I'm writing a second blog post this week to share with the Wisdom Bloggers Sisterhood in response to recent events in the world. We have decided to flood the site this week with positive messages of hope and peace as our way of spreading these truths and energies around the world.
I woke up yesterday morning determined to sit down and write this post, determined to make yesterday a beautiful, bountiful, peace-filled day. Then the phone rang. My adult daughter was on the other end of the line in tears... someone had broken into their house while they were sleeping and robbed them. All of my good feelings and "give peace a chance" intentions went right out of the window! How dare someone do that to my family? How dare they scare my grandchildren like that? How dare they invade the sanctity of my daughter's home? I was beyond angry. If I'd had the perpetrators in front of me, I'd probably have gotten myself arrested!
As the day progressed and I sat waiting for updates from her, I mindlessly scrolled down Facebook reading all of the messages of love and hope, and little by little I started to realize what I had done, or, more accurately, what I had failed to do: I had failed to beat them at their own game. I had bought into the fear and hatred and had come up all the poorer for it. No one had gotten hurt. Something spooked them off before they got much more than my daughter's purse. It would entail hours and hours of phone calls to cancel bank and credit cards, and a trip to DMV to get a new license, but everyone was safe.
It's one thing to chant peace slogans when it's not happening to you. It's quite another when your life has taken a hit like that. For a while I let all the "what ifs" take over my imagination until I had to go outside and walk it off before I lost my mind. Standing in the beautiful autumn sunshine, listening to the cows on the farm next door, I felt a shift take place. Hatred left and gratitude took its place. Hatred can't win if we refuse to hate back. The bad guys lose if we refuse to stop forgiving them. If the ones who robbed my daughter were that hard up, how awful for them. If they were hopped up on drugs, I pray for an end to their pain. Love wins, Love always wins. It always has and it always will, and that's what some folks in the world just don't get.
We've got to walk our talk. Sure, we can't just sit by and open our doors to the terror and hatred, but we can surround our lives with love, and forgiveness, and compassion, and peace. We've got to be the light in the darkness, the ones who show others the way. We ARE the world, corny as that may sound. So what talk will you walk out into the world today?
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Harvesting My Life
I always have such mixed emotions when harvest time comes around. On the one hand, I am happy to see all of my hard work bear fruit - and veggies! On the other hand, my days of working outdoors in the sun accompanied by birdsong and cows calling are coming to an end. They will be replaced with time spent indoors all warm and cozy while soups bubble on the stove, and my yarn and crochet hooks lay in the bag next to my chair waiting for me to turn them into Christmas gifts of slippers and mittens.
I picked the last of the harvest a few weeks ago. I walked out one autumn morning to see the blueberry bushes from the blueberry farm across the way all standing naked and pruned amidst a sea of green tinged with light frost like silent soldiers, their work done for this year. Down below the sun sent sparkling crystal shards across the surface of the pond while all around the noisy geese talked among themselves, probably taking a vote to see if it was time to move on to the next leg of their journey south. The scent of wood smoke from the farmhouse nearby wafted past my nose and the air was suddenly filled with the thunderous flapping of hundreds of starlings that rose out of the pine trees like a huge black cloud to perform their aerial ballet against a crisp blue sky.
Harvest time is that part of the gardening year when you get to see what worked, what didn't work, what needs to be pulled and discarded, and what can be turned under to nourish the soil over the winter. My tomatoes did well, as did my lettuce. Basil and parsley was a bumper crop, and my spearmint continues to grow like a weed in the pot in my kitchen. The lavender has been a touch and go situation. I got different plants from different nurseries, and it is apparent which one I will be giving my business to next year, and which one did not have plants hardy enough to withstand the wind and cold up on this hill. Some of the other flowers and herbs just didn't make the cut and they have been pulled out and sent to the compost pile. Everywhere else, the soil has been turned and the falling leaves have reinvented themselves as mulch. The outside garden is done for the year, so now I'm turning my attention to my inner garden.
What worked for me this year? What bloomed and created bounty for me, and what just did not manifest because it was not meant to, or because the time was not right? Which beliefs held up and carried me forward, and which had to be pulled and discarded because they no longer served me? Which ones can I hang on to, turning them over in the soil of my soul to nurture and grow the next sets of intentions I plant there? What will I plant next year to bloom in place of the beliefs that withered and died from the top to the roots?
