Swimming Towards the Bubbles

A few days ago I happened upon on old journal. I have a few of those around, as I am often gifted and gift myself with notebooks. Some of them like this one have only seen a few pages of use. In amongst the expanse of empty pages, I found a reminder of something I had forgotten. It was a scrawled collection of bulleted notes from a conversation I'd had with an intuitive over 4 years ago. It took me a few moments to place the entry, dated only by the month but contextualized by the references to events and concerns that had filled my life at that time. They were scribbled in haste in the rush to capture her words and my anticipation of hearing some clarifying insights from the ether after a heartbreaking and painful period.

I am fascinated at how these missives have reappeared to me now, and wonder what wisdom they may have to offer me 4 years later. Life has certainly been eventful since then in both beautiful and deeply unsettling ways. Although life is primarily good and I am grateful for all of it, there are still layers of grief my body is still working to metabolize.

The intuitive had offered up a series of images, because that is how things came to her. As I re-read them, my eyes fell on these words:

'...swim in the direction of the bubbles, when we are turned upside down going in the direction of inertia. Relax...counter-intuitive but wise. Figure out which way is up. Don't follow the same pattern...'

She pictured me underwater, my bearings lost, the aerated surface distant and unseen from the depths of a dark pool (ocean?). She tells me to be still, relax, wait and let the bubbles rise then swim in that direction. I ponder now the source of these little balls of air - my own breath? The movements of some other creature? The inevitability of life rising up from somewhere deep below me?

At the time, and at a few times since I have felt thus disoriented by life, by events, by the actions and inactions of those I care about and am influenced by. Turned around underwater. For a while now it has also felt like a piece of me, the Dreamer, has been holding it's breath, not wanting to move, needing to hide itself away for a time. That part has felt battered and has needed time to heal - to protect myself against the possibility of further injury.

In recent years I have sometimes measured my own worth through the absence of others, and that is not a way to live. My greatest and deepest desires have felt pummelled into a thin dust at my feet, in some part, but not utterly by my own hand, and I am not sure what to make of that. The desires I have are to be met, to see and be seen, to hold and be held in a shared light. This is 'what I was made for' to steal some words from another once much loved but absent soul. It could be that there is a power in saying it, for expressing this deeper and universal calling for belonging and connection. Maybe I am exposing this part of my soft underbelly and risking, as I sometimes do, to be pitied or feared or shamed. Maybe that is a risk worth taking, because it is healing and beautiful to write these words.

Over a year ago I took a call. Prior to that my life had felt like a bit of an emotional maelstrom for a number of months, a constant clamour of need from without. I felt pushed when all I wanted was to hide away for a while, to wrap myself and the people and events of my life in a cocoon-like pause. A few moments to breathe, take stock, and allow the bubbles to rise. But the universe was having none of that and was delivering a further push, an unwelcome pressure I was not equipped to deal with well. More than that it was poking me on sacred ground, a trusted territory I had never imagined could be tampered with.

On that day, it felt like just another concussive blow to my heart and nervous system. Instead of pausing or allowing myself time to consider a fully formed response, I reverted to a practiced default - my inertia move. On the phone I was full of grace, no doubt responding in just the perfect way, offering non-dualistic acceptance, support, affirmation. What I was not able to do was to speak the truth of my unreadiness, instead voicing the internal setting which goes something like this:
"It's ok. I can handle this. Don't worry about me."
In those moments on the phone, underneath the apparent grace and simple truth of my words, I remember most clearly the upwelling of a voice in my head saying  'you've got to be effing kidding me.' I had been so exhausted already, why was I being asked to withstand more?
Maybe because that is what I constantly ask of myself, and felt shame and unworthiness for even having a more nuanced response.

Ironically, it is the unspoken truth that tends to follow up with a vengeance on the coattails of such things, sometimes messily. By subsuming that second voice, an equal and opposite reaction was triggered.  Like whiplash, it caught me (and others) off guard. I have less of an earthy stoicism than I would like to think. I feel attachment and pain, tend towards expressiveness when hurting and need time to process and talk and feel my way through things - I am learning to allow for that. Perhaps I can be forgiven and understood by others for these things as well, though that is not something within my control.

In the weeks that followed I and others suffered the fall out of my own conflicted responses. The inertia of the situation seemed to me unstoppable, freight-train like, made worse by my initial acquiescence. To onlookers, I probably seemed insane. In the course of a few days I had an epiphanic change of heart, and communicated this with honesty, pure intention and with what felt to me like a deep vulnerability. I was rebuffed and felt exposed, at fault, regretful, scared, as well as conflicted and disloyal in sharing my truth. I imagine I was perceived as manipulative, fickle and inconsistent. Unkind and insensitive.

