Musings and weanings

Tuesday night I began night weaning with Addison. at 11;15 is when we felt our pain. I held him as he struggled, wiggled, cried, protested mightily. And strangely I felt gentle and kind. This is not always the case I'm ashamed to admit. But this night I remained calm. I had a vision of us....I pictured him as fish, a big fish swimming in the deep and I was the strong sailor on my ship, bringing him in for my family. To feed my family and keep them alive. I could feel him struggling and fighting; I could not see the fish that caused me so much labor...This image reminded me of his birth, where he struggled against me and I had to labor to bring him into this world, or risk loosing both of us. I felt I was the hook in his mouth, and yet also his anchor, his rock. He was on a ship, and I was the rock and safe harbor, or I was the anchor keeping him safe in a storm. Things raged about us, he raged, and yet i stayed steady and calm. It was my job to stay steady and calm, and after an hour he floated off into sleep. I kept thinking to him that I would always be here, I would always be his anchor when he needed it. I would always be the hook the port, the rock, the anchor and he could rage as a storm, yet when he woke in the clear sunlight of dawn. I would smile at him. Read more!

Friday night, it's all right

Mr Man is sleeping in his crib. The Big Mr. Man is out for a few drinks and I find myself home, home and alone...god I should work. Yes I did open some work. but then I started thinking I needed some music. and a beer. yeah a beer I looked for Pretty Hate Machine on itunes. Did you know Trent Reznor has an issue with itunes? It's awesome, so it's not available. But then I got a couple of Marilyn Manson tracks, and bucking my purist, god please buy an effing album thoughts and judgments of my own, I just bought a few tracks. GASP So now I'm listening to The Beautiful People from Antichrist Superstar and wondering what work I wanted to get done anyway. Is it ethically responsible to do bookkeeping while drinking? hmmmm.

As the music changes into Interpol's Take you on a cruise I find I can think a little and I'm remembering how I felt upstairs nursing A. to bed. I was feeling full of light, the deep deep knowledge that I am pure energy, that we are energy all of us. That everything is energy, and I felt merged with the darn bed and with A. And that was PRIOR to the beer....We will return to that light after we pass out of this physical realm. But while we're here we might as well nurse our babies, listen to Marilyn Manson, dance with our little girls and kiss our lovers, firmly on the mouth. As much as possible, over and over again, bringing the light to shine through our skin with every action every touch, from the spoon stirring dinner to the hand turning the key in the car, to the arms that soothe after a fall, to the lips that laugh and press against yours in the night. Shine your light....and wow, could that be more whiplash writing? hmmmm... well it's a very accurate picture of my thoughts tonight anyway. Read more!

Apartment Therapy, Week Four, Five and Six

I'm all over the place for the last few weeks. But I think we'll manage to pull it all together when Week Eight finally rolls around. So to catch up, from Week Four, I identified where we need to increase color and where we need to increase softness. This house was suffering from too much hardness....ahem which normally I'd say was a good thing, but jokes aside, as you can see I've started identifying a color palette for our home. We've picked out paint for the living room, and for Addison's room. Doing this has made so many things easier! So just this week I made a list of everything I want for the whole house to pull things together. As for actually adding the softness (Week Five) I purchased a rug, which you can see in the living room.


This was from Cost Plus for $500.00. It's mostly wool, which is what I was looking for eco wise, and it's thick and feels good underfoot. so maybe another of these under the dining table, then with painting I should be able to find curtains, and that adds the softness we were missing.





From Week Six I did some lighting in the kitchen, it was always dark when washing dishes, but no longer! Additionally I hooked up and fixed up the existing in cabinet lights. I'll need to do some more work on those, but I like it! Also from week six, I went through and de-cluttered the bathroom closets and I brought some reds into the bathroom and worked on making it nicer for guests, putting paper out in an obvious spot, and adding washcloths. You can see the red as my accent color is showing up all over the house.

Week Six is also about painting, so I think here is where I will pause again, to prime Addison's room, and paint samples on the walls in the living room. The house is starting to feel really good! OOH OHH I also bought some plates so we have a set of 8 now, and we don't have to keep rewashing the two bowls we had! So that's back from Week Two!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone. I like to remove this holiday from it's Native American connotations, just cause sorry, it gives me the willies to celebrate when that culture started to be dominated and eradicated. Sorry family for my deeply liberal stance! What I do like though is the gratitude part of this holiday. So for everyone reading, know that I am deeply thankful for our health, our home, our family. And thankful for you my friends. Read more!

Apartment Therapy Week Four (Pause)

Well I got stalled out. Here's a photo to explain why....he's cute right? I mean gosh, you would chase him around all day too, wouldn't you? I got stalled, working on his room, trying to figure out what to do next, trying to just keep the house semi clean and together while we tear everything apart. I am not sleeping much, and I feel delirious and cranky at times. I find some days I'm thinking OMG get these kids away from me, and at the end of the day I'm weeping with how much I love them. The work on the house must stop, because I must nap, and small boys must giggle and be chased across the floor, and small girls need to do homework and snuggle and have gymnastics. My life is full of tiny details....but stay tuned...
In regards to apartment therapy... I wish I had a good style tray. My style tray is lacking, which makes it hard to purchase or decide on anything!! I was going to buy a rug at Ikea today, three actually, but the thought that I may be throwing of my "style" threw me for a loop. Not to mention the fact that the rug I want is $399 and it might not even be right???!! Gosh the rugs I fall in love with are in the thousand dollar price range...so $399 is inexpensive, but still gives me pause. I checked my intuition at the register and deshopped. Left everything there in the aisle. I realized as I drove to Ashbey lumber that I needed a door for Addison's room. And that was $250.00 I needed that more than a carpet that might not be right. The door is a known quantity. So another week goes by, the rain has started, my baby is asleep, tomorrow is the school harvest festival, and the man of my dreams works at the kitchen table. Life, ya know? it's good...Hope yours is too. Read more!

Apartment Therapy, Week Three

Week Three Deep Treatment.

Bones

Dust, vacuum, and mop the whole home - Easy done

clean entrance and related closets - Easy, and we have no closet

Arrange to have all repairs taken care of in the next three weeks - This is not happening, what i can do myself will happen. Anything else is being subjugated by Addison's room budget

Breath

Declutter the entrance - done moved boxes

Move all old mail, catalogs and magazines to the Outbox - I do this already weekly or more.

Look into what you'd need to create a Landing Strip - see below fulfillment list

Cancel any unused subscriptions - Not needed. We've done this already

Heart

Identify cool rooms and warm rooms - see below

Apply the 80/20 color rule - see below

Head

cook two meals at home this week - easy peasy

Design and invitation for your housewarming - uhhhh

Well week three almost done, as I couldn't help but read ahead, during my prolonged week two. This week s about your "landing strip" I love this concept. I think I'm going to do some retail therapy (week four) on my landing strip. That would mix weeks three and four together. Maxwell says that your entry way should be a filter between you and the outside world. This is exactly how the energy of my home is set. Walking in, I've set the door energy to prosperity and fun. The entry also has a small table which holds a salt lamp, which cleanses and purifies the air and energy, an abalone shell that serves as a fairy reminder, complete with a fairy necklace. This abalone was decorated by Cy. Also is a 365 day calendar of beautiful images of India with quotes from the great teachers of that country. I picked this out as a gift for someone else years ago. When I realized that this was something I would never buy for myself, I quickly amended that. So here it is in my home, instead of the home of a person I dated for a whopping four months. I love that I realized I could shower myself with love in that moment and Cy and I now read from it on a regular basis. Then there is a shelf with candles and rocks from trips we've taken and collected together. I love the energy of this room, and have done readings sitting here because it feels so clean to me. There is a spiritual calm right when you walk in. On a functional tip, we store the stroller, the diaper bag, and shoes here as well. I also this year added a blue and green mat for cleaning feet on the way in. The other half of our landing strip is further in the house.



