Heart Full

A little less

What if we wanted a little less. More accurately, what if I wanted a little less? Maybe I was waiting for the world around me to want a little less too. For the norm to come off the: need it right now, need that new gadget, need that upgrade. Wanting the norm to be: what I have is enough, what we can make is perfect, what we can share is better.

Finding myself waiting for that big movement to support the change in our day to day. A change from same day delivery, instant results to slow progress, delayed gratification. Waiting and waiting until my morning cup of coffee in the quiet of our living room, lit by a candle and the sounds of the cold winter winds moving through with wind chime; then I heard the answer. The change I am seeking is already here, and it is in my own eyes. I don’t need the masses to change, I might be seen as a little odd to some but this isn’t about you and me, this time it is just me. Though you may want to come along too. The solution is simple enough.

Turn off the notifications

All the notifications in my inbox, text, news feed that look like this and subsequently encourage me to have the gimmies and increase my anxiety of missing out

Only 24 hours left for the best deal
Biggest savings of the year
Limited time offer
10 left in stock
HURRY NOW

To these I am saying – no thank you. I appreciate your sale, speed, quick fix, awesome deal but I am going to reflect and push pause.

Time to take a moment to be in the simplicity of this beautiful world.

As winter progresses, a new year welcomes new possibilities, and my heart reminds me of the peace that comes from reflection. I welcome a little less. Notifications not needed, observations only

The joy in a snow covered hike
Candle lit coffee dates
Baking enough to share
Experimenting to create something I need
Making a new purpose for a worn out item
Dancing in the moon light
Listening to the songs of the birds

Surprisingly a much easier list to write when I have the notifications of things I really do not need right now pinging in the background.

Cheers to a new year my friends. If you are also wondering what could be if we have a little less, welcome to my journey. May you find yourself in your own light, living heartfull.

The truth

I made my world

I pushed

I hid

I built the walls

I buried

I made sure the dark ruled

Then I wondered why

Why am I alone

Why does no one understand

Why is it so hard

Why is the dark my life

I started to see a way

Could I find my way

Could I be whole again

Could I really be me

Could someone care

So I decided to be

I will be me

I will be strong

I will be authentic

I will be real

For all my loves, I found myself in the dark without realizing I had lost the light. Thank you for shining your lights and reminding me of my own strength. My path is ever changing and always a journey of faith. Thank you for your love and for your light that again reminds me of the life yet to be lived.

We all have our struggles, our losses, our times of dark and rest. It is in the passing thoughts of lighter times that we are reminded that these dark times are season and as all seasons they will change and in them we will grow.

Be well my loves.

I thought I needed time

Isn’t time what so many of us think we need. More time to get it all done, more time to be with our family, more time to recharge, more time to work out, more time to clean, more time to parent, more time to me – the pulls are endless.

After a year of being constantly tired and wishing for more time, but yet finding no more, I find myself reflecting this morning. Today I have “picked up the pen” again and I think about what was missing this last year and why I was not sharing my journey. Contemplating, why I held back from letting the release of writing recharge my soul and being true to myself. The short answer is, time wasn’t the problem and I did not need a vision board, quick fix or new method. I needed to remember my core, where I find my strength, what recharges me.

In the past year I convinced myself that time was what I needed to be able to recharge. Just a few minutes of quiet, alone, joy to be ready to do – well anything. Never finding the time, I never reconnected with my soul lighting connection and I remained tired, scattered and cranky (to be completely open and aware, I was short tempered and focused on the problems instead of the solutions).

This morning in the glow of a pink hued winter sunrise casting onto a snow covered ground, I looked around what how I was connecting with the beauty being offered all around. I saw myself scrolling through news feeds, stressing over budgets and feeling underwhelmed with all my efforts at home and work. Yet with all that negativity I was still being blessed with this beauty of nature surrounding me.

So rather than think more and wallow in the past of why I stopped writing and sharing, why I stopped teaching and learning; I grabbed the computer and let my cup fill up. In this writing, I realized it was not time that I needed, it was connection. As my connection to reflection and the word charged my heart the memories of knowing my purpose, being me instead of being the perfectionist came flooding back.

In this moment it is easy to mourn, to regret the lost time but as I thought again about time I thought less of it as a burden and more of it as a journey. I may have lost my way, but the time I spent this last year gave me conviction to connect again and strength to be on my path once more.

In time we may lose our way,
but in the journey we find ourselves.

May your journey be why you wake and take on each day. Blessed be.

Tonight

The day carried on, taking as it does. Restless and unfulfilled. With worries, pains, chores and the verge of break it carries on with no mind.

In the Eve it is, when the day has taken all I think I have to give. Exhausted with tears so close, but not the energy to let them flow. Numbness threatening to take the rest.

Yearning to find quiet. Need to find rest. Darkened hoods to veil my eyes and never a soul to see my pain.

Yet the pull of light held firm in the stars keepsake glimmer of hope, remembrance of why. The murmurs of a child as sleep nears, the hum of the home quieting for the night, the whispers of dreams to come.

May the rest of a fond dream come. May the night give what the day took. May tomorrow bring new light with renewed hope. May the morning be a gift and blessing.

Though today took, the hope of tomorrow gives.

– to my loves, when the day takes so much that feel you have no more to give, I hope the Hope of tomorrow renews your faith, your strength, your passion. Look only to the setting sun to know that the moment is passing in a life too short.

Light find my way

It was an effort to wake today. pulling away from the grips of sleep. Darkness falls over my eyes with lasting blinks.

I light the candle to welcome the day. It’s fire brings light closer, yet the darkness still creeps through the early morn. Holding tight.

I turn to the pen. It’s weight and power to cast off the silent darkness. It hears me waking with welcome to the morning and the promise of the day to come.

I must write on, the candle’s warmth and light growing stronger.

The sun finds its way to cast light along with flame and pen.

A new day, the dark cast off once more.

When I knew

There was a moment when I knew I had given it all up. Everything my heart had, my mind, my being. I was no longer me, I was defined by my roles, the definitions that each person around me held. Mom, cleaner, boss, partner, mentor, supporter, listener, gardener, neighbor…the list went on. What I no longer knew what it was to be me. Did I have dreams alongside those to do lists? Did I have something special to share? Was I something…someone to be doing along with my giving.

He said I didn’t understand. They said I was just stressed. Their need was for me to fix it.

I crushed under the weight of it all.

My breath was gone.

I was lost.

Yet still I could see. I could feel. Through the dullness I felt something pulling.

Call it what I may, the purpose of me…the reason for me…longing to be free again

Longing to be dancing in the moonlight

Dreaming to be loved through the day and into the night

It pulled strong to lift me, reaching to find me in the dark…reminding me that faith will lead the way

When I knew I can feel alone but yet will never be

When I knew…

I give

The days are here for me. The days when I can now see; with everything I take, there will always be something I give.

For the love, for the time, for the life; I will give it all back threefold, in kind or in pain.

May I chose to give in kind, may I chose to take with the intent to give.

For the breath, for the tears, for the ray of sun; I will take and I will give. Around me I will change the scene, in light and in dark.

May I bring light to inspire, may I bring dark to heal.

May we find the balance in which we thrive together.

Blessings, Thank you for giving me these moments of giving.

A new ecosystem

I love to create. I love to solve problems with what I can find, I love to “use the scraps”. In the kitchen, the Turkey carcass is used for soup and a very special wish. In the garden, the bruised and pats picking feed the chickens. In the house, the broken crayons are soon to be candles. For this post the key is in the shop, the cast off and discarded ends are my treasure. Bookmarks, coasters, painting shapes, bird houses, shelves, wind chimes, I dream of making from what I find in the black bin of “firewood”.

I find such energy in pulling from the discarded, to hold a piece of “scrap wood” and listen for the muse of what it might become. Finding the lost beauty, function and purpose of any piece. Seeing hope, potential, need in something all but forgotten by another.

Once found, I let my hands, heart and imagination flow into each piece and even when my artist brain cannot find purpose I wonder what could another use this to create? Do I have a friend making lamps, bowls, thinks I cannot imagine because only they can?

As you read I hope we may further the movement already all around us. Like in a resilient ecosystem, there is no waste, each byproduct of one function will feed another. May we model the world in which we live.

Let our minds shift from waste = trash

What we do not need was never meant to be waste, our excess can feed another maker’s purpose.

Let us live in a maker ecosystem of maker share.

Waking up working

My mind awakes and I take that first deep breath of crisp fall air, bringing in the scents of the dew covered gardens ready for their final harvest. Stretching out, the cool air awakens my spirit to the strengthening thought of welcoming another day. My heart beating to the rhythm of the waking woods around me.

My heart feels the excitement and happiness of the day to come, then my mind comes barging into the moment. My mind, full of its stories and stresses; begins to talk at me about my to do’s, the things I forgot to do the day before, the hard conversations I have to have today, the meetings, the presentations…

Then, the still of the morning
begins to surround my mind

As my mind continues racing through the morning, with another deep breath, I find calm and peace again. Hearing the call of an owl, the falling leaves, the cycle of fall granting us the blessing of abundance from our spring dreams and summer work. I AM, finds my waking being.

I am reminded that before I work, stress, and worry; perhaps in place of work, stress, and worry, I must bring my heart, my joy, my passion to the day. I must breathe in the beauty and promise and breathe out my hope for what the day can be.

For there is a world of wonder in each waken moment…

If you find yourself waking up working, may this find you and give you pause to find the moment. May this bring your heart the warmth you need, to wake up bringing your passion and joy to the world this day.

Joy

I couldn’t find the joy, I couldn’t see the good, I couldn’t join the laugh. I knew, saw and heard them all, but they seemed so far away. Lost in the thick fog, another world moving by as I sat and moved so slow. My mind lost to a world of worry, a sadness of darkness. So I wrote in hopes to find a way, through art as we often do. Through the walls that creativity does not see.

Writing with clenched hands and tense eyes, shoulders tightened with the pain of the day. Putting the hurt onto the page. Pouring the fear through the ink. Leaving the slow motion, leaving the pain. Turning inside once more so as to be just me. Who I am, where I am, without the world that would hurt me, the world that would put me aside when I don’t conform.

Here on the page, I find the connected hearts, like veins of plants reaching out to share and bond.

I dig deeper, I reach taller, I breathe once more as me. The strength of me returns to see the light. I left my wilted spirit and hear the laughter once more. The edges of my mouth turn to a smile in the goodness of simplicity. My heart feels it’s own warmth again in the joy within me.

My friend, some days are simply hard. Some days we just plain hurt. Some days we need to know we are connected and yet still feel our own. Some days we need to be.

If you are having a day like that, I hope this message finds you. Maybe you can’t find the peace in the moment given where you are, who is around or what is going on. I hope though, in the minutes to read this, you may find the calm that leads you back to you. For you are the joy the world needs, the uniqueness of you.