CORN STALKS AND SWEET PEAS

I have been busy in the garden for the last month.  I am lucky enough to be involved in a community garden as well as my yard at the house.  I have felt the abundance and specificity of the earth and seeds.   A pumpkin seed cannot ever become a corn plant, nor a daisy, a dahlia.  I love the idea that inherent in each of us are the seeds to how we will grow and develop.  Will I be the knotty branches of a sea pine, or the fiery color in a red tipped rose?

 I am a believer.  A believer in will and effort and magic and miracles.  But there is such wisdom in seeds.  Wildflowers will often wait as much as a decade on the open plains, waiting for the right season of water and temperature to flourish into wild colored beauty.

This whole area here is blessed with such rich soil.  Often you will drive by farmland and see a complete field of yellow or orange, dense color, like from spilled paint, and as you approach, you realize it is a field of seed flowers.  Flowers raised for those little packets you can buy in garden shops.

My garden feeds me a fresh salad every day, with lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers, and dinner every night of swiss chard, spinach, beans.  I have not had this bounty in my life for some time, and I can only tell you that it heals me.

I see people either fight against their nature, or talents, or simply not know what they like or which activities enlivens and nourishes them.  I think that like each seed, we each have some destiny in us.  We have a particular way that we each need to grow.  I am not saying that we cannot explore life and taste and try things.  I  think this is an important part of living.  But we need to remember that we have some direction within us.  We each have talents, skills and passions, that when we discover them will be like coming home.  Like plants, some of us need more sunlight, some don't transplant well, some seeds scatter and carry on the wind.    Some of are trees, some food, some for the ever shining beauty of flowers.    

What is most true is that we all belong here.  We all have a guide within that will take us and send our shoots out to the right trellis, or the night sky,  or dig into the soil beneath us with our carrot and beet bottoms, or fill a field with oats and grain.  Our map, our pattern lies within.                                                                                    

          The question would be:  How does one know what kind of person we are?

In gardening, sometimes you don't really know what you have until you plant it and see how it does. Every day of our lives is an experiment in gardening our passions, cultivating our environment, feeding and watering ourselves with attention to what will most help us grow and produce what it is in our nature to produce. I do know that when we are in the right environment for us, we will rise each day toward the sun, and flourish, and with the abundance of earth

CUE WORDS:          I BELONG.  

               I AM BECOMING WHO I AM.

     WHEN I NURTURE MYSELF, I WILL GROW.

DRUMMING WITH THE HEART

This week I went to a Native American flute circle.  I took my hand made drum, made by my Paiute/Shoshone friend Bert Pete in Nevada.  I was met by a lovely woman with long white hair and the friendliest, kindest manner I have come across in a long while.   The short story is I had so much fun playing my drum and listening to flute music, and eventually trying to play a loaner flute the woman Alice, showed me how to use.  Iris and Zuzu, my scottie girls, have been sitting with heads cocked as I undertake this new version of me.  My friends have kidded me that I will be on the road in a tour bus with the group in no time.   As I said.....FUN!!!!

I have long been taken with rattles and other instruments of percussion.  I have a collection of ones that have come to me or  that I have made.   They have been sitting in a handmade basket for years, moving with me from house to house, with the basket getting fuller as the years pass.  This morning I was thinking about those pieces of ourselves that seem to hang around at the edges of our lives.  Maybe our lack of attention is time related, or we simply forget that we enjoy such things, or perhaps we do not give ourselves permission to try, to venture out, to begin something new, to be "not very good at" something.

I think this interlude served to remind me that our hearts/souls/spirits/Psyche KNOWS what it needs, and often waits patiently until we turn around and look.  So just for today, look around and see if there is something that invites your pleasure.  Maybe it is musical or a club or a sport.  Just for today pick it up. Sing, dance, drum.  It will be present that you give to your Soul.  I promise it will make you laugh in joy.


Cues:  PLAY,  SURPRISE YOURSELF WITH SOMETHING NEW, OR SOMETHING THAT SITS ON YOUR PERSONAL SHELF, WAITING TO BE PICKED UP.

HEART TO HOME >>>>>> Calling YOU!

                                                           Good Morning to you.  

In the last three days I have heard the old 60's phrase of "Peace Out".  I was figuring it was time for a revival. Let us begin by holding your center, your Self in the BIG.  The LARGE.  The CCCCCC....COSMOS!    PEACE OUT!!!!

What follows was a gift to me.  I come to this sound, as I do many mornings, and am reminded of how quickly my heart clears, my mind slows, and I feel connected to the Great Beyond, however that looks this day.  Do take a moment to free yourself from the twittery, fluttery life of your day, and settle into that spot that brings home energy to your body and soul.  I bookmark it and listen to it in the evenings as well..  such a way to settle the spirit.  To the crazy, busy person inside of you I will assure that the time it takes to listen to it will genuinely change your energy, and in a few short minutes.

                              The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) on Vimeo

                                                         Blessings,   Misty

Conversations with Space

We often think of talking to ourselves as form of insanity.  I am thinking that we don't really do enough of it...that is to say, CONSCIOUSLY.   Yes, we are in there with the mind ALL THE TIME, but most of us are ducking and swinging at the voice, either trying to get it to shut up or shrinking away from the shame, judgement, abuse that we are unconsciously leveling at ourselves.

People often think that therapy, is about making changes, or solving problems.  I would say it has more to do with making our inner voices conscious.  It is in consciousness that we have choice.  Carl Jung said "Enlightenment is not about imagining figures of light, but about making the darkness conscious."  I have long loved that quote.  What wisdom therein!

So this path we are on, is more about seeing than changing.  I found this video that a young boy made in anticipation of sharing it with his older self.  The "older self" found it and made it into a dialog.  I think you will  enjoy it.


Has 32-Year-Old Man Conversation with 12-Year-Old Self - Mandatory


So here's the thought for the day:  Listen and speak to your inner self.  There may be more wisdom there than you imagine.  


And when you find that the words you hear inside of yourself are judging, unkind, shaming, speak with love and gentleness to yourself, as you would to a frightened abused child.  


Cue words:  LISTEN, LEARN, LAUGH, FORGIVE!

Toxic Soup

Remember you can reach me through my website at       bmistywycoff.com

                                Sometimes we draw energy to us, like the Bay Bridge in storm.  


We radiate a kind of acceptance to energies that we grew up with.  Sometimes we find ourselves feeling badly around people who apparently are our friends.  They have qualities that seem familiar.   We do need to remember that the word familiar, comes from the word family, and that those energies may hide some behaviors that are toxic to us.  Like a kind of toxic soup that we keep ladling into ourselves, thinking that it is good for us.


Do you have people in your life who:




           Cannot apologize when they have hurt you?


Justify their behavior and say things like:  "I cannot live my life taking care of your feelings?"


            Blame you for their foul moods and bad behavior?


Cannot speak up when their feelings get hurt and then act passive aggressively?
         
            Dictate how you should be in the world?


Store up negative emotion and then dump it on you in unsuspecting moment?


             Use your differences to make you wrong?


Call names, shame and embarrass you?


            Tell you this is the way that "everyone" does this?


All of the above describe dysfunctional, abusive relationship qualities.  Now most of us have managed to weed out the worst of these offenders as we grow up and become more conscious of ourselves.   It is often hard to see these characteristics in those relationships that often offer other nice qualities.  The question you have to ask yourself is this:   "How much am I willing to pay for those moments of goodness?"   


Sometimes we are drinking "Toxic Soup".  Just for today, focus only on those people that bring you joy and energy that is friendly to your being.  No need for judgement or criticism or even confrontation, just move back a little.  Notice how that feels.  Sometimes this action can bring up feelings of fear.  Just for today, notice them, acknowledge them, and recognize that these feelings are survivable, and relax.


Again, move your focus towards more loving energy.  


Relax,  Breathe,  Sip something else!






Website address:    bmistywycoff.com


and this blog address is:  crossingoverthesea.blogspot.com

Bumping boats and falling in the water!

Website: bmistywycoff.com


I started out above the bay, having lunch at a spot that overlooks Morro Rock, the jetty and the head of the bay.  There was a flurry of activity below me.  Fishing boats entering and exiting the bay to open sea and what was, apparently a school for sailing.  I counted twenty-six white sails, on small, light 10 foot boats that looked like a child's drawing of a rowboat.  Clearly each single person on each single boat was learning how to navigate in the wind.  Initially it looked rather chaotic, a swarm of white moths, bumping into one another, stopping, starting, with no apparent design.  I would look away, distracted by a kayaker or someone walking on the inside of the dunes that protect the bay, or the little island with fat seals pushing each other off as they scrambled aboard the small space.  The flutter of the sails would pull my eyes back to watch this dance of learning.  As time passed and my lunch disappeared and my dogs were snoring in their after beach walk nap, there began a rhythm, a beat, unheard by me, but indeed the sailors.  Like flocks in the sky, on the point of a moment, many would shift the sail and turn.  At first it was two at one end of the group, then three in the middle.  As the afternoon deepened, so did their sense of balance in the wind.  An hour later I was watching a ballet.

Morro Bay Photos - Featured Images of Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo County - TripAdvisor


I was thinking about how we learn things.  Much like the people in the tiny sailboats.. at first we bump around getting it wrong as often as we get it right.  But WE DO LEARN...   You cannot do something over and over again without eventually thinking of a way to do it more efficiently, more beautifully.  As with many things, it is the PRACTICE of something that brings change.

How important is it to fail?  It is essential.  We could not drive a car the first time we sat behind the wheel, but as we sat there, again and again, in many traffic situations, we learned.  We learned to pay attention to what was important, and ignore what was not.  What a miracle, what a joy!  We learn, because...... WE LEARN!!   How cool is that?

Cue words:  "When I fail, it means I am in the process of learning."   Now say it again.

TOES IN THE SKY, SAHARA SMILES

I was sitting in one of my favorite spots overlooking the Rock in Morro Bay.  The mist was sliding around the base of the rock, sometimes occluding the top, and within minutes the lower portion.  For a moment I couldn't see it at all, and then, BLINK, there it was in full.

So often we only see such a small portion of what is happening, or what surrounds us, or the story.

We cannot think that the current difficulty is indeed tied to the joy waiting around the next bend.  Or see that the trouble here is a gift to give us an opportunity to miss and even bigger mess ahead.

All is connected.  We are connected.  Have the consciousness, just for today, that what we toss into the waters of the Pacific Ocean is felt by someone standing on the sand in the Sahara.

REPEAT:  I am not alone, have never been alone, and cannot, in the future ever be alone,  I belong in my life, and who I am today touches everyone, as they do me.

If this interests you, explore COURSE IN MIRACLES - A Course in Miracles - famous quotes and sayings

Soul Habitats

When you do anything repetitive, it allows the mind to go into a kind of idle gear.  I think it is why I love those kinds of activities.  Not racing but settling into to something.  Anyway, when I was doing my mile in the pool yesterday morning, I started to think about water and how it surrounded and held me in place and time.  That lead me to think about that study about how water is effected by the surrounding emotions when it freezes.  LOVE water made different crystals than HATE water.

Water Crystals and Emotion - YouTube

Although there are critics of this idea and this study, it led me to think about surrounding energies.  The first comes out of Siddha Yoga teachings, that tell us that our minds are deeply connected to those energies of the people around us.  In fact if we feel ourselves low or troubled, that we should first look to which people we have spent time with.  Is there energy uplifting and positive or critical, angry or sour?



The next thought was from Buddhist traditions and I was thinking about the living meditation of saying "I love you" within your mind whenever you are in the presence of someone who is fearful, escalating in anger or threatening in some way.  I have used this at times in sessions when I see a client sliding into a despairing state, or acting defensively out of fear.  I was often able to see immediate changes in the person, when nothing else had apparently influenced their state.

