rest in motion

movement--

change of venue

change of weather

change of body positions

different or any music

it's been a long few weeks of hard work, and i really haven't had much time for doing the personal, meaningful stuff we all crave. i'm noticing some things though that are making me really happy about my life. i started working at my current job, a start-up non-profit in march of last year. when i began, my boss said we would start with 20 hours a week, she and i the only two employees, and then see where we needed to grow. i worked 20 hours just that first week and haven't worked less than 40 since then, and usually more like 50-60. (one excrutiating week at 97.5 hours, but now i'm just begging for sympathy.)

i give you all this information because i am recognizing some great things about my own comfort level with all of this busyness and work this year. it has been hard and challenging, but i have actually quite thouroughly enjoyed it! this is so different for me. even when i am doing work i love, my need for down time, introspection and processing has always been pretty extreme and i have always looked for ways to include activities of solitude and peace throughout my weeks. those activities are few and far between for me these days and i am recognizing the fact that, for me, it's o.k. not to have perfectly blocked out "inner-work" time. it's o.k. to count a 10 minute bath as both daily hygiene and meditation; a cup of coffee with the paper counts as a "ritual" for the day that calms the inner beast.

i like it, and i'm so grateful--in our world of constant go, go, go, i am the first person to urge people and myself to always plan a few minutes for ourselves. But i am loving the fact that the distinct nature of these moments is loosening and expanding for me. the firm lines between in motion and at rest are blurring and here's the thing...
rest in motion is a great place to find solace. rather than believing the only way to leave behind the worries of a work-a-day world is to actually leave it behind, i am finding that i can "leave it behind" if i consciously choose to do so in anything i'm doing. a drive to the bank becomes a chance to pound out my favorite rock anthem, taking the stairs at work evolves into a rythmic way to focus on my own heartbeat, and writing in the hotel lobby while waiting for a meeting clears the cobwebs from my introspective brain.

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Now playing: Cake - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
via FoxyTunes

Oh say what is truth...

thanks and blessings to the many and few who contacted me concerned for my immediate life longevity. it gave me an even further chance to reflect and refine the depth of emotion i went through last week. let me say this again--it's been a while...this is one of the places where i seriously rant, vent and express. in the very moment--my feelings, thoughts, expressions are all true, but what is truth.

a filmaker i know is working on a little short of byron katie this week and was wondering how he would characterize her at all. while i am eager to see what he comes up with, his statement of what he would actually have to say about her, made me reflect on my own self, and what is actually true. in the moment i wrote my last blog, i never felt it or knew it more strongly than at that moment. what an end of the world feeling.

this week is completely different. i'm so much more willing to be in my moments, expect good things and am actually finding that to be true. once again a reminder of how life moves in ebb and flow, and where i'm standing in the tide makes all the difference on how i experience the truth.

out of the frying pan--like a phoenix

what an absolute shitstorm of emotion and depth-plunging this week has been!!!! just before the new year i attended a little workshop about the phoenix, the idea being to get really clear for the new year about what things i would like to be consumed by the fire of the past to ignite the intentions for the new year. i came away with a great sense of purpose and the beginnings of some great clarity for 2009. there is so much i want to do and be this year and i'm so excited to be in the middle of that.

my excitement got the better of me and the hailstorm of energy i brewed up with all my clear intentions and new year's goals has ridden over me this week with the force of the mythical twelve horsemen. (i don't even know that myth, or if it is 12, but the reference sounds perfect here doesn't it?--feel free to submit the appropriate mythical reference if you know it better than i) my phoenix day of creation took place on the new moon in december, and last night--the night of the world's hugest full moon--with 2 rainbows encirlcling it, my new year hit it's biggest bang of new beginning energy--tearing my foundations out by the roots, pulling tears from eyes in torrential floods, sobs from my heart with bone-breaking strength and , quelquefois, stoic stillness that would break the heart of any stone giant.

how does a little lama survive the pain and passion of this creation? one of my godsent and supportive sisters refused to take --"back the fuck-off" for an answer and continued to text me during this storm asking how she could possibly help and support me. i don't know how i can possibly help myself, how can i move from the old, into the new without completely breaking appart--so i didn't have any answer for her. however, somewhere from the eye of the storm and within the madness of knowing there had to be a way to get out of the hurricane--i felt a tiny, little answer from within..."it is time to batten down the hatches my darling". this is not the most comforting of answers i have ever received mind you. i was looking for something along the lines of..."this too shall pass", "go to such and such address and ask for guru so and so, while balancing on one foot and staring into the wind all your problems will be solved" or "three days more and you will be perfect" these are answers that might make it o.k. for me to batten down my hatches and sit tight during this storm--but just the thought of weathering the storm without the comfort of perfection on the other end did not feel like meat enough for me to sink my teeth into.

