a good day for fears

it's halloween!
a perfect day to think about fears!

last nite the coolest thing happened.....
the fears inside me rumbled and jumbled and woke on up.
wow...they were havin' a whole party.

and i knew why!
and i knew they were ignited because of past stuff!
and i knew that they were over the top and i didn't need them!

but still...i had them.
just cause i knew all that didn't mean they went away.

and as i told him about them, i could see the two parts of me.

there was the part that's so taken with the idea of 'acceptance.'
that part was there with it's big printout with the word ACCEPT,
waving it around up and down.

and then there were the fears.
they felt like kids i just woke up in the middle of the nite who weren't
happy and were overly dramatic.

me and him have been thru a lot together.
a whole lot.
and some of it has been really really hard.
i think it would be a bit dramatic to say 'traumatic' -
but sometimes inside that feels close to the right word.

and if that stuff even threatens to come back,
or if it gets all stirred and touched on -
my fears leap right on up.
i know that. it's obvious.
and yet, i can't control that.
it just happens.

so yeah, there was the threat, and there was the leap of fears.

and there was the recognizing of them. the seeing them. looking at them.
understanding why they were there. and then telling him!

all of that stuff takes a ton of power out of them.
so much power that they can't get between us.
which is an awesome thing.

but they're stubborn things, aren't they?
i still feel their threads all in me this morning.
i can still feel them in all the corners of me.

but now........since they're not as powerful, i think i can play with the
whole 'acceptance' theme.

i honestly think i'll be beating that theme to death here.
cause i feel like i just woke up to that for the first time ever.
really woke up to it.

and it feels so power filled.
to stand there and say 'okay. this is the way it is. now what?'

it feels so strong and real and honest.

and this morning.......it feels like my fears are the sheet in the shape of
a ghost - pretending to be scary. walkin' around moaning a perfect 'boooooo'
but underneath? perhaps just a kid looking for candy. nothing scary at all.
just a part of me that's looking for something sweet.

traveling on.....

it was almost uncanny the timing of it.

okay.
it WAS uncanny.

i woke up thinking about something that i felt very tight about.
i certainly wasn't open with any sense of acceptance about it.
i wanted to just turn from it and not acknowledge it

i rolled over and grabbed my book. (yeah, mark nepo again...)
and opened to the next section to read........

'the gateway to acceptance.'

no kidding.
i grinned.
of course.

starting off with rilke......

'As soon as we accept life's most terrifying dreadfulness,
at the risk of perishing from it...then an intuition of blessedness
will open up for us...Whoever does not, sometime or other,
give their full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life
can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power
of our existence.'

woe.

do i understand why?
no.
nah.
not at all.

do i believe it?
yeah.
i think i really do.

and yet again, there's just too much here to type out.
so i'll just grab a couple of lines here that give the gist of what
he's talking about.

'In our modern world, acceptance is often misconstrued as
resignation, as acquiescing or giving up. In actuality, as you can see,
it is acceptance that makes right action possible....Accepting what - is
often lets us find our way thru difficulty"

i've been thinking a TON about acceptance.
and since i've been thinking about it, i've been noticing.....

i'm not real good at it.

like um......a whole lot worse than i realized.

and it just goes unnoticed.

so there i was, uncomfortable with something that was going on,
and wanting to just turn and not look. didn't even consider
the idea that i'd have to accept what was and go from there.

how often do i do that? i wondered.
just turn away?

it's time to start paying more attention, i think.

i'm just getting the feeling of how important acceptance really is.
think it's gonna rank up there with other words like 'honesty and trust'
and i'm thinking i've never paid nearly enough attention to it.

ahem.
well.
the time is now, i guess.

and the hard part will be seeing when i don't do it.
cause i think i've gotten pretty blind when it comes to this......
but how cool to see that i need to do this!
i can already see just noticing it making a difference.

oh yes!
and she traveled on.......

energy mixin' with that rain

so, to be clear....we're really not in the hot spot of danger.
we're just in the warm spot of inconvenience.

so that allows for the whole hurricane event to be laced with fun.

there is absolutely an energy in the air!

i felt it as i hopped in my car.
it was so gorgeous out.
i looked around at the leaves.
figured they wouldn't be so pretty in a few days,
and i should inhale them now while i could.

as i walked into the grocery store, i pondered a storm that was so big
it was sending the entire coast to the grocery store. how cool is that?!

as i whirled around the crowded grocery store,
i went fast and grabbed things here and there.

i had gone last nite when no one was around with noah.
we were driving up the road discussing what 'provisions' were needed.
i was dead tired so coffee came to mind.
noah! if we lose power, we won't have our coffee pot goin'!
we need some unplugged caffeine!

we laughed.
as we both decided if we lose power, we're taking naps and
we won't need the boost. hmmmmmmm........good plan.

this was a second run down..... as we now had a sore throat in the house.
some throat lozenges and juice and such and i'd be outta there.

a quick chat with the produce guy who saw josh at his kids' elementary
school the nite before. we joked and laughed about josh and his crazy talents
and i whirled on with a smile on my face.

wheelin' that cart around bodies all over the darn aisles, i zoomed around.
i saw a body in my path, whirled my cart in the opposite direction and then
heard my name being called.

i backed up and saw my neighbor standing there.

i laughed.
told him i just saw a body to avoid, not a neighbor to say hi to.

he wasn't sure what to say to that.

we ended up in line together catchin' up and swappin silly stories.
we hadn't talked in ages and it felt good to connect again.
there was plenty of time as the line was long.
but it had that holiday feeling.
who the heck cared?
we were all just there with the energy in the air.

out in the parking lot a guy called over asking what i thought the storm would do.
i gave a great whoosh of the arm and laughed and said i thought it was just gonna
go right by us with no problems.

he laughed and said he thought so too.
i smiled at his friendliness.

a woman came by who had smiled at me the whole time in the store.
she passed and waved.

what is it about the drama of a storm that makes us all come alive?
we talk to each other, we laugh, we offer help, we're more patient, more friendly,
more there.

and i love it.

meeting my man at the coffee shop later, he walked in with a smile on his face.
first thing outta his mouth was sayin' he just loved the energy in the air.

i grinned.

everyone was feelin' it.
and it felt good.

i've been listening to the rain for hours.
no big winds here.
just rain.
and i keep thinking about the size of this storm.

it humbles me, it frightens me a bit, it makes me come alive with awareness,
and this morning it fills me with gratitude.

good stuff

within hours after writing the blog below, i picked up david richo's
book 'daring to trust' exactly at the spot where he was tellin' me
how to do what i was thinking of doing in the post below.

sometimes that kinda timing just takes my breath away.

(you may want to read that post first if you haven't already)

there's too much here to type out......but i'm gonna snag some lines to share....

he talks about how learning mindful contemplation helps with the crisis stuff in life.
and i'm taking this and applying it to my fear stuff.

'We all construct a life narrative to condemn or exculpate ourselves or others.
From this story we form a fixed set of governing prejudices. They help us explain
our predicaments in life and get us off the hook about truly addressing them."

so to get by this he's talking of doing mindful contemplation, which he describes
in this part of the book.

 'We use our present crisis of helplessness to free ourselves from landing in a story.
 Instead, we move through our crisis into a new chapter in our lives.'

he talks of the challenge being to stay present in the here and now.

'The paradox is in the fact that going further into hopelessness can grant access to hope.
That is how contemplation is an act of trust.'

okay....that totally caught my attention.
cause it felt like it was directly tied into my thought of letting go of the fear,
you have to totally trust that you don't need it. letting go of the fear is an act of trust.
and what he talks of here sounds like the same deal -
if you can walk into hopelessness on purpose, allow yourself to be there without
fighting it.......you're trusting yourself.

and then he mentions the embracing stuff!

