.the waiting place.

I find myself in the waiting place. It's a place we continue to find ourselves in life if we are present. We all experience the waiting place over and over again in small and big ways but there are so many distractions to provide an illusion that we can bypass the waiting place but with all seasons there is pause and transition.

This waiting place feels big and expansive, more unknown that I've ventured before. 

40 weeks +1 after a late night of rolling contractions, for awhile I thought today would be the day with the baby earthside, but around 3am things started to slow and dissipate to a silent pause, waiting again. So today, I'm gifted another day of slowness of waiting. 

How do we inhabit and hold this space - this gift and challenge? To exist in the unknown is such a real way. 

Like the waiting place, we are always in the unknown but the crossing from here to there - women to mother feels like the biggest leap. It's not really a leap though. As this deep expansive birth calls me in it's starting to feel more like a deep journey down into the darkness - into the silence - into the stretching of what my body feels like, the softness of my mind, the disillusion of time. The slow warm up between this being and I, to connect and start this big work together to leave his first home and come greet this world. To the next phase of learning how to live out here with us in this wild place, but for now - big pause. I've already left the waiting place. 

For right now, the waiting place is holding me. I can allow it to cradle me to be soft and sink deep in or I can resist. I'm trying to just be held by it. To enjoy and remember that life is all exerpeince, there is no real qualifications to put on it - good or bad - right or wrong - just being here in this moment. To be open to observe. To allow myself to be grateful to experience this place. It goes against so much to be open to it. It demands I unwind myself from my linear brain and desire to connect and compare. 

I don't know how long I'll be in this waiting place. I'm just here. I'm already learning though, I'm grateful for that. If I'm allowed more time I know my learning will deepen. Yesterday the big learning was to just enjoy it. To think of a yummy dinner and to watch a movie and to let myself release the day. 

My son was born January 7th. I wrote this 3 days before he was born.

.autumn equinox.

We meet in the middle the point of transition from the building light to the growing darkness. We still have the summer heat here in North Carolina but the morning light has a new dullness that reminds me the light is fading. I seem to live in transitions - life is just a big transition but I seem to like to jump into dramatic transitions, hungry with deep curiosity and the reality that I seem to learn best through swift challenges. I’ve been resisting this transition of moving south but a few days ago en route to a equinox celebration I was overcome by feeling so alive driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains with the setting sun and the peach, orange, fuchsia sky reflecting a golden shimmer on the lush hillsides. I realized that it’s my choice to accept this moment/transition - to be present with curiosity instead of reacting to the insecurity the unknown can bring. It seemed like such beautiful timing with the approaching equinox where the light transitions into the darkness. A time that allows/invites/requires us to dive deep into the darkness (challenge/self) to see what there is - to learn a new layer/level of awareness. 

If I accept this invitation to dive deep instead of reacting/resisting to the darkness how much can I learn? 
What peace can I find? 

The equinox ceremony was facilitated by Katie Vie and she told us of the archetype of the mermaid how the mermaid in all of her wonderful weirdness (authenticity) shows us the beautify of diving deep into the darkness of the ocean. It’s required. It’s an invitation. I realized that if I continue to resist this invitation/moment it will only keep me in a state of stagnancy. To truly continue on a path of learning and self-awareness I need the dark. The darkness is the greatest teacher, if I allow it to be.

.control :: comfort.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “home” what it means, what it represents, what it fulfills within us. Home can be a place of deep belonging, ownership, comfort, ritual, knowledge...a place to grow deeper in the way of a long slow practice.

I’ve been frustrated in my new city. It feels hard here. It feels like door are closed and I kept knocking and knocking and I’m tired of knocking. I start feeling frustrated with this place. I start questioning being here because if I’m meant to be here would things open up...wouldn’t opportunity find me? I started to feel like this must be a sign I need to pay attention to! 

This isn’t a new feeling for me. I feel this at some point everywhere I go and live. So on top of feeling like everything is hard here I started to react to the fact that I’m right here again. In the cycle I am trying to change. I came here to change it and it found me, again. 

A few days ago when I was feeling super frustrated I drove out to my favorite place, the arboretum. It’s a magical lush land right on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I walked along my favorites trails and began recognizing my frustration during this time coming out in forms of trying to control my environment. I started to gain awareness that my frustration is really discomfort of the unknown. The ambiguity and instability that surrounds all aspects of me right now makes me yearn for control. So I began to think about home and this desire to have a home to be home. Whatever that means.... I started to wonder if this idea of home is really an interconnected relationship between comfort and control?

Why do we find comfort in home?
Is the comfort found in the control of knowing? 
What is home? 
How do we define home? 
A specific place? 
A landscape? 
A person? 
A feeling?

I mentioned meeting Barbara the Buddhist on a flight a few months ago and when we were talking about “home” we were referring to the West in that conversation. As we were beginning to land she said "when I look out at Asheville it isn’t home but when I see my Husband then I’ll be home". So she’s referring to a “home” landscape and a person. 

How do you define home?

I’m just starting to peel away the layers of this expansive thought. I see the deep potential to learn here, in this place of unknown landscapes and culture. Amongst all this frustration I’m able to see this as an opportunity for deep practice in self-awareness and understanding my tendencies. I’m grateful. 

Late May in New England

The Deepest Exhale

Waking up to see the sunrise has already begun

Layers of clothing no longer needed

Radiating heat reflecting off of delicate skin

Floating in bodies of water

How does it always feel like the first time

summer is coming

.silence.

I went to a book reading last night with Emily Ruschvich, a Idaho native and rural life enthusiast. She said she's always lived in small places and with that also loves rural literature. The moderator asked why she loved rural literature so much? She said "it shows the essence of us - rural life shows our humanness in our most quiet moments." I loved that. I fell in love with her passion and connection to the land here. I envy that connect to a place. She reminded me of the richness and depth of exploration that comes from the slow quiet of rural life.

I remember that silence.

It reminded me of those long hot afternoons living in that big house on the hill in Southern Malawi. The view from the front porch looking over the red valley below and the electric red/fuschia sunsets during burn season. The days with no work and no power. How they felt so long at first and then slowly over time turned into sweet delights. It was time and space to explore and create, a new fruit to experiment baking with or new supplies found on a trip into the city to make into jewelry.

One time, on a trip to the "big" city I found rope at the paper store and learned how to dye the cotton with found spices at indian stores and then wove it into a big necklace on one of those afternoons, just sitting on the front steps looking out at the guava trees and the clay lands while the boys (I lived with a family with two boys - Promise, 7 years old and Osborne, 5 years old they became my local guides, shadows, friends and food tasters.) played soccer with a ball made out of burnt plastic bags. Another afternoon I noticed the guava trees, so heavy and ripe with fruits and with a whole afternoon infront of us I decided we were going to make a guava crisp. I explained the mission to the boys, they had NO clue what a crisp was but with the brief mention of sugar (a rare treat) they were off leaping at the trees to help collect guavas. Within minutes Promise and Osborne were back with enough guavas for 10 crisps! As I gathered the ingredients and they worked on eating the leftover guavas. I went to the cookhouse to start the fire but  realized I forgot a towel to grab the pan and headed back to the house. As I rounded to the front of the house I had a strange feeling - something was different. I slowed down and looked around and before I knew it Promised and Osborne were sneaking up behind me whispering "Arish, baboooooon baboooooon" and there in the small grove of guave trees was at least 15 baboons in the trees scooping the fruit off the branches and into their mouths.  The world felt silent and full and magical for a moment - then Promise being 7 couldn't help himself and was worried they wouldn't leave any fruit so started running towards the trees and in a flash they were all gone - like it never happened.

It's been hard to sink into the silence of HERE. I ached for silence in Somerville but now that I am in a place of wide spaces and deep silence I am realizing how much in 3 years I acclimated to my home there.

.westward, again.

I landed on the west coast, again yesterday. The past few months have seemed like a blur of plane rides and beds and places and 5 outfits (ha!) and I have only just started to find a rhythm (or the beginning of a surrender) to all this transition. I'm back in my home state of Washington for a few weeks while I share space with my sister who is awaiting the arrival for her first baby. 

The past month has felt frustrating. I felt like I was waiting on people to tell me what to do or where to go or how to spend my time and then I realized I was frustrated because I wasn't making any decisions for myself. I was projecting that frustration of not choosing myself upon others. Realizing this perspective totally changed things for me about 2 weeks ago. I started to actively choose myself by making small tiny decisions. The small tiny decisions started to open up new and old joys in my life, my journey. I started running into and reconnecting with old friends and found that beautiful excitement in the studio that I haven't had for such long time. I met with a friend I hadn't seen in months for coffee and our creativity talk inspired me to keep showing up for jewelry to find my discipline to my craft again. To invest time in it no matter what the inspiration or motivation (or lack of!). A few days later I found a new opportunity for myself in December! Yesterday I left Boston at 6am feeling groggy and a little unsettled at all the things I could've done before I left for Washington but as I sat in the window seat of the plane and watched the magic of the changing landscapes pass me by I couldn't help but feel so grateful to have this moment - this view - this freedom. 

I read this poem (one of my favorite poems) on the On Being blog this morning and was grateful for this gift of this reminder - thankful for all the small gifts that are right in front of me all the time.

"The Journey”
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations —
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

.empty your mind.

It feels like such a long time since I've left/given anything to this space. 

I'm still here. 

I've been moving/traveling/exploring and living out of a backpack for over a month. I had to move out of my apartment and then couched hopped until I took a trip home to Washington state. It had been a year since I had gone "home" and it was just as beautiful as I remember. It felt so good to know the land of Washington, to not look up something on google maps. I spent the majority of the time at the lake, a beautiful lake where I spent every summer growing up. It felt so nourishing to swim,  sunbath, read and talk endless while you float in the crisp water. 

I went back to the East Coast for a week and now I'm in the Midwest - trying to "figure out" what's next - trying to be present here in someone else's home with only a few belongings of my own. I was telling my sister the other days I just don't feel grounded enough in myself to figure out what to do next...how do I make a decision from this place? Then this morning I read Mark Nepo and as also in perfect time, 

"Two scientist traveled halfway around the world to ask a Hindu sage what he thought about their theories. When they arrived, he kindly brought them into his garden and poured them tea. Though the two small cups were full, the sage kept pouring. Tea kept overflowing and the scientists politely but awkwardly said, "Your holiness. the cups can hold no more." The sage stopped pouring and said, "your minds are like cups. You know too much. Empty your minds and come back. Then we'll talk.""

 -Leroy Little Bear, 

The Book of Awakening

Mark Nepo went on to say 

"If at times you feel numb or distanced from the essence of what you know, perhaps your mind, like the sage's teacup, is too full. Perhaps, like a bowl too full of fish, your deepest thoughts have no room to move. Perhaps we all need from time to time to dump out all that doesn't stick."

And I realized maybe this journey of moving from west to east to midwest, living out of a small backpack is the process of dumping out all that doesn't stick. It's uncomfortable but something good is coming. Something good is here. I've never been where I am right now and I need open spaces to see it. I have to let go of what I've been holding onto to be able to grow in the ways that I need to - moving into the future. Maybe this is the Universe blowing through me. 

Life is SO powerful and challenging and I'm forever grateful to be a student of it's lessons.

.just a little bit longer.

How do you process a transition? 

I'm back in the states and slowly waking up from my jet lag haze. It's only been two days but it still feels strange here. 

How do I (re)connect to this place? 

It feels like I've put on that dress that I use to wear all the time just doesn't fit anymore. 

How do you let go of the bluest sky pressed up against those white washed buildings, bike rides to praia da manta rota, afternoon espresso at that cafe on the winding pedestrian streets of Faro, mornings on the rooftop soaking up that hot mediterranean sun and all those "bom dia - boa tarde - bom noite" greetings with strangers and neighbors alike?

It's time to get to work - to get back into the studio - to design - let the images/smells/textures/feels unfold into metal but I just want to hold onto Portugal just a little bit longer. 

.day 59.

I've landed back in the states - it feels so surreal to be back in my house with all the same things - people - smells just as they were in December but I feel so different, maybe it's just the 24 hours of traveling and sleep deprivation.  I woke to a dark cold day and I'm grateful for the chance to slowly unpack and settle into this place again. 

.day 50.

I've felt so OVERWHELMED lately about the goodness of HERE and the uncertainty of THERE. I've been grabbing - holding onto the goodness because it's good and I don't know what's coming. I go to that place of non-abundance,  this is SO good something just as good or even better can't follow this, better enjoy it while it lasts. This has been a forever pattern for me in transitions and I'm just becoming aware of it in a new way.

When something wonderful happens it surprises me. I squeeze it so tight because I don't think I deserve it.

Do you ever feel that way?

I've really questioned this pattern this past week riding the rollercoaster of fear of what's coming and the joy of all the fruits of this trip. Then yesterday happened.

I have ONE WEEK left here. I have ONE jewelry classes left. I have a friend coming today to spend a few days with me in my town and then we're heading to Lisbon to meet another friend. So with the week planned out yesterday was my day to just soak up my town by myself - get ready for the week and go to my favorite places in town.  I went to my favorite store in Tavira and met the most vibrant wild woman. We instantly connected. She said she could tell I was a woman of the world when I walked in. We started talking about naturopathic medicine, places we've lived and herbal teas! I told her I was sad that I hadn't met her before now and she said that we meet everything in the right moment. I totally believe this and when she said that I knew why I connected with her because I had met her before in different manifestations. I met a version of her when I was about 13 or 14, she was a wild woman that owned a bead shop in town and also the person to teach me how to make my first pair of earrings. I was so drawn to her energy - an energy I found in myself that I hadn't understood before I saw it reflected. These wild women always come into my life in just the right moment to remind me that I am wild - today and forever, it's just who I am. When we left each other she said "estas viva!! You are alive! Don't ever lose that!"

I realized that all the goodness that I have found here is the goodness inside of myself. She was just the reminder I needed to let go on the questions that don't have answers right now and enjoy all the last moments here in Portugal.

Has something like this ever happened to you? 

.2 0 1 6.

I LOVE the transition into the NEW YEAR - it's so refreshing to me. I'm a nomad, of course my favorite time of year is going to the beginning! I was also a birth worker for a time so I really love new beginnings - birth - the sweet first moments - the possibilities - the dreams - the energy!

I'm thinking so many things right now on the the last day of 2015. I'm thinking I can't believing I'm getting on a plane tomorrow for PORTUGAL! I'm thinking I can't believe that is was 10 years ago that I started this nomadic journey of a life. I'm thinking this year has been so beautiful - in such a raw personal way. I'm thinking where do I want to go in 2016?

I posted this quote last year, but I'm posting it again because it's SO good and SO true. It's time to make a decision - embarking on the new year - what are you going to take? what are you going to do? where are you going to go? what do you WANT?

“These are times of decision, of change, of choice….it’s time for something to go, something to be removed. Anything that is inhibiting, holding us back, it can be a belief it can person, it can be a job, it can be a country…It can be anything that is holding us back. Now needs to go…it’s like we are being stripped of our known familiar sense of security, sense of identity, sense of who I am.”

“…So what is coming up now for so many of us is a new future…birth of the new always requires the separation from the known, familiar, secure past. It can be beautiful, it’s a flowering, it’s an opening, it’s a creation, and it can be very scary…

“…Now is the time for planning this future, and it’s a very good time for doing that and preparing ourselves…the ship’s gonna leave the port, the new paradigm is going to take off, and now we are packing our bags and have to decide what to leave and what to take….you cannot take everything with you. Now it’s time to choose.” 

mysticmamma

TEN YEARS ago I was freaking out sitting in LAX at midnight with all the lights out, there was only about 20 people around. I had a moment of wondering if the airport was actually closed - if we were stranded and I just wasn't able to understand the announcement in Spanish. I arrived in Mexico in the early morning hours of the new year feeling sick to my stomach - why did I ever want to come to an unknown town where they speak an unknown language for 10 weeks?! I continued to freak out for the first few weeks and felt like crying everytime someone tried to ask me something that I didn't understand (despite years of Spanish classes) but I figured it. I feel in love. I was forever changed by that tiny unknown town where they spoke that unknown language. Here I am again 10 years later starting the new year in an airplane flying off to an unknown town where they speak and unknown language. I had my obligatory freakout moment yesterday and called my Mom. WHAT was I thinking? 8 weeks? I don't even speak Portuguese? Why did I think that was a good idea? She reminded me (as she always does) this is who I am - this is what I do - I seek - I explore - I challenge myself. 

Sometimes I feel like life is so overwhelming and complex and other times it just feels beautiful. It just feels beautiful right now - to be scared - to be able to have found my art - to be able to have the freedom to travel - to be able to have found a town that I am really going to miss while I am away - to be able to hear my true voice - to be able to start to accept myself for who I am. I let go of some labels this year that has allowed me to be right here. 

I'm taking these words into this new year. To continue to honor and respect myself for WHO I AM in my purest (ever evolving) form. To STOP hiding behind things - To STOP reaching outwards - To STOP choosing others over myself . To let go of the lies and root into myself so deeply that I can't get lost.

"All these years of practice have made you a master of pretending to be what you think you are. And that distorted image of yourself is really your grave, because the real you is not the one who is living your life.

“And who is living your life? …Is it the real you who judges yourself and punishes yourself… Is it the real you who abuses your body? Is it the real you who doesn’t even like yourself? Is it really the real you who is dreaming all that? No, it’s not the real you.”

“When you recover awareness, you resurrect and come back to life."

.unlearning reactions.

Do you ever mistake something for something else?

The cellular memory we hold in our bodies from old patterns (reactions) is SO deep and SO real. These feelings started to creep into my body yesterday - a numbness washed over me and an uneasiness settled into my stomach. I wasn't sure where it came from or why it was here. I called my Mom trying to get out all the words - the words laying in a mountainous pile deep inside of me - picking them up off the floor of my pelvis bowl (energy center). I was hoping that she could help me organize my words (thoughts) to ultimately reveal the truth underneath - the cause of it. I took a walk in the cold dark night, zig-zagging the streets releasing the words into the autumn air. The release helped me to find a pattern in my thoughts and words but it wasn't until I woke up this morning that I found the root. 

I have vivid dreams. I've always had revealing dreams. I rely on them to guide me to the truth that my conscious mind finds hard to trust. Last night I was greeted with an old wound in my dream. It was so real. I was there. I was processing all the emotions - without restraints - the root of yesterdays numbness and unease. 

The cellular memory of elements/patterns in my life aligned so closely with that old wound I over-imposed the memory with the moment. 

Our bodies are brilliant scientists that can be either lazy or self-protecting depending on how you look at it. My body was feeling/experiencing elements associated with an old reaction so much so it made the assumption that it was the old pattern again. My body started to activate that old cellular memory - but I am not me that first experienced that wound. How can I react the same way to a different situation as a different person? 

Have you felt this before? How do we unlearn old reactions? I think for me the dream was the first step - the process of acknowledging. 

Love to you and your journey of evolving awareness.

.happy equinox.

Happy Autumn Equinox to you all! A time of transitions - a reminder to focus on finding balance in it all.

photo credit sergio laboriel

"May we embrace all the devastation and pain, as well as all the magic and the goodness that inherently exists. For as we know, it is through our opposite reflection that we learn, recognize and appreciate. Let us meet in the recognition that we are all of it, and may we move with grace into the new."      -mysticmama

I am finding so much to learn from this equinox - as I am finally for the first time in 9 months settling into a new job - a new space - a new environment with more longevity. I have been sleeping on couches - traveling - searching - exploring - realigning myself to find this place. A place where the doors continue to open and I am finding much fulfillment. I am so grateful for it all. I am so grateful for the amazing timing. I am so grateful for the abundance of it all. An abundance that I continue to be amazed by on a daily basis. YET, I am a nomad so I find amongst all this joy and abundance - in the overwhelming calm settling in on the now, a slight discomfort inside. A yearning to keep moving - stay busy - focus outwards instead of unwinding from the unknown and anxiety of the past few months. This equinox is a beautiful reminder to sit down. To sit with myself. To say this is everything I need in this very moment. 

I went to a yoga class after work today for the first time in a long time and felt my body slowly start to let go of holding on so tight. It is such a long road. A beautiful road. A road I don't really know how to travel but I am beginning. I am embracing the transition on placing roots in one place while I still find ways to appreciate and foster the wild nomad spirit I hold inside. Both parts make me ME and both parts need to be nurture in order to find my balance.

One way I am going to foster that adventure is through the journey of others...Peter Gorman, a Cambridge resident is setting off on the 29th on a solo 10,000 mile bike journey around the US. I have so much bike envy! You can follow his journey here.

.beauty in alignment

Sometimes the growth pains of life/transitions are so strong and occupying that you seem to get lost in them until you wake up to see that in fact you have began to grow into your new self. You have learned how to be in this newness - this transition is now. 

If you are feeling like things aren't "working out" then you just aren't in the right place.
Open yourself to the Universe and the journey it holds for you.
Because things DO work out.
Life is beautiful, everyday.

I have written before about how my support pillars were shaken in the past few years. This forced me to step back and look at WHAT that meant and WHO that made me and WHERE I belong. I sat in that for awhile and then I took a step. A little step but it was what I needed. That step lead me to the next step - forward. Big changes are coming to my life, quickly. They are coming with such beauty and ease - I am right where I need to be.

So much gratitude for the growth pains and for the beauty in alignment.

static

So much static in my head - 

waiting for the dust to settle - 

seems like the studio is the only place to move my mind these days -

so grateful for this space

drinking copious amounts of lemon ginger tea with raw honey-

not finding many words -

interested in seeing the finished pieces?

be sure to stop on by the etsy shop, licho.etsy.com for the latest creations

love to you and yours.

stay warm.

.deserving.

Why is it that right before or during that big jump off the cliff I start criticizing it all.

All my ideas.
All my visions.
All my decisions.

I'm right here in that moment of letting go - lifting that last foot off of the ground but just before I do self-doubt always creeps in.

Are you sure?
Really?
Wouldn't you rather?
How much fun would....be?

If I only let myself see that there is only now. There is purpose in this jump. I deserve this adventure.

I'm still learning that I deserve it all.

.texas countdown.

(pictures from my time in texas 2 years ago)

the time is almost here. whoa.

.packing mantra.

.sunday night rides.

Today I am open to the presence of miracles.

(The Chopra Meditation Challenge starts today!) 

i went for a long ride sunday night (and thankfully got back before the flash flood warning went into affect). 

i live in a beautiful place.

some days it feels like life is so heavy but today - yesterday there was a lightness in the air. 

the beauty of life broke through the clouds.

there is so much breath in this life. 

there is so much beauty in the details - in the encounters.

some times (i'm sad to say) it takes until the end of a transition for me to really step back and feel the beauty of it. 

to be grateful of the authentic people in my life.

to savor the fun found in being present - letting go.

to stay up way to late at a fiesta that costs more than my entire college education.