friends
I’m single. Some people find that odd. Many wonder if I’m lonely, gay or have been gravely emotionally wounded in some way. I don’t think I’m any of those things… I’m just single. That doesn’t mean I’m lonely… it just means I’m free to be whoever I want to be from day to day. It’s just how my life has worked out and I don’t complain. I have the most exciting life I could imagine and feel really satisfied at the end of most days. Single can be good.
But just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m alone. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a wonderful relationships. Oh… and friends? Let me tell you about friends. My friends are what makes my life sweet.
My life is full of all sorts of friends. I’ve got new friends, old friends. I have dear friends I see daily and dear friends I never see anymore. I have a very good friend who I’ve never met in the physical plane. I have men as friends, women as friends and some fur-covered creatures that I claim as very good friends. But one friend is on my mind today… let me tell you about a friend from 4th grade.
Yes, while some of you know I often can’t remember where I left my phone this morning, I do remember a friend from 4th grade. I can’t remember exactly what brought us together. I often thought she was cooler and way better dressed than me. But she was my friend anyway and we made some wonderful memories back then. I still have the photos to prove it. And we also made some great memories last week… ’cause we’re still friends.
It boggles my mind that 2 people can be such good friends for over 45 years. But here we are. I think we’re both bright, inquisitive and love to learn. We’re interested in many of the same subjects so one or the other of us always has some new idea to share. Recipes, alternative therapies, art projects, new business concepts, fun fitness ideas, musicians or authors we love.
She visits a couple times a year as her mom is still here. I’m lucky that I don’t have to arrange a trek to Oklahoma often just to see her. Oh, but I will… I have… and she’s wandered to see me wherever I might have been living. I remember one trip when I lived in Colorado. I prepared for a visit with she and another dear friend by writing “Welcome” in the dust on the dining room table. And they thought it quite funny. Gotta love friends like that.
Recently there are 3 of us old friends who gather when she visits. We’ve started having at least one “retreat” day. That is a day when we sit down and play, explore, learn, share and encourage. The past couple years, we’ve been discussing our dreams… meaning where we see ourselves going… accomplishments we envision on the horizon… businesses we want to run. Important topics that people get too busy to keep track of, but friends are there to remind you not to give up on your dreams.
This year’s retreat day was different. First we ate (of course!) delicious vegetarian finger food while we chatted about the latest news. Then we all ventured outside to play my tibetan singing bowls on the lawn. It doesn’t take too long for us to turn back into kids as good friends don’t often worry about looking “cool” anymore. We made all sorts of crazy music, the 3 of us enjoying the fun. So first was food… then music… what could be a proper finale? Action, of course. This year, our physical activity was making, then decorating, then learning to hula hoop! And yes, for those of you who remember hula hooping, it’s making a come back. The new hoops we made are larger (no comments please) and heavier so they are easy to make work. My friend from 4th grade was much more adept than the other 2 of us, as she’s the “experienced woman” in this field. But we all managed to successfully hoop again while continually laughing our “hoops” off? I think you get the picture.
Old friends generally have known us long enough to remember many, many dumb/embarrassing/crazy things we have done over the years. So… what is there to be embarrassed about when you’re together? With old friends, we’re generally free to be whoever we think we are… and the result is a fabulous amount of fun.
So… have an old friend you haven’t gotten together with for awhile (or a new one you’d like to get to know better?) Oh… don’t wait. Make a date to do something fun soon. Can’t think of what to do. Email me… I’ll tell you how to make hoops.
Have fun
su
where do we go from here
Today, someone shared with me a new organization called Four Years GO. http://fouryearsgo.org You might want to check them out. But I’m not writing today about this one organization, I’m writing about the movement that they are part of. The movement can be called many things… evolving, ascension, enlightenment. The name is not as important as the purpose… we need to change into better people to help the world become a better place.
I know many of us feel bombarded by our schedules, by the news, by our jobs, our families. I know that there is more to life than hurrying and scurrying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. We must be here for a reason… and I believe that reason is to help. It’s our job to help the planet, to help mankind. And while I know this sounds like a tall order, it can be simpler than you might imagine. The key is to understand that all living beings are connected at some energetic level.
