Spirit, Mind, Body Column – Ten Years in the Making!
Happy Anniversary!
To you, to me, and to the commitment of living more joyfully. This month, Feb. 2013, marks ten years since I have been writing my column for the Petaluma Post. Ten years that I have been expounding on insights, philosophies and tried and true methods to create depth, meaning and purpose in ones life. And to this end, I am more dedicate then ever.
My commitment to sharing experiences (mine and others’) and to encouraging people to reach deep within themselves, to pull from their storehouse of inner resources and to remove the veil from their true identity, has kept me challenged to do the same. I wouldn’t possibly conceive of suggesting others’ perform feats that I have not, or would not, myself be wiling to perform. Thus, these past ten years in my own life have been rich and varied and magnificently powerful, and I just wanted to share this decade long adventure with you, my fellow traveler and loyal reader.
These past ten years have been the richest of my life! I’ve moved from a 14 year stint in San Francisco to Petaluma, from Petaluma to San Anselmo, and from San Anselmo to where I currently reside in the beautiful Alexander Valley near Healdsburg. I love moving and change and all the good stuff that it stirs up. Re-creating and starting over is a grand adventure as far as I’m concerned because it provides such opportunity to reinvent and to see the world with beginners eyes. A way to mark our passing from one exploration to the next.
In this same ten years, I’ve met the most amazing and loving partner a girl could hope for. Jim Wills, who also works for the Petaluma Post (which is how we met) has brought such depth and loyalty and authenticity into my life. I am humbled by his belief in me and by the organic nature with which he lives his life. He has provided me with the opportunity to know what it is to be truly loved and honored and respected for who I am, not for who I should be or bemoaned for who I am not. I think there could be no greater love – from him to me, and learning how to allow that love, to learn from it and not resist, to not only fully accept and embrace it but to grow into it, and to become it, has been my life’s greatest work! This is how love should be, isn’t’ it? Something we grow into? Something we strive to get better at from one year to the next? Something that is larger then ourselves and the depth of which, and truth of which, is never fully reached because of the infinite nature of love itself. I’ve always maintained that the health of a relationship is based on the willingness of both partners to work on behalf of the other, to become the best people they are willing and wanting to become, and it is in this place I find myself today. I am truly blessed!
This ten years has brought many changes in my “family life” as well. Thanks to Jim I was gifted three beautiful young beings into my life and I’ve been privileged to watch (and partake in) one of Jim’s kids growing from a Tween into a beautifully honest, fun-loving young woman, another from a teen into an adventurous young man, and the third, from a young adult into a beautiful, wise and insightful woman. And to be a part of this transformation, to bare witness to their evolution, has brought me such deep indescribable joy! I experienced and lived with the long and difficult passing of Jim’s father…..a six month sentence which lasted three intensive years. And the passing of my oldest sister, only 3 years older then I, who after many years of deep sadness and addiction, slipped violently away into the only thing that could be, a better life. And the passing of my feline soul mate Calvin, who was 17 and to date, still the longest relationship of my life!
These ten years has taken me afar – to Guatemala, Japan, China, Nepal, India, Bhoutan, Alaska, Holland, Croatia, Mexico (at least three times that I can remember) and many places in between. I’ve seen sages deliver faith medicine to devotees, midnight pujas to Shiva – the most supreme Hindu God, tea plantations, monkey temples, where Buddha was enlightened and to the last Buddhist Kingdom on earth! I’ve seen the breathtaking beauty of the Adriatic sea, the majestic snow capped mountains of the Himalaya, whales so close I could smell their breath, and six million tulips blossoming at once! I’ve laughed with children who speak other languages, exchanged tears with strangers when there were no words. I’ve listened and learned and witnessed the beauty of nature, of man, of worlds beyond my own and I have been transformed! I have been cracked open, lit-up, and inspired and……I am ready for more!
I have written over 100 columns on “how to live a more authentic life” and “how to become a more conscious being” and I can only hope that you, wherever you are, whoever you are, have heard this calling. Every once in a while a reader will write but not nearly often enough. Sometimes I wonder why I do it but then I remind myself that I’m doing it as much for me, as I am for you…..so that I too stay attuned to my inner calling, to the challenge of following my own heart and for allowing my purpose to ripen, deepen and inform me of where to go next. And so, I listen and I write, and I write and I listen…..and that is how the story goes, one day and then another, until ten years has suddenly passed.
Thank you for a remarkable ten years! Without you, without this, I wouldn’t be who I am today.
Love and Happiness to ALL beings!
“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”
—–Helen Keller
