Ruffled Feathers

Lest There Be Any Doubt – Day 551

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A travesty. What an awful neighborhood – Photo: L. Weikel

Lest There Be Any Doubt

Lest there be any doubt as to why certain feathered friends might want to move to new digs, perchance at the aforementioned Woodpecker Condominiums, cast your visages upon this disgraceful excuse for a birdfeeder found in the environs of the home of the caretaker of this blog.

It’s a disgrace.

Indeed, it’s no wonder the blog used to call itself ‘Ruffled Feathers.’ My feathers are ruffled indeed.

Yes, I hear talk of a ‘pandemic’ sweeping the lives of the two-leggeds that live near and far. And my sympathies, such as they are, go out to these sad creatures who don’t seem to appreciate the finer qualities of remaining in one’s nest until the predators (seen or unseen) are no longer a threat. And when they must venture outside of their nests, why do they carry on so about keeping their gaping maws (so disgustingly unseemly compared to the noble beak) discreetly hidden from view or risk infection of themselves or others?

No Excuse

In all seriousness, I understand there may be some resistances to dealing with the current hardships being inflicted upon the two-legged species. But for the love of all that is holy (and we peckers do love holes, so I know from whence I speak), there is no excuse for allowing the seed required for not only the robust reproductive vigor of those of us in mature feather, but also the developing young hatchlings to dwindle to such an appalling level.

Plague or no plague, allowing the seed situation to dwindle to this level is wholly (there it is again – something I know a lot about!) unacceptable.

Alas, I will not be able to prove my worth to the Condo Board if I am weak with hunger. There is no way I will be able to peck enough grubs per minute without the supplemental sustenance I require.

I need to take this up with someone in power. If I could only locate one.

Resorting to Peanuts. Ridiculous – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-560)

Original Owl – Day 163

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“Original Owl” @ Tinicum Elementary – Photo: L. Weikel

Original Owl           

Last week when I attended the program put on by the Penn State Extension Service on the Spotted Lanternfly, I had occasion to visit the new library at Tinicum Elementary School.

All three of our sons attended Tinicum, and I have to say, overall the school provided them with a great start to their academic lives. The teachers, especially, and Mrs. Wessel (who was principal when both Karl and Maximus attended) (Sage was shortchanged by her retirement) made the school one of those idyllic places where everyone knew everybody else’s child, we were a small, tightly knit but respectfully private community, and we all knew our kids came first in everyone’s minds.

So it was with a cloak of nostalgia draped around my shoulders that I walked into the new entrance to Tinicum’s school library to attend the aforementioned bug program.

Once Upon a Time, a Long Time Ago

The old school library used to have a diorama in it, with most of our local fauna represented in living color for the children to see ‘up close and personal.’ As a result, when Karl and I found the Great Horned Owl that ultimately became the ‘star’ of my book, Owl Medicine, we had it stuffed by a local taxidermist and donated it to the school.

 

At the time of that donation, actually, only Karl was a student at Tinicum. Maximus was in preschool and Sage wasn’t even a blip on our radar yet. Wow. So long ago it almost seems like another life.

Anyway, I’d heard (and could see from the outside) that major renovations had been done to the school and that the diorama had been dismantled. I worried that they’d done something with our owl, but did not have the heart to go look. I just knew it would make me too sad to contemplate it if the owl had been ‘disposed of.’

(Not to mention the fact that in order to get anywhere near the school anymore, you practically have to have six different forms of ID and a notarized note from your mother to gain entry. It is stunning to me the difference between how accessible our school was ‘back then’ compared to the lock-down status most schools keep themselves in now. That loss should go on my list of ‘topics for another day.’)

Waves of Nostalgia and a Sense of Continuity

Which leads me back to last week, when I entered the library and almost immediately noticed “our” owl swooping into the library from the back, in the wonderful pose we’d chosen for it. Warm feelings of nostalgia and continuity swept over me when I caught sight of our very personal and beloved contribution to our elementary school.

Truth be told, relief also swept over me. I’m so glad it’s still keeping a watchful eye on the children.

