Forward

Creating a plan forward is definitely a great way to inject some new energy into your life. For the years we have lived here, the north has been the life we've wanted and actively created. It's an experience that has fulfilled and enriched us both. I've been a part of a very small population that experiences beauty in the frozen landscapes, a moon that pops out of the sky, northern lights that never tire of dancing the night away and solstice days that stretch from early morning to earlier morning.

It is just recently that we've felt a strong pull to explore other things, away from the north.

I do believe that everyone is at all times actively creating the life they have. Today doesn't just randomly appear out of nowhere ~ it is a flow from yesterday into tomorrow. We shape and move in a web of constructs and boundaries we ourselves create. This is life.

I think transitioning sometimes is confusing. Mostly because we put ourselves in position to test boundaries that at one time, we thought were as stretched as we could get. Knowing that you're being called to explore something deeper and perhaps seemingly riskier can bring up a lot of emotions. I'd say those emotions (fears) have been circling and surfacing in me for the last couple of months. And remarkably, as heavy as those feelings have been, today is total peace and acceptance. As though I've just weathered a great storm, and now my heart is full of gratitude that all the things that matter still remain.

Shhh, there are secrets in here.

January has not been the easiest month.

We're putting the house up for sale. I really love this house but I'm fine with it being a memory of a lovely place we lived during our time in the north. And no, I'm not shutting the door to the north completely. I'm blessed with a ridiculously well paying job here and I think to just throw that out would be a careless thing to do. This is just a first step.

I am ready to forward think and put energy into the intentions we have for the future. Having made the decision and talked with the real estate agent has brought some additional clarity. It could take some time for the house to sell, as the market is as slow and saturated here as it is most other places. Our first step is a silent listing. This gives our selling option to only one company to show to pre-screened buyers and keeps a sign off our lawn. Depending on spring markets we may go ahead with a full listing.

Beyond this measure both husband and I have taken some personal steps. In early January I enrolled in a course to learn to trade FOREX. Forex is the world currency market. My course starts on Monday! I'm trying not to put any expectations on it. It is an arena that offers a lot of potential but could take months if not years to learn to successfully navigate. But, I'm looking forward to giving my brain a workout at something new. And fingers crossed, love it and earn a few bucks along the way. :)

Husband loves to build. When we lived in Halifax, he renovated our house and here he has finished the basement and rebuilt the deck (it wasn't to his satisfaction so he tore it off and made it over ~ seriously!) So he has signed up for a timber-framing course. The course takes place in April in the Rocky Mountains. I'm certain he will come back brimming with inspiration. We are both into home design and I expect that the next formidable project may very well be building a house. Exciting to think about.

So in my mind, we are starting to be on our way.

Thankful

I do believe that my husband

is proof that god gives mes gifts

I don't deserve. :)

My New Favorite Book

I found this to be an emotionally difficult week. There is a full moon looming and let's just say that without ever looking at the sky I know whenever we are close to this event happening... because seriously... it affects children! It ups their energy several notches. As the energy increases, listening and good behavior in general decreases! Plus they have no school tomorrow (I do) and we've had a week of indoor recess (yuck, yuck, yuck). So all combined, we're in need of creative outlets. And to take a breath. And chill out. And sit down in our seats. And just shut up for the love of god children!!!!

Dramatics aside (and there were many) a couple of pretty special things also happened. Our grade 3 classes put on a benefit lunch with money being donated to World Vision for their Haiti Relief Fund. We asked for a donation of $3 from students and more if they'd like. We were able to raise just under $500! The best part was that our local grocery store donated all of the food which enabled us to give every kid lunch, even those who didn't donate.

I have to say the effort was worth the reward. Asking for and collecting those grocery donations put me on an incredible high. I was overwhelmed by the generosity. I guess for them it probably wasn't a big deal, but for me it felt like what I had set out to do in the beginning, which was small in scope, had grown into so much more. Should I be surprised? No, that's the way life is ~ everything starts from seed and seeks to increase. It is like the universe finds joy in multiplying. For a time I sincerely felt moved by my own ability to change the world.

Another lovely occurrence was when a colleague passed me a book she thought I would enjoy reading to my kids. She said it fit nicely with our fundraising efforts. Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming takes place in Holland at the end of WWII. Katje, a young Dutch girl receives a box from an American girl named Rosie via the Children's Aid Society. The box contains a pair of socks, a bar of soap and a chocolate bar that Katje shares with her mother and the the postman. This begins a penpal friendship that results in a whole town collecting food and personal care items for Katje and her neighbors.

There were a number of time that my eyes brimmed with tears while reading this aloud. And the whole class sat completely motionless, absorbing the story. I've read a good share of children's literature, and I'm constantly amazed at the quality of this genre. This one I have to put at the top of the pile. Go to your library or bookstore and read it! If you know someone who survived the war, buy them a copy. For all the 8 and 9 year olds in your life, make this a part of the next gift you buy them and give yourself the pleasure of reading it to them. And then hug them really tight.

Simplicity

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ~ Einstein

Code

Taught my kids a fun secret code (from The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown) on Friday and then gave them this morning's message in code. They have been very busy writing and deciphering cryptic messages! Great fun! Being 8 totally rocks.

Field goals.

It is a lazy, windy, cold and overcast Sunday. We ventured as far as our favorite breakfast spot and then made a quick in and out to the grocery store for lasagna ingredients. Otherwise, I'm considering myself housebound for the day. I'm tired and the urge to nap is overwhelming, there is a good chance it will win in the end.

Thankfully I'm back to regular sleep habits. Now my body wants to catch up! A friend/colleague asked me if I was taking any vitamin B ~ which of course I wasn't. So about two weeks ago I started adding that into my daily regimen. The kind I bought was Webber Naturals B~Calm B50 Complex with Sensoril. Living here, there is a limited choice in this sort of thing (only a drug store and a grocery store to choose from) and I chose this brand because it came in capsule form as opposed to tablet. I have to concede that it has done wonders to bring the nervous energy under control, although it took a week before I saw any appreciable difference. A secondary benefit has been a boost in libido! I Googled it to see if I was crazy ... ladies think about adding this to your supplement arsenal! ;)

The husband and I spent a long time talking over coffee this morning. Love these days. He's been reading Dyer again. Good things always come out of him reading Dyer. I think it is because it puts us on the same page in our thoughts and helps us focus in on what we are trying to achieve. I'm not sure about you, but life for me so easily distracts. Full time jobs (even when highly satisfying) can steal away valuable hours that might be better spent by doing something for your future self. So moments like these are important to take full advantage of and zero in on how to move your thoughts into full blown reality.

I don't want to leave the impression that life isn't good. In fact, I think my life has never been better. What I now realize is that I am just beginning to scratch the surface of the kind of life that is possible and that my primary motivations have always been to experience as much as I can as fully as I can. And they don't all have to be pleasure filled ~ I want the gamete.

Do you think there is a difference between goals and goalposts? I've never been great at setting concrete goals. Mostly because I want life to intervene. I don't want my ideas to be so structured that there isn't room for the random good stuff to make its way into the mix. I WANT the kindness of strangers to a part of the flow. With goalposts, at least there is direction. Some would argue that isn't good enough. But, I'm not some and the more I reflect on this point, the more I recognize that it is good enough for me. In my heart I want to live with the ambiguity and given that it is such a deep seated part of my personality, it is what I'm going to naturally attract anyway ~ it would require such an enormous amount of energy to change this about myself that it seems counter-intuitive to even try.

So what are the goal posts I'm shooting for? Well, I have a few things clearly in mind. The first is a piece of property near and dear to my heart that we hope to purchase in the next 6 months. Our plans for this are yet to reveal themselves. But that's okay. It will come. I once was told that when you buy a house you should live in it for 6 months without doing anything to it ~ no paining, no artwork. And, over the course of living and getting to know your new surroundings, the house will speak silently and let you know what it wants. When we bought our second house, I did exactly that. It was astounding all the secret things the house gave up to me! I'd like to see this future property treated the same way. I believe in the rightness of intuition.

The second thing I'm working on is trying to figure a way to earn a living without being tied to a job. I have mixed feelings because I truly love the work I am currently doing. Teaching grade 3 is a joy I'm not quite through with. Also, there are many factors in play right now that make my work so good ~ the grade 3 teaching team (5 of us in total) is a well oiled machine, my administrators give me room to do my job and be creative, AND the group of kids I'm teaching at the present moment (and their parents) make the day to day stuff feel both fun and purposeful. It is ideal. BUT, I've enough experience to know that all of these factors aren't always in play all of the time ~ so I'm appreciating fully this gift that I've been given!