'When we unconditionally embrace our predicament, it becomes a threshold to
something new. The 'either/or' changes to 'both/and.' How? We do not jump into
the unexplored wilderness of helplessness brandishing the banner of hope and
declare it under control. We simply stay put in our helplessness, and that fidelity
creates the milieu in which real change can happen.'

and then he actually lists the steps to take that he's been describing as i read.
so what the heck, i'll give you the list. maybe it'll make sense even if you don't read
this whole section and maybe it'll help me remember it!

1. Inhabit rather than withdraw from the weakness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

2. Recall the same filling state in earlier life.

3. Affirm that you are now mature enough to deal with it.

4. Say yes to the given that we all feel this way sometimes.

5. Stay with your feelings until a shift into serenity occurs.

6. Open to the new forms of energy that begin to appear on
the horizon: take the world up on what it offers.

7. Affirm self-trust for the future: "I can always surrender to what I feel,
and new energies will arise in me." This is trust in the power of the human
psyche as self-restoring, self re-newing.

ha!
good stuff.
now........to try to apply it!
whew.

processing processes

i can finally finally separate him from the fears.
mostly.
i think.
and that has taken me years to get the hang of.

what the heck does that mean??
that means i can figure out it's not him that scares me.
it's the fears he touches in me sometimes that scare me.

and THAT is a big news flash.
i want to be able to do that with everyone.

thing is........i'm still not as quick on realizing the fears as i'd like to be.
i know. it's all a learning curve and i'm getting there. but that's a bit
of a drawback. i need to work on that part.

seein' as i was surprised that i didn't see the fear until i was talking
with him about it, i gave it some thought.

there's a theory that everything is either love or fear.

i like that theory.
i buy that theory.
boil it down enough and i've never found anything that didn't fit that.

i find boiling stuff down is tremendously helpful.

cause i get stuck in all the upper threads.

so there i was, tryin' to pick my feet up outta all kindsa sticky threads.
never asking myself  'what are you feeling now?'

cause it sure as heck wasn't love.
but i didn't stop to ask myself!
that's a place i want to really pay attention to.
the sticky upper thread place.

if i can stop myself before i go trooping around there.....
and just ask myself 'ter, fear or love?' it would really really
help the processing.

and i'm convinced we can change our processing and
improve how we react to life.

things are changing in my own processing slowly.
and i'm loving that.

first thing is the fears rest a lot more.
they're not as prevalent.
but that's not really big news as they've been SO prevalent,
they kinda HAD to get less sooner or later.

so okay they're not as prevalent.

it feels like they're these big ol' paper ghosts.
they lay flat down on the ground most of the time.
i only can kinda see their outlines.
but when the right thing happens - WHOOSH - they stand right back up.

when i told him this he said 'kinda like those targets you shoot at.
you just have to shoot them!'

i laughed.
we are SO different.
targets never entered my mind.

'well, that's not what tich would say' i said.
(referring to tich naht hanh)
'he'd say i have to embrace them.'

we joked about how shooting them sounded better.....
but the embracing stuff did stay with me.

i like being able to see them and separate them -
even if it's not as quickly as i want just yet.
and i like that they're not in my life as frequently anymore.
i like that.

but i tell you what.....i REALLY do NOT like the feeling they make inside me
when they do rise back up. i do NOT like that.

and i think maybe THAT'S an area of the process i need to look at as well.

embracing that?
gosh.
i don't know.

how do you embrace something that makes you feel lousy?

maybe you try to understand that it's thinking it has to protect you.
that as far at that fear knows, it's helping you out and taking care of you?

so like.......if i could really understand that.......and hold that......and
embrace it and thank it and tell it i didn't need it anymore.....and let it go.......
that's what they mean, isn't it??? that's just what they mean.

but there's something in there that you need to have......
you need to have belief that you don't need the fear anymore.

you need to believe in yourself so much so that you don't need those fears anymore.

okay.
still some work on the processing ahead........
still some work.

watching. listening and finally walking

i sat on the floor in front of my bookcase.

'i could use a little wisdom,' i thought.
and i knew i had tons of it available right on my book shelves.

i thumbed thru poetry books, books by my favorite authors,
pages of highlighting i had done in the past, and new things i hadn't read before.

lotsa good stuff, but nothing hit quite right.

hmmmm....

i eyed the book on midlife.

i had bought it years ago. not consciously realizing i had wandered
into a mid-life crisis, but i musta known somehow as i ordered this book out
of the blue one nite. and it was thru that book the 'aha' moment came -
'THIS is my midlife awakening!'

hard to believe i didn't realize what i was doing when i ordered it,
considering it's titled 'awakening at midlife'!!
makes me laugh just typing that out.

yes, i'm thick...but i DO get it sooner or later.
a few pages into the book i realized that yes, indeed, this book was talking to me.
and yes, indeed, i was in some kinda mid-life passage.

that was years ago.
and it took me years to walk thru it.

i've often wondered if you only have just one awakening or crisis or whatever
you want to call it.........do you have one, get thru it and then you're set?

nah, that sounds too easy.

as far as i can tell at this point, it's waves after that. some bigger than others,
but waves of stuff to wrestle with and grow from. but that was the big one.
(maybe?)(hopefully)(prolly just wishful thinking...)

in the first pages of the book, she quotes james hollis, a jungian analyst and writer
who 'likens this stage of midlife transition to the movement of tectonic plates,
the large geological formations of the earth's surface, crashing against each other.
the ego and all the values of our youth are in deadly combat with the wisdom of
Self, the deep place inside each of us that understands and knows the realities
and the losses yet to come during the rest of our life.'

i smiled when i read that.and the sighed deep.
oh yeah. oh yeah. i remember this. and oh yeah, i've lived thru this.

and yeah, i've come thru the dark lost feeling of that time.
and i don't feel like i'm heading back in there.
but i do feel like i'm sitting on the edge of something right now.

something that has a haunting similarity of that awakening time i went thru.

and i'm not sure what it is.

it feels full of possibility. it feels right. it feels necessary.
and it makes me feel a bit lost at the same time.
lonely. but not in a bad way. in a way that just is.
i have questions i have no answers to.
i can't figure out where 'i belong.' or 'where i fit.'
and yet i have a vague understanding that's misting around inside of me,
but i can't grasp it.

and i think i'm okay with that.
i don't think i have to grasp it right now.

i have this haunting, vague, lost, lonely feeling and somehow i feel really
okay about it.

i've been noticing things that feel good to me and make me feel centered.
and things that unsettle me and make me feel off kilter.
i've been leaning towards the centering things. stepping aside from the other.
and thinking that's all i have to do right now.

that and listen.

as i'm not even sure what i'm sposed to be asking, i thought maybe i should
just listen.

it's such an interesting spot to be in.
and the unusual part of it for me is i'm actually trusting it.

all the thousands of times i've said 'trust the process.'
go figure, for now, i'm actually doing that.
and it feels right.

i have no idea which part of the process i'm in.
if there even IS a part with a label that i could relate to.
or what i'm sposed to do with it.

so i'm doin' the best thing i can do.
i'm headin' out for a walk.

i haven't been on a walk in the morning in a million years.
it's been calling again.

and i'm listening.....

mistake lessons

we were driving.
it was dark.
and we were talking about what i had just done.
i wasn't so sure it was a good thing.

so we talked.
and he asked me some questions about it.

and i tell ya, that ol' question asking stuff is pretty darn helpful.
instead of just saying 'ter, you screwed up. you shoulda done this.'
he asked me about it.
asked me questions that put it all in perspective and let me look at it.
i could figure out what i was doing, why i was doing it and what my goal was.
and i could do this cause there were no judgments. it was just about
looking at it and trying to figure it out.

turned out i screwed up.
but it was easy to go back and unscrew.

and so i did.

