I guess this means go.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): What life will you be living at noon on September 1, 2014? Who will you be? How thoroughly will your dreams have come true? What kind of beauty and truth and love and justice will you be serving? Will you look back at the time between August 27 and September 21, 2009 and sigh, "If only I had initiated my Five Year Master Plan at that ripe astrological moment"? Or on September 1, 2014 will you instead be able to crow, "I can truly say that in these past five years I have become the president of my own life"?

- Rob Brezsny

My alter-ego

"A woman must find her own voice." - Maureen Murdock

If you were to meet me on the street, you would see one version of me. I would probably be wearing jeans and a fleece or a sweater or a t-shirt. I'd be dressed practically and sensibly and ordinarily. You might be able to see from the sparkle in my eyes or the book I was carrying that there was more to me. You might not.

What you wouldn't see is this crazy alter-ego that has begun asking for a voice. You wouldn't see the me that used to scoff at pink who is now looking at pretty floaty dresses on line. You wouldn't notice that I have a secret desire to own red sequined heels (or converse!) And you definitely wouldn't see that I sometimes debate buying rock chick t-shirts and biker boots.

Has anyone else found themselves growing up and growing sideways at the same time?

Shall we have an alter-ego party? I'll host.

Fantasy Dinner Party

"Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?" - just about everyone

This is the prompt at Sunday Scribblings this week. Even though I am the co-host, I don't usually do the writing. It's too much pressure to get around and see everyone. For some reason, this felt like something fun to do this time. So... who would I invite to a fantasy dinner party?

I suppose it depends on what you want. Imagine having dinner with a load of true comedians - the Pythons, John Candy, Billy Connolly, Peter Kay, etc. Or you could have a serious meal with interesting women. Wouldn't it be nice to find out what it was really like from Marie Antoinette, Amelia Earhart, Frieda Kahlo, Emily Carr, Katharine Hepburn or Anne Boleyn? Another good one would be a table full of Hollywood Stars. Imagine dining with Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Greta Garbo and Cary Grant! I would also love to share a meal with several generations of my family. As for writers and artists - oh heaven's, there are dozens, living and dead that I would do anything to spend some time with!

But, dear readers, at this stage of my life, on this night, I have an entirely different dinner party in mind. (Note: Dear Universe, consider this a cosmic order!) The dinner party I would most love to host would be: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Natalie Goldberg, Mary Oliver, Joni Mitchell, Annie Leibovitz, and Christina Baldwin. Imagine the discussions we could get into about creative process, beauty, and passion. I have goosebumps just thinking about it! (What would I serve? I'd get it bloody catered - I wouldn't want to miss a thing!)

Please, universe?! Please?!

xo

The Vision According to Toast

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes." - Andrew Carnegie

After several years of cutting pictures out of magazines, collecting images, reading self-help books, perusing catalogues and creating vision boards, I thought I had enough shots to make a proper This-is-What-I-Want board. Then the BBC* came over, bringing with them a NEW pile of magazines and catalogues and in the space of one afternoon I had it. My vision. And it all (except the word *giggle*) came from the same place: Toast.

Boy do they get it, those Toast photographers and stylists. They tapped right into my psyche (and lots of other psyches at the same table!) They know what I want. I just want to be happy.

So what do I want to create in my life? Freedom, Creativity, Abundance, Serenity, and Health, with a little Laughter thrown in. Doesn't that sound good?

Sigh.

Yes.

(For more Dream Boards, go here!)

How to Make a Vision Board

"If you have trouble seeing your goals, use pictures, images, and symbols you collect to keep your conscious and subconscious mind focused on your goals." - Jack Canfield

What you need to create a successful vision board:

1. Do not be in a hurry. It takes great patience to go through piles and piles of magazines!
2. A huge pile of magazines.
3. Scissors, endless cups of tea and a glue stick or two.
4. Clarity. It's no good just cutting out pictures of the things you want. You need to know what you expect those things to bring you. The funny thing is when you boil everything you ever want down to its essence, all any of us really want is to be happy. Deliriously, gently, deeply, lastingly happy. So get really clear. What does happy look like for you?

What do you want to create in your life?

5. Time. Cut out pictures, words and phrases that you like and then leave them for awhile. Come back to them and sift through the pile. Take some away. Go away again. Find another magazine and cut it up. Send away for catalogues. Look at the pictures: would that be what happiness looked like to you? Make collages of things that you want and live with them for awhile. (Like vision boards in training!)
6. When you have some pictures that you know are just right, start making your vision board. Play with it. Enjoy it.
7. When it is finished, put it somewhere where you can see it every day.
8. Practice paying attention. Be aware of appreciation. Be grateful. (...and keep clipping things out! Sometimes all you need is one picture for the a-ha moment!)
9. Repeat as necessary.

(I'll show you mine if you show me yours!)

For more vision board inspiration: Jamie hosts a monthly dream board session, and to take it a step further, Jennifer Lee has an amazing kit to help you with your vision.

Brit. Bloggers

"There are things you do because they feel right & they make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good." - Brian Andreas

At 11:20am they began to appear at my garden gate. Laughing, talking, carrying bags of food, piles of magazines, and dressed like summer, they soon filled my little house. I have been off sick for over a week now, and they were all just what the Dr. ordered!

Something wonderful happens when bloggers meet, and when bloggers meet that have met before it is magic! We eased back into conversation like we had seen each other yesterday, dancing between topics as big as our dreams and as normal as shopping. We laughed, took hundreds of pictures, talked about toast catalogues, love, life and began unfolding our life visions.


I have lots more to say about them. I want to tell you how truly beautiful (inside and out) Penny is in real life, and how Susannah sparkles and fills the room with her energy. I would like to tell you how Leonie shines from somewhere deep inside, how Jo is one of the wisest fiercest women I've ever met, and that Emma makes me feel like anything I want to do is possible. But I am sleepy now. I have to do the dishes, clean up bits of magazines from the floor and smell the roses that once lived in Emma's garden.

It was a good day.

Light Dawns...

"It's time to start living the life you've imagined." - Henry James

At some point in the past, my monkey-brain set out a list of rules and regulations for me. Despite numerous attempts to change, I have been frustrated over and over again when I slipped back into old ways of being. I had tried to change the tapes, why was the song always the same?

Yesterday I realized that it is not the tapes I was aware of that are the problem. I was blessed with an unexpected whole day of solitary confinement (quarantined for possible Swine Flu) and spent it sorting out my office. In the reorganization, I came across two things. One was the folder I had put together shortly after reading The Success Principles, and the other was a mass of composting pages covered in inspiration.

My copy of The Success Principles is dog-eared and fiercely underlined. I really believed as I read it that I would do it - and then I didn't. Disappointment with myself always sets me back. At the time I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me - why couldn't I just do what I knew needed doing to get where I wanted to be? Why do I never follow through with a plan? Obviously I am just lazy.

My pile of inspiration is also dog-eared and underlined. Some sheets are nearly transparent from being folded and unfolded so many times. Notes from workshops, quotes, e-mail, e-books, affirmations and motivations all come to the top of the pile every time I clean, and then just go right back into the pile. Even as I sat on the floor and sorted, the folder went on one side of me and the inspiration went on the other.

That's when light dawned. For some reason all of this time I have believed that the business-focused-driven parts of myself couldn't co-exist with the inspirational, magical side. As I sat there I realized that I did not value or even acknowledge all of the parts of myself. I realized that I can't focus on hard-nosed, serious goals. I am not that person, no matter how much I would like to be. It does not mean that I am lazy. It means that I am different, and I need to do things in a way that works for me.

So I created a folder that encompasses all of who I am on this path. I have a space for goals and a space for inspiration. I have created an ultimate goal and using all of my inspirational tools, I can create smaller, meaningful and do-able goals to create happiness in my life. The upside of it all is that after years of trying to write a mission statement, one came to me loud and clear and simple the minute I had finished putting it all together (I'm not going to tell you yet!)

