campervan chronicles: stop numero uno on el Camino

I sit in this root-meets-sacral-chakra orange chair that is sitting on the dog-drool spotted wood floor of the house Elyse and Landon are renting up North Fork.

My first stop.

It is 11:31 am on a Saturday. This means that by 1 pm I will have something published on my blog.

I’m going off Glennon Doyle’s writing/publishing model I heard her mention yesterday as I listened to her interview on Sophia Bush's “Work in Progress” podcast. (Thanks, Liv, for sending that to me).

*** Listening to this podcast is more important than finishing this blog: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/glennon-doyle/id1479711891?i=1000475814259

Anyway, what Glennon did --- once she stopped trying to email all her thoughts to all her friends every day and instead turned them into a blog (#canrelate) --- was give herself an hour and a half every morning to write and publish.

Every morning, once the timer struck hour and a half, she required herself to have published something. This kept her from being too perfectionist, or overthinking things too much, or, or, or ... [insert interminable list of ands/ors/buts that keep us from sharing our art and expression with the world].

So I’m emulating --- or copying --- Glennon.

My soon-to-be-sister-in-law Liv said the only way she'd figured out how to convey the status Glennon held in her life was to explain that, for her, Glennon was essentially the Pope. I said, YES, Glennon for Pope, cause Glennon so dope. (DUDE, can a woman SERIOUSLY still not be the Pope??? FUCK THAT SHIT. SERIOUSLY: GLENNON FOR POPE).

Also seriously though, there are some people I look up to a lot. Glennon Doyle is one of them. She is writing and sharing her truth, authentically, directly, unabashedly. By doing that she has connected millions of people to themselves and to each other and to resources they need (for instance through her nonprofit, Together Rising). So her process for how she made herself write and publish every day seems like a good one to follow.

Here goes.

...

I pause now to take off the spring sky blue silk scarf tied around my throat. It’s the one Elyse convinced me to buy at Custom Cowboy back in December --- a color I would never have chosen, but that Elyse, an artist, mentioned was a good contrast to set off the deep earthy colors I usually don.

Just now it’s notably constricting my throat (chakra), and since both that energy center and the act of writing are all about uninhibited free-flow of expression --- about communication --- I’ll shed the comforting bind for now.

*Heavy audible sigh of of relief. Put my deep-in-the-90s blue denim Wrangler-jeaned calves and Bomgar’s bought dirty forest green Carhart-socked feet up on the long, lacquered vertical slice of a tree-on-iron-feet coffee table. Another deep sigh.*

I notice that on the chestnut lines and whirlpools of the creamy sliced trunk that Elyse (I assume) has etched and emphasized over them in white and black gel-like strokes atop the lacquer. Like a tsunami of clouds inside the tree.

It reminds me of the picture frame, not yet hung, sitting on my loft bed out in my van. Out in Tortigra (or the magic-mobile, or the story-portal; she is a vessel of many names and powers), whose door is open in hopes that Lady May will sprint back inside from where she’s hiding (or exploring, or Queening, or destroying mice) under Elyse and Landon’s porch. I look out the sun-seared window and am not near as keen as usual to see the silhouette of a hawk’s body wheeling in the corner of the frame.

The picture in the frame sitting on Tortigra's memory-foam mattressed loft is Jacey’s original drawing of the divinity van logo. (I "meant" to type divinity ranch, and instead typed divinity van there in my first draft, so imma leave that one to simmer 🚐🔥 ... Tortigra the diva, divinity van?!). The colors of Jacey's colored-pencil drawing reflect that same perfect contrast and highlighting -- leave it to the artists -- of the whispered subtlety of the earthy and sagey hues I love jolted to life with electric splashes of pink and yellow and look-at-me-blue.

Erin framed it for me at Gestalt, and she hand etched “divinity ranch” on the glass in the font she custom-created to complete the logo.

I’d suggested Erin add the font on the picture itself, but, as Erin informed me --- as artists know --- it’s totally not cool to abridge the original; first creations' integrity deserves guarding. So she etched the name on the glass, the logo complete and the original in-tact, complemented while fundamentally unaltered.

Exactly as Elyse did on the lacquer atop the wood. Underneath, the tree’s original expression remains untouched.

I look up at an olive corduroy cap with a woven mustard band that earlier caught my eye for its colors and aesthetic (like everything in Elyse and Landon’s world). Only now do I notice the emblem sewn on its patch is a heron.

In my meaning-making, the heron is a vital symbol of hope. He points to the great blue heron teacher who came to me on the cracked asphalt basketball court of my Holden Commodore dreams contained in the chock-a-block campsite of Uluru.

Also, as I now google "spiritual significance of a heron," it seems appropriate that my heron dream teacher appears to me in this moment. Google's first answer (from trustedpsychicmediums.com #solid 😆): "The heron symbolizes stillness and tranquility, and how these two things are needed to recognize opportunities. It also signifies determination, because there will be plenty of marshes and ponds that you will wade through in life as well. The meaning of the heron speaks about your sense of independence."

Resonates.

