cleaning

the last few days i have felt like a fog was settled in on the edges of my insides. my mind seemed intent on a blank grey shade of being. my spirit was fuzzy and lethargic. i was not unhappy and i was not feeling like something was wrong but i was feeling cloudy. it hit me the most when i was trying to write here. my posts felt flat and more forced than i like. maybe no one was noticing while they were reading but i was feeling it in the creation. i was feeling it in my conversations with friends, and with my husband and my children. i felt like the crisp edges were missing and too often i was just a tad too smoggy.

yesterday as i was doing the quiet, lights out, rock and nurse to sleep part of bedtime with the kiddos i decided to see if there was anything i could do to clean my self up a little bit. what i felt like i wanted to do was walk around in my mind, in my soul, and lift the windows open to let some fresh air gust through. i wanted a nicely scented damp cloth to polish in inner workings with.

i rocked and i rocked and i looked for what the intention was. i wasn’t getting any information when i was coming at the question from a place of disrespect for myself. similar to the idea that shifting my eating needs to come from adding health not condemning myself for eating too much – the spirits stayed quiet when i asked what i was doing wrong. i sat with the quiet. i puzzled it over a bit. i wasn’t sitting alone, i was sitting with my guides and they were holding me. they just hadn’t given me insight yet. as we sat i shifted the intention to seeking something that might add to what i already had. i felt love for myself and my life and i also felt like it was ok to ask for a bit more. i am worthy of an even more brilliant life.

then my inner world split open with a crack and the light shone in with such force the fog burned right off the waters. the light. divine light. life force. love. truth. peace.

we may all use different names, titles or images to describe or imagine this power/energy/force but it matters so little. words are nothing in the light. my guides whispered to me, “you work so nicely with us all the time but you forget to recognize your ultimate connection to the divine.” they whispered with love and affection and they basked in the light of the divine with me.

my windows opened and the air blew through and the screen bloomed with color and light and clarity. it was so simple to enjoy and i felt my energy rising up to meet the divine with ease and grace. i felt cleansed and invigorated and full of lazy joyful peace. i felt each layer of my self, my mind my spirit my physical body spread into a smile. i rocked my child and i was lifted up by divine spirit rocking me.

this morning flash took the kids out for a bit and i spent some time cleaning my home. i opened some windows and used a nicely scented cloth to wipe down every surface i could reach. i caught myself trying to hurry up and get the whole house done and i asked those thoughts to quiet down. i didn’t just want to rush through things. i wanted to clean out the dust around the edges and fill in the space with love and tenderness. i wanted to wipe off the grime and welcome the sparkling light. i wanted to add something to our space here not just to take things away.

i wanted the cleaning to to touch my home with the same spirit that my own inner cleaning had received the night before.

i feel the light still coursing through me today. it is such a magical gift and i am thankful deep in my bones. i hope that as you connect with my words today it reaches out and touches you too. i hope the light jumps into you with whatever strength is right for you in this moment. that it adds joy and peace to your life in the magnitude you may need. that it blows open the windows in your spirit and lets your own blessed fresh air rush in.

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more on helping

a few days ago i mentioned on here that i was spending some time in the evenings setting my intention and sending white healing light and energy to the people of haiti.  it felt like a way that i could help out given the magnitude of what is happening there right now.

i had mentioned to victory that when i read about haiti or looked at the photographs coming out of haiti it made all the hairs on my body stand on end.  this is not my typical reaction to something – even something as massive and upsetting as this.  i took notice of this reaction and i stayed open to the idea that it had some personal meaning for me.

i decided to take a moment during my last healing light time praying for direction on ways that i could be of better use.  some sign of what kind of work i could be doing to help.  should i be finding a way to raise money to donate to red cross instead of sitting in a dark room sending white light?

the next morning i was one of many many people who received an email from some shamans who lead a circle that meets near where i live.  i have not attended their circle since before the bean was born but i am still on their contact list which i am so grateful for.  these shamans wrote about ways they were responding to the situation in haiti and also included the text of a message written on behalf of the society for shamanic practitioners on responding to the crisis in haiti. i was deeply touched by the messages and i felt immediately that my prayers for guidance had been answered.

