We’re moving again! The life under the sea is calling, and I hope to start exploring it soon. Scuba diving is in my future! But New Mexico lies nearly a thousand miles from an ocean, and since moving stuff across a continent is expensive, we’re shedding possessions.
You’d think after moving eight times in under fifteen years that we’d already done that. But plenty of precious objects remain.
The biggest set is my pottery, made over fifteen years of classes. 
Terra-cotta lamps and porcelain scalloped bowls. Large pots shaded in pink and gold clouds from being fired in large open sand pits next to the ocean.
I love these pots, but they have made each move onerous. Packing and unpacking eight tall boxes took several days at each end. I simply don’t want to do it again, ever. So I’m finding new homes for the pottery, and I’m watching that period of my life dematerialize. Dissolve.
A difficult calculus
Shedding takes time. Collecting things is so much easier! Objects walk in, and it takes effort to help them walk out. We’ve been picking up the familiar things of our lives and asking, How hard is it to replace? (Unique pieces get more of a pass.) How much do we need it? (If we haven’t missed it in the three years since our last move, probably not much.) What benefit is there in keeping it? Or in letting it go?
It’s exhausting, this calculus. And I’ve been doing it already for five months—handling every book, every utensil, every family heirloom in turn, interrogating it. While we’re not being slavish about it, we do want to travel light this time. So we’re doing a lot of letting go.
Shedding dreams
The letting go goes deeper than objects.
For many years I dreamed of a settled life—a home with a casita for visitors or clients, filled with peace and color and beauty. Now a different dream has taken shape—to learn from an Earth-community I know almost nothing about, the one undersea. I hear it is stranger than Mars, and I can’t wait to get acquainted. But to make room for new dreams, we have to shed the old ones. “The cup has to empty before it can refill,” a wise friend once said—and it goes for dreams as well.
Giving up protection
Letting go can be scary too. Watching the boxes leave the house brings up a question I didn’t expect. Who am I without these things? Sometimes a slight shakiness sets in, especially if the heirloom was precious or the book once held a great deal of meaning or the art piece was made by a friend. The things of my life have helped to define me more than I knew. They protected me in some way I never fully realized.
And getting rid of these things feels like giving up immunity. However much we want to be free of them, letting go makes it clear just how much we counted on them to protect us. But from what—from misfortune? We always knew they couldn’t do that. From illness? They’ve never done that. And yet they definitely provided some kind of cushion—just a thin sheet of insulation between us and bare reality. Without it, we feel more vulnerable.
Letting go as spiritual practice
I now understand in a deeper way why shedding things is the first recommended step on many spiritual paths. The more we are attached to things—focused on gathering and keeping them—the harder it is to hear the still small voice of spirit. “Sell what you have and give the money to the poor,” Jesus advises the rich young politician, “and then come follow me.”
I think too of Inanna, Goddess of Heaven and Earth in ancient Mesopotamia. In her great power—and equally great arrogance—Inanna decides one day to become the only person ever to visit the Underworld and return alive.
She dons every emblem of her power—lapis lazuli scepter, crown, breastplate, cloak. With head held high, she follows the road to the Underworld and pounds on the gate. There the gatekeeper requests her scepter. And so it goes through the second, third, fourth gates. At each one she must give up jewels or robes or other symbols of authority and wealth. Until finally after seven gates she reaches the Underworld, stripped of everything. Naked and alone.
The short story is that in the Underworld things don’t go well for her. She’s vulnerable. Without her power or identity, she is attacked by hostile forces. She dies, and her body is hung on a meat hook. The long story is that she does eventually return from the Underworld, but she’s not the same person who went down. Losing things is transformative.
Choosing to let go
I think of friends who were stripped of possessions in robberies or earthquakes or floods, who had no choice about when or how to lose their things.
A house fire can dissolve a lifetime of treasures in only two or three hours. I timed it one afternoon here in New Mexico, watching through binoculars as flames consumed a distant neighbor’s home.
Tim and I are lucky—we get to choose which things to let go of, and we can do it on our own time.
Shedding as resistance
But how different it is to choose to let go of things when every impulse in our society supports the opposite!
Which is why I have begun to think of shedding possessions as a form of political resistance too. When success is measured by how much money one can shovel toward oneself, saying no to acquisitiveness is a powerful form of defiance. It announces that there are better things to live for, and these things can’t be measured in dollars.
Is it brave?
A friend stopped in while I was setting my pottery out on the table and said, “You’re brave.” The word surprised me. It’s not brave, I thought. The physical work is too hard, too gruntingly mundane, to be brave. It’s more like being stubborn. Dogged. I feel the urge to move toward a new life, and these treasures belong to a life gone by. Though they may still be beautiful, to me they are no longer alive in the sense of guiding toward what is new.
Yet my friend might be right. Because shedding possessions is indeed a brief—if gentle—visit to the Underworld. It does remind us of dying, as if we’re settling our estate ahead of time. And it’s a little bit scary. It strips away a little cushion between us and reality.
At the same time, the rewards of shedding are huge, and I’m already feeling them. Every pot that walks out the door leaves me a little freer. The empty bookshelves don’t look forlorn; they look complete, as if making room for a new and different kind of learning. The thought of trekking lighter across the country leaves me feeling lighter in spirit as well.
