It was an amazing thing to watch 5 young ladies reflect on their lives, write down their dreams and decide how they wanted to move forward  Ellen and I marveled at how they stood up on the final day of camp and declared where and how they wanted to move forward in their lives and in the world.  I love the risk that it involved and the bravery in speaking those deepest wishes aloud. 

For me,  I declare that I will choose my good...that will listen to that still small voice that tells me "No, this isn't what I want" and "Yes, go for this" and "Ask for it...you need/want it"...Do you know what I mean?  Some people tell me that it is about boundaries but it is more than that...it is me listening to and honoring me...yes, sometimes that means boundaries and other times it means something really different.  After I made this declaration and shared my artistic expression of that vow, the universe gave me the gift of practicing what I asked for.  I was asked for help on something that I really didn't feel that I could support.  Normally, I would have just "sucked it up" and helped but this time I said,"No, I cannot help you.  You are welcome to make this choice for yourself and for me, I am not going to put any energy towards it"...It was phenomenal and an example of how we are constantly supported in moving towards what we desire.

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If you wanted to make a change in your life or to your stance in life...what would that be?  What would you be willing to do to make that happen?  These are important questions and questions which a fine group of young women are asking themselves right now!  They have written their intentions...claiming their act of power!  Next they will create the expression of that declaration...their act of expression.  It is an amazing thing to watch these ladies sit with the discomfort and the chaos that can come with asking these questions.  It takes courage and effort to take a new stance, to put a  new spin on any aspect of your life.  I wonder what your answers to these questions might be...What would your new stance look like...The young lady in this photo has taken her "warrior woman" stance and it is beautiful to me.  How might you show up in the world as your true expression of warrior woman.  
Women, You Must Learn to Be Warriors

Women, you must learn to be warriors
Now when times are dark and our men
Are afraid to tell us what is in their hearts.
there is so much trouble in our land
That is is up to you to decide
Which direction the wind must blow

Women, you are our tree of life
Just as you were a long time ago
When a man said:  carry my seed.
If you go forth from this darkness,
Telling our story of courage and survival,
Then our tree will grow strong with your words.

Women, do not worry about tomorrow.
Even when daylight is long in coming,
The sun remembers its place in the sky.
Take this blue shawl of knowledge and
Wrap it around your daughters, telling them'
That women must not be afraid to be warriors.

From 'Spirit Walker' by Nancy Woods
 
 
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One of the keys to becoming a better you is to keep moving forward, to have a clear  picture of the you you want to be and to give that all your attention...so the question becomes, what is the face you want to put forward in the world?  What stance do you want to take?  What  you do you want to embrace?  These beautiful masks embody the "me that I want to be in the world".  If you look at them you can see and feel the energy of the creators...some exude softness, other beauty, others strength, others creativity..look at each and see if you can connect with the change that these girls want to see in their world.  What would your mask look like?  What would you like to take  off the "face" you show  to the world?  What would you want to own or incorporate?  A worthy exercise for all of us!
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It is a beautiful thing to see all the different ways that people can interpret the questions for reflection and bring them into a feeling place.  Some of these pieces tell stories with complete images and words, others use color and texture to create the feeling of what it is to limit oneself or push through the fear and doing it anyway.  I love watching the way that each of us brings our truth to the creation.  There truly isn't a way to get it wrong. More to come!
 
 
My colleague, Ellen, and I are in the midst of our summer creative expression camp and today we did a really neat project.  Many times when we are reflecting on our lives we tend to journal/write down those thoughts and ideas.  Ellen had the idea of pushing the words out and getting us to think about important questions using visual media rather than written media.  She posed the following four questions:
1)  What have you always wanted to do but were to afraid to do or try?
2) What is the worst thing that could happen if you did it?
3) What is the best thing that could happen if you did it?
4)  What would you try/do if you knew that you couldn't fail?

