December 27th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Most of us have never experienced total completion and the ability to create what’s next. If we did we would find ourselves the hero in our own lives. Joseph Campbell said that there’s really only one story that keeps being told over and over again, and that’s the hero’s journey.
While our lives reflect a journey through stages and phases, almost none of us have noticed that the sweet space between them, known as transitions, is where the splendid power of completion lies. If you can really be in that limbo transition space, it means you’ve let go of where you’ve been. An authentic “let go” has at that very moment an instant completion. A total completion. A transformation
As I’ve been learning to ride dressage on my horse, Chance, I’ve learned that the mastery (not to mention where most riders lose points in competition) lives in transitioning between gaits (walk, trot or canter). As a rider, if you can be in the transition with your body and mind balanced, you create a movement that is graceful to watch as well as ride.
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August 26th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
My teens offer countless opportunities (sometimes seen as challenges) to enter doorways of wonder, education, magic and even enlightenment. One of their doorways is to the world of pets. Currently, we have 8 of them. The order goes like this: 2 dogs (Liam, a collie and Archie, a Bichon Frise), 2 black cats (Suzy and Frodo), 2 horses (Max and Chance) and a betta fish (Han Solo … he swims alone). Our most recent addition to the pet menagerie is a Chilean rose-haired tarantula named Petrucchio (after a character in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew). This latest acquisition occurred while I was out of town, of course.
Once you get past the initial visual creepiness, you find that tarantulas are pretty cool. Petrucchio has a beautiful red coat and is incredibly docile while held (yes, we’ve all held him). His maintenance has been minimal – just have to throw in crickets a few times a month and mist him once in a while. He lives in a little aquarium nestled in a corner of the laundry room on the counter where we fold the clothes. With all that said … the fact of the matter is, there’s a tarantula in the house!
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July 9th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
In January 2007, I took a potentially fatal fall on my daughter’s horse.
Two years leading up to that I had been creating a company and finding out about peak oil, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas levels, and facts like every major ecosystem on the planet being in decline. I alerted as many friends and business associates to this reality as I could. Between the subject matter (climate change) and the very real matter of being a woman in business, I literally hit the ground!
My journey as a woman blazing a trail in the world has been very revealing and enlightening. There’s a saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ve hesitated to ever write about my experience as a woman CEO. Every newsletter and blog has always had a positive spin and its message has been genderless. However, it’s an act of integrity on my part to illuminate the very real challenge of being a woman in her power in the world today.
In my last blog I said that I loved to go into taboo areas or at least areas that most people feel are controversial and don’t want to look at. So here it goes …
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June 24th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
On June 7, my son graduated from high school. Less than a month prior, his grandfather passed away on his 80th birthday.
I was struck with two poignant lessons. First, life is full of transitions, such as graduations, marriages/divorces, and births as well as deaths. Second, there’s never a convenient time for death. These lessons are accompanied by enormous feelings that can overwhelm and engulf.
As a yoga teacher, I chose the path of consciousness; therefore, ideally, I meet everything in my life’s path head on without denial, distraction or ignorance. Even with this approach, the reality of my child growing up and leaving home is hard. It’s not so much the letting go of my baby as it is the realization that he’s growing into an adult and I’m growing older, and … I particularly find more empowerment in the “growing” part than in the “older” part. As I saw clearly in the way of things, old people die.
So … what is this business of growing older? Studies show that people view themselves 15 years younger than their true age. This suggests to me that while our physical bodies may be showing signs of aging, our awareness within ourselves is not determined by our physical age. I think this awareness speaks to the opportunity inherent in the word growing in the term “growing older.”
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