Currie's Gratitude 31 January 2013

It’s a curious thing to find myself Here, Now. One month done with. Completed. Savoured, really, though the time has passed in what feels like merely a blink…

Stay the course. I am unsure of the inspiration for this. We learn, early on, [or at least I learned this very early on] that commitment isn’t permanent. Changing course, taking off in an entirely new direction, these are things encouraged. Expected. Accepted.

As I have reflected and reconsidered and explored my own commitments, I have been surprised at the loyalty in me. I have stayed. [okay, too long, yes, I know] When it would have been simpler [mayBE wiser as well] to GO, I have stayed.

Always there is a Hope inside me. A Hope of reconciliation. Of arriving in the place we call The End where, as T.S. Eliot said… the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

I am staying the course of my own Life. Perhaps that is the piece I was missing, BEing so loyal and trying so hard to make those broken pieces whole again.

There is an arc to my Life that deserves my dedication and loyalty. A path which unfolds gently into the Journey that is, simply, My Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 January 2013

What DO you think Ride Full Out means?! I mean, what might it mean to YOU Right Now?! I ask only to invite you to consider it and NOT BEcause of my incessant curiosity!!

This year has BEgun with an earnestness I have rarely witnessed in myself. MayBE it is deliberate, and perhaps I am DOing or BEing some ways [or NOT DOing or NOT BEing some ways] in which I have NOT BEfore.

MayBE I am just growing into the comfortable forgetting part of my Life.

It could BE…

In any event, I have forgotten my fears and Let Go of self-doubt and my never quenched thirst for the approval, agreement, and support of those who will NEVER give those things to me.

Ever. [which you would think I’d have realised long ago or at least stopped my magical thinking…]

It turns out that I really don’t care so much anymore about anyone else “getting me” so much as I care that I AM “getting me” and that God is, as Karen is fond of saying, “DOing the heavy lifting.” Which in itself is all the real approval, agreement, and support anyone really needs.

Ahhhhhhh… wisdom BEgins to peek past the transom.

I am leaning into Life, riding full out… sometimes with no hands on the handlebars!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 January 2013

Listen, just listen.

You will hear it.

You need only to listen…

I listen, Now, more than all of my Life up until Now. Whether I am listening to the sound of a light and uncertain rain, like Now, or the ticking of the clock, also Now, or the faint hum of the ceiling fan, again, Now, or the space that is without the trains and their whistles... When I remove the distraction of music or talking, when I come to my Writing Practise open and willing, and when I listen, just listen… I discover amazing things.

I discover there are things I’m thinkingandfeeling that don’t fit inside words. Even sounds. Things BEyond expressing, I have only to trust that I know what I am hearing in that space.

As long as I listen.

I spent a huge chunk of yesterday trying to make the piece of art I managed to make this morning. The difference, I BElieve, was listening to my What If I??? and MayBE I Could Try??? and then allowing myself to LISTEN to what happened then. To listen, just listen.

It is this way, too, when listening to God. When BEing listened to, especially by God.

I am quite accomplished at complication and convolution. Muddying waters. Stirring up the quiet sands BEneath my surface.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 January 2013

Dare to BE thought a fool

Dare to BE wrong and even silly

Ridiculous

To BE Nobody

To BE Nobody’s Somebody

To BE forgotten or simply BE NOT remembered

Dare yourself

Dare to BE what you fear

Somedays I am silly and others serious. Today is one of the Somewhere In BEtween The Extremes and it is fine. Somedays I am Just Like This. And really, no one is even keeping score!!

Dare to BE. What would YOU dare to BE if… if NOT for?! If ONLY?!

Dare to BE nobody special and to simply DO what you can. That is my great hope. For almost all my Life I have lived with the delusion that I need to BE Something and Somebody. And really, it’s all nonsense. I have seen this. I have discovered it in the space BEtween disappointments.

