wisdom in a tin ...

I often need to remind myself to lighten up. My tendency to be close in to my life (perhaps a product of my slight near-sightedness?) has me often overlooking the bigger picture. Usually when I am ranting and raving about something (hmm ... and I wonder where Cowgirl gets her knee-jerk reactions? Her  It's not so good for me! cry as a toddler a favorite family expression now), I am brought back to earth by an unexpected flash of humor, absurdity, beauty or love reinforcing the truth that
 

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

-Oscar Wilde 

My position being that life is best lived rather than obsessively analyzed, considered, plotted and planned. 

Getting out of my own way is a good operating principle for me. Being aware that each moment offers me a choice, I can consider "What action will contribute to happiness? Joy? Not just within myself, but for those around me? I've been reading and working with the ideas presented in Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga. A friend shared this book with me and now we text each other to support a daily practice on one of the principles or "laws."  

Today's focus is on the Seven Law, the law of Dharma:

"... every sentient being has a purpose in life. You have unique abilities and your own way of expressing them. There are needs in this world for which your specific talents are ideally suited, and when the world's needs are matched with the creative expression of your talents, your purpose - your dharma - is realized.

To be in dharma, your life force must flow effortlessly without interference."

-Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga

To be in flow with life is to choose happiness and to extent it to others. Here is how we practiced being in flow, honoring the Law of Giving and Receiving (Law #2), and my favorite, The Law of Least Effort (#4):

Nature is held together by the energy of love, and least effort is expended when your actions are motivated by love. When your soul is your internal reference point, you can harness the power of love and use the energy creatively for healing, transformation, and evolution.

- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga

 And for making dragons:

 

When I sent my obsessive inner task-master and deep-thinker on a vacation cruise, I am able to see clearly the easy choices right before me that bring me back into flow, into a field of happiness, joy, and a celebration of love.

This weekend I am working on a gift for my niece who just headed off to college. What kind of a care package would offers real support and nourishment for this threshold stage of her life? 

I am calling it "Wisdom in a Tin" and selecting the quotes to write upon the enclosed cards is a gift for both my niece and myself.


 

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

- Oscar Wilde

Happiness, purpose, aligning myself with the flow of life ... this is the practice. It is about choice and remembering and staying open and present. Honoring the fullness and wholeness of being alive. 

Giving thanks, extending and receiving love.

everyday marvels

I do love surprises and this humble onion reminds me that often the most thrilling things are the quiet ones happening right under my nose ...
 

a perfect little pig's tail on my onion!

Even thought I think I am paying close attention, change is happening every day and right under my nose.  But when I can soften my gaze, suspend time and look with all my senses and my heart, I able to perceive the miracles right before me.

When once there was a stool, now there is a girl child managing through her own muscle and determination to claim her place. Right now it is in the kitchen but soon  - oh far too soon! -  within the world. 

And as we move into conversations addressing multi-generational healing in the current session of SouLodge,  I see the ways we are changing the experience - narrative -  of family in our world. 

What so easily could be mistaken for everyday is really the material of my life's blessings and periodically I remember to count them:

Enjoying time together -  learning or creating or exploring or seeking to discover the perfect pizza dough recipe.

 

 

The gestures, the details that constitute the person  ... or the animal

Mealtimes together ... in conversation ... sharing, laughing, teasing and yes,annoying each other but always knowing we are a tight unit.

Discovering that love brings us together in more ways than our minds could ever begin to imagine (but how our hearts so readily expand to hold)

What everyday miracles and marvels are you noticing right now?  The best gift you can give your self is to pause, lift up your gaze (being by a window and looking out helps), soften your eyes, relax and sink into the moment.  Look, feel, remember, breathe, receive the gifts that dance all around you.  And then share them with another.  Let's fill our world with these miracles.

anatomy of a dream

All of the very best decisions I've made in my life were the result of a flash of an idea, an instantaneous knowing this is what I should do. 

Which is not to say doubt or obstacles or what the hell are you thinking? doesn't immediately follow upon the heels of inspiration.

The trick has been to speak out loud the idea, to bring it into light of some kind (ideally involving another person who then holds me accountable to my plan) and to began making movement towards the dream, all the while acknowledging but tactfully disregarding the gremlins of doubt who whisper a steady stream of reasons imploring me to cease and desist.  

Confirmation of the rightness of my plan comes with each step I take towards it.  A frisson of excitement and fuck! I AM doing this! mingle with the ever-fading gremlin's taunts. And then there comes a moment when I step fully and completely into my dream and the weight of any doubt or fear tangibly lifts off of my being and I sail forward into a technicolor Now.  

Growth and vitality and heart-full expansion are possibilities held within the seeds of such dreams.

There is nothing more technicolor brilliant than the embrace and smile of a dear friend received in the green of her world.

Leaving my job, embarking upon uncharted territory of self-employment (or radical self empowerment?) has been a disorienting experience and as things have turned out, I completely upended myself by traveling down under the next day after my departure.

It seems it was the perfect time for a new perspective upon my life.

Traveling to New Zealand (a bucket list item if ever there was one!) I brought with me wise companions whose words helped frame my experience (the following quotes are from John O'Donohue's Greenbelt festival talks):

An interesting question to ask yourself: How open are you to the mystery of your own beauty and the incredible depth that is your life? 

Behind every face there is something eternal going on and that's the magic ... no one has seen the script for anyone else's life. What are you doing to the life that you have?

You are a custodian of sacred thresholds on which you alone stand.

 

If you were to clearly explain to your heart how brief your time in the world is, what are the things your heart would make you stop doing right now?

What (or who) would you immediately embrace?

 


If you look after the hungers of your heart, then everything else comes alive around you. 

