Your Inner Strength

A few months ago, I entered the darkest time of my life. This was before the pandemic, and had been building for a while but I hadn't realized it was coming. I don't want or need to go into details, for while the finer points are unique to me, the overall situation is universal: we enter the Darkness and face our deepest self. We face our mortality, what we care most about, and who we truly are in the network of our community. 

In the midst of this I encountered a defining moment. I felt and connected to a glowing energy deep in my core that said, "No matter what, this is your Strength. This is part of your True Self, deep, directly connected to God/Spirit. Center in this space and all is well."

Imagine you have a cave system, like a cenote that goes deep into the earth. Now imagine it is seen as the ancestors no doubt regarded these seemingly endless cave systems - a cenote that ties into the Spirit realms. That is how this space feels. Deeper than Spacetime. Accessible through my core. Strong, warm, whole. Unconditional.

I go here to meditate, to sit in the space that says: Be Still, and Know that I am Here. It's a space to inhabit when I'm feeling afraid, or getting triggered. For part of this phase of life is that I am being shown the trauma of my past and helped to release it. I need that deep, unconditional Presence to help me through. It does help, for it shows me the bigger energy of unfolding and lets me know I will be okay, although I don't know really what "okay" means anymore.

Have you found this space in you? If you get quiet, deeply still, and open to your core, what do you find? It is Joy, Light, Strength, Solid Authenticity, Your Soul.  Can you inhabit it? It will get you through anything. What if we were all able to center in this True Self and relate to others through this lens? Can you imagine a world like that? I believe miracles come from there, for it is our conscious connection with Creation, Christ, the Creator, Spirit, the Goddess. It's also how we relate to others' true selves, which many people are unable to do. We're all so wrapped up in our fears, projections, and avoiding vulnerability at all costs.

I invite you to enter the cenote with me.

I hold a vision of a world where we See each other's Strength and Truth in all we do.

So mote it be.

Going Slow, Going Within: Family Advent that Honors the Earth

Perhaps it's because my own life has been a roller coaster lately, or because it seems like the whole world is on the brink of utter insanity, but I've really dedicated myself to a calm and peaceful December this year. For me that means fewer gifts, local shopping, and doing crafts and baking when and if I want to. In the Christian faith, Advent (the days leading up to Christmas) is about waiting, pregnant, hopeful, but also with a little trepidation. Remembering to breathe. Honoring the light of those waiting with and for us. Lighting candles in the darkness. In the Pagan tradition, this time is about telling stories, watching the light wane further, and awaiting the return of the Light that we know will soon come. May this time of the year be about inner peace, wisdom, and connection with Spirit for you and your family. Here are a few ideas:

Painted snowflakes and a simpler holiday
season from The Artful Parent (I love this blog).

A gorgeous Yule coloring book for sale from LillianaPress. 

From a wise woman tradition on the Inner Christmas, some thoughts for meditation and journaling.

The Power of Image in Knowing the Self

Last year my adrenals crashed - panic attacks, hypoglycemia, heart palpitations, and extreme
sensitivity to dairy and gluten. I've been getting care from my doctor, chiropractor, and acupuncturist, all of which has really helped. I've been clear, though, that underlying the physical aspects of this healing has been spiritual rebirth. That work I have had to do myself.

When I was really sick, phases of my life would come up in dreams, images, and synchronicities. They began with my youngest days and moved forward in time. This wasn't something I consciously called in; it just happened. I cleared emotional stuckness from each of these periods by feeling old emotions, crying, and letting go. I did a lot of forgiving things I hadn't realized I was even holding onto. Carolyn Myss talks about the power of forgiveness in healing in her book Defy Gravity. I recommend it to anyone dealing with healing. I also gained insights into these periods of time from my perch in the present. Reframing also helps me release and evolve.

Then recently, after being carried into the present in this life review, two images came to me. One is a photo of myself at age two or so. It's black and white, and it's a close up of my face. I had it on my mirror when I was in high school. I love it because it is a picture of Me. You can see my soul in my eyes. They are centered, relaxed, and wise. When I feel disconnected from myself, I recall this image (I don't have a copy of the picture but remember it clearly). I instantly settle into my body and my soul. I re-inhabit myself, no longer pulled in the directions my ego thinks I should be to make everyone else happy. Which is purely illusion, based on old fears. I am ready to let these illusions go. I need this image to help me do so.

