Last week I had a project at work that had me researching and writing interview questions for a client’s video.  It was a lot of fun because I secretively have a fetish about being interviewed and asked a random slew of questions. I love the feeling of having to think on my feet and express what pops into my mind.  For years, as a chronic insomniac I’d lie at night and daydream about being on Dave Letterman talking about everything and anything (I was his favourite guest). Whenever I get a call from one of those survey people I jump at the chance to participate. I answer all the celebrity interview questions at the back of Vanity Fair and I even quite enjoy job interviews, just for the sheer opportunity to hone my employee of the month answers.  From online dating emails to offline dates – I love the whole process of delving into the corridors of both my mind and my audience’s mind, poking around, planting seeds of curiosity, exploring reactions, readiness and responses. I even had a friend who on long car rides would pretend to interview me – asking the most ridiculously wonderful questions (now that’s a good friend).  Like I said – it’s a fascination of mine.

It made me wonder why I like it so much. Maybe I feel unheard? Maybe I feel I have something to say?  Whether being asked the questions or being the one asking – I know I am a very curious monkey who is interested and inspired by how people think and feel.

One thing for sure – I know my noggin is a joggin 24/7.  I think about my day and my evening, my week and upcoming weekend. I think about people in my life and at work that I care about and wonder how they are doing, what they are thinking and feeling. I think about my Mum & Dad and the zillion questions I wish I had asked. I think about what my pets are thinking…just yesterday I witnessed my hamster having a dream and it made me wonder what was in that little head of his…peanuts? Hamster love?  I think about when, where and how I will meet my partner in crime. I think about what I want to be when I grow up, my island, my tribe, my petting zoo, my late night talk show, what impact I can have on my world. I think about colours, textures and patterns of fabric in my closet. What new craft I want to learn. I wonder what I am going to wear tomorrow and if I will ever find my dream purse. I also worry – a lot, which is a whole different kind of thinking and questioning…and those questions usually end up being spoken to my ceiling.

So I am wondering and I’d like to ask you to engage a little banter and sharing because I am looking for inspiration and I am curious what’s on your mind!  If you’d be so kind to ponder the following 5 questions and let me know what you think then I will aim to surprise and delight you with my response overtime in my blog!   I promise to keep names out of it and if you feel more comfy sharing privately just connect with me in the “You had me at Hello” section on my website!   Remember the mind is a beautiful thing!  Thanks friends xx

1. What would you like to see more of in this blog? Any specific topics or issues you’d like me to tackle and hug?

2. What makes you, you?

3. What’s the best advice you ever got?

4. If you could be anything…what do you want to be when you grow up? (Your ultimate dream).

5. What makes you feel alive?

I consider myself a tough cookie.  I am an intrepid adventurer who is ballsy, bold and bring it on baby when it comes to travelling off the beaten path. I also consider myself brave.  I stand up. You can count on me in a crisis. I have elevated Spidey sense for danger and call spiders and snakes my friends. I’m also strong and resilient; I have a high tolerance for physical pain – tested by dozens of broken bones, a busted back and my ability to still do a mean cartwheel. I am courageous – I speak my mind and my heart.  I eat fear for breakfast, snack on dares daily and foster an indomitable spirit that always chooses hope, peace and love.

What slays me is rejection.

Now everyone will experience rejection over his or her lives. It’s a part of life and whether it’s in love, your career, friends, or a book proposal – it hurts.  Sometimes it hurts like hell.  As people, we have a strong need to feel secure. If you’ve been rejected, your sense of security is threatened – you may feel judged, abandoned and scared.  I turn into “Mud Girl”…a depressive state of stuck in the mud, covered in heavy dirt, can’t move, trapped at the bottom of a deep hole, eating worms and can’t get out”.   Not a great place to be.

My heart has a boo boo and no band-aid is gonna help.

Physical pain, like a broken bone often needs outside intervention to make it go away – a visit to the doctor, pain meds or a crutch. Emotional pain needs you to go inside. You need to feel it, in order to deal with it and ultimately heal it.

Feeling painful emotions can be painful, really scary and often result in more pain. Awesome sauce!  But it is also the only remedy to free yourself, to learn how to cope, experience some self reflection and quite possibly learn an important life lesson.

Here are a few tips to help you get through the grind, find peace and let it go from my book “How to Live Like a Chipmunk and Other Tips on Living an Awesome Sauce Life”.

1. Talk it out. Scream it out. Stomp it out. Cry it out. Wish it out. Beg it out. Think it out. Feel it out.
2. Hold on really, really, really tight – so tight that it actually hurts and you simply have to let it go in order to stop the pain.
3. Make friends with your emotions, give them a hug, let them know it’s safe to feel, have a tea with them, heck have a glass of wine and toast to the wisdom they will bring.
4. Train your brain to feel. Reward it with chips when it is good… open, aware and spewing out a frenzied soliloquy of vomitus but authentic emotional puss. Deny it chips when it spirals into a negative vortex of self-loathing, avoidance or isolation.
5. Create calm. Go to your magic place. Breathe a lot. Surround yourself in love.
6. Know it takes less energy to love, and let it go than it does to hold on to hurt. Be love.
7. Find perspective. Find the silver lining.
8. Make peace.
9. Release it. Better out than in.
10. 5 words…Taylor Swift – Shake it Off!

Lately I’ve been really focused on creating calm in my life; whether that is staying in the moment, concentrating on my breathing, saying mantras and meditating.  When all that fails – I sew.  Suffice to say, I’ve made a lot of new things over the past few weeks.

I’m not sure what it is about sewing other than it takes me away to another world, a vortex of passive quiescence, providing a protected distance from reality. A nirvana, where the real world disappears and I am emancipated from anxiety and any attachment to what happening.  My mind goes somewhere else.

It goes to Fabricland.

Yes it is a store but it is so much more. It is a LAND ~ an artistic, cathartic escape, filled with possibilities, potential, and solutions all in one’s power, at every bolt.  If I ever feel stuck, uninspired, unmotivated or life simply isn’t cooperating and chaos ensues – Fabricland is my shelter of calm.

I mindfully, meander aisles reminiscent of jungles filled with exotic colours, textures and patterns. Forging through dense forests of lush mossy wools, burgundy velvets and earthy tweeds.  I enter haphazardly into a circus of chance – a kaleidoscopic palette, mixing, matching and merging the most preposterous combinations, polka dots, argyle and stripes, heliotropic fusion with a scheming spectrum of sanguine, fuchsine and magenta. I am breaking the rules. I am running with scissors. I am released. Free…leaving chaos and confinement behind.

My imagination goes wild. My thoughts turn to collars and cuffs, buttons and trim. My fantasy fueled with plackets, pockets and pleats. My senses ignited, experiencing the sensuality of rich tartans, dreamy flannelettes and decadent fun fur.  At times I am overwhelmed. It’s good to feel alive.  I dance in a fabric frenzy, piling up a bounty of bolts, yards and yards of possibility to be new again.

At home I clear space and place every piece of treasured textile out while I concoct one-of-a-kind concept ensembles: Cowgirl Chic, Boho Nerd, Clan of the Cave Bear Circus, Schoolgirl Punk and Bay City Roller 2.0…to name just a few. I lay out patterns, I pin, I cut. I am.

Hours literally pass without thought, hunger, thirst or care. I am blissfully lost in the hum of the machine, the repetitive needle going up and down; up and down. The zeal from zig zagging, the healing of hand hemming, the realization, and culmination of creation.

Now sewing is my thang.  But the general idea here is to find something that connects with your mind and let it take you away from what’s stressing you out or bringing you down.  It could be exercise, cooking, macramé, axe throwing or reading – a good book like “How to Live Like a Chipmunk and Other Tips on Living an Awesome Sauce Life”, which also happens to have a chapter on How to Create Calm….one stitch…two stitch, repeat.

My mind often feels like a high-speed train on an endless roller coaster track. I’ve been called a busy bee, a sky-high grasshopper, a fire monkey and an energizer bunny on crack.  Yup my mind is always a racing a million miles an hour. It wakes me up, causes me stress, anxiety, sleepless nights and sheer exhaustion.  You’d think it would be easy to simply get off the train but the lack of stations makes it really difficult.

That’s when I decided to create some. I call them mind stations, rest stops, places to get off and sit on the bench, hangout a while and wait for the next train.  Other more Holy cow people call them mantras.

Mantras have been around forever and exist in all walks of spirituality, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and ahem…Pattyisms. They are quite simply a formula to help calm your train of thought…which works so perfectly with my current derailed choo-choo of chaos.

Traditionally, a mantra is a sacred utterance – typically melodic and often associated with a monkish chant; but it can be as simple as a syllable, a single sound, word or group of words that when spoken help to break your monkey mind and bring you back to the moment, back to your body and back to a place of peace.

Now I wasn’t an original believer, in fact I found the whole concept of monk-like meditation, stillness and repetitive moaning hugely annoying. Just the notion of being still caused me to twitch and tourette; beside the fact I can’t sit cross-legged if you paid me.  But it was on one of my incredible trips to India where I was visiting a temple and started up a chat with a monk that changed everything for me.  He told me that being mindful wasn’t necessarily all about intense concentration and stillness; it could also be simply about being aware and focusing on your breath or any little sound or phrase that got your monkey mind to take a peanut break. (He actually really said peanut break).  He said you can practice being mindful anywhere and anytime, moving or resting and using whatever little prayer, poem, phrase or hum worked for you.  He then invited me to take a little walk with him over to the prayer wheels and give them a spin. He started to chant this little ditty “Om Mani Padme Hum” and explained that this prayer was the embodiment of compassion and each wheel was filled with millions of tiny pieces of paper with this mantra written on them and when someone spins the wheel, the effect is the same as reciting the manta as many times as it is duplicated within the wheel.  He had me at peanut.  From that moment on you’ll often catch me singing this beautiful mantra.

On other days you may hear me babbling a variety of other mantras – I have a whole collection depending on my mood, the situation or what works in that moment.  Sometimes it’s silent and still, other times spoken with great passion – what’s important is it get’s me off the train and I can then be free to choose my next destination.

So give it a try – find a little phrase, beep or breath that resonates with you and give your mind a peanut. Just for kicks and giggles…here are some of my favourites mantras:

I am a jolly little twig on a river.

Love the shit outta everything.

Chaos is a necessary state of evolution.

I am love. I am loved.

Always believe something wonderful is about to happen.

I trust the flow of my life. It’s all happening as it should.

It’s probably a box of kittens.

Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

Believing is half the battle.

It all started about a week ago…it was early one morning, the curtains were wavering due to a slightly brisk breeze that found its way to the one loose curl on my head taunting it until I woke up.  It annoyed me. Then I was getting dressed and felt the unnatural urge to wear jeans for the first time this summer – which upon trying to pull on didn’t fit.  I had a bit of a meltdown…they fit in May!?!?!?  Then on my way to the bus…the last straw hit me like a barrel of hay when the bus pulled up there was an ad about the CNE… and that’s when I first noticed the twitch.  It progressed throughout the day – the occasional shiver, brain twinge, followed by an overall restless malaise wrought with angst. Someone said it was allergies – oh yea I’m allergic all right.

I don’t want summer to end. I don’t want to go back to school. I don’t want to wake up early, spend my day in a classroom reckoning with algebra. I don’t want to do homework or study for tests. I don’t want to wear pants, let alone socks and shoes. I don’t want it to be dark. I don’t want to rake leaves. And I really don’t want to witness the countdown to Christmas.

I don’t want any of it and frankly I’m experiencing a serious bout of end of summer blues…make that the navy blues. So yea I know I’m not really going back to school (frack…does that mean I don’t get a new pencil case and back to school outfit?)…but it’s still a very visceral time of year that triggers a shifting into a different season or vibe. A heavier, kinda need a sweater vibe.  A saying bye-bye to the sense of freedom, ease, joie de vie and ice-cream vibe.  I can feel my feet already beginning to mourn the loss of bare-footedness. My freckles fading into a fish belly white complexion reminiscent of bleak and baron snow laden fields of winter. The woe of winter overcomes me. I am verklempt.

Please, please just stay a little longer. I’ve become accustomed to your beautiful rays, your warmth and sunny exposure, you light up my days with positivity and cheer.  We’ve become so close over the past few months; I’ve tippy-toed barefoot in your streams, slept with you in your wildflower fields, and explored your deepest woods.  I covet you for your outdoor festivals, patios, cottage time and long weekends. You are beautiful as you rise in the morning and even more magnificent when you lay to rest in the evenings.

So what’s a full on sun worshipping, wear as little as possible, beach babe, forest frolicking summer loving had me a blast girl to do? I’m going to defy FALL. I’m telling it to take a hike and putting the entire season on Strike for two more months. I will protest by wearing my flip flops into October.  I will not switch my seasonal closets – I will layer. I will say NO to sweaters, overcoats, scarves, hats and Gawd forsaken gloves. I will not purchase my fall purse until November. I will not make stew.  I will soak up every last ray of light and catch freckles until the first snowflake falls and I will stock my freezer with Gin popsicles so everyday feels like a sunnier, happier day!  As much as summer is a season – it’s also an attitude and way of living and I for one plan to keep it hot to trot for as long as I can!

I was sitting in the studio at work last week, chatting up my peeps, my daytime partners in crime (and sometimes punishment); my co-conspirators and compatriots and somehow the convo got to the year we were all born.   SOUND THE ALARMS!  SHUT DOWN THE VAULT DOOR!  TOP SECRET UNDISCLOSED DOCUMENTATION IS ABOUT TO BE REVEALED. Gawd I hate this revelation…they all know I’m a bit older and duh a lot wiser but really why or Gawd why do we have to focus on the number?  It’s just a number you know!

So what…@%^#@%@ I could be your mother, or older; older sister maybe.  So what you were born two years after I graduated university.  So what you have no recollection of the Flock of Seagulls, Charlie’s Angels, 45’s, Tang or encyclopedias because you were born in 1992…which makes me ahem…30 years older then you.

Ahhh youth. Always seems so enviable but you know what I wouldn’t go back if you paid me. I ‘m proud of my years; my experiences, mistakes (sun-in hair lightener), lessons and lifelines. I’m also proud that I have stories and know things and done things you young’ ins can’t even imagine and well… will never have to experience…for better or worse.

For instance I did my university thesis without the existence of computers.  It happened in a library, where I spent months researching articles on microfiche (flat sheets of film containing micro photographs of pages of a newspaper or document) only to have to get the original from the librarian to photo copy for a nickel each page, then hand write my 100 page draft to eventually be typed on a typewriter. BTW there’s no spellcheck in typewriters…just saying.

There was no Facebook, no cell phones, no texting or selfies. My phone was plugged into a wall and was a part of a party line (a shared local circuit) where at any given time you could be privy to someone else’s conversation. I was allowed 10 minutes after my homework was done to use the phone to speak to my friends. There was no sharing of photos (not that a teen, let alone a kid had a Polaroid in those days), no watching You Tube videos or trying to find Pokémon – we made plans to meet at the mall and trusted each other that we would show up.  And being a part of a family that moved a lot – the only way to stay in touch with my far away friends was to write letters. I have boxes of them, documenting decades of my life…how many emails have you saved?

There were no iPod or downloading music.  We listened to the radio or our records and then spent weeks saving our allowance to buy the latest 45’s at the record store. I remember waiting for over a month to get Jim Stafford’s “I don’t like Spiders and Snakes”….go on…You Tube it…I dare you.

Yes, there were massive gaps in technology, but this lent itself to amazing personal innovation far beyond the entertainment and production value of a computer.  We were inventive and imaginative!  We made things, from scratch – drew with pencils, wrote stories in scribblers, made paper fortune tellers to find out if Russel Wangurski wanted to “go around” (aka hang out/secretively date) me.  We played out imaginary roles and scenarios, we spent time outside, getting dirty, being curious, and exploring our world – not watching it on a screen.

I’m all for the advances of our modern world, but there was something neato about growing up in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. They were decades of innocence, incredible discoveries and innovation – a time that was constantly evolving, expressing and exploding with new statements in culture, art, music and fashion. It was a time of change, progress, and protest – like every decade I suppose, but I look back and feel like it was kinder, and gentler in some ways; naïve perhaps, perhaps more private than public.  1962 – the year Bob Dylan first performed Blowing in the Wind; Marilyn Monroe died, Nelson Mandela was arrested, the Cuban Missile crisis teetered on the brink of nuclear war, the novel A Clockwork Orange was published, the first Bond film was released and I was born just to name a few.  Well it’s been over 50 years living on this planet and whether you’re a hippie or a hipster – one thing is for sure – Mork & Mindy, The Partridge Family and The Breakfast Club are still cool to the max….just saying.  Peace out.

I’ve decided I am going to become an Olympic swimmer.  It all hit me last week when I was watching our Canadian girls splash like lightning through the lanes and win medal after medal after medal.  I’ve got the whole wiggle the arms, clap my thighs, step up to the board, hold onto the edge, get on my mark, touch my toes and then launch into thin air propelling myself like a flying fish flipping in and out of the surf to reach the end with a somersault twist, kicking like an Irish sword dancer on fire then stretching beyond my fingertips to reach the wall first.  I got this.

Now you may think it’s unrealistic of me…I’m a bit older, ok a lot older, and sure I have my share of broken bones and maybe I’m not in perfect shape and so what I can’t touch my toes and at 5’4” don’t have the body for a swimmer and shoulda been training for the last 30 decades …yadda yadda yadda.  Whatevrs.  For the love of dog – don’t rain on my podium.  I want this.

I’m a very good swimmer. Little do you know that my nickname growing up was “the mermaid” and at 5 years of age my Dad took me to the pool, turned his back for a second and I was up the diving board ladder and jumping off at 40 feet without a care in the world…and btw I only had my tadpole swimming badge.  I’ve swam across a lake with leeches sucking on my butt,  saved a man from drowning, taken a dip in the Big East in February and was a mermaid for Halloween twice.  Just saying.

Point is – when you want something, I mean really really want it – NOTHING stands in your way.  And the more you tell me I can’t…I’ll show you I can.

I have destiny…I am on the path to greatest.  It may be on a podium, on a TED Talk stage, or in Africa teaching women to sew.  It may be between pages or painted on a rock. It may be atop a mountain or quietly contemplating bliss while sitting in the woods.  It may be silent or it may be really loud – but one thing for sure – it’s happening. Here and now, moment after moment and I am on my way and nothing is going to stop me.

On my mark…

Man oh man it’s been hot. Sweltering, sweaty, drippy, moving like a sloth hot.  This past week I’ve really been feeling the heat…it’s been hitting me like a molten lava brick wall.  I’ve tried everything to stay cool, chill out, protect myself from the fever – but today I combusted and had a meltdown.  No; not a 911, fetal position on the kitchen floor, need a straightjacket kind-of-a meltdown – but a definite boo hoo, woe is me, stomp my wee size 5 foot over the injustice of it all meltdown.

Hello my name is Patty and I am human.  Sure I am the proud flag carrier of choose Awesome Sauce for Life – but every once in a while the warrior wobbles, feels the weight of the world and needs a little hissy fit.

It always feels like it comes out of nowhere – but if I take a moment (which I rarely do and is part of my problem) I realize I’ve been burning the candelabra in too many rooms of my life.  Pushing and pretending that I am super human.  Trying so hard to juggle way too long to do lists, swinging my sword against the meanies, fighting for the cause and just not winning, saying yes to things I want to say no to, saying no to things I want to say yes to; managing not loviating the flow of my life…and simply doing the deeds without an ounce of authenticity.   Well whoa nelly…clearly that’s not working so I’m taking a TIME OUT to take care of me and get my moxie back on track.

You see I believe our power or magic comes from within. In our mindset, our heart and being kind to our body – but it has to be real, you have to feel it – not just do it because you should.  When you pretend it’s like lying to yourself and that serves no good purpose.  Take meditating for instance…it use to be something Angus (my cat) and I did together. Since he died, I still do it, but I swear obscenities in my head the entire time – kinda counterproductive I’d say. Same with “watching what I eat”…I’ve been very diligent at watching one chip at a time disappear until the bag is completely empty…and affirmations – well they’ve become clichés that piss me off.  Faking your feelings sets off an insidious cycle that sabotages how we take care of ourselves. Fighting the flow leads to frustration which spurs a sense of hopelessness which triggers fear which can either cause us to freeze or flee – either way it’s exhausting which is the perfect excuse to not exercise, eat well and most importantly fuel our mind with positivity, possibility and joy. Burn out and inauthenticity raises a tall wall to climb when you least feel like climbing.

Luckily I’m a monkey and pretty good at climbing but if I’ve learnt anything it’s about going slowly, with intention, focus and because I want to – not have to.

First things first – Feel.   Let go of being stoic. Open the vault and let it rip. You must feel in order to deal and then heal.

Second – Be nice to myself.  Give up being perfect for authentic.

Third – toss my current Impossible To Do List and replace it with this one:

Play with Faeries

Grow Angel Wings

Braid the Hair of a Mermaid

Fly to the Moon

Ride a Unicorn.

Fourth – Hmmm maybe pick up a super cool, easy-to-read book I heard about called “How to Live Like a Chipmunk and Other Tips on Living an Awesome Sauce Life”… apparently it’s chocked full of simple ways to get your moxie back!

Well… we’re not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to Kitten Ville! Hold on tight…as the last 72 hours have been nothing short of an apocalyptic adventure in adorableness.  Really what could two tiny 3-pound furballs of love do other than eat, sleep and cuddle?

Prepare for Ninja Kittens.

NOTHING IS SAFE – everything is edible. Including buttons, bells, feathers, carpet, cardboard, my crocks, my nose stud, the zip lock bag of lemons (that was sure a surprise) and my Awesome Sauce book cover (but thanks for being curious).

KITTENS MORPH INTO MICROSCOPIC VAPORS that slip into the tiniest of cracks. Like behind the piano, under my dresser, under my stone altar, into Fiend’s closet, inside my pillowcase and through the full proof baby gates to the death basement.

KITTENS FLY. All the way up to the 4^th shelf where my unicorn collection was, catapulting across the piano onto the lampshade, grabbing the India wall hanging (aka new kitten swing) and finally levitating from the baby gate to the painting of Wonder Woman and leaping to the top of the refrigerator.

KITTENS LIKE TO TYPE on my keyboard while 278sjl.dm.ssahisdA  I’m typing.  Thanks for helping Charlie.

KITTENS REALLY LIKE TO POO, dig and toss around cat litter EVERYWHERE. They also don’t put their toys away.

KITTENS HAVE NON-STOP ENERGY – a kind of lightning bolt super- sonic, mad dash, gazelle-like, spazztic frantic zolt of zippity-do-da at the speed of light.

KITTENS JUST WANT TO BE YOUR 16 year old cat’s new best friend and will do everything to make sure he knows they are never going to stop trying. (Are they gone yet?)

KITTENS FALL ASLEEP ON HUMANS and make little kitten snore noises and dream little kitten dreams.

