This path that you are sending me on
I have already walked for a number of miles
Met many other travelers going my way
Passed by many going another way
A direction was set out for me
No one asked me if this was the way I wanted to go
No map can be found
I round a bend and another twist
Another turn
Another unknown
Another and then another
This path you are sending me on
Sometimes I grip onto the edge of my seat
Afraid I may fly off
Sometimes I say, “Really?”
Always I am asked to accept and keep going
Stretching my skin and my mind
My heart is bruised and recovers
Grand sights are seen
Many losses are had
Sounds of birds and water and laughter give respite
Before the next bend
The next twist and turn
This path you are sending me on
Each step takes me further to a ground
Unknown until I get there
Trust you say, trust…
But who are you that is steering my way
Looking into the mirror and into my eyes
A deep soul stirring wishes to know itself
I am you and you are me
Traveling in time and space so that we can be One
You set out the way
I take the steps
Thinking I do not know the way
I am fooled
It was me all of the time carving out this path
Pointing the way to go.
 
Robin Modlin 2018
 

Every woman has a story to tell about her hair. It is part of the feminine identity, part of the style, and part of how long it takes to get ready in the morning. My hair is just plain curly, very curly. As a child I had the dark brown kinky Jewish curls that just had to go. I so wanted to be blonde with long straight flowing locks.

I started my hair straightening career when I was about 8 years old. I sat in the salon chair for hours on a Saturday with the chemicals working on my hair and burning my scalp. After a set and comb out I would walk out with my mom happy but with a head also wearing sores and a few bald spots here and there.

Hair, it was worth it. I could smooth out the kink after using these chemicals and putting it on large rollers when ever it got wet....I learned to sleep on them. I do not have a clue today how I and other girls did that. We would dippity do our hair and place it around orange juice cans and then the head would meet the pillow and we actually would fall asleep. My hair was never long enough to iron it.....

When I was 19 I visited my brother and sister in law in Canada. I forgot some important implement to my hair care. It was a problem and Terri, my sister in law told be that enough was enough....I was to get it all cut off and go natural. For some reason I agreed. Off it came and there I was with a 1970's afro al la white girl. I grew to like it ....what I liked more was the ease of just being me and no muss no fuss......this was the way to be.

After my second baby for some reason I thought I would try straightening again. What was I thinking? Yeah it was fun for a few months but no way did I want to maintain upkeep. I wanted to be free again......so natural was the way.

About 7 years ago I cut it again in a new style.......no more pulling it back in clips. I was out there with my Angela Davis hair. Loved it! And in the past years I have had more complements on my hair, "I just love your hair" every where I go. It has been so fun....people like my hair! Amazing! When I was a child not only I hated it but it was cause of teasing by others. Now I get special attention........so sweet and fun for me.

Now the cosmic joke! Do you think life is funny? Do you really? Just when I am in my 60's and beauty is fading into the creases and folds I start loosing my hair! What? That is not funny. After all, I am the curly haired woman. My hair is my muse for my sculptures. My hair is my signature characteristic. Now, when I am in the veggie aisle and someone says, "I love your hair" I mumble under my breath, "Yeah, hope I get to keep it." It is the ultimate cosmic joke working on my ego and vanity. I have frontal fibrosing alopecia....you can not tell yet but, I can see and feel that my hair is leaving my head. I have already lost all of my eyebrows and my hairline is definitely moving with a blank spot or two above the ears. Crazy!

The hair loss may stop in its tracks (I hope, I hope) or it may not. There are a few "medical" things that I am trying.....the Dr. tells me to be hopeful. I have already dreamt of what kind of wig I would get. And you know, I am not thinking curly. I still want salt and pepper but how about long and straight with bangs this time. I could have a pony tail like I never had before or I could wear it down or up on the top of my head. I also am carrying a light weight turban in my purse just in case that day arrives when I can no longer hide it.......

