Forget Beautiful, go for Interesting!

Patti at 37 days has to be one of the wisest women on the planet. Every one of her posts alters me slightly, and when I think of all the people who are reading her blog, it fills my need for hope that the world is becoming a better place.
This post is a particularly wonderful one: http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2006/07/change_yardstic_1.html

This Being Human...

The Guesthouse

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture...

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight

The dark thought, the shame, the malice

meet them at the door, laughing

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whomever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

-- Rumi

sooooooooooooo much to be thankful for...

the incredible bounty from our amazing gardens
my husband home safe and sound with a box full of fresh ocean fish for us to eat
new delicious books to devour
the sweet memories of precious friends' recent visit
clean, sparkling windows inside and out!
time at the beach with my 2 beauties
time alone to haunt the thrift stores
beautiful fresh eggs to collect every day from my prized chickens
one chicken brooding on her nest! exciting!
the support of the incredible tribe i've manifested into my life
new pillows to rest our weary heads on tonight...
and oh! so much more...

Summer Fun

Sooo many posts have come and gone through my mind in the last 5 weeks. And there's really nothing I feel the need to say just now, but want to get back into posting, so here's a photo from my recent "fishing trip" to the lake with my lovelies. What a thrill it was for my girl to catch her first fish, and then two and then many. They died and got fed to the chickens, which made her a little sad, but she's got the bug now and can't wait to go "real" fishing with her daddy...

Don't should on yourself

I've had a major breakthrough over the past couple of days and needing to get it into ink. I've been journaling, but the inner wisdom has been coming at me too fast and furious to quite capture as yet... I have a feeling it's not quite through, but will put a wee post on to capture this moment.
For as long as I can remember, I've felt I should be something different than what I am. While I don't fault my parents for their parenting, and feel incredibly blessed to be raised in the loving way that I was, I know that the combination of my personality and the parents I chose resulted in this feeling of yearning to be other. I won't go into that, because it's neither here nor there (though is worth me noting to myself in an attempt to not repeat the process with my own babes) at this point in my life -- it's behind me and what I can change is my here and now attitude, not where I've come from.
And it's also worth noting, for my own sake, that because I am, by personality, a sponge to the world around me (are we all? i'm not sure) the culture in which I grew up as also played a large role in my shaping (duh! but bear with me, i'm going somewhere with this). Also, for as long as I can remember, I have been exceedingly uncomfortable with put-downs, gossip, and people being made fun of just for sport. This fact may also seem redundant (who among us is comfortable with any of that now, of course!) but this goes back to my earliest memories and I have never been one to join in on this sport even when I was in the catty-girl stage of grades 6 through 9. I have always felt it my duty to speak up in these situations and this has caused me a great deal of confrontation over the years. I don't include discussing a mutual friend with another mutual friend, as long as everything I say I would be happy to say TO that friend, and as long as the conversation is respectful to all parties... I see our negativities as simply the other half of our completeness and don't attempt to see ONLY THE GOOD in people, because I find this harmful in itself (which feels like another post altogether, but in essence, I feel that when we try to ignore the shadows of ourselves and our friends we start to become uncomfortable with that other half of ourselves and thus begins a negative spiral downwards of hoping nobody ever notices any of that in ourselves -- when it's just THE OTHER HALF of our beautiful selves! more on that, perhaps, at a later time).
But back to how our culture has shaped me. I believe that every time I heard someone judging someone else, I internalized that judgment against myself (and I actually believe that we all do this to some extent). I wasn't aware I was doing this, but the image of myself that I felt I should live up to became so perfect (thin, beautiful, sporty, smart, kind, good at everything, etc.) and so complicated that I could no longer decipher JUST what it was I felt I should be. This led to a feeling of frustration and deep-seated anger at not BEing able to hold it all together in the perfect way I held in my mind...
I went through a long stage of thinking that if I just visualized myself as the being I really wanted to be, then I could perhaps manifest this alter ego. After all, I had gotten quite good at manifesting all other manner of lovely things and people into my life, why not a new and more perfect ME?
Only, of course, I didn't quite see it that way.
But the other night at my NVC empathy circle, the wise sage in the group stopped me when I was speaking to correct my "yes, I should..." into a "yes, I could..." I glossed over it at the time, but it stuck with me. She simply said "I really try hard not to should on myself" and in her English accent the should came out as shit in the most beautiful eloquent graceful way.
It took about 24 hours and an honest, poignant, loving email from my seaJay before it all came together for me. I had written to SeaJay that my vision of my life simply didn't match my reality and was causing me deep anger and frustration. I wrote pages and pages, but that simple statement was the one she cut and paste and sent back to me. And so with the shoulding on myself ringing through my mind and that statement sent back to me, I got it.
My vision is not my reality. Period.
My reality is my reality. I am who I am. It is what it is. My relationship is what it is. My mothering is what it is. And that's all that matters.
Simple.
I am me. I am not always beautiful or fit or clear-headed or patient or loving or kind or a good writer or a great cook or environmentally friendly or tidy or clean or gentle or healthy or considerate or a good friend or a wonderful mother or a loving wife. Sometimes I am. Sometimes I'm not. This is what I've always told my children. When Annika says to me "I'm so kind to Pedar, aren't I mumma?" I say "Yes, love! Sometimes you are and sometimes you're not. and I love you when you are and I still love you when you're not."
And so I am extending this love to myself so that I can heal my life. And in so doing I will be able to REALLY MEAN it when I say it to my children. Because anything we cannot give to ourselves, we cannot possibly give to anyone else.
And so last night in the darkness I reached over to my husband and told him firmly yet gently that I had decided to let myself go! There was a big silence while I smiled in the night at his confusion. Then I explained that I'm actually picking my REAL self up, but letting all the other selves who I've been struggling to be, GO. I am no longer going to try to be anyone but who I am. I am no longer going to should on myself and I asked for his help to remind me of this when things begin to get stinky again... as I'm sure they will.
And so today I've just been me. Not striving to be better. Not striving to be more. Just BEing me. When I'm impatient I don't should on myself. I simply state the obvious "goodness, Annika! Mummy is feeling really impatient right now!" and then I realize that I have an unmet need that I can choose to fill in any manner of ways. And I find a way to meet it. And tonight I will give myself a hug and a kiss and go to sleep instead of laying there wishing I could've been all the other mummies that I used to know I was supposed to be...

Hmmm. It hasn't all come out just the way it's fitting together in my mushy mind, so I'll think on it some more. But it feels good to be clear in some small but important ways.
So for now, join me: clear your own air. Accept who you are at your deepest level, remember "the most important thing" and stop shoulding on yourself...

Spring Cleaning

Oh! What a joyful feeling to have a fresh clean house! I've been rearranging furniture (in a big way) all day and washing walls and floors and windows... Things were SO dusty from all the construction we had building that retaining wall. But not anymore... All is sparkly and fresh now. I haven't been ready to do it until just today, but I woke up knowing today was the day and it's gone so smoothly! I did the kids' room which, of course, meant reorganizing and purging lots of stuff too. It looks SO good. I need to do my entire house but will settle today for "most" of the upstairs being done. WAHOO!

The view inside my soul...

"We don't own the earth. We simply belong to her and she will feed us as any parent would feed her children.... The [vegetables and fruits from my garden] teach me about the overwhelming, demanding, gorgeous love of [Spirit]. This is a love that places knowledge in our way, offering the chance -- which we must pluck for ourselves -- to grow up, with all the pain inherent in maturity. To be generous as earth herself is generous, and to share with one another. I believe [Spirit] was deeply proud of her rebellious daughter, Eve."

- Donna Sinclair

I have been contemplating the magic of VALIDATION the past couple of days and trying to get very clear on just what the word means to me. I want to say we all know the magical high we get from being validated, but the sad truth is that too few of us do...
I do. And I feel very blessed to be able to say that the feeling is very familiar to me. I believe that validation is one of our highest needs. And what it means to me is this: that someone who matters to me has taken the time to stop and quietly, purposefully, lovingly notice who I truly am at my deepest level. They've stepped out of their own world, stepped in to mine, they've taken a long look around the inside of my soul, and they've then given me the ultimate gift of reflecting the beauty they've seen there back to me. THAT is a beautiful gift. THAT is what makes our breathing come easier, our steps lighter, our laugh more joyful, our eyes more sparkly. It's so simple, yet so necessary. It's imperative to good mental health. It's crucial to healthy relationships. Children cannot grow up whole without it. Yet it's often the one thing that people regret NOT doing when they hear about the sudden death of someone they love. "Oh! If only I'd taken the time, the energy, the risk of telling them how beautiful their soul is..."
That was my regret on the morning of my brother's wedding in 1987 when I heard that one of my dear friends had been killed by a drunk driver early that morning. It was a very elaborate wedding. I was in the wedding party. I had just had my hair done for the first time in my life. My mum was a basket of nerves. My brother had already had too much to drink. I was wearing a bubblegum pink poofy dress and carrying a lace parasol in my white gloves. The scene was too incongruous with the news that I would never see my friend again. So incongruous, that my family had decided not to tell me until later. I was in a stall in the bathroom, and overheard the secret, tragic news. I cried off the mask of make-up that didn't feel right anyway, blew my nose as hard as I could into my pretty white hanky, took a deep breath, lifted my eyes and uttered this prayer:
Dear God[dess], help me never again miss an opportunity to validate the people in my life. Please tell Jodi, wherever she is, that I love her. And that I will never forget her."