Seeing it again –such a handsome, majestic bird – and fully appreciating the profound impact finding this bird had on my life, is rather astonishing.

Yet Another Lesson on the Importance of Listening

As I described in my book, I knew when I saw a Great Horned Owl hanging upside down at the side of the road, its lifeless body dangling from a grapevine wrapped around one of its legs, that this discovery was important. It meant something bigger than just a tragic avian mishap.

I can tell you with complete honesty, though, that never in a million years would I have believed you if you told me I would eventually write a book called Owl Medicine and also name my shamanic healing practice Owl Medicine Shamanic Healing. (Indeed – if you’d told me at that stage of my life that I would become a shamanic practitioner I would’ve either laughed in your face or looked at you as if you had two heads.)

But here we are.

Here I am, writing this blog entitled “Ruffled Feathers” on my website (also named after our owl). My sons are men. Karl-the-younger is gone (or is he?), and Karl and I are still taking walks – every day – past the exact spot where we found that owl 28 years ago.

Kind of amazing.

(T-948)

Instagram – Day Eighty

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Photo by L. Weikel

Instagram…      

Or “what I did on this frigid cold day.” OK, full disclosure: this may not be the most scintillating Ruffled Feathers ‘1111 Devotion’ post you’ve read. But the fact that my desire to be read by as many people as possible is pushing me to actually start creating a presence on Instagram  is big news in my living room.

Talk about getting messages. And being resistant to listening.

Face It, Facebook is Becoming Passé

I’ve watched and listened and observed first hand that younger people are eschewing Facebook. I’ve not wanted to acknowledge what I’ve been seeing because, heck, I’ve been busy feeling all ‘not-archaic’ for posting my blog’s link on my personal and two commercial FB pages!

While this realization about the fading status of FB wasn’t exactly breaking news, it seemed to culminate over the holidays, and I did. not. want. to. hear it. I did not want to admit that Instagram has quite obviously supplanted the popularity of Facebook – even if I was seeing it with my very own eyes. Well, through my kids’ eyes. So I just looked the other way.

How Many Times Did I Have to Hear It?

Then about a week ago, I’m in the local health food store and recognize a young person who used to stay at one of the places I would give Listening Retreats. When we started talking about when I would be scheduling my offerings for 2019, I asked her for her email.

She looked at me a little funny and said, “Gee, I rarely check my email.”

I wondered aloud if she was on Facebook – I could ‘friend’ her and she would see when I posted a Hoot Alert there… I let my voice trail off as I could tell she was going to lay on me the same comments my kids had. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I try to stay away from Facebook. It’s just too…” she reached for the right word.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, interrupting her search. “I bet you’re on Instagram, though, right?”

I had a hard time hiding my irritation at the way her face brightened at the mention of Instagram. Not with her, but with my own annoying resistance to learning a new technology platform.

And then, again, when I was attending that CLE seminar in Philadelphia last week, weren’t there a few what I can only presume were Millenials standing near me on one of our breaks, waiting for hot water for tea. (And I make that presumption because I am pretty sure none of them had hit the big 3-0 yet.) I could see them scrolling on their phones, occasionally stopping the scroll, thumbs flying over the keys as they elicited that soft ‘slup slup’ keyboarding sound as they made comments or posted something of their own. One of them caught my eye and I laughed. “Instagram?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, smiling. “It’s how I keep up.”

I Get By (or Got On) With a Little Help From My Friends

So today, with some shepherding and encouragement from Sarah (mysustainablechoices on Instagram), I took some steps, big to me, to actually make my Instagram account ‘live.’

And of course, when I excitedly shared my breakthrough with another of my tech-savvy friends (probably the most tech-savviest), cosmic.meta.crow, she helpfully (if a tad tongue-in-cheek) mused that I will now have a forum for all the photos I’m discovering and organizing. Ha ha. (But hey, at least that shows she’s been reading my posts!)

So this is the extent of my post today: to let the world know I’m going to be making my Ruffled Feathers blog, and 1111 Devotion posts, available on Instagram. And hopefully posting some cool photos, too.

Stay tuned you guys. You never know what’s going to happen when I start getting the hang of this. (I know, though. As soon as I really start to feel comfortable with it, some way cooler platform will come along and I’ll be going through this metamorphosis yet again.)

It does give me pause to wonder: Was getting over myself enough to give Instagram a try maybe at least one of the messages being sent to me by my Bat? It’s entirely possible.

Oh – and in case you’re wondering, my (what’s it even called? Account? Handle? – Don’t worry, I know it’s not that) is: owlmedicine29.

Join me! No. I guess it’s “Follow me!” Ha ha. And if you have any tips, feel free to share.

(T-1031)

Not Politics – Day Seventy Three

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Photo: theconversation.com

Not Politics

As I sit here staring off into space wondering what I could write that might be of even the slightest interest to you, I keep coming back to politics.

I don’t want to write about what’s going on ‘out there’ right now. Actually, you can thank your lucky stars, right at the start of this post. Why? Because I just wrote a medium-sized (for me) post on my ‘birth’ into activism some 18 years ago.

And then I chucked it.

Finding the Sweet Spot

I don’t want to talk or write about politics (at least not today), and if I write about activism, and how mine was sparked, that presumes speaking about the issues that call to my heart and stir my passion. And probably like many of you, I feel there are a myriad of things happening right before our very eyes that are, quite simply, incendiary.

Indeed, it’s tough to find a sweet spot these days when it comes to balancing civic responsibility with maintenance of even a modicum of mental, physical, and spiritual hygiene. It is nearly impossible to keep up with everything that’s going on and not feel mired in muck. Or enraged to the core. Or hopeless.

And yes, I do turn the tv off while I write my posts, so anything I write pretty much comes from a place of me sitting in my beloved silence. But it’s hard. And even when I do, it’s swirling in my mind.

Setting a Disturbing Precedent

I’m finding our current state of affairs to be setting a truly disturbing precedent. It’s just like smart phone use. It’s addictive. And making matters even worse, it’s also akin to driving slowly past an accident on the interstate. We can’t help but look.

All of us know things are accelerating in Washington D.C. The pace of revelations is unsustainable – although it’s only just now reaching the top of the first (and usually biggest) rise of our cultural rollercoaster. Prepare for more – and at stomach-dropping speed.

The disturbing precedent I mentioned, though, is that fix of dopamine we’ve all become habituated to receiving every ten or fifteen minutes every day, or even more frequently if we are hopeless ‘refreshers.’ The only thing that saves some of us is when we are fortunate enough to have a task where our full and undivided attention is required.

It’s a problem, and it’s disturbing. I worry whether we will ever allow ourselves as a society to drop back from this break-neck pace of constant “Breaking News.”

Will We Ever Return to Peace?

I ask you: Can you honestly imagine our society returning to a relative sense of calm and trust in the day-to-day institutions that keep our lives running with some sense of normalcy, order, and trustworthiness?

Sometimes I am glittering with hope in humanity. Other times…not so much.

I’m going to wrap up this post and bring it to a close. My eyelids are heavy and my heart’s close behind.

Aren’t you glad I didn’t talk about politics? Ha ha. Yeah. Me too.

Have a great day.

(T-1038)

“It’s scary out there.”  – Cider

Simple Pleasures – Day Sixty Six

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Photo by L Weikel

Simple Pleasures    

I feel as though I’ve written some intense posts lately. Or maybe they were just a little on the long side; I don’t know. Today I’m going with simple pleasures.

It’s a new day. It’s a new month. (Well, in the overall context of 2019. I do realize it’s the 16th of the month already.) But best of all?

It’s a new journal!

Out With the Old, In With the New

Yes! Today I filled in the very last page of my most recent journal. What a great feeling. And even better is the fact that my journal-keeper’s glow is sure to last two full days, since, as was the case today, I felt a wonderful sense of accomplishment witnessing the well-paced completion of those final lines of the last blank page in my bright green covered, college-ruled, wire-bound notebook.

That’s no small feat. It takes a bit of skill, some reasonable foresight, and maybe a scootch of discretion in deciding just how much to write today and how much to save for tomorrow in order to get the entry for the last day to end at a satisfactory place on that final page.

