Home is Where You Make It
Flashbacks from the jungle
Where does one find themselves, at home? This can be a challenge throughout one's life. Always searching for a place or a person that essentially gives you stability and grounding. Things are always changing. Once you find your "home", it disappears or life happens and shifts occur, all of a sudden you feel like you are out to sea with nothing to hold onto for life support. We attach ourselves to these people, these places only to find that they are transitory. In regards to this human condition, we must find home within ourselves. We must become adaptable to our surroundings. For, at any given moment there is a chance our world will be turned upside down.
This is a memory from my first week staying at the Pachamama eco-village. The idea of "home" was prominent...
The following morning I awoke from a terrible slumber on a skinny air bed in my hundred dollar tent already ripping at the seams. A last minute purchase in a little grocery store I had to make on my way here. I couldn’t quite let go of the fact that this tent would be worth maybe 20 bucks back home. I would keep a mental note to acquire these kinds of items in the states where the value would balance out the cost.
I had feverish chills and still couldn’t quite believe where I was. My new home was this space in the jungle for the next six weeks. I was supposed to start the work exchange program and had a meeting with the coordinator in 20 minutes. I wanted to cry, to go home,wherever that was, to feel safe in the familiar. but I was far from any of that now.
I met with Amara and in an utter haze, uncontrollable tears streamed down my face.
“I don’t know why I am crying.”
Amara was very calm and had a serene look across his face. “ Its ok. Its normal. You are having a rough landing. This is what happens here. It breaks you. You are acclimating to the high vibration of this place.”
I felt a sense of relief hearing these words. I felt understood and I could see that my physical body was mirroring my outer experience. Sometimes you have to break down before you can breakthrough. In the “real world”, meeting your manager and starting out a job in this way would be a horrible first impression. Here at Pachamama, I could already sense the quality of truth and awareness of why we are here. Looking beyond the shells, the masks, and the roles we play. I could be my true self, without judgement of whether or not I was accepted according to society’s standards.
The following 5 or 6 days consisted of resting and retreating in a casita that Amara had set me up in at no cost, so I could become well and enter the community in a better state. Sleeping, eating fresh food, spending time on the beach, floating in the salt water, and meditating with the whole community each night, I could begin to gather myself anew full heartedly on this adventure.
It was finally time to leave the casita, where I had found such comfort, while coming back to health and acclimating to my surroundings. Nothing was really calling me back to the shanty I had spent those first few nights of unrest in. Slowly, I began gathering my things while something caught my eye in the corner of the wooden roof. It was alien. It had 100 eyes looking at me in its black shadow.
A massive scorpion with some other creepy crawly on its back. I went stiff. I could not get myself over to grab the few things right under its gleaming eyes. It was one of those things that you don’t want to look, but you can’t help yourself and keep looking anyways. Suddnely it turned its body around toward me.
“Omygod Omygod no no no ewwww!”
I held my breath and swiftly grabbed the remaining items. There was one more black dress on the floor. Something inside told me to shake it out. Another alien creature appeared. I vigorously shook and got it off ,almost running back to my campsite.
I thought to myself, “If that wasn’t motivation to leave, I dunno what is”
Now, I couldn’t wait to get to the enclosure of my little tent. The irony made me laugh. And from that day on, I made my site my home.