I will not write of Snow in September!

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September Snow Angel

September Snow Angel

I will not write of it, I tell myself when I awaken. I will not!

Why should I? Twitter is filled with references to it. My Facebook page is littered with photos and comments about it. My eldest daughter even had to send a photo of it not being there, with her, on the coast.

I will not write of it.

Instead, I shall write of the little girl on Sunday at the Market Collective (you are invited to LIKE their page on FB) stage in the East Village who twirled and twirled and flung her arms out in abandon, giving herself up to the music of The Ashley Hundred. She wore purple butterfly wings and a blue flower patterned sundress and a pink ribbon in her hair and as she spun, her dress ballooned out and we were all transfixed by the pure joy in her presence.

And the music played on.

And the sun beat down and C.C. and I sat in the warm late summer heat and soaked in the music, the smells, the river flowing, the birds soaring high above, the people wandering the stalls and pausing to listen to the wonderful sounds of the band.

The memory of that little girls spinning has stayed with me. I remember watching her and thinking how I wanted to spin with her. How I wanted to be so free it didn’t matter what others thought.

As I looked at the faces of the crowd, I could see that same yearning in many of them.

Remembering, summers long ago when we too danced just for the joy of dancing.

When we too spun just for the joy of moving.

When we too didn’t know that there was such a thing as other people’s opinions to worry about.

When we too didn’t know that there was such a thing as ‘the proper’ way to behave in a crowd.

I got caught up in my mind’s thinking I was ‘too old’ to be free on Sunday. I got caught up in telling myself, “You can’t do that. People will think you’re showing off. Creating a scene. Making a spectacle of yourself.” and in my confusion and fear, I listened to the voice of ‘Don’t do it.’

I sat on a concrete bench and listened to the music and moved my body in time and tapped my foot and did not get up to free myself in the moment of dancing for joy.

And I remembered the market square in San Francisco when C.C. and I were last there and how when The Family Crest played, people got up and moved and danced and spun about and how I joined them and loved the feeling of the sun beating against my skin and the motion of my body dancing in the heat.

There is safety in numbers.

I didn’t feel safe to dance out loud on Sunday. Trapped in my conventional wisdom to not make a scene, I sat and watched and listened and loved the music and the scene, anyway. But I did not dance. I did not get down and silly on the concourse in front of the stage. (You are welcome A & L) 🙂

Which is why, yesterday, as I sat at my computer reviewing files for a meeting I have today, I decided there was only one thing to do.

I was not going to write about the snow covering the ground. Instead, I was going to go outside and experience it.

The willow tree in the front yard needed my assistance to lighten its branches. I stood beneath its drooping arms and held the handle of a broom above my head and shook the leaves and let the fresh crisp whiteness of the September snow fall upon me and all around. It was magical! Enchanting! Fun!

And then, I went into the backyard and lay down and made a September Snow Angel on the ground.

I will not write of snow but I will write of freedom. Of doing what makes my heart sing. Of releasing what gives my spirit wings so that I can do what I want in the moment of now without fearing the opinions of others.

I may not dance next time either. But, then again, I just might!  Hope you do too!

Enjoy the sounds of The Ashley Hundred (they are awesome! – LIKE them on FB) on this snowy morning (and more to fall today)


And The Family Crest (you can LIKE them too on FB) — they rocked me in San Francisco and still do whenever I play their CDs! Love them!

Where I cannot say, Oh yes, I knew this.

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Though I receive a daily prompt for blog ideas from The Daily Post every day, I have never written to it.

Today’s title and idea intrigued me: Greetings, Stranger.

It reminded me of an invitation from my meditation guide Dal Bryant who asks: You are walking through the desert and someone approaches. Who is it?

Today’s prompt is: You’re sitting at a café when a stranger approaches you. This person asks what your name is, and, for some reason, you reply. The stranger nods, “I’ve been looking for you.” What happens next?

I smiled at the stranger’s statement, “I’ve been looking for you.”

I think of myself as a seeker. I don’t often see myself as the one being sought.

What happens next?

Not after I meet the stranger, but after I realize that I am not just a seeker, I am also a giver, a sought after, a wanted, a desired, a beloved.

