Did you know you could fly?

Yes you, with the middle-aged greys springing out of your ponytail…

You with the quarter-life crisis and the world as your oyster…

You with Junior High staring at you from the business end of a double barrel…

You can soar, if only you will bend your knees and leap into the great unknown.

True, the next day, you may fly in a metal tube for 9hours with your broken ankle in temporary cast, and ice from the airplane galley packed around your leg. But you will know in your core  that for those clear sparkling moments you were Icarus triumphant. And, when you are old, you will remember those glorious seconds aloft with clarity; while the throb in your bones will be but a faint memory, calling to mind not a fall, but a flight.

“In life you will come to a great chasm. Jump.”  -J.Conrad

_________________

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

Just one of many Solstice celebrations, this one at the house on Rockaway Beach. 

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

___________________________

It is not quite 5am and the dark is slowly dimming to reveal pine trees like shadow puppets awaiting the stage. Beyond them the water is still as glass waiting or the faithful northwest kayakers who will slip out at the dawn, leaving a silent wake in their path.

We are finally at my parent’s coastal retreat, Pura Vida, a beautifully appointed home on a tiny island in the Puget Sound. Everyone is asleep, save me, the insomniac with jet lag. But in a place a still and beautiful as this, who can be worried about a few hours of lost slumber? (Beside, the hammock is waiting on the deck below, should sleep come calling in the afternoon.)

The house will not be quiet long as Pura Vida is full of happy grandparents and boisterous children – soon to be joined by more boisterous children and chatty mamas when the cousins arrive. My Irish roots will show big and bold and the gift of gab will be used in full force over the coming weeks as we greet each other in a rush of words and stories. In the happy, overwhelming rush of family reunion, these sleepless quite moments in the early morn will be my hermit-ish ying to the jolly yang of our happy clan. A time to reflect and write, and sooth the frayed edges of a soul worn down by the coldness of life abroad, now stretched to a joyful bursting point by the warmth of familiarity and common bonds.

 Already we have be embraced by the loving arms of people we cherish:  the Curran-Coolmans who took our battered jet-lagged selves into their home so full of art, and story, and affection; the sweet child-like family at BF Day Elementary who jumped up and down to see us all on the sugar-filled high of the last day of school; the colorful chaotic buzz of the artists prepping for Solstice celebrations, awash in paper mache; the affection of our son-adopted-by-affection who apparently “does not get enough love” (hard to believe given the lovely young woman who rarely leaves his side); and the teary embrace of our dear friends Lynette and Dwight who could not possibly have more generous hearts toward we the ornery wanders.

All of that goodness in the first 48 hours—a restorative tonic for the 18 months spent in a culture which barely says “hello.”

And now, seven glorious weeks on the shores of placid sea, listening to the giggles, finding crabs under rocks, plucking oysters off the rocks for our supper, and wondering again why it was that we ever went away.

 Today Brother Sun will shine his goodness down on all of this wonder, creating from his rays the longest, most glorious day of the year. And I will see very dear moment of it, until his Sister the Moon arrives to tucks us in, just so we can rest and begin it all again.

Happy Solstice.

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

Hello Revolutionaries!

This week we are going to uncover our Guiding Values so next week we can apply them to choosing our  Essential Tasks. This will free us to be concentrated powerhouses who DO LESS and LIVE MORE! But before we do, let’s do a brief check-in so you can feel great about how far you’ve already come.

Last week our theme was Setting Limits. We took our Monster To-Do list down a notch by eliminating things that were haunting us, but not serving us. Now pretty please answer some or all of these questions in the comments. Or, if you blog answer them in a post and add the unique URL to our Mr. Linky. (I know. “Mr. Linky.” That sounds naughty doesn’t it? Tee Hee.) Feeling shy? Like pen-and-paper? That’s fine. Just scribble it on the back of that receipt there on your desk. That would work too. (Remember, Fast and Dirty is the way to get it done.) Ready? Here we go!

• Name one thing you crossed off your Monster To-Do list because it wasn’t important to you any longer.
• How many things did you have on your Monster To-Do list that actually didn’t need to be done in the next 30-60 days?
• When your Gremlins started to nag you about “not getting anything done,” which of your one-hour-or-less tasks did you complete?
  Which of your Most Important Task (M.I.Ts) got done last week? How’d that feel?
• Which M.I.T.s are still hanging out? Do they still get the special M.I.T. rank, or can you demote them?
• Name any Ah-Ha Moments you’ve had so far in the process.

