Excitement City with an Oops. And Free Download!

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Heloise Jones

Isn’t it hard to let things go? Well I let my “free download link” go last night and I had the dates for the FREE download of my new book wrong, in 2 places! I was a day early. Excitement City, even with an Oops, tho.

Free download is Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on Amazon.

And in case you missed it. . .here’s my beautiful note and the link!

Hi! It’s time, it’s time! My book’s coming out March 14th!
Could you do me a favor? I have the book downloadable for free on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of this week (Kindle and to your computer). Could you download it on one of those days?

The book, The Writer’s Block Myth, is something I’m so excited about. Every day I hear, read, or experience discussions that talk about being “blocked” in writing. Sometimes it stops individuals from even starting! Isn’t it hard to get to that anticipation place and then get stymied by your own thinking?

I’ve got your process and you’re going to truly value that you’re not alone on this journey. The Writer’s Block Myth will free you from so much more than your perceived block in writing.

C’mon, here’s your free ticket to learn! Let’s talk about writing and if you order on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday you can receive it absolutely FREE.

The book is intended to support writers and creatives to get past stuck, complete their goals, and experience lasting creative freedom whatever life looks like in the ‘real’ world.

Please, let’s get the word out, for any writer or want to be writer that this week the book is even free! I’d so appreciate your sharing and if you truly love the book, and the work within it, would you consider rating it on Amazon?

This is an exciting tool and I hope one you keep in your tool shelf of good things to read and share!

Warmly,
Heloise Jones

Silent Night & Gifted

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I climbed into bed at eleven, feeling good to snuggle down so early after a week of insomnia. Then I remembered Tuesday morning. Blog.

It’s the day after Christmas. I had the week to myself. My husband Art gifted a flight to Charlotte by a colleague. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I was behind with edits on the book, and feeling frustrated. Feeling like four feather pillows burst, throwing different colored feathers in the air, my task to gather them into like piles. Once he left, I dived into the book, but I had the hardest time following my own wisdom (the wisdom I write about in that exact book) to focus on process, not product. To let it take as long as it takes to do it right. To be present without expectations. And here it is the day after Christmas and I’m still not done. But I have two piles of feathers pretty much sorted. I know when I’m moving and how I’m gonna do it. And I have unexpected, perfect tech help for what I need to do beyond the book. This last was cause for giving myself an attagirl when I figured how to find a permalink so peeps can see my blog images on social media. I added a high five because the link’s in computer code and my brain was firing off of 3 hrs. sleep. Yeeeaaaa Me, I thought.

The week had moments of Hallelujah, too. Said admitting nothing gets me up with a heart bursting from my chest like the Hallelujah Chorus. Which I heard one evening and indeed jumped into the middle of the room, hands held to the sky, body swaying side to side, me singing at the top of my lungs. Noticing how rusty my voice sounds and how alive my heart felt when moments before it was so quiet.

All day Friday I thought about the yummy salmon BLT I recently discovered at a little place down the road. No regrets I found it on the cusp of leaving, only feeling an intent to enjoy it while I can. But I forced myself back to the manuscript and computer. Fighting the pull of the rare non-humid day with temps below 80*, too. I desperately wanted to be outside. I washed sheets and a blanket, hung them on drying racks in the sun, lingered before turning back to work. When they were dry, I buried my nose in the fresh smell on the sheets, which made sitting at the computer even harder. Just get to page 50, I told myself, then go. Which I did, but I was 30 min. past lunch and the cook wasn’t gonna do it. ‘Get a dinner sandwich and a side of bacon,’ the gal said. ‘It’ll be on a bun instead of bread, and it’s only 75c more.’ I had my salmon BLT and she got a $5 tip ’cause she never let me feel ignored, and it was Christmas.

Saturday, Christmas eve, when I picked up our holiday dinner at the natural foods market, I noticed they left out the kale salad. Long after I got home I discovered they left out the dressing, too. I LOVE homemade dressing. But Christmas morning, after a full 5 hrs. sleep (longest sleep in a night all week), a conversation with the most sparkly little boy in the whole world and my son looking the best I’ve seen him in ages. . .I could only thank the Angels for sparing me the carbs.

I had no tree. There were no gifts exchanged at our home. But I felt gifted the entire week.

A gift in the parking lot at Trader Joes. The title track to Leonard Cohen’s last album. This line hitting me to the marrow – ‘You want it darker, we kill the flame.’ I still feel God bumps when I think, no, we hold the flame. I’m not sure what my response entirely means, yet, but sitting in my car, listening to his deep, deep voice singing in that cadence he has, I knew it held some special meaning for me.

And this by my friend Rachel Ballentine in Albuquerque who writes wonderful poetry and colorful observations of the world around her. I love it because it’s brilliant and beautiful, and is a message of hope and appreciation and awareness:
“because of my eye I’ve been scared, so i tried eating my breakfast with my eyes closed, just to experiment. try it. the birds were a lot louder, the thyme in the omelet was tastier, I didn’t like the toast as much when I couldn’t see it, the coffee was tasty, and i ate much much slower. and not as much. I’d better start making art instead of fb and pouting. I mean, what if???? we have so so so much to be grateful for.”

And this, a poem by a poet of great spirit who loves this planet as much as I do. These words exactly what I will tell you are truer than True:

The Magic of the Season

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 (from Winter: Reflections by Snowlight)

The photo above is of a star being born somewhere light years away. A baby star, like us.

I love anything that has to do with space-time continuum, have a dream to go into space before I die. I loved the movie Interstellar for everything in it, especially for how it showed simultaneous realities in other dimensions. Because I’ve experienced them, and wondered if they’re real. I don’t wonder anymore. And so, Christmas day there was so much Love in my heart, and I’m still editing the manuscript.

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

Tell me. . .what do you know is truer than true?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .the entire week was like Silent Night, holy.

Saying the Word Lucky

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“…we don’t know what day we’re on. We just don’t.
So we’ve gotta do all we can to make every one be the kind of day
that helps us become who we are. . .I keep learning how powerful it is to say “yes”
to new experiences, to be brave, to ask for help when you need it,
and to just sing your own song in your own voice,
in whatever way that means something to you.”
~ Tamara Mangum Bailie, songwriter
*

One of the things about spending so much time with the screen is missing fall in New Mexico. I get doses. Like the luminescent golden-yellow leaves of a cottonwood still in full coat outside my window. But the shadows have turned edgy, the light moved to that quality you know it’s past fall. Now, dark at 5:47, I feel something’s slipped by. And I’m looking for life past the screen.

I drove to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs a day after wonky sleep last week. Most of the trees through the valley with the best display were bare. A quiet tangle where I usually see light. I have three fav places for that dose of color and light. This valley after the bend, crossing toward Ojo one of them. It dawns on me this is the first time in 23 yrs. I haven’t seen it. But there were still breathtaking gems scattered here and there. As I drove out of Ojo, big trees in fields either side of me lit gorgeously bright in the late afternoon sun. I didn’t want to leave. Like seriously didn’t want to leave. I spun off the narrow rough-paved road, made a U-turn just to see them once more. Pebbles and miscellany from that turn rattled in my wheel wells for a dozen or more miles.

I went to the Dixon Studio Tour with Ken. I met him 23 yrs. ago when he drove out to the middle of open, undeveloped land where we lived for moving boxes. There’s things about that first home in Santa Fe I still viscerally remember – bluebirds and hawks on the large disk birdbaths, snow, how I stood many nights, my head rocked back, my chest filled with awe as I gazed upon the Milky Way coursing across a field of a kerjillion stars. I haven’t seen that kind of sky since. Ken always has his camera, never minds waiting while I chat with folks. Perfect, because Dixon’s not so much about the art, anymore, for me. It’s the community.

Dixon. . .apple country 45 min. north of Santa Fe. The Rio Embudo running beside it. No place flat. The little village so compressed, no need to drive all of it like on the other studio tours. People walk, mill along the road. I love the New Mexican food at the little eatery where you’re sure to wait 20 min. in line. Daughter takes orders at the register, mama dishes ice cream, pours drinks. Even with the bustle, the gal offered a taste of the chipolte pork, with a smile, when I asked how hot it was.

I love the music in the backroom of the Mission hall, too. Tho we don’t hang around long. A trio – violin, guitar, and this year, a drum. Celtic folk in flavor. Wonderful voices. I meant to write their name down.

We lucked out because there was rain in the desert all day and night before. The thick promise of the sky and desert-humidity delivered. And I heard it was rain-rain and mud Sunday. But lucky us. Saturday, just a few sprinkles like blessings.

Driving home, narrow, curvy 2 lanes, double yellow lines, we come to a complete stop. Mountain on one side. Guard rail at a steep drop the other. Six cars up, a big vehicle overturned on its side, it’s bottom facing us. We hear the sirens coming, on their way. First thought’s someone did something crazy, because that’s what I saw driving up. Crazy. But not so. Tire blew, like exploded, front driver side. Threw the car into the guard rail, and flipped a 16-yr-old girl down against the road.

The wait seemed out of time. Eerily peaceful. Some cars pulled out, went the other way. A few people stood in the road. But there was no running up and down or around. No drama or zing of impatience. I commented once about the barky barks down the valley that didn’t shut up. He commented how the cops & rescue workers weren’t very efficient, and expressed gratitude we were on a portion of the road with fencing against falling rocks. We simply chilled. I watched the light change on the valley, and the blinking red lights on the five rescue/cop vehicles. I could only think what terror that girl must’ve experienced. That she’ll have PTSD for a long time. I suddenly felt very tired, and closed my eyes. 1 hr-20 min. later, everything and everyone cleared, including the glass, we crept by.

The railing was badly mangled. Good thing it held, we said. I thought of my husband walking on a gorgeous fall day, struck down by a car, the guardrail he was rolled along. How grateful we were it didn’t give. As we drove past seven miles of stopped cars, I said we were lucky to be so close to the front. To know what was happening. To get moving so fast. Grateful. We heard the girl’s OK.

And then there were Rainbows. A really fat one, rich in color, rising halfway to the sky behind us as we hit the straight-away. We passed a guy beside his car, taking a pic. It was that good. I kinda wanted to turn around, see if I could stand in the colored light that touched the ground. (can we ever?) Then after I dropped Ken, another really wide rainbow halfway to the sky as I swung toward Santa Fe. Newly snow-capped mountains in the background. And then just as I felt the most tired, still two stops to go before home, a tall, spectacular arch. Nothing like a New Mexico rainbow. They’re not like Hawaii rainbows, or Appalachian, or Florida rainbows. Something about the color on that crisp sky, I guess.

How is it that we find our Soul Homes. I don’t reminisce as a habit, but I feel and see my life here like one long continuum, despite the 18 year residence in other places. I remember so clearly those 4 years in the 90s I picked up my friend Jacqueline every other week at 2pm when she got off work. Our drive north and thru the pueblo to Ojo where we soaked & had trout dinners in the little dining room that looks the same now but has gone upscale for dinner. And how the sky looked that night driving back when we saw an UFO. No one believed us, but we know what we saw. Jacqueline is a first friend here, too. I met her on my first Dixon tour 23 yrs. ago.

The Appalachians pull a sense of Home from me when I fly over. I feel a peace and belonging in Hawaii where I glide immediately into the vibe, am calmed. Experience a deep knowing inside when I hear the chants, see Kahiko Hula. But it’s here, this desert. These mountains. This light. This expansive feeling inside me as big as the Universe. The moments I’m so happy just Being. How many times I used the word ‘lucky’ writing this. As if time is on my side tho it flows like a too-swiftly moving river. I think maybe I can find center, again, here.

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

Tell me. . .what’s time feel like for you right now?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .it 4:11am. The second week I’ve written you in the small hours.

Photo: Apodaca by Lou Malchie, Dixon

*
I’m writing a book for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

All Under the Same Sun

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
~ Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
*

freaky big sun Just peeking up it’s taller than one of the multi-story mansions on the island.
*

I finally ordered Patti Digh’s book, the Geography of Loss. It’s been on my list since 2014. I’d shared the intro paragraph from Amazon with hurting friends as comforts. Read some of the pieces, knew it was gorgeous. But after I ordered it, I wondered why I felt moved just now. I thought perhaps because my son’s due for a visit in July, 2 yrs. after the last time we hugged. My desperate grief in the loss of his moving to Taiwan renewed. The incredible sadness still lingering after a fissure that changed our relationship in ways we haven’t had a chance to fully revision, yet. I thought how community’s on my mind. That for days I’ve missed my friends. My tribe. Connection with people I don’t have here where I currently live.

By the time I unwrapped Patti’s book Monday, I was thinking Father stuff. Because my dad, dead since 1993, had drifted thru my thoughts for days. Always coming back to that aha moment I found him reading a fat book on the siege of Leningrad. His reply to my question why, ‘because it’s interesting.’ How that moment defined his character to me. I realize now it was probably the first time I thought books a person read revelatory about them. And like magic, an article on the siege popped up on Facebook. Story about a seed bank there. How scientists locked themselves in the vault to protect the treasure from starving citizens. Chose to die of starvation themselves rather than eat, rob the future. Treasure collected by one of the first scientists to ask traditional peasant farmers around the world why they felt seed diversity was important in their fields. The next morning I heard a dear friend’s father died Monday. 6 days later, heard another friend’s father had brain surgery Monday. Last week’s blog was about noticing. I noticed. Father stuff.

By Wed. night I noticed two back-to-back stories about tribal fabrics made from natural materials. Hawaiian kapa, barkcloth. I watched people in the documentary strip and scrape and pound. Gather nuts and roots and leaves, make dye. Carve delicate stamps for intricate patterns. Each family’s watermark only seen in certain light. Western ideology that superior Europeans introduced sewing cracked open. A couple days later a series of stunning shots of Indonesian women preparing palm and ramie fibers. Weaving fabric that will adorn windows here and abroad.