KITTENS CUDDLE, with themselves, all pretzeled up as one, and on their new mummy. Charlie is especially fond of sleeping in my hair while licking my forehead (I went to kitty utopia), while Sadie prefers deep cleavage.

KITTENS HAVE THE BEST BUMS, EARS, NOSES, WHISKERS, EYES, PAW PADS, KITTEN NOISES and BUMS…yes I said bums twice. (Obsessed Mamma)

I’ve done absolutely nothing for 4 days (which for those who know me is unheard of – I’ve usually built the ark or five by now)…all I have done is lie on the floor and talk in a high pitch voice understandable by kittens. I’ve had my hair, face, nose, lips and eye lashes licked better than any man has ever done. I’ve been pawed and kneaded on, head butted, purred to and trusted. I smell like wet cat food and I don’t care. We’ve entertained each other all day – playing toss the mouse, tickle the feather, climb the cardboard condo, chase the wombat and explored a whole house of super cool new scents, and amazing miracles like tap water and fingers under the sheets and discovered a plethora of knick knacks to knock down, scratch and destroy…and I still don’t care. For the first time in a long time; since Angus died, I actually feel my heart filling up. I feel love and it’s all because of these two perfect little monkey kittens –  Charlie and Sadie who may be super small in size but make up for it in enormous kittenoisty loviation.

And just in case you didn’t realize…..Love at first sight is possible.

I’m back. Well sort of…in body at least, while my mind and spirit drift in and out of the bliss of being off the grid, immersed in nature for a week. It was perfect; actually it was more than perfect – more; because I let go of the concept of perfection and started to feel like a real human soul again.  Sounds all heavy duty but keeping up the facade, the expectations of yourself and others can be taxing and tiring and quite frankly rob you of your natural state of being.  I felt. I felt relief to be away, to be somewhere quiet and unreachable.  I felt safe and secure. I felt real gratitude for having this time – time for myself. I felt happy just to be and I felt sad for the loss of Angus – real sadness – not just Facebook sadness; if you know what I mean. I spoke my worries out loud and let them out, then breathed in all the possibilities.  I let my weary body rest. A lot. On the deck, in the grass, in the sun and floating in the rapids of my magic river.  I needed to rest.   I sat still. So still I could feel the breeze and hear it speak. So still I could identify a diverse choir of birds singing, I heard a tree fall in the forest and I mastered the distinction between chipmunk and squirrel pitter patter.  I sat still for hours simply feeding the munks peanuts, petting their little furry bums and speaking snerney berney – you want to talk about Zen. I let my creativity loose. Everyday channeling my spirit into an artful expression.  Creating a space in my woods to invite magic back in, a place to give thanks, make wishes, speak truths and remind me that magic is real. I experienced a whole new rhythm – one that doesn’t include an alarm or a clock. One that seemed to last an eternity until the sky was filled with every last star in the heavens.  I fed my spirit beauty –flowers, trees, dusty earth, steaming sun showers, the musk of a crackling fire and cooling of a skinny dip in my golden river under a full moon. I thought a lot. I talked, I shared, and I laughed so much with my wonderful friend – a kindred spirit who is kind, patient, funny and wise.  And of course we also ate and drank like queens, wore tie-dyed sun dresses, slathered our bodies in lotion and gathered freckles in the sun while perfecting our law of 3 – Dip…Sip…Chips…we got very good at it.

On the last morning my friend and I each chose an oracle card – we had been doing this every day to see what messages we needed to receive. Each message had relevance, was interesting to contemplate and in the least was something fun to chat about.  But on this last morning I drew a card that I knew was mine.  “Rainbow” – “The storm has passed, it is now time to enjoy the beauty. The blending of all the elements have come together in perfect harmony to create one of the most beautiful sights in all Creation. Blessings of abundance are yours…and not in some academic mantra that has no heart or depth – but in a genuine pathway that creates a bridge to your purpose.  OK, I’ll take that.  Thank you Kamperslut.