The Wisdom of the Mud: Finding My Way Through the Slow Down

I never expected oxen to teach me how to build a life, but here we are. The rains have turned my Costa Rica building site into a river of mud. Trucks stalled. Work halted. A frustrating failure of machines and a clock still ticking on deadlines. And then my brilliant project manager sent me a photo that made me gasp. This photo will be framed and live as an important part of the story of this journey. He stepped back to look and the problem and then went old school ...

Oxen. Two huge, amazing creatures with a cart, defying modern solutions and cutting edge technology. Animals from before the time of our relentless pursuit of speed and efficiency simply using their ancient strength to do what modern machinery could not.  And from the adornments of these animals it is clear that they are respected and that they have a valued, warm connection with the handler that walks beside them, hand on hide, connected to their slow, steady progress. This is a return to the basics, to nature and to relationship.

This tableau speaks to my life right now. My well worn habits and ways of trucking myself through life have been muddied by a landslide of complexity and change. I no longer own a home, I no longer tread the worn path of climbing the stairs to my office, heading out for my daily walk, greeting neighbors as I go, tending to renters and managing Airbnb guests. I can't work my life by reflex because nothing is in the "same" place. Once a day I discover that I gave away that thing I thought I needed today when I moved.

Moving forward with necessary tasks is bogged down right now by the deeply distracting muddied paths in my mind. Nothing is automatic. 

So my call is go old school. To treat my brain to 3 choices of mug for my morning coffee instead of 2 dozen. To prioritize rest as my nervous system is jostled and taxed all day long. What is emerging is respect for my brain, for my body, for my entire person and my life. I am reentering into a relationship with myself that I lost along the way as I treated her like a machine to propel me through my days - a mechanism instead of a beloved animal. Now I am thinking about feeding her and bedding her down and speaking kindly to her and not over taxing her.

It is a sweet return, and in fact more of a connection than I have ever felt to this organic dance with my life.

Maybe all of us are being invited to go a little more "old-school" - to let the pace of the next chapter be dictated by the strength of our foundation, not the urgency of instant accomplishment.