And I haven't. Jodi had given me many gifts in our years of friendship, but the most precious one was that answered prayer. Starting that very day I began to tell the people around me what I loved about them, what I was grateful for because of them, and what I would miss about them if they were no longer there. And that love, extended, has come back to me one hundred fold. Validation is familiar to me. Thank you Goddess, I am truly blessed.

Which brings me to today.
I saw my dear friend sitting against the wall, a beautiful book in her lap, tied up with a white ribbon. Life has gotten in the way of my friend and I, and I was feeling the distance when I saw her sitting there, her new long! hair evidence of how much time had come between us. But then she reached out and handed me the gift of validation, tied up with a bow.
A lovely gift in my hand, but my heart feeling the deep hug.
Oh! WHAT a beautiful book! But even more so, what a beautiful gift it is to have a friend who's taken the time to step inside my soul, and in her own way tell me that she loves what she's seen... Just the solace my heart needed tonight after the exhausting (but wonderful!) past 2 weeks... I've been reading the book all evening (my children both fast asleep by 7pm tonight -- another gift!) and with each word, each photo, each quote, feeling the gift of a friend who really knows me and has reached out to hug my heart, giving me the gift of validation.

"I bind unto myself today

the virtues of the starlit heaven,

the glorious sun's life-giving ray,

the whiteness of the moon at even,

the flashing of the lightning free,

the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,

the stable earth,

the deep salt sea,

around the old eternal rocks."

- Celtic hymn

from "The Spirituality of Gardening" by Donna Sinclair

Like a herd of turtles...

We're going away for 9 days. I have to say, I despise going away. I LOVE my home and don't ever want to leave. I WANT to love going away, but I just don't. My gardens are planted and the lilacs are in bloom... There is NO place more wonderful to sleep than my bed and the hammock whistles at me whenever I go out the back door... I've let the dandelions all blissfully bloom on my lawn (they bring up iron from deep in the soil and provide tunnels for earthworms) and the yellow has all turned to lovely round fluff balls that my friend's children call "wishers" (and now we do too). It is TOO lovely here to leave!
The worst part, is I get quite cranky whenever I have to pack up to leave. I feel overwhelmed and stressed and panicked and agitated. And I'm wondering why? I've been like this my entire adult life. And I want it to stop. I want to be that person who puts on loud music and sings and dances and feels SO much excitement about a new impending adventure! I want to LOVE going away and the necessary packing that goes along with it. I'm trying to remember when I first started to feel this way... Were my parents stressed when preparing for a trip? I truly don't remember. We travelled A LOT by car and I remember them planning the route, writing RIGHT ON THE MAP with a bright red pen... I remember drawing the line down the middle of the seats at the veeeeeeeeery back of the stationwagon, marking my territory separate from my sisters. I remember making potholders out of weird nylon stretchy things and learning to crochet and playing license plate games. I remember staying with weird relatives I didn't know and didn't want to know every single night... But I don't remember the stress.
Maybe it's just as easy as deciding that I'm going to be different and then slowly working towards that goal. Today I've been pretending to myself that I'm not overwhelmed, going on picnics to the creek and having teaparties with my children on this supposed to be nothing but packing and getting ready day. And it's sort of been working. Except that I still haven't STARTED getting ready to go!
Okay, so that's my plan then. I'm going to put on some groovy music and just pretend that this is the adventure of a lifetime... I'm going to forget that we're going to visit relatives who don't "get us" at all, who feel it's their duty to try to teach us how to live properly... and pretend we're off to the SEA. The wonderful magic of the ocean... Who knows, with global warming maybe the sea has drifted as far East as Alberta...
wish me luck! xoxo

The most important thing of all...

