Inner Guidance is one breath away

What I love about my Inner Guidance System is that it's so close to me.

Only a breath away.

All I have to do is sit quietly for a moment, and close my eyes, take a breath and relax into my body.

I gently breathe and let go, letting thoughts float away like clouds passing in the sky.

I let my attention come deeper down, into the belly, with my breath.

And rest there.

In this quiet place inside, I find my inner guidance or inner wisdom comes to me naturally without forcing

Answers to questions arise, I remember things I had forgotten. In this still empty place, the waters are clear and I see my peaceful reflection.

Often, I feel gratitude for just being here. I feel the simplicity, the oneness.

I feel grateful to my teacher for showing me how to go inside.

And grateful for finally turning within for guidance. Because it's so portable. It's always with me.

nameste,
jenn/musemother

Signs you're losing it

Do you know the signs, the signals, the symptoms, that you're doing too much, that you're about to blow up, that you need to take a break before you break down?

Sometimes we don't listen to the soft hints, the quiet interior whispers. Sometimes we feel too guilty, too responsible, too conflicted between serving others and being selfish, so we overextend and overextend until...

we have a stroke, or we break a leg, or we get a frozen shoulder, or pneumonia, or we break a hip and need a long convalescence, a much needed rest.

We all know people - I know two in the last week - to whom this has happened. And the first thing I think is, oh yes, they were so busy, they didn't know how to slow down, now they have no choice.

We do have a choice to hear the signals and symptoms from our wise bodies and react, to take care of our selves before we get hit with an illness that forces us to take good care.

What can I do, you ask? how will I know?

One of my signals is irritability. When I am overextended, or overtired, I don't even want to pat the cat. I don't want to water the plants, and I don't want to hear someone calling "mom" from down the hall. I get on edge, cranky or panic easily at small demands. When this happens, it's a signal to me to book a massage, take some much needed 'me time', make a mini-retreat one morning, spend time alone.

Another signal might be anxiety, pit of the stomach in knots all the time, no time to relax, or tight shoulders and achey neck, clenching your teeth and sore jaw, or sleepless nights thinking over and over the same problem. Flying off the handle at your kids or your boss when they make one demand too many....(they don't know you're at your limit....). NOTICE what your body does to signal to you that something is off, something is making you tense and upset.

What to do to remedy the situation: Put yourself on the agenda - don't be part of the Superwoman Club, the Women who Do Too Much and don't know how to stop and breathe - Make the time, don't want for the time to come for self-care - Write it into your schedule.

Give Yourself Permission to rest - I can't sing the praises of naps enough - they got me through menopause, and continue to be a great source of nourishment.

If you want to hear more, I am giving a lecture on THe Power of the Pause, at the Beaconsfield Library, Tuesday February 8, 7:30 pm.

nameste
Jennifer

Power of the Pause, intro

We live in a society that is obsessed with productivity and work. We have even banished the Sabbath or sacred rest day. We want material goods and professional success and we are willing to work like crazy to get it. But at what price?

Listen to the nerve-brain-Crunch of constantly being connected to twitter facebook instant messaging, texting, blackberry - crackberry..... The saying “we are all connected” is used in the Ecological movement as a metaphor for our need to take care of the planet and each other – but what we are more likely to be connected to is the super highway of Information on the internet and constant feeling of pressure, of 24/7 work and less play or down time. Increased access and speed of information coming to us increases our expectations of absolute productivity. Our response time has come down to immediate or instant, we have lost the impulse or the know-how to Pause and Rest – there is no more Sabbath, no ‘day off’ of our Instant Connection to Everything.

In the larger picture, all this 100% Connection to Information and all work no play, is the path to Burn-Out and Exhaustion. And that is what is worrisome.

Busy is the new "fine" - we are proud to be busy.

But the cost to our selves is high.

Stay tuned for more about The Power of the Pause, Lecture at Beaconsfield Library, Tuesday, February 8, 7:30 pm.
Jennifer

I will be gentle with myself

here's a lovely video and song by Karen Drucker
found on youtube. I have her music on a Retreat CD put together for A Woman's Way (Karen Ely)www.awomansway.com and it is full of gems like this one. You can order it on-line at http://www.aretreatofmyown.com/

A New Year's Wish

Close your eyes, make a wish.
Something true.
Something that feels good.
Something that carries you above fear.
Something that helps your heart breathe a little.
Something that makes your toes tingle and your fingers giggle.
Something small and doable.
Something you won't go back on.
Something you love to feel, always.
Something you already are, underneath.

