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Happy Solstice 2012! 

May you step through the door to the new world, naked!

What a great surprise!  When I got home last night from reindeer goddess training (that's a whole 'nother solstice story!) Alan had a gift for me!  He made me a log reindeer!  I love it! ... and him!

As we approach the winter solstice 2012 on December 21st we must be prepared for change.  It is the ending of one paradigm or period of time and the beginning of a new one!  What's coming?  We don't know.  Perhaps our greatest task is to give up control and learn to be comfortable in vulnerability and uncertainty.  What do you need to reconcile?  What needs to be left behind, what don't you want to drag with you? 

I call you to spend the next days until solstice in deep contemplation. 

Living your dreams requires self reflection....we have to make space in our lives for this essential soul work.

Dia de los muertos ... where does the time go?  We celebrated the great wisdom of all that is good, true, and beautiful in our ancestral lineage. 

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters ~ Seneca

Don't miss this TED Talk ~ the benefits of failure. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html

Contemplation of the sacred ~ connection to the ancestral spirits is foundational to grounding.  Sunday afternoon we visited the Indian Burial Mounds on the river bluff in St Paul.

The RUNE Gebo ~ partnership.  ... you are put on notice not to collapse yourself into that union.  For true partnership is achieved only by separate and whole beings ... Remember to let the winds of Heaven dance between you ...

It's all about balance ...

Time flies ... still voraciously reading Sylvia Plath, reflecting on mom's surgery, and starting another school year.  Alan and I took the canoe to Pike Island on Friday afternoon (brought the motor in case the old woman got tired of paddling upstream Mississippi River!).  Amazing island and the spirits of the land were feisty.  This island was used as an internment camp for native women and children during the Dakota War of 1852.  We sat on the sandy shore reflecting on mother-child relationships across time and cultures.

July 28, 2012
A week ago we were gathered as a family to celebrate my mom and begin the journey to surgery and healing.  This has been a week of horrendous suffering and with it has come insight about human dignity that is still evolving in my mind.  I will share my thoughts when the notion is ready to be born. 

Gazing deep into the soul ...

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath is a sensuous reading experience.  We talk a lot in qualitative nursing research about 'rich thick descriptions' and Sylvia's reflections feel luxurious, thick and rich. It's the kind of book where you feel like you are present in the moment with her using your senses; hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, and smelling.  I'm missing something in the everyday if I'm not living that way ~ taking the time to smell the roses.      

Nurse logs ...