What if the stranger is actually a thought that has come to me because that one new thing, that one new idea that was hidden to me, has been seeking the right time to be revealed?

The thread of this thinking stems from last week’s reading in my The Way of the Monk. The Path of the Artist. course I am taking with the Abbey of the Arts.

Now I am revealing new things to you
Things hidden and unknown to you
Created just now, this very moment.
Of these things you have heard nothing before
so that you cannot say, Oh yes, I knew this.
— Isaiah 48, 6-7

I have contemplated these words throughout the first week of the course, setting them to memory, even in my discomfort of reading  and quoting from the Bible.

As a child, we had to read from the Bible every Friday night when my mother would have us kneel in our living room and pray the rosary, in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood on the mantle beneath the crucifix.

As a child, I loved the sacred space of that prayer circle. I loved the feel of the tiny sparkly beads of my rosary in my tiny hands. I loved the smell of the incense burning in the brass holder on the mantle sending out a long tendril of pungent smoke that filled the room. I loved the quiet hush that came over us as we four children prayed with bowed head beside my mother reciting the Our Father at the beginning of each decade of Hail Mary’s.

And then, I grew distant from the practice, not just of praying the rosary, but of the Catholic faith.

I grew angry with God and turned away from anything even closely related to organized religion.

It was a rebellion of my youth that lasted long into my 30s and 40s and while I am not so rebellious today, I still shy away from organized religion, holding onto my belief it does not sit well with my soul.

That which I resist, persists. The disquiet of my soul stirs deeply in my roots as I hold back from examining what it is I truly am resisting, as opposed to what it is I believe to be true to cause me such disquiet within.

I am resisting letting go of my anger, my sadness, my disquiet from the long and distant past where I felt forced to honour a God who let bad things happen to me, to the world around me, to people all over the world.

As I child, I could not understand how God, that giant unseen hand in the sky above which my mother promised me would fall down and strike me if I wasn’t a good girl or worse yet, would send me to Hell, could allow people to die. How could He allow war and famine and starving children in Africa and atomic bomb threats that forced us to practice hiding under our desks?

Was He not all powerful? All seeing? All knowing?

My mother told me He was. If He knew it all, what was wrong with him that he could let these things happen?

I have been holding onto a vision of God that is not of His making, but of mine and in my resistance to letting go of what I decided was true decades ago, I have held myself in the border lands, that place where my resistance to stepping over the threshold of my fear keeps me from truly expressing the Divine mystery of my being human.

I am delighting in this exploration. I am learning. I am expanding my understanding. I am evolving.

I do not know what I will find, but then, these are new things being revealed to me, so I cannot say, Oh yes, I knew this.

 

Zackariah and the Non-Profits

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In the minutes and hours and weeks following the tragedy, they huddled together on the corner of the street where it happened, in coffee shops and living rooms, and any other place where one or two or more were gathered.

They cried together, leaned on each other, held each other up and caught each other in those moments when their grief overcame them. They shared stories of their friends, laughed at their remembered antics, shook their heads at some of their escapades. They honoured their names, their memories, their lives intersecting.

And time moved on as they struggled to make sense of what they could not make sense of. How could five of their own, five lives whose promise was just beginning to unfold as they travelled through University classes, art college, band practices and sporting events and the plethora of minutiae that make a life, that made these five lives so precious, how could they be gone? How could they be killed in such a brutal fashion?

It was if a giant unseen hand swept down from the north and wiped away the space these five young friends held on earth. One moment, they were laughing and celebrating the end of another school year, the next, they were gone.

Last night, C.C. and I along with hundreds of others came out in support of the efforts of two surviving members of the Zackariah and The Prophets band.  Organized by Kyle Tenove and Barry Mason, the evening featured The Fox Who Slept the Day Away, The Ashley Hundred, Windigo and Jesse and the Dandelions, as well as a moving and emotional tribute performance of Zackariah and The Prophets.

And while nothing can make sense of such a horrible loss, the evening, called, High Hopes, did just that. It reminded all of us that no matter what happens in the world around us, we cannot let go of hope for a better future, hope for a kinder world, hope for peace. And we must take action to keep hope alive in all our hearts.

