A Place to Call ‘Home’

The jungle can be intense. What I mean with that is that life can be experienced more intensely, processes and dynamics tend to be intensify or be magnified… These past few weeks, around the turn of the year, this was the case for me, even more so than usual.

My wish and intention was to enter into the new year consciously: to set aside time and sit down to reflect on the past year, tune into my heart’s desires, connect with my visions for life, and set intentions for the upcoming year. I organised a New Year’s Sister gathering to do exactly that, together in a sacred feminine ceremonial space. To hold space and take time for reflection, self-connection, and intention setting. Yet, when I finally took the time to tune in, reflect and write, I felt resistance. I did not want to dwell in the past nor the future – I just wanted to Be, to flow, to connect with the energy of the moment. And this seems to be exactly the lesson that the jungle offers me (or one of the lessons at least): to be in and flow with the present moment and stay open and available for and aware of the opportunities for reflection, learning and consciousness expansion that the present moment offers. The jungle (or life) gives me exactly what I need (and what I ask for), though not necessarily how I want it or in the way I had planned or envisioned it.

And so without having to ‘plan’ for it, life in the jungle gave me an opportunity to reflect on this past year, be aware of the themes (or better: the ways in which I relate to these themes) that I wish to leave behind and how I’d like to do things or Be with themes differently going forward. Though definitely not in the way I had planned. The themes that had been most present and challenging the past year played out again during these past weeks in excellerated and magnified ways. One of these was the theme that I call ‘home’, and in particular having (or not having) a place where I feel at home; a place to be, to rest, and a place where I can stay a while. And this was of course one of the main aspects of this journey – my pelgrimage to ‘home’.

When I travelled to Mexico to attend a Zouk retreat in the jungle of Quintana Roo, I had no plan for what, where and how afterwards; no income and a minimal budget that could keep me going for a few months in this most expensive part of Mexico. The most sensible thing would be to go to another part of mexico or another country where life is more affordable. Yet, I was determined to go or be wherever I felt called to, and to stay put and try to make things work wherever I was until I felt that call to move elsewhere. My hopes: to meet like-hearted people who might join me in some way on my journey, to make connections that would guide me in some direction or present new opportunities, or to get into a flow of synchronicity where pathways or openings would magically appear when I am ready to take my next step. And it took me a while to notice and identify them as such (as nothing shows up in any expected or planned way), but the like-hearted people, connections and potential next steps presented themselves during and after the retreat.

During the retreat, a few fellow dancers told me of Sacbe, an eco village in the jungle just north of Playa del Carmen. I registered the name with the intention of checking it out once back in town. Without having been to Mexico before or having done any research on it, other than checking the map to see whereabout the retreat would be, I had a feeling that I would want to explore the jungle area north of Playa del Carmen. And when I checked out this area on Airbnb after the retreat, only one place popped up that was within my budget… in Sacbe: a tiny, rustic cabaña in the jungle. I booked the place for a few nights, arranged with the hostess that she would pick me up and take me there the next day. And there I was, retreating on my own in the jungle; landing, integrating all the intense events, experiences and processes of the past months.

I quickly realised I needed more than a few nights in the jungle to integrate and land, before figuring out my next move. I knew Sacbe was not the place where I was ultimately going to settle and find my long-term home, but I did not feel any inclination to travel to other places. Rather I felt the need to stay put for a while and just be where I am. And so I decided to rent my cabaña for a month: much much cheaper than renting per night, and giving me the peace of mind of having a place where I could stay a while. And I felt good in my little cabaña. I slept upstairs, I cooked downstairs and everything else was outside. The compost toilet and sink were outside, I peed outside in the jungle, I meditated and did my daily yoga next to the cenote (natural cave pool) surrounded by nature, I made a twice daily ritual out of offering my organic waste to the earth, as well as cleansing (/bathing) myself in the sacred cenote water. I loved living outside, I felt connected to nature, to the jungle. But I did miss a place to just Be, a living space.. particularly on rainy days.

I found out that there was a small house nearby that someone was renting but was not actually living at. I could look in through the open windows and saw that it was about twice as big, with a bedroom upstairs, an actual kitchen and living space downstairs, big enough to hold small circles… That’s where I wanted to live… And so I asked. Inititally the landlady indicated that it was being rented for another three months and the guy renting it would not be interested in sharing or giving up the space. But after insisting, she agreed to contact him to ask. I had my hopes up and was envisioning myself cooking and holding sister circles in the space downstairs. I waited for what seemed an eternity (different notion of time in the jungle) and asked again. The answer was unexpected and a bit of a plot twist: the tenant wanted to keep the space for himself… but … the family living in the house next to my cabaña was moving out suddenly that same week and the house would be available.

