Many years ago Debbie received a gift from a stranger. It was a gift that would fill every moment for the next twenty-three years with life. And then, the gift began to fail. Not because it wasn’t wanted, or desired, or needed but simply because sometimes, time wears heavily on gifts from strangers in our bodies.

For Debbie, that meant the kidney she’d received 23 years ago could no longer sustain her and she would have to go on dialysis until a new match could be found. It was a long journey. Her health was failing, her body weakening, and still she held onto hope. Her eldest son’s kidney didn’t match nor did her husbands. It wasn’t until her youngest son, Kynan reached the age of majority for living donors that they discovered, he wasn’t a match either.

But Kynan was not to be daunted. Even though giving up a kidney meant a radical change to his passion of being a rodeo clown, Kynan decided to become a living donor to a stranger.

And so, just over two and a half weeks ago Kynan and two other living donors created a circle of courage, compassion, and Love so that their loved one could receive a match. Kynan’s donation went to a stranger whose loved one’s living organ went to another stranger who’s loved one was a match for Debbie.

On Sunday evening, my youngest daughter picked up Debbie and Kynan and brought them both for dinner. We sat in a circle on the deck, a fire roaring in the outdoor fireplace, the sky above turning dusk to dark. We laughed and chatted and shared stories and when it got too chilly we moved inside and sat around the dining room table sharing a meal and more stories, many of which focused around our Choices journeys.

I remembered coaching with Debbie. It was her first time volunteering to coach and she was nervous and determined to give her best. Her gentle spirit, her welcoming smile made everyone feel warm and loved, but mid-way through the three month journey through Choices, to Givers 1 and then Givers 2, her health began to fail and she had to step back to take care of herself.

It is one of the foundational beliefs of Choices. We have to take care of ourselves first to be strong enough to take care of others.

For the past two and a half years, Debbie’s life and the life of her family, has been circumscribed by the dialysis machine. Now she’s free.

As I sat around the dining room table and looked at her face and the face of her son glowing in the candlelight I was in awe of the power of Love to inspire and heal. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this young man who had the courage and Love to give of his life to a stranger so his beautiful, gentle-spirited mother could continue to live.

I asked Debbie and Kynan if I could share their story because, well firstly because I love them both and want to celebrate them but also, because I wanted to inspire each of us to think about what we do that makes a difference in the world.

I know Debbie and Kynan through Choices. Kynan has coached many times, and when he’s not coaching in the first 5 day segment of the training, he is always willing to come in as a “Blessing Coach” to help out in Givers 2 on the weekends — on Sunday of the Givers 2 weekend, trainees spend the afternoon creating their Purpose Statement — the thing they do in this world that comes naturally to them because it is, and has always been, written on their heart. Having volunteers in the Purpose Room (as is true of all the Choices rooms) is critical to ensuring each trainee gets the support and guidance they need to create their own unique statement so that when they leave the room, they are empowered to live on purpose.

We each have a purpose in life. We each do things, naturally, that touch others in ways that give meaning to our hearts desire to make a difference.

Looking around the dinner table on Sunday night, I felt the difference each person made in my life — and the world. Sunday was the finish of C.C.’s first coaching experience in ‘the big room’. He still has Givers 1 and G2 to coach in and can’t wait for his next opportunity to coach again in Choices. His daughter, Mikaela, who finished G2 last month, sat beside her friend M.M. who just completed Choices who was glowing from his experience. She too can’t wait to coach. My youngest daughter Liseanne and a friend from Choices, T.G, had volunteered that day as Blessing Coaches in G2, something they do almost every Sunday of the G2 weekend. Liseanne is checking her calendar to see when she can next coach the entire program.

It is their way of giving back. Of making a difference.

We all have an opportunity to give back — not always in such a significant way as Kynan, but each of us can and does make a difference.

What’s your difference-making? What’s written on your heart?

There is a moment in Choices, the life development course I coach in, where each trainee is asked “What do you want more of in your life?”