last night i sat in the darkness rocking the pea to sleep.  (i have found the rhythmic motion of the rocking works for me as a nice way to journey without drumming.)  i set my intention to join in the work of all the other people using shamanic healing traditions to help heal haiti, the haitian people, the land, the spirits. the experience was amazing and much different from how i had been feeling working alone. the journey was long and detailed and several times during it i was reminded by my guides to touch in to the energy of all the other healers who were sitting in the circle with the intention of healing haiti – to keep myself grounded and to keep from being overwhelmed. the immediate shift was astounding.

when i had finished the journey i sat and wrote the whole thing out so that i could share it and i have toyed with putting that up here but it feels too long and detailed for a blog post. i will say that the power of being a part of a group blew me away. also, if you feel like you want to help but you are not sure how please ask the universe to direct you, or some trusted real life teachers or wise people you know.

in the last days i have gone in and out of feeling over whelmed by the crisis in haiti, feeling disconnected from having the ability to help in any way, and so on. i am not going to try to reflect here on what the experience must be like for people who are there living through this. i will say how sad it makes me when i get the sense that the rest of the world is feeling so lost and overwhelmed and that is the energy that is growing and growing in haiti’s name.

at the top of the message that i linked to earlier there are links to thank you’s and responses to the call to work. one responder summed up what i am trying to get at here so beautifully i will quote her:

For the aid workers who are physically there trying to help, there is no way to escape the devastation of what has happened. But as light workers and dreamers, when we focus on the suffering, we feed the vision of a Haiti that continues to be devastated, poor, hungry, uneducated and unstable. Instead, we can use oru powers of imagination and visualization to feed the dream of a new Haiti, one of where everyone has a home, food, jobs, healthcare, education and hope for the future.

along with whatever form of aid feels right for you, may you all find some time each day to be dreamers who help to bring into being a healed and balanced haiti. and if you are someone who journeys please join in the circles that are working with focused intention to use the gifts, skills, and learning we have to help in the many ways that we can.

may you walk in beauty.
woowoo mama

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journeying in

i sit with Grandmother for a moment. we are in the forest by her fire which is small today, just a thin line of smoke rising from the embers of logs. she turns her face to me, “this is not where you are meant to be today. you know that. you must go back inside the body.”

i close my eyes and then i rise from my seat and turn to my large white friend who is waiting for me in the clearing. my unicorn. we walk towards each other. when we meet, i climb onto his back and he instantly takes flight. we start up into the sky and the next thing i know we have entered the body.

inside the body is warm is dark with blood coursing all around us. somehow there is space for us to travel between the bones and muscle and we make our way to the top of the head. i can hear Grandmother’s voice telling me “the light you need is in your hands.” i look down and find a ball of light is cupped in my right hand. it is light a giant marble emitting pure white light.

we fly through the body and i touch the ball of light to places that are dark black. my unicorn knows the way and knows where to slow so that i can reach out and light the spots. as each spot lights, a thin line forms between it and the other lit spots so we are leaving a trail behind us of balls of light all connected by thin lines. i am wondering to myself if we are lighting up tired glands, or acupuncture points? we pick up speed and we are flying through the body faster than i can think. i hold out the light and watch it spread and spread and hold fast in the spaces it is needed.

in my physical body i can feel the warmth spreading into the places that are lit. it starts in the crown of my head and slowly fills my face and neck. my chest and torso warm and then my right and left arms. some time is spent in my pelvis area, my hips and sacroiliac fill with warmth and lightness.

inside we are still flying fast and the points along the legs and feet are coming to light. then suddenly we are rising up through the body more slowly and landing on the heart. huge, pumping, wooshing, thumping heart. i press my ball of light into the heart and watch it spread until the heart itself is the source of light. a light that glows and spreads in a thin veil through the entire body and then outward into the universe. a bold pulsing energy of life.

my unicorn touches his nose to my face and is gone. i am growing and filling up the body once again with my self. when i am filling up my body i sit quietly and sense the strength that the light has brought. i wait with it until it feels real and only then do i fully return to this reality.

i open my eyes and look down to see the pea has fallen asleep on my breast while i nursed her and journeyed for my own healing. her eyes are soft and her body is limp and warm pressed up against me in the rocker. i am blessed.

