Lake Time

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I spend a few minutes every morning at the lake near my home. I immerse myself in the nature that surrounds me, pray, get still and calm my mind before the work day begins. I’ve found myself going earlier and earlier to the lake each day.

The above pictures show how serene things have been at the lake the past few mornings. I’ve NEEDED this serenity because inwardly I’ve festered with chaos. How blessed I am. Rarely do I leave this place of gratitude and now as the war within settles down, I can again embrace all that I know to be true of the Universe. It is kind. And all is well.

I sincerely hope you have a quiet place to go each and every day to prepare yourself for the onslaught of life. This lake ritual of mine keeps me sane, not just sane but wholly wondrous of what the day will bring.

And, yes, that IS a gator cruising along in the above picture.

HAVE A BLESSED AND GLORIOUS DAY!

Slowing Down

The “Slow Movement” that has gained some attention and interest recently has captured me. I’ve been “working” at slowing down in many areas of my life during the past couple of years. I started this…well, I started “thinking” about this back when I became interested in the simplicity movement. Obviously, they go hand in hand. Or one would think.

Last year I broke my ankle and that physically slowed me down quite a bit for a short while but apparently I needed another, deeper lesson to slow me down further. A stroke did the job.

Yes, last October, I suffered a stroke. I was blessed, repeatedly blessed, not only because I have no long lasting or devastating effects but also because I was at work when it happened. Had I been at home it is doubtful I would have even called 911.

I had experienced, over the previous year, many small (what I NOW know) TIA’s. A TIA is a transient ischemic attack, kind of a warning stroke. I thought they were just these weird dizzy spells. My age, never having smoked, fairly good cholesterol and great blood pressure made me an unlikely candidate for stroke, yet still, I had one.

This slowed me down.

I was in the hospital for 4 days. I underwent physical therapy and this was when the damage revealed itself. I had a lot of difficulty with my balance though most of that returned within a few months. For awhile afterward, and still now on occasion, I felt “tippy”. My kids loved the phrase and used it frequently. I did not love feeling tippy. It left me feeling very vulnerable, hanging onto chair backs, door jams and running my fingers along walls for security.

Outwardly, I looked fine, I guess, and I returned to work after only a week. I felt my job was to convince everyone that I was doing just great. But I wasn’t. My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to read or write. I did have some difficulty concentrating for awhile after the stroke but gradually I regained my stamina. I only wanted to sleep. My damaged brain just wanted and needed rest but…

The second half of last year was filled with events that caused me to do some re-evaluating of how I was living my life: choices I had made and continued to make on a daily basis, conditions I tolerated and, of course, the speed of my life. I discovered that rushing around does absolutely nothing to get you to your desired destination any quicker and certainly with a lot less peace.
Connections with people encountered on a daily basis become superficial and meaningless without slowing down. Even pets become just another check on the to-do list.

I wish to exhort you here to please try and slow down:

• 
  · When you walk the dog or pet the cat
  · When you fill the outside bird feeder
  · pull weeds
  · Fold laundry
  · Make a cup of tea
  · Put away the dishes

Take a few extra minutes to connect with your neighbor and really engage with the child to whom you are reading that book. Slow down and enjoy feeding your baby and when you are at your particular place of worship, get quiet, get still, experience the experience.

PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! do whatever you can as soon as you can to slow down.

Do it before life makes you.

Peace

For years I’ve been searching for peace,
Talking about it,
Waiting for the kids to grow up so I can finally get it.
I’ve gone to church looking for it,
Counted my breaths in and out, in and out,
Fingered meditation beads,
I’ve sat in the woods for a week,
I’ve crossed the Rockies in an RV,
I’ve sweated in the sun,
I’ve shivered in the wind,
I’ve retreated and visualized,
I’ve chanted and repeated mantras,
But still I remained without that which I sought,
Until the day I caught a fleeting glimpse…
That was the day I looked deeply into my own eyes and realized,
Peace is not doing,

Peace is being.

Peace is available at any moment.

Kayaking with pelicans

I went kayaking at Ft. DeSoto Park near Clearwater yesterday. OMG what a gorgeous day it was. Though the water temp was a tad cool, that made no difference to me. Above are some pics of the water, the beach, and a whole slew of pelicans standing on a sand bar till I startled them into flight.

The Nature of the Beast

My yard, especially the front sidewalk area, has become an overgrown jungle with grass/weeds growing willy-nilly all over the place. You can’t even hear cars traveling down my road because the growth has extended over the curb and into the street creating a nice lush green carpet between me and my across the street neighbor. Keeping this stuff under control in Florida requires tools that I do not currently possess, though I am saving for them and hoping that as the cooler weather arrives, perhaps the growth will be stunted a bit.

So in a heroic attempt to attack this mess, I borrowed a gas powered weed-eater and an edger. I’ve never really had a good relationship with small gas-powered engines. For me, operating these is a lot like attempting a dance competition with someone you’ve just met moments before. You just can’t help but step on toes, bump into each other and swing while the other sways.
With these small engines it’s all about pushing this button 3 times…or maybe 5 times…”it just depends” and moving a nearly hidden lever this way but then backing it off that way if the engine doesn’t immediately catch and then, if the autumn solstice hasn’t quite been fully realized or if Jupiter and it’s moons are out of sync, well, chances are you may never get the blasted thing started!

So I called the individual from whom I borrowed these handy dandy pieces of…lawn equipment and was told, very calmly and with that tone that people who have no problem operating this stuff often use to those of us who are small engine challenged, “you just need to understand the nature of the beast.”

Well I think I do understand the beast!

I understand that whoever invented this stuff, hopefully, is roasting in hell at this very moment. I understand that, were it not for peer pressure, most of us would not care a lick if our sidewalks were not edged just so. I understand that Sundays can be spent in a much more soul and spirit relaxing manner that wrestling on the ground with buttons, levers and the smell of gasoline all over one’s self.

I understand that I’m going electric all the way.

That’s what I understand.

A Glorious Gray Day

What a glorious morning it is! Heavy grey clouds move moodily across the sky, the dark water churns with discontent, birds call loudly, rudely to each other…or maybe to me.


This is the first morning in six months that my time at the lake can be enjoyed with the car engine off, windows down. What a difference that makes. The waves slapping against the boat ramp can be heard, the wind rustling through the cattails, the bull frogs honking…all can be seen, heard and felt rather than the senses diluted through the windshield of the car.


This is a morning I struggle to leave the lake and go on to work. I want to stay here all day. I enjoy the dreariness of overcast days. They call for hot tea, blankets and a thick book.


Oh well, one can only wish.

Big Smile

On my way to a new client appointment...yeah! The first one in at least 2 years. Big smile for that.

Grace

What do you think of the well-worn phrase, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”? Someone may say it when they pass a homeless man sleeping under the awning of a business at night or they see someone biking down the highway, bags of groceries dangling from the handlebars, or they see a handicapped person in a wheelchair. The phrase always seems to be applied to an individual deemed “in worse shape” than the speaker.

The phrase, when studied, has a particular ring to it, like God loves the homeless person or the handicapped person or the bike-rider LESS that someone with a bed or a car or with a better working body. As if they are not benefactors of grace.

Or when someone says, “Uh-oh, I’ve fallen out of the good graces of…” Then it’s as if you must “earn” grace. But grace cannot be earned. It is freely given.

Personally, “grace” is one of my favorite words. I love how it feels in my mouth, tastes on my tongue, the warm, safe feeling it elicits. “Unmerited favor” or “favor rendered by one who need not do so”, or “clemency”, or “divine protection” – these are common definitions of grace.

To me, grace is that my heart and lungs and kidneys and liver do their thing with no effort on my part. Grace is a beautiful sunset. Grace is picking green beans off the vine. Grace is the deep peace that washes over me at unexpected moments, taking my breath away. Grace is falling into love. Grace is.

Life and all of its abundant graces is grace.

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone."

Neale Donald Walsch

Leaving Meat Behind...Part 1

I became a vegetarian about 5 years ago. I just discovered, slowly (like I discover everything) that I felt better when I didn’t eat animal flesh. I must insert here that I still ate fish. I’m not sure how I decided that fish wasn’t animal flesh but I reasoned that since I didn’t feel poorly after eating it that it must be OK.

As the years progressed I became aware of the problems associated with farmed fish and the toxicity of unfarmed fish. Still I decided I’d cut back on the wild-caught and just eat it once or twice a week. That till I learned that our oceans are 70% fished out. Now I was in a conundrum. I didn’t want to contribute to the extinction of any creature.

One afternoon I was hanging out at the lake near my house and a young boy was fishing for tilapia by throwing out a net. Over and over, as he pulled in his net, he would grab the fish and throw them onto the grass where I watched them suffocate. One fish was tossed only a few feet from where I walked. I swear he looked right at me. I looked away. I couldn’t watch his agonizing death. At that very moment, I decided to “consider” not eating any more finned fish.

Maybe a year or so later, while at the now-ex’s river house, I sat along the edge of the canal in the late afternoon, fishing, a cold beer by my side. I found fishing to be fun and relaxing and I rationalized that I would just catch and release. But that evening, I ended up with a bucket full of nice-sized fish. The neighbor came over to clean them and within an hour they went from swimming along happily living their lives to swimming in hot boiling oil.

Nope can’t do that anymore, I decided, though I did continue my catch and release practice until one time I had so much trouble getting the hook out of the fish’s mouth, causing unbelievable damage to him, that I finally quit altogether. How cruel, I thought. Who’s to say how much pain they feel? I know a hook in my lip would hurt.

Still I ate shellfish and mollusks.

About six months ago I made the decision to research all aspects of the farming and meat production industry and after my investigations, I decided I HAD to go completely vegan. I’m surprised at the responses of other people. EVERYONE, and I mean everyone, has an opinion. I do not try to persuade or evangelize anyone to my way of eating. It does have its difficulties and I’m still learning but it is a choice I’m very content with.

How to Access Peace

When do I “feel” peace within myself?

Is it when the bills are paid?
Is it when the weeds are pulled and the grass is mowed?
Is it when the laundry is done and the shopping is completed?
Is it when the house is cleaned, the projects done?

NO! It is when I am pursuing my dream, my passion.

Even though is FEELS like all that “doing” gives me peace that is not true peace. I feel peace within when I am being true to myself. At the moment of this writing, the sound of a woodpecker brings a smile to my face and I have a sense of peace. This is because I feel connected to the whole. My cat, Georgia, sits beside me and my doggie, Rhapsody, happily hunts for lizards nearby. These things bring me peace and I’m doing nothing but drinking it all in. I am being “in”, connected to, all that is.

“When we try to pick out any one thing by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe”.

John Muir.

Eckhart Tolle writes in Stillness Speaks: “We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating – lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.

We have forgotten what rocks, plants and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be…
To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.

Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being – completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself.”

To me this is true peace and only in the place of stillness and peace can I know for sure what my passion is, what my truth is. All the “doing” in the world smothers any awareness that might be at the periphery of my consciousness.

Try it today. Let go of the to-do lists and just "be" in nature. See how that feels.

Let's Pray For Him

The last person that came to my desk yesterday, approached me reeking of a discontented and rotten attitude. I first tried to humor him with my charm. That, it was quickly apparent, wasn’t going to work at all. He was just plain rude…and mean. And probably psycho.


He complained about EVERYTHING and I don’t mean the normal exasperated and frustrated complaining of the average person. I can usually have them laughing and eating out of my hand within a few minutes. This guy was hardcore unhappy. Deep down. Even my manager kept a close eye on this guy. Perhaps she feared for my life. Or his.


He ranted and raved about the price of this and the procedure for that. He said he was a combat veteran so shouldn’t he get a break. When that didn’t work he went on to tell me…LOUDLY…how much cheaper everything is in West Virginia. Then I made the mistake of saying Virginia, leaving out the west part. He jumped all over me for that. I responded with the now popular catch-all phrase of “whatever”. I got the look of death for that one but by then I’d given up sending any “luv” to this dude.


He pronounced he was going to send some emails to the powers that be and a bill for his transaction to the state attorney general.


I wish I’d had a stamp. I would gladly have given it to him.

Really, you have to feel sorry for someone who is so horribly miserable and unhappy that they can come into a public facility and show their butt without any conscious awareness.

What a poor tortured soul.

Let's pray for him.

Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard

Nightime Express

A very pregnant woman came to my desk today. She was enormous enough to populate a small country. We talked about pregnancy and all the lovely accompanying conditions of that not so delicate condition. Though it definitely has been awhile since I’ve been pregnant, my youngest, a son now grown, certainly put more than the average wear and tear on my poor body.
Unpregnant, I have a bladder roughly the size of a lima bean but when I was fully “in bloom” that tiny bladder could hold about ¼ of a teaspoon at a time. Especially toward the end. And ladies, you know how it is at night. As soon as the sun goes down, the path to the bathroom becomes well-trodden.


I slept closest to the bathroom and all through the multiple trips each night, I usually didn’t turn on the light or flush so as not to disturb the father of my soon to emerge child. As I perched in the dark on the throne one night toward the end of my pregnancy, I became aware that I was not alone. Aside from the snoring from the bed, I was fully confident no one else should be in the bathroom with me. Besides, I reasoned to myself, the bathroom was tiny, Spartan even. Shower stall, toilet and sink. That’s it. Just the bare basics. There was no room for another person. So what was THAT that just dashed across my feet?


I let out a small scream and began pounding my feet on the floor as if I were rehearsing for a tap routine on “So You Think You Can Dance.” I jumped up and flipped on the light, no longer caring a wit about anyone sleeping, after all, I was defending the life of my precious unborn. I didn’t see anyone or anything which was a good thing because the light apparently didn’t disturb my bedmate one iota so I doubted that a full out assault would have brought out the knight in shining armor.


The next few nights I was on high alert when I used the restroom. Good thing too because around 5am early one morning after multiple nighttime trips involving early labor which resulted in numerous number 1’s and a few number 2’s (hey, early labor gets the body cleaned out and ready for the main event), I decided to turn on the light and take a peek around. And what did my wondering eye cast upon.

A mouse!

Yes, gentle readers; God’s truth here, a mouse was in the john sitting on one of my turds and wads of toilet paper. Now how did he get there, you may ask. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I don’t know the answer to that. My more immediate and pressing observation was that just moments prior to this discovery, my rather generous-sized ass had hovered mere inches from his whiskery little mouse face! Why he might have reached up at any second and tried to gain purchase by grasping my flesh with his pointy little rodent teeth! But I, breathing a pregnant (pun intended) sigh of relief, could continue to carry my unborn darling without such a horrific episode which might have caused years of therapy for both myself and my tiny baby.

I called to my then-husband, “Paul,” I said with some urgency, “There’s a mouse in the toilet.”
Literally, without batting an eye, he responded, “Flush him down.” Then he returned to sleep leaving me alone to determine the future of this living being who was just trying to…trying to WHAT?

With my hand on the handle, the mouse and eye locked gazes, looking deeply into each other’s eyes, I…

So what do you think I did?

What would you have done?

Go Deep

I am such a blessed woman. Nearly every morning of the work week, I drive the block and a half to the lake near my house to apply my make-up for the day. It starts my day off in beauty and serenity. I’m able to sit in the stillness that only nature can provide.




As human beans, most of us live in a place of repetitive and conditioned thinking. Our minds take us back again and again to the broken record of repetitive thought. This is why I love coming to the lake each morning and immersing myself in the sights, sounds and smells of nature. That’s never a repetitive experience and here I am free to go beyond myself. The movement of the water, the tree branches, water grasses and the birds remind me of the ever-changingness of life.




There is a grey heron that seemingly waits for me every morning. Shortly after I arrive, he departs, but not before he has looked at me directly, admonishing me to go about my day with the awareness that it might be my last but also with the carefree light-heartedness as if it were my first. And then he flies away, leaving me to choose. I look forward every morning to my few moments with that bird. He reminds me that I can decide “how then shall I live”.




I challenge you to reach down DEEP, beyond thought…to that place that is still and free…free of the hamster-on-the-wheel repetitive thought, free of judgment…free to just be.

“Meditation brings wisdom, lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path to wisdom.”

Buddha

Peer Pressure at Wal-Mart

I did my bi-monthly shopping at Wal-Mart the day following my colonoscopy. I opted to ride in one of those electronic cart thingies due to my injured right heel. That would have been perfect had the damn contraption not run out of juice mid-way through the store.


I’m a very deliberate and frugal shopper. My money has to stretch a very long way so I prepare a detailed shopping list and stick to it like crazy glue. NOTHING goes into the cart willy nilly. Using the back of my list, I add each item as I go, being sure not to go over my budgeted amount. Other women, seeing me carefully negotiating the price of each item, perhaps feeling a sense of camaraderie, offer their suggestions, with friendly smiles, about this item or that.


I was in the laundry detergent aisle, deliberating over prices and brands when a woman, apparently one of the afore-mentioned sort, informed me that the brand she selected was as good as or maybe even better than the brand that I had in my cart. And cheaper. I thanked her profusely as if she’d given me instructions on how to de-activate the bomb I carried in my cart that in a second would destroy pretty much all of humanity. Reversing my electric cart, I traded my choice for hers. She smiled triumphantly, gave me a thumbs up and rounded the end of the aisle to continue her campaign on another hapless Wal-Mart shopper.


The second she was out of sight, I placed her choice on the shelf and went to grab mine, hiding it under a huge bag of cat food, just in case I ran into her again.


I felt my electric cart running slower and slower, feeling intuitively with my sharp mechanical sense, that I would soon be completely out of power. Next aisle was the toilet paper one. I had always used Scott. Big fat rolls, easy on the sewer system. As I was reaching for it, another woman, red hair flying out behind her (her electrical cart was better juiced than mine) sailed by and yelled out, “Get Northern, it the best.”


Now I began wondering if it was my apparent handicap that elicited such seemingly helpful input or was it ‘Help Your Neighbor Day’ at Wal-Mart? Or…maybe these were disguised marketers for the companies in question…?


But I guess the bigger question is why do I feel compelled to acquiesce. This is Wal-Mart for heaven sake, not Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s. Who gives a crap what another shopper puts in their cart. The biggest question of all, why does that shopper…ME…feel the need to bend to this pressure.


As I pondered the enormity of these issues, the cart completely died. Still seated, I scooted the cart to the front of the store, which exerted quite a bit of effort, where I transferred everything to another cart with hopefully more juice and, quietly, like a spy on surveillance, scooted quietly around the store finishing my shopping!


$3.oo under budget

Thar She Blows...

I had my very first colonoscopy on Friday. If Dr. Oz could do it so could I. Everyone I talked to about it…and that was a fair amount of people…all said the prep was the worst of it. Of course, I didn’t inquire as to the working order of their feet. I felt I was at a distinct disadvantage in the “running” to the bathroom department due to my continuing heel injury as a result of that damn bougainvillea thorn. Were they lame as a horse? I made those many trips to the bathroom at a cross between a hobble and a poorly trained 3-legged foot racer, which, by the way, I am quite good at, or was, “back in the day”. In fact, I have a blue ribbon proving my expertise in such an event. In addition, during my adventures in “prep” land, I slipped and fell causing further insult to injury. I’ll leave it to you, my intelligent readers, to deduce what I might have slipped on. And no, it isn’t what you might think!


My oldest son spent the night on my couch as he was my driver the next morning. Between my ever-increasing trips to the bathroom, I pulled out sheets, pillows and a blanket for him. I instructed him that should I pass during the procedure…what? you ask. Do you think such a thing couldn’t happen during such a routine event? Of course, there is always the possibility and I wanted my preferences followed to a T.


Lifting an eyebrow and cracking a joke, he finally smiled and indulged his mother. Yes, he would tell this person but not that one, and yes, the animals would be taken care of according to my wishes…blah, blah blah.


You may have already concluded that I’m still alive and well. The staff at the hospital bent over backwards to assure my comfort (except the nurse who blew my vein while inserting the IV). I also sensed an air of desperation, post procedure, as they asked for good feedback on the satisfaction survey.


Hmmm..wonder why.

Maps

I was married at the ripe old age of 19 and stayed that way until I was 44 yrs old. I had 4 children and homeschooled them for 12 of those years. Regardless of the hopelessness of the marriage, I did have a very regimented rhythm to my daily life. Children tend to do that to you and home schooling only makes the schedule that much more rigid.


I spent NO time at all forecasting my life, my future, a distant map of how I expected or even hoped my life would be in 5, 10 or 20 years hence. Children, their needs and educating them defined my days, months and years. Looking ahead to the time when I would be divorced, make major life changes and be the parent of adult children was never a blip on my radar screen.
Sound familiar?


So, now, here I am. I’ve spent the past 12 or 13 years since my divorce flying by the seat of my pants or on the coattails of another, not even thinking about the fact that my time wearing this earth suit is not finite. I have limited time remaining. Rather than make endless lists of places I want to visit or experiences I want to have and projects I want to complete, I am now working on maps, actual steps with an actual time table to give me more concrete parameters. Though I rebel against rigidity, there is no way to get from here to there without a plan. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail...” preparing for the future is typically ignored because of a preoccupation with today. Of course if you’ve read any of my stuff, you’ve heard me preach loudly about living in the moment but that does not preclude planning for the future.


So I’ve started with predicting, as best as I am able, how much time I have left, how long I intend to work where I currently work and where I want to live, work and be in the next 5, 10 and hopefully, 20 yrs. For me, getting my health in order is TOP priority because everything else falls to ashes (pun intended) without good health. I’ve set up a daily and weekly plan with goals and rewards for attaining such.


Next are my finances. Though I don’t have a heavy debt load it is enough that I need a plan to unencumber myself. I have not worked for a company or corporation to rack up a retirement so I have zip, zero, zilch in that department. I definitely need a strong plan on how I will accrue enough funds to not be a burden to anyone as I age. That plan is currently in the works.


There are many other areas of my life that need investigation but I, like many of you, can only handle a few biggies at a time. Send good vibes my way as I breathe in this moment and plan for the next.