and two main things have come to me thru this whole thing...
no...THREE.....

the first one........
what he did for me with the question asking was soooo fantastic.
making space for someone to think on their own is an incredible gift.
instead of stifling and shaming and making things smaller - things open,
grow and become more. the judgments fall away. things can be looked
at objectively. it's the learning that's the goal, not the outcome.

how cool is that?!
that's big enough in itself. i could stop there.
that's a lot to sit and hold and remember to carry into the day.
but i  was reminded of even more.....

two.....
i was trying to fix something for someone when my help wasn't asked for.
i certainly wasn't creating space. i was planning on hopping in and doing
'what needed to be done.'

excuse me?
no one asked you, missy.

that's such a helpful thing for me to remember.
did anyone ask you, ter???
i gotta tell you, most times when i want to hop in and fix or just hold someone's
problems for them......they never asked me to! and when i remember to check
on that, i can remember to back off.
oh yeah. no one asked.

it's the same with giving advice. did anyone ask for your opinion?
oh no.
they didn't.
okay.
close mouth back up.

what an easy thing to do.
ask yourself if anyone asked!

just plowing in is space taking.
it's limiting and hurtful and arrogant.
okay maybe this is just part two of the first lesson above.

three...
focusing on what the goal is in the first place, changes everything for me.
i get so muddled and emotional, i get way way sidetracked! what's the goal?
and question the goal! WHY is THAT the goal? you sure? sometimes i trick
myself and think i have a goal when it's not really. i have to be sure to truly look.

turns out this screw up of mine was really empowering for myself.
i saw myself think it thru, come up with what felt really right to me,
which was completely different than what i had started with.
and i backtracked, and fixed what i had done. and i didn't feel small or
ashamed or anything like that. i felt GOOD i saw what was goin' on.

ha!
that's rare for me. usually i gotta beat myself up a bit in the process.
tell myself how dumb i was for not getting it right the first time, blah, blah, blah.

but you know what?
i'm glad i didn't get it right the first time.
the whole process was kinda cool to look at.

oh yeah........which brings me to the last thought i want to bring into my day today......

trust the process.

MND

ohmygosh, you guys!

i found the most beautiful thing!

and we all know where that'd be.
because i keep finding beautiful things there.....
i think i need an acronym for things i find thru mark nepo as i bring him up so often!
we can just have MND for mark nepo days!  :)

this time he's quoting other people.....and i swear this one just feels like such a gift.
i think probably because i've lived with a different definition of this word for a life time
and this feels not only like a breath of fresh air, it feels like an insight into being truly alive.
amazing how things get can so twisted up and icky........when the original stuff is so good!

okay........it starts out with the best sentence -

sacrifice originally meant to make sacred.

huh???
did you know that???
i sure didn't!

okay, ready?
here we go.......

'Sacrifice originally meant to make sacred. As Rabbi Alan Lew tells us, the original
notion of sacrifice focused on giving up a layer of self in order to draw closer to the
transcendent. In effect, the notion was that if you give up or shed an outer layer of skin,
the sacred can touch you. Over time, the notion of sacrifice has been distorted to mean
self-suppression or self-denial or even self-annihilation for the love of others.

The work of true sacrifice has always been, as Saki Santorelli says, "The pull of the
soul toward what is possible" once we shed "the pull of the past toward what as been
conditioned." This is our ever-present challenge. In deep, original ways, giving up our
conditions in order that the sacred can touch us is the process of individuation. It involves
giving up layers of ego in order to be fully touched by life. We could say that sacrifice
means giving up what no longer works in order to stay close to what is sacred.'

thud.
that's me on the floor again.

this man is forever making me fall on the floor.

bam.
i just thought that was awesome.
and something to carry thru life.

i'm forever resistant to the changes that living brings.
after reading this, i'm thinking i ought to dive into change more and
open to it on my own much more readily. as opposed to digging in
and making life kick me in the face with the changes.......

just had to share....
may your soul be pulled to what is possible today.....

a new thought for me....

this one's a little tricky.
articulating it is a challenge for me.
not sure how good i'll do.
so bend in close and concentrate.
i think this one's gonna need both of us trying.

i had moved my exercise bike outside.
it was still dark.
i wanted to watch the sun come up.
i wanted to talk to the sky.

as i pedaled and looked at the sky, i thought of her.

we'd be seeing her soon at the grand opening of her women's center.

this center is phenomenal. easily and truly one of the most magnificent places
i have ever seen. one of the most gorgeous offerings i have ever witnessed.

so i thought about her, her healing from her own childhood traumas, and her
taking that pain and using it for good.

an unexpected thing has happened with running bone sigh arts.
it's almost as if i'm sitting in the lounge of a counselor's office.
people come thru and tell me a tiny bit of their hard stories.
it's as if i'm sitting in a soft chair in the waiting room, just hanging out talking
to people who are trying to deal with their pain and their grief.

i get a tiny bit of the story, and then they move on.

watching for about ten years now, i've learned a lot.
i've watched people who have had so much incredible pain, stand up
under the weight and reach out to others. i've seen them do something
with it or start to think they want to do something with it.

i've seen people run and hide and come back and peek and try again.

and i've seen people turn inward, going beyond stifling themselves, i see
them begin a path of self destruction.

i never see the ends of this stuff......just the beginnings. or the middles.
but i feel pretty darn sure that it's the ones who reach into their pain,
and transform it by handing it back to the world in some positive way -
they're the ones who truly heal.

i've watched for a long time and i can just about feel it on certain days.

and i've been captivated with the idea that offering our stuff to the world
is what heals us. i believe in that thought.....and i like it.

but here's the tricky part. see if i can make it make sense.

while i understood 'the act of offering' was important to the healing process
of the individual, i thought that the gift to the others was what was being offered.
in this case of this woman i know, the gift is the women's center she's created.
the offering it helps HER healing process. the gift to US is the center.

ahhhhhhhh.......but as i pedaled away i thought about this.

what if the center 'didn't work?'
what if no one who walked thru there was moved or changed or helped?
(which is impossible because of all the healing that you feel just by stepping into the place.....
but let's just say.......for the sake of thinking thru something here..........what if??)

would the center be a failure?
would it all be worthless?

of course not.
no way.

there isn't a second's hesitation in that answer.

so why not? i asked myself.

and then i had a new thought..........

equally (if not more?) important than the center itself is her act of offering it.
okay, yeah, i knew that was important for her healing process........but this
was the first time i was seeing beyond that.....

and this is new to me........the act itself is important to all of us. not just her.

we, as humans, NEED to witness that act of offering.
(i'm not talking about WHAT is being offered, i'm talking about the ACT of
offering.)

whether we consciously know it or not, even if we don't know we're holding that.....
we hold it. somewhere deep down when we witness it, it affects us. (this is
my newest theory anyway....)

we hold hope when we see that.
we hold hope for ourselves and hope for the world.
there is a candle that is lit that wasn't lit before.
there is light that is born.

offering may very well be a birthing of light.

