...beautiful, beautiful, Mother Moon

These are both so beautiful...

I had to share them

I hope you can take a moment and enjoy them too...

xo

you may need tissue...

I cried

... these things that celebrate the divine in all of us

 open me up

and then come the tears.

...what about trust?

trust is on my mind tonight..

I even went to google to see what others have to say about it...

I couldn't find the words...a feeling? a choice?... 

and then I found this by Emerson, 

and he put it so simply....

put words to it....

trust

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First S

What a rare thing that is...that sort of friendship and trust...

what a gift to be given if someone trusts me like that...

I think there is a quote about trust being better than love...

I can love someone without trusting them...

and it's impossible 

 for me not to love someone 

I share that kind of friendship and trust...

knowing we can both be vulnerable and it will be respected....

a rare gift to be treasured and savored....

and nurtured.  

But dang it's so hard to allow that vulnerability... 

especially when it hasn't always worked out....

and isn't it the worst when it doesn't work out?

it hurts soooo much...

I've cried gallons of tears over broken trust....

and I've berated myself for allowing vulnerability   

because I know full well what it might mean in terms of hurt.  

But I do again and again 

because of the possibility that the 

pay off will be the kind of relationship 

Emerson writes about...... 

sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't.

xo

....shall we dance?

...and these ARE hard times....

look around

joblessness, shootings, militarized police forces, foreclosures, a war on women, efforts to control who gets to vote, the economy, homelessness, war, the environment, our food supply...and what about the ocean and our drinking water, Japan... 

and it's almost impossible for me to believe that people 

without health insurance really are allowed to die in my country......

such cruelty... 

child soldiers

and it goes on and on...

not to say there isn't a lot of really good stuff in the world, but sometimes the other feels a little overwhelming.

Include the job of everyday living and sometimes I can't wait to dance 

 dance it all away...and sometimes it is furious......dancing is good stuff....

relieves my stress...takes my mind and puts it in a better place...removes distractions.

I'm more in touch with my heart

I get more into my body...

 my best creative efforts start with a dance

dance

let's do it more

dance with me

xo

cool video

...include me

Prayer for Inclusion

Include me.

Invite me into the circle and guide me to the spot that bears my name

Escort me with a steadying touch, loose your hold and bear me aloft

Include my joy and ebullience, my hope and promise,

The tracks of endless tears and the wounds of struggle and pain

that have marked the past.

Include me raw and refined, defiant, quiescent

Include me enriched and diminished, broken and healed

Embrace me as the one anointed and demeaned,

Privileged and impoverished by stature, circumstance

or the trajectory of an inconstant moon.

Include my willingness.

Reap the fruits of surrender I have cultivated for this moment

Lead me through a doorway unadorned, a hallway lined with latency,

Pass the drinking gourd so that all who thirst,

May sip the undilute nectar of belonging.

Include me as woman, man, brother, sister, parent, child

Include me offering and offered, receiving and giving, creator and creation

Weave the strands of my soul into a blossoming tapestry of voices,

Joined by the shared heart of humanity and a long-aching hunger for unity.

Use every part of me

Include the infinitesimal and the inestimable

Lift me at once to my full height and humility

Draw out my hidden gifts and squandered talents

And draw me into the arms of others who await my arrival.

I am here in this Now,

Filled with passion, with purpose

My prayer but so simple:

Include me.

This prayer is one of two poems I received in the mail from poet Rachel Snyder......

the other is You Are the Prayer.

I am taking a little journey with her and several other ''volunteers''

....there are 30 something of us.

Rachel has a blog I visit often to savor her words.  
They always speak to me like they do a zillion others of us.

Rachel doesn't take credit for her magic...she thanks the Muses.

...and she wants to share what comes to her.

So each of us volunteers, and we are all over the world, will keep one of the two poems, and find a place to tuck the other somewhere in our community, or a place we find while traveling, so that someone else can have the gift.

You can read how the Words Divinely Wrought poetry-sharing project was born

 at Being Whole Now...

and maybe you'll want to join us in helping the words fly.

We can use all the thoughtful beauty in the world we can get...don't you think?  
Things that bring us together..
there are plenty of people at work to keep us separate.

xo

the magic of sticks

As a friend of mine might say when he is looking forward to something...

I am gently excited to say that I'm going to be one of a group of volunteers creating one of these magical works of art.... 

Patrick Dougherty

is bringing his wizardry to Fresno to install a work on the

 Fresno State Campus in November and my 

 friend joyce ,

 from Imagine Joy Art, and I have '

volunteered to work a couple of days.

I say gently as in I am going to have no expectations.  

I am just going to enjoy the adventure.

Expectations have gotten in my way a little bit lately

I watched a couple of videos of him talking about how he creates in order to get an idea of what working with him will be like...

and he says he doesn't always have a clear vision when he starts...

he allows the work to flow..

nice.

Call of the Wild

So Inclined

 Over the past thirty years, Patrick has built 230 of these whimsical sculptures all over the world

They stand for about two years before before nature takes them away.

Running in Circles

Standby

you can see more of his sculptures at...

Stickwork

...THE SHOULDS

A little bit ago I spent most of 6 days completely alone in Berkeley. I had a car to use, and a bit of money to spend, but I only went out for walks with Gus through the neighborhood and to the little park across the street and through the ally. 

 A park with a fabulous view.

There was no TV...no one to distract me, and nothing I had to do...It was just me and Gus.  

I had my laptop, but I didn't feel a strong pull to distract myself by plugging in...I'd wanted that sort of time for a while now....time to breathe...take a look at some things...Time to just be. Just listen to myself and relax into just being alone with my thoughts...take the time to write and read and meditate and all that good stuff. And then I found myself directing...I should read now and walk later, I shouldn't be reading this, I should read that, I should sit in the sun, I should write, I should, blah, blah, blah...I caught myself pacing...Had I forgotten how to just be? 

It took discipline to sit in the nest I made for Gus and me on the deck and just relax...watch the deer and the wind in the trees..

But I got it! I did it! I relaxed....and it was heaven. 

I cannot remember the last time I did nothing and felt no guilt....

Here at home I have a never ending list of things I need to do,

and the equally long, and much more distressing list that contains all the 

SHOULDS.

It is the Should List that so often trips me up, distracts me, freezes me in place.

I have been Shoulding myself into a dead zone...

I tie myself up in Shoulds...I should do this, I should have done that...

I should feel this, end that, I should be more of this and less of that.

Along time ago I asked a busy and creative friend how she kept from becoming overwhelmed. 

She told me she just concentrates on one thing at a time...what a concept....and it's a concept that I sometimes remember. She is in the moment...

and certainly not thinking about the Shoulds.

To me, ''I should'', is just another way of saying I don't want to. And the Shoulds have power, the power to keep me out of the moment. They keep me from enjoying and settling into the things I do want to do, and the things I must do. 

They rob me of the moment. 

They keep me distracted. 

They rob me of my creativity....

and the thing is, so many of the Shoulds I hold on to, are things I will most likely never, ever, do. 

They are on the list mostly because someone else gave them to me. 

 And there are the things that get mixed in with the Shoulds like the Musts, and many things that I actually want to do that have somehow been delegated to the Should List ...

''I should be in the studio, creating.''

...that's awful...creativity a Should??

My Should List has the power to make me feel less than...

I should be able to do it all, focused and with ease, having everything in order and under control by noon, then step into artist mode and start....but most often what happens is I just stop and feel overwhelmed and guilty....not so creative.

And then there is this....beginning, beginning the creative part of each day is a constant challenge and sometimes the Shoulds are welcome.

xo

ps....dates on the photos are incorrect, and I don't want dates at all. 

 Fixing the setting is on the Should List.

I just made myself lunch and during the 15 min. that took, a whole flood of Shoulds slammed through my brain....I decided that I will start to put the words, Must or Want to in place of Should.....and see what that looks like.

I must stop Shoulding.