When asked, you would think most people would reply, fame, fortune, success, or something along those lines. Yet, in having asked that question of many, many people, not just in the Choices room but also in the homeless shelter where I used to work and in other seminars I present, the answer is always deeper, more heart-driven, soul-inspiring than the obvious.

Once, I asked it of a man who was once a boy soldier in his native Africa. He was convinced there could never be any ‘more’ for him. He was convinced that he was measured by his past, and would always be known as a ‘bad man’.

“Is that who you want to be in the world? Is that what you want more of in your life?” I asked. He was one of twelve students in a self-esteem course I was teaching that is part of a job-readiness training program held at the homeless shelter. 

Upon hearing my question he shook his head, no, no. “I want to be proud. I want to be a good man. But I have done so many bad things…”

We went on to explore what is possible when we let go of limiting beliefs and move into that space where miracles shine in every day moments, creating joy, hope, love and so much more with every breath. At the end of the course, he came up to me and said that he’d never realized how much his thoughts were creating his reality. “I’m going to think better thoughts from now on,” he told me.  I hope he has.

It is something I wish and hope and want for everyone. To think better thoughts. To fill their minds with thoughts of how amazing, powerful, incredible they are.

Our thoughts inform our actions. And when our thoughts tell on us in negative ways, when our thoughts remind us of how small, bad, pathetic, horrible we are as human beings, our actions reflect what we’re thinking. And in acting out from our lesser thoughts, we create a world of limitations within ourselves and all around us.

We are capable of greatness. We are greatness in action.

It is our birthright. 

Yesterday, as the five day training wound to a close, one of the trainees came up to me and told me I was contagious. “When you shared on the first day I didn’t believe anyone could be that happy, that joyful.” They went on to tell me how they’d been watching me throughout the course of the five days to see if it was true. Was I really that happy or was it just an act. “Thank you for helping me trust in others. Thank you for showing me what is possible. I’ve been so focused on not trusting the world, I’d forgotten how to trust.”

When asked, “What do you want more of in your life?” my response is always, joy, passion, Love, peace…. I want to infuse and infect the world around me with a sense of ‘the possible’. I want people to know that life is a journey of wonder, it is a voyage into the unknown of tomorrow through the gateway of today — and when today is filled with what you want more of in your life,  the unknown isn’t scary, it’s exciting, amazing, incredible. It’s WOW!

To live my WOW! everyday, to know no fear and to feel alive and radiant means living in the creation of what I want most in my life, every moment, with every breath. It means measuring each thing I do and say against the question ‘what do I want more of in my life?’ and then asking myself, “Will this create more…. joy…passion… Love…. peace?”

And if the answer is “no”, it means having the courage and conviction to take a different path, to find the thing that will create more of what I want and live it.

We all have a past, we all have done things we’re not proud of, that brought us down, that hurt those we love, that damaged relationships, that tore apart our dreams and left us wandering in the darkness of that place of wondering, is there any ‘more’ for me?

Yes there is. More.

As is often asked at Choices, “If better is possible, is good good enough?”

It doesn’t matter how dark your past or how circuitous the journey you took to get to where you are today, what matters most is that each and every one of us awaken to the beauty and wonder of who we are in this moment right now and state, without hesitation, without fear, without discrediting or disbelieving what we are capable of, the thing I want more of in my life is…….

And then, breathe into it, be it, live it.

And so it is.

 

Yup.  Gone fishing — for spirits unfolding wings. For hearts unpacking dreams and souls touching the essence of what it means to be human and alive and creatively inspired to live this one wild and passionate love in the rapture of now.

I am off to coach at Choices today for the next 5 days. Off to witness hearts breaking open and Love pouring in. Off to be part of miracles shimmering in the light of every breath and lives taking flight in the possibility of dreams awakening.

This time, it’s with a twist.

C.C., who went through the Choices program 4 years ago will be coaching for his first time. And we’ll both be in the room together. The first time I get to share the experience with him — and I am excited.

