Happy Merry!

The charming boys I am blessed to spend this Christmas with ...

Written on Christmas Eve, 1513

I salute you.  I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. 

There is nothing I can give you which you have not.  But there is much,

very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.  No heaven can

come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.  Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within

our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. 

And to see, we have only to look.  I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver.  But we, judging its gifts by their covering,

cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove the covering, and you

will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there.

The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.  Your joys, too,

be not content with them as joys.  They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering,

that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it; that is all!

But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together,

wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and
forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

~ Fra Giovanni ~

topaz ~ wisdom courage serenity

 

What the Day Gives

 

Suddenly, sun. Over my shoulder
in the middle of gray November
what I hoped to do comes back,
asking.

 

Across the street the fiery trees
hold onto their leaves,
red and gold in the final months
of this unfinished year,
they offer blazing riddles.

 

In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring, 
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.

 

Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin's difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.

 

~ Jeanne Lohmann ~

 

(The Light of Invisible Bodies)

 

Nice

My mom's name is Eunice.

I always thought it was a nice name,

and that it fit her, because she is, well, quite a nice person.

Plus she's a Minnesotan, and you know what they say about them...

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Recently someone who doesn't know anyone else in my family except me,

made a comment about my 'you-ness'.

I thought that was such a sweet thing to say and it kept rolling around in my head.

Then it hit me for the first time in my 37 years I've known my mother...

my Eu-nice!

It has been an enlightening journey discovering, honoring, and claiming

the parts of me that have the essence of her in them too.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Another friend speaks of all of what we receive from our birth parents as

fertile soil from which to grow.

I believe that to be true

whatever our current, past, or future relationship may be with them,

and that it's much larger than what the relationship is/was in the physical.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Oh what joy is to be found in simply witnessing our collective you-ness!

Instrumental

By chance, during a poetry festival recently, I had an enlightening chat about communication with an acquaintance's husband, who just happens to also administer the Myers-Briggs personality test.

INFP! I said,

and he proceeded to share this story of an exchange between he (also an INFP)

and his wife (not so much of an INFP)... 

"The path from your brain to your mouth," she said to him after a particularly frustrating communication process, "is like a french horn. Except sometimes something coherent comes out the other end, and sometimes it doesn't!"

... to which he replied:

"And your path from your brain to your mouth is like a well-greased trombone slide!"

With this welcomed lighthearted, insightful new way of see-ing each other,

they both laughed at themselves and haven't taken communication so seriously since.

With that in mind, did you know that 90% of communication is

non-verbal?

 Understanding my self, yet not attaching to who I am as a personality only,

so that I can stretch and grow outside of my perceived container(s),

as well as understand, inter-act, and respond with other beings,

rather than react to them,

this knowledge of my inherent nature is helpful information

in order to access the courage to joyfully practice my part in the musical of life.

In the same vein as music, the ocean as a metaphor for navigating life moves me deeply as well.

One of my favorite quotes from Sogyal Rinpoche:

"A wave in the sea, seen in one way, seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn't really exist but is just the behavior of water, 'empty' of any separate identity but 'full' of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something that has been made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize that every wave is related to every other wave."

~ ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

What instrument(s) do you practice playing?

If you're interested in your own exploration of the Jung-inspired Myers-Briggs test:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Also a good book I have read, which includes the test, is

'Please Understand Me II' by David Keirsey

It's not about the destination

Have you experienced how the anticipation of something can be so

much sweeter

than the actual something when/if it happens?

I've come to realize that this is so because the time leading up to something is what's actually happening, what's real.

Yes, I'm speaking of the trappings of expectation.

I was reminded of this with a recent experience with

the workshop that never was...

After signing up for a 2-hour workshop on Finding Balance, offered by two life coaches, one of whom is also a nutritionist, it was a sweet surprise when one of the workshop leaders invited a connection to self well before, through a question I was asked to answer 'for them'. In pondering this question, I had already begun to enjoy the class, and felt it was going to be $15 (I love Maine) well spent. It's a simple question about what would be most helpful for me to take away from the class, but what it did is became the medium for me to clarify my intention and bring me more conscious about my feelings around the topic of Balance.

After working through my semantic issue with 'finding' balance (for me, the word finding implies searching/looking for something outside of ourselves, something that we 'lost', whereas discovering implies becoming aware of something that has been there all along, but we forgot we knew. They both relate to awareness, so it really wasn't a deal breaker that they titled like they did),

I responded: I'm happy you asked. At this time I have two areas to share about that would be most helpful for me to take away from this class. First, I would like to take away memories of a good time spent connecting and sharing with others, in a healing space grounded in compassion and possibility. Second would be having the opportunity to come to a deeper awareness of how I interact with what I choose to put into my body, how I take care of/honor and listen to my body, and how this relates to the balance of my overall health and well being, as well as to my intention of living in harmony with all parts of my self ...

this or something greater ... !

Well, the class was canceled due to not enough people signing up. 

But as I reflected on what I had hoped to explore in the workshop, I remembered my ideas about the process around finding and discovering (housed in my initial resistance), and how we hold the answers inside of ourselves. A good teacher or class will reflect them back to us, but we have all the tools we need to at least begin.

My style of eating is on the healthy side and I am practicing tuning in to what I am really hungry for at times when I habitually reach for something to put in my mouth.

And since my style of eating has been doing wonders for my husband,

I began to wonder if what keeps me in the same place might be other things that I

put into my body,

that I 'digest',

that may not be nourishing it, or in fact depleting it of its good energy.

I started questioning what other unconscious beliefs might be blocking me.