I had visited the house the week before and it was biiig. It was beautiful, magical: one big round space with multiple ‘trees’ in the middle, two platforms with wooden stairs and an incredibly high ceiling. A fairy house, made from natural stone and poles, and a roof of palm leaves. It was a perfect ceremonial space with a lot of creative energy. And it had a few problems… one of which was that when it was raining, it was raining inside the house: the roof was leaking. And this was the reason why the family living there was leaving. They were being rained on. And they specifically advised me not to move to this house. Yet, I was already sold. The next couple of weeks, I spent weighing all the factors involved, waiting to see if the problems would get fixed, negotiating the rent price (initially three times the rent of my little cabaña), and moving between a whole array of feelings and emotions: from incredible inspiration and excitement to be able to use and share the beautiful space and allow my creativity to flow; and a fear of missing out on this opportunity; to worries about spending my whole budget on three months rent not knowing if it will bring any new income in; and a fear to commit to and jump into a situation which may turn out to be a disaster; to frustration about waiting and not knowing when I would finally be able to move there.

During all this time, I had the key to the fairy house; it already felt like ‘my space’. I went there in the evenings to feel out and connect with the space, do my yoga, practice areal dance in the rope hanging from the roof, put up my hammock to read or write, dance ecstatically on the giant stone floor, or sit at the beautiful rustic dining table with my laptop. But it was not my space yet, and every evening before going back to my cabaña, I gathered my stuff, erased my traces, and withdrew my energy from the space. Just like I had done over the summer whenever I left a place where I had felt at home but was not my actually ‘my space’, a place I could ‘call home’.

One day before New Years Eve, I realized that I had been in ‘waiting mode’ all this time. I was supposed to pay the deposit and move in that day, after my landlady and her team had finished fixing the roof. But instead my landlady informed me that they would not be able to finish that day; that she was unable to get the last piece of tarp needed to cover all the leakages and they would return on Wednesday to finish up; that she preferred to wait until they finished completely to ‘hand’ the place over to me, and that a friend of hers wanted to stay in the house for one night in the meantime with her daughter to give her daughter this magical experience. I could use the space for my New Year’s gathering while staying at my cabaña for just a few more nights. I realized that I had been so focused on moving into this new space, on having a space to Be very soon, that I had not really been enjoying the present moment. I had been in an in-between space of waiting for an imagined future of having a place to call home.

The next day, in the middle of the sister gathering I was hosting at the big fairy house, my landlady called. She had forgotten to take the cabaña off Airbnb and someone booked it… for that same day… and was already at the location ready to claim the cabaña that still had all my belongings in it. The solution: I could quickly move my stuff to the house and start living there as of then. With some annoyance and complaining, I packed my stuff, thanked the little cabaña for taking good care of me and moved into the house in less than 15 minutes, realizing that once again life was giving me what I had asked for in quite the peculiar and unexpected way: I had felt and expressed that I did not want to wait any longer and had wanted to start the new year in my new home. And so I did, ceremonially celebrating with a cacaocito and some copal.

The day after, my landlady called again, asking if I would stay at her house one day and one night, so that her friend could still have the experience of staying in the fairy house with her daughter and sleep at the house for one night the next day. Just this question got me so emotional and I weaped over the painful idea of having to leave the house I had just made my home, so that someone else could be in the space where I had been longing and waiting to Be… The house that would be my safe space for the next three months; where I could land, ground, connect, move, feel, express, flow, create, BE. I weaped because I knew that as much as I wanted to be flexible and to share, I felt such a strong NO that I knew there was no other answer I could give. I weaped because I finally felt I had the chance to stand up for my little girl, to protect her and guard the safe home I had promised I would find for her. I weaped because I realized how much I had needed this feeling of having A home; any home, a space where I feel good and can stay for a while… Where I decide when and how and how much I share.

I weaped because I realized I had been so scared to claim this space for myself, to ‘own’ the space, to have it be my Home – to invest in myself, in giving my inner little girl, as well as my creative and powerful self, my inner priestess, my inner godess, my inner witch, my inner fairy a space to BE – to invest in a space for myself. All this time I had envisioned that I would share the space, make it a shared creative space, co-creation space, a space to retreat and connect with oneself – a safe bedding for me to BE and extend that space to others, share it with others. I had visions of this being a conscious retreat center, a conscious community space, to share ‘my space’ with others. But what if what I need first is to really claim this space for me, without having to share it. To allow it to be ‘my space’, to ‘own’ this space. To allow myself to really land, ground, stay. To be HOME… to allow my creativity to flow, to express, from a sense of ‘Being’, from a sense of spaciousness, not from a feeling or idea of ‘having to’ share… to experience spaciousness before sharing spaciousness… to BE before wanting to hold space for others to BE.

And so here I am, retreating in my home, my own space; connecting with myself and the space; allowing myself to land and get settled; turning inwards and holding space for my own process; allowing my inspiration and creativity to flow; starting to express and share my creativity and inspiration with the world; and allowing this sharing to be a process; learning and practicing to allow myself to Be – to be ‘home’.