All I need BE is Me. All I need Dare is Everything. I am certain. Surer in fact of this than I have been of anything EVER in my Whole Life. I am NOT in training for something NOR am I practising to BEcome “better” or “more” or even “accomplished.” I DO BEcause I CAN. I CAN BEcause I DO. Nothing confusing about it at all I see… Now.

I Dare only and always to BE Me.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 January 2013

Follow your own music

Beat your own drum

And make it up

As you go along

Live in sweet harmony

With all your Life

I’ve heard it said that we each march to our own beat. That we are a gazillion different points of energy colliding and yet we all keep on going. I suppose that is what I mean by Harmonise with Life.

We all have a unique perspective. No one can KNOW what another’s consciousness knows in precisely the same way. So there needs to BE Trust and a BElief in something greater. Something far greater.

It is a curious thing to live Life with your mind open. To dive deep and NOT worry about how far to the bottom. To simply BE in the sea completely.

As I grow and change and bloom Here, and Now, where I am at Present “re-planted,” I have to work hard to stay where my feet are. This is BEcause my mind is NOT so “grounded” and fixed to Time and Place.

This is my harmony. How I can, all on my own, sing in 3 or 4 or even 7-part harmony, and somehow reach each note without one cancelling out another. Without one reaching over the others to BE louder or another hiding, hoping NOT to BE missed.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 January 2013

I have a voice to use it

NOT to squash it

Or silence myself

I really am enJOYing the prompts I’ve made for myself this month. I find myself each morning taking time and really considering them. When I write, I am surprised that I tell myself deeper truths than I’ve even let myself think BEfore.

And then I come here. To Gratitude. To share. “Out loud.”

Like a several course meal, each piece of my Morning Practise stands on its own. In BEtween writing there is fiddling, as with this seahorse. Along the same lines as drawing over and over and over again the giraffe I shared yesterday, these colouring pages from Doodle Art Alley are teaching me other kinds of process and patience with myself as I practise them.

Often it is NOT the results or outcomes that count for me. It is the process and my progress through it that I care most about.

There is a deep and tender Gratitude growing in me for the way things work and how they play. Where previously I have rushed and been in a hurry to “get there,” Now I am content to BE Present for each step along My Journey.

I cherish learning and deeper understanding. True, whether these come with action or simply from BEing.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 January 2013

Prepare

BE Prepared

Encouraging words for guidance

Remembered words well-used

And yet…

Prepare For Wonder?!

That’s all my own recipe for Life.

I am sharing 2 giraffes this morning BEcause it’s my prerogative!!! Actually, they are one and the same, with one, the one on the bottom, inverted. As January rolls on I am daily amazed at the learning of drawing. NOT, mind you, that I drew this one. Or at least drew it from scratch. NO… This I drew over and over and over again to teach my hand and mayBE, too, my brain, HOW-TO draw a giraffe.

I used to help college students from an array of different countries learn to write much the same way. They studied things which I knew little or nothing about, Public Administration is one that comes to mind. So I wrote, essays, research papers, and the like “for them to learn from.” They were each brilliant BEyond my reach, so I encouraged them, guided them to BE so brilliant in English.

Applied to Life As I Know It Now, drawing over and over and over again this colouring page giraffe has let my hands and eyes feel and see the proper proportions of the giraffe. I have learned by copying and frankly, that’s an amazing and effective way to learn…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 January 2013

       

Admiring something

[or someone]

Without envying

[or desiring]

It is NOT how we are programmed

[or taught]

And yet it is our opportunity

[or choice]

Every. Single. Time

I’d have to say I still feel odd and at loose ends when I simply admire someone else or what someone has done. I feel this inner pull and tug. A sense of dizziness takes over my brain. It is like searching for a word or someone’s name and it’s simply inaccessible. All of that is a polite way of saying I’m taming the green-eyed monster who is roaring to Life inside of me. Demanding my full attention. NOW!!!

I’ve often said I am NOT a competitive sort of person. What I MEAN is that, yes, of course, I am programmed to “BE THE BEST” and I’ve just as much desire to win or BE chosen as the next person, but I really and truly despise competition. Winners mean losers. Firsts mean lasts. Yes means no.

