Learning to Listen

"Fully absorbed, graciously witnessing, or open and spacious

—which of these lenses is the best way to practice awareness? 

Is there an optimal way to pay attention? The answer is 'all of the above.'" 

~ jack kornfield

While walking in the woods I gave way to the moment and opened up my mind and my heart to allow whatever wanted to come forward to do so. Can you tell I have been doing work with RECEIVING?

So what came darting into my focus? "MAGENTA!" No, I didn't see it. I felt it. I felt the idea of MAGENTA and all the ideas I hold around it. They zoomed like a swarm of kamikaze bumble bees into my awareness. It was not scary or painful, but it was fast, strong and immediate.

And as ribbons of fallen leaves crunched below my feet, it's deeper meaning elegantly began to unfold for me. 

I am a painter. MAGENTA is a color I make by mixing a fair amount of red with a tiny bit of a blue. It is also one of my two favorite colors (the other being orange, by which I was, incidentally, being engulfed in this autumnal wood.) And MAGENTA's components, red and blue, signify the root and third-eye in our energy-bodies. 

The ROOT Chakra is found at the base of the spine and there lives our subtle sense of well being. We feel grounded and safe when this energy is not shaken or blocked. It's vibration is slow and it's color is red. 

The THIRD EYE Chakra vibration is blue. It is located in the space between the eyebrows. It moves faster and is an aperture to a vast reservoir known as intuition or consciousness.

Gleaning all I know, which really is not a lot, I came to understand -  in an instant - to welcome change. All at once I felt relief. And I knew it was my Truth because I recall the lightness and warmth that attended this knowing.  I was completely joy-filled and my whole body smiled.

I am sure I am not alone in feeling knocked off center by change. But simultaneously, I understood that adding even just a little blue (consciousness) to new conditions will be enough to cause things to shift. I was being clearly informed that change expands us and is always a favorable thing. MAGENTA was my message to enjoy, like a favorite color, newness and to welcome it with wonder and without fear. 

These words, by the way, were not part of my original meditation. All these words are in the rearview mirror of that experience. I write these words now to remind myself and to make manifest more of the same good feelings of relief and excitement.

And perhaps they will remind you too? Perhaps you will feel invited to reach toward your own inner guidance system? Like mine, it is embedded within. But unlike mine, the way you access it will be of your own organic choosing. It is for sure just waiting for you. Waiting for you to decide 

to be silent,

to be open,

and to listen.

Are you ready to be more connected?

Tag. You're It!

Powerful You

"Only one person can make your journey. No one person can impede your journey. Perhaps it is time to stop asking others to be responsible for our journey, and find that which is inside our own
Soul. We are the change. Do not give away your Power. Not today. And never again. The Power of which I speak is Love."

I have experienced the end of the world before. I imagine many more people than I can also say this. For me it was when my husband was diagnosed with an illness and died twenty two days later. It was then the ground melted out from under my feet and my ability to think and reason dissolved into thin air.

So if you are suddenly feeling blank, disheartened, or even worse - enveloped in fear... come along now and know it will be alright.

Please do recognize your feelings at this moment in time. Acknowledge what is. Then use this moment to change your inner world. You have the power to do this. Choose to make a shift from fear to self-soothing. You have all the power in the world to do this one thing. Become a little less afraid, shift consciously to taking good care of yourself in this moment. Make yourself shift your feelings toward love rather than fear. I promise if you take this little step you will begin to see a way through to the next moment and then to the next. 

The way was shown to me, down from the ledge, in my darkest hour by many who loved me. I was held in love by family, friends, neighbors, and counselors. And I learned to hold myself in love in a new and more radical way than I have ever experienced before.

So let me hold you in love in this  moment and say to you it will be alright. I love you. Be kind to yourself first RIGHT NOW. Give love for yourself and more love will follow easily when you do this one little thing.

Are you ready to be this kind of powerful?

 Tag. You're It!

Ready to be Powerful?

"Time and space are not conditions of existence, time and space is a model for thinking." ~albert einstein

Looking forward to a new and rich life! Looking backward toward a deep and abiding Love. I am doing this hokey-pokey dance lately and I wanted to take this moment to recognize the importance of both and their impotence as well.

