Year of the Snake

Year of the snake!  That's what I say aloud to most everything: the fiscal crisis, my pal Wendser's new career choice, another friend's move from the Pacific Northwest to the non-Pacific Southwest, the plumbing problem with my bathtub.

I say it more like a validation of the challenges and changes we are all picking our way through, but also to provide a more visual, creative, even spiritual way of thinking through problems, one that is more self-aware than something like "why does this shit always happen to me?"  (Why does this victim mentality seem so familiar?  Hmmm.).

I held a snake, a boa, when I visited Jamaica.  The boa was beautiful, very Bob Marley, an every-little-thing-gonna-be-alright kind of snake.  Bob was heavy around my neck, a smooth muscle, very focused and Zen.  He stretched his head toward his keeper with a kind of strength my core will never know, and his body followed. He wished himself to the place he wanted to go like a leap of faith.

I've thought about change and rebirth in the way Bob Marley the Boa might think of shedding skin, in the way of growth and making himself new.

Ancient Chinese wisdom says the serpent is feminine, represents wisdom.  Year of the Serpent is a  time of seeking, planning, and change.

I've thought about the serpent's strong connection with the earth, the graceful way she moves.  She's focused on a destination, but moves circuitously, sometimes laterally or curls her way past obstacles with immense flexibility, and what seems to be an elegant belief system like faith that  every little thing gonna be alright.

Need a Man Update, too?

Feel the steam and dream the dream, and keep those breasts healthy.  Here's the boyfriend in your head, your man reminder, refreshed, courtesy of rethinkbreastcancer.com.  This app is available free from iTunes and Android.

Cougarlicious!

A Couple of Things is not responsible for hot flashes or spontaneous hot man hugging, but we will take credit for raising your breast health awareness.

Have fun out there!

Need a Man?

Warning:  this man moment may cause hot flashes, steamy thoughts, and an urge to hug a hot guy.

Here's a Man Reminder to give your breasts a little TLC (Touch, Look, Check).  Watch the video and then go to www.rethinkbreastcancer.com to learn more about breast health.  This website supports all women, and is geared to younger women's awareness.  I've added it to my cougar prowl list.   

This breast cancer awareness, um, tool is available through iTunes and Android--FREE.  

Have fun out there and feel your boobies!  

What's Your Intention?

(Oprah in Calgary, January 22, 2013)

     So when Oprah said that you have to know what your intention is in every interaction, especially in tough conversations, I had a walloping Aha! moment.  I thought of interactions with friends and family, the times I'd gone along to get along and then later found myself regretting agreements I'd made.  Or worse deciding not to say how I felt and later resenting someone because I wasn't candid, I wasn't honest, I did not say what my gut intended.

     Saying how you feel or where you stand sets a boundary and we loves/hates them there boundaries, I'll tell ya.

     But boundaries are good fences.

     Oprah gave an example of a moment when her friend, Stevie Wonder, asked her for money for one of his charities, one of many friends who ask for $$$$ from the Oprah National Bank.  She admitted that, in the past, she always gave in to him; she always gave him the money despite her already long list of charities she supports.  But this time she didn't want to.  So by sifting through the "what is my  intention stuff," Oprah realized that her intention was she really wanted Stevie Wonder to like her.   Oprah told Stevie no and Stevie Wonder still likes her.

     Celebrities - whatever, right?  Yeah.

     However, I'm finding the process of realizing or admitting my intention in many situations is challenging as hell, and the realizations, if they come, can be rather profound, a real Aha! moment.  Tough situations come and it's good practice to first understand what my intention is for my relationship with that person.  Even if it doesn't go well, I know that I've at least been honest with myself.

     Your intentions will lead you to better, healthier relationships.  Good luck out there.

   

Let's make Newtown the Last Town to Suffer the Deaths of Children

This is enough. Not that it wasn't enough with Columbine, Virginia Tech, the day last week when my niece texted me that she was in lockdown on her school's campus, not that it isn't enough any time any killer points a gun in a child's face, but this, folks, is it, and we cannot rely on the Fiscal Cliff People, the politicians who we've been begging to protect our children from murder. 

