Category Archives: I Saw You Dancing

#Reverb12: Day 8

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reverb12

Okay, I knew this had to happen eventually: today a few of the prompts have started to repeat, to overlap. From Carolyn Rubenstein’s Reverb11 list, “Limits: We often learn about our limits the hard way. Were there any limits you realized this past year? Alternately, what self-imposed limits were you able to move beyond this year?” I answered this one already on Day Two.

Art

The full prompt: What was the most moving piece of art that you saw/experienced this year? This could mean a painting or a sculpture, or a performance you took in, or even a book that you read – tell us about the kind of art you encountered, and the way that it moved you.

The most moving piece of art I saw this year was original artwork made just for me by Mary Anne Radmacher. It wasn’t only the art (which is gorgeous, so precious) but the cycle of compassion it was part of, proof of the power of kindness and love and creativity. I wrote about it the day it arrived.

peacedream

Reading

There are two prompts for today that are almost exactly alike. The first prompt: What has been your favourite book or blog or magazine you’ve read this year? (Author: Carolyn Rubenstein), and the second prompt: Your favourite book? What was the best book you read in 2012, and why? (And by “Why?” I mean: Why did you read it? And why was it your favourite? Although these answers could be one and the same…!).

P.S. I think it is utterly adorable that the two prompts that overlapped are from places where it’s a “favourite” book, rather than a favorite.

I already wrote about books on Reverb12 Day Five. So, instead I’ll share some of my favorite blogs that I followed this year, (most of these are in addition to the list I shared in this post).

  • Ken and Paper. I especially love his “Meet Ken” page because except for the part about being divorced and a man, we have the same story.
  • I Saw You Dancing. Kat is hosting the main Reverb12 that I’m following, and that was initially how I first found her blog, so I’ve only just started reading, but I am really enjoying it. We seem to have a lot in common.
  • Justine Musk. I may have been reading her blog for more than a year now, but she continues to regularly inspire and encourage me, saying things I would never dare to say but that I so need to hear.
  • Be More With Less by Courtney Carver, who is a complete badass. I told her so when I got to meet her this summer. She consistently writes things that make me want to live a simpler, better life, and she makes that seem absolutely possible.
  • The Daily Breadcrumb by Sunni Chapman. Time and time again she writes the kind of wisdom that snaps me wide awake, breaks me open. She is kind and generous, she is powerful and wicked wise, she is a ray of light and love wrapped in human skin.

P.S. I got distracted by one of the dogs when writing this post, (I can’t tell you how many times this happens, mostly because I’ve lost count), and forgot one of the blogs I wanted to share.

  • 3x3x365, a blog co-authored by Patti Digh, Kathryn Schuth, and Amy McCracken (Amy is one of my new most favorite people), “Three friends in three states share one photo every day.” The stories these women share are so beautiful, sometimes simple and sometimes incredibly complicated, but always touching and precious.

Clarity

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I’ve been thinking a lot about questions this week. About knowing the right ones to ask, being curious, listening and looking for answers everywhere. One reason is because I have the opportunity to ask a single question of an Intuitive Counselor I met at the World Domination Summit this summer (we talked the whole time about dogs, so I liked her immediately, knew she was some sort of coach, but not the specifics of her work until I looked her up later). I have the chance to get her help in getting clear about something important to me. I am working on the question, trying to carefully craft it, aware that the difference between “how” and “what” in a case like this can be enormous, and not wanting to be like one of those people in those old stories who are granted three wishes and completely screw it up, wasting the whole lot of them because they don’t word them wisely.

I’ve talked before about how I love divination, intuition, auspicious concidence, serendipity: a chance meeting, an unexpected connection, a feather in my path, a heart-shaped rock, picking a random line from a sacred text, tarot readings, throwing I-Ching coins, Hiro Boga’s Deva Cards, dream interpretation, Q-Cards qcasting, or any such oracle through which the universe might send me a message.

As I’ve said before, “Go ahead and think I’m weird, but I believe it’s just one more way to get clear about where I am and what I should be focusing on. I think this is one of the ways the Universe sends me messages, because I open my heart and ask, but even if it’s just a message from my unconscious or random chance that doesn’t really mean anything, I find it a useful tool for gaining some insight on my current situation, whatever that happens to be.”

And this week, Jamie Ridler provided two opportunities for getting clear, for asking the questions. The first was the Full Moon Dreamboard, the Full Frost Moon, which asked “What is clear about your dreams? What further clarity do you seek?” And, on the same day was Wishcasting Wednesday, which asked “What clarity do you wish for?” I didn’t even post about the wishcast, wrote it in my journal instead since I’d already posted that day about my search for clarity and what I’d discovered through my dreamboard practice. I didn’t want to bore you, kind and gentle reader.

But I can’t stop thinking about it, and it keeps coming up. Susan Piver shared with the Open Heart Project Practitioners a collection of questions she’s considering as we move into a new year, I am getting daily Wisdom Notes and prompts from Rachel Cole, and I’m in charge of coming up with a set of questions, contemplations for a collective of courage cultivators I’ll be meeting with in a few weeks. And yesterday I read Kat’s post on I Saw You Dancing, and it was all about seeking clarity, “I’m trying to understand who I am, why I am here, what I am going to do with this one precious life of mine.” What she discovered is

The destination I had reached was, in fact, exactly where I was already standing. And all the stuff that I am meant to do in this life is, in fact, stuff that I am already doing.

I keep bumping up against this idea, that I already am. It was the third truth in my Three Truths and One Wish post this week, “I don’t need to become something else, because I am already.” The comment I left for Kat said how much I loved her post, how she’d described the process,

The rambly abstract brilliant mess of this life we live, where we look and look and search and try and question and run around crazy, only to realize in one moment, in a flash that our feet and our breath are right there, the ground is right there, our heart beats the same rhythm it has from the very beginning.

Kat is hosting Reverb12 during the month of December, and as host she will provide daily prompts that help those of us participating to “reflect on the year that has passed and start to manifest your dreams for the new year.” More specifically, they will be about “celebrating the successes of 2012, honouring the challenges of 2012, and planting the seeds for a rich and rewarding 2013.”

The places I’m currently seeking clarity, where I have questions seem to be all related to obstacles, the things keeping me from living my best, healthiest and most wholehearted life, from fully realizing my dreams. I wish to be clear about working with those who are suffering and confused (both in my personal and work relationships, and with people I don’t even really know), I want to know how I can best help, I would like to understand the specifics of how I might turn my heart’s work into my paid work, I wish to realize how to completely let go of old habits and thought patterns that no longer serve me, I’d like to be clearer about my “thing” (where should I be focusing my time, my attention, my love? do I need further specialization or certification to fully step into my purpose? if so, what?). How to ask all that in the form of a single question is my immediate challenge.

While I understand that I don’t need to change, that I am already worthy and whole just as I am, fundamentally wise and compassionate and awake, and I am already thoroughly in love with my life as it is and full of gratitude for what I have, I’m so curious about what’s going to happen next.