Moment

love this shot.

Ultimately

...balance is a challenge for me. For how calm I may think I am, for how peaceful I may feel much of the time, A Dragon Stands Between Heaven And Earth has been kicking my ass back and forth for well over a year now.  (I am so far unable to hold this pose for longer than about 5 minutes.)

Despite growing two kids at the moment, an earthly and elemental activity if ever there was one, I still find it challenging to keep my feet planted on solid ground consistently.

And to keep my fierce fire stoked (parenting is also this: fierce).

When I feel out-of-balance, I have a tendency to be heavy handed in my attempts to stay grounded. I envision structure and discipline as the great enforcers and begin to schedule and plan.

Thus far, this doesn't work. For many many years I would feel bad about myself when it wouldn't work. I felt like I had a deficit. Thankfully, I reject that now. Not only is life too short to spend on self-loathing, but life is ever changing and therefore, living is a constant and active process of Balance.

Observing and noting excess and lack can be done dispassionately, and can inform our intentions to adjust our balance...to heal...to be truly connected, at the cellular level, to the Universe. When we move from an alive state of awareness to a passive rut of un-magical thinking, it is time to find a wormhole to a new state of activation.

A Dragon Stands Between Heaven And Earth is that wormhole, for me.

This morning, while holding the pose, The Dragon Stands Between Heaven And Earth, I was struck anew by the direct correlations between this stance, this state of being, and my Self. I can use this standing meditation not only as a tool, but also as model. I took the picture in a moment of blind inspiration and was immediately charmed by this new visual I have. A vision of who I am and who I continue be.

Great tune

A Cap find.

Askew

...yet in balance.

Making a daily habit of a one bag-two cup pot of Raspberry Earl, but am sensitive to caffeine.

Practicing Qigong every day, but unable to rein in the food situation as planned.

Going to bed and waking earlier, but my sleep is being rocked by incredibly active dreams.

My mind feels awake and alive, but reluctant to land in total concert with my body.

The car's getting in on this action, as well.  Making new and unusual noises, but deemed safe for Cap's trip to New England.  ($700+ in repairs waiting in the wings...)

Baxter

love.

He is here at the perfect time.  I've semi-secretly been checking out dogs available for adoption lately.  I may adopt a dog someday, but now still does not feel right.  With Baxter here, I get my fix.  I wonder if it will be enough.

Moving on

before the second frogging.

I've been cruising along on the Sunday Market Shawl, my eagerness to see it in finished form growing by the row.

When I sat down to reread the pattern before starting on this 2.0 version, I read the words, "ending on a WS (wrong side) row", and thought, "what does that mean...how do you discern RS from WS when knitting in garter stitch?"

The thought wasn't even a voice.  You know the voice, the one that is oftentimes small, but speaks the truth and really, you should pay more attention to?  Well, it didn't feel like a voice.  I thought of calling Wendy.  She had knit this pattern before and she's my go to girl for quick knitting advice.

But, I didn't.  I thought, "I'll figure this out...it will make sense and become clear eventually."  I wanted to get started.  I had an itch.  You know the itch, the one that just wants to get scratched already?

So, I knit and knit and knit.  I showed the growing shawl to friends and family.  I knit and knit and knit some more.

And I forgot about the business of WS vs. RS.  And my excitement about approaching the end of this project grew.  My knitting mojo was back and I started fantasizing about what project would be next.

Then, this morning, I was online and one thing led to another and I found myself rereading the pattern which someone had included in the body of an old e-mail she had sent out awhile ago.  And the words, "work scarf in stockinette stitch..." caught my eye.

!@#$

Stockinette.  Not garter.  Stockinette has a RS and WS.  Question answered.  Somewhere in the vicinity of 400+ rows or 9000 stitches or 3/4 through the fourth and last ball of yarn.

!@#$

This time I did reach out to Wendy.  I sent her a Rav-mail full of f-bombs.  (Sorry.)  Then I took Baxter for a walk and let the fresh air, cold and drizzly as it was, to clear my mind.  And I feel much better.

Time to move on.  I will unravel the shawl for a second time.  I hope the yarn has not lost the 'stickiness' it needs to work with this laddering effect of the pattern.  It very well may have become too smooth from being worked twice now, and a requisite third time before this saga will come to an end.

There's only one way to find out!  I have not decided whether to do this all now or whether to take a break with a different project.  In the end, I may have to frog it a third time if the laddering doesn't work.

Drear

turtle by Sag.

Is that even a word?

Again with the dreams.  They continue to be intense and action-packed.  Happening for sure right before I awake around 6am, but perhaps going all night.  Hmm, I just checked the Dragon's Way book and between 5-7am the Large Intestine is 'in charge'.  Makes me want to delve a bit deeper.  3-5am is the time of the Lung.

