You, Sweet Peas...

.

You, Sweet Peas,

seduce me with your glorious smell

each morning

drawing me out of the house

onto the deck

to drink your syrupy scent

with deep inhalations

Thanks for getting me outside

into the crisp morning air.

In the middle of a Canadian October

you defy the season

still joyously climbing

climbing

thriving

and making me feel

that summer has yet to depart!

Thank you.

Weeding and Shedding Old Skin

I am trying to bring
my love of gardening to
the task of
     unearthing invasive weeds:
patterns and habits that choke my life


no longer effective
     no longer needed.

If humans were like reptiles,
shedding their skin,
     that old thing that limits them,
as they
grow in spirit

the world would be...
...perhaps not a 'better place'
but one I think
     I'd enjoy more.

If we never assumed we had 'matured'
'grown up'
     never assumed we were 'finished'

always believed there was growing yet to do

then what?

I don't want to stay the same.
The same limitations
the same behaviour
     causing all of the same old problems I've

visited so many times
before.

Enough!
If living life a certain way
led to results I didn't like
     repeatedly

why would I carry on in the same way!

To break free from this fear
     the tie that binds me
requires change
a new approach
which,
of course,
I haven't done before
     and so may be clumsy at
which may not lead to results I like
     right away.

But I owe it to myself
to give this new approach
the same honour I gave the old one - that one which didn't work.
     The honour of trying it repeatedly.

Perhaps, in time,
it will become
the new normal.


I'm calling on snake energy now
     Oh wonderful, sinuous friend
please help me wriggle out of my old skin
and find ways
to stay safe
     until the new one has become less tender.

very approachable garter snake, summer 2009

Fight, Flight... or Freeze?

Lately I've been feeling more and more frustrated with my reaction to *possible* conflict (my response to actual conflict is even worse).
I avoid conflict like the plague - silencing my true voice any time I feel that speaking honestly could lead to conflict.  The limbic system in my brain misinterprets almost any level of threat as life-threatening - even a mildly heated discussion about politics!
My response is to freeze up, shut down and withdraw inside myself.  So frustrating!  I really want to change this about myself.  Journalling about it led to this bit of writing:

I am not the caged animal who tries frantically to escape.

Who fights tooth and nail no matter the odds.

Who, determined, chews off their own leg

to be free of a trap.

I have no Fight or Flight.

I am the deer who freezes when the lion approaches.

I am the one who lies down and waits to die.

Why?

____________________________________________


I found an excellent article about this here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewire-your-brain-love/201008/four-ways-respond-during-argument 

THIS is being alive

Redbird sings
sweet piercing
sunrise salutation

Robins, en masse,
hunt for breakfast

and a school janitor
quietly collects garbage
blown around by the night winds.

After walking,
I sit on a bench
and raise my arms to the sky.

Sitting here typing now,
I look out the window and see
a rainbow!

This
is being alive.

A Two Hawk Day

Today is a two hawk day.

Breast feathers puffed out

to soak up the sun

heat very welcome on this frigid morning.

Four brave squirrels share the tree

warmth more important

than hiding from predators.

After a time

the hawk's wings spread wide

and it glides away.

Mere seconds later

another swoops in

to take it's place!

Gifts like these

keep this country girl

sane in the city.

*note*

the photo is not mine - it's from photobucket.com

I decided to enjoy the view instead of running to get the camera - more 'in the moment'.