In my search for some version of home, I spent the summer revisiting my Cornish roots. Not that I was born here, or have family from here. But its definitely a place of perspective shifts for me. Where I grew up, where I experienced connected-ness, where I first felt loss. Most significantly:
I caught my first wave perched onto a bodyboard when I was 16, and discovered the most wholesome, playful fun I could have since being a toddler.
I came to watch the eclipse when I was 18; thousands of people gathered on Fistral Beach waiting for the sunrise; surfers, hippies, families. I first encountered a hedonistic lifestyle that embraced the ocean as a way of living.
And when I was 21 and fresh out of University I moved into Matts Surf Lodge and came across a book called Conservations with God. It was my primary introduction to non dogmatic spirituality. I was transfixed.
And these aspects rooted deep inside me as a tokens to the essence of living: Ocean. Community. Spirit.
After several years and months floating around the globe, I finally decided to commit to becoming a surf coach and it was back to Newquay for this endeavour.
And so I guess here lies the roots for Eco.Yoga.Surf.
I have never been one for the city. Or even for the town. I tried, again and again, but ended up exhausted, overstimulated and overwhelmed , which is part of the parcel of being a “highly sensitive person”. I need a village, but with a solid, diverse tribe, an influx of creative ideas and energy and access to the wild, a variety of habitats that keep my cockles clear.
I have learnt this is what is referred to as an edge species.
Animals that live on the coastline, in the hedge, in the merging of two habitats, getting the best of both worlds.
And this is one of the principles in permaculture; to value the marginal.
I understand it more so now, because the edge is where the magic happens. It’s where the ground is most fertile, where the woodland provides shelter from the winter storms, where the trickling stream meets the salty shore, where the seabirds soar and cetaceans dance beneath the waves. There is food, there is play, there is safety, there is abundance, there is freedom.
And as I understand the edge more I also lean into these changing seasons, the shifting tides, the inevitable choice to join the temperate migration, adapt or hibernate.
It is in these places, their boundaries melting into one another, that I feel most “at home”.
Finally, I have found where I belong.
"Where is home?
… home is not a place
Nor a space found somewhere
Or an illusionary feeling of having a base.
Home is a state of mind.
Where souls meet the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual dance of oneness …
Home is a state of being
Where time bends dissolving itself
Into love embrace.
That is home."
by Christina Kayla Paes
I have chosen to move from one edge to another. From the Cornish coastline, abundant in salt and minerals; sand and earth; gorse and heather… to the foot of the majestic Mount Blanc. The first snow has already fallen and I am heading back to the French Alps clean and clear about my intentions. The season does not begin until another few weeks so there is time for some exploring.
I write this from the edge of the leuser ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia. But that’s for another time…