Category: seasons

#15daysofgrateful

We’ve passed Autumn Equinox, Halloween, and now Thanksgiving is coming, and after that the Winter Holidays and the New Year!!!

Every year, it feels like time begins to move ever more quickly just about now, doesn’t it?

Here in Minnesota, the second half of Fall is here. Overnight, the cold and graying blew in–we went from gorgeous blue skies and Indian Summer to hurrying to empty the rain barrels and rake the leaves, to winter coats and mitts, and to putting the garden to bed.

 

We have 15 days–if you include today–
to prepare our hearts for Thanksgiving.

 

Let’s use them to practice gratefulness!!

I’m choosing “gratefulness” instead of “gratitude” because it feels more active to me, even though they are both from the same root word, going back to Latin, gratus, or pleasing, agreeable, kind. Let’s practice creating these feelings in our bodysoul so that by the time Thanksgiving arrives, regardless of how quickly we are moving, the experience of gratefulness can shine through.

How it Works:

  • Every day, practice being grateful–for something as small as appreciating the 1st sip of tea or coffee or the soft, welcoming cocoon of your bed, to something as big as the fact that you are alive on this planet!
  • Here’s the key: Being grateful is not an idea in your mind, although your mind might help you come up with something to practice with.
    • In order to practice being grateful, you need to take the time to actually experience being grateful in your whole bodysoul. You need to feel the gratefulness. 
    • Where do you experience it in your body? What does it sense like?
    • How do you experience it in your heart (feelings)?
    • What happens in your mind (thoughts, quality of mind)?
    • Savor it, take it all the way in, infusing yourself with gratefulness as much as you can, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head!
  • Then post below and/or on your profile in Facebook with this tag: #15daysofgrateful.

I’ll begin: 

I am grateful that we finished painting our dining room! #15daysofgrateful

 

Ready, set, go!

 

If you want more support practicing being grateful, join me at my class, Practicing Gratitude, Sunday, November 19th from 1:00-2:30.

Gratitude heals your heart, helps your mind calm down, and even creates health in your body. So, why do we tend to wait until Thanksgiving to really focus on it? Join Holistic Life Coach Katy Taylor to learn not only the power of gratitude, but also hands-on practices you can take into your daily life.

 

I look forward to practicing with you!

Season of Celebration and Regret

The light is changing and dark is coming faster in the eve and staying longer in the morn.

Once again, the trees are dropping their leaves, returning them to the ground.

Plants are flowering and fruiting, putting the last of their energy into ripening and celebrating, giving their all.

 

Autumn Equinox is Friday, September 22nd

at 3:02 pm CT,

marking this next pass through the seasonal rhythm that holds our lives.

 

I am experiencing sadness that summer and all its bounty is waning and gratefulness for the bright, crisp Fall days, colorful leaves, and invitation to turn inward. All accompanied by a sense that life is moving by so quickly!

 

The Jewish tradition has this Fall theme built into its yearly cycle.

September 21st marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year with Rosh Hashanah, the Days of Awe, and then Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on September 30th.

There is joy for the opportunity to begin a new year combined with an inner examination of the past year and atonement for regrets in order to start the new year freshly, cleanly, returned home to God.

 

This is truly the season of Both/And,
of acknowledging all we have to celebrate
and all we have to regret.

 

Autumn invites us to use this changing of the seasons as a time to pause and assess our harvest.

 

What are you celebrating from the bounty of summertime?

What will you pick and savor and what will you let fall like leaves to the ground?

What needs to be cut back or released so that you can live your life
with more presence?

What did not turn out as you had hoped?

Do you need to repair any relationships—with yourself, others, or the Divine—
in order to return home?

 

For my part, when I look back, I see I have fallen again into piling my plate too full, and I regret that I didn’t make more time for what I call “right living,” living the daily rhythms of my life with less rushing and more connection.

 

I am letting go of a lot of things this the Fall to make space for slowing down to a rhythm that is more sustainable for living my life—workshops and events I wanted to attend, the poetry list I was sending out, preaching, music gigs, tea events I host, travel, even some teaching. I feel sad to not do these things that I love, and I so much look forward to the space I am opening up for more presence-full living.

