Advice to a Stressed Out Bride

Hey there, take a minute and imagine yourself in Japan, like in a Samurai  movie, alone in a courtyard, you, the warrior in black; with  hands on your waist and a big sword at your hip,  you confront the inevitable and dare it to proceed.  

Now step out of it's way and let it proceed. 

This is the truth:  it is not up to you to please anyone but yourself and Chris on Saturday.  You simply don't have the strength at this point, drained as you are, to command the day like some Queen from her throne.  You are not Cate Blanchett in ELIZABETH, (though you were undoubtedly there) and the Samurai warrior is scaring the hell out of folks, LOL    hallaleujah!,  can I get an amen?  ;o}  

Let the Goddess woman earth mother of Celtic origin who empowers your  essential, true nature take over from here.  Let her drive.  You can sit in the back or to her right, but you no longer are steering this vehicle.   It's a Cadillac El Dorado and it's a nice, floaty ride!

Let if flow, Kelly. 

Breathe. 

Connie 

The Nature of Treasure

The nature of the treasure box. The treasure box came of clearing
space in my studio for new stuff to come into. What I invited was
magical thinking, to reference Joan Didion, one of my favorite non-
fiction writers.
So what form does treasure take? And how does one let go of what was
once treasured enough to keep, but is now ready to move along it's path?

I guess it's as simple as watching the russet leaves fall from the
maple trees in November. Leaves that decorated the branches of a
succulent, living, plant form that each autumn, due to it's nature,
must let go and release what is no longer vibrant and useful, whose
purpose has been served; life, so that it may be lived.

Retirement

I made an announcement yesterday to those gathered in my home for an open house, that as of the end of this year, I am retiring from the business of being in business so that I may more fully live my life as an artist. I felt so supported by my loyal friends and fans in making the announcement of change. Although I will undoubtedly continue to make jewelry, it's production will no longer by my focus for financial security. I'll make jewelry because it brings me joy, because I must, because I have so many beads to string!

I have no intention of giving up the little house/studio and I trust that the resources required to keep it open and and paid for will simply materialize as necessary.

A few weeks ago, I stepped onto my back porch on a lovely fall morning and surrendered my need to control and be controlled by worry over money. It was a deeply profound surrender of a life long habit of engaging in the illusion that there isn't enough to go around. Or, if you're not careful, you're going to come up short and be humiliated by not having enough. This is my mother's drama, not mine and I hereby relinquish the hold I've kept on that drama.

Worry over money? I let it go! Money is flow, money is energy: it can't be created or destroyed! My intention is to open pathways to multiple streams of energy that flow into my greater river of revenue!!

The cool thing was that after making this surrender, I looked over at a 25 year old above ground deck pool that has brought us much fun, joy and refreshment in the past 13 years. I thought to myself: "that pool is done".

Twenty four hours later is had completely drained! Now I have an empty pool in my backyard! The God Tree must be so happy for all those gallons of water released into it's root system that it may be fed and nourished and quenched!!

Keep Your Lights On

"Hey now, all you children,
Keep your lights on,
cuz there's a monster living under
my bed, whispering in my ear,
and there's an angel
with her hand on my hand
she say I got nothing to fear
but there's a darkness, living
deep in my soul,
still gotta purpose to serve."
Santana

Plush

When I was quite young, one of my mother's boyfriends pitched baseballs at lead pins, at the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, and won for her, a tall, proud plush black panther with purple glass eyes. I remember thinking it was so very exotic. If anyone has a black plush panther with purple glass eyes, could you let me know when you're done with it so I can get it back? K? Thanks!

Connie

the purpose of the journey

Spend no time whining about how long the journey takes or how old you were when you started.  The point of the journey is the journey, not the time it takes to drive it.  God isn't wearing a wristwatch; there are no calendars in heaven.    

Connie

raven magic

The raven appeared to me this afternoon and then magical bead movement began.  I noticed a little mistake about half way through an almost completed necklace...so I'd clamp off one end of the strand and

plan to unstring until I got to the place where the missing bead was.  But the missing bead kept moving!  After a few turns, it was at the very end of the string where it took only 30 seconds to fix.  How cool is that?

A week ago today I walked outside onto my back deck, took in the beautiful, swollen rive and  and gave over my need to control money. I gave over to the reality that money is not money, it's energy and if there is one thing I've learned as a bachelor of science?  Well, it's that energy cannot be destroy or created...it just is.  

At the end of the NEXT day, our swimming pool had drained itelf.  I find that symbolically significant. 

Namaste`, thanks for reading me.  It means more than you will ever know to me.  You know, 

to be heard?  

