“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty’ yes’ to your adventure.”
–Joseph Campbell

Hello Magpies!

Today is the Feast of Epiphany, and over in the Flock we are getting ready to discover the name of our Guiding Star for the year. Would you like to join us? We have a few spaces left before January 15th when we close our membership for the rest of the Winter.  Click here for more information.

 To give you a sneak peek into our online community, here is a sample of the kind of soulcare I provide there. It’s one part of our Epiphany celebration — a guided meditation to discover your Guiding Star for 2011.

Happy Epiphany,

Rachelle

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Epiphany: find your guiding star.

What stands out for you in the story of Epiphany? What are your plans to celebrate this year? How will you recognize and commemorate your guiding word?

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Would you like to celebrate seasonal celebrations with someone? Are you longing for right-fit spiritual practices? Are you looking for your Soultribe? Join us at Flock: Soulcare with Magpie Girl, a private online women’s group dedicated to “finding a spirituality that fits.” In order to let our community gel, our doors close to new members Jan 15th until the Spring. $27/mo, no minimum monthly limit. Click here to sign up. Welcome home.

On her Facebook page, my 12 year old daughter Eden describes herself this way:

Hey there what’s up. i’m a sk8r girl wannabe, a math whiz, an ex-pat, bilingual, the odd-one-out, a crazy reader, and totally topsy-turvy.

Wouldn’t it be great to know yourself with such clarity?

You once did.

You can again.

Listen to the podcast below to hear how Eden taught me to stand in my own power, and why who we were at 12 might just be the best  glimpse we can get now of our truest self.  

If you’d like to learn how to stand in your own power and move through life with confidence and clarity, join us at Power Stories: tips and tales for standing in your own power. Click here for more info, or sign up below. Class begins online September 13th.
Price: $100

Need a little encouragement to join? Here’s what people are saying about my past Magpie Girl courses:

• “I love, love, love the work you are doing here. You are such an inspiration for and to me.”
• “You are really a great addition to my mornings…upbeat, inspirational, thought provoking and just pleasant and cool an fun to be around.”
• “Thank you so much for creating this wonderful e-series! I am encouraged and uplifted every time I read one of your emails, and it is a blessing to know that others are struggling with similar issues…helps me to not feel so along. Thanks, Rachelle!”

For more testimonials about soulcare with Magpie Girl, click here. I hope to see you at Power Stories.

Click here to read more Behind the Mic interviews, including our current on-going series Chronically Creative, featuring artists who manage to continue their work in spite of chronic pain or other physical and mental challenges.

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Want to train with Magpie Girl? Join me in my upcoming course: Power Stories: tips and tales for standing in your own power. Stories, lesson, and practical application from Magpie Girl and friends. Click here for more information. Course starts September 13th.

Most of the time I felt a relief, a while I felt pure, creative joy.

The rest of the time I felt lost.  The rest of the time I felt guilty for “wasting” time.

And you know what? That fallow time, where it looked like I was succumbing to adult ADHD? That turned out to be a really good plan.

I learned how to be a coach and how to be withmate.
I honed my community building skills.
My writing voice became my own.

Here’s the thing, dear readers:  I think you should see this as a testimony.

A testimony to the goodness that is wandering.
A testimony to the transformative power of being distracted by sparkly things.
A testimony to the truth that
     if you wander on, writing about this and that,
     if you wander on, producing along the way
     if you wander on, refusing to give up –
something good will finally get itself born.

Wandering for awhile could be the very way you find your voice.

This then, is my blessing for you today:

May you one day look at all you have gathered and see a vision emerge.
May your accumulated good works become both the journey and the destination.
May your generous gifts return to you in friendship, and fans, and followers…
   in admirers and supporters of all variations
And above all, may you find the place “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meets.”*
For that, my friends, is where you are meant most to dwell.
Amen. May it be so.

*Frederick Beuchner, The Alphabet of Grace 

Jolie Blessings for Wandering Final PDF

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What’s Your Ideal Day?*
*Undying gratitude to Pam Slim for reminding me how important this really is. 

A few years ago, my husband and I were at a crossroads. We’d been working overseas for 4 years and knew it was time for a change. We felt like we could go anywhere and do anything. Really. It was exhilarating to think of the possibilities, but honestly, it was mostly overwhelming.

