Gratitude

I love it here. I really, really love it here. I can't believe that this is my life, and that I am in a space that facilitates my learning SO much about mysef, and that I get to keep that knowledge and these experiences with me forever. I am so lucky. I am so very privileged and blessed and lucky to be here and with these people and in this place. It is incredible. Thank you.

Saturday was the eclipse. Charlotte and Page and I made it out the bonfire really late; we got extra lost on the way there and ended up wandering through the dunes for over an hour. The journey there was definitely the best part of the night though, as we were stumbling about for the better part of the three hour eclipse process and got to see it from lots of different angles. The night was perfectly clear and the moon turned a deep, vibrant red, and when it was mostly eclipsed the stars were so, so bright. It was like being in a planetarium. The stars were ALL around us. Isn't it awful that I feel I have to liken the experience of the real thing to a simulation to convey how amazing it is? It makes me so sad to know that the clarity with which I saw the sky that night was nothing like many people have ever seen. We saw the Pleiades, which I've never seen before knowing what they are, and when we got down to the water we all laid down together on the sand and watched the moon come back out.

Sunday we mostly did homework, and a bunch of us got together and watched a documentary about Hugo Chavez and the coup in Venezuela surrounding him in 2002. It was intense. I love that people here just plan these things independently in class and most everyone will show up and all pile together onto couches and beds and get really, really into it and have long conversations about it afterwards.

Monday all we had was work departments, and I got to go to Cluny gardens once again and work with Sverre and Christine. It is the best thing in the world to be working there. Caitlin and I were feeling like we wanted to stay in so we washed sick plants in the greenhouse with toothbrushes and organic biodegradable lavender soap and water. They had little insects on their undersides, so we took them off and got rid of all the sap that had accumulated because of their sicknesses. We ended up singing a lot of Leonard Cohen songs and some Unitarian hymns to keep our energy up, and poured all our love into the plants. I'm starting to feel the "work is love in action" motto in my life here. It's so easy, when all types of work and the people who do them are respected. I don't know how I'll go back to doing work where we don't all attune together first and do a check-in and sharing of where we all are. It all seems so necessary and natural.

Today we had creativity class. We danced the 5 rhythms (which we call a wave) twice and I absolutely loved it. I thought the euphoria of being in a place like this had all worn off but I keep getting falling back into it. We did a bunch of dance exercises before we started, lots of things like gliding/rolling all over one another and funny partner improvisational dances, and loosening up all our body parts. The wave is a form of dance and I guess spiritual practice where you dance through these five rhythms: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. We did a 20 minute wave inside with music, and having never really danced before, ever, besides ridiculous dancing at parties, it felt surprisingly natural and safe. I wasn't nervous at all and I can feel a lot of my old silly self-consciousness breaking down already. Later we danced a little shorter wave outside, with no music, and it was kind of incredible to me how different the two experiences were. I guess I really have never danced for any extended period of time without music before, and I really felt in touch with my body and was just flowing through the wave. There are 5 rhythms dances twice a week, and a lot of us are planning on going, as well as having our own waves most days of the week. I might have to switch my daily practice to 5 rhythms dancing.

Tonight eight of us went to Melissa's house, which she shares with seven other people, to cook and eat a meal together. She ended up not being able to stay but we cooked a delicious, gingery potato leek soup with Hannah (who led our sacred dance in the first week). It was so nice to cook a meal and sit around a big table in a warm kitchen and be a family. We eat potatoes and leeks most days but it was better to cook for ourselves and it all just felt really special. After that we went to a presentation about Trees for Life, which is a great organization that we will be doing some work for in May. It was nice but very, very long. So now I am here. And now it is time for bed. I got a sweet letter from my best friend today and I got into a letter writing frenzy as a result. If you want one give me a holler.

Love,
Nora