Tag: magical

Just Do You. That is the Work.

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17 Camel IMG_4050Daily Prompt: If money were out of the equation, would you still work? If yes, why, and how much? If not, why would you do with your free time?

I was asked this question a million years ago. And I have since turned this question on others. It’s a good one.

About 8 years ago I decided to put it to the test. I quit my job – one in a succession of failed career starts – and decided to become a holistic health coach. That lasted just a few years. But what it did for me was show me that I could do what I wanted and the money would come in. Or as Joseph Campbell said, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Sounds magical and all together impractical.

At the risk of sounding woo-woo, I now allow myself to be guided by – dare I say it? – the Universe. I have come to see all situations as teachable moments and guidance in one direction or another. I have never lacked food, housing, or transportation. In fact, I own my home, shop at Whole Foods (not every time, let’s be realistic) and drive a nice little Honda.

When I was younger I wanted certain things, specific markers of success: To live in New York City. Or maybe California. To travel the world, especially Paris. And have several homes. One definitely on the beach. All these things required a healthy salary, a particular status. I had to WORK for them, EARN them.

Then 8 years ago I decided to take my passion for natural health to the next level. I attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) in New York. I went just for me, but came away with an optional new career and possibly a whole new life.

I became a holistic health coach. As a health coach many of my clients inquired if I taught yoga when I suggested they try it. I did not. But that changed. I now saw the next step on my path.

When I began to study yoga, the philosophy in particular, I felt I had finally found the belief system that contained within it all that I had cobbled together for myself from various religions and philosophies. Now it had a name. And I was home.

In its teachings I learned to  lean back. I have learned to trust the process of life. I have cultivated compassion and I am free to look at the world through the lens of enchantment and wonder.

Now, when I reframe all those markers of success, I see that I have achieved them all.

– While attending IIN in New York City I had to be there 12 weekends over 16 months. I rented an apartment with a friend for just those weekends. We shopped for food, ate in the apartment, went out to dinner, wandered the streets. I lived in New York City.

– My brother has lived in southern California for over 10 years. I visit him a few times each year. I drive his car. I pick up groceries. I take my niece to the park. We go to the beach. I have made friends there. I have lived in California.

– During all this yoga stuff, the guru I was studying with (and still am) was taking a group of people to India. It was never on my list of places to go, but suddenly I had to go. He was 80 and I didn’t know if I’d have another chance. I went for 3 weeks. Then I went back the year after with a different swami, and on the way played in London for three days. Then this past July a friend flew me on a private jet to the Bahamas where we played on the beach. I have begun to travel the world.

– I have several friends with houses on the beach and I am free to stay in them whenever they’re not occupied. I have a friend with a cabin in the mountains, same thing. I have several homes.

When I let go of the need to work for these things and just leaned back, everything that was to be materialized. Everything I had asked for showed up. Just not as I expected it. I could have missed it completely.

Today I own a yoga studio – another gift – and I write and I take pictures and when I have free time, you know, between 3:15 – 4:45 AM, I make some jewelry. My life is truly enchanted.

I haven’t worked a day in the past 8 years. I do what I love – all of it – and I am taken care of.

 

The Tao of the Magpie

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Daily Prompt: Take a look at your bookcase. If you had enough free time, which book would be the first one you’d like to reread? Why?

It’s very rare I reread a book. Or re-watch a movie. When I was a kid summer was rerun time for favorite TV shows. I hated it. I played outside instead.

I have learned about myself in the past few years some very key things, and one is that I like new. Not new in the sense that I have to buy everything new, on the contrary, my home if full of found objects rich with some else’s personal history. New as in fresh, new to me. New as in ideas. It’s the spark I’m addicted to, not the finished product. It’s the first page and all the possibilities. The blank canvas. The blinking cursor.

As a creative person I am struck with the desire, or maybe even need, to make new stuff up. I used to think it was shiny thing syndrome – in the middle of one project and, but oh, what if we did this? About something completely unrelated. ADD? Perhaps. Gifted? Let’s go with that.

This was a real problem for me. I would sit at my desk and start stories, or put together a piece of jewelry or begin painting some mixed media thing. Once it was clear in my head? Once I could ‘see’ it all the way to the end? I abandoned it. In my mind I had finished it and now I could move onto the next creation.

I would write the most amazing self-help books, my insight fresh and aha inducing. The cover of the book was beautiful, you could tell right away it was something that could, no, would change your life. Every page had something so rich it begged to be highlighted. Oprah couldn’t pull little stickee notes off her fancy highlighter fast enough to mark the wisdom in those pages. She would have to have me on her show.

The interview went swimmingly, she shook her head in amazement and just couldn’t stop saying “Wow, you’re so right, I hadn’t ever looked at it that way. This is truly a game changer.” Then we’d go out to lunch and she’d fund my next big idea.

Then I’d look down at my notebook or journal or computer screen and there’d be one sentence. All it takes is one, it’s the tinder to my overactive imagination.

Sticktoitiveness. I lack that gene.

But then I would meet people who had worked the same job for 30 years and thought my life was magical. I would talk to people struggling to figure out what they wanted to do and they would look to me for advice. I am on the other side of 40, pretty far on the other side, and I still wonder what I want to be when I grow up.

I have learned to embrace my quirks, my magpie-ness. I have had many job titles and worked in many fields. I have read copious books from self-help to historical fiction to, well everything, making me a great conversationalist at parties.

So rereading a book, even if I had the time, seems almost wasteful. There’s so much NEW out there. But if I am being honest, I might pick up Sarah Addison Allen’s, Garden Spells again. And Eckhart Tolle always seems fresh to me.

But I don’t want to even entertain having extra time, because I would surely fill it with something new.

Shiny Thing Syndrome

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I am a master procrastinator. Not proud, just practical. I don’t know that it’s that I really want to put things off, it’s just that I have so many things I could or should be working on that I shut down. I stare into space, usually my magical backyard, and wait for the priority to float to the top. Often it’s a nap, so I work on that first.

But, yesterday I took a little road trip from Procrastination to Distraction. Having spent the entire morning in Completion I felt no guilt about this. Especially since I was beckoned to move farther along the path of avoidance by the delicate warbling of a feathered friend.

Having accepted his invitation to the concert, I slipped out my back door and stealthily sought him out with my camera. He sat on a lower branch and was so into his own story, beak aloft, eyes closed, that I was able to get right under him to take his photo. Perhaps that was his plan all along.

I watched him for some time, his throat vibrating as he pontificated on the state of the weather and pesticides; lack of worms and suitable mates. On occasion his tone would change, becoming more conversational, understanding, softer. His passion was clear.

In order to reach a broader audience he would hop to the next higher branch, then the next higher tree.  Satisfied he had conveyed his feelings appropriately or dismayed his calls had gone into the ether unheard, he flew away.

I thanked him, hopped back into my mental convertible and headed back to Procrastination. A little sad to leave Distraction, the land of shiny things and birdsong, I lingered for just a moment to see if something else would catch my eye, extending my stay. Not today. My mission complete, I turned the old rag top around glancing back only once  at the sparkling raindrops on the honeysuckle. A mirage, I told myself as I pressed the accelerator in the direction of home.

Today’s writing prompt: Now? Later! prompted me to dust off an older blog, shine it up a bit and repurpose it for this challenge.

Now? Later? We all procrastinate. Website, magazine, knitting project, TV show, something else — what’s your favorite procrastination destination?

21 Day Body Love Challenge – Sticking My Neck Out

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Audrey Hepburn. She had the perfect neck according to my father. Before you get the wrong idea about dear old dad and his preferences for certain body parts, I should disclose that he was a pretty amazing artist. Trained at the Philadelphia Museum School before graduating from Penn, he took his talent and created a business out of art. We know it now as graphic design, but back in the day he would do actual oil painting portraits of sports figures and business professionals to be used in marketing materials that he would also create. So his interest in anatomy was based on his love of the human form. Mostly.

