she likes to keep up on world news

caught her on the couch this afternoon, watching the protests in Cairo....

dedication to me...

i'm taking this online course, the Mondo Beyondo Dream Lab... and today's assignment is to choose a childhood photo of myself, and dedicate a song to that vulnerable and tender part of myself that is finding its way on the path to living life whole-heartedly...

the song i'd like to dedicate to myself is Stan Rogers "Northwest Passage"... for a couple of reasons. first, because it is a song that i have always loved, by an artist i have always loved. second, because it speaks to the explorer in us all, braving the unknown, finding our own path... and finally, because as the song says, in the end we're all just finding our way back home again. the home that resides within us, our whole heart.

these photos were both taken when i was about six. i'm the one on the left in both of them ;)




 braving the roaring Fraser with my dad, brother and sister...










and building teepees and having adventures with my brother...

back when i was still a fearless explorer.









~


Northwest Passage, by Stan Rogers

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.
And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.
How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.

validation

a little film about validation... about how even if we don't recognize it in ourselves, we long to be recognized, acknowledged, appreciated... validated.

and about the powerful effect of a kind word or two...

the first six minutes or so is the part that resonated most for me...

someone else's words... again

it seems i'm on a "quote other people who have interesting things to say" kick.... not because i have nothing to say, but because they just say it so much better than i do!!


“When you begin to touch your heart, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless…And if you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient…Get used to the feeling of falling.”   ~Pema Chodron~


there have been times in my life when i've felt that vastness of heart, and times when i've let my heart close up shop, become tight and pinched and folded in upon itself. the vastness comes when i am actively open and vulnerable... scary stuff. the tightness comes when i am protecting myself. strange thing is, protecting is instinctual and painful. openness is terrifying at times, but also exhilarating and joyful.


so, why do i perpetually find myself coming back to clenched and defensive when it feels so much better to be open-hearted and falling??   

time to pull down some walls

 “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you built against it.” –Rumi

words of wisdom from Benjamin Button...

okay, so i don't know who wrote the screenplay for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (though i suppose if i were really wondering hard, i could google it...) but if i did i'd like to thank him/her for the following message. it came to me at just the right time.


“ For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

painting myself a donkey

How to Paint a Donkey
By Naomi Shihab Nye
She said the head was too large,
the hooves too small.
I could clean my paintbrush
but I couldn’t get rid of that voice.
While they watched,
I crumpled him,
let his blue body stain my hand,
I cried when he hit the can.
She smiled. I could try again.
Maybe this is what I unfold in the dark,
deciding for the rest of my life,
that donkey was just the right size.


My donkey is the right size... it's that fucking voice that is too big.

I'm working on getting it to use it's inside voice (for now), until I can figure out how to get it to stop altogether.