Ok, what is it?

Write it down in the present tense as if you are already living it.

I am feeling peaceful and light in my whole being.
I lighten up and release old hurts.

Repeat it three times every morning to yourself as you look in the mirror.

My wish for you in 2011 is that you believe it will come true.

nameste
jenn/musemother

Peaceful Holidays to You

In the quiet stillness of a snowy morning, in the calm before the storm of Christmas day, before the unwrapped presents litter the floor and the smell of turkey wafting from the oven, I allow myself to rest.

In the busy finished shopping days and wrapping wrapping Christmas Rap wrapping days, I allow myself to sit in stillness.

In the baking, roasting, cooking prep days of thawing and stirring and toasting nuts, I slow down and allow myself to take a breath.

What does your heart want to feel today?

What does your love of sharing the feasting and giving and drinking with family need you to do to stay open?

What do you need to really Feel like Christmas today?

Enjoy this spirit-filled time, allow yourself the gift of presence
today, tomorrow and all through the New Year.

nameste and Merry Holidays
a peaceful New Year to you

Jenn/musemother

I Love being a Girl TED talk in India

This is an incredible video - please watch and be inspired!

Ten Ways To Reduce Holiday Stress

It's countdown time - less than two weeks until December 25. How can you enjoy yourself during this mad rush to get all the shopping, baking, cooking, wrapping, parties etc done? Start here:

1. Remember, you’re only human; discover on-line shopping. Get it delivered.
2. Trying to be everywhere at once is impossible. Do one thing at a time.
3. Relax and breathe; be happy with getting less done in one day.
4. Enlist the elves and ask for help: don’t allow yourself to be spread too thin.
5. Rediscover the word "no" and say it meaningfully.
6. Make space for yourself on the agenda, and not just a pedicure.
7. Allow yourself some down time to do nothing when you need to.
8. How can you make “less is more” work for you?
9. Simplify, re-use, re-gift; scale down the celebration.
10. Never compare or contrast yourself with what your best friend is doing. This is your Holiday Time.

"You do not owe anyone your time. When you realize that, others will respect your time much more." – Martha Beck. 

Inspired by a list found on the Flourishing Woman.com

Happy Holidays

Jenn/musemother

Sacred task of honouring Self

So you may have read the blurb above about the sacred task of being a woman, honouring the feminine. But what does it mean?

If you browse this blog and the labels/titles of pieces written, you may see a theme emerging.  My interest in finding out what the feminine is started years ago, before the birth of my two children (now 18 and 20). But it has been a slow unfolding to really make all the links, put it all together. I don't have any great theories about it all, but I know it has a lot to do with Slowing Down, honouring my feminine intuition, listening to the very subtle inner coach inside who whispers more than yells, and sometimes sends messages through the body, like this frozen shoulder I'm dealing with, or a broken leg (10 years ago).  That broken leg really lead me on a search for understanding the mind-body connection, and a desire to listen in more honestly to my self-talk. I was stuck, immobile and had to ask for help.  I spent a lot of time with myself and my journal.

Where do we start to honour the Self? The only place we always have with us, by sitting and grounding, and getting in touch with our breath, with centering, and calming the nervous flutter and the outside noise. By getting quiet, and trusting that voice that calls for Rest.

It takes a great deal of courage, and a lot of chutzpah to put yourself on the agenda. To push away all the items on your to-do list that make you feel worthy, useful, dutiful, responsible, self-less, and take time for Just You, for your creativity, for your sanity, for your inner peace, for your sense of balance.

Why wait till the body forces you to slow down, is the question. Listen to the gentle urgings to treat yourself with tenderness and compassion instead of pushing, striving, and running over your Self with steel-toed boots.

It isn't about what you do, as Jen Louden put it recently in an interview with Amy Bloom, http://www.bloomlifedesign.com/self-care-is-the-missing-ingredient/ but more about a shift in mental attitude.

Get in touch with the desire to be present, to be with yourself, to be your own best Companion. And feel a sigh of relief as you do.  Come home to your Self.

Welcome home.

musemother

THE MUSE MOTHER

Eavan Boland

My window pearls wet.
The bare rowan tree
berries rain.
I can see
from where I stand
a woman hunkering--
her busy hand
worrying a child's face,
working a nappy liner
over his sticky, loud
round of a mouth.
Her hand's a cloud
across his face, making light and rain,
smiles and a frown,
a smile again.
She jockeys him to her hip,
pockets the nappy liner,
collars rain on her nape
and moves away,
but my mind stays fixed:
if I could only decline her--
lost noun
out of context,
stray figure of speech--
from this rainy street
again to her roots,
she might teach me
a new language:
to he a sibyl,
able to sing the past
in pure syllables,
limning hymns sung
to belly wheat or a woman
able to speak at last
my mother tongue.

Treading Air like a Seagull

You should see them r ight now - if I was handy with the camera I'd show you - they are hovering in heavy winds right at the shoreline, waiting for fish, I guess, and holding their wings steady, flapping, falling, rising, essentially in the same spot. 4 of them with white tail feathers and grey wings, playing with the wind.

What I was thinking of earlier this morning was the way the dark brooding skies and white-capped grey water were cut by a bar of light just between the tree tops and clouds. Now that light is gone, and we're moving towards more darkness.

What I was thinking of last week (and re-reading today) was the way the rain floods down the zinc roof and pools on the black earth in the empty flower beds. It overflows the gutters so that it feels like water is dripping from everywhere - the grey of the lake and the grey of the sky are depressing, if I allow it, but since the weather is unusually mild for November it isn't so bad. It's the lack of light and sunshine in winter, that gets me down.

What boosts my energy, mood and immune system - as we head into the dark season - is seeing wonderful white Christmas lights wrapped around the trees in my front yard, and along the outline of the house, transforming it into a fairy-lit land. It finally occurs to me tht we decorate this way because we need the light; it feeds us and since we're still scaredy cats most of us, even adults, and don't like the darkness in winter, we  leave the lights on to comfort ourselves.  Divali, Christmas, Hanukkah candles, it's all about lighting a lamp against the dark.

I am thinking of Christmas also in terms of having to prepare the house, decorate, make food - comfort food to welcome the family hordes and the brand new baby we all are looking forward to seeing, and hopefully to hold - all 28 of us. What will that be like? First Christmas also without Jacqueline, Ninine, great-grandma for the first time, who passed away this July.

In the meantime, I am treading air in time and space, like the seagulls, healing a sore shoulder, resting and napping more than usual, waiting for the creative Festive energy to brighten me up again.

To follow my own advice, I must go with the flow, even in the down times, and accept the resting is needed. The only way out and up is to go down and in.

nameste,
musemother

What do you want?

"Begin doing what you want to do now, we are not living in eternity.
We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-
and melting like a snowflake."  Marie Beyon Ray

What I want

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

–Mary Oliver

Writing with Natalie Goldberg

OK, many of you have read the book. Many of you are practitioners already. For those of you already familiar with the books, I thought I knew what timed writing was all about, having read Wild Mind and Writing down the Bones. I had even taught the exercises in my journal writing classes.

But this weekend at Kripalu, amongst 149 other participants, I learned the discipline of putting it into practise.  Writing is a physical activity, as Natalie often says, and a lot of elbow grease goes into a writing workshop with these repeated 10 minute exercises.  (With a frozen shoulder and irritated nerve in my writing arm, this was a challenge). Natalie would often begin by having us sit for a while in silence, or listening to a song mindfully, then throw us a topic and say Go!

The second part of this discipline was to read one of our short pieces out loud, either to the whole group (some lucky souls did this, shivering in their boots though they may have been, tearful or brave or sans breath). Or more often, in a smaller group of three or four, we read to each other.  In either case, it was very powerful.  No comments, not a workshop, no good or bad. Just listening. Many many healing stories were unlocked this weekend. I felt like just being there amongst these writers we were opening up a vast ear-tunnel to the Universe, with deep truths funneled up to the Compassionate Ear above (or below, or within, who knows).

Some of the prompts were from her book, Old Friend from Far Away. One of the prompts that got me really going was given on the last day, What do you really want to write about?

It sounds so obvious, but after spending all day Saturday writing, exploring the topics that lead to memory and stories and revealed some of the old weights I still carry - it became more and more clear just what my Voice wanted to say. I was given permission to write the worst crap in Massachusetts this weekend, plus I was encouraged to say what I really wanted to say, no matter what. No good, no bad, as Natalie put it so often.  Just listen wholeheartedly, with your whole body. Study the mind....

I hope if you ever want to write you will look up Natalie Goldberg. Her methods are simple but very powerful.  I feel like I grew a backbone this weekend, cleared a space for my truth to be told. No matter what is popular, who is listening, what is going on around me, I learned to fall in love with my particular story and the telling of it, ten minutes by ten minutes....

namaste,
jenn
ps Kripalu is offering another session with her in May.

See her website for details on her workshop schedule or book orders. (http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/index.html).

RAMPAGE of APPRECIATION

Pomegranites growing on a tree, Tuscany

There is no limit to the amount of good advice we are receiving every day through emails, internet, new books out on Self-Healing and Finding more Joy.

But this line caught my eye: going on regular rampages of Appreciation.

I guess it's like Random Acts of Kindness - you don't plan it, you just let yourself loose once in a while, instead of a rant on how awful the world is, the corruption of politicans and the high divorce rate, how rude teens are, etc etc.

What would get me started?

I just love the colour yellow beaming down from a maple tree even this late in November. I love the singular loon circulating on the lake in front of my window. I so appreciate the colour red in all the circulars I get in the mailbox, and on the pomegranites in the Auberge we visited in Tuscany. The silence of the empty trees on the island, shorn of colour, standing, waiting, expecting winter. I especially enjoy entering that silence within, allowing serenity to feel the emptiness. I appreciate the breath that fills my lungs, another day. I love greeting my husband after a long day of work, when we meet in the kitchen and I call out "Daddy's home!" and the dog and cats come running. I appreciate the few times we all have supper together, now that my big girl is working and teaching dance most evenings.

What would send you on a rampage?

nameste
musemother

In Praise of pasta, passion and feeling good

Flicking around in the web universe are some awesome little video clips from a man who has perfected the art of speaking about feeling, about passion, about being human.

Here is a little 7 minute clip worth watching.


nameste, have a happy November 5
Jennifer

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

Finding my Voice in the Silence

It's ironic that in listening to the silence, I find my Voice.

I've been journaling and writing and leading classes on journal writing around this theme. But it just hit me this morning as I read this piece I copied from Heart of the Matter newsletter http://www.heartofbusiness.com/  by Mark Silver.

Silence is not the absence of noise, it is an active presence. If you listen with your heart, you can taste it. Take a moment now and listen for it in your heart.

Under the noise, behind, within the noise, there is a silent presence. It's palpable.
Don't try to grab it. Don't try to hold onto it. Instead, invite it in. Give it permission to take over everything within you, to push aside the noise, to fill you up.
Whatever noise is taking up your attention in this moment, kids, music, Twitter, notice it. Notice all the noise in your space. Take a minute to focus in on each one.
Next, in your heart say "No." If you like you can try the phrase "La ilaha illa'llah," which is pronounced pretty much like it reads. You're not resisting the noise, just acknowledging that all of that hubbub is not the truth.
Third, feel the longing in your heart for silence. Let the longing deepen.

Finally, ask in your heart for help in tasting the silence that is there and allowing it to flood in. Give permission to the silence to master you, to be your anchor.

Now, to some of you this  may seem counterintuitive, but this is how I get in touch with my inner voice, my own wisdom, and my real heart's longing to be whatever I can be. I listen to the silence.

I've spent the last year journalling about the direction I want my life to take, in terms of working with women on retreats or classes, writing and blogging, and this is what appeared finally from out of the void, as My Theme: Finding my Voice.

I can't say it's all that original, but when I look back at my life story, from early beginnings in a large family of eight, to singing like a shy little sparrow in grade school, hiding in my room to play guitar in my teens, coming out of the bedroom to sing for others in my twenties and even write my own songs, to meeting my husband as a new 'guitarist' who could play bar chords so I could sing the songs I loved, to singing to my children when they were little to calm them, entertain them or divert them, to singing in a duo with my husband occasionally today, and performing in public with a barbershop quartet and chorus by night....

I am finding my Voice.

Through writing poetry in my teens, keeping a diary of sorts since around the time I met Jacques 26 years ago, to first applying to a Creative writing program with a very sentimental manuscript of poems, to finally 10 years later publishing a book of poems and birth journal (part of my Master's thesis in Creative Writing), to recording a CD of poems and one with friend and cellist Kim Gosselin, to leading workshops on the Feminine, the Body, and now one called Charting your Journey, through publishing short stories and poems about my own journey and about meditation, menopause, teen sexuality, and every Taboo topic that my mind wants to keep silent and ashamed....I am Finding my Voice.

There, I think I've said it.

