Children are the masters and we are the students........

How do we know what we know and why won't we let kids know what they know?

sea creatures 

Do you know that feeling when you are talking to someone and a word or a phrase pops into your head in repsonse to what you are hearing?
Do you know that you know something is true before someone even says something.
Do you know that you love certain colors, smells, tastes just because you do and not because someone tells you that they are good for you?
Do you know the words that kids say  that make you sit up and listen ?

Roseate Spoonbill Chat

Roseate Spoonbill

I am sitting at my desk speaking with the representative from Fitbit about a malfunctioning alta device and I happened to look up into the gaze of a Roseate Spoonbill.
If you have not seen these beautiful birds up close, they are a gorgeous pink and white color, with a long bill that is shaped like a spoon at the end. They have a similar neck to a heron with the long s curve and probably a similar size to a medium blue .

Irma's Gifts

waiting

Today, as I am sitting in the beautiful, hot calmmess of Central Flroida, I am wondering about how information comes to us. In the past, I have felt that I must be the originator of the idea or I could not claim to speak about it. without referring to them.  Things have changed.

Hurricane Irma and blowing her away

The Eye of GOD

During the past two days, I have gone through so many feelings due to  the excessive and frightenting coverage of this hurricane. I survived well through Sandy in 2013 while living in NJ but  here in Florida, it  feels that there is deeper sense of catastrophe and doom. Certainly,  Floridians have  a much deeper and more profound connection to  big weather.   On Tuesday, much of the bottled  water and automobile gas in many stores and stations  was completely depleted in Sarasota. The constant topic of conversations was the storm and I was left feeling quite sad,anxious and uncertain.

I did my due dilligence of getting the necessary water, food, candles and other supplies needed but still felt that there was more to do.

Neutrality/ Inside the Now

Neutrality

This collage feels like a portrait of being "Inside the Now". Whether it  happens when we hear  a child's smile, feel a dog's breath, or see an image of Pema Chodren.  We  already know these feelings and simply need to recreate them. I don't know of a better way to do this than by being neutral. It is easy to lose our center and go into rages and lacks. It is  also easy to  see everything as being perfect. I don't believe that either way is honorable to ourselves.

Patience and Gel Plates

patience

Since the eclipse, I have woken up each morning with specific images and words. This morning was the same.
My dream depicted a gell plate with a variety of images on it and part of the plate was still soft. Then, I heard the word patience.

Selfishness and Allowing, Part 2

During the eclipse, I began painting using yupo paper and Dr. Ph Martin's watercolors. Sometimes, I start with a photograph like the groundhog.  The photo usually evokes a memory or feeling that I wish to recreate. About ten years ago, I took a Past Life Regression  Hypnotherapy training class with Dr. Brian Weiss at Omega Institue. During one of the breaks, I noticed this big guy eating a gorgeous orange flower.

Post Eclipse Selfishness

Ibis 

There was so much energy around the eclipse that just hours after it is over, I feel  a great void. The visual of the eclipse was hardly noticeable in Sarasota.  However I  did feel tremendous amounts of energy leading up to the event  and it made it challenging to sit still, sleep, and  focus. Yet I found that I was able to have more intense physical work outs in the gym with very little effort. These are my thoughts post eclipse and clearly indicate how much things have already shifted.

California Dreaming

Add caption

During the 1970"s, I lived in the bay area for about 6 years.  It was  definitely a unusual and exciting time. What made it special were the people, the creativity  and the newness of thinking out of the box. The fifties and early sixties was  so very predictable and stable.  I remember feeling that I would suffocate if I stayed in the East Coast and got married as many of my friends were doing. So when I went out to Ca, I had options that were unavailable back East. I was able to express more of who I was through music, art, living situations, relationships, food, classes and traveling. Its hard to imagine that I felt that my only employment options were to become a Physical Therapist or a Teacher. Relationships options were to marry or date in order to get married. Food was very bland and uninspiring.
In California, there were so many more options and we were so  high on those choices. ......
There was magic in the air and  all things were possible. There was an openness that was delicious.

Happy Independence Day

Words Matter

I was listening to the Lee Greenwood's Rendition of God Bless America and thinking about today,  I  do not wish to live anywhere else in the world and yet there are days that are truly discouraging with our current President. I find myself having a mix of strong emotions every time I get a news link to a new tweet or simply another disparaging head line. I also know that reacting with such strong emotions continues to perpetuate where we are. Words and our emotional reactions matter.

Trouble talk v. troubling talk

Frog Clearing

Debra Tannen states that
"Troubles talk is a conversation where women share their moments of frustration and irritation but without expecting a solution. Men, on the other hand, find it very hard to listen to such talk without wanting to help, and provide problem-solving".

Part 2- Heron's message

Digesting Life

Right after I published the blog post, I glanced outside of the window again and saw a great blue heron with an 8 inch fish in its mouth. The herons visit the pond frequently but I have not seen one swallow a fish whole.

Integration at last

In the midst of change

My last blog talked about slowing down as we move into the next stop on our life journeys. I have certainly slowed down and was amazed to see that my last post was in April. Since then, I have taken the time to continue  reconfiguring my life in all ways. I am changing  my work, my clothing style, my painting style, my relationships, my health, and my way of communicating . I am in the midst of creating a clean slate. It is overwhelming, exciting, refreshing, stimulating, scary and wonderful.

Slowwwwww Downnnnnnnnnnn

squirt the squirrel

Today, I am sitting outside on this glorious windy, sunny day in Florida. I am watching the pond behind my home as  the wind picks up and  blows the tiny, crisp leaves on my patio, as  the water moves in bumps and starts, the birds fly in and out and the sea creatures poke their heads out.

Jumping into the unknown

Yesterday, I was sitting and doing my taxes at the computer. All of the doors and windows were open and I heard a distinctive noise of  something moving quickly over the grass. I looked up and it was a foot long turtle moving towards the water. It reached the cement embankment ,  hurled itself over the edge
and fell with a splash into the water. By the time, I reached the pond, it was several feet from the shoreline.

Noticings and Real Change, Beginning Now

I took this photo of the back of a tombstone in a very old English  cemetery. I posted it on facebook and received over a dozen comments on what people think that they saw.  I saw the image of a dog sitting down, someone else saw a camel, a bear, and a priest etc. We often  rely on others to tell us what we see in our world.  We listen to the "truth" about politics, economics, cancers, climate changes.

New Rules, New World

Proud Pixie

I have been asked a couple of time in the past two days, when is the new blog post. I am very grateful to everyone that reads my post. I does take time and a great deal of integration to write clearly.  There is so much chaos and attempting to distill the chaos and see the bigger picture is challenging. And I love doing it.

Creating Peace in this Moment

Rainbow Heron

I was painting this heron statue this  morning and noticing that my thoughts were racing all over the place. At that moment, I was listening to a song by Karen Drucker, titled
In This and Every Moment. If you have not discovered her yet, she is an amazing singer/songwriter.

This song had the effect of calming down my sympathetic nervous system so that I could jump out of  the fight / flight/ freeze moment and simply return to painting.  Please know that we are given thousands of moments to return to peace every single day.

Loving myself, let me count the ways

Chow Love

When I wrote the title down, I felt so many twinges of uncertainty? Is that really what I wanted to write? What were your first thoughts upon reading the title?   It feels amazing to sense it inside and yet it feels blasphemous to say it aloud.