Wednesday Wish (88); The Scent of Home

spring, bodypainting art by johannes stotter

Your feet crunch gravel as you take slow and thoughtful steps along the narrow, meandering path. It’s not the trees concealing what lives just beyond that begs you further, nor is it the sound of the sea, its gentle lapping soothing away the rough edges of your day. No, you are pulled along this path like a magnet to her source, something deep within, begging you near.

When you finally see the house you realize you were holding your breath and you let it out, with a long, heartfelt sigh … of relief. But why? Why are you relieved? You have never been here before.

Or have you?

Did you forget?

You take off your shoes and leave them on the wood planked porch, your toes reveling in their newfound freedom. Then your eyes and your fingers, and that ache within your chest, together they express that magnet-longing again, so you knock, and the door creaks open. “Hello?” you say, “Anybody home?”

But all you hear is the beating of your own heart and the wind through the trees and the gentle lapping of the sea. And yet, you tremble.

Rays of sunlight trickle into the main sitting room, the rest of the house lit with soft warm lights, the kind that remind you of the hue of a candle in a cozy space on a cold winter night. You smile. You let your eyes take in everything else … the rich colors of the walls, the way the couch and the pillows beg to be enjoyed, their fabrics and weaves igniting something secret inside. And then you see the sculptures made of wood and stone and how flowers seem to find themselves in more places than your eyes can even see—in vases, along bookshelves, in front of paintings and hanging from aged wooden beams. You feel your body soften, your shoulders loosen, and your voice oozes out an ‘ahhh’.

Your fingers run themselves along the spines of every book you have ever loved and more that you didn’t know you longed to read, their titles giving you new thoughts, ideas, sparkles inside your chest. Their leather and paper spines feel smooth and kind and take you back to when you weren’t afraid to be vulnerable because you were safe. Safe and happy within your walls.

You lift your head, for your nose breathes in a lovely scent. It’s vaguely familiar but you can’t place it. A perfume? Something baking? Or is it a memory with no form at all? You walk forward, toward it, and just as you do, a figure appears from around the corner, her arms carrying a tray, a tray filled with delights, devourables, delicacies that barely have a name…

You are Home.

*          *          *

How do you feel when you near the place you live? Does your body harden or does it soften? Do you think of all the things you have forgotten to do, or does your mind release the worries and put on a warm, peaceful shawl? Do you shed or do you pack on … requirements, rules, heavy? When you return to that place you call home, does it really feel like home? Or is it a mere house, a place you just live.

A true home is a place we feel safe. Safe enough to shed our weights and worries, to shed our layers accumulated throughout our days. It is a place of colors and textures and gifts that brighten up our eyes and give new life to our dreams. A true home gives our spirit wings. A house merely contains our body.

My Wish this week for you, is to create, for yourself, a greater, more soulful haven within which to live—to transform house, into Home.

What makes you feel safe?

What encourages you to shed your layers and to reveal your raw Self, your deeper You, your vulnerable You?

No need to think big, begin small. Is it a color, a softness that your fingers love to touch, is it a scent or a sound, or a combination of many? Tune in to your senses—the few, the largely hidden—that whisper you are safe. Go there, walk along that crunch gravel path, let your senses guide your way, your heart acting as your rudder, your soul as your sail. 

Listen … listen … listen for the scent of Home.

Wednesday Wish (87); Body Speak

photo by igor zenin

She loved to soar, to feel her long hair tickle her back as she dreamed herself winged and free. When things hurt, she would sing a little tune and take herself away, away with her imagination—anywhere her wings dared soar, just not there, in the moment, where it hurt the most.

But her body?

It lingered behind,

weighing her down.

Her hips,

They swelled

saying,

“Ground yourself. We need you here on earth. Face your fears. Please…!” They seemed to yell as those hips they grew and grew and grew, now too big for yet another pair of pants,  “Please share your beauty with the world, not just the heavenly skies. We need you here! Only then will we stop trying to ground you, only then will we stop our speak.”

And when she finally listened,

Suddenly, 

she lost all that weight.

Her friends asked her how she did it, to share her diet

And when she answered, she left them all confused

For what she said was simple, 

she just listened 

to her body

Speak.

*          *          *

Every time he walked into that house, his legs began to ache. But he didn’t listen. He thought life was just a lot quieter in that house, the one at the end of the cul-de-sac with the beauty bark and the vinyl siding, and the wife he thought he loved, so quiet that he only noticed the aching in his legs...there. Work was loud. Restaurants and bars were loud. Even friend’s houses were loud. He felt the aches in his legs only at home simply because it was quiet there, right?

So his body had no choice but to speak a little louder.

He loaded up on potassium and magnesium since someone said he must have been vitamin deficient. Then he took up jogging, because maybe he wasn’t exercising enough. But still, every time he walked back into that house, the one at the end of the cul-de-sac, with the wife he thought he loved, his legs, they began to ache.

Then one day, he got into his car and drove away. And he noticed, for the first time, that his legs, they didn’t ache anymore. So he turned around and drove back home. And there in the garage, he noticed, even with his music blaring, that the aching had returned.

“Get out, move on, let us carry you away!” they seemed to yell to this man who seemed as if he could not hear.

But he did that day in the garage.

He listened.

To his body speak.

And saved himself

from a life

that no longer served

his soul.

*          *          *

Our bodies speak—sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, but they always, always have a voice and they only speak for us to hear. My Wish for you this week, is that you begin to listen more closely to your own body speak. How does it react to this setting or that person or the sugar in that spoon? Why does it hurt then and tingle there, and are you really sure it’s the shoes and not a message from your knees? Regardless of how old you are, when you listen to your body speak you learn more about who you are not just as a person but as a soul, a soul on a journey. You learn that you are not first a body. You are first a soul. And as a soul, your path is much, much bigger than any diagnosis or pill can ever address. Truth is, your body is your ally and every day, every hour, every moment, it is guiding you with the unceasing, all encompassing wisdom—of your soul. Honor it by listening to your body speak, and it can do nothing less than honor You.

Wednesday Wish (86); Connect

photo by andrewhardman via flickr

I stood at the mouth of the Target funnel wondering which cashier to choose. Shorter line, or more likely to connect—which did I value most today? I chose to connect and found a cashier that looked interesting.

She moved slowly with an unnamed grace and seemed to search people’s faces as she rang up their goods. But her customers, they didn’t seem to see her. One woman said thank you. Another wished her a great weekend. But no one dared to begin a real conversation and I doubted if they ever shared their eyes. It was a business and for the customers, a way of being that had become a habit, of paying for goods and getting on with the rest of their chores as quickly as possible.

I couldn’t wait to talk to her, to listen to even a little bit of her story—to see her. It was almost my turn.

“Hello, how are you?” I said, looking into her eyes, my hands not busy but present, too.

She looked at me, really looked at me, and let a smile bubble up. And then, in a completely genuine way said, “I am good, busy. Thank you.”

“Your accent,” I said, “do you speak Russian? Because me,” and this part I happened to be able to say in Russian, “I don’t speak Russian.”

She answered immediately, “Russian? Me? Oh no, no. I am not Russian.” I had uncovered something she didn’t expect to reveal.  She went on, “No, no, I am from Romania not Russia. Have you heard of Romania?”

Now it was my turn to smile. She had no idea that I was a traveller or that I knew my geography fairly well, Europe especially. “Yes, I do know where it is. I used to live in Europe.” I said. “But I thought all the children in the Eastern Block had to learn Russian in school back then. Did they not do that in Romania when you were a child?”

She finished ringing up my things and turned to me with a new-found gentleness. “You are right. I did. But the truth is, I never liked it. I always preferred to speak my own language. So now, I can’t remember much at all.” She paused. “And I am happy about that.”

“I bet you are,” I said nodding, sensing her heavy past. “I’m sure I would be, too.”

