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My mind has been spinning with the Ruling on Friday, that everyone is talking about.  How the Gays now have the same rights as the rest of us folks.  

What took awhile to bubble up to the surface is this isn't about the Gays at all.  

Anti-Gay laws weren't created by the Gay people.

Gays were not acting in a manner that justified their treatment.

They literally are doing what comes natural in love….for them. 

Their love looks different than other love.  

But, it is love.

Isn't it insane that at one time, like a week ago, there was a law that defined love?

And, even more insane, was that at one time, I too agreed with this law.

The strict religion I was raised in had a narrow view on love. 

Love was restricted to a man and a woman.

The religion felt they owned love…and if you didn't love like they loved, you were not equal; but less.

What I have also thought of during these past few days is that there is no way that loving Gay people can be a threat.  

A threat to what?

In my relationship with my husband, having loving Gay people marry will not lessen what we have.  I do not feel threatened or less because of the ruling.

In fact, oddly, I feel more ashamed.

Ashamed that I am part of the percentage of the population who have allowed them to be second class citizens.  I am part of the 'regular' love folks who have waltz on our merry way to marry.

Not only to marry but to have the rights to our partners health care and to be able to be there for medical emergencies….etc

I took for granted the rights they were denied…with their loving life partners.

I was part of the populations that denied them the rights.

Like it didn't matter…that much, cause it didn't affect me.  It was just the way it was.

I accepted where I was….as much as where they couldn't go.  Without thought or question…it just was.  And, without too much consideration on how it was to be them.

Mostly, in the debate, how often can you sit in the other chair?

Do you see what their side feels like?

When you are on the side that is oppressing…do you feel those who are oppressed?

I knew of their inequality, but I didn't feel I was part of their oppression, yet I was.

I was raised to see them differently.   

What also came to me is that my narrow mind is now wide open.  

I had liberated the Gays long before the ruling.  They were not as I was taught, but rather they were just like me.  Equal human beings…who loved.

How many of the conservative christian people have been taught like me….to see them as different.  NOT that they are different.

That is the difference.

We are taught to see wrongly and then call them wrong.

Love was never in the context of Gays when I was young.  It was as if their very nature was wrong, not even that they loved differently, but they were just wrongly put together.

Here is what I do believe is threatened and rightly so…(or its about time).

What is threatened is the lucidity of wrong thinking.

This wrong thinking has got to be exposed for what it is.

The narrow minded closed thinkers uncomfortable with differences people will feel the odd looks now. 

For they will become the minority of folks who believe that love can only be between a man and woman….and only they are entitled to benefits by their love union.

Perhaps the difference will now be between those who see love and not the gender of the lovers.

I know this will not come easy to folks who, like me have been taught to see them differently.  But, it is up to us…for it was us who made them different.

We have to be uncomfortable with different…until we expand and feel the space for all to enter in…in love.

What I want to impress upon those who have been labeled different.  You didn't attach the label, we did.

You are and have always been you.

We made you different…not you.

You naturally love how you love.

We have un-naturally created a world that rejects you.

For this, I am sorry.

I am sorry for agreeing to see you differently…and for not seeing love.

It is my hope, that IF my narrow minded thinking can widen….so too can the world.

I am proof it can be done.

Love wins…over different!

I can see there may be a series…."Love Wins!"

 

 

 

 

My morning began in Eagle Harbor waiting for my walking partner….as you can see the clouds stayed over the lake and sunshine shone on our walk.

We signed up to walk from Copper Harbor to Eagle Harbor…which we thought (were told) was 12 miles.

12 miles had me pondering the possibility of me being able to complete this walk…whose benefits go to our local Women's Shelter Home…

And, so we began…a beautiful day for a walk and talk with a friend.

This was our one and only sit down break on the walk. About maybe 10 mins.

The rest was walking.  If you have ever driven the road between Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor, you might remember the 'gentle hills' and curves.  Our little feet stepped the whole way.

When we passed the second road to Brockway Mountain, we were told, we were walking 14 miles, not 12. 

And, while this picture isn't good, you can read the sign….yes, we at least walked 14….but, we started at the end of town and ended at the end of town….  My step counter on my phone today read "35,544 Steps"  which is 16.95 miles!  That is the furthest, I recall ever walking!  

A first for Me!

Here are our smiling faces at mile marker 13 and a half or perhaps 14!