There. Don’t you feel better? I knew you would. Onward!

 How Your Guiding Values Help You Choose the Essential

The next stage of the DO LESS Revolution is identifying your Guiding Values and using them to determine what’s essential. This sounds kind of onerous, and I can’t think of a way to make it sound cheeky, but really it isn’t bad at all. Maybe it will help to know that I turned mine into a multi-colored mobile. How tough can it be if it looks like something out of Dr. Seuss?

It’s relaxing to note that choosing the essential isn’t like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You don’t have to determine at random what is most important amongst all your tasks. Once you peek inside and see what values you already carry, you can use them to ferret out the imposter-tasks hiding out among the essentials. It’s like a decoder ring! Doesn’t that seem like fun? You get to be Dick Tracy! Read the rest of this entry »

(The singing on this fast and dirty podcast is much louder than the speaking. Be prepared to turn down the volume! Consider your self warned.)

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

_________________________________

I am young. Young enough to hold my father’s hand. The church is a little dim, the wood of the pews being so dark, the carpet such a deep red. Our pastor—part-grandfather, part-judge— is on the dais, his robes resplendently white, the gold of his stole glinting. He moves like an alchemist at the altar using, words, and rites, and gestures to turn ordinary things into talismans.

There is an electric organ, badly played, and an upright piano. We sing choruses before the liturgy, simple songs newly written by hippies with guitars picks. My father loves these simple songs, just a few phrase on repeat until they sink into your soul. He raises his hands to the sky, a stand out amongst the stiffness.

“Jesus, I just want to Thank You.
Jesus, I just want to Thay-ank You.
Jesus, I just want to Thank You.
Thank you for being so good.”

We unhinge our jaws. We loose our tongues. We the ordinary people of the everyday – we take on the task of angels. We sing. 

Now comes the hymns, both awkward and resplendent with age. An elderly woman with a thin, high voice warbles enthusiastically behind me. We are staid people, we Lutherans, and no inclined to showmanship. But some hymns are robust: 

“Holy, holy, holy!  All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.”

My mother’s hands rest on the hymnal.  Her lacquered nails are bright against the brown nougahyde cover. They are long and cool and smooth. I love to stroke them when there is no singing and the service lingers on. I do not care for the spoken words: long scripture passage read aloud, the drone of the sermon. But the songs, the psalms, the hymnody-these charm me. I am utterly in their thrall. Spellbound. The Latin is like an incantation. We make our confession in a magic tongue:

 ”Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison, Eleison…”

Finally, it is time to chant my favorite part of the liturgy, and we turn to the Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s Song.

“Lord lettest now Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy Word.
For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, which Thou hast prepared before
the face of all people.
A Light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.
We praise Thee. We bless Thee. We worship Thee.
We glorify Thee. We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory.
Amen.”

Years later, when decades of rock and roll have filled my ears and the chants of my childhood have long been set aside, a tragedy comes to our door. Our first child is still born, a little boy a not much longer than my husband’s hand, which holds him on my chest. The diagnosis came before the birth. No abdominal wall. No chest wall. A spine bent and misshapen. We have had time to prepare, and my heart rushes back to those long Sundays in the dim red womb of the chapel. My tongue finds the old songs. We baptize our son in the way of my childhood, the long-established liturgy our guide in this unknown and frightening terrain. Simeon, we name him. Once more we sing the song… 

__________________________________________

My thanks to Jamie Ridler of Starshyne Productions for submitting “How has music influenced you?” as an Ask Magpie question.

Now it’s your turn! How has music influenced you over your lifetime? Tell us in the comments, or add the link to your post.

Ask Magpie is featured (some) Wednesdays and depends on your inquiring mind. “Ask me a question, I’ll tell you no lies!” Thanks for being here.

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

Right around Easter I wrote a post that was a little bit pissy. I did this intentionally because I was feeling pissy—and I was pretty sure other people were as well. (And indeed, they were.) But I got a little bit of push-back for being “too negative.” So let me say this about that, there are spiritual benefits to being pissy. Read the rest of this entry »

Listen to the podcast here:

Why Less is Powerful

Six years ago I was diagnosed with an untreatable condition, status migrainosus (chronic daily migraine). Suddenly, most of my time was spent either managing my health, or being in pain. This left little space for anything else. As I listened to the waiting room conversations at the pain clinic, I knew I was in danger of allowing this disease to take over my world. I became determined to not be defined by my pain. But as I watched my ability to write, volunteer, and counsel disappear, I began to despair. For months I struggled to come to terms with a life that felt increasingly limited.

The reality is we are all limited. There are a finite number of hours in the day, and while most of us can ignore that, eventually it catches up to us. We overbook, over commit, and try to ‘do it all.’ Then we crash with exhaustion, ulcers, and little ease or enjoyment in our life. 

This limited time thing? It’s not going to change. So I started to ask myself, “What would it look like to turn this “limited time” thing into a Superpower?” Read the rest of this entry »

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

Hi y’all. So how did that Have-Done List work out for you last week? I’ve heard from a few of you and the general response seems to be:

“Holy Sh*t! Look at all that stuff I just did!”

In the movie Sneakers there’s a scene where Robert Redford’s character is repeatedly saying the team’s code word over and over again in front of the bad guys. Finally, his partner, played by River Phoenix, breaks through the acoustic ceiling panel where he’s been lying in wait and lands on the bad guys. Redford says something like, “It’s about time.” Phoenix replies, “That was hard what I just did…that thing, that was hard!”

That’s kind of how I feel when I look at my Have-Done list. I feel a little bit marveled, and a little bit put out that no one is noticing how tricky it was. So this week, I just want to say, I notice. I see you, doing all that stuff and you are freakin’ amazing! (Let’s try to rest in the sparkly and marvelous moment, shall we?)

A Word About Gremlins
Now, before we move on to step two, let me lay out a little word of encouragement for some of you. Read the rest of this entry »

To busy to read a blog post? You can listen-a-long here:

Listen to the podcast here:

__________________________________________________

My memories from the days of raising infants are a bit on the fuzzy side. I didn’t really hit my stride until the toddler era. But there is one memory that stands out loud and clear: 

Paul comes home from work and asks me how my day was. I start crying and say: “I just didn’t get anything done.” Then he asks me what I did that day, blow by blow. I begin a long list. “Well, I made breakfast for Eden. Then I grabbed a quick shower. Then I had to nurse Cate. Then I managed to get to the grocery store for milk. Then I fed the kids again and when I finally got them all down for a nap I opened my thesis file and re-read the last few paragraphs I had writte, but then Eden woke up. Then I cleaned out the dryer trap, but the baby started crying before I could load the washer. Then…then…then…”

The end result of this scene, replayed many many times is that I realized how much I really had done in a day.

Fast forward ten years later and that “I didn’t get anything done” routine? Yep. Still doing it. Only now my angst isn’t brought on by babies, but by a lack of work-time due to chronic pain. Up until recently I would sit on my sofa with my head wrapped in ice and make lists of all the things I needed to do when I “got better.” My to-do list literally filled 1-2 notebook pages every day. I would have a good day, or even a good couple of hours, and I’d work like mad to get that list done. But I’d barely get anything crossed off before I was in pain again, when I would return to the ice and the sofa and write a whole new To-Do List with even more items.

Then life coach Jena Strong gave me a solution:  The Have-Done List.

In my experience, it’s hard to give yourself permission to Do Less unless you realize how MUCH you are already doing. The Have-Done List helps with that.  Here’s what mine looked like for this morning:

Wake up. Morning cuddle with the kids. Talk Eden out of panicking over volleyball tournament today. Kiss Pooh Bear for Cate so “he doesn’t feel left out”. Make breakfast (scrambled, eggs toast). Make lunches (bagel sandwiches, fruit, mix up some trail mix). Talk about after-work plans with Paul, kiss him goodbye. Make sure Cate remembers to say her little goodbye phrase to him, which is a ritual for her every morning. Make another round of toast for the kids. Turn on the kettle, forget to make tea. Check Facebook. Email teen mentoree back. Hear the one hour snooze on my alarm clock go off; holler out that it’s time for socks and shoes. Throw on sweats. Walk kids to school. Negotiate argument over who is faster, Eden on her bike or Cate on her scooter. Say hello to the neighbor family, wracking my pre-caffeine brain to use all five sentences of known Danish. Make quick arrangements on the corner with a classmate for an after school play date. Kiss children goodbye. Walk the lakes home while listening to This American Life. Battle Gremlins who tell me that even though I am exercising every day, it is not enough. Come home. Give the dogs the leftover scrambled eggs. Delight in happy puppy. Clean up the breakfast flotsam and jetsam. Check email. …

Okay, that was two hours – TWO HOURS – of my day.  Every weekday I’ve made two meals –TWO MEALS — in the first hour I was awake. I mean, come on! Plus, check out the brain-activity level and emotional energy that went into those action-packed hours. Child psychology 101, a little bit of priestess work, Gremlin wrangling, and teen angst before the caffeine. Damn. That’s pretty much a full day’s work, in my humble opinion.

