The Promise Of Spring

Last year's daffodils

Today I wake to the sun shining in the California blue sky. That brilliant shade of blue that told I was home when I arrived in Northern California.

A vestige of melting frost glitters on the grass under the clothes line as I hang up some linens to dry. I know it’s still January, more rainstorms are promised for tomorrow, but for today the soft whisper of spring hangs in the air. Tim has planted tulip and daffodil bulbs in pots once again and their green shoots are poking through the soil, a promise that life is reborn again and again.

Old things pass away, and something new and just as beautiful always arises in its place.

A riot of color will arrive when the tulips bloom, but first the daffodils will nod their sunny heads even through the lashing rains and despite the frosty mornings. They’re hardy like that, unlike the tulips whose petals might scatter when the wild winds blow in off the Pacific. Each tells me a different story, just as each year they’re back again long after I’ve forgotten to mourn their disappearance.

If I can step away from the work-a-day routine, take a walk and look down I will likely see the fragile beginnings of the coming season’s wild plant profusion. My herbal allies and the simple wild weeds. The sun after a rain brings them out. If I slowed my steps and just watched for long enough I could probably see those little shoots grow a bit taller.

That’s why today’s writing vignette is short. All of those plants, that blue sky, that sunshine are beckoning me, pulling me. Come on out they call. Out. Out.

Today is the perfect day to plant my little seed of confidence into the garden. The one I poked into a pot on the day of the new moon. Now the crescent moon is growing and I’m ready to seed the inner and outer garden.

Traveling Memories, Traveling Dreams

Every morning Balinese women make flower offerings to the gods and goddesses

A year ago today (can it really be that long ago?) I wandered around Honolulu airport, nervous excitement coursing through my body. I was about to embark on an adventure I’d dreamed of for so many years. eleven hour flight on Korea Air would land me in Seoul, Korea and by midnight the following evening I’d land in Bali – almost a mythical place in my mind.

I’d longed to visit that country since Ciel was a baby and I’d sit at my kitchen table nursing her while friends freer and more adventurous than I regaled me with stories of the sweet nature of the Balinese people, the treasures they’d discovered in the market, the beaches, the art, the temples, the next-to-nothing cost of living (once you’d forked over the cash for the plane ticket halfway around the world.) Even my more conservative aunt had glowing stories of her long-ago trip to Bali with her husband.

I’d never been to Asia, and had not taken any trip lasting longer than three

Fiction Exercise: Secrets

In an effort to connect with the part of me that aspires to write fiction, I’ve been meeting with a few writer friends each week and writing…well, fiction. Sort of anyway. We jump off from a writing prompt and write for a half hour or more. It’s kind of fun to see what sorts of characters and places come up.

I wrestle with a lot of resistance with this project. Invariably I feel like I have nothing to write, I’m pulling from a void. But I want this. I want to explore the various pathways my writing can take. And, it’s a lot of fun to hang out with these talented women.

In typical writerly self-deprecation, we all pooh pooh our efforts before reading them to the group. We are each utterly convinced that we have just written total crap.

But a sort of magic happens once we muster our courage and read our words out loud. Sometimes they don’t sound quite so much like crap even to our own ears, and definitely not to the group.

Sadly, I haven’t made the time to follow through on any of my fiction vignettes once I leave this lovely group of women each Wednesday night. One of those resolves that drops down to the bottom of the list once I am faced with day-to-day life again, and all those seemingly urgent activities that clamor for my attention.

I’m not always sure what to do with these characters who visit me on fiction night, but I’m glad they show up once I set pen to paper (or, more often, fingers to keyboard.)

Since I’m feeling a little empty this morning as far as my commitment to daily writing on this blog, I thought I’d share my exercise from last Wednesday. Our prompt was “Secrets.”

Secrets

Amber hiked her purse higher on her shoulder as she hurried across 2nd Avenue. A freezing wind whipped her hair across her face and crumpled bits of paper blew down the gutters appearing

Why Every American Deserves Health Insurance

This morning’s email delivered an interesting employment opportunity – writing for a prominent blogger who is starting a new publishing company. I don’t know too much more about it, but I’m determined to follow through on every serendipitous opportunity that comes my way. Maybe this one is just right!

Since that is occupying my writing brain today, I offer up the prompt for my promised daily post. There were actually two options, the other is “Why I’m A Great Writer.” I decided I’d rather write on a subject I passionately believe in rather than struggling to toot my own horn.

(Actually I really believe everyone on the planet deserves health insurance, but I’m following instructions here.)

Wish me luck!

Why Every American Deserves Health Insurance

I live under a shadow of fear.

It’s such a huge and awful bugaboo that most days I push it out of my mind. But at night it sometimes reaches up out of my dreams, grips me around the throat with claws of steel. I wake, heart pounding, in a cold sweat.

What if?

My Intention For The New Year / New Moon

During our circle last night we all shared some of our struggles, our hopes and our dreams. And we all articulated an intention for this coming cycle. Such a gift to be cradled in this warm and loving circle of women! And one of the best parts was that this time the circle was made up of a diverse group, some of whom had never met each other before this night. But once we lit our candles and opened our circle we felt like we’d been sharing with each other for eons.

Later we each planted some seeds – calendula and sunflower – to signify the nurturing of our intentions. As we buried our seed in the soil, we each spoke just one word to voice this intention.

As each woman voiced her one-word aspiration I thought that each of these words could apply to all of us. We’d all expressed diverse yet similar struggles and dreams. Clarity, balance, inner silence, ambition, acceptance, these were just some of the single-word intentions spoken in our new moon ritual.

My word was self-confidence. It’s time, as I begin my 51st circle around the sun, to start to believe in myself and my capacity to bloom. I struggled a bit to come up with just the right word. I’m longing to discover my unique super power and harness it to my individual passion. I want to create work for myself that feeds my soul , earns an income, and makes a difference in people’s lives. To heal both people and the planet through the work I do.

I’m realizing that in order to get clear on what this is, I need to cultivate this confidence that I can do it. That I am worthy, capable, courageous enough to do this.

Now that I’ve voiced this intention, and publicized it here on this blog, it’s time to finally open up those two flower essences I bought the day after New Year’s and start taking them. They’ve been sitting on my counter ever since my return from our trip. It seems that my inner self-saboteur would rather I left the confidence at the counter.

I’m not going to let that happen anymore!

Okay, I just took four drops each of Cerrato and Larch flower essences. Going to make up my combo bottle now and keep it right here on my desk.

Here’s to my confidence flowers blossoming big!

New Moon, New Seeds

Today is the first new moon of the new year, and I didn’t want to let it pass without some acknowledgment. It’s an ideal time to focus on my intentions for this phase of my life, to plant the seeds.

Inspired a bit by Goddess Leonie Dawson’s article in last week’s installment of A Year With Myself, I called a women’s circle so I could share this new moon intention ritual with some of the women I care deeply about. Leonie’s story of when she entered her first sacred women’s circle struck a chord – reminding me of the first circles I took part in back in the days when Ciel was crawling around knocking over the candles on the altar.

I sat in a living room, holding hands with a dozen or so women, not knowing

28 Years Ago Today

Baby Ciel with Mom

Today my beautiful Ciel celebrates 28 years on the planet. Four 7-year cycles, there’s no more question that this baby of mine is fully an adult. Of course she’s been self-sufficient for nearly a decade, so there  hasn’t been any ‘question’ in years. But it  hits me a little more deeply with each passing birthday.

Of course by the time I was 28 I was raising a 7-year old and running a store. Since Ciel still has the luxury of sleeping past 9 – without little fingers prying her eyelids open – I can’t help still viewing her as somehow younger. (But don’t get me wrong, I am infinitely relieved that she didn’t follow the generational pattern of early motherhood. I’m a big fan of letting the 20s be all about self-exploration.)

Ciel is entering what astrologers call her Saturn Return – a time of transition, big changes

Addicted To Information

Hi, my name is Sarah and I’m an email addict.

I wrote a little on this yesterday, I know, but this modern affliction of information overload is something I wanted to address just a bit more deeply (Not too deeply though – because I might miss an important email   )

Seriously though. Of course I’m using the word “addict” loosely. An addiction to checking email and RSS feeds is not at the same level of an actual physical addiction, and I don’t want to gloss over the serious nature of drug and alcohol addictions. However, I’ve always known I have an “addictive” personality – and perhaps that’s not the correct terminology because I’m referring to being psychologically addicted rather than physically.

Whether it’s sweets, coffee, gin & tonics, weed, or now email – once I get in a habit with something

I Need To Get Out More

Well, it looks like this SOPA Internet censorship bill is history – at least for now.  So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, even those of us who have no idea what it was all about. For the time being, we can browse the Internet freely clicking from link to link and checking out web sites and blogs put together by your cousin or your neighbor.

I have to admit I hadn’t been following it too closely – although I registered my protest. So many issues, so little time. This one really just hit my radar in the past week. But, I do know that messing with the freedom of the Internet is just wrong. Our so-called American birthright to freedom has already been so eroded. Losing our right to add our two cents to the online conversation is the last straw for many.

Today, though, feeling particularly uninspired to write or do my other work, I’m clicking around

A Story of Resilience

Well, this daily writing on the blog experiment has proved to be challenging – as anticipated. I can easily pump out several hundred words each day in my journal – meandering and mostly self-centered thoughts that usually culminate in a ritualistic self-bashing session.

But since more eyes will fall on this writing, I want there to be some sort of point to the daily meanderings. And it’s been a good challenge, because often just getting started takes me to places I didn’t even realize I would go. And I’m liking that. It feels more creative than the ‘information-based’ writing I do and have done for other venues.

I sheepishly admit I’ve already missed one or two days. Rosie’s departure and an unexpected weekend job pulled me away from the computer and my commitment. But I’m feeling pretty good about pulling it off 6 days a week. So, instead of chewing myself out for not meeting the daily goal, I will be content if I manage to post 6 days each week on this blog for the rest of the month.

Today I wanted to write just a little on resilience – the resilience of the human spirit, and why is it that some people have it, and others not so much? Why do some people rise above their ‘story,’ while others may wallow in despair for years or even decades?

I haven’t even dived in yet to this week’s chapter of A Year With Myself, I’ve only read the introductory page. But the overarching theme is Our Stories. Owning and embracing our story, rewriting our story to fit who were are now. I’m looking forward to spending some journal time with this one.

I worked with a friend this past weekend whose story never ceases to amaze me. I keep learning more pieces each time I see him. It’s a heartbreaking story of loss and illness and recovery. But what amazes me