And here we are at the finish line!  Completed!!!  We were last and there were cheers….we Made IT!

Thanks Michele for inviting me to walk and for knowing I could do it!  I am sticking with I walked 16.95 miles today!  

Oh, and Michele has the fitbit and it recorded we walked equal to 100 flights of stairs with the hills along the way!  I am tougher than I gave myself credit for!

Completed this quilt last night, and this morning she is on her way to Duluth!

In naming the Art, I sometimes just use a woman's name or it is a feeling or idea of what is portrayed.

I am wondering what to call her.  I love the "Passing Time" or perhaps Using Time for things you love.

Loving Times?

Sometimes names seem to put boxes around the ideas and without a name, the viewer can be free to feel and express without being led.

I will sit with this and maybe her name will come.

 

 

Many people in the UP are waking up and are disappointed, for their minds were wrong, again.  If you feel completely distraught due to the bright white ground and decorated trees, it is because you think it should be different.

You think it should be green.

You think there should be blue skies and flowers…

When instead you see white…and grey and brown mud puddles leaking through the snow…you will be crushed.

This is how the mind gets ahead of reality and plans it out and then is so disappointed when reality doesn't match what it thought.

How hard will it be to give up what your mind thought and enjoy THIS day as it is.

To accept what is as it is.

Will you put on mud boats and go and get your winter jacket and gloves; grateful that you have the correct clothing?  Or will you lament about the Spring stuff you can't wear today?

Will you sulk at home and do nothing, cause the weather is poor?

Or, will you use this day inside to do inside stuff?  Will you play with wild colors to offset the monochrome day?  Will you add color or sparkle to your outfit to brighten up the day?

This is my was my Morning View….breath taking in its perfection for today.  My mind isn't fighting it.

I know better.  

Reality wins only 100% of the time…says, Byron Katie.

My mud boots are happy, it is their turn!

 

"Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle they need to overcome.  Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live." Eckhart Tolle

 

Wouldn't this also be called…wishing your life away?

I found this quite remarkable, for we don't often count this moment as part of our life.  We tend to only count the moments we like or the ones we feel match what our mind believes is perfect. The rest we try and overlook or force ourselves to live through.

It is quite remarkable to note how many of your moments are you with.

And also to take notice of how you feel in these moments of time. For, it will show how you Feel about your life.

If, the majority of your time is trying to overlook, there is a good chance that you are not happy in your life and instead of making changes, you are wishing your life away.

Wishing for it to pass.

It is in an odd way, wishing to die.

For you are not fully embracing the joy of living.

It makes me wonder about how life gets to the place where you wish it would go away?

How did things get so out of control, that your very life is an obstacle you need to overcome, instead of wanting to be with it.

To be with your life…to be with you.

I wonder if it is more that you are trying to overcome the truths by getting to the next moment.  And, while you are hurrying there, you are missing your life…missing your truth and you.

Here is what I have learned through embracing the truth of my past, is that my present moments are so much fuller.  I can see, feel and be with them all.

I am more alive.

For, I am not hiding from the present…for the past shows up in the present until you acknowledge it.  The truth is relentless, it shadows you until you make peace with it.

My work week just grew to six days a week, every week…so my weekends now will be one day long.

However, the good news of this, is that I have to use more of my week days to have fun.  I can't save it for the weekends.

It is like the weekends disappeared, so there is only this day.  I will have to live like all days are weekend days.

When I first heard of this I was crestfallen for sure, to lose half of the weekend.  It felt like part of my life was taken away.  I had to find a way to see this differently and to adjust.

So, instead of saving my life for the weekends, I will live today. Live this moment to the fullest.  I will have to have 6 Saturdays and 1 Sunday.

No more overcoming today….but coming to this day.

 

 "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ... Mary Oliver

 

 

 

Feelings are unexpected guests that arrive, they just hop in and depending upon what is going on, they join the moment…you can't plan for them or invite them, they just arrive.

They arrive with announcements or do they announce the event?

Somedays we have many guests.  

Other days it seems we can go along without feeling.

Monitoring these feelings or welcoming them is at times is a tricky landscape.

Last night while watching innocent appearing home videos of the children when they were young, voices of my past rang out.

It was surreal.

The juxtaposition to see our kids as little children and their delightful antics and personalities were mixed in with my estranged family…and my feelings of today striking up against mine from the past.