It also means…. long days, short nights, fast sleeps — so I’ll not be very present in the blogosphere though I will try to post if I’m not too tired!

See you all next Monday if not before.

Blessings on your journey.  May Love light up your heart and set your world spinning in awe and wonder with every breath.

Fall fast approaches. The sky stays darker into the morning, light holding off shining its brilliance through the chill of the night. The leaves are turning, rust and gold and auburn. The blushing reds and rose of summer fade. Petals fall.

The earth is preparing itself for winter.

C.C. and I were in Saskatoon on the weekend. Preparing our house there for rental as he shifts his focus back to Calgary. We assessed things that need doing and putzed around the house, bemoaning the work crew who have not turned up for two weeks to fix the plaster in the ceiling. I pulled weeds in the garden, swatted at the inevitable wasps of autumn and ignored C.C.’s inevitable admonitions to ‘leave them alone. they won’t hurt you if you don’t swat at them.’

I don’t believe him. I am not that trusting of their tiny yellow striped bodies or even tinier insect-minds. I think they like to sting. It is their nature.

It’s not, C.C. tells me. If you leave them be they will cohabit harmoniously.

My mind may be bigger than a yellow jacket’s, but regardless of its size, it is not ready to give up believing that swatting them away is my best defence.

That’s the problem with a negative thought. It takes hold and in its presence I grab on to irrational  behaviours that even though I know better, I am incapable of doing better because of the fear blocking my capacity to be present in the moment.

Wasps cause me to know fear. Even though I can only remember ever being stung once in my life, their tiny, irritating presence, give rise to fear far greater than their tiny size warrants. And at this time of year in the prairies, wasps tend to be ever-present.

Dang. My favourite time of year and there they are, cluttering up the garden.

In an effort to understand my fear, and in the hopes of embracing it, I decided to research these pesky critters.

Not a good idea.

Sometimes, knowledge is not my friend. sometimes, knowing what I don’t know is better than learning what I don’t want to know!

Like, the myth that once a wasp stings you it dies. Not so. A wasp can sting repeatedly, one of the reasons it’s so feared.

1% of the population is allergic to a wasps venom, resulting in 50 to 100 deaths in the US a year (though whether that’s bees or wasps is hard to discern — and their venom is different so people can be allergic to one and not the other). That said, 90 people will die in the US from lightning strikes every year and over 15,000 will be killed by fellow human beings.

Forget about lightning strikes, people die from wasp stings. Seriously. they die.

Which, when I stop to think rationally actually does suggest I am better off not swatting my arms and making them angry. I’m actually better to let them be present without causing them angst.

Now that’s a test of my capacity to be present, awake and alive in compassion, truth and beauty to all the wonders, and beings in my world.

There is a story of Gandhi who, while on one of his many hunger strikes was approached by a man whose daughter was killed. The man told Gandhi that he would stop fighting if Gandhi started eating. And Gandhi replied that he would eat only when the father embraced the man who killed his daughter. In his anguish and anger, the father did not want to embrace his enemy, but he did and in that act, the fighting ceased.

Perhaps, the wasp represents those parts of me that are still at war with my inner peace. Perhaps, taming my fear of wasps, stilling my flailing arms to embrace the quiet of a moment and all it holds, is my path to tranquility.

Perhaps, it isn’t learning about wasps that I need, but rather, learning what it takes to be still and quiet in the face of my fear. Perhaps, facing what I don’t want to know about how to be present and calm in the face of what I fear will lead me to what I want more of in my life — peace, tranquility and love.

Wasps serve a purpose in the life-cycle. They have a raison d’être in the garden. They help control aphids. They pollinate my flowers and keep the grass growing.

Perhaps, learning to embrace their presence will calm my fears of the unknown. Perhaps, letting compassion embrace me will keep me present to Love, no matter what is happening in the world around me.

 

I can be fairly impatient with myself — especially when it comes to ‘knowing’.

My pattern is to assume I ‘should have known better’, or ‘should have known it in the first place’ and then, trip myself up by beating myself up for not — knowing what I tell myself I should have known better.

