Last weekend, I shared time with several others at The Field Retreat on Milford Lake, where for 2 days and nights, we explored all the layers of being human (koshas in Ayurveda).
Our retreating began just before the first full Moon of Spring, the Paschal Full Moon, the timing of which lunar event signifies that Easter is near - a time when many celebrate the hope of rising again and the return of Light against all humanly odds. According to the Farmers Almanc, this full Moon is also known as "the Pink Moon (for early springtime blooms of wildflowers), the Breaking Ice Moon (Algonquin) and Moon When the Streams Are Again Navigable (Dakota), Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs (Tlingit) and Moon of the Red Grass Appearing (Oglala)", and is the "best time for killing weeds, thinning, pruning, mowing, cutting timber, and planting below-ground crops".
We went through layer by layer (physical, mental, wisdom and energy), preparing our soil and seeds of intention for own Field of hope, light and blossoming in life. Each layer offered opportunity for readying through yoga poses and breathing, meditation, art, nature, storytelling, navigation, silence, flying wishes and feeding ourselves the generous nourishment of community, food. We also dashed spice in each layer with shared tears, belly laughs, moonlit walks on the beach and dancing (of course!).
On the final day, everyone shared their answers to these questions:
Without ___________ there is no future.
What does this mean to you? “Even if the soil is not the same, they will grow.”
In my life, what was an event or an experience where I had a feeling of living true?
Answers that are shared in writing with me will be added to this blog as they come in as a remembrance for this moment of alignment in all layers, and because even on that last day, most of us knew we would profoundly enjoy sharing our seeds and this experience with all of humanity.
Share #1:
Without LOVE there is no future.
“Even if the soil is not the same, they will grow.” (the journey of my daughters referenced in the story below)
My experience of Living True is:
"After mulling over the sentence in my head while eating nutrition that was fueling my body. Taste that was enlivening my mouth. Community that was filling my soul. Compassionate wisdom, guidance, teaching, and authority that was encouraging calibration of my inner compass, my True North…I realized in that moment, in this present space and time, in middle of America, that I was sitting at a table among fellow journeyers that I couldn’t have imagined myself being at a year ago.
I learned from Sam Keen’s “Fire in the Belly”, that part of our path may be this:
“There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble.”
I spent years of my life calibrating to another’s compass, getting a few degrees off my True North with each spiral of my path I took. But as Charmion reminds us so well, a few degrees off takes us miles and miles off course the further we journey.
I am still grieving a loss. Forgiveness is still a process. Realizing someone’s magnet may be pulling you off your True North aches on a cellular level. But I must be the steady bow by which my daughters go forth on their own journeys over the horizon guided by their True North, not mine.
Remembering myself has been a journey I didn’t even know I had to take. But it has been a teacher that I have needed. It has looked like nothing that I have expected, and has offered me answers I didn’t know I was seeking.
Rumi says best: “That which you seek, is also seeking you.”
Maybe I’m seeking the questions more than the answers. The wonder, joy, and delight of having body, mind, breath, and soul in this lifetime. Maybe in a past life I was a dandelion. Maybe in the future life I will be a hawk.
But in this life, I am fully, beautifully, and chaotically human.
Messy and me.
With ‘a heart full of maps and hope like the ocean’ as one of my favorite poets Victoria Erickson says best.
I am a seeker. And I am exactly, precisely, in this moment, in this cabin, with all of you fellow truth seekers, exactly at the checkpoint I’m meant to be.
Living true, with all of you.
I want to thank you from my soul for living true and offering your wisdom, guidance, and encouragement for others to find their living true path as well. To live the question and to shift through the shit. To be but also do. To stop comparing our shit and use it to enrich the soil of our souls. To deploy the patience necessary to discover, grow, and embody our dharma... but to also do the tilling, weeding, watering, adding of the nutrients, and ensuring ample sunshine as that seed roots, cracks, and rises in the dark".
Share #2:
Without ______ there is no future.
“Even if the soil is not the same, they will grow.”
My experience of Living True is:
"There is a picture perfect world painted for all of us and is shown to us in various ways starting in childhood. You grow up in a functional family, pick a college, find your sweetheart there, graduate, get a career, get married, buy a house, have babies, raise babies and grow old and pass on. Television and church definitely painted this story out for me, but, so did my parents. Perfection was something I was suppose to live up too because …. Well, frankly I don’t know, but if I were to guess it was because my parents messed around a lot and didn’t live up to the perfect world life imagined either.
But I wanted to give my parents someone to be proud of. That was a conscious desire of mine. So taking the logical road was the path I sought out. But that path wasn’t my path. It was not meant for me. And I can always tell because I was always unhappy and there was always an obstacle or road block, and unproductive one. I have been going to college and I was working in a psych ward when I shifted into this “living true” phase. It was a small town, I was working in an environment that would have been hard on anyone. Something came over me, and I walked out when I knew it was time. I make only well thought out movements, so this one was wild. And from the moment my life snowballed into a direction I’m forever grateful for.
My family and I picked up and moved states. In that same month of settling into our new place, I found a yoga studio offering a training to become a teacher. My logical brain thought “this would be a great tool to add to my mental health studies” and took the leap. I had no idea how really amazing the tool I was about to receive would be. As I move through, grow through, yoga teacher training, I discover how passionate I am about something I thought was more of a hobby/workout. I discovered the depths of yoga. Here, admiring this passion, decided to fully swim in those depths. So when the opportunity arose, to work back in a psych ward, the logical reasonable plan, or dive into teaching yoga, I took the wild leap and chose yoga. To teach and learn and swim in the depths of yoga. Even with the “shoulds” working against me, going against being logical to achieve “perfection” or validation. I decided to do something not to impress others, but to make myself happy. And in that moment, I had no idea I was choosing a moment of “living true.”
But when thinking of a moment where I felt like I was living true, I thought to the moment where I was driving home after a great class. I smiled the whole time and my reflections were in happy places, I had this feeling of joy sweep over me that I yelled in joy, a big ol WHOOHOOO, just to feel the vibrations of excitement through sound. I thought of that moment, and realized,
I am currently living true."
Sat Nam,
Charmion