Category: self-care

Summer Solstice 2021

our pond and surrounding gardens

Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, on June 20th

at 8:32 pm PT, we are at Summer Solstice again.

Eairth* has awoken in flowers and flourishing plants and new leaves. She is bearing fruit and food and warmer days filled with light…

Here we are with the longest day inviting us out into the light, and many of us are still experiencing what I’ve heard called “cave syndrome.”

We are more comfortable inside, or at least, at home.

We have been staying home, sheltering from the pandemic. We have, if we are lucky, had the companionship of animals and family, but most of us have led circumscribed, smaller lives. And now this lack of outer contact feels normal… And safe… And secure.

At my last two Chant & Song evenings, we sang a number of songs about surrounding ourselves with protection. One of them was a prayer I set to music  from the Carmina Gadelica, a collection of prayers, songs, and incantations from the Scottish Highlands and Islands.**

Sacred Three
To save, to shield
To surround the hearth
The house, the household
This eve, this night.
O, this eve, this night,
And every night,
Every single night.

This is a prayer based on a practice from earlier times of smooring the fire for the night so that there will still be coals to ignite in the morning.

To smoor, the woman of the house subdued the flame by dividing the coals into 3 piles, one with the blessing, “the God of Life,” one with “the God of Peace,” and one with “the God of Grace” (the sacred three representing the Trinity). Peat was then placed between each pile and ashes on top with a final blessing, “the God of Light.” ***

You can listen and sing along to my recent version with guitar accompaniment, and to the a capella original with harmony and drum on my Welcome Brigid CD.

We reflected as a group that we need these kinds of rituals in our lives to help us connect with not only the safety around us, but also with the inner hearth-flame. And especially now when leaving the cave can feel threatening, consciously or unconsciously.

I particularly like the image of keeping the hearth-fire lit because of the image of hearth as center of the house and household, which it truly was when this prayer was originally uttered. It kept the house and people within warm, protected, and fed.

Hearth—Heart

I can’t help but see this connection even though the words are not related etymologically.

Keeping the hearth warm keeps the heart warm.

The center of the home is the hearth. The center of the human is the heart.

Our hearts also keep us warm and fed. The heart’s capacity to feel, to love, to connect, to create meaning makes this possible.

Since that evening, I’ve been singing this song when I close and lock up the house overnight, feeling the circle of protection here in our home.

And in the morning, when I travel the same circle, opening up, unlocking, I sing a morning welcoming song.

These rituals provide a gentle holding in my life.

They reinforce a sense of sacred center, sacred hearth and heart, held in reverence and respect.

Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron explains the power of ritual in this quote:

Ritual is about joining vision and practicality, heaven and earth, samsara and nirvana. When things are properly understood, one’s whole life is like a ritual or a ceremony.
Then the gestures of life are mudra [sacred gestures]
and all sounds of life are mantra—sacredness is everywhere…
Someone can have an insight, and rather than it’s being lost,
it can stay alive through ritual.
~ from The Wisdom of No Escape, p. 77

I love that wisdom from earlier times can be passed down in this way—through a prayer of protection. I feel more deeply the connection to those who came before and those who continue to live closely with the land and cook and heat with fire.

So, as we find our way out of our caves into the light this summer, it may be helpful to practice or create for yourself some kind of ritual for protection.

In Celtic lands, the Irish call this a lorica and the Scots Gaelic a caim.**** A simple one is just to hold up an index finger and turn around, drawing a circle around your body. You are creating a circle of protection with you at the center. You could also add a song or prayer or mantra to the turning.

From my study with women’s work teacher, Sara Avant Stover, I also love the practice of feeling myself in my protected heart-cave as I move in the outside world.

Then as you leave your house, you take the gentle holding and flame of your heart-cave-home with you as you move out into the world.

Do you already have rituals of protection?

What might you incorporate into your daily life?

* Earth and Air = Eairth
** Alexander Carmichael, editor
*** http://www.tairis.co.uk/daily-practices/smaladh/
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorica_(prayer)

Habitual or Ritual?

It’s the New Year,
and with the turning of the year,
comes an invitation to create
some new healthy habits!

Putting habits in place means not having to think so hard—we can just do the things we need to do on autopilot.

Perhaps you want to jump out of bed and get to the gym first thing as a habit.

Or to meditate, do yoga, or stretch.

Maybe you want to go for a walk in the early morning.

Or to cuddle with your kids or your pet or your honey.

The word on the street is that it takes 21 days to set a simple habit in place. But Phillipa Lally found that on average, it takes 66 days, but could range from as little as 18 to as many as 254!!

We probably all have some very basic habits in place that our family and society brought us up with:

  • Brushing and flossing your teeth.
  • Driving on the correct side of the road.
  • Taking your vitamins.
  • Taking care of your plants or pet.

And you’ve probably grown specialized habits:

  • Practicing to play an instrument.
  • Working with certain tools of the trade, craft, or hobby you are involved with.
  • Doing an exercise routine.
  • Learning dance steps.

It feels good to fall back into a habit well-learned, to flow and glide, and not have to think too much…

But are you really there
when you are in habit?

