Today I came across a wonderful blog by a girl named Laura who wants to spend the 25 days leading up to Christmas making a difference in the world in small ways. She's only 10 and she's doing this project to memorialize her grandfather. She started a blog three days ago and she's already had thousands of visitors! She's also inspiring others to do the same. Go check it out!

Here are some of the recent art blessings I've created: Butterfly Transformation dolls and Blessing Journals. I'm sharing the dolls because the pictures came out so much better than previous sharings.

The journals are a new endeavor.  I decorate the outside with papers and embellishments, then include handwritten inspirational quotes and poems for women in transition throughout the book in hopes of encouraging the recipient on her journey.

If you know of a woman who may be encouraged by a doll or journal, please let me know. Remember this is a gifting project and costs nothing to you to request a blessing for yourself or someone else. 

Too much in some ways; not at all in others. There are aspects of myself I'm entirely confident  and grounded in--my professional skills and my parenting. I don't care how other people see those aspects of myself. But when it comes to social interactions with people I don't know well, I think too much about how they perceive me. I'm socially awkward until it gets deep. Social niceties and small talk don't  come naturally to me. I need to be more intentional in this area if I'm going to network appropriately as the Co-Chair of Pride.

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
--Calvin Coolidge

I was just visiting Wishcasting and this week's prompt got me thinking...

This holiday season I wish to . . . open my heart and my daily consciousness to the spirit of generosity that abounds during this particular season and find reasons to celebrate. I'm not feeling particularly holiday spirited this year, nor did I last year, although several previous years I reveled in the opportunities to give from my creative stores and in the beauty of creative decorating.   I love victorian and unusual Santa Clauses, the greatest archetype for generosity in the modern world. I love burgundy and gold ornaments and garland, which bring a rich sparkle to my home. I love the lights. I know it's not pc with environmental issues being what they are, but I love the lights sparkling everywhere. However I think my health issues and the state of my family have driven away the desire for celebration. It all seems energy draining. I want to find the place in me that can hold space for my family to enjoy this season, so I need generosity stories to feed my fire. Perhaps I need to spend some time at HelpOthers.org.

This holiday season I wish to . . . inspire people to consider being as generous the rest of the year, not in material gifts, but in the general sense of good will. We say Happy Holidays to each other all the time, strangers and friends alike. We give a lot, often spending considerable energy in efforts to show our love in the manifest world, whether through gifting or cooking or organizing events. We open ourselves to one another's stories, good feeling stories, generosity stories, peace stories, stories of overcoming selfishness (ego) in service of the greater community. But once Christmas Day passes, we stop greeting each other with the same level of cheer, we stop being so generous, and we give our consciousness to stories of violence (action movies, crime shows, and video games) and competitiveness and greed (reality tv, game shows).  

Much of the intent of The Conspiracy of Blessings is to inspire people to reconsider generosity and recognize its value in every day life. Why do we limit ourselves and/or store up our natural propensity for lavish generosity until we're given permission by a cultural tradition to be blissful in our giving? Why do we repress our most positive stories till the holiday season?

I started the Conspiracy in December 2005 because I had all this art around me that I had put my loving and creative energy into and I knew it didn't belong hidden in my house. It needed to find homes in the world, needed to bring some kind of good feeling into the world. When I give, even store bought gifts, it is always with conscious love and desire to show that person I honor who they are as an individual. I buy books and music for my children that I hope will inspire good feelings, a sense of belongingness and their own creativity. I give my children and family gifts that support their bliss--like a book on Soul Collage for my sister the art therapist or a drawing tablet for my son's pc. Or I give gifts that honor their spiritual traditions and foster self reflection (both of my children have learned how to use divinatory tools to bring insight into their personal journeys). But giving to my family in this way wasn't enough manifestation of my bliss--creative generosity. I needed some place to give more. So I started homemade gifts for my friends and co-workers. I've done homemade candles, soaps, and holiday art ornaments. One year I painted or otherwise colored images from Shiloh McCloud's Color of Woman Journals and laminated them for each of my women friends. I chose the images based on who I knew those women to be, and included poems about womanhood printed on beautiful papers and laminated them as well.

