I’m trusting  the process. After all, the Universe has been trucking along now for at least 4000 years now, [...]]]> I’ve been following the writing of Fiona Robyn, and she chooses a word for the year as a base of her spiritual practice.  My word this year is “trust.”

I’m trusting  the process. After all, the Universe has been trucking along now for at least 4000 years now, and maybe as long as 4,000,000,000 years.  It has its act together.

I am working to be more trustworthy, so that I do not project my own faults onto others. I must know that I can be trusted before I can trust.

I am looking at each situation where I feel a sense of distrust.  Where does the sense of betrayal come from? What do I have to lose? Why am I afraid? What is my evidence?

I am working on being here now, so that I can trust my perceptions of the world instead of  leaping before I look. If my mind, and body, and spirit are all present, then I can know and not guess.

I am learning that things look different from over there, just like riding on the passenger side when you are used to driving.  So if someone does not agree with my view of any situation, it probably looks different from over there, and nobody has to be wrong.  This means that I don’t have to explain to others why they are wrong, and I don’t have to change what I think, unless I want to.  I don’t have to mistrust the other’s motives, and the whole situation is probably not about me anyway.

At the base of it all, changing what I think is what I want to do.  Shifting my thoughts makes me feel better and be more productive at the tasks I have chosen to do.  I remember that I choose every act, that nothing is forced on me.

Trust is the word for the year.  I feel like I am getting ready to step on the invisible bridge to the holy grail. Maybe if I keep my eyes shut, it won’t be so scary.

I said to a friend yesterday that I’d rather give something away, that I’d rather feel the pleasure of giving than to feel cheated in selling it at a yard sale.

At one time, I had bought a number of [...]]]> This time of year is all about gifts and giving. But is it about receiving?

I said to a friend yesterday that I’d rather give something away, that I’d rather feel the pleasure of giving than to feel cheated in selling it at a yard sale.

At one time, I had bought a number of children’s books for my daughter, which she had outgrown. At the time, I was involved with an on-going  family yard sale, held  once a month in a building owned by a family member. It was where we put all our unwanted stuff to sell.

I had paid around $15 for each book I had bought from a book of the month type club. I just couldn’t bear to sell them for a dollar or so a piece, and it was clear that no one would pay more than that for them. So I packed them up and gave them to the library—some $300 worth or more of books—there were at least 20 of them.

I felt good about giving them to the library where any number of children might enjoy them, and if the library wanted to sell them or give them away later, that was fine too. They were out of my way, and I felt I had given something valuable to a good cause.

My realization was in my statement of how much pleasure I received in the giving compared to the sense of loss and being cheated that I felt in selling.

Then I got a lesson in how much better it feels to give than to receive.

At our office, we play the swap presents game where each person brings a gift and then by the numbers, the people will either choose a new gift or take a gift from someone else. There was not a lot of snatching of gifts in this particular instance, so it wasn’t that much fun.

I have been in such games where the gift I brought was one of the ones snatched several times, which was gratifying for my ego. But this time, nobody chose my gift, until the very last, probably due to the wrapping (a Christmas take-out box that had contained a gift given to me previously.)  I ended up with some soap and cologne, which I don’t use, because nobody had anything else that I wanted.

Later, a co-worker gave me some body wash as a gift, again, something I would not use because I don’t like the scent of it. Receiving something that is thoughtful and that I like is very pleasant, but getting a gift because a person feels the necessity to give is something very different. Two co-workers gave me candy and cookies—something I love to overindulge in and that don’t have to be used or stored— but the others I won’t use and will probably repackage and pass along to someone else.  The giving is more pleasurable than the receiving.

My family decided to go on a vacation this year instead of doing a big Christmas gift-fest. What a relief. I’ve been able to avoid shopping and trying to think of something to give people who already have more stuff than they have places to put it. On the one hand, I don’t have the capacity to give them things they want that they can’t give themselves (a new car, a laptop, hardwood flooring) and I don’t really know what little things I could give that would be received with pleasure. It’s a struggle every year, and from what I overhear, everyone has this same problem.

So I’m taking another look at the giving and receiving game. Short of handing someone a shopping list, which I have done before,  the season is all about the pleasure of giving something–anything. There’s a statement about how well we know each other lost in that story somewhere.

So I will accept and thank, working to appreciate the effort and the thought. There’s the chance that I will be surprised and grateful for a gift, but there’s also the chance that I’ll be packing up what I get for my next chance of giving.

Fiona Robyn is challenging writers to a River of Small Stones in January. Each day the challenge is to pay attention to [...]]]>

Ghost of Pumpkin Past

Orange you glad the pumpkin holidays are over? Halloween and Thanksgiving have given up the Ghost of Pumpkin past, and it rises into the sky on CyberMonday, foretelling the weeping of rain…sailors beware.

