Creating Space

   When the going gets tough, the tough get decorating. No, really.There is something very therapeutic about it! You know what I am talking about!

    I made some decisions about creating space in my life, internal and external. I have spent the last few weeks going through every closet and every corner. I have gotten rid of a ton of stuff that I no longer need. I have a friend going through a big life transition and so it seem the perfect time to cull out all the extra stuff I never get rid of. Including a bed in my basement. I have a guest room in the basement, but really I have enough room upstairs to accomodate guests when I need to.  What I don't have is a space just for me.

   I brought a contractor in and I have design plans to turn the old guest room downstairs into a yoga/ dance studio. I am just waiting for the estimates. I am sitting tonight with the Benjamin Moore paint chips fan. It feels like porn for girls!

    I never painted the house when I moved in. I love colour and somehow I never put my mark on this space. When I bought it, it was only going to be a transition. So now that my future is going to be here, it seems somehow fitting to make it mine. To embrace this beautiful space. The painters start this week, inside and out.

    This morning, I went out and bought a belly dancing scarf and a beginner instructional video, Last Wednesday's Goddess night was more fun and laughs than I have had in a long time. I think it is time to laugh at myself a bit, and trust me, belly dancing will give me lots and lots of material!!!! When that studio is completed in July in the basement I am going to be ready! I even found a wall system with pulleys and harnesses for doing yoga inversions. I just have to remember to keep my phone with me in case I get stuck! How funny would that be! (not at all funny without a cell phone! LOL!) And I have even decided to mount a big TV on the mirrored wall so that I can play my instructional belly dancing and yoga videos. It will be the female equivalent of the "man den:"!!!

    I can't wait!

 In love and light, Kathryn
  

Something in the Air

   I don't know what it is, but there is something in the air. My business partner and I were laughing yesterday (to the point where there was snorting involved), not very lady like but tremendous fun. I feel like someone left the laughing gas tanks open in our office and filled the space with that infectious giggle producing air.
Maybe it's spring, maybe it is my absolute joy at having been liberated from months and months of snow.

   Or maybe it is me.

   Last night at my " Find Your Inner Goddess" course, we did belly dancing. I have not had that much fun in years. And I found muscles I didn't know I had! But I am going right on line this morning to order one of the jingle skirts because by God when I get my basement renovated and they finish my yoga/dance room I am going to practice up a storm! Look out Edmonton!

   I told our facilitator that I felt Euphoric. That kind of happy where your feet have trouble touching the ground. A bit off balance. Everything feels new and full of possibilitiy. It reminded me that three years ago when I finished PB 3 the statement I chose to go forward was this, "My life is about infinite possibilities."
Somewhere along the line that changed to "my life is about all the things I will never be allowed to do".
I made choices around my life that took me there. But now, my horizon is once again clear.

    She told me to stop trying to analyze why and just sit in it. Enjoy it. Rrrrrrroooooollll in it.
You haven't been there in a long time. It is not important to dig into why it is back, just enjoy that space.
Part of it is reconnecting with friends I have missed. How deeply I missed them I cannot find words to share.
The gift of having them back in my life has reconnected me with joy. With profound gratitude. Thank you for not deserting me. Thank you for the forgiveness around allowing me without judgement to go where I had to go.

    I have stopped dreaming again, but I am getting the best sleep of my life. I feel like I crawl into bed and am cocooned until morning. Almost like I am surrounded, and protected the whole night long.  My instinct on that is that as much as I look forward to dreaming, that there is some healing that needs to occur right now instead. Some safe and silent rebuilding in the quiet of the night. I wake up refreshed and peaceful, like I have been floating in calm water all night, craddled in the gentle swell.

    I don't know what is in the air, but what ever it is, I am grateful for it.
In love and light,
Kathryn

A Gift to Share

Just a small gift to offer this morning in gratitude.
These poems are very meaningful to me.

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished,
there in the cold light
reflecting pure snow
the true shape of your own face.
—David Whyte


The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
—Derek Walcott

love Kathryn

The Rapture

The Rapture

Out of chaos is born new

The ruble falls away to reveal

Untouched clay

Is it a rebirth or a requiem

A song  for what has passed

The word evokes a passionate fever

Spinning , dancing , leaping

Plunging forward

Or looking back

An empassioned dream or

A waking reverie

Slipping into the silence

Where minds can meet

And retrace unfollowed paths

And there I await the dawn.

