Then and Now

From a recent morning run, I stopped and gently lifted this snail to the grass in the direction it was headed.  It reminds me of myself these days...slow and steady and a lover of shells.

It has been a long time since I have visited these pages.  Coming back felt hard, and I felt deterred many times from entering this space again.  What would I say, where would I start? I even thought of starting all over, at a new address but decided that this space was not done, that there had simply been a pause.  And so I begin again (again) starting with a  summary of then and of now, a glimpse of the months in-between.

A new job after an 804 day sabbatical. 
The ebb and flow and tides of this new season of life.
Running the dark city streets, alone,  before the sun began to rise until I lost my nerve. 
Closing on the sale of our old home.
Joining a gym to take the place of the lost nerve.
Tears of doubt.
Lost days that I did not own.
Longing for a garden.
Joining an herb guild.
Taking classes about herbs and fermentation and cheese making.
Finding joy in juicing fresh concoctions of vegetables, herbs, roots, and fruits.
Volunteering at a music festival with my sister.
Planting pots of lemon balm, thyme, dill, basil, scented geranium, heirloom tomatoes, and pink vinca's to fill my need to nurture and for green and for life.
Joyous moments of gratitude.
Two half-marathons ran with my brother.
Long hikes through the mountains on warm and humid weekends.
A long labor day weekend at the beach spent reading, sketching, and relaxing.
Learning to play golf (and actually enjoying it).
A birthday celebrated with loved ones and cake.
Trying to recognize the person in the mirror with new lines and droopy eyes and to make peace that the person staring back is really me.
Running the dark city streets, alone, finding new nerves and resolve.
Giving myself a birthday gift, Creative Spark, taught by the inspiring Tara Leaver.
Unearthing something that was misplaced and learning new methods for play.
Always searching for the light.

Day Eleven: Favorite Things-Questions

My unfinished mixed media painting answering the question, What Brings You Light?

I like questions, more so when I am the one asking them than when the tables are turned.  It almost always makes me feel like a spotlight is shining on me and unless I really feel comfortable with the person asking the question, it feels too much like a test and pressure and my mind goes blank or blurts out goofy answers.  But when I am the one asking the question of myself, well that feels different and illuminating and the question becomes a path paved with my own truth. 

A particular question that resonates with me is What Gets You Out of Bed in The Morning?  I think that while the core of the answer may stay the same, it can also change as your life changes. When I first read this question I wrote it on a sticky note and posted it directly on my computer so I would be forced to answer it every morning before I stumbled blindly into my day.  I never could come up with a good one-liner answer either.  I loved this question so much because I had the hardest time wrapping my head around an answer that was true for me.  My answer was a run on sentence of sorts.  And as I was doing a lot of self-work at the time this question then became What Do You Want to Accomplish Today? One particularly blue day when I felt lost and unanchored the question  evolved to What Brings You Light? 

For days and even weeks every time I came across a word or phrase that described what brought me light I cut it out and placed it on a large square black foam board.  I loved watching the words accumulate and build into their own mosaic story.  And this question is a re-set button of sorts for me, a reminder to seek the light and the things that bring me light when I feel overwhelmed or that darkness is encroaching.  I still have not finished this piece either  I assembled all the words in the middle of a swirly sunshine and I think that each swirly ray will eventually be covered in answers to this question as well.

What Brings You Light?

Here are a few links to other questions that I have also found helpful:

http://personalexcellence.co/blog/101-questions-to-ask-yourself/

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Martha-Becks-20-Questions-That-Could-Change-Your-Life_1/1

Day Eight: Favorite Things-Awareness

It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.  Henry David Thoreau

Morning Run:  Fall Light flooding the Earth

This life goes by so fast and it is easy to get so caught up in to do lists and in tomorrow and next week and even yesterdays that we miss what is right in front of us.

A wild flower pushing up out of the cracked concrete sidewalk teaching us lessons of resilience and determination and beauty in unexpected places.  A shimmer of light higher in the trees indicating fall is here.  The look from a pet, child, lover or friend as they stare at us in longing that goes unnoticed. 

And it can be just as much what we don't feel as it can be what we don't see.  We don't feel gratitude because we feel scarcity because everything is  moving so fast.  We don't feel love from the pet, child, lover or friend because we are so busy getting from one thing to the next until we fall into bed and get up and start all over again.

I did this for years.  Oh every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of what seemed to be a still life all around me, a parallel universe of sorts and when I saw it I was often filled with a longing that scared me.  At times (even still)I have an all or nothing personality so I had a hard time incorporating down time and rest and awareness in my old routine.  It is now a part of everyday and it too helps ground me in the present and be thankful for this very moment.  I take daily walks and runs and purposefully listen, look, smell and hear all that I can about my surroundings. 

