Stepping stones as a North Star in the midst of uncertainty & routines that allow fluidity

Stepping stones can be like magnetic fields for homing pigeons...they help one move forward with a sense of support, while the flow of life and each day can shift naturally as you find your way

Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash

I am sitting at a tiny glass table in my uncle’s courtyard. The blooming bright yellow desert plants are swaying in the breeze and tiny, puffy non-chemtrail clouds are moving slowly across the sparkling, bright blue canvass of desert sky.

His neighbor’s fountain is bubbling quietly next door. I can hear it over the wall.

I love courtyards. I realized that recently after spending time in a few of them. The sense of being tucked away behind walls, as life moves outside, often busily, is incredibly soothing. Like when my mom used to let me stay home from school for a day when I wasn’t sick, to do something fun. I could feel everyone in school and it made the day even more serene and special to be somewhere else. I didn’t know it then, and those days were like a get-out-of-jail-free card. School was not my favorite place to be.

I especially love courtyards with a fountain. The sound of water does something. Something that science has yet to discover, I believe.

The last few days, I have fallen into a routine here and I love the feeling of a beautiful routine. For the last two days, mine has been: wake up without an alarm, put on my jacket, and go stand in the courtyard and watch the sun rise. I like to move around so I can see it more fully. Sometimes, I leave the courtyard and stand outside by my uncle’s car near the street where fewer trees block the emergence of the ball of reddish golden light. A new day. A new journey.

No one sees me.

My uncle is still sleeping in his flannel pajamas and the neighbors have not appeared yet for their morning walks or journeys to work or school.

It is just the sun, and me. Well, and also a number of hummingbirds who get busy early dive bombing one another’s territory by his bird feeders.

Two days ago, my routine expanded to taking my morning micro doses, potions, and brews, along with making a cup of mushroom/cacao/adaptogenic filled alternative coffee with sea salt, cinnamon, a dash of butter, almond milk, and raw honey.

After the dose of early morning light therapy, I take my cup of sort-of-like coffee with me and go for a one hour walk to my favorite bridge that glistens with images of sunshine, water, and sky…in abstract wavy patterns of tile that enchant me.

I thought this was funny, as my shadow was in the way of getting a good photo with the sun rising behind me…so I included it. Me looking at “art” and “art”, written in the pavement, looking back at me

For a number years I imagine having similar tile as a back splash near the kitchen sink in the house I do not have, but may sometime.

This morning I wonder if those bright colors have too much energy for me?

I like soothing houses and soothing spaces.

And I like sunlight too. But I also need peace and bright colors and bright sun are more energizing than peaceful for me.

I realize sometimes what I think I want and need doesn’t make sense, even to myself.

I have been more intentional with my morning sun gazing. I have been listening to podcasts by Dr. Kruse and reading messages from a chat of his beloved followers I am lucky enough to be included in, although I have yet to join his Patreon group. (It’s on my list of things to do).

I had Leo, the Brave Browser version of Chat GPT come up with what Leo thinks “Uncle Jack” means when it comes to sun gazing.

So, I have been sun gazing. I also started wearing an eye mask at night to block any ambient light, and keep my computer and phone away from my bed, often in another room. I go out of my way to catch the sunset as well and wear blue light blocking glasses after dark.

It sounds like a lot and my current routine of the past few days has evolved gently over the last few years. When I added the eye mask here in Tucson and got serious about the sunrise, my sleep improved. There is nothing like a good night’s sleep and mine can be interrupted.

At times, I do still wake up.

But now I have my new Daylight Computer, which is charged, low EMF, and in airplane mode. On those nights when I do wake up, I throw on my blue blockers, click on the golden screen of the Daylight that is in airplane mode, and read a bit of a downloaded book on Kindle. It helps me go back to sleep.

It is easy to get caught in an overwhelming way with the current stream of advice regarding what one needs to do to be happy or healthy. Much advice I have seen involves the importance of having a morning routine.

Since I am not a fan of rigidity, or of anyone telling me what I need to do to optimize my life (as I rarely agree with everything they say and have learned to hold a sense of certainty about anything other than love, rather softly), I am not such a fan of those articles and books. Been there, done that.

And yet, for two days, I notice I have had a morning routine that happened rather naturally and I like it. Which is disconcerting, as I am getting ready to leave.