I just facilitated the Winter Solstice Ritual at my Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It was the first time to bring it to my new church since moving to the Pacific Northwest. I found myself needing to explain to people that it was not a “service”—it was not reading and saying certain things or listening from the pews. There would be no introductions or announcements. It was a RITUAL.

 was grasping to capture something ineffable in words, something you can only really experience by attending and fully experiencing, fully participating… with body, heart, mind, and soul, with bodysoul. And in that full participation, allowing yourself to be touched by life, to feel more meaning and belonging, to sense yourself deeply in place, to receive.

We don’t have to wait for special rituals
or moments of grace to allow ourselves
to be touched deeply and feel fully alive.

We can create these moments by consciously bringing more of ourselves, by bringing our presence to our actual lived lives.

We can create rituals instead of habits.

One way to start is with those habits you already have in place, or any new ones you’re already working on.

Next time you find yourself in some simple habit, see if you can become aware of what is happening. Where is your attention? Where is your heart/your feeling sense? Can you sense your body? Gently bring your awareness back to your bodysoul. What is here right now?

Maybe it’s as simple as brushing your teeth. Try really focusing in on all the felt sensations of this—how you are standing/sitting, the feeling of the brush in your hand, the feeling of bristles and wetness in your mouth and on your teeth and gums, the taste of the toothpaste, the sound of brushing. How does it feel to be taking care of your body in this way? To be companioning your teeth in health?

And as you create something new this New Year, consider making it a ritual in addition to being a healthy habit. Bring your mindfulness, your sincere heart, your willing body to the process.

  • To have any chance of success, you need to really want this new thing in your life. Find desire. Feel the gratitude for being able to practice welcoming this new way of living in.
  • From this place of desire, create an entry point—how will you remember to enter this ritual? What touchstone will invite you in? Perhaps it’s whenever the phone rings. Or you leave yourself a note to remember. Or going through a doorway is your reminder.
  • Enter with awareness of your bodysoul. Engage all your senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, with the intention to be good to yourself. Carry out this sacred act with your full presence.

One thing that helps me is giving my mind something active to do to keep its attention. Carefully-chosen words can be very helpful here.

Thich Nhat Hanh has many gathas (mindfulness verses) to bring more presence to an action. You can also create ritual language simply using the sentence stems:

Breathing in, I _______.
Breathing out, I _______.

My blog Breathing in the Morning has a bunch of examples of this.

You might try things like:

  • Relaxation practice: Breathing in, I know I am here. Breathing out, I relax.
  • Loving practice: Breathing in, I feel grounded. Breathing out, I choose love.
  • Healthy food practice: Breathing in, I feel my hunger. Breathing out, I choose food mindfully.
  • Gratitude practice: Breathing in, I smile. Breathing out, I feel grateful.

You’ll notice that practicing ritual rather than habit slows you down a bit and helps land you in the moment. That makes it easier to be in touch with yourself, others, and with life.

And I bet that it doesn’t take as long to successfully create a new habit when you approach it from this place of ritual! Because you are more fully engaged—more of you is participating in the new way of being, more of you is affected by your practice!

If you’d like more ideas for how to create simple ritual in your life, see my blog posts and check out my ebook, Welcoming the Sacred.

May ritual help you to live
more fully into the blessing
of your life and your presence
in this New Year!

the steady center

Cutting Loose by William Stafford
Sometimes, from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose from
all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, sound comes. A reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be
lost, learning how real it is
here on earth again and again.

Thanks to my Full Voice Coach Training last year, I’ve started reviewing the poems I’ve learned by heart over the years. (Poetry is a wonderful way to practice exploring different parts of your voice.)

I almost always start my day with poetry—a bit of beauty, of inspiration, of deeper meaning to open my heart and mind first thing.

This poem by William Stafford jumped out of my stash of poems, asking to be brought back into my bodysoul, so I’ve been reciting it every morning, waking up the poem within me again—or should I say, allowing it to wake up me?

The reminder that from sorrow—in fact, from anything—anger, joy, even fear—we can sing…

Singing is another practice I do every morning. Usually I sing to greet the morning. Sometimes I hear melodies that become songs through me. And often I sing along to a song I’m learning.

For no reason, except that singing wakes me up, too—lights me up, and connects me with a deeper heartful and devotional contact with life (myself included).

Singing has been a lifesaver in this transition of settling into a new home and community, a tether, a grounding cord to Being. Even though I feel lost—and often even “accept the way of being lost”—singing/sounding provides a constant “reminder that a steady center is holding all else.” 

And that “all else” includes me.

I also listen to the new sounds here—the shooshing of the wind in the fir, spruce, and hemlock, the west-coast birds greeting the day, the bark and talk of our new dog Sammy to get our attention, the crackle of the fire in the woodstove, the rain on the metal roof, the voices of my parents…

Sound/song/singing does help me “slide [my] way past trouble” because it unsticks me, “cutting loose from all else” that might be running in my mind, landing me here, now, in the moment, with this particular beauty.

The “twisted monsters” barring my path are very familiar and include fear of loss, fear of newness, fear of not-knowing, frustration at the time it is taking to settle, overwhelm at how much there is still to do…

And these are familiar stories—they crop up wherever I am because I always bring myself with me… Remembering this helps me “get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again.”

This being human is no joke!

We get lost over and over, and we re-find our hold on that steady center over and over, again, too. This is reality here in Eairth.

We sorrow, we sing, we cut loose, we find our steady center, we get lost, and we do it all over again…

How do you hold fast to your steady center when you feel lost?

