Groundlessness
Hello, from the sitting nook in my childhood bedroom. Next to me sits a slender vase with two long peacock feathers, their blue & green eyes gazing back at me.
In this nook, I’ve held tea parties with friends, talked on the phone with countless loved ones, written songs and stories, and stared out onto the hill country of Austin. We live off part of the Green Belt, a strip of much-appreciated forestry in this area.
Since arriving back from my year of travel in August, I’ve been living at my parents’ house and have just started in a new, remote role. It’s been a very interesting time of “settling in.”
It’s been needed in the financial aspect, to settle for a moment. It’s also, I think, been needed on the physical and emotional side of things as well. I could have continued traveling and going much longer than I did, for sure. And in my gut I know there’s more to come. However, in the past year I began to crave a different kind of stability.
Part of me loved the unknown of it all! The thrill of it. When I’m solo traveling, I really do trust myself, but more importantly, I trust my higher Guides to get me from point A to point B. Sometimes it’s the actual most crazy-ass, round-about way and I’m over here thinking… “Seriously!? There had to have been an easier route.”
But there were lessons to be learned along the way!
Another part of me can’t deny my growing desire to create a small home of my own. At some point. Not sure where. Not sure when. A home where I can gather my community, from near and far. Where I can have a garden and a dog. This home will be filled with music-making and creativity! A home near the sea.
I’ve been living out of suitcases for the past… oh… eight years or so!? I’ve definitely had homes where I’ve stayed for longer chunks of time within those eight years. Mostly they’ve been the homes of others. And boy am I grateful for the angels along my path who have shared their homes with me. I’ve taken residence in small NYC bedrooms in a couple of unbelievable apartments/homes and I’ve been given beautiful homes to plant myself in Italy and in the UK during my time abroad.
It was never my “plan” to be back in my parents’ home, our family home, at age 31. Buuuut my adult life has been absolutely nothing like I could have imagined or planned… in the best of ways! And in some challenging ways sometimes as well.
All of this has me thinking about presence.
We are in my favorite time of year, Autumn! In this time of reflection and of shedding what no longer serves us, I am asking this question…
How do I remain present with where I am, who I am and who & what is in front of me now, while also keeping my heart open for where I’m heading, who I am becoming and who & what will be a part of my future?
Blue Hole, Wimberly, Texas
For the collective, in this time of wobblyness for so many, coming out of a global pandemic, how do we find solid ground in the midst of it all?
Well, friends, sometimes we don’t.
Buddhist nun and teacher, Pema Chodron, writes about the idea of groundlessness in her book, “When Things Fall Apart.” I find the notion curiously comforting.
What if, in the moments of shit hitting the fan, of heartache, of starting again, we could let ourselves be in it, without frantically scrambling for higher ground, or any ground at all for that matter?
There will be times in life when the floor does seem to fall out from beneath our feet. In response, we may thrash our limbs in search of the ground we once stood upon.
Here’s the thing, solid ground is an illusion and stability is a false narrative, especially in our Western society in which we’ve been told that stability looks a certain way.
I don’t mean this to sound pessimistic. What I mean is that life can change in an instant. In fact, it does. It’s the resistance to that inevitable change, from the mundane to the drastic, that gets us stuck.
Stability is also highly subjective.
Stability, for one person, could mean knowing that there’s enough food in the pantry for the week ahead. For someone else it could mean having access to nature every day. For others it could mean not having to live paycheck to paycheck or having a house of one’s own.
Wimberly, Texas
So, how do we allow ourselves to experience our idea of stability while accepting the floaty and groundless moments along the way?
Can we accept not having to define it all?
That’s a hard one for me. I loooove a good sense of meaning and definition behind things. I want the “why” of right now. And life is like, “LOL, that’s cute. You’ll find out later.”
Speaking of floaty, does this all feel like a little too much of that for you? I get it. I’m still working through it all myself. Not so much working through it, but rather, leaning into it. Leaning into the presence of right here, right now, all while letting my feet hover off the ground a bit.
Here’s another thing that I believe. We can experience groundlessness while also rooting into the things that bring us home to ourselves. Things that drop us back into our bodies.
Some of those things for me:
Swimming in natural bodies of water.
Singing.
Dancing.
Community.
Trees.
Barton Springs, Austin, Texas
My word for this Autumnal season is trust.
Trust.
Trust that even in times of groundlessness you are being held.
Trust this season of your life.
There’s stardust to be found here.
