When I Grow Up Part II: Forgetting How To Play!
In those days I ran around shoeless a lot! It was one of the few freedoms I knew!
I was a child…and children just needed to do what they’re told!
I grew up being plagued by these tenets! They haunted me during recess at school, on silent car rides home and times in between while I was busy forgetting how to play!
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up: Part 1
No one told me I could be a writer!
Or an artist, a creativity expert; a specialist in playing or an observer of internals worlds! In fact, no one told me that I could be anything I wanted to be in my own life. I don’t think we still explicitly tell our children that they own their life – do we?
Read MorePostcard From Prison!
This picture…one taken from a recent vacation is of the “Portara” meaning “the huge door” in Greek. It is what remains of a temple dedicated to the Sun God Apollo…you see just a brief glimpse of the sun in the middle of the door way before it set into the sea! The doors “in or out” are right here, in this very moment!
Tonight I met one of my best friends for coffee and dessert. It was good for me to get out! I don’t often do it. Not because I can’t, because I can and am well able to. I have an extremely supportive partner who helps me honour this great latitude and freedom over “time” I have given myself. So whatever it is I want to do with myself, my time, he is there for me 100 percent! Without sounding overly cheesy, I recognize with gratitude all the ways that he is there for me! This post though is about something else altogether!
So even with this freedom over my time, during this professional “time out” to recover from illness and time to be in stillness, why is it on most days I feel as empty and depleted and filled with dread…in my own magnificent self-made prison?
Read MoreLessons from the Road: Packing Light!
I made an observation while we were travelling last month. You see it concerns our luggage of all things! Now before you skip over to the next post, hear me out…there is a gem in here somehow like there is all things and especially ones that seem mundane!
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Letting go of “GOD” the word!
I want to share how this poem came to me with the intent of honoring the flow of creativity. I recognize it when its there and when it’s not…yet trying to invoke it or find it…I have yet to decipher that complicated formula. So this poem, came to me in the early hours of the morning …I had just finished writing another piece and knew that I needed to get to sleep! Two energetic kids would be jumping on my bed in a matter of hour or two and just as I was putting my head on my pillow, I felt the urge to write these words…“Even the word “God” seems irreverent somehow.” I stayed in bed for a few moments and then more words and an urgency to write it down before I lost it forever!
I wish someone had taught me to honor creativity when I was a little girl…before I learnt to fade out the yearning and the longing to create! I am grateful to have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and many more chances to discover it again. It’s reminds me of Rumi’s invitation in his poem, “Come, come whoever you are…” You can read more of it here. I believe that we all have this invitation without an expiry date to keep coming back to our love no matter how many times we have given up… on our dreams, our lives and our selves.
I write all this down to share and also to help me remember when I look back. In terms of the poem itself…it took on a life of its own once I started listening…it’s roots though lead back to a conversation with a dear friend and teacher who continues to help me in my work to see clearly! Thank you!
That which I called God
Is neither male or female
Black, white, brown or pigeon
Labels mean nothing to me
Even the word “God”
Seems irreverent somehow
When It is the reason that one life form can kill another
When some dominate
And forget the earth our mother
How can a word that points to something and everything
Also leave trails of blood and terror
Throughout centuries past and present
How could such a word mean love
When it also vibrates and resonates in the truth of the opposite?
I say,
Let’s scrap the word
Lets’ let go of “God” the word
It, he, she doesn’t care
Call it the sky, an ant, a pigeon
Anything but that word
Find instead, goodness everywhere!
And call it anything you want!
Holes In The Sand and Stories I Told Myself
This was a difficult and painful piece to write but even more so to share…
I have a dream.
I am 6.
I see me wearing my home-made underwear and playing on the beach in front of my ammamma’s (grandmother) house. I have dug a hole in the sand and I am trying desperately trying to fill it up with water but it keeps on draining into the sand. Maybe if I run a bit faster I can fill it up before it empties. I don’t like empty holes.
There are 3 photo albums my mother created especially for us…her three daughters. The one with the pink orchids on the cover belongs to my middle sister. The one with the picture of a huge tree in the front is that of my youngest sister by 4 years. The one with the 2 puppies sleeping in a basket is mine.
Read MoreTransition Blues: Learning to Swim in Half Cooked Soup!
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. –Anais Nin-
Back to writing! I have been struggling with over exposure lately! Every topic I want to write about seems to be tinted with something more personal than I feel the courage to share at the moment. It feels like I have been floating in half cooked soup lately.
