Today I’m participating in Fiona Robyn’s The Most Beautiful Thing Blog Splash to celebrate her new novel The Most Beautiful Thing. I have to say I’m totally delighted by this idea. And the timing feels like one of those perfect synchronistic winks, as beauty is something that has forefront in my mind for the past several days.

My friend Suzanne visited last week and brought in her wake much wonderfulness that I’m still basking in. Sure there was plenty of laughter – she is expert at making me laugh so much my stomach hurts. And there were heart-felt conversations, some deep thinking, and plenty of all round feel-goodness. But she also did what all good friends do – she held up a mirror and allowed me to see myself more clearly. It’s always fascinating to me how sometimes glimpsing ourselves through someone else’s eyes can be such a powerful thing. So thank you Suzanne – you’re more beautiful to me than you can possibly imagine!

Beauty is a really complex subject. Oh sure, we each know what we consider to be beautiful, and it’s vastly different for each of us. But Beauty is something I’ve been studying from a spiritual perspective, particularly through the work of Connie Kaplan, as Beauty is one of the spiritual principles I carry in this lifetime. I love this opening definition she offers: “Beauty is the principle at work when the inner qualities of an object show outwardly. We cannot fully understand that which hides itself. We can only begin to understand and appreciate something when it lets light shine through it (or reflect off it) in order to extend itself outward.”

I’m declaring my most beautiful thing my life. YES!

The photo at the top of this post is the top of an apothecary chest in which I store my collection of flower and other vibrational essences. So it’s a thing of beauty to me as well. And so are the bracelets that are piled on top. I took them off to take a picture of them, but in truth I always wear them. Each one is inscribed with some important message, some fragment of poetry, some reminder of who I am and what’s important to me. The very first one I began wearing many many years ago says “I AM the lineage of Light.” It amuses and delights me to openly wear the label of a Lightworker.

So in a sense this is just the beginning –my beautiful life is the container in which to explore more fully the beautiful things I surround myself with. I’m inspired to play the “most beautiful” game on a frequent basis, so you can watch for regular postings here. Come peek into my life. I’d love if you’d share something you find beautiful and let me peek into your life as well.

P.S.  Go read Fiona’s book and visit some of the other bloggers as well – let’s fill our lives with Beautiful Things!

Happy Earth Day!  I hope you’re doing something to celebrate this beautiful planet and let her know we appreciate her and all her wonderfulness.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.  Print on Earth your love and happiness.     ~~ Thich Nhat Hanh

These last few weeks of winter have been an interesting time for me.  For some time I’ve felt a bit asea – not having a clear idea where to turn my attention; not sure what I want to focus on; undecided about where to invest my energy.  Winter is often the time of incubation and percolation for me – a gathering time.  So for a while it all felt fine.  But recently rather than feeling on-target with my usual process, I’ve felt increasingly stuck and stagnant.  I finally made myself sit down and confront it.  I’ve been looking at all the pockets of less-than-joy in my life and deciding what needs to happen.

One of the pieces that feels most challenging to me at the moment, and therefore seems like the perfect place to dive into this exploration is my house. My poor dear sweet house that I love.  It’s tiny and old and quirky and unmodern and never renovated, and in so many ways truly perfect for me.   But it’s also been ignored and a bit neglected, and when I tuned into its energy I could tell it was sad.  It needs a major dose of  love-ification (don’t you LOVE that word – my absolute new favoritest!).

Once I opened to that, it was as though a whole mission unfolded.  I’ve decided that this is a full-on, whole house project, and that no matter how long it takes, I’m going to go through every object in this house, touch it, and decide whether it’s something I love and want to keep or if it’s no longer a treasure and needs to be released to someone else.

It’s been an amazing process on many levels.  Because I realize I’m not just speaking about my house, I’m speaking about myself and my life as well.  That’s the beauty of looking at things from a spiritual perspective – everything, every single thing, can be seen as a reflection of everything else.  And so we are swimming in an endless sea of messages and signs and information available to us – we only need to keep our eyes (and heart) open.

I’m not the same person I was a year ago, even several months ago. My energy has changed and shifted, and the things that once delighted and served me well, are not necessarily right fits for me anymore.  Rather than supporting me they’re weighing me down.  Before new doors and journeys open for me I need to clear the path, both physically and energetically.

The first major project I tackled was the space I use as my studio.  It took a LONG time, but I followed my decreed policy of touching every item and deciding, and I ended up releasing lots of stuff.  And I’m delighted to report I found a willing co-conspirator in Rae who was equally delighted to receive an influx of new supplies to play with.  Then I went on to tidy up, do a bit of furniture painting, followed by some energetic cleansing and clearing, and voila my studio have been LOVE-IFIED.  Yay!   And I’m slowly making progress in the other rooms as well.