Soul's Requiem

Sacred strands of breath

That wind and weave

Their golden thread into The tapestry

Unheard by any but the source

 Tendrils wrapping, tangling

Sweeping past soft cheeks and across

Tender shoulders

Caught in the breath

Of unspoken words

Crescendo, crashing

Waves surging rising to meet

The sky, then slipping backwards

To join the whole

My eyes without seeing

Find their mark and intrude where

Others cannot

My heart silently

Listens and waits for an echo

The soul without hands to touch

Without eyes to see

Without ears to hear

Seeks with it’s own senses

Answers to questions unasked

Unrevealed.

The Sweetness of Silence

  I am trying an experiment as part of my Goddess homework. In the realm of sound, this week I have turned off all extraneous sounds in my personal space. I have driven to work without the radio in the car, eaten my breakfast without the radio or television and walked outside without my Ipod plugged into my head.

  The most amazing thing happened. Time seemed to expand for me. In a very real sense, what I noticed was that without doing anything else, it suddenly seemed like I had a lot more time and space. Mornings became something to leisurely linger over, watching birds in the backyard, sipping tea, petting the dog. The drive to work became time to ponder how beautiful the river valley is, on the same road I have driven mindlessly to work over twice a day for the last sixteen years. My own voice was suddenly clear in my head. Easily and effortlessly heard. Walking for an hour became about listening to the rhythm of my breathing and listening to the sound of my own heart. Being aware and watching for the gifts coming to me on the wind.

  I wondered briefly if I would feel lonely. I think for a long time, I have used sounds to fill the space around me so that I didn't feel alone. Almost to drown out that little voice in my head in case it said something I didn't want to hear. The beauty and the gift of having the courage to step into a place of silence has been that I actually feel less alone than I have ever felt. I feel an incredible sense of peace and well being. I am beginning to get a sense of what it would feel like to be complete. Whole.
 
   That voice, instead of being the critical voice I remember, has in fact been a voice of love and acceptance. The voice of a loving friend and companion. My own voice. My greatest wish was to fall in love with myself,
and to my own wonder, the process has begun. A dear friend quoted a song that I love to me, and I posted the words on Facebook. " Change the voices, in your head, make them like you instead..... ", the critics are always out there. I just don't have to choose to be one of them. I am sharing the kindness and generosity that fills my heart with myself. The one I used to look to last.

    In the sweetness of silence, my world has become bigger on the inside, than on the outside. And in that space, I find myself joyfully dancing in gowns of silk and gold, feeling more beautiful than I have ever felt before......

In love and light,
Kathryn

Be, Do, Have

   What a rare piece of pleasure it is to have an entire day to myself to write. I hope you will indulge me in my my musings this beautiful rainy morning.

    I was in the bath, doing my homework for this weeks Goddess course. I had to read each of the Goddess Archetypes again, and then some material on the masculine and the feminine. In doing so I came upon the relatedness of both "being" and "doing" in that context.

   Just a few days ago some guy ran across the Chapters parking lot to ask me about what my license plate meant. He told me he was a multi-level marketer. My license plate reads "BEDOHAV". It was a profound part of my learning from Personal Best. The discussion was that we are a HAVE, DO, BE society. We believe that if we have the big house and nice car and perfect life, then we will do all of the things we want to be doing and ultimately become the person we dream of being.
We have it backwards. The true path to spiritual fullfillment lies in first becoming the person we dream of being. This will lead us to do what we are meant to do to create a better life for ourselves and everyone around us, and ultimately to have in our life what we dream of having. For me this has little to do with the material world but that desire is different for every person.

  The "being" energy is the yin or feminine energy. It is related to the allow, the nurture, the love of self and others. It is the state of healing and generating, of bringing forth, of ideas and energy. It is the opening of self. The creating of sacred space, to allow the flow of intuition to rush into our lives.
The "doing" energy, is the yang, or masculine energy. It is related to the manifestation of the being energy. It is the results oriented piece, bringing the ideas into the realm of the tangible. We all have and need both. The thing I have to keep reminding myself of, is that the using of the words masculine and feminine can lead to a separation in mind, of that which cannot be separated. That which lives within each of us whether we are men or women. In Hindu tradition they are represented by Shakti ( feminine) and Shiva (masculine). The ultimate desired end point is the rising of our Kundalini or feminine energy (Shakti), represented by a snake coiled at the base of the spine with Shiva, our male energy, conciousness at the crown of our head. The marriage of the two completes us as human beings. But we must start with the state of being. And from there we rise to become.