 
Every person is the holder of incredible possibilities ...

 
From Pema Chodron The Wisdom of No Escape: Navajo teach their children that every morning when the sun comes up, it's a brand new sun. It's born each morning, it lives for the duration of one day, and in the evening it passes on, never to return again. As soon as the children are old enough to understand, the adults take them out at dawn and they say, "The sun has only one day. You must live this day in a good way, so that the sun won't have wasted precious time."  Acknowledging the preciousness of each day is a good way to live, a good way to reconnect with our basic joy.

This was a week of dreams.  Reflecting upon the process of how I got from here to there, I appreciate all the signs - the excitement, the doubts, the anticipation, the questions - that remind me I am on to something big, something important, something that I believe was a possibility made manifest.  

An ancient master said, "I do not say that there is no Zen, but that there is no Zen teacher." You must trust yourself in all endeavors and have faith to put your feet in motion. (Karen Maezen Miller Hand Wash Cold)

Simply stated: I had a dream, really an inkling of a dream.  I trust in my dream and in myself.  I took a step - many steps - and found myself received by a beloved friend.  Another friend recently wrote me, marveling at that very word beloved which I had stamped onto a prayer flag for her. The one we behold, we love but what I hadn't thought about and which this other dear one pointed out is that broken down, it becomes  be loved.

Listening to my heart, following its guidance, seeking my beloved friend, I opened myself up to being loved. I fully and gratefully received that gift ... and now I dare to pass it on.

What journeys might your heart implore you to follow?  How can you take a small step forward today?

Not the end, but a new beginning (and I cannot resist ...)

So much gratitude for the generosity, the beauty, and the immense and fierce love that is Jane Cunningham.  Thank you sister for sharing with me your world and for fortifying my heart.  Not enough words to encompass all that I want to share ... but I know, you know ... deep in the stone ... you know. (to learn about Jane's upcoming and always amazing e-courses, visit her at Women's Soul Workshops.  Her Facing the Minotaur e-course has been rocking my inner archetypes  ... in a good way!)

through the dark days

I love the Sunday morning when we wake up and realize we have an "extra" hour in the day.  I love that for the time being, there is some sunshine peeking out when I walk Moose in the morning.  My energy and enthusiasm swell with the rising sun ... but then evening will descend at 5:11 today and the dark nights are only going to get longer and longer in the coming months.

 

Yesterday I felt the strong, insistent pull of the dark.  It was a grey, cold, drizzly day which only added to my heavy mood. I found myself roaming around the house like an unsettled ghost; I could not transform my restless energy into action.  Truth be told, in the hustle to develop my self care e-course, I've neglected some essential pieces of myself. Even though I knowingly made this bargain - some of my time shifted into building time - I now am on the other side of it and ready to shift gears back to a happy idling mode.  Except, shifting feels rather clunky right now.

In my restless scurrying, I knew the things I could to do to ease me over this hump: grab paper, a pen, some paints and make a mark.  Any mark.  Begin now.  Scribble and see where it takes me.  

 

I felt clumsy and awkward.  My creative mind feels flabby.  Ideas which normally pour out too fast for me to capture, now seemed lost in the dust.  But I also know and had to trust in this process: that to begin where I am is the first step to taking me somewhere else.  And anywhere would be a change from the dark, dreary and depressing day that threatened to swallow me whole. 

I made a couple of drawings while Cowgirl worked on some dragons.  Her capacity to create new dragons never fails to inspire and astonish me.  If you love it, then just do it. Over and over and over.  As long as it engages you, it is vital and alive.

 

I felt a little better.  Still rusty, still emotionally wobbly.  But I knew what my next step should be.  I connected with the circle of women who have been my SouLodge tribe for over a year now.  I shared with them that I was struggling, I let them witness me as I was in that moment and I let them hold the space for me to be without apologizing or diminishing the discomfort of my experience.  I didn't need to read their responses, I just needed to voice my truth.  I then closed the laptop and tended to dinner.

Today the sun is out.  Today my energy has shifted as I knew (but cannot always believe) it would do.  I am grateful for the self care practices I have been sharing and I am grateful for the knowledge of what I need to offer myself on a daily basis: art, friendship, community, space and acceptance of all that moves through me, but does not define or limit me.

 

Staying in flow means moving through the dark and the light.  Welcoming it all as it puts in me touch with the one constant in life: Love.

October adventures

While there is much keeping me busy - InnerGlow has been all consuming - I do not want to neglect those things that feed my soul.  Last weekend it was a drive out to a favorite family farm and their make-shift pumpkin patch.  They have a playset in place for the kids and you go out into the field to gather your own pumpkins.  

 

This year was a good year for pumpkins but we were late in arrive so things were pretty much picked over.  Despite the slim pickings, Cowgirl wrestled up a wheelbarrow while I stood guard over our pie sized pumpkins.  A small, but acceptable haul.

 

Then it was off to Sonic to slake our pumpkin harvesting thirst (it turned out to be an unusually balmy October day) with happy hour fruit slushes.

Lest you think it is all fun and games here, I have been working hard on the materials for the course which - eek! - goes live on Monday.  The day after a rather grand - ahem - milestone in my life.  Let's just say, I wish I could retire now.  So here is some proof of my nose being pressed upon the grindstone:





direct link here
password: ireallyampostingthis

 

And since I will be an official sage on Sunday, here is my advice to anyone needing a thimble-full ... 

Always, always choose joy.  It keeps a heart young. 

summer fun (joy warrior's journal)

Ingredients for summer fun: water

ice cream  

more water

leaps

and smiles

a heart bursting to show its joy


 

Such is the life of two joy warriors.
 

 

How do you experience joy?  Care to share?  Let's make this the summer of the joy revolution!