aahhhh, rest (?)

Day 14 in Mexico.  Resting in bed after a small and mild bout of tummy troubles.  Giovanni was great and made me all of these homemade concoctions, and along with my homeopathic medicine, I am feeling better.

My friend said yesterday on the phone that it takes longer for our soul to catch up with us when we travel.  I like that.  I am just waiting for my soul.....She was a good example of how to rest after 2 weeks of driving across country.  Even with this good example, I am having a hard time resting without feeling ineffective.  The tummy issues give me a reason to do rest.  Otherwise, I feel like I  am just being floja or lazy.

 

Part of my resting today was catching up on blogs of people that are dear to me.  One is a couple traveling across country on bikes, 

60 Soul Search on Bike; Two overweight, overstressed city dwellers head out to re-discover themselves and their country on a bicycle tour from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.  http://cyclesoulsearch.blogspot.com/

Well worth the read.  One reason they are doing this is to leave behind the stress of years of overwork, and yet still find themselves doing this on their bikes...the need to get in the miles, to push to the next location, to stick to the agenda, etc.  Some of this is necessity of travel by bike and as they mentioned some is still self inflicted.

Is this something that we just cannot escape coming from our capitalist culture?  This is something I want to learn about here in Mexico...where they still work hard, yet there is a different attitude about it, I think, I still need to discover what this is actually like.

The other blog is by someone I don't know very well, but am very happy to have shared a short time together.  Her blog is: http://thegoodquest.blogspot.com  and  again well worth the read, great wisdom.  This is from there:

 Of a culture that values doing over being, we’re all suffering from a mass-neurosis around obsessive production.  Even those of us working “against the system,” the very system that keeps us down by over-working us, are no better, as we sacrifice our health-states, love-states, and peace-states for productivity-at-any-cost.

So, a question that I am asking myself is why am I so hard on myself?  I have barely been here 2 weeks, I worked really hard to get here, I am making a huge transition, I am adjusting to a new climate that is hot, adjusting to living with someone, moved once while here already, am setting up a new house, catching up on things from back home still....and yet I still have this running To Do list in my head.  I came with enough resources (partially in thanks to all the generous folks out there that helped me out) to just relax and be slow and move slow and rest and enjoy, and yet, I can't.

Part of it is my working class work ethic.  Part of it is being raised in a capitalist society that says we are not worth anything if we aren't producing.  I feel guilty not working.  Especially when I see the young couple next door working so hard, and they didn't even have money for water the other day.  Seeing Giovanni go off to work everyday.  Feeling bad that I can afford to sit around, even though I still worry about it.


Part of my busy-ness at home was also doing things that I enjoyed.  I need to find things to do with myself, or I will really be bored.  I brought art supplies, there are dance classes and yoga classes, I brought things to study.  I want to organize my computer.  I have ESL lessons to complete online, letters to write, a house that still needs organizing, a folder of things to deal with form home....so there is plenty to do....but actually I don't really feel like doing anything right now.  But i don't want to feel bad about not doing anything either......

I also get my need to make a difference in the world, not just feeding the machine, but to add to the beauty in it.  I figured this out in Detroit. In fact my livelihood was directly related to this.  I taught art and yoga and nutrition to children, I taught yoga to adults, I was an ally to people with disabilities and taught yoga to those who may not have access otherwise,  I did women's empowerment work through medical training,  I did powerful woman's empowerment and transformation work.  I could see how these things made differences in people's lives...so, I just need to be patient, with myself, and with my situation, that things will come about and will flow when the time is right.  My Teacher once told me, You will never not be busy, you are excitable and interested in life.  

“Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom.”
-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar