Active Labor

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Almost a full month out now from my dad’s passing and I am beginning to rise with fresh eyes and renewed heart. I have seen how his beautiful and effortless transition has freed him from his great suffering and me from his care. Becoming a spontaneous caregiver and logistics holder for my dad six years ago has changed me forever. There have been many blessings, and I also realize the life-altering events that have taken place. I am beginning to deeply grieve the life I was creating at that time. These past six years have not allowed me to pay much attention to anything other than what is directly in front of me each day with Dad's needs and the immediate needs of our family.

It did not take long for me to recognize these years have felt deeply akin to my active labor process when my daughter was emerging from my amazing body 22 years ago. Six years of active labor with Dad’s release have gifted me the moment that, upon his passing, I sat back in full awe and utter amazement. I held Dad through the morning and then through the moment of his transition. Once words could be found, I shared with Dad’s beautiful hospice nurse that I felt like I had just witnessed a baby being born… it was nothing short of miraculous. This feeling of amazement was so very similar to the miraculous moment I held my daughter in my arms for the first time.

I recognize the gift of seeing this world washed anew and what life means to me now. I am raw, vulnerable, exhausted, grieving the life I thought I would embody, and I am hopeful. I am celebrating the love and the friendship my dad and I still share even though he is no longer embodied. I am grateful for having an amazing support network holding me tightly even now. I am holding all of this so tenderly and with immense presence and care.

My husband said to me upon Dad’s passing, “You have been running a marathon every day for six years. It is now time for you to rest.” And so, I shall. I will rest. I will grieve. I will also rebuild with a completely new foundation of what I am understanding now to be aligned with my path and calling as I embrace this second half of my life.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Crossroads of Change

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I am welcoming my Self into these Autumn energies by deeply embracing creative needs. I am playing with inks and paints and pens and brushes again. I am writing every day. I am receiving support from mentors and bodyworker-healers. I am investing deep time offline and enjoying the process of hearing my own voice and heart. I am embracing more closely the cycle of life and death, the sun and the moon, lightness and darkness, the change and pace of seasons... and the greatness of it all. I am working with my amazing partner to reconfigure space in our home to suit our needs for family and creativity and work. I am deeply enjoying this powerful, creative, soft feminine way of being in the world.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

Creative Needs

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I am welcoming my Self into these Autumn energies by deeply embracing creative needs. I am playing with inks and paints and pens and brushes again. I am writing every day. I am receiving support from mentors and bodyworker-healers. I am investing deep time offline and enjoying the process of hearing my own voice and heart. I am embracing more closely the cycle of life and death, the sun and the moon, lightness and darkness, the change and pace of seasons... and the greatness of it all. I am working with my amazing partner to reconfigure space in our home to suit our needs for family and creativity and work. I am deeply enjoying this powerful, creative, soft feminine way of being in the world.

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

New Beginnings

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I have always found writing to be inspirational and transformational. Creating connection and healing through words has been my primary form of work for a decade, and yet writing creatively outside of work with regular intent is something I have put on the back burner these past five+ years while my world regularly danced and dangled me upside down. As space comes back into my life, so do the shapes, images, colors, textures, channels, and words that flow through me. To say the least I am very excited.

This coming Sunday I begin a new project dedicated to writing and rest and soul work with an exceptional writer I have followed for many years. Join in if you feel called. I find David Whyte's "Three Sunday Series" to be a small and manageable commitment that will pay off for many moons to come. My fountain pens are inked, and my journals are ready.

https://live.davidwhyte.com/

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.

The Art of Change

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Wow... I shared this image SIX YEARS ago on Facebook?

The world was a very, very, very different place for my heart and reality six years ago. Never ever would I have imagined the shifts our family would move through since then, especially beginning in April 2018. I am choosing to celebrate It All.

My husband and I shared a good old-fashioned gratitude-induced cry in the kitchen this morning. We have been by each other's side since 2015 (living 3.5 hours away from each other for most of this time) and for that I am incredibly grateful. So much to share and so much to honor, especially these home spaces that have held us through the years. The invitation continues to open for so much healing and rest and connecting here in this current reality after all we’ve moved through, especially after the massive shake-ups of the past five years. I am grateful and happy to understand I am feeling a bit more robust each day and I am looking forward to some mighty adventures in the coming months.

Still, I am feeling nostalgic for this amazing space I called home for five beautiful years between 2013 and 2018. I miss this garden.... those rocks and that quince... the apple tree in the back where the doe would graze in the late summer mornings and evenings while their fawns stayed close by in the tall grass. I miss that double rocking chair. I miss that beautiful barn. I miss being close to the circle of my closest women-sisters, knowing this home and the spirit of this home held so many of us women and our children and our dreams through deep life transitions. I miss drinking coffee out of that fantastic mug (she holds paint brushes now in my creative space). I miss the idea of what I thought the years between 2018 and 2023 would look like.

Yet, it's all been so beautiful and filled with blessings despite the different and immediate circumstances I was invited into. Different and difficult yes, yet marvelous in so many ways and grounded in instinct and the power of rootedness to place and what Home really means to me. Life is full of change, and while I have been practicing the Art of Change for almost all of my close-to-50-years on the planet, I can say the last five years have really been the biggest learning curve. I know I carry forward so much from these times of learning including my heart who is softer and more open and receptive than I could ever imagine.

I Am Here, no matter where my heart finds herself. I Am Home now, no matter where my home space may be. I Am Grateful for It All <3

Until next time I offer these words of wisdom for better or for worse. Please take them with a grain of salt for we each live our own individual truths. Our mission while we are here is to understand, accept, and celebrate that one very simple, but incredibly significant fact. For all this, I am grateful.