there's been big things going on lately.
in nj, aaron, asher, and i were staying with karin and lisa, at the house where they were renting a room while karin completed her student teaching position. the maret boys and i hightailed it up there from va when karin and lisa were sorting out the infinitely complex and beautiful arrangement of shifting from being lovers to being something that better suited their more immediate needs while actively remaining integral parts of each other's lives. aaron and i wanted to be able to offer them love and support during the challenging transition, to help them make it through it together. whew! that's big work. it's been a whirlwind for all of us. and it's been so wonderful and inspirational and difficult! to be in a position of very actively believing in love and human complexity and regularly reminding ourselves to allow for a full range of human emotions and needs; and to try ever so hard to not end up defaulting to the models of love and affinity and ways of relating that weren't serving them, but to keep trying to create something different. rannie calls this aim a "new social invention" and it's an integral part of his purpose in life. i love this aspiration. it speaks to me deeply.
while in nj karin, lisa, asher, aaron, and i began calling ourselves "fambly". it's like family, with similar commitments to one another's well being, but attempting to also strip the nuclear-ality out of it, creating something new. this was the other main reason that the maret boys and i went up there from va, to figure out what it means to be fambly. i ended up thinking that becoming fambly, establishing strong relationships with one another beyond karin-and-lisa and bj-and-aaron-and-asher, could serve to take pressure off of determining exactly how k and l would relate to one another in this challenging time. they could be held together in the same space by the net of relationships that we were all weaving together.
the fam
and then outside of the net of this fambly there's the whole group of the finders that we were stepping into that could help hold the fambly together. in culpeper there's rannie, mary, nexus, and lucy in berkeley. and all of us in nj began dreaming BIG of what we could all 9 do together. and we began to sparkle.
we started making plans to book it out of what karin calls "whitebread new jersey" for a few days, partly because my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were due to be coming to nyc to meet up with me, aaron, and asher from the 30th of december til the 4th of january. and also partly because we were going a little stir-crazy processing so much and so intesively in one space. we headed to the big city.
karin-aaron-lisa on staten island
christmas day the 5 of us went to staten island, karin's old haunts, to her parents house where her 7 siblings and their families (and famblies) would be gathering. the house she grew up in is amazing. it's a hodgepodge, cut and paste, whimsical, repurposed old house that her dad pieced together right on the shore. there's a whole floor of the house that you can't reach except by a hidden ladder whose access is blocked by a table. the paneling in the kitchen used to be the roof. the whole house used to be a few doors down, got jacked up and the bottom was added on. there's this one room that's two stories tall, faces the water, and whose entire exterior walls and ceiling are glass. a greenhouse-like addendum overlooking the water. the living room has bookshelves so tall there's a ladder attached to them and when we got there the room was decked out with christmas decorations and full of the petersen clan. i value having been able to learn some more about karin through being in that rich context, and having been able to meet her family, however briefly.
karin showed up early to help her mom set up, and then lisa, aaron, asher, and i had just arrived and were sitting to some of their lovely leftover christmas spread when karin's dad john came up to chat us up and shoot us with 20 questions about our lives. turns out karin is the black sheep in this good catholic family and john hasn't been too keen on some of the decisions she has made in her life. about a half hour after talking to us, when we were taking a tour of the house, he approached all 5 of us and made it very clear to us that he had concerns about the decisions we were poised to make together that seemed to me to be at least partially stemming from considerations for our and specifically karin's well-being.
it was definitely like nothing i'd ever experienced. it was an intervention. i've had the experience of having those close to me in one sense or another not understanding my lifestyle or my choices but i've never had anyone come at me with such fervor and fire and with such a clear emotional charge to their message. i appreciated being able to have the experience for my own growth. it's helpful to remember that as clear to me as my choices are they don't always sail so smoothly in others' minds. i always just assume that my intentions are so good and i have such love that once someone gets to know me they can't help but like me and be supportive of the ways i'm obviously living out the life that's right for me. and maybe that would be true if he had more of an understanding of the motivations of the choices we make in our lives. i also appreciate that he approached us with what was obviously a significant message for him. i'm inspired by that authenticity and the fieriness of spirit that came with it.
