Renascence

On Being a Badass, and other intentions for the year

2012-02-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Rumi was, in my opinion, another quintessential Badass.

I wanted to be able to give you some big proclamation, preferably elegant, eloquent, and poetic, about what my grand intention is for the year.

But the truth is, it's a month into the new year, I'm less than a month from the beginning of another year for me (my birthday), and I just don't have the sense this year that there is any one thing. And what I do have is far from poetic. I've tried on a lot of pretty words but none have that sweet, "fits just right" kind of feeling (though some of the old ones are still ringing true - Integrity, Bloom, Allow.)

There are some recurring themes, however, and I thought I'd share them here.

Badass

Not kidding. I confess I had to look up whether that is one word or two. And when I did look it up, it said the definition was "mean-tempered troublemaker." I think I'll stick to my original definition, though it is a hard one to explain (which is why another of my intentions below, "Don't Explain, Be," comes in very handy).

I once had a friend that was incredible at being himself in the world. He was the quintessential badass. Everything he did was totally him being him, all out, holding nothing back. He once told me about a phrase he used to get himself fired up - "Get amongst it." To me, that says get in there, get into life, and tear it up. I want more of that energy in my life, in myself. I can feel big parts of myself just wanting permission to be this way, to get amongst it. So, while I don't consider myself a mean-tempered troublemaker, I do believe that we all have that Warrior energy, whether it is latent or active, and that living with integrity means neither to deny this nor to employ it recklessly. Rather, to be able to honor it and engage it consciously and wisely. Just as my daily yoga practice consists of a flow that moves from child's pose (quieting, inward-directing, calming) as well as the Warrior series (strength, projecting energy, more outward-directed), so my life practice requires all these elements as well.

So, again - Badass. This one feels tremendous and, another true test, it's also really been working for me. It resonates and inspires me. I am able to get a whole lot done, do it well, without struggle and stress and therefore ENJOY the process when I think to myself - Teach yoga like a Badass. Paint like a Badass. Coach like a Badass. Write like a Badass. Create like a Badass. Live like a Badass. Thinking thoughts like, "Be a kickass, badass, soulful you-name-it!" has revolutionized my life the last several weeks. (You should see what Mothering like a Badass looks like - my kids think it's awesome even if that's a word they won't be using for another 18 years or so.)

Don't explain, BE

To paraphrase the poet David Whyte and a recent illuminating conversation with badass life coach Meadow Devor, you do not have to explain yourself, simply BE yourself. This is another example of surrendering struggle.

Ease, Grace, Natural, Open, Peaceful, Receptive

As in all the antonyms for struggle. Dropping my love affair with struggle is another blog post, coming soon.

Don't be afraid of creating a big expression, and
Create big expressions with as little energy as possible

These two phrases were one of my cherished lessons from my weekend at a horse whispering workshop last October. Koelle Simpson, horse whisperer, uttered these lines at one point or another and they went, like heat-seeking missiles, straight to a much needed place in my heart. I knew instantly that they were very significant for me and so I've been carrying them with me ever since, turning them this way and that, considering what they might mean and also using every possible opportunity to put them to use.

Don't hold back your belly

Also gleaned Koelle and the horses and my fellow horse whisperers. This was one of those instruction for people working in the ring with the horses that not only had an immediate, literal purpose, but profound metaphorical significance. This one also deserves it's own blog post, if not a book.

Winners take imperfect action while everyone else is perfecting their plans

Pretty self-explanatory. And today, it's going to help me finish this blog post, exercise, coach clients, have a really great day withy my kids, finish one painting, start another, and send my book to someone in the book-writing, publishing business.

The Creative Life as a Spiritual Practice

And when I say "The Creative Life" I'm not just talking about artistic endeavors (though I do see art as a spiritual practice and spirituality as artistic practice), but I'm talking about all of life. Whatever you are doing is an opportunity to bring your soul, your purpose to life. And then, at those times when you feel you are off-center or holding yourself back, that is a prime opportunity to ask - "why?" What is it about this moment, this experience that is triggering painful, untrue thoughts in me that are resulting in avoidance, detachment, or other kinds of suffering? What am I believing about what is happening that is untrue? Am I choosing to fight with reality rather than loving what is?

This is my short list of intentions that I've been gathering for the last several months. There are even more and for awhile I was believing that the fact that there are so many meant that I have, after all this work, become more confused than ever.

But when I questioned the self-criticsm, "This means I am more confused than ever," I saw that it wasn't true. Each intention carries with it so much valuable information about what I really love and, therefore, who I really am. And when I asked myself, "Who would you be without the thought that you must have one intention in order to have clarity?" I suddenly felt free and could suddenly see, with an almost startling clarity, the powerful constants in this constellation of ideas, dreams, desires, loves, joys. The universal intentions return, ultimately, to the simplest, most profound wisdom:

Know thyself.

Be yourself.

Love,

Leah

Following Beauty

2012-02-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, I have a fascination with Beauty. Not the glossy and airbrushed kind of magazine photos (which can make you feel cheap, inadequate, shallow, and deprived...so why do I still read them??), but the kind you see that deeply moves you (it, on the other hand, awakens something deep within you, it makes you feel more alive and opens your eyes to the astounding meaning available, all the time, in life). I've been following this trail for awhile, though I'm not sure why or where it leads, it continues to bring up all sorts of interesting things, synchronicities and the like, that make me feel like someone has laid them there for me to find.

Like this evening, I was looking for a back episode of the NPR program Speaking of Faith, hosted by Krista Tippett. I adore this show and the work she does as a host. I didn't find what I was looking for but I did find the following, which is Krista's response to the question What inspires you? I wanted to post it here because I thought some of you might love it and I also wanted the record and reminder to myself - that what I am aiming for is the beauty of presence and the vigor of beautiful lives - "lives that make of themselves a work of art and an offering to the world."

What inspires you?

Krista: Maybe it’s because we’ve just been working on the John O’Donohue show again, but what comes to mind is beauty in its many forms. Words just become more and more important to me as time passes. It’s not the beauty that we reduce to “glamour,” as O’Donohue helpfully distinguishes. It’s the beauty of presence — both in the natural world and in human relationship. It’s the vigor of beautiful lives — lives that make of themselves a work of art and an offering to the world.

It’s not about perfection, though. Lives like these build on all the hard edges they encounter. What we do with loss and pain becomes beauty with time and care. I hang on to the notion of beauty as a “core moral value” that our Muslim conversation partners have given us. And that a litmus test of whether something is of God doesn’t need to be defined in terms of righteousness and rules. Is it ugly, or is it beautiful? In its presence, do we feel more alive?

Is it ugly, or is it beautiful?

What if lived my entire life, thought by thought, decision by decision, day by day, by that one guiding question?

Welcome to Renascence Coaching!

2012-02-02T04:16:00.000-08:00

Hello dear readers!

I just wanted to let you know (and please pass this on to anyone you know who might be interested) that until February 15th, I am offering all of my coaching (single sessions and packages) for 50% off. Please go here, to my coaching page, to learn more about my coaching and what I offer. If you have any further questions or would like to schedule a session, please email me at leahbadertscher at gmail dot com.

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Leah

What is a RENASCENCE?

2012-02-02T04:08:00.001-08:00

I get this question a lot. While I work on a more complete answer, here is something that will help explain it.

One way of explaining it would look a lot like this...

RENASCENCE is an awakening. A movement. RENASCENCE is JOY RISING.

Here's another way of explaining it. What follows is an excerpt from a recent exam I took for a coaching certification through Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School...

1. What will be your contribution to the coaching industry?

Creative Integrity. I will help people live more deeply, fully, and meaningfully by living with Integrity. By "Integrity," I mean that they will know how to connect to their own truth (their soul, their God, their purpose) and live - through thoughts, words, actions, creations - in alignment with that truth. My coaching will aid in that journey of discovery (which I think is ongoing and always unfolding), will aid in helping them recognize when they are out of alignment - out of Integrity - and help them help themselves get back on track, and help them to Create (work, relationships, families, lives) from that place of Integrity. I want to write a book about this. Like this generation's "The Artist's Way" - but with even more precise tools for empowerment, especially tools like thought work/Self Coaching. This book will also help thousands of people learn to drop the struggle as they continue to work hard to create lives of their dreams. My company's name is Renascence, invoking the creative energy and movement of the Renaissance, but this time with a special emphasis on the empowerment and creativity of women and also how that creativity can be used for the highest good of all (increase well-being, love, joy, peace, and decrease suffering).

Who Am I? I am, closer than breath

2012-01-31T19:01:00.000-08:00

Beneath the noise of all my trying to become,

lies the deep stillness of who I am.

-from Closer Than Breath, by me

Sometimes I forget who I am. I have a dear friend who pointed out that she and I, soul sisters, go through a similar pattern in life, that we repeat essentially two ways of being: chase and allow, chase and allow, chase and allow.

For awhile I thought I'd discovered the answer to never leaving myself, never getting off-center, never forgetting who I am. I thought the answer was to exist in a perpetual state of allowing. Maybe it will be someday. But more and more, for this point of my life, I'm beginning to think that forgetting does not always equal "chasing." Forgetting just means staying too long in either mode, chase or allow. Forgetting means I've stopped listening, that I've temporarily lost the connection that tells me when is the time to chase and when is the time to allow.

How do I know the difference? I know it by the way it feels and it always feels good, it feels like a form of love. Not romantic love, but being truly, deeply alive and in love with life.

I know it's time to chase because there are times I love to chase. There are times when I feel so full of energy and life and ideas and exuberance that my soul wants to burst out of my body and run screaming naked down the street, dancing, singing poetry at the top of my lungs, painting the town in a palette of deep ocean and blazing sunrise, and start a revolution, or at least a really good parade. I want to chase down every exhilarating and enlivening experience and get drunk on them.

I know it's time to allow because I am loving the experience of allowing. I love to drop down, out of my head, into my body and then imagine myself opening from deep within out. I love stilling myself to pray in the wordless way, where I make myself vast, I realize my vastness and my stillness and I listen, I will every cell to open and listen, the way flowers turn to the sun to receive light. I allow life to flow through me and radiate out. I allow life to live me and I remember how all of the most magnificent, beloved people and experiences in my life were unexpected gifts. I did nothing to bring them, I did nothing to earn them, there are just the multitude of things like that perfect summer night with the glass-black sky, full moon, millions of stars glittering as I drove down a country road with my dad in a convertible with the top down, as he talked about such things, about being a married to my mother, about being a father and farmer, saying that the very best things in life, "are always the things that come to you. They just come," he said, as he waved to me and then to the moon.

When I forget who I am, I overstay my welcome in these two modes. I confuse the chasing or allowing with who I am. And I am never what I am doing, or trying to do, or trying to become. I am never good enough, and thinking that that is even a possibility, is even a real thing (what is "good enough," anyway? What does good enough smell like, taste like, feel like, or say or do? What does it get you?), is one of the surest, fastest routes to forgetting who I am.

One of my favorite ways to begin meditating lately is something I just made up because I was tired of the back and forth I was experiencing over not knowing whether to chase or allow. Allowing would work for awhile, until it wouldn't. Chasing would work for awhile, until it wouldn't. What never fails to is just to be. Just to be who I am. Not shrinking or holding back or pretending to be less or small. Not puffing myself up, trying to be respected or well-thought of, "legitimate," or better than I am. Just standing, as author Brene Brown says - standing on my sacred ground.

I start the meditation by imagining that each thing I care so dearly for in life is represented by a brightly colored balloon. I have a whole, multi-colored bouquet and to each balloon is tied a string and I'm holding all the strings in my hands. I have the sense that they are lovely to look at but that I am forcing something. Then I realize that I am confusing who I am with the balloons, so as beautiful as they are, and as scared as I am to do this, one-by-one I begin to let them go. I let go of my desire to paint. I let go of my desire to finish my book. I let go of my desire to write poetry. I let go of my desire to coach. To create a business. To be a wonderful mother, spouse, daughter, sister, friend. I let go of my desire to be a good human being. I realize I've been scared to let go of my tight hold on them because I've been believing that these things defined me - and without them, who will I be?

The answer is deeply reassuring. When I let go of all the balloons, what I experience is a deep and thorough peace. It's almost like when you wake up from a crazy nightmare and not only can't believe you actually believed the scary things in the dream were real, but you are also kind of amused and return to waking life with renewed perspective of just how perfect things actually are. When I let go of the balloons, instead of gripping to making things happen or making myself be a certain way, I get to experience the effortless and freedom of who I am. From this place I can feel what I truly love, what I want to return to in my life, and when it comes time to do so, I feel like I have renewed energy and my engagement in what I'm doing is more pure, and my enjoyment and love genuine. From this place, I am.

I am sure I will forget again. But meeting myself again, as if for the first time every time, is so sweet.

The connection between Connection, Binging, and That Which Wants to Be Known

2012-01-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

What I've learned is it isn't that there is something to know, but that there's something that wants to be known.

Everyday, at the beginning of the day, I try to set an intention for the day. I get quiet and try to feel for what I am craving, deeply craving. I usually write it down, maybe on an index card, sometimes in my journal, and other days just on my mind. A few of my most common daily intentions, really, the overarching intentions of my life, often go like this:

Connection, Connectedness, Openness, Lightness, Centeredness, Being-ness, ALLOWing...

(and the capitalization is not a nod at any grammatical rule, but rather an indication that I'm talking about THEE Connection, Being, etc...)

There are many ways I can experience disconnection, but a common one is to believe there is something outside of me that I need. Some person, some knowledge, some sweet, some answer, some something that will satisfy a longing I feel.

One way I used to react to this disconnection was to binge. Not on ice cream, pizza, chips, or the usual. I'd go on a book bender. Or I'd open my browser window and try to stuff myself with as much information as un-godly possible. I'd scour my inbox hoping that that one magical email from that one magical person had finally arrived.

This binging would start of innocuously enough. I'd feel this twinge of something - incompleteness, longing, something hazy but something that seemed unsettling - and I'd react by feeling really motivated to improve myself with some learning. Maybe by reading a book or magazine (or two, or three, or six, simultaneously). Then, the doorbell would ring. My order from Amazon just arrived and I'd add tier to one of the existing, leaning towers that I felt in a panic to consume before it topples. Then I'd get this excited rush, like maybe THEE email has arrived (no, not from God or even his VA, but maybe from that agent who just miraculously seems to know I have a killer damn good book that they'd love to promote, even though I haven't sent it out...) Before I knew what had happened, I'd have 5 browser windows open with at least a dozen tabs on each browser, and I was inhaling blogs, emails, forums, pins, posts, Facebook, newsletters, newspaper articles, books, INFORMATION and KNOWLEDGE (or pretty pictures, in the case of Pinterest) like they were potato chips.

And it felt just about satisfying.

Seriously, after an hour, or hours, of this kind of gorging I'd feel wretched. Almost sick to my stomach, like a hangover and experiencing a deep, almost shame-like remorse. What's worse is that even after all the information I'd consumed, I felt hungrier than ever and depressed. I mean, how does anyone ever get around to LIVING life when there are so many damn manuals you have to read first?!

Then there would be a wave of anger. This was actually a blessing in disguise, because the voice of anger says, "Why do I think everyone else knows so much more than I do?"

Good question.

Eventually, after the umpteenth binge and just getting sick of myself getting sick of myself doing this, I started to think about that question. And think about the question that must precede it..."Why do I think there is something to know?"

What I've learned is it isn't that there is something to know, but that there is something that wants to be known.

It is something that I will never find by frantically searching outside of myself. Rather, it is something I must allow to come through me. And the more I look for it outside of me, the further away I get.

What I'm after is that Connection and the moment I leave myself to go looking for it, I've left it. And the more you try to fill the hole you've created, the emptier you feel. The well from which you want drink is one that springs from deep within. Everything else is a secondary source.

I think I knew this, just knew it, as a child. Thoughts, ideas, dreams that occurred to me were the ones I most deeply cherished because they felt so true. Then I began to doubt them, for no other reason than that they occurred to me first. I had no "external" authority from which they flowed, no research to support or back them up, no one else to validate them. I just focused on learning what everyone else thought and had already learned and done because that was what seemed to be viewed as "legitimate."

