If you can't touch earth...

go eat a bowl of Holy Cornflakes

Before I got temporarily halted for reasons unknown in this dust bowl town in the middle of nowhere desert Mexico, I was (and still am somewhere in there) an herbalist. Healer. Organic grower and homesteader.

I chew plantain leaf (not the banana, the weed) and stick it on wasp bites. I tincture wild berries from trees and ask the tree if I may. I use salt water compresses for most everything, I took out my mercury fillings in 2018, do detox liver supporting protocols and stand barefoot on the earth/sand to discharge bad chi when I can. I make my own toothpaste. I’m not obnoxious about it I swear. Maybe a little.

But I’m losing my mojo.

Really I’m losing my shit but for woo woo sake, we’ll say mojo. It’s Spring and even in a town where there are very few signs of season change from month to month the animals know. The pack dogs are wilding. My inside spayed dogs are freaking out too because it’s mating season like you’d see with Elk in the forest. Suzy, despite TWO surgeries is still spotting and having faux heat. Everyone is trying to disassemble the kitchen because there’s a mouse in the wall. It hasn’t rained since 2023 and there is dust piled on everything. Clothes to my laptop. I sweep, mop and dust daily if not twice.

It’s louder than usual and crazier than usual in town and my nice, docile dogs are trying to crash the gates to chase dogs I’ve never seen before running amok, contracts for renters have ended and people are moving out of houses where they had befriended strays who are now wondering where the food is. Many new puppies have been born. The weather is 70 degrees and sunny. Everyone including my 60 year old widow neighbor is shaking their ass with a new lover.

Spring Break and Mexican Semana Santa is coming and dune buggies who race down on the sea of Cortez are in town and everything is loud, teenager focused and Taki Chip flavored.

I hate all of it.

There is nothing for me in this town except to be of service to abandoned dogs and after 3, is it 4? years, I’ve burnt out to a literal crisp.

I don’t sleep at night and I get up at 4 so I can have some peace before neighbors like the metal grinding guys and the carpentry factory place with belt sanders and saws next to the mechanic get going. I wear earplugs all the time.

They are likely big jobs that are temporary and a few weeks in, it’s a poor area I always like to see folks have good work. But no one wants to hear grinders and bandsaws 12 hours a day. Oh, 150 hollow core doors for the Marine base? Cool. Zoning exists (in some areas, not here) for a reason.

An abandoned house behind me is being remodeled and old stone shacks get a sledgehammer and a bunch of dudes who whistle and yell things to each other all day. It annoys the dogs, but it’s a nice foil to the saws and sanders.

I go for many many walks as part of my chosen volunteer work here and I’m happy to be out of the house. I’m not tense really, I’ve gone to that place where you just can see yourself blanking out and walking into the desert and never returning.

But wait, as a quiet, natural, walk barefoot, meditate outside, hug a tree, go within, burn the copal, grounding empress, where’s my freaking CENTER? Am I only chill if the conditions are right? If I have my hemp socks on? I see. I’m a hippy dippy fraud.

I don’t even know where my crystals are. I can only make the best of it if I know that a bus will come some day and pick us up. And not the short kind.

There’s no magic light that streams into my window and there’s rarely fresh air to be had. There is no grass to walk in and if I don’t drive over to the shore and greet the boats and gasoline engine fish gut guys that’s my own fault, but I just don’t feel it. I don’t have a yoga corner, an altar, I barely even pull a tarot card anymore and I don’t know what’s going on in astrology except that we’re going through a big timeline shift and Uranus is in Taurus and I can’t tell you what any of that means except we all feel WEIRD. The world is on tip toes. It seems weirder in the US than Mexico for sure.

Art? I used to make crafty things and when I first arrived here I collected shells and pelican bones… I made 50 seashell mobiles that were pretty cool…with found fishing line and sticks. There’s a litter problem here and I was trying to fix that while I was trying to save all the dogs. Oh such a naive little lamb I was. Nobody cares, gringa.

I gave the mobiles away to people and they thought I was a weirdo. It was embarrassing but I realized I’m in a town that is not into crafty art or nature or recycling stuff. Do I not make art for art’s sake? I guess I don’t.

I’ve never seen anyone on the beach in 4 years unless they had a job cutting fish. It’s just me and 50 dogs walking and walking. I’m telling you, this place is weird. Most have lived here their whole lives, they are underwhelmed by shells, why would I string them on a stick? They don’t eat or sell fish, it’s chicken nugget town. There’s no hummus and sprout wrap that’s for sure. It’s hotdogs and nothing opens until 8pm. People who live 3 blocks away from the shore don’t even bother to acknowledge the Sea. Pelican Shmelican.

But am I not ME? Even though I’m in a terrible place for far too long and can’t see a way out?

So I ask myself, what exactly was all my high vibe, Schumann Resonance, astrology, breathwork, mugwort incense for?

Times Like This.

Sure, it would be easier to get into the zone with my sound bowls and my myofascial guy and my acupuncture lady (shout out Jitao) and the right diffuser. But can you find the magic if you’re in a void place? I’m not so sure.

I wish that I had even ONE friend here who was like minded even a teeny bit but I don’t.

To have the clarity to find the next place where I can have these beautiful dogs, or find homes for some, I have to find myself again. I’ve fallen into a crevasse. All the trappings of proper Feng Shui and sense of place and all the rest cannot be snuffed out because I decided to save a town of dogs, right? The dogs want to be in a good place too. I try to keep it light for them, but between you and me, I’m still not convinced I survived the car crash. There’s no way this is my life. Everything is gray. It has to be purgatory.

Photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unsplash

There is a tiny green Hummingbird who comes to my back patio each day. She hovers near and I smile. What could she be here for? We have nothing for her to eat and no flowers. But every day, there she is.

Don’t forget, who you are, she says.

Take me with you, I whisper.

+++++++

linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue