Today I met Jesús on the beach

Let's explore three kinds of energies: "My Own Little World," "The Block," and "Incredibly Happy"

photo courtesy of Brad @westviewstudiocr, www.westviewstudio.com

It’s true. It might not be what you think, exactly…although I do think in a way it is close.

You see, I am still exploring learning to receive love. If you read my post last week, I spoke of three energetic states I explored with my new coach, Alex.

I will mention them here, because they have a lot to do with the little stories I have to share with you and I am hoping that you too, may know these states. I am wondering if you too, may be exploring some of these same things. You know. Things like how to receive love? How to feel happy more consistently? Why some days you feel amazing and others you don’t, for no apparent reason?

If that interests you, then the following might too. If it doesn’t, then the only reason to read more is if you might be considering moving to El Salvador. Or you like to read stories from a new writer, struggling to put energy, events, and feelings into words that evoke it all.

So, last week, there were three places I felt in my body that related to some resistance I have to receiving money from people. (This isn’t just about money, but that is a great trigger of this for me).

In one state, I feel safe, but alone. Like a child in a womb where all is quiet and I am protected. Have you ever felt like that? I imagine disassociation could relate to that type of state, if that has ever happened to you. This kind of state is a great protective measure when things in the “real” world might not be going so well. It is good to be able to go there. Let’s call it: My Own Little World. You know, like in the book: The Little Prince.

In another state, my jaw feels a little rigid and I am uncomfortable. There is a lot to this second place and I am still unpacking it. But the signs I am in it are I feel a touch of what I am calling: The Block. I feel resistance in my body. Sometimes, if I really check, I can find some anger and grief that is mixed into and through the tension.

Then there is the third state Alex, my coach, invited me to feel. In that state, I feel expansive. My energy is spread out. I am happy, free, and vibrating with what he called, soul energy. I think I feel like this when I step outside my door in the morning, look at the light on the leaves of the trees, hear the roosters crowing, and feel incredibly happy to be here. Let’s call that state: Incredibly Happy.

This week, my homework was to notice these three states. God decided to help me. I am going to tell you about it. My first few stories come from Incredibly Happy. You see, I was feeling that strongly for a few days. I was walking around my new little town saying things to myself like: “Oh my gosh, I never imagined I could be this happy.” Or, “I had no idea life could feel this amazing. I love living here. I feel incredible!”

You know, trotting around unconsciously swimming in State #3.

People were calling my name to say hello where ever I walked. Some of them that I just met (such as one I spoke to about renting a parking place) were texting me kind goodnight messages.

I was at the beach for sunrise and sunset almost every morning and while I was there, I was busy noticing beauty. I was noticing how the water looked silver. I was noticing the light sparkling in rivers of gold and how it moved across the sand wondrously as it retreated, in wavy ripples and patterns and forms I had never seen in this way ever before in my life. I was standing and looking at an egret in the water for a long period of time. It was at the mouth of the river, where the river meets the sea. Surfers were behind it, playing, or waiting patiently amidst waves permeated with light. The water glowed shades of blue and green.

You get it don’t you? I wasn’t high. I do microdose mushrooms, but I mean microdose. A few drops of a tincture in the morning. (Not medical advice…Why do I live in a world where I have to say that?…Make that end, please).

I don’t believe State #3 came from substances. Sure my vitamin supplements, raw Elixir juice drinks, mushroom microdosing, daily sun exposure, and walking barefoot all over El Zonte help. But they weren’t The Reason for my state. I know this because I accessed The Block (read: got stuck in it for a much longer time than I wanted to be) just fine despite all those things.

So, basically, I was unconsciously doing what my coach had tried to do with me on our call. I was trotting around this town feeling the solution to whatever had been sitting in my system as blocked energy and it was great. I never wanted it to end. And like any of these states when you are in them, I had no sense it ever would.

Things were good.

