Why does it feel weird to be happy?

This is the day God hath made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Why does it feel weird to be happy?

That is the question I woke up with. I was also wondering what I might want to write to you about this week. What did I have to write about?

I felt happy.

It was weird.

People don’t write about actual happiness.

People write about how to get there.

Today, I am happy. I was happy yesterday too.

That seems very disruptive.

Happiness is a state. It is a frequency of joy that permeates everything like a beautiful musical note. You are trying to write about a state that is more and different from an emotion my darling and this is why you struggle.

—a message from Guided Writing

I am not talking about spiritual bypassing. That is when the person in front of you smiles at you and says in a sickly sweet voice, “It’s ALLLLL good,” whilst you can tell from their penetrating eyes that stab into yours, that they are deeply angry about something.

Not that kind of happy.

Then there is the challenge of feeling happy when you can tell other people aren’t. When you are truly happy, they feel their unhappiness more. You are like a spotlight. Not on purpose. But they feel the contrast.

Some people might be jealous of your state.

When you do you, your environment may not always cheer you on.

Which brings me to the next thing:

You and I swim in a sea of information that seems designed to keep us focused on how we can improve ourselves, how to feel better, what we need to do to matter, and zillions of reasons to be afraid.

The next bird flu and some kind of vaccine is coming.

The financial system is collapsing.

Plus you know those CBDCs are breathing down your neck.

Maybe you should buy gold?

No, not gold.

People thought you should buy gold and it hasn’t done that well until recently.

Ok.

You should buy Bitcoin.

But you can’t touch Bitcoin. I mean, how can something be real that you can’t touch?

Plus, what good will Bitcoin be if the electric grid of the world goes down sometime?

So no…. just no.

Maybe you need to go live off grid somewhere?

Be ready for everything to collapse.

Stock up.

Get a passport or a residency in some other country?

There might be more lockdowns again.

You know how that will go.

It’s not your first time around the block anymore.

This time, you are determined to be ready.

Maybe, like me, you recently had your eyes scanned at the airport and didn’t even consider or know you could opt out?

So now, a machine has scanned your eyeballs. Who knows what they will do with that?

Maybe, like me, you see scenes on your mental screen from science fiction movies. You know the worst one, where a person is holding someone’s disembodied eyeball up to a scanner and using it to unlock some top security room?

OMG

Or, like me, you finally tried to take that giant step and close your Facebook account and Facebook said, “Sorry, try again later” and you do not know WHY except you are sure you are definitely being used by Facebook as a commodity.

Then there are THOSE people.

You know.

The difficult ones.

The family members you worry about.

The ones whose life you want to change so badly because it is so HARD to watch them do THAT thing. Maybe THE THING is taking a medical procedure you find frightening, or drinking too much, or support a candidate you don’t like who you are certain is going to RUIN the country.

Maybe, like me, you hear a story almost every day about a vaccine injury.

Yesterday it was about a yoga teacher here who will travel soon to care for her baby who needs heart surgery.

The mother mentioned to my friend that she was wondering if vaccines might have something to do with it?

My friend looked at me and said, “What does it take for people to wake up?”

And I am not saying I know what the cause of the baby’s issue is. I don’t. I only speculate from the Matrix of my own reality. Such speculations at times, trouble me.

However, despite things like that, that bother me deeply… Despite all the fear about the world falling apart in various ways… Despite everything—

I am incredibly happy.

And what if that is actually how you and I are designed to be?

What if we are designed to be rejoicing?

One can be happy “about” things, “because of” things dearest.

But that is different than the ecstatic state of being.

—a message from Guided Writing

Now, you may be wondering why I am happy and how you can do it too? Maybe you want the recipe?

I remember studying with one of my past coaches. She was wonderful and taught me a lot. She gave me things to do. One was to make a gratitude list every morning.

Now you might be feeling guilty.

You might be remembering that you have tried that too, or thought of trying that. And maybe you aren’t doing enough, right? Because somehow, if you aren’t happy, you are missing the boat.

