August Moon 14: Day 3 -- Loving what?

Day 3: What do you love? Today we’re going to delve a little deeper. We’ve had a think about what it is that we do. Now let’s make some space for what we love. Say someone found all of this evidence many years after you’d gone: what conclusions would they draw about the things/ideas/people you loved? Angels watch over us in our great room, perched on the high ledge over the wood stove. Most are my mother's collection; a few are ours -- one from a grateful client. Angel chimes sit near them atop the built-in bookshelves. They make me feel connected to the Universe and to those we cherish.  A bouquet of mostly floral teacups surround a pretty floral teapot in our china cabinet, and sad to say, they are all mostly unused. The teapot was a wedding gift to my parents and has a few mended cracks visible, casualties from my childhood. The cups are from my grandmother's, great-aunt's, and my mother's collection, plus a few from my former mother-in-law, and I love them all.  That cabinet also holds white curved twin Red Wing Pottery vases -- another inherited wedding gift that somehow escaped breakage. We rarely have flowers because our two kitties like to nibble on them, but the connection to the past and my parents is strong there. Books are everywhere: old ones, oft-read childhood ones, the brown leather and gilt Shakespeare from my childhood displayed in the great room shelves along with a few china knickknacks and some handmade birdhouses. In the salsa-colored den on the white woodshelves that cover one whole wall -- the bulk of the collection, arranged by non-fiction subject and fiction alphabetical author, at least mostly. Colorful covers pop at us -- trade paperbacks mixed unashamedly with  jacketed hardcovers and somber Bibles and hymnals. It's our personalities in there, a pretty accurate representation of what we love to do, love to read, and who we are -- or at least were at some point. Our newer interests rest sedately in the Kindle cloud, unseen by eyes other than ours. And that, I think, is a loss of sorts, although I love my Kindle. Magazines too, in stacks waiting for periodical files; on end tables waiting to be read or finished; in baskets by the bed and my favorite reading chair.  Cookbooks are crammed into a built-in kitchen niche -- worn church and service club collections next to the ubiquitous red-and-white Better Homes and Gardens, A much-taped-up recipe file is stuffed with computer-printed samplings and long-ago hand-written recipe cards. My mother's and grandmother's recipe files rest in a cabinet nearby, and when I pull one out, the handwriting always brings them into the kitchen with me: Jule Kage and fruitcake cookies and pecan shorts every year at Christmas, especially.   Two paintings, one from each daughter, are almost the only non-photographic art on our walls, although our bedroom also holds the Holstee Manifesto which reminds us every morning as we get up about what is really important  Otherwise we are surrounded in every room  by photographic memories of events, trips, scenic vistas, and a few taken to illustrate my freelance articles that are particularly interesting.  There is no planned decorating in our house, other than coordinated, rather vivid, wall colors of red-dirt clay (although my brother snarkily referred to it as 'dead salmon'), muted oak-tree-leaf green, salsa red, and a few lighter peachy tones -- colors that reflect the outdoor landscape where we live, so visible in the big windows that are everywhere. But a theme? No. Each collectible, each knickknack has a history and is something we enjoy seeing daily. Kindly put, our style is eclectic.( And probably not helped much by the 6-foot-plus cat tree and numerous scratching posts in varying degrees of shredded sisal that sit next to the scratched-patina leather chairs and mostly intact cloth upholstery and quilts and afghans and pillows. We like comfort. So do the kitties.) While we have many music CDs, we like the country quiet and seldom think to play music in the house. It's a broad mix: Grateful Dead, Loreena McKennitt, John Rutter, Vaughan Williams, Traveling Wilburys, Johnny Cash, Mark Knopfler, the Beatles, Broadway shows.  Our preference in television series and movies swings to drama, but often with a twist, and yet we enjoy the Pixar movies too.  We are both generalists -- we enjoy a broad range of styles, of subject matter, of content, of delivery.  We like things around us that mean something to us, although we are slower to eliminate things that no longer reflect who we are or serve our needs, probably mostly out of habit. We like comfort and warmth. We love the outdoors and the ocean -- there are many ocean photos on our walls. We enjoy the feeling of being connected to our past and to those we loved, and also to the greater Universe. We are hodgepodge,diverse, a bit unorganized. Eclectic.

Reverb 13, Day 10: Cultivating a life worth loving

1. Living life on auto-pilot can feel disorienting and dull. How did you cultivate a life worth loving during 2013?

How can you turn off your auto-pilot button in 2014?

