Life in the Waves

The last time I made an entry to this blog, I was sure it would only be a month or so before I was to do it again. Alas, it has been many months. They have been rich months filled with many new experiences of familiar and fresh territory.

Along the way Kirsten and I spent 6 wonderful weeks with my sister, her husband, Carlos and my nephew Omar, in Santa Fe and took a breath taking tour in Colorado to visit friends and other known, formative spots that had been important along my path to adulthood.
The rains fell plenty before we arrived which laid a carpet of forest and pasture so green that the spring surge pulsed through our bodies with every new day.
And then, for 6 short weeks, we returned to Mexico…….

Leaving my home of the last really long while has been bittersweet. Walking away from the folks that love and care for you to find something else is a mixed bag. As I was thinking about it today, it like one of those relationships where there is so much that is good, but where is the passion? Do I stay because it feeds me for the most part, or do I go to find the passion that I am not feeling the way I want to.
The big difference, I suppose, is that if your relationship is with a town and community, it isn’t like the town and community are going to start a relationship exclusively with someone else, and I won’t be able to someday say…..”I was wrong…. please take me back…..”

It has been dificult for me to be away from my kids these last 19 months, so one day it came clear to me that the opportunity was awake and I would go spend the month of September with them in Port Townsend.

It was one of those times and spaces when you know what you are doing and why you need to do it but you don’t understand the full impact of the decision until it is over, and then still not completely.

What I experienced was the love and connection to Tomoki and Kiyota that will feed my soul and spirit better than any herb or medicine, better than any gift or song. It was through looking in their eyes that I felt this. It was through the sharing of food and mundane time washing dishes in their homes. It came through the time I spent talking “their” community of their dreams and desires.

Port Townsend, WOW, what a place of love and desire. This town has raised my kids and their friends and cohorts, Misha, Chen, Danny and all of their friends. It has taught them to care for one another with compassion and depth. It has taught them to adore one another for their differences and pains.
As I moved among my community, I was told the stories of peoples good wishes and support for these young men to fulfill whatever it was that pleased them. It was truly beautiful to witness.



On the night of Kiyota’s 25 birthday, as Sageland (the name given to our family land) tradition would have it, we made a small fire, a small feast and we enjoyed time together.
As the evening moved deeper into darkness, a light appeared through the words of my old friend Evan. As we watched the fire circle from a distance, he mentioned how all that we were witnessing was about to change forever in a few months when the boys and their performance troupe move to Portland.
Evan brought to light the story of the ending of dozens of fires we have had over the years, for ourselves and our kids and our friends. During not only birthdays but celebrations of rites of passage, solstices, eqinoxes and our weekly bathing in a water trough, when it was our only way to clean ourselves.
They were leaving where they had grown up for the last 20 years, where the words of love and appreciation had so easily flowed for so long. It is the place where we have come together with friends and family to enjoy the lives of our children and ourselves.

Over the millenia of the earths life, the magnetic pole has not always been to the north. It has oriented itself to different parts of the earth at different time and for a variety of reasons.

I see this time we are experiencing in this way. What has been magnetic north for so long is no longer. The poles of our family are shifting in the most drastic way that I have ever experienced them.
It is for us now, time to reorient ourselves as father and mother, as children, as uncles and aunts of the community. It is a new world ahead, fresh with opportunity to venture and discover what our old orientation taught us and it gives us new eyes to view what adventure lay ahead.
I am sure in my steps, for the foundation and base of love and commitment within our family and community, has given us all strong legs, heart and mind.

For the last many months, I have carried a sharp pain in my chest for the absence of my children in my life. This has recently passed. I feel excitement at what lay ahead for them and with the gift of this time we have had together, we are closer than ever. I feel them in the air around me. I can still feel our last embrace and the appreciation we all shared.

In closing, I want to thank any and all of you that have smiled upon my family. Perhaps you have no idea of the strength you have brought us.

And last of all, I wish to give my appreciation to Niels Holm, who passed away in late September. He was a mountain among men who left the places he moved through more beautiful than when he arrived.

with love,
Joshua

Reaching Out

Hello to all,
time to reach out again….. it has been since August that we last posted to this blog page.
More recently we have posted in person to Port Townsend, Thailand to visit my father, and South Dakota to visit my mother and brother Zak.

Last August we decided to take our friends Rachel and Eric up on their offer to house sit their house 10 miles to the north of Oaxaca city near a little town called Etla.
We had been on the move for 8 months and decided that opportunity needed a moment to catch up with us as we were moving a bit “too fast for the camera.”

