Our Story

Hi, lovely beings,

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I’m sending you this message from Hawai’i. I’ve been here a week on a meditation “retreat” of sorts, and have already felt big shifts in me - shifts of a different nature than I expected. I came here to “find peace” and to “just be,” whatever that means. 

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What I expected was that it would take me a while to “settle in,” to find a rhythm. I only had the goal of journaling and meditating daily, and to listen to my body. I explicitly did not want to have a rental car or to focus on the “adventures.” I wanted to be in a place I could find my center, and learn to listen to what was there. This felt scary to me. In fact, for many many weeks before I left (and even a few nights in the beginning), I woke up in a sweat at 2am or 3am, afraid of what I would find in this process.

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Because of this fear, I knew I was onto something. I knew I needed to confront it. And this is why I’m here for a month.

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In just this week, the answers within me are arriving far quicker than I imagined - and with more ease. Additionally, what I have discovered is that the natural rhythms of the body - and the land - are simple and easy to access when the environment around you supports such a thing. By environment, I don’t mean the beauty of Hawai’i (though, of course, its beauty doesn’t hurt). What I mean is the focus here - on our internal compasses, on our external world, on our external behaviors, and on the interrelatedness of all. What I mean is the lack of focus - on production, on consumption, on separateness and individuality. 

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Here, I wake up at 4am - before my alarm. I make myself coffee and drink it alone with nature sounds around me and eat a fruit from the backyard. I arrive at community meditation, where we end our hour with a vow to be better humans and to be of service. I make a breakfast made of fruits and veggies from the backyard and the local farmer’s market, then journal. I practice yoga twice a week in the evenings, shavasana aligning with the sun setting. I listen to my body and sleep by 8pm with the coqui frogs around me making sounds all night, the windows fully open to the air. In fact, there is nowhere on this land where one is “free” of the sounds of nature. As such, nowhere else have I felt so connected to myself and others around me and the world around me.

I say this because I feel - deep down - this is my natural state. No, not just my natural state. It is yours, too.

 

Maybe the meditation doesn’t entirely resonate with you, but how about not waking to an alarm just to get on a screen for hours? How about watching the sun rise every morning and going to sleep soon after the sun sets? How about eating whole foods you helped to create? How about a community around you that supports these efforts, not expecting anything more than you supporting the mutual efforts, too?  How about feeling that your time is your own, that your job is the job of being and creating, that you are of service to this earth and to yourself and those around you who mutually care for you?

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I realize that being able to be a part of this for a month in the way I am (not working because I am choosing not to) is a gift. It is one we cannot all choose. Not at this moment, at least. I understand that. However, what I’m realizing is that we have far more choices than society gives us, too - and they are choices we make every day. What we think we need, what we’ve been told we need, by society is not the truth. It is not reality. We truly need very little, and what we truly need to truly sustain us as humans is minimal. 

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I imagine we all see by now that the bill of rights we were given about the world (in so many different ways) was actually a bill of goods. People have lots of money, and yet along with it, lots of depression and anxiety. Our world is literally melting and on fire. Yes, much of this - a substantial part of it - can be blamed on big corporations and government looking out for their own financial interests and not each of us and our world. But the reality is that…yes, WE also each contribute to this mess every day. What I realized this week is that deep down, I have a guilt about existing, about consuming. And that my cynicism about the world around me - about being able to substantially do anything about it - has been a protective mechanism to avoid this guilt, to not really do enough, to not do what I could be doing (partly because I didn’t really know where to start). When I confront that guilt, underneath…I find hope. Hope that I can at least try, that I can at least do something to give back - and that it isn’t just for me or even for you. It’s for our future, too. I think - deep down - we all have a desire to be of service, to know our existence did something positive. 

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Here, I see the part that I was missing. The part that is missing is that we can’t help while we still contribute to the system and while we live entirely devoid of natural harmony and rhythm. The system of consumerism. The system of keeping up a 9-5 job, making money, and using it to just continue to survive to the next day of opening up our computer and doing our time. To use money to keep having “fun” - fun during the vacation time we have that we are “allowed.” The “fun” that continues to contribute to killing our planet (and our minds).

 

Even within my own contract work, I am doing the same. I’ve thought that I’ve been living outside of the system with the work I do, but I am not. I just chose the safest path to living within the system more flexibly. I’m still working on a screen, not living things in front of me. I’m still so tired after this time on a screen that I have little energy for anything but more consumerism or distractions. COVID has definitely impacted this even more.

For the first few days here, I tried to imagine how I might structure my days differently to incorporate more mindfulness when I go back to Colorado. All I could come up with was “scheduling” more “free time,” “being more mindful about things that need to be done,” and “prioritize journaling and meditation.” In the end, I realized these things still don’t get at what my body and my mind are really wanting. Sure, I can choose to be more mindful in how I consume, in how I work, in how I create time for the ways I interact with the natural world. And it would help - to some degree. But I think even with all the mindful efforts, what my mind and body are screaming for is to live entirely consistently with what I know at my core is really needed in the world. To live out in flesh the beliefs I have about the world that were not given to me, but what I’ve learned in my bones. 

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I can only do so much alone, though. Because this world does not support such a vision, though in the long term, I believe visions like this are the only ones that will survive. However, if we join forces - all of us with our own unique gifts - we could support each other’s survival and more with effort that would involve actually creating more for the world and for each other. 

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I know, I know. So many people bring up ideas like this every day and they never come to fruition. But Lincoln and I have been envisioning our own ideas about creating a farm and community structure for many many years now. We’re finally joining forces with others to make this more cohesive and real concept…

This may not even require giving up as much of the life (or any of the life) you currently have. But, I imagine, it may lead you to “give up” many of the things and ways of life you exist on now to have more of many other less tangible “things.” Namely: self-supporting community, fresh food, and a feeling that you are giving back and not a part of the system that continues to support the ratrace of producing and consuming - the society that tells you that you are not enough just being. 

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Because you are enough. And your existence is not an apology.

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Let’s create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible….together.

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With love,
Nikki (and Lincoln, Russ, Andy, and Steph)