Screaming into the void

When life says No, tree dokusan, and making peace with limitations

It’s March and I’m still in Northern New Mexico.

Its not that Northern New Mexico is a bad place to be, but if you’ve been following this journey from the beginning, you know that my goal was to be in Quartzite, Arizona by the beginning of November. At that, I have failed. I knew that with a project of this size, there would be unforeseen obstacles, but the past few months have been the personal equivalent of a Spartan Death Race—a steady stream of problems, setbacks, and trouble, directly preventing me from driving somewhere warmer.

After a snowless, unusually warm December, January dawned unusually cold, forcing me to set everything else aside so that I could insulate Serenity, set up a secondary heating system* for when temps were in the single digits, and deal with a whole new set of daily challenges.

Wintering in an RV involves a lot more daily work than in warm weather. When it’s cold, I can’t use Serenity’s plumbing system because the pipes would freeze at night, so I have to haul in all my water and store it inside with us,* tricky when you only have 136 square feet of living space. And if the days are near freezing or below, I can’t use the shower and I have to throw all my waste water* out the door so the drains don’t freeze. (Ask me how I know this.) Some days, its all I can do to just keep up with necessary daily tasks and once again, art and writing have been pushed to the side.

Actually, I have moved—about three-and-a-half miles away—to a peaceful spot in a stand of pinon trees on land that belongs to some friends. And I have succeeded in bringing Lyra, myself, and my little indoor garden through one of the coldest Januarys on record in NM, in a trailer with 2” walls. So there’s that.

winter camp

But I am tired. Not just body-tired, but mind and heart-tired. I’ve been waking up in a grey fog even after nine or ten hours of sleep, struggling to find the energy to keep moving forward. At the end of December, I hurt my back, and I’ve been having trouble with hip pain and sciatica. And then I, who never gets sick, got sick—an upper respitory thing that dragged on for weeks.

I dont think I’ve ever been so deeply frustrated, or so exhausted. This was supposed to be my time for resting, for exploring the Mojave desert and reconnecting with writing and art. I miss the smooth slide of clay under my hands, watching an idea take form out of wet earth. My heart aches to work on my novel, the flow of words, how everything else drops away. But I haven’t had the energy.

The worst part is that I’ve lost touch with that first bright certainty that was so strong when I decided to become a nomad—the confidence that I could create a slow, meditative life centered around nature and the process of creation. I still trust the memory of it, but I can’t feel it anymore.

As if things weren’t difficult enough, my little Lenovo laptop, which I rely on for everything, started making a buzzing noise to the point that I can’t use it. I had to unearth my elderly HP Probook, which is still mostly functional, but slow as a line at the DMV. The battery doesn’t hold a charge anymore, and the letters M and N are completely worn off their keys, and A S D & F don’t work at all, so I have to use an external keyboard.

But I kept the HP after I got the new one because it’s the laptop that I wrote the first draft of my novel on. It was witness to that first wild joy as the story came through, to my first clumsy, overwritten attempts, to my fears and frustrations. It was my portal into another world all through that bizzare, hopeful, terrifying year when the pandemic shut the human world down, when my Buddha dog was nearing the end of her life, when my mother was dying. Whenever it was my turn to go stay with her, I took the HP along, not because I ever had time to write, but just to have it with me—my velveteen rabbit of computers, a talisman that contained my novel in all its shining possibility.

When I first pulled it out of the closet and opened it up, I was surprised by my own words, a message I’d scrawled in the upper right corner with a sharpie one day after yet another battle with fear and self-doubt about whether I could actually write a novel—

Timely advice from my past self.

I know how to persevere, to apply discipline, to work. As someone with ADHD, I have acess to a lot of energy and the ability to hyperfocus, which can be a superpower when I need to push through tiredness and discouragement and doubt. And for most of my life, this has served me well, helped me achieve goals and follow through with creative projects. I expected it to work in this situation too. I thought it was just a matter of pushing through these last few months so I could get to Quartzite, and then I could rest.

I’ve been really slow to pick up on the fact that for weeks, in the form one obstacle after another, life has been saying NO. Actually, for months, life has been saying slow down, but I’ve pushed on, driven by habit and survival fears and a lack of trust in what’s been unfolding, because it differed from my plan.

But by the begining of February, I was so exhausted that it scared me. For a while I was forced to stop everything—even writing, even my morning hikes. All I could do was rest and save my energy for essential things like getting water or making a trip to town for groceries. It gave me time to really look at how I’ve been approaching this whole nomad endeavor.

About fifteen years ago, I made a conscious choice to live a guided life. To me this means staying open in mind and heart as much as I’m able and cultivating a state of listening in my daily life, in an attempt to allow something deeper and wiser than my fears and desires to move me through the world.