But wait, maybe I found another answer......this alopecia is an autoimmune condition like my Hashimoto's disease (thyroid). I have just embarked on the Paleo Autoimmune Approach Diet......it makes a lot of sense and since the medical world really does not have much for this condition I think I will try to eat my way with meat and veggies back to good health and save my hair. Where the thoughts of a long straight wig sounds fun in a way, I think I like the "I love your hair" comments from sweet people in the world. What a gift my curls have been for me. They are worth saving so bye bye wine, bye bye nightshade veggies, bye bye nuts and seeds, bye bye many other things.......so maybe I can have those curls stick around into my older and older age and I can watch how the gray invades and takes over....I can just be me....it is that, or a smooth head for my new identity.

Why am I telling you this? Guess it is my way to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Meet my fairy, Lilliput. Why the name Lilliput? Well just look at her. Isn't she a Lilliput? She is a bit mischievous, head strong, silly, and lighter than air........I learned just recently about my fairy while exploring my creativity looking for my muse and she popped in. A fairy, what a manifestation for a grown woman.

I have a dear friend with two darling grandchildren who I call the fairy girls. The moment I saw them I thought of fairies. I told Sue, those girls need fairies. I found some fairy dolls one Saturday in Livermore on one of my garage sale treasure hunts. And since then  they now have a fairy garden at their Mimi's home. So sweet and precious. It is fun to have fairy girls to find little fun sparkling and fairy things. But you know what? That fairy garden is not just for the girls.....it is a secret but the adult grown women love it too. Imagine, fairies.......

So, what is it about fairies? They live in natural settings, they engage our fantasies and they have wings. Who would not want wings to lift your feet off of this ground? Now that my Lilliput has come into my life I too have a fairy garden sitting in the middle of my vegetable garden. I understand that she has been close by all my life. She is the voice that whispers giggles at the absurd and the imagined and unimagined coincidences that appear out of no where.

By now we all know that this life and all that comes down is no joke. Hey, we all have had a life and even though you may not admit how tough it is sometimes, I know, it is a challenge for all of us. I realize that one of the ways I have been able to get through is with my dear friend Lilliput sitting on my shoulder when I have needed her. How else do you walk out of an ICU and take your eyes off of the ground? It takes fairy wings on your eyelids lifting them up and finding something "light" .

Now I know it was not only fairy but also wise woman who with her serious and grounded knowing was the other figure on the other shoulder who was with me too. I call her Sedona. Sedona and Lilliput are good friends now after working together to help me navigate this life I call my own. Do you have a Sedona and Lilliput on your shoulders? I hope so in fact I know so. If you just look you will find them. They ride with all of us. Just give them a name and call on them when ever you need.

Fairies, and wise women archetypes, silly, I am a grown woman you know. But I can not resist the fun of my imagination. It carries me on fairy wings........and Sedona points the way.

She sits with beaded headband and yellow vest. Her face is round and a warm brown with white hair wisps as a frame. The fullness of her presence signifies she has seen more than her share. An open mouth spills out the sound of her knowing when once she was young it was the high pitch sound of her longing. Age brought her to these deeper notes. Time had to pass before she could sing like thunder. Her song is no nonsense and only tells the truth. It speaks of an earthy connection and a warm embrace in the quick moment that the sky opens to the light and the power flashing boldly. In this instant you know you are standing strong. She says hey ya, hey ya, hey ya as she beats a drum given to her by her ancestors. And when those words touch the ears of the white wolves they stand alert. They begin to gather and mark the trail that leads forward. Standing strong leads to walking firm, moving on a straight path guided by the constant hey ya, hey ya, hey ya.........

And this is the image of my SoulCollage® Protector Guide. She came to me on Monday and I love her. I can not get enough of her. She warms me and the wolves call me. I can hear her chant deep in my mind. The lightening is bold and a bit scary in all of its power.

Taking time to meditate upon what we need within us to guide us through difficult times is so helpful  What are the qualities that make us feel safe and true to our standing tall? Each of us will have our own sense of a Protector Guide and who she or he is and what surrounds that energy. Using images to define what we feel draws it even closer and allows us to go much deeper. We can ask ourselves why did I choose that image, that face, that symbol? How do I feel when I gaze upon it? What happens when I allow that image to work inside my mind? Does it open new thoughts and places I have not yet explored?