This is the perfect time of the year to harvest our lives. As we prepare for the celebration of Thanksgiving next week, it only makes sense that, while we are giving thanks for all that we have and all that has worked in our lives this year, we also take stock of what hasn't worked and what changes we need to make in our own gardens to have even more to be thankful for next year. Each year will, of course, have its ups and downs, its bounties and its weeds. The true gardener who practices her craft with love and good intentions will likely end up with even more wonderful things to harvest every year.
And so it is.
I picked the last of the harvest a few weeks ago. I walked out one autumn morning to see the blueberry bushes from the blueberry farm across the way all standing naked and pruned amidst a sea of green tinged with light frost like silent soldiers, their work done for this year. Down below the sun sent sparkling crystal shards across the surface of the pond while all around the noisy geese talked among themselves, probably taking a vote to see if it was time to move on to the next leg of their journey south. The scent of wood smoke from the farmhouse nearby wafted past my nose and the air was suddenly filled with the thunderous flapping of hundreds of starlings that rose out of the pine trees like a huge black cloud to perform their aerial ballet against a crisp blue sky.
Harvest time is that part of the gardening year when you get to see what worked, what didn't work, what needs to be pulled and discarded, and what can be turned under to nourish the soil over the winter. My tomatoes did well, as did my lettuce. Basil and parsley was a bumper crop, and my spearmint continues to grow like a weed in the pot in my kitchen. The lavender has been a touch and go situation. I got different plants from different nurseries, and it is apparent which one I will be giving my business to next year, and which one did not have plants hardy enough to withstand the wind and cold up on this hill. Some of the other flowers and herbs just didn't make the cut and they have been pulled out and sent to the compost pile. Everywhere else, the soil has been turned and the falling leaves have reinvented themselves as mulch. The outside garden is done for the year, so now I'm turning my attention to my inner garden.
What worked for me this year? What bloomed and created bounty for me, and what just did not manifest because it was not meant to, or because the time was not right? Which beliefs held up and carried me forward, and which had to be pulled and discarded because they no longer served me? Which ones can I hang on to, turning them over in the soil of my soul to nurture and grow the next sets of intentions I plant there? What will I plant next year to bloom in place of the beliefs that withered and died from the top to the roots?
This is the perfect time of the year to harvest our lives. As we prepare for the celebration of Thanksgiving next week, it only makes sense that, while we are giving thanks for all that we have and all that has worked in our lives this year, we also take stock of what hasn't worked and what changes we need to make in our own gardens to have even more to be thankful for next year. Each year will, of course, have its ups and downs, its bounties and its weeds. The true gardener who practices her craft with love and good intentions will likely end up with even more wonderful things to harvest every year.
And so it is.
Monday, November 16, 2015
A Temporary Setback
Flower Bear's blog for this week will be a posted later this week. Right now I need the time to help out a family member who needs my full attention and support. I'll catch up with all of you soon. In the meantime, thank you all for your support and for following my blog for the last 3 years. You all mean more to me than you can possibly know.
Blessings,
Barb (aka Flower Bear)
Blessings,
Barb (aka Flower Bear)
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Finding My Voice
If there is
one sound in all of the world that fills me with joy, it is the sound of birds
calling and singing to each other. Every morning when I go out to greet the
day, it is as if all the neighborhood birds sing me a “Good Morning!” I love to
just sit in silence, watching and listening as the birds go about their
business. It is a strangely exciting experience to imagine yourself being among
them, seeing and experiencing the world through their eyes. I am not one of
those expert birdwatchers who can name each type of bird I see. I’m lucky if I
can pick out the more obvious ones, like cardinals, blue jays, crows, eagles,
hawks, finches and starlings. I am in awe of people who can tell you what kind
of bird is singing or calling at any given moment just by the sound they make.
I can only do that with cardinals, because I once had a pair that visited my
bird feeder every day, and, of course, crows because, well, everybody knows
what a crow sounds like!
As a writer,
I have spent countless years trying to find what is known in the literary world
as “my voice.” I have tried on one voice after another, often copying the style
of writers I admired when I was younger. The fact that nothing I wrote during
those years felt authentic or truly mine was a strong indicator that if I
wanted to be the very best writer I could be, I had to find my own voice and
write from there.
We humans
struggle throughout most of our lives trying to find our own voice, the one
that gives us good advice, that supports us as we pursue our dreams, and
comforts us when life throws us a curve ball. It’s the one that doesn’t call us
names, or tells us we’re failures, or reminds us of all of our shortcomings.
It’s the one who is always there when no one else is, and connects us in the
physical world with the truths that we stand firm on in our spiritual world. It
is the voice of authenticity.
The other
day as I was outside tending to some of the last of the autumn gardening
chores, I heard that distinctive sound that could only belong to a crow. He had
stopped by on his way to or from the corn fields where my neighbors are
harvesting and perched in a tree close by to where I was working. He squawked a
hello and proceeded to tell me a story while I worked. It did not matter that I
don’t speak fluent crow. What mattered was that the voice I heard was
distinctly his, and I thanked him in a voice that was distinctly mine.
And so it
is.
Monday, November 2, 2015
All For One And One For All
There's no denying that Autumn is a feast for the senses. The color pallet for this season burns its beauty into our eyes and hearts. There is a certain smell in the air, a crispness that whispers to us that winter is just around the corner. We enjoy the fruits of the harvest on our dinner tables and the aroma of apple pies baking gets our taste buds watering. One of other things I love about Autumn relates to a particular sound. What? Didn't think Autumn had a "sound?" Oh, but it does and the minute you hear it, your eyes are drawn skyward. Know what it is? Of course, it's the geese.
From the moment I feel that first crispness in the air, I strain my ears to listen for that familiar sound of the geese making their way to the pond down the road from my house. I have been fortunate that for the last 23 years I have lived near a body of water that attracts flocks of geese each and every year with a place to stop and rest themselves on their journey to their winter homes to the south. Even when I moved away to the city for 15 years, I was still within walking distance of a branch of the Chenango River, and the geese would fly right over my apartment from north to south as they headed for their next rest stop.
Have you ever watched a flock of geese in flight? I once read up on them for a project I was working on. When the one in the lead begins to tire out, another one will move forward and take his place so the first one can fall back and rest. If one of them goes to the ground because of injury or fatigue, another will go and stay with it until it is fit to fly again and will lead it in the direction of the rest of the flock. All that cackling and honking that goes on when they are in flight are for two reasons: First, they will alert each other if there is any danger from a predator in the area; Second, they call to each other to encourage the flock on, to keep them flapping and flying, to boost their morale. Truly, these beautiful animals are living examples of the old saying, "one for all and all for one."
I know I've said it before but it bears repeating - we can learn a lot about life from watching our animal relations. They have so much to teach us. Can you imagine a world where we watch out for one another, encourage one another and take care of each other without question or expectation of payment? Can you image a world where it's citizens act out of love and compassion without even stopping to think about it but out of sheer instinct? I believe that instinct is in all of us although for many it has lain dormant for so long that they have forgotten it is there. Sometimes we need Mother Nature to send us a reminder that makes so much noise we just have to pick ourselves up and look skyward to get the picture. We accomplish nothing when we work against each other. When we work with each other, everyone reaches their goals.
Once the visiting geese have moved on, the local geese, who have nice warm barns to winter in and have no need to become snow birds, will fly overhead and check out the pond to see if there is still time to get some fish to augment their diet of grain before the pond freezes over. When I hear them coming, I look up and see these hearty souls who, although their numbers are few, stick together, urge each other on, and watch each others' backs for the short trip from the farm to the pond and back again. What's that other old saying? Oh, yes: "Where two or three are gathered ..." - love is in their midst.
And so it is.
From the moment I feel that first crispness in the air, I strain my ears to listen for that familiar sound of the geese making their way to the pond down the road from my house. I have been fortunate that for the last 23 years I have lived near a body of water that attracts flocks of geese each and every year with a place to stop and rest themselves on their journey to their winter homes to the south. Even when I moved away to the city for 15 years, I was still within walking distance of a branch of the Chenango River, and the geese would fly right over my apartment from north to south as they headed for their next rest stop.