yet--something on the inside is responding, warming to the idea, relaxing into the space just a tiny bit. Now the next thing i'm going to say is making me laugh even to think about it--a welcome change of mood certainly--so if a little upcurling sneaks to outer edges of your lips on this one, then indulge with complete abandon...odly--a 1980'S rockin' superballad comes to mind..."i'm holding out for a hero" ... skipping all the obvious and mundane ideas that i am waiting for some superhero to sweep me off my feet and rescue me from the darkness within i offer the following video for indulgence, reference, mood-changing and musical power to change energy when words alone won't do...



all that being said--here's today's bottom line... i was the one who called in all sorts of change of epic proportions, i'm the one who lay down on the symbollic bed when i could clearly see the damn thing was burning out of control, i jumped on the back of the phoenix in an attempt to survive the flames--so batten down the hatches lama--january might singe the wingtips just a bit, but keep it in perspective--would you rather be back in december drowning in poseidon's flood?
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Now playing: Ben E. King - Stand by Me
via FoxyTunes

gills would be good here...

i'm at a little bit of a loss for words lately. i'm not sure if this means i'm not thinking, or if i'm just not paying attention to my own thoughts and feelings. or allowing for the fact that so much thinking actually masks the much deeper feeling that needs space to occur. there is just a tiny bit of that that is true. for 3 or 4 months in there all i did was think, think, think and it was a refreshing change to just turn off paying attention to those thoughts altogether.

however, i'm not exactly sure how to balance the whole turn off all thoughts thing, with being concious of my own self--not numbing to my own life. and it seems that there is some numbing lately. or at least i'm going to interpret last night's dream as such. for those of you that don't know me, and many of you don't i am going to let you in on a little secret about me; i have a strange and abiding fear of water deaths. i wouldn't call it a phobia or anything like that because i totally love swimming and the ocean and even the bathtub, but the whole drowning thing gets some weird airtime for me. to avoid this fear or the thought of it, i tend to stay away from stories or movies with similar themes. to this date, i still havent' seen titanic, however i did see the original Posiedon Adventure with shelly winters when i was sort of a young kid--and i think this is where some of the water wierdness stems from.

so circling back to my point and the whole numbness thing, i had a dream last night that i was on the ship poseidon, or one very similar to it and i kept reliving over and over the actual overturn of the ship, and the water crashing in, and bodies falling to the ceiling of the ballroom, and at some point in that dream i became aware it was a dream and actually one of my worst nightmares. then i became aware i wasn't exactly scared, i was really more or less just noticing the details of what was happening, how if i payed very careful attention i could will the details to change, like i didn't crash to the ceiling, instead i grabbed one of the bolted down tables and from there swung myself out of the ballroom. the next time around i made it out onto the deck, funny how the deck was right side-up and i jumped onto some sort of watercraft nearby.

turns out we weren't all that far from shore and i did some stone hopping onto land...hmmmm--so what's that all about--this whole underwater death and drowning, reliving the moments, and finally becoming lucid enough to recognize my own power in the situation.
( some sort of wake-up call from the numbness?) a somewhat reflective position from the lessons life is bringing me right now. i get sort of freaked out and drowning, and i relive that a few thousand times, then i lift my head only to realize the shore is within swimming distance.

hallelujah for the shore!!!! you know what i mean??? sometimes it feels like if i'm not absolutely drowning, then my treading muscles are pushed to their absolute limit and i will go under at any moment. i do crave the moments when my feet touch the muddy underwater ground and my head is still above the surface.

My christmas season has had some nice "head-above-water" moments; spirit and connection have been the rule rather than the exception. i am awed by the goodness in people, i am touched by their vulnerability, i am blown away by their gifts, i am challenged to do, be and give more of these things of myself. i am so grateful that life shows up to beckon me exactly down that path--even when the water gets deep, that's when becoming an underwater breathing superhero gains in relevance:)

so get your fins on gang, the water (while a little bit choppy at times) is exactly what the doctor ordered to get his patients out of the kiddy pool!


