No better time than the present

well it's almost over, the world's longest lasting sprint, run-up-to-the-finishline, push through til you get it done, kick my ass month of work that i've had in a long time. i've just sent off a group of 15 tired, worn-out, hard-working and much-expecting americans, from their first ever humanitarian expedition in brazil. while there is so much to say about all of our experiences here and so many details about them all, this is not the place for that. Rather, this is the place for what i learned about me and the ways things work during this quite challenging experience.

and here's the thing...i'm happy to be alive, doing what i'm doing, being who i'm being. there are so many nitpicky things i could say about the people i've just traveled with (i'm sure they could say things about me as well), or criticisms i could lodge about the work we've done and how i wish we could do it better--with improvement each time, or about how my life just isn't complete, but i just don't want that to be what i ever say, where my brain ever goes, how my time is ever spent. it seems funny to me to learn this lesson at this time in my life, but while my precious little egoic brain is struggling to do all the things i've listed above. my now, well-worn heart and spirit are calmly taking a breather. the 3 of us have all just had the same experience, but the heart and spirit part are just done letting the ego brain take the lead at this point.

i was explaining the concept of the "debrief" to my friend here the other day. this is to sit down after an experience and pick it apart. take apart all the pieces and examine them from every side. i just absolutely love to do this--my brain gets very mentally satisfied to go through all this examination and finally calm itself once all the "debriefing" endorphins have been exhausted. my choice at this moment is to learn that there is not a need for the "debrief" in this way anymore. my brain/ego in charge just absolutely won't accept that reasoning. it wants, it needs to go through the process to resolve all loose ends and energy that are hanging out there, to compartmentalize, analyze, clearly define all aspects of the experience. but i see now, that this extreme processing does not serve my spirit. my spirit accepts what is, what has been done--loves how everything plays out and moves forward with confidence that all will be well, all is well.

that is my truth right now, as i choose that, behave in accordance with that belief--that is how the flow of energy surrounding me gets flowing on my behalf.

i had a great chat with one young man this week who was all full of bragadoccio and piss and vinegar. through his eyes, he had no need to concern himself with the people or circumstances going on around him because he had enough determination and personal power to muscle through any situation. in my eyes, i see he has an amazing bit of strength, but how much more can he accomplish when he chooses to get the flow of things around him to go in his same direction. i turn this lesson right in on myself, here i am, in this moment...i choose to step into the river that is flowing in my life; embrace fully the opportunities that show up as gifts and challenges--and start paddling with all my might--or floating when the current takes me...

to be right here in the gift of now...

did any of this make sense? it's all i've got for now, just really wanted to take a moment to reflect in a way that didn't give full charge to my ego:)


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Now playing: Resgate Surf - nada e impossivel
via FoxyTunes

The sway of genius...

i will be the first to admit that it has been too damn long since i have spent any real time writing. personal writing time has been incredibly limited of late; however, i will say that i have come to the coffee shop at least 6 times in the past few months with the intent of getting a little introspective, drinking a little warm brew and seeing what comes out of the mix. i did the same thing this morning and what rose to the top? 3 hours of responding to personal e-mail, visiting friends' blogs that i haven't seen for ages, reading a few chapters in books that have been buried under finance reports, spreadsheets and business requirements documents.

and through it all a few thoughts finally took form that felt like something to share more than something to pack away for later...

one e-mail i got held a simple personal call to action... or sort of action, really more an internal attitude adjustment whenever we/i feel action might be required...

T.I.T.L.
"trust in the love"

when faced with the pressures of life, the pain or adversity or joy that shows up in our relationships, interactions, internal journeys and public endeavors--the admonition to see that love is at the root of all these experiences builds the lens and the attraction that love really does conquer all.
when life comes at you in the full force that it has a tendency to do, how can we respond/interpret/act in a way that becomes something we can embrace as a means of helping us on our way to happiness and fulfillment? Turning this question on myself, i love the portence of the quiet statement above. it beckons me to trust that life is always holding me in a sincere and purposeful, loving embrace. the intention for all of the experiences that life sends at me is to find the love there, the beauty, the support, the means of holding me in the greatest aspect of caring and fulfillment that i welcome as a method of learning life's lessons and moving into the fullest and most joyful expression of me.

in my reading today i came across a quote from Heraclitus--predating socrates and plato, "ethos anthropoi daimon". meaning can be interpreted in ways too numerous to count, but for me today the path i went down was this...

