Nobody gets up in the morning expecting a tragedy. You're just up, minding your own business - having breakfast, packing your bags, writing your list and checking it twice, walking the dog, getting the kids off to school and yourself off to work - and yet it happens, every day. Every minute of every day, a tragedy is taking place somewhere, somehow, in somebody's life. One minute you're living your life as it exists, then and now, and the next you're holding an empty bag, your life shattered on the sidewalk, wondering how you will ever pick up all those itsy bitsy pieces and pretend they make up a life. Your life. Because nothing can ever be the same, nothing will ever fit quite as it did before.
How can people be scurrying by you as if nothing has happened, as if the world goes on as before? Do they not see the tangled debris on the pavement that used to be everything you had, everything that made up your life? Don't they care?
Your life that felt so real and solid and important somehow, exposed as nothing more than a fragile house of mirrors. You are left with a naked truth only you can know, only you can face. A lesson only you can comprehend. The last mirror left standing in a pile of shards and it's you.
Maybe you're angry. Maybe you're in too much pain to find the strength to be angry. Maybe you're numb and the shock is insulating you from all the horror - for the moment. Maybe you're just too tired to move, and all you want to do is close your eyes and never, ever open them again.
Perhaps you have moments of surging pride and strength where you stand tall and shake your fists at the heavens and declare that tomorrow is another day and the powers that be will not get the better of you. Yet, in the next moment you may find yourself on your knees begging for their mercy, begging for respite from the pain that shreds your soul. You're curled up in a ball like a budding foetus with your ear pressed to the ground, searching for a heartbeat, any heartbeat, any sign that you are not as alone as you feel.
However you get there, however long it takes, the day will come when you find the key to your pain and you know you are not alone, never were. And regardless of who, what, how and why, it is always the same. It is the moment when you stop fighting the facts, stop charging at windmills.
The key is the surrender, the understanding that you will never understand, that this must be released to the heavens like a thousand fluttering white doves, to wing their way to freedom and carry you to peace. It is the surrender that washes away the agony and leaves in its place a muted throb, almost a heartbeat, a soft pink scar where a gaping wound once stood and screamed of the travesty committed against you.
The surrender is the miracle you thought would never be, that brings life where you had thought a desert. The surrender is the key that opens a door you thought had been locked for good, the key that sets your heart to beating once more. Not like before, perhaps, for what is done is done. No, not like before. But full again once more, rich with what was and full of what may now become.
It's hard to think of anything but Moore, Oklahoma this morning. Last week it was Cleburne and Granbury, Texas. We're right smack in the middle between the two areas, and storms are coming our way this afternoon. It's not just the devastating news of so many children lost forever. It's the mindblowing destruction. And after hearing about the horsefarms wiped out yesterday, with hundreds of horses killed, I am wishing more than ever for an underground barn stormshelter..........the helplessness of our children and our animals in the face of such an onslaught of Natures' Fury is all too illustrative of our own feebleness when push comes to shove at the hands of a twist of nature.
I'd love to write some inspiring piece on how at the worst of times, the best in people comes out. It's true, after all. It's just that it may not be over yet and I am bracing myself for the next round that may call for people to abandon personal agendas and leap to the aid of fellow humans. I am bracing myself and fervently hoping it will not be me needing that aid. I am hoping these next two days wash over us with much needed rain and not a single tornado.
For now, all is peaceful. It is overcast and grey, a gentle breeze on a cooler day than the past few hot and humid extremes. Birds are chirping softly, cicadas are sawing their singular song. There is a sense of a quiet expectancy in the air. There is a heavy sadness in my heart. I cannot even begin to imagine what the people of Moore are going through. What the owners of Orr Family Farm who reportedly lost between 75 and 100 horses and saw their entire farm destroyed, are feeling. What the parents of all those little children are coping with today.