Carl Jung also believed that if you want someone to know what you are thinking, you only have to KNOW IT DEEPLY yourself.  I have often seen this evidenced when a client works for a period of time towards the end result of confronting a person or situation.  What is surprising is that often when that state of readiness exists, they will often report that the situation or person has changed or shifted behavior.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Carl Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", 1962

It is the same with the physical world as well.  If we are in places where there is stress, disorder and ugliness, we inhale this somehow into our being, for me a kind of disgruntled energy arises within.  And when we are in orderly places or natural environments, we are calmed.  I especially like orchards and vineyards, or well tended gardens, but the wildness of the forest or the ocean is calming and steadying as well.

So what are we talking about here?  Our environment does touch our Psyche and Soul.  You might consider a day of watching where you are and how the space, people and world interact with your own energies.

OFFSTAGE CUES:  Energy fields, Mood changes.

Memory Day

Yesterday was Memorial Day,  a day to honor and remember those no longer with us.  It might be soldiers, friends or family. Take a moment to be with the spirit of those sparks of life that have passed our way.  At some place in the future, we too, will be just a spark of memory for others.  I know we don't like to think about our transient nature.  Our ego does not like the thought of our erasure from the chalkboard of life, but we are just here for a minute or two...it seems.

When we look at our lives through this window, it is easier to see what might be important.  It probably isn't the big career leap, or new cars or property acquisition, but the sweet moments that our lives bump, crash or slip into the consciousness and time of others.  Times we touched, we shared, we held on to one another.  Seconds ticking along when we were graced to see the interior path of another human, the inner and outer struggles, and triumphs shared.

These people that have left us, are not remembered now by the photos they posted on Facebook, or tweets, texts or emails..........no we see them in real time with us... the particular look on their face when........X happened, the way the light caught the color of their hair, or scent that came off of the that tattered coat when we hugged them, something they said during the long hours we were together in a car driving to an event, or the tears on the phone on a lonely night.  Moments that we actually connected.  For this to happen one needs to commit time and space for it. Creating a place to be with people we care about so that these things can occur.

What follows is  a piece written by a 2012 graduate of Yale University, who died the day after this was written.   She writes well and shares similar ideas.

KEEGAN: The Opposite of Loneliness

Marina Keegan '12. Photo by Facebook.

The piece below was written by Marina Keegan '12 for a special edition of the News distributed at the class of 2012's commencement exercises last week. Keegan died in a car accident on Saturday. She was 22.

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.

It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.

Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.

This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.

But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”

Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.

We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.

When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.

For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…

What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.

In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.

We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.

KEEGAN: The Opposite of Loneliness | Cross Campus | Yale Daily News

So my question to you today, is what space have you given today to nurture those relationships that bring the sorts of memories that Marina Keegan speaks of in this piece?

Offstage cues:   TIME (not texts) SPENT WITH FRIENDS, CREATION OF MEMORIES, GRATITUDE FOR LIVING IN THE PRESENT

WINDWALKER

A few days ago I attended the blessing of the fleet at Morro Rock.  A remembrance of those who live and work on the water and those who have lost their lives at sea, and an invocation of safety for those traveling on water.  It was a multidenominational service with many people of the cloth speaking.  One minister talked about the Great Spirit flowing over the waters, surrounding the fishermen in storms.  I looked out to the water while he spoke and I saw a boat with a resonant name.

Another speaker talked about the first step to wisdom is reverence and awe.  I thought about looking up in a church to the high rafters, and domed ceilings, and the great Cathedral arches.  I remember being in Lincoln Cathedral in England, a church that John Ruskin said "was the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles".  The rise of the Norman and Gothic arches draw us high.  High into our vision and perhaps into our higher consciousness, our better selves.

     

I felt the wind blow across the pier and felt the energy of those around me, and suddenly my eyes drifted high again, and I was reminded that we can rise from wherever we stand.


                                                             

Off stage cues today:  LOOK UP!  BLESS YOU, BLESS ME, BLESS US ALL.


Building | Lincoln Cathedral

Friendship Flowers

Flowers are like friends, they just are there, give lots and cheer us up!

I have long espoused the importance of networking, friendship, and finding ways to have open, honest healthy relatiohships.  When my clients have such a base, I know that they are well on their way to a better life, and if there is addiction present, a definite drop in relapse potential.  The one truth here is that we will not call friends if we are in trouble if we haven't called them in our joy.

My friend Ron Carducci has a website regarding all aspects of  friendship.  He posts a new article about once a month regarding issues in friendship.  It is a great teaching tool as is his Book: Playing It By Ear, which can be found on his website as well.  It is a delightful teaching manual in which he uses stories from his life as a jazz drummer (an earlier vocation prior to his Ph.d in Psychology).  It is an easy read and filled with images and tales as to make the lessons like pieces of dessert.  I think you will learn new things to make you a better friend and have a good time doing it.

The Friendship Doctor

This week make the effort and call two friends, and next week too.  The rule is you don't have to stay on the phone for a long time, so don't use that as an excuse.    

Gotcha!

Morning Images in Rain

I slept to the sound of rain coming down, heavily at times.  What a great comfort to hear.  I was transported in my thoughts to the African plains, watching the rains come in at distance.  The following poem emerged with my tea.  Photo site noted below.

Thrumming

When I first hear the rain coming

my animal skin shivers in delight,

my heart looks for a wide trunked oak

to shelter me.

I am taken to the plains

watching big animals

staring into the mist

beneath such a tree.

There is something settling inside of us,

like the drops falling on sand,

quietly pulling us

into this moment.

Can we too, like the rain,

be drawn into the center,

the deeper rivers that flow beneath,

the ones we call home?

B. Misty Wycoff

April 12, 2012

Lion in rain

This young male was oblivious to the rain which was pelting down

 Rain | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Swimming with Elephants..

I was recently reading about someone who swam with elephants!  The images that flood into my mind are deeply imaginative, a little absurd and surely playful.  I loved thinking about this.  I love that someone was doing it.  I loved that I wanted to do it too.  I began thinking of how and where I might do this.  I also thought about riding on an elephant once and the prickly dry wrinkle of skin on her back.  Then I thought about summer and breezes and back to elephants.  My friend once did an ink wash on butcher paper that had 13 elephants on it with the words: Thirteen ways of looking at an elephant, a rip on Wallace Steven's poem, "Thirteen ways of looking at a Blackbird", which I then looked up and read aloud. Then I looked out the window and tried to see a blackbird, and then thought about the crow that often wakes me in the morning, yelling at me "Get UP!    Get UP!  Get UP!   which in crow language sounds like   CAWCAW, CAWCAW!!!  Then one of my black dogs climbed into my lap, looking at me, surely saying "I'M HUNGRY."  Then I thought about the way animals talk to me and remembered a friend telling me he liked how I put words in the mouths of my animals expressions.. and so on.

This is a piece of my "Morning Pages"   a concept developed by Julia Cameron who is the author is "The Artist's Way", "Sound of Paper", "Prayers for the Non Beliver", "The Right to Write", "Heart Steps",  and many other books on creativity and writing.  Her idea is to start every day of your life with two sheets of writing.  Stream of consciousness, like the example above, a letter, practicing a description of something or telling a story, are all possibilities.  What you write is not as important as the act itself.  She feels it is a kind of unplugging of our creative juices.  Whatever we are stuck thinking about lays atop the rich vein of gold of our creative energies.  If we can uncap the well we will have access all day to the deeper, richer, wilder stuff that lies underneath.  Our creativity can get bogged down in the business of living and we need to practice setting it free on a daily basis so that it can come out and play.  When we pass this portal, we enter into a zone with less rules and injunctions and negativity.  We are inviting a part of us to come out and in meeting this part of ourself we often find a sense of meaning and body joy that is not always available with the accumulation of success or completions that the world gives us.

Learn to nurture this part of yourself and you will find your outlook is happier and less cranky.




I have tagged three of her sites for you to explore, you can sign up for tweets or her blog or her course, all lively and supportive of the artist within all of us.

Now where are your two morning pages????????

Reflections on the Artist's Way - Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron Live

The Artist's Way at Work: The Official Site

Offstage cues:  Two pages!  Every morning!