cracked wide open ...

Yesterday was the kind of a day I want to sandwich between sheets of waxed paper and laying a heavy book on top (how about my Treasures of the Louvre - one fat and heavy mama of a coffee table art book!) press and preserve the multitude of rich details as a remembrance to carry me through leaner days. 

It began with a morning more like early April than July: there was an unexpected chill to the air and gentle breezes under crystal clear blue skies. The day held a sense of freshness that only a cool, dew damp early morning can offer. I went running and came upon a flock of wild turkeys, fourteen in all.  I moved to the side of the road and they slowly streamed by me and then slipping into the woods, they vanished.  I stood in the street, locked in my trance until a neighbor moving his trash cans broke the spell.  

Minutes later, a hawk swooped over me and landed on a roof top.

All before my morning coffee. I figured I had had my fill for the day.

Spontaneity is not my normal habit, but it is something I crave and try to practice.  Although my list was long, my list is always long.  So when I discovered magic might be happening less than an hour's drive away, I bundled Cowgirl into the car and we set off on a little road trip.

I had meant to pack my camera, but in the haste to get out the door and into an adventure, it was left in the mudroom.  Which is just as well because some days can only be captured by the sensitive medium of the heart. 

Road trip in the Midwest means miles and miles of grass, cows and sky.  Road trip over The River (which for us is the Mighty Mo or the Missouri River)  and into Iowa means rolling hills like sleeping giants keeping you company for much of the journey. Years ago I used to toss my bike into the back of my dark blue pick up truck (oh yes, move to Nebraska and at some point you own a pick up) to make this drive to the Wabash Trace, a 63 mile bike trail running down the profile of Iowa  to the border of Missouri. It's a beautiful trail that dips in and out of farmland with refreshing stretches tunnel-like through groves of trees.  And hills.  Lots and lots of hills.  Thankfully there are local ice cream stands situated right by the trail.  

While I wasn't on this trail today (although now that I am remembering it, I am storing the idea away for future adventures with Cowgirl) others were.  We were traveling to meet them.  "How would you like to visit two poets who are riding their bike across Nebraska to share their love of words and books?"  This surprisingly lassoed Cowgirl in, although in all honesty, she is always up for spontaneous adventures even when they may sound oddly vague or baffling.  Poets? On one bike? (I had to explain the tandem concept to her) Opening up libraries?  (again, explanations on the Little Free Library)  Why not?

We arrived well before Maya and Amy, so we had time to make new friends while sitting outside the quaint Glenwood Public Library (the kind of library you knew as a child - or wish you had known - its big stones steps lifting you up to the treasures within).  Did I mention it was a glorious day?  We walked to the town square (oh yes, this is a true small town folks) to find something cool to drink, the orange Fanta raising Cowgirl's spirits even higher, so by the time the poets arrived, she was doing cartwheels on the sidewalk and playing tag with her new friend.

Then the fun began.  Meeting new and old friends (faces remembered from art workshops long ago and in more woody scenes), the treasures of the traveling Tiny Book library (seeds for future play) and then what we had come for: our poems.  

We actually brought artwork - a Cowgirl original drawing of an Ice Dragon - to trade for poems.  Maya and Amy set up on one of the benches outside the library, their typewriters on their laps, a stack of index cards by their side, and one by one we filed up and gave them our word which they expanded into poetry.

This is where things cracked wide open.  Or maybe it was just me cracking apart.  

After completing the poems, each writer would read out loud her poem to the recipient, while all of us gathered leaned in closer to witness the miracle of words capturing deep soul truths and gentle wisdom. Each poem felt intensely private and intimate, as if we were receiving with our poem, a blessing. We were given our poem cards, but we also were given a glimpse into the fuller possibility of our word and the meaning it embodies for ourselves and for our lives.

dragon by Maya Stein

It's funny how something that looks so dangerous can turn out to be so gentle. It is easy to be misunderstood, to see claws  when all they are is hands, to see fire when all it is is breath. If I could give you any advice, it would be not to worry if someone shies from your scales, if your sharp, wise eyes frighten and intimidate.  What's beautiful about you is what's beautiful about YOU. Hold this close to your big green heart.

