Rosemary's Brain

Singing to the Moon and Sun

2011-02-17T07:02:00.001-08:00

I sing now to the morning Sun
That she may warm
The Hearts of all~
Let your light be reflected in us.
Open our arms to embrace each other.

last night...

Oh, I sang to the Moon
As you lay sleeping
Her song returned to wrap us
In Beauty and Dreams.
Love as you lay close.

moon photo by me Sunrise taken by Beth Duncan at Christmas

I carry you ~ in my Heart!

2011-02-14T04:35:00.000-08:00

I carry you ~ in my Heart!

Our Being true to ourselves is LOVE. And that takes courage and willingness to sit with what works and doesn’t, what serves us and what doesn’t. How in the end does serving our self, serve the Greater Good of All?

May Love find you~ may you in turn find Love as it surrounds you.
We are children of the Universe~ we are Loved.
Invite yourself to BE LOVE ~

self portraiture

Teachers, Guides Sign Post Along the Way.

2010-12-31T05:25:00.000-08:00

Wisdom of Eleven Makes for Two Days

2010-12-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

I am taking part in a project called #reverb10 – which has become an annual event. An online initiative encouraging participants to reflect on this year, with and eye toward what’s next. “We’re connected by the belief that sharing our stories has the power to change us. We look forward to reading yours.” (This line straight from their site.)

Some days the writing is better then others – my personal journey through the questions, muddled in the coarse of a day. Using my daily ‘business’ to distract the writer within ~ the critic voice becomes louder~ putting these on my list of 11.

Day 10 ~Prompt: Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? Author Susannah Conway

Day 11 ~Prompt: 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? Author Sam Davidson

I am going to run these two Prompts together for it is through my choice of Wisdom that allows for me to view the others.

Wisdom - To Sit, Listen, Breathe, Stillness. I am able to begin Really listening to the truth of the voice within, then into Action. Breathe, Ground, Sound, Move! By doing this instead of reacting to stimuli, I have learned to trust my Own inner Voice ~ the one that knows, that is able to discern what is best for me. I am listening to Self ~vs.~ the voices of others. I do know what is best for me ~ when I am not reactionary.

Let unconquerable gladness dwell.
- Sign on FDR's desk

11 Things ~

1. Excess Weight ~ Be it physical, emotional or just the stuff that creates clutter. There is a weight to distractions, to the baggage we chose to keep at our fingertips. I want to find the roots of all the weight I use to keep myself stuck. More energy for ME!

2. The Voice of the Critic ~ I feel I need to have a talk with this one. It is the critical – “You, an artist, a writer?” The voice that says I am not good enough. An invitation for this voice to find a more compassionate nature ~ or it may take a hike. More energy ~

3. Isolation ~ Throwing this one right out the door. Made some choices around this one all ready, by making plans not to spend any of these Winter Holidays alone. No, isolation – no sinking into the muck of ‘nobody loves me’ ~ Who do I think I’m kidding, clearly not my friends. Perhaps I need to do the calling. What more energy for what I Want!

4. Busy Work ~ Oh, indeed busy work is the devil’s play shop. A little goes a long way, in my case it too becomes a distraction. No calendar time for ‘busy work’. I want and will have more energy for what I want to create in my Life.

5. Gossip ~ Putting this out there to help guide myself. I don’t want to look at your life’s issue, so that I don’t have to be honest in mine ~ I read this yesterday; there was more to it but in a Nutshell ~ "So retrieve all your projections—“You spot it, you got it”—and enjoy the healing force of right speech." —Joan Halifax More energy, that I can use for me.

6. Talking ~ How do I mean this~ I want to listen more. Open more space to hear about what is going on with YOU! I want to talk less about what isn’t right for me. I want to hold to my attitude of gratitude. Creating more energy for joy, for art, for work that feeds my soul.

7. ‘If only I had …’~ I learned to drop should from my vocabulary, when I saw how it didn’t serve me or my friends. I know I can knock this one out too, for it no longer serves! This would leave more energy for Dreaming, for Intentions.

8. Financial crises ~ At 56 soon to be 57 perhaps it is time to create a budget. To look at the due dates of bills. Noticing what I have coming in as Income ~ vs. ~ what are costs, needs, wants. Oh, look more energy again, not being wasted on being in a panic, did I or didn’t I pay that. A budget – what a novel Idea.

9. Worry ~ About who knows what, do they like me, did I do that right, what if I’m a fraud! It is none of my business what you think of me. I like myself for the most part that IS Enough. Oh, yes, here we are again more energy to go toward what really matters.

10. Fear ~ Now I will admit that a bit of fear is a healthy emotion, without it we lose sight of things that could potentially be dangerous ~ Yet, I become fear full of trying new things sometimes ~ stretching! If I don’t think I can succeed I don’t try – ‘there is no try only do’ Yoda.

11. Sibling estrangement ~ There are a total of 5 siblings, we’ve all grown up and gone different ways. We were strangers as children growing up, afraid to align ourselves with each other ~ what if we picked the wrong sibling? What then. We learned not to trust each other, what tag line did we have? Both of our parents are gone ~ leaving us Orphans to ourselves. This hurts my heart deeply. Ran into one of my brothers while visiting, my daughter. How funny is that ~ I looked up and said to myself ~ hmmm, I feel like I know that person, but how could I ~ I’m miles away from home. Though I wasn’t; I was home with my Heart, my child~ home with my Heart. Time to make a call. How much energy am I squandering? Not any more!

A list I am grateful to have been able to sit and create. Not sure I would have without the prompt. It is not part of my nature to make resolutions for the new year ~ this feels very different ~ more of a what burden may I lay down ~ and what might bloom in its place?

Be well my friends.

“I cannot turn my eyes, I cannot count the costs of all that has been broken, of all that has been lost.” Jennifer Brezen

Photo by the fabulous Tirzah Griffin @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tirzymcwirzy/ of my brother and I! It may be the last of the 11, it makes it no less closer to my heart.

Process on Reflection

2010-12-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

Memeory ~Lost and Found? Day 15

2010-12-16T12:56:00.001-08:00

I am taking part in a project called #reverb10 – which has become an annual event. (My first time.) An online initiative encouraging participants to reflect on the year, with an eye toward what’s next. “We’re connected by the belief that sharing our stories has the power to change us. We look forward to reading yours.” This line straight from their site.
Some days are better then others – feel like I’ve answered some really great questions ~ Thank you for your input!

Prompt: 5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. Author Patti Digh

Laughing with my daughter, Tirzah, my lighting rod for Life!

Believing in myself enough to know I’m not broken and I don’t need to be fixed!

Sitting in silence with a friend, being a witness.

Being able to sit with a friend, as he was getting ready to pass –we laughed that I’d not been dead in a while, so couldn't remember what it was like.

Laughing with myself about myself, I am a Party all by myself :)

Watching clients grow.

Cooking and holding Sacred Space for Women in Retreat.

Holding Space in general for Growth, Peace Compassion and Love.

Crying so hard snot came out my nose.

The hand of a lover stroking the top of my head.

Coming to terms with leaving said lover.

Wait! There's more, so much more......
This is were I wish I could type more then 100 words a minute.

heart cloud - 4th of July 2009

Day 9 Party of One?

2010-12-12T21:15:00.001-08:00

Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. Author Shauna Reid

Often – I celebrate a party of One ~ myself a silk screen, apron over what ever I have on, turn up the music, listen to a dream, bring on the thoughts of friends who receive these calendars anew each new moon ~ ah now that’s a Party to Rock my world. Sweet and Simple. I am an ARTIST ~ I can say it out loud. I can share my Art..

Any time one or more are gather to play, create~ I love it. I most often get together for Art Saturdays with my friend Ann~ we can spend an entire day ~ few words working on the same or different things entirely. Add a bit of noshing ~ Party.

I want to cultivate more time to play and create with more friends. What’s your choice of supplies? Come play with me.

Mirror - Mirror I'm that Beauty

2010-12-09T04:41:00.000-08:00

Prompt: Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'll find they're what make you beautiful. Author Karen Walrond

I am an Amazon Warrior.
I am at times Courageous.
I am Striking in my looks.
I am Loving.
I become small sometimes.
I LOVE Life
I enjoy Laughing, even with myself!
I Smile ~ A lot.
I am a quiet Dancer.
I am a Wild Dancer.
I Am Wild.
I am Amazing.
I am a person with large working hands.
I am able to share my gifts.
I am an Artist.
I am Strong.
I am Silly sometimes.
I am Ready for Life, Love, Fun, your Sorrow and mine ~ I am Ready
I am Brilliant.
I am Stardust, dreams have been made from me; I will leave shining dust, that you may walk in, following some of my footsteps.
Oh, yes I am all of these things and more. I am Beautifully ME!
Thank you, very much!
Quick now before I chicken out~ ha ha ha!

photo taken by friend Lael Couper Jepson Owner of SheChanges

Might We Come Together Sharing Our Gifts?

2010-12-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? Author Cali Harris

Community – derived from the Old French, derived from the Latin cum =with/ together + munus = gift

Day 7 and the prompt knocked me to the floor. How could I respond? Had I abandoned my community or had they abandoned me? Do I truly feel that I have a sense of community here where I live? Do two folk constitute a community? I have wolf and crow energy, they are incredibly community oriented animals~ yet there is often the lone one; is that me? I struggle with the desire to be part of, belong to a pack; yet why does it feel so painful? What part of being in a pack in childhood (family of 5 littler mates); moved into my story? Making me a little stand-offish, “wary” might be the better word.

When I moved to Maine from a tiny community in Colorado; I felt indeed that I had abandoned a community that had held me, helped raise my child, loved me and boxed me in. I needed out of the box ~ I was growing in ways that at the time; I felt the community wasn’t able to take in. We were no longer able to support each other. I jumped hard, and flew out of the box. Here I am Maine, love me as I am! Do they? Do I?

Some almost 20 years later, I am no longer sure. I do not know about 2010- it has become at the moment, difficult, painful while being full of love from those who K N O W me. I will come out on the other end of this process ~ oh, right I am heading into my second Saturn return ~ this could be fun, full of possibility along with the Lunar eclipse, coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

Yes, I do have bit of community, community that I foster, a new one recently that I have fallen into and they are indeed a gift. It will take intention to keep these small pockets of community working together. What will I bring to the table? What are my gifts? What part of what I do have isn’t working? What is required to help and guide community in a healthy way?

I want to create community in which the Wisdom of Being a Wild Women/ Man is nurtured, come play with me, dance and sing with me about Life. How are you choosing to change and break old patterns. Share with me great Joy and your great Sorrow. Share with me your anger, it too takes us toward healing. What of the shame we carry? Not enough~
too much! Come share with me as we move toward who we wish to Become. Bringing our gifts as, Artist, Wild Lovers of Life, Quiet Dancers doing work of the everyday ordinary, extraordinary! Come play with me!. Be part of this community with me.

Indeed there will be more to come on this prompt – I’m just now off the floor. Blessings for the prompt!

photo meeting together at dusk before heading to the roost.

Sacred Space

2010-12-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

Prompt: Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? Author Gretchen Rubin

Today the last ‘thing’ I made was Sacred Space, a place of sheltering and open-ness for a client and friend. I am blessed in so many ways ~ most of what I do for ‘money’; invites the opportunity to create and hold Sacred Space. To use materials from within myself. Depending on how I am creating Sacred Space on any given day some of the materials will change. Yet they all hold an invitation to use an Open Heart, to listen deeper hearing what is said in the stillness of the moment as we begin. Inviting the Divine nature that is in each of us to guide the work of the day. Today it was on a massage table. Holding someone in a time of vulnerability, while they were also physically vulnerable. The courage that is required some days for us as human creatures to show up in our own lives, to share with me the fears, joys, sorrows, pain; body re-memberd or inwardly focused. The stories that are shared. I am honoured by this trust, this surrender into my safe keeping.

I create containers for healing, growth, and wonder whether it's with massage, gardening, food or Art; I find most of what I am about is creating a Safe place for others and myself to reside. Places that invite us to our Highest Becoming. My client, my self, the ripples that our healing sends out into the world.

What is it I desire to make, create? A children’s book ~ I have one floating around in my head. Being more honest here I would say I wish to create books! I have a couple rolling about, calling, I see them lurking behind my dreams. Perhaps 2011 will be the year I put them to paper, let me rephrase "I will make the time to create the books I feel lurking. Inviting myself to make and take the time I need to feed my soul." Knowing that I too deserve to be held in Sacred Space. Saying this I know also that books are Sacred, to be able to take the time needed to read or write for the sheer pleasure requires us to create Sacred Space.

. "Come, dip your pen in the language and write, tonight.
The Muse is standing by with bottles of ink."
-Marni Norwich, 2004

photo taken in October at Cornerbrook

Going, Going, G O N E

2010-12-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

Prompt: “Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?” Alice Bradley

Oh, how I dislike that phrase. Let Go. It’s not like the items that we need to “let go” of are a suitcase that we can drop on the side of the road ~ some very, very deserted road! Some of those events have been things that have helped to form the person, I am today. For the most part ~ I love ME!

Let Go ~ of that person, that relationship? As a verb meaning: to abandon, forsake, leave, quit, relinquish ~ ICKS! Even when a person or relationship in my life is difficult I find it hard to forsake it ~ what part of me becomes lost to myself if I can turn completely away from someone? How do I then become extinct, gone for good?

Yes, indeed there are also friendships that this past year no longer serve me on a regular, day to day. I find more that I surrender into the fact that we are no longer a good match. I still hold them and YOU in my heart. I am here if you need me! CALL. I will not abandon you, but I will also not put myself in the path of mine or your destructive ways. In the past I have made choices that walked completely away from folks ~ somehow I found and still find it in my heart to be concerned in a more global sense.

Now what about stuff ~ Stuff in general ~ not anything in particular ~ I am an Artist and therefore keep hanging around all kinds of ‘items’ that others might choose to throw away. In has stepped The Great Purgapalouza Act of 2010. I have been going through clothing; seems I really am fairly conservative in my dressing; if you get rid of the scarves – NOT. Yet there have been items lurking for a couple seasons that I no longer wear, due to fit or it’s just not me. Papers in files~ these are my worst nightmare, articles that I believe I “should” save for future use, heck I never look at them again and only once in a while do I say to a client – oh, read this. Magazines with pictures that I might use for a collage ~ who am I kidding I don’t do collage!! I have friends that do, enjoy their work so I think, perhaps a Vision Board? Sorry, it’s not happening so ~ heck pack them up and out the door! OH, Wait! Here is something I have “Let Go”, subscriptions to monthly magazines, if I notice an article I really feel I’ll read then I pick it up – otherwise, how many subscription do you have coming on a regular basis that you don’t even look at, or put in the bathroom? My bathroom is much too small for a rack of magazines!

Yup ~ stuff! I am grateful for The Great Purgapalouza Act of 2010. It gives me pause, when ever I think to buy an item. How will it work or add to my overall life experience? Do I need it? Sometimes, yes even to that extra pair of sneaks (buy a pair off a pair, still 6 pairs) or another pair of ‘Mary Janes’ or any red shoe! I stand on my feet, I love my feet – they need good shoes.

Yet overall, I have radically cut down on purchases of stuff ~ Hmmm …LET GO OF STUFF… Going, going GONE. I see a t-shirt on Zazzle!

