Arriving in Chico: A Quiet Place to Rest

I have friends who are keeping travel blogs in places far and away: Iceland, Scotland... and I am about to venture into parts unknown to me as well, at which time I imagine I will have plenty I want to share about.

But I found myself wondering last Sunday, why don't I have much to say about my life here, my daily and weekly routine? The only difference between here and anywhere else is the novelty.

So I continued about my day with fresh eyes. And this is what I experienced.



Today I attended a small Quaker meeting of about 12-15 people. I had woken up and pulled a Tarot card before I went out for the day. Well, I pulled about 10 cards, but none of them felt right. Finally, I cut the deck down the middle, pulled the first one, and it was the 10 of Cups. "Joy is yours, if you only look beyond the material and glimpse the light there."

I sat with this phrase in the Quaker meeting. One woman stood up and gave ministry inspired by words from Michael Franti: "Every single soul is a poem/ written on the back of God's hand." I took that into my body. I AM a poem written on the back of God's hand. I can feel that. I can feel it. I swirl through my life with care and carelessness, bringing my rhyme and rhythm into others' lives.

Some of them are touched in ways that they appreciate. After the meeting, a different person came up to me, crying about the hard times she is going through. She told me that I am such an inspiration to her; and I simultaneously knew and didn't know why.

I left the meeting, after texting another person in my life who I had some relational tension with - sharing the thoughts that had been coming up for 3 days. I biked to the park, intending to go through it on my way home, but was called to take a right instead of a left at the bottom of the path, deeper into the park.

It's odd; I felt nervous doing that. I was scared of something. Charles Eisenstein says in one video, Why does it hurt just to exist? One common answer is that it hurts because of the separation from Nature. It hurts because of all the pain on this planet at this time. The 'abiding loveliness' is damaged beyond repair. So I was scared to bike into the park, to wander without purpose, as I have enjoyed at other moments.

I didn't go far. I saw a log, just off the path, ideal for sitting on. There were purple clover flowers all around - one even growing out of the log. Bees hovered on and around the stalks. I had brought colored pencils, and a Tarot drawing journal - with blank space to create images for each card. I drew clover blossoms, and a bee, on the 10 of Cups page.

There was more wonderfulness later  - these paragraphs were only the first part, hard to believe how much goodness can fit in a single rotation of our Earth. There were multiple cuddle pass-offs in one day - just as my cuddle buddy housemate was preparing to leave from our snuggly position with his head on my lap on our couch, another dear one arrived to cuddle and, later, pick mulberries. And that night, when my mulberry-picking companion left and I felt sad with my lack of snuggles, my housemate returned to sleep in my bed all night long. I don't always have to be alone (and I am never alone, if I only remember all my plant-kin, cat-kin, Sun-kin, and so on).

Of course, not every day is such a grand series of moments. The past few days have been largely about enjoying being able to sleep in, to not have a schedule - although I am packing my bag, attempting to finish work for various streams of income I maintain other than the main scheduled one that is out for the summer. I enjoyed the two most recent episodes of Once Upon A Time this morning. Simple, indulgent pleasures bring a certain balance to life. I'm traveling through this universe, this pluriverse, and each day is an adventure, each day is new, if I remember to look beyond the routine and glimpse the light here.