Happy Week, Day 6

Happy Week, Day 6

My goal in life is not to be famous or wealthy or even an entrepreneurial success. My goal is so much more simple and anonymous than all that. My goal is to be happy. Not giddy, laugh-out-loud happy, but a sweetly simmering river of inner contentment kind of happy. The kind that stays with me for long, long moments, that turn into hours, that turn into days on end. The kind of contentment that will string together my life as one I can look back on and say truthfully, "it was so very, very good and beautiful, even in its most difficult hours".

But it has been elusive, that contentment that lasts. Disappointments, agitations, frustrations and apathy, the daily bombardment of self-criticism that can disguise itself as criticism of others, the tiredness from giving it all away, leaves precious little room for peace within, to say nothing of unchecked joy. I want unchecked joy.

In order to reach my goal, I must lay down the outmoded and unnecessary thoughts and behaviors that shrivel the moist pleasures of happiness. I must choose to grow up. For in the arena of pure adulthood, where gossip is dead and victimhood is a lie and self-deprecation is a mortal sin, in that arena is the heart of the child who knows that play and appreciation and unfettered love are the only roads to happiness. Especially happiness that lasts.

In choosing to grow up, I choose happiness. In choosing to stop the judgements, I choose happiness. In choosing to love myself without condition (and please, God, I need help with this one), I. choose. happiness.

{To catch some happy vibes, click on the link at the top of the post.}

The hummingbird, pictured above at my friend's feeder, is metaphysically known as the "joy bird".

Happy Week, Day 5~ Hue Therapy

Happy Week, Day 5

COLOR makes me happy.

Cerulean blue, twilight blue, rose pink and deep pink~ these are the colors of my soul.

Happy Week, Day 4~ Cherry-O

Happy Week, Day 4.

Cherries. Say it again. C-h-e-r-r-i-e-s! Madly, deeply, happily in love with all things cherry.

My most favorite juice? Cherrypharm. Yup, made from 100% cherries. Nectar of my gods and super good for me.

If I ever tell you I love you more than cherry pie, Darlin', you've reached the pinnacle with me.

Happy Week, Day 3

Happy Week, Day 3

The swift path to pure happiness for me?

Intimacy with Nature.

The silk and the fluff and the rough. My soul vibrates at a higher speed when I wrap myself in Nature's embrace.

{Click on the Happy Week link above for more portals to happiness.}

Happy Week, Day 2~ Gentle Giants

Happy Week, Day 2~

I am fascinated by horses, yet they make me a little uneasy. I think it's the size and the possible skittishness that gives me pause around these beauties. I don't know enough about them to understand them and their tendencies. So, why then am I most fascinated by the Percherons, those 2,000 pound draft horses? Is it their gentle giant attitude? Is it their knowing they could squash humans like bugs, yet they understand they came here to work with humans and offer the example of how best to channel one's power for only good?

Whatever it is, whatever the captivating energy I sense that permeates these giants, I tell you I feel so darn happy whenever I see them.

{Click on the Happy Week link above for more shared bliss!}

Inspire Me Mondays # 18

Oh, to be 40-something and live the day as a 14 year old with your best friend.

Inspired by: Happy Week!! This whole, glorious week is devoted to what makes me happy. And let me tell you, the very best way to start off this week is to spend it with my dearest, Lisa, at the Erie County Fair.

Scorching temperatures, sunblock, spray bottle for misting the backs of knees and one over-sized rainbow umbrella.

Grey- dappled Percherons, moo-ternity ward babies, goats with airplane-wing ears and sheered champion rams.

Merry-go-rounds and swinging chairs, air-conditioned buildings with cabbage and corn, blue ribboned pickles and peas.

Ice cream for lunch, pure maple cotton candy in a bag,Tootsies fried dough nuggets dusted with yum.

Sweat trickling down from temples to toes. A fully clothed jump in the pool. Relief. Wild hair and sogging undies.

Dinner. A book store. A photo booth session too ghastly to reveal. Yawns. Hugs. Good byes.

Best ever 14 year old's happy summer day.

For more Inspire Me Mondays from happy people, click HERE.

To access the blogroll for Happy Week adventures, click HERE and prepare to smile.

The Power Of Love

There is so much power in love. Love is the hiding-in-plain-sight secret to living a powerful life. Not the kind of power that comes from climbing over the backs of hard working people or from manipulating the masses through media-driven scare tactics (hello swine flu), but power that rises from authenticity, and quietly taking charge of one's self. The smallest incidences and choices can be all the lift we truly need to fly forward into a self-powered life if the choices are based in love. Especially love for self.

