Today is her birthing day. Their Birthing Day! Mother and Daughter. They  have openly and lovely shared their lives with me continuously teaching me about Unconditional Love, States of Joy, Relationship and Trust.I am more perceptive of the stories of sentient beings because of them. Totally different personalities, yet they are always willing to be in relationship no matter the proximity. The sensation of their connectedness is amazing. Such a simple, warm and constant hum within me. I have such gratitude for the expansion of my heart and "beingness" they have fostered. I am changed forever. 

I passed in, out, and into my day of birthing, which for me is as much my Mother's day as mine. This relational event culminating after 9 months was more powerful than ever this year. With each year that comes and offers new beginnings,  my body memory/felt sense seems to show me more about my "being". Or some might say my "soul place". It really doesn't matter what words I use,  for it is the sensations and perceptions of my world that inform me more than ever. So I,  "again for the very first time ever", was in my story of coming into this world's perceptual dimension out of my sheltering floating fluids. I began to go inward as I do every year about a month before my birthing day. But this year, I drew further inward. I became cranky, unable to find a place to settle, circling, being distracted all while staying in one place,  thanks to the cold snow filled winter. I knew this year was different. My Mother was no longer in this dimension to share our day together.  No wonder my body was a bit confused, lost and unable to settle. We had been together for over 60 years in this plane. Bodies don't just disengage because one is no longer in a materialized form. I knew and experienced this before when I was young and my father passed. And then I re-experienced it so profoundly as I was assisting my mother, as her midwife, while she was laboring her transition into death.  This day of my birthing I consciously slowed down, found solace in my studio lying down on the floor and was being moved into a Moving Contemplation practice. Once I stilled my body I began to sense a deep well of sadness bringing a tight, motionless and stuck sense into my body and the space around me. And then tiny involuntary micro movements began to ripple through me out into the larger field bringing welcomed warmth out of my chilled state and a sense of melting. And the tears of this day turned into sobs. I was becoming tired and oh so much more vulnerable, if that was possible. I was there with myself(selves), formless, dedensified ,  densified ego, id and soul. I began to feel as though I was coming into a newness, a spacious freshness offered by my sobs, by my heart! Yes, it was again the gift of unconditional love that began to sweep through me and the space around me. One of those teary I am nothing/everything,  I am "whole" and just a speck in the "wholeness" of the "whole",  the balancing of shadow self and all the polarities within and without you times in live.   As I shifted into stillness, I fell asleep for awhile awakening  to the sweet sounds of house Wrens fluttering around the bird feeding with Cardinals chirping in the background. I was home again……….love.

The colors and shapes of the clouds this winter seem to be bringing a fullness of expression during this transitional time. The changing from full life force to that of a more withdrawn quiet biological way of living. We see it all around us during the colder months of winter. My question is do we recognize that same biological need within ourselves that is being witnessed in nature? The call to slow down, move inward for reflection and consciously resource ourselves. Quietly building energy for the longer days to come? Do you have a practice that serves your winter season? 
Today is my mother's birthday.  She would have been 98. I think of all the times during the last years of her life she would sit reading a book with her gaze moving out the window into nature toward our pond. When I would ask what she was looking at she would say, "nothing" I would finish the thought with  "anything that comes in front of your eyes?" She would shake her head,  sometimes stop reading and engage in conversation and other times not. It was the "not" times I could sense were the moments she was drawing nature in, reflecting it back and thus nourishing her resiliency. She lived a very long life. 97  and a half years!

How sweet the story unfolding
Paralleling leaves being blown to the ground
Revealing the core of their existence beneath the masks
And frills of external beauty
The unseen stories
The lived stories and the illusive ones
Much like us
As we live our "urge to become"
To be dormant, grow and begin again, for the very first time ever.
How sweet the resilience of our capacities
Fullness and ease as we advance and expand
Potency and tightness as we recede and reflect
All bringing us closer to our mind coming into relationship with our body's "knowing"
Our feminine wholeness from the roots of our bio/neuro/spiritual essence of "becoming" and present "beingness". 

Ah the sweet taste of wholeness!

It seems that the tentativeness that is filling the resonant field as of late is touching us all in very deep ways. The extra cautions we are taking during simple everyday routines and the thickness of space making communication a bit loopy is pervasive. 
With this said I invite you all to take some time to recognize where you are on the continuum of cautionary state. Or for that matter just notice if you are moving with a sense of ease, are your thoughts directed or are you experiencing streams of interrupting thoughts, are you present when speaking to others whether in person or on the phone and finally what is your overall sense of wellbeing? 
As you can see in the photo she has a desire to go forward but a slight hesitation. Needless to say she made it into the water enjoying every moment she had, drinking walking, swimming and shaking water off her coat when just standing and looking around her. I'll never know what her hesitation was but I do know that it was not enough to keep her from moving forward. The pull of the water was stronger then any fear (a projection) that she might have had. We are all living in a state of unknowing as we are not really in control of much of what is happening around us. I invite you ALL to enter into the moment of leaping, moving forward and dis cover what you will.

As I was walking the forest today with the Pups there were 2 thoughts that kept washing through me . First the wonderment about the continuing "leap of faith", it seems to me, a spider takes over and over during it's lifetime. I would walk into their webs as they stretched from one tree to another and I would marvel at the distance they had to travel wondering how it was they were able to stay aloft for such a distance. Were they riding the wind currents or just able to take a ride on the morphogenic resonance that surrounds all things? Or did they in fact climb to the highest point in a tree, know the trajectory necessary to make it across safe and sound or is it their honed instincts that allow the leap?

As I was communing with nature as I do every morning I was joined by a Praying Mantis. We looked at each other for what seemed one of those lifetime seconds. Those moments that bleed into present and future only because presence or present time awareness keeps moving, breathing, re-shaping all living things. So there we were seeing the other, she in her way and me in mine when she very smoothly moved her head into an inclined posture. Being human, after absorbing the wonderment of our connectedness I began to ask questions in silence to her. "Are you wondering what I am? I know you sense me as being safe or you would not move your hear and probably leave." We both seemed (humanizing her) content to be just where we were, no agenda or attachment to anything.We both remained in our dynamic stillness. She then took her extremely supple front legs balancing on her other 4 legs and began cleaning her face. Well, my eyes filled with tears and a sense of gratitude. For me it is sacred when nature allows me to see it and in turn sees me. There is a heart connectedness that occurs. I sense as an expansion in all directions, a slow wave of heat enters my body, tears fill my eyes and a smile takes over my face. A smile so big it feels as though my mouth and eyes touch. I had to take a picture on my phone as I was waiting to do a conference call. But really I was waiting for my heart to be opened once again.

Arrived home last night
from sunsets and moon rises
forever etched in my minds eye
whole body memory

as I was sitting in my kayak
in the vastness of the Pamlico Sound
where heaven and earth meet infinity murmurating birds  just off shore brought songs of delight 

sky and water of the same hue
reaching beyond my memory
into newness

 watery puffs of Dolphin breath passing within a foot of me as my kayak gently rocked with a sense of uplifting buoyancy

eyes seeing and meeting mine matching breath brought tears of connected resonance as open hearts oozed into the vast surround

sensations of nature being with (my) nature knowing this to be a result of practicing non freight the passed couple decades

 I am filled with so many emotional states all my body can do in response is empty 

all my heart connections brought to the forefront of my thinking as the continuing puffs and eyes pass bringing my heart into stilling mystery, gratitude, love and joy 

an initiation, a reunion, a continuation of my urge to become whole as part of the greater wholeness. Home.