No more alarm clock!

This week I’ve been cleaning and rearranging and getting the house back to Andrea order.  I’ve had a house guest the past year and worked around his schedule, which threw my own off. It was awesome to be forced to make changes I would not have otherwise made.  I love that. That keeps the neurons in my brain firing, keeping my mind flexible.  To make room, my free weights had gone into the hallway to free up the back bedroom, formerly my yoga and workout room.  I switched my yoga and meditation times to when I’d have privacy, since my guest was not into my daily practices.  I moved a meditation altar and the healing bench into my main office, so the living room looked more like a home and less like a temple.  This week I’ve been moving everything back into place, the living room looking once again like a temple.  I put away the coffeepot and sugar bowl and lined all my herbal teas up front and center in the beverage bar.  I unplugged the alarm clock!

I went outside and dug a hole to empty the driveway ashtray into.  Back to the earth, like a tobacco offering to Great Spirit.   Aho, I bless the communion, I honor the connection shared, knowing the wind will soon puff away all the clouds hanging over the mountains.  Furniture went into the shed, throw rugs put down for the winter.  In case we have winter.  My cozy sitting area once again made to accomodate one, books and cds, laptop, iPad, phone and tv remote at hand. I’ve also slept there the last 4 nights. It’s once again my cozy cocoon.

I’ve quickly fallen back into my former eating and sleeping habits, which – yAy!  I don’t eat much at the end of the year, which is easier when I’m feeding only myself.  During 2012,  I’d gained and lost 15 pounds in the course of several months.  I’d been cooking daily and meals became an adventure.  When we discovered we’d both gained weight, we stopped doing that.  Now I can make a small veggie soup and not worry about making sure there’s animal protein on hand.

I’d stopped drinking coffee in the 90’s but suddenly I was making it and smelling it daily.  I began drinking it.  My pounds came mostly from drinking coffee (and later black tea) with sweetener and nonfat dry milk.  I quickly remembered coffee every day gave me heartburn.  I stopped drinking it and the pounds dropped right off.  This was a reminder of how quickly I can allow something to become a habit.

Half a dozen times a year I might smoke  a clove cigarette.  Since my guest was a smoker, I began smoking several a week to keep him company on the driveway.  Mostly only smoking them halfway down.  I cut it back when I began coughing every day.  That was easy to stop.  When I’d smoked them before, it would be when I was alone, maybe on the beach, in a meditative mood with something on my mind I was contemplating.  It would be done as ceremony to prepave the intention of the contemplative segment I was about to enter into.

It’s easy now to jump up and go to the gym as soon as I’m awake, without having to keep an eye on the clock.  One benefit to come from a guest in residence is that in my quest for privacy doing my daily sessions, I began doing more in person readings.   After about a ten year break not doing them in person, it felt fun again and I was newly inspired to do more.  I spent more time meeting clients at coffee shops and found it was great fun to be in person again.

I’d discovered Google calendar and now it’s easy to keep track of all the options going on each day, and I can access it by computer, phone or iPad.  I’ll now have free time to attend classes, drum circles and events again.  A loner at heart, I like taking a break from friends but I love reconnecting with them as well.

Sunday I went to Unity of Melbourne for the first time in months and got to say hi to lots at the same time.  We did a burning bowl ceremony using flash paper, and it was very powerful.  I went to lunch with a friend and it felt good to laugh about long forgotten sillinesses.

I stayed awake after morning meditation today and went to the 7:00 am World Healing Day universal prayer and meditation with Cheri Hart and Susan Rizzo at Aquarian Dreams.  Susan played the crystal bowls and Cheri lead the prayer and healing circle.  Afterward we walked to the beach and I caught two minutes of the the sun rising over the cloudline at the exact moment I pulled out the videocam.  Afterward I chanted the Gayantri mantra and the Sarva Mangalye three times each.   I felt I could rise in the air like a helium balloon and disappear into the sky.

Tonight I have the option of going to Unity of Melbourne’s Taize service or to the Yoga Shakti Mission for Gajendra’s 7:00pm yoga class and a new year’s eve bonfire afterward.  That is usually a small, intimate gathering – depending on who’s in town and whether there’s a New Year’s retreat going on that year.

It’s been a fun year of lessons and blessings.  I have no regrets, I have no complaints.  I bless everyone who shared it with me, who joined me in this most wonderous co-creative experience.  We’re creating a new world, you and I, by every thought we think and every word we speak.  Let it be nothing less than awesome.