Category: Uncategorized

What Startles You Out of Yourself?

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

by Barbara Crooker

We may think our minds do the thinking and feeling, but our bodies hold the deeper knowing. If the brain existed outside the body, perhaps we could separate emotions from physical aspects. But that’s not how it is. The mind is encased in flesh. What the mind knows, the body knows too, and often communicates before the mind figures out what it needs to say. Bless the body, holding the heavy stones of our life experiences, sometimes secretly and without any fanfare. There will be a time, though, when the body’s language cannot be ignored. It will be heard.

We’re busy and we don’t have time to waste, so instead we waste our bodies and minds in a frantic search to accomplish and then cope with the stress that comes from accomplishing. Or, maybe we’re dealing with the bad deals life hands out without rhyme or reason. Whoever said life was fair?

That’s why it’s paramount to find ways to cool the heat, to immerse ourselves in beauty, peace, and quiet. That’s why, if we allow it, nature can heal us, diffuse the stress, surprise us with its wonders. That’s the reason we host the Forest Bathing Retreats – to offer a time to settle our minds and bodies in nature, to slow our breathing, deepen our awareness, and then write about the experience. The retreats are always profound. Nature startles us out of our anxiety in the gentlest, sincerest way.

(Forest Bathing Retreat #3 will be held October 3-5, 2025. It’s open for Registration NOW!)
http://https://rockvalewriterscolony.org/august-30-to-september-1-2024-forest-bathing-a-walk-in-the-woods-for-writers/

What startles you? What have you witnessed that was so charming, or awe-inspiring, or breathtaking that you had to stop and stare. Once, I was outside gathering sticks that had fallen from trees during a storm. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the chore. I heard a clamor, a ruckus, that was getting louder and louder. At first, I thought it was crows in my neighbor’s tree, but that didn’t seem right. The sound was too high and far away, and there were too many voices. I walked to where I could see the sky and then I saw it all. The biggest flock of geese I’d ever seen – long lines that went on and on, feathering out in segments, their collective voice an ocean of song. I stared and watched them groove the sky, and in my awe, I forgot my stress and grumpiness. (This pic doesn’t do it justice at all. The flock went on and on and on and on!)

And then, just yesterday, I was startled again – by big Jeremiah, our bullfrog! (See pic above) Sitting prettily and without a care in the world, Jeremiah has lived in the water feature by the kitchen deck of the farmhouse for over 3 years. I did a little research on bullfrogs. They can live 7-9 years. They are native to the eastern US but are considered an invasive species in the western states. Jeremiah watches the day go by from his moss-covered perch, and I’m warmed by his unhurried, unflustered nature. He reminds me there’s time enough to do what needs doing. Sometimes I need to just “be.”

(If you want to “just be” at RWC in November, register for our Peace Retreat: A Time of Being, Not Doing. It will get you calm and peaceful before the busy holiday season.)
https://rockvalereview.submittable.com/submit/321223/peace-retreat-2025-a-time-of-being-not-doing

Today, I hope you’re startled into remembering your connection to this world, and who you are as part of it.

Blessings,
Sandy

March 2025 Newsletter
Loving Life, Even When You Think You Can’t

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

by Ellen Bass

There’s something about being known that speaks into the essence of who you are and how you belong.

There’s been plenty of times that I wondered how to keep going. Have you felt that way too? When things seem just a tad too heavy for your strong back to carry, when everything hurts more than you think it should? I know that place. I’ve been there. I’ve asked, “How can a body withstand this?” just like Ellen Bass asks in the poem. The answer is always the same.

You stand it because you must. Because you take life in your hands with all its ugly grimaces and uncomfortable groans, and you say, “You are what I have. Let me make something from this.” And you do, because what is the alternative? What choice do you have?

If that feels a little idealistic, let me agree. Life won’t wait around for everything to be perfect before you can go on living. You have to live through the going on, to laugh, to love, to remember, and sometimes, to listen to your body and take shelter wherever or however possible. Then, the next day, you get up and do it again.

On Friday, I’m driving to North Carolina to attend the celebration of life service for my friend, Dawn. I met her when she came to Rockvale Writer’s Colony as a resident writer. Had it not been for my job and her application, we would never have met and never have found such a deep and beautiful friendship. Though I grieve the loss of her, I am joyful for the heart of her, the things we shared, and the things we learned through that sharing. How can I not be grateful and joyful and love the life that allowed us to meet and bond?

