So today was field trip day and I could actually do this. I went to the local nurseryJ. The goal was to pay attention to your sensory reaction as you walked up and down the aisles. Intuitively, what do you know about flowers? What does your spirit say about plants that must be planted annually or those that come back every year? How do you respond to the tiny seedlings compared to the larger plants? What does your reaction to seedlings tell you about how you trust?
I might have to email Janelle and tell her that her book is California biased. On a cold January day, I was literally one of only 2 customers in the nursery. The other was my partner who went with me. Not many people go to the nursery on a cold winter day and there was very little to interact with. Never the less it was a powerful experience.
Read moreWeek 5, Day 6 – Finding Balance
Lol, so I am excited because tomorrow is one of those days where we are supposed to go somewhere outside and reflect and grow and I can actually do that. Excited about my first outside the house thing of the yearJ. Whoo hoo!
Ok so the thing that is most speaking to me is this schedule to keep balance in my life. I am pretty disciplined; I always say I have to be because I have so many things on my plate. So maintaining that balance between work and play and family and me is important. my work schedule is fairly routine by now and even my social life has gotten pretty routine – hmm, not such a good thing as I think about it, but with liftline it almost has to be as it is amazingly hard to get something without your three days notice L. Ah, but grateful to have the service back. Excited about going to the garden factory in the middle of winter tomorrow. So maybe that is something I can do, select one day a week when I go somewhere, I have never been before in this city and explore.
Read moreWeek 4, Day 5 – Standing Up For What We Believe
Ok, so where do I start. Norma Rae, Freedom Writers, oh so many. But the one that always inspires me is rabbit proof fence. I love the character of Molly Craig. Yeah most of the stories are about real people, but this was a girl who was 14 at the time and traveled with her two cousins 1500 miles to get home after being taken away from her family. The first time I watched the film I remember cheering for her the entire time. There were moments I so understood her indignation. I cannot imagine being fourteen and being taken away from your mother and the only home you have ever known. I guess in that situation I am lucky in that I do not consciously remember my birth or foster parents. I do not consciously remember being moved to the next family. I am sure at some level, those feelings and memories are imprinted, but unlike Molly, I was not old enough to remember. I can’t imagine the indignation of having to have someone I do not know wash me or tell me what to eat or how to pray or how to do anything in my life. I am so grateful for that. I could understand the renaming of Mr. Neville as Mr. Devil as he was the one who destroyed families and lives in what he believed were their best interest as he sought to breed the aborigine out of people. I found myself getting angry at how those in power were making choices for others about when they could go home, when they could buy shoes, when they could see family members. Ok, so Molly didn’t know a lot of these things, but you could still understand how witnessing the abuse and punishment of others who had been taken to Moore River was enough to make her say I am not going to tolerate this. I am not going to conform to their teachings. Where so many of the others who had been taken here conformed, Molly stood up and said no and in her own way, using her own knowledge, her intuition, her spirit, everything she had learned from her mother and the other women in her clan about tracking, hunting and survival she outsmarted everyone for months and found her way home.
Read moreWeek 4, Day 4 – Developing Clarity
Maybe it was because I saw the topic for today shortly before I went to bed last night, but I woke up at almost 4 am singing I can see clearly, now the rain is gone in my sleep. So here I am at 4 am writing about clarity. Lol. You have a sense of humor. It is funny how much I hate breathing for granted sometimes. Yet when I focus on my breathing, everything changes. Like the other day when I wanted to share something with Zoë and felt this wave of fear tightening my throat and I heard you remind me to breathe and then I could feel them relax and I was able to speak what was in my heart with peace. Or how when I want to greet a situation with love and the fear side of my personality wants to jump in, I can breathe set fear down and respond in love. Sometimes I just need to remember to breath.
Read moreWeek 4, Day 3 – Releasing Overwhelm
The minute I saw this picture, I found myself at peace. I have always felt drawn to pictures of mothers and children. It is not so much that it reminds me of anything in my own life, at least not that I can remember. Maybe that is it. Maybe it is that it reminds me of what I have read about my foster parents and how they used to play with me. It reminds me of being connected to something bigger then me. It reminds me of my relationship with the creator. We are connected. I am part of something bigger then myself, and in some respects, I have my own unique identity, but there is something that connects us. I have never known my birth or foster parents, but there is a connection between us that nothing can separate.
Read moreWeek 4, Day 2 – Body Sensations and Intuitions
Premonitions – lol – that is too funny. Hmm. Which ones do I write about? The time I dreamed my brother met his current wife, or when I knew she was pregnant. Or do I write about the time when I heard my former partner writing in her journal while she was a few hundred miles away. Or do I write about how I knew when my best friend’s husband and mother passed away. Or I could write about all the times, when I heard something inside me yelling at me “GET OUT” and I stupidly stayed. Or I could write about the times when I wanted to leave my current relationship, but I kept hearing this voice telling me to sit down and know this was who I was supposed to be with. or the times when I would be looking at the list of who is online and something would tell me I should drop them a quick IM and let them know something and they would be like thanks, I so needed to hear that right now. or the times that I realized that every time I went to this place I could leave the home and be well and be sick by the time I got there I was sick and then by the time I was home again, I was well again. Going there was literally making me sick.
Becoming physically ill has only happened to me twice.
Read moreWeek 4, Day 1 – Receiving Knowledge Through Our Emotions
Yes, I so get this one. I can definitely think of at least one time in which I felt disappointment. And to be honest, it generally had nothing to do with the other person or persons involved. It was always me. I was the one who was disappointed because I had expected someone to do something, they did not, and then I felt dissed. It was like you know what I expected you to do this because of x, y or z and you did not and then I felt disappointed because I was expecting you to do something. When I started looking at the expectations, I had placed on people and releasing them, I found myself experiencing less disappointment in my life. When I do experience it now, I find it is connected to an expectation that I did not realize I still had. So for me, the best response is to release the expectation and then I am no longer disappointed.
Frustration on the other hand – yeah, I know that feeling intimately well
Read moreWeek 3, Day 7 – Rewarding yourself, Flowing with the water
I have to laugh on these day 7 days as we are supposed to take ourselves to these outdoor places. However, as it is winter and I have no para-transit services for a few more weeks, I kind of have to improvise and be creative.
For today, we were supposed to take ourselves to a body of water and ask the water to pour its wisdom over us. Use streaming to learn from water’s qualities what you need to live with. Cluster about something living in water. Dialogue with the teacher of the water.
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Ah well I can kill two birds with one stone and take a shower. I love showers. Turn the lights on, Zoë will yell down the hallway. I love taking showers in the dark at times – ok, so at this point in the day, it is not exactly like dark, but the water sounds differently when I am showering with the lights off then when they are on. Not sure why that is, it just sounds different. Maybe with the lights on I am thinking more about why I am there
Read moreWeek 3, Day 6 – Surrender
I have found myself surrendering a lot this past year. I surrendered my pastorate slightly over a year ago. I knew I should have surrendered it a while before, but I was not initially willing to surrender it. I had to release some fears before I was ready to surrender it to the Creator and trust that all was going to be ok. Reflecting on this, I began thinking about my birth parents and how they had to surrender me to the adoption agency and my foster parents who had to surrender me to my birth parents. Surrendering is not always easy. I still have a great deal of love for the people who were and still are a part of that church, yet I knew it was time for me to surrender it to the Creator. I am choosing to believe that my birth parents loved me, yet they surrendered me to the Creator knowing I was going to be ok.
During the last week of this journey, I have come to realize there are two things I need to surrender.