Future thinking, when enlived by positive emotions is called "visioning" and is empowering. Ruminating on negative future events is power depleting and sets a drag on creation and well being. Neither is a great place to hang out for long. It is here we can make a choice.

Past glories and loves and hurts and sorrows are almost of no use at all; except in how we allow them to shape us today. Where do we begin and end our personal narratives? Our life stories always seem to fit neatly between seminal moments in time. 

Is your present lived from immutable memories of childhood angst or high school glory days? Should we live into our future from these frames we placed around these segments of living from so long ago? It is here we can make a choice.

What if time shifted direction in your mind and you could jumble up events to suit yourself? What would right NOW look like if it were unshackled from the past and determined only by your imagined future? It is here we can make a choice. It is only in the Now that the power of choice exists. 

Can you sense the power in this simple shift in thinking about the direction of time? 

Are you ready to own your power?

Tag! You're it!

Hurly Burly

“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.” 

~ Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

If you think about, I mean really take the time to sit quietly, you come to the Truth of things. As you begin to reflect like this, you may feel an emotional wave rising within you. And if you allow it, you may begin to see differently. 

If you think about it, I mean really make the time to sit quietly and allow the emotional wave roiling up inside you, you may find it very intense at first. But then, if you allow it, something different happens. 

The thing that was big, uncomfortable, and scary changes. 

If you think about it, I mean really sit quietly and reflect and watch it, the energy that was your emotion becomes a new thing. A thing you had previously no ideas about. It becomes a guide to a place unknown. 

That's why it felt big. That's why it felt uncomfortable. That's why you were afraid.

And then something amazing may happen...if you think about it, if you really create the time to sit really quietly, and really allow, and really reflect, and really watch. This is where your Truth is. And once you divine your Truth you can then easily stand in it. This is a feeling of Confidence, but like never before. This is Confidence without Ego.

I know this Truth. I have found great comfort here. I wish you the same vast, wordless, bliss-filled space.

How do you comfort yourself?

Tag, You're It!

Salvage Work

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you." 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Salvage work. Picking through the wreckage to save the good bits. I have been doing salvage work for the past 4 years. Now I look around to see the world in front of me because I know what is in front of me is what I am feasting upon. In the rawest part of my wrecked life I was not unlike a hawk using only my instincts to feast on the roadkill my life had become. At that time, right after my husband died, I did not have access to any other skills.  So I nourished myself this way as a pure act of survival. 

I am better now. I have become an artist. Now I enjoy making new things. Now I seek beauty out at every turn. I love to express myself. I am not always industrious and I have had to make peace with this. I am loving and I can be emotional. I have exercised that last skill quite often over these 4 years and have had to figure that one out too. Understanding I am NOT my emotions was the first step to my salvation. Separating my essential self from the passing energy of my feelings has raised the speed at which I have been able to heal.  




Did you know what you choose to make time for shows you what you deem important? And even if you do not think you have a choice, you are ALWAYS choosing. It cannot be otherwise. If you think it is...you are not looking closely enough. 

I used to make time for rummaging around the sad parts of being me. I used to make time for weeping uncontrollably because I knew this was healing energy at work. I used to make time for contacting all my friends and loved ones to make sure I was staying connected. I was choosing to heal.


I still do some of these things, but I am now making time for meditation. I am choosing to stay connected with that which is central to my being. It is here where peace lives. My new life craves this kind of peace. 

I am also making time to paint, to love myself by eating better, to design a new home, and to help others when and where I can. This 'paying it forward' is newly important.  There is much Joy for me in service. So I am making time for it. But, in this too, there must be balance. So sometimes I hang up my superhero cape and just make time for being me - to play. 

Do you see the pattern here? Just look at that for-which-you-make-time. Do you like what you see? What is fundamentally important to your being happy? If you look closely enough, you will begin to uncover the belief system on which you have built your life to date. All from just looking around at what is in front of you. 

So if you are not happy with what you see... I wonder if I even need to finish this sentence? 

I am grateful for these awarenesses, and I wish the same for you!

Tag! You're It! 

Living a Successful Life: My Curriculum

"Samsara" watercolor, 8x10 by Lani Chaves

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning."

