Double J Divine Amnesiac

Saying Goodbye, Pt. 1

2011-10-13T19:21:00.000-05:00

Saying goodbye usually requires moving from one place to another. Please join me on my new blog at this address: http://janeariebaldwin.com/

LOVE & LIGHT
jane b

The King's Speech, Self Love, and The Fifth Chakra

2011-02-15T12:10:00.000-06:00

He held his mouth open yet nothing came out, his words held back by an invisible wall of resistance. He simply cannot step fully into the present moment. Too much investment in the memories of his haunted past to let go. An unwillingness to embody his truth, now, as King, instead honoring the old painful wounds he carries forth from his childhood and his ancestors before him.

It's a feeling that most of us carry at one time or another. We need constant reminders to overcome the ongoing loop our brains feed us -- "I am not worthy to be King. My older brother would make a much better king than I. I cannot succeed to the degree that my father did or has expected of me." Haven't we all felt that before?

Who was able to help this King? The speech therapist, Lionel, the embodiment of the 'higher self.' His credentials came from the realm of experience, not formal education. He was the guy who insisted that they regard each other as equals and see each other eye to eye. He was the guy who allowed his children's creativity to flow and entertained his kids with theatrical antics. The speech therapist's family celebrated the unhampered flow of creative expression.

Just the opposite occurred in the castle where, as a child Prince Albert succumbed to harsh treatment and a lack of nurturing. He longed to create model airplanes and frivolously play with his brothers. He carried his suffering into adulthood, unconscious that this block of creative flow affected him every day of his life through his stuttering.

His work with Lionel the speech therapist resonated with him ultimately in his heart. He knew the facts of his stature. He was royalty, dammit! He had a right to be King, yet he didn't feel it -- as he had been trained as a child not to feel. Lionel, on the other hand, was a commoner but could act the part of a King, say, if he got the part in a town play, or even of a self-assured doctor; which many believed him to be.

The king needed some of that! He didn't really need speech therapy. He needed self-love! He held on to Lionel's self-embodied principles of self worth like a Linus blanket. Every stutter that he smoothed into words gave him more confidence; which translates into self love. The King sang through his stutter, said curse words through his long pauses, and did whatever else he needed to do to get the words flowing through his throat channel. He eventually cleared much of the stuck energy he held in his 5th throat chakra and became beloved King George VI of England.

READING OUT LOUD

2010-11-30T14:53:00.000-06:00

I wrote this wonderfully personal tale of rediscovering imagination called, Ruby Red Dragonfly, a couple of years ago. Since then it has been gestating deep within my hard drive. I printed a copy out of my computer about a month or so ago and have been reading it out loud to a group of hearty listeners on our weekly writer's call. I read one page of the story per week. At first I didn't think anything of this, my idea was a sort of dusting it off, bringing into the light of day.

Well, it HAS been gestating because I find it is harder to read. There are a few reasons for this floating in my head. One is that reading one page per week is a bit grueling as it seems there is more gravity around WHAT I am reading and the story that I am telling. Like a poem, each word most be spoken with deliberation and feeling so that by the end of the page there is a hunger for what lies ahead next week. This brings me to my second reason for its difficulty.

This writer's group that meets via conference call every week is more about EXPRESSING WORDS than the writing of them. I can feel the intention of the group when I join the call, it's a very focused intention that says, "Come on, show me what you've got! I want to feel it right here!" the intention says as it beats its fist against its heart, hungry to be fed, hungry to feel - love, joy, hope, forgiveness - to connect.

That powerful intention is often met from this end with a squeak in the throat. I used to want to read things perfect the first time. Now I realize there is no such thing. Every time I read is different. Each word wants its moment in the spotlight. Each one wants to ride the wave of emotion all the way into my heart and into the hearts of every single person listening. That's where the squeaky throat comes in -- the stage fright.

I'd like to say I read every sentence straight from my heart allowing all the emotion to flow through it. And that's where the beauty comes in, that's where I can see into the space that I am creating for myself in my writing and the reading of it. That's where I get to practice everyday as I read more, and as I write more. As I do this I become more familiar with the freedom in expression rather than the old, familiar, and quite frankly BORING experience of self-consciousness.

That's why today I sit here, the fifth day in a row without a voice, and write all this down on the page. It's funny not being able to express through my throat. I can feel a pressing down between my throat and my heart as if there's a clog there. Whispering the words on the page to myself is not the same as a exploding through my vocal chords. The freedom of expressing myself through the READING of my writing feeds my soul just as much -- NO! even more than - all the peace, love, chicken fried steak, and mashed potato & gravy comfort food that my belly can muster.

Healing the Illusion of Separation

2010-10-24T12:59:00.000-05:00

A few days ago my friend and Vedic astrologer, Marga Laub, mentioned in her newsletter that Friday night's full moon was about, "Healing the illusion of separation." I did not brace for any big lessons to show up on Friday night. I drove from Mineral Wells to Austin for a weekend breath circle and girl time. When I parked my car in front of my girlfriend's house in East Austin I skipped a step in my usual process - forgetting to lock my car. The next day after the breathing circle, the morning rain clouds had passed, the sun shone bright and my eyes squinted. I reached into my console for my sunglasses. They were not there.

Where could I have put them. I pulled over and looked under the seat. I KNEW I had left them there. I felt an uncomfortable sensation throughout my body, one that felt like I had no support, a feeling of loss, a feeling that I had done something wrong.

They had to be stolen. Then I remembered I also had my ipod in the console. If the ipod was gone then definitely someone had been in my car and taken my things. I felt nervous and violated as I pondered the concept of loss and the emptiness that accompanies loss. For a moment I steeped in this place and then wondered, "How can I get out of this funky place?" The first thought that came to my head was to do the opposite of what I was currently doing.

Gratitude. That's when I started to think about the positives. Well, my windows had not been broken, my purse had not been stolen, my car had not been hijacked. It wasn't a violent break in. As break ins go it was very benign. It was not a confrontational robbery. I thought about having to hand those material possessions over to someone and I would have gladly done that with gratitude in exchange for my life. That's when the magnification of the loss of these items began to shrink to the size of a pea and I could really feel grateful in my heart.

I pictured someone else with my things and had to laugh at the first feelings that surfaced which were very reminiscent of a breakup - imagining a lover loving another sort of feeling. I had to laugh, "It's a pair of friggin' sunglasses and a thingy I put songs and games on."

Then something else happened. The thought of someone else enjoying these items made me happy. I thought, "Wow! If those sunglasses or that ipod can brighten someone's day, more power to 'em." I was able to feel love for these people instead of violation, grateful to them for reminding me that stuff is just stuff is just stuff. Who knows, whoever gets hold of that ipod may end up listening to some of the wonderful books that I downloaded (David Elliott's - Healing and Relutant Healer, Ken Wilbur's - A Brief History of Everything, A Course in Miracles) or some of the great music selections (Jimmy Baldwin's - Vivador).

The next evening I ate dinner with a couple of friends at an outdoor cafe on East 7th. We watched the moon rise through the ancient twisted oak trees at the State Cemetery across the street. When I saw the moon I remembered..."this moon is about healing the illusion of separation," and I felt the oneness all around.

Flowing Through the Autumn Breeze

2010-09-23T09:55:00.000-05:00

Dragonflies have long been my touchstone in nature for gauging what's going on in my brain. This time of year they seem to have gotten a second wind, just as their summer reign simmers to a close there has been a flourishing of dragonflies to greet the sunrises and sunsets.

On my morning walk today there were no signs of the dragonflies. A welcome early fall breeze reminded me of the constant movement of things - of everything. Wasn't it only a second ago that spring was in full bloom and I was ready to burst into the passion of summer?

Movement with all it's go, go, go serves an important place in the diaspora of life on this earth. I walked up a steady, half-mile slope to the top of the hill. It was a slow burn - especially for someone who hasn't been engaging lately in all the joy that walking up this hill has to offer. I practiced my circular breathing, waved my hands to keep the circulation in my arms flowing, remembered to thank the sun, the beautiful moon, the incredible blue sky, and the trees.

The trees. The cottonwoods edged the road all along my walk. Their leaves shimmered like hands clapping, or a cheerleader's pom-poms beating together to the rhythm of enthusiastic chant designed to inspire me. With their help I continued up that incline walking faster and faster, feeling it in my feet, my legs, even my shoulders.

I thanked them, each and every one for their ability to motivate me and also for their service to nature as such magnificent beings. Their presence connected me in an instant to a moment in time merely a month ago in Abiquiui, NM where a grove of Cottonwoods along the Chama river welcomed me into their magical world at sunrise. Cottonwoods, alamosas (remember the Alamo?) are the grande dames of the tree world in the southwest. Their presence speaks volumes without saying much of anything at all.

On the way back down that hill I reflected on the turning inward that is being requested of all of nature in this season of Autumn. I sometimes find that familiar old dribble in my mind creeping in to tell me I need to do more meditation, sit, be still. When I caught those mental monkeys this morning trying to convince me I wasn't in the "right" place or doing the "right" thing I quickly acknowledged the importance of balance.

My heart opens a little wider with gratitude each time I consider the simplicity of nature. I stood at the gate at the end of my walk reflecting on the idea that flow is about constant movement - the yin and the yang, the ebb and the flow. Then I heard a voice say, "When it's time to sit in meditation, it's time to sit. When it's time to walk up that hill, it's time to walk. Constant movement, constant flow." I look up to see the first dragonfly of the day. One, only one, hoovering in the vibrant leaves of the cottonwood tree.

Sweet Mother of Jesus

2010-09-08T11:38:00.000-05:00

I am often amazed at the capacity of my heart for forgiveness and rejuvenation. Having attended my brother and sister-in-law's wonderfully original and beautifully crafted wedding this weekend I was reminded that I don't have to DO anything or SAY anything to experience love and support. It's as easy as acknowledging that those elements are there - in the moment.

At first I questioned myself, "Was I doing enough? Did I bring the right things?" A piece of me wanted to do more for them. Yet as I looked around and stood at the precipice that overlooked mountains in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado I realized that the best I could do is to be at peace in my heart.

This simple act is the ART of BEING. It's the act that for centuries has been regarded as feminine in a derogatory sense of the word; regarded as weak and passive. The art of being is back in vogue after centuries of oppression. The conundrum is that BEING - taking it all in, receiving, and the recognition that what seems like fear is most probably an urge to feel vulnerable - takes a lot more courage than the act of doing. (Brilliant quote by timeless master of your choice to be placed here.)

Forgiveness. Such a hard term to grasp because it involves my relationship with grace, nothing more - no one, no thing - just me and grace. Then I must sit with it - with silence in my heart. The rejuvenation it continues to bring is timeless and measureless. Just like the love that flowed from the top of the mountain overlook this past weekend deep in the four corners area of Colorado.

Three Little Things that Heighten Awareness

2010-08-23T15:41:00.000-05:00

Summer, although pretty much over, has been a great opportunity for me to focus on staying alert. Here are three questions I have conditioned myself to ask this summer:

1. WHERE IS THE SNAKE?
There's a rat snake living in our hen house. The snake and our chicken have developed a symbiotic relationship - nodding at each other as they pass the water trough. The snake eats the mice thus balancing the mice population and keeping the hen scratch in check. The snake also eats a few of the chicken eggs a week, a small pay-off for keeping the mice out of the garden and everywhere else.

All this is well and good. What gets me is how I usually walk in to check the water, hay, and feed. It's usually done without even thinking about it. Usually, my mind is elsewhere - focusing on the future - what do I need to do later? where I need to go? have I done everything I'm supposed to do? etc...

Since the snake moved in, I catch myself as I open the door and do a quick check-in - where am I? Where is the snake? If I don't see the snake before I go in, I am extra careful. I can feel my breath move through my body thus sensing any subtle movements more clearly that occur within the hen house.

Where is the snake? It is a common question that has often been referred to when considering people who are less than honest or loyal (e.g., "He's such a snake!) and looking out for those types of people and being wary of them. This time the question refers to not what is "out there." Instead, it's within me. Going into the hen house now I am aware of a shift in my consciousness not only focusing my mind on being aware but also feeling my whole body being alert.

In yoga there is a reference to what you learn "on the mat" and how to bring your experience "on the mat" to other areas of your life. For me the hen house is the same as the mat. When I'm in the hen house I remember how alert I can be when I want to be. I see my work as strengthening that alertness to occur in all facets and all moments of my life.

HOW HOT IS THE WATER?
The same idea can apply to this scenario. The river is a wonderful place to be this time of year until about noon. Then it can be warm, very warm, even uncomfortably warm. Dare I say -- hot tub warm -- which isn't a bad thing, unless it's 109 degrees and you're looking for relief. It's also the time of year and the right temperature for all the snakes that love the water. Thus in this scenario I also refer to question #1. (That's really not a problem. Dogs are very good at chasing snakes away.)

IS THERE ENOUGH ICE?
With 25 days in a row of well over 100 degree temperatures, ice has become the great equalizer. Ice brings everything back into balance on super-hot days. It makes me feel supported, even loved. Ice. Nourishing and nutritious, it shifts the physical body into neutral when the skin is pink, the hair is wet, and the breath is short - especially when I'm running from the snake!

The New Conventional Femininity

2010-07-29T14:29:00.001-05:00

“When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman." -- Betty Friedan

I wanted no part in it. My whole life I wanted nothing to do with the trappings of being conventional -- I shunned conformism, creature comforts, and practicality for a gypsy life of travel and solitude well into my twenties. Then I found true love with Jimmy and through the twin sisters of fate and destiny we landed a beautiful baby girl into our laps. I still would not give in to the traditional convention of family life. I would not allow myself to get comfortable with the idea that being a wife and mother could in and of themselves bring me joy. So what happened? Why now? Why do I feel content and full in these rolls to the point of wanting to do them really well, to the point of being invested in them 100%? The answer lies in how my view of myself has changed over the past decade.

I have noticed lately a deep rumbling in my being to experience - well the only way I can describe it is -- a deeper connection to the fabric of my family, and my home. That is, basking in the beingness of my role as wife and mother. I spent years running away from what I thought "wife" and "mother" meant, the conventional rolls I thought they would force me to play. It scared me, frankly.

When I look back at my personal history and connect the dots, almost everything scared me. I was skeptical of anything and everything. I know that my negative and fearful attitude created the conditions for cancer to thrive in my body, in my second chakra, in the place of: life, beginnings, relationships, money, stepping out into the world with others. Getting cancer was the trigger that showed me that I had to shift out of my negative place of being yet I had no idea how to do so. One of my biggest awakenings occurred when I realized that the negative and fearful way I felt about having a conventional life -- marriage, kids, family -- translated to other areas of my life. Negative and fearful was the thread that ran through most of my thoughts. Skepticism lay like a smoky haze at the root of my being.

It's more than just a mellowing with age that has happened here. My faith in myself grew with the planting of my dreams. With every step toward a dream I noticed those voices got louder and stronger NOT in my favor. For many years I put off getting my training in the healing arts, "now is not the time, your not ready," said the skeptical voice. When we found the ranch, the first thought that popped into my head was, "don't get any big ideas here that you can't fulfill." It was a constant negative influx of words, thoughts, and feelings feeding my brain like a drug dealer pushing crack.

"WOW!" I realized. That skepticism and negativity doesn't only show up in my relationships with others, it's that way with me too!" What an eye opener. That's when I stopped identifying with them. "What a relief" I thought. "That's not me. Those are only feelings that I'm identifying with -- as me."

Now I can begin to mellow. I'm no longer frozen in paralysis when the dragons of fear and skepticism show up for a fight. I'm getting better at noticing what triggers the fears that come up around how I'm running my business and how I'm caring for my family as a wife and a mother. I'm learning how to manage them rather than feed them. My identification with my conventional rolls no longer scare me, I welcome them with open arms. My femininity no longer carries the trappings of the past, it expands with the beginning of each new day.

Embracing Vulnerability

2010-07-11T08:59:00.000-05:00

The state of being vulnerable is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Open to the attacks of a non-physical nature." Vulnerability is something that society tells us is weak, I mean, who wants to be open to attack? Isn't it better to be prepared for battle with our armor on? Herein lies the conundrum of vulnerability - with our armor ON, those not so wonderful feelings of fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, worry, dread, distrust, etc. get to feed off of us and live a Bacchanalian existence in our being.

Vulnerability is the key to freedom in love. Vulnerability requires that we not take our physical nature too seriously. That means a healthy dose of time spent as the observer of our own experience rather than the sole identity of it. It's the old, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." It's being immune to the verbal and other kinds of nonphysical attacks from others by remembering that we create our existence, we create every single experience that we have and through choice we can choose to create a different experience and a different reaction simply by changing our perspective.

Embracing vulnerability lies in choosing those things that support us and that feed us as individuals. This requires the awareness of what we are allowing to seep into our being, rather than just letting it all seep in and then trying to categorize it all into various compartments after the fact.

So today, as the moon obscures the sun in a total eclipse, take note: what is it that is obscuring you? What armor - the memories and beliefs from the past - are eclipsing your heart and obscuring you from seeing the full light of your being?

Open to your vulnerabilities. Stand in their strength and you will know the power of love.

Belize Memories - Senora Choc

2010-06-25T17:37:00.000-05:00

Your wide smile lights up the darkness inside your one-room kitchen. How do you cook in there? How do you cut with a knife? Fry chicken? Thread the needle into the fabric of your family with your food in that dark space?

Sra. Choc, if I could see with those deep Maya eyes would I see a man I love drinking his life away? Or would I turn a blind eye and focus on those things that bring me joy? Sra. Choc, your beautiful eyes and bright smile lend you a faint youthfulness as your children grow.

Could your secret be found in the dark. In your kitchen?

Belize Memories - Tika II

2010-06-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

I recently returned from a trip to Belize with my father. We traveled into the jungle, working for a few days at the archaeology site where I did my Master's research. Then to the reef for tarpon fishing. I was dad's host in the jungle. He was mine in the Caribbean waters near Placencia that are so familiar to him as a flyfisherman. Here is an essay from that trip:

Here kitty! Kitty!

I stare at you through the chain-link fence that separates us. I call to you as I would call a tame, domestic kitty cat. Your deep green jaguar eyes stare right through me. A voice speaks from a distance. Your soft golden ears perk up as you stare in the direction of the sound. Is this the voice of the one that feeds you? Because many other voices buzz all around and you give them no attention.

Your focus, sharp and stealth is my envy. Teach me your instinctual secret. I ask this of you though not out loud. I ask your permission from a place where you and I are one -- where our minds meet.

When you jumped down from the hollow log where you had been napping and ran toward me I should not have been so surprised. I think of more silent questions to ask: Did you really hear me? Did you jump down to answer me? I searched the moment for a clue.

This time you stared me straight in the eye. And when you rolled over on your back as if you wanted to play I knew I had been taking myself too seriously.

Quashing the Kryptonite of Anxiety

2010-05-14T15:09:00.000-05:00

Storm clouds loom to the Southeast and the Northwest of me this afternoon. It rained all morning. A hard soaking rain poured down onto the bulbs sprouting up in my yard. Runoff dove down the side of the cliff and raced toward the Brazos. Clouds to the South claim with their thunder that this storm may be repeating itself this afternoon. Yet for this moment there is a calming peace accompanied by the promise of a clear sky directly overhead.

This scene as a metaphor for life is not lost on me. To the contrary, I sit at my desk watching a female squirrel acrobatically taking sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder. She has an urgency about her - maybe it's the storm, maybe it's her knowing that I am here, that Nigel the Yorkie could come bursting out of the door at any moment to chase her; maybe she's still nursing the young squirrel standing on the sidewalk not quite knowing what to do.

It is in her urgency that I see myself, her manic addictive urgency to complete this task at whatever the cost, even at the cost of ill health or death. What I don't see in her Godlike animalness, is a thinking and rethinking about what she is doing -- whether or not she's doing the right thing, whether she has prioritized properly for the day. She systematically collects and eats, collects and eats stopping occasionally with keen awareness to check on her baby and look for intruders. Indeed, what before looked to me like urgency I now recognize in her as stalwart focus.

My question is: Does she anthropomorphize - Beatrix Potter style - when she gets home and force herself to feel a sense of relief about the day's accomplishments; or is she really just a little squirrel Buddha that recognizes the concept of accomplishment as simply another form of suffering? It is here that she laughs in my face with her squirrel cum George W. Bush snicker revealing that she doesn't bother with either of these over-thought-out ideas.

I bring all of this up because the other day in a moment of clarity - you know, when you realize that you are not being mindful and just allowing your thoughts to throw up all over you all through the day - I caught myself in a panic. I realized that I had created anxiety about my day and then acted as if checking off my todo list was going to save me and make me feel better thus bringing relief to my anxiety. That's the way the world works, right? That's what the old familiar voice was trying to tell me, "Check it off the list, then you'll feel better, then you'll be safe."

Well, I realized, I'm done with this rollercoaster - up, down, up, down, safe, not safe, relief, anxiety. I recognize my addiction to anxiety and how I create it in my daily life by setting up situations to feel angry, scared, and frustrated so that I can justify feeling relief. Anxiety has been this outlet for me for most of my life. Anxiety has been a distraction, an excuse to create confusion. It has been my kryptonite weakening my attentiveness to self-discipline, self-motivation, and commitment. It has blocked my clarity and hampered my judgment far too long.

Even though I no longer recognize anxiety as part of my identity, it still creeps in when I'm not paying attention. It is not me. It is not a part of this clear moment of cloudless blue skys. It is a part of the storm that whirls to my Southeast and Northwest.

Ms. Squirrel continues her task of pillaging all the bird seed in front of my eyes. She has taught me a simple lesson today about distractions and persistence - that with focus and awareness I can get the job, any job done even with the promise of dark clouds on the horizon.

Unfurling the Flag of Freedom in My Spine, Pt. 1

2010-04-20T13:13:00.000-05:00

Scoliosis. The word entered my ears in terror and fear as a young girl, about age 6, my daughter Ruby's age. My grandmother was one of those overprotective women who's body had survived The Depression of the 1930's but who's innocence had been stripped away by lack - the fear of not having enough, and the loss of her father to spinal meningitis at the age of five.

Her early childhood trauma combined with very little familial nurturing created an adult that knew best how to operate within the realms of fear and high drama. As her only granddaughter, I was her focus. She taught me to plan for the worst so that I would be prepared for the worst, for that is how she learned to survive.

Scoliosis, she told me, was a curvature of the spine, and I would probably get it because my mother had it and her paternal grandmother had it. My grandmother did not have it because it was from her husband's side of the family, she reasoned, not hers. She had me regularly checked by a doctor and told me it was important to catch it right as the curve begins because if it is not treated properly - either by back brace or by - God forbid - surgery, I would end up all twisted over with a big hump on my back.

Surgery. The thought sent chills of terror through my body. Having rods placed on either side of my spine sounded like torture. Yet I dwelt on the thoughts, just in case they happened. I imagined differing degrees of severity and how they would effect me and my social life. Would this person still like me? Would that person make fun of me?

I thought about how, depending on it's severity, advanced stages of the disease could affect me early in life - for the rest of my life. With this information, the good Girl Scout I was wanted to be prepared so I imagined myself with a big old hump on my back, just in case it did happen. I thought how I would not be one of the ancient old ladies hunched over in church; I would be more like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, only female, coming down from my tower immortally grotesque to ogle boys that would only spit back at me.

Like Ugly Betty I persevered. Before too long it came to pass - I was wearing a back brace. Mine was the first back brace fitted at Scott & White hospital in Temple. It was clear the doctors there did not have much experience treating scoliosis. They molded a back brace cast onto my body many times before they made one that fit me properly. This took many weeks of my family driving me the 2 hours to the hospital for the fitting and hour after hour of grueling skin tear and bleeding.

Imagination Revived and Revised

2010-03-18T21:44:00.000-05:00

A few days ago Ruby asked me a question and I zipped my mouth closed. She laughed and I unzipped my mouth to laugh with her. In a few minutes she asked, "How do you do that?"

I answered that everyone had a zipper on their mouth, she just hadn't found hers yet. Then she said something like, "You're making that up. That's not real!"

"That's not real! That's not real!" I cried?

I can't believe it, she's only six! It's not already happening, is it? Has she already given up on imagination? Is she heading down the dark hall of "REALITY" in full throttle?

I told her that imagination fuels every movie that's ever been seen, every fairy tale that's ever been written, and all the advertisements that are made (well, maybe not ALL the advertisements.) Commercials are the thing that sends her Dad to Dallas every day, he uses his imagination and then gets to come be with us at the Ranch every night.

Imagination is everywhere. I explained to her that there are two kinds of people -- those that honor their imagination by creating and those discard and distrust their imagination. The distrustors must rely on the creators who tell the stories, paint the pictures, and dip into an infinity, a treasure trove of expansive ocean fronts and way out wests. The creators hold the title to their imagination real estate.

Ruby's eyes lit up and her smile sparkled. I felt the shift when she gave herself permission to play without judgment.

"Hey mom!" she said, "You want to play pretend?"

"Sure I do," I said, "you want me to help you find that zipper?"

Creating Space in My Brain

2010-03-11T10:46:00.000-06:00

You're really not wanting to limit beliefs because belief is just perspective, and the more beliefs or the more perspectives or the more attitudes, the bigger the vibrational kitchen from which you can make your pie. Just get so good at directing your Energy that the belief doesn't dominate. -- Abraham-Hicks

Meditation has become a daily part of my life. It started innocently enough as my connection and participation in the beloved Lenten practice of, "giving something up." I didn't want to give up coffee, tea, sweets, or fried foods. This is not to say that those are not noble things to give up during Lent, indeed they are. The point of the practice is to connect yourself closer to God. Whatever pops up in your head, whatever your intuition tells you its time to give up -- go with that. My intuition, that voice in my head that I identify as Spirit, told me to give up the overwhelm, the confusion, to instead create space in my brain.

It began simple enough. I have a playlist with all of David Elliott's breathing meditations. Each varies in lengths from 7 minutes to 30 minutes so I have choices, options, depending on the amoutn of time I have that day to meditate. By the end of the second week I created a couple of my own playlists to add to the mix -- ones with songs that uplifted me -- songs that raise my vibration and open my heart when I listen to them.

A week into the meditation the voice told me, "this is good but you have to commit to 6 months." I couldn't help but feel like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill working with the Master. I dropped the anticipation of being done with meditation in 40 days. Indeed, there is no Girl Scout badge for me to iron on my vest saying I had completed this task.

Meditation is the practice of directing your energy, of drawing it in and learning from it, of asking it. Jesus said, "If you knock, I will answer." Meditation is my walk down the path, the way I engage with my Energy as it comes up are my prayers. The more I engage with it the more I believe. My faith -- faith in myself, that I am supported, that I am love, and that the Divine has an investment in me strengthens with every breath. The oven is warming up. The smells from the kitchen are Divine.

Falling

2009-11-12T10:13:00.001-06:00

As I sit here and look out over the river, the leaves, confetti-like in their enthusiasm to jump from the trees, fall to the ground to their final sleep. Like faithful followers drinking the poison punch, leaf after leaf falls with the turning of the wind. Soon the trees will stand naked, sleeping too, in a temporary sort of daze until the warm winds come again, next year.

Winter - the "thinning of the veil," a time when nature perfects the concept of minimalism. In the winter there is nothing blatantly grabbing your attention with a myriad of colors and wings like the flowers and insects of the other months. In the winter you have to look for it, search it out. The stillness becomes much more magnified in the winter. It magnifies and stretches and yells and screams beyond our wildest imagination -- if we can hear it. We can hear it. With the passing of every age the veil grows thinner.

My grandmother carried herself with passion, determination and an acidic bitterness for life that compares to meeting a rattlesnake face to face in the mid-day heat of a Texas August afternoon. As her memory slipped away she became more complacent, happier in her daily life,if only because she could no longer remember the travails of those who trespassed against her.

The veil had thinned. As she grew closer to the end of her life, memory or no memory, worldly importances faded and she delighted more in abstract joy without the need to magnify the darknesses she perceived around her. As the veil thinned she let more light into her life. Just as the leaves jump from the trees, thus allowing more light between the branches - thinning the veil, and thinning and thinning until it is no more.

Cleanse Day #7

2009-09-23T19:56:00.000-05:00

Eating kitcherie and drinking lots of water. Meditated today at 2:45 before picking Ruby up from school. These little things are making a huge difference. It really works! Going to try to be in bed by 9PM. I'm off.

Cleanse Day #6

2009-09-22T20:31:00.000-05:00

Dr. Gregg sent me an updated version of the TLC smoothie for this time of year. He suggests one in the morning and another in the afternoon if you need an afternoon snack.

The recipe for the Late Summer Green Drink that reflects some of these Seasonal modifications is:

1-2 scoops Hemp protein powder

1 tablespoon plain kefir

1-2 cups soy or rice milk ( naturally sweetened )

1 teaspoon of Udo's choice or other balanced 3-6-9 omega oil

1 tablespoon green powder

1 teaspoon chavanprash powder or jam

1/4 cup blueberries and or 1/2 ripened banana

1 cup of pomegranate , pear or plain water

Enjoy!

jane b

Cleanse Day #5

2009-09-21T23:42:00.000-05:00

In Ayurvedic medicine the digestive tract is the heart of the physical body. Everything is digested -- what we read, eat, smell, feel, see -- everything that our senses deal with. Food is fuel. Food from groceries, and also what we bring into all of our senses, including the sixth sense -- the mind. There is a lot here to digest (no pun intended). After three days of green smoothies and falling off the food wagon only to finish the evening off with a cup of miso soup, I had to get something substantial in my belly. In Ayurveda, as in Spain, France, Italy and so on, the noon meal is the most important event of the day. It should be big and there should be rest afterward.

So, today I got into the real meat (in a vegetarian sense of the word) of the Ayurvedic cleanse -- kitcherie. I'm not sure what the real definition of kitcherie is but I can describe it and you can go from there. Kitcherie involves boiling some variety of mung dal (bean), steaming some rice, sauteing some veggies in ghee (clarified butter) and making a chaunce of herbs (sauteing herbs in ghee to open the flavors -- it's like an herb sauce - fabulous!)

I boiled some small little round green mung beans. I've never made them before, I usually use the red lintels (they are actually yellow). They have the best flavor to me. I also steamed some rice in the steamer and added a tablespoon of ghee and lots of shakes of tumeric. I love, love, love tumeric rice. When the beans were done in about an hour- fifteen I added the steamed rice and mixed them together like rice and beans.

I sauteed yellow squash, carrots, collard greens, and added some of the butternut squash I baked the night before. I did not cook them very long. While they were sauteing I made a chaunce of black mustard seeds, dried cilantro, and fresh ground corriander with a dash of Celtic sea salt. To make a chaunce let the ghee heat and then add the spices. Very quickly you will smell them, that is their flavors opening up. Then you can pour this into the veggies.

I served the veggies on a bed of the mung dal and tumeric rice. I may have added a little chicken broth to the veggies to help them steam. I'm not a vegetarian, I just eat like one. I topped it off with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a touch of the crunchy sea salt. Viola! Se magnifique!

Words cannot describe how good this food makes me feel. It is the ultimate comfort food, better than mashers and gravy -- even Granny Pearl's gravy.

Cleanse Day #4

2009-09-20T20:16:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago Miki Gabbard and I agreed to meet here at the ranch at noon to discuss and sample some of her delicious breakfast items that will soon be on our breakfast menu. We scheduled this meeting before I committed to the cleanse and at the time had no consideration of any kind of cleanse. My only consideration was for our overnight guests here at the ranch to have a tasty breakfast. So much for discipline.

DOUBLE J FALL BREAKFAST MENU
(starting October 10th)

Breakfast Nacho - a pastry, much like a danish pastry, one is topped with goat cheese and herbs the other with jarlsberg and green chilis.

Breakfast Empanada - An empanada stuffed with egg and cheese, served with creme fraiche

Breakfast Tamale Tart - A tamale tart with chicken and corn served with salsa

Morning Glory Muffins and honey butter with pecans

Homemade Gluten Free Granola Bars

To make up for my delicious lunch of these savory treats, I finished the night off with big bowl of miso soup stocked with collard greens (wakame substitute in the country), tofu (yes, they have tofu at Wal-Mart here now), and carrots. I will also take a handful of probiotics and a couple of triphala to keep my digestion in tact and have a nightcap of ginger tea.

Cleanse Day #3

2009-09-19T23:20:00.000-05:00

Routine is something that I always shunned until Ruby Jane came along. Routine, how boring, how predictable. Yet I've learned that there is also something very primal about routine. Circadian rhythms are real, not just poetry in an R.E.M. song. There is a very real connection between the moon and tides and a woman's cycle. As there is about the changing seasons.

So it is in this cleanse that the morning routine is both comforting and very powerful in a supporting the body kind of way. The first thing I do before I get out of bed is an exercise called the 5 pranas meditation and then alternate nostril breathing. Then I get out of bed and do the Five Tibetan Rights. The exercises is one area where a weekend retreat to kick off the cleanse comes in handy because these exercises are very detailed but when practiced just a few times are very easy to pick up.

A cup of hot water with fresh lemon juice right of the bat in the morning is one of the best things for me, setting the tone for my day. It gets the whole body moving - quick. It's better than coffee to get things going. Seriously. It sounds very simple and sometimes its the simplest things that make the biggest difference. After that there is 2-4 cups of distilled water, distilled water flushes out the toxins that have gathered in the night. There is also tounge scraping, neti pot, dry brushing, and abayanga or annointing the body with oil.

With the distilled water I take 4 probiotics and 2 triphala (an ayurvedic herb for digestion). Then I make a smoothing of kefir, udo's oil, blueberries or strawberries that I bought fresh recently and froze them, some acai juice, unfiltered apple juice, hemp protein, and greens powder. That's breakfast. Yum. I'm set for the day.

Cleanse Day #2

2009-09-18T22:01:00.001-05:00

Okay! I admit it. Day #2 and I fell off the wagon, well, my pinkie toe and maybe a couple of other toes fell off. I took Ruby Jane to a birthday party and that greasy pizza looked so good. I resisted the bread, the cheese and the sauce and then popped the pepperoni's in my mouth without a care in the world. I reasoned that Ruby was not going to eat them (she only likes cheese on her pizza) and coming from the Depression, or at least the Depression mentality passed down through our generations, I cannot imagine throwing away perfectly good pepperoni.

Later on in the kitchen after being offered pizza, cupcakes, wine, and beer - which I all turned down (insert clapping and back patting here) I partook in two buffalo wings -- minus the sauce -- I turned down ranch, blue cheese, AND the butter Tabasco hot wings sauce.

Restaurant food is not on the cleanse, a light dinner with protein is. I figured the two balanced each other out so I ate guilt free. Speaking of guilt, eating in a state of guilt or any other emotion besides pure joy is much more harmful to you than eating the greasiest food or the sugariest.

On the way home from the birthday party we stopped off at a friend's house. Dave, a traditionalist when it comes to after work cocktails, made his best offer, "Can I make you a martini?" he said. I told him about the cleanse. "You're always on a cleanse," he said, "you just need to live a little, you're body's too sensitive. Have a drink already."

"I'd love some water," I told him.

Dave's wife Allison and I drank water as Dave sipped his martini. We finished out the evening listening to old vinyl -- The Police's first album, Outlandos de Amour, both sides, and then The Pretenders first album, one of the best debut albums ever - a scratchy, crunchy ode to British punk. The music cleansed my soul.

Cleanse Day #1

2009-09-17T16:34:00.000-05:00

With all this media hoopla about obesity and diabetes, it's pretty amazing what one full day of eating grains and vegetables can do to the body. I can see how people would think, "I get sick when I eat lots of veggies." My response is..."of course you do." When you've been eating out a lot and eating lots of food with preservatives and very little greens or veggies, there is going to be a period of 1 to 5 days depending on the situation in your own digestive tract that is going to seem like it's the food that is making you sick.
It's exactly like a drug user coming off the drugs. There is stuff in the preservative food -- they're called preservatives -- that have to come out and they are not going to go lightly, if you know what I mean. There will be many trips and sometimes uncomfortable trips to the loo.
I'm not saying this is happening to me now, but I'm not saying it hasn't happened in the past. I can definitely say I have seen an improvement in my overall physical, mental, and digestive bodies since I began these cleanses -- emotional and spiritual too.

There are a series of morning, afternoon, and evening rituals. This cleanse is very detail oriented. The thing I like is that Dr. Gregg says, "If you are the type of person that has to do 100% of everything, then only do 75% of the daily routine. If you are someone that only gives 50% then bump it up a little." This cleanse is all about getting out of your comfort zone, changing the way you feel. I'll go over the daily ritual tomorrow.
Namaste Ya'll

Total Life Cleanse

2009-09-16T11:01:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Total Life Cleanse

One thing that is missing from my fall line up is Ayurvedic doctor, Kevin Gregg's, Total Life Cleanse (TLC). It's a cleanse created by Dr. Gregg and one of his collegues, Dr. Jonathan Glass when they worked together a few years ago in Boston. It's not a cleanse in a box, it is exactly what it says - total life. It starts with the premise that, "nothing new can come into existence until space is created for it." This fall, starting today, I am embarking on a solo journey into this intricately detailed yet truly life changing experience.

The basis of the cleanse is the cultivation of prana or qi, life force energy. Every part of this cleanse from the food, to the exercises, to the media cleanse is designed to create space for more prana and more instances of bringing prana consciously into your own body. The media cleanse is one of the more powerful parts of the cleanse. To be mindful of every nano piece of information and emotion you allow into your body was very hard for me at first. I don't care for coffee in the morning (not on the cleanse), but I love me some NPR when I drive home from taking Ruby to school. That one week a year ago made quite an impact on me. It's taken a whole year to sink in yet I remember it now in the mornings that school is back in session. Sometimes I choose another station and other times I play no music at all, only the silence or the occasional window down with the morning air/prana/wind blowing through the car. Last year's media cleanse planted the seeds that created the space for me to have another experience in the mornings besides NPR. This is just one example of how TLC has changed my life.

For the next two weeks I will blog everyday about the TLC and my experiences doing the cleanse by myself, which I have never done before. I plan on hosting a TLC for the spring and getting Dr. Gregg out here to the ranch for private sessions with people and to teach the Ayurvedic basis of the cleanse.

Holy Basil!

2009-08-31T17:57:00.000-05:00

Green! Green is the word this August. I have never seen my garden so green this time of year. I took pictures this morning in a cool 68 degree breeze. Most of what you see in this photo is Tulsi Holy Basil. I love the Tulsi. It is my tea of choice in the fall, so many powerful antioxidants, lots of love. It is the holy basil, after all.

I bought ONE holy basil from Boudreau's Herb Farm last summer. I never planted it proper. I left it in a plastic pot and looked at it with guilt every time it seeded or I was in the garden in a hurry, too much of a hurry to pluck a few fresh leaves off and brew them up. Then it died. It was the end of the summer or sometime in the fall. I had given up on it, the guilt of it consumed me until I quit watering it so I could forget about it.

As spring awakened I realized nothing had changed between me and that pot. The pot still held a skelton of holy basil twigs and I still felt guilt. So I started watering it and talking to it, telling it how much I loved to drink Holy Basil tea and that if it bloomed I'd even try it chilled rather than the traditional hot tea. I told it how I'd make tea every day if I needed to and I'd keep a pitcher in the refridgerator for Jimmy and Ruby Jane. I told it how I'd add some agave nectar and how good it would taste ice cold with agave nectar. I had a whole monologue for this potted planter full of dirt and dead twigs.

I visited my parents in June. Mom had a beautiful holy basil in her garden. She gave it to without me asking. I drove it home the six hours from Galveston, watching it wilt the whole way. I talked to it, told it how beautiful it was there in the passengers seat, gave it water and air conditioning. I even put the front seat belt on it. By the time I got it in the ground I was not sure if it would make it.

By mid summer, no holy basil. I asked Joanne Boudreau one day how holy basil was doing this season, maybe it was a bad season for the plant and I had not heard that yet. She told me it was coming in late this year and not to worry, it would make a grand entrance into my garden.

By the end of July the plastic pot had not sprouted one plant but many. Weeding the dirt one day I realized I was pulling up Holy Basil!
"Holy &*^*&^" I said. "It's holy basil!"

I am abundant in the Holy Basil and will begin harvesting soon for tea, giving the seeds away to anyone who wants to grow this wonderful plant.

Moving Mountains #60

2009-08-13T22:11:00.000-05:00

What is faith? What does it look like, smell like, and feel like? These were the questions I asked sixty days ago as I set out with my archaeology cap to excavate faith.

So what is it? To me, faith is trust in my inner compass. I think of nature, full of life and vibrant energy. There's no pontificating, no didactic cynicism in the natural world. There is only instinct man! Pure, wild, split-second instinct is the key to survival. That is the realm of faith.

My MO for years was to think it through. Whatever it was, I was going to think it through until I had talked myself out of it. There was very little action and the things I did accomplish were done in a sticky, gooey feeling - almost as if I was stuck in taffy. Nothing came easy, every job, every duty was a passionless chore. I had no faith and trusted my mind and my book knowledge to lead me.

The birds, the hawks, the dogs, the horses, the garden, the river - these are my daily reminders easier to let go of the intellect, to stop comparing what happened in the past to what might happen in the future. To not listen to my mind that tells me that if I don't constantly weigh my past and future then I am somehow unsafe.

My plan is to keep on with my plan, to trust my intuition and let faith and grace manifest spontaneously, which it will, through my trust in the process.

Moving Mountains #59

2009-08-12T22:01:00.003-05:00

“Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failures”

Oscar Wilde

This quote reminds me of that Paul McCartney quote:
"In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." In the end the faith you take is equal to the faith you make. In the end the consistency you take is equal to the consistency you take. I think Wilde was right, our connection to our faith has a big play on our emotions, where we place our faith, our support - in ourselves or in others, inside our self with our own spirit or outside ourselves with an omniscient God.

I looked for a quote that spoke of both faith and consistency as these have been my topics for the last 60 days. This quote bespeaks the humanness of us as a species, despite our natural perfection and its accompanying amnesia. It also speaks of the drill sergeant in my head who aims at some sort of robotic perfection "I will have big faith and be forever consistent never swaying from my goal." The sergeants stern manner and inability to apply the Buddhist principles of abandoning suffering fulfills Wilde's prediciton.

Anyone who knows me knows that I grappled with faith for years and now spend more time grappling with the latter. Overall, I like what Wilde says but I'm not crazy about the word failure, it's so 19th century. I prefer to think of it as a "confession of egos" or a "confession of humanness." Still, it's a beautiful quote. And that's coming from someone who until recently could not stand to make mistakes.

Moving Mountains #58

2009-08-11T21:49:00.002-05:00

It's been raining a lot this August, more than I remember in a while. The garden, such a great metaphor for the f word, faith, that I'm wrapping up on blogging about. I always thought that nothing grew in Texas in August, yet this summer my garden is green and tall. Sure, a few things have died off, the giant leaves of the zucchini have shriveled and gone on. The cantaloupe bore two delicious fruits and faded, the arugula - once wild and free has passed on. The tomatoes, peppers, and basil still thrill.

So, water. Water. Water. Water. It helps when it's coming from the sky and not the faucet. Also, I've worked to temper the slope in my garden to help the water go down instead of out. I will continue to do that next year and it will help the garden to grow stronger. The other, very important aspect that I always underestimated is the soil. Every year I see my plants grow stronger as I improve the soil, till it, move it, add stuff to it. All of these garden factors are only worth their weight until you add love. It is the affection and attention to the soil, the exchange with my garden that brings me joy and that reflects in the growth of the plants. What a lesson my third year of gardening has been. It gets better and stronger every year, just like me.

Moving Mountains #57

2009-08-10T21:39:00.003-05:00

Corn! The corn is high in the garden. This is my proof of faith for the day.

I never realized how tall corn is, I've only seen it from my car window or at the least 10 feet away. To stand in front of a corn stalk is pretty wonderful. Some are 6 feet tall. The have sprouted at the top and a few are flowering corn out of their sides. It feels like such a feat. To think that a couple of months ago I stuck some corn kernels in the ground and now they've made numerous corn kernels. It's abundance in action.

Most of the corn I planted came from some of that beautiful decorative corn that you buy at harvest to look festive during the fall. It came in many colors, some black kernels, some a deep crimson red, and others were a marble of red, black and yellow. The fun is going to be opening each husk and finding out what's inside.I wait like a kid at Christmas, outside my garden door. Yet I have patience. I know they are not ready and I want them to be gorgeous at harvest. Indeed, the concept of harvest is becoming more than the title of a classic, rooted, and much enjoyed album.

Moving Mountains #56

2009-08-09T09:56:00.000-05:00

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." Martin Luther King Jr.

Moving Mountains #55

2009-08-08T11:05:00.003-05:00

EXCHANGE

Exchange is something we practice everyday, whether it's exchanging money at a store for good, exchanging hugs and kisses with the ones we love, exchanging phone numbers with old and new friends. What is behind that exchange? Is it pure love, maybe sometimes dread, hope, or faith. The only way to expand into our greatest vision of ourselves and open our hearts to the abundance of love available to us is through relationship with others, we are not islands, we can not do it alone, we must practice through our relationships.

A few months ago I began blessing every monetary exchange - every check, every dollar, every credit transaction - before I handed it over or mailed it out. I allowed my heart to well up with joy and gratitude, thankful for having the money to spend and grateful to whomever the money was going to for the blessings their service provided whether they were bills, incidentals, or charitable. I didn't realize until I started doing this how different it felt to practice grateful exchange from how I had done it in the past. Most of my spending was done in a state of dread which cultivated and expanded an already present fear around not having enough. That's when retail therapy would set in, I "owed it to myself," to spend some money on things I wanted. It was my moment of permission, not gratitude, but a self-indulgent fleeting pleasure to spend. That's when I would tell myself, "see you do have enough!" Yet when the bills arrived the guilt set in.

Practicing grateful exchange with money helped me off the fear/guilt merry-go-round. Exchange can be applied to everything. How do you think Jesus turned the water into wine? I one particular study, there's a book but I can't remember the author's name. He blessed water and looked at it under a microscope, then he cursed it and looked again, he also said different words like "dragonfly" and "peace." The results are stunning. He has a book with all the pictures. If anyone can remember his name please let me know. It also works on food (say your grace!) and plants (they love classical music, remember this from the 1970's?)

Moving Mountains #54

2009-08-07T21:17:00.001-05:00

Faith is an oasis in the heart
which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

~ Kahlil Gibran ~

Moving Mountains #53

2009-08-06T17:49:00.005-05:00

Faith...
When you come to the edge of all the light you have,
and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid to stand on,
or you will be taught how to fly.

~ Patrick Overton ~

Like an anchor securing its ship to the bottom of the ocean, I felt it. Like jumping into a swimming pool and just letting my body sink to the bottom, knowing I'm not going to drown. The feeling that I have a universal guide and am "employed by the universal bank," as David Elliott says, grows every day. The more I write, the more I practice my faith, a faith that has nothing to do with religion, the more I hold space for others to breathe the active meditation, the stronger my faith grows. I am learning to trust the process. I am having fun with it. All of it. And I am flying.

Moving Moutains #52

2009-08-05T07:47:00.002-05:00

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~Blaise Pascal

Moving Mountains #51

2009-08-04T19:44:00.002-05:00

Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve. ~Lillian Smith

This is the first instance that I have ever seen where doubt is not considered a negative. I love this. I can now embrace doubt as a positive, as long as I keep in check and balanced with faith.

Moving Mountains #50

2009-08-03T19:41:00.001-05:00

Faith is putting all your eggs in God's basket, then counting your blessings before they hatch. ~Ramona C. Carroll

I love this quote because it derives from one of those old adages that we are told as kids that turns out to not be true - in fact, it's the exact opposite of what we are told. DO put all your eggs in one basket, just not YOUR basket. I'm still working on the count them before they hatch thing...that's the REAL work. It's in trusting.

Moving Mountains #49

2009-08-02T07:36:00.003-05:00

This is my first Jewish wedding. I am overcome by the depth of the tradition, the strength of families and friends that share the tight bond of their faith. Christians do not have the same experience, there are so many different kinds of Christians, sure there are different groups of Jews, but at the heart, so many of their rituals are the same. It was a beautiful and beloved service of two wonderful people who found each other after their children have flown the nest. Weddings are such wonderful statements of the endurance of love, friendship, and family.

Moving Mountains #48

2009-08-01T19:33:00.001-05:00

Faith is a passionate intuition. ~William Wordsworth

We're in Denver for a wedding. Weddings are so wonderful, such a great time of joy and faith. I love this quote by Wordsworth - passionate intuition - unyielding, unquestioning intuition. Faith is all action, there is no wiggle room.

Moving Mountains #47

2009-07-31T07:19:00.002-05:00

Faith is spiritualized imagination. ~Henry Ward Beecher

This is one of my favorite quotes. I'm amazed when four little words can come together so succinctly and bam! This one says it all. I'm off to Denver for the weekend.

Moving Mountains # 46

2009-07-30T16:54:00.002-05:00

“I no longer seek any perfection from my own efforts…but only the perfection that comes from faith and is from God…We who are called perfect must all think in this way” (Philippians 3:9,15).

This is one of those quotes that makes me go, "Oh yeah! I forgot again. Thanks for the reminder." One of my teachers Tashi Nyima says, "Relax into your natural perfection." He says it in a baritone voice with a Puerto Rican accent and tinge of South India as he spent many years there. It is one of the most beautiful and relaxing voices I have ever heard. "Clear the windshield of your mind and relax into your natural perfection."

Natural perfection, faith, means we don't have to do anything. Like telling the fastidious housewife to put down her dishtowel, that she has the day off, that she must trust that the work will get done or at least will still be there when she gets back. Because natural perfection is about being at peace in every moment, releasing attachment from feeling like, "I have to get this done now!" This is one of the hardest areas for me. It's an old pattern, it jolts me back into the victim mentality of, "if I don't do this who will?"

Success for me when I am in a moment where I forget my natural perfection, is when I do break the chains of my own making and put the proverbial dish towel. If I can release from the grip of the victim, lie down on the floor for 5 minutes and breathe, then I can remember my natural perfection. For me, most of the time, it's about finding humor in whatever I thought was so serious a few moments ago. That's where keeping the faith is for me. It's in the recharge.

Moving Mountains #45

2009-07-29T09:56:00.002-05:00

Walking from my house to the ranch house the other day I almost tripped over a snake on the sidewalk in front of me. I never realized before how I walk looking straight down. I'm not sure if I do it all the time. I don't think I do it when I walk in the city. Here, though, I look straight down.

He was big, about four feet long, four and half, and thick, round. Jimmy and Ruby were there too. It was a water moccasin, a pit viper, a fat, lethargic (thank God) pit viper. Jimmy sent him back to his maker after saying a prayer over him. I covered Ruby's eyes. Such is the life of a farm girl.

What the snake taught me in the days since, is to keep my head up, to look out over the yard, the grass, past the trees. To not be so myopic, to see the bigger picture, to soak it all in.

Thank you scary snake.

I noticed that when my blinders are on and my vision is as small as a pea, I have a hard time mustering anything of myself for faith, there is just not enough room in my brain, my body does not have enough energy to support it. Yet, when I have the big view, it come in naturally. The big view welcomes faith automatically. I am very grateful to the snake for this lovely reminder.

Moving Mountains #44

2009-07-28T21:39:00.000-05:00

Did I say spa day? It's spa week. Women are coming in for the rest of the week for these wonderful treatments. Tonight Dr. Gonzales gave a talk on all of the clinical aromatherapy products she makes. She explained a little bit about the autonomic nervous system. It has two parts: the sympathetic nervous system which operates on "fight or flight" it's what we use during the day to make decisions and live in our busy lives. After work, though, when the day is done, it is our parasympathetic nervous system that needs to take over. The parasympathetic systems job is, "rest and digest." So often we don't shift into rest and digest after work and then we just lie there in bed staring up at the ceiling and wondering why we have insomnia.

The clinical aromatherapy products are oils gathered from the first pressing of the flower. You only need one drop of oil - to smell it and then put it on your body - adrenal oil over your kidneys, immune oil on your throat and so on. These oils are different from the tinctures you buy at the grocery store which smell good but are the second or third pressing and do not have the medicinal qualities. I have been using her regime of flower oil blends for a couple of years now through Barbara the facialist, even though I just met Maria. Since I started my routine two years ago with the oils I have not gotten a sinus infection. I used to get them at the start of every season and then usually in the middle of the season too.

These oils address the parasympathetic nervous system, sending little messages to our bodies that they are supported, that they can rest and be ready and rejuvenated for tomorrow. That it can have faith in us, that we will take care of it, that when we push it into overdrive during the day, we will bring it back in the evening and tuck it in tight and kiss it goodnight.

Moving Mountains #43

2009-07-27T12:56:00.002-05:00

It's spa day at the ranch. My dream of having facials and bodywork here on a consistent basis is coming to fruition. Barbara gives amazing clinical grade aromatherapy facials. Dr. Gonzales is here too. She makes all the products that Barbara uses in her facials so they are fresh and seasonal. Dr. Gonzales also does an energetic chiropractic adjustment that releases stuck emotions in the body. I'm receiving this treatment in less than an hour so I'll report back. It's all coming to fruition. My faith in myself, in the ranch, and in our dream grows stronger every day. Now, off to the spa!

Moving Mountains #42

2009-07-26T21:50:00.003-05:00

Prana is the life force that moves through the body on the breath. Prana literally means, first movement. It is the most subtle form of movement. Love is the first form. Thus, prana is the physical movement of love in the body. That's right! Love moves on prana.

Prana moves into the heart carrying love on its breath. It then distributes love to the rest of the cells in the body. When we are breathing smoothly without constriction the power of love is feeding every cell of our being.

It's just another beautiful example of faith at work every day.

Moving Mountains #41

2009-07-25T22:36:00.002-05:00

Prana Karma is one of the most beautiful rituals I have ever experienced. I spent the whole day in a group with my Suddha Ayurveda teacher Tashi Nymai. We learned to perform this beautiful meditation on ourselves and to offer it to others. It reminded me that many times when we get too IN this world, rather than OF it, we get constricted. This is when doubt sets in, when faith is difficult to grasp.

Prana Karma restores the prana of one's body into balance. In the session that was performed on me I fell down the rabbit hole into a deep delta-level sleep for 10 minutes and woke up completely rejuvenated. It's not much different than a pranayama breathing session in that they both create openings in the nadis or energy points in the body. Both are prana regulating therapies (I do not like to use the word therapies but will use it just this once as it is late and I am sleepy.) So if anyone out there has a better word than therapy please let me know. The word is old and outdated. I no longer desire to use the term "yoga therapist," or "healing therapies." There must be some other word to describe it.

Moving Mountains #40

2009-07-24T07:30:00.002-05:00

Bumblebees remind me that all it ever takes is faith. I found a big fat bumblebee on my doorstep (no longer moving). She had the portliest body and the most gossamer wings - a true miracle of aerospace engineering.

Moving Mountains #39

2009-07-23T23:32:00.002-05:00

I'm holding on. My body's doing a really good job of holding on to some old, old, memories and resentments. Forgiveness takes patience in my case. I'm holding on to my faith today but must sit in this human skin that still desires to feel pain and suffering for another day until I get the relief I seek.

Moving Mountains #38

2009-07-22T21:44:00.002-05:00

There was a time when faith conjured up for me a shot of hope followed by a swill of anticipated dread and despair. The hope was an attempt to grasp the present moment. The dread and despair byproducts of grasping the negative memories of the past and projecting them into the future. As a result my mind often disconnected from my body. I eventually identified the feeling -- it was like a balloon that has been let go and was floating away into space.

Faith can still be illusive. In those moments of feeling overwhelmed I fall into old patterns of being the victim and not being good enough. A foggy haze creeps around my head and body, intoxicating that part of me that longs for the familiar, no matter how painful.

That's where grounding becomes so important. There are healthy, conscious ways of grounding. Many of them can also become comforting to the point of addiction. Food can be very grounding, a bath, sex, a massage, exercise, yoga -- anything that plugs you into your "real world", the one that you are consciously making for yourself that is comforting and supportive of your freedom. Just remember the golden rule -- Everything in moderation...including moderation.

I left Mineral Wells last Friday with a sore throat. While in Austin, most of my time was spent in my pj's laying around -- when I was not in circle with the breath. It was one of the most relaxing weekends in a while -- not my normal way of being. I usually have the mind set of, "it's summer, shouldn't we be outside!" Just because it's 100 degrees outside does not mean I need to go outside, to go swimming. With the sore throat I opted out of all outside activity. Staying inside gave me a different perspective and brought me back into a more relaxed and refreshed place. It was a very grounding weekend and it made me more present with my faith around many aspects of my life.

Find the activities that ground you, that give you comfort, that feed your soul. Use them wisely and they will reward you with a strong sense of security and well being.

Moving Moutains #37

2009-07-21T15:55:00.002-05:00

Here's an excerpt from The Reluctant Healer on faith:

"Faith comes from a support system of prior action and results, and it can be a recognition that the moment of change is upon you and you have the fortitude to take the leap. I believe in '20/20 vision' faith, rather than in blind faith. If you do the work, faith will not only follow, but it will lead you and be rock solid."
David Elliott

Moving Mountains #36

2009-07-20T13:11:00.003-05:00

What does reality mean for you? Does your idea of reality support your faith?

When you say, "Well, back to reality!" Does that mean you are turning off your computer and setting up your meditation space for some down time? Does it mean you are telling the person you are on the phone with that it's your scheduled daily time for painting or water coloring?

I can still get stuck in my made-up world of being a mom, a wife, a business owner, a healer, and all those other labels that define me to others. It's a great life, one I created through the choices I made one brick at a time. The deal with it, though, is that it is transient and telling myself that this is my reality is looking at my life with tunnel vision.

The real world is that one that is never changing. It's the well I must go to for source, for rejuvenation. It is the moments in-between, when my mind is in neutral and my breath is feeding my soul. This is the power of meditation.

Whether God is your co-pilot or Dog is your co-pilot, what does your reality look like? Is it in the world that is of your making, your choices, the ever-changing daily routine, chores, and todos? If so, can you see a relationship between the ever changing nature of this world and any feelings of being overwhelmed that you have or any chaotic energies that you may be unconsciously taking on?

So the next time you say, "back to the real world," and you say it in a tone that automatically has the word "damnit" at the end without even saying it, quickly switch your image of "real world," to something you enjoy -- and then have a big old laugh at yourself for being so serious and pretending to have so little faith.

Moving Mountains #35

2009-07-19T12:52:00.001-05:00

Easing into Sunday.
Here's a beautiful quote for the day:

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them. BLAISE PASCAL

Moving Mountains #34

2009-07-18T08:09:00.003-05:00

Is there a place within you that could use a little faith today?

Why is faith so hard to grasp?
Faith takes imagination. Expanding into that playful place within us that dares to dream big. Ruby's five-year-old imagination sings with the wind and dreams with the whales. As she sheds her early childhood years and gains language skills, I can see her mind grasping more and more concepts as concrete. As this happens I watch little Ruby morph into a whole new girl with a whole new sense of imagination and I pray she holds on to it.

For any kid, socialization through school also plays a big role in detachment from childhood imagination. As this happens it's easy for children who later become adults to poo-poo imagination for "reality." Thus, cultivating imagination can be a delicate balance with a five or six year old.

Trusting our imagination as adults is hard at first. For many of us, it seems so childish to let our mind wander and roam. Yet wandering and roaming are key elements in becoming stress free. When our mind relaxes our bodies relax. Give yourself five minutes with your imagination today and see where it takes you.

Moving Mountains #33

2009-07-17T20:23:00.002-05:00

Here's a short and sweet mnemonic for faith on this lovely Friday night. This poem by Emily Dickinson sums up volumes written on the subject. Enjoy!

Faith -- is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not --
Too slender for the eye

It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
With Arms of Steel at either side --
It joins -- behind the Veil

To what, could We presume
The Bridge would cease to be
To Our far, vacillating Feet
A first Necessity.

Moving Mountains #32

2009-07-16T21:44:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite things about living in a small town is live music in the garden. Everybody comes out for it. It's the one time in the summer where you can catch up with other small town denizens - who's been to Disneyland, who's been to Colorado, who's on leave, who's going on a cruise - the outdoor live music venue, be it the Famous Water Company like tonight or Clark Gardens Botanical Park earlier in the summer, is the heartbeat of our small town.

Where Clark Gardens has their snow cones, the Famous Water Company has its ice cream. Mint chocolate chip in a cup is the first thing Ruby asked for when we got there. She finished it before we got outside and claimed our table and chairs on the patio lit by strands of white light.

About an hour and a cold beer into the music Ruby came up to me and said, "I just saw the most awesome thing ever! It was a cone with one scoop of mint chocolate chip and ANOTHER scoop of chocolate, one the same cone! Can I have one please?" She said as she looked sideways and batted her eyelashes.

I didn't say yes, and I didn't say no. I told her to go inside and ask if she could have a sample, a taste, of it. "Describe it to them exactly as you did to me," I told her. I was pretty confident she would not get it because she had no money. Mother's can be so naive.

Five year-olds can be extremely persuasive as evidenced by my next sight. She walked out the door with a full two scoops, the biggest ice cream that I've ever seen her with, and she even shared it.

The point is that she knew all along she was going to get it. She had that air about her. She knew what she wanted, she visualized it, then she materialized it. The whole scene was a beautiful example of faith and the confidence of inner knowing. Because when it comes to ice cream and children we're talking about two things that seem meant for each other.

Moving Mountains #31

2009-07-15T16:33:00.005-05:00

Recent medical research has shown that believing in a cure leads to real bodily changes. When the body is given a placebo the brain opens opiate receptors and releases pain-reducing chemicals. Thus, it is the act of believing, not what you believe that puts the wheels in motion for you affecting your own change. All you have to do is believe.

For years I refused to believe. It sounded so sappy and unreal. What was I believing in? A white-robed man in the sky? Believing in good over bad just out of sheer hope that it was true? Believing in happily ever after? I felt I had to protect my heart by not believing.

Through the breathing meditation I have shed much armor from my heart, it continues to shed, though I never know exactly when that is going to happen. I just keep breathing and opening to my abundance, to the gratitude I have in my life for my family and my gifts and experiences. I hold space for my body so that when it is ready to release old memories and emotions I am there to assist in its moving. As I clear space in my mind through the meditation and weed out the untruths, there is more space for believing, for faith.

The more I practice believing from the inside out -- in myself, and also in Christ, Mary, the angels, saints, and a myriad of other healers -- believing in them working through me, the stronger my immune system becomes, the stronger my faith becomes.

Moving Mountains #30

2009-07-14T19:10:00.003-05:00

Today is day 30 of my 60 Days of Faith. Yay! I made it to the half way mark. Consistency feels good. The value in doing this every day is that I'm to the point when I sit down that I think, "I've done this every day, what else could I possibly have to say about it?" Then, just like when I set out on a long walk, the steps get easier and my heart speaks out as I deepen into it.

This summer I am watching my work with the breathing circles unfold. Every time I put effort into stepping more into my faith and my passion -- and I love the breathing circles -- my faith expands and my work expands. It's not only about teaching others the work with the breath and with moving energy through their bodies. It is also about understanding my own, about recognizing negative and positive energies in my body, understanding what reactions cause them, and choosing which reactions to engage with. Understanding these subtleties leads to a better understanding of how different actions and reactions (a.k.a. karma) are going to make me feel. I like feeling good, joyful, powerful, and worthy so I'm training myself to listen to my body first instead of my mind. My mind will say, "your body's fine, it's just being a little lazy today." While my body is saying, "I need rest. I'm filled with stress and anxiety. I need some down time."

It's a tall order. Understanding this process a little bit every day is what I love. The fact that all of this information begins with the seed of feeling my own breath in my body through a simple breathing meditation is the beauty.

Faith is very much a part of this as we are conditioned to feel fear and anxiety and to expect the worst. Faith has us do just the opposite. It's not about being shiny happy people all the time, it's about seeing the darkness as a temporary state and moving beyond it...at least today.

Moving Mountains #29

2009-07-13T07:35:00.003-05:00

What is it about getting cancer or some other potentially fatal illness that causes us to invest more in our faith?

Is it fear of death? Or a primal desire to believe in something greater than ourselves?

Cancer, over 10 years ago, gave me permission to try something different, to explore the possibilities that this life has to offer. In the faith department, the seed of my change was to see cancer as my gift. Then I took the steps to build it as such.

If cancer was my gift, my healing would show me my faith. I took up yoga, took steps to make healthy boundaries with the people around me, started breathing with David Elliott, took steps to improve my view of myself, and began the arduous task of not trying to do everything and asking others for help.

All of these elements can be found in the tiny seed of my faith. I wanted to believe in something greater than myself but I wanted empirical evidence of God. Yet I believed in anger, jealousy, anxiety, and a myriad of other unhealthy emotions that get stuck in the body and cause stasis and illness - I can't see them either.

It all started with changing my perspective. With seeing a gift where there was once only illness.

Moving Mountains #28

2009-07-12T08:17:00.003-05:00

Sunday morning! It's still early enough to feel a light breeze, the sun has not even popped fully over the west side of the hacienda into my window. I love the morning, it's newness and hope for the day, the busy birds, the plants getting ready for the throng of heat on its way.

Sundays have a special lilt, a sobering, grounding feel of peace and rest. I'm thinking about the garden. To be there now, with maybe a little dew drop or two left on the tomato plant, a ripe yellow pear tomato ready to pop into my mouth.

Faith is cultivated here. In the spaces in between the busy part of the day. In the work of keeping the soil moist and the plants happy. And it's so much easier now at this time of morning than when the sun is higher in the sky.

Moving Mountains #27

2009-07-11T13:48:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting here watching a myriad of birds outside my window. Hummingbirds fighting over the nectar, buzzing each other at the speed of light. The medium-sized birds eating seeds from the feeder. I can only identify a few, the painted bunting, the male and female cardinals. They pop on and off the feeder as if through a revolving door at a lunchtime bistro. Off the cliff there have been many hawks circling today and soaring buzzards. I am amazed at how they can get such traction off the air with so little wind.

I am an earthbound human. I love the ground and the dirt. I have no desire to jump out of plane or reach outer space in a ship. Cyber space is good enough for me. Yet these birds call out to a space deep within me to trust in an unseen rhythm of nature and to make that the focal point of relationship with nature. Thus, instead of focusing on the scary things that I know about that bring up my fears -- the snakes, little fish that nibble the skin, ants, wasps, bees, other insects and spiders -- to focus on my reaction to these things as something that keeps me in a state of tension and fear.

Birds. Yes, birds. Their freedom and their connection to the wind and the life force of nature are an understated inspiration to behold.

Moving Mountains #26

2009-07-10T22:49:00.003-05:00

I went swimming in the river this afternoon.
It's easy to get overcome with fears, especially with
things like water moccasins, stickers, heat stroke, and dehydration looming in the analytical and logical part of the mind.
The hurdles to having a good time in the water -- to just letting go and
swimming a few laps with abandon -- are many and they are tall. The hurdles fall away, though, when the heated temperature outside gives way to the refreshing river water, even if the water is the temperature of a tepid bath.

I've been practicing in the river and will continue this summer to use the river as a tool to connecting to my faith. I have very rarely seen snakes on the river. When I do is it a coincidence or a message, even and omen? What about with stickers? Heat stroke? and dehydration?

It is true that certain precautions must be taken. For the snakes I take my 75 pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Jack, who swims along the edge of the water. He's not only a water dog, he also loves to chase down snakes so I feel very safe with him there. The same goes with stickers. I always wear shoes. Still one may grab hold of a shoe or a piece of clothing so I'm not completely immune. Even still, shoes are a good buffer and decrease my chances of the pain of those little seed balls with spikes. For heat stroke and dehydration I always take a small cooler with ice water.

As much as I prepare myself before I get in the wilds of the river there is still a piece of me that feels like I am supposed to be scared, that I am supposed to fear the part of the river I can't see, the part of nature I don't understand. This is the point where it is important for me to connect to my inner wisdom, the place that senses or even smells the snake before it gets close enough to bite me. It's the same inner wisdom that says, "sticker next to left foot," and I hear it if I'm not engrossed in senseless mind chatter that's pulling me out of the present moment.

For the rest of the summer, when I swim in the river, I am going to challenge my current levels of fear and faith and open to new possibilities of discovery in nature, it's beauty and it's unknown.

Moving Mountains #25

2009-07-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago before I ever knew I would blog about faith.
I found it today going through an old file.

AM I?

A sock with divine purpose
To warm the frozen foot?

A watch that reminds the masses
It's time to zip their boot?

A mosquito stuck in amber
That holds clues to early life?

A blanket statement rendered true
By a believer of only lies?

A hawk
An owl
An eagle
The soaring portly bumble bee

My faith can show you nothing more
Than my belief in me

Moving Mountains #24

2009-07-08T20:51:00.004-05:00

"Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn." William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

I love this quote. It is such a simple reminder of all the support we have for our growth. I'm going to sit with this one a while and see what I can visualize for myself with this poem as a template and see what comes up. Please feel free to do the same. Enjoy!

Moving Mountains #23

2009-07-07T19:52:00.005-05:00

There here! They finally made it through the dirt. My mind has been occupied with Tulsi Holy Basil. Yes. I'm a total dirt geek at heart coming into my own greenthumbness. I've been waiting and praying for the Holy Basil to rise up after feeling so guilty for letting it die last year without making one glass of tea, drying one leaf for tea, or planting one seed for the next year. Today I was reminded that its not about me. That the seed will rise again.

Last year I bought a Tulsi Holy Basil plant with great dreams of making my own tea and cultivating my own plants. I kept it in a large pot and watered it a few times a week. I always remembered I was going to make tea out of my plants in the garden at the precise moment I was drinking the healing Tulsi Basil Tea from a box I bought at the store. So I've carried this guilt since last September when the potted plant finally DIED (I thought). In fact it had gone to seed.

I'm still learning the flow of the seasons. I'm still learning the rhythm of the bursting life the spring, the seed pods that grow in the summer, the abundant harvest of the fall and the silent restful time of nature in winter. This rhythmic flow never stops, like a carousel without a timer. My job is to jump on and enjoy.

So when the Tulsi Holy Basil popped up in my garden in droves this week, I didn't believe it at first. I thought all those little plants were weeds. I picked them all and headed for the trashcan until I smelled that familiar intoxicating smell of the healing basil that is called Holy Basil. My faith was restored when I was reminded of nature's transcendent rhythm.

Moving Mountains #22

2009-07-06T08:18:00.003-05:00

Walked outside today expecting the usual heat wave and instead experienced an almost cool breeze. For a moment I thought I was in New Mexico -- crisp breeze, very dry, the earth felt like it had expanded, taken a deep full breath.

Lately I've cooled off too. The struggle has always been so easy, feeling like I am alone and I have to get that almighty EVERYTHING done all by myself. That addiction is really all about control. We have been conditioned that if it's not hard it's not worth doing. As the ranch has been getting more publicity I fell into an old pattern - thinking that my work - the healing work - needed to take a backseat to "getting the ranch going."

As I let go of the reigns and look around me, I see that most of my needs that I struggle so hard to achieve are already taken care of. Take food for example. I'll struggle with the fact that I don't want to go to our only grocery store in town, Wal-Mart. Then someone from afar shows up with a bounty from Whole Foods or Central Market ready to share. And these days there is always something to eat from the garden. I'm still getting used to the miracle that food comes out of the ground if you water and care for it. Also,I've got two wonderful women who take care of the daily chores - and for these things among the many others I am so grateful.

Yet I still have an underlying feeling that I am not doing enough, that I need to work harder, send one more email. That feeling is the one that I am talking about that is the seed of the addiction, the seed that causes the reaction of STRUGGLE.

With Ruby home for the summer, I have a wonderful 5 year old that reminds me to step away from my computer and my list making and just play. It always takes me about 10 minutes...about as long as with the breathing...to disengage from the commander mind and enjoy my surroundings. This is what I'm talking about when I say I've "cooled off" and "let go of the reigns." Spending more time enjoying life - the blessings of a 5 year old...and a cool morning breeze in the middle of summer.

Moving Mountains #21

2009-07-05T18:02:00.004-05:00

It's been a great day to begin my new perspective with faith - to trust that I am guided by a force much greater than me. We know it's true for plants. In the way the sun guides each plant to defy gravity and move to greater heights. In the way the water gives nourishment and the clouds that bring it feel like a blanket of serenity.

For many days the sun has burned down on the garden. Watering twice a day has done little to assuage the dryness and brittleness, the burn on the leaves. I awoke with a smile on my face at 2am. and listened to the rain for a few minutes before drifting back to sleep. The rain continued for hours, until mid-morning.

Today with the deep grey clouds and light drizzle the plants seemed to enjoy the respite of the pounding sun. Their leaves appeared relaxed, not shriveled in the afternoon as on days of intense heat. Late afternoon the humidity gave way to an easy breeze, bringing lesser temperatures that we have not felt in weeks.

I too have felt relaxed -- lazing about around the house most of the day and enjoying the overcast shade while cleaning the dead leaves off the parsley in the garden. Feeling supported by an unseen force that has an investment in me.

Moving Mountains #20

2009-07-04T16:18:00.002-05:00

INDEPENDENCE DAY UPDATE

My ideas about faith have changed in the last twenty days. I started this blog to report on every day instances of faith as proof that it exists. Well, it does exist. I got that part. Let's move on.

At the beginning of my 60 days I said that I would be relying on my own accounts of faith and not use anyone's quotes or ideas about it. Then I read M. Gandhi's quote, "Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into." This quote broadened my view of it as more than something to trust when I'm feeling needy or wanting. This quote raises the bar on my faith.

Faith, like merit, is collected over time. My little instances of faith add up and connect to each other. They have been magnetizing over time. The more I focus on where it is in my life the stronger the feeling I have that I am supported by faith. It's a little picture vs. big picture thing and I'm beginning to see the big picture.

Moving Mountains Day #19

2009-07-03T23:43:00.002-05:00

Faith is a lot like water. Consider all the metaphors that have to do with water that can also be said about faith and let that seep into the sponge of your mind.

Here's an example:
I'm in my third year of gardening. Each season I feel more connected to the process. This year it's been about the water. Standing outside my garden in March I noticed for the first time the garden's steep gradient and how it sloped in one direction. My veggies were in raised boxes. It looked like the boxes had been set on a steep slope. At that point I understood why miniature carrots and beets had not grown to full size. The water did not go DOWN into the soil but rather splashed over the veggies as it rushed down-slope.

This year's garden has been all about working with the water. It's not a coincidence that as I cultivate my ojas -- or the nurturing water element of my body from yesterday's blog -- I'm also learning how to cultivate the water in my garden. Indeed, it's all connected.

This morning I noticed that in the plants that I planted earlier in the spring season the water wets the surface soil and then flows away from the plant. Many of these plants are struggling with shallow roots and light-colored leaves. Later in the season, I spent more time working with the soil to help it hold more water and send it downward. These plants seem to be thriving better in the extreme heat of the summer. Just as the plants need a slow and steady stream of water to go deep into it's roots to bear fruit in the summer, a steady stream of faith deepens our roots and helps us to thrive.

Moving Mountains #18

2009-07-02T14:56:00.003-05:00

Today faith is telling me to SLOW DOWN.

There's this familiar little, old tick somewhere deep inside that's telling me I have to have EVERYTHING done before the holiday. What is everything? When I ask, it disappears. Like a trickster, the phantom of the mind seduces me into believing I need to be in a frenzy about all the things on my to do list.

I know that it's faith telling me to slow down because listening to it requires that I trust it. The more I trust it I notice that the trusting is not the hard part. The hard part is my addiction to the feeling that I have to get such and such done, get as many suches and suches done as I can possibly fit into today.

Well guess what? Faith is telling me to slow down, my body is craving a breathing meditation session with the accoutrement of all the aromatherapy oils, set to music with lots of ocean sounds. My craving today is not for the feeling of completing tasks but of the healing nature of self-nurture - a swim in the depths of an ice blue surf on an extremely hot day.

Moving Mountains Day #17

2009-07-01T15:16:00.003-05:00

Have you ever stopped to think about the saying, "Hit the ground running"?
It used to be a big favorite of mine. The saying itself suggests, "Right now, I'm not at full throttle but get ready because I'm about to really go at it without any brakes."

We are not machines. When we live in the mindset that we must be on full-charge at all times our bodies wear down, our parasympathetic nervous system stays on constant guard - ready to react and perform, we drain the juice from our bodies and offer very little means of recharge. Then we wonder why we cannot sleep at night. We cannot expect our bodies to go like clockwork -from "hit the ground running," into a delta state of sleep -- unless we offer it some recharge. Cat naps, meditation, and breathing practices are just some of the ways to recharge. When recharge becomes routine, "hitting the ground running," becomes less important.

There is a concept in Ayurveda called ojas. Ojas is the water, the juice of our bodies that exists in a metaphorical well. Recharge and self care practices help keep the well full. Thus when we have a stressful day we can draw nourishment and healing from it.

Even though it is metaphorical, the idea of the well has saved my life. Before I knew about the well I was always sick with sinus infections and other minor illnesses that forced me to STOP running when I had hit the ground one too many times. Indeed, my well had dried up. When I began to picture the well inside me, I wanted to fill it. Yoga and breathing practices came easier. Also, I began an evening bedtime routine of oils and aromatherapy on my face and body which improved my sleeping and my overall well being.

Trusting faith is a very important aspect of ojas -- as the depth of ones faith effects the quality of ones well. Choosing to align with faith in any process or predicament reminds me that I am not alone, that I am supported. Faith reminds me that I no longer have to hit the ground running, that is the old way of being - survival mode. When I allow for recharge, the well is full, and I am thriving.

Moving Mountains Day #16

2009-06-30T16:52:00.002-05:00

Earlier today as Ruby and I left the office to go downstairs, I closed the door quickly behind me so as not to let out too much of the A/C. Nigel, the Yorkie -- who is never far behind me -- opted to stay in the office rather than risk being caught by a swiftly moving door.

Ruby said, "Mom, you cut the cord with Nigel!"

Knowing the clairvoyance of a 5 year old child, I looked at her and said, "What!?"

She explained, "When you closed the door you cut the cord with Nigel."

I asked, "Well, it can go back together, right?"

"Yep!" She said, "Just like a magnet."

"Can you see it?" I asked.

"No," she said, "It's like a computer."

I knew what she meant, the connections between us are like a computer, we cannot see the information travel but we know what it is when it gets there.

Then I thought to myself, "Oh, just like faith!"

Moving Mountains Day #15

2009-06-29T13:52:00.006-05:00

Faith is not something to grasp, it's a state to grow into.
--- M. Gandhi

And on the 15th day...I stopped trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip...trying to fit a square peg into a round hole...I remembered the part about the journey being the reward.

I recently saw the movie Enlighten Up! The guy, Nick, in the documentary was supposed to immerse himself in yoga and find enlightenment in the 6 month or so duration of the filming. He met with many of the top gurus, yogis and yoginis from here to Rishikesh asking them many questions. The answers seemed to make him more skeptical and more loathsome as the movie progressed. My favorite scene was when one of the yogis said to him--and I can't remember the context of the comment -- "Nick, go fuck your self!" Then he just cracked up, he started laughing and knee-slapping, "Go fuck your self. Hahahaha!" He said again. I could tell Nick was surprised to hear the word "fuck," jump out of his mouth. It definitely added a lightness (en-lightness?) to the room as it made Nick laugh too, even though he did look a bit confused.

I bring up this movie because the quick fix is what I as a human crave. These were my thoughts a few days before decided to blog for 60 days on faith..."I'm going to blog on faith for 60 days and at the end of 60 days I'm going to know exactly what faith means to me!"

That idea would work very well if we lived a static existence. Truth is, existence by nature is exactly the opposite of static. The faith that worked for me 10 seconds ago might not work for me right now. In my understanding of Gandhi's quote I can look back on experiences from the past where I did trust faith -- like this past weekend in Austin (see yesterday's blog) -- and link all of these experiences together to create a strong force for trusting and believing.

In what am I trusting and believing? Well, ultimately it's my self. It is the universal self as opposed to the self you tell your self to go fuck when you are filled with doubt, fear, confusion, and all those things we crave that isolate us and make us feel separate or other than.

Too existential? Then try it. Tell yourself to "go fuck your self." The part that thinks it's funny is your universal self. The part that takes it seriously or acts like it's confused by the comment is your ego. The "go fuck your self," quote is a real ego burner...and it makes me laugh. It's my new mantra when fear starts to fog up the windshield.

Moving Mountains Day #14

2009-06-28T15:09:00.003-05:00

FAITH. I'm drawing a complete blank today.
I milked my, "faith that the heat won't last forever," blog yesterday.

Just drove home from Austin, a three and a half hour drive. I am en route to Jimmy's show this afternoon at Clark Gardens -- yes, an outside concert at around 4PM -- it's sure to be a scorcher. Perhaps the powers that be will be open to having the concert series happen a little earlier in the season, like May...even April! I must see about this. (Yes! Carol M. We must lunch soon and discuss this important matter...for our future...the future of Mineral Wells! For the sake of those beautiful nights and the magic of Clark Gardens.)

FAITH. Oh yes! Faith! My weekend in Austin was a huge leap of faith for me. I guess it's the elephant in the room. I'd rather blab on about the weather.

This past weekend I rented out space in two studios in Austin across town from each other on a wing and a prayer. I sent out flyers to people I know, the studios advertised with their people. My flyer title was, "Healing Breath Circle," a very ephemeral title in a world such as ours where logic and understanding play an overactive role.

For my Friday night breathing circle, I was aware of what my ego wanted - a room full of eager people waiting for me to guide them through the experience of their life! Beyond the desires of my ego I decided to be open to whatever experience presented itself. I chose to rely on faith -- that the universe is totally invested in me -- and just see what would happen. I had to do it...if only to report back on the blog.

To say that no one showed up would be the "glass half empty" experience. Indeed, Laura, the owner of Soma Vida, had invited a group of 17 women to her studio after their all-day training session in Somatic Experience. When no one showed up at 6 PM to my breathing circle, my very first instinct was flight. "I can just sneak out the back door and not talk to anyone, no one will miss me." Then I just laughed at that old familiar victim voice and went to find Laura. I offered Laura a session of the breath work so that she would know about it and then could share her experience with others. I realized that offering this would only enhance my visibility in the studio, even when I wasn't in Austin, as she could share her experience with friends and clients that she felt would benefit from the work.

Her response confirmed my ideas. She could not have a session in that exact moment as she was getting ready for her guests. However, Laura offered to make a space in their evening for me to share my work with the group. When the guests arrived, Laura showed them around the studio, open-house style. In one of the rooms she told the story about how the old house was built during the second world war for African American widows. She explained that the house was built as a healing center and continues to be a healing center. At that moment a wave came over me and I knew that I was in the right place at the right time. After she talked she gave the floor over to me and let me explain my work. It was a room full of women with a world full of gratitude to ourselves and each other that we have come together as healers, as midwife's of the awareness that is spreading over all the lands. I did not lead a breathing circle that night. Instead, seeds were planted by me, around me, and through me. Faith prevailed victorious.

Moving Vountains #13

2009-06-27T15:43:00.003-05:00

Today faith is...

Knowing that sunset is coming at some point later today. Faith is believing in the lightness that comes with sunset as the temp drops a few degrees...maybe a slight breeze sets in...a pink sky brightens upstream as the South Congress bats leave the bridge and head out to dinner.

Sure. All of the previous statements are somewhat quantifiable because they are predictable. It is the feeling of hope that they give me, hope in the change -- that it's not going to be 114 degrees non-stop for the next two months -- that all is in motion, everchanging. There will be the occasional reprieve of temperature and that usually happens with the absence of the sun. If we are to generate feelings within ourselves rather than relying on our experiences to generate the feelings we feel then we must start with something we know.

Today I am starting with my trust in the circadian rhythms that will bring a cooling off period after sunset.

Are you able to discern all that is everchanging outside of you from that timeless rhythm deep inside of you that never changes? What is that thing that never changes? Is that faith? Is that where faith lives in you? Or is the seat of fear? What do you need to do to strengthen your faith? We could all use a little faith strengthening.

Can you persuade the perfectionist in you that all is as it should be and if you could make it any different you'd be playing God?

On may days, and today is no different, I want to be perfect. I want to have a perfect day. Then, something happens to remind me that I am not in charge here, I am an observer, a temporary resident in a human suit. That always makes me laugh. I laugh and remember, "I AM having a perfect day!" It might not meet my expectations though when I realign with the beauty and the humor in the everchanging motion that is life, it's like an ice cold glass of water.

Moving Mountains #12

2009-06-26T11:44:00.003-05:00

Wow! Michael Jackson, How lucky! He made millions upon millions of records and dollars. Even though when he left the planet he owed reportedly $400 million to debtors, he was Michael Jackson, easy come easy go. What would that feel like? What would it feel like to not have to worry? To know that even if you are deep in debt you are worth so much? One world tour, one big comeback and you're be back on top!

These were the thoughts running through my head as I chowed on pizza with my daughter Ruby last night at Homeslice Pizza in Austin. With each MJ song I heard I sank deeper and deeper into a loathesome funk of my smallness. Ruby danced around the tables and I carried my funk even deeper as I thought about how she has the opportunity to feel that same worth and be just as lucky because she has youth on her side.

Then that little voice inside my head said sarcastically, "oh yeah, she's soooo much worth it than you, so was MJ!" My little inside voice is a sexy Catherine Keener that gets to do whatever she wants whenever she wants. It seems her main job is keeping me in line through humor and sarcasm.

"Michael Jackson was worth so much," I thought about those words again and the 3D picture inside of my brain came into focus.
Worth starts with a feeling, not the other way around. My evidence for that is the fact that no amount of money in the world could keep MJ out of debt. Sitting right there in that pizza joint watching my daughter moving the crowd with her sweet joy I opened to the feeling of worth. Worth, along with faith had been right there all the time, waiting for me to open to them...just like MJ's music had been in a loop, waiting for me to dance.

Moving Mountains Day #11

2009-06-25T06:58:00.004-05:00

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

Saint Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274

Moving Mountains Day #10

2009-06-24T11:58:00.003-05:00

Day 10! Yay!

How is faith showing up in my life today?

I've had such wonderful outpourings of feedback and comments since I began this blog ten days ago. Many thanks and gratitude for all of your responses.

When others share their faith with me, it expands the web of faith to feel much bigger, exponentially bigger, as if it is opening to an ever-growing spiral leading up and up and up.

Also as part of this connection with others is that the connection itself is evidence that we are all one, greater than the sum of our parts. Thus it is the connection with others which helps in a big way, to break the vice grip of the illusion that we are separate.

Pranasalara, the name of my company, means - Breathe through Illusions to Spirit. It is the illusion that even as I write this blog a trickle of the voice of doubt tells me that I am going to be alone the more I write this rubbish, that no one really believes this crap, that I'm fooling myself, and buying into the billion dollar spiritual industry just by using the word faith. I could go on and on with this voice of doubt, the voice that is the opposite of faith. The more I write about doubt the dizzier I get so I will stop now.

I began working with the ideas of Pranasalara with the commitment to breaking the spell of illusion and also to remind myself every day to practice breaking that cycle.

It is the people, the community that believes there is another way, a way other than doubt, one of faith, expansion,love, and endless possibilities that I link to in the ever-growing web of support. That expansion and oneness is at the heart of faith.

Moving Mountains Day #9

2009-06-23T07:58:00.004-05:00

Where is my faith today?

My faith is in trusting my work today as I step more and more into my power and my truth. Having been drawn to this work by a once-self-professed skeptic of things unseen - David Elliott, the reluctant healer -- I am in the space now of myself being reluctant. I am not so much reluctant in my call to this work -- the more I do it, the more my faith is confirmed in its healing power. My reluctance is in calling myself a healer.

Recently I heard Obama say to a group of doctors, "You are not bean counters, you are healers!" I think it's pretty revolutionary for a world leader, much less after the last eight years, OUR world leader offering such a grounding message. Hearing Obama say, "You are healers," I felt a wave of joy and awareness as I imagined him speaking to all of us.

The word healer has had so many negative connotations for me in the past. I spent many years shunning people who call themselves healers. I associated a healer as one who GIVES their energy to you. I wanted nothing to do with that! That is the part I am reluctant about, that by calling myself a healer I am perceived as one who uses my ego to make people feel better. And there goes my ego right there worrying about perceptions of myself. It is common for people to use their energy to help others heal, it is a very draining practice for the healer, a practice that leads to burn out or even worse, a loss of faith. By using their own energy these healers also become invested in the outcome of their clients, the healer's ego wants their clients to rely on them, they want their client's situations to improve at the risk of their own health and boundaries.

I ascribe to David's use of the word "reluctance," as it is his initial reluctance that taught him to beware of getting too invested in the outcome of his client's own healing. That is in turn what David teaches: staying neutral with clients, in not being invested in their outcome. That concept is different from having compassion for other's situations. Neutrality requires humility, the healer must become the keen observer of what's going on, of the energy -- of it's swirling in a room full of partiers, or it's stillness in a sea of mediators. Compassion for another's healing allows the healer to hold the space for other people to experience their own path and their own healing. Compassion for others allows for patience, faith and a whole barrage of positive affects to come into play. The healer's job is not to CHANGE the energy. It is to shine some light on the darkness, to call it out of the shadows. From my perspective the healer's job is to be a teacher, to lead by example, to question what is considered real.

Jesus was this healer, sui generis. We are all very clear that his ability came THROUGH him from his father. He did say in the scriptures that we are capable of the same ability.

And don't even go there with the phrase "faith healer," that just opens a whole can of worms. I'm visualizing snakes biting people and trances, lots of fear mixed with seduction of power.

So back to the question, Am I a healer? Yes. I am. I have faith that God/Source Energy/Universal energy works THROUGH me. I still have to remind myself of the oneness of "I am that source and that source is me." Do I feel comfortable calling myself a healer? Not yet. When I don't have to remind myself of my oneness with source anymore, when I can remember what Jesus said about me being a child of God just like him, when I identify less with my ego about who I am, when I can tell you "I am a healer,"and see myself in you - then and only then will I be able to call myself a healer.

Moving Mountains Day #8

2009-06-22T13:11:00.003-05:00

Faith just is. Faith is neutral.

With the chaos in the banking system and all the greed involved, I realized that these people had faith too. They had faith in their ability to make money, even at the expense of others. Faith did not step in and say, "I am holy, you cannot invest in me that way!"

That's where karma comes into play. The actions that you take DO have consequential action and WILL catch up to you. There is no bad or good, life is action and reaction. Whatever wave or vibration your action is on, it will come back to you in the same vibrational plane - boomerang!

The word con-man derived from the word, confidential. It is shortened from the word confidential-man. Confidential as a verb relates to giving someone your confidence and being deceived by them. I have been focusing on consistency as a way to experience confidence and was surprised at it's secondary meaning.

Faith is neutral. You do not have to be enlightened or holy or trying to achieve holiness by having faith. Faith just is. It is there to be activated at your asking, no matter how you choose to use it. The choice is yours. Karma is the outer reflection of that choice.

Moving Mountains Day #7

2009-06-21T11:52:00.002-05:00

Father's Day Reflection

I have a wonderful father. He is an amazing man. He's soft of voice and firm with conviction about his beliefs - they are not religious beliefs, they are universal beliefs about love, kindness, and patience. He was not the kind of father that pontificated about his beliefs over Sunday supper. He led and still leads by example, by showing kindness and equality to all people. He doesn't gossip or stir the stew by talking down about others. He works hard, he fishes, watches baseball, and reads voraciously. His simplicity has been a beacon to me throughout my life.

Ruby's father, my beautiful husband Jimmy, is also a wonderful dad. He's much more extroverted than my dad and they share similar gifts the revolve around having a generous and open heart. Jimmy and Ruby share the gusto of having enormous right brains that explode with ideas and possibilities. I'll leave these two in a room together for a couple of hours and they will have improved the space with superb art direction, songs, art work, and lots of laughter and joy.

Before I met Jimmy I had very little faith that there was a man out there that was single, not gay, and as sweet and gentle as my father. I did not let myself for one moment imagine that I could find those qualities in a man that would also be a good father. It was my mother whose faith held the space for that person to come into my life. I laughed her off, "maybe that happened to you," I would say to her, "times are different now, that just doesn't happen anymore."

I thought I was safer if I closed my heart off from disappointment. I told my mom, "It's okay if I find a man that I'm not in love with. As long as he's good with kids."

Mom told me, "You don't want to do that because your kids are only with you for a short time. if you did that you'd be left with a bunch of hollow memories because there was no love at the core."

About two months later I met Jimmy. Was it love at first sight? Yes. Could I dare admit the enormous explosion in my heart? No. The first time I saw him I felt like I'd been struck with a bolt of lightening. It still took us a year and a half to admit to each other that we were in love with each other and even longer to prepare ourselves for the awesome experience of having a child.

My point is that faith was always there. When I could not hold faith in my vision, my mom did. I knew in my heart, even when my mind blocked me from admitting it, that I desired to find someone who gave me the same sense of security and home that my father gave to me. The last thirteen years has been a consistent opening to the faith and trust of a lifelong relationship. The last five years, through Ruby, has been a constant flow of patience and learning, with the payoff of love and light and pure energy -- a heart-opening experience made even stronger when I watch Ruby and Jimmy dancing their father/daughter dance.

Trusting Intuition Workshop

2009-06-20T19:54:00.002-05:00

We had a wonderful day at the ranch.
Yoga, intuition strengthening, and breathing.
Very restorative and great to be with a strong and powerful group of women. Thanks to you all.

Moving Mountains Day #6

2009-06-20T17:15:00.004-05:00

It worked! I intuited and rejuvenated myself after a long day yesterday.
Here's how I did it:

When I went to bed at mid-night I said, "Six hours is all I need. I'm going to wake up at 6:25 AM and be ready for my day. I went through every step of my morning and planned out what I would need to do to be ready for my workshop today which started at 10:00 AM. The more details I included in my plan, the more precise I focused my energy, the more precise was the outcome. I felt aware, focused, and energized throughout the day.

Conclusion, having faith requires an investment. The more I opened to and believed in my power of rejuvenation, the more rejuvenated I felt. The more I focused on the details of the workshop, the more smoothly it ran. Awareness, just bringing your awareness to it is all it takes to make it happen. And then to ask. Ask for rejuvenation. That is enough to make it happen. Ask a tree, ask a star, it doesn't matter. Deep down in the heart of it all - a tree, a star, us -- it's all the same.

Focus, discipline, and awareness put the wheels of faith in motion for me this weekend. Discipline has always been such a bad word to me. Right along with the "C" word - consistency. Consistency and discipline are my new friends in the playground of life. With them I am gaining a stronger sense of self and greater confidence in my abilities and possibilities.

Moving Mountains Day #5

2009-06-19T18:13:00.001-05:00

Faith is...Trusting in my body's own intuitive and rejuvenative power. (I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow)

Moving Mountains Day #4

2009-06-18T16:38:00.003-05:00

"If I am looking at how I am going to get something done I am failing. I am not walking in faith."
Robert Tennyson Stevens, Conscious Prosperity

I have to give a little shout out to R.T.S. in the quote above. I spent last evening in a very hot, small conference room at a Hyatt at the intersection of LBJ Freeway and Central Expressway in Dallas last night to see what he had to say on prosperity. I am blogging 60 days of faith this summer, I am also researching prosperity so when I heard of a seminar on Conscious Prosperity promptly signed up.

The Conscious Language work of R.T.S. brings language into the now...I am, I have, I imagine, I love, I acquire, I foresee...

The phrases "I want," "I need," among other overused terms in our vernacular - in Conscious language -- suggest lack by their very definition; they are things you don't have now that you plan on or might get in the future. Not only that, to get them you must rely on something outside of you to bring them or draw them to you. R.T.S. suggests that whichever words evoke passion and emotion in YOU, those are the words that will draw your desires to you.

Three hours of hearing and speaking from the heart charged the room with strong currents of electricity. Chakras were spinning, possibilities were imagined, and miracles foreseen. These ingredients are the seeds of action, of fruition - the faith of the mustard seed - when trusted they are abundant and infinite.

Moving Mountains Day #3

2009-06-18T00:18:00.002-05:00

There is a meditation that I do as part of my morning series. It is called, "Releasing the 3 Poisons." They are attachment, aversion, and indifference. Today as I did this exercise I reflected on the relationship between faith and the three poisons. What I found is that when the three poisons are released it creates a space, a big space, for faith. Here are the instructions if you'd like to try it for yourself:

1. Close your mouth and breathe through your nose with the tip of your tongue at the place where the palate meet the teeth. Inhale.
2. Imagine thick black smoke leaving your body as you exhale through your nose. When the thick blackness leaves your body it dissipates into the air and you cannot see it.
3. Inhale. On the next exhale say to yourself, "I release all attachment" (anything that causes pleasure). As you say this to yourself imagine the thick black smoke leaving your body. Repeat three times.
4. Inhale. On the next exhale say to yourself, "I release all aversion" (anything that causes suffering). As you say this to yourself imagine the thick black smoke releasing from your body. Repeat three times.
5. Inhale. On the next exhale say to yourself, "I release all indifference" (anything that causes neither pleasure nor suffering). As you say this to yourself imagine the thick black smoke releasing from your body. Repeat three times.

When you are finished releasing the three poisons from your body and your mind invite in faith into your consciousness. For me its as if a barrage of kids being let out of school for the summer are charging toward me. Faith brings with her many happy faces -- abundance, joy, oneness, love, trust, intuition, and freedom. And with my house clean of all that black smoke there's room for everyone.

Moving Mountains Day #2

2009-06-16T12:39:00.005-05:00

Two weeks ago a group of artists and writers arrived for their annual creative respite and social gathering here at the ranch. It's an event we have come to look forward to, people making time to enjoy and celebrate each other and their work. This year, Grayson (not her real name), a wonderful screen writer, arrived early. She looked thinner than last year - even a little bluish in the extremities and around the lips. Her husband rolled a large machine into the great room and set it next to a lounge chair.

Grayson plopped down in the chair and breathed many oxygen treatments each day. This year, she said, her trip was more about resting than writing her latest screen play. The time away from her busy schedule running a non-profit for disenfranchised women made her realize that she needed rest.

We talked of the healing power of the body. She was very interested in doing sessions of the healing breath meditation I teach. I led her in private sessions and in group sessions with the other artists throughout the week. Grayson had been born with a hole in her heart and had been in and out of hospitals her whole life to repair it. In the breathing meditation sessions she became aware of the chronic fear she held in her body from a lifetime of illness and was able to release some of it.

Before she left the ranch, Grayson felt revived. She made plans to come back next month and write for a few days and do some more of the healing breath meditation. In 1986 the doctors had given her a few months to live and she made it another twenty something years before leaving this earth last Friday, a week after she left the Ranch.

Last year another artist in the group began a painting on a 2'x20' canvass. This year the canvass came alive as she added familiar faces from the group. Grayson's right-side Florentine profile rests in the center at the bottom -- a fulcrum between the elderly intellectual gentleman on the left side of the painting and the younger middle-aged novelist on the right. The head of a horse is tatooed on Grayson's right shoulder. I remember having a conversation about what that was, why the horse? She told me it was from her loving husband's family crest. We laughed about having your man's tatoo on your arm. (I have six male dogs here at the ranch who are always marking their territory so the idea of your man's mark on your arm is especially funny to me.)

That memory of our conversation brought me back to the question of what's it all for? Things we talked about, like when Grayson spent 45 minutes telling me the story of her screen play which now will forever remain an ephemeral memory. A life, in her 40's, gone.

Experiencing faith is like putting on 3-D glasses - you have to change perspective. Faith is found in the spaces in between, we laughed at being tatooed with a man's mark while at the same time we had so much gratitude for our the love of our husbands. Those are the ingredients of faith -- laughter, gratitude, love, and perspective. Grayson's defiance of the doctors' 1986 diagnosis gave others faith as we watched her persist against the odds. By the sheer act of being alive she gave those around her faith to overcome everyday obstacles.

Moving Mountains Day #1

2009-06-15T19:15:00.002-05:00

What is faith? What does it look like, smell like, FEEL like? These are among the questions I will be exploring as I, Jungle Jane, slide out of repose for a time and put my archaeology hat on to excavate the concept of faith.

Everyday faith presents herself to me as an opportunity to trust in a higher guidance. For sixty days I will report on instances of trusting faith and the miracles that ensued. These stories may be about a direct experience I have. They also can be instances of the faith of others that affected me in a way that strengthened my faith. These stories will weave together on my journey and I have faith that they will strengthen my picture of what faith means to me. Also, doing something for 60 days in a row will be a challenge to my consistency and my self confidence.

When considering my faith there are three distinct periods of my life. The first one began at birth and ended around the time I was five years old. I have faint remembrances of seeing light and energy around people, maybe their auras. I had heightened senses of smell and taste. I had a strong sense of intuition and acted on it immediately without forethought. The second period, before cancer (BC), lasted from six years old to age twenty eight when I got cancer. From six years into my twenties, I grew increasingly skeptical, fearful, and insecure until it culminated in the biggest fear of all, getting cancer. The seeds of change occurred at age twenty six, when I met Jimmy and had to face the truth about love -- that it existed, that it could happen to total strangers, and that I desired to experience the feeling of open-hearted love for the rest of my life. After cancer, I began to search for a deeper meaning in my life, to question my own skepticism. I knew deep down -- even though I was not yet aware of it in my consciousness -- that my battle was not with cancer but with the incipient fear and lack of faith with which I carried myself.

My report about faith on this day, DAY #1 of my journey, is in my prayers the night I found out I had cancer. I have never felt so scared and isolated as that first night I lay in bed in complete darkness knowing that cancerous cells inside my body were replicating themselves. I became very aware that I could not blame anyone for my cancer. If it had been a car wreck I could blame the other driver, a broken ankle I could blame the uneven pavement. I had no one to blame. I felt empty. I could hear my mother's voice saying to me as an angry teenager, "Oh ye of little faith."

I didn't believe that the HPV virus caused my cancer either. That logic did not hold up for me because there were so many people with HPV that did not get cervical cancer, that had unprotected sex and went on to carry healthy babies to term. During this time I focused particularly on Courtney Love. She was the premier voice of the loud mouthed bitchy sexually promiscuous drug addict yet she did not get cancer AND she had a child. If logistical research was behind who got cancer and who didn't, I reasoned, she would get it and not me.

That night I prayed to overcome the fear that swelled in my body. If it was my time to die, I prayed, to make peace with that. If it was my time to live I prayed for a way to strengthen my belief in a higher source of power. Praying felt silly, it felt forced and self-conscious. It also felt empowering, as if my prayers weaved a blanket that swaddled me to sleep.

Eleven years later my faith has brought me to a place where I have enough perspective on my fears and skepticisms to write about them and share them with others. In archaeology, excavation requires endless hours digging and screening the dirt, and filling out paper work. There are tools -- shovels, trowels, dental picks, maps, and compasses. The more I think about it, yes, archeology is about faith. Moving mountains -- whether dirt, doubt, or fear, happens one shovel load at a time.

Grains of Sand

2009-06-11T23:32:00.005-05:00

There's a feeling of consistency and security here. The Texas beach at Matagorda is my oldest home. It's the one place, this same spot on the beach, I've been coming my whole life, from a time I was younger than Ruby Jane at 5 years old, is now. Before my grandfather built this beach house, we stayed at the octagon 1970s condos next door. Before that we stayed in the town 30 minutes away at a Best Western and drove my grandparent's Suburban to the beach every morning and stayed all day. They parked at a spot that is directly over the dunes in front of the place where our house sits now.

Memories, wonderful memories, come to shore with the waves. Memories of playing in the surf all day, of building sand castles and picking up a never-ending abundance of shells. Memories of a time before I knew the clock.

Today numerous pelicans and roseate spoonbills grace the flightpath over the dunes. I make sand castles with my daughter who is just now beginning to have a concept of time. The beauty of nature unfolds around us in a clear and simple way.

There is one thing about Texas beaches that continues to baffle me, it is that cars and trucks drive on the beach. A couple of years ago the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) built a welcome center for the birders that come here. Matagorda Island is known for its birding. The LCRA partook in a little community planning, reconfiguring the roads around our small subdivision of 7 or so beach houses. Their original intention was to close a small portion of the beach to drivers and create a car-free zone for birders. This lovely idea never happened so the cars continue to cruise the entire beach. In Texas it seems that the right to drive on the beach is right up there with a right to bear arms, so I wrote a little poem last year that I will now share:

CARS ON THE BEACH
Rubber tires were not meant for this
Four round black weapons
At the base of two tons of steel
Breaking the fine bones
Of mollusks and crustaceans
Assaulting tiny grains of sand
As they tread

Trash piles up
Outside my house
Despite the signs, the
Litter recepticals
Empy bottles
A half eaten flip flop
Cigarette butts
Aerosol Cans
A Can of Spam

Hot sticky
Sun marries water
At high noon
Sticky hot
In a diaphanous cloud
Of humidity and humility

Laughter
Overdubs seventies rock
And I watch
Shaded by the leaf of
A giant
Rubber
Tree

Potlatch

2009-05-28T20:43:00.008-05:00

As an undergraduate student of anthropology I could not grasp the concept of the potlatch ceremony. Potlatch, or "give away," is a grand ceremony which generates much praise and prestige for the party giver. This concept is still shared by many indigenous cultures in which family leaders host a feast that takes them most of the previous year to create. This feast is then shared with the rest of the community.

I'm reminded of Gatsby, a man who threw lavish parties and expected nothing in return, a concept very much like a potlatch. However, he was seen as weak, as nouveau-riche. He was taken advantage of by insouciant yet arrogant old-money guests until he lost his life in a case of mistaken identity. Ah, such is life in a culture that prizes accumulation of wealth over its redistribution and reciprocation.

I remember the pictures in my anthropology textbook of piles and piles of bear skins, of drums, endless baskets of food, goods, clothing, and the ethnographic stories of countless dances and shows. Sometimes these ceremonies were highly competitive contests where the recipient destroyed the gifts being exchanged. I could not wrap my head around the idea that redistributing the wealth would make a person appear more wealthy and prestigious in their community. How much faith does a person have to have in the abundance of all things to give away so freely?

In our culture, "give away," is associated with fear, with lack. One hundred and eighty degrees from potlatch is attach -- where wealth & status are based on what we accumulate. We have learned from our ancestors before us to give away the things we least desire, things no longer useful and call it "charity." We give away our trash and our scraps, yet we expect abundance in return. I have never realized how incongruent that way of thinking is until this moment.

For the last week I have connected more to my garden, to the vibrancy of life in the spring. Life moves very fast in the garden. It is a great place to connect to the flow of life. When a plant such as a zucchini fruits, you must pluck it and eat it. If not, it will rot on the vine, or rot in your refrigerator. The garden never stops growing. It grows, bears fruit, dies, comes back, bears fruit again in an endless cycle.

Last year I had a beautiful crop of lettuces. It was my first crop, very abundant. I prospered, overflowed with lettuce. I did not pick it. Every day for a week I stared at it wondering, "Do it pluck the leaves, or pull the whole plant? I don't know." So I left it, (probably went to the grocery store and bought lettuce). When I came back it had flowered, which I found out makes the leaves bitter. Still not plucking or pulling, I came back even later to a bed of lettuce covered with bugs. They had waited for me long enough.

In previous centuries, indigenous tribes lived within the vibrant cycle of life which we are now removed from in the abundance and prosperity of our wealth of goods, shops and access. I've always thought of faith as something very ethereal. However, when I consider the garden, faith becomes very nurturing because I know the plants are coming back, I know the sun will shine tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next day.

Awakening with Confidence

2009-05-25T06:48:00.005-05:00

It's a beautiful New Mexico morning. Morning Star Venus woke me up this morning, no really, she shined so bright in my window this morning that I had to open my eyes to see what light burst into the room. I awoke to a midnight blue sky fading into early morning. When I walked outside the birds, wow, loud and strong, so many different voices. I kept walking. Soaking up their vibrancy for life at such a young hour of the day.

The momma raven is so busy this weekend. She flies into the tree and out of the tree and skims by the window on her way. She is teaching me tenacity and the truth and focus of being a mother. Of doing your job with fire and strength. Of exchanging love and focus with the work at hand. Her work with her chicks this spring is almost done. If you look high up in the pinon tree you can see them, three, maybe four, flapping their wings, gathering the confidence to take flight.

Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. The word itself connotes flying high, strength, truth, not looking back in a way that will take you into a downward spiral. Julie Andrews just popped into my head -- the song she sings in "The Sound of Music," as she carries her guitar down a tree lined lane walking with her head up high, swinging her guitar -- convincing herself at every step that she is worth it that she can handle the job at hand that she has been called to do. This image helps me to see that confidence is not something that can be planned out in the brain. You cannot convince yourself that you are confident. It's got to come through in choices and actions, and as my friend Scott just pointed out, being consistent with them. There's a moment in the movie when J.A. gets to wrought iron gate and sees the mansion and the music stops. For a moment she gasps out of fear, out of the task at hand, whatever it is, it takes her out of the moment. As soon as she starts singing again, "I have confidence..." she slowly pulls herself back enough into the present to remember that to experience the confidence she must move through the gate.

Movement, flow, water, that's what it takes to build confidence. I mention water because it is the world of emotion. If emotions are stuck and are holding us back, you know the really yummy ones? I do. Fear. Lack of confidence.Blah.Blah.Blah. The list goes on and on, confidence will be placed in the bin of procrastination. At this point exchange becomes very important. Replace the negative thoughts with love, humor, laughter, joy, the list goes on. The more I practice exchange in this way the more beautiful, expansive words come up. The more I realize that my thoughts are my choices and I strengthen with every exchange, through love, that part of my mind that has to figure everything out. Exchange. Exchange. Exchange.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that the raven is lucky because she doesn't have to deal with a mind ruled by logic that wants to use the blocks to convince herself she's not good enough. Then I remember that as a member of the food chain Ms. Raven has many more problems than I. There's a conundrum here I just realized that has to do with the raven as a member of said food chain that has to live day to day watching her back -- dare I say, in survival mode. Yet as I watch her do her job with consistency -- bringing her chicks food, watching out for them from treetop perches -- I connect to her power and --when I breathe into it -- can feel how spirit flows through her. She is connected to nature, to the universe in a way that is the very nature of thriving. The chicks have the same innate survival skills ready in the wake and with practice, consistency, they will fly into the oneness with the rhythm of life.

Trusting the Evidence

2009-05-23T13:29:00.004-05:00

New Mexico is vibrant today with thundercloud skies and bursting new life in the plants and animals. Thirty-three of us have gathered for a holiday weekend retreat, some old friends, some new. We are here to meditate on, what it means to thrive, on connecting to the land, and to the brilliance of spring renewal-- of raven baby chicks ready to fly the nest any day now, of new baby lettuces from the garden. There's always a little bit of a "Big Chill," quality at these retreats -- people gathering from New York, LA, Chicago, Texas and places in between. Some I haven't seen in a while, others whose names I am just learning bear timeless faces I feel I've known forever.

What has come up very strong for me since I've been here is to understand -- and FEEL all over my body and know in my heart that the universe will provide for me. Here is the deal: I have so many blessings in my life, yet I still struggle with the same old tired mindset that exists in survival mode. As we began our discussion yesterday I compared myself now to myself in the past, "I'm doing better, therefore, I am thriving? My garden improves every year. I feel more balanced between the ranch, the healing business, mothering, writing.

The challenge with the thriving or surviving question goes back to exchange, faith, and worth. In survival mode the mindset is about getting: I need more money, I need to get this or that done, I need to treat my body better, I need to do more writing. Whatever the need is, it is dominant.

So how do I trust in the abundance in my life? How do I trust in the faith of the concept of give-away -- that the more I give, the more I get? That it will continue when I'm not focused so much on what I need and instead focus on what I love to do? Well, that is why I am here this weekend, surrounded by people I love, that have chosen to be here this weekend to explore these same lessons of thriving over surviving and other lessons about the land and what it teaches us.

The Evidence of Things Not Seen

2009-05-20T10:19:00.005-05:00

David Elliott, in a recent series of blogs on his reluctanthealer.com blog, eloquently pieced together the unseen world of worth and exchange with a poignant metaphor. He says (and I paraphrase), "My job is to be awake. My employer is the Universe/Spirit/God who makes direct deposits of grace through spiritual energy. The currency Spirit uses is grace. The benefits in my job are compensation and health." He also says, "The ATM is your heart; open your heart and ask it for guidance."

I began to look more closely at my relationship with exchange a couple of weeks ago when I first heard David say, "The Universe is your employer. How are you going to show up?" Those words nearly shot me out of my seat. It was all the evidence I needed to honestly look at my relationship with exchange. I had no idea at that moment that the Yellow Brick Road would connect my relationship with exchange directly to my relationship with faith.

I have been the estranged mother who checks in with my daughter, Faith, as little as possible -- knowing that she is fine without me. Knowing she is doing better than I, that she gets what she wants and she does it with such freedom that I wonder if we still have anything at all in common.

When I catch myself from that downward spiral of fear and despair I remember what Faith and I do share in common -- our similarities lie in the realm of spirit. "The evidence of things not seen" has always eluded me. I want visuals! I want garden fairies glittering in the twilight. I want a cryogenic Walt Disney to art direct my life.

Maybe I don't need him after all. I realize that there IS a place where I can see and FEEL the evidence of things not seen. It's in my self-worth. When I measure my worth against others it feels sticky and slow - like taffy. By trusting and strengthening my intuition and staying awake on the job, the spiral changes directions. It moves up and out -- expanding into the ever growing network of healing. The lenses of my eyes are cleaned by Faith, my loving daughter who forever sees my truth and my true worth.

Outgrowing the Facade

2009-05-12T17:17:00.007-05:00

I got big lessons about self-confidence, exchange, worth, and value last week at Healer Training. I'm taking the class again many times this year as I will be teaching it at the ranch next year. Last week was the first time David asked me to speak on my experience with exchange. Each time I have taken the class before I remember feeling very fuzzy and sleepy on the second day, uninterested in whatever David was speaking about. I though it must have been my lunch settling into my belly. I realized this time that the inability to focus had very little to do with the lunch I carried and much more to do with the topic at hand: exchange.
There has been much confusion for me throughout my life about the difference between being generous and being clear on exchange. The confusion here for me is a boundary issue and it is one that I am working on right now very diligently. I can even pinpoint the moment when the boundary gets unclear. Growing up I had a couple of what I thought were witty adages which turned out to be weak survival skills, things like, "fake it 'til you make it," and "it's all in the facade, you've got to create the facade," meaning -- create the image you want of yourself (on the outside) with its firm foundation of fear and a lovely sheen of syrupy fake positiveness. Then pray like hell it sticks. The boundary gets unclear when I can't let go of the identification with the syrupy fake positiveness of my past. "I want to be everything to everybody. I want to be the ultimate people-pleaser in the world. I want to make everyone happy, then I will be happy, right?"
Here's the point: decide what the exchange is and stick to it. What matters is clarity. I can say, "I'm going to give away my services for free because I trust that I will be provided for,"(which would say volumes about my self worth) or I can say "I'm going to charge you one thousand dollars because that's what I'm worth." Clarity happens before the exchange takes place, not after. It is important to honor my decision in what I am comfortable with and not change it in the moment because I've made assumptions that by waiving my worth I am helping another. Without the fortitude of standing by my decision about the exchange at hand, those undesirable emotions of anger,frustration, confusion, loss of self-confidence that happen by trying to make everyone else happy will be there after the exchange takes place.
A lot of my fear and insecurity in exchange relationships has been around wanting to stay positive and in the feelings of abundance. Yes, it started in the past with the "facade." Then when books like The Secret and the Law of Attraction came out it forced me to question what I knew about being positive. To be positive, yet do it in a real way. Once you've lived in the "facade," real feelings of abundance and trust can feel like mockery. Thus I have often felt an imbalance between the joy of giving with a generous heart and the fear of someone taking advantage of me. Hence the question: How do I balance being generous, open, and trusting that the universe will fulfill my needs with grace, without having that lingering feeling of fear in the back of my heart ? The answer is faith.
Faith has never been my forte. There's a Bible verse on faith that reminds me of my mom because it was one of her often repeated proverbs. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." I have ignored the word FAITH until now. I never understood how it could move mountains. I'm a visual learner so, "evidence of things not seen," never worked for me.
When I try to understand this verse I feel like I've been called to the top of a great mountain to answer to an ancient seer who is giving me a riddle wrapped in a conundrum that holds the key to understanding the universe. To rephrase, I'm trapped in a bad Woody Allen movie in the 70's, or worse, Logan's Run. It is a riddle I must answer or the end will soon be eminent.

Creativity Oasis

2009-05-06T15:00:00.003-05:00

Jill Allison Bryan came to the ranch last week for a weekend of creativity. What does a creative coach do? She has mnemonics and supportive perspectives on getting into the creativity groove. Things like, instead of "I have to work on my story," say, "I'm going to play with my characters."
That's just one example that I can think of off the top of my head. It was much more than that. Jill has a very nurturing and gentle spirit that invoked our imaginations to play and dream and write these experiences in songs or poems or express them visually. Jill provided a space where we could tap into that KID-thing-- of having fun and not judging the work, of remembering that we are here to have fun with this painting, gluing, sculpting, writing; our goal is not to enter it into the next Whitney Biennial. We all went into our own corners and created and played in whatever way we chose in the moment with no plans for progress or achievement.

The breathing meditation earlier that morning happened during savasana of our yoga practice. We gathered on the upstairs porch of the yoga studio overlooking the courtyard. The three birds that live in the nearby tree chirpped loudly in what seemed like a neighborhood quarrel over tree space. During the breathing we connected to the birds and the strength of their voices, especially one very loud bird (probably a Blue Jay), which could have been percieved as annoying considering this was the relaxing period of our session. I felt the energy intensify when the group accepted and even took on the power of the birds. When the session ended it left the group energized and more connected to the peaceful and non-judging part of us that enjoys creativity with the eyes of a child. We spent the rest of the day coming together for moments and then drifting off alone - the ebb and flow of a very generous weekend of love, laughter and play.

Green is the Color of My Love for YOU

2009-04-28T14:38:00.004-05:00

Spring is IT for me. The cactus tunas ripe with green buds that will burst soon into yellow flowers. The sky's gray flannel suit of rainclouds compliments the monochrome shades of kelly, jade, forest, lime, and grass. My critic looms large not wanting me to use flowery language, not wanting me to play and have fun with words and images, nor wanting me to alter my world into anthropomorphic hyperbole. I laugh in the face of my inner critic today. I am mentally tying her up with duct tape and feeding her all my green m&m's because deep down I love her -- I must. She's like a sister to me.

Green is the color of my love for You, the color of plants that turn sunlight into food. It is the color of the heart chakra, of the heart feeding off of the light that we give to one another in the form of love. Green- of money - our means of exchange with one another also feeds us when we exchange it for food. Envy is green - the converse of love - the other side of the coin. The green that is the greenest that is also the green of spring is newness, naivete, like that of a young child. It is fresh eyes seeing the world for the first time. It is having no preconceptions or judgements.

This morning I heard Rick James sing "Superfreak" on the radio. I hadn't heard it in a while, maybe in a few years and when that familiar intro played I time warped to the 6th grade. My family had recently moved from a small town of 1,000 people to a larger town of maybe 30,000. I was attending public school for the first time - one much larger than before. In this very coming of age moment I was invited to my first real party. My mom took me to the regional store that was a step above K-Mart. I bought my first plaid skirt -- it was the early 1980s when the preppy Scotish thing was really in vogue, at least I thought it was. I got to the party all dressed up in a kiltish skirt and white oxford shirt. All the other kids dressed in jeans and t-shirts. I felt so out of place I wanted to run and hide. That night I learned about the self-consciousness of consumerism. Gloria Vanderbilt, Jordache, and Calvin Klein jeans very hip. Plaid skirt and oxford shirt from Weiners -- very un-hip. It was also my first experience with that lovely pre-teen game "spin the bottle." It was a Coca-Cola bottle, but still, I was scared - realizing much later that I had nothing to be scared of - I was the nerd in the green plaid skirt, oxford shirt, and glasses.

La Virgen del Brazos de Dios

2009-04-27T16:03:00.001-05:00

The wind whipped upriver all week. Chairs lost their footing, a screen door twisted off it's hinges, and the prayer hands of La Virgen broke off when she fell to the ground. I'm sensitive to the wind. In Ayurveda, those of us with a prana imbalance are labeled vata. People ask, "What dosha are you?" these days just like the old pick up line in the 1970's, "What's your sign?" But that's really not necessarily the best question to ask. You really don't want to be identified by your dosha because your dosha signifies your imbalance or what your physical body lacks, not what you ARE. Vata (air) doshas like myself have to work to be grounded - food is very grounding, as is rest. Think of marathon runners, of type - A personalities; people who are generally very thin because they go-go-go, forget to eat, and easily deplete themselves. Another way to say it is that I do not have a symbiotic relationship with wind, I do not naturally know how to regulate or nuture myself but have to have constant reminders all around me. I set the alarm on my phone to go off for my pre-lunch breathing time which segways nicely into lunch. I set my alarm for afternoon gardening and morning Kaya Sampat Kriya. Without this schedule my entire day would be a whirlwind of activity yet I would end overwhelmed and under nourished. In a sense I'd feel like La Virgen outside my mudroom looks -- knocked to the ground with a big hole where her hands once held the anjali mudra.