When you attune yourself to nature, a magical quality is there that sparks your creativity.  Your love expands to include new qualities of consciousness.  When you bring light through your being and allow yourself to receive nurturing from nature, there is a blending of your most divine eternal self and your most human.  

                                   - Richard Goodman

When I lived in Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway was literally minutes from my back doorstep.  I loved walking the trails, especially in the spring and fall.  It was my sacred sanctuary.  I loved to watch the dance of autumn leaves as they fell from the trees on a sudden gust of wind and marveled at how each one's letting go followed its own perfect timing.

Nature teaches us so much.

It teaches me about rhythm and flow and how to slow way down. It teaches me the value of carefully  listening to each pregnant moment and to the silence of my own Heart, but mostly it teaches me to trust.  Writing is a lot like that.

I am learning to trust that when I show up to write the process will inform me as I listen, open and get out of  my own way.  I've learned to become quiet so the most intimate and subtle nudgings may be sensed.  

Spiritual teacher OSHO writes in his book on creativity that the creative act is not a "doing" but rather an "allowing".  He states that if you wish to write from a truly authentic place, you must become a hollow bamboo. In other words, you become a passage so the whole can flow through you.  It is action through inaction.  And when you become hollow something wonderful begins to happen.  

You become like a river - flowing, melting, streaming.  No matter what you are doing - writing, walking, driving, scrubbing - you're alive!  A song will start coming through you but you are not the creator of it because it comes from the beyond.  And this is when  magic begins to happen and life takes on wings. This is where the divine and human meet, not unlike a breathless walk in nature.

Wild Mercy

Wild Mercy :  Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics is a book a friend recently recommended.   Even though it may sound like a "woman's" read, the author, Mirabai Starr, invites both men and women into the conversation.  I haven't gotten far in my reading and already I can't wait to share some of her beautiful prose.

For many years I have been drawn to readings on the contemplative lives of the Christian mystics, most of them men, especially St. John of the Cross and  Meister Eckhart.  However, there is one woman mystic who has always stood out for me and that is Saint Teresa of Avila.  She was a rebel in her own right.  I like rebels because they question the status quo, even though I have lived a fairly conventional life.  Saint Teresa renounced the dogma of religion and the belief in the need for an intermediary between God and man.  Her's was a journey of divine union through a "theology of innerness" of love and surrender.

In Wild Mercy Mirabai Starr writes, "The contemplative life is a tapestry of intention and surrender, of reaching out and letting go . . . It is not for the timid.  It's scary to be quiet, and it takes courage to be still . . . "  She draws us into the dilemma in which many women (and men) find themselves and illuminates the crazy making we call life. And then tenderly she leads us into the nurturing lap of the great Mother herself who relieves us of our burdens if only we will offer them to her.

Here.  Come Here.  Take a

moment to set aside that

list you've been writing in

fluorescent ink.  The list

that converts tasks into 

emergencies.  Items like

"feed the orchids" become

"If I don't accomplish this

by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow

morning the rain forests

are going to dry up and it

will be all my fault."  Or "If I

fail to renew my

automobile insurance I will

probably crash my car and

everyone will die."  Or "this 

friend just had her breast

biopsied and that friend's

brother-law-beat up her

sister and my aunt just lost

her  job with the symphony

and my nephew is

contemplating divorce and

I must call them all, and

listen to them for an hour

each, and dispense

redemptive advice."

Gather your burdens in

a basket in your heart.  Set

them at the feet of the

Mother.  Say, "Take this,

Great Mama, because I

cannot carry all this shit for

another minute."  And then

crawl into her broad lap

and nestle against her

ample bosom and take a

nap.  When you wake, the

basket will still be there,

but half its contents will be

gone, and the other half

will have resumed their

ordinary shapes and sizes,

no longer masquerading as

catastrophic, epic, chronic

and toxic.  The Mother will

clear things out and tidy

up.  She will take your

compulsions and

transmute them.  But only if

you freely offer them to her.

Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes

After over a year hiatus from blog writing, I think I might be getting my groove back.  In this second entry in a week, I will explain what took me so long.

In October, 2017, my daughter gave birth to our first grandbaby, Jacob.  In retrospect, I see how I utterly failed to comprehend just how strongly this little darlin' (as they say in the south), and the role I was destined to play as his grandmother, would change my life forever.

I used to listen, a bit skeptically, to other grandparents gush over their grandbabies and I'd think to myself , OK, sweet, but aren't they "going a little overboard".  Of course there is nothing like experience to humbly change one's perspective forever.  I admit, I am worse than any gushing, dribbling grandparent I have ever met.  My heart has turned to mush and I am certain there is no turning back.

Of course upon realizing after Jacob's birth that we had hopelessly fallen in love with this little eating, pooping, sucking, crying machine, and couldn't possibly live without him, my husband and I decided without further notice to up and move to Michigan where my daughter and son-in-law's careers had recently taken them.

With no other explanation than this, we uprooted 31 years of living in Virginia which included our home, job, and community of friends.  I'm sure there must have been a friend or two who thought we were "going a little overboard".  Karma has way of coming round.

I don't recall being a parent for the first time in quite the same way as being a grandparent, probably because the shock of parenthood brings with it an overwhelming sense of responsibility which puts a damper on the highs.  Also, it's almost impossible to be ecstatic when you are suffering from chronic sleep deprivation and your body image and hormones have plummeted to new lows.  You fear you will never be the same again.  And you're right.

Needless to say, these major life changes have taken up the majority of my waking hours for many months.  Yet, the changes have all been surprisingly wonderful.  We love living in Ann Arbor and adore watching Jacob grow.  Of course this post wouldn't be complete without including a million photographs!