Sometimes life feels constipated....or is that complicated?? Either way, sometimes life is tough and feels all clogged up even though we have an intense desire for things to be different from what they currently are. I have felt this way for the past few years, waiting on life to shift, my next step to be revealed, a purpose to light up.
Where I left off for the progress of the barn renovation on my last blog post was after I blew out all the dust from the cracks in between the floor boards of the barn, then I started caulking all those cracks. I spent quite a bit of time working on this step; I thought I would be stuck on this step forever. It hurt my arm; I could only do so many cracks a day before I grew tired of it and needed to use my massage gun to work on my elbow tendonosis that was forming! I also saw the parallel between the tube of caulk and when life feels constipated. Sometimes you can squeeze and push all you want, but each step of life is only going to go at its own pace. Who knows the timing? I believe in Divine Timing, and I trust in the support from God, Spirit, the Universe, all of it!
When it feels like we aren't getting anywhere in life or don't have much of a purpose, especially when we may be feeling depressed, rest easy and take a nap, treat your sore muscles and bones, and just do a little something each day. And above all, only look at what is right in front of you, not the whole pile of everything waiting to be done! I have had to train myself with that in this project. There have been mountains of things to do here. Each project looked completely overwhelming when I began, and yes, I made the mistake of looking at the whole pile of broken tile that I needed to clear out from the field that was used as a dump station previously, the huge fire pit full of blue plastic bits spread over the lawn that someone thought would be a good idea just to burn to dispose of that I now needed to pick up, the 30x40 barn floor that I needed to caulk every seam. Whew. There were times when I was spending days picking up bucket after bucket of broken tile from the muddy field, that I felt like that scene from Monty Python where the peasant is eternally moving mud from one pile to another pile....
Yes, that's a good way to get so overwhelmed that you have trouble even finding a place to begin. So I kept my head down and only looked at the bits right in front of me and went from there. Then, before I knew it, I had cleared the field, the fire pit, and finally, finished caulking that floor.
This grid of photos shows the help we enlisted with Lance, a land management pro. First he helped me cut a hole in 2 new burn barrels, because, as you can see in the previous grid photos, we wore the other burn barrel out that was given to us! Then Lance went to work rerouting a natural spring trickling down the bank causing our property and the field to be soggy and wet. I had to clear the debris in the aforementioned grid of photos (the plastic bits, the tile, the decaying wood debris) before Lance could best do his work. He carved a trench with his machine so the spring would flow directly into the retaining pond at the back of the property instead of just flowing out into the field. Then he smoothed out the area that was previously all chopped up and with deep mud sections, so that area can be used for future parking areas and for van camping. He also tore down an old chicken coop that we weren't going to use and made it look like the heavy wood construction was made of toothpicks. He took out a few unsightly four foot high stumps too, saying "Now we're just playing around."
The flowers are blooming and I am making progress! And I am very grateful. (Flower pics photo credit goes to Shannon Szczekot) If you are feeling stalled with any aspect of your life, rest easy knowing progress and movement will come for you too, in its time, and be gentle with yourself along the way.
I've been sourcing tables and chairs from the local Habitat Restore shop and from Craigslist and Marketplace. I scored 30 chairs at $2 a piece from Habitat and miraculously they all even fit in my car on one load! Now that is Divine Support all around me! Now retreat goers have a place to sit together, reflect, dine, journal, paint, and more at the tables and in the comfy chairs that came my way.
Here are photos too of other great support I am receiving. My dear, sweet Mama, Brenda Walker, has been hard at work with me, helping me mow & weed-whack the gorgeous 6 acres that I've seen can very quickly be re-consumed to the wild grasses that grow tall here. Two dear friends, Pamela and Shannon, also came to visit and Pamela painted the balusters of the staircase in the barn an enlightening lavender (which I found in the reject paint section at Lowe's--it looked perfect to me!)
I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and we are planning our first event on the property for the last weekend of June--June 25. Please join us in Wolf Laurel at the Inner Wolf Retreat Space (I think we found our name--what do you think??) for an hour of Forest Bathing to enjoy meditatively walking the property followed by 90 minutes of Sound Healing in the new space. More to come in the next blog post soon about the finished look!
We are also collaborating with our friend Jean and her SoulJoy Meetup group for a sound healing on June 19th at 6:30pm as well. Attending both helps to train your brain to find stillness, calm, and ease with a reset to your nervous system and takes you deeper into healing with each session. Hope to see you soon!
