I stopped sending cards because people were too confused about why cheerful Christmas missives arrived in July. A new move-in on the block asked me why I kept Christmas lights up all year. To make the neighbors crazy, of course.  It seems to me the point of a Christmas celebration is bigger and more encompassing than a couple months of frantic marketing and consumption in the winter. Although, a comparison could be drawn between the current holiday madness and the solstice slaughter of flocks with the accompanying orgy a couple thousand years ago. It’s all about evolution and the advance of civilization, right?

 I like the lights and carols and the way people seem to have softer edges at Christmas time. However, for many Christmas marks a dark time of the soul, not only because of the weather or the position of the sun but because it’s a reminder of personal pain. Christmas becomes a marker of grief folded neatly, placed in the drawer with the sachets of memory and denied in deference to polite convention. For all of you who bear hearts of sorrow and move through your Christmas days with grace and dignity, I honor you.

 Christmas may have begun as a pagan celebration designed to unite subjected peoples under the military conquests of Constantine yet it now has a significance that reaches beyond countries, religion and dogmas. The whole point of Christmas is a man named Jesus walked the earth and learned precept upon precept to become a Christ – the embodiment of Creator’s love to the earth. The Christ spirit and the miracle of burdens lifted is still available after two thousand years, to minister to us and to anoint us as ministers of the Christ spirit.

 When we remember the Jesus of the Christian scriptures we are told he had no place to lay his head. The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the man who would profoundly influence people for two millennia had no refuge. There are those of us who have homes with all of the comforts and still ache to belong in our family of origin or communities or church. I’ve walked among the homeless and witnessed their tender concern for each other, dividing a sandwich or splitting an egg, so perhaps there’s a lesson contained in the metaphor. It’s just an idea – perhaps if we stop judging the homeless, why and how they got into the situation, it will become easier for us to stop judging ourselves. We would lose the fear separating us from Them – whomever They are. You know – the ones whose only crime is being different from us. The wall between the Haves and Havenots would come down as fast as the separation did in Berlin and we could begin to understand what it means to know the Christ is abundance and there is more than enough for everyone if we can learn to share. We’d know good will toward every person on the planet is possible because we’ve come to nurture kindness and compassion and acceptance toward ourselves.

 Some carry the grief of a parent denied the companionship of children by death, the law, inability to conceive or the right of our children to choose to remain absent from us. We’re supposed to “get over it” and we feel somehow deficient when the pain boomerangs back to become intolerable in the face of Christmas cheer. After all, the holiday is for families. We remember the one missing and even if we take away the vacant chair there remains the empty place in our heart. The seasonal announcement that Christ is come to bring joy seems blasphemous in our pain. The sun coming up every day and the tides flowing in and out somehow discounts the agony like a cheap bargain basement sale. The family of the Christ turned away from him and his community tried to stone him. By alchemy the Spirit of the Christ is able to heal separation. We begin to understand when we become willing to sacrifice the comfortable familiarity and habit of our grief to the knowledge that we are not our story. The unity we desire may come described in people who are not of our blood and yet become our kin. There are those in our sphere who are waiting for a kind word, an embrace of comfort or a smile. Simple therapy for complex sorrow.

 There are some of us who feel rejected by love and despair of making connection with a soul who truly understands. The first place to look for appreciation is inside ourselves and recognize we come with incredible gifts as a Being on assignment to this planet. When we realize the person in the mirror embodies miracles – miracles become possible for ourselves and everyone we meet. It’s recorded Jesus prophesied we would do greater things than he did. We experience the most devastating rejection of all until we truly believe in ourselves and our capability to bless another.

 Many among us live daily with incredibly difficult physical pain. Some are hospitalized. Others face the realization we are not invincible and attempt to wrap our heads around the eventuality of our own death or the passing of someone dear to us. The blessing of the Christ spirit is not reserved for the “other side” like we save the “good china” for a special time in a distant future. The spirit of Christ is for right now. One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time. And the Christ spirit is available to us in many presentations. If we can breathe through our pain and realize Christ comes disguised in faces of every color and age – people offer us daily opportunities for miracles – if we can accept them and the offerings they bring. Gratitude is a powerful antidote to pain.

 The innocent suffer trauma at the hands of those who are careless of the damage they inflict – often during the holiday at family gatherings.  What was taken can’t be replaced and those who abuse must be held accountable. In the face of violation, the spirit of Christ can alchemize the tragedy into restoration of hope, the belief in the eternal purity of who we are. Anger and fear accompany difficult mortal experiences and time is another gift to mortality – a paradox – since an eternal Being heals because time doesn’t exist. Healing witnessed in this moment becomes past and future encompassing. For those who have suffered under violence even the most barren fields of the soul can be restored and blossom again.