Now, let’s take just a moment here to pause, and see if you want to come with me a little more deeply here. Because I assume, in your own unique way, you might have your own versions of these states. So maybe notice which one feels the most familiar in this moment to you right now? Which one are you “in” a tiny bit, right now? If it is the first or second, My Own Little World or The Block, you may prefer to not go there any more deeply. You may prefer to just read this from a distance. And that’s ok. Also, what I write about here may not be something you personally feel at all and just interesting, and hopefully entertaining to read. But if what I am writing calls to you to explore a bit for yourself right now, it might be nice to notice which one you are in? Protected, quiet and still? A little tense, blocked or uncomfortable in some way? Maybe a bit avoidant or clingy? Or do you feel incredibly wonderful and are noticing beauty and the joy of the moment? You know, maybe you can feel just a touch of one of those things?

And don’t worry (or do if you are experiencing #3, Incredibly Happy, and don’t want it to end), states shift like currents of water. No matter how slowly and how they do not seem to be, they do shift. (I know this as I watched some hermit crabs making walking trails in the sand and I realized sometimes I feel like that…so slow…like things aren’t changing and I am not getting anywhere, even though I am and there is likely a long trail behind me of where I have already traveled). Anyway…which state are you in? Observing things can help them to shift and gives you more capacity to experience things from the driver’s seat rather than just feeling like a passenger in the car of your life. Just saying. Now let’s get back to things.

These first couple stories come from what happened, while I was feeling State #3: Incredibly Happy. I met Jesús there.

I wasn’t expecting to meet Jesús. I was at the beach for my morning, close-to-sunrise, walk with my cup of cacao (no, I can’t quite give it up yet).

Last night the moon was still fairly full and I spent the evening with Seb, Suez, and two other men sitting outside in the refreshingly cool water of a small, jacuzzi sized square pool, under a star filled sky that was gently brushed by tall green, feathery leaves of bamboo, moving like currents of water, in the evening breeze.

We alternated what Seb called a cold plunge (and it was cold compared to everything else here), with about twenty minute sessions in a sauna he built by hand. It was peaceful and quiet inside the sauna. A small, pot belly stove glowed red with sticks of burning wood and everything else was cloaked in darkness. Once in awhile Seb would pick up a ladle and pour water somewhere. I assume it was on the stove, and I couldn’t see. The small room would fill with heat and steam and we would sweat. Searing, sweaty, steamy heat filled my lungs.

Suez had given me some fresh oregano to hold from her garden and shared it with the others as well. We bruised it gently, and inhaled the fragrance. When someone lost their sprig, we all walked through the dark to get more from Seb’s oregano tree. I thought about the scorpions in Costa Rica. My friend had been stung by one. But here, there are not so many wild creatures. Nevertheless, I scanned the ground as best I could, as we walked barefoot through the shadows, and followed Seb’s lead.

My oregano plants in California grew close to the ground. Maybe they might reach 12 inches high, if they were lucky. When we reached Seb’s oregano tree, I had to look up. It towered over my head. It must have been at least 8 feet tall.

With fresh bunches of oregano in our hands, we returned across the raked dirt yard over concrete steps studded with round sea pebbles, back to the sauna. Suez told me it is different energetically to hold oregano in your hand and let the heat of your palms soak in the gifts of the plant. Not the same as simply eating it. Eating is fine too, but the body processes the energy and works with it differently.

I placed the green wad of bruised leaves between my palms and closed my eyes. I was surprised how quickly I felt something. Energy began to run up through my body. Plant energy. Eight foot tall oregano energy. I thought how it was better than sex. Most sex. It was delighting me.

As I saw the outline of Seb across the room, ladling water on the metal stove, I noticed his shadow, large and changing shapes, dancing on the ceiling above us. Some words floated out of me across the room to him. Words that described what I saw. I told him he looked like a Native American. Seb, a brown haired surfer, builder, previous movie-industry set designer, and general artist of many things, said I was not wrong. His grandfather was an Indian. It seemed the lineage lived on, here in El Zonte. Heat, energy detox, and ceremony ran in his blood.