This is not a self-nurturing or supportive trait and is something I have been learning to breathe into so that it no longer causes distress within me and my world around me.

I was thinking about this not so supportive trait of mine as I get ready to coach this week at Choices starting Wednesday. Last month I was asked to do something I’d never done before — I carried out the task to the best of my ability, even in spite of the inner self-critic wanting to make a fuss over what it saw as major flaws in my delivery.

And… here’s the challenge. What if I’m asked to do it again? What if I’m not?

See the problem? The ‘what if I’m not’ issue is relatively easy to deal with. It’s not about me – it’s what works best in any given moment or circumstance that supports the training, the trainees and the team. If I have issues with not being asked to do something I think I should be, my upset generally stems from that place within me that feels less than — or not good enough. It could even stem from that place of being afraid to ask for what I want! To move through that place of insecurity and fear and into my knowing of “I am enough” is simply — a breath away.

The bigger challenge for me, however, is in the place of ‘second time’. The second time I’m asked to do something, my ego wants to jump in and self-congratulate me and inflate it’s sense of importance and, my inner critic immediately makes a leap for that place of — well then you’d better be perfect. You’ve done it once you are not permitted to make a mistake this time, and you definitely don’t dare ask for guidance. You should know it by now! People will think less of you if you don’t know it all!

Okay folks, you read it here first — I don’t know it all!

Yup. It’s true. I don’t know it all. I do know a lot about what I’ve studied and learned and spent time experiencing and researching and feeling and doing.

And I don’t know it all.

Which means, I am a work in progress. I don’t have to do anything perfectly. I just have to do it to the best of my ability in any given moment. In that place of acceptance, I can give my inner critic a break. I can let my inner critic breathe out — and thus leave room for me to breathe into the truth that is always present — Doing it perfectly is not the objective. Turning up, being present, and then doing whatever I’m doing with all my heart, to the best of my ability is what it’s all about.

Let’s face it. It’s taken me years, and years, and maybe even a few more years, to get to this place where I acknowledge — I don’t have to know it all. I don’t have to have all the answers, and I definitely don’t have to do it all perfectly — all I have to do is Turn Up. Pay Attention. Speak my truth and stay unattached to the outcome.

And in that place know with all my heart the truth of who I am in this world today — I am enough.

And in my ‘enoughness’, it is enough that I live as a wild and radiant woman, learning and expanding and transforming and evolving through each moment, shining a light for all to see that they are worth all the wonder and joy this big, bright, beautiful world has to offer. And that’s a lot!

Whereever you go, go with all your heart. Confucious

When the pain of what we are living becomes greater than our fear of changing, we let go. When our fear of drowning swamps our fear of holding onto nothing, we start to swim. And when the pain of believing we are worthless becomes too great to bear, we surrender, and fall, in Love.

Like a ping pong ball being forced down into a glass of water, pain rises, over-flowing the container, rushing over our fear, setting us free to feel our spirit calling us to awaken, to gather up our wounded heart and swim away from the place that would have us believe, ‘this is all there is’.

There is so much more.

To living. Loving. Being. Experiencing.

There is life. There is Love.

When I was embroiled in that relationship that was killing me, I believed the pain of my existence with him was all there was, all I was worth, all I deserved.

And then, the police walked in and set me free and I discovered, I was wrong. That pain-riddled existence was not all there was. There was a world of wonder, of joy, of beauty on the other side of my fear that ‘this is all there is’.

On that day in May, 2003, I could not have known what was about to unfold. All I knew was that I had told the Universe I could not take the pain of my existence any longer. And the Universe delivered. For months at the end of that relationship, I kept repeating, “I can’t take this anymore.” I kept telling myself I was at the end of my rope. I let my fingers slip along the rope, but I couldn’t let go. I was hanging on by a thread, I wanted to let go, but my fear of falling was greater than the pain of my existence.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

Sometimes, all we have to hang on to is a thread. And that thread is all that holds us back from letting go.

