I believe it is true that we create our own reality. I also believe that what we create is not always what we really want, because it is coming from the unconscious burdens we carry. I have always thought of this process like a movie projector: the Light shines through us, and the layers, images, beliefs and stories we have stockpiled in our minds, bodies and energy fields become the images cast out as the Light shines through them onto the screen of our lives. I think we are here to learn to be the choosers of our own slide show.
That said, what creations would you like to replace? What would you imagine your path ahead to look like? I'm thinking of one like this, full of color and magic and grace and delightful surprises at every turn, full of nature and kind compassion. One that continually unfolds in beauty under the powering light of awe. One that invites me forward, trusting, into an ever-opening embrace. One that is Perfect for me. One that I love.
May yours be the same.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
autumn spirits
A wind ghosts outside today, restless and chill, reveling in its freedom to taunt wherever it will. It's the last day of October, Halloween – November's eve, with an unpredictable greybright sky, remnant scatters of brown-gold leaves adorning the trees, and the lengthening embrace of a darkness ready to take its turn.
This time of year is always difficult psychologically, especially after the time change. It seems so abrupt, being plunged into an inky black world upon leaving work for the day. And I never quite get used to it, never quite get past the feeling that I should rush home and be hunkered down in bed already. It seems much too late to be running errands, and the feel of the darkness pressing vise-like from both ends of the day leaves me with something of a sense of being squished, or hurried, or small.
But it's all just a balancing act, light and dark, summer and winter, expansion and contraction. And ironically, while winter's dark days make our world seem smaller, its longer nights allow more opportunity than ever to see, in the vast starry skies, just how tremendous the World really is.
This time of year is always difficult psychologically, especially after the time change. It seems so abrupt, being plunged into an inky black world upon leaving work for the day. And I never quite get used to it, never quite get past the feeling that I should rush home and be hunkered down in bed already. It seems much too late to be running errands, and the feel of the darkness pressing vise-like from both ends of the day leaves me with something of a sense of being squished, or hurried, or small.
But it's all just a balancing act, light and dark, summer and winter, expansion and contraction. And ironically, while winter's dark days make our world seem smaller, its longer nights allow more opportunity than ever to see, in the vast starry skies, just how tremendous the World really is.
Friday, October 9, 2009
morning
A new morning, every day.
There are so many cliches about starting over, beginning a new day, a blank canvas, a fresh start. I've written some myself, sometimes I just can't help it. The way I see it, when we're able to reach that particular state of mind, we are feeling inspired, and those cliches mean something.
The thing is, habits have a way of getting the best of us, often without us even knowing it. Thoughts are the worst. Before I know it, mine have laid down a nice comfortable little squatter's roost for themselves, and convinced me that things just are how they are in their tiny world, and I might as well accept the rules and throw in my lot. These thoughts reinforce themselves, pacing their same little animal trails through the meadows of my mind again and again, until the route is so well known that no effort is required to travel it. Stuck.
Of course, this may not matter so much if our habitual trails are positive or joyful ones. Mine were trained early on to prefer mucky wallows and safe shadows, a mire of excuses not to just live a happy life. So when my attention has wandered and those animal thoughts have been pacing, I begin to feel their dingy wet blanket effect on me...and that's when a sudden cliche inspiration of renewal is truly a diamond in the mire.
There are so many cliches about starting over, beginning a new day, a blank canvas, a fresh start. I've written some myself, sometimes I just can't help it. The way I see it, when we're able to reach that particular state of mind, we are feeling inspired, and those cliches mean something.
The thing is, habits have a way of getting the best of us, often without us even knowing it. Thoughts are the worst. Before I know it, mine have laid down a nice comfortable little squatter's roost for themselves, and convinced me that things just are how they are in their tiny world, and I might as well accept the rules and throw in my lot. These thoughts reinforce themselves, pacing their same little animal trails through the meadows of my mind again and again, until the route is so well known that no effort is required to travel it. Stuck.
Of course, this may not matter so much if our habitual trails are positive or joyful ones. Mine were trained early on to prefer mucky wallows and safe shadows, a mire of excuses not to just live a happy life. So when my attention has wandered and those animal thoughts have been pacing, I begin to feel their dingy wet blanket effect on me...and that's when a sudden cliche inspiration of renewal is truly a diamond in the mire.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
grass lines
I am fascinated by the dimensions in this photo, the different levels of being, all contained in a square foot or two. I think the elegantly sharp lines of the grass caught my eye first, against the placid smooth of the water. I love that contrast, and often find myself photographing the combination.
But more is revealed as I look longer. The reflections, in their complementary black, playing shadow to the living grass, yet taking on a distorted life of their own--wavy counterpart to the straight blades, able to play more freely with reality. And again, the brown grass beneath the water, yet another aspect of the grass's life cycle, highlighting the green glow of the shoots above the surface, not yet done growing.
We, too, are multi-dimensional, though we are generally far too unaware of it. Our daily outward expression often consumes our existence, but it is not who we really are. Beneath the surface are levels of awareness, emotion, habitual thought, possibility, intuitive perception, all of which form a backdrop, a context, a foundation, for the whole of who we are. There is a point, perhaps, at which identifying with only one of these dimensions results in a stagnant life, one that asks to be lived more fully and truthfully.
It is time, I think, for us to realize that we are much more than the products of our society--or worse, its followers. That we are rich and soulful and wise beyond what the world we've created around us would have us believe. To stop settling for helping it along on its often mindless path of no clear and good direction, and to let that Soul, that wisdom, step forward and awaken us to something richer and more satisfying. And better. For all of us.
But more is revealed as I look longer. The reflections, in their complementary black, playing shadow to the living grass, yet taking on a distorted life of their own--wavy counterpart to the straight blades, able to play more freely with reality. And again, the brown grass beneath the water, yet another aspect of the grass's life cycle, highlighting the green glow of the shoots above the surface, not yet done growing.
We, too, are multi-dimensional, though we are generally far too unaware of it. Our daily outward expression often consumes our existence, but it is not who we really are. Beneath the surface are levels of awareness, emotion, habitual thought, possibility, intuitive perception, all of which form a backdrop, a context, a foundation, for the whole of who we are. There is a point, perhaps, at which identifying with only one of these dimensions results in a stagnant life, one that asks to be lived more fully and truthfully.
It is time, I think, for us to realize that we are much more than the products of our society--or worse, its followers. That we are rich and soulful and wise beyond what the world we've created around us would have us believe. To stop settling for helping it along on its often mindless path of no clear and good direction, and to let that Soul, that wisdom, step forward and awaken us to something richer and more satisfying. And better. For all of us.
Monday, September 28, 2009
from here to there
When I first started camping on mountains alone, it never occurred to me to be afraid. And when I dutifully considered that perhaps there was good reason for me to feel fear, I still didn't.
Of course, there were times now and then when I heard a noise in the night, and regretted a moment of carelessness in not hanging my food properly. Or when I found myself alone on a mountainside where a mountain lion had been spotted the day before. Or when a rutting bull moose (which I thought was a bear) spent an hour and a half grunting near my campsite in the dark. But it never occurred to me to turn back. Or if it did, it was just my mind running around in circles; the rest of me, the core, the anchor, had already decided.
But the rest of my life has not worked that way. Somewhere, somehow, someone told me I should be afraid. My mind, being diligent, believed them, and passed that experience on to the rest of me.
When I look at this fallen tree, I see how things change depending on how we look at them. This perspective makes the log seem interminable, reaching ahead into the future. Another angle could make its girth seem insurmountably thick. A closeup would make the spurs appear deadly, like the shadowed teeth on the rock. Or these same views can also reveal the detailed beauty of texture, weathering, grain, imperfection--the genuine story of the tree.
Going into the wilderness, for some reason, was the only way I could ever reach a part of me that was bigger than my frightened mind. But it's wilderness, also, which is teaching me that everything we encounter is part of a story--part of our own story. Within that story, we are its perfect witness, its only teller. We have only to allow the story to unravel, beginning to end, root to tip, and to let it be ours.
Of course, there were times now and then when I heard a noise in the night, and regretted a moment of carelessness in not hanging my food properly. Or when I found myself alone on a mountainside where a mountain lion had been spotted the day before. Or when a rutting bull moose (which I thought was a bear) spent an hour and a half grunting near my campsite in the dark. But it never occurred to me to turn back. Or if it did, it was just my mind running around in circles; the rest of me, the core, the anchor, had already decided.
But the rest of my life has not worked that way. Somewhere, somehow, someone told me I should be afraid. My mind, being diligent, believed them, and passed that experience on to the rest of me.
When I look at this fallen tree, I see how things change depending on how we look at them. This perspective makes the log seem interminable, reaching ahead into the future. Another angle could make its girth seem insurmountably thick. A closeup would make the spurs appear deadly, like the shadowed teeth on the rock. Or these same views can also reveal the detailed beauty of texture, weathering, grain, imperfection--the genuine story of the tree.
Going into the wilderness, for some reason, was the only way I could ever reach a part of me that was bigger than my frightened mind. But it's wilderness, also, which is teaching me that everything we encounter is part of a story--part of our own story. Within that story, we are its perfect witness, its only teller. We have only to allow the story to unravel, beginning to end, root to tip, and to let it be ours.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
disheveled
Have you ever felt that no matter how many details you attend to, parts of you are still sticking out in every direction, wild and frayed and just trying to find the Light?
That's how life has been for me, for a while now. My mind is like a wind I cannot see, coming from every direction. It lifts each carefully tucked corner as soon as I turn away, raises dust storms and questions and shadows, shifts direction to evade understanding. I stand up, and it knocks me down. I choose a path, and it is obliterated. I stay put, and it swirls around me, urging me to action. This is a dance I know well, but somehow have still not mastered.
Of course, the key is to bend, to find true strength in flexibility rather than in resistance. And in the bending, the wind's hold cannot catch us, and we begin to notice the strange harmony of the disheveled world around us.
I was sitting on my third floor balcony this evening when a collection of starlings flocked up and assembled noisily in the large cottonwood tree in front of me. They were a wind in themselves, so many wings and tails, so much commotion, their chatter like an army of squeaky wheels being rolled for oiling. Already they wore their winter plumage, a contentious pattern of black and white speckles, and their beaks were winter black (as opposed to breeding yellow in spring).
But their gregarious activity delighted me. Although each squeaked and whistled its own separate opinion, regardless of all the other voices around it, they were clearly all of the same mind. And when a small gust of breeze kicked up, they all rose from the tree of one accord, the sound of their collective wings a whoosh of feathered wind, a scattered beating of a single heart knowing where it wanted to go.
That's how life has been for me, for a while now. My mind is like a wind I cannot see, coming from every direction. It lifts each carefully tucked corner as soon as I turn away, raises dust storms and questions and shadows, shifts direction to evade understanding. I stand up, and it knocks me down. I choose a path, and it is obliterated. I stay put, and it swirls around me, urging me to action. This is a dance I know well, but somehow have still not mastered.
Of course, the key is to bend, to find true strength in flexibility rather than in resistance. And in the bending, the wind's hold cannot catch us, and we begin to notice the strange harmony of the disheveled world around us.
I was sitting on my third floor balcony this evening when a collection of starlings flocked up and assembled noisily in the large cottonwood tree in front of me. They were a wind in themselves, so many wings and tails, so much commotion, their chatter like an army of squeaky wheels being rolled for oiling. Already they wore their winter plumage, a contentious pattern of black and white speckles, and their beaks were winter black (as opposed to breeding yellow in spring).
But their gregarious activity delighted me. Although each squeaked and whistled its own separate opinion, regardless of all the other voices around it, they were clearly all of the same mind. And when a small gust of breeze kicked up, they all rose from the tree of one accord, the sound of their collective wings a whoosh of feathered wind, a scattered beating of a single heart knowing where it wanted to go.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Stalking frogs
They sound like small dying cows, and they know when you're drawing near, no matter how quiet you are.
But first there was the moose. A large, lumpy brown moose, browsing on the other side of the wetland that sprawls away from a road near where I live. I spotted her during an evening walk, and stepped off the road onto a dirt pullover to watch her for a while.
Then I heard the tired, strained moans, and my other senses became attentive. For a while I convinced myself that perhaps a duck was caught and dying in fishing line, the sound was so hoarse and woeful. I was afraid to look, but couldn't help myself...and I started down a dirt path beside the water to see what I could find.
Frogs. I finally realized they were frogs, and I never did manage to see one (the photo is from another time and place altogether). But they really do sound dreadful, and they led me into a whole world that I might have missed. Because the more I looked and listened in this wetland setting, the more I discovered, until I was swept away with the life that was there. The scent, a sweet fragrance of wild purple phlox in full bloom, and air washed fresh from a June rain; the color, a sky charcoal-yellow with an approaching summer thunderstorm; the sound, the musical chatter of a finch from a tall cottonwood; the movement, an absolute ballet of jumping fish, leaping and twisting and skimming the surface all over the water. With binoculars I spotted an old beaver lodge and a mother duck with her entourage of young. I let myself stalk some frogs, and the next thing I knew, I had an entire National Geographic's worth of nature right under my nose.
