beauty...just is

beauty,

inside,

outside,

a smile,

a touch,

a feeling,

a thought, 

a concept,

a piece of music,

a painting,

gazing at the beach,

looking at young children,

looking at people just being who they are,

stretching oneself,

opening to the beauty of the scent of a rose, 

the flow of a yoga class,

our children growing,

someone saying something kind,

staying in the moment,

staying in the process,

beauty

NYC day four....Last day

Last full day in NYC.  

The weather was gorgeous, just a breeze blowing, not to hot, just right.

I took the subway!!!! It wasn't bad.

Went to Momofuku's for noodles and buns.  This was the meal I couldn't wait to have.  Then Milk for desert. 

I got lost on the way back, ended up in Chinatown, just got a cab.  

What I wore:  Long tiered peasant skirt (sort of batik print with greens and blues) with white knit blouse with purple embroidery, green converse all stars. 

NYC... day three

NYC day three…

Beautiful morning, hiked up to a Whole Foods, weird to shop in a grocery store on levels!!

Found a beautiful farmer’s market, in Union Square, loved walking around looking at the fruits and veggies and people.Went back to Chelsea Market, I like that neighborhood.
What I wore:  Black harem yoga pants, gray knit peasant blouse, purple sneakers.

Saw the Book of Morman on Broadway.  What a hoot!!!satire at it’s best.  Just rip roaring funny!

Hard rock café for dinner, had a good time with my son. We laughed, we talked.
What I wore:  Paisley red long skirt with gray knit peasant blouse, floral espadrilles.

NYC 2nd day - Museums, Highline, Walking

NYC 2^nd day

The day started with a cab to Chelsea, when the driver said we were there it was hard for me to get out of the cab.  I went to starbucks and got a iced decaf sugar free latte then headed into the Chelsea market until it was time.  

Found the Chelsea Market! A little bit of everything I can afford!! Clothes, food, jewelry, little bags with quotes.  I just loved it and am going back. 

The Highline was a fabulous walk! The flowers are beginning to wilt, it’s the end of the summer the sky was overcast but it was perfect for me. I didn't walk the whole thing, but enough to get a feel for it.
What I wore:  Vintage rayon floral dress and grey espadrilles with bright orange piping.

I took Taxis – not ready to brave the subway!!

Then I went back to my hotel, rested and went to the Whitney and then to the Met. Walked from the Whitney to Met and passed Central Park, at night the Met was alive with lots of people, sitting on the steps listening to a jazz musician.  The night is alive here in the city that doesn't sleep.

It was a good busy day, tomorrow a musical Book of Mormon and more to see.

What I wore:  Black yoga harem pants, gray J.Crew t with sequins, purple sneakers.

NYC... concrete jungle where dreams are made.....

NYC 

First impressions:

It is noisy, dirty and filled with people moving at an incredible speed.

Love my hotel. Sweet, lovely soft bed, fabulous shower, nice staff.

What  I did:  locate the Broadway district so I could get a ticket to see Cinderella ( a not so expensive one, seeing Book of Mormon on Saturday).

Got lost trying to get back to the hotel.  Began to panic. Was tired from airplane, and movement to get here. Eventually found my way back.

What I wore on the plane:  black leggings, black t-shirt dress with white long sleeve shirt, tennis shoes, lavender –ish scarf.

Carried socks for the plane to sleep in.

What I wore to the theater: vintage blue and white sundress and green converse low tops.  This is new york!!! People put effort into what they are wearing.  I want to too.  I brought vintage dresses, sneakers and espadrilles.

My flight was fabulous, sat next to a woman returning from New Zealand and a guy returning from business trip.  I catnapped my way to NYC.  I did power nap for three hours after I got my ticket to the show.  My other plan was to take a boat ride, have to revisit that, weather was not co-operative.  My suitcase broke!! No wheels on one side, tough to drag, gotta figure that out as well.

More to see tomorrow

Goddess - divine feminine consciousness

I love goddesses and goddess images; they speak to me because of divine feminine consciousness.  To me it is having someone powerful in my corner. 

The mentioned goddesses have qualities that resonate with my being.

Quan Yin is merciful, compassionate and watches over mothers and children.

Isis is a protector and champion of those who have been put in vulnerable positions. She blesses all who call her name. 

Saraswati is a goddess of knowledge and intuition.  I think of her as my intuition, if I ask or am uncertain about something (a field of knowledge) I call her name.

I became acquainted with Lakshmi by accident in 2010.  Actually, there are no accidents.  I was cold one night after working out, in Whole Foods.  There was a large green thermal long sleeve t-shirt with her image on it.  It was cool.  Later I learned it was Lakshmi.  And then I learned she was the goddess of prosperity. 

I call Isis, Saraswati and Lakshmi a holy trinity.

When I was growing up in Hawaii I learned about Hawaiian folklore and to this day Pele, goddess of fire still stands out in my mind.  She was powerful; she made volcanoes erupt when she was mad.

I have always been attracted to mythology, folklore and fantasy.

I am an artist, I am creative, and I believe anything is possible.

