Unmoored
Hello friends <3,
I want to share a little bit about where I'm at (in truth, where I've been for a good 5 years)- unmoored.
When the invisible supports expire and start to die away it can feel unmooring- the beliefs, behaviors, shapes, and circumstances that we have relied on to shield our vulnerability, to dampen our exposure to the unknown, uncertain, and unfamiliar.
It may feel like a brutal ending but what if it’s a blessed beginning?
“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” -Rainer Maria Rilke
And it draws us to it like the first daffodils, violets, and bluets of Spring.
It is the curiosity that stirs in our bones and on our breath.
The wisdom, guidance, and benevolence that enters us where there is humility, curiosity, defeated, the undone, and becoming.
What if reorientation to a wider way of life and deeper sense of self is a sacred disorientation?
“I went without discerning
and with no other light
except that which in my heart
was burning.” -St John of the Cross
The disorientation can feel lonely, heavy, dark, never-ending, and isolating; like stepping into exile; severed from purpose, creativity, soul, direction, and life.
This has felt like failure and flawed for me because contemporary culture hyper fixates on having it figured out, clarity, control, and the known.
But many wisdom traditions, spiritual teachings, and devoted aspirants would suggest otherwise- that the darkness and sacred disorientation is fertile ground; the place where surface level living dies and the longing for something more real and rich can be born; the alchemy where a deeper, wider sense of self and love are being made.
As shared by Gabriel Gutierrez, “this is an archetypal pattern of transformation- a descent into the unknown so something wilder, truer, an freer can rise. The soul doesn’t court us in certainty, it enters where there is a crack- curiosity, humility, undone, defeated, becoming”.
Certainty brings ruin a Delphic Oracle once cautioned.
When the scaffolding (practices, ways of being, conditions) we’ve been leaning on begins to fall away (are no longer resonate and life affirming) the compass is the curiosity that stirs in our bones and on our breath; the longing that lives in our heart.
This brings me to the Purusharthas in Yoga Philosophy or the 4 aims of life.
Purushartha translates to the purpose, meaning, or objective of the soul and being alive.
And while I will not go into detail on these 4 aims in this email (maybe later), what I am coming to realize and want to share is that they blossom from a place of curiosity, unmoored, and cracked open.
The crack is where the light/life comes in.
The crack is where the Purusharthas take root, where the purpose and meaning of life are watered.
So, take breath, take care, take sunlight, take space and engage with the people, places, and things that enable you to be unmoored; that resource you to stay in the crack until reorientation dawns.
This email has been inspired by the ancient wisdom tradition of Yoga, writer Sarah Blondin, and writer and scholar of mythology Gabriela Gutierrez.
We will be taking a micro-sabbatical from teaching in-person classed for the month of April, however, there is one opportunity to gather, connect, practice, and resource ourselves. Join us at Cowee School in Franklin NC for a Morning Movement & Meditation class on 4/6/25, 10-11:15 am. Practice is rooted in Yoga, Meditation, Somatics, Trauma Healing, and Nature-Based Wisdom.