It’s good to remember these teachings now as we move more deeply into Fall in the northern hemisphere. With the waning light and cooling temperatures, this seasonal transition of completion and letting go as we move toward Winter heightens the sense of loss even as we harvest and celebrate.

It’s a time to deepen our practice of welcoming everything, to add more stillness and cozy time amidst the Fall chores.

Welcoming Fall

Autumn Equinox was
last Monday, September 23rd
at 12:50 am PT.

This is the time when the dark and light hours are approximately even and marks the turning into more darkness as we head toward the Winter Solstice.

Why mark this transition at all? In a busy life, it can seem like just one more thing to remember, one more thing to do, to fit in…

But since taking on the practice of living with the seasons, I find myself more in touch with life, more in touch with Soul, with True Nature (God / Goddess / Great Spirit / Higher Power / Truth / Love), and more in touch with Eairth (Earth + Air = Eairth).

The seasons reflect not only the changing light and weather, but also the plants that grow, and the felt, energetic sense of life. Fall feels different from Spring or  Summer or Winter. There’s no getting around it, even in places without dramatic seasonal changes!

This amazing, shimmering, fierce, luminous, creative, mysterious Eairth has been developing over billions of years, creating more and more complex forms of life and consciousness. Its precise seasonal rhythms are simply one more expression of the universe’s creativity in earthly form.

These days, I can’t distinguish True Nature from Eairth.

And I love that this way of naming the Divine includes nature. Our nature is True. Nature is True. We are of God/dess, Love, Great Spirit, Higher Power. We are of Eairth. That is True Nature.

The creative unfolding of the mystery is One, experienced here in physical and energetic form as Eairth. And as such, it, and we, are sacred.

We humans embody the flowering of Eairth’s consciousness. As we are an expression of this consciousness, so are we intimately connected with the seasons. Why would we not want to align with Eairth’s seasons as they are also our seasons, affecting us energetically whether we know it or not?

So how do we align with
the season of Autumn?

What does this season invite us into?

On the physical-energetic level, plants and animals (have) come to fruition as we enter this season—they fruit/flower and seed. And then they prepare their dens for hibernation, conserve their energy, or die back, moving toward Winter. All of Eairth’s inhabitants partake of Summer’s abundance in Fall, completing their maturation, coming to fulfillment, harvesting food and putting it away for leaner days. And we get to celebrate this harvest! It is a time of gathering in and feasting, in preparation for leaner and darker times.

On the psycho-spiritual level, we also assess and feast on our interior harvest as we transition from Summer’s light to Winter’s dark. We slow down to contemplate, to truly face and embrace the outcomes of our lives. Did projects, plans, practices, desires come to fruition? If so, we acknowledge, appreciate, and celebrate. If not, we look with clear eyes and warm heart to understand what happened. Perhaps we need to grieve and/or re-calibrate, releasing hopes to make space for something new. Or perhaps simplification and re-prioritization is necessary before taking our next steps.

While nature’s season of Autumn comes predictably once a year, I learned from The Way of the Happy Woman work that we move through the seasons regularly in our lives, not always in alignment with Eairth’s seasons.

Women have a chance monthly with their hormonal cycles. The moon moves through every 29 days. We all move through the seasons of our lives from youth to elder. And each project we take on, in its wholeness, takes part in each of the seasons as well.

In Dave’s and my big project to move
to the Pacific NorthWest,
you can see all the stages clearly:

We first had the idea of moving here, talking with my parents about their next steps as the house got too big for them to manage easily. And we thought about it, planned, got the soil ready for new things for a few years. (Spring—new beginnings, new ideas, freshness.)

Then for a good year, we moved into an ever more intense Summer mode of doing the work, of accomplishing—renovating, packing, working hard to meet our goals and deadlines for house sale and move.

After landing in mid-July, with boxes in the basement and a temporary home in the guest room, we entered into the Fall season of our big project. We are here, enjoying the fruits of our labor, noticing regrets—loss of friends, place, community—and celebrating being in this beautiful, new home. We are also in the midst of this huge transition. How will we make this our home—find new community and friends and place? How will we make our livelihood? How will this be to accompany my parents as they age? What do we need to prioritize now? How do we need to adjust our plans to meet this reality?

Once we get more settled, Winter ‘s invitation to slow way down, to go within, to dream, and vision will give us plenty of time to live with and dream with all of these questions, to be ready for a new Spring, which may or may not coincide with Eairth’s season of Spring.

This way of aligning with the seasons gives hope!

So far, as Eairth’s seasons continue to model for us, after Winter always comes Spring. We can rely on this orderly and integral progression, plan for it, and be ready when our Spring arrives, just as we are ready to plant and be outside and welcome Eairth’s Spring.

How do you align with
the season of Autumn?

Freedom to Rise like Trees

Painted by Laurie Evans

From all quarters, life on this precious Eairth is desperately calling for the rising of the rooted Feminine—in both women and men.

Eairth* and all her creatures are gasping for breath.

We lose between 1 and 300 species every day (low to high estimates), and it is widely thought that we humans are causing the sixth great extinction, presently underway.

Our Eairth home is warming and her interconnected life systems are responding by creating chaotic and destructive weather patterns which make it less hospitable for all life, humans included.