As I gaze upon this wonderful native woman singing her song my heart knows her. I have always known her. She cuddled me as a child when I felt hurt and alone. She connected me to the earth as I would watch butterflies and caterpillars or climbed in trees. She fostered my curiosity about things old and ancient and my ancestors. She helped me find my voice as I grew older. She stood by me as I gave birth to my children. She held my hand as I stood by the bedside of my sick daughter. She chanted with me as my mother's spirit left this world for another. And now she is courting me to dance an unknown dance.

Perhaps the wolves know the steps. I will have to get to know them better to see if they will turn and leap and do the two step with me. I will listen to the hey ya, hey ya, hey ya and seek to feel the style of the dance.  I will waltz in the thunder clap. Is this the march of age beckoning me to new ways of being? If so, if I am entering a new time, a new age I am glad that she is my guide for I know in her face, in her eyes and in her heart she will be there for me at any new passages that may come without my knowing, into the mystery of my life.

It is so comforting to know that she sits in her dress fully herself while I still live with confusions and conflicts and fears and mistakes and failures and disappointments and losses and imperfections beyond my control. As I continue to slip and stumble, seek and learn, try and fail and live this life in all the humanness that we must, she is an image that holds me with a grandmother's embrace. It is here at her feet I can wash the tears and cleanse my spirit and feel her forever with me.

It is loud and clear, not just a whisper in the ear. The voice rings with truthful noise saying, "You must do your work, your inner work. You must practice looking within, coming to know yourself." This voice has lived with me using it's megaphone poised on my shoulder for as long as I can remember. It has always been as bold and sharp as the caw of the crow or raven. Those black birds with their sounds of warning and telling appearances at mysterious times, have followed me through neighborhoods old and new, calling me from house tops and tree tops as if they knew they were my special feathered sisters reminding me, look within, look within......

As a young girl I would sit up in the well pruned grapefruit tree that grew outside my bedroom window and ponder, Who am I? What is all of this? These were natural questions for me, it was my nature to think this way, just like it was of the roundness and yellow color of the grapefruits ripening around me, while I sat on my private perch. I would take my drawing book and my dolls or my plastic horses there with me. I would settle into the woody crotch of a limb and spend time imagining my life, creating stories, feeling my hurts, feeling alone, wondering about where I came from, looking within and around me for answers. It was the work I had to do. I needed to understand and seek deeply.

I fondly think back to being 9 or 10 feeling my place in that tree, in my retreat when I was confused and felt unloved. And now so many years later I am here in my studio, no longer in that sacred tree. My studio is an annex of our garage built on the edge of a vineyard. Outside the window I can hear the water of the patio fountain as it washes away the silence. When they want to, the crows fly by with the occasional hawk and vulture. Here I can be me and take the time to look within. That voice that is loud and clear resounds here through the window and inside the walls. It is the same voice but it sits on a shoulder of a matured woman now creating my own sculptures and other art works while I ponder and ponder.

I have found many of my own answers and many more questions as I spend time in quiet like in my tree or now in my studio and of them all I think the most important answer is that this is the work we all must do, and simply, it never ends. This is all of our work. In the midst of what ever we are involved in whether our employment, the caring of family, sports activities or exotic vacations we must also spend time looking within. Coming to know ourselves, how we respond to situations, what we feel deep in our hearts, how we are hurt and how we hurt others is what we all need to learn about. It is the most important work. We all must find our way that helps us to look deeply into the darkness of shrouded truths as well as around the bend to the light of dawn breaking. This is how we learn compassion for ourselves and others and come to know what we can give and how we can grow. This is how we find balance and happiness.

For me as I reflect upon the years my way has included praying through creativity to come to know my world and myself more intimately. I recognize that now. As when I was a child playing with my toys, that play was like a prayer to have a deeper understanding. And now as I look at my creative life the things that I have worked on have all been prayers. These are not prayers to anyone but prayers to life, to the universe, to my heart, to foster growth and understanding. Creativity has been a powerful path for me allowing me to express my dreams, feel my wounds and ask my questions.