This evening, or tomorrow morning, or on your your way to work, or to the coffee shop, or lunch please take the moment to see life differently by doing life differently. Make a conscious effort to put away the cell phone or book or radio or i-pod or whatever it is that is distracting you (pacifying you), and just breathe and listen.  Listen to the hum of life around you.  What do you hear?  Are those crickets?  Can you hear the rustle of fall leaves through the trees?

What do you smell? Could it be the earthy and dusty crispness that comes from cooler weather and the leaves changing from green to gold? Is it bacon wafting out to the street from the open windows of your neighbor during a morning walk? Or is it your own cup of coffee you are savoring quietly and with intent on a little corner of carpet with your legs crossed indian style as you wake up to today and all its possibilities? 

What do your eyes notice today that you have overlooked before?  Is the light flooding into the room at a certain tilt that always fills you with a particular happiness that you have not recognized until this very moment? What colors are filling the earth these days; what color are the leaves, what flowers are blooming, is the sky a particular shade of blue?    

Take a different route to work or leave at a different time.  If you work from home, then work from a coffee shop, café, or park for the day.  Or maybe you can get up just 15 minutes earlier and arise with the thought that today is a new beginning, a brand new day and all yours for the taking.  Smile at each person you come into contact with today and really notice them.  Get out of your head (I know it is so hard to do) and look all around you.  

I don’t guarantee this will change your life, just that you will be more aware of your life and present to it and that with practice a more active participant in it.

What do you do in your own life to practice awareness?

Day Six: Favorite Things-Photography

Another of my favorite things is taking pictures.  For me, photography is another way of connecting to the life around me.  It can be a sliver, a microscopic taste, a vast ocean of nothing or everything, containing the frailty and tragedy as well as the miraculous glorious joy of life.  It is a tiny time capsule created by a captured instant that catapults the viewer into a rich inner world of association, the interpretation created by the layers making up the viewer and their unique experiences and beliefs.

Most of my photos tend to be of nature, moments when I am out walking, running, working in the yard or traveling and are taken with a simple point and shoot camera or my cell phone.  I have not yet developed a knack for taking photos of others although I do snap quite a few of these too.  I generally create a folder for each month and save all the pictures I take to that folder, the exception being for special trip or excursions that have their very own folder. 

The pictures are a diary for me and as soon as I see them I am transported back to the moment, no words required.  Here are a few of my favorite photos.

What does photography mean to you?  Please feel free to share a link to your own work in the comments section below.

 

Taken with cell phone, field bathed in bright light

 

Taken with point and shhot camera, crooked creek

 

Taken with cell phone, summer clouds

 

Taken with cell phone, dogwood in bloom

 

Taken with point and shoot, walk along the beach

 

Taken with point and shoot, daughter by fortune and husband

 

Taken with point and shoot, creek bed from moutain hike



Taken with point and shoot, flower on mountain hike

Taken with point and shoot,

 

 

 

Day Two: Favorite Things-Meditation



My Sister's Buddha

 "Tranquility hides in small places ,and when found must  be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again." Diane Ackerman

 

I practice meditation.  Not often enough to receive the full benefit I believe is possible but often enough to know it can have a profound and instant effect on my mood and overall physical well being.  I don't subscribe to a lot of rules about it either, believing that there are different ways to do it and right ways and wrong ways for the individual but no one set universal way.  But that is just my take on it.  I meditate to relax, to release, to reconnect, and to calm.  Meditation raises my energy level which may seem to contradict calmness, but it is more a release of energetic endorphins I suppose, a feeling of glowing. 

 

My first experience with meditation of any form came in college in a Human Behaviors course.  Our instructor talked about time management and about carving time out for ourselves.  In retrospect I see that I had a ton to learn here had I just paid more attention to the lesson instead of the grade.  Being hard headed means that I have come to some of life's gifts much later than others. He was trying to teach us to seek out quiet moments for ourselves, so we could reconnect with the core essence of who we are, so we could recalibrate and restore.  I remember laying on the carpeted floor in his class room, lights out & limbs sprawling, as he talked us through relaxing starting at our toes and wiggling up to our eye balls as we relaxed every fiber of our being. I fell asleep at some point, just briefly, and jarringly woke up from that falling feeling where you "catch yourself" that feels like jumping out of your skin. It was amazing!

 

When I first began taking yoga I lived for the very end of class when we would gather in a circle, each of us sitting cross legged on the edge of our cushions.  Slowly we would breath in and as we released the breath we would release the tension with it gentling rolling our neck from side to side and releasing our shoulders.  And then came the OM.  In unison we would begin to OM, our teachers voice deep and powerful, vibrating outward to our own little OM's rattling in our chests until eventually it was one golden OM, no one's voice recognizable from another.

