What makes you feel connected, alive, and grateful? For me, it is when I find meaning, drop into love, and share meaning and love with others. "Others" includes you. You do not need to physically be here. I think of you often while I move through my day. You are with me.
I walk outside, turn the corner, and see the same feral cats I see every day, and the same mattress by the same trash bins I pass by every day. This time three cats are lined up one behind the other on the top (side) end of the mattress. "Look at those cats," I say, and together, we look over at them and smile. I think we are also giggling. It is a subtle giggle.
I walk down the hill into town. "Look at those clouds," I say to you in my mind, and we are looking at a cloudy gray and pink sky together. We share a long quiet sigh.
My happy place is in the field of alchemy where meaning, love, and sharing grow. It is a slow-growing field.
Time has been ticking away my days here on Crete. I have been waiting to drop into feeling safe and confident enough to be and love myself out loud with others in this new land. I am right now logically understanding why I viscerally prefer to stay in one place. It has been seven weeks since I arrived in Kalyves. Now I am in Chania. I am just now truly dropping into my happy place. It has been a journey.
When I had walked the beach in Kalyves with Micky every day, it was without meaningful connection with others. I felt like I was biding my time, waiting for something. I took pictures. That was nice. It felt a bit like I was wasting my time, though. From the most optimistic and positive perspective I was not "wasting time;" I was "waiting." I was a seed in the soil, slowly and quietly germinating, snuggled in between nothing and something... observing the culture of a Greek island village, listening to a different language all around me, absorbing the town, hoping the town would absorb me. As a seed, I could not see above ground. I did not have vision. I did not, at the time, feel the potential. Most of the time, I felt like a big blobby nothing.
There were moments, during the in-between nothing-feeling time, when I mosied into a light conversation, a mild comradery, even some superficial fun. Those moments caused small cracks in the seed, readying the seed for sprouting. I did not necessarily realize I was cracking or getting ready for more. I just felt... nothing.
More meaningful interactions happened, new and fragile roots sprouted from the cracks. I did not necessarily realize I was grounding, connecting to the earth. With each new meaningful interaction, more little fibers sprouted from the tender energetic roots coming out of me, connecting me more firmly to myself and others. Looking back, I understand that before I could bloom, I needed this grounding.
Recently, I felt a full-on upward blossoming. It feels like a vine breaking through the crust of the earth, coming up from the dark, out of the cold. I am breathing air, feeling the sun, feeling the larger sense of myself, the big and beautiful and free part of myself. When this first happens, I come alive. The world comes alive. Once again, I see how shiny and beautiful everything is. The newness of coming alive does not stay with me all day, every day. I am not 100% joyful - I am tired; I am stressed; I am insecure. I am all that and more. I am ecstatically grateful for these times.
Looking back, I am grateful for all of it - the germinating time, the grounding time, the sprouting time, the blossoming. At the time though, when I do not feel the potential, the growth, the movement... I do not feel gratitude. At the time, when I am a seed, I feel alone and lonely.
This post includes some of the beings I have met who have cracked me open... who have brought presence, meaning, and compassion to my time in Crete. This post is about a new concept (new to me) that is emerging: loving sadness.
Before we dive into those deep waters, I want to backtrack to when I was a seed. Let us crack open together.
First, after moving out of Ole's place (where I was pet-sitting for Micky), I moved into a funky apartment up the hill from the Kalyves downtown church and square. Come, I will show you "my new digs."
While searching for how I might fit into my new community, I decided to organize a meditation on the beach. I created a flyer, posted it around Kalyves, talked with folks about it, posted it in the "Digital Nomads of Crete" WhatsApp group that I joined. You may have seen the flyer posted on my website under "Events." I posted it here, there, and everywhere.
Even though I posted the Meditation-on-the-beach event near and dear, far and wide, I will jump to the end of this part of my story to tell you that no one came to my party. I had a feeling no one would show up. The feeling was correct. I tried to be OK with the emptiness of that space on the beach - not to take it personally, not to feel rejected, unwanted, unworthy... all the negative and insecure wounded places that live inside me. I tried, yet I felt truly disappointed and unloved. On a good day, I can see what happened as "germination." No one showing up forced me to sit longer in the stillness. Setting it up forced me to meet the people who put cracks in the seed-shell I was living in. When I am sitting in the seat of my Largest Knowing of Self, I know that my worthiness comes from a larger Source. I obviously needed the opportunity to reaffirm and strengthen that knowledge.
When searching for a spot where our meditation-on-the-beach group would meet, I saw two people on a blanket. One of them was stretching in a way that looked like pure flow. It was a beautiful stretch. I walked over and introduced myself.