This area is a constant sore spot, and I've spent time working on it. We each have a "box" for papers and things we want to keep for a short time. Plus there is a box for "house" and a box for my work. There are pens and office supplies here as well to enable us to write checks or grocery lists and do homework. Above the table is a black board/magnetic board for reminders and notes, plus key hooks. Also is a letter sorter, which has Bills, To File, and then two other Misc that we don't need. What I don't like about this area is that it constantly is filled with other things. School projects I'm working on, work folders, etc etc. It seems like a stopping ground for many things.

Maxwell spends a lot of time this chapter about sorting mail and decluttering the entry way. As you can see from my photo, our entry way is not that cluttered. I took the boxes with baby gates in them, and installed those, so it's now totally clear. What is missing here is a coat rack. So I will be spending some time shopping for that this weekend. I'm trying on the idea of a slim long table here, moving keys and primary mail sorting here. so I think a long slim table, a box to catch mail and a trashcan might be needed. I'm a little leery though of having TWO sorting areas for mail.

My idea at this point is to turn the second half of our landing strip into a craft area for cy and I. Put primary mail sorting near the front door along with keys and cell phones and chargers. Secondary sorting would then go in the studio near my computer, which is where we pay bills. This makes the most sense.

You can see from the list, that bones and breath are pretty easy for me. These are things I do all the time, I don't like clutter or unnecessary things hanging around. also cooking at home. We do that 5+ nights a week. The challenge for me is heart. Which is what I identified at first. I loved identifying the cool and warm rooms...what a fun activity. The house is mainly neutral

Entry way, neutral with warm art and table, but cool mat
Living room to kitchen mainly cool colors are black, red, green, gray, blue. I think
Studio - warm red walls
Bathroom - cool blue

Upstairs
Addison's Room, cool
cy's Room - cool
Our room - warm with cool bedspread.
Bathroom - warm

I think the whole house comes off cool to me because of the beige color, it has a green undertone to me. We both hate the beige. I'm thinking though of the 80/20 rule, and perhaps we can just warm up the house with accents and minimal paint.


So here's a fulfillment list for Week Three

Shelf for Studio, for paper sorting boxes.
Move the mail sorter into the studio
Trashcan
Box for mail at front door
Side board.
clothes rack
Blue paint, for Addison's room and entry.
Brown Paint, for our room (maybe just around the tub) and for one wall in the living/dining area.

I've got a bit of rearranging and a little shopping to do to accomplish this. We'll see how working on the entry way changes people's feelings about visiting and about coming home. In addition we may make some space for art, which was one of the area's missing from our house. I'm looking forward to seeing some visual change, not just energetic!

Read more!

Week Three is Week Two

Well, It's week three plus over here, and I'm finally wrapping up Fall Cure Week TWO. Above is an image of the kitchen in progress. You can see Addison helping me out here. I knew it was going to take longer than normal, as the rest of the group moves on to week Four. That's fine with me. This week was all about the kitchen. I felt some delightful energetic shifts, all the while, the kitchen looks about the same. I love how the place feels spare, workable, clean. Style wise I'd love to add some warm tiles behind the sink area. Overall the kitchen is a decent space, although long term i dream of redoing the counter tops, and the cabinets, as they are Ikea make and starting already to show wear and tear. I think the Kitchen must be around six years old. My favorite part about this kitchen is the bar stools that we got from an artisan in Michigan. We sprang for them right when we moved in and I'm so glad we did. I also noticed how the kitchen is right below our bedroom. So energetically, keeping the food fresh and the stove hot and spicy. Our bed room soaks up all this creative nurturing energy and I love that. Also the book project has started out with a bang! i'm really enjoying doing the readings and really enjoying hearing about people's experiences. This is a subject I just really really love. It makes me smile to think this is what I get to think about and work with through the days. Thanks to everyone who's participating!

Here is a photo of the finished Kitchen. I'm so excited about moving on to Week Three. Next Post, I'll summarize what Week Three is all about.


Read more!

Free Readings!

So you can see how home transformation is having an impact on my project! I have ten readings scheduled today!

For those of you that don't know, I'm offering free 15 minute readings via email to anyone willing to have a short conversation with me about family, pregnancy, fertility, miscarriages, any issue or joy around children and family.

The project is kinda like "your psychic gilrfriends guide to pregnancy" I'm working up a body of meditations and tools to help women and families during the time of creation. If any of you are open to sharing this, I'm offering a trade.

Emaill me your full name, plus a question or area you'd like to look at and then I'll send an email reading back. Your question does not have to be related to fertlity or family. It can be regarding anything.

I will then request send me an email with your insights or we can schedule a quick phone call. This will help me immensely with research. Thank you to everyone who is currently participating! Read more!

Apartment Therapy, Week Two

Tasks for Week Two:

Bones:
Fix one thing in the apartment yourself (fixed the elastic on our felted lights in the living room)

Clean your kitchen top to bottom and throw away old food (in progress)

Buy a water filter and use it. (dragged out the old one and reinstated it on the counter)

Breath:
Run your hands over every wall in the house. (done. Found that the house is well insulated, all the walls feel about the same temperature, inner and outer. Found the paint in our closet is semigloss, while the paint in the bathroom is flat, weird.)

Clear a space for the out box. (done, the whole hallway is filled with things that could be "out")

Clear one Surface and use the outbox. (Do you think clearing out your attic counts??? I think we clearly over achieved here...ahahhaa)



Heart
Buy fresh flowers (Sunday Grocery Trip!)
Determine your style (Done)

Head
Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home (cook most days at home, tried new bean curry. Not so good...not curry-y enough) And another bean dish, a black bean soup that was incredible! Smoked bacon and sour cream added to the yumminess!

Choose a date for your housewarming. (not sure I"m going to do this) But my dear friend Laura pointed out that perhaps just a six person cocktail party would be small, and therefore easier to attempt. Thanks Laura!

So I learned a few things this week, as things progress. We have a big project going anyway, which is both a help and a hindrance to this process.
Addison's room is almost through the demolition phase. The plumbers came on Tuesday and by Wednesday we had the water heater up in the attic and the washer and dryer in their new home under the stairs. Now the house is so much quieter with the water heater up in the attic. A nice benefit to this whole project. BUT whereas in week two of the cure he counsels to clean out the kitchen, I have ended up cleaning out the attic, our server/mail/cleaning room, as well as the garage. This has caused me to run around like a chicken with my head cut off, right now there are at least 8 things in progress all over the house. But he warns of this in the book, that you stir up energy in the house, it stirs things up in you! I am not at all surprised about this, and it fits how I do things in the house anyway, if you caught me in the middle of cleaning the house would look like a disaster. Which it does now. So I think Week Two is going to be a little longer than a week, and I'm good with that. OK now to what I learned.

I realized that just my answering the questions I was missing one important thing, Brian! He needed to answer the questions in order for me to get our style right. Here are the revised answers:

Favorites:
List your favorites in each category:

Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, Myrna Loy, Katherine Hepburn, Christina Ricci, Uma Thurman.
Actor: Johnny Depp, Cary Grant, Phillip Seymor Hoffman
Artist: ANdy Goldworthy, Gustav Klimt, the starn twins, Mark Ryden, Geiger, Chet Zarn, Shepard Fairy
Writer: Tolkien, Charles De Lint, William Gibson, Charles Bucowski
Music: Tom Waits, Iron and Wine, The Clash, The Cure, White Stripes, Tool NIN, Aphex Twin
Restaurant: Stone BRewery, Mix at The Hotel in Vegas
Automobile: Mini, Aston Martin, Audi A8
Television Show: Mad Men, True Blood
Clothing: Anthropology, manolo blahnik shoes, Frye Boots

How would you describe your style (3 words)
1. Functional
2. Sexy
3. Simple
BRian: Uh what style?

Personal History
Where have you lived?
Where were you born: Washington DC, Wisconsin
Where you grew up: Annapolis MD, Iron Mouuntain MI>
Where as an Adult? Boulder Creek, San Rafael, Oakland, San Jose, Cupertino, Chicago, Houghten, San Francisco

Whom would you consider a role model?

