Document from My Writing Spot: 12/15/2011

12/15/2011

Winter seems to be my time to process deeply. I am engaged in a
connecting to my core process that is the next go-round in on the
spiral.

Last Monday I saw a pt who specializes in the pelvic floor. I am
coming into my core through my body! What I got from my session with
her is that I have been in disconnect in my belly, hips, yoni...this
whole area of my body has been not connected. Feels so weird to even
say that. I mean, I have given birth to 4 babies...but connecting to
my core was a mental construct...I understood with my mind what was
being asked if me, but I could never do it physically. Did not
connect for me. Mollie so validated my experience when she said that
no, I couldn't. My body couldn't do that with what has been true for
me. No wonder yoga and Pilates have been such a disempowering
experience for me...Mollie even validated that for me. All along ai
thought that something was wring with me...I am too weak, too stupid
to do this. What I came away with is that it's not that I am stupid
or weak. What it really is that there has been a fundamental
disconnect in my vagina and pelvic floor, physically and
energetically, that has not allowed or supported me to connect...a
significant gap in this synapse that is essential to connection to my
core.

There is nothing wrong with me.

And there is something going on in my body, that when addressed,
rebalanced and connected, can then be a conduit for this essential
connection. Can be my ally.

All these years I have been trying to go around my body, to connect
without it. Because I have had to...my body was not there to support
this. Wow...I actually must have a really strong will and desire to
connect!

This awareness actually "connects" everything for me...everything
since being told back in the days of the Work that I wasn't connected
to my Self or my core, I have been working really hard to connect,
understand, and know who my authentic self is. Now I get that the
fundamental pathway to connect simply has not been there. I have
actually needed the alliance and support of my body to connect...

It's a whole other exploration as to why it has not been there. I am
sure that there is a full explanation as to why. For now, it's enough
to say that I am sure that I made a decision as a young girl to
disconnect so that I could survive and be loved by my mom...and then
that decision translated into a physical disconnection that I have
been working around ever since.

I love how the mental/emotional is so perfectly reflected in the
body....amazing.

More soon.

Suseya!

Sent from my iPad

The Camino Blues

Well....

It's been a L-O-N-G time since I have posted anything... I got a big old case of the Camino Blues when I got home. Didn't realize quite how blue I have been, until I recently started to see in technicolor again! I talked about it with Sue Kenney, the woman with whom I walked the Camino, and she shared these wise words with me: " The journey back home is just as challenging as the journey to Santiago. You are not alone."

Just hearing this normalized my experience and I just allowed it to be what it was. And I began my journey being home...

And so I want to share with you an extraordinary experience that happened in my back yard just this past weekend. I was sitting at my computer, which when I look up from it, I look outside across my front porch into my west yard. It is beautiful, with big tall green trees that run beside our community water ditch and best of all, has a classical labyrinth that my husband, Steve, created last summer. There is also our tramp, and that standing beside it on this particular sunny afternoon, was a deer, a doe quietly standing there, not moving. Seeing deer in Boulder is not unusual at all, but there was something about her that was different. At first, I thought that maybe she was sleeping standing up, but then every few minutes as I would look up, she would haved moved a step or so, slowly toward the house.

Steve went out to get the mail, and thought that she was going to "charge" him, given her position. But no...nothing in her energy was charging or moving at all. Then I looked up again, and noticed that there was drool falling from her mouth. As I looked more closely, she seemed like she was wasting away, losing energy with each delicate footstep, and that she was asking for help. We both knew that something was seriously wrong with her.

We made several calls and got a hold of a ranger from the Open Space department who happened to be close by. He came over, and confirmed that she had "chronic wasting disease" - which perfectly described her condition. There was nothing that could be done to save her, and that what was necessary was to shoot her, both to save her from suffering, but also to save her from infecting other deer.

So, there in our yard, and within the first outer spiral of our labyrinth, the ranger shot her. In the head, close up. She didn't move, didn't run, didn't do anything, but stand there and accept what was happening.

I couldn't watch. I couldn't even be outside at this point. All I could do was send her lots of love and blessings for a safe and quick journey and stay inside with the two youngest kids and their friends. My older son and his friend were outside with Steve witnessing all of this, and my older daughter happened to not be here at all for any of this.

But I heard it...I heard the gunshot. It rang out loudly, over the traffic. So quick, so sudden, so final.

And she fell instantly down toward the center of the labyrinth.

