General: May 2007 Archives

Here in the U.S., we had a holiday weekend. For Rick and me, it was a lovely opportunity to spend extra time together and get things done that needed to be, especially in the garden. We finally got the back patio organized after the fast and furious sudden emptying of the garage in February to make way for the pool. What a relief to be able to look out the sliding glass doors and see order for a change! 

Tomorrow, Peter comes to install our EcoSmarte system that will allow us to keep the pool clean without using chlorine or other chemicals. I am really looking forward to that because even though the pool uses very little chlorine and only contains about the amount of it found in municipal tap water, that’s still too much for me! 

This Friday morning, I’m heading to North Carolina for a week of visiting. I was fortunate to get a non-stop flight, and though it cost more, it will be worth not having to deal with the plane change for all kinds of reasons. I will still avail myself of wheelchair service as my knees are just not ready for that much walking on concrete. What a blessing to be able to have that assistance. I do believe my swimming pool time has made a big difference in my knees, but I’m not going to push it more than necessary. 

I’ll be staying with my sister in Raleigh for the first few days, where I’ll be having dinner with a dear friend Saturday night, then moving to my dad’s in Thomasville for the rest of the time. I’ll use his place as my home base and will be visiting from there. I’ll spend time with my other sister and with a couple of girlfriends before heading back to Raleigh to rendezvous with another friend for lunch and then fly back here.  There is a lot to do between now and Friday, but I’ve decided to take it easy and allow it to be an Easy World adventure. I always feel resistance to leaving home, especially when the garden is going to be peaking while I’m gone, but I’m excited to be seeing my loved ones, and there will be a whole summer ahead when I get back June 8. 

Rick and I will be celebrating our 8^th anniversary on Thursday. We got married on Memorial Day of 1999. I nearly committed a treasonous act when I was planning my NC trip—I wasn’t thinking about the dates and our upcoming anniversary and almost booked the trip to span the anniversary date, but Rick reminded me in time. I’m already going to be ribbed about it for the rest of my life, but at least I didn’t actually buy the ticket! We’re going to celebrate upon my return. 

Here is another shot from the garden, taken Saturday. This one is the Luna Memorial Garden, created in memory of my dear dachshund sidekick, Luna (1988-2002), and fertilized with her ashes:

 

Had a little trouble logging in last night, so though I’m posting this Sunday at noon, keep in mind, it’s really from yesterday… 

As you may have noticed, the blog was disrupted for awhile due to some platform changes and despite Tony’s best efforts, the links within the blog to other blog entries and the links pretty much all over the Web with links to my blog entries no longer work. We’re doing our best to create redirects to the entries in question, but it will just take time. If you notice one that goes to an error message, please direct our attention to it so we can fix it! 

The pool had a hiccup this week. The heater stopped working. But I managed, with Rick’s help, to stay mostly in Easy World with it. Luckily, Peter was in town for the weekend and was able to come by this afternoon and fix it quickly and easily, thank goodness! When he was able to get it to work after only about 10 minutes, I said, “Easy World!” and he said, “No—Easy World would be it not needing to be fixed at all.” But I figure that it was EW for me, if not for him! He said he didn’t mind because it gave him a chance to see us. What a sweetie! Anyway, I decided it was my cue to skip a day of swimming to give my body recovery time (and the pool time to heat back up). I am such an addict now that it feels quite strange to skip my swim. Tomorrow! 

The garden is coming into its glory and it’s a thrill to see. After the trouble I had with my knees on uneven surfaces last summer, I really wasn’t sure I would be able to keep it up and the thought was too depressing for words! So it’s quite a relief to be doing so much better and able to do garden chores. I am so happy at how easily things have come together this year, and how well I am able to get around. Here is a sampling of today in the garden:

This is my Happy Place, where I love to sit and daydream, enjoy the garden, appreciate all the work that's been done, and try not to fixate on all that still needs to be accomplished:

   Things are just about to burst open in the Luna gardens--some more than others:    

And here is a close up of a Swallowtail Columbine bloom from the photo above: 

This flower from outer space is really an allium (onion family):

 

I'll leave you with that for now, and with promises of more garden photos to come!

Oh--remember that my next free teleseminar  is Tuesday--hope you can make it!

When you see my professional photo, you see something a bit different than you see when you see me in person. That picture was taken 3 years ago and was Photoshopped to smooth out the lines and puffiness, and take off a few pounds. At the time, I was losing weight and was hoping to take off more than a few pounds and find a way to smooth out the lines in real life and I didn’t want a fat, lined image to haunt me for eternity once I did that.

But reality has turned out differently. Instead of losing weight, I gained it. Instead of less lines, more. And I don’t even want to talk about puffiness! While I’m sure my swimming is trimming me down, I don’t know that I’ll ever look exactly like that picture again. And that has to be okay.

Yesterday, I was preparing to go out shopping for the garden, and because I was hot from being outside and my hair felt like a blanket and looked pretty funky from letting it dry naturally after swimming the evening before, I put it up in a French twist and clamped it in place. It looked fine—presentable, at least—but I knew Jermayn (my hairstylist) would be mortified if she saw it. Thankfully, I wasn’t going to be anywhere close to the hair salon.

As I inspected the back and sides in the mirror to be sure it was up securely and nothing was sticking out, I saw the profile of a chubby old lady with a double chin and bifocals. My first thought was, “Wow! I’m wearing a strange disguise to go out in the world!”

Because, of course, internally, I may always imagine myself the young, slim beauty of my 20s and 30s. Even though it really is strange to look so different on the outside than I feel on the inside, there’s a certain relief involved. And a realization that no one here in Denver is looking at me and comparing me to my youthful self. (Of course, it’s a different story in North Carolina!)

I sincerely doubt anyone I meet here on the street is thinking, “Boy—she’s really let herself go.” They just see a middle-aged, overweight lady with a kind face, twinkle in her bifocaled eye, and a bit of a limp, and I now realize if they feel pity for me at all, it’s their own fear of aging at the root of it.

Accepting myself no matter what—quite a cool concept. I may get the hang of it yet! And soon I may even have a new professional photo taken—one that shows me more realistically. But I really, really want to swim off a few more inches first…(grin)

Oh—and a little P.S.—As I was bent over with my nose buried in the herbs at the garden center yesterday afternoon, I heard a voice call out, “Well look who’s here!” When I looked up, it was Jermayn, my aforementioned hairdresser. In the five years she has done my hair, I have never, EVER run into her anywhere. I’ve only ever seen her at the beauty salon. She didn’t say she was mortified at my hair, but when I told her what I had been thinking before I left the house, she didn’t reassure me with, “Oh—you look fine,” either! And that’s perfectly alright.

If you’re really lucky, someone will do something that pushes your ow-y buttons and you’ll be far enough along in your spiritual growth to know that no matter how inconsiderate or potentially hurtful what the other person did was, when it comes right down to it, it’s all about what is inside you.

I had a rude awakening this week. Someone close to me did something that I perceived to be extremely disrespectful—a betrayal of our relationship—and I felt the sting in a powerful way. At first, I was focused on what she had done “to me,” and felt all the disempowered feelings of a victim. Very painful. Even though I immediately knew at a rational level that I was just as responsible as she was for what had transpired, and probably even more so because we create by virtue of our vibration, (I didn’t just start this spiritual growth thing yesterday!), I still felt profoundly wounded by her actions.

But as the shock wore off, I began to realize at a visceral level that her actions had revealed something within me that needed to be healed. Because of what she had initiated, I was able to look in the mirror and see that there was a deep, core issue that I had not tended to—one that had been there since early childhood. The feeling that she had stirred up was not unfamiliar, though rarely as strongly felt, and as I began to roll it around in my mind and heart, I could see what it was and how the seeds of it within me had been planted and how they had continued to create situations with a similar theme throughout my life.

As I began to claim responsibility, I felt myself climbing in vibrational frequency, and as is the usual phenomenon, what had seemed like a devastating problem began to look like an opportunity. And as I embraced the situation and accepted it and allowed Love to flow, I climbed even higher in frequency and my view of it changed even further.

I began to see that it was not really a problem but a profound gift. I even began to feel gratitude for “the one that done me wrong” because, though I don’t condone what she did, I see from a higher perspective that she did what she had to in order for me to wake up and heal this very primal wound within me. That’s a soul mate for you.

I am not yet sure exactly what I am going to do to re-wire this within me, but I’m going to keep surrendering and surrendering to the remarkable wisdom of my Higher Self. I’m going to continue to feel gratitude at this opportunity to change the belief of the wounded child within me that very long ago took on the erroneous idea that I am a being of insignificance who doesn’t warrant respect from some of those closest to her. I am going to disable those buttons somehow and transform my experience because that is the blessing in all this.

Yes—this is an opportunity and a great gift, indeed.