Author: bjukuri

I heard someone talk about writing down the things they learned each week.

I liked this idea.

 

When you think about what you are learning, your week appears different.

 

These are not earth shattering lessons, but just things that struck a cord in me.

I learned how to strap my kayaks down better, by watching the patient care my husband takes, to ensure their security.

I learned from my granddaughter, that smelling the flowers along the ride, make the ride much more beautiful. It isn't how far you ride, but what you see along the way.

Oh, and to dress in ways that make you happy!

I learned on a podcast that it is very hard to not only speak for yourself, but to know you. And, how vulnerable it is to speak from the real you.  Much easier for the mask to be ridiculed, than your Being.  And, it affirmed my walk.

And, yet being the real you is so freeing and joyful, and at the same time a bit scary, but in a good way.

It is like trying to wear a new fashion. A design or color you love, but never dared to wear. Presenting a different you to the world, who is used to mask of your indifference.

It is the newness that can feel intimidating.

Oh, but once you get used to living from your center, you will gather strength, none can take away.

 

I learned that I can have a loaded schedule, and if it is full with what I love, it isn't half as stressful as when it is full of commitments I am half hearted about.

Arrived home on Monday from North Dakota after spending a week with family and a wedding.

Drove to Marquette on Tuesday to hang quilts.

Worked a few days and caught up on chores, watched our granddaughter…

Friday headed out for a two night camping trip with WIND ladies.

Sunday create Art.

Fulfilled moments, full days and loaded week of things I love to do!

 

I learned I love homemade humus, and guinea hen eggs.

When you face each week, looking for things you will be learning, it brings a new focus, a new way to see each day and moment.

What will I learn this week?

 

 

Summer Solstice is today!  

Here is what I found that resonated with me.

This makes Midsummer the ideal time to fully embrace everything that you love about life.

During the summer solstice, the sun is shining bright, love is in the air, and the world is pregnant with pleasure and indulgence.

Today is a perfect day to embrace all the things you love about life.

Family and all our times together.

As I look upon the month of June, I see how much of my life is circled around things I love, and there is very little of what I don't enjoy.

On a podcast, I heard how we are often complacent in regards to our life.  How we manage our time isn't often with great intentions, or perhaps just the lack of saying yes, when we actually feel a strong no.

Through the years I have gotten really good at voicing what I love and even better at saying no, to what I do not.

Life isn't a dress rehearsal, it is moving along each day and being filled with things we say yes to.

We have to learn to take a pause and feel each request in our soul. Is this what I want to spend my life doing?  Is this the space I want to create for my family?  Does this feed my soul and bring energy to me?  Is what I am doing a reflection of my joy or the places I am complacent with my fears?

I love the places I am okay moving into.  Places that are uncertain and unfamiliar and where I am eager to try.

 

 

May this solstice day be filled with everything you love about life!

Tonight I am going on a camping trip with the ladies of WIND. A great circle of women who are living life in new directions, cultivating more of what they love, to live an enriched life.

The perfect way to celebrate Summer Solstice!

Here is to all that you love!

 

 

 

 

 

There is a belief that can stop me from enjoying life. A belief that I need to look a certain way, and that there is a right and perfect weight and size.  

This image and ideal is so ingrained into our society, that we can't even expect or envision an alternative. Let alone celebrate it.

Wonder Wool Skirt – Skirt Sports with leggings!  I love these!

This fake image can stand in front of you as a gate, blocking you from just enjoying life. Loving what your body can do, and celebrating that.

Media and advertisers have been partially to blame for this, but so have many women who believe its truth and strive to achieve size above all things. Who let their fake failure snap away joy from life.

Mirna Valerio is a woman who is breaking down this fake image of what we are supposed to look like in order to be out there enjoying life. She loves to ultra marathons and trail running and is a shining example of body size doesn't mean

https://www.instagram.com/themirnavator/?hl=en

Reflective Safety Jacket – skirt sports

Each time I am out on my bike and I appear bigger than many who typically ride, I believe I am showing others, it is possible to ride bikes no matter your size.

And, actually in all the physical spaces. Okay, and not physical spaces. It is very important to own and feel completely okay being who you are.

It is so silly to be upset that you are not a fake size.

There are a few companies that recognizes women of all sizes enjoy being active and outside.

https://www.skirtsports.com   and https://nuu-muu.com

These companies make me feel like I do belong out there. I have outfits that make my outdoor experience so much more enjoyable. 

The bottom line is that we all are unique and beautiful in our own ways. I will not let the image others believe of me, stop me from being outside and enjoying all the new places being active has brought me.

My size hasn't changed, but my view of myself has.  And, my view of life.

I love that my seasons are now viewed by all the activities I enjoy.

Do not let the fake image in your mind keep you from the beauty of movement.

 

 

 

 

 

Memorial Day is often about those who fought for our freedom, and less about whether we are using the Freedom they fought for.  If we are trying to eliminate freedoms from others, what did they fight for?

It seems that we want freedom for others, as long as those freedoms align with our beliefs.

We want others to be free to be just like us.

 

What if we instead allowed others to be free.

Truly free.

Free to be unlike us.

Free to believe differently.

Free to look differently

Free to be religious or spiritual in ways they find peace, not in your God's Peace.

Free to do what is right in their lives, with their own bodies and to celebrate love in ways they feel most loved.

How broad is your sense of freedom?

Whose freedom are you trying to control in order for your beliefs to be right.

 

I became much less judgmental after losing my religion.

And, the less control I want over others, the more allowing I can be.

 

The more I want to be me with integrity, the more I want to honor others and their paths.

I don't have to agree with everyone.

I don't have to like everyone.

I however, want everyone to be free to be themselves.

Regardless of how it appears to me and the rest of the world.

Many have died for our freedom, so let's allow each of us the freedom to be!

There is a wall of inertia surrounding an abused child. Many immobile adults who are standing between the child and their freedom, and yet we as a society are wanting the child to speak up. To tell.  And, to keep telling until someone hears.

We are placing the blame upon the child to end the inertia surrounding the act of criminal sexual assault of a child.

The child is the one who has to keep telling in order to get the adults moving.

To speak louder, to try harder, to be more eloquent, and unless you can be heard, you are the reason that your perpetrator will act again.

 

When will we as a society look at the wall of inertia.

What we are also believing is that the wall of inertia contains adults WHO DON’T KNOW.

I am beginning to believe, it is very rare for a case about sexual abuse upon a child, to be unknown.  Someone knows, someone has been told, but that someone choses to not to believe, or believes, but Choses to not move on it.

In order to eradicate sexual abuse or abuse against children we need to bang on the wall of inertia.  And, make it a crime to know and do nothing.

This wall of inertia appears to be deaf and blind. It appears to not know what is happening. It appears to not care what is happening. It appears that the lives of the children do not matter. It appears insane at best.

I can’t know what will begin to break down this inertia, what will start to make adults see the child over their own needs.  What will it take?

For sadly, in most cases, the perpetrator IS someone the child knows. Someone in the inner circle of the family.  Which is partly to blame for the inertia. What person wants to act like they believe their family member or friend IS a criminal? Who wants to act like that criminal should not be around children, perhaps be arrested and put in jail. Which of your family members do you want to see this happen to. What priest of yours do you want to see behind bars.

WE don’t move, because we love them, trust them and  they are our family or friends.

And we pretend, that if we can have the children speak louder and clearer to someone who will have the courage to put them in jail, we can end abuse.

WE don’t want to look at ourselves. WE don’t want to see how our own boundaries are weak and where we do not hold others accountable for their actions.

WE don’t want to see how our relationships have many places where we did not do the right thing, but the easy thing and overlook and look around poor behavior.

Let us please instead, look at the child behind our wall of inertia.

We don’t want to move or act or speak of abuse, BUT we expect a child to do it for us.

 

It is time for us to stop blaming the child for our inertia.

As adults we have the responsibility for our actions or the lack thereof.

We are the ones who place boundaries, not the children.

It is not up to the children to end abuse.

It is up to the adults in their lives to stop engaging with adults who hurt children.

 

I want to give permission to the children who have suffered sexual abuse to just be.  It isn’t your fault. You are free from blame. We have been looking in the wrong direction for much too long.

 

We instead need to look intensely at the adult surrounding the child.

We rarely look upward to see those surround the child and what they are doing or not doing and more WHY?

Why is there a wall of inertia around a child who has been assaulted?

The child in the middle is merely showing us the truth of what we have allowed in our lives.

I misspoke in my last blog, about Mothers who suffer to do right by their children. I do not believe this is true. It isn't suffering as we think of suffering. It feels so different. It feels constructive and empowering – while being hard and tiring.

I believe that women who are unable to find the courage to do right by their children will suffer much more. They may even experience becoming estranged from them, due to their lack of seeing their child's needs.

The un-natural mothering of being so self-absorbed is the cause to much suffering.

What I believe to be true, is that neither is easy, but one will have the outcome of a child who feels connected to their parent.

Part of the dysfunctional family is self-absorption, due to their own childhood trauma.  And, they then in turn mother in a motherless way.  Leaving their child feeling unseen, just as they were unseen.  Hence the cycle of dysfunctional legacy.

Being so self absorbed, that you can't see your own child, is a blindness to other's needs and this itself IS a sign of your own abuse.  Your inability to put aside your own life routine, in order to take care of your child's needs.

I am privilege to know grandmothers who are contributing greatly to the lives of their grandchildren, due to the needs of their own children. They are easing the burden of childcare, in order to make less stress upon their child -while making their own lives MORE stressful.  And, more adventurous and living with the purpose of love of their child and grandchild.

What I see is that the wisdom of their own lives, flowing down to the next two generations.

A grandmother who  steps in with grace.

Life is about exchanges. 

Like I have written about caring for my granddaughter, there are times when the selfish part of me wants its attention.  However, its needs are so empty compared to the rewards I have gotten being a bigger part of my daughter and granddaughters life.

There is a cost on both ends, whether your self absorption doesn't allow you to place the long term wellness of your child ahead of your own. It is my belief, you will lose the real connection of seeing you child and being seen by your child.

I see you and you matter to me, is priceless.

As grandmothers who have raised children, often our siblings and then our own, we are just plum tired of the idea of taking care.  However, what I have found on this third time around, that I can teach and play during out time together.

We are both excited about the hours we spend, either doing art, hiking, snowshoeing, hiking and now biking. What a gift I have been given.  

It isn't easy to navigate free of the selfishness and self-absorption that being unseen by our mothers caused.  We wrongly believe that being selfish is self loving. 

I am not certain I can articulate the depth and breadth of transcending this entails.

To ignore or quiet the neglected self and reach out to help another.

And, I believe we can still whine about being tired. 

We are. 

It isn't easy.  

And, don't they often say the harder road is one where change happens.

The easy road is to do what was done to you.

Anyway.  

Happy Mother's Day to the badass grandmothers who are kicking it.

Who are not only watching their grandchildren, but are outside doing fun things!

We are rewarded with the awesome relationship we have with this child.

I mean – I am one of her Besties!

And, more I know at the end of the day, I am doing my utter best to do what I can to fulfill a need that wasn't planned.

The slower pace of being old, often matches the slower pace of being young.

We also get a chance at another childhood, at a slower pace and with more wisdom to realize the small things are what living is about.