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Now playing: Duncan Sheik - Barely Breathing (acoustic)
via FoxyTunes

Life by the Drop

At what point in my life did I switch from being the one who sought my thrills in adventure to the one who sought my thrills in the stillness? This isn’t to say that I don’t want to be involved in amazing adventures, doing amazing exciting things; because I do, but these are not the things that I actively seek to fulfill my heart.

So what do I seek? At this moment I’m sitting looking out at the atlantic ocean, a gorgeous breeze cooling my oh so foolishly sunburned legs and listening to my friends talk about how they are so energized by building their network marketing business. We have just spent the last week volunteering in the slums of rio, connecting, working with people who live in the hardest and most desperate of conditions. One evening we sat talking with a group of young men, they have lived the hardest of lives, their career paths are a choice between drug dealer or dirty cop—they have never even known the concept of choosing to do something one loves—perhaps they don’t even have the smallest idea of what they love, their biggest dreams are somehow focused around sleeping a full night in their own bed, with no bedbugs eating away at their skins, while the sound of gunfire outside the thin walls serenade them into a false sense of security for the moment .

By a sort of blessed grace, this group has been swept out of the favela. Living together in a home outside the slum sponsored by the nonprofit we were volunteering for. One of them, Sidney, spoke of his emotional breaking point a few months ago. One night, laying in his cramped and dirty bed, he suddenly felt that if he didn’t find a way to leave the favela immediately he would die—selling drugs, living in the terrible hand-to-mouth existence dangerous drug culture—it was the beginning of the end for him, either the actual end of his physical life—he could actually feel that he would end up dead soon, or that he must end his way of being, the only life he had ever known. He began praying to his god that very night, “please find a way to take me out of this”.

My heart just absolutely jumped out across that room, encircled his beautiful smiling spirit with my own. I felt tears of joy welling up in my eyes as I was overcome with gratitude that he had found a way out of the only life he had ever known, into this new and shining opportunity for a new way. We talked for just a few moments after the group broke up, and with a translator he told me that he was overcome with a feeling of “saudade” for me --if my translation is correct—a feeling of longing and missing for me in his heart. Tears sprang into my eyes as we shared a brief moment knowing that we cared so deeply for someone in the world that we didn’t know at all, but knew entirely at the same time. In my world, I feel hardly old enough to be out of my own childhood, and in his world I am old enough to be the mother that loves him fiercely with all her heart.

These are the moments I seek. They appear in the oddest of ways. Of course this was a huge and obvious one, but they all come wrapped in different packages and I feel so blessed to get still enough to notice them when they appear. The past year for me has been full of very big moments, lots of traveling and larger than life ways of being in the world. And through so much of it I am learning how the exact opposite is the moments in which I find my soul… lying under a cedar tree on a moonless night, quietly hearing more than seeing the family of deer steal by on their way to slumber; listening to the visions in my mind long enough to see the story that unfolds and sharing it outloud; stepping into a kitchen full of the smells of love being simmered on the stove and spread out as a feast before the family…

So is the adventure the trade-off? It’s not that I am called to abandon the glorious pursuit; it’s just that somehow the inner adventure of the soul now is a stronger and more glorious call. For this I have felt my own “saudade” so many times—and now joyously breathe in the blessed moments of soul adventures as they fill my moments and my soul.

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Now playing: Stevie Ray Vaughn - Life By The Drop
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
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dip your toe in, the water is fine

it would seem that my bandwidth for introspective query has been all-but swallowed of late by the realm of the unconscious. i did have a very interesting conversation the other night with a friend of mine who is going through a pretty hard time right now. he had a lot of pretty keen insight into his own direction and choices, and i found that i could layer my own choices right over the top of his and define my place in life as very similar to his.

here's what i found fascinating by that conversation--he really was quite down and struggling to gain perspective about his own direction. i wouldn't cast his position in a negative light, just extremely challenging. somewhere in the middle of the conversation he had asked me about what was going on for me, and as i described my life he commented that he would love to be in my position right now. i found this so enlightening because as i stated above i could class all the things that i'm in the middle of, in a very similar way to how he described his own life...

