Creative by nature

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We are all creative by nature. Everything about us, from learning to walk, talk, eat paint, draw, write, even think is unique to each of us.

Think about walking. As children, no one said, “Here is how you walk.” Nope. They helped us stand up. To stay on our feet by holding our hands. But they never said, “Walking consists of putting your left foot forward first, always first with the left and then, transferring your weight so that you can lift your right foot and move it in front of your left and on and on and on.

Nope. No one said that.

We learned to walk because within us there was a creative urge calling us to rise up and move our feet. In the process, we created our own unique style of walking. Very creative of us don’t you think?

Over our lifetimes we will learn to do many things. We’ll read, watch, listen to gather information and then… we’ll do it on our own. Sometimes, we might even attempt to imitate what others are doing but, own unique style/voice/essence will naturally imprint itself upon whatever we’re doing and La voilá! There we are being our unique creative selves.

Fact is, there’s no other person in the exact same spot as you, thinking the exact same thoughts, with the exact same images, words, emotions. There’s no one holding their pen, or computer mouse or brushing their hair in exactly the same way.

The statement “I am not creative”, which I’ve heard from many people over the years of creating and coaching others on their own creative journey, usually stems from the fear of believing creativity is just for a special few.

Remember. We are creative by nature.

It’s just somewhere on our journey, someone(s) put certain activities into a basket called, ‘Creative’ and all the other things in the basket called, “Not Creative’. And then we started living our lives as if the baskets were real (some call them boxes but I think ‘basket’ is more visually creative!).

There is no basket. And there definitely is no box.

Which is kind of interesting if you think about it. The statement, ‘think outside the box’ is designed to encourage people to find ways to see beyond what they know to find more creative solutions to a problem.

Creatively speaking, whether there is or isn’t a box doesn’t matter. Solutions to problems come from beyond the realm of what is known – otherwise they wouldn’t be problems needing to be explored.

Remember Einstein? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Think about it. You’re not going to get a different result if you do the same thing over and over again.

You have to ‘get creative’.

And here’s the deal. Have you ever changed anything in your life? Anything. Like trying a new food. Buying a new pair of shoes. Walking into a room full of strangers…

Somewhere in all of that you had to ‘get creative’.

See. You are creative.

Now the oportunity is to expand your ‘idea’ of what creativity represents in your life.

Like, throw out the basket. Get out of the box, kind of expansion.

Try this. Say (outloud), “I am creative by nature.”

Say it again. In your own way (because really there’s no other way for you to say it than in your own way.) “I am creative by nature.”

Own it. There’s a lot of freedom in owning your creative by nature ways.

Try it on. Taste each word. Dive deep within your body and see how your heart, your tummy, your baby toe is feeling at the statement. “I am creative by nature.”

After stating ‘I am creative by nature’, five or six times, you might even want to try saying, “I am not creative by nature” just to feel the difference.

Which one resonates?

Which one makes your heart feel light and airy. Your shoulders and back straighten.

The ‘I am creative by nature’, or the other?

Be lovingly honest with yourself. Which one soothes your heart?

I’m hoping, for the sake of all humanity, it’s the “I am creative by nature” that calls your heart out and stirs the blood running through your veins.

In this time, right now, the world needs all of us to awaken our creative natures so that we can each shine our own unique lights together to create a world of wonder, awe and possibility for all the world rise up and shine bright like a diamond.

Roots. Memories.Connections.

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rooted in memory

My Catholic roots are woven throughout the memories of my childhood. They give me peace. They give me security. They give me space to grow wild and free.

Friday evening Rosaries.

Listening to the clicking of the beads as they passed through my mother’s fingers, her whispered Hail Mary’s as she prayed the decades and began the cycle again and again as I impatiently waited for it to be over so my sister and I could go out and play.

Saturday afternoon flowers.

In the quiet of the church my middle sister and I helped her ‘do the flowers’ that graced the altar. They had to be fresh for Sunday mass.

My sister was allowed to carry the vases of week-old flowers to the sink in the back of the sacristy. I could help sort the flowers. For some reason, my mother didn’t trust me to carry breakable objects. Go figure.