 Gifts often come wrapped up in something we don’t want. We experienced a death during the holiday season and I felt bereft and alone. The only way I could face the day was to turn my attention and intention to gratitude for the life of the one who so violently died. I fasted, abstaining from food and drink for the day in memory of the one no longer with us. The preparation of the feast became a sacrament and when the time came to sit down to the table, the gluttony marking so many previous years was miraculously replaced with deep thanksgiving for all of my blessings. The food wasted in previous years was preserved and we had broth and meat for soups to nourish us in the hard winter still ahead. Gratitude transmuted grief and the holiday dinner became an intimate celebration of life in place of the excruciating misery of wasteful death.

 And one last thing, while I’m on the subject – stress. The stress of the holiday season. Now we even have songs (can’t elevate them to the level of carols) extolling holiday stressors. Stress is only a socially acceptable way to place all of our unresolved issues “out there” beyond our selves and play the hapless victim of circumstances beyond our control. Perhaps it’s time to take charge, cut a few things out, simplify, to remember who we really are and what we’re here for. If we’re struggling with personal darkness, overwhelm and issues we can’t face alone, we can consider asking for help. When we clearly make our request, people are amazing about providing the support we need and serving as vessels to bring the beautiful light of the Christ to us.

 Wishing you a blessed Christmas season and a great new year of possibilities.

One of the most fascinating people I’ll ever know died last Friday. We didn’t find out until yesterday because of distance.  I knew anyway from a sort of flatness in the space she’d always taken up so fully. My husband kept calling over the last ten days and she hadn’t picked up. Her grandson is working in Russia and his wife finally answered the phone at my friends house. The services will be held next month when her grandson gets home.

Emily was born early last century to a mother in her fifties, who died birthing her. Her father was much older, and he knew he wouldn’t be around to nurture Emily for long so when she was thirteen, he gave her a little pink convertible and she drove herself to classes at the university. By the time she was eighteen she was teaching at a medical school. As a young woman, she played concert piano until a physical condition made it too painful for her to perform.

She tried running off with a man when she was fourteen. Her father sent her much older brothers-in-law to bring her home. At eighteen, she married a man with two teen-aged boys in military school and had a son of her own by him. The man was aggressive toward her only once. In court, the judge asked her step-sons which parent they would rather be with. Not knowing how young she was, they chose Emily. Before the age of twenty, she was responsible for three sons, one still an infant.

The next man she married was the love and hero of her life. She met him at her sons’ school. He also had two sons enrolled there. He was a military officer and she giggled when she told me he ironed her petticoats for her. She’d been tended by a housekeeper her whole life and as a young woman, was fairly incompetent to daily chores. He told her she’d have to learn to do these things for herself and loved her enough to show her how. He died in a plane crash on the way to Korea. She now had five sons, kept up with them, outlived them.

Her birth son grew up and had five children of his own. Her son’s death and subsequent circumstances gave the children into her custody. She told me she had experience with boys and knew nothing about raising girls, so the two granddaughters went to boarding school.  She said the man she’d married moved North out of California so the grandsons could be raised in a better environment.  She nursed her husband until he died with cancer. I kept trying to gift her with blue things and she finally told me she hated the color because his mistress had ordered all of the linens for their pied-a-terre in blue from Sears on his charge card. After he died, she renewed a long distance romance with an old friend in California. She kept gowns and fancy things at his house for the parties they attended when she visited there. He wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t leave her home in the North. He died a few years ago. She called my husband “The Boyfriend” and enjoyed the company of intelligent and handsome men who loved to escort her – it didn’t matter to them if they were thirty years her junior.

I sat entranced for hours as she related stories of Bing Crosby as her block captain during WWII, Burl Ives bringing his guitar and entertaining for parties in her home and hanging out with Maureen O’Hara at the diner. There are pictures of her, petite and pencil slim on her yacht. She hated to mow the lawn and the homeowners association at some point was upset with her so she hauled in gravel and landscaped in rocks.

We met again when I moved back to town and wanted to examine a book I read as a child in the library there. An old tome of formulas for everything from face cream to dynamite.  At first, she was attracted to me because I reminded her of the granddaughter who had recently died in a terrible accident of Princess Di type injuries. Later, we settled into each other for who we were.

Emily hated wrapping Christmas presents, yet gifted so many people she had a mountain of packages to do every year. It became tradition for her to call me to come wrap her presents. She’d pick out and point and I’d tape and bow. She taught me the more gracious elements of a beautifully wrapped present, then how to correctly stuff a box to survive Fed Ex to the States. When we moved away, she’d send gifts for Christmas and birthdays. They weren’t wrapped. She said she was still mad because I’d left and she had to wrap on her own.

I know a thousand little things because of Emily. How to correctly tip the stem from strawberries without bruising the fruit.  How to knit as the Europeans do – she used to knit professionally for the department stores. I had my first and only artichoke at Emily’s house. She taught me to rubber band a book dropped in the bathtub and freeze it for a few weeks to restore the pages. She’d learned the hard way, falling asleep in her midnight bath was a given. She made a valiant effort not to wince when I started playing the violin and the nicest thing she could say was I played very confidently.

