i was here

thank you 2011.  you gave me lots of solid ground upon which to stand.

little rainbows everywhere

sometimes i fantasize about living in shades of white, grey, stone and wood.  but then i have a funky day and am cheered by color in nearly every corner of my home.

loot was had

it's true, i can go from spiritual to material (and grateful) in zero-point-four seconds.

i hope your christmas bounty was awesome too.

happy day!

{illuminé}

making space for the sacred on this christmas eve.

peace, love and light to you and yours,
lisa

christmas color friday: black

happy christmas weekend friends.  i hope you enjoy silent nights, campfires with s'mores, cuddling with those you love, releasing all shadows from 2011 and opening to all the wonders and beauty of 2012.

christmas color wednesday: gold

sacred heart cold and lonely outside.

christmas color tuesday: red

i really should wear more candy stripe.

(and technically, this does not count as a color week photo, i was super busy yesterday and unable to find some red.)

christmas color monday: silver

stars were spilled.  pretty much sums up my weekend:  clumsy and magical.

just what i needed

a gigantic mug of dirty chai.

and a little christmas color project:

my friend annie at clarity and grey (beautiful mom and photographer) is hosting a christmas color week next week.  please join us by celebrating and capturing the colors that are bringing you joy this holiday season.

monday :: silver and white
tuesday :: red
wednesday :: gold
thursday :: green
friday :: random (oh how i love a wildcard day!)

hey there friend

have a piece.

december views {№3}

welcome:

• winter sunshine
• eclipse magic
• weekend mischief
• paint and paste and other goo
• holiday cocktail taste tests
• rest and movement

december views {№2}

on and in the tree.

december views {№1}

my man.  mister anthropologie.

sweet december

be tender with me, month of mine.

every year you come around and i think about birthday dinners at shakey's pizza or happy steak and then homemade cake at the house. i can see the angelfood cake on the kitchen counter turned upside down on a coke bottle to loosen it from the pan.  i liked to lick the strawberry frosting off the candles after the singing, the wishing, the blowing.

also:
wood fires.
mexican cocoa.
unwrapping a homemade tamale.
the tink-tink-tink of the christmas lights knocking together as dad climbed the ladder to the roof.
the good-natured swearing under his breath.
i held on to the bottom of the ladder to make sure he was safe.
the pink-red camillias that bloomed in the backyard.
pomegranates split open on the tree, ready for devouring.
the whir of the heaters in the almond groves.
barbie and skipper stopping by the nativity to pay their respects.
paul anka on the turntable.

remember when we would pile in the car with thermoses of chocolate to drive around and look at the lights?  i always fell asleep in the backseat to the soft sound of mom and dad talking about their own childhoods. 

remember that time when i was twelve and wished i was invisible?  you conjured up fog for days, so thick that it devoured the valley and i safely disappeared from sight.

thank you for that.

just like me you have a raw edge and a bit of an unexpected bite, while at the same time your capacity for story, wishes, comfort and imagination feels limitless.

every year you come around with the best gifts.  these memories of you and i playing quietly together, dreaming and becoming the brightest among december girls.

{that twitch of mine}

i impulsively snap photos of ordinary objects around my house.  especially when the light is just so.  i am grateful for that.

{my reality}

today i am grateful for a few things that i get grumpy about, but are my reality and in fact really good things:

• a job for which i am well paid with health insurance and retirement.
• my body.  it gets the job done.
• my brain.  i often wish it could do more but relatively speaking it's quite awesome.

{food}

whole.  beautiful. 

{softness}

i am grateful for the ability to return to softness in a harsh world.

{the little things}

grateful for:

• a good haircut
• used books
• a clean house
• being too busy working and living to even slightly entertain the thought of protesting for or against something strongly (protesting makes me tense)
• silence
• picking at a pomegranate
• raking leaves
• sweet emails from new and old friends
• planning a thanksgiving meal (i like the planning better than the fixing; possibly better than the eating)
• luca's thundershirt

{this day}

i have many jobs:

• yogi
• practitioner of the gratitude arts
• reader
• corgi petter
• photographer
• winker
• forest afficionado
• messy painter
• thrift store wanderer
• lover
• napper exraordinaire

and not a one involves hurt children, confrontation, frustration with the mortified-at-penn-state-public-who-don't-get-that-it-happens-every-freakin'-day-to-hundreds-of-children-and-we-are-all-culpable-because-we-choose-denial-and-disbelief-and-support-of-a-system-that-pretty-much-requires-an-eyewitness-and-even-then-makes-it-nearly-impossible-to-prove.

(ok, i feel better now.  just needed to say it.)

• venter

{practice}

it's a stretch when i write that i am grateful for practice.  let me just say that i am grateful that i am getting better at recognizing opportunities for practice before situations become so complex, overwhelming or dangerous.  this week i am practicing:

• staying grounded while being thrown under the bus
• by someone i trust
• defending myself without fighting
• thinking before speaking
• humility
• not hating myself even though i gained two pounds after a week of conscious eating, yoga, walks and pilates
• feeling alone without feeling unworthy
• choosing love over fear
• gratitude during a less-than-happy week

{beauty}

grateful for all that is beautiful in my little world.  and the ability to see it.