I am Grateful that I am loved for me, with or without the extra ‘Stuff’.
And to all a good night!

photo of crow~ Thank you T.Griffin at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tirzymcwirzy/

W O N D E R

2010-12-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

W O N D E R

Day 4 Prompt: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? @JeffreyDavis108

Funny how when I read the prompt ~ I find myself first with a quick slap down! Those of you who know me well, know that sometimes it takes me a day or two to process something we might have talked about. To sit with, listen to the quiet of what was said, or wasn’t. The same is true here ~ I must sit with the prompt ~ I found myself in Awe and Wonder when someone else I know in a virtual way wrote that they were attempting to respond in 15 minutes ~ WOW! I am Awed ~ they are heart felt and wonderful to read ~ Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally ~ stop by and check it out. I need more time,I'm still processing- like a computer with dial up, google looking for more then the slap-down. The truth in the essence of the slap down.

I grew up in a house with 4 other siblings, two parents, one of which, (they took random turns), at any given time wasn’t really present ~ I learned to listen between what was or was not said. I assumed that my sibs did the same; as we’ve grown into adults now without the buffer of our parents, leaves it difficult for me to Speak ~ To feel they can Hear me. This is a tricky business, let me tell you! Back to Wonder ~

Wonder ~ my cultivation of this amazing state of Grace, runs deep in my veins, touching the roots of my soul; it has been and IS my glue. Yet, with the purgapalouza pruning, that came as a storm this year; I have needed to reach deep into my fire pit, for the spark of Wonder. To invite myself to be curious, to RE-member that I am Stardust! That which dreams are made of, finding the Light reflecting, off of it’s long distant death. Like an Astronomer, I have had to look daily, into the telescope of myself, choosing to make it part of my day. Tending to the Star-ness, watching, looking, listening, marking it’s presence ~like a comet. It has been a choice; really a matter of life and death; to step outside myself ~ to step firmly into ME ~ to fan the flame that is my saving Grace. To open my eyes, to look deeper, listening closer, heart vulnerable, touching into places I thought long ago healed ~

I choose to live in Wonder, Awestruck, Overwhelmed with the Beauty of Life. I will continue to weed and prune, remove what strangles me, keeping me from myself as well as those that see deeper into the reflection of US. Who I wonder do you See, when you look at me? Who is it that I don’t know?

photo again from my stay at Cornerbrook, October 2010
ps Am hoping my 'Editor' will understand that she is out of town, and unable to get my writing back to me in a day so...please know that all grammar errors, usage of the wrong word, or misspellings are completely my own.

A Moment - Day 3 Reverb10

2010-12-04T01:27:00.000-08:00

And the prompts keep coming ~ day 3 and I’m already sort of falling behind ~ I noticed that Day 4 of the Reverb10 project is sitting in my Inbox! It has been a very busy day of cooking for a 3 day workshop. At 3:14 AM EST, with fruit still to cut, I come to write my response ~
The question : Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)
Having had all day to sit with the question, I thought of many moments ~ to realize that they were more about my gratitude. To feel alive I believe we must be able to have gratitude ~ yet having gratitude doesn’t necessarily mean we are truly Alive.

I am blessed that my work day, presents me with multiple moments of noticing how I may be of service. Moments that show me how magic the Universe can be. When it comes right down to it ~ It I S!

Having spent most of my year in a struggle to break free of old patterns, old ways of reacting, most of my experiences through this year have been inward and solitary. Reflective~

On one of those days I choose to be on the beach, I’d trekked over on my bike, knowing I would get a ride home from my friend, Maury. While waiting on the beach, laying in the warmth of the sun; I found myself alone – listening and noticing the world around me with my eyes closed. It seems as I feel back into that moment that a storm must have been in the making. it was late in August, maybe even early September. Willard Beach was sort of quiet; I come from a large family so I am often able to shut out voices when I am out in the world of nature. I remember sinking into the sand, feeling the grit of it – what paper would it be? An overall sensation of sand, and also each grain. The warmth of it against my skin, at some moments almost too hot to the touch. I could feel the shift of the afternoon Sun as it moved across the sky from high noon to ‘fourish’. It’s late afternoon radiance moving from overhead to it’s place on my right. I could feel the sound of the lapping water on the boats moored to my left. Feeling the sound, I drifted into meditation and the clear knowing and feeling I was one with the Earth. I wanted my breathe to match Gaia’s; in the way we do when laying with a lover. Moving into the water, I too became, something for the tide to lap and rock; knowing that my friend was coming became my anchor to the human world. I felt my connectedness to ALL, I could taste Divine-ness in my breath, on my lips. Each grain of sand, the vibration of the fish, rocking with the boats. The wind whispering in my ear, secrets of waters far from where I was.

When I invite myself to find that still-ness, I feel so much more alive. Now in the early morning, I look for that stillness to finish, the task before me~ to RE-member that I am part of a greater picture. To RE-member, that as each of us passes our unique signature is lost, and yet remains in all that we have touched.
Alive, Life Divinity in Action!

photo of the Quintessential Maine chair

Day 2 - Reflection on This Year

2010-12-02T13:13:00.001-08:00

Today's question from the prompts of the Reflection on This Year from Reverb 10 is:

What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing - can you eliminate it? (Author of prompt Leo Babauta)

Oh, the short and snappy answer to the question was ~ well, of course! Yet, is it so easy? Well, miss smarty pants if you feel like it is so easy~ then why is it here in the first place? It's not so much a doing, as it is a way of thinking about myself and what I have to say. Though as I say that I realize it is indeed a "thing" that I am doing ~ It has to do with not feeling or believing anyone will read or listen to what I have to share. Thoughts and Wisdom. Poems of Great Love, small Sorrows, or the Ordinary turned Extraordinary. The Ebb and Flow of Prayer. All of these a part of my day. Who wants to hear what I have to say? Yet, on a good day ~ I write on one of my three blogs - yes, that's right not one but three and a drop in on a fourth. Lo and Behold, I do have 'followers' and they are not all people I personally know! How wonderful is that?

So, today and for the next 28 days ~ I will knock at the door to my inspiration ~ knowing, believing and changing a pattern inside myself! I invite you to join me on this journey. I hear you knocking to read, listen and share with me! I hear your knocking and I find myself willing to Open my heart and soul ~ oh, right and the door to let you IN ~ Welcome!

Photo is from the door of Cornerbrook a most Magical place

Metamorphosis

2010-12-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

"http://www.reverb10.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/reverb10new-year.png"

Metamorphosis

The etymology of the word derives from the Greek meaning transformation, transforming. This past year was spent looking deeper at patterns that no longer were useful or serving me. Which brought about some inward travel, pain, sadness, joy, great and small shifts. Simplifying of my 'belongings'. Following me heart's song.

Clarity ~ 2011

photo taken October 30, by Judy Myatt after a amazing day - Drums and Dreams

I Sing to You Each Year ~ Happy Birthday

2010-11-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

Today is your Birthday,
Do you know this as the Day?
Today it isn’t snowing
I’m no longer 17,
And You ~ you are older then that now.

You don’t know me,
Only we do.
There is a Resonance deep inside,
I know you and you know me.
I think of you often,
Wondering about your Life.

My wish for you, each day
Has been in your Highest Becoming.
Happy Birthday, may you hear this
Whispered on the Wind.
Knowing it is me ~
Yes, I sing to You each year~
Happy Birthday!

photo of the full moon November 21, 2010 Portland, ME
by Candace Pilk Karu

Taking Action

2010-11-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

"You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

This week is World Kindness Week, what action will you take to bring a your brightness to the world? How is it that we have forgotten how to be kind?

Who is that Critic Anyway?

2010-09-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Some days…. I find that I am my worst critic, that no one judges me more harshly then myself. I am almost 99% sure that this is true for all of us. If you could have heard me, this AM as I was laying in bed ~ about the things that didn’t get done. Oh, goodness, you might have walked out the door; if I’d been talking to you. Most likely never to return.

I had to stop the cycle, the running of the tape in my head. BREATHE; inhale now exhale; a saving Grace. Breath, it invites us to S T O P ~ for a moment, it’s an opportunity to move, re-direct, think anew. Wait – the list of what did get done, well, let me tell you it was no small potatoes.

Today I would like to invite us each to count the items in our day that do happen, the smile on our face as we walk down the street, a shared moment with a friend or our-self, how about the things our body does for us without having to ask –“ hey, how do I get your heart to beat”? We make lists of all that needs to be done, then forget all the everyday things we do, the BE-ing. Being right here, breathing, right now. This moment ~ not getting ready for the one to come ~ this one right now.

My wish for each of us – is a gentler, kinder inner critic, one who knows the importance of BE-ing, not so much DO-ing.

When you catch yourself beating up on you, and you will ~ invite yourself to step away, take a breath, deep inhale, deep falling out breath, shake your body, sink into your feet. Start anew in the new space you created.

Be well. I love YOU.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T02:59:00.000-07:00

When you see them, walking on the street, don’t forget to tell them ~ Thank you. Think of the friends they have lost. Of the sadness that still lives in their eyes. So that we might enjoy freedoms to pray, speak openly, and to stand equal to each other. Some have gone because they believed it was right, some have gone because they were drafted, other because they felt that it was the right thing to do.

For what ever reason, we have lost and are still losing Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers and friends to war.

I pray that some day, we will be able to raise above all the fear and hatred, that we will Love and desire Peace more then we Hate War.

To those that have fought, and those that have lost Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers and Friends; I am sorry for your loss. I say Thank you as well. I pray that I do not squander this Life that is mine. We are all One.

Dancing In Life

2010-05-28T03:49:00.000-07:00

Dancing, I am dancing
A prayer, Mama Gaia, Grandmother Moon
I hear you singing,
Grandmother Moon your light shining on my day skin,
Mama Gaia, you allow me to dance and stomp upon your belly
I am a happy child.

Dancing, I am dancing
A prayer
Guide me to release my old fears.
Teach me the way of new growth,
That which doesn’t serve having
Fallen aside.

Dancing, I am dancing
A prayer, Mama Gaia, Grandmother Moon.
I raise my voice in song,
To a heartbeat, a soulbeat
Running deep within the Mystery
May you hear me as I
Sing and Dance,
This Full Moon Stomp!

Dancing, I am dancing
A prayer, Mama Gaia, Grandmother Moon,
Thank you for the Wisdom
I hear you talking
Grateful am I to be this child
Thank you, thank you
Mama Gaia, Grandmother Moon,
I am Dancing with you, in Life, in Love
In all there is to come.

Lilac Drunk

2010-05-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

A gift, two sweet bunches
I placed them in our bedroom.
Laying in bed, I felt intoxicated
The room inside so full of a warm spring day.

White lilacs in a crystal glass – light up the darkness
I had just talked with you,
When I felt my body shiver and stiffen sweetly
As you climbed into bed.

I found that sleep would not come,
I lay there watching you sleep,
The tears falling for all that we have
All that is not there.

And you, could you smell them
Clear across town?
Did you sleep, or were you
Watching me sleep, in your dreams?

The tears fall like rain,
I wonder what might be growing
All these years we have between us.
Perhaps my love it was a moment
Shared by the White lilacs sitting by our bed.

Intoxicating, intoxicated, I lay drunk
On the scent of Love,
Lived, held so fragile in a Breathe of lilacs.

I am grateful to Micaela for the gift of the lilacs.

Transition - Change

2010-05-05T04:27:00.000-07:00

Transition – Change
They happen without our planning sometimes, without our knowing what to do, or how to handle the situation. What I do know is that even when it happens without my prior planning, something good does indeed happen. I know it doesn’t always feel that way in the beginning, the passing of a friend, a deep dis-agreement in a friendship. Yet, all of these things have brought about growth, and a learning on my part.
Today I am wondering why it is that we fight it so much, what is it that perhaps we or at the very least I think/feel I am losing? Might we instead sink into what we have to gain or gift instead? How might that look?
Wishing all well on this shaky ground of transition, may we find our way toward a better Us.

from Ann L's garden - if you look close you'll see the plant in all it's changes

Techno - Isolation

2010-03-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

Isolated- adjective meaning occurring alone or once. Yet how it feels at least in this moment is to be separate from. Oddly, I am wondering if when people made a choice in the early 1900 to travel away from all they knew if they felt isolated, separated from the world. No phones, no computers, mail as long as a month away. Was there fear hidden in that isolation, or excitement?

Recently, I have been having trouble with my means of outside communication. I live alone, mostly work one on one. Stop in at a couple of different coffee shops around town, randomly – would they notice my not being around? My internet connection, something with the rotor or wire-less connection, my phone- ah, it is digital and has a battery that has died completely, and not one that seems readily available. So though in fact I can and have made connections with people, there is a certain loss of communication, that leaves me feeling isolated in the heart of the city.

Interestingly enough, I found fear lurking…what I said, “Self -it’s not like I can’t go up the street hang out at my local bar/restaurant”. Yet somehow the inability to write to, talk with, hang with friends via facebook left me feeling isolated. I felt the need to reach out to folks that I couldn’t touch with my hands, my heart ached, I found myself pacing my small apartment. The calls I did make – alas nobody home. It all took me back, to moving around as a small person. We traveled and moved just about every three years while I was growing up – out of my control. Losing track of friends, let’s face it at 7 or 10 you’re not so great at writing letters. How does that saying go….”Out of sight – out of mind.”

Any way the point being that I was fully living a phenomenon of connection or loss there of , that I have been worried about. There is a loss of human contact, when we lose our technological connection, can we and do we find ourselves able to walk down the street and make contact with another human being? Do we know the sounds of the birds that reside in our neighborhood? Are we aware of what our upstairs neighbor feels when we are baking Chocolate cookies and not bringing any up to share; (though in my defense on this one, I will say my local coffee shops, the Bay Lines and others do receive this gifts of baking)? Do we know the names even of our neighbors? ( I will confess here also – I do not). Do we know the names of the folks that might work at some of the shops we frequent – this I can say I do!

Can you unplug for a day or two? How does it feel?

I am at the same time immensely grateful for all the technology that is at our finger tips, the way we can reach friends, that we have lost touch with – how many of us can truly say – no body from my past is my facebook friend, sure I’ve not seen them in 15 years …

Yet, I am concerned for our lack of human contact; translation touch. Our skin being the largest living organ of our body, the part of us that takes in large amounts of information. So, here I am thinking about all this and at the same time how might I get back on with my internet life ~ when OH! I say – I can re-plug my internet connection, the wire-less will have to wait. Funny – my computer known as Mr. Baggins needed to be in physical touch today. And me now that I’ve written this ~ I too need to go out touch the Earth, see really see my friends, hear the sounds of the world around me.

I hope that you too, will gift yourself some time to be in the real world, not just the virtual one.

Have a great day.

sorry that I am unable to give credit to the person who's photo this is - I'm not sure were I got it. Somewhere on the 'web' I am sure.

A twisting of Conflicts

2010-02-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

Love and fear twisted in a rope, years like knots sliding toward each other as in a Chotki; a prayer rope, similar to Mala beads. Love a prayer full of hope. Fear a way to hold one's self back or protected.

I find it odd that two seemingly such different emotions seem to be some of the greatest motivators. Yet, I also see how they become entwined, wrapping them selves in a coupling; one in which there is suffering.

I am wondering how it is that we might find it within ourselves to feed Love, and find Compassion for Fear. Breathing into both, honouring that both exist and have a place that is valuable. Unfortunately, I am not filled with the wisdom to know how to go about this all the time. Or perhaps it is a gift that I must practice the unwinding each day.

To sit with all that Love represents to me, to take the time to know that I am deeply loved as I am. In times of deep questioning I find myself turning toward the Ocean, with all her many faces. Learning to sail in the Casco Bay, off Maine's coast; with it’s many varying depths and rocky areas. I hold to a sailor friend teaching me to Breathe, to his constant reminder that sometimes the best we can do is duck, so as not to be thrown overboard. Yet, to fear the winds, the movement of the sail, lines and the sea itself would not serve my enjoyment of being on the water. “Calm seas do not a good sailor make ~ feel into the wind.” Knowing also that there may be a time; the best you can do is set the till to making the ship go round in never ending circles till other help arrives. My first lesson was just that – in the event that he himself went over, I’ve never been sure as to whether or not he knows how to swim.