~ Meister Eckhart

Imperfection, Life Balance, Impermanence, Curiosity, Empathy, Self-Motivation, The Present Moment, Positivity, Serenity, and Personal Boundaries. This self-designated curriculum includes these areas of study. I am actively working on understanding - on a deeper level - all of these ideas. 

Studying these things brings me great joy, but it is also hard work as I am often stretched beyond my comfort level - which NEVER feels good. Sometimes there is a pop-quiz which sometimes I pass and sometimes I don't. This serves to remind me I still have more to learn. And lately I feel as though I am being tested all the time!

So what is it I hope to gain once this course of study is completed? Well there's the rub. It is never complete. But there is a goal I have for myself. An overarching intention that has carved out this path in front of me. Moving forward I intend my life be lived experiencing as much Joy and Ease as possible. 

The biggest test lately is buying and renovating my new home. And so far I am being taught a lot about almost everything on the list! Much of what I am learning can be expressed this way...

I am not perfect.

I understand there exists a balance between work and play.

I see change as a welcome part of life.

I am curious about others.

I experience empathy.

I know my strengths, as well as my weaknesses.

I am self-motivated.

I do not live in the past.

I focus on the positive.

It is difficult to offend me.

I create and maintain boundaries.

And, to date, my studies have served me very well. But there is still soooo much to be learned!

I did not set out to create this curriculum. I mirely recognized it recently after encountering Daniel Goleman's ideas about emotional intelligence and it's impact on success. As I casually went down his list, I saw myself in it and saw very clearly my own journey retrospectivley. Thank you Daniel Goleman for your life's work has asissted me on recognizing my own!

Anything on this list strike you as worth knowing more about?

Tag. You're It!

Right Work

"Your big opportunity may be right where you are now."

~Napoleon Hill

Finding right work is the task of a lifetime. This is NOT the task defined in my youth - as a job, employment, a thing you do to survive.

There is another kind of work, a more person-specific way to employ some of one's allotted hours. The work of self-making, self-recognizing, self loving, and self compassion. All of which leads naturally toward the Grace of Love and Compassion toward others - I call this right work.

When I was younger I was silently asked by my parents (and the world around me) to find right work, to take responsibility for myself, to choose a course of study to advance my progress in this world. How fortunate, when I chose to study art, nothing was said to me but, "Yes. OK, you go and do and we will support you in your endeavor. We know you will succeed." 

Not everyone experiences this kind of response and support.

I did wait tables and was a house painter and a bartender to earn my own way. But I am eternally grateful to have been sent to college by my parents.

For four years, there in art school, I was a wisp following her heart. I recall that time as a blurting out of myself in all kinds of directions as I made my way constructing (and deconstructing) a life. 

Over these last 30 years I have sold printing and furniture. I have taught teenagers and toddlers. And I have traveled the US performing comedy. But the most impactful job I had the privilege to hold was that of wife. My heart has lead the way in all these things and the Universe has replied in kind with loving support.

Just yesterday I was reminded of all the love and support guiding my healing heart after my husband died. How fortunate to live amongst such loving people. How fortunate my heart was broken wide open which allowed me to receive their many healing gifts. 

Not everyone gets to experience that kind of response and support. And not everyone is able to accept the gift of healing when it first arrives.

And now today, I am experiencing the same Loving Universe at work - again unfolding in my favor as I churn the meaning of HOME from one place to another. Capturing glimpses beyond my 5 senses, I am more able than ever to see with my heart. This way of seeing, this frame which graces my vision fills every cell in my body with gratitude. I am grateful for this awareness and for the journey - ALL of it!

All I want now is to experience this overflowing gratitude as giving back. I am looking forward to what shape this intention will take. I know not the details, but I know it is already done. I am doing the inner work to make this happen…and I am seeing this shift taking place in time and space.

This is my right work. 

Not everyone gets to experience that kind of response or support. And not everyone is able to accept the gift of healing when it first arrives. And not everyone gets to experience transcending their sense of a daily life, to begin to see with their heart. 

…oh, but how I wish we all could!

What does your heart see? What is your right work?

Tag. You're It!