Human Needs

Some thoughts on taking care of ourselves.

Basic Human Needs

Water-
By the time you are thirsty, you are probably already dehydrated.  Your body needs lots of water!

Signs of dehydration
Tiredness
Dry Skin
Headache
Constipation
Lightheadedness
Dry Mouth
Thirst

How much water daily?
Multiply your weight by .5 to find the baseline amount of water you need daily.
add 8 oz. to this total for every caffeineated beverage or soda you drink.  If you find plain water boring or difficult to drink in large amounts, check out the caffeine-free herbal tea selection at any grocery store.  There are many flavors to choose from, you can boil a cup or two of water, add several tea bags and steep, then add water and ice to make a gallon that is ready to drink from all day.

Food-
There is no one right diet plan for every body.  As a basic start, fill the bulk of your diet with whole foods, as unprocessed as possible.  Sugar, MSG, and white flour are at the top of my to-avoid list.  From there, be kind to yourself!  Pay attention to which foods make you feel terrible, and eliminate or greatly reduce those.  If you do want to indulge in one of those foods, take the time to sit down in a relaxed environment and slowly savor a small portion, noticing the smell, texture, and being very present with the taste through the whole experience.  If you want some help on how to get started with that concept, the Center for Mindful Living downtown offers mindful eating sessions, as do I.

Touch-
Human affection and connection are crucial to our well being.  Whether partnered or not make sure you accept affection from the other loved ones in your life, as well as from yourself.  This includes self-massage, and giving yourself the time to get a massage or other hands-on therapy, even if it is trading with a friend.  If possible, massage therapy and reflexology are great as well.

Attention-
It is important to feel that you have sources of healthy attention.  Practice deep attentive listening in your relationships to encourage that pattern between the two of you.  Also, meditation can be a wonderful way to sit down and fulfill this need for yourself, to observe your own thought stream with rapt attention.

Participation in community-
If you feel a lack in this area, there are may avenues to find a group of people that you can join.  Check meetup.com, Facebook groups that also meet in person, local events, faith based groups, volunteer groups and so on.  It can be difficult to find a good fit at first, but it is worth the effort.  Keep trying!  Look for people who are comfortable accepting you for who you are right now.

Guidance-
You may have wise and trusted older relatives or friends that can offer their wisdom.  If you do, lucky you!  If not, a religious leader in the community may be able to help with guidance.  However, the truest teacher is Within yourself.  Practice listening to your intuition, trusting the impressions you get, and acting on the needs you see in yourself.  Also, take a look at the book list in this packet for books I have found particularly helpful for guidance.  You may enjoy all, some or none!  Check the library self-help and spirituality sections for books more to your specific situation.

Altered states of consciousness-
In spite of what you may imagine when you see that phrase, what I am referring to is "transcending the ordinary" and accessing a deeper/higher type of awareness.  Mindfulness based practices can help, meditation, bodywork, and whatever it is for you that makes you feel blissful and timeless.

Healthy sexuality-
We are sexual beings, and are meant to maintain a balance of this aspect of our nature neither depriving ourselves or overindulging.  If you have tended toward deprivation, explore healthy outlets for your sexual energy.  If you have had little to no sex drive, spend some time investigating the causes, and supporting yourself in this area.  Whether partnered or not, women especially benefit greatly from regular solo self-love sessions.  If you tend towards overindulgence, support yourself in reflecting on why that might be so, and what you can do to bring balance.

Emotional balance-
Our emotions are an integral part of the human experience.  If you have a tendency to "stuff down" or ignore your feelings, consider some safe ways you can start to pay more attention to this part of your experience.  Whether you have been ignoring feelings or hanging on to them, even difficult feelings are temporary, experiencing them fully allows them to dissipate or integrate more readily.  Journaling,  talking to a counselor, meditation, inner child work and yoga therapy can all help.

Unconditional Love-
We all have a deep need to love and be loved.  A crucial piece of feeling fulfilled and loved is to actually begin to deeply love ourselves as individuals.  When you commit to listening to yourself, to doing what you need for your well being, that is a powerful path that will change your life.  Think of it like when you have a new romantic partner.  It seems so easy to love everything about that person, to overlook small flaws and to be impressed by simple things that make them who they are.  You feel exhilarated to do things for them, happy to find out what their wants and needs are so you can participate in fulfilling them.  In a similar way, if you begin to looking at yourself as a person worthy of ecstatic unconditional love, and start establishing habits accordingly, you may notice very real changes happening.  This shift can also lead to working on loving relationships you have with others, and all of these connections point to, and are part of, our connection to Divine.

