Monday, December 03, 2012

Notes from the Moon

This month, I have created a special tool for you to manifest your brave new world. If you are not familiar with my work, please refer to my website. I will link it below. This tool is powerful. It is easy to use. It is fun! It smells good and it is pretty. it's Candle of the Moon DECEMBER MOON, BELIEVE.



I recommend using this special tool to show the gratitude that is required to create your perfect world. State your beliefs. State your deepest held beliefs, your most fanciful wishes and desires, your picture perfect world, your health and well being. Use the affirmative to create your reality.
I'll show you how:

I believe in myself. I believe in love and forgiveness. I believe in making mistakes to get better. I believe in making amends and honoring the feelings of others. I believe in magic and the power of the mind to heal. I believe that spirituality can be goofy and make fun of itself. I believe in serendipity and divine timing. I believe we can evolve to be a peaceful planet where we each have tolerance and compassion for one another without exception. I believe the Earth can heal herself and it is never too late to stop relying on ziploc baggies and other plastics. I believe we can be successful without having to "have it all". I believe in love and hugs and holding hands. I believe in you.

Love, Shelley

how to purchase BELIEVE

Saturday, November 10, 2012

I Know that He Loved Me.

This is bad. I have no digital pictures of my father. I even tried googling him. Nothing.  This is the last picture I have of him. That's his arm.  I am pretty sure this was the last time I saw him alive and well. It was when my beloved grandmother, Nana, had decided to quit her dialysis and invite her own passage through the end of her lifetime.  We took Nana on tour, we being my Uncle Larry, Dad's younger brother, my sister Stacy and I. We dropped in on Dad and my step mom, Linda. I think Dad was expecting Nana and Larry but Stacy and I were a surprise. It wasn't very nice of us to just drop in like that, but we did it so he would have a tiny taste of what it felt like. My father's MO was to drop by without warning. It's a two hour drive from his house to mine and nearly four hours to my sisters' houses and yet he NEVER told us he'd be coming. He would always just drop by. We hated it. We felt unprepared and like second thoughts. Frequently he missed us or we missed him. It was so sad. My dad met my son one time. Aidan was about a month old. My son. My only boy, who is now nine.

That adorable little boy in the picture above is my nephew, Ethan. He is the son of my half brother Christopher. This was my first time meeting him. I was in love.

How did this happen???? My father, healthy as a horse save for a spazmatic back, was supposed to live to be at least 85. He was active and took care of himself. He loved to create beautiful things out of old, ugly, forgotten stuff. He restored houses, many houses. I was just talking to him about this two weeks ago. I said, "Dad, you are leaving a legacy of beautiful craftsmanship behind you. You are an artist and I know that you must create because I am the same way." He said, yes, he loved restoring houses and was working on one now. He knew he had to be careful though, because injuries were such a burdon. Luckily, he had Linda, (his beloved wife of 35 years) to watch over him and keep him safe.  Then he asked if I wanted to hear a story. "Of course!", I said. He told me of Adrian, his youngest grandchild, who at 17 months loved to watch her cousins and brothers and was apparently learning from them. My dad witnessed that brilliant little mind pick up a softball, perch it on a rock, find a plastic bat and swing, handle side first and knock that ball off it's perch like she had seen the big boys do it. She retrieved the ball and did it again and again. He, my dad, was totally enraptured with the miracle of this angel and the joy of knowing that his grandkids would all attend the same elementary school together now that his daughter Tamara and her husband had moved within one block of his son, Chris and his wife Molly.

My dad was happy. It oozed out of him. I was happy for him and when we were finished talking, I told him I loved him and I really meant it. He was in a good place and I was truly happy for him. Life was good.

The next morning, while working on the roof of the house he was restoring, he slipped and fell two stories to the ground and took the fall on his head. My sisters and I were able to see him in the hospital, to hold his hand, do reiki, tell him we were sorry, to say that we forgave him, to tell him we understood that he was torn between two families, to tell him we were so grateful for Rock Creek and Thrifty ice creams and Sears portrait studios, for shiny things in the road, for fixing what is broken, for garages that become studios for craftspeople and for Love. I know he loved all of his children. I know now that my father loved me. When he died last night, after being removed from life support, I know that his life was a good life, lived on his terms and I know that he loved me.


Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Ethereal Arm Wrestle

I tried to publish yesterday's post about a dozen times. Each time I reviewed it, there was something askew. The font was grey. The pictures and text were hidden. My mom's blog was unreadable when it was embedded in my blog. I was being toyed with from the energetic realms which are easily reachable with all of our electronic transmissions through the ether.

I find it amusing, this little wrestling match I am having with someone, somewhere. Dad, is that you????  Look dad, your body is still breathing, albeit it with the help of a ventilator. Your heart is still beating. Why don't you get your energetic ass back to your body and fight a little bit harder. Lets see what kind of life you've still got in you.

Monday, November 05, 2012

To Feel Love no matter what


I am a child of divorce.  I am the third daughter of the marriage of my parents and was a mere two year old when they divorced. My mother was granted sole custody of my sisters and I. Needless to say, I have issues. 