Wendal Barry

What are three adjectives that describe the qualities that you admire in this person?
1. Simple life, living by ideals
2. Family oriented
3. Thinker and writer

Apartment:
What is the problem with your apartment? (3 words)
1. flow
2. Decor
3. Function

If your apartment could speak, what would it say is the problem?
me: "She just doesn't understand me." Brian: "STYLE"

What one thing would you like to do more of in your apartment?

Create and Mediate

Eight weeks form now, when this project is done, if friends come to visit, how would you like them to describe your home? (3 words)

1. Warm
2. beautiful
3 Comfortable
Brian: "Wow.....COOL"

In talking with him I realized some key things.

1. House doesn't reflect our style at all. Matter of fact it looks like anyone could live here. (WHO BOUGHT THIS STUFF THEN??!! ahhaha)
2. Our Style: Modern, rock n roll, a bit surreal, funky, and hand made.
3. A constraint I am now imposing is to work with what we have. There will be no major purchases. We may change paint, but other than that it will be minimal. This keeps with our values of practicality, green, and budget friendly.
4. A good illustration of the things missing in the house is our dining room table. What ends up there every week? Mail and Art projects and my work with cy's school and bookkeeping. So good Head areas that I can focus on.

Despite the house being in total disarray right now I'm really loving this process!


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Week One

You can either do a deep treatment, or just a one room remedy. AT first I thought I'd do the one room remedy, but we seem to be doing a deep treatment, and you'll see why as we go. Above is a before picture of the living room. It's not a great shot, as my lens isn't wide enough and it's dark, but bare with me. We need some marking point of where we start!

I looked at my interview and tried to summarize what it said of my style, well it seems that I've got a sense of the classic, as well as some whimsy. I like functional things, that are beautiful. If you have any other suggestions, let me know, this part is hard for me! Read on if you're interested in more.


Week One includes the following tasks.

Deep Treatment:
Bones
Make a complete list of repairs and solutions -It's pretty short, just fix a few light fixtures, put in the thresh hold on the front door, and install some doorknobs and change out some electrical covers.

Vacuum and Mop floors - Done. I do this pretty often anyway, with children a cat and hardwood floors it's vacuum every other day and mop once a week or week and half.

Breath
Remove one item from your apartment and put it outside - Done. We are cleaning out the Attic and the storage area to make room for a hot water heater and a new bedroom for Addison. Soooooo Lots of items have gone to good will, including blankets and clothing. Bookshelves are going off to my stepdad and his wife, books and cd's are waiting to be gone through to be digitized or donated.

Heart
Buy Fresh Flowers - Done, although I want better flowers next week. They are so expensive and they die, I wonder perhaps if buying a house plant would make me feel better?

Head
Sit for ten minutes in a part of your home that you never sit in. - not done yet.
Look into earth friendly cleaning products - Easy, cause I just recently did this. I use vinegar and water to clean countertops and bathrooms, I use baking soda to clean the grout in the kitchen, castile soap to do surfaces and the travertine tiles. Bona on the hardwood floors, olive oil for the wood furniture, Bon Ami for cleaning the bathroom, and a Citrus product for the mirrors and to shine things up. The house smells neutral and I like that. STill looking for a good way to clean the slate in the shower. I'd NEVER do that in a house I designed, and to get soap scum off the shower door. BUT using liquid castile soap really cut down on the soap scum, so that was an awesome suggestion by the guy that wanted to charge me $600 to clean and seal the shower! HA right. But good suggestion.

So we're started! yea! Here are a few more photos' of the house "before" I'm looking forward to writing about the changes that occur in our lives, as I'm hoping to get some movement in my practice and in my project.

The image on the left is looking from the living room into the dining area and kitchen... the next two are the master bedroom, with Addison's stuff.









This last picture shows a little bit of the part of the room and maybe the house I love the most, the bathtub, with it's crosses and plants feels at least like it's going in the direction I want, irreverent, sexy, simple.... it's not quite there...but the whole house is not quite there... OK so Onward to week two!



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Moving Energy, by working on your home.

Last week I signed up for Apartment Therapy's 8 week cure. maxwell Gillingham-ryan has this lovely blog, http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ and he's written a book by the same name. I saw the email inviting participants to sign up and I decided to go for it. I've been reading some design blogs, to learn about interior design. I have to say there is something about our house that just doesn't work. Now there are many many things that do work, don't get me wrong. But something is missing, and partially I think it's budget. You know you spend a lot of money to buy a home, and often don't have a lot of money left to decorate. But honestly, I've made homes look and feel sweet, without any money, and this house is eluding me. So when the chance came up to do the 8 week cure, I ordered the book right away.

I've always thought that your home reflects your mental state. Inner reflects outer is what I've said before. But if that's true than by changing outer you can change inner. You can move energy in many ways. If you're ever stuck on something, go clean out a closet and see what I mean. Maxwell clearly understands this. As soon as I read his introduction I felt like he'd be a wonderful guide to teach me about design. Here's why.... I suspect in the back of my mind that only those with money have the energy and time for design. It seems like a wasteful and superficial thing to do. I know that's not necessarily true, but I can't help thinking that. REading his introduction really got to me because of his background, he studied design and worked for a design firm, but felt isolated from the clients, there was no direct client involved! He felt it was empty and then went on to get two masters, one in literature and one in education and then he taught at a Waldorf school. These two experience inform his approach to clients needs and I love it. He stresses that we are attached to stuff, and that we can do with less. He stresses that a home feels good, not because of the money spent on it, but because it has a head, a heart, breath and a body, and that it's health is important for its impact on YOU.

Here's the interview, to get me started thinking about my style.

Favorites:
List your favorites in each category:

Actress: Helena Bonham Carter, Myrna Loy, Katherine Hepburn,
Actor: Johnny Depp, Cary Grant, Phillip Seymor Hoffman
Artist: ANdy Goldworthy, Gustav Klimt, the starn twins, Mark Ryden
Writer: Tolkien, Charles De Lint, William Gibson, Charles Bucowski
Music: Tom Waits, Iron and Wine, The Clash, The Cure, White Stripes
Restaurant: Stone BRewery, Mix at The Hotel in Vegas
Automobile: Mini, Aston Martin, Audi A8
Television Show: Mad Men, True Blood
Clothing: Anthropology, manolo blahnik shoes, Frye Boots

How would you describe your style (3 words)
1. Functional
2. Sexy
3. Simple

Personal History
Where have you lived?
Where were you born: Washington DC
Where you grew up: Annapolis MD< Hagerstown MD, Benicia, cA
As an adult: Boulder Creek, San Rafael, Oakland

Whom would you consider a role model?

Wendal Barry

What are three adjectives that describe the qualities that you admire in this person?
1. Simple life, living by ideals
2. Family oriented
3. Thinker and writer

Apartment:
What is the problem with your apartment? (3 words)
1. flow
2. Decor
3. Function

If your apartment could speak, what would it say is the problem?
She just doesn't understand me.

What one thing would you like to do more of in your apartment?

Create and Mediate

Eight weeks form now, when this project is done, if friends come to visit, how would you like them to describe your home? (3 words)

1. Warm
2. beautiful
3 Comfortable

Also rating the house in the areas of head, heart, breath and bones, it seems we need work in Head and Heart, that means decoration and function. The house is basically healthy, we scored an 11 on the rating, but it could use improvement in at least one area and toning all around.

I'm so excited. See my next post for Week One and before pictures. Read more!