We offered a wide range of materials and asked the participants to create their answer visually.  It was amazing to see what they came up with.  I wonder what kind of insight you might gain if next time you were reflecting on something, you chose to create with images, color, shape and texture rather than words...I know I was surprised where it took me...very powerful!  I'll post pictures tomorrow so you can see the great responses!
 
Beauty 06/23/2010
 
Once a year when I walk into Trader Joe's I find bunches of Peonies...the world's most beautiful flower....in my opinion.  Every year I buy two bunches, place them with love and joy in a vase and place them in my entry way.  the aroma fills my entire house, a fragrance of sweet sunshine and smiles.  They are so delicate and frilled with layer upon layer of beauty.  As you know, everything I know I've learned from nature (mostly) and here again the Peony reminds me to look deep for beauty, to celebrate the gifts of the season and to slow down enough to take in the beauty of this brief moment that comes every year.  I truly love these flowers.
I just remembered a sweet story about a gift of peonies...one year when I was taking classes for my MFT at SDSU one of my classmates had to take a trip to the midwest.  Upon return, he showed up at my door with a bundle of peonies in his arms.  He knew that I LOVED this flower and while in the midwest, a place where peonies grow like weeds, he picked up a bunch and carried them home to me on the plane.  I'm not sure a sweeter thing has been done for me.  Isn't it wonderful to pay attention to the things that those around us love and try to shower them with them.  It really is the simple things that matter most!
 
 
It is a neat thing to walk out into the garden and find a spider web.  It is a really neat thing for the web to be in such a perfect shape and to have the spider sitting in the center of it.  Spider is a powerful teacher for all of us.  She is known in some native traditions as "Grandmother Spider" and she is the weaver of stories.  She reminds us that we are all connected and that the best place for us to be is in the "center".  I remember that once I had a dream with Grandmother Spider.  I walked onto her web and sat in the center with her as she told me a story.  She taught me with this story that while there may be a windstorm swirling through the perimeter of the web, lots of drama and lots of distraction, if I stay in the center then all will be well.  It is so easy to get caught up in tangled messes that happen all around us.  We have a choice when this stuff unfolds; do we want to join in the 'drama' of it all or do we want to remember to stay grounded in our center.  I love that spider showed up yesterday.  It was the perfect day for it.  Her arrival reminded me of all of this and proved to be excellent guidance at a time of much drama swirling around me.  So, I hang on to what is true for me now and I stay grounded in the center of that truth.  Great lesson!

To see the photographs more easily, just click on the first one and it will enla

 
 
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I took this photo a few days ago while watering my garden.  I saw this beautiful strawberry, large and luscious, hanging from its stem and wanted it to be ready now...I had to stop and laugh at myself and say thank you to the garden for teaching me once again about patience...temperance...balance.  It's easy to want what I want when I want it but sometimes it is time to wait.  Remember that beautiful bible passage...To everything there is a season...a time to reap, a time to sow...well,there is also a time to wait and be patient.  This is such a struggle for me sometimes.  And so I sat and looked at this berry for a while.  I thought about time for action and time for waiting. I thought about forcing life and letting life come to me.  Who knew that all of that was waiting for me in a beautiful strawberry.
For me, the question has always been...is now the time to act?  time to wait?  I find that sometimes I miss out on things because I am too patient and then other times I find that I've, once again, forced something into fruition and the resulting fall out is unpleasant.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if life showed us a strawberry like this so that we knew exactly when the time was ripe for action...well, the more I think about it...life does give us a way to know that the time is ripe for action...it is my inner guidance system...you know what I'm talking about.  That feeling that says...go, go now!  I had that feeling recently about the workshops I'm offering and I know that they fill with ease.  If I had acted sooner when the feeling was "No, too much to divide my attention.  Too much unsettled feeling" then there wouldn't be movement.
So, once again, it is nature, my garden, or the animals that let me know what my lessons are.  Pay attention everyone...the messages are out there...even in a beautiful, luscious strawberry!
 