Listening (to myself)

My old habit was that I spent a lot of my time and energy filtering everything about myself through what other people expected, thought, taught, demanded or my perception of what they wanted or required.  Know thyself...wise words that are simple but not easy.  I am creating new habits and courageously going Within to set aside patterns no longer serving me and to remove those filters. It isn't about shocking people or any other reaction others may have- it is about getting to know Me, the one-of-a-kind God-expression that experiences life in this body. My body is the temple that I worship in, where I encounter directly the inhabiting of Spirit.  My individuality is a gift that brings something unique to this life dance. If I spend my efforts trying to alter that based on other people's unique God expression, I do us all a diservice and I miss out on the intimacy of Loving Myself as a tangible way to experience and love God. So. The first step for me in speaking my truth is to listen to myself. All others and especially certain Others have wisdom, and I honor the Divine experience of all, but I must be my own first, truest source of living wisdom. In turning within I can begin to notice and honor all aspects of my incarnation, to fall in love with my life, to bring myself deeply into the experience I am having moment by moment, authentically and unafraid.

Speak Your Truth

I haven't [posted in a while, I have been in a quiet lul and preparing for my 3 week intensive yoga training.  Today is the day I start that journey in earnest, and I have come to recently understand that I need to focus on "speaking my truth".  I am not yet sure exactly what that means, but I know it involves overcoming a lot of fear.  Fear of what I might find if I'm totally honest with myself, fear of what others with think/say/do if I'm an open book, fear of letting go and surrendering to what I find in myself and in life as I immerse myself in this new idea.  But I know that fears can be gently, powerfully transformed with love.  I committed to myself a couple of years ago to face whatever WHATEVER comes up in me that isn't serving my highest good or that is keeping me from being my best self.  So- speak my truth it is.  In an effort to get started, I'm looking into what it means to speak your truth.  This is excerpted from an article that can be found at: http://www.expresswhoyouare.com/2013/04/10/12-questions-to-help-you-speak-your-truth-liberate-your-life/

Speaking your truth to yourself
1. Are you being honest with yourself about how you’re feeling?
2. Are you being honest about what you (and your whole body) genuinely need?
3. Are your being honest about what you value and what your priorities are ?
4. Are you being honest about what you want for yourself and how you want to live ?
Speaking your truth to others
5. Are you tuning in to your inner self before you express yourself ?
6. Do you speak from you authentic self, rather than reacting from your thoughts?
7. Do you know what it feels like in your body when you’re speaking your truth (and when you’re not)?
8. Do your honour other people’s truths as much as you honour your own?
Speaking your truth through your life
9. Are all parts of your life aligned with your core values?
10. Are you honouring your unique gifts and talents, and sharing them with the world?
11. Are you actively bringing your wants, dreams, and desires to life?
12. Is your life growing and evolving as you are?

Mothers' Day

Becoming a mother brings a new perspective of reality, a joining into a continuation of a pattern of relationship as old as humanity, a coming around the circle from being a child of a mother, to being that mother.  It is a relationship in which mother and child dance a primal dance together, grappling with what it means to be human. 

With great difficulty and love and amazement, we learn from one another, gudie each other as teacher and student simaltaneously.  It is a sacred experience, in that all of life is sacred, but the divine aspect is perhaps more than usually emphasized in the intimate role we play in the life of our mother, she in ours, we in the life of our child, they in ours. 

We are given a mantle of responsiblity, the weighty, joyous task of peering into the wide eyes of this little human and discerning what is needed, what inner passions exist, what potential lies within, what direction can we offer to help this person unfold.  In return that ancient-new wise-innocent gaze offers to show us day by day how to become the guide that is needed, offering moment by moment lessons in becoming a human worth being a leader, a mother. 

And in becoming a mother, we are able to look with great compassion and gratitude to the one who mothered us, and who mothered her, and her, back through the generations of humanity and know that each of us is doing the best we can from our level of understanding.

