I awoke at 5:30 a.m.
The desire to feel the cool breeze of the salty ocean and to feel my body alive and breathing filled me.
I hopped on my bike and rode to a sacred land where my favorite trail lives. The trail meanders in a seductive loop and takes a sidestep down the edge of a wild cliff to a deserted beach sprinkled with petrified relics washed up from the sea.
I’ve been told the Coastal Miwok first people used to come here for ceremony.
On this land 5 mins. from my new home, I have screamed, cried, rolled on the earth, held rituals, skinny dipped and ran down the beach naked with no one in sight. I have yelled to the ocean and heard her respond back to me with a massive wave of warmth and simultaneously with a humbling powerful roar.
I jog in the morning light as I listen to the words of Thich Nath Than in my earbuds.
He says be a flower, refreshing, slowly opening to the world. Let your eyes smile like a flower, let your smile be a flower, let your hands form a flower.
His voice rings truth from his heart to mine.
He says be the mountain. Be the majestic solid mountain. I look around me as the mountain becomes my bones, my flesh.
He says be the water. Water must learn to be still to be able to reflect the beauty of the moon.
Miki Kashtan drew a diagram describing our inner state when we react to a request, demand, or interaction with another. The circle shows the phases from a solid YES to a solid NO
Lately, life has felt like a permanent state of pushing the EDGE of my NO. It’s not quite a NO, but it’s definitely not a hell yes. It is a state of constant tension in the form of acquiescing with resistance.
Is there anyone in your life that pushes up against your edges. Just enough to make your hair tickle?
I notice a constant wave pool of emotion. A constant energetic suck.
I pull out my newly acquired imaginary friend, my self-empathy character.
“Hi Carly, are you feeling a little irritated? Would you like to feel like you matter here? Are you longing for a sense of fairness and equality? I notice my body relaxes as I respond with a little puppy pout.. “yes.”
Water.
What if I could become still water to be able to reflect the beauty of the moon?
What if I could use the concept of WuWei, the inner flow state?
The concept of allowance, the concept of Bruce Lee “Be water my friend.” (Said with the accent and all.)
The concept of Judo; use the energetic momentum of your adversary to transform it instead of resisting. When we resist, we fatigue, when we let move through and dance with, we are no longer attacked, it becomes a dance.
As I jog, I take in the breath-taking views. I notice overwhelming humility, gratitude and awe as the waves of emotions roll through me. Here, my cells say I am home, do you see the reflection of yourself in this mirror of beautiful, sacred, raw, wild nature? It’s ME.
For those who do not know, I and my new housemate have recently had the blessing of moving into basically a mansion with ocean views and extraordinary possibility. Think retreats, events, performances, and a great ass from all those stairs, and more...
This other humanmade home begins to take on form, expression and co-collaborative design. I am learning to assert my voice, my needs and my desires around nourishing visual beauty and harmonious equilibrium in the collective space.
…like on this wild cliff where I am reflected in the mirror of an expansive immensity of bewildering beauty.
We are only two, but we are also a community learning to communicate.
We learn to dance with our words, a contact dance where we learn how much pressure to apply, when to recede, when to hold ground, when to pause, how to support and be supported.
The new protocol of our house meeting is to start with dance, physical movement or yoga. We share our intentions for our conversation and shower each other with any appreciations first.
When we finally begin our meeting there has been so much care and co-regulation in our bodies that the words flow with less tension. The water begins to flow with ease AROUND the stones instead of AGAINST them.
My energy is beginning to resurface. Like a small spring hidden at the bottom of the pond.
When I listen to the words of Thich Nath Than, I observe the state of still water reflected in the cracks of the raspy sand. Not only does it reflect the moon, it reflects the sun, the sky, colors, and the part of myself that silently asks me to come home… a little more often.
As I find this state of still water and the smile I get inside as I begin to see the beauty behind the small things, life begins to soften at the edges. And I begin to let my eyes smile like a flower as the world offers me flowers wherever I look.