As C.C. and I sat and listened, tapping our feet to the rocking beat of the Prophets, the many young people in the crowd leapt up and hurried en masse to the front of the performance hall to stand as one body, shoulder to shoulder, arms around each other, singing and waving their arms and moving their bodies to the music.

And as they did in the moments following the events of April 15, they held each other up, they supported one another and moved as one body united in memory of Josh and Zacharia and Kaiti Perras, Jordan Segura, and Lawrence Hong, all of whom lost their lives on that fateful day.

And when it was over, when the music quietened and the last thank-you spoken, there was one thing remaining that carried each of us out into the night — the High Hopes that we can make a difference that Barry and Kyle so desperately wanted to instill in everyone.

Proceeds from the event will go to the Zackariah and the Non-Profits (ZATNP) established by the two young men which will then be distributed among the five scholarships and/or trust funds established for Joshua Hunter, Zackariah Rathwell, Lawrence Hong, Jordan Segura and Kaiti Perras.

Their dream is to make a difference in the world. To ensure that the lives of their friends continue to make a difference in the world.

And they are.

I’m sure their friends would have approved and while it doesn’t make sense of what happened, it does create better in the world from a tragedy that has impacted so many.

We can learn much from these young people about what it means to honour and celebrate the lives of those we love — no matter where in time their stories end.

The past is not the only avenue to the future.

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When asked, “What did you fear most when you were homeless,” Gladys* answered without hesitation. “Dying on the streets.”

Recently, I met with the board of a community association where the foundation I work for is considering building a 25 – 30 unit apartment building for formerly homeless Calgarians.

It wasn’t an easy meeting. It wasn’t all sun and roses and welcome to our community.

There was openness. Curiosity. Awareness and a desire to be inclusive and supportive.

There was also fear. Concern. Misunderstanding and misconceptions present.

And there was possibility.

It is the possibility I want to stay with. To expand. To stretch out across the room, the community, the city so that every Calgarian can understand, fear of dying on the streets is real for some people. It is a constant grinding away at their existence. A continuous eating away at their experience of life leaving them to believe, there is no other way, no other street to walk. There is only this existence that is killing them.

Gladys no longer worries about dying on the streets. She is living in an apartment now. In her new way of being she is supported by people who understand her fears, and who believe that with compassionate care, she can thrive in community.

Her thriving will not look like yours or mine. It will be different. But then, mine is different than yours and yours is different than someone else’s. It is our differences that create the vibrancy of our communities. It is our diversity that builds strength into the intersections of our lives.

There is possibility in our differences. There is connection.

When I left the meeting, I marveled at the similarities of our perspectives and experiences.

One man at the meeting, in an attempt to ‘do good’ in a community in another city, had bought a building that was in receivership. He renovated it and provided low rent housing for individuals living on the margins.

It was not easy. It was not a good experience, he shared with the group. I will oppose this project 1,000 percent, he said.

I can understand his fears.

Like Gladys (*which is not her real name), his fears are built on an experience that did not meet his expectations. He set out to ‘do good’ and felt bad with the outcome. He felt abused. Betrayed. Confused. Why would people treat his property so badly? Why couldn’t they see he was trying to help them? To make a contribution to society?

Like Gladys, this man is stuck in his experiences and fears, in his belief that no matter what he does, or anyone else does, it can never be another way. The past dictates the present and determines the future.

My experience is different. My experience has led me to this place where I believe the past does not make the present a repetition of what happened then, again and again. My belief is that when we use our experiences of the past with the intent to inform our actions for the better today, we can create better, we can make a difference.

There are people living on our streets today, and in our emergency shelters, who have given up on believing there is another way. They live with the constant fear that dying on the streets will become their future.

In the streets they walk everyday, they have lost sight of possibility. They have lost hope for a new way of being present in the world.

There are people living in our communities today, who have given up on believing there is another way. They live with the constant fear that without high fences, without holding onto to what they have, they will be unsafe in their homes and in their community.

In the streets they walk everyday, they have lost sight of possibility. They have lost hope for a new way of being present in the world.

For my world to change, I must change how I see my world.

