Music | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

image by Eric

1. Loyal dog won’t forget his best friend on Dog Heirs. *sob*

2. House Rule: In These Bodies We Dance from Brittany, Herself. I love the picture at the end. This is what joy looks like.

3. mary jo hoffman :: still from Lisa Congdon. So beautiful.

4. Meet Darcy, The Most Famous (Flying) Hedgehog On Instagram from Bored Panda. So cute.

5. 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, for FREE! Here’s an excellent gift you can give YOURSELF for the holidays, 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, Laurie Wagner’s 27 Day writing prompt program delivered daily to your inbox. It’s a simple way to keep your writing practice alive during the holidays, and an excellent opportunity to start a practice if you don’t have one. You’re welcome.

6. Architect Bypasses Mortgage Payments, Builds a Tiny Home on My Modern Met. My obsession with tiny houses is not that I want to live in one, (my house is only a little over 1000 square feet, so I’m in a pretty small space already), but that I want something like this in my backyard, to use as a studio, class, guest space.

7. 9 ways to cope with loss during the holidays from Positively Present.

8. Maybe there is really only ONE story in life – the story of learning to be real on Unabashedly Female. (P.S. I haven’t watched the video at the end).

9. How ‘hygge’ can help you get through winter.

10. Mom’s memory lives on in sweet dad, daughter photos.

11. ‘Tis The Season To Be… Mindful on Huffington Post.

12. From Patti Digh: your daily rock : go forward and your daily rock : tell it like it is and your daily rock : burn those jeans! and your daily rock : live like you are dying.

13. Nathan loves Bella….(sweet little boy loving a special pitbull), a CNN iReport.

image by Eric

14. what if girls were rewarded for being authentic instead of being thin? from Justine Musk.

15. Indoor S’mores on Dessert for Two. Oh my…

16. ‘Christmas Jammies’ Rockets Holderness Family To Viral Video Fame on Huffington Post.

17. 139. BRENÉ BROWN: The Woman in the Arena from Zen Pencils.

18. Magical Photographs Follow the Lives and Friendship of Two Argentine Girls on Feature Shoot.

19. What I’ve Been Reading: 2013, a great list from Marianne Elliott.

20. The Daring Interview Series: Meet Elizabeth Gilbert from Brene’ Brown.

21. When is the best time to create? from Paul Jarvis.

22. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: 10 Ways To Scare Your Friends & Family Away From Yoga (Funny) and Want To Find Your Purpose But Have No Idea What It Is? Read This.

23. Stuff to think about from Austin Kleon: On the “death” of blogging and Forget setting goals and commit to a process.

image by Eric

24. The Year’s Best Books on Writing and Creativity from Brain Pickings.

25. Gift to the Soul: The Space of Presence, Tara Brach on Huffington Post, in which she says,

When we’re speeding along, we violate our own natural rhythms in a way that prevents us from listening to our inner life and being in a resonant field with others. We get tight. We get small. We override our capacity to appreciate beauty, to celebrate, to serve from the heart.

26. Want To Quit Blogging? Read This First! from Gala Darling, in which she says,

A blog isn’t just a blog: it is a chronicle of your life, and just like your soul, it is constantly evolving.

27. Short answers to big questions from Alexandra Franzen.

28. 10 Artists You Should Have Known In 2013 from NPR.

29. 5 Lies You Were Told about Grief and A Self-Made 12-Step Program for Living an Authentic Life from Rebelle Society.

image by Eric

30. Wisdom from Kris Carr on Facebook,

Fear contains powerful messages. When we’re courageous enough to be with what scares us, we can awaken our intuition and create a new path for healing. Whether you’re worried about getting sick, you’re currently dealing with a health issue, or you’re scared and struggling in other areas of your life, don’t judge your fears, invite them to tea.

It’s common to belittle our fears and try to pre-maturely cleanse them away. But just because we’re afraid, doesn’t mean we’re toxic or failing or falling off the spiritual wagon. Fear is one of the many colors in our emotional palette, and it’s often there for a reason. There’s nothing weak or less evolved about being frightened. And guess what, you’re not alone. We’re all scared. No one is fearless.

31. Wisdom from Rumi,

Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.

32. Family Gatherings: The Ultimate Mindfulness Training Ground from Zen Habits.

image by Eric

33. Me, the universe, and Javier Bardem from Judy Clement Wall.

34. 3 Ways to Prepare for Career Change on Create as Folk.

35. All feelings are mutual on Superhero Life.

36. 15 Best Photos of the Day of 2013 on Tree Hugger.

37. Wisdom from Rilke,

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

38. Teachers, writers, speakers: On confidence and owning your true authority from Susan Piver.

image by Eric

39. Wisdom from Cheryl Strayed,

Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.

40. 34 Examples of Installation Art That Don’t Suck on Your Daily Media.

41. How to Visit Your Family Without Going Crazy on Purple Clover, which shares these quotes,

“How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?” asks Stanley Kunitz in a poem.

and

Thomas Merton, the great Benedictine monk, captured this paradox succinctly. “Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and heart has turned to stone,” he wrote.

42. An Elderly Couple Took The Same Photo Every Season. But Nothing Could Prepare Me For The Last One on Viral Nova.

image by Eric

43. 8 Ways to Encourage a Meaningful New Year on Be More With Less.

44. In Marriage, Beware of Big Boxes on Modern Love from The New York Times.

45. Fortyhood: Why You’re Too Old to Have a Baby After 40 on Huffington Post.

46. Wisdom from Roy L. Smith, “He who has not Christmas in his heart
will never find it under a tree.”

47. friday’s confession: I’m slowing down. from Tiffany Han.

