.to do list.

I had such a reminder this week to

s l o w down

take d e e p e r breaths

p r a c t i c e gratitude

l i s t e n more  and  t a l k less

do l e s s with m o r e intention

b e mindful

.holding a candle.

Mystic Mamma always seems to know exactly what I need to hear/read. I saw this quote posted last night and the words just held me.

“In my own struggles and in my own darkness, I have found bits of gold that have changed me. One of those bits is the realization that we’re all connected, we all matter and that we’re not alone. There’s a whole world of people out here who care and understand.”

“If you’re in your own darkness, I’d like to offer that to you. Sometimes it can feel so black, like there’s no light anywhere. I believe though, that there is light, even when you can’t see it, that the people out here who care and understand are holding candles for you. And that candlelight is what you have to reach to and hold on to sometimes just to make it through.”

“I would like to offer a candle here. I would like to remind you that you matter and that your journey now will take you to your own gold nuggets if you let it. Honor yourself as you travel, and be gentle with yourself.”

~Terri St. Cloud via mysticmamma

I loved the imagery of someone holding a candle for me - someone holding a candle for another being - myself holding a candle for the people in my life.  It made me think about my first time living in Mexico. I was living with a family in Michoacan and working at the local clinic for a college internship. It was during the first week there I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a lit candle on the middle of the dining room table. My American mind thought that someone must've forgotten to blow the candle out, that's a fire hazard! The next morning I asked Clara, my Mexican host mom about the candle and she told me that their daughter was traveling to Mexico so they lit the candle for her safety. She asked me if I light candles for people? It seemed like such a strange concept to me, I said no. She went on to tell me that they always light candles - when someone is ill, when someone is traveling, when someone is having a baby, when someone is vulnerable.  I haven't thought about all the candles they lit while I was living with them for years. Reading that quote and remembering that moment really reminded me how Mexico opened my heart in such a huge way that time in my life. It was the first time for me to feel that deep connection in a situation that felt so unknown - to see/feel/experience their  the sense of community in a real way. The lighting of a candle for someone is such a small perfect example of that.

I am grateful for this reminder of all the candles that have been lit for me. I hope to light more candles for the people in my life - we need it - we need each other.

Love to you all, always.

.6 years apart.

I just realized its been 6 years to the day since I returned from Ecuador - the emotions swelled up inside of me and crashed inside like that most incredible wave - taking my breath away (knocking the wind of out me for a moment) - the nostalgia. The joy - the sorrow of 27 months of my life from which it all pivoted - revealed - altered - destroyed - rejuvenated. Ecuador ripped my soul to shreds - broke my heart/spirit/body in ways I didn't know were possible. It left me washed up on the shore with no strength to get up or knowledge of where to go - so I rested for a while - I wondered if I'd ever find the strength to stand up but I did get up - I pulled myself up because I had no other way - option. 

I wandered for a good while - I followed people/signs/flashed of light - aimless until I realize that all that weakness/wounds/sorrow were the greatest gifts - ripping me free from myself - from the narrow world i'd known. Everything was open to me. My broken heart was an expanding heart.  My lost mind was my freedom. This journey is so much more complex - rich - vibrant than I could've even imagined.

Ecuador I am forever grateful
for you
you changed my life
it's been 6 years and I think
i've only began to understand
our journey together.
_________________________________________

From my last blog post in Ecuador, August 5th 2009:

"Ecuador has become home, not easily but it has and that it what has made the end of this time so beautiful, all the struggle that I encountered along the way. I’ve seen so much; I’ve been shocked, surprised, devastated, infuriated, elated making it impossible to tell you how my life is going to change and has changed. But my ambitious wish is that my actions will be the example of the changes. That I won’t even for a moment forget this life, the voices, the smells, the struggle, or the heartache. I hope to always be afflicted by the voices and the faces of those born into injustice. That the small amount of exposure you’ve had from my journey has given you a glimpse of Ecuador, a vibrant country full of wonders and struggle and from which I’ve realized despite how great our differences may seem our few commonalities will always hold us together, as one race.

So to you all I send you my love and gratitude for sharing this journey with me. I give thanks to pachamama and the people that showed me the immense beauty in life's simplicities."

.words to live by.

morning rays 

“Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It's going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate. You can leave your marriage, you can quit your job, you can only go where people are going to praise you, you can manipulate your world until you're blue in the face to try to make it always smooth, but the same old demons will always come up until finally you have learned your lesson, the lesson they came to teach you."

The Wisdom of No Escape, Pema Chodron 

.a reminder.

I have been gratefully reminded of how important it is to invest in myself. To recommit to myself.

Sometimes I get so caught up moving forward, reaching out, chasing something that I forget to focus (invest) inwards. I have spent almost everyday this week in the studio making jewelry. I am so grateful to have a studio space. Taking metalsmith classes this summer has reminded me of how much fulfillment, peace and healing that making jewelry gives me.

What feeds your soul? What balances you? What helps you focus inwards??

.words to live by.

“The reality is that tomorrow is most certainly uncertain and no matter how many expectations we form, tomorrow will come, tomorrow will go and it will all be what it will be.” 

Lori Deschene

Words come just when you need them. This quote is one I've really needed for some time. So I'm letting these words/truths wash over me today - to start this week fresh/anew. All I need is to be right here. All I can do is be right here. 

It seems like the past weeks have been a dizzy twirl between then-now-when. I watched a documentary that was in Africa yesterday and it took me there. I could feel the hot hot dripping sweat - the smells of the burning garbage - the view from my house on the hill - the sounds of market day - the deafening rain. 

I was there. It felt so real - so beautiful. 

But my only truth is here, right here - everything else is a memory or an idea. 

Today, anew, alive. 

.breathing into now.

I am finding a new energy - a new lightness in these fresh days of late october. maybe it's the changing of the seasons that brings new birth - it doesn't even matter. that is actually what is disguising what really matters  - my urge to classify and categorize it all. understanding this moment by contrasting it with the seemingly blissful or melancholic deviation from the past or the ecstatic vibrant potential of  the future neither of which are real. the only thing we will ever have is now - this very moment.
breathe into - authenticity.
feel the sensations of now.

and in words better than my own,

"Carried away…toward a future of sensations foretold, he tried to draw out the voluptuous sap of the present moment, to enjoy those moments that would never come back, fully conscious of that which rendered them fragile. He told himself, as he had frequently done before…that most of the moments that make up our life would be delightful if they were not shadowed by the future or the past, and that usually we are miserable only by virtue of what we remember or what we expect."    

–Marguerite Yourcenar, “The First Evening,” p. 25

so much to be grateful for - so much peace to be found/understood in the impermanence of life. 

love to you right here and now.

.chile.

oh man! i saw a picture of valparaiso, chile today. swoon. I have such good memories of that place (despite my sister being robbed).

south america i love you and your vibrant ways. 

these are a few pictures of the amazing street art my sister and i saw while traveling from santiago to buenos aires in 2009.

“Freedom is not given to us by anyone

we have to cultivate it ourselves.

It is a daily practice.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh