Day 15: Confronting Fear / Developing Faith

The fire feathers of our patridge cochin chicken, Tres (short for Trespassers).

Small poem for the morning


BIRDS

Nattering, chattering
pecking, crowing, oh, and
musical sighs of remembrance and sorrow--
It's like this everyday


***

In Soul Coaching we've now entered Fire week. I realized that in past Novembers, our family had participated in Lantern Walks--organized by the small nature school our daughters attended-- with story, song, and with hot cider and warm pumpkin muffins after. This was part of the sweet rhythm of the year that we enjoyed on Vashon Island for awhile (perhaps more my and my daughter Gwynne's cup of cider than the rest of our family's!). Anyway, I was aware that, now that we've moved to a whole new community, this festival is passing us by!

Keeping in mind that we are sparking a new life here, I've decided to make lanterns with Gwynne this week -- watercoloring some thick paper, cutting shapes in it, and gluing in a translucent colored paper, fingerknitting a handle, and carefully taping in a tea light. Maybe we'll have a little lantern walk to a friend's house in the neighborhood. Or maybe it will just be in our backyard, under stars and cloud and waning moon, soft singing for the sleeping chickens!

Day 14: Choosing Your Life

Wallowa Lake - is that me in that little red boat out there?

So, I've been lurking at Soul Coaching, a bookgroup blog focused on the book, Soul Coaching, by Denise Linn. I wasn't going to participate, but as the days passed, I found (as is the nature of these things) the color and concerns and texture of my life to be mirroring the focus of the day. I love that kind of sympathetic magic!

So, here I am on the last day devoted to the quality, archetype, element, being of Water. The thought for the day is what final limiting thought (or what have you) would you like to wash away? The I-Don't-Know I came up with for today is: I don't know if I'll ever finish any of my (big) creative projects again! ...

Considering that thought, my first response was to release this thought: I don't finish what I begin. But that's an old, tired, definitly not true thought from my achievement-is-everything days.

The thought I'd like to release is actually this: Completing projects is all-important.

The "boat" I choose is one I've been living for awhile: the knowledge that I choose my projects (Kamana Naturalist Training Program, writing my children's book, dreaming of creating a folk choir or a Threshold choir in this new place of ours) because they bring certain threads of aliveness and being in my life, lenses of awareness, purpose, and magic. Whether I actually birth or complete these projects doesn't matter right now (if they ever will). In the meantime, they support me in being curious, immersing myself in the new nature of my place, challenging myself to view the world in a mischievous, child-magic way, learning songs and sharing them in my day-to-day life, and offering simple ways to eventually connect with my community.

I write all that, but I also know that small steps lead to mountains. So, while I release the need to have a particular outcomes, I do know that just living in my nature (which comes alive when I have a particular weave of purpose around me) will likely lead to the emergence in this world of many of these dreams that carry me along. Or a slightly different forms of them.

Okay, on with the day!