To this day, I struggle with throwing out dead flower arrangements.

The smell of the rancid water. The look of the wilting flowers. It feels almost.. .sacrilegious. Like I’m somehow impinging on the prayers of a dead past to be left in peace.

Then there was Sunday morning mass.

The inevitable rush of getting four children all dressed up in Sunday best, out the door and in the car and down the road to church.

I loved Easter Sunday best. Not the mass. Oh no. That was way too long in my child’s mind.

I loved my bonnet and pretty dress. My patin leather shoes. My little white lace gloves.

I loved the gold trim on the priest’s liturgical robes. The pageantry. The statues adorning the walls. Watching my brother up front, beside the priest, where he served as an altar boy.

I still love the smell of incense. Candlelight. Ritual. Angels.

Though I never did come to peace with the notion that girls were somehow so inadequate (or sinful) that they could not serve at the altar as priests.

I still remember, sitting on the hard benches. Swinging my legs, looking around, being poked by my sister and poking her back followed by the inevitable admonition from my mother to sit still, be quiet, pay attention.

On Sundays, there was no breakfast until after the 10am Mass. The church didn’t allow food before communion. Fortunately, this edict gave me an easy to confess ‘sin’ to add to the litany of others I’d have to tell the priest at our weekly meeting in the confessional booth on Wednesday night. I had three:

I fought with my sister.
I disobeyed my mother.
I accidentally swallowed the water when I brushed my teeth before mass. (It’s also possible I stole a muffin or cookie from the kitchen before we left for mass but I wasn’t sure God would forgive me for that one so I never told.)

In church, I prayed the sermon would be short, the greetings afterwards of neighbours and friends even shorter. I was hungry!

Always, my father would meet someone and invite them back for breakfast. Always, they came. My father’s breakfasts were legendary.

As a child, I used to ask my parents where God lived during the week if he was only in church on Sundays. My father laughed at my question. He liked to encourage my curiosity, telling me to ‘go look it up’. In the encyclopedia or the dictionary if it was about the spelling of a word. My father was not as married to the Catholic faith as my mother.

For mom, my questions caused her great unease. Don’t be so impudent, she’d caution. God is watching. He knows everything. You cannot question Him.

I wasn’t particularly good at listening to my mother. And, once I discovered how uneasy my questions made her, I tended to keep asking them.

It was my way.

Yesterday, with an email from a cousin I haven’t seen in decades, the memory of those long-ago days came sweeping back into focus.

We spent time together in France during our youth and into our teens. I remember how much he and his sister loved the chocolates and other goodies my parents brought whenever we visited. How our excesses in food were so foreign to the austere selections their mother allowed that they almost made themselves sick savouring the sweet, gooey concoctions that came from my father’s kitchen.

In our exchange of emails, in the memories that came flooding back, I was reminded that no matter what path I carve, it is the deep security of my roots that gives me the freedom today to explore my spiritual path without fearing where it will lead me. Entangled as those memories are in the complex web of religious observance of Catholicism that was my childhood, they are also filled with a love of mysticism, of faith and of family.   

I had a note from a cousin I haven’t seen in many years yesterday. His presence in my Inbox took me back to my roots.

It is there I find myself this morning, deeply rooted in my belief that even though I no longer practice the faith of my childhood, I am safe and secure in my belief that this is a world of divinely inspired glory. That this life I have been gifted is designed to be savoured and celebrated. It is a life immersed in joy and Love for I live in a universe of great mystery and wonder, awe and beauty.

Namaste

Lighten Up. Lessen Up.

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I am restored

Blue sky soars into infinity.
The river flows into a distant sea.
Spring buds drip from the poplar trees.
I breathe and am restored by nature.

As the world prepares for its emergence from isolation under Covid, I too am preparing for what the ‘new normal’ will be post what some have dubbed, The Great Pause.

Years ago, when I could run and was training for the marathon, a weekly ‘pause’ from training was as essential as getting the miles in. On the pause day my exercise would consist of taking the dog for a walk and baking healthy treats for my family.

