It's amazing what just the slightest clarification or alteration in your "intentions" can reap. About a week and a half ago I decided I wanted a tag line for my signature for the work I do in public relations and marketing, but I wanted something that would be sincerely inline with my beliefs and the life I'm creating for myself now - without sounding hoaky to the point that friends and strangers would want to run screaming with their fingers in their ears. After chewing it over for a few days I came up with "Creative Conscious Connecting" which I feel really hits what I'm about. I felt something "click" in both my heart and my head when I wrote it out, and then made my signature in a favorite color of green. I feel a little thrill when I send out my emails now to new people, and right after I started using it I felt not only clearer on what I wanted to make happen in my world, but more interesting and fascinating connections started to come together right away. I don't want to sound pie in the sky, as if I waved a magic wand and voila something happened without my making much effort at all. I've been working diligently at becoming very well connected in my local community for almost three years now, but I didn't always have the right attitude or focus about it. Initially I was far too focused on feeling important as the editor of our local magazine, but I got over that very quickly, and then when I left I didn't have that title to stand on anymore. And what I found out eventually is that it didn't matter - I mattered, because my aim was true, my goal had a higher purpose. As soon as I made it my mission to champion good news and amazing people in Long Beach California the connections began to flow and come easily. And now as I continue to really get clear on who I am and what purpose I serve the connections come together at times in startling hair standing up on the back of my neck ways. It's so exciting.

What a strange strange energy week! I've been up and down and backwards and forwards and then blocked with no words or ideas that came out with any sort of grace or interest of thought for two days, and then suddenly released with three perfect words all with "s" popping into my head while I chewed on my breakfast at a local restaurant this morning completely minding my own business and enjoying perfectly done eggs over easy on buttered toast.

Inspiration does indeed work in strange ways. I bow down before it.

But boy it put me through the ringer this week!

One of the hardest things about being a creative writer and marketing and p.r. person is that it's a lot of responsibility . That whole identity of being a "rainmaker," the idea person who brings creativity to the table to focus and hone a client's products and company into an understandable and engaging vision, someone who puts it all together with a flourish and snap so that customers say happily, "oh I get it" and hopefully, "let's go there!" and "let's go there again!" On some days, this is a job that feels very heavy indeed.

On Monday I was up early, out to the local news-rack to pick up the paper to see if what I'd been advised was true - and it was, my client was on the front page of our local daily paper's business section, with a lovely mention at the top of the front page. Walking back to my apartment I cried. No, it's not The L.A. Times (which I'm focusing on next), but it was big and bold and in video as well as print and I made it happen. I cried with happiness and relief that it actually came through, and then in my total strange humanity I cried with a sense of grief and anticlimax.

I am, you see, a recovering "waiting for the party but forever disappointed with its arrival" type of girl. The sort of person who's always looking forward to some sort of event, in the throws of the creating of it, and then when it arrives, I have thought so many times, "oh that's it?" and "That's all!"

I'm getting better, I am, I focus so much more on the process now than any set moment or date because now I realize there really is nothing more than the process anyway, we never actually arrive anywhere.

But none the less, certain activities take more out of us than others, and making sure this particular process with this particular piece of media came about sort of took it out of me. By Thursday I had to face the fact that I couldn't string two interesting thoughts together, figure out how to organize new website pages, or interact with new media in an engaging manner. I was just worn out. I had no good ideas.

So I gave in and went to the book store where I proceeded to find not the Garth Nix book with the last short story on the Abhorsen trilogy I was looking for but "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare, with a sequel waiting if I enjoyed the first.

I have found that when I'm tired and out of sorts nothing refreshes me more than a rousing tale of well written young adult science fiction fantasy. Apparently my angst and the teen's angst mesh well. Oh, and they're cheaper than adult fiction books both in paperback and hardcover. Sweet. A couple of months ago I discovered Holly Black and now all I have to do is discover some other new writers (okay many many) while I wait patiently for these two ladies (friends too) to complete their sequels.

Two days of minimal work and tons of reading later I awoke happy and refreshed, ran my errands and in the middle of breakfast the way to approach an upcoming business mixer and a new article popped into my head. I breathed such a sigh of relief and reminded myself yet again that it isn't my job to be a rainmaker 24/7. My job is instead to be open to the inspiration as it comes. My job is to be here now.

