The Long And Winding Road

The boxes are packed. The walls are bare, only the shadows of pictures and paintings remain. Living off of microwave food and fresh fruit for three more days. October 1 begins a new month and a new chapter in my life. My long and winding road is bringing me back to where a new me was planted and blossomed.

Here at the age of 65 I am continually amazed when I look back at the journey I have been on and how I somehow arrived at my authentic self. When I think about some of the pivotal moments of my life, like two divorces, a college degree at 36 (with three kids a home and a job at the same time), two major out-of-state moves, an accident and a chance encounter with a teddy bear that led me to my true home, I stand in awe of the strength of the human spirit and the love of the Creator for its creations. If anyone had told me years ago that I had the power to create the life I wanted regardless of outside events, I would have said they were crazy... and yet, on some level, I always knew that there was something more and my curiosity refused to let go of that idea. An idea is a powerful thing. If you give it full rein, it can take you anywhere.

Is there some sadness connected with leaving where I am now? Sure there is. Regardless of the fact that from the moment I moved here I was already trying to plan my escape, my long and winding road had to make a stop here so I could learn what I had to learn and for that I am grateful. I will miss my little nature spot outside of my window. I will miss squirrels coming up and scratching on the window when they see me at the computer. I will miss the sparrows and finches that came to the feeder, the antics of Freddy the Blue Jay and the devotion of Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal for each other. As I take down the feeders and watch them as they search for what is no longer there, I tell them that there is a new feeder and a new home for them if they would only take that leap and look for it.

Never lose hope that your long and winding road will end up in a dead end, or go on aimlessly forever. It will take you where you need to go, teach you what you need to learn, and then it will take you home.

And so it it.

P.S. I will be offline for a while until my internet connection is hooked up. I will respond to your sweet comments as soon as I can!

All Apples Are Not Created Equal

One of the perks of living in upstate New York comes around this time of the year. As soon as the first nip is in the air and the first leaves start to turn, you can be sure that it's apple harvest time. Local orchards open their gates to let folks pick there own and even post on their web sites which variety of apples are currently ready to pick. Every village and town holds their yearly apple festivals and you can be sure that all of your favorite apple desserts will be ready to sample like apple pie, apple crumb, apple turnovers and muffins and, of course, apple cider freshly made. Every  kind of apple you can think of is also available from the old standbys like Granny Smith, Red Delicious and  Gala, to McIntosh and Honey Crisp. Living just a few miles from the home of Cortland apples makes me feel kind of proud to be a part of it all.

Now folks are pretty particular in these parts concerning which apple is best for which kind of dessert. Some say the Granny Smiths are the best apples for making pie, while others would choose Cortland apples. Does a Gala make a better baked apple than a McIntosh? And which one is best for just plain eating (the vote is still out on that one but I prefer a good old Red Delicious myself). Whatever your needs are, there is an apple to fill the bill.

This reminds me of the diversity of humankind on the planet. Everyone has a purpose, a talent, something that they are better at than others. Some folks make really great doctors while others were born to write the Great American Novel or find a cure for cancer. Maybe you enjoy having your head in the stars while your neighbor would rather have his head hovering over a microscope. Whatever your talent or passion, there is a reason that you are here and a gift that only you can share. If someone asked me to solve a complex math problem or write an equation, I would be completely and totally lost. But if you asked me to write a story or crochet a baby blanket, I'd be on it like a flash. Not all apples are created equal and neither are people.  Celebrate your uniqueness and share your talents with the world.

As for me, I know one thing I am very, very good at ... eating apple pie! So if you'll excuse me, I hear a slice that is calling to me ....

And so it is.

Some Dreams Just Take A Little Longer

I began this series on clutter clearing with two thoughts in mind. One was that I wanted to let go of those things that no longer served me and that were keeping me from moving forward. I intended this on both a material and a spiritual level. The other was that all of my favorite teachers advised when you clear your home of unwanted things and clutter, you make room for new and wonderful things in your life. My intention here was to manifest a new home. Ah, but here is the most important point: I wasn't just trying to manifest a new home anywhere. My intention was to manifest a home in a very special, very particular place.