I am joyful through pain, and glad through suffering. That’s the definition of living, when you live long enough. The tiny things become the big things. Everything is a sign to keep living – bluebirds setting up habitation in the birdhouse again, March winds stirring tree limbs with green buds, the warmth of the sun on my back as I clean up the garden, stillness in the forest, thunder inside a dark night, moon breaking through clouds. I live and love because I hold the face of life in my hands – a plain, ordinary, unsmiling face – and see beauty simply because life IS beauty.

In Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem titled, “How,” she says this:
I think of how
in my most lonely moments
some strange beauty has wandered
into my vision or woven its singular
song into my ears and I can’t help
but feel infused by life.

Infused! Internalized. Ingrained. Instilled. Life!

I will take you, Life. I will love you, again.

Blessings,
Sandy

Febuary 2025 Newsletter
Messing Up

Altar Ego
Because I hate to make msitakes,
today I practice messsing up.
Spell check tries to correct me,but
I thwart it, I INsist on my errirs,
retype what is right till its wrong.
It hurts a littel. And I like it,
that it hurts. a little. SEee:
I say to my inner prefectionist,
it’s kinda fun to fook up,
and soon Im laughing in the dark,
itching to stumble out teh door
and run passed the same choices I
‘ve always made, gigling
with this holy wreckless woman,
I liek her, I decid, as we blunder into the night.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I got into a bit of a pickle with the 4-wheeler the other day. I was trailblazing a new trail on the hilly back part of the property. There are a lot of trees there, and plenty of fallen limbs as well. Maneuvering over and around branches while trying to keep the vehicle on the most level land was challenging. Add an autumn’s worth of wet, slippery leaves, and some large rocks covered by said leaves, and you’ve got a situation requiring a higher 4-wheeler skill level than what I posessed. At one point, my position didn’t feel “safe” and I got off the vehicle to decide the best course of action.

I don’t like messing up. I don’t like getting myself into scenarios that could end badly. I pride myself on making good decisions, for thinking through things before acting. I’m prudent, smart. Sometimes, I take risks, but they are calculated and careful. I think I know where my limits are.

Way back in my early childhood, for some reasons I won’t go into, I developed the role of perfectionist for myself. I wanted to do things as well as I possibly could and I judged myself harshly when those expectations were not met. My mantra was “Work to the point of excellence.” Ok, that sounds like a driven, intelligent, determined woman and I am, but I am also discovering that my grip on being perfect has caused me to suffer. I worked very hard to be excellent, but being human trumps everything else and humans aren’t perfect. We mess up. We make mistakes. We get ourselves into a bit of a pickle with a 4-wheeler on a slanted heavily treed ridgeline.

For the past year, I’ve been studying my personality and the persona I want to protect and present to the world. I want to be highly functioning and make wise decisions. I want to be respected and excellent. Yeah, yeah – all that’s good, but is it real? Does it bring joy or stress? I think it’s my natural tendency to want to achieve. I am driven, but when taken to an extreme level, trying to be perfect hurts. It is an avenue for suffering. One of my revelations has been that I don’t want to suffer any more than I have to. Why would I want to add suffering to an already busy life with more than enough potential for heavy stress?

Excuse me, may I sign up for another year of suffering please?

Ah . . . no. I don’t want that. I’m learning to hold certain standards a little less tightly. I’m learning that if I mess up, I can learn from it and laugh at it too. I don’t have to make everything ultra serious and weighted with the stone of unrealistic expectations. I can make a mistake and figure out how to correct it. That’s why I celebrate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem above – all the mess ups and “fook up’s,” and at the end, the joy and the giggling, the pure exuberance in being free to “blunder.” I love it.

I got myself out of the 4-wheeler pickle. It required some thought and study of the slanted terrain. I put the vehicle in reverse, then low, the reverse, then low again, slowly gaining enough space to move out of the dangerous area. I haven’t repeated the mistake.

This month, I challenge you to toy with your mistakes and mess ups. Smile at them. Laugh at them. Let them see they aren’t going to make you suffer. They are going to help you settle into your holier humanity – which isn’t at all perfect, but entirely beautiful nonetheless.

Blessings,
Sandy

P.S. I can’t let this go unsaid. If you noticed the misspelling of the word “February” at the top of the page, that was intentional. I wanted to see what it felt like to let a mistake stand on the ground undisturbed. Obviously, I’m still a work in progress because I had to tell you, lest you think I’m less than perfect!

What’s Wrong With Maybe

I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house
of reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?

