What if a woman listened to herself?

“What if a woman trusted her own tears enough to listen to them, to make real changes in her individual schedule, and to see if those changes spread to her office, her committee, her religious group? What if she trusted her anger, her irritation, her illness, even her depression, as signs that her own life was calling to her?

What if a woman allowed herself to leave a mode of doing that does not nourish her, that actively makes her unhappy? What if it were not so difficult? If her upbringing had not sought to teach her to be dutiful, moral, caring, giving, helpful, productive and loving…at all times...to all others. ….it is often finally a woman’s own pain and sadness that make her change her life. Finally, it is impossible to deny her feelings any longer.”   

From Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, Woman’s Journey to Herself

Yes, what if I listened to myself?

Get off the computer and take a walk with the dog. Give myself more creative loafing time, more timelessness, more experience of the timeless, without schedules and appointments and frantic rushing. What if I pencilled in come creative loafing time on my agenda? what if I made an artist date with my camera and the tree bark I love to take photos of?

What if I sat on the lawn chair and stared at the lake?

Now is the moment!

musemother

ps teaching what I need to learn, as Suzy put it today. That's why I am blogging and writing and teaching writing classes and leading retreats....I so need to learn/feel the value of 'me' time, down time, slow sacred space time.

Dear Reader

I was flummoxed by a pain in the neck. I was running and getting things done and doing errands and being productive and crossing things off my list and typing away at 100 words  a minute...feeling productive and 'good'.

And yet every night I've been lying in bed with this chronic pain in the neck and shoulders and even seventeen appointments with a chiropracter/naturopath and a physio therapist and umpteen other kinds of treatment (yes, osteopathy) are not making it go away.

An MRI is scheduled, an xray shows arthritis, inflammation, bone spurs...damage from a ski-doo accident when I was thirteen and really banged my spine. And yet, I have to wonder, what's behind this pain in the neck?

Dear Reader in meditaton this morning I felt so close to giving up all the 'busy-ness' that makes me feel useful. I felt so close to the soft understanding that the world needs our/my soft participation in the Slow feminine, in the inner connectedness to the sentient earth, to the sentient beings around me, more than it needs me to be busy.

I feel, now, looking out at the clouds zooming by over the lake amidst rain and dark grey water, that I have been living from the outside in for too long.  My neck is asking me to stop, take stock and ultimately, say, I give up. I surrender. Please show me how to trust this soft inner place where I am not divided in two, body and mind, heart and head.

I want to be a channel for peace, I wrote in my bucket list.  OK, so be careful what you ask for.

Being and living consciously cannot be watchwords or just talk, is my feeling this morning.  LIving from the inside out - what would that feel like? It's been my mantra or 'tag line' for so long...it's been what I believe in. But can I really live inside it?  Yes, oh yes, I can. Becaue the pain in the neck is crushing my resistance.

Dear reader, I am writing this today to remind myself that life is a great teacher.  That the lessons are all from love.  That my calling, as Jennifer Louden put it so well in her facebook notes, is calling me to be true to myself, not just for me, but for the transformation of all of us.  Each one of us can answer the call within to be true to ourselves, and it will change the world.  The change we want to see, we have to be....slowly, gently, with compassion and kindess, we can listen to the call.

We suffer when we disengage from the journey of discovery. Explore that inner listening, and let yourself be guided towards more opening, more truth, more being at peace with yourself, less 'keeping busy' to feel useful.

my thoughts on a rainy day
from inside
Jenn/musemother