Dragon by Amy Tingle

What do you like about dragons, Clara? Is it the way they can breathe fire or their sharp claws, or the whipping of their tails?  If I had to guess I would say it was their wings. I can picture you soaring about the snow-capped mountains or crossing an ocean on wings of your own. Letting the thermals carry you when you need to rest, flapping hard when you have somewhere to go. Oh, Clara, close your eyes and feel your wings grow.



dandelion by Maya Stein

How they stood by the Nebraska back roads like little soldiers, how the wind never seemed to disturb them, how their tufts held firm and reminded me to sit a little deeper in my seat, and hold the reins with a lighter touch. It is a different thing than trees, their rooted loyalty to the earth. The dandelion says, it is alright to bend and sway to the elements. It is alright to wave from the side of the road and, sometimes, blow a kiss to whoever passes by.


Dandelion by Amy Tingle

On the side of the road in Colorado we saw dandelions with heads as big as a grapefruit. I thought of how many things I could wish if I stopped to blow on one. I'd wish for good health and bigger adventures. I'd wish my daughter would grow to be strong and true. I'd wish for a peaceful heart and a peaceful world. I'd wish for patience and creativity and trust and truth. I'd wish for more wishes, wouldn't you?


What more can I possibly say?

I can say this: driving home we both were quiet for awhile, each of us wrapped up in the magic of an afternoon that seemed like a dream from summer nap. Before we pulled into the driveway, I asked Cowgirl what she thought about the people we've met this summer - the people like Katherine Dunn and Maya and Amy  - who have fashioned lives and work from what they love doing and what they feel passionate about.  I wondered if she recognized that theirs are not standard job titles listed under careers, but ones they created for themselves.  She was quiet in that way that tells me she is chewing things over.  It is a conversation I intend to continue ... for both our sakes.
   

hope and windows

Lately it seems my mind is fixed upon doorways and windows.

It's been a trying Winter ... only a handful of days left so hope is in sight, right?  Except I seem to recall majority climbers on Mount Everest die in the region just before the summit.  Hilary Step I believe it is called.  But that is a metaphor for another day.

 No, my response to "How are you doing?" in these Hilary Step days is to mangle a favorite line from a John Irving novel, "Still passing the open windows."  Actually, I am glancing out those windows, eagerly awaiting the day I can open them up and air out the mental dust bunnies of my home and head.  To mis-quote another memorable line: Hope Floats. (It is actually "Sorrow floats" - Sorrow being the family's beloved black Labrador retriever stuffed after death, a symbol of hope amid suffering.)  In my case, Hope is a droopy, repotted house plant in shock.  The intention was revival, the outcome remains uncertain.

I can relate.  As I bear witness to the end of another season, another cycle in my life, I am aware of how quickly these months fly by.  My experience is akin to those spiral wishing wells often positioned in the entrance of Children's Museums.  Drop a coin in at the outer edge and it spirals slowly and hypnotically around and around until it reaches a point closer to the center when suddenly it rapidly whips through the few final circles before plunging into the hole and disappearing.  Coin gone, game over.

Being a self-proclaimed optimistic realist, I choose to focus upon the many doors and windows ahead of me.  I just hold a healthy sense of urgency or importance to those choices.

"the doors have always been there/to frighten you and invite you" (David Whyte, Everything is Waiting for You)

There is the moment when I pause, looking back over my shoulder at the doorways I have passed through and remember the ones I passed by. I don't choose to dwell upon regrets except when I catch myself fumbling or stumbling upon another threshold. In the past what has held me back can be boiled down to fear and doubt. Two familiar gremlins who have squatted far too long in the back alleys of my mind.  I have taken time to get to know them - in day light it is amazing how puny and weak they appear to be. Their power resides in shadow and making a mighty racket to camouflage their diminutive stature.  Well, I've cultivated some allies to help me flush these pests out into the open.

All of this is to say, another season and another chance to reach for that brass ring.  Which in my mind is really any gesture of reaching, exploring, trying, daring, believing, doing or tempting that has me stepping through another door.  Or opening a window and leaning out, feeling sunlight upon my face, hearing the bird song, sensing the pulse of the world waking up around me.  