In amongst all these stories are the usual stories of miracles and hope. An elderly lady being interviewed describes how the tornado hit and how her dog disappeared - mid interview someone exclaims, there is the dog! And the dog is a few feet from where she stands, silent and stunned, buried in rubble but miraculously alive and well. Horses that wander dazed and confused over the rubble that once was their barn. Mothers that believed their child to be dead but found him or her alive. People that saw the door ripped off of their shelter and thought themselves dead but survived to tell the terrifying story.
Still, it's hard to find a silver lining to this cloud. Little rays of sunshine that peek through the mass of grey and black, yes, but a full silver lining? I guess I'm not there yet. Perhaps because what hit Moore could hit any of us, quite literally, from where I sit, within a couple of hundred mile radius.
A good time to remember - it will be the best it can be. Even when it feels like the worst thing ever.
My sister-in-law called me a few weeks ago. She was beaming down the line and so full of enthusiasm the phone positively glowed redhot in my hand. She had just been to a talk by this guy. There is nothing I can say to do this man justice.
You'll just have to watch it.
A cure for the MMB's (monday morning blues) if ever there was one.
I clearly remember the first time I saw an elephant. I was 8 years old and our family had recently moved to Kenya for three years, a posting my father had secured with the Danish International Development Agency, an agency affiliated with the charitable end of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was there building roads and bridges and silos and what not. I was there falling hopelessly in love with a magical country.
We had been there some six months when we headed out on our first safari. It was Christmas, and we and a couple of other families were headed to The Amboseli National Park to go camping. Amboseli is famous for its elephant population, in particular Echo, a matriarch that elephant researcher Cynthia Moss studied for decades untill Echo's passing a few years ago. You can find the wonderful Echo in books and on DVD - she is one famous and celebrated ellie.
It was our first day in camp, an area ringed by the meager protection of a thicket of palms and shrubbery and trees, but we kids were out on the plain, an ancient dried up lake bed, playing soccer while our parents set up camp. We were shouting and laughing and running around kicking up as much dust as anything else, and I was feeling incredibly small upon this vast and arid plain that stretched for miles into a horizon hazy with the dust of an early dry season. Behind me rose the majestic and mystical Mount Kilimanjaro, a black barnacle rising out of the flat savannah, capped with snow and only adding to my sense of diminutiveness.
As I stood mesmerized by the endless plain I saw something grow out of the dust shimmering in the warm air. Something enormous and dark as slate, something that seemed to sway and wiggle and slowly condense into one massive, ponderous shape with long white tusks gleaming in the sun. I could barely form the word, my hand raised up and my finger pointed, but my mouth worked silently. Finally the word came out "Elephant!" But it was no more than a whisper. Now the other kids spotted her, too, and the cry went up. Everyone shouted elephant at once and took off running for the grownups.
Except me. I stood still, feeling rooted to the ground, unwilling to move, willing the elephant to come closer, yet terrified that she would. I wanted to commune with her. I wanted to tell her she overwhelmed and terrified me and yet, beneath that, I felt nothing but love and awe. The grown ups came running and I was called away to watch from a safe distance as one by one, elephants of all sizes and ages materialized out of the opaque curtain.
Some things have not changed. I am all grown up, but I still feel moved to the very marrow of my bones when in the company of elephants. And when I think of that little girl, and that very soon, no more little girls will be afforded the wonder of such a moment, it breaks my heart.
Because unless we change our ways, it is no longer just a possibility that elephants in the wild will be extinct in ten years.
It is a probability.
Viewer warning: The first few minutes of this are hard to watch. But it's a comprehensive and informative look at the ivory trade today. You might be surprised at what you learn.
All photos generously donated by Billy Dodson unless stated otherwise.
Last night, we had one of those incredible thunderstorms wash over us, the kind that Texas and Oklahoma are famous for. The kind that births tornadoes.
We desperately needed the rain and all day that is what I asked for. Rain but no tornadoes, please. Dear God, no tornadoes.
I got my wish but elsewhere, less than two hours from here, they were not so lucky. 6 confirmed dead, dozens injured, hundreds homeless. This morning as I look with gratitude at my soaked garden and pastures, the flowers bright and happy after a long drink, the yellowing grass already green as Ireland again, others are sifting through broken belongings, looking at the iron sky through roofless homes and shattered windows, stumbling over splintered walls in shock and disbelief.
I've always loved thunderstorms. The electricity in the air, the blustering winds, the pelting rain, the booming and rolling of thunder and the blinding flashes of jagged light. It made me feel alive, the furor of Nature. It made feel like I was on fire with some unnamed desire and I should be standing on a towering ledge and scream with ferocity as the storm came galloping on hooves of thunder, whipped by hail.
Now I sit in prayer and scour the horizon with every flash of light that illuminates the darkness. Scour the horizon for any crooked fingers reaching down for the earth, twisting and jabbing at tender, vulnerable spots. Wonder if I should keep the horses in or out, what is safer? A roof over their heads against the stinging hail or worse - the deadly strike of a lightning bolt? Or the freedom to run should a tornado hit? Our storm shelter, after all, is only just big enough for us and 5 dogs.............
I know it's just the way of nature. I know it's part and parcel of life around here. But some days it makes me wonder. Some days, I miss getting to simply sit and enjoy a fine thunderstorm.
I saw this on good old Facebook yesterday while digging through all the news from conservation groups. Yes, Facebook is surprisingly good for that. But I digress. Saw this:
It made me laugh. It made me think. It made me...write.
Remember the movie Warhorse? I liked it alot, but it wasn't my favorite movie ever. There was one scene, however, that has stayed with me. I actually liked the way they used it in the trailer better than in the movie. The cavalrymen are about to ride into battle, and after a few brief instructions, their captain (or whatever he is called), gives them this one last order.
'Be Brave.'
I don't know why, but it ripped my heart out. In the trailer they use it twice, as if he calls it out twice with a slight pause in between. In that pause my heart stands still right before it gets whacked between the eyes again. I just can't put my finger on why I find those two words and the way he calls them, so touching. Maybe because you get the sense he is as scared as the rest, and this is all he's got. And that he is talking to himself as much as to his men. Perhaps he has a sense of foreboding that they are about to ride into an ambush that will decimate their numbers.
Be brave.
I enjoy listening to Josh Groban. I liked him after hearing his music on the radio, got a few CD's, then I bought us tickets to his concert one year as an anniversary gift for my husband. We don't share a wide range of musical taste, but since we both like Andrea Bocelli, I figured this was safe ground. I was blown away. Groban is one of those rare singers who is actually even better in person than on records.
He has a song called Brave. On days it's hard to get my heart and mind and soul aligned, I'll listen to that and it picks me up and throws me back in the ring.
Wake up, wake up, the sun cannot wait for long. Reach out, reach out
before it fades away. You will find the warmth when you surrender. Smile into the fear and let it play. Chorus: You wanna run away, run away and you say that it can’t be
so. You wanna look away, look away but you stay cause’ it’s all so
close. When you stand up and hold out your hand. In the face of what I
don’t understand. My reason to be brave.
I find reasons to be brave. Little reasons, big reasons - any reason, as long as it gets me on my feet and out the door. Groban also has a song called Love Only Knows.
Love only knows, If we'll give in to fear And live life undercover....
Yeah. I find reasons to Be Brave. My reasons will be different from your reasons. It doesn't matter. All that matters, in this world gone madder than ever, is that we do indeed......
Mother's Day is a mixed bag of goods when your Mama is deceased. I can't even pop in to visit her final resting place. It is thousands of miles away. Instead, I focus on the place in my heart where she will rest till the end of my days and lives on unencumbered by a minor little thing like the termination of her earthly existence.
Mother's Day is a funny thing when you do not have children of your own. Fortunately, it is understood by husband, friends and family alike that I still qualify for adulation on this particular day - after all, my numerous fourlegged companions receive healthy doses of mothering, too, as do a few of my two legged beloveds.
Now, it may sound as if I sit around on Mother's Day and think sad and melancholic thoughts. Woe is me! I do not. It is what it is. It'll be what it'll be. Some things are meant to be and some are not. On Mother's Day, I enjoy sending my mum loving thoughts, and I enjoy feeling a little special and like I have earned a day of adoration. I try to put all other thoughts and worries aside.
My mother was a Master Worrier. She was an expert on worst case scenarios, and she drove me bonkers with her concerns. I was always the opposite, the dreamer who thought only of best case scenarios, untill something horrible happened, then I descended into confusion and the antics of high drama. Excuse me!? Dreaming here!! How could this happen to me when I was just thinking such happy thoughts!!!?
After she passed, I did alot of regrouping, rethinking, reconfiguring. I also started worrying. I had finally learned that stories do not always have a happy ending. I began to think about things going wrong, awry, where I did not want them to go. Funnily enough, alot of things, big and small, went 'wrong' after that. I began to stress as never before. It became a habit, almost a drug.
No need to be bored, I can always worry.
I read alot of books, some of them quite strange. I talked to some wonderful people, some of them quite out of the ordinary. I made a conscious decision to grow and address this exhausting habit head on. And one day, in a moment of crystal clear clarity, I sat in all encompassing relief when I understood how useless worrying is. I understood the power of my thoughts to shape my wellbeing and my life. I understood that the train of life keeps rolling whether I worry or not, and so far worrying had brought me nothing but grief, so why not just drop the habit altogether - and trust. Try this on for size, I thought. Just DON"T worry, be happy - expect the best POSSIBLE outcome no matter what. Maybe I won't get what I dreamed, but then again - maybe I will find it is something even better.
I felt empty and strangely at a loss.
The moment passed and I immediately began to worry that if I quit worrying, things could spin out of control. Oh.
Lesson #2. Worrying is about control. What a strange and peculiar belief to think that if I worry, I can control....anything!
Since then, I try to catch myself. There is no better place to catch myself and find relief than in Nature. Nature does not worry. Nature deals. Nature sucks it up and makes the most of every day.
So that is where I went yesterday, camera in hand. That's where all these photos are from, my Mother's Day Nature Walk. I went out to take 20 pics, and two hours later I wandered home with some 324. I was playing with macrolenses again and while these could be even better if I had been using a tripod, I just wasn't worried about it. I figured some would work out well enough (under the circumstances, being I do not yet own a decent tripod). I was enjoying myself. I was happy, I was at ease, I was not worried, and I finally saw one thing clearly.
It'll be the best that it can be. Not only that. It will be the best that I allow it to be.
Do you have a Passion project? If not, you should like, totally, like, you know, get one. Actually, you don't get a Passion Project. They get you. You don't even know you are getting gotten, you are just sitting quietly, drinking it all in, but when you get up - you are a changed person.
They get you and you get sleepless nights, early mornings, late nights, working all hours around your other life, worrying about money not just for your regular bills but for the project because the project MUST go on. You get hours of complete despondency because it all seems like it's going nowhere, a pipe dream, a storm in a glass of water, a sandcastle in the sky, a great mirage of wavering illusions.
You get to meet people who think you are nuts, ridiculous, people who stare at you blankly and ask Why? Why is that important? Why should that matter to me? You get to learn when to speak and when to simply shrug and say with a smile "If you have to ask why, I can't explain it to you."
You get to worry about letting down the people who have helped you get this far and you get to question your own sanity - repeatedly. You get to wonder what the heck you have gotten yourself into and What on earth was I thinking??????
Buuuuut you also get the overwhelming joy of feeling alive in the world, involved, inspired, enthusiastic, purpose-driven, the elation when you finally break through a wall and reach the next stage, the pride of having hung in there, made it happen, risked it all and lived to tell the story. You get to feel touched by the extraordinairy, free of the mundane.
