feel? Is it something you want to try?