Magic Words

"Sometimes I need to go where you can hear 

a screen door shut." ~ anonymous

Immediately these words conjure up calm, innocence and wonder. They take me to a place of watchful mothers calling out to children lost in the sky. I am laying down in warm sundrenched dandelion fields, all but two knee tops invisible to the horizon in my mother's eyes.

Here the grassy air is slow moving like a ladybug on the shoulder of my shirt. And after moving her to my hand I am content to be still and become seven-happy-black-dots on a red-orange bump

until

she decides 

to fly away.

Within this sacred still space, in an instant, I feel endless amounts of Grace, Joy & Love. I can go to where I hear a screen door shut in my life at this moment anytime IF I choose it.

And I can stay there until I decide to fly away.


What are your magic words?

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The Secret to Life

"Sheldon's Laughter" 16 x 20 watercolor and ink

"I don't have any problems, I have desires!"

I feel different. The days are going by less painfully, work and church, my friends, dog and home are less challenging than they have ever been. And I am grateful the greatest struggle of my life, how to absorb the death of my husband, seems to be in the rear view mirror.

And so I go on. And as I see it, I don't have any problems, I only have desires.

Deep down I know everything is OK. I know this morning offers the same promise as yesterday's morning. I know when we come to a decision is when life will change for us. And I feel like my life has made that turn. I just don't know what the decisions I have made - to be a writer, to be a painter, to be one who heals, to be of service - means. I guess I will just go on enjoying watching life unfurl it's welcoming red carpet toward me - the authentic me, the me I really am. How did I get here - this place of warm and happy acceptance?

"No judgements, no expectations and no need to know exactly how  tomorrow will look."

I first heard these words come out of Caroline Myss' mouth during an interview. These words, as I recall, were her response to a question about 'the secret to life.' These words, when I heard them, stood out separate from the rest of the other words around them. And it was then I decided to make them MY words. I decided to pay attention to judgements I was making, to expectations I had and to my need to know exactly how tomorrow will look. 

I was hungry for answers back then. My husband had just died and I was searching for a way to be. I know that sounds strange, but I didn't know how to be me anymore. I was no longer any kind of me I had ever known. I was a stranger who needed figuring out. And I needed something else to do when I wasn't collapsing and crying.

And making these words my experience came very easily too. I had absolutely no energy anymore. My body was overtaken by massive amounts of feelings. Emotions are electrically charged and I needed to rest each time their energy ran though me. Like daily doses of shock treatment my former life was being erased.

No better was my mental state. Another charming aspect of 'the gifts' of grief - my memory was shot. My 'calendar sense' had completely collapsed like a star creating a black hole in time and space. I knew what day of the week it was but remembering what happened on which days was impossible.

So what does one do when your current skill set includes deeply feeling energy, resting, being superiorly kind to yourself and living completely in the NOW?

You do the work Ms. Myss spoke about. I began a practice of giving up judgements, expectations and the need to know what tomorrow looks like. I did this because her instructions were simple and easy to understand, because her advice fit so neatly with my newly acquired skills and because I was starting from ground zero at the age of 49.

That was three years ago. I now have a new set of skills - using emotions to inform my intuition and being non-judgmental with no expectations for today or tomorrow. I am also following my bliss for I know with every Bliss-y step comes authenticity and Joy.

Today I am ever mining my natal talents. I have held my first ever art show and shared many thousands of written words on this blog. As for my desire to serve others as a healer, I am unsure. I just know this is my heart-felt intention and it brings me great joy!

There are still plenty of empty spaces left on the crossword puzzle of my life. We are never done you know. But it is important to look back and see where we have been and how far we have come and how it all happened. Thanks to my friends for reminding me of this!


How is where you are today intentional?

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Making Use of Randomness

"What you seek is seeking you." ~rumi

When I became aware of Leonard Mlodinow's book The Fragility of Grand Discoveries, which makes the case for randomness' role in science, it started me thinking. Books will do that! I wondered about making use of randomness in this teeny-tiny-little experiment called my life and what discoveries might be laying in wait for little 'ol me?

