(In Between Things)

I'm curious about the world's critical objective perspective about my high flying views on what this life really is. I'm reading a couple different scientific based books right now and it's fascinating to see what sort of thoughts they provoke. For example, a heart doesn't actually LOVE someone, it's the emotions that are connected from the brain..though, "heartache" is often physically felt in the heart region. Scientifically, they are discovering that mind and body work together, and yet, our language doesn't quite encompass these ideas. Also, the last few years I've been known to say things like, I'm open to whatever the universe is offering me, or, the universe will provide, and yet, scientifically the universe is a HUGE amount of space and it(?) has very little concern about insignificant little me. So what is it, then, that is guiding me in my life? The world is ever changing and things "fall into place" when we allow them to, but what is this phenomenon of existence that changes when I stop trying to control things with my resistance? Is it something bigger than me or is it simply my projections onto life. Where do these thoughts come from?

On Tuesday I finished a Skype call and grabbed the dog and my new little man and headed out the door to the dog park. I needed some fresh air and blue skies as well as the innocence of Bodhi's perspective on things. We enjoyed running through the dog park and looking at all the beautiful birds. On our way out of the park we found half of a (quail's?) eggshell and Bodhi was captivated. He held it as carefully as he could though he didn't always remember he was protecting such a fragile piece of nature. He dropped it just barely under my foot at one point when we were running downhill and I was so grateful I missed it! Later however, on the walk home, we weren't so lucky. Harry, our husky, ran around behind us and his leash tripped Bodhi from the back. Though Bodhi nearly fell face first into the dirt, his tears were not in physical pain but in the loss of his treasured egg. I immediately felt a connection with having let go of something precious and seeing the cracked egg among blades of grass made me want to cry with him. I sat holding Bodhi's hand as he bawled, crying out and trying to understand why it had to happen the way it did. I sympathized with him saying it can make us feel angry and sad when things don't go the way we want them to, and sometimes things end before we're ready to say goodbye.

 Eventually Bodhi was able to get up, though he insisted on collecting the larger pieces that still remained, cracked and broken as they were. We continued on with the eggshell carefully sitting in his hand. Bodhi began to notice and point out all the beautiful spring blossoms growing on the trees and wanted to collect them. He found pink ones, yellow ones, green ones, blue ones and purple ones. He picked a few of each as he found them and set them gently in his hand on and around the shell. At one point as we were walking, Bodhi looked up at me and said, "You know what? I'm not sad anymore," in his sweet five year old Australian accent. It was a precious moment of acceptance and peace. I breathed it in, grateful to work through my own emotions in his experience. It was purely amazing to experience the raw-ness of his emotional process which we don't often experience as adults because of apprehensions, embarrassment, responsibility for others and a whole lot of other b.s. that keeps us from living fully in ourselves.

 I finished a book recently called The Top Five Regrets of The Dying and from it created an acronym to help me remember the things I didn't want to end up regretting in my own life:
Allow your Happiness**
Live with Balance (aka: don't work too hard)
Invest in Your Loved Ones!!
Value your Emotions**
Embrace Yourself (for who you are)

 **Allowing happiness doesn't always come naturally and in order to let it in we first have to be open to the emotions we experience. Vulnerability is not valued in our culture, though it is the core to helping us understand ourselves. I wish we all had a chance to experience our own vulnerability in a safe place, (like my preschool classrooms!) where we could experience and process the tough emotions and revel and dance in the wonderful ones! This is one of my favorite things about working with children, they constantly live this way! Living with Bodhi gives me the opportunity to witness the purest form of disappointment as well as absolute joyous bliss! And the emotions pour through his whole being, as he is open to all the raw feelings he's experiencing. I am striving to allow this for myself. Especially because I know that when I do shine, I am sharing an amazing gift with the people I'm close to. I know there are certainly "dangers" to living with my heart on my sleeve, but I am much more interested in grounding into my deepest heartfelt* feelings than living in constant resistance of the enormity of life and all the connections I could miss out on if I wasn't open to loving fully and deeply every moment! (*Again, heartfelt - where do these emotions actually come from?) 

Carla has offered to help me finally learn guitar and I definitely plan to follow up on it. When she gave me my first lesson I decided to let my guard drop beneath my tapping toes and followed her lead as I rocked to the rhythm of the music with this new friend of mine who's found her way right into my heart. Each moment only exists once, and I plan to make every one count, no hesitation, no b.s! After tonight's jam with Carla and Scott's friends, I feel more certain than ever that music is essential to who I am and always will be. It confirmed that need musicians in my life to help me create the reality I love. It'll be fun to get into the live music that these small villages have to offer and to break my shell a bit as I offer my own gift of song to the world.

After Bodhi told me he wasn't sad anymore I sang him a bit of one of the songs I wrote while working out on the farm when I first came to Australia. He asked me if that was the one about, "every little thing's gonna be alright"? and I told him it was the same idea. We sang Three Little Birds together as we skipped under the tunnel beneath the train tracks, our voices echoing off the walls and people on the other end smiling at us as they passed. Music is a beautiful tool, as are our emotions, and fortunately, so much of the time, they end up hand in hand.