Amazing Days, Gentle Nights, A New Little Pug, Growing In Spirit & Falling In Love With The World...

New very tiny 9 year old rescue pug Penny has
just joined our family. She came from terrible
neglect that caused her to lose most of her sight
and will have several issues to deal with for life
but she is the most precious girl and so full of
love. Here she sits on 2 pillows on the arm of
my chair...

Dear Ones, 

I am so behind on updating this blog I simply can't believe it and I'm so sorry to my loyal and beloved readers. What a time this is! Gardening in intense heat (100 degrees today with a heat index of over 100!), welcoming new little Penny, the sweet pug who came from the rescue with a heart-breaking story. Left outside for a year her eyes were crusted over leaving her 90 percent blind, she had no hair, her skin a red mess of infection and worse, and bleeding and crystals in her urine. She was also from a puppy mill and is so tiny that at 9 years old she is only 14 pounds, very small for a pug. She sleeps on the arm of my over-sized chair or tucked in the crook of my arm. I am so in love with her I just can't tell you. And since she came 2 weeks ago there's been a lot of settling in since she has to follow a regimen of several medications, eye drops, and supplements for the rest of her life. We are now in the swing of things and her two pug brothers from the same rescue think she's been here forever now. I have to carry her out into the yard to go potty but she will trot around the yard like a little trooper. When she wanders too far afield in our big fenced yard I call to her and clap my hands and she runs right to me if in a wiggly crookedy line, her tail wagging all the way. It will never cease to amaze me how these terribly neglected and abused little animals can be so full of love. She is just the sweetest cuddly girl, and I have been doing reiki on her which she is responding to beautifully. So it's been a very busy time.

In addition to the new arrival and the maintaining of the garden I am continuing to work with amazing healers, I do my Reiki II attunement on Sunday and then will go on to the Reiki Master level. While I will do Reiki and other healing modalities on people I would like to center my practice on working with animals. It is a growing and very successful niche in the world of reiki and since my life has longsince been dedicated to rescuing animals, now mainly pugs, and almost exclusively taking in the seniors or disabled ones, even in my own home it will be wonderful to work with these gentle little souls. We will be taking in one more little one some time in the near future. There is such a terrible need. I limit my rescue pugs to 4, but that's a nice number for a little family of companions. The four parrots keep me busy too. I get tickled when someone asks, as they inevitably will, "Don't you get lonely?" (You know, divorced, kids grown and off into their own lives.) to which I always reply, "I might, if I had the time." There's not much time to get lonely around here.

In September I will be taking a 4 day intensive workshop to receive Master Healer certification in Shambhalla, a beautiful method of deepening love and healing on many levels which works beautifully with reiki, and I will be studying many other modalities to expand my knowledge and ability to serve. Even the pugs are great teachers. As I mentioned above these little ones, many who have gone through unspeakable lives filled with abuse and neglect, come through with loving spirits, gentle and tender-hearted. It is a good lesson for us all. Animals truly are some of my greatest teachers.

How could you possibly resist this little face?
Sweet tiny Penny snuggling close to me...

Late night is one of my favorite times. The three pugs and I settle into the over-sized recliner, the boys on my right...

Sammy sleeping belly up using 2 year old puppy
Tanner as a pillow!

... and Penny on my right. As they sleep around me, half on me, I am covered with soft, warm, sleeping teddy bear creatures, and I thank God for them every day.

So as I work close to the earth and the wonders of Nature, care for the little ones so in need of gentleness and love and giving it back to me tenfold, continue my studies to prepare for setting up a healing practice, and work on writing my book there never seems to be time enough to do everything. I like to update this blog weekly and am sorely behind these last couple of months, but I intend to update more often even if shorter entries. I want to reach out and touch those who are kind enough to visit, many again and again and again. You are so dear to me faithful readers. I owe you my best and I will try harder. It is pure grace to be sitting here writing an entry.