Everyday I listen to people who are worried… concerned about our country, our kids, the food we eat. Worry isn’t positive energy so the worry we might choose to radiate isn’t helping the world. A good friend told me recently, “there are only 2 emotions, fear and love. If you’re feeling anything but love… you need to change it by finding a way to bring love into the situation.”
I believe that if we can begin to inject more love into everything we do… then the world can take the positive energy and use it. If you are worried about wars… don’t get angry… anger is a negative and i think it is the energy of war. Instead, love someone… help someone… do something positive for your neighborhood. Do that by choosing a fuel efficient car, or choosing to bicycle or walk more often, recycle, eat purer foods and demand such from the food providers. Treat one another more kindly… while we may not look related at any level on the surface… we’re all the same, trying to get by, trying to find love and peace. Help out… volunteer, pitch in, donate your time and resources. Realize that your actions have consequences and the world has entered a phase when we can no longer pretend that these things aren’t important. And with each decision, ask yourself if you’re sending out love? If you are, you’re helping more people than you will likely ever meet in a lifetime.
The people at Four Years GO challenge us saying that the decisions we make in the next 4 years will affect mankind for thousands of years to come. They are not alone. There are many other organizations and individuals who are committed to finding a way to a better life. The world has reached a point where we can no longer afford to keep living as we have, as if we are self-centered entities with no connection to every other living thing. It is time for change… and if you can see that changes are needed in the world, then take a look at your own life and find some loving changes to make right there. Commit to the changes, make them happen… maybe even talk about them with friends and family. Each small loving act, repeated day after day will raise the positive energy of the planet until some day (soon I hope) we will find our world becoming the beautiful habitat we might just be able to dream about today.
seeking an even keel
It’s been an interesting month… probably one of the most tumultuous ones I can remember. Things started out tough, lost a friend and am still grieving the loss. But since then, I’ve had a string of crazy, possibly awful things turn into wonderful surprises. Since my friend’s death, my emotional reservoir was pretty empty… so when the other crises came around, there just wasn’t much left in me to get upset with. So… the problems bloomed, hung around a bit, then faded away… even resolved themselves. And while they elicited some emotion in me… I just felt like I was watching the events unfold to see the outcome.
The interesting thing to me was… “why can’t I always face emotional situations that way?” Is there a way to experience emotion without the prerequisite angst? And I wondered… is the worry, the angst part of the mind? And in my work with meditation and mindfulness, I’m coming to see my mind as a tool. So is my mind magnifying these problems that pop up in life to be upsetting events? It’s projecting possible outcomes (mostly not pretty) while I’m sitting back hoping for the best? And could I choose in the future to just face what comes with calm and interest, take any action that might be necessary, then just sit back with my popcorn and see what happens?
Sounds like an interesting concept? Comments… or stay tuned? I’ll ponder it. And hopefully think… somewhere down the road when the proverbial crap hits the fan… that I might just sit back and see where the splatter lands instead of scurrying and worrying? We’ll see.
Time for New Year’s Resolutions!!
Hi… it’s another sunny day in Ohio. And no, it’s not too much st. Patty’s day celebrating that has gone to my head. It just occurred to me that January 1 is a lousy time of year for New Year’s resolutions, especially those involving fitness or changing eating habits. I too was seeking some changes in 2010- meaning more exercise, better eating habits. And while in the ensuing 2+ months, my eating habits are evolving, my exercise plan just never got off the ground. Maybe you’re a bit like me? Daily walking seemed like a do-able resolution, then the tundra of 2010 set in and we were stranded on icebergs for months.
But fellow travelers, the tundra has receded. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and we can’t use the ice anymore as an excuse not to exercise. So allow me to encourage you to wind the mental clock back, dig up some of the New Year’s motivation, and start moving. Warmer weather pulls us all outside in hopes of recovering from serious vitamin D deficiency. We might even realize we’re craving fresh greens in place of the potatoes, noodles and gravy diet that Ohioan’s seem so fond of in the winter.
Let’s do the Ides of March resolutions this year and start living more healthy NOW! have fun!
Loss is a phase, and not an end.
Memorial service today for a friend. Sad time.
Memorial service today for a very young friend. Whoa… especially sad time.