He also mentioned that they found bones and a small pottery vase on the land where we were. People have lived in El Zonte for many, many years. There are indentations in the stone by the river the Mayans made. Places they washed clothing, ground various things on the rocks that left bowl-like indentations…and lived by the water. By the river and the sea. Like me.

Soon we were back in the cool water outside. The 20 minutes were up. Round after round, we went into the heat, and then out under the stars, repeating the cycle on this magical night by the sea. A golden full moon slowly rose through the feathery bamboo leaves as Seb explained how the cold plunge pool he had constructed had a special filter. There was no chlorine. To me, it felt like Spring water…refreshing, healing, clean, and sparkling with a kind of delightful energy water holds when it is happy.

I looked at the moon softly shining into my eyes and the light around it grew into a massive halo of energy. I felt how this is my life now. I felt incredibly happy.

I never imagined this life, even a few years ago. I never felt I would find a version of community that was so loving and authentic. Locals say hi to me in the early morning as I walk to the beach to see the sun rise. Sometimes they call me by name. It is different from the versions of “communities” I have researched and read about these past few years.

In Costa Rica, I called an intentional community selling lots. I knew Charles Eisenstein had purchased one there. I had enjoyed his book: The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. I figured if the place was good for Charles, it might be good for me.

So I scheduled a Zoom call to learn more about it.

A woman appeared on my screen. She was not at all what I expected. I think I expected a version of a yogi, or New Age hippie. But no, this woman looked like she was speaking to me from downtown New York City. Maybe from the Financial District. She was well dressed with short blond hair, perfectly cut in a straight line and styled, rigidly. I think she was wearing glasses, fashionable ones, and I am not sure. But my memory wants to put them on her. It makes her feel more business like and less friendly and that was my experience of my time with her. I told her a little bit about myself because I quickly discovered she was interviewing me. I thought it would be the other way around as I was a prospective buyer, but that was not the case at all. She was interviewing me to see if she wanted a neighbor like me.

So I mentioned my communication classes, the trauma work I had done, the body work I had studied, the family constellation explorations…so many things. I might have also told her I liked yoga and ecstatic dancing. It was going ok until I mentioned that I was currently exploring grief. At the time, the feeling of grief had been arising in me, often with no outward reason for it, and I was curious about it.

That was the moment when our call took a strong turn for the worse. She looked over the rim of those glasses I seem to remember, the top rim, through her Zoom camera at me, and said, “WELL, here we want neighbors who are HAPPY!”

So that was that. I had failed her test and she also, although she may not have known it, failed mine. I think we were both a little bit angry. I know my grief put its arm around displeasure and observed her judgement on my screen.

Now here I was, under the stars in El Zonte. That night, in addition to fresh oregano, Suez handed me a beautiful, lacy black bra that didn’t quite fit her comfortably, as a gift. I am wearing it today as a top in a very nice restaurant as I write to you. You can walk around this beach town in pretty bras and be perfectly acceptable. I like that. The waves are crashing and a teenage cat wanders by my feet periodically.

I didn’t buy a lot in a community.

Nevertheless, I am here, on sacred land with bones, and pottery and friends who create sweat lodges, cold plunges, and bring gifts to me (because the day before, Suez also brought me cotton sheets, which are hard to get here). Seb, in addition to hosting community sauna detox parties, is busy building a house here for a well-known guy who hosts a Bitcoin podcast. The multistory structure on top of a lava cliff is a mansion. Seb said he feels happy that he will have built a mansion during his life. I am happy he likes me enough to include me in his circle of friends.

Which brings me to this morning, when I met Jesús on the beach. I sat for a time on a rock in the early morning golden light, gazing at the sea and sipping my cacao. After a time, I stood up and headed barefoot across the sand to begin my morning stroll when I heard, “LISTA!!!! LISTA!!!!” I turned to see who was calling out something and realized it was Jesús, calling to me.

You see, Jesús lives here in El Zonte. He lives in the hearts and eyes of many people and things and he also is a man, who this morning, was beaconing to me.