AND THAT is quite possibly way more important than the actual thing being offered.

the act of offering births light.
it lights candles in our hearts.

to survive this world, we need those candles lit as often as possible.

i wanted to rant and rave about her center and her beautiful open house so i waited
to write this til after i went to her open house.

and so my sons and i drove up and hung out.

it was beyond anything i've ever seen before.
it was perfect, it was healing, it was beauty.
it was an amazing reflection of who she is.

but somehow, what mattered to me that nite, more than any of the stuff i just
said,  was the hope she lit in my heart.

and my heart's been weary lately.
my heart needed a good dose of light.

she lit up every corner of my heart that nite..........
and the really cool thing is......i don't think that goes away.
i think it just grows with other people adding their flames.

and THAT'S what i wanted to tell her.........

the center takes my breath away with everything it is.
her offering lights something inside me that needed lighting.

there are no words to thank someone for that kinda gift.
really, all i had was some tears that kept leaking out thru the evening.

and kristen, that's what i wanted you to know that nite, but
hadn't figured out yet how to say it. this one's written for you.
and then for all of us.

to take a peek at kristen's offering, you can click here.

and yes, my sons worked with her to build her website
and so much more that went into it all.
i'm proud of all of them.

piece of cake anyone?

so there have been a ton of thoughts whirling around my head lately.
but i figured it was time for a fun story!

i mean, really.
it's time.

there was this kinda strange gathering that was happening.
strange because.....well.....because it was happening in the first place.

i'm normally an introvert and shy. and on top of that wayyyyyyy too busy to
really squeeze in a heck of a lotta extra stuff.

and then if it's thru bone sighs, i get really antsy about that kinda thing.
cause people seem to always expect me to be something different than i am.
altho, i gotta say, facebook has helped that a lot. i don't hear it as much
as i used to. but it makes me a bit antsy, so i shy away from it because of
that as well.

but here it was.
a gathering.
happening.
at my place.
and josh's place!!

some people i knew thru bone sighs and the computer were coming here
to meet up in person.

they came from all over....idaho, ohio, pennsylvania, even canada........
none of us had ever met in person.

i thought it'd be really nice to make a 'welcome' cake.

now.
we gotta be clear here.
my cake baking history is a bit um.......well.....tarnished.
my sons laugh and roll their eyes when i'm going to make one
because they usually come out kinda slanted or crooked or dented or something.

(at least they don't beg me NOT to make them like they do when i say i'll
make brownies!!)

but! there had been several occasions lately for me to make a cake....
three times, in fact, and each time the cake came out BEAUTIFULLY.
one could go wild and say 'perfect.'

(and just so you know....i'm not talking making a cake from scratch.
oh no, that's yet a whole different story department! i mean from the BOX!)

so, okay, i made three beautiful cakes within two months.
i considered myself a pro now.
i considered those slanted dented caved in days now past.

and well.........i guess i got too cocky.
cause....um..........

as i tried to ice the cake it didn't go too well.
the icing was too thick.
i tried to smear that stuff all over that darn cake.
and it just wasn't smearing.
you know how you can get a few of the cake crumbs in the frosting?
well......i made it look like the cake crumbs were part of the frosting.
i had so many of 'em in there.

i was okay with that.
it was speckled.
had a bit of a gourmet look.

but it was when i kinda took a hunk outta the top, i realized i was in big trouble.

i hollered from my place in the kitchen, still trying to smear frosting around...
'ZAKK! I THINK I NEED YOU TO RUN DOWN AND GET US A CAKE!!'

i heard laughter from around the corner as the guys came in to see what i had done.

noah, with the straightest face ever said 'oh we can fix that.'

now, i gotta tell you.....it was already a heap of a mess.....but with that straight,
serious face, i actually believed him.

'we just need to soften the frosting' he said calmly.
(that's noah's strongest trait.....his calm patient demeanor)

and then he offered to go get the blow dryer.

'the blow dryer???' my eyes got big.

'sure' he said patiently, and went off to the hall closet to get it.

zakk was just standing there with a smirk on his face watching the action.
but then the phone rang.
knowing it was josh, i said 'zakk can you grab that, tell him i'm in the
middle of a cake crisis, okay?'

still smirking, zakk picks up the phone and starts laughing as he tells josh
that noah and i are blow drying the cake. (which we had started to do at this point.)

the icing was melting a bit, and it could spread just fine.

noah had a satisfied smile on his face and i just kept smearing that stuff around.

hmmmmm.........it worked! (kinda)

'perfect! just needs a little candy corn, and the word 'welcome' on it, and we'll
be as good as ever!' i exclaimed as noah started wrapping the cord around the
blow dryer.

i looked at the cake. hmmmmmmmmmm.....let me start with the writing.
i wrote the word 'welcome' and then moved onto the candy corn.

hmmmmmm.......what exactly should i do with the candy corn??
i got it in the first place cause there's something wrong with me.
i can't pass a bag of candy corn without feeling the need to buy it.
i don't even like candy corn.
but i sorta think i do every time i buy the darn stuff.
it's memories.
and i love it.
even tho i hate it.
and i gotta have it.
even tho, let's face it.......it's not really good for a whole lot....

so there i stood poppin' candy corn around the top of the cake.
'kinda like a sun' i said hoping to convince myself.

'okay, not really like a sun' i said after i had finished.
i sprinkled the extra around the bottom as i threw a few in my mouth.

uh oh.
i stopped in mid-chew.

there was this kinda flattened spot of the cake.
kinda like the bad spot of a christmas tree. ya know?
you know the side you always put towards the wall?
well this side shoulda been put towards the back.

uh oh.

too late.
i had it front and center unless you wanted to read
'welcome' upside down.

hmmmmmmmm.....
okay.
okay.
it's not so bad, i told myself as i stood back and cocked my head.
and closed an eye.

it'll be a good story.

ahem.

people arrived.
we got to know each other a bit.....

and then........it came time for the cake.
as i brought it out to this gang of people i didn't know,
i started telling the story of the cake.
as i was in mid-story, a side fell over.

plop.
right on over.

i never saw a cake do that before.

ooops.

i mushed it back up. stuck some candy corns there.
you couldn't tell if you closed your eyes a bit.....

someone took a picture of it and showed me.
i fell on the couch laughing so hard i cried.

someone mentioned facebook.

'NOOOOOOOO' i screamed.
'NOOOOOO FACEBOOK'

and i fell back and laughed some more knowing full well it was
gonna be up in no time! (it's now my profile picture!)

we decided to eat it later that nite.
in the dark.
around a campfire.
thought maybe that'd help a little bit.

and i think it did.

turns out, the cake was one of my highlights of the whole visit.

it was the moment i laughed so hard i cried.
and it was all about seeing the total humor in the situation......
and bringing that thing out even tho it looked like it did.
cause it didn't matter.

i've come a long way.
i never ever would have done that years ago.
i woulda hid it and bought another one....

cause somehow it woulda embarrassed me.

i think living with my sons and being with that guy of mine has helped
me so much with this stuff. they find the humor in so much stuff and
they don't care if they mess up.

they've been teaching me.
so well so that it turned out to be one of my favorite moments.

and yes...of course.........i HAVE to share the picture with you.........

here it is.....
think twice before you ever suggest meeting me.

i may bake you a cake.

honesty

the whole deal is pitiful.
sucks.
stinks.
her family hurt her about as deep as you can be hurt.
and here she is in her sixties struggling big time.

i listened.
we talked.
and then she said something that seemed odd to me.
she was trying to help one of the people who was so rotten to her.
and it seemed to me like the helping would definitely not be in her
best interest.

'why you tryin' to help her?' i asked, truly confused.

she choked up.
'because i want her to like me.'