When I look at it through eyes of fear, I know fear.

When I breathe into possibility, when I open myself up to allowing possibility for another way to arise, my world becomes a reflection of what I want to create more of in the world around me.

We all know fear. We have all been touched by change and its constant hammering away at the walls of our comfort zones demanding we learn to stretch, to find new moves that will take us away from where we are into that place where anything is possible if we let go of holding onto to what we know and tell ourselves we cannot let go of.

Just as Gladys is learning to let go of street life so that she can embrace a new way of being present in the world today, the possibility exists for each of us to create the kind of world we want to live in. The kind of world our children can live in too. To find a new way of being present in the world today, we must we let go of believing the past is the only avenue to the future.

 

 

 

 

Safe journey

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I feel rushed this morning. Hurried. Rain presses down upon morning’s awakening, a sodden blanket of sleep lingering long past the hour of awareness breaking through my dreams.

Lesson 2 of my course material waits in my Inbox. And I lay in bed listening to the rain and the wind chimes in the backyard.

Get up, Louise, my mind encouraged me at 5:30am.

Sleep some more the critter whispered. You don’t have to get up yet.

The critter won. I lingered in bed drifting in and out of wakefulness.

And morning rose and I held my eyes closed.

Time is running. It is time to greet the day, to get busy.

This morning’s lesson included a photo of a spiral staircase. Looking down from above it, looking into the well of its spiral, there is a light at the bottom.

And my mind quickly carries me into the light. I look up and find myself rising. Stepping up through the tiny pinprick of light curving up into the open expanse at the top of the stairwell.

What awaits above is a mystery greater than what lies below, my mind whispers, and I breath deeply into the expansion of this moment right now.

I am not rushed. Hurried. Time does not change because of the slowness of my awakening. it expands out into each breath, opening me up to wonder and awe and mystery.

I stop racing. Stop trying to fit it all in and breathe again into this place where all I am and all I need are all that is present.

Letting go of searching for the light at the end of the tunnel, my heart hears dawn’s breath awakening within me. And my eyes open to the beauty of the rain falling, the wind whispering and the chimes tingling in anticipation of another day opening up in mystery and wonder all around.

My eldest daughter, Alexis, returned to the city where she lives by the ocean last night. She said a final farewell yesterday to her father’s mother, her other grandmother who turned 94 at the end of July. Two days before her birthday she was told of the cancer that would steal her life within a week.

Alexis’ gratitude for her holding on until she got here to see her one last time is palpable. She got to visit every day. To spend time with this woman who was the first ‘other woman’ to care for her on the day I got out of hospital after her birth. She has been there for both my daughters throughout their lives and now, she is in hospice. The end approaches, shrouded in mystery, in finality, in darkness and in eternal rest.

For my daughters, with both their grandmother’s life-breath growing shallower, this has been a time of uncertainty. Of sadness. Of letting go. Of recognizing the delicate hold life has on each of us is only as strong as time’s willingness to hold on to our beating hearts, the deepness of our breath moving in and out.

Time passes and soon this woman who shared so much love and time and care and attention on my daughters will pass away in time’s hands moving beyond her last breath.

And I breathe and take time to honour this woman who has meant so much to me and to my daughters. This woman who has given so much time and love and care.

Fare-thee-well Jill. Safe journey to the other side.

May we all travel safe today. May we all be held in loving hands, our hearts beating freely in the knowing, we are loved. We are loving. We are love.

The Way of the Monk. The Path of the Artist

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The path through the trees

The path through the trees

I walked at the river yesterday. It is only the second time I have walked there since Ellie, the Wonder Pooch, passed away. I walked along the escarpment, sat at the spot where we used to sit on the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. I travelled down into the river valley, a trip made much easier without Ellie urging me to go faster, faster. I walked along the path that skirts the edge of the river, deep into the forest, back along the river. And then, I sat in the warm autumn sun at the edge of the water and breathed in. Deeply.