We kept the local restaurants in business. No matter how many times I tried to get the check or make arrangements to treat her before we came in, the wait staff always said they were more afraid of Emily than me and carried out her instructions over my protests. She got the check. Eating out frequently may have been the reason we both got so chubby. I still wear clothes she gave me when she “outgrew” them. Emily was always turned out very elegantly unless we were home and then she favored outsized tee’s.  She wore hundreds of versions of ridiculous mules with towering heels even in dead winter and Imelda would have been jealous of her shoe cupboards.

Emily had two enormous German shepherd dogs, siblings she rescued as starved and abandoned puppies. They adored her and were gentle companions for her in the same respect elephants would be gentle if they could. They had a twin bed mattress to sleep on. Gladys and George got home cooked dog food of burger and rice with vegetables mixed with the regular store stuff, served up in two 9×13 pans. Every scrap left from our restaurant excursions went to the dogs.

Emily drove a red Ford Probe in the winter and a 51 white jag in the summer. She’d laugh about the “boy cops” who tried to overtake her when she was going a “tad” over the speed limit. She’d known most of them since they were children. They gave her warnings when they finally caught up with her – the only way they could – when she was on foot, usually at the library.  Until recently, she’d hop in the car and drive three hours on treacherous winter roads to the city for a play and some shopping. We went together many times and I knew she really loved me when she’d relax enough to sing along with one of the ever present CD’s. I told her she sang very confidently. She had season tickets for most of the classical venues. She and her knitting were a constant presence at city council meetings.  She attended civic lunches and served on the historical commission and art council. She went to church until it was hard for her to walk last year. Emily loved movies, musicals and the crime detective shows on television, puzzles of any kind, unusual jewelry, books and she never traveled anywhere without knitting needles “in case”.  She played Free Cell until my eyes crossed. She wasn’t perfect by any means. There’s always the story of how she outran the military police helicopters racing across a restricted area in Nevada.

Moving away from Emily was a wrenching experience. She was part sister, part mother, part girlfriend, and always partner in crime despite the differences in our ages. Every summer we stayed for several weeks with her when we went home to play in the String Festival. She’d have a list for us of repairs and things she needed done. She kept her last husband’s ashes on a shelf in the closet of the guest room. They lent an unusual spicy scent to the clothing and I never really took the time to figure out how I felt about him hanging so close. I didn’t want to think about the point of stashing his ashes. She wanted to join him eventually and be buried together.

Emily was one of the most fully human beings I’ve ever met. Her life magnified love and affection for those fortunate enough to meet her along the way. Several generations in town credit her with a love of books and great literature. She was my first employer when I was twelve and had an after school job accessioning books in the one room library next to the old jail. In her thirty plus years as the city librarian, she built the library to one of the finest smaller libraries in the United States and received numerous awards for her contributions. She was constantly invited to conferences or workshops. The governor acknowledged her achievements at her retirement, and then Social Security gave her a hassle about getting her payments because she’d worked twenty years past the usual age to apply for benefits.

Over a decade ago, I accompanied her to the hospital to see her first great, great grandchild. I witnessed her will. I pressed the things she still hates to iron when she had a hot date, repaired her broken jewelry and coveted her shoes even though trying to fit one would be like a step-sister trying to fold her foot into Cinderella’s glass slipper.

She hadn’t been to visit in awhile because the last time I’d taken her to the emergency room and she was hospitalized for several days. She said she wouldn’t put me through that again, although the real truth was, it was getting increasingly uncomfortable for her to fly. She had health issues since she was a young woman and still went a hundred miles an hour. Hospitals intruded in her way of life frequently and much too often lately. Emily was crusty and feisty and the last thing she said to me was she appreciated her Lord Jesus more and more every day. That’s when I knew she was going.

I have to get in a long line because Emily belongs to a community and a state that love her.  She made the place around her bright with light and hope, even when her life was a personal struggle a great deal of the time. She left people and places better than she found them. She left me better.

I always told her I want to be just like her when I grow up.

I’ve recently returned from a funeral. We flew to the western hub of the U.S., and then drove several hours south to a small town – population 600.  I didn’t accidentally drop any zero’s. The numbers have fluctuated to a whopping high of 700 once or twice in the last century. Unless the winters get markedly colder, they may not be able to meet that record again. I guess we can blame the reduction, along with everything else, on global warming. 

No stores. No gas stations. No television reception. I once asked someone who lives there what the people did if they got sick or had emergencies after hours. The response was, “we call our neighbors and if they don’t have what we need, we call the pharmacist in the town twenty miles away.  He goes in and opens up to help us.”

The flags were all at half mast. It must be comforting to live in a town where people  notice when their number is diminished by one.

So what are the chances I’d have two friends who retired from the city to the same obscure hamlet in the middle of nowhere?  I met them thousands of miles from each other and decades apart, yet they ended up living across the street from each other. The night we arrived, my girlfriend held a picnic in the park for us. The gathering was like a family reunion because if you know one person in this town, you know their relatives. I felt privileged to be absorbed with such sweeping generosity and hospitality.

Paul’s friendship with me was unique for my experience.  The friendship he offered my husband or any of the hundreds of people who attended the two days of viewing, memorial and graveside services was different for everyone who knew him.  He was a big enough human being to love each of us in the way we needed and understood. He met us where we were, walked with us and blessed our lives.

In my case, he taught me to carve stone. The day we spent in his workshop sculpting a sandstone piece is one of the shimmering highlights of my life. He had his chunk of rock and I had mine. We each wielded a die grinder hooked up to an air compressor. We looked like aliens in our eye protection and muffs – the evidence supplied by our spouses who took the pictures. He taught me the principles  and occasionally offered a suggestion or pointer. The rest of the time we existed in the solitude of our personal dopamine, serotonin induced high of creativity. For weeks afterward, nothing negative could touch me. This man gave me a jumpstart for my, then faltering, artistic abilities.

The other legacy Paul left me was posthumous and offered in concert with all of the people who were taking care of us and making sure our needs were met.  I didn’t have to do anything except feel. Didn’t need to be strong for anyone. Didn’t need to make decisions about any details. All I had to do was show up for the experience.  My mind turned off (or tuned into observer) and I stayed with my body and honored how it was trying to express. For the first time in my life, I was able to experience sadness instead of stuffing it somewhere in the physical suitcase only to have the emotions creep out and blindside me at some inopportune time. I also laughed a lot remembering Paul’s propensity for stumbling into incredibly funny situations and celebrated his life.

Paul was a lawman as well as a gifted artist. He started with the FBI and worked for the Sherriff’s department when he died. When the memorial was concluded, the honor guard was excused from the chapel.  A phalanx of men exited the church for several minutes.  My sense of humor has no impulse control in even the most somber circumstances; I wondered who was minding the store. I felt better when my girlfriend later said she thought it would sure be a good time to be out on the freeway with her new car. Paul would have been the first to agree and race her in his little  sports model.

Four motorcycle officers accompanied the hearse and four escorted the family car. The other officers in their duty vehicles fell in behind. No sleek cruisers here. Sturdy pickups and Suburbans for getting into and out of rough country – mostly on calls like the one that summoned them when Paul died. I realized these men aren’t out chasing hardened criminals all day. They assist  the people who live here and their work is predominantly search and rescue. I lost count after twenty-five vehicles, probably because I couldn’t see anymore for tears.

At the graveside, the officers formed a wall against intrusion. I noticed their dress uniform pants were Wranglers. Durable and unpretentious as the people in these parts. I also marked the incongruity of their weapons at a funeral.  Stetson hats and worn boots. In some ways it’s still a very wild west and yet these men wept as they presented arms for the passing of their brother. A twenty-one gun salute fired and the flag was solemnly folded and presented to Paul’s widow. A slow round of taps sounded sweet and poignant from all corners of the cemetery.

 After the meal and the catch up visits, we drove back out a long, dry road to the graveyard and stood at Paul’s plot. I marveled that the mortal life of one human being could be reduced to a patch of displaced sod and flowers wilting in the desert sun. What really counts about his life, the spiritual and energetic influence of this man’s time on the earth, is immeasurable and infinite. Same as my life, or yours. We can’t ever know the influence we have for good on the planet – or farther.

On the flight back, I pondered some powerful insights from this experience…

We experience grief because an event has occurred that is irrevocable. No matter what we do, we can’t change what has happened. In our can-do, recycle, a pin here or an artificial heart there world – we are powerless to effect any modification of the event. Dead is dead, at least to what we presume is our physical body. Grief comes until we learn to let go of the ones who transition before us. I sincerely hope for a day when we learn to manifest as the ancients, raising those who want to come back. Until then, we deal with the irreversible.

Grief is indifferent. We can rage and weep in an attempt to force grief to react to us, however, it remains unresponsive. Grief is the master teacher of acceptance. Acceptance is the instructor of peace.

We always thought there would be more time until a stretch of soft sand closed the window of opportunity. An ATV rolled over and crushed the life from Paul. I’ve always tried to say what I really mean, and let those I love know often how I feel about them. Paul’s death heightened my awareness of the need to consciously keep in touch, to let people know we cherish them and to make the time to communicate our affection. Caring is a matter of priorities. We don’t remember our favorite crime show or what isn’t getting done at work when a beloved lays in state at their funeral.

This little town makes time for the people it embraces. People there know they are cared for and that they can count on each other. No matter how large a city we live in, we can create community in a smile and with a simple act of kindness we can acknowledge another presence on the earth.

I learned that somehow, no matter how metropolitan the place we live, we need a body of bonded people to form community and someone to witness our lives and miss us when we’ve moved out of our body.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for standing witness.

I was just getting my head out of the hyacinths when realization hit that I have several large projects looming. Being a competent, well-adjusted, mature adult, I proceeded to remind myself that I could eat even an elephant a bite at a time. Then, the projects took on the energetic appearance of a rogue bull charging down on me at full speed and I envisioned my skewered future as a tusk decoration.

