Goodbyes are never easy. I remember at the holidays when all my cousins would come home to Woodstock and the tears that would flow, flow, flow when they left. It's the same thing every time I get on a plane to leave my family.
The goodbyes are harder still when they are permanent - our dear friend Nick Deane passed away this past Sunday. For those of you who were at my wedding - Nick is of Nick's where many a drink was drunk! He certainly was one of our favorite people and he will be missed.
I'm also facing the inevitable goodbye of one of my best friends - Wilma. She's 13 years old and has been a part of my life for almost 12 and she can't really take part in our walks anymore, she has trouble making it up the stairs and I've noticed a new tiredness in her eyes.
I'm okay with the cycle of life and understand that death and rebirth are a part of that cycle. I know that it is time to say goodbye - but I've never been the deciding factor before in life and death. (Well, I was responsible for Bubba the fish's death in college, but somehow the toilet flush seems a bit different) She's my family, you know? She's never left my side. Determining the end of life has been a horrific struggle for me.
I will save the eulogy for when she's gone for I will need to celebrate her life and who she was for me. Now it's time to celebrate the time she has left and make her feel beyond loved.
Death...a part of life, but never easy. The goodbyes are important I've found - whether it is a physical death or a metaphoric one. And I find that it is never too late. Is there a good-bye you need to say to let something go?
Well, I am a bit hungover for the week long pity party that I had for myself. It was quite the blowout!
I suppose at times like those, it’s best to reach out to people, let them in, ask for help. I just know that if I open my mouth, I might start to whine and I would rather not subject anyone to that. So, you’re welcome ;) But although I wasn’t prepared to put myself out there and feel like a fraud, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I wanted to share with you.
Today, I thought I’d share an insight that I got from my tried and true – Living with Joy by Sanaya Roman. It really was perfect for me, and maybe it will ring true for you as well.
Are you willing to believe in ideas of abundance, of validating the inner world, and of learning to grow through joy?
Starting with your own past, think of a time in which something happened you did not understand. Now, as you look back as an adult, as an older, more mature self, you can understand precisely why you drew that incident to you and what you learned from it. You can see as you look back with the larger picture in mind that when you did not get what you thought you wanted, thee was a reason for not having it. Perhaps not having it changed your life path. Maybe having it would have held you back in some way, or maybe it was something you wanted from a smaller, less evolved part of you. As you look back with your memories, reviewing past relationships and career paths (even those you are still in but letting go of), see how they served you. What you have now would not be possible without those experiences. You cannot leave something until you love it. The more you hate something the more bound you are to it, and the more you love it the freer you are. So as you love your past, you are free from it.
When you can think of your childhood and your parents and know that they were perfect for the path you are on, you are then free of the effects of your past. You can believe that you chose your parents, relationships, and careers so that you could be where you are now. As you change your negative memories into positive understanding, you can go even faster into your new future.
You can release the past by loving it.
Every time you think of a bad memory that makes you feel sorry for yourself, or bad about how you acted, or makes you see yourself as a victim, or makes you hold a negative picture of yourself, Stop! See what good you created from that experience. It may be that you learned so much from it you never again brought that kind of behaviour back into your life. It may be that because of that situation, you changed your path. It may have brought you an important connection or helped develop new qualities and personality traits. You may have served and helped many people in that job. Your parents may have developed your strength, or your inner will, by creating obstacles for you. People who want to develop muscles, for instance, may use weights to push against. Your parents may have acted as a “weight” for you to push against to develop your inner strength. Everything in your past happened for your good. If you could believe that the universe is friendly, that it is always helping you to create your highest good, you could live a life of more peace and security.
Look at your present time existence. If you wish to see the larger picture you can sit and imagine that you are going into the future. If you are facing a new challenge, one for which you have not yet acquired the necessary skills, imagine yourself going into the future and uniting with your future self, drawing to you the knowledge that future self holds. It may not come into your conscious awareness until the moment you need it, but the energy and knowledge your future, for from that perspective it would be much simpler to know what to do today. You could even imagine you are that future self and talk to your self of today from that future perspective. You could make things up, telling yourself why you are going through what you are experiencing and affirming to your present self the rightness of everything that is happening. Your future self is real and separated from you only by time. It can talk to you and help you know what to do right now, how to get where you want to go even more quickly.
This rang quite true for me and what I’m going through and made it clear that “hating” my present isn’t going to change it – it simply binds me to it even stronger. And it just isn’t any fun.
I will send this week’s goddess tomorrow –as this has been a lot of typing. Think about her though: Minerva: Beliefs.
So, John is reading this really great book called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson and he’s been sharing some snippets which are just mind boggling. For me, science has never been easy – but I feel like the bits that John has shared with me has taught me more than all my science classes and has certainly lit a fire under John to want to study Physics!
Below is an excerpt from the book in the chapter called The Mighty Atom:
The basic working arrangement of atoms is the molecule (from the Latin for “little mass”). A molecule is simply two or more atoms working together in a more or less stable arrangement:add two atoms of hydrogen to one of oxygen and you have a molecule of water. Chemists tend to think in terms of molecules rather than elements in much the way that writers tend to think in terms of words and not letters, so it is molecules they count, and these are numerous to say the least. At sea level, at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, one cubic centimetre of air (that is, a space about the size of a sugar cube) will contain 45 billion billion molecules. And they are in every single cubic centimetre you see around you. Think how many cubic centimetres there are in the world outside your window – how many sugar cubes it would take to fill that view. Then think how many it would take to build a universe. Atoms, in short, are very abundant.
They are also fantastically durable.Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name. (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.)
So what does this mean?Well I took two major points away from these two amazing paragraphs:
The same atoms that made up some of the greatest people in our history are a part of me. That I’ve travelled through stars and tree leaves and volcano lava – all that is within me – within us! So when I feel like I’m not good enough, all I need to do is think about the greatness that is within me – of the historical greatness. And when you think that DaVinci had more talent in the fingernail of his right thumb than you do? Well – maybe, just maybe you actually are made up of the atoms that made up DaVinci’s thumbnail!! Ha!
That the atoms that are a part of me are a part of the same atoms that make up the guy across the street, the bum that sleeps on the side of my house, of my best friend, of the co-worker that drives me crazy, of Barack Obama, of George Bush! A part of what makes me up – also lives inside of everyone. We’re related, we’re one.What differentiates friend from enemy; family from foe is simply our experience, our stories.
I happened upon a site from an old student of mine and it was of a step dance performance from Bard College - really fun to watch - and I usually never take the time to read any comments - but for some reason I did last night and was just appalled. There was only comments about how fat the girls were and the racial makeup of the group. I just think if we all took the time to celebrate successes rather than finding ways to create distance - it might just be easier to be the great human beings we already are.
Phew!Very cool stuff.If you have a chance to check out the movie What The Bleep Do We Know, it puts a lot of the concepts of Quantum Physics into an edible form.
I feel like I've been forcing these posts lately - like I don't really have anything to say. I know that it is mostly a function of my hiding - from life, from love, from being creative. I just figured I'd tell on myself. The truth is, hiding is no fun unless it's part of a game and people are actively looking to find you. I like to play hide and seek - only I don't really tell anyone that I'm playing and then get sad when nobody seeks me! Ah, if only everyone could read my mind. In order to really be sought, you've got to be out there, not hiding.
This reminds me of something I read recently - where if you have the belief that people that you smile at on the street smile back - you will subconsciously only choose to smile at the people who will smile back at you. If you have the belief that nobody smiles on the street - you will choose to smile at people who don't smile back. If I'm hiding and believe that nobody will seek me - no matter how "out there" I am, I find that nobody actively seeks me and when I get over myself and am open to receive - then I find that I am pleasantly surprised. It doesn't always work - and I think that has more to do with my openness and my expectations. But hiding only makes me feel more lonely.
Well, I am willing to get out of my turtle shell and receive. I suppose telling on ourselves is the first step. If you've been hiding, like me, how can you tell on yourself? Where might you need to ask to be sought?
Changing Woman, or Estsanatlehi (self-renewing one) – as she is called by the Navajo and Apache – can change her age merely by walking into the horizon. White Shell Woman and Turquoise Woman are among her many names, which correspond to the changing colors of her dress as the seasons change. The Navajo say that she was found by Coyote, after being born of Darkness and Dawn on SpruceMountain, with a blanket of clouds and rainbows, secured in her cradleboard by lightning and sunbeams. Her gifts to the people are the Blessingway ceremonies, the seasons and food.
Meaning of the Card:
Changing Woman comes spinning into your life to tell you the way to wholeness for you lies in learning to honor your cycles. Menstrual cycles are an important aspect of being female.We bleed but do not die, and therefore can bring forth life. As we continue to dance our cycles, we reach the time of menopause when we leave our childbearing years behind and hold our wise blood within. We can then be a resource for our loved ones and community by becoming hags, which means “women of wisdom.”
Do you celebrate your menstruation and view it as a time for you to go within? As a time to let go, let die, so the new can come? Or have you bought into the patriarchal view that it is a curse, something unclean, something to be hidden away? Does menopause automatically fill you with fear of becoming old and ugly, no longer valuable and worthy in a culture that adores youth? Do you feel invalidated in a society that urges women to hide their bleeding times, regulate their hormones by taking pills and postpone menopause through ERT (estrogen replacement therapy)?
Honoring your cycles also means honoring your own unique process, your own unique path in life. You may be in the midst of a particular life cycle that you need to surrender to and honor. Changing Woman says that wholeness is nurtured when we reclaim the power of our cycles by paying attention to them and celebrating them. By celebrating our cycles, we celebrate ourselves as women.