The neck. Before I had heard my father wax poetically about Audrey Hepburn’s swanlike neck, I had never given my own a second thought. It was the bridge between my head and all that other stuff. It helped me look up and down and side to side. After I understood what he was talking about I became obsessed with comparing everyone’s neck to my own. My mother had a nice long neck, no doubt what attracted my father to her, so I assumed my chances of neck approval were pretty high. Ultimately I ended up just shy of long and graceful and got something more like good enough and sturdy.

As I age I appreciate my neck more and more. It’s very flexible, even if it’s a little stiff upon waking. Years of yoga have created a great deal of mobility and space. I love that I can easily look over my shoulder, something I took for granted until I saw my own mother contort her entire upper body to look behind her.

However, like my mother, my face seems to be slipping into my neck. Hers went fast, mudslide fast. One day she had a beautiful long neck, the next, there was skin draping from her chin to her throat. I was horrified that this fate would befall me as well. I have watched my own face very carefully. It’s happening but the descent seems to be much more gradual allowing me time to adjust along the way.

What I do have are these little tabs (I refuse to call them jowls) that dip down a little on my jaw line. I’m going to blame my great grandparents for over-pinching my cheeks as a child. They were pretty irresistible. I have found that if I smile, they go away, they get pulled back up into my cheeks. So smiling has become my anti-aging salve. I do it as often as I can, mostly it’s not too creepy.

No matter how long or short or loose or firm the neck is, it holds a tantalizing secret. Located at the nape of the neck is a magical little erogenous zone. When activated by something as simple as the breath of a lover, goose bumps shoot to the surface and knees buckle. To quote a friend, “Never underestimate the power of a kiss on the back of the neck.” Swoon.

We can’t talk about the neck without talking about the throat, because we can’t talk at all without the throat. The neck and the throat together make up the throat chakra. This would also include the thyroid gland. For many women this is a problem area, all of it. When the throat chakra is blocked, which happens mostly because we feel we cannot speak our truth, issues arise.

It’s been difficult for our species – goddess – to own our voices and reclaim our power. We have been riding a roller coaster for centuries, secretly harnessing our own power but never fully understanding how to express it. It can be a precarious line to cross. Fear of being misunderstood or worse, of not being heard at all, often stops us from even exploring the edges of our personal power.

Sing, chant, hum, begin to flex the goddess muscles so that your truth can emerge. So that you can speak from your heart about all that matters to you. So that you can liberate yourself from your own fears. It’s a practice and it’s not always easy, but once developed, you will know no other way of being.

There is no part of the body that is non-essential, but the throat has the ability to change entire worlds with a single sentence. If you find yourself locked in a world that does not resonate with you, the voice is often the key.

“A short neck denotes a good mind. You see, the messages go quicker to the brain because they’ve shorter to go.” Dame Muriel Sarah

[The photo is not Audrey Hepburn (obviously), but my own mother circa 1968.]

Use it or lose it; your life that is.

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The other day as a friend and I were chatting, she began to tell me about her sister. They had grown up in the mid-west and her sister chose to stay there. She had picked the wrong man, stayed with him too long and had two kids in the process. She had taken a job in a factory and worked there for many years to support her children after she divorced this wrong man. She was remarried now to a nice enough guy and she was, you know, just making her way through life.

Those last six words hit me like an arrow to the heart. “Just making her way through life.” I don’t think this is why we’re here. Any of us. We all have days or even weeks we’re just trying to get through, but there are people who LIVE there.

How can that be?

Everyday I hear someone say, “I hate my job. If I could just win the lottery, I’d be set.” But that’s not true. They have chosen to play small. They probably don’t realize it, they’re held down or back by fears that aren’t even theirs. Someone in their past taught them that the responsible thing to do was to provide for their family, create security and do good work. That’s all true, but they likely framed it in such a way that meant, it doesn’t matter what your calling is, what you’re drawn to, what lights your soul on fire, there’s plenty of time for that after the life-leaching world of punch clocks and pensions.

But that’s not true either.