If you are reading this blog passage that I have written are you thinking of how you look within? Are you thinking about how you have not done that for a while? Do you also realize that this is really our most important work? Are you saying, I have to find that place where I can be quiet, where I can listen deeply, where I can create, where I can ask questions and find answers and more questions? If you are, then you are doing it, you are doing the work.........the work we all must do, keep it up..........

I have amazing good fortune. I still have all of my essential parts. Well, I did loose a tooth last year and now I am having a new tooth made for my implanted screw that sits in my jaw, but that is so nothing. I have my health as such at my age. And this idea of amazing good fortune also sits next to me in my friend Peggy, but she doesn't have all her original parts. Peggy has the heart of another beating in her creating her good fortune. One's good fortune is one's good fortune all so relative, you know.

The other aspect of my good fortune is that I have a collection of friends and acquaintances and even a daughter who shares this good fortune of being propelled in life by another's life giving organ. What makes my good fortune in this realm is that these people are the most grateful, loving people you can ever meet. How lucky I am to be a part of this community without having to go through what they have had to. That is a challenge and ordeal no one would ever wish for or wish upon another. And yet, they are amazing and they inspire me. I have been able to be their friend, supporter, mother and at times caregiver. This is one of the most crazy and most lovely parts of my life.

I learned about transplanted organs, especially lungs, many years ago when it was first discussed as a possible way to save my daughter's life. She was born with cystic fibrosis, a serious and life shortening genetic disease. My life as her mother was intense with the forever cloud of ever worsening disease and eventual loss. We fought the overwhelming lung infections with all that we had as a family. We were involved in our community of other CF families. There, another way I have had great good fortune. Our CF, CFRI community is filled with committed, intelligent, caring, courageous people. I am so, so proud to be a part of that group.

But finally, despite the war on her lung disease the battles lead to a surrender and a new path, keeping Anna going until new lungs could be found. We knew others whose lives had been saved in this way. They were our inspiration and our hope. We also knew others who never had this opportunity. Their lives took on a different turn and a different meaning. When you or your family member have this hope and then are not able to get a chance at new life through organ transplant there is a feeling of great disappointment and loss. Then one must listen and look very deep to find the meaning of the life that ended too soon. So many have been lost and so many more will again. Everyone has their own story and each family must find the way they cope and learn to gain understanding. They are the most courageous ones.

And for us, me and Peggy, our stories include the chapter of successful organ transplantation. Having survived this ordeal as mother and friend to others before, I got to once again support and watch my dear friend Peggy receive this miracle too, only 8 weeks ago. How strange it seemed when I learned that my good friend needed a new heart. How could I know so many organ recipients? My first impulse was to help her in any way that I could. I had a way to give, because I had been there before, I knew how to do this. One needs to have some way to give back when life saving gifts are so generously bestowed by the universe. I also have my great good fortune of good health and all my original parts so that I could do this, I could help to support my friend.

And, Peggy has done so well, not a glitch, not a hint of rejection. And the gifts that are given to me as a result of watching her are so wonderful. I get to be with my dear Peggy who is just simply, the energy of love. She is so, so happy. She is so, so grateful. I am so, so lucky to have her as my friend. There are many others out there who are waiting for organs, there are many out there who have met an untimely demise that gives them and their family this door through which they can make meaning out of a tragic situation. Many need to be better informed about the gift of transplant and what it can do for people, opening hearts, giving hope and new life. Oh what a great good fortune I have to have witnessed this so many times in this life time..........when it works it is truly a miracle.

And for all of those that I know at this time who are on the edge, who wish for this path, may it be yours as well. I wish I could say as I know they do too, may it be so, but that is not the way it works. It is the unfolding of a life in its true meaning and the mysterious revealing of the individual's true story where the great good fortune relative to their own life resides. We do not get to decide on our ending or if we get the same good fortune as another, we get our own. Each story is unique with mystery, disappointments, loss, gains and most of all with meaning. Meaning is revealed to us all when we look deeply finding it in all circumstances. It is that meaning that is truly the great good fortune for all of us because that is what keeps us going and that is what we can share with others enhancing their experience of life as well.