Feminism, the Body and the Machine, Wendell Berry

There are so many quotes in this article that I want to exclaim, proclaim and discuss with everyone I know, but for the sake of focusing I'll pick this one

"I know that I am in dangerous territory, and so I had better be plain: what I have to say about marriage and household I mean to apply to men as much as to women. I do not believe that there is anything better to do than to make one’s marriage and household, whether one is a man or a woman. I do not believe that “employment outside the home” is as valuable or important or satisfying as employment at home, for either men or women. It is clear to me from my experience as a teacher, for example, that children need an ordinary daily association with both parents. They need to see their parents at work; they need, at first, to play at the work they see their parents doing, and then they need to work with their parents. It does not matter so much that this working together should be what is called “quality time,” but it matters a great deal that the work done should have the dignity of economic value." You can read the whole article here, be warned it's very dense, well written and long.

oh to write as well and as passionately, to love the written word again, to be in love with a sentence with a passage, with a phrase, Mr. Berry has inspired me.

http://www.crosscurrents.org/berryspring2003.htm

and OK one more....


"Why would any woman who would refuse, properly, to take the marital vow of obedience (on the ground, presumably, that subservience to a mere human being is beneath human dignity) then regard as “liberating” a job that puts her under the authority of a boss (man or woman) whose authority specifically requires and expects obedience?" Read more!

Earth Communication Continued

Back in July I posted an article from Kami Mcbride at livingawareness.com. I thought it was a lovely reminder of taking time to sit and had some great meditation ideas in it. This month I'm going to post the continuation of that article. I'm going to lean on Kami as my life is not allowing of me to write at the moment. Although I AM working on a few things that I am very very excited to share, soon! Earth Communication Continued

The last few months I have been sharing my experiences of how we can cultivate more earth awareness. Most of us have not lived in an area for very many generations. We do not have ancestral information passed on about how to best live in harmony with the particular piece of the earth that we currently find ourselves living on. Since we don’t have this inheritance, it is up to us to spend the time to learn about where we live.

Learning about herbal medicine is not just about plant constituents and dosage. The two questions that continually guide my herb school curriculum are: How do I inspire people to have a deeper relationship with their body and how do I help to inspire people to feel a deeper connection and relationship with the earth? We know we should be walking more softly on the earth but how do we learn how to do that? This inquiry keeps my classes alive as I am always being guided in how to answer the questing nature of these questions.

Here are some simple ways that we work with here at my school to enliven and nourish our relationship with the earth and her medicine, the plants

* Find a place in nature to visit on a regular basis. Cultivate your relationship with the place just like you would do with a friend. Sit together, listen to what the place has to say, tell it your thoughts and say thank you when you leave. Tell the place what you like or find beautiful about it. Ask if it has anything that it would like to share with you. Let your mind be still and see what comes to you as you sit there. Share with the place what it is that you are working on solving in your life. Nature has an amazing way of providing simple answers to life’s difficulties. Make an offering or find your way of saying thank you to this place. I often make a little alter of beautiful rocks, sticks or leaves that I find
* Sit with a plant. Either ask the plant a specific question or ask if it has any information for you at this time in your life. Sit for sometime with the plant and then allow yourself to write down anything that comes to mind with out editing your writing
* Sit with your back next to a tree. Keep your spine straight and touching the tree. This part of your body is full of nerve communication centers. Open to the healing energy of the tree and allow its information to come in through your spine
* Carry some dried herb with you in your pocket throughout your day. Leave it loose in your clothing, or bundle it up in some cloth. Notice how you feel with this herb on your body all day
* When you find a plant that you would like to get to know better, put it under your pillow at night and see how it affects you
* If there is an edible plant that you are interested in, take a bite of the fresh plant every day for several months. When I was learning about plantain, I ate the fresh leaf every day for more than three months
* Sleep outside or take a nap near the plants or trees you want to connect with
* If there is an herb that you are taking as medicine that grows near you, lay down on the ground with it and draw it in detail as a way to get to know it better
* Lie with your belly on the dirt, calm your mind and focus your attention on the energy that comes through the earth into your belly
* Listen to a drumming or chanting tape and visualize yourself traveling to the center of the earth on the pathway of root systems. Notice the roots and what this underground highway has to teach you
* Pick a few leaves from a plant, crush the leaf then rub it on your forehead and if you are sure it is an edible plant, eat a piece of it. Then lie down and meditate for a while. See what comes to mind
* Chant or sing to plants or trees and then just sit with them. I have had so many amazing experiences in receiving communication from the plants after I sing or chant. The singing stops the logical mind and opens up your ability to better perceive non physical information
* Place a leaf between the palms of your hands and sit quietly for some time. Allow the plants information to come into your body through the chakras in the palms of your hands

These are just a few suggestion of how to listen to what nature has to offer. When you take the time to just be in nature you will come up with your own ideas of how to enhance your communication and perception of the beautiful green world all around us.

Kami McBride has taught herbal medicine and women’s health since 1988. She is the director of Cultivating the Herbal Medicine Woman Within, an experiential herbal studies program where women are inspired to reclaim their heritage as herbalists and healers. Kami is the author of 105 Ways to Celebrate Menstruation that is available on amazon.com Kami teaches Women’s Wisdom workshops for women to experience optimum health in relation to their body cycles. For a schedule of upcoming classes or for an herbal consultation Kami can be reached at (707) 446-1290 or sign up for her free herbal enewsletter at: www.livingawareness.com Read more!

Recontextualizing me

(art by Danielle Duer)

A dear friend of mine once said something about me that has been replaying in my mind recently. Actually she's said MANY things about me and lots of them stick. She has that gift, of insight into my personality at times, and the trust in our friendship to actually offer observations when she gets them, which I treasure. I don't remember when this comment was made, but I believe I was living in Sonoma at the time at the Barn House. She said something to the effect of "You ask a lot of people about your situations...". Implying, I felt, at the time that I really should look within myself for the truth of the matter. I have counselors you see, I ask friends about things, I get readings, I search on the internet, I read, I do tarot layouts. Since she mentioned that I really thought about it. Was I looking to others for the answer? Maybe I was! Maybe I didn't know my own truths! I did something else that may be familiar to you, I immediately turned this into a negative. I've been mulling this around lately and I've found the positive. It's not negative! I do talk a lot about things, and I know, sometimes think too much, and read a lot, but it's not to put responsibility on someone else's shoulders. It's actually research. I'm curious about the world. I want to bring in as much information about a situation as I can. I want to know, what does it look like energetically? What does a doctor say? What about a chiropractor? Does that jive with what I think? Did my dear friend go through the same thing when her child was 3 months old? If so does it feel similar to my kid? What does the tarot say about my relationship? Does it jive with my experience?What does Dr. Helen Fisher say about the chemistry of love? I can obsess over things, for sure, and sometimes it's just my analytical mind going round and round over something. But this researching mode, in the best sense is a touchstone for my intuition. I bring information into my energy space and if it rings true to me I keep it. I do this until I feel I have a complete picture of the issue at hand, and each piece has a part to play. Sometimes a new story comes into being by doing this activity. Sometimes I find peace. Sometimes I find the information I need to just do what I knew I needed to do in the first place. So here I am years later, after having pulling a bunch of information in about archetypes and I realize the scholar is something that rings true for me, and when I accept that archetype then something I thought was a negative, becomes a positive. And some part of myself is loved once again! Read more!

Earth Communication, by Kami McBride

Lately I have found myself interested in herbal medicine. An old friend of mine recently got back in touch and hosted a basic class on medicine making. We had a wonderful day, made some lip balm and other things, and talked about plants and their gifts to humans. My friend Nancy started her journey in part with Kami McBride. Kami is a local healer and teacher and allows posting of her articles. This one really speaks to me and I thought I'd share, it's on Earth Communication. making tea with your herbs? Do strong feelings ever come up while you are walking somewhere in nature? Have you ever been moved to tears by the earth’s beauty?

We have the ability to communicate with nature and receive information from the rocks, trees and plants. It is for us to slow down enough to be able to perceive nature’s language and to recognize the earth’s effect on us. One of the missions of my school the Living Awareness Institute is to cultivate the art of earth communication. I wasn’t raised in a culture that taught me the specifics of talking to the earth but somehow I have been inspired to find my way.