'ahhhh.' i said.
nodding on my end of the phone.
'well, that's way good you know that and way cool you could say it to me.'

it was after i hung up that i cried about that one.

driving later, she was on my mind.
what she said hadn't left me.
it's amazing to me how deep that stuff goes.
how it's so hard to heal from the family stuff.

but i loved her honesty with what she was doing.

i didn't think it was a good thing.
and neither did she.
but that's where she was at.
and i think it's a really good thing to know where you're at.
i think knowing that and being honest about that matters a ton.

someteimes when i talk with people and try to point out something they're doing
that's messing with them, i never point it out to change them. i point it out
so they're aware of it. and i say stuff like 'it doesn't matter what you're doing
here. what matters is that you know you're doing it and you know why you're
doing it. the being honest with yourself part is what i think matters.'

because i don't think we can change a thing unless we see it.
and there are plenty of times we see it and aren't ready to change it.
i think that's okay.

i think the seeing is the hard part.
once seen, i think the rest is a process.
but the process can't start til we know there's something there.

honesty.

seems like that's yet another one of those repeat words.
honesty.
it keeps coming back.

if you want to grow, you gotta live in honesty.

i believe that with my whole heart.

really worth watching

this morning i was having thoughts about 'offering.'

they'll show up here pretty soon, i would guess.

but then.....as if reading my mind, someone sent me this
vid over on facebook.

it's totally worth sharing.

if you have some time, grab some tea and settle in.
we need to hear this.........

a little remapping

it happens.
every now and then it happens.

i hit my limit with people and lose that tolerance level you gotta have
to get by in the world.

i noticed it when i rolled my eyes in disgust over someone just a little bit ago.

hmmmmm.....
that didn't feel like who i wanted to be.

but truth is, i was disgusted.

i am filled to the brim with self absorbed selfish people.

filled over the brim.
have had it.
truly want to kick them all off the edge of the planet.
let them land in that ol' net at the end of the world and
hang out with each other there.

so okay.
i sat and felt disgusted, disgruntled and angry.

hmmmmmm......

alrighty ter, what the heck you gonna do about that?

no, i don't think it's bad to be angry and disgruntled.
feelings are feelings. and it's okay to have them.

but there's a certain energy i'm goin' for.
a certain energy i want in my life.
and this isn't it.

i don't 'need' these feelings.
i can see them, acknowledge them....and then let them go.

thing is.......how do i let them go?

didn't have a clue so i grabbed my angel card pack.
pulled a card and got this -

'your present challenge is accepting that your larger life goal
is to grow in grace and find union with all living things.'

i just about snorted when i read that.
it could not have been more perfect.

'oh, yeah,' i thought. 'oh, yeah.'
and i wanted to snort.
i mean seriously.
sounds real nice, but jeesh.

i remember the last time i wrestled with this.
it was a major wrestling match.
and what i landed in was this brief moment of seeing that it's all a
'mystery' and i really had no clue what things were leading where.

i think i need to revisit the mystery of it all.
the realization that i really don't have a clue.
i'm not exactly sure how i'm gonna find union with all living things.
but maybe i should start by not picturing kicking them all into a net that hangs
out in space........

and so i put that visual down and picked up my bud, mark nepo.
(well, his book anyway) and of course.......right there....was this....

'As I keep exploring the question, 'Where does inner courage
live?' .....-the inner effort to stand by one's core and the outer effort to
face things - keep knitting together. In a surprising yet obvious way, the two keep
informing each other. While each has its skillful means, together they point
to a living practice whereby we reestablish our place in the world. The
way that birdsong at first light helps birds to locate themselves and each other - in
essence remapping their place int he world each day - so do we locate ourselves
daily by the voicing and interplay of standing by our core and by engaging
the art of facing things.

Each time I muster the fortitude to face a truth about life, about myself, about
the messy complexity of relationships I live in, it enables me to stand more soundly
and clearly by more core. In turn, each time I inch closer to my core, my ability to
see and face things in the world deepens, strengthens and clarifies.'

okay.
so i guess this means i stop visualizing nasty things happening to the self absorbed
people that make me nuts......

grinning and off to remap myself for the morning....

payin' attention

the other day i read something about listening to your body.

i do that kinda thing.
but you know, we can always grow and get better at stuff.
i'd like to really really get in tune with my body.

so i thought i'd start trying to pay more attention.

yesterday ended up to be a stressful day.
i was wound pretty tight by the time i landed at his place for dinner.
and i was glad to leave everything behind and just hang out.

seems we both had some stress goin' on.
i tuned into his.
happy to leave mine behind.

but later that nite i couldn't sleep.
various reasons.
but i could feel the uptight inside of me.

i've been pushin' way hard.
and i think it's catchin' up to me.

so i'm listening.
and i'm paying attention.

and then i walked outside this morning when it was still dark.

and spontaneously, without a thought given,
my knees bent low, my arms went out to my sides and
i gasped and said out loud 'ohhhh WOW!'

i had seen the stars.

it was SUCH a clear morning.
and the stars were SO bright.

and my entire body reacted.
totally totally reacted.

i noticed and laughed.

okay.
it's obvious.
something's really really missing in my life right now.

stars.
sky.
outside.

i'm thinking this paying attention stuff may be a really good thing
for me! my body can be a drama queen at times. which will be
good to pay attention to!

living and dying...

i hung up the phone and cried.
well, actually, i cried while i was on the phone.
then cried harder when i hung up.

when his weak voice said 'i'm done, terri.'
my heart turned into a bubble of sad.

and i couldn't blame him at all.
i think i might be done too if i were him.

we talked about it.
and i could so hear the beliefs that had been taken away from him.
things he had been banking on to get him thru the old age stuff
just fell to his feet.

he knew it too.
he said the wind was taken right out of his sails.

that phrase tells me so much.
i know how i feel when i use it.
and i thought of what was goin' on in his life.
and i got the magnitude of despair he was feeling.

and i kept thinking how devastating it is to lose a belief.
he lost several thru this latest part of his journey.
and he doesn't feel he can go on.

is it enough to give up?
does that work?
do we pass then and move on to the next world?

i don't know.
i'm pretty sure i've seen that happen.

i wonder if he'll get his second wind and live ten more years,
or if he's really done and will slip right on out of here.
or the worst...the giving up and the lingering and lingering.

only time will tell.

i think back to another older man i watched give up and fade away.

and i think of how much more i've already cried for this man here.
what's the difference?
why the tears over this one, and not so much the other?
i met them at the same time.
if anything, i'd guess i would shed more tears for the other.

but this man has let me in, i realized.
this man has shared his heart with me.
shared his love.
and shared stuff that wasn't love.
maybe the best description would be 'dysfunctional craziness.'
but it was part of him.
he shared him.

it's that sharing stuff that makes such a difference.

i told him thru tears that i loved him.
and to my amazement, the strongest he sounded was when he told
me he loved me as well. it came thru loud and clear.

i think of that as i sit here wondering about life and dying.

sharing out hearts.......sharing our love......
opening up as best we can.
the for real sharing.
not the stuff that looks good so we'll share........
the for real sharing.

it makes all the difference in the living.
and....in the dying.

awesome stuff...

i really don't mean to be a mark nepo junkie.....

but my gosh, there's SO much here.......

i've got two awesome paragraphs for you.

here's the first -

'The inlet is most happy being rushed by the sea. Imagine the
exchange of waters. In just this way, our core, the center of our
being, is our inlet to God. It is where the soul can spill into the
greater sea of Spirit and where Spirit upon return can cleanse a
single soul. For us, love opens the inlet and fear closes the inlet.
So standing by one's core involves the courage to inhabit this inlet.
In fundamental ways, the rush of all-there-is coming and going
cleanses and shapes who we are. This is the interior blessing."
____
okay.
i just plain ol' liked that.
seems to me there's a ton there.
the love opening and the fear closing is something i'm always
trying to remember.

and after hearing someone's really hard story this weekend, the
part about 'the rush of all-there-is coming and going cleanses
and shapes who we are' really really made me stop and want
to give that a lot of thought.

then a few pages later i read this -

and i so thought of how i could do this with my guy when i was feeling
lost about anything. didn't even matter.....how it could just so cement the
love.
...
"So now, when feeling lost, I know to look at anything, long
enough till I stop assessing it and start pouring my attention into it.
I keep looking until my love relaxes it open, the way the sun
undoes a bud. I keep looking till I feel the ache of being alive
flow from me into it. Then I try to pay attention until the world's
delineations that say we are separate melt away. I pay attention
further and I pour my care and curiosity into every edge."
___
now, i do know that this guy doesn't mean to take this and focus on
the person you love when you're lost. BUT i like that idea! i thought
of how cool this would be when i'm in a negative spot to just go
sit in love and use my guy as the place i do that.

how cool would that be?!
talk about keeping the cherishing alive!

okay. so i was just taken once again with this man and had to share!
who could resist?

thoughts on beauty

the other day, i was hit with a wave of grief, and thought of the bone sigh
called 'honoring you.'

