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Returning to PachaMama and the Whirlwind
Wow guys!
Living at PachaMama, for almost a month now, has been been filled with arranging the logistics of my new job, settling into my open air casita, getting Earth Heart Healing up and on all four legs, integrating a new exercise regime, and reconnecting with old friends. Life’s been a whirlwind since arriving back! I’ve been experiencing a huge expansion into more of myself and into this precious life, and let me tell you . . . I’m so ready to experience the epic adventure! Yay! 🤩
For the next 5 months I’ll be living and working at my new favourite place is space and time, an established jungle retreat centre where I’ve taken a job as the assistant manager at the down town cafe. There are moments now when life feels like a day dream. Friends have been commenting that I look healthier, and it’s true, I’ve been feeling a level of vibrancy in my body that’s very new to me. Life’s full of a kind of inspiration and excitement that’s felt very adult and grounded.
Nic names from my days as the ‘cool kid’ in architecture school are circling back around, along with music from the decade, and my social media trifecta of YouTube, Instagram & Balancing Duality are starting to run a smooth and calculated course. 🤓 It's surprising to say it aloud loud, but life is beginning to materialize in a way that I’ve only been envisioning in my dreams.
Yesterday, I thought about making a vision board—something I haven’t done in ages. The last one brought me a boyfriend who was exactly what I was looking for, and a whole lot more—and since then, I haven’t really felt the urge to manifest much in any big kind of way.
But, maybe, just maybe . . . the tides are turning. Maybe, after all this deep (and difficult) inner work since 2020, I’m ready to start making some precise requests to the divine for my future. 🕊
In my last check in here, I was leaving Peru on route to Vancouver. October was a valley. After giving a friend on the Pacific North West an energy healing session, I got sick with a fever and chills. 🤒 Fears that I’d contracted, and would eventually pass on, covid occupied the home in my mind. I popped Tylenol like candy for three days straight just to make it through, and on the physical level something deep in my heart rose to the surface to be cleared and looked at.
Sharing moments with some of my favourite long time friends on the Pacific Northwest & my first time as a "trusted pet sitter".
Two weeks and one plane ride later I was back my childhood home, and then my hair started falling out! Eeek! I baked what turned out to be the most intense weed brownies of my life—a pinky nail size did me in, and I ate them in order to curb the repressed emotions that I still haven’t found the gusto and poise to work through in my family dynamics. And well, you know, for a week or two, I got lazy with my head in the clouds. 🌥
Fall in Ontario Canada, some of my favourite moments, and my beloved cat Shanti.
And still, I haven’t taken time out of this busy transition to drop into the purpose of the initiation that I experienced with the Qero’s in Peru. But I’m not worried, time unravels all on it’s own, and this particular thread hasn’t yet found it’s end yet. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel with this one guys, I’m certain of it. 👣🌌💖
* * *
My love interest from the end of last season didn’t pan out like I expected it would, and I moved through a big block energetically. And even though it was hard, and even though I felt lost and unsure of where I belonged for a little while, resolution was just the medicine that I needed. The sun rose again, and a clear sky reminded me that I’d made a vow with my soul to make Earth Heart Healing a success before I fell in love.
Finding purpose happens to be an amazing antidote to the letdowns in life . . . you know, just in case you need a little upliftment and direction in your own. 🌈✨😉
Life has had it's unexpected turns, but I’ve still been exploring the terrain of love and union with my mind; holding space for chats with others about their desires and normalcies in the sex and relationship department in order to expand my horizons and see where I fit. The intimate conversations found around my coffee table at home naturally leaned in to the planets of Mars and Venus and I even decided to enter unknown frontiers and make most recent YouTube video about the very subject which, if you’re interested, you can also check out here: Pathways Of Sexuality & Sexual Healing
* * *
LESSONS FROM FRIENDS
(Names have been changed to protect identities.)
Ivan
Glistening waters, and ocean tides, it was my first time to the beach since arriving this season and I was craving a cigarette. 👀
That's when I spotted Ivan across the shoreline. We’d taken the bus together, and I decided take the troll and try my luck.
“Hey Ivan, I’ve come for a cigarette and a chat,” I declared.
“Of course,” he replied and I sat down, scooching myself onto the shady part of his blanket.
And there we were, just the two of us. Me in my bikini, him in his speedo, and politely, I asked if I could roll one.
Ivan had a sort of sway with his words, like the way a hammock would swing if an earthen cowboy were to rest after a long day in the sun.
Eye contact.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I took a sigh and let go of the rigidity I’d accumulated during my time back home. “I’m learning to embrace my sensuality . . . but I’m not promiscuous,” I blurted out. Not really sure why.
A sideways smile slid across his face in acknowledgment and he started to talk about his travels, narrowing in on a tantric community were he’d lived on a boat, often naked, and often in bliss.
“Wow, that’s not something I’ve ever been drawn to do myself, but I’m so curious. It sounds so free.”
. . . But, I don’t want to be that free, I thought, not right now anyways.
Carey
I was in a bubbly mood one night, and ready to make friends with some of the guests at the cafe.
““Hi guys. I’m Marnie. What are y'all doing at here PachaMama? Are you enjoying yourselves so far?”
The free space on the couch was beside a blond, tanned and bright eyed bay-watch beauty. It was an easy in and the smiles, sharing, and conversation circled until it was just the two of us eye to eye, and heart to heart. In symbiosis with the other dyads that were naturally forming, me and the woman to my left moved into whispers.
“I’m a medical student, and this year is my year off to study for exams,” Carey shared.