With intention I have BEgun to rework my internal programming. I make time each day to bask and luxuriate in the gifts of others. I admire with my Whole BEing the wonder of those I share this Journey alongside.

It feels odd sometimes, and then I remember that NONE OF US was born walking…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 January 2013

enJOY the view from where you are

enJOY that you can see and know

that BEauty is NOT just one thing

When making a list of writing prompts, little phrases to push me off in the mornings, I’m in a different “place” in my brain than when I wake and BEgin writing each morning. Sometimes it makes me a little bit crazy. And at others it just makes me smile.

Today is one of the smile sort.

EnJOYing the view is often the ONLY THING that has stood BEtween Me and the Possibility of Happiness. Willingness. Acceptance.

I’ve spent so much of my precious Life in comparison. Comparing my Now to my Then. Comparing Me to You. Comparing what I did to what someone else [or, hey, why NOT EVERYONE ELSE?!] did or does or CAN DO. Wasting Life is a losing proposition. Wasting it in comparing, in longing, in wrongly focusing. Whatever. There is no winning there. No Hope. NOT an ounce of Possibility.

Comparison is like driving down the road looking in the rear view mirror. NOT enJOYing the view from where you are, what you are passing by and through, which you have looking through the windshield, is like turning on the shower but standing outside and NOT getting in.

EnJOY this view. Right Here…Now.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 January 2013

Steering is often trusting

You can see what’s ahead

And knowing you’re aware

Of what’s BEhind.

Steer with confidence… A strange and curious prompt. On a morning when wide awake a 1:30, I didn’t wake fully again until past 6. In BEtween was an interesting “movie” in my head. The cast all familiar. The subject matter both enlightening and distressing…

This is NOT the first [nor DO I imagine the last] time I have had this peculious set of circumstances take hold of my night’s sleep. I try my very best NOT to fight it. I refuse to let it sweep me away and plunk me in the midst of the doldrums. I try simply to carry on with confidence.

Who knew one needed steering capability in order to sleep?!

As I am getting and going on about these giraffes I’m drawing, I wanted to share this one. I had a long strip of paper I’d cut from something I printed and I saw immediately that these “saves” would BE grand for drawing giraffes and their long, long, looooooong necks. So I did. And then I spent time colouring them. And painting. Then scanning and digital fiddling.

These are areas of New Confidence for me. 21 days into the month and I’m steering through them with tremendous confidence!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 January 2013

The best way I know of to feel supported

Is to support myself

And respect my decisions, choices, and

Yes… MYSELF…

I’ve changed. A LOT. And quickly. Or so it seems to me. I suppose there has been more of a process and far more of a road travelled than what appears to ME to BE the case looking at it from Here and from Right Now.

No one but ME told me to start going to bed early and waking well BEfore the sun. No “reason” whatsoever BEgan this. And yet ever since that first morning in 2010 when I DID wake early, I have continued the practise.

As I BEgan little bit by slow bit to test out various practises and ways of utilising this time, I noticed other things shifting, too. With no one else to “get in my way” or “have to work round,” I have continued to support and respect my decision for over 2 years Now.

Consequently, I have produced a “body of work” in this short time which pretty much blows me away. At least if I am “looking” that way.

BUT… THAT was Never the point or purpose. The point wasn’t to DO it was to BE and to BEcome someone happier to BE at home in my own skin…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 January 2013

BElieve

Suspend your oh so keen judgment

Allow yourself to IMAGINE

Dream

Without some adult brainiac

Telling you what is POSSIBLE

I’ve chosen to play with this quartet of giraffes to illustrate BElieve In Possibilities. It’s so much more fun, really, to BElieve. To NOT go all grown-up and stuck-in-mud ADULT. To let my hopes and dreams dance their silly jigs and sing their gigglicious songs.

I imagine these giraffes singing. Dancing. Cutting up. Letting loose their inner sillies and forgetting all about BEing sensible and forward-looking. To relax and take Life in one gorgeous breath at a time. Sweetly.

