I’m basking in the after glow of a wonderful weekend on Cape Cod. I whole-heartily enjoyed the flora, fauna and folk of New England. Everywhere I turned I saw hydrangeas so blue you’d think they couldn’t be real, roses, peonies, lily’s of all varieties, red maples and vegetable gardens where I munched on snap peas off the vine and picked a salad for 15. I saw squirrels, a tortoise, a possum (north America’s only marsupial), ducks and a robin redbreast – all to a sound track of crows, woodpeckers and other flying warblers. After walking and talking on rocky beaches, we swam in the cold, greenish water of the north Atlantic and in the warmer, squishy bottomed, fresh water of a nearby lake.
The purpose of the trip was to join a group of women who were in Vassar College’s class of ’69, Vassar’s last all women’s class. We gather each year at the end of June, descending on large clapboard Cape Cod home that has been in the family since the 1800’s. Here we reconnect, eat, drink, swim and be merry arriving from California, Florida, Wisconsin, Chicago, Boston, Pennsylvania, Quebec, upstate New York, Beirut and the Virgin Islands. This year there were 15 of us sleeping on couches and blow up mattresses and in all the bedrooms of the sprawling house.
We are a powerful group of women – no strangers to fame, fortune, great accomplishment and success of all kinds. We are also no strangers to the ups and down of relationships, careers, health, parenthood, love, loss, finances and the grace to share the journey.
One of us, who has been honored for contributions in her field, told us the institution she is connected with has commissioned an artist to paint her portrait. She described sitting for it and showed us a photo. There she is, in a formal setting, sitting at her desk. She pointed out the details that she had wanted included: a photo of her first, now deceased, husband; a small porcelain pig sitting on her desk (she collects pigs), a Celtic symbol of woman power, a shelf of books written by her mentor and various other personal details that matter to her. It was a beautiful painting. The artist had captured his subject’s natural loving radiance. She glowed. When I mentioned this, she nodded.
I wondered how I would want to be painted. What would I want in my portrait? Where would I want to be? Which people, things, and symbols would I want to include and what would I wear? Would I be sitting, standing, paddle boarding? I know there would be a violin, the sea, my dogs, Lily, a sailboat and more. I hope that I would glow.
How would you want to be painted? If you could pick a handful of details to go in your painting – what would they be? How does the world see you, how do you want to be seen and, more importantly, how do you see yourself?
In Barcelona several years ago, I went to the Fondacion Miro – a museum dedicated to the work of Joan Miro (April 20,1893 – December 25,1983), a world renowned Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramist from Barcelona. Toward the end of his long life and career, he painted large white canvases on which he placed a small assortment of symbols, always a combination of – the sun, a blue sky, a flower/woman/ and a star. Each painting was different but all contained each of these four elements as though he had distilled everything in the world down to this.
As with thinking about my portrait I wondered then what elements would be left if I distilled my life down to 4 or 5 things. What would be on my canvas would also be in my portrait.
No one is painting a portrait of me, yet, and I’m not sure that I’m going to get around to painting my homage to Joan Mire on canvas, yet thinking about my short list of symbols, like asking what I’d want included in my portrait, helps me hone in on what I love and who I truly am.
What’s left after everything else evaporates? What are the gold nuggets after a lifetime of panning in the stream? How do you get to the essence of a person – of you?
I am asking myself, my clients and you to imagine that someone wants to paint your portrait and that you get to decide how you will be portrayed – will you be a Picasso or a Renoir or a ????
Be Here Now
As I was driving around the island this morning, my mind was going faster than my car. It was dishing up one train of thought after another: I was in New York one minute and Paris another; I was in the past with my ex and I was in the future worrying about what would happen if this or that… Some thoughts led to bad neighborhoods and some were random, like dreams that leave me wondering. When I looked up out of my head and out the window, I gasped at Hans Lollick looming like the green and gorgeous island it is, smack dab in front of me, my prize for returning to the land of now. I was awarded a glimpse of the breath-taking yellow flamboyant tucked behind a corner across from the Bridge-to-Nowhere and, the treats kept popping up right and left whenever I took a vacation from my mind and returned to the present.
I meditate each morning by repeating a couple of Sanskrit words over and over to gently bring my wayward mind back whenever I notice it wandering. I do this over and over and over again because my mind keeps wandering. The payoff for daily mediation is a more positive attitude, a greater sense of peace and well-being, less stress and and more gratitude. Meditation has been shown to lower blood pressure and help with all kinds of physical and mental distress.
I see life as a macro meditation where we are challenged to focus on the present and be alive to all that is around us over and over and over again until we are more awake, more present and quicker to notice when we are not. Sitting on a cushion is mind training and it oozes over into our daily life and into the bucket seat. Anything we do from walking to driving to washing the dishes to sweeping, can be a mediation and a chance to practice being here now.
In my up close investigation of just how much time I am fully present, I discover that I am often absent from my own life. Mediating has made me aware of the dizzying pace at which my mind sprints from one thought to the next so I was onto myself both on the meditation cushion and buckled into the bucket seat.
Before heading home, I decided to check on the big mango tree at the entrance to Dorothea. After a beautiful ride down the hill to the sea, I pulled in under the canopy of trees at entrance to the property. It was lush and shady with not a mango in sight. I got out of the car and looked around. Framed in the crimson of flamboyant trees I saw the rescue horses – 4 or 5 of them in their corrals. I walked over to say hello, petted some noses, took lots of photos and talked softly to them telling them how beautiful they were when I heard a meow. A petite Siamese cat jumped from a shed to the ground and came on over to be petted and to follow me around rubbing up against my leg. A gigantic iguana strolled through the soft grass. A mongoose scurried among a few chickens, a rooster, a guinea hen and me.
I realized I hadn’t thought of anything except the animals, how gorgeous they were, what a beautiful spot we were in and how “one-love” I was feeling with all species and, it seemed, them with me – the whole time I’d been there. No one batted an eyelash. No one started in fear. The horses, the cat and I reached out for some affection and gave and received love easily, no questions asked. I wasn’t thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, or dinner or anything not right in front of me. I was on a vacation from my mind and it felt great. My body relaxed and I was filled with well-being and peace.
We are all invited to enjoy a free vacation in the land of NOW. The invitation is addressed to each and everyone of us and the event is being fully present to your own life instead of nodding off during the show or missing all the best parts. When we wake up, everything is here, now.
In this time of transition I’m doing a dance that is precarious, thrilling and scary so, to help me on my way, I’ve been following the advise of Baba Ram Dass:
“My own strategy is to keep cultivating the witness, that part of me that notices how I’m doing it—cultivate the quiet place in me that watches the process of needing approval, of the smile on the face, of the false humility, of all the horrible creepy little psychological things that are just my humanity. And watching them occur again and again and again.”
I’ve packed up my life aboard the Bel Ami and landed in a lovely spot with a great view en route to returning to my north side home. As with all endings, it’s an emotional and multilayered journey. Some days I’m more present than others, my energy high, flowing downstream. Other days I obsess and resist, am not present and worry.
That’s when a walk on the beach got me noticing patterns everywhere: the way the waves lick the shore and trace the shape of their presence for a few seconds; the Zen precision of the ground keeper’s rake marks in the sand; the designs the wind makes on water and the tracks of those who came before. I thought about how, as vibrational beings, we all swim in a sea of energy that is constantly moving and constantly generating new patterns. My footsteps shift the landscape beneath me and I can see that I am a part of the bigger pattern and the creator of patterns.
All of which led me to kaleidoscopes and remembering how delightful it is to tilt one up to the light and watch the glass pieces shift from one gorgeous pattern to the next.
What if our lives are like a big kaleidoscope and we are the observers gazing at the many pieces that make up our worlds like multi colored pieces of glass. When we turn the cylinder, make a move, stumble or when someone or something else does, the whole picture transforms.
