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From America January 27, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so far

I’m in California and have left it until the last minute to get a shot of a perfect sunrise. I’m capturing 16 perfect Sunrise photos to act as metaphors of my expanding into new spaces.

I can picture the colour spilling out behind the filigree branching of that skyward bold old oak tree on the corner of 15th and McDonald Street Santa Rosa.

So each morning I’m up and ready in my thermals, jeans jumper and joggers only to find that saintly rosey sky leaden with rain clouds and hiding its splendid colour.

OK  so I could have been more strategic and planned to photograpDSC06192h on a dry sunny morning – perhaps even a snowy tipped one whilst in Detroit. But how did I know it would be raining for 10 straight days.

I guess  I was too busy actually expanding rather than thinking about or recording it. (And yes I had chocolate when I shouldn’t have!)

My trip was and has been primarily to touch base with my twin; for me a  source of  parallel thinking, feeling and insight. The process of checking in with her always crazily, uncannily  provides a parallel insight into how we’re going. It’s sort of a life co-coaching exercise.

I had the great benefit of meeting some fabulous people whilst away. Friends of my sister who are into similar mental and work-based pursuits. I recorded some podcasts with them and will store them on my All in 10 minutes blog.

We had great talks about stories we tell ourselves and how they stack up. How we use metaphors and the power of thoughts and language to steer us toward or away from the path of individuation and wholeness. How the intrapersonal communication is informed by those internal stacked stories. And how our cells store memories of traumas, joys, grief and phobic reactions. I’ll group the talks as a podcast series called  “internally communicating”.

My dear friend James who is a professional podcaster would be horrified at the quality of some of the audio – so it won’t be good enough to store on a professional site such as his. I searched word press to find the plug-in podcast function – only to find my childhood guru “Mighty mouse” as the marketing icon. Now if that’s not a personal sign of a sunrise I don’t know what is. 

So Here I come to save my day – rain or not, with a final blog from America

Mediation – and the art of being Cate January 17, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

My sister is an excellent mediatior. She always has been. Her nature suits the skill.

She is a Libran like me as we are twins. We are therefore guilty of, or succumb to the same tendencies which can be, at times strengths and at other times weaknesses.

One of the strengths is the ability to read others quickly and stay centred when dealing with competing needs and drivers. Cate is brilliant at this. Ever since she was little she’s been able to pour smooth balm over troubled waters. Or is it smooth water over troubles, or trouble over water,  either way it banks up well.  She used to have to do it to live  in peace – something she craved deeply; she now does it for a living and is putting money in the bank.

In many instances what she does is to help people communicate better: about what is going wrong, what needs to happen to make it better and what steps they need to take to get there.

Recently she helped a young 14 year old woman and her mum find a way forward out of an impasse of confusion, frustration and despair. And they did so together with respect. The end result was that both of them turned their life around.

The real trick is:

What happpens is that people are then able see the problem that they face is a problem that they share. For it holds the same need, the same concern and the same inherent desire. To get resolution instead of fighting they find they’re working together to the same end. To point out what it is sitting right before someone’s eyes. People are often too close to the problem to see not only what’s going one, but also how to move forward.

I’ve been holidaying with her and her family and have had the great fortune to drop back into our twin world of shared insights, dreams, aims, ambitions, desires, fears and blindspots. As a gesture of praise to this mediating skill- I’ve painted 3 canvases that will sit on her office reception wall. The canvases are a triptych of her company logo. It is also a representation of the three phases a person may undergo in a mediation process:

I’m glad Cate likes the painting. She’s always been my greatest cheer squad, and accepts that the gesture is as valuable as the pictorial output. I am arguably her greatest cheer squad too, for I deeeply respect her clarity of thought, generosity of spirit and skill of communication.

The ROI on 2009 January 1, 2010

Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , add a comment

What did I do this year? How do I assess it? And should I?

 We often end the year feeling a short fall or feeling chuffed with how we did, we invariably feel hungover.

 I figured instead of making some new random wish I’d do a bit of an audit to determine any personal growth achieved and any outstanding. If i did well on the investment I’d play it forward -if not I’d have the bones of a new game plan. An investment strategy for 2010.

 Here we go..

So all in all – a reasonable return on investment

Wiser? Nup. Richer? Yep. Fatter? Nup. Happier? I think so.