I am Very Sure [and have done numerous studies that bear this out] that I CANNOT draw. I am so certain of this, in fact, that I no longer even TRIED to draw for a Very Long Many Years.

BUT THEN… along came 2013 and the Year of the Giraffe!!! After a year of checking out and renewing Carla Sonheim’s Drawing Lab, I had an opportunity to work with her for an entire year. Online, with a group of others from all round the World. All about giraffes…

I love giraffes, but what I love even more is LEARNING and growing and stretching. And January is Draw the Giraffe. So, here you go, 4 of mine impossibly DRAWN...

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 January 2013

Pause.

Let Go.

Wait.

In the space

Of rest

BEtween notes.

Resting is a challenge for most people. I’ve been noticing. As things are hurried up and waiting BEcomes “time to kill” DOing something, often mindless, rarely DO we notice much less acknowledge the space that is BEtween.

In music, as I recall from choir and playing the clarinet, there are moments where rest is written into the music. I can no longer READ the music, mind you, but I once knew enough to read the rests.

And Now I need to BE more mindful and aware. I need to stop always filling up time or using it for getting this done.

Time, like this one day, is a gift. It’s NOT mine to “kill” or “fill” or in any way “waste” in whatever mindless nothing I can. It is to BE savoured, even if it is with resting and pausing and waiting.

I have grown far simpler and this change is pretty much total; I rarely see the “old me” who was easily irritated and who could slip into a snark in a flash, complain about her miserable lot, filling the air with negatives and sarcasm.

But on occasion I slip back there. In a blink. Certain that I’m justified. Unwilling to rest in BEtween the notes…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 January 2013

Respond, when you DO

With clarity

BEing sure of yourself

As well as honest

I’ve long been somewhat muddled, muddy, and overly conversant. I can think of a million times where I wish I could suck out the Way Too Many Words I used to respond when one or two would have sufficed. Nicely.

And so I continue to practise and measure my words thoughtfully. I am learning to determine when I am reaching and finding filler or flounce. And then cutting it out or weaving it another way.

This is what Writing Practise is for me. Sometimes. About the lessening of the more. The finer tuning of the too much.

Knowing what I want to say is only the tiniest bit of it. In fact, sometimes I need to stay completely out of the Aisle of Want. Instead spending my time going down my list of NEED. NOT BEing sidetracked and fascinated with the sparkly little baubles that catch my eye and send me racing down long run-on sentences full of imagery and cleverness.

Clever is NOT all I’d thought it to BE. In fact, Clever is NOT EVEN what I aim for anymore. Honesty. That is the place I aim Now. NOT for some outlandish revelation though. For its simplicity and its clarity. That is all.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 January 2013

High Hopes and BIG Dreams

Plans and Possibilities

Listen to them

And lean into them

From the strength of Right Now

When you are just starting out in Life, a tiny helpless little mass of person, it’s easy to assume your foundation is strong.

Or strong enough.

As Life goes on, however, there are hints, clues, and sometimes in your face messages about what you SHOULD HAVE DONE BEfore “this happened” so you’d have something to fall back upon or at least a safe harbour… I know. Too well. How preparing. Can make. The difference.

I don’t regret that I’ve NOT had the safety net, back-up plan, or something to catch me. Which is strange. BEcause for so long I couldn’t BE or DO anything without sadness or anger accompanying me like an aura of gloom & doom. Like Eeyore’s little cloud…

What I feel Now is how incredibly freeing it is to lean into my own desire to live a full and delicious Life. A Life where my dreams dance. A Life where Hope is NOT a 4-letter word but an entrée and deLIGHT. A Life where possibilities are set loose to try and taste and soar sweetly. And a Life where plans aren’t laughed off or at but are embraced and supported in amazingly wondrous ways…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 January 2013

Life can BE unsettling

Throwing out curves

Slamming on brakes

Leaving things unfinished

[and unfinishable, apparently]

Learning to carry on, Quietly

Worth every effort.