I also couldn't help but notice a large new home across the water. A fabulous setting, overlooking this wetland with its moose and peace and wildlife. It had a terraced lawn approaching the water's edge, a hammock strung between two fir trees. A sitting nook with chairs was nestled against a bank below the house; three stories' worth of tall windows reflected beautifully over the marsh; an open second-floor deck awaited company. But the only sign of life I could see there was the flashing picture of a huge flat-screen television inside.
Whose life will we choose to live? The lives we see on TV and the internet, or the life outside that's waiting for us to see it--our own?
But first there was the moose. A large, lumpy brown moose, browsing on the other side of the wetland that sprawls away from a road near where I live. I spotted her during an evening walk, and stepped off the road onto a dirt pullover to watch her for a while.
Then I heard the tired, strained moans, and my other senses became attentive. For a while I convinced myself that perhaps a duck was caught and dying in fishing line, the sound was so hoarse and woeful. I was afraid to look, but couldn't help myself...and I started down a dirt path beside the water to see what I could find.
Frogs. I finally realized they were frogs, and I never did manage to see one (the photo is from another time and place altogether). But they really do sound dreadful, and they led me into a whole world that I might have missed. Because the more I looked and listened in this wetland setting, the more I discovered, until I was swept away with the life that was there. The scent, a sweet fragrance of wild purple phlox in full bloom, and air washed fresh from a June rain; the color, a sky charcoal-yellow with an approaching summer thunderstorm; the sound, the musical chatter of a finch from a tall cottonwood; the movement, an absolute ballet of jumping fish, leaping and twisting and skimming the surface all over the water. With binoculars I spotted an old beaver lodge and a mother duck with her entourage of young. I let myself stalk some frogs, and the next thing I knew, I had an entire National Geographic's worth of nature right under my nose.
I also couldn't help but notice a large new home across the water. A fabulous setting, overlooking this wetland with its moose and peace and wildlife. It had a terraced lawn approaching the water's edge, a hammock strung between two fir trees. A sitting nook with chairs was nestled against a bank below the house; three stories' worth of tall windows reflected beautifully over the marsh; an open second-floor deck awaited company. But the only sign of life I could see there was the flashing picture of a huge flat-screen television inside.
Whose life will we choose to live? The lives we see on TV and the internet, or the life outside that's waiting for us to see it--our own?
Friday, June 5, 2009
illumination
This aspen leaf made me think about backwards branching. That is, following all the many roads back to their source, rather than to their ends.
The leaf's backlit veins travel delicately to their outermost boundaries, to the edges. Layer by layer, they split off into perhaps infinitely many smaller networks, performing their work with equal purpose. But they all originate from the stronger center vein down the leaf's middle.
Each leaf also has a stem that reaches back to a branch; the leaves are their own network layer. And each branch anchors to the trunk. In the case of an aspen grove, even the trunks are just extensions of a living root system that comprises one complete organism.
And how much further back can the journey of this leaf's life be traced?
There's a time for us to expand outward, to grow and seek and stretch and find new edges to our limits. And there's also a time to follow that same journey inward, to understand the wholeness that cradles all of our pieces, and that illuminates our multitude of antics here on Earth.
The leaf's backlit veins travel delicately to their outermost boundaries, to the edges. Layer by layer, they split off into perhaps infinitely many smaller networks, performing their work with equal purpose. But they all originate from the stronger center vein down the leaf's middle.
Each leaf also has a stem that reaches back to a branch; the leaves are their own network layer. And each branch anchors to the trunk. In the case of an aspen grove, even the trunks are just extensions of a living root system that comprises one complete organism.
And how much further back can the journey of this leaf's life be traced?
There's a time for us to expand outward, to grow and seek and stretch and find new edges to our limits. And there's also a time to follow that same journey inward, to understand the wholeness that cradles all of our pieces, and that illuminates our multitude of antics here on Earth.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
beginnings
I love beginnings.
I don't feel that I've seen very many of them; I always seem to be trying to wrap up something that went before. The past year has been a real wake-up call to letting go.
But on a single spring evening's bike ride, I found beginnings everywhere. I saw the first ospreys back from winter, calling in whistled chirps from their nesting platform. The orange-white-black flash of a rufous-sided towhee on a pine branch surprised me, and the shrill warning call of killdeer greeted me at the Dover wetland. Each first bird sighting is its own little celebration. The air will never feel as fresh through the year as it does now, damp and new. And on the way back, I caught the very first frog-croak of evening.
Spring is easy to love. It brings back reminders of all the little joys and possibilities we'd forgotten about in winter.
I don't feel that I've seen very many of them; I always seem to be trying to wrap up something that went before. The past year has been a real wake-up call to letting go.
But on a single spring evening's bike ride, I found beginnings everywhere. I saw the first ospreys back from winter, calling in whistled chirps from their nesting platform. The orange-white-black flash of a rufous-sided towhee on a pine branch surprised me, and the shrill warning call of killdeer greeted me at the Dover wetland. Each first bird sighting is its own little celebration. The air will never feel as fresh through the year as it does now, damp and new. And on the way back, I caught the very first frog-croak of evening.
Spring is easy to love. It brings back reminders of all the little joys and possibilities we'd forgotten about in winter.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
the forces that shape us
Walking in the park across the street a few weeks ago, I found this ray of light, seeking something to illuminate. I felt fortunate to capture a moment of its play.
As I look around this spring, I see evidence everywhere of how life is shaped by forces both within and outside of its control. Life and death can be opportunistic, random, necessary, or tragic - like the white bones of two deer I found lying by the railroad track, linked vertebrae and a rib cage neat as erector sets, miraculous even in death. Spring bulbs wake readily to bloom--but it was the freezing sleep that prepared them. Robins arriving in February, tired from their long migration, must wait to eat until winter has finished its work. But when the earthworms rise, a spring rain sends them out onto the park path in search of dry land. They cover the walk like strewn pine needles, and I hopscotch my way around them, smiling. But later, I will see that many of them drowned, never making it back to the grass.
There is so much about our lives that seems unpredictable, and oddly, in this time of new life, it occurs to me just how equal and essential a part of life death is. Not just death, but endurance, struggle, patience, and surrender. All of it, all the faces of the circle, are part of one glorious whole. I have railed against the aspects of my life that I don't like for far too long. I can safely say, with what could be called wisdom if it weren't so obvious, that there is no peace in fighting. Our greatest experience of life, I think, is to embrace it completely. It is from here that we can genuinely enjoy the adventure.
As I look around this spring, I see evidence everywhere of how life is shaped by forces both within and outside of its control. Life and death can be opportunistic, random, necessary, or tragic - like the white bones of two deer I found lying by the railroad track, linked vertebrae and a rib cage neat as erector sets, miraculous even in death. Spring bulbs wake readily to bloom--but it was the freezing sleep that prepared them. Robins arriving in February, tired from their long migration, must wait to eat until winter has finished its work. But when the earthworms rise, a spring rain sends them out onto the park path in search of dry land. They cover the walk like strewn pine needles, and I hopscotch my way around them, smiling. But later, I will see that many of them drowned, never making it back to the grass.
There is so much about our lives that seems unpredictable, and oddly, in this time of new life, it occurs to me just how equal and essential a part of life death is. Not just death, but endurance, struggle, patience, and surrender. All of it, all the faces of the circle, are part of one glorious whole. I have railed against the aspects of my life that I don't like for far too long. I can safely say, with what could be called wisdom if it weren't so obvious, that there is no peace in fighting. Our greatest experience of life, I think, is to embrace it completely. It is from here that we can genuinely enjoy the adventure.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Old and new
A new season doesn't arrive without baggage, all shiny and undented. It grows from what went before. Spring is rife with a chaotic array of fresh and stale, broken and supple, bare truth and sweet promise.
The season's first task is to sort out the old and new, a frenzy of creative reorganization. Last year's frayed bird nests lie naked among the branches, secret havens reduced to bones. Shriveled fruits and bent limbs emerge from melting snow, along with the furry tips of new pussywillow buds. Nearby mountains still bear snowy peaks, but robins' evening songs ring clear.
The one thing that cannot be denied is life's progression. Regardless of trials, losses, dead ends, life's nature is to reach ahead again, to push upward – to find a new place to grow.
The season's first task is to sort out the old and new, a frenzy of creative reorganization. Last year's frayed bird nests lie naked among the branches, secret havens reduced to bones. Shriveled fruits and bent limbs emerge from melting snow, along with the furry tips of new pussywillow buds. Nearby mountains still bear snowy peaks, but robins' evening songs ring clear.
The one thing that cannot be denied is life's progression. Regardless of trials, losses, dead ends, life's nature is to reach ahead again, to push upward – to find a new place to grow.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
winter light III
March is a month of drama, as waking spring winds try to chase out the cold winter spirits. Sun, rain, snow, sun, wind, hail, sun, ice...the dance plays out. Part of me loves its fierceness and unpredictability.
March is a cusp time, a time of stirring and resettling. Newly arrived birds flap and chirp, sorting out nesting spots. Crocuses assert themselves through holdout patches of snow. Temperatures rise and fall like the wind, and life wakes up again, yawning and stretching and shrugging out the knots from its long stillness.
But I like to think that this infant season unfurls from a quiet seed of light, planted in the heart of winter. When all is still, turned in on itself, waiting, the light casts its deepest shadow, and the world dreams of its next waking.
March is a cusp time, a time of stirring and resettling. Newly arrived birds flap and chirp, sorting out nesting spots. Crocuses assert themselves through holdout patches of snow. Temperatures rise and fall like the wind, and life wakes up again, yawning and stretching and shrugging out the knots from its long stillness.
But I like to think that this infant season unfurls from a quiet seed of light, planted in the heart of winter. When all is still, turned in on itself, waiting, the light casts its deepest shadow, and the world dreams of its next waking.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
woods path
If there is one thing I've learned this year (although Heaven knows, there have been more than one), it's that each of us truly must walk our own path. And when we do not, something inside us will crackle and grate and claw for our attention until we are willing, or forced, or courageous enough to listen.
It's not that we necessarily know just where we're going. For me, it's more of a feeling, an inner sense of peace and authenticity, and for now I am continuing to search for it. But each path is also its own story, and every story has characters, each one contributing somehow to its development. And on this special day of beginnings, I choose to count my blessings by counting some of the essential characters in my story this year.
First, and at the beginning of everyone's story, are parents. From my father I learned how to be honest and responsible, how to work, how to drive, and how far over the speed limit I could go without getting pulled over. My mother taught me how to be healthy (my lunch always had wheat bread and apples), how to be kind to others, and how to love nature. And my sister is someone I admire for seeming always to have known who she is and what she cares about, and building her life around that.
But in the past couple of years, others have brought meaning to my life in their own ways: Rob, who came into my life to share joy, kindness and adventure, and who also had the task of showing me where my heart still needed to open; Julie, whose bottomless and wise compassion I am forever grateful for; Nick, who believed in me and saw the best in me; Dorothy, whose willingness to help others seemingly knows no bounds; Michelle, who inadvertently got me on a roller coaster for the first time in twenty years; Eric, who reached me again out of the blue and who will always be a friend; Jane, whose love of plants made a greenhouse beautiful and a difficult summer easier; Jerry, who is a good soul from the inside out; Berta, Marina and Geoffrey, the team of healers who are helping to resculpt me through a time of transition into the person I am really here to become; Eileen, whose name means "Light" and who lives up to it; and others who are important and appreciated.
This may sound like an acceptance speech--but in fact, it is. I accept the lessons, the love and the living that all the characters of my life have brought me. And I wish each of them, and all the other adventurers on this storm-tossed Earth, happy, fulfilled lives and awakened hearts.
Namaste
It's not that we necessarily know just where we're going. For me, it's more of a feeling, an inner sense of peace and authenticity, and for now I am continuing to search for it. But each path is also its own story, and every story has characters, each one contributing somehow to its development. And on this special day of beginnings, I choose to count my blessings by counting some of the essential characters in my story this year.
First, and at the beginning of everyone's story, are parents. From my father I learned how to be honest and responsible, how to work, how to drive, and how far over the speed limit I could go without getting pulled over. My mother taught me how to be healthy (my lunch always had wheat bread and apples), how to be kind to others, and how to love nature. And my sister is someone I admire for seeming always to have known who she is and what she cares about, and building her life around that.
But in the past couple of years, others have brought meaning to my life in their own ways: Rob, who came into my life to share joy, kindness and adventure, and who also had the task of showing me where my heart still needed to open; Julie, whose bottomless and wise compassion I am forever grateful for; Nick, who believed in me and saw the best in me; Dorothy, whose willingness to help others seemingly knows no bounds; Michelle, who inadvertently got me on a roller coaster for the first time in twenty years; Eric, who reached me again out of the blue and who will always be a friend; Jane, whose love of plants made a greenhouse beautiful and a difficult summer easier; Jerry, who is a good soul from the inside out; Berta, Marina and Geoffrey, the team of healers who are helping to resculpt me through a time of transition into the person I am really here to become; Eileen, whose name means "Light" and who lives up to it; and others who are important and appreciated.
This may sound like an acceptance speech--but in fact, it is. I accept the lessons, the love and the living that all the characters of my life have brought me. And I wish each of them, and all the other adventurers on this storm-tossed Earth, happy, fulfilled lives and awakened hearts.
Namaste
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