A short while later, before the boys, Steve and the ranger moved her body, I went outside, and thanked her for her gentle presence. I knew that she had come into our yard, and our labyrinth on purpose. She needed our help. She wanted to die ion sacred ground, and so she chose the labyrinth. And we answered her pleas for help, although I wish her death could have been less violent.

This week, I asked that her energy be fully released from this land, and to be completely free to go onto the next realm, wherever that may be. We have been asking ourselves, "What are the lessons from this extraordinary event and gift? What do we each need to learn and receive from this?" A friend also wisely asked, "What needs to die?"

Deer medicine teaches us to use the power of gentleness with the demons and saboteurs, both internal and external. Perhaps her powerful gift to us is to remind us that sometimes we need to let go of the battle with those aspects of ourselves that tirelessly try to keep us from our true brilliance. We can be so loudly consumed with battling them that we forget that a little self love and compassion can transform everything. Let the battle die, and actually be at peace with even those shadow parts of ourselves that we love to hate. Allow the hate to die, and to truly choose love and compassion and acceptance for ALL of who we are. Choose love and compassion for ourselves, for each other, and even worst critics and enemies. What then would our world look like? What is truly possible then?

I am now a pilgrim - I live my life as a pilgrim. And I walk our labyrinth everyday as my sacred pilgrimage as I live my life here at home with my family. It reconnects me with the sacred path of the El Camino, the Celtic Camino, and the sacred path that we each are on, every day of our lives, no matter where we are, what we are doing, who we are being. Every step is a sacred, blessed step - for we are alive on this beautiful planet.

Now, when I walk our labyrinth, I have a friend who joins me. She gently walks beside me as I swerve and turn, twist and double back, and reminds me, "Gentleness...gentleness...walk in gentleness, and allow your true brilliance, love and beauty to come shining forth. I will show you the way."

And then, yesterday morning, three young deer - two does and a young buck, bounded across the ditch into our yard. They were young, joyful and lively. We all saw them, and then they were gone. For me, it was the completion and the healing of the event of last Saturday. I knew that we had received the gifts, released the trauma, and that we have begun to walk in gentleness.

Thank you, Deer.

OK - one more post from England

Hello.
We are getting ready to go to the theatre this evening, and I just wanted to let you know about our day. We had planned on going to the National Gallery, but it was so crowded and so full of tourists! A little overwhelming...so we stayed on the doubledecker bus - yes, we were of course sitting up top in the front seats - all the way to Aldwych along the Strand to go to the Somerset House.

What a gem! In the middle of it all is a large courtyard that has one of the dancing water fountains, like the one on the Boulder Mall in front of the old Courthouse, but much, much larger. Children were playing and running around in it - you could tell that their "mums" had brought them down there for the specific purpose of playing in the water on a hot and sunny London day. Alea was bummed she didn't bring her bathing suit.

We chose to come here to go the Courtauld Gallery which has a very significant collection of Impressionist, post Impressionist and Expression works of art. I saw some of the Manet pieces that I had studied my senior year of college, some Monet's, and some of great pieces by Cezanne, Degas and Matisse. They even had Van Gogh's self portrait after he cut off his ear.

And to top it all off they had a sweet little cafe downstairs that we went to to eat a light lunch in the middle of our wanderings.

We loved it! It was quiet, beautiful, and accessible. By that I mean that we could leisurely walk around and quietly look at these masterpieces without feeling crowded or jostled which allowed us to really take it in and look at the art. It was a wonderful experience and a great way to complete our time here in England.

I will say that on our way home we stopped off at Oxford Street and found the antiques market where I also used to work. It is called Gray's Antiques Market and up until about 2 years ago, there was a little cafe back in one of the basment corners of the triangular shaped building. All the antique vendors still filled up the stalls with all of their porcelain, jewelry, and such, but unfortunately, the little cafe was no longer there. But it still was fun to go back in and see where I had spent so much of my time during the spring of 1982.

I had found the job there after I quit my more "professional" job on Curzon Street working for a small business. Quite honestly, I had been miserable there, and was delighted to find a fun and easy restaurant/cafe job that was Monday through Friday 9 to 5, so that I could still go traveling and cycling just about every weekend from London to explore England.

The benefits of being a British citizen - being able to work over here and to live here for a year when I had just graduated from college.

It has been so good to be back, and I am committed to coming back more frequently, every year or so, if not living here for a year or so with my family. So tomorrow I get to go home, and be reunited with my family! Michael doesn't get home from my sister's home in Philadelphia for another couple of weeks, but we will get to be with Steve and Gracie for sure, and Andrew when he gets off from work...

And I get to start creating and weaving the dream of living and being in England with my family! I wonder how it will all unfold!

Confronting Loss

So yesterday Alea and I were having a wonderful day...a leisurely walk through Hyde Park over to Kingsbridge and Harrods. We walked around the store...mesmerized by the displays and sheer quantities of things and people, and truth to be told...we got a little lost! Had to find our way around, down and around to the "Green Man" Pub on the lower ground level where we had a delicious lunch watching some of Wimbledon on the "tellie".

And then we walked along to Green Park, a smaller city park that I used to walk through everyday to go to work when I lived in the Victoria area and worked on Curzon Street, a rather posh street in the Mayfair area of the city. I had to use the "loo" quite badly so we found one at the Green Park tube station...all was well until Alea accidentally dropped the camera out of her jacket pocket onto the floor, and when she went to pick it up (along with being a little distracted by a non-flushing toilet), it was gone. Just like that...gone. The bathroom attendant tried to help us find it, but my hunch is that 2 girls who left quite quickly just before us snatched it up and took off with it before Alea quite realized what was happening....

It really has been quite the shock for both of us...for me, 5 weeks of great pictures dating back to my first evening in Spain even before starting to walk the Camino, and for Alea, 3 weeks of our adventures and travels, including pictures of a huge banana in a window display, her Nana's home that she grew up with the beautiful dolphin bird bath still out front, and a picture of her Granfer's "Old Member" page in the alumni book at Queen's College at Oxford University.

We were shocked, angry, and unbelievably sad...

We tried going back to the bathroom in hopes of a miracle...but nothing was found.

We just sat in the park for a while, stunned...and then we decided to just get up, walk and move our bodies...so we headed to Mayfair and Curzon Street. We think we found my old building, if I remembered the address correctly. We then continued up South Audley Street toward Oxford Street...another area where I had also worked back in 1982. We passed by Grosvenor Square where the American Embassy has been...we seem to walk into any park we come across so we of course walked into this park as well. As we walked, we had been laughingly asking ourselves, "What are you grateful for right now?" "What else are you grateful for?"

We passed by an area within the park that looked very interesting and so we read the plaque by it. It turned out to be the Memorial to the 67 British citizens who had been killed in the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center. It had pillars made of solid oak trees, and beautiful plants and flowers that were chosen intentionally for their meaning and that had also been included in the Queen's posey for the Memorial Service for these people. Without our even discussing it, we both read each and every name of the people who had been killed...

And this helped us to realize that our loss was nothing in comparison...these people had lost their lives, and their families had lost a loved family member. We had lost a camera, and many pictures, to be sure, but we were safe, we still had each other, and we still had our treasured experiences from this journey and pilgrimage. No one can take that from us, camera or no camera, pictures or no pictures.

I realized that when I woke up this morning that the gift, or perhaps even the miracle, is that we have to internalize this journey, remember and imprint the experiences within ourselves, and fully own and integrate each and every experience, and each and every internal picture of these experiences. We don't just get to spill it out as we share our pictures - we get to re-create our journey, and our pilgrimage, and our re-connecting with place, family and friends, in a deep and meaningful way that only encourages us to each integrate the experience more deeply and with more meaning.

I had to keep reminding myself yesterday that there is a silver lining in every experience, especially the ones that seems negative. So I woke up this morning with that gift, and even though it is not the way I would have preferred it, it is the way it is...we cannot change that now. We will never get the camera or the pictures back, but we do have this amazing experience, and what a wonderful journey it has been.

So we are off to go to the National Gallery via a double-decker bus and to do some more walking around London. Today is our last full day here, for tomorrow we fly back to the States. So we are going to enjoy this day to the fullest, taking in and imprinting the many images and experiences of this day. And then tonight my godfather, John Smith, is taking us to the theater to see "Wicked" right near Victoria Station. What a great way to end our journey, with our last night in England, and Europe for that matter, at the theater.

Next time I will most likely be blogging state-side!

It is the Summer Solstice - Happy Solstice!

It's a bright and early Sunday morning. We are staying with an old friend, Diana, and her family down in southern Dorset not far from the coast. Yesterday we walked around Lyme Regis, a beautiful coastal town where "A French Liutenant's Woman" was filmed. It really was a lovely day - later in the afternoon Alea got to go swimming with Andrew, Diana's husband, in the Channel! She didn't even realized how cold she was until she got out and realized that her body was actually numb!

