This Blog is Changing to WordPress....

Dear Everyone,

Google is closing down their blog space,

so I am moving to Wordpress.

The new location is:

https://gwenmcclellan.wordpress.com

I hope you are all doing what we like to say 'well enough' !

I am always on Facebook, under Gwen McClellan, Words and Pictures.
                                               and Gwen McClellan, Creativity

It has been the loveliest thing being here, with all of your comments and
thoughts, as we all wander along in our lives. Really.

My best wishes for you all, each and every day.

Take good care,

Gwen

3.24.18 Birth, Death

I have a feeling that when we live in villages, with the evidence of birth and death all around us, the immediacy of what is grace becomes clearer.

3.23.18 Life. Takes your breath away.

3.23.18 My boyo

down by the river

3.22.18 Oh my queen

Oh, my diaphanous
forest queen – comes our
child song of smooth branch
refrain of Luminous mother tree

3.21.18 Precluding Surprises

I was talking the other day with someone , about the future. About aging, about the unexpected, about our different styles and choices we each select, to deal with this.

They were saying that they became so anxious just considering it, and preferred perhaps to simply live well, and trust in their capacity to deal, as life happened. 

I listened and applauded their trust in their own processes.

For myself, for perhaps thirty years, I have increasingly been figuring out how to approach planning and contemplations of this , in increments, to slowly desensitize anxiety, and slowly create workable realistic contingencies. 

This works well for me. And without independent or inherited wealth or a great big income, it seems imperative.

Simply because we are culturally awash with those who did not choose to try to plan what they could, or were at wits end to even have more choices.

It’s good to know if you don’t have kids or they won’t be predisposed to care for you much, or ensure you have access to choices that are important to you. 

If they don’t trust you and they don’t respect your preferences, this is good to know. 

To see who else would be willing and able to be your Durable Power of Attorney or executor, even if all you own is an old house and an old car. Or less. 

To know your wishes will be followed and respected is an important thing.

To accept that you might love that dish or that print or those books but they might get dumped after you kick off, so why not really enjoy them now. 

That if you can find homes for things ahead of time and document that, well, how nice.

As I said to a friend just the other day, we may be the only one who prizes our ceramic frog collection or our writings or our ancient tablecloths or our tool collection. So why not relish these things, knowing that this is enough.

It’s the same as learning that there very well might come a time when the only steward left who truly knows the remarkable expertise we developed or our life work... will be us.
And to confidently hold that knowing dear.

The idea of NOT learning to desensitize these things, in our ridiculously death and aging-phobic culture, seems to not portend the best possible experience . And if there’s one thing I would like to work around, it’s being unprepared and surprised big time, at a tough time of life. 

Why have to move at 80, instead of at 65?

Learning how tough things often are as we age gives me this vigor to truly relish my 65 year old strong vital legs ,and gets me carefully and persistently to the gym, to make that effort to really see what I can reach for , and for how long.

3.21.18 On and On

We were walking along the frozen dirt road and I was tossing balls out over the solid rutted fields and they were bouncing high and wide to his great delight and everything else that grieves me or saddens me or tears me or shakes slowly softened into each slow breath of pure fresh air until I smiled and thanked my stars for mindfulness and faith and was swiftly swept into just this moment right here and in this way was filled with the infinite grace of the day.

3.21.18 Red Lives and ice

3.20.18 The Observer Effect

There is this phenomena all species have known since the beginning of time, that, more recently, humans have labeled “ The Observer Effect”. 

If you are someone who is being observed, you are being changed by those who observe you. In our lives, often unbeknownst to us, there are so many ways we are profoundly impacted by those around us.

The interesting thing is, the more present we are, in this very moment, the more capable we are of digesting the thoughts and feelings that therefore come up, via simply being in the present moment, the more resilient and able we are, in the face of harm or influence of others. It just makes sense, but the reality of it is phenomenal.

3.20.18 Ah, The Music of The Spheres

Down by the farmers fields today, it all looked hum drum and normal and ordinary and nothing special. 

Until I looked again, and then truly looked . 
And there it was, the Music of the Spheres. 
Overhead and all over, the singing and swaying. 
Everywhere at home.

3.19.18 And Then He Cried

I had gone to him, to confide. To resurrect some sanity about it all.
I'd finished describing the whole unimaginable complicated agonizing deal, hoping he could manage the profoundly personal nature of the visit, of what I needed from him right now.

Poor guy. He turned  back to me , angry and grief stricken and ashamed.

He stood suddenly , slamming his fists upon the huge business table, til it shook. 
He stood quickly, unable to contain himself, and stormed about the room, tears in eyes. hands on hair.

 Slowly, he calmed down, sat down, took deep breaths. 
These lousy human things are of such an intimate emotional nature. Always.

So I sat, looking out the second floor window, into the early March morning from the beautiful office. Giving him a moment.

And then he said 
‘But I don’t understand how all this went down , how you all stayed intact.’ 

I shook my head. I looked out the window for awhile, again. Gathering myself up.
I said ‘ I don’t know. It's despicable. 

But I feel great about myself. 
I was just doing the best I could, always.
I’m all kinds of imperfect. That's ok. 
I have my integrity.
I’ve done everything I know, to love and love well.
I know I love well.
I've been devoted, and a good and faithful partner and parent and person. 
I don't think I'm even capable of lying, of sneaking around.
Of manipulating for fun and games, and targeting everyone, all of them clueless. They have no idea.

I just was trying to truly love ,and be honest always, to have integrity.
I’ve  messed up and and fessed up and tried hard always. 

