Sleep

Before

     We've moved our sleep up-land. I've always felt our main house was not entirely healthy for us, I've always wanted to sleep closer to the Oaks. This week we bought a king sized futon (organic cotton, no flame retardent please), flopped it on the floor of our cob studio and were delighted to discover you could still open the door without banging into the foot of the bed.
     The first thing I noticed, laying there as the sun hid behind the tree tops, after I noticed the silence (OK the neighbors threw a party so the silence was a little late in coming), is how good it feels to rest without the presence of electricity. There is a kind of kinesthetic silence cob communicates. My intestines started to relax. Weird.
     The next thing I noticed, was the delicious heaviness of everything. I started to feel more like mud than man, more like earth than individual.

Now...after I made the bed.

     We had enough room to fit Bella's dog bed to one side, Tabitha the cat will probably take more coaxing, no rush there. Tadg was excited not only by the adventure of sleeping somewhere new, but by sleeping in a bed big enough to hold all of us. Though we practice attachment parenting he's been sleeping in a bed besides ours for almost a year now. Mornings usually began with a pre-dawn negotiation:

"Papa, can I come into your bed now?"
"No, its too early."
"Pleeeaaaaasseeeee."

     Several rounds of this inevitably lead to a 'vaulting over Papa' demonstration of athleticism. Sleeping in a pack, though often annoying and occasionally stinky, feels inherently healthy. The futon hides none of the earthen floor's presence, its kingly size allows for cuddling and space, the pack finds its shape and breathes together.
     So far we've been sleeping so well we're all pretty much up at dawn, the time I usually creep quietly out for my morning ritual of prayer and dance. Now we start the day together, tromping through the garden to let out the chickens and put on the hot water. Terry likes the walk down hill the most, perhaps a ritual unto itself.
     We have plans for a proper sleeping lodge up here, as well as an outdoor kitchen. Healing calls us here now, an invitation to peace and nourishment only the land can give. I think we'll learn a lot about what our next dwelling should look like by spending time here. I think our little pack will have time to find a deeper rythme that will feed us all.

May you sleep deeply and well in the arms of our Great Mother Earth as this full moon approaches.