Wow, she’s smart and stunning, I thought. Immediately, I wanted to be her friend, and the bond was effortless. How special are the ones who can live in both worlds, bridging the epochs? She didn’t know it yet but she was one of them. Carey was decade younger, but all of my best girlfriends were turning out to be this age. Mid twenties, and ready to take on the world. I must be there in spirit too I thought, and I loved the idea. Carey taught me how to surf, and how to adventure. It's easy for me to fall in love with these ambitious beauties who grace PachaMama, but there’s also one element to these friendships that does me in. Boys and unwritten competition. What if they like the same boy as me? And, what if I loose my chance because of it?
“So . . . who do you like?!” she said with a smile one afternoon over coffee.
I blushed, and did the inevitable. Letting my crush roll off my tongue while my stomach slid into my heart.
“Oh, he’s cute!”
“Yea,” I said, “I think I need to talk to him.”
She froze for a minute or maybe more. There it was, I thought, of course we have to like the same guy.
I was so so wrong! My fears from highschool times—I discovered after some healing work unfolded, had seriously clouded by judgement and because of it I'd jumped to the complete wrong conclusion. The ice melted.
“I’m in an open relationship, and I’ve been with someone here too," she revealed with some hesitancy, "But the emotional part is missing, there are so many rules, and now I’m feeling not so great about it all." She leaned in a laughed a little, "I do it all for the cuddles you know. But there weren’t any!”
I listened with bated breath and admiration. I find so much freedom in the people who chose to be open in this way, but I’m just not ready for the complexity and everything else that goes along with it.
Carey was here for three weeks and quickly found someone else who was open to the emotional side of intimacy. By the end of her stay she was glowing. 🥰
Lucille
“Does anyone know of someone local who’d be willing to boat me out to a yacht in a couple of weeks?,” Lucille inquired while we shared a ride to the beach.
This was a question I knew nothing about; who would have thought that you’d ever need a boat to get to a boat, never mind knowing any of the locals who would do it.
“Do you know of the Ista community? It’s a school for Sexual Healing and Temple Arts. I’m meeting some of my friends there for a month and I still need to find a way to get there.”
Lucille was a poised, gentle, joyful, and deep soul. She sat with pride and conformability in her body and when the bus stopped, we walked down to the beach. She held the space in the most beautiful way, and there by the salty shoreline, Lucille gifted me an opportunity to state my boundaries as a human, and as a soul. I dropped in, a little uncomfortable, and surprisingly certain. 🌊
“My soul carries the Christ lineage, so I’m not much into being open physically in a casual way right now. I want devotional love, with one person. I want a family.”
"You know what, me too, I also want devotion," she smiled, as we lay there in sunny contemplation.
Speaking with a firm sense of direction when it comes to love and sex is still very new to me, and Lucille in all her grace, helped me to set boundaries and feel comfortable stating my true desires out into the world.
Nari
Nari’s my friend from across continents. We’ve known each other for years, and right now I see her on zoom for an introspective and soul based process she’s in that calls for a trusted circle of friends.
“It’s about learning to curb what we’ve been taught to pour into others when it comes to relationships," she reflected. "The first step is to curb the flow of energy that’s looking for someone outside of us to fill up the unconscious places within. We call it falling in love, but first, we need to learn to fill up these spaces all on our own. Achieve independence on our own. This is the first step to deep union. It's the souls work.”
Nari’s gone through a divorce, has two beautiful kids, and her last sharing hit me square in the heart, and probably in the solar plexus and sacral chakra too. Ain't it interesting how soul themes can ripple back to us through time and space.
* * *
The November rains have come and gone, and in a month of study, I’ve come to these conclusion when it comes to love and sex. 🙏
I’m sensitive—I can feel the pathways into how a union could unfold in partnership over time. Love isn't portrayed like this in the movies, but for me, timeline insights are always dancing together with the mystery of love.
I’m devotional—When I sleep with someone, I can easily fall in love and want to foster that love, so I have to be . . .
Picky—Call it a byproduct of inner work, and even while living in an environment as open as the one I'm in now, I’ve leaned into becoming selective about who I get into the sheets with. Don’t get me wrong, I also want to be seen, loved on, and experience amazing sex, but I’ve stopped being a people pleaser when it comes to this department. It’s funny the nature of desire isn’t it? When we’re not clinging or grasping for the things that we want (in any arena of life), how it's then that the offers start rolling in.
I don’t do casual . . . I think?—Perhaps this one could be proven wrong. Sometimes soul lessons come in hard, quick and fast, but for the most part, I don’t feel open to casual sex. Murky waters and unfinished business often go hand in hand with casual relationships, and I know that entering this arena is not where I’m going to learn best.
December is here now, and I'm feeling free. Let’s say 80% free. I came to PachaMama thinking wow, I'm almost 35 and my window for having babies and motherhood is closing in. I had pigeon hole vision and even though it was buried under the surface deep, there was a sense of urgency and fear guiding my sight.
It’s been six months since this pigeon hole, and rolling with the punches has changed me. I know that my person is out there somewhere just waiting for evolution and the stars to align. I'm still a proud romantic and yes, I want to be swept away! 🌹
But all in due time.
Life's right now is more about aligning and demonstrating to the universe and myself who I'm becoming. There's no use in willing a garden to grow before the right seeds have been planted if you know what I mean. 🌻
WHERE I'M LIVING ON THE EDGE: I'm learning to keep my heart open, and talk through the boundaries when I sense that people want more for me, or I want more from them. Naturally I'll search for deep intimacy of the heart with everyone I call a friend, but I often feel like I’ll hurt people if I also deny them affection through my sexuality. Instead I keep myself at a distance. This is the wounding that's taking my attention.
THE THROWBACK And what about you, dear reader? What part of life are you learning from in this moment? Where is it that YOU are living on the edge?
