Come with me?

Friends, Romans, Seekers, Spiritual Lovelies, Marrow-Makers, Ladies, and Gentleman....

It's a happy day and a sad day, as most transitions are, for better or worse.  And there should be some cute and clever way that I say this, and find a deep quotation to accompany it, and a gorgeous picture... but honestly, it's just a small thing in life.  Leaping from one blog host to another.  the end.  let's keep it in perspective, shall we?

Leaving my 1st blog home and moving over to....

http://marrowandmeaning.wordpress.com/


Come with me!  New things in store, freebies and organizers, marrow-maker reminder posters... lots of stuff to help bring meaning into your everyday life, in small and big ways.

Check in and let me know you're there!

Of course, you can find me tweeting an retweeting at Twitter.com.  @Marrow_Meaning

Peace, Blessings, and Bloggin',
JJ

Never too early

     Thank heavens to betsy the weather is getting warmer, because it's time for me to get out and about with the camera! I've officially used that photo up there for every single post related to guidance.

     I wanted to share the ways children can help us awaken.  They are so close to the Source, there is no "stuff" between them and Spirit/God/Consciousness/Goddess/however you like to call that magnificent grace inside each of us.

    Following a fabulously soul-nourishing workshop with Tama Kieves titled Unleashing Your Calling: Create the Work and Life you Love, I began to commit to getting back in touch with my guiding inner voice and intuition.  On a side note, if you ever have a chance to attend one of Tama's workshops, run, don't walk.  For a few minutes every morning, I've been asking a question and sitting quietly with myself.

     This morning Miss Diva D happened to be awake with me so I invited her to join me.  Here's how it went:

Me: OK D, what we do is ask a question, like...
D: Can I watch a movie?
Me: Perfect.  OK, so we ask a question like "Can I watch a movie?" and then we close our eyes and listen for our inner voice. [Seriously, do you think I'm ruining this child for life or what?]  What does your inner voice say?
D: I love you!

That's all folks.  Your inner voice loves you.  From the mouths of babes.

Do you believe in miracles?

A short story...

I ordered a bathing suit online.  I've never weighed more (or cared less - another post in itself... body freedom!)

I ordered a bathing suit online, and they had 1 size left so I went for it.

I ordered the one size, online, and had enough discounts and coupons to reduce a $100 bathing suit to ...

$5.00

It arrived today and fit perfectly and looked great.

That, my friends, is something to marvel at!

It's BIG! It's SOOO BIG!

   All this marrow business... did I ever tell you how it came about?  Pull up a chair... or a gardening kneeler.. HEE HEE!  (I am so GIDDY about gardening analogies right now... stay tuned for a couple weeks and you'll know why!)

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” -Henry David Thoreau

     I'll never forget being hit between the eyes with "DELIBERATELY" and "SUCK OUT ALL THE MARROW OF LIFE" when I first heard that quotation.   How powerfully "And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" resonated in my very own marrow and stayed there through thick and thin, creating an overarching umbrella of protection.  Under the umbrella is forgiveness, not sweating the small stuff, being present, living respectfully on the earth... all these small acts that add up to deliberate, meaningful living.  

     That's what brought me to this blog... from trying to find new uses for yogurt containers rather than filling up landfills, to struggling through postpartum depression while trying to keep everything in perspective, to parenting mindfully, to living our best lives... this is all the marrow.  Dancing with the dishes.  Candlelit shower.  Electric Connections.

    It doesn't feel big enough.  Still all around me is petty drama, he-said she-saids, hyper amounts of energy all focused on .... dare I say... meaningless things? That's my judgement, and it's judge-y, but I mean it lovingly because gorgeous creatures and humans on the earth, I want you to feel the freedom I feel!  The glory of living in marrow, of bringing glitter and love and light to other people...

    With that, I'm moving BIG!  In the next few months, I'm preparing to launch a fabulous website aimed at nurturing one another... AT WORK! 

   There, I said it.  So much time... we are at work all the time, including our work as mommies and daddies, and friends and wives and husbands and daughters... and as secretaries and CEOs and waitresses and landscapers.... I had the BIG BANG of ideas about work and nurturing... so keep tuned to me... beautiful things are about to GROW (HEE HEE... more gardening analogies..)

Ba-GOCK!!

    That's how my little idea feels.  Like a gorgeous tiny portaluca, trapped beside a giant immovable mountain of wood AKA "how things are done".  I have this fun idea, something involving changing the world from our various positions of leadership, something about connecting as humans for the eight to fifteen hours a day we spend in the work place, something about helping each other bloom and tending to our co workers like precious flowers... I have this seriously smart web designer lady who also is just so fun to bounce ideas off of, and she doesn't believe it yet but she's going to make my dreams a reality.  That is what I have been sitting on, incubating, taking blog time off and twitter time off to meditate, sketch, and nurture this little germ of an idea... feeding it, and looking at how so many roads may have led to this point.  Hmmmmm.

   

Electric Connection

     One thing I love about my child's Montessori school is that lessons are often presented in silence.  At parents' night, the teachers demonstrated sample lessons to us, such as showing the children how to manipulate the infamous Montessori sandpaper tracing letters.  The humming energy and focus in the room, from a bunch of adults who already know their letters, I imagine, was palpable.  Silence is truly powerful.
     Last night my daughter discovered Travel Scrabble, AKA My First Choke Hazard.  Apparently tiny tile letters mesmerize two year olds.  As I tried to interact with her, she gently shushed me because she was doing "her work" ("works" are what the Montessori activities are called).  I sat beside her, both of us in silence, and an electric connection built.  Although I've often felt the "tingle" that comes when you're in the presence of another human being and decide to acknowledge their higher consciousness, the connection between my daughter and I felt like an electric hum, almost visibly twined between us.
     In the contented silence between us, I watched as she seemed to literally become a real kid before my eyes.  Busy, intent, doing her "work," needing nothing from me but my complete presence.
    Mamas and Daddies, try it! Spend 10 minutes in complete silence with your child, being present, completely utterly present, and see what builds!

The Big Pink Meltdown

    Granted, it was a risky move.  Take overtired toddler to Off 5th, the Saks outlet, during a snowstorm - but we all needed attire for The Best Engagement Party Ever coming up next weekend.  Now or never.  Do or die.  Armed with plenty of toddler apps in the iPhones, off we went.  Things started out great.  She was a doll face, helping mommy get in and out of the dresses.  She loved "fashion show".

    Then, she saw it.  The tulle-iest, pinkest, fluffiest, ballerina-twirly dress you can imagine, topped with pink frosted cupcake dreams and then covered in vomit of valentine's day.  It's the kind of dress I've avoided having in her closet since birth.  The dress that stands for everything I've tried to counter.  Unfortunately, my child has been brainwashed by sources that shall remain unnamed (GRANDMA!!!!) and well, she currently believes she is a "Boo-Tee-Fool Pincess".

    So, no harm no foul, we try the dress on.  She. won't. take. it. off.  She's hysterical.  My husband can hear her in the men's department.  This child has never taken to a "lovey" or a "blankie" but she is crying for this dress that Armani himself could probably hear her in the ivory fashion tower.  I finally managed to bribe her out of it by letting her carry it, when we were promptly physically assaulted by a dressing room guard who may have actually never seen a 2 year old before.  She made the error of grabbing it out of D's hand so the precious merchandise wouldn't drag on the floor.  Ever serene, I said "We're buying it!  Give it back, quick!" and snatched it out of her hand and swept D. up to carry her out of there.

     It was too late.  The dress had been threatened, the child was hysterical, the people browsing through racks of $1,421.00 dresses (I know because I accidentally tried one on) were trying to kill us with their eyes, and my knight in shining armor appeared.  He gathered all the mess out of my arms (2 puffy coats, 6 dresses, hat, scarf...) and in a past life, here's what would have gone down:

ME: "Where the f were you? Couldn't you hear her screaming? Why didn't you come sooner?"
HIM: "I was trying to find you"
ME: "Just take this crap and pay and I'll meet you at the car.  This is horrible. I can't believe I can't go anywhere.  Blah blahblahblalalalala.
Hurt feelings, blame, ire, pouting, and probably me grounding myself for a week with no ice cream would have ensured as well as at least 5 hours of silent treatment.

     This time, standing there with a hysterical toddler, surrounded by the Beautiful (thin)(rich) People and fully feeling like That Family, and That Frumpy Mom Who Would Never Wear That D&G Dress, I surrendered.  I looked at my husband and said, "I just don't know what to do right now".  And in that shockingly calm moment of realizing that on this journey of motherhood, I don't have the answers - I don't even have 1/5th of the answers - my mother's intuition took over.  I knew to whisper calmly in her ear, to explain to her all the things that were going to happen between now and when we went to the register.  The crisis was averted, somehow it worked out, and I certainly can't claim it was pretty, that people didn't stare, and that I didn't want to sink into a hole in the designer ground.  But that admission, "I just don't know what to do right now" was liberation.  Freedom.  Complete permission to try something, anything, to see the struggling little human in my arms and work through our Great Big Pink Mess together.

    I hope in my next overwhelming parenting/career/marriage moment, when I feel that complete panic arising, I'll be able to surrender again, which gives me complete control in the situation.  It's a magic white flag to wave!