Have you ever watched a flock of geese in flight? I once read up on them for a project I was working on. When the one in the lead begins to tire out, another one will move forward and take his place so the first one can fall back and rest. If one of them goes to the ground because of injury or fatigue, another will go and stay with it until it is fit to fly again and will lead it in the direction of the rest of the flock. All that cackling and honking that goes on when they are in flight are for two reasons: First, they will alert each other if there is any danger from a predator in the area; Second, they call to each other to encourage the flock on, to keep them flapping and flying, to boost their morale. Truly, these beautiful animals are living examples of the old saying, "one for all and all for one."
I know I've said it before but it bears repeating - we can learn a lot about life from watching our animal relations. They have so much to teach us. Can you imagine a world where we watch out for one another, encourage one another and take care of each other without question or expectation of payment? Can you image a world where it's citizens act out of love and compassion without even stopping to think about it but out of sheer instinct? I believe that instinct is in all of us although for many it has lain dormant for so long that they have forgotten it is there. Sometimes we need Mother Nature to send us a reminder that makes so much noise we just have to pick ourselves up and look skyward to get the picture. We accomplish nothing when we work against each other. When we work with each other, everyone reaches their goals.
Once the visiting geese have moved on, the local geese, who have nice warm barns to winter in and have no need to become snow birds, will fly overhead and check out the pond to see if there is still time to get some fish to augment their diet of grain before the pond freezes over. When I hear them coming, I look up and see these hearty souls who, although their numbers are few, stick together, urge each other on, and watch each others' backs for the short trip from the farm to the pond and back again. What's that other old saying? Oh, yes: "Where two or three are gathered ..." - love is in their midst.
And so it is.
Monday, October 26, 2015
As Above, So Below
When I moved
to the Village of Marathon, New York the first time some 23 years ago, I lived
on Front Street, so called because it fronted on to the Tioughnioga River (don’t
even try to pronounce it). Shortly after I moved there, I would wake up in the
wee hours just as the day was waking up as well to see a blue heron standing in
the shallows on the river bank right outside my bedroom window. I
would sit for a while and just watch this beautiful creature standing silently, not moving, as the rest of the animal world went about their business of greeting
a new day. I knew it was waiting for its breakfast to put in an appearance and
didn’t want to scare it off by moving about, but to me its silent presence
seemed more mysterious than that.
You see, it
only appeared if I was struggling with some kind of decision or problem that I
needed to resolve. If I went looking for it on my walks along the river, I was
never able to find it. Yet I could be walking along with my mind on some issue
or other and look up only to find Mr. Heron standing there like a statue, his
feet in the shallows and his majestic body standing tall. Most of the time, I saw it
at dawn and dusk, but I also saw it at other odd times of the day. The most
magical time was one night around midnight when I was walking home from my
daughter’s house after spending the evening babysitting while she worked second
shift at a nursing home (yes, Marathon is the kind of place where you can
walk around after midnight and no one will bother you). As I was crossing the
bridge, thinking about how glad I was of the fresh air to wake me up, something
made me look over the railing. There, standing in the shallows in the glow of the
lights on the bridge, was my heron. I swear he looked at me.
I was at
that time immersed in my Native American studies, so I looked up the meaning of
having a heron as an animal totem. I learned that heron medicine is the power
of knowing the self by discovering our gifts and facing our challenges. It
urges us to dive into the watery world of our feelings to find the truth. Heron
reminds us to stay grounded in our beliefs (under the water representing our
inner most or spiritual selves) while operating in the outer world.
This
teaching has always stayed with me. Over the years that followed, and
especially the 15 years I spent away from the village, I always tried to stand
firm in my truth when facing whatever challenges life threw at me. Sometimes I
would lose my footing and then I would have to dive deep back into that watery
world to find the answers.
Now that I
am back in Marathon, I am a little more than 2 miles from the river. I
sometimes catch a glimpse of a heron majestically flying overhead, its long
legs out behind those beautiful wings. Is it my heron? I rather doubt that, but
who knows? Only last week 3 different people shared photos or videos about
herons on my Facebook page, and only one of them knew the significance of that
bird to me. As it happens, I am wrestling with a new writing project, something
bigger and more daunting than I have ever undertaken before. Perhaps heron has
come back to remind me to go deep, find my truth, and stay grounded in order to
face my fears and do what spirit calls me to do.
We all need
something that helps us to stay grounded in our truth. It’s what keeps us
authentic. It helps us to find our voice, and it shows us how to use our gifts.