In 2005 I needed to give more. I wanted to give beyond the holidays and felt like I needed to create a reason, a permission to be so generous. The Conspiracy came to life. I had already participated in the gift economy of the altered artist communities online and learned about random-act-of-kindness art that people would leave in their communities to be found by whatever stranger happened upon them. I decided to create a long-term project and document it online, as well as provide a forum for interacting with those who found my RAK Art in the community. I left little packages with beaded snowflake ornaments and my first art/word cards in public places...on restaurant tables, in public bathrooms at the mall, in planters outside of business downtown, and in free newspaper dispensers.

I later added the component of allowing people to request blessing packages for themselves or others. I have some other ideas of how to evolve and expand the project further but do not have the abundance to do more at this time. So I patiently use the supplies I unwittingly stock piled when abundance flowed more towards the project in the past until the Universe offers an opportunity to do more.

This holiday season I wish to . . . inspire and motivate myself to find and/or plan a way to make creative generosity a full time endeavor, at least for a little while. I'd love to have a year to commit my time to creative generosity ideas and manifestations, to discover what I'm truly capable of and here on earth to give my human family. I'd love to have at least a year to develop and live a gift economy lifestyle in every possible way. I'd love to have one year of my life where I did not have to make every single decision based on my family's survival and could have the space to truly find my place in the world.

I know it will come. I know every life experience I'm having will help me to evolve to greater capabilities of service. But I'm in a phase of feeling frustrated and questioning of my faith in the evolutionary process. I want to get to the part where I can focus on what and how I'm giving through my work instead of having to choose what will support a family of four. I don't know how to make the transition yet, but I know it will happen.

This holiday season I wish to. . . replenish and nurture my spirit. It's been an intense year. I want to focus on what brings me the greatest joy but is restful...like doll and journal making.  Creative generosity is what feeds my spirit most deeply. I know now what my bliss is. I just need to figure out how to make it my life's work.

This holiday season I wish to . . . be the change I wish to see in the world and learn how to bring my capacity for generosity into my relationship with my ex-husband/co-parent. It's time to heal the wounds, forgive the past and move forward in friendship. It's time to be generous with my love again.

I imagine zaadztser wishes are powerfully good. What do you wish for this holiday season?

From a comment on an uplifting blog I read every day I was lead to Kim, whose website is full of all kinds of creative generosity and kindness. But what is especially lovely is that she makes inspiring and hopeful "magic wands" for children suffering from terminal illneses and links to several other online projects that connect anyone who is inspired to share a little kindness with ill children who could use the extra lovins.

What a great way to start the day! Blissings to you all this holiday season!

This is an interesting question. At some level, I've always thought for myself, or at least outside of the cultural brainwashing I was experiencing. I am a rebel at heart. For instance, I was raised by fundamentalist Christian parents and very active in church. But I grew into my teens knowing certain things they believed weren't right. One, I couldn't fathom God judging queer love as a sin. Love is love is love. If I know that, I'm sure God knows it, too. Two, I couldn't believe in hell. Same reason, if God loves us ALL and is ever merciful, how could he punish any of us for eternity? I also realized a flaw in the creation myth. If God is all there was before matter took shape, then everything must be made of God. If that's true, how and why would God send parts of itself to eternal damnation?  It just doesn't make sense. I have yet to meet a Christian who can give me an answer beyond resorting to faith in the Bible (my parents still refuse to believe the Bible has been tampered with in any way the last 2000 years and yet entire relevant to us now). So I had some natural intuition that led me away from the beliefs that my parents and others tried to pummel into my soul as I was growing up. And I've always been an insatiable learner, so I started questioning other aspects of society due to studying Einstein, Marx, Leo Buscaglia and educational systems when I was 14-17.

Then I went to college. After I was exposed to comparative religions and consciousness theories and feminism and psychology and alternative versions of history and evolution (People's History of the United States, Ishmael), I knew it was time to question everything I had been taught by my parents and society. In fact, that's what college was about for me...finding myself as a person (building my internal structure) and widening my view of the Universe, not obtaining a degree. I actually don't officially have the piece of paper and don't care because how deeply I was changed is modeled in my daily life. I don't need a piece of paper to remind me of that.

Since college I've continued to pursue learning and opening my mind. I've come to accept my understanding of reality and God and my place in the Universe as a constantly evolving set of symbols. I think all tools to self and Universe understanding are valid, but we each have a proclivity for some over others, and none of them contain the absolute truth so they should all be vigorously questioned.  There is a little bit of truth in everything, so I'm learning to distill the small truths and evolve my own big Truths. I live in a state of questioning and know that will always be so, yet I won't stop trying to know the Universe and my Self more deeply.

