Change

"All forward growth begins with letting go." - Gail McMeekin

Look what my clever Mom created with a little help from my equally clever Dad! Isn't it beautiful? Now look closer: it's a quilt! My Mom had to make a quilt square for a quilt that was going up in the brand new library that is being built in their town. She had never made a quilt like this before, but with a little help from my Dad they have really made a wonderful work of art! It's a representation of a causeway (bridge) that is the real focal point in the area. It inspires me because they were both willing to take a risk and do something that they had never done before, and the result was something incredible. (It's really beautiful Mom! I am so proud of you!)

The past few weeks have been crazy with a capital C! And thanks to the job that I was offered on Tuesday and must start at the beginning of May and the two week trip I am taking home next week, the next month or so is also going to be Crazy. Isn't it funny that we can go on for years and years doing the same thing over and over again, wondering when it is all going to change, and then suddenly everything changes at once?

In the chapter in Gail McMeekin's book for this week, she talks all about change and letting go. HA! Talk about good timing. The next month will be all about letting go. We'll be letting go of things as we pack up our life here and decide which baggage needs to come with us. We'll be letting go of comfort and safety and pattern and places we know. We'll be moving to a new house, a bigger city, a bigger job (for me) and a new business (for Mark.) It's all systems go.

Somewhere in all of that, I realize that I need to find myself a little sliver of serenity. What else do I not want to pack? My fear of the dark? My belief that I will always be overweight? My untidiness? My procrastination? Do all of these have to come with me? What about my quest for publication? Will I have the time to do it with my new job? Does it get to come? Is it inevitable that all of me will come or can I leave some behind?

I think that the most powerful question I will ask in the next month will have to be, "What do I really want?" Hopefully the only things I will take with me will be the answers to that question.

abundance

"Abundance invites us to live the life we desire instead of settling for less." - Gail McMeekin

When I was just getting started blogging, I would often read or hear something and I would hear an almighty growl in my head. It would be a deep, grumbling roar that came from the bottom of my gut. It was the sound of something resonating deeply; the sound of me remembering my wild woman. I haven't heard her for awhile, and I had almost forgotten about her, but then the sound appeared again today when I was reading a chapter in Gail McMeekin's book.

It began when I read, "Abundance beckons as a state of mind, beginning with gratitude for what you already have and followed by a vision of what you want to create in your life." Rrrrrrrrr.... Then I read, "Prosperity consciousness demands that you look beyond the energy of money and own up to what it is that truly nourishes you." RRRrrrrr....

Then I rejoiced when McMeekin spoke about being IN your body as key to owning our power and speaking our truth. "As women, we need to find pride in our physicalness and trust our internal knowledge. Body, mind, and spirit - it's all connected." RRRRrrrrrrr.....

And there it was again: the same message from the Universe nudging me in my direction. "This world needs women who will speak their truth and actively participate." Then I heard it, loud and clear...

RRRRRrrrrrrrrRRrrrrOOOOOOOOoooAAAAAAaaaaaaRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and I said, "Welcome back, I've missed you."

My 300th Post.

"Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant." - Maya Angelou

(This is the best cheesecake I have ever had in my entire life. It was so good we had to go back another day for another piece. If you are ever in Grenada, go to The Beach House for cheesecake. Believe me. (...and send me a piece, please!!)

This, dear friends is my 300th post! On January 24, 2006 I began this journey. I wish that I could have a big tea party and invite you to put on your best hat and your sassiest shoes and come over for rose petal or green chai tea and the most delicious food you can possibly imagine. We could giggle about all of the reasons that we were too scared to begin blogging, and about how odd it is to tell people in the 'real' world that you have friends - good friends - that you met (gasp!) online.

I'd love to hug you in person and tell you that you are important to me and that the last 300 posts have represented a seismic shift in who I am and how I look at the world. Lots has happened since I wrote my first post, and lots is going to happen in the next little while. I wish I could write a letter to myself 300 posts ago - but what I can say is that whether you start a blog or write letters or meet people in person, the best choice you can make to change your life for the better is to open up, look deep and be honest. Real connections happen when you let yourself be vulnerable. Real change happens when you are brave!

Thank you for being here, and if you ever want to come over for tea, I've got lots just waiting to be added to good conversation. Love to you.

Since we can't be together I will end this post with my most favorite advice for living:

"To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one's own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one's own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live." - Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

What is your favorite advice for living?

Rejection.

"The world often knocks us down, and we wear the scars to signify the blows. We have to choose whether to retreat or retry." - Gail McMeekin

I can not tell you how much I enjoyed the chapter for this week's blogging book group! As I work to get my novel published and begin to get back a few rejection letters, I am feeling twinges of discouragement. As anyone who has read my blog for awhile will know, one of my favorite books in the whole world is Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. At the beginning of this chapter, Gail McMeekin shares that this remarkable book was rejected forty-seven times over twenty years. FORTY-SEVEN!!!

I do not think I could handle that.

Having said that, the thing about the process of writing my novel is that after the year of writing, the editing, the rewriting, the attempts at a synopsis, the sending it out to be read by people and the query letter writing I seem to have developed a healthy emotional distance from the book. I still love it. I still believe in it completely and want to passionately promote it, but it no longer draws blood when I get a rejection letter. I know that it needs someone to love it as much as I do. I am choosing to see rejection letters as notes from people with no imagination or bravery. I certainly do not want someone like that championing my book!

I think that the trick to handling rejection is to have created a list before putting ourselves out there. I have a list of agents and publishers that I am methodically sending work out to. I have a long plan of attack. If a rejection comes in, I file the letter and send the package out to someone else. Just like the only secret to writing a novel is to sit in the chair and write the novel, I have to believe that the secret to getting published is to keep asking people to publish you. (Or hire you or let you hang your art or sell your photographs...)

"Getting ahead in a difficult profession - singing, acting, writing, whatever - requires faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I could achieve." - Sophia Loren