Sea Shivers & Desert Quivers

March 9th, I departed the  2-1/2 year boot camp of heartland Missouri, returning to the high desert, and once again, only 500 miles from the sea. A time of deep turning within, in Missouri, I learned to drink from an Inner well; graze upon Mystery. Altered  & Altar-ed, I now hoist my sails, catching the winds of these next chapters. Aquiver, snuffling, a wash of intrigue breaking over me, I swim with the UNEXPECTED early return: an unanticipated work opportunity, a restored house-share--and, one more time, a closing sense, on the heels of a successful cross-country move, that "I know nothing; am attached to nothing, trust everything--steady as she goes." 

Even for flexible sorts, not all locales can foster being in resonant residence. Until I departed the West [my sequence of Oregon/Washington, California, Arizona/New Mexico] for the Midwest [Missouri--skipping through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas], I had never been farther east than Santa Fe--and never knew what it was to be in dissonance with the land under your feet, the air that you're breathing.

Saturated in a soup of spiritual exploration, connecting with others also plumbing their depths--my sense of connection with the earth careened into a down-hill slide: circadian rhythms went askew from night-shift work, emotions flat-lined; my body slipped into allergic malaise. Initially able to prance up three flights of stairs, I faded to half a flight. I struggled, not to inhale air, but to exhale it. In an emerald land of rolling hills and  pockets of dense deciduous forest, I was frozen in winter and sodden with stifling summer humidity. And, from that land of distress, in the pocket of my heart I carry rich new threads in my tapestry, the yet new bonds of friendships just starting to grow as I departed.


We may make peace, for a time, with a place of dissonance--deepening and quickening our intuitive sense, meeting needs of a time that changes the course of our seas; graces us with insights, perceptual powers, a connecting-of-the-dots--that we'd not have arrived had we not gone walk-about--and in which we weren't meant to stay, lest we are too long gone from our motherland, from that which sings in our bones, mirrors the patterns within; mends and restores us.

Life is call and response. Coming up the grade from Tucumcari onto the desert plateau upon approach to Albuquerque, I felt the stars "dropping" into my eyes, mouth and heart from the black velvet sky as a beckoning ivory crescent moon slipped behind the inky black ribbon of mountains on the West. 


On approach to Arizona, I was ambushed by sobs of unprocessed grief at having left. I cried out to the land, "Mother, I'm home." To the Sea, my lover, I whispered, "I am close." Searingly lonely at times in Missouri for desert stars, ocean brine, and my circle of Spirit-Friends, I feel quickened and renewed upon my arrival. And chaos ensues: it takes me awhile to find order--new order in old surroundings, to get my bearings,  to nest, to know whether I'm upside down, or right-side up.


Even as I renew my bond with the desert, the coffee-table book I've been pining, Tall Ships Today, by Nigel Rowe arrives from Amazon.com. I am always sailing a ship--the ship of my life, whether in desert or upon sea.