My two month blogaversary

It has already been two months since I last posted, marking another cavernous space wherein I have gone dormant, figuratively speaking.  Although, as much as being a bear this winter has its appeal, I have been busy doing my life work anyway.

I was struck by this post about showing up and being meaningful and it inspired me to say that I, too, want what I put out here to matter, to find what resonates deep within me with the hope that it might also resonate deep within you and make you want to carry the ripple far and farther out.

I have been hearing the galloping of the year of the wood horse approaching, feeling the drum beat of the hooves thrumming up from the earth.  Are you ready to trust your wild stallion and ride bare back through this year?  I am.  I shed heavily with  snake last year, with yet some patches of skin left to ruck off.  I realized today that I am ready.  Under all the changes and shifts, the angst and fist pounding denial.  Under the healing and the nourishment, there is the nugget of me who is feeling the light on her skin, the barest glimpses of the truth of who I am and what I am here to do.  Are you with me?

A glimpse of me and my world lately....

Swirling, Swirling

My squirrel-y Virgo mind has been trying to measure the sacred in my life.  Starting with this altar I built for winter and to work through Jane Cunningham's Choosing True over Nice class.

And the smaller altar built as a reminder for my work with Grandmother Bear in SouLodge this month.  Each piece holds strong meaning, symbolism for what is  going on deep inside me ~ transitions, shifting of my DNA, a kind of goulashing of lessons presented and internalized.  I can not grasp any of it firmly and yet it is all "there", at a level of connection that defies words.

This week brought much gratitude into my orbit.  Libations from a grateful neighbour for helping to move her car over a snow drift

beautiful hand crafted envelopes, all the way from Amsterdam

another hand made card from California

a previously quoted $700 refrigerator repair bill reduced to a much more manageable $160 bill which allowed me to work with Anna Wingfield for a bottle of Bespoke (oh yes, it did and I do and it is).

More gratitude came from Sherry with this card

in response to my last post about supportive parenting.  In that post I questioned whether I give too much or not enough support to my nine-year old son.  My discussions with him over creating and selling his own ideas was such a mirroring experience for me.  It brought how I/we value our personal work, how to market it and how charity/gratitude also plays a role.  I hadn't meant to solicit funds here or to actually sell the newsletter that he had put together.  On Sunday morning, at Riley's insistence, we walked the streets, looking for buyers, so confident he was in what he had created.  And we met every kind of person - the rude, the kind, the I-would-love-to-but... (fill in the blank).  A whole geography of consumers.  He floored me with his courage in approaching strangers, in his belief that he had a product that people would want.  All the while I could hear the lesson coming to me about my own work and how I value it (or don't) and how I put it out there (or don't).   It is this example of synchronicity that is coming at me from all sides now.  Parenting 101, the student is the teacher.

Yikes, Blogger!  What did you do since I last wrote here?  I can't find anything!  It's as if someone came in and moved my furniture around.  Where is my sidebar?  Where are my options?  And I thought I was dropping in to open the windows, brush away some cobwebs, spruce the place up a bit, you know... And now I'm wasting precious time trying to find my "stuff".  First Facebook lets everyone see what news articles I read (honestly, it feels as if someone has walked in on me in the bathroom), now Blogger hides my "stuff".  It's enough to make me crawl back under my rock and hide or move over to wordpress or squarespace, but that would mean I am actually paying more attention over here.  Now, since I'm here, I'll share a few crazy things that have been rocking my world these last few weeks.

First of all, I dropped, and broke, my camera, my little Canon point and shoot and, shoot, I have missed it more than I thought I would.  My Big Girl camera is heavy and hard on my neck and back and so I tend to not take it along in the same way and the camera in my phone is...well...not my point and shoot.  And speaking of shoot, before it broke I discovered the first mint shoots up in my garden

and a stupendous beetle.  

 

I had breakfast with Marge 

and Homer

coached on how to blow bubblegum bubbles.

I scored some soccer shoes

hung out with a moose

despaired about graffiti on our school - spelling, anyone?

I have taken exquisite care of myself, said good-bye to the brother of a dear friend, and to the dog of another dear friend (f*ck you, cancer).  I have felt a little prickly

had a hissy fit or two

washed my hair

and spied on the neighbours.

I ordered two bathing suits online and found they both fit - or fit as well as any bathing suit will on this morphing menopausal body (alas, no photos).   I have purged clutter and paid my taxes, laughed one-sixteenth of the way around the block

slowed down

made peace, if not friends with the bandits

and taken a giant leap into the future, with one big toe still back "here" on the ground.  

I have committed to two adventures these next two weekends which will find me travelling near and far(ther).  