Immersed in Covid style isolation, which has felt like a marathon of the ‘getting to know yourself’ kind, other than twice daily walks to the park with the dog where I seldom break a sweat, the pause has consisted of little exercise and too many unhealthy treats for body, mind and soul.

I have been considering rebranding, The Pause, to the Great Investigation – the object – to determine the correlation between over-indulgence of Netflix and decreasing brain mass. Put simply:  How many hours of Netflix does it take to become a vegetable? At least, with such a noble purpose as the cause of my binging, I’ll have a good excuse for the hours piling up on the couch and the lack of progress on my To Do List.

Then again, it does bring up another great question to explore – What is the relationship between hours of Netflix watched and expanding waistbands? Can you solve the equation – [X {hours Netflix} + Y {unhealthy treats} / Z {size of beginning wasitband} / 60 = Total expansion of waistband/minute watched]?

Covid still lurks like an unwelcome visitor who will not leave, but, life must go on. The world is emerging from its forced hibernation. 

One thing I’m pretty sure of in all the ‘let’s get back to normal’ hoopla – hairdressers will be busy, and so will fashion retailers. I mean seriously. Given average anticipated weight gains of 5 – 10 lbs per person, who has any clothes left that fit?

Then again, we could perhaps organize “The Great Clothing Swap” – whereby everyone moves their pre-Covid sized clothing to the person who was one size smaller than them, pre-Covid…

Amd then I wonder. If there are 7.8 billion people (give or take a few) on this planet, and the majority of us have added on 5 – 10 pounds, how much more can Mother Earth take?

We are heavy beings on this planet earth. Our physical mass combined with the mass of structures we create, destroy and dispose of, adds up to a whole lot for Mother Earth to bare.

Maybe it’s time we all decided to not only lighten up but lessen up our impact too.

Maybe, Covid’s big message is to stop treating Mother Earth as our playground and start  treating her as our valued, and vital partner in life here on Earth. Maybe it’s time we begin to put our efforts into creating life that is sustainable, nurturing and supportive of all sentient and non-sentient beings on this planet.

Because seriously, we breathe in nature’s beautiful life-giving air every moment of our days and in return, nature restores us. If all 7.8 billion of us became more conscious of how and what we breathe and put out into the world, we’d be making a whole world of difference.

Now that’s the best reason I’ve ever come upon for losing the extra pounds. I’m not only doing it for me, I’m doing it for the planet – Mother Earth needs me to lighten up and lessen up my load on the delicate balance of nature.

Namaste.

 

 

 

 

 

The Kitchen is an Island

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Yesterday began with a brunch/early lunch of poached eggs on avocado toast and roasted tomato. It progressed to making focaccia and cookies — with no clean-up in between.

The island was covered. In flour. Utensils. Mixing bowls. My laptop. The crossword puzzle I was working on. My cup of tea. Various and sundry cutting boards. Knives. Spoons. Other ingredients. Olive Oil. Sugar. Everything I needed to make two different recipes. All at once.

I am blaming it on Covid — this way of cooking that, for all my free stylin’ ways, feels chaotic and frenzied while also calming and comforting.

It is the duality of life. Dark/light. Day/night. In/out. Up/down. Wet/dry. Love/hate. Peace/anger. Chaos/calm.

To know one is to welcome in its opposite.

In this time of Covid, I find myself creating chaos so that I can then savour the calm. It’s as though my body needs the darkness to know the light, the mess to appreciate the tidy.

Or it could simply be that to create an island of stability amidst the chaos of the world, I turn my kitchen island into a reflection of the world to find the peace within me.

And, as stay-at-home orders lift, and the world begins to return to a form of normal that is different than the same-old of the past, I want to cling to the bubble of serenity self-isolation has created in our home. My kitchen offers up a full menu of opportunities to savour the joy of cooking in the now while staving off the impending approach of opening up to the world outside.

Whatever the reason, I am spending more time in the kitchen than ever before. And in the process, along with the creation of delectable delights to please the palate of my beloved, as well as those I package it up for and deliver it to, I am creating a sense of the familiar. A connection to my past. My parents and my history.

