Challenges

Loving ourselves and loving our world... even when we're overwhelmed?

(Amber's hands)

~ Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.~

Marianne Williamson (adapted)

Alternative post title: My life has been in such a state !!!

(Am I "playing small"?)

The gate's closed-tied by vines and blocked by weeds.

So much to overcome in life...

this is a view of the gate from the back; it used to be called the Pig House (I try not to take it personally!). Now it is filled with plants-volunteers- there are always plenty of them! (The weeds do take over!)

It's a jungle.

And my little terraced garden? Overgrown and neglected.

~~~A garden overgrown (and under-tended)~~~~

Sometimes the work just piles up... (and it's not just housework and gardenwork)

When I get too much stress, my mind just goes blank...I'm like the deer caught in the car's headlights...a part of me want's to scream at myself...Get it together...

WATCH Out!!! MOVE!

I need to be alone, breathe, and just re-evaluate.

Don't you wish life came with signposts?

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Amber has a project this weekend for her Human Development class. Last night, we were up every two hours because the baby is programed to cry and she needs pretend diaper changes, food, and various other necessities that must be recorded-time/event-IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I tried to help Amber wake up...we were so tired because our schedules are packed once school begins.

I'm so proud of her...that's what I need to focus on.

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If you have ever worked in another country, you know how difficult it is to process paperwork. This week, we recieved news that our work contracts weren't processed, our taxes had an error so no refund, and bill collectors don't like to wait.

Isn't it true that most things seem to pile up?

I don't notice the stress-on purpose-but then I suddenly go brain-numb. I realize I've gone to the OTHER SIDE... I can't think.

"Do something!"...I hear in my head...my concentration goes cloudy...I focus on what's in front of me...I look tired, unhappy---peevish---Wake up!!!

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Speaking of cars...

We had a flat tire on the way in to work this week.

Who is that squating down? Oh- that's our oldest child, Alex, still half asleep at 6am. (I hope he's alert by the time school begins.) He's "helping". Do you remember that scene from A Christmas Story? The older boy, Ralphie, was told that he could help his father change a flat tire (in record time) and the bolt's flew everywhere? (That's the scene where Ralphie said "the queen mother of all dirty words. The f--- word!" ) In this case, our sleepy boy-man is little help in a flat tire crisis...sigh... and his father is addressing the Queen Mother.

It's a good thing that Mr. Oasis knows how to change a tire.

We commute two to three hours each morning...

While the tension of being late built up, I walked over to a nearby flamboyan tree.

Focus on beauty...that's my calm down strategy.

Ah, isn't that Maria Von Trapp's wisdom from The Sound of Music?

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May we all have a productive week ahead, dear bloggers friends, and not too much stress!

A Quilter's Wisdom

That's the same as with living. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut them out and put them together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cutting out and the sewing than there is in the calico. The same sort of things comes into all lives, just as the Apostle says. 'There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.'

The same trouble's come into two peoples lives, and one'll take it and make one thing out of it, and the other'll make something entirely different.


*******Sage advice from Aunt Jane of Kentucky (1907)********

Let's be honest about it, readers, the holidays are stressful. First there are the additional tasks that must be done in preparation for the big event. Then there is the emotional pressure coming at us from all directions. The nostalgic memory of Christmases gone by brings with it the attendant memories of those who have left us through perhaps a parting of the ways or through death. In the first case, you may want the comfort of your childhood family but sometimes they prefer the old you, this person you've become is too troublesome. It may be that they are too difficult to be around or too critical. Then there are the soul mate type friends with whom you've lost touch. When the effort to reconnect fails, you feel silly and wonder if the relationship was really authentic after all. Did it only exist in your mind? And then, the big one, if you have lost a parent, or another powerfully significant intimate, you feel tremendous pressure brought on by holiday absence, and these feelings are spiced with holiday regret and yearning. It's true. It does not matter if you are religious or not, the holidays are difficult. Why do some people seem to be filled with light and magic during these trying days while others cocoon themselves away (or wish they could) until the season passes? It's a question of survival strategies; some people, drink a little too much during the holidays, others obsess over food, decorations, present selection -or blogging? I think the most successful holiday survivors are those who take all of that emotional pressure and redirect it to some creative task.


