Hannah Stuart 5/12/23 Hannah Stuart 5/12/23

Empty Space.

Hannah Stuart 5/5/23 Hannah Stuart 5/5/23

Black and White.

Spider.

Oh, hello you big bellied beauty. It's been nearly 2 months of me waiting for you to turn around, or be in a different position, so I can see anything but your black and white legs and belly. Boy, do you have long legs. I'm not sure what kind of spider you are, but you sure are large. Are we friends? Do you want to bite me? Is there anything bright-colored or indicative of your potentially venomous nature on the side of your body I am unable to see? Can we continue cohabitating this greenhouse in peace? You do your thing on that web you keep expanding and I do mine? You're good luck, yeah? And you'll eat other bugs I should be worried about? We cool, right?

Instinct told me my new spider friend was just that, a friend, but then I got overly-analytical and stuck in my head. I can't get a close enough look to see anything except the shape and belly. Experience taught me through a similar snake scenario that researching the species living in Costa Rica on the internet was only going to ruin my sleep and freak me out unnecessarily. Next option, I must bug one of the resort staff to take a walk with me over to the farm and assess this spider as friend or foe.

Safe. No need to worry. Should've listened to my gut, but didn't want to be careless. A banana spider. A nostalgic memory and friend of my tico buddies childhood he says and he touches this creature I’ve been avoiding and squirming around trying not to disturb. How suiting for a Hannah Banana to be sharing a greenhouse with a Banana Spider!

Freedom. Autonomy. The spaces between. The idea of a black and white manual for life seems simplistic and secure, but... what about learning to decipher that you as an individual might love scuba diving with sharks and jumping out of planes, but be irrationally afraid of being trapped with large groups of strangers having small talk or snakes, only sometimes. We are all unique. There are a lot of uncharted waters from point A to point B and Q and Z. It would be easy to know all of our shoulds and shouldn'ts from the get-go and consequently make ‘good’ choices. Not sure about your thoughts, but my favorite meals have been when I've deviated from the planned recipes and gone a bit rogue. Usually.

Practicing anything like yoga or cooking or being in unfamiliar environments where we don't know what plants or animals are safe teaches us the power of time and consistency as well as the ability to be present and aware of ourselves and our environment. We are all similar, but no one is the same. We are all uniquely brave and unafraid about some things while overly worried and scared of others. Sometimes without rhyme or reason. Our individual capacities for certain things is ours and ours alone and can adapt over time. When we can settle and relax into our environments, what we see and experience expands exponentially. For example, now that I’ve figured out no more snakes reside and the spider is just hanging around (literally) I can watch all of the beautiful butterflies that are attracted to the water I’m giving the plants. like in this video I made.

Hannah Stuart 4/28/23 Hannah Stuart 4/28/23

Solar-Powered.

“A spark can set a whole forest on fire. Just a spark. Save it.” -Charles Bukowski

Gas in the tank. Fuel on the fire. Rage in the cage.

Anger. Fire. Heat. All of these things can be great catalysts for both creation and destruction. More productive things have likely come to fruition from the fight or flight response stages than the freeze stage. Frozen. Stuck. Trapped in time. We’ve all been there. Moments like watching a car crash slowed down in time and you can’t look away.

From a chemical standpoint, when we want to calculate how much heat something has gained (think of your home heating system) we must use a formula including the inside air temperature, the outside air temperature, and the rate of flow of the outside air- which is introducing the heat inside. Different materials have different heat capacities when we are talking about reactions, like when something burns. The heat capacity determines how slowly or quickly that something will react, or burn.

What I’m getting at is that it can be good to stir the pot and get worked up about things. Anger and fire and burning, proverbially or actually, can motivate great changes. The problem doesn’t lie in one’s inability to wake up prancing through the fields happy-go-lucky as Julie Andrews 365 days a year. The risk lies in knowing, or not knowing, one’s limits. What heat capacity do we have and what is the heat capacity of the material who’s fire we’re playing with? For me, I find I can handle most things at an appropriate pace, but it’s the things that come too much, too fast, too soon, that shove me into that freeze state of overwhelm and loss of clarity or critical thinking capacity.

