Hello dear reader — I am back again after a little break from blogging! I hope this post finds you well, enjoying life, and making the most of all that its journey has to offer…
At my end, it has been a busy couple of months touring with music across Western Canada, with my partner Alex Flett. In 6 weeks, we travelled about 6000km (all the way from the Saskatchewan prairies, through the mountains and over to the coast by Vancouver). We didn’t spend more than 2 nights in the same location, and mostly slept in the van with all our instruments and music equipment piled high in the front two seats!
I’m now settling back into life in the jungle of Costa Rica. We’re right in the midst of wet season where I am (in the Osa area) and the constant rains are a welcome refresher after some of the dry and wild-fire-smoke filled air that I experienced in Canada.
For me, this is a moment for introspection and recalibration, after a lot of time being outward: performing for others, meeting new people, and making new social connections. Now is the time to connect deeper with and strengthen my inner discipline: to reflect, meditate, and also simply calm my nervous system after a lot of stimulation. And as I have softened into this practice, I have found sparks coming to life again inside me, creative ideas and energy to begin the next phase out here in Costa Rica. When the dry season comes we want to start building — so there’s lots of planning and preparation work to do in advance.
Silence, solitude, rest and reflection are important for our health and rhythm, so that we can always show up as the best versions of ourselves, embodying our soul’s desires and mission here on earth. Yet in our busy lives we can often be caught up in the “outward” and the “external”, without making the time to deepen our own connection to ourselves, to discover who we are when we are all alone. Who are we, and what do we want, when we take away the distractions (of people or things)? Who are we, when we face our own reflection, and must find love and connection not from someone else or via some thing, but through our own presence with the self and with the natural world that we are a part of?
I’m currently staying in a cocoon-like dome structure on a friends’ property (pending the construction of something more liveable on my own!). It is holding me like a womb, as I enter this next chapter. Yet I also feel the moment coming when I will emerge, spreading my wings, invigorated and ready to move forward — implementing all the ideas that are being born, with the new clarity I have found.
Remember this: once the transformation of the caterpillar is complete, it must leave the cocoon, to share the beauty of its butterfly wings.
Below, I will leave you with some prose I wrote during the tour – “Timeless, off the Icefields Parkway”.
I also invite you to make space in your life for being “timeless”. Set aside a moment this weekend to switch off your phone, computer, and TV, detach from the external world, and go deeply inward with yourself. Avoid the temptation to distract yourself with things. If a feeling of emptiness comes up, sit with it, breathe through it. Then ask yourself – what do I truly need to live a more fulfilling life? Am I living my life purpose? What steps can I take to fill myself with what brings true meaning to me? Am I living where I want to live? Am I where I want to be?
If you usually “numb out” via social media, television, or online scrolling, there is probably something fundamental that you are missing. The only way to find that piece, so that you may ultimately settle into a more peaceful and content existence, is to actually go into the emptiness and then see what spark of life and clarity emerges from that void. If you would like more assistance in exploring your purpose in life, I offer a variety of services that may assist you – please reach out if you need.
And finally, know that the more deeply you breathe into and embrace the present moment… the more you will experience the sensation of timelessness. The more focussed and productive you will be in moments of work, and the more restful and nourishing you will experience time of relaxation. The more you can fill your heart with joy, and the more you can connect to a thread beyond the physical — to support you emerge from any challenging moment, overcome pain and break free from suffering.
* * *
Timeless, off the Icefields Parkway
Our single shared phone (mine was broken, discarded back home) was about to lose battery. Not that it was much use anyway, since here you can drive for miles without any cell service, the only long-distance communication being with the howling wind and flowing water, in their travels across the land.
The Icefields Parkway is a road, spanning Banff and Jasper National Parks, and along its western side the Rocky Mountains stretch up to the sky. Their glaciers gleam in the sun - shining like badges on display. Yet they don't need no egoic-mental-attached name to announce their existence. And they'll live on long after those who named them are gone.
Earlier today we hiked up a canyon, and filled our bottles from the fresh glacial river. City dwellers would be too scared to drink such nectar, yet pay a fortune for false imitations of spring water, packaged in plastic bottles that harm our insides just as much as the earth.
We climbed up to a lookout - treading carefully and singing to announce our presence, for we had sensed a being, wild and untamed, somewhere nearby. It's berry season right now, and bears love to indulge in those sweet little fruits bursting with delight. We remained alert and aware, as we passed rustling bushes and the odd sound that could be claws scraping on bark.
We had made it through the dense forest and emerged on the other side to spectacular views, and the sight of the trail continuing below in a loop that would bring us back to where we had started without us having to retrace our footsteps through bear territory. What a relief - although we would instead be traversing beneath the site of a rockfall, where a few giant boulders looked to be suspended. How long they had hovered there for, and when they would fall, only eternity knew.
Moments spent in such raw territory, where nature truly is the ruler, seem to be themselves suspended in a place outside of time. And they breathe a sigh of relief into the soul, too long grappling and struggling to exist in the rigid society of rules and regulations. A system that is really just a futile attempt to control that which cannot be controlled.
Our campsite is just off the Icefields Parkway - a free spot on public land, where we can enjoy another glacial river, and the softness of the forest, without putting more money into government pockets (for you have to pay for everything in the National Park). There's no cell service at our campsite either. There's nothing but the vibrant hum of leaves rustling and grasses murmuring to seduce the daisies and other wildflowers I have no name for.
Isn't it sad, all those names lost? All those species forgotten, and no longer appreciated?
But I suppose they too live on, after those who named them are gone. Their beauty is captured in a timeless memory no photo could ever reproduce, and their spirit and their seed stays rooted in the earth. Beyond the folly of human existence, these lands shall carry forth their essence. They are forever preserved, in the eternal here and now.
* * *
As always, I am grateful for your continued support of my creative work. I hope something I have said inspires you this weekend, and if you would like to support me financially, you can purchase a copy of my book, buy my music through Bandcamp, or donate. And, please reach out if I can be of greater service to you!
Wishing you peace and love,
Cara