The New Dreaming Eden

Hi All,

I am redoing, renewing, reconfigurating my blog.

It is a good thing and I am excited!

I do not have a date set for the change, because I am changing and you cannot put a time stamp on that:)

(But I think this summer is going to be just great)!

Until then,
~Laurie

Morning Pages

I have been doing the Morning Pages from Julia Cameron’s, The Artist’s Way for many years. I am not a regular, but I go through spurts where I write every morning for many weeks. I often have a lot to get off my chest and so have affectionately renamed this work, the Morning Rages. The idea being what you put down on paper first thing in the morning won’t haunt your thoughts for the rest of the day. And often, in an unconscious way, you’ll write your way out of whatever is bugging you. Since this often happens to me, I sometimes think this must be magic. I will actually move from Point A, where I am absolutely stuck, to Point B, where I have the answer. I don’t know how this works and frankly, I don’t want to know. All I need is another subject to obsess about!

At any rate, every once in awhile I feel like I am getting guidance when I write; that the words being put down on paper are not my thoughts. This is especially obvious when I find the pronouns change from I/me to you. It’s as if someone is trying to tell me something. It’s an odd sensation to feel like the pen is moving at someone else’s prompting. But the words are always kind and freely given, pointing me in a direction I had not thought of or giving me a thought I had not previously considered.

So, this morning I was writing my Morning Pages in my typical ‘oh woe is me, how do I bring more money in?’ style and I started writing this: “See something larger than your life. Look further afield. Look beyond what you know; what is tried and true; what is familiar. Don’t miss something bigger. Look out far from your home. It’s the bigger picture you must see.”

I paused. I didn’t know exactly what this meant. But found it surprising and exciting! But I am not going to over analyze it. I will accept it as a secret message to myself from some unknown, but caring place. It means something and I know it. I will figure it out.

Get off the Back Burner!

I have always had a difficult time trying to create a life that satisfies all the aspects of me, yet like most people, I spend less time on what I love to do and more time on what I have to do.

Take working full time at one job, for instance. We’ve been taught this measures success and is normal. We don’t usually aspire to a life of several part time jobs to pay our bills and satisfy the many interests we have. Instead, we try to pick one career and satisfy our other interests by calling them hobbies and rarely being able to ‘fit them in.’

Of course, throughout our lives we can change jobs and careers in order to satisfy what seems to be missing in our lives, but still, many of our hobbies are put on the back burner. I’ve often heard people say they will leave an interest alone until retirement, which is like saying, “I will eat what tastes worst first, while holding out on dessert only if I have room.” And of course, what if your life doesn’t make it to retirement? Will this be a deathbed regret?

What does being successful mean if it is not about creating a life that satisfies the totality of us, now? I think I need to broaden my definition of success and acknowledge that putting interests on the back burner for another time, sometimes decades away, denies me the fullest flowering of my life.

Having come to this observation recently, I understand why I have had such a difficult time of it most of my adult life, trying to choose one thing to do. I am a year and a half into my dream job. It is part time and I am good at it. I have begun to take my hobbies off the back burner and vow to place them solidly on the hot, easy-to-get-to front right burner.

Soon, when someone asks me what I do, it might take me a little longer to say than before, because I will be describing my life, not my work, which is the full flowering of my potential.

My Cuppa Joe

 

Oh coffee, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:

I love thee because you make my eyes and brain sparkle
I love thee because your taste makes me think of exotic, tropical places
I love thee because when I need the buzz, you always come through
I love thee because whether I’m in Reykjavik, New York City or Akron, Ohio a cup of Joe is a cup of Joe
I love thee because My coffee is so good, I don’t have to go to Starbucks
But truly, “if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

With thanks (and apologies) to Elizabeth Barrett Browning

2013 and my Birthday Wish

*

May this be the day I am changed

May I start anew

May this fresh, bright beginning carry forward the possibilities, the plans, the desires of my heart

Let me see myself differently, better, kinder

I ask that I help more and take less
that I judge less and encourage more

I ask that I find mentors and models as examples and live less in isolation

I ask that I finally follow the truth of the path of my life
that I conquer the fear, self-doubt and timidity of my gifts

I ask this for myself, my family, my friends, my community, my country and the world:

The year is new, the slate is clean, let us put the past hurts, neglect and bitterness behind us; forgive as if it never happened, believe all is well, step forward into the sacred ’13 with divine love in our hearts for all.

These are my resolves. I put a candle and prayer to them.

May this New Year of my birth, set me free!

*Thank you to Lorraine Allen for the top photo:)

Ashes

On this afternoon of the of the Winter Solstice 2012 and the day the world did not end:) my friend Justine and I buried our dogs’ ashes in the park they loved.

My memories of Juno racing up and down those hills and Louie running interference for Juno against the approach of unknown dogs will always be with me. These were healthy and happy times for my little pal and her three-times-her-size buddy.

