Very relaxing

Just a little taste of a fall day here at Riverside. This is our last autumn here. I love the way the hard wood floors reflect the light. It feels very much like autumn here today.

I will miss this home when we move. It has been a place that has loved us as much as we have loved this home. So many friends have come and gone through the doors. We have crossed over so many life thresholds...

My Birthday 2006

What an crazy and wonderful birthday. We put our house up for sale on the morning of my birthday. I thought that would be kinda cool. Reflecting the change we hoped would be possible for the coming year of my life.
Wow. We had a full price offer almost before the sign was in the ground. A trip home to Indiana to see my family and experience the fall weather is just what I need now. Now that I have to soak up this whole moving thing. Ahhh. How exciting. What a year its going to be. I can feel it coming.

Learning to Fly

The big girl here gets up every morning and faces the day with a positive attitude and confidence. I am here to assure the doubters, quell anger, and manage all the little trival details of a day. I am here to make things happen and I believe in my ability to do so.
But the litle girl inside of me is hesitant, afraid of failure, still scared of loud yelling voices and people who insist they are right. This little girl still feels nervous when she meets new people and has to make it through auditions of her worthiness in a new crowd. This little girl still wants to cry when things get overwhelming.
My birthday approaches and I reach my annual tradition of celebrating my life's journey. Its time to look at my life and decifer this year's mantra from the puzzle piece of my days behind and ahead. Still Growing. That's this year's Birthday mantra, I believe. I might be all grown up, but inside my human psyche there is still a heart and soul still growing wiser, more mature, and more aware of the complexities of life on planet earth. :)
I picked up a book off the bookshelf this morning that I read several years ago, right before I took the leap away from another familiar place and into total chaos, for the sake of a dream. Learning to Fly, by Sam Keen, is a sixy something year old man's memoir of making a lifelong dream of flying come true on a trapeze. He talked about feeling freedom. A freedom he had not experienced since childhood days spent roaming in the woods behind his house. I understood how this freedom felt... it feels like peace. It feels like being in the right place at the right time. It feels like being who you are really meant to be. I know when I feel this freedom, I often feel it here, when I am writing. I feel it when I am lost in an art project that is expressing my soul. This year I hope I spend more time flying, and less time worrying about falling. I hope I am still growing. I hope I am free.

Tuesday Morning

Ever since I started this "blog thing" I have waffled around it. My days are crazy, and filled with stories fit for writing. My nights are often sleepless, and ripe for midnight moments with these keys, but I still haven't written much. Its ok since no one is reading it. hahaahah Its just a place to be. In my head, a place to sit awhile with other people who are also sitting. ahaahha
I'm not creative in comparison to the young souls I feel coming in behind me. I'm just moving at my own speed. And this is my life, so why would there be anything else for me to be, but me.

This morning my coffee is too strong, so I only sip it and think about everything that is trying to be in the little world immediately surrounding me. There is nervousness in the air, as our lives teeter totter on the edge of selling this house and moving. What's next? Can we get where we are going from here, or is there a detour into unknown seasons?

Only the ticking of the clock will reveal the outcome of this season. Until then I have only to focus on this present moment and what my heart is telling me. I think I will be doing a little bit more writing. I hope some of it ends up here.

beach

I was dreaming of a visit to the beach the other day, and it reminded me to look back at my summer vacation pictures. I can hear the surf.

Its not about what you have.
Its how you think
how you live
how you wear what you have collected through life.

lightening bugs

When's the last time you caught a lightening bug? When's the last time you at least THOUGHT about catching one? or remembered catching them as a child, staying up past your regular bedtime so that you could see the sun set completely.
Tonight the sky is displaying a lightening storm. Its not raining, just displaying... lightening ! in the sky and flying near the grass in my yard.
There's a field I drive by often, where the lightening bugs are too many to count. Its a spectacular site... thousands and thousands of lightening bugs maybe, and nothing but nature and trees surrounding the field. I always imagine to stopping my car to run through the field, and through the field of lightening bugs. I did stop one day to take a picture. You can't quite see the magesty that the field has...but I will share it here with you, and then you can go out and find your own lightening bugs. Don't wait. This summer will be over before we know it.

