Today Jamie asks us 'Where do you wish to be fierce?'
And my knee jerk reaction is to say for my kids.
But Goddess knows I am a fierce protector of them.
It's one of the many reasons I started homeschooling.

As my daughter steps into adulthood she's not really
in need of a fierce protector.
 
My role is transitioning into the gentle guidance of
a friend and for the most part we're both adjusting
to this change with grace and ease.

And I will continue to be fierce in making sure my son's needs are taken care of
until he takes his ginger steps into adulthood as well.  As is sometimes the case with wishcasting, I felt the need to dig deeper so I turned to the dictionary for another look at the word 'fierce'. 

In addition to the meaning 'having or displaying an intense
or ferocious aggressiveness', fierce can also mean 'showing a heartfelt
and powerful intensity'.

And then a quote came into my email this morning holding the answer:

"You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.
When you truly possess all that you have been and done,
which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.”
~Florida Scott Maxwell

Everything that has happened to me good, bad or otherwise
has made me into the person I am today. If any one thing was different,
I wouldn't be the 'me' I am right now.

I strive to improve myself as much as I can every day, but I can honestly
say I really dig the me I am right now with all my imperfections.

So I wish to fiercely claim the events of my life;
Everything that's happened to me
Everything that's happened 'for' me
All the things I've done and chosen not to do

In claiming these events I claim myself...in all my imperfect perfection.

I am determined to keep this project simple. 
No bells and whistles just pictures and journal cards
with a memory or brief note about the where or when of the photo
as I near as I can recall from my mom's sharing.  Or just picture
collages and no words at all...whatever calls to us at the time.

Deciding on the book and card style was the hardest thing for us. 
We looked at all the products narrowing our choice down between two.
We ordered the Clementine kit with the idea if we need another the sunny
Amber kit would be next.  

We set a reminder on our calender dedicating 1 hour every Friday
afternoon for as long as it takes to complete this one album for
Project Past Life. 

No pressure to do another one. 

A strange spell came over us as we opened
the journal cards.

'Write it down...use me to write it all down"
they seemed to say.

With a box of photos beside us we grabbed a
handful and got started. 

Josephine discovered some pictures still in the store envelope weren't my moms
but were actually from her middle school trip to Tybee Island.  'Can I write whatever
I want?' she asked.  'Yep. Whatever you want.'   

She began feverishly writing on her chosen journal card as
I lifted out a hand full of pictures.

Mine turned out to be from when we lived in Germany. 
My parents came to visit us for 6 weeks during the summer of 2000. 
As I looked through the pictures Mom took, whispered memories of
that summer came flooding back.  She had been so excited and happy
we had bought the tickets for them to visit. 

I remember her telling me how grateful she was for us gifting her with
this once in a lifetime trip.  Going through the envelope I discovered
she also kept all sorts of ephemera.  Looking through it all, my heart aches
longing for her to have written even just a few sentences in a notebook about
what we did.  But that ship has sailed and it is left to me to recall as much as I can.

As I begin, I offer a prayer to the Muse

Blessed Goddess of memory,
Beloved Muse Mnemosyne hear me
I call upon you to aid me as I start this journey
for without your ability to remember, I am lost.
Look with favor on our Project Past Life. 
Grant me your blessing that I may preserve the
stories of my mother and my father. 
As I look upon each picture part the veil of time so
I may see each story as clearly as if they'd happened
yesterday.  May their voices ring clear through our ears
so they may be heard through the words I record on their behalf.
May what is remembered here live on.
Ashe'
Amen
And So It Is

With the spring coming and us doing Project Past Life revisiting
the pictures from the time we lived in Germany, my thoughts
have been on travel and how much I want to show my son.
As much as I enjoy living in the Atlanta Metro Area
I love going out of state for adventures, which has
mostly been to Myrtle Beach, SC.  But I want to
go to more and different places this year. 

It's not a surprise when I looked at Jamie's
question for today. 

How do I wish to spend my time?

I wish to spend my time traveling with my family and maybe even a few friends. 

I wish to experience what every place I travel to has to offer. 
I wish to spend time really enjoying where ever I am...even if it only
means exploring and enjoying what Georgia has to offer. 

And I wish to spend my time sharing what I have learned and experienced
in a meaningful way with others.

'I really want to do something with these pictures, Mom.
It's making me sad that my memories of Papa and Grandmere are fading and I want to share them with Ian before it's too late.' my daughter confided to me as we threw yet another half full photo album into the box we designated for photo storage.

It's been several months since she returned from her trip
to Japan last summer. She came home burning with passion and motivation to simplify our belongings;
mostly the things we held on to from my parent's estate.

In doing so we found loads of pictures.

My mom's greatest wish was to be remembered
especially by the youngest of her grandchildren, my son.  Even now over  2 1/2 years since her death,
I still struggle with how I can keep her memory and stories alive in a tangible way for him. 


And with getting all the pictures from my grandmother that Mom kept,
I've also been concerned with finding a way to share the pictures and
stories of our family.

Scrapbooking would be the obvious answer to this dilemma, right?
Here's the thing...the only craft I've tried and hated was scrapbooking.

All the cropping, laying out, and endless bells, whistles and do dahs that go
with it seemed like much too much trouble for me. I need something
simple that's not going to take time way from other things I do like to do.
And though I've kept journals off and on for years I rarely if ever add pictures
to my words.