There is no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don't. Unused creativity doesn't just disappear. It lives within us until it's expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.  Unexpressed creativity is not benign. It metastasized into grief and illness. (Brené Brown) 

A great man once said the only true sin is that of an un-lived life. 

There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality. We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. (John O'Donohue, Anam Cara)

There it is again!  That doorway, another threshold.  

Each time I choose to get up off the couch, to counter inertia with action, to reach for the art journal, paint brush, pen or paper, it is another step through a doorway.  Sometimes I am shuffling ... sometimes all I can take is baby-steps ... sometimes it is a stumbling, lurching kind of movement ...  but whatever the form, whatever the gesture the impulse itself is guided by Hope, Faith and Trust.  

It doesn't have to be complicated.  My faith is in the birds, in the tiny shoots ready to burst through hard soil, in the energy that animates this face, this heart.

My trust is in the cycles and seasons within me and around me.  A trust in myself to spiral closer and closer to my truth, my light, my source.

And hope ... well, he sleeps with his tongue sticking out, he awaits another walk, another day to love and to simply be in my presence.  

Starting soon ... a chance to step through 21 different doorways and create with some incredible teachers and guides.  

On Sale Now! Starts April 1!

I will be there ... and I will be immersing myself in the play, indulging my inner child in discovery and adventure. 

Each day we stand on the edge of a new adventure, possibilities waiting to emerge.  What is germinating right now within your heart, your soul?  How are you tending to it?

Ch-Ch-Changes

"Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it ..."

- David Bowie

Changes indeed.  Of course change is always afoot, but there are moments when it appears the perfect storm of change has stirred up a massive wave of change crashing down upon me.

In less than two months my mother will mark her 89th birthday.  Her changes have been of the gradual but steady erosion of body but thankfully not mind.  She is still sharp as a tack and sharped tongued as always (ah, the source of this Scorpio's verbal stings) and has a healthy sense of humor padding the anxiety and fear that accompany her as she traverses the landmines of aging.  She has a team of doctors supporting her (her  "pit crew" as I think of them) which is as comforting as it is confusing with contradictory advice and objectives.  I remind my mother that she is in charge but a life time habit of ceding to "the experts" is hard to counter.  

Equally unyielding the sense of one's body as a foreign exchange student difficult to understand but something we must struggle to communicated with.  As we move through my mother's changes the pervading attitude is one of continual let down, as if the body's decline is a betrayal of an unspoken pact. You care for me and I will serve you.

I am moving through the long forest of changes which is perimenopause.  I think of it as a forest because once in it, the experiences and understanding of the journey is filtered through the disorientation of being on one's own.  Sensations are magnified when alone and uncertain; sense of time stretched and condensed; and I cannot predict what I will stumble upon next.  

Here's the thing: it doesn't need to be this way.  Despite all the advances and advantages of modern living, our bodies - and specifically women's bodies - retain the stigma of Mystery. An alluring and fascinating mystery when positioned as an object of desire; but baffling and frustrating and downright noncompliant when it comes to following cultural norms and notions of well-behaved.  It is not well-mannered to sweat, sag, ache, be irritatible, tired, or unpredictable.  That my body is all of these things - and more! - challenges me no end.

Yet when I view my body as a friend betraying my good will, we both suffer.  The aches ache more acutely, the fatigue more crippling, and the overwhelm deadening. What I've come to understand is my body is just doing her thing.  While it may not fit my agenda, it serves neither of us to view these changes as "wrong."  But this is how we approach aging and the body's natural transformation: as signs of failure, that something is broken, something needing repair, and that we must bring our bodies back in line with the unrealistic measures of health and attractiveness bombarding us through the media. 