The second image actually came from reading a young adult novel called Seaglass Summer by Anjali Banerjee. In this book a girl stays for a month with her veterinarian uncle on an island in Puget Sound. When I was nine, that's what I wanted to be, a vet on an island in Puget Sound. I enjoyed the book, but also what came out of it had more to do with my soul journey. The image that arose was me as a young girl peering into tide pools. Not a memory, but more a sense of my soul, sort of the me that might have been. The me that is inside, unbound by the limitations of real life. Don't get me wrong - my childhood was actually spent peering in tide pools. And it really wasn't horrid. But we all have limitations from the outside, and from the ways our egos interpret these limitations. As we grow older, part of healing and becoming whole is to see who we really are underneath the surface, and work to live that authenticity. That image of soul-child-me playing at the beach, my hair whipping around my face, barefoot, smiling and unrestricted - that is part of my authenticity. My Real Self.

Holding both of these images in my heart helps bring me back to myself. What images have come to you in dreams, while reading, or in old photographs of yourself that remind you of your connection to Spirit, Earth, and Authentic Self? Or perhaps for you it is a song, a phrase, or even a movement? What path returns you to You?

Passion and Power

I'm following my own devotional, Living Earth Devotional: 365 Green Practices for Sacred Connection, and have stopped by to share some thoughts. I'd love to hear yours as well.

"Balance" by Courtney Putnam,
http://rising-bird.com/art/art-gallery/

Nov 8, The Cave: The darkness brought me to my Dan Tien, the place of power just below the navel. It
reminded me as I go through these shifts and awakenings at this time to always return to this center so that I do not burn out again.

Nov 9, Dreams: I realized recently that a recurring dream of mine where I am trying to save people from an erupting volcano isn't just from memories of Mt St Helens, nor is it just about my martyr complex. I realized the volcano is me, too. I am trying to "save" people from my own passion. I am distraught that I cannot. Passion was too overwhelming to my family. I've been trying to dampen it forever.

Another recurring dream of mine is being in a house - the house changes in every dream - and I discover new rooms, furniture left behind that is perfect for me, floors beneath floors, and so on. In a recent version, the new room we discovered was actually a huge greenhouse, and I was thrilled. I assume this dream is about my discovering new parts of myself, but I haven't really uncovered it's full meaning yet. But looking at my volcano dream, I am trying to uncover hidden parts of myself, trying to share them with the world. Hmm.

"Key to Happiness" by Courtney Putnam,
http://rising-bird.com/art/art-gallery/

Nov 10, Birds: A bird landed in our neighbor's tree the other day, and I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was. The size of a crow, but shaped differently, and hidden behind a branch. Also, the bird feeder I put out has not been discovered yet, though it's been out for two weeks. Something is about to reveal itself to me. Something is still hidden.




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If you want some amazing original art in your life, visit my friend Courtney's online store, http://risingbirdartstore.miiduu.com/original-art.

Discussion Questions for Clea Danaan's Voices of the Earth

To study Clea Danaan's Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality with a group, or to explore further journaling and personal growth ideas, here are some discussion questions to get you started. Each chapter also ends with project ideas and journal questions.

• What I call a "nature intuitive" just means someone who listens to the land and gains connection and wisdom there. In what ways have you heard trees, stones, rivers, and animals? In what ways do you doubt this channel? What helps you trust it?
• Opening to the rhythms of you body and the land can open the door to a lot of pain and discomfort. Sometimes you can ameliorate this discomfort: drink a glass of water, do yoga, water a tree, even organize an effort to clean up a polluted river. Sometimes the pain is overwhelming. How can you draw on community to seek healing for yourself and the land?
• Walking the path of an awakening human requires compassion and non-judgmental vision. In what ways can you be more compassionate towards yourself? Towards others? In what ways do you find yourself being judgmental towards others - me (the author), New Agers, Pagans, Republicans, big oil executives? Meditate on your judgment to see what lessons it offers you.
• Pages 51-52 list questions about Home. These would be an interesting discussion for a group. "What does it mean that you are in this spot on the global web?" (p 56)
• What gets in the way of your clearing clutter? What does this tell you about yourself?
• What plants are you drawn to? Herbs? Entheogens?
• How about animals?
• What is your quest as an earth ally? This can mean many things - we don't all have to go sit in a redwood tree for two years or start an organic farm. For more on your quest, see Bill Plotkin's Nature and the Human Soul.

Manifestation and Synchronicity

Things keep popping up in pairs and threes. Inconsequential things, mostly. Like Sears and Roebuck, specifically pointing out the now-defunct Roebuck part, appearing in two novels in a row. Little House on the Prairie mentioned in books and by people several times in two days. My dreaming about a person who out of the blue messages my husband (before I dreamed about him and without my knowledge). Three people posting Mary Oliver on Facebook in one day. Oh, and the day three unrelated Facebook friends mentioned drool in their updates. Silly things. Yet things that make you wonder.

Sometimes themes in my life offer a message, like the day a picture of my father, who passed away three years ago, appeared on Facebook (hmm, another theme!) (and, I should add that I bet there is a total of two pictures of him on Facebook, hard as that is to believe) and then half an hour later I get in the car and his favorite classical piece is playing on the radio. He's saying hello. But these little themes, like drool, really don't matter. Rather than making significance out of inconsequential things, I started to look at what energy lies beneath the pairs, rather than the pairs themselves. (Oh, I'm having a hard time making sense.) So, for instance, it's not the drool or Little House on the Prairie that matters, it's the energetic and emotional response that these images pull up for me that matters. An author mentions Little House on the Prairie, and while it's not central to the story, it's important to the main character. I remember being nine years old, sitting in our ratty burnt-orange recliner in the corner of the living room, reading for hours on end about Laura. A little energy burst goes off in my heart, tiny enough that I don't pay the burst any attention, but emotional enough that it creates a form in spacetime. Then that form pulls on the strings of causal reality, and a friend I'm hanging out with the next day casually mentions Little House on the Prairie.

A few years ago I entered to win a basket of natural and organic sundae fixin's from a natural food store. Chocolate sauce, natural sprinkles, an ice cream scoop, that sort of thing. As I filled out the form, I thought lightly and happily of my boyfriend's response should I win. He loves ice cream. Then, because it was such a silly inconsequential thing, I thought nothing more of it. I won the basket. Again - I felt an emotional response to this thing, but let it go. I think that is the key to synchronicities and to manifestation. There has to be an emotional response in order to create the thought form, as it is sometimes called, but it can't be clung to. And of course that is the challenge. If we really want something, it's hard to let go. As they say in Buddhist teaching, release all hope of fruition. Yet keep striving. Such a powerful dialectic.

So that has become one of my my meditations of late. There are a few things I want, and I am picturing them, feeling the emotional charge, and working to release any attachment or heaviness (another form of attachment) to them. We shall see how successful I am....... but then, clinging to "success" shoots apart the whole non-attachment bit. Oh, easy it is not. so I guess I'll just continue to observe, and see what blooms. I'd love to hear your stories of manifestation and synchronicity. Won't you post your stories for me? What is silly, hard, and fascinating about these energies in your life?

Healing Shame: The Work of Seven Generations

I recently came across the book Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson, Ed.D., and read it voraciously. I have never considered myself a punitive parent, for we don't hit our kids and have tried to frame time-outs as calming down time. But reading this book I saw how we are still using shame and blame to try to coerce our children (mostly my daughter, for my son is only 14 months old) into behaving in ways we condone. Like getting angry at my daughter for interrupting, or sending her to her room for screaming at us. In Positive Discipline Nelson discusses how erroneous it is to think that a child will do better by being made to feel worse, that in fact a child doesn't sit there in time out or when mom is yelling at her and think, man, I need to be a better person. She just feels bad about herself and angry at mom. She feels powerless and acts accordingly. I highly recommend the book or its companion, Positive Discipline A-Z -- 1001 Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems for any and every parent.

But beware. In evaluating and changing most of the ways I interact with my daughter (with whom I've been battling since birth), I'm going through a powerful and intense process. My rational brain says that "all" I'm doing is learning a new skill set in order to deal with something that hasn't been working (punitive discipline works in the moment but over time makes it all worse). But I'm exhausted, achy, and emotional. I'm angry and sad. I even woke up with a mild bout of mastitis (which is all about anger and boundaries and service).

