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Old lady musings

I love new adventures. I have been having them all my life. I learn about something new, I like it, I study it. So far, I have not mastered too many things but that is ok with me. I enjoy the learning process. I cannot tell you what will catch my eye tomorrow but today, I am happily learning about essential oils.

I have known that they existed and I knew that some people used them but that was about it. I knew massage therapist used them to a small degree. Then, I got old.

I see my doctor every year for that dreaded annual physical. I think I am doing pretty good for a maturing woman but my doctor tells me otherwise. Each year there is something new that is wrong with me. I find this to be depressing. I think, “what the hell…why even try?”. I know that is not a good attitude to have but I have never been this old before. I didn’t think it was going to be so stressful.

Then one day my girlfriend invites me to her essential oil class. I accept, she is my girlfriend and I want to help her have a successful class. I smell all the oils as the bottles are handed around the room. I listen to the instructor as she tells us all about what some of these oils are good for and how we can feel better and be better by just using them ourselves. Then I remember the annual physical. I start wondering if there is really hope for me.

I bought the book. It really is a great book. It is simple to understand and the layout is superb. The photos are really good. I start to study a little bit and talk to my girlfriend about what oils I think will help me be a healthier person. Now what?

So I signed up with that company. I understand that there are several essential oil companies out there to choose from but none of my girlfriends invited me to go and learn about those companies’oils. So, here I am. I now own about forty different oils. I use ten of them everyday, just on me. I use another five or six for my husband. I will learn which ones are best for my dogs soon.

I joke that I smell like a hippy. My house smells like hippies live here. That means that you can smell the oils everywhere. But we do bathe everyday, unlike some of the hippies I actually know. I carry small bottles of oils in my purse, he carries small bottles in his vehicle. He is learning, probably not by choice, about which oils he uses, as well.

I even got my herb lady to sign up with this same company. She is also a massage therapist so she uses many essential oils but she is always looking for the best effective naturals she can find and it turns out, she really likes the purity of these oils. So now we have more to sit and talk about.

I have been using these oils for about six months. Now I start to get serious. Here is my reasoning: I am old. Therefore, my body does not regenerate nearly as fast or as completely as I did twenty years ago. It doesn’t matter which oils I use, my body will use them but not as effectively as it could have when I was younger. Consequently, I start using one of the proprietary blends to actually help my bodys’ cells regenerate faster and more completely.

My true purpose is, of course, to live forever but why live forever in a broken body? Let me continue to learn my craft, let me continue to have new adventures, and let me do it all on my terms.

Contemplation, Family, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Uncategorized

Pressing Tears

My days had been busy with work projects which for me, generally means writing lots and lots of reports. I can easily spend six hours a day trying to keep up with all the reports that I am behind in. This is a heavy weight on my shoulders, being behind. When I am not working to catch up with those reports, I am making and keeping a hectic driving schedule, meeting after meeting after meeting..

My husband has been off work for about six weeks now. He was injured while on the job and workman’s comp pay has been trickling in. He feels guilty. Because my main concern was that he follow his therapist instructions and get better I had not been asking him to help more around the house during this time and so many of my home chores were also getting behind. I did not feel guilty. I rarely do. There is only so much a human can do in a day and if work is taking up most of my time I can forgive me for not being the perfect housewife.

But this day he had been trying to do more around the house. He had done the dishes and was busy working on the laundry. He then passed through the kitchen and asked if we had a spray bottle. I was just finishing up a batch of reports and asked him why? He said he had some shirts to iron and needed to spray them down with water. I reminded him that our iron had spray capability, all he had to do was fill the water reservoir. He thanked me and wandered on his way to set up the ironing board.

For the first time in weeks I felt a little guilty about not getting to all my chores and I remembered how well he did not iron shirts. Oh he was able to get the big wrinkles out but his attention to detail around the collar and sleeves was a bit lacking. I smiled and announced that I had finished report writing for the day and told him that I would get his shirts done.

There were three shirts laying across the back of a chair and three hangers thrown on the bed. I laid the first shirt out across the board and started. The first shirt was tedious. I was thinking “why did I say I would iron? I hate to iron”, and I do. It is my least favorite chore. Those permanent press inventors are real hero’s of mine. The second shirt began and my shoulders and stance next to the board relaxed and I started to smile. I was remembering that this was one of the chores I learned at my mother’s side.

