With Appreciation

Here we are: full swing into the Holiday Season in the Haliburton Highlands 2016! Yay!

So far we’ve had pancakes with Santa, crafted Christmas tree ornaments with elves, decorated sugar cookies with grandchildren and listened to truly inspiring music from remarkable young performers.  How lucky we are to live in such a generous and talented community.

There’s just so much to appreciate here.

(Ear-to-ear smile!)

There’s so much joy to express!

And then…

(Pause…breath…sigh)

…a judgement slips in: ‘I should have…if only…why didn’t I’, and the joy of the season hardens into a rock that sits in the pit of my stomach souring everything else that is good and wonderful.

Or not!

The older I get the more I realize how much control I have over my thoughts and feelings.  As the days get darker and the news get bleaker, it’s so easy to slip away from appreciation.  But, honestly, isn’t this the greatest gift there is?  To give appreciation.  To receive appreciation.  And to start with ourselves.

Recently I saw a post on Facebook from my granddaughter that grabbed my heart: “needing a lil inspiration today” with the meme “Practice knowing that you’re worthy until it becomes your entire truth, being, and mantra. – Alex Elle”  

We’ve learned from an early age how to give appreciation: to look into someone’s eyes and say thank you, or to write a note, or to give a gift, or combinations of the above.  But have we really learned how to receive appreciation?  When we hold a door open for someone, do the words of thanks flow into our hearts or do they get stuck in our ears?  When we look in the mirror with approval, does the judgement have time to melt into a smile, or is the moment quickly skipped over?  When we do the laundry, do we take a second to recognize and appreciate how we take care of ourselves and our families, or is it just another chore ticked off the list?

I started practicing appreciation in the smallest things, like completing a game of Sudoku – ‘good job Marci, amazing how you figured that out!’  Then, ‘good job body, thanks for all you did to get me through the day!’  Now everything is appreciated - maybe not in the instant - but eventually, for Nature has taught me, over and over again, to trust the path.

It’s almost like there are two operating systems in life – not PC and Mac – but Judgement and Appreciation.  (Play along with me here to get the understanding – it may be a bit of a stretch.)

Like PC, Judgement is all about logic and function and happens in the head.  It’s a ‘Goldilocks’ binary world where things are either hard or soft, hot or cold, good or bad, and the desire is for things to be in balance, to be ‘just right’. 

Like Mac, Appreciation uses as similar language but it arises within the body from a place rooted in security, passion, and courage.  This gives it a different feel - a grace, a warmth, and its desire is for harmony. 

People have been elected on the basis they’ll provide security, but it is a feeling that starts from within, that is, from within appreciation.  We may be alone in the world with nothing to our names, but if we stop and begin by appreciating our breath, syn

chronicities will click in and start to feed us.

We can reprogram ourselves, change our operating systems, many ways, including by sitting tall, eyes open, body relaxed, and filling ourselves with gratitude, love and blessings for ten minutes.  And if we repeat this ‘mediation’ a few more times daily, the body becomes more comfortable with this energy quickly.

My experience as a musician has taught me a lot about harmony.  When we bring all the instruments together and give each a voice, appreciating what they have to offer and not worrying about trying to be fair, great beauty can arise.  The timpani player with 52 bars of rest then a dynamic roll is just as important as the violinist with pages of so many notes they look like chicken scratch. 

We’re all important. We all fit in to the great symphony of life.  We have to trust in each other, trust that each of us is playing the notes on our pages the best we can. 

How interesting that on the darkest day we chose to appreciate and celebrate the light of kindness.  Both are our essence – the dark and the light. Our anger and our compassion, our greed and our generosity, and our criticisms and our empathy are constantly playing off each other, harmonizing in different modes, different styles – some pleasing, some strange. 

None are to be dismissed, all are to be appreciated as expressions of our humanity.

(Ear-to-ear smile!)

May our holiday season be filled with much giving and receiving of appreciation.

TRANSITIONS

There didn’t seem to be much of a transition from summer to fall this year.  One day we were swimming in the lake and the next we weren’t.  It happened so fast! 

Some transitions are like that- a blink of an eye, a beat of a heart – and life has changed.  Others, like the leaves turning colours or children growing up, feel more drawn out with time to prepare for what’s coming next. 

Transitions are happening at all levels of life, all the time, all around us. From the inhalation and exhalation of our breath, to the gift of the seasons, to the changing of the epochs.  At some level, things are always shifting. 