I’m guessing your day isn’t much different from mine. We need to start giving ourselves credit for that, yes? We need to stop lying to ourselves about how much we do, and how much more we “should” get done.

Try it. Right now. Grab a piece of paper and start. Write down everything you do – and don’t forget the brain and emotional projects as well.

Now, hold up a minute dearies, that thing you are doing right there — where you are trying to think of some perfect notebook, or a super-creative system for keeping your list straight — stop doing that right now. Any writing surface will do. You can even write some of it in your journal, and some of in on the receipts in your pocket, and some of it on the notepad by the phone. That’s fine, really it is. You can always pull ‘em all together later and feel super bad ass about your nice big stack. And the beauty thing about this is, even if you don’t do it consistently, even if you skip large portions of your day – it will still be massively impressive.

This is step one:  Notice how much you are doing. Don’t analyze it. Don’t make any changes. Just notice. Notice your very productive, very busy life. There’s time for step two another day.

Now, I would love to set up a Flickr group and have y’all send in photos of your Have-Done list, because I think it would be fun. But it’s one more thing for you to do, and it’s one more thing for me to do. It’s not that essential so we’ll skip that bit. But I do hope you’ll drop a comment below sometime this week and let us know how it’s going. That will help me customize the DO LESS Revolution for you, my lovelies, and it will contribute to the giant pool wisdom  that we all need so much.

Have fun watching your amazing, productive, colorful life unfold on the page before you!  See you next week here at the DO LESS revolution.

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the Do Less posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

 Rather listen than read? Here you go:

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

Hello loves! Listen, I’m worried about you.

I read your Twitters and Facebook status updates, and occasionally peek at your blogs. And you know what? Y’all are way WAY too busy! I see a lot of posts about too many meetings, insurmountable to-do lists, and rushing about on weekends. I’m beginning to suspect that some of you have caffeine running in your veins.

Now you know I love you right? So this is not a critique. I mean, we are all just trying to work it out with the smallest amount of fear and trembling possible. You’re doing your best. But if you feel like your adrenaline is constantly pumping because you can never get enough done then maybe, just maybe it’s time for an little Magpie Girl  intervention.

So let me say this about that, there is no way you can shuffle your current schedule around to make things fit. You cannot fit two gallons of water in a pint glass. You’re just going to have to Do Less. I know it feels like you can’tdo less. I know it feels like you HAVE to to everything on your list and more. But I can virtually promise you that this is not the case. I think we can help each other through this.

Are you practically salavating right now? Are you simultaneously wildly hopeful and scared shitless? I thought so. Then this Do Less thing is for you.

So here’s the deal, beginning this month I am going to write a series of posts on how to Do Less. I’ll start right now, with this guest post on What the Danes Taught Me About Finding Balance over at Starshyne Productions. Just breathe into that one for a minute, and while it may not have all the answers for you, if it is speaking to your heart trust that you’re on the right track.

Then tune in on May 15th for the plan of action. Some of it will involve this book, which you can order or dowload on Audible.com. If the thought of having ANOTHER unread book on your bedside table causes your chest to sieze up, don’t worry, if you don’t have to read/listen to it — you can still play along. There will be lists (I LOVE lists) and then smaller lists and then you will emerge this concentrated powerhouse of focus with a Zen like ablity to float. Okay–maybe not that great, but you’ll feel better.

What do you say? Wanna play? Great! See you on the 15th.

P.s. Are you already playing along with Soultribes? Guess what, this will help. It’s hard to make space for soulsiblings when you are spininng around like the Tazmanian Devil. So ask your gut if you should play here too, and trust her answer. Love, R.

NB: Hi everyone. I’ve made a fast and dirty podcast of this post with my silly little microrecorder. It might convey my inention a little better than words on a page alone. Cheers, Rachelle

Listen to the podcast here:

Subscribe to Magpie Girl podcasts on Zune, or on iTunes, or via RSS.