I had a powerful experience in my early twenties that provided a template for learning how to communicate with non-human earth inhabitants. My grandfather was an avid fisherman. We grew up fishing in the Sierras and the Ocean and I loved being in nature with him. When I graduated from college he gave me the gift of a fishing trip with him to the Arctic Circle. Definitely not your average destination.

The Arctic Circle is at the top of the globe and it is frozen there most of the year except for about eight weeks in summer. In July there are lakes that thaw out and you can fly small planes into several freezing cold remote lakes. The Arctic Circle is full of bears and eagles and the most beautiful wild life. Because it is so cold, the fish have a slow metabolism which allows them to live for a very long time. Because the fish live so long, they get very, very big. The largest salmon in the world live in the lakes in the Arctic Circle.

On the first day of our two week stay on top of the world I caught a giant salmon that fought me for forty five minutes before I got it into the boat. Once I saw this incredible creature I began crying, I had never seen such a wise and ancient fish. I said, “I want to put this fish back”. Of course everyone in the boat thought I was nuts. I proceeded to spend the next ten minutes holding this fish with my arms in the freezing water, resuscitating it back to life after it had given everything it had in its struggle with me. Just when I thought I couldn’t do it any longer, he opened his eyes, looked at me and swam away. The spirit from his eyes penetrated my being; I can still see them in my minds eye to this day. I could feel the spirit of this being, how old it was and how unnecessary it was for me to take it.

This experience was so profound that I could not fish for the rest of the time there. My grandfather thought I was being such a girl, but I felt a deep respect for the fish and was not given permission to take them. I ate fish that others caught and it was the most delicious I have ever tasted, but it was not for me to catch them.

So that meant that I had thirteen more days out on a boat in the middle of the lake. The boat went out at 6:00 am and came back around 6:00 pm. That is a lot of time to sit on a boat. What did I do? I laid on the hull of the boat and started watching the clouds. The sky is beautiful there and the clouds are endless. After hours and hours of just being with the clouds I began to really perceive their presence and felt an energetic transmission from them. I started to speak to them and ask questions and then they would answer the question through the movement of their formation. It reminded me of reading tea leaves. I watched the clouds for what was days on end in the crisp north air and fell in love with them. Each day I received different information about my life and life in general. They were so beautiful and I enjoyed being with them, it was like making a new friend.

To this day I have a special relationship with the clouds. I stop and watch them, ask them questions or just look at them until I receive a message. As I look back on my experience in the Arctic Circle I estimate that I spent about 100 hours just observing the clouds and learning their language. Not much else was there to distract me. I had time, empty space, a willingness and I enjoyed being with the clouds. I think these are basic components for developing our relationship with the earth, the rocks, the plants or people for that matter.

The next time that you are somewhere that you love in nature, just sit or lay down and relax and hang out with a tree, rock or plant. Take your time and just be with the earth without having to rush. You may just be surprised at what she has to say! Next month I will talk about more techniques for enhancing your earth communication.


Kami McBride has taught herbal medicine and women’s health since 1988. She is the director of Cultivating the Herbal Medicine Woman Within, an experiential herbal studies program where women are inspired to reclaim their heritage as herbalists and healers. Kami is the author of 105 Ways to Celebrate Menstruation that is available on amazon.com Kami teaches Women’s Wisdom workshops for women to experience optimum health in relation to their body cycles. For a schedule of upcoming classes or for an herbal consultation Kami can be reached at (707) 446-1290 or sign up for her free herbal enewsletter at: www.livingawareness.com Read more!

The Book Zoo and Dylan Thomas

Yesterday I was walking with my dear friend and my dear boy down Telegraph Avenue to pick up our volvo that had finished it's stay at Montclair Auto. It had been an incredible day, where circuitously and in strange ways the universe answered every prayer that I've had for communication between my daughters father and I. It was stressful and curious and yet somehow I felt everything would be OK. That everyone involved had my daughters best interests at heart. After this long strange couple weeks I found myself on a Friday walking down the block, with a dear old friend and the sun shining. My son was babbling from his stroller, enjoying things as much as we it seemed. We came up on Book Zoo and had the most marvelous interaction. As we were checking out the sale books on the sidewalk, the owner of the store popped out and I realized I had seen him at SFO at 12:30 in the morning on Tuesday. He had a book zoo t-shirt on, so it was easy to remember him and there he was again with his mop of curly black hair and bright smile. I mentioned that I had seen him and we exchanged small talk. It's funny I never feel great about small talk, but am always conscious that there may be another reason for my interaction with someone than actually passing information about the weather. Now I don't question it. If my spirit has something to communicate I let it do it's job and I speak about the ice cream I just bought or the cute t-shirt in the window till it's done. Any who...there we were and this little sprite pops out! Her mom (my daughters kindergarten teacher) introduces her again and the little elf proceeds to be the most amazing sales person I've ever seen! She lures us into the store saying that "we have a children's area" and "he (meaning our boy) will love it." I can't resist her beautiful smile and tousled hair. Not to mention her cute polka dot dress. She shows us to the children's area and we browse a little. I've already got two in my hand, one a Beverly Clearey book for C. and two a book called something like I love you stinky face for A. But I browse and I find a book of Children's tales from the dark side of the spirit or something like that. of course this immediately jumps into my hand and E. and I check it out. I believe the whole reason that our sprightly sales girl lead us into the store was to see the quote in this book by Dylan Thomas, it's from A Poem on his Birthday and taken way of of context, but it speaks to me so here goes "Dark is a way, Light is a place." When I looked the poem up it seemed locked to me. Like the information I was meant to get from it was this one line and no more, because I could not read the poem to save my life. Strange eh?

Our little elf brought us to the register, added up our $2.00 for the two books and took our money before escorting us out telling us we should come back when A was older and could really enjoy the children's area. She followed us a half block before going back to her parents at the book zoo and we went on, pausing at a bus stop to nurse and then continuing down to the auto shop to make it just before they closed and pick up our car. I've been thinking about that quote ever since and the meaning has not become clear yet. Perhaps it is meant to go on my wall, when I do get my own dedicated office space. Perhaps that's all....but I find myself curious to meditate on it. I find myself curious what messages do others receive in their lives? Are the clear? Or are they like mine, mysterious sometimes and seemingly unrelated yet important? Read more!

A time of Family

We've been in Iron Mountain Michigan for three days now. My daughter is locked up with her cousins all day playing games of the mind and imagination. It's been cold so the kids have been inside most days. It's impossible for me to capture the beauty of the wide river here. I think that maybe a better/different lens I could capture it. Or perhaps a detail shot would capture the quiet beauty.



We finished out our trip with boat rides, fireworks and a parade, custard at Storheims, a trip to Walmart...You can learn so much when spending time with family. I love looking at the old photo's, the family parties, the births, graduations etc. But my heart was most content when sitting and listening to the wind in the poplars and pines, when the river becomes still in the morning or at sunset. I find myself dedicated to preserving this and keeping it in the family.

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Fairy Camp

Getting Ready for Fairycamp tomorrow. Class Title is, "Psyche, You have the power!"

Learn the power you have in your own heart and mind. Utilizing a pendant that seeks the truth you will find that you can indeed affect the physical world with your thoughts. Spoonbending with 6-10 year old girls...OMG pray for me! How exciting! Read more!

Fathers Day

When you talk about love stories, of finding "The One" that is our story. We both just knew it was right. Seeing him with our son and my daughter makes it feel more right every day. He is loving and kind, gracious and funny. He respects my daughter's relationship with her own father and gives that the maximum space he can. I know that later in life she will appreciate that. When I started actively trying to wake up in my life I hoped when I was radiating my true self that I would attract my true love. It wasn't the goal, but being a romantic I couldn't help but hope.

I painted this for him on Fathers Day from a photo that came out of a day that we spent together with Addison at Middle Harbor Park in Oakland. We were trying out my Mothers Day present, a Canon Rebel. My first digital SLR. I haven't shot since Mothers Day 2006 I think, so it is taking a lot of getting used to. We both love the industrial scenes at Middle Harbor Park. The cranes are right there and you can see the new bridge going over the bay, hugging the old. I don't paint really. I mean I've done a little of many art forms, but its not a part of my life on a regular basis. I had this canvas from years ago when J. bought it as a birthday gift. It's sat there for years, blank white, waiting for me to do something. The painting nor the photo are perfect, but I didn't let that stop me this time. Sometimes I realize that is the thing that keeps me from creating, the idea that things have to be perfect.

Well here's to imperfect creativity then, and to the perfect man for me. Here's to many more creations together!

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A reading of my own

I often check in with other healers on my own stuff. When I was enrolled at Creative Fire I would get weekly check ins as part of class. But since I've been home and centered in the east bay I most often schedule check ins with my mentor Liliana Barzola at Lotus Lantern Healing Arts. Checking in with a healer is such a good feeling. I feel I can direct my attention to things in my body that have been evasive in my own sight, and energies that I pick up from working with clients. No matter what is covered in a session I feel I've spent time on healing for me and that is such a rich and wonderful experience to give to the self. Recently I had a session with Eliel Fionn. Eliel is a wonderful intuitive and I had the honor of working with her years ago in a small group face reading session. A very dear friend of mine works with Eliel on a regular basis and spoke highly of her soul reading session. I thought this would be fun so I emailed Eliel and scheduled a time. Fun is a big motivator for me. Although I feel that I'm a pretty serious person most of the time I also have this huge desire to be a cut up whenever someone ELSE is being serious. Years ago I was talking to a dear friend and business partner and he asked me what I really wanted in life, it was a serious conversation as I was having a hard time in my personal life. I broke out and said completely spontaneously, "I want to have FUN!". It's true. I don't really understand what life is for if it's not to have a good time. All the people in the world suffering mystify me they really do. All the suffering we cause and accept ourselves it's amazing to me. Anyway all of this just to say that fun is a huge motivator to me and the reason I first sought a reading from a clairvoyant, just for fun. So last Friday I booked time with Eliel. What a fun time! I got a lot of information, what was really fun was I could hear the things I said about myself over the years in her stories about my soul and my past lives. Here are some archtypical themes that she spoke about.

1. The Seer/Prophet - I have a struggle with my gifts. For many lives I've hidden these away. The longing that I had this lifetime as a child to experience magic, and as an adult to experience God. These things she said are good, because they show a longing to return to my true self. That self is a seer/prophet.

2. Scholar - I have been well trained in many lifetimes. I have a longing for knowledge to understand my own abilities. So my search for my own abilities includes much reading and studying. Very true. Part of me feels like I can't offer my services to others without a firm grounding in the information.

3. Artistic - Whether leading a life as an artist or not, I am artistic about what I do, but practical. I love to build things that are useful. I am interested more in the question of "what is creativity" Not just creating, but why we create. The thing that rang really true here is I have a leaning towards non-traditional schedules. I have a hard time working for others.

4. I love my Freedom - True. And I want others to have it to. I have always thought there is something more to life than just working and putting food on the table. This has lead me to some funny places, and in many lifetimes, much trouble. But I believe firmly in the freedom of our own thoughts. That integrity to self is important.

5. Builder Archetype - I am a leader, but prefer leading "with" people rather then at the front of the group alone. And this comes from a desire to have something continue without me. I figure if there isn't one leader, than the movement can't die. I like self sustaining organizations and empowering others. I like starting businesses, things that on the outside fit in with the status quo, yet internally are radically humanitarian. I"m very careful to camouflage myself. Often part of a culture and rebelling from within. True True. I've often said how much I love to be able to blend in.

6. I find myself curious about suffering. Why do we suffer? I understand the body has to die, but why do we build cultures to suffer? This question fascinates me.

7. Relationships - I like to partner with people. I've done it a lot, worked with groups to get things done.

8. Nurturer/Mother - Because of my experience with so much suffering I want to comfort people. Something for me to keep in mind is that I am not obligated to serve. I guess the sign "I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" should be posted on my chest. Or was that "no shirt, no shoes, no service"? It's important for me to have boundaries and know who is a friend and who is not.

There was a lot more, of course some I will keep for myself, and some I just couldn't write down or remember consciously. Although all the moments and images she was drawing from didn't feel or sound familiar at all times, it felt like she was somehow shaping an image of who I am. The slightly rebellious, curious me, the me that ponders why, the me that declared she was an artist even though her family stared in surprise. The me who welcomes openly other peoples beliefs and loves, the me that's started multiple businesses and mostly ends up working for herself.

I love how gracious Eliel is and how her words just flow from her like a liquid pool of light. After speaking with her I felt like electricity was running through my upper chakras. I vibrated with it and afterwards ate a nice fat lunch to ground me back in my body.

The timing must be right. Right time right place, right set and setting. Everything happens as it should and I love feeling the validation and clearing that working with a gifted clairvoyant can provide.

Thank you Eliel!



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thought and memory

There are a few ideas that I just accept as true. I realize that I have faith actually but to me it doesn't seem like faith, because it's built on personal experience. Of course this experience as an acquaintance loved to point out is almost completely internal. So it doesn't really qualify for scientific truth. I can't measure it. Yet, many of our memories of life are not verifiable. And no one would argue with me that I actually experienced mashing jelly fish with my best friend on the Severn river. People just accept those stories of life as real and true, so I'm saying you'll have to accept that I've experienced a lot in my personal quest (yes I have a rich inner life) for the divine and these experiences have lead me to several ideas. First, is the idea of multiple incarnations. Second, the idea that our brains can store information outside of the body. Third and I suppose the overreaching idea that there is a reality behind this reality. That we come from somewhere prior to being born in this life.

I suppose for some people these are all a bit hard to accept, but for me these are the items that come with my faith. It is belief in a unifying spirit or energy that leads me to accept these things and it's that belief and acceptance of these things that supports my conscious assimilation and explanation of the images I see while working with clients. And it's those images I've been wondering about lately. Why is it that spirits communicate in images? I don't know if I can come up with the answer to that, but I can certainly spend some time with the question.

In my twenties I was fascinated by the sheer amount of information that we are communicating to each other. I frequently found myself wondering WHAT it was that we were so busily trying to say to each other. I always thought it was something more than "Drink Coke-a-Cola" you know? We tell each other stories using images and we sell each other things using the same images. If you look around yourself, you can see all the mediums we use to communicate: Billboards, TV Film, plays, dance, internet, even the stories we read use language designed to stimulate your mind to create images. Descriptive language.

Memories are often recalled the same way. We have fleeting images that appear in our minds of points of our life, the birth of our children, that popsicle you had as a kid after school on a hot summer day, the sound of the ocean on the hawaiin beach where you spent your honeymoon, the day you met your beloved, the first kiss you shared. We think and see in images. (not totally I know, bear with me here. I'm not saying we ALL ONLY think in images, just that it's a ubiquitous method of storing information). And this perhaps is part of the reason we see and communiate in images.

Somehow we store these memories for later access. Cellular memory is the idea that we store memories in our body not just inside the brain. Not a scientifically proven idea, but a lot of anecdotal stories support this. There is also a new theory that we store information outside our body. There is an idea out there that we use the mind like a terminal that accesses data on a remote server. I'm not a scientist, so I'm probably doing that new age psedu-science here....so bear with me, but Jung names the collective unconscious as where we store information culturally. I have heard it called the Akashic records, as Ervin Lazlow discusses in his book, "Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos. The Rise of the Integral Vision of Reality"

The Akashic Records is a term used to describe a theoretical non physical library of all consciousness in all realities. I myself do not find it theoretical, having accessed this place myself while in trance, and also having journeyed there with a shaman. I suppose when we talk about fate, this is what we are talking about. This hall of records where the details of your life are already stored. This idea that your life is scripted out for you, is born up by the Akashi Records idea, but it's my thought that you are the one who writes the script, so fate is actually set by you. The big points in your life, the big lessons you need to learn, these things are decided by you. So the whole resistance of fate becomes silly and moot, you'd just be resisting yourself.

