Mornings are for contemplation. Though I allow for flexibility, each day I awake between 6:30-7:30am in order to maximize my time for deep thought, reflection, and study. On days I work at the school, I rise before 6am to ensure I have ample time to sit in the armchair, sip tea, and steep in my thoughts without the need to rush.
Saturdays are for cleaning—laundry, bathroom scrubbing, sweeping out the week’s detritus—before cycling or walking to explore the beautiful island I live on, take photos, and commune with the sea and the trees, those guiding forces that nudge my attention back to my body and the present moment.
I’m reading the I Ching to deepen my understanding of Human Design, but I also use it as a sort of divination system. Not with the yarrow stalks or coins or belief in fortune-telling, but rather like the single card system that people sometimes use with tarot in order to broaden perspective.
Specifically, I focus on a curiosity or quandary then open the book at random. The wisdom of the hexagrams is universal and can be applied, with a little imagination and an openness to possibility, to any given situation in our vast interconnectedness of being. We know our own story best and, if we listen to our intuition, how could we ever go astray?
This morning, I opened the book to Hexagram 41, Sacrifice, Decrease, Mountain over Lake, which is relevant to all of us because Pluto has been activating gate 41, located in the Root center, for quite some time. Unlike the Sun, which transits a different line everyday and (usually) a different gate every 7 days, Pluto spends a substantial amount of time in each line and thus the gates. Since May, Pluto has been retrograde but it goes direct on October 16th.
The archetypal keywords for Pluto include death, rebirth, truth. Think of the Phoenix rising from the ashes.
Recently, I info-dumped all my goals on a dear friend who lives on the East Coast. Always sage, she advised me to be mindful of my brain’s capacity to grow and bloom endlessly and to prioritize pruning. Years ago, I’d printed out a quote from Sylvia Plath that aligned well with my friend’s warning:
Image from Substack
Obviously, I’m still learning this lesson as all the shiny new possibilities vie for my attention.
At a recent meeting about financial planning and values, I weighed aloud the ethical dilemma I face whilst grocery shopping—buy local to support the long-term benefits for the economy and environment or shop against my values due to the limitations of my wallet? The advice was to find balance rooted in compromise to support conscious consumption. Later, it occurred to me, why not reduce consumption? Sacrifice, decrease. I’m in the process of simplifying my diet and my habit of novelty-seeking.
A week or so ago, I finished a reread of Heidi, one of my favorite books (along with Little Women) when I was a child. I remember feeling enchanted by the idyllic Alpine setting and the protagonist’s relationship with the goats, the care that her grandfather felt for her, and her persistence in doing what felt true and right. During my reread, I was particularly taken by her delight in the everyday meal of bread and cheese, supplemented by a bowl of fresh goat milk.
What empty spaces do I try to fill with food instead of pausing and reflecting on how nourished I feel with a soft-boiled egg from an island hen—rich, jammy yolk and silken egg white rich in protein? There’s bright, peppery arugula from a farm on a nearby island or a friend’s garden, and apple butter simmered overnight from the abundance given by the many gnarled trees holding sentinel on the rich land rising from the Salish Sea. Slathered on good, dense bread from a local bakery, could anyone go astray?
Apple tree at San Juan County Preserve North Shore Preserve (not the source of my apple butter)
Sacrifice, decrease.
Trained by the rapid pace and breadth of technology, my mind races with ideas and plans, my thoughts an endless line of open tabs. Our minds are evolving too quickly for our bodies. To combat the mistakes made as the disconnect between body and mind widens, I resist the urge to tap away at the keyboard and handwrite in cursive.
When I lived on the prairie, I would visit the shores of Lake Michigan often, sometimes daily given its proximity. Witnessing its many moods. One warm September in Chicago, I remember the waves being white-capped as they advanced toward the shore and I swam against the current, far enough out that I felt the slight pull of an undertow—that hidden force lying below with the strength to pull things from the surface.
Feeling my body rise and fall as it sliced through the water reminded me of 1. Jungle Hunt—the old Atari game and 2. writing in cursive. And what I really mean by that is that water reminds me of cursive. The way it ebbs and flows like ink signaling, its white noise rush like the scratch of nib against paper.
My body moved with the waves like my hand traces the flow of words transmitted by brain impulses acting on a need to communicate my experience of the world. Graphite symbols mark the page, to be erased and rewritten until intention is as clear as it can be between two foreign bodies.
On another visit, I sifted through the sand and collected rocks that were the size of lentils and grains of rice but rich with fine detail, and my eye—developed by what I expose it to—was drawn to the grain of the notepad I was writing on, and the way the ink soaked into the fibers to transmute thought into communication.
Notes taken on my ferry ride from Skagway to Juneau, AK
In Ted Chiang’s, Story of Your Life, the protagonist meets beings from another world whose writing system centers around calligraphic-type characters requiring the communicator to know the ending and the beginning of the sentence in its entirety before laying the first brushstroke. Through this system of communication, or vice versa, their minds were able to perceive all of time—past, present, and future—simultaneously.
Our minds are trained by what we expose them to. Sacrifice, decrease.
On that visit to Lake Michigan, I befriended an adorable weevil before it continued its journey across what must have seemed like endless dunes of crystalline treasures and I watched slender, nimble fish dart around my feet in the latticework patterns of light and dark created by sun, water, and rippled sand.
Adorable weevil at Clark St Beach in Evanston
I was raised on the prairie but I was born on a peninsula. My body has always yearned to return to the sea.
I prune in order to survive and my body and mind feel lighter and lighter, narrowed possibilities gaining substance and form as I sacrifice, decrease, and find my way to the root of it all.
