~Living in the Moment~

I have been doing a lot of of quiet contemplation lately. At least that is what it looks like outwardly.  Have you ever asked yourself "What do I want to do with my life?"  Admittedly I have not been asking myself this. I have been doing the things I need to do, have to do. Responsibility, drudgery keep everything afloat.

And I just got so wrapped up in it.

Everyone does.

Take a deep breath.

"What do I want to do with my life?"

Some things come to mind. Frivolous things. At first glance but in reality why do the things you have to do if you can't do the things you want to?

Why do we pursue knowledge not to share it? Why do I take photographs that no one will ever see?  

Do I know what I want to do with my life?

 By asking myself these questions I believe that I learned a lot about who I really am.  I may have gotten closer to the answers I was looking for. 

Just the practice of sit and think. It seems so simple, but I had lost that.

Making time for myself. Just to sit. Think.

Or not think.

Clearing the thoughts away.

How do I picture my future?

How do I get there?

No.

That causes too much stress.

The moment, right now.

My bare feet on the cool wooden floor.

The breeze.

The warm sun on my skin.

Breathe.

This is what I want. I want to be in the moment. I want to enrich each moment by being there completely without worrying about the things I need to do.

That seems like a good place to start.

#1. Live in each moment, unafraid of the next.

In that spirit I will suggest a frivolous thing because I am allowing myself to make plans.

#2. Get a nose ring.  Why? Because I want to.

I live for the freedom of doing as I please.

#3 I want to write a book, maybe two. Maybe more.I have the subject material picked out for the first.I am already working on it in my spare time. It's a subject I know a lot about and am very excited to share.  No more hints though.

#4 I want to ride an elephant.  Not sure why but it came to mind and I think that if I ever had the opportunity I would be very disappointed in myself if I didn't take it.

#5 My blog.  I encourage myself to keep going.  I love the notion that I could help someone and love to write.

#6 Selling things I make.  I wanted to sell the creative side of myself since I was a little girl learning to sew dresses for my dolls. Imagining that they were people who fell so in love with my creations that they decided to purchase them. 

#7 Fall in love and get married.  Unlikely, not pushing for it. Certainly not looking for anyone but I think that it would be nice to share my life with someone like minded.

#8 I'd like to be more environmentally conscious.

This is daunting. It seems to be a competion with some people. You have no idea how much it burns me to be told I'm not being a hippie right.You have to buy local, vegan, gluten-free, unprocessed, and organic. Probably more then that too.  I respect these lifestyles always,  please don't get me wrong. I'm just not there yet.

#9 Learn to belly dance.  It's so beautiful and I think it's the most feminine and sexy *gasp* dancing that exists. Why wouldn't I?

# 10 Meditate and practice yoga regularly.  I need to find time for myself. I need to stop being such a adrenaline or stress junkie. I need clarity and love the quiet moments that I do get.

I think 10 is good enough for now, of course I will add to the list. I will not set a time limit, as I am savoring every moment. (And seriously where am I going to find an elephant in Maine?)  But at least I have something to work towards that is not work.

Breathe.

Savor the moment.

Don't hold back.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures as well. just a little moment I wanted to capture from a recent trip for a dear friend's wedding. They are nice in color but after  experimenting with the Noir filter on my phone I discovered that the patterns, texture, and contrast were so lovely I thought they should be shown as sort of a mini-collection.

~Inspiration~

  Beginning this blog must have been exactly what I needed because now as I sit with my notebook next to me there are 48 individual sticky notes sitting there.  The creativity has taken a hold of me and I keep adding to it. Inspiration hitting me like lightning, I jot down each idea to preserve it as a new idea hits me suddenly. If you are following me here there are so many things I want to do that you will see this blog change rapidly soon. I have plans to start a recipe section and am currently working on a natural remedies posting.  I want to also show off the things I am making, and have made already. Then there are plans for an Etsy Shop.  Where on earth will I find the time? But it really sounds so fun.  Wouldn't that be wonderful? To be able to craft for a living? I alreadyt devote so much of my free time to it. And I would love to share the things I make with the world.  Just having the idea made me feel like a new person.  Maybe it's the weather. Last week we had snow, and this week it looks like spring has finally arrived here in Eastern Maine.

