The More We Hear

The quieter we become, 
the more we hear.

- Ram Dass

A week ago was my 700th post. 

Not that I'm counting 'cause I'm not. Really. 

But I'm a little speechless.

Here's to...

Streams. 
Stillness.
Sunlight.
Quietness.
Connection...

 and more stories about

this being alive

click and breathe...

xo b

Carry Small Dogs,Take The Stairs

I've been practicing if it makes you feel good, do more of it pretty much all weekend...

It started on Friday when I took the day off and was thinking I'd do something nice for myself, give myself a facial or some kind of girlie thing like that but out of the blue I had a hankering to burn some brush [we have mucho trees in our yard] and next thing I know I was a flaming fire-tender for two days straight,












no kidding, I could not stop once I got started 

[see pyromaniac]

so it was a good feeling thing that Jess and Elizabeth slept over Friday night because they're s'mores experts and since I had this fire going we took advantage of it, chowing down gooey chocolate-marshmallow-graham cracker sandwiches under the night sky which was a good feeling thing to do...

Saturday morning I found Elizabeth at the kitchen table eating a small bowl of ice cream. I looked at Jess like is this what you feed your kid for breakfast and she said, "hey, your freezer is on the blink so we thought it was best to save the Ben & Jerry's!" which I had to agree was a good idea although I passed on the Half-Baked chocolate bomb and had an egg instead.

[are you sensing a theme here?]

After discovering the freezer had miraculously righted itself, I went out to check on the fire pit only to find hot coals still simmering so I filled up a wheelbarrow with a load of pine branches and started back in with the fire-tending, 

day 2.

The girls went off for a hike on the Appalachian Trail. 
I stayed home and hauled wood,

who needs to lift weights if you haul wood  

and then, but what if you live in the city?

well,carry small dogs,take the stairs.

The girls came back and we had more s'mores for lunch and then Ann stopped by to sit with us around the camp fire. I suggested we do a first day of autumn ritual and write down and burn any thing that was clinging to us like dog hair, anything we had had enough of, so we wrote on some paper and threw these bad feeling things into the fire

[which I was still stoking]...

Today I was out pulling weeds when a strong and steady weep broke over me, filled interestingly with angst and feelings of lack and not enough-ness, and missing my mother, but more feelings of not enough-ness since angst was really Ann's and I don't need to borrow other people's stuff if I can help it. 

know what I mean?

Have you noticed when you decide to let go of something or make a change, sure enough the very thing you're burning in the fire pit will show up just to test you, to see if you really meant it. 



Have you noticed how that happens?












although I did feel very energized and happy at my fire

finally this afternoon I whacked myself in the head, right over the eyebrow [small egg forming] with a tree branch and thought it was time to settle my ass down and stop pushing so hard to pick up every twig or pull every weed or... fill in the blank with nuttiness

This is when I get out the paint brushes and think of my friend, Penny the painter, a walking joy-bomb, 

and I think, painting 
a glass of red wine, 
is a good feeling thing to do
as is writing 
or sitting with my cat 
or buying mums at the Farmer's Basket 

so I come back to the girl inside me [see below]










a very good feeling thing...

amen.

- girl by Elizabeth

A Big Lopsided-Thing

What leaves you feeling bad, do less of. 
What leaves you feeling good, do more of.

- Martha Beck

Make a list.
Two columns.
Feeling Good/ Feeling Bad
Notice which list is longer.
See if there's a big lopsided-thing happening.
Tip the scales toward the feeling good things. 


see what happens.

drop me a note, i'll write back.

xo b


Photo: Flying Over Tupelo/ Rob Jackson

The Day Off

I woke early after a night of busy dreaming involving 

[but not limited to]

bathrooms in trailer parks designed like museums, yoga on a woven contraption, moving from our house and trying to put all the contents into the back of my car while bringing all the stuff through a tunnel? 

No wonder I got up, made a cup of tea, 

my cure-all for everything, 

especially free-floating anxiety about tunnels 

tea
journal
sofa
morning sun 
pink blankie

grounding tools.

