Clear a decent shelter

You must be able to bear your sorrow; even if it seems to crush you, you will be able to stand up again, for human beings are so strong, and your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself, part of your body and your soul, you mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.... Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.

But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge--from which new sorrows will be born for others--then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply. And if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich. So beautiful and so rich that it makes you want to believe in God.

Source: Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

via

The Butterfly Circus

20 minutes & a box of kleenex. You won't be sorry. Beautiful.



Thank you Matt!

Every pull

From the urgent way lovers want each other
to the seeker's search for truth,
all moving is from the mover.
Every pull draws us to the ocean.

-Rumi

A House Blessing

My house blessing from Kel (I love it SO much! Thank you Kellie!)

May you listen to your longing to be free

May the frames of your belonging be large enough for the dreams of your soul

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering to your heart that something good is going to happen to you

May you find harmony between your soul and your life

May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place

May you know the eternal longing that is at the heart of time

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within

May you never place walls between the light and yourself

May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment and despair

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you and embrace you in belonging

~John O’Donohue

Bay of Fundy - Wonder of the World

UPDATE #2 - Vote My Fundy.com

UPDATE: Vote here for the Bay of Fundy

Did you know that more water passes through the Bay of Fundy in ONE DAY than goes over Niagara Falls in a year? Niagara Falls powers much of the eastern seaboard & Ontario - can you imagine if the tides could be harnessed (with total respect to habitat)? Natural energy just waiting to be resourced.

Living here in New Brunswick, 3 blocks from a river that is a tidal estuary we see the affect of the tides here two times a day. It's magnificent. 20-30' in 12 hours - two times a day, every day.

I just found out that the Bay of Fundy is in the running (again) to be listed as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World! You don't have to be from Canada to vote, so show your support and take a look at all of the places you need to add to your travel dreams. You really need to see this place at least once in your life. It's like nothing else in the world.

Here's the update email I got from my friend Jude at Culture Pass:

The Bay of Fundy is back on the international stage in the New7Wonders of Nature contest. In an unprecedented turn of events the Bay of Fundy, which placed 2nd in the first phase of the contest that concluded January 7, 2009 is now representing Canada!

The New7Wonders of Nature organization, based in Brussels, reinstated the Bay of Fundy this week. "We can confirm that Dinosaur Provincial Park did not meet the Phase II participation requirements" said Tia Viering of the New7Wonders. "Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we announce that the Bay of Fundy is now officially Canada's national representative.”

“As 2008 came to a close, we knew we were in an extremely close race to represent Canada in this phase of the contest,” said Terri McCulloch, Manager Bay of Fundy Tourism. “We were honored by the incredible number of votes the Bay of Fundy received in the first round of the contest. We are very passionate about the Bay of Fundy and believe it is truly a beautiful wonder of nature. We are privileged to represent Canada and we hope everyone will be as enthusiastic again and vote for the Bay of Fundy. We only have until July 7th to get as many votes as we can for this next stage of the contest.”

The Bay of Fundy is best known for the highest tides in the world and has been compared, in marine biodiversity, to the Amazon Rainforest. The Bay is the summer feeding area for half the world's population of endangered North Atlantic Right whales and 12 other whale species. It is home to the world's most complete fossil record of the "Coal Age” (300 million years ago) as well as the world’s oldest reptiles and Canada’s oldest dinosaurs. UNESCO recently recognized the upper Bay of Fundy as a Biosphere Reserve and Joggins Fossil Cliffs as a World Heritage Site.

Go online to vote to place a vote before July 7, 2009, when the top 77 international sites will be short listed. Between July 7 and 21, an independent committee will select the top 21 to continue into the fourth and final stage of the campaign. These top 21 sites will also be part of a 2010 New7Wonders world tour bringing tremendous international attention to the selected sites. Phase four is the last voting component of the New7Wonders of Nature campaign until the final announcement is made on who has been selected the New7Wonders of Nature.

