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Moon Cookie

December 18, 2017

While waiting for my grandson’s household to stir I am making good on my New Story of being spontaneously creative and doing Forgivenesswalks work by reading through draft blogposts. I’m developing a habit of posting ideas, quotes, and undeveloped dramas as drafts.

I just found one that delights me. It was an idea I had.

“November 27, 2017

Create a book using The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie by Vachel Lindsay. Watercolor paintings for illustrations.

Also a story of Sebastian watching the moon. Basic moon observation story.” read more

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Kindness Noticed

December 18, 2017

I walked 1.5 miles between my hosts’ house and my grandson’s house.

Besides allowing myself to feel all my feelings while walking past my former family home, I noticed kindness bestowed by people I don’t know.

  • A driver stopped, waited, then backed up. A woman popped her head out saying, “Oh sorry! I thought you were a kid.” And drove on. “I am a kid at heart!” I spontaneously  replied.  
  • A man with a dog pulled off the sidewalk and waited while I passed. I felt honored, first assumi g that I would be the one who yielded. “Thank you!” I said. His dog jumped up and was held back. “Whew! Thank you twice!”
  •  A driver waited a car length back from a stop sign as I crossed in front. I waved my thanks before and after I passed.

I realized that I could have noticed equal numbers of people ignoring me, or showing unkindness. Actually, on this walk no one offered me anything that appeared unkind. 

I especially enjoyed being mistaken for a kid, as I regularly encourage visitors at my visitor center programs to be as a child in the desert, full of wonder and curiosity. I guess I radiate that even walking through the wooded neighborhood in Georgia!  read more

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Personal Forgivenesswalk

December 18, 2017

I admit, I didn’t publish yesterday’s post until today after sleeping on it. I was not willing to be that vulnerable, to show up stuck in my S.T.O.R.Y. (Sustained Tale Of Repressed Yearning).

Well, as journeys through a Radical Forgiveness transformation go, I have moved another step along and can now recognize the value of yesterday’s upset. I was experiencing the first of the five phases of Radical Forgiveness: Telling the S.T.O.R.Y. and having it witnessed and validated. read more

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Today’s Beliefs

December 17, 2017

My role in my family is unclear. I’m making this up as I go. I am a lone grandmother. I miss John Reiter just because he should be with me because we were married. I miss the security of our former finances. We could be traveling and visiting grandchildren as retirees. But that’s a fantasy because he wants to work and not be with me because of who I am and never should have married me, so we are both lone grandparents. Besides, it’s not my business to know what he’s thinking unless he wants to tell me.  I wish I had stood up for myself and our marriage more staunchly, but then I wouldn’t have done my fulfilling walks and felt loved and done my fulfilling jobs. We would have divorced anyway. My lessons in this lifetime are about shame, sexuality, personal responsibility, among others.
Forgivenesswalks is waiting for me to step up and do the work. I feel alone in that too. No one else is doing forgivenesswalks right now although there are a few women who might be attracted to sharing it.  read more

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New Chapter

June 1, 2017

Together again. I perceive that my words are often upsetting, bothersome, misconstrued, prying, or other versions of disconnecting. 

Back together again. My perception is that it’s important to say as little as possible about a lot of things! Plans, politics, feelings, money, perspectives, hyperbole. 

Is it possible to be freely expressive without worrying if he’ll misunderstand, have a charge, not want to talk about it, or any of the other versions of separation?

I notice that I am thinking that it’s not, which is why I’m sitting here writing this rather than talking as we set off on our drive to Virginia! read more

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Which Relationships

December 16, 2017

I woke up even before my grandson today realizing that my entire life now could be focused on nurturing select relationships – grandkids, adult children, siblings, not to mention my own mom and my own intimate partner. 

Doing the math, that’s 2+3+9+1+1 = 16! Then there are the in-laws of siblings, which adds another eight for a total of 24 family members that I could be caring about, communicating with, and supporting. I haven’t even considered the 25 nieces and nephews or the 13 or so greats. So I’m up to 53 family I could be choosing as important relationships to nurture. read more

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Imperfection Accepted

December 15, 2017

What if I have a project for watching the sunrise every day, or sending a weekly blogpost, or painting every day for thirty days, or walking the Appalachian Trail?

What if I miss a day of sun watching or painting or skip a week of posting or take a day off walking? 

Does that negate my success or mean that I failed? 

Does it matter if I have a valid excuse for skipping a turn? How about if I had set up the project with parameters for skipping? 

So, I went outside and watched the sunrise for 60 consecutive days, and on Day 61,  I slept through it. My reason, my excuse, my choice was that I had traveled east to a different time zone, so sunrise was three hours earlier than my body’s rhythm had developed. I needed the rest.  I did feel a little sad, a little diminished in accomplishment. Then, I decided to let myself off my made up hook. I decided that I could love myself anyway and accept this imperfection in my plan.  read more

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Hummingbird Light

December 1, 2017

The hummingbird’s purple only shows when the sun hits it just right. Is there something about my soul that requires light to shine? Is my soul a source of radiance or a reflector of spiritual light?

Pondering this as hummingbird flits before me.

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Always Time for Radical Forgiveness

December 1, 2017

The more I become open to the ideas  that “everything happens for a reason” and “others are a mirror for my beliefs” I see those playing out on my life’s stage constantly!

Sometimes I now catch myself while feeling upset or blaming someone realizing that I have the option to reflect on how that person might be mirroring something in me that I can’t love about myself. I realize that I might have the choice to live that behavior in them and in so doing love that in myself too.  read more

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Gray Sunrise

November 29, 2017

In our 47 consecutive days of watching the sunrise, today’s is the most unique. All grayness. Still beautiful in its subtlety, yet most different from my sunrise stereotype. A message for me about forming expectations and judging certain qualities as good or bad. Do I focus on what’s missing? Perhaps indulging in gray can be beneficial. One friend said she likes gray days. They are more restful. 

Step Six of the Thirteen steps asks “Are you willing to release your need to judge the situation as either right or wrong good or bad? Even if you can’t explain how can you simply allow the situation to be perfect just the way it is?” The gray sunrise reminds me of Step Six. read more