Finally downgraded from 2 FT Jobs to 1 1/2 jobs. Money is a bit tight but my sanity is much better! I need that time - I felt like a robot I craved the higher thought that quiet time brings. Seems kinda funny, I went to school for Lit ended up working in the medical field. I am trying to move to a more sustainable life/existence. I visited a farm in NY state, Cold Antler, and attended a workshop - ya know when you've never read or seen something before but the second you do your belly calms and it all resonates as truth? Well that's exactly what happened. Now I am on a quest to live a life more in line w my deepest desires! How will I ever make this happen?!! I finally took stock the other day - I drive home from work and go slow past farms and horse fields longingly looking at them, I have farm pics above my desk @ work and when it gets too much I mentally put myself there, I'm awake every day between 3&5AM and know it would be perfect timing to feed livestock, I hang in Tractor Supply for no reason, I stare at meadows, I am surrounded by an arsenal of books pertaining to self sufficiency, farming, permaculture, canning, poultry, knitting, all with a bit of a prepper type bend...
HOWEVER,
I am in a townhouse that I bought at the height of the real estate market. Please read (lovely and not a bad place to be sucking wind through a tough unloadable housing market SIGH) at the mercy of utility companies (no alternative heat source-and im a girly that needs a crackling fire). At the mercy of 'The Association' (Yes i pay them $240/monthly to tell me i CANT have a laundry line...or plant vegetables...or leave a bike outside...and yesterday I came home to Pesticide Treated flags in the grass EEEEKKKK!)But most nights... very late... by the light of the moon... I Dream Big (yet small)
I was married before and lived a life of consumption, a disposable attitude, but I woke up one morning and realized I was infected w the 'More' virus More this, More that, More Money, More More More... The only cure was to admit the bottomless pit of consumption went against the fiber of my creation and it just had to end. So here I stand today. A regular girl, a regular job in town, w dreams of being downwardly mobile, financially independent of the ties that bind one to a previous life of excess, and lovely thoughts of meadows and streams, grass under foot, of woodfires, homemade bread, fresh eggs, rabbit stew, gathered greens, words and their meanings.
I once was told the first step in changing is awareness - and that has proven true. It proved itself w my divorce (he was planning a grotto'd pool - I wanted chickens and compost), it proved itself w my desire to sit by a stream instead of in a mall (I now get strange w the concrete linear mall type environment - not easy for a jersey girl to admit), it proves itself everyday w my preferance for full spectrum sunlight as opposed to fluorescent lighting (It sucks the life from my bones and Im sure this will be scientifically documented one day). I will no longer apologize for who I am, MY AUTHENTIC SELF. I will no longer try to put myself in a different mindset to please anyone - I shall no longer censor my soul. I gotta be me - there is no other choice :)
I am on a journey and it's going to be small steps , but I will be moving in the direction of my dreams. This blog was my gift to myself a couple of months back. But now I've more time (1 1/2 jobs opposed to 2!), Higher thought (aka walks in cathedrals of local forests, attending foraging lectures, medicinal plants and the like) And decisions, discussions and an ever open accepting heart. I am a mother, a minister, a woman, a soul on a quest... There has to be a better way for me than the way I was living. This is the written beginning of that journey.
Got a dream boy? Got a song? Paint your wagon and Come Along! Where am I going? I don't know! When will I be there? I ain't certain! What will I get? I ain't equipped to saaaaay but who gives a damn?! Who gives a damn?! Who gives a damn?! We're on our way!!
-One of my dads fav movies Paint Your Wagon!