I'm not saying there isn't important care and adjustments needed to ease the transition.  But what I am aware of for myself is the ease isn't so much for my body, but for my mind.  It has been an attitude shift that has brought me a greater measure of relief, peace and yes, even joy in the changes my body is mentoring me in.  My body's changes are not something to be suffered, endured, fixed, altered, or corrected.  Understanding of what is happening, making space for these new developments, welcoming rather than resisting have brought me into closer dialogue with my body.  She is not betraying me; she has been patiently and lovingly serving me and it is time to acknowledge that service. It is time for me to work in partnership with my body and support her rather than coerce, threaten or punish her.

When I hear others speak harshly and even hatefully about their bodies, I am reminded this is how our culture views the body and in particular, the female body.  I have heard women suffering with endometriosis declare that they want their doctor's to just take their organs out.  I do not blame them for I know the pain and frustration are immense.  But I wonder how things might be if we had been raised to view our bodies as our partners and best friends in life and therefore something to be tended to with great care, appreciation and respect rather than a servant to control and contain?

Changes abound over here.  I am seeing signs of change in my Cowgirl and am aware of my confusion on how to respond.  I have no template, no model to follow.  My memory of my transformation from maiden into woman is that little was said and that silence mentored me in fear and confusion regarding my body.  It wasn't until I was in college and procured a yellowed copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves from the used bookstore that I began to tentatively try to engage in a real conversation with my body. It was my owner's manual for my body. Educating myself about this vital piece of myself was the beginning of a respectful and loving relationship.  It has been a long road and I still am extracting some deeply rooted negative attitudes regarding my aging female body. 

So as I witness the cycle - maiden, mother, queen, and crone - starting up again with my girl, I am committed to supporting celebration and appreciation for the miracle and gift of our bodies as they unfold.  There is continual conversation here about these changes, bringing into light what has been left in shadow and shame for far too long.  I try to remember - for myself, my mother and my girl - that nothing is wrong.  Changes may be scarey (as they are for my mother's body as it winds down) and may be confusing (as for me as I navigate this new experience of my body) and overwhelming (as Cowgirl adjusts to new sensations, new notions of herself) but none of this is wrong nor is any of it signs of us being broken, less than, flawed, dangerous or unwieldy.

What is your relationship with your body?  How do you speak to her? How do you react to her needs, her requests upon you?  How might we create conversations and rituals with our daughters that celebrate and honor their changes, welcoming them into community of support, information, education and empowerment so that they are not at the mercy of cultural representations and expectations (and its limitations) upon the feminine?  I want a community for my girl.  I need one for myself.  

Strange fascination, fascinatin'
Ah, changes are takin'
The pace I'm goin' through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers

 

(All images were created during Connie Hozvicka's Painting the Feminine ecourse. New offerings will be coming, so check out her site and sign up for her newsletter to be notified so you can add your voice to the conversation.  And speaking of conversations, a magical and powerful group is gathering for my yearly HeartFull Living: Conversations on Love offering that begins on February 14. Still time to sign up and I am keeping the price low as I want as many to join me as possible!)

Can we do it again? (Heart Offering)

I've been in the trenches.  Lucy in the chocolate factory busy with creating work to share in the upcoming 21 Secrets program.  You should see my set up for making art demonstration videos.  On second thought, no you shouldn't see because the visual chaos belies the order that I trust is operating below the surface. 

Still, I have the art tubs open which is akin to Pandora opening her box (or vase as the story goes in our book on myths) of caran d'ache and derwent and liquitex and my god, the pens!   No idea what I've released but it is a colorful mess!

But there is this voice that keeps whispering in my ear ... a devil or an angel tempting me ... a call to peer out from my hermitage, adjust the leaves that are entangled in grey streaked hair, smile a less crooked smile (in the final months of invisalign braces ... they don't warn you that a side effect is diurnal bruxing so add to this visual me chattering like a squirrel) and invite some guests over.

Well, not into my home (which is cleaned and ready for the Chinese New Year ... sweeping out the bad luck to make space for good to flow in!) but into a virtual space.  Feeling the pull of another round of Heart Full Living.   

I believe I said it best a year ago:

What does my spirit crave?  Connection.

What do I want to make space for in my life? Community.

What do I need to nourish me in this season of dark and cold?  Conversation.  Deep listening. Being heard.  Hearing the truths of others. Sharing and through sharing, learning, growing, and healing.  Settling deeper into myself and embracing my truth, my story.

