Spring Fever

UNCC Botanical Gardens & Greenhouses

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago on an outing to the botanical gardens and greenhouses of one of the local universities.  The sites, smell and weather were amazing that day and made me long for my own land to dig in again.  Even without my very own land there is much to be thankful for and in awe of as the city comes alive this spring.  

Here flowering buds are bursting on the red bud, cherry and flowering pear trees and shoots of green are breaking through the dark earth and on many of the limbs of bushes and trees.  The clover has returned in full force causing me to pause in search of a lucky clover when I am out and about or on a walk with Miss Butters.  It is amazing to just watch the world around me change day by day.  

This year is moving quickly and I can hardly believe it was 4 months ago when I last posted, and what a ominous post that was since I have spent much of the time since then healing.  Ocular migraines occurred around the first polar vortex and kept me in their grips for 11 straight days.  I finally went to the doctor and thankfully after multiple trips to the eye doctor, medical doctor and several blood tests and an MRI later found out that there was nothing wrong.  The only thing I can determine is that maybe these were caused by the barometric changes in the atmosphere.  In the wake of of all of this was worry, frustration and severe eye and body fatigue.  

Just as I thought things were back on track an unexplained pain in my left hip has occurred that is just as mysterious.  I am on week 5 now of this issue and no amount of stretching, icing, hot baths, turmeric tea, or ibuprofen has provided sustained relief.  Last weekend I sobbed and could only see loss and fear. Loss in the knowledge that I was not going to be able to run my upcoming half marathon I had been training for (my first 13.1 trail run) and fear that I may never be able to run again or go on the many hikes that Alan and I have talked of for this spring and summer.  This weekend I see more possibility and despite the pain feel stronger and am trying to see this as an opportunity to concentrate more on art and writing while I heal. 

Begin Again

 

The smell of cedar

awakens the memory of Self-Reliance.
The similarities between poplar leaves
and manta rays could keep me
occupied until eternity.

I don’t know when I will stop crying

or what the ancient pyramids of Egypt
look like at dusk.

After 9 months of freedom

I do know how to cook.
I know now that I can always
begin again.
 

Healing will be a lifelong journey.

Sometimes...

Sometimes we are carried and
sometimes we carry.
Other times we float along hand in hand.

Sometimes a simple song from before
is sung in a new voice and
old words become new.

Sometimes old words reminds us
how wonderful life is.
How wonderful that you're in the world.

making everything new.

Miniature Tomatoes and Moving my Body

Fresh picked miniature tomatoes, hot from the sun and full of flavor

I am sitting at my desk eating a lunch of delicious raw vegetables and hummus (the miniature tomatoes from my garden taste like they came from Eden) and catching up on some internet browsing.

The recent internet browsings that resonate the most with me today:

• About building a new relationship with your body and with time  http://www.jenlee.net/home/a-week-of-good-things.html 
• This poem..oh my goldeness.... http://emmatree.blogspot.com/2011/06/evening-morning-stillness-flight.html
• This is fun.... http://oneword.com/
• Below average.... http://sivers.org/below-average

 This week I am continuing the 30 Days of Something and find I am pushing myself a little more.  I am still trying to make up my mind about how I feel about this pushing though.  At the beginning of the month I was walking outdoors/indoors, practicing yoga or some type of intentional body movement for at least 20 minutes.  Since last week, I am working out for 10 minutes doing various upper body, lower body, core body, yoga moves or weight lifting and then walking and running 30 minutes. 

I am new to running and really to exercise in general.  I ran all over as a child as well as roamed the neighborhood on my bicycle, but my teenage years were tumultuous to say the least and also the time I started smoking.  I did not play sports in high school and am not generally competitive in that nature so even if circumstances were different I don't know that I would have gotten into sports at the time.  I can be competitive against myself, but it is just not something that generally feels good to me when others are involved.  Flash forward to my freshman year in college when a bunch of the girls on my hall talked me into signing up for intramural soccer.  The first person that I knocked down (by accident) caused me to completely stop and I gasped and helped her up as I apologized over and over again.

In college I also worked out quite a bit at the Nautilus (a local gym) for one year as we were able to sign up for a gym membership and use that as our PE credit.  I enjoyed that because I did compete against myself and it was also the strongest I have been, muscle wise. I took up yoga in my late twenties and followed that for almost 2 years but then got distracted planning a wedding and then my yoga teacher closed his practice and followed his dream on moving to Colorado.

I would like to think I will become stronger now then I have ever been, even stronger than my 20 something self and since starting the 30 Days of Something  I have noticed a few shifts:

• I no longer want music or television or any sound on around me.  Previously I turned on music videos or watched the ticker at the bottom of the screen on CNN and got caught up with the news.  I used all of this activity so I would not become bored.  Now I just feel my body and listen to my breath.  
• I am understanding more about pace.  Monday I felt like I should change my pattern from 30 minutes of walking/running to seeing how long I could sustain the running and asking myself what is hurting first, my legs or my lungs/heart.  
• Now that I don't smoke I find that I can excercise longer and can actual build the intensity.
• Distance is beginning to trump time.  Tuesday I decided to stop measuring the time I was walking/running and to start seeing how far I could walk/run.  I did just over 2 miles in 35 minutes yesterday and today which doesn't seem like much if you are a runner, but for me I see it as an accomplishment.
• Today as I was running I found myself counting to twelve over and over and over again.  It was my way to push through on the run, a form of distractionto help go just a few seconds more before I had to reduce the intensity and return to walking. 

Overall I have a great sense of well being since beginning this challenge and think it must be all those happy endorphins that are being released.  Yeah to happy endorphins I say!!

So on the one hand I have a better sense of well being and know that I am gaining strength (my ultimate goal) and on the other hand I wonder if all of this is just mindless and wasteful.  I am literally running in a loop (on the treadmill) and counting to myself for 30+ minutes.  I guess eating is a different form of running in a loop as well though...you have to keep doing it over and over again to live, and breathing is the same, and really all of life we are running in some kind of "loop".  Maybe what is different is acknowledging it, seeing this pattern for what it is and realizing that even if I was outdoors hiking, if I did that everyday it too would become a loop.  Hmmm.... 

I really do love this 30 days of something challenge as I have now started working out everyday and I know it is possible to make it happen.  There are some other things I really want to make happen as well and the Universe has sent me so many prompts today to begin...to put one foot in front of the other and see where it takes me....to give answer to the questions that are holding me back in other areas of my life. 

Begin is such a green word for me.  I visualize it as a delicate shoot pushing through the earth...a vine reaching for the light... new life pulsating in rhythm to the sun.  I think I will begin by organizing my room and making way for new creations.

What are beginning this week?

Retreating to Quiet



On Saturday morning I took these pictures as I was watering the flowers and plants out front.  I had waited 5 days for rain to come (it rained late that afternoon-after watering) so I had to go rescue a few more delicate plants.  I love the quiet in the morning and I love being outside watching the world and seeing all of the insects go about their life. The past days and weeks have been busy. Sometimes more mentally busy than physically and that mental business can really tire me and so I go quiet and retreat within.  Time outdoors for me is quiet and meditative in that I pay attention to all the details around me instead of the chatter in my head.  I water a little, pull weeds, pinch back a flower here, clip a branch there, fill up the bird bath, see a little dragon fly flitter by, watch the clouds change and feel so much calmer and in tune with the world (the real one) around me.

We are headed to look at more homes later this afternoon, or rather neighborhoods.  We look at the neighborhoods first and then decide if we want our realtor to show us the homes. Keeping my fingers crossed on one in particular.  We have also been spending time moving things around in our current home to make room for our in-laws and their two fur babies to move in later in July.  It feels a little topsy turvy right now but they are great roommates (we have all lived together before) and I know once Miss Butters (and me) gets acquainted with the new sounds of our home she will settle right in.

I have also been striving to move my body in some way everyday as part of the invitation that Elizabeth made to do something everyday for 30 days.  The weekends have been the hardest part but I am really loving this invitation and I am feeling the results both mentally and physically.  The strange part is that adding this to my day has challenged me in keeping up with my other creative work.  It seems I simply cannot do everything and still enjoy it all so I am embracing just the movement for now (30 minutes or more of daily activity-yoga-walking-running-my own funny brand of aerobics and stretching).  Perhaps once the daily movement becomes integrated into my everyday life I will be able to incorporate some of the other creative work back in or perhaps some days will be dedicated to body work and some to creative-hand work.  I love that I get to figure it out as I go along and for once I am not feeling that I have to have all of this figured out or that there are actually rules to what what I should (or shouldn't) do.  Yeah for freedom!

Speaking of freedom, I do have a few paintings still in process that may just get painted over too.  That is an area where I am still learning to loosen up.  I also have a few paintings in mind that I want to do that involve robots.  It seems when I have an intention to paint a particular subject that something else pops up all together different so it will be interesting to see what comes out of the robots intention.

What are you up to this week?

Word Whispers

This morning these words were whispering in my ear....