The 5^th Dimension sang a song about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius – with harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding. Some argue this transition, from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age, happened in 2012, others say it comes in at the spring equinox next year, and still others say it won’t be until 2597.  To me, it feels like we’re going through something sweeping right now– sweeping back and forth, back and forth and moving things forward, moving things toward a more heart-centered way of living.

Although the news giants like to show us devastation of all kinds, the stories that go viral on the internet are the human kindness ones, like the prom king who knelt down and offered his crown to his friend because he thought it would uplift him, or the young man who, instead of going on a fun-filled spring-break, donated bone marrow to save a dying man he didn’t even know.  There are so many ‘small’ stories that happen, even here in our community: winter coat drives, volunteer-led cultural events, and helping hands in parking lots.  Our hearts have a need and desire to nurture all life; this is who we are.  This is what’s at the centre of our existence.

That being said, sometimes the signals are sent but not received, and human kindness is the least of our concerns.  Sometimes being safe or being right is far more important.  The head thinks it needs to take control and steer clear of perceived danger, absolutely sure that is what’s necessary.  Meanwhile, the heart patiently admire us.

In between the head and the heart is the throat, and that’s where the blockage happens.  Not surprising, lack of communication seems to be the root of most conflict.  If we only had the confidence and grace to speak clearly, harmony and understanding would abound.

Using our voice and singing together is a powerful tool.  Protest songs from Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, to name a few, drove the 1960’s Civil Rights movement. Now hip-hop artists are carrying the torch with Public Enemy, Kendrick Lamar and Jay Z voicing the emotions of the Black Lives Matter movement.  In these evolving times, speaking out and singing out creates much needed understanding and connection.

Coming together in song strengthens us not only in times of frustration but also in times of love and sorrow.  Lullabies and hymns bond us when no words seem appropriate to carry our emotions.  At the hospital bedside of loved ones, what else is there to do but open our hearts and sing or hum.

Keeping the channels between the head and the heart clear allows a stream of insights to continuously flow back and forth. Once again, it’s not about one being ‘better’ than the other, but rather about using all that’s available.  It’s possible to get around on one foot, but look at all the other choices we have with two feet to carry us. 

Our humanity depends on the wisdom of our heart flowing to our head because the alternative is acting like a fact-processing computer.  We consider soulless people animals, but that’s not accurate as animals have compassion and empathy.  Soulless people are more like one-footed robots, disconnected from the flowing tides of life and love.

Perhaps Sri Chinmoy’s words - I meditate so that my mind cannot complicate my life - can be modified to: I sing so that my mind cannot complicate my life. What a wonderful thought – singing to dislodge over-thinking.

We live in shifting times, alternating between great waves of love and great waves of concern.  What washes in and takes hold in the new age we can only hope is a pulse, a song that, from the centre of our heart, radiates strong and free:

Nurture All life, Nurture All life,

Nurture All life, Honey…

Nurture All life.

Imagine…

NO WORDS

I am sitting outside by a pond of lily pads:

Bulrushes, and

A field of antique farm wagons:

Painted wooden wheels.

A mixed forest surrounds the

Manicured setting

To define this home as a place of

Peace and rootedness.

The grey sky holds it all down.

What’s left to do

But merge.

Merge

With the brown stillness,

With the green aliveness,

With the white bliss between.

What’s left to do

But drink.

Drink

Calming garden tea,

Rustling apple breezes,

Nourishing harvest breath.

No words.

No words.

Mmmm.

Wow.

Hey.

Shhh.

CawCawCawCaw!

HaHaHaHa!

Shhh.

I love you more…

MOM, WOW!

                                                                              My 3 ½ year-old granddaughter is learning to read and was showing me how her daddy taught her to recognized the word ‘the’.  I would read a story and she would pick out the ‘the’s’ and ‘read’ them out loud.  Being a writer, I love words and find them fun to play with, so when we came to the word ‘mom’, I pointed out how, if you turned the book upside down, it became the word ‘wow’.   Every time we read the book, and we read it a lot that weekend, we would read the word mom and turn the book around and read the word wow.  Mom, Wow!  And she would laugh. And I would laugh.  Mom-Wow!  Ha ha ha.  All weekend it was mom-wow and laughter!

How simple and fascinating life can be.

“Be like children,” the sages say. Find wonder around you and in you, and you’ll never grow old.

I wonder.

