sweet humid heat

The Pocket, NSW

I LOVE THIS HUMID HEAT.

You probably think I'm crazy? Or lying? But honestly, the humid heat here is the best. It is literally hugging my body. It is hugging my body oh so sweetly. It is hugging my body like the hug I shared with Terence when I first arrived in Australia 8 days ago--stimulating my joy, inspiring relaxation, igniting excitement, kissing me with history, gently opening my heart, and inspiring the desire for sweat stained skin and giggles in a cold shower. The rain here certainly takes care of the showering part though! I didn't realize that it rains as much as it does here...​and it is so nice. A perfect refuge when the heat becomes a bit too much. It has sprinkled down numerous times each day, and (as Terence likes to put it) pissed down hard many times as well. Ahh that Aussie charm. 

Terence and I spent our first few days in Brisbane with his family—eating hella mangoes, having dinners drenched in the witty-biting-charm of his mum and siblings, and going for long walks around the neighborhoods in the mornings. We are, in a way, rediscovering each other after being apart for one month. So time with his family filled up one part of my heart, but this other part was needed...

We're now at an Airbnb in The Pocket in New South Wales together for 8 nights. All that can be heard is the breeze, the bugs and the birds. It is this gorgeous little getaway experience—with nature, with each other, with ourselves. An opportunity to do whatever the fuck we want, without being beholden to anyone or anything. Ahhhhhh....

We've spent most of the days naked or in a swimsuit--cuz we're either swimming through this humidity or this rain!--lounging around the house, eating more mangoes, napping or reading or watching this wonderfully silly tv show called People of Earth. We have explored beaches and towns nearby, and made a visit to my favorite secret waterfall spot in the forest (featured above) which I was introduced to last year—the place where I am certain fairies are born. We have made yummy meals with the food from local organic shops in Byron Bay, featuring lamb, beets, sweet potato, rice, bok choy, and my once arch-nemesis-turned-best-friend, sauerkraut. There has unfortunately been an instance of food poisoning since we've been here... Terence got sick and we are still investigating what it was. ​It was the salami Teagan! No, it must've been the kefer...NO. It was the CASHEWS. Definitely, the cashews. He makes me laugh. Truth be told, whatever it was, Terence moved through it like a champ slash devoted monk. Listening to the signals from his body, and actively inviting it instead of fighting it, he cleared that shit out thoroughly and effectively. It was almost like it was a ceremonial purging—which, in a way, I can't deny that it was—so much so that he said he had visions. Damn. I both admire and am amused by the way this man can experience profound learning from the things the rest of us so often dismiss as unnecessary. Nice work, my love.

After being here in The Pocket for 5 days, this feeling of raw exposure that the humid heat is offering me is such a surprising and welcome gift. I'm on my last day of menstruation, feeling the bloating and pudge of my belly as I walk around butt ass naked—and actually, genuinely, adoring it. I used to feel the need to hide behind certain clothing when my body went through this phase. Wrestling with the shame and self judgement that this isn't how I look most of the time, so I should hide this from the world. And the fucking exhaust of that pattern; influenced by the media and stories a part of me welcomes in, while another part of me knows it pushes away a radiance of my being. With it too hot and damp to wear pants (or anything at all), I'm able to see the amazingness of all of my body in its pure rhythms. And I love that Terence is witnessing me in this as well. I am struck with the resonant truth that rests deeper than my insecurities that I am in one of my most natural states of beauty like this: sweaty, bleeding, and bare. That there is no need to hide, from myself or my partner. And that I am actually celebrating this time of the month now. 

So yes. This heat is divine. And it is a surprisingly delightful teacher, influencing my time with myself and with Terence. It's not necessarily a simple thing to reconnect with a partner after a month in two very different parts of the world, especially when the reconnecting time is overlapping with some solo-decompression time. But we have been finding some flow between the processing and the play, feeling the blessed heat and how it makes us sweat out all our junk whether we meant to or not. And sweating it all out with my caring, patient, quite remarkable partner, fills my soul with gratitude and a sense of ease. The whole experience so far has been rightfully, and deliciously sweaty! ​Yum!