Katy Taylor

be amazed

Spring in Minnesota at the beginning of March!

How Lady Grey’s Garden tea never ceases to amaze and delight me!

Finding the perfect pink down sweater marked way down at REI.

The spark of new life as fire is created in the woodstove.

Getting bangs and opening my face to new freedom!

The bliss coursing through my body when I dance.

A girlfriend feeding me freshly-baked cornbread.

How my bodysoul loves to run full out!

The open wonder in the face of a child.

Birdsong arising out of nowhere.

Dave. Here. With me.

Sun.

When I am able to experience this openness to life, this radical amazement, I am here. Present. Alive. Living my life.
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is your heart open?

I’ve been hearing for years the Course in Miracles exhortation to choose Love instead of Fear.

It sounds good, but it never made sense to me. It’s just not that simple in my experience!

First of all, it’s not just Love I want—it’s joy, goodness, compassion, peace, fulfillment, gratitude…Perhaps they are all expressions of Love, but the exact feeling state is different.

And it’s not just Fear I don’t want—I’m not particularly inclined to want to feel anger, hatred, confusion, sadness, shame…

So, what does it mean to choose Love?
Isn’t it really about keeping your heart open?

Every time we turn toward ourselves or others with compassion and curiosity, we are practicing opening our heart.

If I’m afraid, angry, or sad, instead of distracting myself, getting busy, or drowning in my feelings, I turn toward myself with kindness. I hold my fear, anger or sadness, acknowledging it and how hard it is to feel this. I am gently curious about how I am feeling with a desire to understand. I don’t try to change myself, but accept myself just as I am. Read more about practicing mindful self-acceptance.

I find an image can help here. Keep Reading!

A Recipe for Joy

First things first.

Clear your counter—or if you have a well-used space that has everything you might need nearby, at least make some room for the mixing bowls and other utensils needed!

We’re mixing up Joy, so consider the ingredients you need for the recipe today. You can make another version another day. What do you need right now?

My Ingredient List

Sacred Time
Spiritual Practice
Intimacy
Self-Care
Friends
Music
Dance
Play

Method

Creating Sacred Space

Create sacred space for this time in your kitchen. You may want to light a candle or say a little prayer or intention for creating Joy. It could be as simple as taking a breath and saying, “May I open to Joy.”
Take a look at your ingredients. If you want to mix these particular ingredients together, what mixing bowl will you choose? Make sure you choose one that has MORE space than you think you need. You’ll need room to stir the ingredients together—and, who knows, there may even be some kitchen magic from the combining, so you’ll want to save space for that!

Preparing Your Joy
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white space

white

space

here

this

page

you

read

this

I’ve always been attracted to things—to density and color and texture and variety and vividness. I filled my little 500-square foot cottage with comfortable, practical beauty to the point that Dave referred to it as my hobbit hole. And I felt completely at home with my stuff all around me.

When we go to our favorite B&B, we don’t choose the Air Room, the one that is simple, spare, and decorated all in white. We choose Fire, Earth, or Water—full of color, of something for the eyes (and the soul?) to hold onto.

But there is something here for me.

here

surrounded

space

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New Year’s Ease

This year I spent about three weeks really focused on learning from the past year and getting clear about how I want to live into this New Year.

I’m so grateful for this practice…there were many years I didn’t feel like I could take the time—or that it would make any difference if I did. I didn’t feel I could consciously influence the way my life would play out over time. I knew the value of practicing to change something in myself, but I felt at the whim of life’s unfolding events all too often…

As I reviewed, visioned, and felt into myself, over and over, a yearning in my soul arose—balance, ease, abundance, balance, openness, ease…

Ease, Work / Life Balance

I WANT this! And I’m struck with the fact that I only found out how much I want it by taking those 3+ weeks to settle in, to look at 2015, at all that I accomplished (or didn’t) and all that I had felt during the year…