These days, actually, there’s lots to wonder about.  Being curious about innocence can seem a ridiculous waste of time when the other reality that’s happening around the world right now - the violence and chaos and abuse - seem far more significant, far more important. Funny, if we choose to live only focused on the innocence, we are accused of living with our head in the sand, too soft, and outrageously out of touch.  Yet if we are fully focused on the terror, glued to the news and rhetoric, we are considered educated, even though we are denying the wonder that abounds and enlightens us as well.  Hmm, curious.

Lately, I’ve been trying to sit and be present with both.  They are both true, the innocence and the terror, so is it necessary to judge one to be better than the other?

Sitting with both ends of the spectrum is not the same as sitting in the middle. Sitting on the fence is withdrawing, not participating. This is an honourable place as it can give a new perspective and a time to reflect.   (Nothing is all good or all bad.)

Opening to all possibilities and having room to respect all, however, is such a strange concept we can barely wrap our heads around it.  How do we live with paradox in a ‘you’re with us or against us’ world?  But as the cultures blend and science and the internet introduce us to expanding visions, our curiosity is being piqued.  Hot and cold doesn’t have to equal warm anymore, hot and cold can equal hot with cold – or Sweet Heat, as Kawartha Dairy named their newest ice cream flavour.  The more we write about paradoxes, sing and joke about them, the more comfortable we become around them.  And the more we can harmonize with all possibilities, the healthier, happier, more abundant and free we will be.

So how do we acclimatize to this evolving way?  Are there books?  Are there organizations?  Are there apps?  Probably yes to all since we humans are always wanting something new to buy to make us ‘better’.  Are they necessary?  No, not really.

The most courageous and boldest act we can partake in is simply to smile.  Smiling at someone is a sign of recognition.  It is an act of harmonizing. It’s telling the other ‘I see you. I see the pain you’re in or fun you’re having and I’m with you.  You are beautiful and I’m with you.’  How does it get better than that?  Feeling safe and connected is what we all want and smiling does that.  Mother Teresa said: “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

No wonder I love being around my grandchildren.  Kids smile, on average, around four-hundred times a day whereas adults only smiles about twenty times. Too bad for adults because science has proven those who smile more are less stressed and sleep better.  Hmm, curious. No wonder the sages tell us to be more like children. 

Yes, there is horror around us.  There is no denying it.  But there is also so much wonder too. Let’s not deny that either.

Smile: miles – limes - slime!

CLEAN BREATHING

Have you ever found yourself spellbound watching a hawk soar effortless high above? Or caught yourself mesmerized by a fish hovering in one spot for no apparent reason?  Or been fully entertained by a gull’s feather drifting on the water with billowy clouds reflecting beneath it?

How easy it is to fully surrender in nature. No need for answers, no need for questions, just expansive possibilities twinkling around everywhere.

“Thank you. I love you. Bless you:” just twinkling around.

What a rich summer this has been: the visitors, the entertainment, the culinary delights. It’s all been so exquisitely juicy, much like our bumper crop of cherry tomatoes this year.

Follow your bliss.

Follow your path.

Follow your breath.

Not only do the trees purify the air around us, so too do our peaceful bodies.  Acting as a filter system for negativity, our slow, relaxed nervous system imprints on inhaled circulating breath to restore it to a balanced state then exhales it back into our environment. Dr. Masaru Emoto showed that human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. Is it possible that space out there is not the final frontier, but space in our breath is?

Hmm.

What if a clean breathing movement took hold like the clean water and clean eating movements did?  What if the local market not only had fresh food and artisanal crafts for sale but also offered a place to breathe in joy together?  Maybe sing?  Maybe dance?  Maybe play? Together.

And what about in school cafeterias?  Would kids who intentionally breathed together and understood their influence on the web of life in this intimate way, be as likely to bully one another?

In the West we take our breath for granted.  We are born; we have it.  We die; we don’t have it. But as Eastern philosophies take hold here, we’re slowly becoming more mindful of what we’re doing to ourselves.  The slower and deeper our breath, the fuller our connection to life around us.  The faster and shallower our breath, the more we feel isolated and unhealthy. 

Yoga, Tai Chi and Chi Kung teach many types of breathing techniques that can warm us up and cools us down, help us concentrate and help us focus our strength on attackers. Masters even know how to feed themselves with breath alone.

