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

LOVE WHAT ARISES

Have you heard this story?  There’s a man on the other side of the world who lives in a tent with his large, extended family. This particular day, the man is overwhelmed by the cramped quarters and goes to speak to an elder.  The elder deeply listens and tells the man to get a chicken and bring it inside with him.  The man finds this odd but gets a chicken because the elder is famous, far and wide, for his wisdom.  A week later the man goes back to the elder and complains that the chicken, with all its flapping, has only added to the chaos in the small tent.  The elder silently nods and tells him to get a puppy. Curious, the man does so, and soon becomes even more frustrated as the puppy takes up space and also needs constant attention.  He describes his nightmare to the elder who then replies: “Hmm, what you really need is a donkey, if it’s inside with you, everything will work out.” One more time, the man trusts in the elder and follows directions.  A few days later, the tent is not only busting at the seams, it also stinks, and by the way, his favorite slippers, the only true luxury he had left, were chewed to pieces.  The man goes outside for fresh air and just then, the elder passes by. 

“You see what’s going on here,” the man exclaims incredulously.

“Perfect,” says the elder. “See me in a week.”

The man, hoping the elder has spotted something, counts the days until the flapping, nipping, stinking mess ends.  Nothing gets better.  A week later the tent is a worse chaotic muddle and the man shows up at the elder’s place hunched over in tears completely disillusioned.

“I don’t understand,” he says. 

“Good, says the elder,” cutting him off before he can say anymore. “Now go home and return the animals.”

“I don’t understand,” the man keeps mumbling as he mopes home. 

A week later, he returns stuffed with presents for the elder. 

“It’s a miracle,” he rejoices.  “It’s a miracle.  My home is so much bigger and happy now. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!”

Perhaps this is what I’ve been writing about this season: The Master’s Touch, All I Need To Know I Learned Canoeing, Hangin’ Out.  It’s been about the power of appreciating what is and, on a daily basis, loving what arises. 

I’ve come to realize, the things that keep interfering with the wondrous state of peace and joy are those often secretly ingrained expectations - the expectation for something different and/or better.  Remove the ‘should haves’ – I should have, they should have, it should have…blah, blah, blah…and all that’s left is appreciation…and deep love…and happiness. 

I don’t have to get my way to be happy, I just have to love what arises.

When I find I’ve got ‘dread head’- thinking things should be different then they are- I now stop and calmly replace them with this:

Thank you.

I love you.

Bless you.

Thank you readers for supporting the local businesses who support this paper so we guest writers have a forum. 

Love and blessings to all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

HANGIN' OUT

There’s something pretty wonderful about summer here in #MyHaliburtonHighlands: the recreational sports, the local markets, the arts and crafts.  But what makes the season most memorable for me is the time spent just hanging out.

I used to worry about entertaining the grandkids and guests and having planned activities, but it’s fascinating how ideas pop up for games and visits to seamlessly fill the gaps.  The Sculpture Forest and farmer’s markets, pirate parties and vegetable picking, inventing games and painting rocks, the intimacy of these ‘unimportant’ moments are what we cherish and forever remember deep in our bones, deep in those tender, resilient places within.  Yes, our bodies do store trauma, but they also store bliss.

In mid-August, we hosted our third house-concert with Juno-nominated singer/songwriter Craig Cardiff and had a wonderful weekend of comradery. The first summer, Craig put on a sensational performance under the stars and enhanced his sound using looping and beatboxing.  The second summer, with a bigger audience, he moved to the deck and added a light show that made the leaves in the maple and oak trees behind him dance. This year, anticipating a repeat of the magic, we prayed for the rain to stop. It didn’t.  And to add to the challenge of setting up and re-arranging the furniture inside, the power went out just as he was plugging in.  There may not have been any special effects that evening, but there sure was chemistry. Craig’s easy, gentle manner had us all singing along, relaxing into the moment, and opening to all the gifts he did have to offer – including pure friendship.

In this information/mobile-app age where we spend most of our time in our heads, making time and space to slow down just feels so soothing, so blissful.  It’s like our nervous system has a chance to reset and that part of ourselves that’s quick to giggle and be expressive has a chance to blossom again – no thinking required, just heart-filled time being in the magic.  Craig is a master of this, and his engaging manner and easy improvisations quickly had us all feeling like family singing and laughing around a campfire.

Now, however, that summer is coming to an end and our schedules are filling up, I’m wondering if it’s possible to maintain that ‘hangin’ out’ feel?  Does the ease have to be mothballed with the boat?  What is it about summer that helps us let down our guards and find real joy?

Maybe, whether we realize it or not, with the windows open and nature streaming in, our whole body is connecting and responding to all that is participating in life – the birds, the breeze, the rustling leaves. We’re not separate, we’re not really alone, and the innocence that is at the core of our soul gets to breathe…and smile.  The awe we express at a beautiful sunset is harmonizing with the awe that has been patiently waiting within, the joy our eyes see when a child smiles is the same joy that has been quietly residing in our heart, and the nurturing instinct we witness in nature is enlivening those instincts that have been resting within; within our bodies.

Some people have a morning ritual to help ground themselves in the state of relaxation.  Others use apps to anchor in it throughout the day.  The simplest approach I’ve learned is:  follow your breath.  When I do so, my nervous system slows down and tension dissolves away. One tell-tale sign of being anxious, I noticed, is my fingers; if they’re fidgety, it’s time to slow down and follow my breath again.

This place of calmness is not a withdrawal from problems but instead another way of approaching them.  Creativity and inspiration abound when I’m open and in harmony with life - not so much so when negativity and anxiety grip me.

At his concerts, Craig Cardiff passes around a large notebook and invites his audience to write something about themselves.  This Book of Truths allows for the storytelling to go both ways.  Here’s what I wrote:

I tried to understand everything but only saw differences.

Now I try to bless everything and see only innocence.

I thought I could get over the traumas in my past and be more graceful by studying and conforming to the ways of the old Masters.  This summer has shown me, I already am a Master.  I just have to slow down, soften my body, and connect with the blessings that surround me.