Every Thursday for a couple of hours I get to sit in an incredible circle of wise goddess women. It is the most affirming hours of my week and I leave every circle feeling inspired to greatness.
Yesterday celtic goddess said this, in regards to mothering: "The very most important thing you can do is to love yourself so much that you can love your children for who they really are."
The words vibrated through my soul, bouncing off all the tender spots in my spirit before I promptly burst into tears. Why didn't someone tell me that before I had children? Why is it so hard to love myself? To really love myself. On all levels. All the way to my deepest core. I can love my children completely. Why can't THAT be the most important thing of all... Because, of course, it's not possible. It is simply NOT possible to love our children unconditionally unless we first hold equally unconditional love for ourselves. Otherwise there will always be something in our children that we are (often subconsciously) trying to change. And we ALL know that THAT is not in the vision we hold for our children (that we forevermore be niggling about, trying to tweak this and that in their little souls...)
So many of my friends wonder why their mothers are still trying to change them? My friends are incredible women, in their 30's and 40's, many of them mothers themselves, most of them evolved far beyond their mothers. Yet they continually get an underlying current of desired improvement from their mothers. And now we know why. Because of that one very most important thing...
Then another goddess friend of mine said "okay,so our mothers all made mistakes, but look at us! We're good people! Don't you think it's the striving that's ultimately the most important?" And I felt hope. I can strive. I AM striving. If striving were a sport I would excel...
So now I know the most important thing AND I have perspective. I can strive to love ALL parts of myself. All my shadows. All my weaknesses, ALL of me...
One of the things that I am struggling to understand in my children is that they are not always kind. Something deep inside me (emanating, you can be sure, from one of my own dark spots I am now striving to love) wants them to be always kind. It was pointed out that we can try to make our children be nice but we cannot make them be kind. We can inspire kindness but we cannot build rules around it. And the thing is, I don't WANT them to be nice. I want them to be real. And it was so clear to me that by doing anything around kindness (except modeling), I am instilling the desire to be nice. And anytime you TRY to be nice, you've already stopped being real. Kindness comes from the depths of your heart, from a place that is completely untouched by trying.
So then, what is my true vision for my children? It's pretty clear. That they love themselves so completely that kindness towards themselves emanates from the depths of their beings and thus spreads out to everyone around them... There is no nice in my vision at all.
So it goes without saying that that first has to be my vision for myself: to love myself so completely, to feel such depths of kindness towards myself that this same kindness fills my aura, drips from my fingertips and touches everyone around me (everyone, of course, being the population of the planet)... Not bad, hey?
What's your vision? For your children? For your own soul? For your life?
Happy Loving. Happy Striving. Happy Friday.

Fresh start...

I LOVEd today. I woke up with such a feeling of rejuvenation and peace and calm. Part of it, is that the weekend was over and my little family did so much more than endure it. We had SUCH a good time. We talked a lot about the people whose lives we were celebrating and mourning. We had lots of cries and lots of laughs too. And last night Annika INSISTED that we have a wiener roast down by the creek. We were SO tired from the weekend of productivity (and wrastling our alpacas into the back of the pick-up truck for transfer to greener pastures...) that I really tried to talk her into having a nice safe warm soup of borscht instead. But she would have none of it. She listened so patiently and I used my newly learned NVC needs and feelings talk... And then she said "Nope. Your dad loves lilacs and I love lilacs. Your mum loves wiener roasts and I love wiener roasts and that's what we're going to do." I laughed HARD and away we went. It was such fun. The perfect end to the weekend. Brent and I had some tears together last night, remembering one last time. And then we snuggled and had lovely comforting sex and went to sleep. It was a terrible night, with Annika and Pedar both needing mama several times in the night. But despite all that, I woke up with such a sense of renewal and vigor. THIS is what it's like to live with death as my ally. To wake up every morning filled with gratitude at another brilliant day that I get to spend living my amazing life. WOW. I am SO grateful.

Remembering...

The first year after the accident I made myself remember all the time. It felt therapeutic. Like I had to keep feeling it to get to the bottom of my anguish. Now I only require myself that I remember once a year. Today. May 7th.
We'd been in Vernon and didn't get home until around 8pm. I had flicked on the TV before bed to catch some of the news. There had been a fatality accident near Hannah, and I thought to myself "Imagine learning about something like that here. On the news. Oh God, it can't be happening to me." and I switched it off and it left my mind. We went to bed and were asleep when the phone rang through the house after 11. I decided to ignore it, thinking it was mum calling to see how our trip had been. Ten minutes later it rang again and I remember thinking "okay, mum. enough! it's late! i know you have Kenai (our dog) and I will call you in the morning." and again I didn't get up to answer it. Then my brother's voice rang out into the stillness of the night "Mary-Sue, you need to call me back immediately when you get this message." And just like that I knew.
The blood rushed out of my head and I lept out of bed crying "something's wrong. That accident WAS ours. Oh my God. Oh my God." And I ran to the phone and dialed his number, lightheaded and already nauseous. He answered right away and his words came out like bells ringing on a frosty morning, hurting with the coldness of the reality as it filled my ears and mind... "There's been an accident. Mum, Dad, Tyler, Silka and Grannie are all gone." And there was a terrible screaming sound and I realized it was me. My knees buckled and I sank to the floor. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. But then it all began to register. He hadn't stopped at Mum and Dad. Tyler? Silka? How could it be? He had just lost everything. Brent was beside me at this point. Holding me. He didn't know yet, but he knew. I was shaking uncontrollably and trying to stop the nightmare. "Oh Ken." I said. "Not Tyler and Silka! Oh! What are you going to do? What are we going to do?" He answered softly,"We'll make it. We have to." "What can I do for you?" I whispered. "Come down tomorrow." He said. And he was gone. I hung up the phone and wept. "No. No. No. No. No." I couldn't stop. I wept on the cold floor for what seemed like hours. Memories rushing over me. Memories of me as a child, weeping in my mum's arms, begging her not to die before me. Memories of just weeks ago, me asking dad what we were going to do with all his junk when he died... Memories of me knowing that I could never survive without my parents. Knowing that if something ever happened to them prematurely, that I would have to be with them because I knew I could not manage without them.
And then I went to bed. And my husband and I wept together. I didn't sleep that night. After he fell asleep I walked out into the night, looking up at the sky, waiting for my mum to come and talk to me. I knew she would. I heard a robin sing and I talked to it, but it didn't tell me anything. I went back to bed. I felt betrayed that I hadn't known, somehow. They had been dead for 12 hours by the time that phonecall came, and I hadn't known at any level of my being. They'd been gone for 12 hours and my mum had not come to comfort me!
Then I heard cooing outside my window and I looked out. I could see white birds on the front lawn. I ran out and there were five. Five white doves (I learned later they were actually pigeons that had inexplicably escaped their cage that night) on my lawn. But I wasn't very comforted. I knew it was them. I knew they were saying goodbye, but I wanted more.
That was the day I learned that I'd been left behind. The memory makes me lightheaded to this day. But working my way through that memory gives me strength every time. Strength in the knowing that I somehow lived through that. And nowI know I can live through anything... It's not the most important memory I have, by far. And not one that comes to my mind very often anymore. But just once a year, I test myself, to make sure I can still do it. Thanks for the company this time.