I have learned that a lot of sailors, funny enough don’t know how to swim, yet that do not allow that to become a fear. (It is also not part of the plan to end up in the water.) Theirs is a love of the movement of nature, a gentle taming for a moment in time. I found they have a healthy respect, for what could be; not allowing it to stop them- just eyes wide open.

I like to believe that I feel/think my way into being with Love, in this very way. I am most often willing to jump right into Love, into Friendship, into trying something that I know little about. Some times I laugh that not knowing all the rules; one is able to move through the process of being in the moment much easier. Yet, this too is where my friend Fear can step in and twist itself into being. The voice of the critic “not good enough”, “who do you think you are”, or even perhaps “good god – what are you thinking”.

Not such a worry in terms of creating art, food, or being in friendship ~ Loving another person or even ourself, as a partner, friend or even a parent, well that indeed is a different story. The twisting can get so tight as to keep me from Breathing. How is it that I stop trusting, my own breath in those moments? No longer confident as they head out my door ~ will they return? How do is it that this story is one we all seem to tell in some form?
I want to learn to sit in Love, to sit with Fear ~ breathing. Finding the space between, making time to hold them both in Sacred Space, knowing that I’ve not lost my way. That as a child of this Wild Wonderful Universe love surrounds me like a cloak. It is up to me to feel it against my skin, invite it to whisper in my Soul.

I want to Re-member that Fear can be a warning, can and does keep me alert, that it too whispers on the wind. That it’s intent is to keep me safe, away from the crashing of the sea against the shore. Fear helps to keep me aware, my heart beat kicking as I sail, watching with open eyes for a shift in the wind. Duck as the sail and line come around, the boat under my feet moving in rhythm to this dance.

This is the dance I wish to have between Love and Fear. A continuing invitation to be open to Life, to go ahead move toward what it is we desire ~ just make sure that we are not sailing over the edge of the world with our eyes closed. Now eyes, open well ~ I say LEAP! Trust the universe desires our greatest becoming. Our wings to open as our roots hold true. Put them in your planner, make room for them both. The more we invite our selves to sit with them, I believe the easier it is to be with and in them. Life is after all a practice.

In Bodhisattva

Photo taken by H.F.Griffin 2003 - Unicorns in the water

The Day after...

2010-02-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

Can I state that I love Valentine’s Day. At this moment in time, I am blessed that I live in a city that has a “bandit”, that covers the city with red paper hearts. It brings me an incredible amount of Joy. [I suppose I could confess to liking almost all holidays ~ one which we go about letting those we know and love that very fact.] I like that! Friends, and lovers unite!

Valentine’s Day for those of us who are single can be brutal. It doesn’t matter that we believe in ourselves. Think that we are worthy of a relationship, or have made a choice to be single. It can still create a difficult day~ when all around us, the talk, the adds; everything is about being a couple.

I would invite us to take note that this happens just before spring, as the animal world is preparing itself for the mating season. [Oh, did I mention that we are part of that genes.] It is also a diversion in the Northern climes from the cold weather that we experience in February; when we have the coldest temperatures. Snuggle close my dear ~ I’ll keep you warm. I understand that biologically we are programmed in a way toward coupling and pro-creation. It is the way of nature. The strongest, brightest make the cut, are more likely to have off spring that fall into the same “fittest” group.

I am also very happy and elated for folks that are happy in their coupling relationships. Their happiness at being a couple does not diminish the fact that I am at the moment single. I in truth am happiness extraordinaire for my friends, that have a life partner to share their daily amazing life. Perhaps, some day in the not to distant future, this too could be me.

Yet, meanwhile; now today that the hub-bub has stilled itself in the weekend long coupling thing. I would like to ask that next year, we are a bit kinder to our single friends, remember them in the same silly way of cards and or a treat. I know that, though I do indeed love myself, heck I even like who I am becoming each day. It did make the day sweeter to have breakfast with a friend, having the opportunity to dress up and then make deliveries to my close at hand young at heart friends. I suppose I am basically asking that we touch base with a single friend. Let them know they matter.

Let your love pour out to all…a smile and a Happy Valentine’s Day to a stranger ~might make their day!

Blessings and Love each and every day.

photo taken on Valentine's Day 2010 Can you sit with Your Love?

Growth Happens

2010-01-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

What plan or goal? What design did I have in mind? Where was I headed?

All these questions easier answered when it comes to food, knitting, gardening and from where I am standing far quicker to repair, put back on track or set a new path in motion. Entering stage left or right we have old patterns firmly entrenched. Life full of laughter, and it hurts have created grooves, that are easy to fall into, there by playing the same song. Sometimes the skip of the same story, the same response.

How to then to notice? Just like we might if we were cooking, the smell of too hot or a touch of burn ~ the cook quickly turns down the heat slices a potatoe or two and in they go to absorb, the too spicy hot or the touch of the burn from the it’s too hot in here.

With knitting, the noticing sometimes comes some rows away from the error of pattern, those of us who knit will gently (sometimes) lay the piece down remove the needles, and pull out the work done till we find ourselves back to a place that we may renew the work in the design we were creating. At other times, we must put the piece down, take a breathe and walk away, to return later, beginning anew.

Gardens, somewhat the same, though they can be more like Life. There are things that happen out of our control. We have no way of knowing how fast something might grow, or if in fact it will come back after a long winter’s sleep.

What I do know is that all of these things require our willingness to notice. To really take care and look at how Life or our lack luster toward Life is taking us off and away from our intended design. Sometimes this pull toward another direction can be just the thing we need. Without our full awareness, we are pulled toward our own growth, we are lead to allow for some part of us to be left behind. Ah, we noticed! We are now someplace else, some other US has bloomed.

This of course is not to say we aren’t to take responsibility for our growth or the direction of our life. For me, personally it is a reminder of how deeply I am held as I believe we all are; by a force greater then ourselves. Love is part of that force and I am hopeful that it always draws me toward my and your greatest becoming.

Not always easy, yet I hope to be able to find a moment to give gratitude in both the good times and the difficult. Each has it’s own gifts. We need to take notice, to open our eyes and heart to hear and see the gifts offered. Blessing abide with thee.

Home to the Heart

2009-11-24T04:32:00.000-08:00

I was recently at a dinner party, and being the person not from the region, I was asked where I called home. Without missing a beat I replied, “Where my heart is, for the moment it is here with friends.” The person asking the question who I later nicknamed ‘the Griller’, was in no way pleased with my response. The people next to me, one to my right and left, understood right away, on my left, a hand came up laid itself on mine. A soft – “Good answer, Thank you.” ; it came with a warm smile and eyes that danced. To my right well, we both continued to smile as, ‘the Griller’ continued on his path of interrogation till I said at the moment I reside in Maine. Which I had previously informed him, for he had said he has friends in Bar Harbour, Cape Elizabeth, and Harpswell;

Thought most of that is not what’s important it is a setting for the stage of what came up for me later on my returning drive toward ‘home’. As some of you know I moved around a lot as a small person it was the nature of the beast for my family. When I had a child to raise, I choose to stay in the same small town, though I will admit we still moved a fair amount – I wasn’t used to staying put.

On my trip to see my friend who sat to my right, I had found myself caught in a vortex of being lost and taking the wrong; yet not so badly placed turns on a very dark, very rainy road, called the Saw Mill Parkway – this was supposed to be a short-cut. Ah, only when one knows the way. I did not use this way home.

Yet, all of this got me to wondering, if we all find the path to our Heart, a winding road, a difficult meandering. To find ourselves, does it always take longer? And how is it that we come so far away from the core of who we are that this road back to us, must even be traveled? What is it in our humanness that we set out to seek? How is it that we lose parts of us, along our life path, that then we drive hundreds of miles away from ourselves looking to find who we are? That we make relationships with people, who may or may not look or seem like us on the outside, yet inwardly we know that some of these friends will be with us till the end.

That there is no need to be other then us? [Come now – we have all found ourselves acting a part to fit in, at some point –remember being a teen.] That we are perfectly – imperfection!

So, I find that I am still holding space, a Sacred Space within that is my HeartHome. I find it most often with others that are close enough to know all the prismatic parts of me and alone. Those moments of Being, connected in ways that have no words, a rightness. I give Thanks that I am have been able to live a life full of traveling toward this adventure of knowing me. Of having the luxury to make time to seek and find the HeartHome of me. To fully take in the gift that is me. And yes, there are days I am still driving to find that person. I am so very Grateful for friends, who are real, with patches worn thin, filled with a curiousness to know more of life and themselves and me. I hope I gift that back in a way that they know what I mean.

I invite each one of us to take this journey, I will again note that it seems to be a road with many funny turns. Some full of laughter so deep tears run down your checks, roads that seem to be full of the ‘mundane’; the everyday-ness of being that we wonder could this be all there is? Then there are the roads marked with Grace. Others so painful we cry rivers of tears till we find ourselves laughing with a stitch in our side. And yes, some roads simply are. We find ourselves traveling in certain sets of circles, is this our HeartHome? I wonder, I turn this question over to you. Travel safe and wild on the road to you. I will keep the fire warm, the candle lit waiting for your return. I hold you, friends in my HeartHome, wrapped in warmth and laughter.

photo taken in Bethleham, PA Nov '09 by me just down from 'Cupcake G's'

but for Grace...go I

2009-11-13T06:23:00.000-08:00

I would share with you that there is a great sadness in my heart. People are homeless, jobless, family-less. I can not change these things. What I can offer is an ear, a smile as I walk by. You may think that it doesn’t matter or what good is that…

What it does is it preserves another’s Dignity. Our turning away as if we don’t see them, says they are less then nothing~ unseen, unheard. They are also part of a Divine Grace. Though I am not sure how or why this is part of a greater plan. I know that it is.

I am learning that it cost me more to turn away. That the tears that run down my face, as I walk away, after I have stood for a few minutes allowing a homeless person a chance to tell me a little about themselves; because I noticed them. Was nothing compared to what it cost them to see that I noticed them, then gather themselves enough to call after and follow me as though they might know me.

At what cost did I look him in the eye? Did it hurt me to stand at a corner for a moment to hear his story as I walked to meet a friend for coffee? He asked for nothing more then to be heard, something I take for granted. I have a voice. Who will have voice for the voice-less, the silent?

I sit with a heart heavy, I told him I would listen, would buy him coffee in the morning, he would need to meet me. For I will not give out money . I picked someplace I knew would be safe for me, what about safe for him? He would need to trust that I would in fact be there. How much would that cost him? I am feeling more then what he was willing to chance. He wasn’t there; nor did he arrive in the time I was there.

I can’t answer for him. I am only able to recall a saying… “There but for the Grace of God go I.” Dear Creator, as winter draws near I ask you watch over those that for what ever reason, Veteran , mental illness, loss of job, family find themselves homeless and on the street. I ask that you guide my eyes, my heart to look in their eyes. Remind me of how much I have, not that which I do not.

“There but for the Grace of God go I.”

An Itch of Power, to the Heart

2009-11-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have always been offended by the fact that it is assumed that when women are in Power they are bitchy, whinny, manipulative and repetitive in their requests. And I hate that it seems to me that in our society that a lot of demeaning put downs are words about Women ~ which makes them about ME, which is WE in reflection of the mirror of Women. So I am taking the B out and it really is about an Itchyness.

So first of I would like to note that in Power and from a place of Power are two very different stances. The second is the one that has me Whirling around the juicer of Life. Because the two stances are often mixed together, the out come turns toward women, myself included oft times shrinking away from taking charge; though our inner compass tells us we are the person best suited toward the task.

I find and would invite us to notice that when that place of the Itchyness shows up, it is our inner compass telling us to put our Heart and Soul back on the tiller, the rudder set for a course that allows us to be held in the face of the storm, our team at the lines, helping guide us. I believe that all humans get that itchyness when they let go of their core or the Source of their inner knowing.

It is also my belief that as a culture, as the race of Humans we must put the Heart back into how we do things as a community, government, even business. It is from this place of caring for each other that will in fact Co-create what it is we are Envisioning. It is from a place of heart that a clearer vision can come forth. That we are invited to as Michael Meade calls it the ‘World behind the World’.
[http://mosaicstore.org/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=6 ]

I would ask that we all look at how much courage it takes to be in a connection to our Source, to notice when we are in that place of Itchyness, and how it doesn’t serve us.
I would also ask that we look at these questions – inviting ourselves to a new way of Being. No one is free while any one of us is enslaved.
What might it look like when I choose to see my power as a friend/Allie?
How have I diminished that friendship over the years?
Might I notice the beauty of my power?
When have I been IN power yet not En-powered? How did that feel.
What is at the Heart of my Source?

I would like to note that most of this showed up on Facebook on a Discussion board at SheChanges. A little differently as my voice there was purely from a place of being a Women. And though I do not see our Enpowerment as a gender issue; I do find that in my experience People IN Power, do not necessarily come from a place of Being in their Power. Giving them the change to Abuse their power, children, women, and those that are different from those IN Power often suffer because of this.

May we all some day walk in a world that invites us to be connected to each other with love, hope and the Grace that we were born with.

Blessings.

Winter Squash Soups

2009-11-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

Our body, the earth both love it when we eat what's truly in season. Due to the wonder of planes, and world travel we are now able to eat all manner of fruits and vegetables that are either out of season for us or don't grow in our area at all. This is something we have learned to take for granted. Yet, nature has a way of growing and having available to us what it is we really need or crave in the season.

Fall and Winter are all those wonderful root vegetables and cabbage. The bounty of Winter Squashes. All are here during this time as a Powerhouse of healing. They have an amazing amount of vitamin A- a anticancer crusader. Also topping the winter food list for vitamin C and fiber. Hell-o potassium to boot. All of these help in the fight for colds, flu, and other winter maladies. As root vegetables, another thing they help our bodies do is ground. Keeping us planted during the season of dreams. Adding chili peppers or ginger also help our immune system.

Before they are cooked they don't take up valuable refrigerator space either.

All this said, let me share a base soup and then give you some options on different ways to play with them, to create different tastes. Now that you've got the idea ~ see what you might do.

Basic Winter Squash Soup 4-6servings for lunch or dinner 8 - if soup course

1 med size squash,(butternut, acorn, buttercup or Hubbard)about 2 pounds or a small pumpkin
1 TBS butter or olive oil
1 onion -diced
2 stalks celery
1 -2 large carrots
1 clove garlic
4-6 cups stock either vegetable or chicken.
salt and white pepper to taste.

Start by baking your choice of squash/pumpkin - to do this you'll cut it in half, take out the seeds with a spoon, place face down on a cookie sheet with- the oven set for 350 degrees, bake for about 30mins or until a fork inserted through the skin slides in easily. (Baking the squash/pumpkin gives the soup a richer taste- though you can make the soup by cutting the squash/pumpkin into chunks instead, and simmering them till soft)

Meanwhile - as the squash/pumpkin bake. Dice your [onion, garlic, celery and carrots]. Heat your soup pot - hot pan, cold 'fat' the food won't stick - throw in this [mixture] and sauté till onions are transparent. Set aside to add baked squash/pumpkin.
Add stock - *tip don't have stock~ easy fix ~to make a quick make shift one- take the peelings from the [mixture] add a potatoes or two chopped, throw into 4 cups of water simmer while the squash/pumpkin bakes. For easy stock I save the bits and pieces of onions and things -no broccoli or asparagus - in a container in the freezer for this sorts of moments- makes a richer stock. Strain you now have 'stock' -if you choose not to bake the squash/pumpkin due to timing needs throw the peelings into the stock pot as well.