Teaching though is the second love of my life, something I have learned to love. Writing is the first. Soon, I want to create a block of time and space to explore just what I am capable of creating with the written word. I know for certain that I don't want to write for other people (free-lancing). If that were my only outlet, I believe I'd be much more fulfilled keeping my day job. Still, the thing I always come back to is writing. So I want to honor this and give it life beyond this blog.

In the meantime, I'm just going to keep putting it out there ~ into the aether. Let it come to me as it is ready to find expression.

So what about you? Where do you find yourself on the scale of directing your life? Are you wandering the desert looking for the promised land? Or are you there making dreams come true? Seriously, I want to know...

Namaste.

The Rear-View Mirror

(yes, I know that I shouldn't be blogging right now as there are other more pressing matters, but anyway...)

A conversation I had earlier today sparked some thoughts on hind-sight. This person related to me how they felt that God has been preparing them for the last 20 years to be with the love of their life (which of course they have now met). And when she now looks back over the men and failed/incomplete relationships as well as her own spiritual journeying to this point ~ she can perfectly connect the dots of how this whole coming about has been led (her words) by the hand of God.

For some reason I attract these types of exchanges from people.

Now bear with me cause I'm about to go in a seemingly different direction. Earlier this week I was listening to a podcast regarding the use of technical indicators for predicting profit in Forex (Foreign Currency Exchange Market). The author was offering a proof for why some experts believe in the use of these indicators - which rely on a series of intercepting lines which represent profit. If you trace the lines backward in history, it is obvious where they cross as is the value of profit that could have been taken had a trade been made. Basically, in hind-sight, a trader is able to objectively see history taking shape. The problem... when one uses technical indicators to predict the future, things are a little more elusive - all the indicators in the world can point to a future event happening and YET said event may never take place. Lines you thought were destined to cross never do. In short, the past is certain - the future is NOT.

I couldn't help but think how this also applies to relationships. It is easy to look back over the years and quantify the ebb and flow of people and places. We wear the impact of intersecting lines. But we also take a LOT of artistic liberty in the way we draw those lines and the importance we place on them.

The saying "if it's not one thing it's another" applies here. Life is a spiritual journey, regardless of who or what you ascribe god to be. And this spiritual journeying is meant to challenge and change us, offering a smorg of opportunity for intersecting lines. It is always preparing us for what comes next, to enjoy, appreciate, learn from whatever might be around the corner ~ be that the love of our life or the solitude of aloneness. If it's not one thing, it will be another. Regardless, it has the potential to be the next best thing.

The rear-view mirror is the meaning we assign to our past. Yes, it teaches us all... but ultimately WE are the ones connecting and assigning value to converging paths. Free will is the gift of a creative soul.

(admittedly it is late and in the morning none of might make any sense). In the mean-time live your life as though it all matters and if you do believe in the guiding hand of god, it is there only to embolden you to achieve beyond what you think your natural talents are.

checking in

hello my friends. thought I would just drop you a quick note to say that 'all is well' and my nights are once again filled with restful dreaming. thank goodness!

I am however... busy busy busy. and really, all I want to do is blog BUT it is report card time; so my days are overflowing with assessment and note-taking for upcoming interviews.

So stay well and I'll be back as quick as I can! much love.

White.

"There is neither heaven nor earth, only snow falling incessantly." Unknown

The world was white today. The air saturated with ice crystals, as were the trees and lamp-posts and buildings. Everywhere I looked begged me to take a picture. The whole thing was ethereal and I think I needed a touch of that today.

Putting the I in Insomnia

Lately, it seems impossible to sleep. I've hesitated to blog about it but at this point I figure that there isn't much to lose in doing so. Some part of me has called this beast into existence, to what end... I have NO idea!

All I do know is that right at this time, I'm finding the north very difficult. This year, unlike any before, I feel as though I can't find my way out of the darkness. For weeks now, I've endured cold temperatures too penetrating to venture outside and have been going back and forth to work pre and post the sun. Usually by this point in January there is a visible difference to the length of day but it has been overcast and snowing since the weekend. Crossing my fingers that the prediction for softening weather holds true and we get some reprieve in the coming days.

Tonight I decided that there is a something that I'm not letting go of, can't seem to set aside. But it's not yet ready to show me what it is. Hmmm, is it so BIG that it needs both my body and mind shaking from fatigue before it dares to reveal? Or, is it one of those right before your eyes obvious kind of things that is waiting for me to stumble over it at 3am in a convulsion of weariness and lethargy?

One thing I strive to do is love my life even when it's not warm and fuzzy. Even when it hurts a little bit and getting out of bed seems like the impossible task of the day. Because when you look back, these kinds of moments are the defining ones. They're the ones that help you figure out what you really want in life. And they don't last forever. Each one of us can remember a time when it felt like it would never end, that we'd never make it through, that things would never get better... And not long afterward, although you carry the feeling from it, you never seem to regret having endured.

At some point in my future life I will sleep again!

And if the answer comes I'll let you know...

In the meantime, may all of the blessings of the universe be falling on you as gently and as beautifully as the snow outside my window.

Namaste.

Memory

(When I don't quite know what to do with the swirling thoughts, I write. The ways words fit and form, how you can stretch and shrink and metaphor them together in puzzle pieces. . . they open you up, make you more than you thought you could be.)

As a kid I grew up on the banks of a charming river. It literally runs through my parents back yard (and figuratively through me). The mere thought of it teleports me to hot summer days and long nights watching fly fishermen ~ my dad and grandfather among them ~ the gurgling and slapping of water as it moves over rocks and along the shore ~ men casting their lines in shadows of pink and crimson until darkness overtook us all.

When everyone had made their way back to the house then I would slip out to watch the the stars. The dew clinging to my legs and arms, finally cooling me against the heat of the day. I was just as pleased to be there on my own as I was to have my friends join me. Staring. Mesmerized by a million diamonds. Thinking that this web of existence must have no beginning and no end.

If you really take the time to look at the stars, the sky becomes a sea of light, pinhole by pinhole. At first it is mostly planets and satellites that shine the brightest. But soon, as your eyes adjust, it's a symphony of music that binds the past and the future. Funny how we think that the night obscures the day but really the day obscures the universe.

It is possible that these words I'm putting out into this night were formed then. Sometimes the light takes a while to reach us ~ light years in fact. But it is on its way. Words help me solidify these truths. Brings my heart back in line when it wanders on dark winter nights.

Namaste.

i can't sleep. and i'm so tired i might even throw up. it is 2:49 am. help.

Down Dog

It has been a while since I practiced yoga regularly. Which is my loss for sure. In the last week I've taken the time to have some quiet meditation time, but admittedly mediation following yoga surpasses just meditation on its own. Probably because the exercise and breathing grounds you, not to mention fatigues your muscles so that they relax more fully during meditation.

I love down dog. The way it makes me stretch and move. And causes my head to feel like a bowling ball and not a brain at all. Just a big heavy mass of bone being pulled down by gravity. And for a few breaths it positions your heart above the grey matter. The heart becomes the dominate defender. A beautiful thing.

What's your preferred pose?

Namaste.

Quiet hum

I'm whispering as I blog these thoughts. Trying to connect quietly, without being seen. Seems like words have been spilling out of me and I can't quite manage to contain them. I'd kinda of like to, all this verbiage is making me feel like I should stuff big white tube socks in my mouth ~ as though what I say will be used against me. Do you ever feel that way?

Last night we had this lovely little dreamy time, curled up together, being exactly what we used to be and wished we could always manage to hold on to. Whispering and laughing and being joyful just for the sake of it. And I've felt tender all day because of it. As though I might possibly be the most loved person... Do you ever feel that way?

When I say beautiful things, I'm not necessarily living them;

when I live them, the beautiful thing is that words aren't necessary.

Brock Tully

a moment

we are all, always on the verge. hang in there. be the love even when... this is what makes life worth the journey.

Space Time Continuum.

Bear with me. For lack of better descriptors, I've entered some treky like energy confluence field. I could be here for a while. Navigating. Observing.

It's AWESOME.

ReVolutions

Honestly, up until 3 days ago when one of my blog friends commented that it was the beginning of a new decade, I hadn't given that a single thought! Ten years ago I think we were all so focused on Y2K and the impending doom of the internet frying hour by hour as midnight ushered in around the world, that we could think of nothing but the fact that it wasn't just an ordinary marking of our revolutions around the sun. So suddenly... I've been thinking about the new decade thing... and where the next 10 years will take me.

I feel like my family falls loosely in the category of gypsies.

So as gypsy like beings, we've always depended on the kindness of strangers to change our lives. Living in a thick soup of serendipity. Which is not a bad way to live. In fact, I think it teaches you to live open to the universe and be blessed constantly by unexpected things.

But it does lead to drifting.

And no actual planning.

And being at the mercy of someone else's goals.

However, in the last few years, I've learned that the serendipitous soup in which we find ourselves can in deed be directed, ingredients altered, personal goals realized. I suppose, my own religion has become the law of attraction. I don't think I've ever stated it emphatically here, but it is as true for me as it is a cliche. But not to worry, you will find no hard sales pitches or sermons to make you a believer.

The thing about the world is that the matter that exists currently is the same amount that has always existed (ok, some scientist out there could argue the finer points of this generalization, but whatever!). All the things that make up this house I live in and this computer I am tapping away at, and everything I taste, touch, see and smell during the course of any given day, have all come from this earth. Everything existed from the beginning. Even when we had yet to discover or label it, it existed. We breathed air long before we even knew we were breathing ~ or that breathing was significant in anyway!

So is the law of attraction. I like to think of the world around me as holding infinitely rich resources. Some of them I can see and already know how to put to work. Most of them currently remain hidden. BUT, they still exist, have ALWAYS EXISTED and are waiting for me to call them forth in someway and use them. They WAIT for me. My everyday choices and attitudes dictate the hidden things that I am able to unmask. You get to choose your own spiral of reality.

Ten years from now, my life will be different in many ways. Good ways. I will have another decade of living under my belt and will have seen the world many times over.

I'm always mindful that I'm revolving the sun. Funny how that never leaves me. And I'm not going to waste those turns. rEVOLUTION is for us all. I have great FAITH in whatever it may be that I'm going to call forth from the hidden veil. And, there will be NO REGRETS.

Goals

Yesterday was a hard day. Do you ever have those? Where you are discontent with EVERYTHING? There is NOTHING that makes you happy or will appease in any way. Even more FRUSTRATING is that you're TRYING to get it right! But try as you might, it feels like you are crawling out of your very own skin in an effort to make it different, palatable. I give myself an A+ on a stellar performance at pissing off and alienating my family. I really should have been nominated, given the authenticity of my role around this place.

The fiasco and confusion of my own emotion culminated in an argument with someone close to me. I literally wanted to rip them limb from limb and then shake the pieces that remained. I didn't yell or scream ~ but oh, god, how I wanted to. I wanted nothing more than to release every last shred of the violence and hate channeling through my body by some nameless/faceless hormonal super ex-girlfriend like beast. It was an incredible full-throttle voltage energy.

A bit ago, I blogged about words that spill like milk. How it never gets put back in the cup quite the same way. Those words were not easy to contain yesterday. I do believe on two different occasions that I caught them mid-air and pushed them back, choking them down as they scratched their way into my belly, all jagged and edgy. Last night I wondered if that is what it feels like to be possessed?

In the end I drank a gallon of Cellfood and took lots of vitamin D, seeking to fortify myself and thinking the cold and lack of outdoor air might possibly own some responsibility. I then, speedily became a 'get things done around this place' machine and worked myself to exhaustion. By 9pm I'd recovered to the point that I could look in the mirror and see something other than the devil. Not entirely sure my family is there yet.

So where did all of this come from? I'm now in the 4th year of living in the north. Truth, I have loved the adventure. But something in me seemed to switch at the beginning of December, and right at the moment there is not so much adventure as there had been. Over the last few days there has been so much buzz about goals and achievement ~ and I believe in all of those things, but they seem to be streaming at me faster (like those green alphanumbers in the matrix) than I can process. Overwhelming. Making me crazy.

And the thing is, I know what I want. I know the goal. And I'm trying to be so unlike me and wait for optimal conditions. To not fuck-it-up, because I've never been so great at timing. But then again, timing is all about our ultimate destiny... don't you think...

Outta MY Way!

Feeling restless. Thinking about the year to come. Opening up the jar marked desires. Do I have the courage?

Yes, yes... I believe I do.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin