Peace...it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

I have recently had the unfortunate experience of feeling disrespected, used, and hurt by someone who I had previously felt close to and cared for. As is par for the course in life, sometimes people will let us down and sometimes we also let people down. I feel like I am conscious of how my actions affect others, and now I feel even more so compelled to ensure that I am not hurting people unconsciously...or consciously. I value honesty and openness as crucial and desirable qualities in myself and in others, and failure to utilize these qualities in our lives can consequently negatively impact those close to us.

Without going into details, I have had many conversations with friends and family about this particular disappointment and blow to the ego. I have also found a sense of strength and enlightenment as a result of this particular experience. I reconnect with the realization that I have so much power and ability to decide how my story will continue. While I have no ability to change someone's actions or words, and no way to change the past or decisions that I made, I can let it go and move forward. I refuse to be reduced by any challenge of any sort, but I am determined to grow from it and let it strengthen me. I cannot control a lot of things in life, but I can control my attitude and my state of mind. I have too many blessings in my life to feel dragged down by one occurrence, by one person. I thank God for my independence and for my security with who I am and what I value. I realize I can to some extent write my own story day to day just by the way that I look at the world and by putting love and positivity above all else.

Thank you to all of those who inspire me by letting light and love guide their way regardless of circumstance, and who have peace in their hearts.

Make of Yourself a Light.

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you"

Solitude: A poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,--
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
For there is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

During my two year hiatus from formal education, most of my time was spent socializing and working in food service. I lived pretty carefree and had my share of fun. I look back at the friends that I made, the part-time job I worked, and the freedom that I felt and I am grateful for those two years. I changed a lot. I learned a lot about myself, and I made lasting friendships. There is not a moment of that time that I regret, yet I look back on it all very fondly.

Now I am five weeks into my first quarter of graduate school in Higher Education Counseling & Guidance. I'm currently working part-time, trying to squeeze in yoga here and there, and balancing somewhat of a social life with classes and class work. I'm busier than I've ever been. But I realize that I am happier, too. Studying and engaging as a Student Affairs professional suits me incredibly well. I have found what inspires me, and makes me feel alive. I have just scratched the surface, but I recognize that I have found my niche. I have so much gratitude for the experiences that have helped me find this path. This was not a plan from the beginning, and I have met my share of challenges that have forced me to really think about what I want and who I am. I am mostly grateful for the people in my life who have encouraged and supported me, and who continue along this journey with me. I can't wait to see what happens next...

:)

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

Rather than a quote... a poem by William Stafford:

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

Throughout the last six years I have lived in five different cities, in three different states and in three different countries. My wandering spirit and quest for the next adventure seemed to peel me away from each life I had created and take me in search of the next. I never moved because I was unhappy; rather I moved because I was curious, I anticipated that the next step would be more exciting, that I would finally be living the life I wanted. With each new relocation, I met friends whom I adored, with whom I connected with on multiple levels, whom I hoped would always be part of my life. But life gets busy. People get married, start new jobs, have babies, and obligations pile up. There are people in my life I was once very close with in one place at one time, and I haven't spoken with them in years now. It is kind of sad how friendships dwindle to an occasional facebook comment or note, yet it is also very normal. I have been fortunate to meet and befriend so many wonderful people throughout my life. I've had friends who challenge me intellectually, emotionally, and mentally. Friends who I have had enormous amounts of fun with. Friends with whom I have cried, and told secrets to that no one else would ever know. I've had friends who I don't have to say anything with, but everything is always somehow said. Friends who would be bluntly honest with me, and in turn who made me a better person for the objectivity. Each one of these wonderful people has impacted who I am today, regardless of whether or not we still communicate on a regular basis.