I learned that Q1 and Zhipeng, a young married couple from China, were now living in Switzerland and vacationing here in Kalyves. I asked if they meditated, intending to invite them to the meditation-on-the-beach group. We ended up talking about presence and flow... being present and being in the flow, together.
Zhipeng talked about how he starts each day with yoga and meditation, and how doing that sets up a good day, each good day setting up a good life. As he spoke about this, he got up and stretched. While stretching, he listened attentively. I felt his thoughtful and kind personality.
Q1 was what I might call a living creative genius. She shared that her meditation is allowing flow, through visual art, movement, sound… whatever comes through her. Her art is divinely inspired. Her marketing is equally divinely inspired. Q1 told me that she does not advertise her visual art; people just show up and purchase a painting. She showed me pictures of art she had created by hand and on the computer, stored on her phone. I scrolled and scrolled through pictures of her art pieces. The folder seemed endless. Each piece was unique, exquisite, visceral.
We talked until we were all hungry. We walked across the street to their Airbnb. Q1 attended to matters on her phone, Zhipeng prepared a Chinese feast, and I did yoga on Zhipeng’s mat in their living room. Yoga feels so good in my body. Why do I wait so long between yoga practices? When the meal was ready, we ate the exquisitely delicious food Zhipeng had prepared and talked more.
Q1 left the table to take a nap. Zhipeng and I continued to talk. Later, after parting, as nighttime set in, we joined back together at my place for my online "meditation family" group. I snapped a picture of Zhipeng and Q1 sitting on my couch. They were adorable.
Q1 went home to bed (smart woman) and Zhipeng and I went to a (very) late night of karaoke in Chania (with the Digital Nomads of Crete group). I sang my trusty standard, Janis Joplin's version of "Me and Bobby McGee." It was fun... a crack in the seed. They were deep and authentic, and sprinkled meaning into the crack.
On another day, walking my usual beach route toward the little church at the end of the port, I spotted what looked like a middle-aged man and a much younger man, leaning together against the wall by the boats, seemingly sleeping. I walked a respectful birth around them, onto the dock, still heading toward the little church. I stood for a while, noticing the ever-changing clouds, the shape and movement of the bay, the ecstatic spectacle of both brown and snow-covered mountains. I scanned the rocks below where a school of fish swam this way and that. I noticed that the younger man was upright, skipping stones into the Mediterranean Sea that rolled into the bay. I walked away from the port, toward the street, around the corner, to the sandy beach, toward him.
Marcus, I learned, was a high school student from Norway. His family had a vacation home just up the hill and they came to take a break from the cold and snow. That was his dad, still sleeping in the sunshine by the wall.
I told Marcus I had been looking in the water, hoping to see the octopus I had seen there once before. I pulled up the video still on my phone and we watched it together. He pointed down to a spot on the beach next to me at a fish that had been washed ashore. I had not seen it. It was most definitely dead. I felt sad. Sadness cracks me open. Another crack in the seed.
Marcus told me how his life in Norway is easy, how his needs and wants are provided for, and how he worries that being so privileged has created a lack of depth and care about others. He expressed feeling torn between caring for himself or caring for others. I asked if I could lead him through an experience with the psychosynthesis concept of “both/and.” He said, “yes.”
I will tell you in detail what I said, so that you too can follow along and try this exercise for yourself. Your "package contents" will be different.
Pick two seemingly dichotomous concepts - two things you feel you need to choose between. As you read along, rename Marcus' "package contents" with yours. I asked Marcus to close his eyes and breathe. You will not be able to do that part.
“Hold one hand out, palm up,” I said. “Imagine a package being placed in your hand. Feel the weight of the package in your hand." (Take a moment to do this, to allow the feeling to emerge in your hand). "Inside the package is the concept of caring for yourself." (That's what I said to Marcus. You will want to fill the package with one of the two concepts you chose). "As the package is unwrapped, and the contents spill out into your hand, feel all that is in that concept soak into your hand, up your arm, and into your body. Feel the rippling of all that that means, all that comes up, coming into you, filling you.”
I watched Marcus moving into this concept. Take time for yourself to do the same.
“Continue to hold the package in your hand. Now hold the other hand out, palm up. Imagine another package being placed in that hand. Feel the weight of the package in your hand." (Again, take your time to feel this). "Inside this package is the concept of caring for others." (Again, that was Marcus' dichotomous concept. Your concept is most likely different. The other concept you chose is in this second package).