I have been absent, present and changing faster than a chameleon could accommodate his own cammoflage.  And it's all been good and overdue and necessary.

The Conversation

A few nights ago I took Riley to the pool after supper and we unexpectedly met one of his friends there. Naturally, I thought this was stellar for me as I suddenly didn't have to go in the water. Riley played with this friend for almost two hours and when I pulled him out we had this conversation:

Riley: why didn't you come in the water with me?

Me: I didn't think you wanted your old, fat, stinky momma if you had a friend to play with

Riley: you're not stinky

Reading between the lines is easy. What struck me was how I described myself and how that story I tell myself about myself isn't true. I'm not stinky.

She's been reading my mail

I doubt any of you missed this post by Jen Lee like I did. Actually I can't say I missed it any more since I found it. I could have written it, except I didn't! It is as if she pulled those words from my own heart. Somehow we carry on, move forward. The resilience of human nature is something we don't even know we have until we have passed through it.

Journeying

Ahhhhhh. Retreats. Funny enough my trip to Kripalu did make me retreat into myself. I was never a very social person and going off to a place chock full of people I would have to hob-knob with is very much out of character for me. I love to isolate myself, am happy as a clam all on my own, I crave time by myself and have always been like that. Immersing myself in a crowd of 700 people is the last thing I would do if I was in my right mind.

I had been drawn there to do the first level of a course in animal communication with Penelope Smith. In preparation for the passing of my sweet, old dog, I had read Smith's, "Animals in Spirit" book earlier this year. That book changed my way of thinking about pets and animals by 180 degrees. It was an immediate and never-going-back shift. When I put the book down I felt that I had to meet this woman, had to be in her presence. Things all came together when I found the offering of the first stage of her instruction at Kripalu on the dates when I had extra hands on board for my son and I was off of work. Kripalu is a mere 5 hour drive from where I live, completely do-able. It was a words-cannot-describe experience. Naturally, I met like-minded people, equally excited with similar hopes and shared one of a kind experiences. A room of 20 strangers gathered, opened up, learned and hopefully will go out and share. Oh yeah, there was quite a bit of crying too. And a good share of laughter. This little-big guy, Speed, had a few special words for me, thanks Speed, what you gave to me will stay with me always.

Kripalu is a yoga based retreat center with classes for all levels offered multiple times a day. The days I was there it was hot, especially hot and humid for the mountains and it was flooded with yoginis. Nice people, yoginis. I do yoga regularly in my home, even wake up at an ungodly hour to fit it in, but I felt a bit like a geek in high school. I don't wear the yogini clothes, don't speak the yogini speak. The difference between now and that high school awkwardness is that I was there as a seeker and none of that differentness mattered.

I did take one early morning yoga class. It was full to the brim, we bumped elbows and toes and the whole room smelled like feet. It's kind of hard to find your Om under those circumstances. And I am so very grateful there were no random farters in that class. Every other yoga class I have taken there is always one person who really feels free enough to let go. With no judgment meant to those free and unselfconscious farters. There are even times I wish I felt that kind of personal freedom. I'm just not there yet.

I left only one rock behind, deep in the woods.

And speaking of rocks, I ended my journey with a side trip to the Queen of Arts at her home. I got to see her studio, meet her animals (hi Dave!). Even her garden has royalty.

Ever the graceful Queen, she left a beautiful bouquet of freshly cut flowers from her garden (the blue hydrangeas may or may not have been stolen) in the room where I slept.

Even the kitchen window was be-flowered.

I got a candid silhouette of Cosmo the Cat.

But wait a minute - what is that I see, in her garden?

Let me get closer...

Is it..... is it... a large, unpainted rock?!

When you've got your health

The saying goes, when you've got your health, you've got everything. I used to think that was a wise saying but now I've expanded it to include mental and emotional health. These last few days have found me just that little bit lighter, little bit happier but it's all it takes. I am feeling a balanced kind of happy at the moment. It's hard to put into words.

We woke to rain and cool temperatures this morning but it didn't deter us from our walk. We shortened it, ending up at the playground where Riley left his rock.

And what's a rainy day without some puddle action?

Sometimes the events in life have the opposite effect on me than expected. The last few months I have been overwhelmed by loss and grief regardless of the abundance and possibilities in my life. And then when I got news that my dear friend and mentor, Celeste, left her earth body, after absorbing the fact and getting over the shock, I felt inspired and have been able to look at the truth of impermanence with a little less fear. Just a little, mind you. In another act of universal synchronicity, last week Karen Maezen Miller wrote this poignant piece on the subject of impermanence here.

It's Really Not All About Me

And because life really isn't all about me and my gripes and observations, I want to share this youtube video I found over here, which also made me cry for the bold truths. Ah, it is still good to be alive.