 

Sometimes I use meditation like a prayer to send out positive energy to those on my mind, visualizing healing and lightness of being for them.  Sometimes I look up You-Tube meditations that are guided and follow along. 

 

Right now I am really enjoying Toning. Toning is the creation of extended vocal sounds on a single vowel in order to experience the sound and its effects in other parts of the body.  I consider it meditation because it creates for me a profound amount of peace and energy, and I do it intentionally as a recalibration and cleansing...it feels like the vibrations from the sounds create space within me and release negative energy and feelings.  

The first time I heard of toning was in Diane Ackerman's One Hundred Names for Love:  A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing.  She described how she made these noises upon rising in the morning.  I was reading the book on a semi-deserted beach and decided to give it a try.  I immediately began smiling.  In part because I felt so silly, and also because I felt like a whale or dolphin calling out to her sisters in the sea.  It was the setting most likely.  I did some research on what I was doing after we returned from our trip and learned those sounds are called Toning.

 

Below are some tips on Specific Toning Exercises.  I typically just go through the vowels A-E-I-O-U as this is easy for me to remember without referring to any materials, but the intent behind the vowels is energy specific  and can help with specific needs. 

 

Vowels and Energy

There are many vowel sounds in the human language.

For toning we begin by focusing on several principal sounds. Remember, this is not a list of universal truths, just some traditional suggestions for you to begin with.

Vowel	Possible Attributes or Related Perceptions
UU ("who")	grounding, calming, relaxing, awareness of physicality, gives sensation of depth, base of spine
OH ("go")	conscious self-image, identity issues, solar plexus self-confidence, individuality
AH ("car")	centering, expanding, pleasant heartfelt emotions, gives sensation of breadth, heart area
EY ("pray")	self-expression, communication, listening throat and neck
EE ("knee")	energizing, awakening, mental and physical stamina, gives sensation of length, head
MM (humming, lips closed)	balancing, harmonizing and integrating, the subtlest and most powerful sound
Examples of vowel combinations for balancing and centering (to be vocalized as one continuous full-breath tone exhalation): "UU-AH-EE-MM" Balance and energize. Morning wakeup. "MM-EE-AH-UU" Balance and relax. Before bedtime.

Note: this is a list of just a few traditional suggestions to begin with. Your own awareness may be quite different; that's fine! These are just starting points. There is no "normal" toning experience, only "your" experience! With practice, your inner wisdom will guide you and tell you what vowels you need.

 

Do you practice any form of meditation? 

 

 

 

Stellar Debris

Bubbles, Curacao 2009

My name is Copper Penny,
child of turquoise waters and
indigo skies.

An algebraic formula of
harmonious delight.
Star dust fallen to the ocean;
Iron, calcium, and carbon
swirled in salty luminosity.

Alive and calm,
enveloped in a familial embrace,
the gurgle and echo of my own breath
a meditation sparking primordial memory.

Today is

Today is bright sunshine and cold blue skies with grilled pimento cheese sandwiches.  There are plans to see old friends and dinner with family later in the week.  There are lines of poetry rattling around in my head that are like those elusive dreams we wake from and I cannot seem to capture their luster as I reach for my pen and paper.  So I smile and let them rattle on, knowing sooner or later they will come out in some form or fashion; a conversation shared here, a letter posted there, or in a tear gliding down my cheek while contemplating the light and dark of the world. 

Commit to Memory...

  

  

All of This....

This morning I was struck with how very much I am in love with my life right now.  Somewhere between walking through the dewy grass and having my flip-flopped feet tickled, searching for four leaf clovers, telling Butters that the crashing and ruffling sounds in the woods were wild monkeys at play and catching the late morning shadow display on my kitchen window seal I was prompted to write this: 

Today if I listened

I would hear my own voice say

"If not now, when".

And

"It is ok that you have several projects

and works of art in process,

but you need to ask yourself

if you are exploring your creative options or

if you are running away from your greatness?"

And

"Sometimes greatness hurts because it
stretches you and expands you to the point
you think you may burst.  This can be scary, but it
is necessary just like taking a deep

breath before you dive deep into the water searching for

sea shells."

And

"Are you stopping one thing and jumping to another because it is getting harder?

Everyday is a work in progress,

everyday you learn more and push through

to greater understanding,

to deeper connection,
to less needs,

to the world around you is enough."

The splendor of light flooding through the window pane at 4 pm,
the hiss and hum of the air conditioner soothing the need for quiet,
the birdsong that is the background soundtrack playing throughout the day.
Letting my hair air dry,
Wearing an apron
splattered in paint as my
new uniform of choice.

All of this.
And the space and time to write this down.
All such beautiful gifts.