There was a lot of chaos in my childhood. There was also copious amounts of joy.

Food was my parent’s love language. Food and meals brought us together. Creating food brings me closer to the past ways of being present in this world. It connects me to the comfort of old recipes and new. To old ways and new. To the spatula my father used for many years while baking. His rolling pin. His bread scraper. My mother’s little glass bowls for prep. Her handwritten recipes full of her tiny writing scrawled across lined pages with margins crammed with her comments.

Kitchen labours are nestled in the womb of my past. They are the umbilical cord connecting me to my family story.

I learned to knead bread under my father’s tutelage. To poach eggs guided by my mother’s voice reminding me to not overcook them. My sisters and I regularly share recipes and now, my daughters have joined in. We are all cooking. We are all talking about food and even sharing photos of our creations, both our successes and the not so successful ones too.

Immersed in food-imbued connections, Covid’s tentacles feel less deadly, less close. There is joy in flour scattered on the countertop. Laughter bubbles up with olive heating up on the stove, infused with rosemary and thyme. Smiles erupt as bread dough rises and the thrill of a freshly baked-to-perfection tray of cookies pulled from the oven in the nick of time.

And through it all, there’s memory’s beautiful long and winding threads bringing me home to where I find comfort in my kitchen. Through every ingredient, every carefully, or not so carefully, measured out scoop, every chop, every dollop of this or that, I find myself immersed in the joy of cooking my parents shared throughout their lives.

And as to the mess on the island… The larger the island, the bigger the mess. The more room I have to explore and create memories of meals past, present and yet to come. I am at home in my kitchen. It is the oasis I return to again and again, no matter the times or the chaos, to find peace and harmony in my world.

Namaste.

Recipes:

Foccacia – https://www.inspiredtaste.net/19313/easy-focaccia-bread-recipe-with-herbs/

Cookies courtesy of Flourist.com

https://flourist.com/blogs/recipes/white-chocolate-stem-ginger-and-rhubarb-cookies

 

 

Is That Sarcasm I Taste? (a SWB post)

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I have been baking breads and cookies, pies and Foccacia but the one thing I haven’t baked, which Beaumont had to remind me of today, is dawgie biscuits. Oh Dawg. I’m in trouble now!

Join Beaumont on his blog, Sundays with Beaumont, and find out just how much trouble I’m in, not just because of the lack of doggie biscuits but also because of my sarcasm.

You can find the conversation HERE. 

I Hear You Mom

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That’s the thing about death, it is inextricably entwined with life.

In and out, it weaves its stories of time’s passage through seasons changing and life beginning and ending, beginning and ending.

My cousin dies and I am reminded of childhood days long past. I didn’t do well at keeping in touch. We are continents and oceans apart. As adults, my 3  siblings and I all lived in Canada. Our 16 cousins scattered between India and France.  Twenty cousins in total, we are now 18. My brother was the first to cross the line between life and death.

And I shake my head in bemusement at the reference to crossing the line. Death is not a finish line that comes with a medal for having completed the race of life. Life is not measured by who gets to the end first. There is only the realization, for those who are left behind, that a thread of life that connected us to another has been cut.

In the eternal stillness that is death, life continues.

My mother left this earthly plane on February 25th. Quietly I dance with waves of grief and sorrow mingling with everyday laughter and joy. I call out to time to slow down so that I can effortlessly stand on the motherless terrain upon which I must locate myself only to discover, like a baby learning to walk, falling is part of the journey.

Be gentle in your journey,” I hear my mother whisper. “Be kind.”

Perhaps it is Linda’s passing that is unravelling her voice from memory.

My mother believed in kindness. It was at the root of everything she did. It was what she always told me to employ, no matter what the circumstance. Be kind.

I didn’t always treat my mother with kindness, just as I fear that in my youth, I wasn’t always as kind as I could have been with Linda.

And my mother’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “What is the kind thing to do here?” she asks.

Here? I wonder aloud.

“Yes. Here.”