As a woman I found in order to settle my self into my femininity I had to delve into my psyche as a woman walking this planet.  It helped me heal myself from the wounds perpetrated against me as a young female.  I was powerful, I was strong, I was capable – that’s what the goddess gave to me.  It opened my heart, mind and womb to seeing the good and to seeing my creativity.  Mostly it opened me to seeing my worth and value.

Women Who Walk with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes is still one of my favorite books.  I can open to any story, any time  relate to it and learn something about myself.

What I have gleaned from reading and re-reading this book is how women make choices and how we turn away from our intuitions and how the results are often disastrous.

A strong part of healing myself has to do with being able to believe in my worthiness.  My attachment to the Goddess in all her forms, gives me a strong image of myself that I work to reflect into my life.

Joy, Joy, Joy

Just a beautiful Tuesday.  Yoga, art, and reading.  Nice vacation day.

The groove is in the heart

I think that says it all.

make yourself happy, 

step out of your comfort zone.

BE

opening the heart - journey

What is trust?????

bow pose
watercolor on watercolor paper
8/2013

What is Trust?????

Trust is both an emotional and logical act. Emotionally, it is where you expose your vulnerabilities to people, but believing they will not take advantage of your openness. Logically, it is where you have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, calculating expected utility based on hard performance data, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable manner. In practice, trust is a bit of both. I trust you because I have experienced your trustworthiness and because I have faith in human nature.

We feel trust. Emotions associated with trust include companionship, friendship, love, agreement, relaxation, comfort.

                                            From changingminds.org

Who can you trust? Why do we have issues with trust?

What comfort can we give each other?

Trust means knowing someone has your back.  That unconditionally another person is going to take care of you (emotional, spiritual, physically, financially supportive (if necessary), your needs for building confidence and self-esteem.

It means you know someone is not going to hurt you, intentionally in any way possible.

All too often people who we are closest to hurt us the most, because we don’t expect it or see it coming. 

I think we all start out trusting.  First with our parents who take care of our needs for food, shelter and nurturing.  We are dependent on that care for our sustenance.  Lucky are those whose parents never violate that trust physically or emotionally or otherwise. They are on the road to developing trusting relationships with all others that cross their path.

For some of us adults, we have to learn who to trust and who not to trust.

We have to be aware. 

Trusting someone means believing someone will keep their word, follow through with what they say they will do.

It means knowing that one can share one’s most painful experiences, be witnessed and not judged for lack of making a bad decision.

We all at some point in our lives make a decision we realize we shouldn’t have made.  Sometimes things turn out better than expected, sometimes there is a lot of pain and hurt.

People don’t always do the right thing, tempted by what is in front of them.

Trust is something that we must develop inside ourselves, trust our intuition, trust our gut feelings about people, situations and what is happening around us.

We must trust ourselves to know what is good for us, when to walk away, when to stand up, when to love, when something is or isn’t right for us.

Trust is one of the hardest concepts to deal with.

I am in an always state of learning with regards to this concept.  Who do I give my trust to? I have experienced a lot of mis-trust with men in my life.  Truth is something that builds over time. This may a life long lesson for me.

What I know for certain is I can trust myself to think through things before I make a final decision.  I trust myself to know what is good for me and what isn’t. 

Words

Up to the sky pose
watercolor, watercolor paper

how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and so it is with life, which for many of us become one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end, it all comes down to one word. grace. it's how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light. – from Philosophy line (Amazing Grace)

Words are so important. We use words to communicate how we feel.

Sometimes we are good at choosing words to express ourselves, sometimes not.

In the heat of a moment words pop out of our mouth in stream of conscious fashion. We often regret the low road we allow ourselves to take, but we have said it. Delivered words like physical blows.

In that moment, we change time, we change energy we change the direction a relationship can go.

Have we healed, hurt, given pause for reflection, connected? learned something new, created a possibility for a stronger bond or not?

How has the recipient received the words used to express a feeling, a thought, an observation. 

This sharing of words to express emotion is the most trickiest part of human development and psychology (I think):

We perceive others actions from our point of view based on what previous interactions we have had in our lives.

My ex-husband was a zero to sixty kind of guy – shooting first asking questions later.  There was no middle ground with him.  He would tear you to shreds and I mean shreds then and only after time had passed would he realize perhaps he was incorrect in his assumptions,

And still he wouldn’t apologize.  I just walked away from that. I will never understand what makes him tick like that, but it isn’t important for me to try to understand anymore.

What did I learn?  He wasn’t the man for me.

I try to never let someone catch me off guard that I might spew words that can harm.  My mother did that to me, I couldn’t of been more than twelve, but I remember the hurtful words she said one day about me in a dressing room.  It is something I still won’t repeat.

Mindfulness is a word that comes to mind when I think of how I try to be. Direct. Clear when there is a problem. 

The skill I have learned is to reflect back the words that are being said to me. To understand the other person’s point of view, to see the place where they are coming from.

Words are an important tool of communication.  I often find it easier to write them down, it helps me think clearly and then say them.

Words I like alot:  Grace, peace, love, harmony, continuity, healing,Higher road, genuine, focus, discipline, truth, joy, compassion, equanimity, laughter, smile, do no harm.

We can use our actions to heal or hurt.  We can also use our words to heal or hurt. Which do you chose??