the blessings of physicality

This morning as I’m pumping the bellows to coax my neglected fire back to life and heat, I muse on the blessing of physicality...  

Often as I use my sweet bellows, I think of my parents. I’m sure my mum found these very bellows on one of their trips. My dad rarely used the fireplace after my mum died, but the  the image of him in his favourite chair, fireplace and bellows nearby, is clear and strong.  

Using my body in partnership with the bellows, I draw the memory of those two people into my body with the pumping, savouring the connection between the times they were used by my parents, and this time, here and now as I use them. Though they never spent time with me in this house, I feel their presence in the room.

Other times as I use the bellows, it’s my friend Sheilagh that pops into my heart, and her delight when I found her a set of bellows too. The next time I talked with her, she was so excited about how much easier it was to deal with her reluctant wood stove. As I pump the fire back to life I think of her, engaged in the same task on the other side of the mountain, and I savour our friendship and our shared pleasure with this simple machine. Yum.

The blessing of physicality comes again every Sunday in the closing prayer at our little Anglican church. Each week, as I speak the words, I think of a dear cousin, who also loves that prayer, saying those same words, several hours earlier out on the prairies. Feeling our shared response to the prayer, the words pour even more sweetly from my mouth...

            “Glory to you, oh Lord,

             whose power working in us

             can do infinitely more

             than we could ask or imagine...” 

It all comes back to these wonderful bodies we've been given with which to live our lives, and to do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine - isn't it true? When I trained as a Live Your Vision® facilitator, as part of the process we drew out of ourselves a spanking new version of our own Vision and Purpose. The words of mine spark and sizzle in me every time I speak them...

My purpose is to illuminate, cherish and celebrate 

the shimmering gift of Life and the sacred body of Earth.

And how better to cherish Earth’s sacred body than with these blessings linked to my  body memories!

Remembering joy and curiousity!

It's been a long time since I've posted here...  Lately I realized that I had lost touch with the joy of writing and got tangled up in writing something "worthwhile". I'm not sure how I thought I could tell if it was worthwhile or not... the only reliable way I've found is by the singing of my heart: "Yes! Like that!" But I'd forgotten about listening to my heart. I'd turned away from the pure pleasure of putting words together in a way that pleases me, gives me a sense of peace and certainty...    

Instead I was giving credence to old stories that somewhere out there is a critic I need to please. I have a sneaking suspicion that critic is named Perfection! Well, I've been here before. What writer hasn't. Learning how to turn away from that critical voice is, well... critical!    What really serves my soul and the work I'm about is to point myself instead at the beauty of the world and my heart's response to it. And there it is - the real truth waiting for me, intriguing, constantly changing, sometimes challenging, and always worth

listening to with my big self.

Once again I get it - that place where "counting" my blessings, allowing myself to exist in a state of grace, seeing the world with delight and curiousity, that is my doorway into joy and celebration. I'm so glad to be back.

June and Wholeness

June. Maybe, most people would not associate June with rebirth. For me it's the month I was born, month of the pearl and the rose, month of days growing longer, world growing lusher -  at least that's how it is where I live! - and...it turns out to also be a time when I pick up and reclaim important parts of my life. Those parts that somehow slipped out of my fingers, somewhere back down the path of my life-journey. You know how that is?     

One moment, with great care and tenderness, I'm holding in my hands a precious piece of what I'm here on the planet to do. And then, 'suddenly', it's weeks or months later, and I realize I've misplaced my precious piece. Missing in action, lost to the demands of a turbulent and unrelenting world. So what to do?

I look till I find it. I look with my hunger; I look with a fierce desire to become whole. to be one with myself. I look so I can live out loud my Vision of who I am - even when I'm not sure what my Vision really means.

And in doing so, I come home to myself. I begin to remember why I'm here, why it matters, why I love my life. Yummm.

June - a good month.

Hummingbird Stories

The Relationship Begins... 

A few years ago when summer rolled around and the flowers were all in bloom, I decided I no longer needed to feed the hummingbirds. Didn't they have lots of flowers to sup from? No sense being redundant, right? Wrong!

Intelligence shines forth!

After a few days of empty feeders I was letting the dogs out for their pre-breakfast pee one morning, when suddenly there was a very loud buzzing right next to my head. Ackh!!! I ducked, thinking "Hornet! Big one! Help!" Only it wasn't a hornet. It was a hummingbird. 

Having buzzed me once to get my attention, it then went over to the feeder - buzzzz - and realizing I was only a slow human and might not get it right away, came back to me again - buzzzz - and returned to the EMPTY feeder, again - buzzzz. Finally, because it wanted to make sure I really got the message, it did this a third time. Ahhh - I got it indeed. "Fill the feeder!" So I did.

Keeping the Communication Channels Open...

Sometimes a battle, sometimes a ballet.

Since then I've kept the feeder going all summer long, and last summer added a second feeder to alleviate crowding and battles at the other one. I love to watch them, and make sure to keep those feeders full, especially on cold cloudy days. I've hung one by the kitchen window, which is at right angles to my desk window. This allows me to watch them from two vantage points. It also turns out to be very convenient for the little guys to let me know when the feeder is empty - again! With one quick L-shaped swoop, they can go to both windows with the message that I'm slacking and they've noticed! They don't all do that.  Perhaps they've deputized one to be the liaison with the human (that would be me) - I can't tell them apart to know whether that's true. But it seems they all know me. When I'm out on the deck they fly very close to me as they come and go.

It Runs in the Family

My father used to keep feeders going too. He said once he got a hummingbird to land on his finger. "Wow - how did you do that!" I asked him. He said he held his finger up by the feeder and waited. I say to myself "Patient old man!" When I told him how impressed I was, he responded, "It was only a young feller; he didn't know any better." Love my dad!

Integrating the Flock into the Pack...

The other day I heard a thumping on the deck. I looked out, to see what mischief Bayley, my standard poodle, was into. Yikes - a hummingbird on the deck, brought down by my "intrepid hunter". I banged on the window. He jumped guiltily - we've been having conversations about leaving the birds alone... My neighbour, Ron, suggested persuading Bayley that hummingbirds, fawns, and all were to be protected, not attacked. Tell him they are part of our pack. This time, I held him by the collar so I'd have control, and took him back out to where the tiny critter was lying on the deck, wings spread wide, unmoving. 

I leaned over the hummingbird, cupping my hand over it with love, crooning to it. "See?" I told Bayley, "We love the humming birds. We want no harm to come to them." And at that moment the "dead" hummingbird flew away. Ah - a miraculous healing!

A visit from the ravens...

This morning while I was on a coaching call, the dogs got into mischief trying to catch a chipmunk on my deck. It was hiding behind a pile of pots, barbecue ashes waiting to be dealt with, a patio umbrella - you get the picture! Exterior clutter. mmm-mmm....

In their enthusiasm to catch that rascal, the dogs had broken the bag of ashes. I had no choice but to clean up that corner of the deck right away. Dang it! Tucked away behind the pile I discovered a small container of fish fertilizer - all that was left to me after the bears enjoyed it last fall. Some critter had chewed a hole in the corner of it, which I discovered as I picked it up and gobs of it splatted on the deck. Double dang!

"Hmmm - something smells delicious!"

Making the best of it, I scraped up the gobs and put them in the watering can, added water to make it less appealing to my dogs, then put the watering can up on a chair so they couldn't sample it. You know they would if they could! The raspberries I transplanted a few days ago would be glad of it. Then I headed back to my desk.

"Yes, definitely worth stopping by for

About ten minutes later the ravens arrived. I love their majestic beaks, their incredible size, their glossy feathers and scruffy necks. I'm not so fond of them snacking on the song birds at my feeders! But this time they were coming for fish cocktails. So funny to watch them. The male hopped onto the chair, braced himself with one foot up against the can, and sipped his fill. (I did not get my camera out fast enough to capture this.) Then the female, a bit smaller, dropped down from the apple tree and perched right on the handle. Perfect placement for drinking as much as she wanted!

To give you an idea of how huge they are - this is a full size watering can, 13" from the base to the top of the handle. In my dream journeys they land on my shoulder; some day one of them will decide I'm trustworthy enough to do so in waking reality!

* I have never yet managed to get a photo of them from outside. Until I do there will be the blurry effects from shooting through the window.

Rebel - Shadow and Light!

This morning, working with a coaching client, a juicy conversation about the rebel aspect within - something I'm well acquainted with! 

As a teenager, walking in the energy of the rebel archetype was a way for me to feel powerful. I did not question whether there were good or bad times to walk in this energy. It didn't occur to me that I could choose to step into or out of this energy. It simply welled up inside me and spilled out over the situations I found myself in and the people who happened to be around me. Sometimes the effects were disastrous! But there were other times, (enough times to keep me bonded to this energy) where people took me more seriously, when adults backed down on their demands of me, and where my peers sat up and noticed, and maybe even asked themselves, "Who the heck is she!"

credit: EcosocialistsUnite.com

And now that I'm "all grown up"? I've tamed my rebel down a lot, maybe too much. Over the years there were enough times when instead of giving weight to my rebel-thinking, people took me less seriously, or even became alienated to me. So I squashed her down a bit... Yet there are still times now when her energy bubbles up and I simply let her out and savour - at least for a moment or two!


But what if I took her more seriously? What if I asked myself: where could her disturbing energy be used to break stuck places open? What if her job was to make cracks for the Light to shine in?  How do I call on my rebel to help with earth-healing... what could authentic rebel power bring to the world? And how can I choose with awareness the times when I will walk in that energy? 

I see it's all about being awake. And asking myself tons of questions. It calls me to step into the place of the witness within myself where I can simply mull... 
~ how do my rebel and I bring light and healing, within myself, AND to this situation...
~ what's going on with this person in front of me who's encountering my rebel...
~ what other energies can I call up now to collaborate with the creative and life-bringing aspects of my rebel... 


 Not so easy sometimes! Yet in this world of change we all inhabit, I've got a feeling my inner rebel will bring me insights that can make all the difference.

the Joy of Horse-farming

Lise after the morning milking. Early, early in the day! Photo credit: Patrick Barber, 2008

Found a blog which I must have known about 5 years ago - because I'm part of it. It surprised me while I was Googling references to Sweetwell Farm. I was trying to post this there, but didn't quite figure out that part, apparently!

Years ago, several of my dear ones and I lived together on a farm-school run by a Quaker couple in southern Oregon. Lise Hubbe, of Sweetwell Farm in Scio, OR, was one of us. A few years later several of us were re-united at a Quaker school on the north end of the Kootenay Lake in BC.  Life progressed and eventually five of us re-united again for a weekend at Sweetwell Farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley, where Lise has been living her passion - horse-farming.
Now the daughter of another one of us is interested in working with Lise for a university work-experience. Cycles and seasons, coming round once again. It's just like a Wendell Berry poem.

So here you are: Sweetwell Farm, a fine example of horse-farming - people I love doing sustainable farming - an inspiration to so many of us. 

Lise is running a two-row cultivator with two horses 
from her team of four. They are taking out the thistle 
from between rows of corn. Photo by Holly.

Milking at Sweetwell Farm; Painting by Rebecca Waterhouse, November, 2011