Alleluia for This Life. On My 61st Birthday.

·      I am thankful for the unlikely and astonishing fact of being alive.

·      I am thankful for this incredible living planet that holds me with loving gravity every moment.

·      I am thankful for my parents, ancestors and all the purposeful and accidental actions that came to pass to create my life.

·      I am thankful for my partner in life, who has gone on so many journeys with me.

·      I am thankful for two most wonderful and remarkable daughters who inspire me, teach me and who have taught me the very depth of love.

·      I am thankful for my fabulous friends, who keep me company, encourage and hearten me.

·      I am thankful for a magical universe of unimaginable proportions.And the ordinary extraordinary miracle of water.

·      I am thankful for the  indescribable wild power called “God”, so far beyond the domesticated and tiny interpretations we hold. Only Rumi comes close to words that are worthy.

·      I am thankful for the muse of creativity, which flows in my veins and which provides revelation and interpretation to the world.

·      I am thankful for my body/mind and all the places, feelings and thoughts it has explored.

·      I am thankful for love. And the smell and taste of home cooking.

·      I am thankful for courage, imagination, truth, integrity, vision, roots, and a sense of place.

·      I am thankful for peace. And freedom.

·      I am thankful for beauty. And that I can behold it.

·      I am thankful for trees, the moon, the ocean, rivers, the starry sky, the heat of summer, fresh vegetables, good dogs, good music, good books, good movies,  good food.

·      I am thankful for movement, walking in nature, dancing, yoga, laughter and fun, hugs, rest—dreams and a damn good sleep.

·      I am thankful for breezes, gardens, shade when you need it, poetry.

·      I am thankful for liberal religions, forbearance, forgiveness, tolerance and diversity.  And the people who remind us of those things and fight for them.

·      I am thankful for good jokes, sacred clowns and good comedy which make the world bearable.

·      I am thankful for all those small moments. When you just catch the ferry (or plane or train or bus).  When the person you are thinking of calls you.  When you catch the falling glass.  When you walk back to get your hat and find you have left the burner on. When you walk into the thrift store and there is the exact item you have been wanting.

·      I am thankful for all the journeys I have been privileged to take across this magnificent  Earth.

·      I am thankful for clouds, hot tubs, sauna, trails, mountains, valleys, and did I mention trees?

·      I am thankful for babies and children. And soup. And scarves.And massage.

·      I am thankful for flowers and fall foliage and dining tables full of food and friends and family.

·      I am thankful for quantum physics and John Muir and canoes.

·      I am thankful for Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and all magical journeys into imaginative realms.

·      I am thankful for salmon, songbirds, whales and horses and all animals. Special shout out to my kooky dog Jack and all those who put up with him. He makes us laugh.

·      I am thankful for rain, wind, trailing clouds along a blue sky. And did I mention trees?

·      I am thankful for all those who do a good thing, the right thing, who speak truth though their voice shakes, and who stand up for the future, the ones who have no voice or power, and who protect the ancient earth.

I am thankful for how incomplete this list is and how I could go on and on.  May this river of gratitude never stop,. I wish to always ride in its current. Alleluia for this life.

The whole universe is in a glass of wine

In my quantum physics adventures, I have come across the amazing mind and quotes of American physicist Richard Feynman. I especially like this one.

 "A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!"

Cleaning out the Wreckage

In my mom's last post, she suggests giving yourself a mental break from the cold and darkness of December. This time of year is cold and dark, and the animal within us responds to the change of season by habitually becoming more internal. It is a time for reflection and solace, creature comforts and internal organizing.

Winter is also a time to deal with things, all the thing you forgot about in the balmy daze of Summer. For me, it is a time to deal with finances. I am using the cold and early darkness as an excuse to sit inside with a pen and paper and get down to the nitty-gritty nastiness of finances in your 20's. I was afraid to start, but it actually seems to make the cold and dark more bearable, more purposeful.

Try it. Pick something you have been avoiding; some nagging underbelly of your life, and DEAL with it. Give yourself imaginary gold stars after you spend time working on it. Pair your task with creature comforts to make it more enjoyable, aka, I like to drink wine while I work on my finances. Get down and dirty with your loose ends and use this period of cold and dark to deal with them. When Spring arrives, you will feel lighter; more deserving of the levity of those warmer months.

The Fabric of the Cosmos

Acclaimed physicist Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world. On NOVA, available through PBS.

Feeling tired of the cold and dark? Give your mind a Winter Solstice present and watch this. It is AWESOME.

Still Sexy After All These Years?

Yes, there is a book called that. For women after 50. Haven't read it yet but the fact that it caught my eye is well . . .  interesting.  And some common themes emerge for why we might feel less than sexy. Bloating and sexy don't get on well together. Looking in the mirror and seeing your mom has a dampening effect also. Body changes.... um, well, I am not going to get into that. But I do know this. December can be good or bad for sexy. Bad is related to bloating, too much drink and food. Not enough of what you know damn well will make you feel better (water, exercise).

But good December is pausing. Tapping into root energy (think borsht, like this recipe or oven roasted veggies like this) give you beautiful colors and comfort. Replacing some of your coffee with Rooibos Tea (my favorite is Warm Balance by Eco Teas) will help too (high levels of anti-oxidants, no caffeine, and a host of healthy qualities--see full article here.) Instead of a latte, enjoy a "London Fog", Cape Town, South Africa style, using Rooibos steeped in steamed milk (or substitute rice milk) with agave syrup.
 As for pausing, it is the RUSH of life that strips your adrenal glands. It is the endocrine system of your body that feeds the juices of life http://www.inlightimes.com/archives/2001/06/endocrine.htm.  So, taking some time for yourself and resting, as well as nourishing the body is very sexy after all.

Crazy Sexy Diet - I love this woman

I love this book, and this woman, and her story! Check it out: http://crazysexydiet.com/.

Eat better, drink better, think better.

December is an excellent time to engage and indulge in good health. After all, it is the month before a new year...

The 20-something half

I am the 20-something half of this blog, the 60-something's eldest daughter. We hope to hear from many other pairs down the road.

I had an interesting thought yesterday, as I was sauteing kale, watching midday TV; balancing the healthy with the guilty pleasures.

I was thinking about my parents, worrying about them, fretting about future careers for my mom, and ways to help my dad feel "juicier" in his life. Then I was thinking about me, and worrying and fretting about my life. And then I had a new thought in the midst of my daily anxiety agonizing, which was:

This is the moment when my life and my parents overlaps, not because of any sort of dependency, but because our life purposes are actually overlapping for the first time, ever. The circumstances are a little different of course, but our purposes are astonishingly similar.

They are trying to figure out who they are, where they want to be and what they want to be doing, in the absence of steady careers and family life. And I am trying to figure out who I am, where I want to be and what I want to be doing, in the absence of a steady school schedule and family life.

Wow, I have always intrinsically known this, but now I am a true believer: there is so much we can share with one another, us adult children and our parents.

Watch this 5-min short film, all the way through: http://youtu.be/U08lAYIdZlE

I did a little laughing and a little crying.

Our Own Thanksgiving

I know it can happen at any age, but somehow the 60something entry into the frailties of the human body makes it a sudden wake up call.  I give thanks that we were able to have our own family Thanksgiving yesterday. It was something I almost missed. In the afternoon, my heart went into in atrial fibrillation and it looked like I was going to get a Medflight to the hospital instead of the delicious dinner we had been working on all day.  But after the IV of liquid and some oxygen, suddenly, my heart flipped into its normal rhythm. Yes, I will have to get it checked out. I will have to learn the triggers. The evening proceeded with both daughters home for one precious night, our own Thanksgiving, because it was the only date that worked. Gratitude was on the table, for family, our own rich history, the amazing food and the wonderful paramedics and EMTs of our island.