A Thrill to Rest My Cheek To

The first time I heard Etta James sing At Last I was struck mute and motionless except for a single tear that dropped down my cheek.  I was a teenager shopping in a local store with my Mother.  The store was narrow with high ceiling fans and hardwood floors and somehow these surroundings combined with her velvety voice made it feel all the more romantic to me.  I told my Mother then that if I ever got married, that I would dance to that song at my wedding. 

Nine years ago today my husband and I danced to that song.  I remember that day like a beautiful dream that came true.  The memory day strikes me with tears and gigantic smiles alike.  That day...it was perfect....and I continue to pinch myself even now that I was lucky enough to marry my friend and sweet love....the one that captured my heart when we were children riding bikes and climbing trees...the one that got away but would not let my heart go....yes that one.

Playing with Words

I decided to incorporate words into the Sun Painting (that I am still working on).  I gathered the words and placed them on a black foam board I bought for the frame work of the Seahorses (they should be framed by the end of today!)  The other evening I decided to group the words together in preparation to adding them to my painting and the words started revealing the most beautiful imagery.  I would scoot a word here and a word there and form these stories and even mosaic pictures from the word shapes.  Now I am am having a hard time finishing the sun painting because I am attached to these words.  The thing with creativity is you never know where it will take you.....words for my painting became a poem of their own, the opening for lines for a novel (perhaps), and the inspiration to begin a project that has been in the dark long enough.

Strolling down the geranium bathed sidewalks
I find kindess water offered at the
corner of incarnation and fiction.

What an adventure in solace
this heirloom light
awakens.

I dance across pools
of wild cosmos
lingering under the mosaic moon
while you write suitcase poetry
from the Shangri-La gardens.

Dear Future Self

Earlier this week when I was having a really great day I flipped ahead in my journal to almost the very end and wrote my future self a letter.  You see I have been having enormous shifts lately in perspective, mood, emotion, focus, self esteem, in my home and in my relationships. You name it, it is shifting.  So while I was having this great day where I felt like nothing could possibly bring me down I thought I had better write my future self a note because she was going to need it.  I also thought with all of this shifting taking place I may lose sight of important goals and activities that help ground me.   The funny thing is that I was having such a great day that I think that I wrote to her a little too far in the future because the next day I sure could have used her advice.  That really great day that I was having was followed by three days blazing downhill.

Today has been another great day however.  Ordinary really, but trust me after this roller coaster that is exactly what I wanted.  Just.Ordinary.That.Is.It.  And in the stillness it came to me. Why not send your future self an e-mail or two or 30 for that matter.  Just quick one liners like..Are you doing things for YOU or for other people because when you please yourself at least someone is happy.  I read that somewhere this week and loved it. This may sound selfish but for someone that almost always thinks of how something will effect everyone else before I think of how it will effect me, well this is big.  Or how about....It has been about 28 days and that may be why you are craving chocolate more than normal and crying while watching a butterfly float by.  I mean I do love chocolate and I am tenderhearted but trust me some of this is just hormones too.  Ones I really need right now...This too shall pass.  All of this is just a cycle and you are headed in the right direction.  Think the best of people, that is really who you are and that is really how people react to you when you do.  Have you worked out lately?  Remember how much this gives you an instant mood lift?  Pizza is good for you and makes you happy...maybe today would be a good day to treat yourself to a slice. 

What do you do when you are in a funk and need a reminder that life really is good?  I hope that life is so very good for you right now.  I know it is for me, but like I said my future self may really need a reminder.

Here comes the Sun...

After three whirl-wind days infused with sunshine and spring like temperatures in which I cleaned and organized, and cooked, and painted and generally went about life in a sing-song fashion, I find myself slow, quiet, and feeling partly cloudy. 

I woke up this morning to bright sunshine and had my coffee early while writing about a strange dream I had last night.  Then Alan and I made breakfast while acting silly, (my favorite ingredient for cooking) ate, and chatted for a while.  Later I started looking into how to invest my 401K (insert: read too much about annuities and if I would ever be able to retire here) and all of a sudden I realized it was no longer morning, no longer sunny, and I no longer felt like taking on the world much less getting out of my pajamas. 

Since I could not have sunshine streaming through my windows, I figured I would turn to some of my favorite blogs for inspiration and a little sunshine through someone else's eyes.

• Look at this bright and cheery artwork found on Brene Brown's Blog.
• I love this handmade book that Shona Cole has created.  It is a mixture of her photography, poetry and collages.  She has so many beautiful DIY projects that she shares on here as well.
• Going to give this creativity mix from 99% a whirl later on today..not sure if it works yet or but I love hearing new music.  I like to listen to music when I paint and play in my office.
• Oh I love this...I found it in my favorites but cannot remember the original source.  It shows the sunsets and sunrises for your city/area everyday.  It is a wonderful reminder that the days are becoming filled with more light by just a few minutes every day.

Wishing you much light today no matter what the weather is like outside.