No concrete answers yet, but I found a clue when I became teary-eyed

hearing how a dear friend put an affirmation on her young daughters' bathroom mirror

that reminded them of how beautiful their body is, inside and out.

I thought I had made friends with my body, but this

seems like a good place to (re)start.

A Sweet Slice of Fall

To me, this pie is so heavenly, I just needed to share the recipe...

(If she knew she was going to be photographed, she would have worn her fancy top...)

(I am hoping you can click on the pics to make them large enough to read clearer.)
(Instead of the 3/4 - 1 cup of sugar, I use only about 1/4 cup and then add some agave nectar, and I use half 'n half.

I admit I do not make my own crust. I use the Pillsbury refrigerated rollout crust.)

Mmmmmmm.......

Thank you, Rodney...

For this 'welcome to Maine' cookbook years ago,

For taking the time to teach me how to eat a real lobstah,

For your patience with me as I learned to hear you through that thick accent,

And especially for sharing who you were, and for being who you were without apology.

You remain an inspiration, and you are missed.

This pie's for you, I know apple was your favorite!

A Delicious Revolution

In the interest of completion and a pattern shift from letting things pile up, to creating space for fresh thoughts,

Some random ideas,

Each of which for me could be explored more in depth, and may be one day, but as I understand how the weight of seeing them in my drafts folder affects me (sends a subtle 'have to' message), I release them to the universe...

If there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now. ~ Bob Dylan

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

No matter what, you're either sitting, standing, or lying down ~ Byron Katie

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

Nocturne ~Jennifer K Sweeney

There is a blue city in mind
constructed slantways 

along a rippling canal,
clean and unpeopled but for a musician

who plays a harp without strings.
The city has one chair 

where he sits by the broad strokes of water.
A lone streetlamp casts 

a blue arc of light.
A Persian door. A zeppelin sky.

The world filters through
his empty frame as he plucks the air.

Maybe you hear a song or maybe you don't.
That is the choice we are always making.

(I donned my apron rather than painting clothes this morning...)

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

'Answers' arise following relaxation, and are most often 'found' in what we are taught to understand as hindsight... hindsight is simply wisdom that arises naturally, post-pushing,

after surrendering of the ego's will to 'know', and allowing the channel to the Divine within to open.

(my thought after hearing Philip Glass describe his creative process as something like 'Have you ever stood in the fog and at first couldn't see a thing, but as you softened your gaze, the outline of a tree appears, and eventually you see the complete scene.')

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

If you consider the physiology similarities, fear can disguise itself as excitement.

I thought I was excited to go up in the boomlift, but as we lifted higher and higher off the ground, and further away from the base, I was actually more fearful than I had realized. My process of calming down and feeling safe involved first not giving over to the fear (I did not want to get down), then stopping where we were and asking questions to understand the equipment/situation.

Afterward I wondered whether this incongruency is connected with my mom's labor being induced when she gave birth to me. If so, then is my true nature somewhat of a physical thrill-seeker, just on my own terms (don't push me)? Or is it about control?

Maybe the excited feeling was real and the fearful feeling represented my conditioning in the world...

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

"...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

~Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters To a Young Poet

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

 "The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow." ~ Jim Hightower

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

"In fact, industrial farming and fast food operate hand in glove, very much like a vast conspiracy. Together they suppress variety, limit our choices, and manipulate our desires by getting us hooked on sugar and salt. What we are calling for is a revolution in public education --- a real Delicious Revolution. When the hearts and minds of our children are captured by a school lunch curriculum, enriched with experience in the garden, sustainability will become the lens through which they see the world."

~ Alice Waters

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

A person was continuously sending up the prayer to win the lottery...

One day the Lord finally said

'I'd really like to help you, my child, but could you meet me halfway and at least

buy a lottery ticket?'

Home

A 3-week, 4600-mile road trip from southern California to

Home Sweet Home, Maine... 

(One of my favorite photos from the whole trip; Ray snapped this driving north from Bozeman, Montana, while the co-pilot/photographer was on the phone with her mother making plans to meet in North Dakota for a family reunion.)

Thoughts On Home

I believe that our ultimate home is a spiritual place we're all heading. However, as always, I find there are more layers beneath and within this belief...

I found a rhythm, a comfort, a homeyness within the routine of a road trip for those three weeks.

I reconnected with a certain rootedness as we went with my Mom to the farm where she grew up, and also spent some time in the places of my childhood, which led to some resolving of what my home was in reality back then and letting go of the idea of home I had thought I wanted.

A realtor distinctly referred to our current dwelling as having the feel of a

home rather than a house.

And being back, with my love, after being away for eighteen months,

I agree that there certainly is a difference between a house and a home. Even though plans are to move forward at some point from this home, I know I am blessed to be home, to be here now. I now know and claim that what I am blessed with is not contained in or restricted by these particular walls, though this home will always have a special place in my heart.

For me, home is an internal place which is not static, and I am discovering that becoming aware of the present (dual meaning intended) home rather than trying to attain some feeling, or idea of a feeling, from the past or the future, is where peace lies. It is to be who you are, wherever you are, so yes, one of the most difficult journeys we take.

On the other hand, home is just a word, yet I am reminded of how words can have the power to confine or liberate us. Perhaps home is simply a representation of personal experience in meaning and sentiment, and evolving through each phase of life naturally.

What does home mean to you...  is it defined by people, a certain place, a feeling, a time,

Is it heaven on earth, grounding, a place of renewal and growth, a sanctuary, comforting, safe, impermanent, 

ever-changing, consistent, elusive...

THE HOUSE OF BELONGING ~ David Whyte

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and 
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,

this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,

the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask 
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.