To live this way involves a lot of uncertainty, and requires a level of trust that I don’t always possess. But I know this is my path. I can feel it. We love certain things for a reason. We’re called to certain things for a reason—because there are wonders waiting to be discovered, truths that will lead us deeper into ourselves, free us of our illusions. The latter is not always pleasant, but experience has taught me that the benefits outweigh the discomfort. I knew there would be challenges on this path, many of them, but I also know that when you answer an inner call, life moves to support you in countless ways. I’ve experienced this time and again, and always recieved the help that I needed.

Yet now here I was, suspended mid-air in the biggest leap of faith I’ve ever attempted—and nothing was working. I felt unheared, abanodoned. I’ve never been so depressed, so close to giving up.

But life was offerring help—in the form of my friend Carol and her husband Clay, who invited me to come stay on their land. Yes, I had this plan to go to Quartzite, but what I actually needed was rest, a place to stay where there was no pressure to hurry, and I got it. For this I am deeply grateful—a huge thank you to Carol and Clay, for their kindness and generosity, and for making Lyra and I feel so welcome! Because of their help, I was able to rest at a time when I desperately needed it.

There’s a stretch of pinon forest a few minutes walk from here on a gentle rise, and I started going up there every morning to visit a pair of Ponderosa pines that tower over the rest of the trees. If you’ve never met a Ponderosa, they have long straight needles that turn rust-red when they fall and pile up beneath, forming a thick comfortable mattress. I would lay under one of these trees, warm in a patch of sunlight, and do nothing, something that does not come easily to me. But I gave myself permission to stop trying to solve problems, to not think at all, to just lie there and breathe and feel the earth beneath me.

I watched the wind move the branches, the dark green needles glittering as if coated with ice. One morning, a raven flew in a circle around the tree, eyeing me, likely wondering what I was doing there and if I might be edible. On another, a brown creeper the size of a ping-pong ball weaved its way down the trunk, pulled a bug from the bark a foot above my head, then worked its way back up. On yet another, a flicker landed in the crown, shrilling its bright call, then took off again, the red underside of its wings like a shout of joy against the blue blue sky.

It was during my morning tree dokusan* that I discovered I was holding back a lot of grief, which wasn’t a surprise, but also that I was missing my mother, which was. She died of cancer in 2022. We had a difficult, often painful realtionship and I don’t think she would approve of a single thing I’m doing right now, let alone understand it. Yet I felt this longing to see her again, to talk with her and hear her voice. And I realized that because the last years of her life were so difficult and demanding, I’d never really allowed myself to feel the gap she left when she died, to actually miss her. But here it was.

For six or seven years now, I‘ve had this recurring dream in which the details change, but the plot is always the same—I’m standing in a corridor in school. Students are hurrying past me on their way to classes and there’s a tension and urgency to everything. I feel the old dread from my school years—the fear of not fitting in, the pressure of deadlines, an undercurrent of anxiety that I’m going to be punished or shamed.

Then I realize that I’m not a child any longer. That I don’t have to be there at all.

That I’m free.

It feels like I’ve just set down a backpack full of bricks. The relief is so intense that sometimes I laugh or cry, and with a sudden lightness singing through me, I walk out.

This dream has been a north star for me—both a recognition of my deepest longing to be free to live a creative life, and a source of encouragement, urging me to trust that it was possible. And I thought I understood the message. For years, I’ve been working to free myself of encumbrances so that I have time to create. After more than a year of preparation and a hell of a lot of work, I’m living my tiny-home/art studio, getting ready to roll into a new life, one that’s custom designed to support my greatest loves—truth, nature, writing, art.

But I had the school dream again a few weeks ago, and then again a few days later.

In the most recent version, I was in my old high school with a friend who was unhappy with me, and I felt this wrenching despair because I was already doing my best. And then I realized that nothing would ever be good enough for her, and that I’d already failed at school, so why was I still trying so hard? I saw these things, not with blame or shame or self-recrimination, but with clear acceptance, and then a surge of delight as I realized that I was free to go home and write.

To have this dream twice in a week was the dream equivalent of it jumping up and down and waving its arms for attention. It baffled me. I’ve been working with my dreams for years in the Jungian sense, and the guidance I get is never redundant. If the dream was still coming, I knew there was something I was missing, but what? It took a while before I saw it, but then it was like pulling a loose thread and watching the whole structure of my relationship to work unravel.

It was my mother who taught me to work. She was a driven, determined woman who put work before everything else, including her relationships, including her health, a lesson I internalized to the max. And I saw that even now, some fearful child part of me was still trying to prove to her that I’m not lazy or irresponsible for trying to make a living as an artist. Not only by trying to cram too much into each day, but also, by always putting work first—even when I’m free to do otherwise—with the idea that once everything is done, then I’ll be free to create.

I got away with this when I was younger and had more energy, but now, after working all day, by the evening, I’m usually tired. Often, I sit down to write and it’s just not there; I don’t have the energy. Years of operating this way have stalled my creative goals and left me deeply frustrated. It’s totally ironic, because if you asked me what’s more important—say, switching cell phone carriers or working on my novel, I would, of course, say the novel. But even so, every day, I’ve been getting up and spending the best of my physical and mental energy on the mundane stuff and squeezing the creative work that is my great love, into an hour or two after dinner before I crash.