I have a coffee cup that a dear friend gave me - it is thickly made and earthy and is etched with the words "I am strong" on the base. I have, over the years and throughout my childhood, internalized this message - I think I can own the fact that at my best I have a powerful and willowy resilience. I am not (too) afraid of conflict and prefer it when difficulties are openly and compassionately engaged, knowing it can lead to transformation, redemption and magic. However, one of the more problematic strands of this weave is a deep rooted desire to not be a bother, not to get in the way. There is sometimes an altruism in that - a desire to see the people I love happy and a deep trust in the way things unfold. But there is also no doubt that this stoicism is tied up in a sense of unworthiness. I also can, when pressed, have trouble imagining a way for apparently conflicting needs to be met. So I remove my own, turning them inward. And I have a short fuse for suppressed emotions.

Historically I know how all this is connected to having been the least in need of my family constellation - the youngest but the most ok, able to withstand not only the winds of absence, neglect and abuse, but also to rise and deepen despite of it.  Maybe even because of it, using the fertile soil of adversity as fodder for growth. On the dark side, it may be because I am strong that I will initially defer my own needs. I know I can survive, but ultimately life should be about more than survival.

There are bubbles going up...somewhere. I need to trust that. To rest in this stillness despite the cacophonous demands of the human world for movement. The perceived pressures and expectations of my age, my status, my 'failures' in relationships. I need to hold, not my breath, but my own hands to stop them from clawing their way to the next false surface of this vast and dark ocean. In the scribbled words from the barely-used notebook I found this week, I need to do my best to be still and let the universe meet me half way.


**Post-script: My writing often emerges as a reflective tool, a healing process, a way into the next phase. It is the crack in the seam that bubbles with life when there is no opening for real dialogue.  Thus, it is subjective and reflective of my own experience.

Soulful

Sometimes you just have to claim what's yours,
And this is mine.

Soulful,
Artful.
I am
Far from perfect,
Slightly guarded but wildly open.

Pay attention, and
You may get a small window into this
Spirit.
Caught in the flight of dance,
Music,
Light,
Careening around the open field.
Broken, unbroken.
Again and again.

When you let yourself be influenced,
Like I have,
Allowed the ethers to steal your magic,
Essence by essence.
Stripping you of your innocent nature.
When you believe in projections
You become dilute.
Watered down in self doubt.
Loss and hope,
Unfettered and unclaimed.
Sometimes it feels safer to be this way.

But
In the sweep of redemption that never happens
I am
Losing faith a million times.
I crack,
To find more pieces still clinging
To the life raft
Within.
Lying dormant at the level of soul
I find
Remnants of a self
Magnetically seeking it's own shards
In the push and pull of this
Spring tide.
Becoming whole.

Once again
I see her
This creature of adolescent dreamscapes.
She is the same
But also utterly different.
She is me.
Lost, found and abandoned
In the crash of this
Ambient moment.
Through the trees
She is coming home again.

Second Life

I've been thinking recently how great it would be if I had two lives. Not so much one after the other so much as one that paralleled this one. You see it seems that I am constantly faced with choices, too many things that I want to say yes to and only one life worth of time and energy to do all of them. It is a privileged position to be in for sure, but it makes me wonder what fuels this desire for a second life.

Part of it, to be completely honest, is about FOMO. Fear of Missing Out is one of the banes of my existence. It is a problem. Just in the past month I can probably list about 6 events, trips or gatherings that I have not been able to go to because I was doing something else. Each time I say no to something that conflicts with something else on my schedule I feel like I am missing out on an opportunity to show up and do something cool. I am also quietly haunted by a sense that my absence will precipitate some loss - as if by not showing up I will somehow be stricken from the list of invitees or worse, forgotten entirely. Not missed. That terrifies me, and I am very aware of how narcissistic that might be. I need to feel like I belong, and am wanted at the party.  The feeling  of exclusion is a trap for me. It may not be pretty, but it's true.

Another piece of this second life business is about energy. I find these days that life is an intricate dance between taking action and engaging in experiences and taking refuge in the pause. Exertion, either physical, geographical, emotional or spiritual must be balanced with restfulness. There is refuelling that needs to be done, and if we ignore that need we tend to trammel ourselves in an overcommitted slurry of doing and striving. It's not that I don't want to stop and rest, it's the opposite -  I love resting, but sometimes is feels like resting comes at a cost. And I want to experience all of it - the oasis and the adventure, the party and the sleepy mornings over coffee with nowhere to be.

