sunday grace: a blessing for the feast of st. therese of lisieux

blessed be the wildflowers who stand magnificent but unnoticed in a world of glittered supermarket chrysanthemums.
blessed be the sensitive souls, the tender hearts, the triggered.
blessed be the empaths, the listeners, the reciters of plath and cobain.
blessed be the little girls who bring home strays and hide them away in the garage, sneaking them scraps of dinner and carefully making a nest of old beach towels on the concrete floor.
blessed be the boys of poetry and music and dance and kindness.  (good god, protect them in this place of narrowly and brutally defined "man".)
blessed be the ones who choose depth over breadth.
blessed be the loners, the hopeful, those who see beyond this moment, this day, this world.
blessed be the truth-tellers, the secret-keepers.
blessed be the those whose skin registers the subtle sea change of a room when sadness enters.
blessed be the misfits.
blessed be the solitary tidepool explorers, foreign film seers, 2 a.m. taco truck diners.
blessed be the forgivers.
blessed be those whose hearts break open at the suffering of others.
blessed be those whose second language is sky, or preschooler, or unspoken emotion.
blessed be the unloved, the forgotten.
blessed be the childless who mother and father beasts and ideas and gardens and communities instead.
blessed be the true.
blessed be the wildflowers.

· · · · ·

the feast of st. therese of lisieux (the little flower) is october 2.

sunday grace: grounded and oriented

orient.  10"x10" acrylic, ink, paper, pencil on wood.

i'm studying how to teach trauma-informed yoga and the material is rocking me to the core.

so many times here, i start to write that i can't wait to begin teaching yoga and art to teenage girls, but that is not true.  i can wait.  because the material is complex and important.  the girls are complex and important.  it's going to take some time to process and integrate and practice.  i want to offer something authentic and meaningful.

for so many people, feeling safe in the body doesn't come naturally.  it requires consciously becoming grounded, orienting to the space, and cultivating resources for emotional safety.  one of the many cues i learned for orienting that really resonated with me is, "look around the room and find four blue things."  i practice this myself when i am overwhelmed or frustrated or feel sad and to start my yoga practice.  it's simple and effective.

i woke up this morning wanting to create a piece inspired by four blue things.  because, you know, i process in color. i love that the abstract shape in the center unintentionally formed into a compass.  it also resembles my favorite yoga posture, ardha chandrasana, balancing fear, strength, lightness and beauty.

these things are my grace today:  learning, orienting, seeing the path more clearly, patience.

four things that just might be blue.

sunday grace: all the feels

alchemy cards, emotion deck, recently made with mindy tsonas' inner alchemy circle.

i am a sensitive human.

this is not new, i've always been tender and dramatic and melancholy and passionate and poetic.

but i used to fool myself into thinking i was keeping it a secret, carefully cultivating a moderately unaffected persona.

on occasion, one or more feeling might grow too powerful for containment and seep out in a big way.

big anger.  big fear.  big disappointment.  big grief.

sometimes my empathy kicks into overdrive and i get to feel others' emotions too.  (big fun.)

i learned that you can do a decent part-time job at hiding your emotions.  but you cannot not feel them.

i am developing a new-found appreciation for my deep feelings and ever-evolving empathy. i am observing them coming and going, watching their habits, their rhythm.  i am sitting with them and hearing their stories (which are my stories they've been trying to tell me for years and to which i stubbornly refused to listen).

so here we all are on this particular sunday morning; having coffee with me at the table is a little bit of restlessness, some disappointment, a lot of hope, compassion, courage, a mild sense of injustice. i'm trying not to pick at the scab that has grown over a recent wound to my heart.  i'm letting my feelings inform my wisdom and vise-versa.

and rumi is here too:

the guest house

this being human is a guest house
every morning a new arrival.

a joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

welcome and entertain them all
even if they are a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.
still treat each guest honorably.
he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

the dark thought, the shame, the malice
meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.

be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.