“Independence - is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes” - Mark Twain


I remember I was in 8th grade, or maybe even High School, before the message actually sunk in that the 4th of July (in the United States anyway) wasn't the day the colonies won their independence from England, but rather the day they declared it.

I've been thinking a lot about that over the past few days, how we have to have the intention first that we want independence from something that's holding us down (financial worry, heartache, etc.), then we need to declare our intention (though perhaps only to ourselves), and then finally we can gain that independence if we have enough determination and focus and in many cases, sheer grit.

But we face a lot of monsters on such a journey, and the monsters within us can be just as powerful, or more powerful, than the ones we face on the outside world. I know this has certainly been the case for myself. I spent much of my life assuming I just didn't have the energy to go for my heart's desire in any sort of passionate way, that first I had to focus on what my parent's and the media and the world was telling me was important (having status in the business world, looking great, and things of that ilk).

And so I did. At 21 I became a very diligent workaholic in an uncreative industry I really disliked but I moved forward with as it allowed me to speak Italian every day (which I had gone to school for) and because my mom's boss got me the interview. I got the job, and desperate to have my parents proud of me, and desperate to feel legit (as I'm sure many young people feel, heck many of us feel) I hung in there and wracked up the years.

Choosing a different path, a more independent, creative one for me has been a long process. The first step I made was to keep writing. I have kept a journal very diligently for over 25 years. The second step I made was to marry a creative man because I simply didn't think I deserved, or could afford, just to be a creative person on my own. What I know now, which I didn't know then, is that if you earn your way into a relationship you'll never stop paying. Romantic relationships aren't earned, they just are, but at the time it was the only way I knew how to be, and his talent and my ideas seemed like a huge lifeboat of possibilities. And for many years they were.

It's easy to regret a marriage that went wrong, especially one that in hindsight you can see the cracks in the foundation of from the very beginning, but I've decided not to regret my marriage because we did the best we knew how to do at the time, and we created a company and pieces of art that I'm very proud of. Yes, I truly do wish I could have relaxed more then, and owned with some grace what we were making happen rather than being frantic and still wanting desperately to feel important and right in my choices. I couldn't see any shades of gray back then. There was constant tension between my ex-husband and myself over the fact that I was the one who recognized his talent and came up with the idea for his company (though while married it was supposedly "our" company, but that was a bone of contention as well) and supported and cajoled and challenged him to live up to what I knew in my gut he could do.

Now I'm learning to support and cajole and challenge myself to live up to the talent I feel I hold within. It's not easy to do, it's scary, it feels arrogant at times on a whole different level, but still the siren calls from within...do your own thing, declare your independence.

It's an ever unfolding process, this idea of looking at yourself and your life and your world with a "Beginner's Mind" but I've been attempting to do this with greater purpose over the last week or so and it's opened up new zones of optimism and spaciousness for me that have really been delightful to feel.

And that's where I'm hanging out as much as possible, with my feelings.

There are patterns in my life that repeat again and again and one in particular, one in regards to whom I work with and how money flows to me, is one that baffles me. No, let me clarify that - whom I work for and how money flows to me. I am very blessed, for a huge percentage of the time in who I work with. I have made so many friends this way, and feel particularly blessed in that regard right now.

Like many on a spiritual path who have encountered metaphysical thought I accepted a long time ago that my thoughts had power, that they gave me far greater choice, that they colored my world - but I also allowed this knowledge to make me feel tremendously guilty for everything challenging that crossed my path, every hardship, and every person I encountered who was less than honest and dealt with me poorly. It is easy to say to oneself that this is your own belief system mirroring itself back to you, and there is certainly truth in that, but what I'm starting to own is that middle path, that balance, and that more than one thing true at any given time.

This end idea opened up more fully for me during a conversation with my brother who is also very devoutly spiritual but following a very different path, let's say a more traditional Christian path. When I admitted recently to him that I was wondering why I kept repeating this same pattern financial challenge with those I worked for (partnered with a spirit of less than candidness about what is really happening) and that I believed it harked back to how things were when growing up he said very simply, with no judgment "well that's certainly one way to look at the world" (or something to that effect).

And then he went on to remind me that lack of candor and truthfulness and financial deception are pretty universal of the times in his past and the times in his present when he has encountered them - how shades of this way of being are always playing out. Oddly I left this conversation with greater optimism because I left it with the thought "it's not just me." Of course on the outside this is very clear to everyone else, of course we all deal with untruth, and many many of us deal with financial challenges, promises made and broken etc. But this opened up space for me because I'd been viewing it all from a place of it being my problem to solve.

