Sustainability « The Gypsy Life

As a modern day gypsy living from pillar to post was not on my top ten Bucket List items. I had the following dreams instead: I had things on my list like getting an Oscar, writing a bestseller, seeing the caves of Damanhur, going to Antarctica, and winning the lottery, of course. But I won the lottery the minute I said yes to my heart and left normal life, as most of us know it.

I have been having a life on the road that is dotted with awe-inspiring, jaw dropping beauty, kind-hearted people, challenging culture shocks, language barriers and physical limitations. I chronicle how different I feel when I live in the city versus what my body changes into when I live in the jungle here in Costa Rica. Not a day anywhere is the same as the day before.

I have grown to know two certainties in my life: That all you can count on is change. And secondly, that love is the only real human currency. Money can in fact, not matter. When I can focus on these two things then fear can’t take a foothold. If every encounter I have is rooted in love and each moment of change is embraced then there is no way to contract from what life dishes out on a daily basis. Everything becomes a way of learning about self and other, about having and not having, about what the soul truly needs in order to thrive.

This is why I am a gypsy. I value experience far above stability and job security. As a result, my mind cannot become entrenched in the cultural mind, cannot feed on bad news, or really run the show in my life at all. Living and navigating by intuition and a spirit of “Yes” is a heart-based matter. Living in the heart takes courage and is a bit like “spelunking” into caves that are dark and unclear with the full knowledge that you are tethered to a large Universe that has only your wellbeing and growth in mind.

But one of the hidden benefits of living a nomadic life with few possession and estimating real wealth as beauty, spirit, new friends, new opportunity and an adventurous spirit, is it changes your physical chemistry. The body is not a vehicle just to get me from one country to the next, but is completely tuned to the vibration at which I live when I am inspired and challenged. Those experiences raise endorphins, change brain chemistry, metabolism, and virtually every cell in the body.

Living as a modern gypsy insists on total integration of mind, body and heart humming forward as one unit with the life battery being the soul. I don’t know how I could go back to living any other way.

September 15, 2011 Writing this blog has already changed my life. I found myself moving into thoughts and questions that were not my intention in the beginning. That’s the beauty of blogging. The very first Blog I attempted was in 2008 as I had moved in to live with my dying Mother and found myself wanting to jump out the window at least ten times a day before I settled into what the Universe was wanting to show me. www.theheartspaceblog.com introduced me to the power of personal experience, the power of the Internet and the open canvas for a writer like myself.

In 2010 I met a challenge of raising money to go to South Africa and study the White Lions of Timbavati with Linda Tucker and in less than one week I had shared my vision, written on the rare opportunity to visit the White Lions and had raised all the money I needed to fly to South Africa, al through the blog http://www.whitelionwisdom.com. Now I embark on a new adventure and will chronicle it on The Gypsy Life.

I am sitting out on the balcony under trees that are suggesting a storm coming and excited to embark on sharing with you all how a year as a Gypsy is already changing the way I think and feel. I woke in the night after watching http://www.climaterealityproject.org and added a page to this blog called “Yes to 365 Small Steps”. This commitment to addressing one issue on living a simple, small and sustainable life every single day, for 365 days, will help me be informed, responsible, challenged and personally accountable. I hope it will be an inspiring and creative journey for you.

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Blessings,

Maya