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unanswerable

when the connection to the universe is clear and the information coming to me is what is needed then i feel a certain feeling in my body, in my heart. when i wonder if i am on the right track i usually ask for help and i also check the feeling i have. do i have that solid feeling?

on the phone with her, as we work, and as i try to work with her family when we are not talking i have the feeling. it is coming with ease which only tells me that yes, the universe intends to help through me. because i am an empty vessel. i have learned, practiced, discovered my form of the art of opening up and letting the universe come through me in ways that can help people.

the night before i sat and let the work flow through me. images and understanding. i traveled to places and i spoke with spirits and living people and asked the spirits to work through me as i removed energy that is not needed and filled in those holes with healing. and i did nothing. i did nothing. what i did was ask for the universe to work through me. i set my intention. i believed.

“what are you?” she asks me, “are you a healer?”

i have to pause, taken aback by the simplicity of the question and how i have no way to answer it.

what am i?

i am a woman who almost has her master’s degree in counseling psychology. i am a woman who has some training in the shamanic tradition. and interspecies telepathic communication. and the red path. a woman who has studied buddhism, and some yoga, and some energy healing methods.

what do i call myself? how do i understand what i do? and what am i doing?

i am taking a leap of faith. i am a believer. i am one who embraces the invisible. i am a woman who constantly seeks her true path. i feel called to use what i have learned to help other people when i can. i work well with animals.

i talked to victory a few minutes later. “what am i?” i asked her.

“well, you are woowoo mama. woowoo mama.”

in my best moments i am just an empty vessel letting the universe fill me up and shine through. a hollow bone. in my best moments, i am fairly nothing at all.

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on things that go bump in the night – part two

eventually our child turns to us in fear and explains that there is a “scary man” or a “clown” or a monster that “has a hanger not a head” that they can see.  the bean does this fairly frequently now, tells me he can see “something” that is standing or that has arms or that has legs.  just last night as we were laying down to snuggle him to sleep he told me, “i can see someone out there.”

me: sofia? (our cat.)

bean: no not sofia.

me: what do you see?

bean: it has a hanger instead of a head.

me: a hanger?  like you hang your clothes on?

bean: yes.

me: oh, it must be a friend.  we should ask that friend to go home because it is time to go to sleep.

bean: i think it might be a monster.

me: ah, a monster, a nice friendly monster.  well, we need to tell that monster to go home to his bed because we are going to sleep.

bean: oh yes.  i think it is a really small monster.

me: i like really small monster friends.

bean: where does the monster live?

me: i think he lives in a far away land.

bean: with his mama?

me: yes, with his mama.

bean: i think he is going to bed with his mama.

me: yes.

bean: can we go visit him at his house some time?

me: sure.  i think we can.

several months ago victory’s son was having a reoccuring fear of what he called “scary man.”  victory asked me if i thought i could help because it was happening so frequently and they were not sure what to do.  victory and her husband felt open to the spirit world and they wanted to be sure “scary man” wasn’t some kind of negative energy that was bothering their son.

i checked in with my guides and did a little work around what was happening and i got the information that “scary guy” was a protecting spirit guide that was there to work with their son.  the spirit was friendly, safe, and kind but big and “scary” looking.  i passed this information onto victory and the whole family started working on reframing with their son.  they encouraged him not to be afraid of the man he could see, they introduced the idea that he might be a friend of their son’s who was there for friendly reasons, they encouraged him to tell the man to go away if he didn’t want him around.

within a few days their son had changed his whole perception of the man.  he talked about him as a friend and compared him to a policeman or fireman who was there to protect him if he needed it.  he also told his parents he had fun playing with him.  he even started calling him “friendly man.”  as certain energies in the home shifted “friendly man” was around less often but he still does make appearances and when he does he is not someone that creates a fear response.

