Last week, I decided to begin the journey of devoting Mondays for an entire year to acknowledging the simple things that touch me, get my heart churning, or make me pause throughout my day…  and I invited my readers to join me in this adventure!  Read my original post HERE if you’d like to join me…  it’s really quite effortless, enlightening in many ways, and a wonderful way to connect!  I think I’ll skip the Mr. Linky sign-ins though, atleast until more folks want to participate!

Well, this week, what I’m choosing to share with you is far from simple, to be honest.  This new little presence in my life, Sophie a.k.a. Marshmellow, came in a moment of stubbornness, a reawakening of my deep love for animals, heart-melting, and that splendid taste of wanting to save the world.  A local shelter was closing its doors and threatened to euthanize every last critter….  so I couldn’t help but go….  and what was so amazing was that I wasn’t the only one.  Not only was I with a group that was bound and determined to adopt every last animal if it came down to it, but by the time we got there, the community had really stepped it up, joined in, and worked together to make this story have a happy ending.

So, no, Sophie a.k.a. Marshmellow’s story of coming into our family is certainly not simple… but the choice to rescue her was, and the sweetness that I feel for  a supposedly feral cat who purrs all the time is…  and the gut sensations that rise in my belly when doing what I can to save the world is nothing BUT simple, whether it’s recycling my soup cans or saving a kitty.

What about you?  What simple thing has made you pause today?

©2010 Sacred Circle. All Rights Reserved.

Meet Monster.  This week, in dipping my toes a bit back into the Happy Book Challenge over at The Next Chapter Book Club, I took  her for a hike.  Monster, while I adore that she’s somewhat bold and sassy and whimsical, sort of represents my fear…  my fear of failure and being misunderstood, of the boogie monster, muggers and housefires, of car accidents and running into big ferocious bears while hiking alone in the woods.  What I’ve come to understand is that fear isn’t so much something we need to overcome or rid ourselves of…  rather, fear is something that calls us to accept it as part of life, and to keep walking forward anyhow….  not allowing it to define us or dictate how we engage with life, but befriending it, so that it doesn’t take away our power.  So it was delightful to take Monster on my morning hike….  I was that much more conscious of the darkness as the sunshine all too slowly made its way to my side of the mountain, of every twig breaking and acorn dropping, not knowing what was waiting for me around the next bend…  but I kept going anyway!  And how empowering is that?

©2010 Sacred Circle. All Rights Reserved.

“Embrace this moment, put one foot in front of the other, and handle what’s in front of you. Because no matter where your mind may roam, your body always remains here and now.”

~Dan Millman

The body knows, doesn’t it? The body knows that it’s sometimes the only part of us that can slow us down when we’re in a rush to get somewhere, that it can teach us a bazillion lessons regarding the inevitability of change, and that we’re grounded only in present experiences and perceptions and choices.

I feel like my body has been through the ringer lately… first, there was the lump on my foot that I decided to have checked because it had grown slightly….  which led to a painful aspiration, a sneaky cortisone injection (given unbeknownst to me until after the fact), and now, it looks like a wee bit of an infection, making it virtually impossible to wear any shoes but flipflops.  Then, I discovered that my vision isn’t as wonderful as I thought it was and that I need glasses… (today is my first day of wearing glasses fulltime).   And to top it off, one night this last week after a rich meal, I was revisited by the gallstone monster, who I haven’t seen since back in my college days, when I lived off of stress and BLT sandwiches.

Okay, so yeah, I’ve been feeling a little sorry for myself.  I feel old.  I feel decrepit.   As though there were a touch of midlife crisis creeping in.

But obviously, that’s not the point to all this, now is it? It really does no good to blame or ridicule or belittle the body…  there’s no real crisis here.

After allowing myself a sufficient period of whining and moaning and groaning, and even some weeping, I’m ready to honor what my body is telling me.  I’m ready to love my body, warts and all.  I’m ready to see that there is wisdom in adversity and boldness in acceptance, and that the healing does not happen at some prudent time in the future, it happens NOW.

Yes, now.

Even if it begins with a foot soak in Epsom salts and lavender petals and a week off of my normal exercise routine and the hikes I look so forward to.  Even if it means picking out some funky frames that will help my eyes to see clearer and getting used to a new look.  Even if it entails lighting a candle each time I eat so that I slow down, and cut back on dairy and sugar.

But the body also knows that it’s deeper than the physical.

