A reckoning.

A reckoning.

How to give you the story that it is my Heart?

I invite the story into me like a wave arrives onto a sandy shore, nourish it with all that I am and let it lap back out into ALL that IS to join you.

My Heart is open wide and my body is tired as I watch the mountain majestic greens pass through my window now leaving the jungle. I write under the dim sunlight filtering through thick clouds.

This was one of the most physically rigorous journeys I have taken in my travels, but through total disconnection from the world we know, the soul is nourished through absolute simplicity of Life, so present in front of you. This reflection is a time where I rode the rails of all that lives between Love and fear. In the physical form of being lost at the mouth of the jungle, there is an opportunity to find. Some of the things I thought and felt:

Joy and marvel at the seemingly hundreds of different hues of green that drench the framework of the land. Every vista is more breathtaking than the one before. Life is breathing everywhere.

Humility in being a tiny speck in such an enormous natural force. Feebleness in knowing I am just another living organism in a seriously unexplainable web of creatures.

Fear winding through the blinding curving roads soaked with rain, rocks, and a new set of rules that crippled all my own logic.

Respect for the creativity and inventiveness of people who live rudimentary with nature as their primary teacher. They are patient beyond belief, calm, warm, and in the most present way—happy for what matters—health and life for their children and family.

Terror in the discomfort of undeniable heat, disease, and total lack of control.

Kindness and sadness in being given food by beautiful weathered strangers across the world and watching these locals scrape my plate for their own meal.

Judging and judged as a blue eyed, blond haired woman who got the opportunity to walk on some of these deep foliage paths filled with ancient magical trees. The continuum of the world colliding and merging in the very same instant. These moments of learning can be painful as they expose layers so hidden in the forests of your heart—to SEE who you are. These moments can be exhilarating beyond any excitement I’ve known to feel LOVE that binds us in such tangible ways. I think the body sometimes doesn’t even know how to process these layers.
During one moment, I found myself under an almost full moon sky taking a bucket bath with rain sheeting down from the sky onto me. The shower teetering on a wooden platform above the river I crossed on a small wooden paddle boat with my bags, now churning wildly below me. Pure darkness in the shower to evade the Dengue mosquitoes. Here, I wept and laughed together. The river, rain, darkness, cool rush, frustration, and unexplainable gratitude exactly matched my physical surrounding and poured from within me. I don’t think I’ve cried that hard for many years, but there was a LOT of rain falling to be in concert with me and me with it. We can never really unravel all that is in these spaces of us, I just assume that as I wade into the layers of me—I become a more whole soul. I appreciate more. I know how precious this life is as I get to breathe in these morsels of living color.

This kind of journey brings you to new plateaus of respect for so many things: health, safety, family, comforts that we take for granted and…spiritual nourishment. This kind of journey also hurts as parts of you are literally exfoliated into change. This can only be described as a reckoning. An awakening. And with it there is the work that is total forgiveness, around every mountain curve. It takes a lot of love. To taste Love is our function. I’m going to finish this eve’s writing with a piece from a beautiful tune (hyperlink if you want to hear it). I am physically so very tired and looking forward to dreaming. I’ll write more of the specifics on the gorgeous parts of the trek and the people that lit the path soon!

Rolling River God (Words Nichole Nordeman)
Little Stones are smooth
Only once the water passes through
So I am a stone
rough and grainy still
Trying to reconcile this river's chill

But when I close my eyes
and feel you rushing by
I know that time brings change
and change takes time
And when the sunset comes
my prayer would be just this one
that you might pick me up
and notice that I am
just a little smoother in your hand
Sometimes raging wild
sometimes swollen high
never have I known this river dry
The deepest part of you
is where I want to stay
and feel the sharpest edges wash away