Journey with Drake

Last week I got into the garden and did a little remodel as I prepped the beds for their winter rest. The main change was moving the bee hives in so they can be a bit more integrated during this next grow season (plus I know thyself—I tend to things better when I have a good visual on them).

This week I reflected on being “Properly Resourced: Preparing and Participating in the Future of Reciprocal Systems.”

What does it mean to be properly resourced during troubling times? Looking beyond money, I invite us to take stock of our personal resources that might be overlooked but could be vital in face of failing systems we’ve historically been accustomed to relying on.

These factors include material, physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, creative, experiential, and relationships.

I then look at the foundational needs we must tend to in order to make the most of our resources, which include: physical, mental/emotional, spiritual, material and relational aspects of our well-being.

From there, I invite us to look at our needs, and share my own. I’ve seen this activity done in a variety of ways, but expanded on it in a way I think is important to reflect on—allowing us to gauge where we stand in engaging in reciprocal relationships within our communities—a must if we are to contribute to resilient communities of the future, grounded exactly where we are.

Would love to hear your answers, of the ways in which you are resourced and your own particular needs. May be weave webs of care together. 🕸️

Find the whole thang on Substack ✌️ link in bio

This week on Substack, I wrote about “The Personal as Political: Restoration to Feed our Collective Resilience.”

“Our greatest offering to this world is to transform our inner beings to be as healthy as possible. It requires us to get really critical about what true health looks like to us and our why behind that health.

Healthy so that we can continue to participate in these unjust and entirely unsustainable economic, educational and political systems? Nah.

Healthy in such a way that brings us back into our ancestral roots of listening and being in reciprocity with the land? Healthy so that we may connect with others from a place of unconditional love? And healthy in such a way that makes us resistant to mainstream ideologies, products and lifestyles that are killing people and planet and filling up the pockets of a bunch of arseholes? Yeah, that sounds about right.

But it means slowing down, healing generational and ancestral trauma that makes us easily manipulated, renegotiating our schedules, reading labels, identifying rhetoric, anddd learning to differentiate the inner voice from the conditioning we’ve received as indoctrinated members of this society.

So that’s what I’m doing over here, horizontal on the couch. It might not look like much now, but there is a change stirring within. I’m rebuilding my web of influence and care to better support who I’m becoming, tailoring what I’m studying to provide nourishment to the new threads that will one day be foundational to the future chapters of my participation.”

Find the whole thing on Substack. Free to follow, unless you wanna support my writing journey and get access to occasional exclusive previews to chapters from my books—the you can get a paid subscription.

I’ve been fighting hermit energy for years. Needing it. Craving it. Totally unsure how to obtain it or surrender to it fully.

The truth is, there have been two different personalities (that is, two different ideas of “me” I’ve projected onto the future) and they’ve been duking it out for some time now—the older, over-developed version having her last hurrah while dragging the new version of me in her destructive wake. That part of me is unnecessarily ambitious. It latched onto way too many ideas as to what life should look like, and significantly misread the limitations of what this body and mind are capable of. I’ve come to know her as the “maiden,” while the new iteration of me as “mother” arises from within.
Despite the writing on the wall, with all her might, that older part of me has spent a whole lot of energy trying to strangle out who I’m becoming.

As a friend pointed out over dinner the other night, I have been experiencing a profound, visceral ego death. Thus, for this past month, I’ve had to navigate midwifing a part of me through the death portal. Life, it seems, whether its tangibly alive, or an aspect of the psyche that has built itself an identity and sense of purpose, hold onto what’s known. Death is a primal fear shared by anything with a consciousness and evolutionary characteristic towards survival.

And this is fully inclusive of what we might identify as some part of our ego.

This past month was literally the hardest, most insane thing I’ve ever gone through. I wouldn’t relive it if you paid me less than a year’s salary. It was that hard. To hear about this tale you’ll have to wait around for book three of my trinity memoir series. (I’ll slowly be sharing chapters from the three books, but you need to be a paid subscriber on Substack to get access).

In the meantime, I shared a few things in my recent Substack post that have been my guiding me through this transition after shedding a significant aspect of self and the rehabilitation that I am now going through as I gladly settle into my hermit era. Link in bio 🧘‍♀️

Throwing it back to Switzerland with a post on my Substack today, capturing a little moment in time where I was reflecting on savoring the moment ((Are you subscribed to my Substack yet??). These photos are from when took the afternoon to explore Bern.

My writing was pretty prolific at the time, hints why we’re getting a handful of reposts from that period. If you’re lucky I miiiight even release a chapter from the first book in ode to the five year anniversary since I walked the Camino, BUT you’ll have to be a paid subscriber to get your eyes on it.

If you’re interested it would be great to have your support. Plus, I promise you it will not disappoint (how much wine did a drink on el Camino de Santiago? We may never know. That is unless you read the full book when it comes out and count 😬).

This past week I’ve written an absurd amount. Maybe 50,000 words? I’m not actually sure, since a fair amount of it is in my journal still waiting to be transcribed. But in all the deep movement and incredibly painful growth I’m working through, writing is my lifeline that gives me a sense of purpose in these times.

So yeah, check out my Substack and read today’s post! And subscribe if you want to support my work.