It is my wish for you that you take all that is stirred up in your life during this holiday season and make something beautiful out of it. How about Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt? No? You think of something more appropriate then; I think I'll just keep writing.

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If this quilt were blue it would look exactly like the gift my dear friend C from the UK made more than twenty years ago for the birth of my son. We had weekly 'craft nights' that were devoted to artistic expression (she would sew and I would crochet); the evening topics invaribly focused on all that life had given us and all that we still wanted from life!



If you love quilts as I do, take a look at a brief history of my favorite quilting pattern, Grandmother's Flower Garden.

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Check out the pattern to the updated version of grandmother's flower garden quilt

(displayed above).

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baby crib photo Larkspur on flickr

Cloud Cover

Did you ever have one of those days where you have a general sense of anxiety that seems to be blocking your ability to connect? Sometimes I forget to notice energy flowing upward and I don't feel connected. My attention is pulled to unfocused feelings and I seek to explain the anxiety. Maybe I'm forgetting to do something...I search my memory for a reason...it could be a date blocked...it might be a significant grief trigger date...a death? Is something going to happen? Am I amplifying the feelings around me? Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, writes about going into a restaurant when a parasitic emotion is released and is seeking a welcoming emotionally open victim-it invades a man in a wheel chair who explodes in temper. Tolle writes that this man's energy fed on the collective pain-body; you see, Tolle had just been counseling a woman with a dense pain-body and even though he helped her, some of this woman's pain-body negative residue had attached itself to his energy. So when Tolle walked into the restaurant, the energy around him found a victim at a nearby table, entered this unsuspecting man and made him lose his composure-he pinned the waitress up against the wall with his metal chair and the police had to be called.

This emotional pain-body idea makes me think of all the evil spirit warnings I have heard about while growing up. I sometimes attended tent revivals with Tyanne Poindexter, my somewhat lost neighbor friend, and we would fearfully listen to the preacher warn us about hell and eternal fire, all the while feeling as if we were in big trouble. But getting back to Tolle , he was not saying that the negative had more power than the positive, he just wrote that you had to be careful to be present and nonreactive to the emotional pain. Just allow it to be there until you notice space around it. Sound familiar? I have read about this idea, particularly in Buddhist writings but the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron's work on emotional pain comes to mind the most. Other New Age writings report that it is important to protect your energy so that you are not too open to another's negativity, but be careful not to focus on fighting the energy because resistance acts as a magnet. Yogananda writes that you should never look directly into the eyes of someone who is profoundly under a powerful negative influence or else your individual will could be dominated. Being the kind of person who reads, and then looks to life to verify or disprove, I have noticed some strange occurrences.

Your walking down the street, it's raining, and you have to pass in front of a man who is venting angry words and pulling out the empty white lining of his pockets while rocking back and forth on his legs. You feel both sorry for his confused state and afraid because he might vehemently turn in your direction. You empty your thoughts and focus on gently moving by him. (Okay, so that's what I do- and it happened yesterday!) Or you're in your car removing laundry and a tall large shouldered man stops at the window and stares at you. You quickly lock the doors, and sit in the air-less car waiting for him to leave until you can't take it anymore. After all, you have rights. You live in the tourist zone and its suppose to be safe. So you get out of the car and confront the imposing man. Only the tension you release by telling him to go away, lights a match to his pent up anger and he raises his fist and screams incoherently back at you. You forget about the laundry, run into the house, lock the doors and call the police...who calmly tell you that maybe its a mental patient who was recently released, "Could you describe him for us, please?" (Yes, it has happened.) Those are the moments I think of emotional parasites! What was Tolle thinking? He gave me another boogie man to fear: the Pain-Body.

Oprah Winfrey recommended this particular book and supported Barack Obama's candidacy, so I'm willing to be open-minded...Oprah stand by me, "Walk into the light! Go into the light!" The Poltergeist memory begins to compete with The Exorcist movie scene where the girl is tied to the bedpost and fervent prayer abounds in an attempt to beat the spirit-rapist into submission-ineffectually! What do I do when my own light is covered by inexplicable mood-clouds? I write. I write until its funny, or rather, until I have gained a sense of perspective. What about you? Take my survey and communicate with me!