We laughed.

“How then might I say ‘have a happy day’ in Romanian?”

She chuckled again, thought for a moment, and told me.

I repeated it back to her, watching her light up, her face suddenly pure love, pure beauty. “And Cristina?” I continued, after reading her name tag, “In case you forgot, you’re beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she called out to me as I pushed my cart toward the exit, “Thank you so much for being so nice to me. Your caring has already changed my day.”

I turned and waved, my smile almost exactly mirroring her own.

*          *          *

My Wish for you this week is to connect—to resist the urge to rush or the compulsion to tick just one more thing off your list, but instead, to value the people around you more than anything else. We forget sometimes that we don’t wear bubbles around our bodies, that we aren’t swimming in a sea made for one. We share the same air, the same feelings, the same needs and hopes and dreams with thousands, millions of people on this earth. And while we may think, more often than many of us dare to admit, that we don’t need anyone, that we can do most of this life thing on our own, you know deep down, that that is not true. We need one another. Not because we are weak or lacking something, but because we are love. Each and every one of us is nothing less than love at our core. And you know something? Love cannot be her luminous Self without that which gives her life…. connection.

Wednesday Wish (85); Begin Your Happy

photo by robby cavanaugh via flickr

In the darkest hour of the night, when everyone around you is lost in heavy dream, when the moon hovers high in the sky and the trees are more shadow than green …. your body stirs. You blink your eyes, trying to clear the dark, but you can’t. It stays. Your feet find the floor, they softly pad down the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen. You find a glass. You pour yourself some juice. Your swallows fill the blackened air. And suddenly, like a tender memory, you realize you are alive, so very much alive, as you stand there, alone, in the darkest hour of the night.

You walk to the nearest window feeling the coolness of the floor. You tickle the air with your fingers, you scrunch your nose up like a rabbit, you tune in to the mystery of the night because you remember you are alive, so very much alive and this is your night, your moment to feel it all. And then…

Something beckons.

Something calls.

Something begs you outside…

And you listen.

The grass is wet. You stop to feel…. the slight breeze, the whispers of the trees, the distant murmur of the sea, and there it is again, your heartbeat. Again and again, Again and again. Again and again. You touch your chest to be sure. And when you do, the cottage appears. Just like that. Beneath the trees.

Its windows glow golden with candlelight. Flickers dance upon the grass. You want to step where the flickers are, to catch them like fireflies. Are you a kid again? Where is this silliness coming from? You smile at your spirit. And run off to play.

A figure moves in the cottage window. So it’s not a dream. Another walks here, too. You hold your breath. Again and again. Again and again. Again and again. The figure opens the door with a wood-aged creak.

“Door’s open. Come, when it is time.”

“Wait!” you say, “Who are you? What's happening?”

But no one answers.

So you walk into the light and toward the cottage, to see what’s called you near. Bare feet on wet grass, candle flickers sparkling up your eyes, and a familiar voice that doesn't speak, but still, beckons you near. 

As you enter the kindness, you feel at home. You see things from your life on the walls and on the shelves. Things your mother saved and your father wrote. Things you loved and things that gave you joy. You look around in awe. And then you see you aren’t alone.  For there in the rocking chair, sits you. Not as you are. Not as you were. But you, as you will be. Your hair is white. Your face is wrinkled. Your legs and arms are weak and sagging. But you are smiling. Smiling so deeply and so contentedly, that your joy warms up the room.

“But I’m not happy like you,” you blurt out.

“No?” says the elder you, “then when? When will you begin?”

*          *          *

You are smiling in a rocking chair, remembering all the things from your life that brought you joy. Memory after memory pass you by like shooting stars, each one more precious than the last. What are those stars that lit up your life? Can you see them? Can you see them as an elder looking back at a life well lived? Go there, find the older you. Sit there. Rock there. Be that elder you. And when you look back, when you see what brought your heart its deepest joys, hold on to those feelings. Hold on tight. Then return… to the now…. to breathe life into what you know is already yours.

Listen to your playful you.

Honor your feelings.

Remember your inner happy.

Then feed it.

Grow it.

Not tomorrow when it’s more appropriate

Or a better time.

Not someday when you can finally afford it

Or make the time.

But today,

This very moment ...

Begin Your Happy

Wednesday Wish (84); Pass on your You

photo by david talley via flickr

It’s well known in these parts but I wonder if it’s well seen. The road that passes it, is busy. The parking lot, is almost full. But the trees, they hang a little lonely and their trunks beg to be seen. Isn’t that why their bumps stick out just a little bit more rugged and their flowers smell just a little bit more beautiful? Aren’t they aching to be recognized, hoping to heard?

I think so.

And what about the gravel as it crunches under foot? Do you hear it tell you of the last man that traveled by? Did his hip ache, did his wife hurt his feelings? Or was it a woman worried about her blood pressure and the gossip she heard at work? Did it try to tell you what it felt as you walked upon its back? Did you let yourself listen? Or did you laugh it off as silly stuff, the kind of talk only crazies hear?

I think so.

And what about the dancing whispers of the sea? As you walk along your gravel path and gaze upon the trees, do you dare to sense the sea? Do you notice how it ripples and curdles and plays …. with far off memories? A tale of a sailor. Another of a dream. Of love and loss in Africa and wails beneath those seams. Do you remember its memories as if they are your own? For aren’t they? Aren’t we all, a memory of the sea?

I think so.

But most of all, when you walk along your seaside path and see another near .… do they, see you? Do you huddle in your bubble, lost within your world, or do you find the courage within yourself to be present enough …. to smile? If the trees can express what they are feeling, if the gravel can pass on what it hears, if the sea indeed carries long forgotten memories, then you …. can you pass on your You?

I think so.

Yes, you can.

*          *          *

A real smile is a gift. Of energy. From your deepest You. If you give it away, and it is returned, your energy is always, always, always—multiplied. And if you give it away and it is not returned, then you know, know, know, it was needed elsewhere for a time and elsewhere it needs to be. Never wasted. Never lost. Always living, Always stirring. Always growing …. something magic. In you, or in our trees ….

Wednesday Wish (83); Imagination's Gift

photo by robby cavanaugh via flickr

There it sits, outside my bedroom window, a peninsula of grass on the top of a small ridge. I know it can’t speak, but then it does.

At first it sounds like an invitation. So I stop and linger when no one else is near. I take off my shoes to let the dew wet my feet. And soon my toes begin to draw circles in the grass. A tiny one here. Another one there. I feel silly. I feel a bit more alive. I feel a smile brewing in my belly. It’s then I begin to walk in circles. Wide ones, plump ones, full-of-possibility ones. Round and round and round again. Slowly, consciously, with the curiosity of an innocent, I stretch my arms. They rise up and down. Like wings. Like guides. Like friends who want to be an important part of things. And all the while, my heart is nursed by the magic of where I stand.

I revisit the dew of my grassy ridge again and again. In my imagination and with my eyes, and each time its invitation speaks a little louder, each time my smile gets a little wider. Until one day, the invitation is fully accepted.

And suddenly, together, we both begin to sing.

I hunt in my imagination for the perfect pattern, riding deeper still … listening to my grassy ridge, listening to the possibilities. Which does it call for, which shall it be? I discover excitement and new sparkles in my eyes. I discover idea after idea as they stream by, one shooting star after another. I discover welcomed passion and a day in the life of an impassioned human being.

*          *          *

Imagination is yours for the taking.

It is here to...

Create

New

Realities

...not just 

fairy tales

or dreamscapes,

but 

Lives Worth Living.

My grassy ridge is transforming into a labyrinth. One with a fence made of branches and stones that ignite new dreams. Every day I uncover more of what it has called out to be, of what my imagination allows it to be. And every day I smile a smile that wouldn’t be there, had I not listened. A smile that would not exist had I not taken the time to let my imagination create a new reality.

