Homesteading Nostalgia

I was feeling nostalgic for my suburban homesteading days, so I thought I'd put up a few pictures I'd taken a couple years back.

I just put some of my meager savings into a deposit on some land in Costa Rica. (!!!!) Current plan is still to move there after the kids are out of school. Will start practicing self-sustainable practices now in anticipation. :)

Experiential Dance

Today I danced uncertainty, frustration, willingness, openness, letting go, surrendering, joy, concentration, trust, grounding, symbiosis, nurturing (receiving it), and connection with both the Divine and also my peers ALL IN ONE DANCE.

That's pretty amazing. Most days I only dance one thing.

At the beginning of dance "church" today, I felt the not-quite-frantic feeling I get when I think about life purpose. I danced "What's my calling?" "Is this my calling?" "What's my calling?" "I'm trying to find my calling." Calling, calling, calling. Like an echo, unanswered.

Then I sunk into the music and let go. Let go of the control I so mistakenly think I have. I surrendered to the Divine. "Use me as you will. Use me as your instrument in this glorious orchestra, to make beautiful music -- to dance and live my joy." I knew this was the only way to find that calling. Dance, let go, and surrender. Rinse and repeat.

See, now I'll know what it feels like to be joyful and living my purpose and answering my call, because I danced it already, today.

Giving myself up to the Divine Universe is scary, and I said to It today while dancing, "If you want me to open myself up -- to show up for work and play and calling, and more importantly, to stop being in charge -- You'll have to hold me up, be my strength, and guide me."

And it became clear through my dance, or through the portals of dance -- those shamanic dream gates -- that this was a dance all in itself -- this giving up control and letting go, the awkwardness and fear around that, the surrendering again (or despite that), the Universe's promise of support, but then my need to let go and trust that the support will be there when I leap. Like the flyers in Acroyoga who need to trust their bases. The bases can only do their job when the flyers are confident in their base's ability to do their job and hold the flyers in safety.

Today I was gently reminded that there will be dark places in the room/life where I dance, and in those places I'll need to make sure I'm paying extra close attention to staying connected to Source. Are my feet and hands touching the ground? Am I dancing the two halves (the upper and lower) of my body together? 

My two halves of my body don't need to be doing the same thing. They can be dancing the dance of one supporting the other, they can be dancing to complement the other, they can be dancing continuation of the other. So, 'No' to having to dance the same dance, but 'Yes' to being in synch with one another. Or, in this case, one half of the other.

The last two or three songs of today's dance set were (for me) about HOW to connect to Source, and to being nurtured. After I danced receiving nourishment, someone brushed against me by "accident" and I had a brief and lovely moment of connection, and then went back to receiving from the Universe.

Today, everything I needed, I received.

I'm still convinced, over and over, that things happen for a reason. I went in to Dance today with expectations and a specific desire to talk to a particular person, but that individual was not there. Had he been, perhaps my dance would've been far different. Maybe I would've been distracted by him and not have danced so much meaning in this one dance set.

In gratitude, I bow to the Universe. Namascar.