and this too ... thank you ... (HeartFull living)

Once the door is open, the lessons in HeartFull living just roll right in ...

Yesterday was a snow day and I sheepishly confide: I may be a weather witch.

No, truly ... I've noticed this, ahem, talent of mine. Not so much changing the weather as it is connecting with the possibilities of storm or sunshine and coaxing them in.  I wanted snow (we need the moisture) and I silently urged it on.  Now we have 10 inches on the ground and more snow in the forecast. All wonderful for a days of shoveling, sledding, building snow tunnels, and communing around hot tea and soup.   

Not so fun when one of us goes down ...

What can I say?  And this too ... thank you?

Well, that was going to be my newly acquired mantra.  That my resolve is being tested right out of the gate seems cruel but I suppose necessary.  Like trying on a new pair of boots and determining whether the pinch is due to an off fit or stiff leather. 

Last week I donned my well-suited cowgirl boots and headed off to the barn for my second session volunteering as a sidewalker for the equestrian therapeutic riding program.  I am scheduled to assist in three session although my first week the third rider had cancelled.  So the first two riders I had gotten to know last week.  

I say know, but the gift of these sessions is that all matters for me - and I assume for the riders - is this day. The rider's history is unknown to me. I am not told the cause of their injury or their illness; I am informed only of what they need this day. Even that changes as we make our way around the ring, the therapist responding to what is manifesting for the client. While  I am directed to give more or less support, to adjust my hand or body position, the therapist also checks in with what I may notice about the rider.  Witnessing shifts and changes and adapting moment by moment. 

Feeling more relaxed (in terms of what to expect) from my first week, I was happily unprepared for the third rider.  We are asked to protect the privacy of the clients, so while I will call her Gaby, that is not her real name.  Gaby arrived for her riding session in her wheelchair wearing sparkly tights, gold hoop earrings and a sunbeam smile.  Unlike the previous clients who are not vocal, Gaby was cooing with excitement. She spoke in Spanish to her family and softly repeated the therapist's English directions. Up, down, and go sounded like a Pablo Neruda love poem coming from her lips.  When she would get confused, she would let slip a shy laugh.  If she could have, she would have galloped the horse right out of the ring and into the open fields beyond the barn such was her enthusiasm and joy.

After the session, she returned to her wheelchair. Her therapist then pointed to each volunteer and said our names in turn while Gaby repeated "Lisa ... thank you." The horse was led over and dipping his head down to her lap she felt the warm air from his nostrils tickling her hands, making her erupt into her sparkling laugh.  Then stroking his face and gazing into his eyes she repeated over and over "Smokey ... thank you ... thank you ... thank you ..." 

That moment has stayed with me all weekend.  I keep revisiting the image of a girl with such tenderness in her eyes gently stroking the horse while repeating thank you. 

thank you thank you thank you ...

It sounds like a mantra, a love offering made with utter and complete gratitude and awe. It strikes me as the best way to live life with an open and receptive heart.  It is what I want to express through HeartFull living.  Gratitude, joy, surrender, welcoming, honoring, trusting.

It is easy to say thank you to the things I knowingly want to welcome into my life. Sunshine, an extra day of family time, acts of friendship and being witnessed, understood.  It is much harder to welcome that which approaches in a more threatening manner: illness, hardship, struggle, death.  But there is always choice, isn't there? 

To proceed forward or forge my own path; to dwell in the darkness or to behold the light; to focus upon what is missing or to acknowledge what is; to bash against what I cannot do or embrace what is possible.  

On this bitterly cold, winter day I can lift my face to the unexpected beams of sunlight,   don sparkle tights, and serve tea in bed to my sick girl.

For all this and all that I have yet to realize: thank you thank you thank you ... 

Care to join in on the conversation around HeartFull Living?  A truly glittery tights group is forming with special guest contributors ... 50% of the proceeds benefiting the horses in the therapeutic riding program I mentioned above ...   all the details can be found HERE.

the bare minimum (in a day ... of practice)

I had to add the above parenthetical clarification alas the prudence of anticipating perverse online lurkers (I just deleted ten gibberish comments on previous posts, the work of a computer Hal, offensive only in that it makes no sense.)

What I was thinking as I caught myself about to sling-shot into my day, was that in honoring Simplicity (my walking stick for the year) I need to clarify what constitutes the bare essentials for my well-being. What am I able to commit to on a regular basis? What is the bare minimum required to keep me more or less balanced, by which I mean, not capsizing into fast moving, murky waters?


So there I was, finishing my morning levee, mind racing with the to-dos for this packed day of appointments - Yes, I have the burden of an 11 am massage and 3:30 eye doctor appointment - and I had mentally squashed a half dozen activities into the coming 2 hours when I remembered: This.