I don’t know, I say in the sing-song voice of the child I no longer am.

My mother gives a sigh,

I remember that sigh. I hold my breath waiting for some further litany of my limitations.  She surprises me.

“What if you just start here with loving yourself unconditionally?” my mother asks.

I don’t remember her being so so giving and wise in real life. And I definitely don’t remember her talking about the necessity to love oneself. In fact, in her final days, my eldest daughter recounted the story to my sisters of when my daughters and I were visiting mom when she was in her 80s and tried to teach her how to look into a mirror and say, “I Love Me”. She blurted the words out nervously and exclaimed with a girlish laugh, “Ooh la la!”

What’s happened to change her on the other side?

It’s as if she can read my mind. “Nothing has changed me Louise. I’m just able now to be my true self without the limitations of life getting in my way.”

I am surprised. This is definitely not my mother’s normal way of speaking.

She interrupts my skepticism with another gentle laugh and says, “In life, I only ever wanted to be the mother you needed but life kept getting in the way. In death, all I can be is everything I am. And that is Love.”

I take in her words and give my head a shake. Are we really having this conversation?

“It’s about time we did,” my mother says.

I take a breath. I am so with you on this one mom.

“Then let my words today fall into your heart and break it open in love,” she says gently. “Like me, you were always just doing your best to live your life. You can’t change the past. You can forgive yourself and move on with Love today.”

Okay. They’ve really done something to my mom. I mean, seriously, she’s talking like the mother I always yearned for.

“In life, I didn’t always know how to be the mother you wanted,” she says. “I could only be the mother I was. In death, I am the mother of your dreams, the mother I always wanted to be for you. It is my gift to you from the ever-after.”

I feel tears welling up inside me from somewhere deep within my belly. It’s as if new life is being born within the womb of my existence.

Breathlessly. Step by step, I let go of holding onto the past and stand fearlessly on the motherless terrain of my life today.

I hear you mom, I whisper to the sky and the sun, the moon and the stars. You may be gone but Love remains. Always and forever.

 

 

 

 

 

Tears. Ennui. Sunny Days.

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I am sitting at my desk. The sun is shining. Fluffy white clouds dot the sky. A gentle breeze stirs the branches of the trees outside my window. The deck door is open and I can hear birdsong, the rush of the river and the sound of an occasional car travelling across the bridge towards downtown.

It is May Day. Morning has broken and I am crying.

What are these tears saying? I ask my heart.

It is grief.

Yesterday, we learned my cousin Linda succumbed to Covid in a hospital in Paris where she lived.

I haven’t seen her in many, many years and still her passing feels heavy. Like a piece of my history has eased away into the past, floating away into the void like the chunks of ice that drift down the river as spring melt begins in the Rockies.

I wrote a tribute to her on my Facebook page and shared how Linda taught me so much bout overcoming difficulties. She also taught me about grace. Linda had many physical and mental challenges. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time with her and in retrospect, probably wasn’t as kind nor loving as I could have been. The gift in writing out my feelings on her death is that I know that it is only Love she would want to leave behind. I can let my shame and sadness go. What I can’t do, nor can either of my sisters do either, is get on a plane to be with our cousins in France. There will be no gathering of family, no telling of stories. no family celebration of her life.

Last night, I chatted with my daughter in Vancouver. She is 7 months pregnant, caring for her 2-year-old and has hurt her wrist. I want to jump on a plane and be there to help her.

And I can’t.

My granddaughter is due to arrive in late June/early July and I’m not sure I can be there for her.

What will the future look like?

As my fellow blogger friend Bernie says on her lovely post today (her photos alone are worth the visit), “This is not a cry for help. There is no need to check in on me. It just helps me immensely to articulate the thoughts that ramble around inside my head. ” (thanks Bernie)

It seems to be going around. This ennui.

Every social media feed I follow is filled with articles on how tired people feel. How world-weary.

Yesterday, I ran into a friend at the dog park. A former co-worker, she is now Executive Director at an agency that supports people with HIV and addictions. She and her staff have been working from home since the pandemic reared its ugly head and have had to shut down several day programs that supported some of our most vulnerable citizens. It is hard, she acknowledged but this slowdown has given her time to take care of herself, which is a wonderful gift, she said. But she misses ‘normal’ and its opportunities for every day human contact.