In my mind, at the moment of holding onto that relationship, letting go meant ceasing to exist. It wasn’t that I thought of ‘death’ as an out. It was that I simply did not want to exist. To be.

I thought if I could just let go, ‘it’ would all be over. The pain. The sorrow. The fear. The suffering. It would all be gone.

And then, I surrendered and let go and the Universe caught me and I fell, in Love.

And that was my awakening.

The Universe was always there, holding me up, supporting me, Loving me. It wasn’t the cause of my pain. Holding myself in that painful place was what was hurting me. The Universe wasn’t to blame for where I was at. ‘The bad man’ wasn’t to blame for where I was at even – though he was responsible for everything he was doing,  I was responsible for what I did about it in my life. I was holding on to that relationship and that was the source of my pain. And I kept telling myself I couldn’t let go because I was too afraid to chance what would happen if I let go. It was a vicious circle. I wanted to believe in the disbelief of that relationship. I wanted to believe it was all true. it wasn’t. True. The relationship was a lie and in my holding onto it, I was living a lie because I could never make it true, no matter how hard I tried. It was all part of the Lie. The lie that I am not enough, never good enough, not worthy.

Because abuse hurts. And holding onto an abuser hurts.

Letting go of the pain and fear means letting go of everything that hurts me.

In surrendering, I awoke to the wonder of being enough. Just the way I am. In that very moment of awakening — Bruised and battered. Beaten down and abused — I was enough. For that moment, it was enough, that I continued to breathe. Silently. Quietly. In place. Breathe in. Breathe out. It was enough that I breathed as I began to awaken and expand into the Truth of my being. I am enough.

I am.

Enough.

In being enough, it is enough that I live this one wild and precious life fearlessly in love with all I am and the world around me.

That is enough for me.

 

 

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you know I have a wonder pooch. A golden Retriever, Ellie, and she is faithful. We got her just over 12 years ago when she was just a wee puppy, squirming around, trying desperately to get as close as possible to my heartbeat. Wanting to be as snug as possible in that space where there was no separation between where I ended and she began.

We’ve never been apart. At least not for any period of time. Even when I was going through that dark space of a relationship that was killing me, Ellie was beside me. She watched me. Kept her eyes on me throughout the yelling and screaming and tears and fears and crawling into darkened closets where I would sit and scrape the skin off my wrists just to see if there really was blood flowing in my veins. Just to see if I was alive.

And in the darkness and in my pain, she would always remind me I was alive and needed to keep living. I would cling to her fur and feel her heartbeat next to mine, her warm breath against my cheek and I would know I was not alone. Ellie was always there with me.

She was my ballast. My support. My confidant. My solace.

I was always sure of Ellie being there. Always sure of her love.

I never quite felt that way about God. He was just a bit too far removed for me. A picture in a book when I was a child. A man in white robes with long flowing hair. A being with large hands that held the world gently in their cupped embrace but whose stern countenance I feared. Whose harsh words I cowered away from. I didn’t trust God.

It frightened me when they told me God was always with me. It scared me when they said He walked with me through forests and valleys, desert plains and city streets. They told me he had always been there, even when I didn’t see him. Even when I didn’t believe he was there. Even when I chose to deny his presence. They told me he was always there.

I didn’t always believe them. Why should I? They lied about so many things. They must be lying about this too.

Show me, I would reply. I can’t see him how do I know he’s there?

I could see the boogie man. He lurked in darkened corners. Behind closed doors. He yelled and screamed and did things to hurt me.

And God didn’t stop him. And he and God were related.

How could there be a God if he didn’t do anything about the things that hurt me?

And then, one day I awoke and saw there was a sky above. It was clear blue spread out forever and a day. I walked beneath that sky and wondered, where did I go? How did I get so lost? Where have I been?

I didn’t know the answer. I couldn’t see what had happened to me. I just knew I’d lost all hope of ever being free. I knew I would die. I knew the end was coming soon. And I didn’t care.

And I told myself God didn’t care either.