It took my breath away.  All that anticipated hustle and bustle halted by one word: This. Well, two words really. And this ...

seeking: connection & simplicity (a spoonful of wisdom from a dear friend)

My life - this, and this - the threads that will form into some sort of pattern or design. Yet who is the weaver? Who is in charge of quality control? I immediately made my way to my meditation cushion, recognizing the need for a sacred pause.  As I settled in (okay, attempted to settle ... thoughts being like wild horses, they rarely become docile in an instant) I promised myself Ten breaths. This is doable. Ten breaths focusing upon rooting, grounding, connecting. Ten breaths to gather the energy of earth and heaven, bringing that into my heart and exhaling it back out into my world. Ten breaths done with full attention, commitment, gratitude and love can make a difference in my day and that is all I really need to think about. This day and how I choose to welcome and receive it.

I confess, I have a couple of bare minimum practices that I struggle to maintain. Yet doing so makes all the difference in how I experience my life. Still sketching daily (adding color through watercolor paints is a necessary prescription to combat The Blahs brought on by January's monochrome palette) and taking one photo a day.  Because life does change in the course of one day and I am committed to paying attention. You know, not wanting to miss the miracle ;)

And speaking of magical thinking (well, I was headed there and hoping others are following me) ... 
 
I am happy to announce the Winner of Spectrum 2015 membership: Laurie!

I have decided to take the time to think about things before immediately saying "Yes, I'll do it!". This year, if it doesn't feel right to me, I'm going to decline even if it makes someone not happy with me. Sounds simple but I know myself well enough that if I am not constantly present and aware, I will fall back into this self-defeating bad habit.

Congratulations Laurie! And here's to honoring your boundaries, honoring the space that "no" can allow.   Oh my woman, you have created some of the most lovely zentangle spirit guides and how have I missed reading your blog? Thank goodness for Connection and rediscovering your gifts.  

Spectrum 2015 launches May 1 but there is an early bird discount registration available through the end of January, so get thee over there soon to sign up and save! 

Thank you everyone for your comments. It was inspiring to read the many ways you are choosing to show up for yourself and honor sacred care. I know I will be borrowing some of your ideas. 
 

happiness is ... (post-break edition)

 These moments together ...

It is easy to slide back into well-established grooves ... as Cowgirl gets older, she is quick to retreat to her room to listen to music, draw or read and it is easy for me to busy myself with dinner prep, the mail or any of the quotidian tasks that tend to overpower one's sense of priorities.  Slowing down helps to provide space and perspective: what really matters in this moment? A washed and sorted pile of laundry? Or the last minutes of sunlight and together time disguised as a new project?

Tomorrow we will sew our new prayer flags.  I don't believe in limiting myself to the number of prayers released into the world, do you?

No, I believe in maximizing the opportunities for giving voice to our hopes, our prayers,  and I definitely seek out opportunities to maximize more sunshine in my world. The brightest, warmest light? This smile ... it never fails to melt my heart ...

Watching her grow into the brave, trusting, adventurous girl that I first knew as a babe in my arms now skating away from me and into the world brings both happiness and no small amount of mama fear for bruised knees, bruised heart.  

But I trust in the foundation we've been building and I lean heavily upon the hope that she knows that love, comfort, support and safe haven wait for her and welcome her home. Always.

frozen (no, not THAT "Frozen" ...)

Trudging into the new year ... can't say I've found my rhythm yet. It continues to be cold and snowy here which has me wandering about the house thinking of all that I would like to be doing (painting, writing, playing with some new art toys) but stalled by inertia and hands tucked under armpits.  

my boot scrapper hedgehog in hibernation

Even coming here, I find myself wondering why am I sharing this? Nothing inspiring, nothing enlightening, nothing noteworthy.

 

my altar ... my commitment to connecting with Spirit, with the Sacred, with Nature on a regular basis

Ah, yes ... just life as it is I suppose.  I move through my days not sure what I do matters much at all but trusting somehow it all will add up to something important, useful, empowering.  It is like japa meditation. Holding my mala (strand of beads) I move one bead for each recitation of my mantra.  Sometimes I do it with real connection and engagement in the words, with the vibration of the mantra (mine is a Sanskrit mantra and Sanskrit is a vibrational language - rather than be descriptive, the word conveys meaning  through sound/vibration), but more often than not I simply going through the motions. Yet each time I perform japa, I do believe I am adding to a reserve of energy that one day will rise to support or carry me. I know because I've experienced it. It is both amazing and so ordinary.  Of course the net will appear ... when you trust fully. 