Aaah, but it is so satisfying. And then, once I’ve put a period at the end of that last sentence, I take a quick inventory of the ‘big events’ that I’ve painstakingly noted on the back inside cover. I’ve taken to creating a pseudo-index (even though my pages aren’t numbered) on the back cover so, in the future, when I want to try to quickly locate in which journal an event is documented, I can find it at least a little more quickly than I have in the past.

That’s been a lesson learned the hard way by someone who has, by a cursory count, 63 of those suckers lined up on her bookcase shelves.

And Tomorrow Brings It to 64

Tomorrow I get to revel in the sensual pleasure and pristine innocence of christening a completely fresh and unsullied wire-bound notebook. I love holding my new baby in my hands, appreciating the color of the cover I’ve chosen, feeling its texture with my palm and fingers as I appreciate the lack of bumps and dings that inevitably surface as a result of being taken everywhere.

But this journal is different. This one was a gift (although I did make my requirements for a perfect journal known ahead of time, such as a pocket divider for keepsakes, such as event tickets, photos, or sentimental cards I might receive). This one has two!  It’s from Boston University, my youngest son’s* most recent alma mater. And I have to admit, the only thing that could possibly make this better would be if the B.U. mascot were emblazoned on its cover. Because?

Everything is better with a Boston Terrier.** Trust me on that.

A New Adventure, Filled With Possibilities

Thus tomorrow begins a new adventure, at least in my mind. I wonder what events and dreams, adventures and aspirations, rages and sorrows will fill these pages. How will I have grown from who I am this evening, at the outset of this journal, to who I am when I write those concluding thoughts many months from now.

Will I still be writing 1111 Devotion posts? (Sure hope so.)

Will I have some new project in the works or be collaborating on something I have no inkling of in this moment? (It’ll be neat to see!)

I guess we’ll find out. And maybe, hopefully, we’ll all meet in this Ruffled Feathers space together to assess the changes that will inevitably have taken place in my life, in your life, in our country, in the world. Who knows what we’ll have witnessed by then.

Perhaps you’ll have started (or continued) keeping your own journal. And you’ll be on your way to celebrating the amazing two day extravaganza of simple pleasures that, in truth, are the delight of completing one journal and beginning a new one.

(T-1045)**See? Told you.

Spartacus Dreaming – Photo by L.Weikel

*Thank you, Sage.

I Got Nothin’ – Day Fifty Nine

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I Got Nothin’

I’ve shown up every night for 59 days, trusting I would have something to write about. But tonight? I got nothing’. I know I said at the very beginning of this 1111 Devotion journey that there might be days when I would write one sentence and that would have to suffice.

But I hoped it wouldn’t actually come to that.

And I guess it hasn’t literally come to that today, either, since I’ve obviously written more than one sentence. (Umm, yea for me?)

Get Out Of Jail Free Card

So I’m in the clear. I’ve saved myself from using my Get Out Of Jail Free card tonight.

Which makes me wonder: How many GOOJF cards do I get in the 1111 Devotion? Since I’m making up the rules as I go along, I’d say 111 seems fair. Ten percent. What do you think?

In the grand scheme of things, that might appear reasonable (10%). But wow. Looking at it from the perspective that 10% would give me 111 whole, actual, days of only writing one sentence seems crazily over the top. That’s just shy of four months if I strung them all together.

Funny how perspective can shift everything, isn’t it?

That’s the cool thing about shamanic work, actually. (Bet you didn’t see that correlation coming out of left field, did you?)

Perception and Perspective

But it’s true. So much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives and in our world in general is rooted in our perceptions. And as we learn and grow more adept at shifting our perception, we actually gain the ability to begin shifting our reality in ways we might never have imagined.

And part of how we perceive anything is the perspective from which we look at it. But obviously, before we can shift our perspective, we have to realize what our present one is. How are we looking at something? Is it from a place of fear? Of feeling magnanimous and abundant? Is it from a place of feeling centered and at peace?