"As the package is unwrapped, and the contents spill out into your hand, feel all that is in that concept soak into your hand, up your arm, and into your body. Feel the rippling of all that that means, all that comes up, coming into you, filling you.”
Again, I watched Marcus dropping into the concept. You will need to take time to do the same.
“Now move the two hands closer together, until your two hands are side by side, each holding their package. Feel how the two concepts are living in your body.”
I watched Marcus for another long while, feeling into when this lesson landed. Take your time.
I looked at him as he opened his eyes. "How are you feeling," I asked. "I feel disconnected," he said, "but in a good way, like I am just experiencing the moment." He said, "I think all people should do this... and know that what you're doing deep down in yourself is the right thing."
I love teaching and coaching. It was a fibers sprouting out of the crack in the seed kind of moment.
I asked if Marcus would like me to record his response and post it in my blog and he said, "Yes."
Back in the area where the meditation-on-the-beach group was to meet, I met another man. This man was sitting on the bench between the beach and the parking lot of the Cretan Market, reading. I called up to him, inviting him to the meditation group on the beach. We started talking. It was more like yelling, over the rolling waves. He stretched his hand down to me and helped hoist me up the rocks to the bench where we could talk (not yell).
Our conversation moved to deep water quickly and easily. We talked so freely and intimately it felt like the world around us dissolved. Dror, I learned, was a gay orthodox Jew living with his long-term partner in Israel, readying their escape home in Crete and taking this time on the beach to relax. Dror asked me questions about myself, one after the other, reacting to each of my answers as if he were inspired, inspiring me. I had not felt so unwrapped, seen and heard in a very, very long time. He was not a life coach, but, as I later told him, “You could be.”
After a bit, I asked, “What about you?” “Just like you,” he said. That was it. That was his full response. He indicated with gestures that what I was sharing (the deepest and truest parts of me) mirrored him. He called me a "free spirit." I imagine he was telling me that he too was a free spirit.
At one point, Dror asked, “Do you live from sadness?” I felt like he was asking: Is the place where you derive meaning… sadness? Without thinking, “No” flew out of my mouth with such a force it surprised me. As soon as the word hit the air, hit my ears, I realized I had just given this deeply thoughtful and reflective man a negative knee-jerk reaction. I took a breath and went inside.
Inside, I saw that the question made me feel that I had been judged, and my answer came from being defensive. I followed the path that had unconsciously led me to a defensive stance, back to the initial launching point from which the forceful "No" had come from. The initial feeling was fear. The thinking behind the fear was the idea that sadness is not acceptable, that living from sadness would indicate an illness such as depression, or an addiction to emotions. If I thrive from sadness, am I addicted to feeling sad? I took a breath and went further, deeper inside my mind, letting the question Do you live from sadness drop in. What bubbled up was the word tenderness. “Tenderness,” I said, “I like living from tenderness.” Immediately, Dror said, “I love sadness.” I looked at him, rather stunned. He explained.
He said that the world is full of sadness; life is full of sadness. He may have said that dropping into that sadness is… real. I honestly do not remember what Dror said. The concept he was posing was so deep and so unique, I knew I would not be able to hold his explanation in my memory. “May I videotape you while you talk about loving sadness,” I asked. “No,” he said. “I will not remember what you are saying,” I said. “You will remember,” he said, “You will put it into your words.”
That concept - loving sadness - has been a seed growing inside me.
Since our first encounter, Dror and I have texted a few times. He has been reminding me to trust in my unfolding. When I said I was looking for a place to stay longer in Crete, he said, “I believe in your spiritual faith. Something will just come up.” He wrote later, “I am thinking a lot about you, how lucky you are for being yourself. I can imagine it is not easy to be spiritual among material people. But liberation is harder than slavery. I am sure you will keep seeing lights guiding your way to move forward. It is not a wish but your way of life.” Those are his exact words. I know this because they are written in his text message. I love text for that reason.
Dror is back in Israel. He texted, “I am home. The weather is very good, my partner is the best, and my cats are happy. Everything is perfect!” I felt an impulse to ask if I could visit. Back on the beach in Kalyves Dror had told me to wait seven months before visiting Israel. His words felt prophetic. I hope he is correct. I hope Israel will be at peace in seven months.
I love this soul brother so much. I am glad he said "yes" to letting me take and post his picture.
I met another man of significance. His nickname was Mano. Mano and two other men were sitting outside at a cafe table in the Kalyves square. It looked like they had had coffees, maybe something to eat. They were talking and smoking.
I first honed in on another man at the table, who I recognized from "The Donkey," a small, mellow nightclub-type taverna in the village of Vamos. I had gone there to hear live music by a woman named Rhea.