We thought about spinning the globe and putting our finger down somewhere, but we were afraid we’d just end up in the middle of the Pacific, thousands of miles from land. So we asked a few questions. What do we really want? What are we ready to try? Where do we see ourselves a year from now?

Then we found a variation of the Ideal Day exercise. There are many versions out there, but the basic premise is that you imagine your perfect day, in minute detail. Once you have that, you know where to begin. You have something to work towards. A North Star, if you will.

When we first did this exercise, I pictured myself living in a large city, walking or biking everywhere, including to my own painting studio. At the time, we were living in Africa, I was teaching high school English and riding around in Land Rovers. All of these things seems so far out there, that I thought of them as nearly impossible.

Last year, I realized as I was walking to my studio in Seattle, that I was living a version of my earlier ideal day. Of course, since then my ideas have expanded and grown a bit.

I’ve recorded a version of this exercise to help you visualize this. Take a few minutes some time over the next couple of days and listen. Be surprised by what you see.

Important: Be sure to write down the details from your visualization, so that when they’re realized you can go back and celebrate!  I’d love to read about your ideal day in the comments, too.

Find Jolie’s musings about life at her blog, or purchase her beadwork, paintings, and limited edition prints at her on-line shop. Thanks for being here! 

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

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Oh my, I am trying so hard to be brave. Here I am with my guitar at the Soulsister’s house on Hartsine Island. (I do so dislike having my picture taken — and now I have to take them of myself!) And here I am in the podcast, chatting and SINGING in front of you! (Be brave!)

What makes you feel afraid? Where are you practicing bravery? Do tell!

 In this post: Reflections of a vagabond in a borrowed guitar at a rented house. Would you like to Unravel? Sign up for Susannah Conway’s photography and journaling ecourse.

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

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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.

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!

Uncovering your Guiding Values will help you:

• See how fantastic you are. (You value amazing things! Not a vapid choice among ‘em!)
• Trust your instincts around how you spend your time. (Because woah! Check out your awesome internal compass!)
• Make choices for yourself-including choosing your Essential Tasks–knowing they are birthed out of solid, meaningful values.
• Resist Gremlins (and societal messages) about how “everyone else” is doing the things you’ve left asunder. (Your Gremlins don’t get a say in this-Gremlin values tend to be a bit dodgy.)

Are you ready to have that powerful of a tool in your spy gear? Let’s go get your decoder ring!

How to Uncover your Guiding Values

(Notice I didn’t say how to “find” your values. They’re already there. We just need to adjust the focus.)

Some of you right now as we speak are writing down your list of Guiding Values. You can’t get enough of them! The words are just rolling of your tongue. Connection. Financial Security. Fun. Presence… You are probably one of those people who played *8Things this week–and we like you, we really do. But right now you get to chillax, because some of us are having a small but obvious panic attack right now. (Hold on, we’ll be right back – unless you want to come with us to check your work.)

Okay, you folks that are feeling a little panicky, here’s what to do if your Guiding Values aren’t holding still enough for you to take their picture.

• Make a list of Activities that Matter. What do you like to do most? (Hint: it’s probably in whatever color you used to mark “Things That Give Me Energy” on your Have-Done List.) What makes your day feel icky if you don’t do it? What things do you always make sure happen for yourself/your family?
• Look for What is in Common. I like to think of this process as “distilling.” If you distill these activities into a potent brew, what’s left in the bottle? For instance if cleaning your house makes you feel good, then Organization might be one of your values, or perhaps Esthetics. If you always get in your morning run, Health or Fitness maybe tantamount. If there are lots of birthdays and holiday celebrations on the list, maybe Connection is the value they hold in common. This is one of those “don’t overthink it” things. Just run your eye down the list and see which words come to mind. 
• Pick *8 Things: From your list of words naming the commonalities, pick the *8 Things that ring the most strongly with you. Give yourself five minutes to do this. Now breathe a little. (Phew!) Give yourself one more minute to swap one more than 1 thing (if you must.) There you have it. Your super-distilled ultra-potent decoder ring!

Still need help?
When I first started working with life coach Jena Strong of Strong Coaching my head was awhirl. I had a zillion thoughts about my work and vocation, and all the accompanying “but why’s” and “but how’s.” My existential Monster To-Do List was totally out of control!