“weeping and aching,
i longed to honor your passing.
i longed to honor your life.
searching everywhere,
i found only one answer. 
honor myself.
become all that i am.and carry youinside that beauty.”

and so the conversation about 'beauty' came up.
in writing a response to a friend over on the forum, on what i think beauty is,
i realized what the amazing people who have come thru bone sigh arts
have taught me.

it's not JUST all the things we immediately think of -

you know - someone's generous spirit, or someone's ability
to listen thoughtfully, or someone's inclusiveness...or whatever we
see that we think is beauty.

here's what i ended up writing in response to my friend -

_______


i think i used to think beauty was just the good stuff, like you mentioned, 
but i don't think so anymore.

beauty is having those jealous feelings you talk about and working past them.
that's beauty.

we're always gonna have all those 'negative' things...

beauty is getting really angry then stopping yourself and saying 'okay, what
exactly is this about?' and figurin' it out and acting from that spot.

it's not having no negative -

it's working with the negative to become more.

beauty is our strength to do that.

beauty is saying 'i was hurt, i was hurt bad, i was treated like no one should be
treated, and i couldn't figure it out. i didn't understand.' and then moving towards
health and saying 'i know i'm worth more than that and i'll move in that direction.'
it's the movement in spite of the awful hurt. in spite of the doubts.

it's not even 'making it' to the destination and then being beauty.
it's the crawling in the mud to get there....
that's beauty.

yeah. as i type this out i see my view on beauty's grown a bit.

and the people's stories thru bone sigh arts has shown me what real beauty is.

honestly.

_______

i have watched beauty goin' on in my email box for years and years
now.

i saw it soooooo brilliantly light up my screen this morning, that i
cried.  it wasn't something all nice and pretty. it was a rough story
with a friend speaking from her heart and offering love. even as
her heart was breaking. (yes, b, that's you)

i see it in the stories that are filled with such such pain. stuff i wonder
how someone will ever get thru, and then they reach out. maybe in
the smallest way. but that reach out.

that's soooo beautiful.

i've finally finally come to understand that the grit and the grime
are always gonna be with us.....but it's in that dark, that i've seen
such glorious beauty.

so even if you think you're not 'whole' or you're too full of self dobut,
or everything that happened to you must be your fault and you
can't have value.....that's all big big stuff to feel......but what i see
on this end, is the beauty of you moving thru that, the beauty of
you reaching for life in spite of that. THAT is the beauty that is you.

that's the beauty that we truly honor each other in.

and it's no small thing by any means.

and i gotta tell ya, i needed to remember that.
i really really did.

thank you for teaching me all that you've taught me.

the news

i wasn't gonna bring it here.

i wasn't gonna bring it anywhere.

i didn't know what to do with it.

the story of malala yousufzai.
i read it and felt so sad.
and then put it out of my mind.
cause it was so hard to hold.

that was the first day.

and then the next day.......
i met my girlfriends for coffee.
we were celebrating lynn's success.
and my other friend put the newspaper on the table.

she went off in one direction, talking to another woman a few feet away,
and lynn went off inside the coffee shop.

and there i sat......with the newspaper right in front of me.

and malala was on the front page.

i picked up the paper and read the article.
tears fell on the newspaper as i read.

i put the article down.
we were there to celebrate lynn.
i didn't say a word.
i wanted this to be about lynn and her big news.

but that newspaper.......that picture in the paper.....
it was right at my elbow the whole time.
and no, i never forgot that.

i was aware of it the whole time.
at one point in the conversation, tears welled up in my eyes.
but since that happens a lot, no one noticed and i pushed them down.

what the heck do we do with this stuff?
do we shut it out and harden our hearts to it?
do we pick it up and make it our cause and dive in?
do we hold it achingly in our hearts totally unsure what to do?

i'm pretty sure there will be a bone sigh born here.

i gotta say tho, it makes me want to hate.
it does.

and i think of what it would be like to try to sit and talk to these people
and talk to them about how awful this is, and i know i'd be seen as worthless
or worse and i'd be shot or worse.

it makes me want to hate.

i know that's the worst evil coming from it.
the hatred it grows.

i have no answers.
only tears and ache and confusion.

i will work hard on the not hating stuff.
that's got to be the way i honor her.
and i will hold malala so so so close in my heart......

*********

i did make a facebook cover image in her honor.
if anyone wants to use it, i have it up on the bone sigh arts cover page.

missing her

ah, the things that bring her back.....

today's quote of the day was written about her years ago.....

'you have taught me the strength of tenderness.'

i can't read that quote without feeling her in my heart.

i bump into her picture on fb...

i look at the  celebratory glasses that used to be hers
and are now in the corner cupboard in my kitchen...
i have yet to use them.
can't quite get that far.
but i look at them every day.

something someone will say...

a color...

ah, the things that bring her back....

i saw the quote this morning and wanted to do the blog in her honor.

but what do you do? what do you say?

i can tell you all about her.
but it still won't capture the her i knew.
and you can tell me all about your people you've lost.

and while we should do that, i think.....
i think it helps and it's a good thing.....

it doesn't feel right this morning.

again, i am filled with wanting to DO something in memory of that
lovely woman......who had such a little girl inside her.....

and for the millionth time i turn to the bone sigh 'honoring you'

it's the top piece of art listed on the side here. i feel like i've typed
it out in the blog so much, no one needs it again.

but the idea......i need to be reminded all the time -
to carry her inside the beauty that is truly inside me.
to be all i can be.
to open into all that beauty.
and to do that in her honor and somehow to carry her
in there with me.

to do that, you have to believe that beauty is inside you.
that it's part of you.

lately, i've been running into people who really really don't
believe that. who i can't even say  that they 'struggle with it'..
because that would imply they believe it and are trying to get there.
they can't even get to the point of believing it.

and it's moments like this i want to scream 'stop! look!
really see! it's in you! and it matters!'

why?
why do i want to scream it out sometimes???
why do i think it matters for people to see it?
cause maybe i think that's our hunk of god.
and maybe i think living with our hunk, and workin' to uncover it,
dust it off, shine it.......that part......that part is living our beauty.

and somehow.......and i don't even really know what i mean....
but somehow that's how we carry those we've lost.
in that.

in the hunk of god.

i guess we carry everything in there, huh?

so it doesn't just matter to the person for themselves to see it.
somehow it matters to us all.

and no, i haven't a clue how that works or what that really means.
it's just a vague feeling that gets real strong sometimes.

and it's strong enough this morning,
that in honor of someone i loved who is no longer here,
i'm trying my best to shout it out to remember your beauty,

i'll be doin' my own remembering today.

so that i can carry her inside that beauty.
because i know, without understanding how at all, that she's in that.

she, who taught me the strength of tenderness,
will continue to grow me, and help me remember to keep
uncovering my beauty and living in the space of that light.

she made it!

i posted here - probably a couple of times -
about my friend, lynn's, kickstarter project.

she was raising money to make a new album.
and yesterday was the last day and she made it!
SHE MADE IT!

for anyone here who donated, thank you so much.
she truly is an artist worth supporting.
and we supported her!!!

loud thunderous applause here!!!

it is the same lynn i mention in the magic post just below here.

she actually reached her goal the same day we heard her playing
around the fire (see post below). yesterday was the finishing up day,
and she actually went BEYOND her original goal!

so the day of the fire, we were celebrating her as well.
i sat across from the fire watching her.
i love her so much.

she has a gentleness and a strength that mix together beautifully.
you can hear it in her voice.

what a gift to have her joining us on one of the biggest days ever for her!

i watched her and listened to her and rejoiced with her.

her and i have history.
in telling someone that day how long we knew each other,
i realized it had been about 20 years!

woe.
i had no idea it was that long.

history.
it's a precious thing, isn't it?
to be able to put your arm around a friend and laugh
and say 'do you remember when?'
or to groan or to tear up over the memories.
and then the next moment to talk about the dreams yet to come.

that's one of the most beautiful gifts of life.

today i'm celebrating lynn's success and the gift that she is to me,
and that she is to all who hear her!

and! i'm celebrating people gathering together to help another
make their dream come true.

honestly, how cool is that?!
here's to all of us!

some rockin' good lines

want a sentence that'll knock you over???

it's from mark nepo......

'in the loving, nothing is ever saved, and nothing is ever lost.'

oh wow.

and then the start of his next chapter he begins it
with a quote from the abstract artist Grazyna Wolska -

'Being who you are is a prayer.'

(all this is in 'facing the lion, being the lion)

magic

i don't even know how to describe it.
honestly, there's only one word that comes to mind -
magic.

i witnessed magic this weekend and i am really really honored
that i got to be a part of it.

there was the sharing of lynn's music ages ago.
and an on-line friend listening. we'll call her, jane.
and then jane's putting one of lynn's songs together in one of the
most moving slide shows i've ever seen.
it was a time line of jane's life.

having suffered from so much abuse as a kid, lynn's song, 'layers',
of a woman trying to get to the one deep inside of her, was perfect.

when jane shared it with me months ago, i just sat here and cried.

then asked permission to share with lynn.

i can't even imagine how moved lynn musta been to watch this.

and then.....in a crazy whirlwind of circumstances, there sat jane

on my couch talking about lynn.

and not too long after that, there sat lynn, in the living room with jane.

meeting each other.

and then hours later, at my son's house, around a beautiful fire outside,

with other friends i was getting to know for the first time 'in real life'

jane shared the stories that went with her timeline.

the people gathered around the fire knew of jane's pain. they had

been supporting her online already. but to be here in person was such

a powerful thing.

the courage and strength and trust that it took to share, astounded me.

at one point, i looked at my hand, jane's hand, and lynn's hand all 

holding each other and i was completely in awe of what had happened.

when my son suggested to lynn she sing jane the song in person,

my insides jumped.

what a tremendous idea.

as we all sat around the fire, lynn sang us her song, 'layers'

i felt like magic was all around us.

and this morning, as i think about it all, i keep thinking

that maybe trust is the door thru which magic enters......

and i'm so grateful jane trusted us, and the universe handed us magic.......

******
to hear lynn and her music.....and even listen to 'layers' click here
scroll down and find that box that says 'listen to lynn'.....i looked,
layers is on there!

such a gift

i think we should all take a field trip today!
and what a great thing to leave up for the weekend!

christa is an amazing woman creating something the world so needs!

you re gonna love this.......

check out a new home for all of us.....

click here

not so peaceful

okay, so i haven't gotten this down yet.
not by a long shot.
and it makes me wonder.......it really really does.

how on earth can there ever really be peace?

i am serious.

i'm a pretty peaceful person.

and i got crazed yesterday.

it seems to be part of the deal, that one of my quotes
in particular gets used a lot by other people selling products.

this one quote is offered in a catalog, and it's on the net a lot,
so it gets snagged.

yeah, i guess it's part of the business.

there's a general annoyance to start with, as i figure if you were
thinking and you cared, you'd google it and find out it wasn't
up for grabs to use. (but some of that was my fault in the beginning
and totally needs to be stepped up on my side....)

so yeah, i start out with a general annoyance.
but after having dealt with this enough, i know the right way to
go about it, both for ease and for my inner peace, is to be nice about it.

tell people nicely, let them know you know they didn't mean any harm,
provide them with a link to your site, your terms of use and ask them
to remove it.

99% of the people gasp, say they're sorry, and remove it.

but there's that 1%.
ohmygosh........
and i bumped into ms. 1% yesterday.

and i swear, it's like someone hits my crazy button.

so much so that i'm tempted to type out the whole stupid story.
cause it still bugs me.
and truth is, that needs to be left in the dust.

that's not the point.

the point is, how is it someone who works so hard on living from her heart
and offering all she can to the world, goes crazy when she bumps into the kinda
people like yesterday???

now,yeah, i get it.
this woman was annoying and rude.
and that will bother anyone.

yes.
i get that.

but the thing is........
honestly.......
i'm serious......
how can there be any peace in the world when someone who's annoying
and rude brings out the worst in you? (me)

it feels so important to me, i've been thinking about it ever since.

i watch the debates and feel lost and helpless, i look at all the stuff in
the world and shake my head, i can't make a dent in it.

and then i have something stupid happen and i act like a crazy person.
(well, to be fair, i didn't really do anything crazy or say anything toooo crazy,
but i really wanted to. and i was really upset.)

i understand that our feelings are our feelings.
i understand that there were some pretty strong feelings involved in having
someone take your work then be snotty about that.

i'm not discounting any of that.

what i'm thinking tho is this.....

when are the times to work on being peace?
when it's peaceful???

um.
that's easy.

i didn't work on being peace yesterday.

i worked off of emotions.

i spent some time trying to figure out when i go the most nuts.
and it seems to be when someone i love (and i include myself in that)
is being taken advantage of or pushed around.

then i go nuts.

is it because i feel there's no reasoning with these people,
so just 'give it to them' in the way they can understand???

ohhhhhh wow.
is that it?

do i even think that much? or do i just react?

whatever it is, put it on a worldwide scale, and it doesn't work so good,
does it? and that matters.

this seems so important to me.
to get this down.
to be able to work with people in a way that fits my heart.

i can do that easy with the nice people.
it's the snotty people i gotta learn from.

if i'm ever gonna sincerely comment on wanting peace of any kind,
i gotta be able to offer it.

i'm sure i'll get my practice in.
i'm gonna try to remember to use it.

let's push her over the top!!!

at the time i'm writing this post, her total is at $9,120!

i'm hoping by the time this blog posts, that number is even higher!
(oh, heck, i couldn't stand it...i had to post right now!)

what number??? you ask.

lynn's number!

lynn is one of my closest and dearest friends.
THE person who has walked thru the mud with me.
THE person who saved my life years ago.
my tea buddy.
my 'let's get together and cry' buddy.
my 'this is so bad we gotta laugh' buddy.

and she's been doin' a kickstarter project.

me and my guys were in on her very first brainstorming session
on how to do it.

 noah and zakk created her vid for her!

and we've been rootin' her on ever since.

not just cause she's a friend.
not just cause she's such a close friend.
but because she's GOOD.

she's really one heck of a musician.

i've watched her for a long time now.
she used to sing with another woman years back.
they were good.
and i enjoyed them.

but it wasn't until lynn went solo that i saw her burst forth and bloom.

my gosh.
and every time i think she just can't get any better, she gets more amazing.

and the really cool thing? i know her pretty well, ya know?
we share all the heartaches and all the confusion of life and the
self doubts and the triumphs and the joys.

so knowing all that and hearing her belt out her music from her very
soul.......gosh, i can't listen without crying.

truly.

when i'm done sitting thru one of her shows, i feel like i just completed
a really intense therapy session.

she hits soo many things deep inside of me.
she speaks to so many parts of me.
she makes me remember what counts.

here's the deal.......she's good.
she's awesome good.
i've seen people with completely different musical tastes stop and say how good she is.
i've never ever seen anyone not enjoy her music.

and with a kickstarter, you can actually just pre-order the cd.
it's not a donation where you don't get anything.
here.....you get the cd!!!

if you haven't been by and checked her out........
head on over.
seriously.

check out the vid the guys made for her.
and there's a link to her site where you can hear more of her if you like.

let's get lynn over the top!
want to??
click right here!~

it's the space not the problem...

while i cried a lot and the whole thing felt like it sucked,
it really didn't.
there was some incredible stuff in there.

like how i caught what was going on inside of me so much quicker than usual.
that just tickles me.

the unsettled feeling....i figured out what was up. i knew what was goin' on.
and knew we'd have to talk about it. but when??? it didn't seem like the time.
let it go for now, ter.

i tried.
but it leaked out.

and how he caught something was up with me by the snide comment i made.

since i don't usually make snide comments, he noticed.
and he didn't just blow it off.
he pointed it out. mentioning 'trust' right off.......when truly,
no one else woulda put 'trust' and the snide popsicle comment together.
but that's him - he can make a wicked catch like no no one else can.

and instead of arguing the point or denying it,
i came right back with a genuine 'there IS something bothering me.'
it was genuine. it was real. there was no snide anywhere.

i had noticed the snide popsicle comment too. and instead of being all snarky,
i wanted to be honest. i knew it was gonna have to be now that we talked.

there's a cool choice, huh? let's be honest instead of snarky!
gotta remember that one.

so i told him.

he hugged me.
told me it'd be okay.

i wanted to make the nite okay, so i tried to believe him.
i nodded.
did the stiff upper lip thing.

then promptly buried my face in my hands and cried.

he looked down at me with a bit of a confused look
and said 'okay...and you're falling apart....'

it truly was a priceless moment.
i wonder what it's like to be him sometimes.
looking down at this woman who is nodding one moment then
bursting into tears the next.

so we curled in and talked.
and i totally soaked his shirt with tears.

i blame him for saying 'just let it out'.......

later, he commented in surprise how wet his shirt really was.
i laughed.

seriously, don't ever say 'just let it out' to me, ya know?

we talked.
and we were honest and we didn't figure anything out.
we saved that for later.
all i needed was his understanding.

all he needed was my trust.

we'd figure it out later.

and when i had quieted down i saw what we did.
we had made this great space for each other.

it really wasn't the problem that mattered.
it was the space.

i've been thinking about that space.........creating that for ourselves
with people we care about.

that's probably one of the most important things we can do, isn't it?

makes me like the phrase 'sacred space' all the more.......
it really is a sacred space.

i want to keep that in mind.
it's not so much the problem.
it's the space between us......

if we can keep that open and keep us close inside it,
then we can handle the problems.

ahhhhhhhh to really keep that in mind
and to really honor that.

one more task that's so worth working on....

celebrating him

so it's his birthday.
and i'm celebrating him being here.

rolling into his birthday entangled with some of the best kinda appreciation
for him, i keep thinking about how there isn't anyone else on the planet who
gets to see  his heart like i do.

i mean.........that's amazing.
how cool is that?!

to be the one let in.

i'm sure we all have someone or have had someone in our life like that.

and yeah, 'have had' happens all the time.
we can lose this gift so quickly.
sometimes just temporarily.
sometimes forever.

and i know that.

and i don't want to take that lightly or forget that.
cause one way or another, i will lose it sooner or later.
so i want to live it while i've got it.

and here's the weird thing.....
while i feel like i know this man better than anyone else,
i feel like there's soo much i don't know.
i am so serious.
there's so much more i really want to know.

and i think keeping that in the front of my mind is really important.

because when i do, i find myself ASKING more instead of assuming

one time, with this thought in mind, i asked him what he thought.
i said something like 'you know, i just assume i know what you think about this,
but will you tell me so i can be sure?'

and guess what?

i was dead wrong!
yep!
dead wrong.
and this was about something i was sure of.
jeesh.

and i see that all the time with people towards me.
the constant assumptions that are wrong. it happens constantly with me
as i lay so much of myself out there, that many people just assume things.....
it doesn't feel good at all.

how can i be doing that to someone i love?
oh gosh.
it's more like how can i NOT???
we do it all the time.
that's the way life works, i guess.
assumptions have to be made a lot of the time.
but not as much as we make them!
that's the work, that's what we have to look at.......

seeing.
not assuming.
learning.
not knowing.

so i thought in honor of this man's birthday, i'd throw that out there today
and challenge everyone who reads this to not assume about one person you love today.
just one person.
ASK them when you're about to assume.
open your eyes to them instead of already coloring in what they look like.
learn about them instead of knowing about them already.

wouldn't that be a cool thing to do today?
in honor of my man!
oh yes!


.

choosing

okay, so ms. clarissa is rockin' my world right now.

again, listening to her audio as i'm working, she says something
that makes me go 'ooooooooohhhhhh.'

well, let's face it.......she says A LOTTA things that make me go 'oooooooohhhhhhh.'

but this particular thing got me kinda excited to be more aware.

she's talking about what we surround ourselves with.
how we need to pay close attention to what we surround ourselves with,
and how we can lift ourselves up by those very things.

thoughts and ideas and things we dwell on. that kinda stuff.

she said that when looking at this kinda thing and choosing
we can ask these questions -

how is this useful to me?

how is this goodness?

what does this bring that will increase imagination and creativity
that i can use to solve problems?

ohmygosh.

okay.
so i don't do that.

i might say something like 'okay, that's kinda negative, gonna let that one go.'

but i think that's prolly about it.

i love these questions!

gosh, all those self doubts i feed.......
all the fears...
all that gunk.

can you imagine getting in the habit of saying 'how is this useful to me?'

and then saying.........'be gone.'

that's what she said we have to do to the thoughts that don't serve us.

be gone.

how strong and clear is that?!

oh yes.

this will be fun to give a whirl!
had to share.....

a good way to start a busy week....

i was listening to my audio recording of clarissa pinkola estes
and she said something about life.
it went something like this -

'you can't say it can be easy.
but you can say it can be worth it.'

i liked that a lot.

for some odd reason, i spent a good part of my life thinking
if you 'did it right,' life could be easy.

what planet did i come from???

now i know better.
i really do.

i think i was pretty bummed about that at first.
but i think i'm getting better and better with the whole concept.

i prolly can't make this small example make sense on paper. (or screen)
but it makes sense in my head so i'm gonna try.

one of my highlights this weekend was just relaxing and eating lunch outside
with my guy.

it was a beautiful day, we were just talking, and the lunch was extra fun
cause i owed it from a bet i had lost so there was teasing and goofin' involved.

some of the stuff we talked about was hard stuff.
hard topics.
not stuff between us.
but stuff that coulda gotten between us.
easily.
would have before.
but it didn't.
and i noticed it.
i noticed how honest we were, how good we were getting at
expressing ourselves so the other could understand. and how
much more we saw each other.

i noticed how far we had come.
and that added so much to the whole moment.

it hasn't been easy.
ohmygosh, that's for sure.
but moments like that remind me of how worth it all it really has been.

i swear there were plenty of times i wondered if all the work was worth it.
why couldn't it be easier? what was the point?

and now, when i see how much better we are together,
how deeper we've grown, how far we have traveled,
i just smile.

that's what life seems like sometimes to me.

it's so hard sometimes. i get so frustrated and wonder what's the point,
why can't it be easier?

and then there's a moment. a really good moment.
i live a moment that i can step back from and see.

and i see how far i've come, how much better i am with living,
how much deeper it's all grown....i see how good it really is.

and i know it's worth it.
way way way worth it.

and i know.....i have sooooooo far yet to travel......
if i'm lucky i'll be able to.

if i'm lucky i'll have the challenges, and the hurdles,
and the grief and the joy and the heartache and the laughter.

if i'm lucky.

and i so want to keep that in mind.

it may not be easy.
but yes, it is worth it.