With it being the start of summer temps many places, many of you likely have turned on your air conditioning for the first time this year, if you use AC. Places like Phoenix, where using AC is a matter of survival, residents know what often happens that first time your AC is turned on it leads to an awful smell of debris that have been sitting stagnant being burned off. Until the continual use of the air conditioner prevents any more debris from building and the old debris have been burned off, things stink. Practices like yoga and meditation being routine are important for this same principal. We’re essentially dusting in order to prevent internal cob-webs to build up. We can all be driven or motivated from heat and fire, but to know an appropriate pace at which to let the candle burn is important. When we can get comfortable feeling our bodies and minds in both their strength and rigor as well as ease and slowness, our sthira and sukha. Calculate what we have going on inside, what is going on outside, and consider the rate of flow of whatever is heating us up. Like are we talking a fly in the ear steady annoyance, how many consecutive push-ups you can do in 5 minutes, or how long you can listen to that family member cast their societal constructed views of you in front of others before you lash out or walk away. How quickly does this fire heat you up and what’s your threshold to tolerate it. When we do yoga and meditate we get nice and acquainted with our nervous system and subtleties, like changes in breathing patterns and unconsciously clenching certain small muscles, that give information to plug into what’s going on inside and outside and how are we tolerating this rate of flow. It is funny and weird work and takes time and a lot of openness to do things like breath like a bee, stare at a candle, and see how long we can hold a plank or lunge-like posture before our brain gets upset and we choose to fight, flight, freeze, or settle into what’s happening. The keys are awareness and choice. Am I aware of what’s influencing my actions? Am I choosing what pace, what approach, and how to interact with my environment?

"Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man's bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage." -Paramhansa Yogananda

Our days need rays of sun on our skin just as much as we need the moon shining. Click here for a video of me planting over 150 spinach plants in the jungle sun and choosing to skip my workout and rest after. What’s fueling you and are you picking a good pace?

Hannah Stuart 4/21/23 Hannah Stuart 4/21/23

Leap-Frog.

I showered with a frog the other day.

Obstacles. Annoyances. Challenges. Hills to climb. Or get around. Or kick and turn away from. Maybe not kick and just turn away from. Or stare at blankly and just watch the sun and moon repeatedly exchange places over. There are many ways to accomplish the same thing.

A few years back a friend shared this poem with me that surfaces my memory in near every challenge or decision since. If you know me IRL (it’s cool to use internet lingo, right? IRL= In Real Life) it’s likely that I’ve shared it with you. It’s called Autobiography in Five Short Chapters and talks about how as we experience a situation more we learn better ways to solve it and usually the best scenario is to not keep getting yourself in similar situations and breaking bad patterns (these aren’t situations we enjoy being in).

I remember loving the game leap-frog as a kid. It was goofy, active, playful, and gave everyone a fair dose of adrenaline, laughter, and usually some sort of bruise or bang. What kid’s dreams are made of. This idea that you need to get from where you are to somewhere else and that there are frogs in between you and that desired location. Frogs that require you to get on all fours, act frog-like, and jump up over (and sometimes onto and off of or over). Super aggressive. Requires a ton of energy and strength. Yet a beloved game embedded in many childhood memories.

If you’re familiar with the astanga yoga practice and how it’s full of so many chaturangas and jumping things, it’s kind of like the leap-frog of yoga. People start astanga and either love it or hate it because of the ‘energy’ of the rigor and challenge. For those who drink the kool-aid, there are days where you are practicing this repetitive set sequence that you just don’t feel like you want to be doing cartwheels off of the roof into the pool and you think to yourself why in the hell are we doing so many yoga pushups and working so hard?! Looking at the history books we learn that astanga was originally practiced by teenage boys who absolutely need to move and work their bodies with the amount of energy it takes to do cartwheels off of the roof into the pool AKA all of the chaturangas and jumping in the sequence. Where I’m getting with all of this is that some quests are hills to jump up on and climb, while others are things we should calmly move away from. Some chapters in our lives give us the energy to approach all problems like we’re leaping frogs while other chapters in our lives give us the energy to just walk away from things that aren’t serving us. We might all be getting around or over similar hills, but our journeys are different and have different after-tastes. Choose wisely. Or just choose and be aware of your approach in general.