You must need a new technique. A new magic key. Maybe an eyeball to unlock something (just kidding…sorry)?

And I am here to tell you that the answer for me is a strong NO.

Those are “doing” things to try to “get” somewhere. Those are all techniques to achieve something.

You don’t need to do anything but look around you, soften your body, and find something beautiful. Then feel it. It is that easy. It is not about making a list.

It’s not wrong to achieve things. But what if your achievements could come from really sensing into what you want and doing that? What if your life was about doing what feels good to you and interests you…if you let go of what you have learned about what life “should” look like?

What if you let yourself color outside the lines and enjoy it, even if people look at you sideways and ask you what you are doing?

This is a day God hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

That is a very disruptive thing to do.

It goes against all the media you probably can’t help but see.

It goes against much of what others have taught you, which is that it takes hard work to achieve (and that the hard work is DEFINITELY not fun, or it wouldn’t be HARD, right?).

Well, what if you work hard at things because they are fun?

I am on day three…scratch that…day four… of working on rewriting this for you, which I do mostly for free. (Thank you paid subscribers…you have truly touched my heart, and I have had to practice taking in the beauty of your offering).

And, this is not about money for me.

I am doing this because despite it sometimes feeling challenging; it makes me happy and I am having fun. I am having fun even when it is not “easy”.

When I post my article on Thursday, and I tell myself it is not as good as I wanted, and I do it ANYWAY? Well, that is a big deal. I am honoring the offering. It doesn’t have to fit inside anybody’s lines, including my own. Not everything I write will cause that “like” button to ping. But so what? You can sift through my offerings. We all do that, don’t we?

This morning, the third morning of my happy streak, I was still happy, but a little less so.

That is because I grabbed an old habit without thinking. I grabbed the part of me that GETS THINGS DONE.

I need to go up to Mizata and find out which farmer has broken my new fence and is grazing cows on my property without my permission. Then I need to decide what to do about it.

I have various strategies.

My main fantasy is that the cow farmer will be sweet and I can have them keep an eye on my land in exchange for a key to the gate and grazing their cows for free.

My attorney reminded me I might want to meet them before I decide what to do.

She is right.

The person has already broken my fence.

I am told the name of “her” is Charley.

Already, I feel things may be getting lost in translation.

So, this morning, I started working on THE ISSUE OF COWS ON MY PROPERTY.

This actually kept me slightly awake a few weeks ago. But the stress only got to me for part of one night.

Mostly, I have found the situation very humorous. I feel lucky that cows on my new property are one if the biggest worldly issues I have at this moment.

Things could be a lot worse.

I hope I don’t laugh when I am up there.

“Your cows are on MY property. WHAT are you thinking, Charlie? Or is your name Christine?”

I was in get-things-done-mode this morning regarding that issue when I went up to Puro Surf after meditating on the beach.

I trotted into the main office in my bathing suit.

I didn’t think much of it. People wear bathing suits a lot around here.

The manager there, John, has been very kind to me and wanted to go to Mizata to see a friend. So, he offered to come with me when I told him I needed to go resolve the cow issue on my property.

Basically, John offered to accompany me and offer support, which likely will involve some translation. John simply seems to like me despite my age and sometimes agitated state. He holds a kingly masculine frequency in his young heart that is challenging for me to receive. Another friend, Owen, does the same thing. He walked me out to the street after his birthday party in El Tunco to be sure I was ok and found my taxi. There were no strings and no weird sexual energy. They are both caring men who simply show up and want to help me.

And despite how different that is from what I am used to in the past, it is very delightful to feel care and support in this way. I am sure it is feeding my capacity to feel happy more often.

I assumed John might need a few days notice to ask for the time off work, and I was hoping to go on Thursday. That was only two days away. I told myself I needed to hurry.

So I marched into the office to talk to him.

But he wasn’t at work yet.

It was still early.

You see where I am going with this?

I was not relaxed.

I was not noticing the birds.

I was focusing on BUSINESS.

As I was explaining my plan for Thursday to the people who arrived at work early, we could see John approaching through the window.