And now they rest together under a canopy of gum trees, inside a little nook of one of the trunks, overlooking a broad field where coyotes and hawks hunt in the trees and brush, great blue herons make nests and frog choruses wake up the evening.

Noble Louie and Sweet-Spirit Juno

On this sacred day, in this sacred place we lay your ashes to rest. You will live forever in our hearts, but we will remember you here, too, where you loved to run free and wild over the hills, the trails, poking into bushes and digging into the earth.

We acknowledge the ancestors of the land and ask you to allow our canine companions to rest beneath these great old gums. In return, we offer respect and memory to the people who lived here first.

We are grateful for the years you spent with us as companions, as adventure buddies, how you made us laugh and how you protected us.

May we all be at peace.

A Creche is a Creche is a Creche…

Depicting the human event!

I work in the public sector. At this time of the year, the holiday season is reflected very generically throughout the buildings with wreaths, candy canes, or a little mistletoe here and there, but no Christmas trees or Hanukkah symbols. And definitely no crèches. Because you cannot be overtly religious.

So as not to upset the atheists and agnostics, or to make some believers of other traditions uncomfortable, you cannot actually show Christmas as being about the birth of Jesus. And so you would think a crèche is automatically out. Of course.

But, you CAN show Christmas as being about the birth of the Baby Bear, wrap his hairy little butt in swaddling clothes and let his mama and papa bear portray Mary and Joseph complete with long robes and humble demeanor. You CAN crown the Three Wise Bears in jewel-encrusted headgear and dress the little neighborhood bear children in costumes of sheep, cow and camel. You can even create a Little Drummer Boy Bear with a drum to “pah rum pah pum pum” on. This kind of crèche is ok. Why? Because by portraying the Jesus family as bears it is just a story? Or innocuous or just plain cute?

I saw this crèche in one of the departments. The bears were very cute in their robes and halos and the crib was full of hay with a cuddly baby bear all swaddled up in white. But it was still a crèche and it was still about the birth of the baby Jesus . . . which is why those who celebrate Christmas, celebrate Christmas!

Hanukiah for Hanukkah

I am much more comfortable with Christmas as a religious holiday than the superficiality and madness of malls that rule the season. And although I do not celebrate the holiday, its religious symbols do not offend me and I would prefer the human depiction of the event over the bear replica, cute or not.

The religious aspects about Christmas that most of my coworkers experience do not diminish the lights of a hanukiah or the warmth of a Solstice celebration. But by taking religion out of all of these winter holidays, we allow this superficiality to mask the deeper meanings of our faiths.

The Green Man of the Oaks for the Solstice

May we come to a time of the acceptance of believers and unbelievers, where one does not suppress the beliefs of the other.

What Grief has Brought

My writing life has suffered a bit, due to Juno’s death. For some, writing is a good way to process and let these hard feelings flow. In my case, the grief stunted my ability to write and to feel creative. The routine and rhythm of life with a dog is very different now without one. Our walks, play time and near the end, medication and vet visits anchored and divided my days.

Now, I have too much freedom and not enough discipline. I have to figure out a new rhythm to my life, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. With each day, I feel the stirrings of possibilities and am certain it won’t be long before I am writing again.

Her favorite spot outside in the afternoon sun.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Mice

I saw a Cooper’s Hawk with a live mouse in its talons on Saturday. In the tree outside my study window, the scene was graphic and much to close to me. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to see in real life. Keep that sort of thing on the Discovery Channel or in National Geographic to convince me it only happens in the wild, not in my neighborhood and certainly not right across the grass from my writing desk.

As a nature lover, I breathe in everyday, the healing oxygenated air of my tree-lined, abundant with bushes, grass-swathed neighborhood and accept that this atmosphere almost certainly draws in once wild, now citified critters into my neighborhood. I have seen raccoons peek out of sewer drains and once an opossum peered in through my kitchen window, hanging upside down while I was doing the dishes. I watch the crows and their shenanigans with each other, step carefully when the grass wasps are perusing the perfect blade and am often in awe at the tiny powerful hummingbirds, sucking greedily at their nectar. I have finally accepted the coyotes slinking down sidewalk paths and bring in my cat at night. I find all this nature stunning and beautiful and worth many photographs.

But also as a nature lover, I have to respect the cycle of life that isn’t always pretty or magnificent. I have to admit that beyond the incredible vast beauty of a tree-lined, grass-swathed neighborhood, bad things happen to good mice and that the hawk standing majestically near the top of the tree with a mouse in-talon is magnificent, too. It is this part of nature that is sometimes hard to take. It is brutal, predatory and heart-breaking. But I have to remember, it is in death that life is possible. Each thing feeds off another so it can live, so it makes room for more. Creation was designed this way.

Farewell, my Little Pal

Juno

September 1, 2001 – October 30, 2012
aka “The Worminator”
aka “Miss Marple”

I cannot write about you now, little buddy, but I will soon.

Run and play…you are free.