In this last year and a half as I have moved deeper and deeper into a life of spirit, wanting to serve others to the best of my ability, I find myself falling in love with the world, and the tiniest living things on our planet captivate me. In the garden now there are ladybugs, the magical praying mantis, birds too many to count at my numerous feeders, and the mischievous squirrels who are bent on turning the feeders upside down in their attempt to eat everything they can before I shoo them off! And all the dear little plants. I buy tiny own root roses, small rooted cuttings from home gardeners on eBay, and I plant them in an area of the garden where the little ones grown on before they are large enough and sturdy enough to plant in the ground. It is truly a wonder to see them grow big and tall and put out buds and burst into flower. I have my camera back and ready to start taking garden pictures which I will share very soon. Some of the roses have grown big enough that I am transplanting them around the cottage, and the front porch is surrounded by ten hanging baskets, four huge pots with roses and clematis growing up the pillars to be trained, as I have already begun, to drape the porch with roses. There are herbs aplenty and the porch is redolent of the scents of lavender, rosemary, lemon sage, fragrant geraniums, huge pink gerbera daisies planting amidst the herbs and so much more. Bright yellow coreopsis, petunias in many colors and lilac colored colored verbena, impatiens in a rainbow of colors, oh, the world is so full of so many wonders this time of year. 

And so dear readers I have been remiss in writing here, but my heart was with you and you were so very often in my thoughts. I am planning a great many offshoots of my budding business, Maitri's Heart & Hands, that come out of being a writer, journal teacher of 30 years, healer, gardener, artist, and more. The many facets of my life are coming together, all of a piece, in the most wondrous ways and I can't wait to share them with you. I offer all that I do in love. I send gentle reiki energy out to you in waves. Feel it like a breeze against your cheek. Know how very much you are loved. We are never alone, even sitting by ourselves in our own homes. Tap into the energy that surrounds you, feel it, you can if you try. I feel it very strongly in my daily meditations, 3 times a day. I feel it when I am washing dishes, imagining all of the other women, and men, standing at their sinks, hands in hot water and bubbles as they do their daily chore, and I feel a oneness with the whole world around me. I feel that with you now.

 Take tender care, dear readers, and know that if I am not here as often as I'd like I am in the garden or settling in a new little pug, or working on that which will enable me to reach out to others to heal and soothe their spirits in need of mending, and working on a book that I hope will be a comfort to others. Days fly by too fast, but it is important for me to be here too. I am thinking of creating an e-mail newsletter. Leave a note for me on the board at the top of this page on the right if you think you would be interested in such a thing. I'd really like to know.

Walk gently on the earth, love as widely as possible, smile at all you meet, and remember that you must fill your own well first to have something to give to others. The garden will feed you, as will little animals, as will cooking a meal, waving to a neighbor, helping one person each day in the smallest of ways. I wish you days filled with joy, and rivers of happiness. I wish you love. I send it from my little cottage to you, wherever you are. I wish you peace.
 

Now I will take the pugs out into the yard in the moonlight for the last time, and we will snuggle into our chair, and end the day, our little family, in peaceful harmony. And I will count my blessings, as I do each day, and I will have tremendous gratitude for all of the people and animals and living growing things that fill my life, and I will count you in my prayers.

Warm Regards and Deepest Blessings to All,

© 2011 Maitri Libellule

All Rights Reserved

Our Deeper Womb Powers ~ New Gifts Of Magic...

"As we age, 

we have the chance to reinvent ourselves

and to have new adventures...
As we age, our connection
to our deeper womb power increases
and we are often blessed
with new gifts of magic."

Ingerborg Ten Haeff, at 78

I have fallen in love with Ingerbord Ten Haeff and all of the other women, past midlife and some near 100 years old, who are still full of fire and possibility in the beautiful book of photographs and quotes in Joyce Tenneson's incredible book, Wise Women: A Celebration Of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty. This book was in it's 4th printing in 2002 and I recently bought it on amazon.com. I have been buying books about women at mid-life and older who, strong and courageous, have kept on working, inspired, full of life, wisdom, and yes, deeper womb powers. At 57 as my own womb makes the transition from youthful fertility to the stronger, powerful womb of the wise woman, I rejoice at all that is, and all that is to come. I could not do the work that I am now doing if I were younger. I dance with delight at the "new gifts of magic" which are opening up to me as I cross the threshold into the last decades of life when the true Self is revealed and who one really is, is discovered fully, at last, if not before, and one can really begin to live. Ingerbord died in May at 95. Oh, what a firecracker she must have been!

I think of women in their 30's and 40's who fear getting older, terrified by the prospect of what lies before them. If only they could see the intense glory that is possible in their golden years, that shimmering time when they can truly do the best work of their whole lives. I have always been in love with Grandma Moses who is often quoted for her famous statement, "If I hadn't started painting I'd have raised chickens." She didn't start painting until she was 75. She died at 101. The year before, at 100, she illustrated Clement Moore's A Visit From Saint Nicholas. I think my motto now is another quote from Grandma Moses. She said, "Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be."

And so now, at 57, after a lifetime of writing betwixt and between raising three children, and struggling to write at all in the decade plus after my divorce, I have crossed a threshold into that time where I may be a wise womb-woman, in touch with all the possibilities I hold inside, unafraid to tell people who I am and what I am doing and fully jump, as if from a high dive, into the white waters of the decades just ahead. It is exhilarating! There are some days I need to nudge myself to keep myself going, I slip into depression and fear, but not about aging, simply one of those hormonal slumps that a woman my age can go through during the years of "the change," the much feared menopausal years. And yet these years, with all that they bring, are proving to be the most powerful and intense of my life. This truly is the time a wise woman is born. Now I honor my elders and kneel at their feet to learn all that I can. What glorious wisdom they hold.

I have always been a writer and teacher, and even a healer, though I didn't fully realize my fledgling gifts, caught up by other worries about life, about how I might survive, about what would happen to me when my children were grown and when I was alone in the world. It was a decade of forging a soul, of the Phoenix crashing and burning. The last year and a half I have been on the rise. Now I am spreading my wings and about to take a great leap. Inside I am already soaring.

The reason I have written this is because I want all women to realize, at whatever age they now are, that they must live life fully and unafraid. My Zen teacher once asked me, "If not, why not? If not now, when?" It is a question that has been asked of many people, but it is true for any of us at any age. And the answer keeps changing and moving through deeper and deeper levels. "Don't worry about where you are and what you are doing," I want to cry out to my younger sisters, "just do it well and with all your might, don't worry about where you're headed, life will take you there."

And so I moved through my first Reiki attunement, afraid and excited, and when I felt the energy, the heat in my hands as I moved around the table during my turn at my first experience of doing Reiki on another woman in our class, somewhere along the way the fear dropped away. I felt a sense of awe and I had a vision. I was afraid I was making it up, and shy to say what I had seen, but our teacher encouraged me to tell them. When I did the woman I was working on began to cry. The vision was real, I had touched down on what would be the very beginning of my life of using the gift that is developing in my hands and heart, and daily, in meditation, I am amazed at the things that I see. When we are open, our whole universe expands so that we might be more than we ever dreamed possible. It took my breath away. I still tremble with fear, "Will I learn how to use these gifts fully to best serve others?" but I know that worrying never served anyone. We do the work, we move forward one step at a time. If we fall, if we become afraid, if depression lowers a dark cloud over us, we need to know that it will pass. I have been through that these last days but my belief in what I was doing never wavered. Today the clouds parted and I could see the sun, and so it will go all the days of my life, but nothing will stop me, not now, and if I get stuck I will seek out a wise woman to take my hand and help me move forward. I will one day do that for other women.

I look forward to every age. The years ahead are full of potent possibility abundant, a phrase that came to me many years ago and one that becomes more powerful and true all the time. This time in my life can be scary, uncertain, but also full of joy, a celebration. We must allow all of the feelings to arise and know that they are part of the process. Don't get stuck in one phase because the others are coming, and they will keep cycling around because each time we come out stronger, more sure of ourselves, and more on fire to do the work at hand. Oh, what a glorious time this is!

It is time for me to put the parrots to bed now, to make my dinner, to do the normal everyday things in life. Night has fallen and the darkness is a comfort to me. I am a creature of the night. I don't sleep as well which is part of this time of life, and that, too, has its riches. When I go out late with the dogs I sing joyfully up to Mama Moon and dance in the midnight breeze.  As we age every single thing becomes holy, and when I tell each of the parrots goodnight they will stick their little beaks through the bars to give me a kiss, and I will sing their song to each of them. When I hand-raised them from tiny babies I made up a song for them, and each of them knows their own song and gets very excited when I sing to them.

We all like to be recognized. This begins to happen when we truly open ourselves to all that we were meant to be. These are the gifts of magic that are waiting for us as we come into our fullness in the last decades of our lives. Oh, what a joyful prospect this is.

So now I leave you, but I will be back. Write down these words, "I can do this." It doesn't matter what you are referring to, and as the thing changes, as the goals and dreams before us shapeshift, surprise and delight us, let us not be filled with fear, but always get back up and reach for the stars. We were meant to, and if you believe in yourself, so you shall.

With tremendous love for all of my womb-sisters everywhere. Let us celebrate this moment and all of those to come...

 

© 2011 Maitri Libellule

All Rights Reserved