You can tell I'm bored silly at work today by my prolific blogging! ; )

I am one of those people who would love to move to northern Europe, probably Norway. I've wanted to move to that area of the world since I was a young mom and learned about their excellent educational and social systems. Seeing the film footage cut from Michael Moore's Sicko about Norway someone posted in response to this QAR stirs those old longings.

But...what keeps me here in the US (besides financial limitations that I could probably overcome if I tried hard enough) is the fact that a highly evolved society (by human standards anyway) doesn't need help evolving. Not in the same way and with the same urgency that the US does. If a society is overall healthy, than there are few families who need what I have to give. But a wounded and violent society is a place where I can make a big difference.

Although part of me would love the easier life of living in a more evolved society, most of me knows that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, burning in the perpetual flame of evolution through personal and societal challenges, in order to be the change I want to see in the world.

I've been holding on to some generosity and gift economy related web pages for several days in hopes of blogging about each of them. But since I've been too sick to write a lot I've decided to share them all at once instead. I'm watching It's A Wonderful Life tonight, which is one of my favorite generosity stories of all time, so it seemed the appropriate time to share.

These days nearly everyone has read or heard the White Envelope story about giving on behalf of a family member for Christmas (it was originally published in Woman's Day in 1982). Now there's the White Envelope Project, a totally Zaadzy kind of idea to inspire young adults into generosity and service.

Crossroads Dispatches is posting about giving a lot recently. This is one of my favorite blogs!  It's a lovely combination of art, philosophy, and gift economy musings.

Running a Business in a Gift Economy Fashion (blog post The Gift): "And one of the things we've learnt is something incredibly counterintuitive to current North American culture: the more we give away, the better we do."

The Pyschology of Giving at the New York Times.

An excerpt from The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde.

Need a favor? Want to offer a favor to someone else? Check out FavorsUnlimited, a new forum based on a lovely gift economy idea.

Intentional Acts of Kindness: Free Pass-Along Gift Cards

Reverant Generosity at the Mythic Journeys newsletter.

Logos  

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into the many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don't worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it was all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.  

~ Mary Oliver ~

Mmm...some real food for thought....

Charity Focus introduced me this afternoon to Genevieve Vaughan, who has written Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible and For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange, both of which are fully available online as part of the gift economy model.

"I believe that in discussing the gift economy we are naming something that we are already doing but which is hidden under a variety of other names (such as caretaking, mothering, etc.), and is disrespected as well as misconstrued. It is thus an important step to begin to restore its name and acknowledge its presence in many different areas of life. It is also important to re-create the connections, which have been severed, between the gift economy, women, and the economies of Indigenous peoples, and to bring forward the gift paradigm as an approach, which can help to liberate us from the worldview of the market that is destroying life on our beautiful planet. [...]

It is not because of a fatal flaw in human nature that we act so inhumanely to one another, but because of a complex tangle of gift-thread logics and strategies which become contradictory and promote adversarial behaviors. The tangle can be unraveled and understood, not within the exchange paradigm itself but by starting over, putting gift giving first as a theme for understanding the world."

"As we shift our focus towards validating the gift paradigm and seeing the defects of the exchange paradigm, many things acquire a different appearance: Patriarchal capitalism, which seemed to be the source of our good, is revealed as a parasitic system, where those above are nurtured by the free gifts of their 'hosts' below. Profit is a free gift given to the exchanger by the other participants in the market and those who nurture them. Scarcity is necessary for the functioning of the system of exchange and is not just an unfortunate result of human inadequacy and natural calamity."

"Exchange creates and requires scarcity. If everyone were giving to everyone else there would be no need to exchange. The market needs scarcity to maintain the level of prices.  Exchange is adversarial, each person tries to give less and get more, an attitude which creates antagonism and distance among the players. Gift giving creates and requires abundance. In fact, in scarcity gift giving is difficult and even self sacrificial while in abundance it is satisfying and even delightful."

"World-wide, 19 billion dollars is spent on armaments every week. This would be enough to feed all the hungry on earth. Since this expenditure does not create any lifesustaining products, it acts as a drain on the nurturing economy."