Read moreWeek 3, Day 5 – Accepting and Reaching for Support
I guess there are all kinds of ways of dialoguing with people. for me, one way is through poetry. I have so many memories of times when I have felt supported and of times when I have supported others. The first person that came to my mind was Mikey. I have no idea where you are right now, but I have never forgotten you. It was 1970 something and my high school sweetheart gave me this ring as an expression of her love and commitment to me. She tragically died in 1975, at the age of 19. More than a decade later, I had very few things in my life that reminded me of our relationship, but I had this ring. It wasn’t anything fancy. It was this cheap little ring with an open heart, but I wore it all the time. That was until this one particular day in 1980 something. I can’t remember the exact year or dates, but what I do remember is this young five-year-old boy. His name was Mikey. What I remember about Mikey was his first day at the summer day camp. It was his first time to be separated from his mom. He was terrified and scared and nothing seemed to keep him from crying
Read moreWeek 3, Day 4 – Letting Go of Negativity
I am not so good at creating little ditties, I generally say gurl count your blessings. But I do have this song that carol king sang that I just love. It reminds me to press on because as long as I have my relationship with the Creator then everything is going to be ok. It is called Pocket Money by Carol King. I had to look up the lyrics. It’s funny; I used to sing this song in the 1970’s when she first recorded it. It has been one of those songs that I have sung in my head and to myself for almost 30 years now. Not sure what it is about the song that speaks to me. Maybe it is the reminder that it is all about perspective. no matter how bad I think things are for me, I know somebody else is going through some thing just as challenging, if not more so then me.
Read moreWeek 3, Day 3 – Interrupting the Need to Control Others
I just want to give thanks for a new perspective on yesterday. As I was praying about my not having liftline services for a few weeks, I found myself having some new revelations. The first was that this was just going to be about 3 weeks of not being able to go places. However, it was just a few years ago, that I had to spend five months in bed and was in far more pain and on so many more pain medications then I am now. If I could make it through five months, I can surely make it through three weeks. It is all about perspective. Then I began to think about how I had begun to take this liftline service for granted. Is it perfect, NO! There are some real systemic issues with the service. However, I am grateful to even have the service. I guess it took the Creator saying, hmm, see this can be gone like that to make me realize how grateful I am to even have the service. So thank you! It made me realize how often I take things for granted and do not give thanks for them as much as I should. It is like breathing, how often we forget to give thanks for the simple things, like breathing, moving a limb, going to the bathroom independently, taking a shower by ourselves, being able to hold a bottle by ourselves, drink, or eat by ourselves. All of a sudden, I found myself giving thanks for something that yesterday had made me feel frustrated. As I came to think about where the fear was coming from, it was related to my job and not being able to get to school. And then I found myself going gurl, do you not have faith in the Creator. This too will pass and it will all be ok. You have already done every thing you had to do and now it is in the hands of the Creator. So chill and give thanks for even this time. What a difference prayer and meditation can make.
Probably the feeling I have to work on the most is
Read moreWeek 3, Day 2 – Stopping the Internal Judge
I have been really sitting with these questions for a while, not sure where I wanted to start. But then life kind of answered that for me. I was going to waif for my friends to tell me who I am, but I had a challenging situation today. Well let me say I had a situation today that I allowed to become challenging. I got a letter from the local paratransit agency today informing me that my doctor had not answered one of the questions on the recertification forms, so tomorrow 12/31/2010 will be my last day of services until all the information is received and re-evaluated, which can take up to 3 weeks. Let me just say that my initial feeling was not happy happy joy joy. I couldn’t even get a paratransit ride to take me to the doctor’s office, who by the way is out for the holidays until Monday if I wanted to today. So grateful for my wife, who lovingly offered to take the forms up there and then advocated on my behalf when they started to point out all the information I had failed to give them. So what did I learn about myself today besides I have great taste in partnersJ. I do love my wife. I learned that I could express my anger in a loving and compassionate manner. I am not sure that I really learned anything new, but realized at a more conscious level how much I value my independence. There is a real difference for me between not leaving the house or using my services, and not being able to leave the house because I do not have services. I came to realize how much I enjoy going out and being in the world and knowing my home is a place I come back to and experience love. I learned that I could think clearly in the midst of crisis. I also learned that I could speak and act more out of love for myself and what I needed, then out of fear and frustration around the situation. I could tell that they wanted to come out and take control, but the love part of my personality kept them under control.