I have a habit of snuggling in as best I can, wherever I am and this usually becomes some sort of routine. And as I get comfortable with my routines, it can get harder to leave. However, I have chosen to live a life that has involved a lot of uprooting. Go figure. I think it is teaching me something.

The lovely routine that has taken two weeks to really form includes music. As I walk in the early morning light, and pass the yellow tree with blossoms that rain down on me, I listen to a Spotify station based on Tina Malia’s music which I find uplifting. As I listen, I write brilliant articles to you in my head on topics I am contemplating that I forget, like the wisps of a dream, as I face my keyboard later, fingers at the ready.

a tree in Tucson, that was raining yellow blossoms in the early morning

Sure, I could make audios as I walk. Or make notes. I did write down something. What was it? Where did I write it? I am no longer sure.

I just know that if I did that, it would take me out of the state I am in while walking, which feels like moving prayer and communing with God, Nature, and myself with a dose of what I might say to you this week.

Voice texts and recording my thoughts just wouldn’t work for me.

So I don’t.

I return while it is still refreshingly cool and get ready to drive to yoga. The studio owner, Darren, who I met for the first time about twenty five years ago in something called an Advanced Anusara Immersion Intensive I had to apply to attend, is still teaching. There is a poster of images of him demonstrating hundreds of yoga poses, some of which I would never consider attempting or have been capable of doing.

He teaches a packed class. His idea of yoga has become focused on alignment and doing what feels best for oneself now. He suffered an injury. Injuries, in strange ways, like so many things, can be gifts.

Then I return to my uncles where I have to address my anxiety and discomfort around uncertainty. Where am I going to go next?

Over and over, I have put myself in the position of facing my nemesis, Uncertainty.

I struggle with her.

I avoid a set morning routine as I dislike Rigidity and I come up with them all the time anyway. Routines I love. People I greet on my walks whose smiles and sparkling eyes become familiar.

Like I said, I often don’t make sense to myself.

For various reasons, I have decided I want to spend this year in flow. I plan to travel and live nomadically. “Why not?” I asked myself. I hadn’t found a place to buy as a base in El Salvador and something in me has been whispering, “Wait…don’t buy a place. Lots is happening in the world. There is so much uncertainty. It’s not time to put down roots quite yet, Terra. You’ve got your permanent residency in El Salvador now. You’ve got that second passport in that other country. It’s a good time to explore the world and live nomadically.”

That something is different than the something that has led me to travel so far. The old something has been on a quest to find a nest, a place I feel a sense of community, where I want to live. El Salvador has been a sort of nest for me. I have friends there. And still…still…things are changing a lot and the young version of me, the girl who wanted to be an airplane pilot, would love to explore places she has wanted to go and never seen. “Why not?” I said back to the something in me. “Why not? It’s a good time when I don’t own much of anything right now.”

That’s when I got a storage unit and put the things I had been slowly moving to El Salvador in it and headed out to travel, for a year.

I started by visiting my parents and assembling my luggage. Then I came to see my Uncle in Tucson so I could plan where I wanted to go.

Two weeks later, I have a routine. The weather is cool in the morning and the desert is pretty.

My decision and the gift of it was evading me and I was instead filled with overwhelm and uncertainty. Where would you go if you were faced with The World? It is a great opportunity and also not easy. I was starting to feel less joy and more anxiety as I experienced a familiar sense of not knowing where I am going or what I am doing.

I like to find places I can snuggle into for a time.

And I want to find them, and schedule them, before I set out.

Which is impossible.

I tried it once and it didn’t work.

I booked a place in Costa Rica. I figured I could hole up there for a few months. Sure, I had never been to Costa Rica. But at the time I was desperate to go somewhere. It was the beginning of my adventures and I had sold everything and was sitting at my parents becoming desperate for my next step to reveal itself to me. My intuition to sell my house and give away my stuff was great. It felt right. But I was weaving around the country and needed to regroup, which I had been doing for two months at my parent’s house. I love them. And they challenge me. I was close to a breaking point.

So when I heard from a friend I reached out to in desperation, of a fairly inexpensive place I could rent in the mountains of Costa Rica, I figured it would be great. I could meditate. I could write. My mind, which likes routine, decided I would stay for at least two months.

I arrived soon after and wanted to leave immediately.

It was a stepping stone and not one I wanted to stand on for long. Even stepping stones need to be felt before you put too much weight on them.

