stonetosser.com

Posted yesterday on Owning Pink. (no need to comment here if you commented there!) 

A while back, a conversation Lissa Rankin and I had about being a mom and an entrepreneur struck a chord in both of us and produced her wonderful post on birthing what wants to be born. That post produced a moving discussion about the choices we make about where our amazing, female creative energy goes – into babies, projects, passions and work. As I sat with this and let the words of Pinkie wisdom seep into me, a wondrous thing happened I want to share with you. I felt some of the tangle of my personal confusion on this subject begin to unravel. When I told Lissa and Joy they encouraged me to untangle and reweave in public in the hopes that it might be useful to others. And so here I share some of my tapestry-in-progress with you. Blessings to you in your personal struggles and choices as you release your own amazing creative powers. ~Dana

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The need to create

We women are just bursting with the ability, talent and NEED to create. Not just procreate – though that’s obviously a biggie hormonally and otherwise – I mean: CREATE. I wasn’t completely aware of this myself until recently, which is ironic because in addition to co-creating two children, I’ve spent my whole professional career trying to create stuff. This has been frustrating because I wasn’t an artist or a welder or a software developer, I was a marketer. (Marketers don’t make stuff, sadly; we make stuff up.) So, unconscious of the fact I really wanted to create things, I aligned myself with people who did and made a career out of launching new products into the market and advising organizations on how to take advantage of new technology to create new businesses. Somewhere along the line I stopped owning the failure of not being happy in all my jobs and started owning success by realizing I was a creative spirit and that creating stuff fuels me and brings me joy. Seeing it come to fruition in one form or another makes me ecstatic! I loved making kids! I love parenting kids – now teenagers whom I adore. I have – count them – four businesses! And I love them all! It’s all just the creative energy in me visioning something wonderful in the world and then setting my energy to bring it into being.

Lissa and I laughed because of course, she has given birth to one beautiful child and many businesses too – a medical practice, an artist’s body of gorgeous work, two books, and a blossoming creation in Owning Pink she’s inviting us all to co-create with her. But of course, we’ve both created children and sometimes the demands and desires of motherhood and entrepreneurship get a little tangled up and confused.

Confusion

For myself, this tangle is definitely confusing; and I’m not just talking about the energy management of it here (though that is often beyond confusing!). I mean something deeper. Something so deep that it’s tangled up with roots that go so far down into my spirit and my being I can’t even see where they end. This bonked me on the head when Lissa and I were chatting on IM about this. We were talking about how fun it is to start up a business (and how exhausting) and about the parallels with having a kid. At first we were focused on the similarities:

• neither a baby nor a startup business can exist without you;
• both cry a lot and need constant care and feeding, sucking at your very being; and
• you LOVE them both to the point that it can make you wonder where you start and they stop.

After a bit we were all confused. Birthing anything new is an act of creation and so in many ways they feel so much alike, is there really no difference? Could you just start a business and never have a kid (or visa versa) and have the same experience? Well, no… there are significant differences too:

• a child is an independent soul with its own intrinsic purpose on this earth, while a business’s purpose is to further the growth and development of all the independent souls it touches (employees, owners, customers, investors etc.);
• a child should be nurtured until it can function completely independently, while an organization always needs leadership; and
• your love for a child should be a personal connection, while your love for a business (which is also “owned” by others, either financially or otherwise) should be a little more distant for your own health and well-being.

They’re one in the same

And then it hit me. In addition to being a mom, I’m also an entrepreneur, a professional risk taker. A serial Pleaper (i.e., Pink Leap of Faither). And in this conversation I’m just now realizing why those two aspects of my identity are SO important and SO related. What I realized today is: My JOB is giving birth and it’s also my LIFE. There’s no separating them out!

So now I realize I’m on the same adventure many of us find ourselves exploring, how to blend my creative energies in my professional, creative and family lives. When I think of it this way, I feel like a success as a creator; and by viewing all these adventures as creative efforts I find I’m having a lot more fun. Because the act of creation assumes a little mystery about what the end result will be and when I think of them as creative efforts I have less attachment to exactly how they come out in the end. I also realize they are creative collaborations with the people in my life – my husband, my kids, my partners, my clients – and where we share creative visions so much more is possible.

So what about you? Where are your lives rich with creative energy? What are your strategies for blending them? How do you infuse creative excitement into facets of your life? How do you manage the creative tensions that inevitably arise?

Love, light, and creation,
Dana

Broken bits of phrase
scatter carelessly about me.

Only in stillness
does a whim, an inspiration

breath them into life -
to laugh, to yearn, to be reborn.

Then, the call to task - 
and they fall before its looming.

Once again, lifeless,
into the dark.



(c) 2006 StoneTosser

Just like we discover our true family once we leave home, we also discover our true home.

My family moved around when I was little - our first move out of my Northern Californian birthplace when I was three - and when it finally came time for me to strike out on my own, I moved far away from my native California and settled into the DC environs to make a home. Arlington, Virginia has been my home for the last twenty four years and it has been a good home for my family and my business. My spirit? Not so much. I have found and devoted my energy to a church there, ensured it was a comfortable space for my children and community to find comfort in, but my own spiritual journey has continued on its own path, looking for home.

Many times over the years, I've had urges and desires to move back to the San Francisco area. They intensified when my husband and kids fell in love with the Pacific shores and traveled with me along the jagged, lush shores of California's northern beaches, crawling around looking for rocks and stepping around surging surf to spot tidepool treasures. But the time has never been right and the list of "why nots" always far outweighs the "whys" for calling Northern California “home”.

Many times on our trips I've sat alone on the ocean's edge and wept - not out of sadness but out of joy for the sheer, raw energy of the land that my body, mind and soul knows is where I belong. I've wept because I feel so connected to mother earth and God when I sit at the ocean’s edge that I can't contain the intensity of my love of this land where the water and air and coastline come together in roughly gorgeous harmony for all the senses to enjoy. "Someday," I say to myself, "if I’m incredibly lucky, I’ll find a way to live some of my life here again." And then I get back on a plane and fly “home.”

And all this seems odd because until the last couple of years, I’ve hardly known a soul in California. My family all left decades ago and the majority of my close friends moved also. I thought I was drawn to the land for its beauty and energy.

A few times, usually in the sticky heat of a Washington summer, I've questioned why I've had to live so long away from the place that gives me such joy be simply being there and breathing the air. I don't feel "punished," because our life in DC is really pretty fantastic, and the seasons are nice, and the schools are good, and my career has thrived. But I have still succumbed to wondering about my wandering so far from “home”.

This weekend I came to San Francisco on a business/pleasure trip and found the answer to what calls me back. And it turned out that it had very little to do with the land at all, and everything to do with my inner landscape and the spiritual journey I've been on. This weekend I spent a few days with the driving forces behind Owning Pink. Lissa Rankin extended her lovely home in Muir Beach to me and invited many others she has found community with. Some were new to me, some had already become old friends in spirit (thank you, Internet!). We came together over food and friendship and began to talk about our dreams – for ourselves, for each other, for the world. We shared what each of us hoped for Owning Pink, what we had to offer it, what it gave us. And in the sharing something amazing began to take shape.

We began to speak of Owning Pink as a business that will serve Divine Purpose and uplift our community as it uplifts us. We spoke of “Pink” as Divine Love and women as the gateway for the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine to walk through into co-creating a more beautiful world. We spoke of helping each other along on our personal journeys, of helping people heal them simply by “seeing” them as the beautiful souls we all are. We all accepted responsibility for our part in making this happen and vowed to support each other in the effort. It was the most unusual business meeting I’ve ever attended and it was also the most important.

I realized as we talked of business and dreams, that others “saw” me and allowed me to “see” them absent cynicism and negativity and all the “why nots”. We gave ourselves permission to imagine our success and see it in what is already taking shape. My spirit lifted as we talked and I saw that we each brought special gifts and perspectives to this conversation as the business issues and the higher goals wove themselves together in our discussion. But the most precious moment was when I saw how my own personal gifts and skills – business knowledge and spiritual awareness – fit into this lovely mosaic of building intention like a hand slips into a soft, supple glove.

And suddenly I understood that I was truly home. On the land, in my heart and in my spiritual tribe, I had come home from the dessert to be welcomed with open arms; the gifts I had collected without knowing who they would be given to were graciously accepted; and I wept yet again.

Now there is no doubt in my mind that Northern California and Owning Pink are my home in truth. The logistics of locating my body and career here are likely to work their way out but even if they don’t, I know where home is and carry it with me always and forever (thank you, Internet, again!). This has been a fantastic year for me so far, finding both my purpose and my home. I can't wait to see what's next.

Thank you Lissa, for following your own true path where it has led you, and for including me in your journey. Thank you for calling me home.

My friend Lissa Rankin and I were talking recently about what it means to be your ‘authentic’ self. "It means taking your masks away," she said, referring to the roles we play of employee, professional, mom, friend, daughter, PTA parent etc. She has observed (and built a thriving blog around the idea) that many of us get to a point in life where these masks threaten to define us as fractured beings. Perhaps it is in defense - or desperation - that we yearn to break free of the masks and just be ourselves, the "me" that exists underneath all the roles and masks.


The Need to Unmask

When we allow ourselves space to journey into what lies beneath the “selves” we've spent so much energy building our lives around, most of us find that there are hidden and long squashed talents lying in wait to captivate our imagination and attention. I've lost count of the people I know (myself included) who've discovered artistic, entrepreneurial and creative outlets in later life when they took the time to allow buried parts of themselves to break through to the surface. Sometimes there are scary things hiding underneath those masks too, feelings and desires so long repressed that they threaten to undo us unless they can be explored in a safe space surrounded by people who are supportive and at least as interested in our self-discovery as in their own agendas.

I think this is the evolution of the midlife crisis for us older folk. I am happy to report, however, that I know many young folk who aren't waiting until midlife to explore and share their authentic selves.

My Story

For me , it has been a real challenge to explore my authentic self while maintaining and evolving all the myriad of relationships I've built in my various social roles. In the years leading up to my unmasking, I’ve let go of many of the friendships that no longer serve either of us and I’ve brought closer to me those relationships from which we both benefit. But I still haven’t shared all of me with all of my friends. In becoming a more authentic version of me, I’m not trying to fool my friends by not explaining every detail of my journey, I’m trying to protect them from the discomfiting oddity of seeing me take off some masks only to find others beneath and watch me keep digging deeper. I’ve learned in the past that when I do this too haphazardly people become confused, because sometimes even when I know amazing things are happening beneath the surface, it’s better to “wait and become,” more quietly until I’m ready to tell the story of my growth. While I want to grow friendships as I evolve I don’t wan to toss them into upheaval just so I can be free of worrying about other people's feelings; I value their feelings, and I value the life I’ve built with their friendship.

Unmasking Safely

Recently it struck me that the solution to my “how to unmask safely” dilemma lay in storytelling. Not necessarily the fictitious kind (though that can be helpful, too) but in telling my own story so that others could understand the context within which I’m unmasking. For my unmasking to make sense to people around me, the story can’t be about the aspects of me that are being discarded, but about what lies beneath. Over the last six months I have been working very hard to understand how to tell the story of what lies beneath. I could feel it. I could be it. I could even show it to people, but to communicate it has been another matter entirely. And so for a while I flailed. I even drafted this post over two months ago and promptly trashed it because upon reread it was just one big flail.

It became even more important to me to find a way to tell the story when I decided to split my business in two, moving my marketing practice into a partnership I’ve been developing over the last several years and concentrating my own business on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I can’t really have a business without a web site because I’m a writer first and the web site helps me tell my story. So I set out to retool Magus Consulting. I flailed a bit at that too, at first, but what saved me was a series of exercises given to me by a friend to help me uncover and articulate my purpose in life.

My Purpose

Not really to my surprise, when I took the time to think it through, I discovered I’d been living my purpose for at least twenty years – ever since I met my husband and began to unfold all the happiness our family has brought me in my personal life. But I hadn’t applied it to my work life, the place in which I spend an enormous amount of energy, the place where I arguably have the greatest impact on the world, the place that I thrive and shine most brightly. Once I had my purpose statement in hand the flailing stopped; it all became clear and I wrote my web site in a weekend and had it up within the month.

My purpose statement:

My purpose is to tap into the energy of creation to guide people I value into new, exciting territory and to help them discover their own unique talents and opportunities to change their worlds. When I work together with these amazing people, the world will become a better place.

I am Magic

When I look back on that moment when I first named my company “Magus” Consulting exactly eight years ago - calling my professional magician archetype by its true name - I realize now that it was my purpose guiding me even then; I just didn’t recognize it at the time. All along I’ve been living my purpose personally by using my magical eyes to see the love and the power inside my friends and family, labeling it and recognizing so they can see themselves more clearly and more gently. And I’ve also been living my purpose to some extent with my marketing clients, guiding them through “the next new technology” and giving them plans and strategies to achieve their business goals in these new lands (i.e., the internet, social media, etc.).
    
But now that I’m clear, I’m going to step it up, past just technology marketing and past being a good friend. I’m going to integrate my skills built over a twenty-five year career with the wisdom gained through a forty-seven year lifetime. I’m going to claim my own talent and opportunity to change my world.

The new Magus Consulting will help leaders transform their organizations to change their worlds. I will continue my work with businesses and nonprofits, helping them tap into the power of the vision and energy of their organizations to turn their aspirations from vision to reality. Through strategic planning services and coaching, I will help leaders lead from both their hearts and their heads so that they thrive financially by helping all their stakeholders succeed as well. And if even a fraction of the organizations, entrepreneurs and leaders I work with change their world for the better, than the world will be a brighter place and I will have changed my world too.

I’m so excited I could just pop.

Please visit my new Magus Consulting web site and share it with any leaders you know seeking to change their world through their business.

Thank you for being with me on this journey, thank you for loving me, thank you for bearing witness to my unmasking. I cannot be my authentic self without all of you to love.


~Dana Theus

Photocredit: The Buffy-the-Vampire Tarot deck was actually never released by Dark Horse, much to many fans' dismay. I, personally, have never watched Buffy, but I love this modern-classic re-rendition of the traditional Tarot Magician card and so I claim it as the visualization of my archetype.

I wrote this story based on imagery and emotion that came to me during many meditations over the last few years. It is a story of a soul's growth and reunion and many of my friends have helped birth it. The final inspiration came when a very special friend and I discovered we have magical eyes. In that sense, it's based on a true story. Love, Light and Blessings to all who read this. ~Dana


Emily

There once was a girl named Emily. Emily was magical. She knew things. She saw things. But she lived in a box with a huge glass wall that looked out on a world full of shadow people and rain. Her box was cozy and in it she was safe. There were no mirrors in her box. Well, there was one, but it lay broken in a dusty corner where she'd thrown it years before.

For the most part, Emily was content to look out at the world beyond her glass window. She wrote poems and stories about what she saw there. She loved the moonlight and darkness and drew close to the window when darkness came so she could watch the night creatures in the souls of those who walked by. She dreamed and pointed her finger at things Outside, and sometimes she could make things happen there. It was great fun when it worked. Unfortunately, it didn't always work, but since it was a game, she didn't really care and simply stayed Inside where her world was her own.

Over time - gradually - she began to be curious about what lie Outside. Of course, she "knew" what was Outside because she saw it go by her window every day. But she didn't really "know" it. She didn't know what it felt like, or tasted like, or smelled like.

Then she began to hear voices and realized they were from the people outside her box. Overjoyed, she listened and even tried to use her magic to talk back. A few people Outside stopped as though listening. They came to her window and looked in. Just a very few had eyes magical enough to see her shadow moving inside, but even though she drew back, away from their eyes, they smiled. They said kind things. They invited her Outside to walk with them.

Emily was afraid. She'd never thought about why she was Inside, but as she felt the glass wall begin to thin, fear filled her heart and so she stayed In. But the people Outside were so nice; they kept talking to her. They didn't make her feel bad for living in a box. As time went on she realized she wanted to go Outside to be with them. She walked around inside her box and started - for the first time ever - looking for a door. She looked behind lovely paintings she'd placed on the walls; she pulled up big cushy pillows looking for hidden trap doors; she even went over to her dreaded dark corner where the mirror lay. Finding no door, she knelt down to pick up the broken silver glass with the jagged edge. Looking at the fractured smash of her face in it, twisted, wounded and framed by limp black hair, she remembered why she'd thrown it so hard. Dropping it once more, she went back to the window, dejected and sad.

"I guess I'm just supposed to stay here forever," she whispered to no one.

Esmeralda

Somewhere completely different, Esmeralda played. She lived on the top of a hill wooded with tall trees widely spaced and scattered around a lovely little pool of clear blue water at the center of which a lotus flower floated. Down the hill spilled a lovely green valley and in the distance was a mountain. Her world was graced by both the sun and the moon, which hung above her as she played in her little hilltop forest. She adored them both as they filled her magical forest with silver and golden light. Often she would sit by the pool as it reflected light all around her and play with it, swirling it just for fun.

Though she didn't know why, Esmeralda knew her pool was magical and she looked in it often. The water gave her a perfect reflection of herself and the lovely sky overhead dotted with little puffs of cloud weaving in between the branches of her trees, their leaves waving softly in the breeze. She loved the look of her sparkling face and full blond-white hair. Sometimes when she twisted just so, she could catch site of her little butterfly wings and quiver them with delight. When she did this, they floated her up off the ground and she flitted around her pool, laughing.

Esmeralda had two familiars, beautiful little doves that sometimes transformed into butterflies to make her happy. The white one was her constant companion, flitting and flying through the trees around her, never far from her. She loved it because it was so peaceful and lovely and when it was near her she was content and strong. But the soft gray dove seemed sick. It flew around sometimes but more often it would sit quietly on a little twig while the other two played. It seemed lonely.

One day, Esmeralda coaxed the little gray dove down to sit in her lap while the white one perched on her shoulder. She stroked the sad little bird's silky wings and coo'd with it, asking what it needed to be happy. The little gray dove had no answer and so, on an inspiration, Esmeralda took it over to the magical pool so they could look in it together.

As usual, Esmeralda's face was shining with heath and happiness but the pretty image of the little dove in her hand flickered. Esmeralda blinked, surprised as the still water of the pool rippled and broke apart the little bird's features. The image of the little dove wavered in an out between the picture of its soft little body cuddled in her palms and a black-boned thing with skeleton wings, wobbling unsteadily. She knew without knowing how; this poor hobbling little creature was how the little gray dove saw itself in the mirror of the water.

And so she coo'd to it gently and looked at it harder with her magical eyes until she brought the image of her beautiful bird back into the water's shimmering surface. She could tell the little bird was confused when it's image shifted; it couldn't understand how she had made it so pretty just by looking at it. Esmeralda didn't notice its confusion and laughed happily, concentrating on the beauty she saw while she stroked its feathers. As she petting it tenderly, the bird glowed in her palm, dissapearing into a ball of light until it finally resolved back into he perfect little creature it had always been. The little bird released its confusion, fluttering its wings in happiness and gratitude. Esmeralda's heart swelled full of love when the little bird flew up to fly with her little white dove. She started to stand, hoping to dance beneath them as they played in the shimmering light air, but something caught her eye in the pool and she leaned over to stare into the crystalline depths once more.

Her smiling face was there as before but a shadow passed beneath the surface and Esmeralda gasped to see her own image flicker now, the picture of another girl with dark hair and sad eyes glimmering up from within the pool as she pressed her hand against the surface of the water from below. Puzzled, Esmeralda reached out to touch Emily's hand.

Emily and Esmeralda

Emily started and jerked her hand away as she felt the soft little poke of Esmeralda's finger touching her palm. Blinking, she focused on the pretty little girl's face on the other side of her glass wall.

"She sees me," Emily whispered to her herself, and then staring at her palm she murmured, "and she feels me." Her heart pounding to think someone had actually reached into her box, Emily ran away from the glass to cower in the corner, shivering. At her feet was the cracked and broken mirror. Morbidly curious about how ugly she was now and what the little girl with the fluffy blond hair had seen, she lifted the cracked glass up to look at her own twisted features. Shocked, she saw only the glowing, radiant face of the blond-haired girl again, on the other side of her mirror.

Still by the pool, Esmeralda knit her brows, wondering who this sad girl was living in her pool. As the two magical beings looked at each other, Emily's face began to morph and become sallow and twisted, her teeth yellowing.

"She's can't see herself," Esmeralda whispered softly. "Like my little dove." Smiling at this new game, Esmeralda concentrated on seeing the lovely and gentle heart she knew beat inside the other. Within moments, Emily's sallow skin began to grow pink and her black stringy hair filled out to frame her face. Emily's eyes were wide, able to see her image change now as it formed alongside Esmeralda's in the mirror. She had never seen herself this way, the way Esmeralda saw her - exquisite and stunningly beautiful. Emily's lips turns up in a tiny smile as she watched Esmeralda clap her hands at the power of her magical eyes. Knowing she had made a friend, Esmeralda put her hand to the water once more, this time to touch Emily's face.

Instinctively, Emily took Esmeralda's hand and before she understood what had happened, she had stepped up through the shimmering water and stood in Esmeralda's paradise.

Esmeralda danced around her like a little fairy, for now she could see that Emily was a woman - elegant, tall and willowy - dressed in a glimmery silken blue dress the color of the predawn sky. Esmeralda was as a child next to her, but her little butterfly wings could flitter her up by Emily's shoulders for a moment or two as she hopped about, scattering magical sparkles in the sunlight air all around them. Emily stared at the wonderful display of light and delight that was Esmeralda until finally she laughed. And then they danced together. When Emily giggled, a rosy blush flushed over her cheeks and her full lips parted to frame pretty white teeth.

Slowing her dance to take Emily's hand in hers, Esmeralda alighted on the soft green grass and then skipped ahead, taking her new friend on a tour of her beaucolic land. Together they explored the hilltop and pointed at the moon and the sun, the paths and fields down below and finally the tall evenly spaced trees in the forest of light all around them. Emily periodically held her arms out, amazed at the warmth of sunlight on her skin. Closing her eyes, she smiled up at the sky and let the golden light bathe her, overjoyed to be Outside.

After a bit, Esmeralda led her new friend back to a little wooden seat near the pool and they sat, Esmeralda hopping in Emily's lap and handing her a little mirror, shining inside a diamond rim. Afraid, Emily tried to push it away but Esmeralda looked at her with loving eyes and held the mirror up again. Emily gasped, shocked to see the lovely woman in the reflection, soft dark hair spilling down past high cheekbones and smoky blue eyes set in milky soft skin. She blinked to see if the image of loveliness would go away, but it didn't.

Tears glistened in her lashes and Emily let them fall as she thanked Esmeralda for her magical eyes, her heart spilling over in gratitude. Esmeralda smiled as she traced the tears and thanked Emily just as sincerely for filling a tiny little emptiness only her gray dove had known how to find.

They sat like that all afternoon, Emily holding Esmeralda like a child in her lap and Esmeralda happily laughing and gazing lovingly up into her eyes.

Above them circled the little white dove and the soft gray dove, playing in the sparkling sunmoonlight.

Never had there been a happier day in heaven, on earth or in the magical realms than this.


(c) 2010 StoneTosser


Photocredits:
Blue woman @ Glass
Blue Woman with Tears by Mik Godley
Scary Mirror
I don't know where the fairies came from. If you know, please tell me.
Sunlight woman was purchased from iStockphoto.com

I sit here on the eve of a new decade in what, to the unenlightened eye would appear to be a total disaster of a room. My office - workplace, spiritual space, relaxation space, writing space - is getting a to-the-bones cleansing this weekend. I'm hardly a hoarder, tossing stuff easily and frequently, but this week I've gone deeper and scoured through every shelf and drawer to recycle a decade of unnecessary stuff and on the first weekend of 2010 I will paint it a soothing but vibrant green to frame it's large windows to nature and my husband and sons (bless their souls) will lay in a new hardwood floor. They are also refinishing and building some new furniture for me and infusing their love into the very skeleton of my little room. By next week I plan to be organized, decluttered and happily re-ensconced in my space. I can't wait; tiny as it is, it's my sanctuary.

But right now, on December 31 with the boxes piled high and the mess of it all around me, I am deeply unsettled.

Clearing out the Old Ways

In part, my disquiet reflects the upheaval of order in that place where I go to make sense of the chaos of daily life. But as I pack up my prayer altar, throw away a decade of files and give away over 100 pounds of books to the library, I'm realizing there is more to it than just some temporarily disturbed spacial energy. This cleansing of my premises is not what it's about at all, rather it's a reflection of a deeper declutter in my soul. You see, I've been spending the entirety of December (if not most of this Fall) clearing. I've been clearing myself creatively as I integrate my mini jewelry business into my life and identity; I've been clearing myself professionally as I get ready to embark on some new business directions in the two thousand teens; and I've been clearing myself spiritually as I recommit to meditation, self care and staying connected to my higher self in all my daily interactions.

Getting clear of old stuff is so great; it makes me feel so good and it opens my life up to new possibilities. I totally believe in what Shannon Kinney-Dūh says about decluttering , about how everything has its time and place and when it’s time to let it go, it’s an opportunity for personal growth. I’m joining Shannon in her 2010 declutter journey in an effort to continue what I’ve started this month so that it becomes an even more ingrained habit in me to let go, move forward and live in the present moment.

I don't know if I'm completely "clear" yet, or if I ever will be, but I do know that letting go of so much is not only invigorating but a bit frightening at the same time. All those old things and old ways I'm throwing out may be holding me back or getting in my way on some level or another, but at least I understand them. I know them. I know how they work and what to expect from them. I've developed habits around them and they mean something or I wouldn't have hung onto them.

I don't know what's coming. I believe it will be wonderful, I trust in the Universe, but the soft animal of my body isn't so sure. And so I meet myself in the crux of the human condition, strung out between hope for the future and cynicism informed by the past; courage to launch into the unknown and fear of what I cannot see; delight in the new and sadness as the present transforms into the past…

My New Strategy

Standing on the brink of this new cycle I am committed to focusing on the hope and the courage and the delight, but I am more mindful than ever that this will require a new level of strength inside me as new stuff comes at me, seeking to lodge itself inside my space and become one of my new habits. How will I keep from simply recreating all the old stuff and ways I'm scouring out of me?

I don't really know, but I do have a new strategy which is to let love guide me. Not love in the traditional romantic sense, but love in the universal sense. On the edge of every choice, of word or deed, holding love in my heart moves me in a better direction. Love helps me see past people's masks into their core being and speak to their gentle soul, it helps me sense the best outcome even when all options require sacrifice and it focuses me on what matters most to my benefit and to the benefit of those around me.