May we all have herons in our lives to remind us to when to stand tall, and
when to fly.
And so it
is.
Monday, October 19, 2015
A Touch of Frost
This is what greeted me one morning last week:
The first touch of frost dusted the grass and reminded me that, even though we would probably still have some warm days yet, the year was winding down towards winter. There were more months behind us for this year on the calendar than there were left ahead of us.
The year I turned 60 was a lot like that as well. For some reason, as long as I was still in my 50's, I never gave it a thought, but after my birthday I suddenly realized that I had more years behind me than I was likely to have in front of me. That was a sobering thought for sure. It's not as if I thought my days were numbered, but when I looked back at those previous decades, I realized that I could not say with any certainty that my best days were behind me as well. There was nothing outstanding about them except for the birth of my two beautiful daughters which I consider my crowning achievement, but I didn't feel as if I had achieved any of the goals I had set up for myself or made more than one of my dreams come true - leaving the city behind and moving to the country. For a while I wondered if there was still time for me to go for the gold and make the rest of my dreams come true. Was I now "too old" to give birth to them?
Then I discovered my hero, Louise Hay, who affirmed: "Each age has its own special joys and experiences. I am always the perfect age for where I am in life." Maybe that was the key to it all. When I was having and raising my children, I was the perfect age to do that. Now that I am older, and my children are off living their own lives, I am the perfect age to experience the special joys and accomplishments that come with the wisdom of having lived 60+ years. As I sat down at my desk and picked up my pen again, I discovered that my writing had taken on a different hue, a warmer, deeper voice, and I knew that it wouldn't have been possible to write like that in my younger days. I needed a touch of frost, a touch of life experience, to add the color that my writing needed. I have since published two ebooks, have been writing this blog for three years, and am working on a new book that is longer and deeper than anything I have done before. I could not have even begun that project until I had lived it first.
Yesterday morning I woke up to yet another surprise:
Our first snow of the season (no, the bear isn't real. He has been standing guard over my gardens for the last 20 years). It's all gone now, melted away by the Autumn sun and temperatures reaching back for the 50's. Change happens. Seasons change. There are special joys and experiences in each of them and I know I am the perfect age to experience each and every one of them as only I can from where I am in my life.
And so it is.
The first touch of frost dusted the grass and reminded me that, even though we would probably still have some warm days yet, the year was winding down towards winter. There were more months behind us for this year on the calendar than there were left ahead of us.
The year I turned 60 was a lot like that as well. For some reason, as long as I was still in my 50's, I never gave it a thought, but after my birthday I suddenly realized that I had more years behind me than I was likely to have in front of me. That was a sobering thought for sure. It's not as if I thought my days were numbered, but when I looked back at those previous decades, I realized that I could not say with any certainty that my best days were behind me as well. There was nothing outstanding about them except for the birth of my two beautiful daughters which I consider my crowning achievement, but I didn't feel as if I had achieved any of the goals I had set up for myself or made more than one of my dreams come true - leaving the city behind and moving to the country. For a while I wondered if there was still time for me to go for the gold and make the rest of my dreams come true. Was I now "too old" to give birth to them?
Then I discovered my hero, Louise Hay, who affirmed: "Each age has its own special joys and experiences. I am always the perfect age for where I am in life." Maybe that was the key to it all. When I was having and raising my children, I was the perfect age to do that. Now that I am older, and my children are off living their own lives, I am the perfect age to experience the special joys and accomplishments that come with the wisdom of having lived 60+ years. As I sat down at my desk and picked up my pen again, I discovered that my writing had taken on a different hue, a warmer, deeper voice, and I knew that it wouldn't have been possible to write like that in my younger days. I needed a touch of frost, a touch of life experience, to add the color that my writing needed. I have since published two ebooks, have been writing this blog for three years, and am working on a new book that is longer and deeper than anything I have done before. I could not have even begun that project until I had lived it first.
Yesterday morning I woke up to yet another surprise:
Our first snow of the season (no, the bear isn't real. He has been standing guard over my gardens for the last 20 years). It's all gone now, melted away by the Autumn sun and temperatures reaching back for the 50's. Change happens. Seasons change. There are special joys and experiences in each of them and I know I am the perfect age to experience each and every one of them as only I can from where I am in my life.
And so it is.
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