48. Belka (Alaskan Malamute/Siberian Husky), our 20 day old pup howling.

49. Shared by Susannah on her Something for the Weekend list: Life from One Foot Up by Derek (which made me realize Fray is back online), and Quinoa & Brussels Sprout Salad recipe, and Favorite Job Interview Questions, and this video, ‘Female Freedom Has an Expiration Date’ – Being 35 and Single,

50. This Post Secret card.

51. The Answer to All Your Questions…the First Four Words You See Describe You on Elephant Journal. My words were passionate, peaceful, thoughtful, and genuine.

52. 10 Things You Can’t Do AT CHRISTMAS While Following Jesus and 10 Things You Can’t Do While Following Jesus from The God Article.

53. What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter from In the Parlor, which says,

So whatever you believe about homosexuality, keep it to yourself. Instead, try telling a gay kid that you love him and you don’t want him to die. Try inviting her into your church and into your home and into your life. Anything other than that simply doesn’t matter.

54. Homage To Rae Kline, My First Yoga Teacher on Recovering the Body.

55. A Bundle of Joy and Peace: 21 Inspiring Quotations from Thich Nhat Hahn from Always Well Within.

56. Wisdom from Sakyong Mipham, “Open hearts, kindness, and care – these are our most precious gifts.”

57. More wisdom from Rumi, “Don’t think the garden looses it’s ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.”

image by Eric

58. iPersonic Personality Test. My result was “The Good-natured Realist” which was pretty accurate.

59. 10 Things Food Banks Need But Won’t Ask For.

60. I Don’t Know Where The Rich People Are Who Lived Here, But What They Left Behind Is Frightening on Viral Nova.

61. Heartwarming Photos of SF Zoo’s New Baby Gorilla and Her Doting Grandmother from The Modern Met. There is almost nothing cuter than a baby gorilla.

62. 12 Easy Ways to Make Life Simple Again from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

63. “In an abundance of caution” from Seth Godin.

64. Truthbomb from Danielle Laporte, “Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?”

image by Eric

Today, one of my prompts for Reverb13 is up. No big surprise, it’s about grief and loss. I wrote,

This past year, we have all experienced so much loss and felt so much grief — in relationships, through sickness and death, from mental illness or abuse, because of finances, even due to the need for healthy change.

It is good to honor those shifts, to fully feel them, so that we can let go of what needs surrendered, and remember what is worthy of our love and gratitude.

What have you lost, what are you grieving?

I can’t talk about what I’ve lost in the past year, what I’m grieving without mentioning Dexter. His cancer and eventual death was the most significant event of 2013. I emailed Kat yesterday, (she’s hosting the Reverb13 I wrote this and one other prompt for) and told her, “Almost every day, I’ve been writing about Dexter, as I reflect back on this year, and it’s helping me to honor that experience but also to let go in a way I still haven’t. I’m so grateful for this practice.”

Another big loss this year is my husband’s parents and his aunt moved. For the past five years, they were here, close to us. We’d lived here for almost seven years on our own before that and were fine, but then they came and we had someone else to call when we needed help, a built in dog sitter (one who washed dishes and did laundry when she came over), people to gather with for holidays or just a regular meal any time. We’d come home from work to a container of homemade cinnamon rolls or oatmeal cookies, and there was always someone to help Eric take a load of stuff to the dump or borrow a ladder from. We got used to it, so now being here by ourselves again feels a little lonely.

Another loss is not going to Susan Piver’s Fearlessly Creative: A Meditation and Writing Retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC) at the end of the month. The timing is just off for me this session, and even though I can do a writing and meditation retreat any time for myself at home, and I can drive up to SMC whenever I want, I am really going to miss seeing Susan again. The other grief related to her is the Open Heart Project Practitioner level didn’t end up working out. We aren’t completely disbanded or adrift, things are simply shifting, but we had just completed our 2nd virtual retreat when we got the news and it was sad.

There’s grief about other family stuff, things I don’t write about here, other people’s struggles and secrets that aren’t mine to share, but can’t be ignored, are hard to witness, generate so much suffering. I practice remembering, as Anaïs Nin suggested, “You cannot save people. You can only love them.”

When it was happening, and immediately after, there was a lot of grief around the session I had with a new doctor where she told me I was obese and tried to put me on a diet, told me to do more cardio — all this after I explained I was a dis-ordered eater and was hoping to heal that behavior.

this is what obese looks like — when I look at her, all I can see is how hard she tries, all the ways she’s denied herself, how worthy she is of nothing but love (photo by Andrea Scher)

Which leads directly into my answer to the next prompt: 20/20: Hindsight is the one thing we never benefit from in the present. Is there one moment you wish you could do over? I’m not usually one to wish for do-overs because it seems to imply regret, wanting things to be different, and if that were the case, I wouldn’t be where I am now. For example, from the visit to that doctor came the Self-Compassion Saturday project and the real healing that is happening now, something I had to do for myself. Yes, what she did was awful, but it was the catalyst for something good. Or, I could wish that I’d let Dexter go hiking that day, the one where he stayed home with me and hurt his knee chasing a squirrel in the back yard — and yet, without a hurt knee, he wouldn’t have required physical therapy, and we never would have met Dr. Lindsey Fry and the support staff at Fort Collins Veterinary Emergency Hospital. They gave both Dexter and I such good care in those final months. So, rather than wish for a do-over, I choose to accept what’s happened, to be grateful for what I can, learn what I can.

The Besottment Reverb 2013 prompt is “Did you discover a favourite song or musical artist in 2013?” I love music as much as I love books and dogs, so I can’t give just one. These are my three favorite new to me artists I discovered, my three favorite of their songs.

One eskimO, Amazing