Adoption Agency — A 7-Month Experiment in Community

It’s quiet here in Provincetown, but not as quiet as it will be in a month, in two months. I did the thing. I committed to following the voice that told me I needed to come back to the land my child bones know to write whatever is pressing to be born, and now that I’m here, I’m preparing for the stillness. I do yoga every morning. I meditate. I jump in the ocean. I eat big bowls of oatmeal and large chocolate chip cookies. I’m bulking up. I walk through the graveyard in half-dark because it’s one of the few places I can let Bird off the leash. I keep a sharp eye out for coyotes and foxes because they, too, love this rambling, old, broken graveyard too.

I am not writing from inspiration. The words aren’t pouring out of some place I’m tapping into—there’s no flow, and this can feel discouraging. Writing from not-flow can feel like building a house, brick by brick.

But I do the need to write this thing that feels like it’s coming out of my side, like a rib. It’s teaching me patience. It’s teaching me that creating space just to listen is its own kind of admirable work. Doing less can be so much harder than doing more. This writing doesn’t feel romantic. It feels trying to start an old lawnmower. There’s a lot of lying around or going to the beach to walk Bird and me until I find the energy and focus try to try again to find what it is inside of me that wants to be said. Then maybe it’s cookie time.

The quieter my life gets, the clearer what I need becomes to me: love, health, peace, purpose.

I am forming a 7-month experiment that starts the first of November. This is what it will look like: seven days a week, I’ll be on Zoom from 9:30-10 AM ET. I’ll check in with how I’m feeling, and then I’ll do a twenty-minute loving kindness meditation. Then I’ll check in again how I am feeling. All of this is to help me access self energy. I write better (and live better) when I am in touch with curiosity, connection, creativity, calmness, clarity, confidence, courage, and compassion. If anyone wants to do this with me, it’s $50 a month. You can show up every single day or four times a week or once a month. I believe starting the day on purpose in community with a self check-in followed by wishes of love, peace, and health for ourselves and for others will be a game changer, a life changer.

If you create space for blessings in your life, what then is not possible?

Repetition, my beloved yoga teacher Kent Bond used to say, is another word for miracle. I want to see what shifts if I commit myself to an extended practice of mindfulness and peace with other bodies who were also relinquished and adopted. I am curious what it would do for me, and I am super curious what it would do for you.

You don’t have to do all seven months. Do whatever makes you feel good, but I’d sure love to have you be part of this. There is magic in the atmosphere when adopted people show up in support of each other. It’s like a blizzard of blessings and insight. To save your spot, email me at anneheffron@gmail.com.

Here’s to us.