But in addition to the love-ifying process, doing this has provided me with lots of introspective time, to really think about what IS a treasure to me.   And I keep coming back to the circle of friends who are such an important part of my life.  I am so blessed to be part of circles of wisdom councils; possibility posses; who-else-can-we-talk-to-about-this-crazy-energy-stuff circles – dear heart-connected friends that listen and support and offer their own shades of love-ification to me.  I feel overwhelmed with appreciation and gratitude and delight!

Tomorrow, March 8, is International Women’s Day, and part of the month designated as Women’s History Month.  And while of course the official reason for IWD is as a global celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women, and commitment to improving future circumstances and opportunities, I’m taking this opportunity to celebrate and honor and thank all my women friends.  Each one of you is such a bright and beautiful blessing, and I’m so grateful to have you in my life.  Thank you!

On this celebrated day of love, I send you blessings.  May your heart be filled with the knowing that you are loved and appreciated for the beauty of who you truly are.  In all your strengths, in all your foibles, in all your delightful eccentricities; for how you navigate your world in all your good days and in all your bad ones; for how you shine and shimmer from your very core and send that beautiful energy outward.  You are loved.  And my heart is filled with gratitude and appreciation for the connection you have to my life, to my heart, to me.

I believe that when we see and truly appreciate the connections of those who circle in our world most closely, it becomes easier to extend that awareness and appreciation in ever-increasing circles outward.  And I think that’s what we’re all called to do – that that’s our not-so-secret mission for 2012 (and all the years beyond).

And so whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, I invite you to consider how you might choose to live and be in a world that is is love-focused in every day.  What would that be like?  I love the proclamation e.e. cummings makes in this poem:

love is a place

& through this place of

love move

(with brightness of peace)

all places.

 

yes is a world

& in this world of

yes live

(skillfully curled)

all worlds

                         ~e e cummings

Beautiful isn’t it?  That’s my Valentine’s Day wish for us all!

Every year beginning January 30 many people participate in the practice of 64 Days – The Season for Peace and Nonviolence.  Arun Gandhi established this event as a way to honor and celebrate the philosophies and lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The “season” begins with the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination and ends with the anniversary of King’s assassination.

Over the years many organizations and religious groups have put together curriculum with suggested daily things to think about and practice during this period.  And if you’re interested in exploring or participating in something like this you may want to head over to 64 Days.

Although I’m not inspired to follow any particular guided program, I am finding my thoughts regularly turning to the subject of peace and what it means.   I do think it’s important how we walk in this world, and every day we have the opportunity to choose our words and actions.  In the first week of the observation attention is often focused on being compassionate and peaceful with oneself, and that always seems like a lovely place to begin.  And this, the third day of the observation, is often focused on appreciation and gratitude.  I often talk about how I believe that a gratitude practice is one of the most profound gifts you can give yourself – it truly alters the perspective and helps keep you centered in your heart energy.

But the call is always there as well to bring that heart-centeredness into the world and make nonviolence and peace a tangible thing.  Today I was thinking about the national Department of Peace which we have not yet created, and I was inspired to do a little research about it.  And I have to say I was astonished at what I found.  As early as 1793, Benjamin Rush who signed the Declaration of Independence, proposed a Department of Peace for promoting and perpetuating peace in our country.  In 1925 Carrie Chapman Catt, the founder of the League of Women Voters, proposed a cabinet-level Department of Peace. In 1935 the first bill calling for a U.S. Department of Peace was introduced into the Senate; in 1943 there was another Senate call for the U.S. to become the first government in the world to have a secretary of peace.  In 2001 Representative Dennis Kucinich re-introduced a bill to create a U.S. Department of Peace, and this bill was reintroduced in each session of Congress from 2001 through 2009.   I find it disheartening that after 219 years of awareness in our national collective consciousness we haven’t yet established our Department of Peace.  Sigh.  I’m not naive enough to believe that the establishment of a Peace Department is a magic panacea, but honestly, wouldn’t you like to stand behind the precedent that we actually believe peace is important?

