This post is a bit rambling and mostly just a little random!  A little Halloween poem is included though!  And pictures!

It’s just one week until Halloween!  I bought 3 big pumpkins to carve – well, actually the carving fun was just secondary.  I LOVE this time of year because I love roasted pumpkins seeds.  But I only really like the ones I make myself.  The store bought ones just aren’t as good.

Today, I settled in to cut and carve and gut and roast away!  4 big pans of seeds later I have weeks worth of pumpkins seeds to enjoy and 3 pumpkins semi-carved and painted for my front step.

I must admit, I vastly overestimated my pumpkin carving skills.  As I do every year.  This year I started out attempting to carve a short little poem into them.  I made it though the first line.  Then I scrapped that pumpkin (sort of) and decided to paint the poem on the other two & carved some diamond/stars with it.

The fun, playful mood I was in today helped break my stuckness with poetry writing (and writing in general), I think.  I’ve not written much in the last couple weeks despite daily attempts to do so.  I’d get lines or phrases or ideas that were great, then when I sat down to write.  Nothing.  Or just plain crappy writing.  I sense a shift on the horizon, however, and expect that tomorrow’s writing time will go much better.  Yay!    I’ve missed my writing.

So, here’s my little Halloween poem (and pictures!)!

Jack O’ Lantern

Jack O’ Lantern
Light my stoop
Shine the path
For friends follow
To my open door
Where love awaits

My coach is always encouraging me to make decisions quickly and then to act on them.  Her theory is that we already know what we want.  She says the reason we make decisions difficult is because either we’re scared of the answer we’re getting or because we’ve buried our true desires under so many shoulds and supposed tos that we can’t hear the part of us that knows anymore.

My decision-making tendencies make my coach laugh.  I agonize and dance around the decision, then once I make it – straight into action.

Decide I need to quit my job?  24 hours later, done.

Difficult discussion/news to share?  3 hours later, done.

Decide to start a new business?  On it.

Decide I really do need to change my eating habits?  Looking up information and mentally cleaning out my kitchen cabinets before we’re off the phone.

Unfortunately before I can get to the action part, I have to make the decision.  I’m quite skilled at making the making of decisions agonizing and dramatic .

I have gotten better at making decisions.  Over that last year I’ve begun to uncover the secret to making decisions.  Actually, it’s not so much a secret as it is an art to making decisions.

Well, actually, it’s mostly just basic self-care.  As in, taking care of myself so I can hear the part of me that already knows the answer.  (Oh, yeah.  That.)

Emily’s 4 Essential Practices to Making Good Decisions:

Sleep

Sounds simple.

It is.

When I am tired and worn out and cranky from lack of good, quality sleep – I do not make decisions that honor my true wants and needs.  I get cranky and whiney and frustrated trying to make decisions when I’m tired.

When I’m rested and energized from a good night’s sleep?  Decisions are easier and answers come much more quickly and clearly.

Listen to your body

I have a tendency to be all up in my head sometimes.  I forget that my body is very wise and helpful when I listen to it.

When I pay attention, my body will let me know if something is what I really want or not.  For me, it’s usually a heaviness or tightness in the chest for a “nope, not yours to do” and a lightness or fluttering in my chest for a “absolutely, yes, yes, yes!”

This is the “shackles on, shackles off” test from one of my favorite books, “Steering by Starlight” by Martha Beck. (I highly recommend it – both the book and the test!) Some people get their answers in different parts of their body like their solar plexus or stomach or throat.

Sometimes what my body tells me is the complete opposite of what my head says – experience has taught me that my body is almost always right.

Eating Regularly

This is the one that trips me up more often than not.

I feel the best physically, mentally, and emotionally when I eat at regular intervals – usually no longer than 4 hours between meals/snacks.  (Case in point – writing this I realized that it had been more than 4 hours since I’d last eaten and I’m noticing I’m becoming more easily distracted…brown rice, black-eyed peas, and steamed greens are now cooking as I type!)

Eating regularly (and healthy) keeps the body functioning at top level, which translates into fewer emotional ups and downs and greater mental clarity.  And an increased likelihood I’ll listen to my body and that voice inside that knows the answers I’m seeking.

As someone who is prone to bouts of fear and panic, this stability is essential!

Get moving!

I hate the word exercise.   I dislike actually exercising almost as much.

I do it because I like the benefits of exercising. (To get around my resistance of it, I call it things like working out, going to the gym, being active, training, etc.  Splitting hairs, but it gets past my rebellious side and gets me moving!)