Every time my daughter misbehaves or does something annoying or makes a request of me, I stop, notice my gut reaction, and then draw on this new skill set. This means 100 times a day I have to evaluate and change my patterns of relating. On an energetic level, I realized, this is huge. I'm changing the energy between me and my daughter, me and my husband, and even between me and my parents. I realized, for instance, that the sadness that plagued me the other morning was all the stuffed sadness and shame I felt as a child when punished.  Again, my family was not terribly strict or punitive, nor were my parents overly permissive. I'm seeing, though, in reading this book, how subtle and pervasive our culture of shame and blame truly is. How we hand that shame down from generation to generation, an undetected language about the self and the world.  I am feeling not only my unconscious sadness finally arising, but also sadness about how surprisingly difficult it is to be kind but firm all the time, telling my daughter with my actions, words, and tone of voice that she is valued, that she belongs, that I love her unconditionally - how awful that this is so hard! I am also, I suspect, feeling the sadness of all the generations past who were shamed and blamed and told they didn't matter because that is what people did and still do with each other, especially children.

For it is said that when you heal an emotional wound, you heal the seven generations behind you. I see them all, my parents, my grandparents, their parents, on back before my ancestors came to the United States, all carrying these weights of not belonging, not being good enough, being "bad" people. I can feel these weights. Feel the sadness and confusion and longing. Powerful and overwhelming.

And then there is the anger. I have a sneaky temper. I lash out, I realized, when I feel trapped and discouraged because I can't control others or myself. My father was the same way. Yelling or banging a wooden spoon on the sauce pan hard enough to break it are ways of releasing the fire of frustration that boils over with humbling regularity. I have worked so so hard to manage this anger, and even more so now as I use positive discipline techniques. The only problem is the anger is still there. It rises like bile when I am in my reaction phase. I breath, do snake breath (check "Managing Mama Rage" by Tera Freese in the November-December 2010 issue of Mothering magazine - a timely article for me), try to cool down, and then deal with my daughter or husband's offending behavior in a more enlightened manner. But by the end of the day, partly due to my being totally yin deficient, wherein the kidney cannot "cool" the liver, I have a very cranky bit of anger churning inside me. Not pretty. I'm doing meditation, talking, writing, and breathing. I'm noticing my anger. I'm noticing my usual patterns of reacting. I'm healing and changing and it isn't easy.

I have been a spiritually minded person my whole life. I have done therapy and bodywork. NET and Reiki. Retreats, expressive arts therapy, massage. But the most powerful and intense path of healing I've encountered is conscious parenting. Being a mom is hard work. It is healing work, for myself, my children, and the seven generations before me. I wish you guidance and strength on your healing journey. Blessed be.

Samhain Meditation: Inhabiting True Self

Our Samhain Altar

I awoke this morning at dawn and smiled at my thirteen-month-old son, who gazed at me for a moment and then offered one of his sweet grins. We lay next to each other in the quiet of the early morning, simply being. I realized that he is possibly the only person ever with whom I feel completely myself, totally calm and unaltered. I wondered if this is because he is still a baby, or because of who he is. I think a little of both.

When I am with another person, even a dear friend, my husband, or my daughter, I wear a sort of mask or costume. It's not that I am fake, exactly, just that I am not inhabiting the peaceful real self I am when alone, or first thing in the morning with my son. I often see this same mask-wearing in my daughter and husband and it irritates me. I want them to be their real self. Which of course is me wanting to be my real self and not knowing how.

We all wear these masks and costumes. We fear the vulnerability of being truly seen. Why? I think the true Self is powerful. Literally - full of power. Power centered in the self. When one is centered in her true self, she can be threatening to others who are used to getting their power not from within but from those around them. Ah, narcissism. My dear father was a narcissist, as was his before him. One of the things about living with a narcissist is that you always feel like you have to make them okay - and to do this you have to hide your power and cater to their emotional needs of the moment. We get used to doing this, and then it is second nature to hide the Self.

I think in some ways most of us are narcissists. We suffer from low self worth and seek power from others by denying them their power. It's not a conscious or malicious thing, it's just how we as a species tend to interact with each other. And it's how we teach our children to interact.

As a mom I don't want to perpetuate this pattern any longer. I know that the only way to teach my children to be themselves and for them to feel safe calmly inhabiting their true Selves even in front of others is for me to do the same. I am making this my Samhain meditation this year. It's amazingly hard. First I find that centered self and then I work to maintain it while interacting with another person by holding on to the body feeling of centeredness. I notice any sort of feelings that arise, like vulnerability or even anger. I just notice those feelings and learn from them. I keep coming back to center, noticing, learning, growing. It's a powerful meditation. I invite you to do it with me if you like.

Have a blessed Samhain. May the veils be thin for you.

The Virtues of Mud

Yeah for soil! Let's hear it for the power of mud!

Combine the elements of water and earth for a powerful synchrony that can stop leaking oil wells, cleanse the skin, keep children happy for hours, or build a house.

Have you hugged your mud today? Go outside! Make some mud pies. Let it squish between your toes. Make a sculpture. Give thanks. Let your awareness sink into the mud and just notice. What secrets and powers does it have to share with you?

Chicken Meditation

Another thing I didn't know about chickens: watching them poke about my yard is a calming meditation. Thought I'd share it with you here. The film quality is a bit choppy - kind of reminiscent of old film footage, but in color!

Enjoy...




As these four little free rangers, Maisy, Millie, Sylvie and Tallulah, wander about my yard, pecking, picking and clucking, time slows and life is good.

The Law of Attraction Comes from the Heart

My husband and I were discussing our three-year-old daughter's stress level that she is clearly picking up from us. It got me thinking about how I broadcast my stress to my daughter, and how she is not only picking up verbal and nonverbal cues from me, but also swims in my electromagnetic field. The heart is the strongest producer of this field. "[T]he magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 5,000 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain, and can be detected a number of feet away from the body, in all directions." (1) Via entrainment (2), anyone inside my heart field (as my daughter is most of the time), would pick up on my vibrations (I'm speaking literally here, not just esoterically) of frustration, fear, anger, and stress. She would vibrate with me. As would everything else in my field, to an extent.

This, I realized, is the key to the Law of Attraction. How I vibrate attracts like vibrations. If I am clenched and stressed, I draw constriction and fear. If I vibrate peace, abundance, and gratitude, I draw these energies to me. This includes wealth and success.

We can use our strongest field creator, the heart, much more effectively than just the brain (mind) to create a world we want to live in. Literally. The Law of Attraction requires the heart, not just affirmations said by the brain (though it is all connected, I realized how vastly powerful working with the heart directly can be).

This became my meditation, to feel these powerfully pleasant energies in my heart, creating a powerful field of attraction. What I discovered about myself was stunning.

I live a great life. I have an amazing, beautiful, healthy little girl. I'm pregnant with a strong, healthy little boy. My husband is a music therapist at a major children's hospital. I have published two books, one ebook, and dozens of articles in magazines I believe in. I have a truly amazing group of friends and family. We live in a more-or-less affordable house we've made into a sweet suburban homestead with an organic garden and chickens. In many many ways I am living the dream. But financially we are always strapped; the stress my husband and I have struggled with recently has been due to increased credit card debt to pay for a necessary and rather huge plumbing job, followed by a car accident that thankfully resulted in no human injury but meant replacing our old car. With another old car. We have money set aside for the birth of our baby, but that money has dwindled due to a tooth crown, new glasses, and other health necessities. Though we live fairly frugally, we are always scrambling financially. We have no savings (beyond meager retirement savings) and a big chunk of debt. We keep asking ourselves, what is it that we need to learn here? Why is money always uber-tight? In what ways, for instance, am I holding myself back as a financially successful writer? If money is an energy, an exchange of time, love, and human energy, then why are we chronically strapped?

Well, in tuning into the energy of my heart, I discovered some very interesting things that probably have something to do with our challenges. And are very interesting, too, in light of my family's medical history of heart disease and defects.

What I realized is that my heart is always clenched. Low-level anxiety always simmers, which I can feel as a tightness around my heart. I breathe into my belly, but almost direct my breath around my heart, rather than through or with my heart, as if avoiding the fear held chronically in my chest. When I pay attention to my heart, a panicky or sad feeling rises up my throat and into my eyes. I notice the clench of my jaw. I feel these things when sitting, doing chores, driving, and otherwise going about my day.

Then there is the added frustration I feel when doing something with my daughter. Like trying to get shoes on her feet or bake cookies. She is three. She does things in her time, and messes happen. While I am usually outwardly patient, on the inside, my heart waves are moving more and more towards frustration, impatience, and even rage.

I do not want my daughter to soak in this miasma of energy. Nor my unborn son, nor my husband, nor myself, nor anyone else.

So I breathe into my heart. I focus on the beauty of my daughter and my love for her. But sometimes, this is not enough to "turn off" the chronically clenched feeling. Baby steps, but not the huge shift I was going for.

Anyone who has dealt with anxiety (most of us to some degree), knows you cannot just dissolve the anxiety with deep breaths. Yes, it gets better, livable, but doesn't go away. To really heal the pain, to really find tools for a new relationship with anxiety, fear, and anger (3), we have to go into it. Not an easy task.

I won't tire you with all the details of my own "going into it." I highly recommend for your own journey tools like a journal, an art therapist, a shaman, or other support to help you do your own going into it. But I will share with you a deep insight I had in the process.

I was lying awake in bed one night, thinking. I was contemplating my family history of heart problems. As is easy to do when one is near sleep (and one is either morbid or prone to anxiety or both), I was imagining being in the hospital for heart surgery, which is how my paternal grandmother died when I was an infant. In my fantasy, I am telling the doctor I don't want to die - not because I am afraid of death, but because I didn't want to leave my children. I said I wasn't ready (am not ready) to leave this life yet because it's such a wonderful gift that I am not yet done enjoying.

My heart flooded with peace, abundance, gratitude, and joy. The anxiety stepped aside. The stress over money became moot. Life is bigger. Love is bigger. These are the energies I want to broadcast, to stew my children in. These are the energies that can attract to me the life I want, above and beyond the beautiful blessings I already enjoy. I found the tool I needed to change my relationship with my anxiety: focusing on the gift of life when wrapped in the loving arms of death. Forgive me for sounding morbid, but I can't think of any other way to say it.

What do you carry in your heart, dear reader? What tools do you need to create powerful fields of ultimate potential? I invite you to join me as a heart mediator. Let us see how our bodies and lives change as we go into the "darkness" (via negativa) and embrace the "light" (via positiva) (4). Truly anything is possible, and I'm excited to see where this path leads.

Namaste.



(1) Institute of HeartMath. "Science of The Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance." 2009.
(2) See Entrainment at Institute of HeartMath.
(3) I don't mean eliminate it. Anxiety can be normal and valuable when directed well. See One Less Thing to Worry About: Uncommon Wisdom for Coping with Common Anxieties by Jerilyn Ross.
(4) The four fold path of Creation Spirituality: Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa. See Matthew Fox's Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

The Family as a Garden: Conscious Co-Creation of the Day-to-Day

I wanted to share with you Machaelle Small Wright's definition of a garden:

"According to nature, a garden has just three criteria: It is initiated by humans, given its definition, direction, and purpose by humans, and maintained with the help of humans. Well, managed forests, landscaping, farms, and potted plants would also be gardens that grow in soil. Soil-less gardens could include waterways, ponds, the atmosphere, aquariums, livestock ranches, trout farms, a landscaping business, a swimming pool, a home, large and small business,.... [W]here there is form, there is nature. Where nature and humans interact, there is a garden. Where there is a garden, there is an implied co-creative partnership" (22-23, Co-Creative Science: A Revolution in Science Providing Real Solutions for Today's Health and Environment).

By this definition, I co-create several gardens. There is what I call "my garden," soil in set areas with plants growing in them. This is the garden I usually refer to in writing and talking. But I also cultivate a family, a writing business, a community of mothers who support the ways I parent, a marriage, a home.... I'm sure the list could go on and on. I would say, though, that the most important "garden" in my life is my family.

My family consists of a husband, two children (one unborn), two cats, two fish, four chickens, a home, and a "garden that grows in soil." It is surrounded by a larger garden, my extended family: My mom, my brother, my aunts and uncles, my sisters- and brothers-in-law, my niece-in-law and her family (who is my age and also has two children), and other relatives. My family garden is also supported by my friends.