So, I wrote this article about my Easter discomfort, and it threw me into two worlds. The first world is the one I adore, where recovering evangelicals and other misfit truth-seekers cling to each other and celebrate discovering a (rek)new(ed) way to be. The second world is the world of religious debate, in which people–people who I like and respect and admire–spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that ”we” are wrong and “they” are right.

I get why this is. I get that in the evangelical/fundamentalist world view, there is a Right and a Wrong and never the twain shall meet. Furthermore, for these folks getting things Right is highly valued. In part, this is because not getting it right results in not being right with God, and ultimately in a really long stay in Hell. So it stands to reason that people who hold this worldview want to debate with you about the places where your ideologies and their ideologies do not match up. Of course they want you to come to The Right. They like you. Maybe they even love you. They want you to fix your thinking because they care. They really care.

The problem with this is that we are experiencing cross-cultural dissonance here. Because in the post-modern world, there is not a Right and a Wrong in the same black-and-white sense that there is in modernist country. In the post-modern world truth is not seen as a concrete, attainable goal, but as an intriguing, slippery beast. To post-moderns there is more than one true way of answering the same question–and so the questions, and not the answers are tantamount. In the post-modern zeitgeist, this is fine, because you can hold two different truths in one open palm. But in the modernist milieu, that is not an option.

So, to use a phrase of my father’s “Let me say this about that.“….My target audience is this post-modern group of malcontented seekers. Malcontented Seekers. I know it’s an awkward phrase, but both of these words are important here.

Malcontented: by which I mean “requiring change, discontent.”
Seekers:  by which I mean “not willing to stay in the discontent, but being eager to create/discover something proactive and positive, something (re)new(ed).” 

I have readers who are modernists, and I thank you for being here. But I’m asking you to please remember that you already have a place to belong. A place to live out your beliefs. A place where others share your convictions. It’s a super well established place with lots of support for your way of being. You can live there in comfort. But the others–the malcontented seekers–not so much. They are out there on their own:  beat up and disoriented; hungry and eager; excited to find something new, and more than a little bit sad that they had to leave the former behind. It’s a difficult place to be. And these folks, they need a safe place, and they need to find each other. That’s what I do here. It’s what I strive to achieve. That is mycurrent calling.

So, if you are one of those lucky folks who live happily in a safe and content place;  one of those folks who know the Truth and the Truth works for you; if  you  feel  confident in your understanding of things like Jesus, and Easter, and Sin and Redemption–I’m happy for you. Believe me, we all sometimes wish we were there with you. But we aren’t, and we literally cannot be there again. So please try to understand. We aren’t rejecting you. We aren’t trying to pull you out of what you know, or convince you that you are wrong and we are right. But your language is no longer our language, your culture is no longer our own, and the basis for how you form your understanding of the world — the idea that the Bible holds all the answers, or that faith is cut-and-dry, or that all our holy stories are literally true–these things  are no longer bedrock for us. So we may miss each other a bit, we may not always connect. And that’s okay. We can still be significant one to another. But we need you to let us explore.

What this means for me, personally, is that I won’t always respond to all the comments from modernist Christians. I just can’t. I’m a chronic pain survior, I’m the mother of several, and I’m an ExPat trying to live in a foreign and difficult (for me) culture. That doesn’t leave a lot of energy for me to play with.  The energy I’m left with I am JOYOUSLY compelled to give to my malcontent friends and soulsibilings who’s questions lead them to seek truth in the margins. These are the edge-dwellers and my passion leads me to them — leads us to each other. So their thoughts and concerns will get the bulk of my time. I hope you understand.

That being said, thank you for all who have commented here, and on BlogHer, and on Twitter, and especially on Facebook, where the discussion is the most active. I appreciate your passion, your concern, and your gorgeous hearts and minds.

And to those of you who have come to those same places to be pissy, or sad, or curious, or hopeful, or all of the above–I am so, SO glad you are here. I know that together we can form a giant pool of wisdom that will allow us to create a way of living that doesn’t do damage to our souls.  Come join me on the picnic blanket, and bring your most favorite passions–especially the one’s you’ve had to keep under that mattress until now. We’re going to have fun!

Karin and Lindord my friends, play us out, will ya please? …..

Next up at Magpie Girl:  On authenticity, niceness, and the benefits of being pissy . :-)