Boho Girl

The sun is beginning to break through our gray skies. Sometimes even for a whole day and the blossoms crave it wildly. They stretch their pedals wider and faster than I have ever seen. Growing up a California girl (living in both Northern and Southern), the Sun was always out to play but here in the Pacific Northwest, its so precious and flora grows at a speed that is so foreign to me. One day there will be a fully green bush, the next day it will be covered in blossoms. Its awe inspiring to witness.

Flowers are making their way into my home by way of sweet children these days. The neighborhood girls had a flower stand the other day with fresh cut branches and flowers around their home placed in vases to sell on a table in front of their house. It was the sweetest sight and two of them came to my door with a bouquet that Boho Boy had bought for me. Cedar has learned his daddy’s romantic ways. Most every time he goes outside to play he runs inside “Mommy, this is for you…” with a handful of cherry blossoms scrunched in his palm or dandelions and sometimes rocks, leaves and rose pedals. When he goes down to our bay, he fills his pockets with shells and sea glass and feathers. We have a woven tray to keep his treasures (photo above) and I’ve been inspired to create beauty in our home from them.

My boys and I are blossoming in this home and for quite some time I’ve not allowed myself to believe that these yellow gables and lush land could be ours. My twenties and thirties were full of so much uprooting that I didn’t even consciously realize how used to being unattached to people and things I became. I knew I’d be leaving soon or at least I felt so much a gypsy that if leaving wasn’t in the plans I knew it would be. I giggle as I write this because it makes me think of the film Chocolat. I resonate with Vianne in many ways. I think this is why online connections felt safer for me. For many reasons but one important one being I could stay connected regardless where I lived. I have lived here in Bellingham for almost two years and I am just now it seems allowing myself to sink in some roots. We just recently made a decision that we would love to purchase this home and because both my husband and I are gypsies, it took us almost losing it to come to that decision. We didn’t consciously realize we were not fully rooting until the possibility to root ourselves was swept under are feet.

I was standing out front of our house in the middle of the street last night with some neighbors who are becoming quite close friends of ours. We were out there, huddled close with our children getting soaked by the rain (unexpectedly) and my heart felt so full. I hadn’t realized I was keeping my friend at arms length. She lives next door and is a dream and yet I was afraid to get too close. She’s been very patient with my heart.

beautiful charity and us following our children on a forest path up the street

Now that we are staying, I feel all of this release…in so many ways, this openness and yearning to give of myself (and receive) to that which surrounds me, both in and around my home and with those souls that dwell here. None of this even felt conscious until we decided to root ourselves in this home. Its almost as if a veil has lifted.

With our landlord living next door, I haven’t felt the freedom to make this land my own and have not done much to it yet. But now that we will purchase this home, we are so inspired with ideas. I haven’t gardened much (aside from planting lavender in the ground last year at the blue house). Up until now I have only planted in pots. I have so much to learn! But our dream is to plant a veggie garden, herb garden and arbors with ivy and flowers growing up and around it. I am not one to be attracted to manicured pieces of land. I love the wild and overgrown yet a lot of tender care. Our landlord said for years she has wanted to impart her wisdom onto someone and I told her I am her gal.

If any of you are familiar with this climate and have wisdom to offer about gardening, I am all ears (and heart).

Mmmmm…h(OM)e sweet h(OMe). Is this really happening?

us en route to vancouver. someone is a wee excited!

The eve of Good Friday, my boys and I were curled up by the fire and Cedar shared with us that he was ready to get his hair cut. I could hear the readiness in his voice. He has talked about it before only to be followed with a fierce “no!” once he realized a part of him would be gone. We’ve been gentle about it with him. We know that transitions of any kind are especially hard on his spirit. So many times he has referred to his curls as “pets” and made it clear often how much he cherished them. I intuited they offered him safeness (and sameness). Of course I cherished his locks too, as did anyone that spent time with him. Although they were now down to his bum and on their way to dreadlocks and constantly up in buns or ponies. So we understood that he was ready for soft and new, just like I was last year. So harmonious with our honoring the New Life that Easter brings.

We told him that we will revisit it again in the morning to see if it still feels right to him and if it did, we would make an appointment that day.

Morning came and he crawled into my bed. While we were snuggling, he looked in my eyes and whispered…“Hair cut. I’m ready.” My heart both leapt and sunk at once. This was truly the day. The day to let go of those gorgeous untouched baby curls!