What came to me later yesterday is that I want to celebrate more the things that have gone well for me rather than focusing on the idea that I have this pattern I can't seem to quite break out of. Because the truth is that while it continues to play out, things have improved. I am idealistic and perfectionistic and my guilt makes me want to constantly try to fix things even as grapple with the idea that I can't fix anyone else - I still try, I still try and spin my work so that I inspire others to change their patterns, to see a new path and this just isn't my job, most especially not with employers. The only thing I can really do is own my own truth and be open to what it unfolds for me.

So while certain thins i'm dealing with right now are a bit roller coaster-ish, I have to admit I've been on a scarier roller coaster up to this point and have survived the ride pretty nicely thank you.

Yesterday I picked up Pema Chodron's "No Time to Lose," her commentary and guide to "The Way of the Boddhisattva" which I've been looking forward to reading for some time now but wasn't quite ready for.  Now I feel I am. 

This last week PBS in my area showed the complete "American Presidents" episodes covering the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - the man who got the United States out of The Great Depression and led us into World War II because he felt he could not let England and Europe fall to Hitler.  There are those who truly hate FDR, who would like to completely undo everything he set up in our government.  I'm not one of them, and I would ask anyone who hates the man to look The Great Depression in the face and tell me if it would have been okay to let millions of Americans starve to death.

The fascinating thing is that many of those who hate FDR ended up benefiting greatly from the industrial war complex that World War II set into motion.  Until that time we were really more a country of isolationists.  But I don't want to go off on that tangeant, I want to focus on the power of hope and kindness.  FDR was a man born into great privilege and wealth - but he was raised by grownups and homeschooled.  He didn't know how to deal well with his peers.  He found Prep school very challenging.  He didn't get into the social organization he wanted to in college. 

But gradually he learned great charm and the art of small talk and became the favorite of society ladies. The universe, however, had something else in mind for him - and he fell madly in love with his very serious and gifted distant cousin Elenor.  And then he decided to go into politics. As Govenor of the state of New York he shocked high society by implementing social reforms to benefit the needy when the Great Depression hit.  While on an outing with the boyscouts FDR would contract what they thought was simply the flu but ended up being polio - he would lose the ability to walk in his early 30's.

It was by dealing with polio (though some say now it might have been another disease) FDR found the true depth of his character, his humility and his great humanity.  He revamped a crumbling resort in a small town in Georgia called "Warm Springs" where he would soak up the healing waters of the local hot spring, and eventually build a school to teach children with polio how to better deal with their lives.  He wanted to find a cure - he didn't, but along the way he invented many items that still make life easier for those dealing with being crippled today.

During his time in Georgia (where his active mind and curiosity led him to create a completely hand driven car so he could get about the countryside) FDR got to know the common man well.  He would simply drive up to people with that terrific grin and introduce himself.  Later he would use that knowledge to run for president of the United States as champion of that common man - and win not two times, but four.  No one had done it then, and now there is a law that no one can do it since.

FDR wasn't perfect, no one is.  One has to have a terrific ego to run for government and then withstand and succeed at it. But FDR believed in the common man, and he believed in hope.  He believed the government could truly help people (nudged and guided often by his wife's passions) and had a responsibilty to make a difference.

We are at a similar crossroads again.  I pray enough of us want to chose hope to more of the same old same old wealthy getting their way under the supposed idealology that everyone should be left to fend for themselves.     

I'm so tired and yet here I am, wide awake since 5:30, having woke up from a particularly vivid dream about being on a date with someone that I decided I didn't want to be on a date with and then literally pushed out the door of my house.  Whew.  The night before that I dreamt that I went to feed my pet owl and it was almost dead, its head had fallen off!  I had apparenty forgotten to give it food and water for quite some time.

I am doing too much.  That's pretty obvious.  I just started a new demanding part time job, last weekend I hosted a non-profit event I basically organized mostly myself, and I'm in that transition time where the old obligations hadn't quite paired down yet and the new ones are firing up fast forward and I've done all I can to simply stay standing and not let a month long on and off again bout of flu wipe me out.

Actually the dream from this morning is pretty funny.  It disturbed me when I woke up, it seemed so real, so vivid and the man I was pushing out the door (because I realized we really did not have any beliefs in common - he'd told me he USED to be a liberal, but not happily anymore!) really did NOT want to be pushed out - what he wanted was to insist that it didn't matter we didn't have beliefs in common and I knew in my gut it was all about sex, or just wanting to sleep with me, and I just wasn't having any of it.  So out he went.  I'm rather proud of myself.

