Facetime VS. Facebook Time

I recently spent an amazing evening with two truly engaged and delightful friends.  We talked about our life mission and our divine purpose over pizza and drinks around a kitchen table while it poured rain outside.  It was provocative and thoughtful.  There was laughter and story telling and connecting in meaningful and purposeful ways as we explored and worked through a chain of ideas.  I felt alive, engaged, energized and more driven in my "becoming that which is my highest good".  The time just flew by - we started at 6PM, after a long 8 hour day at work, and we didn't wrap it up until 9PM.  On the drive home I thought about how full the evening had made me.  I was full of pizza and drink, but also, I was full of ideas and thoughts and new concepts and new ways of looking at old concepts and it felt so very good.  These times of true "face time" invited me to truly feel alive, more connected, dynamically a part of the big scheme of things.  Real time with those I truly connect with and who inspire me, challenge me, who provoke and question, and who accept me for who I am and what I bring to the table even if we don't agree.  It is liberating to be able to share one's mind without thought of being anything other than engaged, sharing, and moving through ideas and thoughts, threads of understanding, and evolving concepts.  It is one of the highest honors that I can have in my life to have people like these two wonderful beings that I can connect with, to spend time with, to celebrate and explore with.  This evening was, for me, one of those moments of ecstasy and loveliness that Sarah Teasdale writes of in her poem Barter:

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Blessings to my dear friends and deep gratitude to a truly lovely evening.

Limit My Time at the Keyboard and Get a Taste of Life

A great evening with my daughter having drinks, dinner, laughs and quality mother daughter time.  Sitting at Jimmy Seas watching the sun set over the Fox River - lovely!

Spending More Time on What Matters

Managing my emails more effectively "gifts me" the opportunity to spend more quality time with my daughter, her crazy cat Boo, and her little Chi Rorry.  Boo is endlessly entertaining and keeps us laughing.  @Alex_Franzen

Day 68: If We are Uniquely Born, We are Even More Uniquely Gifted

1Science does paint an impossible possibility - us.  Somewhere in our makeup is the God seed - the essence of the creator, and from this comes Religion, Science, thought, expression, art, war - no other being on earth has this capacity to the level that we do.  If we are uniquely born, we are even more uniquely gifted.


1Basically, the possibility that you exist is as impossible as 1 over 30,000 factorials and the possibility that we would not have been born is as sure as the sun will rise. Even the most optimistic of calculations cannot help but be pessimistic toward this brutal fact. Richard Dawkins said, "In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here." - from Drops of Ink - The Beauty of Life according to Science, Saturday, July 13, 2013

Day 67: A Lovely Evening Spent with Stars and Flame

Fire pit last night. Fire and flame, wood and smoke... a great meditation on impermanence, the natural progression of energy and matter... on transitions... on truly understanding and working with the patterns and rhythms that are continuously unfolding around me, and within me... a lovely evening spent with stars and flame.

Day 66: My Life, Right Now, Is In Retrograde

Does it sometimes seem to you that life isn't going in the direction that you are pedaling? Like the further ahead you go the more behind you get?  

Someone pointed out to me, this week, that some planet or other was in retrograde, so I looked it up...because you can Google anything! Right? So here's the skinny: June 26th to July 20th Mercury is in retrograde. Now, you might ask, "and?" Here's what my Google search revealed about Mercury in retrograde: "no planet actually moves backwards while orbiting around the sun. But, a few times a year, Mercury appears to be moving backwards in the sky for approximately three weeks." According to Susan Miller: "What happens when Mercury retrogrades? You miss appointments, your computer equipment crashes, checks get lost, you find the car you just purchased during Mercury retrograde is a lemon. (Or, you hate your haircut, the lamp you bought shorts out, your sister hates her birthday gift.) There will be countless delays, cancellations and postponements—but know these will benefit you in the long run. Don't fight them, although your frustration level and feeling of restlessness will be hard to cope with at times." Here's the good news, "This period is best used for re-organizing and reflecting. We look at the world a little differently—through different filters—and can come up with some very important inner revelations. It may be difficult to communicate them under this influence, but not everything needs to be rationalized. Mercury retrograde periods can be times of heightened inner awareness, when meditation, benefiting from keeping a journal, reworking old plans, and reviewing past work are favored. Minor breaks in the mechanical aspects of communication can actually re-connect us to other means of communication, such as when there is an unexpected power outage and we're forced off the computer and television, finding different and often satisfying ways to entertain ourselves."

For myself, I really like the idea of finding "different and often satisfying ways to entertain myself." So instead of focusing on the things that aren't working, which, believe it or not, is what brought me to this exploration of planets in retrograde in the first place, I am going to focus on finding different and satisfying ways to entertain myself...hmmmm... creating some watercolor paintings comes to mind... I haven't picked up a paint brush in years, though I used to be quite good at one time... motherhood seems to have displaced the brushes, paints, and paper with baby bottles, wipes, monitors, and child raising initiatives. But, the kid's all grown up, hands are empty... voila... pick up the paints, brushes, and paper once again and see what happens.  

In the end it's not about astrology or planets in retrograde, or Astrological signs. In the end it's about what you can do when your life APPEARS to be headed in the wrong direction, and redirect your attention to behaviors and thoughts that will, first, ride out the pull of the riptides and currents of life that you may be caught up in, and second, as you get to the other side of them, be left in a state of mind and relaxed readiness to pick up where you left off and continue on your path.

Yes, right now I'm in one of those retrograde riptides: it seems like things are moving backwards and disintegrating, even though I'm pedaling forward. So, today, I'm about accepting the truth of the situation, and choosing to put myself into a mindful space and place, with water colors, brushes, and paper, that will allow me to be well prepared to pick up and move forward once I get to the other side of this rip tide... and if this post doesn't make sense or resonate with you... hey, Mercury is in retrograde... it's to be expected.

Day 65: Find a Journey Worthy of Your Heart and Soul

Why do you get up in the morning? I mean really, why do you get up in the morning?

[1] "The challenge of our time is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul." 

There are so many people stuck in their lives, stuck supporting habits that they could easily live without, or even ones they don't really want, stuck dampening creativity for the greater good, stuck, stuck, stuck, and yet we continue to raise our children to leap into that system, both feet and try to make it work for them. Is it working for you? Really? You can say that you are using all of your gifts and talents and that your life is all that it can be? If you say yes, I say GOOD FOR YOU! But if you say no, you need to read on. In order to know where it is your gifts and talents can be best utilized, it's certainly helpful to understand your gifts and talents. Put simply, you need to fully understand YOU. Understanding your WHY is key to getting down to what you are capable of, and understanding the boundaries it makes sense to push at, to expand, to take risks with. At your core lies the key to your happiness and it centers on your WHY. So let's take a look at your WHY.

In order to connect with your WHY, think about what you are passionate about. What do you love to do? What things do you do that you can get lost in because they feel so right? It doesn't have to be anything earth shattering. 

 Here's an example: I LOVE hand thrown pottery: the rich texture of glazes and clay, the hand thrown marks of tactile creativity - I just LOVE it! I'm enthralled when I'm able to go to a potter's shop and watch pottery being made, and I love to throw pottery, to work with the clay, to kneed it and work it, to shape it and mold it. It's a wonderful process and so very hands-on - a creative union of body and mind. I love the rich textures of the glazes - the earthiness of it. It's delightful! 

Something else that rocks my world? People:

I am fascinated with humanity: how we communicate, how we relate to each other, what bonds we form, how we think and feel... the diversity of man's capability to connect in meaningful ways - the breadth, depth, and scope of this connectivity AMAZES me! 

The next step in discovering the core of your WHY is to take apart the things you love to do to see what makes them tick, for you. As I mull over why I am so enthralled with pottery, some concepts come to mind: shaping something - taking a material and turning it into a thing of beauty; the somewhat solitary nature of the actual process - me time is important in my world; creating something that has a purpose and that serves myself and others, whether as an object of beauty or as a useful container. The final act that I "get" about myself is the act of letting go of what I have created and sending it out into the world to serve its purpose and to benefit others. 

So the key elements here are creativity, applying my skills and talents to shape something, and then benefiting the world in some way. Mixed in with this are the concepts of beauty and usefulness of what I create. 

Then I look at my passion for communication and I see many of the same concepts at play: the intricacies of the medium - language and connecting with others in meaningful ways, creativity as we work our medium to be truly heard and understood, and the ultimate sharing of what lies within each of us as we reach out to each other. There is beauty in the human soul and there the creation of new connections and new meanings as we explore each other's worlds. Each of us, even those living side by side, have unique perspectives on life and the world and we each have the opportunity to enrich the experience by sharing who we are, what we believe, and how we see the world. Humanity is a rich tapestry and each of us is a thread in the warp and weave of what we collectively create.

[2] "We need you to provide the things that are unexpected, scarce, and valuable."

[3] "What’s scarce is trust, connection, and surprise."

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[1] [2] [3] Godin, Seth (2012-12-31). The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?