I found Zaadz through Utne before I stopped subscribing (I don't like the way they've evolved). It was the only magazine in which I paid brief attention to some of the advertising. In fact, it was really the only advertising I paid any attention to at all (my only other magazine subscription was The Sun, which doesn't have ads). The Zaadz ad caught my attention and I liked the idea of a social network with some depth. I hadn't/haven't participated in any other social network. MySpace is aethetically gross, shallow, and does not facilitate community conversations. I wasn't paying attention to any of the others emerging (and still don't).

I came here looking for some sense of community, a place where I might find more people with interests like mine rather than having to dig through layers and layers of blogs and websites online. A place where people might understand the kinds of things I like to write about. A place where I could find some people who live the conscious journey and we could swap stories and support each other. I was looking for an oasis from mainstream life. I was looking for a place I could be all of my authentic self--writer, artist, mom, conscious journeyer, mystic, intuitive, philosopher, sociologist, god-in-others watcher.

I have found most of what I was looking for, this is the closest thing to tribe I've ever felt online. I like being part of a community that has a collective story. I like that the people who run the site are our peers participating in creating the community and so open to our feedback. I appreciate that what I blog about is read and appreciated by others and I am uplifted constantly by my friends' blogs. I love that I am fed intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and creatively by this community.

But I know that I could be cultivating deeper connections, I just don't seem to know how. It's like I've forgotten how to nurture friendship intentionally. I don't know how to sustain the conversations. It's weird. I never had this problem before my marriage. I really need to understand the issue because I am sooo hungry for some deeper relating.

This is so lovely...

"You, who make angels stutter and mystics moan - congratulations for being here so well.

It's not an easy gig, this thing called life. In fact, it's quite the ass-kicking experience. But oh, how you're living brilliantly anyway. Even when you think you've failed, the Universe stands in awe of you. Even when you forget who you are, blades of grass long to rub up against you. Even when you hide your gifts, the air aches to breathe you.

In.

Thank you for existing so perfectly."

From Sera Beak's December newsletter.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as a seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

~ Dawna Markova

"We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent external. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth." --  Helen Keller

I have a dvd recommendation for those who are music lovers. My son and I just watched Once the other night, which is a low budget, indie film made by and featuring some pretty remarkable musicians and apparently well loved at Sundance. The film is technically a musical because it has more musical content than dialogue, but it's not a musical in the traditional sense. They don't just burst out in song to further the storyline. Instead, they are musicians who share music with each other as part of the plot. It's the story of a street musician and an immigrant who happen upon musical kinship and friendship with one another. If you're a musician or artist and have had that kind of immediate creative synergy with someone you'll totally relate. It's a simple story, very true to life in it's ordinary-ness, but the music is remarkable. Truly remarkable. The lead, Glen Hansard, is the frontman for the band The Frames (and one of the other band members directed the film). A few of film's songs are on their last album. He is very compelling to watch and listen to. Great voice. Beautiful songwriting. Harmonies that give me chills. And the woman, Marketa Irglova, released the album The Swell Season with him earlier in 2006. Her voice is subtly magical, so vulnerable, much like Emiliana Torrini or the softer side of Bjork. I've never actually used the word sublime before, but it's highly appropriate. It's been awhile since I've been this deeply touched by new-to-me music.

And I really love that my son and I have these intense moments of shared love for music/art/film. I'm hoping this is what will keep us connected when he goes to college; I hope he'll want to share with me the new creativity he comes into contact with. I'm so excited for this next phase of his life, where the world will truly open itself to him and his mind and heart will explode open again and again.

Renewal.

Solstice energies are percolating in me. I'm seeing the beauty in cycles and seasons. So much change this last year, so much created, so much more to come. I am just beginning to unfurl my wings, just beginning to be truly authentic to who I am in every aspect of my life. The two things that elude me...intimate friendship with other souls and fulfilling work...are easy to accept when I step back and witness the cycles of my life. I am in between. My tribe and a more authentic way to support my family are just around the bend. I'm getting little peeks into who and what they are, what kind of people I want in my life as friends and companion journeyers, what kind of work I want to do as I live my unique word in the great love song of life. All I can do is continue to live in the present as each moment unfolds and trust in the journey. Sometimes we must walk alone. Sometimes we make different kinds of connections that feed the soul as we experience distance from our community.