Anyway. I'm trying to keep to one thought stream here, the Akashic Records is just another facet to the idea I"m working on.

So back to the memories. They are visual things, typically, and can include other information, such as sound and smell, but mostly it's an image. So the energetic body of a person stores these images. And you can store these images over multiple incarnations, accessing them through the Akashic Records AND/OR storing them in your energetic body. These can become part of your energetic make up so much so that your body in this lifetime can manifest lessons learned from previous times. Memories are like pearls in our energetic/physical space. An example that I was given by a landmark teacher was this, you're about two years old. You're coloring on your wall with crayon, having a great time. The way the color rubs off on the wall, the way it looks and feels, you're totally into it, loving it. Engaged on the second, fifth and six chakra perhaps, creativity, communication and imagination...

Then your mother comes in and yells "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" You become confused. This was a pleasurable experience, a creative one, suddenly it feels wrong. You decide something in that moment, you create a belief system. Perhaps "I'll never be creative again, because when I am I get yelled at." Or perhaps you just store your mother's energy there, her need to have things clean and beautiful. You store this energy, perhaps in your second, fifth and six chakras. As you grow older, layers are deposited around this, other life experiences where you're punished for speaking out, memories to support this belief system that you've accumulated as you interact with other people in life. People are attracted to you because of it. As the layers grow you may move this memory into your unconciousness.

This becomes a touchstone for you in life, you find yourself unable to create, and when you do sit down to create something it feels defiant, like you're trying to prove something. Or maybe you don't create at all, you find yourself compulsively cleaning your home all the while thinking, why am I doing this?

Suddenly a life experience is trapped in your energetic field. Something big enough will be transported from lifetime to life time, these experiences make up the Self that has the ability of self conciousness over many lifetimes. These experience can become part of who you are, even if you don't have conciousness of multiple lives. The person who is afraid of boats, yet has never lived near the ocean. The child afraid of dogs, who has never in this life had a bad experience with one. The musical wonderchild.

Imagine many lifetimes of experiences and layers around a memory/image. These layers often protect you from a very troubling memory. Most spirits try to avoid pain, these layers create pearls of protection that then become "programs", ways of being, or belief systems that we think are just "how we are".

As a spirit begins to get curious about these areas, begins to focus attentionon a way of being, these layers can be shed, worked through etc. Perhaps you realize that your mother is always in your thoughts when you are cleaning. Or perhaps there is confusion, suddenly you can't remember why you were thinking about a particular. Suddenly you're sleepy a lot or absent minded when thinking about why nothing new seems to be coming to you. Awareness that is a way of being or a layer around an image as protection for your being is not neccessary at this point. It is only necessary to keep focused on what your experience is now. What is causing you to check out?

I find in thinking over these things I only have more questions. Why do we choose to carry things from lifetime to life time. Why do we incarnate if only to forget and then to remember again? And still, why are things accessable as images? Is it that how the concious mind can take transcental information and move it into this physical body? Vibrations translated into images translated into concious thinking and ways of being?

My little pandora's box just keeps spewing more to look at!



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Acid Opens the Door

I've said it many times by now, I know the exactly moment I woke up, became conscious. Although now I just view it as one of my many moments of waking. It seems these opportunities come and you get what people call a moment of clarity. But never the less, the biggest of these moments was February of 1992. I was twenty two years old and lived in the dorms at San Jose State. I know, I'd been on the planet for 22 years, and I say life started then? It was only looking back from 22 that I felt that way, I didn't walk through the previous years thinking, wow, why won't my life get going?

I was a resident adviser on the seventh floor of Joe West Hall. A combination of things had happened leading up to this point, my very restrictive boyfriend dumped me over the summer, and I was working with an amazing woman named Vengerfulatta. No really! Her full name was even more awesome than that! And she was (I suppose still is!) an incredible woman. She proved to be a great mentor and really helped me out of my shell. I considered myself painfully shy most of my life, until I met her. (She later claimed to have created a monster! Who me??) So there I was becoming more and more outgoing, and rebounding in a serious way, ready to explore and try new things. The catalyst was provided by my best friend who had been going to the Renaissance faire for a while now and was having some wild adventures. She had met this couple and one weekend she came back talking about acid.

I was curious. Her description of going to the grocery store and being so involved with the colors and textures of the dry and canned goods was too rich. Although up till that point I had only really smoked pot, intentionally at least. I rarely even drank. There were a few other chemicals I ingested, but only cause it was ON the pot and I had no idea what I was doing. (see above pronouncement where I said I had woke up? See what happens to you!) But this time I had questions; I wanted to check it out. So one weekend she got a couple of hits and we took it in my dorm room. I'll spare all the high guy details of the eight hours or more, but basically I took it and then went ignorantly to the dining commons. She waited in my room. This seemed reasonable to me, I thought I'd just go get something to eat, completely unaware of what was growing in my blood supply and mind; what was coming for me. Everyone at my table grew funnier and funnier as the time went by, and

golly

time stopped having any import at all. I completely forgot anyone was waiting for me in my room until one of my residents came to fetch me because my BF, in the grips of her peaking trip had grabbed him and said MY GOD MAN! YOU MUST RETRIEVE HER! SHE KNOWS NOT WHAT SHE IS DOING! and she was right, I had no idea....I was completely in the moment.

We spent the day laughing our asses off, and I found myself looking at life with joy and bliss in a completely different way. I experienced the moment between when I stepped into a puddle, and when the water finally soaked through and hit my skin. It was delicious standing there on San Salvador street in the sun feeling that and then, well I had a wet sock and wet foot and wet shoe, that wasn't so nice. But it was nice in some strange way. We walked to Seven Eleven. I couldn't make out how money worked at all, and held out a wad of cash for the guy behind the counter. My sweaty palm, the sweaty bills all crumpled up. That was hysterical to me, and the trust I felt and the lack of attachment to the money itself.

A delicious lack of attachment and attention to detail.

I remember looking out my window and seeing all the red in the scene, a red car, a red hydrant, red signs all tying things together in a pleasing way. I knew I could create photo's in a completely different way with this new insight. About six hours into it I looked at my BF and said, WAIT? This is going to END!! I didn't want it to end, and I wanted to know when we could do it again. I didn't trust my ability to take the experience from one acid trip and be able to keep it, to have it inform my art.

I tried to write something in my journal. I tried to write to my future self, the self that would read the writing and I got tripped up (ah HAHA, trip? get it? haha sorry) in the fascination with time, and the knowledge that who I was from minute to minute was different and changing. The past me would not be the same as the future me. I felt like sending a bottle off to a completely different person on a different continent. And in a sense I was.

Later after all the hilarity and the insights, the confusion and clarity I realized how asleep I'd been my whole life. How I ended up in a college with barely any thought about it at all. How I'd grasped at the one thing I loved, drawing, to get me here. How I did what other people told me and wanted me to do, almost without question. The next day I felt an surge of delight and apprehension. I wondered how I made it this far just blindly following along. Oh shit I thought, it's up to me. Now this is not an abnormal thought for a human to get. All of us I suspect, if given a life of sufficient safety where we can think about things other than pure survival, and even in those lifetimes when we can't, many of us get to a point where we realize we are the masters of our own destiny. I just felt I had reached it abnormally late.

And I wondered what I'd been doing that whole time anyway?
How was I getting through life if it was only now that I felt I was fully inhabiting my body?
Who had been making those choices for me?
What was my life like and why was I so absent from it?
And what the fuck was I going to do now????

That was the big question, now what?

What was more drugs and more experiences, what, for a while was trying to get a grip on this thing I had ended up in, that I considered reality.

But what about my childhood? Who was this previously quiet girl, and how did she get to the point where she'd ingest some LSD?


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Where did the first ANYTHING come from?