MOMMA LOVE! 05/19/2010
 
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Sand Tray work is one of my absolute favorite modalities of expressive art therapy.  It feels so much like entering in to a dream world.  It is filled with neat symbols and archetypes and quickly and easily helps me to make connections in my life.  Most recently,  I have done some work with Eileen (the homeopath that I have talked about in prior blog entries) that has led me towards some powerful revelations  When I have these experiences I usually like to  engage in some activity or ritual that honors the work that I've done.  So...I headed to the studio to let sand tray work its magic.  It was/is amazing to me how the lessons that I need to learn show up in this tray...lessons of boundaries and self love and gentleness.  These are good things for all of us to know.

Following the work in the sand tray, I headed off to the Teen Center where I consult.  I was prepared to do some animal totem work with them.  I found that the tray was still working on me as the animal/image that I was drawn to was this sweet momma and baby giraffe.  We used a technique in which the artist becomes the animal selected and gives it a voice.  We write in the first person about all that we see, feel, think, wonder, do...that kind of thing.  I wrote:

I am gentle.
I am tall.
I am a mom.
This baby is mine and I adore her
I nuzzle her with my cheek
I feel love, love flowing from the bottom of my tall, tall legs to the top of my long neck.
I wonder how she will grow.
I wonder if she sees how beautiful she is.
I am filled with Momma Love
All is calm
All is right
This is right where I am meant to be.

Once you finish writing from the animals point of view, the creator goes back to the words and lets the words that jump out at them direct their art.  The words for me were MOMMA LOVE.  And so I created a very simple piece to reflect this next lesson of the sand tray.
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I added these words to this sweet image:

Let me roll you up in my momma love,
safe and warm.
Let me show you the beauty
I see in you.
Snuggle into the
sweet
Momma
Love.




What a sweet lesson for me about the gift of letting the expressive arts show me what I need to know.  I love this work!!!! Can you tell?
 
 
Today I decided to climb Cowles Mountain.  I'm working towards better conditioning so that this summer I can climb this volcano in Guatemala and also, because I love just getting out and connecting with nature....anyway, today is kind of a big day for me and I thought that working off some physical energy might help with my mental energy...which it usually does!
Anyway,  as I entered the trail I asked the mountain to show me whatever I needed to learn or pay attention to and that I would gladly listen.  As I began up the steep incline, I began to notice hummingbird song.  Lots of hummingbird song.  Then it began...hummingbirds traveling with me for the entire hike.  I'm not just talking one or two hummingbirds but every few feet there would be another bird or two.  I must have seen 25 hummingbirds today on this hike and heard even more.  No one said that Mother Nature is subtle!  What is beautiful about this, is that hummingbird reminds me to connect with life's joys, the sweet nectar of life.  Great message for me as I started out a little anxious and nervous about my day. 
Finally, as the hike came near its end, there sat lovely lizard...a reminder from my walk at the lake yesterday (I must have seen 10 lizards from 3 different species along my way yesterday but that is a different story!).  A reminder to listen to my inner voice.  To connect with stillness and to pay attention.  At the very end of the hike, I walked through a thick and tall stand of mustard...you know, those tiny yellow flowers that bloom everywhere in spring.  What was fantastic about this journey through the mustard was that it was vibrating with bees.  The sound of the buzzing was intense and I could feel the vibration of the buzzing all on my skin...I love this...bees are always a great thing as they remind me that anything is possible.  I finished this hike with not only physical conditioning but mental, emotional and spiritual conditioning as well.

All of us can connect with nature in this way.  There is a Sioux word, Mitakuye oyasin which means "with all things we are related".  This is what the hike felt like today.  If I, or anyone, goes into an adventure in nature with open eyes and an understanding that nature relates to us in many ways...then I, or anyone else, can benefit from the gifts of nature.  Mine, today, came from beautiful and joyful hummingbird.
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