You get to meet wonderful people who run on parallel paths and offer spontaneous gestures of generousity. People who think you rock, who believe in you, in your vision, people who ask if they can help, people who put their hands in their pockets and pull out what they can to help you reach your goals. People who say that though they don't know you, they trust you, are proud of you and what you are becoming.
You get to grow as a human being, expand, become better acquainted with who you really are, or think you are, you get to peel layers off of your inner onion and discover just how much you believe - in your project, in your partners, in yourself, in your ability to go after something and manifest your dreams into your current reality.
You get to dream, a passionate and vibrant dream where your life will be one you can look back upon with pride and satisfaction. Not because you changed the world, but because you relinquished the safety of inertia and allowed the world to change you and the ripples of that change made a difference. Even if just to you.
Because when you change, the world changes.
A little over a year ago I went on a ride, on a lark, never suspecting it would turn me upside down, inside out. I wonder now how many lives Offbeat Safaris have changed simply by being who they are. How many lives can I change simply by being who I am? How many lives can you change simply by being who YOU are? Who is your most deep down Self, and what matters to that Self?
That is the question my Passion Project keeps asking me. To be me. The best of me, the most inspired, sincere, authentic, powerful, courageous...me. To not second guess, to not waiver, to not doubt that I am exactly what I am supposed to be, and that who I am is good enough to matter - when I dare to put all my talents to work.
Some days, I miss the ocean. I do after all, descend from a nation of oceanfaring vikings, and I did spend my early years in a kingdom of islands, surrounded by glittering seas. Never mind I did not inherit the unrockable bellies of the stalwart vikings ( and my father) and spent many a sailing vacation belly up and heaving over the side. That is besides the point.
The point is, now I live in a state of landlock, 500 miles from the ocean, 500 feet from a little pond that some days takes on the glittering aspect of my beloved sea. If I squint my eyes just so I can leave out the edges and the woods behind it. If I drive down the road I come across an enormous man-made dam and if I drive to just the right spot I come across a place where I can barely see the other shore and I can pretend it's a far more vast body of water than it is. Sometimes I place circling seagulls in the sky and flocks of dozens of gleaming, majestic, gliding white swans on the waters, just as I would see them in my home country.
Sometimes, like today, the sky above me reminds me of the sky above the sea on a danish spring day. Tempestuous, roiling, bright blue slipping behind clouds that promise rain but scurry on to sprinkle elsewhere, leaving the sun to peek promisingly through the fleeting gaps then shining on sudden showers of sparkling raindrops, falling gently and lightly on the upturned faces of man, beast and flower alike.
But the scent is all wrong. There is no damp and salty whiff to brace my lungs. My skin doesn't feel the humidity of a moisture laden air and when I breathe deeply it is not tangy with the potent smell of seaweed. I do not hear the crashing of surf on rocky shores, not even the gentle lapping of waves washing over sandy beaches and tempting me with their aquamarine promises of temperate waters when in fact, they will chill me to the bone in 5 seconds flat. My Viking blood too thinned by far......but not so far I am not still stirred with wanderlust and a longing for the unknown when faced with a large body of water.
Some days, I imagine the bottom of our hill ends not in a valley but the seaside, and my view from my window is not that of treetops but that of an endless expanse of a calmly rippling sea. I imagine I can hear seagulls crying their melancholic song, and the honking of swans. I have a little boat that I take out on quiet days when the equilibrium of my sensitive stomach will not be challenged and the wind is a gentle breeze that caresses my skin and my sails while the water laps and gurgles at my bow.
My Viking blood has been much thinned and my longing for the ocean is but a whisper of the call that once stirred my ancestors into extraordinary oceanfaring voyages. But it's still there, enough to turn my face to the East and feel the wind come calling, filling imaginary sails. Not complete and not fullfledged, no. I'm just a Mini-Viking, I guess.
It's a morning to appreciate the little bitty things (because the big things seem to be hibernating and if I look too close I get too frustrated. Wake up and DO something for Pete's sake! Winter is over! Or so I believe....).