I have started a twelve week online course The Way of the Monk. The Path of the Artist at Abbey of the Arts. The course offers an invitation to explore the two powerful archetypes of the monk and artist. As the course outline explains, “Our “inner monk” is the part of ourselves that seeks the ground of all being and a mystical connection to the divine source, longing for what is most essential in life and cultivates this through a commitment to spiritual practice. The “inner artist” is the part of ourselves that engages the world through our senses, and is passionate about beauty, seeking to give it outward form and expression through a variety of media (including visual art, poetry, movement, song, gardening, cooking, relationships, etc.). Both the monk and artist are edge-dwellers, ones who commit to living in fertile border-spaces and who call the wider community beyond the status quo to alternative ways of being.”

I am standing in the liminal space where the path of the monk meets the artist. It is unknown territory for me, hallowed ground where I honour what is present and release what is not needed at this time.

I don’t know what walking into the mystery of this course will offer. I do know it will serve me well.

The invitation in yesterday’s course email was to slip into the meditation, open to the invitation of a word or phrase shimmering at the edge of my awareness.

The word that came to me was ‘roots’.  The phrase that rose up to embrace me was,  “her roots are as deep as the mountains grow high”. I live along the plains at the foot of the Rockies, north of the 49th parallel.  I have always wondered what it means to have roots — believing that roots are physical, that we must be of one place to know them.This past weekend, celebrating my mother’s 92nd birthday, it struck me that while my roots are not deep in Canadian soil, relatively speaking, they are deep in the spiritual essence of family.

As I sat in the silence, the thought arose that roots are metaphorical. They are not what grounds me. It is family. Life. Love that holds me steady.

In the meditation, I found myself breathing into my heart space — the invitation to release all that was not needed at this time gave me space to be present with all that is needed at this time — and that was Love and the knowing that my presence here on earth is not, as I recently read in an article by Peter Rengel, to transcend my humanness, but to revere myself exactly as I am right now.

And in that space, my heart embrace the truth at the root of all I am — Love.

It is all I need in this moment right now to know, I am safe. I am free. I am One with the essence of life flowing all around me.

I have roots and my roots are grounded deeply in the nourishing soils of Love.

Celebration

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We sat around the dining room table and laughed and shared stories and feasted on what makes life so rich and rewarding. The love that connects us, binds us, holds us safe no matter the times.

And through it all, my mother sat in the place of honour at the head of the table, a table she created throughout her life through her devotion and commitment to her family, soaking up the joy of sharing her special day with those who love her and whom she loves so dearly.

On Friday evening, my two sisters came over and we sat in the studio and laughed and had a glass of wine and nibblies and cut out butterflies and birds for the table decorations. When they left, I hung the lights and draped fabric and set the table so that everything would be ready for the next day.

And then, the celebrations began.

Freakingly Fabulous Friday!

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IMG_5778

The Freakingly Fabulous Diana!

My eldest daughter arrives home for a visit today. Isn’t that freakin’ fabulous?

My sister flew in last night. yup. F.F.

Tomorrow night, we will celebrate my mother’s 92nd birthday — all of us together.  My sisters, daughters, C.C., his daughter and her boyfriend – How freakingly fabulous is that?

The only ones missing will be C.C.’s son who is at The Peak Performance Band Camp, (more freakin’ fabulous stuff!) and of course, my nieces who live far away.

Yesterday, I met up with the amazing Diana of Talk to Diana for a glass of wine, a nibbly and lots of wonderful conversation. More freakin’ fabulosity!

I met Diana when I was working at a homeless shelter here in the city and she was the Director of Fund Development for a different shelter. We hit it off right away. From her compassionate approach to finding common ground, to her sharp intuitive ability to divine what’s really at stake, Diana makes a difference in my life, and the world.

One of the things I admire most about Diana is her capacity to see the big picture, and still keep the ‘little guy’ in the frame. Whether its the small not for profit agency struggling to execute on their mission or the charitable juggernaut striking new ground in the philanthropic sweepstakes, Diana can see how all the pieces fit together and understands the value of each perspective and their interrelatedness. Diana cares about making the world a better place, and lives by example. Big time.

A couple of hours with Diana and I find myself refreshed and reinvigorated. I want to take on the world and create better with every breath I take. It is one of her many gifts. To inspire people to embrace the truth of their capacity to make a difference.

