we changed things up a bit today, my diva & I...since thunderstorms are promising by afternoon, we took our official walk before breakfast, and before work. my mind wandered along as the scent of the mulchy woods hung heavy in the humid air. a buzzing in my belly has been growing insistently...More*Deeper it says...at each turn of an age, i feel a call to growth, a call for more, a call to peel back another layer...like a snake shedding skin, it's about finding and fitting who i am now - which is everchanging. i remember thinking that when i turned 16 and got my license, that would be "it" and i would be grown. then it was 21 ...after that it would be all set in stone and i would know all the mysteries of the universe, and from that point on, it would just be getting married, having babies, working, and going about life. guess my surprise. so this morning i did a quick check of email, printed something out for husband, and of course, my fingers began to wander. and i found this. this is something i would avoid at all costs, (late note: i would normally avoid at all costs - didn't mean to imply this retreat should be avoided. quite the opposite) picturing a small, young group of petite women with extravagant budgets and airy dreams. in short, everything i once was. yet i felt drawn in, felt the possibility. so as i walked, i wondered about this dichotomy, and why there was such a separation between Then and Now. yes, i am older, and have shed some skins since then. but the secret of the matter is that really, we stay basically the same inside...though different, though life experiences have changed my reactions and attitudes somewhat, i am still the same Core Self that i was born to be. hard to explain, you have to drift into the idea. as i walked through the woods, i felt embraced by those women that i have never met, or met just briefly. by their spirit, by the response of my Core Self to their unapologetic lives. i suspect i will not be attending the retreat, but felt, as i walked through the woods, as though the essence of it had already found me. the craziness of the past few weeks, creating necklaces, taking care of animals and creating collage work for a new show...it all stopped swirling like bad children on a long road trip, and perspective and priority took the wheel...and a swell of gratitude, calming and explosive at the same time, filled me. and just when i thought i'd touch back down to earth, this leaf stopped me. larger than my hand, in the middle of the path, with a space cleared around it. a love letter from the woods. "be a part of it, not apart from it," was the message my spirit said to me. and a quote from Rumi came to mind...one I have used in a collage ... Don't be satisfied with stories - how things have gone with others...unfold your own myth...without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage, we have opened you. so here, with complicated explanation, i am typing through a puzzle whos pieces are saying to me you have been opened. once opened, the brilliant work of addition can begin. wishing you a day of openings, and humid tendrils of Knowing that cling, perfumed, to you. and now, gently, i'm off to the studio.