Reawakening

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The past few weeks have been a very dynamic and transformative time of personal growth. In recommitting to yoga, I asked the universe for a mentor, and she stepped forward. From the first few minutes of Jenn’s class, I knew that I had stumbled upon something good. Jenn’s class is a mixture of yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, deep breathing, and intuitive movement – it’s one of the most intense, sensation-filled, and fun indoor fitness experiences I’ve ever had. She uses the lats (latissimus dorsi) and obliques as the gateway muscle to athleticism and dynamism: “your lats are your wings.” 

In a world that is full of superficial influencers reciting tired sequences and claiming to know the way, it is refreshing to learn from a teacher who is humbly sharing what she knows, pointing us in the right direction, and authentically embodying truth and light: “the best teachers tell us where to look but not what to see.” In her class, I have rekindled my inner flame, leaned into my strength, and found joy, release, and transformation. She reminds us that “groundedness does not mean stagnation.” I have learned a lot about moving through pain and protecting my energy from negative influences. Most of all, I have been reawakened and reminded how to have fun in my body. 

As a consequence of these experiences, I have been thinking a lot about how to prioritize movement and fitness in my next step. This is a key element of my life that I can’t neglect or forget: in San Diego, this looked like surfing; in Colorado and Chile, this looked like trail running, skiing, and mountain biking. For me, the opposite of movement is the sense of being “trapped” and this is one of the reasons I am suffering in San Diego: air pollution and dangerous road conditions keep me from moving freely in the ways that I want to. Thus, I’ve come up with a new framework for evaluating all my ideas – let’s call it the “triangle of joy and meaning:” 

It’s pretty straightforward. To give a little more specificity to this framework, I’ll sort out my life goals from the previous post into categories:

• Movement and fitness
• Exercise: mountain bike, run on trails, paddle? Ski?
• Home and garden:
• Learn to grow all types of vegetables
• Learn natural building techniques, including underground / earth-sheltered construction
• Adopt a dog and maybe some cats
• Take care of chickens and maybe goats
• Community and relationships:
• Establish a community structure that gives other homestead-minded folks the opportunity to plug into what I am currently striving to create from scratch

Now let’s use it to evaluate four big ideas for my future. #1 involves remaining employed, whereas #2-#4 involve taking a sabbatical. I’m feeling very tired and burnt out after remaining steadily employed since ~age 16, and although unemployment is generally frowned upon and much less fun post-age-26 due to the health insurance climate of the United States, I think a period of unemployment could be useful to push me into a more meaningful way of being. I sometimes wonder if one strategy for moving beyond a world that considers tired, overworked, and burnt out “knowledge” employees the default is for us to refuse to be tired, overworked, burnt out “knowledge” employees.  Still, it’s almost certainly the case that the reason I am burnt out is the academic and government hierarchies / bureaucracies that I have subjected myself to over the past seven years, and that a move to the private sector or just a more effective working group could resolve many of these problems. But I digress. Here we go:

1. Buy a property with an existing home and a large lot where I can start building a farm and cooperative community. This involves a mortgage and transitioning to remote work with my current employer or with a new employer. This strategy prioritizes Home and Garden most of all, keeps the door open to Community and Relationships, and should only happen if I can find a property near a system of trails so that I can honor Movement and Fitness. This is probably my favorite choice right now and would be financially possible in northern California or Maine. This could also allow me to rebuild the cedar cabin we deconstructed a couple years ago (see #3). 

2. Put my stuff into storage, buy a touring / bikepacking setup, and go on a tour from San Francisco to Seattle and/or the Great Divide Bikepacking Route that runs from New Mexico to Banff. This honors Movement and Fitness most of all, could honor Community and Relationships if I meet like-minded individuals on these tours, and could honor Home and Garden if I stumble upon the place where I want to build the community in (1). I’ve been feeling inspired by people who, when confronted by uncertainty, simply “start walking.” A long time on my bike could help me peel away layers of expectation, regret, and disappointment, and rebuild confidence, strength, and life energy. 

3. Buy a small amount of land in northern Wisconsin near my folks’ cabin and rebuild the cedar cabin we deconstructed a couple years ago as a hunting retreat. This approach would honor Home and Garden in that I would be learning valuable construction skills, would honor Movement and Fitness in that I would be working with my hands and could ride my bike / run around in my free time, and would honor Community and Relationships in that I would be near my folks. Although I like the idea of using the construction process as a practice of healing and growth, I do think it honors my three triangle points a bit less than (1). 

4. Go to work on an existing farm community (e.g. southern Oregon) to further develop my skills and meet like-minded people. This approach honors Community and Relationships most of all and honors Home and Garden to the extent that I would be developing skills for my eventual Home and Garden. This approach does not really honor Movement and Fitness, especially considering the possibility of long periods of wildfire smoke / unhealthy air. This is not as appealing considering I am pretty tired of being told what to do.