First, I notice the sunflowers.
I see the sunflowers and the sunflowers see me.
(“See and be seen,” my improv teacher encourages in scenes.)
These friendly fluttering blooms wave a bright hello, an airport greeting party welcoming me back to Austin.
Second, I notice the green lushness of a Texas summer, not shriveled and dried out by anticipated heat, but replenished by the grace of rain.
Over the notes of classical music flowing from the cab’s stereo, the driver gently explains the softening in the weather and the forecast for the week.
I packed well, I muse out-loud.
I pack a seed of intention for my journey: REPLENISH. This guiding intention fabulously assists in the outfit organizing. Rompers for roaming in and out of sun and shadows, floral dresses that are breezy, and a jean jacket for the blasts of AC.
REPLENISH. This intention clarifies why I am going, collaborates in decision-making (which choice replenishes me?), and establishes the tone for the journey.
Then I let go, release, move my control-oriented ego kindly out of the way.
I root in the light and travel lightly, on the winds of synchronicities, surprises, divine orchestration that simply asks I be present, attentive and kindly open-hearted, especially toward myself.
Let expectations be cracked, continuously.
I wish to be in the vivid reality of an Austin returned to, not a city ghostly remembered and retraced, but one now reexperienced as the embodied Star-Being I am now.
And I’ve been careful about the coloring moods of my expectations. I’ve been curious about what emotions would emerge while returning to a city as a visitor.
I lived in Austin for four summers (let’s track time by the summers, by the transmutations escalated by the scorching heat).
I follow a soul-call to the Lone Star State.
I hear the soul-call, and the soul-call hears my readied response.
(“Hear and be heard,” she tells us, and to let the hearing channel through our ears, to let the sounds come to us.)
This whisper rattled through my bones, perpetually and persistently beckoning me to go. The idea conflicted with the logic of my outer world, uprooted and tossed to chance, but to not answer the call would have broken my spirit.
I journey to Austin as a maiden – the feminine archetype of innocence, a daring quest for adventure and independence, trusting in the external and outwardly focused on my doing.
I pack lightly for that move. And…
Texas catalyzes creativity.
Texas burns and blesses.
Texas teaches me the life-saving significance of self-love.
Austin is chickens, late-night reruns of “Mozart in the Jungle,” the distinct quality of light that streams through trees, a bulldog named Lunchbox, the coffee shops where I am surrounded and anonymous, it’s clustered streets driven at twilight to Khalid, the brimming blackness and spotlight joy of an improv stage, the taste of tacos drenched in the spiciest salsa I can stand, a grand library with a rooftop garden.
And then my soul calls the scene. Tells me it’s time to leave and I agree.
I agree even though I’ve finally gotten where I wanted to go, and do what I’ve been wanting to do -- teaching yoga and improv. Even though my work aligns with purpose and joy, there’s a quiet concern about a tangle of conditionings I sense and know do not serve, but are full-force operating behind the scenes. These patterns will keep me closed, constricted, on an autopilot reaction that does not allow for unconditional LOVE.
My soul told me it was time to leave Austin. And I don’t grieve because I had lived here in such lush gratitude and deep devotion. I lived my life there intensely.
And in that intensity, I move into my mystic archetypal energy and plant my feet down into home ground and shift the gaze toward the inner landscape.
I become a bride to the subconscious. I’m now ready to receive and integrate difficult truths and experience a freeing clarity that comes with objectively seeing – patterns, conditions, dynamics – all the blockages to Love that have been built within me, and the remedy is in re-remembering and resetting in the all-inclusive vastness and depths of the Higher Heart.
I do shadow work. Soften, tremendously. Fortify in my inherent sovereignty.
I return to Austin in my Queen archetype energy. The intention to replenish comes from my inner queen – a worthiness embodied that chooses support, trusts the wisdom of ease, and royally rejoices in the pleasures of being alive, activated, awake to the riches around and within.
Third, I notice the inner inquiry that happens almost instantly.
Unpacked and settled, the compassionate check-in arises organically, and the response leads to walking familiar streets painted in sunset.
Present and open, life streams through me. I am not seeking old routes, I am not hungering for something that once was. I am very awake to what-is. And in rhythms unplanned, my feet bring me to the neighborhood church.
This is an unexpected reunion. This humble church is one of the last remaining original structures from the Freedman’s community of Clarksville.
My heart reveres the serene power of this church, and bows to respect the presence of the freed Black people of Clarksville who would start their Sunday worship service by singing hymns on their front porches.
I learn this history last summer, while on another walk illuminated in sunset. I move through syrupy heat, my steps breaking the eerie quiet of that 2020 spring. My feet take me here to the front yard of the church. I’m immediately magnetized to its gentle strength, to its emanating pulse simultaneously propelling me through the layers of Texas history that surround me and also heightening my awareness of the times I am living in and my place in this ongoing story.
Tonight, I’m overcome with a sudden urge to press my hands into the white wooden panels, to touch the walls that listen to the prayers of the past and present, and to be touched by the prayers of people living in the ripples of ongoing history.
I step closer, into shadows, heart-leaping and hesitant.
The moon watches.
Fingertips touch the front porch’s rail and the front porch’s rail touches me.
(“Touch and be touched,” my improv teacher instructs when we interact with space objects, invisible creations born out of air.)
Finally, I notice there’s a crescent moon crowning the church’s steeple.
For a second, I regret not having my camera, but then I release that desire, and I breathe the snapshot of the moment into living memory.
The Universe sends an encouraging wink with a crescent moon: a reminder to trust our feet, to follow the nudges and the turns with intentional steps and an open-heart, to be in the ever-changing currents of life so we can move forward in alignment with Love.
And love is freedom, and freedom is the human spirit noticing the sunflowers and breathing in the vitalizing newness of the crescent moon.