Big Love/Volunteers for Peace

I decided on our trip across America (see Drive Across America; Travels with Jack) to give myself the gift of mornings. It has been amazing. I am not naturally a morning person and in my early years, I loved the late evenings most. These days, I am too tired in the evenings. On the trip, we learned to get up and get going before dark. We noticed that the mornings are full of promise and energy and SPACE. After noon, it seems, the world has tipped and you are just running to catch up. I love it enough to get up in the dark and meditate, followed by two bountiful hours of writing and researching. By 9AM, I am ready to join the world, having had this time to myself.

Anyway! I have been researching a way to travel in some way that connects my travel to something bigger. I was inspired by an article by Lisa Funderburg, More Magazine (see Big Love images here) in the dentist office yesterday. It is about a woman who went to Thailand--not to lay in the sun or or explore, but to tend to elephants in a sanctuary--elephants who had been abused or abandoned.

This morning, after a couple of hours of looking, I found a great web site. I have set up volunteer programs before and I know why they charge, but most of them are too expensive for me--or you, probably. So, I really like the projects and prices of Volunteers for Peace. Check it out. 

Travel

It is sweet, this dark rainy season. Perfect time to make soups and dream and get to all those unfinished projects. Also, without me saying it's okay, my brain sneaks off to think about sunny places and escaping America--or at least the Northwest winter-- for awhile. If you are the same, take a look at Back Door Jobs. For those of us who love to travel, with the growing awareness of climate change and the inequities of life, having a purpose in doing so makes more and more sense. Travel. Witness. Serve. Gain work experience. Make some money. Plant trees.

Falling Through Time

It is too early in this blog to write of this. But here I go, anyway. We call it Empty Nest but it is so much more. I will simply say it is like falling through time.  I will let you decide what that means. I will add that it is grief, pure and simple. BTW, I am not trying to find 5 Ways to Overcome Empty Nest (and yes, oh so many articles exist). 


I am simply living with it, alongside the many things I do that add value to my life. I understand the miracle of being aware and alive to be here, on this planet with 7 billion people--- and that beauty and pain and loss and joy and grief shimmer simultaneously every second of every day.  It is all happening at once.

Rick Bass, a western writer and activist whom I deeply respect for his love and courageous fight for the protection for wild rivers describes how he felt when his first daughter was born.
 *************************************************

"What I think I felt, that next day, was a newness of responsibility: an utter and concrete reminder that I was no longer the most important person in the world—that, in fact, I was nothing, and she was everything. How such knowledge saves a person, I can't quite be sure, but I felt rescued, felt as if I had passed completely through that thin curtain and into some finer land where the self dissolved, and another was born. I still feel that way, anytime I look at either of my daughters . . . . and I know that other parents feel that same way . . . ."

***********************************************

Anyway, dealing with that feeling, when your kids grow up is what is called "Empty Nest" and what I feel as falling through time.  It's like the foundation of this house I call my life has been removed. Freeing. Scary. No matter how many others have gone through this, it is the first time for me. 

The rest of that article is pretty damn wonderful, by the way. If you want to read it, click here. 

"How we fall into grace. You can't work or earn your way into it. You just fall. It lies below, it lies beyond. It comes to you, unbidden.” --Rick Bass 

For a great article on Rick Bass, see this Orion magazine article.

 

Perfect art for November

 My friend Deva likes owls. Of course she does, since she is one. While you and I are slumbering away, this is what she does. I love that she wears a tattoo like a spirit guide on her arm. Awesome Deva. Here is her blog site.: Various Distractions From Sleep.

Deva

On a whole other note, here are the lyrics by a John Gorka song that stopped me in my tracks this morning. I like the idea of growing up to be a tree very much.