Happy new year - I get it

And right back atya – if anyone is reading

Dr A – the search for self November 25, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

Over the last three months I’ve met with a gentle, clever, empathetic man to address work-place anxiety and to sort out what sort of work I want to do next.

He is a psychologist and a spiritual advisor who coached me over eight sessions to uncover skills I already had and remember the ones that I would need on this next path.

I am changing paths. The old methods of navigating don’t work as well as they used to.  I felt frustrated with efforts to simply plug into a job description, defined by someone else. I’d outgrown the seek.com approach to happiness. It felt like a betrayal to a stronger signal, but that signal was unclear.

My approach to career and life management and its links to self-concept and self-efficacy have been heavily influenced by my late husband,  a psychologist  who specialised in the area.

I have a favourite book, “Dibs in Search of Self” by Virginia Axline. Miss A as Dibbs called his play therapist, is my ideal life coach. My expectations of a psychologist were akin to Dibbs’ – I expect clarity, empathy, intelligence, generosity, kindness, interest and respect.

“Dr A” had all of that – and gave me significant insights into my own process.

In the 1st session I learnt about metaphors. I love to talk, and A had an uncanny ability to listen, pace, raise the pitch and punctuate the conversation – not with a summary of what was said as much as an echo of intent – thereby keeping me dogged on message. He continually clarified the conversation so that I was able to drop ever deeper into the intuitive insightful part of my brain. This is psychology at its best.

In the 2nd session I learnt about the space between making decisions. When the first decision is made, and the 2nd not yet formed, there is often a no-space of waiting. That’s life.

In the 3rd session I learnt about gentleness – to myself and how change happens. I learnt about defiance.

In the 4th session I learnt about father – my own and my reproduced father roles that keep appearing. Joseph Campbell believes the search for father is the search for character and destiny – too true.

In the 5th session I learnt about vantage points. Why use language as if I was just beginning my life, when in fact I was half-way through a splendid well-lived life. It was a lesson in humility and humour.

In the 6th session I learnt about intuition towards wholeness and where play and joy comes in; I learnt I had to trust myself more and I learnt about prayer.

In the 7th session I learnt that anxiety had served me well to protect my heart and that it was ungrateful to judge it harshly now. I just need to adjust the hold it has on me.

In the last and 8th session – I learnt to view my own reflective drama and dance, and acknowledge my ability to engage and reflect the humanity of others again and again.

What a splendid teacher I had – thank you “Doctor A”, Have a great year next year and enjoy your own blessed pilgrimage.

Assailing the reservation walls November 9, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Into the new space , add a comment

Talking of brick walls

I went to see a card reader to find out my future. Yes  indeed, “come in spinner”, once again.

I went to the Mind-Body- Spirit Festival in Sydney last weekend and sought out a reader to reassure myself that this latest  idea I have of taking a sabatical overseas for a year isn’t crazy.  Of course it’s crazy but I’m addicted to finding the perfect  psychic.

I do this – simply to validate what is already in my head. I do this on the understanding that if someone “out there”  can see what I’m seeing then it just might  be an event in the future which I’ve somehow tapped into.

Of course, it’s just as likely that those images in my head are somehow able to be “read” by a sensitive individual, who can  tap into another’s conscious thoughts.   I don’t know how it happens, nor do Iwant to find out.  But I do remember reading that psychotics have this ability as well. Sort of a 6th, 7th or ? sense.

My search for the perfect psychic is a compulsive disorder. It holds a strange appeal, like  a circus or carnival does; or fantasing that my lotto numbers will come in.  The process makes makes me feel there’s a script already written on my life which a select few can scan and download.

I’ve not gone to this particular festival for some time, simply because I’d outgrown it. There are way too many auric cleansings and sprit guides – who all magically appear in pastel crayon on colour paper  -  for my liking.  And of course whilst you fork out $80 to have some woman draw up an exotic (never ugly) handmaiden with wings and swirls, and stars and tiny golden budda  statues, anyone would wonder why it doesn’t look like yourself, or your next door neighbour or the guy at the local club? Why is it  invariably a Red Indian spirit guide with a big drum and a medicine stick? Or some cute oriental lass with a candle. Can someone tell me?

So along with other hopefuls, I queued outside the card reading stall – prepared to fork out 40 bucks for 30 minutes of diving insight from a complete stranger. Chosen because she had a nice face and she was free in time for me to make Yum cha with my friends. Sure I can fit in the future  before lunch. Might whet the appetitie.