comfort food on a day that's desperate for comfort...

I'm brewing borscht today. The smells fill the whole house and it smells divine.
It's my great aunt Olga's famous recipe, one I painstakingly wrote out as I grabbed ingredients from her before they got plopped into the big soup pot several years ago now. She had never measured anything and so nobody could repeat her heavenly beet soup recipe. She scrubbed up the beets and I counted them, she went to dump in the dillweed and I stuck my hand under to catch and measure what only her hand knew to add, and on it went for half a day as she slurped and added, me catching herbs to measure and revising my notes as we went along. And so it is that I can make borscht almost as wonderful as Tante Olga's:

Cook a chicken in enough water to cover it until the meat all falls off and the bones almost float to the top (I even used one of my own old faithful hens for today's broth -- she stopped laying awhile back and I decided it was time for my children to learn up close and personal where their meat comes from, another post for another time...). Separate out the meat, discard the bones (or pulverize them to put in your compost or dig into tomato plants -- this, being bonemeal) and add water to make the broth equal 8 cups. If you only have chicken stock and no meat to use (as in you're cheating and buying your chicken stock), add half a cup of butter.
Keep the meat aside.
Boil 3 to 4 large scrubbed (but not peeled) beets in the broth until they're a bit soft. This can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the beets. You'll know they're ready when you run one under cold water and then squeeze it in your hand, the skin rubs off. At this point, remove the skin and chop them into smallish pieces (or grate them). Add them back in (beets will still be a bit hard), and add 3 cups diced carrots, 4 cups diced potatoes, 2 Tbsp dill weed (much more if it's fresh), 2 shots of tobasco (or 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper), 1/4 tspn black pepper, 2 tsp salt and 3 onions, coarsley chopped.
Cook awhile (20 minutes or so). Add 1/2 head cabbage coarsley chopped. Add meat back in.
Cook about one hour until all veggies are tender. Add a few Tbspn of lemon juice (to taste).
Serve piping hot with a large dollop of sour cream in each bowl (don't stir it in, the melding of the cool sour cream with the hot soup as you take a wee scoop of cream with each bite is part of the experience). YUM!

My Mother's Voice

Today is a sad day for me. My niece would have turned 16 today... sweet 16... how can my poor brother and his wife bear not seeing her blow out those 16 candles... And 6 years ago today I heard my mum's voice for the very last time. We had come out to Vernon for my sil's wedding shower and I had called my mum in the morning, as I always did when I was away. She was my anchor, my grounding cable. I would call her to hear her comforting, loving voice and it would make me strong enough to be authentic for another day amongst my inlaws. She was telling me that the prairie chickens were dancing out at her aunt Katie's and how much she wanted to go watch them. My dad wasn't keen to go (preferring instead to work in their amazing garden) and so I told her Go Anyway! Go by yourself! If you really want to do this, GO! And so she went. And my dad got caught up in the enthusiasm (he captured the dancing on video), and went along... It was Silka's birthday and she wanted to go too, and her brother, Tyler (who would be 18 now) and my sweet Gran. All five, off they went, with so much joy, I'm sure. They took sleeping bags and slept on the floor at Katie's (Grannie was 86 so likely found a bed, but knowing her, maybe not?!) At dawn they awoke and crept out into the prairies to watch the wild chickens do their mating dance... We have my dad's voice on the video, commentating on how exciting it was. We can hear the other 4 voices hushed but sounding so happy and full of joy. And then they were on their way home and that's when the world stopped and they all got off... Leaving us forever wishing for things that cannot be...
Like the 16 candles that should be lit today...
And the voice on the other end of the phone that should be calling me still...

