Category Archives: moving, breathing, feeling

Apr11

home of the bluebird of happiness

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Our friend Barb put this birdhouse up outside of Pam’s studio.  Yesterday, Pam noticed that the bluebirds seemed to be staking out this real estate.  Good choice.  It is high up, protected from the elements.  And of course the design had to factor in.

I sometimes wonder where the bluebirds of happiness live.  I would like to join them, hang out with them more.  Then I got this in my inbox today – a clue as to their location.

Take the worthiness that is yours, and let the “Fairies of the Universe” assist you. Stop taking so much responsibility upon yourself, and live happily ever after. Shorten that crevasse between where you are and where you want to be, on every subject, to now, now, now, now, now. Ride the wave. Just pluck the fruit… You don’t have to be the one who puts it in the ground any more. You can just skip across the top of things and pluck the fruit of all of the things you want. “Oh, fruit. Oh, delicious this, delicious this, delicious this, delicious this.” In other words, it’s all right there for you; it’s ready for you to receive it as fast and as soon as you will vibrationally let it in.

— Abraham

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Apr9

on not waiting

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I did not write a post yesterday.  I did not have an inspiration for a post.  I tried waiting, fingers on the keyboard, mind searching, digging, not finding.  I decided not to wait.

I feel like when I am waiting, I am focused too hard on wanting, and when I am focused on wanting, I am also focused on what I do not have. An idea or enough of anything – money, chocolate, fun.

When I start thinking about lack, then it is time for a change.

One of the strategies in my eBook, Breaking into Blossom, is change, inspired by Pauline Oliveros’s Poem of Change.  The point is to change anything, your position, your location, your mind, your body.  Dramatically, imperceptibly.

A few weeks ago, I listened to an Abraham workshop with Esther Hicks, and she said, “Make the fun that you are having unrelated to anything else.”  What that meant was to not make the fun you are having dependent on how much money you have, how great your blog post is, how your health is, how your kids are doing or anything else.

For the past three years, we have been trying, but not really trying, to sell our house.  We love our house, and don’t particularly want to move.  But we also feel it is time to have less to take care of, or rather, to be taking more care of what has become most important to us – our creative endeavors and each other.

So I need to stop waiting there too.  Stop waiting for a buyer, for a resolution to that uncertainty.  Because here is the thing:  if I am waiting, I am not really here, not breathing this breath, not dancing the dance of this moment, savoring what is here.

Not waiting is one of those changes that requires vigilance, noticing – so that I can tell if I have slid back into some subtle, cramped form of waiting.

What are you waiting for?

Apr7

rebirth

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Photo by Pam White

from Please Call Me by My True Names

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

Apr7

passage

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Yesterday our beloved cat Musia died.

Musia is from St. Petersberg, Russia.  She came from one of the city’s “kitten clubs” and we were told that she is Siberian.  She arrived sight unseen to us 16 years ago.  Here is the story.

My dance company was performing Ghostdance in St. Petersberg.  One evening after rehearsals, we were strolling on the Kamennoostrovsky Bridge.  As we walked we saw people were standing with boxes of kittens that they were selling.  In one box was a tiny, tiny kitten with  dot on his nose.  I was smitten.  We did not take him.  We could not find a carrier, a vet.  As we were leaving, in the airport, we saw an American family smiling happily with their Russian kitten in a carrier.  I was struck with remorse.

Over the next week, I corresponded with my Russian contact, Helen Zinchik, who actually managed to find the kitten because of his distinctive markings.  Lisa First, the festival organizer agreed to fly the kitten to JFK where we would meet her during her brief layover on the way back to Minneapolis.  At the last minute Helen called and said, “Will you take another kitten?  Her name is Musia.  I have her sister Dusia.”  Of course we would.

We would fly from Martha’s Vineyard to JFK to meet her.  Our plane was late.  As we circled over JFK, I knew the window was closing.  Finally we landed, and I raced through the airport to find Lisa.  She had five minutes before her flight.  We connected, and she handed me the carrier, a quick hug, and I ran back through the airport for our flight that was also departing momentarily.  The security machine was broken, and so (pre-2001) the agent waved me through.  I could see Musia’s black and white tufted paws waving through the carrier door.

Pam literally stood in the door of our aircraft, saying the the agitated attendants, “She’s coming, she’s coming!”  I made it, and we finally had a chance to see our new Ghostdance kittens.  Nikita was tiny, huddled in the back of the carrier, with that dot on his nose.  Musia was all fur, feet and whiskers.

Some of you may think this is a silly, extravagant story.  Perhaps.  But it also feels karmic.  These two were supposed to be with us, supposed to join our family and help to create the transition for our newly adopted seven-year old daughter.

This morning we skyped with both girls so that they could say goodbye to Musia.  One of them remembered carrying Musia around in a little cloth basket, which she endured patiently, along with being dressed in doll’s clothing, and smothered with hugs.  The other was quiet, “I love you Musia.”

She is the most equanimous cat we have ever known.  Total presence and total balance.  Thank you, Musia, thank you.