How do we express more love for self and thereby invoke the lift? We choose to treat ourselves as if we were the longed-for beloved suddenly standing at our door. We revere ourselves and consider our own feelings and needs as if we were serving deities. We think kindly of ourselves, we feed ourselves well, we stop working so damn hard and make more time for fun. We stop wasting endless, mind-numbing hours in front of computer and TV and we invest that time in the making of our own dreams. We listen to the voices within begging for more joy and we go after it with every dancing, exuberant fiber in our being. We stop living the lives that other people tell us to live. We decide we are worth it.

We love ourselves madly and deeply, we use the money available to us to support our truest needs and stop ourselves from frittering our money away, we offer appreciation to everyone who treats us with respect, and we leave the ones who don't behind. We invest ourselves in ourselves. We love ourselves madly and deeply some more. And through this mad love, we lift ourselves to the levels of goodness we deserve. We live each moment as God made us to be and we do not apologize for it. To anyone.

We are as powerful as we decide ourselves to be. We are powerful in direct proportion to the level of consistent love we shine on ourselves. We can make any choice in the world from each moment to the next. Let's get powerful together. Let's fly forward. Let's respect ourselves with the power of love.

Possibility

I have so little control.

How irksome.

Yet, how true.

Everything eventually changes, but it's usually when I'm least prepared for it.

There is nothing to do to prepare except be willing to stand clear and trust a greater plan than my own is manifesting for my good.

As I stand on the stump of what has been, I open my arms wide to possibility.

Inspire Me Mondays #17

YES(!) to food for the soul.

Inspired by: women who serve up happiness. I cordially accept your invitations to get my head out of my arse and see the world from a new perspective. I accept your invitations to get freakin' happy again.

Lisa at Curious Girl has put the word out that August 17th through the 22nd is HAPPY WEEK!! Not a moment too soon, thank you very much. If you'd like to join me in the revelry, sign up on this Curious Girl link and let's get happy together.

Madelyn at Persisting Stars is offering a dreamy and poetic online course called, "The Bones of a Poet~photography and the wonder of seeing". This is a photography course that will put expression before technique. This is about seeing the world in a whole new way. A happy way. If Madelyn, herald of the sensual and positive in this world, is offering a course in anything, you bet your last, sweet dollar I'll be in the virtual front row. Why don't you join me on this 5 week poetic journey? Sign up at this Persisting Stars link and let's build our poetic foundations together.

There now. Much better. Yay for happy!

For more Inspire Me Mondays from lovely souls, click HERE.

UPDATE: Please visit my dear friend, Debbie, for her very first IMM post! Her inaugural inspiration is about owls. How very right up my alley.

Sekhmet~ Be Strong

"You are stronger than you think you are, and your strength assures a happy outcome."

Message from Sekhmet: "See yourself as strong and victorious. Don't complain about anything. Don't blame anyone or any condition. You're the embodiment of strength, not victimhood. As you rise above the old tendencies and see yourself in the new light of feminine strength, your life will automatically shift in miraculous ways. You'll attract new opportunities, forms of abundance, and relationships to help you manifest your highest potential. Being strong means seeing yourself in the most favorable light you can imagine. Be real, allow yourself to feel genuine emotions, but most of all, be strong."~ written by, Doreen Virtue for her Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards.

Join me in embracing this Egyptian Sun Goddess. Join me in creating a movement of inner strength. Because I have yet to see myself in a favorable light. Truly. I am still mired in old tendencies to find fault with myself, to deprive myself of goodness, to tell myself, subtly and overtly in the secret chambers of my mind, I do not deserve. I continue to victimize myself with my own thoughts. I continue to take things personally. My shadow side is fighting to preserve its existence, sensing a shift that bodes not in its favor. I am weary to the bone.

So, I call upon Sekhmet, lion-headed woman of strength, to lighten my view of myself. I call upon her to ground me through food and tasks and thoughts that press me back to earth. I call upon her to help me know the power of my feminine gifts. I call upon her tame the enemy within, scared child that it is.

I ask for consistent strength to see my own value and love all parts of myself. To quell my complaining and see with clear eyes the beauty within and without. Not sporadically, not only when in a good mood or under the influence of perfectly aligned stars, but consistently, whether I am dancing in the shadow or the light. Let me understand, dear Sekhmet, dear God, dear weary Self, how to support myself in all ways and reap the rewards of living my highest potential. Will you join me?

{ Original photos of Sekhmet taken in Berlin, Germany, 2006.}

Funeral For A Friend

Silly me. I thought all I would find upon my return to the scene of the crime was a stump I could stand on and look at the stars. Instead, a ginormous mess of limbs and leaves litter the yard. Apparently, it will remain like this until Monday. How considerate.

I did not cry when I first saw this mess. The sentient self of my friend the walnut was gone. No angst, no lingering. A clean relocation to better digs. A neighbor came by to stare at the mess with me. Looking at the tall trunk still standing he said, "Well now, isn't that worth a pretty penny".

And there you have it.