Still, we can carry the vision.  And we can allow ourselves to be inspired to do what our hearts call us to.  Here are some of my call-to-action suggestions:

• Contact your representatives regularly and encourage the investment in a Department of Peace
• Donate some time or money to your local domestic violence shelter
• Invest in non-competitive games for kids where cooperation rather than dominance is encouraged
• Practice and teach non-violent compassionate communication
• Sign up for snail mail on my website.  It’s my way of spreading a bit of love and peace via the mailstream.  You normally have to do a bit of serious poking around my website to find the link, because, well, I think that’s fun and gives you a chance to decide if my work and life philosophy resonates with you.  But you probably aren’t reading this blog post if you don’t already know that, so you get the shortcut – here’s the link to the page.  If you scroll to the bottom you’ll see a place to sign up for “Love Letters for You”.  If you sign up now I’ll drop some kind of peace message into the mail to you sometime during this 64-Day Season for Peace and Nonviolence.  I won’t say when because then it wouldn’t be a surprise.    (Note:  signing up for snail mail does not add you to my newsletter mailing list – this is just a bonus fun way to connect.)
• Leave a comment and tell me what peace practices you have, or what inspires you, or some peace resource to share.  Spread the love!

I have to say a week into the Dragon Year and I’m loving it.  I think I needed a little fiery dragon breath to stir things up.

January has been such an intereting month energetically for me, and apparently for lots of folks I’ve recently been talking with.  In my case, for much of the month I’ve felt like I’ve been on pause, in limbo; which has been unsettling and uncomfortable.

The thing is I had clear guidance that this was a rest and regrouping period.  In fact the image given was being in a base camp on the trek up a mountain.  If I looked up the mountain I could see it was shrouded in fog, and I knew I needed to wait for clarity before moving on.  But of course, it’s not always the easiest thing to act on guidance.  It seemed to me everyone around me was forging ahead, shooting out the gate of the new year with enthusiastic PLANS and brilliant clarity, taking action, moving forward.  And I wanted that too.  And in fact, the more it seemed people were moving on, the more judgmental I got about myself.  I keep insisting I needed to press on as well.  Sigh.  Sometimes we are indeed are own worst enemies!

In some instances when I wrestled myself into action because I felt I SHOULD be doing so, I’m finding I now need to back track and start again.  Case in point – my guide word for the year.  I knew it needed percolating, that it was still in the embryonic soup stage, but I pushed.  I laid claim to something that wasn’t really mine; and of course, that’s not really the point of something meant to guide and inspire.

But earlier this week my guiding star arrived.  And thanks to Rachelle Mee-Chapman, aka Magpie Girl, brilliant founder and tender of the Flock community, for the term Guiding Star.  Perfect, perfect, perfect!

the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain…

– Rumi

So tada…I’m unveiling my Guiding Star.  It’s five-pointed, as I have 5 energies I feel called to work with this year.

Intention – Expansion – Connection – Circulation – Harmony

There’s a flow to them and I’m looking forward to see how they pull at me, inspire me, encourage, and inform my being and my year.  And that’s exactly what a Guiding Star should do, so hooray!

I was a bit surprised to have it show up as five-pointed, but 5 seems to be a theme that’s appearing for me this year as well.  Numerologically speaking my personal year is 5; and I’m also devoting energy this year to exploring the 5-Element system with Megan Potter through her Full Circle: The Elemental Way to Wholeness program.  I’m excited about that.  And I’m also curious to see how other fives show up this year for me as well.

And what about you?  Have you found you needed to change or tweak your Guiding Star for the year?  Have some themes started to show up?  Are you being inspired with a little Dragon fire?  I’d love to hear.

And now let us welcome the new year,  full of things that have never been.    ~Rainer Maria Rilke

For so many people I’ve been talking to, entry into this New Year has been a bit unusual.  For me it felt like an extra period of pausing – sort of like standing around in the foyer waiting for the door to the New Year to open.  It’ll be interesting to see if the energy of the year continues to unfold like that.  I suspect it might, with periods of intensity followed by times when things feel more at a standstill.  Where it almost we’re waiting for various bits and pieces to catch up and get in sync before the next wave of forward movement.

But in any case, here we are with a full week of 2012 under our belts.  So how’s it going?  What have you been up to?

I always find it delightful to participate in Waverly Fitzgerald’s classes and this latest session Turning the Year was no exception.  The invitation is to do a formal review of the past year.  I find that in itself always incredibly useful and interesting, but once that’s done there’s the additional invitation to create some sort of reminder of the year.  In the past I’ve made jewelry and done mixed media pieces.  This year I was inspired to put together a book using Blurb.com’s BookSmart.  I’m loving playing around with this software, and I’ve already got lots of other ideas percolating for future projects.  I keep all my yearly “touchstones” in a corner on one of my altars.  It feels right to honor all the passages which have brought me to exactly to who I am in this moment.

Another fun tradition for the start of the year is choosing a color.   Bridget Pilloud has made this a yearly practice, and invites people to post their colors and then offers a brief interpretation of the meaning.  Fun!  While it’s too late to submit your color – she amazingly kept submissions open for 50 people! – do go over to her blog and check out it out.  It’s fascinating reading and fun to see what colors people have chosen.  The color I’ve picked for 2012 is Gold – antique-y textured gold, like what appears in photo of  the Buddha above.