The sweet chirping of birds as I wake at dawn. The soft plushness of a cuddly duvet as I turn over and steal 5 more minutes, snuggled in my husband's arms. The warmth in the amber eyes of my old dog as I stumble out of bed and place a hand on his head. The welcoming bark and joyful whimper of the little mutt as she bounds out of bed and hugs my leg as if she has not seen me in a hundred years and may not for a hundred more.
Steam curling off a hot mug of tea, vapors rising in tendrils of a sheer, dancing mystery, caught in the cool rays of an early morning sun only to be dispelled by the same. Doves and Brownheaded Cowbirds flitting from branch to branch, hiding among shiny green leaves, taking turns on the feeder. A plump sparrow indulging in an early morning bath, fluffing and ruffling and spraying sparkling drops of water in every direction with his vigorous routine.
Dogs lying on the hillside, watching the sun rise. Donkeys playing follow the leader, long ears flapping and little legs pumping, snaking in and out of the woods and seguing into displays of pure silliness, kicking and bucking and shaking their heads.
Water on tap, flowing freely at the mere twist of a handle, hot or cold, what's your pleasure? Ample food waiting on command, fresh and chilled, toaster waiting to heat at will. A stove to warm my water at the push of a button, a rocking chair to soothe my fears as I sip my tea and feel the cool morning air tighten my skin.
A garden making the most of its best, while the rain still falls and the sun has yet to reach its full, searing power. Blooms bursting from every branch, every color, every day a new bud opened and unfurled to maximum beauty. Every day a new gift for me to behold.
Remembering the future remains unwritten, there is peace before action, rest before movement, learning before empowerment, dreaming before manifestation. Every moment counts, every moment matters, every moment embodies its own beauty. Appreciate the little bitty things when the big things stand still, and the little things become big, the big things little.
A deep breath in a healthy body. The love of friends and family. Jobs well done.
Been a very hectic week, with houseguests, clinics ( that is when my mentor comes and works with me and my horses and my students and we all get our booties and brains worked off) and this Saturday, a birthday party for my husband. So much planning to do, and I've been neglecting my blog, I'm sorry to say. But never mind finding Time - finding Mind was all but impossible.
At the same time, a wonderful opportunity may have come along to do something I have never done before, something that would challenge me in new ways and yet something I can't help but feel I could do and do well. Almost like I've just been waiting and preparing for it to come along. So my brain has been galloping along on multiple tracks at top speeds.....
But last night I had the most wonderful dream that I had to tell you about while it's still fresh in my mind and it's emotional footprint still clear on my heart.
I dreamt I could fly. I often have those dreams, and sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard, but it's always very real. I am not a bird or a plane, I don't have wings or engines - I fly on the wings and power of Spirit. I simply lift myself into the air and off I go.
Last night I flew the best I ever have. It was easy, I was agile, light and confident. I swooped and dove and laughed my way across the heavens. I swept across a glittering sea where Tall Ships swayed majestically with billowing sails. I rolled on my back and floated with arms outstretched and hands open to the blue, blue sky.
When I landed, I was in a room full of people. They asked me why I was so happy. I told them it was because I could fly. They looked at me strangely and said not a thing. I knew I was going out on a limb telling these strangers something so wild and wonderful about myself and that they probably would not believe me, but still, I would not recant.
"I can fly!" I said happily. "And you know," I carried on, "The thing is, I think everyone can. They have just forgotten how." And as I said it, I knew it was true and I wished fervently that everyone in that room would remember.
That is where the dream ended and I woke up in bliss. I got up and opened a book to a random page and this is what it said:
"Don't just see the magic, engage it! Challenge it! Dare it! Dream big,
with every expectation that your dreams will manifest.
Demand that they come true! You're not beholden to life. Life is beholden to you.
You are its reason for being. You came first."
Notes from the Universe by Mike Dooley
I think it's telling me it's time to spread my wings. What's it telling you?