When my eyes opened, I turned the alarm off thinking I'd rather fall back asleep.  I felt the drear.

But, as very flimsy thoughts of 'Qigong is the base' moved around the discomfort my body was feeling (no doubt tired from digesting the parts of the meal I didn't divulge last night: tomato gorgonzola soup, bread and butter, lime rickey, pumpkin pecan pie :-), Gem walked in.  In the time it took him to trot to bathroom and back, I decided to get out of bed.

I pulled open the shades and the dark pavement was slick.  I remembered it's supposed to rain and snow today.  More drear made clear.  Me + low pressure systems = low me.

But, seeing Baxter always gives me a lift.  He arrived yesterday morning and is with us till next week.

So, I am off to practice, to widen the channels and let some energy flow.  Get rid of some carbon dioxide and reconnect with the Universe in a more intentional way.

Life is good

Went to see Vinny, which is always good.

Today, I decided to heed Vinny's weekly advice and with Cap's blessing, I headed 'downtown' after my session.  I parked near the library and thought I'd stroll somewhere for dinner.

I passed a hair salon that had moved into really nice digs last Spring and on an impulse, stepped in to see if I could get a wash and cut.  My stylist took her time and was responsive to my quiet mood (and looks nothing like she does in this picture!)  I really appreciated her.  She did a great job and I am happy to finally have someone local to whom I will return for another cut without reservation.

After my haircut, I walked over to one of my favorite local eateries and had a leisurely dinner with my date, Stephen King's latest tome.  The cherry on top was my amazing entree: duck confit with goat cheese, spinach, mushrooms and red pepper flakes over rigatoni.

So, yes, in my quest to meet my noodle craving (it had to be 'good' noodles...I've been envisioning handmade ramen, would have been thrilled with pho, and was utterly satisfied with my rigatoni dish :-) I went off my healing path a bit, but honestly, there's healing to be had in enjoying a wonderful plate of food.

Oasis

Last week, with the help of friends, Cap and I constructed a brief, yet nourishing, oasis for ourselves.  

In the wake of a nor'easter which dumped over a foot of snow in our area, the kids house-hopped three times and were happily occupied with playing indoors and out.  Our friends did all the driving about so were kid-free for seven hours.

Cap and I had some quiet and separate computer time and then chilled out together for a bit before heading out for a late lunch.  We have a new go-to spot, a Mexican joint right in town, called Habaneros.

overlapping together.

corner.

silverlight.

jamaica.

still warm (oh my).

chicken empanada.

torta with pork and black beans.

I see both boys in him here.

After eating our fill we took in Avatar in 3D which we both enjoyed.  A sensual feast in its own right.

It was a day of respite, much needed.  Now that it's in the rear view, I'm a touch wistful, but mostly grateful.

Tamarind cowl

A quickie.

Got out of bed around 6:15.  Very vivid and active dreams the past two nights.  (No idea what that's about.  Too much cayenne with dinner?  A free trial upgrade of my dream channel?)

Checked in with e-mail, Google Reader and Facebook.

Qigong for 30 minutes which felt really good.

Wished Vanessa a great first day of school and wondered if she felt the earthquake.

Uploaded the pics and video from my sister's birthday celebration yesterday.  It was a really nice day.  Unexpectedly long and so the food shopping didn't get done.  Which is a slight drag.

Here's a great photo of her wearing her gift.  The Tamarind Cowl in a 100% merino handspun wool (picked up at the Garden State Sheep and Fiber Festival) in 'Rosewood'.  (Scroll down the link for the free pattern.)

happy birthday, sis.

Winter-Spring

Shift.  A word in the air around me.

...from with Vanessa to without.

...from Kidney to Liver.

...from Winter to Spring.

...from Fear to Anger.

...from constricting to exploding.

...from dormancy to rebirth.

...from February to March.

...from Sunday to Monday.

* * * * *

A good idea I had today:

Ask Cap if he can plan and prep dinners for a week so that I can have time and space to focus on adjusting to Dragon's Way food.  He agreed, so it's a go.  Happy.

A good idea I had yesterday:

Caught up in waves of unreasoned and mystifying anger*, I bypassed egg dropping, grabbed a pillow, put it to my face and screamed.  A few times.  Literally got it out and, wow, I felt much better afterward.  Recalibrated, for sure.

A good idea I had last week:

Letting go of the trip to Chicago.  The kids were really looking forward to it, but I realized it was going to be less a family vacation and more a tagging along and getting time with Cap here and there while he conferenced.  And driving to Chicago and back with a week in between in early March?  Not so inviting given the Winter we've been having.

