the dreaming Press.

Kinetic pink ribbon lingering abidingly.

 
 
I'm composing this on my fifteen year old ThinkPad.  (So take that-iPad lovers!) I'm rocking vintage IBM technology.  She's a dinosaur, oh yeah! But lately I'm upcycling, recycling, reusing and reducing.  In order to save my Mother.  Mother Earth.

I was cleaning (one of my favourite things to do if time allows, really) and I came upon this roll of pink ribbon posturing rather kinetically on the bamboo mat.  Kinetic came to mind because it roller-coastered along the desk as if in motion~so *click* I snapped away while the sun briefly streamed in through the window of this long grey room. (Grey due to too much winter, too much I tell you!)

I'll take this pink ribbon and tie it around a postcard bundle for someone...then pop it in the mail.  Then I'm taking about ten framed photos I found and I'm creating a gallery wall upstairs.  Why have these beautiful pictures stuck in a drawer if they aren't being looked at? Life is meant to be lived, yes? The good dishes are to be eaten on, the high heels meant to be worn on your feet because maybe, just maybe if you asked your toes they'd tell you just how sick and tired they are of shlepping about in flip-flops.  Even if just for one day.

xoxo

Insist on the mossy green & the white fire of stars~

 
I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

 'Sleeping in the forest' by~Mary Oliver (love her so)

Insist on beauty-all around you-at all times.  Where there is none I suggest you summon it up.

Tonight is vision boards and chai.

Hope your weekend is full of simple happiness too~enjoy every moment of it.

xoxo

...and God whistled OM while whittling wood on His front porch. (seriously)

 
I love shells.  Feathers.  Anything found in nature.  Being a Capricorn I am drawn to all things grounded and rooted in our earth.  I love stumbling upon a patch of moss growing wildly green. I love dipping my hands into the raging ocean and plucking out a shell and some long deceased coral-a fossilized nautilus shell.  

I picture God as stillness. Yet He rocks in a chair on His front porch.  Happily whistling a tune of OM.  This is my earth religion.  God as a hillbilly, a recluse-wise...wonderful...warm.  A friend of mine when I most needed Him. Whistling a tune of Om, and not minding if I occasionally take His name in vain.  Because He knows me, and He knows I don't mean it the way some may think I do.

My friend sent me a book recently and she opened me up to so much personal soul searching I just have to thank God for her.  Please go visit her.  She is as honest as the day is long.  Real.  I love that about her. The quote from the book that made me pause to consider all was this, "You are that which you are seeking." Those simple words changed me.  A simple intervention that was written into my blueprint, yet seems unassuming and small. Yet, it is not.  It impacted me greatly. 

Before you go thinking I'm about to thump you with a Bible...I am just so drawn in to the Source lately and how much it means to me to be true to myself and the absolute freedom that it brings.  The truth sets all of us so very free.  Really. 

I have been shopping for Japanese Washi tape (what needs mending...I wonder?), I've been smoking the odd Cuban cigarette (no, I don't ordinarily smoke), I've been smudging my space with Nag Champa (a good spacial clearing) and I've been cooking up a storm.  A stack of magazines has inspired me...that Oprah and her De-Cluttering issue has made me pause to organize...to breathe in the moments of my now's with all my heart.

Liz and her wild and parenthesized ways have made me long for more memoir in the blog...hence I'm dubbing myself a memoirist~though shalt know my truth...(thank you Rebecca).

Okay, that is all for today's random post on earth, God, truth and well...wood whittling.  God is in you. He is in all that you seek, be it in a church, a disco, a coffee house, in your lover's blue blue eyes, or in the vast ocean.  He is in the medicine, the water, the pillow.  Just be still, and you will find what you are looking for.

xo

 

Step gently outside the lines of chaos. {My heart says yes.}

 
A woman sits at the side of a laneway hoping to sell her few cigars.  She is on display; a show for the tourists.  She is so much stronger than we give her credit for at first glance.  She isn't a spectacle.  A sideshow.  She is a human being.  Someone who may have little children at home, or a lover waiting in the wings.  She sleeps, breathes, eats the same as we all do.  She is strength personified. {If put in her position would you survive? Would you have the gall or the wherewithall to make it through each day?}

I thought about this woman and her lines of order and chaos.  I worried about her tremendously. How does she navigate through those lines? Is she making it? {My heart says yes.}

We all have inner strength we can tap into.  Yes, all of us.  {Because for some of us, our problems are miniscule.}

 

Do you walk your own journey, or that road which belongs to her over there?

