The Ultimate Yes

Sacred Life Sunday ~ The substance of string

 

I've worn the blue strands around my wrist for four months now.   When a good friend of mine tied the ends of the string together back in July at Leadership Camp, I had no idea they would still hold steadfast to my body today.  A sweet symbol of friendship has turned into an important daily spiritual reminder.  I was told that my blessing bracelet represents love and strength; two very good things to ruminate about and remember every day methinks.

This morning as I danced at our studio, I studied my hands in depth as the last two quiet songs played.  I looked at my rings and thought of my husband and my friend, Layne. I'll wear those bands of white gold and silver forever.  I was intrigued by my veins and the blood that coursed through them just underneath my skin.  I'll be of flesh and bone as long as I'm alive in this body.  And then there was the string...how long it will continue to make its home around my wrist remains to be seen.  I won't cut it away so until the strands break on their own, I'll remain adorned. 

These were just some of the thoughts I had as tears rolled gently down my face and merged with the studio's hardwood floor. Love...it is what each of us wants and needs. To love and be loved...there is no greater task, no greater reward.  Love of self.  Love of others.   It takes strength to love that which we don't understand.  Strength to continue to do what we love.  Strength to live big and fully even on those days when being smaller sounds safe and more reasonable. 

When the day comes when the blue strings break...love and strength will be the invisible bracelets I'll continue to wear. 

Sacred Life Sunday ~ It all works out

 

It was a stellar day on the Oregon coast;  85 degrees, a warm breeze and not a cloud in the sky. I began and ended my day in the same way...dancing in the sun.   I dance for a lot of different reasons and recently I've become aware of how much it restores my faith and hope in my dreams.  Next month, I will be opening up a dance and expressive arts studio with my business partner and while it thrills me to no end and it's a HUGE dream of mine being made real, it scares the beejezus out of me at times.  

It's not so much the money gremlins that keep me up at night (although it does seem at times they're having a big ol' party in my head).  It's the myriad of other fears I'm confronting on a daily basis that leave my pulse and heart racing.  I find it both dumbfounding and extremely irritating that regardless of how many times I've faced them in the past, they're STILL HERE!   When I dance, it's like grabbing a can of whup'ass and giving those fears a good spanking.  Whap...Whap...Take That!

Yesterday I invested in Apple once again and found some really fun new tunes, but the one I discovered a few weeks back is the one I keep returning to again and again. While I was in the throes of the woe-is-me's, this song pulled me up by my bootstraps and reminded me everything will work out just fine.  I'm still shaking my head I've fallen in love with a country song.   Check out the lyrics below while you're having a listen from the last link.  Perhaps it will resonate with you and one of your dreams like it did for me.  Sacred Sunday night wishes to you all!

What if that road that you're taking's a dead-end?

What if love leaves you all jaded and broken?

What if that limb breaks you're climbing out on?

What if it all goes wrong?

But what if it all goes right?

What if it all works out?

What if the stars line up and good love rains down?

What if you chased your dream and it changes your whole life?

Yeah, what if it all goes right?

What if that road is a beautiful slow drive?

What if that love ends up lasting a lifetime?

What if that limb holds you, oak tree strong?

What if this time nothing goes wrong? 

But what if it all goes right?

What if it all works out?

What if the stars line up and good love rains down?

What if you chased your dream and it changes your whole life?

Yeah, what if it all goes right?

What if you climb to the mountain top and touch the sky

Grab a cloud as it passes by

You might fall. You might fall,

but then again you might fly!

 

Sacred Life Sunday ~ The Holy Well

"For we are the stars.  For we sing. For we sing with our light. For we are birds made of fire. For we spread our wings over the sky. Our light is a voice. We cut a road for the soul for its journey through death." ~Passamaquoddy Indian poem

It's been an interesting week to say the least.  A friend was fine on Tuesday and died suddenly on Friday.  I was verbally assaulted by a woman's voice who never showed me her face.  After honking in irritation at a driver who most assuredly cut dangerously in front of me, I was the recipient of his middle finger.  A gal at work directed her anger towards me and in turn, I allowed it to anger me.  I found the perfect space to create a movement studio and now I just need to find the money to afford it.  Sigh...

I am more than my thoughts.  I am more than my fears.  I am more than my ego.  I am more than my expectations, assumptions and interpretations.  I am more than the events which occur around me and the ones I think happen to me. 

I am a holy well.  A deep chasm of desire, spirit and love.  I am never-ending light in a body whose time is limited.   I am a being who knows what's real and what's not.  I am a glorious mystery unraveling.  I am an expression of all that is pure and sacred appearing currently in physical form. I am a reflection of God. 

Sacred Life Sunday ~ A Wish of Grace

Profound grace paid me a visit on a bar stool last night.  And while he noticed my tears and questioned their cause, it was a moment of reckoning and self-forgiveness for me.  As I sat across from a man I once loved very much, I was struck by how far we have come from where we have been together.  There was so much hurt and anger between us a few years back that I wondered if we could ever be friends again.   The capacity we all have to hurt the ones we love is astonishing.  We also have the capacity to let love heal us. Being able to say "I'm sorry" and "Thank You" and "I love you" with just a look after all these years touched me deeply.  Thank you for looking back at me, Rick.

On this Sacred Sunday, I send a wish of grace to visit you, dear reader, when you least expect it and need it most.

Sacred Life Sunday ~ Too much and yet not enough...

My dear friend, Carla, echoes similar sentiments to mine when it comes to my writing of late.  I'm afraid I'll become complacent if I stay away too long from what I know is one of my heart's truest callings.  I have the desire to write, but I haven't made it a priority the past three weeks.  There is so much to say and yet I continue to use the excuse "there's not enough time" way too often. 

The truth is...I've never been more excited and scared of what needs to be written by me, and me alone, RIGHT NOW.  Gulp.  More to share this week.  I promise myself.  I promise you, my readers.      

Sacred Life Sunday ~ Sweet Beginnings

It's early Sunday morn.   It's oh-so quiet at this time of day.  I love waking up before the day does.  I love sitting by the gas stove and feeling its heat.  I love beginning my mornings slowly awakening to the fact that here I am again...after a night where my dreams take me away to a world other than this one, I am very much alive and aware I've been given another day.  Writing those last few words bring tears to my eyes.  I am so grateful for my life.  I am so grateful to be...here... right...now.

The candle that's burning is the one Carla made especially for my wedding.  The music that softly plays from my computer is a newly-discovered gem of a musician.  His versions of U2's "With or Without You" and Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" (which is one of my all-time favorite songs) are absolutely lovely.  I sip my honey and creamed coffee.  I listen to the sounds of my husband as he begins his day.  The shower, his coughs, brushing his teeth.   While I love my alone time, I love having a constant companion.  I love being  married.

I feel moved to write more this morning and I'm aware of the clock ticking towards eight.  I have to be somewhere in less than an hour.  I recently began working a couple days a week for a former employer of mine.  This time around it's different.  A few years ago, I was the manager and while that had its perks and positives there were also some things that weren't so enjoyable.  Now I get to just play front desk gal without having to worry about all the other stuff I dealt with before.   It's much better this way.  How I spend my time and who I spend it with is more precious than it ever has been.  My vision is becoming better as I age. I see more clearly now what's important and what I can let fall away.

It is a very Sacred Life Sunday indeed.  Have a beautiful day!

Sacred Life Sunday ~ Eclectic Mysticism

A lovely church in Santorini, Greece

It's Easter Sunday and I'm celebrating the holiday by partaking in two things I love; eating chocolate and expressing my thoughts.  I think Jesus would appreciate my ways of celebrating a day that is typically devoted to him.  Even though I've never spent an Easter Sunday in church and I don't consider myself a Christian, I'm all for honoring the life of a man whom I think was an amazing teacher and healer.

I have to admit I've always felt 'out of place' when it comes to religion.  While I was growing up, my best friend's grandmother use to preach to us about God and the Devil and would always issue a stern warning everytime she heard rock music blaring from our a.m. radio. We were surely going to "burn in hell" if we kept listening to that blasphemous noise.  I remember on more than one occasion running home crying and asking my Mom all sorts of questions to ease my fears of being "a bad girl in God's eyes."  She always did her best to assuage my concerns and to assure me that God loved me no matter what.  I believed my Mom more so than Earlene's grandmother, but for several years I couldn't help but think there was something wrong with me because 1) I wasn't a Christian and 2) I did things I considered a lot worse than listening to rock music.

Fast forward many, many years...even though I'd been exposed at an earlier age to a religious philosophy that made me feel connected to something greater than myself for probably the first time, it wasn't until I was in college that I began an exploration into my own sense of spirit.  It wasn't so much that I began questioning the existence of God.  It was more questioning my own beliefs and discovering I wasn't so much looking for answers, but wanting to find peace within myself.

Fast forward a few more years...through a series of serendipitious events I went to a church in Portland, Oregon and after attending several services, I felt like I'd found a place not only where "my peeps" were but where I could worship and honor God the way I wanted to as opposed to being told by someone else how I was supposed to.  I was a member of that church for three years and there are definitely times when I miss it, but there were two other things that happened in my life back in 2001 that changed the way I view church and religion in general.  I moved to the beach and I started to dance.

I no longer needed to sit in a quiet, high-ceilinged space with stained-glass windows listening to someone speak eloquent words to feel a connection to the sacred.  My church was now the wide-expanse of sand, sea and sky and my religion was revealed by moving my body.  For the last eight years, dancing on the beach has become my spiritual sanctuary and I'm now closer to God than I ever have been.  I am an eclectic mystic and were it a religion, it would be the perfect one for me.

Sacred Life Sunday - Even Here We Are

I'm back from my holiday in New Zealand and I'm happy to say the sun came with us.  It's been a lovely way to return home this weekend to warm temperatures and bright sunny days.  This picture was taken on Friday night during our last flight from San Francisco to Portland.  As you can see, the sunset sky outside my window was spectacular.

I don't believe in Heaven, but I definitely believe in God and even though I know he/she doesn't live in the skies, I can't help but feel closer to him/her when I'm flying.  I often refer to God as my Higher Power.  That makes especially good literal sense when one is traveling by air.

While I've been resting and re-entering my life quietly on this side of the planet for the past two days, I've been very aware of being where I'm at from one moment to the next.  Earlier today I heard Shawn Colvin's song Even Here We Are and it captured my Sacred Life Sunday perfectly...appreciating everything that is beautiful as well as noticing beauty in the not-so-beautiful places.

It's a beautiful flower in your garden, but the most beautiful by far...is the one growing wild in the garbage dump. Even here, even here we are. 

It's the song of the bird way up in the sky, but the most beautiful by far..is the scream of the man who never learned to fly. Even here, even here we are.  

The sun shines bright it's a beautiful sight, but the most beautiful by far...is the blind girl alone, the angel of the night.  Even here, even here we are. 

It's a beautiful flower in your garden, but the most beautiful by far...is the one growing wild in the garbage dump. Even here, even here we are. Even here, even here we are.

Even here, even here we are. ~Shawn Colvin

It's good to be here...right here...where I am...now.   It's good to be home.

Sacred Life Sunday

It's only 10:15 Sunday morning and I've already been awake for eight hours.  For some reason the sleep fairy and I didn't connect with one another last night. I did my best to stay in bed by asking my dreams to "take me some place far away", but after tossing and turning for a half hour, I got up at the ridiculous time of 2:30 a.m.   I'm not one to take naps, but there's a better than good chance I'll be catching a few zzz's this afternoon.

I spent the early morning hours writing by candlelight while listening to introspective music via Pandora.  While I was playing my current favorite "radio station" (Tori Amos) these were a few of the lovely women artists I've recently discovered and fallen in love with:

• Vienna Teng  - incredible pianist and beautiful voice.
• Plumb - another beautiful voice and a very sweet website that begins playing her music as soon as you click on.  Be sure to listen to her song, "Cut".
• Rosie Thomas -  Her song "Farewell" will bring tears to your eyes.  I found out she lives in Seattle and will be playing in Portland in March. Yippee!

Sundays are normally quieter days for me, but today's a little different in that my suitcase needs to be packed and my house needs to be cleaned.  Taking care of those details today will make for a much nicer Monday.  I want to calmly board that plane on Tuesday rather than rushing around like a silly chicken just before take-off.  Procrastination has no place in my world today.  So even though I'll be in preparation and production mode, I'll make sure to be mindful it's a Sacred Sunday.

Sacred Life Sunday

This beautiful chalk drawing was created by one of the lovely ladies who attended the beach retreat I had last weekend.  I continue to be amazed by the things we create (and how sweet life is) when we get out of our own way and allow our inherent creativity, imagination, authenticity and sense of play to be expressed through us.  And how exactly do we do that...get out of our own way?  I haven't quite figured that one out yet, but I strongly suspect it has to do more with what we allow in rather than what we try to have control over or manipulate.

This past week as my body dealt with a nasty bug, my mind and spirit attended to other matters.  Despite being without my voice or a doctor's prescription for almost a week, my heart is full.  Having been given an opportunity to see life a little bit differently during this downtime, I feel more awake and aware than I have been in awhile.  I've noticed...

• I can give myself permission to really rest which means while my body is horizontal, I don't do anything else but lie there.
• I can eat less and feel completely satisfied. 
• How incredibly freeing it is to say "No" to the things I really don't want to do.
• What I waste my time on and what time well-spent actually means to me.
• How good a weekend can be when having no plans turns out to be the best plan.
• generosity, forgiveness and love in places I normally don't pay much attention to.

I find it interesting (not to mention ironic) how being sick has brought me new insights on how to be well.  Life's lessons are rarely delivered in the way you might expect them.  Ah, yes...do you hear it?  That's the sacred gently whispering in your ear.