A Word Can Lead You...

This is my annual end-of-the-year invitation...
                                    to choose a word, not a resolution.

I have been doing this in January for 5 years,
              ever since I read Christine Kane's blog called The Resolution Revolution.
It has changed me over and over.

Here's the invitation:
       Instead of making futile promises to "fix" something (like lose weight, or get out of debt)...
            choose a WORD toward which to tilt your life.
Then let go...  and see where it leads.
Be curious about it.  Be sincere about your choice
            and allow it to slowly, deeply change you.... for 12 months.

My first year I chose the word Truth.  sigh.
I suppose the wise voice inside wanted me to cut through the bullshit- to help me peel things away and stare straight at, well, the truth about things.  When I chose the word I had no idea where it would lead me. At the end of that year- through reading, journaling and exploring-  I realize I had let go of a lot... a lot of "masks" I had been wearing, a lot of stories I was believing.
  The word "truth" had led me fearlessly out of pretending... closer to authenticity.

Choosing a word sets an intention.  That is all we need to understand.
It is not a verb.  not an action.  not something to add to the to-do list.
Instead, it is something to wonder about. It is best to choose a noun. Something with a life of its own. Something to lead you, not something to conquer.

And like a treasure, it is best to hold it lightly. gently. with reverence. with confidence.
The rest is an adventure.   Just follow where it leads.

Other years, I chose the words; Transcendence,  Love... and Blossom.
Last year it was Patience.

I am drawn to words that are mysteries to me. Ones I can not define yet. Concepts that intrigue me.. and often intimidate me.
I tend to be kinda serious. Philosophical.
You don't have to be.
Just be sincere.

Many of my friends do this on New Year's Day now.
Some of the powerful words I remember them choosing are :

ACTION             COMMITMENT            JOY             Courage

           TRUST              Presence         Ease           HOME


I used to host a "Soup and Sisterhood" dinner each January. 
Girlfriends would gather and reflect on the year they had spent with their word. Many were shocked at how their life had shifted because of this simple exercise. Some admitted they had forgotten about their word for long stretches only to find it had been subtly working its magic at a foundational level. 
Our conversations were fascinating and inspiring. The whole thing felt so creative!
And as we blew out the candles, we would say farewell to the word that had kept us company for 12 months...
and offer up our new word for the year- a bit wide-eyed and curious about what it had in store for us.

I never know what my word will be.
Not until I sit in the quiet, candle lit, heart open... do I hear the whisper of it.
I am often surprised by what surfaces.  Surprised, but never unsure.
When I recognize what my word of the year is... it's as if it has risen from a solid place in the belly, not the head. It is a "gut" knowing.  Held out... as an invitation.

I encourage you to try it this year.
You won't regret it.
Christine Kane's blog explains it further.

Happy New Year!
Beth

ps-  I'd love to hear about the word you choose if you feel like sharing.  We learn so much from each other :-)

A place of my own...

It is really happening.
A dream come true.

Today, I began searching in earnest for doors, windows, shelving and such for my own little cottage- one I plan to build with Tim's support and many hands this spring and summer.
A shelter of my own.
Made of mud and straw bales. Adorned with colorful bottles and mosaic tiles.
A place for daydreams and solitude and meditation and creativity.
A place to share tea and intimate conversation and playful arts with others.
A mystery. A curiosity. A dream manifest.

I don't know when the idea first surfaced in me.
Probably sometime as a young mother in the wee morning hours before anyone else in the house was awake. In that precious daydreaming time, listening to the longings of my own heartbeat... I imagined a place I could retreat to be still, to be silent, to be ME.
Or maybe this cottage image appeared in a meditation class years ago when the teacher led us in guided imagery to a spot where we felt safe, and free, and alive. With eye's closed, I rounded the corner of a freshly mowed path and  there lay the little house, door open as if smiling at me, beckoning me home.
Or perhaps it was on my physical therapist's table as she teased my energy trying to relieve lower back pain. I colorfully described to her the stress-free place I'd go in my imagination... windows open, sounds of trickling water outside, smell of pine through the curtains- no phone, no tv, no clocks, no "to-do list".
I remember her looking down at me, in all her Reiki wisdom, saying "Beth, the cottage you are describing is YOU. You realize that right? "
Wow.
I love that interpretation.