2. Inspiration | What inspired you this year?  How do you think this will impact the year to come?

1.  Being mindful and present is hard work and not always a lot of fun. It means you are living right here, right now, with all the issues you may be encountering and the emotions they bring up. It is easier to escape for a bit, immersing yourself in endless games of "Candy Crush Saga" or "Bejeweled Blitz," or lurking on Facebook to see what is going on that is far more interesting than what is going on in your life. 

You can fritter away a lot of time this way. And then look back at the day and wonder where it went, that day of your life that you can never get back. The day you spent chasing stupid colored balls and squares, or following links to pictures of people doing stupid or funny things.

I've done my share of that this year. 

But this year I also have actively worked on creating positive energy within nearly every day. Well, at least often. I have deliberately taken days off when I am feeling overwhelmed to read books and magazines and newspapers, or to take a drive in the country with my honey, or to sit outside and pet kitties and marvel at the symmetry and beauty of nature and where we live, even on the hot days of summer . I have plowed through tasks, housekeeping-style things, like cleaning cupboards -- sometimes just one shelf a day -- or sorting through books that I no longer need or use, or tidying a drawer. Small things eventually reduce large tasks to something manageable, and help me feel as though I am moving forward.

Within those small tasks, though, is time to think, to be with my emotions and fears and issues, and not be overwhelmed by them. In that work, there is resolution as well. And getting out from underneath that constant list of to-dos is liberating, allowing me to do things that bring me happiness without the underlying feeling that I SHOULD be doing something more productive.

At least that works for me. More of that in 2014.

2. I addressed this with yesterday's post, Day 9. But there was one other person who inspired me: a woman who is a dynamo volunteer and business owner in our community, Jessie Woods. She is also a neighbor and a friend who helped me learn to create positive energy within myself, to look at what my gut tells me, and to move forward into positive action and thought.  Her lessons and therapies and loving concern helped me get through some big stuff with minimal fear, and gave me tools to sustain and nurture that energy within myself.  When this student was ready, that teacher was there, and I am so grateful.

Connecting to spirit

The energy work I've done/am doing in preparation and as post-operative treatment for my surgery is very spiritual for me, connecting to a Universal energy that thrums deep in the earth as well as in me.

The mountains that we see from our house remind me daily how powerful and all-encompassing that energy is. The trees, the birds, the red dirt, the greening of the meadows -- all these emphasize how energy is within us and all around us, and that it never, ever dies.

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”― Albert Einstein

Tony and I have had many recent conversations about energy and how it works within us. We ARE energy. What is within us does not die when our body does, so where does it go? What does it become? I have always liked Emerson's 'Oversoul' essay which I read as a high school senior, and it still explains best for me what happens to our soul, our personal energy, when the body is no longer needed. For me, it explains the inter-connectedness of everything living. Perhaps it is simplistic, but it works for me, and I can feel the connection with those I love now as well as those whose bodies are no longer on this earth. 

I am learning to take in energy, to receive it from the earth and from crystals, and from the Universe, and to make it move within my body and limbs. 

And yes, I know how 'woo-woo' that sounds, and that others will have other explanations for it, something that fits within what they perceive as logical and reasonable and practical. 

Thankyouverymuch. *smile*

But for me it works, just what I'm doing and what I'm learning from my beautiful, practical, amazing teacher Jessie.

A Buddhist proverb says that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. While I have known Jessie for several years, and indeed have experienced her healing skills, this time I knew that I needed her, that the only way I was going to get through the fear and anxiety that was threatening to take over my entire life was through her help. She agreed immediately to be that healing help for me.

In the process of practicing the energy work and going within, I also have been doing a lot of reading, and just completed Anne Lamott's new little book Help.Thanks.Wow: The Three Essential Prayers .I've loved her conversational approach to spirituality for a long time and have several of her books on my bookshelf already. This one really speaks to where I am now and what I need, how I talk to the Universe/God(dess), and I savored each section. I'll re-read as necessary...

I haven't called myself 'religious' for a very long time, but have always known that there is a deep spiritual desire and connection within me. There are things I miss about the churches I grew up in and attended as an adult: the communal worship, a lot of the music (which transcends any religion and goes straight to God/Universe), and some of the church activities I was active in -- choir, suppers, events, etc. SOME of them. Not all. I do not miss the politics of a big church, nor the judgmental attitudes, nor the guilt that sometimes comes with participation and attendance. I would be interested in a community of like-minded people who are not necessarily tied to one particular denomination or even belief system, but who believe in right action, right speech, kindness, gratitude; who accept energy work and reiki and angels as a part of the work we are all here to do, here to find and to share.  