Getting out and moving regularly – going to the gym, having a session with my personal trainer, doing Tai Chi, or going for a hike – has the same benefits as eating regularly.  I’m more stable emotionally and clearer mentally.  I feel calmer and more peaceful in my day-to-day living.

The physical benefits of increased strength, balance, and weight control are really just secondary to the emotional and mental benefits for me!

Making decisions is simply a part of life.  Big ones, little ones, and all those in between.  I can choose to make them agonizing and dramatic.

Or I can follow my own practices and make decisions with ease and clarity.  And live a much more peaceful, balanced, and happy life

Some thoughts that came as I curled on my deck chair wrapped in a quilt watching the sunrise on this chilly, foggy Saturday morning in Asheville, NC

Light to Light

A shroud of ghostly fog
Encases the mountains in quiet
Stillness reigns beneath the mist
Layers of white upon white
Shift before my eyes

I relax into the quiet
Steadiness of heartbeat
Grounds me in midst of the wistfulness

As the east begins to glow
And golden streams
Filter through the shroud
An energy begins to stir
Awakening

Ball of gold
Arises slow over trees
Melting away the dreamy mist

Layers of white
Bleed into streaks of color
Pink and gold and blue
Energy of awakening
Burns away the quiet

Rays of light reach out
Send rainbows bouncing
Off drops of dew

Mysteries of the ghostly mountain
Burst to life
As fiery light arises
Awakens all the land
Burning red and orange and golden hues

Heartbeat quickens
As the shifting energy flairs
Shining my light forth to greet light

I believe that everything I could want in life is already here.  All the love, the joy, the peace, the wealth, the opportunities, every tangible and intangible things I could possibly want is already mine.  I just don’t always see them yet.  I don’t have to make things happen, I don’t have to earn them, I don’t have to get them, or struggle to find them.

Everything I want and need is already present in my life.  I just need to open up and allow them to become visible to me.  The world moves to bring me everything I want and need when I open up and say yes to them.  When I say yes to the experience of these things I want, these things are drawn to me and I am carried to them.  When I say yes, the actions that are mine to take to reveal these things to me easily appear before me.  When I say yes, the taking of those actions is effortless and joyful.

All I have to do is say yes to the gifts that are already here for me.  Yes.

Say Yes

Sit and breathe the damp and mist
Feel my soul light shining bright
Quiet air that surrounds
Rich and full with gifts abound
More love
Than ever dreamed possible
More wealth
Than ever known before
Radiant joy
That fills me to overflowing
Wisdom
Beyond all bounds
All of these and so much more
Endless in the air I breathe
Waiting
Quietly waiting
For me to open the door
And say –
Yes.

One of my favorite things about this past year is the time I’ve taken to really pay attention to the shifting seasons.  It was such a joy to watch how winter bloomed into spring and spring warmed into summer.  It was amazing to take my walks and hikes every day and see how the world around my shifted from day to day – the subtle changes that signal the changes in seasons.  It helped ground me and center me in a way I’ve never experienced before.

And now I’m watching as summer drifts into autumn.  The leaves are turning to red and gold and yellow.  The air is beginning to cool and become more crisp.  I’m pulling out my favorite sweaters and jeans and sweatshirts (yay!).  The sun is rising later and setting earlier.

My acupuncturist was talking the other day about how connected our bodies are to nature and, therefore, to the seasons.  If we come from the earth – whether you believe in evolution or in creation (both say we came from the earth!) – then our bodies are part of the earth and, therefore, connected to the changing of the seasons.

Since my conversation with my acupuncturist, I’ve been pondering what the different seasons signal to me and how my body and mind respond to them.  Winter is about rest and going within.  This last winter was probably the first time I honored that – and it’s probably a huge part of how centered and grounded I have felt this year.  Spring is growth and rebirth and new beginnings.  Summer is action and brightness and energy.

Autumn is a bit more paradoxical to me.  It’s a lot about release and letting go and clearing out the old.  It’s about filling the well and preparing for the season of rest and introspection (winter).  And it’s also about beginning anew.  It’s about gathering up all that I planted in the spring and harvesting it.  In the space that is created when I harvest, there is the opportunity for new ideas and new ventures to shine as bright as the autumn leaves.  Autumn is clearing out the old so the new can shine in the spotlight.

What do the seasons mean for you?  What gifts do you find in them?