Here is to you recognizing your great good fortune in every circumstance!

more info about signing up to be an organ donor or just to learn more:

www.donatelife.net

At the beginning of the year we attempt to turn the volume down on our mind noise. All those static messages that point us in wrong directions. We always think that this is the time. Now that a new year has started it should also be a new me. We decide how that new me should be. It would be so nice if I was thinner, less neurotic, more energetic, more creative, more thrifty, more appreciative and on and on. But the more means that there was first less or that we were not good enough. That voice inside that keeps us on the path of dissatisfaction makes sure we know that we are not good enough. Well poo on that. If I am not good enough now after 61 years how in this blankety blankety world can I force myself to be good enough with a simple new years resolution? We think we can just turn down the volume control on all of the negative chatter and then we will be fine because then we will turn up the volume on all the affirmations and ways that we can be better and then that noise will make it all ok.

What? Yes, the part of us that says we must be better and get better is the part that really needs the volume control. Did you know that you are fine right now? Did you know that you just need to allow yourself to be called to be you. It is the volume control of the calling that you need to turn up. Now are you really confused? OK, I know it seems like all of those TV clickers on the table and you can not figure out which one you need let alone which button to push. And then you boldly reach for the silver one, you know you were told that was the one that switches this channel to the movies........no that did not work, maybe it is the black one with the tiny tiny symbol that says "net" or the button that says esc....no, it is so confusing eventually you give up and scream "Help! I can not figure out these darn clickers for the life of me!!!!!!!"

Well, I think it is really like that..........at least it is for me. By 61 I have not found the right clicker that will change to the channel that I really really want. Yes on that station I am forever perfection, just like you. I am never aging, never grey, never loosing my hair, I have silky skin, no wrinkles, no muffin top for sure, always cheerful, never disappointed or angry, always lovely, very disciplined, an exercise fiend, say no to all high calorie desserts, loved by everyone and so amazingly intelligent and creative. Yupppp, that is me and I know you too. But the reality of reality creeps in and we all know definitely that is not the real picture. That is the noise where we really need the volume control. Turn it down please. Quiet those expectations to be more perfect. More, more, more we need more.

Callings say you are perfect now in your imperfections, in your aging, your greying hair, you lines that define your face, the softness of your muffin top, the knowing that some like you and others don't (and you feel the same). The volume control for this voice is found in silence when you have  turned down the need for a new years resolution to become better than you are right now. Stop it, stop it, stop shaping and molding and projecting and wishing and conniving to be someone you are not, someone who is better. But if I stop, I will slide down the slippery slope, I will loose all discipline and care for my beauty, I will become an even worse failure than I already am. Are you sure? Is that what you would say to your child? I suspect what you really would say to your child is something like this, "Oh, my darling, just be you, find what calls you to fulfill your potential. You have a place in this world, I can see it in your eyes. When you let yourself be and know you are wonderful like I do then you will know your calling and you will have what it takes, I know you will."

And so my darlings, just be you. Imagine a world where everyone is perfect just like you so want to be. Every woman is slim, athletic, no grey, no wrinkles, no perfections, all men are heros, there are no wants, no needs, all is star light and rainbows. Really? Yuck, yuck, yuck, please for me, keep your imperfections, keep your challenges that give you character and make you interesting and listen to your calling. Turn up that volume control. It can take a little time to refine that sound through listening. In the distance is the ca ca ca calling......you are perfect now, you are you, the most wonderful you......what you need to find out more of is not how to be more perfect but what is it that you have to share, to give to the world. What is it? Ca ca ca ca ca ca calling you is your purpose. And my guess is that when that sound resonates you will find you are happier, less wanting to be more to make those new years resolutions.