We each stand on our own two feet.  I've always been a subscriber to this thought.  I know I must walk my own path, and that is really ok because don't we all? At the end of each day I can only do my best. Just like YOU. Do you walk your own path? {I hope so.}

I do.

 

xo

~travel softly...

 

...and carry your big camera.

You are that which you are seeking. ~Saint Francis

 

 

La Habana; A thousand shades of white

 

We are all wanderers on this earth. Our hearts are full of wonder, and our souls are deep with dreams. ~Gypsy Proverb

 
Havana's inhabitants are colourful~ her buildings worn and beautiful {a thousand shades of white}.

She is; Rich in character.  Robust with music.  Startlingly impoverished.  Blessed with history.

When I said "Hola," to Havana, I thought of how nice it would be if our meeting were longer than just one day.  The reason for this is quite simple: Havana has much to say. I've always characterized cities as having their own distinct personalities.  Havana is your resourceful, graceful & resplendent seaside friend.  Her facades are fading in the bright Caribbean sun but that matters not; because she still carries herself and her thousand shades of white with a toss of her hair and loud echoing laughter. 

 
We had some interesting and eye-opening moments in Havana. 

We ate delicious black bean soup for lunch at La Imprenta in Old Havana, and washed it down with cold Cristal beer.

We drank in the sights of a market and the local handiwork of artisans that display their goods there for sale.  We had some common household items to give away to local children; toothpaste and brushes, candies, coloured markers, and paper.  My eldest daughter was visibly shaken when she approached a young boy of about 4 to give him two gifts she had brought with her; an older boy of about ten descended upon her outstretched hand and took the gifts quicker than you could blink.  Off he danced waving the spoils of his plunder in the air and chiding his little friend in Spanish. My daughter was mortified...it was her first exposure to injustice and she was fit to be tied.  All day we discussed it.  She was most upset as she had nothing left to give the little boy who she had intended it for.  She was saddened by it all day. {Always a lesson to learn...}

 
Havana like the rest of Cuba has transportation issues; so you see vintage American cars everywhere, buses loaded up like sardine cans, hitchhikers everywhere and of course, horse & buggy's galore.  But people manage to get around....

 
...mainly on foot.  Regardless of the size of their burden.

xo

{More next post.}

Skeleton work.

 
 
 
We must carry on with this luscious madness called a life, mustn't we? Yes, we must.  No matter what the Universe tosses at us. (We asked for it after all.)

It is funny, the inside of the closet at work hosts a tiny corkboard and on it are tiny little remembrances of my life~receipts for lunches I've had, a Polaroid snap of me asking whoever looks at it 'Don't take life so seriously', small teacup pins, postcards, lists, and more. Little gems & treasures.

Corkboards, like dream boards or vision boards-hold for us what we hold dear in our hearts.  Memories, tokens, touchstones, keepsakes.  A business card from a colleague.  A funky restaurant brochure.  {We are what we pin up there. Keep it positive.}

A close friend of mine sent me a message today, it read something like this:

Dear Vision Board,

Thank you for my husband's raise and my brand new van.  Thank you for my two new clients! You are working very well for me. I believe in you and I know you will continue to work for me.  You're the best,

Love,

___________

xo

She is such a positive inspiration to me, a cheerleader and a true friend. She is one of the most open minded people I know.  When she felt down on her luck about six months ago she created a vision board.  She is now seeing that all the things she meditated on or wished for or whatever language you choose to use...is now coming into her life, and into her focus.  All the Universe is conspiring to bring her what she really wants.

There is something really satisfying about ripping beautiful photos out of a magazine, or taking photographs you already own and combining them with pretty ribbons, trinkets, symbols & talismans to create the vision of YOU onto a board.  Creative manifestation.  Drawing in the people, experiences, things, relationships, health & life you wish to have.

For those of you who do this in your personal lives and find success with it, why not apply these same principles to your business plan? This incredible author blogs right here.

Now shouldn't we all go create our futures right this minute? Pin up your desires.  Write them down.  Paste them onto a board.  Then go look at it every day.  Dream it.  Breathe it in.  Believe it. The vision board is the skeleton of your dreams, the very foundation on which all else is built.

Then, watch it all happen in time.

 

xo