Read MoreBeing Seen and Coming Clean – About Me Part II
A First Step – Being seen
A Second Step – Coming Clean
Except, I sort of started this journey…of coming into the light in reverse order! Order is highly over rated anyway!
My real first steps on this journey were baby steps. There have been many more steps since then…to getting here and coming clean. First I had to stop doing everything! I have been a “doer” all my life! It was easier to keeping going then to stop…that was until life made me stop! There is a lot that happened between there and here! During this time, I started learning how to stop, how to rest, to block out parts of the world, learn to listen to the inner voices and especially to the internal wisdom of my body, to heal, accept and yes…even to play! This still continues to be my work!
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Meeting Death At The Door
In his poem, I wanted to recognize the invitation that has been sent to our family. We are fortunate to have been told ahead…death has made his announcement …he’s on his way! We have been invited to get ready, celebrate life, say our goodbyes to a family member who has had 96 years to live and learn and love in this temporary place we call home. When that moment comes, may she turn to the light confidently and find her way back to her real home!
I feel death knocking at the door
The raven knows whose turn it is to go
Or is it to come
Come back to home again
Listen
The trees, the wind, the grasses all know
When a life is born
And
When it returns back to the flow
Yet we could also know
If we cared to see
To hear
To feel
The subtle changes in the wind
The way her breath moves in an out
The way her smile leads with a trail of doubt
When the eyes long to be set free
When food and life have lost their taste
When her connections here seem to be misplaced
We can know the time is coming and prepare
Celebrate her life, rejoice, not despair
Or
We can send her away someplace else
Pretend that this life here will never end
Behind walls and curtains where others alike
Have been sent to hide death out of sight
Death laughs at our childish ways
There are no walls, no cells to keep him at bay
Birth and death…they know just how to play
One leads, the other follows and then they reverse
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Getting Nowhere: When things don’t go according to plan!
All weekend I have been trying to get “things done”! The problem is that productivity, creativity and any kind of will seem have gone into hiding. I feel like I am swimming against the current or climbing a stair case leading to nowhere! I know that wisdom has left me some clues to pick up somewhere here but I just want to keep my blinders on. It’s like, I like the agony of pushing forward even when there seems to be a larger force pushing me back. What am I doing engaging in this self inflicted torture!
Read MoreBefore you know what kindness really is…you must lose things…
I first heard the words to this poem at a retreat I was at. It was read out loud after we had spent a few days of silence and going within. I don’t have the words to describe how it touched me and broke me open! I suggest reading it loud when you are alone to yourself. Maybe a few times to allow the words to really sink in….let me know how you make out!
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye (from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems)
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Castle Wisdom – Messages from a 13th Century Warrior!
On a recent visit to Denmark we decided to visit one of Europe’s best preserved castles. Egeskov castle offers a spectacular first impression! It’s stately presence dates back originally to the13th century, although its present form, was completed in 1554. It sits right in the middle of a small lake (moat) which is about 5 metres deep. Once upon a time, the only entrance was via a drop down wooden bridge. Strangers and uninvited guests were not welcome!
Read MoreMissing my kids and other insane stuff for those sane enough to notice!
So this is one of those blogs that started out as something and ended up as something…so I am putting it “out there” the way it is right now…what do I know? I am just the scribe! Thanks to my friend R for the lovely picture of her and her daughter. I saw it while I was in the “thick” of this post…you mirror so beautifully what took me an entire blog entry to get to…
The house is extremely quiet tonight! Our kids are at their grandparents.
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Construction Troubles Phase 1: Navigating Relationship Potholes!
I recently had a not so nice of an interaction with someone very close to me. Their identity is irrelevant for my reasons for writing this are not to point out their faults but rather to shed some light onto areas in my own life that need some fine tuning.
I was mad! Boy was I mad! Who did this person think they were?
Read MoreAn Ex-Corporate Junkie Comes Clean!
A seeker, a searcher, a sojourner on a path into the vastly undiscovered, unknown territory that makes up me, myself and I. Somewhat of an understated yet sometimes aggressive smartass who had to get lost to discover that she was searching. An ex-corporate junkie who for a long time was clueless and blinded by the "bling" of everyday distractions to notice all the hooks, the hookers or the hooked, never mind the artificial highs and depressing lows. Am I clean now? Read more About Me and keep coming back ...I’ll come clean!
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