But it worked for me despite it being a bit tipsy and led to somewhere else that I did stay for a number of months that served me quite well. It was desperation that got me there and it took some shaky moments to get to shore. I could have called my initial disappointment a misstep, but it led to something better which is what I have found life does…eventually…if I don’t stay frozen on the bank grappling with Fear and Uncertainty.

As I walked this morning, I remembered my mother and her extreme anxiety about traveling anywhere, especially by plane. I think my grandmother was afraid as well, although she travelled anyway and sometimes took me along to meet newly discovered relatives she found before the internet in her quest to uncover more of our family tree. I was a young teenager in the airport with her, and I felt her overwhelm as she looked at the signs for terminals and gates. But overwhelm didn’t stop her from going, or from taking me.

The point of that is that there is something about Uncertainty that triggers Anxiety in my cells that may not originate solely from me. Perhaps part of why I live as I do for the moment, and am learning to, is so I can change things.

One thing I remembered on the first day of my new, soon-to-end, two-days-so-far, morning routine, was how much it helped me in the past when a friend suggested I look at travel like a quest of sorts.

At the time, I was going to a workshop in Findhorn, in the north of Scotland. But it was weeks away and I was uncertain about where I would go in the meantime. I had hauled myself off to Europe for three months and rented out my home to help pay for the trip.

(Now, please take a moment to understand that it would be easy to imagine me as lucky…and I am…and I was…and so are you…depending on your perspective I imagine…but things can feel differently on the inside despite how they appear on the outside and when I spoke to my friend, I was truly falling apart and hitting some pretty traumatized, frightened childhood parts of myself. It had taken some courage and a lot of inner pep-talks to head off to Europe on my own with not much of a plan and the part of me that didn’t like that, was speaking up. Actually, that part of me was freaking out in a little room in Switzerland and close to an anxiety attack, although that part didn’t know what one was.)

“Just think of everything you choose to do as stepping stone on your journey to Findhorn,” he told me.

And suddenly I felt like Frodo Baggins, carrying a ring, on a quest. I had a goal…to reach Findhorn (although my quest was much more enticing than Mount Doom, with a magical garden, hobbit house, and innovative community awaiting me).

My favorite building in the Findhorn Community, Findhorn, Scotland

Here at my uncles, that young part of me has been getting pretty comfortable in her routine. She even watches movies on her side of the couch with her personal electric recliner and a buttery soft blanket. She has been eating popcorn and taking time to read. When I told myself I need to figure out this year of travel and get going, I began to feel familiar panic and anxiety that can arise when I feel like I don’t know what I am doing. And that popcorn eating part of me started objecting.

That’s when I remembered my friend’s advice about Findhorn from years before, and decided I needed stepping stones. I would book a few things and not worry too much about figuring out the parts in between.

It seems logical to start easy. With somewhere I can go fairly soon…

But like I said, I often do things that don’t make sense to me.

My first stepping stone I chose…well, it certainly technically won’t be the first as it is in November…, is a tour to Egypt.

Now, in general, I don’t like tours. I like to take my time. I like to sit and feel things. And I like to travel rather inexpensively.

But this tour is special. Veda Austin, who wrote a book on water and crystallography is organizing it with two other women. It includes some special things. And if I am going to see the pyramids and tour Egypt, this seems like the best opportunity I will have.

I was fully sold when I heard her mention participants would be able to tour the Great Pyramid, and all three rooms inside, alone, for two hours.

So you can see why I was a bit enchanted and today I took a leap and sent my deposit.

One stepping stone is complete.

Then, I bought some Bitcoin.

I had been watching the price for days and price watching has never served me. What has served me is to just buy when I am ready and wait the four or five years to see if I made a mistake. So far, I never have. “So why am I sweating the price for this little purchase?” I wondered. It was distracting me. It was helping me avoid what felt so daunting: choosing where to go when I leave. It was an obstacle, so I got rid of it by taking care of it.

Then I started working on a stepping stone that I could use right now. A place I can go from here. I picked a flight to London.

Of course, I have questioned my discernment lately, as it seems a bit humorous to me that I have been triggered by chem trails in the sky, and am now choosing to go to England when they have officially announced they will start to spray them when I arrive.

What am I thinking?

Then, it is humorous that England thinks they need to spray chem trails to block the sun to help with global warming…especially because England is already so cloudy.

But, since I have learned to live with a lot of cognitive dissonance these last few years, I will use my coping strategy and simply notice that I am having a Shakespeare moment and “Et tu, Brute?” works well if I say it to England in my imagination. But unlike Julius Caesar, England isn’t really surprising me as they have been doing these sorts of things for quite some time.

