I was weeping in savasana the other evening, and had a very clear thought: I need to take a grief trip. So I cleared my measly schedule and left town for just a few days, toward the place nearest me that has the most space: the desert.
It was so so so hot in the desert until very recently, and now it’s getting very cold. It’s that very ping pong of extremes that makes it a very special space.
You may or may not have heard that it’s an eclipse season. We’re in a two-week portal between eclipses, and they say it’s a good time to just take some space. It’s also the season of Scorpio, who loves depth, and depth needs space too.
The morning I was headed to the desert, like a bootcamp rat trained to extinguish the small red alert on my Settings button at any cost, I mindlessly agreed that Apple should upgrade my laptop’s operating system. From Peppercorn to Dinkler, which is what the new OS is called, I’m fairly certain. (Oh you haven’t upgraded to Dinkler yet? Yiiiiiikes, it’s gonna get buggy.)
These things take time, right? Updating, upgrading, and rebooting allllll of our operating systems. It takes lifetimes, actually. And we have to do it a bunch. In the Apple realm, maybe an hour or so? In any case, time, and you literally can’t rush it. So I’m not sure why I made this choice 25 minutes before I needed to leave. My poor OS was mid-upgrade when I had to go: I pulled the plug, closed the screen, and hit the road.
When I arrived in the desert and re-opened her up, I found myself in a worm hole. My operating system was confused. Like an elevator stuck between floors, the doors tentatively opening and closing. Eery, dangerous, a little sad. It wasn’t this, it wasn’t that. My lil’ laptop was stuck between Peppercorn and Dinkler and would only open in recovery mode. But “recovery mode” is a golden second chance to get it together. Your computer’s hail Mary, shaking you lovingly and firmly by the shoulders, “listen to me! you need to get yourself together! be real here!!”
Things aren’t dire but they could be!
It’s dawning on me that I’ve been in recovery mode — and maybe so have you — more than I’ve realized. It’s OK! In recovery mode, not everything is possible, but the most important things are. You get the time and space to get yourself together and start again.
With my laptop in recovery mode, my only option was to re-engage the upgrade. This time, instead of taking about an hour, it informed me it’d require 23 hours and 23 minutes. Exactly. OK then. Let’s wait, give it/me/you/everything space.
Everybody just needs some sssss p a c e right now .
I’m not sure what is going on energetically in my computer during this time in “recovery mode,” but I gave my system the extra 22 hours it now needed to update and upgrade. I imagine this version of the upgrade is perhaps like a slow, meandering trip down memory lane and out into the cosmos of what could and will be, time and space collapsing and all that, with some ambient house music playing in the background. I’ll never know, and I’m OK with that!
Giving and taking space comes with a lot of not knowing. Patience in the desert, bathed in space. Recovering and upgrading. Find it and take it yourself, too, if you want. See ya there.
sending healing hugs during your grief journey. PS - where did you stay that place looks beautiful and serene.