Our furry friends bring us much joy!
I took these photos last year while at the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert, Arizona.
I hope this brightens your day.
Merry Dog Holiday
wellness
The Ultimate Three-fer
On this first day of summer 2024, my yoga instructor Chris reminded us that energy is building due to three key events this June. One is the auspicious Summer Solstice on 6/20, two is International Yoga Day on 6/21, and three is the Full Moon (Strawberry moon) on 6/22. Wow, now I know why our 2 kitties have been going crazy in the house this past week!
The heat waves in the US are upon us and this increase in cosmic and thermal energy can add to the turbulence and the temperature in our lives. My advice is to be extra mindful of your hydration levels and strive to temper your responses to stress with pauses and deep breaths.
While in the middle of this three-fer event, I’d like to make 3 wishes for the world:
- Patience
- Tolerance
- Compassion
“Patience is not simply the ability to wait- it’s how we behave while we’re waiting”. – Joyce Meyer
“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” – Dalai Lama
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” -Dalai Lama
Of Courage and Judgement
In the eleven years of writing my thoughts and ideas on my Word Press site Strong Words and Simple Truths, I’ve observed that some posts receive more random views than others. The blog below was written in October 2016 and is one that is consistently gets viewed by three or four people every month and I’ve always wondered why.
On this morning in June 2024, I pulled the Judgement card and reflected on the symbolism once again. I haven’t seen this card in years and decided to read the widely read 2016 blog again.
It’s uncanny how similar patterns in the world and in my personal journey keep repeating themselves.
As I embark on a new chapter and journey in life, I am reminded to keep the faith and have the courage to do what is right.
The following excerpt about the Judgement tarot card is taken from https://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/judgement.shtml and applies to all people facing major changes in their lives.
“It’s a very hard card to read, in part because it deals with very hard and final decisions. And it means facing something that most querents don’t want to face. This is not about Death, something ending whether you want it to or not, this is about deciding to make a change, to stop doing something that isn’t working or do something that will work. Which means that’s it really a card about courage, and about recognizing that you’re holding on something that needs to be let go.”
Here’s my post from October 9, 2016 titled The Fool on the Hill and the Judgement Card:
There is nothing like a good tarot card reading, a pending move to a new state and a bizarrely disgusting election news cycle to get me to look at things in an altered way. An Agile Life encourages us to have frequent Retrospectives to review what is going well, what is blocking us and what we can do differently.
I view tarot cards as a mirror to the heart and soul and they often reflect thoughts and notions back to us in a new light.
“There is no way to leave the past behind,” The Angel observes. “Each step wears down the shoe just a bit, and so shapes the next step you take, and the next and the next. Your past is always under your feet. You cannot hide from it, run from it, or rid yourself of it. But you can call it up, and come to terms with it. Are you willing to do that?
The Angel hands the Fool a small trumpet. The Fool is hesitant, but he knows that the Angel is right. There are certain memories he has a hard time looking back on as they make him feel guilty, ashamed, angry. He knows that he’s never come to terms with what happened and he must if he wants to make that final transition.”
Here are some retrospective thoughts and questions based my drawing of the Judgement Card last night:
Are we able to resurrect the past, forgive it and let it go?
Do we need to start something we’ve been putting off or have the courage to finally end something that isn’t good for us?
Is it time to move on?
As I bask in the glorious autumn weather of Colorado and watch the leaves turn to orange, yellow and red, I remember that they will all fall to the ground soon, dead but nurturing to the soil below. I also have faith that the leaves will be reborn in the spring as the seasons continue to roll by.
I have hope that after the cold winter, there will be a better, brighter season but in the meantime…
It’s time forgive and move on to more important things.
Memories of Mom
For those whose mothers are no longer living on this earth, do you ever wonder what she would think about our world today? I often think about how my mom would react to my decisions and current situation. What advice would our mothers give us if they were sitting next to us right now?
It’s been almost 24 years since my sweet Mom passed away from lung cancer and Mother’s Day is always one of the saddest days of the year for me.
The best thing I can do is honor my Mom’s memory by doing and saying things that I know she would appreciate and be proud of. Striving to emulate her values with my actions.
Virginia Mary was born during the Great Depression and had a strong, spunky spirit and an infectious smile. She was extremely generous with her time and limited money and always rooted for and lent a helping hand to the underdog. Virginia was kind, jovial and optimistic. Her friends called her Ginny and I called her Mom.
One of my Mom’s favorite sayings was “Live, Love, Laugh” and that was how she lived her life. I never heard her complain or speak poorly of others, She was stoic when she was sick and cared more about taking care of the needs of others than she did for herself.
My Mom was hearing impaired since childhood and wore hearing aids which I don’t think helped her much. She was good at reading lips, body language, and expressions. She loved to read mystery books and write letters to her family. I am so happy to have a stack of letters she wrote to me during the early 1990s when I was in the Army and deployed in Saudi Arabia. This was the best way to communicate with her and they mean the world to me now.
Mom was not one to give unsolicited advice but if you asked she would give her simple and wise opinion. She didn’t use big words but she had large and important ideas, lessons, and experiences to share.
I’d like to imagine that if my Mom were sitting next to me right now, she would encourage me to lighten up and enjoy the small, good things that life has to offer. She would remind me to relax and slow down and look before I leaped. She would smile and tell me to be kind to others and volunteer to help the needy and underprivileged. Virginia Mary was an amazing and strong woman who inspired me to serve my country, my family, and my community. She is one of the main reasons why I became so active and engaged with the American Legion (all 4 of her brothers served in the U.S. military in WWII). The way she lived and loved and laughed in the face of adversity were key examples for me and helped shape who I am today.
My yoga instructor shared this quote below after class yesterday and it made be think of my Mom.
“If you want light to come into your life then you need to stand where it’s shining.” – Guy Finley
Happy Mother’s Day in heaven Mom!
Your values live on in the actions of your children, your friends and everyone who had the honor of knowing you.
Thanks for the great advice today.
Self-Nourishment: Releasing for Recovery
Are your muscles tense and holding a huge amount of stress?
Is your neck screaming at you? Maybe it’s your lower back that is barking.
Life’s challenges can be extremely stressful on your physical body. So often we hold our stress in our muscles and this leads to pain and discomfort. What can you do to get some relief?
To help release and let go of your tension, I recommend the top 3 basics of walking, stretching, and yoga. Recently, I experienced great release and recovery from a fitness class at Mountainside Fitness called “30 MIN. XPRESS ROLL & RELEASE” led by Kathleen Sollars which used foam rollers and tennis balls to help us achieve the benefits of myofascial release and increased blood flow and circulation to soft tissue. I felt like a stick of melted butter after this class! It’s amazing what a bit of focused rolling and pressure point action can do. The result that night was the best quality sleep I’ve experienced in months.
To help us better understand and apply the release and recovery model, my good friend and Yoga Therapist, Nancy Martch, shares her wisdom and focuses on the importance of self-nourishment in our daily lives. More than self-care, self-nourishment is the intentional replenishment of vital energy and breath to the body. Just like it is beneficial to feed our bodies quality food and nutrients, it is equally important to fill up our body’s emotional and spiritual tanks with positive movements, reflections, and breath work. In addition to yoga and mediating, rolling and releasing can be key components to your daily self-nourishment.
Below is a slide I appreciated from a presentation crafted by Nancy, owner of Jai Yoga. As my Yoga Therapist, she has helped me to become more aware of my body and its response to external stimuli and trauma. Nancy has helped me to breathe, balance, release and accept. Yoga therapy is an outstanding way to promote health and well-being within a therapeutic relationship. To learn more , check out this video. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram @jaiyogahouston
It is my hope that you can release some of your pain and tension with these ideas and tips. Life is too short to be in constant discomfort and you deserve to have some relief.
Take care of yourself. Breathe, move, and let it go.
Self nourishment calls on the Mother within you to take action for your personal and specific needs.
Remember the 3 Rs of Roll, Release and Recover!
Namaste.