From this childhood, I learned to be a good step parent. From this childhood, I have learned to be be a wife who looks no further than the confines of her family for satisfaction. From this childhood, I have stored grief that is now seeping out of me due to the critical condition of my father who suffered a head injury from falling off a two story roof last Monday.  My mother wrote it best in a blog she published last week My Mom's Blog. Just know that no matter how big or small a parental relationship may be, it impacts you. There is always love to be had in the smallest of getures. Memories are storehouses of truth and the truth for me is simply love. That's it.  

My husband and son brought a book home last summer that enraptured me. It was called Darth Vader and Son. This book really says much to me because Luke feels love for his father even though he is of the Dark Side of The Force. He feels the good in him even though, in the STAR WARS saga, they share no memories as father and son. Luke simply feels love for his father. No matter what. This book is so sweet, it shows the love of the father for the son. I'll share a pic or two. It is by Jeffrey Brown.







Friday, October 05, 2012

PLAY





What if you only get one chance at this life? One chance to live it fully, voraciously and savor it with glee? What if you have been taking it all too seriously and need to get down to some good old unstructured play time. It feels like the time is now for me. Play is becoming a priority. Starting October 1st, I have committed to playing every day. Luckily, I have some friends and family members who are masters who will willingly guide me into playtime.

Monday I was introduced to the only nude beach in Santa Barbara.


I am 44 and a mother and a wife and... fully human. This is not me though. This is a Master of Play. Jill.

This was only about half way up the cliff. It made my head spin to look down from the top.

We looked for Great White Sharks from our perch but sadly, saw none.

This is me. Nicely filtered. Tastefully covered by the cool waves

On Tuesday I took a fossil walk on the beach.

I truly love the different geological stories told at each and every beach in Santa Barbara

I find vertebrate fossils every time. I know what rocks to look at to find them.

I thought, "maybe I should publish a book on Vertebrate Fossils on the Beaches of Santa Barbara".  I would probably be the only geek to buy it. 




I had fun with the waves and the rocks.

On Wednesday, I went for a paddle with Jill and Aleya.  I couldn't find my board racks for my car and so I came to the beach just with a wetsuit. I swam out a little bit and joined Jill on her board. We paddled tandem. It was so fun!!

I also created these:





It's been a good week for play. 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Learning How

Learning how to relax. Learning how to ask. Learning how to delegate. Learning how to be the me I am today. It's a never ending process, one that seems effortless at times and sometimes such a struggle. I crossed the boundary into magical 44 and already, life seems different.

Did a dip on my birthday

Saw this owl yesterday (she may have been stunned or injured- Jill and I gave her reiki)
Last night, The shoreline in my dream revealed whales, dolphins and separately ... a white shark.




Monday, September 17, 2012

We Are But Feathers



Have you been feeling as out-of-control as I have? Rest assured, we are all but feathers on the breath of God. If we just go where we are blown, without the struggle, the breeze begins to calm and sooth rather than stress us.  As long as we are still breathing, we are OK.

 We are OK.






Monday, September 10, 2012

It Can Always Get Worse

It has been one hell of a week. Maybe two. Cadence was supposed to leave for Prague last Thursday but ended up at Cottage Hospital with a kidney infection instead. Today is Monday, and she is still there. Her kidney infection developed into pneumonia and she has now gone five days without food. Nothing sounds appealing. She is nauseous. She has thrown up. Life takes a turn we never anticipated, never dreamed could happen to us and now what? Her flight to Prague got rescheduled twice, maybe three times by now, with no anticipation of a quick departure at this point. Now all we want is some progress towards regaining health. All we want is a consistently normal temperature, and an apatite. We want an apatite and actual food consumption.

While all this is happening to Cadence, the world continues to turn and others in the family fall into their own small crises. Someone has panic attacks about gym class, someone is stressed about their future, someone's car has broken down for the third time in five days, someone's room is infested with fleas, someone just wont eat, and someone (me) is just trying to keep her chin up and keep moving forward.

It can always get worse, so I realize this week that instead of being weighed down by all the shit that keeps on happening, we should all just dodge and weave, picking ourselves up and taking a sip of soup to regain our strength. We can't give up on life when it starts showering us with challenges. We have to keep a neutral stance, taking each calamity as it comes and doing our best to get through it all, expecting that we will not anticipating that we won't.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

What Makes a Family

I married into, birthed and inherited my children. I have five. The first two daughters, I married, the third daughter and son, I birthed and the fifth child, I inherited. My husband's ex-wife gave birth to a third daughter, Faith, a year after she and Tom divorced. Having come from divorce, I knew how awful it felt to be left out from a "new family" so Tom and I decided to include Faith on a few of our family trips. When she was 8, she joined us in Tahiti. Then there was Hilton Head, South Caroloina. She came with us to Disney World and New York City and it was an absolute must that she participate in our Fiji return this summer.  Faith has become a full-fledged member of the family with her own (albeit rotating) room.  A family creates memories together. They include each other, they annoy each other, they grow up together and they remain united, if they choose. If we have done our job well, our children will remain close to each other and close to us because they like to be with us, as much as we like to be with them.  Our Fiji trip was a glue. I believe it was a pliable, yet permanently sticky glue that will meld us together for good, as a family. Peer in and take a look:













I realize that I am an important part of our family. As a natural nurturer, it has been "easy" for me to be compassionate about all of the members.





My beautiful family!











None of this would be possible without Tom. I am so grateful!