Now, I don't care so much about "legitimacy." I care about Truth. And if there is something that occurred to me, that seemed to come to me from no outside source, I don't dismiss it as craziness, or random, or "oh, that's just my wild imagination." No, these days if it seems to "just come out of no where" - I sit up and take notice. I get quiet. I listen. I honor. And it is not that I don't love to learn and don't cherish the ability to learn from the wisdom of others, but now I cherish at least as equally, I hold sacred, those experiences of connection where the information seems to have no source outside of me because those experiences they feel true in my bones, deep in my being. What more legitimate source than that which rings of Truth but seems to come out of nowhere?

And I know, now, that if I start to feel that certain craving for knowing, that instead of going out searching, that I should become still and quiet, feeling myself into that Connected place where I can listen with my whole being for that which wants to be known.

Unconditional Love

2012-01-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

One of my beautiful coaching clients posted the following St. Francis quote on our group forum after my last post...

It was easy to love God in all that

was beautiful.

The lessons of deeper knowledge, though,

instructed me to embrace God in all things.

-St Francis

Roses and pigs. The messy house, the beautiful family, the adorable boy-children, the cranky, whiny kids, the sleepless ~~nights~~ years (okay, yes, I'm exaggerating, but only a little!), sickness, health, birth, death, joy and forgiveness, loss and sorrow, love and loneliness.

It is truly amazing how what you really need to hear will come up again and again and from all different directions and sources. Love what is. Love what is. Love what is.

The Transcendent Downward of Being A Mama Big Pig

2012-01-22T13:00:00.000-08:00

The overview...As someone who greatly values feeling "connected" and attuned to the spiritual and, therefore, as someone who experiences no small amount of angst when my experience turns to one of disconnection and dissonance, I think the message for me is that all of life is my life. Not just the part that I have a pretty and sweet-smelling story about, but to embrace all of life, without condition. To allow all life without condition. To love all of life without condition. Unconditional love of places, experiences, animals, plants, people. That kind of love which allows seeing "not as man sees but as God sees." To see no distinction between a rose and a sow. To instead appreciate the loveliness - the Love - that emanates from all life.

The full story....

A week ago I posted a blog that included part of Galway Kinnell's poem, St. Francis and The Sow. This week, as I'm feeling called to write about pigs (Yes, no joke, it's true! And I've learned you have to answer that, no matter how weird it may seem.), I've decided begin this entry by posting the poem in its entirety...

St. Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

About five months ago, which would have been about four months before I'd ever heard of this poem, I was enjoying some morning cuddle time with my two young sons, Elijah (then two-and-a-half) and Sammy (10 months). They were awake early and so I brought them into bed with me thinking, completely unreasonably but hopefully, that they might just go back to sleep.

Yah right. Instead, they rolled this way and that, poking me, trying to pry my eyelids open, trying to shove their pacifiers in my mouth, poking each other, giggling and crawling all over me and all around the rolling hills of sheets, pillows, comforter, momma. Then, for a few blissful seconds, they paused to rest, the baby on my chest and the toddler tucked in close to my side under my arm. As they nuzzled against me and the first morning sun was just beginning to shine into the room, I stilled myself, trying not to breath, think, or move. I willed the spell not be broken and instead tried to will myself open, straining with every cell of my body to absorb the sound of their breathing, their being, the light of the sun, the perfectness of it all. I wanted to soak it in, to bask in it, knowing how rare and transcendent such moments can be. I want to believe that if I die and there's a heaven, then I'll get to break out moments like these and not just remember them, but embody them, live them, again and again.

Just as fragment of a thought like, Could this be any more idyllic or heavenly? crossed my mind, Elijah lifted his head to look up at me and said, in a soft, sweet voice, This is so nice and cozy, Momma. It's like Sammy and I are little baby piglets and you, you're the Mama Big Pig!"

This made me laugh so hard and so suddenly that I snorted, which was, disconcertingly, not unlike the sound a hog makes.

(His cute toddler speech impediment also helped soften being called a big pig. The way it actually came out actually sounded like this, It's wike Sammy and I are widdoo baby pigwets and you, you're da Mama Big Pig! But from here on out, I'll spare you and me both from the writing and reading of baby-talk...)

As their two little warm, soft, light pink bodies began to squirm and wiggle again and as they butted their heads into me, almost like they were trying to climb back inside...or look for a teat... I couldn't help but recall scenes from my childhood. Scenes of going out to the barn, standing on the gate and watching a big sow lying on her side in the straw while her babies piled over one another, grunting and rutting around, pressing their noses into her soft, warm underbelly until they latched onto a nipple. And she just laid there. Now, I've had some warm and tender moments nursing, but there were definitely times when I nursed and all on my own, without having my son call me a pig, drew the association between myself and thought of this big old sow lying on her side in the pen. So, although I could definitely see where Elijah was coming from, it wasn't the endearing sort of metaphor or a nickname I could see myself really warming up to.

Ummmm, I pondered aloud, how about, instead, we pretend that I am the Mama Bear and you are my little bear cubs!

Ummmm, Elijah pondered back....No thanks!

(He is nothing if not polite. For example, this is also how he answers the following,

Me: ELIJAH WILHELM! Get out of the toilet. We do NOT play in the toilet. If you play in the toilet, or try to get your brother to play in the toilet, you WILL go to time out. Do you want to go to time out?

Elijah: Ummm... (and he appears to be giving it genuine consideration)....no, thank you, Mom! )

He continued by reiterating his first proposal,

How about, instead, you be the Mama Big Pig and Sammy and me be your cute, little, baby pigs!

At this point you should know that that it was hard to shoot down this suggestion, mostly because he said it with so much enthusiasm. My aversion to it wasn't the thought that it might be viewed as impolite or disrespectful if people overheard my son calling his mother a swine. In fact, I was actually weighing that as an advantage of letting him run with the pig-thing. In those moments, in my head, I was already telling this latest Elijah-ism to my family and banking on all the funny story mileage I figured I'd get out of it.

My real hang-up had more to do with vanity. As I mentioned, I grew up on a farm, my dad raised pigs, and after all those years I can't say I could see anything really endearing about the animals, much less beautiful (aside from our pet pig Arnold who thought he was a dog). On the contrary, I usually associated pigs with something dirty, fat, lazy,and ugly. Even though I know better and know these are not necessarily accurate descriptions of swine behavior, the conventional view was stuck in my head- dirty, fat, lazy, and ugly. It wasn't really how I wanted my sons to think of me. And, for the same reasons, I had an equally strong aversion to calling my sons pigs, or even piglets.

I tried again, something I thought would be slightly cuter or more romantic, though even as I was saying it, I could acknowledge the insanity of expressing a preference to be called a female dog over a pig.

How about a WOLF? You like wolves! I'll be the mother wolf and you can be my wolf pups!

To up the ante and make it a better offer, I even howled. This made them both smile, but it was rejected nonetheless.

Nope, he said, no wolves.

Elephant! I cried, Let's be elephants! Elephants are cool! Did you know some people also think they are magical?

He shook his head. No.

I continued on a litany of animals. I even paraded around the room, acting them all out with all manner of gesture, movement, and noise. Any way I could think of to make clear the case that other animals were definitely way more appealing, way cooler than pigs.

Horses!
Kitties?
Lions!
Cougars.
Monkeys?
Tigers!
Gorillas.
Penguins!
Eagles.
Hawks?
Fish!
Deer.
Gazelles!
Rhinoceros?
I know, I know...UNICORNS?!

I even gave him my best hippopotamus impression (which, as a couple of very lucky individuals can attest to, is killer). All in vain.

No. Nononono. NO!

And then, emphatically, YOU are THE MAMA. BIG. PIG! WE are your PIGLETS!

End of story. So, for the next few months, Elijah often referred to me not just as the mama pig, but I the proper name stuck. I was "Mama Big Pig." And I just gave in because, no matter the connotations it had for me, he did say it so endearingly, it did crack me up in spite of myself, and it tickled him pink if I answered him back by giving him a hug and oinking. I kid you not. (Though my oink is still no where near as rad as my hippo noise.)

And then a few weeks ago I read the Galway Kinnell poem, St. Francis and The Sow. I loved the first part but the second part, the part about the sow, I read again and again and again. Because I didn't like it. At all. I wasn't convinced. A pig is a pig is a pig.

But, as days passed and the pig poem stayed on my brain, some things began to click together. Things that I'd recognized as soon as I'd read the poem as things I should know and believe, but around which I was experiencing real resistance.

The first thing that struck me was something that, if you wanted to be all poetically cerebral about it, would be called the "transcendent downward." In the first part of the poem you get this really clear sense of a noble and beautiful truth and it's conveyed with imagery most of us have no problem believing - a rose as a symbol for loveliness.

But then, moving down in the poem (not a coincidence, I think), the poet moves to juxtapose revered St. Francis with an animal that has, throughout time, often been viewed as a low, dirty animal. But Kinnell doesn't present us with the traditional view of the animal, instead he uses devastatingly powerful beauty language that creates an imago of an animal that has a capacity for vastness, for what we might think as contradictory, it conveys both earthiness and spirituality, slops and dreams. The transcendent downward. There is heaven on earth. Just like we are spiritual beings who have "come down" to have a human experience.

Even though I do believe, beneath it all, that God is in all things, I still have also have these limiting beliefs, these veils over my eyes. It's fascinating to me how the story I have built up makes it hard for me to accept the beauty and heavenly in a pig.

And I love that my son, as best I can tell from his love of and fascination with pigs, naturally sees the animal in the way that the poet suggests the beloved patron saint of animals may have. Without conditioned thoughts, ideas about what a pig should be, a child sees with clear eyes, experiences reality through the pure filter of what Zen traditions call "no mind" or "beginner's mind." Elijah has a direct experience of the animal, of reality, of God, while my thoughts mean that my experience has to wind its way through tunnels of thought and filters of preconceptions. It is like the quote, "to see is to forget the name of the thing one sees." (usually attributed to Paul Valery)

Even though I had such resistance to the pig part, something tugged at me to return to that poem again and again. Something beneath my thinking was tying together as significant the events of Elijah annointing me as "Mama Big Pig," my resistance ot being called a pig, then the chance reading of this poem, and my resistance to the pig part of the poem. I think what I found so unsettling was that I could recognize myself in all aspects of the poem - or at least recognize that I was resisting identifying with all aspects though I suspected that was one of the intentions of the poem. I could understand that message that you can love like the Saint, you can lay your hand on the brow of the rose and the pig and reteach them of their loveliness. But, to me, another message is that while we are the rose, we are also the Saint, but we are also the pig. I was just not wanting to see the loveliness of the pig. And I was definitely not wanting to BE the pig. It bothered me a way that I just couldn't put my finger on and although the understanding seemed to be just beneath the surface, I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Until a simple little even a couple nights ago.

Two nights ago, after putting Elijah back in his bed for the third time, I told him that if he laid down in my bed that I'd be up after finished dishes to rub his head and tell him a story. Ten minutes later I made my way upstairs and as I entered the room I could tell from the sound of his breathing that he was already asleep. I quietly laid down next him, just settling in to inhale the experience of slumbering boy-child for a few minutes before putting him back in his own bed. As I gently caressed his hair, he opened his eyes and said in a tender, sleepy whisper, Well, hello there, big pig.

My heart swelled with such joy that I overflowed with tears and laughter. And the fact that being called a pig is what cracked me open made me laugh even harder. Who would ever have thought?! WHO. I could only kiss his head as I shook softly with laughter and cried. In grateful awe, I contemplated the benevolent, ingenious, hilarious, sublimely simple and miraculous ways the world we thought we knew can crack open and reveal to us a deeper understanding and a clear truth. It feels like both an actual physical phenomenon and a psychic/spiritual experience you can physically feel. It's one of the right key clicking and turning in the lock, it's all the pieces falling into place. It's like a reminder that you're always seen and it's like God saying, "Oh, yeah, I have your number. I knew exactly what it would take to get through to you. And I'm glad you stuck with with it."

As someone who greatly values feeling "connected" and attuned to the spiritual and, therefore, as someone who experiences no small amount of angst when my experience turns to one of disconnection and dissonance, I think the message for me is that all of life is my life. Not just the part that I have a pretty and sweet-smelling story about, but to embrace all of life, without condition. To allow all life without condition. To love all of life without condition. Unconditional love of places, experiences, animals, plants, people. That kind of love which allows seeing "not as man sees but as God sees." To see no distinction between a rose and a sow. To instead appreciate the loveliness - the Love - that emanates from all life.

This is what it must be like to see, love, and live like a Saint. Or a three-year old.

With love,

Leah

Reteaching Loveliness

2012-01-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

(St. Francis and The Sow, Galway Kinnell)

One of my coaching clients this last week had a revelation that resulted in the release of something that had been weighing on her for quite some time. Her first reactions were of great excitement to have come to this self-understanding and also a sense of great relief at having released the burden, and, finally, an increased sense of empowerment when she realized she'd had the choice to feel this free all along.

Then came the frustration and disappointment.

"Why do I keep doing this? When am I going to learn? I've been at this kind of self-work for so long I can't believe I'm still making the same mistakes?! When am I going to finally get it?" she asked me.

I know this reaction all too well because I've engaged in this pattern myself many times. For several years now, I've dedicated significant investments of time, energy, financial resources, and mind and soul real estate to living a more meaningful life, being happier, more creative, more productive, a better person, achieving my potential, making a positive contribution to others, etc. So much of what this has taught me is what I really want is so simple and is really available to me right now, in this moment. I have everything I need in this moment, all I need to be is who I am.

But I tend to forget this. Over and over.

I get caught up in my stories about myself and about the world. So I go back to making things complicated. I believe that I am not enough, what I do is never enough, and that the "real true me" is just out of my reach but if I try just a little harder I might be able to reach out and grab her and finally converge the life of inadequate me with dream me. This inevitably results in a lot of suffering, I look for help in prayer, in books, in doing, in cooking, in drinking wine, in running, in being busy, in relationships, and, in the past few years, I even pony up and pay good money for retreats, workshops, self-mastery programs, and life coaches.

And, until lately, when these things work I am always ~~a little angry~~ extremely pissed at myself. Because when they really work, when they really hit home, it's because they've brought me back to myself. And when I've been brought back to myself I realize that I've always known these things, that I have always held the key, and that looking outside myself is never the answer, unless the question you are asking is, "What's the fastest, most painful way to pointless suffering?"

But no more. No, this is not an impossible resolution that I will never forget again and will never need help finding my way back again. Instead, I mean that I resolve to be kinder and gentler to myself when I forget. Instead of berating myself with "You should know better by now!" I will think, "That's interesting - there I go again, forgetting. And here I go again, with compassion and also with great wisdom, doing the best I can to find my way back. And isn't interesting how there also seem to be these two parts of me - one that gets lost and one that is never lost. The Never Lost is also me, the Never Lost is not upset by challenges that cause myself to travel out, wander, adventure, and maybe it is the Never Lost that somehow glides invisibly along or under the surface of things, helping my forgetful mind somehow always find new resources - books, friends, experiences- that are exactly what it needs to remember it has never been lost, it is not possible to be lost."

So, for all of those experiences and people who have helped reteach me of my loveliness, and for all of those who allow me to be the mirror that sees and reflects the tremendous blessing that they are - thank you.

With Love,

Leah

Courageous Intentions for A Courageous New Year

2011-12-30T10:38:00.000-08:00

Source: quote-book.tumblr.com via Leah on Pinterest

Last year, in lieu of creating a long litany of resolutions, I decided instead to choose a word. The idea is that the word becomes your guiding intention for the year, helping you to seek, grow, cultivate, nurture, and, ideally, embody the essence of that word.

For about six weeks before 2011, I reflected, prayed, asked for guidance, listened for answers, looked for signs...thought, read, wrote, and took some time to get quiet and feel around, listening for what, at the deepest, truest part of my being, I most needed. In the end, I kept coming back to two words. And as much as I felt like I was profoundly craving the spirit conveyed by these words, I also I felt like they were choosing me. The experience of choice meeting being chosen is an auspicious one. That was my first indication that I was on the right track.