I'm doing too much, but I've come far in listening to myself.  I'm learning to trust my gut.   Now if I can just catch up on some sleep...

These days I'm pondering not only the myriad of ways we keep love out of our lives, but specifically romance, whether or not we're in a "so called" romantic relationship. I say "so called" because we all know that often we're in romantic relationships less to create romance than we are to hide from loneliness, even if we started off with the best of intentions. I am coming to believe that it's our combination fears of "not being good enough" and "loneliness" that are the double whammy of keeping romance at bay because it keeps us scrambling to settle for less. As long as we're busy, and not alone, we can't be still and figure out what we truly want to feel like in a romantic relationship and make it our true intention, nor can we allow the universe to fill us with its own mystery and magic.

What an interesting time it is for me right now, so full of blessings and fascinating insights (to me anyway).  My two biggest New Year's Resolutions were to have a real live in person social life rather than just emailing people while huddled up at the computer, and to reach out to my social network and let it be known that I was available for creative marketing and p.r. projects and other interesting things in order to find projects I really loved to work on, and of course, increase my prosperity.

So it's been really wonderful that both have been unfolding so gracefully in my life, in quite amazing ways.  I just got home from a local "Green Drinks" meet up and met some great people, Sunday I'm

To be sure I still have the tendency to think I have to work work work all the time, so I am doing my best to be open to what a healthy balance really means to me right now.  And right now that means that I'm staying focused on how I feel - do I want to stretch, meditate, eat a delicious meal etc. etc. rather than write another article, blog, email, etc., or am I "in flow" with the work and want to keep going?

Nuance and intention feel so important right now.  I am constantly seeing how coming from ego puts my guard up and disallows me to connect with another's humanity.  If, instead, I come from kindness so often something shifts, and even the most annoying situation eases a bit, or radically, and I realize the person who originally acted in a way that brought my hackles up is just tired and frightened and worried - like the rest of us.

At least those of us who haven't reach full enlightenment yet - which would certainly be me.

But oh it's lovely to feel so much happiness, and moments of real magic and wonder.   To relax into what is right now.

Life continues to unfold in fascinating ways, with interesting bits of synchronicity (now two old friends have popped up out of the wood work after 20 some year, one just at the grocery store).  

I would love to not feel so tired, but that's to be expected.  I am still sad over the passing of my grandmother and the break up of a seven month relationship, sad but understanding, sad but open, but still sad.  I just am.  And I decided at the end of last year to wean myself off a combination of a muscle-relaxant and sub doses of an anti depressant my neurologist had given me to help decrease the migraines I experience.  How's that for delightful dinner conversation?  I write these details not to be self obsessed but to track what the hecks going on with my health, and in the hopes that it might help someone else somehow feel they're not quite so damaged with their own health challenges.  Real people, working honestly to be their best, searching for enlightened spiritually and yada yada yada have health challenges.

I do believe the combo worked, and I'm grateful for it, but it made me also chronically tired and I'm doing so much better weaning off the migraine pain killers (though still have daily advil and excedrin to kick) that I decided this combo was next.  I've switched to taking melatonin at night, which works well to help me fall asleep, but I pop awake at about 5:45 in the am, still dead tired, but with my mind wound up.  Oh well.  It was very hard to go on anti-depressants so going off can't be that simple, right?  I'll just take it day by day, and sometimes moment by moment, which is all we really have.

Of course at the same time the health things are going on I'm getting involved in exciting new projects, including meeting some very wonderful, positive, creative women and feeling so much more supported in who I am and what I want to do (one of my New Year's resolutions) and possibly organizing a V-Day event for my hometown.  I'm waiting to hear if my application is accepted and trying not to get too wound up about it one way or another.

I'm crushingly tired tonight and will soon climb into bed. My grandmother passed away around 2:30 or so yesterday afternoon, quietly. The matriarch (and she was so with a capital "M") is gone. How very strange and fascinating how life both gives and takes away at the same time. My papas beautiful bride is gone, but now here for the first time since he's been together with her he is now the center of attention. Today he sat and shared with my stepfather and sister's boyfriend stories of his own past, his time in the Korean war, of Long Beach California when it had some glamour. Before it was always her stories. But oh we'll miss her.