True Magic

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Heloise Jones

If you are to learn something of this day,
learn about magic:
how it is real,
and the explanation for everything
that matters most.
I’ve seen it,
and felt it,
and lived it in dreams too grand
to live out in a single life.
And I am all the better for it.
You too are like the star whose
entire reason for being is to
point the way
to the human heart.
~ Jamie K. Reaser

Chinese Lantern *

The Chinese lantern flowers at the entrance to the salon stopped me. Two trees chest high filled with the delicate, hanging blossoms. Coral veins on subtle yellow petals so beautiful, I lifted one with my fingertips, thought what a wonder to be so exquisite. My stylist stood inside watching. You walked across the parking lot, I thought an overcast day and she glows, he said.

The next day, Christmas Eve, the nearly empty market surprised me. I remembered crowded aisles, long lines at counters on Christmas Eves past. They must’ve expected it, too, because four staffed the deli. I was there for what I call my holiday leftovers – a pound of turkey + autumn kale salad with roasted pumpkin and apples. Then, wah. The order wasn’t right. No problem, the manager said. He sliced more turkey on his just-cleaned counter, arranged it so it looked as pretty as it could in a disposable aluminum box with a cardboard cover. His kindness an hour before his workday ended filled my heart, made my eyes well. I wanted to run into the street like Scrooge his awakened morning, sing Happy Christmas to everyone I saw. I went home, packed for our move New Year’s Day with a smile on my face.

Christmas Day I got the best gift ever. The longest conversation of relaxed connection with my son I’ve had all year. Could almost forget how far away he is, living in Taiwan.

Life and our minds can have their own ways with us, though. Two days past Christmas, longing seized my heart so tightly, entwined with my vulnerability. I despaired, couldn’t think how I’d get where I desire to be. The path between my here-now and there completely obscured, my plans seemed folly. All the wise words in the world wouldn’t help. Because it wasn’t about being stuck, but something like a tsunami of wrong stories swelling, overtaking me. I needed someone to listen, let me say my fears aloud, confess my inadequacy, tell me one (just one) right thing I could hold on to. I called Sandra in Asheville. And cried. Later, Lindy in Santa Fe called. She’s considering a network chiropractor I know well. It’s expensive, the doctor’s intense, she’s not sure about the process. Ask Heloise, they told her. Thank you, she said before she hung up. That evening Rachel in Albuquerque painted my portrait from the pic here, taken in Santa Fe. The one people who know me say captures my spirit. Monday morning I saw Celeste from Decatur. We met at a writer’s retreat, followed it up with our own writing weekend. It’s been three years, and she was in St. Pete, wanted to see the bay and birds I write about. She answered an hour when I asked how long a walk. I didn’t think I could do my usual 16 blocks + another hour, so I drove down for sunrise. Turns out an hour’s a short walk when you’re meeting a friend you love. It didn’t matter the sunrise was far less than the dazzling two days before, that the tide covered the sandbars where birds gather. She saw white pelicans bobbing like galleons. We had a reunion.

I read somewhere there’s an ancient tradition noting your observations each of the twelve days of Christmas as divination of the coming months. I’m not a devotee. I forgot the 11th day last year, already forgot 3rd day this year. But I’d like to think there’s something to it. That it’s part of the magic and web of connections in the Mystery. Because without stretching I see my October in Santa Fe held last season’s 10th day birds lined in a row, in sunshine. Know this past week holds 12th day’s promise of the golden dragon flying above. Because life feels giant and golden right now. I remember my work is loving this world filled with beauty, kindness, and horrible stories that overwhelm. That we’re all here for each other through it. Or can be, anyway. What do you say?

Dragon.1
*
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness.
I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful,
and don’t forget to make some art. And I hope,
somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
~ Neil Gaiman

A secret: I’ll watch January. 1st Day observation was hazy, then sunshine. With great family connection. And fifteen pelicans + four snake birds swimming in a pack, dipping faces again and agin into the water, feeding.
A favorite: Feeling the magic.