    We must remember who we are. Most of us exist in a state of "doing". Keeping ourselves constantly busy so that we don't have to think about where we are or how we got there. We put ourselves to sleep keeping busy running businesses and filling up every hour of our lives. Sometimes we have already found who we are, only to lose it again. It is indeed a divine process. As imperfect as as we were designed to be.
How else could we learn? And what value would we find in it if it all came so easily. For those of you interested in pop-culture, it is the "red pill" or the "blue pill" from the movie the Matrix.

    Which do you choose?

    Remember.

    It is a beloved, sacred journey. One I feel blessed to take with all of you by my side.

In love and light,
Kathryn

38

  There seems to be a lot of writing struggling to get out of me tonight, so here goes number 3.

What is it about the age 38 for women?
 
   I had a very interesting conversation with my mom the other day. We were talking about generational feelings about gender roles. I have many friends just a bit younger than me (38) who are struggling with feeling quite trapped in their lives. And I have seen it happen over and over. It was the age it happened to me.  I remember having that discussion with my mom when I was 38. I was dealing with huge growth in my business, I had young kids and I felt like I was drowning under the weight of trying to be a full time mom, full time manager and full time dentist. Not to mention wife! I felt trapped.

  My mom's advice to me was very good humoured at the time. "This is not a Normal Rockwell painting " she said, "this is just a time to survive. Anyone who tells you different hasn't lived through it. Kids at this age are at their most demanding, and it seems like in this generation you are often close to the seven year itch in your marriage at the very same time. Things get routine, the initial fire of passion has turned to glowing embers. Add all that together and no wonder you feel like you do! Just hang in there a while longer and it gets easier."

   She was right. It did. My relationship didn`t last, but that feeling of being trapped did pass. I think it is very normal and in talking to lots of girlfriends it seems almost a right of passage. Little by little the kids get more independent and are more engaged in their own lives and the pressure cooker of our daily lives eases to a simmer.

   My mom had a funny comment that did really make me think though. She said the guys of their generation didn`t help nearly as much as the men of our generation do, but the comments from the women are all the same as they were when she was our age. I wonder if it is because most of us have added full time careers on top of motherhood and wifedom and so even with the added help, the scale still feels out of balance.

   I wouldn`t give up my career for all the tea in China. I realized early on I was not a domestic goddess ( I am apparently a water goddess instead LOL ), and that my children would be happier with a mother who was not stressed out and depressed doing something she clearly was not cut out to do, which was stay home and be a house wife. In fact I found the most amazing counterpart who has been our third parent in this family for over 10 years. My realization was that no one can do all of these jobs on their own. Everyone needs a wife! And mine is fantastic. Together working full on, I hope that we come somewhat close to what my mother managed to offer us as kids. But believe me, it takes two of us. I don`t know how my mom managed what she did on her own and still managed to keep her amazing sense of humour. I think the tough thing is that I have been blessed with a career that provided enough income that I could afford help. I have a lot of friends who have all the same stresses without the ability I have had to change my situation.

    I think wanting to find some escape from all the demands is very normal. How we choose to do that is the important part. Maybe we find some small escapes where we can recharge, where we can remember who we are, and why we have chosen this path. I think the important part is to remember that we did choose it. That it is an important part of our learning and that what we resist, persists. Part of the maturity of relationships is understanding that they go through a very natural evolution. That there is pretty much a template we all unknowingly follow.  I know women who get addicted to the chase but you have to keep changing relationships fairly regularly to keep that alive because it doesn`t last. It can`t last at that intensity.

    My mom can tell you that the gift in understanding that relationship maturity is that there are always ups and downs in life, always a million roads we can take. It is all about what we choose to see. The gifts we choose to give and receive. And ultimately, we make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. I think the best we can all hope for us to end up across from our best friend, with our sanity still in tact and our kids launched. That`s not too much to ask for, is it......

    In love and light,
Kathryn

Goddess Archetypes

  Have you ever heard that there are only seven plots in the world? I used to laugh and tease my Dad when he said that, but in fact, I think he is right. All stories written, are in fact variations on seven basic themes. It goes back to KISS principles really. "Keep It Simple Stupid" is a funny principle that applies to almost all areas of study. It means where there are multiple possibilities, it is often the most simple answer in nature that is the most likely. I have tried over the years to come up with tales that don't fit my Dad's KISS principles of literature but I have failed to find a single one. They are all variations of boy meets girl, boy loses girl etc, etc. To entertain you, I would list them all but I can't remember them all at this time of the night.

  Would it interest you to know then, that there are also seven Goddess archetypes? Seven is a very sacred number, it shows up all over the place. How about if I told you that for the most part, the same is true. That we are born as women, and reborn and mostly we walk the paths of the Goddesses. Replaying their wounding and their karmic lessons, placing our tender feet into their time worn footprints. Retracing their steps, replaying their learning within our own lives.

   There is a website you can go to and a test you can complete that will rank your answers according to whom you are most alike. It will come as no surprise to those who know me, that I score almost off the charts with Aphrodite, the goddess of Love. Completely at home in my own sensuality, in love with the very idea of love. Her interests, and mine, are mostly relationships, beauty and the arts. Her gifts include enhancing a man's sense of his own masculinity. Aphrodite women have the capacity to "disarm" men, teaching them the way into their own hearts through the pathway of Eros.

   Each Goddess has a "wounding" that affected their life path and resulted in their stories. Aphrodite's was patriarchy, threatened by her power over them, men used every means to restrict, confine, label and demote her. The parallels are undeniable. And fascinating. I find it remarkable that as I read each archetype I could actually guess what my friends were fairly reliably by the patterns of their life experiences.

   My second archetype was Artemis or Diana the huntress. She was half the number Aphrodite was, but all the other goddess values were far behind. She is the goddess of nature, the nurturer of all and the hunter. Birth and death.  She is the patroness of child birth where I had so much difficulty. She is largely solitary, which I thought was kind of funny next to Aphrodite who likes to be the center of attention. She is my shadow side, the part of me that longs for my own company and solitude, the healing of time in nature. Artemis's wound was self esteem issues relating to intimate relationships as a result of an early feeling of isolation from others. She has an intimate love of all animals. And so, not surprisingly, I find myself living in a miniature zoo.

   My dear friend and partner is also Artemis, and a far truer version than I. I found it interesting that we would have this in common. And it explained the closeness we feel. The unspoken understanding, the bonds, the depth of our friendship. There are few people in the world that understand me as she does. Reading the archetypes gave me greater understanding and compassion for those around me. Of their trials and their struggles. Their perfect learning. My perfect learning.

   As with all things spiritual, it does not change the path, but instead throws light across it, or holds up a mirror that we might see with some detachment why we make the choices we make. Why we need to have those experiences, in order to learn what we need to understand, to be complete. There is some surrender and some peace for me in that. Some grand order and plan. Meaning. The human condition is to search for meaning in all things. What we forget, we are doomed to repeat. In actual fact, forget or not forget, there are only so many lessons to be learned. KISS principles you know! The beauty of my learning has been that at every turn I am finding that meaning, and for that, I am truly in awe.

   Gratefully receiving
   In love and light,
Kathryn and Aphrodite bid you goodnight!

Sacred Marks

  Now there are some who are going to think I have had some sort of a midlife crisis. But in actuality instead of losing myself, I feel like after three years I have found myself again. In celebration of that I have decided to add two marks to my body so that I will always be grounded in who I am.

  My business partner started collecting tattoos a few years ago. Each with a distinct separate meaning for her.  All related to her spiritual journey. Now I am a big baby around pain. I get my teeth frozen to have them cleaned. The last thing I could imagine was someone jabbing a needle over and over and over into my arm. Really did not appeal! However, pain is something I have held a very close relationship with over the past few years and it has changed my perspective on a lot of things. I now hold a lot less fear.

  I sat during a meditation and what came to me when I looked down at my arms were pictures of my totem animals,one of which is a raven and my spirit guide which is a blue heron. I saw them both on my wrists. Not being a big tattoo person, I ignored that for a while but then I started seeing it all the time. I had a dream that instead of being tattoo'd , I actually was sitting while someone peeled away the skin to reveal what was already there. That was a weird one!