* no longer mystified by the anger...found this quote online that speaks to my experience: "The emotion most closely tied to the liver and the quality of spring is the explosive nature of anger."

* * * * *

I considered taking a blog break, but decided not to.  Expressing some of what I experience in the next week will be good for me.  And may be interesting for others.

...go to bed at 10pm and wake at 6am.

...eat in the Way of the Dragon.  (veggies and fruits that are cooked and selected for specific properties to facilitate self-healing and the building, collecting and storing of Qi...no meat, no dairy, minimal grains, no cold)

...tackle the massive piles of paperwork.

...get outside daily.

...practice Qigong daily.

...maintain balance, or a close semblance to it :-), with spending time with the kids, house work, spending time with Baxter (who will be arriving on Tuesday for a week), giving Cap attention, care and support, blogging, reading, knitting, playing with others...you know, all the rest of it.

* * * * *

I feel a hum of excitement.  A bud of promise.  Joy at my attunement, so unexpected after a period of burrowment.  I can see now that my last dose of personal Winter catapulted me right into the throes of coming Spring.

I look forward with clarity.  Aligned!

Tea love

I have a new tea love.  

Kelly gave me this tin for my birthday.  Thank you, my dear.  One of the numerous reasons that you ROCK. 

I've gotten this tea last few times I've been to Terra and can't get enough.  Interestingly, I'm not usually a raspberry kind of girl.  But, when this tea was recommended by the staff person at the tea shop that fateful day, her enthusiasm redirected my course and the rest is herstory.

Avatar

Wow.

If you love movies, really love movies, then go see Avatar in 3D if you can.  I kind of can't believe how much I loved it.  As this NYT review states, James Cameron, the director, truly "confirms the wonder" of cinema.

Wow.

Elephants

I really liked Rachael Yamagata's first album, Happenstance.  When her second album came out last Fall, I took a listen to this song, Elephants, and a few others and wasn't too excited.  In fact, I didn't like Elephants, at all.

Time is, indeed, a curious handmaiden.  I now really like this song.  Somehow it wormed its way back into my consciousness and I now have it on my Winter Wonders playlist* on my computer at home.

What's on your playlist lately?




* Currently on the playlist:
Brand New Day/Van Morrison
Crazy Love/Van Morrison
Japanese Folk Song/Thelonious Monk
Doodlin'/Horace Silver
Elephants/Rachael Yamagata
Love Vigilantes/Iron & Wine
Waiting/Norah Jones
I Was Made For You/She & Him
God Made The Automobile/Iron & Wine
True Love Waits/Radiohead
Girl In The War/Josh Ritter
Tusen Tankar (A Thousand Thoughts/Triakel
Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl/Loney, Dear
Duet/Rachael Yamagata
By Your Side/Sade
Offering/John Coltrane
Looking Out/Brandi Carlile

Johnny Weir rocks

Johnny Weir responds to commentators who questioned his gender, example he sets

click on the purple text above...

Knitting mojo

It comes and goes and I've gotten used to that.  I don't really miss it when it's gone...mojo is so visceral, as opposed to a 'head' thing, and so that makes sense to me.  It's gut aligned just so with Spirit and therefore the excision is clean when it goes.  So clean it doesn't hurt at all.

Its total return two days ago has been quite pleasurable.  Which surprised me.  A bit.  In a reverse way.  As in...how interesting that something I didn't miss could bring such joy when it comes back.

a semi-stealth project (more on it later).

frog away!

I started and completed a stealth project in one day, the day before yesterday.  So satisfying.  

I adore the depth and breadth of my stash.  I spent some time going through my yarn and then some time on Ravelry going through patterns.  

Then I went through various yarn choices for the patterns I liked.  This is my favorite feature of Ravelry.  For every pattern that is on there (thousands, I'm guessing) you have the option of clicking on a button and seeing what yarns actual knitters have used to knit the pattern.  You can then click on any of the yarn choices and be brought to a page which lists all the projects that have been knitted with that particular yarn, pictures and notes and all.  Love it.

By the time I was cozy and beginning to knit, I had probably spent about two hours in preparation.  After choosing the pattern and yarn, I wound the yarn into a ball, fished the needles and notions out of my semi-organized supplies, and decided I didn't need to photocopy the pattern (I left the pdf on the computer screen and walked over to check it when I needed to...I will likely photocopy it and put it in my binder at some point.)

I started to knit and it was love.  The yarn is a hand spun and hand dyed 100% merino wool that I picked up at the NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival three years ago.  The label only had content, weight and price info on it so I don't know who made it and/or sold it to me.  I do have a vague recollection of Gem choosing the color and of my thinking that I would use it to teach him how to knit.

