🌋The Cracks in Paradise
Open Heart Chakra, Closed Mind?
A few weeks ago, I landed on la Isla de Ometepe, a volcanic island rising from the middle of a vast lake.
Monkeys swing overhead, the air is thick, and the land is lush. Near my hotel, there’s a permaculture hostel where something interesting is always happening—breathwork, Qi Gong, yoga, women’s circles. The nature is breathtaking, and the locals are warm, eager to help, and always up for a chat.
At first glance, it seemed like paradise.
But after years of slow traveling, I’ve learned that around the two-week mark, the initial wonder of a place starts to wear off, and the cracks begin to show.
The Cracks in This Paradise
Here, the cracks aren’t in the landscape—they’re in the expats drawn to this place. At first, they seem like kindred spirits—hippies at heart, advocates of alternative lifestyles. But after sitting with some of them for a while, I started to notice something else: casual bigotry, slipping out like an afterthought.
An older gentleman, teaches arts and crafts to local kids. He’s an artist, an organic farmer, a mentor. Yet on his Facebook page, he belligerently argues for the need to “protect women’s sports” by preventing trans kids from participating in extracurricular activities. Is it possible to be a servant leader AND a bigot?
A woman in her late 60s, has spent her life traveling the world, never succumbing to the pressures of settling down. Over dinner together, she casually laments how Muslim immigrants are changing the fabric of her beloved Germany. Is it possible to be a citizen of the world AND xenophobic?
At a restaurant, I overheard a patchouli-smelling woman wearing a flowing linen skirt loudly explain to her table that in the U.S., middle schoolers are now identifying as cats and being given litter boxes in classrooms. She then declared that using they/them pronouns isn’t even correct grammar. This was the same woman who days before had helped stoke a fire at the cacao ceremony I attended. Is it possible to have an open heart chakra AND a closed mind?
They Don’t Fit The Profile
While waiting for a French family to finish using the community kitchen at my hostel, I began chatting with a familiar face. I’d seen him around, and his baggy white linen pants and free-flowing top gave me the impression that he too identified as a free spirit—maybe also because a few minutes into our conversation he referred to himself as an “educated hippie.”
Making small talk, I told him how special this island was. He looked at me naively, "Oh, it’s your first time here. I felt like that too my first time.”
“Well”, I admitted, “I have started to see some cracks in the wall recently.”
His face softened as if I’d just revealed the secret password.
I continued, “Lately I’ve been meeting a lot of people who seem love and light at first glance but after talking with them for a while, hateful rhetoric starts slipping through.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he agreed “They don’t fit the profile, do they?"
“No”, I laughed, “I guess not.”
I then complimented the pottery mug he was sipping out of. He confessed that he’d borrowed it from the upscale chocolate cafe down the street. He must have noticed my brow furrowing—“They make enough money,” he assured me with a grin.
Is it possible to be an educated hippie AND a thief?
The Strange Co-opting of Free-Spiritedness
Time and time again, I see these contradictions—especially as the alt-right continues to sneakily co-opt the language of free-loving hippies to spread intolerance.
A few months ago, I found out that a natural birth advocate I follow on Instagram was relieved when Trump won. How does someone vote for a man accused of sexual assault while claiming to stand for women’s rights?
Each time I encounter these inconsistencies, I feel a jolt of shock. Though my initial reaction is to shut these people out in frustration, I know that’s what deepens the divide. Instead, I am trying to stay open, and emotionally regulated, and if the moment presents itself, I gently offer another perspective.
“Well,” I said to the woman at dinner, “radical Muslims are very different from the vast majority of practicing Muslims in the world. Some of the most peaceful and generous people I’ve ever met worship Allah.” It was true.
I don’t know if it changed her mind. But maybe, just maybe, it made her think. Maybe it planted a seed. I hope it planted a seed.
Just Breathe?
People everywhere are complicated. Messy. Full of contradictions. No one person is without flaws. Myself included. But where is the line?
Yesterday, I attended a three-hour breathwork therapy session. I heard fellow free spirits beside me bellowing into the abyss, years of pent-up frustration, sadness, and injustice bubbling to the surface and billowing out in stomping feet, gibberish, and screams. I myself discovered my own "roar." In savasana, when everyone was instructed to breathe normally again, my eyes filled with tears.
We are all humans, navigating this confusing journey for the first time in these fleshy suits, many of us energetically armored and self-protecting. But underneath, we are all the same vulnerable piles of goo trying to make sense of the world around us.
While I felt immensely grateful to be on this island amongst people who aren’t afraid to confront their shadows, question the status quo, and connect with their humanness, I am not so naive to think that the world’s problems will magically dissolve as long as the educated hippies from wealthy countries keep sipping cacao, breathing aggressively, and dancing ecstatically.
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
Though I wish the path toward a more peaceful world was through MORE grace, MORE compassion, and MORE love, I am honestly having a hard time applying that formula to those blatantly committed to furthering the divide - like the “free-loving” hippies who continue to casually marginalize those they’ve deemed inferior or the entire Trump administration.
The truth is, the cracks are always there—on this island, in every community, and within ourselves. But what we do once we see them is what matters. Do we let them harden us, divide us, and push us further apart? Or do we use them as openings, as uncomfortable but necessary invitations to understand each other better?
—> Awkwardly laugh off off-colored comments or stand up for the marginalized through and through?
—> Befriend people with differing opinions or scare them away immediately with my powerful ROAR?
—> Keep trying to build a bridge with people of differing values or perspectives or just burn the whole damn thing down?
I don’t have the answers. I only know that I want to keep listening. Keep questioning. Keep standing firm in my values while also staying open to new solutions, and new ways of relating and understanding.
It doesn’t feel like enough most days.
It probably isn’t.