“We only have a few weeks left in this phase of the contest so every vote is important and interested voters can go to Votemyfundy.com. We are really excited to be back in the running and we hope we can succeed in getting Canada’s Bay of Fundy into the next international phase of the campaign,” said Terri McCulloch. (Sending with thanks to Maureen for forwarding from Terry.)

Vote, vote, vote!!

The Lower Deep

"...every action admits of being outdone
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn;
that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning;
that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon,
and under every deep a lower deep opens."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

I took this picture while on the beaches in Oregon, Summer 2007

Susan Boyle - The Beauty that Matters

(image credit)

Just in case you've been hiding under a rock you need to watch this, it can't be embedded here by request of the show but trust me follow the link - it is a gift. The blossoming of a rose:

Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent

Here's a bit of history:

But then ridicule is nothing new in Susan Boyle's life. She is a veteran of abuse. She was starved of oxygen at birth and has learning difficulties as a result. At school she was slow and had frizzy hair. She was bullied, mostly verbally. She told one newspaper that her classmates' jibes left behind the kind of scars that don't heal.

She didn't have boyfriends, is a stranger to romance and has never been kissed. "Shame," she said. Singing was her life-raft.

She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her mother and sang in the church choir.

It was an unglamorous existence. She wasn't the glamorous type - and being a carer isn't a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who do that most valuable of jobs will testify. Even those who start out with a beauty routine and an interest in clothes find themselves reverting to the practicality of a tracksuit and trainers. Fitness plans get interrupted and then abandoned. Weight creeps on. Carers don't often get invited to sparkling dinner parties or glitzy receptions, so smart clothes rarely make it off the hanger.

...

Susan Boyle's mother encouraged her to sing. She wanted her to enter Britain's Got Talent. But the shy Susan hasn't been able to sing at all since her mother's death two years ago. She wasn't sure how her voice would emerge after so long a silence. Happily, it survived its rest.

and now read the whole article here:

The Beauty That Matters

God please keep her from being preyed upon by greedy, heartless souls.

Thanks to Wes for the article in my mailbox this morning!

I want you Art!!

thank you andrea!

Crack....crack...crack...

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.

Source: Muriel Rukeyser,From Cries of the Spirit, edited by Marilyn Sewell

via inward/outward

Surrendering her green

Slowly she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green,
then the orange, yellow, and red
finally she let go of her brown.
Shedding her last leaf
she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky
she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf
she watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
wearing the color of emptiness,
her branches wondering;
How do you give shade with so much gone?

And then,
the sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.
Clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that
her vulnerability,
her dependence and need,
her emptiness,
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening they stood in silence
and celebrated together
the sacrament of waiting.

Macrina Wiederkehr

via inward/outward

Story People Ornaments!!!!

Oh my, such joy - look at these beautiful works of art!

They just arrived in my inbox and I had to share them with you. This email came along to explain them:

We don't know about you, but now that the election is over, we can't wait for the world to be fun again. For a long while there, the only thing that came to mind was that we were a little like pinatas at a party of politicians & all of them had way too much sugar.

We thought it was just our problem, since we have a high fun requirement. Now it looks like a lot of people had the same trouble. But, just to be sure, we took a quick poll & here's the result: almost a hundred percent of everybody we talked to is looking at the pinata stuff on the floor & thinking it needs a whole lot of cleaning up, but at least we're finally going to do it together.

We think it's a perfect time to fire up some magic to send us on our way...

You know how magic works. You sit down, think gentle thoughts & ask the universe. Then you listen for the answers.

We didn't have long to wait.

Completely out of the blue, we got a call from Lynne Suprock. Who happens to be an artist from Pennsylvania & a maker of delicate & lovely jewelry. It seems that Lynne had been stirring a little of Brian's art work into her handmade jewelry. After watching her for a few months, her friend Carol just about stood over her until she gave us a call. She told us what she'd been cooking up - part StoryPeople print in miniature, part suncatcher, part jewelry & part holiday ornament. It was magic of the highest order...

