My Thoughts On

Our Grateful Gathering theme for December is Crossing Thresholds . This conversation's introduction contrasts major life changing thresholds like a birth or a death with smaller 'everyday' thresholds.  "Equally important are the daily and even internal thresholds that present us with important opportunities to consider how we want to be in the world — how we want to spend our energy and time, habits we want to change, ways we seek to grow, and what stories we want to carry forward or relinquish."  I'm captivated by the "relinquish" bit. I've spent a lot of my life trying to be better. A better person. A better mom. A better wife. Never good enough. I've added habits, goals, activities, books (SO many books!). Then I came to a full stop after an online retreat with  Barry Magid and Max Erdstein on the Buddhist teaching that we are all enough, complete, good, perfect, Buddhas, whatever you want to label it- just as we are. No more self-help ne...

This year has been one of the worst years of my life, major life-events-wise. And yet here I am. Surviving. Thriving. Surrounded by people who love and support me.  I wrote this with pen and paper in a journal. It wasn't right after the incident. I was on autopilot in those days, a bit out of my mind. But it was closer to the events than now, a year later. It's amazing and a bit scary how much I can forget when my body is in survival mode. 

I'm into birds now. I was catching up with an old friend who asked me how I had gotten into birds. How does something like this happen to a nice gal like you? My response to her was lengthy and thorough. I thought it would make for a good blog post.  So, it all started when I joined a birding walk with Women's Wilderness. Have I told you about WW? Hmm, let's back up a step. So a few years ago I went to an event in Denver called Women Powering Change. I think it was somewhere around 3/8, International Women's Day. It was just one of those things where I thought it looked interesting, had no one to go with (or likely didn't try to find someone to go with), and went to this thing by myself. I felt super awkward when I stepped into the room. There were so many people and this was going to be a lot of socializing (what Dan and I would call "excessive socializing"). I almost turned right around and walked out. But I didn't want the ladies that had just check...

I have a whole slew of posts in my drafts, but I decided to write a fun one. Because I do fun things allll the time. Why aren't I writing more about that? Last night we went to our first sound bath ever. This event was produced by Denver Yoga Social  and it was also our first event with them. They apparently do dozens of events every month. (I have my eye on the one at the Denver Aquarium or Yoga, Sake & Sushi) Last weekend I made a candle over at the Creepatorium . Check out their events. I bet they've got some wacky stuff going on. The candle making was pretty tame, and honestly delightful. We were taught a bit about what the fragrances can invite into our lives as well as the flowers, herbs, and crystals. The invitation was there to infuse some magic into your candle, or you could just make a pretty candle. It was suggested that we save our candle to light with intention the night of the new moon which was last night. And heck yeah, I did.  I've since been fascinat...

 I think American movies really fucked me up.  Sometimes I think I have a warped sense of friendship. I often say I don't have any friends. That's not entirely accurate. Is it? I have a lot of friends. What is it I actually want? This graphic is from Shasta Nelson, founder of Girlfriendcircles.com. The site still exists (just learned that today) but it is a shell of its former self. It used to be a site for women to connect and form friendships with strangers. I met a woman on the site that I was friends with for a few years. We'd regularly meet, once a week, and share what was happening in our lives. When I look at the site now and Shasta's site ShastaNelson.com I just get a bit sad. It was a good idea. It just didn't work. At least not for me.  I created these activity pages  based on the activity in the book We Heal Together by Michelle C Johnson. On page three you can see how I filled out my community web. I was pleasantly surprised at how many groups and peopl...

I've been thinking a lot lately about my roots. And being mixed. And what that means.  I remembered a poem I wrote over ten years ago about being a mixed race, bi-racial person. I hadn't thought of this poem in years. Forgot it existed. I wrote it in a creative writing class at Aurora Community College taught by Wayne Gilbert. Really cool dude. Still out there making poetry. (Search for him on YouTube.) This was my first, and only since, deep dive into poetry and spoken word.   Why are poets so confusing? I wondered. Why can't they just say what they mean in plain language? I've since come to realize that the heart's language is not English nor Spanish nor Japanese nor any other human language we've invented. Our human languages are often no match for the language of our heart. So we try to translate our emotions as best we can using the language we can.  No wonder we so often can't understand each other. I went looking for this poem from years ago. My first...