That’s what the dream was pointing out—that I’d already failed at meeting my deadline and the coldest part of winter was past. Why was I still striving?

That there’s a voice of dissaproval in me that will never be satisfied, no matter how much I accomplish. Am I going to keep sacrificing my health and emotional well-being, my need to create, in an attempt to appease it?

I saw that I needed to slow down, to move at a pace that allows me to support myself with writing and art and time in nature, that those things are just as essential as work, because without them, I can't sustain the faith I need to do this. And if I want my creative work to support me, I have to support it by giving it equal importance to work, and prioritizing it when something wants to come through.

So I’ve slowed down. I'm learning to shape my days around my inner needs and to set reasonable goals for what I aim to accomplish. To take rest days when I need them. And I’m making time for creative work in the mornings and early afternoons when I’m fresh, so I can give it the best of my time and attention, becasue there will always be work.

I've also started working on my novel again, trying to reconnect with my joy. It's fitting that I'm doing so on the old HP, which moves at its own relaxed pace. Amidst all my hurry and overwhelm, I’d forgotten that the most important moment is not somewhere in an imagined future, but the one I currently inhabit. That what I’m doing now is just as important as actually being on the road, that if I relax and trust, life exposes me to the things I need to know as needed, each step a preparation for the next.

All of this has helped—the depression is lifiting. My energy is coming back, though it's not always easy to pace myself. I like to work and now that I’m feeling better, its easy to over do it, and then I’m exhausted the next day and have to rest. But on other days, I find a balance to it all, find myself once again loving this life that I’ve chosen. Small steps.

It helps that spring is right around the corner. Its been warming up here and little green shoots are starting to poke up out of the earth. Often, there are geese at the pond; they stay for a day or two, then continue on their way north. A huge flock of redwings stopped here yesterday and the afternoon was full of their bright reedy warbles. I’m hiking again, but I still go lay under one of my dokusan trees every day; if you need more stillness in your life, you’ll find no better teacher than a tree.

As soon at it warms up a little more, I’ll be moving to my first spring camp, a lovely spot on a nearby hill surrounded by pinon and cedar trees, where I’ll be completely off grid for the first time. I am so excited.

I hiked up there the other day to scout out a good spot to park Serenity. I was looking at my compass and thinking about cell-reception and afternoon shade when I heard the rush of wind through feathers. Before I could turn, a raven flew right over my head, looking down with a bright, gleeful eye, then arcing back up into the sky. Before I had recovered, a second raven buzzed me, then flew up to join its mate, quorking, a noise that sounds an awful lot like laughter. I watched them rise on the wind, feeling blessed.

I hope you all are well, my friends, and that the joy of spring is finding you wherever you are, shining light into your dark corners. Hello, new subscribers, and welcome! I get a notification every time someone signs up, and it always makes my day brighter, so thank you!

Currently I’m working on getting the Nomadica Creations website up and running. I’ll be selling photo prints, divine femine sculptures, art, rune staves, jewelry, touchstones and crystals, and other gifts from the earth. Stay tuned for sneak peeks, grand-opening discounts, and free gifts for paid subscribers and founding members!

Some upcoming topics that are in the works include: raven medicine, the care and training of a nomad cat, the Great Conversation, and towing lessons in the Land of Enchantment. Happy Spring!

*Footnotes below for future nomads, the tech-minded, and the curious.

And the tecnical stuff…

*Back-up heating system—Which I did by purchasing a medium-sized Buddy Heater, which heats my 136 sq foot camper up fast on the lowest setting. Those little green 1# propane cylinders are great in a pinch, but cost seven bucks each, and only last 4-6 hours. It’s a regular practice to hook these heaters up to a larger tank, but you’re not supposed to keep the tanks inside. So I bought a 10’ propane cable (made for this purpose), drilled a floor-level hole in the wall under the closet, and ran the cable through the hole and out the same portal as Serenity’s main electrical cord to a 20# propane tank. This worked great, but if you do this, you must always have a window or two cracked and have at least one carbon monoxide detector. Be warned—propane heat generates moisture, so if you do this, be prepared to deal with a lot of condensation in roof vents and around windows.

*water storage— I was planning to get a few five gallon water jugs to store inside Serenity, but not only is there no place to put them, but I have problems with my back and have to be careful of how much I lift. I solved this problem by buying twenty, one-gallon jugs of water, which I can stash all over the camper without sacrificing too much space. When they’re empty, I load them onto my game cart (so glad I got this!) and wheel them across the yard to refill at the pump.

*waste water—I use only eco-friendly shampoo, conditioner, soaps and cleaners for everything, so Serenity’s greywater is safe to let run out onto the earth

*dokusan—In Japanese Zen Bhuddism, dokusan means a private meeting with your teacher