 

There is always so much to hold in our lives—to celebrate and to regret.

Especially when we widen our gaze to include not only our individual lives, but the life of the earth, the life of our political environment, the lives of many who are suffering and many who do so much goodness in the world.

 

Sometimes finding our way to the goodness, the beauty, the wholeness, and the celebration is hampered by our inability to take a deep accounting of our actual lives. Aligning with this seasonal orientation, we need to acknowledge and work with the ways we are holding ourselves and others with unkindness so that we can recalibrate our lives and start fresh and clean again.

 

This usually invokes not only celebration but also a need for repair. Just as our Jewish friends are practicing atonement,

so our souls yearn for forgiveness,

of ourselves and of others—for harm we have done and harm we have suffered.

 

How about you? What regrets do you have that could be
eased by the soothing balm of forgiveness?

 

I’d love to support you this Autumn in recalibrating, repairing, and returning home to yourself with my new, 4-part series:

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Savoring Dave, Chocolate & Summer!

something different: a little, rhyming summer poem for you!

🙂

Even though we rarely eat sweets,

Dave’s 60th needed a

treat.

Something summery, simple, and

celebratory

to follow salmon, salad, memories, and stories.

The family in the garden all gathered together,

sipping and supping with laughter and

pleasure.

The chocolate pots cooled to luscious perfection,

We savored each spoonful of blissful confection!

chocolate pot 1200x

To taste these Chocolate Pots…try the recipe!

How are you savoring these precious days of Summer?

Bowing Practice

I’ve been practicing bowing recently.

When I was researching possible publishers for the book I’m working on, I stumbled upon a book called Bowing by Dahn Yoga Education. I was intrigued and ordered it.

When it came, I devoured it in one sitting and started practicing!

It’s a simple practice, bowing.

Just like the tulips in the photo, that rise in the spring, bloom radiantly, and then release their form to the earth to build up energy for their next blossoming in the following year, bowing is a metaphor for being willing to let go, and then re-form and rise again…when it’s time.

Hands at my heart, I feel myself here, human, woman, being, connecting earth and heaven.

Prayers reach to heaven, draw down into my earthly body, mix the light and dark, the active and still, the blossoming and the release of this form.

And then the downward trajectory, bodysoul (body-heart-mind-soul) returning to the earth with reverence and humility, a sacred return.

How surely gravity’s law, / strong as an ocean current, / takes hold of even the strongest thing /
and pulls it toward the heart of the world. (Rilke in II, 16.)

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, growing from the earth, returning to the earth. Head bowed, touching the earth, hands open to receive.

If we surrendered / to earth’s intelligence /
we could rise up rooted, like trees. (Rilke in II, 16.)

Surrendering this moment through the physicality of the bow. My body embodying it so that my heart and mind can learn this gesture as well.

…to fall, / patiently to trust our heaviness. / Even a bird has to do that /
before he can fly. (Rilke in II, 16.)

Returning to standing, following the same pathway, with a subtly changed orientation of the heart. Bringing the humble, solid, ever-supportive and accepting presence of earth up into my humanness, connecting heaven and earth.

 How does practicing the bow feel to you?

Spring is Coming

Spring is coming, is calling, is COMING!

Seeds, long held in the cozy dark, nutrient-rich soil, are beginning to push up through the darkness toward the light. Winter’s hold is not so tight.

The light is growing, is coming, is calling—don’t go back to sleep.

Feel your longing to wake up, deep down on the inside, like nature, longing to reach for the light.

Stay with the longing. Let it touch you. Let it move you into action. Let it keep you awake.

Breathe in the light all around you, in through all your pores, into your body—belly, heart, mind. Let is infuse and gently awaken and enliven you. Turn toward the light.

Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is officially marked on Monday, March 20th at 5:28 am Central Time, but we’ve been feeling its coming for some time now…

The last remnants of winter—the dark, the cold, the cuddled-up-in-bed parts—are holding pieces you need to release to be ready for Spring.

It could be anger, a hurt, an unrealized dream, a wish for life to be other than it is…Accepting that this, whatever it is, is still with you creates space for it to soften its grip and make way for the new energy of Spring, for a new beginning, a new seed to poke its way up through the dark underground into the light.

A Getting Ready Ritual

This ritual can support you in releasing what’s needed for Spring to arrive in your life. Enjoy it on the Equinox or before to prepare yourself for a new beginning any time.

  • Create intentional space for 20-30 minutes.
    • Turn off electronics, close the door, settle in for some undisturbed quiet time.
    • You might want your journal nearby.
    • You might want to light a candle or mark this time in some way.
  • In a comfortable seated position, breathe in earth energy through your feet, up through your legs, into your lower belly. Imagine, visualize, or physically sense this.
    • Breathe out and name whatever arises that you would like to release. As you exhale, soften, and simply let it be here with you.
    • Breathing in grounded, stable earth energy, and breathing out your desire to let this go, feeling and sensing whatever it is.
    • Inhaling earth energy up, then exhaling and naming what you would like to release, no forcing, no pushing away, no resisting.
  • Once you’ve accepted and allowed the feelings and sensations of what you’d like to release to be acknowledged, you’re ready to let them go.
  • Breathing earth energy in, let it go, carrying all you have released back down through your legs and feet into the earth, where it will be transformed.
    • Repeat this a few times.
  • When you are ready, begin your inhale the same way, but bring your breath all the way up to your heart.
    • On the exhale, if there is anything else arising in your heart that needs to be let go, name and release that.
    • Breathe this way a few times.
  • When you are ready, the same breath comes all the way up to the crown of your head.
    • And you release on your exhale, all the way down to the earth, naming anything else that arises, softening, softening, softening…
  • When you have run out of things to name, on your next earth inhale, as you breathe all the way up to the crown, name what you long for, what you are ready to move into, what you intend for yourself this spring.
    • Soften and let it all go, into the hands of life, returning it to the earth.
    • Continue breathing this way until you have named all that you long to bring into your world, all that you long to become this Spring.
  • Place your hands on your heart and make some gesture of gratitude.
  • Blow out the candle and/or close this intentional time in some way.

What is Spring inviting to grow in you?
What are you releasing to make space for this new growth?

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the dark

dark mother. with child.

young, innocent, the black madonna greets me as i turn the corner from the room i will be teaching in on the way to the dining room.

i stop. breathe her in. her presence a paradox, an invitation.

to drop.

to drop out of ordinary mind. to drop into mystery.

to drop agenda.

to stop.

i surrender myself to you. i surrender myself to become an instrument of love, grace, and healing as you direct my life.*

i surrender to the mystery. to the darkness. to the life that is arising within and around me.

she reminds me of these lessons of winter, of letting go, of not knowing, of dark, mysterious ways.

how do you drop into the mystery?
how do you let go into the not knowing?
what practices support you?

join me Sunday, February 19th for a Women’s Way of the Happy Woman® Winter Mini-Retreat where we can explore together the dark and necessary gifts of the winter.

i’d love to practice with you!

* prayer learned from Caroline Myss’s Entering the Castle

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babysteps for presence

do you feel it?

that steady increase in tempo now that we’re in the holiday season?

i sure do!

we made it through black friday. and cyber monday.

but now it’s countdown on shopping days before christmas.

we have to find the right gifts for the right amount of money…

we are bombarded by the outer world, inviting, enthralling, dare i say it–manipulating us into focusing on outer fulfillment. just one more piece of chocolate, one more task off the to-do list, one more special stocking stuffer…then all will be well. then i’ll stop. then i’ll rest. then i’ll be satisfied.

it feels like life is speeding up as we move from thanksgiving through the winter holidays and into the new year.

what can we do to be present
in the midst of all of this?

1. first things first. notice how you get off center. notice what makes you lose your cool, feel off balance, get irritable, impatient, anxious…whatever your version of “off center” is. without awareness, nothing else is possible!

2. in the midst of it. turn to yourself with kindness and friendliness. instead of telling yourself to “get over it,” to “put a good face on it,” to “fake it until you make it,” take a moment and gently acknowledge that it’s hard to feel off center. it’s hard to be this busy. it’s hard to feel disconnected from yourself. with compassion, things soften and change in often unexpected ways.

3. when your heart feels more open, let your brilliant mind help you out some more! what one small thing could you do, RIGHT NOW, to help you be more present. you already are a little more present just from steps #1 & #2. what else would support you? could you stretch, sense your feet on the floor and your breath in your belly, dance, get up and walk around, take a breath of fresh air, get a cup of tea, take a nap? what would support you right now?

4. take that babystep! do it! don’t wait until you finish THAT THING. even if it’s just one minute, give yourself what you need to be more present RIGHT NOW. this is living our practice. this is waking up. this is how real change happens, one babystep at a time. it can be that simple.

Falling into Fall…

Leaves are falling.

Life is falling. Into the earth.

Fall. Falling. Fallen.

We are falling from one season into the other at Autumn Equinox, on Thursday, September 22nd, at 9:21 am CT, the day when the light and dark are equal in length.

Falling into Autumn.

It can feel like that.

All of a sudden, it seems, the days are shorter.

Darkness comes earlier and lasts longer.

It’s time to light a candle. To come inside. To consider your harvest.

What flowered, spread its seeds, and died?

What are you harvesting from this wild abandon?

For my part, while the Summer was full and beautiful, a few things have blazed out and fallen.

A part-time job I loved is over and the ending still unsettled and confusing.

My brother is gone, returned to the earth.

I am reflecting on this harvest. It’s not what I wanted. And yet, it is.

This eternal cycle of return, of rising from
and falling into the earth.

There is a grace of falling. Of falling into. Of being held, finally grounded, completely surrendered. Into the unchanging ground of support.

There is a release in this.

I am still in the process of understanding the harvest from my losses. And in the midst of this, I am celebrating the abundance of loving holding from family and friends.

I also celebrate, from the eternal promise, that
living is hidden inside dying.

To this, I bow down.

Within the darkness, light is always arising.

Renewal is always becoming.

I am practicing patience and allowing this rhythm to live within as it lives without, for the right timing for renewal to grow from the seeds that returned to the earth.

What is falling, perhaps fallen for you?

How are you living
with your harvest this Fall?

If you’d like to include some ritual in your acknowledging of Autumn Equinox, I have a few suggestions on my blog from past years:

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Summer Sweetness

Don’t you love summer?

The light, the green, the blossoming, the beauty?

And how about the fun?

Swimming, biking, dancing, vacationing, picnicking, hammocking, camping, hiking, gardening, time with friends, playing outside!!

Let it fill your bodysoul to the brim. Savor it with all your senses. This beauty, this fun, this pleasure…this sweetness is your birthright!

Maia

When we don’t let ourselves really take in the
sweetness of life, we look elsewhere for it—

  • maybe in sweet or comforting foods
  • maybe alcohol or other drugs
  • maybe in screens
  • or in other addictive behaviors…

peony

We NEED pleasure.

We NEED sweetness.


It’s a wise move from the body to let us know that it is lacking and to seek it!

It is an attempt to find more balance and well-being.

How will you create more
pleasure and sweetness
for yourself this summer?

Mindful Retreating

Dave and I spent four days on a writing retreat last week. What a treat!! Meals, clean-up, daily chores all taken care of…so that we could focus solely on our writing.

Retreat time is Sabbath time. Time set apart to be held as sacred, holy, wholly dedicated to listening and following inner guidance.

This time, I surrendered my regular routines completely in order to allow my own writing rhythm to arise, asking myself over and over: What is calling me? A walk? My somayoga? Meditation? Inspirational reading? My writing?

Surrounded by the unfolding of greening spring beauty everywhere, I sat by the picture windows and gazed out, letting myself rest.

Held by the reassuring cycle of meals and the never-ending supply of tea :), I let myself be nourished.

Supported by the loving and attuned presence of Karen Hering, the retreat facilitator, and the flexible rhythm of alone and together sessions, I let myself receive—

  • receive my own rhythm
  • receive my own guidance
  • receive my own inspiration
  • receive my own presence in the moment.

We NEED retreat time!

Keep reading to find out how to bring pockets of retreat time into your daily life.