The night of a summer storm

These are the nights I live for. I can feel my heart. I can feel emotion surfacing in me that are archives from the days I didn’t let emotionally come to the surface. Emotions that have been pushed down in me for days, finally getting a breath of fresh air, and some acknowledgement from my soul.
My skin has the heat of summer in it. I sit here in my summer dress, carressed by the dampness one gets while moving through a June summer day. My skin is kissed with my own dew.
The breeze, as most always, is coming through the window and having conversations with me. The candle is lit, as it should be, and I am relaxed. This is my home of homes.
The only other time today that I have felt relaxed was when I stole to the back porch of the house to sit in a rocker with three year old Grace and watch the storm come in. That was beautiful. I hope I never forget it. It was a fairytale moment that I am sure I had dreamed of experiencing before today. Surely I had hoped for that moment long before. It was a materialization of ideals and photograph coffee table books. It was the scene from a beautiful movie. It was a tiny piece of my childhood, mixed with what I hoped for my own children someday. The thunder rumbled and the trees whispered of the coming rain. The frogs started singing out to each other.... and Grace laughed and talked about how the frogs were talking. It was real for a moment and I sat in a rocking chair and soaked it up.

Live in the Inspiration

My new mantra has been "Live in the Inspiration."
In fact I effortlessly found it dancing in my brain several days last week and realized it was a mantra for my life these days.

Within that moment I grabbed a nearby paper and scribbled it down. The paper soon landed smack dab in the middle of the wall in my dining room. Right where the blank wall had been begging me to hang a new picture where I had taken the old one down. The paper went right over the nail that was potruding from the wall wrecklessly.

Ahhh... I no longer had to look at that wall and feel disgruntled that I hadn't yet replaced the artwork. No more pressure. Just inspiration.

By the way... in the midst of inspiration, the wall was refreshed with the perfect artwork just a few days later. Ahhh... all in the moment of inspiration.

Life is so much easier when I remember to LIVE IN THE INSPIRATION.

What are You going to do with You?

"hmm?" I said, distracted.
And she looked up at me and said louder this time "What are you going to do with you?"

She is 3 and a half and is used to hearing me say "What are We going to do with You!" when she does something adorable or silly.

Her question was innocently copying my style, with no real intentions of alarming me. On this day it did alarm me though. I was already caught up in an inward state of tension and confusion.
Her question was piercing, and I thought about it all day long. What am I going to do with me!
hahahhah

dining in the "garden"

We had a marvelous dinner on the back porch tonight. After spending the better part of the day biking at Shelby, I was set to spend the rest of my Memorial Day weekend relaxing. I did little bits of nothing all afternoon. my favorite kind of piddling. Taylor got inspired by the Food Network's grilling special and started creating his own grilling masterpieces. He made mahi mahi with an original, sparky grilling paste that he concocted in the kitchen. It was spicy and suprising. I had never had such great mahi before. He also grilled corn on the cob, and made up another original- cajan cole slaw. Delicious... I sneeked three bowls before dinner! The dinner conversaton was mostly "ummm, ummm."
We sat under our deck canopy and ate ice cream and drank coffee until the sun went down. Then we watered our deck garden by moonlight and flickering candles. This is the kind of extraordinary ordinary days I love to experience.

It's all there already...tap in.

Its all there already…
already tucked deep down inside me
but I am in this process of pulling it forth from me.
extracting this gold from my humble and ragged life.

I just keep thinking
its in me.
its already in me
I need not be any more than I am already.
already
its already in me
I just keep thinking
that it comes up to the surface
when I fall into the beaten path and let life trample over me
that’s when I find the glory
I can’t pull it up
it comes up
when the day has grown old
and my eyes have seen much much love
I just keep thinking
I wish I could bring more to the surface for air
to breathe on the world
Its in me. Its already in me
How can I open up my soul wider
so that we can get more out of me faster
more! faster!
i want to give to the world
when I get anxious and excited and eager to pull up the love from inside me
that’s usually when I realize I have to walk away
and lay back down in the beaten path
let life trample over me
let people come to me
and before I know it
I see it all again
water
flowing up to the surface of the ground
it comes fast and high and covers the land
until we all rush to tap into it and find a way to spread it around in little containers

Someone please write me a permission slip

Someone please write me a permission slip!
Please tell me that what I am doing is ok.

Tell me that "being realistic" doesn’t mean I must place limits on the ideals.
Tell me that being truly being realistic is an unusual thing.
Tell me that being realistic means recognizing what is real.
Love is real.
People are real.
Emotions are real.
Dreams are real.
Give me permission not to ignore what is real.
Give me permission to go ahead … already knowing that being openly honest has its own sacrifice
Reality doesn’t always feel comfortable.
Reality isn’t predictable
Reality’s rules are negotiable.
Give me permission to accept this and still embark on the challenge to be real.