Autumn Gifts

Listen to the rain
Patter on the roof
Like confetti tossed from the sky

Celebrate the changing seasons
And all the gifts they bring

These days the air is shifting
From brilliant blooms of summer
To autumn leaves of change

Slowing down
For the old to fall away
Easing into the winter rest
That fills the well within

Take all that falls away this autumn
And send it down the river flow
In the rain
And crisp cool air
Let the water carry it away

As the confetti rains on down
Lift your voice to sing

For in the clearing of the autumn change
Space is made anew
And the light inside does shine through
Ever more brightly still

Have you ever set a deadline for yourself and then missed it? Or decided on a way of doing something and later realized that it was no longer working for you?  Your mind races around going “Oh my god I missed my deadline!  I’ll never get it done in time and everything will fall apart!” and “I want to do it like this now but I can’t because I decided that this is how I would do it.”

This places huge boulders of stress for your shoulders and creates panic that has your mind running marathon sprints.  You race around like crazy trying to get things done and get even more frenzied.  You worry constantly, bolt up in the middle of the night in a panic and bemoan the fact that you want to change how you doing things but you can’t.

Or perhaps that’s just me.

I’ve found myself doing this recently for a couple of things.  One of which was this blog.  When I initiated this blog it was specifically for the challenge I’d given myself to write a poem a day for one year.  I haven’t been doing a poem every day for several months but have still been devoting this blog exclusively to my poetry. That was the rule I’d put in place.

However, for a little while now I’ve been thinking about writing and sharing other thoughts and ideas – blog posts about things I’ve learned in life and especially over the last couple years.  But I couldn’t because this blog was ONLY for my poetry.  Mixing a little in when it was related to a poem was one thing – doing posts without a poem was against the rules.

My rules.

My self-imposed limitations.

When I finally saw the unnecessary stress and upset I was causing myself, I completely cracked up and started laughing. I also saw several other areas of my life I’d been erecting unnecessary limitations.

I set the limitations.  I can choose to change them – or to get rid of them completely.

When I remembered this, I started laughing and it was as if a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.  I felt as if I’d been set free from a cage.  I can do whatever I want to do with this blog.  I can do whatever I want to do about my living situation.  I can do whatever I want to do with anything in my life.

Most of the limitations I experience in my life are put there by me.  When I realize this – the freedom I experience in my life is given to me by me as well.

How fun is that?

What self-imposed limitations are you allowing to hold you back today?

I was feeling very sentimental-ish yesterday and started thinking about how much I completely adore my life these days.  It is such a shift from where I was at a year ago!  It’s so common to hear people talking about how they hate their jobs, their relationships are crappy and stressful, they don’t have enough money or time or whatever, they never get to have any fun, etc, etc.

You know what I realized?

I don’t have any of that to complain about anymore.  I created a business doing something that I love that is fun and effortless.  While I don’t have a romantic relationship in my life right now, the relationships I do have are amazing.  Everyone that is a significant part of my life is supportive, positive, uplifting, encouraging, and loving.  The people in my life who were cynical or complainers or just negative in general have simply fallen away.  I always have everything I need and, because I’m selective with what I say yes to, I have more than enough time for all the things that matter.  I have plenty of time to work, to write like crazy, to hike, to spend time with great people, to nap, to read, to play, and all I want to do.  My life is filled with fun and laughter and delight.

Does this mean I never worry or feel stress?  No.  That happens.  And there are times I clash with people in my life.  There are times when I get to choose between two things I want to do because they are both happening at the same time.  There are times when I don’t feel like doing the more mundane parts of my business. There are things that I want in and for my life that I don’t seen before me just yet.

Those things occur.  AND they are drowned out by the sheer pleasure and joy that is my life.  It’s not a big, bursting, exuberant type of joy.  It’s a quiet, peaceful sense of joy that brings a smile and lightness to my soul as I simply go about the days of this beautiful life.

I love my life.

Quiet Joy

The days slide by filled with tasks and time
And things I do
People come and people go
Lists are made
Then thrown away

I glance up in the morning light
Pen caught in my hand
Assembles words page after page
As I pause to listen
I am flooded
With quiet joy from within

Fingers fly over letters and keys
Words flung out into a world of connection
Person to person
Business to person too
A web of interconnection
World of possibility and synchronicity
Often with a sweet tickle of laughter

Scent of earth and green
Colors so bright
All my senses are flooded
Grounded
In the touch and texture of nature
A world that overflows the well within
With sweet peace
And quiet joy

Swirls of people
Talking and laughing
A community
A home
Faces that brighten up my world
A welcome and a love
That reaches in and unlocks joy

Each day blurs into the next
Moments that shine
Other that slip away to make space for new
For as I live my day-to-day
Quiet joy comes forth
And fills my soul to overflow.

This poem came out of a meditation experience yesterday.  It was a really cool experience and the first interesting one I’ve had while meditating.  I’m not the greatest at silent meditation.  I usually get bored after about 2 minutes and find myself counting the seconds until the time I designated for meditating is up.  I do better with chants/mantas, focusing on some type of music or sound, or free writing as my meditative practice.  I keep trying silent, breathe-focused meditation though because I know that it’s good for me to practice silence, stillness, and not-doing (this is SO not my strength!).  Or perhaps I’m just stubborn and want to prove to myself I can do it

Whatever my reasons for continuing to practice silent meditation – I’m glad I have persisted and got to have this experience yesterday!  Makes all those 5 minute meditation times in the morning and evening for weeks and months worthwhile!

Of course, it might have just been due to the 102 degree temperature I had all day yesterday…

Every Heart

Sitting silently in solitude
Peaceful darkness all around
Sink deep
Drift into the stillness
‘Til all you know
Is the steady beat of your heart
Relax into the pulse
Sink deeper
Let the heartbeat of all
Join the steady rhythm
‘Til all beat as one
Ride the wave of the every one
As the light that is love –
Love of every heart
Connected and one
Turns every space to golden light
One by one by one
An infinite spiderweb of light

It has been raining buckets here in Asheville for days now.  I love it! Of course, I don’t live on a river or creek (which, I hear, are creeping higher and higher into the makes-me-nervous zones).  There is just something about rain that is soothing and fun for me.  It brings out the kid in me.  (It probably helps that I’ve never given a hoot about what the rain will do to my hair   My hair’s so curly, rain doesn’t do anything to it but make it curlier!)

I took a few minutes earlier today to splash around in the puddles in the parking lot of my building.  I got thoroughly soaked and had a blast!  Granted, my neighbors now have another reason to wonder about that weird redheaded woman in apartment 4.  hee hee.  Their kids, however, love me!  I’m the fun adult who is always up for blowing bubbles, splashing in the rain, catching snowflakes on her tongue and drawing with sidewalk chalk with them.

I’ve been doing my affirmation “I am silly” and focusing on fun and silliness for a week now.  I think it has made its mark!  And I think I’ll keep doing it for a while.  Life is supposed to be fun!

Splish Splash

Splash in puddles on the ground
Rain falls like confetti from up above
Dance and twirl
And spin around
Peppered with kisses from the sky
Laugh and play
In wet and damp
Splish Splashing
On this glorious
Fun-filled
Rainy day!

I am loving my shift in focus on this blog and in my life these days!  It’s interesting how it’s been playing out.  This past week was a week of computer breakage – which normally sends me into a panic and stresses me out.  However, this time, by some intuitive guidance, I happened to purchase a Netbook the day before my Macbook stopped working!  Thank goodness! Access to the internet is somewhat important to my job!  The Netbook was a less than ideal option for working (it doesn’t have all the programs I use and it has a very small screen) AND it allowed me to continue working as I waited for my new MacBook Pro to arrive.

Which is also something that would normally send me into panic and stress me out.  Have to unexpectedly fork out that much money for a really nice, new computer.  Actually, I could probably have fixed my old MacBook for much less money.  However, my coach is always telling me to “make decisions from where you want to be, not from where you are.”  If I want a thriving business, a computer that has everything I want and need (and works easily), and lots of time to write – then a really good computer comes with that life.

What does any of this computer stuff have to do with the change in focus on this blog?

It’s all about living in that state of happiness and ease.  And having fun!  I love my computer.  I love using it to connect with people and to write.  This brings me happiness and delight.  I love that I get to use my computer to do work that is fun and delightful for me.

My focus on ease and happiness and fun is what allowed me to stay calm and move through the computer issues effortlessly.  It helped teach me that I can go through things, however big or small, without the drama.  This focus allowed me to keep centered in the dreams and visions I have for my business and myself through the challenges and fears that came up around it.

Once I would have been very upset and gone on about how I must not be meant to do this business or live my dreams because obviously everything is breaking down and I don’t have the money to live the way I want.  I would have ranted and been very dramatic.  Instead, I had a lot of fun this week.  I laughed a lot.  My silly side came out to play.  I had lots of time for daydreaming and visioning possibilities.  Nothing especially special happened.  It was just a delightful week.

It really is all about my focus.

Visions and Dreams

Listen to the rain fall
Drum quietly down the roof and eaves
Raindrops trickle a path
Across the window pane
Set against the setting sun

Strike a flame to light
Hear it crackle to life
And play across a rugged log
Shapes that flicker and dance
Like dreams alive before me

Cupped in hand
A steaming mug of soothing tea
Feet curled under
Head softly pillowed
As visions form in rain and flame