Earlier in the year, we had spent 6 weeks with my dad and his family in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This was the longest time spent with my father since 1975. From there we flew to Mexico to start our quest for our Fortune…….. Our first priority was to learn Spanish, and we signed up for 6 weeks of language classes in a wonderful little place called Tepoztlan.
Along with language school, we spent good time with old friends, most of them living at a community called Huehue Coyotl (old old coyote).
And we house sat in the lovely and incredible house of our friend Bea.

From there, our journey took us to Michoacan to meet a wonderful batch of generous and loving folks. The first evening we arrived, we were taken in by Terry and Laura, no questions asked. There we stayed three nights, then moved on to stay with Jenny and Sergio in Yotatiro. There we potted fig trees bound for the Huichols and got to know the lay of the land near Erongaricuaro.





Then on to Oaxaca for 3 weeks, western Massachusetts, Boston and NYC and then back to Oaxaca in August for our housesit.

In short, what I’ve found during our quietness in Etla was reflection. As we looked for working opportunities and got to know our new community, we had lots of time to just be. Months ahead, we would look with not a single obligation nor even a lunch date.
We had silent evenings on end, with just the sound of crickets and the site of lightning bugs (which always fascinate me).
Sooooo, it is inside I went. A wonderful and still journey ……..

I realized that within my fascination of the human experience, I come out easily towards others to learn of their journeys, trials and lessons. When I see a friend, I want to know what is happening on the inside and if there is a way I can help to make their life better or richer.
At times, I have given too much of myself, either in physical work or just devoting too many ideas or thoughts.

Having been a fairly high profile human being, I have found so many incredible people to appreciate and have enjoyed the appreciation shown to me.
So in this time when it was mainly just Kirsten and I, there was much space to go farther and farther inside.

What a perfect time for it too……. recently coming out of the door of raising kids. What a great time to reinvent or perhaps more appropriately said, re-investigate just who it is floating down this big old river.
If there is a place for a second vision quest, this may well be it.



So here we are... for all practical purposes, we call this home. This is the physical space we plan to inhabit indefinitely. We aren’t cutting ties with our past, we are merely stretching the range of our possibilities to find more deeply what makes us, us.

So keep posted for more updates......... one from Kirsten will be coming befroe too long.

with besos y abrozos,

Joshua

Guadalupe Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico

Today, I made a yeast bread, something I haven’t done for years.
I couldn’t help think of my friend Heather who taught me to make yeast breads. I thought of the dear place she has held in my life for so long. Through her eyes, I have grown from a young man to a man and with her I have walked among the trees, rivers and rocks for many, many days.
When we were 17, she invited me one day to plant lettuce, and after a few moments of pressing our fingers in the soil to give the seeds a nest in which to grow, it was done. I sat looking at her for a queue as to the next step. See looked at me and said, “let’s go swimming in the Crystal,” I looked at her with confusion and asked, “Is that it?”
“That’s it, now come on, let’s go swim,” she said smiling.

As I started to knead the dough, I thought of the others in my life, all of you, adding a bit to me to make me what I am. Often simple things but sometimes deep and complicated.
With a bit more flour, to keep things from sticking, I thought of my uncles and aunts who would pinch my cheeks, and kiss the fingers with which they pinched me as they would say ”Ab’delek,” which means ”I would die for you.”
With a tug and push of the dough, I thought of Grandmother Clara and the long walks we would take and of the ways they strengthened me beyond that of my legs and lungs.
Adding a little more flour, memories of my brother and sisters, constant companions. Jim Angell, Girly Rose and Momma Moore, my stepmother, Andrea; strong loving forces.

And then with each dusting of flour to get the dough right, I said blessings for my “family” of Port Townsend, friends who have given so much. The ones with whom I have sat at the wake of friends who have passed away. The friends with whom I have argued and cried and the ones with whom I have danced. And most profoundly, the ones with whom we raised our kids.

Blessings went to the kind people that trusted me and gave me work, the kind teachers that saw what I could be and gave me more.

With more kneading, I thought of Lavender, who put the most time and patience into me as I moved along my way. (The bread in those days often had raw spots and could be really crusty too, but in the end, we managed to eat it all!) And it was Kiyota and Tomoki that raised me the most. The ones to whom I vowed to not answer, “Because!” when they asked “Why?”

And Kirsten, the love of my life, the person with whom I have chosen to eat each and every loaf of bread.

It was my mom, Pyrrha, and my dad, Charles, and the stars, ancient stars, that made the mass of the living dough in my hands. It was the beautiful places that they taught me that I could go that gave the journey reason to be.

So where are we and what are we doing? Just know that I’m not able to do anything without you!

If you are reading this, you are what has toned, conditioned, and held together this big hunk of dough.
With every breath and step, know that most importantly the world is unfolding for us as it is because YOU.

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