Every time we engage in something against our authentic selves we lose a little life force. There may be time after work, after retirement, but the spark is gone, the energy depleted. If you feel it now, now is the time.

I think this goes beyond perspective, beyond belief systems. If you feel, ever, that you’re meant for more than whatever you’re doing, and you don’t act on it, you are living out of alignment. You are ignoring your higher self. And she will come back over and over again, eventually with a vengeance until finally she either gives up, withers and dies or you have no choice but to listen.

Catch the whisper, follow the thread, see where it goes. You can do this AND have a job. For now. Maybe you’re calling is something you can do right now in your present situation. Maybe it’s outside that box. Only you can know. That’s between you and her.

I once asked a friend who was working really hard at conceiving a child, why she wanted children. She looked at me dumbfounded. It wasn’t a judgment or challenge and she didn’t take it that way, she had just never thought about why. So let me ask you this: Why, then, do you want to live? We spend millions of dollars keeping ourselves alive for what? Because we’re afraid to die?

A fear of death is simply a fear of a life unlived.

No one sits around aspiring to just exist. Marking time as if time served gets us a gold star on some universal report card.

Consider that this life was given to you, entrusted to you. Your job is to use it. How, is up to you. Maybe it’s to be a great parent, supporting and encouraging your children to become the very best, useful versions of themselves. Maybe you’re to save the lives of others through medicine, psychology or just plain old love. Maybe you are to discover the mysteries of the universe, the secrets of history or the exact location of the g-spot.

Your main purpose, I suspect is to love and uplift others. The good news here is that you can be short, tall, skinny, fat, blind, deaf, physically or mentally challenged. You can begin right now, even with your current job or situation. Your work then is to find that thing that cracks open the shell of fear gripping your heart and lets just enough light in to remind you that your only real job is to be you and you ARE love.

This is not some fancy notion. And you don’t have to walk around with a beatific smile, donning long robes, gliding a few inches above the floor. Although that could be fun. You can be sarcastic. You can swear. You can eat too much chocolate. You can smile at a stranger. You can paint. You can write. You can applaud a friend’s successes and hold the hand of a dying loved one.

Know that the organization of your cells is uniquely yours. Own that. No one else can do things exactly the way you can. And. You. Are. Needed.

You are necessary.

We need you to use your life. Declare yourself an agent for change. Even if it’s just a change in your perspective. Forget talking about people or even events, discuss the big ideas, consciousness, unconditional love, compassion, or as Marianne Williamson has suggested, “loving the world back to health.”

Don’t just exist, that’s easy. You were made special, beyond existing. You were made to love.

[Photo: The butterfly represents transformation. I believe they are so abundant because we need this constant reminder that we can transform our lives or our perspective at any time, with each breath. Look down, are you on the right path?]

Foggy Hawk Tawk

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I thought I was going to the springs. The manatees are usually lolling about in large numbers in January and I love to capture their grace on film. But it was foggy, and I love fog, so I set out on foot through my neighborhood instead.

There’s an area of green space on my way to the duck pond that the deer sometimes frequent. It was too late for that, but the fog that hovered over the tiny creek that bends around a stand of palms looked mystical and poetic. I could imagine whole stories springing from that one little scene.

As I approached the duck pond it was close to deserted. A pair of mallards and a single snowy egret had it all to themselves. Over time a few more ducks, a loon and a red-billed black bird with the most enormous yellow feet showed up.

Pretty standard fare made a little more magical with the fog. I snapped a couple of photos then began to meander back.

“It would be so great to see a hawk” I thought. Just then, seriously, just then, I notice something swoop from one tree to another. It’s a hawk.

Hawks and I have a thing. They show up when I ask them to and even when I don’t. At times the appear because I need them to, but didn’t know I did. They will pose for me as long as I don’t impede their mealtime efforts.

Today I was gifted two. I think they were mother and child because they perched briefly together on the same branch and seldom do birds of prey do that unless there is a lesson in progress.

As I slowly tiptoed around underneath them to get the sun at my back, the mom flew a short distance away. She chose the top of the tennis court fence. The hawklet remained on the branch to pose for me.

The mother began to squawk, shortly after I watched the little one perk up and begin to respond. No one moved, including me, although I kept shooting away. There’s nothing quite so powerful as the call of a bird right in front of you.

Once they finished their conversation I attempted to get closer to mom. I was able to capture her in mid-sentence once or twice before the pair of mallards let out a huge quack right behind me sending mom away.

I turned my attention back to the hawks in time to see mom just clear the top of the branch where her young one had stayed perched, as if to say, “Come on, let’s go.” Together they flew off to continue the lesson with less human involvement.

As I walked home I could hear them across the street, hidden skillfully in a large stand of trees. I smiled in their direction, thanking them for sharing their time with me and delivering the message my soul was longing to hear.

According to Native American medicine, hawk is the Messenger. It is the big picture seer. I have always been a big picture person, preferring to work backwards from the grand vision to fill in the details.  When I am feeling churlish or agitated it is usually because I have lived too long with the minutia. I am mired in bits and pieces that often seem unrelated and messy. Hawk is a reminder to let the details go for a while and look up. The sky is the ultimate big picture, open and full of possibilities. And every now then I get lucky and a hawk soars through it.

Accomplished. Check.

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Moon through branches IMG_2534As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I have identified that feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day, as something I need or want. Today I got it.

I had my list and was able to check most things off.

I also found a great quote that helped reframe “accomplishment” for me. “There is no greater joy than a job well done. This trait is therefore not a seeking of approval, but rather an enjoyment of  sharing because of the spontaneous explosion of joy that comes from the deepest part of one’s being.” From Medicine Cards.

The darker side of this list checking off-ness is the other list. That one that I had promised myself? Write, photograph, do yoga, etc.? It has slipped off the pedestal to land among the ‘try to fit it ins.’ No bueno.

Even the writing. Even photography. The passions take a back seat.

As I was completing a complicated order today I noticed the sun was beginning to make its descent. My camera was at home and I likely wouldn’t be able to take pictures today, oh well. OH? WELL? No.

This is what happens to goals – at least for me. Once I’ve reached the end I check it off to move onto the next thing. The goal that has been accomplished is now free to be recycled for yet another do over. Try as I might to make that 21 day challenge about life long  healthy habits and NOT goals, it became just 5 more somethings I had to do daily.

What to do…

Do I re-up the challenge or really focus on continuing to add those things back in? Do I let go of some of the things I thought were beneficial? Do I create more order? Maybe they just get added to my to-do list.

I am going to give myself the rest of this week to mull that over. Because of my need for structure, perhaps setting very specific times of each day that I do those things I’ve identified as helpful, will work. Or is that just me trying to plan or procrastinate.

I am boring myself right now. Anyone else?

Maybe it’s more about balance than structure. A little forgiveness and amends. Spend the day with birds of prey, spend the next day working a little longer. BUT, also do those things I’ve promised myself for my own growth and enchantment.

And always listen to the Universe.

The bottom line is, what makes me magical? What keeps my creative spark aflame? The answers to those questions will point me in the right direction.

Mulling it over.

[Photo: fit it in.]

21 Day Challenge – Day 3 – Wrap Up

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Day 3. Is this really even a challenge? It’s amazing to me what a clear intention, a shift in perception and support from amazing strong women can do.

I have immersed myself in the Facebook group that sprang to life, because of that first blog, like it’s my job. It is so difficult to describe this group and what happens there without using words like enchanted and magical.

All I have to do is think about the openness and readiness with which people share their vulnerabilities and unconditional love and tears of gratitude well up.

This was not at all what I expected to be writing about day after day during this challenge. I thought I’d struggle for clever ways to say I took a yoga class and went to the gym. I had no idea I was going to fall in love.

I keep using the word support, but not one of us has asked another how their 21 day challenge is going. Many are sharing but I haven’t really noticed references back to their specific challenges. It’s bigger than that now. It’s a mini-movement. It’s a commitment to upliftment in others and in so doing we are made lighter and brighter. It is through sharing our light that our own grows stronger.

