Twirling

It's the middle of March, which means it's almost spring, although it's -10 and we just got another delivery of snow.

This winter has gone by so fast - really truly - faster I think than any other winter. I remember the past few winters were drawn-out and unending, depressingly so, but this time 'round I can hardly believe April is only a few moons away. I have much to look forward to the next few weeks: I've got a whole lot on the go right now and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds this year.

_______

So, it's official. I have ceased to remove myself from my twirling mind; the to-and-fro that comes in waves, whispering one thing and then shouting the next, both entirely opposite pieces of advice.

I spoke to counsellors and psychologists in my late teens and early twenties, back when my anxiety was so overbearing that the world around me was as dark and hazy as anything you've ever seen; back when I couldn't seem to make a decision any better than I can now, in some ways, I suppose.

Thankfully, a handful of years later, I'm more confident in my steps than I've ever been, although there's a thing or two that always pulls me backward. I'm going to speak to another psychotherapist this Friday and I am so thrilled about it. Friday can't come soon enough, in fact. I'm nervous though, too, and mostly just hopeful that he'll be able to help me find clarity in all of the spaghetti of questions I have about life, love, moving on, and moving forward.

I'm the kind of person who needs to express how I feel by talking about stuff with people I trust. I am terrible at holding things in when something is bothering me, and this is why counselling is so helpful for me. I think everybody should invest in a few sessions with a therapist at least once in their life, during a time when they need answers, someone to bounce their thoughts off of, or to get another perspective.

For now I am writing down all of the things I am grateful for and I can't tell you why I haven't done it more often.

Restless

I had a productive day today, but a restless day. One of those can't-sit-still afternoons with the energy of a sloth, yet the desire to get up and do something stimulating. I felt trapped in my body; I didn't want to move and I had an insatiable appetite. I did go to the gym first thing this morning, however, which at least gave me some shimmer of satisfaction, if only a little bit.

Mostly though I sat at my computer and worked away: I responded to emails, edited videos and blog posts and photographs and thumbnails and procrastinated some along the way, too. I also ate half a bag of carrot chips, which are darn good, but perhaps not exactly something I should be eating half a bag of right now, what with all the sunflower oil and such. I also had my delicious sesame noodle bowl and an equally delicious cauliflower-rice stir fry.

Tomorrow I've a few things on my agenda: hop to the store to stock up on more carrots (a vegetable that is my entire life right now), fresh ginger, and chicken thighs. Soup is a very important part of my days as of late.

____

I'm feeling increasingly content with what God, or the Universe, or something has planned for me. Maybe what I have planned for me, I still don't know. But I do know that I can wish and dream and take action and make things happen, like I do, but still there's a path that is paved and I'm walking gracefully along it, knowing it leads to the perfect place where all of my visions are in a basket of fruition, waiting for me to grasp it.

half of my heart's got a grip on the situation,

half of my heart takes time.

Dew and Dawn

Oxford in the Fall, 2015.

It's the middle of September, and it's right about now that the air is just crisp enough to make any breeze feel holy and healing. I open my bedroom window first thing in the morning and I stand there breathing in the sweetness of dew and dawn.

Fall to me is the very beginning, or at least, makes me feel like the perfect time to begin. Spring is much the same, but nothing compares to the fiery leaves and crumpled blooms that once had a story. Mornings are especially divine but impossible to describe with words.

If I was, though, to choose a word to describe how fall mornings make me feel, I would say euphoric. Dreamy, perhaps, and inspired. So inspired that it's electric; invigorating and quenches my thirsty soul.

bloom

Tonight, I'm happy.

I'm content. And I'm contemplative, inspired, safe.

I'm thinking about my life, actually, and time, and where it has all gone, and where it will take me. I'm thinking about where I have been, what I have done, and where I am. I remember so clearly just like it was yesterday all of the things that changed in my life so suddenly, four years ago. I remember the awakening, the re-birth; the unshakable me, the trembling me, the righteousness, the holding on, the letting go, the allowing, the grace of it all.

In retrospect, I see how I was so... innocent.