I figured I would mitigate any chem trails by purchasing another magick tincture that includes metals called Oram and salty minerals from the sea.

I am counting on my arsenal of supplements to get me through things.

Of course, there is also Spain, and its recent lack of electricity. I am considering going to Ibiza, but won’t make it a stepping stone just yet.

I have a young friend in El Salvador, who believes the way to survive the apocalyptic climate in the world is to stockpile physical gold. (I haven’t so please don’t come looking for me).

He also told me, “They (meaning the few people at the top of a pyramid of power) are going to take down the internet, Terra! They are going to turn off the electricity in THE WORLD!”

I decided to double check things with another friend, this one a Bitcoiner.

“Well, Terra, if that happened and Bitcoin truly failed, a lot of other things would fail as well. And would you like to live in a world without Bitcoin?”

(Now that statement only makes sense if you have studied money a bit and have a sense of wishing for old people to have their savings worth more, not less, over time, like me. And since I do wish this, and at the moment, Bitcoin is the best possibility I have found, I realized he was right. I wouldn’t. So, I wasn’t going to worry so much about the electricity.)

That’s good because the grid went down in Spain along with some other countries a few days ago, just like my friend warned might happen.

That being said, heading towards Europe with chem trails and failing electrical grids I have been told were going to fail months ago, seems a bit brash.

But, sometimes I have been known to do brash things God help me. And I think it will be ok. We’ll see.

England is a stepping stone for me.

I also realized I could change the way I feel by simply practicing. So I sat this morning and felt the fun of my upcoming journey, and the fun of planning it, inside myself. I used my imagination and physical form to tell my cells what I wanted to experience. And it feels good to practice feeling good. Much better than the dread, fear, and anxiety that Uncertainty was bringing up in me.

I spoke to a friend here who teaches yoga and asked her for suggestions. Her eyes got big when she told me of a place she was sure I would love. “I spent a lot of time there Terra and it is aaaaammmazzzing!”

All I needed to do, turns out, was book a five day retreat there. I had hoped for an inexpensive place I could stay for a couple months to work on my book, but what she loves happens to be next to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It is a place I have also wanted to see and lacked the motivation, time, and courage to go. The retreat is technology free and includes a morning meditation in the Angkor Wat temple complex at sunrise before the tourists arrive. After they sent me a special offer that includes the option to bring a friend for free and left the time I would come open, I paid.

Now I have an stepping stone in Cambodia.

The in between times are feeling less scary.

I have other ideas of where I may skip to next and for now, three stepping stones are enough. Too many could become like a rigid morning routine. I need flow and I need to allow space for the divine to bring things my mind cannot conceive.

Meanwhile, I will keep the younger parts of me happy by doing some planning.

Just enough.

No driving in London.

A place booked when I land (I have enough time to figure it out before I leave).

A way to get there easily (I think a train and I am still researching).

Stepping stones are a version of care. They are not a routine. But they give me direction and that in itself, when life feels so uncertain, comforts me.

A stepping stone could be a simple thing.

It could be: I am going to build a fence for a goat in the yard. Maybe another would be setting a date to pick up a baby goat.

It could be buying a book to read that has been on your mind and getting whatever is in the way of having time to read it finished, or set aside.

A stepping stone is a kind of trajectory.

Stepping stones can also be milestones.

The thing that feels precious about them, is the Grace that is involved. The allowance for uncertainty. I want to stay places that serve me, and I have learned through experience that I won’t know until I am there and feel things. I listen to my inner compass of course. I put my hands out and asked myself, “Go to Glastonbury?” and “Don’t go to Glastonbury?” and my compass was clearly pulling me towards Glastonbury. It’s not a surprise. I have been wanting to go for years now. And since the most precious thing in life is time, I want to use mine wisely, by doing things that feel interesting, exciting, and expansive for me.

I feel better with a few stepping stones in place, which makes me a lot more able to handle uncertainty.

And I’ll keep playing with my body and imagination by feeling states I want to feel.

“I make intuitive decisions without hesitation.”

“Planning where I will go next is fun for me.”

“Travel is fun.”

Simple things, that change things.

It has helped a lot to sit at my uncles, on a stepping stone of sorts, for a few weeks.

a heart, or a stepping stone, next to the bike path in Tucson, in the early morning

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