 A delightful woman greeted me as I sat down in Row D number 7,  she  a nice warm face, an appropriate collection of crystals, decks of cards, a few angel statues – you know the drill.

Of course she told me everything I’d heard only 2 months prior from my regular psychic. The poor darling guessing along with the best of them, tapping into some all knowing RSS Feed of my future happiness. Mind you she was on the same feed as the previous psychic, so all i had to do was validate with a rapid-fire  “yes, I know that…..next…”. That of course is the down-side of going to psychics multiple times. If they’re good – you just hear the same stuff again. 

When she ran out of news to tell me threw in…” so what’s with the little white fluffy dog”?  Normally I’d have said – who knows, dog shmog? The problem was  that I had seen the dog myself that morning in meditation. My response, quite appropriately was, ”Well don’t ask me – “that’s why I’m paying you!!”.

Now as I’m thinking of heading off to Europe for time out – painting and volunteering  or  working for board and food on some organic farm in France or Italy, I didn’t want questions – I wanted clear reassurance.   15 minutes in, she threw open to  questions. Of course I asked her if she could see anything relating to the immediate future.

Quick as a flash she asks”Do you travel for your work? I see lots of colour, painting and Italy” “Are you buying a new car”  Not a bad scan of my current secret fantasy, and the 2 hours I had spent that morning reasearching whether to buy or lease a vehicle overseas.

So for $40 I got a fabulous future. All planned the way I wanted.  And of course I got the obligatory old Indian guide with a big drum and a winning smile. I also got a relationship thrown in. The only lead I had was that it would be  someone with lovely hands who creates things, in Canada and who wears a turquoise ring and  probably comes from a different race! So  I’m going to end up with a Mexican or Indian carpenter!

What is it that we need to go outside of ourselves to get the validation for some serious thinking and work only we can do for ourselves inside! Sigh.

I’ll be some new age old witch with an Indian lover living on a reservation in Canada chanting about the rising moon…

God only knows why I continue to ask..

All changed, changed utterly April 24, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Yellow , add a comment

Venus disappears now and then.

Astrologically speaking, she’s retrograde – going nowhere fast!

Normally I’d “pah!” or “humbug” such news, but I’m starting to think there might be something in it. My life’s going nowhere fast, and as a Libran – ruled by Venus –  I could well have fallen under her invisible, directionless sway.

To add “pish” to that “humbug” I’m wondering if disappearing or withdrawing isn’t totally appropriate right now, that is  for someone who had a ‘fall’ and who needed to regroup and recover. 

The only problem is that sooner or later you have to re-emerge or re-appear and the environment more often than not – has changed in the meantime.

I’m in the process of re-entering my atmosphere – parts of which have significantly changed whilst I was away. The most notable change is the nature and extent of my social network, and to a lesser degree my own preference for maintaining such a network.

This last fortnight, I wanted to fill a table at a charity ball. Everyone I asked was either too busy, or away or just unwilling. I felt a social failure and took it personally. My sister reminded me, rightly, that one can’t expect “to pick a bunch of flowers if you haven’t been tending the garden”.

One of the greatest losses in my garden though, was a dear friend who is just unattainable to me. Not just for the ball – but on a regular basis. She’s always too busy or moving too fast for me. She has nowhere to put me and those talks that I want to have with her. And as I don’t want to move at that frantic pace she undertakes, I think the friendship – as we know it- is doomed to fail. I hope she will always be in my life, as we have shared many stories, but I’ve changed as much as she, as our flight plans and preferences are different.

So thrown back on my own resources and lack of social network – I did what I normally do, smallbutterflyI painted.  I completed a painting that has been a focus for several weeks. The painting is of a Monarch butterfly emerging from a cocoon as a metaphor for my own process. The Monarch the only butterfly to make the Transatlantic crossing and resides in USA and Australia.  It sits on my bedroom wall and I keep one eye on it as I fall asleep into my flights of fancy, and dreamscapes. The other eye I keep firmly fixed on Venus – awaiting her return each morning.

Like the painting and the loss of friends, things appear to happen from the outside-in, rather than from inside-out. The butterfly reminds me to take responsibility for my own changes – to friendships, directions, and choices.

I’m out of the cocoon now and I can’t return to it, no matter how much I wish I could, or how cold it gets out there on my own. I have to decide whether I’ll make a transatlantic crossing of my own – into the future or back to the memories from my  past. Either way, I’ve got to fly – and life has to be lived. 

