This is my last week here on Kauai, so it’s my last Sunday here. After this week there will be no more Hawaii based content. I will be writing from an Arizona network that I’m sure will steep my heart in a whole other vibe. Desert environment does seem far from tropical island energy but I am ready and it feels right.
For my last and final weekend, one more squeeze of wisdom, love, and lessons Kauai did not disappoint (as usual). The island has rocked my world yet again and of course when and how I least expected it. Four of us went camping for one night, stayed in a state park cabin and laughed all night. It was a beautiful ending. Of course, in the spirit of balance I also received messages that were there to help me, not necessarily make me feel good.
I came here to Kauai to focus on myself. I have done everything but that, I focused almost all of my energy on our farm group, making friends, doing my job, connecting to locals in the community, plants etc etc. I can find anything to focus on beside me. Because my perspective was that my experience hinges on how others experience me. My intention was that I am going to put all my energy into cultivating spaces, and conversations and energies that will connect us all in a positive loving way. In doing so I abandoned myself because it didn’t matter how I felt independently. It mattered much more how we feel together – and that just doesn’t make any fucking sense. Honoring yourself is honoring the world.
I’ve realized how much I have been grieving the fact that I am just me. I’ve wanted to connect to something bigger than me so badly so I can believe I exist within something beyond me. Well turns out I am just me, in this body. And I think that can be enough too. I think so it’s just a working theory for now.
Grieving the existence of self is some heavy shit. The fact that we ultimately exist here alone, within ourselves, with nowhere to escape. I believe that we came from and end up in a place where we are all one. Where spirit can travel, be, exist in any capacity it wants to. I can feel how real and safe this place is/was. All my energy has been fixated on connection but it is always outside of myself. Connection to plants, to people, to God, to community, to food, to music to yada yada yada. Constantly seeking it out and trying to wrap my arms around something, anything that makes me feel slightly less alone. Like I belong somewhere. Woof. I genuinely didn’t think I was doing this, I thought I was searching for meaning. Because how much can something mean if it is just meaningful to you and you alone?
The greater good I repeat to myself over and over. Constantly bypassing whatever I am feeling and forcing my attention to bigger elements at play (concepts I have no business carrying, contemplating or connecting to). I have learned how mean and hard on myself I have been for simply being alive in this body. And how significant and beautiful it is to recognize yourself as something truly worthy and important. Just as worthy and important as the greater consciousness surrounding water or the moon or God. Just as important ! (mind being blown sound affect) Caring about how I feel towards all of those things is just as important as contemplating what the fuck is going on. Because what the fuck is going on inside myself is really the only thing I genuinely have access to. And because we are all connected, it’s access to a whole lot (everything).
Connection to myself is the connection I am desperately seeking. It’s hitting me because these are all things I’ve “known” . I have heard this so many times in so many forms. You hear it all the time, especially now everyone preaching about self love and shit. But self love can easily turn into bypassing and avoiding true feelings. Im just going to love-it-all-away type energy. This past weekend I felt the connection I had been hating myself for not being able to access. And I realized I’ve been blocking the very things I have been attempting to reach out to.
We do need others, not because we can’t do it but because it gets so fucking confusing inside sometimes. The experience inward can be misleading because everything is real. The pain is real the joy is real the confidence is real the insecurity is real and we go round and round trying to figure out what the fuck is real. Others remind us that so many realities exist all at the same time and making peace with it (within) is the only real take there is. Peace, acceptance and love. We are this, we are that, this feels good, this feels bad. the only sound take away? Yes.
Yes you are this now and you are that another. Yes that is true yes that is false. But all we truly need to say yes to is the present and anything our bodies are experiencing. The me slice is important, it is presence. There is nothing else to know. I have spent the last few years trying to figure out what it is that I believe, what do I love and how do I love it to the best of my abilities?
The answer I’ve found is self. All the answers are inside, not out. There’s nothing that you can read or listen to or learn that is going to tell you anything about yourself. Now inside you is the only thing that’s real.
When I returned from our camping trip I felt the tightness in my heart about leaving. The lasts were kicking in, last weekend, last moon ceremony, last sunday ice cream, last coconut milk. I felt heavy and a bit sad but mostly so so grateful for it all. Then when I came back to my tent a bird was somehow inside and it had shit everywhere, and I got a bit more excited to leave.
I can’t help but feel I maybe will never work with a moon this powerful for as long as I’ve had the chance to work with this Kaua’i moon. I have been devoted to her every month and it has been such a beautiful, potent relationship we’ve built. I am very sad I won’t be seeing this enormous, sky illuminating glow of the equator moon. She’s a superhero and I’m so lucky to have had the many moon ceremonies I’ve had. I have gathered, planned, prayed, danced, woven, wrote, dreamed, cried all in her presence, and I know I am so much better for it. I was imagining something grand for the last full moon ceremony, gathering all the people I’ve met here. Planning songs we can sing together, dance, eat food from the farm – all very glamorous and divine. I did go on an epic camping journey that was soo much fun. We gazed at the moon all night (it’s really hard not to). But when we returned and the moon was full, I felt empty and unable to cultivate a big gathering with an open and present heart. I had to say goodbye to one of my favorite people here, Grace, who is sooo incredible and taught me so much. I’m so lucky I got to meet her. Anyway I was feeling pretty trash when I got home so I went to bed. I layed down and allowed my tiredness to come over me. In my heart I was sad I knew the moon was beaming out there.
After one solid rem cycle the wind woke me up with a loud tent flapping from a big gust. I layed there in bed seeing the glow of the moon peak through the many openings on my tent and I knew this was my last chance to be in ceremony with the moon again. I layed out my blanket, lit my candles, displayed all the nature I had been collecting for my ceremony (with fabulous grand intentions behind it) and enjoyed all the powerful moonlight alone. For the rest of the night I slept outside in a sleeping bag basking in her mighty presence. I knew I wanted it to be big and powerful and potent and it sure was. Just me and the moon. It was so sweet and such a poetic end to such an incredible journey.
Side Note ;
Ha – Breath of Life
Wai – Fresh Water
I – God
Sometime on Sunday 