Dear Fear,

We are over, my brutha.

I know our mothers introduced us, but seriously — is that any reason to keep up a relationship?

I know you are trying to help, but hey, I’ve got it from here.

Good luck and best of wishes. And no, I will not hook you up with any of my single girlfriends.

Heart,

Moi

P.s. I wouldn’t mind dating your hot cousin — Intuitive ForeKnowledge. That guy gives me a big rush whenever anything truly dangerous comes along. Give him my number, will ya?

A year ago I made a dreamboard for this same month. One about writing a book. One about getting it done. And I did. I wrote a shitty first draft. Then, I decided I did not want to finish it. I didn’t want to edit it, or flesh it out, or schlepp it off to the publisher who had asked for it. It didn’t fit me, you see. It wasn’t what I really wanted to write about. And the traditional publishing process was not one I wanted to engage with, at least not at the time.

So I never finished that book that I dreamt of a year ago. Instead I wrote another one. It is every so nearly done…as is the invite to the on-line Soultribes I’ll be offering for the new year. And I really must get them done this month, so that the timing comes out all in a row.

To do so I need to work consistently. Yet my health demands that my work hours be flexible. I need to be confident in what I am doing. Yet I need to be adaptable as plans may require change. I’m willing to work hard. And yet I’m hoping for ease. In short, I want flow…that mysterious zone where you are productive yet still at ease.

So flow, I welcome you…into this space, into these keys, into these fingers sheathed in their fingerless writer’s gloves. I welcome you to my studio, to my heart, to my mind. May you live here and thrive this cold November; may you find warm welcome here.

It’s back to school season with the last of the schools in the U.S. starting up after this Labor Day weekend comes to a close. Children are trying on outfits, putting their names on backpacks and picking out new lunchboxes. But beyond the ritual of buying schools supplies, what can you do to create a sacred space around going back to school?

Starting a new grade is a big rite of passage for children — one that more often than not goes by unnoticed. In the flutter, hurry and relief(!) of finally getting those kids back in school, busy parents don’t have a lot of time to mark the moment. So here are 3 easy ways to honor the back to school process.

1. Special Breakfast. For ma Read the rest of this entry »

my September dreamboard, made on a page from an illustrated journal i began three years ago, before i learned that I’d laid out 27 pages wrong and the project couldn’t be saved. (now, redeemed.)

This has been a hard week. A hard an horrible week. But today the tides began to their turning. The pained backed down. I could work again, write again. Hope started thinking about coming home to roost.

Often I loose track of where the moon is in her cycle. But this week I’ve been aware of her lurking outside my window, lighting up my insomniatic night, keeping me company on the sidelines. I knew tonight she would be at her roundest, her ripest. And I just could not resist the siren call of her light on my work table. She winked so cunningly  through my window, that mistress moon.

One year ago I made my first dreamboard. I dreamt all year of a stage for my stories, health for my body, a community for my heart. I dreamt of books and of strength enough to write them. I dreamt of the loved ones, and tribes. I dreamt of stillness and of floating. Some of those dreams came true. Many, most, did not.

There is no stage, no book, no local community. My loved ones are far from me (but gratefully, well.)  There is no health. Above all there is no health. Still, hope springs eternal I suppose—in that small way that it must, when you children lie safe and asleep under your roof, when the moon waits for you beyond your window.

So, still, I dream. Under the moon I dream. And as I dream I till the soil. I turn the earth. I make ready the ground. Because one day, some day,  perhaps the the gods of harvest will smile down upon me, and these dreams will finally get themselves born.

This crop may at long last come to fruition.

The tea lights ring the room and ambient trip-hop spills from the speakers. There are seven of us around the table ranging in age from fifty to five. We’ve chatted a bit and filled our mugs. Now it’s time for cardstock and magazines, glues sticks and scissors. It’s the Full Moon. It’s time to Dreamboard.
A Dreamboard circle is one of the simplest Soultribes to form. It doesn’t require complicated leadership, and the supplies and techniques are very basic. You can form one easily with these simple steps…

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Loves,

There’s a lot going on over here, and even now I hear the sound of my hubby vacuuming —unbidden!— downstairs. While he does the IRL housekeeping I’ll do the virtual stuff. Here’s what’s going on today in Magpie Girl world.

Soulsisters!
Are you coming on the Soulsister’s ‘09 Retreat? Do you wish you were? Do you want to form your own tribe of soulsisters (or soulsiblings?) Follow our progress and learn our hopes here.

Fun & Helpful Twitter Play-a-Longs
Do you Tweet? So do I!  I’m starting some fun new trends on Twitter.

• #gigglepics: photos to cheer you up or soothe your soul via TwitPic.
• #dailywhimsy: cheeky little tweets about the playful things we do to embrace whimsy.
• #dreamboards: do you dreamboard? share your results using links to your blog, Flickr, or Twitpic.
• #soulsisters: for those of us attending the first retreat and dreaming or forming the next one.
• #doless:join The DO LESS Revolution and learn to do what Leo Babatua calls “the fine art of choosing the essentials,” and achieve what I call “concentrated living.” (Plus, just feel better!)
• #soultribes: follow the “How to Build Your Soultribe” series and share ideas and plans with others.
• #*8Things: to share your weekly *8Things and see what others come up with. (It’s fascinating)

Wreck this Journal
Over at Starshyne Productions, my soulsister Jamie Ridler offers The Next Chapter — virtual book clubs for the arty at heart. Right now she’s encouraging us to make a mess with Keri Smith’s   Wreck this Journal. Eden, Cate and I started wrecking ours two summers ago. But I’m working on finishing the demo now. Here’s my page for this week. The instructions were “cover this page with white things.” It’s doubling as this month’sdreamboard. My theme for the month is “be still. be now.”

Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday. Don’t do too much housekeeping…go outside and do something whimsical!

Love,

Magpie Girl

It’s Dreamboard time, and the Flower Moon is sending us its lovely blooming energy. According to Trish Hoskins at Suite 101, now is the time to celebrate bouyant, playful energy and to “meditate on your thankfulness for the feeling of renewal and rejuvination.”

All this month I’ve known that my theme for the May dreamboard would be “All Systems GO!” Which has been encouraging because I’ve had a bad migraines in May and every day has brought me pain. Today the pain finally broke and –you guessed it — I came down with a stomach bug. In Sweden. On vacation.

Have you noticed that this tends to happen with stress of all sorts? For instance, my mother was a teacher and was often sick on the first few days of our holiday breaks.  I think maybe the fight-or-flight rush of adreniline keeps the germs at bay, and once that’s gone — WOMP! — you’re sick.

So with this dreamboard I’m holding on to hope with both hands that the next few weeks will find me healthy and read to MOVE on all the lovely writing and community-building projects The Universe has given me of late.  In spite of the pain this month, I have felt that blooming, joyful energy in great abundance. I am immensely grateful that the work that’s been set in front of me rejuvenates me body and soul.

This dreamboard was made in our hotel room in Stockholm. The Cate drew the rocket ship for me and we stuck them up on the amazing wall paper. I love how it makes me think of the Flower Moon and of my hope for forward motion. Perhaps we should have written: All Systems Grow!

What is the Flower Moon bringing you these days?

Tuesday night the 19yo haunted my dreams, flitting in and out of whatever story was going on. We call this my “Spidey-sense” and when it happens, no matter how long he’s been incommunicado, I have to track him down and find out what’s what. 

Wednesday night the full moon glowed yellow and welcoming in my Copenhagen sky. I’m not usually very connected to the moon, but last night its glow, it felt important…powerful. So I sat down and made a quick-and-dirty dreamboard with the few supplies I had on hand,  uttering once again what my dear friend Dwight practically has tattooed on his forehead:

ONLY CONNECT.

By Friday we were back in touch and the emails went back and forth with tidbits and updates.

Oh, that Sister Moon, I love her so……

P.s. If Souren actually read my blog, I’m sure he’d be THRILLED with this photo. Sorry bruddah, if you sent me more pics, you’d get better airtime. :-)

For more about Dreamboard visit Jamie at Starshyne Productions, or read my interview with her sister Suzie of Chez Suzie here. What will you dream of this month?

my august dreamboard, now on display with a candle in the middle of the kitchen table.

I wish I could trust in healing. That it will come in this life time. That Josh’s deep conviction that I will be free from this pain will triumph over the calm quiet voice inside me telling me, “Girl, you’d better get used to managing this, because this is it forever.”

I wish I could trust my body. That when it wakes up in the morning, it will allow me to do the basics of my day. That it will not make me cancel, lie down, swallow pills.

I wish I could trust my doctors and practitioners – all 31 of them, each of them speaking with so much confidence on my first office visit these words: “I have such good results with migraines.” All of whom now know me only as a cold case, as a stack of files.

 I wish I could trust in Alanis’s soft sermon. That I would be good, even if I could do nothing. That I could be good, even if I got and stayed sick.

 I wish, I wish…

Sammy dog is dreaming of Spring too!

My dreamboard for this full moon is all about Spring getting sprung! March’s full moon is the worm moon, demarcating the time when the soil gets soft and the earthworms re-emerge. What is softening in your life? What new growth is emerging?