In Esoteric writings, Venus is also the name given to Lucifer Morningstar – the brightest most beautiful, most loved angel before “the fall”. Now the name is associated with darkness, shadows, fear and the devil– which is “lived” spelt backwards. A sort of retrograde all its own.

The point of these ruminations is that each life has a myriad of splendid, brilliant moments and colours – from our past and surely into our future. With each breath we’ll unfurl just a little bit more of the colour, brilliance and splendour of our nature. With each retrograde we take stock and try to  see things back-to- front for that new perspective.

For all of this – some of those moments, insights, gardens, and landscapes  have to be left behind and to be let go of.  We can leave them wrapped up in the cocoon of our history of what led us here. They’ve served us well. It is enough.

And in doing so – we accept that we’ve changed, as Yeats wrote so succinctly,“ changed utterly – a terrible beauty is born.”

Growing up in the Market Place March 23, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a comment

I don’t like the murky boundaries between personal and organisational life.

I don’t mean the often discussed “work-life balance”. I mean the situation when the behaviours that are appropriate in the personal sphere are mindlessly and expectantly transported into the work arena where they just don’t fit.

We make friends at work because we spend the greatest amount of time there, but we often can’t maintain friendships through a work environment because of different “agendas” and motivations.

We also can’t expect to have friends with people at work unless the organisational status is in the same stratosphere. Someone gets ahead in the company because they are more skilled, more ambitious or perhaps because they knew how to source the support they needed.

Likewise that support team, often sourced from their “friends” complied with their choices for progress – many times because the supporter got to “piggy-back” on that relationship. This translates to a favour here and there – a chance for promotion or an opportunity that may or may not have been given to another. For the supporter – it’s an investment strategy, for the progressive one – it’s payment- in-kind.

The thing we can’t maintain, however, in this finely tuned exchange of energy, is the illusion of friendship. Personal comments and opinions are affected, the level of consistency and care varies, the quid-pro-quo invariably gets short of quo.

All of a sudden there’s an “ask” but no “reply”. There’s a “demand” but no “supply”, the relationship has changed. And someone feels hurt. It’s at this point that it gets messy.

Because we don’t grow at the same rate, and we don’t want the same things, the demander gets out of cycle with the supplier. He or she still moves on their projectile to their goal. The problem is, the supplier has changed their destination and they’re not on the same route. Because their job isn’t as all-consuming or singular, they’ve diversified. They’ve got more time for personal activities and pursuits and they’re not available, on-tap to supply the demander anymore.

This might come in the form of an overt disagreement or objection, or a failure to support the new direction. When they are now held to account for their objectionable response – the supplier is resentful, “If you didn’t want the answer, they intone, why did you ask the question?”

On the other hand, the demander who has often fed off the supplier for ideas, for support, for motivation, for encouragement is now also resentful. Instead of sourcing that support internally from a base of self-efficacy – they out-sourced it – making a quicker, more economical perhaps less mind-ful choice. But when that source dries up, the demander is at a loss, and resorts to the time-worn script and illusion of “friendship”. And things get “personal”.

“Personal” for a demander, however, comes with all the organisational sway at their command. Opportunities, requests, outcomes – the ball has always been in their court because they call the organisational shots. So what’s the answer?

Grow up.

We only have control over our choices and our relationships. We need to be clear on every choice we make and every relationship we invest in. If our investment strategy changes – we should be clear on that. And if we don’t seek favours or opportunities unless we’ve rightfully earned them, then we can rest easy.

We choose, for ourselves, what we want to personally achieve. At some stage, every supplier and every demander will get a wake-up call. Perhaps they’ve not been  mind-ful  Perhaps mistaking organisational behaviour for personal friendship they’ve misinterpreted relationships and been hurt or frustrated that the old modus operandi doesn’t fit. Perhaps a new player in the relationship has tilted the balance.

If we’re grown-ups we will behave in each sphere with appropriate behaviour with no need for manipulation or guilt or carrot and stick, or disguised favours. And then, perhaps we can all be honest with ourselves. And if we are honest there’ll be no need for tedious, predictable office politics that permeates every level of every organisation like some B grade Hollywood series.

If we can be honest – and support each other in a proper and equal way – each to their own, for their own, on their own – we might all get to grow up through our working life – as we expect to do in our personal one.