Hmmm... the place I retreated when life was too busy and my well was empty... was the real me. The ME with the unlocked front door, guitar propped in the corner, open paint bottles, candles flickering, lace curtains blowing gently in the clean breeze, fresh fruit piled high in a bowl.

A place of my own.

silent. simple.
restorative.

Children have always understand what it is to need a place of one's own... cardboard appliance boxes, wooden forts, concrete culverts.  I remember that giddy feeling of being just one step below the noise- slipping under the kitchen table, invisible to the hustle-bustle of adult feet and grown-up plans  A place to be alone with one's thoughts.  A lookout from which to spy all the busyness of life without getting swept downstream or stepped on.

I think it is just hard-wired in us... to yank coats off  hangers in the hall closet for a topsecret hideout or rake leaves in a pile to make a nest just our size. What child hasn't tucked herself in a corner, low in the bushes, or high in a treehouse... to run free through the fields of her own imagination?
 
Well, that longing runs strong and clear in me. Always has.
During my busy mothering years I found getaways in cushy reading chairs, long walks and a little green room ("womb") I carved out in the basement. It was there that I reconnected with my own voice through journaling and my own breathing in the quiet when babies napped.
I love my family. I love my new life in the country.
and I know I still need a little place of my own to keep my balance.

I am convinced we are both social and solitary animals.
We all crave the warm intimacy of family and friendships. And, I believe, we also hunger for the sweet whispers of a voice found only in deep stillness.
Solitude is a rarity these days with 24-7 stimulation and demanding "on call" technology.
And yet, it is only in solitude, alone with my own thoughts, that I discover truly original ideas or wise, non-reactive answers to life's important questions.

So, when we bought this land by the river, Tim and I began dreaming of where to build a "not so big house" for ourselves, and then we looked around for where we might fashion little corners of our own. (As I type, Tim is adding insulation and shelves to his workshop- a man's imagination palace!).
I am grateful everyday for my husband- the one who, on a cold March day before we had even poured the footings of our home, looked me lovingly in the eyes and said "and you need a cottage of your own too, don't you?"
Yes, after 30 years of marriage, he not only understands my need for creative solitude, he protects it.  As I do his.

My cottage, my Querencia, will be across the stream, over a swinging bridge, through a curvy mowed path. With woodlands protecting her back, she'll face the south sun and fields of wildflowers. It is still just a dream, slowly taking shape on paper. But if I close my eyes I can feel it in my body... as if it were my body.

I found this photo of a little sitting nook in an earthen house. It embodies the warm, nestled, whimsical feeling I want in my cottage. I will keep it with me as a compass... while I sketch, collect salvaged materials, and sculpt her round, earthen walls.



Everyone should have a place of their own.
The child inside is eager to remind us how.

The Call of River Time...

I'm sitting in the warm sun on the front porch... watching the breeze whisk yellowed leaves from the Sycamore trees. 

Fall is in the air and all living things are feeling the pull of gravity. 
It seems stronger as the days shorten.

How long have I been sitting here? The sun has passed the mid-sky point, must be afternoon.

I don't know. I don't care.

I am in Kairos time. Feminine time.  "Losing track of time" time.
I love it. I am at home here writing and pondering until my knees cramp and shade abandons me.

Moving out to the country was our last radical rejection of left-brained Chronos time- clocks, calendars, day planners.

Now the lambs wake us. Our exhaustion draws us to bed. Grumbling bellies reach for the refrigerator or vine. And our hearts stop us in our tracks at unexpected times...to breath deep and sing praises.  

Thirteen women have answered my invitation next weekend to pack up their journals, walking shoes and longings. To head west to Taproot Farm... toward still water.  

"Touching Stillness" is what I call it- a restorative women's weekend. An opportunity to leave the cell phone and planner in the car. To listen instead for the invitation of the meditation bell, the tug of the tired body toward the hammock...to drop below the chatter of the surface to the deeper wisdom and peace of the water table. A weekend of Kairos time. Nature's time. Body time. Heart time.

This morning I am reminded of why I came to the river. Of how it called me in the middle of a busy, noisy, exhausting life "above the concrete"  and how naturally my daily rhythms now match the flow of the Cacapon. 

It was just a matter of letting go...as the Maples and Sycamores know so well.

 Here is  something that I wrote years ago when I felt the first call from the water table...  
back to Nature's time.

Enjoy. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Real Time

What if…

            very early one morning,

            you could slip behind her dressing room curtain-

            before TIME has donned a costume for the day.

What if… you could see her naked, unadorned, as her natural Self.

What if… she is NOT that foot soldier

             buttoned up in a stiff blue uniform marching “left, right. left, right”, eyes locked forward.

What if, instead… she is truly a meandering child,

            eyes darting to catch the flight of a dragonfly dancing around her head,

            long before she knows her left from her right.

What if… she is NOT that tailor,

            bifocals slipping on his nose, intently stitching snippets of activity together to make a “something” for you to wear proudly; a cape of accomplishments in many colors.

What if, instead… she is really a knitter,

            contently rocking and humming to the rhythm of the clicking needles.

             “Knitting one, pearling two”, then happily watching her work unravel...

          delighting simply in the creation and re-creation of a single stitch.

What if… she is NOT the highway planner,

            pushing the surveyor’s wheel down the paved road-

            stopping to place mile-stone after mile-stone at points of arrival,

            leaning over with marking pen to label decades, degrees, phases of growth and deaths.

What if, instead… she wanders aimlessly

through the trees, along the shoreline, in her own backyard.

Placing a birthday candle at each spot that catches her imagination.

Igniting each tiny flame with an exhale of awe.

What if TIME is NOT

            a square on a calendar, a tick of a clock,

                                    a coordinate on a map, a notch on the coffin.

What if… TIME IS, in her essence-

a gentle river that slides under your feet on a lazy warm afternoon,

erasing gravity, carrying your tired body on a buoyant, pillowy raft.

Silently slipping you out to sea

while the overactive thoughts are left,

like gossiping aunts, to chatter on the shore.

And what if…

as you are floating on Time

staring up at the sky,

you no longer can tell, as hard as you may try,

who is doing the moving- the clouds or you.

And soon all the questions remaining in your head

softly change shape like the clouds above:

                                                  From - “how fast am I going?”

                        to - “in relation to what?....

                                                                        -the cars on the shore?

                                                                        -the stones on the bottom?

                                                                        -my heartbeat?”

                                                From – “where am I going?”

                 to – “from which point?...

                                                                        -the dock?   

                                                                        -yesterday?

                                                                        -my comfort zone?”

And, what if…

as your sleepy sun-drenched eyes begin to close,

you glimpse,  floating by in the current,

a brass button… a thimble…. a marking pen…

And

What if… this once,

as you reach again to clutch those shiny ornaments,

your fingers simply slide through them like mirages

…until finally,

 riding along with Time herself,

you are able to just let go.

                                                                                      ~b. reese 

Tending....

I have been on my knees a lot lately.

Kneading soil between my fingers like a baker… breaking up the clay chunks, blending them thoroughly with chocolate-rich compost and sugary-light sand.

I even catch myself sniffing it.  mmmm...healthy soil smells like morning in the heart of a forest.

Countless hours and hours of turning and digging.

Preparing these beds like I would for a house guest.

I'm anticipating the needs of tiny white roots pushing out from the seedlings under our grow lights.

I don’t remember ever spending so much time close to the ground.

Foundation work.

Building a garden from the ground up.
I’ve learned the hard way that there is no quick fix down the road, if the soil is poor.

Since  gardening doesn't seem to take up all parts of the brain at once, mine loves to wander and ponder while my hands are in the dirt.

              Lately, I’ve been pondering this idea of TENDING…

                           tending one’s garden, one’s relationships, one’s health, one’s life.

Tending, I used to think, was for old ladies with lots of time on their hands.
Watching elderly neighbors fuss over their roses or talk to their cat as they fed it…. I admit I probably thought that was all they had to do with their day.

Tending was slow. Tending was repetitive. Tending was not for me, a busy young mother making her mark in the world. I had places to go, children to deliver, items to check off the list.
I was DOING things… and tending, I guess, looked like just fiddling.

But, I remember a particular day when I was in my busy, “doing” early forties.
It stands out so clearly in my mind, as any watershed moment does.

I was a typical mom- three active/scheduled kids, a young non-profit I had founded, marriage, house and garden, community obligations, etc..

