The mourning for the end of summer seems misplaced on the autumn equinox. Along with the sun there is a chill in the air. The window in my office is opened a few inches and I can feel the breeze on my ankles, my face, that coldness that catches in your throat, but I can also see the sun behind the magnolia tree. My lone American flag is moving gently, sprinkled with shadows and last rays, underneath the tree. Summer wasn't really summer, or perhaps I missed it. Who knows? I know that every year summer is what I look forward to because I associate it with happiness and abundance and the smell of cut grass, of sweet peas and snappy pea pods and runner beans that you break off in your hands, of bushels of small, red strawberries, and those walks you can do after supper when it's still light. This year hasn't felt like that, and I may have worried about it too much, may have spent too much time focusing on where summer had gone instead of just living in the moment. In fact, I have done exactly that.
And so here we are on the autumn equinox and I've got a little bit of perspective after having a couple of months which were not good mental health wise. First off, I stopped writing this blog, which made me unhappy. Secondly, I was struggling with the time differential for my work (which is based in LA). And third, and most importantly, I was out of sync with myself and the world, out of alignment, swimming upstream. It didn't feel good at all. I am a generally positive person and suddenly I'm fucking miserable, for no obvious reason. Miserable in the sense that it was an effort to talk to another human being, to get up in the morning, to read, to write, to find joy in the world, and it started to mess with my relationship. I don't know how I got there, how I got so disconnected, so out of my happy place, but I never want to go there again. Honestly, it was a bit of shit show. I was worried. But now I realize it may have been the beginning of a shift. One day I just woke up and felt something had changed and then things were flying out at me from the Universe. Books from friends. Suggestions of things to pay attention too. Vibrating like a top inside a church at a wedding. Tearing up at hymns. Brimming with emotion. Warm and fuzziness.
Here are some things I have learned, and I'll continue to share them as I am on this journey. I know many of you respond to this place of vulnerability in me, and I am so very grateful for that. The realization that one is not alone is one of the greatest things.
- We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
- We are exactly where we are meant to be.
- The Universe has your back.
- You are never alone.
- We choose the way we see the world through what we think, ie the mental creates the physical and not vice versa.
- We can look at the world from a place of love or a place of fear. Choose love.
- Practise mindfulness daily.
- Ultimately, love is everything.
This path is self-fulfilling. The further you walk along it the more you desire to go further, absorbing new information along the way, but everything seemingly taking you towards the same place. I believe that all spiritual beliefs and religions lead to the same place. You can call it God or Source or Universe or Higher Self or Buddha or Jesus or whatever you like, but each path may have different scenery but it leads ultimately to the same place. It's all about the name. It's what I've struggled with my whole life and suddenly now it's become clear. A shining white light of clarity. And weirdly (and I know, oh my goodness I know that this will seem soooooo weird to some people reading this, but I really don't feel like a nutcase, just a girl who spent a good part of her life in Laurel Canyon). I know this is the truth. I know intrinsically, intuitively, clearly and without doubt or question that this is the truth.
So, now, how to keep oneself on the path. This is a very good question and it's something I struggle with. I'm a complete work in progress but here's what I know thus far:
1. The time between sleeping and waking is sacred. Do not infect it with your phone, with emails, with social media, with the news. This is the most creative and beautiful time. A good time to write or walk or meditate. A good time for quiet.
2. Spend ten minutes (or as long as you'd like) in the morning meditating. Its benefits will become apparent after the first time you do it. I've already found that it makes me less reactive, more mindful. It's the first thing I've discovered that works almost immediately for anxiety. (*Also see box breath*.)
3. Get out into nature at the earliest opportunity. Just walking amongst trees will change your energy.
4. Find what you love and do it often. (I love to ride. This is where I experience my true flow state. This is a whole other blog post, of course...there is so much to say about the connection between women and horses. I do not know of another activity where one's whole mind, body and soul is connected and fully focused in this way with another living creature.)
5. Drink water. As much of it as you can.
6. If you experience a thought that is negative or taking you down a path that may become out of control try to focus on stopping it, pivoting, breathing, or moving in a different direction before it becomes a runaway train. I am a mercurial and volatile person and I want to change this.
7. Surround yourself with beautiful things - flowers, animals, art, books, candles - that make you feel peaceful. For me, it's Kuan Yin. She is in the center of my house, surrounded by candles and flowers and some prayer flags. She makes me feel safe.
8. Listen and watch for synchronicity, for words that resonate to you, for things that seem significant, or repeated. I've heard about St Francis almost daily, since I unpacked him from my LA boxes. I've placed him in the garden among the roses and just knowing that he is there is calming and happy making.
9. Remember the gratitude. Actually it was Mary Karr who said that praying helps. Just try it, she said, and you'll see what happens.
I'm loathe to tell you how down this rabbit hole I am. I'm finding Robert Monroe, Brian L Weiss, Barbara Marciniak, rediscovering Castaneda and Blake and Huxley, embracing Ram Dass. The world is expanding and I'm trying to keep up. No, I'm keeping up! I hope.
The strangest part is that I remember this stuff from when I was eighteen or nineteen. I remember being on this journey, knowing these things, because it's all familiar, not strange, and then, somewhere along the way, it all disappeared. Jobs and marriage and babies and making a living all took over, and probably rightly so. But now here we are, and it's all unfolding, and it's the autumn equinox, and I'm excited about the journey.
I'm saying right here, right now to the universe that my intention is to discover what is my purpose, and I'm prepared to do the work I need to do to make it happen.
I hope that this if of some help to you too. My mind is bursting with information, so much that I'm finding it hard to get it down coherently. Every time I write a sentence another appears in my head, and another idea pops. But who ever said that mind blowing couldn't be fun?
This poem is lovely, too. I hope you enjoy it.
Wherever you are in the world, I am grateful to you for showing up here after all these years and telling me I have something to say. I don't know anything but I can promise I will be a good student. You are very much appreciated.
And you are never, ever alone.
What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use
All these great barns out here in the outskirts,
black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.
They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.
You say they look like arks after the sea’s
dried up, I say they look like pirate ships,
and I think of that walk in the valley where
J said, You don’t believe in God? And I said,
No. I believe in this connection we all have
to nature, to each other, to the universe.
And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,
low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,
and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,
woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.
So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,
its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name
though we knew they were really just clouds—
disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.
