Baruch's Blog

It's raining. The sun is shining. I'm moving slow. Sleeping late, slowly doing some back exercises and stretches. I am in day 2 of this. I think it's helping. I will do this everyday and see what happens. My tendency is to just want to rest but it's not actually the best thing for this kind of lower back thing. I found a great website called spinehealth.com

I'm staying with friends in Den Dolder which is near Utrecht. I'll head back to Arnhem tomorrow, then on Friday teach Iron Pentacle as a one day workshop in Amsterdam, then more unscheduled time. It looks like I may actually make it to Crete for the first week of August, which is very exciting.

What am I learning right now...well there is the part about the body and limitations and motivation. I am definitely encountering that. There are the interesting questions and ponderings in conversations with friends. There is my own sense of uncertainty about what the future holds, but also excitement about that, and really...just flying from trapeze to trapeze. There continues to be the kindness and generosity of friends. That's the most prominent and consistent thread through this whole journey. Everywhere I go people have been really wonderful. Everyone's working on their own lives and having visions and following truths they perceive, and everywhere I have gone people have also made space for me, fed me, talked with me, shared life with me. I'm extremely fortunate, blessed, in the right place at the right time, however one wants to look at it.

Thinking about settling down again is really a trip. The plan is for me to actually go to Crete in March and get a room and start to make money and find a piece of land and build on it and make a home there. Before I get there, though, I have an autumn and a winter to experience, still not really settled in, so I am working on how to make those months as comfy and lucrative as I can.

But then to get a place on Crete and start a new daily life, and see what unfolds, that feels huge. I have been continuing to really feel how connected I am to Turtle Island, North America, where I've lived most of my years. It is so beautiful in so many places and ways, and there are tons of people I love there. And yet I am choosing to make a home elsewhere and travel to North America for periods of work and visiting.

I have learned that 6 months is too long for me to be on a teaching tour. 2 would be perfect. 4 is fine. 6 is a bit strenuous.

I think something I'm learning is about pacing myself, not trying to lift the too-heavy stone in a figurative sense, since I have already learned not to lift the literal stone. If I can live in a low key way, warm, good simple food, a pace that does not involve rushing, enough work to pay for simple overhead, then I can maintain a level of energy and productivity that feels good and nourishes me, rather than taxing and stressing me.