Enter Becky Higgins' Project Life, a simple
scrapbooking system that lets me
pair my photos with beautiful pre-designed
journal cards to help me save the memories

This made my heart sing with a resounding 'YES!!"
as I shared with my daughter what this system
could be for us.

As we go through the process of putting together the memories,
I'll be sharing our progress here as a way of staying accountable to
the completion of what at the beginning feels like a monumental task at this point. 

Preserving the past while documenting the journey of a thousand memories.
We're calling our journey Project Past Life and I hope you join us.

When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim,
"Ah," you are participating in divinity.
~Joseph Campbell

It's Wednesday lovely ones and Jamie has really done something
special as this week's wishcasting question is truly a juicy one!

When I first read today's question, I had a song come to mind
that went on to be one of the most
famous product jingles of all time which after a few minutes of digging
I found the original song:

And as I listen to the lyrics, I find the feeling behind them quite beautiful.
A truly lovely wish that I can only echo and maybe add a few things to.

What do I wish for the world?

I wish for the world to wake up and realize our collective home needs just as
much love and attention as the homes we live in to protect us from the elements.

I wish the world would wake up and see everything we're all interconnected.

And I wish the world would wake up and deal with each other from a place of
deep love for each other.

_If you hang out in spiritual circles for long enough you're going to hear a lot
about grounding.  You've probably experienced it but never knew it had a name. 
But what exactly is grounding and how do you do it? 

Let's talk a minute about being ungrounded.
 
To me being ungrounded is when I'm feeling out of touch with my body
or just not my normal self.  I may feel  spacey, antsy, or I can't concentrate
on getting any work done.  Being ungrounded can happen because of excitement,
worry, or a recent fright or trauma may have the body stuck in 'fight or flight' mode. 

Therefore to ground is taking the excess energy within me and return it to Mama Gaia

There are several ways to ground and no one way works better than the other.
It's just a matter of what works best for you.  Here are some of the ways that
work best for me.

_ Visualization exercises. A simple grounding exercise can be visualizing yourself as a tree.

First close your eyes and imagine roots growing
out from your feet extending through the ground and  down into the center of the earth.

Imagine these roots anchored there and see the extra energy flowing from your body into the core of the earth where it is transformed in it's firey core, leaving you feeling reconnected with your body and refreshed.

_Mindful Movement Meditation. The virtues of physical activity and meditation
are pretty well known.  And both can help you get in touch with your body and
clear any accumulated toxic energy.   

Why not bring these both together and try mindful movement meditation? 

Bring your awareness to the way your body moves during any activity. 
As you walk notice when each part of your foot touches the ground. 
When you put on a favorite song and dance, what part of your body best
expresses the instruments?  Can you hear the sound
the fabric you're wearing makes as your arms and legs move? 

If you choose a stationary meditation, sit on the floor to put your body
(buttocks and feet primarily) in touch with Earth. 

_

Connect with Nature. Going outside, taking off my shoes and wiggling my toes in the grass for a few minutes or even standing outside and taking several deep breaths helps me to ground. 
Working with soil (a garden is lovely) or if you can't get outside playing with clay is also an effective method to ground...and it's fun!

_Eat grounding foods. Grounding foods include those that come from the ground
such as any root vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, carrots) or flavorings such as ginger, nutmeg, garlic or cinnamon.  Warm drinks are excellent for grounding as well. 

Check out Ayurvedic Medicine sources for a more complete list of grounding foods.

_Crystals.  In general, Obsidian, Smokey Quartz, Jet or Black Tourmaline are excellent for grounding.  But you may find yourself drawn to a particular crystal.  Trust your inner knowing.

Hold the crystal in your hand imagining any unwanted energy flowing out of you and into the crystals.

Occasionally, you'll need to clear the crystal by placing it on the ground,
in a dish of sea salt overnight or placing it in the light of the full moon will
also help clear the excess energy.

If you've found this post helpful, please leave a comment and let me know!
I'd also love to hear about the ways you used to ground yourself as I'm always
looking for new tools to add to my medicine bag.

_You never truly appreciate the amount of energy you expend to do what is routine
to you until you become sick and have to heal and maintain some of that schedule. 

I am just starting to feel better. 

This is the space that I would usually push myself and try to get
back to my regular schedule only to be exhausted later.
Instead, I chose gentleness and was rewarded for my efforts.

_He stroked my head, got me more 'alligator juice' and contentedly
played games while keeping me company as I rested. 
I stroked his head and captured this moment. 

In chosing gentlness I was given gentleness back. 
A reminder of the law of attraction in action.

A reminder that even in my recouperating imperfect perfection
I am still enough.

So I want to remind you.
Wherever you are on this beautiful planet.
Whatever you're going through right now,
I hope you choose gentleness for yourself
and know with a deep certainty that even in your
dark less that shiny state you are enough  

So just as I'm set to get back to my regularly scheduled blogging
this week,I get side tracked by a nasty intestinal virus.  Nothing to do
but rest and let it run it's course.  

Hello tea and toast....excellent comfort foods.

While nursing myself back to health, I've been giving a lot of thought
to how I spend my time and ways I can make my schedule work
better for me.  And today, Jamie asks, What do you wish to attract?

I wish to attract a planning system that makes my heart sing. 

Franklin Covey,
I've used different planning systems with varying degrees of
success but everything seems to be geared strictly toward
business and feels too rigid, which I find incredibly boring
leading me to stop using the system all together.  

What I really need something that makes sense for me to use in
 all areas of my life.  Something fun and supportive with built in
flexible structure for my wonderful, crazy life.