Today we are all spread out, my older daughter is in France with her dad, and my younger daughter is with me chez mes parents, en Utah. It has been a welcome change of pace, to leave home, and feel the contrast in my being--how relaxed I can remain, how much I can let go in the moment, and how easy it all can be--even if I did get a little overwhelmed by the preparations--mostly, I see now, that much of the stress was anxiety resulting from thoughts about letting my daughter go so far away without me. But once we were off--I'd swear the plane ride was a dream, it passed so quickly and easily. It has been nice to throw my arms around my dad and give him a big kiss on the cheek, and to spend time with my mother in person, and repeat over and over to her, all the goodness, that she has already heard mille fois on the phone, but is always happy to hear again and again. So far, lots of down time, a beautiful hike, healthy food, beautiful space. Feeling thankful.                        

So, it is official. I am plugged into this world-- no longer floating away. I have proof. My friend Julia is writing about her running legs of a 200 mile relay race, and I am feeling that it is time that I write about my own Mount Everest ascent. Not literally, although, I'm not ruling that out--yes, I am. Anyway, this has to do with what has been facing me down in my home-space, specifically, in my yard. At the beginning of the summer I looked outside my window after almost three years of looking out the same window, being overwhelmed and dismayed by the state of affairs, and knew it was time. Something in me felt ready to show up and listen to my heart for the steps to take, to follow a path resulting from intention set to create beauty and flow in my space. I've been softened through this process and led in a very feminine and flexible  way beyond my initial thoughts and ideas, to walk that fine line between following intuition and the logical mind, both together, which wou

                                                          Photo Credit All this time, I couldn't help but think that the voice I was looking for-- loving, compassionate, understanding, encouraging and deeply gentle, would be found outside of me. Imagine my surprise when this voice turned on inside of me. Perhaps it has always been there, but I've just now begun to allow it in. When I find myself taking refuge from a battle zone-- if I've lost my cool in the end, fought and maimed and joined in the warring, I hear it telling me, it is okay. All is well. You are Love,  as if it truly knows me better than I . I feel myself responding by dropping a thousand pounds of fear and heartache, as if I've just seen my divinity.   I let go of dragging the pain into the next moment--really let go. When I find myself feeling a little lost, unable to move for the moment, because my head is spinning with noise, I hear the most darling of questions, oh, dear one, what deep thoughts are

                                           Photo credit J. Scott Bovitz In the center of human life are those who hold it together. They make home what it is. They listen to "leaders", receive, decide whatever a country is, whatever a profession, a town--they establish that. --William Stafford I told my daughters that this has been the best summer of my entire life. My older daughter told me why that was. She said, "is it because you can let go more?" I said, "yes." The heaviness that weighed on me all my life is gone a lot of the time. This summer marks this lightness here to stay more consistantly. Sometimes I wait for the harsh voices to come back and haunt me with their wild refrains, that I am not enough, but often it remains silent. I hear the sounds of my life instead. Digging deep into soil, learning from the plants about optimism, resilience and balance. I hear the sound of my fingers tickling ivory keys, communing with souls gone by in a language

Feeling like returning here, to splash on the canvas. Feeling curious about the creative process--how it can be so full of energy and the next moment it can be gone. One of the things that blocks my writing so much is the fact that in the end, nothing really seems to matter, not the stories, not the big ideas. The music ends, the sun sets. So, the creations feel so fleeting. They have their moment, and the moment is over. The part of me that gets this, doesn't feel much like adding to the millions of creations, just for a small moment in the sun. I want to get to the heart of what is really important, not spend precious moments of this short life in an effort to entertain, even if just myself. I have high expectations for art. I want it to change people in an instant. I want it to open up the closed parts. I want it to free us-- to create oneness--to help us remember. Am I focused on fixing what is broken, or is there a higher vision at work here? Yet, the nature of the world is fl

His words are sharp, jagged, tearing even, by a dull-witted knife, repeatedly moved against the skin, but without much hope for a clean cut. So many years of wounds reopened, threaten deadly infection. I've always wondered if gangrene was green in color. You'd think the skin had grown tougher after all this time, but it might be that it is slightly more tender. I take this to be a good thing. No matter the wounds, I prefer tender. I prefer to challenge the idea that such hurtful words, if spoken, must be true. I prefer to see what deep pain and fear has birthed them. I prefer to rub my skin with the balm of those who recognize that every war has two losers. I yearn to find it in my being, that stopping place, where war is spit out, and laughter bubbles up. I absorb his words like pollution, hoping some deadly cancer is not being colonized in my body, but without enough consequence to keep me from taking a deep, cleansing breath even with heavy traffic. I let the sirens change k

Notes to self: Nothing on the surface matters. Don't let it fool you. It is all happening underneath, and down there, it is one big party. Down there, a dance is going on. Nobody sits this one out. Every move, integral. Here we are dancing together, and we don't even know it. Judgement drops away. No mistakes. Always in the right place. No harsh forces conspiring against us. Everything manifest for our ultimate release. Living for the first time. Nothing is exempt. The points of our lives make a circular sweep, and spiral down into deeper understanding. We make our rounds again, hitting the same points, but our perspective is different. Our experience changes, burns through, becomes clearer, and clearer, deepens into the body. Releasing the old, welcoming the new. Fear becomes a memory. New poses, standing tall and strong. Ease of movement. Ease of union. Cliches become understood down there. Clues that have been there all along, hidden in the fabric of the ordinary, but scarc