Speaking of dream teachers ...

Last night, sleeping in Landon and Elyse's guest bedroom, I dreamt my friend Kesia and I and a big crowd of people were standing on the crispy cliff-lip of a northern ocean. Chunks of powerade blue-white ice floated in the dark and clear water. There was someone speaking, like a teacher or a guru, who seemed Inuit. Kesia kept jumping in the water. This was ceremonious and sacred, forbidden and brazen, brave and mischievous of her.

Then, at some point, I was under the water, hovering in a little shallow cave created beneath the land’s end. Everyone on the shore stood directly above me. I now watched Kesia from underwater. I was relieved and relaxed to have entered this depth. Looking down and behind me, I saw what held me in place was my right forearm and elbow locking like a puzzle piece into a corresponding hole in the rock, a key in a lockhole.

In registering this, I went from tranquilly grateful to slightly worried and then increasingly panicked that I wouldn’t be able to get my arm out. I needed to check and make sure that I could, even though deep down I knew I could.

In that moment I also became fearful of how much air I had left. I tried to jerk my arm free of the rock lock forcefully, but this only jammed it in more securely. After a few painfully jarring wrenches, I recognized not only that my breath was running out, but that this kind of over-aggression was only making it run out faster.

I knew the only and completely sure way it would come out was to very gently turn and float my arm out in just such a slender, delicate, perfectly-aligned way. My whole body and mood dissolved into an utterly calm trust. I gracefully allowed this twisting motion. My arm released effortlessly. End of dream.

Just before I woke up, I dropped into another dream. This dream was chock-a-block with one of my will-freak-the-fuck-out-when-encountered fears --- spiders. They were big, bulging, shiny female spiders, pregnant with lessons. Their webs danced like diamond nets on an all-black background, connecting points, weaving pathways, making bridges. Then I woke up.

...

I won’t make this too much longer, since it’s now 12:06 pm and I’ll need some time to snap a few pictures, insert some I’ve already taken, do a little editing to the text once I paste it in wordpress.

I just wanted to tell you, as far as my van voyage goes, I haven’t officially left town … home … yet. I’ll still go back to see several friends and a lover before leaving. I'll still go say a final-for-awhile goodbye to my parents and pick up a few more essentials I forgot at the house.

These essentials will include the shock collars for the dogs because Peter’s unstoppable stud-dog (without balls) protectiveness around Rogue-who-hath-balls has shown me that a shock collar is going to be a good safety measure for everyone (dogs included) in such emergency dog-fight-danger-CRITICALLY-HIGH situations.

Maybe I’ll leave Cody next week. Sa ver. (The colloquial version of "vamos a ver" in Spanish, which means, "we will see").

When I asked Jonelle to pull a card for me two days ago on Thursday, sending wondering energy regarding leaving town next week and the start of my journ in general, she sent me an email with a photo of the five of swords, which signifies, essentially, defeat.

I also asked Kesia to draw a card for me that same day (wondering if they'd pull the same card --- they didn't) in which I posited the same question/intention/energy regarding starting my journey next week. Kesia emailed to let me know she’d drawn the 10 of pentacles: blessings, prosperity, legacy. Also, according to Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot by Lon Milot DuQuet, it signifies wealth, and, the ten of pentacles is the very last card in the tarot deck.

We’ll see how all that plays out.

All I know at this point is it would be nice to get my baby divinity van (devanity?!) de-winterized before I officially hit the ol' outta-town-road because water-in-the-lines would be rather convenient. Convenient, not necessary. (I can always carry water inside like I have every other time I’ve lived/camped in a regular ol’ car without fancy schmans water lines …), but hey, now I do have a fancy schmans class c RV so, why not use her for what she was made for?!

Or, not having been able to dewinterize her yet is what I’m conveniently using as my conscious excuse for why I’m still here (I mean, it is supposed to snow again next week).

I guess I’m exactly where I am 'cause ... it’s where I am. (You know, wherever you go, there you are). And if I’m still here, it’s because there’s still am-ness needing to be, here, now.

... And yet, while my mind can compute and theorize and tidily, calmly express all this isness and perfect balanced necessity of things exactly as they are, my body trauma is like, not so fast!!!! Wait for meeeeeeee ... You can't leave without meeeeeee!!!! (very whiny and desperate). This is exemplified in at least one instance by how my the top of my right thumb is super throbby and hot and red and achy right now for some apparently indiscernible reason.

So I look up the metaphysical cause for thumb pain according to Louise Hay:

“Fingers: Represent the details of life. – Thumb: Represents intellect and worry.”

GREAT. Will I ever get over my overly active intellect and worry?

Or maybe a little healthy intellectualizing about what’s next is good for me? Maybe I'm not intellectualizing and worrying enough??? Maybe I'm utterly unplanned and unprepared???

*sighs*

Well, mystery-meaning throbbing thumb and all, I do feel extremely relieved to have at least half-started on my journey, departing the interminable holding space of my childhood home. Compared to the last few weeks, hell, months, I feel a massive and tangible sense of lightness and relief.