So it seems that my monkey-brain was right all along. I was doing it wrong, but it was because I wasn't working with all that I am. Hopefully now that I've got it all working under the same cover, it'll be a book worth writing in.

P.S. The photograph of me was taken by Susannah. I like the determination she captured!

Impossible Things

"...sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carroll

If you asked me ten years ago what my dreams were, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. One reason was that I was afraid to say anything out loud just in case I 'jinxed' it. I also was afraid of wanting something too badly and not getting it, or of getting it and realizing that it wasn't as exciting or as wonderful as I hoped it would be.

If you asked me at any given point in the last five years what my dreams were, I still would not have been able to tell you. Oh, I've had goals and hopes and wishy-washy ideas about what I wanted. I have journal after journal filled with proclamations of, 'This is it! This time I...' But fuzzy, watery decisions to lose weight or get published do not translate into concrete actions.

The irony is that the things that I have really wanted - and worked for - have come to pass, often without me realizing until it was over. When I am specific and do my bit, it happens. Often I think afterwards that I wish I had just been a little bit more clear about the details, because I did get what I asked for. More than once lately I have wished that I'd remembered what I was doing and asked for more! But then I realize that if I'd asked for more I might not have believed it - and it might not have ever happened.

Impossible things. Why is it easy for us to allow some things and impossible for us to allow others? Where do the blocks come from? SARK writes that impossible means, "I'm possible." I think I am going to adopt that as my affirmation this week. Whenever I feel myself doubting the potential in something I want or something I am doing, I am going to say, "I'm possible!" I have no doubt in the Universe, but all kinds of doubts in me. Hopefully by reminding myself that I AM possible and that I am powerful, I will begin to be able to ask for and expect the very best.

Believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast! Roar!

xo

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where -' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't much matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

-Lewis Carroll

arms wide open.

"Don't look at the ground! The ground hasn't changed since the last time you looked at it." - Biggest loser UK

I have been here less because I am working on three projects. One of those is a brand new website that is all mine! I'm designing the header at the moment and part of that has been scouring the creative commons at Flickr and istock photo for inspiration. Late late at night in a fit of
desperation, I typed in 'spiritual' as part of a search.

Imagine my delight when image after image came up of people with their arms flung open wide in joy. In amongst the more anticipated photographs of religious icons and images, people stood with their arms flung wide in surrender and celebration.

Intrigued, I checked iphoto to see whether or not I had a picture there of that feeling - and I did! I was alone when I took this shot, but I remember wanting to capture the feelings of beauty and expansion and gratitude that I was feeling in that moment on a walk home. That is a picture of joy. And flung-open arms, it seems, is a common way to show that feeling.

So what about you? When was the last time that you felt compelled to fling open your arms to embrace the space you were in? When was the last time you expressed that much joy? Do you have a picture in your archives of someone with their arms out like that? Is it you? I'd love to see that shot. I'd like to know you've felt that way too!

"Maybe in time, you will find, your arms are wrapped around the sun." - Deb Talan (Big Strong Girl)

practically a fruit bat!

"You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment." - Annie Dillard

Before I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I had a lot of trouble with food. Dairy, wheat, peppers and peanuts are all quite tricky things to not be able to eat, but I dealt with it. The hardest thing for me to avoid was fresh fruit. If it was fresh and raw, it was not my friend.

Two days after my official diagnoses we packed up and went on vacation to Grenada. I had no idea that I would be able to eat fruit when I stopped eating gluten, but about four days into the trip I started to crave fruit. I started small, dipping into the papaya and watermelon at breakfast. When that went well, I made Mark's Dad pull over at a roadside stand and we bought an enormous bag of passion fruit. That night we had fresh mango covered in fresh passion fruit, and I have never looked back.

So this is the first summer in a very long time that I have been able to enjoy fruit. I've been eating every berry I can get my fingers on - sometimes twice a day - and I have been loving it! I can't get enough. The riper, the drippier the better!

Tonight as I type with fingers sticky from the juice of my first nectarine in years, I would like to wish you the simple wonderful delights of a bowl of your favorite fresh fruit. If I could have you here to enjoy it with me, I would.

Mmmm... I wonder if there are any cherries left in the fridge...

xo

Jamie Ridler Studios

"This is the leap, when you’re ready to share your gifts with the world, to take the risk and say, “Here. Here is who I am. Here is what I’ve created.” It’s a bold time, a brave time, a time full of risk and of joy. This is when you embrace the deepest truth of who you are and step fully into what you want to bring to this world." - Jamie Ridler

The first week I started blogging I was looking around for creative souls and people who I could connect with. I can't remember how I found Jamie's site. I think I found a comment that she had left for someone else and was charmed by her. When I went back to her blog I discovered that we had both started our blogs at the same time and that her site was as charming and inspiring as her comment had been.

I tentatively reached out, hoping that she would comment back, and an immediate connection was made. We have been friends ever since. (Friends who have never met in person - a situation I hope to remedy this fall!) I have been excited and proud to watch her create a life and a place that is true to who she is and what she wants to give to the world. Today she is taking that a step further and launching her new website!

I hope that you will pop over and meet her if you haven't before. You will soon see what I saw in her back then. She is a feisty, creative, magical inspiration.

Good luck, Jamie! I can't wait to see what you do next!!

xo

The power of music

"Don't be shy, just let your feelings roll on by - And don't wear fear, or nobody will know you're there..." - Cat Stevens

Two weeks ago I went to see the band Take That in concert. I don't remember listening to them the first time that they were a big deal, but they have reformed and released some really wonderful songs. When I told people I was going, I had mixed reactions. It felt almost like a guilty pleasure to go. But 50,000 people had the same idea. It was a wonderful show. In this world that is filled with doom and gloom, four guys who put on a magical show complete with songs called 'Greatest Day' and 'Shine,' acrobats and a full sized elephant coming out of the ground and walking around are pretty special in my book. I got goosebumps. In fact, I remembered something. I remembered how much I had been missing magic. (Thanks guys for reminding me!)

The next day I took my little ipod with me on my way to work. I listened to 'Greatest Day' over and over and over (am I the only one who does this?) until my soul was singing along again. Then I let the ipod play me what it thought I needed. It is usually bang on. (Note: as I typed this my computer is on shuffle and it just started playing 'Greatest Day!' I love it when synchronicity happens!)

Today I have been messing around with my playlists, and I wondered if I was missing anything! What song do you put on and listen to over and over and over until it heals you? What songs do you put on when you are needing to feel wonderful? What song reminds you exactly of who you are?

(ADDED: I Double Dare you to download 'Don't be Shy' by Cat Stevens, lie on the floor or the ground and play it loud enough to let it seep into your bones. Bliss.)

My go-to favorites? (of the 1268 songs to choose from?)

For sassy:
Happy Girl: Martina McBride
Beautiful: Carole King
I'm Coming Out: Diana Ross
I Can Do Anything: Caleigh Peters
Deb Talan, Deb Talan, Deb Talan!!!

For nudging:
Don't be Shy: Cat Stevens
Beautiful Flower: India Arie
I'm Gonna Do it All: Karine Polwart
Greatest Day: Take That

For wonder:
Beautiful World: Colin Hay
All I know: Art Garfunkel
All this Beauty: The Weepies
The Indigo Girls!
Love You: Free Design

For biting in:
Valerie - Mark Ronson
Speed of Sound: Coldplay
Better Get to Livin': Dolly Parton
I Choose Life (acoustic version): Keisha White
...or there's always Alabama for good old fashioned fun!

This is just a few - but I'd LOVE to know what songs get you. Any guilty pleasures? What makes your soul sing along? What's your go-to for help? Joy? Wisdom? What should I give a listen to?

a rambling return

"Writing is about getting something down, not about thinking something up." - Julia Cameron

I can't remember which book this is in, but one of the things SARK wrote that resonated with me the most was something about when she was feeling depressed, it clearly meant that she needed to express something. That has been echoing through my head for days now. I have been busy. I have been overworked and stressed out and irritated, and I have not been writing or creating in any way. I tried to figure out what was wrong a few days ago and that thought came back to me.