{brave+beautiful}

grateful for sunny fall weekends full of art, chai, reading, naps and yoga to balance out the ugly.

{aqua}

the sea faded by afternoon sun. 

turquoise stones sold roadside by an ancient yokut.  

blue skies tinted green from exhaust or old film. 

the tile mosaic in the mission fountain.

a girl's hair on melrose.

from the airplane, the backyard pools look like teal polkadots.

the color of california. 

the color of home.

grateful for bella's 52 photos project.

{space}

                                                  i                                                         

                                                          am

                         


                                                  grateful                                                                                                 

                                                                                              for

                                                                                 space




   to
                                                   think              

                           and




                                                                              explore      
            my


                          own


                                                          inner




                                                                                        landscape.

{optimism}

so i had one of those great weekends where everything seemed possible.  everyone's energies were in sync and the mood was clear and bright.  i had space and time for yoga, art, cooking, photography, cuddly naps and talks.  it was effortless.  i am so grateful for these gifts.

i painted frog girl on the cover of my 2012 planner and in a wildly enthusiastic fit named it 'the year of extraordinary things'.  i am so very grateful to mindy; she taught me to paint and gave me the courage that goes with it.  the courage to play and make mistakes and try again.

i am also grateful to pixie.  in her class about animal spirits at serendipity, i pulled the frog card.  at first i was slightly disappointed in my selection.  i was hoping for something a bit more majestic, like bear or mountain lion or wise like owl.  maybe something beautiful like peacock.  nope.  frog.

but the more i learned about frog spirit, i realized she is exactly the totem i need at this time in my life.  she is about metamorphosis and transformation and cleansing and healing.  she is about joy, creativity, abundance, voice.  frog clears negativity from space, internal and external.    frog is sounding quite nice now, isn't she?

so on this monday morning, i'm pulling on my imaginary frog hat to see if i can hold on to the optimism throughout the day once i leave the beauty of my little magical pond.

happy monday friends.

{autumn}

always grateful for the color and experiences of autumn.  this morning in my backyard the sun rose across the wee forest illuminating hundreds of tiny falling leaves of red, yellow, orange and green.  there was a soft scent of woodsmoke and the sound of birdsong and distant church bells. 

it.  was.  awesome.

{safety}

after waking from terribly scary dreams, i am so grateful to live in a safe home in a safe neighborhood.

{opportunities}

grateful for past and future windows of opportunity.

{spirits}

i am grateful for the many canine companions i have had throughout my life.

best.  friends.  ever. 

{faith}

i am fascinated by how people express their faith.  while some organized religions scare the bejesus out of me, i find comfort in most avenues of worship and enlightenment. 

regular churchgoing is not for me and i live in a town where christianity has its own "special" flavor that turns me off, but i grew up believing in jesus and heaven and there is a part of me that still does.  yesterday, i was attending a memorial in an episcopalian chapel and surprised myself by still being able to recite psalm 23 by heart. 

now i believe in and have faith in other things as well.  it's pretty much a multi-denominational party on my path.  i love the teachings of the buddha, native american spiritual practices and the yoga sutras.  but there will always be a little girl inside of me that sees herself as a fluffy lamb at the feet of a loving jesus. 

i am grateful that i have faith in love and tomorrow and forgiveness and growth.

{all souls}

tomorrow is all souls day.  and today is the first day of my month of gratitude.  i like to remember those souls who walked a bit with me on this path with gratitude for what they taught me.

grandpa w showed me the joys of rollerskating and a good baseball game and to always have a little mystery about you.  (later in life i found out he was briefly married to a german circus performer before my grandma.  cool.)

john b was the boy we all wanted to grow up and marry.  he was devastatingly handsome even in the first grade (think donny osmond).  he was funny and friendly.  he blew his brains out with a rifle when we were nineteen.  i have a vivid memory of side-by-side i-can-swing-higher contests on the playground.  to this day when i swing, he swings. 

leesha b just got her drivers license when she died in a head-on collision on a windy desert road at twilight.  no matter how great it's going, it really can all be gone in a second.  cherish it.

mark ran up all eight floors of the padre hotel and hurled his body off of an open balcony.  everybody has demons, some big and some small.  it's our job to work them out.

cece (not her real name) was a foster child on my caseload.  she had stage four bone cancer.  cece taught me that even though your tumors are growing so fast others can hear your bones breaking from the inside out and even though you know you are dying before you even get to live your life, having your toenails painted with glitter and talking about leo dicaprio can bring a smile to a girl's face.

there are others.   too many others.  i may return to this page and add on as i think about them throughout the week and remember the lessons they lived.

today

i yearn for the soft metallic light of the sunrise over the atlantic.

for the joy of discovery.

for the playful chatter of gulls and pelicans.

and the peace that only the ocean can provide.

*****

my community lost a gentle soul today.  he was a good good man and a great judge.

i imagine he is in a place surrounded by all these gifts of the sea.  a place where each child is loved and safe.

serendipity part two: color

{captured while at serendipity.}