asher meets buddy
after we left we went to my godfather buddy's house, at the other end of staten island. he's a priest at an episcopal church and had agreed to let us stay at his beautiful welcoming house while he went out of town for a few days.
i told the fambly about the significant role that buddy played in my life when i was growing up. that he would be the one i went to when i had one of those big questions like, "why are there poor people?", "why is there war?", and very importantly, "why isn't anyone doing something about it?". i didn't understand why so many people in my life didn't seem to be responding to these things that to me seemed paramount. he would be the one who would guide me through these big questions to a way of seeing what it meant that i was asking these questions and how i could position myself in life to answer them. thanks buddy. as my mom once told me something like "someday you'll understand that the sadness you have for these things can be a gift to help you act in the world." i see that now. thanks to you too mama.
it is very helpful for me to have people who are important to me meet others who are important to me. i feel it helps me know that more of the context of my life is held and understood by others, it helps me feel known. and it was so wonderful to be able to spend some connection time with the fambly in that context, at buddy's house, surrounded by so many of the things i grew up around, in the nest of love and continuity that is so much of how i know buddy.
on staten island we also spent some time at
ganas community, where karin (then called kp, for karin petersen) lived for a stint years ago, and where she, rannie, mary, and the finders are well-known and well-loved. we showed up on christmas night for some caroling in one of the common spaces they have and there were cries of love, recognition, and surprise when kp walked in the door. and when they found out that she (and we) were planning on aligning ourselves with the finders there were more outbursts of surprise and general approval. they hadn't known up until then that kp knew the finders. we all met at the same "circles of hope" gathering in sonoma this summer.
we were welcomed so warmly and offered more leftovers and immediate friendship. we were also invited on an outing the next day to mount loretto state park (see the previous post for more on that mini-adventure). i've heard about ganas and ganans (ganians?) for so long that it was a blast getting to be able to put the pieces together and make physical connections to people and places that are significant to those that i'm choosing to have in my life.
after staten island we all headed into manhattan for a day and met up with my brother bradley, his wife nada, and their son logan. then karin and lisa left to pack up their nj lives to hopefully be ready for the va life by the fourth, when aaron, asher, and i would head back through to pick them up.
the next night my parents showed up and we all spent a few days wandering around brooklyn nd manhattan, visiting museums (the american museum of natural history is pretty rockin'), having big italian style family dinners with all of us and some old mississippi friends (buddy, the amazing brian greer, my since-first-grade-best-friend emily taff and her cousin sarah taff), celebrating logan's 3rd birthday on the 1st, and other such things.
a highlight of the trip for me was when aaron, asher, bradley, nada, and i went to the
chapel of sacred mirrors in manhattan on new year's eve. i was very inspired there and it left me with an abundance of excitement and good-ness that has hung around ever since. there was a dialogue between alex grey and andrew cohen about creativity and spirituality and there were several times when it seemed like the two of them were speaking directly to me and aaron. here's a quote from aaron about this same thing:
"one of the things that was said (by andrew cohen) is that often, those who are compelled by the {divine} creative impluse end up living outside of their comfort zone. there is a calling to create or to contribute to something new, some evolutionary impulse. and that calling transcends the forces of inertia, narcissism, and ego... and boy have i been living outside of my comfort zone. it was so nice to hear someone whose worldview i respect name and validate a pattern that i've been living and struggling with for so long."
the time in nyc with my family was beautiful and complex. i think my family is made up of some very interesting, very intelligent, very unique individuals. and we're quite a combo. it is never cake to spend time together, but it's always entertaining in the scheme of things. nyc was definitely the most difficult trip we've all had together so far. i kept thinking we'd have more time with one another for some reason and never quite dove into connecting as i'd like to have. the context wasn't quite right for the kind of time i like to spend together anyway. hustle and bustle and always a background noise and ambient scene to tend to, all of that even besides having so much of my focus drawn by asher, which is making connection time more challenging in general these days.