frequently interpreted to mean "character determines fate", i meandered through the possibility that character is something we build, it takes an infinite number of tiny moments; becomes much more the wave than the particle, and this for me is the "sway" with which we walk. not just our physical step, but our internal urgings, emotional responses, unique means of being in the world.
along with the sway comes our personal call to perform--not just the loud, public, celebrated performance that sometimes defines a man or woman; but the intimate, constant, glorious and terrible pursuit of our own genius that creates the path of the soul.

so for me this is the sway of genius--daily essence of self moving towards the inner call of the soul, in tiny- inner heartbeats, infinite strokes of genius, creating our own path of learning; may not be extreme, may not be famous, may not ever seemingly appear to deviate from the norm, but we know on the inside how we respond to our own essential call to genius. how we match the burning inner need to realize certain aspects of our own genius on this journey through life.

it was the tiny and meaningful statement of "trust in the love" that honed this realization for me today. life is built to love us/me into the most perfect sway our/my own genius can create. there was a photo accompanying this Trust In The Love...the author's child in a pumpkin patch, how else can this beautiful child behave than to trust that pumpkins will grow, mom will think he is amazing, dad will tear up when he balances on his bike and souls will rejoice as he grows in love!!!(i hope she won't mind that i included that picture bursting with potential above.)

"All life is sorrowful; there is however an escape from sorrow; the escape is Nirvana – which is a state of mind or consciousness, not a place somewhere, like heaven. It is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas – joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. "
The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell

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Now playing: Peter Cincotti - Sway
via FoxyTunes

Whimsery in Action--pay it forward update

Sometime last december i made an offer to "pay it forward"--make some delightful bit of whimsery and pass it on to someone willing to do the same for someone else. i finally came up with what felt like the perfect idea while browsing for just the thing. i found the idea here (you gotta scroll down one entry)and whipped it up with great personal delight. It was a neck warmer--not a whole scarf, much more time consuming and basically we've all been there done the long scarf thing. this was just a tiny little neck muff if you will; and apparently it delighted many others because i sold 3 of them right off my needles before i was able to make one to send for this blog.
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Honestly, not trying to sell a thing, just bringing my knitting with me to work on and that's all she wrote, or knit as the case may be. Once i was even on the way to the post office with one of my treasures and my friend saw it and decided it was that exact "bit of fluff" that she must have. always one to oblige my friends, i let her have that one and started on another.
i must say, the efficient virgo in me is extremely pleased i am able to use up all sorts of odd bits of yarnas is evidenced by this bright little treasure, which is my own personal favorite and i have managed to keep it for myself--at least for the time being.(not the best of photos, doesn't do the colors justice)

This was the valentines treasure i made to give as a birthday gift a few weeks ago:)

So there's the proof of the craftiness in me and a reminder to my errant cousin, that she must post her pay it forward to receive her treasure.
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Now playing: chicago soundtrack - When You're Good to Mama
via FoxyTunes

stars or diamonds? it's all good...

last night, after a long day of playing with kids in a very inspiring(this means mary poppinsish and equals extremely tiring) and ultimate 'auntie' like way i entered my brother's house with feet ever so slightly dragging for yet another family gathering. it was my sister-in-law's birthday, her 40th, not to be missed--a big day for anyone and because that number is getting ever so much closer for me, all the more real.

in a large family like mine, gatherings--especially on a sunday--seem to come around more often than not and sometimes my boundaries pull a full stop and require that i abstain from participating. a house full of children, siblings, guitar hero, jacuzzi water fights and any other number of fantabulous diversions can only go so far into the goodtimes zone some nights when all you want is a little down time, a hot bath, maybe a good book and solitude. but we all don't know what's good for us all the time do we? i really did want to go to the b-day party, i just wanted the downtime as well--and since there's always more time for down, off to the party i went.

i have to admit, i was a tiny bit excited. i actually had an awesome gift to give-- a little homemade delight that came straight from the heart and lifted my spirits just in the making. how great is that, to begin to shift the tired and overwhelmed energy--really just by thinking of someone else with warmth and love as you make them something tiny and thoughtful? why do all those wise sayings of 'find yourself in service' or 'get outside of yourself to find the love' begin to ring so true in this instance? when i gave the gift, my sister-in-law was delighted with it, but i'm not sure that's even what did it for me, it was really in the space where i imagined giving her spirit a gift of myself that i was able to warm the very cockles of my heart. (so funny, actually spotted a tray of 'cockles' straight from new zealand the other day in the grocery store. have you ever even known what cockles were? they're sort of like mussels--but the image is so much more complete for me now. kind of like,if you open them up, they are even shaped like a lumpy and imperfect heart).

