Snuggling with Seedlings & Partying with Plants

So this evening, as I'm sitting here watching Gilmore Girls reruns with my sister (which make us talk ridiculously fast for 1.3 hours after each episode,) waiting for a video to upload about my amazing Mount Shasta retreat that I'll be facilitating with the beautiful and amazing Leija Turunen, and, of course, spending time researching random things on the internet (I do my best shopping between the hours of 11pm and 3am,) I found.....these absolutely phenomenal little gems.

Wearable plants!

(find it here)

When I was a little girl, I got a clear plastic medallion that came with plant-growing gel, a seed or two to sprout, and even a little pink plastic baby bottle that you were supposed to fill with water every day to gift the seedling with a few drops of water.

(from kbheinlein)

Of course my 8-year-old self waaaay over-watered the plants so nothing ever grew for me (too much love, what can I say? Moderation is more comfy in this day and age...)

(WearablePlanter Etsy shop)

...but the idea still has a VERY strong pull for me.

(Living Moss Terrarium necklace from NaturalWoodland on Etsy)

Just think! The idea of wearing a beautiful, living, growing and symbiotic being around your neck. As a tree-talker myself, the company would be more than welcome.

(Etsy's NaturalWoodland again)

(and same)

And what a conversation piece.

(a little banana plant from here)

I've taken to only wearing crystal lately, and this covers both bases. Ah, gorgeous.

(A wearable air plant and crystal planter from RawEarth Studios on Etsy)

...And so after ogling necklaces for quite a while, I came across this article:

(Read the article here)

So which shall I do? Make one myself or order one already made? Each side has pros or cons. I'll sleep on it :)

Midnight Madness, Awesomely So

You know that your new sleep schedule is working when your phone alarm goes off at 2am and you wake up with the Mission Impossible theme song in your head...



It's funny 'cause it's truuuue.

The feeling that I know some secret that no one else knows still runs strong when I wake up in the wee hours, do a little puttering around, think up some crazily awesome shite, and then go back to bed.

For instance, tonight I'm pondering the connection between super healthy, vibrant bodies and spot-on intuition.

Is it any coincidence that many raw foodists are also TOTALLY into energy, healing, manifestation, and sacred, conscious living?
Or is it because their bodies are just so full of Light that it's impossible to be "numbed down" enough to not see what's actually going on?

(As a mostly raw foodist myself - I'll say the latter is the case. I've never been MORE plugged in than I am when I'm raw. I've come and gone with the strictness over the years, but hands down, raw food gives you the happiest, most joyous, and most freaking interesting life in the world.)

But on a more serious note, for most of you reading my blog, I'm aware that a lot of you guys have latent or not-so-latent psychic abilities, and that said abilities often run in families. Goodness knows, SO DOES CONTACT. If you're abducted, your momma and her momma and her momma were probably abducted too. (I'm not a fan of the word "abducted" b/c mine are definitely voluntary, but I'll go with what's in common usage at the moment.)
So...when we have psychic and contact stuff in our genetic line, there also pops up, from time to time, a little insanity.

Maybe insanity is too strong a word. I guess imbalance is what I'm after. Maybe some depression, some schizophrenia (which is what I thought I had when I first Awoke spiritually - until my "voices" saved my life and were always, always accurate...then I had to reexamine my whole self diagnosis...) Anyway, I have a theory on why this happens.

 I think that our genes are trying to get us to a NEW level of Human. One with all of the latent abilities that we've had in our genetic code since the beginning (and hence you have stories of extra-human abilities here and there since the beginning of man, often more easily accepted in ancient times than they would be nowadays, no less...)

One that would shift our world, because being able to do things like easily speak mind to mind, regulate one's bodily comfort like heat and cool, access the endless recorded information available at the level of pure Universal consciousness, levitate, and teleport would definitely cut down on electric bills, internet usage time, not to mention airline travel! Paradigms would shatter, stuff would shift...

...and only somewhat unrelated to that is what would happen to each of us physically and psychologically as we got used to the "new" way of doing things.

I'm not saying I can do that stuff, at least not most of it. Most of it is still just a thought in my head, a wondering, a knowledge that the keys are SOMEWHERE in there and I just need to find them and turn them to unlock a new way of existence for myself.

So do we all, really. And I think we will if we can just stay focused long enough to do it! Which caffeine, alcohol, clogging junk foods and neurotoxins in lots of the stuff we routinely expose ourselves to makes super duper difficult!

Which brings me back around to that insanity thing.

I think I've stumbled onto a "Eureka!!!" moment.

I think that what happens to cause that imbalance or insanity is that a person's circuits get blown out, so to speak. Too much information and energy running along "wires" that are too small or frayed to handle it, so there's a short in the system. And by system, I mean Human body and brain. Yikes.

I know this from experience - my contact experiences progress slowly, very gently, and I know that a LOT is wiped from my day-to-day, conscious mind. When I've requested faster learning or asked why I'm not receiving more info and experiences more quickly, I get responses that say something along the lines of,

"It would be exceedingly difficult for you to function well in the mundane society you now engage in if you were to receive the amounts of information you request at the pace that you request it. You must stay intact in order for you to accomplish what you must accomplish."

Or, in other words - "we don't want to break you because if we do, you can't do your thing."

Some would say that this sounds sinister, but it's delivered with so much love that I can't honestly say that I feel afraid at ALL. More like impatient. And this doesn't just happen with alien stuff, it also comes when I'm trying to access my own dormant information, a lot of which I've had access to in past lives and have now "forgotten," or put to sleep, in order to, I suppose, wake back up to it in this incarnation, figuring out how to get there, and by sharing what I find, light torches along the way for those who would walk the same path.

So...I also think that you are a LOT less likely to break, or crack, if you keep your body amazingly healthy! Which brings me back to raw foodism and such.

My advice would be this - you want to enhance your psychic awareness and other extrasensory perception stuff? GO RAW. Not 100% necessarily, but start the journey. That alone will jump start your progress. And exercise and dance around your living room and laugh a lot and meditate...basically, keep your circuits clear. Oh, and H.Y.D.R.A.T.E. That's a big one.

True story.

I'll say here again that to those who haven't experienced enough to break them at least somewhat out of the matrix, I know I sound like a raving lunatic. No surprises there. And I don't particularly mind. :) But for those who know better, well, you know better.

(cue the M.I. theme again.)

Live long and prosper! And goodnight, I'm back to bed <3

Epic shit take epic effort, usually.

This quote.
Is cool.
And I like it.

It's 12:30am in these parts and I'm up after having taken a sleeping shift from about 8:30ish to midnight. Finally, for the first time in days, I actually had the wherewithal to really get UP when my alarm went off for the middle-of-the-night awake shift, rather than just lay there and reason with myself-
"Okay, I'm getting up..."
"But I'm really sleepy."
"And it feels really nice to just lay here."
"But I'll stay up, I'll stay up, let me just do some deep breathing."
"Yeah, okay, this is working, I can just lay here and be conscious and that will count, right?"
"Okay, breathing...."
"....zzzzzzzzzzzz....."

The first perk of sleeping alone is that it makes getting up about one million times easier. Without someone warm to be snuggling with, the bed loses some of its appeal.

The second perk is that you get the ENTIRE space to use however you want. With the option to twist and turn and dance tangled in the covers with no thought in that unconscious physical place about allowing another person comfort, the bed gains some more appeal.

So I'm back in the middle... :)

But anywayssss...

 I'm up now, and now is good. I'll be heading back to bed in a bit and awakening at 4am to head out to Perris Valley, CA with my sister this weekend so she can do some skydiving awesomeness. It's her thing. And though I've been and sure it was adrenalinely rushingly awesome, I have a lower need for stimulation. I'd rather just go meditate under a tree somewhere. So she can skydive and I'll hang out nearby and do the second thing. :)

This week has been weird and sad and amazing and generally nutso. Life is changing so freaking fast! And I couldn't be more thrilled to be back in the "land of the living" technology-wise. I've found such awesome new friends via all of my work on the internet. It does have its drawbacks, sure, but it's also easy to see how the web has transformed the world in really beautiful ways.

And that leads me back to epic shit.

I have discovered that this is apparently Lightworker break up season all over the world! I won't harp on my relationship stuff b/c one of the things that I'm doing to respect my ex's privacy is not air out our laundry for the entire world - he wasn't so big on that. I've always been more of the in-public liver, from the beginning. But I always felt compelled to do so, and have even been told lots in meditation that one of my main gifts is just in sharing what's going on with me so others don't feel so alone, especially when weird stuff happens.

And weirder and weirder things happen all the freaking time! I mostly love it. And sometimes shite gets scary or sad, but afterwards there are always amazing lessons that yes, I am genuinely grateful for.

This breakup thing is kind of like that. The best thing about it, and the thing that I will never, ever take for granted, is that there's no betrayal or lies or nastiness or anything that usually causes divorce. My ex is really, truly, a beautiful, wonderful, intelligent and unique man, and I know he's going to serve the world in amazing ways. Just not by my side. But something I've come to realize is that truly, I wouldn't want to be with someone anyway who I had to convince to be there - I'll wait until 1) I'm totally healed and my field is clear of any romantic attachments for a WHILE before jumping in to anything else, and 2) someone shows up who adores me and wants to be with me, doesn't go back and forth and not really know whether having me in his life is a good thing or a bad thing.

And I can't judge too much - one of the huge things that happened in my own spiritual awakening nine years ago was that I broke up with my 4.5 year boyfriend, who everyone in the world (including us) assumed that marriage and kids was a done deal with. He was wonderful too. But he didn't believe what I woke up and found myself forehead-deep in. And it didn't work. With this situation, it's the opposite. Obviously I believe in all things spiritual, so this guy's awakening isn't hindered by constraints in my thinking. But I have a hunch that the opposite is true - I've already figured out so much of where my views and understandings of things lie, that I think that this may be just as hindering to someone just figuring the same thing out for themselves as my first boyfriend's non belief and comparatively closed mindedness was for me, no matter how sweet he was.

So there you go.

And here I am, partially heartbroken, but every day that recedes more and I realize that I'd looped so much of my energy through him and through our relationship that I'd been more or less starving myself in ways that I was honestly 100% unaware of.

Hence this HUGE, overflowing burst of inspiration and energy now that I'm single again.

Also, I'd lost my swagger!

And seriously.

You should never lose your swagger.

I missed my swagger without even realizing it was gone :)

I think I'd rather be single from here on out than lose my swagger again. Just sayin'.

So epic shit requires epic effort. And the epic effort doesn't seem to come in the doing of the epic shit - that comes through inspiration and energy and awesomeness, I'm finding. The effort comes in self-weeding, a.k.a. getting out all of those binds we put around ourselves, convincing ourselves in tiny incremental steps that we're weak and powerless until we, say, lose our swagger.

My ex didn't take my swagger from me. In fact, who knows what would have happened if I hadn't dropped my swagger on the sidewalk somewhere. But I did, without realizing it, and you can't love or be loved well if you've lost pieces of yourself as a result of the relationship that is meant to be icing on the cake of life, not the dinner entree - if you know what I mean.

Perhaps I'm being confusing. It is late. And I do write stream-of-consciousness style. But I have a hunch that a lot of you, especially you fellow Lightworker women, know what I'm talkin about - dontcha? ...

And now, I'm coming back! And the world is lighter again rather than being so heavy. Colors are brighter. And I'm going raw mostly again, which adds a WHOLE other level of awesomeness. Also just ordered some ormus. Whoooa. Can't wait for that to get here.

I'm pretty positive that this will be an AMAZING year. And since we're about halfway through, this realization comes not a moment too soon.

I think the main work now is to move OUT of the way of things and just settle back into enjoyment and inspiration, moving when I feel moved to move. Ya know?

And that's how the epic shit will arrive. At least, that's how it always has before.

Ok, off to bed again. Y'all have an amazing weekend. I'll be here and there. Video ideas are flowing like water these days, it's nuts. As I type I have a list of like 8 more that are all in my head, waiting to be recorded. Should be fun times. And more is in the works, like a web class and a new radio show I've been approached to host and a potential long-term trip to Hawaii and just other really amazing things.

But after the grounding year I've just had, the danger from floating away as a result of all the amazing things going on right now is minimal. A benefit of being brought down to earth.

Nothing wrong with having your head in the clouds (or even farther up, in my case,) as long as your feet are on the ground too.

It's a beautiful planet - quite a nice one to have you toes touching, anyway :)

A Walk to the Park

On my second day in Redondo Beach, I decided to go for a walk to a nearby park and the botanical gardens therein.
I LOVE botanical gardens. They make me happy. And now that I'm in the city, I'm realizing how deeply I'd connected to the complex and very wild nature back in the Blue Ridge mountains. I kind of miss it - but I'm learning so much about how to be Awake in the city that I don't really mind. Besides, I have experiences like this one to keep me nice and grounded.

Early in the morning, after my workout and before my smoothie, I was meditating. My meditation starts with a balancing of all my chakras, followed by a clearing and smoothing of my energy field and a few moments dedicated to whatever I'm trying to bring forth in my life. After that, I talk to all my buddies in the different realms. To be specific, first I go check in with a large overarching group where lots of my guides come to speak to me at once - that said, they're mostly ETs at that point. Then I chat with my main ET guide (who I call my Rhythm Teacher - it's a long story,) and then with the Angelic realm representatives who hang out with me. After that I talk to some devic spirits (a.k.a. fairies) and finally, with Gaia overall - lately, by the way, she's been saying that she's nearly all good - that we just have to come where she is in our resonant state to see it.

But anyway, the devas had been large and in charge in the mountains, which was what made me aware of them in the first place. I hadn't believed in fairies since I was a little girl, and even then I didn't claim to consciously believe in them (rather choosing to draw pictures of them all the time and even build little things for them outdoors, thinking I was "just playing"...) but when something is floating in front of your face, literally and figuratively, it's really hard to not believe it. That, in fact, is insanity. I'm not typing on a computer right now. No way. Imaginary.

See?

Moving on.

So on that morning, the fairies told me that they'd be with me as I went out and about that day. Then they told me to "look for the flowers."

Ok, that seemed like an easy task.

I left my sister's apartment and began to walk up a nearby street. Driving down it many times, I'd never noticed how many flowers there were! Every other tiny yard was beautifully manicured, with flowers spilling over fences and peeking up from tiny, intricate, lacy layers of ground cover.

Before I was a block in, I noticed some beautiful blue flowers hanging over the sidewalk. One bunch of them had been somehow severed from its partners and was there delicately sitting on the sidewalk.

Yes!
One of the main (and very random) things that I couldn't help from doing this past year was wearing fresh foliage in my hair. Since much of my time spent back East was during the cold season, I pretty much constantly wore dark green Juniper leaves either braided into my hair or tucked into a ponytail. Somehow this grounded me and made me feel more connected. I think adding that harmonic life force to the part of us most often disconnected - our heads - does more than just add cosmetic value.  And wearing artificial stuff obviously just isn't the same...

I'd thought about doing the same out here, but I don't like cutting flowers. It's not like there's a tree with a zillion leaves who drops fresh ones every morning and I can go outside when the grass is still wet with dew and gather a handful to choose from, or like my nonexistent yard is filled with wild flowers, some of which volunteer to be picked and worn as I bend over each bunch, asking with my Heart who wants to come and hang out with me.

In the city, it's different.

Except when a beautiful cut flower (that matches your outfit, no less) just shows up where you're walking.

So I did what anyone would do, I put a sprig in my hair and carried the rest of the bunch until I found a pretty place to leave it, coating the flowery branch with my intentions that it brighten someone else's day the way it had brightened mine.

The walk continued, and about a block later, there was an empty and clean plastic grocery bag on the sidewalk in front of me.

Whew, that was close...

I've often read advice by other interdimensional ambassador types that say to always bring a plastic bag with you when you take a walk in order to gather litter as you go. It always sounds like a good idea, and I always forget. So this day, I was gifted with one. With only a moment's hesitation due to my self consciousness about how odd I must look bending down to pick up trash off the sidewalk, I gathered up that bag and went on.

Of course there were lots of little things to pick up along the way. Because I was still in morning traffic hours, there were a good amount of cars cruising by and every time I bent to pick up a wrapper or random piece of something man made and trashy, I felt a little weird. It's funny how social norms often curb us from doing what is right. And the likelihood is that no one would have even noticed me at all, much less looked at me askance for collecting litter.

The main part of this walk, however, was the beautiful city. I was in the suburbs, and there's lots of really adorable and creative architecture around here. More than anything though, I noticed how many plants and trees and flowers there are. I was as guilty of the next of thinking of suburbia, and especially SoCal suburbia, of being a concrete and asphalt wasteland where nothing grew and certainly where no fairies could survive.
Not so, as it turns out!

Fabulous.

And besides, I got to pass some really interesting things, like a couple of Dr. Seussy trees. Here's the first one which reminds me of the Lorax...

And a beautiful magnolia pruned to where it's not the normal thick, green, glossy magnolia of the South that I'm used to, but beautiful all the same.

A palm tree against the sky just clearing itself of the June gloom marine layer for the first time that day...

Eventually, I made it over to the park (taking a massive detour and getting a bit lost, but not minding a bit) and hung out with the trees.

A beautiful pine,

And then I meditated under this second Dr. Seussy tree.

There were some very zenned out (and slightly overweight) seagulls hanging out on the shores of the park's man made lake. I snapped a pic of this one. He wasn't sure whether or not he would fly off, so I crooned to him as I took shot after shot, finally ending up with this one of him looking at my camera. Seagulls are so unique and funny among birds - they have an interesting type of intelligence that we normally miss because we don't hang out with them much, I think.

All in all, it was a fabulous day. And now I have some lovely blue flowers to press in my journal to prove it.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Changing Tides

In three days I'll get on an airplane and fly away West.
I'm feeling conflicted.

When I was writing my first blog (I feel the need to change 'em up every couple years or so,) I often wondered why I didn't get the type of readership that similar, but more dramatic blogs got. I spoke of maintaining mindfulness, and bringing general spiritual awareness to everyday life. I shared my struggles and triumphs, or so I thought, and was fully intending to make each person who read my blog's life a little bit better for having visited. Why did other writers, who spoke of grumpy times and arguments and pain get more love than I did?

I didn't get it.

Now, I think I do.

It's nice and all to have inspirational quotes and tips for being happy and fulfilled, no matter what you're doing. But it's hard to connect with someone who doesn't share her flaws and her difficulties. When I thought I was writing about my struggles, I was only choosing the easiest solved problems in my life to speak of. And it isn't as if I think it's beneficial for anyone to whine, complain, or bitch all the time, but on the other hand, what's the point of sharing a life in the way that blogs do if you don't actually share your life?

Back to that imminent flight.

Without airing too many personal details that belong to other persons and who it isn't my right to share, I'll say that just about every single aspect of my life is about to drastically change. For all intents and purposes, I'll be living a very different life in a week from now, and less than that, even.

Granted, on one hand I'm excited and optimistic and I am absolutely certain that the summer will be glorious. On the other hand, I'm scared. I don't know exactly what will happen. And although trusting the Universe/God is great (and what choice do we have anyway, once you really think about it,) lessons taught aren't always chocolate and rainbows. It will likely be hard in ways that I haven't thought of yet.

I'm a little bit psychic. Or a lot psychic. I know that may sound odd, but it's true. And rather than making life easier, this often makes life harder. Extrasensory perception isn't usually what it's portrayed as in the movies. I can feel others' emotions and often, if I'm asked to do so, I can sort of see the landscape of a person's life - their true life, struggles, and what they can do to go further along their path in the most harmonious way. But those things only apply to oneself so much, especially because doing what needs to be done is often much easier said than done.

For now?

I'm to wait.
Trust.
Have faith.
Breathe.
Find joy in every moment.
Focus on my body.
Be aware of everything around me and live as if every action, word, and thought is a sacred ritual.

See? Easier said than done. Especially that last one. With one glorious exception, I've never been able to maintain that state for more than 5 minutes or so...and I'm supposed to live it? All the time?

Argh.

In a meditation yesterday morning, I was given the following advice:

The reasons behind the change happening to you and to those around you are two fold: First, they are alerting you to the diverse possibilities of perception and experience. The Gaian dimension is shifting and thoughts are manifesting - but even more, emotions are manifesting. You are being shown what you are asking for via your focus and attention. If you do not like it, refine it. Bring life into every movement. Second, transitions are happening everywhere. Situations are solidifying for the next plateau of learning and experience, which will come mid June. The steps forward (and lack of) in the last cycle decided where you would be now.

Ok, I get it. So what happens, I suppose, is that life is split into kind of a plateaued step-shaped progression. We have a time of upheaval (which tends to often be more emotional than physical for me, although sometimes, such as now, EVERYTHING changes,) then a period of relative stability while we are given a chance to learn the lessons or achieve the potentialities for growth gifted us. Then, another transition comes, and all is repeated. Makes sense. Doesn't make it easier by much.

So, I guess, the moral of the current story is...life isn't supposed to be easy? Yet? I do know that once true Presence is attained, existence turns into more of a dance than anything else - and I know this because I have been Present for periods of time where everything smoothed out in the most beautiful and blissful way...but obviously, I ain't always there.

So tomorrow I will pack.

And Sunday I will fly. And once my plane lands, I'll step off of it a new me, in a familiar place, and see what comes.

Instead of seeing all the disorder and disruptions, instead of viewing it as your world falling apart, think instead that this is an opportunity to create something beautiful and better. ❤ ╰☆╮ ☯
All great changes are preceded by chaos.
~ Deepak Chopra

  

Enchanted Evening

The time is currently 3:38am and I'm up and about on the third night of my sleep experiment.

I've been voraciously reading the book Seth Speaks, along with a couple of others, and it is blowing my mind in entirely new ways. One is by answering questions I never knew I had until I see someone else ask them in print before me as I read. The other is by giving suggestions that are completely new, but super intriguing, like the one I'm trying out now.

This one has me never sleeping more than 6 hours a pop (and, in order to go the whole hog, which I tend to do with odd things like this, I haven't topped 4 hours, just to be sure.) It isn't that you actually sleep any less once all is said and done in any 24 hour period, but the sleep times are moved around, allowing for a couple hours of waking time to break in to any large chunk of sleep. In my case, this is pretty easy since Friday was the last day of school and now Terrence and I are house sitting at a gorgeous place even farther back in the woods than we were before.

Anyway, for the past three nights I've been going to bed at the regular time but setting my alarm for the wee hours of the morning to pop up for a couple of hours, hang out, do some reading, have a cup of tea, maybe a few minutes of yoga, and generally benefit from the nighttime negative ions and energies that I ordinarily sleep through.

The idea behind this is that in the current cultural paradigm I, and probably you too, find ourselves in, we sleep in these massive chunks of sedentary unconsciousness every night. This splits the subjective, creative, emotional dreaming world from the objective, linear, intellectual waking world in a way that is unnatural, apparently - our nature-friendly ancestors would be up at various points in the night, checking to make sure all was well, perhaps doing some nighttime foraging or hunting, etc. Animals still do this, even house dogs and cats, I realized when thinking about it, remembering how my in-laws' little dog goes back and forth from room to room at night, checking on everyone.

Apparently, this huge split, along with the idea that being so still for so long is actually detrimental to the purely physical processes such as blood flow and metabolism (which I get, theoretically,) means that not only waking up a bit at night, but sleeping a bit during the day would even this out. For 9-5 workers, the author of the book recommends the first "nap" to be just after dinner, with the longer sleep periods a few hours later.

I will say that I adore napping and always have. Now I have an excuse to do it :) Although, to be fair, it isn't easy schedule-wise to do this, even for me. But in trying to be pure with my little experiment, I've realized that one should capitalize on that sleepy afternoon hour or so whenever possible and escape to dreamland.

Back to the objective/subjective thing. Apparently the difference between dreaming reality and waking reality is not nearly as huge as we think it is (which I believe, considering some of the caaraaazy nighttime journeys I've had over the years,) and flipping back and forth between the two modes of consciousness gives us a more authentic, "true" sense of the world we inhabit. I get that, and I've noticed a difference there.

Which leads me to...

How is it going?

Interestingly.

I really like being up at night. I'm ordinarily one of those annoying morning people, and I've found that now, I'm more mellow in early hours - not tired, I always awaken refreshed, but not so chipper and bouncy either, which I'm sure anyone I interact with before 10am would tell you is a relief. :)

The first night of my experiment, I woke up at 4am or so. I realized halfway through my 10 minutes of yoga that unless something unexpected was going on, every single person I knew in the world was asleep just then. My team was all vacant! And I shared this wakeful existence with others on the other side of the globe. That was pretty cool.

A drawback has been that I haven't smoothed my schedule so that I have predictable sleep times yet, which makes 6pm sometimes feel like 10:30 or 11 and past my bedtime. I'm trying to stay fluid with it, and there is something very delicious about occasionally waiting to go to bed until you're childishly sleepy. Feels sweet, almost like a piece of candy. I know that sounds odd, but it's my experience.

Tonight, on the first evening in a strange, albeit beautiful, place, I turned in at 10:30pm and set my clock for 2:30am. I awoke at 2:21, noticing the nearly-full moonshine on the bed below me and angling my head to get an eyeful of that magical view. I love how moonlight penetrates you when you gaze at a swollen moon, it has such a cleansing effect. I realized with a quiet chuckle that my body had anticipated my alarm clock and I got up, slowly going through an abbreviated morning routine to be comfortable for my up-at-night time.

Other claims on this new schedule is that creativity and energy will be enhanced and dreams will be more intense and easy to remember. I do feel more creative, especially at night. I've started work on a new book that's been percolating for a couple of weeks, only working at night so far. As for my energy level, I don't think I've given it enough time yet - I haven't noticed a shift in either direction so far.

I will say though, that waking life has taken on an interesting and yummy dreamlike feel. I'm not tired, but my mind and body are working differently. I don't get as caught up in the rush and mental chatter as I ordinarily do. I tend to use mindfulness to help with this, but I've stayed pretty mindful naturally. That alone is worth the shift.

Ok, I'm off to begin to wind down. I'm going back to sleep at 4am (so in 20 minutes or so) and then will arise at 8am, leaving an hour and a half later to go pick my sister up from the train station. Today's her birthday (happy birthday, Michal!) It will be the first time in years that we've gotten to be together on the actual day. Good times.

Happy dreams!

Forest Living

Three nights ago, I was doing something kitcheney in the kitchen (washing dishes, or making tea, or some other putter-type activity) while listening to my ipod. Terrence sat in the dining room, reading a book. I stepped backward and thankfully, my parasympathetic reflexes were on point because I was able to raise my foot back off the floor before I put my full weight on something wet and squishy.

It was a slug. Again.

This has been a thing lately. I guess it's slug season or something, because this must be the third or fourth slug, at least, that's randomly been found crawling across our floor in the past week or two. Sometimes when I go outside and take a tour of the yard I find tiny sluggy stowaways on my shoes.

It isn't that slugs bother me - I consider them sweet, harmless creatures (especially since I don't have a garden,) but snuggling with them is not something I'm particularly keen on.

And as the one I halfway stepped on in the kitchen was pretty big (a couple of inches long,) I had significant heebie jeebies and asked Terry to get it. So he did. Blech.

A day or two later (after Terry was gone on the High School yearly camping trip with his students,) I came foot-to-face with a gigantic spider in the shower, just as I was about to step in.

I'd checked the shower before getting in, but I suspect that he was hiding down the drain. Once a very warm rain starting falling from the faucet, he retreated to the edge of the downpour. I cursed a little, ran to the kitchen to get a container, and gathered him up.

As weird as spiders can make you feel (especially when they're gigantic,) I find that if you mentally tell them (especially those massive ones) that you're going to peacefully move them, they just hang out and let you do it. If you're all vibratey with anxiety though, they freak out too. I think that I was pretty calm, because he peacefully went into the leftover hummus-or-whatever container.

He was pretty big. And actually striped quite beautifully. (It was much easier to check him out with the white plastic between us...)

I planned on setting him free in my little driveway and across a creek separating the driveway from my house, but as I walked that way I heard and saw some big animals frolicking in the woods nearby. Deer? Maybe. Bear? Maybe. I reassured my new little friend that he'd go outside later and ran back into the house.
I think I may be cut out for city life after all...

The next day, as I sat down in my bedroom to put on makeup, I heard a buzzing above my head.

Yep, this time the visitor was of the winged variety.

Spring has come. It brings flowers. And bugs. And I'm glad I'm going to a gnat-free, giant-spiders-free city next month to visit my sister in California for the summer. Southern Cali may have smog, but at least I don't have to check for ticks every day.

Why I LOVE My Vibrams!

Finally, 1.5 years in the making, my Vibram 5 Finger shoe review is up :)

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

The day after tomorrow will be my twenty ninth birthday.
(Whoa. No matter what the number happens to be, I'll bet every birthday feels like a milestone...that is, until years have passed and you have to shuffle through memories of cities and goings-on to discover which year was which. That is already happening for me, by the way, but for the moment I'll pretend it isn't.)

What does it mean to be twenty nine, I wonder?

Twenty eight meant travel, new opportunities, books and interviews and emergence from a closet I'd put myself in, full of fear, just to find out that it was never any big deal in the first place that I happen to be what was once termed "mystic" and now is termed lots of other things...

It also meant a move to paradise, fairy country, and soon a temporary (at least) move out of this land will come, just as I'm getting used to it here. Figures.

No matter. As a good friend told me yesterday, when I mentioned that I've had a curious ulcer-like feeling in my stomach for the past few days, since my imminent future was turned abruptly on its ear, something is bound to happen.

And even when we think we know what will come next, we're often surprised anyway. Thinking you know is just something that makes you more comfortable, in my experience. Or, I guess, less comfortable if those plans change. So there's a blessing.

"Don't think about it," he told me.
"If you trust whatever you believe in," (this object of belief was of a Divine sort, I'm sure - and trust it I do, although I sometimes forget, obviously,) "then you can just stop thinking about it and know that you'll be there when you're there."

Or something like that. It made sense at the time.

So this new blog is going to help me keep my thoughts in order as I go wherever I'll go. I named it after something I was told in my undergraduate Interpersonal Effectiveness class. We were a class of twelve, who basically sat around and psychoanalyzed each other. It was awesome. And my teacher, Dr. Stacy Dunn, was the first woman I'd ever directly experienced who could be lovely and feminine, and at the same time kick corporate (or, in this case, academic) ass - a true role model for me.
What I was told in the class was that listening to me tell a story was either highly entertaining or maddening, depending on the listener. I wove and wound around, following "butterfly trails," but eventually coming back to my point and reaching my destination sooner or later, with a lot of random stuff thrown in for flavor.

Or, if you were the type of person who liked to know the Five W's and nothing else, then I took forever to say anything.

(Don't say I didn't warn you.)

So, the point of this introductory entry is to say that this blog will likely twist and turn all over the place, as my literal, mental, physical, and spiritual paths do the same over the course of this summer, and maybe longer.

We'll see what happens...

(Yesterday's buttercups. I love how spring's yellow flowers seem to actually glow.)