Many mornings now I wake in my tent to a crunchy rime of frost on the wild meadow grasses all around me and on the rain fly above me. Other days we have balmy 8o+ degree temperatures and mild nights. Southern California “winter” is full of such contradictions!
Even as their leaves turn yellow and fall away, the rose bushes put forth a last flush of sparse, slowly unfurling buds. The very late blooming gardenia bushes do the same. New wild grasses emerge in the meadow after the recent rains. So, too, volunteer artichoke seedlings and a bounty of greenery that, before long, will show buds of California poppy. At the same time, the apple, plum and persimmon trees in the meadow have-like the red maple and sycamore over the fence-shed the last of their golden leaves. The last few fluorescent orange persimmons hang on the graceful bare branches just outside my front door, glowing like living Christmas ornaments.
This past not-working but not unplugged week I've been swept up in a wondrous flurry of messing about in the dirt. A flurry of-both literally and figuratively-“digging in” here while I wait to see who'll be finding their way into the very close front house. (My currently resident landlord will soon be moving away to her new house.) This “digging in,” my physical prayer for a wonderful new neighbor whose presence will not upset the magical peace I've found on this very special piece of land.
The “digging in” included ordering, then stacking a cord of mostly eucalyptus firewood. Wood so heavy it was a job I had to do pretty much one log at a time. Having the gardener/handy guys dig holes around the near edge of the meadow for tangelo, dwarf ruby grapefruit and dwarf blood orange trees (I've so missed being surrounded by a bounty of available citrus!). Then, more holes at the meadow's far edge for four shrubs (to provide more privacy-once they've grown some-from the neighbor's driveway). Setting all the trees and shrubs in gopher proofing wire baskets and backfilling the holes at dusk in messy, goofy and giggle-filled collaboration with my sweet friend Teri.
Digging and setting in some night-blooming jasmine outside my desk window. Wanting once again to have this wonderfully fragrant company that I'd gotten so used to having at my desk at the old house. Up to my armpits mixing soil and worm castings for some new pots of arrugula, romaine lettuce, chards and red kale. Crawling around putting in irrigation lines for all these new additions. Lugging and spreading 60 cubic feet of shredded bark over two newly, handyman-leveled areas at the edges of the meadow. Spots where, before, I'd sit in my chairs or recliners perched precariously on lumpy uneven ground watching the sunset's pink reflection on the Topa Topa ridge or being mesmerized by the mountains to the north.
While immersed in this whole new layer of settling-in activity, having the handymen “fine-tune” a ton of little and big irritating glitches around the house and yard. No more leaky shed roof, crotchety gate latches, leaking ramada roof, or sticking rain-swollen gates and doors. Sheer bliss!
The grand finale of all the “making things right” included ordering some wooden signs to help UPS and other delivery people find their way to my off-the-beaten-track gate. And, too, having two years worth of parking lot nicks and scrapes repaired as a second-birthday present for my dear little plum PT Cruiser.
After 10 days of this amazingly intense, almost non-stop activity and a few days of scheduled work and self-care appointments, I'm at long last coming back to a slower pace. To resting between quieter forays into the myriad of chores and rituals involved for me in closing down the old year, in clearing the “decks” for the new one. In making the space for newness to be born.
Part of the newness to come will surely involve the next steps in the process of moving the manuscript along its way! This is the big news of the month. Debra (my agent to be) and I finally caught up with each other in real time. (She'd left me a tantalizing message while I was on my birthday silent retreat.) I reached her just as I came out of that retreat (November 22nd). Her excited idea: to pitch the book titled as " Off Kilter: Tales for when life gets hard." To sell it for the tools it offers for taking care of ourselves in the challenging and difficult times. It's a title geared to minimizing the "eye-glazing" response that things "spiritual" seem to call up in today's markets. One that would be casting its net to a broader audience. It sounded really right and really fine with me! I, and everyone I've shared the title with, feel like she's found exactly the right “hook.”
I have to write a new introduction to go with the new slant in the title. When I've got that in hand and Debra's chosen a few chapters for the package, she'll give me the blueprint for writing a “book proposal.” Then, she promises to walk me through its execution. There'll be a note-of-intention from my outrageously delicious friend Annie Lamott who's amazingly and generously volunteered to write a "long and luxurious" foreword for it! There'll be a blurb (quote) from my oldest, dearest friend Carol Munter whose early work (Overcoming Overeating and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies) really started me on this journey some 35 years ago. And, there'll be a blurb from my juicily succulent friend Susan Kennedy (aka SARK) who told me that she'd already written the blurb for it last June when she saw it sitting in its box on Debra's desk. (She was in New York with Debra then interviewing new publishers.).
Debra's narrowed the field to 7 or 8 smaller houses that she thinks may find it appealing. Once the proposal is in shape and all the pieces are collected, she'll start the job of pitching it! She seems the absolutely most perfect person imaginable to midwife this project. We're in total agreement that the timing will reveal itself as we go along. That, there's no need to hurry-after all, it's taken 9 years to just get here!
I've a very strong belly sense that it will go forward, that it will find its way out into the world-that the Grandmothers have an interest in seeing that happen. Oddly, I find myself watching the process from some remove, not quite living in the middle of it. I'm definitely excited and delighted by Debra's excitement about it. And, I was quite excited to be able to send her the second manuscript (the compiled Bulletin Board Journals). But with the original manuscript, I seem to feel more like a witness to its journey. As if, now that I've birthed it, it has a life and trajectory that is its own rather than mine. A strange sense of separateness. A calm, peaceful feeling of having no stake, no agenda. I'm glad this is where I find myself. It feels good and “right” for me.
I love the way this has all come to be. No efforting, not ever feeling like any of it was “work.” (Well, except for struggling with computer technology for the web site in the early days! But, even that soon transformed into an exhilarating, exciting adventure.) Having the joys, each month, of revisiting both the distant (for the Monthly Musing) and the more immediate (for the Bulletin Board) pasts and “making medicine” from the experiences that I'd lived through. Reflecting, digesting, naming, uncovering meaning, depth and lessons learned. Doing all that for its own sake. For me. Then, having the incredible bonus, the wonder of hearing that what I did for me was of real value to other women in their own journeying. And, now, actually having the possibility of a book emerging, one that may well find its way to a still wider world of other women. It all seems quite miraculous.
It's a very special moment in my life. A completion that has within it the sense of a new beginning. After this year of so many changes and challenges and openings, I'm feeling both curious and clueless about what's ahead. Life feels full and rich and nourishing on every level just as it is. I am so filled with gratitude.
Each Solstice/New Year, since 1985, I “receive” the words and an image for a new card to add to my collection. Then, I gather from my “Quote Files” a collection of quotes that speak to me. I send the two (lately with a “year end letter” as well) out to friends, family and clients some time around the New Year. It's my way of celebrating both the season and the connections I feel to the people I send them to.
The year-end letter hasn't come as yet, but here are the words to the card and the collection of quotes. They come with my warmest wishes for the blessings of gentleness, safety, nourishment and peace in the New Year.
Soaring Woman
From the core,
Energy rising.
Vibrating.
Burgeoning forth.
Stretching us.
Cracking us open.
Unfurling wings,
We did not know we'd had.
Lifted on gusts of joy,
We are soaring
Beyond the furthest reaches
Of any self we have known.
Robyn Posin
Some Inspirations for the Year Ahead - 2006
It has not occurred to most people that they may already be the role model they seek. The wholeness they are looking for may be trapped within themselves by belief, attitudes and self-doubt. But our wholeness exists in us now. Trapped though it may be, it can be called upon for guidance, direction, and most fundamentally, comfort. It can be remembered. Eventually we may come to live by it.
Rachel Naomi Remen
This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
And it has already turned out. Lao Tzu
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not hear it. The world will not have it.
Martha Graham
Your soul cannot breathe, exist or move disconnected from your body. Your parents gave birth to your body and your body is the womb of your soul. The birth of your soul is a virgin birth, one you must do on your own. If you want to birth your true self, you are going to have to dig deep down into that body of yours and let your soul howl… find the Buddha within you. Think of your body as a begging bowl for spirit…In the beginning we all danced…grounded in the rhythms of nature.
Gabrielle Roth
Tear down this house.
A hundred thousand new houses can be built
From the transparent yellow carnelian buried beneath.
And the only way to get to that
Is to do the work of demolishing and then
Digging under the foundation.
Rumi
Your joys and sufferings on this arduous path
Are lifting your worn veil like a rising stage curtain
And will surely reveal your Magnificent Self.
Hafiz
Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, purposeful solitude was both palliative and preventative. It was used to heal and prevent weariness. It was also used as an oracle, as a way of listening to the inner self to solicit advice and guidance, otherwise impossible to hear in the din of everyday life...
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
Carl Jung
It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing. Gertrude Stein
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Rumi
Seeing is Believing: Envision a world where you go as you please never having to make excuses for not going where you don't want to go and not having to hold back from doing what you really want to do or having to explain what you do.
Ripening- A Women's Almanac
Unconditional
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is purest delight;
To honor its form---true devotion.
Jennifer Welwood
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