When I grow up I want to be a tree
Want to make my home with the birds and the bees
And the squirrels, they can count on me
When I grow up to be a tree

I'll let my joints get stiff, put my feet in the ground
Take the winters off and settle down
Keep my clothes till they turn brown
When I grow up, I'm gonna settle down

CHORUS:
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach
I'm gonna reach, reach for the sky
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach
I'm gonna reach, till I know why

When the spring comes by I'm gonna get real green
If the dogs come by I'm gonna get real mean
On windy days, I'll bend and lean
When I grow up I'm gonna get real green

(BRIDGE)
If I should fall in storm or slumber
Please don't turn me into lumber
I'd rather be a Louisville slugger
Swinging for the seats...

Day of the Dead vs. Halloween: Some Humor

Need a laugh? Like all humor, it has a sharp edge of something serious, but it is fun and perfect for now.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/10/24/111024sh_shouts_semple

Want Some Inspiration: Check out these 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winners!

Tawakkol Karman (Yemen)

The Nobel Peace Prize Winners for 2011 

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

Leymah Gbowee

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (President of Liberia), Leymah Gbowee (Liberia) and Tawakkol Karman (Yemen) "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work". 

Tawakel Karman is called The Mother of the Revolution, the first Arab woman and second Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She is a journalist and politician and human rights activist who heads a group Women Journalists Without Chains”.  She influenced the Yemeni protests to follow the Arab Spring (or, as she calls it, the Jasmine Revolution).  Yemen was one of the first countries to follow Tunisia as part of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa. “She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

During the 2011 Libyan civil war, Sirleaf added her voice to a chorus of calls from the international community for Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi to cease the use of violence and tactics of political repression. However, she criticized the international military intervention in Libya, declaring that "violence does not help the process whichever way it comes".” (quoted from Wikipedia)

"Nobel Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee, 39, mobilised women from across Liberia's ethnic and religious divides to call for an end to Liberia's brutal 14-year civil war.

Amid the shells and bullets, they prayed and protested for days on end, demanding that the conflict between former President Charles Taylor and rebel forces stop.
"In 2003, it was very difficult. We had lived with 14 years of conflict. A group of us, women, decided to take action for peace - including picketing, fasting and praying," Ms Gbowee told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"This [award] is a huge recognition of the struggle of our women." " See full BBC article here.

We are together in the 21st Century

As a reference point of time, we 60-somethings will never forget where we were on the day JF Kennedy was killed. (check out this article called JFK Moment Frozen in Our Memories) http://www.deseretnews.com/article/525039299/JFK-moment-frozen-in-our-memories.html  

To that, we added the same day you will never forget: September 11^th , 2001. See Seared Into Our Memories; http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/memories.aspxhttp://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/memories.aspx

The world has changed since then, and still changes, day by day. The way it was, before September 11 will fade in your memories, like those who died or moved away early in your life. Those of us who are 60-somethings--who rode our fat tired bikes freely in our neighborhoods in the fifties, came of age in the sixties and traveled the world with our backpacks in the seventies will remember a simpler world, with more people to people access and less time in front of a screen.

On that same day, that day that is grooved into our brains, neither of us knew much about digital technology. How much has changed.  Now our mobile phones and the internet are front and center in our lives, though we always long for the real world—a vital human element that lingers in our animal selves, quietly urging us to seek friends, get outside, eat real food.

And here’s the most astonishing thing. Something else will happen. Our world will change dramatically again—and we don’t know what it will be.  Good chance it will be something connected with this very technology, the cell phone/internet that allows us to play with each other now.

In Denali NP, Alaska

So, not to get too far in yet… Play is the operative word. Let’s talk.  

What Is It About 20-Somethings?

A gritty article by the NY Times. Here's a quote: “It’s somewhat terrifying,” writes a 25-year-old named Jennifer, “to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” Adds a 24-year-old from Virginia: “There is pressure to make decisions that will form the foundation for the rest of your life in your 20s. It’s almost as if having a range of limited options would be easier.”
Want more? See:  Click on the link below for the full New York Times Article. It may annoy or inspire or overwhelm you.
What Is It About 20-Somethings?