I need to express something.

I need to get creative!

It's funny how the longer you leave a blog the harder it is to come back to it. I have thought about blogging many times over the past few weeks but once I started back I knew I wouldn't be able to stop. Frankly I didn't have the energy to commit to something else. I didn't have the energy to find a quote and upload a photo (my computer is sloooow!) and then write something about it. HA! So I am not going to. The quote found me and the photo will have to wait, but I am here now. I have broken the ice, and it feels good. It feels good to be back.

Yes, I think I will come back here again.

have a great day.

Perspective

I've posted this picture before. I got it in an email years ago and had it up in front of my desk for a really long time. I think it was the look on his face more than anything that made me love him. I'm feeling the need for a little light relief. I have been in that weird place of low-level stress where you feel like everything is okay, but you can also feel this weird tension growing. I've been waking up realizing that my jaw aches and my shoulders are tense. I know you know what I am talking about.

So this morning as I tried to download photos, write an email and deal with a crisis all at the same time, my computer and my brain crashed at exactly the same moment. I sat and just looked at the little colour wheel spinning endlessly in front of me and then shook my head and laughed. I laughed the absurdity of my brain. I laughed at the unnecessary pain and strain that we put on ourselves. Why on earth when we know better do we let ourselves get wound up in knots over ridiculous things? In the grand scheme of life, how does this tension help?

I know lots of ways to live a creative/ full/ inspired/ abundant life. My bookshelf is groaning under the weight of all of those ideas. But what good are those ideas if I forget them when I need them the most? I think that that is the question I need answered most of all. How do we hold onto that part of ourselves that can see the stars when we are swirling in the ordinary?

How do you do it? How do you keep hold of your perspective?

sometimes the truth hurts

"Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around wondering about yourself."
- Katharine Hepburn

(I wonder what she would have thought about blogging...)

It's me! It's me!

"I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face." - Johnny Depp

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, there is a new post from me! The internet appeared as a series of small green lights at just about 11:00 last night. It's slow, but it's ours and we are not talking too loudly in case we scare it away!

It's been an interesting few weeks, but without going into work or life too much, just know that I have missed you!

Better late than never, the winners of the giveaway were... Genie Sea, Hybrid J and Hundred and One Things - YAY!!!! (If you reply to this post with your email included, I'll send you the possible books and you can send me your address in return.) To those of you who didn't win: I still have a pile of books to find good homes for, so keep in touch and I'll do the draw again soon. And pay attention because who knows what those clever bloggers will cook up to giveaway on their blogs!

Now I am off to get back in touch - ahhhhhhhhhh, connection!!!

Paying it forward - a Draw!!

Artwork: Lotus Rising by Celeste Johnson

As I write this I am sitting on the floor of my old flat. We have come back to finish getting it ready to rent. I’ve been dispatched to write an article for our new website, but I have been so long away from writing anything, I needed to warm up a bit before leaping back into the fray.

We’ve moved! We are now living in a cute three bedroom cottage in the rolling hills of Somerset. It has a lovely big kitchen, some period features and a fabulous garden of the sort that would make a 9 year old boy delirious with exploratory joy. But we still don't have any internet... and I am so addicted to the internet.

So I’ve missed you all very much, and I know that when I finally get connected properly and fire up bloglines, I shall find that I have been completely out of touch with you all. But as a way of sticking my toe back in, I am going to finally take my turn to pay it forward.

A few weeks ago I won a draw on Celeste’s blog for a beautiful print of one of her paintings. (It’s the one I have included above, isn't she beautiful!? I get to own that print!!) She in turn had been inspired by a draw that Darlene had run on her blog. The only rule is that if you win, you must pay it forward in return and offer something of your own. Now, I am not an artist or a photographer or anything, so I cannot offer you something like that, but what I DO have is the biggest pile of inspirational books in the world, and a deep desire to not have to move them all again. If you have read this blog before you will know that I look on my books as very precious, so you know how much this means to me!