Just be you darn it, Just be you. No hesitation, no insecurity, Just be you. All year, everyday and when you do, just be you with all of the stuff you still have not yet figured out or perfected, I suspect you will connect more, find more friends, relax, laugh more, enjoy more and will naturally be healthier. Your behavior will support you to be you not the person you think you are. You know the one who is not good enough, the one that needs new years resolutions. Just do that, be you the wonderful creation of you....the one that is not good enough will become good enough and you will be the winner! Ca Ca Ca callings............

Thinking a lot about what it means to be a mother in so many of its elements. At this stage of my life I have been a mother of two girls who are now women. I have watched them be children hinting at who they are and now as adult women I am witnessing them unfolding in their own discovery of who they are, and at the same time I am discovering more of who I am and what being mother is.

Around me I see other mothers seeking their way as mothers while their children are just now beginning to leave the nest, or not quite yet, but now being "teens", or daughters now having babies of their own, or mothers struggling with the serious illness of their children whether mental or emotional or physical and the mothers who are trying to live with the death and loss of their most precious child. In all of these stages it seems motherhood is so much about simply yet excruciatingly letting go.

When our child is deep within our womb safely growing we can touch our belly and feel the magic of our child so very close. They are a part of us. They share our blood, our cells, our mental space. We feel their very beginnings. We dream dreams of their life to be, we see our life as so much a part of theirs. They are our blessing, our love, our life. And then the true experience of motherhood begins and we must let go. We give birth and each of us has a different experience of what that means and how that goes, but what is shared among us all is this, this is the first of the leavings, the first of the letting go's. And it continues. We have times when all seems stable, all seems good as our dear sons or daughters are under our wings being groomed and cared for until we are given some kind of reminder to not rely on the status quo as things change, our children grow up. They begin to take steps in new directions, usually away from us. Where did they go, how did they grow that fast, when did that change begin, "I did not see it coming", we say.

Do we reach out to bring them in closer? Yes sometimes we do and we try but this does not work for long. Nature has its way with us. Nature teaches us mothers about being mothers. Mothers must let go, let go, and let go. Even though it feels like it is antithetical and against the grain. No, a mother must hold on, the baby must never leave its womb, but that is not the way. And we know as that was true for us with our own mothers. We can take a moment and remember our own struggles with our mothers' need to grasp, reach out, hold on and all we wanted was the love, the knowing they were there but we had to move on, we demanded they let go of us. And so we do this too with our own and they with us.

I have two special daughters who are teaching me, showing me the letting go. I just wish they could understand how contrary this experience feels. It can be like a ripping apart of skin from bone at times. And yet, I savor this, the tear in my skin, the wound it leaves behind. I savor the opening, the space that is left for me to discover myself. The more my daughters grow and mature, the more I watch them develop into the strong women they promise to be, the more I grow and find the lesson of letting go useful and rich. As a mother I am a teacher, a guide to my brood but I am also a student, a pupil of nature, of mother earth as she teaches me of the letting go.

And in this great good fortune of being mother and learning motherness I want to honor the mothers who are struggling with this letting go whether it is in the simplest form of a child tying her shoes for the first time no longer needing help, or the mother who has lost her child. They are learning letting go and as they do, they make space, space for creation, their own creation. Let's all honor this letting go, this perpetual learning in all of its nuances. Can we let go and see what remains, what is it? A space now open to be filled, with a maturing child, an independent son or daughter, a wiser parent, a woman finding her own.

In the most painful places in our hearts some of us must let go of the child too ill to live any more, the child unable to cope as she grows up and makes devastating consequential choices or the child taken by cruel circumstances. For those mothers the letting go must be dressed with the strongest of grief but there still is the promise of the space that is created in the letting go, a space that is hopeful with promise and newness. Isn't this what nature is teaching us, teaching us mothers as we let go, let go, let go?