on the last day, after everyone had packed up and left in their respective cars to the airport, asher, aaron, and i -packed up to the max and about to burst with our new baby carrier, wooden hand-me-down toys, 30 fresh new diapers, and christmas gifts all crammed into the few small bags we'd brought with us- hoofed it to the subway. up to our ears with yet more transition, made physical by the bountiful load, aaron said as we walked down the sidewalk, "let's go home."
sunset from home
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. it felt so great in that moment, breeze in my hair, sun on my face, feet on the earth, to know where i was heading and why, to know that i was going there with aaron and asher and other lovely friends, and to know that i might be staying there for a long time. it's been a couple of years since i really have felt able to call a place my home. what a perfect moment.
we first went back to boonton to pick up lisa and kp as planned. we had been planning on splitting up for a few days with karin, asher and i doing something together and lisa and aaron heading in another direction together, then all converging in a ceremonial reuniting. this was an idea of aaron's to help ritually create space for karin and lisa's relationship. but when it came time to do it and there was more travelling to do: to deliver lisa's cat edgar to snuffalo (that's what all the kids are calling buffalo these days, or at least what aaron, lisa, karin, and i are calling it when we want to be cute), to deliver karin and lisa's veggie car olive oyl to pittsburgh, etc; aaron and i knew we needed to be heading on home. which, it turns out, worked out great because lisa and karin had been enjoying their time together and it seemed were looking forward to moving out together too.
so the maret boys and i hightailed it from nj to va. to home. to the place where nexus, mary, and rannie greeted us upon arrival with much warmth and enthusiasm.
we've now been here a week and settling in has been at turns overwhelming (not having "home" for more than 2 years put some weight and expectations to what this time might be), inspiring, refreshing, confusing (what do i do first? what do i do now? as in RIGHT NOW, now that i'm not ON HOLD...?), and delightfully easy.
we've taken two trips to the "high field" in the past week; the 90 acres of land abutting shenandoah national park that we have big plans and dreams for.
high field field
and aaron and i spent a few days setting up our new room. it feels so nice to have a space. and to be able to settle in there.
today asher made some forward movements in crawling instead of up til now just backward movements. there may be some shifting and sorting of things to be done around here soon.
asher on the bed in his (our) new room
yesterday a man named frank culley, aka frank the monk, aka the finders' godfather, stopped by to talk to us. he'd called mary a couple days before because apparently he was suddenly struck with the idea he'd share some insight he had about the history of the finders and some ideas he had about aspects of that history that didn't serve the community. mary told him that his timing was impeccable, that we're currently working on rejuvenating the community and that outside perspectives of history that might play into our present and future realities would be exciting to hear about. we all thought it was going to be this big thing, this great experience spending time with frank. the actual time was more lackluster than we'd hoped but i think that he was drawn to come talk to us. that we're so sparkly and ripe right now that the universe sent him a message and he suddenly remembered his old friends the finders. i believe that there's big things abrewin' in and around this gang. and frank was a sign that we're on the right path.
i also got some great messages from our time together. the strongest and most resounding of which is that all of us coming together at this time are creating something new, and that it is pertinent and prudent of us to clearly identify ourselves as such. to be clear about who we are to each other and with each other and from that clarity and stability conspire with the universe to build our dreams.
aaron and luke
culpeper va is an hour and a half from richmond va, which is where aaron's brother luke lives. ! it's so amazing and exciting to me that it will be easy to stay close to him and to aaron's immediate family (the rest of whom live near virginia beach). luke came to visit yesterday and i had a great time being around him. it feels as though over the past year he's really been settling into himself and creating an understanding of how he creates his own reality. it seems like he's doing a pretty bang up job learning how to create a reality that suits him. kudos to luke. what an inspiration.
and geez-o-man karin and lisa just showed up in a rental truck with all their things. they showed up sooner than they thought they might because they decided to, as karin said, just throw their things in the back and sort it out once they got here with their tribe.
now it's time to go. my community awaits.
life is feeling wonderful.
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