Today I feel more settled and "at home" in San Luis Obispo than I ever have before. I know that I wouldn't feel this way if it weren't for all the new worlds introduced to me from the friendships I am blessed to have in this small town. I have solidified many friendships with co-workers, of whom often seem to know me best since stressful, crazy, exciting, or challenging situations at work can bring out sides of me that others may not ever know so well. I have friends who are a blast to go out with for a glass of wine or two, and friends who I can call when I am struggling through a rough couple of days. I have friends who give great advice, and friends who ask me for mine. I have friends in SLO who have truly seen me at my worst, and at my best. I know that I would not be who I am or where I am today without the genuine, interesting, good-hearted and hilarious individuals who I am grateful to call my friends.

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love."

I met Meghan when I moved to Hood River in the middle of eighth grade. We bonded and became friends when we launched a water balloon fight against my younger brother and his friends one day after school. We began what would be a rock solid friendship despite moving and traveling across different states and countries, studying and being interested in different topics, and generally living very different lives once high school was finished. But as I reflect back upon our friendship, she has been the kind of friend who I can always count on. Who will always ask what is new and exciting with my life before she'll let me ask about hers. She has seen me through more than one heart ache, as I have with her. So when she called me and told me she was engaged almost one year ago, my heart danced with joy because Meghan had found her rock solid companion who paralleled her values, and challenged her, and loved her.

Last week I spent many hours with Meghan and her sister planning and preparing for her wedding. We drank wine, we laughed, we worked hard over little details and projects. Despite the sometimes exhausting effort that goes into getting ready for a wedding, I truly valued my time spent with her during her last days as an unmarried woman. But on her wedding day, when she finally got to kiss and hold her new husbands hand, I realized that the Meghan standing there, glowing and happier than I had ever seen her in my life, was truly Meghan. I feel blessed to have spent the last decade as her best friend, and I know that she is with who she was meant to be with all along.

"We Are Because We Belong"

For the last couple weeks I have been getting occasional e-mails from my mom, urging me to go see the documentary "I Am." And like most things mom encourages me to do, she usually has a good reason behind it and usually ends up being right. So, Joe, Kylee and I went to see it at The Palm tonight in San Luis Obispo and after what had seemed like not a great day for all three of us, we ended the night feeling elated, sad yet hopeful, and inspired.

The documentary is a must-see. It questions: What is wrong with the world and what can we do about it? Clearly there is a poison beneath the surface of all the hate, wars, crime, anger, prejudice, etc. that pollutes our lives. What is the reason? The message the film emits is one of the innate unity of mankind with each other and with all elements and living creatures on the earth...that we become who we are because we are so dependent on others to learn to be human. That it is our nature cooperate and to belong, and when we turn against these natural inclinations and focus on ourselves as independent individuals rather than the oneness and connection that all living things share...we create this discord and disharmony that triggers fear, hatred, and the illusion that we are different from one another.

The segment in the film that struck me the most was the discussion about how humans are all wired to share a sense of sympathy. We cringe when we see others getting hurt, we can feel the pain that others feel through recognizing their suffering. And most of all we can feel the love that others feel. The image of a six year old boy running, crying, into the arms of his father who returned from Iraq to surprise his son made me choke up. My chest expanded, my throat got tight, and tears fell from the corners of my eyes and ran down my cheeks. And as I experienced this connection of love that was outside of my own reality, but a sympathetic connection to another's...the narrator described the exact physical feeling that I was simultaneously feeling. How can we not be connected spiritually, emotionally, and physically with each other and with other living species? Why do we as humans focus so heavily on our individual successes or possessions? Those individual parts of life really don't matter, yet we are taught that those successes we achieve independently make us superior. What a silly concept, when we would be nothing without our dependence on and connection with other humans, plants, animals, etc.