It continues to astound me how peaceful and content I can remain, even when I am disappointed by circumstances. I've tried to nurture some friendships this last year, tried to reach out and haven't found anyone willing to expend much energy reaching back. This has been a long term issue in friendship with me, I seem to make friends with people who require me to keep the flame alive or they will just let me drift away. People who say they want to talk but never attempt to call. People who say I'm family yet don't seem to care enough to make contact with me. People who tell me how wonderful I am, yet don't take an interest in my life's unfolding. That's why I hold back so much now, more often than I open and reach.

The old me would have convinced myself of my unlovability. The old me would have sunk into dark and lonely thoughts, investing in the illusion of separation and aloneness. Depression. But now I just see it all as the process of my evolution. I am either learning to discern what I am worth as a person, what healthy friendships truly are, or I am learning to love unconditionally and be ok with being the only one who initiates, who reaches out because that's how I express my love. Or both. Or something else. Whatever the lesson I am living through, it's as necessary to my evolution as every previous challenge and it is far less painful than most of the ones that came before.

I am learning that I can be alone and still be connected to the All. I am living the wisdom of impermanence. Everything changes. Everything continues to unfold. And there is blessing and beauty in every moment, every experience alone or shared.

How do I find enough compassion and forgiveness for the person who has hurt me most, and continues to hurt herself and everyone she loves, to speak to her on Christmas Day?

Unfortunately, I woke up this morning to a phone call from my sister letting me know that my mother is currently wandering the Oklahoma City airport, trying to find a way to get back to Las Vegas on $200 because she was just kicked out of the home of her very last friend less than 24 hours after arriving. Apparently she's "not functional", behaving too much like last year and the year before when she overdosed on painkillers and sleeping pills. I cannot blame her friend for not wanting her in her home. I don't want her in my home, especially at Christmas. I know how much damage she can do, not just emotionally. Two years ago she destroyed our Christmas tree, broke my shower door, and forced me to babysit her through an overdose for over 8 hours, during which I had to physically restrain her from taking more pills...on Christmas night. She said then that it was the doctors' fault for giving her contra-indicated painkillers and sleeping pills, but that's no longer the case and still she's dysfunctional, acting doped up and belligerent, unable to even identify her own luggage?

Last week she called me under the pretense of Christmas shopping for my family to let me know she started drinking again and I couldn't say a word. What do I say? I've descended into her darkness with her too many times to willingly go there again. She knows better! She knows the things she needs to do to be healthy -- anti-depressants, therapy, and God/Church. She's not doing any of these things and her hungry spirit is manifesting more health problems than ever. In her pain and lonliness she's turning to alcohol, which is probably not a good combination with whatever painkillers she's on now and is the only explanation I can think of for the behavior described by her friend.

So I return to the question: what do I do when she calls Christmas morning? If I answer the phone, how do I keep whatever conversation we have from tainting the rest of the day with my family since I know she'll be throwing herself a pity party because she's alone on Christmas? How do I express compassion without enabling her? How do I restrain the tremendous anger I feel that she's putting me in this position again?

How do I sit with this grief when I'm supposed to be giving my children a happy Christmas?

Hopefully the revelations offered by this blog post will help...

"I came to understand that both things were true about my relationship with my mother. Yes, we were estranged for the last seven years of her life and it hurt me terribly. But also she had given me every bit as much motherly love as the most pampered child in the universe, or, at the very least, every bit of motherly love she was capable of."

I know the mother who gave so much of herself when I was a child, and when I had my own child at 16, still exists somewhere. I just want her to come home. I want my mom back.

This is beautiful and inspiring and I hope I have the abundance to be this kind of giver some day...

"Larry Stewart, Kansas City's original Secret Santa, anonymously wandered city streets doling out $100 bills to anyone who looked like they needed it. For about a quarter century, Stewart quietly gave out more than $1.3 million to people in laundromats, diners, and thrift stores, saying it was his way of giving back for all that he had received in his lifetime. Stewart died of cancer earlier this year, but his legacy lives on: this Christmas, an anonymous friend who told Stewart in the hospital that he would carry on for him is out on the streets, handing out $100 bills, each one stamped with "Larry Stewart, Secret Santa," giving away $75,000 in total of his 'own money. "Anyone can be a Secret Santa,' he says. 'You don't have to give away $100. You can give away kindness. Help someone.'"

And he's not the only one. He has some elves and other Secret Santas joining him this year...

Secret Santa World

Some of the heartwarming stories of those who received gifts.... CNN, CBS, The Arizona Republic, & The Kansas City Star.