And then, a miracle drove up in a blue and white police car and I was given the miracle of my life.

I went to church that first Sunday after the man who would have killed me if he’d only had a little more time was arrested. I went to church even though I didn’t believe God knew I was there. Even though I didn’t believe he cared.

“You look like you could use a friend,” the pastor said to me.

I didn’t need a friend, I told him. I needed help. I needed a sign that God hadn’t turned his back on me in my hour of need.

I remember the pastor’s face. He had gentle eyes. Kind eyes. And a smile. It wasn’t big or even all that friendly. It was just a smile that said, ‘we’re all in this together. There’s nothing to fear and no need to hide.”

I was tired of hiding out and so, when the pastor smiled I opened my mind a little bit and let the warmth of his welcoming words into my heart. Just a little bit. But just a little bit was all he needed. “God never turned his back on you Louise. Even when you walked away and hid. He never turned his back. He kept holding out the miracle of his Love waiting for you to open up to the possibility that He was always there.” I remember he paused before asking. “What if…”

It was the ‘what if…’ that got me.

What if the friend I needed was someone who would never judge me. Never let me go. Never turn his back. What if no matter what I did, he would always love me. Always hold me in his embrace and cherish me as a miracle of Love. What if His faithfulness was all I needed and to feel it all I needed was a little faith to guide me away from the darkness and into the light of Love?

I have a wonderful dog and she is faithful. I never question her faithfulness. I know she loves me.

I have faith but I have not always been filled with faithfulness. I’ve often abused myself, the one’s I love. I’ve often abused my faith. I’ve disregarded it. Dissected it. Ignored it. I’ve struggled to stand comfortably in faith, letting go of my disbelief that there is a God. I usurp my faithfulness with my constant challenging of His way, asking why does he let bad things happen even when I know, it’s not Him, it’s we humans acting out.

I still muddle through it. My faith. Searching for where faith ends and the leap begins. Searching for that space where my faith falls into that place where all there is is nothing else but faith. That place where God, or whatever words I use to describe the ineffable, extends  beyond the limits of my thinking.

I have a faith steeped in fear and sorrow, love and joy. I just don’t have many words to define it. I just don’t trust myself to speak of it in biblical terms. Or in terms of Christianity. All I can speak of is Love.

In Love all things are possible. In Love, God is present whether I have faith in his presence or not. He is always there and all I have to do to have faith is to believe in Love.

I believe in Love. I believe in the power of Love to heal, to soothe, to restore and redeem and bless me with His amazing grace.

And at the end of that place where the leap begins, what if… the only thing I need to know about faith is right before me? What if… the only thing I need to question is nothing.

There was a time when Ellie and I would sit in darkened closets and fear the light. The Divine sat with us. Ever present. Even when my eyes were closed.

What if He or She or It knew everything I needed to learn about faith was through the touch of a beautiful canine friend whose warm faithfulness held me up when I was falling down?

What if God didn’t care if I questioned Him because all that really matters is He has never questioned who I am — the divine expression of amazing grace living this one wild and passionate life perfectly human in all my being who I am.

 

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I changed up my morning and am now late writing my blog. This is a rework of a post from my original blog Recover Your Joy.

When they fled Bosnia, they moved towards a better life. To a life where gunshots and fear of death by war did not exist. They came with little, only that which they could carry. Their daughter was 11 years old. Her English limited. But it didn’t matter. They wanted to give her a chance to grow up. To dream. To become. To see there was a world where peace prevailed.

They moved to my city. I met them when our daughters started High School together. When they graduated, we promised to stay in touch. We mostly did — through our daughters. Sometimes, we’d meet at an event, sit and chat and promise again to stay in touch. We’ll have dinner one day. Soon, we’d tell each other. And then time and life and happenings continued until ‘soon’ became so long ago it was almost embarrassing to try to get together.

Our daughters continued to be close friends. We continued to bump into each other at various events. And then, on the weekend, as C.C. and I were leaving our favourite wine shop, Vine Arts, the mother of my daughter’s friend walked by.