It knows that I’m farsighted, and that I’m pretty good at staying focused on my future, but not so good at sitting with where I am in this very moment.  It knows that I sometimes move forward full speed ahead without giving much needed attention to what’s right in front of my nose.  It knows that if I don’t really tune in each time I make a choice, whether it’s around what I eat or how I express my spirit, then I have a harder time fully digesting what is.

So yeah, we’re all aging…  in fact, some say we’re all dying from the moment we’re born.  But we’re also evolving.  We’re also expanding into new, never explored territory, and while we may be gritting our teeth, we’re in for an adventure.

What if living is about loving our imperfect bodies, moving with (instead of fighting against) their cycles and forgiving their ailments, and caring for them as if  they were sacred vessels that carry around our dreams, our visions, and our curiosities? It gives whole new meaning to wrinkles, fuzzy eyesight, achey toes, and saggy boobs, doesn’t it?

And what if living is more about how we use our days in between, and how willing we are to step into the moment and engage our spirits compassionately in what is, nodding to each and every second that passes by as if they were strangers on a bus?

©2010 Sacred Circle. All Rights Reserved.

I have an invitation for you.

It doesn’t cost a cent, and takes mere seconds.

It’s not about fulfilling some kind of quota or  pleasing anyone but yourself.

It’s an invitation to begin to tune into the simple things around you.

Simple is ordinary or mundane with a hint of possibility.  It’s a playful tug-o-war between dreaming big and letting life’s circumstances walk in and swallow you up.  It’s all of the little bits and pieces that when added up create an acute awareness of how lovely life truly is.

Simple might be the way the sunlight creates a cozy warm spot on the carpet for your dog, or the taste of a fresh strawberry, or the way your child skips when you present them with a shower cap from a recent hotel stay…  Simple may be a smile from a stranger, a penny found on a sidewalk, or the familiar routine of saying goodbye to your cat on your way out the door.

Nothing fancy or miraculous or magical…. just the small things you might notice throughout your day that make you pause, if even for just a millisecond.

Of course, in many of our lives, the simple things are overlooked, or seen as so commonplace that they don’t hold any value or importance.  And that’s where the invitation comes in…  because I would venture to say that when we allow ourselves to be captured by the simple things, we’re handing our energy over to things that touch us, awaken gratitude within us, and that coax us out of a sleepy sense of heaviness or ambiguity and invite us to live in a deeper, fuller way.  We have splendid opportunity to sink in to what is.

So here’s what I intend to do with this….  Every Monday here on my blog, for the next year,  I will share a simple thing from my own life….  and I’ll invite you to do the same. It’s simple!  I’ve even added a little Mr. Linky widget so that if you have a blog or want to share a picture via a photo host, you can all easily direct my readers to your own experiences of the simple things. OR if you’re keeping things simple and don’t have a link, I invite you to post a few words about a simple thing that gets your attention in the comments…  You can call this a wacky experiment, you can call it a celebration, you can call it a way for us to get acquainted, you can call it a way to provide more structure and consistency on my blog, you can call it one simple way to change the world…  to me, it’s all of the above!  So I hope you join me…

Here’s mine…

My son made his bed today.  He did it because this last weekend, we made his loft bed into a normal-height bed, so that he could rearrange his room the way he wanted to, and so us grownups would stop grumbling about how much of a pain it was to climb up the ladder in order to snuggle with him before bedtime.  There’s something about it that has made him proud and a bit ornery, and I could’ve sworn, he’s grown two inches overnight.  His favorite bunny is perched on his pillow, and in the center of his bed is a patch of white hair that one of the cats left behind after a nap. What tugs at me is the delight in knowing he’s becoming his own little man who is way too big for his britches, and that edge of sadness around  him not being my baby anymore, whispering the necessity of letting go.  I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything in the world…

©2010 Sacred Circle. All Rights Reserved.

“If you knew your potential,you would laugh at your efforts to fit into smaller molds. Absolute genius requires absolute heart.”

~ Tama Kieves

Not too long ago, one of my mentors, Danielle Laporte, sent out an email letting her readers know that she will no longer be taking comments on her blog.  I was impressed.  Not because I think it’s smart or cool or because she joined the ranks of others daring to let go of the feedback in order to have a clearer message…  but because she was courageous enough to heed her own gut, trust in the power of her own words, and draw her very own boundaries around what she wants and needs to pour her energy into.  That way, she can make more room for the juicy, authentic stuff that stretches her, challenges her, and makes her smile.

Seth Godin, “agent of change” and author of several brilliant books including Tribes and Linchpin, just recently did something similar in announcing that he will no longer be publishing any more books in the traditional way, and instead will rely on ebooks to get his messages across.  Another bold move.

No, I’m not going to shut off the comments on my blog-  for now, I value the dialogue too much.  And when it comes to my own book, I’m not yet sure how I’ll choose to get it out there when it’s time.   But these examples inspire me to dig into my own inner resources and check out what’s there.

It’s about having the audacity to listen to that little whisper that asks us to ponder certain somethings during the random parts of our day.  It might be a book or painting idea, or an obscure invention, or something we want to remember to say to our loved ones, or the self-declaration of what life means to us in any particular moment.  All too often, those little whispers will get our blood flowing faster and create that fluttery sense of urgency, and then… boom, they’re gone as soon as life walks in and presents us with a sinkful of dirty dishes.  The next thing we know, we’re watching tv or reading the paper and seeing how someone else is wildly successful because they’re doing exactly what our whisper begged us to do.

I can’t even fathom how my life might look right now had I acted on all of the subtle whispers along the way…  but I’m rather happy, and I like to think that certain things are meant to be.  The point is, we are constantly bombarded with possibilities and opportunities, and those whispers are invitations to step into them, should we choose the mission.

Lately, I’ve been swamped with whispers…  it seems as though my “inspiration bank” is working crazy hours making up for lost time after taking a bit of a break over the summer.    Some are visions of art and books that I long to create….  others are workshop and retreat ideas…  and even more are simple or quirky ways to honor where I want my energy to go as I evolve within myself and my business.  As a self-defined work in progress, I’m learning to honor each one, even if they’re not all acted upon…  for doing so, I think, honors a deeper wisdom and vision that lies at the core of who I am and how I want to express myself in the world.

How to Honor your Own Bold and Quirky (and Brilliant) Ideas…

~  Create your very own “inspiration bank.” The economical route might be to grab a cardboard box out of the recycling bin and put a little hole in the top to put your deposits into.  You can make it as fancy and sparkly as you wish-  cover it in paint, collage, buttons…  whatever strikes your fancy.  Have fun with it, knowing that this is a sacred vessel you’re creating for dreams and ideas.

~ Keep a notebook or a small voice recorder with you, tucked away in your purse or backpack at all times. You just never know when the whispers will come…  they often like to tease us and come at awkward times~  be ready to pounce!  Writing them down takes just a few seconds….  (Motherly words of advice:  Ideas love to surprise us when we’re on our way somewhere- pleeeeez don’t try to write it down while you’re driving….  pull over!)

~  Make regular deposits into your inspiration bank… Write down and deposit everything, even if it seems weird or uninteresting or farfetched, and even if it seems unlikely that you’ll ever do it.  Simply writing it down is a way of honoring yourself and giving value to your visions and your brilliance.  Yes, I said, YOUR brilliance.

~ Dare to go your own direction. While it might be that your idea breaks the rules somehow, or doesn’t appear as cool or nifty as someone else’s, there’s a reason it has shown up for you.  You can’t simply follow in the footsteps in those who have been successful, or ironically, you’ll get lost.  Success comes from following your own wisdom, your own compass, your own set of rules.

~  Stop worrying if it’s already out there… It’s not too late for you. Your voice is unique and wonderful and has a flavor all it’s own.  No one sees your idea exactly like you do, so dare to express it in a way that invites your authentic visions out to play.

~  Revisit your inspiration bank on rainy days, special occasions, and on random ordinary days. Notice what idea grabs at you with that sense of urgency, and dare to take one tiny step towards acting on it, even if the first step is simply taping it up on your computer or bathroom mirror so that you see it often and are inspired by its presence.

~  Share your ideas with a trusted friend, or with the world! There’s nothing like putting it out there to give your idea a swift kick in the pants to get ‘er done!  Feel free to share them here….  we could have our own inspiration bank!

You know, we’re only here on this planet for a certain number of days…  personally, when I go, I’d rather go knowing that I did my damnedest to honor my visions in my own unique way!  I have lots of ideas up my sleeves…  books to write, changes in my newsletter to put into place, art to create, workshops to design and implement…  and  so if you’re interested, keep checking back to see how they evolve!

©2010 Sacred Circle. All Rights Reserved.