Our human family is forgetting not only our connection to Eairth, but to each other with the rise of more and more nationalistic movements across the world.

And meanwhile, we continue business as usual, as if the worn-out industrial-growth society could ignore the problem and continue consuming more and more…

We pour more money into unsustainable practices, trying to get the last bit of fossil fuel out of Eairth with complete disregard for Gaia’s life systems** that are being broken in the process.

We pour more money into genetically engineering seeds and animals and genes as if we could do better that Gaia that has been evolving and supporting us for 4.5 billion years…

We need to wake up and
let the rooted Feminine
consciousness rise up and
inform our lives,
our actions, and our world
before it is too late,

before we lose the freedom we celebrate on July 4th—especially the freedom to be alive
on this precious planet.

The beautiful image at the top of this blogpost, painted by my dear friend Laurie Evans, can give us an image to hold before us, to live with.

Can you feel how rooted she is? Rooted in tree and freely branching, leafing, flowering into life.

Before growing tall, tree roots take time to grow deep—up to 200 feet deep—into the earth. There they receive nourishment and stability from the depths, from deep sources of water and minerals and stone.

What deep sources of nourishment do you have, to fill your well, to root you in your deepest Essence?

The Feminine embodied consciousness knows the value of turning within, of the nourishment of inner life.

When we are deeply rooted inside, we discern Truth and are not swayed by the opinions of others. We choose healthfully for all life. We value our spiritual practices as a way of sustaining connection to soul including the anima mundi, or, world soul.

Tree roots also spread wide—at their widest, three times the width of their crowns (and mature crowns spread up 590 feet wide, so you do the math!). In his astonishing book, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben describes how this wide root network is the primary way trees communicate with and feed each other.

And even more beautiful, trees communicate through symbiotic relationships with special types of funghi that grow on their roots! The funghi receive sugars the trees produce from photosynthesis and give back water and minerals, as well as communication networks that Peter refers to “the wood-wide web.” They can transmit messages to other trees along these root network systems—about danger and sickness, and the need for nourishment.

What wide root networks do you have, that you feed and that feed you? Our interconnections with others are necessary on the path of awakening. We need to support each other—to be warned of danger ahead or when we lose our way, to be reminded of the need for true nourishment…

The Feminine is relational.

When rooted in our Feminine nature, we do not over-give or lose ourselves. We do not stay too long in relationship. We do not forget ourselves and wind up exhausted and burned out. We stay connected and know that each person brings a gift to the table.

Tree nature has intricate, indigenous lifeways that guide natural tree growth. What we could call tree instincts respond as needed in the moment without question—sending sap, messages, and energy. Their instinctual tree-wisdom arises to meet life, with utter faith that their response is in alignment with Gaia’s rhythms.

How do you trust your instinctual, indigenous nature? We humans have life-intelligence inherited from our animal ancestors. This native wisdom helps us stay rooted and alive as part of the interconnected web of life. It tells us when we are hungry, in danger, in need of bonding or of the shelter of a friend.

Rooted in the Feminine, we trust our instinctual intelligence to guide us.

We know ourselves as embodied—as earthly, incarnate, with a body that needs tending, a heart that needs loving, and a mind that needs opening. The Feminine knows the value of the body and does not try to transcend it and the greater body of Eairth, but to live more fully embodied, more fully incarnate, here, in this life, exactly as it is right now.

Trees know how to not only root, but how to branch and leaf and flower and fruit and seed!! Their circulatory system pumps sap nourishment from the sun through the leaves down to the roots, and from storage in the roots, back up when it is needed. A healthy sap-system supports not only inner, but outer growth. Mature trees release their seed, give away the fruits of their growth—in flower, fruit, or seed—so that their essence can live on even after they release their standing forms to the earth.

How are you called out, once your well is sufficiently filled, to branch, to leaf, to blossom? What have you been developing deep within yourself that calls for expression, that wants to be given away as a gift for others? It needn’t be big to be of service—we’re not all meant to be Michelle or Barak Obama, Joanna Macy or Brian Swimme! But we are all called to be ourselves and of service to the world. Maybe it’s random acts of kindness, or a listening ear, or maybe you’re called to protest or form a PTA or help save a river.

As John O’Donohue says in Eternal Echos, “The wisdom of the tree balances the path inwards with the pathway outwards” (p. 149). When we are deeply rooted in our inward path, the pathway outward is a natural outcome. The rooted and rising Feminine is not about just doing our spiritual practices!! Yes, that’s crucial to keep the root well-nourished, but we are also called to give birth—to blossom and give of our fruit.

The Feminine within us all feels the call to embody our Truth—to birth it in our daily lives and to be of service to Eairth, to others, to the world…

As I was writing this blogpost, a big, welcome storm blew through. I was sitting on the front porch in the early morning watching the graying sky on the horizon, feeling the wind gaining strength, blowing my hair and clothes. When the storm landed, the trees started dancing with the wind—not just their leaves and branches, but their trunks, too. Being deeply rooted, deeply belonging to Eairth, trees have faith in their foundation and solidity.

Buffeted by stormy winds, trees stay flexible and participate with the storm. Not resisting—simply responding to the wind, they become its dance partner.

How flexible are you when the storm hits? (Because it always will!) Are you able to sway with the wind and trust your nourished, deep and wide roots?

