An 8 year olds musings...

Children can be so insightful. My daughter Hannah wants to be a poet and I love these!

Seeking

The moment we set off in search of love, it sets off in search of us. And saves us. I'd rather be a fountain that overflows than a cistern that merely contains. Where is the joy in trying to explain why or how you feel? Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from Spirit. As children we had nothing to lose and we had everything. Pleasures were simple, relationships uncomplicated, emotions unquestioned. It was enough to lay on the lawn with our dreams.

Love and Surrender

It's been so long since I've updated this site! I recently took my little monkeys to Acadia National Park. It was beautiful! We rented a house on a quarry and surrounding the water were various rock sculptures that the property owner had carved and birds of every song. I saw my first eagle! A very significant event for me. While the eagle was circling I sent up a prayers of love and gratitude for the land and a prayer of surrender to Spirit. Surrender... It's absolutely terrifying to let go of what you dearly want. You must calmly go to a sacred place and put on a cloak of faith. I had been involved with a man that I had grown to care about in a few short weeks. I spent many minutes during my retreat feeling pleased with myself for having taken the initiative to know him. And it did take initiative, I wasn't eager to risk getting hurt again. Prior to meeting him I had been in a good place... I wasn't lonely... I wasn't needy... I wasn't pre-occupied. I had been content to date casually and enjoy the different people I was meeting. Anyway, ( there is a point to all this) I was sitting out on the quarry glad to have found someone I was interested in beyond dinner. And while I was thanking Spirit I was surrendering as well. The very next day, the day I came home, he ended the relationship. Ugh! Never saw it coming. So I sobbed for hours, not because I had been in love but from the disappointment and frustration of it all. I felt betrayed my own foolish heart. I was angry, defiant and felt sorry for myself. Then while sitting out on my roof to watch the sunrise, I remembered those prayers I had sent up. Ah, yes...I did agree to this ending on some level energetically. So what was the point to another heartbreak? Where's the lesson? To quote from Paulo Coehlo ' Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken to it. But in order to do that we need the other person.' I now love myself a tiny bit more. I love that I didn't shy away from a new experience. I love my courage, my openness, that my spirit hasn't been broken. I love my fragility. And I love that I'm not intimidated by rejection or indifference. Love is like looking at the same mountain from different angles. Do I wish I loved myself a little bit less right now and was still with my boyfriend? Sure, I'm only human. But since that wasn't in the stars I might as well throw up my hands, surrender, and heart me a little bit more.

* photo by G. Kai

Just a thought..

I'm sitting outside with my face in the sun for the first time in what feels like forever, enjoying a moment of nothingness. I have been feeling so disconnected from Spirit these past few weeks. I have been busy trying to create a business, and so my daily meditations have lapsed and I find myself mumbling apologetically to my ancestors every time I sit down on the computer rather than in circle with them. So here I am, being warmed by the sun, simultaneously thanking Grandfather for that blessing and apologizing for my neglect when a thought drifts in. Isn't creativity..the act of creation, an extension of our souls and the grandest display of Spirit? Why must I lay prone in silence or sit chanting mantra to show my devotion? To feel connected? We honor Spirit in the doing not just the being. And lately I have been doing much. I am the co-creator of my life. I have someone else on my team and when my soul is following the path it was meant to follow my teammate and I work so beautifully together it's as if we are one.
-Nic

My restless mind is reminding me to love the shadows as well as the light... in the shadows lay the mystery, the learning. We may carry scars from walking into the unknown, but we also carry the moments that would not have happened if we didn't dare to go beyond our limits. And how much more do we love the sunlight after a day of rain?

Poetry

Many moons ago I had some poetry published in a modest journal. I could no longer recite what I had written. The bulk of it had to do with childhood memories that were less than pleasant, punctuated on occasion with the naivety and whimsy of an eight year old. I did love to write though, keeping my musings to myself, stashing them away in a creased journal kept between my mattress'. I felt the urge to write again this past winter and the words came effortlessly. My structure is off to be sure, and I couldn't tell you the difference between a ballad an ode or an alexandrine but here's two that I like. Maybe their rubbish, but an artist is their own worse critic and I rather like them.

SAVING GRACE
On a footpath well worn by her grandmothers
She walks on
Memories of lovers are silenced like fallen heroes
Laid to rest beneath her glass slippers
Her gown trailing behind filthy and worn
Her bejeweled hair falling limp
Under tissue thin voile and frayed silks
A handmaid
Of ordinary marrow, wearied from her endeavors
Walks on
And as her adornment falls away the
Delicate armour beneath lays witness to a birthright
She had forgotten
With no steed in sight nor banners winnowing
And with no trumpets to herald her arrival
She walks on
A princess on a mission to save herself


THE JOURNEY
Small and vulnerable she stumbles along her path
Kicking up dust, harvesting sustenance
Posing seeds
Her weathered face turns upward in gratitude
The sunlight a balm on her heart
Mending it once more
She sighs
Perseverance
Surrender
Exhaustion
She seeks shade, solace
From her knowing
And allows herself a moment of nothingness
Time passes
Her youth returns to her and with arms wide open
She embraces a new path

- Nicole Evangeline Grace

Awohali

My given Cherokee name, Awohali Aghya Gagi Nvda, is hard enough to say let alone live up to. It means Eagle Woman Who Rises to the Sun. I am trying though. I have always been fascinated with altered states of perception and drawn to shamanic realities. Eagle medicine teaches us to take on the responsibility and power of becoming so much more than we think we are. You learn to move between worlds and touch all of life with healing. From a karmic aspect it takes an individual lifetimes to reach a place where the repercussions of everything done or said ( or not done or said) will be strong and swift. It's a constant learning process. Here are some characteristics of Eagle that those with this totem will be working with.

- An increased ability and need to learn to work with emotions, psychisms and all aspects of spirituality with greater control.

- There must be involvement with creativity.

- A willingness to experience extremes, there will be tests of faith.

- And, a willingness to dig deep, to seek out the true emotional aspects of yourself , and by doing so to rediscover the lost child and awaken to a higher sense of purity, creativity, passion and healing.