Jena spent one hour–just one hour!–helping me uncover my Guiding Values, and within a week I had begun to use this powerful tool for making life decisions. My inner whirlwind immediately began to still and eventually my Gremlins settled down as well.

Now, I know I don’t normally do such a direct pitch on my Magpie Girl. But I think the work Jena does around Guiding Values is incredibly helpful. So as a special favor to me, Jena is offering Magpie Girl readers a discount on a one-hour Uncovering Your Guiding Values Session. This session is available at the reduced rate of $75 through July 31^st. (Tell her Magpie Girl sent you.) A Facebook quiz is just not going to do it for you here, folks. If you’re stuck, Jena can help.

Up Next

Now that you’ve been amazed by your Have-Done List; set limits and eliminated stuff off your Monster To-Do List; and uncovered your Guiding Values, you are ready to start doing what Leo Babauta calls “Choosing the Essentials.” You’ve already had some practice with this when you chose your three “Most Important Tasks (M.I.T.s)” for last week. Take a few minutes now to identify your M.I.T.s for this week as well. Want to know mine, just for fun?

Body Maintenance: Walk, swim, or do yoga every day.
Connect: host expat coffee hour, call Emma on graduation day, go to Lisabeth’s concert, dinner with the Marshes before the move Stateside, my first Danish dinner with the parents from Eden’s class, spend the morning with Paul before he leaves for the States. (There are more of these than usually b/c we are leaving the country for six weeks)
Teach: write Ask Magpie, *8Things, DO LESS, and Soultribes columns.

Those things in bold? Those are what Leo calls my “One Goal” (as you can see, I’m very good at rebelling.) They are born out of my Guiding Values, and they help me develop what Leo calls “the fine art of choosing the essential” so I can have a powerful, concentrated life.

Your one goal is waiting to get born too! So choose your M.I.T.s (this will calm your To-Do Gremlins down while we work on things); and make a list of your Guiding Values. We’ll see you next week when we learn to choose the essential. Viva La 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!

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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… 

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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.

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.

If you were raised in fundamentalist Christianity, or even in the slightly less stringent evangelical flavor of the faith, you were probably not allowed to be pissy. This is especially true for women, because fundamentalist constructs are primarily patriarchal in format. Even if you didn’t come up in church, if you grew up in America you still got the lite version of this patriarchy model, because we are, in theory, “one nation under God,” which means our religious roots are showing.

Women, religious or otherwise, are generally speaking taught to be nice. Politeness and gentleness reign supreme. It’s not lady-like to raise your voice, express disagreement in public, or swear like a sailor. And why should you be questioning authority anyway? There’s an established belief system going on; men (for the most part) control that system; and your status as a member of that system and therefore that community requires acquiescence to those beliefs. To question, contradict, or to complain threatens your belonging. And so the tendency to suppress disagreement is strong. And suppressed disagreement, along with being unheard, being denied a “voice”—these lead to anger.

But anger is healthy, normal, and to be expected. In fact, anger is helpful. Here are my top three reasons anger is spiritually beneficial.

Anger Signals When Something is Wrong. Anger, like pain, is a helpful thing. Just as pain signals that something is wrong within our bodies, anger signals that something is amiss in our souls. When I talk to my children about anger we often refer to it as “a cover-up emotion.” I ask them what the anger is hiding, and they can usually come up with an answer. Women who have grown up in the church are not so skilled at this. They haven’t been practicing it since they were 3 years old, like my kiddos have. And it can be a hard skill to learn. But in time, with practice, it becomes easier. The next time you feel a surge of anger, ask yourself, “What is underneath this?” You might even try visualizing the anger as a stone. Then imagine yourself lifting up the stone, and see what is underneath. See if you can address that root issue. I bet you’ll be surprised at how skillful you are!

Anger Allows us to Live our Authentic Self. The modernist approach to faith values conformity to creed over allegiance to our authentic self. In a post-modern milieu (which is where much of the non-religious west is living these days), authenticity is highly valued. It is considered a hallmark of emotional and spiritual good health. For those of us raised in church, especially fundamentalist and evangelical branches of the church, were brought up in the modernist approach. (The church is about 10-20 years behind the cultural learning curve when it comes to the modern-to-post-modern shift.) But we are living in a post-modern culture. This push-pull relationship between these two messages—“agree with the creed” and “be your authentic self” creates cognitive and emotional dissonance. This dissonance often manifests as anger. Pressing through the anger into your God-given internal authority, and trusting that authority to give you permission to express your authentic thoughts, releases you from that dissonance and allows you to flourish in the playground of truthfulness. Doesn’t that sound lovely? Embrace your authentic self by expressing your anger and find your way to the other side.