It was at that moment I had a tiny thought that it might look a bit strange that a woman in her bathing suit was planning a day trip to Mizata with their young boss.

I felt more uncomfortable.

John walked in and, like an old woman tapping her cane, I informed him of my plan asked how my plan sounded to him? John is always kind. He smiled and said Thursday was already his day off. The other man in the office gave me a place to call to rent a car, and I headed home to finish organizing things.

I would prefer to do the entire scene differently.

I would have liked to leave “business” me in the back seat.

The new me knows how to flow and have fun.

I am back at it now as I write to you.

But I am still a little edgy about Thursday.

It is hard to do things when I don’t speak Spanish and don’t know how these little communities work.

I think I will have to really focus on feeling good before we go.

That helps.

I found a Jeep Compass Truck to rent for the day.

Thursday will be my first time driving here.

That feels fun.

They will deliver it to me.

When I learned John’s friend, who is now my friend as well, wouldn’t be in Mizata, I considered rescheduling. I also told myself John had no reason to go now that he had no friend to visit, and the car I had rented…well, I should cancel it and just get a taxi. I really was struggling to allow John to do his thing.

I texted John that he didn’t need to come. I really couldn’t comprehend that it could simply be fun to drive up there with me in a rental truck, trudge around a couple pieces of property (someone is going to show me another adjacent piece of land), and help me handle the cow situation.

Since my Matrix didn’t allow for this type of reality, I was undermining myself by overthinking things.

The truth is, driving up there with me, on the first day of renting my first car here…and chatting with the neighbor who owns the hotel on the land next to mine while also climbing up the hill to see the property he has for sale… Well, honestly, it will very likely be a lot of fun.

I will be driving a Jeep! I love to play music. And the cow situation is rather funny.

There is the potential for this to be a very enjoyable day for both John and me. At least, a memorable one, …if I don’t overthink things. If I don’t worry what it looks like for older-woman me to drive up with kind, innocent surfer John in my 4X4 truck to see my property.

The part of me that worries about how things look to other people texted John that his friend wouldn’t be in Mizata and asked if he still wanted to go? That part of me was the part that showed up in the office in a bathing suit and then felt weird.

That part of me is learning to stop worrying about what people think and to receive healthy, clean masculine energy and support when it is offered. (Yes, Demi, at

The Starfire Codes

, I hear you).

John did not back out as that part of me thought he would. John texted me this:

Hi Tara. Sorry to answer just now I was very busy today at work.

Sure I can go with you. No problem. I’ll be happy to help you.

—John, WhatsApp

Now, as I have been saying, it is hard sometimes for me to receive heart-centered, no-strings-attached help that comes from authentic care.

Really hard.

John is a learning opportunity when it comes to this.

Another thing I want to do is explore the country here. Castor, my new friend, agreed to be my tour guide.

I told him I was free on Sunday, and we have already planned a trip to go hike a big volcano. Owen, wants to join us and I have my fingers crossed that Suez might be able to go.

My dream was to explore the country with friends and learn more about this little jewel of a place where I have been living. I didn’t want to do it on a formal tour.

So I have been imagining and feeling that for a few months now.

Imagining things and feeling things that feel good does seem to help birth them into reality.

And as I sit here and craft this article for you, I find I am resetting. Soft music is playing. I just ate an amazing salad.

I sent a picture of the salad to my new alternative doctor, Dr. Luis. He wants to teach me a special technique of weight lifting. He also thinks one’s diet matters a lot and is interested enough in mine to want pictures of everything I eat sent to him personally.

I have spent time sitting on the beach feeling the energy of care from my grandfather and other situations in my body. Now, care in various forms is showing up for me.

And all of that feels good.

It is not a technique. It feels good to sit and feel such moments. My body remembers where I have felt like I am loved and I matter.

It makes me happy.

Do what makes you happy.

Notice what makes you happy.

It disrupts things.

My mind’s thoughts also make me happy when they entertain me.