Last year my intention was Possibilities.  I still embrace that concept ... but adding Desire and Ease as directions on my compass means going to my edge but in a manner that respects flow rather than pushing, allowing rather than controlling, and welcoming the unexpected and the unplanned for to the conversation.

So, what do you think? Are you up for some heart full conversations? (I'm keeping the costs low - $20 -  because I want to encourage attendance but I also want there to be a commitment.)

All of the details are here.   

The video I made for the first gathering really says it all ...

 

password: heartfull

direct link to video here

I would love your company.  Last year's gathering went beyond the stars ... dare I say, I desire more?

xo

my one word

It's that time again ... time to say goodbye to the old, thanking my one word of 2013 for all the amazing gifts it offered me throughout the preceding 12 months and then inaugurating my new word, new intention for 2014.

Looking back upon the previous year, I would have to agree it was a year of opening to possibilities.  I finally left my job of 12+ years that had been confining and squeezing my spirit; I embarked upon a dream of a lifetime to visit New Zealand, meeting at last a sister of my heart (how often had we danced with the notion of meeting in the flesh?!); I stretched myself to teach new courses; I shed another layer of constricting skin and released a position that had become a burden; I traveled, visited with friends, and continued to challenge myself creatively.

Possibilities was my mantra for the year and it allowed me to see change as a threshold into new adventures.  Rather than dwelling on what I was releasing (the experience more often than not being one of grasping tightly to a thorny branch ... yes, I had hold of something but look at the bloody results?) I kept my gaze open to what might be, daring to dream big and full and wide and vast.

This is the gift of choosing a word for the year.  Rather than a resolution, a to-do list (oh, but I am soooo good at those!) it acts as a reminder of who or how I want to be.  My word is my intention for myself, for my life.  What I want to cultivate within myself, what I want to open to, what I want to embody or embrace.  

Some years my word has been inspiring and others it has been less so.  My understanding after working with this practice for 4 years is in choosing a word that excites and somewhat frightens me.  To choose an intention that holds some aspect of daring, that pushes me over the edge of my comfort zone.  Fearless (2010) was a damned good year.  Shine (2011) less so. (Perhaps too abstract for me?) Possibilities (2013) was full of juice and interpretation. Full of ... yes ... possibilities.

There are many worksheets and complicated formulas for helping you to choose your word. As one who naturally falls upon the obsessive/controlling spectrum, it is best for me to avoid such techniques.  Rather, I try to open my awareness to allowing my word to find me.  I find a little serendipity, a healthy dollop of trust and a dash of trust in happy accidents works best.

So my word found me while I was listening to David Whyte's audio program What to Remember When Waking. (Reading or listening to poets or philosophers makes one more accident prone when it comes to moments of grace and inspiration.)  It was a word that leaped out at me ...

Yes, Desire. 

Ahem.

As I told a friend, desire is a concept alien to my puritanical inclination.  It fits my criteria for daring, and it feels audacious and ... well ... a tad dangerous? It is a word, as my friend pointed out, that could take me all kinds of places, could unlock many interesting doors.

What hooked me was David Whyte's explanation of the origin of the word, "from the stars"  and "to await what the stars will bring."  He writes:

"Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves in every moment.

How would your days be different if you lived a life of desire?"

The act of desiring being one of connecting with the deepest yearnings within the heart and the soul, a connection with Divine, with something larger than myself.  To open to desire is to invoke both my spiritual and animal self and in doing so experience a new fullness of being.  

In all honesty, asking myself "what do I desire?" feels like a challenge to the gods.  My reaction being "how dare I?" To speak of desire never mind actively seeking it, feels selfish, greedy, and indulgent.  But then there is the poet's challenge to live a life of desire.  It suggests a reaching for the ultimate pot of gold.  Yet I hold back - why?  

If I am being honest, it is out of fear.  That I will be disappointed, that I will discover I am not worthy, undeserving, that fulfillment and connection is not my fate. I am haunted by Prufrock's dilemma "do I dare?"   (And in short, I was afraid.)

