Love Today and Every Day

by Cara Blog / Presence & Appreciation

It’s Valentine’s Day in the US, a holiday to celebrate love. Yet, as with most things American, it has become so commercialized that for many it’s a holiday of anxiety and angst. For some it’s a reminder of what’s missing in their lives, for others it’s a test to prove how much you love your mate based on what you buy.

Fortunately, Valentine’s Day is not a huge deal in our house. We usually celebrate quietly and simply at home. My husband usually gets me a card and roses (from the grocery store where they are just as beautiful and more reasonably priced than the florist). I usually get him cologne. We usually figure out what we’re having for dinner when we get home that night and it’s not anything fancy.

Today, however, my husband spent the day in bed. Alone. Sick and miserable, body aching and head pounding. We spent the dinner hour at the urgent care facility finding out that he has bronchitis.We had cold carry-out food when we got home. He didn’t get to the store to buy flowers or a card as he had planned, and the cologne I ordered last week hadn’t arrived by today.

Still, it was a day of celebrating love, just like every other day. That’s what I’m appreciating about Valentine’s Day this year – the recognition that love is so abundant in my life on a daily basis. I had an incredible day at work with wonderful, positive, appreciative people; a stimulating, creative, juices-flowing work session with my Cool Blue Souls colleague Rus Vanwestervelt. When I came home, my older son was tutoring his younger brother Liam and putting the finishing touches on a brand-spanking-new super-fast computer he built for me. The staff at the urgent care was friendly and the waiting room was empty when we got there. My husband was too sick to feed the horses, so Liam cheerfully helped me do it after dinner and lingered to pet the pony and enjoy the mild weather. Love was everywhere and in everything that happened today.

We don’t need flowers, chocolate, or cologne to celebrate love. Love is compassion, kindness, and affection in small, simple moments every day. Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is “to be delighted by the happiness of another.” I wish you happiness and love, on Valentine’s Day and every day.

Tree Meditation

by Cara Blog / Presence & Appreciation / Spirituality

I walk through the forest almost daily, a meditative ritual. When I am fully aligned and centered with my soul, I can feel the energy of the trees. Sometimes, I stop to lay my hands on the bark, closing my eyes to focus on the sensation in my hands, visualizing the vibrations, hearing the hum of the tree singing to me. When I stand there, I can believe that the trees are all watching me, waiting to see if I can understand them like that girl in Narnia, but I can’t. Still, I know they are speaking to each other, and the birds, and the forest animals, and the wind. So I stand there, touching the bark, eyes closed, listening from my soul.

(This post is a response to Journal Prompt for Week 3 of A Year With Myself.)

Reclaiming the Goddess Within

by Cara Blog / Spirituality / Writing

Attribution Unknown

Twenty years ago, as an undergrad English major and aspiring writer, I wore all black and hung out with other writers in libraries or deli’s before there were coffee shops. I took courses in comparative literature, Joseph Campbell’s mythology and goddess religions. We studied In the Wake of the Goddess, The Chalice and the Blade, When God Was a Woman. For one of my course projects, I created a quilt of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as a goddess, the trunk a shapely female figure, branches and leaves extending from her arms. I was a divorced mother on welfare, going to school on a Pell grant, but it was one of the best times of my life. I was embraced by a tribe of intellectual goddesses, both professors and fellow students, all standing in our power, fully ablaze with passion and life energy.

I’ve drifted from that passion and goddess power over the years. It was a gradual process, baby steps toward conformity, maturity, expectations, success. Losing my balance. Evolving in the wrong direction.

Through it all, the goddess fire was dormant, waiting. Now she is emerging, light bursting insistently into my life. I embrace the balance of her fiery passion with worldly wisdom. I’m inspired by her again, enthusiastic and fully aligned in my power to stand with her and face the world.

(This article is a response to prompt #2 at A Year With Myself, a year-long journey of self-exploration. Join us!)