Connie

"I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of

valid inspiration".  Steve Martin

uttered to Will Corr in a Winged Conversation at SGAF

"I'm not here for the orgasms, I'm here for the God."

http://www.mainstreetartsfest.org/Content/Artists/2006/Corr-head.jpg

When you find yourself flat on your butt

The morning started ok...no mishaps in the shower, Jesse in a good mood; I got an hour of computer work under my belt
and got dressed: skirt, leggings, camisole, silk blouse, my long black cardigan, black beaded lariat and a chain link scarf my sister made me. Once I added the vintage cowboy boots I thought I was looking pretty good for a woman of a certain age experiencing pre-menstrual symptoms in the peri-menopausal phase of her advancing years. I gatherd my laptop, handbag, cup of coffee....walked through the living room, slipped on an unseen slippery something and fell flat on my ass. The moment of surrender is a nano-second but it just flashed in my mind, "girl, you're going down". Eh, no harm done, so I pulled a little muscle in my lower left back...no problem! I do YOGA and that means that my body didn't contract and tense to fall, but just kind of slid on down. It's so humbling, isn't it? To have put yourself together so well and then to be covered in coffee and white dog hair! Ce` la vie, all is well, it was good for a laugh!

Connie

Invasion isn't War

Support the troops: End the war.

That would be a lovely sentiment if we were in fact "at war", but we're not. We, i.e, the Bush Administration, i.e, NOT THE AMERICAN people invaded Iraq to secure it's oil fields, lo those many years ago. In order for it to be a "war" wouldn't there need to be an enemy to fight against? A rag tag bunch of militant religious zealots in an ages-old-pissing contest does not actually constitute an enemy that threatens the security of the United States in my opinion! It seems to me that the Irag invasion was a greedy attempt by the uber-corrupt Bush cartel to secure further economic resources through military contracts to friends in order to increase the wealth in the Republican party so that future elections can continue to be usurped. Land of the free, home of the brave? Give me a break! Land of the rich, home of the disempowered is more like it.

Regarding my Mother

Regarding my mother Dawn and our estranged relationship:  
It's been ten months since we spoke.  Our last visit could be characterized as a "blood letting" and I find in adulthood that I no longer need her style of parenting in order to fully actualize my authentic self.   I am grateful for this revelation.

Aud Guray Nameh

The Dalai Lama is not my God, he is, however, my spirit guide.


Aud Guray Nameh

This is the truth.

One true God.


Namaste`

Forty Nine

Today I celebrate my last birthday in my 40's. I find this fact quite astonishing in the general scope of things. It's a number. 49. 4+9=13 1+3=4 the square root of 4 is 2. So this is an even year I guess. Even. Vs. Odd. Even, as in equal, balanced, harmonious, all adjectives that I use to describe my current state of mind.

There is this milestone in a woman's life when she recognizes that her power does not lie in her sex appeal. This is the marker on her path that portends a transformation which requires slipping out of the cloak that signaled her readiness to engage in the illusion that a woman's greatest asset is her attractiveness to the opposite sex. I have been working from that illusion for forty nine years and in the process, disempowering myself by the investment of prana it takes to keep that illusion aloft.

In some ways I'm talking about my physical body and what it is capable of. In an another way, I'm referring to pure knowledge of self worth that has nothing to do with how others perceive me. I ran into an aquaintence at the grocery store yesterday and we chatted while waiting in the express line. When I parted I called her by name and she said mine. As I was pulling out of the parking space, she was walking by and looked at me again with a just a little doubt and said,
"It is Connie isn't it?"
"Yes", I replied.
"I just wasn't sure because everytime I see you you look different".

We are all capable of this. We are all capable of transforming our present self into something more authentically true and closer to our enlightened selves. We all have the ability to metamorphis into a brand new butterfly. From birth, we revolve around a spiraling helix of seven year cycles; developmental cycles that act as building blocks for our spirits. Every seven year:, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, we are expected to complete certain tasks of human development so that our souls might continue to evolve through this life cycle, emerging at death into a new cycle where all that we learned and mastered in this life is experienced as wisdom in the next.

This is the beauty and the reward for striving to NOT BE STUCK in any particular seven year cycle, because if we don't complete the tasks and master the maturation of the cycle we are in , we circle around again and again until we do master it. And there's no need to judge that experience of being stuck, what's important is the knowledge that movement up the spiral is indeed something to strive for so that our human existence isn't rife with the suffering created in stagnation.

So, what are the lessons of this seven year cycle I am in the final year of? Back to the beginning...that no portion of my "worth" is based in my ability to attract the opposite sex. Someday, in some life time, I expect to be born oustide the illusion that "opposite sex" is anything but a silly human notion that provides an easy surface of resistance to push against. An illusion that is more helpful in identifying what I am not rather than what we ALL are.

Happy Birthday

To Brooke and Artemis and George:

Happy Birthday to you. If it were up to me, we would return this day to all you who deserve to celebrate it for what it is...a lovely day in September.

EAT CAKE AND ENJOY. REJOICE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE LOVED!

Connie

Cake is my Life

When I was 12 my Dad picked my sister Kim and I up from Santa Cruz and took us to his house in San Jose for a birthday celebration. I have to applaud my father for even attempting to entertain two pubescent girls who really didn't know him very well. What I remember about this event is the most delicious birthday cake I have ever eaten. It was white cake, with a blackberry filling and whipped cream frosting. Jeez, here it is 33 years later and I can still recall the pleasure of the taste and texture of that cake. This is probably when my cake obsession began. I have been trying to resurrect that cake moment for years and years and this summer, I think I found it.

In the Adirondacks there's a shop called the Marketplace in Tupper Lake. They make phenomenal sandwiches and a small but excellent selection of baked daily goods. This is the type of place that completely lacks organization, is continually understaffed and these women really have no business (but a love and good food and cash) being in this business. Keep in mind that this is my city-fied version of how I'd run things if I were running things. Like, if there are three people working, it might be a good idea for one person to take orders and money while the other two fill the orders. Nope, the same person will take my order, if I get noticed at all after 10 minutes of waiting, then she'll make my sandwich while answering the phone and taking THAT order (which will be ready 20 minutes after the caller has arrived to pick it up, making the point of calling ahead moot) and then she'll come around from behind the counter and take my money and make change. The other two behind the counter are doing either, their own version of this dance or one is baking bread while the other is filling a call in order for 19 sandwiches. So, the Marketplace is a lesson in patience and the pace of country living and it is ALWAYS worth the wait.

One day, while waiting, I spied in the back room, (which is huge and it's never really clear if you're meant to be back there or not) a round foil pan with a cake in it. I picked it up; it must have weighed two pounds...and read the label....Chocolate Carrot Cake. I thought it over for about two seconds and decided that a cake this heavy iced in chocolate frosting with sprinkles of chocolate chips and walnuts was probably worth the seven dollar investment. So, yes, I bought it.

There are a few words to describe my experience upon biting into my first slice of this cake: Ecstatic, explosive salivary response, moist, chocolatey, smooth, creamy, dense, CARROTS??? and nearly orgasmic. In other words? It tasted REALLY, really GOOD!

I went back a few days later, asked for the recipe and the owner whose name I cannot recall assured me that she never revealed her recipe sources. I gushed shamelessly about this cake and ordered another for our departure date so I could bring one home with me on a sixteen hour car ride. When I picked it up I told her I didn't want to be better than her, I just NEEDED this cake in my life. She asked me what cookbooks I used and ultimately led to the one (online no less) that would reaveal the secret recipe. I am so thankful to this woman, I can't tell you.

IS there a baker in the house? Here is the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two round cake pans.

Mix dry ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 to 2 cups sugar ( I like less, the carrots are sweet too)
1 tsp baking soda
half tsp salt
1/2 cup baking cocoa (the better quality the better, like Penzey's)

Mix the wet ingredients
1.25 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 cups finely grated carrots

Fold into the dry and mix with a hand mixer on 3 til well combined.

Pour into the pans, bake for 30 minutes. (Check with a toothpick in the
center when you first smell the cake.)

Let cool ten minutes and cool completely on racks out of the pans.

For the icing have at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese
1 stick butter
3 3/4 powdered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
3 tsp vanilla

Mix til smooth, ice the cake and sprinkle with walnut pieces and chocoalte chips, even if you don't like walnuts, it's an important texture experience.

This cake is almost fool proof. I've made it three times and it's a huge hit!! Everyone will be saying, "who made this cake???"

Enjoy, and thanks to the lady in Tupper Lake who broke down and told me where to find the recipe!

Happy Cake Eating....
Connie

Buddha on the Road

A man meets the Buddha on the road. Overwhelmed by the glorious inner light and peace of the Buddha he asks,
"Are you a God?"
"No, I am not God", says the Buddha
"Well, are you a devi?"
"No", says the Buddha
"Then you must be a saint", says the man on the road.
"I am not a saint", says the Buddha.
"Well, if you aren't a God, a devi or a saint, then what ARE you?"

"I am awake", says the Buddha.

