On Breath, SoulStrolling, & Two Pandemics

by Kayce Stevens Hughlett

The questions I often awaken with: What is my place in the world? What am I called to do? What is uniquely mine to offer? Do I, will I, can I make a difference? And the biggest question of all is “How?” And then I pause, I take a deep breath. I’m reminded to take one step at a time, one breath at a time, one action and moment at a time. Only here. Only now. This settles me for a minute or two, sometimes ten, maybe a day or a week (depending on where I am in the world). Bali settles me. Croatia did too. Paris, yes. 

In each of these places I was able to find, explore, and settle into my own rhythm. The rhythm of SoulStrolling. Ah, yes. There it is. The place where I settle. Not vacating, but diving into the core of who I am. Like falling off a great cliff with intention. A foreword dive, a backward release. A step into the horizon that seems so close yet is so far in the distance. 

A scene emerges in my mind. The excruciating pain of trying to get to the coast of Croatia. My body remembers. Earlier that morning, my friend Sharon and I stood on the peak, the highest pinnacle of that gorgeous and tormented country. For days, we had walked through forests without map or compass, lost and wandering, following blue butterflies as omens and trail guides. We scaled muddy hills and sang “Defying Gravity” while we circled another peak we could not quite reach. The earth gurgled and I swore I was going to be sucked into the underworld like Persephone abducted by Hades. We hobbled into a village after 8 hours of hiking only to find every restaurant and shop closed because it was Tuesday. Tuesday? WTF? 

I laugh as I think of the excruciating miles we journeyed on that trip. Hiking for an entire day (our first) trying to use GPS coordinates and find cell signals and decipher the map that was covered in plastic to keep the persistent rain from destroying it, only to find that we’d missed the entire first page of instructions. It wasn’t that the map didn’t make sense, it was that we’d missed about twenty steps and turns. Yet, amazing as it was, we made it to our destination. It wasn’t the most efficient way, but who’s to say it was the wrong way? I recall poking through a bit of brush (is this a trail?) and stepping into the meadow that for years I’d been envisioning in my drum journeys. It was a place I’d been invited to visit where I felt safe and at ease. It’s the place where I see my ancestors, both those before me and those who are coming after, sitting and dancing and talking and stringing daisy chains together. It is a place of safety that until that moment when I was “lost” I had never before physically seen. 

How do I explain that? Not easily. It is the act of SoulStrolling, it either resonates or doesn't or perhaps it will one day. Time is not linear. Croatia was a land where time spiraled and swirled around me, like the winds and rain that showed up nearly everyday and the locals who exclaimed how unusual it was. I don’t know. 

All of our stays were on top of hills. So many hills and buckets of rain and the most extreme hospitality anywhere reside on that exquisite peninsula. Oh I wish I could be there now, walking through the forests, placing my hand on gnarled trees, watching ghosts trail along beside us, wondering if we were friend or foe. The forests were filled with ghosts and the blood of extermination, genocide, war. No, there were not visible markers, but there were times when I knew as solidly as I could see my feet on the ground that I was not standing there alone. There were moments I was compelled to stop and place my hand upon a tree and restore my energy, a soul recharge so to speak, that was more powerful than any snack or drink of water ever was. Living sacrifice and offering. It’s like a deep breath of fresh air after being submerged beneath water for a second too long. Gasping, opening, filling with life. The trees did that for me through their bark and my hands. 

My hands that have touched so much, written thousands of words, painted pictures, and fed my family. Hands that continue to arrive and arise even now in the most unexpected ways. Hands as container, as ritual, as signs of age and elder hood. Deep breath. 

I sat down to write (or is it right?) about where I am now, how I heal, what is my place, and I find myself pondering Croatia and hands. It feels like the Fool’s journey, this path of the unknown. A magic wand waiting to be made or followed. The tree people of Croatia, the slaves I sensed and wept for in Cuba as I stood looking at a tower that was once used to monitor the enslaved people working the tobacco and sugar cane fields. My companions thought I’d lost my mind as I hurriedly wove my way back to the bus. I could not stand on that desecrated land where human beings were dehumanized. I felt like Lady MacBeth with blood on my hands that no amount of washing could clear. I feel a bit like that today. 

I sense the world through the earth. Through my hands and feet. Through touch and heart. Hugs and intuition. Through centuries and thin space. I’ve felt it too in sacred places. The Pueblo outside of Taos. Notre Dame. Ireland’s Burren and the hills surrounding Glendolough, the Tower of London. I’ve held stones that speak in my hands and watched bees arrive in the most unexpected of places: The Sinai Desert, a window frame in chilly Tuscany. I’ve been criticized for my relationships with creatures and ghosts, because … why? Because it is inexplicable or unsettling. A young reviewer from Western Europe criticized one interaction with a bee. When I wrote that the bee was there for me, she declared I had visions of grandiosity. Perhaps I do. Hurray for me! May we all have moments of sheer delight and grandiosity when we believe the world is showing up only for us. 

These are the moments that have saved me. The moments I paused to take a breath, reach out a hand and feel dirt or bark beneath my palm, to open my car roof and feel the wind flow through my hair and whisk away all errant thoughts of hopelessness. Those moments of grandeur that arise and say: Anything is possible! Those are the moments I need, and I’ll be so bold as to say, WE need right now. The moments where we step outside of ourselves, when we fall into the sea that beckons us, when we release any knowledge of right doing or wrong doing and come up from the airless space that covid and systemic racism leave us and we BREATHE. Deep full gasping inhales of all that surrounds us—beauty, racism, despair, and hope. Like baby robins opening our mouths to receive a squiggling worm. We are hungry. I believe we are hungry for deep truth, connection, understanding, rest, harmony, and peace. Our world and earth are gurgling and threatening to swallow us. They are offering warning signs that we must heed.  

I don’t know really. I don’t know what my place is, but I believe it is to see and feel and touch and be moved by the world. All of the world. Travel has healed and opened me up like nothing before. So today, I ponder how I continue forward when my wings have been clipped by covid and my passport put on permanent hold. I do it here now, with each word, memory, phrase, and breath. I wake up and meditate. I read about social justice and cancel culture. I create next steps. I watch our so-called Leader spin words as vapid as cotton candy (my apologies to cotton candy and its lovers). I put words to paper, I pray, and I express gratitude for the sunshine that glints on the prayer flags in my backyard. I see Nepal and India in those flags. I hear the call to prayer. I feel my bottom on hard stone and remember the trail of bloody sacrifice, goats and chickens. I see a charming Nepalese sprite dancing in a pink t-shirt that says, “I Love Paris.” Tears form in my eyes. Me too, baby girl, me too. Je t’aime. 

I'm listening to:

• See No Stranger: A Memoir & Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur

"Everyone has a role in the labor of birthing a new America." Valarie Kaur

""Pain that is not transformed is transferred," says Franciscan priest Richard Rohr."

I'm reading:

•   all about love by bell hooks

"Without justice here can be no love." bell hooks 

"The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be." bell hooks

• The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd (a novel) 

"Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice." Ana, wife of Jesus (Sue Monk Kidd) 

• My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem 

"Micro-agressions are the small but relentless things people do to insult or dismiss us or deny our experiences or feelings. If you've ever been deliberately ignored by a sales clerk, or questioned harshly and at length by a border patrol agent, or told, "I've never seen that happen; you must have imagined it," you experienced a micro-aggression." Resmaa Menakem 

I'm offering:

Shelter in Place Specials of my books and SoulStrolling Inspiration deck