How do you like to work on grounding yourself, when you really realize you've become adrift?
For me, the things I always used to do seem unavailable to me. I spent many years of my life as a single person. I didn't even marry my husband until after I turned 50. So, I have no kids. Dogs are my kids, really. Over time, I've enjoyed many relationships, and left as many. But in between, I was always alone, and being alone allowed me the solitude to enjoy meditation, writing...
Now, privacy is a thing of my dreamscape. It's not that I can't enjoy meditation, or listen to Native American flute as it drifts through my house. But, there is no space that is mine alone. And, to ground myself, more than anything, I really need solitude. I often walk long walks with the dogs, which presents so many gifts all rolled together anyway; I bond with these two pooches whom I adore; I get fresh air and exercise; and my mind can wander. I love my walks!
But, I need more. I am in the process of finding a couple of days, and a comforting place to escape to, because I really need to reconnect with my mind and my heart. I think it's something everybody can appreciate now and then, if not, perhaps, all the time.
My friend Kim has found a place to live where she is surrounded by growing things; things that feed her family and others. I was there recently. I realized how much she must really enjoy being able to step into her orchard and smell the earth and the decaying fallen leaves crunching under her feet.
I love where I live; my home and yard are a small slice of heaven in my book. It's just that sometimes, one needs to gain a bit of distance and perspective.
In my 20's, I had a dear friend who had been through a great deal of trauma and loss in her life. She was twice my age, almost, and we came to know each other because she applied to work for me at a company I owned back then. She did work for me, but the job wasn't a great fit for her, though we found our way to a funny friendship for a time. I think she was trying to find her way through her trauma. In the couple of years when I saw her frequently, I joined her at many Native American gatherings and sweat lodges. I, inspired by what I'd learned as her guest on these travels, began absorbing the concepts of the Native American ideas of life, spirituality, and interaction and connection with nature, creatures, and the world around us.
Those many years ago, we spent hours here in Auburn (where I now live) at the feet of the couple who ran the shop here. They were journeyers of many roads. They had traveled to the rain forests in the Amazon and lived among the tribes there. Their stories were colorful and woven with notions of things vastly different. My friend, Jinny, and I, walked at Folsom Lake when the drought of the early and mid-1980's had drawn the water so low that the rock formations at the lower end of the lake protruded like a petroglyphic city. There, walking our dogs one evening at Sunset, we stopped and meditated for some time. We decided the place was perfect to come back at dawn and establish a medicine wheel.
I remember that beautiful purple and gold sunrise. We had our Four Sacred Medicines--sage, sweetgrass, cedar, and tobacco (Jinny had purchased a bag of loose chew). We burned our medicines, smudging and thereby cleansing the area around our medicine wheel, and we meditated and breathed in the aromatic air.
Her vision over my shoulder that morning was a white wolf. She felt it was there to protect me. I did not see it, but the meditation was good, and deep, and meaningful.
For al these many years after, I continue to keep sage and sweetgrass handy, and I especially love to burn the hank of sweetgrass that I purchased from the couple in Auburn, as they had harvested it themselves, and I found a precious connectedness in knowing that.
I came to realize that casting runes and journaling about the results was therapeutic, though I have long ago misplaced my rune set. Jinny was a wonderful artist, too, and she was particularly involved with stained glass. When I'd pop by her apartment unannounced, she always had a cup of coffee, and a glass project going. Along with her one day to buy glass, I discovered FIMO clay, and bought a few blocks to work with. I was not interested in making beads, which is what I later learned most people did with it. Nope. I loved the deep, rich, colors that needed no glaze and no firing. I sculpted figures. By the time I tired of it, I had a FIMO menagerie. But, it was a wonderful way to escape my always restless brain and just feel the thing I was creating taking shape under my hands.
The thing that I most hold fast to even now is the music from those times, that seeped into my very soul. Listening to Native American flute for hours and hours sometimes lead into an appreciation of simple Japanese flute, and as I listened, my interest broadened to follow my interest into world music. I've settled on Flamenco, which I came to love when Gypsy Kings came onto the scene, and also because of my many years dancing--nothing beats the Latin dances. And, in recent years since my hip surgery and getting back into regular sleep, I have come back to R. Carlos Nakai and his rain accompanied flute to sooth me to sleep.
...
Yes, that's the plan. I'll sneak off for my little retreat, and make sure that I have some sweetgrass and good books, and some flute and some Flamenco. Oh, and, of course, the doggies!
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