We know that when you see them you'll be so delighted you'll most likely want to have your very own. (We know because that's just what happened to us when we saw them..)

Now, the only problem is that Lynne makes each one by hand, so she can get the balance of sparkle & light & magic just right.

So, we calculated how much sleep & personal time Lynne needs between now & the holidays in order to make all the ornaments you might want. We wrote it down on a tiny slip of paper & folded it & slid it across the table to her. She took one look & laughed & said she hasn't had that much free time since she was eight. So, we came up with a new plan. Lynne says you can order all the ornaments you want for the next three weeks & she promises she'll get them to you in time for the holidays. How's that for the universe being on your side?

If you're ready to let the magic back into your world, now's the time. You've got three weeks, so don't wait. (OK. Wait a minute. That's not completely true. We hope you know that you can let in magic any time you want. You only get three weeks for this particular bit of magic... :-)) These hand-made ornaments are available to order for the next three weeks (through Thankgiving Day, Nov. 27th to be precise), so get them while you can!

I <3 the StoryPeople. Wish Iowa was that cool when I lived there!

Place your order here: StoryPeople Ornaments

The Old Sow

As part of the masters program I am participating in we are in the middle of intensive classes right now. One of them is a spiritual direction class taught by my friend Lorna. She is leading us through some Ignatian prayer exercises and we began the class by recalling a memory that happened while we were preparing for this module.

Because I live local to the university I got to play this past weekend instead of having to worry about packing and traveling like so many of my fellow students. On Saturday my family and friends joined a tour of the Passamaquoddy Bay to see the whales, seals and local sites. It was a joy to introduce our kids to the 60' fin whale just feet from our boat and see the joy on their faces as they connected with such beauty.

My favorite part of the trip was after that though when our boat found The Old Sow whirlpool. The thing about the Old Sow is that you have to be at the right place at the right time, and we were. It was a moon tide, and we were there at high tide and it was like being a potato in a big boiling pot of stew. Our boat sat atop the swirling, churning water, surrounded by the chaos. The convergence of the bays meeting the ocean while the tide changes churns up the water unlike any other place in the world. It felt somehow prepared by God. I knew it was special. I didn't know why, but it's promise stayed with me and I knew that it's richness would pull forward and unpack itself in a profound and powerful way.

This was the memory I recalled in Lorna's class. I don't know why I chose it, or rather why it chose me, but I spoke of it there and have been chewing on it since.

For those of you who know me personally you may know that I struggle with food addiction and body image. You also know that I love a good metaphor like little else in the world. I figured these things were somehow tied together but I couldn't really noodle them out. I have thought about it during any moment of free time I have found these past couple of days.

The first thing I began to think about was the name "The Old Sow". As a large woman I am very sensitive to animal names used in conjunction with fat people - cow, pig, whale. Sow is a word deep with cruelty in my language memories and I tried to think of all of the reasons that it might have been used to name this geographical phenomenon.

We used to live next to a pig farm for a season and I am very familiar with the vivid sight, smell, violence and noise an "old sow" brings to mind. Very little of it was positive. I began to sit with the emotion that word brought to my mind. My body has been feeling so old to me lately. I look at my hands and feet and see the skin's elasticity is retreating and I am left in my weight loss with more wrinkles and less beauty. I catch my image in the mirror when changing and understand it's not just my hands and feet that are showing their age. I begin to connect with these words on a cellular level. Old Sow. I breathe. I know. I feel my age and my body around me.

Much of the scars my body bears come from birthing my beautiful children. Nursing them to life and growth. Kind of like that old sow. She has been faithful to her vocation. She has given herself well to her place in life. She has fulfilled the call on her life well. Birth. Nutrients. Protection.