A few months ago we stumbled upon a really cool children’s salon called The Hair Loft. Its sits on the top floor of the Kids Market on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC. Inside there are chairs in the shape of cars and trains as cartoon characters (Thomas the Train, Lightening McQueen, Dora the Explorer, etc) and there are televisions inside the walls playing animated films or shows. I called them Saturday morning and they had an opening at 4pm! Off to Vancouver we went for the day…

I was so in awe of his bravery. Cedar is very particular about who he allows to touch him. He is very sensitive to peoples energies and of course to any kind of caress. Especially with his hair. I wondered if when the stylist started working her magic on his hair, if he would melt down and we would turn around and go home but quite the contrary, he was just so determined!

Out of all the cars available to sit in, he chose the one that wasn’t a cartoon character at all but a beautiful vintage convertible. He’s so my boy!! ; )

He asked the stylist if his daddy could brush his hair first. I was proud that rather than push her away or start screaming, he asked for what he needed. This has been a huge shift in our world for him and for us after a few months of occupational therapy and us working with him to take deep breaths and find his words so we know what he needs.

The stylist cut off his curls in one swoop, handed it to me and I put those locks in a special box I found at an antique store years ago near my parents home. My sister said she wanted me to save her a lock and I want one too.

I’m giggling as I am writing all of this about his hair but THAT is how much me and my family have cherished it and Cedar has too. Its just been such a huge part of him and that is why shedding it was such a good practice. For him, for us. It felt like a very similar emotional and spiritual process when I got my dreadlocks and then again when I cut them and combed them out. New life. New Beginnings…

So many mothers have shared with me that they have cried when their child got their first hair cut and watched their baby curls fall to the floor. And goodness I cry just about every day because I am such an emotional being. But I stood back and felt his bravery and stepped into it, for me, for him…and it became such a celebration!

The last few days we’ve been gazing at him. Our boy now truly looks so grown and he feels it too and dare I say its even brought on a bit of sass in his ways. ; )

He said he wanted to look like one of the guys from the band the Beatles (his favorite band) I think the stylist pulled it off with a bit of a modern twist.

Here he is the morning after on Easter. He woke up and immediately put on his boots and sweater to go fetch the eggs the Easter Bunny hid the night before. At the end of the egg trail was a basket full of gifts. We had painted the eggs with natural dye as soon as we got home from Vancouver. It was such a glorious morning…

clearer, self portrait

The past few weeks I’ve felt clearer than usual. I think its a combination of things: An awareness that this year, new age marks a greater consciousness for us humans. I have felt it in the streets and in stores when out and about. A bit more kindness and softness. More smiles and warmth exchanged. A deeper gratefulness to be here. People seem less afraid to engage in conversation. In fact just a second ago, a lovely woman sitting near me at the coffee shop leaned over and asked me a few questions. She didn’t really feel like a stranger. A barista brought me my drink and he said giggling “Here’s your foggie!” in reference to the London Fog steaming in my mug. We both laughed. It was such a kindred thing to say! Something I would call my drink. This is what I mean about not being strange-ers. I just feel this Universal shift of oneness. Perhaps just on a small scale right now but I have hope that these vibrations will expand out to all humanity.

Speaking of this gig of Being Human, today I read this…

poem by Rumi

Oh how this brought a newish clarity to me, even though this awareness and wisdom has lived in my heart over the years as I’ve navigated some ache from relationships. Recently, I felt it fully sink in on a deeper level. I needed this shift in perspective of feeling wounded to feeling grateful for that ache, pain, separation, rejection, whatever it may be between me and another human that didn’t go as I had longed or hoped.

“Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

Our pain and sorrow, our hurt…it offers us compassion for those around us that may be going through something similar. It give us an opportunity to love deeper and wider…ourselves and others. It brings us to our knees so that we can reMember our strength to stand and be brave in allowing others to help lift us. So much, so much! Our pain and sorrow are gifts. Sometimes I grasp this concept immediately and the healing moves faster through my body, my heart. Sometimes, depending on the layers, it can take days, months years for me to recognize fully why I am grateful something happened the way it did.

But now I have Rumi to remind me.

And in that pain, when in the thick mucky gook of it, when we find ourselves in a spiral, there is goodness in that too.

The other day, I reached out to a friend spilling some anxieties and fears, knowing my thoughts were completely unraveling and out of my control in the moment, I said “These feelings are so unfamiliar. Am I spiraling?”

And she sent me this passage…

passage from Jack Kornfield in his book After the Esctasy, the Laundry

I felt myself lay back, arms wide open…fully embracing the spiral because spiraling is human and we all do it and how healing, how validating is it to just surrender? Surrender to the dance with an awareness that we will eventually come back to our center? And in that returning to center, we will be fuller and wiser? Sigh. Good good stuff.

“In the course of this great spiral,
we return to where we started again and again,
but each time with a fuller, more open heart.”

Mmmmm…I wanted to share these nuggets with you as they were shared with me. They offered me compassion and patience, surrender and relief for mySelf, for others and especially for those “guides” that come into my life. ; )

This evening we painted mason jars blue in honor of tonight’s full Blue Moon. We placed special found or gifted rocks, stones and a piece of chocolate inside so that tonight they will marinate in the beautiful moon energy, magic and vibrations. Tomorrow we will hold them close, let the chocolate melt on our tongues and remember the intentions we whispered for ourselves into our jars.

My intention was to continue to listen to my soul’s yearnings. To keep trusting my intuition. Cedar’s was to go on a ferry boat ride soon. ; )

If you feel inspired to share, I’d love to hear your intentions, dreams, goals, rituals for this evening…

From this…{taken two days ago}

To this…{taken a few minutes ago}

Yesterday, I had my hair chopped.

A few nights ago, I flipped through a Free People magazine with my friend and pointed at a few long hair styles I was thinking of. This would be the first time I am getting my hair cut since combing out my dreadlocks. I wasn’t quite sure what I needed or wanted and was torn between long and layered and short and light. She helped me figure out a few things…that I wanted to be able to wear braids and ponies and messy buns. So I had the picture ready and what I wanted to say to this new stylist all down.

And then I sat in her chair and found myself sharing with her my dread journey.

And after a long pause of staring at my hair in the mirror and taking a deep breath and listening to what my soul needed, I heard the words come out…“just chop it.”

The whisper that came to me was that I needed to release some energy left over from my dreads. Not a bad energy. Just energy that needs to take flight, as I spread my own wings and allow this transformation to softness, lightness and ease into my world.

It just seems the journey of my hair most always parallels what I am moving through in my life. Just as getting dreadlocks AND combing my dreadlocks out was a practice in letting go of attachments, so is cutting it short.

Lately I felt myself more annoyed with my hair than it being an expression of who I am. My scalp is still sensitive from the pulling of a few years of heavy dreads. So the many times my long hair got caught under my pillow or arm while I was sleeping or my son or husband’s body and pulled, oh my, my once tough scalp was hurting badly at the tug. I am paying attention to those tugs. Not only physically, but emotionally and what feels peaceful in my life and what just plain doesn’t.

And that is what I felt in my gut when I sat down in the stylist’s chair. I need peace in my locks. Lightness and peace.

A friend of mine asked if there was lots of swishing of my hair yesterday and yah, you could say I swished my hair around quite a lot and this morning I woke up like an annoyingly happy mama baking bread and singing while doing so. I would have never thought that would be me. : ) Baking? Singing? In the morning? I suppose that means I made the right choice.

the beloved rain.

The last few weeks with our move, unpacking, settling in, my sisters visit and how full we kept every single hour of her time here with us, I haven’t had much time to venture online.  Its been so very long since I’ve peeked into the hills and valleys of the internets (that word makes me giggle) and what waves of deep wisdom, insight and inspiration are flowing through.  This morning I had a bit of quiet time to myself, unexpectedly so.  I woke up earlier than usual and tip toed downstairs (which is not an easy feat given our very old stairs crackle SO LOUD).  I poured my sacred cup of coffee and snuggled up near the fire and wiped the dust off of my laptop before I opened the door to Narnia.

Mmmm…oh how the softness and simplicity I am wanting so deeply to manifest in my life can easily become overwhelmed with the energies flowing around in the virtual space that sits on my lap and beyond.  Oh how loud it can feel at times in the midst of my quieter spirit and voice.  It is just the space I am in. Right now I am so hyper aware and conscious of how I process these voices.  I know deeply that it is all about me and a process I am going through.  Its not about anyone else or anything else but just what I am needing in my life, how I am wanting to offer love and receive love, how I am yearning to tell my story in a way that feels true to my own heart.  Embracing my slower, quieter way of being and sharing in the midst of a faster and fiercer realm.  It is so many things, really and I know it is my own path to walk.  My own journey to find a place in the midst of it all.  My journey to surrender to and embrace the tenderness, mercy, humility, authenticity and gentle warrioress-ness that my heart beats to.

