Category: spirit

Another Day. Another Chance to Smile

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From the sofa, the tree above looks so stunningly graphic against the big sky.

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Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight.
~ Mary Oliver (from the poem Mindful)

The days are intense and long, and short, all at the same time. I love the bubble of writerly process I’ve been in. Love looking out my window at that tree and cross on the hill, seeing the light come and go. I love the cottonwoods blazed gold here and there, often in lines marking the water traces. The color of fall in northern New Mexico stretching across the landscape to the far horizon I see from my condo. But it’s been intense and long, and short, all at the same time. Not a time like any other I’ve had in Santa Fe.

A writer just left that I hosted and coached for four days – listening and hearing between the lines, following patterns to guide her to deep dives into subtexts in her work. It took a bit to come out of her Writer’s Dream. I fell right into hours on my book.

I’m an old fashioned writer. Will never be one to write a book in a weekend, which seems to be the new fad. I weave words, ideas, and stories in my mind that go down on the page the old fashioned way. With time and breath. Then edit multiple times the old fashioned way with attention to craft, form, and saying it well. What’s different is I’m writing a nonfiction book, and I’m not composing the first draft with pen & paper as I do fiction and poetry. I compose straight on the screen. My notebook replaced by lined pads and printed pages filled with notes from interviews, mapping, points to remember. The writing feels good and not so good. As whenever I’m writing something intentional, engaged in a dance with creativity in the process. Whatever I write is always a tad bigger than I am. And sometimes that stretch feels hard to do. It consumes me like a lover.

I tell authors not to focus on the product or goal, stay centered in the process. Good advice for Life, this presence. But, I confess it’s difficult following my own advice right now. I want it finished, sent to the publisher for what’s next. Want off the screen. I long to walk under the blue sky I see out the windows. Long to walk in the sunlight turned golden by the last canopy of fall cottonwoods. Even tho the work is good and I love it.

I’m living on a hill three blocks from the Santa Fe Plaza for the next month. The incline’s fairly steep. Going down’s magical as I see the western horizon, those golden cottonwoods stretched all the way there. Coming up is a challenge. I’ve learned to look down, focus on my breath as I climb. That I arrive quickly, without needing breaks, albeit winded. That somehow seeing that incline, the distance yet to go, tires me. The other day I put my bag on a low adobe wall at the bottom, took off my overshirt, prepared for the hike. A young man walked toward me. I noted his dirty stuffed backpack, the tattoos on his face, his clothes old but with no tatters. I suspected him one of the homeless I pass gathered in threes and fours. Bits of tales about their encounters on the street caught, but I’ve never been approached for money. So unlike the ragged loners I see in St. Pete.

I confess I immediately wished this guy would not ask for money. That I could just greet him like any other person on the street, and look into his eyes, not see desperation. I wished this as I unzipped my purse, ready to reach for the bills I carry for asks.

He slowed slightly, said Hi as he passed. I looked into his face, replied, ‘Hi. How ya doing?’ He hesitated just a beat, then picked up his pace. ‘I’m dong good,’ he said. ‘Another day, another chance to smile.’

I felt his words. Yes. Right! And we held each other’s eyes for a moment as he walked on. I watched him walk down the block.

Sunday a little boy in Taiwan who is the brightest little magical being, ever, turned 7.

Tattoo smiles
Made me happy all day just thinking about him. Another day. Another chance to smile.

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

Tell me. . .what made you smile today.
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I’m still really happy, and feeling lucky.

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A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

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More than One True Thing

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“None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.”
~ Christopher Walken
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It is 2:15am. I feel tired, but my mind’s awake. It’s not a full moon, so who knows why. I got out of bed to write this, because I know I won’t want to in the morning.

It’s dark in the big open space. Kitchen to my right, living room in front. The only light from the five candlestick bulbs under small parchment shades on the cleanly scrolled chandelier above my table. It’s finished to look like aged metal. The bulbs are dimmed. Papers, notes for the book I’m writing, stack and hug my computer. I won’t make the deadline I initially promised for this book. But I trust it will be okay. I did finally send the full copy for the new website today. Third iteration. Hours that swiped away days. Last I’ll mention it ’til it launches my new face to the world. Feels so hugehugehuge.

I love the place where I’m at now. I’m sure one reason is I’m so close to town. But it’s more than that.  The zen garden with koi pond and small waterfall out my bedroom door. The big table where I can stretch out and work. I’ve been lucky that way here. The bathroom that looks and feels like a comforting spa room. The raccoon I saw tip-toe along the edge of the flat roof across the way one early, early morning. And downstairs, opening the blinds to a large cooper’s hawk flying into the garden, turning to fly straight toward me. How I watched it sit high in a young aspen in the garden for three or four minutes before it took off. A messenger, the Native Americans say.

Then two days later I stopped in for 15 min. to see an artist friend, get one of her small pottery bowls for my salt. She was planning a quilt. The strips of cloth laid out sparking in me a creative money-making idea I know she’d enjoy doing. And we talked, and it dawned on me I’d just done this very thing with another artist friend. And as she exclaimed others needed this thing I do, I saw how the pictures come to me like a web of links. Not just the product, but where it goes, who wants it. Gave me something to ruminate. I love that I was there 2-1/2 hrs., and we both felt fine about it.

I read this week the word for soil in Lakota means ‘Who we used to be.’ And thought perhaps it explains my inexplicable Love of this planet. But sitting here, seems it’s what I feel in this land I’m in now. Being a Pisces, a water person, it may seem strange that too much drowns me. When it saturates the air, or is the main feature. I need land. This high desert where you see the pattern and color of earth, plant and life upon its surface, the stretch of it forever to meet a forever sky, it’s home to my Soul. Thinking more on it. I am not alone. There’s an inordinate number of Pisces and Scorpios here. And we used to say many years ago we held the water energy for the desert.

I love that on another gorgeous drive to Chimayo with a friend for a late lunch at a fav classic New Mexico place, we sat so long we arrived to the Santuario at 5pm. When a gal came in, said they were closed, she surprised us. It was a Catholic church. Our memory for decades was it never closed. But it’s an even bigger tourist destination now, we reasoned. They have to do that. The prize of that visit, though, was the last rose still blooming on the bush inside the church courtyard walls, beside the tombstones. I held the bloom forward and we took turns breathing its pure rose fragrance. Over and over. So heavenly. And then it pulled away, ripped from it’s limb, held on by threads. I rested it amongst the leaves. Like a broken bird. I was devastated. The last rose of the season. But the gal closing up said no worries, happens all the time. Kids rip them off, toss them about, she said. If you don’t take it, my friend said, I will. I felt it was a gift from Our Lady Guadalupe. It’s still on my desk, now dried tho I haven’t pitched the water it sits in. You can see it, in front of the card by a fav Abiquiu artist that I always travel with.

desksfpapers

At least a half dozen times in the less than three weeks I’ve been in Santa Fe I’ve thought ‘I am so happy.‘ Felt it despite the five layers of huge changes I’m in the midst of. And that when someone said ‘Tell me one true thing,’ the one true thing I know clearly is Kindness expands a life. And that includes kindness to myself.

Today after a guided Vision Board class, different than others I’ve done, I looked at the images I’d gathered, put together. Chosen for how they made me feel and the values they represent, not for what they specifically portray. One picture didn’t fit. A home. I chose one over another I really was drawn to because it had open sky around it. Sky out my windows so vital to me. And the one I was drawn to didn’t. Plus it had a wide portal, which would block the sky. But when I got back to my place, that house with open sky just wasn’t right. I pulled out the picture I’d put aside. My thought, I’m manifesting here. I can have both home and sky. And from the same magazine with same-sized pics, I found three pieces of sky that went together and fit the 1-1/2 inch square space where I needed it. Patched them right in. Like magic, alchemically seamless. I believe that’s a message, too. I’m taking it!

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

Tell me. . .one true thing.
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I miss having a best friend for a neighbor.

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Dropping the Stop Sign

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My best friend neighbor Lindy delivered a green drink to me one morning. See it there,
next to the computer. With matching green straw covered in pink polka dots.
In front of the card with a painting by my fav Abiquiu artist.
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“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”
~ Martha Graham

Sitting here, the fragrance of fresh sage. I often buy a decorative sage bundle, leave it with a friend when I head home. Today I couldn’t resist. The bundle so fresh its scent lingered on my fingers. The top festooned with a small bouquet of lavender sprigs. It’s heart a puff of ‘straw’ flowers in two shades of purple + a small, deep rose colored dried chrysanthemum. At the bottom, tiny leaves of eucalyptus wrapped in the string. I remember when a friend and I went out to acres of sage, and picked our own, and I learned to wrap. There’s a trick to doing it right. So long ago.

It’s been a different sort of first week in Santa Fe than I’ve ever had. I’m in the country, so not out and about much. I left as the breath of hurricane Matthew hit Florida. Arrived to a text from my sister in Houston – my brother & sister-in-law in the direct path, need a place. They’re on the way to your house, she said. But Art hadn’t been notified. I hooked him up, left cleaning instructions for things I knew he’d miss, and wondered at them traveling three hours thru torrential rains. My brother seriously ill. You haven’t left Florida, a friend said. It wasn’t that. I’ve been thru tropical storms, and floods. And our home is small, and my brother. . .well, not a typical leave-taking for me.

36 hrs. later I woke under the weather. The head-body thing where you feel tired and yukky, but you’re not completely down. So friggin’ rare for me, it was hard to accept. But I moved thru fast, with help from my friend who brought me my elixir – ProPak immune & electrolyte builder. Thought myself ready to do Santa Fe.

Of the half dozen studio tours each fall, there are two I never miss – Abiquiu and Dixon. It was past 11am on the last day of tour when I left for Abiquiu an hour away. I was detained another 20 min. when the tire pressure light lit. As I finally sailed without stops, I realized I didn’t really want to visit studios. I’m in the trees where I’m at. I wanted the New Mexico countryside. My fav Chama River valley with golden yellow cottonwoods blazing all across it. The mythical work of one artist only. So, I stopped at the lavender farm, enjoyed lavender infused ceylon tea and chocolate cake with lavender gelato on the little tea house portal. Moved on to the Abiquiu Inn to get cards by a fav artist. They had wonderful strawberry-lemon infused water. I could’ve drunk a gallon. Stopped at Bode’s old time mercantile to see my friend who owns it. Made plans for a day together in November. Moved on to the artist. And the vineyard, just because it’s so beautiful there and I could buy homemade biscochitos, the light melt-in-your-mouth anise laced butter cookies I love. I did it differently, and was back in Santa Fe by 4:45, feeling just right.

I’m working this trip. Have the luxury of a large table in front of a window where I can spread and stack files and pages. One afternoon, the little voice said, take your notebook outside. That thought was so far from my mind, I said aloud, really. But I obeyed, and discovered the huge heavy round table on the portal a fabulous place to work. And tho the pines obstruct the view and the portal shortens the sky, it was perfect.

I have a confession, tho. I’m distracted by no-thought, and seems my intentions are continually sidetracked. My book, most specifically, sidetracked again and again by the development of my new super-duper https dedicated better everything experience website. Something kinda exciting. But choosing a web designer is like choosing a dentist. So much is about feel. And tho I mentioned this angst before, now it’s around the new look. My face to the world changing. It takes such a HUGE amount of energy, I get confused what the right next thing to do is. Worry I won’t finish the book by the deadline. And that’s not okay.

But the Universe sent me a message for this, if I can just figure how it fits in my puzzle.

Part One arrived in an email from my husband, saying how courageous he sees me. He lists why, getting some of my history wrong. But I’m not a detailed reminiscer, and I don’t think it matters. It’s about my courage. That night, Part Two. I read this by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“Fear is boring. . . my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note — only one word, actually — and that word was “STOP!. . .”

If courage is moving forward despite fear, I have it in a ton of ways. Even so, I’ve held fear’s Stop sign up again and again to something bigger than myself. To this that I’m doing now. This Full Circle I wrote about last week. Moving back to my Soul Home. Writing a book that shares what I know with the world. Stepping forward in service lit in spotlights. The stuff I’ve received direct, in my face, messages about over the years and replied ‘No, I’ll stay small.’ I believe this love note from the Universe is about putting that Stop sign down. Now.

I met a fabulous, creative friend for lunch who I haven’t seen in years. The thing I love most about him is how often he says ‘I love my life.’ To say those words has been one of my highest aspirations. After he sped off to the airport, the air and breeze was so luscious, the sky so clear and blue, I felt it, close. I wonder if saying ‘I’m so happy’ counts. ‘Cause I’ve had that thought more than once this week.

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

Tell me. . .how are you doing things differently these days?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I still feel wiggly.

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I’m writing a book for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
Get Past Stuck. Live and Love Your Best Creative Life.

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Full Circle

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“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning.”
~ Katherine Anne Porter, author
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fall-cottonwoods-santa-fe*

This is my 19th trip to Santa Fe since we moved back east 18 yrs. ago. Some time back I noticed themes in these sojourns that coincided with what I needed or where I was in life. I don’t know how long it’d been happening, but I could trace it thru a few visits. All my friends calling immediately upon my arrival, filling my calendar the year I needed community. Reconnecting with former healing practitioners the year I needed clearing and clarity. This year it’s about coming full circle. And the layers of them are freaky cool.

For the next week I’m settled in a super nice place nestled in a pine & piñon forest 20 min. outside Santa Fe. On top of a ridge above the tiny village of Cañada (pronounced Caun-YA-da). Population 439. I have no cell service. Internet works best on the kitchen counter at my back, facing the opposite direction from where I work. To get here I drive up a slightly washboarded dirt road. A good friend got me in. She lives across the driveway here on the property. I love that. I’ve always wanted a best friend for a neighbor.

At first I kinda freaked about the lack of contact with the world. My web designer. My friends. How will I do it?! But I learned the landline in the house works. Something I didn’t guess since the house is a second home. And it dawned on me I’m saved from email distractions, because I have to move the computer while I’m writing if I want them. Noooo worries. But here’s the kicker. I’m writing my book in the exact spot I did the <first> final draft of my novel with an editor years ago. In the same chair, at the same table, looking out the same window in this house that this very same friend got me in back then. Full circle.

And in two weeks I’m hosting a private retreat for a writer who’s completing her memoir. A Writer’s Dream Retreat because it’s designed specifically for the individual, and includes lots of coaching from me. The gal who’s coming started her memoir in a retreat I co-facilitated 5 years ago. I started with you, she said. I feel drawn to complete this with you. Another full circle.

And the big full circle, after 18 yrs. I’m moving back to Santa Fe when our lease expires the end of January. A move I’m excited about, and one I’ve fretted over finding a place. I know this town well. Know how I live in it. Where I go. What I do. Know the essentials of what I want in a home and rhythm in life. I’ve tried shifting my head. It’ll all work out fine, has every move, I tell myself. But this move is different, and I know it. We’re setting up two households. Have no fall-back. The thought’s not been far from my mind.

In Whole Foods a woman approached me as I read the label on a small bottle of rose oil moisturizer, started talking. It felt easy. I learn that, like me, she’s moving to someplace she loves where she feels expansive. Like me, growing a business. And then she says, ‘You oughta move into our house since we’re leaving. Our landlord’s great.’ And tho I knew I couldn’t budget her rent, I thought. . .can it really be this easy?

The first morning, as I rounded the bend halfway up the near 1/2 block long driveway, intent to try for cell at the road, before I found out the landline worked, two huge mule deer stood in profile at the top of the drive. Their heads turned, big dark eyes focused on me. Ears larger than their gorgeous black & white faces erect, like gigantic seed pods. I stopped. We watched each other for minutes. Over and over I told them how beautiful they were. Not until I reached for my phone, looked down to set the camera, did they walk on. I knew it was some sort of blessing.

The Native Americans think deer are shaman. Some think them messengers from Gods. Perhaps so. Those deer and I met before the woman in Whole Foods. Before I connected all these full circles. I have a feeling there’s more to come.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life
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Tell me. . .what theme might be running thru your life this season?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .days seem to be melting away, even tho I’m present to the moments.

Special Thanks to Lindy Teresi for my home in the woods these 10 days.

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In a Sudden Strangeness

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“Buried  under all the mute experiences are those unseen ones
that give our life its form, its color, and its melody.”
~ Amadeu de Prado (from ‘A Goldsmith of Words’)
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red-apples-orchard

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Each dawn I step out, expect cooler air, humidity lifted. It’s fall. October. The turn past my least favorite season should’ve happened already. But not here, not yet. Tho once a couple weeks ago it felt like it may.

I’m usually in Santa Fe wearing jeans by now. But this year I’m delayed a week. One part of me thinks it okay. That I have no time for studio tours and hugging aspens. Basking in the golden light of sunshine through fall cottonwoods. Driving with friends to my favorite river valley for studio tours. Tasting heirloom apples from all over northern New Mexico.

And my Soul reminds me the silence I crave will greet me each dawn and night my first ten days, as I’ll in the country outside town. No dozen a/c’s vibrating around me. Swarm of traffic, mowers, or leafblowers. That I can look up, see multitudes of stars, the Milky Way coursing over. No lights glaring in my windows. And it will be fall. It’s time to go.

What happened was a new project. After weeks delay and no progress with my web designer. The audio program I had fun creating, that needs to get into the world, still going nowhere. My publisher recommended someone to help. I usually shop around, bootstrap when cash is tight. But after days of back ‘n’ forths with this guy, I made the decision to redesign the whole site vs. patch everything in. It was a hard decision. I love my site. It reflects me in so many ways. But it can’t give me what I need. I put aside The Writer’s Block Myth book I’m writing, and turned to web content and instruction.

4:30am after my decision, I woke questioning the choice. In angst, I asked for guidance. Then questioned what I heard. Was it me or *real.*  The little voice answered, ‘I’ll give you a sign you can’t miss in the morning. Go back to sleep.’

I woke not feeling like a walk. I typically stay in when I feel this way, but I looked out the window, saw a weird fat river of cloud running in a straight line, and decided to go out for the fresh air, look at the sky. Above me, on an empty field, stretched a giant wishbone. Down to the slight curve after the fork.

As days melted past, my personal deadlines slipped to the next day and next. I forgot the wishbone, began to question if I’m pushing the river because of physical world needs. Because I know breath in creating something new is a good thing. Even teach the necessity of it. And despite waking to new insight & inspiration each morning, real world needs butted against feelings I may not be doing enough, fast enough.

Something poet Maya Stein wrote this week has stuck with me. She says that as a poet, she gravitates toward the grey areas of things. ‘I’m drawn to ambiguity and paradox,’ she says. ‘I’m fascinated by neither-here-nor-there, by not-only-but-also, by kitchen-sink moments where everything’s in the mix and the boundaries are hazy. I’m far more intrigued by doors than I am by walls.’

I’ve gone back to that paragraph again and again. Feeling there’s something more than the big Me, Too I’m to get. Just now I understand what it is. . .this new website that’s sucked days and hours of thought, that’s caused me angst, is a door. The boundaries are hazy because it opens to big, new territory. And that can be scary. Right now, I’m not in control. But it’s all part of the big cloud wishbone I saw stretch across the sky last week.

On the little tag hanging from the eyelet of my new shoes: Asics is an acronym from the Latin phrase, ‘Anima Sana In Corpore Sano.’ A sound mind in a sound body. I’m taking that intent under my feet. Counting to twelve, keeping still, as Pablo Neruda says.

I pack tomorrow.

*
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whale
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

~ Pablo Neruda (Keeping Quiet)

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

Tell me. . .what would you have wished for had you seen that giant cloud wishbone?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .even as big as that wishbone was, I looked a long time, hardly believing it.

*
I’m writing a book about the creative life for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
Get Past Stuck, Complete Your Projects, Have Lasting Creative Freedom.

Click here to subscribe

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