Oops, I forgot what the whole point is!
It’s 06:06 AM. I woke up an hour ago thrilled to smell my dog paws, stretch and drink black tea with honey while I write here. Yes, I’m THRILLED!
The joys and pleasures of mundane life are the whole point. And I forgot it for a while, engulfed in all of the seriousness of “doing things right”, being a good person, healing, etc.
I’m so good at enjoying life if I allow myself to, probably that’s my greatest mastery. You're probably good at that too :)
But are we allowing ourselves to thrive?
Yesterday, in the late afternoon I met with two of my girl friends. We strolled and chatted and ended up sitting on a table in a bar that was named “Mohana”.
I ordered a kombucha and they got a glass of white wine. We shared fiori di zucca fritti ripieni (fried stuffed courgette flowers). Just writing that makes me smile.
As per usual we were very distracted by our animated conversation around our ambitions and current projects and before we realized it, we were talking about how necessary is to detach from our own traumas, biases, personas, to become masters observers of that is in us that drags and hurts and prevents us from just being channels of “consciousness”.
Just writing this makes me yawn, or worse, gag, and not because what we were sharing is necessarily wrong or I’m spitting judgments on our efforts to try to explain something that we believe in, but because it’s all so unquestionably boring!
The plate of fired stuffed courgette flowers arrives and my attention goes there. 4 gorgeous plummed bites are laying on a rectangular plate. My two friends seem distracted by the conversation. I’m flirting with the food.
«I’m going for it» I shout, excited. They’re busy talking.
The conversation twists and shifts, we talk about facilitation, coaching, what methods and lineages we trust and I share awkwardly about an experience that shocked me to try to prove my theory that rooting in the body is the most important thing to do when holding space for ourselves and other. I get all agitated because I’m not sounding intelligent or convincing enough. My friends eat two of the delicious bites while discussing and chatting. There’s one left and we decide to split it.
The evening sets and the cold hugs my warm body. My wooly shawl is cozy but doesn’t keep me toasty enough.
We pay and leave.
When we first arrived we googled what Mohana (the name of the bar) meant and found out that Mohana (Sanskrit: मोहन) means "enchanting," "bewitching," "charming," "delightful," or "infatuating".
“How magical to be reminded of what matters”, I catch myself thinking.
We decide to walk down another road and find ourselves inside another place called Artemisia.
It’s warm and welcoming, we sit on a round wooden table and we decide to order something else to drink and eat. The waiter arrives and excitingly lets us know that they have new freshly made olive oil so if we want to try it, they have sourdough bread to taste it.
Me and one of my girl friends get curious about a beverage and decide to order it. Fermented beetroot with pepper and honey.
«2 of that fermented beetroot drink, please», I shout excitedly. «And the new olive oil on 2 slices of bread too, we’re going to share them».
It feels like I’m the most eager to taste and try things.
The bread is whole grain and slightly toasted. The waiter comes with a half a liter glass bottle filled with what I called “green gold”. It’s olive oil season here which means that the local communities are all busy harvesting tonnes and tonnes of olives to then bring to the frantoio (oil mill) where they’re processed into delicious olive oil. The past few years we helped some people harvest the olives, which is a tiring but wonderful activity and went to the oil mill to get them squeezed and processed. I recall the smell that pervades the whole place and is just pure pleasure. When the oil comes out of the olive grinder machine it is thick and in the most beautiful shade of green. It’s truly green gold, much better than gold.
We enjoyed the rest of the evening chatting about our relationships’ joys and struggles.
When we said goodbye I felt deeply thankful for this time together, for these two empowered women who are finding their way, centering themselves, caring for others, wanting to contribute and realize their hearts’ desires. No matter our differences, our blind spots, our desires to be liked and listened to, it is a gift to learn about all of it, to be in relationship with one another.
Our conversations and all of that philosophying woke me up once again to what matters to me: to truly enjoy life, to notice the beauty of what surrounds me, to let myself experience and be experienced.
And I believe that this is my medicine and the medicine a lot of people need: the whole point is thriving and prosilience. Prosilience is a term coined by Linda Hoopes that merges together proactivity and resilience.
Yes, we are in turbulent times and, for me, noticing what gives us pleasure, recognizing and holding the complexity of what surrounds us is the only way to truly honor life.
I’m so glad to be reminded once again that “the job is enjoyment”.*
(*Steve Hoskinson’s motto in the therapeutic framework Organic Intelligence)