bear, guardian of the west

This is my bear, which presides over my kitchen window, which happens to face west. Someone from Arizona lovingly and skillfully carved this. I admire it each day. This bear is a Native American fetish carving.Guardian of the West. …the bear is associated with great strength, power and healing. ..the great protector…represents strength and self-knowledge. The is a spiritual guide and also carries supernatural powers. Bear is a powerful healing fetish.

one source for information: http://www.blackarrowindianart.com/native-american-fetish-guide/

word of the year

For the past several years my new years’ tradition is to pick a ‘Word of the Year’ rather than making a resolution. The idea originally comes from Garrison Keillor’s weekly radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, but passed down to me by my esteemed minister, Elea Kemler from First Parish Church in Groton.

In the early days of the new year, I pick a word. I don’t try to find a word, I just let it come to me. Sometimes I think of a word, try it out for a few days, and it’s not the right one. Eventually I find the word that seem to have the right amount of interest and depth to explore for a year.

I write my word down, and put where I can see it each day. I try to think of it occasionally and how it affects my viewpoints and assumptions about the world.

I have been surprised by the results of this each year and have learned a lot about myself, my opinions, my judgements.

On New Year’s Day 2012, I took this photo of the crystal on a table in front of one of the sunniest windows I’m my house. I love the light interplay in the crystal, and the thick cut glass, the refraction. Later I found my word – which popped into my head as I was thinking about the crystal. For some reason, the crystal seemed to be a good physical metaphor  for the word ‘truth.’

What do you think about the word Truth as it relates to the crystal? I am interested in your thoughts on this…. would you please make a comment?

If you choose a word for yourself, I would love to hear how it works out for you. I think my word for this year is packed with responsibility. It sort of scares me, but I find that interesting. Let me know how you do, and I’ll try to post occasionally on my experiences with this word.

Cheers!

winter solstice inspiration…

What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back
by Roseann Lloyd

Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one
you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out
your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station.
Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August—
how well they’ve held their color next to the black-spotted cat.

Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis, who figured out how to brew coffee from the dark, bitter beans. Remark on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars…

Now that you’re hungry, toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter, honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms.

The window is frosted over, but the sun’s casting an eye
over all the books. Open your Spanish book.
The season for sleeping is over.
The pots and pans: quiet now, let them be.

It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill to ask the sun:

Come back again tomorrow.

community

Thinking about what it means to be a part of a community and how, organically we are naturally all one. In our society, we have denied this more and more and have brought ourselves to point of destructive separation. Deepak Chopra elegantly presents the ideas of community on a cellular level. A small excerpt from The Book of Secrets provides a wonderful parallel for thinking about ourselves at a microcosmic level and expanding that outward to apply to our lives.

“The wisdom you are already living – Identifying with the body’s intelligence.

1. You have a higher purpose
   Higher Purpose: Every cell in your body agrees to work for the welfare of the whole; its individual welfare comes second. If necessary, it will die to protect the body cells perish by the thousands every hour, as do immune cells fighting off invading microbes. Selfishness is not an option, even when it comes to a cell’s own survival.

See more: http://toliveconsciously.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/identifying-with-the-bodys-intelligence/

intentions

I have been busy lately trying to make some money and some of my favorite activities have had to be postponed. The quality of life changes when you have to chase the dollar. Some things that fell to the wayside were getting exercise, meditating, sleeping, socializing and writing my blog.

My sweet friend Robin suggested that the pile of notes I made that were all intentions for my blog could make a good subject for the blog post. Pictured here is a little pile of notes, usually scribbled in the car during my commute. For the most part they were ideas that I wanted to get back to and investigate in deeper detail. I was listening to Deepak Choprs’s The Book of Secrets, and it was completely amazing and tought
provoking.

So presented here, the note on the top of the stack is a reminder of the 3 qualities of essence that permeate the universe, according to Deepak:
I exist, I am aware, I create.

 

job#1139: “Orange Peel’s Pocket” bookmark

Date: Fall 2011

Client: Rose A. Lewis, author

Assignment: Design a bookmark promoting “Orange Peel’s Pocket” and 3 other books by the author.

Challenge: Show 4 book covers and several reviews in a fun, yet legible way.

Result: Using Garamond for the font is reminiscent of old schoolbook typefaces and seemed fitting for a promoting children’s literature. Designing with bold colors the author favors helps the cover art illustrations to pop off the page.

reflecting pool

Lincoln, Massachusetts, October 2011

This photo is of a pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, along my daily commute to work. I have driven by countless times, watching the changing atmosphere, light and color. Today I decided it was time to stop and take the photo.

What strikes me about this scene is the pool of water, so flat and reflective, amazingly held in place by the earth’s gravity. It looks just like a mirror . This scene of the reflecting pond reminds me fondly of setting up a tiny village and nativity scene under our Christmas tree. For many years as a child, my mother and I would carefully arrange the village; me on my belly under the tree, my small hands placing all the elements by my best design. We had miniature buildings whose roofs were covered in ‘snow’ and sparkling glitter that was just like sugar crystals. There were miniature animals and a couple conical pine trees with the same snowy glitter. . There was a mirror, edges coated with sparkling ‘snow’ that we would find a special place for, and in my imagination, it was just like this reflecting pool. The water and it’s reflections takes on a magical quality for me.

stellar parentheses

Cassiopeia, Polaris, Ursa Major

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After 35 years of skywatching and stargazing, I was completely amazed to see an arrangement of stars in a way that I have never noticed before. It was about 6am on Tuesday in late October and I was taking a walk in the pre-dawn. The sun was still not up and the sky was crystal clear. The stars were still visible, but mostly only the brightest ones since dawn was approaching.

I found Cassiopeia first, one of my favorites – the “w” most often on it’s side in the northern sky. Then I found the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major off to the right. Smack-dab in the middle was the North Star, Polaris. They were all shining clearly and it struck me that the two constellations looked like parentheses to the North Star. That made me smile! I never noticed them in this way!

Just as I was taking in this sight, two meteors came striking down from above right in front of the North star, before my very eyes. I think I shuddered or shook – it just totally took me by surprise and was a special moment for me. I can’t tell you how many summer evenings in August I have sat out waiting to see the meteor showers and feeling lucky to see one or two shooting stars in an hour. To just gaze up and be paused there just at the perfect moment to see a shooting star felt so wonderful!

challenges and gratitude

These are certainly challenging times to live in and I have learned so much from the personal challenges I have faced. I understand that my own challenges are not necessarily as difficult as those my friends and family have struggled with, but we all live our own lives and our challenges are relative to our own experience.

I am humbled by my sister-in-law who has struggled with lymphoma for years. She has weathered many, many trips to Boston for treatments, endured a bone marrow transplant that knocked her flat, along with countless other health maladies she has endured. Yet, she is one person I can count on to take  a positive spin on life when confronted with a bad situation. She manages to always have good things to say, uplifting advice, compassion for others and a sense of humor and grace.

Over the past few years, and especially when I was in yoga teacher training, I  learned so much about looking for and appreciating the good in life and not focusing on the negative aspects. I have worked at shifting my perspective from complaining to appreciating, from adding up the negatives to counting my blessings. At first is seems fake or silly but after practicing turning my thoughts around, it has become a way of seeing and a way of living.

Being grateful for even the smallest thing – tuning in to the blessings all around – is so powerful and life changing. That gratitude is like a magnet, bringing more good things, and minimizing the pain that can be either real or imagined when facing challenges.

This image of a Buddha statue on the Lantau Island in China is one that inspires me to remember gratitude in the face of challenges.

finding money

This is the way the day started….. a cool, sunny early autumn day,  a walk to Sandy’s beach. Finding money in the sand. Would certainly like the trend to continue!