I'm thinking about you, dear reader. 

are you still asleep 
up with the kid
off to church
out for a run
painting
walking the dog
writing
counting your breaths

I'm thinking about this line I read somewhere, 
wondering if I could allow myself to try it on for size,
just for the hell of it, give Henny Penny the day off ~

The whole world 

is conspiring 

to shower you 

with blessings...

Breathe it in, see what happens.

xoxo b

Keep Coming Back To It

The shadow side of having a birthday is all the thinking that goes like this:

I'm how old now?
I thought I'd be ____________by now (fill in the blank)
There's not enough time!!!
What's it all about, Alfie?

You get it. 
If you have a heart beat, 
this kind of thinking shows up.

at least every once in a while, or every five minutes...

It's the human condition to occasionally ask ourselves 
really worrisome, not helpful at all, questions. 

I call this, Henny Penny Syndrome.

But I don't want to talk about Henny.

I just want to share how a simple gesture, an action taken, will mute all the shadowy voices, if only for a little while. 

On my birthday, in the midst of jazz music and saying hello to people and yes, thinking maybe I should just go home and sit in the backyard and stare at the sky, pondering, as I am wont to do...

I get a birthday call from my brother, Rob. 

Happy Birthday, B! sounding very far away, but not.
Bertie! Where are you? 
I'm in the last village before the Arctic Circle.

wow = big grin = boy, do i feel loved.

A call... from the last village or next door, doesn't matter.
A letter scribbled in your own hand.
A homemade collage/card
A homemade cake left on the counter
A song on the voice mail
A hug
A laugh over anything, everything.


After all my circling and Henny-Penny-ing, 

I keep coming back to it. 

Life = love = ease = simple = sweet

photo by Rob Jackson/ Sigi, Iceland

How You Think The World Works

Today is my birthday 

(I haven't changed one bit!)

Don't you think I have that talk show host thing going on?

Gosh, I have so much to say and write about...

but we are off to the annual Celebration of the Arts Jazz Festival; music, food, seeing friends I haven't seen all year. Face painting? The sun is breaking through after storms yesterday. 

Claire and I ran in the rain and painted our nails in the evening. I did exactly what I wanted to do 

(except for maybe the vacuuming, but even that felt cleansing?)

Plan for today: do exactly what I want to do.

Kerry, my Green Mountain Girl, sent me this horoscope which feels so spot on I want to share it and hope you too will get your curiousity spiked, goose bumps roused, explode a few dogmas, and drop any old theories about how you think the world works as you move through this day.

Here's to BEING ALIVE. WOO HOO!

and to mussing up some hair ~

VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sep. 22): I’ll bet that a-ha! experiences will arrive at a faster rate than you’ve seen in a long time. Breakthroughs and brainstorms will be your specialty. Surprises and serendipitous adventures should be your delight. The only factor that might possibly obstruct the flow would be if you clung too tightly to your expectations or believed too fiercely in your old theories about how the world works. I’ve got an idea about how to ensure the best possible outcome. Several times every day, say something like the following: “I love to get my curiousity spiked, my hair mussed, my awe struck, my goose bumps roused, my dogmas exploded and my mind blown.”

from Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology

XO b

FLOAT

float.

There For The Taking

Souls, like animals and plants, need air. 
Do our lives have enough empty space in them to nourish our spirit?

Plugged into networks of jobs, friends, projects, we sometimes neglect our standing-and-staring needs.

They're quite specific: we need to be outside, in pleasant weather, with nothing much to do. We need to let the world go on its way without us for a while. We need to have things pass before our eyes:

clouds, boats, or waving grass.

Blessed idleness! Blessed inattention!

- from Mom's meditation book  [ The Promise of A New Day ]

Thinking of you, dear readers

on this Labor Day Monday...

after last week's jumping into the fast flowing river of work [and Claire's first week of school] , so tired by day's end...

Stories in a holding pattern in my head,

Observing myself jam-up into that panicky breathlessness when I think about winter, time passing, old Dad, growing up kid, losing daylight, windows closed.

I am a summer baby; 

crickets
soft air
sand
sun
river-pond-ocean
skinny-dipping
grass 
bare feet
sailing
songbirds
light

Note to self:

You can't lose light...the light is there for the taking