Those of you who have followed by blogs from the beginning know that a little more than 20 years ago I packed up my old '76 Chevy with only necessities and my favorite things and headed out to a new life in a little village in upstate New York. I took up gardening for the first time and learned to grow myself along with the flowers, herbs and vegetables. For seven very happy years I lived in the kind of peace and sense of community that small towns are famous for. Alas, the economy knew nothing about peace, community or gardening. It only knew that the jobs in my area were few and far between, and businesses were either closing or laying off in large numbers. I had to go out farther and farther to find work, and when you live in what is referred to as "the Syracuse Show Belt," driving 54 miles round trip in the winter for work can make for a long and stressful week. So I reluctantly and tearfully left my happy home behind and moved closer to my job. However, I never, never gave up hope that I would go home some day to stay. To cement that intention in place, I made some prayer ties in the Native American tradition and buried them along the river bank under a tree that my granddaughter used to call Grandma Willow after the the grandmother tree in the Disney version of Pocahontas. The prayer ties all said that I would some day come home to stay. Then I filled two small jars with river water and stones that I have kept on my mini alter at home for the last 15 years.

A few weeks after I began my clutter clearing, I found some photos from back home and put them in small frames that I sat on my desk so that I would see them every morning. Two weeks ago I received a phone call from the lovely folks who were my landlords when I lived in my little piece of heaven. They had also left the area for a few years as one of them had been transferred for work to Buffalo. He had retired and they returned home where they purchased a new house. When I saw them in April at the Annual Maple Festival, they asked me when I was coming home. I told them, "you find me the perfect place, and I'll retire and start packing." Two weeks ago they called. Their tenet was moving out to take care of her aged father ... the place was mine if I wanted it. I hung up the phone and cried, great big tears of joy. I am finally going home. In three weeks I will be looking out of my window at valleys filled with Mother Nature's patchwork quilt of fields and trees, barns and silos, and the blessed silence that is only interrupted by passing geese and visiting birds. Home.

Some dreams just take a little longer to come true. Maybe they might have come true sooner if I had trusted my intuition and hadn't let fear and uncertainty cloud my judgement. Or, maybe I just wasn't ready until now. No matter. I learned that when I keep my eyes on my goal, set my intention and trust that Creator has bigger and better plans for me than any I could conceive of myself, dreams really do come true. So what can you dream up? Think big. You deserve it!

And so it is.

Our Mess Is Our Message

In the continuing saga that is my huge de-cluttering project in my home of 14 years, I made an astonishing discovery in the big storage closet underneath the pile of Christmas decorations, a table top Christmas tree and plastic Santas. I found three more boxes of files and papers. Having spent an entire week in the den cleaning out file cabinets and desks, this discovery was a less than welcome sight. Since this adventure in cleaning out my life as well as my home has turned into more of a Quest For The Holy Grail-type adventure rather than a chore that was put off too long, I decided to sit down that minute and deal with those boxes. I wanted to be rid of this paper monster once and for all.

In the span of an hour I was surrounded by paper. I separated it all into three piles: keep, shred, recycle. What I found was a statement about my life up until this point. I found the mortgage papers on a house that burned down 20 years ago; the child immunization records for my 42 year old daughter; phone bills from when I lived in another state; the paper I wrote in my senior year of collage that won me the Philosophy of Religion Award at graduation (I was quite the intellectual back then); my clippings from my days as a reporter and feature writer for a local newspaper;  bank statements and cancelled checks from a bank that no longer exits, etc. The list goes on and on. Is it any wonder that for the last 15 years I have been having trouble moving forward in my life? My past was literally weighing me down! As I looked at the piles around me on the floor it became clear to me that my mess was my message. This was the message that I was sending out into the world: I'm stuck, I can't move my life forward, I am living in the past, I am letting my memories become my future. So I pulled out only those things that I loved or that brought value to my life: a painting done by my very  first grandchild when she was in grade school of me with the title, "Portrait of My Grammy," my clippings and the award winning paper that I wrote (after all, words are my life's passion), and a few other small items. The rest went into one of the other two piles.

