For the Wildewomen

It has been a beautiful, wintry week here in Portland. The sun is shining and the air is cold -- the wind blows right through. But I haven't minded. After a beautiful weekend inside, cozily connecting with an incredible group of women, I feel quite warm.

Monday morning, I took my pup and myself to an island outside of the city, to walk on the beach, connect to the Earth, and be.

The morning had been foggy, even as we were driving out, but then it was clear.  So we played...

And saw the mountain and watched boats go by on the river, and birds fly and perch.

As we walked down the sand as far as we could go, the river and the land grew closer, revealing the intertwined roots of the trees that live there at the edge together: growing, falling, and becoming.

I walked through the roots and branches and found a spot where the land is becoming sand and beach, and the river laps at its edge.

All of it reminding me of the luscious, wild beauty of life's continual becoming.


The word 'Wildewomen' is a riff on the name of one of my favorite songs, "Wildewoman", by Lucius.

Coasting

Sometimes life surprises you, and when you think it's going to rain, you end up seeing the moon and stars over the sea...

Or when you least expect it, you make some new friends and are invited to have a fun and satisfying weekend out at the Coast.

Foggy, rainy, no matter. What's shines through is the shared experience of being close, and being glad to be in a big house with a bunch of other folks who also want to be there.

We need each other in this life.  Not just to listen and care, but to challenge, share, and be. The older I get, the more I appreciate the diversity of our shared experience of being human.

No one can argue with certain types of beauty, we all know what Spring feels like...

But we are also all different, and going along in life in our own way, making it easy to forget that we are part of the same tribe.

It's nice to be reminded.

Happy Spring!

Shivertime

Winter came to Portland this week, did it arrive where you are?  For us, it is here, that special movement of inward longing and reflecting that I both love and fear; a movement that involves preparing, evaluating, waiting, hoping.

As it is suddenly (seemingly) dark before 5 pm, and the cold settles in on the ground, I find it takes work to allow the movement that is Winter to permeate my being and do its work.  It asks me to close my eyes and just be...

This asking can be difficult. We long for color and light, things to whisk us away from darker feelings, thoughts, and dreams. But it is only by appreciating our inner depths that we can truly scale the heights. So Winter offers a time to go soul-spelunking, if you will.

I find that the deeper I go, the more I am rewarded by the light that reveals itself to be within the darkness. This is the diamond in the coal: the fiery heart of our own nature, full of light we cannot even begin to comprehend.

As the light leaves and the leaves fall, we see the nature of reality.

Life comes from seemingly nowhere, bursts forth in beauty, blows in the breeze and turns its face to the sun.

When it is time, it turns golden and releases, falling and dancing free before finding rest, and what will be its next beginning.

Winter is for rest and the nurture of what is to come. Winter invites us towards growth and whispers one of nature's great secrets: face the darkness and be rewarded with light.

Knocking from the Inside

Love is a verb.

This is a pretty popular saying these days, or idea.  Love is action, love is what is, not what you think.  Love is of the world, as are we, and the world around us is loving us, all the time.  Do you see it?

I feel this the most at the coast. As I've written about before, I am so lucky to live near the beautiful Oregon Coast.  And on a perfect Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, K. and I set out for an impromptu trip to Cannon Beach, a small town just West of Portland.

That's Haystack Rock you see in the background, twice.  And this is me... with K.'s photographic whimsy thrown in.

But enough about that.  Let's talk about love.  What is love?  Is there a more important question?

I see and feel love everywhere.  It is life itself.  Often in session I will guide my clients to feel how life is loving them, just by being.  How the energy of life is love, breathing in and out of them, their cells, their very being.  And when you go to the coast, and feel the energy of the waves crashing and the wind and maybe, just maybe, the sun or sunset...

or feel the trail under your feet, even it's a bit muddy...

That's all love is to me.  No need to look for it, no need to seek it.  You find it by surrendering to the moment, by living the life that is yours, by being a creature of the universe.

As the Sufi poet Rumi said many years ago:

I have almost driven myself mad,

wanting to know reasons,

knocking on a door.

It opens.

I have been knocking from the inside.

Get outside!

Love Lost, Love Found, Love All Around

This is always an interesting week in my office, Valentine's Day/week/season, that is. I don't know how to tell people to just not worry about it so much, because they will anyway, but I try. And there are often pesky memories.  What I do end up saying a lot are things like,

"It's worth waiting for."
                                                                                "Wait until it isn't a choice."
                       "Trust."
                                                                     "Breathe."

I have been fortunate in my life to know many, many people who are deeply in love. I see it all the time, all around me, the support and connection of commitment that comes without effort. Not that the happiness of the relationship comes without effort (for that is the work that bears the greatest fruit), but that the commitment itself is not a question.  There is a with and a we that becomes as natural and normal as... well, anything else in life.

In these days of so much kind-of connection via the Internet, it seems even harder to let life lead. To just put effort into the things you enjoy, get out of the house, and let love find you can seem impossible.

Even if you have found your partner, you can lose precious time to the computer when you could be holding hands, smiling at each other, helping out, or expressing appreciation or support.

Whether you're single or partnered, think of this this Valentine's Day:  Make yourself happy first and the relationship you find will always bring you back to that version of yourself: the person you were that day when you first knew, when you first felt it, when you first realized that you were getting to know the person you would be with for the rest of your life.  Then you get the best of both people: a happy, loving you, and the person you fell in love with when you were most at ease in yourself.

Recipe for the Experience of Love:

Take a moment when you would be doing something else, and lay down on your bed or on the floor.
Get comfy. Put a pillow under your knees, make sure you are nice and warm.
Smile.

Now soften your whole body, your whole mind, your whole heart.
And again.
And again.

Luxuriate in doing absolutely nothing but softening, melting, being.
Accept absolutely everything in your conscious awareness.  Every thought, every itch, every sound.

Be the center in the storm.
And breathe.
And soften.
And breathe.

And love.

Happy Valentine's, and thank you for reading!

Don't Miss the View

Don't miss the view. 

I feel like this every moment I am at the beautiful Oregon Coast, one of my favorite places in the world. I was lucky to be there over the holiday break with my family, watching waves and enjoy brisk days in front on a cozy fire.

Don't miss the view. What view am I missing today? What am I not seeing, not noticing, not understanding?

In Indian mysticism, they use the process of negation to discover truth, to see the view.  For example:

What is truth?
It is not my hand.

What is truth?
It is not my breath.

What is truth?
It is not this computer.

The process of negation leads one to de-attach from all the things we unknowingly see as "true" or important. The process leads one to a feeling of peace, settling, and the experience of what is rather than attachment to trying to control what is always moving and changing, becoming and dying.

Yet in that same moment, as we experience flashes of the real, we are more deeply attuned to all that is changing around us, because we have found the right viewpoint.  And this leads to the experience of deep, deep love for all of life; for life in all its complexity. Compassion.

2013 feels like a year of discovery, of searching, of finding that right view.

"Our happiness and the happiness of those around us depend on our degree of Right View. Touching reality deeply -- knowing what is going on inside and outside of ourselves -- is the way to liberate ourselves from the suffering that is caused by wrong perceptions. Right View is not an ideology, a system, or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight that fills us with understanding, peace, and love."

~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, page 51

What does it feel like for you?

Put Your Hands in the Air

Have you stretched today?  Have you reached towards the sky with open hands, moved your neck around a bit, taken time to strrrrrrrretch?

Have you breathed today?  Have you noticed one breath as it moved in and out of your body?

Have you felt today?  Have you checked in with your body and self to see how you are doing?

How are you doing today that is beyond fine, bad, good, etc.?  How can you feed yourself better today than you did yesterday?

Can you call a friend, do something creative, stretch or sleep?  How about eating a beautiful piece of fruit, putting your face towards the sun, going for a long walk?

Take this moment to stand tall and straight and firm wherever you are.  Close your eyes, and imagine that you are a great mountain living a grand, slow life, moving with the Earth as it revolves through space, surrounded by stars.

Whatever you may be worried about, chances are that simply doing something - especially something very simple - will allay that worry, or at least clarify your mind enough to deal with it.

Slow down and calm the din in your head, feel into those feet that walk upon the Earth everyday.  Let go of worrying about yourself and turn your mind and effort towards love.  What's one thing you can do to love better today?

Taking Care, Being Real, Loving True

The title(s) of this post is an aspiration for me, these are the qualities and experiences I am always reaching for in life.  How can I love better, reach deeper and higher, be more true.  Do you feel the same way?

As I've written here before (and apologies for the hiatus, it was a busy, incredible summer), I found some of my initial foundation for inspiration on the yoga mat.  But maybe I should pause here for a moment and talk about this notion of "foundation for inspiration".

It's hard to be inspired when you're scared.  It's impossible to be inspired when you are not open and looking in some way.  That is why finding your foundation for being 'okay' with life is so important, and why the Buddhists say that we need to meditate on death.

We need to deal with this profound reality: that we are mortal, and that the feeling that we are not is an illusion that will cause us to waste the time that we do have this time around.  When we do this, we learn to face our fears and act despite them.  Once we find this path, we can walk it again, and again, and again.  And we can love the journey.

I'm going to be diplomatic here and say that are many different ways to feel strong, to feel that secure foundation.  But I actually believe that there are proven methods that people have been using for thousands of years, and that those methods are directly available to us, and that we should just use them.  Let's start with Yoga.

Yoga provides a foundation for breath and body that is truly incredible.  If you've been thinking of it, just do it!  And within that, make time to laugh, cry, and eat.  The rest of your life will fall into place around all of that.  Without that foundation, the rest of your life will fall apart.  Or at least not come together too well.

I feel so strongly about this, that I would say to someone suffering from anxiety to go to yoga regularly before coming to therapy.  Try helping yourself first.  If you can't, then find someone you trust to help you get there.  But that's all I can really do, is try to help you to be able to help yourself.

I spent the summer in the mountains and in the city; in the embraces of friends I love and don't see very often; in the whirling changes of a business finding its way.  In all of that, I continued to return, again and again, as I always do, to the breath.  Center, center, center.  First, breathe.  First, breathe.  But first...  you have to learn how!

Have 10 minutes? Start with:

A piece on my website about belly-breathing
My new youtube hero Yogi Tara Stiles
Or some Beethoven with Bernstein

Close your eyes and breathe....

Happiness is Now

K. and I went down to his hometown, Grants Pass, Oregon, this past weekend to give his folks a hand in beginning to clean out the house they have lived in for 40 years, the photos in this post are from that trip.

They have a beautiful older home, filled with important things, things that symbolize the memories and moments that make up the life of a family.  We kept some of them, and got rid of others, and spent some time together.  And I took some time to walk around a lovely small town on a quiet, cold January Saturday, and think about happiness.

Do you ever think to yourself, "I should be happy, I have so much." Or wonder, "Why am I not happy?"  I think a lot of people with material comfort do, especially when they are just starting out in life.  They look out towards the future, confused and without direction, and wonder, "What is wrong with me? Why do I not know what I want?"  I know that's how I was as I tried to see ahead.

This constellation of feelings has a lot to do with not understanding happiness. What is happiness?  Should I be happy?  Why?  And why should I be happy because I have things?  How have we come to equate the two in our mind?

The Pace of Nature

I am blessed with great, kind, generous friends.  Some of these people, I met on my own, through college, work, or simply living life.   Others, through my best friend, my husband.  This past weekend, we had the pleasure of spending time with some of those friends, two of our best friends, at a house on a lake in central Oregon.  

We had an unexpectedly glorious day, and took a leisurely drive to the house, stopping for lunch and then, even though we thought about just sitting and taking in the afternoon on the deck, walking over to the lake.

Walking to the lake sounds very romantic and picturesque.  And it was, at times...  But the lake is man made, and most of our walk consisted of walking along the muddy lake bottom, now that the water is down.  It got a little slippery, and sticky, and gloppy, but we made our way down about a mile or so and back, and by the time we were walking on the road back to the house, the sun was bright and the sky and the evening ahead felt big and welcoming.  

After our gloppy, slippery walk, we had a great night, playing games, eating wonderful food from my new cookbook, and talking about life and our lives.  And laughing.

Life isn't always perfect, but when I feel connected to someone else, when I feel able to love them and be loved, everything else falls away, and there is peace and hope and the next moment to live.  

Life, especially this modern life, feels to me to be so full of reasons to be upset, afraid, or hurt.  But, most of the time, when we feel afraid, isn't it really because we are disconnected from ourselves and our own truth?  Seeking that truth is a constant work, but isn't that seeking what creates the life worth living?

When we don't give up on seeking within ourselves, we are more likely to find others who are living real lives, and to connect with them.  And to have those wonderful evenings, weekends, talks, and walks.  May your week be filled with hope and connection, and love.

*Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honeymoon Cabin

I have something special of mine to share today, and it comes with, as with all things worth sharing, a bit of a story.

There are people who come into your life and then are a part of it from then on, like streams flowing into a river that flows into the sea.  And there are things like that too, at least for me. The little book you see above is actually both.

When I was single and living in Seattle, in the throes of my quarter-century ordeals, I used to wander around junk shops to pass the time on lonely Saturday afternoons (pass the time? having time? what was that like?). It was a comfort activity, something I often did with my family growing up, an activity that felt sure.  I feel confident that in a junk store - as long as it is not too junky - I will find a treasure, a moment of beauty.  Maybe I'll buy it, maybe not, but I almost always see something interesting, full of history and time.

I imagine that on the day I found this little photo book, it was raining, and I was in Ballard, a neighborhood in Seattle, roaming around with my heart in my stomach, berating myself for not doing the right things, for not knowing who I was.  Oh, those were the days.

But on this particular day, I found something unexpected. Along with something beautiful to look at and touch, I found two new people, and they have been with me ever since.

It would be kind of strange to call them 'friends,' but that's what they feel like. I found their beautiful love book in a drawer full of old postcards. I bought it for $5 and felt like a thief.

The book is a love story, seeming to have been made by him and given to her.  It tells the story of two people who were in love for a long time, and then finally able to be together, and how glad this made them both. You can see in each picture how they delighted in each other, how much fun they had together; the photos show the timelessness of true connection.

 
I don't know their names or where they lived, but their little book has traveled with me through many moves and life changes. I bring it out sometimes when we have people over, when the night has reached a time for sharing.

K. and I look at the book and wonder "Where are they in this photo?", "Who do you think that is?"  He said the other day that it was too bad that they didn't write down more details about the photos, but I think that just adds to the mystery.   Besides, they didn't need to, because when it was made, the only people who mattered already knew.

Their story has inspired me over the years many times.   I see in them the love, friendship, and constancy I now know to be a part of long-term togetherness.  I hope that their extended courtship led to a long, happy life together.  Little did they know that their memento would add so much to someone else's life.  I hope you enjoy it, too.

Ruby the Cat

Do you have a pet? A cat, perhaps?  Then we might have something in common, because I love my cat...  And since I'm feeling particularly appreciative of her today, I thought I would introduce her to you.  This, dear reader, is Ruby:

Ruby is 13 going on 14 and fit as a fiddle, a very soft pudgy fiddle.  I actually never thought I would have a cat.  Growing up, my family was not just a dog family, but an Irish Setter family. [I will have one of my own someday, but I'm not quite ready to impose that on Ruby!] I ended up with Ruby when a friend's cat had kittens.  She loved cats and convinced me that not only did I need a cat, but that I should have this particular cat, that she was special.  She was right on both accounts.

Now I'm always sad when people say they are not cat-people.  I used to be one of you and I think you should reconsider.  Saying that you are not a cat-person is like saying that you are not a love-person.  I loved my dogs, but the kind of love you get from a kitty is different.  It's quiet. Satisfied. So sweet. It makes your heart all melty and warm.

You might be wondering about where her name came from.  Believe it or not, people were not naming children Ruby in 1998!  I had had Ruby for about a week and was trying and trying to name her.  One evening, I suddenly remembered a dream from years ago where I had a black and white kitten and her name was Ruby.  That did it. 

Kids love Ruby, she is a celebrity among the little ones in our life.  She's gotten pretty good at dealing with them, and I have taught them how to put their little hands behind their back while they lean forward to let her give them a hello sniff.  This seems to put everyone at ease.  Inevitably, she does not stay around too long when the under-5 crowd is present, but she always says hi.

When I got Ruby as a kitten, I wasn't that much more than one myself.  Not that I felt young at the time, no 23 seemed quite old.  But it isn't at all, as those of on the other side of 30 know.

Ruby helped me so much in those years.  She taught me about stillness, exploring the unknown, and about unconditional cuddles and love and just being.  She is still teaching me these lessons, as she perches on my lap while I'm plugged in to my laptop, waiting for me to give her a little facetime, a scratch on the head, a tickle under the chin.

Having something or someone to love is so important.  It can be hard sometimes, but it is so important to health and happiness.  When I was in a very dark place in my life, Ruby was that being, and I'm glad to give her a lifetime of warmth, good food, and soft laps in return.  It's really no sacrifice at all.

Unexpected Reward

Weddings always inspire the silly poet in me.  I recently had an experience that was both an honor and a first: I attended my first client wedding.  It was so fun.  I didn't know exactly what it would be like to see a client I cared about and had seen through good times and bad be celebrated, it was even better than I could have expected.   An unexpected reward for the work I do.

So here's a little silly ditty for the happy couple.  May they love and grow and love and grow.

Celebration
In Honor of J&B
 
Celebrate life, celebrate love,
celebrate leaves falling from above.

Dance to music just for you,
then invite someone else to dance with you, too.

Lean in close to a nearby ear,
someone you love, say something dear.

Don't sit and worry about what comes next,
just use your voice, or if you must, send a text.

Make sure that you say just what you mean,
Quietly, loudly, or anywhere in-between.

An Autumn poem, for you dear reader,
An Autumn poem, with a bit of love for the meter.

The Gift of Magical Thinking

I'm so glad that the idea of magic has become a grown-up in my mind.  As a child, I loved, loved, loved magic.  I loved princesses, spells, wizards, myths, dwarves, gods, giants.  For many years, I thought that all this had to go away with being grown, that there was no magic in the world, that the world was a kind of plain jane.  So glad I was wrong.

Magic is here everyday.  It is in the beauty of the clouds as they part and make way for the sun.  It is in a leisurely Saturday morning meeting-for-coffee-over-the-phone with that rare and wondrous treasure, a true friend.  It is in a blog post, well-written, humorous and celebratory of life's small moments.

How we think is so much of our life.  A few weeks ago I wrote about how our life is made up of how we feel everyday.  And that is true.  But how we think, what we think, where we take ourselves in our minds is a big part of how we feel.  Hence, the importance of whimsical, magical thinking.

Magic feels so good.  It warms the heart and heals the soul.  Magic happens between two people when they fall in love, or when they heal from a fight, or find each other after distance has grown.

Magic is a soft landing.  May you find yours today.