The Feminine knows the value of fluidity, of responding to life flexibly.

She is not stuck in fixed opinions and beliefs, but knows that everything life brings is worth interacting with, worth considering. She feels deeply, responds, and flows with the winds of life.

Trees root in one place for their whole lives. Because of this, they know the value of patience, of endurance, of trusting time. Storms come and go, predators cause damage and may even cut them down. But they persevere, even in death, knowing that right here is where they belong.

How do you find belonging in these times of disrupted families, ever-growing screen-time, and lack of Eairth connection?

The Feminine knows how to make home, to create the shelter of belonging wherever we are—

in the city or country, in a house or tent, with yourself or with others. This is the part of us that knows how to belong to ourself, to others, and to Eairth. And in that belonging is the safety and shelter of home.

Like trees, rooting,
we freely rise.

Nourish your roots, trust your instinctual intelligence, be of service, be flexible, and create a shelter of belonging for all Eairth, for all life.

Together, with the rooted and rising Feminine in each of us, we express our freedom, and heal our relationship with ourselves, with each other, and with Eairth.

The trees do everything totally.
They don’t hold back.
They fruit completely.
They stretch to the sun completely.
They give their all. They drop their leaves completely.
They disappear into the ground
and root themselves down completely.
They’re total. They’re total permission.
If you want to learn how to live, learn from trees.
~ Clare Dubois, Founder of TreeSisters

What do you need to learn
from the rising Feminine
nature of trees in
this season of your life?

* Eairth = earth and air together, our planet home, first heard from Thomas Berry (I think!)

** Gaia = the self-regulating living system of our planet

MovingWays

I recently heard the word “lifeways,” in reference to indigenous ways of living in harmony with the natural world.

Something in it really struck me and reignited my desire to live in lifeways, in ways that are nourishing for me and the natural world.

Now I’m applying it to this huge process Dave and I are in—

MOVING!

We have been prepping our house for sale and sifting, sorting, packing, and moving our belongings to Port Townsend, Washington State… We just got back from a trip and our house is in the process of being sold. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that this part is quick and easy!

MovingWays

As we’ve been in this process, I am aware that there are ways of moving, just like there are ways of living. Some of the ways are more in harmony with the natural environment and some not. Since we humans are part of this natural environment, too, it’s also about how we can stay in harmony with ourselves in the midst of this uprooting, chaotic process.

Below are some MovingWays that have really help me—because even in the midst of 18-hour work days and LONG driving days, we can always practice!

En-JOY

I LOVE this word! Look at the etymology—it’s all about being IN joy. We have a choice, every day, every evening, every morning, every moment to be IN joy. Why not enjoy the process? It’s certainly happening, full force…

Here are a few ways I’ve been doing this as I pack:

As I sift, sort, pack, and let go, I remember the joy I had from items, and feel it in the moment as much as possible, regardless of what I decide to do with it…

Marie Kondo’s “Does it spark joy?” helps with the letting-go phase as you sort and pack. If it sparks, keep it; if not, let it go. Unfortunately, that’s not enough for me as too many things spark joy! So, I practice feeling the spark and letting things go anyway…

Another one that has been really powerful for us is letting things go and imagining how that item will bring others joy (lots on Craiglist for free and Goodwill).

In fact, that’s what’s so awesome about putting things on Free Craigslist—you actually get to meet the people that you are gifting the item to, and they are so HAPPY to receive it. We gave away an old video camera and the young man in his late twenties that came to get it told us how thrilled he was—he remembered his parents videoing him and his siblings as they were growing up. And he just got engaged and wanted this to film his children. SWEET!

Time—Chronos AND Kairos

Plan enough Chronos (linear) time! Everything takes longer than you think!

We had a 5-year plan to make this move, but we didn’t really start working on the house until the dining room wallpaper removal and painting 2 years ago. Then at 1 year, everything got more real and we started in earnest, beginning to go through things, too. But we still didn’t plan enough for all the repair work we would need to hire out, and that made things really stressful at the last minute!

Planning enough time also means you can work on recycling, gifting, and selling your belongings instead of throwing them away! This way we don’t create more waste that our natural world has to try to manage. With enough time, you can go through files and recycle or reuse the old paper, giving away the binders, reclaiming the paper clips, etc. With enough time, you can find a home for all that extra yarn or cloth in the attic… We weren’t perfect at this, but we did a LOT, and it felt so good to not just contribute more garbage to our struggling earth.

If you have the Chronos time, try Marie Kondo’s way of sorting before you pack—spread everything from a like-category out in one place so you can see it all while you are making decisions about what to keep (for example, all your shoes, all your summer clothes, all your kitchen jars 😊).

If you simply don’t have enough Chronos time, you can draw on Kairos time in these two ways:

  • Let Kairos time draw you into a project when the moment feels right and trust that process.
  • Use the linear allotment of time available and within that structure, give yourself Kairos time to flow within that structure, to commune/be with each project, each item, each belonging that has afforded you this way of living.

Both kinds of time are necessary for not feeling overly rushed—play with them to weave a sense of wholeness in the process.

Be in Abundance

Neither Dave or I feel abundant about money most of the time. We choose to work part-time so that we can spend more time doing things we love to do, but this also means that most of the time, we have to be careful with how we spend.