If random occurrences happen and if I have an over arching intention for my life, can I then make use of randomness while thriving in the ordinariness of my everyday?

Can I declare my life will be lived in JOY and with EASE and make it stick by living simply and allowing my current daily schedule a little room to stretch and breath between regular tasks of that living?

Can I be so bold as to engage in - say a 10 minute exercise - imagining - say twice daily - what that life would look and feel like? And then can I just let it go? And in letting it go can I then give up striving to achieve it?

Would this experiment in creating a mental equivalent of my best possible life make more familiar to me what those things felt like so that when they randomly occurred I would then be more apt to recognize them?

And upon recognizing them - my visions turned in to my actual experience - might this not give me confidence to engage in more imagining, more letting go and even more manifesting?

And could all this "better world thinking" be done while just doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, making the kid's lunches or simply preparing to sleep at night?

Can I start this practice from right where I am now? Am I really this powerful?

The answer is YES to everything - in case you haven't arrived there already. So…what's standing in your way? You got the goods - the yearning or longing for that which makes you happy. Begin imagining today what that looks like and how it feels to be in that place. Then let it go. Now you can be confident you have done all the work necessary to assist randomness in doing it's job! 


When can you start?

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Jubilation

"eli" 22x28 watercolor 'in progress' but could not resist using for this posting!

"You know you are in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." 

~dr. seuss

You do not have to dig me out of a hole, my new love. I am on the surface - floating and feeling my way back - back to you - back to life.

Back to mornings in bed sharing sweet songs. Back to receiving and gracing. Back to breathing purpose into each day. Back to bearing witness, being a mirror and growing towards my highest self.

I am jubilant seeing through these new eyes.

I have called you forth. And you have heard my call, my new love. I am so grateful we have met again! 

Can we call things into being?

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It is Graduation Time Again...

If I were 22 again I would tell myself, "Life has so many graduations for you. Enjoy this one from University and know there will be many more ahead!" I would want to take the pressure, which I personally placed on my own shoulders, off - so I could enjoy all the moment had to offer.

And in a way I did. I graduated college and did what any young woman of 22 would do. I became a stand-up comic. Sure, that's normal. Right?

"Life is only as hard as YOU make it!

Most of us experience transitions in life as singular events. Sometimes we choose them and sometimes we don't. These events are designed to bring about a shift.

You are no longer a child so expecting CHANGE in a life well lived is at least prudent, and at best very wise. Let this be your only expectation though. Give up all the others.

And with this - know changes are NOT the end or the beginning of anything. They fit in the flow of our growing selves stepping up and out of our regular ways and becoming more of who we are meant to become. Trust the change. Allow it with as much ease as you can muster!

We move, we marry, people are born and they die. Mortality is a great teacher. It rises up most often in unexpected ways. Why is that? Why are we so surprised by death? Perhaps we are surprised by all death asks of us?

Oh... that is my story today. Let's get back to that universal individual. That person who is equal parts confident, alienated and frightened. And at just age 22 is told, "You're a man now. Yes - this means you too ladies! Go navigate this world as best you can."

I am not sure my 22 year old self would have accepted this life lens through which I see things now. It was my path to not know this then. For 29 years life has slapped me about and held me mighty high at times. But I imagine I would have surfed life's waves differently - with even more joy and excitement and with an even greater sense of wonder about what's next - if I had only known.

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…life is but a dream.


What does this song mean to you?

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Other Voices: Thich Nhat Hanh

~from Earth Prayers, Thich Nhat Hanh

"Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look at me: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird whose wings are still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing in the surface of the river.

I am also the bird which, when spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the
clear water of a pond.
I am also the grass-snake who,
approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
I am also the merchant of arms, selling deadly
weapons to Uganda.

I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.
I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with
plenty of power in my hand.
I am also the man who has to pay his
“debt of blood” to my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes
flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it
fills up all the four oceans.

Please call me by my correct names,
so that I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are but one.

Please call me by my correct names,
so I can become awake,
and so that the door of my heart be left open,
the door of compassion."