I think about this in bigger terms as well. I am aware that there have been times in my life where I have feared making a choice. I have hesitated, or tried to hold the inevitable rush of passing time at bay, tried to hold the people, or my idea of them in stasis around me until I have had the time to gather my wits and make the 'right' choice or action. But this is impossible, and in many cases, once we have walked by a fork in the trail, even if we have willfully paused only a few steps beyond the juncture there is no going back. Sometimes the trail has been erased, by circumstance or the movement of others, or simply by the same magic that made it appear in the first place. At other times the landscape has changed entirely in the space of our hesitation and to make our way back to that path is too arduous or thick with brambles to undertake without completely losing ourselves along the way. Sometimes what feels only a breath away is really long gone. This is a lesson worth remembering.

This summer I have made choices. I am blessed to have the luxury of a generous share of time, a lack of stress or material need and the gift of opportunity. And this is what I will try to sit with, as I struggle with the privilege of wanting.  I will trust that the choices I am making are setting me on the right path

.

Salt

Every 18.6 years the tide cycle in the Pacific Northwest repeats itself. So perfectly predictable, it is a pattern created by solar and lunar orbits that brings about the exact same measurements - to the centimetre - on each place on the coast. We commonly think about tides in relation to a daily and monthly schedule, the higher high and lower low waters, the springs and the neaps, so it is always surprising to people when you tell them about this larger, multi-year pattern of highs and lows. Nature has a precision we cannot hope to replicate, and yet we often characterize her as chaotic, cacophonous, unbridled. 'Wild' is a word often used to describe people and things that are without discipline, impulsive or wanton.

I returned home this week from a 9 day trip on the ocean, skin and soul scrubbed by saltwater and the finest sand. I am tired, back in the routine of a regular job after being on ocean time, having returned to the lee for a short break from the windy side of this island. My clock has been reset by a feral kind of symmetry; I have made this way of living a bit of a habit, moving back and forth between the urban and the wild, always working on evening out the pendulum swing.  Always seeking just the right mix of movement and staying put. It is as good as it gets right now - I have called it perfect, this balance of freedom and stability that I have built. My nomadic soul has always wanted to meet it's more settled twin, and this is possible now. Perhaps it is already happening and they are twining fingers and staring into each others eyes just beyond my line of sight.

The wild west scours me clean and works it's magic on my nervous system. I sleep well, bathed in a soundscape of dumping surf - and the slow inhale as the sea sucks itself back for another assault on the shore. Since the first time I travelled up this particular bit of coastline by kayak I have noticed that the ocean is a breathing thing. It reminds me to breathe more fully and I make a point not to forget this when I am back in the city.

It seemed like there is often no pause between these two realities, but sometimes I am aware that this life is made of nothing but pauses. The only adversity I feel is what I drum up from the inside, looking to find discord where there is none, creating a sense of rushing when I have already arrived, a sense of lack when I am steeped in riches; I am just like a human being in that way. Always on the lookout for imperfection, or trouble, or something that is somehow not enough. But these days the blows from within seem to glance off me like water rolling off freshly preened duck feathers. There is a smoothness to things, like polished beach stones.

The Green Corridor

I won't do it justice, because the moment has passed, but as my bike coasted along the downhill slope yesterday on the way home from work I felt surrounded, encased in the green world. A protective boundary of verdant spring foliage, dappling sunlight sneaking through the gaps in the leaves. The perfect temperate air flowing around me, slipstream unused at my back.  The world here is almost always green, but spring is still bursting.

It is a truth that not all the things I long for are here in this season, and still nothing is missing. There is a contentedness, a gratitude that suffuses the moments like the scent of the newly fledged leaves surrounding me. It is not hope, but it is grace. An allowance for all the wrongs done by my errant heart. A forgiveness for all the wounds unknowingly inflicted, and for the meanings randomly assigned to each broken piece of glass. I am learning how to stay in place, by allowing that place to change as the seasons do.

I am lucky to have landed here. Amazed at what I have been granted in work, the creative freedom, paired with a material security that has the effect of calming the nervous system. I no longer say yes to all the things - perhaps finally understanding the space needed between projects and adventures. The need for some measure of staring into space, for stillness. In the coming months I am transformed again - almost half of every month immersed in wildernesses of my choosing. The deep oceanic work of summer. It is an alchemical time, a confluence of magic, humanity, connection and the wild lingering places. It is the journey work of souls and the source of all imagination.