Any additional confirmation I needed was there by virtue of the fact that the thought of following through on these intentions scared me every bit as much as the thought of embodying them felt deeply right and true and necessary. My two words for 2011 were Integrity and Blossom

A large part of the way I defined these words for use as my intention were encapsulated by the following quotes (the way the quotes crossed my path also felt like a gift and a choosing, but that is another story):

"INTEGRITY is the ability to listen to a place inside one's self that doesn't change, even though the life that carries it may change."

-jonathan omer-man

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

-anais nin

I haven't yet come to a final decision on what my word (or two words :), will be for 2012, but I know that in someway, some aspect of COURAGE will be required at the heart of making it all happen. "Courage" seems to be cropping up all over the place lately, in increasing frequency, like the universe is waving flags and winking every chance it gets, trying to make sure I get the message. It came up during many of the calls I had with my clients, my wonderful, wonderful clients who are the exploring what it means to be courageous and also practicing courage in all manner of remarkable ways. It came up again today in a daily journal prompt suggested by one of my own coaches, Meadow Devor, in which she asked us how we define courage. While I'll be sure to share the word I choose for 2012 (and I would love, love, LOVE for you to share yours or any other New Year resolution practices or alternative practices YOU have!), for now I thought I'd share some beginning thoughts on courage. If you'd like to join this discussion of what courage means to you and what it means to live courageously, I'd love to hear from you on this, too.

Courage is...

I love this explanation of courage by Brene Brown:

“The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage literally had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”

I love that - "to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart."

I would add that courage is also taking action to bring the desires and dreams of one's heart into existence, into the world.

Courage, I think, is also something that you can never wait "to get" - you must practice it into being.

It's been a big part of my personal practice this past year - practicing courage.

I think it's significant that heart is at the core of courage, because in the past year, at the core of my endeavoring to speak, act, live with integrity and to blossom, was the practice of living wholeheartedly. Of reminding myself again and again, not to hold back, to be honest, to EXHALE honesty even when it felt nearly impossible or like the truth just might destroy instead of set free. That kind of truth does destroy, though, it destroys the prison you've constructed for yourself and it is, indeed, liberating. And it requires ongoing commitment, deciding again and again to choose truth, wholeheartedness. What I realized through this process is that if I had waited for courage to arrive first, I would still be waiting. I'd probably be forever waiting, always postponing living more fully, more authentically. Because courage never arrives, you bring it forward by the act of feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And you grow courage by repeating this practice again and again, which doesn't mean fear ever goes away, but your orbit moves out further and further, you find new challenges, new horizons, and at your core you began to feel this solid, golden knot of trust developing. Trust in yourself, trust in life, and you circle out at increasing distances around that brilliant, sacred sun which is your soul.

Along these lines and apropos for the coming of the New Year, I'll close with this poem from Rilke:

I live my life in growing orbits

which move out over the things of this world.

Perhaps I can never achieve the last,

but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

and I've been circling for a thousand years,

and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm,

or a great song.

With love to the great song in all of us,

Leah

How to Love What You Are Doing, No Matter What It Is That You Do

2011-12-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

(Here's a sample of real coaching from the Soul Genius program. It's a portion of my reply to a client who is not loving the day job...)

Do I have handy tips/conversations to help me off the 'ledge' at my 8-5?

Yes. Tons.

I won't flood you tonight but I will get you started.

You do not have to go back tomorrow.

You can choose to be over it.

You can also choose to go to work.

But you do not "have" to go to work.

It is very helpful to remember a couple of things:

If you are doing something - you do want to do it.

You always have a choice.

This is great news - you are always free.

And, even better news is that you get to choose how you feel about work.

You don't have to feel like it's a grind or drudgery.

If you are feeling that way, it is because you are thinking difficult, thick, bored thoughts. And your thoughts are creating feelings of dread around work which then create uninspired and unenthusiastic and bored actions which then create a result = job feels like a boring grind (or whatever it feels like).

So, if you want to feel better about the job that gives you money for your home, it is really fun to get creative and come up with a bunch of thoughts that rock your socks. :)

A great question can be a great place to start. Like, what is this job meant to teach me?

How can I show up fully me and on fire in this job?

How can I live my life purpose in this job? (YOU are your life purpose, you bring it with you every where you go, everyplace is a potential playground for your life purpose and soul)

How can I kick ass and take names today? (This is one of my coaches favorite go-to questions and I've adopted it for the 6 am yoga I teach as sometimes I feel a little less then excited to teach when I first wake up at dark o'thirty. I'm actually a nice yoga teacher, I don't really kick anyone, but it just gets me in a more energized frame of mind/body! ;)

How can I make this awesome?

And on, and on....there are so many ways you can go, the key is to find something that feels really useful to you.

The other thing I notice with people who are feeling lackluster about their jobs is that they feel the job is happening to them and forget that they are happening to the job - they are doing the work, not the job working them. Decide who you are at your core (spirited, creative, love, passionate, fiery, powerful, clear, etc., etc.) and then embody that and let it show up fully at your job. If you are not letting yourself show up fully at your job, you will feel like the job is draining you, but what is really happening is that you've dimmed your inner fire. Don't do that. :)

Let me know if any of this resonates with you and use your job tomorrow as an experiment for intention. Decide on the kind of day you want to have and realize creating that experience is totally within your power and then go create it! Be the artist of your everyday life!

XO-

Leah

A Video Glimpse into One Artist's Creative Process

2011-11-29T15:11:00.000-08:00

(Scroll straight to the bottom if you want to head right away to the video introduction to artist Kesha Bruce and her creative process)

My coaching expertise is in coaching creatives and I have an insatiable thirst to learn about any and everything that has to do with creativity, artistry, mastery of craft, spirituality, expression, and genius. I believe that if you have any, any call to create, whether it's a tiny but chronic whisper to dig out your grandmother's watercolors, or a longing-sort-of-love to dance, or a deep (but maybe currently hidden from others and even yourself) belief that you really CAN create the life of your dreams,

then that calling is the truth.

Your truth.

Your most sacred ground.

Stand there. Own it. Speak it to yourself. Work for it. Speak it to others. Work for it.

Dream some more. Work some more.

Go get it.

Whether your simply fascinated by the creative process and want to know how to tap into deep, vast Creativity (and, yes, that's Creativity with a Capital C) to your personal life, relationships, and/or business, or ...

or your artistry and career is in its infancy,

or...

you are a seasoned veteran,

but perhaps one who feels like they've still got so much more in you

but you're standing in your own way,

and don't know how to get the hell out of the way....

Please drop me an email (leahbadertscher at gmail dot com). I will be doing classes and coaching (some gratis!) designed just for you (and they'll be EXCEPTIONALLY, custom-fit tailored if you tell me exactly what your biggest challenges are) in order to help you

drop the struggle so that your experience, your life's work, of taking what is most innate, inner, and sacred, and bringing it forth into the world is a straight shot, feels clean and pure, so you can just

shine.

In the meantime, enjoy this video. It's a brief introduction to a remarkable person and great glimpse into her creative process. I "met" Kesha Bruce in passing while I was enrolled in a program designed to take your entrepreneurial ventures to the next level (Christine Kane's Uplevel Your Business program). My specific goal in taking the course was to learn all I could in order to "uplevel" my creative business. One of the invaluable benefits of the program was the people I came into contact with - one of them being Kesha Bruce. Ms. Bruce is an Artist, Entrepreneur, Mentor to Artists and she is really shaking up the way things are done in the world of art. Basically, she's a Revolutionary Rock Star. And, as if that were not incredible enough, today I learned that she is also from Iowa. Wow. That final bit of information just put me over the top - I had to do a post introducing her and, as luck would have it, she had this sweet little video on her own website.

Enjoy!

With love to your own Inner Revolutionary Rock Star,

Leah

There is no prize "out there"

2011-11-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the first official day of the launching the Soul Genius program, I've invited Kevin Spacey to share a few words with you.

This is just a small taste of the kind of thing we're learning in Life Coach School and what we will be covering in the Soul Genius program....

Know your WHY and BRING IT.

And if you're still figuring it out,
a great default, never-fail-intention in the meantime....

BE RADIANT.

Heck, even better....

RADIATE

SIDE NOTE: I'd already published this post when I saw the following post by my radically awesome teacher, mentor, and coach - the incomparable Brooke Castillo. I HIGHLY recommend checking it out:
I Have a Great Time with My Life - and this is written by someone who totally walks her talk AND it features a great video interview with Will Smith.

With love to your blinding luminosity,

Leah

Soul Genius coaching program

2011-11-18T21:23:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first ever introduction of my coaching program,

Soul Genius

As some of you know, in addition to loving my family, mind/body practices, writing, and painting, I'm also a life coach. I'll soon be finishing an incredibly intense, rich training at The Life Coach School (with incredible teachers, coaches, and mentors Brooke Castillo, Meadow Devor, and Kris Plachy) and I've been inspired to expand my practice to include thought work (think, I think therefore I am...what I choose to think) as well as my fascination with creativity.

I'm especially interested in the intersection of creative genius and the soul.

An offer and opportunity for you....

For four weeks and at for free, I am going to coach ten people through the inaugural and pilot version of this program, Soul Genius. My intention with this program is that you learn to connect to your true nature, your soul; and learn how to think, act, and create the life that your innermost being truly desires.

If it sounds like a tall order - it is. But I've come to know that part of my own journey is to live with Integrity, and by that I mean to live in alignment with my own soul - my own deepest truths and purpose. I've realized I have to state, as clearly as I can at the time, what I really want to do and then take massive action to create that vision.

Creating this program and teaching it to others is a dream of mine, part of my own journey of honoring both the invisible and visible, the immaterial and the material. My God, Life, my soul - all those mysterious and holy and universal forces at work in the world and me and you - and the good and brown, green, blue world and all things that touch and can be touched. It comes from my soul and it would be an honor if I could begin to share it with you.

The program will begin on November 28 and continue through December 31, taking off the week of Christmas (i.e., Dec 19-25).

What it will consist of (again, as this is the first offering I am not charging anything, so it is a no cost, no risk, no obligations whatsoever opportunity for you):

1. One hour of personal, one-on-one phone coaching with me for each of the four weeks.
2. A weekly email discussing the topic for the week and containing links to additional material/resources.
3. A weekly assignment (A side note: No, I will not be grading you or even requiring that you actually do the homework, but it is like everything in life - you will get out of it what you put into it and I do NOT believe in busy work. Everything I would assign or suggest has a very specific and meaningful purpose and is intended to take you deeper and further on your own journey of self-discovery and growth.)
4. Unlimited email support Monday through Friday.
5. A one hour, follow-up bonus coaching call to be scheduled at the conclusion of the program.

Here is a (very) general outline of the course:

1. Week 1: The Art of Intention
2. Week 2: The Art of Listening & Language
3: Week 3: The Art of Thinking
4: Week 4: The Art of Moving (being, doing, creating)

If this speaks to you and you are ready to dive in, show up fully, and discover how breathtaking you and your life really are....if you are longing to live the life you love, and love the life that you have....then I would love to have you and your sparkling, shining, powerful soul.

To learn more, please email me at leahbadertscher at gmail.com.

With love,

Leah

Quick Pilates Abdominal Series Workout

2011-11-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

Today I'm pulling out a short Pilates ab series video I made a couple years ago. I have lots of ideas for doing more of these, now I just need to train the babes to hold the camera steady (and not chew on it!).

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Horse Whispering, LIfe Coaching School, Poetry, Painting....What I've been up to this fall... a few photo highlights

2011-11-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

Horse whispering on a ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The workshop, entitled "Learning to Lead from the Inside-Out," was led by two beautiful visionaries, Koelle Simpson (prodigy of reknown horse-whisper Monty Roberts and apprentice to Martha Beck), and Diane Hunter (a luminous leader of the new-order vintage, and owner /founder of "After Autism").

Hi all! I'm back...actually, I was never away. I've been deep in the midst of a very full life the last few months and while I have an abundance of delicious stories from these experiences, I've been putting writing about them on the back burner. But only for the time being.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a few photo highlights.

Until I sit down to write more, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

THE LIFE COACH SCHOOL

A few weeks ago, I went back to school... Life Coach School with Brooke Castillo & Meadow Devor (scroll here to go to the website to learn more - some great videos there). This is going to need a post - or a blog, more like it - all its own. I'm learning THAT much (and more) and I am THAT excited (boy, is that an understatement!). It's mind-bending, it's awesome, it's intense, inspiring, ass-kicking, revolutionary.... This is a game-changer. I think it's no accident that the materials for the course arrived in a gift-wrapped package - this program is already proving to be a gift and one that is sure to be a life-long gift. Until I write more, let me leave you with one little snippet of an example for you to chew on...

(Regarding a story you've been telling yourself, ask yourself)-->

Is that a thought I want to keep?

PAINTING

Sky on egg, finished and contemplating mounting it on top of another skyscape, like the one you see above.

And when I can't make it to class or don't have hours to get out all my materials, I like to seize opportunities to make art whenever I can - this one with the help of Sammy & Elijah!

I haven't decided if the Girl with the Bird Tattoo is finished or just getting started...but I like her and have a whole series of paintings along this vein in the works.

Trying my hand at abstract with this interpretation of an autumn tree. I love how it turned out and I love it even more in person - there is a nice, shimmering effect that didn't translate through the photo.

Yellow Roses - might look the same as before but I did work on it more...and might work on it a little more yet.

LAKE MICHIGAN

Have I mentioned that we rent our home out for home football games. It's crazy. Crazy awesome! We then get to spend the weekends either visiting family or we head up to the charming, sweet Hazelhurst on Lake Michigan. The boys, as you can see, love it there - and so do we. We play outdoors (and it's beautiful there) and enjoy the cafes, restaurants, art galleries, and peace and quiet of the off-season.

The cottage above, Buena Vista, is where we spend many of our game-day weekends.

Enjoying a walk through "the forest" as Elijah calls it.

Sammy, enjoying a beautiful October day on the beach (it was warm enough to swim - and we did!)

In the interest of full-disclosure, and because I can sometimes feel disheartened after reading blogs about other family's idyllic-seeming experiences, let me just say that the only reason there are no pictures of screaming babies (at 2 am) and naked 2 year-olds running away from me down the beach and then throwing a full-blown tantrum on the private beach of some multi-million dollar mansion is because I was either not lucid enough to hold a camera steady or was running after said buck-naked two year old while toting a crying baby... like I said-

awesome.

HARVEST in IOWA

We headed back to Rudd for 10 days in October to be back for harvest - my favorite time of year on the farm. First stop, though, Iowa City where we paid a visit to Uncle Will (my baby brother who is currently a sophomore at the University of Iowa). In exchange for him entertaining my children, I buy him lunch and get to listen to him talk about classes, life, girls, and his one true love - Pearl Jam. I definitely get the better end of this deal!

Elijah with his Bapoo (my dad Boyd) for a MUCH anticipated ride in the combine.

I love the slow crawl of lights through the fields as farmers continue to work through the night. It creates a feeling of deep home and comfort for me. I'm thankful my boys will get know and, I hope, have an appreciation for experiences like this.

Ahhh, well, I have more pictures but will save them for another time. Thank you for reading. I hope you, too, are sinking deeply into your days and savoring the fall.

Love,

Leah

Prenatal Yoga Sampler (a video!)

2011-10-12T20:42:00.000-07:00

Leah's Prenatal Yoga Sampler

I've received some questions lately regarding prenatal yoga so I thought I'd include a link to a video I made. It's two years old, but given yoga itself is a few thousand years old, the info is still good! I thought I'd post it here for those that have questions and anyone else who might be looking for some yog-ahhhhhh during their pregnancies.

Hope this is helpful and a special "Namaste" to all the expecting yoginis out there-

Leah

Scenes from the Studio - The Gift of Laughter

2011-10-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to share something that delighted me this week.

I received a wonderful package from my friend Laura. I have to admit, when I saw the package on the front porch, my first reaction was an Eyore-ish, "Well, I wonder what my husband has ordered from E-bay now. Lightbulbs? Bulk toothpaste? 3lbs of sesame seeds? Six gallons of olive oil?" (just to name a few past examples)

(Don't get me wrong. I really do love Brad's E-bay ~~addiction~~ ~~affliction~~ ... I love the things Brad does that are super-efficient and save us tons of time and money and headaches and I especially love that he gets a kick out of it - it's pretty cute and very endearing, not to mention incredibly handy as it saves me from having to shop!)

BUT THEN I saw MY NAME on the package and EVEN BETTER YET, LAURA'S name in the return address! HURRAY!!!

In it was something that she found for me while in Portland (which she fondly calls "Portlandia" for its softness and all-around-fairy-tale-esque quality) when she thought my heart could use a little levity and laughter.

Laughing Buddha. Does anyone know what the sphere is that he's holding in his palm?

Or is he offering or receiving something?

I found the perfect home for him in my studio...

Thank you, Laura. It's just what I needed.

I Dare You

2011-10-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm posting today's video from The Girl Effect campaign as much for myself as I am for readers.

I know I need dare to look, to see, to listen, to take in the stories, and to advocate and act.

I don't know what I am going to do yet,
but this is a place to start...

What do I dare to do?

The Girl Effect

2011-10-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

There is an amazing campaign underway called The Girl Effect. I found out about it through a writer I admire, Tara Mohr, who has a lovely blog and writes for the likes of the Huffington Post. Through Ms. Mohr, I learned more about The Girl Effect and was inspired to join thousands of other bloggers in order to spread the word and heighten awareness. The following is an excerpt from www.girleffect.org. Below this short excerpt, please continue reading the rest of my post. I've included two amazing videos from The Girl Effect as well as and links where you can learn more about the movement and also learn how to be a part of this incredible revolution .

Your support, your voice and your action – that's what it's going to take to wake up the world and make a real difference. Make yourself part of the Girl Effect revolution.

Given the chance 600 million adolescent girls in developing countries can unleash the world's greatest untapped solution to poverty. This is the Girl Effect.

If we can release girls living in poverty, they will do the rest.

You can be part of that change. In fact without you it won't happen. Join the conversation and let the world know what the Girl Effect is capable of.

Talk it up. Spread the word.

Check out our Girl Effect Networks on Facebook and Twitter.

I'm embarrassed to say that I almost didn't. I almost let myself believe I don't have enough time - my family's been sick, I have to teach today, the boys are crawling all over me, we have a busy few weeks up ahead of us....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Embarrassed.

And then, what's worse, I realized it was all false. Not that I don't have these circumstances in my life - I do. But they aren't the real reason I wasn't going to post.

No, the real reason is actually A LIE.

After all that mental excuse-making, I realized the tiny little lie lurking underneath that noisy mess of justifications and rationalizations that was responsible for my lack of action.

You won't make a difference.

That so soft as to be almost imperceptible, but vicious, lying voice.

No wonder I felt so bad making all those excuses, not only were they not true, but I was silently telling myself one of the most cruel things you can say to anyone,

You don't matter.

Do you ever say this to yourself? Do you ever feel guilty for not doing something you feel called to do? Do you think it might be because you feel helpless, like you can't, like you don't, make a difference?

You can begin to change that right now, today, just by continuing to read this post, watch these videos, and checking out www.girleffect.org.

Empower yourself - realize you do make a difference - and then think about how you might be able to empower someone else.

Because the TRUTH is, is that I do have a voice, as well as countless other blessings, including my freedom, my education, my health, even my seemingly tedious and never-ending to-do list is really a laundry list of fortune and blessings (and I will think twice about my "excuses" after watching Anita's video below!)...but among all these, especially given that I love to write, I come back to the tremendous power of voice.

And today I want to use that voice to be the voice for others. Other girls, to be specific. Girls who don't yet have a voice but who wield enormous amounts of latent power for changing the world for the better.

It's being called "The Girl Effect" and I like to think it's also a Renascence.

Please take a few moments to watch the videos below (they are simply gorgeous, so very well-done). I'll be posting more throughout this campaign (October 4-11th), so please check back. If you have a blog, I'd invite you to join the tide of bloggers spreading the word. If you'd like to see who else is blogging about this, you'll find an extensive list at:

http://www.taramohr.com/girleffectposts/

What can you do today?

In the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

Watch the videos. Go to the website. Use your voice. Spread the word.

Works in Progress: yellow roses and newly hatched horizons

2011-09-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

yellow roses, oil on canvas, 22" x 28"

Lately, I've been working (painting-wise) on primarily three paintings. Here are two of them (the third is a surprise!). Oil painting (as I know it and practice it) requires laying in a foundation of strong color and composition called the "underpainting," and then where the painting goes from there is dictated by the effect you're after and the painter's individual style...and, I think, a little fate. You can stay pretty true to the underpainting or you can add almost never-ending glazes (thin layers of paint) over the top and, potentially, never be finished.

I guess one way of going about it would be to have a definite plan in mind and then walk the straight line from point A (blank canvas) to point B (finished painting). Though I can definitely appreciate and admire it when it manifests or is displayed in other people, I am not much for straight lines.

As far as painting goes, I'm definitely climbing a steep curve. There are a couple of things about this process, though, that I just love.

First, I love learning a technique and developing skills that helps me make my vision come to life. Last week, for instance, my painting teacher pointed out that if I eliminated some of the "busyness" of the sky in the painting below (the skyscape flying out of the egg) and made the background sky softer, that this would make the "idea" that the clouds are coming out of the egg much more convincing. I was so attached to the nice effect I thought I'd achieved with the clouds that I was a bit annoyed and dubious. But I trust him, so I started working in his suggestions and was so unbelievably excited about the result. The fact that he was right (I wish I had a before and after so you could see for yourself) was really not such a big surprise (he is an incredible painter), but what did surprise me was that this took me almost to the point of joyful tears. Weird, maybe. Like I said, though, I just love it.

The second thing I love about the process is that sometimes it does NOT go as I had planned but often it ends up being so much more interesting. A small example of this would be the two leaves I have blocked in on the lower left of the roses painting. They weren't always there and they weren't part of my original composition. I accidentally put a glob of paint down there and when my teacher pointed it out and said, "This needs work." I said, "I know, it was an accident. I haven't gotten to cleaning it up yet." To which he said, "It doesn't matter if it is an accident. Step back and look. It works! Now just work it in so that it becomes a more convincing part of the whole." So I did and liked the effect so much that I added another leaf below the initial "mistake."

Every time I paint I'm astounded at how both the process of painting, and often the painting itself, can be powerful, revealing metaphors for life. And I get all these ideas of how to write about it. But, instead of writing all these ideas today, I'd like to just share these works in progress - the paintings, the writing, the person who paints and writes and mothers and teaches and learns and makes mistakes and craves finding beauty and making meaning.

sky from egg, oil on paper

This is actually one in a series of skyscape/egg paintings I've been working on.

Talk to Me!

2011-09-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

Elijah, oil on canvas, Winter 2011

The following is a painting and post that I painted and wrote this past winter. Funny how I thought I'd the time I was making such progress with getting over my perfectionism....and yet I didn't publish this post because I felt I should wait to work on the painting more as well as the blog post. For whatever reason, I moved to post them both today, as is. I think it may be influenced by this e-course that I just finished taking. It was taught by the artist Kelly Rae Roberts and was a really wonderful online class. She said many things that I'm continuing to mull over and integrate into my own creative business, but there is something in particular that I keep coming back to these days. If you go to her blog you can see that the archive extends back several years - back to when she first began her blog. From there you can trace her progress as a blogger and her nascence as an artist (she really only began in 2006, I believe, and has had incredible success!). At one point in her blog she said (I'm paraphrasing, forgive me) that she's been tempted to go back and delete those earlier posts as well as the posts where she displayed her first paintings. She said it makes her "cringe" to look at them now. I am so glad she didn't erase any of it! I've been back through her archive and I've found it so deeply encouraging and empowering. You can see for your own eyes her progress as she tells the story of it. So, I think that's really why I'm posting this painting and this post. To be honest, in part in makes me want to cringe. I can see where it is lacking, I can see what may be wrong. Part of me is cringing about the fact that I'm always afraid someone is going to read something I've written or see something that I've made and called me a fraud. I really wish I could just banish this part of myself. It's been around for a long, long time. I felt like a fraud in business school - though I graduated at the top of my class and was active in many extra-curriculars and had as many as 3 part-time jobs. I felt like a fraud in law school though come to find out at the end of law school (when many people let it all out after having imbibed a lot of liquid courage) that some of the people I thought had it all together felt as flimsy and out-of-place as I did. In short, I don't know what to do about the fraud thing, except to keep questioning my thinking and to keep doing the things that scare me. I think writing in this blog helps because I'm trying to be as honest as possible, so that gives me some evidence that I am NOT a fraud. And a painting speaks for itself. At this point in time, I am no worse and no better than what you see there.

Elijah, oil on canvas, Winter 2011

Here is a painting I recently "finished" - a portrait of my son based on a photo I had of him at 18 months.

The reason for the quotations is that, while I am really happy with it on so many levels,

the painting is still "talking to me," as my painting teacher likes to say.

In the meantime, though, I'm moving on to a few different painting projects - ones that I can wrap up a lot more quickly and easily than a portrait of a young child. This portrait has definitely been the most challenging but also rewarding. And the coolest is that feeling when you just start to "get it." It's that amazing, magical experience when suddenly you've bridged some wide chasm, but without a ladder, without a tightrope. It's like one second, you were standing on one side of the canyon, looking over to the other side thinking, "I'd sure like to get over there, but how?" And you keep with it, you keep trying to do that which you cannot do...and then suddenly you can do it! It is an amazing, magical experience - and so much fun!

That being said, those moments were still fewer and less frequent than I'd like them to be. Part of me thinks that to change that I need to paint more often and for longer stretches of time. I remember that having many more of these "flow" experiences in my first painting class ever. I think that was because I spent so many consecutive hours in the studio many days of the week. That class was one I audited at the University of Notre Dame. They have a studio that's open 24/7 and so I'd often go in at 8 or 9 in the evening and paint until 2, 3, sometimes (if there was something due!) 4 in the morning. I think painting at night when there was nothing else on my mind and I had time to "warm-up" and get into it helped my experience considerably. By "helping my experience," I mean I felt I had more of that time of effortless and flow. And it was at those times that I did my best painting.

What is special to me about this painting (in addition to the subject, whom I adore!) is that I can see several little landmarks that tell of my own learning and emerging creativity. Here, a place where the skin tone is mottled just so where I got the feel of moving the brush just so and drawing in this color and that, almost like I were sculpting rather than working in two dimensions. There, a place where I ventured out of my comfort zone, trusted, and laid in a garish phthalo green and blue mixture down as part of the skin tone. Many glazes later it proves to be the right choice for reading as a convincing shadow on the skin.

Doing a painting like this, a portrait in particular, I can't help but think of all the metaphors for life. Particularly, creating one's life.

Coming up roses

2011-09-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

five-minute rose, oil on paper, summer 2011

It is a mysterious and strenuous and simple practice: to walk when we are able and be still when we are not, to bleed the dark that builds within us, and trade it for the light which is always waiting. Despite all our limitations, the most crucial challenge of being human is to show up like a rose.

-Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

five-minute rose 2, oil on paper, summer 2011

Bleed the dark, trade it for light, show up like a rose.

You Don't Have to Go It Alone

2011-09-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was having a really, really, really baaaaddddd day.

Which turned out to be a really, really, really wonderful opportunity to be reminded of what an incredibly awesome guy Brad is (and that "Brad" would be my husband, for those of you new to me and this blog).

It was just one thing after another and I was stuck in a mire, trying every single self-help, pick-myself-up-and-dust-myself-off technique I have in my arsenal (and I pack a pretty hefty arsenal of these sort of things by now). But nothing was working, until I picked up and tried one more thing - the phone. I called Brad at work and he came home, listened to me talk and cry and then watched the boys so I could go for a run.

It was just what I needed. Not only the venting and the run, but to have him there.

In order to express my gratitude and make this post extra special (since he is), I found an amazing guest-blogger, Amy Poehler, to tell you about how you don't have to go it alone.

Well, not really. But I am sharing the link to her commencement address at Harvard - I think it's a good one!

Love to you and yours - and mine,

Leah

I envision a world...

2011-08-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

This is me with my boys after a day at an art fair.

I painted as their dad pulled them around in a red wagon.

where people introduce themselves not as their job but with their name and say something like,
my name is ____, and i love...

where the first question people ask is not, what do you do?

but, what do you love? who do you love?

not, what do you do for a living?

but, what is your soul's purpose? your higher calling?

what has been whispering to you lately?

of what are you most afraid?

of what are you most hopeful?

what is your most treasured wish?

and, how can I help you?

A Return to The Deep Dark Woods

2011-08-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

That's me and Brad in "The Deep Dark Woods."

A Return to The Deep Dark Woods

By Leah Campbell-Badertscher

I wrote the original version of this story-prayer a few years for the wedding of my brother and sister-in-law. This adaptation was published this year in the magazine, Genius Hour. I'm posting it here today because a special group of freshmen students from Central College in Pella, Iowa have been having a fascination discussion in their "Intersections" seminar course. As part of that discussion, they read this piece and then were generous enough to hop on my blog and participate in a conversation in the comments below this post, Yearning to Come Alive. I'd love for more readers to read this piece and the conversation occurring back a post on yearning and what it means to live fully ALIVE. (Also, I'll post a link to the magazine, Genius Hour, later here if you're interested. It's a gorgeous product and brimming with shining essays and shimmering personal stories!)

“Today like every other day

We wake up empty and sacred

Do not open the door of your study

And begin reading,

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel

And kiss the earth.”

-Rumi

Let the beauty we love be what we do. These words were written centuries ago by a Sufi poet and yet I once heard the same wisdom expressed by my six-year old brother Andy as we played in the evergreen grove on the Iowa farm where we grew up. It was on that day more than twenty years ago that Andy and I made a promise. This is the story of that wisdom and that promise. This is my prayer for you and messengers of magic, love, and healing everywhere.

There is a stand of trees on the northwest corner of our family farm; an L-shaped grove of tall evergreens with a tangle of honeysuckle along its southern edge. This is The Deep Dark Woods. If you were take just one look at it, you might dismiss it, in a moment concluding that it is just another ordinary windbreak on just another ordinary, Iowa farm. But in truth, anything in this life that is labeled “just” or “ordinary” for its humble appearance, and thus dismissed, is a piece of life neglected, a sliver of grace lost for lack of reverence and vigilance. Although it is clear those trees stand to shelter a home, to me they also stand for a way of perceiving and experiencing the world; they stand for the truth that you can, literally and figuratively, create worlds of difference in your life and the lives you touch, just by how you choose to greet each moment, each person, each experience in your life.

It was a long summer day more than twenty years ago and Andy and I were playing in the shade of The Deep Dark Woods. But this was not unusual; it was one of our favorite places in the world. No, the reason I remember this particular day is because that was the day we made a pact we promised to keep for a lifetime. The pact was simply this: Remember the magic.

My brother, Andy, and his wife, Tracey

We made such a pact because that was just the kind of thing you do when you are six and eight years old; you make pacts and play all day in your evergreen grove that you name, and insist everyone, including big people, refer to as The Deep Dark Woods. You spend countless hours there, playing cowboys and Indians, building tree houses and forts, or, as we were doing on that day, you attempt digging a hole to China. And because, when you are six and eight, your ability to doubt the logical is wonderfully deep and vast and outmatched only by the capacity of your imagination, you work hard and earnestly, never pausing to doubt whether you’ll break through by day’s end.

When you are six and eight, it doesn’t bother you that the sun is beginning to set and you still haven’t made it to the other side of the world. You don’t feel you have failed because you know digging a hole was a perfect way to spend the day and now that you look at it again, you decide that if you can just get the garden hose to reach, this hole you’ve dug would make a perfect miniature lake, around which your collection of He-man action figures and My Little Ponies can have many adventures.

And when you are six and eight and in the middle of creating a glorious, muddy mess, you sing Christmas songs together. Never mind that it’s the middle of July and that you don’t sing well. Never mind that you don’t know all the words or that the song you sing the most is that amazing, one-word song you have only heard a few times on the T.V. as it was being sung by a choir at the Crystal Cathedral in California. None of this matters because at the end of a day so well-spent, when the light slips sideways through piney branches and spills, gold and soft, over your heads and shoulders, when you are standing in that grace-laden light with your best friend in the world at your side, no other music or words seem to quite match that rising, shining feeling in your chest as those exuberant strains repeating that one mysterious, wondrous word: Hallelujah.

As we sang, we alternated between wholehearted attempts at sound quality to just trying to scare up the abundant population of bunnies by bellowing our best operatic impressions. Surely we knew we were being goofballs, but there was also a distinct sincerity in the performance. Then there was this moment I will never forget, when we took a break from singing and Andy looked at me and asked, “Why do you think most adults don’t play like us kids?”

I said I didn’t know…then Andy offered this, “I think sometimes they just forget the magic.” We agreed that was no way to live, and so, although our hands were muddy and small, we made a pact, shook on it, and promised that it was for a lifetime: Remember the magic.

Remember the magic. Those words, that day, that promise, have come to mean a great deal to me. They are an instruction in the practice of being fully open to receive the magic, the sacred potential, available in every moment, regardless of whether it is what you wanted or expected, and regardless of the outcome. It is a reminder that what counts is that you bring your best, noble self to whatever you choose to do. It is a practice of playing not to win, or for keeps, but for love of the game and more importantly, for love of those who play with you and sometimes even against you. Swinging not for the fence, nor that hole-in-one, but to experience that moment your soul connects to the sweet spot God offers us all.

Remember the magic. It can also mean that even if you’ve worked so hard and it seems that all you’ve done is dug yourself a big hole, that all is still well, so long as you can remember to greet each moment with a hallelujah in your soul, on your lips. So, as you walk through this world, may the beauty that you love, and the beauty that you are, be the magic that you do. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Again, Brad and I , on my parents farm, standing beneath those magical trees.

Writer's Retreat Vision Board, Side 1

2011-08-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Vision Board, Martha Beck Writer's Retreat, Scottsdale, AZ

October 2010

I wanted to post this in conjunction with my other post for today. The top left hand corner carries a lot of what I yearn to create as a writer and person. For example, to be inspirational, "to give sun," "to be a messenger of love." There is also the following quote that speaks of a quality in the certain kinds of writing (poetry and otherwise) that I am most drawn to. It is a quality that I aspire to...

"Poetry gives us a sense of beauty...it reminds us to feel human again."

I almost didn't post this because I feel there is so much that could be misinterpreted or needs further explanation (like why I have a huge picture of Mandy Moore?!). But misinterpreted by who? I am reminded of this bit of wisdom (I believe it was originally Byron Katie's) that are three kinds of business: 1. Your Business, 2. God's Business, and 3. Everyone Else's business. If you are worried about what other people think, for instance, you are not minding your own business. So, I'll mind my own business and close here for today.

I know, I know, you're not sure you'll be able to sleep tonight for being on pins and needles about the Mandy Moore thing, but I'll leave that, other explanations, a cool story about Terry Tempest Williams (see her picture in the lower left there?), and Side TWO of the vision board for another time.

Have a wonderful August afternoon-

Leah

Yearning to Come Alive

2011-08-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

WHAT DO Y O U yearn FOR?

A special shout-out today to a special group of freshmen students from Central College in the unbelievably picturesque Pella, Iowa! (Think Disney-snow-globe village, just staged in the Heartland)

A little backstory...

This morning I called my brother Andy to discuss the course (or is it becoming a book?!) I've been creating. This course, in large part, is about living life from your soul, creating (your work, your family, your art, your plans for the weekend, your sandwich - anything and EVERYTHING!) from the core of your being.  I ran through my ideas as Andy is a tremendous listener and always has pearls of insight for improvement and en-COURAGE-ment. Today's call, however, was particularly special.

In "Oh, by the way..." sort of fashion, he mentioned that the class he is teaching this fall (he teaches and coaches at Central), a freshman seminar entitled "Intersections," has a special reading assignment today - my piece, A Return to the Deep Dark Woods, the piece I just had published this year!

It is an understatement but at least a beginning to say that this news made my ~~day~~ month (and it also made me a little teary, if truth be told!). Anyone would be honored, but this news has additional significance for me. In doing my own inner-excavating, in venturing on an odyssey to live from my soul and create the core of my being, I asked myself this very question (in fact, I ask this question often, it is one of my favorite tools in the PRACTICE of inquiry), got very silent and still, and listened hard.

WHAT DO Y O U yearn FOR?

One of the answers that this inquiry and listening yielded manifested in a vision board I made at a writing retreat last October. (When I get home, I'll post a picture of it HERE - please check back if this link isn't active yet!) In essence, one of the things I YEARN for is to create work that is inspiring and uplifting and that somehow causes people to STOP and pay reverent attention and then fall in love with the sacredness of their lives.

I'm not saying that my writing will, in fact, always accomplish this. But it is what I, if I am being so utterly honest (and, thus, rawly vulnerable), do yearn for and hope for. I am also going to set and express a special intention for this group of Flying Dutch ;) (Go Big Red!)... may they use this opportunity, this class, this time in their lives, to be arrested by beauty, mystery, possibility and to fall in love with their own sacred-selves.

So, it is a thrill to know of and feel somehow-connected to a new group of readers - welcome again! It renews my desire to write and to endeavor, with such earnestness and love, to create something meaningful, deepening, enriching for others.

Andy said one of the class assignments will be to write a response to a question posed by the author of the assigned reading. He asked me what one question I'd like to ask these students, what would I want them to write about? I'm sure you can guess by now, but if I could have 20 minutes of every college freshmen's time, and I believe truly believe that, to paraphrase a well-known quote, what the world needs are more people who have come alive, I'd want them to carve out some time, some sacred space, in their burgeoning lives, and spend some time asking their deepest selves - WHAT DO Y O U yearn FOR? and then paying reverence to your life and all of Life by listening hard for the answers.

I feel that all my talk of this particular question begs some further explanation and discussion, but for today I'll have to close this soon so I can take my boys to the park! Oh, before I go, though, I also wanted to share the following quote from Rumi as I feel like it ties in well with the question of yearning and the practice of listening.

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love."

~Rumi

Thank you for checking into today! I hadn't planned to blog today but after I talked to Andy, I knew I wanted to - it makes me feel like I get to participate in this class and I wanted to thank the students for reading my piece (okay, I know it was ASSIGNED, but thank you anyway!).

Along those lines, I think it would be wonderful and so much fun to have a conversation about this - both with the students from Central College and all blogosphere friends. I'd love to hear what answers this question yields for you. Also, maybe you want to weigh-in on what you understand to be the difference between the questions: "What do I want?" and "What do I yearn for?" Please jump into the conversation by leaving a comment below or, if you'd rather get in touch with me privately, you can email me at "leahbadertscher at gmail dot com."

I so hope to hear from you!

Leah

*I am deeply grateful to Martha Beck for introducing me and countless others to this life-altering, soul-enlivening question. Thank you!

Everyday Odyssey

2011-08-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

oil on cardboard, February 2011, Leah Campbell-Badertscher

"A genuine odyssey is not about piling up experiences. It is a deeply felt, risky, unpredictable

tour of the soul. "

— Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life)

Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life is one of the books I've been returning to, again and again, this past year. This quote jumped out at me this morning. It seems particularly poignant given recent events and everything they've caused me to think about. "Everything" seems like a lot for me to tackle this Monday morning (it's a beautiful day and I want to take my boys outside to play!), but I'll write more on this soon.

With love, here's to our everyday odysseys!

Leah

A friend...

2011-08-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

Image by ventisette

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of ones heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with the breath of kindness

blow

the rest away.”

- Arabian proverb

Very grateful for these friends in my life - you make me more courageous, you make me feel at home.

Deep love & gratitude,

Leah

(Thanks to Kelly Rae Robert's Flying Lessons e-course for the introduction to this lovely quote and the image!)

"You must become all flame"

2011-08-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

(from "The Sayings of The Desert Fathers)

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are made to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

(Jack Kerouac)

Back when I first read On the Road (several years ago in undergrad), this passage stopped me in my tracks. It reminded me of a dear friend. Jon had the sort of verve, a humming, driving, so brilliantly aliveness, and seemed to live, at times, in synch with the pulse of the Universe in the same sort of spirit and powerful rhythm that those words evoked for me. So I copied the passage down and sent it to him, with the disclaimer that it was the words in themselves, not in the context of the beatnik culture as they are often associated, that made me think of him. The next time I saw him, he brought up this passage, saying, jokingly, that although he might have to take issue with being called "fabulous," he really liked it but was surprised I thought of him this way. I was surprised at this. I told him I couldn't know for sure but guessed that many people probably felt this way about him.

And now, after knowing the way news of his death almost two weeks ago was received in our community, and seeing all the tributes, posts, and hearing news of how our hometown, his family, and friends are preparing to say goodbye to him at his funeral tomorrow, I know that this is true. I've been so reluctant to write anything about this not only because it is a difficult time, but because it is so easy to fall into cliches and reminiscings that can reduce a person to two-dimensional romanticizations at a time like this. There is no way to write about him that isn't somehow wrong because it will always fall short of the truth. I want to be respectful and honest - but also brilliant because that is what the story - his and any person's story- requires. I don't want to do anything but what he deserves - the truth of him, the complexity, the wonderful and difficult things of his life, far exceed even the best of the hero stories and legends-of-loved-ones-now-gone fairytales. But I do think among the countless stories that can be told about him, it is safe to say that there is one sentence, a simple, noble truth, perhaps the highest truth, that can be said about him - so many people loved Jon and he loved them.

The evening after he died I spoke with one of those people who loved him, a friend that Jon loved as a brother. He said he had no words, only that Jon died doing what he loved and not many people can say that. I'd add that he also always lived doing what he loved. I think the people that knew and loved him - and now, even some people that will just know of him after his death - knew and loved this about him. And lives - like mine - will always burn, burn, burn, so much brighter for having known him.

A Motherhood Movement

2011-08-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

To all the mothers out there and to our beloved children....

"What you are doing matters....It is a privilege to nurture good in this world....You must be brave so that others can be brave...."

This and more on this inspiring, beautiful video essay

(Thank you to Kelly Rae Robert's Flying Lessons e-course for the link!)

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement | Video on TED.com

2011-08-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Funny, true, and also comforting and encouraging if you're considering starting something but are scared you'll look like a nut....

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement | Video on TED.com

"Be Still and Still Moving": A course for living more creatively, connectedly, and in the flow

2011-08-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

"Be still and still moving" are lines from a T.S. Eliot poem and also the title of a course I've been developing. I will admit that I'm largely developing the course not because I am an infallible, untouchable expert on living this way, but because I believe in the wisdom that we must create for ourselves what we most need. And what I yearn for is to live, more often and more deeply, in such a way that I am deeply still, standing on the sacred ground of my soul, and creating my life from this centered and wholly, holy, original place.

One of the reasons I LOVE T.S. Eliot's poetry is because in a few words, like "be still and still moving," you can experience a complete physical, emotional, and spiritual shift in your experience and understanding of life. The line "be still and still moving" is particularly appealing to me be cause it seems to hold "keys" to a mystery, a certain phenomenon, that I've been fascinated with for over ten years now. There are many ways of describing this phenomenon but one of the most common and mainstream these days is to call it "flow," or, to refer to it as "being in the flow." I'd describe it this way myself, but, personally, I also experience it and think of it as being deeply centered, open, and connected.

If you are unfamiliar with the term, here's a quick and dirty summary. People often describe it as being so absorbed in what they are doing that they lose track of time and whatever they are doing feels effortless. People also often attribute their best performances or creations to being in this state. Personally, I'd agree with these descriptions and also add that it feels like an extremely liberating sort of self-forgetting where you becoming joyfully absorbed in what you are doing and all self-consciousness drifts away, sometimes a performance or creation can feel like it was done with a grace or skill beyond that which I was aware I possessed, and that I can be working extremely hard at whatever I'm engaged in and yet it also feels effortless. I don't worry about outcomes or judge myself or my work at these times, although I do still maintain the ability to observe and discern and make decisions (normally, I'd call this "criticisms" but this is different in that it lacks any sort of negative connotation that criticism can hold). I am absolutely in love with the process, absolutely present, both lost and found in the moment, and feel deeply, utterly, completely ALIVE. I often have the same thought, "THIS is why I am here! THIS is what I am meant to do!" even though the "This" can be many different things - cycling, painting, praying, dancing, holding my children, laughing with a friend.

"Flow" has gained more and more attention, especially in athletics, the arts, even academic research, but yet just what it is and how we - "everyday Joe's" (as opposed to people considered to have "mastery" over what they do)- "turn it on" or "get there" or "make it happen" with any sort of consistency and predictability remains largely a mystery.

I'm convinced that there is a link between flow, the genius, inspired performances and creations and living that result from being in the "flow," and our connectedness to our souls. I am also not a theologian (if you hadn't guessed), but I also believe our relationship to our soul in our everyday life is also inextricably wound up in our relationship to our God.

What does this have to do with my course?

As I was mentioning earlier, in the spirit of creating what I most need, I've been working to develop a holistic practice (I'm convinced it HAS to be holistic, it just IS holistic) to be able to live from this deeply still place. I could go into what this path has looked like for me the last several years (over a decade now), all the books I've read, workshops, classes, trainings, trial and error, and personal experiences and revelations, but I won't (I began to try and it was getting too long and involved for this post).

What I really wanted to accomplish with today's post was to begin to put this idea out into the world and let people know what I've been working on and what I'm interested in. Maybe there will be people interested in the course (I hope so!) and maybe there will be people who will teach me something I want to learn about this topic but that I just don't even know about yet (I hope this is true as well!).

What follows is just a sample of content. I realize that there is always some truth lost when you put things in categories, especially if you truly believe things to be holistic. But for the sake of simplicity, organization, and clear communication, I have created categories (though I do have some cooler names in the works :):

-Physical practices for purifying, centering, and aligning (from old school calisthenics, to Pilates, yoga, Tai Chi, swimming, walking...something for all abilities)

-Mental practices for clearing, centering, and aligning (thought work, especially based on The Work by Byron Katie and "Self-Coaching" by Brooke Castillo)

-Imaginative, creative practices (I believe the imagination is the soul's territory and so engaging your creativity - yes, you are all creative - automatically and necessarily engages your soul. Vision boarding is likely to be one of the activities - see this cool article by Martha Beck - she even references the very poem that is my inspiration for this course!)

-Spiritual practices (mindfulness, meditation, prayer)

-Everyday practices, daily routines and pre-, during-, post- "performance/creative/work" time (we'll look at how our routines can help or hinder our connectedness)

-Resources (I also plan to give a TON of additional resources for people to continue to learn, choose their own adventure, and remain encouraged, inspired, and connected to a supportive community).

-Misc: Here are a couple quotes that are the bits of wisdom (guideposts and touchstones) that would introduce certain elements of the course:

"Life is about unfoldment, not accumulation."

"All movement with integrity comes from the core."

What I hope to accomplish with this class is to empower people to live healthier, more joyful, courageous, wholehearted, creative, peaceful, wise, and fulfilling lives. A little more specifically, I want to give people concrete tools and also guidance (because there is a lot of this that cannot be taught, but I do believe it can help to have a compassionate guide who has gone before you) to be able to "be still and still moving." One of the things I yearn is something I think about as "living more ALIVE." I don't know where this came from, but it seems to be a mantra that has picked me. Some of us seem to do it naturally, but there I believe there are "soul and spiritual skills" we can all learn that makes this kind of life utterly possible for each one of us.