And then I remembered the wildlife we saw at the whirlpool. This place was one of the richest places on earth for the whales, birds, seals and porpoises we saw surrounding us. That Old Sow was feeding everyone. Life was continuing to churn and grow because of that Old Sow. This fertile place was continually a place of life, a place of bounty.

I remember back to a word that was spoken to me before we moved here. I called a friend who had been dear to me and was mentoring me in our last church with excitement to tell her of our decision to move here. She said "Oh Heidi, you don't want to move to New Brunswick. New Brunswick is barren."

That word hung around my neck for months. You see I had 9 years of infertility, an infertile woman understands barren. I have lived through barren years and greatly feared more. I remember finally mustering the courage to talk about this one day and it was then that I decided then to give that word back.

New Brunswick has been the richest, most fertile place we have ever lived. I am constantly amazed at the depth of soul, the beauty that surrounds us and the abundance of riches we have received since we have lived here. The Old Sow reminded me again of THIS place. This place where my feet walk, where I am placing down roots. It is life giving. Is sustaining. Is nurturing and mothering to me.

The Old Sow speaks of the feminine to me. The mothering and grandmothering that I have so longed for in my life. The place where so many things converge, join and journey on, just like that place in the water.

This place, this person, this body, this soul - rich, fertile, life giving, bountiful, abundant, feminine, maturing, deep, changing and faithful.

This is the place I will feed and feed others.

Great Losers

I have a confession. I am a scavenger.

I just can't seem to walk past a smidgen of interesting brokenness or discarded story. I am so moved by outsider and found art because deep in my heart I long to be a mosaic artist. I have not yet begun to piece together those precious bits and fragments pocketed along my journey.

As Keith and I were walking to church Sunday he bent to pick up a bright piece of turquoise "glass" at the curb. I exclaimed "Don't! It's not glass, it's a discarded cough drop! I only know because I picked it up yesterday and it was sticky..."

Redemption resides deeply in both of us.

We spend hours at the shore with our noses down hoping to find precious bits of pottery or beach glass worn smooth by sand and waves. All the diamonds in the world don't mean as much to me as a tiny little shard of blue and white pottery or a heart shaped rock found by a loved one.

That is why this quote touched me so deeply. I long to be the kind of friend who gathers great treasure and wisdom by carefully listening and fixing those pieces in my heart.

Fragments scavenged from Bob at The Corner:

Every hour’s talk we have with a friend leaves fragments that we ought to gather up and keep to feed our heart’s hunger or the hunger of others’ hearts, as we go on. When we hear good words spoken or read a good book, we should gather up the fragments of knowledge, the suggestions of helpful thoughts, the broken pieces, and fix them in our hearts for use in our lives. We allow large values of the good things we hear or read to turn to waste continually because we are poor listeners or do not try to keep what we hear. We let the broken pieces be lost and thereby are great losers. If only we would gather up and keep all the good things that come to us through conversations and through reading, we would soon have great treasures of knowledge and wisdom.

J.R. Russell, The Book of Comfort

Andrew Johnson

Why do bullies seek to silence such beauty?

This is not the last you will see of this beautiful boy.


HT to Mike Todd

Too beautiful to be a commercial!

via jim hancock

Freedback: Unilever - Update

Dear Unilever Brands,

I want to take this time to thank you for all of the work you are doing through Dove brands and beauty awareness. This campaign is life giving beautiful work. I want my daughter to grow up knowing the things that the Dove Beauty campaign is teaching the Western world.

I stood at the pharmacy today to spin the bottle of AXE body spray in my hand because for the past couple of days I have seen some of THE most offensive commercials I've ever been exposed to for the young male teen body spray. I was crestfallen to see that YOUR VERY SAME COMPANY was the maker and purveyor of this backward, obscene trash. Young girls stripped to their underwear in public buses and grocery stores. "HOW CAN THIS BE THE SAME COMPANY BUILDING UP MY DAUGHTER" I ask myself. I am sickened by your divisive messages. How is my 12 year old daughter supposed to understand this, or my 10 year old son? Stunning young women stripped from their clothing so they can be ogled by some scent-spraying predator? Is this truly the message you want to send?