Yes, it was 6 years ago this morning that I said "I LOVE YOU" for the very last time. People tell me I shouldn't commemorate this day, that it should be just like any other day. And perhaps it would be if my mum had been sick and had the time to tell me all the things she wanted to... to hear all the things I had left to say... But it was such a massive event. It took our breath away, and we've never breathed quite the same since. How can we forget?
My sil told me this week how annoyed she is that her parents (my children's grandparents) seem to be trying to pick up some of the slack that would've been filled by my own parents... how peeved she gets that it affects her. Her words were "It shouldn't matter if your children have one set of grandparents or ten, it shouldn't affect my children..." And so it is. Maya Angelou said "When someone shows you who they are, BELIEVE THEM!" And so I am.

And I wish I could end it with that. I wish I could breathe in and out and let it go. But it pains me that she doesn't get that we are ALL connected. Not just that she is my children's aunty, and so their pain is in some small part going to affect her, but that we are ALL connected, like the mouse dealing with the mousetrap. And so the lesson I take is that any pain, any tear, any loss, any sorrow, anywhere in this world, affects me. The sadness I feel, the tears that are unexpected and unexplainable, the sorrow I feel deeply within me is not just from my own losses, but from all the sorrow that continues to happen every second of every day...
I miss you Silka. Happy birthday, sweet girl.
And mum? Call me!

We're all one...

Lately I've been feeling just how connected we are all on this tiny little planet and then I ran across this fable and wanted to share it with you...
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package."What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all interconnected in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. Each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry -- our lives are woven together for a reason...

Missing memories...

So you're wondering why I don't have photos up anymore... wondering where my fabulous frame collection has gone... why the empty walls in my house when I've never been one for empty walls...
Me, the queen of photos, who always surrounded myself with photos galore... As far back as when I only had one side of a room as my own -- when every teeny wall space was jammed with photos, photos of people I loved and who loved me, celebrations and ordinary moments. There was that photo that everyone loved of me and my mum laughing so hard we couldn't stand up... the rare photo of my dad laughing so hard I could hear him snorting when I looked at the photo... My mum squeezing my dad's cheeks and squeeling with frustration and passion and intensity...
I can remember all of my rooms over my lifetime by the photos I hung on my walls -- corkboards filled twice over, mirrors with snapshots squeezed into the frame all the way around...
I grew up and the photos changed to capture the emerging memories of camel treks with mum in the Cholistan desert, hiking expeditions with dad in the Himilayas, graduations and boyfriends and new adventures.... Then the favourite photo of mum and I with our arms around each other like so many times before but this time me wearing the wedding dress she lovingly hand stitched.
But then the world stopped. Just for a second. And they got off.
And I stayed on.
And everyone comforted me.
"they're still with you. all the time now, they're with you!"
And they were. But there were no more memories to be made. No more photos to capture those missing memories.
My life continued on. At an even faster pace. I had my baby girl. And I saw them that night. Felt them, at her birth. But they didn't show up in the photos. My baby grew and began to sleep for hours at a time with a peaceful smile on her face and I knew they were holding her for me, rocking her so I could sleep. And I ached for a photo of just that. Mum holding my baby girl, tears in her eyes for all the love and beauty and preciousness of her. My baby grew more and I ached for a photo of my dad in his favourite chair, pushed alllll the way back, my girl perched on his knee being read to, hour after hour after hour... Then she grew into a giggling toddler and I more than once contemplated playing with photoshop, piecing old and new photos together to capture just one memory of my mum tickling her outside on the lawn, playing camel with her as she huffalumped around the yard, my babygirl squeeling with delight on mum's back... But those were just the memories of my dreams and there are no photos of dreams.
It's been 6 years since they left me. I guess one blessing is I haven't had any block against photos. I have thousands! Yes, thousands. All digital. I've even managed to fill four very large photo albums to prove to my two beauties that they were once babies. Albums, yes. Albums I can close up and walk away from. Pictures on the walls? You can't not see them. They stare at you, forever reminders of who's not in them.
But it's been 6 years (less 12 days). My life is so full... so blessed... so absolutely amazing. Yet I miss my mum and dad every single day of my life. And I KNOW they're still with me. But I'll never stop wishing I could prove it with photos... Because I'm the queen of photos. Still. And as it happens, my friend (who also happens to be my aunt) was just here and with the strong encouragement of another friend (who happens to be my cousin), we got that fabulous collection hung on the walls. Empty, sure. But they are a powerful reminder of how grateful I am that my life is NOT empty. My life couldn't be more full. And I have photos to prove it... And so! You'll be happy to know that I am busy choosing a few old favourites to hang alongside the living, laughing, loving NEW memories I am so blessed to be creating every new wonderful day...
Come by soon and have a look!

My new theme song

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying: “How to you do?”
Their really saying
“I love you”
I hear babies crying
I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more
Than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world. Yes
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.
Oh Yeah.

how well do you REALLY know your mother?

I've been thinking a lot about who I AM and who it is that my children will know when they're grown up and thinking of me. Will they know me only as the conservative, well-intentioned woman holding on a little too tightly to control in her life? Or will they know me as I wish to be? How will they describe me to their soulmate before I've met them? Passionate? Easy to laugh? Always ready to play a game or a trick, eager to tickle them to the floor, wrap my arms around them for a too-hard squeeze at every opportunity... Will they know the me that loves to try new things? Or will they see me as stuck in my old ways... Will they see me as a rainbow of colours, of emotions, of passions? Or will they think of me in beige and navy blue... Who will they call when they want to plan a trip thru the crowded markets of Morocco? or when they decide to trek through Mongolia? Will it be me? Or will they think me uninterested in such alarmingly wild adventures... Will they connect me to the girl who studied wildlife in Kenya, sleeping in huts with mud floors? Will they see me as still the girl who rode camels through the Cholistan Desert for 8 days, sleeping under the stars? Or will they be disconnected from those stories, seeing me as anything but adventurous? They will know the stories of me diving deep into the Indian Ocean in my bikini, reaching deeper still deeper for the conch shells so big that I could hardly lift them to the surface... But will they see me as still being that person? Who will I be to my children?
I know wildly wonderful goddess women who I experience as being great big happy crazy amazing adventurous women. And I know their children. And I know that their children don't see even a glimpse of who these women REALLY are. Why is that?
I can't help but wonder how my children will know me when they are grown. And I guess I wonder if it doesn't depend on who I am to ME. Right now, as I raise them. Definitely something to keep in mind as I go about living my BEST life...
How would you describe YOUR mum? How well do you REALLY know her? Why not open your mind just a little wider, put away your small beliefs about her, open yourself up to the possibility of who she really is? I know she'll be grateful...

Happy Easter!

Looks like someone finally caught the Easter Bunny! Look at those FEET!!!

Life is Messy

The other day I went to a new friend's house, unexpectedly, first thing in the morning (she was helping me test my wee P's blood glucose levels) and her house was a mess. I mean a real mess, the kind of mess I never let my house get. She was cheerful and relaxed and mentioned just once that she'd just gotten back from being away a week and didn't offer any excuses except to say "we really LIVE here" and that was that. And they do live there. They operate their 2 businesses out of their home, 2 of their 4 children homeschool, and they have a dog and a cat. What I found in that visit was that I really focused on my friend. I wasn't looking around admiring the artwork on the walls or the colour of her countertops, I was focused purely on HER and her amazing, generous, wisewoman, goddess heart.
I was changed that day. I've been thinking about what it really means to LIVE in my house, in my body, in my world, in my life ever since. Do I REALLY LIVE HERE??? Or am I so focused on keeping my world tidy and pretty and clean and organized that I've forgotten how to truly LIVE?! Unfortunately, I think my reality is closer to the latter, but I'm feeling a deep shift within me that is changing that forever...
We have lived in this house for 2 years now and have intended and still do intend to change a lot of things in it -- the flooring, move some walls, put in geothermal heating, extend the deck, etc. So this has been my excuse for not making every inch of my home liveable. My basement, for instance, is not useable because I'm waiting for the geothermal to go in so we can finish the floors so we can sort things out so we can... so we can live here. NO MORE.
I have also gotten stuck on what is the right thing to do from a design/architectural point of view. Not wanting to do the wrong thing, I have done nothing, waiting for an architect from on-high to swoop in and show me all the right decisions to make... NO MORE.
THIS IS MY SPACE. This is my home. This is my body. This is my world. This is my life. This is my chance to live MY BEST LIFE and nobody anywhere knows how to do that better than I do.
This is what my best life looks like:
It is not always pretty or always clean or always organized or even always inviting to others. It is full of laughter and messy crafts and candle wax on the floor. It is pots of steaming hot healthy food shared with my family under the glow of candles and Raffi crooning in the background. It is water marks on the floor from a good splash in the bath, it is crumbs on the floor from encouraging my children to bake their own cakes and measure the flour by themselves because that is what they really want to do. It is bare floors with mismatched furniture and children's art on the walls and rugs tossed here and there because this is what works for us right now. It is a bed unmade and the covers rumpled and ruffed up because of lots of loving and tickling and stories in bed with my children... not to mention lots of loving with my husband. And that bed is USED all through the day, for comforting, for stories, for naps and cuddles...
I DON'T want a pretty bed, I want a bed that invites us into snuggle and love each other. I DON'T want a rack full of fabulous CD's, I want dances in the living room, singing our hearts out in the kitchen, really living and hearing the music on the CD's we have. I DON'T want fabulous coordinating placemats and blossom shaped plates, I want my table piled with food and love and joy with no notice of what is holding up the food or the drink. I DON'T want drawers and closets full of to-die-for clothes and shoes and the like. I want a bag with enough pockets for all our treasures, a pair of pants I can wear anywhere and won't show drool and kisses too much, t-shirts that move with my body and brighten up my face when I reach for them, and a sweater that was knit with love and warms my body from the outside in when I cuddle into it. I want a body that wants to live in swimsuits on the hot summer days, but I don't want 7 swimsuits to have to choose from, I want 2, one to wear, one to dry. I want home-sewn skirts and hand-knit sweaters and hand-me-down shirts on my children. I want them to choose the colours and get excited about getting a new skirt instead of opening up their drawer to find 5 jean skirts to choose from and 8 white shirts and 10 different hued purple t-shirts...
The best thing of all? I realize that I have EVERYTHING I need to live my best life. And if there's something else I discover I need? I can usually use something else that I already have to fill its place! I've just finished sewing up 2 little aprons and 2 little skirts for a swap with a new friend and it's been such a gift to me (despite the people who love me most being rightfully concerned about my priorities and how I'm spending the toooooo little free time I have ;o)) because I have been reminded of how satisfying it is to make something with love and bits of this and that... My children have been sick enough that we haven't been able to leave the house in days, which normally would mean I'd have to put a project like that off until I could get to the store to get the right supplies. Right? Wrong! Don't have enough ladybug fabric to make a skirt? Add something stripey to make it long enough! Don't have proper binding for an apron? Use wide string!
Another part of all of this coming to a head is because it was my goddess Grannie's birthday on Sunday. My very sick little dd and I lay in bed all day cuddling and talking about who my Grannie was (she died before my daughter was born). And in that process I suddenly remembered who I really was before I moved here and got insecure about having things presentable to my husband's family and friends... My Grannie's favourite saying was: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or DO WITHOUT." I plan to teach that motto to my children by me truly deeply LIVING it.
My best life isn't about Costco or sales racks or Ikea or the mall. My best life is about REALLY LIVING HERE in every sense of those words, as simple and full of joy as possible. BEST LIFE, here I come!!!!

less frazzled...

Yes, indeed, life has become a lot less frazzled lately. Mostly due to the fact that we are under voluntary house arrest from Annika's sad throat. "Why is my throat so sad, mummy?" she asked me last night. Your throat is sad? "Yes! it's so sad it's crying and i'm having a hard time swallowing its tears!" And she took a big gulp of the flem sliding down the back of her throat. She was up every 40 minutes or so all night long, herself crying from her very sore, sad throat. I'd give her a sip of rooibos tea or lemon water and she'd slide back into a restless, feverish sleep. I don't often find it necessary to force my children's fevers down with ibuprophen or the like, and hers broke on its own around 5 this morning. It's nearly 11 and she's still sleeping, as I would like to be!!! Pedar slept in his own bed for the first time in months -- and I found myself wondering if his angels were rocking him, holding him, comforting him in order that I could attend to his sister. I said a prayer of thanks, knowing that something extraordinary was going on...
I went to a talk by Alfie Kohn, author of "Unconditional Parenting" last week and his powerful words and passionate stories have revolutionized my life. Of course I wish I had learned all this long before I ever started parenting, but perhaps I wasn't ready for the concepts then. I'm not even going to try to summarize his wisdom here, but I feel very powerfully that every parent should be forced (!) to read his book or watch the DVD under the same name.
Just one quote that sings in my head: "There is something inherently STUPID about trying to make children into better people by making them feel bad." okay, one more "The more you use power to try to control your children, the less influence you will have on their lives. "
And so! It's been an adventure, this week, reparenting myself by choosing in each moment to respect and honour my children, choosing to be their compassionate ally instead of their dictator... Choosing to put my vision of who I want them to be as adults (kind, generous, loving, self-actualized, joyful, self-confident, passionate, aware, ethical, responsible, empathic, healthy, creative, free...) ahead of how I want them to behave as children. Not that this hasn't been the goal all along! But something in his message finally rang the bell deep enough within me to really initiate deep and lasting (!) change...
Hallellujah!