Where there are no streetlights

crows and clover

I moved from the city in Dec 2021.

I couldn’t sit in traffic anymore.

I couldn’t endure the racket of noisy and nosey neighbors.

I couldn’t sit in my house anymore after the 2020 insanity where my neighborhood transformed into a mixture of the Truman show and a bad clown horror flick.

The world is a dream and everyone’s in a trance…until you’re not.

I don’t think people realize how much the unnatural buzz, sirens, and lack of flow with all the stopping and starting affects the nervous system.

There’s a hidden underbelly in the city and it takes root under the skin and breeds anxiousness…subtle nervous energy…. a pulse longing for the natural…a rhythm off beat.

The underworld of the mind cries for relief from the hustle and bustle, from the madness called normal, from the falsity and superficiality.

HOA’s keeps those modern exteriors looking good while the insides fall in despair to disrepair.

I had been plotting my escape from the stairways of my 3-story townhouse long before the scamdemic propaganda started, oh vey, how was this reality?

I think I knew it was coming and should have been more diligent in my actions.

I can’t deny there were things I loved about that home and neighborhood, yet, it had served its purpose on my journey, and it was time to go.

I broke all the Feng Shui guidelines and bought an old farmhouse, in need of more work than I bargained for, where the only neighbors are cows and a cemetery.

I “spent” (in more ways than one) 3 years fixing all the feng shui mishaps and making remedy…it’s funny how life throws us opportunities to dig deeper into our craft, our interests, by presenting real challenges.

It was the worst decision I’ve ever made AND the best one. The perfect dichotomy to feeling like I’d been walking in two worlds my entire life.

I didn’t know I was stepping into a stressful, humbling, unbearable situation with more challenges thrown at me than I could take.

I wanted to walk away but I was too far in, was I being tested or was I being stubborn?

Yet each day nature initiated me further into her sight, her care.

Sometimes I wish I was even more remote. A new house went up way across the field, it’s too close…don’t they know there’s a hermit down the way?

I like being a hermit. I try to come out of hiding from time to time but want to get back to solitude, not because it’s comfortable, that’s definitely not it…but because my veins, even amidst hard days, responsibilities, and blustering winds…relax, anxiousness flees among crows and clover.

I’ve learned more staying put, truly observing, participating and being thrust into the wheel of life…the changing tides…the meaning of the seasons…than I ever did in school, in business, under the city lights…it’s a different kind of gift. This gift draws you closer to the heart of the earth and yourself. It helps you notice things, to strengthen pattern recognition, to remember the importance of every blade of grass we walk upon and the fragility of every windowpane of glass we stare from.

Life isn’t safe, no matter where you sit.

Predators lurk, like the bobcat I saw across the fence…like the electricity man looming with his clipboard.

I do admire people who are fully off-grid and appreciate their ingenuity and tenacity more than ever. I’m just not there yet…and I’m ok with that.

Maybe the road less traveled isn’t just choosing a different path, the one outside of the normality the masses follow, but something far more subtle. Maybe it’s about letting the road come to you…in stillness…in flow…in heart connection with the heart of the earth…it’s a path that meets us when we’re willing to stop chasing everything we thought we should.

Half of my clothes are ruined from cleaning poop and getting caught on fences.

I don’t recognize myself anymore.

My grey hair has been freed from its cloak and the wisdom kept under wraps.

I used to never go out without make-up, now I rarely wear it, or much.

The photos of the old me from my life in the city were someone trying too hard for all the wrong reasons and all the wrong people.

I like going into the city sometimes, but the “smarter” they become the less I’ll go.

The tide will turn, the wheel must roll…life may look very different again down the road.

Sometimes I feel I’ve lived many lives in one, I’ve taken many chances and am grateful to have experienced so much.

But life is about what we give…and I love giving my heart to the animals I love so much. And as much as I like to be far away from the crowds, I care deeply about people, about this life we all walk together…and as individuals.

People I know will say I can’t believe you did this or that…? I don’t get what they mean, why not?

People I know said, I can’t believe you are out there all alone doing this by yourself…renovations, mowing, cleaning chicken poop, carrying dead carcasses to the vultures that my dog left me….but we cannot wait for life….we cannot wait for a partner….we cannot wait for permission….we cannot wait for a savior….we just have to do what we feel called to do and that’s that.

I hope you find yourself somewhere, too, where there are no streetlights…where the stars shine bright…where the night calms the soul and the sun reveals a magnificent picture on a sky scroll…and you get to interpret its message, absorb the rays and bask in the glory of the day.

Whatever is going on in the world, let it not bother you, let it not seep into your mind and take up room…if just for today.

May you find a place where there are no streetlights, only the lantern of your own inner light and compass…where the moon is clear and the clouds drift away, where heaven is here and hell far away…where the sun meets your eyes with the morning light and every day ends with sweet dreams in the night.

With love…from where the crows and clover sit,

Angela