happiness is ... (sunshine edition)

... the sunshine waking me up before my alarm ... the robins serenading me as I run ... more and more warm days (mixed with cold and rainy, just to keep things interesting) ... the produce section of the market becoming more inviting (only weeks until Farmer's market!) hence a supper of roasted golden and red beets served over greens and lemon zest goat cheese on ciabatta buns. Is there anything more delightful than the smell of fresh lemon?  Mood lifter indeed!

All kinds of craziness happening over here ... Spring fever has taken hold and I've discovered a new passion:

Tie Dye!  Prepping for shibori in Bali next October.  

I might just be opening a scarf stall when I get back (how many scarves can I bring home through customs?  Hmm ....)

Finding the best medicine is trying new things. Learned that from Martha Beck - it is good for the brain and good for the creative soul.  What should I try next?  

Anything sunshine yellow and turquoise I'd say ...

going slow ...

An interesting thing happens when when you slow down and commit to uni-tasking  ...  the day feels large, time stretches and snaps like an elastic band and a common response to the inquiry of "what did you do today?" is perplexed silence.

What did I do with this day?  Or more accurately: what did this day offer me? 

Lots.  Just nothing I can quantify or measure in the usual terms. How illuminating that my knee-jerk response is to want to offer some sort of measurement of productivity? As if wrestling with the contents of my world or my mind is a sign of deep engagement? Certainly the rabbits who are frolicking about my yard aren't concerning themselves with how many of my pansies they demolish in a day. (Okay, frolic may be too energetic a term for these suburban lagomorphs who resemble overfed house cats lolling in the sunshine.) 

There is a natural heaviness to this season of new beginnings.  Through Ayurveda I've come to appreciate that this period of earth mixed with water (rain) = mud. Just the other week I was volunteering at the stables on a misty, damp day.  We took the horses outside to their corrals for some fresh air while we cleaned inside.  Then the rain came. Hard. Fast. Cold and miserable.  We rushed out to bring the horses in but rushing was impossible. Each step in the now-sticky mud coated my boots in a thick and heavy layer so each step felt like I was walking upon slippery platform shoes. The horse I was told to retrieve was even more distressed by the unstable conditions, refusing to face downhill, he slide sideways towards the gate.  At one point, all I could do was circle him around and around because going forward was impossible.

Hmmm ...

I finally just stopped moving. And waited for help to come. Part of my work with horses is to yield completely and utterly to my lack of experience, learning to say I need help, learning to ask for guidance and learning to trust that I am, well, learning.  It is an overdue correction to how I was in childhood and, truth be told, an embarrassing amount of adulthood. Saying I didn't know or understand something seemed to me - as a child -  to be a sign of my inherent lack or incompetence and therefore something I guarded carefully. Understanding the absurdity of this still does not undo a lifetime of habit and fear. But I am chipping away at it.

Sounds a bit like Anne Lamott's famous prayer: Help. Thanks. Wow.  In my case, the wow came once I sat down in my car and took stock of my boots, drenched jacket and hair do inspired by a mix master blender frappe cycle. 

All of this is to say, going forward isn't always the best option and mud demands a delicate kind of surrender. I cannot clomp through mud, it just won't allow it. What is required is a mindful and careful stepping forward and an understanding that things will be messy for awhile.  Learning not to rush, but to linger ... and summoning persistence, stick-to-it-ness seems to be my mode for the season.

Even this wonky little bowl required undo amounts of patience and willingness to start again ... and again ... and again.  It's imperfections remind me that I am not striving for perfection, but instead seeking to learn, discover, grow, and ask for guidance.

Oh yes ... guidance ... seeing who my real teachers are ...

Happy mud days. May there be much comfort in these mud pies of mine.  I am inhabiting out-of-time-ness with these inspirations: 

Taking my time listening to David Whyte's What To Remember When Waking.  The perfect guide for the threshold stages I've been traversing.  
true discipline - reading one poem a day from his collection and not continuing on ... it is hard, just one but then time allows the images to soak in ...

Sharon Blackie (reenchantingtheearth.com) This post got my mind whirling ... (thank you Mel)

Company in the dark (and the light!) places - The Sacred Pause and my sister in moondancing (more to say about her amazing work on repatterning energetic boundaries, if there is anything the doctor should prescribe, it is this!)

Speaking of the moon ... my moon mandala meditation practice is my contribution  to Spectrum 2015 which begins on May 1st.  26 amazing workshops that compliment and augment each other in magical and exciting ways. I am particularly excited by Hali's offering "Calling on the Grandmothers" and Jennette's offering of Make-To-Mend moon ritual object and moon exilir.  

