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June 2006 Your Independence Day

Musing

I recently returned from a 17- day hiking and eating trip to Tuscany and Cinque Terre in Italy. Memories include terraced vineyards on impossibly steep slopes, minestrone, roses and wildflowers, wine, wild boars on the trails, pizza, hilltop villages, sautéed spinach with lots of garlic, friendly Italians, lots of tourists, and did I mention wine?

It was a sensual, fun, strenuous experience with good friends. It was also delightful to return home, and for that I am grateful. Now I’m devoting much time to preparing my derriere for the Seattle to Portland bike ride (two 100 mile days). Fortunately, I LOVE bicycling in beautiful Whatcom County.

Dianne Ackerman says it best: "When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, eagle’s call, and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamoring of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart." This newsletter will return in September, I will be spending the summer outdoors playing.

Make it a grand summer!

Tool

As Independence Day rapidly approaches, it may be a good time for all of us to declare our own personal independence or freedom day.
  • Freedom from "should": live your life out of your own values, priorities, not someone else’s.
  • Freedom from conformity: be willing to own your eccentricities, stand out, stand up and maybe alone for your dreams and vision
  • Freedom from complexity and overwhelm: let go of "stressed for success", simplify, declare your independence from any demands on your time that do not align with your current priorities
  • Freedom from emotional slavery: you are not the cause of anyone else’s feelings, stop trying to make everyone "feel good"
  • Freedom from debt: pay off those credit cards, simplify your life and live within your means
  • Freedom from confusion: clarify your values, purpose, focus, driving needs, dreams
  • Freedom from job slavery: if your soul is dying in your work, get out of there!
  • Freedom from physical slavery: love your body, nourish it consciously and well, move!
On July 4th, declare that you, too, shall henceforth live as a free person! Free to live big and free to live your own life, make it a great one.

Food for Thought

A good friend gave me this poem as a gift and it really spoke to my soul. Enjoy!

Messenger by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird, equal seekers of sweetness

Here the quickening yeast
there the blue plums
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand

Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect?

Let me keep my mind on what matters,
Which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all elements are here

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes
A mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam

Telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Laughter

Out of the mouths of babes. . .

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: "Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?"

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, "If you don't remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six."

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: "How does it know it's me?

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. "Please don't give me this juice again," she said, "It makes my teeth cough."

DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: "How much do I cost?"

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked: "What happened to the flea?"

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face? I think this Mom will never forget this particular Sunday sermon. "Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. "Without you, we are but dust." He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) leaned over to me and asked quite audibly, "Mom, what is butt dust?"

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