--i'm on a search for spiritual fulfillment, seeking meaning in my daily life that fortifies my daily choices.
--my daily job is a good one, but kicks my ass half the time. i question if i should really be doing this right now, or if there is another way to reach the goal i am yearning for. i love it most all of the time, and hate it just a tiny bit, the rest of the time.
--my personal life has its ups and downs, with relationships that show up to teach me exactly what i ask for, but sometimes not ever how i would have asked for it.

here's what i love about all of this...if i stand back just the tiniest bit and gain the perspective of what i have been praying for, asking to show up in my life, working towards achieving...then i can see that my life is giving me exactly what i ask for, without exception. it's just that i wouldn't have ever thought of having it show up the way the universe has formulated for delivery. when i recognize this, i can only feel extremely blessed to have so many prayers be answered so explicitly.

i actually feel incredibly powerful in my own life and become daily more aware that i must be so purposeful and intentional in what i ask for from life because, without a doubt, life intends to deliver!

is it just me, is this stuff obvious to the rest of the world? maybe it has taken me this far in my life to learn what is really primer level learning, but i tell ya, it has changed the way i view everything. life is a gift, constantly flowing to answer the call i have put out. i'm so grateful to be a part of the river.

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Now playing: Sinead O'Connor - Jump in the River
via FoxyTunes

we know it's there, even if we can't see it

"The World Exploded Into Love"

There is a universe that can’t be seen

It’s just a feeling, if you know what I mean

Delectable, dimension, undetectable by sight

It’ll fill up your heart in the dead of the night

Some say that it’s an astral plane

It can’t be described, can’t be explained

The world exploded into love all around me

The world exploded into love all around me

And everytime I take a look around me

I have to smile

Oh! is our life just an illusion?

There is no need to figure it out

Separation exists not love filled heart

But only in your mind, the real story’s all around you

Even now it surround you

Even now I feel the power

The world exploded into love all around me

The world exploded into love all around me

Everytime I take a look around me

I have to smile

The world exploded into love all around me

The world exploded into love all around me

Everytime I take a look around me

I have to smile

I have to smile

I have to smile

bob schneider

It's been a big few months for me--o.k. really half a year, one thing after another has shown up in the most unexpected of ways to bring in the biggest of lessons; some incredibly painful, some extremely blissful. this last week was no exception to the rule where my eyes were opened on a new level to the way i am supported on this quest. Through so much of it i have been so grateful to keep hold of the lesson that these are exactly the things i have requested.

indeed, my prayers seem to be exactly answered ,it's just that i have to get very clear with the answer to understand the gift. through it all a soundtrack replays in my head...so rather than getting mired in specifics, i'll just share with you the music. feel free to create your own playlist for the gifts you find in your own life, i sort of like to belt mine out in the car, just to make sure i'm listening:)

Here comes the Sun............................Ben Harper

Hallelujah...........................................Jeff Buckley

Shelter from the Storm.......................Bob Dylan

I do not want what I haven't got..........Sinead O'Connor

Salisbury Hill......................................Peter Gabriel

Here Comes the Sun...........................Nina Simone

Skin On The Drum...............................Michael Franti and Spearhead

Shelter...............................................Ray LaMontagne

Let My Love Open the Door.................Pete Townsend

Put Your Records On...........................Corinne Bailey Rae

Falling Slowly.....................................Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

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Now playing: Bob Schneider - The World Exploded into Love
via FoxyTunes

Life on Earth...

(follow this journey forward to chapter 2)

My journey this year has been one of quite intricate and beautiful weave. i'm so completely grateful for all the stitches and right now particularly aware of a new pattern that emerges in the fabric. i was called on to write a bit of the old tale last year and it feels somehow appropriate now to share it as i am called to enter a new weave. i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i did discovering it:)