The Tree Whisperer

I am a tree hugger. I am also a tree whisperer. I feel them, I hear them, I speak to their sentient souls. The old ones, the wise ones have so much to say and offer. Shelter and guardianship and healing and advice, they offer it freely to anyone. My life is enriched for bothering to take it, for knowing that salve will be poured into my heart and soul each time I lean my pains and my troubles against the bark of a well established tree. I consider them no less than friends and honor them accordingly.

In my backyard is a sprawling walnut much older than me. I sit under its shelter in the mornings with my rose petal tea, I lean against it in the dark to banish my sorrows. Black and grey squirrels, woodpeckers and wrens, cardinals and catbirds have all graced the limbs and grooved highways of this guardian tree. I love this tree.

So last night at 8:15pm, when the call came from the woman who owns this house where I live to tell me she was having the walnut tree cut down today, and I'd best move my flowers out of harms way, I entered a state of shock. No, she said, her mind was made up. The tree was (suddenly?) a liability to her investment and had to go. She had to protect her property, you see. I'd best move my flowers.

I walked out into the dusk, sat down at the base of the walnut tree and cried. Without shame, I tell you I cried like a child. Loud and messy, on behalf of my dear friend who would spread his limbs wide to the moon for only one more night. I hugged my friend and thanked him for all the joy and support he had given me. I hugged him for a very long time. I circled him clockwise, my hand trailing the grooves of his trunk, and asked all the Angels and Faeries I know to lift his sweet sentient soul up to heaven's garden before the first blade cut his limbs. I asked that he feel no pain. I gathered all the lime green nuts I could reach and promised to plant them somewhere safe. I cried some more. I slept terribly.

I took last pictures of my friend the walnut in the morning light and hugged him long again. He told me it was going to be okay and he thanked me for honoring him with my tears and my requests. I left, grateful to be away for the whole of the day, dreading the view upon my return. As I drove away, my dear friend the walnut said to me, tonight stand in my place and spread your arms wide. I will see you. And you, tree whisperer, will finally see the stars.

The Mighty Niagara

No matter how many times in my life I have been to the Canadian version of Niagara Falls~ and living only 40minutes away, I can tell you it's alot~ I am awed and amazed at the power of Mother Nature. To lean over the rails at the brink of the Falls still takes my breath away.

If you ever want to come see it, I will take you there. It is the fast moving river that connects the fresh water lakes of Erie and Ontario. It is the world's Holy Grail of mood-lifting negative ions. It is thunder and rainbows and mist and magic. It is, indeed, the Mighty Niagara.

Inspire Me Mondays #16

Best Friends Forever

Inspired by: enduring love and friendship. Time and miles mean nothing to the heart.

When your best friend lives an ocean away, letters and phone calls bridge the gap. When your best friend is your cousin and you were both born into 1939 Germany, up near the North Sea, the bond is tight and steadfast. The years between visits are long when one of you lives in America and the other remains in Germany. But when one of you gets cancer, the other one books a flight to walk arm in arm with you wherever you want to go.

And so it was I had the privilege to escort Inge and Elke on their day journey to Canada. Lunch and laughs over dresses for the "twins" was followed by photo-ops at Lake Ontario and barefoot walks through public parks. Niagara Falls was saved for last. With sunshine and full rainbows in the mist 0f the great waters, lingering at the rails was called for. Postcards were bought and kitsch was perused until, at last, the cousins grew tired. Speaking in the language of their girlhood days, they strolled back to the car telling tales of "remember when".

Their is nothing more sweet than timeless love. Nothing more inspiring than the constancy of friends who understand each other, friends who endure all things together, friends who, together, make rainbows and hang the moon.

{My "tante" Inge is the blond, my "mutti" Elke is the brunette.}

For more Inspire Me Mondays from rainbow-hearted friends, go HERE.

More Pennies In The Pool

"The most worthwhile things in this world take patience and time to ripen.The most beautiful things do not follow a set schedule or demand or even a heartfelt hope. They have a Universal time of their own to manifest. And in the end, which is really the beginning, the timing will be more perfect than could ever have been dreamed of."

These are words I wrote a while back. I found them again. Just as I needed them, right on time. I'm less scared today about my dreams, their timing, and my spotty focus and efforts to manifest them. After confessing my fears to willing ears, after time spent in silent contemplation during rainfall, I am soothed.

I am now less inclined to feel pressured to keep up with the crowd, or to be anywhere other than where I am right now. And I see clearly, I have been moving forward in my quest for dreams realized. In the space allowed between the demands of a full time job and the joyful responsibilities to family and friends, I have taken successive steps and actions to move my dreams forward. Even while afraid.

Today I hung new frames with new photographs around my home. Each photo is mine. Such a simple yet profound action to boost my morale and give lift to my wings. I could finally do this. I could finally demonstrate my own value to myself. It is enough for today. It is more pennies in the pool, one copper disc after another on my way to perfectly timed dreams.