Year: 2012 (Page 29 of 29)

quests and questions

January 5, 2012 / jeanne / 4 Comments

Who am I now?

What do I want next?

These are questions asked by Sally G. at her altar today, questions I ask myself regularly – questions I have asked myself for a long, long time. These are the questions at the top of the list of questions that enkindled 365 Altars.

What do I know, not What degrees do I have, but What do I know?

Who am I now – not who have I been, but who am I now?

What can I contribute, and not just in terms of money?

How does this longing look dressed in words?

Where do I go from here?

What does the culmination of all the things I’ve done look like?

and the ever popular: What is the purpose/Why am I here, anyway?

I look for clues in my childhood – what did I like that got shoved aside in the mad rush to adulthood? What did I want to do with my life when my life was the only thing that mattered, the only thing I was responsible for?

Inspired by Sally G, I place on my altar today a recording of the first record I purchased with my own money. I moved into the basement apartment that my daddy’s daddy declined to inhabit, and I took the record player that was replaced by a fancy new console entertainment center. On any given day, I’d put this 45 rpm record on the turntable, lower the diamond stylus onto the vinyl, and skate around and around and around the unfinished basement just outside my door, feeling completely free, completely in charge of my own destiny, completely sated. Anything was possible. I was capable, on the ready, and darn near invincible. It was enough just to be me.

It’s how I feel now only in the dark thirty hours on the occasional day.

It’s how I long to feel again on any given moment of any given day (minus the roller skating part, mind you).

As I skated, I knew with my entire being that this song was written for and about me. It’s still necessary to escape occasionally to go downtown and get lost in the crowd, to see brightly lit organized spaces filled with colorful goods that promise to make my life perfect (whatever that is). But I no longer want to leave home to dance. It’s no longer comforting, reassuring, or convincing, this notion that I can crawl through some escape hatch and leave all my troubles and worries behind. I am tired of being encouraged to live for the future.

I don’t want to have to leave myself to be myself.

So maybe I’m a wee bit further along on my quest to self definition, to self determination. And while the lyrics don’t hold what they once did for me, the music still beckons me to get up and dance right here, right now. (Which is good ’cause I’ve vowed to move more this year – preferring the word “move” eversomuchmore than “exercise.”)

And with lingering questions that outnumber answers, I leave you with Petula Clark singing the first record I bought with my own money: Downtown . . .

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365 Altars: honoring our deepest sumptuous selves. 4/365

enough

January 4, 2012 / jeanne / 6 Comments

Path

seems like all my life i’ve had somebody professing to take care of me. and truth be known, i’ve kinda’ wanted somebody to take care of me, someone to watch over me to make sure i don’t misstep or misspeak or miss the boat. somebody to take care of me. and at the same time, i learned during as early as the group projects in elementary school that i am responsible for myself. i have to be.

i don’t have to forage for food or a place to sleep every day, but i do forage for something more.

i am many different people, and maybe i’m just not evolved enough, but my idea of wholeness is not to meld the entire committee into one generic version of self, not to be the same jeanne every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year of every single decade. shoot no. wholeness is welcoming each Committee Of Jeanne Member to the table (with one or two possible exceptions), and go on about my business.

i would like to say there’ll be no more trying to remake myself into an image others will find pleasing and acceptable – i’d love to commit to that – but the truth is, i know me too well by now. there will always be a committee member in search of the gold star, the pat on the head, the atta’ girl. one committee member will always advocate abandoning any idea that isn’t readily met with enthusiasm from somebody outside our committee.

i have committed to walking down this path of 365 Altars, to honoring my deepest sumptuous self every single day, and it is my fervent hope that eventually i will become stronger, more sure of myself, and that i won’t grow another single wrinkle worrying about being found pleasing in the sight of others. that i will stand in front of the mirror and smile at the sight of my self (even first thing in the morning), and that that smile will fill me up.

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365 Altars: honoring our deepest sumptuous selves. 3/365

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a most important note: The notion of 365 Altars was fueled by talking with my sister-in-writing-and-more-much-more Julie Daly of UnabashedlyFemale.com and talks with my sister-in-spirituality-and-so-very-much-more, Angela Kelsey of (of all things) AngelaKelsey.com. I love them.

a funny thing happened on the way to

January 3, 2012 / jeanne / 13 Comments

BackDoor1

: 1 :
i look at the houses
on that flat, straight 2-lane country road,
not much distinguishing
one house from another
save the
vehicles in the yard,
some resting on concrete blocks,
others simply parked.
waiting.

: 2 :
“i’d like to stop
at every house,” i say aloud,
“knock on the door,
and ask the woman who answers:
‘has your life turned out
the way you hoped it would?
the way you wanted it to?
if not, why
and what will you do about it?'”

: 3 :
the epiphany:
i am the woman
on both sides
of the door.