So long ago when time was measured not by hours and minutes, but by the star’s passings of the moon, a girl child lived in the halls of the palace of the gods. How she had come to live there, no one can exactly remember; only to say that it seemed she had always been there, tread the halls ever so lightly, peaking from behind doors, finding tiny passageways which must have been constructed for some purpose, but had gone unused for so long that not only couldn’t anyone remember their purpose, really no one but the girl could even remember they were still there.
Many servants had come and gone; grown old in the service of the palace, and they were always the ones to notice a pair of mary- janes abandoned at the threshold of the courtyard, a game of jacks left to scratch the fine ebony floors of the grand ballroom, or a window left ajar too close to the scribes’ ink in the library causing it to dry out much too quickly. The gods were always questioning who had left such a mess or been so careless, but they didn’t hold their breath for an answer, knowing the servants were quick to scurry behind their own footsteps, cleaning up whatever mess had been left behind or caused too much of a stir.
The goddess of the great dance hall, Chatelaine, was particularly known for calling the servants to clean up one mess or another. Her particular favorites—servants that is— were Fate and Destiny. These two had a way of filling the hall with music, making sure all the guests were well looked after and that all those with a dance card had filled it out in time to enter the Reel, everyone’s favorite dance, a beautiful and intricate pattern interweaving and crossing partners for its duration. Chatelaine was an exceptional dancer, and the girl child watched her in awe as she dressed in gowns of silk and damask, deftly filled her dance card with the most handsome beaus and glided among the party goers with Ease and Grace. Ease and Grace were two of Chatelaine’s most constant companions; ladies-in-waiting who attended their mistress to perfection. The girl child had watched many times from behind a floral screen as preparations for the evening’s events proceeded. Funny though, even when she sat right on the hearth to watch, it was as if she were a statue or little pet animal who went entirely unnoticed.
One evening, warming herself by the hearth and going typically unnoticed as Chatelaine prepared for the ball, the child dropped her jaw in awe when Valiant and Griffin, two of the lesser gods who often were away on noble errands to earn favor, entered the room dressed in palace finery to pay their respects. Their coats were clearly of a new fashion; woven of the finest silks and delicate sea moss. It was clear the two had been at sea and seen and done many amazing things on their quest. The child sat up quite straight from her game of Fox and Chicks to listen to what tales these two might have to tell. She was eager to know of their adventures abroad. But as they began to regale those in the hall with tidbits of the high seas, the child was overcome by fatigue and no matter how hard she tried to stay awake was lulled by the warmth of the fire and fell into a deep slumber.
It was not until the early morning when the guests had long since returned to their chambers that Constance, the morning chaplain, pressed the child’s shoulders just enough to wake her, whispering it was time to rise and tend to her own daily chores before she could be left to her own devices. Try as she might that day, it always seemed to the girl as if she were entering the room too late, or having to leave a table too early to hear a proper account of the twins’ tales from the night before. And so she was left to her own imaginings to determine what glorious times they had at sea.
This pattern continued for lifetimes—the girl living the life of one of the gods, sitting at their table, dressed in their finery, served by their servants, but never growing into a position of acknowledgement or import—always the child and interloper.
One morning the child awoke to the strangest sensation. It was if she were Sleeping Beauty, and the entire castle was asleep because she had pricked her finger—only that wasn’t quite it because she should also be asleep if that were the case. The child wandered through the hall of the palace and found everyone else deep in slumber. All the gods and servants, even the animals were sleeping. She was extremely worried and tried mightily to awaken or stir even one person—she would have been happy with simple Constance to talk to at that point, but to no avail…the spell they slept under was much stronger than the medicine she had in her power to wake them.
And so, after many tears, the child’s crying dried up—she looked around and began to try all the things she thought she had been missing. She tried on all the most exquisite dresses in Chatelaine’s closet, and then deserted them on the floor of the dressing room. She even ventured into the great hall of the Hunt where the roar-like exclamations Lord Brunehinter had always frightened her too much to enter. Here she found the most amazing and terrifying things she had ever seen. It turned out that Brunehinter was a master of the hunt and took great pride in displaying his trophies stuffed and staged in lifelike stances throughout the hall. Never having left the palace, the child wasn’t aware that such beautiful and powerful creatures even existed. Once having seen the lovely beasts, she was overcome by an amazing sorrow for their unpurposed deaths and resolved to improve the plight of their kin.
With this vow in her heart child determined she would leave the palace to see if there was anyone or anything awake anywhere else. Having never left the palace before, the girl had no idea that she should leave through the great doors at the entrance of the grand hall, and in truth, these doors were so massive, so firm and unmoving that she never could have budged them using her bicep strength. But this thought didn’t occur to the girl as she pressed open the intricate wooden shutters at the top of the grand staircase; these she had seen the servants open many times, and once had even ventured out into the courtyard when Chance, the gardener, had inadvertently left them open, but Constance had quickly spotted her and rushed her back inside.
—Now the story has long been told of how it was discovered that child had been living in the palace for years undetected--- When the girl stepped onto the patio her feet recoiled in shock and perhaps a bit of delight as she stomped through a field of tiny white crystals. By the time she got to the garden wall her delight had turned to concern as she finally realized her feet were cold and the bright with crystals of snow had cut into her pristine feet so sharply that her toes had begun to bleed. It was at this point that the girl finally thought of a good reason to actually wear the shoes that were always showing up at the foot of her bed. So on painstaking tip toes she returned to her room, through the snow, down the gallery, up the residence staircase and into the living chambers of the gods. Here she searched for just the right pair of shoes to put on. Through all of her searching she trailed little crimson toe prints, a silent witness to her passing that screamed quite loudly, eventually waking everyone in the palace and finally betraying her presence there.
But by this time the child had long since wandered into Morelia’s rooms, goddess of wing-ed flight. She had always seen her coming and going through the royal kitchens with so many beautifully appointed garments. The child often made a game of following Morelia as far as the kitchen garden wall before cook scolded her for leaving the door open and rushed her back inside. Following the goddess Morelia had always been a delight for the child and she yearned for the freedom to go past the kitchen wall—filling her pockets with delicacies, carrying bags and packages containing all the mysteries of her days beyond the wall. Now in Morelia’s chamber, the child hopped in triumph as she dressed in a thick-soled pair of riding boots which made an ever-so-clever clicking noise as the child walked; just like the horses down at the stables. The child then wrapped herself in a warm and very soft and voluminous fur stole; smelling faintly of nutmeg and mint from hanging in cold storage in the barn where Morelia had herself retrieved it just that morning thinking she would wear it to meet with the artisan’s guild later in the week. Alas, she would wear it no more, for the child slipped her feet into the boots and her arms into the warm coat-sleeves, and grabbing an empty basket and bag or two—something Morelia always did before leaving the palace—she joyously clicked her heals all the way downstairs into the kitchen. From Morelia’s chamber the telltale spots of blood disappeared in exchange from bits of dried mud shed from the sole of the boots down the back staircase, out the kitchen door and over the garden wall. Here she dropped a fine lapel pin that had been attached to her coat; it had belonged to Morelia’s mother, Florence—who had sung so beautifully whenever asked to, that the palace had retired her favorite aria when she passed out of the time of stars and moons.
Throwing her legs over the garden wall, the child didn’t think for one moment of taking the garden gate, and was suddenly overtaken by true emotion for the first time in her life. It was true that she had only just had her first experience with pain, but feeling the pain accentuated her glorious intake of breath as she left behind the old and unimpassioned life of perfection in the palace of the gods. Stepping onto terra firma the girl felt a tear of joy slide down her cheek, she quickly brushed it away with certainly as she jauntily made her way into the land and field and forest beyond the world of the palace.

