Day 678: Love

This is how i feel towards the universe right now There is not a moment that I breathe I am not grateful.  (Forgive the odd formatting. Blogger isn't playing as it usually does today. It may be feeling better tomorrow). Today (written 1st April 2016) the day my eight-and-some-month journey through this incredible continent ends, I am grateful for ease and presence, living this moment and not tomorrow’s. Tomorrow’s time will come. This morning, I awoke with these words in my mouth: I vow to do my best and shine without striving (and this to be as much as do). I think I was reflecting on what I am taking from this trip. God, what am I taking? I take a commitment to make art, make music and create. Many of my happiest moments have been these. Wrapping palm fronds around sticks to make doll legs, sewing trousers and dresses, on dolls or for myself, cutting t-shirts, drawing mandalas, singing.  I love to work when work feels like play, or service. I adore the liberty of daily yoga classes because they're advertised and people come. I’m fascinated by massage and energy work. These are not intellectual practices, and maybe that’s the point. I don’t mind routine tasks as long as I have some autonomy. I am more than happy to mess around with shit, be it cow, donkey or sheep, in service of strong roots and healthy crops. I am not wise with sun. I have burnt badly more than once (three times, maybe four), the last being no more than a week ago at most. I should know better. I am peeling dark shreds of skin right now, and great sheets of it too, so you know... every cloud. But I could do with being wiser. My skin will thank me, or protest, later. The time to act is now.This in itself is a lesson. The time to act is now. The time to follow the impulse and to listen to it is when it happens. I can go back and catch it up, but by listening right off the bat, the ball is caught. I make this commitment too: to keep my ears peeled for that little voice before it shouts, and follow it. This way, I have learnt, lies ease, discovery and joy. Among the things that increase my levels of happiness in disproportionate measure are animals, and more than anything dogs (no surprises there), cats and following at a slow and grumpy trot, donkeys. I could skip the donkeys, if truth be told, but I´d be happy with them there. The jury’s out on goats.  Nature. That’s a sweeping statement, that. Grass, trees, vegetation, green. Water, if it can be. Bugs and butterflies. Hummingbirds, given the choice (and somewhere, there is always choice). Sounds of nature, singing, grating, plooping (there’s a bird that ploops and sounds like water drops from high landing in a bucket). Mountains. Oh, mountains. Thank god for you. I love to live up high. I love to see the tall V of a valley, the rising slope of the sister hills, clouds rising or dipping down, hiding summits, changing the face of everything. I love to watch insects work and listen to the wind stir up banana leaves (they’re big – they make a noise like an intruder pushing past). I love to wake to this wondrous natural world making its entrance to the day. I don’t care that the cockerels crow at stupid hours and set each other off, nor that the dogs find time to shout before the sun is up. I don’t object to being woken up by birdsong. Town or city: great in small doses. I like to eat in markets, watch people do their thing, enjoy the buzz. I like to shop. I feel a bit ashamed of this and yet it's true. And then I like to go back to the farm, the mountain, whatever place I am currently calling home, and just be there. People. The quality of my connections with people shapes the quality of my life. My life is rich, rich, rich and I can only kneel and give my thanks to any being listening for the people who fill my life with their  Laughter, openness, vulnerability, tears. That fabulous Spanish wor, ‘sensatez’, described to me today as ‘absolute authenticity, always’. Meditation, yoga, practice. These things make a difference. Even just a few minutes a day. And most of the people who have stolen my heart in one way or another have a practice of some kind. They have spiritual leanings, this lot. Some of them are cosmic beyond my means, but I love them, and my means are getting there. Love. All you need is. A truism because it’s true. Is it all you need? I don’t know, but without it (an odd concept), nothing makes sense. Any job done with love has satisfaction in its threads. Any job lacking it creates pain. Love and a drive to serve and heal tip the scales for me. I can dig around tree after tree, clearing its roots and convering them in fly-filled, stinking mush. Done with love, it’s a gift from them to me. Without, it’s just shit and sweat, really. Conversation, conflict, interacton as a whole. .. with love it flows... what stops the love is stepping away from sensate. Fear, anger, 'not good enough', ego. All of that. But it's a choice, and it's a choice this trip has showed me time and time again.  So what am I taking from this trip?  Curiosity. Richness. Adventure. Appreciation of the people I love, near and far. A willingness to flow, a commitment to listening and following and being at ease with ease. Gratitude, more thickly spread than ever before. And love, right here, right now, for me, for everyone (after all, we're all made of the same interflowy, glowing base). No need to wait. Just love.