Last week we took a driving trip to San Diego to visit friends, see the zoo and be tourists. On the way there my daughter asks us, "Where did the first people come from?" I looked at my husband and I had to admit, I had no answer. I told her that there are a lot of thoughts about that, but no one knows for sure. I suggested outer space. She looked out the window and thought a bit and then said where did the first ANYTHING come from?

I asked her what did she think? She said, outer space....but my answer I know was not sufficient. I thought about it later and discussed it with B. I have to admit that in school I evolution without question. Not that it made total sense, but it did seem logical and to my chagrin I accepted most things without question. Questions for me even now are something I have to remind myself to ask and think about. But OK so far I see no reason not to believe in evolution, but in my rudimentary understanding of it, I can trace our ancestry back back back, through the different hominid forms, back to Africa, back to apes, back to a small warm mammal, back to a reptile, back to a fish, back to a single cell organism.

So there we are single celled organism.

Still my question is, well how did we get that? It's no less of a mystery to me, where we came from, you can talk natural selection or you can say that humans were put here all fully developed in one shot, but either way it's still a mystery. Was it lightening that struck in the primordial soup? Was it the creator, which you can call God? Honestly not matter how I came at it, I could only say we just don't know. I'm still not sure how to answer her questions, I like the mystery, but I can see why people feel comforted by religion. You can just say, well God did it. and that to me is a short hand way of saying it's a mystery. God is un"knowable". Spirit is something that we can experience, but the creator, can we know the source of all things while in this form?

Some would say we can, me I know my connection to that source of all things. I feel to my core at home with where I come from energetically, but does that explain how and why? Especially to a six year old?

What I came to was this, what she thought about it was important, reading some creations myths might be fun, talking about god and spirituality, that also could be fun...and ultimately, it doesn't really matter....

cause here we are no matter what we think about the hows and whys of it.
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There is darkness inside of me. At night the image of a flashing knife and soft flesh comes to me and it is so vivid that I know. I know what it is like to sacrifice a little one. I know what it is like to give up my own flesh, by my own hand. There was a time when I allowed darkness to consume me that much.

Perhaps it was only a dream. Yet even then they say that to the body, dreams register in the brain as real as the door you open or the friend you hug. The reactions are the same. So to me, whether I think it was another lifetime memory, or a dream conjured by my subconscious I would say either way I experienced that darkness.

As a mother, to see an image of myself sacrificing an infant is particularly disturbing. The fact that that idea crossed my mind even a little bit freaks me out. I think though the gift of those images is to give me an experience of life, so different my peaceful loving existence, so that I am once again joined to the creative experience of all souls. Even those that choose lifetimes of evil. I hope that these images remind me to remove judgment, there but for the grace of god go I. We are all spirits walking the path of being human and there are a myriad of experiences to choose. Instead of struggling with the pretense that I am all light, always good, I choose to have these thoughts remind me that I am dark and light. I am a mix of light and shadow, we all are. To resist that too much is to begin become a lie. To resist too much is to become that darkness, even when your intent is to avoid that. There is life and death, good and bad. Again and again I choose the path of light. But there were times I didn't.

Over several lifetimes a soul could be bending towards the light. This lifetime perhaps he or she zigged instead of zagged. Perhaps this lifetime they got an F but at the end of days when they are judged, turns out they got A's in everything else and were considered at the top of their class. It is not up to me to judge an individuals life path. We all choose to learn in different ways. It is up to me though to be an assistance to those souls who would like to sort through the darkness to find their true selves. To accept, to forgive, to grieve and to move on, zigging once again towards the light.

I am so full this day, so large with love and home and family. I feel the light of love illuminating my eyes and beaming out. In these days, that's an important thing. Constantly choosing to let your light shine, even though around you is news of darkness and hopelessness. Find that small thing that makes you happy and let that spark inside you grow. We need more of that now.
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Client Services

This morning I had a really fun and interesting reading with a new client. And I found myself wondering what kind of technical services could support the session experience. So I thought I'd put it out there to the internet...click the read more to see some of my ideas.1. I could make a digital recording and could mail it to you. 2. take that same digital file and upload it to a possword protected part of my website, so you could see your history of readings. (of course in time that woul dinvolve a small monthly storage fee) 3. Create a journal for you, from blurb.com or ibook with some of my writings and blank paper for you to write about your experiences in. 4. create a small book from transcripts of your sessions...that might be more difficult. Not sure about the technical capabilities of creating text from an audio file, I mean except from me typing it. :) Any other ideas? Feel free to comment! Read more!

a few words from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. Read more!

Old Energy

The other day I had a wonderful session with Jamilla Neyon at Balance Point Chiropractic. She's an amazing healer and I experienced the gift of this recently. As I was walking to her office, which is right around the corner from our home I found I felt kind of off. My energy wasn't right and I couldn't drink the coffee I ordered at the cafe. Once I got into her office and on the table, we talked about my body and how it's been feeling. With a new born, I've been hunched over nursing him. And my lower back had been tender. She began to work on me and I asked her if the lower back was related to digestion in some way. She confirmed that yes it was. I always have trouble with my digestion, it never seems right. This area relates to second chakra issues of relationships and emotion, creativity etc. As I just had a baby inhabiting part of the second chakra I wasn't suprised. As Jamilla adjusted my neck I noticed I was having trouble relaxing. I felt jittery and tense and I said so out loud. At this Jamilla asked me if she could ask a series questions regarding concepts and as she did she used a muscle resistance test. Muscle resistance uses applied kinesiology to get feedback from the body regarding many things including allergies, muscle bone health, and other things. Jamilla was using it to test emotional concepts. As she placed one hand on my lower intestines and called out these concepts we found that I was unable to resist her pressure on my hand when the concept of grief was called out. After she found that concept she kept asking questions to narrow in on the emotional trigger point. I found this very similar to what I would do in a session. She was narrowing in on a picture or an emotion that I had been holding onto. As I would do with a client, she narrowed in on family vs. friends, immediate family (kids and spouse/exes) vs. larger family (ie parents, cousins siblings etc) and once we pin pointed the who, she began to ask about time frames. My body would either resists or not depending on the question, and she would follow down the path of non resistance. It turns out there was some grief from my 31st year, regarding my ex. Once we found this point she directed me to hold a pulse point and breathe through the emotion. At the time I couldn't find a conscious representation of the event. As I laid there, a sickness begin to come up & out of my body. I began to shiver uncontrollably, as my core temperature dropped. Jamilla's gracious healing allowed me to lie on the table under warm blankets and heating pads. When I was warm enough I began to walk home, but couldn't make it all the way. My husband came to pick me up and drove me home to bed. I spent three days with the flu in bed sleeping most of the time, only waking to nurse my baby or feed my daughter. As I laid there I searched in the 31st year for that picture. What I found looked like a piece of meat stuck in your teeth, or something left in the back of the fridge too long. It was old, and hidden, dark and rotten. As I brought it up and out of my energetic body I viewed a picture there of my first perception of dishonesty in that relationship. And more than that a sense of betrayal came with it. This event had been covered over by a few more years of issues, and so had been laying quiet, disturbing my digestion. Over the last couple years I have worked on this area a lot, but I share this with you to illustrate two things. One, Balance Point Chiropractic is amazing, and if you need a chiropractor I recommend Jamilla with all my heart. Two, working energy and healing your body and spirit is process. It feels at times, like you'll never work through it all. As I said to Jamilla at the close of our session, How long was I going to hold onto that?. We both laughed, because it's such a human feeling. We want our healing done clean, and fast. But healing takes time, and attention. Even when you think you've cleaned up all the residuals of a affecting moment, you find yourself returning to it; cleaning up one more piece. It takes attention to cleanly move these energies out of our space, and even when we do, sometimes the pattern of behavior is so strong for us, that we fill that healed space with more of the same energy. Hence recreating the same emotional moments again and again. It's humbling indeed and a wonderful reminder to pay attention to my body. Even if I think I've worked that space enough. And a reminder that growth and healing sometimes take time and grace. Read more!