I have also been inspired by Janet Quinn's book I am A Woman Finding my Voice, http://www.haelanworks.com/i_am_a_woman_finding_my_voice.htm and by Janet Connor's Writing down the Soul,  http://www.writingdownyoursoul.com/ to mention just a few books I love.

I am very excited about attending a workshop with Natalie Goldberg at Kripalu  http://www.kripalu.org/program/view/WNG-101/old_friend_from_far_away_the_practice_of_writing this November too, on Memoir writing, since the Voice keeps leading me back to my own stories.

And another wonderful on-line resource is http://www.writers.com/ for finding writing workshops and mentors.

So try practising letting the silence be your teacher, and let it help you find Your Voice.Then write, sing, dance it out into the World. Share your Voice, for the world would be a much too silent place if only the best song birds opened their throats and sang (paraphrased from a famous author).

musemother







Bask until the silence leaves. Rinse, repeat if desired.




Let the silence master you.

Home made Retreat

Watching the sun rise over tree tops and leaves gently rustling in the slight breeze - I am ecstatic to be up here in St-Sauveur at my retreat house/chalet, playing house, placing dishes in cupboards, folding sheets and making beds.  It feels like this is 'my own' house, somehow, just for me. Perhaps because I have come up here alone, to honour my work.

It has been decorated simply, white curtains, pine walls, wood floors. It feels homey yet very bare, the way I like it, just add a rug and a few chairs and it will be perfect (we bought it partly furnished, table and couch, beds in place).

I especially love the silence. A good place to meditate, write, prepare my class in.  Yes! a whole day without telephone, email, disruptions, to concentrate on my work. If I can do this once a week it will be so amazing. I am very fed up of schedules and being busy. Am I finally ready to listen in and follow my inner guide? Unplug from the busy world?

What can I hear by listening in, trusting the silence, instead of fearing the emptiness?

Later, I lay outside on a blanket and rested my sore shoulders in the sun. Wearing a brace on right forearm because of irritated nerves from too much typing, lifting, overwork.

Sigh, I want to write and my body is saying, rest. This chalet will be a place for both.

Enter the silence....

musemother

Birthing as Heroic Task

Labour Day weekend brought many parties for us this weekend. Yesterday was Le Bouilli, a traditional harvest supper with loads of vegetables and beef cooked slowly in a huge pot at my brother-in-law's place. The whole family (or almost) was there, including two pregnant nieces. Naturally, the conversation turned towards the coming birth of one of them, due in October.

My childbirth experiences were very different one from the other, and I don't believe in frightening future mother's by telling them in great detail what I went through.  (The second child was born in the car, ten minutes away from the hospital).  But I do clearly remember the labour, the physical work and concentration required of Labour, and the total focus it required of me, and when I began to talk about it, it brought me back to the words of Joseph Campbell, who said giving birth and becoming a mother is a woman's heroic task.

Just like a warrior must focus his mind and conquer his fears before battle, a new mother giving birth brings all of her self to the task. All her courage, all her strength and energy are required.  She does need help and encouragement, yes, the nurses and doulah or companions, her husband can help her remember to breathe, but it is the inner work that gets done that is important, from the quality of her surrender and trust in the body's processes (and the more knowledge of these processes the better), to the letting go of fears of not being capable of passing this threshold.  The journey is dangerous, as the forces within move the baby out into the world from his watery womb space, forcing him to cross the threshold into life outside the safety of his mother's enclosure.  She will be turned inside out too, and perhaps lose all sense of separateness with the world.  All her senses will awaken, and sharpen once he is born, whetted by the cries of her baby, and nothing will ever be the same. It is a spiritual birth of the mother, as well as the physical birth of the child, as they journey together through that tunnel.

For the first few days, if she allows it, she will feel at one with her baby, this being from another planet who has slipped like a fish through her legs.  His eyes will be her mirror, his pain will be her pain. As she tunes into his needs and feels the milk tingle in her breasts even before he wakes, she will either accept or resist this intrusion, this call to selflessness, this giving over of the self to a larger need.

It will be the hardet (or the easiest) thing she will ever do, has ever done.  To give her self to the needs of the vulnerable tyrant at her breast, as they both navigate new territory, and learn how to find contentment and ease together.  What can prepare her?  Focus, concentration, rest, inner strength, conscious letting go of expectations...of fear, of anxiety - allowing life to hold them both in its arms.

To fight this great battle for life by letting go, by surrendering, is kind of  conumdrum. But that's what it takes.

nameste,
musemother