My mind has toyed with naming Dr. Luis, Dr. Bee Sting. That is because besides being an MD, health food store owner, gym owner, father, husband, and soon-to-be real estate developer (He wants to build a community for like-minded people…Can you feel how magically the carpet of life is unrolling when I allow it and keep trusting?), Dr. Luis has a technique to heal inflammation in the body. He does this by injecting something into acupuncture points on me.

He uses an actual syringe, which I have developed a phobia of.

I decided to give the process a try after assuring myself that the syringe was not anything like a vaccine. Pure saline with this little extra ingredient he believed in. My intuition said it would be fine and my aversion made me slightly giddy and nervous.

Dr. Luis surprised me with his tiny injections which felt a lot like a bee sting. My high tolerance for pain seemed to have evaporated into another reality. My mind feels that “Dr. Bee Sting” is not a bad name for him, but only tongue-in-cheek.

My mind likes to see things like this and disruptive cows as funny.

Then there is Manuel, the German-trained physiotherapist who arrived back from Argentina just as I had tweaked my back and was wishing he was here.

Then he was.

I felt God had sent him to me.

It was another reason to feel happy. I didn’t have to tell myself to notice it and then try to remember to feel happy. I just thought, “Wow, I wished Manuel was here, and I didn’t think he was coming back. Now he is back! Whoopee! I really do live in my own Matrix and I like what is happening!”

I am taking advantage of the opportunity to work with him. He is providing incredible body work and giving me exercises to do that require me to find muscles I have not been using.

This is not a small thing, as I have studied and practiced a lot when it comes to healing and body awareness.

But now I must be ready to learn more, so God gave me some back pain and sent Manuel back to me. Manuel is teaching me how to engage Mula Bandha, although he doesn’t call it that. He is teaching me a physical and energetic movement in the lower pelvis. I never quite understood how to do it correctly in the past. Finally, I am feeling it.

I am super happy learning and exploring these things.

My mid-back hurts a little right now. That’s ok. I think part of the problem is that I still need a desk at the correct height. But that too is coming.

Let’s get back to happy and that part of me that learned to be serious and work hard at things.

Planning the whole adventure to climb a volcano on Sunday took hardly any effort. A few texts and we were ready.

So it was my old habits that were keeping me from enjoying myself this morning.

Don’t get me wrong.

The old me would have called this morning a 10 when it comes to happiness scoring.

The old me would have made my happiness about the reasons things were good and not about how I actually felt.

The reasons I can give you are: I practiced yoga on my porch and the view was stunning. I went slowly. The workers were pretty quiet and their radio was off.

I had cacao to start the day and meditated on a cliff overlooking the beach.

I planned my trip to Mizata, rented a car, and organized the first adventure of Terra’s plan to explore the country.

That would be a 10 on the mental happy meter.

The problem is, it was more of a 5 in reality because I was trying too hard, forgetting to trust in God, and not fully allowing life to unfold in front of me.

I also didn’t remember to notice and feel sensations I like in my body. Sensations such as fun, supportive energy, and ease.

That is a practice.

I believe we create channels for energy and emotional states to circulate by feeling and experiencing them. You can re-live lovely things in your mind while feeling them in your body. Energy channels open and start to FLOW. You find yourself feeling those things a lot more often.

This can occur as well, with the opposite effect if you focus on a list of things like those I wrote above. If you focus on things that upset you, you will find upset-ness also is easier to feel.

Happiness is disruptive when school, news, other people and old family patterns absolutely want you to participate in the frequencies in which they like to vibrate.

But you don’t have to do what those frequency bands want you to do. It is ok to change. That is part of growing up. You learn to go your own way and steer your own boat, while listening to whatever guidance is meaningful and trustable for you.

Selvin, the Guatemalan man who oversees the construction here, is back. He was a few feet away from me while I was working on this article, fixing a leak under the sink in my bathroom. Selvin agreed to make me a desk so I can type to you with much more ease. He also agreed to install the shower head I purchased, which will heat the water.

I like Selvin.

I practiced for a week how to say, “Welcome back,” in Spanish so I could greet the workers here when they returned.