Surprise! You are Ready to Rearrange
“Sometimes our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed and rearranged to relocate us to the place we’re meant to be.”
I was shocked to realize that I ready was to rearrange my life, shaking it up like a red, 1975 Etch A Sketch- selling our house and moving to another city.
Whether you are resetting your priorities, refocusing your efforts, or completely changing your home address, change and moving are not for the light-hearted. Change is hard and that is why most people don’t attempt it. Leaving your comfort zone is painful and that explains why so many remain like the frog in the proverbial boiling pot. It often seems easier to do nothing than it is to take a step into the scary unknown.
But I am here to tell you, not changing or relocating may result in just as much pain and anguish in the long run (look to history books for numerous examples of this- 1939 Germany comes to mind).
My recent shakeup involves two major areas of my life- my job and my home. The catalyst was a down-sizing event at my employer of ten years and then the retrospective conclusion that my home was located in a place where I wasn’t meant to be. It just didn’t feel right anymore, and I knew that a drastic change was needed. So, I resigned from my dead-end contract job and my family put our house up for sale. The house got an offer in 2 days with a short 3-week close date. Wow was that shaking things up!
The rearrangement continues as I sit in a coffee shop called the Ground Shaker and write this blog. I am in the city of Surprise, AZ where we are fortune to be staying at the house of good friends who are snowbirds who flew to Colorado for the summer.
So now I find myself jobless and homeless with all of my worldly belongings (minus my clothes, bikes, and Apple devices) in a storage locker in Prescott, AZ.
Moving is one of the most stressful and tiring experiences and this is the 24th time I’ve done it in the past 35 years. All of my immediate family lives in the same county where I was born and raised and I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if I had never left for my first Army duty station after college. A rolling stone may never gather moss but it also doesn’t establish strong and deep roots. I do miss seeing my sister, brothers, cousins, nieces and nephews for the holidays and important life events. I miss and long for the adventures and trips down the shore with my east coast friends.
Relocating is all very unsettling and disconcerting but it helps when you know that you are doing it for a good reason. Keeping a positive future state clear in your mind is one of the keys to reducing the pain of the change. Visualization of a better place where I am meant to be is helping me cope with the waterfall of stress and angst.
The ideas and images of a new house in a smaller, cooler town in the mountains are calming and soothing to the soul. I’m hoping for that the higher altitude will bring better attitudes (or, to be more grammatically correct, higher elevations will bring positive revelations). Less heat, more trees and lakes- that is what I need to keep my sights on- not this temporary sense of dread and unease.
And so here I am in Surprise Limbo, experiencing the thrill of having my life completely shaken up, changed, and rearranged to enable me to relocate to the place I’m meant to be.
Onward and upward!
Being the Spark
To counter the dark, we need the light.
To counter the cold, we need the fire.
To create the fire, we need the spark.
The spark starts with you and with me.
Being the spark is all that it takes to spread the warmth and the luminosity that the world needs right now. Igniting the flame to be the light would be an amazing gift to someone this season.
Similar to the butterfly effect, many people can be impacted by one small act- one tiny gesture of love and compassion. Fire spreads quickly and joy is contagious.
Loneliness, isolation, and sadness are kindling which can be dispelled in an instant by the spark and the subsequent flame.
The facade of happy holiday cheer and joyous music masks the reality of so many peoples’ inner pain and suffering.
Being the spark to light the fire in someone’s heart can bring relief and hope in an otherwise dark time.
Be the one. Be the light. Spread the spark.
May your candle burn bright.
Merry Christmas!
Does anybody really know what time it is?
I’m in a funky, themed house with dozens of clocks- all standing (or tilting) still with different times.
I even wrote on the wall in the kitchen- “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” These lines are from a great song by the band Chicago and it got me thinking. Is there any one thing that two humans can agree upon? Is the time on the clock the one thing that we are on the same page about?
Some of my friends are always early while others are always late. Why is that?
Could it be that the perception of time is unique to each individual mind?
Some people seem to appreciate and value time more than others. Some people are obsessive about time while others pay it no mind.
The one thing that is common to the majority of humans is that we don’t know when our time on this planet is up. If we all are on a “lifespan timer” or have a known expiration date (like in the movie Logan’s Run) , we would be better off ? Animals don’t be to care about this and they are always living fully in the moment .
How many humans live fully in the present moment? Why do so many people seem fixated on the past or worried about the future? Do our many clocks and time constraints drive this?
So many questions but not many answers on this topic. But what can I expect when I seated at the Tea-Party table in the Mad Hatter House (a cool AirBnB in Flagstaff, Arizona)?
“We are all quite Mad here” it says on the wall- plus “ It’s always tea time”.
Hopefully you will find more time for creativity and fun in this life.
After all , we don’t always know what time it is.
More Harm than Good?
The news is filled with stories of the negative and intended consequences of new technology and/or government’s actions.
When I mix them all together in my mind, the common theme seems to be that artificial things are replacing real, natural and healthy ones.
The vagueness of the words “things” and “ones” in the previous sentence is intentional as I wish to share a number of actions which have been introduced, implemented, enforced or mandated in the past decade which had good intentions but ended up causing more harm than good.
1) mRNA Covid vaccination mandates.
I was initially excited and happy to take the newly developed shot against the novel virus in early 2021. The unnatural part came when governments and public health organizations began mandating and enforcing compliance for the young and the healthy. It was wrong to discount natural immunity. I am shocked by the lack of concern and action by the FDA in the face of the high number of serious adverse side effects due to the Emergency Use Authorized shots.
Hundreds of medical doctors across the world are now speaking out against the mRNA vaccine programs with phrases like “They are more harm than good for most people.”
2) Social Media platforms.
TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. The artificial, online world has pockets of goodness but more and more areas of negative manipulation. Social media has depressed many and has made people more divided than ever. Millions are addicted to scrolling in these emotionally draining environments and struggle to have real, live relationships with other humans. These platforms are more harm than good for most people, especially children.
3) Excessive government stimulus and control of monetary systems.
The current banking crisis of March 2023 is an example of the negative impact that government interference in the markets can have.
4) Censorship of certain words and viewpoints.
Preventing people from speaking on college campuses is not encouraging healthy debate and critical thinking skills. This authoritative stance against only some ideological groups is doing more harm than good.
Coercion, manipulation, control and discrimination are not healthy, they are not natural, and they cause more harm than good.
A Plateau in Unfreezing my Shoulder
It’s been over a year since my Frozen Shoulder started causing me intense pain and lack of arm motion and I thought it was time to share some updates on the recovery journey.
The majority of my healing occurred 6-9 months after stabbing, nerve impingement pain started. I believe the multiple actions and treatments contributed to my reduction in pain and improvement in range of motion but I think the most important and impactful actions were Physical Therapy and Yoga Therapy.
My current situation is overall positive for the following reasons: 1) I have no pain in my arm and shoulder, 2) I can lift my left arm directly over my head, 3) I can ride my bike and run, and 4) I can do most yoga poses.
The plateau in progress started about 10 months after my problems started and I still have limited range of motion in my left arm in certain positions. For those who are know yoga, my impacted side is not able to touch the ground when I do “cactus arms”. While standing, the angle of my left lower arm is at 30 degrees instead of 45 degrees when I have my palms facing out and my upper arms perpendicular to the ground.
My Physical Therapist has be working on my subscapularis, infraspinatus and supraspinatus muscles in my back for a while but they are still very stubborn and often unrelenting. How do I get these muscles to relax and loosen up?
My eagle arm pose is good when the right shoulder is called to stretch but fails to fly when my left shoulder is asked to take off. Some back muscles just feel stuck and still frozen.
I’m not sure what to do at this point other than continue to move, stretch and work on regaining my upper body strength. I’m grateful that the pain is gone but I get frustrated and disheartened that I can’t do certain movements as a fit, middle-aged athlete. I long to do 15 push ups like I did just last year.
I know there are many women over 50 years old who have faced and endured similar changes with this painful and often misunderstood illness and I hope that this brief blog gives some people hope and insight on their own challenges.
Strong Words & Simple Truths 