I’m living in a small peninsula that contains 2.5% of the entire world’s biodiversity so the variety of species I’m living amongst is nothing short of abundant. I wouldn’t call my shower an outdoor shower necessarily, but everything at this eco-retreat is very Frank Lloyd Wright esque in the sense that it is integrated into the environment that was here before. A bat flew into my room and into my face the other day, crabs crawl everywhere and one pinched my ankle last week (I think he was getting friendly), and this frog keeps telling me to save water and shower together and refuses to leave the shower at night. The first few times I saw him in there I would try to get him out or wait for him to leave, but eventually I got tired of adjusting to his schedule and just let him join the rinse. For the record, he was not a fan of the water and poor thing hid in the corner of the shower and I have yet to see him come back since. Either he realized it was risky business hanging in there or I gave his frog-heart an attack.

We are a resilient species and capable of much adaptation. It’s not what issues we face, but how we handle them that is significant. It can be as simple as how we do our daily chores, like wrapping up hoses or letting the frog stay in the shower, to as big as saying “no” to something you don’t want to do despite making someone else upset. Leap-frog is fun for kids and high energy times, but it’s also nice to take a slow stroll in the park every now and again.

Hannah Stuart 4/14/23 Hannah Stuart 4/14/23

Shedding Layers.

Maybe destruction isn't necessarily building something new out of ashes, but revealing what always was.

We see so many systems and societal things being removed and eradicated in the world currently, but there’s this unspoken empty space and lingering despair. A void eerily filled with yearning for something new, say a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Call it spiritual bypassing or a desperate hope to find the positive correction, but I think that script needs to be flipped. The yoga community often throws around that yoga isn’t about doing, but rather undoing. This is applied to mindset and indoctrinated ways of thinking. I sometimes wonder if shifting my lense is merely creating a delirious sense of calm and acceptance or actually finding the correct ‘way’ or perspective. After 15 years of practicing yoga I’ve gotten really good at finding a positive thread to tug on in any scenario, but does this pseudo delirium actually improve anything besides my nervous system (which is a very valuable thing to calm)? The science does say yes, click for one of many studies on how mindset and perspective do positively effect outcome across many facets- so I’m here for it. Back to the idea that we destroy not always to make space for building something new, but to remove layers and reveal things underneath, exfoliate per say. One of my favorite sayings is “You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.” -Rumi. Like the Purnamadah chant reminds us of eternal completeness within all life. This innate sense of wholeness and infinite connection to life provides me solace and reminds me of the internal compass we all carry. When I am chewing over an idea or at a fork in the road I try to close my eyes and get a sense for how different possible trajectories feel internally when I imagine them. The issue isn’t having the internal knowledge or completeness at all times, it’s having the pace and ear to hear what’s being said. When I’m worried about deadlines, schedules, keeping up appearances, or any of the other hustle bustle tasks that easily surface to top priority of the day, it is near impossible to feel that inner voice whisper. Now I’m not saying every time duty calls we all must uproot our lives and strip down to simplistic routines in a yoga retreat in a foreign country, but we really do need to create rhythms and capacity to peel back the external layers and see what wonderful wisdom, peace, and comfort we can find deep within ourselves. I’ve recently come back to a hobby I loved doing years ago in my morning garden time, that could take as little as 2 minutes or get you lost in time for hours, if desired. Click here for some stellar zen content. My younger self loved spending time in the garden and a camera to take pictures of plants is the first gift I can remember asking for. Like hard shell candy covers and guards the inner nugget, life’s schedules and demands can also cover and guard the sweetest and most nourishing parts inside of us. When I got to Costa Rica just over 3 weeks over my Oura ring was telling me that my HRV (basically internal capacity to recover from stress) was plummeting. Now my average nightly score is anywhere from 30-50 points higher than it ever has been since I started tracking it. By no means is adapting to working in a garden in the hot sun and humidity of dry-season in the rainforest, sleeping without AC, removing dead layers of debri from a greenhouse, and layering in nutrients to soil thats been abandoned for years an easy thing on the body, but I’m spending time listening to audio books and jamming to music while watering plants and taking pictures of how beautifully the sun reflects on the shapes in the garden. All of these things I knew at one point how much I cherished and how calm they made me feel, but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in a ‘I’ll do it later’ mindset of simple things that have profound stability on our nervous system. Destruction is great. Things get removed and taken from our lives and it forces change, like it or not. My outer shell was cracked and the outcome is a powerful reminder that joy and pain and everyday is beautiful. We can take all of the yoga classes in the world, but if we’re not slowing down enough to connect to our inner curiosities and adoration for the beauty of life, there are still many layers to peel back before we can get to the good stuff. Maybe it’s figuratively coming back to trusting our gut instincts. Maybe it’s actually getting comfortable in our own skin and expression, like the fact I haven’t worn any of my tank tops since my first week here and have gotten to the point of working in the greenhouse in my sports bras and bikini tops to keep cool. Exfoliate. Don’t overdress or overheat. I’m pretty sure we’ve all fought over the center of the cinnamon roll at one point in our lives. We all inherently know how sweet it is in the center of something good. I guess this is just a lot of rambling about what people mean when they say they’re being “centered”.