It's been a complicated day...after a lovely gift exchange with our kids my mother called, and while I avoided the call by jumping in the shower, apparently she was unable to carry on a conversation with any of the rest of the family. The kids said she sounded strange and they could hardly understand her. My ex said she sounded like she was on something. And she started looking for pity immediately. I'm sad for her but will not return her call. We had a good afternoon, saw the Golden Compass, which was decent. Had a great dinner due to some inspired recipe hunting yesterday (I never thought I would be grateful for Martha Stewart but I found some fabulous recipes at her site). Then my ex and I started arguing because he spent half the day with his online girlfriend instead of being fully present to the family. I'm having a hard time letting go of my expectations that he should put the children he calls his own first. It's kind of crazy I even have any expectations left considering he's never really put any of us first in his life but some part of me can't stop hoping he'll choose differently. Huh, it just occurred to me how much he's like my mother...maybe that's why it's taken so long to finally come to this place...I need to see the pattern I've been living. We've come to the point that we need to figure out a way to end our living arrangement after the new year. I don't want to wait until summer if I don't have to.

The light of my day was the gift my daughter gave me. She brought me to tears. She made a collage with a bunch of my decorative art papers. Then she printed out the message, "Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, Mom" and collaged that on. Then she hunted for some quotes  to add and this is what she came up with...

"Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." Leo Tolstoy

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." Winston Churchill

"The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving." Albert Einstein

"The giving of love is an education in itself." Eleanor Roosevelt

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Ghandi

It was one of those rare parenting moments where I felt like she really saw me for all the qualities I strive to model for her. At 12 years old she gets it. She gets me. And that is the greatest gift anyone could give me.

Many things...

I can do other kinds of work. Fifteen+ unsuccessful job interviews in two years for the same position with varying levels of responsibility and money, and I am finally getting the message. I just submitted a resume for a job completely different than anything I've done before, but I see it as a unique way of addressing the changes I'd like to make in my work/life balance. It would allow me more time with the kids and enough flexibility to go back to to school part time. It would be both management and a way to work directly with the people I serve (instead of supporting someone else's work). More than anything I'm letting the Universe know I'm ready to emerge from my comfort zone and get a little more creative about meeting both my family's financial needs and my own soul needs.

I have choices and I don't have to live a life of sacrifice. I am realizing it is time to let go of our current family structure and move out on my own with the kids. It's time to change the old patterns and create the emotional life that I envision. Whether they have a relationship with their step-father is between him and them. I can't continue to compromise myself in hopes of keeping them connected. My son is off to college in a few months anyway and the idea of living alone with my daughter sounds like heaven.

I need to let go of my hope and expectation that people I love will make different choices. I've allowed my expectations to create drama and unhappiness between myself and others, primarily my ex and my mom. I need to accept them for who they are choosing to be and set appropriate relationship boundaries in relation to the choices they make. I need to let go of the illusion that they are choosing their fear and themselves over me. It's about them, not me. They are choosing their fear over loving themselves. It's time to truly practice healthy unconditional love and forgiveness. It's time to live the compassion I aspire to, towards them and myself.

I was reading Jamie's blog, Sophia's Children, about solstice energies and this caught my eye...

"Fallow period, during which seeds of Spring gestated beneath the ground, Wisdom or Light emerges from the cosmic womb."

Yes. The last few weeks, and most especially the last six days, beginning precisely on the solstice, I have been fallow. Still. Quiet. No production on the surface other than the usual (and necessary) physical and emotional feeding of family. Movement is under the surface, subtle tides pushing and pulling from within. Gestation. The gestation of thoughts and feelings about family, parenting, mothering, soul, work, housework, giving, gift economy, kindness, spirit, sacred activism, art, creativity, friendship, relationship, and love. I am gestating shifts in home, family and work. I am gestating the expansion of the Conspiracy and my kindness activities. I am gestating myself, my openness to All That Is, my openness to receive love and friendship, my expansion into a deeper fullness of myself. I am deep in the Cosmic Womb, gathering and refining my threads in the weaving of life, reaching for the richer colors, tighter knots and more intimate weavings with other soul threads.

I have been judging myself for being "unproductive." I need to maintain my symbolic sight and understand that being fallow is a necessity for new growth.

