It's in the profound relaxation that can emerge when we get very quiet and still and trust that whatever invisible forces that have carried us along will continue to do so -- without us needing to manage, control, and in some cases... even intellectually understand.
Out of the Jungle and Into the Woods: A Case for Obvious Choices
We need more obvious choices.
This is something my dad's boss said to him while they were picking out office equipment one day. It hit him with truth resonance in a way that compelled him to pass it along to me, and hit me with truth resonance in such a way that it's been lodged in my memory since.
Life is complicated, busy, and I for one fall into a crippling pit of indecision when presented with too many options.
We need more obvious choices.
I've decided to sublet my NYC apartment and hightail it upstate for the next few months.
When I'm asked why I lived in New York all these years, my thoughts have been varied. I have lots of thoughts and reasons about New York, but lately, different feelings.
Some months I think that it's the only city that can keep my attention span. It's ever changing and unknowable. A few sets of scaffolding later, she's wearing a different face. There are neighborhoods I still haven't discovered and most I'll never fully know.
Some months I think it's because I crave a diversity of cultures and ideas.
NYC is the central hub of the best of humanity: ingenuity, innovation, architecture, art, culture. It also paints a raw picture of the worst of humanity that - as one who strives to know myself - feels important to see: Homeless men and pregnant women sleeping on the doorsteps of billionaires. Inequality juxtaposed, and in full contact.
Some months I think I call this home because anything is possible and nothing is out of the ordinary.
If you want to change the cultural current or start a pink-polka dotted pajama factory, by George, you can do that here! As I write this I'm stepping onto a subway with a woman dressed as captain America. It's 11:30 on a Thursday morning. No one bats an eye.
When I'm asked why I'm moving upstate for two months, however, the answer is neat and simple. Obvious and felt. I need to be near nature.
We don't think Obvious Choices, we feel them.
And feeling is the language of nature herself. This doesn't mean that obvious choices are easy choices, by any stretch. Sometimes they need examining and planning. Sometimes they come with trepidation and uncertain outcomes.
Obvious doesn't mean Easy. Obvious mean Clear. Evident. Undeniable.
So I've made the decision to feel my way out of the Jungle and into the Woods. At least for now. Mother Nature and I have a lot to catch up on.
xo
Adreanna
A Meditation on Being in the Swell
Sometimes I stumble across words and writing so damn beautiful that I have to share them.
This is one of those shares.
The past few weeks have been moving at warp speed for me, and for many people that I know. Call it Jupiter in Leo. Call it The Quickening. Call it by any name that makes sense to you and gives it context.
There has been a swell of opportunities arising, and rugs being pulled out unexpectedly. Fast shifts in life at breakneck speed. Rapid, Exhilerating, Uncertain.
I came across this poem on Tara Brach's podcast during one of those particularly fast days during this particularly fast week, and I immediately felt the sensation of returning back to the grounded sensation of my body on the earth, and felt my vision shift towards embracing the unknown.
Uncertainty, after all, is the only certainty there is.
❤️
THE LITTLE DUCK
By Donald C. Babcock
...Originally published in The New Yorker: October 4th, 1947
Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf.
No, it isn’t a gull.
A gull always has a raucous touch about him.
This is some sort of duck, and he cuddles in the swells.
He isn’t cold, and he is thinking things over.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is part of it.
He looks a bit like a mandarin, or the Lord Buddha meditating under the Bo tree.
But he has hardly enough above the eyes to be a philosopher.
He has poise, however, which is what philosophers must have.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is.
And neither do you.
But he realizes it.
And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity—which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
He has made himself a part of the boundless, by easing himself into it just where it
touches him.
GONE FERAL: An Ode to shedding Convention and Living by Instinct & Intuition
Feral women trade rules for rituals.
Listen to the language of the bodies. Hear the call of adventure whispered on winds and follow.
They give themselves permission.
Feral women peel off perfectionism and stand patiently exposed.
Blossom from within. As everything in nature does.
Feral women know that the root of "humility" means "close to the earth" and shed their feathers to fall on their knees when necessary.
They draw a line against injustice, love like children, play like animals.
They travel lightly. In packs. And barefoot when possible. Their only home is in their skin and regard it as a worship ground. Scale trees for ripe fruit without avoiding bruises.
Feral women speak from a place just below the navel and speak up even when their voices shake.
They occupy both soul and spirit, shadow and light.
They embrace their impermanent nature and choose not to squander mortality in an effort to keep things fixed and controlled.
They're discerning, pragmatic.
See elegant design and structure in the systems of nature and recreate them in their lives as an act of reverence.
They're wise, intuitive.
See unsustainable design and structure in systems built by man and defy them in sacred rebellion.
They seek out the stories of their grandmothers and keep them close for their daughters. Recount them to each-other to keep our core mythologies supple.
They are paradox.
Both In the moment and on the precipice of pure potential.
They are you, they are us.
Liberated and welcomed home.
An Ode to our Adequate Whole-ness
We are complete, comprehensive and complex.
We don't come with an instruction manual.
We come with Instinct. Trust it.
We are plenty, we are full, we are exquisitely elegant by virtue of being alive.
We don't need fixing. We don't need "more".
We have everything we need.
WE ARE SUFFICIENT.
Our Sufficiency is our birthright.
Instinct is our inborn wisdom.
Intuition, the golden thread that connects us all to the greater whole and details we cannot yet see...
There are moments when we've forgotten our nature and scrunched ourselves in tiny boxes to Fit In when all we wanted was to Belong.
Our messy parts: whitewashed,
Our vulnerability: armored
Our voices: edited, silenced, subdued.
Perhaps we found our wildest wishes unsightly or just beyond our grasp.
Perhaps we've just forgotten who we are.
Perhaps we just need a little practice Trusting Ourselves...