So Desire it is.  I accept my own dare.  To open myself up to my deepest yearnings, dreams, aspirations ... to open to desire and then hold a space to receive that which is beyond my small mind's ability to conceive.  To open to what the heart can imagine and what the stars offer me ... to stand in the night and allow my dreams and yearnings to expand with the dark sky, the pinpoints of light suggesting the millions of possibilities that are mine to taste, touch, smell, see and know.  To tether myself to the stars and see where they take me. 

 To be that bold, to love that immensely ... Desire sounding like life dipped in dark chocolate ... recognizing I've done it once before ...

And it was soooo right, so good.  Opening to Mystery and seeing what she offers ...

I think that is a pretty exciting proposition for the coming year, don't you?

what i want (what i offer ...)

Oh my ... I believe we are in full Autumn swoon over here.  

With the temperatures dipping into frosty numbers at night, the leaves have deepened into a rich palette of garnet, amber, and golden.   Mornings are hot cocoa events and the knitting needles have been pulled out and are clickety clacketing me into a meditative space. Even Cowgirl has found herself a relaxing pass time with this home made Lil' Loom for Rainbow fishtail jewelry (thank you Maya D for the heads up!) 

This past weekend we sat at the kitchen island puttering: me working on yet more mandalas ... 

(my life interpreted through the mandala circle is quickly becoming an obsession) 

and Cowgirl working a necklace. Taking advantage of this still time, I put on an audio file of a folk story Ivashko Medvedko performed by Tom Hirons and Rima Staines (found on her wildly inspiring blog, Into The Hermitage) We both were transfixed listening to this Russian folk tale that involves the wild and memorable  Baba Yaga  (look at this new collection of Baba Yaga stories!) 

There is something so grounding about an afternoon spent deeply immersed with imagination.  Even though we each were lost in our own internal visions of the story, there was a closeness and intimacy as we step out of time and into the timeless.

This was the kind of day I aspire to nurture more regularly for myself and my family.  The qualities I seek to weave into my world and what I find myself craving:  intimacy, connection, engagement, curiosity, and celebration. Thinking about this day ("It was a day from a book, steeped in its own warm juice, heavy with smells of growing ..." a favorite line from an Alastair Reid poem) I find myself recommitting to the reasons for this grand experiment that is my current life.  To be more present.  To be of service.  To live with purpose which for me, means expanding the sense of what is possible.

If I were to boil down all that I wish to offer - which is to say, all that I wish to experience in my own life - I come up with this:  radiance.   I want to know the feeling of being lit up from within and shining brightly my truth, my essence.  I have felt the sparks of this radiance which is the energy of being fully alive with every cell turned on and vibrating, glowing with warmth, with brilliance and with love.  I know this is my truth and I know it is the potential of all to wake up and be this fully plugged in, charged and powerful. This is not something another can give to me, create within me or sustain for me.  I alone must find my way to my inner source, my inner light, my inner sun.  Just as I connect with the cooling, intuitive energies of the moon, I must activate, feed and nourish all aspects of my being. 

And I want company!  Because I have journey long into the darkness, because I have been at the edge where I was ready to release my final finger hold and embrace nothingness, and because I know weariness and greyness and hopelessness, I know the impossible miracle of igniting one's inner radiance is absolutely possible.  It is a thrilling proposition.  It is the challenge that has as its prize my very life.  To discover I can nurture and care for myself and through my actions show up as a beacon of love and light for the ones who matter most to me and in turn, watch them discover their own inner flame of goodness,  brilliance and beauty ... that is a magnificent  Wow.  A soul-stirring Wow.

I am always beginning anew.  Each day I visualize wiping clean the mental and energetic debris that all-too-quickly accumulates in my mind and my heart. Each season has its own flavor and Autumn is my time of harvesting, pruning, composting and preparing myself for the long nights ahead.  It is my favorite time and my most challenging.  So I cycle back around to the practices that I know work for me.  I snuggle back in with some important self care, with time for reflection and grounding and smoothing out the rough edges in my life.  If you are wanting some support in stoking your internal fire, tuning in to your inner radiance, I would love to circle around the fire with you and enjoy a virtual retreat.  

