a quick hello

Hello Dear Ones

Well, that was a weekend! Wow, between Beltane and the full moon I was a delightfully weepy, love-filled, releasing shame/pain, welcoming in compassion, forgiving myself and the world beautiful mess. How are you? Did you feel some big emotions this weekend?  

I wanted to share two things with you. A visual of grounded love and a song that came to me three times  today and thought I'd share with you in case it resonates with you as well. When I watched the video, I could see how it encompasses so much of what I felt this weekend. Give it a play, slowly move your body and connect to your beautiful heart and body. 

I'm sending your wild heart so much love.

Buddha, Big Island Hawaii.

Sam Smith, Lay Me Down

May Day Ritual: in celebration of cycles, of letting go and welcoming in the new

About 3 years after my divorce I wanted to do a ritual honoring my marriage. I took a piece of paper and a gold pen and started writing out all the things that the death of my marriage had birthed in my life. My hand flew over the paper: new friendships, living in NYC, 7 months backpacking in Asia, living alone for the first time ever, painting, feeling so many more emotions…I wrote and wrote and wrote. 3 columns, double-sided. It wasn’t that my marriage prevented me from any of this, it was that I wasn’t being me in my marriage. So in this new space, in this freedom to explore and research I was in the midst of birthing my true self, honoring my true desires, admitting and owning I did not want to have children and coming to peace with it. 

I went to the nursery (plants not babies) and took my time strolling around looking for a pot that felt right- I bought a swirly red one. It reminded me of love and of the root chakra. The energetic center of home, of feeling rooted in the earth, in my body, in my soul. So much of that had happened since the death of my marriage because I was finally growing up. I then found the plant, a sturdy beauty, about 18” tall, lush, deep green.  

I drove to my Aunt’s house, headed to her 1/2 acre garden and dug a hole, I’m pretty sure I started crying immediately. I gently divided the plant in two, composting half of it back to mother earth along with my tears. I put my hands onto the earth, onto this plant and the gratitude for my marriage, for my former husband poured forth. For he was the magical person who taught me about unconditional love. I cried, sobbed, and let my love for this man go into the ground, into this plant, just deep deep appreciation for the gift of his love and our time together, for first sweet love.

Next, I put the list of things that had been birthed at the bottom of my new shiny red pot, scooped some fresh, fertile soil and gently planted this new life. I laid on the ground for awhile equalizing my system, feeling held by the earth, feeling the spaciousness after that huge release of emotion, after the honoring of all the beauty and love both my marriage and my time since had birthed. 

These are the cycles of our lives. Birth. Death. Birth. Death. Every day. Sunrise. Sunset. Every Season. Do we keep choosing to let go of what no longer serves us and welcome what is yearning to be created in our own lives? 

Take time to honor this beautiful cycle.

So what do you need for this ritual? Pen, paper. A pot. A plant. Some soil. Or you could use two flowers if that calls to you, or a leaf…follow your desire and what feels good. If you feel called to first compost the plant then write the list, please do. Or you may want to post the list somewhere you can see it, or burn it…again follow your own wisdom.

Find some time in a place you feel safe and relaxed, so you can move through the emotions which might emerge.

Set your intentions. Mine was to honor the gift of my marriage, of my former husband and that it’s death while sad and painful had been part of birthing my true self.  This year it's about the death of my wounded inner teenager who valiantly and much to my exhaustion has been running the show for far too long. Honoring her strength, her fear and offering her great compassion. 

What are your intentions?

Close your eyes, breathe, feel your heart soften, sit with this death, this birth and let the emotions and words flow.  There is no rush. Perhaps you pause, feel the sun on your face and write some more. Just be present to what emerges both as you write out the birth and honor the death. Be present as you as you lovingly compost this part of your life.

After you finish the ritual lay on the ground or the couch.

Enjoy the breeze on your face, the dirt on your hands. Go for a slow walk, smell some flowers, feel new desires arise, new seeds being planted, turn your face to the sky, take a deep breath and welcome in the new. 

Honor this beautiful gift of life, of earth. Honor and celebrate what you are birthing. Honor yourself for your strength, your beauty, your wild heart. 

This was pre-selfie, so I have no photo of me red-eyed, wrung out from sobbing with dirt on my hands. I offer you these candles as light for your ritual instead. Happy May Day. 

and who knows what will be blooming this time next year?

For May Day: Creation, fertility, birthing your wild life.

May Day is on Friday! It's one of my favorite days of the year and this years it's Beltane as well (an Irish, Scottish, Celtic Celebration). May Day is all about creation, fertility and birthing. And it doesn't have to be a baby. I don't have children but I'm constantly giving birth, constantly creating my life, creating meals, moments...all of it is creation. 

So if we look at our lives as our creation. What is fertile for you right now? What do you yearn to birth? What is yearning to be birthed through you?  Is there resistance? Is it a book? A relationship? A new home? A trip? A hobby? 

Take some time to sit with this. Grab your journal and get in a quiet space- perhaps the park, a bath or your bedroom. Somewhere that feels spacious to you, where you feel grounded and centered. Where you can say a prayer, or just talk out loud and ask for guidance. Ask for wisdom to come to you. Check in with your body. What feels tense and might have something to share with you? Just let the words, images, feelings come. Let them move through you. And then ask yourself. What am I here to birth? What is my creation in this moment? What step can I take today? tomorrow? What is it time for me to let go of? What other wisdom do you have for me?

And as you emerge from this and keep on living, notice what comes your way. Maybe you see a sparrow in the park that keeps flying above you. Google 'sparrow animal totem.' and see what it says. Does it resonate with you?  Maybe you see a poster for a play that inexplicably calls to you and you go and see a friend you haven't seen in 10 years who is in the midst of opening an ice store but needs a partner...and you have so wanted to open an ice cream store! Pay attention to what comes your way with ease and grace. Make a note, say thank you and keep paying attention. This is how creation happens.

A lot us feel we have to know the plan from A-Z. Our patriarchal culture really celebrates and honors analytical, linear, rational thinking. But the feminine is cyclical (hence the moon cycles and celebration, seasons, May Day, Beltane) we celebrate and can thrive in mystery, in the unknown, in the following of our intuition. We thrive when things don't make sense and yet we trust. This is when our lives blossom. When we create space for US to emerge, in our timing and in our way. So honor what comes up for you. Maybe it's to take a nap everyday. Maybe this leads to you being more grounded in the evenings, so you don't watch as much tv, or are more connected to your partner, or have more energy to cook healthier meals. Who knows? We don't need to know. We need to trust.

This is step one in our May Day celebration, the next will come tomorrow and be more about clearing out the old in our external spaces. But for today, or perhaps on May Day itself spend time connecting with your inner world so you can birth the beautiful life YOU were meant to have. 

A Facebook find. Would love to know who created this.

Looking fear in the face and letting it roll on through

I arrived back in Seattle a few weeks ago. Filled up from my pilgrimage, ready to start a new chapter in my life, DONE! with the old stories, my old way of living. Onward ho!

Except I wasn't. My heart and body had some healing to do. My pelvis had some major fear to release (ask my acupuncturist) and I kept shoving it away because my new story was I'm DONE with that old story. So when all these emotions came up, when my heart was knocking on my head, I wasn't answering the door. Who wants to open that door to all those pesky old emotions? I'm DONE!

So when my afore-mentioned acupuncturist informed me of the fear I needed to let come up and out through my belly, through my heart, throat and jaw, I wasn't pleased. I was angry. BUT I'm DONE! (Apparently the binge tv watching and extra glasses of wine were not seeping in as information that not all was well)

So for the past few days, I've been writing and crying and dancing and cleaning and reading and writing and writing and writing. Letting all this fear move through. Will I ever be able to heal my relationships with men? Stay in my power and truth around them? Will I press my edges of my sensual and sexual life? Will I press the edges of how much love I show up with in the world? Will I practice radical honesty and have good boundaries? Will I truly reclaim my wild? Can I take away the keys to my car from teenager and get her to enjoy the view from the backseat? Can I trust myself to make choices from a wiser place? Can I show myself compassion for these hurts still being here? (the answer to the last one was no, but I'm doing a much better job these last few days). I was just so damn ready to be moving on that I was keeping all this stagnant fear in my system. Which is not a great foundation for a new beginning.

So take some time this week...what needs some space to emerge? What needs to be heard by you? By the world? Write it out, speak it. LOVE IT UP! Because kicking it in the face like I was doing "get away from me pesky girl!" doesn't work and doesn't lead to great things. Welcoming it with loads of compassion and curiosity is a much more loving choice and will truly lead to the next chapter, a much lighter, joyful one at that. 

I saw this on Facebook and loved it. No credit was given. If you know who did it I would love to know.

Keeping an open heart. It's our job. Here are some tips.

Our brilliant hearts are trying, so valiantly, so bravely, to lead us to a much more beautiful world. A world of connection, of kindness, of love capers. Of gentleness, of softness, of shared tears, shared joys. It's the moments when I've let all my armor down, all my rational thought go: sobbing after the loss of a beloved, witnessing the birth of a child, hearing the vows of dear friends, connecting to a long held grief or joy...it's in these moments I've felt most alive, most connected to everything and everyone in this world. And then the armor starts to go back up. The openness fades and the constriction begins anew. 

And I forget and I try to fit in and shove my beautiful brilliant heart to the side to survive, well not to survive but seemingly so. Believing this is how this world works. That the heart is not all that important or wise. That it is too tender, too mushy, too sensitive. That it creates frailty and weakness. That we live, choose and navigate by our brain. That logic is better. Rational. Linear. Sensical. 

I know this is not true and when I forget is when there is so much more pain for me. Decisions based from ego, from comparison, from fear of being rebuffed, rejected, abandoned. You know, primal survival stuff.

It's my job, our job, to keep our hearts open: to value it, nourish it, honor it. To rub it with rose oil, to watch a teary movie (last week it was “Finding Neverland”), to let it breathe and exhale as it needs. To give it oxygen, space, room to be alive and part of this world.  Because when we cut ourselves off from our hearts, we cut ourselves off from one another. And there is so much pain in that. I believe that is what so many of us are healing, our wild broken hearts. 

So today, be gentle, smell the flower, call up someone and tell them you love them, do a love caper, tune into your own heart and see what it needs to be open and vital. We need your beautiful heart in the world. 

Now more than ever. 

Because if there's one thing I'm pretty sure about- the world could use more, not less, love.

Some of the things I do to connect to my heart:

I'll put my hand on it and ask “what do you need?" and gently ever so gently rub my heart and see what emerges (tears, a request), read romance books/watch sweet movies, volunteer, bake cookies for neighbors, dance to "Let it Be," "Hallelujah," or "Crazy Love (on the ground, slow, slow, slow), watch the final 8 minutes of Lost, think of a beloved whose passed over, go for a walk and take in the beauty of Seattle's nature. What works for you?

May your weekend be full of open hearted living.