Expressing our Anger Allows us to Mentor the Next Generation. Post modernity is not strictly a generational game. I’ve meet people in their 70’s who are more twigged into post modernity than I am, and I’ve met 20-something’s (mostly those raised in fundamentalist churches) who don’t get it at all. But generally speaking anyone born in the Gen X, Gen Y, and anyone falling under the category of Millennial Kids are thoroughly embedded in the post-modern mindset. This means they value transparency over all. They can sniff out a lack of authenticity from a mile away, and intuitively recoil from it. If we are to be good guides—good teacher/learners—for and with these next generations, we must embrace our authentic selves. And if we are going to be honest with and about ourselves, anger is going to have to be acknowledged as part of the package. Learning to identify and express our anger will help the next generation—especially the young women who are coming up behind us. Isn’t that a legacy worth leaving.If you can’t be angry for yourself, do it for your girls.

What do you think? What has been your experience with expressing anger in your life? Have you found a way to express anger within a conservative religious construct? Have you had a breakthrough in dealing with anger? Share your story in the comments below, and add to the giant pool of wisdom, forming now.

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?” I started to imagine a scenario in which my life was not small, but as concentrated—a life where less was powerful. I named this scenario “concentrated living” and began looking for helpful resources.

With my limited energy and time, I needed something concise, evenly paced, and reasonable.That’s when I found Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less: The fine art of limiting yourself to the essential.The basic thesis of Leo’s Book is “how to do less while accomplishing more by focusing on the essentials and setting limitations.” As I listened to the first chapters I was immediately hopeful. The two main goals are:

1) learn to set limitations (which had already been determined by illnesss)
2)  identify and choose the essentials.

Leo’s premise is “limitedlessness dilutes our power and effectiveness.” So the inverse of that is “limits increase our power and effectiveness.” Isn’t that great news! Less is powerful!

How to get Started

If you are listening or reading along in the Power of Less, you know that the first chapter is dedicated to setting limits. How do you discover the things you need to set limits on? Lists, of course. You can either make one Monster To-Do list and start eliminating from there, or you can make shorter lists of things the things you choose to set limits on under various categories. This is helpful because it’s less overwhelming than tackling your whole world at once. Plus, Leo’s method involves focusing on one thing at a time at categories will help maintain focus. My short list of things I needed to set limits on is :

Projects
Chores
Internet/Email Use
Clutter

What are the areas you need to set limits on? Use your Have-Done List for guidance. I’ll give you a hint. They’re probably in whatever color you used for “Things that Drain Me,” but some could be hiding out in the essentials as well. Got it? Now pick just one of those areas and write down absolutely everything you can think of in that category that you “have” to do.

I did the Projects category first, because that was hanging over me the most heavily. I was surprised to find I had over 38 Projects in-the-works! (I know, that’s insane, right?) Leo suggests setting limitations by eliminating things, again and again until you get down to the essentials. Here’s how I did it.

Round One: Cross off anything that isn’t important to you any longer, or doesn’t feel urgent. (16 items – almost half my list!)

Gremlin Alert! You may feel badly that you started so many things and then lost interest; or that you aren’t going to do things “everyone” says are important. But who cares, really? It’s your prerogative to begin and end interests as you like. And this is your life to spend as you see fit. Stand in your own power and say “goodbye” to the stuff you don’t want to do anymore. 

Round Two: Cross off anything that doesn’t need to be done in the next month or two. (3 more items- – now half my list had been eliminated!)

 Gremlin Alert! If it’s making you panic to cross off things you still want or need to do eventually, try crossing them off but writing a date next to them such as “Winter Project” or “In Six Months.” Tell your Gremlins to breathe easy, you wrote it down!

Round Three: Gather up all the little tasks that would take less than one hour to complete. Move these on a separate list. (5 more items down)

 Gremlin Alert! This list becomes a Gremlin training tool .Whenever your Gremlins start panicking that “You aren’t getting ANYTHING done!” grab this little list and do one or two things on it. Getting a smaller unfinished project all the way done will help you see clearly that you ARE getting somewhere.

