The Writer's Oracle

Tag: mindfulness practice

  • Savoring Slowness

    Savoring Slowness

    Hello, loyal followers and subscribers! And by that, I mean my mom. Hi, Mom! I love you and miss you. Thanks for being my number one fan. 

    Anyways, apologies for the unexpected hiatus. I did not intend to take a summer vacation from writing. But trust, I have been writing. Just nothing public. I’ve been writing short stories, poetry, journal entries, shopping lists, invitation cards, emails, and cover letters.

    I’ve been absorbing enough sunshine in my skin to last me all winter. I’ve been standing in my kitchen, performing the sacrificial rituals of splitting tomatoes, squishing blueberries, and weeping as I slice through onions. I’ve been floating atop canyons and mountains under the cobalt blue water, feeling the fluid stability of ancient waters holding my body as I breathe in and out. I’ve been peaking through my eyelids in the darkest hours of night to glimpse the shimmering galaxies splayed across the blackish-bluish sky. I’ve been waking up to the rhythmic tap of raindrops on my tent, unzipping the flap, and scanning the dew-covered spider silk amidst the komorebi for fairies. For it is in these dense forests, in the space between cities and wilderness, that they appear. I wonder if they are charmed or offended when we dress up as them in our flowing skirts and dresses, skin sparkling with glitter, flowers tucked in our hair, chests bare to the glaring summer sun. I’ve been laughing, crying, laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the precious yet precarious nature of life. All the things you do in your 20s when you live in the Pacific Northwest.

    Though I haven’t put my creative works out to the public for the summer, make no mistake, I have been creative. One of my biggest creative projects was moving. I moved into a big house with my five closest friends. We’ve seen each other through all phases and stages of life. From childhood sleepovers, awkward preteen phases, and high school drama (we were theater geeks), to navigating the salty seas of young adulthood. These friendships have lasted longer than any romantic relationship, any job, any lease we’ve been through. Now, we share a home together, and it has been one of the grandest creative projects of my life. How do we puzzle piece all our furniture together? Where does our art go? What goes in the dishwasher? Which kitchen drawer should have the silverware? When do we water the garden? Whose laundry day is it? 

    We’ve lived here for two months, and we’re just getting settled in. The stack of unpacked boxes keeps moving from room to room, unsure where the final home of its contents will end up. And just because I didn’t feel like moving was enough chaos, I quit my job. I left my secure and stable position as a teacher– a role I grew to thrive in and adore– to start my career as a professional writer. It was nerve wracking and anxiety inducing, and still is. I pushed out a nervous laugh every time someone asked where I was going next. “I don’t know yet! Why? Are you hiring?” I’d tease. They usually smiled and said, “Good luck!” with undertones that said, “You’re gonna need it.” 

    So, here I am. Floating through space. Existing in this in-between time where I don’t know how it’s all going to work out, so I have to cling to this liferaft of blind faith that it’s already working out. Having a job I was good at, a title I could claim, was all false reassurance. It gave me a false sense of security that I knew what I was doing with my life. As if my existence could be simplified to a job title. But isn’t it nice to have an answer when someone asks what you do? Isn’t it soothing to have people smile and nod when you tell them what your job is? So they can better understand you and, by proxy, you can better understand yourself?

    To quote Tibetan Buddhist Chögyam Trungpa, “The bad news is you’re falling… The good news is, there’s no ground.” 

    Regardless of where I live, who my friends are, what my job is, I am always me. These are just decorations to the essence of who I really am. And who I really am is indescribable. Once you think you know, it changes again. I’m not rushing to know, to find out what’s next. I’m taking long walks. I’m falling asleep early and waking up late. I’m reading a thick book very slowly. I’m wandering the farmer’s market. I’m watching the clouds go by. Sooner than later, things will move fast again, and I’ll long for the time when I could flow through my days at my own pace. So I will be here for now as long as I can.

    from the World Your Light Oracle

  • Dancing with the Great Unknown

    Dancing with the Great Unknown

    Hannah Baker

    The ground never stops moving here. The earth that was supposed to be so stable and hold us for all our lives never stops moving here. I plant my feet, the sand consumes them. I pick them up, it pushes back and forth against me. The reflection of the clouds is perfectly clear, until it isn’t, and the swirling brown surf washes it all away. Like someone threw a bucket of water on a wet painting. Nothing could be closer to walking on the sky.

    Time is distorted here. I haven’t walked for more than a song or two, and yet my friends are smaller than ants on the picnic blanket I left perched on the sand dunes. Sound travels different here, too. There’s people all around, but their voices and footsteps are drowned out by the roaring of waves. Like a herd of wild horses thundering over the hillside, only to collapse and dissipate into sea foam at the crest.

    I walk in the liminal space where the waters of earth’s womb cleanse her human shores. Nothing stays the same here, and nothing ever should. Nothing stays the same anywhere if you look long enough. The unending change is just more visible on the coast. The ocean bellows an ancient hymn of change.

    I left my job at the end of last week. It was planned, expected, a date on the calendar that approached closer and closer with every rise and fall of the moon. It’s been four years of dedicated service, of being the first to arrive and the last to leave, of rapport with children not because I had to but because I couldn’t contain my heart from loving them with all that I was. After four years of growing in one spot, I felt my roots get crowded around the edges of my container. They longed to dig deeper, reach wider, and I knew I would grow in ways I never thought I could if I gave myself the opportunity to. So, I left. I left with my last paycheck and a binder full of my favorite children’s illustrations. I didn’t even have a plan or a summer bonus to fall back on.

    Growing up, things changed a lot for me. Different houses, different families, different friends. My life feels like a back-to-back sequences of beginnings and endings with little time to adjust to stability in between. My inherent optimism came in handy here. No matter how uncomfortable or scary the change was, I greeted it with a smile and welcomed it into my life. Even when I hated it. Even when I wished things wouldn’t change. Even when I wished things would change in a different way.

    Maybe this is why I am so drawn to the beach. It is the birthplace of change. It affirms what I already knew to be true: change is the only constant. It is powerful and terrifying and unstoppable. But it is glorious. And it just Is. We don’t have to do anything for it to Be. Just witness it.

    And, so, I am reveling in this liminal space.

    I’m opening the windows and turning up the song.

    I’m not getting enough sleep and I’m sleeping too long.

    I’m singing down the sidewalk and skipping out the door.

    I’m kissing after midnight and twirling on the dance floor.

    I’m drinking too much coffee and screaming at the sky.

    I’m laughing with the Great Unknown until she makes me cry.

    From the Guides of the Hidden Realms Oracle