part of my frame of beliefs is that there is a lot of information that we can access but that we deny.  that is putting it rather simply but i am trying to keep this post short enough to be functional.  the best example i can use now is the ability to communicate with animals.  i believe that all children have the ability to hear, or sense, or know what an animal is thinking or needs.  as they grow up, they are socialized to believe that this is not possible and as soon as we believe something is impossible it becomes impossible.  i also believe that children have free and easy access to the spirit world (and god) and that it is through indoctrination that they cease to believe that they can have direct communication with the universe.

one way that i try to support my children, especially the bean who is verbal, is to help him to believe that these things are possible.  i can give a million examples of ways that i do this but the most pertinent to this post is that i try to encourage him to think of the “monsters” as friends and to speak directly with them or tell me why they are visiting.  i try to give them a voice.  i welcome friendly monsters into our home, or i gently ask them to leave us alone for now.  i try not to be doubtful, or judging, or patronizing, about what he tells me he sees.  i try instead to explore it (within reason) and come out on the other side feeling joined by “the invisible world” instead of encouraging fear of it.

and there i find parenting and woowoo intersect.  hopefully i am raising a few mini woowoo’s and hopefully some of the above made sense to you all and may in some way prove useful (or at least thought provoking).

i’d love to listen to the critical voices in my own head and delete this but the spirits tell me “publish” is a much better idea.  and i trust them.

peace out people.

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trying

i do keep trying to write but nothing that comes out feels good enough and i am finding the whole experience to be so — trying. i am angry that the thing that used to be a nice form of me time, writing on my blog, has become such an inner battle with my self. i am annoyed that i am still that girl that can feel so crap about herself. i am ready to move on or get back to it or something. i just don’t want to have to try so hard.

ok guides, help me here. help me help me help me.

well it is not like you have not done any work. each night that you have asked for healing for that piece of yourself you have received it. what you need to do is try to find that same place to write from. silence the voices in your head so that you may hear more clearly what the ideas ought to be. write not for healing, but for the process of writing. accept the fact that it may be difficult and scary and you might not sound pleasing to others. but also, it might not be so difficult. the words might be laying right there in your heart and you are just having some trouble walking towards them.

if you want to walk towards the words then you might find that this is a good time in your life for some more structured journeying. putting a little more emphasis on the ceremony will ground you and will add power to the healing aspects of the work. and you may want to ask specifically to bring the healing into you work here. intention is a wonderful thing and you have been working on healing with intention set on your personal interactions. the space of writing is not what you have focused on. you can do that. shift your focus. it is not only acceptable but admirable for you to try to focus some healing on your writing self, and it is safe as well. the universe will answer you.

we also want to encourage you to seek joy and fun. what heals the heart more than laughter, smiles, peace, happiness? bring your writer to these occassions of joy and encourage her to join you. ask her to smile and be proud of her efforts and her commitment and the moments when the writing has brought you closer to your true self. thank your writer for allowing those moments to come into reality. what a blessing she is.

and let us remind her that she is loved and lovable. deeply. here now you can feel it, that we love her not for her ability to please others but for her ability to draw connection for you and to help you find peace and tranquility and flow and oneness. yes it can be found in other ways and it is but it is also in the practice of sitting down and finding the words. honor the craft and the process.

and why don’t you come and sit again tomorrow and we can keep working. i will be here. god will be here, and the loving universe, and your heart, and the piece of you that is hurting, and the parts of you that like to have a forum to share experience, and the piece that writes to elucidate life.

go ahead and post now. because truly, it does not matter if readers read or what they may think. you may still care, and we can hold onto that together. either way you are loved. and loved. and loved.

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a different kind of shred

my decision to do a little woowoo on my daily practice the other day combined with a a meeting of the covenish (as mentioned here and here ) yesterday has shifted things for me. “things” couldn’t possibly be a less descriptive word but sometimes i have problems fitting the experiences of woowoo, energy shifts, awareness, into language. hang in there with me.

 

one of the things i have been reminded of is the power of setting intention and using attention or awareness to make any activity a part of the practice. i know, i should in some way be able to define what “the practice” is and i may try to return to that but right now i am just going to keep trying to fit these little puzzle pieces together and loop back to shredding.

