The Path to Peace

The Path To Peace:

About a year ago I bought some raw land in the national forest. It is paradise to me, the place where I have felt the most at ease in my whole life- mind, body and soul, maybe the first place I have ever truly relaxed. 

I bought the land, not sure of what I would do with it, but sure that I wanted to take some space from the small city of Asheville I’ve been living in for about 20 years, and sure that I wanted some space to grow food, herbs, and flowers. Some space.

Some space is what I wanted and that is about how far I have gotten one year in.

Plans of building structures (preferably one to live in) and planting trees, shrubs, etc right away quickly fell to the wayside as I realized in order to shift my land from a sunny meadow to a thriving homestead, I didn’t just need a clearer path for the meadow, I needed a clearer path for my life. 

I realized that after juggling multiple income sources in customer service for 20 years in a small, tourist reliant city, enduring Covid-19 and Hurricane Helene in the service industry, multiple family losses, and parenting teenagers during a time of political instability, I found myself fully burned out, my energy sources depleted, and anything other than Yoga and service has felt like a waste of my good time. 

I don’t want to make the choices I have to make about building on the land while trying to manage so much at once, and simply can no longer function with my energy and time so scattered. 

So after a year of walking the land, mulling, resting, trying and quitting a bunch of side jobs, reading and immersed in Yoga, I have come back to this practice as the path I want to focus on, full time, whether it’s from the forest or from India. It is the path to my peace, and the best way that I can make myself available to service and to others. 

My main accomplishment on the meadow for the past year was walking around, observing, making paths with my feet. Noticing the shape and the slope of the land, where the water collects, where I can always find some animal tracks, shade and privacy, the best places to cool off in the creek, the flattest, sunniest place I can dry out muddy boots or charge my solar devices. 

And always the path to the Yoga mat, and the imprints left after what I could only guess would be thousands and thousands of sun salutations, steps and hops forward, and millions of intentional breaths, subtle movements and adjustments, and however brief, the sweet sweet moments of clarity and stillness between thoughts, if we are lucky. 

These moments of clarity, when we can find them, and if we can lengthen them, create paths in our minds to neuroplasticity, paths to peace. Clearer paths to the vision of our future, responding over reacting, and fortitude in a seemingly increasingly fragile world. 

During the time when I had all of this on my mind and was working on a Yoga asana class around the idea, I came across this Jon Stewart interview with Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah, co-authors of the book, The Future of Peace. The talk stopped me in my tracks and reminded me why I came to this practice of Yoga and this life of amplifying non-violence.

When Maoz describes his dream of the “path to peace”, at around the 6 minute mark (if you have time listen to the whole thing!), I was gobsmacked. The paths I was making were suddenly meaningless, all my worries greedy. 

Please listen. If you have kids or parents, show them, listen to these vioces:

Recently I got to hear Aziz Abu Sarah speak at UNCA campus, and got my book signed.

Here were some of my takeaways: 

• Legitimize and amplify symbols and voices of peace, peacebuilding, and solutions-based strategies 
• Not to spend energy debating semantics around language, catchphrases, etc- when people are dying, pivot the conversation back to solutions, peace and peacebuilding tactics that legitimize the integrity of the humans being harmed on all sides.
• It is not borders or religion that divides us: “If you must divide us, let it be as those who believe in peace and equality, and those who don’t…yet”  -Abu Sarah 
• Vote ohmygosh just frickin vote. 

Receiving a travel ticket from Aziz felt like a beautiful and auspicious blessing, just a few days before I venture off to South Asia to immerse myself in Yoga, goddess worship, and a very different lifestyle (or maybe not?). I wonder whether we will find ourselves more connected or more divided. 

There is so much instability in the United States and the world, and as the old saying goes “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention”. It’s hard manage so much at once and know how to feel or how to respond.

Choosing a path of non-violence might sound wholesome but it is the most challenging AND the most rewarding in my opinion. It’s not just resisting the physical violence we know we can be capable of, or protesting wars, it’s taking accountability for words, assumptions, the way that our actions create subsequent reactions and what that means. It is not for the faint of heart, but for me it is easier than trying to defend hatred.

Before I go any further on my path in Western North Carolina, there is somewhere else I have to go, where I hope I can learn how to exist as an American trying to parent and be successful during a time of massive doubt and instability.

Namaste ~