I can lean into it all, knowing that life takes time, and change is a given. For now, I have some constants; a home, friends and people who love me, the perfect mix of stability, freedom and creativity in my work. I am learning how to bring my gifts to more of the things in life, even the mundane and seemingly routine motions of a modern existence. Although that will always be a work in progress. I am in the green corridor, which is beautiful for it's own sake, immersive and sensory, but perhaps also a gateway to what is unfolding.

The Facebook

I recently took a monthlong break from social media, actually from Facebook to be exact, since that is the only social media I subscribe to. I returned this week and have had some observations that may (or may not) be worth sharing.
This is not the first time I've taken a break from the book of face - many times over the past 10 years I've deactivated my account for stretches of up to several months, but upon returning to it this week I have some new reflections.

When I turned off and tuned out of social media a little over a month ago it was about curbing an addiction. While I was not 'using' that much by some standards, I was definitely in the compulsive checking habit. I was also noticing that when I made an effort to resist the craving for a day or more my mood and sense of well being improved. It was beginning to really annoy me that my computer was encouraging me through 'click-baiting' my browser's memory and enthusiastically filling in '-acebook' every time I started typing the letter F into the search bar.

In the first few days I congratulated myself for being above average in the impulse control department. It was surprisingly easy for me not to log in to check my messages, post 'likes', or scroll through my newsfeed. With each passing day it got easier - I had been needing a break and was clearly ready to unplug. The experience has made me ponder (more than usual) the nature of human connections in the age of social media, email, and texting and revisit my intention to invest my energy in the real ones more often. Even in my closest relationships I have been sometimes ill at ease with the way text has become not only a venue for checking in or giving information, but also to sort through complex issues and emotional dynamics. I have been guilty of, and have been swept up with others in the instant gratification of being able to get something off the chest now and have it 'said' (good or bad). In retrospect, even though I have been the recipient of some truly fun, and sometimes absolutely swoon-worthy stuff via text, instant message and email, it has also been the ground for the planting of deep and pernicious misunderstandings. Instant, faceless communication allows us to decide what we think was said and leave 'conversations' without having to face or be faced by the more subtle and discernible truths that can only be found in 3-dimensional methods of connecting.

As someone who writes, I love the playful use of written language that social media and our devices give us, but I have also been guilty of mis-using the venue for conversations that would be better had by organizing an in person meeting or voice call. It's so convenient, and when I'm stressed or upset about something and fearing disconnection, it's sometimes easier for me to express myself in writing. But there's something so absolute about the written world - even when it is coming from a place of curiosity or uncertainty it can have a way of seeming so ultimate and decisive. It's not something that can be taken back, and much is left to the interpretation and inner voice of the reader.

Anyway, I digress...but these thoughts are related to what I am puzzling over. The social connection part of the social media equation.

 For the month I was 'away' from Facebook I often felt like I was missing out on conversations and events that were happening outside of my tangible reality. It was a bit like sitting alone in the school yard or cafeteria, peripherally aware of the quiet whisperings of peers, wondering if there is a party you're not invited to or a secret you're not privy to. And a few times over the month I discovered that I had indeed missed out on some social/professional gatherings - a few I found out about last minute because someone thought to text or tell me about it in real time. This became the biggest issue for me in being off Facebook - the connections that I was potentially missing because I was away from the platform. I didn't miss the time-wasting and compulsive scrolling, and I didn't (much) think about the fact that no one had recently given me a thumbs up or heart emoji to show me how much they liked what I had to say or approved of something cool I had done. But a few times I felt as if I had been disconnected from the 'community message board'. Overall however, I felt happier, calmer, and more connected to the things that were actually happening around me. The things that were 'close in' rather than peripheral.

As a friend observed this week on my 'timeline', Facebook is a lot like an alternate universe (thanks for that one Perch). It is a world happening on another plane of existence, only accessible through devices that are connected to an unseen array of energetic signals being transmitted through the ether. It's a world unto itself, but one that has a direct line to the 'real' world of living, breathing, relating human beings. But sometimes it feels that this virtual world is taking over.

The month I was away from Facebook, I got a lot done. I made a garden, read a few books, connected with people (in person, by phone, via snail mail, etc.), I wrote a few pieces (most still in progress and not yet published), joined a music group, went paddling, skiing and biking and all the usual things that I tend to do. I recertified my Wilderness First Responder over a beautiful weekend in Squamish, stayed with friends on Bowen Island, and designed and delivered a super cool mindfulness-in-nature workshop for educators and planned a writing and mindfulness retreat. I also walked the dog, stared into space a lot more than is usual these days, and breathed in a whole bunch of forest/ocean/river/mountain air. I am betting that there were subtle differences in how much attention I gave the things that I did. And I can guarantee that all that staring into space and the lack of compulsive clicking and post-planning (even if it's unconscious) gave my brain some much needed recoup time and space. I was most definitely more creative in those four weeks.