It turned out to be the perfect skein for this project.  It is incredibly soft and yet has a firmness to it.  Now that it is knit up, I swear, I feel life surging through it whenever I touch it.  Energy...it's amazing.

That evening, I was dropped off at home after common meal and the boys went to the comic book store.  I settled down in front of my personal Big Love marathon and knit for hours, for the rest of the night.  The kids were occupied with their new comics once they were home and Cap put them to bed.

I'll show more pictures and reveal the pattern once the recipient of this gift has had her reveal.

Yesterday was an odd day in that I had a headache the whole day.  I used to get headaches fairly frequently, but TCM has helped me rebalance myself to a point where I now rarely get them.  When I do, like I did yesterday, it is now crystal clear to me that my body is communicating to me about an imbalance.  It's not always apparent to me where the imbalance is, or how to correct it, but for me, simply understanding it in this way helps to keep stress or anxiety about experiencing pain at a minimum.

I spent the morning hours preparing a vegetable soup with my homemade liquid gold for lunch, and Elizabeth's sloppy lentils for dinner.  After lunch T and her kids came over to play, braving the elements (the nor'easter started early yesterday morning).  Once they left, my headache got worse.  I hobbled through dinner, decided I wasn't up to blogging (a rare day off of blogging for me yesterday!), and realized my fingers were itching to get themselves on some fiber.

Because of my headache, it needed to be something simple.  So I reached for the long ago finished Sunday Market Shawl that has been hibernating in one of my baskets for months.  It was a project that I didn't like the looks of once completed.  But every single person who had seen it liked it.  I loved the yarn, Noro Cash Iroha, and didn't want to waste it on something I felt likely not to wear that much because I thought the garment was ugly.  

In my experience, frogging (unraveling a project) is not easy to do, until the moment comes, and then it is, in fact, very easy to do.

So I frogged the Sunday Market Shawl and began a new one, with the same luscious yarn, going down a couple of needle sizes.  I held in my mind the inspiration of the buttery sunny yellow SMS Kelly knit for Kate.  And Wendy's which I saw so long ago but remember quite clearly in the Florida light out on her deck.

I think mine is going to be somewhere in between these two envisioned memories, in terms of 'ladder pane' size (the very special feature of this project).  It felt really good casting on and seeing the stitches form in the size they did last night.  I look forward to more knitting today.

Hope your mojo is working for you these days, in whatever realm it comes to you.

Passion pit

Back to night time watching of my premium cable "stories". Finished watching Season 2 of The Tudors which was pretty depressing (but has me close to reading something about Anne Boleyn...I am that fascinated.)

On to catching up with the current season of Big Love, a show which gets better and better each year, in my opinion. Last night I watched the second episode and, as usual, was most riveted by Nicki (played by Chloë Sevigny).

The episode closed with this song which caught my ear. Turns out the band is from Cambridge!

Undeniable

the desk.

I have a high tolerance for clutter.

I also have a desire to live more cleanly and simply.  Which would be facilitated by less clutter.

The journey continues...the path ahead seems endless.

In the last few years I've worked on excising feelings of guilt and self-loathing that would often come when 'suddenly' realizing I am facing a physical mess.  (Because when you have a high tolerance for clutter, you literally don't 'see' it much of the time.)

Unsurprisingly, the resulting relief from these negative and literally depressing emotions has opened up space for more joy and clarity.

Today, and for the rest of the week, I am going to direct my focus to the piles (what you see in this pic tenfold, maybe).  I've already alerted Cap to the fact that I will spend minimal time in the kitchen this week (nixing homemade bread, for example).

Taking a big swing at getting back in the swing.

Lala

An administrative note.

I have started using lala.com to share music.  I now know that you have to be a registered user to be able to listen to tracks I share here.

It is free to sign up and I have, thus far, gotten no unsolicited mail from them or anyone else they could have sold my info to.  It seems pretty safe and is easy.

You can use it like iTunes and buy songs and stuff, but I just use it to share music so I can't speak to the other elements of the site.

YouTube doesn't always have the songs I want to share, and lala has come through in this regard, in spades.

So, if you're into the music sharing component of this blog, I hope you feel comfortable registering over at lala.

Ever permeable

As I propel myself through this morning I am my Air-y self.  Friends are coming over in less than an hour now and I have an agenda: shower, clean the bathroom, attend to the kitchen sink, vacuum...

But equal attention goes to things like this:

closing my eyes and feeling summer.

(peach jam from the farm spooned into the mouth direct from the jar)

And this:

Vanessa's bathroom cup.

And sharing my piece with you who will hear.