Happy Friday everyone! It's our third consecutive gorgeous, blue-sky day - I hope the sun is smiling where you are too. I'm working at the bookshop today, and Phil and our guests should be back from their adventure this evening - they took a float-plane over the glacier to spend a couple days in true, pristine wilderness. I'm so glad they got such a break with the weather, although no guarantees over on that side of the bay!
Remember
our hike on July 5th? We went there again (one of Phil's favorite winter ski trails) two days ago - it's a whole different season barely six weeks later.
Fireweed is in full bloom - so pretty, but poignant for some, clear harbinger of winter that it is! These pictures were taken from outside the ruined homestead pictured in that other post. We explored the ruins in a little more detail this time, and funnily enough, one of the outbuildings turned out to be a very nicely-designed (if currently decrepit) sauna!
Yesterday's sauna/sweat experience was a good reminder for me to take care of myself, including doing extra things that cost money, to accept that that is part of doing my best here, living in this climate. I'm very tired today but my mental energy and clarity is still so much better, as is my appetite. What is it that is helping me to feel better? I'm ready to talk a bit about 'quiet commitments.' There's a famously quoted poem, said to be by Goethe, although that is much disputed, that says that before there is commitment, there is hesitancy, always uncertainty, always obstacles, but when you commit,
Providence moves with you - the universe comes into synch with your goals.
Whoever it was that wrote this, it is something I have always believed in intellectually but have struggled to actualize in my life. It feels like I am finally experiencing it! It's a movement from believing that the universe wants all of us to be our best, because that's its best too, but having a limiting belief that I didn't deserve to be my best, to finding that I do deserve that too and letting go of the limit! This was accompanied by the recognition that doing one's best doesn't always come automatically, that sometimes I don't feel like it and have to (apparently) work against that current self! Coming into a deeper engagement with poetry writing, working deeply and fully on my physical healing, finding other meaningful work, are all a part of this, with a loving relationship and a secure place to live as the bedrock.
In addition to commitment to my poetry writing, I've been making some more 'quiet commitments.' The one that I think has had a noticeable effect on my energy levels is that for almost two weeks now, I've been doing
the Five Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation on a daily basis! You are supposed to work up to doing each of the five exercises 21 times: I started out doing them just 5 times each, and this week I've been managing 6. I didn't want to push myself too hard at the start and crash.
The link I provided has very clear instructions and diagrams for how to do each of these five movements, how to breathe through them, as well as some discussion of their benefits. In brief, they work all the chakras as well as stretching and toning the areas of the body that need it most. I like their diversity - I don't tend to feel bored or wishing that it was over. I like how they entice me to breathe deeply. I feel fine about resting for several breaths between repetitions. It intrigues me that there is so much focus on head movement back and forth - but I guess the head is proportionately the heaviest and densest part of the body. And many testimonials mention vanishing double chins.
And the energetic effect should definitely be considered. I started to feel a small but definite increase in energy after about five days, a kind of 'unblocking' - and before now, I've always been the person who wanted to believe in that kind of thing but didn't experience it. Obviously, I've still had gut cramps and lousy days, but I think I've been more poised mentally and emotionally.
And that's what I want! I don't want to be prey to being cranky and miserable - that's not who I want to be, nor who I want to be known as. And especially, that's not the kind of wife I want to be for Phil!
So today, I announce that I'm taking on another 'quiet commitment,' to join
Tina and many others in
30 days of reflection on Self-Love for the month of September. Thank you so much to Tina for putting such a beautiful movement out there - I'm honored to be on board! (Look out for the button on my sidebar.)
A few more plant moments: this photo of false hellebore was taken on our July 5th hike - it is adolescent, a furtive, secretive spiral unfolding on the world -
But now - or two days ago - it's fully open and shooting seeds to scatter to the winds!
Life takes on so many amazing forms, as seen last week in the
intertide zone, but what do you make of these funny little fuzzy pinkies on a rose leaf?
They are actually insect galls, will hatch into little wasps. But why are they exactly the same color as the flowers of the rose bushes? Another kind of wasp makes something that really looks like a rose on the end of willow branches - I'll have to get a picture of that too.
What special efforts do you have to make to ensure you do your best?