In this moving process, we have both been giving away things that cost a lot. We originally thought we would sell them, but when it came time, we just didn’t have time, so we gave them away.

We totally didn’t expect it, but we’ve noticed that by giving away something that would otherwise be really expensive to buy to someone who couldn’t have afforded it, we not only receive the gift of their joy, but we feel more abundant!

Dave recently donated a very expensive racing bike, and I gave away a harmonium. The act of giving these away helped us realize that we actually have enough—enough to be able to give! We have abundance. This helps us be in our abundance—and that feels yummy!

Sing/Sound/Give Voice

You don’t have to be a singer to make sound—and we’ve been making a lot of it lately! Sometimes, we sit down at the dining room table and before we say our metta-prayer grace, we let whatever sounds need to come through out. Sometimes it’s low growls; at other times, squeaky-sounding energy, or even a long, airy sigh.

It’s a way to voice what is happening inside. We’ve been so busy, working, repairing, tracking, taking care of so many things that some feelings haven’t had a chance to be totally felt. Giving voice to this helps them to move up and out and thus feels complete and released. (This is Full Voice work.)

It’s also fun to sound together! It creates connection (more on that next!).

We’re also singing together more—little made-up ditties, or little songs. Choosing words that express the reality we are living and give us hope—like There is work to be done, which also acknowledges that we are in it together or The only way through is through, which needs no explanation(!)—or words that help us remember ourselves, like Endless boundless gratitude, which gives thanks for the food we are about to eat.

Stay Connected

We are doing this moving thing together. It’s really easy, when stressed, for me (as a Self-Preservation One) to sit back into myself and get all independent and self-sufficient. I can clamp down my emotions and just get into doing mode, not wanting interruptions of any kind, even a touch… Dave has his own version of this, too.

What we’ve found, though, is that we need to go against these personality patterns. We need to consciously reach out and stay connected–via touch and words. We need to remind each other, over and over again, that we are in this together, that we are supported, that we don’t have to do it alone.

No matter how adult we think we are, there is this little inner child part that really needs this support and thrives with it. If we ignore this part of ourselves, we get more stressed, more withdrawn, more moody and anxious… it’s no fun! But reaching out to each other calms this all down and makes the process possible.

I had someone ask me recently if we were sitting together on the flight home after taking a weeklong UHaul moving trip to our new home. I said, of course! She was surprised to hear we feel closer than ever to each other because of this practice of intentionally staying connected.

Sleep, Eat & Move as Well as You Can!

We prioritize getting as much sleep as we can given each day’s schedule. Dave was actually sleeping on a friend’s couch as I wrote this since we were locked out of our home for an openhouse and showings all afternoon.

Eating well looks different depending on the day. We brought a cooler in the moving truck so we could bring easy noshing food for the trip. At a supermarket in North Dakota, we got a broccoli salad that was too sweet, but it was green and fresh! And I got a quart of uncooked pickles. For the trip, I brought wakame and a container I could hydrate it in so that we could add greens to our hotel egg breakfasts, as well as my own GF homemade bread.

Sometimes eating well means going out to eat and getting a meal made for us so that we can relax and receive. In that case, it always includes eggs if it’s breakfast and a big salad for any other meal..

And we always bring our bamboo utensils and napkins so we don’t have to use extra paper, plastic, or Styrofoam, even at the hotel breakfasts. Next up is to get some lightweight natural-material, reusable plates (just ordered!).

Move your body in many different ways! Packing, carrying, repairing… it’s hard on your body! Break up the type of work you are doing–stand up, sit down, go for a walk and swing your arms and legs, lie down and relax, stretch… I bring tennis balls in a sock in the truck and use them to work out sore muscles, which really helps… Listen to your bodysoul and pay attention to what s/he needs, if not out of love and care, at least so that you can keep going without being injured!

Ask For & Receive Support!!

When I asked friends who moved 2 years ago what we needed to know, this was the biggie!

We, honestly, could not have gotten this far without the help of our friends! A group helped us load and a group unloaded us at the other end. Friends came to help stage, to check on the house, mow the lawn, and tend the gardens after we left.

We are calling out DEEP thanks to Phil and Steve H., who loaded the truck with great care, Larissa, Gregg, John, and Steve C., who helped load it, Elizabeth who spent hours breaking up boxes for recycling, Gregg who came back to mow for us, Ellen who checked in on and made the gardens look as good as they could, Cheryl who helped with the staging before and after the cleaners inadvertently rearranged things, and let us crash at her home when we couldn’t be in ours… And the unloading crew of new and old friends—Becky and John, Margie, Bill, and my parents!

Not only did receiving this support relieve the stress of trying to figure out how to do it ourselves, we felt so held, part of community, not alone, so supported. And SO GRATEFUL!

We also asked contractors to do more than they originally contracted for, and most were willing, including Ian, who even volunteered to put a fresh coat of paint on the deck of the porch and the basement stairs and came back in to put the corner-round on when the painters neglected it.

Receiving this support was AMAZINGLY nourishing and has helped us to continue on with what must be done…

Keep Your Practice Going

Whatever it is that you do to return to your center, your sense of being in Love, of okayness with the world, of contact with your deepest sense of Self, do that!!

You may need to spend less Chronos time on it to make space for the reality of all that needs to be done, but you absolutely MUST continue something to fill your well.

At first, my morning practice time got shorter. Then when the 18-hour days hit and I let go of that time, I still read something short and inspirational to help my mind, kept presence practices woven into my day going, and practiced everything mentioned above. Staying connected to that deeper wellspring is critical for staying sane and well!

I’m sure there are other MovingWays, ways of living in harmony while you are moving, but these are the ones that are top-of-mind as we continue living this process. (Final move planned for early July.)

I’d love to hear how you
have made it through
so that your moving process
was life-giving and part
of your mindful life journey!

nurturing & greeting rituals

Image by SofieZborilova on Pixabay

Imagine coming into the presence of a baby. (Or, if it’s easier, a baby animal.)

Eyes round and open, she is awake and alert, expressions flitting across her face.

Would you ignore this luminous presence?

Or would you take in her precious being with an attuned, loving, perhaps even grateful greeting? Perhaps some sweet words, a higher-pitched, maybe even cooing, voice, a soothing tone…

In so doing, you acknowledge that her presence affects you. That she is here and you are here. That you are connected with her. In a way that feels nourishing and contactful to both of you.

What if this were the way we lived our lives?

In contact with each other, with the earth, with the other-than-human beings, and with the rhythm of our lives, all the time?

What would change?

I know I would feel more open, more grateful, more awake, more alive… more present.

From what I understand, our indigenous ancestors lived in this way—in deep contact with themselves, each other, and the earth—and from this deep experience of kinship, in deep gratitude.

Our Native American brothers and sisters, indigenous to North America, continue to carry this relationship of kinship, of respect and gratitude into our modern times. They remind us of what is possible.

As you know, I’m all about practicing presence!

It’s my tagline, afterall: “practice presence for life.” And I’ve written a whole e-book about small, doable rituals you can incorporate into your daily life to feel more present.

But I think there is something else I’m exploring here.

It is what all my presence practice rituals are pointing toward. Like the Buddhist story of the finger pointing to the moon, we don’t want to get fixated on the finger, but to focus our gaze on the moon.

All my presence rituals are meant to support a dropping into this deeper contactful presence.

So, what is presence, anyway?

Right now, I am experiencing it as a full-bodied, full-souled contact with myself and “the other.”

And when I feel it, I feel grateful. Presence and gratitude go hand in hand.

Since many of us don’t often get the chance to interact with a baby—human or animal—how about practicing with an alive being you connect with daily?

    • A partner or child
    • A pet or plant
    • Some other being outside—the snow (a good choice this winter in MN!), the sun, the moon, a tree, or a mountain?

Find a specific living being—human or otherwise—and let that being teach you how to be fully present. (You might also find some of my other presence practices/rituals help prepare you for this. Poetry is one of my favorites, so here’s one:)

Praying by Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Here are a few suggestions* for getting started:

    • Open all your senses to this being—sight, sound, taste, scent, touch. And keep returning to your senses when your mind sidetracks you back into thoughts. Take this being in as fully as you can.
    • Receive how their presence affects your whole bodysoul—body, heart, mind, soul. You might experience it as pleasant or unpleasant. Continue to drop thought and come back to body and heart, in particular.
    • Make some sound—words or otherwise—to express your experience. It might be joyful or sweet, or you might feel sad or angry or confused. Express whatever it is with sound.
    • Notice how you feel nurtured having greeted this being.
    • Take some time to receive any greeting in return.
    • Then thank the being for this contact that brings you here, in touch with yourself and the living web of relationship all around you. Use words or sounds or movement or gestures and keep coming back to your body and heart.

Let’s close with a nurturing and greeting ritual:

Place your hands in prayer position in front of your heart with me.

As we bow our heads to our hearts….

We are bowing to ourselves for practicing.

We are bowing to each other for practicing together.

We are bowing to the earth as the ground of our practice.

Namaste.

Notes:
* After writing this, I realized how influenced I was by the recent work I have been practicing. You can find a similar practice in Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin.

I also want to credit the phrase “nurturing and greeting rituals” as originally from Erik Erickson as “daily rituals of nurturance and greeting,” which I found in Dolores LaChapelle’s book Sacred Land, Sacred Sex, Rapture of the Deep. She uses it not only in the realm of humans, but to include all of the natural world. (p. 170+)

living fully!

“For what makes you come alive can keep you alive,
whether you are paid well for it or not.”
~ The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo, p. 399

I’m just back from my last training session to become a Full Voice Coach!

What a rich and beautiful time, being with others so fully committed to bringing more wholeness, aliveness, and freedom into the world!!

On the journey of learning to live my life more fully, I’ve found I needed to repeatedly inquire into what was keeping me from living fully.

Why don’t I give myself more time to play, to rest, to get outside, to hang out with friends, to dance, to sing? Even though I love these things?

Your list may be different from mine, but I bet you have things that make your life feel more rich and full of meaning that you don’t prioritize either. What are yours?

Barbara McAfee, our fearless leader, models what living fully can look like. She fills her life with things that make her come alive, and, in brilliantly following her passions, has created a life in which she can earn her living doing them!

At the end of our final training session on Wednesday morning, we were talking about our time together—about what really worked and what we might have missed in our process of becoming Full Voice Coaches. We got to talking about more and more goodness we could add in on top of what was already SO well sequenced. Knowing they didn’t want to make the training longer, I mentioned that I’d never participated in a training where we had the whole afternoon off every day!