Hannah Stuart 4/7/23 Hannah Stuart 4/7/23

Wheels Turning.

We are what we do repeatedly.

Do you ever have those moments where you feel like you’ve been doing the same thing over and over on repeat for longer than you’d like to think about? There can be a calming beauty to repetition; I’d go as far as saying it’s quite vital. Consistency can be your best friend or worst enemy. Repeating something doesn’t necessarily feel like being on a path that leads somewhere though. Today I trekked a wheelbarrow full of dirt from the compost under the starfruit tree, over to the farm across the street, for what felt like the 100th time, but was probably only the 7th time. Thinking to myself what a genius invention wheels are because they take so much of the load off of moving things. This jungle path which was new to my eyes two weeks ago has helped me average over 15 plus miles of walking per day since. Back and forth tasks can quickly feel mundane. The irony of this all, is I felt like some areas of my life back in Arizona felt stuck on repeat a bit and that was one of my motives for changing pace and scenery and coming here. Yet repetition has returned. Click here for some of the repetition involved in resurrecting a greenhouse in the jungle. Maybe it’s not so much an aversion to repeating cycles, but more what is contained in the cycle specifically. I don’t mind waking up to watch the sunrise and enjoying a cup of coffee, I have done that many days and could likely continue to do that every day with pure joy the rest of my life. One consistent thing I have found true when enduring repetitive activities (which if I’m being honest is something I truly love); like going on solo 100 mile bike rides, swimming laps in the pool, blending colors while painting/drawing, or staring at the wheel of a wheelbarrow rotating over and over, is that’s when my brain seems to surface thoughts and ideas that need to be chewed on, spit out, or swallowed. Seeking answers to situations never seems to be successful in the ways I hope, but giving myself time to think and let thoughts and ideas surface naturally- while doing a meditative or repetitive activity, often let’s me digest a situation enough to come to the conclusion that there generally aren’t right or wrong solutions or directions to go, just mere choices to make. If my physical yoga practice has taught me anything to use in my daily life, it’s to always come from a place of peace when moving forward. So for me, I will continue to push wheelbarrows, paint skies, lap pools, and give myself grace and space to let wheels turn so that I can avoid frantic decision making and make choices from a place of gentleness and ease. Even if it’s just being in nature that is gentle and easy on the eyes while doing so. If you haven’t made it outside today, clicking here may help inspire you.