Trite as it sounds, love works.

So, despite my body's trepidation in the midst of the chaos of cleaning the known to make room for the unknown, my spirit is excited and happy that a new decade comes upon us. I breathe in the anticipation and wonder of all new beginnings and set my intention to help make 2010 the best year ever - for me and everyone my actions touch.

I sit with love in my heart and wish it for you, too, that your year be blessed and bring us together in ways we both grow from. I don’t ask that it be easy, only that we grow our souls, find comfort in our sadness and celebrate our success.

Love, Light and Blessings to you my friend.

Happy New Year!

I just back from my grandfather’s funeral. It was a very nice ceremony, simple and heartfelt; an unassuming event to honor an unassuming man. And his life was worth honoring; he lived a full life of 94 years and along the way did phenomenal service for our country and touched so many people with compassion, discipline and strength that I doubt anyone could have kept count. He died on Thanksgiving day, appropriately for those of us called to give thanks for his life. Of course there was sadness and we all cried when the Air Force honor guard played taps over his grave, but those were passing tears to recognize the gap in our lives where Grandpa had always sat, now the residence of memory. They were not tears for his death.

As I listened to his life remembered, I was so thankful that in our family’s story - like my Grandmother and Father-in-law - Grandpa had left in the gentle way, the natural way that a life disengages from the earth when its body no longer serves it here.  He struggled in his final years with Alzheimer’s and was blessed with a loving wife and extended family to ease his passage, but it was clear that his time here was simply over. And when it’s time to move on, on any portion of a soul’s journey, it is simply time to go.

I believe this is true for any kind of death because I believe our souls don’t wink out when our life does.

Written this way, it all sounds very spiritual and gentle and easy, and in the natural death of older people it is a little easier. It’s easier for us to let them go because we can see evidence in their frail bodies that to keep them here would be little more than a selfish act. It’s easier for us to be unselfish for them.

The death of younger people is a harder shock to absorb. There is a special tragedy to overcome when children die or people with full lives yet to live leave us behind. Because I have no other way to understand it, I choose to believe that when this happens - as it has with my father and my Sister-in-law - the same principles are at work though their bodies do not appear to have failed as naturally. I choose to believe that their souls must no longer find this life on earth their best way forward.

It’s the rest of us that have trouble letting go, because it’s not our journey.

This belief comforts me as I read on the devastation of wars around the world, freak accidents, horrible diseases and violent outbursts that take young and old alike before their bodies have the chance to fail them naturally. In this sense, when I fall back on my beliefs to help me comprehend the incomprehensible I reinvent the purpose of spirituality since the beginning of time, praying along with the billions of souls that have gone before me and live along side me that our souls’ journey’s make sense on the cosmic level when they appear completely nonsensical from down here.

And so I come back from this reverie to look on my Grandfather’s death with awe and gratitude for the full life he lived and for the fact that his soul chose to be with us as long as it could have been. Selfishly, I hope that everyone else I love chooses to stay as long, but unselfishly I try to be prepared to let them go if they day comes that it simply can’t be.

Thanks for staying so long, Grandpa. I miss you, but I’m so very grateful for your memory and all the lives you touched while you were here. Be well “up there” and I look forward to the day we are reunited again on some other adventure.

Photo Credit: This picture of the White Light often reported from near death experiences is from a fascinating near death experience article at How Stuff Works: Has Science Explained Life After Death? Make sure to read the second page.

As I sit by the fire on Thanksgiving Eve with oh, so much to be thankful for, I find myself reflecting on the bounty in my life a little differently than usual. I thought I'd try to write it out in an effort to understand how giving thanks feels different than it used to.

Sometime in my young adulthood I realized that despite "earning" a lot of my luck, it wasn't all "mine." So I started giving thanks, when prompted at times like this wonderful holiday, and in other more spontaneous ways. The older I got the more I gave thanks, I guess because I'd just gathered up so many more special moments and people over the years.

Until very recently, my thanks were tossed out of me, like little stones into a pond.

Thanks for my family. Plop. Thanks for my friends. Plop. Thanks for a good job and house. Plop. Thanks for the opportunity to live a fulfilling life. Plop.

Some time ago, I started imagining each little Plop to send ripples out into - what? A sortof universal pool of good will among humans, I thought. This image delighted me and encouraged me to toss more Plops. Tossing gratitude became a little game I played silently in those moments where I felt truly lucky, and even in those moments I didn't but "knew" that I was and wanted the discipline of the gratitude practice to reprogram my more cynical thoughts. It worked and gratitude is now something I feel often. Carrying my little bag of gratitude stones has made my world brighter and me happier.

But it turns out gratitude isn't just a little game. It's not something that I just "do". Like living in Presence, Gratitude has changed me.

Tossing out little Thanks Plops feels good. I like it. I do it. But now when I stop and really focus on what I'm grateful for, something else entirely happens. Instead of tossing the thanks out of me into some nameless pool in "the Universe", I pull what I'm thankful for inside and hold it.

You see, it turns out that the deep pool of gratitude lives within me.

And so the process of giving thanks is different now. I don't feel right listing off a long line of "things out there" that make my life so nice. I don't "give" thanks anymore. I AM thanks, and I invite what is outside in. All the people, spirits and circumstances that make my life so joyful are welcomed inside me to be with me in my pool of gratitude. Together we send out calm ripples of love everywhere and we are all the more powerful a force for good in the world because of it.

And so tonight in my thankful heart I hold my family, my friends, and the angels on earth and elsewhere that fill my life with magic and help me grow my soul while fueling the growth of others; I hold all of nature, seen and unseen that fills my lungs and my tummy and that I rest on, move through and dream about. In my thankful heart I hold God and am held in return.

And if you are reading this, I hold you, too. Thanks to you, beautiful soul, for being here with me.

Photocredit: I don't know, but I hold them in my heart too.

In a recent post I talked about how wonderful it was to finally be free of the debilitating worries, guilts and anxieties of that past and future, allowing my energy to be present to the joy and occasional pain of my daily life. Living in the Present really has become a great survival tactic when fears encroach on my happiness. I recommend it highly, but learning to Live in the Moment didn’t just free me from fear, it changed me in other, even more profound ways; it turned me into an emotional adult.

You knew it, didn’t you? There’s always a catch!

You remember that I said that Living in the Moment didn’t necessarily make all my problems go away? Well it’s true that being more Present actually made some parts of my life more complicated. Let's start with my primary modern survival technique - multitasking. How would I survive without the ability to monitor client email, text my kids, maintain many many friendships via Twitter, Facebook, IM, email etc and run a household and a couple of businesses all while playing with stones and jotting out posts like this that feed my soul? I admit to walking the edge on this issue more than any other, my attention always a bit fragmented. For a while when I first began being conscious of the benefits of Presence, I took it too far the other way - using meditation to help calm my mind and then concentrating so much on one thing at a time – being uber-Present as though I was on some mountaintop with the monks - that I made modern mistakes. I remember distinctly being so into the Present Moment on a lunch date that I completely forgot to pick my kids up from school. "Oops. Guess I need to be simultaneously Present to the calendar so the future doesn’t bonk me in the head!" I said to my extremely smug Guilt Imp as we raced to the school.

The calendar became my savior, however, as I stopped trying to carry the future in my head and put it in my phone so I refer to it when I needed - at that moment - to make a decision about how to spend my energy over the next unit of time - whether it was a few minutes (e.g., whether to try to run to the grocery before or after a meeting) or a few months (e.g., whether to take on a new project). I’ve recognized that – to a point - I am capable of multitasking in the Present to the extent it helps me manage my life and still remain Present to all the parts of my life that I love. I do turn off the multitasking sometimes, but I do more than unplug my technology, I put my Worry Imps to bed too, asking some to leave forever and others to wait for me at my desk the next day or week when I will have the ability to deal with them. Yes, I talk to my Worry Gremlins. Why not? They tend to leave more readily when I address them directly. Call me crazy but it works.

But conscious multitasking took me deeper into myself and made me aware that living in the Present Moment required a lot of energy management. I used to think of this as time management, but being Present to the relatively subtle fluxuations of my physical and mental energy levels has made me aware that while I have little control over the steady march of time, I have a lot more influence over HOW I spend my time to get the most of the energy that flows through me. For example, due to biorhythms, hormones or sun spots (I suspect they’re all in cahoots anyway) I find that at some points in time my energy is simply more capable of doing some things than at others. I know I’m useless when I wake up, creative until two, mentally scattered again until five, mentally productive until eight and tired after nine. Knowing my energy patterns is great for living in the Present because I now know how best to get through my task lists, making the most of my Present energy. But wait. Dang. I keep forgetting that I don't really control that old Time Demon – my schedule - which is dictated by kids, clients and the various construction crews that have been banging in and around my home/office for the last 3 years. Shoot.

Let me tell you, managing the demands of my life while being present to my energy cycles is a real pain. It’s not so much about Monsters and Imps as it is about being hyper conscious of the constant choices I’m making – and I mean constant choices on a minute-by-minute basis sometimes – about what is most important to me and how I spend my energy. After all, when I’m Present to all the decisions leading up that moment when I face a client deadline in the midst of a major energy low, I can’t bitch about their stupid deadlines or the unfairness of the Universe for putting me in this situation, I know it was my choices – on what to sign up for, what values to uphold and how to manage my energy leading up to that moment - that put me in this position.

And this is how I came to realize that I’d grown up emotionally because being Present gave me emotional responsibility for my life. Being Present to each moment makes me hyper-aware of the choices I make on how I spend my time and energy, and very conscious of the power I give each little Gremlin and Imp that scampers (or I accidently invite) into my life. All this knowledge makes it virtually impossible for me to blame others for my reality. I’ve successfully put myself in control of my Present Moment which means – yipes! – that I’m in control of it! This is a classic case of “be careful what you wish for” because when things go well I can give myself great kudos, but when things go not-so-great I take that rap too. Inconvenient as this knowledge is sometimes, it’s also empowering because over time it’s helped me make more and more good decisions, letting go of people and behaviors that just brought more little Demon-wanna-bes to my life. But notice I said “more” good decisions, not “only” good decisions. I still screw up.

So that I don’t let that load of past Regret Gremlins and Guilt Imps gang up on me again, I have to deal with the negative in the real-time Present Moment, apologizing when I’ve wronged someone and doing what I can to make things right when 20-20 hindsight shows me the results of my boneheaded decisions. Sure, I do blame the Universe for stuff, but as a way of not accepting responsibility for things truly out of my control, like illnesses and tragedy, decisions other people make (after all, my own Presence isn’t the only Moment that matters) and world events I didn’t vote for. I don’t take personal responsibility for these things because, I mean, why invite a little Demon-wannabe to move into your basement if he’s got a perfectly good home elsewhere? (Note: I’m not completely dismissing the theory that those other things outside myself are affected by my decisions, but I don’t take personal responsibility for them all and I’m not going to address the nuances of this complicated issue in this post.)

So somewhere midway through my Life’s Journey, I’m happy to say I’ve used the Be Here Now strategy to ungang my Gremlins so they can’t paralyze me anymore, even though they are still with me toddling down the Path. Presence has given me more than just more manageable problems, though, it’s taken away my excuses. I know now that I have the power to make myself happy and when I’m not, it’s up to me to fix it. As I work with this reality in my minute-by-minute Present Moment, this reality takes me deeper into the choices I make, the benefits and prices I pay with each decision; it continues to mature me.

Part of me hopes that as I age I can live a simpler life and make the minute-by-minute struggle a little less exhausting, but another part of me is joyfully aware that this is just another Future Worry in the guise of a hope. Because the real future Present Moment, when I get there, will be full of choices and good things and not so good things, too. I remind myself that the energy of the Present, when fully experienced and savored, is always more enriching than a mere hope. And so I use hope as a guiding star, steering my myriad of Present decisions like a herd of cats in the general direction of wonderfulness.

More of designing my future in another post, I hope. For the moment, however, it’s time to put my technology away and succumb to uselessness for a bit. With this post I let these thoughts go and pass them on - to you. May they enhance your Present Moment just a little before you pass them on - elsewhere.

Love, Light and Joy

I sat at a restaurant today, waiting for a new friend. While sitting, I witnessed a wonderful act of self-serving love that I want to pass on. I've never seen this before and I watched in wonder as an anonymous woman made an anonymous baby happy so that she could take a phone call. This post is my hug to her for demonstrating how love can be the solution to so many more "problems" than we give it credit for. But it was more than the baby who was happy when she was done; all who witnessed it were happy in that baby's happy glow.

The restaurant is a lovely place, old worldly with fresh vaulted ceilings and windows to let the cool November light stream in. It's painted and decorated to feel like a french country kitchen, big unfinished butcher block tables and chairs create a calm, soothing atmosphere. This is something of a veneer, however, because the daubed, milky-toned ocher paint effects mask the concrete walls and columns of the steel-hearted office building overhead. I would have completely accepted the peacefull illusions painted over the bones of modernity were it not for the acoustics of the place, which were harsh to the ear. Even at 20% seating capacity it was noisy as the sounds of eating and normal conversation zinged up into the high ceiling, accelerating off the hard, cold surfaces to clang into each other.

This cacophonous juxtaposition of auditory and visual reality didn't bother me until the shriek of a little two year old four tables over split through the already harsh sounds bouncing above my head, doubling the jangling-nerve effect of the ambient noise. Poor little tyke had been trying to move her stroller when the nasty thing fell on her. The terror on her face bespoke of a monstrous demon crashing her to the earth, pinning her in it's gray and black plastic arms and burying her in inky fabric folds to block out her view of the light until her mother could rush around to pull the beast off her and scoop her into loving, warm only-like-mommy-has arms. But the loving embrace could not quell the cries and horror-stricken tears from gushing down her little pink cheeks.

I was slightly annoyed but sent forgiving love to her and her mom because, well, I've been there (on both sides). There's just no getting around the fact that babies get scared a lot, and cry and... well this is how they learn that monstrous strollers really aren't so monsterous after all. Breathing deeply, I looked around to see if others were sending over empathy or stabbingly angry looks.

My eyes fixed on a woman dressed in fashionable black tights, a black tight-fitting sweater with a nicely jaunty, off-the-hip belt that - if it wasn't leopard skin, it might as well have been. Her olive skin and perfectly frosted long hair framed large golden hoop earrings. I didn't see whether she had gorgeously painted nails but I bet she had those too. As she got up to paw in her purse her phone rang and I watched, mesmerized as she put it to her ear. The place was hard to hold a cell phone conversation in before the little one started yelling and I can only imagine she couldn't hear anything with the squawky little kid at full volume. Nevermind that, the woman - phone to ear - turned and walked over to the miserable little ball of screaming toe-headed imp. My energy was already building to be mad at her for sharply criticizing the sad little human when she picked up a small pumpkin off the table, smiled a stunning smile at the little one and waved, all the while, talking on the phone. The baby abruptly stopped screaming. It was magic. The woman handed the pumpkin to the child and snagged another one as her business transaction came to a close. Handing the now-delighted child the other pumpkin, she closed her phone, gave a little winky smile to the baby and her mother and headed back to gather her things to leave.

Happy two year olds are a joy. I felt it all through the restaurant.

A little while later I was deep in conversation and happened to notice that adorably, bubbing-over-with-happiness child riding in her stroller and clutching two little pumpkins as though they were the Queen's treasures. And they were treasures, her well-earned reward for allowing herself to release her fear and terror and accept the loving gifts of a total stranger who needed to take a phone call.

How many lives would I touch if I confronted every annoyance and angry moment with love and acceptance of what is? How many anxious people could I soothe if I dug deep enough into the well of love living in my heart to dole it out instead of annoying looks and tense shoulders? I don't know, but this woman who had her call and quiet too has challenged me to find out. I cant' wait to find the next crying baby in my life. How about you?

Photo Credit: This is my dad at in his new little cowboy outfit. It's one of the few truly happy photos I have of him as a child. I treasure it for the joy in his heart that day.