As I walked back downtown to where my car was parked, I felt lighter, sunnier, calmer. Don’t you love spending time with someone who inspires you and lifts you up? Yup. Freakin’ Fabulous!

This morning, I will drop my sister off to visit our mother while I go off to pick up Alexis at the airport. From there, Alexis and I will drive to the hospice where her father’s mother is being cared for. Five weeks ago, she was told she had a week to live. While the prognosis has not changed, she has hung on long enough for Alexis to get here to say a final goodbye. And I think that is freakin’ fabulous. My daughters’ other grandmother turned 94 at the beginning of the month, a few days after the doctors gave her the final diagnosis. It has been a stressful and sad time for both my daughters to see the lives of their grandmothers inevitably towards their endings.

And yet, what a gift.

They have been blessed with having these two remarkable women in their lives for 26 and 28 years. They have lived the value of family ties unbroken through their childhood into teens and now into young women striking off to carve their own paths through life.

Both their grandmothers have played active roles in their formative years. From summer holidays spent wandering the beaches of Vancouver Island to playing dress-up and listening to stories of exotic places, through time spent with their grandmothers and their aunts, my daughters have had the gift of time with generations of women who love and care for them beyond my greatest imaginings.

I only met my mother’s mother once when she came from India to visit us for three months when we were living in France and I was in my early teens. My father had a distant and strained relationship with his mother and we never met her, even though, for awhile, we lived in England where she lived too.

I wanted different for my daughters. I wanted them to know their roots ran deep, their family ties were indestructible. Because of these two women, they have lived with the value of family ties binding them through the generations. And I think that is freakin’ fabulous!

This evening, while my daughters go off to a friend’s birthday party, my eldest sister, Jackie, is coming over to join Anne and me in the studio to help in the making of paper butterflies for mom’s party tomorrow night.

I have a vision. I’m going to drape a sheer blue cloth above the table and hanging starlights above it. We’ll suspend the butterflies we’ll be making tonight on the other side of the cloth and with flowers and photos, create a mystical, magical scene for mom to enjoy.

I’m looking for freakin’ fabulous! And I know, it won’t be the decor that makes it so. It will be family (though making it beautiful is so freakin’ fun it sure makes a difference!)

How blessed I am.

And grateful.

May you have a freakingly fabulous weekend. May it be filled with wonder and awe, and may you find your heart skipping wildly in love with the world around you.

Namaste.

 

 

 

And my heart skipped a beat

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Art Journal Entry August 27, 2014 The Possibility of Flight

Art Journal Entry
August 27, 2014
The Possibility of Flight

I have been exploring open eye meditation. Stepping into the sacred silence with my eyes wide-open.

It is challenging. Being in this place where I am not at ease. Staying in this space where my mind, intent on its mission to see what is beyond, wants to wander away from finding peace.

Like anything new, it takes practice. Patience. Persistence.

Ugh. I’d rather just close my eyes and tune my eyes looking out, inward.

And I prevail.

This morning, as I meditated, a thought went scampering through my mind. Well, actually… truth is, many thoughts scampered through my mind, it’s just this one took hold and begged a question be asked!

Yesterday, C.C. was in Vancouver on business. When he is engaged in working, he is extremely single-minded on what he is doing. Taking time to check-in is not high on his agenda. Yesterday was no exception.

In meditation this morning, that little vignette skittered through my mind. I noticed how I am not holding onto resentment or anger over what in the past I have judged as lack of consideration, thoughtlessness, or awareness of my presence in his life. I did notice however that my awareness of its happening was still with me. I noticed that underneath the situation, there is a current, a thread, a belief that is unrelated to what is happening now.

“What about this situation is connecting to something from the past?”, my curious mind asked.

A feeling arose from within me. It had no name, no label. All it had was tears.

Ahh, my heart whispered. You are remembering feeling invisible, unseen, unimportant.

My tears whispered back a quiet, ‘yes’.

Are you invisible? my heart gently asked.

No, my tears responded.

So you know the truth, my heart stated. You are not invisible. Unseen. Unimportant.

Awoken to the truth, my mind had no problem responding. Yes. That is true.

What is underneath the lie? my heart prodded.