Show, Don't Tell

2011-08-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

Blooming Where They're Planted

Leah Campbell-Badertscher, oil on paper, July 2011

These days I have a a couple thoughts that seem to be running a constant loop, repeating and weaving in and out of my mind all day long:

Too many words, none of them sufficient.

So much to say, this cannot be spoken.

Suffice it to say, for now, that I feel heavy-hearted, my heart truly feels swollen and sodden, and confused. While I continue to process this, however, I wanted to return to my blog. I'm sure I'll write about these things in the days to come, but in the meantime, I wanted to show you a piece of my summer life....

Below are a few photos of some of the paintings I've done this summer. In June, I enrolled in a plein aire painting course that was being offered by my pretty darn amazing painting teacher. It ended up being the perfect thing for me this summer as it afforded the opportunity to be OUTSIDE and PAINT and under circumstances that require you to WORK QUICKLY and FINISH (things I knew I wanted to work on). The goal was not necessarily a "finished" painting (though it could be), as we had about 2.5 hours per session to work (and I continued working in oils), but to learn to select an interesting composition from the vast possibilities available, to work quickly, developing a "painting sketch" that could then continue to be worked later, if desired, and, finally, to continue working on painting skills.

For me, the results were not only that I had a "stack" of small paintings by the time the six weeks was over (though I do LOVE walking into my studio office and seeing a STACK of work!!), but also that along the way I worked through all sorts of thoughts, emotions (perfectionist, scared demons! ;) that come up when "forced" to work quickly, the time itself was restorative, and it ensured that every week I continued to paint.

It was very good for me to realize that I CAN work quickly. This realization led to an at-home experiment which I, in a stroke of utter creative genius and guided by the priceless wisdom and support of one of my all-time favorite coaches, brilliantly called, "20 minute Paintings." You guessed it - I set the timer for 20 minutes and painted until it went off. (I did give myself 10 minutes for set-up). I made it my goal to do this at least three times a week. It doesn't seem like much, but right now, given that my boys don't nap consistently and if they do, never simultaneously, it felt like a HUGE TRIUMPH for me. More photos below...

Some of these I liked more than others, but that's beside the point. What was a success was continuing to cultivate a love and enthusiasm for the process while practicing, practicing, practicing. More and more, I am deeply and truly embracing the idea of painting as a spiritual practice - of the possibility that anything and everything that be a devotional, spiritual, deepening, enriching, nurturing and nourishing practice.

A stack, A STACK!

Who'd ever have thought I'd have my very own stack of paintings?! Now I just want to make more and more - piles and piles of paintings!

( Hmmm...maybe my son Elijah's love of all things that can be made into "piles"

(piles of dirt, piles of laundry, piles of mixed vegetables, piles of sand, piles of ketchup, piles of toys...)

IS hereditary, after all???)

With love and gratitude and thoughts of summer endings,

Leah

A Message Just For You

2011-08-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

You are not supposed to be any better, or different, than you are right now.

Love,

Leah

Be What You Wish To See

2011-07-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

One of the most powerful things I've heard in the last year:

Make decisions not from where you currently are, but from where you want to be.

This first requires that you get really, really clear on who you want to be, what you'll be doing, what your life will look like at that point, how exactly you'll be different.

A few examples:

I want to be a better mom (not that I think I'm not a good one, now, but this is one area I'm also very interested in deepening, growing).

So I have to ask myself what it means to be a "better mom." For me, it means I ever increase my patience, my wisdom, acting from a calm, loving, and centered place - even and ESPECIALLY when I am feeling anything but.

So, something I do now is, when in the midst of kid chaos and I haven't had enough sleep and I feel I'm at the end of my rope is to take 3 full breaths. Then I ask myself, "What would the mom I want to be do?" This removes me from reacting from a place of desperation and exhaustion and it helps me stretch myself when I feel like I have nothing left to give, just using that bit of space and imagination helps me to imagine what a mom, a mom who has cultivated more reserves than I have, might do. It has helped me tremendously.

And here's a hypothetical example. Let's say I know a certain young person who is gifted in so many different areas, filled with tremendous passion for living a good, fulfilling life and desires deeply to help others to do the same. It's so clear to me that this person only needs to fully step into their power and BAM - they'll be so powerful and help so many people. I'm envisioning a phenomenal ripple effect, too. What is stopping this person, however, from stepping into their power is that they feel they haven't proved themselves enough yet, they encounter a lot of self-doubt.

So, this person is taking big steps to create real results in the world, and yet they take a big step only to pull the punches at the end. Instead of trusting themselves and going big, taking risks, their self-doubt pulls them back into their default pattern - which is a really nice person trying to do their best, maybe afraid of stepping on toes and afraid of alienating people and afraid that being their big, powerful step will mean that they are egotistical or just make them more visible and thus a target. In other words, being their true-self full-out makes them vulnerable.

My advice to this hypothetical person would be to enlist this imagination prompt above:

Make decisions not from where you are, but from where you want to be.

How do you want to be in the world?

What would make YOU proud of YOURSELF?

And, if you are where you truly want to be, are you someone that cares what other people think? (Especially if they aren't "your people.")

What great challenges would you have overcome? What would you have learned about yourself from these challenges? What "weaknesses" have become your strengths and/best teachers?

Can you see that the path you had to travel - that you were blessed to travel, so mysterious and sometimes maddeningly confusing and full of heartbreak at some times, was so brilliantly designed to help you cultivate and nurture everything you needed for where you are now?

What qualities do you possess within yourself that make you feel good and clean and strong? Are you nice or are you kind? Are you fully you or do you pull back, apologize, second-guess?

What is your philosophy on "mistakes"?

How do you make decisions? What do you feel like when you make decisions?

What do you feel like when you go about your entire day?

It can feel like a leap you just can't make - because you haven't before - but this hypothetical person has an AMAZING imagination, and I happen to believe imagination is both the gift and playground of the soul. So, I'd ask this hypothetical person with the amazing imagination to let their soul come out, proverbial guns blazing (bright and burning like solar flares), and play and sing and shout from the depths of their cosmic, starry heart the answers to the question:

How is the world different and better and a whole lot closer to how it is Dreamt to be because you have decided to commit to being fully, REALly, courageously, vulnerably, unabashedly, audaciously, outrageously, complexly, wholeheartedly YOU?

I think this is, essentially, the same as another (although more elegantly phrased) quote I've loved for years, but I've realized in just the last few years that I didn't fully understand.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

(Gandhi)

Love to everyone, as you are and how you wish to be (you're whole and perfect and good enough and human both ways!),

Leah

Listening

2011-07-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

So, another item on my list of fascinations lately as been "listening."

It came up again early this evening as I was walking home from swimming laps. The bells of the basilica, and then other churches around time, began to ring at six o'clock. As I walked across campus and entered an otherwise quiet, open field, the bells were more distant and I strained to hear them. Suddenly I was aware that the aware I was alert and straining to hear them was very similar to the way I try to listen when I pray ("Put your ear down to your soul and listen hard." - Annie Sexton) or try to "tune in" to God. It's both a absolute silencing of your own noise and an eager, awake, leaning, alertness, awakness; every cell silencing, opening, straining to hear something that is just barely out of reach.

It made me wonder if, long ago, this wasn't one of the original purposes of the ringing of the bells?

Shell Rock River Bridge, excerpt ii

2011-07-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

I posted another excerpt of this piece, Shell Rock River Bridge, a while ago (it is the "chunk" that immediately precedes what follows), and this piece came to mind as I wrote my last post on "Why Beauty?" I think in my mind they are related because part of my intent in this piece was to convey the beauty I see in others, even though I also experience the dissonance. I know I've not achieved that yet, but I thought I'd present the work as it currently is. When I wrote this it brought back so many memories of being so intimately connected to those I grew up with, of being so in love with them (though of course I would not have said that when I was 13! I would've been duck-taped to the nearest tree and mummified with tp at best - at worst, ostracized!), even though I also experienced abundant shares of dissonance, angst, all the pains of separateness and non-belonging. Watching my peers jump from the bridge, though, I remember as being an experience where I was utterly arrested, breathless with their beauty and beyond myself with the wonder of it all.

...But I was rarely able to see things that way during the years between childhood and adulthood. In those days, the only times that bridge and that river seemed at all remarkable were on those most excitable days of adolescence, the last days of school and the hot days of high summer. On these days, local kids flocked to the north railing of the bridge. First one by one, and later as duets or trios, they climbed over the railing to jump into the lolling water fifteen feet below. Some hooked their hands around the bridge’s railing behind them, leaned out over the water and then let go. Some leapt, arms flung wide, while others twirled and flapped or wind-milled their arms. Others simply seemed to fall. Whether they flailed for a few seconds or carved a graceful downward arc—did it matter? They all ended up in the river. Except for me. Each year when those days rolled around, I thought about jumping and each year I wondered what it was that made them launch themselves from the bridge while I took one step back. It seemed like something so inextricably wound up in the fibers of my being and beyond my control to untangle, that I felt like the only thing left to do was pray for something to change.

So each year I prayed and another year would pass, those summer days ripe for bridge-jumping would roll around, and every year I took one more step back and watched. There was shouting, cheering, laughing, the clamor of young voices rising as the afternoon wore on and on the hot concrete was a colorful litter of shoes and socks, and the shirts and shorts left by boys who stripped down to their boxers. One by one, there was the body that surrendered, there was its screaming descent (a scream at once terrified, hilarious, and, I imagined, exhilarated), soon punctuated by the plunge and splash. Then a spontaneous hush, as if the entire afternoon held its breath during those few quiet moments after the head disappeared under the surface, the body swallowed by the river. And then, again and again, the exuberant reemergence, first a head then shoulders erupting through the surface, shaking, droplets of water flinging from hair, wide eyes blinking, mouth gaping to suck in air and then broadening into a smile as arms began to beat the water, the whole body swimming back to shallower waters to stand and walk out of the river.

Eventually, as the afternoon swept west dragging the evening in behind it, the heat began to dissipate and then the excitement and then the crowd. People wandered off in various directions, some down to the park across from the Catholic church where they would play basketball or take turns playing tennis on the only tennis court in the surrounding four towns, using the only two tennis rackets owned by anyone in Rockford. Others ventured just a few blocks down to the corner of Main Street to perch on hoods of cars as they waited for someone (usually a someone who, several years ago, had themselves waited on that same corner for that same reason) to buy them beer or cigarettes. And after everyone had wandered away and the noise dwindled to occasional shouts in the distance, and the vibrating footsteps of running, bare, wet feet slapping against hot concrete were just a memory, I still stood on the bridge. Most times, I just leaned out over the railing, watched the water run far beneath my feet, and wished for something to happen. Mostly I wished that I would suddenly become the sort of person who jumped off bridges instead of the kind that stood watching and wishing. And once, after all that praying, watching and wishing, something did happen.

I mentioned earlier that there were other things that made if difficult to for me to move on. Just a hundred yards south of the Main Street bridge is another old bridge, this one a railway bridge on rusty metal tracks that runs fifty feet above the Shell Rock and then disappears into a wooded area on either bank of the river. If you followed the tracks west and walked through the woods you’d arrive in the backyard of a modest and sturdy, two-story, tan house built by George Tumilson and home to the Tumilson family. That area was attractive to me when I was in high school because it was different from the farm where I grew up; it seemed a bit exotic to have this little tangle of woods and water so close to your home. It was also attractive to me because I was in love with Jon Tumilson. The truth is, in the grand scheme of things, I spent relatively little time in this place. In fact, if it weren’t for Jon, I’d probably able to drive over the Main Street bridge in Rockford without a tightening in my chest and the urge to look south; I’d never have given a second thought to that rickety old railway bridge.

WHY Beauty?

2011-07-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time in the last several months contemplating the following questions: Why I care so much to create something of beauty?, and Does Beauty even matter?, and, if so, Why?

And, in true "ask and you shall receive" fashion, posing these questions has laid down a captivating, inspiring, soul-nourishing trail to follow. It would take me a book to try to begin to explain where this questioning has taken me, not mention many posts, in itself, but here is one answer that, when I came across, stunned me as it seemed to answer so many of my burning questions in one simple sentence:

"In a world where the soul is neglected, beauty is placed last on its list of priorities."

(Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore)

In reading that sentence I recognized the relationship between two things, the soul and beauty, and began to understand more about why I've been increasingly drawn to exploring these subjects (it seems almost sacrilegious to me to refer to them as "subjects"). I picked up that book primarily because I've become increasingly aware of where I do and do not have soul in my own life, and where I sense the world does and does not have soulfulness. And as this awareness has deepened, I can't help but constantly wonder why we are not pursuing the cultivation of our souls all the time? The places where it is lacking feel like the barest, driest desert - devoid of life (if a place that exists can really be devoid of life).

As I reread that last paragraph, I know how fall short it falls of conveying my true experience when reading that sentence. I cried and get choked up reading it now. I'm not entirely sure why except to say that I felt a deep sense of recognition, like someone had put to words and understood something I knew but just hadn't been able to reach yet on my own. Maybe, then too, it was the gratitude I experienced because I felt I was guided to find it (I forgot to mention that I hadn't read the whole book at that point, I just randomly opened to that page).

I was similarly overcome when I happened to listen to this interview with the late poet John O'Donohue on the NPR program, "Speaking of Faith" one afternoon while cooking. I had been listening to the radio, but had a deep craving to listen to something meaningful and so did a search for the Speaking of Faith program, which I've only heard live a couple of times (it's on very early in the mornings here). This particular segment jumped out at me as it was entitled, "The Inner Landscape of Beauty." And as I listened to the program I had the feeling of someone parched and gulping down water. I won't go into all of it here, but for now I'll just say that I had that same experience of recognition and of being gifted a bridge of a gap in my understanding that I hadn't yet been able to cross on my own.

Among many remarkable things Mr. O'Donohue said in that interview was that beauty is a human calling and a defining aspect of God. In fact, I believe it was in this interview where I first learned that Greek root for the word "beauty" is related to the root for "calling."

He also discussed beauty as not necessarily being something that would be conventionally, superficially defined as "beautiful" as in "pretty" (although those things are not necessarily excluded), but that it does have the quality of being so captivating as to be arresting. (By the way, I absolutely love that word, arresting - it's so, well - arresting.) This closed another gap in understanding for me.

It in this interview, too, or was this something I've since thought about (sorry, I'm going to punt on properly annotating this right now, it is a blog after all!), that beauty calls to the soul, beauty speaks the soul's language.

I am not a spiritual leader or a scholar on these issues, but writing about them is helpful as I try to understand my own experience. I think what I have been calling my fascination/obsession with topics like soul and beauty has really been a safe way for me to "stay normal" (or, more accurately, maintain a fairly-normal-seeming facade, though I'm sure some would argue how successful I've been at that! ha!). But more and more I think what's really going on is that these things that hold my attention are symptoms of my soul coming more and more to the surface - or maybe it's like there is a mist in me that has been slowly burning off to let it through? In either event, the intense attraction to all things beautiful (like a growing yearning to paint and write beautifully and an evolving understanding that to create "beautifully" means something so much, much more different for me now than ever before), has been my soul reaching for ways to communicate and be present in the world.

Another something that has ALWAYS called to me, is the beauty of other people's souls, even though I've also been simultaneously baffled by how there can be such incongruence or dissonance between the beauty of a person and then the way that person understands themselves and expresses themselves through their living (which I don't mean to be a judgment, but an observation. And it's an observation I've made about myself thousands of times more often and with more scrutiny than I think I've applied to anyone else...). So when Mr. O'Donohue remarked that he is often stunned to meet people, to encounter people with such beautiful, interesting faces, and then to hear them utter such banalities about themselves, like they are unaware of how captivating they are (I am paraphrasing liberally here, maybe even projecting).

I read that and wonder if it will sound condescending or elitist? That's not my intent, at all, and when I listened to the interview and heard his voice say those words, that is not the meaning that I took away. What I did get was a sense of love for these people, which I can say has been my experience, but I'll be honest - I also experience the bafflement and yes, I've tried not to judge but I have judged (though I've since encountered a couple EXCELLENT "tricks" for dropping judgment - I'll post about these later - shortcuts to effortless and genuine compassion - sounds so cheap and cheesy, but really, they've given me so much relief!).