Still in my pajamas, I curled up in the recliner and started to hyperventilate. I called Janet, a friend of mine. This amazing woman is a Conflict Specialist and certified in mediation. She’s also very good at strategic planning. As usual, she was able to cut through the extraneous material straight to the core of the matter.

After her dry comment about feeling my agitation (did I mention she’s also an intuitive?) several hundred miles away, she reminded me, “You have all the time in the world”. Yes, I really do. I have all the time and assets I need to live my mission, and to accomplish it in the perfect order for me. She told me to get a grip because I was stressing myself out without actually going anywhere and that is an exhausting state to be in. I was wasting the resource of the moments I have. Janet stated we can overwhelm in our mind and we can reverse it in the same space. We have a choice. The elephant stopped to munch leaves as we talked.

We’ve traded these phrases back and forth for years when one of us has faced a crisis – real or manufactured by our own psychosis. When I left orchestra rehearsal last night, the bass player stated he was much happier now that he’s clued in that people are imperfect. What a relief to find I’m in good company and have wonderful people around me to point out that growth is always possible.

Back to Janet. She counseled me to purchase a calendar dedicated specifically to the project, a large one with plenty of room to write in each date square. (And yes, I still have the smaller one used to keep all the plates spinning.) After a stint at the office supply store, I chose a very plain one that I could fold up and toss in my computer bag to take along. All of the flowers and beaches on the other ones will only be a sidetrack for the artist self. She said mark the due date and work backwards from there to chunk it down in to pieces easily handled, marking the interim deadlines in special colors. I’m big on colors and visuals. My dear friend reminded me to build in the time for research and cooling off before review.

I have to admit my ego is screaming to add I already knew all of this. Yes, and it helps to be reminded of our skills when we lose sight of them occasionally.

The pachyderm is now a cute little baby nudging my elbow to get on with it. I have a plan.  I feel confidence return and know I am truly in control of my experience. Opportunity for fun and relaxation is built into the progress. So, the sun is shining today. Spring breezes are pressing me to take a jaunt outside. I’ve put in my time, and with a clear conscience am on my way out the door. I’m organized.

I forgot I was a blogger. 

            Life, sunshine, art, music – like a puppy down a rabbit trail, I’ve been sidetracked by anything that moves…or at least appears new and interesting. After a winter of hibernation, rest and rejuvenation, I’m off on the yellow brick road of one mini-adventure after another.

            I’ve written a couple of poems, polished up an entry for a writing contest, hung a small art show and took another piece in for framing that will go up for the last week of the show. I’ve repaired some photographs, written the first half of a screenplay and performed with the orchestra in a pops concert with two more coming up. I’ve tried designing my own book of prose and images with marginal success.  I’ve spent time on the phone with my grandchildren. I haven’t used the new planner.  I’m having too much fun.

            Also, I ran out of things to pontificate about…well, not exactly.  A ramble about the energy words carry with them is waiting to be finished up…and an exploration of the way we create.  Pedantic subjects sounding as if they fill the measure of intention for this site. Not nearly as stimulating as sitting on the back step sucking in the scent of hyacinths until couldn’t recall  why I went out there in the first place.

            I’ve dug in the dirt and succumbed to  the temptations of the garden store no matter how many years in a row I’ve promised myself I will not buy anything new before June. I sit in the rocker surrounded by color bursting out of plastic pots and feel like I’ve been given an intravenous injection of life. I’ve also been a captive in the cave of rain for so long I didn’t remember about sunburn.

            We put weed block down last year and the squirrels used it to line their condo so I have to pull up what’s left. I watched them poke the black cloth into their mouths until their cheeks were full and it hung down in front and they almost tripped taking it up the tree. I am consistently amazed at the sheer genius of the little beggars. Somewhere, there is a luxury accommodation for this year’s accouchement.

            It was comforting this evening to be sharing the twilight with the birds back for the summer while I pulled weeds out of the rock wall. A blue jay is living in the gardenia. Somehow, I always pictured them as winter birds.

            When I took a break for a few minutes and sat under the Empress tree, I couldn’t figure out what the stuff was coming out of the sky.  It looked like black dandruff and it covered everything we’d so scrupulously painted white. A woodpecker was enlarging the nest from last year and throwing out miniscule chips. It changed to the gift of magic dust as it sifted down. Now, if I could just get him/her to clean my bathroom.

            In other words – no pun intended – while I’ve been enjoying the process of creative energy itself, and soaking up the imagination of nature in spring, I’ve forgotten to write about the important stuff.  I haven’t worried about whether or not my platform will hold up if the fairy godmother of all agents accidently stumbles over it or whether my work is strong enough to sustain scrutiny by the faithful writer friends who stop by to check the site – mostly to see if I’m still alive. They love me anyway and are used to, or becoming used to, my foibles.

