Friday, April 24, 2020




Being home during this pandemic I am hard-pressed to make this time valuable in terms of finishing home projects and slowing life down to enjoy my kids and find a new rhythm of cherishing time. It feels off to write about my thoughts as others are facing grave sickness and the passing of family. Caretakers risking their lives and the hum of industry being kept afloat by workers meeting our needs. It changed so suddenly, but now I am looking to new ways to be of service to my community, while staying at home.

I began this quarantine by doing. Redoing K's room, hanging art, growing seedlings and cooking round the clock, it seems. I use my body to work through my thoughts. I move my body to find an outlet for uncertainty. To drive anxiety about change into the air, lifting and sent to the heavens for washing. I pray to be grounded like an oak, with wisdom, mindfulness and thoughts of peace.

Five weeks in and these thoughts of mine are turning in on me. They are being pressed up against my mind and forced back in. Restlessness...my familiar internal nemesis of fear that keeps me flitting from thought to thought, acitivity to activity, keeping me from settling in for the joy. It scatters me and I am not sure at times where the pieces are. It often feels like they are floating just above me. I wish they would just settle into a person that is steadfast in all ways. Some times I wish I was a person that knew more about what I didn't like than wanting to be someone who bounces from idea to idea, reckless abandon of one started project or activity to the next. The dandelion. Sometimes the blooming flower, sometimes scattered seeds in the wind, planting somewhere new, learning the surroundings even though it's the same patch of grass.

...hours later I come back to this and a shift in perspective. Almost sad at my negative view. Yes, I can be a bit unsure, uncertain of concrete ideas, but I have to think that this is also the beauty in my flaws. I can look at it like flitting or finding, uncertain or curious. Trying new things out until something either becomes habit or ritual, though I suspect I will always be on the move to find what those are exactly. What it is that keeps me curious or longing seems to be just near, like a hot breath of dragon ready to consume, yet taunting in the chase. Luring and leaving me to follow. I know though as I write these words I feel closer to habit and ritual and closer to taming the animal.

Then I think these thoughts again, as I've written before in a hundred different ways, a hundred different times.

When younger or when older. It's when you decide when you need to express your soul. When you've thought it enough, when you've said it enough, when you've heard it enough and when you listen in the wisdom between the words from an online post, in passing, from family, from friend, or spouse or child; and especially when you finally meet your soul and say-I've been seeking and questioning as all these messages have been filtering through, although you wait on me. So, let's go- Let's be whatever, now.




Friday, January 17, 2020

I think like most I resonate with certain words that encourage, or inspire, or those that have become familiar. Maybe they are words rooted in family, passed along like a recipe, shared as a communal language. Maybe they are words picked up along the way through life, brought about by a poignant moment in conversation, an underline to a standout phrase along a sentence, an intimate study of a process. Some words we use are simple and general, but hold great meaning in our lives. Some of the words that describe the happenings in my life are seen in my tagline~      grow.nourish.artistry.wonder

They are simple, explanatory on the surface, but also reflect personal meanings to myself and the life of my family.

I first think of  Nourish in this way:

Nourish ~ food, garden, recipe creations, taste, thirst, regional foods, seasonal, farmer's market, autoimmune disease, vegan/vegetarian, meat, utensils, raising healthful eaters, farm, cooking with herbs, sustainability, consciousness

I think of nourish as in taking care of the body by way of food, sustenance and health, however there are ways in which I nourish my soul as well

on a short list:
prayer
read
listen to music,
 hold my children and talk with them
watch movies with my husband
cook with my family
sleep
time alone

On that minimal list are the times that make me feel gratitude, for just being. 


Upon entering my forties I am recognizing a different way to nourish, by learning tools for what IS presently, not in the past (regrets) or in the future (fantasy). I'm sensing a pivotal time emotionally where I have awareness of the purpose to meet my shadow self and make amends. Through other familial work I have realized that I disassociate from truths about myself and others as a way to provide protection over my thoughts, emotions and personality. I don't want to face the hard truths sometimes so I hold back in being bold or truthful or exploratory; fearful of what I may fail at or whom I will fail, even though I know neither are true. I've carried physical weight around as bondage to my emotional state. I've drank wine and made lists of things I will do, but never begin. I spewed anger and instantly regretted it, telling myself, next time I won't do that, only to do it again, and again and again. Only when we recognize in the shadow self why we project certain reactions we begin to control our actions.  I recently read that procrastination can be an emotional regulatory problem. In all the ideas that make me feel most like me I waiver. I'm curious where along the way I began to distrust my own ability. I've been become successful in many areas of my life, but according to others not really me. To me I've just burnt the candle at both ends because tireless work made me feel that I had made my worth. Or subconsciously maybe I was putting off big dreams thinking I unworthy of that. I admire those that go after what they are called to do. As we all are, I am in an intricate process of unfolding. I am just acutely aware of actively taking part now. Realizing that I mask my sensitive being because I don't know how to express myself without feeling like I am losing control of my situation, although I realize I never have control, only experiences. I mask my sensitive being because sometimes I was shamed for being too, sensitive.

 I am sitting here waiting on my daughter to get off the bus and I am thinking about me at her age and what I need to connect with internally that would make the then me feel belonging, transverse time and bring that to the present. I will give my daughter a hug, ask her about her day and make her a snack, all with a heaviness in my stomach from reaching deep into my psyche. I'll transition out of that space into the present with her, gratitude for the gift she gives to me, nodding to my Shadow Self that waits patiently so. What a blessing to self-discover. 




Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Answer the Calling




Last Sunday, our minister, gently reminded, that God's call is today- whether it be for a career change, the new city to live in that has been resting on your heart, mending a relationship, a calling spiritually-your life presenting itself, presently. Take notice and sew it into your day, now. This message resonated, and deeply.  I feel this calling, and this message of today is and has been dwelling, or I should say I have been saying soon, when the list, the everyday list, is finished.  The list that becomes the vice; an excuse. At every urge to  explore more creatively, to do rather than dream, I wave my own list in my face and push up against the last minute, hoping that the very last minute will be enough time to explore my own curiosity of creativity.  But it never is. So I have to just begin, even when it doesn't makes sense or come together exactly envisioned. I finally confess to myself that the anxious feeling I have of time slipping by is only from not doing rather than doing so much. Or rather, it's time slipping by from not doing what I feel a deep tug towards. This feeling is physical. Do what you love- the message reverberates, the message is louder. I feel it in the shock of my alarm when all is still dark, when all is still slumbering in dreams, healing, restoring, growing. I feel it on a walk surrounded by all those vibrant, brilliant colors, even grey, sometimes especially grey.

I day dream about creative exploration. I collect things for it, not knowing what they are for, maybe a practice in keeping a collection of my wanderings and visualizations. What is this hold I have over what I feel so strongly for? What am I trying to control or keep from myself? Little by little, just try. I say just try, and try again until I just feel ease, peace, calm. I've started again...today it's here. A few weeks ago it was with paint. Again tomorrow begins, and it is another TODAY. Answer the calling.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Just alot of pictures of Korlyn because...


pajamas, piano..and oh yes, skates!

oh, her wee feet...love.





















because...


...I love her so.

When I was pregnant with Korlyn I would imagine how she might be as a little girl, like sweet, calm, gentle.

and...

She is all of those things, completely.

She loves to snuggle, hug, fall asleep on my lap, put lotion on my legs, put her dolls to sleep under the covers.

This sweet girl cries at the sight of other's tears.

 What I so gratefully get to witness is that she's also...

 really funny, opinionated, emotional- and will
tell you exactly how she feels and how you made her feel:)

I think her sensitivity is wonderful, and I always want to support this in her because I feel it is a beautiful trait to embrace in life.

Even if it is really hard to work through these emotional moments with her.

Sometimes I even feel like I am the kid and she is the adult because she tells me just what to do:). I try to be really understanding of her frustrations, sometimes I am not so good at this and get overwhelmed, yet I think I am really good at returning to our "moments" and am able to calmly talk about our feelings.

Also, she loves to wrestle with her Daddy and Cole, sing, make up words, put on makeup and...

 people.

This girl loves people-hug, talk, ask questions, make jokes, dance.

She's a people person like her Daddy.

I'm really shy and she just opens up in the presence of others. Love this about her...so much.

I love you Korlyn...you wake my smile


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Blank Transition


I entered graduate school in a moment of verge... a time when everything seemed to be at my back, pushing against me. Though it all wanted to be released, I resisted like a wall, not letting it go until I was sure I no longer needed it. For a long time some fear was stronger and had let me resist the growth that I had already realized but was unwilling to let live. I am slow to change outwardly although deep inside I am always constantly.

My husband and I decided that I would go back to school, to find a job that would provide, but that I also would love, and that it would be a way to discover this great internal ‘must’ I wanted to come of my personal story, my life, but that I had no direction or understanding of how to move towards it. I went and it was hard and rewarding and the most poignant experience I have ever personally and intellectually gone through; just me. I have had the most profound experiences from having children, but motherhood is not just a concentration of my ideas, and school was, and I broke through. I crossed over…my intellectual lust, and my motherhood grew. I found passion for myself while being educated about education and it pierced my heart in overwhelming ways. I became a better, more present mother for it.

Often in class I felt so much, and to write what happened internally is really difficult, because it is made up of feelings, the ones you wrestle with when you’re learning and changing and becoming.

The ones I can’t accurately say I know what I did with.

 I just know they surfaced out of old growth and formed a new path. I cultivated a new perspective although I feel closer to myself, my soul self, than I have in many years. I was exposed to so many new ideas about education, though I kind of felt that I had always know them, somehow. I felt I had found a source to feed my soul journey. I had many conversations with God, grateful for vulnerability and trust.

So many feelings.

I reflected on everything I had done, and thought, or thought I knew, and I allowed myself to be open to what others had studied and written about public schooling, and about how children learn, and about being equitable and fighting for the story of each child. I shared ideas that I was proud of, ones that kind of shocked me about myself and some that I shudder at because I thought I may have come across, to some, in unintended ways.

I sat in classes where I felt friendship and trust and others in which I felt insecure. I sat like a child does among the cliques and ideas, kinship and insecurity and I realized that these ways of community do not change, but that instead, I have grown deeper inside, and so I know myself deeper and understand how to communicate better, and how to accept difference.

I felt pulled apart and put back together.

I was tired, but refreshed with a new direction to venture towards.

As part of my coursework we spent a great amount of time in our writings using the practice of reflection. After I finished student teaching, I kind of just stopped doing so outwardly, onto paper. I kind of shut off the faucet of letting it all pour out. After a period of shifting away from school and back into a new routine of children out of school for summer and finding a teaching position I once again realize the power of reflection and how recording my thoughts it is a vital compass to directing me back to my best self, over and over again.

There was a period right after I finished student teaching that I felt like I was facing myself from two years ago, before school. I can’t quite describe it, but I felt like I was staring at a blank version of myself. I questioned if anything had really sunk in. I felt like all the knowledge was slowly slipping away; I couldn’t figure out how to transition, or let it guide me to take the next step. I felt I suddenly had to learn something new, to create; to keep the momentum going. I didn’t know what to do though, until a great storm and some simple acknowledgement helped me transition.

Part of this unsteady shift from school to idle has been soothed by what is seen in these photos-tree branches, watercolor boats and of course these silly, sweet, wild souls. I will share more about what I have been making with the branches and boats as I finish. It’s simple, but has helped me revive my creative energy in new and unexpected ways.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Ready, So Ready


I feel I am walking out of a shell, as I finish graduate school and venture into the culture of teaching and learning with young children. I feel different, yet more attuned with myself. There is about to be great change, but I feel I have direction. Grateful for the depth my life has gone this past two years. This week will be devoted to reflecting over this process as I create my portfolio and I just know it will be a powerful time spent in reflection of my whole self.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011