Category: Journey to YOUR HeartLand

Posted on

Baby Backpacking and a Story

October 4, 2017

I took my 9-month old grandson to the start of the Appalachian Trail Approach! So cute and filled with promise! Then, his mom and I walked up to a heartsinging favorite, the Len Foote Hike Inn! The Hike Inn is a backcountry inn accessible only by a five-mile path up a mountain in North Georgia. I’ve stayed there many times, mostly with a complementary stay as a volunteer. It feels like home to me, so in a way, I was welcoming my family to my home!

My heart sang too as I supported Jessica, Felix’s mom, in her own accomplishment of carrying her son up the mountain.  We bonded as mother and daughter. “We could make this an annual event!” she mused. Sounds good to me! Felix was in good spirits for the journey and the favorite among the other guests, of course. Jessica felt proud to hear that babies are rare visitors to the Hike Inn. read more

Posted on

Forest Comfort

September 29, 2017

Walking in my childhood forest in Ohio, I feel a grounding comfort. The tree canopy embraces me. The pillared trunks emulate steadfast structure. The deep, firm soil supports me. I think ahead to my imminent relocation to the southern California desert. It’s a study in contrast!

Don’t get me wrong, I have loved living in the desert for the past three winters! The comfortable temperature range, the sun, the rainbows, the wide open sky, the surprisingly diverse vegetation and persistent flowering, the dramatic bare rock that makes geology obvious. It’s just that it’s so different from the familiar, homelike feeling of a temperate forest! read more

Posted on

Listening

September 28, 2017

What’s showing up in your Inner Journey this week?

I’ve been focusing on giving myself permission to paint illustrations for a story that came to me. It’s helping that I joined Laura West’s 30-Day Passion Project group for support and accountability. It’s interesting to me that it feels selfish for me to devote time to my painting! However, when I do, I feel more generous toward others, more efficient on other projects, less attracted to unhealthy food, more appreciative of others’ work, more supported by others, even more connected to and helpful to others, and just plain happy! read more

Posted on

Handy Tools

­September 20, 2017

I am grateful every day for having the tools of Radical Forgiveness! They come in handy quite often on my journey.

Let me tell you about today’s use. It’s really “just a little thing”, but shows how my new Radical Forgiveness lifestyle helps me have what’s promised in the promotions for Radical Forgiveness – more energy, better relationships, and freedom from my past.

I wrote a comment on another hiker’s post, referring to my practice of looking for the Inner Journey view of things that happen, rather than focusing on the circumstances, the venue, and the perpetrator as something to try to avoid in the future. To my surprise, an icon appeared signalling that the comment had failed to post! That’s never happened before! read more

Posted on

Journey in Creativity 

September 14, 2017

What did I choose for my 30-Day Passion Project? Choosing was definitely a challenge for me! In fact, I think it made me sick! Sunday, I felt awful, sleepy and headachey. I stayed at base camp while John went off to the trail for his last day on the ridgerunner job.

On Monday, I went to the launch call for the Passion Project program ready to announce that my project would be a Rainbow Energy Project, spending time each day doing something on each of the ten ideas I had on my plate. read more

Posted on

Passion Project Exploration

September 9, 2017

I’m joining Laura West of The Institute for Joyful Business for a 30-Day Passion Project! 

Today, I got the gift of a creative retreat day from Irma. I came home a couple of days early from my family visit in Charleston, SC. I’m exploring my ideas for passion projects. Inspired by Laura’s worksheets and using my own regular practice of painting through a chakra balancing meditation as a base for brainstorming, I’ve taken two steps forward: 1) Noted desires/growth in each chakra area with project ideas and 2)Elaborated on the outcomes, benefits, challenges, and areas of transformation I see for each project. Here are the worksheets: read more

Posted on

We Are One

September 7, 2017

Fires, hurricanes, floods, full moon, sunshine, health challenges, and adventures. Today, I acknowledge that at any moment we can be experiencing any number of physical and emotional events! I offer The Radical Forgiveness Invocation to awaken our sense of unity as spiritual beings having a human experience.

The Radical Forgiveness Invocation, by Crow Dancing 

May we all stand firm

In the knowledge and comfort

That all things are now, have always been, and forever will be in Divine order. read more

Posted on

Thanks, Louise Hay

August 30, 2017

Louise Hay passed away today. Her work gave language and acceptance to self-love as a path to loving others. It was my sister, Claudia, who first shared Louise’s words with me. I remember taking the cassette tape into bed and listening, with amused astonishment, to that deep, soothing voice enticing me to be grateful for every little thing in my life. At the time, it actually seemed a bit silly to be thankful for the morning light, and for my body’s basic functions, and for water, and breathing. Her visualization of walking to the ocean of abundance to scoop up goodness, asking, “What are you using, a teaspoon?!!” really jarred me. Aghast, I noticed that I was!  read more

Posted on

High Country Week

Notice and Wonder
August 3, 2017

My Ridgerunning walk this week focused on what’s called the High Country of the Mt Rogers Recreation Area in Virginia.  My first night out on Thursday, I camped at a spot I’ve had my eye on while I walked through there other weeks. It’s on Stone Mountain, just south of “The Scales”, an open, grassy field where cattle ranchers would weigh and sell their cattle before driving them down the mountain. The story goes that they realized that the cattle weighed more before they made the descent to town! Now, The Scales is a favorite car camping spot.  I prefer to walk a mile south on the Appalachian Trail, up Stone Mountain, to camp.  There, the grassy, and bushy bald stretches for a mile with expansive views. The low vegetation is broken by groups of short trees, bonsai-like stands of beech trees, just 5″ in diameter and fifteen feet tall. They create inviting rooms of shade, where the wild ponies can cool off.  I walked away from the trail a couple hundred yards and set up my tarp under a sprawling oak tree in a patch of grass.  In the morning, the view across The Scales and the valley below inspired me to take time to do a quick watercolor sketch of  the distant Wilburn Ridge, where the trail would wind its way south. read more