Mary Oliver – “The World I Live In”

Oh, how I love this little snippet from Mary Oliver. It speaks to my heart. Even as part of me loves and longs for certainty and structure, my freebird soul agrees with the quote. Reasons and proofs create a tight little world void of possibility. It’s a house with no doors or windows to see beyond the walls. I want to see the sky and beyond the horizon to the next hill far away from the safety of my comfort zone. I want to trade all the answers I think I know for a bunch of unruly questions that stretch my present understanding. I want to grow.

Don’t we live in a world that is always changing? Even if you have a good answer for today, it’s likely it won’t serve you tomorrow. I think a better stance is to hold things loosely, to see what appears when you gaze into the looking glass of “what if’s” and “maybe’s.”

What if I focused on a new creative outlet for a month or two?
What if I took a solo trip to a place I’ve never been?
Maybe I don’t understand this situation as well as I think I do.
Maybe I should plant cucumbers.

Yeah, I got you on that last line, didn’t I? But seriously, that’s a question I asked myself lately when talking to a friend about vegetable gardening next spring!

Mary Oliver says her world is larger than all the predictable, known aspects. And so is ours. I tend to like to control things, to stick with the plan, because that makes me feel safe. I like safety, but sometimes safety confines us to a narrow box. Stepping outside that box can feel risky, but it can also show us something true about ourselves we might not learn without that risk. I want to live fully, vibrantly, with all the color and occasional chaos that comes outside the box. I want to be as fully human as I can be, and to experience the what if’s and maybe’s that come my way. I don’t want to take a pass because I’m afraid.

To that end, I’ve made some challenges for myself. This year, I’m going to do a few dangerous things. I use the word “dangerous” facetiously, although it can make us feel so vulnerable to consider a world of change that the word “dangerous” fits. Here are three things I’m going to do this year:

1. Go on a 4-day art retreat. I’ve already signed up!
2. Submit poetry to journals every month. I’ve let my writing slide for a few years.
3. Lead a retreat that empowers women to live full, healthy, and courageous lives. (More on that below.)

What do you want to do this year? What are the “maybe’s” that exist in your life that you need to pay attention to? Can you step beyond what is known to what is possible? Can you envision your own particular sky? I encourage you to hold that thought in your heart for moment or a day or a week. See where it leads you . . .

And if you want to share it with me, please do. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy New Year, Friends!
Blessings,
Sandy

In Search of Wonder

“Behold this day – for it is yours to make.”
― Black Elk

The last days of the last month turn the final pages of the book of 2024. This is an interesting time for me, a strange time – one of joy because of the holiday season and family gatherings, but also one of introspection as I seek to tally accomplishments and lessons learned in the past twelve months. Do you do that? Do you think to yourself, “What was good, what was bad? What can I celebrate? What can I do differently?” Do you think about regrets in order to learn a vital thing? Do you allow yourself to feel satisfied and pleased with the things that went well?

It’s a tender time, a holy time, this time between the years, slowly ticking toward a different energy, a newness that can feel like an open page, stark and blank, ready to be filled. That can feel delightful, intimidating, or both, but it comes to us regardless of whether we’re ready. The new year will simp;y come. I’ll welcome it when it arrives, but for now, I’m rocking to sleep the final light of a different year. I’m singing it a lullaby.

I’m at my most reflective and pensive when I’m hiking or exploring the woods. All the thoughts come out of hiding when the trees guard and shelter me. My mind can settle and relax. All the words my brain has kept clenched in a fist can now float in the cool, damp December air.

Recently, as I walked, a rounded a turn on the trail to climb a short hill. I lifted my face to gaze at the top and saw something that made me stop in my tracks. The hill was covered with frost flowers.

If you’re not familiar with this lovely phenomenon, let me offer you a lesson in atmospheric science. Frost flowers are thin layers of ice that extrude through slits in the stems of certain plants. Their formation requires freezing air temperature, soil that is moist or wet but not frozen, and a plant’s stem that has not been previously frozen. The water in the plant’s stem is drawn upward by capillary action from the ground. It expands as it freezes, splits the stem vertically, and freezes upon contact with the air. As more water is drawn from the ground through the slit, a paper-thin ice layer pushes outward. The length of the split determines if the frost flower has a narrow or wide ribbon of ice. It curls unpredictably and forms “petals.” These flowers, no two of which are alike, are fragile and last only hours. If you try to hold one, it crumbles in your hand.

I’ve seen frost flowers before, but never a field of them. I stood in complete amazement. I basked in the wonder of it all. I felt gratitude for the gift of this scene and the effect it had on my heart, and then I thought about the gift of 2024 and the days of wonder contained in the year – the lessons, the struggles, the decisions, the tenderness, the beauty, the changes. It all washed over me. In the crisp morning air, another thought rose out of the earth and settled in my mind.

These last days of 2024 are precious. In fact, every day of 2024 held something unique and wondrous. Every day was an opportunity to learn or witness or grow. I might have missed my chance on many days, so caught up was I in my own story, but I don’t have to miss any more days. I can find the flowers in my life and circumstances if I take a moment to welcome them. There are a few more days in 2024 to do just that.

And then a whole new year of wonder is waiting around the corner. Let me see what I can do with it. Let’s see what we all can do with it.

Blessings,

Sandy

“There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective.
There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.”
― Matt Haig

I don’t know about you, writers, but I’ve been described as “not exactly normal.” I don’t think creative people fit squarely into the box society tends to want for us. We are round pegs in a square hole, or square pegs in a round hole, or triangles, or octagons, or any other shape besides the expected one. That’s ok. That’s our “normal.” Being anything else is contrary to what our souls long to be. If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that the only “you” that brings contentment is the authentic “you,” even if it doesn’t look or act like other people want it to.

One of my favorite quotes is from Twyla Tharp. “Creativity is an act of defiance.” It refers to the idea that creativity involves challenging the status quo and questioning accepted truths. Tharp suggests that creative people are guided by three universal questions:

Why do I have to obey the rules?
Why can’t I be different?
Why can’t I do it my way?

When you read that, does something in your soul say Amen? And yet, not obeying the rules and changing the playing field sometimes has us running against a system we need to respect and pay attention to. Our families. Our friend groups. Our co-workers. How do we claim authenticity and still blend when the validity of who we are rests in a place others label as “not normal?”

I’ve learned to be grateful for my view of the world. I’ve learned to expect certain responses, which are seldom meant cruelly, but come off as isolating. “You’re different.” “Who can keep up with you?” “How do you do all the things you do?” I’ve learned that my differences are my super powers and there is no way I can give them up. But, occasionally, I feel the weight of, not exactly judgment, but comparison. And sometimes, it tires me.

Truth is, there is no normal. There is only me. And you. And all the other people in the world who have their challenges, hopes and dreams. We work to try to find something that feels right, that feels settled and contented, that makes us feel whole.

Here’s another truth, we are always whole, no matter if we don’t feel it. We may get lost and wander a little bit, but we are not in pieces as we do it. We are still, always, completely, wholly and fully ourselves.

What do you do when you feel a little misaligned and doubting? I guess we all have our own tricks to settle ourselves. Mine is creating visual art and being in the forest. Lately, I’ve taken to combining those in the form of earth altars. I find a space on the trail that speaks to me and I look around for natural elements. Nuts, seeds, leaves, stems, rocks, flowers, anything. And then I reach into the deep presence of nature and arrange the elements in a way that pleases me. These are not meant to be permanent. (That’s another good lesson to learn – not to hold on too tightly to anything.) We create, then we release. We create, then we offer it to a world that may or may not value it. It’s the creating that has the most meaning. The reception is out of our hands.

So, open your hands. This is your therapy. Don’t clench so tightly to who you are supposed to be. Just be who you are. All of it. All the weird, unnormal, strange, defiant pieces of yourself. Let them teach you how to live.

Here’s to being radically, unnormally normal. Here’s to you.

AND, Happy Thanksgiving, too!

Blessings,
Sandy

Autumn Silences

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” – Ram Dass

The sky in autumn boasts cerulean blue, a color so clear and bright it almost takes your breath away. The top of the maple is tinged with pink, and the leaves of the birch and walnut yellow and fall. In just a couple days, the landscape has been repainted with autumn. Each inhale imbibes a strange sort of energy. It must be akin to what nature is undergoing now, the intuition that time is short and getting shorter. The time between the sun’s rising and setting is shorter too. With that knowledge comes a sort of hurrying to get things done, to store up supplies and batten down the hatches before winter is here.

Like many people, autumn is my favorite season. Maybe this speaks to my workaholic nature tuning in to my need for rest. There’s one more burst of getting it done and then things are less hectic. I am busy right now but I’m also in a mood to ponder. I’ve been accused of ruminating on something to the point of exhaustion and I plead guilty to that, but this pondering is different. Peaceful. Poetic. Pure. This feels more like wonder, like contentment with a bit of question rolled up inside it.