The other thing I've reflected on since returning to Facebook this week, is the nature of connection. Or more precisely about feeling connected. I think Facebook (and I would guess, other social media) feels to us like being privy to that whispered lunch room conversation. We get to feel connected to a community of sorts, and are allowed to comment, approve or disapprove, empathize and sympathize with anyone we want to feel affiliated with. Although we know it is a public platform and one that is curated by the user (and the corporation), it's a forum where people can sometimes be quite vulnerable. We are often using our 'inside' voices - you know, the ones that we may not speak in public, but are willing to 'share' publicly when we are hidden behind a profile and keyboard in a room out of sight. It is a strange intimacy that in some way simulates a sense of belonging and even acceptance.

For the likes of me (an extroverted introvert who sometimes expresses myself well in writing) Facebook can sometime replicate the feel of a gathering. In real life, I love being part of a familial crowd and derive a huge sense of safety, belonging and positive esteem when I am amongst my 'people'. It's something I had a lot of when I was in my twenties and thirties, living as I did in small like-minded basecamps filled with other outdoors people. I thrived on living and working together in close proximity.  Social gatherings were spontaneous and low stress. I could be a fly on the wall or at the centre of the chaos and feel similarly 'part of' and an accepted and valued member of the group. I felt a sense of belonging in ways that I never truly did in my family home or growing up in school.  As I have gotten older, and moved away from many of these tight-knit communities (and as many of them have dissolved due to life stage, bascamp closures or other factors) I am acutely aware of how much I miss and sometimes feel a lack of that intense sense of belonging.

I think this is what we are attuned to about Facebook and other social media. Every time we log on and get a 'like' or comment, we feel a sense of connectedness, being 'part of'. Although it's fleeting and in reality devoid of much substance it gives us a 'hit' of social acknowledgment. The more likes and comments the better. But it ultimately leaves us craving more - hence all the checking, scrolling and liking. We are trying to find our way back to our people, one emoji at a time.

Last summer I found myself sitting around a long table at a pub one evening after working a successful and powerful wilderness program. I had parachuted in to work the course and I was surrounded by some people I knew well, and others I had just met. Whether we knew much about each other or not, As I sat there in the late afternoon sun I had an overwhelming sense of being in my place, with my clan. There have been other such moments this year for me, most have involved making an effort to connect with the people I love and make a plan (sometimes involving a lot of logistics) to get together. It is always worth it.

The feeling of connection I get from these times tends to last days or even weeks, and even now I still hold in my bones a residual feeling of belonging. It feeds my soul, and I gives me a sense despite everything all is right in my world. The shine of those times takes a while to rub off.

I think this is what we get a glimmer of in the world of social media - a feeling of being surrounded by 'friends'. But it is more like a chimera because the moment it is felt it dissipates, and demands that we return to the illusory oasis of belonging for another drink. Social media can be fun and connecting at best, but it is a bucket full of holes.

To Be Continued (maybe)

Stone Gardening

I am growing vegetables, perching them on the metallic glassiness of my condominium balcony. Not too far up, but suspended. There are flowers too. Underneath the soil of each pot there are stones, rough-hewn collections of gravel, adding extraneous weight, providing drainage. Within  these few early weeks I have already harvested some salad and am watching the emergence of small shoots of life pushing up from the soil. A Sunflower in the making here, the beginnings of an herb garden there.
The strawberry plants are hardy little beings, growing broad little leaves that splay out to absorb all the light they can find. It is magical stuff this earth, water, and late afternoon sunlight that filters in to feed this small oasis of elevated life.
I will not stay here in this urban pod forever, but this season is mine. There is a stability to it. I am allowed to water and tend, there is time.
But what of the stones? They lie quietly, as if in wait in the layers below the soil and roots. Collecting and dispersing moisture. Doing their small but indispensable service, adding weight to things. Are they changing down there, protected as they are from force of the weather? Impervious or at least less prone to the elements that cause stone to be carved and worn, to turn to sand or earth? I am not sure but it troubles me a bit, because I dream that stones want to find their way to becoming earth, seed, leaf and flower. In the slow way of the turning world, far beyond my lifetime, but with an unfathomable certainty.