The Five Gifts of Christmas: Gift One - The Gift of Mindfullness

For the next five weeks, I am going to share five gifts with you. You don't have to wait for Christmas to open them up. They are gifts that I hope will be useful to you each and every day of your life. Feel free to re-gift them to others!

The first gift is the Gift of Mindfulness. During the holiday season, mindfulness is probably the last thing on anybody's mind. We are so busy trying to get everything done, get all the presents bought and wrapped, plan, shop and cook the holiday meals, bake the cookies, go to yet another Christmas party somewhere ... STOP! There came a time not too long ago when, after surviving just such a stressful holiday season, I took a step back and really looked at what I had accomplished. Had the gifts really been picked out with love and thoughtfulness for the person receiving it, or was it just another item checked off the list? Did I enjoy making the food and baking the cookies, or were they just chores to be gotten done? Was there even one tiny piece of the holidays that I actually got to enjoy, or did I sigh with relief on December 26th, happy to know I survived yet another season?

After giving it a great deal of thought, I realized that when I was gardening, I got a lot more done when I was mindful of what I was doing, giving each thing my full attention and allowing myself to enjoy each minute. From the first moment I stepped outdoors and looked up at the sky, or took a deep breath of the spring air, or stopped to listen to the morning birdsong, each and every thing I did after that received my undivided, individual attention. Then things not only seemed to flow effortlessly, but I got as much out of it as my garden did. So I decided to bring that same kind of mindfulness to the holiday season. When I shopped for a gift, I stopped and put my full attention on that person. What were they like? What did I most appreciate about them? What could I make or purchase that would carry the message: "I love having you in my life?" It didn't have to be anything huge or expensive. One of the most loving gifts I ever gave my sister was to re-create all of the things in her very own Christmas stocking exactly as our mother had done for us years ago when we were kids, compete with a Christmas coloring book, crayons, and an orange in the toe of the stocking. The cost was minimal. The expression on her face was priceless. 

Mindfulness is the ability to be conscious or aware of something fully. What would it feel like to be fully in the moment when you're baking cookies, or wrapping gifts? What if a few beautiful, heart-felt decorations brought the beauty and love of the season more fully into your awareness than trying to out-do the neighbors light display? What if taking a few moments on a crisp winter night to go outside and look for the North Star became the focal point of even one evening instead of cruising online shopping sites? 

This season I give you the Gift of Mindfulness to help you to be fully conscious and aware of the beauty and love this time of year brings. Here's hoping you have the willingness to stop the madness and, instead, accept it all from that place of unconditional love from whence it comes. 

And so it is. 

Happy Tofurky Day!

Every family has that one "different" person, the one that makes you wonder if this was the one that went home with the wrong family from the hospital. If you follow my blog posts and Facebook Fan Pages, it should come as no surprise to you that I am "that one" in my family. The fact that I look exactly like my parents also cancels out the idea of having gone home with the wrong family but, honestly, for most of  my life I swear I thought it was true.

For example, I was the only one with imaginary friends that I kept up a running conversation with regardless of where we were, even in the grocery store. I was the only one who, at the age of six, saw nothing wrong with lecturing our parish priest on how the idea of babies being born into original sin was just plain wrong. I was the first one in my family to go all rock and roll, complete with Beatle haircut and black wardrobe (my father was constantly asking me who died). I marched in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the ERA and embarrassed my mother when, at the age of 35, having gone back to college to get my degree, I picketed the luncheon on campus for the college trustees and alumni to get them to divest their investments out of South Africa when Nelson Mandela was in prison. Yeah, so, I'm definitely that "one" in my family.

Now, at the age of 66, you'd think I'd have calmed down a bit. Wrong! I still support causes and speak out openly against injustices. I live my life by my own set of beliefs, and if that makes some folks uncomfortable, or wondering if I'm entirely sane, that's their issue, not mine. Which brings me to Thanksgiving ... in particular, how does one celebrate this holiday when one is vegan?

Going vegan was a choice of conscience. I won't go into gory details here. All you have to do is go on Netflix or YouTube and watch some of the documentaries. In fact, FMTV (Food Matters TV) has been running a free week of just such videos. In any case, that's where I put a great deal of my support right now, on issues of animal rights and animal cruelty. I don't expect everyone in my family to hop on my bandwagon, nor do I expect them to go out of their way to accommodate me at family gatherings. My youngest daughter, however, is doing just that for me this year. She got me a Tofurky (vegan non-meant turkey roast) all my own. She is also making a separate stuffing in addition to the family recipe my mother passed down for sausage stuffing. She is making sure there are plenty of appetizers that don't contain cheese, and my oldest granddaughter is making crab dip with fake crab ... all just for me.

So this year I am extra, extra thankful for all that I have. I live in a country where it is okay to be the odd one in the family because we odd ones are the ones that move the world forward out of the darkness. I am thankful for the opportunity to show my love and support for all living things. I am thankful for family and friends who support me and go out of their way to help me be me. Most of all, this year I am thankful for the folks who make Tofurky for giving me my very own, special Thanksgiving! You are helping save the planet and making a whole lot of people happy at the same time!

If you know someone who is the odd one in your family, or, if that person is you, then give them or yourself a great, big pat on the back and give thanks for a world that produces such gems. Just remember: when things get dark, we're the ones that become the spark!

Happy Thanksgiving. And so it is.

Walking Our Talk

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?

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.

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)

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. 

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.