I’ve been doing some trail work. I’ve rerouted a section of the Perimeter Trail that never felt quite right to me. The new section feels better. Ever since I finished, I’ve felt drawn to that area at the very back of the property. I trudge up the hills with my journal and my current book. I sit on the blue bench and let the slant of the sun warm me. There is a silence that heals, a moment without an agenda, without an audible voice except . . . the longer I sit and the quieter I am, the more I hear.

We all know that silence is relative and the total absence of sound is rarely found. If you sit outside and stop speaking, the world goes on with its myriad voices. The wind brushes through the tree limbs. Two male cardinals argue and fuss over territory. Someone beyond the ridge is using a chainsaw. Still, there is something about my personal silence that settles me. My pondering goes deeper. I sense a greater connection to the earth as I allow other songs to fill the space. And then (I hope you understand this), I begin to hear myself beyond my “self.” It’s a communion of all the parts of me – farmer, poet, athlete, artist, business owner, daydreamer, workaholic, peace seeker – and it feels like home.

I cannot reach this home within myself by being busy and rushed. I have to hush, to shrink, to settle so deeply into the autumn silences that I am a part of it. Silence is a good teacher. It is a friend as well.

I hope you have a lovely autumn!

Blessings,
Sandy

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi

Summer is ending and with that goodbye comes hello to the last of the summer work. The last bush hogging of the pastures, the last weeding in the garden, the last cleaning of the pool signals a transition from one season to another. It also means the workload is pretty high right now. I’ve never been afraid of work or working hard. In fact, I love to write things on my to-do list so I can check them off as accomplished. That list is long right now and I’ll be busy for the next couple of months. I like it that way. Even though there are times I might wish for a pajama day or a hang-out-by-the-pool day, most of my feel-good days involve work.

I think the concept of work has developed a bad rap. We think of overwork, burnout, or work-a-holic and picture a frazzled person running from one task to the next with no satisfaction or value tied to accomplishment. We argue over paychecks and paid time off, holidays and mental health days, and work becomes something connected to the money we earn and the toll that stress takes on our bodies. It seems a shame that much of our lifetime is spent “trying to make” a living rather than living. Does it have to be that way?

I’m aware that our society is built on an economic structure. We make money, we spend money, and we buy what we need to survive. But surviving is more than a matter of paying the bills. It’s more than the bare necessity required to exist. I believe if we think of work less as work (bad word) and more as work (joyful word), we can start to shift from survival to revival. We can start to claim the joy in our work, regardless of what we do.

Growing up in Nashville, I often went to Kroger with my mom. There was a man who worked for the grocery store that became somewhat of a celebrity. His job? He gathered the shopping carts in the parking lot and returned them to the store. People called him “the cart wrangler.” I think everyone would agree that his job wasn’t critical to the operations of Kroger – but his joy was. This man exuded pure goodness, pure light. His attitude towards Kroger shoppers made their day. And then he made the news. No one could believe he actually liked his job, but he did. He found joy in it, and that joy reverberated through the community.

There’s an interesting connection between doing and being. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. We can do our job and be joyful. We can pursue our creativity and be grateful. We can work toward whatever calls to our heart and be restored. We can look at the Rumi quote chosen for this month, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do,” and nod our heads. We get that sentiment. I think the words work equally well when a couple of them are rearranged:

Let the beauty of what you do be how you love.

Like the cart wrangler.

Like all of us choosing to call our work beautiful.

Blessings,
Sandy

“The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.” Albert Einstein

Earlier this summer, I fashioned two raised garden bed frames from leftover wooden boards. They weren’t fancy but they did the job. I filled the 3 foot X 3 foot squares with compost from the compost pile and then drove to Home Depot to see what vegetable or fruit inspired me to plant it. I decided on cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini squash, and, with a spur-of-the-moment, “let’s see” whim, canteloupe. I’ve never tried to grow canteloupe before and I was curious about how they’d grow and if they’d produce fruit.

After the removal of a stubborn hornworm, the tomatoes thrived. I had cherry tomatoes in abundance and enough heirloom tomatoes to satisfy. After producing several squash, the squash plants were attacked by squash bugs, and even after a counterattack with insecticide (so long gardening sans chemicals), they could not recover. The canteloupe plant, though, grew over the edges of the raised boards and into the grass. Its vinelike tendrils stretched out and beyond. Its small yellow blooms dotted the green lawn like stars. I kept watching for signs of fruit but only found irregular heart-shaped leaves reaching further and further from the mother plant. One day, several weeks after planting, I saw a green orb, and then another, and another. I watched them expand and thicken, tucked among the leaves and grass.