There are so many things that our mother’s work hard to teach us when we are young. Sometimes those mother’s get to know if they were able to pass on all the knowledge and wisdom they accumulate to their children and sometimes they don’t get to know if they were successful. I am not sure if my mother knew that I had mastered the collared-shirt. It was not one of those things where she said “here, do it like this”. No, this was one of those “osmosis” teachings. She would iron shirts and pants for my step-dad and I would sit or stand next to her and talk. She would talk too but she never stopped ironing. I learned by watching.

The longer I stood there that day and the more shirts he “found” in the closet that needed to be pressed (there were five by the time I actually got done), the more I enjoyed my task. I took the time to remember her standing there with her ironing and I learned to enjoy my ironing. I know that my step-dad appreciated looking nice when he got dressed for work and I know that my husband really appreciates putting on a crisp looking shirt. I smiled more and more as I turned the shirt to the angles on the board. I took a certain amount of pride as I hung each shirt when I finished it, making sure that each collar was in proper position and that the sleeves were aligned on the hanger.

I wasn’t so much proud of me. I was proud of what my mother accomplished as she ironed and talked and of what I learned as I talked and watched. I was happy that she had been able to pass on so much to me, things she did everyday as mother and wife that she passed to me to use as I became mother and wife. By the time I had finished ironing my eyes were glassy with early tears that I didn’t let fall. He would not have understood at that moment how very close I was to my mother. I could feel her smile as she finally knew that she did, indeed, succeed.

Contemplation, Family, Life, lifecoaching, Native American Women, Sundance

To Whom Much is Given…

I tend to measure my relationship with my Creator against my relationship with my children. We say in our prayers “Heavenly Father” or “Grandfather” and that is how I look at my personal relationship. When I come to a bump or have a query I think about how I respond to my children as a mother and I imagine that this is the way my Father responds to me.

I have a really hard time not yelling at people who mean well but who give others who are standing in pain what sounds like sage advice when they say to them “God is just testing you”. Folks, I have never once tested my children. I do not recall ever being tested by my own mother. I did not have to prove that I loved my mom or dad. I do not test my own children to see if they really love me. I think…why would anyone say something so cruel to a child (of God) who is in pain or confused about a situation?

I have said many times “to whom much is given, much is expected”. I said it again last night. I stand watching a loved one bear what looks to others like a huge burden and this is the reminder that was whispered into my ear. As I wrote those words out I knew that if he was not “given much” he would not have any real understanding of what I was saying to him. But I also knew in my heart that these were the words he needed to hear.

All is not lost. He is not being tested to see how strong he is. If he were not given much to begin with, none of this would be happening near him. He would not be expected to know what to do, he would not be able to continue to praise God for all of his blessings. He would not already have the answer to his prayers. The Tree would not be calling him into the circle. The heartbeat of the people would not be calling him to sing again.

I started thinking, even last night before I went to bed, about the number of people I know who have been “given much”. I was really amazed. There are a bunch. It turns out, at least in my life, that it is not rare for me to see amongst my family and friends many who have been “given much”. There are some who have much love, much intelligence, much wisdom, much beauty, much charisma, much of so many abilities. I smiled because I realized that it was no wonder that my own life ran so smoothly and evenly keeled, I mean, look at all these wonderful people I know who have been given so much and whether they know it or not; giving back what they have freely, as was given to them.

I was still thinking about this morning. This past 30 days has been rough on my family. But this is a family that was given much and we know that much is expected from us in return. We get tired, we get weepy, we get sad but we are never without hope, truth or love.

No, my beautiful family, we are not being tested. We are being given the opportunity to show the world where our strength comes from and Whose children we really are!

Contemplation, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Piano Fingers

I was perusing Facebook the other day and watched a video of four people playing the same piano. They all took turns turning the pages and smiling, eight hands roaming up and down the keys as they pounded out the piece they were playing. I liked the music and pictured the same piece being played on four different pianos by the same four people. It would have sounded the same but would not have been as fun to watch.

What I noticed more than everything else I was watching was that they all did that thing piano players do, you know…rocking back and forth to the music as they changed tempo and raised and lowered sound of the keys from soft to loud and back to soft. All piano players do it…as I have observed. I am not a player so I can’t say that I do it but I notice things like that.