Our dogs were happy we saw each other. We did extra rounds of the park, savouring the opportunity to talk with someone, other than our partners at home, in real life – not on a computer screen or phone.

Last night a friend called to check-in. I promptly invited her and her husband over for cocktails on our (newly christened) Wine Deck — the lower patio of our home. In the two years we’ve lived in this house we haven’t used it very often (like never). But, with social distancing rules in place, it’s a perfect gathering place that provides for joyful and Covid-safe connection.

On an aside, I thought of calling it ‘The Quarantino Deck’ but don’t want anything that reminds me of the virus while I’m enjoying time with family and friends!

And see, writing it out works. My tears have dried. My heart does not feel as heavy and my outlook has lifted.

Life in the time of Covid can be challenging. Some days, my emotions ebb and flow with the gentleness of the tide lapping at the shoreline. Other times, they hit me like a tsunami, roaring in on cascading waves that sweep me off my equilibrium.

It’s all okay. It’s all just part of this journey into uncharted territory.

Feelings, emotions, tears… come and go. What remains always, what flows constantly in and out and all around is Love.

May your day be filled with gentle waves of Love washing away any ennui that threatens your sunny days.

And now, Beau and I are off to the park!

Namaste.

The Lessons in the Loaf

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I am learning a new art. Sourdough bread baking.

It has many lessons to teach me.

Some days I am its willing disciple. Others, a stubborn pupil pushing back against what my critter mind has started calling, the Tyranny of the Dough.

My first attempt was pretty dismal. On the outside, it looked quite pretty. Golden brown. Nice domed shape. Crusty.

Inside. Well that was another story. Gooey. Thick. Heavy. I watched a Magpie try to pick up a chunk after my husband threw it out over the fence line into the dense bush that lines the riverbank. He thought the animals at least would eat it. Ha! After many attempts, the Magpie gave up.

Sigh. Even the animals find my Sourdough bread a bit too sour a loaf to swallow.  (I’m sorry. I just can’t help myself with the  not-so-funny play on words – though if you could have seen the Magpie’s reaction, you would have laughed too.)

So. Back to my lessons from the loaf.

Sourdough bread all begins with the mystical starter. I mean, seriously, flour and water? That’s it?

Yup. That’s it.

Measure. Mix. Let rise. Discard. Replenish. (Pray for magic)

Measure. Mix. Let rise. Discard. Replenish. (Pray for magic)

Repeat. Twice a day. For five days.

And then… let there be starter!

Now, if you read, or watch as many YouTube videos on how to create a sourdough starter as I do, you will know that what appears to be magic is just the alchemy of air mixing with the water and flour to create bacteria (healthy one’s) from the natural yeast that lives in the air and the off-gases the water and flour create. (That’s my “Hey! I’m not a scientist just a wanna-be sourdough baker” description of the process. If you’d like a more scientifically accurate explanation, click HERE.)

Once the magic has been allowed to fester for five days, you should have a nice, rich, bubbly mass in a jar that has a distinctly sour smell and bubbly surface. That’s your starter.

Currently, I have three jars of starter in my fridge. That’s because I have not got the heart (some may call it discipline or faith) to discard the excess starter every time I feed the jar.

And that’s where the first Lesson from the Loaf arrives in my bread basket.

  1. Science has a reason.

My kitchen scale is an old fashioned manual one. It requires a big plastic bowl into which you place your ingredients to be measured. Not that convenient when measuring 70g of flour and water. So… I skip the scientifically-sound advice to weigh the ingredients and measure them instead.

Thus far, the science is winning. My starters (more about why its plural in the next lesson) are a little too flaccid. One’s too thin. One too thick. I keep thinking the third one is ‘just right’ but it seems to be proving me wrong. Even though each starter seems to be achieving the requisite rise and fall, rise and fall, they seem to be lacking in their capacity to hold the rise in my dough.