Noticed in the midst that out of the blue, four friends from afar sent personal notes about how I show up, what I mean to them. One in response to my fb profile pic posted several years ago (!) that placed it back into status feeds. Four Likes for this image people see every day followed. Imagine.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the stories I could tell. Loss, change, identity, home, abuse, validation, craft, persistence, courage, survival, courage, persistence. I hold so many under any of these headings. And how every week I wonder what story will emerge here. This week it’s a fill-in-the-blank from author Mary Anne Radmacher. ‘I live in service to the _______HEART.’ Meaning Essence. Soul. All encompassing. You-Me, where we connect.

Mary Anne repeated words she once said to me,’I love it when you write about the sky,’ and sent a meme. Which took me to remember a shot taken Aug. 2014 on the last flight out of Honolulu before an impending hurricane. The plane empty but for me, the crew, and one other passenger. Along the way I flew over rainbow after rainbow. And not until I chose a shot to share did I see the swatch of blue behind the clouds was in the perfect shape of a heart, a rainbow shooting from it’s center. And I noticed how her fill-in-the-blank showed up the very day I was thinking about the guy I rented my condo in Kona from. How he lived in Santa Fe when I did. Our many overlaps without us knowing.

Comforts for my grief are everywhere. Telling me that even in my solitude, I’m linked. Woven like the natural cloth. Protected like the seeds. Sharing, though not knowing, the heartache of friends for their fathers. That I’m indeed seen, even appreciated. We are tribal animals. Not meant to be alone. Not even when we love solitude as I do.

Last night I stepped from the Chinese take-out to a man riffling the trash, a dirty Chic-fil-A fries carton in his hand. I felt the weight of my bag filled with my hot dinner. He didn’t ask for money when I said ‘are you hungry.’ He wanted to know if there was a church nearby serving food. As I turned to leave, having paid for his shrimp fried rice, he looked me in the eyes, said ‘it’ll come back to you.’ In a flash my whole being softened. I smiled, said ‘it always does.’ I can’t figure that one out. But I think I must know in my Heart it’s true. After all, we’re all under that big freaky sun.

How do you feel connected to others?

MaryAnne meme clouds

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

A secret: I imagined these two lines as a way you’d get to know me.
A favorite: A friend said she looks forward to reading what’s here, in these two lines.

Chocolate Covered Almonds, Soul Food

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Heloise Jones

“…love is not just a reaction and a falling into, but a choice made every moment to be open to the possibility of glory, of connection, of the change I want to be and see. So again I choose, and the next moment of pain comes, and I choose, and again….again and again and again…. “
~ Michael Johnston

Crow-Eagles back - Version 2

Yesterday I made special trips to two stores. One for cranberry walnut bread I’d slather with butter, the other for my fav 70% dark chocolate w/ginger bars. The dark chocolate covered almonds were a bonus. By bedtime I’d consumed half the loaf and way too many handfuls of choc almonds. Soul food while trying to settle into productive activity. Get past a heart feeling squeezed and a head buzzing from something that morning. Written words with someone I respect, a person with good heart and good works who I trust, turned very wrong. By the time it was too late in our exchange, I simply wanted an end with kindness. But it couldn’t be fixed. All afternoon and evening I read and re-read the thread to see my part in it. See how I might’ve conveyed the message and energy she saw that I did not feel. See if I’d indeed written what I thought I had, words and tone saying I believe both/and.

This morning I rose before dawn, stepped out into the dark. The moon was a sliver. Lightening flashed above and around me, caused me to pause, look up, make sure I’d be safe. Over those eight blocks I walked to the bay, I was able to fly above what happened yesterday. Feel compassion for what I suspect could be happening with her. Dive beneath the steel edge of discomfort I carried, sit with the muck. A brief while ago I would’ve took what happened all on myself. Berated myself for not doing better, being better. Decided to withdraw, not speak up. I might’ve tried really hard to fix it, again. Not let things rest, settle. I definitely would’ve compared myself to this person, found myself less-than, because there are so many ways her ‘plus column’ objectively stacks higher than mine. But when I stood at the water, said my Gratitudes aloud (a luxury I don’t typically get with others nearby), I surprised myself by ending with I’m grateful I’m me.

I told my husband about all this. How the conversation could’ve been different. What I learned through it all. What he understood most were my insights at the water. I let go of comparing myself to another, saw my strengths, my positive contributions. Let go of my regrets, am present, here now. Let go what’s not mine, still owning what is, good and bad. And beyond this, the realization what happened yesterday is a snapshot of something bigger. A parallel of broader conversations across the country – race, guns, abuses, inequities. The topics that can shrink us, leave us feeling angry, sad, hopeless, helpless. That it’s about what’s said, what’s heard, intent and action. Our responsibility to hear the other, find where we meet, a common language, and change, be better. Things for a person of strong heart. And sometimes it hurts, a lot. Takes chocolate covered almonds to get there. But we rarely ever travel alone, do we?

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

Bread,Choc

A secret: Potato chips are my standard stress food.
A favorite: Rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache frosting.

*Crow & Eagle photo from National Geographic