I find it valuable to think of my family as a garden, because first, the garden is a powerful metaphor of co-creation, support, faith, patience, and love. I can relate to this metaphor in a way that makes parenting and homemaking manageable. For instance, I know that some days are for weeding (aka vacuuming or doing laundry) and others for harvesting (aka sitting on the back porch and laughing with my family). I no longer feel guilty for putting up my feet when there is "work" to do anymore than I would feel guilty about picking a luscious, ripe tomato.

The second reason I find this a valuable naming of the process of "family" is that I can see my role as wife, mother, homemaker, homeschool teacher, etc., as Gardener. Rather than being at the mercy of a pile of laundry or bills to be paid or a cranky toddler, I can see it as one part of the whole, a whole I value deeply. Once I am not feeling victimized by my slave status, I can then choose to grow my garden consciously. I can honor the process of cooking dinner. I can appreciate the time it takes to get shoes on my three-year-old. I can take time to play with my husband. All with gratitude and self-awareness.

I'm certainly not saying life as a stay-at-home mom becomes easy, but using the image of Garden (which is not just a metaphor here), I can re-frame my experience of the most challenging and most rewarding job on earth. Instead of saying Life's a Beach (or a similar phrase that plays with the sound of beach), I can say Life is a Garden and breathe in deeply as I explore the path.

What new life is sprouting in your garden today?

Learning to Live in the Now and Go with the Flow

I started my daughter in one day of preschool last January. It became apparent pretty quickly that it wasn't time yet, and the more I thought about it the more I like the idea of homeschooling. Then a week or so ago she started talking about "her school" and wanting to go again.

I live in Colorado but hail from Washington. I miss my family, miss the green and damp and salt water. Just as we begin to make plans to move their, we get a dream job here. Just as I settle deeper here (by planting fruit trees or starting a small flock of chickens), I have a dream about my mom that makes me want badly to move home. Or I hear about a super cool farm near Portland, Oregon. And then I see my future there - at least until I am faced with what anamazing community I have here when a friend offers to lend me her entire cloth diaper stash for my baby due in September.

It can be seventy five degrees here, urging me to put peas in the ground, and then snow, pulling me to hot cocoa, tea, and blankets.

I drive myself crazy with my planning sometimes, and my restlessness (Sag rising, for you astrologers). I can tell the universe is trying to remind me to live in the moment and go with the flow. We may live here for another twenty years, or only another three. I may homeschool or not. Peas may sprout or not.

That's my meditation these days. Breathe. Live now. Have faith. It's hugely challenging for me. But when I can breathe into those spaces, it feels so, well, spacious.

A Murder of Crows in the Druid's Tree: A Meditation on Nature

The neighbors behind us have a huge oak tree in their yard, a majestic and muscular tree who watches over their yard and ours. This morning a cacophony of corvine caws called me out to the yard: a murder of crows laughing and cursing and who-knows-what-else in the canopy of the great oak. My daughter and I had to shout to hear each other over the ruckus. I couldn't figure out what the crows were up to, but more of their feathered friends came to join them. Over our house swooped more curious crows and a pair of critical blue jays.

I just finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, in which ravens figure somewhat prominently. It is a book of Enlgish magic taking place in the early 1800's. If such a topic interests you at all, I suggest that the 1000+ pages are very much worth the read. Anyway - it left me feeling mysterious and magically inclined. The crow caucus in my back yard - in the branches of the sacred-to-druids oak - felt like it might possibly be some sort of omen.

So while I raked the Box Elder leaves in our back yard (the oak leaves haven't yet fallen), I meditated on the possible lessons of this murder of crows. Now, first off, I think the crows were up to their own business. They weren't there for me. Same goes for the tree. However, I believe we can be open to lessons in anything that catches our attention. My attention, my interest is what makes this event a spiritual message.

Crows in the top of an oak tree: Life and death, earth and sky, and a lot of celebrating going on. This seems to me a celebration of the season. This Samhain I honor the passage of two more people: my father and a little boy I barely knew. One lived a long and hard life (my father), the other a short life that ended tragically. They are both on their paths, passed from this life to the spirit realm. The crows tell me to celebrate the lives of these two people, and all the others I have lost. The crows remind me that life is by its very nature transitional. We are at once rooted in the soil and ready to take flight. And that is the party called life.

What sacred messages has nature offered you recently?

I wish you and yours a sacred and peaceful Samhain.