We head back to London today...and sadly have to give up our little rental car. We have loved this little car - I have gotten to drive on the left side of the road, shift gears with my left hand and really enjoy the little single country lanes that are carved out of the hedgerows.

Still wondering what the "Pilgrimage of Initiation" has been about for me...but the experience I have had in the past week or so is one of coming home and really feeling where I want to grow my roots.

I had mentioned in my last blog about my leaving here 27 years ago...in no way do I want what I wrote to be misconstrued. I have loved my last 27 years...and I am so blessed to be with Steve, our 4 wonderful children and to be living in Boulder, Colorado in our farmhouse with our community of family and friends nearby. My life is rich and full...and I am so grateful. My comment from the last blog was a reflection of how much I appreciate being in England and my being English...and that this is an aspect of me that cannot be ignored any longer. It is not that I wish these past years have unfolded in any way differently than they have. Not at all...now I just wish to bring all these relationships, people, and aspects of my life together into an integrated whole.

Perhaps this is what a pilgrimage is all about...to go on a physical journey in search of something, a spiritual truth, that actually has always existed within yourself. Yet it is the journey itself that is the catalyst for experiencing the Truth...that even though it is always already within, the journey provides the means to actually acknowledge, experience and embrace the truth that is within...and that for each of us, this truth is a different reflection on some deep inherent truth that we all share, yet we each get to - actually have to - experience in our own way, with our own slant on it.

And for me, for whatever reason, this journey has been about coming home...coming home to myself, to what is true and right for me...to accept and embrace all of who I am.

Not sure if I am making any sense...as I am literally processing as I type. I will continue to be with all of these thoughts and awarenesses, and see where they go and how they develop. But the thought of COMING HOME has been coming up quite a lot over this past week since my visit to Rosslyn Chapel a week ago. Was it really only a week ago? It seems like we have experienced lifetimes since our visit to Edinburgh last weekend.

It looks like it is going to be a beautiful day. We have the morning here with Diana and Andrew and family, and then we are off to meet Carol, an English friend who was living in Boulder and has just moved back to England, at Avebury - a circle of ancient stones that makes Stonehenge look small.

I had thought that I wanted to go to Stonehenge on the Solstice, which I did quite by accident 28 years ago. We got to go up to the stones as the Druids were completing their rituals and ceremonies. I had no idea at that time that it was the solstice, or that going up to the stones was anything special...I have since learned that the stones are now cordioned off. So we will drive by Stonehenge and see what the crowds are like, and perhaps stop for a while. But our real destination is Avebury and to walk the circle of stones that encircle the town. To walk a circle of stones as we come full circle on our journey, on our pilgrimage of initiation, and complete our travels with 3 days in London.

We then head back to Colorado on Thursday! In the meantime, I am excited to share one of my favorite cities with Alea - and to go up the London Eye, walk the Silver Jubilee walk all around London (during which I got to look Warren Beatty in the eye filming a scene from "Reds" 28 years ago!), go to a show (perhaps "Wicked") and just take in the town. We are staying with my godfather, John Smith, who lives right in the center of the city so we will be able to walk and take the tube everywhere. I will be sure to write from London and let you know how it all is!

Being in England - Coming Home

Hello from southern England...

I am staying with my cousin, Liz, and her husband, Jason, in a small town called Box about 6 miles east of Bath. They live with her younger brother, Churton, just up the hill from her younger sister, Georgie and her family. We arrived on Tuesday evening and have been able to just have time together, drinking tea, visiting Bath, going into Bristol today to see the house where my mother grew up and to take a lovely walk in Ashton Court, a wild park and golf course over the Suspension Bridge overlooking the city. I have also been able to spend time with my aunt, Shirley, a wonderful woman who is married to my mother's brother. I then got to spend time with George, my uncle and my godfather, who is full of stories and opinions that reveal a much richer side to my family and its history than you will hear anywhere else!

I love being with family and feeling my familial connection to these people. I cannot believe how long it has been since I have seen them and yet, despite how little time we have actually spent together, how many shared memories we have of our times together. Growing up in America meant that I never really knew my cousins except for our infrequent visits back here. We didn't grow up taking family holidays or just getting to be together, and I know that this has created a commitment on my brother's (Nick), sister's (Tori) and my part to make sure that our children, as first cousins, actually know each other and spend a lot of time together. Being here, I realize how much I have missed having extended family - from both my father's and my mother's sides - in my life.

The last time I was in England was 27 years ago...when I was picking up our rental car at the airport the other night, I was thinking about the last time that I was at Heathrow. I was flying back to the US after living and traveling over here for a year. If someone had told me that I would not return to England for 27 years, I certainly would not have believed them, and, if I had believed them, I really believe that I would not have left.

The longer I was not here, the more I "forgot" my connection to this country, its land and its people and to myself. I simply became American again when I returned to the States...but what I have been so deeply reminded in being here...no - it is more a feeling of having been RE-AWAKENED to is - that I am English through and through. I may sound American, I may have American habits and attitudes, but that is just the crust - the more external aspects of who I am.

The real me is English... the soft inner dough ( I am trying to find a way to stay with the bread metaphor here! Not sure if it is really working!!) is as British as my cousins are, as the soil is here, as the rain and the lushness, as the accents are! It has been quite the unexpected experience of this journey...

I knew that this time of being with family and friends after the pilgrimages was going to be a time of integration and reorganizing myself, but quite honestly, I did not expect this. This is the non-rational, unpredictable experience...perhaps this is the alchemy of all of what I have experience and been preparing for the first 3 weeks of my travels - that this was a journey to come home, and for me, coming home is being in England and fully acknowledging and honoring the English in me.

I feel as though I have come home...and I felt it from the first moment I stepped foot on English soil. I told myself to be patient, that I had not even interacted with the people yet, and so many people have told me how much it has changed over here. I have now been here a week, and feel this sense of being "home" even more strongly and clearly than when I first arrived.

We are all going out to dinner to a local pub, The King's Arms, in Monkton Farleigh, a tiny village 3 miles from here that overlooks Bath. So must go and freshen up...

The Pilgrimage Continues

Since I last wrote, Alea and I have been to the Orleans Cathedral, the Chartres Cathedral, and today we visited Notre Dame in Paris. I have to have a least a day for each sacred site - to visit the site, to process and integrate the experience, and then to journal and become conscious of what the experience and initiation was all about.

I think that I already mentioned that I don't really know what the experience is about as I am experiencing it! I really have to trust that it is all perfect and that whatever I experience is what I am here to receive. And so far, I really don't know until I wake up the next morning and am journaling. Only then do the threads reveal themselves and the opening occurs.

Quite the experience for me.

The other aspect of this journey is that it has become intensely personal and I am not sure how to share it here. There are so many different people reading this, and from all perpectives and belief systems and I am aware that I feel nervous to expose my journey, both at the risk of exposing myself and at the risk of confronting and challenging belief systems, especially religious ones.

At this point, what I am willing to share is that at each and every site, I have experienced a profound opening and learning. I feel as though I am being initiated...into what I really do not know, but something is happening that is bigger than me. Every step is being guided - on so many levels all I can do is feel grateful. Like yesterday, we left the Chartres Cathedral to head to the train station to head back into Paris. We, of course, forgot to look at the train schedule when we arrived, and we both trusted it would all work out perfectly. And yes, it did. We got to the station with a train leaving for Paris in 8 minutes. Perfect...things keep happening like this for us. And we just give a happy thanks.

Today, we had gone into Notre Dame and knew that it didn't feel right. I was overwhelmed by the huge numbers of people in the cathedral, and couldn't find my bearings to know even where to go or to begin. Begin what? Just finding where to go in the cathedral.

So Alea and I came back to our room (which is right across the street, right? How convenient!) and looked up some information in one of our books. It had talked about a carving on the main facade that we had not been able to find. Going back, Alea found it immediately - just below eye level in the center of the main doors of this facade, smiling at us!

It was one of the carvings representing the medieval sciences, this one being "Alchemy." It was of a woman seated on a throne with her head touching the clouds, with 2 books in her hand, one open to represent the exoteric path of mainstream Christianity, and the other closed, representing the esoteric, or heretical path, to illumination. Seeing this carving prepared us for entering this beautiful cathedral, and created the container for our experience.

I am a "Financial Alchemist" through my specific coaching training that I received just over a year ago. Am I being initiated into "spiritual alchemy" and if so, what does that even mean? Right now, I still cannot make sense of it, but as I mentioned earlier, something bigger than me is opening up and occurring. I just have to stay open and keep taking the next step...


The Internet shop is about to close...not sure if any of this makes sense or not, but these are my musings at 11pm on our last night in Paris...

Will write again soon. Much love to you all...