Ritual Suggestion:Celebrating Your Cycles
Find a time and a place where and when you will not be disturbed. Sit, stand, or lie comfortably and identify the cycle you are in. You may choose to find or make a symbol of your present cycle. Cast a circle by calling in (speaking to the elements and asking them to be present) or by becoming the elements (see Vila, Shape Shifting)If you are using a symbol, place that symbol in the center of your circle. Walk around the outside of your circle and fill the inside of the circle with respect and honoring. You could fill it by putting on your favorite dance music and dancing around the circle, thinking or chanting, “I love my cycles, I love being a woman”. You could drum or play a musical instrument.You can do anything that celebrates you and your cycles. Be sure to notice if any feelings come up and allow yourself to express them.
Continue until you feel the energy in the circle is strong, then step in and breathe it deep into your cells.Lie, sit or stand in the circle, whatever is comfortable for you. Let the celebratory energy you have built up nourish you to the very core of your body/mind/spirit. Feel its healing power reweave the torn wounded places inside. F eel yourself as a woman, proud to be a woman, proud to bleed, proud to hold your wise blood within, proud to be in the midst of whatever cycle you are in. When you feel full, give thanks to Changing Woman, to yourself, to your womanhood. Step out of the circle.Release what you have called in. Welcome Back!
I've always been a snacker and I really never discriminated (discrimination is not nice, you know!!). Salt, sweet... I went for it all. And the more that was in front of me, the more that I ate, regardless of hunger.
Well, I shared how I was off the caffeine and sugar and breads - well I've been doing the Adkins diet and really doing well. It just became clear to me one day that I was not a "once in awhile" indulger. If it was in the house - perhaps I could make it to a once every few hours indulger - but really, if it was in the house, it had a voice and it knew how to SCREAM my name!
So I gave it all up, cold turkey. After that initial physical withdrawal slump, I've had so much more energy, my nails have grown stronger, I'm losing weight and I'm not hungry. I find that I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm thirsty and I'm eating healthy proteins and veggies and will begin to take on some grains in the next week or so. Physically I feel great.
I read Anthony Keidis's book Scar Tissue - he is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Really great book. He's suffered with serious addiction most of his life and at one point he talked about being "dry drunk" where he was dry - he wasn't drinking or doing drugs, but he wasn't actively dealing with his addictions and it was kind of like walking a balance beam all the time. I can't help but feel that way around food! I'm not hungry, I'm not craving anything specific - but I MISS the snacking. I miss the munching, crunching sweetness of snacking!
I was in the grocery store the other day - and the grocery stores down here, while they really offer a lot of the things that you can find in the states - there is simply not the selection. So there are no Atkins bars to choose from, etc. or the low carb snack foods - which, I think is a blessing (otherwise, I'm sure I'd convince myself that I could eat just one!) But I walked up and down the aisles longingly - not really craving anything - but knowing I was craving something! And can probably assert that that something has very little to do with food. And for now - the complete limitation is helping me recognize this desire simply to feed.
Well tonight, we happened to look through the Atkins book and found a recipe for ice cream! MY FAVORITE!!! So we made it and while it is still not completely frozen, John and I talked about entering the danger zone. Can we limit ourselves to the 1/2 cup serving? I suppose this is our big test...
I was watching my dogs on their walk today struggling against the tether of their leashes. I had to yell at Ginny twice because she saw something in the road and wanted to chase after it. Poor girl - all she wants to do is play and run and chase and bite and discover...I couldn't help but feel intimately related to my dogs in that moment. Only instead of a real collar and leash not letting me run here and there and keeping me on a particular path - I've got my pretend leash on of my own design - and I almost think it's more confining than the real thing would be.
I once did this teleseminar by Jack Canfield discussing the power of your environments. They had looked at the phenomenon of people who leave personal development training all lit up only to go back into their lives and the "high" that they had felt walking out of the room slowly disappeared into just another great idea. Landmark Education teaches something similar - about transforming your communities - as the different communities in your life represents different environments. Feng Shui asserts that your physical environment represents different areas of your life and your body - more about your environment.
Rather than one tether of my own design keeping me at a certain reach - I feel like I've got about a dozen tethers of different shapes, sizes and lengths and depending on my relationship with a certain environment/community/feng shui gua dictates my range of motion. And as much as 11/12 of my environments are running smoothly - if I've neglected or avoided one area, that short tether will begin to affect the rest of my world.
In one of Sanaya Roman's books, I'm not sure which, she talked about identifying the essence of what it is that you want. If you want a new house - what does that new house represent for you? Security, freedom, power, expansion... Get in tune with the essence and start bringing that essence into your life now. You may find that the house comes easier - or you may find that you are perfectly comfortably where you are - you just needed to be open to the essence.
I think of the walk with my dogs today and this feeling of being tethered by my environments and I think of what I want to create and I know the essence is freedom. It's time to invite freedom in and I bet my environments transform in an instant.