Yup. Science has a reason — weighing the flour and water definitely outweighs my preferred (what I like to think of as artistic-expression) method of guess and measure.

Which brings me to lesson 2 and the reason why I have three jars of starter in my fridge.

2. Let go. (Why every lesson in my life is some for of the letting go one is a whole other story!)

The process of creating a sourdough starter is an exact science of weighing equal portions of flour and water, putting them into a jar, stirring and letting it sit for a certain number of hours and then repeating the process. Except, each time you repeat the process, you have to discard extra starter before adding to it.

Oh no, my facile mind cries at the thought of so much waste. I can’t let all that magic go down the drain.

So, I put the excess starter in another jar and continue on with the process (which if you remember Lesson 1 is somewhat faulty – yup there’s a Lesson 3 in that one).

Right now, there are 3 starters cooling off their maturation process in the fridge.

Thus far, the first two haven’t developed into spectacular bread results.  Third time lucky. Right? Maybe? Fingers crossed. (Unfortunately, there’s little magic in crossed fingers and third time lucky can also be a strikeout.)

Which brings me to Lesson 3.

3.  Accuracy matters.

Fact is, if the first steps are inaccurate, the results will also be inaccurate.

Somehow, my mind has trouble with this one. I mean, I almost followed the steps. Doesn’t ‘almost’ count for something?

Apparently, in sourdough starter making, that’s just not the case.

Sigh. I really did hope I’d be able to get away with pushing the boundaries just a bit.

And Lesson 4…

4.  Do Not Give Up. (even if you think you’re failing.)

I am still working on mastering this art. Right now, as I type, I have a loaf in the oven. I just took the lid off the cast-iron pot it cooks in to allow the crust to bake all golden and crisp. It is not as beautiful as I would have liked, but it’s definitely an improvement on the last loaf.

Which brings me to Lesson 5 from the Loaf.

5.  Find the lesson and the pleasure in the act of creating.

Yeah. I know. It would be easy to get all frustrated and huffy and tell myself ‘what a colossal waste of time’ or one of the critter’s favs, ‘you are such a loser’, but seriously, where’s the fun, or the compassion, in that?

Nope. I’m going with savouring the experience, learning from each attempt and growing in my art, and discipline, as well as my sourdough baking skills.

It’s not about creating the perfect loaf (yet). It’s all about learning and growing through the journey and savouring each moment of creation.

Namaste.

 

Life’s Eternal Nature

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The earth has turned in its orbit around the sun, shortening the distance for its rays to travel to the northern hemisphere. Spring is in the air with its promises of new life.

I welcome Spring’s embrace. I welcome the longer days. The warmer air. The buds bursting with the potency of life. The green grass appearing between winter-dead leaves. The river running free of ice. The birdsong filling the air. Robins hopping on the grass. I welcome Spring’s poetic frenzy.

Spring is bursting forth here at the leeward edge of the Rocky Mountains. The breeze blows down off the slopes, across the foothills and into the still quiet streets of the city. People are out and about, keeping their social distance (mostly). Traffic continues to be light. The pathways are full of bicyclists weaving in and out of the pedestrians who walk in single file trying to keep their distance.

We are a winter city. We know how to hibernate. To bundle up. To protect ourselves from the cold. To stay busy inside while the north winds blow outside.

When spring arrives, we doff our winter parkas with joyful abandon and don lighter gear. En masse, we head to the great outdoors or at least the closest pathway, to savour the change in seasons. One thing we winter-folk know — spring is short. Summer ends too soon. Winter will be upon us again. You gotta savour the sun and warmth while you can.

This year is the same, yet different. Doffing winter gear brings with it the need to keep ourselves protected, not just with sunscreen but with masks and latex gloves to protect us from an invisible bundle of proteins.

The great outdoors have shrunk to city limits as people are asked to not travel too far. Suddenly, mountain towns that welcomed visitors with open arms have closed their gates to keep ‘outsiders’ away. Mountain parks are closed and favourite trails are inaccessible.

Change is constant, even though we humans chafe at its presence.