When squash/pumpkin are ready - dig the wonderful 'meat' from the shell, add to the [mixture] pour in your stock cook on low heat for about 15 -20 minutes. Let it cool till lukewarm - now it's ready to be mashed or run through your 'quesy' (food processor). Reheat add salt and pepper to taste, serve topped with fresh parsley, scallions and or curtons.

*tip to make a heartier and heart healthy - to give it that creamy texture of heavy cream, blend in a small can of cannellini beans ( sometimes called white kidney)rinsed and drained - or about 1 1/2 cups soaked and cooked. This can be done to most soups and gives it a milky look without the dairy. A way to add more fiber - nobody knows but the cook

Changes to make something fancier.

Curried Butternut Squash
Follow basic recipe adding:
1 large apple
1more clove of garlic
1 finely chopped Anehiem chili
1/2-1 teaspoon Cheyenne pepper-this is a matter of how many stars
1-2 Tablespoons Curry Powder
optional - add 1star anise.

Roasted Red Pepper and Squash Soup
Following basic recipe add
2 large red roasted peppers
1/2 -1 teaspoon Cheyenne pepper

to roast your peppers- place under the broiler till skin turns black - gently pull this away from the pepper throw into the soup you can also roast a third then chop it as a garnish.

Apple Pumpkin
Following basic recipe using pumpkin add
2 Apples, like Courtland or Crispin - something with a lot of snap -Granny Smith could also work
1/2-1 teaspoon Cheyenne pepper
1-2 cinnamon sticks (this is a matter of taste- optional
replace 1-2 cups of the stock with apple juice.

Basque Pumpkin and White Bean made easy
Following basic recipe using pumpkin add
1 leek chopped and washed
3 more cloves of garlic
3 fresh sage leaves or 1/3 teaspoon dried
1 can cannellini beans -rinsed and drained or 1 1/2 cup cooked beans

you are not sending this soup through the 'quesy' - stir the pumpkin in well to incorporate it then add beans
garnish with fresh parsley and fresh ground pepper.

Hope to hear about some of the results! Have fun ~ love what you are cooking the food knows as do the ones who eat it. As Julie would say Bon Appetite!

Samhain - All Hallow's Eve - Day of the Dead- All Saint's Day

2009-10-31T03:36:00.000-07:00

May this be a Blessing.
No matter the name you may use to celebrate these days October 31st – to November 2

We are headed toward the end of the cycle of growing, we look toward the end of the harvest as the Earth prepares for Winter here in the Northern Hemisphere.
We take this time to Honour our Ancestors, to Honour the Dead and Dying.
Yet we are also faced with the Season of Seeds of all that is to be born.
Nature gifts us with the next year’s
Potential as She ends this turn of the wheel, the Season of passing.
With this Blessing before us let us Light a Candle to guide the Souls in their unrest that they may find Peace on their Path home.
Let us Light a Candle, Holding our Intention for the Seeds we hold in our hands, let us enter this Season preparing our Dreams for our Winter Sleep and Gestation.
May we hold in our Hearts the Mystery and Beauty that surrounds us, finding Peace in the stillness yet to come.
It is said the veil between the Worlds is thinnest on these days, walk gently, walk with Compassion, Walk in your Truth.
Grateful for the bounty of Gifts.
Let us share our Gratitude with our fellow travelers.
Blessing to you, my friends
May your road be long and crooked, may you have food for both body and Soul.
May you know that you are made of the Stardust of Generations come,
gone and yet to be.
Blessings to you this Night.

Happy Happy Halloween!

Sleepless In Wonder

2009-10-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Sleepless in wonder and joy. I spent most of the day outside working on a garden space that is meant to surround a Wind Turbine, turning the earth to prepare it for the shrubbery that would cover the base and bring again a sense of beauty to the eye as it looks out of the house toward Potato Point.
Yes, I am sleepless with Joy, the sun kissing my skin, in a t-shirt on this gloriously warm autumn day here in Maine. As I worked I spoke to the Earth as is my costume, I found myself also taking to the air surrounding me telling it that the space I was preparing was going to be in Honour of the Power it gifted the house through the energy created. During this process, a slight breeze began to pick up, to caress me. How is it that I have never noticed the wind noticing me? The gentleness of the Wind’s touch, as new lover, lenitive as it danced with my bareness, yet there was also a familiar-ness as with an old love. For me it was the Wonder of the Wind noticing me, clearly ~ I am opened yet again to the Other. That which we as humankind see outside ourselves, without motive or feeling. What better motive then to notice that which stands in front of, and speaking directly with you.
Yes, I am sleepless with the Mystery of the day. Sleepless in Wonder and Joy! I am awestruck with all the gifts the Divine Nature of the World offers up, when we take the time to notice.
I am happy to be sleepless in this wonder. Honoured and Blessed.
Yes, i am sleepless and I am wondering how often we may lay awake not in stress or worry, but with the wonder of the mysteries of the Universe that we are so blessed to be a part of. I would invite us to the place of wonder with what the Night may have to share with us, weather in dreams or our being awake to the sounds of the night. The beauty of the day having filled us so, we are to 'ampted' to sleep.

posted first on FB have added a few lines.- I give thanks to my daughter for the picture of me in my youth.
I send a kiss to the wind from my hand.

Listen to the Awesomeness of Being!

2009-10-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

This morning I am struck with a wonder at how fragile we are, how wounded and inflicter we can be. I am also in Awe of how we as humans have so much Resilient elasticity. Grateful indeed for the Fragility and the Resilient-ness of our nature.

I don’t see things in so much of a dualist way. For all the parts, of our Being-ness make up who, whom, how we present to the world. How we present, then changes as our prismatic Being has either more light (a.k.a. people; at least in this part of the greater story); or darkness (a.k.a. people –same as the opposite). We shift in our perspective as they need arises to add or subtract those around us. As a quick ah-ha, think of what happens to you when you and a close friend are out having coffee in public, heads moved in toward the middle of the table, and someone else walks up and starts including themselves, feel that slight shift in your Being? That’s the prismatic-ness of our Being.

Events in our lives have the same effect. They leave a trace element of themselves with in our Being, this is something I have witnessed time and time again, as a body worker, friend, lover, even the traces for better or worse that I have left as a Mother. Bottom line we ALL have those places, events, people as part of our Being and being Human-kind.

Again, I am struck by how Fragile we can be and why aren’t we told of this as we decide to come flying into the world through the birth canal? Sure would have been useful information, at least if you ask me. Yet to this Fragileness, there is also a great Strength of Courage. Courage taken from the Old French cuer –Heart.

It is in those places that we are most Fragile that we find the Heart to open ourselves to those around us. To give, receive, and BE. They are the places I believe that turn us toward our own Compassion; that then in turn Awaken us to our deepest growth, fears, laughter, sorrow, joy, fits of angst and the very depths of who we are as part of a greater whole.

These places of our fragileness, also seem to be the wells of elastic-ness. The places that we go to in silence, tears, laughter, confusion to then spring out Resilient and ‘new’. Sometimes we call upon those we know to help guide us toward and through our Fragile nature till we come forth, perhaps more guarded, or more open.

We each have our own time and way in which this happens. What might be right for one of us doesn’t necessarily work for another. I feel that one of our biggest jobs as Human-kind and as friends in particular is to Show –up to our fellow Human – Beings. To be a witness of their story. To listen and invite the Fragile parts to show,

From the Velveteen Rabbit – by Margery Williams (this starts at the point when the Skin Horse and the Rabbit are talking)
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

Indeed. I wish for all of us to have this experience of the Fragileness of Being Real. What an Awesomeness there is, in our Resilience and in our Fragileness. Our very day Being-ness. Inviting and allowing for all the parts of us to show. Yes, even when for a small amount of time we may show anger. That too is being Real, just not part of this story today.

Off to my Fragile self. Knowing as I prepare the gardens for winter, they are a gentle reminder of how Resilient the Divine Nature of our Being truly is.

Blessing.

Thank you!
once again a foto by the famous T. Griffin see her work at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tirzymcwirzy/

'Full-Stop'

2009-09-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading a book on punctuation; Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss and it seems the thing we Americans can a ‘period’ the British call a ‘full- stop’.

What has me going around this phrasing is that at the moment we are headed into Autumn. A time of equal day and night; almost like the Earth stops moving in it’s orbit; so that day and night can dance together a bit. More dawnish or sunsettingish time; those odd in between times. Sun is raising, Moon still hasn’t really set; or the opposite of; the Moon is clearly on the rise as the Sun is just setting; the Chariot ride across the sky a little off timing wise. The period/full-stop, have also to do with time, as in stop, it is now the end of the sentence, take a breathe, that’s it, begin anew.

The changing of the seasons have that effect as well, some more then others. Such as Summer into Autumn, Winter into Spring. Both of these shifts have that equal day and night sort of thing going on, plus there is a rather drastic way in which they happen. As we are presently in that summer to autumn shift; (leaving the other for another whole blog). I would like to purpose that our bodies, need, want, down right crave that Stop. The Breathing space, the time for pause. We go all summer, busy bee doing. As, the autumnal season arrives we are ready for a break. This year for me I am noticing that there is also an agitation that seems to go with this shift, of not quite knowing how to BE.

We forget, sometimes; unless we are farmers, to notice what we have harvested Spring to Fall. What dreams and plans did we lay in the fields to dream, hibernate and prepare for blooming in the Spring? How many did we follow through with to bring to the Harvest to share with those around us? What intentions did we set for the dreaming season? Or as one of my mentors says, “What kind of Corn are we growing”. Is it, was it something worth sharing?

As we begin this Season of going inward, I would like to invite us to make our Intentions clear. We all have things, places in which we can bring the light of our true nature to it’s Awakening. What places within ourselves might we also shed, like the leaves of a tree, leaving our self bare, un- encumbered; ready to dream our self into a new becoming.

Blessings to you fellow travelers, as we head inward to do more of Being, instead of Doing. It is good to be in the world with You. I am most grateful. Happy Autumn!

photo taken by me at the Farmer's Market in Deering Oaks
I would also like to apologize to Ms Truss, in the event that it appears that I have learned nothing about punctuation. It is through no fault of the teacher.

Thank you

2009-09-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

I wish to Thank you all for your love, your kindnesses, for the very fact that you ARE!
I pray each day for Peace to cover us all in her arms flung wide.
I pray that nobody need go hungry, tho I am not so blind as to know this is not so. I pray some day that it will be past.
I pray that we can take in those events in our lives that have formed us and be Thank full for the gifts of learning.
I am blessed in my friends, my loves, my clients. I am ever Thank full for waking each day!
I wish for you all that may be in your Highest good.
Great Mother -Great Creator, I ask that you watch over your children and guide us toward our clear path. Thank you for your love.
May we find things to be Thank full for each day of our lives, large and small. Sweet and simple as a child's smile.
I wish you a very Blessed Day!

Many Blessings,
Rosemary

Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere -- in the
closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in
the flowers, in the animals.
-- Mother Teresa

this piece was written in 2004 - no less the truth of it!
Photo taken in Lori and Bob's yard.

Possibility

2009-09-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Some days, the possibilities seem to roll in and right on over; at least for me. There seems to come an opening that happens when we shift our thinking to take in a new thought or a new project. I am finding that I need time to sit quiet –not so much talking about – to really stew, percolate, marinate in the info being presented.

Like any good creation – what then needs to be added or taken away? What item will make the whole thing come together. A feast for the soul? Do we allow ourselves this kind of time?

I am finding that there are a lot of area of our lives in which we push time, we want the answer right now. SO…right now; that we miss the ‘watermelon seeds’ laying about. We leave out some important item, the things I call the givens. Well, I am finding that my givens are not necessarily someone else’s. Sometimes it is a gift not to know all the rules of a thing- it allows for more movement, more risk taking. I have found this to be true in a few areas of my life.

My invitation is to allow time to work – to give space to the process, no matter what process it is. Be it love, the throes of grief, a decision that you are pondering. Have you listened inward, felt how the new place feels as it rolls around inside. Was there ample time to taste of the bits and pieces?

Now to go back to the quiet and the pondering.
Blessings to all.

my feet in Puerto Rico - Steps Beach 09

Belonging

2009-09-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

The world is brought back from the brink of destruction-
Every time YOU smile.
From a bulletin board in Rincon, PR

How is it that we lose sight of belonging? That we find ourselves disconnected from the greater whole of the world? We can make up all kinds of reasons, some of the least of them religion, language, the way we might look through the eyes of another.

What if we could invite ourselves to the notion that as Beings living on the Planet Earth, we are indeed connected by the fact that we each feel the vibration of each other under our feet. Have you ever laid on the ground or the floor and felt the rumble of another’s foot steps as they walked toward or away from you?

Recently, I was gifted an opportunity to lay on the sand and at the ocean of Puerto Rico I watched as the tides came in and out, floating in the warmth of the water, feeling small. Thinking at one point about the fact that I was in a weather pattern that was part of a tropical storm; now the reason this is an important fact is that during this time of year, we in Maine are lucky if the water reaches 63 degrees. Here I was laying in water that would be pushed by the storm up, around the coast of Puerto Rico and on up the eastern sea front to the beaches I call home. With that would be the essence of me, carried home. My friends still brave enough to get into the ocean, would have a change to feel the whisper of me and the warmth of the water I was swimming in!! The ripple of Humanness in the Ocean, not only could they feel me, I too had a change to feel them, knowing that this Ocean I was in has traveled round and round, top to bottom. How long must that journey take?

I was also in a country that the native tongue was not English, but Spanish. How far a Smile, Ola, Gracis or a simple nod of my head could take me. We are indeed of the same family, we all wish to be acknowledged; by noticing another we ourselves are given Form.

I suggest a world wide “Wednesday Wave as you Walk Day”. Or a Smile a Day, keeps us connected to the ripple of life. For our smile, moves from our face to the next face which causes another smile and it continues to move like a tide. Smile at someone you don’t know ~ Make your Day a better day.

Blessings to those that laugh, smile, sing, cry and share the treasure of their Human – Beingness! I am Blessed by Being given form in the noticing of others. Thank you, friends!

photo taken on the beach in Puerto Rico or is it Maine?

Little Lessons

2009-09-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

Little lessons learned. Each day brings it’s own challenges, struggles and joys. What is it that we take away from those moments? It all depends on how we choose to take them on. Are we going to buy all that is laid out before us? Take it home even though we can clearly see that it doesn’t fit?

Little lessons learned. Some come round on a return; perhaps something you knew; thought you’d walk that old way again, see if the outcome would be different. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked, when it gives us the same answer or knowing that we all ready have deep set in our bones.

Little lessons learned, perhaps in truth they are little treasures offered. Opportunities to look at the way we ‘react’. We allow a certain amount of complacency to enter our Being, then wonder as it all backs up to and end that is not what we were thinking or planning. We forget that it is not all about ME. That sometimes we are doing our best; when we find ourselves caught in others mood of being. I feel that what is important at those moments is that we see ourselves outside of who we are striving to become. That we invite the opportunity to gift us little gems of wisdom. Life is a practice.

To find compassion for our self, to know that it is not our place to point out to an other how it is they could be doing it better. We can only offer up our Being and walking our talk, wearing our own growth. This will in turn show someone not near as ‘enlightened’ as WE are how they might find a different footing. I found it is also not my job to point it out, try to force change; what is my job is that I take to heart my personal learning and grow. That I may leave a path of gems, worth stopping to pick up, hold, looking at what it may offer and then continue to be in the moment that is now in front of me.