We stopped and chatted and talked about ‘the flood’. Their condo building didn’t flood — just barely missed the waters reach. But for 10 days they lived without power. Her sister was visiting from Bosnia and they had laughed at how everyone had fled the building. “What?” she said. “They think you can’t live without electricity?” And she laughed as she told us the story. “We’ve lived through war. We always had our electricity cut. You make do. Just like when we came here. We had nothing so we made do.”

Their lives are rich and fulfilling now. Their daughter recently graduated from a Masters program, the pride and joy of her success visible on her mother’s face.

And then, it was time to part. C.C. and I had a birthday party to go to, she had another commitment.

We must get together, we said as we always do, but this time was different. This time, I asked, “When are you and your husband free?”

We leave for two weeks in Europe on the 13th, she said. Should we do it before or after we get back?

C.C. chimed in. We could do dinner Monday night.

So could they!

Which is why last night, on another beautiful summer’s evening drifting into fall, we sat out on the deck and ate beneath the stars. An impromptu get together of old friends and new. The old were a friend of C.C.s who dropped by late afternoon to say hello and a girlfriend of mine who I called to see if she was free for dinner. And the couple who we’ve known for years but never really spent time with.

It was one of those perfect days. A brunch with the parents of a friend of my youngest daughter that whiled away early afternoon on the lawn. C.C. made his famous, Finnish Crepes and we laughed and chatted and spent time with a couple we have come to enjoy through our annual get together at Stampede, a tradition that began because my youngest daughter asked if her girlfriend and parents could join C.C. and I and ‘the gang’ for the Grandstand Show one year — and now, we make it a point to do it as a big group. And then, dinner under the stars with another couple whom we’ve met through my eldest daughter — what a delightful way to spend a holiday Monday. What a beautiful gift of time spent with people, connecting, chatting, sharing and learning.

And what was most interesting is that both the couples (the parents of my daughters friends) immigrated here from strife torn lands. The couple who came for brunch fled, “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Like the other couple, they too wanted to leave behind guns and bombs and fear of what could happen next.

I am grateful.

Grateful to live in a land where war and strife have not consumed my every thought.

Grateful to live in a place where we are free to sit out under the stars and share stories and laughter and wine and toast the freedom we take for granted.

I am grateful I take freedom for granted. Grateful that my world is not shadowed every day by fear of dying. Grateful that here in Canada we have racial and religious tolerance. Grateful that we do not fight over the right to live where we want, practice our faith how we want, do what we want.

I am grateful.

As we sat last night under the night sky I looked up and saw the stars shining down and whispered my prayer of gratitude and thanked my daughters for their friends. In their friendships, my world has been enriched. I am grateful.

 

 

I worked hard yesterday. A quick trip to a new market with a girlfriend and then I was home to clean out the big room in the basement so that I could turn it into my art studio. It was already set up to be used that way but the rug was still on the floor, and intellectually, I was loath to drip paint onto the rug, even though we knew eventually we were going to replace.

It’s funny that. The power of an aversion to making a mess, and its capacity to hold me back.

Right now, all my art-making supplies are set up in a girlfriend’s basement. It’s a gift to have the space but… it’s not my space, my place. I don’t have the same freedom and comfort to come and go as I please at someone else’s house.

So, yesterday, the transformation began.

“We need to chainsaw it up,” I’d mentioned to C.C. on several occasions and while he agreed, we just never seemed to get around to it. Until Saturday when, in spite of the beautiful weather, I insisted that THIS was the weekend. Come blue skies or high water, we were going to do it.

With the TV gone on Saturday, and C.C. on the golf course yesterday, I took on the arduous task of ripping out the rug yesterday.

It’s done. Gone.

Last night, as C.C. and I were driving back from dinner with friends we talked about ‘the big job’.

There were so many times I wanted to quit, I told him. So many times I just wanted to sit down in the middle of the mess and say, “Forget it. It’s just too much work for one person.”

But, I didn’t. Quit.