 

my thinking about my practice was in part reinvigorated by a post put up by mind body mama (whose blog i really like) on the container and the practice. my brain wasn’t ready to fully process how her piece related to me but it was sitting in there like a nice portion of food to be digested. sometimes i can just tell there is a message for me but i am not sure what the message is and so i just hold onto things and slowly it fits itself into my brain and heart where it should. reminds me a little of the biological basis class i had to take as part of my masters in counseling psychology where i didn’t understand what i was reading when i read it, but if i let go of my concern over that and just let it sit i “got it” eventually. but, i digress.

 

mind body mama’s writing was sitting with me, and then i did my own woowoo the other day which kind of reaffirmed things and then more talk during covenish yesterday and suddenly there was some clicking into place. anything i chose to use as a container can be one. gardening, yes and breathing and making the bed and folding the diapers and nursing the pea to sleep at night. the world is my oyster.

 

this realization paired up with my own thoughts on exercise and with some stuff that wotw and i were talking about a little while ago with regards to my shredding. (what is shredding? it is the act of doing this 30 day shred dvd. somehow the fad is sweeping the blogosphere and i got hooked in.) the truth is that i do want to find a fitness routine that helps me to drop some of my baby growing weight and tones my body back up a bit because i think i feel healthier when i am in better shape. the other truth is that i think working out my body helps me to stay happier. but i am afraid that it is all too easy to get sucked into the shredding as something that i do mindlessly. the shredding becomes a physical activity to push myself through instead of a time set aside to work my body while listening to my body and staying clearly focused and attentive on what there is to learn.

 

jillian even says at some point on level 2 something to the affect of “i want you to feel like you are dying.” and i am sorry, i think jillian should be commended for creating a workout routine that so many people are benefiting from but putting out there the idea that as we exercise we should ignore input from our body and spirit and get to the point of feeling like death simply doesn’t help me.

 

when i was in college up in maine at bates (briefly, before transferring to hampshire college in western mass. which was a much better fit for me) i took a “short term” class taught by an intensely cool philosophy professor on the art, philosophy and practice of karate. we met in a gym room and treated it like a dojo, the professor was a black belt and she led us through some basic karate training. we also read a lot of books (like the art of war, the tao of jeet kune do)and talked about the thinking behind martial arts. this was sort of my first introduction to having a physical practice and a philosophy or spirituality that were linked, working together, combined.

 

later on in life i was introduced to the practice of yoga and i once again was submerged into the art of using the body work as a container for some more spiritual practice. so, when wotw was voicing some concern over how exactly i was shredding it wasn’t like i thought she had no point. i just wasn’t yet ready to figure out what it meant to me. what i did clarify for myself at that time was that i could not fall into using the shredding as way to “prove” anything or to be “tough.” it is more important to me that i stay comfortable physically and that i hold my chiropractic structure than that i look good in a swim suit or that i move through the three levels at the suggested pace. sounds like a simple enough truth to hold onto but it is hard for me. once i decide i want to get into better shape i really do want to power on through and get into better shape. but there is that nagging voice in the back of my head saying “push yourself but do it with awareness.”

 

because i do believe it is possible for me to shred, to push myself, to get more fit, to get sore and struggle and make it really tough, and also to be present and aware and using the shred as a container. the trick is to set my intention and to use my awareness and to stay on top of things. in my yoga practice i learned a lot about how my body likes to fall into doing things “incorrectly” because then it feels easier in the moment but that leads me to pain and injury i do not need. for example, each minute adjustment a yoga teacher describes makes my body feel like it is working much harder, and it is, but it also leave more comfortable over all at the end. lets say we are in a warrior pose with our front leg bent at a 90 degree angle. the teacher might ask us to bring our attention to the arch of our foot and to lift it up off the ground which will then straighten out our thigh. when i do this my quad says, “wow, it is a lot harder to be straight” and also my knee says “thank you for taking the strain off of me and putting it onto the muscle that can bear it safely.”

 

ok i am sorry if this is getting wordy. i did say i was piecing things together. so today i really did not want to shred. i started off strong with my shredding at the beginning of may and fit it in about 5 times a week and noticed real changes in my body. then last week i was sick, the bean was sick, and chickpea was sick and i did nothing. not a single shred. i was way too sick and exhausted and sleep depraved. it has been very difficult for me to get myself back into shredding. i simple do not want to do it. but i know, from before, that if i can make myself i will feel better.

 

today i decided to try out the idea of using my shred as a practice. shred as a container to hold my practice. i was determined to bring awareness and not just toughness to the workout. i still did the full 20 minutes of level 2. i still felt like puking at the end. but, yet, it was totally different. each movement i checked in with my body to make sure it was safe. i challenged myself to try harder but also to be more correct. when i get tired i slump and i let my body cheat its way through the workout just so i can finish. push push push is what i do. and today i asked myself lovingly, “please stand up straight and use your core. if you do not your back is going to be injured.” and i modified things that felt like too much strain on my joints to be safe. and i threw in a little more yoga. and i asked my higher self to chose who to follow for each movement so that i was sure that it was bringing up the right level of energy and challenge for me.

 

the amazing thing was that i worked so hard, i did push myself (maybe even harder with all my focus on correct use of my body) and my higher self did at time chose to follow natalie (the harder version of the moves for you non-shredders). other times my higher self told me to put down the weights. and you know what, i listened.

 

at the end of the workout i had the usual adrenaline high going on but i had something else too…that feeling you can get sometimes from meditation or from a really good yoga class or from listening to a chakra balancing cd turned up so loud your whole body gets it. i was vibrating with energy. core energy. god is within me energy. kundalini, the snake had uncoiled and i was just alight.  a light.

i think that i have found the new goal for myself with shredding. yes, i want to get fit. but i do not want to do it through putting on my blinders and toughing things out. my higher self is tough, my aware self is tough, and she is also in tune with my body and good at making smart decisions. so i am going to try to do a different kind of shred. the kind that insists on being present, focusing, attentive and aware. a zen and the art of shredding kind of shred. a woowoo kind of shred.

any other shredders out there want to join me? or even just discuss?

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i want more woowoo

i have been thinking some about my own spirituality and wanting for a more regular looking “practice” in my life. there have been times when my guides have called for me to show the discipline to journey every day, or to practice some prayer every day. there have also been times when i have drifted to journeying only once a month or so and when i arrive and hang my head shamefully i am reminded that time and space do not exist and once a month could be every second for all the spirits care. their love and teaching do not cease to carry me even if i journey less often.

 

so all that is to say that i have had daily practice and no defined practice both and i find it all to be well and good and even supported. but lately i think a little focus might be a good thing for me. an element missing from my life that might help me stay centered and located where i want to be.

 

i am not sure what my practice should focus on so i am going to take a moment here to set my intention and see if a little communicating can clear things up for me. intention is sort of the fuel that runs the universe.  knowing, defining, and stating your intention is the key to life – in my most humble opinion. best to start there.

 

my intention is to bring a focus on my own spirituality back into my daily or weekly life so that i stay better in touch with my true self. i want to live as my true self, parent as my true self, interact with friends and family as my true self, be in my daily world as my true self, and take care of my house and land from my true self and heart.

 

 

the feeling you are looking for is a focusing in and a sense of balance. the key here is not to do more “woowoo” work for others but to spend a certain amount of time focusing and centering your self. moments of meditation would be helpful to you. this can be done with the children present and active as long as you are outdoors. the meditation can be a connecting fully with the present moment, observing the land and your children and the animals and the season, noticing thoughts that arise or judgments and then sending them downstream. you do not need silence and you do not need to envision this as a traditional meditation.

please also return to breath awareness throughout the day. your computer does not breath. you know? you do. find time to connect with your breath and with your natural breathing rhythms. notice. greet. enjoy. enjoy is the most important.

 

the work you are doing on planting and gardening is a part of your practice right now so be aware of that. dirt, seeds, plants, creation, care, attention, all these things are working for you right now to help you to get in touch with your true self. an intention to use the gardening as a form of practice will help you to get even more balance out of the time spent.

