hello ruby in the dust

i am sitting right now, listening to neil young pandora radio, watching 5 people standing around a counter, cooking. they are cooking a mexican meal that they so gracefully offered to share with me.
it hit me the other day that the weeks that have fed me the most here have been my trip to waimanu, and my recent love affair with hilo, in which i spent a week with my insta-best-friend kate, running, cooking, going to yoga, and having amazing conversations, only to be joined with long-time-best-friend heidi for birthday adventures, and lots of laughs, tears, and wine. 
coming back kona side and realizing i was going to spend a week alone brought up the question... why am i here? living outside of community, spending loads of time by myself, not making money... you know the drill and the persistance of those thoughts in my mind.  the grass seems to always be greener huh? well in relation to my recent realization of what feeds me, abundance came knocking at my door again, and i got a call from the local lettuce farm in town.  kealaola farms (i think there might be an apostrophe in there somewhere); they need help.
YAY! eruption of joy in the opportunity to work, have my own space (a tent that i can stand up in, set up my altar, and have all my clothes in that overlooks the pacific and colorful fields of lettuce), and live in community.  this is exactly what i need for the last month of my stay here in hawaii.  some grounding.  i keep talking about how i feel like i have been able to come to center within myself, but i am lacking grounding in the real physical world.  the farm was completely willing to work around my schedule for the marathon, and open to me coming for as long as i wanted or needed, so i obviously could not refuse.
  -(one my favorite neil young songs just came on-cowgirl in the sand.. yes.)-
so here i am... as i said sitting in a large wearhouse, with a kitchen and a group of smiling faces, tent all set up, 7th harry potter already broken into, listening to cowgirl in the sand, and grateful.

first poem in a long time

recent encounters with raven

here i am
lookin' good for no one but myself
shaved legs
hair loose and wild

out here
sitting in the second
warm rain of the day
mmmh. i am o.k. with the rain.

autumn's here you say?
where?

maybe in my solitude.
maybe in the warm rain.
maybe in all the sunsets.
sunsets.

"why am still watching the sunset!?"
 i yell out to the ancient colors.

i am ready!
i am ready to put roots in
settle
curl up
provide
and then
watch the sun RISE!

at this, Raven laughs-
wise words pour out of a beady stare i have known in dreams:
stop
rushing.

ebenezer scrooge gets the holiday blues and cures it through giving thanks to you!

wow, welcome to my tri-annual mercury in retrograde struggle.  yesterday i spent most of the day feeling and wondering if mercury was going to go into retrograde, and when i checked my calendar, it turned out that today is actually the day.  not to sound to woo woo, but i am notoriously spacy, laden with bad luck and unable to control my bad communication habits (not to play the victim or anything).  today, the day before thanksgiving, this fine beautiful sunny and 80 degree 23rd of december, i feel sad and confused. doin the human struggle! doin the human struggle! (i feel like i should come up with a lil shimmy for that!)

i just talked to my dad and two of my sisters on the phone (my dad has this crazy "hands-off" thing in his car that broadcasts me over the radio when i call) as they were driving to vermont, the place where i spent all of my thanksgivings until i was 20, to enjoy snow, good food, wine, cheese, my favorite childhood restaurant, and some turns in 33degree-and-drizzling-miserableness, on slopes saturated with snow guns blowing ice chunks in every possible orifice. HA! but something about bundling up with my sisters and dad and sweaters and warm hats sounds really beautiful and very comfy... that's the word, comfy.  sometimes that is exactly what i need on this island.  all this earth-shaking-earthquaking-sharp-lava-eating-my-feet-raw-exposing-nakedness can be hard on a woman!

i am the ultimate ebenezer in my cynical now mid-twenties.  i often think all holidays are glorified by hallmark and have no real meaning or importance in my life anymore.  i appreciate the changing of the seasons, and lunar cycles, and old traditions that probably run deep in my pagan ancestry somewhere down the line... yes a true pagan at heart.  but once again, the space that i have provided myself with this year has led me to some beautiful and new perspectives.  i do appreciate the traditions that i grew up with.  going to vermont every year for thanksgiving, eating from a buffet at a dark cozy nook of a french restaraunt (which is apparently very unconventional), and then going around the table saying what we are grateful for is a heartfelt very applicable tradition, and i love it and i miss it. 

