Melody's Musings

I'll be honest with y'all that after my post yesterday, I forced myself to put down the tech and spent the entire rest of the day working in the dirt on my hands and knees. I was determined and maybe a little bit mad that nature had overtaken everything and that the gardens and outdoor spaces I worked so hard to initially create appeared a little as though no one cared for them. What started initially along the lines of a rage cleaning spree eventually gave way to something else entirely.  I didn't want to lose a whole weekend day and not pay attention to my Son-Shine.

So crouched on my hands and knees, I recruited my little sun god into parts of the work that I knew he could do- and some that I had to teach him along the way. Although he had to be redirected a few times, he did prove eventually to be pretty helpful and we discovered a dynamic that worked for us. At this stage of things, he is still learning the weeds from the plants I've placed intentionally. What started off as a day of doing chores soon gave way to lessons on plant identification and fairy village planning.  We figured out how to work together- and where we butted heads.

It wasn't until the sun went down and the lights all over our yard came on that I finally remembered what it's all for. Instead of chilling inside with the air conditioning while my husband grilled up some corn, I decided to hook up our little astronaut projector in the 10x10 pop up gazebo that I call my outdoor living room. I laid down on the camp cot staring at the ceiling, with the light up nebula and stars going on and off. All around us down on the lawn (our yard has a pretty generous slope and the house is at the top of it), we could see little fireflies flickering their lights all around. There were several moments where we all, as a family, sat in silence transfixed with the magic all around us. I could sense my little guy's sense of awe.

Today, my grandparents came for a visit. It's never been lost on me that my grandfather can make himself comfortable just about anywhere- in any social situation. One of the subtle things I've noticed over the years though is how easy it is for him to be content, especially if there is a nice tree to sit under and a book or a paper to read. My grandmother and I sat under my canopy, away from the bugs and comfortable in the wicker chairs. We watched my son from the short distance playing nicely by himself with his water table and sipping the tea I made.

I'm fully aware it was almost 90 degrees fahrenheit  today and we were drinking hot tea. You have to understand that my grandmother and I are both of the variety of bendy humans that get dizzy when we stand up too fast and drinking hot liquids is preferred unless we are overheating.  I was excited to share with her one of the newer tea blends I got from Magic Hour (not a paid placement- I'm not even going to give you the link here) that I have found especially delicious. The blend was the 333: Jophiel's Creative Spark Tea for those interested in the specifics. My grandma remarked on how good the tea was and we sipped, taking in the fruity aromas, the serene setting I'd worked so hard the day prior to cultivate, and appreciating my son's happy sounds as he used the water to spin the wheels on the water table.

It was a short visit and I tell you about it because as my grandmother went to leave she said something that allowed me to pull this meandering stream of a story together into a nugget that has to do with the title.

"You make sure to take care of yourself too. You do such a good job taking care of everyone else- you have to make sure do to for yourself as well"

The words left my mouth before I had even processed them: "What do you think all this-" I gesture broadly around the yard and at the house "is for? This is all for me. I get to live here and enjoy all of this- and drink the good tea. That's how I take care of myself."

I'm not sure if I've quite conveyed to my dear readers quite the extent to which I have turned my own home and yard into spaces that bring comfort and joy.  I haven't even done anything really expensive or elaborate in order to accomplish the task. Just tiny steps here and there- one small project at a time has slowly transformed our space.

Now you might ask what this has to do with being radical or resisting the powers that be. The answer is quite simple: a desperate and scared populace is easy to control. Joy is something we can really only feel when we put fear aside and really reside in the moment we are in. Going outside and touching grass, drinking the good tea, spending time with family, nurturing our children- those are the things we are supposed to be doing. I'm also not advocating that we turn away from the events that are going on in the world.

Trust me, I have my doomscrolling days too! The thing is, as with all things, balance is really the key. The balance for each person is going to look a little different as well. Staying up do date on headlines, deep diving a few issues you really care about and leaving the rest is fine. Burying our heads in the sand doesn't allow us to transmute the energy or use the current circumstances to "level up". By leveling up I mean that actively processing the information we are receiving in real time and releasing it back out transformed. Picking concrete actions within our own reach as our focus points and letting others pick up other pieces of the collective burden as well. 

The thing about Chinese Medicine is that while yin and yang are important concepts I could speak at length about- they're also very real. Our world is very yang-focused. Everything from spirituality to how we use computers for everything and put the people with ideas at the top of the corporate hierarchy. However, those ideas becoming reality? That's yin. Making a whole person from a single cell? That's yin- it's substance, blood. In order for yin and yang to be in balance, we have to have both ideas and enough substance to make them reality. Without enough yin? The yang eventually burns everything up. In a lot of ways, we're seeing that happen in real time with the data centers being this embodiment of ideas without physical substance literally burning through the water we need to sustain life itself.

So my advice to you is to radically pursue joy in the face of everything else that is going on because joy and rest are what will allow you to continue the other work of transmuting energy, taking concrete steps to improve the world around you, and building community. That is how we build resistance. Oh, and drink the good tea. Uncle Iroh would approve.