When I think about my mess being my message, I think about the kind of messes that send out a message of happiness, love, family and contentment. I think of the pile of dirty dishes after a holiday meal with loved ones, of a table covered with newspaper, paints and paper filled with the creations of my grandchildren, or the empty flower pots, spilled potting soil and dirty gardening gloves on my porch that created a living, breathing sanctuary of green. Those are the kinds of messes we should all be lucky enough to live in. I want the new life that I am creating to only have messes that make me glad to be alive. That, my friends, is the Holy Grail of life.

And so it is.

An Attitude of Gratitude

There is a video making the rounds on the Internet that demonstrates what true gratitude looks like. Oddly enough, it is not an adult, but an 8 year old boy who is the teacher, and a beautiful spirit he is.

The story goes that the little boy has asked for a tablet for his birthday. The video is in Spanish but there is no need for an interpreter to tell us what is going on. He is sitting at the kitchen table and his mother hands him a wrapped package in the obvious shape of a tablet. However, when he tears off the paper, he finds a hand made wooden cutting board instead of a tablet. He smiles at his parents and runs his hands over the board, obviously impressed with the workmanship that went in to making his gift. He gets up and hugs both of his parents, saying thank you and telling them he loves them. Then he sits back down and goes back to examining his gift. Suddenly his mother hands him a second wrapped gift. He looks at them questioningly, and slowly removes the paper. The minute he sees the picture of the tablet on the outside of the box, he bursts into tears of joy and jumps up to hug his parents again, thanking them from the bottom of his sweet, little heart. His happiness brought tears to my eyes, not because he got what he wished for, but because he was prepared to accept the gift he was given in gratitude and with more grace than any adult I have every known.

What a gift this child has given us by his example. Our children and grandchildren have been raised in a culture that would scoff at the notion that they should be grateful for a cutting board instead of a tablet. Perhaps it is the difference in the cultures, but I suspect it has more to do with the wisdom of his parents in raising a child who will grow into a young man with integrity, gratitude and a belief that we already have all that we need: love, kindness, compassion, and gratitude; a roof over ones head, food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a world outside of our windows (and away from our TV's and computers) that is better than any reality show or video game. What more do we need?

Maybe one day this little boy will grow up to change the world. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all help him by teaching our children to follow in his footsteps?

And so it is.

P.S. The title of the video on  YouTube is Kid Falls In Love With Cutting Board. Couldn't make the link work.

Start From Where You Are

Last week I began a major clutter-clearing project in my apartment. It is amazing what one can accumulate in 15 years. It might not have been so bad if I had done some of this when I moved here from my last home. In any case, I had huge plans to get rid of anything that I did not absolutely need or love. I was told by several teachers and friends on the spiritual path that if you want to manifest something, you have to make room for it. I am trying to manifest a new home, so it stands to reason that I would want to only bring to a new home those things that I require for my new life while releasing those things that no longer serve me or that tie me down.

If you read last week's posting you saw that I made some good headway but in the beginning all of my best intentions went right out of the window when I stood in the middle of my apartment looking around at all of my belongings and was immediately overwhelmed by all my stuff. I remember an old George Carlin routine about having so much stuff and having to organize it all. In that moment I felt as if it was an impossible task for little old me. Then I remembered some advice I got from one of my favorite teachers whom I adore, Denise Linn, who always tells us when we are facing some seemingly enormous task to "start from where you are." So I took a deep breath and looked around me. I was standing in the living room. "Start from where you are." I opened the entertainment center doors and started going through DVD's and VCR tapes (yes, I still have a VCR ... so you can see my need to start unloading some of this stuff). Before I knew it I had filled cartons with things to be donated, things to be sold and lots of old things to be tossed. It took a few hours but the relief I felt was nothing compared to the sense of determination that told me I could do this not only in one room but in every room.

