Retreat happened this weekend; re-entry is happening now.  What can you say after spending three days with a group of irreverent, sacred, sassy, gentle, fierce, wise, silly, gorgeous, talented, creative, sensitive, remarkable women?

Sas, Penny, Susannah, Lisa, Emma, Leonie, Jo (and the Fox):

Thank you -

For being you.

For seeing me.

For nourishment.

For laughter.

For everything.

RrrOoooooAAaaaaRRrrrrrr.

xo

Photos by Penny McKinley-Rodgers

Dear Ms. Graham,

Quickening is bloody uncomfortable.  My body is full of equal parts excitement, terror and motion sickness.  My tried-and-true neural pathways are disagreeing with you and reading this feeling as fear rather than vitality.

“Eat!”  My ego is screaming.

“Self Medicate!”

“You can’t handle this. It is too big. Food will numb you. Grab a spoon and eat Nutella straight out of the jar. Don’t even move away from the open cupboard door. The faster you can get it in the sooner this feeling of terror/ possibility will pass.”

“Who are you to think about getting bigger?”

“Who are you to think about being capable of more?”

“The way things are is easier.”

“Why does it matter anyway? You aren’t special. What you have to say doesn’t matter.”

“Tomorrow is soon enough. There is plenty of time to do it then.”

“Go ahead, watch that re-run. You’re tired. You’ve earned a rest.”

But there is another tiny voice there that has been getting stronger and stronger. It wants me to listen to the quickening. It wants me to ride the feeling through to the end. It is telling me that I can handle it.  In fact, it thinks I have the potential to Rock It.

“There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.” - Martha Graham

Dear Ms. Graham,

I hear you, and I will.

love megg.

ox

Have you met yours yet?

xo

(P.S. Once again, I don’t know who did this – if you know who I can credit, please let me know!)

I don’t talk about food on here very much because although it is a real interest of mine, I am not a nutritionist or a chef and there are plenty of those people writing blogs.  But I have been on a food adventure for the past couple of months and I really wanted to share it with you – because it has been life changing. I promise that this has not and will not become a food blog!

Three years ago I was diagnosed with Celiac (Coeliac) Disease, and after both of us eating gluten-free for three weeks and then going to a friend’s for pizza and beer we discovered the hard way that my husband also couldn’t eat gluten.

Cutting something as pervasive as gluten out of your diet requires constant attention. I read every single label and question every single waiter, so I was well prepared for my latest adventure: cutting out sugar for three months.  I decided to try it out because Kris Carr and Dr. Mark Hyman both talked me into it, and the best part about changing your diet is that if it doesn’t work, you can easily change it back.

It’s not easy.  It’s actually easier to cut out gluten than it is to cut out sugar. Gluten-free is gluten-free and that is all there is to it. Sugar-free gives manufacturers license to put in all kinds of other crap.  Yes, I said crap. Sweeteners, while being lovely and sweet, still make me and my body want sugar. So I skipped the question of what is and isn’t a healthy sweetener and I cut out the lot. I mean no maple syrup or honey or aspartame (the devil) or even stevia. I wanted to stop my body from wanting sugar so why would I eat that stuff and give my mouth mixed signals?

Hard? Yes.

Worth it? Absolutely.

Within a month I lost 17lbs without even trying.  Now I am not being smug because I didn’t get all virtuous over night. I did largely replace sugar with salt, but still the weight fell off.

The eczema which has always plagued my hands? Gone in the first three days.

Weirdly, where my eyebrows had been sparse before, they grew in.

But the very best part of all is the way that my mind and body feel.  I feel like I have stepped off of the crazy train.  I feel stronger, clearer, healthier, saner, and more rational.  I can stand back from the dessert menu and know that I will feel sick and fuzzy and tired if I eat anything on it.  I have been so much more productive and steady and focused that I feel like a different person. I feel like I have my power back.

So the question is which is sweeter: a mouthful of something with sugar in it or the feeling of having a clear, powerful head on my shoulders?

Easy.  I choose me.

“…get off the sugar and save your brain.” – Dr. Mark Hyman The Ultramind Solution

Last week I flew home for 5 days, turned 37 while still in the air on the way back, and had surgery requiring general anesthetic.

Anyone who knows anything about energy and change would now tell me to be still and let all of that integrate into my cells.  My body feels sore and strange, but my brain is straining to write and create and get on with the process of a whole new year of my life.

I’ve decided to spend today gently working on a dream board and a gentle plan for my year ahead.

In the most recent Circe’s Tribe call (I highly recommend Circe’s Circle!) Jamie asked about the conditions that we need to flourish. This is a perfect question for me today as I feel like I am well placed to begin my fresh new year.

In the past, making vision boards always made me irritated and disillusioned because the things weren’t showing up and I got depressed when I tried to be positive and bad things still happened over and over and over.  I read and meditated a lot about this and I have finally realized that instead of being specific on my vision boards about things I wanted, I should focus on my ultimate goal because I know that the Universe/ God/ Goddess/ the Divine (whatever feels right to you) actually has bigger better plans than I can possibly imagine.

What if me putting big things on my vision board was actually limiting the amazingness that could be??!

So I think that in order for me to flourish what I really need is the ability to get out of my own way.  When I set my compass and my vision for happiness and joy and connection (which is what all of the things I want actually represent) and I try to make decisions that will bring me closer to those things rather than push them farther away, and I have faith that what is coming is better than what I could imagine, I feel a lot better.

Following Jamie’s lead and calling it a Dream Board rather than a Vision Board has helped too – it’s not about what I want, it’s about how I want to be.

What else do I need to flourish?

• Beauty. I need it like I need water and sleep!
• Sleep/ water/ nourishing food. – I’ve been eating no sugar for the past 2.5 months and I feel 100% clearer and gentler on myself. It has been life-changing. (I’ll post about that later this week.)
• For me I also need an element of the sacred in my life. It’s the bit I didn’t realize/ didn’t allow/ didn’t embrace for years and years, so I am stretching myself and letting that really growl and stretch and grow within me. I don’t have a template or a mentor to show me my way – nobody I know of is doing what feels right for me – so I am trying to embrace and integrate what is showing up for me and let it come out.

Here at the beginning of my 38^th year, I have finally accepted that flourishing is such a personal state that it isn’t until we allow ourselves to embrace all of ourselves and accept it and let our freak flag fly that we can move into that flow. The only resistance we have to it is our own.

What do you need to flourish?

(Can anybody tell me who to give credit for this picture?)

There are poems, quotes, collections of words that haunt me. I read them once and they take up residence in my head, echoing through at the strangest times. I’ll simply be walking along a street and a specific line or phrase will come to me, repeating itself until I have to whisper it aloud or stop a moment and think it clearly.

This is one of those poems. I have shared it before on my old blog, but it wanted to be shared again. I hope that whoever it is who needs to hear it comes for a visit.

When she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

Some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious…
We’re all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

We’ve all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.

-Tony Hoagland, from ‘Grammar’

I have a nemesis.  I have chosen her carefully.  Allow me to explain:

Today ended up being a very quiet day.  We started with a late breakfast and ended up – as I hope other people occasionally do – watching ridiculous Sunday television.  The Three Musketeers was on: the one with Charlie Sheen sporting a mullet and Keifer Sutherland before he was Jack Bauer. Best of all was Tim Curry’s performance as Cardinal Richelieu.  Mark and I often judge a movie’s appeal on the quotableness of its lines – and Tim Curry, with his, “All for one and more for me,” provides ridiculous entertainment.

It did get us talking about the best movie villains.  Alan Rickman in the atrocious Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Glenn Close as Cruella in 101 Dalmations, or even Thomas F. Wilson as Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future movies.  Fabulous villains in the proper sense of the word, not just bad or evil or scary but properly fun, very quotable and always dastardly and compelling.  In Ocean’s Eleven, Basher says, “It will be nice working with proper villains again.”  And we secretly agree.

Does every story need a good villain?  Does every hero or heroine need a nemesis?  Is Sarah Ban Breathnach right when she says that it is “simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons?” Are the hard and scary parts of our lives as vital to our story as the sunny ones?

I myself have a nemesis.  It may seem crazy to think of her in this way, but when I do our interactions cease to stress me out. Instead of letting her get to me as she used to, I now look at her with amusement and a certain level of comic detachment.  In my head I am looking at her with narrowed eyes, tossing my hair back and getting ready to do battle.  I imagine her with her red cape flapping behind her as we circle each other with purpose.  She is as silly to me as the best of the fabulous villains. By letting the energy out of our interactions I get to live that moment when Sarah says, “You have no power over me,” to an inappropriately crotch-stuffed David Bowie in Labyrinth. Doing this sounds silly, but it means that I get to decide who the heroes and the villains are in my life.

So just for a moment, try seeing the world around you as characters in your own movie.  Try seeing the people who drive you crazy as ridiculous partners to your hero or heroine self.  Who is the Vader to your Luke or the Hook to your Pan?  Then delight in knowing that they have no power over you.

And know that the heroine of this particular story is going to win.

xo

I think everyone has had one of those weird moments when you realize that even your cells are responding to something.  It’s never when you expect it and it always sneaks up on you.  I had one of those watching Coldplay perform at Glastonbury on the BBC.

In the spirit of full disclosure,  I am a real fan of Coldplay and love watching love perform. Viva la Vida always makes me want to really get up and move.  But when I was watching this performance where you could see the whole band clearly, I was completely caught up in watching the drummer, Will Champion do his thing.  Holy crap.  Talk about putting your whole self into the moment.

Go here and watch out for him (although they don’t show much of him here, if you are in the UK you can watch lots more here.)  If YouTube has taken it off, just trust me: turn up the base, put on Viva La Vida and feel that drum.

Will Champion: I am a fan!

ox

]]> http://creatingwings.com/2011/07/26/my-newest-hero/feed/ 2 http://creatingwings.com/2011/06/28/oh-canada/ http://creatingwings.com/2011/06/28/oh-canada/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:43:56 +0000 megg http://creatingwings.com/?p=1149

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

-David Wagoner

I’m off tomorrow for a trip home.  Me and the family and the trees need some time together.  I may see you here while I am there but if not, I’ll see you when I get back.

Photo by my Dad.

xo

I’m sorry I’m being quiet.  Work is bonkers.  It’s the craziest time of year for me.  If you are a teacher, think report cards.  If you are a sportsman, think championship game. You all know what I am talking about.

Work coupled with the way some people deal with the stress of work means that my work is doubly hard this time.  So I am not getting to write as much as I’d like – none at all in fact – and that is why this is a brief check in.  I’m too spent to do much more.

The stories are having trouble waiting though.  The next one is all there ready for my full attention on the weekend, so I hope to have another story for you then.  In the meantime, keep well, read something nice for me and i hope wherever you are, you are having a wonderful day.

with love,

megg