Completely.

I am encouraged with each new day that I am learning to ride Life with greater assurance. Far from always on the top of the World, though I clearly have moments I imagine “like that,” I am IN this World Now. Completely.

I used to want always to BE part of the way in [the “good parts” part, of course] and close to the back door. I wanted the lay of the land so I could make my quick escape. Sounds a little dreadful, I know, but it is what it was and evermore shall BE, eh?! No matter how great my ideas for its improvement or full-scale change,  The Past shall BE what it is. Over. Done. Something to Let Go. Completely.

Carrying on quietly is something I am only Now realising the merits of DOing. My “quietly” used to BE rather noisy and indignant. Carrying on, at least MINE, was more likely a simmering fit than a confident stride. When I see what is NOT how I would prefer it BE, I know that it’s time to Change. Myself. Completely.

And so BEgins new Awareness. It slips into view. Silently. Completely…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 January 2013

Sleeping on it’s a strange idea,

So it seemed to me for a Very Long Time,

Yet it is the exact

And only thing that has,

Truly empowered me to Make Better Choices.

I honestly despised waiting-and-seeing for the first 55 years of my Life. 

I could NOT stand to BE patient and knew, FOR CERTAIN, it would all turn to $#!+ anyway so why bother waiting to SEE?!

I am glad this has changed in the last 5 years. Gladder still that this has changed me into someone who actually doesn’t mind setting something aside for a day or a week or longer. 

Waiting-and-seeing Now is curious. 

Oftentimes even deLIGHTfull!! 

Who knew?!

I suppose this has an awfully lot to DO with my own realisations about how my Life was/is working. 

In these past 5 years I have been remarkably “alone” in whatever choices or decisions, large and small, constitute my Life. 

When there is no one else to appease, cajole, push off of, compromise with, or generally have to consider for more than 5 minutes, Life BEcomes a whole lot less muddy.

Recently I was certain BEyond the shadow of a doubt that I wanted something and was willing to go to some considerable lengths to get it… 

After sleeping on it awhile?!  

NOT SO MUCH!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 January 2013

Following directions is easy and yet

Remarkably hard

Especially in uncharted territory

Like the savannah of Heart and Mind

I was noticing this morning how I have both followed directions, at least for a time, and then BEgan to follow the Spirit of directions. I suppose I could say The Spirit’s Directions, but frankly I am NOT that sure that would BE true.

When I BEgan my Morning Writing Practise, I was simply spinning in the wind. A LOT. I was blown this way and that and my attention was like a fart in a skillet. I came to it determined and intent and then frittered away the time seeking product more than process.

I didn’t know any better. Or any different. And still thought I WAS following directions…

For a time this worked well enough. And then I BEcame aware of the purpose of a writing practise. Or perhaps simply the purpose of MY Writing Practise.

When I used to write for publications I would BE asked to write 350 words or x-number of column inches. I BEgan to use a similar measure for Writing Practise. Little by slowly things changed.

And littler by even MORE slowly, things BEgan to CHANGE ME. And I let them. I surrendered my determined little intentions and Let GO of producing.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 January 2013

If I only try I can always fail

Yet if I DO a thing

NO MATTER how it turns out

Nor even how “well” it goes

Or NOT

I DID it and I CAN DO it

Again.

I don’t have many relationships.

NOT that I don’t want relationships. And certainly “better relationships.”

It’s just that for so Very Long Now I have only TRIED to have, build, and maintain relationships that I have forgotten to simply DO them. To BE in them.

For just this moment, let’s take my relationship with my dad. I once adored him and he me. [long ago]

Then THINGS HAPPENED & CHANGED and we BEgan to relate more in opposition to each other.

Eventually we found a sort of Middle Ground that worked okay. For a good while…

Enter a long looooooong stretch of NOT seeing or talking with one another. [during which time we both aged significantly AND our lives reorganised themselves round us]

Our first reconnection went well. I thought Hot DAMN!!

