Forward Movement!

I have been feeling a little stuck lately. I have still been having the focusing problem I talked about earlier. I have so many projects going on but realize that I really need to get some done. I needed to get out a query letter to a publisher that we recently found for the kids book that I wrote and my friend Christia illustrated. I have written a couple but I don't like them. I am finally almost finished with one that I actually like. Ugh! Then I have to finish up another book I have been working on. Then I need to figure out what I want to sell at the etsy shop Christia and I are going to do. Then studying for a big test to switch my acupuncture certification and on and on and on. Oh and my shamanic studies and my food cooking. Yeah so a lot of stuff. I jsut have a really great feeling that all these things are leading me in an amazing direction!! Ok well, enough blogging and on to one of my other 19 zillion projects.

I don't know where to start.

I am feeling many internal shifts lately. I spent a weekend doing "shaman stuff". It was amazing and life changing. On Sunday afternoon, after it all I had to go to the grocery store. It felt so weird to be inside and to not have a rattle in my hand. I like that about my life. It feels weird to not be in ceremony or ritual.

Weekends like that often lead me rather at a loss for words though. This is tough when trying to finish a couple of writing projects, write a blog and deal with acupuncture patients that are very mainstream. I can't wait to be somewhere way less mainstream. I will truly be able to appreciate it!

This weekend I had more shamanic rites given to me. I had tears streaming down my cheeks for most of it. One of them was to connect our minds to our hearts so we are always leading with our hearts. I think that is so powerful and I can feel that seed rooting in me so deeply.

There are seeds taking root inside of me. I don't know exactly what they are but I do know that they have to do with me working more with shamanism and food. I also know that they involve me bringing and allowing more love into my life than I ever knew was possible. I wish that for all of you too! Love, Sara

Wimpy dogs and other thoughts.

I have really been feeling like going camping lately. I have been having a hard time making myself take the time out and wasn't sure where to go. I decided to do a little backyard camping. It was going to be a warm couple of nights. The dogs were not that enthused but they like to be where I am so I kept them out with me. They both begrudgingly stayed out there. At about 2am the wind started picking up and Sadie woke me up whining. She had enough and when I opened the tent to make sure the fly was on in case it started raining, she made a run for the back door begging me to let her inside. I gave up and we went in.
Oh well, at least I got a little time out in nature, sort of. For a couple of days while the tent was still up I got to hang out there and read during the day. Now I really need to actually go camping!!

I think that one of the most important things I have been learning lately is about being connected to nature. That is what the shamanic study is giving me. Sometimes I waffle back and forth about what I want to study and with whom but then I think of my growing connection to the land, the trees, and all the plants and I know that I am doing the right thing. I still get hives and welts from touching a lot of the plants but maybe that will go away. My shamanic teacher said that was about my not feeling safe and feeling like I am being attacked by some unseen force so my body is hypersensitive to everything. It makes sense on a certain level. I don't consciously spend a lot of time worrying about my safety but I do know that I have a hard time trusting. Trusting people, trusting the Universe, trusting just about everything. I can feel that shifting now. I wonder where it will lead?

There are a lot of things I don't know. Infinitely more than I do know but one thing I am working on is to do a little less thinking and a lot more just being. We will see how that goes.

From the hearts of friends.

I got an email from a friend of mine the other day. One of my very wonderful friends, who I now live very far from. She said," i just love where your life heads and what clarity you have of just trusting where you are in life." This really made me think a lot. At first I thought that I must not be doing a very good job explaining where I am because I am not trusting it. Then I realized that she is right. She was picking up on something that I did not know about myself.

If I look at my life through the eyes of typical American values then we can say that I am a bit of a mess. I am 33. I have a really expensive education. I was in college straight though until I was 29. I can't decide where I want to live. I have a career that usually requires starting a business because there are very few salaried jobs. If I can't decide where to live then how am I to really put a ton of energy into starting a business? I sort of half ass it. I am good at what I do so I get some patients wherever I am but never enough to really support myself. So here I am living in my mom's basement, treating a few patients a week, cooking all the time, studying about food and shamanism, doing a trade with a shaman to learn from her and basically biding my time. Yeah, so not following the norm. My mom occasionally says things to me like, "when I was your age, I was married and had 2 kids." She was but she was horribly unhappy.

