Pink Coyote

Bored If You're Boring

I once had this grade-school teacher who must've heard zillions of pre-pube kids complaining about being bored.  I can remember how whiny it sounded to hear someone say it, "I'iiimmm BORED."  Maybe that's why she responded the same way each time by saying "If you're bored, it's because you're boring."  Obviously it stuck with me and I think it may have been one of the many reasons that decided I could absolutely NOT be happy living a dull, lackluster life.  It was my first lesson in being responsible for my own inner state.  Many adventures and counting later, I continue to make an effort to entertain myself.

Spontaneous aside: Digging around in my wallet today, I found this fortune from some long-forgotten cookie that made me laugh- "Wealth is not only money. Wealth can be happiness in your sweetheart or your honey." 

Cheers to all that makes us happy...

Happy Earth Day!

While thinking long and lazily over Bombay Chai about what Miles and I could do to celebrate Earth Day this morning, we patchworked a quick mailbox together out of paper scraps, a shoebox and a brad.  The surfboard flag is in a shadow in the photo, but rather snazzy.  He loves LOVES getting mail and so I've been out sneaking little notes and cards in there so that when he checks it (every  ten minutes) there is a little surprise waiting for him. 

Back to Earth Day!  Earth Day is sort of every day for us, but one thing that we don't do that I'd like to is cruise our neighborhood and pick up paper and trash that gets blown around in the weekly blusters we seem to have here.  There is a blue Christmas bulb outside our gate stuck in a tumbleweed, for example that must have rolled over here a season ago that will be the first in my bag!

Most Alive Monday

My big boy went to his first airshow this weekend which thrilled him.  B's "Pap-Pap" used to take him to see World War II fighter planes when he was a little boy, so when he heard there would be a show near us, he had to go and see what Miles response would be.  M already loves trains, cars and anything that moves with wheels, -really, a total boy in that aspect.  Needless to say, he was all lit up and they sat in a copter and even a very old plane that had been flown to California rather precariously (it made many emergency landings on the way). 

Brandon and I have no positive feelings for war at all, so it is a bit of a paradox that we would take any joy in sharing war machines with our small son.  Perhaps it is the energy of the second World War and the immediate and urgent cause to stop Nazi Germany that makes it historically tolerable.  The stlyish and daring fighter pilots and the pride they took in their small, sometimes independently contracted planes have a nostalgic, artistic appeal to my husband.  I love the artwork associated with that era, too.

Raising a boy means walking the fine line of indulging his boyishness and imbuing him with the sense of respect for human and planetary life in the hopes that his generation will not be faced with atrocities that shut down the natural response to be gentle and kind.  One can wish.

We rather unconsciously juxtaposed the experience with the creation of a tiny house for brownies that Miles placed under the plum tree yesterday.  It was a full, easy weekend of wonder and family.

   

This post was inspired by my dear Wendy's Most Alive Monday project.

Down from Warrior a Notch

   

What a lovely weekend I've had with my favorite mountain medicine women.  When we gather, we seldom have a plan (except for food, of course!) and the weekend unfolds as it is supposed to.  We've become so tuned in on this path, that we often make easy connections between what is going on for each of us and that unofficially becomes the theme of the retreat.  This weekend was all about finding peace in the midst of the unknown.

I found in my journeywork that it is easy for me to spend time in the realm of seeking treasures underground-my mole medicine was very strong!  My message was that I need to come up above ground and learn how to BE when there is pure chaos going on around me.  I have pulled into my safe cave since giving birth over 2 years ago.  I don't even have cable or watch TV, and most certainly don't read the newspaper.  It isn't that I don't want to empathize with what is going on for people, or be involved with the world, I have just been using my energy differently to benefit myself and others.

I also feel like I am finally coming to peace with my job as a bodyworker.  There are about 10 other jobs I would love to try, but right now, I love the job I have and it has been so good to my family and me.  (I go to work to relax, as we say at the spa).  The clientele I've built are the goodliest people I could ever wish to see each week.  I think that I take what I have acheived for granted at times and just yearn for the next adventure.  I'm trying hard to love what I am doing and what I have at the moment.  That includes living in this town where only one day out of every five is a healthy air day!  Hard to sit still in this, but I'm trying.

Spring Medicine Weekend

M touches Auntie Chris's tummy belly (TB).

Off for another round of gathered women to celebrate the magical changing of the seasons and commune with nature.  This group always seems to gather when my body needs mass quantities of rest or nuturing of some kind.  This week my neck and shoulder are giving me such grief!  I'm looking foward to sitting by a fire and asking someone to put their healing hands on me.  I need to plug in and recharge!

I'll be thinking of you from far above sea level...

I don't know where the time goes.  The days look so different now that I am working and a parent.  I don't think I realized how things like writing blogs and reading blogs would fall to the wayside, among other things.  The funny thing is that I blog in my head every day!  I will lie awake writing about my day or about a miraculous moment.  When I never get around to putting it here, I feel somehow like a part of that moment becomes lost in the flurry.  This format has become like a little photo journal of motherhood and creativity, airing my laundry and sharing plans for the future.  It is sometimes difficult to just let my blog float around unattended out here in cyberspace, knowing that I'm not keeping up on it.  Somehow just sitting in the discomfort of the things I can't get to is good medicine for me.  Being quiet with uncomfortable feelings is something I don't love.  This must be a big reason why at times I've filled my clock up with people and events and work and all of those consuming things. 

I am still doing too much.  I've got a retreat in April, one in May, a vision quest in June, a proper vacation in September, and clients who wish I was working more.  I don't practice what I'm preaching to all of them, which is to slow down!  I do try. It seems weeding in the garden is never done. I'm noticing what comes up for me when I put the brakes on everything.  The stillness makes me anxious.  A fear that I'm missing out on something or that life might just very well pass me by occurs to me.  Or lonely feelings from my childhood creep in, coupled with a boredom I don't fully understand, but it feels like life isn't working and that I must do something to make it work. 

Doing healing work has a surprisingly grounding effect on me in the middle of all of this "doing". While I'm working, I feel like the hands on the clock are moving slower.  Do you ever feel like this?  That when you are doing a work you are meant to do, that you are suspended in time?  Though the physical labor part of it exhausts me by days end, I feel of great value in my community and I come home to put my babe to bed feeling fulfilled.  Right now, I have time for little else (besides retreating with women, apparently).  Some items on my life list must wait for a while before I can nurture them into giant sunflowers, as now is a time to keep my nose to the grindstone and my eye on the prize.