As I was writing this post at my favorite local cafe, a friend I run into 1-2/month there stopped by to say hi, and as I showed him this New Year’s collage and talked about my theme for the year, he had an insight and spoke these simple and profound words:
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The Coming of Light

The Coming of Light by Mark Strand
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

The New Year is almost here—it’s almost unbelievable how quickly 2015 has passed…

Even this late it happens…

even when my attention is firmly fixed on closing up 2015
even when I am relaxing and enjoying the holy-days with friends and family
even when I am reviewing and thinking and envisioning how I want to live in 2016
even when friendships fall away unexpectedly
even this late…

the coming of love, the coming of light…
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Precious, Fleeting

Precious, fleeting…

Sara Avant Stover introduced this phrase in the last retreat this summer of Reversing Our “Curse,” her course on aligning with psycho-spiritual and feminine hormonal rhythms. She learned it from one of her teachers, Ty Powers.

And I’ve been living with it ever since.

Precious, fleeting…

As a woman, who, (quite astonishingly!), entered her 50s a few years ago, I am facing the fact of getting older. It’s happening to me! I never thought it would.

I was not concerned with ageing in the past. In fact, I enjoyed the woman I was becoming. My 40s felt so expansive and energizing—I even met and courted my husband during this time, and started a new life, moving halfway across the USA to be with him and his two boys!

And now, I am uber-aware of age. Of life. Of most likely not having as much of my life left as has already passed.

Precious, fleeting…

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Mindful Tea

This cup of tea
In my two hands
Mindfulness held completely
My mind and body dwell
In the very here and now.

This is a gatha—a mindfulness verse by the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He has written many verses about daily, ordinary life, all of which are calls to be mindful, to be present in the life we are living.

I’ve always loved tea in its myriad forms! I drink it black—straight up, flavored, or with heavy cream; green—from genmaicha to plain to green mango (a favorite); white or oolong—both plain or with flavors; and all the many flavor profiles and subtleties of herbal teas (sweet, clarifying, floral, rich, fresh, spicy, malty, grassy, fruity…).

I bought my first tea pot and cups when I was in Vienna on a study-abroad program in college, I inherited some of my grandmother’s lovely collection (see yellow flower cup below), and the rest is history!! I seem to keep collecting… 🙂

There is something so satisfying about making tea and pouring it out of a beautiful pot into a beautiful tea cup. This beauty is a call to presence, just like the mindfulness verse above.

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Opening to Present Moment Awareness

Preparing, perfecting, learning, improving, planning,
rehearsing, reviewing, remembering, practicing…

This is the voice of my habitual inner landscape when I get quiet and listen. The voice of my ego personality.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that in the midst of such wild beauty,
my mind continues this chatter?

My Enneagram One ego is constantly trying to make sure I do things right, aligned, good. If I do, then all will be OK—I’ll say the right things, support my clients and students in the right way, do my spiritual practice in the right way so that I develop in the right way…I think you get the drift!

I had the chance to witness this nearly constant stream of thoughts during the silent SHE Retreat led by Sara Avant Stover at a beautiful ocean/jungle resort the first week of November. Being in silence from after opening circle on the first night until after closing circle 6 days later really highlighted the chatter in my mind.

I knew my mind was busy. I’ve been meditating daily for about 10 years. And I’ve been to shorter silent retreats before. I knew, intellectually, that my thoughts were keeping my ego personality going. I had been told this many times. I have studied it. I have inquired about it. I have taught it. I thought I understood it—and I did, on a certain level…

But this was different.

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hollowing out

Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
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Hollowing out. Becoming a cave.

Being carved deeply. Into a bowl. Into a cup.

Able to collect, to gather, to hold.

This poem, which I posted a few weeks back, keeps arising in my bodysoul.

My mind wonders: What does it mean to be hollowed out?
My heart feels a bit scared of the carving.
My body simply senses—the stripping, the filling…
And my bodysoul?

She knows. She has experienced this over and over again. She understands that this is the lawful unfolding of life. Filling up, overflowing, hollowing out, and filling again…

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