Flower photo: Pat Sullivan

A Different Kind of Holiday Letter

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Though we live much of our lives outside, in action and engagement in the world,
the deeper impact of what happens is registered in the narrative of the heart…
Sometimes the simplest things effect unexpected transformation.
~ John O’Donohue

*
Poinsetta w:boxes *

Christmas tree and holiday lights are out this year. In the five weeks since I returned from Santa Fe, I’ve found and secured another place to live, interviewed movers & hired one, hauled off 20% of our belongings, had a root canal, made address changes, had a 3+ hour dental procedure, dashed in for a quick pedicure. I attended a Florida Writers Assoc. holiday party, picked up used moving boxes, volunteered for our neighborhood parade of homes. I listened to podcasts, and packed the hardest room in the house, my office, and planned two books I’d write in 2016.

Angry at first to be forced from our home by an unseemly rent increase, I’m now thankful it’s happening so fast. There’s perfection in starting a new year in a new place, right after Chanukah and Christmas when many hearts open. Right as the light returns. I can almost taste the freedom from the continual maintenance in our 1910 house with an absentee landlord. Feel the ease of counter space and a dishwasher, again. Hear the silence. Silence most golden after a year of razed buildings, felled trees, beeps and grind of big trucks scraping and building the block across the street. I can imagine the words I’ll write, the life I’ll recover.

Yesterday I realized I’m looking back with new eyes now, too. I’d wanted a different year. One not weighted with financial stress and frustration. I wanted to travel. Wanted to be further along in the good stuff I’m creating. Wanted to feel better. But 2015 was about Being and Clarity. I thought what if we all wrote year-end letters from the perspective of Being rather than Doing. And I gave it a go, wrote one to you:

Wonder and awe took full residence inside me this year. I have days when moments of sparkly happy overtake me. Moments when I’m in love with the world and all the people in it. I now follow my intuition, trust it like I’ve never done before. Meaning I trust myself like never before. It’s led me to questions, new friends, a new home, to answers. Once to the answer for a question I’ve held twenty-seven years.

I briefly had a Turkish facebook friend, a ‘fundamentalist actuary’ (his words) who told me I changed the way he sees the world. Something he thought impossible. He loves an ancient tree in his yard, talks to it every morning he’s home. I think he’s a mystic, take heart in that dichotomy. I met another Facebook friend in person for the first time. She gifted me a book of poetry she wrote, read a poem out loud as we sat eating cinnamon buns. I have six new tribe members, found the way it always happens. By chance encounter, a word and unspoken recognition.

I started this blog after eight years resistance and three page re-designs. No clue what I’d write or format it’d have. It birthed itself. Two readers named it. Small journeys. Navigating through life. I write every week, stand naked in a way I never thought I would.

I was brave in my work. Submitted to contests, walked with a literary agent who solicited me though I knew she was wrong, entered steep learning curves of study. I emerged intact, more confident. Grew a Vision of myself and offerings far beyond what I’d ever considered.

I replaced my sunglasses after twenty years. With the help of a dentist I trust, learned to relax into my bite destroyed by a crazy dentist with a drill a while ago. Corrected the curvature of my spine, straightened the blossoming dowager’s hump with the help of a chiropractor I trust. Reconnected with my Santa Fe network chiropractor, blasted energetically through stuff that needed blasting.

I had Beautiful Firsts: A Super Moon. Driving back from a soak at Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs. So huge I pulled to the side of the highway, gazed with awed amazement, no thought to the cars whizzing by. A rocket launch. Like a freaky close comet in the dark dawn sky that grew to a giant balloon with a fat tail, sparked a skip in my heart with the thought I viewed an alien landing. A milestone one-page synopsis of my 300 pg. multi-layered novel. A CV list of writing classes, workshops, retreats, and conferences I’ve attended. Four pages to now that for the first time left me feeling legitimized as a writer.

Finally, I’ve had the joy of four perfectly balanced meals, my best in years, all in homes of master-chef friends. And my little grandson sends regular postcards from Taiwan that split my heart wide open. It was a good year.

Tell me, what kind of year-end letter will you write? What will it say?

Happy Solstice, Return to the Light
*

Postcards.2

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: I never guessed, for even a brief moment, what a year it was.
A favorite: The postcards from my grandson.

Looking Up while Sowing Clover

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Heloise Jones

In the darkness of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
~ Wendell Berry

Up thru the Pines

I considered no blog today. I got caught yesterday in between here this minute and what I want. It messes with me. My mind acts like a kitten, distracted by what rolls through. It can feel an awful lot like stuck. Sometimes like biting nails, the metal kind. Even knowing what I do, having read the books, watched the shows. . .Be Here Now. Gratitude. Breathe. Transform limiting thoughts. Focus on what you want. Change your mind, change your life. Let thoughts drift, like clouds. This moment is not forever. et al

This morning I see how often a good twin shows up with bad stuff. A long awaited email saying the job my husband wants is finally in planning, in motion, a twin for the surprise $1800 dental bill that followed the $3500 to move and $1100 root canal. A $20 discount with the exterminator covering the $20 dinner bill I thought already paid. I see my whole year has been speckled with gifts next to challenges. The sweltering tropic summer I wanted to escape, and the magic of seeing a rocket launch glow like a strange bubble of light with a fat tail in the black dawn sky. That moment’s thrill and excited fear I witnessed an alien entry. The brain cramps condensing a 90,000 word multi-layered novel into a compelling one page synopsis, and the triumph of success. The annoyance of writing a complete CV, and the surprise satisfaction in four pages of writing classes, conferences, retreats, and workshops I’ve participated in. The longing for travel while grounded at home, and the morning I saw the entire dome of the sky turn into the inside of an oyster shell, stood in awe at the splendored everyday sight of a mollusk. Leading me to answer a question I’ve held for decades, a gift my father gave me as he was dying.

Just before bed last night I read The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen in Parabola Magazine. This little tree wanted so mightily to grow up, experience what other trees he saw experience, that he couldn’t appreciate his own beauty or the gifts of life around him. And as I flossed last night at midnight, long past time for answers from a dentist, a piece of my problem tooth broke off. And I got it. Let go. Shift focus. Remember silver linings. Sow clover, gratitude and compassion.

This morning the dentist said don’t panic.
What visits by the twins, gifts and challenges, have you had?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: My mouth is really small in dentist terms.
A favorite: The awe in Life.

Photo: painting by Tebbe Davis

A Good Path to Passion

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Heloise Jones

This place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.

Wherever your eyes and arms and heart can move
Against the earth and the sky,
The Beloved has bowed there –

Our Beloved has bowed there knowing
You were coming.
~ Hafiz

orange flower-meadow
*

A friend pulled out, moved far off, after 34 yrs. in her home. She never liked living in Florida, she said. And her life was good here. Friends, passions, work she liked. Settling into this neighborhood, now the most desired in St. Pete, property costs rising double digits each year. They stayed in place, put their money into travel rather than moving. And chose their next home well. She feels so lucky they made good choices, she said. I admit a tinge of regret, sometimes feel chagrined looking back at my own choices. Feel I’ve made too many costly mistakes. Held on to shoulds and others’ definitions too long. Understood prudence too late. That I’ve explored rather than built, and haven’t done it all that well.

Hours after I bid farewell to my friend, I saw this clip with Elizabeth Gilbert. EG often proselytizes passion as the key to a happy, purpose-driven life. I understand. I pursue interests with passion. Learn with passion. Passion led me to single-mindedly lobby for a Women’s Center on North Carolina State University’s campus for two years. I promoted French Broad Brewing Company, our microbrewery, with passion. Opened the doors every Saturday, led interactive tours I developed for five years. I immersed in different forms of art-making and created homes with passion. Studied psychology and metaphysics, see patterns and process, love nature and the planet with passion. Years ago I received a poster as a gift, Shakespeare’s Acts of Passion, because the giver saw me that way, in the best sense of the word. It hung in my kitchen, reminded me who I am. A passionate Being. But I never felt the kind of passion Elizabeth Gilbert describes. The kind burning inside for a whole life, since one is small. The kind I’d follow with doggedness to my dying day, forsake all else in its pursuit. Not even writing, which I never tire of talking about or studying. A love for thirteen years after a long fickle relationship. I’ve been a serial passion-follower. A polygamous passion-follower. Some passions connected to presence in a place or culture, such as Hawaii, Italy, New Mexico. Some simmering since childhood, cradling and hugging me without carrying me off, such as nature. I know passion so well that when I don’t feel it, I despair. Think I’ve lost one of my keys to life. I remember times I’ve sat, heart in hands, thinking I must recover my passion. But EG’s passion? No, mine never looked like that.

My path’s been swervy – advertising account manager, manager of school & family programs in an art museum, clay/mixed media artist, small business owner, educator, coach – even here to writer. I sit wondering how far behind in life I am vs. the person who’s cultivated expert status doing what she does for years. I know a lot from my different experiences, see patterns, easily make connections, which makes me good at characterization, at coaching, at understanding multi-layered pictures. But I should’ve been more steady, I think. Stuck with something forever. And then, like a wand upon my head at the moment I stood on the edge of big regret, Elizabeth christened me. She’s a jackhammer, she said. Focused, obsessive, eyes fundamentally steady on her burning, long-consuming passion. And people like me are natural born hummingbirds. We move field to field, follow curiosity (for me, wonder), cross pollinate ideas and perspectives, weave it all in as we go. And I see I’m a passionate hummingbird. A hybrid. My whole being filled to my edges with what catches and engages me.

Years ago I took a half-day workshop with Mary Anne Radmacher, an artist of Big Heart and works. She asked what one word defines where we reside in life. Mine, ‘Create.’ My life choices don’t look better or wiser knowing I’m a passionate hummer. And I don’t agree with EG that it’s easier living this way. I still wish I’d done better. But the christening helps me let go what I can’t undo. Opens space inside me. Gives me ideas how to move forward. I’m creating again. And therein lies my true sacred ground. Some might say my passion. What’s yours?

Curiosity takes courage.
~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: Sometimes it helps to be named.
A favorite: Ravens

Whittling Down to Essentials

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Heloise Jones

As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this:
There are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won’t be able to refold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic with a pig.
And if you can help it, never fly as cargo.
~ Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson)
*

blowing pollen

We’re moving New Year’s Day. Yep, a holiday. Home’s been up for me a while. But this move, not expected this way. Not with so many unknowns in our lives, with so many intentions that need time and space to put in place. Not during the holiday season when an extremely tight rental market gets tighter. With the door banging our backsides as we leave. I was scared at first, got angry. This house full of charm and natural light built 1910 is rotting from neglect on the outside as we’ve cleaned, cared for and maintained her. I’d lost the delight of the porch to dark damp and peeling paint from leaks breached in the ceiling and sidewalls, unattended for many months despite dozens of emails, texts, contractors solicited and met, reports and updates written to the landlord, the other half of the roof draped under a tarp. There should be good faith, I thought. In the midst, I could see myself focused on what I didn’t want, knew I had to shift, focus on what I do want. Remember I manifest miracles. I wanted another story.

So, once again, I described my ideal home. This time mindful as I wrote each line item. Seeing it, feeling it, rolling it around inside. Omitting items like size. A feeling of spaciousness written instead. I wanted my mind’s borders to roll back, soften. Physical space is important to me. I’m sensitive to it. And I wanted essentials. I started following fleeting thoughts, looked in places I’d once rejected. One dawn I walked to the bay with Gratitude on my lips and a radical (for us) idea emerged. The simple act of saying yes, why not without asking how brought the shift I sought. What I desire in home. Peace living in my intentions for the coming months. Beauty that feeds me. A kitchen that’s easy, that I love, because it’s where I launch my day with a glass of water, looking at the sky’s light. After my dawn walk, where I begin my Doing of the day as I steep a small pot of fine tea, add a tad of honey, creme to slightly light. A place I feel abundant, cared for, not stressed or distracted. Space inside and time to write, create in quietude. Dream, envision, be bold with offers. A place I take back my life. No longer fly cargo.

So, tho it may look conventional from the outside to be moving to a small, immaculate townhome after living nearly my entire adult life in historic neighborhoods, for this live and let live unconventional gal it is not. I can gaze upon water steps out my door (a long strip of a tiny manmade lake). I’m in the center of where I live life in St. Pete, where traffic’s easy. And tho it requires 3 minutes (timed) in the car, I’m close to the bay for morning walks. I surprised my husband with the choice. Essentials, I told him. Writers write.

What’s Home mean to you?

Never be so focused on what you’re looking for
that you overlook the thing you actually find.
~ Ann Patchett

*
Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writers Life

Porch Once bright days on the porch.
*

A favorite: How the heart opens wide when the mind does.
A secret: To someone from North Carolina, most Florida lakes are ponds.