Happy Day of Independence

May you soar with Freedom,

May you laugh with your deepest Heart

May you dance all day with Love.

photo via facebook, divinefemininereawakening

Wednesday Wish (82); Blow Bubbles

Whatever it is,

it’s not as important

or as heavy

as it seems.

It just wants you

to think that,

so you won’t remember

to set it free,

so you won’t remember

to replace it with

Bubbles—

and a day, week, life 

of childlike

joy.

My current favorite place to blow bubbles is on an airplane. What about you? Where is your current favorite place? What about in an important meeting? Or in a fancy office building? Or in an elevator? Where do you wish you had the nerve to blow bubbles and where might your joy feel the grandest if you did? 

I dare you this week,

to honor your childlike spirit. 

We all have it. 

It's just the few who honor it, 

that enjoy life for the rest of us.

Wednesday Wish (81); Discover Your Home

photo by sh33na via flickr

On the back of a breeze

With a flutter to your wind chimes,

Was me

Whispering to you

Tickling you with joys

as I travelled across country…

with my beautiful daughter

and you,

always you,

in my heart….

Did you smile when we drove through Wallace, Idaho? Did you like how the evergreens hugged the houses, cradling them like little boxy treasures? Did they know they were loving the people huts? Or were they just being trees?

And what about Sundance, Wyoming? Did you smile like I did when I pointed it out to you? Didn’t you love how the rolling green hills begged us to run as fast as we could until we were out of breath, giving us no choice but to fall into a messy silly goose pile of laughter? And oops, did I open the windows too much? Or was the wild wind in your eyes a yes? A YAY yes? I thought so. And little girl…she made us laugh with her giggles, her hair a whirlwind mess. Just like always. Ok, maybe a little more. In Sundance.

Those long stretches through South Dakota and Minnesota … you were such a good listener. Forgive me…I couldn’t help myself. As little girl slept, the movie just wouldn’t stop playing. So I shared it with you. Like a lullaby, the lyrics spilled from me. My second novel. A book of gifts. Of the gifts we are all born with and often forget to discover. Did you, maybe a little, feel some new fluffs of discovery tickle you inside? Did a thought-beam suddenly light up a forgotten unexpected dream? Ooo…I dream you’re nodding. Again. With a deep smile upon your face. Yes, yes, I do.

And when we drove through Pennsylvania did your legs hurt, too? Why was that? Is it like they said, that some of us sense the pains of the land? Or was it something silly? Like the grease from the french fries not belonging in our bellies. Even so, with achy legs, we still smiled at the trees. They weren’t cradling people huts like the trees in Idaho or Montana, but they did wave hellos. And they seemed happy to see us passing through. Didn’t you think?

And wasn’t New York lush, rich, filled with more green than you ever imagined? Did your belly do loop-de-loops like mine did when we rode those hills? Good thing we didn’t eat french fries that day. Phew. Twice.

We talked about the kindness we met in every State. The eyes and the smiles. The friendly waves and the speedometer differences. The warmth and the gentleness. We spoke of the personalities of the landscapes and how the country seemed to move from Light to Rich. From Bright to Deep.  Yes, as we travelled from West to East, we watched and felt. And smiled. Over and again. At the beauty of life. When we just decide to see it. To discover and expand...into it.

So here we are, days and days later…in rural Maine. Are you barefoot too? Do you feel the grass carpet under your feet? Do you hear it tell you how happy it is that you are Home? And do you hear the birdies twitter their happies too, the happy freedoms that are borne of wings? Do they remind you of your own wings, the tufts of fluff you try to keep hidden beneath your skin? They do me. And you are right here beside me. Still. In case you forgot.

I know because I feel you near…
yes,
I do.
You see,
the scent of your smile
is still
pure
happy.

*          *         *

Explore.

Taste new.

Discover.

Journey in.

Journey out.

Expand…. yourSelf.

Ride an adventure into the wind….
And discover more of what living is really all about.
Discover your Home.