That’s the support. It is non-specific yet to the point. It is being there. It is holding space. And, dare I say it? It is magical.

For the record I have effortlessly met all my daily goals. It’s no longer an option. It is my responsibility.  Keep the lamp lit. Share it.

[Photo: As I was about to leave the house this morning, running late already, Larry, my husband called to let me know there were “tons of white birds” at the pond in front of the police station. So naturally I had to go. (Sorry Darlene 🙂 They were flying back and forth like they were playing red rover. Try as I might I couldn’t quite capture them in flight without a little blur. Maybe they’ll be there tomorrow…]

 

 

21 Day Challenge

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I am issuing a 21 day challenge. To myself. I have always resisted the word challenge, pretending to be non-competitive. But I feel it’s suitable here. What I am challenging are deeply held habit patterns that I want to change or eradicate all together. This is not a challenge to lose weight or achieve a specific goal, this is a challenge to live my most enchanted, magical life.

I have been a planner as far back as I can remember. To be honest, more of a dreamer. My plans sit on the pages of my journals full of hope and promise, lost as I turn the page to dream anew. These plans are not grandiose. On the contrary, they resemble mundane to-do lists instead. But the underlying theme is always, do this to get that. Once I get, do, have, etc. THEN…  It’s a common malady. But I plan to end it now.

It takes 21 days to make a habit – I intend to make several.

You should know that I am using you. I have assigned your presence, real or imaginary, to be the gatekeeper of my conscience. It is you that will keep me on track.

The impetus for this change? I am a charlatan. I am not walking my talk.  I am a yoga teacher that rarely does yoga. A holistic health counselor whose favorite late night snack is pinot noir and Ruffles. A jewelry designer that rarely wears any of her own creations and an interior designer who has lived with peach Formica counter tops for the past 13 years. The only thing I’m doing with any consistency lately is writing and taking pictures. But how long can that last, really, given my history?

So the challenge is this: daily yoga and yoga nidra twice each day. Write for at least 2 hours and take fresh photographs daily . No alcohol and the gym twice a week. For three weeks.

I am publishing this declaration as a way to motivate myself. Even if I suspect one person is reading this and thinking,” I wonder how she’ll do?” or secretly wishing failure upon me (maybe even more motivating),  I’ll rise to the occasion. For some reason I, like many people I suspect, will meet and often exceed other’s expectations, but seldom rise to meet any goals or terms I set for myself. I forgive myself way too often, making excuses that sound like reasons. Mind trickery.

I am not going to weigh or measure myself or drastically change my diet. My baseline diet is very good. I suspect focus these goals will lead to more dedication to overall health and well-being which will organically spill into other areas of my life, like dark chocolate.

It’s not about weight, although it would be a nice side effect, it is about fire. That crackling radiance at everyone’s core. Those who focus only weight or wrinkles or aging or anything superficial for that matter, have not yet met their own light. Those who have, recognize these outward appearances as temporary, they tell a story – excess weight, gray pallor – but they are not the person who dwells beneath the extra pounds. With a little encouragement, if your light is strong enough, it can help reignite another’s flame. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Sharing the light, uplifting? That’s the gift and the responsibility. It’s nothing more than showing up as yourself. Authentic and comfortable in seat of your own soul.  I have felt the heat of my own flame. Now I’m calling it back. For me it is the height of creativity and synchronicity. It is joy for no reason. And it’s where I intend to live.

The physical component is a necessary balance. I know that if I do yoga and yoga nidra on a daily basis, I come from a different place. My mind is clear, I am calm and inspiration crackles all around me. If I add the gym component it accelerates the whole process. It’s about opening the windows and letting the fresh air in. Airing out old belief systems, dismantling self-defeating habit patterns and recognizing the magic in everything.

I promise to post every day. Even if I fail to meet the daily challenge. But I suspect you’ll keep me in line. Perhaps there’s something you could do for 21 days that will enhance your fire.