Neglected

More about 365 Altars

365 Altars

January 2, 2012 / jeanne / 15 Comments

365Altars2

An altar is a place you go to reclaim your woman’s intuition. This place says to the busy, rational mind, “Quiet down—let the deeper, wiser woman within you speak!” Over time your view of yourself and your place in the world shifts. The altar becomes a sacred space because you place symbols of your true self on it. As you sit before the altar, these symbols act as mirrors reflecting your deeper self. You see yourself differently while looking in the mirror, and, in time, you find the courage to be this authentic self more frequently in the world. The peace you’ve invested in your altar now radiates back to you. ~ Denise Geddes, A Book of Women’s Altars

Stay is my word for 2012, and my theme for 2012 is surprise. Wanna’ know a secret? These words actually landed on 10/25/11, according to my journal, and though surprise tickled me from the get-go, it’s taken me a while to warm to stay, my resistance waning only as I sit with it (which is another way of saying “stay”) and remember all the various interests and ideas I’ve had that I’ve just left laying by the side of the road. There are so many things I’ve wanted to do, things I’ve longed to investigate, things I’ve wanted to at least try, I can’t help but wonder how my life might be differently now had I silenced those nay-saying Committee of Jeanne members advocating abandonment and moved forward, following the interest, the hobby, the question, the idea without regard to return on investment and such. Can you imagine how many languages I might speak besides English and Southern had I practiced for 30 minutes a day on a regular basis? How many books I might’ve written had I made it my job and showed up to work every day? You get the idea. I get the idea. So what if nobody hailed me and hung onto my every word? So what if hoards of people didn’t enthusiastically throw flower petals at me to share their unending excitement at the mere hint of my proposed adventure?

For those reasons and more, I left one quest after another untended.

But no more.

With that in mind (and because it won’t leave me alone), I’m launching the 365 Altars project for 2012. Just typing the “365” part has me shivering a bit with the commitment of it all. Life has a way of throwing down fistfuls of tacks in my road . . . and I have a way of bringing the car to a screeching halt. There will be speedbumps, of course – some unavoidable, but I will not use that as an excuse to not do this. Not this time.

Every day – every single day – I will stop, drop, and honor my deepest sumptuous self in one way or another. Every single day, I will commit one single creative act – maybe more.

I’d love to have you join me as and if and when you will.

There are a thousand ways our essential nature can be expressed in the world. ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Altars can be something as simple as sharing a photo of something that gives you pause. Or arranging flowers. Or writing a blog post or creating a mixed media collage when words won’t come. Altars can be dancing to music we adore, stitching cloth or paper, painting, baking. Altars are simply ways we honor our deepest sumptuous selves by bringing our inner self into the outside world.

When I think of all the marvelousness we will bring to our lives and to the world when we give our sumptuous, creative, wise, playful selves that extra beat of attention on a regular and consistent basis, I can’t stop the gleeful squeeeeee from bubbling out. In his poem Feast of Epiphany, Kenneth Rexroth says “Let us celebrate the daily/Recurrent nativity of love,/The endless epiphany of our fluent selves.”

Join me as, if, and when you will in enjoying a year of endless surprise – a year of the endless epiphanies of our fluent selves – as we honor our deepest sumptuous selves. How will we gather? Oh, let me try to count the ways . . .

There’s:
a facebook page
a flickr group.
You can use the hashtag #365Altars on twitter
and #365Altars on delicious.
I’ve also created a 365 Altars pinterest board where we can inspire and dazzle and be proud to know each other.

There’s even the 365 Altars Dinaglingy (also known as a newsletter in more uncivilized parts of the world) for those artsy, chortling hearts interested in book talk, creative prompts, and, in keeping with my allegiance to “surprise,” a host of other things I may or may not have hatched yet.

There’s 365 Altar bling, and there’ll be more to choose from as we go along cause if I ask and you say Yes, I’ll make your image bling so we can change our bling as often as we change our shoes. Or lipstick. Or, for some of you, pocketbook.

Oh, good gracious, how could I forget to tell you that if you’ll click on the 365 Altars page here in my little e-nest, you can toss your welcome mat out by adding a link to your blog in the linky thingy so we can all drop by and say “Hey, I LOVE what you’ve done with the place” or something like that (no pizza required.) cause that’s the second what-it’s-all-about, right? Supporting and cheering each other on.

So that’s about it (at least for now) my fellow Surpriseateers. I’ve packed my shoebox with all kinds of creative supplies, and I’m raring to go. How ’bout you?

surprised, again

January 1, 2012 / jeanne / 10 Comments

12 31 11

i cleaned house yesterday.
not metaphorically
but literally.
i hadn’t planned to,
but my self
whispered
“clean, clean”
and so i did.

my self cautioned me:
“clean it
lovingly”
and so i did.
i cleaned
not because
i had to
but
because
i wanted to.
i love this space
i call sacred,
and
cleaning it
with love
makes
all the difference.

i can feel it.

after i’d mopped
the floors,
i looked at
the pail of
dirty water
and my self said
“go. toss it outside.”
and so i did.

last night
as i roamed the blogiverse,
i happened upon this:
a note on facebook
from my friend liz:
“we threw buckets of water outside,”
she wrote
“a Habana tradition, I’m told.
Cleansing,
getting rid of anything
we don’t want in the new year.”
and,
having never, ever
been further south
than naples, florida,
i am
surprised
once again
at how
far and wide,
how deep
my self
knows,
at how
much we are
connected.

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i am hatching an idea – something i’d sure hoped to be ready to tell you about today, but alas. life being what it is and all, it’ll have to wait till tomorrow. maybe even the next day.