With the toy we are always delighted. In life we spend a lot of time trying to glue a particular pattern in place permanently. We arrive at a one we enjoy, become attached to it and hang on for dear life.
Change and endings of all kinds stimulate synapses and tapes about change and endings from our whole lives. We drag baggage from childhood trauma and early and recent life experience to the table.
If we have done some personal growth work and begun to heal old wounds, to forgive ourselves and others and are committed to ongoing personal and spiritual growth, times of transition and upheaval are great times for mining precious veins of ore and seizing opportunities to dump the baggage, lighten our loads and be freer and more joyfully ourselves.
When my friend Susan and I walked 150 miles on the Camino de Santiago, along trails through the French countryside, we stayed at hostels, one as different as the next: austere convent bunks, houses with rooms full of knick knacks and photos and stone farmhouses with modern interiors. At each and every one of them Susan and I would survey our new surroundings, look at one another and say, in unison “ We Love it here”.
As I loved each new pattern born of the falling-into-place of glass pieces in the kaleidoscopes of my childhood, and each place I laid my head as a pilgrim walking, I am aiming to love each new configuration that comes into focus in the kaleidoscope of my amazingly rich and colorful life and to look around and say, “I Love it Here.”
Each day, when I turn on my computer, I look for the daily quote from Abraham-Hicks, all gems of Law of Attraction wisdom. This one is worth its weight in gold.
“It is as easy to create a castle as a button. It’s just a matter of whether you’re focused on a castle or a button. “
For one you might need a button mold and, for the other, excavation equipment, but back at the drawing board things would look pretty much the same. There’s you, the dreamer and creator imagining, getting clear, envisioning and taking action. The skills of attraction are generic – they work on big, small and everything in between and on the easy and on the seemingly impossible.
It’s a good idea to practice creating and manifesting on the easier, smaller, less emotionally charged stuff first, the kind where you’re happy if it happens but it’s OK if it doesn’t.
Here are a few examples of “mundane manifesting” or “the art of deliberate creation in everyday life” to inspire you and remind you that there are endless opportunities to practice the art of deliberate creation.
I wasn’t looking for love or money or a new car or a book contract or any of those biggies. I was looking for a power washer to clean the mold off my deck so I could stain and treat it, something that has no emotional charge for me. I didn’t think the kind of thoughts that arise when I desire the ‘bigger ticket items” like, “ I don’t deserve a power washer,” or “I am too short, old, stupid or incompetent for a power washer.“ I didn’t have limiting beliefs about power washers or baggage weighing me down. I just wanted a power washer to clean my deck and I happened to know a guy who had one.
I didn’t have his number so I figured I’d stop by his house. As I rounded the curve toward East Caret Bay, guess who was standing in the road – looking straight at me? I stopped, rolled down my window and said, “Hi, neighbor. How are you doing? Could I borrow your power washer.” He said “Sure.” I said “I’ll be back,” and drove away grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you Universe (God, Higher power, source)” and “What a magnificent manifestor am I”
Here’s another, more dramatic scenario. My transmission died with the time between slipping gears and death being approximately two hours. I needed a new transmission and wheels in the meantime. Within two hours, I had both.
A friend responded to my call for help and transformed into my knight in shining armor. He led me to a local mechanic who ‘just happened’ to have a transmission for my car and the time to put it in. I rented a car from a friend who ‘just happened’ to have a car rental business and I had transportation and a new transmission in no time. WOW. “Thank you Universe” and “What a magnificent manifestor am I.”
Last but not least, asked if I could do a professional task with complications, I hemmed and hawed, jumped through a few hoops and realized I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do it. So, imagine my relief at getting an email saying the problem had been solved and my services would no longer be required! Whew. You know the drill by now – “Thank you Universe” and “What a magnificent manifestor am I.”
Many people call these strokes of luck. I call it deliberate creation at its best.
Take an item on your to-do list that is pretty neutral and not fraught with angst and emotion. Plant the seeds of it’s being a done deal. Imagine it happening in a surprisingly easy, fun way and do a run through in your mind to iron out any possible kinks. Whenever you notice your mind heading toward the worst case scenario exit – change lanes, pass negative thoughts and proceed to your true destination, the fulfillment of your desire.
As with anything, deliberate creation requires practice. Like practicing an instrument, kicking a soccer goal, twirling on ice, knitting or taking our first wobbly upright steps, the more we practice the better we get. The more we want to practice because we enjoy the music, the game, skating, the click of the needless and walking through the world – the greater our chance of success. Manifesting is manifesting and, once a deliberate creator, always a deliberate creator. Get a bunch of buttons down and there’s no limit – gardens, castles, peace of mind, power washers, smooth sailing, a good nights sleep, world peace, the love of your life, your dream job, a new kitten. Purr.
Here’s to you, deliberate creator! As you look out and survey your magnificent manifesting, grin broadly and say, “Thank you Universe,” and “What a magnificent manifestor am I.”
When my daughter was little, I made up a grace we sang before dinner that I still refer to when I forget the sequence of the life stages of a plant:
First the seed,
Then the root,
Then the flower,
Then the fruit,
May this food on which we dine,
Make our little lights to shine.
I usually buy my plants as seedlings, already started in the pot and then I transplant them into the the ground or a bigger pot. My experience is limited when it comes to germinating seeds so I was excited and a little nervous when I picked up a gift of a dozen seed packets sent by a dear friend from California. She knows I’m moving back to the north side and am eager to plant my garden. The collection includes beans, lettuce, fennel seeds, radishes and a variety of flowers. Examining each packet, I smiled imagining she’d included a packet of the seeds of abundance, of healing and forgiveness, true love and one for a new car until I realized that she had.
A thing newly learned turns up everywhere, so it’s not surprising that the seed conversation continued after jazz at the Sapphire Grill last Sunday. I was talking to my favorite bass player about music and discipline when the conversation turned to gardening. I told him I wanted to farm my newly bull dozed land. He asked: “What’s the hold up?” Even though I won’t be living there for another month he urged me to get started now by planting seeds. He has cups and cans and containers of seeds sprouting all over his house and garden. Tossing tomato, papaya and passion fruit seeds into the earth he pays attention to what comes up and is always messing with seeds.
The dictionary defines seed as a:
1. ripened plant ovule containing an embryo and
2. a source and a new beginning.
I like the idea of being there from the start and slowing down enough to watch a tomato seed morph into a tomato and an eggplant seed into an eggplant while I marvel that each kernel contains all the information necessary for the fulfillment of its unique promise of perfection – just like us.
I’m learning about: making the soil ready; the conditions under which certain things thrive; how to choose a good seed; how to protect, care for and allow each seed to make its way or not and then to sit back and enjoy.
As with painting my house, the effect of the effort and the result go far beyond a pretty cottage and buff shoulders. As a meditation and symbolic ritual dance, painting my house was a practical and creative way to find my way home. As I gather my cups and containers for planting the seeds of papayas, pigeon peas, tomatoes, eggplant, kale and fennel seeds (for starters), I know that I am absorbing a kind of spiritual chlorophyll and plugging into a potent life force in the process.
We all started from seed. The language of germination, sowing, pollinating, rooting, fertilizing and harvesting apply to the produce of the fields and orchards, the animal kingdom and to the produce of our minds – our lives. We seed our days with thoughts and either enjoy or bemoan the fruits of our planting.
I’m getting my hands dirty and starting from scratch. This isn’t going to be just any box cake kind of garden. I’m digging deep, preparing my soil, tossing the rocks, choosing my seeds carefully, planting according to the almanac and bathing my seedlings n water and in love.
Along with the vegetable beds, I’ve started tilling and preparing my inner soil. I am gathering a precious collection of seeds for what’s next in the garden of my most amazing life.
I’m thinking a seed exchange might be a great idea.