My natural inclinations are towards understanding, love, acceptance, and inclusion. And although I certainly don't always follow through on what I believe to be the best image of my truest self, I have always been an idealistic, and emotionally-conscious person. It is nice to be reminded from time to time, even if just from a documentary, that without love, oneness, and respect for every living part of this world, we are nothing. We have to belong.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

Our yoga practice today was centered around gratitude, and not just gratitude for the blessings of our lives, but for the opportunity to struggle, to be challenged, to feel and overcome difficulties. As the sweat dripped off our noses as we twisted, stretched, and balanced precariously in the Strong Vinyasa class, my instructor said: aren't you grateful for the chance to feel that incredible burning sensation in your quads? And we chuckled (while trying to breathe,) but he was right. Living with grace is not just about the good moments, when everything aligns and feels right; it is also about living the challenges, the pain, and the uncertainty and being grateful to have those experiences, even if they're not what you want. I think about the anger or distress I have felt during particular times in my life whether with school, work, relationships, or anything really, and recognize that those difficult times were blessings. It is those challenges that have given me the opportunity to find strength and courage, and be able to apply it to future issues. I think about times of uncertainty or confusion, and recognize my gratitude for life not always being clear or planned out...or I would have missed out on the delicious feeling of finding my way through the fog. So as I utter words about such gratitude that I am trying to find in every instance, I will strive to instead just live with a daily sense of grace.

"All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!"

I recently left a job that I had held for over a year and a half, that paid my bills and more without working more than twenty hours a week. I realized over time that I was not happy there, that I loved my co-workers like my family, but it was no longer worth the late hours, the stress, and the feeling that I was no longer learning or growing in my position. Now I wake up for work often at 5:00 a.m., and I work forty hours a week for quite a bit less than what I was making previously. But I am so content with my new lifestyle. Nothing is worth more than making a change for better mental health and for my own happiness. Now I practice yoga more regularly, I've started running again, I cook most evenings, and I have time to spend outside and with friends. Sure, I'm making less money, but in the long run is that what really matters? This is my life. I plan to live it with intention, every single day. I'm so grateful I had the courage to leave a comfortable lifestyle for one that makes me happier. In the end, these beautiful days of doing what gives my life meaning, what causes my heart to beat faster, and what makes me feel more myself, is what I will remember.

"Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?"

During my last couple years of high school I took independent study art classes from our art teacher we affectionately called "Lab." My art during these late teenage years generally consisted of sketches and intricate inked designs intertwined with poetry--of my own and of others. Lab noticed my love for the power of words, quotations, books, and poetry, and gifted me upon graduation and a couple years later, two poetry books: News of the Universe, poems of twofold consciousness and Risking Everything, poems of love and revelation. The time I spent deep inside my own heart and head in high school writing and reading poems has helped shaped who I am today. Today during Savasana in my yoga class, with the rain pouring down on the glass ceiling, our instructor read a poem that nearly brought me to tears. It was a poem about what it feels like to be living. What it means to be alive. When you walk through a blustery winter day with your hair whipping in the wind and your face chapped, but you feel it all because you're alive. With all the bad news of the last month, all the death, all the grief and problems that seem to be floating around the universe, I think about what it means to be living. And I am grateful for ever feeling pain, facing challenges, being fearful, feeling love, and for hope. Because it means I am living.

A couple of those poems from Lab that remind me of such things:

"Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.


When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.


Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own. 


There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.


The dark will be your womb 
tonight.


The night will give you the horizon
further than you can see.


You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.


Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.


Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn


anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive


is too small for you. 


"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
or grief. I come in the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

"Change is the only constant."

I realize that most people would not consider me "laid back." I don't easily go with the flow; I have always either encouraged, created, or fought "the flow." Individuals like my brother or my Uncle Tom "go with the flow," in a way that makes them like-able and easy-going. But I like to plan and organize and materialize grand scenarios of what I think is the best decision. And it's not always the best way. I'm stubborn and opinionated, but I also have a big heart and emotions that can sometimes overcome me in inopportune times. I often hate allowing change to have its inevitable strength, yet I welcome it when it suits me. I seek change when it comes to promoting an open mind, as my many educational transfers/moves across states have been extraordinarily enlightening. But when a change is out of my immediate control, I can feel threatened and inferior. I can fight without reason, but with passion. I should have become a human rights lawyer, as my mom often remarks, in that I cannot stand a breach of injustice or humanity. I feel sick to my stomach over events in the news, and I draw upon my background in political science when I feel I have no other choice. But ultimately change is constant. Nothing stays the same for long. I won't be a restaurant server for very much longer, and I won't have just myself to worry about for the majority of my life. My goal is to embrace the changes that encircle me, to realize that I can plan for the future, to have an opinion and to care, but there are many things that are not up to me. I will fight the battles that I can fight, and endure what I must endure. In the end what matters most is who you love, what you love to do, and what your heart believes in.

"Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted."

I have been thinking a lot about family recently. The role that one's family plays in their life, their definition of family, or their relationship with their family members can vary pretty widely from individual to individual. My parents moved close to their parents after my brother and I were born so that we could get to know our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as we grew up. I spent childhood birthday parties and holidays surrounded by extended family members. Most of the family was within in a five hour drive from Portland, where I grew up. I saw my grandparents on a regular basis, and built blanket forts with my cousins. My parents took my siblings and I on family trips whenever they had the opportunity. I grew up with a strong sense of family, and a strong love for my family. I am so thankful for the importance of family that my parents instilled in us. Now I live about one thousand miles away from my parents, but only five miles from my brother and a few hours from my sister. I have been able to spend a lot of time with my brother and his girlfriend over the last year and a half, and have been able to be part of my sister's freshman year of college more than I could have had I lived somewhere else. These are the times that I'll look back on fondly, before we have careers and families of our own that may take us further apart. Regardless, I know that we'll always be there for each other. My parents are incredibly encouraging and supportive, and I could never be venturing on to graduate school with the strong sense of self and family that I have without how they have raised me. Regardless of who you consider family, be it friends or blood relations, I hope that you regularly acknowledge that you couldn't be where you are or who you are without those people in your life who love you more than you know. I realize I am lucky to have my immediate family, extended family, and both sets of grandparents alive and well, and I know others aren't so fortunate. Families can be crazy, erratic, non-functional, and dramatic. But they are your family, and they love you for you.

"Life is too short, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly"

During my lunch break today at New Frontiers, I learned that Tod passed away last night due to respiratory failure. I broke down in the break room, co-workers looking on concerned or uncomfortable with my sudden emotion while on the phone with my mom. I struggled through four more hours of my shift, almost glad to have the distraction of serving customers pizza and making them sandwiches. Regardless of trying to find a distraction to not have to deal with what actually happened, I've found myself plummeted in grief for the loss of an amazing individual, for his family's pain, for the future moments in his children's lives that he won't be able to witness. Amidst all the tears, and my sudden need to clean the kitchen and bathroom in some sort of frantic way, I get another phone call. An unfamiliar area code and mysterious number, but I answer anyway, feeling numb to any other thought. And among the dark, cold thundering rainclouds of the day thus far, I finally feel a little warmth. I'm told that I have been accepted to graduate school. My first acceptance after two rejections. The light at the end of the shadowy and long tunnel. So maybe in September I'll go to Colorado to study, to the state where Tod and Marti called home for many years. But for now I am heavy with sorrow, and heavy with hope.

"Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday."

I could not have come across this quote at a more opportune time. I have spent the last month or so in a mental state that needs internal mending and renewed consciousness of the goodness, love, and blessings that are bountiful in my life. So easily I have let stress, obligations and disappointments exhaust me, even though I know they are not true representations of who I am, but only roadblocks and challenges that I will overcome. It is easier to complain than to address the cause of distress. It is easier to complain than to acknowledge that my situation at any given time is probably far easier than that of many others' around the globe. I am adjusting my perspective. I am angling towards positivity and moving forward from what I consider to be 'problems.' At this particular time, my head cold and frustrations with other aspects of my day-to-day life are in retrospect just blips along the horizon. Funny how it sometimes takes something really bad for us to realize how silly our little problems actually are. My reality check is our family friend and neighbor Tod in his fight for survival. The miracles that happen everyday need to be Tod's miracle. The only power that I have is the strength of positive thought and prayer for Tod and his wonderful family. Our minds have so much more power than we may realize. Focusing on the negative will only yield negative results. I am sending out good vibes and love to Tod and to those who are suffering and struggling every day just to breathe, just to live. 

Count your blessings. I'm learning to count mine...