Anonymous Conversations with Creation

Sometimes I close my eyes at night and communicate with the universe. Everything inside of me comes alive as it cannot in the day. Every bit of laughter, emotion, love… comes to rest in one place, at one time. It is then that everything collides and we arrive in the middle of eternity.
Do You understand?
Everyone born has understood at some point…but few have developed the endurance to hold long conversation with the whispering voice .
When I sit in a coffee house drinking… I look around at the many faces and wonder who else is pursuing the truth with me. There is not always a marked distinction… faithful hearts are often quiet until the divine moment when they are sure to speak.
When the divine moments become visible to my blind eyes, I have words.
Sometimes I am willing to speak.
But more often my written words are kept.
For now, I just talk quietly with God’s universe, all of creation… every day, but especially at night when the world around me becomes quiet enough for me to be able to listen what is replied to me.
When I get up from writing, I will get busy doing many little things. I will ease back into something less intense and I may even wonder where these words came from. My present.. right now.. is an "unbounded place" somewhere between heaven and earth, where another kind of awareness guides me. Its nearly like dreaming while awake. When I stumble onto it, I try to hold everything in place for as long as I can. I breathe deeply and try to capture it inside me, for the littlest distractions can take it all away. It is a perfect prayer … its as if all my senses understand the world perfectly for a moment. The music I hear is in tune with my soul. The air smells intoxicating. The breeze around me takes my breath. Its divine. Its even quite euphoric. But eventually my mind drifts and I can’t find the intuition. I am not as sure. I continue on, content in the daily life, and have patience, because I know that this higher meditation will eventually return to me.
I am apprehensive to share anything that I have arrived at while in this state. Its clearly so intimate, concentrated… real life is magnified to a clarity that is hard to understand in ordinary time. Its odd for me to read my words in the sunlight, in the morning, when life is clamoring all around. These words were born in a sacred place. It makes my stomach churn to think my words could first meet someone in the blinding sunlight, exposed in the daytime… in a place so far from the perfect peace it was born into.
I want to know…When people have things to share with the world… how do they release it all? When the spirit breathes into me, I am overwhelmed ..and some of this breath is exhausted. How does one embrace all that comes with letting go? How does one let go of "self" long enough to speak to those who are wanting to hear? How can speakers speak? and singers sing? writers write? to anyone who wants to hear….. for, there is someone out there who wants to receive what the presenter gives……. But it may only be one person. Can one accept that they may never know why they felt the insistence to say what they said….may never know if someone needed to receive what we had to give.
And is difficult as sharing with the world may be… it is sometimes easier than with one person. Its not as hard for me to give to the larger whole when the inspiration hits me. I feel a greater sense of hope that someone out there needs what I have been inspired to reveal. But what about when I stumble on the words in my head for one person?
These words are being written with a direct destination to you. Why? Right now I don’t even know how you would ever read them. Why did these words come to me just now?
I did feel connected over a distance once before. I remember I was One in a Crowd. I was One inspired. You graciously shared a portrait of yourself with strangers and acquaintances when you sang and when you spoke. You spoke and I responded. I couldn’t say anything out loud, but I responded. Something inside me had a craving to be doing what you were doing. I wanted to sing and write and speak OUTLOUD too. I wanted to join in. I really wanted to be a part of something larger than myself.
Along the way, I have learned discernment but I may have compromised my fearlessness. Suddenly I find myself holding back where I would have been running forward. I am guarded. I question myself where I once belive. I think maybe I shouldn’t speak, shouldn’t write, shouldn’t give my joyful creations, shouldn’t be …. Is it unnecessary shame? What am I ashamed of. My self? My thoughts? My words? My desire to be more than I feel I deserve to be? What keeps my from giving freely where I feel God has invited me to be ?
People stroll through our lives and teach us things. People become mirrors in which we recognize ourselves. I don’t idolize you. I distinguished something in who you are trying to become that makes sense. You had the chance to speak . I wanted to speak my words too. You let go and made music. I wanted to sing out and make music also.
I may learn to write songs for my sole ears to hear. I may forever speak quietly with the universe. But I will keep pursuing my truth. I feel my strong spirit begging me to try and find some unknown strength in my body. I know I can someday run further than I am today. I just don’t know how yet.
Do you understand me when I say ..
I am completely satisfied with today, but I could not be satisfied if I was not expecting manifestation tomorrow? Even if you could no longer express your self, would you still seek to understand what others try to capture from your expressed honesty? Do you look people in the eyes and wonder if they will ever see as deeply into their soul as you can at that very moment? Do you desire more than anything to be a catalyst that dares love on earth to purify? Would you still write even if you knew you would never be able to openly share your thoughts? Do you find that the people and beliefs that you run from are the shoulders that carry you farther? Do you see farther than the shoulders you are sitting on and wonder who will challenge you again? Do you revel in the same world you are seeking to leave behind? Are you a contemplative that loves to sit with the crowds? Do you find that no matter how far your heart travels, the answers remain as true as before? When you paint pictures of what you want to be in the end, are you able to blur the lines into pure color and form and still see yourself defined? The inspiration you so desperately seek is Fuel… where do you want it to carry you?