Hannah Stuart 3/31/23 Hannah Stuart 3/31/23

Ants In My Pants.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu

A lesson I admire in nature is the idea that “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu. As I organize all of the intersecting tasks to be done for my greenhouse resurrection, I am reminded of this from time on the clock as well as from my gardening buddy, Kaylor, smiling and telling me “no prisa” or “do not rush.” I arrived here in the Osa Peninsula just over a week ago and unlike everyone around me, I’m handling the humidity rather well and able to sleep-in like I haven’t in months. My circadian rhythm has woken my body up between 4:30-6 am for years, but for some reason I have been sleeping until 7 or 8 am easily here. The internal regulator inside of me is struggling to not feel guilty or inadequate for not getting up before sunrise to start all of the things the day calls to. I am truly putting to practice that the days agenda is still completed even if I don’t rush to get up before my body wants to naturally. Flexing patience and harnessing ‘tico time’ fully. The main project I’m working on has many varying steps that each take a lot of time, so even if I wanted to rush, I wouldn’t be able to . The mornings I’ve been practicing yoga with the lovely retreat host this week, Huma Gruaz and spending 2 hours sorting through dirt from the compost before filling one wheelbarrow to take across to the garden beds in the farm. 3 days and 3 wheelbarrows down, at least 4 more to go. The garden beds are full of charcoal and after some online research I feel ready to attempt growing with this revolutionary “biochar” method. Between finding and cleaning containers, letting the sun evaporate any chlorine from the water for 48 hours, brewing compost tea for 24-36 hours, and doing daily soaks- this will probably be about a 2 week process of repeated tasks each day before I can think about planting anything. Boy, am I excited and anxious to get life in those beds. A major change from how my life looked and moved a few weeks ago. Neither better nor worse necessarily, but both perspectives to observe and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of. Jumping back and forth between such profound yoga practices and teachings to spending the day with my hands in the dirt has really been soul-filling. As I itch to adjust to later wake ups and slower paced productivity, I am enjoying taking time to figuratively smell the roses and literally watch the nature around me, like ants working relentlessly to move leaves across the trail I walk along to get to the greenhouse. Click here for some cute footage of said ants that are getting in my pants and simultaneously helping me find more pura vida, harness my inner tico/a and not feel the need to rush.

Hannah Stuart 3/24/23 Hannah Stuart 3/24/23

Social. Butterflies.

Portal into my stream of consciousness.

Today was my first day here on my own at Blue Osa Retreat. Prior to leaving, a friend had asked me what I was most excited for; uprooting and going to do a work exchange in a very remote part of the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. I told her, slightly embarrassed, to enjoy lots of alone time and disconnect for awhile. Being an innate caretaker and nurturing soul who is constantly surrounded by superfluous love, support, and friends, is something I cherish about myself. After having to adapt my personal life and needs so many ways for the past few years; while enduring the loss of both of my parents and other life challenges, I have struggled to find the right balance of creating time with myself.

My hope for being here is to rekindle the beauty of solitude and time with my thoughts. Alone time, that despite my social butterfly tendencies, I feel so lost without. I guess I wasn’t totally sure how what I wanted would look, but I did know how I wanted it to feel and so far everything I have desired is coming to fruition. I have my own little box room in a repurposed shipping container, a quiet beach to walk, a lovely lap pool I swam in last night, property animals to love, incredible fresh and unique food, and responsibility to re-establish the green house on the farm with the ultimate goal of sourcing more of the kitchen food from the property. Best part of it all, is I get to be alone and quiet and not think about taking care of anything but me, myself, and the plants.

Now that I’ve gotten the ‘boring’ logistics update out of the way for all of my friends and family who are wondering what the hell I’ve gotten into, I will transition into how this blog will likely go and give more of a reflective and spiritual update.

Firstly, I’d like to give a big shout out to the universe for constantly giving me signs of reassurance that I’m where I’m supposed to be when taking chances. Waking up my first morning I went to find the other gardener, Leah, and help her pull some weeds around the lap pool. After chatting about how and why we ended up here, I learned that she also has many siblings, with the youngest being her brother who has cerebral palsy, just like my brother Edson. We quickly connected on our shared similarities and exchanged reflections on things that go along with such a situation. Of course, I also told her she must read everything ever published by or about Oliver Sacks and his ever-lasting wisdom and compassion towards neurodivergence of all kinds.

I had such a beautiful experience this morning. Yesterday I got a tour and general idea of what needed to be done. I drafted a new layout for the greenhouse and some plans for order of operations for side projects. Unsure of my bearings still, I had walked over to the farm to assess some of the areas I’ll be working on and got a bit nervous with some of the crazy birds and animal sounds I was hearing. Suddenly I saw some butterflies and then quickly a swarm of butterflies. I found myself surrounded by nearly 100 winged friends flying around me and had this overwhelming sense of calm, protection, and peace. Quick shift from slight uncertainty if I should be worried about the creepy, yet cute and crow-like black birds that had been guarding my perimeter moments before. It was really magical. I stood there looking around at them for a few minutes and just felt so lucky. So here I am, going from overly social and constantly surrounded by groups of people, to being anti-social except for groups of butterflies. Here. We. Go.