But so courageous. And eager. So, so eager. So inspired and relentless and I see now how I have changed, how I have softened, and let things in. So much can and does change but my heart still carries those same dreams. They are etched into my being. They are who I am, and what I live for every single day. They are what bring me the peace I seek when I am alone, they are what rise to the surface when I am lit up and swollen with inspiration; they are what make me smile and say "yes, this is what I want."

I just wonder where the years have gone. One moment they're in the palm of your hand and the next they're mist and veiled. One moment you're something and the next you're something else. Times change, they do. But even beneath the deep there is still just a girl and I am still the same, but I am so different.

And tonight, I'm feeling like a bloom; like the springtime that is by my side; like the rain feeding the earth, and the green below my feet, and the dew on the morning grass, and the breath I take when peace overwhelms me. Lately I have been reminded of what I want most in my life and it makes me feel euphoric, exhilarated, blissful, surreal. I think because for a long while there has been perhaps a disconnect, an unplugging of sorts, and you lose touch. For that I blame the cold and hardened winter months. I'm beginning to thaw.

This morning I walked outside into the misty morning sun, and it was quiet, and there were birds, and I felt the breeze and it has been so long, so long of a winter.

February

homeward

___

I go about my February days

cold and evaporated

this time of year is a standstill

hard as a stone

tedious and grey and arid as bone.

Few times I have closed my eyes and breathed in the sun

only a glimpse

and I dream of her light

how she quenches my thirst

but winter's veil ensues, pulling me deep into its womb

and I sink into lonesome and longing;

for the dewy rhythm of blooming and bright

to sweep through my inhales and dance on my skin.

Until then I dream, eyes closed, for the end of hibernation

and I greet the inklings of warmth and wildflowers

as I go about my February days.

___

found

Found Self,

magic erupts with a peaceful mind

heart ever-expanding

ever-lasting knowing...

fear escapes, inhabiting a new world

love is found within and

freedom downpours

bound by the sky

a limitless flight.

I've been so indecisive. I've thought I've known the answer, and then I have no idea. It's the realness that frightens me yet all she is, is freedom. Abundant offerings are found along the path of Truth.

I guess throughout the winter I did lose track of parts of me. A readily influenced, timid chameleon. All the busyness has left me dazed and docile. Fear has been holding hands tightly with Ego and one foot in front of the other they lead except, their destination is a foreign land.

The trees whisper clarity and paint me with answers. The stillness is freeing and the frozen winter is literally a frozen standstill.

A found self is reclaimed amidst peace. Peace is found in silence. Silence is found in stillness. Stillness is found in  us.

Wisdom lies beneath

and he's terribly patient.

alive

Spring is coming. This delights me.

Greenery still awaits and I have yet to see some budding but I know it's around. It's still chilly out there but the sun has made many more appearances these days than it has over the past six months, so, for that I am grateful. It's so warm and satisfying. There is such a magnificent difference between natural sunny sunlight and artificial lighting. These nuances are much more noticeable when you're deprived of one or the other for a lengthy period of time. The only word that comes to my mind to try and describe what sunshine feels like is alive.

I've been a very busy bee lately with renovations I've hardly had time to focus on anything else. My attention span is picky and determined when it's zeroed in on something exciting. You know what I love? Decorating. You know what else I love? The hardware store. Spring is indeed a fine time for re-doing things. It tends to be the time when I gravitate towards simplifying and change. Out with the old, in with the new. You know? Earth is changing, too.

weakness

February doesn't bear much; offering no more than cold hands and a lack of sunshine. It feels as though I haven't been outside in eternity, it feels foreign out there yet I am desperate for its offerings. Every time I step outside there's an overwhelming sense of invigoration as I peer at the sky and trees.

Oh Springtime, won't you arrive?

I'm sitting at my desk before my window. A chilly draft seeping down through infinitesimal cracks, reminding me to shift my gaze to the playful, plentiful white flakes of snow twirling wildly in front of me.

I feel at a loss for words these days as I seem to periodically trip over potholes of stress and tension and each time I am reminded of my weakness that I am nothing short of a giant, unduly worrywart who, although much of the time enjoys a nice heaping spoonful of positivity and optimism, falls victim to that of total despair and a tendency to expect the worst. Sometimes telling myself that everything is going to be okay is more labored than I'd like to admit.

You know how I'm truly feeling? I'm feeling seriously compelled to simplify my life. This gnawing urgency taps me on the shoulder about twice a year, usually around springtime but more so when I'm feeling particularly messy and exposed, in head and in heart. I just want to hide away, delete things, clean things, throw things out, be left alone.

rush

Homemade hot chocolate: coconut & rice milk, raw cacao, maple syrup and cinnamon :)

The past couple of days here in Southern Ontario have been wildly cold. I think it's minus twenty degrees Celsius today, more or less. This time of year is bittersweet for me - I like the charm of the holiday season but once my birthday passes after the tenth of January, I really begin to itch for some warmth. I'm looking forward to comfortable weather.

I've been thinking a lot lately. I am struggling to pinpoint why it is exactly that I can't quite find my balance. Last night as I pondered until I could ponder no more, I opened up my journal and scribbled a goal chart, for it is just this that has been troublesome for me. Why can't I just relax about it? I know what I want yet I seem to spin around in circles trying to remedy the restlessness and I don't really end up getting anywhere. I think I'm rushing. I think I'm comparing myself. I think I'm letting my fears get the best of me.

And still, I continue along. I do wonder how it will all pan out?

Lessons & Release

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. Stood on a breezy cliff, sat on a field. It was mild for a December day. The sunny sun beamed as the wind seeped down my neck, beneath my heavy parka.

Patience, strength, release. I feel as though life has been speaking to me through lessons, weaving its cosmic words through the fabric of my existence.

A plethora of emotion, strange events, negative energy and healing has been at the forefront of my days. I see it all as major, monumental lessons. It's funny that so much internal darkness is being brought into the light; there is major shifting occurring in my life as is with others.

Acknowledging and releasing much of the dormant, lingering negative energy that has been residing inside of me has been in the limelight, so to speak. It's seemingly befitting for the magical yet nonsensical happenings of these very days. Lots of my healing lately has been with the help of my dear kindreds, as well as alone in sweet solitude. Writing, speaking out loud to my Higher Self and some magical emotional freedom technique have been my allies. Still though, I am allowing myself the space and time to process and marinate in all of the changes around me as I prepare for 2013's new beginning just around the corner. Oh how I am eager to write about my wretched year of 2012! Fun indeed! But in all honesty, I am very ready to start anew...

I think I should transfer all of my poetry and blog posts over from my Free Spirit Journal to here, so that I have it all in one place. Operating two blogs makes me feel messy and uneasy.

Autumn e s q u e

today.

Happy September! I went for a stroll by the lake this afternoon with my brother. All around me were the teasings of fall. Red & orange hued leaves are beginning to rest on the Earth's floor. Not quite yet, but very soon, I'll be enveloped in my very favourite season. I cannot put into words enough just how much I resonate with the fall. I'm not a sweltering-heat summer girl nor am I a fan of the blistering cold winters. I like the in-betweens. The breezes and enchantment of release in the autumn~time and the birth & blossom of the spring. I could express myself poetically for eternity about how such a time of year makes me feel. I cannot wait for the landscape of fall to really paint itself in the coming weeks, it is then that I will write with such wonder and awe.

Today's affirmation:

I trust my inner wisdom. I trust the information that I receive from my deeper resources and intuition.

flutterblossom

To my surprise were a plethora of butterflies frolicking about the cherry blossom. I joined the gathering of petals and wings, beneath the umbrella of soft pink blooms.

Walks and Talks

As always

walks in the rain are mandatory for the peace it brings,

except this time damp colourful leaves are everywhere.

I wish there was a way for me to meticulously describe my bike ride atop a cliff yesterday,

but there is not!