So I keep showing up ... as best I can.  Flung myself into another photo-a-day project because in all honesty, it is the best way I've found to manage memory.  Crazy as it sounds, staying at home the days blur together. Okay, perhaps that is also due to shifting hormones (a blog unto itself) but when I need to remember what I did when (or even that anything remarkable happened) I turn to either my photos or my sketch journal.  In the moment it is hard to recognize what is happening. But with even a small gap of time, I am better able to tease out the narrative elements.

life is what happens ... just over your shoulder and in the kitchen ...

Kinda like watching grass growing.  It does grow!

So consider this post a little rest stop in your day.  A moment of fluff ... or a moment of inspired nothingness to keep us connected.  Ah ... my Intention for the year ... Connection.  Like how I wove that in?

Each day one precious bead in a full strand ... I suppose my purpose here is to remember how lovely it is to simply honor and celebrate what is ... these moments with family ...

the quiet moments that are doing their work below the surface, feeding something yet to be known. 

Stay warm. Stay connected.  Let's stay in touch, okay? 

 

what self care looks like ...

The benefit of offering a course on self care is the constant awareness to practice it!  I am so very grateful I've learned to trust that when an idea comes to me in a flash, I am follow it forward despite the almost immediate ruckus of doubts and obstacles tossed my way by the shadow-loving gremlins of fear and insecurity. Certainly the best course for me to lead is the one I need most in this moment.

I've been in building mode: creating the course, planning some local offerings and new adventures and projects.  It has been invigorating but it also has been exhausting. The shorter days have also taken their toll and in the interest of modeling exquisite self care, I have found myself scaling back, doing less, resting more.  The unexpected core of my self care practice has been slowing down, doing one thing at a time and being mindful as to who, where, or what I am directing my attention towards.  So far, the result has been I am feeling less scattered, more focused and energized. I am finding a reserve of patience, kindness and loving care that sometimes falls by the wayside when I am frazzled or stressed.  I am seeing relationships reinvigorated.  Time with my girl has become more creative and playful despite the fullness of our day and schedules. And - knock on wood - so far our entire family is staying healthy while colds and viruses run through our respective schools/workplaces.  

The joy of slowing down is choosing carefully what best nourishes me in any given moment.  And as this building phase winds down, (well, maybe ...  I have since been invited to contribute to two other projects!) I find myself returning to the practices I had to let rest while I worked elsewhere.  My life feels like an English cottage garden: from a distance a bit random and haphazard, but upon closer inspection there is an order and logic present to its layout.  While one bed rests fallow, a bit of manure heaped upon it for nourishment, another requires weeding while a third may be in full bloom and a fourth, ready to seed.  

 


So this past week I tended to some favorite beds, turning up the soil, getting my hands messy, creating, destroying, preparing.  This is how self care appears in my life.  

 

 

I bow my head in gratitude for this jumbled, sometimes frustrating, always in process and always vibrant existence.

 

I guess I am more like a whirling dervish or a plate-spinner than I care to admit. But I'm in good company. ♥

The drawings are part of a go-at-your-own-pace course called Capturing the Essence by Katherine Dunn of Apifera Farm.  The course is still open and there is plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful lessons which center upon the colorful hooved, webbed and paw-footed residents of the farm.  It has been my sanctuary to visit there, albeit virtually through my laptop screen. 

the "in between" time

I've been having these recurring dreams in which I am gathering with others in preparation for a big feast or celebration. It seems like night after night I am meeting with a new group of people - people I actually know - which is unusual for me and my dream life. Usually my dreams involve bears speaking like Hugh Jackman or cameos by celebrities but rarely people from my world.

But my current dreams involve real people who I am excited to be seeing. The overall mood is one of anticipation, celebration and excitement. I've even wailed - in my dream, of course - "Oh, I've forgotten my camera and I know this will be a photo-worthy event!"

Needless-to-say, my waking life has been more ordinary with excitement being a long awaited (and welcome) root canal or an adults only dinner out while Cowgirl attended a birthday party. It has been an uneventful winter and while hints of an early Spring are everywhere, I am feeling like burrowing deeper into my cave.

no, Cowgirl did not have the root canal;

hers was the usual rock star cleaning.

However, this Winter I saw the dentist enough times to ask about a punchcard.

I think it is the fact that a tangible sense of time and season is missing. Remember when seeing strawberries in the grocery store signaled Summer had arrived? Or blueberries? Up until last year it seemed peaches and nectarines were only available late July and August but just this week the store had all four summer fruits in abundance.

adding to my discomfort have been the excessive winds blowing everything out of place

I am feeling like I am being prematurely awoken; a Spring bulb being "forced" to bloom before her time. There are still two weeks left to Winter and I am feeling this need to hunker down and enjoy the waning moments of this in between time.

patience epitomized

I mean, the best part of any party is the anticipation, the preparation and the lead up to the actual event. I am not wanting to rush past these weeks of preparation. Exactly what I am preparing for, I cannot say. But whatever is awaiting me down the road I want to greet it fully rested and revived. I want to have my camera ready with eyes and mind clear and ready to see and capture the magic.

