BREATHE!

My daughter’s friend Amanda chose Breathe as her word for 2012.  She asked me to create a canvas for her to remind her to focus on her breath this year.  In this process, I have been thinking a lot about my own breathing.  I have become aware of how often I find myself holding my breath.  I have a long pattern of using shallow breathing to stay in my head and out of my feelings; so, it is not surprising that I am, once again, locking down my breathing when I get bogged down in worry about this process to redefine myself and what is next for me in my career. 

Thanks to Amanda, I am making a commitment to myself to breathe, to bring my breath into my consciousness, to practice breathing into my abdomen, to slow my breath, to calm my emotions, to ground myself.  When I do, I find myself fully present, fully alive.  Yes, I also find myself fully connected to my experience which can bring some pain, but I am also fully connected and aware of all the love, beauty and abundance that surrounds me.   Thanks Amanda for this gift!

“Breathing in, there is only the present moment. 
Breathing out, it is a wonderful moment.” 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

TAKE TIME FOR ...

Last week I attended a memorial service for a friend of my son and daughter.  It was a sweet, but sad time of remembering a very special man. While I had met him once or twice, I did not have the privilege of knowing him well.  As his friends and family spoke of him, it was clear that he was a man who, in spite of an early death at 50, had lived his life fully and well.  He was a beloved husband, friend, uncle, and brother-in-law; and, his life was filled with love, with play, with care and concern for others.  The minister conducting this time of remembrance spoke to all of us about following this man’s example and living a life devoted to the people and things that are truly important to us.  He encouraged us to pay attention to how we spend our time.  He cautioned us about being side-tracked by the countless aggravations and demands of our busy lifestyles that pull us in so many directions. 

Several years ago, when my daughter was pregnant with our grandson, I created an altered  book for him.  I included things about our family and about life that I wanted him to know – about the important things.  One section of the book was about this very issue of TIME. 

Today I am sharing that section of Jack’s book with you in hopes that you too might be reminded to pay attention to the little things in your life, to pay attention to how you spend your time, because in the end these little things are the things that truly matter.     

Thrive Part II - Messages from the Universe

I have been thinking a lot about my word for 2012 this week.  Mostly because last week I was not so much in the thrive mode.  I experienced several small frustrating obstacles in my attempts to put together the next phase of my career and allowed myself to sink into the what’s the use, I give up mode.   

On Friday, I was sitting in my kitchen, looked out my back window, and became aware that a hawk was sitting not 10 feet from me on a stone pillar on my patio.  Wow, he was beautiful.  He sat on the pillar looking at me looking at him for about 10 minutes, twisting his head from side to side in that bird way of being, seemingly asking me, “What is up with you?”  It felt special to me.  It is not every day that a hawk stops by for a visit.  I felt for sure this was a visitation that demanded my attention.  So, I googled visitation by hawks.  You gotta love the age of technology we live in.   ( As an aside, this is not my first visitation by a wild creature.  I was once visited by a small snake in my office in an interior room that was a part of a maze of offices.  How he got to my office is beyond me, but that is a story for another day.)  Anyway, back to the hawk.  After reading several interpretations of hawk visitations this is my take away message. 

Hawks have the ability to move between the physical world and the unseen spirit realm.  When hawk visits, he carries with him messages that the Universe is sending our way.  Hawk’s  message is about freeing ourselves of thoughts and beliefs that are limiting, that block us from soaring.  He encourages us to embrace the limitless possibilities of our lives, to push through obstacles and continue on our path.  He asks us to awaken spiritually and to align with the intention of our souls, allowing our inner truth to surface.  The hawk is a bird of the heavens and signifies a union with Great Spirit.  If our “hawk medicine” is underdeveloped, we will have a tendency to over-analyze everything.  So, one aspect of the hawk visitation is a warning to keep the analytical mind under control.  I am not sure this hawk knows what he is asking of me in this particular area.  Quite the task.

I know you must think I am making this up, but check out these sites for more information about Hawk visitations.  Lynx Graywolf at http://morningstar.netfirms.com/hawktotem.html or Peter Clothier at www.thebuddadiaries.blogspot.com/2007/03/visitation.html  

Could these messages be any more perfect for me at this time?  The Universe is once again going out of its way to ask me to trust this process, believe, and continue to take one step at a time in the direction of a new beginning.  This blog is part of my process of doing  that, putting myself out there.  I don’t really know where this journey will end; but then, we never really do, do we? 

This weekend I once again claimed THRIVE as my word and created this canvas to help me stay connected to the possibilities waiting around the corner. Once again, I embrace the possibilities.   This year I will THRIVE!

THRIVE

I subscribe to a number of art blogs.  I love seeing what other women are creating and reading about their processes.  Several of the bloggers suggested choosing a word for the new year.  The word that immediately popped into my head was THRIVE, but thrive is not one of “my” words.   I was tempted to think about this, to find just the right word for this year; but, contrary to my usual way of being which is to over think everything, I have decided to honor this year as a year of new beginnings and stick with thrive.

Thrive, according to Webster’s dictionary, means:  1. To grow vigorously, 2. To gain wealth or possessions, 3. To progress toward or realize a goal.   Hmmm, I think I like this word.  There is a part of me that feels some reluctance to accept this as my word; but again, this is a new year, a new beginning.  So, I am claiming this word, this gift from my subconscious self which is apparently not as conservative and careful as the conscious self that generally governs my thoughts and behaviors.  

One of my favorite things is walking in the woods.  This is especially exciting in the early spring.  The woods around my home in the mountains of North Georgia is the habitat of a number of spring ephemeral wild flowers.  I love coming across these flowers in the woods.  These hardy little harbingers of spring begin to bloom in March when the danger of a winter storm is still a very real possibility.  They send up their flowers in spite of this danger, in spite of  the possibility they may be nipped by frost or they may be frozen down to the ground.  They appear so fragile, but each year they return with their message of new life following the winter. 

Like these little flowers, I am choosing to step out into this new year with the intention of making a new start.  There are certainly potential obstacles and threats out there; and yet, I will continue on this new path claiming thrive as my word and with the image of these beautiful little flowers as my inspiration.