Lisa

My friend Lisa told me yesterday that the time to begin dying is here.  11 months ago, she was diagnosed with uterine sarcoma. Uterine Sarcoma, as  far as I understand, is so rare that it accounts for only 4% of all diagnosed cancers.  In the "real" world, this means that research for treatment of this type of cancer is non-existent because it wouldn't PAY to find a way to effectively treat it when there is so much more profit to be garnered from researching treatment for  the more common and specifically female cancers as breast cancer or cervical cancer. 

For the past 10 months Lisa has undergone the chemo-therapy treatment that is the most likely to work, if only it were the right treatment.   But it's not a treatment that eradicates  uterine sarcoma  and remission  isn't part of the vocabulary and try as she might to think bigger than her health care professionals, she's now just  exhausted and in pain and an end to this suffering is beginning to seem like a viable treatment; for in the words of the Episcopal Rev. Ann Brower,  "death is truly the ultimate cure". 

Geez, and here I find myself envying Lisa at what appears to be the end of her 48 year LISA journey on earth.  I sit here and envy the vision of the bridge she faces.  I don't know what it looks like to her, but to me it's a rope bridge over a river so unfathomably far below me, that I sense it's really more of a snaking seam of ephemeral energy than the destiny of my liquid soul, who in this process,  will realize that this rope bridge is an illusion and the return to the river of life is infinite and it is only in those moments....like THIS one...that time exists, and I am here and present and awake in this moment and voila`, the fall ends, I'm once again a drop of water in the never ending flow of prana...life energy...and the moment.  Begins.  Again. 

Dear, Dear Lisa. All is well. You are loved. You are NOT alone.
Namaste` my friend

The baby blue jay

Pulling into the driveway this evening, with the top down on my '99 Saab convertible, I spied a bird in the driveway. I slowed down, and listened to the plaintive cry of a baby beseeching the mother for help. Oh...it was a baby Blue Jay and it was scared and helpless and hopping into my garage.

Can you imagine taking your first test flight and falling flat on your ass, no cloud to support you and lift you up? No wind to capture you aloft and send you soaring to a higher height where time and elements might give you a better chance at actually mastering the art of flight?

I approached the baby with my mother voice, attempting to soothe and comfort. It just turned and stared at me through the bicycle tires...what to do now? As it stands, this little one spends the night in the garage and with God's grace, may attempt a few flights in space with walls before attempting once again, flight from a nest whose boundaries have no end.

P.S. The following morning I came out to the garage to get in my car and Lucy chased the baby bird to the garage door. It swacked at her and held it's own and when I opened the door, away it hopped, kinda flew.

All is well.

Abdul Baha To Live the Life

When I was in 10th grade, my English teacher, Sue Moore gave me these words in a keepsake. Every ten years or so I come across this missive and am grateful to my teacher, who saw the writer in me. At the same time I'm moved by the simplicity of these words from the desert, by Abdul Baha, who in that parched landscape, saw kindness to others as the responsibilty of those in relationship with God.


To Live the Life:

"To be no cause of grief to anyone.

To be kind to all people and to love them with a pure spirit.

Should opposition or injury happen to us, to bear it, to be as kind as ever can be, and through all, to love the people. Should calamity exist in the greatest degree, to rejoice, for these things are the gifts and favors of God.

To be silent concerning the faults of others, to pray for them, and to help them, through kindness, to correct their faults.

To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, look at the ten and forget the one. And if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten.

Never to allow ourselves to speak one unkind word about another, even though that other be our enemy.

To do all of our deeds in kindness.

To cut our hearts from ourselves and from the world.

To be humble.

To be servants of each other, and to know that we are less than anyone else.

To be as one soul in many bodies, for the more we love each other, the nearer we shall be to God; but to know that our love, our unity, our obedience must not be by confession, but of reality.

To act with cautiousness and wisdom.

To be truthful.

To be hospitable.

To be reverent.

To be the cause of healing for every sick one,
a comforter for every sorrowful one,
a pleasant water for every thirsty one.
a heavenly table for every hungry one,
a star to every horizon,
a light for every lamp,
a herald to everyone who yearns for the kingdom of God"

`Abdu'l-Baha

Bottled Water

It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil to create the bottles that contain the water that quench
America's annual thirst. As much as I adore an occasional bottle of Evian, this kind of
consumption seems unconscious to me.

Buy a Nalgene bottle, fill it from the tap (luckily I live in a city whose water is rated #4
in the nation for purity) and move on from the the idea that your body needs H20 from
an artesian well in the South Pacific or Swiss Alp.

Recycle,re-use, re-purpose.