My dear goddess-woman, oracle-friend, Ann Swanberg, penned the phrase, “Prepare to be Gifted”.  Today, her words allowed me to peek around another corner.  I was flooded by the knowledge that once you’ve prepared to be gifted, your great challenge is to then accept the gift.

My dear goddess-woman, oracle-friend, Ann Swanberg, penned the phrase, “Prepare to be Gifted”.  Today, her words allowed me to peek around another corner.  I was flooded by the knowledge that once you’ve prepared to be gifted, your great challenge is to then accept the gift.

I sing - I photograph.  These are some of my layers.  Fundamental parts of my essence. Gifts to me.  They don’t define me, but are who I am.   There were times when I veered away from some of the deepest parts of myself and thought that they had disappeared.  I’ve come to the place where I know that the gifts of your creativity can weave in and out of focus for a time in your life, but ignoring or failing to tend to them, creates a chasm; a void in the core of who you are.  You know when you sing that note or look through that lens, or explore whatever gifts you’ve been given, that you’ve returned home to yourself.  There’s no thought to it, just that deep internal knowing and sense of being in your own shoes. 

I sing - I photograph.  These are some of my layers.  Fundamental parts of my essence. Gifts to me.  They don’t define me, but are who I am.  

There were times when I veered away from some of the deepest parts of myself and thought that they had disappeared.  I’ve come to the place where I know that the gifts of your creativity can weave in and out of focus for a time in your life, but ignoring or failing to tend to them, creates a chasm; a void in the core of who you are.  You know when you sing that note or look through that lens, or explore whatever gifts you’ve been given, that you’ve returned home to yourself.  There’s no thought to it, just that deep internal knowing and sense of being in your own shoes. 

What is this human thing we do in taking things for granted? The everyday living, breathing, fiber of our experience?  Our years together have woven themselves into my fabric. Gratitude doesn’t begin to capture acknowledgment of the gift. It’s something beyond - perhaps prayer.

What is this human thing we do in taking things for granted? The everyday living, breathing, fiber of our experience?  Our years together have woven themselves into my fabric. Gratitude doesn’t begin to capture acknowledgment of the gift. It’s something beyond - perhaps prayer.

Your Gifts From a incredible conversation I had this weekend - “Don’t give up on your gifts.  Just twist things around until they come into focus again.”

Your Gifts

From a incredible conversation I had this weekend - “Don’t give up on your gifts.  Just twist things around until they come into focus again.”

“The only constant is change” - Heraclitus ________________________________________________________ A long holiday vacation from the regular routine of work, gifted me the ability to simply settle into the rhythm of the days. Doing nothing or doing something, and the choice as to how to move through the day, has been an offering that I have accepted. We all require longer stretches of time than we allow ourselves, where we break from regular routines - don’t feel compelled to “do something - go somewhere - experience something  - be constructive - be productive”, but rather to simply settle into the quiet winter rhythm of slowing down.   The coming New Year has a voice and a life of its own.  For me, it is a clapping, pulsating - almost African drum rhythm  - of enormous change.  There is an opening and a closing, a rising and a falling, a clarity and a blurring, a tearing down and rebuilding, all taking place at one time, begging for quiet moments where insight and vision seep in.  It’s impossible to move into the experience without the time, without the quiet.  I am blessed for having that time and quiet, and am wildly open to everything coming my way. 

“The only constant is change” - Heraclitus

________________________________________________________

A long holiday vacation from the regular routine of work, gifted me the ability to simply settle into the rhythm of the days. Doing nothing or doing something, and the choice as to how to move through the day, has been an offering that I have accepted. We all require longer stretches of time than we allow ourselves, where we break from regular routines - don’t feel compelled to “do something - go somewhere - experience something  - be constructive - be productive”, but rather to simply settle into the quiet winter rhythm of slowing down.  

The coming New Year has a voice and a life of its own.  For me, it is a clapping, pulsating - almost African drum rhythm  - of enormous change.  There is an opening and a closing, a rising and a falling, a clarity and a blurring, a tearing down and rebuilding, all taking place at one time, begging for quiet moments where insight and vision seep in.  It’s impossible to move into the experience without the time, without the quiet.  I am blessed for having that time and quiet, and am wildly open to everything coming my way. 

There is no more important act than to give the world the gift of your true nature.  Open from that place and the world will step up to enfold you. ________________________________________ Listening My father could hear a little animal step, 
or a moth in the dark against the screen, 
and every far sound called the listening out 
into places where the rest of us had never been. More spoke to him from the soft wild night 
than came to our porch for us on the wind; 
we would watch him look up and his face go keen 
till the walls of the world flared, widened. My father heard so much that we still stand 
inviting the quiet by turning the face, 
waiting for a time when something in the night 
will touch us too from that other place. William Stafford
 -  A Scripture of Leaves, 1989

There is no more important act than to give the world the gift of your true nature.  Open from that place and the world will step up to enfold you.

________________________________________

Listening

My father could hear a little animal step, 
or a moth in the dark against the screen, 
and every far sound called the listening out 
into places where the rest of us had never been.

More spoke to him from the soft wild night 
than came to our porch for us on the wind; 
we would watch him look up and his face go keen 
till the walls of the world flared, widened.

My father heard so much that we still stand 
inviting the quiet by turning the face, 
waiting for a time when something in the night 
will touch us too from that other place.

William Stafford
 -  A Scripture of Leaves, 1989

True living is a continuous opening of all of the boxes that you have within you - Areas you have hidden, temporarily, or those that have been hidden for ages. Your gifts, talents, hopes and aspirations, and even your pain. Your essential selves, your true essences that have been locked away, in many cases, never believing that they would be released.  So dormant that that you fail to recognize them any longer as part of you.   At the time they were locked away, it may have served you, aided in your very survival to keep those parts of you hidden.  Keeping them in the background - perhaps yes, but they were never meant to be locked away.  One by one - for it will take time, it will take courage, and a commitment to unlocking your full self - Begin to peek inside of the boxes and reacquaint yourself with the full you.  Try yourself on for size and be the liberator of your life as you settle into the fullness of filling those empty places, you though never could be filled.   You have simply been missing yourself.   Bow and thank the boxes for the protection they provided you, but that you no longer need.  Your true protection has always been living fully in yourself.  Take time to fit into your new skin and sing the praises that can only come from the joy, the utter bliss of living your full life.  

True living is a continuous opening of all of the boxes that you have within you - Areas you have hidden, temporarily, or those that have been hidden for ages. Your gifts, talents, hopes and aspirations, and even your pain. Your essential selves, your true essences that have been locked away, in many cases, never believing that they would be released.  So dormant that that you fail to recognize them any longer as part of you.  

At the time they were locked away, it may have served you, aided in your very survival to keep those parts of you hidden.  Keeping them in the background - perhaps yes, but they were never meant to be locked away.  One by one - for it will take time, it will take courage, and a commitment to unlocking your full self - Begin to peek inside of the boxes and reacquaint yourself with the full you.  Try yourself on for size and be the liberator of your life as you settle into the fullness of filling those empty places, you though never could be filled.  

You have simply been missing yourself.  

Bow and thank the boxes for the protection they provided you, but that you no longer need.  Your true protection has always been living fully in yourself.  Take time to fit into your new skin and sing the praises that can only come from the joy, the utter bliss of living your full life.  

When everything gets muddled and you forget your purpose in being here, remember that bringing your gifts into the world every day is that primary reason.  Sharing your unique gifts is your life’s work/your life’s breath.  When you allow that to fade, you’ll question yourself and the edge in all that you possess that is unique, will begin to dull.  You will fear that you have lost your way.  The competition from the necessities and even the unimportant life demands are fierce.  It is only through your commitment to taking that step, every day, to sing out who you are, that you will feed the world and it will in turn feed you back. Life returns back into focus and the miraculous unfolds. 

When everything gets muddled and you forget your purpose in being here, remember that bringing your gifts into the world every day is that primary reason.  Sharing your unique gifts is your life’s work/your life’s breath.  When you allow that to fade, you’ll question yourself and the edge in all that you possess that is unique, will begin to dull.  You will fear that you have lost your way.  The competition from the necessities and even the unimportant life demands are fierce.  It is only through your commitment to taking that step, every day, to sing out who you are, that you will feed the world and it will in turn feed you back. Life returns back into focus and the miraculous unfolds. 

The hyper-time-warped world in which we live and the constraints of time have forced us to compartmentalize who we are.  Our gifts take a back seat to “work” as we segment who we are into descriptions or titles:  ”Manager”, “Painter”, “Athlete”, “Writer”, “Mother”, “Dancer”, “Singer”, “Sculptor”, “Healer”, “Architect”, “Inventor”, “Poet”.   Only the merging of all of our gifts and talents result in the fully alive person that we are meant to become.  Our concept of time and of how we spend that time is linear.  We don’t broaden, but rather, narrow in attempt to get one thing done so that we can move to the next thing……if we have time.  There is narrow space for becoming, as we carefully choose how to spend our precious time.  Little time and space exist for the opening that integrates all of our selves into the one miraculous being that we are.  Until we get there, we struggle to put all of our pieces together in a way that is artificially constructed. We craft ourselves from our thoughts and beliefs of what and who we are, rather than from the experience that allows us to fully explode into the rich fullness of ourselves.   There is no creativity in this linear life.  It is only when we open up fully to flipping our world, our concept of time, and our consciousness upside down, that our beloved selves emerge.

The hyper-time-warped world in which we live and the constraints of time have forced us to compartmentalize who we are.  Our gifts take a back seat to “work” as we segment who we are into descriptions or titles:  ”Manager”, “Painter”, “Athlete”, “Writer”, “Mother”, “Dancer”, “Singer”, “Sculptor”, “Healer”, “Architect”, “Inventor”, “Poet”.  

Only the merging of all of our gifts and talents result in the fully alive person that we are meant to become.  Our concept of time and of how we spend that time is linear.  We don’t broaden, but rather, narrow in attempt to get one thing done so that we can move to the next thing……if we have time.  There is narrow space for becoming, as we carefully choose how to spend our precious time.  Little time and space exist for the opening that integrates all of our selves into the one miraculous being that we are.  Until we get there, we struggle to put all of our pieces together in a way that is artificially constructed. We craft ourselves from our thoughts and beliefs of what and who we are, rather than from the experience that allows us to fully explode into the rich fullness of ourselves.  

There is no creativity in this linear life.  It is only when we open up fully to flipping our world, our concept of time, and our consciousness upside down, that our beloved selves emerge.

We each have the essential gifts that we carry through this world.  Some we have developed, and some we are born with.  It’s not a matter of what we do, what we are good at or what talents we’ve honed, its the deep and essential truth of who we are and what we bring to the world. Prior to the time that as children, we are tainted by the messages of the world, we are the embodiment of that essential being and those gifts are shared freely, without thought or purpose. The sweet presence of our life-essence  is visible at every moment.  That light shines through from infancy and remains until the world tells us that we have to hide who we are, and begin to express what we are good at.  Thus begins the spiral leading to the confusion and loss of the sense of self.  What results is an outward facing definition of who we are, and so begins the journey of losing touch with what was once our  burning radiance. Beneath the noise and years of piling on false selves, the pure essence of who we are yearns to come back home.  It begins with a flash of recognition one day, when you catch a glimpse of yourself and recognize in your eyes, that true sense of who you are.  The feeling sears through your body and soul, and the recognition of a lost part of yourself returns.   The road to the rediscovery of who you are, your essential self, and of your true gifts, can be a quick one.  It doesn’t take years of digging and exploration, because it is all there.  Time in silence, in nature, and moving your body once again as you did as a child, brings back a flood of all that was buried for so long.   A childlike grin of recognition crosses your face as you greet your old friend walking across a field to you.  She steps into your body and every cell is once again infused with your brilliance.  An explosion blows away your old life and lights up your universe.  Transformation.   

We each have the essential gifts that we carry through this world.  Some we have developed, and some we are born with.  It’s not a matter of what we do, what we are good at or what talents we’ve honed, its the deep and essential truth of who we are and what we bring to the world.

Prior to the time that as children, we are tainted by the messages of the world, we are the embodiment of that essential being and those gifts are shared freely, without thought or purpose. The sweet presence of our life-essence  is visible at every moment.  That light shines through from infancy and remains until the world tells us that we have to hide who we are, and begin to express what we are good at.  Thus begins the spiral leading to the confusion and loss of the sense of self.  What results is an outward facing definition of who we are, and so begins the journey of losing touch with what was once our  burning radiance.

Beneath the noise and years of piling on false selves, the pure essence of who we are yearns to come back home.  It begins with a flash of recognition one day, when you catch a glimpse of yourself and recognize in your eyes, that true sense of who you are.  The feeling sears through your body and soul, and the recognition of a lost part of yourself returns.  

The road to the rediscovery of who you are, your essential self, and of your true gifts, can be a quick one.  It doesn’t take years of digging and exploration, because it is all there.  Time in silence, in nature, and moving your body once again as you did as a child, brings back a flood of all that was buried for so long.  

A childlike grin of recognition crosses your face as you greet your old friend walking across a field to you.  She steps into your body and every cell is once again infused with your brilliance.  An explosion blows away your old life and lights up your universe.  Transformation. 

 

Following

Likes

View more