  I didn't want big chunky tattoos with colour (so not me) I wanted something celtic ( scottish heritage ) and lacy and feminine. Something that would remind me always not to forget who I am. Never again to give away the most beautiful, unique parts of me. They are a gift to myself, sacred marks, a reminder that who I am is amazing and precious, exactly as I am in this moment. I love them.

   Ravens are for me bringers of joy. Lots of people think they are dark omens but for me they are bringers of light. Raven is speaks of the spirit realm, and how to bring that part of yourself out of darkness and into the light. That has been my journey.

  The blue heron is about celebrating uniqueness and balance. Learning to stand on your own. That is my lesson from this point. They are about wisdom and self determination. The length of their legs symbolizes wading into the depths of water which is symbolic of spirituality.
 
   It was an amazing experience, even just mastering my own feelings about the pain.
   I am really glad that I made this choice. They are beautiful. Blessings.

In love and light,
Kathryn

A Year of Self Discovery

  Well, Julia Roberts I'm not.

   My profession doesn't leave much room for a year sabbatical of eating pizza in Italy or Bali or sitting at an Ashram in silence for months on end! But I have decided instead to give this year to myself as a gift. A loving donation to the person I am learning to love the most.

   Instead of a year of escape, I am going to make it a year of relationship. Relationship with myself. I don't know what it is about alone I am so resistant to, but I have spent my whole life rushing to fill any space that opens in my life.  I have been a serial monogamist. Not actually without a boyfriend or man in my life since I was about 14.  Wow.  The math on that is kind of stunning. Not much time to contemplate who I am in relationship to myself.

    I have dearly missed my friends, and this year does not exclude them. In fact I hope to deepen those relationships as I deepen my understanding of my own depths.

    I am going to Manchu Pichu by myself in 2012. This has been on my vision board since I complete PB 3 and it is really overdue. I am going to tack on the Galapagos Islands as that has been another long term dream. I have booked to Ireland in September with another spiritual retreat ( more meditation and a chance to kiss the Blarney Stone - although Marj has me a bit creeped out now about how many mouths have kissed that! I may bring some saranwrap! LOL)

    I am in the process of creating a new vision board at the moment to celebrate where I am going. I have committed to making my house my home as it has felt like we were just camping here for the last three years waiting to go somewhere else. I am sitting this morning with paint chips and planning my yoga/ dance studio room in the basement. I was thinking I had it all set and then I told Leah I was going to keep one wall clear for my little cabinet that has all my special things in it. Paint a mural on that wall, she said. And I already know the picture. It will be a work of love and will keep me busy for most of the year while I don't have the kids. And in the end I will have a space that honours who I am where I can go to recharge my batteries.

   This year has come at the perfect time and I am so grateful for all of the learning that has brought me to this place. The longer I live, the more convinced I am that although we cannot see into the mystery, each step on the path can bring hope and joy. I intend to step in a whole lot more of that this year.

   I have also surrendered any fears about the future. The things that are truly ours can never really be taken from us and those that never were find their place elsewhere, as it should be. Those things are not up to us and being in a state of allow seems the only reasonable course to follow. What is that quote? " A woman's heart is a deep ocean", and nowhere would that be more true than of the Goddess of Water.

   I am sitting with my cup of tea, a fat rabbit, two cats and my giant cotton ball of a dog at my feet, enjoying the quietness of the morning. I am so very lucky to be where I am and to have all of you in my life. Happiness, that is the word of this day. In an hour I will be looking like a pretzel surrounded by sweaty bodies getting my butt tuned up. I am moving into my body. For the first time in my life, like my house, I am going to make it mine. I said to a friend that I finally feel myself in the tips of my fingers. Like I belong here. I am home.

  In love and light,
Kathryn

Dream Journals

What the heck is a dream journal?

   Well it is a log book that you keep beside your bed to write down your dreams. Why so close? Because dreams start to unravel almost as soon as we awake. Don't move too much. Reach over, grab your journal and a pen and quickly get as much of it down on paper as you can before the tender tendrils become white whisps and vanish into the air.  There is much to learn. Dreams are your own personal maps, your own way to find the gifts on their way to you every moment.

   I have started one of my own, mostly to invite my dreams back. In Sedona after a lot of beautiful healing work and meditation, I had my first dream in three years. It was short but sweet. In the dream, the facilitator of the retreat was standing before all of us in a small softly lit room. She had a large round platter and on it were the largest most beautiful golden pears I had ever seen. She was offering one to each of us. And then, I woke up. Being a Google freak, I immediately searched the meaning and the golden pear was about the Divine Feminine. She was giving us the gift of the Divine Feminine.

   What the heck does that mean? Divine Feminine? Well, for me it is not just about women. It is that yin energy that we all carry. It is the forgotten part of our selves, the undervalued piece of intuition, primal knowing, listening not to the external world but the internal one.

     Dreams are that place in between where we can go to access that intuition and that knowing. But you have to remember them first! So join me on this journey and lets see where it leads us. You will notice that once you record them, there will be patterns. Dreams on their own don't always make a lot of sense but you will see the messages in the patterns. Don't rely so much on dream books for interpretation but look to your own feelings to sort out the meanings. Most times we know very well what symbols mean to us, look to your gut instinct and if you are still stuck then Google. It will get easier with practice.
The amazing thing is how much information is coming through if we only pay attention.

     I realize in my own journey how much I had dampened my own intuition. I am a bit of a lightening rod for other people's emotions. As a young person I couldn't figure out how to shut all that stuff off. I was very affected by it. Over the years as we all do I got good at insulating myself from all of that, but the down side was that not only did it block out all of their stuff, it blocked out my intuition too. Over the course of PB, I learned how to dismantle that insulation and reconnect with my intuitive self. This process has become so much more powerful integrating yoga, meditation and the dream journal. I am amazed at how consistent the messages are from all these sources, how very many patterns there are and how clear the meaning becomes when you can integrate all three.

    The first entry in my dream journal is more like a prayer. "Please return my dreams to me. I am ready and I am open. I am listening. I am listening."

    I know now that the whole time I wasn't dreaming I was really going to somewhere safe to be with someone I trust my life with. To share my journey and share my truth. That conversation is ongoing but silent and one of the most important components of my life. An armchair conversation, souls touching, remembering. Even when silent, what truth is found within the heart cannot be unheard. My heart is open and I am content to wait in this space and trust the mystery. I am becoming. It came to me in a dream. A beautiful dream.

    Start your dream journal and let us put our feet firmly upon the path.

In love and light,
Kathryn

Awakening Sensuality

   How do you experience the world in each moment, this second, now?

   How do we go about reawakening our sensuality? To reclaim what has been perhaps dulled or set aside in a busy life?

   Our homework assignment as I mentioned for the week was to explore each of the five ( six actually)
senses. When I got home, I burned incense on my window sill. I love to have it when I meditate and the earthy smoldering makes me feel very calm and centered. I am so drawn by the scent, which is funny because normally I have very little sense of smell. A godsent in my job! The only time that wasn't true was when I was pregnant with the boys. At that moment I could tell by how you smelled how many cavities you had and whether or not you had active gum disease! It was really wild! Normally however I can't smell much of anything. Knowing that the other is possible for me, how much of that is a concious choice then?
I am hugely affected by cologne and scents ( very primal in my pheremone detection) and I love flowers.
Am I blocking my ability to smell in certain areas of my life? Quite probably. What does that bring up?

   I had a funny discussion today with a friend also doing this homework and she confided that she realized in listening to her environment how many sounds in her day layered upon each other. People talking, radio, compressors, drills, etc. And all of the sudden she wasn't interested in hearing a conversation but she realized all the other sounds disappeared too. She was daydreaming about something else and suddenly realized she couldn't hear the radio until she thought about it. How much of our environment do we block on a daily basis?  Is it possible to only separate out certain conversations and sounds and not lose them all?

   How often do we actually taste the food we eat? Rushing to get to practice or yoga or just starving to death after work. Have you ever eaten an entire meal and still felt unsatisfied? It is like driving home and having no recollection of how you got there. Life on autopilot. Maybe you forgot to savour and taste what you were eating ! During my silent meditation weekend, I actually thought a lot about my meals ( granted there wasn't much else to pay attention to) but I found I enjoyed the food more and actually ate less. I felt more satisfied that my appetite had been fullfilled. And each bite had so much flavor it was hard to explain. It wasn't really gourmet food but it was so good.  Today someone brought us cupcakes. I found one that was lemon and the flavour was so intense on my tongue. Like fresh, sweet and citrus all exploding in every bite.
One sweet cupcake man. Better than....... Wait, now let's not get carried away!

   What about touch? So many of us go through entire days without human touch. Healing human touch.
We are inches away from each other and it takes only a gesture to reach out and touch, touching far deeper than skin. Touch connects us, soothes us, stimulates us and tickles our senses.

   We have been asked to be aware of different textures against our skin, different fabrics and their effect on our feelings and emotions. When Leah and  I went hiking in the fall up to Lake Ohara I sewed a quillow for both of us ( quilt/ pillow) that was small enough to carry with us. I had it on my pillow last night. It is purple which is my favorite colour and it is made of the softest fleece. Even thinking about it right now makes me want to crawl back in and have a nap like a cat. It is incredibly comforting. So there you go, now you know I still have a blankie! LOL! But that scrap of fabric is for me a small piece of heaven. Soothing. The cat actually likes it too and I often wake up with both of us trying to share it ( her mostly sleeping on my head).
Not the only aspect of our characters that are alike.
 
   This is the first day but I can tell it is going to be like being immersed in a whole new world paying attention to these sensations that normally blow by me totally unnoticed.

In love and light,
Kathryn

The Great Divide!

   Well like all single parents I live a double life! I have two weeks as Mom to my handsome boys and two weeks as Kathryn, 41 navigating the mystery of life like everyone else. I have decided to create a new blog around my journey as there are starting to be more entries about that than autism on my original blog! We are in a great place around the kids journey and things seem to be stabilizing. My life on the other hand is in high gear around my search for spirit and integration of the divine feminine. In fairness to people only interested in the family journal, from now on I will walk two parallel paths. I invite you to join me on both.

  I am experiencing a beautiful shift in my own conciousness around dreaming. Somewhere along the line I lost the ability to remember my dreams. For almost three years I have not remembered a single one. This week after yoga and mediation I have had two that really moved me.

  The first one, I am in a small canoe on the ocean. There are four of us in boats, I cannot see faces. We are low on the ocean, the water is black and it is sunset and the sky is red and purple. There are no clouds. Suddenly the guide is on his radio saying that we are on the outer perimeter and there is a bad storm coming. You will not see it but it is coming. We are giving you our coordinates because we will not be able to outrun it. I repeat, you will not see it coming. The terrain is many low islands with jagged rocks black against the velvet sky. I am looking up thinking, there is not a cloud in the sky! What storm is this guy talking about? I know boats, and weather and it all looks good to me.... And the next thing I know someone reaches for something in their boat and tips us all into the black water. It was silky liquid blackness, neither hot nor cold. Thick and fluid. In real life I hate not being able to see below me ( thank Jaws) and would have panicked a bit but there I was perfectly calm. Fifty feet away in front of us I see shark fins. Four of them. I am not even remotely afraid. I remember thinking for God sake don't thrash around we are going to look like food! The first shark came right towards me. I linked my hands and gently placed them over the fin and rode away on the shark. I knew it was coming for me. Then I woke up.

   Sharks in dreams represent all sorts of things including people as "sharks", anger, etc but none of those felt right somehow. Sharks in spirituality however, are excuse the pun , a whole different kettle of fish. Sharks are about swimming around in your own awareness. Navigating deep waters. That resonates. They are also masters of survival. That resonates too. They are about the root chakra, just like goddess energy and they are about primal knowing. Sharks are of course about water which is a huge part of my journey as a current "water goddess". The element of water is about dreams, intuition and emotion. Sharks must stay in motion or they sink and die, (that also sounds kinda familiar! ) One of the messages is swim the path of least resistance in life and be efficient and direct in your navigation.  Again kind of resonates with the river idea for me, the part about going with the flow. I find when things get really difficult and I feel like I am swimming upstream I am always going the wrong direction. Turn around and let the water carry me where it wills. Surrender to the process and stop always trying to impose my own will on the situation. Trust that what is meant to show up will show up. What a beautiful space to operate from.

  It was a very powerful dream and left me with a lot of emotion when I woke up. Mostly I gave thanks for the end of the dream drought, and realize my channels are once again open and clear to receive.

In love and light,
Kathryn