 

with that, please start working with the spirits of your land. yes, the land you live on was not nourished and loved for a long time and the spirits moved elsewhere. but they would be happy to return to you all you need to do is invite them and show them how serious you are about being a steward of their land. call out to them. ask them to come live with the peas, with your sage, in the grasses and leaves. as they settle into the land around your home, the land your home rests on, they will also fill your home itself with just the kind of energy you are seeking and thinking about.

 

yes, you are correct that the energy in your home and on your land is out of balance and that the area needs some love. you are able to love, the children by their nature love, your husband with his care taking shows love. now simply make your intention more clear. louder. call out to the spirits and welcome them home and ask them to help you care for the home and ask them what they would like their home to be like. listen when they speak. seek their counsel in your gardening.

 

and finally be grateful for your blessings. to have a home. to have land. a family to work on and with. love bountiful in your life. time each day to give thanks would center your heart and bring it into right vibrations.

 

as always, we are here with you. if you feel pulled off course simply ask for help to feel right again. rest in our loving embrace where you are whole and strong and bursting with white light from within. that is the truth. the one truth, of course, is love.

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going out more

6:45 it is safe to get out of bed.  6:44 is a no go.  i had to get up and get my own teeth brushed and get the pea nursed and my coffee poured and be out the door driving through the rainy morning by 7:15.  7:14 might be ok also but 6:14 is not.  (but i digress.)  

 

last night i left the house to go to an workshop held at a local mama’s house on using herbs for their healing properties.  it was my first time being away from the house for bedtime since chickpea was born (at 5:43, good girl).  i was nervous about how it would go.  anticipating the difficulties of two sick kids missing their mama at bedtime.  the pea is somewhat more flexible than her brother.  the bean has gone to sleep for flash about 10 times total since he was born.  and none of them recent.

 

when i  got home the pea was sleeping soundly and the bean was sitting on the couch, wearing the same thing he was when i left the house, glazed and over tired eyes glued to the bright colors on the tv screen.  “mama,”  he said, and he climbed up into my arms and put his head on my shoulder.  it was a perfect fit.  it would have been nice for all of us if he had gone to sleep for flash.  or even if he had gone upstairs. or say, put on his pajama’s.  but we’ll do baby steps.  the baby was asleep and i had gone out.

 

i took him right up and put his sagging body in its cotton dinosaur pajama’s and laid down with him and in about three minutes he was sound asleep.  with his arms wrapped around my neck and his stuffed nose whistling and purring.  i slipped out of bed and went downstairs to get the post game report from flash.  

 

while i was out i had a glass of wine.  i learned how to make some all natural bug spray and some yummy tea.  i met a few new people and managed to smile once or twice i think.  it was good to go out.  it was good to come home.  everything was pretty good.  i was laying in bed feeling slightly engorged and trying to decide if i should dream feed the pea or just wait for her to wake.  she’d been up at 11 the night before and it was 10:29 and she was still sick so i anticipated a similar night of wakings.  11, 11:45, 12:23, 1:37, 2:51, 4:01, 4:39 and so on.  is it worth doing a dream feed to help slightly engorged breasts when i will be awake again to feed in less than 29 minutes?  i decided it was not.

 

instead i decided to go talk to my spirit guides.  one in particular.  my main human form teacher.  i asked her if there was anything i should be doing right now, and she was glad i had remembered that i blog under the name “woowoo mama” and decided to do some woowoo.  “get your covenish back together,” she told me.  “try wotw and redbird and if they can’t do it you must go find other women.”

 

so i have asked redbird and wotw if they want to reconvene because i cannot begin to imagine meeting new women to covenish with.  maybe i shouldn’t be throwing the word covenish around without really knowing what it means.  we gather to woowoo and sit in some kind of a very malleable circle that opens and closes to hold bean and pea as needed or not.  then we see what work we want to do and can do and where it goes.  last time we were together we noted that we only needed one more woman present to be a “coven.”  at least to our very limited and unresearched understanding.  so i started thinking of us as “covenish.”  you know, journeying, talking to the spirits, working on healing ourselves and others, eating, burning a little sage, setting up an altar.  powerful women working with the power of the universe to seek healing.  covenish.

 

just as i started drifting to sleep i head the sound of the pea calling me over her monitor.  (yes when i go to sleep i have two monitors next to me.)  so i got her.  it was 11:01.  and the beginning of another night of repeated wakings and stuffy noses and nursing and wanting to sleep on top of mama.  that’s ok though.  we all need to be held sometimes.  in a circle, in an embrace, with our snotty noses, with our whining selves, by a covenish, by our life partner, by our therapist, by our friends, a good bottle of white wine, or our spirit guides.  seeking that holding and knowing the power of help kind of gets us through.  knowing we are in for some good help might even help us get out of bed for the day at 6:45 after a night with very little sleep.  but not at 6:44.  6:44 is truly no good.

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storm warning – “dylan”

 

dylan in purple blanket

 

it poured down rain last night and in the guest room of this house i could hear the water rushing through the gutters.  by morning the worst of it had passed and it was just gray and drizzling when the backhoe arrived and started digging the hole in the front paddock.  and then the vet pulled in.  i got the bean set up with gramps playing in the sand by the barn and put the pea on my back in lse and walked with my mom and the vet and dylan all the way to the front edge of the front paddock where the backhoe was digging.  the pea was being relatively quiet and the rain had mostly stopped so i felt calm.  

 

we have been preparing for this passing for weeks.  the idea that he would not make it back up north again, talking it over with him and the other horses, calling the vet to discuss with her, supporting my mom as she wondered if it really was the right thing.  last thursday was set to be the day we put him down but huge thunder storms rolled in and it was too wet to dig.  we rescheduled for this morning.  on saturday night he rolled in a red ant hill and was attacked but we didn’t know until the morning when we came out and saw his swollen neck which he had rubbed to a bloody raw mess in spots.  my mom was heartbroken that he was suffering on his last day but each time i checked in with him he was just the littlest bit upset.  he was already so detached from his body there was very little suffering going on.

 

we treated the wound as best we could, made him comfortable, and at his request we focused on his passing.  we got a copy of the song he is named after (storm warning by bonnie raitt) downloaded it to my mom’s computer and we thought about what else we might want to do to honor his passing.  and we cried a little bit and we also just said, “we are ready.”

 

my mom has had dylan for about 15 years give or take and if there is one thing he has been it is her horse.  through and through to the bottom of his soul and beyond he had been deeply devoted to her and her to him.  he has been like a rock in her life.  and although i feel connected to him, this time, saying goodbye, the crossing, has been for me about helping my mom say goodbye to a true soul touching friend.

 

so out to the field we go.  the storm has cleared.  and the vet asks me if i know what a horse is like going down and of course i do because we have been here before.  as she is injecting dylan i close my eyes and i call out to springy (an old horse of ours who is on the other side who told me before he would help dylan cross) and i tell him the moment is here and dylan is leaving his body any second so can he please be ready.  and then i can see him standing there waiting on the other side of the river.  he is round and full and healthy and his mane sticks straight up and he has the shortest little tail that stops right as his hocks. he looks fantastic.  and then dylan, here in ordinary reality, takes two tiny steps backwards (that is so dylan) and falls to the ground.  his eyes are still open but the light is gone just like that.

 

i close my eyes again and i see the two of them now.  dylan is fat in the belly and angular everywhere else, a thoroughbred in his prime with a rich shiny summer coat and he is galloping and kicking out.  and i feel, not sad at all, but joyous.  absolutely weightless, joyous, free and alive.  so in crossing, in dying, i feel life.

 

we say goodbye to dylan and i am smiling because i know how he is feeling.  he is in the land of perfection and he is freed from the trials of an aging body and he is with his herd over there.  later my mom will read what she wrote about their time together and cry a little.  then we will turn on his song and dance around the living room smiling and crying at the same time.  and the wind will pick up and blow like mad during the sunny day and my mom will say the weather is perfect for the day he passed.  but at the moment he crosses there is nothing in my heart but joy and that is the teaching he last gifted us.  the running free bucking galloping tail high gift of goodbye and thank you.

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

—Anonymous

 

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