Naturally, I turned to The Man for a little support (oh Mr. O'Donohue, how do you always know what I need to hear?):

You have been forced to enter empty time.

The desire that drove you has relinquished.

There is nothing else to do now but rest

And patiently learn to receive the self

You have forsaken for the race of days.

(-A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted, John O'Donohue)

This morning I heard the geese flying overhead, on the move. And the robins have been caucusing in the trees around my neighborhood. But I am still cocooning. Peeking out occasionally to see what is going on before burrowing back within.

Snippets from my world ... or is this the dream?

favorite activity du jour: the remote controlled helicopter

in our Em Falconbridge skirts

blissfully making postcards for a swap

and enjoying the bounty of soda bread that March brings

Is anyone else feeling this pressure to awake before they're ready? Time may be speeding up, but over here we are slowing down. Be warned: we are grumpy when prematurely roused.

[Explanation of Cowgirl's Scooby Doo band-aid: while it is covering a scab that needs to be left in peace, she also believes it makes her look tough. Oh to be young and the maker of one's fashion statements!]

Double dog dared ...

... and dog tired!

I just completed my first double dog dare thanks to the support and accountability of the Squam Artworkshops Community. In January they kicked off the challenge on their new blog and I decided it was just the incentive I needed to complete a task that had been weighing heavily upon the grey matter.

You see, I take a lot of pictures ... but said pictures live in various virtual folders on two computers and two back up hard drives. Knowing that one day the Apple cloud will evaporate (not that I'm in the cloud yet) and a solar flare will wipe out the contents of all of earth's computer hard drives (and yes, one day pigs will have wings ... in fact I'm sure there is one over on Youtube somewhere ...) I've been living on the edge worrying about the demise of this vast photographic record of my family's life.

Okay, so I am motivated by apocalyptic fears but here is a time when fear and angst were put to good use:

one is a Blurb Book and the other from Shutterfly

I completed not one, but TWO photo books! The main project - my double dog dare - was to retrieve (yes, woof woof!) the 365 images from a daily self portrait project spanning 2009 and 2010. I had just completed the first Unravelling course with Susannah Conway and a group of us decided to stay together for either a 365 or 52 (one photo a week) project. That I completed that project is proof I am nothing if not a terrier holding onto the end of a sock. Once I commit, I commit.

I admit, once that year was through I was relieved to step away from the task of a daily photograph. But a year later and I realized how that practice made me more attentive to the details of my life. Each day of that year is vivid in my memory because I took time to celebrate it.

I also discover shifting though a year's worth of work I could identify aspects of my changing style and interests. Many of the images are pretty dreadful in terms of technique but they do chart my progress as a photographer; looking at a large body of work, I am able to identify my true strengths and can begin to more mindfully develop my interests and skills.

And because I had my camera already out, I took lots of pictures of daily events with Cowgirl. I had been making photo albums for her but somewhere in 2009 things fell apart. So a side dare was to begin reconstructing those missing years into photo books. Spurring me on was the fear of one day handing Cowgirl a back-up hard drive saying "Here is your childhood."

For Cowgirl's book I used a fun template in Shutterfly called Project Life, a digital scrapbook designed by Becky Higgans (her products are here if you would rather make your own) which allowed me to type in stories and text to create a more personalized book. (The one thing I like about Shutterfly is your projects stay there indefinitely; a book I made years ago is still available to reprint or even edit should I want more copies for family members.)

Of course I am caught up through August 2009 ... many more books to complete ...

And did I mention I've committed to another 365 project?

feb 21

feb 22

feb 23

feb 25

i think i deserve to be star student

Which means another book at the end of 2012 ...

But this is what you get to see when you complete your dare:

DDD celebrates YOU! from jen gray on Vimeo.

Okay, I just dare you not to want to jump up and take action now! You know you feel a mighty woof coming on. (Thank you Jen Gray, you are a Joy Warrior extraordinaire!)

we ♥ u

Must be the sugar overload ...










The first serenade went a lot like Bill Withers Ain't No Sunshine (which I'm not sure how she's ever heard it, but definitely that was the melody and part of the lyric.) Naturally Cowgirl wanted to record her creation but once the camera was rolling things unraveled.

And then there was the unexpected request "Let's watch it on your blog mommy!" As if some blogging gnome is gathering all my photos and stories and madly uploading content while we sleep. Which actually would be a pretty useful thing ... leaving me more time to, well, enjoy all my goodies. I believe my coupon book includes a massage and a dragon and some painting.










Hope your Valentine's Day was as sweet as ours.