There’s something about rest that is really unique to itself. I’m learning how to find balance in tension. How much to give to certain aspects of my life. What is needed to move through things in a way that brings me closer to the essential aspects of who I am and who I’m growing to become. This energy is coming out of a space of nurturing my curiosity and challenging my assumptions. So part of that for me has been practicing rest on a weekly basis. Having a day where I break routine and allow myself to breath in a different way. It’s not idealistic, meaning that I am still working it out, but it’s been interesting to explore this different way of engaging with myself and my surroundings, especially in a time of so much newness. There’s a grounding aspect to it. Like no matter where I am, I am going to take this space and rest today.
I found myself looking forward to it last night (today is my Sabbath as of late). I was like, oh yeah, tomorrow I get to rest. It’s been a busy time. I just got a job in Santa Cruz in the kitchen of Cat and Cloud, which I have followed since they started and can’t say enough good things about. My experience with getting hired here has been unique. It’s wild to feel better about a company after being initially rejected and given feedback and then finding an area where I feel more excited to engage (it’s been a ride). It was like I showed up, had a real conversation and they have structures in place that allowed them to hear me and see me and provide guidance that simultaneously protects their culture and helps me on my journey. I think part of this is due to the fact that I am committed to what they are about and was already aligned with their values coming into this conversation. All that to say, things are changing in my life right now. I just acquired a temporary living situation and feel kind of unsure about it. I will be living up in the forest surrounding Santa Cruz on some semi developed land with no electricity and no cell service. It will be my own place though which is rad. Anyways, it puts me in the area at a price point I can afford and I’m grateful for that.
So it’s been a lot of movement recently. A lot of energy towards things that I care about and a lot of newness. So to be able to pause inside of that ever changing conversation as reality unfolds and say, breath, remember, play, pray, nourish, heal, and so on is so beautiful to me. I think I’ve always been drawn to practices. As difficult as they can be to commit to and sometimes I think they stop serving me for whatever reason. (In my experience I think it’s gotten to a point sometimes when I’ve become more focused on the practice than what the practice was leading me towards). I got really into a tea practice for awhile. Listening to the tea as I drank it, being in that moment and it was good for awhile, but then it was like I was almost dependent on this ritual and I had built a lot of these practices (yoga, meditation, reading spiritual literature, writing intentions, fasting, engaging with various plant medicine and so on). It was almost as if these things began to run my life. Which is super interesting to me because the whole point of these things was to provide me with clarity and direction in order to move more freely into what was next for me.
It’s strange how that can happen. I’m grateful to be moving towards wholeness in a way that feels genuine to me. I’m grateful to be having conversations with folks in my life that feel poignant and meaningful. I’m grateful to be on the west coast exploring the human experience in a way that I never have before. I’m grateful to be sitting by this fire on my sabbath typing this out right now. I’m grateful to be learning how to make boundaries in my life, to steward the resources that have been entrusted to me. I’m grateful to be treating myself as sacred and worthy of love. I’m grateful for life and the realization that it truly is a precious gift and that it’s worth living and it’s worth reaching deeper into what is here to find my way back to where I came from. I want to go home as Phoebe says, and I think a lot of us resonate with that sentiment. There is a deep longing in me to find that refuge of safety and rest out in the wild that is the human story. May we be drawn closer to that reality as we dive deeper into the process of becoming more deeply human.
structures of home 