Shifting gears (grandma version 1.0)

Paddle. Rest. Cry. Celebrate. Blessed Solstice.

Jun 20, 2025

Blessed Summer Solstice, dear ones! Today marks the longest day of the year, and our circle back to increasing dark. Each day from tomorrow until Winter Solstice there will be less light as the nights slowly grow longer. Also a shout out for Juneteenth (June 19th) and celebrating black voices and black liberation. Playlist and podcast at end of article.

Whenever I get on the bus at the Port Authority in New York City heading toward Woodstock, I cry.

The tears are often of relief, a shifting of gears from doing to being, from action to receiving.

I’ve been in New Mexico now for four months, in a strong flow of doing. Paddling hard with a focus. Working up on the land. Training Mystic. Painting, building, organizing, cleaning, delegating, teaching, restoration. Purchasing a commercial propane oven and a brand new wood stove. Organizing our spring work party. Planting seed balls and starting a butterfly and bee garden for seeds. Massive cleaning and major sorting as I moved into my new tent- home in the far north west corner of the 180 acres I steward.

There have been great meals, time with friends and family, and making ceramics on my new pottery wheel. There has been the stress of doing impossible things before breakfast. The joy of being with old and new friends during the work party. The awe of teaching a week-long retreat in a sacred space in the wilds of New Mexico created by community over the past five years.

Several days before our week-long retreat I woke up in the middle of the night realizing we did not have enough tables and chairs for the sixteen people coming. Or enough sheets. Or enough plates and cutlery. I had been so focused on my puppy Mystic, feeding our work party crew, and getting enough tents and cots set up that I forgot about the rest of our needs.

Lots of frantic paddling happened over the next 24 hours to get everything delivered in time. And then to organize everything to be set up and ready to go before our group arrived. (THANK YOU to everyone who showed up to help in so many different ways. We did it!!!)

Happily it all worked out, and we are now set to host and feed 16 guests in our hand-built adobe community kitchen and in multiple 10 x 10 and 10 x 14 tents erected nearby.

But folks, it was lots of paddling through some pretty rough rapids.

When I got on the bus on that familiar route to Woodstock — through the Lincoln Tunnel, up the New Jersey Turnpike for a bit to Route 17 then I-87 North past New Paltz (best vegan chocolate at Lagusta’s Luscious Cafe!) onto Kingston (where I fell in love with clay all over again taking classes at Kingston Ceramics Studio this winter) then right at the light onto 375, a the windy one lane to Woodstock (where I have so many beloveds: Overlook Mountain. The waterfall on Tannery Brook. The statue of Our Lady of Woodstock. Many dear human friends) — I cried. I cried because I realized it was time to now let myself be carried. To put down the paddle. To soften my focus. To rest.

I’m noticing as I get older that the gear shifting from one state to another (both internal state and locational state) is slower. I need more time between things to adjust. I still have the residual imprint of my younger self which deludes me into believing I can multi-talk and shift gears like a professional race car driver at their prime. But now I yearn for more neutral, between gears time. I crave liminal, unstructured days for art or naps or meandering walks. I don’t want to slam into the next gear, because I find they grind. I want to take my foot off the accelerator completely, then slowly idle, warming up to what is next. This is definitely still a work in progress. I’m getting to know this more sedate, less overly wild self that is emerging and how to be in the world with more wisdom and care. I’m becoming a grandma energetically. It’s weird, and welcome. Even if I’m still grinding gears.

Luckily there is lots of time for practice. Over the next two months I’m on the road: New York. Mexico, France, Scotland. There will be planes, buses, trains, and lots and lots of walking. For some this might be stressful or overwhelming. For me it is a reprieve, a softening into being carried. Each time I get on a bus or train or spend time in an airport or walk to my destination I feel held. Carried on the current. Gently rocked by the waters of life. All I have to do is show up to teach and love people. I now have time to catch up on emails and write. To dream. To wonder. To exhale and be in flow. To process and integrate my internal world. To cry. To reflect. To listen to the space between words and worlds.

Walking the streets of NYC, or sitting at a cafe in Europe I feel anonymous and free. So many humans doing human things: laughing, arguing, loving, fighting, hurting, joyful. No one knows who I am, or cares.

I find that when I am surrounded by people in this way it somehow allows me to shed any build up of my own armor and worry so I can be more loving and present when I teach or spend time with friends. When I walk or take public transport instead of driving my own car I can let go and be carried rather than directing my attention on what is next.

I know that two months from now I’ll be so ecstatic to drive my own vehicle. And delighted to prep and start organizing for the autumn work party up on the land. I’ll be ready to focus, to hold many complexities, to make decisions about the future.

But for now I’m resting into being carried by this plane I’m currently enveloped in. I’m relieved to be living simply: one small carryon and a backpack. I’m delighted to be residing in multiple homes and hotels that other people are responsible for. I’m open for surprises and adventure, for coffee shops familiar and unknown, and for meeting new friends: places, plants, animals, and people.

Here are some ways you can rest into the moment this summer, no matter where you are:

Take public transportation and consciously let the vehicle carry you.

Let the kind eyes of the barista touch you.

Receive the birdsong.

Soften into the smell of the rose or the color of the new grass.

Walk without a destination.

Extra credits for getting happily lost and forgetting the weight you may carry in other areas of your life.

Blessings to you, wherever you are.

Rest into this image and song by Allison Russell: Eve was Black

https://allisonrussell.bandcamp.com