Round Four: Now choose three things and put them on a list. These are what Leo calls your MIT’s – Most Important Tasks. I’ll talk about this more in upcoming posts, but for now these are the things you are going to do in the next week. Maybe not all of them, but these are your priorities.

 Gremlin Alert! Your Gremlins may try to freak you out by mumbling about how you are “forgetting something, I just know it.” Look, this list isn’t set in stone. You can change it if you need to. And there’s always next week for new MITs. It’s will be okay. I promise. You can tell your Gremlins I said so.

At the end of this process I had eliminated 24 projects and had just three things on my to-do list for the next week. Now, I know this doesn’t mean you or I will only do 3 things all week. All the stuff on your Have-Done list will still get done (feeding the kids, sleeping, etc.) And stuff from the categories we haven’t worked on yet will still happen (email, chores, surviving the clutter, etc.) But I hope it’s empowering to know that you just got rid of a shed-load of stuff, and that what you’ve decided to do next are the most essential things for you. Do you feel it? See. Less really is powerful.

 Up Next

Okay, here’s the deal. There’s still stuff on your list right? The stuff you didn’t cross out, and didn’t list as you MITs. (I had 14 things left on mine.) Next week we are going to talk about making choices based on your values, and on what Leo calls your “One Goal.” I’m tailoring *8 Things Thursdays to support the work we are doing at The DO LESS Revolution. So check back on Thursday for a mid-week exercise that will prepare you for next Friday. In the meantime…

How to Use Leo’s Book

…If you are reading The Power Of Less, I will be using it in a non-linear fashion. But basically this week and next we will be using  chapters 1-4. I suggest reading until you start to feel overwhelmed. The minute the book starts to bug you, or you start thinking “Too much! Too much!”, put it down. Let the ideas simmer a little, and then come back to it when you feel like it. It may seem like a simple thing, but this approach to reading will teach you how to listen to your intuition – a powerful tool for any endeavor! And again, you don’t have to have the book to join the Revolution.

Keep your eye on your Most Important Tasks (MITs) and hold on to hope! Feel free to drop you ideas, blocks, and questions in the comments below. Viva la 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!

Got a question about The DO LESS Revolution or anything else under the sun? Ask Magpie is my newest fun-thing, and will be posted most (some?) Wednesdays. Email Rachelle  with “Ask Magpie” in the message line, or watch for reminders on Twitter.

“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. Some of you may have had a Gremlin uprising last week. The little buggers may be doing that thing where they poke you repeatedly on the shoulder and say the same things over and over again. And if they aren’t poking you in the shoulder right now, they’re probably just cracking their knuckles and flexing their fingers for next week. There’s no point in ignoring them, so let’s just take a mo’ to hear them out.  Here’s what they might be saying:

“You waste so much time.”
“If you cut back on any of this it will mean you’ll cut back on being a ‘good’ parent.”
“There’s so much here, but nothing you can cut out.”
“Sure this is impressive, but look at all the stuff you DIDN’T get done.”
“Sure this is impressive, but SO-and-SO did waaaaaaay more.”
“What about the one thing…that thing right there…N-A-P…yeah, that was a big waste.”
“Now on top of all that stuff, next week we should also _______________.” 

You can fill in your gremlin’s ‘House Special’ here:

Now the Gremlins, they aren’t all bad. Sometimes they are even trying to protect us. It’s just that they kind of have a one-track mind. And Change? They do not like Change AT ALL. So they get kind of chatty when new things come up. The thing to do is to sit them down and pour them a nice vodka tonic and let them chillax a little. Write down all their messages and just give them back to them. “Thank you, Gremlin Dears. Here are these words you feel so strongly about. You can just hold on to them now. Do you need a slice of lime in your cocktail?” 

I know it seems ridiculous, but it helps, trust me.  Write, Hand Off, Repeat. They will quieten down eventually. (Got a better method of combating these messages?  I bet you do! Put it in the comments below for the more rational types out there who don’t jive with Gremlin happy hour.)

The Next Step
Okay, the next step—if you can get the Gremlins to GET OFF THE PAPER!!! long enough for you to read it–is to do a little bit closer observation of your Have-Done List. Spread it all out in front of you and:

 -Grab three colored highlighters. (Don’t have highlighters? – just use a code like star, checkmark, dot.)
-Invite a gentle and non-judgmental spirit to sit down with you. (I like to breathe her into my heart.)
-Give yourself permission to do this intuitively, without over thinking it. (Say it aloud, it helps.)
-Go thru your list and use one color for each of these three things:

Category One: Things that are absolute essentials. (eating, bathing, sleeping, etc.)
Category Two: Things that feed me/give me good energy.
Category Three: Things that drain me/give me bad energy.

Now, I know you want to go back through your list and fine tune it. This is because either:

 1) You are a Type A personality -OR-
B) You don’t trust your intuition. -OR-
 iii) You are a combination of both.

That’s okay. So say we all. So let’s give ourselves a little wiggle room here. Let’s allow ourselves to go back over the list and make 3 category changes. Just 3. And let’s  set a timer so we don’t take more than 3-5 minutes deciding which three. This will let us practice two things: releasing perfectionism and trusting our intuition. (In short, it gives us a chance to practice Doing Less.) Ready? Go!

Good job! Okay, now you’ve got this little bit of an observed life: the stuff you have to do; the stuff you like to do; and the stuff that sucks your soul. I know that RIGHT NOW you want to move it all around and make decisions about what stays and what goes. But stay the course a little. Just give yourself a week to live with this newly recognized reality – “This is what I do nowadays. This is how my time goes.” Let the reality of what you are doing now sink in a bit, because guess what’s coming up next!

Up Next:  Setting limits and simplifying,The Power of Less way.
I’m writing this series on a fast and dirty philosophy, which is part of how I get more done while doing less . (I’ll tell you about it more in a later post.) But for now let’s just say that the fast and dirty approach means I have a rough outline, but not a perfectly-detailed master plan. So the Up Next may change as I continue to reflect on what’s worked for me, and how to distill that so it’s helpful for you.  But for right now Up Next will mean dipping into Leo Babauta’s The Power of Less – an excellent little book on doing less to live more. The first two things in Leo’s book are setting limits and simplifying. We’ll start working on those next week – and you will be amazed at how powerful those are. (And guess what? They are easy!)

You don’t HAVE to have the book to join the The DO LESS Revolution – but if you want to read or listen along, now is the time to order. I downloaded mine instantly from Audible.com, and while Jen Lee has accurately pointed out that the reader sounds annoyingly like Mr. Movie Phone, if you can bear that sound then you might find that listening along is easier than reading along. (I listen while I take my morning walk.)  Check out the sample on the Audible site and see what you think.

Okay, just one more little caveat before you all run over to Zen Habits to become a fellow Leo junkie. I love Leo’s work, I really do. But sometimes he rocks this “20 Steps to Better Eating Habits” thing and, IDK, I just think 20 of anything is about 17 too many. (I like between 3 and *8Things, thank you very much.) Also, he’s in the middle of a redesign, which is a bit tough to navigate right now. So if you feel a little fragile, and think one more suggestion for life improvement might push you over the edge, then maybe you shouldn’t head over there just yet. It’s your call, I’m just sayin’.

Alright loves, it’s time for another week of being hopeful for a Do Less kind of tomorrow. Have fun gazing at your Have-Done List, and don’t forget to let us know how it’s going, because we can fine-tune along the way. In my experience, these next steps were about as close to instant gratification as you can get, so go recruit someone new to The DO LESS Revolution! It’s about to get really good.

Yours Warmly,

Magpie Girl

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!

Got a question about The DO Less Revolution or anything else under the sun? Ask Magpie is my newest fun-thing, and will be posted most (some?) Wednesdays. Email Rachelle  with “Ask Magpie” in the message line, or watch for reminders on Twitter.

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

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.

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 . :-)

i promised to stop adopting teenagers, but they keep slipping into my heart…

I love these young ones so much it’s ridiculous. Each one has crawled into my soul in a different way, and while at times this process splits me open, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There’s a scene in the Princess Bride where a funny old crone makes a pill for new life, and she paints something on it croaking: “The coating makes it go down easier.” I want to wrap my arms around each of these precious ones and let my heart for them coat them like chocolate –one long-lasting dose of mama-love to help the new life of adulthood go down a little more smoothly.