I lost a friend, a niece, last week. She was 25 years old and part of my family by choice… our choice and her choice. What a great family I have. But now she’s gone… and today we celebrated her life with a memorial service.
We weren’t in a church but we chose to gather at the place where she left us… her “point of grace” as the minister so succinctly phrased it. And while at first I thought this might feel morbid, I was pleased as she left us in a beautiful place. We were in a park, at the edge of a marshy lake. A pair of squabbling (or perhaps courting) geese decided to join us. And a mated pair of bald eagles looked on… crying out from time to time their support. I was so relieved to know that she left us amidst such beauty.
Since my niece, was so young, the people who attended were young. And as I gazed across the crowd, I felt my age… I wasn’t one of them. I was an “elder”. And as such, I offered what I could to comfort others.
It’s not so hard to be the “elder” you know… since I’ve lived a few more years than they. I’ve been in this position before- this position of mourning, of loss… of such sadness you’re not sure how you’ll face tomorrow. As an elder, you remember standing in services like this before. You remember others you have lost… mothers, fathers, lovers, friends. And quickly your mind goes back to those feelings from all those losses. You remember feeling like you might be swimming in this black pit of loss forever… but… you don’t.
I remembered losing a lover. I remembered losing my mom… then my dad. I remembered thinking that I didn’t want to live without them. But then I did. Somehow, I managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I kept going to work, taking care of the pets. I paid the bills (usually?)… I ate food. Eventually, I went out. I joined friends. And at some point, while out with friends, I laughed my ass off… and then I stopped, thinking… is this wrong? My heart is broken… pulled out of my body… yet now here I am, and I’m laughing? And then life went on.
And as the years have wound on… I’ve lost. And if I can stand in the loss… cry as I need to cry… take care of myself and when I can’t… let others take care of me… if I can do all this- one day I’ll wake up, go to work, someone will crack a joke and I’ll laugh! You’ll laugh too. Or you’ll go out with friends and you’ll have FUN! Or you’ll take yourself on the vacation of a lifetime… maybe even that vacation that you and the one you lost had planned… and surprise… you’ll have a great time.
The wisdom of a few years is that you learn that the world is full of love. It’s full of beauty. It’s full of wisdom and support. Some people need to leave us… that is how life works. But in their absence, someone else steps up to the plate ( that’s for you little Kracker) and handles the pitch just fine. People leave so others can enter. Loves depart, so other loves can meet us. Beauty fades so more beauty can blossom. And life goes on.
So I lost a love… a beautiful child. She was with us for 12 years? She had Christmas with us, she played in the surf with us. She even prompted me to dye my hair blue with her. Her sweet smile will never fade from my memory. And the lessons she taught me through her love and enthusiasm will never dwindle. I love you little Kracker. And I will never forget you. Your memory will live as just that much more love in my heart.
Melissa J Kracker born on June 22, 1984 and left us on March 3, 2010.
We loved you so much… and you loved us too. We’re so glad for both.
I miss you sweetheart. CU sometime.
Spring- badly needed inside and outside
It’s been awhile since I posted here. It’s been a busy time for me… lots of challenges. I’ve had family in the hospital and just recently lost a dear friend. I can see the “wear and tear” in my mood and attitude. The past couple days… my thoughts have drifted to “please, i just need a break!”
And today, I was reminded how easy it is to get the “breaks” we all need. I gathered with friends to do some chanting, drumming and share thoughtful, mindful commentary. And after just 1 hour of quieting my brain I was sweetly reminded of how refreshing the “break” can be when I can quiet the brain chatter.
Meditation, chanting, mindful living… all terms for a similar experience… that of finding a way to quiet or otherwise occupy your brain so you can begin to experience a fabulous place of peace. Where is this place, you might ask? It doesn’t require a trip to the beach, a long hike in the Redwoods… or even a couple glasses of wine… that place of peace is inside all of us.
If you’ve experienced the peace of meditation you understand. But if you haven’t, you might not have a clear picture of what I mean. Often when I say meditation, people picture themselves cross-legged, sitting on a cushion, struggling not to think. Very few people in our Western civilization can make their brain not think. It just doesn’t happen. The minute I sit down with the purpose of quieting my mind, 20 things I should/could be doing pop into my head with varying degrees of urgency. If you’ve tried meditation and had a similar experience, guess what… you’re normal! 
So if stopping the mind is not working, then what? Well, one idea is to occupy our minds with something that isn’t urgent or agitating? And that is exactly what chanting, drumming or mindfulness can do. When chanting or drumming, we are repeating simple words, or creating simple rhythms that can capture our minds and our bodies… and we can feel like we are just floating with the chant or the drums. But what if we aren’t in a place when chanting, drumming or dancing is appropriate. The tool of mindfulness is always available to us, regardless of where we are or how much time we have to spend.
What do I mean by the term mindfulness? To me the term mindfulness means that I must focus only on what I am doing at one particular moment. If I am doing the dishes, I experience the warm of the water, the rainbows in the soap bubbles. I study the shine of the plate, I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing what was dirty become clean. I don’t worry about what I’m doing later or tomorrow. I just focus on the task at hand. As an artist, I love to experience the mindfulness of painting, when I can get lost for hours in how the colors flow together, how the brushstroke reflects light, how all the pieces work together. I rarely worry about how much I’ll charge for a painting or even whether it will sell… I just enjoy the process thoroughly.
The tool of mindfulness allows us to pay attention to the moment and not just let time and so much of our lives slide by. Each moment can be experienced, even savored, and in doing that our minds can be quieted. If we are enjoying “what is”… our mind can’t get carried away with “what if’s.”
If you’d like to explore chanting, drumming, moving meditation and the concept of mindfulness, you are welcome to join GetTogether. We meet on the 2nd Saturday of the month at 2nd April art galerie, downstairs in the Kathleen Howland theatre. No experience, no equipment, no special clothing or cushions are needed. We do take a goodwill donation at the end of the time to help cover the cost of the space we use. If you’re interested, join us. For more info, go to http://www.journeystudios.com/gettogether.html
Peace… or how to quiet the 50 voices chattering in my head?
Tomorrow is our meditation/chanting gathering at 2nd April. I’ve been pondering something I might be able to share with the group… something that’s been basic/essential to me. And I stumbled across this…
“The essence of Eckhart Tolle’s message is easy to grasp: If we connect to the stillness within, we move beyond our active minds and emotions and discover great depths of lasting peace, contentment, and serenity.”
Now if you don’t know who Tolle is… he’s a contemporary teacher trying to help people connect with their deeper /higher selves.
One thing that reading Tolle has clarified for me is the idea that my active mind, that continuous flow of babble that blasts through my head is NOT ME. That’s my mind. Now, this might be a new concept to you… it is to most Westerners. But spiritual paths in the East have followed this concept for centuries. Many techniques have been developed to quiet the active, babbling mind… and why? So we can sleep, relax, get other things done. Well, yes… but more importantly to explore who is there when the babble ceases.
I’ve learned that the active mind isn’t a bad thing… it’s a tool. For example, I need to travel from my studio to my home. I have to get my coat, find my keys, start the car, back up without crushing anyone, turn left, stop, turn right etc. Without my active mind, I’d still be sitting at my desk. But the active mind can juggle watching speed limit, minding other travelers, listening to the radio, while contemplating what to make for dinner. So the active mind is a good thing, an essential tool. But it isn’t needed all the time. once I’m home, fed and relaxing… the active mind is a tool that can be set aside. And when it is set aside, what is left?
And that, my friends, is the fun. If you can begin to view your babbling mind as a tool… something that can be put on the shelf when not needed… then you have a whole new universe to explore. When the “monkey mind” isn’t chattering, there is more. And the more is really me and really you. Once the handy-dandy do-50-things-at-once mind is set aside, you might be surprised what you find. A good friend described this experience to me as watching the surface of a pond on a breezy day. You can’t see past the ripply surface when a wind is blowing, but when the breeze calms and the surface of the water stills, then you can see a whole world under the water that you might never have known existed… if you hadn’t waited for the stillness.
I have to run, so I’ll let my over active mind get my day moving, but think about exploring the other side… the still side sometime soon.
have fun!
su
looking for answers
“If it’s true that the unexamined life is not worth living, instead of waiting for a lecture on the subject, why not examine it in the moment? After all, the everyday is 99 percent of our lives; if we don’t think about it while we live it, there’s not going to be much time left over for reflection.” excerpt from the book Breakfast with Socrates by Robert Rowland Smith.