Ring them belles…ya gotta… February 26, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , 1 comment so far

It’s the end of the month and I just trawled through the Spam queue associated with my last post. I don’t know if I’m frightened or exhilarated.

I don’t know how Spammers spam, and I dare say there is an automated something that does the thinking for them…but something in the title or the content triggered a surfeit of the weirdest “stream of consciouness” one has ever read. It would have made Joyce’s Ulysses proud! Or in the very least provided the starting point for an excellent porn script.

I got a message from one of my readers today. What the?!! I have readers???

Well, in all honesty, the “reader” is a dear friend I met in my workplace who has kept in contact.  As a thoughtful, clever young woman – whose finest gift is Love-ability - this  friend, Belle let me know she was reading and enjoying such spam-worthy words. Bring it on Belley-Mac-Bellestar!

I was gratified. Belle knows how to write.

My posts are now punctuated, as if on an internal bio-rhythm, by the month. As if magically, there is a yearning to spout some new thought, frame it reasonably sensibly, and then shape it into a manageable structure, to send out to the void. God! I think that was a line from a hollywood movie that featured online communication. Save me from filmic cliches! Is my porn-inducing script just the beginning?

What the hell. Cliche, smeeshay (yiddic type word spelt phonetically). I am as cliched as they come.

I have just joined a local theatre and am about to audition for a middle aged woman’s role!

Therefore, of course, I watched the Oscars because they were on.  At this point it wasn’t too dificult to connect the timing of the Oscars with the grand conjunction of my own thespian pursuits (enough to make any decent  astrologer blush).  I had to watch them.

  And just to add cliche to smeeshay,  I then followed up with a dose of  “Tootsie” out of my DVD collection. Of course this was just to ensure I was wholly in the mood for my new life as a suburban star… (Please note, with all due respects to Dustin- God! isn’t Phillip Seymour so much better – Hoffman, that does not make me a drag queen, or a nun-botherer!) ….  Sigh.

Soooooo – no great thoughts this month. It’s Dad’s birthday tomorrow.. I’m gratified that I can memorise 2 monologues a 24 hour period, and I am feeling pretty chuffed about most of my life.

loveya belle thanks for not being spam xx

There is a crack February 2, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a comment

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

So goes the  Leonard Cohen Anthem. Cohen is a doyen still performing in his 70s, whose poetic alchemy is so strong and message so sustainable, that a brand new generation is in love and profoundly. But what of this light?

Another excellent artist, James Gleeson explains it as an integral ointment to the process of painting:
If the Light is right the darkness will remain
to hold the form in stasis.
Something will be that had not been before

As a amateur painter I can relate to the Gleeson, as a broken individual I am addicted to the Cohen.

I paint to retreat and make meaning of things.  Right now I’m painting a scene on the river at Woy Woy on the Central Coast of NSW. The painting is of the home of my grandparents.  A retirement home they gave up, when they moved back to Sydney to look after us following the death of my mother.woywoy1 My need to paint this scene, is parallel to my need to make sense of what home means.

The unfinished work sits on an easel in my spare room. And it’s as if there’s a presence in the house. As I pass by the open doorway and look in, it stares back. And I wonder – is it working?  Should I stop now when the potential is still there, before I stuff it up? Do it like it? Would I know?

Undertaking the actual painting is like navigating a battlefield – one part of you motivated and defending the perfect vision of home, memory, life and loss. The other part, questioning and criticising your choice of colour and topic, and always with the eternal chant, “You’re not a painter”, “You’ll muck it up, you know you always do”…crack..

To add insult to injury, watching the progress of a painting is like caring for the wounded. Wandering the corridors with a lamp, you’re motivated by care, diligence and hope.  Wanting to keep it alive, to rub it back, add more and then take off some.

And compelled at the open door, as if addressing an ailing patient, you whisper aloud, “You certainly made the right choice adding in that central focus point”.   “You did well with the tone and depth”. But always when you turn away, if you’re honest, you’ll admit it could just as easily turn septic with the next encounter.

And it can happen at any time. These mistakes that take us on a certain path, unlike the one we started out on, these are the cracks and breakages and they are part and parcel of the artistic – healing process. Gleeson writes,

From the known a newer resonance
shaking old doors open to a separate incarnation

Last week I got an email from my niece, Georgie. Along with it – she’d attached the copy of a beautiful painting she’d silk-painting-3just completed. It was the way she processed the loss and separation from her long-time boyfriend. The work was done on silk, full of abundant flowers – each with a symbology of loss, meaning, honour, fidelity and care. Not the work of a depressed woman – but certainly the work of a mind-ful one.