Then things BEcame awkward and strained. He’s got so old. Grumpy. Even, well… mean, I thought…

So I tried to make things work “better.” With failure upon failure.

And then I BEgan DOing better at BEing Me. Since DOing we are finding a sweet spot. Or mayBE... I am.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 January 2013

What is Enough?

Fast Enough?

Slow Enough?

Good Enough?

Simply

Enough?!

As I’ve Now immersed myself fully into 2013, I am feeling the freedom that comes when coming from under the water through the surface and up into the air.

I am sensing there is space enough and time enough to learn more about Enough and how we, Enough & I, fit, dance, sing, and play.

Setting my pace each day is far more essential than I had imagined. While I know that I LOVE and deeply cherish my early mornings for writing, somedays, like Today, I relinquish the pleasure to sleeping, dreaming, and starting later, ever so slowly.

I notice that I am fortunate, rich in things that others find lacking, NOT as a matter of comparison, rather, observation. It is easy to focus on the things I canNOT DO, those I DO NOT Have, seeing others can and DO and call my circumstances NOT Enough. Less.

Yet in this one thing, Time, I am blessedly abundant.

And in DOing this one thing I CAN DO, Setting My Own Pace, I am rich.

I am overflowing with Time and Ways To Play and DO My Days. And I wish deeply I could give this to others. BEcause that is what seems to BE making all the difference…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 January 2013

Rarely can you set a switch to like what’s happening

I know that much

Yet you can lean toward DOing that

Envision yourself BEing that way

And mayBE even ask for a little help…

I’ve often heard that how you DO anything is how you DO everything. Kind of like It Is What It Is…

Well, mayBE that is true yet what is so for me is that oftentimes I can BE entirely swallowed up in an experience in the Right Now and NOT in any way have the presence of mind to see that I am BEing habitual and unbending.

This is, I suppose, Life’s Wisdom trying tenderly to teach me. Kinder than a two-by-four to my head!!

Apparently I have done some really deep changing in recent months. I mean, things have changed that canNOT BE undone. Even if I TRY. This is what discomfort is all about for me. What gets me lost in my busy brain trying to Make Things Go My Way.

So I am Now in the place where dreams are born. I just didn’t grasp clearly the gestation piece of it.

I want to point to January BEing a challenging month for me, BEcause historically it has been. But instead I am leaning into the unknown and trusting the process. Completely.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 January 2013

Although I have learned

A Lot

About myself

I continue to BE astonished

By my total lack of patience

And the immediacy of my frustration

When I attempt to DO things

MY way

On my schedule

As I think they should BE done…

I almost don’t need to write anything else. I am grateful to know myself so well. To see me yet again pushing the boulder up the waterfall…

I am grateful, too, that I have learned to step away. Stop. Let Go.

Even though I often start right up all over again. Whenever I DO immerse myself. Completely…

What is that, immersion?! Is it utter and complete fascination?? Is it something, when first glimpsed, that I must then attend to with all of me, no balance of Now in anything?! These are questions which hold within themselves their answers.

Can I learn to love the question, love the process of discovery, and most of all, love my exasperated impatient utterly enthralled focus?!

I hope so. Though I am sure I will need to apply some tools and practises to get out of the place that feels like sinking into quicksand.

I realise there are essential learnings in all this. Reminders of what I have learned BEfore. And even echoes of long-forgotten understandings of How Life Works…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 January 2013

Find your own ways

They might include candles

Balloons

Or songs.

They might BE as simple as a smile smiling within.

Perhaps your small victory can BE celebrated out loud

Or in whispers.

Just Celebrate Small Victories…

It can often seem foolish as a person living alone to “celebrate” some small [or large] victory. It is like I am embarrassed to DO something yet in the same thought, though I am NOT seeing it, like the other side of a coin, who am I worried will mock or point at me laughing derisively?!