christmas can be a whole nother story, but growing up it was never my favorite holiday.  thanksgiving always was.  i think the reality of feeling close to my family, being small and nurtured by everyone in the first real cold of the season was and is something very special and dear to my heart. 

i have a lot to be grateful for this year. 
i am grateful for my family.  for the differences and the raging power that me and all my sisters possess.  for us being strewn across the country, in different places doing different things, and feeling confident that we are on our path in the moment.  for the irreplaceable bond that only sisters can feel, despite brutal honesty, minor abuse, and lots of tears and distance.  for willingness to heal and create new bonds, to work on relationships and see eachother for who we are now, and not for who we were when we were stealing eachothers clothes and slamming doors.
for mom and dad for figuring out what it is that makes them happy.  following their hearts, accepting me and loving me unconditionally despite all my crazy quarter-life-crisis antics.  for always providing us with creature comforts and nurturing, despite distances, absences, and arguments.  for allowing me to be someone who lives and moves from the heart, while trying to weave in a little bit of logical thought. thank you for bearing with me.  thank you for tickling me when i was little, playing bad guy, laying in bed with me till all hours of the night, letting me crawl into your bed whenever i was sick, and brining me to vermont for every vacation, the first place i really felt my soul.  thank your for instilling so much love into me that i didn't know how to express it enough as a kid. i love you more than the universe.
to friends and families in other forms
thank you for bearing with me as well.  i know my tendencies towards being relatively emotionally unregulated can be draining and ungrounding.  thank you for being a grounding force in my life.  thank you for providing me with new family, and always seeing me (avatar style) beyond the hot mess that i can present myself to be.  thank you for always believing in me, helping me see through my greatest dreams and desires.  helping me to decode my dreams, speak my truth, and challenging me to become a better person.  thank you for always knowing what is best for me, even when i am too stuck to see it myself.  thank you for helping me see myself as beautiful, recognizing my courage, and by-god holding fucking space for me. thank you... unwavering love headed your way.
to mentors and teachers
thank you for seeing my potential.  thank you for telling me that i am amazing.  thank you for believing in me, challenging me, and making yourself available.  thank you for telling me to "buck up," thank you for ignoring me, and holding boundaries with me.  thank you for being beautiful strong humans to look up to and aspire to be.  thank you for holding the bar high.  thank you for presenting your love and truth to the world and thus allowing me to move in that direction. 
to something greater than myself.... great spirit, great mystery, universe, whatever
thank you for allowing me to see myself, and begin to discover my spirituality, find routine and seek inner and outer truth... not sure quite where to go with this one yet except that thank you for answering my prayers through out the ages at times when i didn't even know i was praying. 
japhy
thank you for bringing me so much joy, and being a maniac, and causing me worry, and providing me with unconditional love.
myself
thanks meg for finally taking the risk to do something different.  thank you for removing yourself from the definition of insanity- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, thank you for learning to be gentle with yourself, for being open to doors opening and closing, for moving into joy and new acceptance for your body- soft in all the right places.  thank you for discovering that your power does not lie behind a toothy gummy grin, but can be found and fostered in even the darkest corners of your life.  thank you for growing up, coming into yourself, being real, wearing your heart on your sleeve, and with that, starting to learn about balance (ha!) thank you for being ready to move into this next phase of your life, while still being aware of connections and love across the miles.  thank you for being ready to discover and grow and learn.  thank you for saying thank you.

so here is my gratitude. i could go on for days... i love lists. thank you for loving me, and allowing me to love you in return.       
happy turkey day.

talkstory.

this is a saying over here that i really enjoy, talkstory.  it means to "shoot the shit" but i like it so much because there seems to be slightly more intention behind it, the people who have wanted to talkstory with me haven't just wanted to make small talk, but have really wanted to know who i am, why i am here, what my story is.  this is something that i really appreciate because i don't do well with small talk, in fact, i avoid it like the plague.. however, because small talk is so often the way we use to get to the deeper stuff, i tend to miss out on that stuff as well.  what i am noticing about all this talkstory, is that when someone says "hey lets talkstory" i roll up my figurative sleeves and say "ok lets get into it" thus skipping the small talk. 
it is also part of the hawaiian tradition... correct me if i am wrong, but a lot of the elders of the community will set aside time to talkstory, and it is the way that the younger ones learn, and are able to pass on knowledge the elders have to offer.  beeeautiful.
anyways that is kind of what this blog has become for me... a place for talkstory, and eventually i will learn to tell my story in a way that will be more liken to captivate readers and teach a lesson but for now stream of consciousness is what i got!  it is real and it is me, so roll up your sleeves, and sit back and read all at once.

