Being An Oak Tree

A life update on Ben Affleck, passion and introversion

I have currently slept 3 hours because I was working last night, but I have had 2 cups of coffee so here we are.

I have about a dozen drafted essays and poems lingering here. An indicator that life is spinning, not like a spiral, but more as a spiderweb and I am catching up, catching a breath. It has been an interesting process of finding my footing (read: writing) on the other side of this visceral intensity and transformation I was experiencing last year. Being torn a part is an altered state of consciousness, and so is grief, and it is often in these states that the artist finds her best poetry. So what does the artist (she is me) do when the altered altar changes and rearranges. And the underbelly of God stops roaring and all of a sudden it is oh, so quiet. Now I’m here. I feel more like an oak tree than a burning fire. The heat is good for someone like me who moves with precision and swiftness. I could say that the heat is making me lazy. I could also say it is making me relaxed. Just as when I come off caffeine from time to time and I must find my way in the world anew (I’m joking, but I am also not. Read the essay here), so it has been as I arrived back in Costa Rica. I feel like my spiritual evolution is at an interesting point which feels a lot like a mix of Kintsugi, being repaired with gold and Ben Affleck, cigarettes and coffee.

When you pair these two together perhaps you get an oak tree? What do the cool girls on instagram say? “Hot and unbothered”? Anyways, I prefer:

Oak tree.

Growing roots is not just relational, but also a solitary journey I have found. At least it is for me.

I could easily spend 3 months without any human contact. I really could. I wonder how much of my well-equipped socializing skills are self-taught? Perhaps when you’re a child of divorced parents and move around a lot from a young age, you get accustomed to having to create connections faster than usual. I don’t know; these days I’m trying to spend less time on unraveling the stories and patterns like some other rain man, and more time paying attention to the signals my body is giving me. Which also happens in the stillness.

And so, in the taking more time alone, there is quieting — a coming off the social buzz and constant input of information, which I tend to absorb easily and deeply. I have come to accept that, no, I cannot just schedule 2 hours of writing after having been in contact with 20 different people. No, I need time to thaw. My mind needs time to reverberate into the sea. The Sacred cannot (will not) be structured. The Mystery cannot (will not) be psychologized.

She has her ways and as I follow her, she carves the path. So in the time of landing, arriving, moving, working, learning and like any good Virgo Moon, creating new routines I have had 0% inspiration to write. I’ve had no big shock, no big crisis, no big outburst of emotion; I’ve simply just been cooking my meals, doing my dance, playing the harmonica and drinking the coffee.

I feel how this is an invitation to learn how to write, not out of urgency or crisis, but out of … I don’t know, something else? Something that moves closer to the ground. Something not just deeper, but wider.

And so speaking of ground:

I have had many beautiful conversations on my porch the last month or so. Under the full moon, shooting stars and celestial conjunctions. But one thing I’ve really felt present and pressing is, yes, there are celestial bodies and they communicate in interstellar mathematics and angular intelligence. The moon is full, waning and waxing anew. There are ancient traditions and medicine. And I will say: I listen, I learn, I feel their poetry in me. I feel the bitter turn sweet and there are death upon deaths on which life rises. But if none of this is bringing us out of our self-perpetuated holograph where everything is about us and into a greater, wider collective horizon - then what? What is it all good for? A strong sense of self, values and integrity are crucial to navigate a world where there is a war on our consciousness and attention, however if we live life in a constant reaction to self as the center of the universe (even and especially in the name of “healing), isn’t this the entire root of suffering.

I had a conversation with a friend who I love with my whole heart. We were both fired up, red-cheeked and wild hair, as we roared: Love is a verb. Love is not an intention, but an action.

So while we are busy “awakening”, what do we do with all that which we awaken to? Where do we move from here?

Ancient medicine and traditions are intended to bring healing and evolution to the heart of the individual, for the individual to bring healing and evolution to the heart of the collective in coherent resonance with the wisdom of the Earth. Healing is relational. Healing is a movement.

The flame of awareness I find is often sparked in good, honest conversations. And so to sit on my porch and talk to people who invoke more poetry and horizon in me, is where I find myself inspired to move closer towards what is true. The important detail though is in the word “movement” itself. Nothing changes if nothing changes. I’ve come to realize and accept that, that or they which (or who) do not invoke more poetry inside of me, is not for me to keep. It is simple as that. I could be wrong, but maybe I’m a dying breed (but I know I’m not because you who are reading are with me too) but I do not care for the things, we’ve been told to care for. I don’t care for any of it. It has by far been one of the most terrifying and liberating journeys, to honestly say:

No, this is not for me.

So, where we might find that healing is about “growth”, what if it is not — but about “expansion”? And what if expansion is not about more, but about simplicity and the richness and spaciousness that arise from that?

I stopped paying myself a salary last month. I’m on a payroll now, for the first time in my entire life. I make less money than I did before, but it’s okay. I have what I need. That’s enough. There is relief here. Relief in choosing to unplug from the feasting growth mindset. Internally first and foremost. Relief that life doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but to me. While my peers are on their 3rd child and 2nd car, I’m just really thrilled to be learning the harmonica and engage in conversation with the Tarantula outside my house.

I live in a place where culture is Nature, and there really is not much to spend your attention or money on, but the occasional coffee and groceries. Besides that, sit down, listen and observe. And like some other western-dopamine-junkie, it took me a little while to get rid of the withdrawals of the constant going, going, going — which to me is not the same as movement. The frantic action of running in place to get to nowhere, has been replaced by a pulsating desire to move the world, and move in this world as a flower in bloom. Sensual. Sensing.

Petal by petal I expand. I eat ripe pineapple over the sink. It is a great passionate act eating with your hands and barely dressed. Perhaps last year’s intensity has turned into some bone-deep passion. And is it not from this passion that the greatest art is born?

Okay Life, drip, drip, drip off my tongue.

Lingering tongues,

Licking dew drops

Off the Earth

Wet,

Come (Alive)

Come (Alive)

Come (Alive)