At the root, though, is love. And I when I read his description it helped me explain the dissonance between these two seemingly contradictory things I sometimes experience with people. It also helped me understand why I sometimes choose to keep my distance and observe from a distance.

It also helped me understand why I love to learn about ways to cultivate soulfulness and beauty - and why I love to share this information and learn from anyone who is interested in having a conversation about it. Is this why I am wanting to life coach? Maybe this is part of my why in that context?

I'm always coming back to that question these days, "Why?" Why do anything?

I started reading a new volume of Rumi poems last night and in the introduction it is told of how representatives from all over the world and from all religions came to his funeral. When asked about why they came, they answered, "He deepens us wherever we are." This touched me deeply, because I realize how, hundreds of years later, his work deepens me - and countless others - as well. And that is far beyond being a sufficient answer to "Why? Why Beauty? Why care for the soul?" To deepen. To deepen ourselves, to deepen one another.

In closing, here are words from Rumi from that same volume (Rumi: A Bridge to the Soul, translation by Coleman Barks):

Lay down your cap and your cloak.

Start talking from the majesty itself.

Yours in beauty and love,

Leah

Lake Michigan Music Video

2011-07-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

I am still catching up from a very busy end of June and vacationing the first week of July with my family on beautiful eastern shore of Lake Michigan (should be called the Riviera of the Midwest!), but that's okay because filling in for me today is an awesome music video montage from our vacation (complete with the PERFECT Kid Rock song!).

The video is courtesy of my brother Andy, who compiled it and posted it on his blog: Babies & Basketball: Shoot the gaps!

Growing up one of my secret, wildly improbable dreams was to be a dancer and to dance in a music video. Andy now sort of made that dream a reality! ;) Too fun!

Briefly, let me just say that if you've never been to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan - don't go! We'd like to keep it to ourselves as one of the "best kept secrets" that it currently is (except to all those who already live and vacation there, of course - mostly the Chicago crowd). Seriously, though, the sand dunes and beaches are gorgeous (fine, white sand). The water was cool and clear - perfect for swimming (which I tried to do, twice a day when possible). We also rented a standup paddle board and it was so incredibly fun but also surprisingly serene and soothing. There were also a few epic workouts, of course, as this is my family's idea of fun and the shoreline and surrounding area provide lots of creative opportunities for physical outlets. There are first-rate restaurants, art galleries, high-end antique shops, boutiques, wineries, an abundance of fresh and local (including u-pick and farmer's markets) produce, and, of course, bountiful opportunities to relax on the beach or back in the "forest" (as my son Elijah called it) where the cottage was.

We had SO much fun - as you will see from Andy's video! Also, he posted a great article on his blog today (and I don't say that only because he references one of my heros, Martha Beck, and myself within a few paragraphs of each other! ;). He has a really inspiring message on the power of focusing your attention on where you want to go as well as more fun photos.

Here's again, is the link for the video: Lake Michigan vacation, Camp Hazelhurst

Feeling Stuck? A powerful, well-posed question can tap into your creative spirit.

2011-06-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the power of questions to provoke thought, spark creativity, or guide spiritual inquiry.

I just quickly want to share my tweak on a familiar question. It's been extremely helpful for me in breaking free and getting beyond many mental and emotional blocks.

You have all probably heard the quote:

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

Although I "get" this question intellectually, it just doesn't do anything for me. Not only that, it seems to set up additional internal resistance. It's as if my spirit really gets hung up on what I perceive as a double-negative-hurdle: the "not-fail."

What I realized I need was a question that "turned me on," so to speak. After feeling around inside of it for awhile and playing with it, I realized that what does give me a sense of openness and release, what does send my imagination and energy soaring is the following:

What would you do if you knew you would be fabulously, wildly, unbelievably awesomely successful?

Sometimes I change it up up it if it starts to feel stale. For example, I'll think, "What would you do if you knew you could only be...." Often times I play around with the words in italics. I'll go searching for just the right combination until I find the ones that have both that feeling of deep, down resonance and outward soaring, heart singing, spirit taking flight.

I'll share in a next post one of my recurring answers to this (which will be an exercise in both creativity and vulnerability for me!).

DIY Intuition

2011-06-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm having a little fun at my own expense with that title. Looking outside of myself for the kind of wisdom that comes from the fountain of truth that can only be reached within you is something I know I'm frequently apt to do.

Whether it's books or blogs, this teacher or that new (to me) technique, I have always CHASED down anything that looked like it might make a good meal - or even a junky snack - and thereby satiate my voracious appetite for wisdom.

My idea of what qualifies as wisdom has evolved considerably over the years (though this is another story for another post - but you know the one about thinking I could go to law school to find it, right? Yes. That story is called, "Law School Is Not an Ashram - Or Is It?").

trust

yourself.

you know more than you

THINK

you do.

(dr. spock)

Of the many startling revelations I've had on this "quest for truth," perhaps the most shocking has been to discover that I really DO know more than I think I do. I mean, I KNEW, this for years. KNEW = as in read about how this was true from many credible sources, people with far more research and life experience to back them up, some of them even with many more letters behind their name (such as Dr. Spock, whose pithy quote I referenced above has been hanging on my fridge since freshman year in college, so whose words I have stared at and read now for over ten years). KNEW as in, yes, I get that that should be true, I can grasp and accept it intellectually, but I had very little experience with it. So, what I'm really getting at in I KNEW I ought to trust myself and that I knew more, yadda, yadda, yadda...but I really had no frickin' clue.

Just today, as I was contemplating writing a post on intuition, my eyes fell upon that Dr. Spock magnet for million-ith if not quadrillion-ith time. But this time was different. This time something new occurred to me and, much the way your pronunciation of a word changes if the emphasis is placed on a different syllable, my understanding of the quote changed as my attention dwelled more on one particular word - "THINK."

I don't know if Dr. Spock did this intentionally, but suddenly a koan-like aspect to this commonly tossed about bit of wisdom smacked me upside the head. I had made the connection many times before between "Trust Yourself. You know more than you think you do." But I had always taken it, quite literally, to mean, "Give yourself a little more credit. You are smarter than you realize."

Now, however, I see another meaning. And it's a meaning that gives a great clue into, and illustrates a great truth about, the intuitive process. The way to access your place of wisdom is NOT to THINK your way into it, it is NOT about reasoning, or logic, or rationale. You canNOT THINK your way to intuition. In fact, "thinking" too much can, at best, short-circuit the intuitive process. "Thinking" too much, at its worst, can be so debilitating as to disempower you. It disempowers you by convincing you to believe the holy grail lays outside of yourself. So you go chase it. And this effectively cuts you off from your own source of truth. Your own integrity. And once you've left this place (I believe it's "vacating your soul") how can you ever truly completely trust or know the validity of any proposed truth that is external to you? You no longer have a benchmark. You are no longer moored to your soul. You just drift about, thrown this way and that by each new wave, or storm, of information (many posing as truths) that come along. You start to wonder who you are, you may even just experience a mild, but noticeable sense of something not being right. Like a low-grade, but chronic ennui. You may experience mild self-disgust, or extreme self-loathing. You may feel mild disgust or loathing or fear for or about certain "targets" in your life - people, places, experiences. All symptoms of being separated from your soul.

There is, of course, a paradox here. Coming full circle meant that leaving myself was required for me to discover the way back into - and more deeply - into myself. And that along the way I've been continually and increasingly drawn to teachers, philosophers, poets whose wisdom espouses trusting oneself. What can I say? "Do I contradict myself? Yes, I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes." (to paraphrase Walt) I have been BEYOND blessed with to encounter perfect-for-me teachers, embodied in experiences and in people, even before I was aware of the path I was on. These teachers (who I want to name/link but will do so in a next post as I'm already late for making dinner) have so often taught me precisely what I needed to learn - much of it was in the teaching of tools of how to know what I already know. Did intuition guide me to them, unbeKNOWNST to me? How trippy is this rabbit hole? So, anyway, I digress, but in the meantime send them lots of gratitude and love....

I've come from viewing "intuition" as a sort of cool, although maybe New-Agey woo-woo concept, from believing (mostly secretly) that it was a sixth-sense that maybe some particularly gifted possessed, to believing (mostly publicly, as of today) that it is a way of experiencing our own deepest wisdom. Furthermore, I believe it is a divine language, therefore a language of the soul and God.

Therefore, because I believe everyone (and possibly even trees - yep, might as well put myself WAY out there while I'm at it) has a soul, it goes without saying that I believe EVERYONE can possesses the gift of intuition. Not just the hippies in broomstick skirts and hemp necklaces selling crystals (the quartz kind, people, not the meth kind) in the Ped Mall in downtown Iowa City, or other such seemingly disenfranchised fringe-dwellers on other liberal college campuses (I don't know who ever would stereotype people who believe in things like "intuition" as being only like this...).

Trust thyself:

every heart vibrates to that iron string

(Emerson)

Because I'm a little tired of quoting Dr. Spock and because I love poetry and Emerson, let's turn to this quote above (the quotes share a similar feature I want to examine more closely). Now let's put the emphasis on WHO we are trusting. Yes, yes, I know you you already know you are supposed to trust yourself. But how many of us actually DO this? How many of us profess to admire audacity, individuality, creativity, boldness, genius, risk-taking, and those who "march to the beat of a different drum" and who "speak truth to power" and who refuse to be swept along with the crowd... and yet how many of us speak outside of both sides of our mouth when it comes to this? How many of us criticize and judge people in the act of non-conforming? How many of us try to contort and manipulate ourselves in order to conform? How often to we relegate own judgment, thinking, wisdom to second-class citizen status (at best) and defer to the "experts" or wait until we have the stamp of approval from at least one thousand and one raving, fiercely loyal fans?

How many of us engage in this sort of self-sacrificing duplicity? Well, I know there is at least one.

ME.

But I am getting better.

Looking back, I can see that there have been countless times when I WAS experiencing my intuition, but I discounted it, by virtue of it being my own. In other words, I'd experience an impression, a thought, an idea, a sentence, a word, an image, etc., that seemed utterly original and very interesting to me, but I'd dismiss it a nano second later, having made a split-second judgment that the best, most trustworthy information only comes from outside one's self, preferably with footnotes acknowledging even more trustworthy primary sources (and you better hope those primary sources have LOTS of data and authors with prestigious degrees as evidence of their worth!).

In truth, I think I was also dismissing it because owning my own wisdom would mean I'd have to speak it, have to stand up for it. And that seemed just way to scary. Much easier to go back to chasing after everything else that's already been proven (and, downside, done) or after people who look like they know what they're doing - or they've at least convinced enough other people that they know what they're doing.

Exhausting.

I'm tempted to leave it at that. To leave yourself again and again in search of the truth is to live outside of yourself. To not trust yourself is to vacate your interior space, it is to attempt to leave your soul. I've done this over and over again through the years - in search of truth, in search of approval, of validation, of happiness, of joy, of peace - you name it. And then I had to stop because I was exhausted. Another common way of phrasing the sort of experience I had that caused me to stop is to say that I was depressed (though I now try to refrain from using that sort of generic label because it can often times be more restrictive than helpful).

Exhausted. Depressed. Two tremendous gifts. They are like inroads to your intuition because when you are in a place of feeling exhausted and depressed it can seem like there are no other roads than these two that lead in. It felt like defeat at the time, though, and I was ashamed and embarrassed that I was unable to deal with the world. I was afraid that I was inadequate and now, to boot, permanently damaged. To retreat back into myself felt like "failure" and giving up. But from where I stand now, I look back and the word "retreat" has a much different meaning to me. It was like my soul was calling me back, bringing me back to a place of safety, of privacy - to a place of refuge. My soul, being MY soul, knew me and my bulldoggish tenacity, and although it had tried to get my attention in other, more subtle, gentle ways, it knew that all along I had these fears of failure and inadequacy and that it would have to wait for me as I tried to kill two birds with one stone. My plan to outrun my fears and chase down knowledge and accomplishment. I'd tackle them, roll to the ground, put them in a chokehold and never let go.

(It all makes sense to me now. Once, in a very unhappy place, I finally conceeded to seek medical help. I told the doctor about my symptoms. She then asked if I had tried exercise. I explained that I was training, on average, 15 hours a week for triathlons and marathons, with one goal being to run a sub 2:52 marathon. She told me I must be okay because no one with depression would work out that much. I believed her - because she was the doctor. And so that's when I entered a phase of believing that feeling "depressed" must be my new normal.)

But what does all of this have to do with DIY intuition? Do-It-Yourself intuition is just that, of course. You can only do it yourself. In order TO do it, you must believe you can. You must TRUST yourself and not sublimate the whispers, wonders, wanderings of your heart to your mind's endless obsession with fancy degrees, the credibility of research, and buy-in from the mainstream public. The mind will forever want to OWN a CERTAINTY. Whereas the soul has never known or forgotten the truth - it IS of the same thing that Truth is. This is why fear is experienced in the mind and the soul is never shaken, not capable of being shaken.

Here is one personal story of when I have "heard" my "intuition":

On one sunny but wintry March afternoon I was sitting on the couch in my living room. My boys were sleeping and I was so itching to be doing something, anything, to escape the discomfort of this "itch" but I decided instead to sit down and let myself experience it and see what might be underneath it. I sat and realized I was sitting in the thick of a painful story that was running on constant reply just beneath the surface of my ordinary day. So, I sat there and decided to turn towards it, the discomfort, the itch, and let myself be immersed, drowned - so I thought - by the story. It really felt as if it would consume me. But it didn't, of course. And when the intensity of the sensation had passed, I felt like clouds had parted and I "prayed." More specifically, what I was doing was trying to be still and just listen with every ounce of me - and more - training my hearing - and more - in a way that caused me to feel more open and more still. And then these words came:

You think I would let you fall. I would not let you fall.

And then, almost as an afterthought:

Besides, there is no such thing as "falling."

Intuition does not always speak so loudly or clearly as this, but it DOES have a deep reverberation with the soul, it is a deep, deep peace.

Sometimes the impression is not that strong, sometimes it is more fleeting and much lighter. Like a hummingbird hovering at the mouth of the flower for just moments, intuition may blow you the faintest whisper of a kiss. A key to is have a practice (which is EVER-EVOLVING - seems redundant but we all need reminders, it seems, of what a PRACTICE entails) of stillness, trust, and reverence. You have to first believe you know more than you think you do, you have to believe you ARE more than you THINK, and you have to be awake to the sacredness of your life and the sanctity of all life. You have to return to your interior, to your soul again and again, and trust what you experience there. And be comfortable with self-doubt (if you are me, anyway).

Sometimes the sage WILL be wearing velvet robes and be sitting in an ivory tower. Sometimes the sage WILL have written the book that the big house publishing firm paid a six-figure advance for and EVERYONE loves (so says the NYT best-seller lists). Sometimes the sage will be the priest wearing the Roman collar or the CEO wearing the Armani suit.

Sometimes the sage will be a friend who, unknowingly, emails you a poem that was just so exactly what you needed to read that you weep with gratitude at the feeling that "Someone(s)" are watching over you, do love you. Sometimes the sage will be "the colorful local" on your street, who, on days when you're in a hurry, you are tempted to avoid by crossing the street, but, maybe on a hunch, maybe out of a conscious decision to cultivate a warmer, more open heart, you don't and he then proceeds to tell you a story that splashes colors of azure, fushia, cadmium yellow, indigo across a day that would otherwise have been a safe, neutral beige.

Sometimes the sage will be wearing a diaper and a onesie covered in curdled spit-up. Sometimes the sage will spout old soul wisdom from behind a nuk while never looking up from his Thomas the Train table. Sometimes the sage will be wearing, today, J.Crew outlet shorts, a white t-shirt with a rainbow and "Irish at heart" on it, polka dot socks, and a ponytail. This sage's intuition, emboldened by the self-bestowed title of "Sometimes a Sage", can sometimes also take on a bit of smart ass, as evidenced by the inspiration to leave you with the following, utterly profound ending...

"WORD OUT, y'all!"

Love,

Leah

"Crooked Rows" or "The Bridge to Butch's Woods"

2011-06-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

Here is my "Happy Father's Day, Part 2!" What follows is an excerpt from a story (creative non-fiction) that I wrote a few years ago.

Riding in the combine with my father was always a special time. We sang along to the radio, listened to Iowa football games, or watched for the wildlife that would appear running or flying along the edge of the open field before disappearing again into the dark interior of the timber. In chilly late afternoons of October and November, the dusty fields of stalks were lit by a suffusion of gold, crimson above and behind them, gold all around us, floating in the soft and flawless light. It was everywhere, this gold. I could even see it when I looked through the window behind our seats at the bin where a torrent of grain was spilling in, piling into a small golden mountain. Some days the day didn’t seem to darken but to exhale, the sun suffusing a golden light over a golden land and then slipping over the horizon, pinks, crimsons, a sailor’s sky trailing behind it like a fiery scarf. Part of the reason for the spectacular harvest sunsets was the clouds of dust that rose collectively from the harvest, dust from the stalks, the grain, and, if it was particularly dry, from the fields and the gravel roads. The dust was pervasive this time of year and it congealed into a residue that hung thick in the air, clung to your skin and plugged your nostrils. Also drifting in the harvest air was a peculiar sort of pink snow flurry. The outer husks of corn kernels, called bees’ wings, are a translucent pink color, and when they’re shed from the kernel, they rise and float up through the air.

When I was very young, I watched all this as I sat in my Dad’s lap, my child hands on the steering wheel next to his. The rough terrain of his hands was traced and outlined by freckles and lines, rivers and tributaries of dirt and grease embedded in the creases of his skin and around the edges of his fingernails. When I got drowsy, I’d lean back against his shoulder, into the soft warmth of his red and black checked flannel shirt, close my eyes and smell his aftershave and the Big Red chewing gum that I knew, even without seeing it, he was working with a methodic up and down of his jaw. The hot cinnamon smell of that gum and the crispness of the aftershave were tight, clean smells that cut through the grimy thickness of farm smells.

Sometimes, when I was much older and at a point in my life when I was beginning to make a life of my own, my father’s stories made me feel unbearably sorry for him. Every fall I'd make it a point to come home from college and, later, law school for the respite of the open country and time in that cab with Dad. He'd revisit many of the same stories, but when he came to the ones where he questioned whether it was truly his calling in life to be a farmer, I wanted to tell him that he wasn’t, as he'd sometimes refer to himself, "just an old dirt farmer." But the words stuck in my throat and I knew I couldn’t say them without crying. I felt the distance between me sitting in the buddy seat and him driving the combine, as wide as the gulf of years that separated me as an adult and me as the child who had once sat on his lap. In these moments I wanted to tell him of the things that were really important in life. Like how I would always remember how good he smelled. Even if he had been doing hog chores, even if he wore evidence of it on his pants and boots, he still had this smell of something good underneath: aftershave, hot cinnamon gum and sometimes even cologne. I wanted to tell him that I would someday tell my children how my siblings and I used to crowd the doorway to our family’s bathroom to watch him shave, fascinated by the entire process. When he finished, he’d turn a small glass bottle of green aftershave over, splash some into his palm and then make a scene of slapping the stuff onto his face. He'd howl in mock pain and give a quick final slap to both cheeks, then grimace at his reflection in the mirror and say, You handsome devil, you! Don’t you ever die! We would laugh and laugh and then he would look down at us and act startled, throwing his hands up in the air and jumping, as if he was surprised to see us there.

I couldn't quite put my finger on why, no matter whether he believed he'd lived life right, I believed that the fact I had even just one memory like this (not to mention countless others) was sufficient evidence that he had lived life as he was meant to live it. We’d sit in silence for awhile, a vast space in which I felt adrift, like somehow the moorings to my childhood - my home - had been severed. Eventually, though, he would clear his throat and say something. Daughter, I can still remember when you were just a baby and your mother would bring you out here to me on her way to Saturday evening mass. I’d sit you in your car seat right there in front of the window and your head would bob up and down as you tried to keep up with watching the stalks as they were felled and pulled into the augur. In five minutes you’d be out cold. He laughed when he said this, but his eyes were wet with tears. The gulf between us seemed to fall away and we rode together, inhabiting a shared silence that felt so deeply of home. I’d lean my head against the same shoulder, the same soft checkerboard shirt he wore when I was a little girl, and when I smelled that aftershave I'd smile and think, You handsome devil, you, don’t you ever die.

Happy Father's Day WEEK! :)

2011-06-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

I have 2 1/2 hours left until Father's Day WEEK (you knew you had all week, right?) is over, and with everyone in bed and the house quiet - I hope to post this tonight...

Sammy & his Dad, hanging out on Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there - biological, adoptive, foster, and also those who act as fathers in spirit!

In celebration I wanted to post a few special words recognizing my husband Brad and also my own dear Dad.

Elijah & Brad, "hanging out" :) on campus

First, for Brad, a quote from St. Francis de Sales that I thought fit him so well, beginning way back when we were dating. These words seem all the more apt to me now that I've had the opportunity to witness him parent - he is a remarkable father and continues to teach me so much about patience and about a certain way of being- quiet but solid substance that I can think of no other way of describing than to say, salt-of-the-earth, bedrock goodness.

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength."

Brad & Samuel, Day 1

And for my own Dad - let me start this way...

One of the great blessings of being a parent, for me, has been to see my parents being grandparents. This is my mom and dad with Elijah, 3 days old. Don't they look so delighted?! (And this picture was taken right after they spilled out of their car after an 8 hour drive in the Midwest winter!)

I recently heard a discussion that included the challenges of raising children in this fast-paced world. There is so much coming at that them, so much they have to grapple with at such a young age. Then the person being interviewed remarked that one of the greatest things you can do for children is to hold a space where their lives can unfold.

Unfoldment. This was one of the gifts of my childhood. My parents, by virtue of being who they are and what they aspired to be, held that space for us.

I know this space for unfoldment was also made possible by the geography of my youth, which, in turn, was made possible by virtue of Dad's vocation as a farmer.

This is my dad with Elijah this past winter. Elijah LOVES tractors and so the fact that both of his grandfathers drive them further elevates their hero status in his eyes. In this last picture he is instructing my dad (who he calls "Bapoo") that he should not stop for pictures and instead should continue to drive out of the yard.

I know Dad might argue that he's not sure farming was his true love, but I know he wouldn't argue that being a father is part of his true calling, and to me, they've always been inextricably bound. I think one reason is that the qualities that led him to farming - and to doing it very well - also made him a wonderful father. Then there is that question of physical place and geography, which I didn't completely understand until I heard this recent reference to holding a space for the unfoldment of children's lives. The landscape of my childhood is so woven into my concepts of family, belonging, and the way my parents parented. I think that this, in large part, was because it was a shelter for this unfoldment. There is even more to it, though. When I think of my dad, I can't help but get an impression of place, of country, of home. (I wrote a short story for him a couple years ago and I think this was part of what I was trying to get at in that piece. I'll post an excerpt in the next post and you can see what you think.)

Thank you, Dad, for being that shelter and for making home such a wonderful place from which to come and to return. I love you.

Reason # 5, 983 that I love my dad: He discovered that singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" to Samuel will calm him down, sometimes even enough to put him to sleep!

In gratitude, celebration, and love of good fathers everywhere,

Leah

Flare Up, Make Shadows

2011-06-20T18:53:00.001-07:00

I was pouring my heart into a much longer post earlier today...on Beauty, Truth, Intuition, the Invisible/Visible, the Soul...I then left it to write a "quick and easy" submission for a contest to meet an artist I adore. 75 minutes later (it was only a blog comment, for Pete's sakes! And I don't even know that quality counts! Sheesh, Louise, Leah...but I would SO love to meet this artist - Kelly Rae Roberts...anyway...), after I submitted my - ahem - blog comment, my computer froze. I think I can salvage most of what I had written for this blog but I was looking forward to posting today so, for now, I'd like to share this sublime quote (Rilke):

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Rilke

Arresting. Despite the wired, semi-scattered feeling I am experiencing this evening, these words still me and move like a heat-seeking missile to the deepest part of me. This is what truth and beauty can do - like a well-placed arrow, drop you, drop you so you feel the stillness, the still-aliveness in the deepest parts of you. I read it over and over for the sense of being lost in the mystery but also for the sense of deep resonance when the truth finds and lands squarely in your soul, then sends ripples, vibrating in resonance to that truth, to the farthest reaches of your being.

Love,

Leah Rae

Courage

2011-06-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

I've had so much on my mind and plate lately. I've been trying to write as much as possible, often times with an eye toward assembling everything I've learned that's helped me so tremendously into something that might help others as well.

Though it's pretty messy and chaotic right now, I wanted to drop back in and share at least a little of something that's aligned with what I've been thinking about.

What follows are a few excerpts from Brene Brown's blog as well as her book, "The Gift of Imperfection."

For me, practicing ordinary courage means telling my story with all of my heart.  

The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage literally had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” (Brene Brown http://www.ordinarycourage.com/ordinary-courage/)

If this strikes a chord for you, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what it means to live courageously.

XO-

Leah

"Welcome to the spinning world..."

2011-05-31T07:49:00.000-07:00

We are so glad you've come!

I'd like to introduce you to the newest sweetheart in my life... Audrey Elizabeth arrived Saturday morning, May 28 to justifiably proud parents Andy and Tracey (my brother and sister-in-law).

Being the lovey that it is already so clear that she is, Audrey generously agreed to grace my blog with her beautiful face and hold down the fort for me while I'm busy unpacking and settling everyone in (and down) after traveling for 10 days.

I may be biased, but I do believe she is one of the prettiest babies I have ever seen. If you love baby photos as much as I do (you know who you are - you get all weepy and a deeply joyful feeling in your chest all at the same time), please see below. If you want more, more can be found at my brother's blog, Babies & Basketball.

"Welcome to the spinning world," the people sang,

as they washed your new, tiny hands.

"Welcome to the green Earth," the people sang,

as they wrapped your wet, slippery body.

And as they held you close

they whispered into your open, curving ear,

"We are so glad you've come!"

("On the Day You Were Born," by Debra Frasier)

Genius Hour/Publication Arrives!

2011-05-17T05:43:00.001-07:00

My Genius Hour has, quite literally, finally arrived!

Cathryn Castle Whitman and her 12/16 Design Group along with Dr. Angela Lauria of Journey Grrrl Publishing combined forces to produce this inaugural issue of Genius Hour and it is gorgeous! (You don't have to take my word for it, though! Please click through to see it for yourself, if you haven't already.)

This first issue features essays from the writers of Martha Beck's Writer's Dream Retreat which was held last October. Being a part of that retreat...wow. My fingers just hang above the keyboard and my mind is still searching for just the right words. I am still processing that experience. It not only has changed my direction as a writer but it was one of those experiences that transform you forever, lifting you up to see a vision of life and a sense of your own possibility and power that you just might not have had if you hadn't put yourself out there. I'm so glad I went - grateful to Martha Beck, Betsy Rapoport, and Susan Hyatt, for putting it on, but my life also was and has been deeply enriched by the other writers there. I didn't think my appreciation, admiration, amazement, love for them could possibly increase. But then my copy of this magazine arrived and their writing, this further glimpse into their lives, has deepened and increased that love.

The remarkable thing is, is that when I walked into that retreat on the first morning, everybody looked pretty normal. I mean, it was a regular hotel conference room (but the coffee, fruit and oatmeal were extra nice! :) and it seemed populated by regular enough people - except, maybe, for the fact that everyone seemed very nice, outgoing, and extremely excited to be there (who wouldn't be when one of your heros is due to speak to you in just minutes!).

But as the weekend went on and we all took turns telling our stories - our REAL stories, the things most dear and true to us - I realized that this group was far from ordinary.

And as I sit in my house this morning, writing before my boys wake up, engaging in my usual routine, I'm looking at my copy of the magazine and feeling deeply grateful for the magic of being connected to all of these extraordinary people.

What's also unfolding for me is a new level understanding of the power of storytelling. If it weren't for the opportunity to share our stories during that retreat, I would have continued in my mistaken, unfortunate belief that these people were as ordinary as their appearances tended to suggest.

Which leads me to believe in something I have known all along, but sometimes it's a deep understanding that gets covered up with the detritus of the fast pace of everyday living. And that knowledge is that NO ONE is ordinary - not even me. ;) (My husband, I know, is shaking his head, saying he knew this all along!).

Which leads me back to one of the reasons I write. To know myself, to have a deeper understanding of the meaning and sacredness of my life and all lives. But another part - a part that has been scary for me but which I've been trying to encounter gently, bravely (though in small doses, I see now) is allowing other people to see me, whether it be through writing on this blog or in sharing my writing with other writers at that retreat or in sending my work in for publication. My willingness to do this, my courage and my belief that it is important, good work, has been immeasurably increased by the love and other support given by the special network of writers that are featured in this magazine, as well as, always, by my dear loved ones (my family and friends that are family). Your courage and love inspire me to want to pass that courage and love onto others, to let them be SEEN and let them deeply know LOVE. Writing may be one way of doing that yet.

Thank you.

Love,

Leah

The Magic of Wordlessness

2011-05-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

"To see is to forget the name of that which you see."

A couple weeks ago I was working on a new painting, a larger-life-life, zoomed in still life of yellow roses that would leap out of the canvas with both the joyful exuberance and quiet beauty conveyed by the spring bouquet sitting on my kitchen table.

This, anyway, was what I was envisioning.

It was not going so well. I'd done the underpainting, liked my composition, and now, honestly, I was scared of screwing it up. I was hesitantly, timidly laying in petal structure, keeping one eye my canvas and the other on the photos I was working from, all the time feeling like I was simultaneously trying to do logarithms, long division, and write a grocery list in my head. (This is what painting sometimes feels like to me - trying to hold so many relationships in mind all at once, simultaneously holding the big picture and countless little detailed, spatial relationships all at once! Definitely another proof that everything is one, everything is connected - but that's another post...)

Meanwhile, the dialogue in my head had nothing to do with roses and went a little something like this, "See? You thought it'd all been going so well, you thought you had achieved a major mind-shift and gotten rid of me and freed yourself up to paint... but look, I'm [that be "I" for "Inner Critic"] still here and you're no better than when you started. You're not talented, you can't paint, you don't have enough time for this, why don't you just give up now and curl up crying on the bathroom floor?"

Just about then, David, my painting teacher who I swear is part-Shaman, part-saint, and all parts master painter and sculptor, came over and gestured to my painting and then waved his hands in front of my face like he was casting a spell to cast out those demon thoughts. "Come on now! You need to loosen up! Remember, you're not trying to paint a rose. Just paint the colors and shapes that you see. The rose will evolve on its own!"

Of course! How could I have forgotten WORDLESSNESS!

So many times, times that I've only stumbled into this silent state of mind and times when I've entered intentionally, I've thought, "Yes! This is it! This is one of the master keys!"

Going wordless has been for me a "shortcut" in meditation to quiet the mind, but it's also allowed me some of those wondrous, mysterious, flow-like, and even, sometimes, transcendent experiences. It didn't matter whether I was painting, praying, playing pick-up basketball, riding my bike, swimming, or even parenting - the times I've been able to drop into wordlessness seemed to allow me feel both deeply connected, centered, peaceful, joyful and also opened in me the ability to access the best of my capabilities, even to sometimes seemingly exceed what I thought were my current limits of talent and skill.

Going wordless, always, ALWAYS has opened up a way of seeing that feels more awake, more ALIVE, more deeply truth to me than how I had been viewing the experience, person, or object. Thus the quote,

"To see is to forget the name of that which you see."

And because I am constantly looking for relationships and applications in all the non-obvious places (because it is fun and shockingly effective at times!), I have, in my entire two years of experience, been practicing this technique of going wordless in my parenting and in how I see my children. The results have been a GIFT, an absolute blessing for which I'm deeply grateful.

I'll give you more info on this soon - for now those children are awake and so I best close for this morning.

Until next time...