This good looking, very tall man was standing on one side of the doorway, swaying, listening to Rhea, while I was doing the same on the other side of the doorway. I did not talk with him, though I definitely noticed him.
When I had first walked into The Donkey, Rhea was sitting at the empty bar with a pot of tea. The background music moved me. She liked that. "I was feeling worried - that everyone would be stiff," she said, "and you walked in!" Later, when Rhea started to play, I was struck by her song choice: Ain't no Sunshine when she's gone. That song was live in the air when I was in the middle of Christmas market in Valetta, Malta with Liza. We were all joy, joy, festive joy... about to eat Indian-in-a-box, when this live musician starts singing Ain't no sunshine... As soon as the song hit my ears, I broke down sobbing on Liza's shoulder, and Michelle was there. That song, those tears, the path that Grief opened up, brought a depth of meaning to days that had felt lacking in meaning.
For almost twenty years now, since Michelle died, that song makes me cry and brings Michelle into my present. I do not hear that song much. It is an old song. It was deeply meaningful to suddenly hear it live in Malta. It was strange to hear it live in Crete. I did not feel the significance of it in the same way I had in Malta. It felt more like a puzzle piece that would fit together with other pieces yet to appear. The bigger picture would come later.
The three men at the table in the Kalyves square were asking me light questions: "What's your name? Where are you from? Why are you here? How long have you been? How long will you stay?" Mano briefly mentioned having come back to Crete. I asked him where he had been. He said Canada. I asked what brought him there. He said his Canadian wife. I asked why he came back. He said she had died. All this, he said lightly. All this, the other two men would have skipped merrily over. But I had joined the table. I could not merrily skip over the fact that this man's wife had recently died. When I asked further about her death, about his feelings, the other two men stood up, saying they had other things to do, and left. Mano and I did not get up. Together we swam in the deep water of Grief.
Time was non-existent. Until my phone alarm went off. I needed to be at the Meditation-on-the-beach in ten minutes. I needed to go home to get a sheet to put down on the sand to create a community space for all who showed up. Mano wanted to walk up the hill with me to see where I lived, so he could pick me up later, when we would go out to eat. You know the first ending to this story... no one showed up at the Meditation-on-the-beach.
The second ending to this story is, Mano picked me up at my new digs and we drove around looking for a restaurant that was open. Many restaurants and tavernas are not because it is off season. Many are only open for dinner on the weekend. We landed at a restaurant I had been wanting to go to. It was a simple grill with excellent Cretan food, and Mano knew the owner, so our table was full of all the best they had to offer.
Before sitting down, there was a happening at the little church nearby that I wanted to see so we walked over. Mano said it was the night before Saint-someone's Day. A priest was inside the tiny church singing and there was a crowd outside listening, talking.
At the grill, Mano and I talked and ate, ate and talked. Earlier in the day, Mano had expressed that when he came back to Greece his friends had not changed. "But you did," I said, as a supportive suggestion. "Yes," he said. "You're deeper now," I said. "Yes," he said. At dinner, Mano expressed what a relief it was to talk about these things with someone... these things being grieving.
There was a hip hop band playing at The Donkey the next night. We agreed to drive there together. When we arrived at 9 or 10 pm, the place was still empty. We sat and talked. Somehow, our conversation slipped into the dangerous subject of politics. I learned that Mano supports Russia, that "Russia had no choice" but to attack Ukraine, because "the Ukrainian president is a nazi... and supports NATO." There were a whole bunch of things Mano said that raised my eyebrow. It is interesting to me though, that because we had bonded in Grief, I could not brush him off. I might have, had we not had any bond before tripping on the nasty bumpy dividing line of political opinion. I do not have Mano's contact info. He has mine, but can not access WhatsApp or email because so much of his things are tied into his wife's accounts, and she is not here to help him untie the knots. We have not been in touch, though Mano is solidly living in my heartspace.
There have been many more encounters, more people, cats, clouds... entities that helped me get to this open-hearted place that I am dropping into now. I realize this post has rambled on and you may want it to end. So I will end here for now.
There is so much more I want to share with you... hikes high above Kalyves, sheep along the sides of the roads in the mountains, magic coves... posted flyers around town of each person who has died, tiny church-like memorials along the sides of the roads, hills of graves in cemeteries with pictures and memorabilia on each... the way Cretans honor their dead, and the way I am honoring mine while here on Crete. And I have moved from Kalyves to Chania, where I am finding my water tribe. My time on Crete is now feeling big and deep, and more shall be revealed.
Huggg and love to you for now...
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