Just back from vacation… ahhh, time to ponder. One of my favorite topics to ponder is happiness… mostly mine. ;) Am I happy, do I feel fulfilled, what should change? Some people might think I do this too much and others, when they hear of my ponderings say, “why do you do that?” I believe I ponder happiness as I know that I’m in charge of the happiness dept. in my life. And my life is very happy, I love my work and I like to think part of this reality is that I try to watch what’s going on and “tweak” things on a regular basis.
One of my vacation “reads” was an article by Hillari Dowdle in Yoga Journal discussing yoga’s four aims of life. I love yoga, while I don’t practice as much as I want to (and yes, I’m tweaking that) as the perspective is so different from our typical Westerner point of view. In yoga tradition, the four aims of life are dharma (duty, ethics), artha (prosperity, wealth), kama (pleasure, sensual gratification) and moksha (the pursuit of liberation.) Self- examination by exploring these for areas of our life is yoga’s “blueprint for self-fulfillment, signposts that point us to a successful, satisfying, balanced existence in the world” in the words of Ms. Dowdle.
As I read, and pondered, I couldn’t help but realize that as each new year dawns (yes, I’m still loving that it’s a new year), so many of us do examine ourselves and we make resolutions. Our resolutions are often based on the physical… I need to lose weight, I need to work out…organization, relaxation… things we need to “fix.” Yet I am seeing in my life that these sorts of resolutions might be superficial fixes and the real issues might be a bit deeper. And I wonder that if I spend a bit more time exploring these four yogic aims of life- duty, prosperity, pleasure and “the pursuit of liberation”- then would my more obvious physical issues resolve themselves? I sense that changes in these issues might have more far reaching results in many areas of my life and in the process, I imagine that the more “normal” resolution issues might just fade away. So I resolve to try a “bigger picture” focus this year and see if more of the little stumbling blocks fall away. We’ll see.
As always…
have fun!!! su
To eat or not to eat?
Here we are in a new year and I’ve heard more than several people talking about changing their eating habits. Some want to lose weight, some want to improve health. Here are some simple ideas which can make changes in our health, and weight, over the course of the coming months.
1. Plan your meals. If you have no plan for dinner as you leave work hungry after a long day, the fast food drive-thru starts looking like a good idea. Knowing that dinner is waiting at home in a crock pot… or packing an apple to munch on the way home makes impulse eating less of a temptation.
2. Make healthier food choices. Most all of us could eat more vegetables and fruit. Try doing that by getting a little color in your diet… dark greens, oranges and reds, yellows. If you look at your dinner plate and everything is tan or white… think again about food choices.
3. Eat less meat. Let me just suggest that Americans eat a lot more meat than their bodies really need. And in doing so, we consume more saturated fats, more cholesterol and often more preservatives, hormones and other nasties. Try eating meat once a day, rather than 3 times a day. Perhaps you might go so far as to schedule several meat-free days to your diet. Whatever your decision on meat consumption, at least eliminate ground meats and processed meats.
4. Just say no to fast food. While some fast food companies are offering a few healthier choices, on a whole fast food is higher in fat, sodium and preservatives. And portion control is tough when everyone wants to super-size our meal.
5. Analyze empty calories in your diet… nah, I’m going to save that one for its own blog. More on this soon.
Here’s to a healthier, leaner 2010!
New Year, new beginnings 2010
Welcome to 2010! I’m always excited by the prospect of new beginnings that the New Year’s celebration has come to represent. And this New Year coincided with a beautiful Blue Moon… so the energies were even higher, I think.
I hope to use this space to explore wellness and art… my 2 passions. Like most things I do, likely I’ll learn a lot here but it would be really fun if some of you enjoyed it too. Comments are welcome. Suggestions for topics are too.
For today, let’s keep it short and sweet with a Swedish proverb which I learned from “Escape from the Cubicle Nation” author, Pamela Slim. I think this covers my intentions for 2010. And you?
“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more;
Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more;
Love more, and all good things will be yours.”
Have fun!