Sometimes we are faced with situations in our lives that seem so overwhelming we just can't wrap our minds around them. We simply have no idea how we will ever accomplish it or even survive it. It just all seems too big to handle. When this happens, Denise's advice of "start from where you are," makes even more sense than just for clutter clearing. Break the task or situation down to small steps and then just take the first one. You don't have to drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how you will get it all done, you just have to do that one small thing. For me it was just standing in the middle of the room and deciding to open that one small door. As I began to move from one room to the next, I realized that with every small step I took, the task before me got lighter and lighter. I am a long way from done as we speak, but I no longer feel as if it will never get done. I am even starting to get excited at the prospect of being free of so many things. With this kind of spirit going for me, just imagine what kind of new home and new life I can manifest ... starting from right where I am right now!

And so it is.

Going With The Flow: Part Two

Back in October I shared the experience of putting out positive thoughts and vibrations to the Universe and in return receiving the opportunity to leave a job where I was terribly unhappy, as well as being 50 minutes away by bus,  in exchange for one that was across the street from where I lived. I said at the time that when we "go with the flow" instead of fighting against our experiences, things can come to us that we might never expect. In my case this was especially true. The update is even more amazing than the original experience although not without some drama.

Less than three months into the new job it was apparent that the job described to me during the interview and the job in reality were two different things. I am not pointing blame at anyone. It may well have been the case that they were so desperate to find a replacement for my niece, and I was so desperate to leave the other job, that we each heard what we wanted to hear and not what was actually being said. While most of the job description was accurate, one duty was sort of glossed over and that involved acting like a collection agency for counseling services. There are many things that I am good at and feel comfortable doing ... hounding people for money is not one of them, especially if those people are in emotional or spiritual pain which is why they needed the services in the first place. In any case, at the same time that I realized I was having to force myself to go to work, my niece unexpectedly became pregnant and could not work the grueling hours demanded by her new job. Here was an opportunity to correct a mistake and make everyone happy. So I agreed to be let go in exchange for them hiring my niece back (who has no problem collecting money from people) and decided to take a few months off to just breathe for the first time in seven years. I figured that by the end of the summer I would sign up with a temp agency and continue to work part time.

There is a saying that goes, "when people make plans, God laughs," or something to that effect. If you go back to my posts from late June you will remember that I took a tumble outside in the middle of June and fractured my left hip and shoulder, requiring surgery to put two pins in my hip. There would be no going back to work. At first I was upset and let myself get carried away by the injustice of it all. Slowly, after much prayer and sitting in silent meditation to try to hear the lesson in all of this, I came away with this: what would you be willing to let go of in order to have what you've always wanted? I recognized that I would be willing to let go of a great deal in order to be able to retire, at least for now, and focus on writing, gardening and living an authentic life once again. So that is the decision I made. It may not be forever. It may only be for a while. But for now, despite the pain of my injuries as I continue to mend, I feel alive for the first time in 15 years.

I recognize that this will not be an easy road. There will not be much disposable income. But I have come to recognize how little I need to be happy. For the past few weeks I have been spending several hours a day going through old papers, books, music, movies, etc. Some were sold off, some donated to the local library for their book sales. The clothes, when I get to them, will go where they will do someone some good. The "good" china that has not come out for more years than I can remember is going on Craigslist. I may even entertain the notion of finally fulfilling my dream of moving back home again to that little town where life is simple and people say hello to you on the street. For now it is enough that I have uncharted territory ahead of me and it feels good to be on an adventure again after all this time. Where is your uncharted territory?

And so it is.