Accepting Love

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi

 

In spite of being surrounded by other humans, a pervasive sense of loneliness seems to be a common human experience.  It can be frustrating to try to form deep connections that feel fulfilling, to feel like the other person sees who you are, and accepts you for that person.  In return, our own expectations and personal ideas about what love and true understanding look and feel like can keep us from seeing the love available to us.  Everyone has the same desire to love, to be loved.  Think about that.  If every person in your life feels the same ache of longing for love and understanding you do, what does that mean for our relationships?  I have been thinking about this idea, of working on learning to accept the love that people have to give, not the love I think they should give.  If I hold it against someone that they can't "love" me the way I expect them to, and in return if I close myself off to receiving the love they do offer, I am the one keeping myself from love, not the other person.  I am working right now at listening to myself as though I am my own beloved (because I am!), and if I struggle daily to give myself the kind of true love I want from someone else, how can I be surprised that I don't receive that love from others?  If I judge someone else and find something lacking in the level and quality of their love then perhaps what I am looking for is not something in them, but something in me that needs my own attention and love.  Love is patient.

The Nothing

I dreamed, and in my dream I thought

"It is the Nothing, only instead of being afraid and running from it, people are glad, and leaping into it."

Sometimes it can seem easier to give up and allow yourself to sink into despair.  That is not the path of least resistence, only a lie that tells you it is.  Working hard day after day at changing your life requires a lot of effort and can seem tiring, but that is a misunderstanding.  In the short term, giving up seems easy, but in the long term doing the work is the only way to avoid being devoured.  We are not meant to give ourselves over to destruction.  Transformation is possible, understanding is attainable, peace is one breath away.  

Self Determination

Each of us is capable of marvelous things.  All of us have a "best self" we feel we are meant to be.  If you feel overwhelmed when you think of that, and have a sense that you are waiting on an external higher power to someday make changes for you, you are suffering from a habit of wrong thinking, a holding pattern that keeps you stuck that does not line up with the nature of how the Divine works.  As humans we have been granted an abundance of power, ability, strength, the magical, wonderous, free-will right to choose for ourselves and to co-create our own lives.  It takes work, dedication, intention, perseverance and belief, but it is absolutely possible.  Don't wait.  Listen to the things that stir up your passion and head in that direction, not waiting for anything or letting yourself fall back on old habits.  The old ways of doing and thinking and being that do not serve your growing best self are ready to fall away.  The joy and peace and sense of accomplishment of fiving all your attention and efforts to being your best self are yours for the taking.  If that seems like too much, start with just clearing your mind by following your long deep breathing, and expand your awareness to the things in you and around you right  now that are bringing you joy.  It is worth the effort, I promise.   

Recipe: Green Wraps

Green Wraps

I don't really use recipes much, so this is more of a general description.  Tweak it to suit your own taste and ingredients on hand.  The highlight of this meal is the lovely green collard base used as a tortilla shell, it adds such a nice fresh taste and great nutrition!

You can fill collard leaves with anything you would normally put in a burrito, taco or wrap.  Here I used bean patties, lightly sauteed onions, and homemade spicey mustard sauce.  YUM!

BEAN PATTIES-

Equal Parts cooked legume and cooked grain

1-2 eggs (1 for smaller batch 2 for larger)

Dash of oil

Enough of any flour (gluten free works fine) to form patties that hold together

Pan fry in olive oil until crispy

*One of our favorite variations of this is to use black beans and rice, then add garlic and cooked sweet potato chunks to the patty mix. 

Challenge

 

I am capable of more.  Let's see how much.  Training begins now. 

Recipe: Green-wah (as in Qunioa)

Green-wah (as in Quinoa!)

Quinoa is incredibly nutritious, a great source of vegetarian protein, and...

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has officially declared that the year 2013 be recognized as "The International Year of the Quinoa."  -WHFoods.com

Here's one of my favorite ways to prepare it, a meal that my toddler also loves!

2 cups dry quinoa, cooked in 4 cups of water until done
While the quinoa is cooking, sautee an onion in coconut oil,
Use a food processor to grind up a large handful of spinach,
Add the cooked onions and 2-4 tablespoons of raw minced garlic
When the quinoa is done, add the spinach/onion/garlic mixture.
Season with Braggs Amino Acids to taste.

Delicious! 

Dream: The Festival

I have such long, vivid dreams and within the dreams there is a richness of detail and layers of memory and experience that I wake up feelin glike I have been somewhere else.  If anyone who reads this knows about dream interpretation, I am looking for a dream reader to teach me. 