Shameless self-promotion, but there you are.  I am proud of this work ... I know it is vital and important and I offer to others knowing that we each must tend our own fires.  And it is lovely being by the fire together.

Inspired anew by this Tedx talk by one of my mentors, Maya Corinne.  I am a plate spinner, gathering queen and what I hold in my basket I offer to you with sincere intentions that it empower you. 

what matters (and what distracts ...)

This is a post I've resisted for some time ... partly because I know words set down have the ability to shift understanding and then I feel the need to rewrite, clarify, adjust and yes, defend my perspective (which is rests on shifting sands of awareness, so not an easy thing to do!)  But it is a gray morning, I slept in and am moving slowly and certainly I am procrastinating on other projects.  But there is this pebble in my internal/emotional shoe that has irked me for far too long and I feel it is time to shake it out.  I can't seem to move forward unless I do so.

My confession: I am weary of the talk around finding one's tribe.  Okay, back-pedaling already ... it is not the experience or act of discovering others who share in, support and understand my values, interests, and ideas around purpose and meaning that fatigues me ... it is all the fanfare and smudge wand waving, look-at-our crazy quilted wild selves in  Photoshopped  dreamscaped images strewn everywhere as confirmation of belonging.  As confirmation of being vital and plugged into something essential.

I'm all for feeling a part of something larger.  I understand feeling of being outside and wanting in so very, very badly.  But what I am seeing in this celebration of tribe is a new group or layer to the experience of feeling excluded and overlooked.  My sense is that the more I go outside of myself -  for confirmation of my worth, the value of my voice, the validity of my experience - the less secure I will be in myself and my path.  

After all the dancing is over and the bonfires have turned to ash, I am still walking my path alone and on my own.  I can share parts of the journey - through wildflower fields, sandy beaches and mountain meadows  -  but in the end I am the one who chooses to continue on over slippery and rocky mountain paths, through the desert, through the mud pits and into dark forests with nothing but the next step visible before me.  

What matters then is who I trust and believe in: myself connected to a higher purpose.  All the work I do to heal myself is not so I may fit in; I work to heal myself so I may have access to my full range of gifts and potential which I then can offer in service to support the vital work of healing in our world.  

What matters at the end of the day is who I am with myself and my family; how well I love and forgive, myself first and foremost.  If I can not be in right relationship with my own self, how can I give freely, honestly, lovingly and compassionately to others?  What matters is not how my life appears on screen, in Facebook, in glossy magazines but how my life feels to me and those whose lives intersect with mine.  It is nice to have validation, but approval is not my goal.  My tribe - yes, I do believe I have a core group that understands, accepts and more importantly, challenges me to be the best expression of myself - is a space I rest in while gathering inner resources, but it is also the place where I set off from.  Finding one's tribe is an important and affirming stage, but it is not the end point.  It can be an platform for diving into the deep work, the hard, challenging, heart-rending work of attending to our planet, to our lives and to lasting change, healing and care. It can also become a trap or a distraction from what really matters: self acceptance, individual empowerment and expression.  

 These are my thoughts today.  There is a discussion buried amid these thoughts that begs to take place.  Forgiveness, understanding, belonging, purpose, inclusion, and responsibility are some of the themes.  I would love to dialogue in that space Rumi speaks of Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing ... I want to own my role in contributing to another's pain of disconnection but I also own my responsibility to tend to and heal my own woundedness.  No tribe can do that for me. The deeper work is mine alone and it is time to shake off the distractions and get on with the task.  

stasis

It's that time of year when the seasons seem stalled ... Winter hanging on while Spring only hints at her arrival ...

 

A time of season when I too feel suspended ... yearning for warmer days and all that is implied by Spring's activities, and yet ...

 

Feeling resistant to moving, taking action ... all to readily settling  back into the couch cushions, deep sighs, picking up embroidery needle and through slow, repetition motions creating my own sense of time ...

 

Slow, slow, slow ...

 
 inertia threatening ...