So if you leave a comment on this post by May 30, I’ll enter you into a draw for something delicious from my library. (And believe me, I have some good stuff!!!) I’ll have Mark draw three winners and then write to you with a list of books you can choose from. All you have to do if you win is give something away on your blog in return.

Hope you are all doing well, and I’ll see you again when we have the net!

a box of me

"Having a vision for our future that differs from our current circumstances can be inspiring and exciting, but it can also keep us from fully committing to our present placement." - from DailyOm

Today I sit surrounded by boxes and the accumulation of nearly seven years of co-habitation. It's nearly time to move, but we most certainly are not ready! In a strange twist of fate, we are moving to a place that we have never seen the inside of. Thinking back on it I realize I have never moved like a normal person ever before so I'm not sure why it's bothering me this time. I wonder if it is because this time I am moving with a husband and more stuff than just what can be packed into a single suitcase.

I have a small box packed that is marked, "Meg's essentials.' I've been putting a few things in it here and there without really thinking about what's going in. This is the box that will be coming in the car with us. Looking in it now I think it is really telling (and a little embarrassing) about the person I have become. The old me always just carried a lighter, a journal, a purple pen, a camera, photographs and a little bag of stones.

So what does the new me need to feel safe in her new space? My box contains: a journal, several pens, the same little bag of stones, the same lighter, a painted rock that reads "manifest miracles", my ipod, a smudging stick, a bigger camera, slippers, a shawl my Mom knit for me, green chai tea, photographs tucked into the journal for safekeeping, the word YES, and not one, but three books (like I am going to have time to read!) So there it is: me in a box. Surely there's a psychology lesson in there somewhere!

I've just been told that I won't be having a phone or the internet until the 18th of May, so it seems I am about to go on a blogging break. I hope that you will come back and see me in two weeks. In the meantime, here are some other things to distract you:

1. I am guest blogging at Jamie's site on Monday. She's got a whole week of guests, so it should be very interesting. We have all contributed our take on balance (ha ha!)

2. Wishstudio has relaunched!

3. Please check out our new (very new and still being tested!) site. It has been a long time coming and we're a bit nervous about it, but here it is! It's called Randomly Challenged.

4. Tell me, if you were going to move and you had a box marked, "_________'s essentials," what would be in it? What couldn't you leave to the depths of the moving van? What would you need to feel like you in a new space?

See you on the 18th of May! Wish us luck and take good care of you.

xo

authenticity

“The authentic self is the soul made visible” - Sarah Ban Breathnach

Conversation with a friend tonight turned to the subject of authenticity. It is a word that is often used on these pages of ours. We struggle for it, we talk about it, we admire it, and rather bizarrely it is also something we try to emulate. But is authenticity something you can find or create? Is it something you have to learn or do we just have it? And how can we tell if it is... authentic or not?

You can usually tell when someone is new to blogging. It is often obvious that they have been reading blogs for awhile. It's the lingo that gives them away. I know this because I did the same thing. I knew what sort of people I wanted to meet and I tried to leave comments that would entice them back to my blog. Very quickly I learned that it was too hard to pretend to be something I am not. As soon as I started leaving comments that were more like me and less like everyone else I started to make friends. I started being authentic.

Authentic is your voice. Authentic is your essence. Authentic is the you that you are in your head. It is honesty about what you stand for and what you want to say. It's not the nuts and bolts of your every day, or what you think people want to hear. You know authenticity when you see it. It's the reason that some blogs 'resonate' (there's that lingo again) and some blogs don't. If someone is being authentic, they give us permission to do the same. It's only natural to want that.

So back to my question. Is authenticity something you have to learn or do we just have it? I've come to think that authenticity is something that you must lean into. It's something that you have to stand at the edge of and test over and over again until you are comfortable with the view. It's about knowing who you are and being okay with that, warts and all. If you can do that, write from that place, and stop trying to be like anyone else, you will find what we are all looking for.

I'll keep leaning into it if you will.