I am not the piece of furniture that others see as old and ugly and abhor.
I am not the brokenness in the cane of the chair that needs fixing.
I am not the rug that needs to be cleaned or the reason that it is soiled.
I am not the reason you are out of sorts like a rubber band stretched too far.
I am not even the fresh-picked basil that lends the lively taste to the baked ziti,
(But sometimes I would love to be the cheese)
I am not the illness inside of you any more than I am the medicine that allows you to regain your strength.
I am not the lawn or what the lawn will look like months from now when I am gone.
I am not in charge of every holiday much less the universe.
I am not really the reason that you smile even though I would like to believe it to be true.
I am blue, green, and gold with a patina deepening along my edges.

I hope some part of this resonates with you and you too will recognize what you are not and how deeply your truth resides beyond the superficial.

A Brand New Day

Bee balm blooming in my garden

Wow, it has been a while since I did the last blog post.  Between feeling kind of off kilter (something is going on in the cosmos), helping plan for my niece's graduation party (it was so much fun) and looking for a new home (anyone have a miniature violin to play for me) I just have not felt up to writing a post.  When I think about it though it mainly goes back to feeling off kilter and not wanting to complain. Why should I complain when I get to spend my days generally doing what I want and at the pace I want?  What is there to complain about, right?   

There has been this crazy question running through my head for two weeks now (longer really but I chose to acknowledge the question within the last two weeks) that is also adding to this off kilter feeling that I am having. It is some variation of What are you doing with your life or What are you going to do with your life or Who are you going to be when you grow up....I keep responding I like what I am doing now and I keep hearing my inner thoughts tell me that this is just a break, not a way of life.  Then my mind skit-daddles down this slippery slope where I berate myself for having six months off from work and not having figured this out yet and for not having created a sustainable stream of income doing this (living, creating a life, gaining strength).

When these thoughts come up and steal my breath like a sucker punch to the gut I try to regain my breath and my footing.  And in my mind I stand up a little taller and plant my feet firmly hip width apart and tell myself this: You are exactly where you should be and This is not a race you are running but a life you are creating and Step by step you are building and creating it and adding and subtracting to it.  I remind myself that I really do get to make this up as I go along and there is no secret formula but a mixture of laughter and tears and a pinch of humility and hopefulness among other things all rolled together.  Breath in, breath out. All of this helps me not to give up and to give in. 

Could I concentrate more on one of the many things that I am doing these days?  Yes, I could.  But I really do believe that all of this together is the current formula I need and is adjustable.  I am enjoying painting and writing and gardening and cooking and being a personal assistant of sorts to name a few things.  I do want to concentrate more on the writing, however I have felt a little too fidgety for writing lately and have allowed that restless energy to pour into other areas  that needed attention. 


More than anything I am practicing (another great word for trying) finding the possibility and potential in each day and finding my internal rhythm.

Harmony

Photo Source

This morning I sought harmony; a balance, neither light not dark, but perhaps a shade of green.  Green for growth, for life, and for energy.  I sought a haven where all of my parts and thoughts are welcome and present, nothing right or wrong, just present.  These were my thoughts as I realized that today was the day I must start meditating.  Not thinking about it, or planning to do it, or trying to do it and finding excuses.

It took me 2 hours......  

First I needed to write and pour out thoughts that were floating around in my head.   I then attempted to do a seated meditation.  Our dog, Butters, jumped up on me wanting to play.  I took her out for a brief walk.  Then I read some about anxiety and meditation in order to get receptive to the idea again.  I again attempted a seated meditation and again was disturbed by Butters. So I went and got her a raw hide bone which I think is the equivalent of sticking your child in front of the TV. She was mesmerized and focused. I closed the door to my office and tried again.

 I did three different seated meditations, two concentrating on my breathing and one allowing myself to be aware of all the sounds and sights around me while still being aware of my inner self.  I was getting there but still not feeling quiet and relaxed enough.

Then I thought, why not look for a guided meditation on You Tube.  Ta Da!  I also decided to lay down instead of sitting up. My feet were planted on the floor with my knees about hip width apart and palms facing up and my head was resting on a pillow.  This felt the most natural and with my feet planted and knees up.  I not only felt rooted to the earth but also felt there would less chance to fall asleep.  At one point, towards the end of the meditation, I did let the knees rest together and that felt perfectly fine too.

I really enjoyed this guided mediation.  It is right at 14 minutes and concentrates on the chakra's.  The guides voice was soothing for me too. At first her accent was distracting but that went away quickly as I was swept into the breathing and focus inward.

Here is the guided meditation that I used today if you are interested in trying it.