There are those varying perspectives we can consider, and then there are different levels of perception we can employ to shift our reality. But again, we first have to train ourselves to become aware of the different levels so we can identify what one we are looking at or perceiving from at any given moment.

So here I am, starting a conversation on how important both perspective and differing levels of perception can completely influence our experience of ‘reality.’ And I’m also suggesting that shamanic work can result in dramatic shifts in not only our perceptions, and perspectives, but also our realities.

That’s some pretty heady stuff to be contemplating right around midnight. Or the crack of dawn, if that’s when you’re reading this.

Checking Our Perspective – Occasionally

Just think about it. If you were told you had only one more month to live, would you look at anything the same way as you are in this present moment? That’s a radical question to ask any of us to contemplate, even if it might be some people’s actual reality. And we might be inclined to judge it as just a dumb intellectual exercise, since it can feel like we are bullshitting ourselves if we really try to imagine looking at ourselves from the perspective of knowing we only have one more month (or week, or day) to live.

But I do think it is helpful, sometimes, to take a personal re-set. To really sit down and think about how we are choosing to perceive our life, our circumstances, our relationships, and even our world, at any given time. Are we looking at these things from the default perspective that ‘things will never change?’ That, it seems to me, is an even greater bullshitting of ourselves than the former.

Ha ha – maybe I should’ve stopped at that one sentence and let things be.

Naaah. I still have 111 in my back pocket. Or do I?

(T-1052)

Khoomei – Day Fifty Five

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Photo by Ilya Naymushin

Khoomei

Based on some of the comments I received since last night’s post, I thought I might write a little more about Tuvan throat singing.

Technically, I suppose, I should just call it ‘throat singing’ and not add the ‘Tuvan’ adjective. This is especially true since just last night I enjoyed the skilled performance of Altai Kai – a group from the Altai Republic in southwestern Siberia.

Throat singing, which is technically a type of overtone singing, is often referred to as Tuvan throat singing, khoomei, and sometime Mongolian throat singing. I’ve mostly heard it referred to as either Tuvan throat singing or simply khoomei.

Republic of Tuva – South-Central Siberia

Just east of the Altai Republic (which is actually now part of Russia) is the Republic of Tuva, which, perhaps oddly enough, I consider one of my homelands.

Yes, I know; it’s hard to comprehend how or why I could consider it so. But the knowledge and feeling within is visceral; it is without a doubt a spiritual homeland to me. Prior to 2003, I never would have imagined this could be my experience, and yet…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, when I experienced my first auditory experience of Tuvan throat singing (before I actually went to Siberia a few months later), it sent shock waves through my system. The CD I was listening to was a great introduction: Back Tuva Future and featured Kongar-Ol Ondar, probably one of the greatest Tuvan throat singers ever. Ondar was hugely instrumental in bringing awareness of this form of singing to the United States in the ‘90s, and tragically died in 2013, only 51 years old. Willy Nelson collaborated on that album, which added an interesting twist, too.

Bert Dag – Home Away From Home

I didn’t realize it at the time, but listening to that album over and over, I was actually being schooled in some of Tuva’s most popular folk songs. This was brought home to me when I was visiting a very small village in the south of Tuva called Bert Dag.

One of the first days I was in Bert Dag, the families who were aware of my visit proudly called me outside to meet this adorable, seemingly shy little boy – he could only have been 3 or 4 as I recall – so I could hear him sing for me. Not only did this tiny person start singing some khoomei (which, when you hear that guttural sound emanating from a man or woman, it’s one level of amazing – but resonating out of a little boy?), but he was also singing one of the songs I recognized from the CD! Indeed, it was one that speaks of the loss of their homeland and makes my heart ache every time I hear it.

Wow – thanks for that memory.

I realize I’m not giving you much more information on this traditional technique in this post. But beyond the links I provided yesterday, and above, here is another group that I had the great fortune to listen to and experience up close and personal twice, just this year: Alash Ensemble. I saw them in both Connecticut and Flemington, NJ.

In closing out this post, I just want to say that in my experience, khoomei is not just an art form. It is also a gateway to shamanic travel (journeying).

Hmmmm.

(T-1056)

Never Too Late – Day Fifty Two

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Never Too Late

As we’re only drawing to a close the 2ndday of January (or for many of you, just beginning the 3rd), I’m trusting that the lustre of choosing to bring something nurturing or stimulating or creative into your life, as I encouraged in my New Year’s Eve post, has not yet worn off. And remember: it’s never too late to begin.

I find the thought of ‘bringing in’ new experiences or activities to our lives, and hopefully making them habit-worthy, simply tantalizing. I can’t wait to see and hear about how your new devotions play out in your perception and appreciation of your lives.

Discovering Doors to Our Future

It’s as if we’re opening a door to our future that we’ve barely even allowed ourselves to see before now. When we’ve looked in that direction other times, all we’ve seen is a wall because we needed to make ourselves perfect before giving ourselves permission to indulge in an urge to create something uniquely ours or engage in something that simply brings us joy.

And yes, even bringing in the opportunity to read more books is a creative endeavor. Because reading inspires us to live in so many more worlds than we realize could exist if we simply view our own experiences in our own finite bodies to be the limit of what is available to us.

The opportunity, though, to indulge in exploring an activity that has called to us, perhaps in a whisper for the first few years, but which has probably grown louder and more persistent as the years ticked by, can lead us places we might never, ever expect. And while the point of this new perspective is, essentially, to give ourselves permission to listen to our hearts, it can also lead to people outside of ourselves clamoring for more. Or to our passion saving the world. Or maybe even changing the course of history.

Early Choices Shouldn’t Define Us

In our youth-obsessed world, we often tell ourselves that we have to decide what we want to ‘be’ or ‘do’ with our lives by the time we’re 18. Some people are given leeway and permitted to explore who they are and what they want to ‘do’ in the world by taking a variety of courses in college.

I don’t know about you, but that was a myth for me (and I went to college a long damn time ago). You pretty much had to pick the area you wanted to get your degree in and were lucky if you got the chance to take a couple of electives in completely unrelated fields during your entire four (or so) years. Which makes me suspect that it’s even much more rare for young people attending college now to actually explore in that mythical, idealistic portrait painted of college life. It costs too much to lollygag around taking courses you will almost certainly see no tangible monetary benefit from taking.

I bring this up because I feel the vast majority of people walking around today were thrust far too early into making choices that influence everything about the rest of their lives. And they’re left wondering – even if only fleetingly, and ever so quietly to themselves – what it would feel like to immerse their fingers in paint and try to capture the beauty of that bluebird they saw perched on a fencepost along their walk.

As a result, we just deny, deny, deny. “I’m too old.” “It’s too late.” “I don’t know how.” “I have no time.” Oh, the excuses we mouth, each one of them killing our spirit a little bit more with each utterance.

Late Bloomers Are Real

Well, I want to hook you up to a very cool website that just might inspire you to keep up with whatever activity you decided to invite into your life this year.

The website is Later Bloomer, and is created by a friend of mine, Debra Eve. We met way back in 2014 at a writers’ conference in Taos, New Mexico.

I will let you explore her site and perhaps sign up to receive her weekly emails which always have something fascinating to teach me about the possibilities open to us simply by choosing to say yes to our passions instead of making excuses. Or feeling as if we missed the boat when we made life choices at 18 or 22. Or 30. Or…

Indeed, just today I received notification from Debra of a wonderful calendar she’s created for 2019 around the concept of ‘red letter days.’ Check it out.

This year is going to be different, you guys. I know it.

(T-1059)

Living in the Future – Day Fifty One

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Living in the Future

It’s hard not to get ahead of myself sometimes. When I’m pleased or feel excited, I tend to extrapolate and imagine how cool things will be “when _______ happens.” (And no, I’m not encouraging you to play Cards Against Humanity in this post. Although…that could be amusing. And you know which among you would eagerly offer a shockingly off-color suggestion for that blank.)