Last night I was dreaming that it was the night before a small local festival. It was dark, and I was walking down the street with some friends.  There was a lot of traffic, and across the way I could see the houses preparing for the next day, one house was unfolding itself at the top, letting out a large well-designed porch for people to enjoy.  At the bottom of the embankment below the sidewalk, I saw rocks next to the street.  I'm always looking for rocks, and this time I saw a piece of green sea glass.  Almost as large as my palm, rectangular, smoothed and rounded on the edges.  I went down the embankment to pick it up, my friends wanted me to leave it because they thought traffic was dangerous, but I knew I would be safe.  When I got down to the street, a limo stopped and a wealthy young man opened the door and asked what I was doing.  I talked to him, and he offered to take me to the festival.  I told him I would see him there.

The next day I wandered around the grounds of the main festival gathering area, it was green and grassy, and had a beach just a little ways off.  No one had planned much for food, but people were bringing in their own, some sharing, some asking for donations to split the cost.  Children were running around laughing.  There were two young boys (around 10) that were somehow attached to me, friends perhaps, not my children but in a way there with me.  They asked me for pizza and I told them that I had three dollars in quarters, if they could scrounge up another two dollars, I would take them to Little Ceasars later.  They were happy with that answer, and I left them on a wooden bridge that you see at playgrounds, only far more expansive.  I wandered into an area where there was a small performance, someone playing piano.  20 or so chairs were set up, and I was delighted that I had come at the right time.  I remarked to the person next to me that I always try to make it to these performances, and had memories of prior events I had gone to in that setting.  There, I saw the rich young man.  He seemed interested in me, but I was too busy enjoying the festival and had other concerns so I didn't talk with him. 

After the performance I walked through different art displays that the festival had to offer.  One was a hall covered in Japanese art, scence of people in Japan, flowers, buildings.  I sighed and said to the person wandering near me, I would live here.  There.  I have lived there before. 

Then, I went out into the grassy area and met up with a girl I have been friends with most of my life, like a cousin.  We had both been working some days of the week at the home of a little boy who had some kind of severe disability.  He was about 8, unable to walk, and unable to speak up for himself, but had a very sweet energy and we both cared about him very much.  The girl asked me how he was doing, which surprised me because I though she had been there recently.  She said that the woman from social services had taken over her hours.  I was alarmed by that, since on my days that same woman was always there, sitting on the couch like it was her house, talking to the boys father, and something just didn't feel right about the situation.  The woman had harmful intentions.  The girl and I wanted to talk about it more, but wanted to be sure we had privacy, so we walked on, looking for a place to talk.  Another girl came up to us like she knew us, but as far as we could remember we had never met her.  She was thin, pale, stringy hair, an odd face that seemed like she had trouble fitting in with regular society.  She sad immediately- you said you would take me to 44th street!  There is a funeral there later that I need to go to.  You can come with me, and then we will come back here.  My companion and I looked at each other, I thought of taking the boys for pizza anyway, so we shrugged and agreed to take her.  We didn't know who the funeral was for, and didn't ask.  The girl was satisfied, and walked away.  Shortly after that, I was a coin in the dirt and picked it up, thinking of the boys' pizza money.  It was larger than a quarter, old and worn but the engravings were still clear.  The front had a man's face in profile and said that it was a 51 cent piece.  I turned it over and it said "tarot" on the back, and had a picture of a thigh bone, it said "mark of the severed leg", and another message next to that but that message didn't stay with me.  I turned to my friend in amazement, since this coin was directly related to the situation with the little boy we took care of.  I knew the second message was information or direction about him, or the social services woman, and what we could do.  I put the coin in my pocket, and we kept looking for a place to talk.

We found a house that was familiar, and went into the bathroom and shut the door, but we didn't want to be interrupted, so in the bathroom there was another door down to the basement.  We went down there, and shut the door.  Still not feeling like we would have privacy there, we walked through the basement with its low ceilings and piles of boxes to another door, which led to an indoor pool that hadn't been used in years.  It was tiled, and had a gentle slope down to the deep end.  We started talking about the boy's situation, and very soon a nun came through the door and we stopped.  She was suspicious about what we had been discussing since we stopped so suddenly, so I told her that we used to play in this house as children and were reminscing, looking at all places we had fun when we were 6.  At that moment I could vividly remember playing in that place when I was little, the girl and I running around, even swimming in the pool.  I don't know if I have had dreams with that girl before when I was 6, or since then, or if in my dream I just had very clear memories to fill in the richness of the dream.  But I knew I had been there many times, and I remember the exact feeling of the room, details of how it looked both drained and with water.  And then, I woke up. 