Fiona Robyn is challenging writers to a River of Small Stones in January. Each day the challenge is to pay attention to a moment, describing it as it deserves to be described. See more details here: http://www.writingourwayhome.com/p/river-jan-12.html  I’m getting a head start today, celebrating the most pumpkin-colored sunrise I have ever seen.

Contrast can be created in many ways, but one I’ve noticed today is the contrast between bright and neutral [...]]]> I’m listening to a webinar on creating unforgettable content, and the short version of the answer is contrast and incongruity make a message more memorable.  But there can only be so much contrast–everything can’t be memorable.

Contrast can be created in many ways, but one I’ve noticed today is the contrast between bright and neutral colors. Fall colors, for example, show up much brighter on a rainy day than on a sunny day by contrast.

Autumn crepe myrtles on a cloudy November day

The gray sameness of clouds and rain provide a background for the brilliance of colors which don’t look all that bright on their own or against the intense blue of a clear autumn sky.   The photo may be somewhat over-saturated–who knows what goes on in the programming of a smart phone camera–but even the brown stones and clay bricks seem bright against the gray sidewalk and overexposed clouds.  The contrast is enhanced by the overall drab of the rain and clouds.

Maybe this is what is called a silver lining.

The law of attraction works on the concept that we can’t launch a rocket of desire unless we perceive a contrast between what we want and what we experience. I know I’m going to look for some change in what has lately seemed a lot of same ‘ol same ‘ol to get my attention focused and create some attention-getting content for myself.

She is doing a series of prints with hand coloring based on fairy tales, lovely graphic work. The one that caught my [...]]]>

Rumpelstiltskin by Melissa West

I’m reading Step by Step: By Hand and by Foot, a blog by Melissa West that I found while looking for fairy tale research.

She is doing a series of prints with hand coloring based on fairy tales, lovely graphic work. The one that caught my attention today was Rumplestiltskin, an image of the poor miller’s daughter in a “cathedral” of straw, wondering how she will ever turn it all into gold.  She is completely overwhelmed by the straw bales so artfully stacked that she would bring them all down on her head if she moved even one.  She is stuck.

That is how I feel about beginning the marketing process for my first novel,  Maven Fairy Godmother. I have the “spinning wheel” in place, but where and how to start is overwhelming. Where is my Rumplestiltskin to rescue me and make the gold appear?

Lots of folks have their own “magic” to sell me to do the marketing, though it may cost me more in the long run than my first born, who has her own dungeon of straw to spin and with whom they will need to negotiate with on her account. I already have the techie (complicated) part set up—that’s usually what they want to sell me.  Now I need to figure out what goes there.

They can’t do my magic for me. Unlike the miller’s daughter, I have to do my own work. Maybe I will write a new story for her too. Surely there is something better for her to counter-offer than her yet-to-be-first-born? Especially since the father of that first-born has already threatened to kill her if she can’t produce the golden thread? Shades of Henry VIII and his quest for a son.

Do I have better negotiating skills than the miller’s daughter, victim of her father’s drunken tongue and a king’s cupidity? I know that being a victim is a choice, so negotiation seems the better path, even it is outright trickery, the scheme of the powerless classes.

Many kinds of material can be spun into yarn, and since spinning yarns is what I claim I do, I guess it’s time to take a handful of straw and see what happens. Besides, I already know Rumplestiltskin’s name. Spin that wheel. Twist that thread. Wrap it up.

My book is Maven Fairy Godmother—due to be born in March 2012 on her mother’s 61st birthday.

See them at Square Inch Designs: http://www.squareinchdesign.com/category/special-projects/

This morning as I [...]]]>

Old Moon at Sunrise with the Morning Star

Getting up early in the morning is my way of meeting the inner dark, the creative soil of my soul. I do my meditative writing, and often watch as the sky grows light. Today is the end of the moon cycle, the “old” moon that rises as a crescent before sunrise.

This morning as I glimpsed the old moon and the morning star glowing coy behind the neighborhood trees, I understood why the ancient people wove stories about the stars and planets as people.

The grin of the moon and the sparkle of the star might have been a face, a Mona Lisa in the sky as diamonds.

Maybe an early meeting of near and far, Venus and Moon appearing in person for one hour only as the sky pales from black to turquoise and then sunshine in the eastern sky.

In the dark moon phase, it’s a time to release the old, the worn out, the no longer needed, to make room in our psyche (and our closets!) for the new, the desired, the yet to be manifested.

What can I turn loose of today? What old belief can I change to a more supportive belief?  What bright and morning star can I observe in my inner landscape to light the way to the middle path of the moon and enlightenment?

At the very least, I can observe that the stars are in their courses and all is well in the Universe. Blessed Be!