Yesterday, I brought a small ankle bracelet to a woman selling necklaces and earrings she and her boyfriend made. I had purchased my ankle bracelet from a tribal elder I met in Costa Rica. He was with some other people from his tribe, selling cacao and various other sea and forest-sourced things. The ankle bracelet was composed of a string of shells, some hand-carved wooden beads, and a dark brown seed. It reminded me of what the native people in the past had used for money. There was beauty in that. It had taken love and energy to create.

I told the smiling elder about the land I purchased in Mizata here and that I felt a connection with it. But that I didn’t know what it wanted from me? I was hoping he would advise me. He held out the ankle bracelet he made and told me the large brown seed on it was connected to forest energy and would help me. Then he told me to lie on the land in Mizata and talk to it.

So, I purchased the ankle bracelet he had handed to me, for $20, and I wore it happily.

A Costa Rican, fire ceremony-leading forest shaman, who made an ankle bracelet for me

Then it broke in my room a few days later. The beads and shells scattered across the floor. I carefully gathered them into a plastic ziplock to hold them until I could find someone to help me fix it.

Yesterday, in El Zonte, I met some new friends who make jewelry and bought a lovely crystal necklace from them. The woman said she thought she could fix my ankle bracelet as well so, I ran back to my room to get it.

However, the tiny shells were too small for her string.

That is when Jesús stepped in. I knew him as his smiling face often greets me from a table at the side of the road where he too sells jewelry. At one point, he also showed me a piece of property.

Jesús had already packed up his stand nearby and was ready to leave when she asked him in Spanish if he might have a string that would work? He said yes, but it was at home. So I handed him my bag of beads.

The next morning he called out to me on the beach: “LISTA!” It was ready.

I took the little bracelet from his soft, brown hands. It felt strong now. Sturdy. I reached into my pocket, happy I had stashed a $20 bill there, and asked him, “Cuántos?”

“No, no.” He shook his head.

Here, people make $5 an hour. Sometimes less. I would have been happy, so happy to pay him.

But he wanted to do this for me, for free.

I could feel the energy of his gift in his eyes.

He wasn’t doing it to sell me property. He wasn’t doing it so he could ask for a donation from me. He wasn’t doing it because he wanted anything from me.

He was doing it because he really, simply, clearly, wanted to…simply because he liked me.

I felt my newly forming energy channels receive that frequency, that he was sending my way just as strongly as the bracelet sitting in my hand. Then the thing happened that always seems to happen to me when I sense so much love and beauty. My eyes welled up with tears and I began to cry.

This did not frighten him. I think it was simply a moment where he felt: “gift received” and he opened his arms and hugged me.

That was that.

Jesús on the beach.

The ankle bracelet Jesús repaired for me

I kept walking…eventually finding my way to some volcanic rocks above the sea that are shaded and tucked away a bit. It feels like a quiet place. Because it is funny to notice and say this now, but I live in a community. People say “hi” to me almost everywhere I go. In this tiny town, I am constantly meeting them on the beach in the early morning. Social adventures come to me without effort now.

Which leads me to the beautiful naked man strolling towards me out of the water.

Naked men do not usually frolic in the waves here. El Salvador is much more reserved and conservative when it comes to public nudity than the young hippy retreat center in Costa Rica.

So it surprised me to see one strolling towards the rocks and me.

As I said, I am not lacking in unexpected adventures here.

The young, naked hippy surfer saw me and a questioning look came into his eyes. A hint of worry. Not enough to cover anything. He continued to walk towards me, owning his nudity. But I could tell that his quiet, private dip in the water was not intended to be seen or to upset anyone.

His clothes were on the rock below me.

I smiled at him as I found it all refreshingly sweet and I could see any anxiety in his eyes melt away.

He came and sat next to me and we spoke of energy and life for a time. I let my meditation practice go. Instead God had sent me a sweet, naked man from Germany.

It is hard to be lonely here.

But, and now I want to speed things up a bit, as my story gets less happy. And I don’t desire to dwell on what happened to me. Simply to see it as a learning opportunity.

You see, soon after, I got an unexpected voice text from someone I had met only briefly, about six weeks ago.

I found the text took me right out of the frequency state of bliss I had been in back into the energy of The Block.

Now remember, this had been my homework from Alex for the week.

My homework was not to embody bliss all week (that would likely be a form of spiritual bypassing in my world). My homework was to notice those three states.

So, I had a good dose of Incredibly Happy. Now it was time to explore The Block.

My jaw felt tense. I was carefully navigating my responses to the voice text, feeling inside how I was doing, what was arising, and how I could communicate authentically, from my heart, despite the shit show of energy I felt was swimming around me…delivered in a nice, tidy 7 minute packet of pain and anxiety…all directed at me.

There were things I heard in that packet. Words of blame. Words addressing my supposed tendency to bypass things. Words about how I crossed boundaries.

It is amazing what can actually come through in words, isn’t it?

Well, anyway.

I felt into things as best I could.

I noticed what happened in the world around me, as I felt myself in this field of blocked energy with that tiny bit of tension in my jaw.

My community seemed to fade away.

People no longer were greeting me in the morning and instead, like a desperate codependent, I was calling out hellos to them. They would respond reluctantly.

Nothing I said felt energetically “right”. A little more interaction happened through texting with the man who gifted me with the learning opportunity of the voice text.

And then something shifted again.

I remembered how I used to wake up and notice so much beauty here and now I wasn’t.

So I started doing it intentionally, despite how I felt. I took time to notice the beauty of the leaves in the trees.

I sat by the ocean and I looked for light that sparkled on the water. I hadn’t been seeing it as much lately.

I held myself back from trying to connect with people and I worked on me.

And soon after, I found things shifting. I was back noticing beauty.

I felt happy again.

I felt grateful and more and more, I began to feel free.

I saw those hermit crabs I mentioned earlier making slow trails along the sand and I stopped for a few minutes to watch. Something prompted me to do so. They, meaning the subtle beings guiding me, wanted me to see something. I could feel it.

I realized the little hermit crab had already gone a long way and even though he seemed to be moving slowly, he was moving. He was on a journey and he was getting somewhere.

And I could feel that I was too.

I was working to address The Block and that is not easy. At least, it didn’t used to be. I had never been able to figure out what The Block was or what to do about it.

Now Alex was helping me and I was simply practicing.

Practicing things and changing things in oneself is not always easy. I imagine it is like learning to surf, if that is your thing. You fall down. The board hits you in the face. The waves are too choppy. You know. Things like that.

And what you and I do is like surfing in that way. It is not always easy. It takes practice. It takes tenacity.

So this week feels complete and like a win. Things happened for me, not to me and I was using them to learn and to shift things.

And like that little hermit crab making its tiny, delicate trail in the sand, I was progressing, even if sometimes, from inside my shell, it was not always easy to see.

Tomorrow, or in the next few days I am going to put my first post behind a paywall. Don’t worry if you don’t feel drawn to sign up as a paid subscriber. This particular post is for people who really want to start practicing a bit deeper. You are not less-than or left-behind if this does not resonate for you.

You are studying in your own way with whatever comes to you that you are drawn to pursue. I will keep sending you a post, every week, for free. And if it feels like enough, it is.

For the rest of you, I don’t know where this will go yet. I know I intended to craft a whole thing around this “going paid” offering and what you will get.

But I don’t need to.

I wrote the first thing you will get already and it is powerful. It is powerful for me. You can read the first part and see how you feel about it.

I am not going to mess with prices to become a paid subscriber. My coach, Alex, is going to help me with that and likely they will not be what you see now. And that’s ok. I am going with my intuition on this one. Starting now.

So if you are interested, keep your eye here to see it. It will be the only thing behind a paywall. All I can tell you is that there will be more. And I expect it will be deep. I would like paid subscribers who are interested in that kind of thing and you are very, very welcome here regardless. This is simply another offering. Like food on a shelf in the grocery store. Only you will know if you need it or not.

So, signing off for another week unless you jump on this new bandwagon with me…

May your journey feel blessed and may you feel guided and held through it all.