Unconditional Love

A lot of parents talk about how deeply they fell in love with their perfect, beautiful infant the moment they met.  I was enthralled with the process of pregnancy, enjoying the entire experience of hosting a growing person.  Labor was wonderful, birth was miraculous.  Meeting this tiny crying creature that is called "my son" was a moment I will never forget.  From the time I knew he existed I started to feel love for this person, and seeing him certainly was amazing.  But I would compare it to when I met my partner.  I remember vividly the first time I ever saw Michael walk past me.  I had an instant, strong reaction that stuck with me, and I immediately had the seeds of infatuation and love growing.  The birth of that relationship began at that moment, and the deep, daily intimate, love I share with him now was present then.  But at that particular time, I didn't know him very well, I knew almost nothing about him.  I could feel love and it was real, but I didn't know very much about what made Michael, Michael.  It was a mysterious, magical feeling.   Very much like meeting Avian, my little golden haired son.  I did love him right away, but I didn't know much about who he was, what makes Avian, Avian.  Being a parent is a marvelous, challening, elating, frustrating, joyous, fulfilling process.  Recently, as Avian has approached two years old and has reached a developmental stage where he can express himself quite clearly, I have noticed a real shift in my relationship with him.  Now instead of just having a general infatuation feeling for him (which did sometimes wear thin in the wee hours of yet another sleepless night during his earlier days), I have a deeper understanding of who this person is.  I can have a relationship with Him.  We can talk, exchange ideas, I can listen to his requests, needs, demands, feelings, experiences and can more understanding about what this individual is like, what his personality leans towards, the kinds of things he is interested in.  It is wonderful.  His fits, screaming rages, his head-banging when he is frustrated, his flinging of the spoon because I mixed his granola before he got a chance to tell me to add raisins...all of that is so normal for his age, so appropriate for his development, for his individuation process.  It is a delight to see his feelings emerge, to know that he can clearly communicate them to me, and that I can support that process, help him handle things when he is overwhelmed, model alternatives and coping skills, and coach him on how to explain his ideas when he needs it.  I just read the exceptional book "Unconditional Parenting", and it came at exactly the right time.  I don't see his "acting up" as a battle of wills or him defying me.  He is experiencing the world, and it is overwhelming, he is feeling feelings and they are huge.  I am so glad I get to walk along with this incredible growing person and help him figure out life.  He is helping me figure out life at the same time.  The more I get to know him, the more I can love who he is, unconditionally.

Noncorporeal Beings Dream

Last night I dreamed I was on a starship like the Enterprise, and there was a sister ship nearby.  Two enemy ships appeared, and for some reason the senior staff wasn't able to stay and they made me temporary captain of the ship I was on.  The enemy ships launched a full scale boarding, quickly and efficiently taking control of both of our ships.  I knew that the only way to take the ship back was for the crew to secretly coordinate efforts and rise up against the intruders.  I led a small party of those of us who hadn't been captured toward the area where they were keeping the rest of the crew.  On the way, we were captured as well.  Once there, I was surprised to find the 'hostile' force seemed friendly, at ease, and happy.  I found this strange, but continued plotting.  I was able to find a paperclip in the room where we were being held, and when I got the chance I sprung into action and jabbed it into the eye of one of our enemies.  It was like poking water, no damage at all, no effect.  The man I had stabbed just chuckled and explained that they were noncorporeal beings, and had only temporarily taken an appearance of having a body to interact with us.  Once he started talking, I realized that they were indeed some kind of alien that had only looked human, and that their style of communicating wasn't exactly like ours.  There were misunderstandings, and mystery in what they said, and no one had been able to figure out what they wanted, since it was clear they weren't going to hurt anyone or steal the ship.  They had merely rounded everyone up and had them sitting around a table together, while other groups of the crew were being supervised but offered various leisure activities.  I got myself assigned to one of the activity groups after a while, and was able to spend a little bit of time talking with one of the aliens to ascertain their intent.  When I did, I went around to as many crew members as I could and explained, asking them to spread the word as quickly as possible- they weren't here as a hostile force, they were here because they had evolved past the need for a corporeal body, and had found bliss, peace, constant happiness by existing fully in each moment, fully enjoying whatever they were experiencing.  It seemed impossible for humans to be able to feel joy of that kind while being held captive, but that was the lesson.  If they could understand mindfulness and living in the moment, they would be free, even though still wrapped in limiting bodies.  Some of the crew members were skeptical, but agreed to at least try, while others immediately understood the deeper lesson and saw that the aliens had something revolutionary to teach us.  Soon we got word that the "invasion" extended all over earth.  There was a lot of confusion there as noncorporeal aliens in bodies "took over" every town, every street, but already there were many that understood the purpose and were spreading the word.  Confusion, disbelief and resistance in some, radical acceptance, cooperation and happiness in others. 

Anger

Anger is a normal emotional experience of every human being.  Sometimes the weather is sunny and warm, sometimes it is cold and overcast.  Emotions are like the weather for our inner landscape.  Recently I've been learning how to be more in touch with my own emotional responses, and anger is an important feeling to get to know.   "Pleasant"or "positive" emotions aren't as challenging for me to process- who doesn't enjoy a gorgeous blue sky and perfect temperature?  But storms, even small ones, can be really disruptive if I'm not internally prepared.  Some people have trouble managing their anger and have innapropriate outbursts, but I had been in the habit of ignoring my anger, like trying to drive in a snow storm but refusing to believe the conditions are dangerous.  So now, learning about my friend anger is helping me understand myself better.  I talked with my lightworker coach about this yesterday, and she had some simple but profound tips for me I'd like to share.

* NEVER allow anger in the car.  It is a form of entrapment, and neither person can leave the situation if they feel overwhelmed.
*CHOOSE one room in your house for angry/heated discussions.  The energy of anger is powerful, and isolating it to one area allows space for the experience without spreading it all over. 
*GO outside if possible when you are angry or need to have a discussion that has anger attached to it.  The peaceful energy of nature helps disperse the intensity.
*IMMEDIATELY  stopping someone from using their anger to SABOTAGE, CONTROL, or ABUSE you is ALWAYS appropriate.
*YOU don't need to ask permission from anyone to stand up for yourself.  If someone is demeaning you, tell them to stop. 
*TAKE time and space when needed, to allow yourself to experience the feeling of anger without being harmful to the other person.
*NOTICE what kinds of general issues and personal situations trigger anger.  That allows you to be ready to respond rationally when those situations arise.

Gratitude

 

Coming to the end of our stay in Buffalo...bittersweet.  So peaceful in our direction, yet sad to leave so many wonderful people. 

Thank you:  Family- you know who you are!  I love my family so much, and through the ups and downs this year that has only become a deeper, more understanding love.  I treasure this time we got to spend together, and for those of you who made lots of room in your life for my presence here, I am so grateful.  For the family who's lives were filled up with other things, I am thankful for the time we did get together, and I am happy that you are living your life and doing your thing!  A special thank you to Bridget, you gave us several much needed overnight breaks from parenting, and were always a wonderful, fun, energetic, welcoming person to be around. 

Thank you:  Mom.  Living with you again for the first time since I moved out of the house was fun, joyous, challenging, illuminating, worthwhile, and something I will always be glad we shared.  Trust yourself, keep breathing, and take things one step at a time.  You can do it!  I love you!

Thank you:  to my sisters.  I wish I could live by all my loved ones and siblings all at one time, but since that isn't possible I'm thankful we had time together this year.  Jena, have fun setting up your life and finding yourself!  Deni, having our baby boys hang out with each other was really special.  Looking forward to them running around together as they grow and we visit.   I love all of you! 

Thank you:  to my workplace, everyone was so warm and friendly and made the transition period here a breeze.  I love my job!  Thank You Sorenson for helping make my life dreams possible.

Thank you:  Ryan, Ti, Aydan and Sia.  Words can't express the deep gratitude our whole family has for your family.  Everything you have done, given us, offered, provided, the ideas exchanged, the respite, the peace, the love, the positive energy, the encouragment...wonderful.  We love you!!!

Thank you:  Thank you.  Thank you, Manya.  You know.  You walked with us through steps in our path that have changed things in ourselves and our lives forever.  So grateful.

Thank you:  Buffalo!  It was interesting!  Another fantastic life-experience/adventure that we'll always remember. 

Steps on the Path

Clarity of purpose and sureness of your path ahead comes out of having been through uncertainty and confusion.  Having experienced the dark, you can understand what the Light is. 

art: http://www3.artflakes.com/artwork/products/302489/poster/path-of-light.jpg?1303908907

Prayers

Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.
Steven Tyler
 

Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?
William Blake

For those around me suffering, compassion and hope.

 

The Path

Signal Mountain, Tennessee

First, I want to express my deep appreciation for the warm welcome from everyone in Buffalo when we moved here, especially from those at work, my cousin Bridget, my sisters, my mom, and from Ryan, Ti, Ayden and Sia.

When I realized my workplace in Grand Rapids, Michigan was going to close, I had to make a decision about what to do to financially support my family.  We have a little one, and had recently purchased a house in Michigan.  Coming to Buffalo to spend time with family and transition has been a wonderful phase- one that I was honestly expecting to last quite a bit longer.  However, often life moves faster than we anticipate, and due to a number of factors and a process of receiving confirmation, my partner Mike and I have come to a decision. 

Mike's family has offered us a lovely house on Signal Mountain in Tennessee just outside Chattanooga that we can immediately live in and make our own.  It is an amazing place, and quite an opportunity for us. There are award winning public schools in that district, breathtaking scenery, and every other item on our list of what we want in a long term home, actually.  Though I was expecting more time in Buffalo, I've found over the past couple of years that expectations don't often turn out how we think they will.  Letting go, surrendering to my path and to what is has been less scary and more fun that I would have thought, and by now I have faith that when I do that, the details will take care of themselves.

I spoke with my manager here in Buffalo and she was thrilled for us, and immediately offered all the help she can give in getting the transfer put through right away. I was again surprised by this, thinking it would be more difficult and take longer.  Being on the right path for me is so exciting, and full of surprises.  So, my company is going to transfer me March 1, and so it is moving time, full speed ahead.  We are sad to leave family and loved ones already, and someday when transporters are invented it will make this kind of decision so much easier.  But at the same time, we know this is the right step for our family, and there is a lot of relief and joy being on our path and knowing where we are going to setttle down.  So, with gratitude, heartfelt sadness to leave our loved ones, and great peace and anticipation...

Tennessee- ready or not, here we come!  March 1, 2013

Green

My son Avian and I have been sick all week with the respiratory flu.  The fog is lifting, and we are excited to start feeling well again.  It was a challenging week with very little rest, and at times it was overwhelming.  But when I felt like my own reserves of strength and endurance were nearing their limits, I had an interesting experience.  I find myself intensely drawn to different colors at various times in my life, and this week suddenly emerald green came to me.  It was my favorite color during my whole childhood, and for some reason I hadn't had a strong connection to it since then. 

*On the color spectrum green is the center between stimulating colors and calming colors. It symblizes balance, alignment of life's material aspects with the spiritual.  Green possesses a magnetic appeal with normalizes and orders all forces of the universe.  It is the color of nature, affecting the co-mingling of the soul with spirit, harmony, the life force, healing, self-regulation, purpose, awareness and prosperity.  With balance as the key, green promotes the maturation of one's physical body with the spiritual self, and when these two are aligned, the greatest constructive power in the universe is active.  Gree also symbolizes self-regulation and the path to self-awareness.  *From Color Synergy by Patricia George and Dinah Lovett

After the "feeling of green" entered my awareness, that night I had very strong impression, intuition, a sense of a clear message, and though I was exhausted, I felt like I was filled with gently buzzing energy from head to toe and was unable to sleep until almost morning, yet I wasn't tired that night or the next day.  The message is something I will share soon, still processing. 

Yoga

Bringing attention to the body brings attention to your physical experience.  Taking your awareness out of your mind and allowing it to expand to your entire body can help bring peace, comfort, strength, flexibility and poise both physically and emotionally.  Allowing yourself to nurture your own body and take better physical care of yourself gets you in touch with self-love.  If we are to love others as we love ourself, should we not learn to love ourself so that we know what it truly means to love, and to love others?  I enjoyed this gentle beginner clip yesterday, http://youtu.be/Pc6Yrw_f5RU
and this morning was able to attend a class at Buffalo Yoga http://www.buffaloyoga.com/ taught by my friend Ti Markle.  Namaste. 

