Filed under: noticing the beauty, self-portraiture experiment, why not give it a try
in my last post i mentioned my tendency toward being a rather unforgiving boss (to myself)…
and the shift that i will now tune into is the fact that i am (in fact) a pretty damn good employee.
and who is it after all that i am working for, if not for the good of the world.
so in that vein and with the counsel of many who have gone before me…it is with intention (in this month of my birth) that i will focus on the beauty that i bring to the world…and i hope to share glimpses with you, dear reader…with hopes that you will be reminded of your own.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.
Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
All day and night, music,
a quiet, bright
reedsong. If it
fades, we fade.
~rumi
Filed under: creating, playing with photos, self-portraiture experiment, student being
playing with this notion of
balance
trees continue to be powerful metaphors
teachers
who know the vitality of rootedness
and what are roots
but that which allows the tapping into life
into that which sustains
into the grace that lies beneath
allowing branches to strengthen
to endure the cold of winters
to bloom graciously in the springs
to flourish in the radiant summers
to surrender in the falls
of life
dynamic
is this being rooted
and it does not seem to have a destination
but rather seasons
Filed under: self-portraiture experiment
Heretics listen here
wow… i am realizing how difficult it it for me to admit that i am tired…it as if i fear if i admit it it will hold more power over me, and maybe there is something to that…but i am feeling the need to get it out there…so there is it.
and with that, i am okay…(as if you need to be re-assured that when i admit weakness)…
it has been an intense time. my heart is heavy with much (as if my bearing the weight of it all will change anything)…dear friends who are headed for divorce…sick family members…daunting, job threatening cuts at work…we could all have our own long list of those things that are broken and need fixing…and i continue to bump my head up against the reality that, no matter how hard i try, i do not have that power…over my life or the lives of others.
and thankfully i am learning, trusting, waiting, breathing. listening. getting more and more prone to focusing on that which i am thankful for…even welcoming the challenges and being thankful for the great teacher they are…with open hands.
i recently realized (on the other side of a slow and evolving move away from the christian tradition) that with that evolution i dissociated with the practice of worship. i realized that i crave that…a great, full body and mind surrender to something bigger than myself and my finite realities. it has been so good to re-tap into this desire (and need) in my yoga practice and mindfulness practices…trusting that which is unknown and shifting to receive it as good…or simply just as it is…after all what is it that informs the notion that our experience can be that easily categorized…
so with that i rest in being tired and call it what is…in this moment…offering myself grace and welcome even in this space and giving thanks to the universe for its bounty.
last week i began participation in a circle of women entitled “on becoming a woman”, organized and facilitated by this amazing woman.
the first months circle was framed by the hope to take time to revel in our mystery of being women. an opportunity to ”acknowledge and savor the many gifts we bring to this world as women”…with hopes to “surface the many “secrets” and pieces of wisdom that women can and have passed on to each other”…
this gathering will be an important part of my path.
i had a rainy, slow morning yesterday and with it a chance for the prior night’s conversations to do some work in me…
as i realize i continue to toil in my efforts to get it right…to be “enough”…and the way i desire to live and inform other women’s lives in becoming women is to listen to and live out of the wisdom we have known and held as women.
fruit does sometimes manifest from toil and labor…and with that posture it is sometimes hard to receive it…it is also also available NOW in rest and welcome…it is ready and ripe…
my hope is that i can offer myself the grace to receive it, to welcome it, and to surrender to it being born.
birth happens despite us… there is nothing one can do to stop it…despite us…birthing emerges in its own timing. it swells, it contracts, it urges, it hurts, it opens. it is grace. my hope is that i can live in a posture of welcome, with all of its messiness and mystery. tapping into the wisdom of the ancients that is in our dna as women…
it is damp and cold today and we have our wood stove burning. i have moved closer and i am reminded of that wisdom…do you remember…when it was that easy…when we found divinity in the fire…the giver of light, warmth, energy and life? there is something really freeing to tap into in that, as trust seems to get so complex…knowing all that we know and don’t know.
i am comforted to rest in that, next to the fire… “reveling in our mystery”.
but i arrived in full on active labor…the laboring woman was AMAZING…i was truely in awe.
two and half hours after I arrived she was pushing and the baby was not liking it one bit…same pattern as her first that resulted in c-section…and before we all knew it she was rushed away to have surgery…
literally as soon as she was wheeled away i heard my phone indicate i had a voice mail…it was justin saying that our wee one was in trouble…he was thinking about bringing her to the emergency room….panic.
so regretfully i had to get in the car and head home, without seeing, loving, and affirming amazing mama and welcoming baby…it didn’t at all feel right to leave…
i entered in so deeply into her labor and then took off to the next emergency…(which indeed was also a bit unnerving)
so….apparently one of my break lights is out…and on my way home from the hospital i was pulled over.. and apparently my registration is 150 days past due (bad assumption that it is due the same month as inspection:()…so i was summonsed to court. (are you laughing yet)…
(when i briefly explained the situation to the nice officer he said…”while i go do some paperwork, why don’t you get on your phone and call your husband and tell him about 911…not nice…
the good news is selah seemed to fair very well that the evening upon my return (there are many variables to her pain that i will not get into now…) but she was up from 2:30-5:30 very much uncomfortable…we got in the tub together, rocked, and took lots of walks with her in the sling (i am eternally grateful to a skunk who we got 5 feet from, who did not spray us…that may have been the straw).
we brought her to the dr.’s the next morning and she is ok….nothing life threatening….and i too am okay…(after a brief breakdown upon my arrival to my office on monday afternoon) and some good processing in the meantime.
…if i didn’t know better i would think the universe was trying to tell me something…
(to which jess inquired…”what do you think the universe may be trying to tell you?”)
hmmmm….i think the bottom line of the universe’s message goes something like this…
“even when you are rooted in and living out from the most powerful, embodied, at peace with your self and your place in the world space (as seems imaginable)…(as that’s how i was feeling at the end of the retreat)…
it is not humanly (or otherwise) possible to please and/or meet the needs of everyone/everything at any given time…
a good thing to be reminded of…as that seems to be an ongoing trap for me.
Filed under: adventuring, self-portraiture experiment, student being, why not give it a try
i am gearing up for this retreat next weekend entitled ”homecoming: a women’s retreat”… created and hosted by this amazingly inspiring woman: lael couper jepson… “an organization development consultant and coach who has built her career on bringing the art and science of change and transition to individuals, groups and organizations“…
i anticipate much transformation will ensue…
lael asked me to prepare a bit of a bio that follows…
who i am…a human (woman, partner, lover, mama, daughter, sister, friend, seeker, adventurer, creator) emerging…
seeking to courageously navigate the rich complexity of the journey, while learning to trust and welcome the unfolding…
i have found a new kind of grounding more recently (however and always shifting)…what i like to think of as dynamic rootedness…feeling settled in a way i never have and also able to live out from that rootedness in a more flexible and open way…to this evolving, redefining, and refining process of living.
what i am doing in the world…in the midst of a season of much opening, for which i am grateful…
presently working with families and children who have been diagnosed with developmental disabilities, parenting two beautiful beings, experimenting with a homeschooling venture, cultivating time to nurture the urgings to co-create, yoga practitioner, in the midst of doula certification…
all framed in a deep desire to support others in discovering their boundless potential, power, and beauty.
why I said yes to “she changes”…in the posture of this season of brilliant change…as i daily intend much courage to continue to say yes…
in light of reckoning with my tendency to get caught up in and pre-occupied by the hurdles of life (primarily the internal deficits and struggles) vs. opening to the gifts that are i am finding freedom to encounter life as a limitless adventure…
consciously making peace with my being human…with my inability to maximize all values and hopes simultaneously…welcoming my “imperfection” and even seeing it as gift…
my saying “yes” to this time is a gesture of deeply welcoming the unfolding without judgment…consciously opening to the opportunity to continue to trust and grow for the sake of the world…
p.s. (registration is open until wednesday:)!
Filed under: self-portraiture experiment, student being, thirty days of thanksgiving, yoga
thankful for yoga…
it is such a grounding practice that has participated in my coming to peace with my being embodied, giving me courage to engage the world in new ways. it also simply reminds me to breath.
i resonated with parts of this podcast on speaking of faith (a conversation with seane corn)
Filed under: adventuring, playing with photos, self-portraiture experiment, thirty days of thanksgiving
thankful that “it’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone
“…
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”
—Marianne Williamson
Filed under: poetry, self-portraiture experiment, thirty days of thanksgiving
thankful for the time being now…
Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time for you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
~ Hafiz
