I will chalk it up to inexperience. The next time I start to feel overwhelmed and blocked... the next time I start saving all my posts as drafts...I will know it's time for a short break and will let you all know. Promise.
I will also try to master the art of the short post. Way harder than it sounds. Tips anyone?
What have I been up to? Well, for the last three weeks I have been travelling. Some business, some personal. Went to Ontario with the whole family to visit my husband's family. His mom is quite ill with cancer and it was her 65th Birthday and retirement...so we really needed to be there.
It was an interesting experience to revisit all of the major landmarks of my history--with my children...The Royal Ontario Museum was a hit (my favourite place since I was 3...and my brother-in-law works there now--way cool.)
Then my brother contacted the folks who live in the house I grew up in and we visited and had a tour and then had a walk "over the back" into the valley behind...the ground of my being...
View to the south from the deck of my old house in Newmarket.
My brother and niece walking in the valley.
Seeing my children walk and play where I had walked and played at their age...in a place that holds such precious and essential memories for me...was a profound experience. And to be back on that land was an experience like no other. I am most myself in wild places and that place most of all. There is no experience like walking the land that raised you...the land you know like your own body--no matter how the years have changed its face and contours.
Then we dropped by Rockwood Conservation Area where we were married (in the ruins of the old mill there--we were the first! And apparently started something...there was a rehersal there during our visit).
Then on to Sandy Lake in the Kawarthas, for a visit to my husband's family cottage (site of first kiss ;-) )The kid's and George stayed on there while I went back to the city and then off to Halifax for Open Space on Open Space. Which I had hoped to blog from...yah, right...I know better now. More inexperience. You can't blog and be capable of deep contribution at the same time. Presence is presence. I will unpack it here over the next couple of weeks.
Back to T.O. and a family reunion, then off to the Zoo. Then a fabulous lunch and conversation with Dave Pollard. Who knew he would be so open to exploring intentional community? So, we are getting serious about it...(That's one of those posts that got stuffed in the draft box. I shared it with Dave, and I will share it with you in the next couple of days...)More on all this will come later...
There were so many more places visited and connections made, but I'll save them for another day.
I'm back...in so many more words than necessary...exhausted but so full.
And what has been on my mind a lot? The concept of non-safety. This has come up in so many venues, both personal and professional, lately. For many years, I have believed that safety is an illusion that serves to distance us from each other; that prevents us from expressing our most remarkable selves; and that hampers the growth of true freedom. Risk-taking, in the service of the greatest good, and life in general, is becoming a vital survival skill--at least for those who would see peace and sustainability grow. In thinking about this (and it really helps to have a real life situation to experiment with--like intentional community)I have been contrasting unsafe with non-safe. The kind of risk-taking I am considering is not so much about the unsafe, or dangerous, as it is about the non-safe. The non-safe to me is about non-engagement with the concept of safety--rather than an absence of it. It is about recognizing that safety isn't the issue--intimacy, connection and communication are. It isn't even about risk-taking, really, it is about openness, vulnerability, non-attachment, invitation, commitment, courage and daring in the face of fear and uncertainty. So I'm thinking about living in the non-safe zone. In that place where creativity, intuition and inspiration meet emergence and Spirit. What are you thinking about?
And here's a smile from the littlest angel to thank you all for your patience and caring.
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