Inspiration for Today

                                     Thoughts for Today

Self Expression

Haircut!  Over the past 5 or so years I've really enjoyed playing around with self expression, especially when it comes to how I look.  When I was growing up I was in a very rigid environment, and no experimentation was allowed, so I find that each change has been one that brings me a little more information about what I like, what I don't, how I feel about it, how I feel about how other people feel about it.  It is a wonderful process.  After this when the short part is about 1/2", I'm cutting it all to that length and starting with fresh new hair. 
                                                   

Meridians Part 1

I am studying alternative medicine, currently learning about the body's electromagnetic energy system and the meridians.

Electromagnetic Energy is a unified field that presents with countless "faces"- matter is congealed energy.  Every matter formation (person, cell, organ, system) has it's own "local energy language" as well as the shared universal language. 

The Meridian network is an energy transportation system connected with the body.  I has 14 pathways which are river-like in nature, rising and falling like tides.  All the pathways are part of one continuous energy flow-system, appearing as 12 linked segments, extending to the two additional pathways, the governing and central paths.  These last two are open to the environment, with energies entering and exiting here. 

One of my study aides is my model-doll Tesla, today I did the central and governing meridians.

Mask Dream

Last night I had a dream that a group of 8 people and I were checking out our new neighborhood.  We were going house to house, saying hello and introducing ourselves.  We came upon a house with a large screened in porch, and a middle age couple came out to greet us.  They told us they loved the area and had been there for many years.  They said there were just about to eat, and did we want any food.  I felt like something wasn't right, and that we shouldn't eat the food.  One of my group accepted however, and as they started to eat, the house began hurtling through space and time.  Out the window I could see different scenery flash by.

We landed in an ancient civilization, maybe Egypt, and were taken to a processing center.  The first step was the culture's punishment ritual, those who had done wrong were supposed to try to throw axes at us on the train car we'd been placed in.  I saw an axe drop near me, but missed, then the person throwing it was supposed to jump down into the tracks and sacrifice themselves if they missed.  When the person jumped, I saw it was a tiny girl, 2 or 3 years old, dark hair and eyes, and I caught her.  Her sister was above, and told me that now I was responsible for her life.  I promised I would take care of her.

We moved onto the next step of initiation, a cleansing ritual by one of the local people.  As we walked to our quarters, I could see the barren rocky landscape, the unusual rock formations, the lack of vegatation. 

I saw rows and rows of people encamped to one side, the civilization was being taken over by aliens.  They had similar bodies to humans, but noticeably different faces, so they wore shiny black masks with faces carved out, but no holes for eyes, nose or mouth.  The people in that land had adopted the masks, and almost everyone had started wearing them so they couldn't tell the difference between them and the aliens. 

In the end, I waited for my turn (last) to have the cleansing ritual, and saw my housemates falling under the spell of the land, getting distracted and forgetting they weren't from there.  I knew if I waited and kept alert, I could go home.  I just had to remember who I was.  I said my name, and woke up.

Menu Plan

We try to eat basic, organic food whenever possible, and I get a lot of questions about what that looks like.  Here's my meal plan for the week recipes/instructions to follow:

Sunday-
Breakfast: Eggs & Homemade muffins
Lunch: "Monster" Salads
Dinner: Burritos

Monday-
Breakfast: Smoothies
Lunch:  Bean Patty Nuggets with veggie
Dinner: Beans and Rice

Tuesday-
Breakfast:  Granola
Lunch:  Burritos
Dinner:  Soup & Corn Bread

Wednesday-
Breakfast: Eggs & Homemade muffins
Lunch: Nut Butter & Rice Cakes, Fruit/Veg
Dinner:  Spaghetti & Gluten Free Garlic Bread

Thursday-
Breakfast:  Smothies
Lunch:  Quinoa Spinach Pilaf
Dinner:  "Monster" Salads

Friday-
Breakfast: Granola
Lunch: Bean Patty Nuggets, Fruit/Veg
Dinner: Quinoa Casserole

Saturday-
Breakfast:  Vote! 
Lunch: "Monster" Salads
Dinner:  Falafel or Burritos