you know, if i did this more often, it wouldn't be such a daunting task to update you as to what i'm doing...but the thing is, when i'm in transition, i don't write.  i wait until it's sorted out somewhat. 

but this one...this one will surpise even the best of you.

okay, let's see...the last you knew, i was returning to h.o.m.e., in costa rica..  good.  that's where the story takes a turn............

i was walking to the waterfall with hanna one lovely afternoon, each talking about our plans after h.o.m.e., and mine was something like, "back to panama to find out about boats and get a boat across to england..want to teach yoga and give reiki treatments on the boat...time in england~ festivals, reiki, yoga, make & sell artesania, meet faeries and pigsies, eastern europe, then italia, thailand for world rainbow, india~study for reiki masters with usha, jaipur for stones & crystals, ashram time, go to korea for the spring, then the u.s. to see my family~~~~" ...it was then i realised that it meant another two years without seeing my family.  it meant that each of my neices and nephews, whose photos i carry and show to whomever will entertain me with looking at them, the children i talk about incessantly, would be two years older~that two more years' worth of growing and learning and memories would have again passed, whilst i was busy doing other things.  it would mean that my mom, newly retired, not getting any younger, would be two years older.  i groaned, and lamented my sentiments to hanna. 

hanna replied, "just go.  you miss them.  you want to be with them.  just go.  the rest will sort itself out."

i stopped in my steps.  i looked at hanna and said, "you're right.  i'm going home."  a sensation came over me, i can't describe it, but it grew and grew with each passing hour.  i went from bargaining with myself that i'd find a boat to take me up the coast of the americas so i could spend a week with them before finding another boat to take me to england to jumping on an airplane and flying to boston four days later.  and with that, returning to a place that most of you have probably never even heard me call "home," because i haven't thought of it as home in many, many years.

my family lives in new hampshire.  it's a small state on the east coast, north of boston.  "home" is in a small town in the white mountains of new hampshire~the woods that inspired the poems of robert frost.  my sisters and brother and their families are now in the small capital city, an hour south of here, but i accepted my mother's kind invitation, and, after seventeen years away, i am living again with my mom.

she gave me the basement of her home.  i've converted it in to my own little sanctuary.  i have a large area for sewing and craft projects, plenty of room for my morning practice~in front of the most beautiful sacred space i've ever created~with stones from the forest in a spiral & a lovely dish with my crystals charging in the center of the spiral,  moss from the forest in clay pots, pinecones from our trees, bits of wood from the faerie forest in costa rica, river wood, etc...my bed is covered with the large patchwork quilt i sewed myself twenty years ago...the floor is riddled with books and papers and all the things i do...

it hasn't been an easy transition, that's for sure.  i've had to learn to separate the novelties of a visit from the things that aren't part of my life anymore.  it's been a challenge for my family, too, especially my mom, since she has to live with me.  we've had to come to some understandings, like that i don't watch television and she does, and that i don't talk before my morning practice and she's already doing the crossword puzzle & listening to the news, and that my practice is essential to my everyday life, so i'm not trying to be rude when i disappear for two or three hours.  and i've had to find balance for myself with things like dishwashers versus dishwashing by hand, non-biodegradable cleaning products,  and the ghosts of a rural mountain town.  the first weeks were really tough, and i still seek balance about many things, but it's coming. 

in the first weeks, i hurt my back moving heavy things and the pain stayed with me for far too long..it disrupted my asana practice significantly, and then when i returned to it, i realised the tension i was holding, the unspoken emotions that i had locked into my muscles.  finally, i pushed back.  i began a raw foods cleanse, to flush the sugar, the dairy, the resentment, the anger, the judgement, the frustration, the bad habits, the old habits, the excuses.  i started feeling my asana practice returning to normal, feeling the lightness of being twinkle back into my body, a welcome and  familiar feeling.  i observed my habits, my weaknesses, and i'm getting honest with myself about the compromises, the solutions (okay, you want to eat the cookies, so let's get the ingredients and start making vegan cookies without the refined sugar). 

and i know now why i'm here.  i'm here to be with my family.  i'm here to focus on my role as an energy worker.  i'm here to reconnect with the spirits of the mountains that birthed and raised me.

and i'm working now~i'm working at a spa and health club, teaching yoga classes and giving reiki treatments and greeting folks at the front desk.  and i've reconnected with a couple people, and i've made new friends~fellow energy workers~who i hope to develop mutually-inspiring relationships with.  and i've got a kick-ass bicycle.  mom's friend gave me her bike that's been in her garage since i was getting arrested for underage drinking.  the thing's probably older than i am, and it's in great condition.  i have to get the gears fixed, and i should find myself a witchy-poo basket for it. how apropos, eh?

and hopi, the infamous little neice you all must think sometimes is your own neice you've heard about her so much, likes to do yoga with me, and mom and anne and others in the family are asking for lessons.  and i'm sending lots of distance reiki (want some?) and although i am the family freak, they are more curious and more open, and anne and mom are really being quite understanding and supportive.  and the gap gets smaller to bridge, as anne reads and learns and implements more natural choices into her life, and mom asks questions and tries healthier choices.

and there are some symbolic new beginnings, like when i showed up with mad dreadlocks zinging out all over my head, and, because i had told my sister in an email about everyone getting lice at the panama rainbow gathering, as a motherly-precautionary measure she took one more look (although hanna and i were certain we got all the little buggers), and lo!  a fresh batch...and after a lifetime of sisterly envy of my hair, she finally got to fulfill her (somewhat perverse) fantasy, and lopped off all of my hair.  for the first time since i'm ten years old, i don't have long hair anymore.  gone.  now i have little curls and ringlets that dangle about as low as my chin at the longest, and zing out from the various places on my head, depending on how close each dreadlock had napped to my head.  it's a bit of maintenance, this hair business, but i'm getting used to it.  just have to get it wet, really, to get the bedhead under control, and the curls make up for the rest.  and another symbolic mention...my latest body oil...i was of course using coconut oil when i arrived because i was coming from the tropics, and arriving in the cold of a new hampshire march, coconut oil didn't match up to the dry heat of indoor heating.  and so, i chose walnut oil.  and then i learned that walnuts are about new beginnings. 

so here i am.  enjoying the maple sugar that flows from the trees all around me, the blueberries and apples that grow in abundance in this beautiful land; planting a fantastic garden for my mother and me, for my mother who is enjoying her first spring of retirement, and enjoying watching her new herb and flower garden take form; making great friends with ebony, the black siamese cat of my mom's who scares (and injures) everybody (including mom), but for some reason she and i are great friends, sleep cuddled together, practice reiki together, etc.; and watching the forest come alive...the bear that comes in the yard, the ducks that are nesting by our small brook, the magickal trail in the forest just down the road, the glorious mountains that give this area its name...how wonderful it will be to walk these trails again.