I am so grateful to the people who have helped me come this far, and I embrace this journey here and now. I am beginning to be aware that this surgery on my foot was necessary, not just to fix my ability to walk, but for my ability to BE and to learn and to grow spiritually. Deep gratitude for you, my teachers, my friends and mentors. ~Blessings~

Bay area weather!

I'm hearing people complain about the cool weather we've had this month -- highs barely reaching 70 on many days, and lows touching the lower 40s at night -- far more like early April than like late May.

I love it. We actually had a fire in the woodstove Saturday morning and I expect we'll have another one sometime this week Now mind you, week before last we had a fire on Monday and were running the swamp cooler by Friday, although it wasn't really hot yet -- close to 90, maybe.

I'm still alternating between sweatshirts and teeshirts most days. Tony actually mowed and it was fairly cool outside a week ago, pretty much. I've done some garden work and it has been pleasant. No, it's not in yet, but the tomatoes wouldn't like these temps anyway, so I'm not stressing over it.

I expect that we'll explode into the 100s sometime within the next month, but even forestalling that by a month is a real blessing. I know the Midwest and South are heating up but so far, we're 20 degrees below normal on most days.

Downtown Red Bluff had a Girlfriends Day on Saturday and I hope it was well attended. I went with a girlfriend to HeartFelt Designs and ended up spending nearly all my time there, although I did get a lovely 15 minute chair massage elsewhere that only convinced me that I need an hour-long one and probably more than that.

But I also had a Reiki session with Jessie Woods which was very encouraging for me. I like angels -- I have several figures that my mother had, perched high over the wood stove on our plant shelf there, and I have always liked the idea of guardian angels. She strongly believes in angels, both human and spirit, and told me that I have several, including one large one nearby. She gave me some suggestions to ground myself every day in order to feel balanced and centered, and I'm trying that. It was helpful and I've felt good ever since. More positive...

And she is even my neighbor, which we realized only at the end of the session. That makes it even more significant for me.

Last night we attended auditions at Riverfront Playhouse in Redding for a new murder mystery musical play by Bill and Lisa Collins. Tony doesn't have the flexibility to be able to play at this point, but he wanted to observe, and there was a juicy role that I wanted to attempt. It was fun -- lots of good people, good readings, including mine. However, one of the things a director must look for is how people match up physically -- and I knew that I was an unlikely candidate when I saw the overall age and size of the auditioners. There is a another round tonight, but I'm not holding my breath. I had a great time, was very happy with my interpretation (and so were the directors, I believe), but I don't think this one is going to happen for me, and I'm good with that. There will be others. I got to see some friends from Steel Magnolias and see another Vagina Monologues actress who'd come to audition, and those were totally worth the trip!

Not very profound today, I guess -- but our life is in the details and in how you savor each of them. I like watching the clouds blowing in in preparation for more rain tomorrow, I like having the kitties climb in my lap wanting a snuggle, I like folding clean laundry and thinking of something good and nutritious to fix for supper. I do feel very focused and centered, thank you very much, and am trying to stay in the moment today.

Watch for the angels

The Daily Om, which I've mentioned before in these posts, today had a really lovely piece about angels among us. Basically, it says that "their words or actions may help us see ourselves more clearly or remind us that our situations will turn out the way they should, or they help us cope with with difficult situations.

And I needed the reminder that things can change quickly, that all is not angst and worry, and that the only constant is change.

Change.

Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. Nothing lasts forever. I know this is true.

It also reminded me that people come into and go out of our lives for reasons, and that our lives touch others either to learn or to teach. I've learned from and been sustained by the caring of so many friends over the years, most recently these past three months by my wonderful girlfriends (and some of their husbands too) in my little town. (Never in my life have I had so many friends who have been so supportive and caring! How blessed is that!)

I believe I've been put into situations in the past to teach. I've also learned a lot from others who I've encountered, some of them in such unlikely places! But I believe in the old saying: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I need to remember that there ARE angels around me and open my eyes to see them, to listen to them, to accept their caring and love. I need to remember to keep asking the universe for what I need for ME, and to be aware of the teachers who appear in my life to help me.

I need to have faith that my children have angels around them as well, and that when they are ready to see them, the teachers (angels) will be there for them.

When we ask the universe for what we need and want (for ourselves) -- I believe that we get answers: yes, no, or not yet. One of my teachers told me once that we should ask for "this, or something better" when we ask -- and I do. It works. Sometimes the answers come in ways you don't expect, but they do come. And I have always been okay.

Tonight I ask for clarity, for acceptance, and I offer gratitude for my friends and family, who surround me, flood me, with love and concern and caring. I feel it. Thank you.