 I tried to take my son to the thrift store on Monday (we have a wonderful one here, very cheap and always interesting.) He likes to get science books, I have to limit each trip as we would have such a library at home.  But I love his interest and nurture it. We found out the thrift store was closed so we walked along the back side we decided to go to the library instead.  Bad Little Falls is all thawed out  finally and as we walked along the backside my son was smiling and enjoying the view. I asked him if he'd like to take a picture. He took these two.  I told him how beautiful they are.

We decided to go to the library to look for books to take home.   He selected two Steven Hawking books (his personal hero) and Howl's Moving Castle, a favorite Studio Ghibli film of ours.  He wanted to take home all five Steven Hawking books but I assured him he could borrow them after he read the ones we picked out.  I choose The Way of Zen by Alan Watts.  Tiny town, teeny library. I did eye some natural remedy books and immediately regretted not picking them up.  There is always next time. When we got home I read it him the first 50 pages of Howl's Moving Castle.  Our normally indifferent cat listened to me read to my son.


 We had a good supper that night, pan fried salmon in coconut oil, baked avocado, and brown rice.  I guess this is weird. My mother said that she had never heard of cooking avocado. All I did was half them, salt them and set them on the rack of the oven on 400 degrees for about 20 minutess. So I'll have to try it out on her next time. It was very good.  I love salmon, it really is my favorite food. I even like it raw (sushi!).


 

~Howl~

Hello and welcome!
I wanted to start doing something that mattered. I want to make people smile, and in some way help someone feel more at peace, love themself, get back to nature, learn to let it go, or see beauty in something they may have overlooked.  With that in mind I want to keep this a no judgement zone. These are my ideas, my feelings, and my outlook. If you don't agree I accept that and respect your feelings. There will be no shaming! My zen may not be your zen and that's a beautiful thing.  We are all human and we evolve and grow to better ourselves. 

I wanted to start off with a little background on how I got to this place where I want to share with the world a little of my life. I've spent most of  my life so far very concerned with what people think of me, and trying my hardest to be perfect in every situation. It's very stressful.  I've wanted so badly to meet everyone's expectations of me.  I held on to every comment and every negative opinion and experience.  I held on to the past and let it define me. I feared the future and mistakes I hadn't yet made.  Even when happy, I had a little of my own voice saying, whispering. What if you fail?  Don't mess up. Don't get your hopes up. 

 I didn't love myself. The thoughts I was having are poison. The trickiest part was that they were always there. When things went wrong little by little I surrendered to the negative voice. And it got louder, more frequently speaking, and said far nastier things.
I let that fear destroy me.

The negative thoughts had won. It was a very dark place. I gave up internally.  I feared myself in a way no one ever should  I  had shoved myself down to the lowest place. I thought less than nothing of myself.  One day it just happened. I got fed up with hearing myself  throw negative rocks. I came to a point where I recognized the self -harm in my head was far more destructive then anything.
  I let it go. I rolled the windows down, I felt the wind on my face and in my hair. I turned my face to the moon and howled. Howled. Literally; loudly. I heard the voice again.  Are you insane? What if someone hears you? I took a breath and howled even louder. Who cares? Hear me! Hear that I am outside in the middle of the night howling at the moon like a crazy person. I don't care.  Laugh at me.
I am free now.
Is it crazy? Merriam-Webster says that of a dog or a  wolf howling is to make a long, loud cry that sounds sad.  Sad? No. I wasn't howling to express sadness, It was a release, of all my anxiety, of all my stress, and most importantly it was a declaration of my freedom from those feelings.  Another definition is to cry out loudly and without restraint under strong impulse.  That's it exactly.  Without restraint.  That's how I plan on living.

Howl with me!