I am following what my spirit knows it needs to do right now. I am learning about parts of myself I have lost or never knew existed to begin with. I am birthing a new part of myself before I go out into the world again and help others in a whole different way than I ever knew was possible.

Truth be told, I do not even know exactly what I want out of life. I want to live in a place that feeds my soul. I want to have many wonderful friends and family around me. I want to be in a stable, loving, supportive relationship. I may want children but I feel like I really won't know that until I am with someone that I would want to have children with. I want to do work, the work that I know I am here to do but am not exactly sure exactly what that looks like.

So yes, I am trusting where I am in my life. I just didn't know it. I am giving myself time to really find out who I am all the way to the core. Then I can live my life in a very authentic way. I can then be happier than I can even imagine. I am pretty happy now too. I am learning to enjoy and see the beauty in the journey. It's not a bad place to be.

Too those of you who don't approve, I send you light and love and as politely as possible. ask you to buzz off.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my wonderful friend Christi for seeing this important part of me!

Cows.

I bet you are wondering about why I am calling this post cows. Weird name, huh? One of the things I am working on right now is to start seeing the love or nectar that is in my life and really appreciate it. I am basically a pretty positive, non-depressed person but I am always focused on healing and clearing old stuff out of me. I am always working on one thing or another. I am rather a workaholic but not in a way that makes me much money at this point in my life. So anyway, I am switching my awareness and seeing the beauty in everything.
Last night when I was trying to get to sleep, I had a flash of the cows I used to pass when I ran in High School. My family was living in Belgium. I was super unhappy with my body so I did a lot of running. I was always focused on getting skinnier and basically running away from everything that was going on at home. Last night I really saw the beauty in running through the Belgian farmland. The cows lounging around everywhere that would watch me as I ran. My neighbors had a donkey that I always stopped to say hi to.
Last night before I went to sleep, I changed that memory of self-loathing and escape to one of love and peace. I could practically smell the earthy, wet, Belgian smell. I could feel the pavement under my feet. I could feel the love for those beautiful animals whose suffering I am no longer a part of because I don't consume any animal products.
I pray that we can all release those old negative ways of feeling and living and step into the love and light that the new world has to offer.

Come on focus, where did you go?

I am trying way too hard to think of something interesting to write. Thinking too hard is probably the problem. My mind is all swirly with thinking about foods to cook, ways to make money, shamanic stuff I am working on, exercises I can do and so many, many things. I just can't seem to focus on one. So here is a photo of the very lovely, sensitive dog, Miles. This is from a couple days ago. Today he is still upset because I wouldn't let him meet the appliance delivery person. He loves meeting new people.

In the beginning....

I've been struggling with this whole blog thing for awhile. I started one about my journey towards veganism a few months ago but it bored me. I didn't only want to write about food. There are a bunch of blogs about food. I love some of them but I like to know more about people. I really enjoy hearing people's stories. They fascinate me. I find that I really enjoy the ones where people talk about everything....their great pains and their great joys. Life does have both. Without dark, there isn't light ect. ect. For me it has been really difficult to be put myself out there so much over the internet. In my normal life, I am not capable of being superficial. I have to talk to people on a really deep, heart centered level but that has been difficult for me to do online. I had some inspiration though so I will try to push past my shyness. I found a blog I love last week and I literally read it all weekend like it was Twilight or something. If you haven't already check out boho girls page.

So anyway, my goal is to use this a little bit more as a journal to share more about myself and my path. My path is pretty jagged and unconventional. I would not have it any other way. I have a feeling that if I can really be authentic then I may actually meet some people out here in this crazy cyber world that are the same.

I am sending you all so much love...oh and asking you all to send as much light and love to our beautiful Mother Earth and all of our animal brothers and sisters who are suffering because of the oil in the Gulf.