I was really struck by Barbara’s response.

She passionately talked about how necessary it was to have a break—to integrate, to walk outside, to rest, to connect with our fellow trainees and our aliveness, to live a FULL life, even when training…

I am freshly re-committing myself to this.

How can I choose to live my life fully RIGHT NOW?

Even though I have to cram a lot of hours in this week to make up for being at the training… Even though there is ALWAYS more to do…

How about you?

Even in the midst of the busy holiday season. How can you live your life more fully?

Here’s one fun way—it’s 4.5 minutes and worth every single one (and you get extra credit if you can identify the 5 Elements of the Full Voice Approach!).

Keep your eyes open—I’m going to be offering Full Voice Coaching, individual sessions and groups in the New Year!

If you want to a practical and experiential way to explore how you can live more fully, you might want to consider a session. We start with making sound as a way in, and the aliveness, freedom, and wholeness you find there tends to trickle into your whole life! (And you don’t have to be a singer, but singers will benefit, too!)

p.s. You might be wondering what’s with the dwarves… They live in a boulevard garden in a nearby neighborhood, and I think they look like they are living their lives fully! They are talking, smoking, healing, playing instruments, walking, hanging out, foraging, resting, welcoming, boating. 🙂

Tea & Be

Tea after water when I first awake.

Tea as a meditation.

Tea on a walk through the neighborhood.

Tea while I work.

Tea in the afternoon with a creativity break.

Tea shared with friends.

Tea in the evening before bed.

I wrote this post on the airplane on my way to visit my sister’s family in Alaska, accompanied by… tea! I always bring an empty thermos or travel mug and my own tea and get hot water once I’m through security.

Why this love affair with tea?

Considering the Camellia Sinensis plant–black tea, green, white, oolong, and more–tea offers a well-balanced mix of relaxed alertness.

The caffeine is about 1/3 less than in coffee, and it contains an amino acid, L-Theanine, that promotes relaxation. It’s the only nourishing hot drink I know of that can help your nervous system wake up and become more alert while relaxing you at the same time!

Tea’s warm liquid soothes your throat and nervous system and can be flavored to suit your taste. It invites you to slow down, to savor, to appreciate–even in the midst of a busy or stressful day.

Tea’s many forms accompany me through my life–black in the morning, green or white in the afternoon, and herbal tisane in the evening.

What other hot drink can shape-shift to match the needs of your day and balance your nervous system quite so well?

Watch my calendar for
opportunities to practice with tea!

what do you want to re-member?

What have you inherited?

With All Hallow’s Eve, the Day of the Dead, and All Soul’s Day almost here, it’s a good time to consider our ancestors.

We have inherited so much that we often forget how indebted we are to those who came before us…

Your genes hold the physical coding of your mother and father’s lineage passed down to you.

  • Perhaps you have your grandfather’s nose or your great-grandmother’s smile?
  • Or you inherited a sensitive or healthy immune system…
  • I got my mom’s mom’s jaw and my sister got hers from my dad’s mom.

Household items–furniture, dishware and more–are passed down.

  • Perhaps your grandmother kept love letters from her fiance–your grandfather-to-be–in that slender bedside table drawer.
  • Or canned peaches in those beautiful blue canning jars.
  • I’m grateful to be drinking tea from some of my nana’s teacups.

Family attitudes are also woven into who we are today–whether we’ve taken them on or fashioned our identity as a rebellion against them.

  • Perhaps there was a strong emphasis on honesty–maybe even in a hurtful way–so you can’t forgive yourself for not telling the complete truth even at an unhelpful time.
  • Or maybe going to church was important and now you rebel against it or feel guilty when you don’t attend.
  • Or maybe, like in my family, hard work was valued and you have a difficult time not overworking…

Ways of managing the often challenging path of being alive are also passed down–some more, and some less skillful…

  • Perhaps you learned from your ancestors to take the edge off with a daily drink or two…
  • Or you learned that a quiet walk in the woods was oddly comforting.
  • Or that eating sweet treats could soothe your need for connection/love.
  • Or, from my parents, that sitting quietly together in the morning by the fire restored a sense of connection.

All of our ancestors strove to survive and thrive.

Amazingly, they did, and they passed their genes, their attitudes, their coping behaviors, and their stuff down to us.

We are here.

We are the result of their surviving, of their whole lives–their attempts to love, to live, to create a good life.

And we have choice as to how we interact with our inheritance.

What and how do we want to live now?

What do we want to re-member?

Because we are literally re-membering–practicing in our bodies what they practiced–when we continue to do what they did.

  • Do you want to re-member hurting someone with your words?
  • Do you want to re-member an unrealistic ideal of what it is to be a good hardworking person?
  • Do you want to re-member habits that are not skillful?
  • Or would you rather re-member the goodness of your ancestors when you see their likeness in the mirror?
  • Or the love of your grandparents?
  • Or the moments of connection?

Whatever we choose, we can honor our ancestors for their perfectly imperfect lives which created the reality of our being alive this Halloween, Day of the Dead, and All Soul’s.

We can take the time to honor their gift of our life.

Dave and I are keeping it simple–we will be getting some photos out, lighting a candle, and spending some time remembering our ancestors together.