A very odd mixture for sure.

To see a life I barely recognize and yet at once familiar.

To feel my children's familiar trust with a family whose patterns of abuse are clearly now known.

How odd as a parent to witness my allowing of those relationships. 

We didn't see them all, just a few.  I don't know what else I recorded….and sadly then how much I didn't.

The thing my video lens did not record IS the most life defining.

It wasn't the cute children doing what children do.

It's the irresponsible behavior of the adults.  

Adults in denial.  

Adults trying to keep peace. 

Adults being vigilant and yet so very careless with the spirits and lives of so many children.  To see them as children…so trusting.  And, now knowing them as adults and seeing their lives and choices made.  Knowing still how abuse has speckled their worlds; marked by the unaddressed at the time….abuse.

I can see the hand my choices have made.

I can see how I brought them to my family of abuse.

I didn't bring them to abuse; I brought them to family.  I shared my children with family.  Yet, I unwittingly connected them to folks who are incapable to hold sacred their trust.

In the midst of this past review a call came in my husband's aunt passed away.

An aunt who I have gotten to know in the past few years.

A friend.

It was as if my body was swirling with feelings; too many to feel.

The easy one was to hold my granddaughter and feel this.

I had just read in David Hawkin's book "Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender" about feelings.

"First we have to be aware of what is really going on inside of us before we can do anything about it. As we let go of a feeling, it is replaced by a higher one.  The only purpose for recognizing and admitting a feeling is so that we can relinquish it.  To be surrendered means that w are willing to relinquish a feeling by allowing ourselves just to experience it and not to change it. Resistance is what keeps it there in the first place."  David

I had lots to feel. But, they were coming in too fast to really experience, or so it seems.

It was like I was on a ride of feelings.  

Feel this….and let it go.

Feel this. Feel this. Feel this.  Like a smorgasbord of feelings flooding in a very short amount of time.  Past, present, old relationships, gone relationships, passing friend….new grandchild, children, family, estranged family….an onslaught, too much to hold.

It was as if I was challenged to feel and was quickly given another. Feel and then change to a vastly different one.  All the while on edge to what was going to be filmed next, who was going to pop up.  And staying present in the room; while being transported back.  Being me and seeing the old me and my old life…while in the present.

Feelings are just guests giving us a message….we are to experience them as they are and not try to change them.

I have learned to accept what is.

Just at times, this acceptance is harder to accept.

Last evening I had many guests…all bringing different feelings.

 

 

 

 

Because of you, I didn't walk alone.

Because of you, I was heard.

Because of you, I had fear, but said what I needed to say…fearlessly!

Because of you, I embraced my uniqueness.

Because of you, I stood taller, breathe deeper and dared do things beyond my experiences.

Because of you I do yoga.  

Because of you I read books on spirituality and consciousness and healing.

Because of you I am fearless in my art.

Because of you I know my back is always covered.

Because of you I know my past deeper, clearer and with compassion.

Because of you, I am Me…with free self expression and love.

Because you have given me love…just as I am.

Your journey, your strength and courage, your honesty and unflinching stare at our dysfunctional mind… inspires me!  

Because of you I dare be all of me!

 

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about."

I believe we can now play in this field!

Happy Birthday Carl!

 

 

 

 

As I sat with David Hawkins words ("Fear of the future no longer exists when the past has been healed.) for the past few days, I can see how childlike it appears in its truth and yet so very hard to actually execute.  It isn't for the faint of heart or for those who are 'protecting' their future and current relationships and the status quo.  It is for those who are afraid of delivering to the next generation a life they have lived; to pass on the same exact set of beliefs and programs they are trying to rid themselves of.  It is for those who are the changelings.  Who are more terrified of repeating their parents lives and for that reason alone will walk this journey, moment by moment.

I know it has to be difficult to believe, but all the work is done inwardly.  It doesn't require you to change anyone; but yourself.

You are the common denominator in everything you live.  Sadly and happily, there is no one to blame but you.

What I know for sure, is that my journey of the past ten years has been all about me.

Certainly, others were affected as the new me could no longer tolerate old behaviors but that is about me. 

Knowing this is about you and you, you don't have to wait for others in order to change.  

In fact, others continued doing what they did, regardless of my needs and desires.  They continued on in their worlds….showing me what I too needed to do.

If we break this down into the usual changes, you can see how this works.

How your present and past do affect the future.

When I do yoga today and yesterday, it will bring me a stronger more flexible body in my future.

If I don't…I get a weaker one.

When I say yes when I want to say no, I get a future of pretend relationship with myself. I lied and I get a woman that lies.

To be an artist in the future, I do art today and yesterday.  If I don't be an artist today, then my future will be free of art.

Just as it is with how I viewed my past.  If all I see is me as a victim….a victim I will be in the future.  If instead I see how I used others for my happiness and worth…and used ones who didn't honor me, I can make new choices.  I can put up boundaries for my own worth and become more worthy in my future.

If I have rage and anger about my past, I will bring that into my future. This happened.  My childhood unexpressed rage was present in a future 40 years later.

Until I had expressed my feelings, accepted it and understood the abuse from all points of light….the abuse kept showing up in my future.

It is only there to bring us to awareness. 

Once aware and acknowledged and accepted…its message delivered, and the lesson learned…it quiets down.  

It was only trying to get our attention to what was off. What we didn't see or understand of reality.  The louder the voice and emotion, the further away it appears we are from our self and truth.

While I didn't know this concept or the terminology of David Hawkins, I followed my truth and the feelings within my body.  It led me out of denial. I led me to a new future by doing something new.

If I had denied my abuse…my denial would have continued on.

What most feel is that you have to acknowledge it with your mind….and it is to be free of denial.

Instead, you have to acknowledge it with actions.  You have to do differently, speak differently, require different values and have different boundaries.  Accepting it in your mind is but a small percentage.  

To say you were abused and then to continue on with your life unchanged will not get you a new future.  In the new future, you may be the mother instead of the child; but it will be a mirror image of you.

It is like saying or acknowledging in your head you need to work out or do more yoga, or eat better….but then not follow it up with actions.  Will it be enough to know in your mind you are out of shape and then magically get in shape?

I know that if I do yoga daily, I will continue to reap what I sow.

"We indeed are the change we wish to see in the world"….our world.

At the time of each small but very hard change, I couldn't see ahead into a future, it was all I could do to get through the next moment. But moment by moment I was creating a future where I live today.

 

I Understand Why People Believe Sexual Predators Rather than Victims—I Did | Alternet.

As I sit at the end of another year, 55 years living, I am very grateful for where I sit…mentally, emotionally, and especially spiritually.  I feel that I have grown into the space of appreciating my journey and loving me.

I can also see me from many points light…and most often from an expanded view and ever more often with the eyes and heart of love.

For me, there isn't a troubled area that needs my attention today.  Nor, are there places that I feel lack and neglected and unseen and unheard…by me.

I see me.

I feel me.

I am with Me.

My personality and soul seem to be traveling arm and arm.

I will be doing a daily meditation following Melody Beattie's book "Journey to the Heart" this year.  And in the forward she writes about her experience of writing this book…

"In my sixteen years of professional writing, this is the eighth book I've worked or collaborated on and the second meditation book I've written. Yet it is the first.  It is the only one that has not been based on, rooted in, grounded in, the concept of overcoming devasting pain.  Instead, the book, like my journey reflects a spirit of excitement, adventure, freedom, and joy.  Yes, sometimes pain is still part of it, but suffering no longer plays the role it once did."  Melody

I feel this is where I am.

My journey through last year and continuing on is one of adventure, excitement, new experiences, new friends, new learning, more freedom of expression and joy.

Joy of seeing my children continue to grow and learn new experiences and go through phases of life's milestones.  Joy of being with my kids.  Of hearing them laugh and seeing the wisdom pour forth.  Of doing what they love and to express themselves As themselves; being unique.

I am beginning to see the seeds that I have planted in those early years beginning to sprout.  

I believe that my changes are rippling outward, inward….around.

I leave 2014 with no regrets and instead marvel at the orchestrations of the Universe, my life and journey…and look forward to what 2015 will present to me.

I have no resolutions or demands for next year.

I am content and quite grateful for today.

It is my intention to stay present.

To pay attention to the artful displays of nature and life unfold.

Melody says her book is about Discovery.

Imagine what is going on in each moment of time…how much can you see, feel and hear?

I am more excited about being here now….and letting the future be here when I get here.  For this is where the real thing is….right here, right now, with who you are with!