Who am I without these possessions? Who am I without the insulations of a settled life? I can’t wait to find out.
I also think you are brave and courageous to let go of so much of your history, creativity, items of sentimental value. None of this is easy, apparently no matter how often one moves.
Keep us posted. Your new adventures sound very exciting. Letting go is definitely part of the journey.
Thanks for the good wishes, Kathryn! I’d spent tons of hours in our last move three years ago sorting stuff out, and I thought it was under control. But when the shape of my dreams changed, so much of what was left didn’t contribute to the new one. Keeping the stuff that doesn’t fit anymore just cuts off the fresh air, you know?
good luck with your move Priscilla! Thanks for sharing your blog about letting go….Sounds awesome to live by the sea. Keep us, your readers, posted 🙂
Thanks, Ines! Yes, I’ll keep you posted about sea adventures! If the diving goes well, I’ll get an underwater camera and share pix.
Beautiful, true, and well-spoken. I helped my sister divest herself of a lifetime of beautiful, meaningful possessions in one month last year, and now she is happily and simply living in the jungle in Palenque, Mexico. I am more slowly and gently in this process also. Best wishes on your journey, to explore and appreciate another world, under the sea!!!
Thank you, Judith! You are starting big adventures too! The interior of your new home will be filled with beauty. Here’s to following the call of the new and moving forward into places yet unseen.
Good luck to you on your new adventure, Priscilla! I hope we can continue to play scrabble, oh worthy opponent. Dave and I are looking forward to a snorkel vacation this summer, two weeks in Bermuda, a place I love and have lived in and visited many times. The snorkeling is fabulous there. We bought new gear and went to the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa yesterday to get our flippers wet. Have you been there? It’s a scuba certification site, crystal clear water, 80 to 240 feet deep and very cold. It’s an ‘ojo’ only 60 feet across and set in a rocky shady grove. It’s like the shrine of a goddess, unfortunately full of shrieking teens. Worth a visit.
Doesn’t that vacation sound like paradise! And oh my, I had never heard of the Blue Hole, and maybe I need to get scuba certified right here! (Yes, Scrabble games always available, my friend!)
It does take courage to let go of things. I love the idea of your plunge to the bottom of the sea. Good luck with this next stage of your life.
Thank you, Kathy! Plunging does sound fun, doesn’t it? Happy adventures to you too!
Wow! Another move, eh? I am curious as to where this move is taking you? And such a change from desert pastels to underwater mysteries! May all go well!
Craig
Thanks, Craig! I have a yen for island life, so our long-term dream is Hawai’i. But we may make another stop first. I am looking forward to the underwater world!
Oh Priscilla. Yes brave as well as resilient. I sense there are multiple facets to this work you have arranged for yourself and multiple levels of rich learning along this way. Yes brave and resilient as well as laughter that warms a heart and a tear that touches it as well.
Thanks, Kate, for stopping in here! Yes, you’re right, there are multiple facets to these changes, and more and more of them show up the farther we go. I can easily get impatient with the mundane-ness of all these material possessions, but every time I do, Bear says something like, “The transformation you seek will be found right here.” With a hint of a teasing smile.
Best of luck and best of Nature for you Priscilla. I am living on the southern Oregon Coast. Where are you headed?
We’re looking forward to sea level also. Hope that’s working for you! We’re angling for Lopez Island in the San Juans. I say “angling” because long-term rentals can be hard to find there. Our long-term dream is Hawaii—after Bodhi is no longer with us.
Beautiful post! Thank you. There must be something in the cosmos that urges us on to new beginnings, because I am shedding possessions too, and putting the my beautiful and newly renovated mid-Century Modern house in Cody up for sale (once we finish the last bathroom in a few weeks). I’m not headed undersea though as you are; I’m going to go mobile and live in a house on wheels, a small RV with solar panels on the roof. I want to be able to spend more time weeding invasive plants and restoring wild ecosystems in national parks and other extraordinary places, with a roof over my head to write as well. So off we go on our new challenges and new paths! May they cross again soon… Blessings and much love. PS, If you want to see the house and yard in before and after photos, take a peek here: https://susanjtweit.com/renovation-reckoning-before-and-after/
Oh, my goodness, Susan, after all that love and care you invested in your new (to you) house! But believe me, I get the lure of being more mobile. The thrill to be found in this shedding is right there—able to go where the inner winds blow. And I get the lure of an RV as well—everything you need right there in a compact space. We seriously considered a small RV for the move with Bodhi across the country! (There was too much to learn in too short a time to make it fun right now.) Many blessings in your pilgrimages to come, and lots of love to you too.
You express so beautifully and insightfully, in this post and your last one, exactly what I’ve felt on having to make those wrenching decisions over what to keep and what to release. The way you respond to the pull of nature inspires me. You’re leading the life of a true artist and adventurer, which are, and MUST be, one and the same. Best wishes in your ocean chapter.
Thanks, Julene! I guess after a few decades of fighting the pull of nature, it seemed somehow easier to go WITH it. And as for being an artist and adventurer, I take inspiration from you! Some of your adventures in THE OGALLALA ROAD took my breath away—especially living alone in a desert cabin and remaking the place by yourself. Wow! For an adventuring spirit, the adventures continue.