Read moreWeek 3, Day 1 – Releasing others control over us
I had never thought about myself as being a controlling person, until last night. I had always been more mindful of how I had been controlled and whose should I had agreed to follow. However, it while listening to an associate who was sharing with me how her life is just one struggle after another. I could appreciate where she was at because there was not a positive anywhere in her conversation. Everything was negative. Nobody liked her, nothing was going right. It was one negative after another and she could not understand why her life was so miserable or why she could not get a break in life. At one point as she was speaking, there was this voice in the back of my head that was singing some song from my childhood that goes something like nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.
What I should have done was just listen, but
Read moreWeek 2, Day 7 – Rewarding Yourself, Spreading Roots
Today is another one of those days when we were supposed to reward ourselves by going outside. The goal was to find a tree near you and ask your spirit why you like this tree. What can it promise you? Then use streaming to explore how accepting you can be of this place, this day.
Ok, so here it is 27 degrees outside and the yard is still covered with snow, so I am going to write about the two trees I can see by looking out my window. One is a spruce and the other is a weeping willow. I have always had this affinity for weeping willows.
Read moreWeek 2, Day 6 – Change
Oh yes, I remember that day. It was October 15, 2006. I had just come back from Los Angeles, California. I was nervous walking into the church that day for a number of reasons. It was the second time we had worshipped in this new space and the bishop was coming for the first of three weekends to observe me. So I drove up to the church, grabbed my rolling bag, which still held all my robes and stoles and walked into the church. As I opened the door of my office, this pain shot down my right leg and it was followed by numbness and this state of shock. I remember that day as if it was yesterday. It was the day that my life changed with an opening of the door. It was just a door.
Read moreWeek 2, Day 5 – Life as It Is
I think what is strong and good in my life is what sees me through most things. I think one of my strengths is my patience with me and others. I know that I and others am works in progress. I do not expect myself or others to be transformed over night. Nor do I expect others to be as committed to their evolution as I am. I tend to be positive. I allowed myself to get hurt pretty deeply and went through this time of intensive healing and transformation. Ever since I removed myself from the cave in which I had been living, thank you Aristotle, I have become increasingly used to living in the light.
It is an amazing thing that happens when you take the shackles off your soul and begin loving yourself and cleansing yourself of all the lies that you had internalized.
Read moreWeek 2, Day 4 – Differences Between Us
Lol – ok, so this is why my BFF and I are BFF’s – actually she is more of my sister and spiritual partner then anything else. I still remember the day, and if she reads this she will know this is about us, but I remember the day we were sitting on this bench in the halls of the seminary and she told me I got on her nerves. Nine years later, I still get on her nerves, but in a good way. And the truth is sometimes she still gets on mine, but in a good wayJ. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. What got on her nerves -- hmm, let’s see it was part my being a feminist, my talking about women’s studies, my being out about being a lesbian and my being out about being biracial. Did I always have to be so out there and open about everything? Yeah, girl, yet here we are nine years later and who would have ever thought we would be as tight as we are today. We are so freakin different. Yet at the same time, we are so alike.
Read moreWeek 2, Day 3 – Ourselves As We Are
I have to say I have been struggling with this word acceptance. I think in part it is because it brings me back to a time in my life when in the midst of trying to be of service, I found myself also being hurt. More honestly, allowing others to hurt me. it brought me back to a time when I allowed others to hurt me and continue to hurt me until I was able to see that I was the one who was allowing them to hurt me and found the power to leave. It brings me back to this place of feeling like a round peg in a square hole. It reminds me of all the times people told me I was too much of something or not enough of something. It reminds me that God does not say as I have accepted you, accept one another, but as I have loved you love one another. It makes me feel as if there is something I need to accept. And yet at the same time there are things I need to accept in my life. no, it is more then accepting. It is knowing.
Read moreWeek 2, Day 2 – Anger
so I went to bed last night thinking about anger, knowing that this was the word for today – the emotion for today – the flavor of the day – my friends would and have told me that I do not do anger well. there are so many times that I have felt like I have exploded and yelled at someone and then when I go to apologize for how I voiced my anger, they look at me like what are you talking about? When did you yell at us? Really – did you think you were angry. I guess it is how I voice my anger that has made all the difference. But the thing about anger that frustrates me is that at times, not so much anymore, but there are times I feel like I should apologize for getting angry and that makes me angry.
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