my holy hard day turned out to be one of the most beautiful days i have had here since my arrival on hawaii island... i needed to hit rock bottom (which is much higher up than it used to be), and i needed to pull myself out of it by taking action, making movement, and grabbing the bull by the horns in order to move through my situation, and i did.  after my time on the internet, we went down kealakekua bay and met up with some colorado girls, kelsea, shelley, and sarah, girls who come from similar roots, and who felt like home and community in one way or another.  heidi and i ended the day paddling together on a stand up paddle board into the middle of the bay, laying head to head on it, and then i taught her a moon song that i know (thanks to kristi d), and we sang together looking up at the moon, floating in the middle of the bay, and decided this would be a moment we would remember for a long time... heidi looked at me as we dried off and got back in the car, laughed and said, "meg, i felt like i saw a glimpse of the old megan here in hawaii this morning, and then we just ended the day singing to the moon, a song that you taught me... i feel like you had a real north day today, meg!" she ended with another giggle, then i giggled, and we both giggled together in the now forever soggy jeep she named phil.  i beamed because i knew she was right, and it is true what "they" say, whoever "they" are today, that in those dark dark moments is when the real growth happens and when the truth becomes the clearest.  yay for movement, travelling and feeling joy.

the rest of the week was amazing as well... our weekend with the maui/colorado girls introduced me to surfing for the first time (what a gift!), and fed my seemingly constant need for a lot of women time, and the definite constant need and desire for community.  the next couple days were kind of wishy washy... i accidentally ended up following heidi around doing chores all day in the car one of those days, and became crabby, and decided i could sit in a kmart parking lot anywhere in the us... why was i here?? and so that question keeps coming up... why am i here? why am i here? and the answer keeps flying into view... to experience prolonged joy! to be in your body! to run around in skimpy spandex shorts and not feel self-conscious about your womanly curves! to take risks! and so another day of swimming with the dolphins, and meeting up with another dear colorado friend, allowed me to experience some of those things... i swam a mile and half across the bay sans flippers, and dolphins kept coming right for me!! and i could hear their song the entire way! it was definitely joyful to say the least! and so healing to be in the water for basically the entirety of the afternoon!

so then i did it.  something i have been talking about for a number of years, and always always had an excuse not to do... went on a solo backpacking trip... i went back into this valley called waimanu which i found out later means water-bird.  before i took off, one would have thought i was about to jump out of an airplane i was so nervous.  i kept searching and searching for excuses to not go... the weather looked nasty, can i leave the truck here for two nights? what if the trail is washed out? what if the big surf advisory means there will be a tsunami? and the list goes on as all of my lil neuroses (sp?) began to surface.  i sat in the car and listened to music for a second... trying to find it in me to strap on my pack and take off... do it meg, put on your pack, do it, a voice kept saying... if not now then when?? and so i did it, i locked the car doors, put away my ipod, buckled my pack to my shoulders and hips, and started walking.  and when i finally hit the trail, i realized i was not scared at all... that almost like an old memory, i had done this before... many times.  and so i walked and walked through eucalyptus forests, pine forests, and tropical drainages, and rain, tons and tons of rain.  waterfalls were going off left and right and after about 10 miles of ups and downs, two river crossings, and crazy winds, and did i mention rain? i reached the valley floor, where the huge ocean breathes it waves in and out of the cove, and where black rock turns to black sand, a magical place, waimanu.  i spent around two days there, one night there, and one up on the ridge, and never got dry not once.  i had a lil' ceremony for myself, spent some time building a beautiful medicine wheel (which was a tad bit off because i had no idea where the sun was and no map.. hehe) and even busted a coal, (though to little avail because everything was so wet... someday i will know how to build a fire in the dampest of climates... any suggestions, i am humbly open to them)... overall the trip was super empowering, helped me tap into a deeper side of myself... and realize that i always have that option... i can always always strap on my backpack and head into the wilderness... that is always there fore me...