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Now playing: Paul McCartney - This Never Happened Before
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Anything but this...

It's amazing to me how the past few weeks of my life have unfolded. Through absolutely no master plan of my own, life has shown up to give me exactly what i have needed. The layers of each event have built this mind blowing feeling of assurance and grace in me that i have been craving for quite some time. --So here's the odd bit, in spite of all these happenstances (and mind you not all of them easy or wonderful--just what i needed) i have been fairly unable to articulate in this space what has been going on for me. The past few days as i have finally come to rest at my own home and had time to unravel my feelings, i recognize a resistance to write anything in these pages unless i have come to the perfect conclusion, made lemonade from my proverbial lemons or resolved the inner angst that plagues me.

i am called to ask myself--and you, what kind of learning process do i share if all i write about is the end result, none of the-along the way- underpinings for peace, love and understanding?

( i had someone accuse me of being a drama queen this week, what's that all about if i don't even share some of the drama along the way?)

I spent the last week with a truly perfectly called-in group of people--each one showing up with their own strengths and weaknesses, willing to learn as individuals and as a whole. as i sat before them, asking for understanding, connection and insight; i was overcome by their intention for acceptance, unconditional love when asked for it and willingness to witness the journey each member of the group had shown up to take.

and what did i learn about myself? i was asking to be seen--in the small and tiny ways that so many of us are afraid to share about ourselves. it took me almost the whole week to voice this request, to actually verbalize what i so needed from these people that they were so willing to give. this was not a request that might be classed, in most senses, as one of mythic proportions; and yet, the import for me is grand!!! Funny thing is, i was totally willing to do and say that for any person in that room--but was too afraid to ask for it myself. how does this fear get to boss me around? how does it get control of what i do or say? how do any of our fears get to be the thing that controls our actions, rather than our strengths or aspirations?

perhaps there is something to be said for making lemonade from those old lemons anyway. . . we, each of us, come into this world with the things that already hold great import and merit for us, things that we want to share with the world; but the way we learn to do, share, be in the world isn't always the easiest. i guess what i'm trying to say here is that i intend to write some of the hard things too, not just the glossy moments...so cross your fingers and we'll see what the little fingers type in the way of exposition.

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Now playing: Elvis Costello - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?
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