Finally, this had me in tears ... and filled with gratitude and anticipation as I will be making this very journey next October with Em and Nicole. 

Suddenly, I realize I am soaking in a wonderfully cleansing mud bath of ideas and new perspectives! Feel the energy of sunshine slowly drying things out ...

gentle transitions ...

Tomorrow would have been her birthday. 

She would have been ninety.

A Spring baby ... the youngest of three children and the only girl ... I wonder what blessings her mother bestowed upon her when she was fresh and new? What secret hopes did my grandmother hold in her heart, in her dreams for her only girl child?

This Spring arrives in the nick of time.  I know grief is not finished with me, but I am ready for the heaviness within to lighten and I feel my heart turning towards the horizon, towards new beginning, new cycles and new growth.

For months I have been in deep conversation with the Moon ... unraveling her meaning for me and coming to understand the extent to which she illuminates my relationship with my mother and with myself. My moon mandala practice has ushered me into the mysteries of Maiden/Mother/Queen/Crone and unusual for me, I am relaxing into an understanding that lies beneath language, below what the mind can grasp.  

I tried to explain to the Husband how my relationship with my mother is best described by the moon: how all my life has been a continual journeying out and away from her, collecting experiences, gathering knowledge and but always orbiting back to be seen and understood by her light. Now I journey out and I must make myself return ... I must find a new source of illumination to guide me, a new anchor to hold my sense of self tethered to life.

I am finding my way through simple practices.  Each morning I feed myself one poem, moving mindfully and attentively through River Flow: New & Selected Poems by David Whyte.  

As someone prone to gobbling books up, it is beneficial practice to make myself take time and care, savoring the words, the lines, the rhythm of his art.

I am cycling back to beginnings, remembering how it felt when I first returned to creative play years ago. The simple pleasure of gathering materials, creating bright, colorful things because they pleased me, they brightened my day. 

Getting out of my way and cleansing myself of thoughts about Bigness and Importance and Grand Acts. Enjoying the simple, the playful, the tiny bright moments that lift my spirit and refresh my heart.  

These are all things she would understand ... she delighted in my creative play while quietly pursuing her own.  I mark her birthday with colorful adornment (she was known for her stylish outfits, beautifully coordinated and accessorized) ...

and I honor this season of new beginnings, new growth, and new opportunities to choose Love. I honor the mystery that calls me forward, that carries me through the darkness for I know in my cells, in my soul, it brings me home.

And so to these

unspoken shadows

and this broad night

I make

a quiet

request

to the

great paternal 

darkness

to hold her

when I cannot,

to comfort her

when I am gone,

to help her learn

to love

the unknown

for itself, 

to take it 

gladly 

like 

a lantern

for the way

before her,

to make her see

where ordinary light

cannot help,

where happiness had fled,

where faith

will not reach.

-David Whyte (excerpt from My Daughter Asleep)

 

Happy Birthday Momma. I lean against your cloak of darkness and I feel your love. 

conjuring love ...

I am finishing up my HeartFull Living circle and what a magical gathering it has been! With one more post to go up, I woke today wondering where to find inspiration?  I didn't have to look too far ...

Can you believe it?  From a smudge of grime or dirt on my front door window this rainbow heart appeared on the wood floor.  I couldn't have create such a perfect heart if I had tried! The art historian in me can't help but think of the stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals and how light was understood by the Medieval to be an instrument and aspect of the divine.

Certainly we've been conjuring up love over here ...

creating farewell offerings to send out to the women who circled with me this past month. 

Keeping hands busy stitching and embellishing a new set of prayer flags (part of Em Falconbridge's A Year of Soul*Makes offering) has the entire house humming with creative play. Messages from HeartFull living spilling over into my day, my work, my world ...

 

Trying not to think too much, but relax and enjoy the flow.  The theme of the new season seems to be love and mandalas ...

Which isn't all that unusual as I am working under deadline to complete my contribution to Spectrum 2015, Mandala Moon Meditations.  I've got mandala fever and am excited to be sharing my monthly moon mandala practice there.  Tuning into the moon's energies, creating my mandalas, working with ceremony - all these activities are fueling insights as I shift through the layers of daughter/mother/queen/crone which seems to be the hidden wisdom within my grieving process. 

a sneak preview of my Moon Mandala Meditations process; visit Spectrum 2015 to learn more

And as Spring awakens new growth within me, projects are popping up including a  collaborative learning/sharing lunar cycle circle with my wise and inspired sister, Kristina Wingeier as part of her Inner Wisdom School.

Oh, much love and magic is afoot ... I dare not think too much.  Just opening and receiving and saying thank you thank you thank you ...

Beauty + imagination + conversation = love.  That's my kind of sacred mathematics.