## The Sit Spot ## ![[sit_spot_story_1.png]] When my parents immigrated to Canada in 1998, I was just 8 years old. As a little kid, I was on a grand adventure of a lifetime. Ever since then, my parents had decided to move us around every 2 years. I think they were looking for a place to call home and couldn't quite find it. I grew up, moved away after University, and travelled around Canada for the next few years, moving from place to place. It wasn't until I landed in Victoria, BC, almost 25 years after coming to Canada, that I felt the sweet feeling of Home again. I remember that day very clearly because the feeling itself made it a very special one. I was at the beach one sunny morning. It was a little chilly, and the water was crystal clear. It was beckoning for me to get in. I stripped to my underwear and plunged for only a few minutes before the cold got unbearable. In order to warm up, I started on jumping jacks, and pushups. I rolled around on the sand and let the sun warm my back. Finally, I put my clothes back on, and then sat on a log to read a book. Just then, an emotion I had not felt in over a decade began to wash over me. I immediately stopped reading and began to bask in the feeling and to examine it. It was the same emotion I had felt when I was dating someone. It wasn’t a honeymoon-type of feeling that happens at the beginning of a relationship, but one that happens after getting to know the person well. I felt a sense of belonging, and togetherness, and there was a real sweetness to it that only seems to come about when I was with the person. It also felt affectionate and very intimate, and it was originating in my lower belly. It surprised me because there was nobody there with me at the beach that day to make me feel that way. Rather, this particular beach I had come to know intimately over many months, visiting it almost every day. I would climb the trees, dig my limbs into the sand, walk across logs, inspect insects with fascination, and I'd watch a local kingfisher dive in and out of the water. A great heron would nap with me on sunny days. I suppose that on this day, I had finally made myself vulnerable by exposing my skin to the cold, the sun and the sand. I understood, to an extent, what creates a sense of affection in a romantic setting; a combination of having physical and psychological space to be vulnerable, as well as getting to know and understand, and care for the person on a deep level. I cared for this land very much. It was my secret space, a place where I had the freedom to be myself without anyone judging me whatsoever. I cried lots and told this land all of my secrets. To my delightful surprise, such an intimate feeling was no longer limited to bonds between two human beings, but for me, expanded to bonds made with the land itself. I was now meeting my intimate and affectionate needs completely by my lonesome on a regular basis. I no longer had to wait for someone else to come into my life and make me happy in those regards. How wonderful was it thinking now, that I If I ever met someone and fell in love with them, then I could them kiss them as they flew away into a great sense of freedom. Wise indigenous elders from around the world speak of this kind of affection and connection to the land. It is a way to cultivate the capacity to form connections in intimate fashion, an ability to drink from the land and its sweet nectar and be satisfied within our own hearts, and in turn return the favour to others with great and equal affection! Let the land carry you, as though you are a little kids swinging on a hammock by the beach -- Insert link --