My *Be. Do. Have. was to create a studio space I’d use. If I quit, it might not happen and I would not accomplish my goal.

So, instead of thinking about how hard or big the job was, I kept my focus on the task at hand. I kept my line of sight within the immediacy of what I was doing, right then, and avoided looking at the entirety of the job. Eventually, the entirety of the job became smaller than what I had left to do. Eventually, what I had left to do became a small portion of all that I’d accomplished until, there I was, proudly standing in the middle of the room, debris cleared out, the rolled up portions of rug carried off to the garage, the underlay stuffed into big orange garbage bags, the strips of wood and the floor swept up and all the garbage removed. Now all that remains is the sealing of the floor, some lights to hang and I will have a nice big spacious and bright studio area to create in.

And… bonus, the sense of accomplishment, the feeling of having persevered, of having gotten the job done, even on a perfect blue sky day will remain with me. I won’t carry a sense of regret of not having done it, I’ll carry with me the sense of having completed a task that wasn’t easy, that I wasn’t particularly excited about doing, that I did anyway because, my Be. Do. Have. was to create more of what I want in my life — and one of the ‘mores’ I want is my studio space!

The lesson? When faced with a daunting task, don’t look at it in its entirety. Keep your focus on the task at hand and keep your sights on the big picture of your Be. Do. Have.

*Be. Do. Have. – Be committed to Do what it takes to create more of what you want to Have in your life.

 

I dream of being a wild woman. Of dancing late into the night upon a table in a smoky bar, my raven hair swirling about my body as the music pounds a dizzying staccato that races into my heart with the velocity of a thousand stars falling through the Milky Way.

I dream of throwing back a Vodka, my neck stretched long to receive the icy coolness of its elixir searing my heat-parched throat, my eyes closed, my long nails blood red against the fingerprint smudged glass that I pound upon the table when it is empty. I yell Ola! to a room filled with drunken laughter and bawdy jokes and I am consumed by the night lifting off into a galaxy of indescribable pleasures exploding into the night.

I dream of bodies entwined, passionately consuming one another, skin stretched taut against the first rays of dawn bursting through the night, of lovers unnamed, of life coursing through my body in a mind-blowing ecstasy of passion burning away the dark.

And then, I awaken and I laugh and shake my head and think, wow, what a night!

And I arise from my bed to enter my day, the wild woman of my dreams asleep once more, waiting for the dark to return so she can have her way with my psyche.

She is there. That wild woman. The one who throws off convention without a batting of her glitter tinged eyelashes. The one who swears like a sailor and says whatever she wants without caring who she provokes, be it state or rock star or whoever else turns up at the exquisite party that is her life.

She is there. That wild woman. The one who doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks about who she is or what she’s doing. The one who consumes life without regard for tomorrow. The one who loves with all her body, never holding back, never giving up on feeling, knowing, expressing the life force within her.

She is there.

And she is here, in my surrender to the day. She is here in my letting go of the night. In my awakening.

She calls to me to throw myself into my creative being. To smear colour drenched paint upon a canvas and use every fibre of my body to make its up, to streak it and move it and create a tapestry of life worth living.

She calls to me to write the night out upon the page, to colour in the darkness with the vibrant hues of her knowing we are not meant to be consumed by life, we are meant to consume it. To suck it dry of every last breath, to eat up every succulent morsel, to savour every sun-drenched moment and live like wild women and men in the light of living each moment in the utter rapture of this moment right now passing by.

This is your life, the wild woman of my dreams says from the smoky recesses of her lair where she is holed up with the likes of Henry Miller and Anais Nin, partying late into the night, the heat of their words  searing her mind where she lays exposed, arms flung wide, back arched along the seductive lure of the Tropic of Cancer. Waiting. Willing. Eager to receive. Eager to give. Eager to capture and consume this one wild and passionate life for all she’s worth.

I am awake now. Day has broken and I leap from my bed, eager to embrace the unexpected that explode all around me like fireworks bursting in the night. I am awake now.