I went to the beach to live deliberately. . .

With apologies to Henry David Thoreau. . .

I went to the beach because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

I am having the most extraordinary time here in Cape Town. Every astrology conference is special but to live in a beach house and to be able to swim in the Atlantic Ocean pretty much whenever I like makes this conference totally remarkable.
And of course, this boy (Nick Dagan Best) who makes me laugh. . .and blush 50 shades of red:

And this man (Rob Hand) who attended my lecture on astrology and education and said it was brilliant:

And this man (Ehsan Kh) who blows this horn when he's happy and wants me to help him translate some Persian scholarship into English:

And this woman (Naomi Bennett) who is the only person I have seen on four different continents:

My peeps (Ehsan Kh, Michelle Gould, Samuel Reynolds, Richard Fidlar, Ana Carrapichanno) who I am so blessed to know and work and play with:

And these beautiful peeps. . .

I'm having such an extraordinary time that when my school told me (via email to the supply agency) they had found a cheaper replacement, my only regret was that I had bought a return ticket to London.

But now I'm not going back to London. At least not just yet.

Those last two sentences took a lot of vacillation until I came to the realisation everything was going to be okay here in South Africa. And I don't have to leave this beautiful place just yet.

But it has taken some time to make a decision.

What do I do when I feel I can't make up my mind? I head to water!

So today I went to the beach, took my shoes off and let the Atlantic Ocean talk to me. I saw a pretty shell that I picked up to admire, went to wash the sand off--and a wave knocked it out of my hand. I was disappointed but resigned myself to the fact it was not going to come back to me.

So I walked on.

And a few steps later, I found an even bigger, prettier shell. I picked that one up and rinsed it. But I managed to hold onto it. In fact, I brought it back with me to remind me that there are bigger things out there if we can let go of the smaller things. There are bigger things for me here. I have bigger work to do and I know that teaching was exhausting me mentally and I needed space to make things work. I know I could return to London and walk into another supply teaching post at any time. But I am not going to do that. I am going to do readings and workshops here in South Africa until I feel I am on the path I am meant to be on. I will not be afraid and I will not let doubt defeat me.

So today I went to the beach because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

And I will take this pretty shell with me to remind not worry about small losses.