Do you want to know how?   Look to the trees. Not only do they feed off the nutrients they take in through their root system, they also reach out with their limbs to draw in light and life through their leaves. Our breath does the same for us: we can draw in light and life and be fully alive, fully at home in our own skin, quite simply by utilizing our breath.  The charisma we see in movie stars can be ours too when we choose to energize from two sources instead of just one.  If we can synch up with nature’s rhythm, surrender to its subtleties, we can hook in to this dynamic energy and be lifted to a whole new realm of possibilities.

Changing our breathing pattern takes awareness and effort. There are meditations, movements, and repeated phrases that can help the process along. I’ve studied many over the past thirty years and to sum it up: connect with earth energy (see the feather technique in the previous column: http://thegiftofthewhitetrail.blogspot.ca/2016/06/stones-feathers.html) and then follow your breath: two beats into your belly and down, and four beats back to your spine and down- two beats into your belly and down, and four beats back to your spine and down, relaxing a little more each time.

Soon enough, “Thank you, I love you, Bless you,” will be twinkling around everywhere and everyone. Who knows, perhaps the Haliburton Highlands will become known as the home of the Clean Breathing Movement.

People will come.  They’ll come to the Haliburton Highlands for reasons they can’t fathom.  They’ll arrive as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if they look around.  It’s only $20 per person.  They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.  And it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters.*

Wow, expansive possibilities are twinkling everywhere!

*Paraphrased from the movie Field of Dreams based on the novel Shoeless by Canadian author W. P. Kinsella

STAY

Honey, you have such a beautiful, tender heart.

Sometimes when you’re around strong emotions,
Expressed…or withheld,
You ache horribly.
But look again, this ache is not going to hurt you.

Please, don’t turn it off, shut it down.
Let the ache take root and
Spread into every cell of your being.

Let it blossom!
For what comes next is the sweet, sweet energizing fruit.
Let it nourish all who need hope: Love.


Honey, Love.
Stay with love.
Stay rooted In Love.

Honey, stay.

STONES & FEATHERS

I don’t know why, but kids love throwing stones in the water.  They can do it for long stretches of time and be totally amused and at peace.  I enjoy it too, especially tossing five or six in the air so they come down and create a tinkling song: piddle-dee-dop. 

I’ve always loved stones and have often travelled home with a few in my suitcase – some as rocks and some as polished jewelry such as ammonite from southern Alberta and labradorite from Newfoundland. Perhaps it was all those trips to the Petroglyph as a child and the family drives to abandoned rock mines in the Bancroft area that opened me to their wonder. 

I recently bought a Celtic knot ring with a blue topaz stone in the centre and was fascinated its healing qualities were associated with both peace and communications.  Peace and communications: how remarkable these two energies are linked, but then of course with a quick curiosity, it seems obvious. If people are not communicating there won’t be peace, and if people are not at peace when they are communicating, something is likely to be missed.

Being at peace, I find, is probably one of the hardest things to accomplish and maintain.  There are so many distractions, needs and wants that captivate our minds leaving peace so easily forgotten.  “I want peace, and oh, I also want the latest smart gadget, and I want to get the laundry done and finish that email. Did you see the latest flyer? Those sale prices end on Thursday.”

Someone gave us a fridge magnet that reads: Peace.  It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.  It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. (Unknown)  How do you get like that – calm in your heart? 

I probably spent most of my life trying to figure that one out.  Growing up, I felt there was something else to living and being alive other than what I was seeing, so I studied mythology, shamanism, sound therapy and literature to learn to read between the lines and into the magic.  And lo and behold, what was there was peace – patiently waiting for me to slow down and climb aboard. 

There was no title I had to earn, no PhD to obtain, no secret code to decipher; I just had to slow down.  I’m not talking about sitting on the couch and doing nothing, I’m referring to the nervous system.  People can be sitting in a chair but they talk so fast, you know everything inside them is churning like crazy. When our nervous system gets overstimulated by stress or electronics we enter an altered state – altered from peace – and it happens so quickly we’re not even aware it’s occurring.  We do know, however, that it’s uncomfortable and we want to feel something different, something less stressful.  Often we don’t even know that what we want is that feeling of peace, that grounded, natural feeling of inner calm, so we search for comfort in destructive ways and often end up feeling numb instead.  Numb does not equal peace.

I recently learned a method to realign with calmness from a fellow named Joshua Bloom.  He suggested you close your eyes and imagine a feather floating down from the sky and softly drifting down your back until it comes to rest at the base of your spine.  Keep your awareness there and exhale into it.  Inhale into your belly and exhale out the base of your spine. 

I had a difficult time meditating and clearing my mind but this kind of centring is more natural and profound for me.  After a few minutes of exhaling, I’ve slowed my nervous system down and returned to a peaceful flow, a stream of tenderness and magic.

Huh, interesting.

Maybe that’s why kids love throwing stones in the water: Nature takes them in hand and invites them into that flow, that timeless space of bliss.

Piddle-dee-dop. 

TRIO

SPRING MEDITATION #1

This is a special time of year in the Haliburton Highlands.  It’s about planting seeds, preparing for the future, doing the work to get ready for the riches to come.  It’s about tender moments taking root and soon to flourish in some unpredictable way.  It’s about pruning and it’s about annoying insects.  It’s about taking time, even when all is a mess, to listen to the birds and revel in the fresh shoots discovered under raked leaves.

Opening the cottage, opening the gardens, opening our hearts to our natural world.

Buying marshmallows, buying lounge chairs, buying into a different rhythm.

Racing to get here, racing to get things done, racing to slow down.

Ahhhh!

Awww!

Wow. What are we doing?

What are we

Doing?!

Just breathe. 

Just breathe.

Breathe.

That’s why we’re here.

We know that with our hands in the earth and our feet in the water, all is well.

With the family close by and fresh local food sprouting, all is well.

With our worst disasters becoming our best stories, all is well.

We love spring; we are excited by spring because even though the pipes have to be repaired AGAIN and the ant traps have to be set AGAIN and the sheets have to be washed AGAIN, there’s a whole summer of intimate moments that aren’t planned for but will just happen, intimate moments that will bond us deeply with the incredible gift of life itself.  Those moments when the shoulders drop, when the jaw slackens, when the purple sunset swims around us, are worth every hardship that set them up.  The taxes, the lineups, the ‘are we there yet’s are tests to see if we have to get our way to be happy.  Do we?  Have to get our way?

Or do we have to BE?  Be music, be chaos, be loons.

Be a lover, be a friend, be astonished.

The wonder of it all.

The wonder

Of

It

ALL!

SPRING MEDITATION #2

 Delicately Opening

SPRING MEDITATION #3

I love that my four year-old grandson, Samuel, soon after taking his shoes off at the door, said: Nana, let’s play music!  Over the years I’ve collected a variety of instruments, including egg shakers, ching cymbals, click sticks, djembe drums, cow bells, various whistles, digeridoos, stringed instruments, and did I say LOUD whistles? 

Marching band is a regular activity here.

Food, shelter, warmth, reproduction, air and sleep, are obvious on the list of survival essentials, but there’s one more I believe that belongs: music.  Remember the scene in the movie Shawshank Redemption when Andy takes over the library and plays classical music over the speakers and the prison inmates relax and feel euphorically human again?  Or when TV’s mobster kingpin, Tony Soprano, tells his depressed teenage son to find solace in music?  Or when the Titanic goes down and the dedicated musicians play beautifully to the end?

Music is more than entertainment; it is therapeutic. It guides us through challenges, cares for us, and supports us as we move on. I can be struggling with a decision and a song will come on with the exact advice I need.  Or I can be jogging and the rhythm will help me push through the tedium and soreness. Or I can be missing my dad then be transported back with him when a Count Basie piece plays.  Music is a midwife to our inner world, helping us navigate through invisible, internal mazes and then bringing us home.

Being aware of this power, I can use music as a tool to help rebalance.  If I’m tired, I can pick something energizing or if I’m too wound up, I can choose something grounding.  I can use music to take me into the centre of my grief, and then use it to bring me back out. I can also use it as a distraction. Music helps me to be the creator of my experiences and not the victim of them.

Is there even one culture that doesn’t incorporate music into their identity?  National gatherings, holiday celebrations, family ceremonies or private moments: music is always somewhere in the mix.

I’ve written this column through the years using it as a platform to try and make sense of life. I’ve explored religions, philosophies, arts, and healing therapies trying to understand why we humans have such a difficult time loving each other.  But having more answers hasn’t equalled having more joy. 

Then it occurred to me: I can try to make sense of this world or I can make music.

Playing, in the moment, is an act of love. 

Hearts beating, lungs pumping: whether we know it or not, we are all musicians harmonizing in our own way with the One Song.

“Samuel, let’s play music!”

The Highlands Chamber Orchestra’s next concert is May 28th at the Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion.

Mamma Mia - The Sing-Along, a Highlands Summer Festival Gala Fundraiser, is May 21 at Pinestone