A lion on the horizon, a new self to shine in. This land is not for sale.

The sudden yellow feathers of weaver-birds reminding me of my resilience. I’m building a nest to live in. This land is not for sale.

Warm tortoises moving slowly in the sun, eating hibiscus blossoms. The quiet and growth of owning my privilege, of learning to be grateful, of doing more. This land is not for sale.

Shedding Skin and Selves

I’m almost at the end of my trip to Kenya. I will have spent almost a complete moon cycle here, a little more than one waning moon period, shedding skin and selves. Before coming I had reservations, about participating in what seems sometimes like exploitative tourism or expat living, the trash and development that goes along with it, the travel I no longer want to do by plane, but the land and people here have opened my heart in a way that I think makes it all worth it, and the people and the land here need the money and the visibility of something other then terrorism, something else than exploitation. So I’ll give voice to that, and do something about it. This is right in line with the eclipse – a surprising opening to love that changes one’s perspective and ones actions, from dark to light.

Taking Time To Process and Distill

It feels hard to summarize what I have discovered here and it may take some time to process and distill what I have learned. I made two essences, one, Hibiscus, about faith, in perfect time to counter what has been a continuous flow of bad news, pointing to death and stagnation. The second, a native Sandalwood, made in beautiful bush-land in Kajiado county at the home of dear lifelong friends’ of my parents (now mine), gave me an abundant message. She is appropriately good for transitions, crossing boundaries, moving to new and unknown realms:

This golden skin I’m in, translucent.
It’s very easy for me to detach.
I’m floating above the ground.
There is no ground, I’m floating,
the material world is abstract,
the spiritual is grounding,
what is ephemeral, solid.
It’s easy for me to detach.
I am peaceful in the midst of material difficulty and strife. I rise above, becoming more than my body.
It’s easy for me to detach.
I am sound and senses.
This golden skin I’m in, translucent.

The Intellectual Details

Funny, I think the flower’s message does indeed summarize my trip here, minus the intellectual details:

At an expat party, learning that helping women with menstrual health is difficult because many girls simply don’t have underpants in which to put the reusable pads a German gynecologist acquaintance wants to give away.

Clothes almost free in the markets, many of them coming from European charity shops: how Africa must deal with the results of so much inordinate consumption in Western countries, these piles and piles of clothes.

Money, so abundant in some areas here, is non-existent in others, so that prices are hugely variable; in a Masai village, being asked for 100 dollars for a visit, not wanting to pay it so negotiating it way down then buying lots of crafts from them anyways, knowing they will all share in the earnings. Being repulsed by this cultural tourism yet loving the sound and the colors and feelings and smiles that were shared with us anyways (these people still so connected to the land in its vibration).

Learning: cost is relative, we are all in this together, share!

Wonder and Humble Awareness of Exactly Where We Are At

Open, open, open up to the horizon and see as far as you can see so that every detail of the landscape could be an animal. Elephants! It was explained to me that the whites living here are mostly the ones involved in conservation because blacks think there are lots of animals here, and there are. I see them! Roaming families of elephants. Still the land is emptying of other beings as it fills with humans, you can feel it. There is only a few small steps between the feelings of abundance and those of lack. Where do I want to place myself within that? I adopted an orphaned elephant and didn’t mind giving my money to steal a giraffe kiss. I reveled in it and felt her prickly lips on mine for days. I suppose it comes to that: amazement and appreciation, wonder and humble awareness of exactly where we are at as a species on this planet. I interact as much as possible with the non-human. It reassures me.

This Land Is Not For Sale

This land is not for sale: the sign I most often saw on plots of land in Nairobi, to warn people of con-men selling plots that they don’t have any right to. The city is growing at an unimaginable speed, some areas, for as far as you can see, filled with concrete blocks rising up, which means the middle class is rising, but still, lots of girls can’t afford underwear (this thought keeps coming back). All the beds and couches for sale along the busy roads are directly linked to this new housing, and I think of all the trees required to supply furniture for this new middle class. Yet I notice how lush and green and giving the land is. On the road back to Nairobi from Lake Naivasha I notice the new tree plantations of non-indigenous trees in rows. Just as in more northern countries, this can't be good for the land. I think about the struggle of the giraffe; it can’t eat them and wouldn’t be welcomed on the land there. I imagine there used to be elephants everywhere.

Money Is Really Some Strange Kind of Magic

I try to understand salaries and the huge differences between, say, what I make in Switzerland and what a cook is paid in one of the cafés that cater to the affluent in Karen, their daily salary as much as one of the dishes on the menu. I can’t really understand that, other then to take it as confirmation that money is really some strange kind of magic that makes us feel either wealthy or poor, and act accordingly. I know how I want to feel about that.

I went to a girls’ school, Daraja Academy, near Nanyuki, where the girls were so thrilled to be learning; they wouldn’t have been able to go to high school if they hadn’t been chosen to attend. I helped the English teacher with some lesson planning and befriended the girl I shadowed. I loved our exchanges, her hopefulness and dreams, her realism too about her struggles and the struggles to come. Many girls get pregnant early here and have no choices about what they will become. We talked about wanting to change the world and how to do it. I felt understood. I think I’ll go back there to volunteer in the future. I understood why my father spent his life working for schools like that.

The Nest

Yesterday I gave lots of love to some babies at an orphanage, just for a little while. We had gone to pick up my niece from her community service. The place is called ‘The Nest', and if you are in Nairobi, you should go to their baby village and hold the babies there. They really appreciate it, looking up at you with their big eyes and reaching up, up. I think about all the babies, all the ones that don’t survive, all the ones that do, all of them becoming, moving around like us on the planet. My heart opens. I hope yours does too. I think really all we can do is allow for it and see what the consequences are.

The final message of Sandalwood and the Full Moon Eclipse which kept me up last night: I’m thankful for this experience and the ease with which I can be free.

(Originally posted January 21st, 2019)