This is the third post in my series on my new long-term goals. Go here to see the first post in the series. So far I have discussed deepening my spiritual journey. In this post, I begin discussion of my second overriding goal, the nurturing of the fabric of my life.
Back in February, I realized that several of my previous long-term goals were actually subsets of a larger, more expansive goal. Spending time with loved ones, having a spiritual, sustainable and healthy lifestyle, and having a welcoming home were actually part and parcel of nurturing a sustainable, passionate and creative life. The new wording worked for me and it covered one of my most challenging issues, self-nurturance.
But that statement desperately needed more definition. Over time, it expanded into three sub goals: build core strength, open my heart and care for my home. (Am I the only one seeing a trend with three high level goals with so far three sub goals under each? Hmmm …)
Build Core Strength
Strengthening my core has been a focus for several years. It involves primarily physical activities and issues. This includes yoga, walking, and eating nutritious meals. Regular health care counts as well.
I have been walking each week and up till the Flexeril episode, I managed several yoga practices a week. And earlier this year I restarted my fruit and vegetable deliveries, which has helped with my meals. I am hoping to build back up to almost daily yoga and am trying to get back up to two 1 mile walks each week.
My work with the intuitive healer has helped me loosen up some stuck areas all over my body, so that now when I walk I am using both legs pretty evenly at least until I get tired. But thankfully I am no longer limping for the last quarter mile, which is a big improvement.
My yoga practice, when it is regular, enables me to move with confidence all week. If I can get the meds just right, my hope is be able to walk on inclines and steps with a smoother gait. It is the one place where my disability reveals itself even when I am well rested and my joints are warmed up.
The last area I was working on before all hell broke loose was building abdominal strength. Hopefully I can get back to it as a focus before year’s end.
Open My Heart
This past week, my healer pointed out all the rage I carry just below my ribcage. Most of it is due to my continuing issues with my health. My heart opening practice up till now had been focused on my shoulders and spine. She loosened the affected area by manipulating my spine and the connecting muscles – a truly weird sensation. Now when I pull my shoulders back, I can feel more of my chest expanding.
My role in this effort now also includes preserving and reclaiming openness in my schedule, my home and my journey. For example, although technically I had time to teach at Cherry Hill and return to school, it would have left me no buffer in case of illness or an emergency – so I decided to not return to Cherry Hill while I am in school.
I have also made an effort to enjoy the beauty I encounter as travel around the area. Just recently, after that heart opening session with my healer, I visited Sligo Creek Park. Instead of doing my regular walk, I just sought out a friendly boulder to sit and enjoy the beauty of the water and greenery – it was delicious!
So my goal of heart opening operates at multiple levels -- physical, emotional and spiritual.
Next time I will discuss my goal of caring for my home.
Posted in
Submitted by katrina on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 8:00am.
Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".