Sunshine Musings

My current musing:

What does it mean to “deserve” something? Do we deserve where we are born, or what we are given? Do some people deserve to be wealthy and others deserve to be poor?

The more I think about…

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Managing Obstacles

I got a new woodstove!

Today’s challenge was getting the 200 lbs. box made of soapstone & cast iron from the back of the Subaru and into the house with the help of my 103 lbs. feldi sister, Linda, and…

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Transformation

We all are on a journey, and the journey takes us places we never imagined... And when we think we want to step into the world to serve, and serve in a role of leading, we may find that the…

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Not Trying

Who said, “It is better to try & fail, than not try at all.”
And did anyone say, “It's best to not try and still succeed!”

I like that second one. I'm going to make that my motto... at least… Read more

Acting from Abundance

So I recently returned from the annual Landscape Architecture Conference, and I now know that Halloween weekend in Minneapolis is a Thing! I also learned a bit about how your internal attitude changes your world.

The conference is driven by…

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With Loss Comes Freedom

It's not what I asked for, but I'm finding myself learning to navigate all this space that has opened up in my new life without a pup to hospice. One thing that's oh so tempting is to just mindlessly fill…

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Full-On Living

This week I gave Carla her final trip to the vet.

I had to make an appointment to euthanize her, so I knew Monday was her last walk by the creek, her last meal, her last day of rolling in…

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Carla RIP

My heart aches to say that after 12+years of full-on living, Carla has gone to play frisbee in heaven. She passed peacefully Tuesday morning, and although I already miss her terribly, I am also soothed that she is no longer…

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Shanah Tovah

Happy New Year!  I love celebrating new beginnings.

It's a chance to reflect on how we got here, release whatever is holding us back, and to reset our compass for where we'd like to go from here...

 

 



It reminds me…

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Letting Go

Sometimes the obstacle that's keeping you from moving forward is behind you. It's an anchor, keeping you in place despite efforts to move, change, or flow.

I realized recently that what was challenging me was myself… holding on to my…

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Breathe in, Breathe out

Each breath is a gift given and received.

With each breath we literally are connecting our internal and external worlds. We take in the atmosphere around us, and we give back body-warmed air. We keep the oxygen gifted by plants…

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Mindful Bodies

This summer I had the pleasure (and the challenge!) of teaching mindfulness to 30 humans, aged 5-14, for our local 4-H day camp!

The biggest surprise was how effective the sound of a mindfulness bell was to immediately quiet the…

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Welcoming Retrograde

Can you feel it? The planets are in retrograde!

Retrograde means the planet appears to move backwards in the sky, as earth passes it on our orbit around the sun.

I say I don't really believe in astrology, but…

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Active Surrender

Living in a body with RA has taught me a lot about the limits of force and the usefulness of surrender. 

I used to think surrender meant losing, failure, quitting, a total collapse of will and effort… something to be…

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Process - Driven Living

So what do you do when things don't go according to plan?

 

I couldn't get the help I was counting on for installing 300 sq. ft. of Saltillo tile on my new floor, and my experience installing this uniquely Mexican…

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WHITE LIVES MATTER

I saw this on a protest sign this morning. The protest was in the next town over, in Manlius, NY, which is 15 minutes from my home.

 

 

1st Response:  feeling the wave of shock and fear crawl through…

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A Culture of Listening

Contrary to what most folks think, listening is not a passive intellectual exercise. It's an active, embodied skill, that get stronger with practice. 

Our culture values talking over listening. We attend to those who speak up, we praise those who…

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Real Needs

Sometimes I find myself thinking about all the stuff I need that I don't have, or feeling like I'm lacking, or impoverished, and that I need more. I call this scarcity thinking.

The idea of scarcity is what drives the…

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Holding Paradox

The last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster, as I am in the process of building my little 24' x 30' dream house! 

From one moment to the next I oscillate from completely thrilled and delighted, to panic and…

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The Heart of Who We Are

Today I was contemplating how many Me's there are.

As a kid, I remember carrying a lot of Me's around. I had the Spanish speaking me at home, and the English speaking American me at school. I had the graceful…

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Change Your Mind & Change the World

The world is changing around us at an alarmingly fast rate. 20 years ago, I was drawn to landscape architecture because I believed through this discipline, I could help protect nature and connect people to the environment and each other. 

…

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Everything is Connected

We've all heard this, and I think, deep inside, we know this is truth - but it's hard to live it when we are immersed so completely in our modern culture which functions on separating everything. It’s how we speak…

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Somatic Interventions for Productivity: Movement

The mind and body are an integrated mobius strip which influence one another. How we move changes how we think, and recent neuroscience explains this interconnection in ever increasing clarity. As designers, we can integrate this information into our professional…

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The Trouble with Capitalism

Sometimes internal work goes external, and vice versa. I tend to focus on individual development and self-care, but lately it's systemic change that has been occupying my thoughts, because the internal and the external are not so different. [More on…

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