Winter's cold still grips my world.  Scurrying back from the mail box, shifting through the day's post, worrying over an unfamiliar hand inking my name on an otherwise plain envelope (no return address, no postmark - who is this?!) ... at the edges of my awareness the call of geese in flight ... instinct or intuition compelling me to pull out of myself and look up ... and I stop, in front of the neighbor's house and stare ... a countless number of geese, bird after bird, v upon v, looped like black embroidered lines across the expanse of sky ... another voice breaks the reverie go get the girl!  and I take off running for the house, shouting out as I come in hurry hurry! and I scoop her up (because it is cold and she is shoeless) and bundle her in my arm and outside ... look up! and we both stare upwards at this miracle of geese, breathless with wonder, the only words appropriate to the moment: wow ... wow ... wow ...

no photo, because i made that choice not to rupture that perfect moment of beingness ...

So I feel the call, feel the pull and yet I know it is not time yet for me to begin.  What? I'm not sure.  A recurring dream from the past 6 months or longer has me in the middle of a move, my husband having made the decision and arrangements to sell our house, pick up, and travel elsewhere.  Always, I am frantic ... upset to realize I agreed to this shift, confused as to how our current home could be so easily toss aside for this unknown future place.  

I have been puzzled by these dreams.  The fact that they are reoccurring tells me they hold significant clues or insights but I have not decoded them.  I think they have something to do with my struggle between restlessness and nesting; my desire to create something with my life, but not at the cost of abandoning that which brings me comfort, security, a sense of place and rest.  The masculine do/make/achieve part of my persona trying to override my inner feminine voice who counsels be/allow/experience.  There is the part of me that relishes the planning, building, creating but there is an equal part that requires play, spontaneity, unfolding and presence.  I think this is what my dreams suggest: not so much being resistant to growth or movement or change, but  a balancing of those energies with home and simple being. 

So here I am, savoring this in-between time, this frozen moment of transition, when the impulse to move tips the scales from being into becoming.  Knowing that soon becoming will ease back into being.  Or perhaps the trick is to hold both at once?  I believe that may be true grace in living.  I'll let you know.

cozying in ❋

This morning the possibilities of the day seem shrouded in secrecy.

I walked Moose in the dark dawn mist, coming home dewy damp and steaming warm after trudging in heavy boots, snow pants and coat.

The day spreads out before me ... I hear the drone of the heat pump, the click of the coffee maker, the snores and sighs of the dog. (What burdens his soul?  Where do his dreams take him and what adventures require such snorts, yips and twitches?)

I have been in cozy-down mode.  Lots of knitting, finishing up holiday gifties and realizing there are more I want to make/send as I love the idea of being a kind of craft-crazy Robin Hood spreading wealth through the postal mail.

i finished this shawl ... the yarn was purchased pre-Cowgirl for a more complicated pattern but i welcomed simplicity into my life and followed this easy peasy pattern (i could swear i had started this only a few months ago but in the course of finding the pattern i discovered i cast on back in ... april?)

Possibilities ... possibilities ... 

 

Every day I wake up and feel excitement knowing that I am staying wide open to adventures and growth.  Trips are being planned. eek! ... one to New Zealand as a belated 50th wingding celebration of sisterhood; and now a family trip to a cottage somewhere - Devonshire? (ancestral stomping grounds of the Husband) Scotland? (my mother's side of the family) or Ireland? (where we honeymooned 24 1/2 years ago) Wherever we go, Cowgirl has been reassured dragons and fairies are there.

My girl who described herself in her school autobiography as skill, love, fast, happy.

yes, more knitwear completed ... girl not available to model but her stand-in from school  was very cooperative! (pix for their tongue-twister project)

Lover of dragons
Who fears spiders
Who needs shelter
Who gives friendship 

How would my autobiography read? All about Lisa: laughing, loud, eclectic, joy. Lover of love, who fears separation, who needs color & song, who gives all of her self. 

Ah, yes ...  a True Joy Warrior, Ninja mom with camera.

 If this post seems a little jumpy it is probably because I am on a water challenge which means I am constantly stopping to sip water and constantly jumping up to pee!

How's all that for a week?  And I've got more brewing for you all next week! ;)

Until then ...