ok i think i will end here for today... i am about to do a lil' hitchhiking for the first time... a little scary, but i think i will survive... go visit some friends over in hilo... see what that side of the island is like. i am going to leave my computer somewhere dry, so you probably wont here from for a couple more days. 

aloha and thanks for bearing with me.


ps- i quit pacific quest. ;)

letting go.

holy hard day.
today was one of the hardest days i have had since i arrived on the island... and it is just after noon...
working at pacific quest was really really hard. i worked with the adolescent boys, which ofcourse i loved, but it was so utterly different from my work at open sky that it is not even comparable.  i literally have to leave all i know and am good at at the gate when i walk in in order to stifle my constant judgement and recurring feelings of dislike about the program.  the kids don't know how to validate, or communicate their feelings directly to eachother... it isn't about the group, and the group dynamics, it is utterly about the individual and honing in on their own process... spending a lot of time with our good friend reflection, and a lot of time with our very difficult high maintenance friend accountability.  since i was in the support role this week, i spent an absurd amount of time sitting... so much so that i was able to do an 8 mile run upon getting out of the field last night... and keep up easily with heidi.  we were enclosed in very small area, and the land work we did all week was quite minimal to what i was expecting.  the kids spend a lot of time sitting too... and the whole program revolves around food.  which i also struggle with because of my relationship with food and the fact that i am gluten-free and there is gluten in most of the food.  my stomach was rocked from the diet, and i really struggled again with that feeling of it just not being right. 
however, i do think it is a good practice for me to see if i can bring my fire somewhere else that is not open sky... can i be successful at something else? because this is different... this is not WILDERNESS therapy, it is a residential therapeutic center with organic gardens.  that is it, plain and simple. 
i think i am going to give it one more week... it is so expensive to live here, and i really want to see what i can bring if i just LET GO of the fact that it is so different from open sky. 

so letting go is my theme right now.

i need to find a way to be fully present here, and happy here, so that i know i can bring it with me anywhere i go.  i need to truly focus on myself, and figure out what i want to do, without the hindrance or influence of anyone or anything else.  it is really hard... i have already cried a small river this morning.  i had news of japhy being a very bad dog... breaking and entering, running around at large, rumors of a bite occurring even to my dear friend cody.... something i never would have expected from my sweet gentle-natured dog.  but i know how he gets when he is not with me... i had to call upon an old friend who really really pulled through.  someone who i needed to forgive, and through this humbling act of asking/pleading/begging/crying on the phone for help, he instantly said "ofcourse megan."  so thank you parker, for being the dear man that you are.  i am working on letting go of the wounds we have created for each other, and remembering the good maybe in place of the bad for a little while, and forgiving you and forgiving me for our trials and tribulations, our winding, bending, bumpy crazy path we had together.  you are doing me a huge favor.

now that japhy is going to be in a steady and consistent home... maybe i can stay here even longer.  maybe i need to fully let go of durango for a little while, and find a way to make this home.  there is a reason why i came here, there is a reason why i am still here, there is a reason why i effortlessly got the job with pacific quest in a place where it is impossible to find work... there are reasons.  so the letting go ceremony that i had for myself out in the middle of kealakekua bay, the day before all the earthquakes happened is finally settling in.  finally creating movement.  it makes my heart thump really fast to think about it, but i know it is what i need to do.  and i am not sure what that means for me.  whether i am going to make this a more permanent home, less of a vacation, or if i am going to find what i need here quickly and be ready to make my way back to durango.  i dont know.  in order to fully let the door swing open to me here... i need to close the one in durango... even if it just for a moment, or a month, or a couple weeks... it is time.

so thank you. thank you durango.  thank you to all the people there, in it, doin' the human struggle.  my love for you is unwavering.  stronger even.  but i need to be here.  i need the space to be real, and i need to access and spread my fire in this new raw place, so i can return full and whole, healed.

i feel brave, courageous, and utterly frightened as i think about pressing the orange button labeled "publish post" but here goes nothin'.