Women reduced to body parts in one ad, followed by another that tells them the exact opposite. Shame on you. It's pandering. It makes me wonder if you really mean what you say in the Dove commercials or if it's just a marketing tool used to woo the money from the pockets of women? I cannot stomach such hypocrisy. I have never held major corporations in high esteem. I know you are profit driven - but this Dove campaign won me over. I really believed you. I am so disappointed.

Friends - if you are as frustrated as I am with this mixed message please blog on this and then follow this link and tell Unilever about it. Leave me a comment and I'll add the link to your blog post here, consider this a meme, and I've tagged you all.

I am really considering a major switch away from any and all product lines they manufacture and promote. I am not a boycotter at heart, but this really saddens me.

CONTACT UNILEVER HERE

I will also post any response I receive from Unilever here.

These are the brands I have in my home at this very moment made by Unilever:
Bertolli, Dove, Hellman's, Wishbone, Knorr, Lipton, Sunlight & Vaseline... that's quite a loss of shopping revenue.

Here's the response I've gotten from Unilever UK:

Hi Heidi,

Thanks so much for writing!


Unilever is a large, global company with many brands in its portfolio. Each brand's efforts are tailored to reflect the unique interests and needs of its audience. As a manufacturer we feel it is a major responsibility to provide our friends and consumers with the most creative and informative means of advertising possible.

In developing product messages, Unilever and its agencies may not always anticipate all possible implications of an advertisement or television commercial. It is never our intent to offend anyone.

Consumer comments are very important and evaluated on a regular basis. Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate staff within the company.

Chris Green
Unilever Consumer Services

Response from Dove Canada

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with us. I'm sure you can appreciate that as individual brands, and as a company, Unilever takes its marketing responsibilities very seriously.

We have a wide portfolio of everyday consumer brands across both foods and home and personal care - offering products to consumers that address different needs. Each of our brands talks to its target consumers in a way that is relevant and that communicates its own unique proposition.

What unites all the products in the Unilever portfolio is our Vitality mission, which seeks to promote products that help our consumers look good, feel good, and get more out of life.

Unilever is a large, global company with many brands in its portfolio. Each brand's efforts are tailored to reflect the unique interests and needs of its audience. "The Dove brand is dedicated to making more women feel beautiful everyday by widening today's stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves. "As part of this commitment, the brand created the Dove Self Esteem Fund to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty. The brand is dedicated to reach 5 million girls by 2010 with self-esteem programming. (in addition to the million girls they have reached thus far)

The Axe campaign is a spoof, of "the mating game" and men's desire to get noticed by women and not meant to be taken literally. "This campaign is targeting guys 18-24. Axe regularly tests its campaign with men and women who have shared that they see these ads as clever and funny .

Consumer comments are very important and evaluated on a regular basis. Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate staff within the company.

Chris Green
Dove Consumer Services

I guess they don't have any problem at all with their mixed messages... sigh.

New office color palette?

Keith has insulated the back room and it's ready for drywall next week - so I've been contemplating the color palette for my NEW OFFICE! The floor is wood, but nasty, so I'm going to paint it chocolate brown - I think I'm going to do the walls in this ice blue. Anyone know the emotional mojo ice blue gives off? Creative? Or cold? Sleep or energy?

Suggestions? I can't wait to have this space to write and be creative in!

A new twist on an old item

Aren't these brilliant? Looks like a gate, it's really a radiator!

You can see more of her designs here: Lucy Merchant

Moonstruck

I thought finally I had found something beautiful (and round) that I could afford - but I guess Austrian art lamps run big money these days!

Isn't this beautiful? By using a clear light bulb in the orb you can scatter the patterns over your walls. Opaque bulbs change to just enjoying the design on the lamp.

Moonstruck indeed!

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