Becoming Letters #8
A month of restin’ & relaxin’ in Forster, NSW
Hello dear readers, I’m writing this post from Forster, the traditional lands of the Worimi and Birpai peoples. I’ll be real–I’ve been resting this month. Not doing much else. And it’s been great!! There is something so liberating in deep rest, and I hope each of you can find moments to cultivate this same kind of restoration in the coming weeks.
What I’ve been up to
My last letter was one of leaving–saying goodbye to the structure and ritual I found at Swami’s Yoga Retreat, where I volunteered as a karmic yogi. In return for my daily labor, I received a place to sleep and three nutritious vegan meals a day. It was a really marvelous experience of learning how to live in intentional community with others from around the world, return to the labor force (in a loose manner), and create small rituals for myself within a community of yogic practice.
I’ve discovered how much I enjoy kundalini yoga and want to explore it more. I love how the tradition is centered on the energy in the body and each pose is done to get energy flowing through each of our chakras. I’ve been practicing kundalini yoga on the waterfront deck this month in our housesit.
I’m in Forster, on the New South Wales coast, a sleepy little coastal town along the whale migration route. We haven’t seen whales yet, but we did see dolphins and nurse sharks! The area is gorgeous, with gentle mountains in the distance, ragged coastal cliffs, and the quintessential Aussie beaches we’ve seen all along our coastal drive over these past five months.
Steph and I were so fortunate to land this housesitting gig–six weeks in a spacious home on the water for a couple that has been so helpful and supportive of us since before we left the USA. We found Jeremy and Peter on a website called Trusted Housesitters, a platform that connects people with pets/homes to sit with traveling sitters. This is our third housesit in Australia we’ve done with THS and it’s absolutely my favorite. We get to relax in this beautiful home and spend time with a very sleepy, small, elderly dog named Piper.
Jeremy and Peter have given us advice on purchasing a car, planning our route around Australia, and just in general being a contact on the continent for any questions we have. It’s been a joy getting to know them. Jeremy told us to call them our “Aussie Fairy Godmothers” and that’s what they are!
They cooked us a lovely meal and we wined and dined for hours before they jetted off on their travels. We’ve been getting updates from their adventures through China and now a yacht in Greece. #Goals
I’m beginning to plan out some travels after we wrap up our Australia journey. If you’ve been to Southeast Asia, I’d love to hear any advice you have!
This is a very preliminary, BIG DREAMS kind of plan. It always helps me to create handdrawn maps when I’m planning. I love the tactile sensation of drawing the borders of countries. Also the inevitable realization that my scale is off. It’s all about the vibes!
Lunar Cycle
Tonight’s new moon opens the cycle that will close in a full Buck Moon on July 29th, named for the new antlers pushing up through velvet on deer bucks this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a naming that comes down through Algonquian tradition, filtered through centuries of European settler almanacs. That is to say: it’s not the Indigenous name for this moon, it’s one nation’s knowledge among hundreds, carried into general use because it got written down first by the people doing the writing. The more time I spend in Australia learning about the erasure of Aboriginal culture, the more reflecting I do on the traditions I grew up in in Missouri, on the very limited information I have and what is missing.
Here on Worimi and Birpai Country, the coastal stretch I’m currently resting on, this same turn of the calendar sits right at the transition between two D’harawal seasons (if you recall, D’harawal peoples live near present-day Sydney, the traditional custodians of the land we walked at Swami’s; their culture is one of the more well-preserved Aboriginal cultures in Australia). The seasons Burrugin, when echidnas form mating trains through the cold woodland, and Wiritjiribin, when the lyrebird stops moving with the group and starts building alone–a mound in the bush, calling out to draw a mate to him, rather than following anyone.
This threshold has been consuming my thoughts this month. Swami’s was Burrugin energy–falling into line with a whole community moving in the same direction, labor and ritual and meals shared. Forster has been Wiritjiribin: kundalini on the deck, moving energy up through my own chakras rather than in service of a group’s. As I’m writing this letter, hearing Piper’s snores from the couch, an unbothered kind of solitude after my month of intentional togetherness.
Bucks grow their antlers to be seen, to compete, to be chosen, to move through the world announcing themselves. The lyrebird builds quietly, but still calls out. I think this cycle has been about learning that rest isn’t the opposite of reaching-towards-others like I did at the retreat. It’s just a different approach to the same outcome: building the mound before you’re ready to call anyone to it.
A parting question for you…
When do you know it’s time to rest? What are your warning signs? And how do you know when you are actually getting that rest?
What lovely Aussie Fairy Godmothers! So grateful to hear you’re enjoying some rest time on the water. For me, there’s different forms of rest. Lately I’ve been learning when I need to practice creative rest. And that’s when the inspiration stops flowing and writing starts to feel forced. Now I know I can’t push through. I have to pause, go for lots of walks, visit my sit spots, or become engrossed in an tv show, and trust the wellspring of ideas will flow again after a period of sacred pause. For physical rest, that one is easier. As soon as I get cranky, irritable, or overall low energy I know it’s time to rest.