No one knows for sure what the future will look like, but we do know, it will be different than yesterday.

Different doesn’t mean worse, nor better. It just means, things won’t be the same.

It’s how we handle ‘the different’ that makes the difference palatable in our lives.

Baulking at its presence doesn’t change its presence. It just changes our experience of the present.

Spring has arrived once again with its invitation to welcome new life into our world. In its warm embrace, I am reminded that all things are in a state of constant change as we travel on this planet around the sun. That is part of life’s eternal essential nature. Nothing stays the same.

Whether I like the changes, or not, doesn’t change change. It just makes change more difficult to navigate when I try to keep everything the same.

I am learning to live with the ever-evolving landscape of a ‘new normal’.

Nothing lasts forever. Not even Spring.

 

 

 

 

 

Staying Home Matters

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I have begun a new morning practice. It takes but a moment yet, I already feel its impact.

As soon as I awaken, before I get out of bed and begin my morning rituals, I say a little mantra to myself:

“Staying home matters. It is my contribution to help heal the world.”

And then I take a couple of deep breaths and get up out of bed to begin my day.

I am very specific about my language. For example, I do not say, “I am doing my part to fight Covid.”

Fighting suggests a battle, and I do not believe ‘fight’ language is conducive to creating the necessary changes we need to create better in the world, let alone peace of mind and a gentle heart within to help us navigate these times. We’ve had enough fighting, greed, abuse to last our lifetime. In fact, if we don’t do something different, if we don’t turn our thoughts from ‘fighting’ one another to collective caring for one another, we risk losing the battle of our lives on planet earth.

Saying, ‘let’s fight Covid’ is kind of like saying, ‘let’s fight climate change.’

It isn’t climate change we need to fight, or even can fight. We can activate our collective power and will to change our ways so that climate change does not continue to create devastation around the world. As the saying goes, ‘You cannot change the wind. You can change the set of your sails.’

Which brings me back to my morning mantra.

I need to say it for my mental health. Every morning. I need to remind myself that staying home is an act of empowerment. It makes a contribution. If staying home matters and I am actively engaged in staying home, then I matter too.

See, I’ve been feeling a bit helpless. A bit like a bump on a log.

Unfortunately, that also means the inner critter is taking the opportunity to leap into the fray and hiss silly incantations of self-destructive possibilities at me. You know, things like, “It’s okay to go out to the store and to do whatever you want. I mean really, Louise. You’re in day 54 of self-isolation. You deserve a break.”

I try to tell him that Covid isn’t taking a break but the critter mind doesn’t care. When he senses my feelings of being disgruntled and unsettled, he only wants ACTION — any kind of action will do so long as it eases the strain of my disquiet. Unfortunately, his idea of action includes things that cause more harm than good. Like checking the news every few minutes, charting the statistics, reading doomsday articles and allowing myself to slip into overwhelm.

It also means he’s been rather vocal with his exhortations that I  ‘Do something.’

Of course, being a whiner, the critter mind doesn’t actually know what the ‘something’ is. He doesn’t come with solutions or ideas. He just arrives in a cloud of self-criticism and complaints about how I am not doing enough, along with his litany of faults that destroy my peace of mind and sense of worth, if I let them.

Which is why I have chosen to create a morning mantra that reminds me that I am doing something that matters.

After several days of repeating my mantra when I awaken, I am finding it a powerful tool to battle the ennui and despair that, if left untended, threatens to creep into my body and invade my well-being with every breath.

“Staying home matters. It is my contribution to help heal the world.”

Say it with me.

“Staying home matters. It is my contribution to help heal the world.”

Repeat often.

And breathe.

Yup. Breathe.

Calm, measured breaths.

Breathe.

A calm you creates a calm world all around you. That calmness ripples out into the world creating waves of peace and harmony.

Keep breathing. Keep repeating.

“Staying home matters. It is my contribution to help heal the world.”

Thank you for doing your part in helping to heal the world. Together, we make a difference.

And I’d love to hear any daily practices you’ve initiated to create harmony, joy, peace in your mind, heart and world.

Namaste.