This week I’ve been using my hedge clippers to trim the eleagnus bushes that surround my screened in porch and make up the privacy hedge in my front yard. Also called silverthorn, it’s a large sprawling bush that gets very dense when left on its own. This is the first time I’ve used the hedge clippers on it and it was surprisingly easy. The past couple of years I’ve let my yard become overgrown under the shadowy tree canopy. Since summertime I’ve been opening it all back up to the sunlight, cutting hedges shorter, trimming them close in so they are more lacy and less a dense wall. I’ve so severely pruned back the giant philodendron outside my office window that it’s completely opened me up to see the entire courtyard and the street. It’s a huge view in front of me that I never had before. I can see the entire southern sky as well. I feel as though I just gained two acres of front yard. My world is expanding in leaps and bounds. The more exposed and transparent, the less hidden I become, the freer I feel. Thank you God for this life and these realizations.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
I set my dining room up restaurant style, complete with menus
I realized last night there’s no longer a need to have 9 chairs and 6 pillows in the living room as if we have a houseful anymore. I decided to rearrange my living areas to reflect what I actually do every day now: a comfy place to relax after work and dine with my partner. I moved a tall file cabinet out of the dining area and into the back office. I moved a 48 x 60″ table into the dining room, right next to the kitchen as a service table for the toaster oven, convection oven and coffee maker. The wide table surface is a great staging area as well. I love staging areas… Next to it is the water cooler and beverages. The entire dining area is now set up like restaurant seating with a self service beverage bar where I keep teas and coffees and cups and plates stocked. The dining table includes menus as well! Continue reading
A lesson in vocal harmonizing, in finding our own note
I got a lesson in vocal harmonizing last Sunday and I’ll never listen to singing the same again. “Harmonizing: To bring or come into agreement or harmony. To make (one thing) compatible with (another)” While I’m cooking up yummy snacks, my partner is usually in the living room on the piano, playing jazz classics and orchestral versions of rock favorites (White Rabbit!) Through him, I’m learning a lot about music. Last Sunday I got a lesson in vocal harmonizing as we watched some kirtan videos. Some elements he spoke of were having control of your voice, singing a note in a chord but staying off the notes in the main singer’s melody, counter notes, counter melodies and how harmonizing differs from singing in unison. Continue reading
Cutting the cords of unhealthy attachment
I’m often asked for a simple and effective cord cutting ritual so click here for it. I came across this article and wanted to share:
“One of the most important things a person can do for their relationship evolution is cutting cords that still bind them to previous relationships and prevent them from completing those relationships in the highest of ways. Most people do not realize that when you have a relationship with someone your energetic systems become connected, especially when there is a strong emotional or mental event between both parties such as a traumatic or painful event. We create energy cords through sex and when we make conscious or subconscious vows, contracts, promises or oaths (spoken and unspoken) with the other person.”
How long does a planet stay in a sign?
The Sun spends about 30 days in each sign.
The Moon spends about 2 1/2 days in each sign.
Mercury spends about 14 to 30 days in each sign.
Venus spends between about 23 days to a little over 2 months in a sign. Continue reading
Some fave vegan Thanksgiving recipes here
Vegan Carmelized Brussels Sprouts
Vegan Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms
Vegan Maple Roasted Carrots with Fennel Seeds
Vegan Black Rice Recipe with Roasted Acorn Squash
Vegan Butternut Squash, Brussels Sprout, and Bread Stuffing with Apples
Low Fat Indian Spiced Homefries with Kale
Pita points and celery stalks with roasted veggie dip
A good clear soup would be a Lemon Ginger Scallion Soup
Tired? Bummed? Need a lift? Take a Magical Healing Shower
The Magical Healing Shower came to me years ago as I stood exhausted at the end of a very long and challenging day. I stepped into the shower and sighed loudly as I lifted my face into the flowing water. I asked that the water remove the stress of the day, and I was immediately transported into a standing meditation that felt transformative on all levels. In the shower, you visualize all the stress, any pain or sadness or confusion and pain being washed off you as if it were mud. Standing in a flow of water affects the body and the energy field. Here’s the process: Continue reading
You want to heal and teach? Tell the story as it really happened
I already know what the spin will be. The spin will be the house was in foreclosure, the court date was coming up and everyone was moving out anyway. That doesn’t negate a year of unnecessary blowups, refusal to help when asked, not paying rent, habitually lying, disrespecting your parent in their own home, letting your girlfriend do the same and causing a massive scene of hateful words upon departure. Living across the street, I hear more than I want to hear. He has never left a relationship honorably, not even with family. Both of them spin tales in their blogs about their journey of enlightenment, not writing about what actually goes on day by day, the real life lessons. Yes, he acted dishonorably and won’t admit it, but she takes it to a whole new level of continued outright fabrication. If it was me? If I had done that? I’d be sorry for the hurt I’d caused. I’d own up to what I did and recognize I did it out of a place of imbalance. I’d apologize for being unconscious and acting selfishly. Now that’s a hot topic for a blog post – the truth about a difficult situation and how you really handled it. That is what teaches, that is what heals. But, since it’s not me, I don’t expect that to happen. Continue reading
A walk through the hours of the day in a Benedictine monastery
Elizabeth Griffin writes :”I have often had an image of myself as a monk in housewife garb. It’s a portrait that does not present any sense of struggle as much as reminding me of who I am within. I know my path is not a cloistered one. Still, I have always been interested in a hermit’s ethic. To my delight, I recently discovered the books of David Steindl-Rast. He is a Benedictine Monk, originally from Austria, who resettled in the States and lives in a Monastery in Big Sur, CA. He wrote a book called Music of Silence, in which he walks the reader from morning until night from the point of view of his religious order. The day is broken into parts that are accompanied by chants and prayer. So each segment of the day has characteristics on which reflection can take place.
As a parent, do you enable or disable your children? Do the tv shows they watch enable them or disable them?
I didn’t raise kids, although we had custody of a stepdaughter for 3 years. She was independent, she was smart, she was street savvy. That was all good since her mother left her on her own so much from age 4 until we got her at age 10. I had insights this year about why the new generation is like they are. Many of them have had to raise themselves. Many of them are under-educated and emotionally over-charged. A friend has two children she’s left unattended overnight all year long as she spends nights at her boyfriend’s. They are used to raising themselves. Their home schooling leaves them unprepared and under-socialized, their peers and role models are on tv. Each is emotionally halted at about age 10. Continue reading