The answer slipped in with the ease of an autumn leaf falling to the ground. Sadness.

Slip into it, my heart urged. Wear it. Embrace it. Become this sadness. Explore it. How deep is it? What colour? Texture? Can you see in it? Through it? Over it?

And I slipped quietly into the sea of sadness that lay calmly beneath the surface of my awareness. It did not flow. It simply held space. Warm. Serene. A misty blue, it felt silky against my skin. It was not deep. I could easily slip through it to the other side where sunshine flooded a field of wildflowers gently swaying in the breeze.

Knowing its limits, I rested silently in its presence, breathing into its essence within me.

Is it all of you? my heart asked.

I smiled. No. It is simply a presence. An element of my being that sometimes surfaces to remind me that within me is a sea of memory that holds sway when I let go of what is true for me today.

And what is true for you today? my heart asked.

And I breathed deeply, a sigh of relief flooding my body in the remembering of my truth.

I am loved. I am loving. I am Love.

And my heart skipped a beat and leapt for joy.

Not bad for a girl who was resisting meditating with her eyes wide-open!

 

A gift from the quiet hours before the dawn

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coyote

In a burst of exuberance, the wind swept down from the mountains 
whispering stories of faraway places.

“Runaway with me and I will show you the world!” the wind called out and Coyote laughed.
“Here is where I run free,” he told the wind. And the wind blew on and Coyote ran free.

Art Journal Entry, August 26, 2014

There was a time when she believed if she could just be somewhere else other than where she was, everything would be okay.

There was a time when she wished for nothing more than to be someone else other than who she was.

What she couldn’t see in looking for another way of being is that no matter what she wished for, she could never be anyone else other than who she was.

What she couldn’t see was that the parts of her that didn’t fit her well in this place, would not fit her any better in another.

Fearful that she would never find her way, she attempted to jettison her past, extricate herself from being herself to become someone she thought others wanted her to be. “Perhaps if you change directions, or even just your clothes, you’ll find yourself another way,” her nimble mind whispered like the wind blowing down from the mountains, calling her to run away.

And she ran, and ran and still she found herself where ever she was at, trying to run away from the one she could never leave behind, herself.

“Perhaps if you simply stand true to who you are, stay present to what is here in this moment, you’ll find yourself right where you’re at,” her loving heart whispered into the howling of the wind.

Frightened by her heart’s calling and tired of constantly running away, she fell to the ground and rested right where she was at. And in her sleep, her heart beat strong, and her mind grew restful as the truth of who she is set her free to run wild like the wind through her dreams.

“There is nothing to fear in being you,” her heart whispered. “Who you are is who you’ve always been. Perfectly human in all your human imperfections. Beauty and the beast. Loving and loved. A child of the universe, seeking her way into the light of her own brilliance shining brightly on the path of her creation.”

Like coyote and the wind, there is always a calling to venture into another space, some distant place where what is here will not be there. It isn’t until I quit searching for somewhere else to be that I discover, everything I need to be free is here right now, because, no matter where I go, I am where ever I am at.

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The painting and story above came from my meditation. Like the caterpillar story yesterday which came from a dream where I awoke with the image of the unhappy caterpillar and his desire to be anything other than himself,  the image of the coyote slipped through my mind as I sat in silence.

I was seeking a peaceful mind and still the wind blew in.

I tried to push it away. Instead, it insisted on leaving its mark in the form of a coyote, the trickster of Native American lore. I asked coyote what he had to tell me, and the image and story were born.

In my practice, both here on the written page and on my art journal page, I have learned to trust in the process. To allow the words, and images, to appear without trying to discern them before they flow.

It can be challenging. I like to control. I like to dictate, to organize, to force and cajole things into being, just so. I also like to judge what I create. Measure its worth against some unseen yardstick in my mind.

Learning to trust in the process without judgement means, learning to trust in me.

A big leap.

Which is probably why, when I awoke at 3:30 this morning with the image of a cliff in my mind, the words appeared, “Leaping off the edge of what she knew to be true, she found herself believing in the possibility of flight.”

What a lovely gift to find upon awakening in the quiet hours before the dawn.