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.