What I mean is, there’s a part of me that was, as my Irish sisters say, “chuffed” when I got to my 50thpost. And instead of just ‘being’ with that good feeling, I started extrapolating. “When I get to this day next year, I’ll be into the 400s! I’ll be writing my 415thpost!”

Aaarggh. I do not want to do that to myself! And yet I know it’s human nature and therefore futile to hope I won’t succumb to this temptation – and often. But it sure is tedious, always ‘moving the bar,’ so to speak, and assuming the elusive next goal will be way better and more impressive to achieve than this one. And what does it get me?

N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Nothing at all. Except it does manage to snatch my present sense of accomplishment from the jaws of a healthy, yet un-inflated, self-esteem. Always keeping myself guessing, I suppose.

But I mention this not because I remained in that mind-space. I saw where my habitual thinking wanted to take me and I snagged it, brought it back, and stomped it into unconsciousness. (Just kidding! Seeing if you were paying attention.)

No, I saw where my habitual thinking wanted to take me and I did indeed snag it. But I just rolled my eyes, laughed at myself, and hoped I’d make it to #51, while enjoying the simple pleasure of having reached the 50th. And I’m mentioning all of this because I firmly believe we all need to remember that we’re not here to be perfect!

No matter how hard we try, we’re not perfect. And we’ll never be perfect. Why? Because perfection is not only unattainable. It’s boring. And we wouldn’t learn anywhere near as much as we do living in our imperfection.

Perfection is Unattainable (and Boring)

We’re not going to find much, if any, profound and meaningful satisfaction with either ourselves or how we’re meeting our commitments by reaching some arbitrary, magical number of posts published, journal pages written, photos taken, or books read per month. The sooner we realize that, the better.

And trust me, I remember when I used to think every one else could strive for – or be satisfied by – mediocrity, but I was different. I would persist. I would do ‘it’ (whatever exacting standard I set for myself) through sheer force of will. And man, while I would not trade the level of success I generally enjoyed for my efforts, I would lighten up just a little on the jumping into the future gig. Because as cliché as it sounds, it is sheer insanity to pin all your happiness on the successful attainmentof a goal, on breaking the tape, or on writing that 1111th post.

The test of our humanity is to figure out the trick of living our lives in fullness and balance as we strive toward accomplishing that goal.

And by that I mean setting a goal (i.e., committing to writing 1111 consecutive blog posts), and finding a sense of satisfaction and healthy pride in oneself every day a post gets published. Extra credit for those days when a post has the effect of speaking to the hearts of those who read it, for those are precious.

There is something to be said for showing up. For being willing to not always be some shining example of awesomeness that you wish others would perceive you as being. But if we’re honest? The ones we’re actually trying hardest to impress are the exacting bastards that live inside of us.

They’re tamable. At least I’m determined to give you a glimpse of how I make the effort to live with them. In balance. Here’s to 2019. May we LIVE this together! In perfect imperfection!

(T-1060)

Commitment – Day Fifty

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Commitment

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m pretty much phoning this one in.

I’m nursing a slight headache, I was a little brought down by yet another day full of low hanging clouds and relentless rain, and this is my fiftieth consecutive post!

Actually, that last part makes me smile.

I’m glad I’m sitting up here on my bed, with but minutes to spare before the ball drops and 2019 begins, and I’m writing this.

I find it fascinating that I feel so connected to you; and I do feel that there is a ‘you’ at the other end of this post. There are eyes reading these words. And I’m intrigued by this relationship I feel we’re cultivating.

If I didn’t feel something, I wouldn’t be sitting up here all by myself, writing this. But I’m not all by myself, am I?

Thank you for supporting me energetically and otherwise over the past fifty days.

I’d like to invite each one of you to join me in some form of devotion to yourself in 2019. Maybe contemplate not giving something up as you enter this new year, but rather bringing something in, instead.

Turning off the television and reading for an hour before bed every night.

Keeping a journal and writing at least one page (and preferably three – wink wink), every day.

Drawing or taking a photograph with your phone every single day to document your joy.

Realizing you are loved. And appreciated. Even if it is ‘only’ by yourself.

Thank you for walking beside me. I look forward to 2019 – together.

(T-1061)