the evening progressed, songs were sung, crepes were made, snow angels straight out of the jacuzzi were attempted and overwhelm returned to gray the edges. then a moment of transformation overtook me, and i abandoned my tired ego to the joy of the evening...in the room just off the kitchen, two little girls sang into their microphones with wild abandon!!! They didn't care that adults and teenagers looked on laughing, they didn't care that they had never even heard this song before, they only cared to wrap their arms around eachother and rejoice to 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' !! how can they even read the words fast enough to keep up with the song, much less imbue it with such real emotion? a momentary illumination took my own heart, i questioned this week about just what it is parents are teaching their children, the much more important and very life changing question is ..."what are the children teaching their parents?".


aha, notice taken, joy expressed, and cockle-warming diamonds dancing all over the sky.
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Now playing: The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
via FoxyTunes

what is this "nation" of which you speak?

i'm curious about this state of the nation that has appeared
to descend on me with full force over the past month or so,
whether i like it or not. The "state" to which i am referring
is the "hiber--nation" and it has closed in on me like the frost
on a canadian wolfhound's muzzle in a snowstorm.

over the past few years i have grown much more conscious of so many things as they relate to the seasons, tide, cycles of the moon, resonance with the natural world, but this has really been the first winter that i have been conscious of my own inner cycling attempting to go into hibernation. i am struck almost daily with an inner conflict of the me that means business all the time, and the me that gets things done by setting the intention and moving in that direction. for years, and i mean a whole lifetime here, the me that means business has been the leader of the pack. (hey if we're building a nation, there may as well be a pack of us that live here right?) As i learn a few things about myself, and open my eyes to a more conscious me, i recognize that there are different ways to live my daily life--not by changing the things i do or really even say, but by changing the way i am, perceive, respond, feel, choose to recognize, risk, love and relate with those around me.

the business side of my persona--run by the ego--has a plan for absolutely everything before i even get up in the morning, even if i don't have anything on my agenda for the day. the ego side of me plans what to wear, how to fill the hours, where to go, what route to take, what kind of coffee to drink, hair up or down, up or down, up or down, boots or heels, boots or heels, boots or heels....etc., etc. etc. silly ego, sit, stay...stay.... this is the game i have now entered into with the ego/business side of me. to tame the rabid beast into moments of quietude. how full can one person's head be of all this minutiae and effectively live a life? let me rephrase that, i'm so damn grateful that somehow i became aware of the question "how full can my head be of such minutiae, when my intention is to be living from my heart?"

so this place of living from the heart is a new habit for me, and while i operate from that place with more consistency each day, the ego is a hard habit to break. this brings me back to my original query regarding the state of the nation. truly with the seasonal shift into winter this year, my heart and soul--responding to seasonal, emotional and perhaps spiritual cues moved into some level of hibernation. it was not a conscious choice that i made to settle in for a long winter's nap, but like the bear to it's cave, my self that creates the movement--whoever she is today--is answering a subconscious call to sit, stay...stay... it is a temporary cease fire, if you will, between the doer and the be'er inside of me (funny how be'er is really beer without an apostrophe, i do wonder about the significance of that). my ego me is so incredibly impatient for results, results of things just begun, or even imagined; while the soulself understands the nature of a time for "ebbing" allowing the universe to catch up with intention--allowing long flexed muscles to build and store energy.

if you sort of say the word hibernation with a french accent, the "b" can ever so easily be heard as a "v" and then things slide into focus. if the word is hiver(not hiber)--french for winter--then this pack of selves just shifted into winter mode. and "en hiver" one must do as the bear's do, and go into hibernation, the spring will bring such glorious surprises won't it?

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Now playing: Soul Coughing - Coffee Song
via FoxyTunes

it's all so relative isn't it

yesterday started so shitty for me--honestly felt like some kind of end of the world. i mean what the hell is this halloween business all about anyway right? but then, awareness--just to become aware of myself in that moment, the reality or nonreality of what emotion i had chosen to wrap around my shoulders for the day, what beliefs felt like concrete shoes at the moment brought a shift to the drowning and clawing sense that this was all there was to eternity. still shit, still concrete, and yet...suddenly the concrete blasters showed up to do a little work, and for one brief moment i realized "my shit really don't stank!"--whose does?

and then the magic--just allowing for the possibility, released the deathgrip of negative emotion and by the end of the day, serious bliss. i'm still a little shell-shocked by the ease when i just give over to it--so just wanted to throw a little gratitude out there for that gift. it's at that point that rumi's "stretchers of grace" come running into the scene i suppose. muchas gracias!!!