A Meditation to Ground Into Fall

Mornings here in Vermont are waking up later each day. I’m pulling a sweater on at sunrise, putting on slippers, and giving thanks for the arrival of my favorite season. In honor of Fall whispering ‘hi', here’s a meditation to drop into when you’re feeling up in the clouds, anxious, or stuck in your head.

<3 Alex

back at it/living simply

it’s time. i’ve been writing notes and scribbles in my journals, class plans, and corners of my research design since i stopped posting on here. i miss having a space to reflect and share all the beauty i find daily. songs, images, words. 

in my 20s i wandered. i decided my 30s would be about pushing an edge to commit. to only say ‘yes’ to the things i felt 100% sure of. as i step into grad school, and money gets tighter, i can feel my ‘hustle’ energy turning on. i’m reaching out left and right for writing contract gigs. searching online for postings. today, i stopped in the middle of it all and asked ‘why’ then forced myself to get off the computer and walk the neighborhood. on the other end of the ‘why’ was fear. survival.

in reality, dave and i bought the carriage house we did instead of a traditional family one because we wanted to simplify. our biggest fear moving back from madagascar was getting swept away in american consumerism with owning things. with looking a certain way. even consuming the yoga lifestyle and the aesthetic that comes with it. 

we wanted to stick to owning only what we needed, nothing more. a year into life here we’d already acquired all this extra “stuff” and moving into our thousand square feet we now call home (with no closet doors and barely any storage) forced us to simplify. to let go of what we weren’t returning to regularly. it felt damn good.

now with grad school on the horizon, financially we’re on the same route to simplify. this means spending money on what matters to us. and not hustling so hard that we’re both swimming in all these side gigs that don’t feel good at our centers. it’s a challenge. it’s an edge. but the truth is if this decade is about commitment, it also means i need to focus instead of juggling consulting work, teaching cycling + yoga, doing readings, leading my research, interning at a few places, and balancing classes. that list needs to simplify along with what we own and our money. i can’t wait to see what’s on the other side of pulling my energy in along with what we spend and what we own.

There’s no love like the epic love for a dog best friend.

On Pausing

Sometimes I get so fiercely attached to things I want to make happen that I fall completely out of balance. I network, create, build, write, and then a few weeks later, I realize I’m burned out. As a yoga teacher, coach, and lover of the good life, I used to think that balance was the key to survival. That somehow we always had to rest on the fine line between intensity and ease. And we do. We really do. But I think the reality is that this balance comes at a large scale level.

If we really want to pursue what we love, we have to fall into periods of imbalance. Of full on, work hard, dig in, even sometimes sleep less, sort of commitment. And then, when we’re burned out, we need to balance out by taking a pause. I’m recognizing that I’ve been going hard. So hard that I haven’t even had time to update this blog. So now it’s time for a pause. A few days off to recover. Luckily we have a trip on tap to snorkel with some sea turtles next week.

Take a moment. Look at where you are between ease and intensity. Do you need a rest? Or do you need to push a little harder to create what you’re longing for? 

Keeping It Simple

Sometimes dreams unfold in the simplicity of life. I’m here puffing my own rice for homemade protein bars, grinding oats for honey oat flour bread that’ll be baking all afternoon, and chopping coconut to dash on top of both. All of this to make some plane food for a 12 hour journey to Uganda tomorrow. I’ve not only fallen in love with not being able to run to the grocery store to grab anything I want, but also with the way I’m seeing the simple details of my life reflect a great big dream I hold onto.

I have a “one day” dream of living on land, having an urban farm of sorts, and making most of my own stuff from scratch (flours, honey, tinctures, herbs, veggies). Here in Madagascar today I’m doing a little warm up for that by making all these treats without easy access to gluten free flours and bars. How can you start moving towards your big dreams by bringing what your dreamy day-to-day might look like into your here and now?

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

— Edward Abbey

“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

— paulo coelho

A Prayer

Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I’m now spanning two tumblrs round here. Need to get back at this one! In the meantime, you can check out notes on life in Madagascar at: thewonderofawe.tumblr.com. <3!

“I have learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist, and that she can fall in love and be loved. She can be married, have children, be a mother. Revolution must mean life also; every aspect of life.”

— Leila Khaled

[love is more thicker than forget]

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave
is wet more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky
which only is higher than the sky

-e.e. cummings

“only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far to go.”

— t.s. eliot

“close your eyes. fall in love. stay there.”

— rumi

“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

— William Saroyan