I look for others who engage in conversation with the universe….with God’s creation. I don’t necessarily need to find answers…I just need to communicate in discourse with all LIFE around me. I am praying so that God will be able to lead me to more discussion with all He has created. I find that I am attentive to those who are willing to speak on behalf of this longing in all of us. The place where the questions are formed is also where the answers will be found. I haven’t discovered all the questions and I am still delighting in the mystery of the answers.
I feel that my name and my identity as an individual is so trivial within these words. I want to exchange words, without speaking with this voice I know so well. I want to lose my daily identity and dive deeper into the identity that I share with all people and with everything that God created. …..no one needs a given name when having conversations with the universe. For a moment, it doesn’t matter the color of my hair or eyes. I strive to become more complete in the day time. But at night when I turn out the lights I find my perfection in the stillness.
I try to be wise whenever one of my crazy ideas comes to mind. I am full of crazy dreams and aspirations. My playful side is so fanatical! I try to be cautious but sometimes I feel I am stepping forward with agonizingly slow steps… other times I just go! And let my ambition lead. I want to try… even when I don’t have full confidence. I want more of life! I have to be wise. I have to be honest. I have to listen to some of my wild longings!
I remember the honesty you had in your words. And your fearlessness. How were you able? It irritated me… challenged me.. dared me to find my words … and so I am looking tonight.
In my literature class this year I read SorJuana. She corresponded with different religious/political leaders and challenged their teachings and rules.. I loved her works because they were letters. Not just written and lost… they were sent to someone else to read and tear apart, or argue, or soothe. Her words didn’t just vanish…. And they didn’t just sit and wait for her to die. Her words always had a destination.
Would you still write if you knew your words had no destination?
I don’t think I could. I always write to an audience. I really haven’t delivered much to an audience… but when my words go onto paper my heart speaks to a particular person or people in spirit. Yes, my words always have a destination. Usally the destination is in another place and time far far away.…a place I imagine getting to someday.
My collection of words is waiting for me to arrive in readiness. But I’m not ready. I may be choosing this hesitantcy. Maybe I am waiting for another moment of divinity. In the meantime I am looking for a place for the words to ripen while they wait patiently for me to arrive in their aspired destination.
I am looking for a roundtable. When I arrive in the midst of the questions and the answers, I want to rise above preconceived expectations and answers and see the world beyond my eyes. I want to ask new questions and find old answers again. And new answers. Many dislike my questions. They want to strike back with answers they have heard others reply. I want to know what we haven’t’ heard yet. They have already decided on answers for me and all of humanity. I want to see more. I want to ask more questions about the people who are trying to embrace God. I want to understand where heaven and earth meet. Why do so few know the ecstasy? Why do so few know the grace? Are they seeking truth or comfort?
If you are already certain you know who I am, that’s ok. I don’t care if you have a picture in your mind. I don’t care if you know my name. My core is rich and flowing. My external identity is shaken up by my suroundings. That’s why I love that words capture both our soul and our stories.
I want to explore words with someone who is far away….someone I won’t run into… someone away from my life, and my activity, and my busy-ness. I want to forget the details and share words. For then, the words can be written only when its needed. The words can avoid the unnecessary and let the questions and answers evolve …but only if they do so naturally. Words are borne when they are ready. My daily life is not as simple as my quiet time with God. My outward life has a hard time keeping up with the purification of my soul. I have no eloquence.
You are far away in distance, but I sense that your soul is searching near mine. I quietly invite everyone to the discussion….. but most can’t hear my invitation… it is whispered by my soul.
But now, with words, I invite You to this discussion…... to correspond .. about your own quiet conversations with life… What do you do with all of your words….. they have a dream destination don’t they???? All words beg to be heard someday. What do you do with them while they are waiting to be spoken… where do you hold the words you use to write songs. Who is there for the process? Who asks the next question? How are you assured of your divinity?
Words are meant to communicate….. they speak and they wait for a reply.
The first words Speak out…. and wait for a Reply…the Reply then speaks again … and waits for another Reply…. A cycle of exploration…. A processes of gaining clarity… an effortless process….randomly dotted across time… happening with the life that beats around the words. What happens if there is no process of evolution? Do the words just die?
Relax and see what leads you….. the answers and the words always come naturally or disappear … if given time. If your thoughts and words need a place to go… they will find a way.