Yes, the mind. A terrible thing to listen to sometimes…

For me, celebrations are quiet, generally, but I have been known to hoot and clap and sing. Right Here. All by myself. [though, of course, Gracie is ALWAYS happy to join in]

There are small victories in all our lives, things which mean something to us, and perhaps ONLY to us, yet they are so important to take deLIGHT in and celebrate full-out.

I love it when I wake up after a stretch of long sleep [even though I am usually woken up these days by coughing] and go out to see the time and smile to know I have slept right on through for some number of hours.

Or waking naturally, just at 4…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 January 2013

It is NOT all that different from sleep dreaming

Nor is it actually what I think of as daydreaming

It’s similar, I suppose, to visualising

And perhaps a little like meditating [without emptying your mind]

Except it is an entirely separate thing altogether…

Dreaming, for me, is a curious thing. I never consider the impossibility of the action, the players, even the set of my dreams. I don’t “cause” them to BE, nor DO I “direct” the players. I canNOT really even re-create the sets, no matter how hard I try to write it all down when I am awake.

It just HAPPENS.

I think why I BEgan my writing practise that is what it is Now as my First Thing Each Morning was to BEgin to put my toes in the water of Dreaming While Awake.

I give myself a prompt each day and write. I don’t think about what I want to write BEcause frankly I am still partly asleep. I think, too, this is why I get up long BEfore the sun has a mind to DO… Somehow it all works better in the wee dark nearing dawn-ness of a day.

I have learned myself through this practise. I have discovered my voice. I have BEcome Who and How and mayBE even WHAT I AM…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 January 2013

When you BEgin

BEgin from Now

Here

This place & time

Really…

You won’t get anywhere

BEginning somewhere else.

Although I am often a determined rewriter of the Past, even THAT can only BE done from Here. From what I can see [and what I think I know] Now.

If I could have done “better” BEfore, I chose NOT to. If I just think I could have done better, I canNOT re-DO it, but I can BE Better Now.

It’s simple. Science I suppose. Though I do awfully enJOY a fanciful tale of Time Travel.

BEginning from Now, and from wherever Here is is Now… it’s easier, too, if I don’t hold my breath or stare longingly at the pictures in my head.

BEginning from Now means I keep myself open on ALL levels to discern and to sort and to see what it is that really fits NOW.

It is wondrous that our human mind can reflect on the Past and project, thus intend, onto the widescreen of the Future, but this is idle play compared with BEginning from Now.

While I BElieve that goals can BE wonderfully encouraging and give me a unique way to focus my energies, goals also keep me small, clip my wings, perhaps, and even steer me in quite the wrong direction.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 January 2013

Although it isn’t my first choice

[or often even in my top 5]

Choosing to start over

To BEgin again

Clean the slate…

It always has worked itself round to

BEing worth all the bother.

When I grow up I want to BE…

I could have finished that sentence like this: a teacher, a dog teacher, a writer, an explorer, an inventor. I mean, I can SEE me, young, mayBE at 5 or 7 and 8, so certain about My Life…

I never once allowed for all the massive lack of cooperation I’ve encountered.

I never once thought I could BEgin Again, really,  could truly Start Over and make a new completion to that sentence.

And yet here I find myself. A whole new idea looking at me, holding wide its welcoming arms.

This is what I both love and am utterly baffled by with Life.

How it goes along all nice and according to My Plan [LOL!!!] and then KABOOM!!! one morning I wake up and KNOW that this path, too, will take a fork, turning onto yet another.

And I will follow it there.

Trusting it implicitly.

Never doubting it has My Very Best Interests At Heart.

I don’t know why I think everything is summed-up, that this Life, NOW, is all there ever could BE…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 January 2013

It’s too easy to just skim

Skip over the stuff

I deem boring

Insignificant

I fell off the reading wagon for years. I let television and movies [videos & dvds] fill in. What a mistake that was for me. And really, I never had a clue.

I always thought I’d LIKE TO read “more” but I didn’t have the TIME.

That seems utterly baffling to me today. I really had myself going. I really thought IF I HAD THE TIME…

The thing is, Now I have the time. I have loads of it. And I don’t have television. I have streaming from Netflix, and yes, I often “read” audiobooks, yet what really counts, for me, what matters is I READ Now.

All the time.

All sorts of stuff. Stuff I’d NEVER have read BEfore.

And I am also watching documentaries, listening to TED Talks, and even stranger, really spending time reading other blogs, especially of the artists I participate with in weekly challenges.

I don’t often see or spend time with people LIVE & IN PERSON anymore, so I read thoughtfully when my “people” write and post.

And I write a LOT. People read ME. Respond. And we engage in thoughtful conversations. Together. Wherever they are.

It amazes me that this list–sharing set me on this path.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 January 2013

Even if you aren’t sure what’s more important than something else

BEgin

Attend to the priorities you can see or even guess

Soon enough there will BE greater clarity

Or someone else will surely straighten you out.

Like so many people, I embrace a new year with JOY, excitement, and imagination. I don’t set goals cast in concrete, but I will use pen rather than pencil…

Goals or dreams or wild imaginings… even a good old-fashioned sparkly idea are all invited into my World. I don’t discriminate or block anything from entering into the conversation.

I think this is a priority. To hear myself out. To let each part of me speak up for itself, knowing I will listen and take it to heart.

While it’s NOT really hurting the process, it is making it a challenge that I am dealing with some unwellness this week. The no voice isn’t so troubling, but the feeling fuzzy and brain-muddled, well…

So I have decided to turn this round and look at it with a more open mind and heart.

Sometimes, fairly regularly though NOT predictably, I deal with pain which can sideline me for a day or a week. Thus I have given myself Things To DO with JOY, excitement, and imagination at such times.

It never has failed…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 January 2013

Touch the magic

Go on

BE bold

Say YES!!

It will BE unforgettable

I am sometimes one who plays it safe. Waits. Reconsiders.

I BElieve in sleeping on things. On letting myself make a decision and then sit with it, unspoken, awhile. Usually days awhile. Often longer.

It has never failed me. NOT once. And, while I have “lost out” sometimes, I have never regretted it.

However…

I didn’t come straight from the Manufacturer this way. Oh NO… NOT EVEN close to this way.

I was impulsive, reactive, short-sighted, self-centered, and frankly I didn’t care a hoot what someone else might have to experience or how my actions would cause ripple effects.

I know where I learned to operate this way. And Now, much older, a wee bit wiser, I hope, I tend to lean toward touching magic. Toward getting into the flow and even at times the fiery hotness of a thing. Or a moment.

Today I will see an opportunity. I will have the I WANT THAT internal buzzer go on, loud, insistent, in a way that is rather unbearable to listen to.

And I will pause. Stop. Right there. Whatever I am DOing. And I will step outside of myself. [as only we can DO with ourselves, of course] And I will simply Let Go…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 January 2013

We never really know who [or what] sees us BEing

When our thoughts are small

Mean

Judging others

Comparing ourselves

Outsides and insides all jumbled-up

Together.

Of course I know that BEliefs are strong in some of us. They run deep, to our very core.

And yet…

I think of how sometimes I have acted and plotted and made elaborate plans to set someone straight, get back at someone who hurt me, and wanted to write an entire script full of intricately detailed stage directions to right some wrong in this crazy World I call Home.

It doesn’t work, all that plotting and scheming. Largely BEcause it lacks INTEGRITY. And a person acting without INTEGRITY is like a sailboat without a rudder. Spinning round at the mercy of the winds making no discernable progress toward only away from.

Integrity gives simple directions. They are easy to follow. They are the sort of directions that work in all manner of situation and circumstance…

Praise More. Expect The Best. Ask Just Once. Let Go. Never Give Up. Feel Fearlessly. Make More Mistakes. See The Person BEhind The Attitude. Lead. Laugh. Love Yourself. Love The Unlovable. Love The Frustration. Laugh Even MORE. Add A Challenge. Take A Flying Leap. Think Less. Trust The Process. Live Into The Confusion.

ACT. With Integrity.

I love you, Currie