It is my job to be attentive to how I could act in right relations with the world around me. This is as I see it our most important job of BEING. See if perhaps for today, we can allow each person we come in contact with to be right were they are, for in fact it is right were they are and need to be on their personal walk.. Invite the ripple that comes from you to be one of compassion for ALL, yourself included.

Little lessons learned, what a treasure! Feel the gratitude for these precious moments. I live in abundance. I am blessed.

Not sure who took the picture at Chris and Jan's
Hands belong to Debbie G. and myself.

A Sharing of Food - A tribute to Trudy's Rouladen

2009-08-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Before I get wrapped into this sharing let me state a few things about myself. I live alone, I come from a largish family – there are 5 siblings, I love to read; (3-4 books a week-sometimes more), I have two children, but only one that I had the Wonder and Mystery of being raised by, I am a vegetarian by nature; ( longer now then I was ever a Carnivore), and I love to cook for others.

Recently my friends have given me stories on food, so far in the past 2 months I have read- The Sharper your Knife the Less you Cry, Julia and Julie (perhaps that is the other way around and indeed I saw the movie), Comfort Me with Apples, My Life in Food. In the past if the title of a book had anything to do with food – well of course I read it!

Food memory is Powerful! I think I would put it right up there with our sense of smell. Which of course is a very large part of food itself. Certain foods can take us back to moments long pass, fill us with dread around the Holi-daze; who doesn’t have some food story that wraps and weaves itself into the making or breaking of the Holiday? Willingness to try new unfamiliar foods, can catch in our heart.

Rules around the dos and don’ts of food, usually ethnic and religious in their beginnings. Then there are the ways to eat certain foods. What makes it a finger food? Or cultures, where the utensil is a food in itself? Chop sticks, spoons, forks and knives? What is the social implication of how we eat, fast, slow; (we’re the last one eating). Enjoying every bite as we savor the smell, taste, gifting gratitude for the food itself. The beauty of it on the plate. The feelings of the person preparing and the love that the food was given as it was planted, given birth?

There is also the recipe – cookbooks and are you a sharer? Or do you guard the ‘family recipe’ like a treasure that nobody but Aunt Edna had and at her passing You were the one it came to, now it falls on you to protect it. For me I am a recipe sharer if I make something that you want to know how to make I am glad to share with you. I will even give the changes I have made to a recipe so that you can see how it became what it is now.

Which brings me to the recipe at hand, it holds many memories, it is one of the first meals my former husband Griff ate at my mother’s table. My personal memory is my mother, Trudy wanted the poor man to eat more. I fixed it first for my daughter after she returned form her father’s one time – he had shared his story of that dinner; I’d been a vegetarian for a number of years by then so it wasn’t on the top of my list. Ok, we’d invite friends. It is the meal that I am most often asked to make by both my daughter and grand-daughter. In years past I have been known to make a batch, freeze it and send it home on the plane. One year I heard that Huntyr’s smiled and said to her parents as she got off the plane at the end of her summer visit – “I have Rouladen in my luggage!”; even before the hello. Yes, it is indeed a recipe with a story in my family.

I invite you to share your story of some dish that opens your heart, that says Love in the depth of your soul. I wonder if this recipe holds as much weight in my sibling’s story. For me it holds a sense of wonder and love that was my mother. I would invite us to touch base with the creative nature we find in food. Many blessings be at your table today and always. Where is it that you find a love story told by food? Eat with this love in your Heart and all food will nourish your soul.

Grandma Trudy’s Rouladen

Know from the beginning you are not making this dish for tonight – but for tomorrow. It truly makes a difference. Call ahead to make sure the butcher is in and can cut this for you. As it is somewhat labour intensive I plan ahead for a 2nd meal.

Top Round sliced very thin- count 2 slices per person
Pickles – cut into 4ths planning on a quarter per slice
Bacon- one slice per slice
Onions- cut into an 8ths –1 each per slice
A good mustard
Salt and Pepper
Last nights red wine or open a bottle- don’t make it cheap!

I roll my pickles and onion slices with the bacon, then lay out the steak. With your steak laid out spread with mustard, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Now roll your BOP bundles up in the meat. Trudy wrapped these with thread, I find it easier to use a wooden tooth pick.
As you roll them, sear these meat parcels in a very hot pan. I usually throw a couple of pieces of bacon in the pan to help with a touch of moisture and fat. As they are seared all round, put into a larger stew pot. When they are all in the pot, pour a water into the searing pan to get all those yummy juices. Pour over meat in stew pot. Add a little more water if need to just barley cove the meat. Throw a splash or two of wine in, this will later become a matter of taste. I pour the wine in the now empty mustard jar shake to get all that goodness from the jar. Bring this all just to a simmer hold there for about an hour. Turn off. Cool. When cool place in fridge, remember you’re making tomorrows dinner. Serve with boiled small potatoes, cooked red cabbage.

My hands a picture taken by T. Griffin while she and I fixed this dish

Right and Privilege

2009-08-15T06:15:00.001-07:00

Do we know the difference of these things? We count our freedom and the ‘right to speak freely’ as if it were not a privilege. We grumble about our wages, our work, the bills we have to pay. That we can pay them at all is a privilege. All of these in essence are really privileges. I am sorry to say that at times I also forget that in many ways I am privileged. I had/have a roof over my head, I learned the value of good food. I was/am loved by my parents and friends. Given an education, that I did not have to fight for the right to receive.

I started to look at this all a bit closer recently as I was putting together a menu for a retreat that I am blessed to be the Honoured Kitchen Diva. I thought about the food I was preparing, the quality of that which would be purchased; the attitude that would stand in the kitchen. I was struck suddenly with a realization of what a privilege it was for me to be able to fix healthy food, to feed others with love and care.

Healthy food. Food that would feed not only the bodies of the women attending, but their souls as well. It got me to thinking that yes, even the fact that we would eat three meals a day is a true luxury and privilege. I thought back to food I didn’t like as a child or didn’t want to eat. When I was told there were starving children around the world, my constant retort would be – “Then send it to them!”

Yet, here I am today working again on my menu for a weekend – that in itself is a privilege. That I have the time to ponder and am not having to be out forging for some scrap of food that is covered with mold. Having had my morning meal of oatmeal, and a cup of Joe. I could come back to my computer or pencil and paper working out the details. I also did not have in the back of my mind a worry about shelter or food, the very basic of rights for all living creatures. I could sit in the Joy of the process. Able to conjure the scents, colour and textures.

I count myself blessed to know the luxury of hunger. Indeed it is a luxury when you find yourself hungry and know that it is fairly easy to change the situation. How might my life be different if I had to wonder how I was to find my next meal, not what I would be eating, just that I would be able to eat?

To share a meal, to gather together to meet a basic need. To cook and prepare a meal with love in my heart. To honour how the food made it to the table, the work that went into the planting, harvesting, getting it to the market. Even living alone, we can take a moment to be grateful for the food in front of us. To notice what it is we are eating, even when it happens to be a bag of potato chips. To honour the gift of physical nourishment.

I ask that we give some thought to the places of our own privileges. How might we bring a more grateful heart to those places? I don’t have an answer, other then to suggest that it is in the noticing, the being present to them. To invite ourselves to experience the privileges we have completely alive in the moment.

Blessings to you. It is a privilege to be in the world with YOU!

Relegated to be Lost Forever

2009-08-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

RELEGATED TO BE LOST FOREVER

Oh, she put us in the basement
We sobbed and cried
No, no please not the basement
We'll be relegated to be lost forever more!
Inside of closets, hidden in boxes
She might, just maybe

But the basement?
Relegated to be lost forever
How could one women own so much
The hordes of music, shoes and art stuff
That could, would, SHOULD become
She gets fractured, needs to be anchored
For it all to become clear
She might, just maybe
Love anchors her
Holds her safe.

Open us all, pass on what's needed
Wanted else where
Turn us to Beauty,
De - clutter us all
Banish her to the basement
Send her there to do her art
Relegated to the basement
Will she then be lost forever?
Hidden from sight?

This house fills with Love
Spills out in measures untold
Anchored, she will bloom again
Be seen, be held, be heard
Relegated no place,
Everything in motion.
So rest for a bit in the basement
You are not lost forever
You are waiting at the boat yard
Waiting to embark

Relegated to the basement?
A closet? A box?
I THINK NOT!

Rosemary
04.07.06

as you can see this is an older piece - read it to a friend and wanted to share it here - Thank you AL

Emotion- Grief

2009-08-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

Grief is an emotion or a sense that we don’t often take into account. It comes in to play at the loss of a loved one, or the end of a relationship. There are other times as well, some that it seems odd that it would be there. Moving for one. Yet do we recognize it’s effect or sometimes how long it is that we are living in a low grade version? Our society wants us always to Move On, Let it GO. We want to hide away from the uncomfortable.

Today ~ August 8th, is one of those days for me. It is an anniversary of the loss of my Mom; and oddly enough at this moment I can’t say how long Trudy has been gone. For me – today and when ever I need to say, “Oh, my Mom has passed on.” I find myself feeling like an orphan. I find myself raw!

I find that other events of grief seem to all come together in a bundle when I’m in the moment and clutches of Grief. I am also grateful for those moments, the tides of my truly blessed Life. There is a certain amount of luxury that comes with being able to feel and be in an emotion. To sit with and be consumed by the feelings. To be in the belly, the pit of fire, the tears that wash us clean.

I am also grateful for my Friends, that do not judge this about me, they allow the space I need. They give a gentle call here and there –“touching base”, to bring me into the rest of my world. I am an isolator when I am deeply in emotion. I feel the need to hide away, for it seems that most of society does not want us to FEEL; we are labeled too intense, too much. I laugh easy and cry just as easy. I am grateful and blessed by friends that can live with both of these full body responses to Life. I am always struck by how difficult it is for some folks to be around any kind of display of emotion. Our labels of these places of emotion, place a judgment of good or bad upon an event, a moment in a life. Why not invite the BEING in the whatever it is?

Today, I would invite each of us to remember to tell those close to us that they are loved. For one moment they are here and then everything changes. I would invite us to live our lives as fully and as present as we can. To not hide away from joy, sorrow, grief, laughter, fear. I believe it is easier to be with these places that are uncomfortable when we allow ourselves the time needed, instead of ‘moving on’. There is time enough for moving on and past. That comes from living into the moment, allowing, inviting all the bits that belong to the moment and perhaps some that don’t to be pulled out and looked over, touched and given space. Planting seeds of joy, compassion and kindness upon the hurts, the sadness. Let the rains fall, inviting growth.

Blessings.

Summer Child

2009-08-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Plants always remind me that we live in rhythms and cycles. For me the summer begins and ends around the visiting of my beautiful grand-daughter Huntyr. She is a summer child. Born in June days before the Summer Solstice. As we near the time of her arrival each year I find myself in Labour, a kin to the labour I was witness to on the night of her birth. Who will arrive? How long will the time to birth our bond take this year?

At this point summer began, full of rain bringing with it the sunshine smile of Huntyr. She too was somewhat a drift with her coming this summer as she is one- a teenager, two- in transition form the place she has called home for most of her life to her Dad’s childhood place of belonging, and third- who is she becoming and what has Gramie cooked up for this years offerings? Remember she’s a teen now – not as malleable as in some pass summers.

Sharing our own places of sadness and growing there were days when little was said between us. Days of laughter and new experiences; tarot cards, going to a medium, a Despacho Ceremony. A couple of movies and days at the beach – ok – the beach now as a teen became boring! I mean really who as a teen wants to hang on a beach with their Gramie? Days spent with friends of mine who share a desire and love for sewing and cloth. Huntyr, all but for the final quilting worked on a collage with fabric piece that is amazing. Leaving me a box of wonderful scarps of fabric that she gathered – like summer sand and shells they linger here for the moment.

Mom, my daughter arrived late June, and off into the east they did head; with the setting Sun. Taking with them my first stage of summer; leaving a storm of emotion. Loss, quite, a happiness, tears. One would think that having done this for so many summers I would be used to this cycle, yet each time it rolls around it catches me unprepared. Which causes me to wonder~ there are rhythms and cycles of life that we live within. Each time they come around they are different, to be experienced a new. Feeling all there is to the moment, to the time given. I wonder also; did I share with both my daughter Tirzah and my grand-daughter Huntyr how much I love them. Are they able to feel it in their bones, their very being when not here with me. And why is it that just before the leaving there is always some blow out of words, that strike the heart bringing fear. Does it still go back to being able to become independent of our parents? Does it smell of abandonment – knowing they will be leaving, the breakaway wave. I am grateful that Tirzah and I have learned to Breathe into these places, knowing the Love that is shared. I am hoping that the next time we are together; perhaps this cycle will no longer need to assert itself.

With the beginning of my second summer I was left in the quite to look at what cycles no longer serve me. Which ones are a rhythm to a song I no longer wish to sing? Ah, yes here it comes my invitation to you, my friends ~ What cycles are you part of that no longer serve you? What song do you wish to be singing. Can you invite yourself to a rhythm of compassion? How about Being, allowing yourself, your humanness? The days we fall out of sync with our song; gifting the time needed to be out of practice. Knowing there will be ‘…terrible, horrible, no good very bad days.’ (Sometimes just moments.) And afterward we will go back to our practice of Life and have wonderful, amazing, fabulous days. With our Inhalation we can invite the Divine, to fill our hearts and on the Exhalation as it is meant to do release that which does not serve.

Blessings.

i took the picture on my way home form Elsworth during the Monsoon Season.

too long away

2009-07-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

So many thoughts and things I thought to write. Too long away, I've been from myself to sit and write. Some days are like that, the days stringing together lost pearls, knots forgotten as they slide along the string of my life.

I ask that we are kind and compassionate with ourselves as those days, turn to weeks and sometimes even turn to months. What then who holds us when we can not hold ourselves? What force of nature invites us to put one foot in front of the other, when we seem not to know our way?

Opening my arms, I am held by the air, my toes barefoot sink into the deep softness of Mother Earth. Indeed I can feel the love that lingers in the wind. My friends voices as they whisper there love in prayer. I am blessed.

Some days are like that one foot, one breath, there is love, there is life and I am grateful that it holds me in it's arms.

photo taken 4th July by CO'C- thanks for sharing ML
a reminder that all is as it is meant to be - trust.

Words - Use your words

2009-05-30T02:53:00.000-07:00

As I ponder the words we use, the thought jumped into my head - what if there were no words to match to war, hate, hurt, would those things still exist? Might they become extinct like a rare flower or animals that live no more. By the sheer fact that we have stopped using them, all those words that are hurtful, mean. Or would be make up new ones, or not use our words at all. Nature doesn't use words - yet sometimes, the forces of nature feel as cruel as the words of hate.

Just a little something to ponder for a while.

my feet around a heart rock, I find them in all kinds of places.

I've left it there for you to find. From my heart to yours.

ROY-G-BIV

2009-05-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

Rainbow Riot of Voices Colour
Treasure hunting on a Tuesday morning.

Others had no need of the items
And others - the joy to be able to have them.

REcycle, REuse, REgift, REnew
It becomes a Treasure in someone else's life.

Thrilled by the voices in Community
Thrilled by the colours of these proud people.

Joy and Laughter fill the Tuesday morning air.
I want to join in, I am working and only can listen as the joy passes by.

I wish I could have understood the words
Rich Rainbow Riot of Voices and Colour.

What? I didn't see this coming....

2009-05-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

Suddenly the feeling of thunder deep inside – we blow up! Or perhaps, all of a sudden we look up to find ourselves miles from what we thought we might be living.

Both events cause turmoil, they can come as a part of a couple, a relationship with a friend, even at work. For myself and for friends that I’ve spoken with there is a shock-like state, unbelieving. A feeling of freezing in one’s movement, as if glued to the spot. Sometimes for only the briefest of moments, other times months upon months. No matter at which end of this event you are standing. I.E the receiver or the giver, for like it or not there is a gift that is given when one of these events happens.

Which brings to my mind a very curious state, when does the pressure or the fraying of the weave and wrap of our lives happen. More exactly how is it that it begins and we don’t notice it. That slowly, ever so slowly the threads and lines that are part and parcel of our everyday start to ravel. I am feeling that there must be clues, a call that goes unheard, unnoticed. I am wondering why and how.

To make it easier to follow my thoughts I will use the unraveling/fraying as I write, for I see it from both the storm and the unraveling; in my own life I have been with it in both ways. Neither less then the other in the impact it left behind. But we are peoples who forget that sometimes for there to be change Nature creates a Hurricane. We like to pretend that there is not that force within us. I will invite you to think again, but that is yet another bailiwick; better left for another time.

If it is a relationship of two it has me wondering – how do we expect the other to notice that something has gone amiss, when we our self have not really noticed the small unraveling or the fraying of the lines. Sometimes I feel it might be a word or a look that has changed, we make a choice to leave it unnoticed. To continue as though nothing at all has happened, it seems easier that way. Might it not be easier to make note, and create an invitation to dialogue? Not necessarily in the exact moment ~ I’m not feeling like it’s that easy! The simple “ I am wondering if you want to talk – I noticed, how I felt when….”. Of course bringing it back to us is sometimes difficult, we are feeling shocked, hurt, un-heard? To open a dialogue it is always best to bring it back to us.

The weave of story that makes us, gently frays. Perhaps, I feel-think that it begins with a small misunderstanding, or where our story lies over the weave of someone else’s that the unraveling happens. Mostly I feel that we don’t notice till there is a small hole, fixable with the help of two. Sometimes it seems that by the time we notice that there is a ‘wrongness’ in the fabric the hole is full of hurts, unspoken or fought about. Almost to late to have any conversation. Yet, I want to believe it is never too late, parties willing. I want to invite and encourage us all – attempt to have the conversation. Give some space, for ourselves as well as the other. Clear our thoughts, take the breath that helps ground us and exhale what is not needed in the moment, allow, follow this process till we find a stillness. Then create a time to dialogue.

I suppose what I am struck by for myself is that I have recently become frayed, and it was a friend’s question that made me notice how frayed and unraveled I had become. A slow unravel, one that had seemed to have gone unnoticed to my own psyche, or not? I suppose that here in lies the whole thing is how do we/I let the connection to another fray, and not notice or choose to look away as though it INS’t happening. I see where we need to be vigilant of what we allow to come in to our weaving as well as what we might send out to add to those in our circle. I also see how fragile we are as humans, yet also how strong and resilient we can be. Seems to me it is all in the attention we hold for what is important.

I invite us to notice more, the feel of the wind, it’s whisperings in our heart. That we may indeed make the time for the important conversations of our Life. Living into 100% of us and our creative natures.

Photo of clouds by T. Griffin – image name storm brewing

what do you notice hiding there?
Thank you for being a part of the weaving of my life.

2009-04-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

We cry out for Vision, the thirst of Dreams, for Love~ it is important to remember that these things come to us in stillness. In the spaces between the rhythm of our daily doings. Invite yourself to those moments when the ordinary and ‘mundane’ can and do become the extraordinary.

It is here in the spaces that we find the Mysteries. Spring ripe and full of it’s own Becoming. Mother Earth, not sure if she is ready to wake; rolls over and says, just a bit longer. “Children please!” When she throws off the blanket of Winter, the showers come. April showers -bring May flowers.

Wait, it is coming soon – we will find Mother Earth dressed in all the finery that is hers. Colours we have forgotten, sweet surprises planted. Wait my friends, it comes soon.

Robin red-breast has been spotted. I have watched the birds courting, I have felt it in my bones. You can smell the freshness, of new possibility. What dreams will she share with us? What mystery is there unfolding that you have yet to notice?

What dreams do we have to share with her? What did you hope for during the long winter months. What spaces did you leave, for something new to come forth? Tell me your wishes, your desires and I will tell you mine.

Spring a time when the ‘ordinary’ indeed becomes the Extraordinary!

Happy Easter! Blessed Passover! Oster is here!

photo of Indigo Bunting by Susanna Liller.

Thank you for sharing this Extraodinary moment.

Touch

2009-04-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

Touch…we long for touch. We are the very product of touch. I wish to be able to state that for the most part we become due to the fact that two people choose to lay together touching; there is the thought of the ultimate touch of love and we become. Though in truth that is not always the way of it.

Yet, we do come into being because of touch. We spend the rest of our lives in some form looking for, longing for the touch that was our becoming. Yet, we find ourselves more and more moving away from forms of touch. Human touch. We touch our computer screens to send letters, write articles, text message instead of showing up to sit with a friend. Our contact with each other moving to smaller and smaller amounts, in terms of human touch.

How many of us remember the advertisement – “Reach out an touch someone.”? It was a phone commercial, yet it became a line we used regularly. Or how about ET’s glowing finger as he touched the little boy saying –“ ET phone home?” Yet as he said it he usually touched the finger of a human. ET himself needed physical contact be it human or that of his race; as his heart light showed. We too need contact- physical contact. Why is that we have moved so far away from the very thing we crave?

I wonder what we have all become so afraid of; that we move away from each other. In all most all things. When was the last time you sat down and wrote out a card in ‘long hand’ to a friend, for the sheer joy of sending them a note? No real reason, other then to say HI. Or instead of talking to them on the phone perhaps a walk or cup of coffee for that a talk and hands across the table. Touching a friend with your eyes.

Have we allowed our lives to become so busy? And what is it that we have become busy doing? My Space, Facebook, Twitter? We are putting out in the world fairly ‘personal’ information or are we? Is it easier without making eye contact? I wish to ponder this for myself as well.

For today, I wish and invite each of us to really ‘Reach out and touch someone’. Make contact with the person you get your coffee from today. Or some random person gift them with a Smile; contact. See how far it takes you to feeling more alive, more in touch with your humanness.
Blessings, may the air around you leave it’s soft touch on your face this day.

the Who

2009-03-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am wondering do we know how to articulate the difference between Who Am I? and the thought of Who I AM? Can we invite ourselves to be all that we are becoming. Opening up to the Who I Am?

A question to ponder for a couple of days.

my handand my friend Debra K.G's printing on a drum I made.

Worm Moon

2009-03-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

Mary Oliver
1
In March the earth remembers its own name.
Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.
The rivers begin to sing.
In the skythe winter stars are sliding away;
new starsappear as, later, small blades of grainwill shine in the dark fields.
And the name of every placeis joyful.

2
The season of curiosity is everlasting and the hour for adventure never ends,
but tonighteven the men who walked upon the moon
are lying contentby open windows
where the winds are sweeping over the fields,
over water,over the naked earth,into villages,
and lonely country houses, and the vast cities

3
because it is spring;
because once more the moon and the earth are eloping
--a love match that will bring forth fantastic children
who will learn to stand, walk, and finally
run over the surface of earth;who will believe,
for years,that everything is possible.

4
Born of clay,how shall a man be holy;
born of water,how shall a man visit the stars;
born of the seasons,
how shall a man live forever?

5
Soonthe child of the red-spotted newt,
the eft,will enter his life from the tiny egg.
On his delicate leg she will run through
the valleys of mossdown to the leaf mold by the streams,
where lately white snow lay upon the earthlike
a deep and lustrous blanketof moon-fire,

6
and probably
everything
is possible.

And yes, YES, the equalness of day and Night most often at this time of year known to us as Spring Equinox has arrived; unless of course you live at the equator. Then you are still waiting.

Thank you for sharing AW

In the moment

2009-03-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

Eventually, when we look back on our existence, we see it all as a blessing, so we thank God for the fear, we thank God for the doubt, we thank God for the anger. And we thank God as each form of negativity becomes unnecessary as a response in our lives.- John Morton

I would add to this, that indeed I am grateful, sometimes not in the moment. Growth is a difficult process,Plant, Mountain, River, or Human. It is not easy, for us that are Humanoid, it asks of us great patience. Our Mother the Earth has shown this and has given us much around us to watch and learn from. We are slow learners I fear. We have sometimes forgotten to look with our hearts and hear with our eyes. Yet, my heart is lighter as I watch myself and Humankind in general as we struggle to learn to be kind, one step forward, sometimes two steps back. Movement is movement, once it starts it is difficult to stop the process completely.

I ask that we are kind to each other when one of us takes steps backward. Then forward again. We don't always get it "right". I do ask myself what the heck that really means. For perhaps in the moment it is right. As most of us know it is the staying in the present that is indeed the magic.

Today, I look for more of that Magic, the understanding and gratitude for each moment of my life. All of it. That I might shine from within.

Blessings to all, I meet and bless you right where we are. May our Compassion for all that is keep us moving toward, a true knowing and sense that we are ALL in these Mystery together!

Yet another fab photo by T. Griffin

Entwined, Entrained or Entrenched - Opportunity!

2009-03-15T05:22:00.000-07:00

Entwined…is it strangling us? Or is it a pattern that invites us to our beauty and growth? These are heading things to think about. The patterns of how we live our life. As we set out on our journey, which patterns are deeply ingrained by our existence of being Human. Ones deep inside of us – sometimes ones that we are no longer fully aware of until someone says or does something that sets the old pattern in motion.

It seems to me that most often, it comes from a place of fear. Our very survival feels at risk, though changes are it’s really not – yet it feels that way. Our feelings or instincts go…LOOK OUT! Run, fight or freeze. What is our standard choice. Which one do we must often fall into? I know for myself I am a ‘freezer’ - it is as if I have run into a wall or am held in suspension. My new habit is to sit with it and in it, and respond later. Versus my old way of reacting in the moment with emotions on Dangerously high levels. This period of time of sitting in/with either causes it to blow out of proportion or sometimes it offers up a change to take a breath and see that it is not at all as I supposed, this does not necessarily change the way I felt/feel. It is an opportunity to step away from the curtain, blowing voices and smoke. It is an Opportunity. The outcome unclear. Invite yourself/myself to Breathe. ( This way we know it’s not about survival.)

Though I step away, doesn’t mean the reaction is always perfect. There are patterns that I am fairly well entrenched and entrained to. Oh, yes, they do indeed limit me, I am not in a state of denial around this fact. They are places of our deepest wounding They are the chances for our greatest growth; sometimes our greatest alienation from our fellow Humankind. It is an Opportunity, still ripe with possibilities. Continue to Breathe.

These are the places I find most difficult for while I am in a struggle with them, there is the need to protect myself – sometimes and sadly in the old way. There are some that I call friend, who I am able and willing to say, “ I’m hurting, scared, and I can feel myself reacting in a way that is not useful to either of us”. If I am on the phone this usually gets from me – “I need to hang up now”. Which is what I do. I then take a breathe and regroup. My friends, know that this is me. I need to be able to Breathe come back to center. I will return. In person, I do the same – sometimes my stopping to regroup and take a Breath in and of itself can seem daunting and I am always, always filled with Gratitude when people can stand and be with me in the process. It takes courage on both sides of the issue to be in it. Not always perfect. It is still an Opportunity and continuing to Breathe is always a good thing.

I am also immensely saddened when others, that are not actually part of it all get caught in the middle. This hurts me beyond what I have words to express. They throw water or light hoping to change what I/we are feeling. Why is it that we find strong emotions so difficult to be with? Primal as they are, we wish to pretend that they do not belong to our ‘enlightened’ way of thinking. Yet in fact they are the very basis for that ‘enlightened’ way of becoming. Opportunity!

At this moment I would invite us to be gentle with each other. Allow and listen to our friends and those we hold dear to be in their own stew. Let them cook. Allow then to be right where they are, let there be no mistake ~ I believe that all parties involved are receiving what it is that will lead to their greatest opportunity of growth. Yes, SL even when part of the group may be feeling crushed, hurt. If all of our life is covered in a sugar coating – what reason do we have to move? To grow? To change the way we interact? Sometimes it is the air being sucked from our lungs and the room around us that teaches us to stand up and be counted. To have a clearer voice. Once again an Opportunity.

Know that all who are reading this are deeply loved. I thank you for hearing my voice and inviting me to my continued Growth and Possibilities.

photo of a Wisteria taken by T.Griffin. I am at the moment reminded that, they can grow to great beauty after being cut back or burned nearly to death. It is a metaphor of some sort I am sure.

Love learned as a Mom

2009-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

I was a young mom, married and a little more than a week away from turning 20, when my daughter was born. Hollering, I am HERE!
How little I knew! How little I know now, some 30 years later about raising a child! Yet there is so much in this journey that I have shared with many women, those that came before, those that are Mothering now, and those that are yet to come to the job.
Things we weren’t told about, the how’s of our hearts breaking, when our child lay sick in our arms. Trusting that WE, a mere mom would know what to do. The Joy so overflowing, we could not contain it as we were told, “I lube you, mommy.” Not only the first time, but every time there after. What it is to watch your child sleep. The feelings, I have no words that will express fully what it is to be a Mom.
Nobody told me, did they tell you? That we would not be raising a child, that this child would be raising a Mom. Each human- child, wild, comes to this earth with rare unique gifts. Gifts to share with us, the Mom that carries them into this place living and breathing.
Here are some of the gifts I received, I learned that being on time is NOT always the most important thing. It is more important to hold and hug a little person when they come to us. Turned away from, we learn quickly they no longer want us.
I learned what it means to be right in the moment. To listen with all of my being as a child, told me a story.
I learned that it takes magic, made of laughter, tears, and friends mixed with a ton of prayers, to raise a child. I raised an “only” as she calls herself, my mother 5, “God, save the Queen!” I learned patience. Take a breathe or two or three, we both might make it through this event yet.
I learned that life and each moment is precious in and of itself. Once lost, they do not return. I am most grateful for all the memory pictures I hold in my hearts album.
The greatest gift I received, is Love, I learned that Love is a two way street. I learned that it comes unbidden, it hides in smiles, in the learning how to tie a shoe. It even comes in those teenage years when we think we might find ourselves facing murder charges if they don’t grow up soon. I found in laying on my dresser, in the form of a clay butterfly. I find it lurks in a telephone message from my child, “hey Mom, call me I need the recipe for…”. I also find it out in the larger world. My child opened my eyes, my heart to the beauty around me, to the people that made and make up our family.
I am the person, I am today, because as a women I was raised a Mom. With or without our own children I believe as women we become Moms to the world at large. It is the gift and the heritage we are given.
I beg that we do NOT turn away from this most important job. For if we do, who then will be there to hold our hands, when we with knees scraped, need to be held?

a thank you to my child. McWirzy. You are the BOMB my dear.

photo by T. Griffin, of one of my favorite friends.

What is this Thing we call LOVE?

2009-02-22T07:03:00.000-08:00

Love makes the world go round.

Love is a many splendid thing.

Love makes one see the world anew.

Love in Bloom.

Love is Blind. (IS it)

Love of money.

Love as a Driving force?

Love is in the Air.

What the world needs now is LOVE sweet Love.

Love can break a Heart.

Love can mend a Hurt.

Do we learn to love our children or love them because they are?

Falling in and out of Love?

Love is like a train wreck.

Who are we in LOVE? As if we become different. Perhaps we do.

Just some of the questions that this past Valentine’s Day has brought to bear.

Love made new each day....

2009-02-18T03:38:00.000-08:00

"Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." - Ursula K. LeGuin

and it takes time. and loving work. It may be magical in how it happens, yet it's true to keep it from getting hard edges and crusting. We need to invite our selves in each moment to make it fresh, to leave behind the old edges when they no longer hold for us the tasty fresh smell of what it is that pulled us toward the love in the first place.

When we take the time; it also allows us to make space and freedom for all of the particles involved. Like bread, love does need warmth and space to grow. To fill the house, our hearts, our world with the Remembering of it in every cell that vibrates around us.

I smell it in the wind today...

Thank you Karen W. for sharing the quote

photo taken by ME - thank you ML for the camera and help downloading it.

Love continues.....

2009-02-17T07:08:00.000-08:00

According to American psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan here is a definition of love

”When the safety and well-being of you is of equal importance as the safety and well-being of me,then a state of love exists.”

I rather like the way this is said yet it seems so much more, so much more intangible. A place that has no words, no way of being described.

To survive in the very first days of our lives we need to know love and touch. It is a time and place when we have no words to describe what it is we feel. There have been horrible studies done to prove this point, during the Renaissance and beyond. We are hungry to understand this thing ~ this Life force of LOVE. We thirst for a glimmer to quench this deep dry place; yet the river surrounds us.

We are busy taking in information from the moment we start the very first bit of BE-Coming. The zygote knows this fight of life; the moment and act of “love-making” that calls to our soul in the ethers, “Come, come be a part of us.” Sometimes it is answered, sometimes not. Sometimes we are ready ~ they are not and sometimes a Soul is ready and the “love-makers” are not. And in truth sometimes it has nothing what so ever to do with Love. Yet; I believe our BEING-ness has everything to do with LOVE and a whole lot of stardust and magic. The Miracle of Be-coming no matter how often it appears before me can never dim in it’s magical, mysteriousness! I am always always in AWE at new life, new bloom, new growth! The courage it takes to BE-COME! This life long process of BEING.

This for me is Love added to the eloquent words of our friend H.S. Sullivan, along with countless poets, painters, Artist of every genre known to the Elements, Plants, Furred, Finned, Winged, Creepy Crawlers, the Circling Winds, the gods and goddess, oh, and least I forget us Human.

Our Being true to ourselves is LOVE. And that takes courage and willingness to sit with what works and doesn’t, what serves us and what doesn’t and how in the end does serving our self serve the Greater Good of All?

Let us all continue to Grow, Live, bring and gift Joy, Laughter and Love to ourselves and those around us that perhaps someday in the not so distant future we will know PEACE, and all suffering will be an illusion.

Watch a time piece?

2009-02-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

As I put yours on this morning
I wondered and nearly laughed till
I wept, we have so little of it between us
Yet, it is you who resets the time on my watch
You who gifted a clock that sings to me the time

So, like a thief I take what you gift
Hoping someday, I will wake
You'll be right beside me, having been there all along.
Laying with a body wrapped round me
Letting me hold your dreams safe

In time...you did not plan to Love me.
and I - from the moment I heard your voice
One touch of your skin, I knew the smell of us
Before, you ever drank from the cup.
I sank into me

though this is an older piece I have LOVE on the body.
How is it that it shows up in ways we don't think of? Un~called?
oh, my Love you know who you are.
Ours to hold close. It feels like there is indeed never enough time..........................

written November 2007

Feel the LOVE

2009-02-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

So, when we think about the fact that today is considered a day for lovers. It brings to mind this thought ~ What is LOVE? I bet your brain went ~ What? We all feel and think we know what Love is, yet I wonder if each of us could really tell each other what LOVE is.

Could you do it without a metaphor and is it the same in each instant that we might use the word? It’s a four letter word with a whole lot of pack and baggage depending on how and where we were raised. According to the always ready to give advise on words Merriam-Webster it can be a noun or a verb. Coming form the Old High German luba love, Old English leof dear, and Latin libere to please 'then it meaning':
1 a) strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties [now that seems a bit unclear] b) attraction based on sexual desire [don’t know about you but I would call that lust] c) affection based on admiration, benevolence or common interests
2 warm attachment, enthusiasm or devotion
3 a) the object of attachment, devotion or admiration b) a beloved person [what?] or if you happen to be British you might use it as an informal term of address
4 unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another
5 a god or personification of love
6 an amorous episode as in: Love affair
7 the sexual embrace as in: copulation or to make love ~note verb
8 a score of zero as in: tennis

So all that said and now put aside; what is LOVE? An emotion? A chemical body response? What is it truly?

I would have to say that it is a Mysterious Miracle. For something that is so difficult to really name and give voice too, we spend as a culture, as a species putting a lot of Faith toward something that we really have no way of even comprehending ~ though of course we are all positive that we do! That my friends is what makes it so darn Mysterious. We create great works of Art, written, painted, sculptured, drawn, performance and any other way you might think of in the name of LOVE.

We even commit great atrocities in the name of Love. Love of religion, culture, country and family honour. There is a great sadness that comes with this thought, yet never the less it does not change the fact that it is so.

What compels us toward this mystery? Why is it we feel left out; not good enough if we think we are not Loved? Here I would like to state that we are always always LOVED as children of the Great Creator Mother/ Father, the Goddess, Yahweh, Spirit, Higher Being, the Cosmos and Universe, depending on your belief system. Our very existence states we are LOVE , LOVED and BELOVED. (but that’s a whole other story)

Why do we have this need to Love and Be-Loved? I believe it is indeed a need versus a want. It feels in my Soulbody like the very essence of Life force! Without it the lights in our eyes don’t shine. The laughter we hear has no resonance. The kick in our dance step is lost. Yet one smile, kind word or touch and it can all come rushing back into our lives. That is indeed some powerful Medicine, Mystery and a down right Miracle!

Yes, it is a Miracle that with all the different ways, ideas, views of LOVE that we as a species ever pull it off. That indeed there are amazing stories of great Loves. That we see it no matter what else is going on in the world around us, two people with that extra little sparkle that lights up the whole space. Watching parents and their child(ren) doing something together where the rest of the world seems excluded. Oh, how we Love (verb) to be a voyeurs at those moments in time. It makes our hearts skip a beat ~ well, it does mine!

I want to invite each of us to become voyeurs to our own moments of being LOVE. The moments we randomly choose to do something kind and special for another or “god forbid” something for ourselves. We are the LOVE we wish to see in the world. We must first Love ourselves to know how it feels and what it means before we can share this Mysterious Miracle with another. For if we don’t Love ourselves no amount of someone telling us they Love us will ever feel REAL.

Though I’ve not really answered the question What is LOVE? Other then to tell you it’s a Mysterious Miracle. Because I truly think it is an unanswerable question, as many Right answers as there are creatures to love. Perhaps, I can now say ~ without a doubt

I LOVE YOU!

Happy St. Valentine’s Day 2009~

photo Two of the LOVES of my life, taken by T. Griffin , love the Momma

Memories, past, present and future

2009-02-09T07:54:00.000-08:00

Memories, what is a memory really? Is it a truth or a lie? Is it fact? Or none of these things? Memories, we all have them both in our bodies and in our mind. Our soul holds the truth of the thing. For does not a memory get twisted and turned? Parts of it become out of time sequence, the events themselves become sharper or dull with time depending upon the emotion that the whole event invokes. Then of course we throw in the reflection of times as we “look” back or forward to how the event may have effected us; and at each reflection does not the event or the idea of the event have a touch of a different slant; for we ourselves are changed by “it” and all that has come after. The event it self is changed in so much as we are by looking at and having it “look” back at us.

Memories, I am no longer sure that even the memory that the body holds is to the point, the meat of the thing possibly. Here to I believe it gets a little turned, the light shining through it shifts, as we reflect back on the event, or as someone else, who was there tells it in THEIR memory version. Then the way society tells us we should feel about something also gets to mix it up a bit. Truth, fact fiction? A touch of it all. What causes us to reflect back or forward to take apart, “work” , and “what if” a memory. To attempt to pull apart the thread in the tapestry that is us. Why does it become important to understand the event to look from all sides of the reflection? Then I also wonder are we ever able to really re – “create” in our minds eye the fact; just the facts of a “memory”? Are we capable of doing such a thing?
Same event 4 people, four different truths, even with two - can it be instant replayed? The same with two set of eyes, ears, feelings, linear time? What if one person then dies; how is the memory then held by the one? How much of who we are gets lost as people who know us die ? When we are the only one left with parts of a memory?

I love the sensation of the memory, the feeling of the whole thing, not the “Who Done It’s”. Sometimes, I like to take the smell or the touch of a memory and hold it to my heart, forget all the details, holding only enough of them to bring the smell, the taste, the touch, the sound, the sightedness of colour or shape, the sensation into a clarity. That’s the gift of a memory, the ability to gently rock me, or to have it throw me to the wolves so to speak.

Being “thrown to the wolves”, doesn’t make the memory a “bad” thought or sensation. It’s clarity such that I am transported to a place out of the present linear time, spiraling back to a place deep within. Though here too I will also state that YES, there are memories that I am torn and ripped, eaten, chewed and spit out again. This too offer up a tid-bit, something to work, to unravel and reweave.

Sit back who needs TV; unfold a memory! Like a good book ~ they become dog-eared, quotes that stick with you through time. Some stories/memories never grow old even in the retelling. Much laughter and warmth filling the space. Besides, they are the essence of how we become WHO it is that we are.

Which of these might invite us to a deeper understanding and healing? Given the opportunity to share it and sit with what comes up? And how often might we allow and honour a memory for the gifts that it has given? The moment in time so etched in our mind.
Sitting in the quiet, a Breath, and the memory we chose unfolds......

Waking in the Night ~ Scared or Sacred?

2009-02-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

I know that I’m not the only person in the world that wakes in the middle of the night from a dream. Sometimes my heart, a deep pounding in my chest ~ scared to the point of checking the house. Other times I can’t put my finger on what causes me to sit up – take that deep body Breath that invites me to roll over - knowing that all is right with the world, at the very least my world.

For some “unknown” reason, I noticed the other day the words scared and Sacred have two letters that transposed create each other. It got me to sitting with how is it that we have been taught to be frightened by that which is Sacred? Visions or dreams from the Great Spirits? When did the story of the Great Creator turn toward an unforgiving Creator? What story is it that we wish to create for ourselves or to believe for there are many stories that have been told over the ages, by a vast number of Cultures. How are then any less real then the life we believe we are living?

I also found that there were moments of that waking in the night in a state of being scared that it invited me to an opportunity to converse with that which is Sacred. I would like to invite my readers to that same process. Of turning toward the Sacred when they find themselves in the realm of Scared. I invite us to this place not only in the middle of the night ~ in our waking day as well.
Might I say to you also that each Breath we take is a gift ~ it is indeed Sacred ~ it is Life, it is the name of the Divine in a whisper, form “my lips to God’s ears”. I am still breathing into life into the Sacred and I need not fear, for “that which moves all that which moves” walks the road with me.

Obstacles...Love....

2009-01-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

Remain in control of your speed and direction. Make sure you can stop and avoid obstacles at all times.-
Mount-Tremblant ski rules of conduct

Love, Sorrow bumps on the road of life - are these obstacles? Remain in control - what doors does that slam shut! I am thinking no matter how careful I am watching my speed, what will I be able to do about the sometimes breakneck speed at which my heart goes careening into another's? Or that my tears come sliding down the slope of my face when I hear that someone I care for has passed. Joy, bursting for no particular reason out of me into the world at large. Besides do I want to live a life were I am always at odds - watching out for what possibilities I'm letting pass me by for they are headed in a different direction then I am.

I wish to continue to LOVE and Laugh at the speed of light. I want to head in the direction of compassion and kindness vs. watching out for mean-spirit-ness or even down right rudeness.
Those are indeed obstacles I would be happy to avoid at all times. Yet, sometimes we need those moments to remind us of what it is like when those traits are part of our circle. Those moments also allow and invite us to stand tall in our integrity. So; perhaps I do not wish to avoid them all together......

I like to create random acts of kindness as obstacles in the middle of the day for some unsuspecting individual. Like paying the toll for the car behind me - how about that free coffee to the next person in line? My all time favorite - a extra nickle or quarter in the meter, to ward off that meter maid- did I know them- will they know? Who cares! We don't need to know them to drop an obstacle of kindness to their bad day, or hatred. It gives us all an opportunity to rush head long in a different direction from which we might have been headed. I like that idea.

While I do make sure that I can STOP when I might be ready to say some unkind thing, I Stop and take that deep long inhalation of breath, which causes me to start over, grounding into a new direction. A little movement - maybe even a nervous laugh - better then saying something I might have regretted.

I must say there is great Gratitude as I get younger at Heart. I find that I can step back in a way that I couldn't earlier in my "Teen-20's of Wisdom". For me there is a Grace in the way I have grown into myself.

So, I say by all means, speed toward love, move in the direction of obstacles that are not sharp edged and pointy. Invite yourself to lose control - (trust me it's not all that it's cracked out to be); once in a while, without putting yourself in physical danger. Learn to stop for Beauty in all things; less it pass you by. It is up to us to be aware of the richness in all directions of Life.

tickler - who am I

2009-01-21T08:27:00.000-08:00

So here we have a bit of a tickler as I go about my day.

No matter how you are coming together -be it a new group, class or the fact that you see someone across a room. Drawn toward them you go to introduce yourself. Hi I'm .....
Are you, your work? How about your astro sign - me I'm a Capricorn, full moon in Leo, lunar eclipse at birth and Sag rising. (Hmm- did that tell you any thing). Let's try my Myers-Briggs - INFJ or my Engramme number - 6 or let's try I'm an 8 in numerology. What if I told you the year I was born? Any of that help as to WHO I am or could be? The question begs - Who am I? How is it that we introduce ourselves giving a hint of the wonderful-ness that you may have an opportunity to know or NOT. Something to ponder. I will get back to you on this.
Have a Fabulous Day!

Balance Schmalantz

2009-01-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

I would like to acknowledge from the top that YES, my lovely friend of SheChanges, Lael (http://www.shechange.com/) I have stolen the name of our last circle gathering for this essay. I loved the sound and feel of it. I want to give credit also to the Fabulous women who shared their thoughts on this deep river of a subject. So Thank you one and all.

Yes, the feel of it. Say the whole thing a few times Balance- Schmalantz Schmalantz -Balance out loud. It’s how I feel when I think of the ways I might put all the parts of me into two scale pans; (from the Middle English and etymology of the word – as noun), and come out …..Balanced ( Here used now as a verb- and not just any verb – a transitive verb; or maybe it’s really a intransitive verb- to become balanced.)
What does that mean? The sum of emotions that run through my blood on any given day or even any given moment- keep the scales from sitting even. They are always tipped to one side or another. Does that mean I am out of Balance? No, I think not. Is my life out of balance – well, perhaps. Am I having fun with my life? Mostly!
Perhaps the question is do I feel like my life is in Equilibrium – What’s the difference you ask besides the ‘word’ well, according to Merriam-Webster:
equilibrium .1 a - state of intellectual or emotional balance, (oops there’s that word) poise b- a state of adjustment between opposing or divergent influences or elements
2 a state of balance between opposing forces or actions that is either static (as in a body acted on by forces whose resultant is zero) or dynamic (as in reversible chemical reaction when the rates of reaction in both directions are equal)
My feeling is that it is difficult to find balance or be in balance if we are alive and living a Life, we are creatures of Passion, (could be seen as chemical), we Love, we Cry, and once in a while we can love and hate something at the same time! For the most part it is my experience that if we are truly living our lives we are not flat line – I believe that is called dead!
We roller coaster some days, others we carry gently on. The very nature of our bodies holds us in some form of tension. We are in tension with our great Mother Earth – the forces of gravity. If there was balance there I think we might just float out into space. Our Lives require there be some tension. I’m not suggesting that tension is bad or good – it “just” IS. I would define that as being in equilibrium.
The choices we make to take care of ourselves vs. someone else’s needs. Some days it is most definitely not equal. It is again the nature of who and what we are. Some days its them – others it about ME! From my point of view –being a ripe youngster of 55. I am wondering if we might allow ourselves those moments of being not in balance, so that we can and do create moments of Equilibrium.
There is much that all of this original reading and dialogue has brought to mind, it will cause me to circle back round sometime in a thinner line – or a deep bright line. Time and my sense of being in my own tension and ‘aequi' state will be the deciding factor. I believe that for each of us that place is and will remain different, one's tolerance for things is at that moment what they can carry. It is not who or what they are. It is the space created between which we need to hold, allow, invite!
Today it is cold and snowy – it is Winter. Nature is in balance with our idea of what Winter is, in Maine. If I was in Hawaii with this snow I might wonder about how the weather became so out of balance.
Balance Schmalantz in the end perhaps it is all a matter of how we perceive the word. What is our understanding – and when we talk with another are they having the same understanding or experience of the word –words we are using? Might be worth a whole conversation itself. The fact that we speak the same language does not mean we understand the word the same. Can you imagine if it is a translation error? Or is that a transposition error?
Today I wish for you a sense of Equilibrium. Sad or Happy – may you know the sense of feeling at one with your self.