And of course, I love choosing a guide word each year.  This year my word is Intentionality.  That’s how I want to walk through this year  -  with joyful and sacred Intentionality.

I’d love to hear how you’re approaching 2012.  Do you have a word?  A color?  Something to summarize the 2011?  Please leave a comment.

 Blessings of Light, Love, Joy and Peace as we transition into a new season and get ready to usher in a  new year. 

My wish for you, on this, the longest night of the year, as you pause to reflect,  remember the words of Mary Oliver:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Last night as I was standing outside in the frosty evening looking at the Full Snow Moon I felt something pop in me.  These past couple weeks, the period bridging the new moon solar eclipse and yesterday’s full moon lunar eclipse, have felt like a real place of suspension for me.  Almost like I was on sabbatical from myself and my life.  But last night I felt like the cocooning bubble burst, and I’m feeling entirely energized, inspired and creative.  Yay! 

I’m always an advocate for paying attention to the things that bring joy in your life, and after having just such a conversation with a friend last night, I found a blog post by Tanya Geisler about “Things I Love in 4oo Words”.  And so I accept the challenge, and here’s my list in 400 words…

I love holey stones and heart-shaped stones, and triple points for holey heart stones; natural perfumers including Katlyn of Mermade Magical Arts and Roxana of Illuminated Perfume; my posse of gal pal soul sisters who provide long-distance doses of love, support, laughter and sanity preservation; cryptic crosswords; blitz kuchen; gingko leaves; the scent of crayons; hot cocoa after shoveling snow; my weekly CSA delivery of local organic goodness; saying hello to the moon; finding surprises in my mailbox; fat bumblebees; lilies-of-the-valley & bleeding hearts & lilacs that remind me of my grandmother’s garden; waterfalls; how extraordinarily blessed I am to have such wonderful, talented, generous, loving friends in my life; Japanese paper wallets; blooming tea; the perfect truffle; handmade paper; fabulously eccentric hats; Chinese wedding baskets; sitting by the lake with my husband dreaming; windy days where it feels like if I simply spread my arms I could fly; mehndi-adorned hands and feet; potato pancakes; creation myths; apothecary drawers; the kind heart of my brother; the magical Route 1 in CA; finding surprise little groupings of mushrooms; the Joseph Cornell boxes at the Art Institute; artisan soaps; red shoes; my nightly dream theatre; rainbows and falling stars; mystery marathons on PBS; We’Moon calendar/datebooks; misting my bedlinens with some wonderful potion before settling in; Ancient Egyptian artifacts; snuggling with kitties and a good book on a winter day; Charles de Lint’s Crow Girls; polka dot china; the luminous color of leaves in the Spring; my collection of vintage anthropomorphic fruit and veggie salt shakers; old family photographs; wicker suitcases; cinnamon toast; puzzle boxes; my Tibetan singing bowl; being gifted with feathers; handmade books and journals; caterpillars; zines; reading poetry in the tub; examining tree bark; fortune cookies; living in a quirky old house; wrapping packages; my Humpty Dumpty cast iron bank on my prosperity altar; the secret decoder badge my husband gave me; my tiny often messy studio that is in serious need of destashing; my current fave color combo of deep turquoise, ruby red, and bright shiny gold; making scented herbal beads; spinach ravioli with wild mushroom Burgandy sauce; florist shops; USPS package pick up; claymation; libraries; hanging things on all the doorknobs in my home; frilly peonies; the beautiful grace of Esther Hicks  sharing her feelings and experiences with the crossing of her beloved partner Jerry; vintage animation Hardrock and Coco and Joe; my beautiful divinely-guided business; and you!

That was fun.  And kind of hard to stop at 400 words, so I may need to do it again another time. 

I invite you to play along as well.  If you put up a post of your own, drop a link as a comment so we can all take a peek.  Or just leave a note with one or two things that you’re loving at the moment.  That’d be lovely as well.

I am so grateful for all the love and support in my life – for all the abundances and blessings – for all the treasures and beauty.  I am surrounded by family and friends who hold me with love in their hearts, who wish only the best for me; who delight in my successes and console me in my sadnesses.  I am grateful to be here, now, in this exciting life adventure with the opportunity every moment to realize I am part of all that is, just as everything else is as well.  Sometimes the bigness of that awareness overwhelms my heart and in those moments I feel even more grateful.  Life is precious and we have the opportunity to hold mirrors up for each other so we can all see how beautiful we are. 

Today especially I love this poem Messenger by the extraordinary wisewoman Mary Oliver.

 Messenger
Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

 

Know that I am grateful for each one of you reading this blog post, and that I extend love to you and wish you endless blessings always.