Somehow this shooting feels heavier than all of the other school shootings, or maybe it is the culmination of all of the school shootings, but it looms large, bigger than the murder of JFK, MLK, it hurts more than the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, the Columbia, because it is enough. We have to stop this and I think that must be done at a community level because we can no longer wait for the politicians to get their shit together.  

If you don't get your back up today, well then you're probably a boneless chicken.

Erma Bombeck wrote a column called, "The First Day of School," on September 3, 1981, which she said could also be titled, "Confessions of a child entering school for the first time who according to the adults has "nothing to worry about."  Bombeck narrates the child's fears through a child's voice--Donald--where he says, "I'm just a little kid, but maybe I'm smarter than I think I am.  At least I know better than to tell a five-year-old kid with a loose tooth who has never been out of the yard by himself before that he has "nothing to worry about.""  What would Erma Bombeck write today?  What do we now tell our children before we send them off to school?

We are going to have to solve this one ourselves, each community, with our time and our presence and our prayers.  Communities all over the United States must come together to protect their--OUR-- children.  Maybe we need to establish a neighborhood watch-style volunteer security system for each of our community's schools.   

And for our children's sake, and especially for Newtown's children, let's get rid of the automatic rifles.

Good Reads

Just in time for Christmas and all December holidays, Deb's Book Recommendations!  Ta-da!  Recently I found myself prescribing books like nutritionists prescribe supplements to under-nourished people, under-read folks I've met at holiday cocktail parties or at my yoga classes.

One corporate exec said he hasn't read anything but The Economist--for years!  He looked gray and worn, so I prescribed some colorful reading, Jimmy Buffett's Tales From Margaritaville.  My friend and poet Tom Wayman recommended this awesome book of fiction short stories to me a few years ago.    I took it with me on vacation; it was a great read and has become one of my treasured books--still has beach sand and margarita salt in it!  Buffett is a great story teller, the essence of a good writer, I think.  And, it's FUN.  Remember?  Reading is FUNdamental?

Another gentlemen, same party, told me that he secretly wants to write romance novels.  No, he was not hitting on me.  So I told him that I secretly want to teach a writing workshop, foster the writing talent of people like him, folks who have that writing urge nagging at them.  He said he likes Nicholas Sparks and after I threw up in my mouth a little bit, I told him I think he should aim higher than Sparks' novels (though I have to admit the last romance novel I read WAS Nights in Rodanthe, which was pretty good--oops).  I think I recommended Buffett's Tales novel to him, too, for its fun and quirky romances and great characters.

I recommended When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams (TTW) to my journaling yoga group.  TTW writes prose that sings like a song bird, and her meditative, almost journal-writing style makes for a breezy, spiritual experience and some good meditative thinking on women's voices.  Maybe we are all songbirds.  A line from a Nushu poem reads:

Beside a well, one won't thirst;
Beside a sister, one won't despair.

When Women Were Birds, pictured below, has a white cover, so its image doesn't show up well, but here it is.

Three people recommended the same book to me, and in my haze of end of term writing and reading work, I kept forgetting about it.  However, the day before I left to go on a retreat, I made a stop at the bookstore.  I wandered aimlessly, with no specific hunt in mind, only wanting a book to take with me for the weekend's downtown.  I stopped in front of a book case and there in the center of the shelves I saw a book titled, The Artist's Way.  Something about it seemed familiar, so I bought it.  Turns out it's that three-times recommended book.  Turns out it's a course on finding, restoring, embracing your creativity.  It requires a commitment to writing 3 pages a day.  I've knocked that back to one or two, and am trying to be open minded about some of its concepts.

Learning New Things Makes All Things New

The Japanese say that even the other side has another side.  I heard this somewhere along the way, maybe in a Yoga class.  Very interesting, especially when you think about the underside of things, or maybe how we look back at the end of a journey.  

I'm trying to do that now, turning things over and over to find the highlights from my journey deep into the heart of writing.  I'm presenting on my creative work in January and while I go about putting up Christmas decorations, I'm mining for remembrances, things I've learned along the way.  

The biggest lesson I've learned is that there is so much to know about writing and music and science and art and everything; we can never know it all.  The process of learning is continuous.  It's infinite.  

And I love that.  Learning new things makes all things new.  Maybe that's the other side of any achievement.  That's why I love learning.  

(yes, I decorated the birdie cafeteria!) :)