A Call to Arms...as in limbs

2009-01-15T04:25:00.000-08:00

I want arms to wrap around me, stave off the cold. Arms that hold and cuddle small children and adults alike. Arms meant to lift and carry - arms covered in tattoos. Arms that pull on the lines of a boat - looking sexy at their work. Arms that are gracefully part and parcel of a human body.

When did arms become guns or even adjustable rate mortgages?

Why is it that we as humankind take words that mean one thing, then turn their useage into something that has nothing to do with it's original as we know - knew it?

arm 1. In anatomy, the upper extremity from shoulder to elbow. 2. In popular usage, the entire upper extremity from shoulder to hand.
Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary

I want to understand why arms that were meant for working, loving, acts of comfort and kindness, became something else. It's not like I don't know that arms and hands can and are used for hurting and killing. I can even understand that part of it all.

Yet what bothers me is that the first reference I found for arms had to do with guns. Some large organization that dealt in guns and weapons. Further down the 'goggle' page came adjustable rate mortgage. At the very bottom of page 1 of 10 or so had.... a little side note as in arms workouts - which in turn took me to workouts for KILLER ARMS.

Why no workouts for arms - how to hold an infant? wrapping your arms around a loved one? How to use your arms effectively (because we all know we can't/don't want to be ineffective), to carry in logs for the fire, carry in the groceries, hang laundry, or even push a cart down a street. How to use your snow blower without causing injury, to your fabulous loving arms. (That is why you're out there snow blowing isn't it? So your loved ones can get to their car without stepping in snow 2 feet deep. Right!) There are lots of things I could think of for arms besides guns and mortgages.

Yes, if you know me or continue to follow MY brain you will discover that I am indeed a HOPEFUL romantic. Forget that hopeless - crap! That is not for me. I want to hold with my arms held to my heart -that in fact most of the of Humankind is loving, caring and kind. That we will go out of our way to help another when we can. That our ARMS are meant for kinder things.

Words, whispers on wind

2009-01-10T16:45:00.000-08:00

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~ T.S. Elliot, excerpted from "Little Gidding"

The words we use- what are we trying to say? More what is it I wish to say. I am remained also of the kid's taunt "sticks and stones may break my bones; but words will never hurt me". Some of us know this isn't true! Words hurt, words end up stuck to us like glue. Labels that create in their own way a Story, one we begin to believe - when it is said often enough. Words have a way of leaving scars that lie unseen, under the surface of our skins, hidden embodied. Waiting, lurking to jump out and grab us when we are not vigilant.

Not all words hurt, some words help us learn to live into ourselves. Leave us with a sense of 'MEness'. Guide us down some other way of living, one in which we are invited to become...
Becoming US, the fire of our core deep, is brought to shine- to burn. Sometimes the light is so small that only a few may even begin to sense and see that it is still there- waiting. Or we see the scars, that hide and cover; do we stay, hold, love or run for cover.

I invite us to the words of the past, that hurt and scared, they are part of a story that we can change, is the story ours? Does it belong to our family, a secret hanging in a long forgotten closet? Moth eaten, ragged, ready to be thrown out? Might we be ready? Not always, yet the moment will come. I am fond of saying - NOBODY escapes therapy, whether it is something we do with friends, a group, a therapist -doesn't matter. In times past before our friend Sigmund, we might have called it reflection; (yes, some still do). It requires time to feel, look and see what thing eats at our soul, keeps us from feeling that we are connected to the Divine. It takes an honesty of being - hey, I'm not saying that I am "always, always" in that place.

I believe we all have a built in Labyrinth, that we have to traverse to find items that we have placed within. Our very survival and ability to BE, requires that we keep some part of ourselves for us alone. A nugget of I, ME, Soul. To balance ourselves against outside forces.

I wish to invite us to look at our words, how we use them, the stories we tell, might we be able to say things a different way? Clearer with a resonance that we feel inside as we speak. Can we invite ourselves to listen and take in a compliment, not poop pooping it away. Or having to return a compliment, in the wise child wisdom of Miss T - "Just say Thank you." A lesson that I am still learning some 40 years later. We live in rapidly changing times, I believe we, (myself), need to use some drastic measures. Listen, really listen, then after the last note of the words spoken leaves the air- give yourself a moment to respond.

The scaring words sadly will continue to be spoken, the stories will run in cycles, you and I will still fall down. Perhaps a friend will stop and pick us up. Some may find it difficult yet to allow someone in, that is yesterday door. Please - let the whisper of words you hear in your breathe, alive, live, invite you to crack the door a bit. Invite in the deep dreaming time, the reflection, slow the time you live in down. Invite yourself to a new language.

I want to be a Kinder person, with small strips of unkindness - not meanness mind you. Each of us is Unique - perfectly - imperfect. We can change our old no longer fitting story. I invite us to that Life, that change in us, a growth. Never are we too old or young to grow.
Let the word games begin!

Thank you, C.T. for those words by T.S.Elliot.

They say it's you're Birthday! Elvis- Who?

2009-01-08T03:11:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday child o' mine! I am struck by how lucky I am! Having the opportunity to say I'm TG's mom! What an amazing gift. I can still these many years later call up the events just before your birth. Your birth! Not yet 20- what was I thinking? There you were all wrinkly and old looking - your moment of ugliness- and never have you gone back. You said, "well, there that's done on to my Beautiful self". I look at you and I am always, always in AWE!

What a gift you have been in my life! Oh, I'm not going to say there haven't been times that it wasn't difficult; yet through it all - I hold close to me the first time you said I love you. The day GranMa Trudy gave me grief, (first tattoo) and you stroked my back saying - "It's sooo beautiful" as though it was a rare work of art. Times we've argued, laughed and cried. Oh, my sweet I have so many moments held close, held dear! Do You know? I sometimes don't have the words I need to wrap you in my Love. It feels way to big for words- my hands wrap around you and I hold you, even now, in my minds eye. The miles mean nothing. I can only hope that you know how loved you are!

I am indeed Privileged to say "Why,Yes - I'm McWirzy's Mom."

Thank you for the years of Love. Thank you for picking me as your Mom.

Happy Birthday, My Love!

Oh, yes and a Happy Birthday to Elvis Presley -as well - who's fame came as a result of his Mom's birthday, because he wanted to give her a gift and made a recording. The rest as they say is his-story.

Listen to the Snow

2009-01-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Did you hear it this morning? Not when it turned to hailish snow, the early quite snow around four-ish AM? The way it covered the city, turned it all white and clean again. Did you hear it - the softness to the morning sounds; the sound of snow falling.
There's a softness that comes to the people on the street as well, this new falling snow. Their voices not near as loud as they walk past my window. Words kinder. A hush - an intake of breath, a deep exhalation. Now, can you here it?
The sound of a warm blanket laid upon the earth. The deep dreaming? It's January and we still have about 73 days of winter to go. Think of the dreams we have time to sleep into, live within. The deep dreaming - bones of our being, these winter dreams that take us deep inside our core, into the deep core of Mother Earth.
Nature gives us this time - the quite Winter. This time to sink in, hibernate -sleep. Dream time to take us into Spring. We need this time, this dreaming deep place. Yet, I find we run from this place of being. I want to invite us to this Deep Still Quite - the Winter Dream, come dream and listen to the snow falling.
Listen to the Snow, listen to it falling. listen to the hush..........
Dream well, my friends.

Monster's Under the Tree?

2009-01-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

Monster's under my bed - well, not at the moment - the dust bunnies have yet to become large or fluffy enough.

I did something Friday eve that seems to have changed the lives of a beloved murder of Crow. You see during the Winter, they roost in large numbers and as far as I can tell they seem to hang in the same place through out the Winter. It changes each winter so it requires that you look for them. I was thrilled when I had found my second murder. Right off 295 headed South on Forest Avenue. I thought I'd get their picture - wrong! First they flew up from the trees - like in the Birds, a Albert Hitchcock film. Hundreds of them; from four different trees flew into the air - picture was pretty black. Sad face - let's try it 4 more times - that's right 4 separate flashes, with Crow flying and caw - caw- cawing at 9pm. A Monster! A hugh light flashing -blinding Monster. They don't fly at night so how much sleep did they get? How safe could they have felt? I was worse then a Owl.

I've gone by there everyday since then - gone. Three night's now. No luck. Dear Crow - where have you flown too? Do you feel safer? I am sorry - Obviously I was thinking only of the great Picture it would make - well, not with my digital or a flash.

If perhaps you see my Deering Oaks Murder of Crow - please let them know The Monster is gone. There's no Monster under the tree! Please come home to roost! I miss you, Crow.

photo curtesy The Fabulous T. Griffin

One day, life at a time

2009-01-05T04:38:00.000-08:00

One should count each day a separate life. -
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)

Let me get back to you on that thought. It acutally takes my breath away. Yet then there's that should word, which I don't care much for; it leaves me feeling like I'm not doing something right. I think rather the world is trying to put more hours in a day then there really are.

Turtle, Ostrich, Hedgehog....

2009-01-04T05:08:00.000-08:00

So here I am...I want to point out that if you 'google' - MY brain there are what I would consider an inordinate number of pages and entries. My brain- no actually Rosemary's brain, and it seems that most of them seem to be about some worm living inside of this other person named Rosemary's brain. Now I will admit that I didn't look at all 1,810,000 - possible entries. But still; it left me on overload. Any way I found that to find me you need to have my name and brain and in the posessive be one word then there are only two pages of stuff, there I am!

Which of course takes me right back to the whole point of what I was feeling about -

Now not that I have as YET written anything so amazing or important, this whole process of learning how to go about, even starting it and then doing it and well being - out there, here... Leaves me feeling raw, exposed! Now I model for Art classes and I have since I was in my 20's, which in fact is a very long time - the only part of modeling that leaves me feeling this Raw is when I sit -clothed for a Portraiture class. That's right they are only doing my face! Well, maybe they might add in a bit of a shoulder or hand; so that I don't look decapitated.

Bottom line I feel laid bare, open like a can of sardines, the lid rolled back so that we could count the little buggers before we ate them if we wanted- Open on a slab- sitting in front of the judge telling my side of the Story, so that others might say well-that's not exactly. The point is I feel like I could become a turtle-hide in a shell; ostrich- bury my head in the sand; (no portrait of that face); or maybe a hedgehog-and roll into a ball till the pressived danger is gone.

None of which I plan to do. At this point in the game I AM HERE, and though not ready to be assimilated...I do want to be read, heard. Moments of Wisdom, Brilliance, Humour that run deep from a life Lived. That I would like to share. Some of it funny, some not so - I believe I have shall we say a "different" way of seeing and putting things together- Each of us has our way of seeing, saying, feeling, touching even tasting Life. It is indeed a process and a new learning curve- it's a new day - Try something different, something out of your comfort zone -(might I suggest that it is helpful to drag along a friend who knows these things- Thank you Mo for all your support and help). Give it a whirl! Live Life, laugh sometimes when you want to cry, and by all means laugh so hard that you do cry. As Mary Oliver asks- "What do you want to do with your One wild and precious Life?"

by the by - how do they get so many sardines in the can?

and you know you're in trouble - when even spell check can't figure out what word you're trying to use! Oh, well - time to break out the dinosaurs of a dictionary!

Be well, till we met and read again!

Begin again - Change - Breathe

2009-01-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

When all else fails I fall back to Breathe! I take a breath, filling my lungs and slowly allow all that is pent up to Exhale itself with my breath.
Breath - the first calling we have to the Divine and our true names, each breath we take a renaming of self till that last moment of our exhalation were the last spoken word of our life is a song and calling to a Divine Creator.
Like in a meditation practice the idea to begin again, when we find that our mind is wandering. A New Year, 2009 - it is an opportunity to begin again, look at what doesn't work in our life. Perhaps that fact that we are rushing head long toward tomorrow without thought of today, this moment this BREATH. We are all so busy thinking-doing; (I don't believe we feel) multitasking; that we no longer give ourselves the time to fully notice our BEING-Ness. Life is a practice. None of us are "perfect" - what ever that is supposed to mean, yet we are all perfectly imperfect.
Practice Breathing - What? We all know how to breathe, yet I wonder do we? I know that I for one needed to learn to take a breath, deeply inviting myself to really take in the Divine nature that was offered to me in a Breath.
And where is all this going or more likely coming too? For me I am realizing that I do not desire to make yet again the same sort of Resolutions that I have made in the past - it's this what we do on the first day of the new year?
I want to Practice Being and Becoming a Better Person. Is losing 10 or more pounds going to make that happen, no! Will getting my finances in order make me a better person - I will admit that it may help me in the world a bit to have a clearer understanding of them - yet make me a better person - Not!
When I invite and allow myself to make a Re-solution to Practice Being and Becoming - well, now there is something I can follow through on, travel the year inside of -A Practice. Perhaps, I will also invite myself to a Practice of Breathing, taking the time to breathe, listen and wait for the sound of another's voice to settle before I speak. Taking yet another breath when I find myself in that state of Overwhelm, - whelm- an Old English word meaning to cover with water, hmm, symbolism- water - emotions- to be completely at the mercy of my emotions? Take a Breath - allowing, inviting my self to come home again to a grounded nature.
Taking a Breath, taking a moment to Breathe. Inhaltion - filling one'self with all the wonder of life. Exhalation - sending out to the world that which we no longer need to be recycled into usable energy by the world around us. No hording of energy. There is enough for us all.
How about Resolving to be Kinder? To smile at least once a day? To say Hello to someone we walk by, wheather or not we know them or not. Walking in the world for a little bit each day. What about these kinds of Resolutions?
Yes, life is a practice. Each day we wake, we have an opportunity to Practice at Being Human. Come walk with me as I spend this year learning to Practice a little more of what I believe it means to be a Person. To walk on our Mother Earth doing no harm. Come walk with me, play with me, breathe with me, practice Life.

Saturday with Maurice

2008-12-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

It's a Saturday afternoon -9 months after my friend, Maurice talked me into creating a web-site. So here we are doing it and fixing all the silly little places that need my picture like those wall accounts that everyone who thinks they want to know you; can find you from someone elses account or even just your own. Or how about the thought that my brain seems to be working overtime about all kinds of different things and I think "ya all" might just want to hear and read what is going on in my Human existence. A place to share some of my writings as in the form of poems, blessings, essays.
The question being are you ready? Or perhaps more importantly am I ready? Do I really have enough to say that is worth the time to read? Well, I invite us all to find out together.
Here we go to Save NOW - but "don't push send"