I think that’s good enough.

I'm just not certain how my young ones and I 
will avoid being destroyed. by what was really going down. 

And no one, no one actually knows what was the reality, but us.

Because now? The evidence. Left, carelessly strewn all around, like so many dead bodies."

And then he cried.

3.18.18 Tromping About

Only last week we were sunk in snow, tromping about in the cold loveliness.
But all things change, and now it’s frozen dirt March road, wool socks with Birkenstocks. Scarves over the face, yeah. Gloves, of course. But over there on the horizon? The approach of silent Spring.

3.18.18 Can Bruise

A poem of mine , misplaced for 40 years, found now. Go figure.

What was once an image
has faded to the core
And wherein did kneel listlessness
can linger there no more

I have no longing for teeming lips and
words let go in air
Nor silver fingered promises
that stream in my love’s hair

But shall once more find way to embark
upon a mighty cruise
For love and thoughts and listlessness
can bruise, can bruise, can bruise

11.16.78

3.16.18 This Magic Moment

3.16.18 It's The Little Things

3.16.18 Darling

“Darling, I care about the suffering.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, to himself.

3.16.18 Well...?

“Who are you
if you no longer believe
anything is wrong?”

Tara Brach

3.16.18 No We Won't

No, it’s nothing we can conceptualize with our left brain. 
Yes, it’s something we know deeply, when we settle our selves down.

Down down into this moment. This one here. And then this one.

Here we all are. 
Letting go of so much.
In order to fully embrace what is.
On this day we have been given.

3.15.18 through the trees

Down by the farmers fields, the wind blew cold
the afternoon sun sparkling through the trees

3.15.18 Some Kind of Wonderful

Sometimes we discover that, somehow, self-doubt became our default setting, our unthinking go-to, our catch-all self identification, as we wandered in our life. 

By hook or by crook, via uncertain circumstance in youth, or by the deliberate wrong intentions of another we had trusted, there are many accessible ways to arrive there. Doubting our self.
Worse still is the way in which we then go about trumpeting this news, incurring the doubting wrath of those closest to us, a compound fracture. 

Until at some point, often enough after managing valuable self care practices, we begin to wake up and notice the reality we have inadvertently signed on to, perpetuated to ourselves and others.
We begin to wake up to ways in which, in word and in deed, we have been undermining ourselves to our self, to others, unthinkingly and habitually sabotaging as a daily practice. 

Which, of course, fosters anxiety and uncertainty and fear. 

The remedy, of course, is more self care. Which we often resist, as it is the path away from self depreciation and toward self love and self respect and self-trust.

That gorgeous faith grace filled self-reliance we can compassionately learn to live each of our days. All of our lives.

Of course, this requires a choice, made freely and often, to learn to notice when we are engaging in our old hobby of self-depreciation. In what we say in the world, in how we mistakenly act. And in our determined new awareness, find the courage to about face and instead proceed with awareness and self respect. 

And in that glorious inimitable way life offers, we have the chance to blamelessly shamelessly climb out and up. 

Back into that which is true, which, being true, holds promise of so much.

3.15.18 The Freeing of Our Essential Self

Self-doubt and self-recrimination exist in direct proportion 

to the volume of unacknowledged unaccepted unwitnessed 

emotions and experiences we hold, imprisoned, within us. 

As we learn to greet the day and welcome with mindfulness 

a few thoughts and feelings that rise up into our awareness,

 and be with them, without thinking, feeling them , 

we begin learning to identify each as "THAT is a feeling" 

or "THAT is a thought".

We begin to be inclusive of our entirety. 

We begin to whittle down the backlog of 

stuffed and discomfited and stored tough stuff 

we knew not what to do with. 

We begin to compost it all down, 

transforming it from the distress we turn away from, 

to that which we lovingly pull close, toward our essential self.

3.14.18 Huh. Narcissists. Psychopaths.

Huh. “Since [narcissists, psychopaths] ,deep down, feel themselves to be faultless,
 it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world 
they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. 

Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. 

They project their own evil onto the world. 
They never think of themselves as evil;
on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others."

M. Scott Peck

Addendum: And yet, don't forget, you can tell how aware they in fact are
by how they know what to hide.

3.14.18 No matter

Down by the farmers fields the hawks were pairing up, two by two. 
The buds on trees were growing, no matter how many northeasters sweeping through. 
So up we got and on we went, down to the stark quiet beauty of the riverside. 
Where both dogs romped and wandered and hunted, 
and our hearts filled with that which is true.

3.13.18 Hit the air

Sometimes talking about something
is necessary
To kill its power
To let the truth hit the air

3.13.18 Learning to just say Yes

And so , each day, we learn to say Yes, to this too. 
This part of the river of our experience.
We turn toward this thought or this feeling, 
that moment or comment or circumstance or choice. 
With patience and with tender compassion. 
Letting our love sink beneath the tumulus waves of today, 
down down to the momentous old depths.
As Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say to himself,
‘Darling, I am here with you, in this.’

3.13.18 Home home on the range

3.13.18 Know you are true

Be soothed, when you wake
honest and loving and true
Know you reside in your own fine life
of your own making
As you breach the edge of the winter field
the cusp of the spring season
the true song of your summer soul

3.13.18 I swayed my leaves

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,
Now may I wither into the truth.
— William Butler Yeats

3.12.18 Still

Even in the freezing rain, 
the pricking winter winds or on the face-stinging walks, 
still, outside, we are happy as a pig in mud.