I want wrap them up with affection. With warmth. With stability. With all the elements of unconditional love you can think to put on a menu. And then, when they are all warm and cozy, I want to drop integrity into the center of their chests, like a silver quarter slipping into a coin slot.

If they have integrity then all thier live-long days they will be the stellar creatures they are already becoming. Not integrity to the rules, but the kind of integrity that allows you to acknowledge who you truly are, and stand in that truth. The kind of integrity that is not beholden to outside rules, or your peer’s opinons, or because of ‘the way it’s done’– but because of a solid internal compass that will not steer you wrong if you listen. The kind of integrity that lets you live a life on the outside that is true to the life you hold in your heart. If they have that, well, they will have everything they need.

So that is what I bless them with, in my dreaming, in my words, in my living. And the old Christian mystic who married that witchy little crone in my soul says, “Amen, may it be so.”

“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid”
-Basil King

This is something that came to me today. It will be up in a day or two as a text post. But for now, I think it wants to be just sound. I’m sorry it doesn’t look prettier. If anyone can tell me in simple terms how to change the code so this is an embedded file that doesn’t have to open in a new window I’d appreciate it. Until then, thank you for listening as-is. Oh, and please say nice things, or at least that you listened. Podcasting still feels tender-new to me. Tak.

Choosing the Beast

I sat in silence for the first time in a long time today. No television on as background noise, no music, not even the warm tumble-thump of the dryer. Just the candles and a tub full of warm water, and the sounds of my noisy mind slowly settling into stillness.

There is a way of holding still without becoming stiff that only happens for me in the womb like waters of a bathtub. As I have no bathtub here in my Danish expat home, this watery stillness is a much longed for and uncommon occurrence. Today, in my borrowed claw foot basin something came to my side. A revelation:

The choice to love, to really love, is incredibly, ridiculously brave.

It is not a surrendering of self but rather, a time when you scramble a bit to find your footing, and then you stand in your own power and look the Vast Beast in the eye and say, “I choose this.” I choose this thing that can both protect me and tear me apart; that can and will bring me my most enthralling joys and my most excruciating and unanticipated pain. I choose the risk. I choose the possibility of endings. I chose to be as simpatico as old souls and to be equally, heartrendingly misunderstood. I choose to be at intervals rashly taken advantage of and unexpectedly worshipped. I choose this terror and this beauty. I choose love.

There are many times when we step into this place of love in naiveté—in the blithe flush of new crush and happy mutual adoration, blissfully unaware of the awe-full power we are inviting into our lives. We do this when we marry; when we choose our children; when we accidentally fall in love with a jubilant soul, with the idea of beauty, with wanting to be a writer or a painter or a poet; with a country we did not even know was part of our bones. When this happens, we live in that place for awhile with ease and contentment, unable or unwilling to see the depth of the pact we have made, not acknowledging that some part of our soul was the currency used in the bargain. Sometimes this joyride continues through the long luxurious length of our journey. But more often the fearful awesomeness of what it really takes to sustain the choice to love looms in front of us and we find that we must be very brave. Brave enough to say, “I choose this still.” Brave enough to stay the course, to maintain the bond even when it becomes painful to do so. Brave enough to say I will bear the ache of watching you grow up, of watching you be sick, of watching you grow old. I will bear the confusion over what to do, over how to love you best. I will love you through this whirlwind, through this firestorm. I chose this beast called love.

I am in a place right now where I must very intentionally choose to love: to love people who are far away; to love my challenging tween and teen; and most challengingly to love my own ill and tired self. And I am watching others commit brave acts of love: surrendering to a first love; watching someone die; tending to a baby soul born at midlife; loving someone through the sickness part of “in sickness and in health.” These acts, these making of stands on the high ground of love are so real, so raw, so terrifyingly powerful they make me want to shield my soul from the solar-flare burst of it all.

But I won’t. I don’t. Instead I stand in the choosing. I stand in the heart of the flame and I try to remember, “if you are never afraid you can never be brave.” And then, I chose love.

Click here to listen to this post, or opt to read it below.

_______________

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek God
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham and to Sarah who bore you;
For they were but two when I called them,
but once I blessed them they multiplied.

God will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places,
God will comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I will transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
a place filled with exuberance and laughter…

This was the lectionary reading from Isaiah this Sunday. When I heard it read aloud in the clipped Danish accent of Hanna, my sister in liturgical ministry, I was immediately transported back to Stonehenge, where I lay my hand upon an ancient heel stone. It made me think of my ancestry, held in ancient stories, and of my—of our—deep connection to the earth. These words and this memory released inside me a wellspring of gratitude for the very real connection I have to such an ancient heritage.

When I returned home and read the text again, I was struck by the feminine language that Isaiah uses for Zion. This is a word which has many meanings, but perhaps most meaningfully to me is how it holds the idea of homeland–the physical or metaphysical place in which we find our source, our identity and our solace. It encouraged me to know that this ancient statement of true things, this old poet’s tongue, still stands. It is an affirmation to me and to my soulsisters, known and unknown, who are feeling as though bits of them have been converted in mounds of ruin–who feel as though they are living in wasted places.

As my dear Jen always says, “Whatever you do hold on to hope…that this is not the end of your story.” Our sisters, our mothers, our ancestral Sarah’s, have been holding on to the hope that the homeland of our hearts and hearths would be comforted—would be made into gardens like unto Eden. Whatever you do today, in whatever way you can, hold on to hope—like a seed in your palm, like the scrap of a fortune cookie paper cupped in your hand. For this is not the end of our story, but the very place from which it is born. Amen. May it be so.

click for more podcasts: Beaches and Bodies, The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories.
click to learn more about Sacred Sunday.

Since I’ve let the cat out of the bag regarding what I truly believe about sexuality and faith (or at least some bits of it) women are finding me anyway they can. Through the comments and contact info on this site, via facebook and twitter, even in my flickr mail. Not to argue with me, or to tell me I’m wrong. But to give me the gift of their stories. Stories about receiving messages of shame regarding their bodies. Stories of regret regarding about not having sex, or feeling bad about it when they did. Stories of pain and loss and confusion. And best of all, stories of recovery and hope.

Dear ones, we must to do something about taking care of all these precious stories.

My soulsister Jen Lemen has embedded the importance of stories deep in my being. Like her, I am “helplessly in love with the idea that stories can change you and me forever.” Furthermore, this I believe: it is within our power to allow our stories to shape us for the good, to bring us healing, and to draw us towards shalom.

I am still relatively new to this world of stories and am I’m learning to harness their redemptive power. Still, I am sure, that together we can we can hold these stories “in all tenderness,” and let their power sing from the rooftops.

So here friends, is what I know right now about telling stories:

• Embody your stories. Write them in a journal; capture them in images torn from magazines and picture books; jot them in lines of poems; create them in smears of color; or distill them into lists of words. Just sit down with a pen, or a keyboard, or a paintbrush and say “I don’t know, I don’t know…” until the knowing comes and the story flows. The first step is acknowledging they are real, that you are real.

• Name your stories. Give them titles and subtitles. Let them have a one-word identifier. Line them up in a number system. Naming is powerful. When we name something we can better hold it in our hands. When you hold a story cupped in your palm you can decide to continue holding it like a treasure –or you can let it slide past your finger tips and release it: to let it guide others; or to let it companion other story holders who have otherwise felt alone; or to watch slide away past your finger tips, because you no longer need to carry it.

• Speak your stories outloud. Let your voice sound out into an empty room. Tell a friend over tea. Record yourself on you cell phone’s voice mail. Giving voice, literally giving voice to your stories can be in turns affirming, empowering, releasing, and healing.

There is more here, waiting to be formed into words and continued into practice. There’s something about what to do with painful stories. How to say “this really happened.” How to know “I am bigger than this story.” How to let your painful stories catapult you onto bigger, better tales. I can’t quite get it into words yet, but it’s marinating. In time—with your help, with your stories and comments and ideas and intuitive know-how—we will find it together. In time, it will come.

Will you do this work with me? Will you be brave –a little or a lot—and let your stories sing? Start writing. Start blogging. Start painting. Start giving birth to the poet on your tongue. Start making lists of words you do not understand, drawing lines–literally, on the page with a marker, drawing lines–between things you did not know were connected. Start commenting. (Use a pseudonym if you want. I’ll screen all the comments. I won’t let anyone yell at you. I’ll do my best to keep your story safe.) In the worlds of my soulsister, “Something healing this way comes.”

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you and that you will work them, and water them, with your blood and tears and laughter ‘till they bloom, ‘till you yourself burst into bloom.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes