At this stage of my life, as a maturing adult woman, as a Scorpio, as one who is constantly transforming, I have arrived at that wonderful time of letting go of past ways: living for myself, my way, more fully and deeply than ever.

It has been a lot of work to get here.

At the same time, it has been no work at all, for I am merely on the slide, the river, the roller coaster of life; I am taking the ride. I am riding it. Life is riding me. It’s happening. I can´t stop this progression and although scary and sobering, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Newly 60 years of age, I have waited to arrive at this moment of freedom and release, of falling forward into the soft wide blossom of  my life and Myself.

There is no going back. That’s over. Now, to live to the best of my ability and truly, my imagination, guided by heart and spirit.

My life is my dream. As I dream my life, so it is.
 
And you, yours.
 
So, in the language of dreams,
But applied to life during waking hours,
Here is my story.

My Dream
A month ago I decided to hike up to my special place. It had been several weeks since I’d visited it, since I’d fallen in a hole on another solo hike and torqued my hip. That is another story.

I headed up and the ground was wet with last night's rain, but not slippery. Overgrown, but passible. Then after one turn and climb I looked up and - where was the path? Had I been daydreaming and took the wrong way? I stood still looking all around me for a good while. 

I have realized I am a saver. Frugality gone haywire.
 
Sometimes I have dreams in which I want to go somewhere but I don’t believe I have, or am not willing to invest what is required in order to get there. 

The other night I had one of those dreams again. I woke up with inner disturbance.

In the dream, I was ready to go back to school, only it was a journey to get there. I didn’t have my own transportation. I was trying to figure out how I would get there. I remembered the school bus from when I was in high school, but I didn’t know if that was feasible. Riding my bike was doable but would be a lot of energy and time. School was a distance away; in order to arrive in time, I’d have to leave very early and I might arrive late or not even make it. I was asking some people if they’d drive me – I was depending on others to get me to where it was time for me to go, and they weren’t offering.

I'm finally accepting my inner HSC.
​
I’m doing a lot of inner child work these days, and it’s great. Finally, I’m able to give space to all there is “in there,” – my wounded, scared, angry, little me, still in the emotional torment and confusion of the deep past.
 
Inner work is not new to me, and I’ve tried to “deal with her” for decades, but honestly, I haven’t known how. I’ve swerved from resenting her neediness to letting her take over my life. I’ve felt resentful at how her restrictions get in my way of a “normal” life – that is – my unconscious mission to prove myself “normal” to others.

I was recently asked this question: How do you live a simple and secure life? The question startled me as the two "S" words bumped into one another uncomfortably. My first response was:

Define secure!

With more time in our bodies (some call this "aging"), on the earth, and particularly during these strange times of restriction, our need to establish sound habits and safe outlets for our health and well-being are amplified.

Here is my list of seven daily steps you can take to stay healthy.

Everything has its time, but when? Sometimes endings simply happen and we have no control over them.
 
But sometimes the time to accept, permit, let go and surrender is up to us. The challenge is how to know when and then how to release as gracefully as possible. 
 
Of course, many times we let go because we must. For the sanity or health of ourselves or another, or because there literally is no other choice.

Did you ever consider that you could beautify your home while attracting what you value, appreciate and desire? 

Our homes, the spaces we inhabit and which hold and protect us, have the capacity to also be sacred energy portals for our dreams and intentions. 

Altars and Home Decoration
 
For me, altars are part of how I decorate my home.

At the same time, altars  honor, proclaim, and remind me of who I am and what I love.

My altars also serve to organize and categorize my various interests and values.

Practical yet powerful and yes, magical.  Doesn't that sound easy and fun?

​How exactly do altars make your living environment a personalized projection of and magnet for what you appreciate, value and desire? 

What is selfishness?

Paying attention to yourself at the exclusion of others?
 
Others may balk, argue with or judge your new behavior, if they’re accustomed to being the focus of your loving attention and care.
 
It may feel to them and to you cruel and drastic – but is it? Or is it just a shift in how you use and direct your precious life force energy?

Let's get right to it, shall we?

At this moment, I’m receiving a priceless gift: the forgiveness, acceptance and redemption that came to my foremothers in the full bloom of their sixties is arriving at my doorstep. I see the ancestors, the women of my lineage and soul community walking en masse, bringing message and meaning.

​Each step heavy with the solidity of woman, of earth, of love.

I’m making them some campfire hot chocolate right now, in welcome.
 
While it heats up let me tell you a little story...

I didn't know I'd be experiencing a new level of self-love when ​the other morning I felt led to walk to a place I treasure but don’t often go to. First, I don't go often because it’s so close and too easy and short a hike. Second, I haven't been going because right now with the rains, the river has been flowing and uncrossable (unless barefoot).
 
But I felt called, so I went.
 
I found myself walking slower than normal, which means more mindfully – which to me is a good thing. 
 
Despite having had months and even years here in Latin America to simply sit and be, and even though I have done a lot of that, I still tend to be in my head, racing along both mentally and physically, thus missing out on experiencing the moment directly and consciously.
 
So, walking slower and seeing more on this morning, was a wonder.
 
The path was clear, the foliage in its full greenness. I felt, as I have almost every time I’ve gone walking out on the mountain trails these past 13 years in Mexico, that I was on a new path, one I had never been on before, although that was far from the truth.

Do you ever look in the mirror and say, “What?? When did I start looking like an older woman? Shit!”
 
It happens to me periodically. More and more.
 
I recognize less and less the person I see reflected. What to do about those new gray hairs?

Have you noticed new ones appear suddenly and then seem to fade away, until the next wave?
 
I attach meaning to every influx of silver streaks. I see them as evidence of recent struggle or of triumph.  Two sides of the same coin.
 
The Price and the Gift of Time
 
I feel I earn each gray hair. I treasure them as trophies, little gifts and reminders from Time.  That yes, life is passing, and while my time on earth is shortening, I am learning and the tradeoff–is so worthwhile. 

Yes's and No's
​When I was growing up, we didn’t talk about feelings in my family. It was as if they didn’t exist – except for happiness and maybe a little sadness.
 ​
When my mom reached midlife, however, I could tell something was brewing. She seemed more angry and less tolerant–in a good way. Good because these hot emotions weren’t directed toward her daughters, and good because she shared some of them with us. And mostly good because midlife was leading her to set limits, consider her wants and needs at the risk

Following your heart. It’s the second invitation in the subtitle of my memoir. 

​How did “Following Your Heart,” earn its prominent place?

What’s so important about following our heart?

More important: Why is it so hard to do? What gets in the way?

One piece is, as we grow up and move through the ranks of formal education, we are trained 

​I’m a busy bee these days, getting everything ready for the imminent launch of my memoir, Calling Myself Home: Living Simply, Following Your Heart, and What Happens When You Jump, and associated courses and gifts.
 
This has been a long time in coming, perhaps my whole life, to arrive at this juncture of readiness and knowing. It is time to share with the world what I have learned and gained living in a traditional mountain village in Mexico these past thirteen years.

I had decided to take the gems I’ve received through journaling over the last four plus decades, and use them to benefit other seekers of a truly fulfilling life.  What sprouted up was an Intentional Living journaling (+ creative projects + community building support calls + much more) course all about Happiness. Not theoretical happiness. Experiential happiness.
 
Why Happiness?
I chose the topic “Happiness” because it seemed a cheerful way to begin the process of delving into who we are and what we need to actually live our ideal life. 
 
Why is that so difficult to do, in the first place? Wouldn’t it seem that happiness is so easy and obvious to recognize, follow and live?

It wasn’t that way for me. 

I was filled with grief this morning. It hit me: what kind of times are we living in?
 
I had just come back from town and the market where I “stocked up,” upon recommendation of a friend from my village. I’d run into her in the zócalo and she told me the sobering news that on Monday our tiendas are going to be closed. I have felt quite fortunate to live where I do during this time. If the local stores close, that brings the Coronavirus scare even closer to home than it already is.
 
I returned home and sprayed my keys, coins, backpack and shopping bag with the lavender disinfectant I’d made. Next order of business: I took off the clothes that had perhaps touched someone on the combi or brushed against a shopper or vender in the market – and hung them on the line in the sun. Then I set to disinfecting the produce I’d purchased. This time, not just to kill any bacteria from water the fruits and vegetable might have been sprayed with. At the top of my mind was that surely the venders had touched the fruit or greens and who knows if they might have it? In batches, I let the produce soak in the tub I use for that. Fortunately, the mountain spring water that comes via garden hose was trickling sufficiently today to at least disinfect my food. Washing clothes would have to wait.

When I was little I remember hearing my mom share that the rationale she learned from her mother about changing her underwear daily was to avoid the horror of being in an accident and the hospital or ambulance people seeing that you had dirty underwear. That was my grandma: behaviors were taught, motivated and performed based on what others would think. 
 
Despite my rebelliousness about doing things because of what others would think, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that some mornings I look at yesterday’s underwear, cock my head and consider, “Could I wear these again today?” I feel I have a little more permission to do this knowing  my older sisters used to reuse hers Inside-out when she was in college and responsible for doing her own laundry for the first time.
 
I do my own laundry by hand outside where the mountain spring water arrives via garden hose. But sometimes it doesn’t come, or the weather is too wet and the pile accumulates. It is on those rare occasions that I might (grimace) turn a pair inside out and use them, praying I don’t get in an accident so everyone would see the seams on the outside and know. Though here in my mountain village in Mexico I don’t think people would judge or even notice that!

Today while walking I used vision as a present moment practice. The morning was crystalline with colors bright and clean after last night’s rain.
 
I allowed myself to and inclined towards seeing what was before me. Several times I stopped and simply looked all around. The swirling high clouds in the rich blue sky. The deep natural carvings in the mountains. The reddish earthen path. New houses being built. A white dog with short bristly fur and a brown patch mark over one eye who came to greet me.
 
As I turned onto the path that would return me to the main road I felt myself moved and opening with appreciation for the beauty and goodness of my environment, my life: having the time and flexibility to take a morning walk, the strength and coordination to walk where and how I please, pain-free, the mildly cool breeze caressing my arms and nourishing me, nice clothes and good shoes.

Yesterday, sitting amongst an intimate group of women in their thirties, one of my   students asked me, “Does life keep getting better?” I closed my eyes and paused, searching within for my true experience. The women groaned, interpreting my silence as, “Uh oh, bad news.” I explained to them that the question is a profound one, and that I needed time to locate my response.
 
After my students left and over the next several hours, I found myself continually returning to the question. First, it was interesting to me that already their experience was one of improvement every year of their lives. Did I view my life that way?

A good starting question for me was, “Define better.” I have spent my adolescent and adult life in search of understanding and experiences that are healing and transformative. “What would need to have happened or be happening in order for me to feel my life is getting better with time and these efforts?” I asked myself. I’d need to feel an overall lightening, more joy, ease, sense of freedom. Gladness to be here on the earth in my body with my personality and essence. 

Does anybody else’s life seem as ironic as I perceive mine?
 
A workshop is offered for female empowerment at a great price and at a place I love. There is nothing I want more now than to be the empowered Me. I’ve been sick for two weeks. I can see all the reasons why I “should” go. And when I imagine it, I feel tired and that it will be a drain on my energy. Do I choose to push and do what I think I “should” again? Draining my life force energy even more and once again? It is the way I’ve always done things. Push and try to be “good” and “right”. My credence has been: Have no limits. 
 
Or I could say “No,” and stay home and recuperate and be gentle with myself, maybe a small quiet walk with a friend. That feels like a relief.
 
The irony for me is that I have an idea of what I “should” do to become Empowered Me. And maybe it isn’t really so. Maybe the empowered me says, “No thank you,” and trusts myself and my body and what feels gentler and kinder, “even though”. Maybe this idea of doing what I should, this doing at all, is part of that patriarchal value inside of me around doing-equals-success. What if the empowered thing is to listen to myself, stay home recuperating and nourishing myself. No matter what anyone else thinks or says. That is the empowerment I do want.