My daily walks around the local wetlands are deeply nourishing. The wetlands teem with life. Hares hop around and frogs croak loudly, especially after the rain comes. Birds of all varieties roam around. If you're at the right place at the right time, flocks of starlings appear in the sky, usually during sunset.
And then you add the touch of human goodness. City workers pump out excess water from significant flooding as a result of the recent Cali storm. Community volunteers and environmental orgs work on restoration wetland projects together, which are always fun to learn about when I pass by. This spot is mainly used by locals, so I usually only run into one or two people, if at all.
The energy of this land supports relaxation and slowing down. It supports the public commons, the shared spaces and realities that belong to all of us. Among the few people I encounter on the path, big smiles are usually exchanged as we pass by each other, although very few words are said. It's like we all know that we're experiencing this great gift of nature and space, and we're sharing it together without needing to do or be anything.
More than just useful work breaks, being out here helps me regain my inner capacity to hold what is going on inside. A lot has been on my mind. Feeling grief and confusion about the world, and where I can make a meaningful difference. Figuring my way through the inherently messy process of creativity with work stuff. Making peace with my inner critic. Working to stay grounded in the face of being head over heels in love with someone. Managing the energy in my own home, as I live with my previous partner of several years. Trying to find the motivation to start organizing and reducing my stuff down with a looming unknown housing future.
When I think about this unknown housing future, what immediately comes to mind are all the past times where I had to move suddenly, or where other changes arrive in my life like a sudden storm, disguised as a car accident, an unknown sickness, homelessness, or a mental health breakdown from financial insecurity. I'm left unsure of next steps, and it feels like the world is coming to end. Yet the world never ended. It was just Another Fucking Growth Opportunity.
Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news. — Trungpa Rinpoche
Without these wake-up calls, we may find ourselves continually conforming to places or ways of being we've already outgrown. Every time I experienced being uprooted, the anxiety and fear that arose weren't just dramatic emotions. Rather, they aroused me from my slumber of comfort. The impulse to evolve was triggered. Energy was mobilized to gather myself and take effective action, challenging me to live with deeper honesty and integrity.
Unexpected changes and moments of uncertainty serve as these energizing bifurcation points, where the trajectory of my life path suddenly shifts. Old ways die and some things must be courageously sacrificed. Possibilities emerge as a result. New energy in all its forms (ideas, insights, people, situations/environments) organizes around these changes.
Yet things move at the speed of our trust. Our trust allows us to relax and flow with the unknown. Relaxation allows for effective thinking and action, which helps build the container for what we want (or something even better than what we want) to emerge. Yet if my energy is focused on doubt, excessive worry, and not trusting my own resources and capacities, how much energy will I have to build the right container?
This is what I've been holding in my current situation. Unlike other times, I'm accessing my fear and grief without becoming them. I'm not letting things get to the point where an explosion occurs. I'm curious and eager to see what will unfold, fusing conscious action and surrender to the forces beyond my control. I'm surprisingly calm and humble about my whole process, and I so value that. It shows I've matured a lot.
A door opens. Maybe I've been standing here shuffling my weight from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once. In truth, it doesn't matter. A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance. This is it, then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit too compelling to ignore any longer. I am received by something far too vast to see. It has roots in antiquity but speaks clearly in the present tense. "Be," the vastness says. "Be without adverbs, descriptors, or qualities. Be so alive that awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned. Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awake to love and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations. Go forth to see and be seen, blossoming, always blossoming into your magnificence. — Danna Faulds
At the same time, my dance practice has become more embodied. I picked up my guitar for the first time in months. I continue to eat well and exercise every day. And I'm totally in love with Rosie, a little being that came into my life for good after dreaming of being her mom for months.
With Rosie, I'm further learning what love is. This way of understanding love reminds me of what 
I did not come to teach you. I came to love you. Love will teach you. — Osho
I'm coming to see that love is the space for all temporary states and moments to come and go. The high joys and the dark lows. The synchronicities and magic of life, and the messiness and dissonance of life. I'll have moments with Rosie where we settle into a profound moment of connection while I hold her, feeling her body deeply relax as we make relaxed and sustained eye contact with each other. She eats all her food. She and I are in sync. Then, I'll have moments with her where she refuses to go on a walk. She doesn't eat a lick of the homemade food I cook for her that she usually loves. I have to eat it or throw it away, and she becomes all depressed with a raging growling stomach. She poops all over the rug even after just pooping outside from a walk.
So, Rosie and I are learning and growing with each other. I love her more and more, with each day that I get to spend with her. Every week (and even day) has its own reality. No matter how hard you try, shit happens. And because I value loving relationships, I'm getting better at tolerating and letting go when expectation doesn't match reality.
I once heard that those who haven't healed past experiences of associating love with drama or instability will often experience healthy love as boring or strange. Healthy love is stable. Healthy love provides acceptance, patience, and space for messiness and conflicts to be attended to and healed. This leads to real, vulnerable dialogue about needs, as opposed to drama, armoring up, and violence (shame, blame, demands, controlling the other, etc) when things don't go our way with the other.
Just simply becoming aware of how temporary everything is might help us relax and let go just a little bit, which can make a huge difference in an intimate relationship. And we're in this dynamic ride of life together, so we might as well stick together vs. push the other away. Then, I would even add that this understanding offers us two choices: we can either control our circumstances with violence and projection, or we can relate to our circumstances with dialogue, openness, honesty, and curiosity. I choose to relate as much as I consciously can, in order to love deeper and remind myself of the bigger picture always at play.
It is a profound gift to let someone or something you love be fully themselves. People bloom, change, and transform in the presence of this unconditional love.
Love undergoes different ramifications. It becomes compassion when the person you love requires consideration, some consolation or help from you, and you respond because that person deserves help. From compassion, love turns into service. It creates a condition within you to help you understand yourself. There can be love only where there is understanding, otherwise love cannot sustain.
Love is only when you free yourself from your agenda for the other.
—Discovering Love by Swami Dayananda Saraswati
One last random note. The other day, I saw a greeting card that made me tear up. It said, "a hug is a perfect gift. One size fits all, and nobody cares if you exchange it." Isn't that so sweet?
What's something this week that touched you?
To close this off, here's the latest dance video. The grass was so green driving back from the wetlands, I couldn't help but pull over and have a little spontaneous dance session :)