Pandoran dream

The calendar says I've only been here for a couple of weeks, but I am not sure it can be trusted. I have never ever felt so at home in my entire life. Yes, that's superlative, but it is not hyperbole. I feel like I have returned to the place where my soul is from, even if my body first came here 2 weeks ago. A long exile is ending and my spirit has returned to its tribe. It doesn't matter that I haven't met any of the other tribe members yet, it is a joy and a privilege to get to know them, each encounter a new adventure.

I find myself wondering if I have landed on Pandora. For the past week it's been hard to go to sleep - the irresponsible amount of chocolate I am consuming is a contributing factor, but there is also a secret fear that keeps me up late - the fear of going to sleep and then waking up and realizing that it was all just a dream. That I am back on earth, with healthy legs but without the wings I've been fletching and testing since I got here.

Two nights ago I stood on the edge of a cliff in the silver hues of the full moon watching the waves crash upon the shore far beneath me. I felt a lightness in my soul, I raised my arms, I laughed loudly, and if my feet had left the ground and I had started flying over the rugged peaks and foaming surf I would not have been startled. But I descended the cliff more slowly, the traditional way, looking for solid footing on a gravelly steep path. On the way down I passed groups of beautiful hippies sitting together, talking, laughing, singing, snuggling.

At the bottom of the cliff I looked in wide-eyed wonder into a sulfury hot spring accessible only during the lowest tide at full moon. Winter storms had tossed boulders into the spring and the tide was already coming back in, dumping cold ocean water into the warm spring. My baptism into this new reality had to be postponed but disappointment found no place in my heart on a night like this. I sat on a rock with two beautiful new friends, snuggled close to one while the other began singing to the rhythm of the incoming tide. I was almost too happy to sing, always on the verge of laughter, but then I joined her in singing my deepest heart song, MY song, a song I introduced to other before, but never before has anyone sung it to me. God only knows how much it meant to me that she chose this particular song:

Pure, pure like the water
Let it run forever more
To be clean, clean as the waves
comes crashing to the shore
It leave me smooth,
smooth as a pebble
polished in the depth of the rain
Carried by the winds of grace
On the wings of a dove

So shine, shine like diamond
reflect the light of One
From the Source we are set to the center
As the moon reflects the sun
Arise and awake from your slumber
Kindle ancient flames
As witness to the waves of what's to change
Though the essence remains the same

All eyes a-gaze
All fades away
All finds a way
All lies within

My new friend loves singing Shimshai songs. She has been a raw foodist longer than I have been an adult. She's traveled further and longer than I can imagine and has a wealth of stories that make me feel unexperienced, young, eager to learn and grow. She loves real chocolate, making raw foods for people, playing music, dancing, hiking in nature, and never goes anywhere without her dog. And she is part of a community of people who are like her - and like me. I don't stand out anymore, I fit in. For the first time in my life, I really fit into a community. I have come home to my tribe.

I hear my own thoughts uttered as I walk down the street. Snippets of conversation float through the air and catch my attention left and right:

"-best way to transition into raw, cause right now I am only about 70% but I've been including some superfoods, like-"
"-I think it's a cleansing reaction I've been going through, have you heard of these herbs-"
"-either the drum circle tonight or we could go to the dance-"
"-best place to go foraging, my favorite wild greens are-"
"-this energy healing session, it's based on the concept that-"

I need to start getting used to this new reality. If I keep turning my head every time I hear a conversation that fascinates me, I'll need a chiropractor soon. I keep joining conversations - at the health food store, on the street, at Cafe Gratitude. "What Are You Grateful For?" the bowls and plates as the cafe read. Well, how much time do you have? I know it's not a rhetorical question, not at Cafe Gratitude, but if I don't treat it as one, I might as well start sleeping at the cafe. I want to order every item on the menu, all at once - I Am Abundant, I Am Grateful, I Am Bliss, can I just order I Am All Of The Above? Do I really get to live in a place where I can go eat layered cream cakes and chocolate ice cream sandwiches that are 100% raw, vegan, healthy, and are named I Am Delighted and I Am Rapture?

My other friend shares my sentiments. Our stories are similar and sometimes when I look at him I feel like I am looking in a mirror. He speaks my thoughts before I ever had a chance to formulate them in my own head. He uses words I coined for myself, phrases I thought I made up - and they means the same thing to him that they mean to me. We both know what a raw chocolate hangover is and we have the same understanding of sacredness. I interrupt myself often because I am so used to explaining myself. I am new to this community where I am so easily understood. My standard disclaimer is "if I start laughing, don't think I am laughing AT you, it's just that I am so stoked to be having this conversation."

Saturday night I went from spontaneous bursts of laughter to crying. After climbing back up the cliff by moon light, lying on a blanket at the stop gazing at the starts and dreaming up visions of the future, I went to a Kirtan with my two new friends. I felt like I was back at Beloved Festival, only this was not a festival, this was a regular event in my home town. I chanted my mantra "I live here" and overflowed with gratitude - literally, tears streaming down my face. Overwhelmed fell asleep in the arms of my new cuddle partner.

Yesterday my fellow oompa loompa and I took the ferry to the city, walked down Haight Street, gazed down upon San Francisco from Twin Peaks, danced to the drums at the 4-20 circle in Golden Gate park, met an old friend from Santa Cruz, and ate at the original Cafe Gratitude in the mission district. We were served by the same waiter who asked me what my dreams for the future were last summer. Back then I told him that some day I would love to live in the bay area and work in the raw food world. Neither he nor I imagined I'd be back 6 months later, living in Marin county and working with Sacred Chocolate.

"I live here" - that is the mantra I chant when I start to get into overdrive and try seeing everything and meeting everyone all at once. "This is just the beginning" is my other mantra. I chant that when I encounter the exhaustion of being mother to this precious new life of mine. My new friend loaned me a vitamix, my roommate a bicycle, I am learning my way around, and one by one more pieces of the puzzle falling into place. I am in the midst of a whirlwind of change, a dozen new paths appearing, a dozen new choices, a dozen new opportunities, a dozen new impressions.

It is a new life, a new world. Sometimes I feel like it must be some avatar experiencing this, not my old self. I cracked a joke about the only thing missing being the glowing mushrooms of Pandora. The next day I was given directions to a part of Fairfax where glowing mushrooms grow. Maybe this is Pandora. Maybe this is just a dream. But this I know for sure: If this a Pandoran Dream, I don't ever want to wake up. Ever!