It takes almost 90 days for a canteloupe to reach harvest. They are ready to pick when they start turning yellow on the bottom and the stems turn brown. I picked the first one last week but decided to let it ripen a bit more on my kitchen counter. I’m very curious as to what it will be like when cut. Will it have a flower-blossom sweetness or will it taste differently? Will it be dry or moist? Will the color lean yellow or orange, or the perfect in between?

I’m aware we’d like to know the outcome of our endeavors before we invest too much energy in them. Guarantees are nice, but don’t you sometimes enjoy the mystery of not knowing everything? Don’t you love the adventure of being curious and holding questions in your mind about how something will turn out? Don’t you sometimes enjoy the “might be’s” and “what if’s” and “let’s see?” I do. It’s the spice that can make life exciting.

I think we grow the muscles of our imagination and creativity when we step outside the box of certainty. Measured risk is good for the soul. I know that growing canteloupe is not that big a risk, but there are other areas of life where there’s more at stake. What if we sign up for a writing class outside the genre we usually write in? What if we join a new critique group? What if we reach out to a new agent, or a new potential mentor, or a new potential writing partner? What if we visit an open mic and share our work with strangers? What if we chase a random idea that entices us to engage with our craft in a way we never have before? Those scenarios might feel uncomfortable, but the outcome is not important if we move toward them with curiosity rather than expectation. It’s the act and the faith that matters. It’s the expansion of the mind and what we learn about ourselves when we push past our comfort zone.

My challenge to you this month is this: open your mind just a little bit wider and view your life from a higher plane. Be brave. Be curious. Ask questions and let yourself be surprised by the answers. Grow something you’ve never grown before and see how it tastes when you reap the harvest. It might have the perfect texture and the perfect sweetness. It might be a new joy you’d never have experienced without first daring to try something new.

Blessings,
Sandy

Light and Shadow

“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”  – Stanley Kubrick

In a month packed full of light and heat, talking about darkness might be a little strange, but I’ve found darkness doesn’t limit itself to the gloomier, colder months when we long for the palest daylight. When the nights are longer and the dark is deepest, we need light in ways that we don’t in the summertime. At least that sort of visual light.

There are many kinds of light and many kinds of dark to balance the list. We recognize the obvious ones: night and day, sadness and happiness, shade and tint. Can we really appreciate the sunshine without the comparison of the shadow? Is it possible that light without darkness diminishes the light?

I’ve spent a few days power-washing the front sidewalk. It’s a tedious job but one I enjoy because, in a way, I’m re-making the bricks by uncovering their original hues. I’m cleaning, turning the sludge-covered walkway into something shiny and bright. I’m powering away the dark to reveal the light. It’s meditative and rewarding. As I washed, I pondered.

I’ve been working with a life coach for the last 5 months. It’s been an incredible life-altering experience. One of the things we’ve talked about again and again is my tendency to judge myself for not being perfect. Anytime I “messed up,” had a negative thought, or felt any one of the emotions or states I labeled as “dark” (things like anger, arrogance, frustration, irritation, laziness, apathy, jealousy, etc.) I would beat myself up with words or feel ashamed of myself. It’s a tough burden to be in the light all the time, friends. 

I’m not saying to run to the dark side. I’m saying that the shadow side of our humanity is still part of our humanity. We get to feel those emotions. Hopefully, we won’t stay in the center of them or act to harm another person. We can see them, and say, “oh, that’s something there, that dark feeling. Look at that.” We can acknowledge the shadow as a balance to the light.

My coach keeps telling me, “Guess what? You get to be fully human!”, and I keep fighting the judgment and the secret shame of being fully human. But it’s getting easier to see myself in the darkness from the light of my own making. I’m uncovering the bricks one by one and I’m building the truth of my humanity. 

I think it’s important for writers to write both the light and the dark. One without the other is flat writing, and way less interesting. If we write from the experiences with our own light and shadow, we create a slice of reality and believability within our words. No matter how vast the darkness seems, it can be balanced with light, and the brightest, most blinding light can be balanced with shadow.

If you want a creative tutorial on just how that works, I recommend power-washing a dirty sidewalk!

Blessings,
Sandy