I just started reading Christine Kane's blog and love her advice to overthrow the whole resolution idea and instead choose a word to "be" for a year. Resolutions are all about doing, usually one specific thing, and we usually fail. Resolutions are not holistic. But choosing a word, or quality, to be for the year, to focus our conscious energy on, would be extremely difficult to fail at (we succeed even if we live it one moment) and could potentially have an effect on every aspect of our lives.

The serendipitous thing about this is that I started seeing my years as words two years ago when 2006 became the year of forgiveness. I was given the opportunity to forgive the all the biggest of of my old wounds. I was challenged to grow out of the survivor mentality, to see that I was more than what I had overcome, and I am no longer succeeding in-spite-of. I was challenged to forgive in the moment, continuing to serve others as my best self while they failed me and the community. I was inspired to forgive myself and learned how important self forgiveness is, especially as a mother.

2007 is the year of opening. I opened to my queer nature and returned home to the queer community. I opened to accepting the mantle of leadership...finally. I opened to new friendships. I opened to finding a diagnosis for my health issues after 10 years and understanding how much they have impacted my emotional life in that time. I opened myself to healing. I opened myself more to creative generosity. I opened myself to new forms of art making. I opened myself to the future, to the possible manifestations of my bliss, to the reality that I have choices and can pursue the life of my dreams (as opposed to feeling choiceless and tied down). Even this week, as 2007 ends, I opened to the idea of moving -- leaving this house I am so unhappy with (cheap landlords+old house=lots of problems)  and moving away from feeling responsible for my ex. In 2007 I have released the boundaries and limitations I had artificially placed on myself and opened myself to the life of my dreams.

"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight (including yourself). Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." -Og Mandino

2008 will be the year of kindness. I have been focused on creative generosity, which allows me to keep a distance from the lives I am touching. I make it about the art and the giving, not about how I relate to each individual. I feel the urge to grow by responding to life, myself and others with kindness. Kindness is active and requires interaction of some sort. Kindness can replace my anxious social thoughts and allow me to be fully present to others. Kindness can open me to more connection. Kindness can inspire me to love myself enough to pursue good health. Kindness can carry me through each interaction with my ex until the day we no longer live together. Kindness can give me the space to accept all of myself and all of everyone else. Kindness can make me a better leader.

"Everyone is living with a pain body." Eckhart Tolle

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Philo of Alexandria

I have been carrying these two quotes in the journal in my purse for a long time. But I have not been living them and I want to.

PS Part of my inspiration for choosing kindness in 2008 is my new blog friend, Kindness Girl.

INDIVIDUATION
by Avah Pevlor Johnson

If I must be wrung through the paradox,
broken into wholeness,
wring me around the moon;
pelt me with particles from the dark side.

Fling me into space;
hide me in a black hole.

Let me dance with devils on dead stars.
Let my scars leave brilliant traces,

for my highborn soul seeks its hell
in high places.

Wow. This is a complicated question for me.

My immediate response is with my children. They've been the only souls in this life to truly love me unconditionally. And mothering them has brought me into the fullness of my authentic self. Home with them is where I belong now.

And I like Spiritual Liberation's response to the question.....I am a divine spark living among other divine sparks and there is nowhere I don't belong.

But the truth is the question goes so much deeper than that for me. I have always been a fringe-dweller, not ever really feeling I belong anywhere for very long. In fact, I once had someone tell me I was an anomaly everywhere I went. I've learned that part of that comes from me being an artist; I have a quirky view of the world and I live passionately and honestly when I'm in touch with my creativity. Part of it comes from living at the edge of human expression and evolution--I love the places in culture where people are pushing the boundaries of being human. Part of it comes from the eccentricity of my interests--a small part of me belongs in lots of different places. And now days a good portion of it comes from living a conscious life--we conscious journeyers are a definite minority, which is why we need a place like Zaadz to connect with each other. As far as the online world is concerned, I know I do belong here.

I think my lack of belongingness also comes from rarely feeling like I belonged at home when I was a child/teen. Living with a narcissist and an alcoholic left no space for me. And my fundamentalist and conservative Christian father  never understood my rebel and progressive spirit.

I've had a few people in my life who I felt at home with, but no relationship has lasted more than a few years. The only person I feel that with right now is my friend Crystal, but she lives far away. I don't have that feeling with anyone locally. Well, I guess I do a little about my fellow Pride Board members. It's good to come home to my queer self. But I don't have any intimate friendships where I feel at home. I'm hoping that will change in 2008 as I foster connection through kindness and find my local tribe for this leg of the journey.