Today I visited Yosemite with my daughter, Sara, her friend, Cassie, and my husband, Doug. As we drove to the park we witnessed a burned forest that resulted from a devastating fire this past summer. And it was here we saw where mother earth has had to let go of her forest creation. As we commented on our sadness seeing the scarred land to the ranger at the front park entrance she told us to be sure to return in the Spring to see the wild flowers as they will be in abundance, a result of the fire. Mother nature has had to let go and what will be placed in the space created by her letting go will be the beauty of color, flowers and new growth for us to marvel at.

Oh what lessons we have to learn as mothers, what spaces of opportunity we are given as we let go.......this is indeed what we are being taught through this continual letting go......don't you think?

The muse calls me early in the morning. She always has. There is a voice that whispers, inviting me to enter my inner expressive world. This is the experience of the early bird. It is my best time when my freshest moments of thought appear. I have time to get comfortable with these new ideas in the darkness while alone pondering or writing.
So, the call came to write at about 5AM this morning. I stirred in my covers wondering if I should take this call. I do have a choice to answer or not. The trouble is there is no screening like on our telephones where we can wait and see who called and then decide whether to pick up. When the muse of the dawn calls you will never know who it is unless you actually do answer. She does not leave a message or a tattle tale digitalized name giving away her identity. To answer her call you take the chance and make a decision to listen.

Listening can come in the form of sitting quietly with tea or coffee looking out the window into the dark, reading the book that is begging you to open, or it may be sitting down at the keyboard and writing not knowing what will be said. This type of listening requires trust that the muse will truly speak in ways that are worthy of being jotted down. There is editing of course that comes along with this type of listening because as you deeply listen to the words you see the pattern, the shape that is being drawn and you refine and clarify as you hear the words and what is being said.

Recently I found some volumes of books that had pages and pages of writing that I produced when I was in my mid twenties. It was at a time that I was just beginning to learn how to do this type of opening and listening. The words, I was told by the vocal muse at the time, was another being, a named ancient spiritual being seeking expression through me. All that I had to do was write, write what ever came to me. So I did. The result were pages of automatic writings and colored pencil drawings that meant something to only me. And actually did not always seem clear or fully understandable to me. Now as I think upon this time and experience it was about my beginning of this journey. It was about my baby steps into learning about how to listen.

It is now nearly 40 years since those first writings that told me about my heart, my spiritual identity, my path and my hopes and dreams while meeting my husband to be. I had no idea what lay ahead of me. I had no idea of the mountains I would have to climb, the challenges I would have to meet but would wish I never did or the gifts that would be given to me as a result of the many ups and downs. Now I know that the listening that I started to learn was the key to my discovery of those gifts that have made it all so worthwhile.

It is in the listening. This is what this predawn morning muse is telling me. What was important at that time of my youth was that I was willing to listen and I was willing to write it down. I honored the process and the process taught me. Life comes to you and it teaches you but only if you are willing to pay attention. If we go forward in our life not being willing to take the call whether in the darkness of the morning, the heat of the afternoon or the stillness of the night we will not feel the richness of those mountainous tasks that come our way to wake us up to shape us and mold us. We have to pay attention. The muse at dawn says wake up. Wake up and listen. The dear spiritual being of my twenties was knocking at my mind and saying hold on and go for the ride and be sure to listen.

And now, I am 61 years old. Amazing. I think back on my listening. I think back on my avoidance. I think back on all that has transpired. I have been broken. I have been inspired. I have been lost. I have been loved and have loved. I have tried to listen and I know it was in that listening, the deepest listening that the greatest insights, the most powerful learnings, the most beautiful gifts were found. Yes I say, Wake UP and Listen. That is what I must do more of as I enter another period of my life.

An thus I write and now not with the idea that another named or unnamed ancient being is writing through me but with the idea that when I open and listen there is a muse that has no specific form. It is energy with no name. It is the sound of silence that resonates with me. This is the energy of creativity that is available to everyone. We just have to listen. The sound of the voice, the words that form, the art that takes shape is unique to each of us. It is pure in its essence and reflects our individual character. It is indeed like the light that goes through a crystal. The element that is necessary to see it, to hear it, is the willingness to listen. I have so much more listening practice to do. Everyday, everyday, listen, listen..........