It started me thinking. I could start imagining myself sitting at the keyboard of my laptop rocking back and forth as I pounded out my blog or a story or a chapter in a book. I could imagine writing faster and slower, changing tempo as the thoughts rolled out of my head and to my hands; pounding now and lightly tapping then. I wondered how that would look to the casual observer. I wondered if getting so into my writing would cause me to do the same so I sat down and started writing. My first words were tentative and as the thoughts began to flow my typing got faster and faster and mistakes were backspaced and corrected quickly then the thought would end and everything would slow until the next thought was born. Two hundred words, three hundred words…five hundred words and so on until the piece was completed.

Funny thing is, I never once swayed forward or backward. I didn’t lower my head and listen the tapping as I created each sentence. The speed varied on the thought but that was about it. My typing as always been a bit like listening to a DI walk across the room…rather loud as each heel strikes the ground as the DI pounds each step into the floor. Yes, I walk the same way as I type…just a bit intense. I have had to paint the letters back on the keyboard I use for my tablet twice now. Still, no swaying to the words the same way that a pianist sways to the music that is being played.

I would stop every now and again to look back over my work. Piano players, I noticed, don’t do that. When I didn’t like the way a sentence ended or didn’t like the way one thought flowed into the next I took the time to fix it. Again, piano players don’t get that luxury. Once the music is sounded it is out there and once a mistake is made the best you can do is try to cover it up with the next note or change the piece altogether and then let everyone think that you meant for it to sound that way.

These are just the things I was thinking today. All I can say about that is piano players are not typist when they are playing and typist are not piano players when they are typing. I think that even if I did play the piano I would not sway to they typing like I would sway to the music….

Family, journaling, Life, Me, meditaton, Native American Women

Dig Deep, Look High, Be Thankful

Rough week. Lots to think about. Decisions to be made. I was very happy for the last of the warm weather to be able to sit outside with my coffee and do some praying while I thought…

I am a protector, this I know and understand. I protect those I love and I protect them well. But what happens when those I love walk out from under the protection? I begin to understand a little bit about how the Creator feels when we walk away from his protection.

I was reminded of a story…my childhood was not smooth but honestly, for the most part I remember being happy. There were seven of us…mostly girls. I am the oldest of the brood. When I was 18 and my next two sisters in age were 16 and 15, one of them took me aside and told me that my job was done. They didn’t need me anymore. They were grown and they had me to thank for getting them this far but I was no longer needed to protect or guide them. For real, she said it just like that. I remember standing there with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. I remember being hurt, in my heart.

This hurt lasted several days. I didn’t know what to think. I wasn’t sure of what my place was supposed to be anymore. I know that she did not tell these things to our Mother. I know I didn’t tell her, either. These were things that were shared just between the sisters, as some things just are.

I had been praying, for the past year, to be free, to grow up, to not be responsible any more. I had been the big sister since I was 18 months old and it had been a tough 18 years. Those siblings were a lot of work. Still, once she had said those things to me I just couldn’t be anything but hurt. It took several days for me to realize that all of my prayers had been answered. It was a sudden realization.

Then I started smiling again. Then I started planning! Within two years I was gone. I had started my independence in college but then joined the Air Force and was off to basic training and I never looked back. MY life had begun.

Several years later I was home for a visit and the very same sister who had so happily dismissed me made sure to tell me that our whole family had fallen apart and it was all my fault for leaving. This time I just smiled. I knew who was responsible for my life and who was responsible for hers (or the “families’ life” as she put it). I returned to my own life intact.

That story came to mind as I pondered this week. It is my life again. There are steps I need to take to make sure that I am healthy in spirit. My loved ones will stay under my protection or not…I don’t make that choice. I will remain strong as my protection does not end and my family is worth the effort.

My world changes from time to time with my age and experience. There are things that need to be done now that I have crossed this line and become the grandmother. Ceremonies that need to be completed so that the journey can continue. I am looking forward again as the week ends and I sit here, I realize, happy for my rough start. It makes me dig deep into my soul and look high to the Creator and to be thankful for everything.

Girlfriends, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, meditaton, Native American Women, Retreat, Writing

My Sacred Journey

I have such wonderful friends. But even as strong as we would like to be there are times that even the strongest of us hits the wall and dang, does that hurt. We all decided long ago (everyone in my tiny circle is not as young as we used to be) that we were not going to allow that wall to stop us even if it slowed us down a minute. So we decided to get together and have a weekend retreat.

The crew, like any crew, as specialties. My specialty is being a life coach so I took the lead. I named the retreat, set the agenda, made the to-do list and lined up the teachers.

We learned some mediation do’s and don’ts. We learned some easy-peasy journaling techniques and we studied-just briefly-the how’s and why’s of “chemical reactions to emotional inputs”. We built a “God box” to work on faith building and….we talked!

We talked and we cried and we laughed. We acknowledged that we are strong and that we are fragile, that we are young at heart and as old as the hills. We heard, from our own mouths, some real wisdom and some really silly notions.

It was a good weekend!

Winter is coming and this is where we needed to be….looking at ourselves, getting ready to get into hibernation mode. We are not bears so we cannot sleep the winter months away but we are women and we can take this time to slow down and look deeply into our mirrors. We can use this time to really think about everything we went through this weekend….to think about our Sacred Journey, about the women we walk with, about those we have left behind, about what we learned and what we want to learn next.

We will open our “God boxes” next spring after we have filled them with our prayers to see what has transpired in our prayer lives and see our how our faith as grown. We will have laughed and cried even more when the winter is done and the spring has started again. We have so much to look forward too.

Now I am sitting here thinking about everything that happened this weekend and find that rather than be physically, emotionally and spiritually drained I am excited and energetic. It is so wonderful to be with such wonderful women all weekend and to know that we have fueled each other, built each other up and took the time to remind each other how much we really mean to each other and to ourselves. I am filled with gratitude.

My sacred journey continues….

Contemplation, Life, Me, Native American Women, Nature

Mko Winter Wonders

Winter finally came by. She is walking sometimes softly and sometimes with a little anger. She is singing quietly today but there have been days when her song was more a wolf’s howl. I sit inside on those days, not even daring to move the curtains aside. Those are the days that I am really feeling the bear inside. Those are the days when napping doe not come with guilt.

I wonder about the bear often during the silent days when snow muffles all the rumblings of the day. I put on my coat, scarf and gloves and shovel the patio clean. I stomp around in the drifts and mounds that I have created and my feet stay dry in boots laced tight. I think about all the animals living in the snow without boots. I wonder if their feet/hoofs/paws are cold?

There was a time when walking along the country road and enjoying the beauty was a big priority for me. Those days are not long gone, yet…but a little gone. My concession, I suppose, to living past the half century mark. I would have my camera in hand working hard to keep some record of the beauty I was privileged to witness. But I have to tell you, during the warmer months when I look at those pictures I do not remember the cold so some of the magic is lost. Maybe that is the real truth of two dimensions.

I wonder too, does the bear think about me? Does she dream of me during the winter while she sleeps the shortened days away? Does she hope that I am taking good care of myself as I do not have the luxury of a den? Are there times when she thinks that we might be connected? Native teachings will tell me that she does and I am happy with that knowledge, I hope she is as well.

Life

Observing Men

I was thinking about this today…whether you were called to be a medicine man or you just want to be a medicine man really doesn’t matter to me. Of the two, neither is more important than the other. Of the two, one is more difficult to do than the other. I know men who have and or are doing one or the other and so I know this to be true.

Let’s say that I want to be a doctor. I understand from the time I decided to become a doctor that my school work matters so that I can be accepted to the best college. I know that the college work I do matters for the residency that I am looking for to come to fruition. I work my butt off for many years because I have a goal. I am driven in every area of my life based on the choice that I have made. It is the same for a man who wants to be a medicine man. The desire to be that means something. I have never known God to turn down a willing spirit, a willing servant. I think that any man who want to serve the People in this way will be a good medicine man.

If you have a calling to be that, a calling to be a preacher, a calling to be anything else that’s all it is…a calling. You still have to make the choice. This is the downfall of many men who have had strong callings to service. They feel the call in their spirits but they spend a lot of time and energy running from that call. They would rather drink or do drugs or run around doing anything but answering that call. The times that they do follow and act on the call bring amazing results to the people who they are called to help but instead of answering the call, they spend most of their time running from the call. A man can waste most of his life running from his calling. If and when he does answer then truly amazing things can happen.

You would think that having the calling would be the easy road but obviously making a choice of the path you want to follow is easier. This is not to say that men who have a calling and answer that call are not successful. Those are blessed men who work hard at passing on God’s blessing to others.

I see both…men who are called and men who just want to serve. Both do wonderful works. Each path is different and neither is better than the other. Somedays these are the things I think about…

firstnationwoman

First Nations Women are the Nations' first ladies

Tag Archives: contemplation