A couple weeks ago on my daily 40 minute drive to school I accidentally came across the best radio station that ever came to be (in Toronto it's 89.5fm, but it's worldwide). They host a one hour radio series from 9-10am that has a different episode every day ranging from all sorts of incredible topics from corporate America, globalization, today's environmental, food and health crises to science and spirituality and solutions to the absurdly and ridiculously frustrating distorted world we currently live in due to the powers that be. The radio series is called Bioneers (biological pioneers!) All of this is actually specifically what has been bothering me a lot lately. A lot.

At the introduction to the episodes there is a clip of a woman doing a lecture saying "...it's all connected, it's all intelligence, it's all relatives" while geese are sounding in the background and everytime it plays this clip I cry. Every morning I am literally crying on my way to school. It certainly puts a bit of a damper on my morning but I can't not listen - there is such an enormous amount of invaluable information to be heard and it is very significant for everybody to listen. Agh! Everything is just so messed up and everything is connected and I hate this apparent universal ignorance that has washed over humanity but I know people can awaken to it all and I hope so badly that things will change and all of the corporations that are in power over everything (like Monsanto, for one small example) will be shut down. Ultimately, I wish for that. I feel as though this is what a big part or meaning of my life is all about - changing the current world we inhabit, someway, somehow. I know it begins with the collective minds. Perspectives and attitudes must be adjusted into the direction of supporting and connecting with nature and ourselves, first. I feel like I know what so many of the answers are and everything that I would do if I could do it would make so much sense but the scope of the world is so large and I feel so small.

Anyways, do check out the radio series which I believe you can find and listen to on their website, or perhaps the conference itself from which it originates. www.bioneers.org.

The Month of Amber & Dream Interpretation

It's October! The month of amber, gold, squash and pumpkin! I am really happy. I wanted to make a post yesterday for the first day of the new month but was not able to. Aside from the fact that every perpetually spinning and revolving day is the same thing mashed into One coupled with the illusion of time, I feel like each first day of a new month holds great significance. I sense something is going to happen this month though I do not know what it is.

Oh. I have been having very peculiar dreams over the past week. They are very particular and are directed at very specific people in my life like specifically one of my cats, one of my friends, my aunt, my manager. But they haven't just been typical dreams where you dream of someone or something, it has been so strange that when I am in my waking life associating with my dreambeings, I get this eerie wave of feeling as though I am connected to them on a different plane of reality. It is rather unreal and I don't know how to explain it. It is similar to deja vu except much deeper and bewitching.

A lot of people don't often remember their dreams but I actually recall my dreams nearly every night and with pretty clear recollection. I have a dream journal though I have not recorded them for a long time. There have been times when I have had very vivid dreams of very specific locations and in my waking life have gone there, just to connect with what I dreamed of. It's pretty surreal and in fact I would like to do this more often. I have dreamt multiple times of nearby fields and pathways in my town that I used to walk through when I was a child and actually now that I think of it, I have wanted to go to those spots just to be there. Because, and just in light of my dreams of specific people, I know that there can be an importance to connect with that which you dreamed.

I love dream interpreting and I know it is very important to analyze them and get an understanding of what they mean, because it is your subconscious mind sifting and sorting through waking thoughts and experiences via bizarre mental movies and they have a lot to say and much to teach about yourself and how you are really feeling. They provide a wonderful doorway into knowing and understanding YOU at very deep levels!!! Perhaps some people are fearful of facing this Truth that lies within our dreams. Either that or they are just not aware of the information they contain...

Fall, Energy & Magical Lettuce

favourite peasant skirt & boots


I LOVE FALL!


It is the ULTIMATE season of flow and peace and it is delicate and calm and elegant. I went to the farmers market the other day and I got a big head of un-poisoned romaine lettuce and I ate that thing. I ate it. It had a lady bug in a leaf and some other fuzzy green bugs that I let outside and although I felt moderately disgusted and apprehensive while I ate it, I deeply appreciated the life it embodied. Then I did some very liberating yoga. Seriously my body must have been a bound ball of elastic because when I stretched in all ways it was like releasing a dove into the sky. That is how beautiful it felt. Oh and then I danced like I was in a theatrical performance. And then I went for a walk under the sun in the chilly air and at work I was a ball of energy. I felt like I was on drugs.

I give credit to the lettuce. And the sunshine and the cool air and the season of fall because I love it so. The trees and colours still have much more to offer before all is white dust.

I am currently fascinated by intestines. That is what I am presently learning about.

Salutations, April

~Budding flower on a branch

It is the first day of April. April reminds me of blue and gray and rain. This morning was splendid and was a picture perfect example of an April morning. Dewey, foggy and misty. Cloudy and mildly cool.

Like every new month, I am eager and excited. I love changing my calendar and I love feeling the newness. I wonder what April will bring me? =)

Dawning of Spring

I was outside in my backyard today with my cats and I spotted this little guy. Isn't he sort of cute? He was extremely tiny. A little baby centipede (if that's what it is). And it made me think about how spring is near! Little bugs are beginning to pop up out from the ground. Newborn life just like a newborn season preparing to arise. All the birds have been chirping loudly today and it's just scrumptious.

Sun Meditation

Early this morning I sat on a chair in my dining room and absorbed the brightness of the sunshine on my face. I closed my eyes, focused on my breath, and envisioned the sun filling me up with energy. It was so bright, though warm and vibrant. For several minutes I just absorbed. Quietly.

A beautiful morning for the beginning of a new month. I wonder what March will bring...

Narnia

~A photo I took early this morning

Last night I was walking home from my friends house with two of my friends. It was probably about 1:30am and it had been snowing for several hours. The snow was falling so heavily yet gently, slowly and quietly. It was fluffy and thick and ethereal and magical. I felt like I was walking through a mixture of Narnia and a winter wonderland. We laughed and walked whimsically through curvy paths among tall evergreens and naked willows. I flew my arms outwards as I skipped along the snowy path. Everything was so beautiful and amusing, it felt like I was in a dream of marshmallows and clouds. I was bursting a little bit with gratitude for all of the beauty. Everything was sparkling and I just had to point out the natural sparkles that nature makes! Who needs to go buy plastic sparkles from the dollar store when you've got real ones?

I notice so many things that nature makes that man likes to try and mimic - like swings, and seats. In one of my favourite forests there is a family of twirly, intertwining trees and one of the branches hangs across two trees, exactly like a swing. There is also this little tree that is bent in such a way that it could be used exactly like a chair, or a desk. And of course there are rocks, which are natural benches! My friend and I laugh about this. One time last summer we were walking through a grassy open pathway and there was a big rock atop a hill. And we sat on it. And we called it a natural bench.

Although I am feeling quite ready for springtime, I do love freshly fallen snow...

Breathe

~Trees outside my bedroom window

I'm longing for the Spring. I want to step outside in the cool breeze and feel the universe around me, the interconnectedness run through every cell in my body. I want warm days with sunshine and long, slow, easy walks. I want the comfort of a light sweater, no icicle-hands and frozen faces. I want eyes gently shut and arms reaching out and up to the sky. A long skirt to flow in the wind atop the cliff by the lake. Peace and a seat on the grass, breathing deeply. I want tears of pure happiness and quiet flowing through my blood. Nonchalance and smiles at the world. Bare feet on the ground and lying down beside a tree. Meditation in the forest, gazing at a flowing river. No rushing home to get warm, no rushing at all. I want misty raindrops on my skin and some thunder out my window. 

Leisurely. Dreamy.

I've been stressed a bit because of work these days. I don't particularly *like* my job and I really struggle to accept that I need to work there for now. And I work so much that all my time is devoted to a place I dislike and people I can't relate to. I'm lacking in areas of my life that bring me the utmost peace, and below zero temperatures accompanied by brown snow and a lack of vitamin D doesn't help. When I do have free time it's only for the rest of the evening and I'm up early again to do it all over. I really don't like this repetitiveness and I can't wait to be in school so I'm surrounded by my passion rather than the opposite.

Though I have been reading a couple books by Eckhart Tolle and I enjoy it a lot. Lots of reminders to focus on the present, to accept it, and to just be here Now. And this is what I have been trying my best to keep my intention on. I have a few days off, I just need to breathe.