Thursday, June 25, 2015

Article of the Week

Much to Heath's chagrin, he married an introvert.  And maybe more difficult still, he married a mystic. I could be one of those people who lived in deserts and caves and seclusion finding the depths.  I often wonder why I thought getting married and having 4 kids was a good idea for me.  Maybe I didn't know myself enough.  But here I am.  And here Heath is, married to a wild mystic.  I'm pretty sure he would've never said yes if someone had told him who I was 18 years ago!

A friend of mine sent this article to me and said it reminded her of me.  I found myself in this description of a wild mystic all over the place.  It felt validating and liberating.  The article is titled, ¨Why you should date a normal girl versus a wild mystic.¨  Though dating isn't in my future, I still feel this explains how I unconsciously live out relationships in general.  So maybe if you want to be my friend, you should beware.  :)  

Why You Should Date a Normal Girl Versus a Wild Mystic

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Quote of the Week

"The most effective kind of education 
is that a child should play among lovely things."  
- Plato

Monday, June 22, 2015

Word of the Week

Liminality:

1. Of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
2.  Occupying a position at, or on both sides of a boundary or threshold.
3.  Intermediate between two states, conditions, or regions; transitional or indeterminate.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Finding my voice

The waves were breaking in the distance as I sat with my new journal and a box of fresh colored pencils. Color spilled out of the box and I planned to draw a pattern of the chakra colors on the front page of my journal.  I got to the color that represented my voice and it was missing.  

Hmmm.  I guess that color just isn't in this box of pencils.  So I skipped it.  

The next day, I dumped out the pencils again and waaalaaa. There was the light blue color I was missing the day before.  It had been stuck in the box and didn't even have the opportunity to be used the previous day. Since I'm in the habit of letting God speak to me through everything, this felt extremely significant.  

When I was in third grade, I made a pact with myself that I would not tell a certain adult in my life what I was truly thinking or feeling ever again.  In my nine year old mind, it was the best way to protect the vulnerable parts of my emotions, soul, creativity, thought processes that felt unwanted, under valued, and even refuted. I made good on that pact.  

The problem with pacts like that is that I couldn't shut off such a large part of myself at age nine and keep it open in other avenues. No one was asking for my real words, emotions, thoughts.  I became really good at helping people think that I agreed with everything they were saying . . . because, after all, that's what they really wanted anyway.  They wanted me to think like they did.  They wanted me to conform.  Thinking different was a threat.  Thinking different felt like a challenge.  Thinking different looked like rebellion.  So I hid.  I silenced my voice.

Here I am, almost 30 years later trying to find my voice.  The color came out of the box the next day.  I drew another picture, this time adding the light blue.  In fact, I colored whole pages with light blue.  It's liberating and scary. What if you find out I'm not who you think I am?  What if you don't like the real me? What if you don't know what to do with me if I think differently than you do?  

It's finally the risk I'm willing to take to find my voice and speak what's really true in me. I've been hiding far too long.  

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Enjoying Mr. Creative


This week has been very low key, restful.  Lots of sitting by the pool listening to Asher. He knows a crazy amount of information about animals.  The book he's holding in the above picture is an encyclopedia of animals that he's had for several years.  It is well loved.  If you ask him to find you information on an animal, he flips to the appropriate section immediately.
 
He's creative and intuitive and kind and strong and extremely persevering.  Though I'm missing my connection and conversation with Abiel, Asher has stepped into the connecting and communicating role in the family and I'm enjoying this little man with all my heart.  I've never known anyone like him.  I'm so happy that he is my boy.  His name means "blessed, fortunate, and happy."  He is that and brings that to all who know him.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Song of the Week

Here's My Heart by David Crowder

This is the song I've had on repeat for the last 3 weeks.  I want Truth.  I want everything that can be shaken to be shaken as Jesus said it will be.  I want what is real.  This song speaks of what is real to me and asks Truth to come forth.  It is the foundation and the cry of my heart right now.  It feels full of solid ground and still makes room for the longings and questions to be asked so that all else can fall away.  It's exactly where I am.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Questions



I have questions, millions of them.  I was born with them.  I'm not afraid to ask them anymore.  Where is my authenticity, courage, solid ground if I am only willing to live someone else's answers to their questions? I want the answers that live for me.  I want the answers that I've chased after, wrestled with, agonized over and found to be true in my deepest being.  Call me weird.  Call me exhausting.  Call me silly for reinventing the wheel in every issue and doctrine in my life.  But in the end, when we talk, you will know that the things I speak of are living in me.  The things I am sure of, I am experientially sure of, not just intellectually adhering to them because my preferred groupies are also adhering to them.

"Why?" is the most beneficial question in my world.  Why do I feel this way? Why do I do it like this?  Why do I have to be that? Why do I say I believe that?  It takes me to answers.  When I speak my questions, God answers if I listen.  It may take hours, days, months, sometimes years but he will reveal the answers from a million different sources if I'm not scared to be undone.  So many times I have not wanted to ask the questions because I was scared the answers may not come back the way I needed them to in order to keep my world from unraveling.  But now, I'm not afraid of pulling on the string to see if, in fact, it can unravel a bit of the tapestry. If the confidence I feel is based on illusion or presumption or intellect in the first place and not on what is actually real, then undo me to be redone!

Once again, I'm being undone.




Thursday, June 11, 2015

Word of the Week

ca·thar·sis
kəˈTHärsəs/
noun
  1. 1.
    the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Monday, June 8, 2015

My girl

After a full day of running last minute errands for my beauty before she boards the plane for Greece on Thursday, I sat on her bed watching her pack. Yes, I just watched.  She is far more efficient than I am in most things.  I watched, I marveled, I cried.  Not sobs; just tears flowing as I reminisced of her sitting in piles of books, completely enthralled at 9 months old. I remembered adventures we've had together, on planes and trains in foreign countries, in horrendous bathroom scenarios around the world from the time she was two years old on.  (Third world toilets/holes in the ground are still her arch enemy.)  I laughed, remembering how I felt absolutely confident that she was ready to accompany me to Africa for 2 months when she was only SEVEN!  She's always felt old to me.

But something is happening.  Now she is actually getting older.  This has never bothered me before.  I've always been the type of mom that is thrilled for all the new, independent developments my kids make.  Have adventures, travel the world, explore, become.  The crazy reality of having 2 more years to hang out with this amazing person has hit my tear ducts.  The love, joy, pride, and confidence I have as I think about my almost 16 year old daughter is so gigantic that it is simply overflowing in the form of salty water and it won't stop.

Adventure and travel is in her blood. She has worked so very hard to fund raise for Greece.  This is a well earned opportunity.  I will miss her and be thrilled with her all at the same time.

I am so proud of you!  Enjoy every moment, my adventurous, beautiful young woman.  The world is your playground.  I LOVE YOU!



Friday, June 5, 2015

The Secret Ingredient

Seven hours back at the beach today revealed another secret.  It wasn't just a different perspective I needed yesterday.  Climbing higher was important. I gleaned wisdom from the walk up and the higher vantage point to be sure.  But yesterday, I thought the reason the ocean wasn't working for me and the waves became distracting instead of calming was simply because I needed a new perspective.

I need to feel the hug of the sun's rays.  Honestly, it feels like love to me.  The warmth sinks into my deepest places.  It takes away the ache of cold and drowns the clamor of the waves in kisses on my shoulders. Suddenly, the waves are soothing and the buzzing bugs are singing and the people with their million dogs are curious rather than irritating. The sun is what I need.  

In the last post, I told you the last several months I feel caught in crashing waves.  Maybe that's not the hardest part.  Now I recognize, it's the fog I'm living in. 

I can't will the fog to disappear or the sun to come out.  So the connected lesson of the past two days is to perceive where I am and where the sun is. If the waves won't stop crashing and I'm surrounded by fog, I'll climb higher.  I may not be able to find the sun, but I might be able to detox at the Bliss Cafe! ;) There's a place where the waves are a distant hum.

I also know that when the sun decides to come out of hiding, I'll be able to handle the intensity of pounding waves and the sounds and the people once again.  I will happily resume my hours on the seashore.

Whew.  Maybe I can drive home tomorrow without crying.  

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Up

I've spent the majority of my time on the beach this week.  Today it didn't feel right.  As I sat on my rock, talked to my friend, the heron, and watched the waves crash, I felt I didn't need the waves today. Then what did I need?

I headed into San Luis Obispo.  Bliss Cafe, a detox juice, an hour of reading. That felt right.  But then it didn't.  Starbucks, journaling, a warm cup in my hand.  That felt right until it didn't.  I ended my time in San Luis at a beautiful restaurant called Novo.  A gorgeous, healthy salmon salad, peppermint tea, and creekside dining.  That was just right.

Back in silence at the condo, curled up in a blanket the color of the sea, reading, dozing, and reading again. Wonderful, but something was still missing. Grabbing my shoes and jacket, unsure where I was going, I headed in the direction of the beach. A few feet later, the destination became clear.  Up.  I veered to the right onto a trail leading to the top of the ridge overlooking the whole of San Luis Bay.  That's what I needed today.  A different perspective.

Four days of being next to the waves, letting the force of each one hit my ears.  Today, as I hiked to the top, out of breath but exhilarated by the magical feeling of the forest, I was thankful that I couldn't hear each crashing wave.  Sitting on the bench, watching the waves crash far below, barely able to hear them, felt relieving.

Through the last several months, the waves have not stopped crashing in my world.  I have not only watched them crash, but I have also felt trapped under them, tossed and pummeled with each one.  Today I found a higher vantage point.  Being away has given me opportunity to back up, rest, and find another trail - one that will take me higher.

This new way of seeing hasn't been tried by the fires of family life, but at least the trail has been identified. Surely it will reveal itself again when I'm feeling mauled by the waves of marriage and family and responsibilities.  I can only hope.  Here's to one more day of rest and solitude!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Secrets

I have a week at the beach . . . a l o n e.  I'm pretty sure this is what heaven will feel like for me.  I am savoring hours on the beach, waves crashing, cleansing, healing me. Rhythm of wave upon wave upon wave  . . . a moment of silence . . . refrain repeats for eternity. I'm journaling into clarity, understanding, liberation.  I'm walking until I melt into sleep.  I'm observing creation, vigilantly anticipating messages whispered through everything.

All of creation have secrets to share.  I'm listening.
  • The water, the fog, the sun, the deer, the silence. 
  • The heron, the quail pair with their dozen tiny chicks, the hummingbirds, the sand mites, the hawk. 
  • The moon, the bat, the trees, the pelicans, the wind blowing through the golden grasses on the hillside. 
  • The children tossing pebbles into the sea, the dogs chasing frisbee after frisbee, the beautiful words weaving clever stories and sharing wisdom in the books I'm reading.  
  • The smiles from strangers and the kind words from passersby.
I'm embracing answers and peace is my heartbeat again.  Thank you from every fiber of my being to Heath, my family, and my friends who have made this respite possible.  I hope all this beauty and peace and healing will not vanish when I reenter the flow of real life.  Maybe I'll be able to keep searching for the secrets even in the clamor of daily life.