Almost a week of straight rain affected us all in different ways.

They were stuck in Guatemala.

I hoped they enjoyed the time with their families.

“Beinvenidos de Nuestro!” I said.

Selvin smiled.

I think I got it close to right.

He appreciates I am trying.

He told me it rained hard there too. I think his house and family are ok. I think that is what he told me, and my Spanish continues to be shaky.

Selvin, moving my refrigerator to get to an electrical panel behind it so he can install a new shower head for me that heats water so I will have “agua caliente”. He did this after fixing the leak under my bathroom sink on his first day back from Guatemala. He assures me he will have a new desk for me by Wednesday. It is hard to not feel happy when Selvin smiles at me.

This life is a journey and I am realizing more and more that I live in my version of my personal Matrix.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how we all have different perspectives like fish living in different tanks.

We all see and feel reality differently, like our own unique versions of living in The Matrix, and every matrix is unique.

I realized this more deeply during my recent meditation-ish practice (because I do something but I can’t really explain it and “meditation” is the closest word I’ve currently got). I noticed that I felt I had integrated some past challenges in my life. They didn’t trigger me anymore. They were “gone.”

And a lot of years of personal work and challenge, has likely contributed to my current, more frequent happy state.

But there is always more room for growth and thus, more opportunity to change one’s Matrix-version of reality.

So, as I noticed and felt surprised and satisfied that the past energy of many of my challenges seemed to be gone, The Memory arose and I saw a man who had challenged me tremendously while I was in massage school many years ago. I realized I was still angry and hadn’t forgiven him for how he treated me.

Oh.

Ok.

Well, “that’s interesting.”

After noticing that I was still angry and resentful about that long-forgotten event, I started talking to my guides.

I imagine that this is a little like the chat I will have at the end of my life with them, except I have started early.

Which is nice.

I can apply things now.

I remembered that man, and how much I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him because he had become angry with me for no apparent reason, and verbally and energetically attacked me.

The experience had shaken me badly.

He was a person in charge of overseeing our class at the school I was attending. He had called me into his office for a “chat”. I thought he had something complementary to say to me.

I was attending the school solely so I would qualify to take classes with John Barnes in myofascial release. I wasn’t interested in massage, but I was busy getting my license so I could dive into practicing the myofascial release and trauma healing I was learning from John. Despite not wanting to actually study massage, I felt things had been going just fine.

Clients gave me good feedback, and I had made friends.

Sure, there was the one time the anatomy teacher was calling a scapula a femur, and I pointed it out.

Sure, she told me to stop asking questions (and I did…sigh).

But he didn’t know about that.

So, it was completely unexpected when I realized I was sitting in front of a spitting cat with its claws out.

I was not prepared one bit.

It was another challenge during an already very challenging period of my life.

I was still mad about it and my lingering irritation remained hidden, buried within me like a little pocket of trapped energy.

So, my helpful team of subtle-beings who guide me pointed the little issue out to me.

Then they showed me he, like everyone, could only experience life through his constructed reality.

So for him, his anger with me was completely justified.

What he experienced was real for him.

It was not my fault.

And I could see that, now that they were showing it to me in this way.

The way he saw me and the situation he was upset about likely came from a lot of past pain and it had distorted his lens so much that he projected all that pain and anger at me.

Now, you are probably wondering what I did to upset him so deeply, so I will tell you.

But it will probably leave you as confused as me back then, as I sat like a deer on the highway with an oncoming car racing towards me that wanted to hit me just for fun.

The day before, I and my classmates were working on clients from outside the school. We were in one big room divided into separate little cubicles. His job was to wander through and observe all of us practicing our techniques. I think he was there to offer help or suggestions if we needed them. As he strolled through my cubicle, I looked up from the lovely session I was having with the person on my table and smiled at him. I was engaged in what I was doing. So as I smiled, I said, “I’m fine.”

He walked on quietly to observe other people.

The next day, he called me into his office and verbally chewed me out.

Now my guides were bringing the experience up for me in my quiet meditation practice here by the sea.