After another long day of pushing myself “out there” in the world, I pulled up to the side of our house. And for some reason, probably a wave of fatigue… or grace…  I looked up and “saw” my garden in a new light.

Wilting brown leaves, struggling roots imprisoned in rock hard soil, stunted flowers crowded with mats of roots.  It certainly didn’t look like the vibrant photos on the nursery tags shoved in beside each plant.
How did it become so, so abandoned?

Hadn’t I had a vision when I bought all those colorful plants? Didn’t I think that adding more and more color would do the trick? Sure, I plopped them in the ground, but I meant to water them regularly. Meant to trim them.  
One day, I told myself…. when I slowed down, when I had time. One day I was going to get out there.

But all the while I was busy planting more gardens in the world- beautiful non-profits and commitments and promises.

Something about that scene, one I had hurried past so many times, broke my heart that day. Sudden tears caught me by surprise.

An untended garden.

          An untended life.

I don’t know why on that day I looked up in the way I did.

I believe our hearts get our attention anyway they need to.

Passing out from lower back pain months earlier or missing dinners with my family because of working late hadn’t done it.

But that sad, neglected garden on that ordinary day did.

It was asking me when I was going to get down on my knees and tend its roots.

My tears whispered that my family and my health were asking me the same question.

I believe tears are like bread crumbs.  If we listen and follow them back to their source, they’ll take us home.

That was 7 years ago when I started my long, winding journey “back to the garden”.

Through writing and meditation I am learning, in the stillness, to listen to what aches for my attention.

By returning to the land, I am reconnecting with what I already know… the smell of healthy soil, the sound of my own voice, the rhythm of the timeless.

Through the presence of tending, I am listening deeply to the dreams of my amazing children and noticing the sweet compassion in my husband’s daily chores.

Together, with the garden as our teacher, he and I are building a healthy farm for ourselves and others.       A place close to the ground.

Sigh...
I am learning to be a Tender-

        down on my knees,

           one shovel full at a time.

 I hope I am becoming one of those gray-haired ladies.

        The ones with the healthiest roses.

  

The Return of the Wood Ducks...

  A week or so ago, as the remnants of a long, frozen winter were finally melting, Tim tromped excitedly up the hill from the river with a  little boy look on his face, "The Wood Ducks are back!"

  We smiled... and shared a still, unspoken moment.
At the top of that ridge somehow it hit both of us similarly- a sense of completion, of full cycle, of belonging to a place in which there was a "returning".
I think it was there and then that something shifted permanently for us-
    a feeling that we are now Home, in the truest sense of the word.

  What was it that rose so deep in him at the sighting of those beautiful birds?
       ...the same ducks that we had studied through binoculars last year in the glass cafe of our new home?
Why is it so powerful to witness the familiar return?

  Perhaps it is the deep, sweet feeling of everything being right with the world.
and a relief, at some level, that it is flowing regardless...
       a permission to let go of the need to control it...
                 an invitation to "come home" to the cycles of life, instead of pushing so hard to steer them.
And perhaps it is the gratitude of being in a place where something so magnificent is actually familiar.

  For us, a family who has experienced 18 months of uprooting, I know our hearts were waiting for this.
Through all the packing, "leaving the nest:", releasing, relocating, unpacking- the existential Big questions related to Home have been an underlying  theme- "What is home?" and "How do you know when you are there?".
Less about brick and mortar, more wondering about truly belonging in this world, in this changing life...

Sigh.
  Hearing of the returning wood ducks brought up a body memory of being 4 or 5 years old standing at the shore break at Bethany, letting the waves lap against my shins- fearless, safe- sensing the weight of my body sink another inch deeper in the sand with each ebb and flow.
The more the ocean returned and retreated, the deeper I was rooted.
The more that huge, wild, water world came and went, the more solid my footing.
Even as a child, I learned in my bones, with wet sand between my toes, that the leaving and returning were part of my safety. Something to celebrate. Something to lean against.

I look out the window- eleven bluebirds are perched in the low bushes outside right now.  I remember them from late March last year, flocks and flocks of them sprinkled in the woodland. They came through about the time those little white wildflowers appeared ...
and, yes, come to think of it, I nearly stepped on a few blossoms yesterday on my way to the compost pile!
So, does that mean I can expect wild violets in the far field next? :-)
Oh, and the iridescent green Swallows were checking out the birdhouse last week... just like last April.

We are no longer visitors.
And, I see, we never are... as long as we stay intimately in tune with the ebbing and flowing of this world we inhabit.
The tiny flowers, the traveling ducks, the dropping needles, the fruiting trees...
reminders that we are all part of the home to which they return.
The home. Our home.
Home.

So, I wonder,
       how does it feel to you to be part of the "returnings"?

What is it in your life that reminds you that all is right... that the wheel is turning as it is designed to?
The daffodils in your front yard? The cherry blossoms along the road? The sound of birds again in the morning or  the heat of the sun on your skin at lunchtime?
Is it the new energy in your body? The aliveness of your senses as the days grow longer?
I believe returnings can be both internal and external.

I now intend to practice more attention to the returnings
in my life... 

To notice how it feels to be at that still place in the center 

of all this coming and going.

And to allow the turning of the seasons to beat against my shins... 

            sinking me deeper and deeper into this Life.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: On Purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally."       - Jon Kabat-Zinn

Ahhh, sounds so simple... and on some levels it is.
Yet, I found out that in order to be consistently mindful- to be PRESENT, NOW, HERE- I needed some training.

We are conditioned to want to be anywhere but "here". The mind is like a puppy- if you tell it to sit and stay- in a few seconds it hops up again, chasing its tail or anything else that attracts its attention. We are a culture lost in thought, out-of-body, living in either the past or future. We believe we don't want to be "here" because what is going on here (internally or externally) can feel uncomfortable or boring.
But all this "chasing our thoughts" actually takes us nowhere real.
There is no "there" there.  There is only Here.

Years ago, after too much busy-ness, too much chasing after happiness "out there", I was introduced to Vipassana meditation. http://www.imcw.org/    Instantly I felt that I had come Home.
This simple, profound practice helped me return to my body, my senses, and the life right here.

The key is the "on purpose" and "non-judgementally" part. Attitude is everything.
Mindfulness is cultivated by paying attention on purpose, deeply, and without judgment (friendly and inviting) to whatever arises in the present moment, either inside or outside of us. By intentionally practicing mindfulness, deliberately paying more careful moment-to-moment attention, we can live more fully and less on "automatic pilot", thus, being more present for our own lives.
And in that space, where the mind calms down and our senses come awake... we find Insight.
Looking the reality of "what is" in the eyes, in that space, we find wisdom. Not "my" wisdom. "The" wisdom.
And, amazingly, we realize it was right here all along.
As Dorothy found out in The Wizard of Oz, "there is no place like home". Or, put another way,

"there is no place like HERE".

This practice (and I do mean practice!- haven't found any shortcuts :-) has changed the quality of my life. Sure, my puppy mind is still busy and distractable at times. But, through a regular Vipassana meditation practice, I don't stray too far from that calm, clear, compassionate place inside. I have learned strategies to help me in the course of everyday life to return... to pause and come home again.
I call that place "the water table"... just under the busy, noisy surface.
If I stray too far from the water table... my well dries up.

Mindfulness is not about "blissing out". Just the opposite.
It is about waking up. Noticing, feeling, and facing everything that Is... with friendliness, nonreactively.
I find that when I stop clinging to or pushing away "what is"... I relax, and the fight in me disappears. The world appears in full color!
Life is not meant to be a struggle. And the good news is, it doesn't have to be.                                                                                                                                                                                    ~ Beth

It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free.

                                                                                              ~Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Welcome to From Deeper Water... a place to ponder what surfaces from the sweet, still place inside us where dreams and art are born.

Tucked here on the banks of the Cacapon River, my family is beginning a new chapter of small farming and mindful living. We were drawn to this place by the big sky, slow river and abundant wildlife. We intend to live with more intention- a simpler, slower and healthier life.

I can feel my spirit expand in this setting.
      And I am struck by the question-
"What does it mean for a person to FULLY BLOSSOM 
                               in this life?"
I intend to follow that question into gardening, writing, painting and sculpting.
I hope to let the wisdom of the river and the life she supports teach me the answer.

Check back in from time to time to see where this exploring leads me!

Peace,
Beth