So often when doubts begin to rush in and I need to feel not alone and to be understood and seen, I seek wisdom from my dear friend Rain (shown in image above).  This morning she shared with me a question she often asks herself when doubt enters in; “Is this life bringing?”  Mmmmm…yes, oh yes…that resonated so deeply.  What is it, who is it…that brings me life?  It reminds me so much of something my sister once asked of me because she knows I am a very FEELing person. “Check in with how you feel in this moment, how your heart is beating, keep note of when you feel peace and when you do not, when you feel anxiousness and when you feel ease.”

These questions help bring me back to center when moments begin to feel cloudy or noisy and it is hard to hear my own voice and feel my own heart.  THAT is the very space I am allowing myself to be in right now.  A space of quiet so that I can hear deeper as I am so sensitive to others thoughts and emotions, mine so often become lost to me.

Rain sent this to me today and it is an exercise that created such a peace in my heart and helped me come to a place of knowing much sooner than usual.  It is something I want to paint on my wall with the most beautiful handwriting.  It is something I want to share with all of you.  I hope you spend more time on her website.  She is so true blue and uniquely her.  I am grateful for this exercise she wrote…

“The Soul Journey”

the soul journey

step 1:

Take a deep breath.

That’s it. Breathe deep, as deep as you can, and before you let it out long and slow, I want you to hold your breath. Just for a moment. Hold it for a heartbeat. You can even close your eyes.

That suspension? The quiet place of in-between?

That is where you begin.

Life begins and ends with breath. We forget to breathe and lose our way, but we can always come home to that quiet place. We gain composure and find rest and strength in its steady rhythm. As you breathe, imagine pulling life-nectar up, up out of the deepest parts of your stomach and drawing it, with intention, into your lungs. After you feel your lungs expand, exhale all goodness and healing into the world, and begin again. Breathe without ceasing. Let this become your prayer.

Remember: no matter where you are, you can always begin again with breath.

And this is grace.

the soul journey

step 2:

As you incorporate patterns of slow, deep, and steady breathing, begin to feel yourself rippling outwards, like water, from your center. Your center holds the core of you, your essence. This is where you commune with God. Your energy is rooted here, your intuition and instinct, and your own sacred presence.

With each rippling, ask yourself things like:How do I feel in my body right now? When I breathe, what do I taste in my mouth? What do I see around me? What is happening in my space? You can start with whatever immediately surrounds you, like the way air feels on your bare skin (cold? sharp? gentle? nurturing?) or how your favorite coffee mug feels in your hand (is it earthy, or slim and sleek? Does its smooth porcelain rim invite caressing?) and work outwards. Practicing this awareness is like gently rousing a sleeping loved one. Place a tender hand on your soul, and whisper, arise!

Remember: you can breathe slow, steady rhythms, even in chaos. And as you breathe, become aware of all that surrounds you. This awareness precedes your awakening.

the soul journey

step 3:

Sometimes we don’t know that we’re not awake, and we stumble around in circles fighting the same old things, over and over, for years. It is important to awaken gently. Will you go to a mirror for me right now? As you face your reflection, what do you see?

For this next step, and for the rest of your life, I want you to begin seeing yourself as Soul. You are not what you see in the mirror; your skin and hair and wrinkles and lusciousness ~ the curves that aren’t where they are supposed to be, and the extra curves which don’t belong ~ this is the glorious vehicle which carries your soul as you sojourn on earth.

And the beautiful thing about this? As you ripple, you shimmering soul you, and flow outwards, you will begin to see others as souls, too. Your children? Eternal souls poured into skin that looks like yours, with perhaps a little more energy, but ageless just the same. Your lover? Sacred, multifaceted soul matched to the sacred multi-facets of yours. Your loud neighbor? The alcoholic? The addict?

The world is full of Souls who forget they are.

Remember: breathe, ripple, awaken. Your adventure is to come alive. And your shimmering will cause others to hunger for a life essence like yours; you will ignite and inspire, and through being, you will draw others to life, maybe for the very first time.

the soul journey

step 4:

This labyrinth doesn’t end, really. This means there will always be deep mysteries for the uncovering and places to rest along the way. As you go, keep in mind this secret of mine which will help you make wise choices. You can use this in everything ~ how to feed your body, the vehicle for your soul; what relationships to invite close, how you spend your time.

Breathing deep and being aware, consider the words of Rumi: Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.When you can suspend thoughts of condemnation or judgment and be present in your body, you will know what is right for you. In this place of being, ask yourself ~ regarding any situation ~ is this life-bringing for me?

Remember: whatever is right for you, whatever is the way for you, will always bring life and entice your soul to awaken.