I did not know I was still angry, but the minute they showed me the scene, I could feel it in my body.

However, after I understood that he was actually experiencing things differently from me, and that his experience was real for him, I could embody more compassion.

I know now that he is inside a multi faceted reality and is acting from it. For him, whatever about me he found threatening, was real.

I can’t be angry about that anymore.

Not when I understand.

So, next my team of subtle beings moved on to show me how I could apply this to more current things that trouble me.

(I know, I was writing about feeling happy. Well, when I let go of residual anger and grow my capacity for compassion, it helps me exist in a different frequency beyond an emotional state that I would call something akin to beauty.)

I have people that sometimes challenge me.

I want to change things.

Fix things.

Fix them (I know, I cringe a bit shamefully as I type that… and sometimes, I really struggle to watch people go through their life experiences).

After I saw that past, forgotten situation in massage school through a different lens, I could also see something that is currently barely felt but troubling me as well. And I applied what the subtle beings showed me to the situation with the person I care about.

I saw them in their own Matrix, here to learn whatever they came to learn, in the way they are….on a soul level….choosing.

And I had to let go a little of my need to understand it.

So then I asked the subtle beings on my team what my role was? What could I do that felt aligned with my soul and with the divine, in relation to that man from massage school and the current person in my life now?

They showed me again one thing I know I am here to learn: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And I could feel how I could continue to care, to love the current person in my life despite everything…to see them as the soul-light I know, no matter what.

I can be loving.

I can be the one who stays as a supportive force, cheering them on, no matter what, and hangs onto the thread of beauty that I feel and know is there.

I can see the beauty in them and love it into being.

Things may change in this lifetime for them outwardly for the better or they may get worse.

That is not up to me.

Seeing their light is.

As I sat exploring this, I had a unique experience. I felt a subtle being wrap their arms or wings around my arms from behind. It was lovely.

What does all of that have to do with being happy?

Somehow, I think it has everything to do with it.

I love my life.

I appreciate it.

I know there will be days I struggle and that there are parts of me still learning.

I know sometimes I will be that caterpillar in a chrysalis and I might be screaming. I might feel alone.

It is like that here on Earth.

That is normal.

We all came here to grow.

It is normal if you feel uncertain or are squirming. It is normal if there are things forgotten in you waiting to be digested and understood.

Nothing is wrong with you.

You are at one of those edges of growth and maybe you can make some choices, or maybe you simply, like that caterpillar, do your best to relax through the process you are in and wait for it to finish.

My life now is not normal, in what I imagine the TV version of “normalcy” to be. I am a single woman, living in El Salvador, in a temporary situation, who is learning to receive, exist in higher frequency states, and embrace and enjoy the journey.

Yesterday, I was alone on the property where I live. The workers weren’t back from Guatemala yet.

My upstairs roommate had taken his motorcycle into the mountains.

So, I took my yoga mat outside next to the pool and played with what Manuel is teaching me about engaging a new part of my body.

My speaker died, so I took it inside to charge while instead, I moved to the sound of the waves crashing just below me.

Vultures flew overhead.

I used to see them in Sedona while I attended massage school. It was also a very difficult period with my immediate family. I thought they might be my animal totem, and I also thought God was messing with me.

A vulture?

Really?

Then I learned vultures are feminine symbols. Vultures digest things. They eat what is toxic and their output is feces that is bacteria free. Amazing.

Back then, I felt I was in the process of something similar regarding the toxic energy in my system around my divorce and my immediate family.

God was right on point. Vultures were the perfect totem for me.

Yesterday, they soared, and I admired them.

I know they were busy cleaning up the carrion in the river below, which was entangled in the logs that the river had recently delivered beneath me during the torrential rains. Some deceased things, including a large deer, hadn’t quite reached the cleansing waves in the sea. So, the vultures were helping.

They floated on the eddies of wind and dove into the woody debris.

There was a soft mist in the air.

A few people were surfing on glassy waves.

I stopped my yoga practice after a time and retrieved my charged speaker.

I love the sound of the sea, and I love music.

I knew those surfers could see me from their boards as I stood perched high on the deck, near the stream. And I decided that was fine. I was communing with everything.

An arm balance.

A slight backbend.

Feel what Manuel taught me.

Energy in my lower pelvis.

A new place.

A new stability.

Yoga was a dance, and the joy of experimenting was alive in me.

Then I finished. I lay on my back in Shavasanah, the corpse pose, and breathed in the salty air.

I rolled up my mat with the music playing and used the opportunity of having the entire property to myself. I was looking at the scene in the photo above. Everything was so beautiful. There was a pool on my left Raul had cleaned. In front of me was a white railing and beyond, the sea.

I love ecstatic, intuitive movement.

I dance as a prayer.

I dance my feelings, and often I dance in ecstasy.

I figured the surfers were the only ones who could see me.

So, as the sun set, I played music I loved, and I started moving. By myself. I was in ecstasy.

A young man emerged from the sea below carrying a boogie board. He turned towards me and waved. Then he gave me a thumbs up.

Happy.

I was so happy.

I didn’t have to achieve it.

I didn’t have to make a gratitude list every morning.

It just happened over time, naturally.

It might seem weird to be happy in a world screaming at you that you have lots of reasons to worry.

And that may be true.

It may be easy to make a list of things that are troubling, like I did for you above.

But you can be happy despite your list.

You can make space for it to creep into the cracks of your being like that mist in the air.

It is okay to stop and gaze at beauty for longer than your mind tells you that you should.

Things that tell you to rush, worry, and make lists might just be programming.

I am taking my time.

I realize life is like an unfolding carpet.

I used to try to unroll it.

That never goes well.

It is like trying to force your body to do something before it is ready.

It just tightens up.

Now most of the time, I stay at the edge of the carpet and enjoy the journey.

This morning, I sat and did my meditation thing. Then I paused on my way back to my casita.

There was a group of yellow and white butterflies. I wondered what made them sit together like that, in a what I called a flock. A flock I imagined being at least thirty.

At times, a few would fly up and go on an adventure. They would dance with each other a bit in a swirling circle and then separate as they fluttered around the plants next to the stream. One drank some nectar from a flower.

I leaned on the white railing for a moment, simply watching.

A group of butterflies…which I have found might also be called a kaleidoscope, a flutter (love that one), or…. from what I consider being the solely scientifically minded non-magical matrix: a swarm or rabble

“Ok, Terra, you have things to do now,” my mind told me.

But I ignored it.

I stayed longer.

I noticed a lizard I hadn’t seen. It was just above the butterflies and leaped over the stream like it had springs in its tiny legs.

Then I saw a hermit crab near the butterflies skittering away from them. Maybe he was on a mission for something?

There were vultures in the palm trees swaying at my left and a slight smell of decay wafting up from the stream.

Somehow, it all seemed sweet. Even the decay had its own kind of beauty.

A bird with bright blue plumage flew by.

Then another with a green almond in its beak.

The waves whooshed and frothed rhythmically.

Surfers were surfing. The tiny waterfall tinkled into a little pool.

Up by my casita, the green leaves of the banana trees danced in the breeze.

And I thought about being happy. And how I wanted to write to you about that.

I went and got my phone as I wanted to show you a picture of what a group of butterflies by a waterfall stream look like. But the photo couldn’t convey the feeling.

So I took a video. No luck. Sometimes, you simply have to experience things physically for yourself.

But you can do that, in your own way, wherever you are.

My roommate came up while I was taking the video.

I was glad he said nothing.

I was hoping to take something so you could hear the sea.

When I stopped, he asked me if the smell bothered me.

“What? Oh, that… Well, the vultures are taking care of it…”

He told me he had a sensitive nose and was worried about where he was going to store his motorcycle here.

And me?

Well, the smell was fine.

Even the trash in the river bed was ok.

This is a day that God hath made.

And I felt the most important thing I could do in that moment was simply rejoice amid it all, and allow myself to be happy.

I walk through clouds of butterflies every day.