George stayed with me following the death of my husband a couple of years ago. She’d graduated and had given herself a year before applying for college. Most nights we’d sit out on the veranda talking. We spoke about life and hope and loss. We talked of death and battlefields and of caring for the wounded.

As much as you would hope it wouldn’t happen to an 18 year old, she had lost a friend in a car accident only months before and had  seen it first-hand.

Georgie painted her way out of that grief as well.  Embellishing a plaster cast she had made of this girlfriend’s torso some weeks before the accident It was a living canvas – potent with life, as it should be when you’re 18. And it was now frozen in time, attended to by the painter. So she took that cast and painted it with decorative meaningful emblems and gave it to the girl’s mother.  The act was classy, brazen and inspired by love.

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

For you darling G

Imaginal cells and grout lines January 5, 2009

Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Yellow , 1 comment so far

caterpillar-61I’m starting the New Year of 2009 with fresh new tiles throughout my living space and thinking about Caterpillars.

As the last stage in my home transformation process I’m surprised at the level of disquiet and unease the change has caused. I’ve replaced the tired dusty 25 year old carpet with cleaner lighter tiles - marked out with cream white grout lines.

For the first day in this new environment I found myself gingerly stepping around and over the grout lines like a child or an OCD sufferer avoiding cracks in the foothpath. I couldn’t get away quick enough, away from the potential dissonance that comes with a big purchase or job. Was it the right choice of colour? Is the job a good job? Why do I miss the carpet?

I escaped to my sister’s house 2 hours away for Christmas and New Year. Normally a haven where the brain slips into neutral, the body goes into idle and the heart gently opens. Calming, loving, no disquieting elements at all. A fabulous end of the year. As the weather proved to be a delight, we swam each day in warm Christmas water, retired early and slept in late. And during each day, the most energetic thing we found ourselves doing was making a pot tea for whoever was laying around nearby. 

Only this year was different. There was a discontent, a restlessness, and the ever present grief. Old feelings in a reliable setting, not unlike my now defunct carpet. Comments in passing, spiralling thoughts on the eve of a new year: Why was I alone? Was I driving people away? Would my life always be like this? Why was I such a worrier? Why didn’t I have more friends? Any friends? Why did I have to invade my sister’s life.

On New Year’s Eve it peaked. Friends, new and old, were invited around. There was predictable conversation and brand new people. The house was squeaky clean, the windows glistened, the table was over flowing with our signature dishes, the garden awash with sand-bagged candles, glowing as the sun descended.   My wish for the event was that it heralded a new year full of wonderfully creative loving people, as well as  an open hearted attitude in myself to new adventures and experiences. 

There were 2 conversations that evening that proved to be testament to the wish. The first was with a long-standing friend of my sister’s – who is opiniated, funny, wounded and guarded. Having just broken up with her boyfriend, and undergoing profound family dramas, she was transmitting nervously most of the night, old scripts, old lines, sure laughs, side-swipes and commentary.  In truth it was exhausting to watch and interact with. But then again, I had a head full of grout lines and sustainable fear of the future.

The 2nd conversation was with the new gay girlfriend of  a (previously assumed straight)  family friend. She was affirming, interested, gentle, alive, abundant, happy and in love. When you’re in love – is there a sweeter place? I found her delightful.

I got what I wished for. It was time to let the old way go, the old friends or friends of friends; the old way of worrying about everything; the old way of standing on my turf. And it was time to embrace the new. But how?

To transform yourself is hard. It’s hard enough changing the external environment, but now I have to facblue_morpho_butterflye the disintegration of my old self.  Luckily my best teacher of all (my sister Cate) rang me with the answer – Imaginal Cells.

When a Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly it has to disintergrate and disolve first. Then almost by magic, imaginal cells appear to help the move into a Butterfly. All of this is done, unseen within a chrysalis. There’s a period of waiting and a total surrender to the process. When the Butterfly emerges it’s hard to link the two creatures so tranformed is the shape, look, feel, weight and scope.

If that means I have to walk on the grout lines, I will!  Just Imagine then, what I’ll be able to do.