            Speaking of which, I add my gratitude for those same faithful friends who move in and out of my life in their own seasons. They bring dynamite and blowtorches because candles and matches are just too tame for all the big ideas we have. They stand solidly behind me with support and encouragement for impossible dreams. They shove chocolate through the mail slot on the bad days and deliver veggie platters to help recover from the chocolate days.  I have wonderful friends.  And, I think I have spring fever.

I’ve had a perfectly nice planner for some years now. Trim. Elegant. Professional looking with a luxurious red leather cover and inserts that I buy every year to record the white rabbit experiences of life.

Last night, I bought a new one. An inexpensive department store variety. It’s the kind that a parent uses to keep track of the children’s activities. There’s a column for each day of the week and the bottom of each column is divided into four spaces. I guess any more children than that and two planners would become necessary.

When I got it home, instead of inserting pictures of the kids under the plastic front cover, I slipped in my visioning pictures and inscribed my name beneath it. It may not be as classy as the red leather one. It does, however, have a certain energetic clout. Every time I pick up the planner, the photographs remind me of where I’m going with my life, spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.

The four spaces at the bottom of each weekly column are labeled Child Weekly Plan. It gives me a space to track my “children”. The screenplay that I want to complete by 1 May. The amount of time I spend on my health and fitness to enable investment in greater creative efforts. Daily visits with a spiritual discipline to return the harvest of peace and security. As I look at the visual space, the amount of time for mundania like day job appointments and haircuts is reduced by half. The balance of the space is wide open to receive my intention. Running three projects concurrently seems to be enough for me at one time.

I left one of the spaces for the family and friends. The planner was a heads up to tend important relationships. Just as our goals and visions won’t come to fruition without persistent attention, our relationships will not thrive without care. I am reminded to connect regularly with the people who are important to me.

When I was at college, there was a professor whose home was an hour drive from the school. I went by his office without an appointment for clarification on some assignment and he reassured me by relating he built in an hour every day for just such occurrences. He said someone was always in the ditch in the winter and dedicating an hour of his day let him know he had the time to stop and help on the way into work. If everyone managed to stay on the road he had even more time for people who dropped in. I’ve tried to implement his philosophy into my time management.

By checking in with myself and my goals on a daily basis I have the perspective to set or change priorities. Most importantly, I know when I need to build in time for myself to enjoy life. I know that it’s important to set aside time to cultivate friendships or be available for an impromptu play date with my new neighbor. And remember the last time I did nothing to schedule more of it.

The best thing about this planner is that it offers child wisdom on each page. One of the pearls is: “Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers”. I think that is a great place to start in the process of “managing” our lives and our time.

Sometimes, as creatives, we consider sleep an imposition.  I learned to view sleep as a deeply restorative time for my body and welcome a rich dream life as an exciting alternative to waking and working. Studies are beginning to persuade us that sleep deprivation leads to everything from weight gain to chronic illness. We are coming to understand that driving ourselves with stimulants to hyper generation of effort is counterproductive to what we as artists strive to achieve. Taking enough time in our lives to darken the room, settle back and enter sleep is imperative to our health and our quality of life. We are becoming more willing to acknowledge that we need sleep.

 There is a difference between sleep and rest and we are not as able to embrace rest in our culture. 

 Rest is not necessarily a shut your eyes, power down experience. In music, for example, the rest – the distance between the played notes – is as significant and vibrant and necessary as the melody itself to creating the experience we have. One of Webster’s definitions of rest is relief from anything distressing, annoying or tiring and pressure, stress or weight is lifted from us. In the pursuit of our endeavors, a rest becomes as important to us as it is to a symphony performance. The place in our life of just doing no thing, of waiting, of being receptive to the Spirit of becoming is what will move in us to make something out of the richness of no thing that existed before. Everything creates in our soul before it ever comes to paper, canvas, fiber or dance. The manifestation of the arts flow out of the invisible before they become form in our known world. We need to take the time to renew ourselves through rest.  To allow our genius a time of arranging and shaping and designing in us before it can birth.

 In our Puritan driven ethic we have confused busy-ness with achievement. We are sold on the idea that we have to look continually occupied to be socially acceptable or suffer the (often self-imposed) guilty consequences. The bottom line is that we must make time our ally and believe that the clock that pushed relentlessly before is now our friend.  We woo the instants as a lover and realize that to keep the relationship we must sacrifice for it. The offering is simple. We turn inward and connect with the sacredness of ourselves and our abilities. In the paradox – the doing of no thing – the rest – we can create and become everything we imagine to become.

 Resting is imperative for people who want to be creative.  These are the moments strung together when we do no-thing, then take a break and do more of no-thing to gestate the ideas that will emerge when we return in creative high gear.  We stop and listen to our own breath; we are quiet enough to hear the leaves falling down through the branches in the fall, and sit in the sun to let ourselves be warmed without thought of what we must do to receive the gift. That space cultivates inspiration. The miraculous alchemy is that by becoming inactive we manufacture an increase of energy to extend ourselves far past the period of usual physical accomplishment and time itself seems to extend and expand to accommodate our desire to bring forth.

 Years ago, when I asked my youngest step-son what he was doing, he would say nothing. “You’re not sleeping?” (It looked to me like he might be sleeping.) “No, I’m doing nothing.” “You’re not watching t.v.?” “No, I’m doing nothing.” On we would dance through the list of options and he would come back to the core of his premise of doing no thing. I think, looking back, he was wiser at eleven than I ever will be about resting and doing no thing.  And believe me, he had the energy to prove it.

 I am privileged to play music with a great group of people. As a result of the “economic downturn” there haven’t been the usual financial donations to purchase new music scores. Some humorously said we should set up on the street in downtown Portland and put out our hat.  I told the orchestra I had a problem with that allusion because street people were actually trying to make an honest living when they offered their music to indifferent passersby. It felt disrespectful to me. My husband told me later he had an hilarious picture of the chaos of sixty people with instruments, stands, sheet music and paraphernalia creating such a backup in traffic that people had to go blocks out of their way to get around.  Whether or not  it was because he had to eventually go home with me, when he understood, my spouse agreed with me.

 There is metaphor in here somewhere.  An orchestra needs money and its okay to hit people up for hefty donations.  A street musician does the same thing expecting much less and how far out of our way do we go to avoid him or her? People who perform on the avenues are making a straightforward attempt to earn their living and exchange for what they receive. Melody is one of the most powerful energies of the Universe and when a homeless person offers music they have gifted us.  They deserve remuneration just as those who appear in the posh venues do. For us, the only difference between a sidewalk concert and one in an elegant hall is, we are buying our physical and emotional comfort. Some of us are paying to be seen.  Some of us shell out the cash so we can say that we have seen.

 Street performers play in just plain awful conditions – poor acoustics, noisy distractions, inattentive audiences, bad weather. In 2007, a world class violinist, Joshua Bell, played a 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius violin in the New York subway and had one person stop to listen for only three minutes.  Bell made $32 dollars and change for the same concert people purchase hundred dollar tickets to hear. “It was still almost hurtful sometimes when somebody just walked by when I really did try to play my best,” he said. “It was difficult to see.”

 A homeless person who hasn’t had a meal in days starts muttering and we call them crazy. We label it a psychotic break.  Religious fast for days and their mumbles and manifestations are called visions and canonized. We are one paycheck, one catastrophe, one label away from becoming the people we go to such lengths to avoid. The homeless are teaching us about ourselves.  How willing are we to examine and live in the depths of our compassion?

 Joshua Bell playing in the subway illustrates its all in how we look at things, what we are willing to see. By honoring the creative beauty in others with our time and our money, as we are able, we honor our own creativity.

For the complete Joshua Bell story see the Washington Post story or for a synopsis the Reuters article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1124665920070411

                When people come to see me about faltering creative enthusiasm, I usually recommend a news fast for at least six weeks if not permanently.  I tell them to turn off all media stimulus – tv, radio, and throw out the newspaper.  My premise is that if we disconnect ourselves from the iron lung of the media telling us how to breathe we will take imaginative breath more freely on our own. We will begin to think for ourselves and find a center of peace from which to gift ourselves with inspired effort. The ancient meaning of inspire was to take in breath.

                I don’t have a tv connection.  I refuse newspaper subscriptions and listen to the BBC for current events.  News is like a soap opera.   If we tune in once a week to a responsible source we will pretty much have the important points of the story. When people ask me how I accomplish so much, I tell them I have the time and ability to add two more lives of accomplishment to my own years simply by giving up the media habit.

                A very sensitive and intuitive young client was concerned because she felt bludgeoned emotionally and psychically overrun by the media and yet had received counsel from her friends that she needed to be “connected” to what was going on in the world.  We are all sensitive souls and when we allow continued abuse it becomes commonplace in our lives.  We become habituated and dulled to the idea that we are even being abused. The media eventually convinces us we are too stupid to understand what is best for ourselves.  We sell out our individuality for numbness and meaningless conformity. 

                If we allow ourselves the silence of our own thoughts we will experience the full depths of our abilities. Some of us are terrified of the vastness of our inner landscape and escape to the safety of others telling us what to think.  I’ve spoken about this topic in various places and inevitably someone, usually a woman, will tell me she keeps the tv on for noise in an empty house, to have “company”. My response is “how much more would you enjoy the company of the Spirit that leads us home to ourselves and our talents?”  When we confront the unbounded greatness of our gifts and abilities we realize our own and everyone else’s genius. We begin to have confidence and confirmation that we can achieve our visions.

                People will often report they only watch “educational channels” – travel, history or science programs. My concern is the effort and time it takes to manage the amount of information coming in is busy work eating into our discretionary time. Time we could be using to accomplish our goals.  The inundation of outside material is a drug to keep us from thinking original thoughts and exploring our feelings and turning them into art or music or a birdhouse or the novel we’ve always wanted to write.

                When we grab the gold ring and learn who we are, what we really feel and how we think, we will have or make the opportunity to be more in tune with what we desire to do creatively. We don’t need to be in hyper-search mode continually for what we are supposed to do, for the next big trend and how it will affect our success.  We can rest assured that knowledge will come to us if we need it. If there’s a reason for us to be involved in an event of our community or the world we’ll know. When we turn off the media, we tune into a greater intuitive information source. For example, when the tsunami hit in India – without a tv or radio, I knew there were people in the world who needed my healing meditations in their behalf. There was nothing else I could do at the time and who knows but what some of my prayers may have given assistance. 

                When we release ourselves from the media yoke we find peace and creative impulse is still alive and well in us. We find ourselves less anxious and stressed out.  Our personal integrity is enlivened and we start keeping promises to ourselves. We free up hours a day of our time for innovative pursuits. Our concentration turns from consumerism and buying what others have imagined and made to examining the possibility that we could be bringing new ideas into being, selling our stuff, supporting ourselves and being happy.

                Do you notice that if you type tv into the word processor it considers it an error and underlines for capitalization? In our world we are not allowed to minimize the icon of tv.

 This site is for everyone who is interested in exploring their creativity and artistic abilities. That includes people who consider repairing an automobile as expression or those who like to build houses as a form of sculpture.  There are thousands of ways for us to allow our creative energy to manifest and to take raw materials and turn them into living things and we are not limited to paints or crayons on canvas or words on a page or a baby grand piano. Creativity is for everyone.

That said, today’s post may seem to be more specifically addressed to women who have been having trouble with blocks to their efforts simply because several have approached me on the subject lately. However, there is application to be gleaned for all of us, and many men may find this useful to them as well.

We live in an exciting time.  I believe we are coming into an era that will allow and foster creative effort for its own sake and give financial reward and social acceptance for those who pursue their talents.  Allie, a gifted fiber artist, calls this the New Renaissance.

However, I believe we carry the historical, ancestral, and social experience of all of our forefathers and mothers in our genetic makeup. While government has signed emancipation for women into law and we have achieved positions of perceived power in the culture, our genes are still trying to catch up.

For thousands of years, women existed under the protection of men and sought marriage for security.  That idea is deeply embedded in our makeup.  In the old days a woman could rarely succeed in any endeavor without the energetic and social approval of the males in her family. While our brain may fully accept the laws, codes and social progress of this past one hundred plus years, our bodies are reacting to stimulus in the same way our ancestors have for millennia.  This is confusing at the least.  We have goals and things we want to accomplish and in our head we are clear on it.  Then, from somewhere deep beyond our own thinking a phrase or dictation seems to come that inhibits that progress or stops it cold.  It is as if we live as two people in the same body with two idea systems and two (or more) sets of responses. Our ancestral “code” has been activated and is rearing the protective head of our collective progenitors. 

To take a small but illustrative detour, I heard a sincere young mother state very emphatically that she did not allow her daughter to watch the “princess” cartoons. The mother’s concerns are valid for her and I support whatever young parents feel they need to do in their families. However, we have more to be concerned with in mentoring our daughters and sons than the influence of current films. We have thousands of years of genetic programming to turn around. 

 We are moving so fast in our culture that we rarely pause long enough to understand the effect our ancestors have on our lives.  We are flinging ourselves headlong into an exciting future and often don’t take the time to show the living family members the regard they deserve for having walked on the earth longer than we have.  Respect for and appreciation of the gifts of those who helped to form us is lacking. We feel the backlash of that in many areas – “blocks” to our creative endeavors is the one we are addressing here.

 A powerful release from this kind of block is an ancestor wall. Make an ancestor wall, sit in a chair with your back to your ancestors and meditate with them. Feel the strength that they offer you.  Absorb the support they are willing to extend. If one of them has been hurtful or neglectful, learn to see their strengths and what they have passed to you in positive ways. I’m not negating the effects of abuse.  I’m saying this may be one way to begin to facilitate healing for your personal issues and your creative endeavors.  I encourage you to concentrate on feeling the support of the “grandfathers” and the encouragement of the “grandmothers” of your family. Feel the pride they have in you. Feel their desire for you to succeed.

 If you have photographs of your ancestors, put them on a wall where you can sit comfortably in front of them.  If you do not have a photograph, write a statement of what you know and put it up on the wall in place of a picture. If you do not know your ancestor, what do you wish that you would have from him or her?  Some of you might choose to draw or paint a portrait of your ancestor. As an artist, I’ve found that painting a family member that I’ve had a particularly difficult time with softens my outlook and engenders more compassion for them than I might normally evidence. You might choose to write a short biography of the person and frame it.

The point of this exercise is to begin to cultivate the strength and gifts that are your birthright.  By bringing our current thinking into harmony with our ancestral heritage we increase the energy we have for our present day artistic efforts.  We acknowledge the voice of our ancients and their contributions to our success and gain their support and approval. We come fully present to our creative efforts and enliven our creative focus.