Lessons from Sedona

So last weekend I was part of the 2016 Frequency of Sedona Experience with Ondre. Was it an experience? You betcha. On sooooo many levels. Hard to put into words, but here goes....

This experience was shared with an amazing group of 21 people. We all showed up with different reasons for being there. Our intentions and expectations for the weekend were varied.  

Some of us had been at the Sedona weekend last year and had grown together over the past year. Some of us had never met. Our ages ranged from 18 to 81. We parted as friends after sharing an experience that you can only really talk about with someone who was there. This year I was blessed to have my Mom as my travel buddy for the weekend, and we had a great time together.

The workshops were intense, surprising, unpredictable, fun, thoughtful and designed to help us grow in body, mind and spirit. We probably left with more questions than we arrived with - and that was the idea. Question! Learn! Grow! Question again!

We started early in the morning and ended late at night.  While maybe physically tired, mind and spirit were stimulated, and we just kept going. The weekend went fast and slow at the same time. (when you're with Ondre that seems to happen a lot...)

The food was specially prepared for us and was fantastic. Our Saturday dinner was an event in itself at a restaurant named Mariposa. Every detail was thought through and contributed to the experience.

In addition to the workshops, we meditated, had quiet reflection time, had great discussions, and at times laughed so hard we cried and couldn't breathe (Leigh, Rita, I really don't think we can ever sit together without causing a disturbance).

The time reconnecting with nature was priceless and immeasurable. If you haven't been to Sedona - GO TO SEDONA. Reconnect with nature, which then reconnects you with yourself and your Source. If you can't make it to Sedona, find your own special place to reconnect (you know, like maybe the beach??). 

Everyone there had "life" happening to them/around them - illness, family situations, financial situations, you name it, it was present. We came together as a community - a new family that supports each other. The room was a safe zone where you could completely be yourself.  

So, what kinds of activities did we have? A lot was crammed into a very short time, and I'll just touch on a couple of things.

Part of the experience was a jeep tour through the vortex areas of Sedona.  Yes, the scenery is breathtaking, but the tour gave us more than the view. Our tour guides were specially chosen to teach us the spiritual, historical, and scientific views of what we were observing and feeling. (I highly recommend that if you take a jeep tour in Sedona, you hire Earth Wisdom Jeep Experience - not your typical jeep ride.)

One of the stops had both a Buddhist Stupa and Native American Medicine Wheel. While there, I could feel the energy from my heart growing, and you could feel the peace around you. I also realized that the colors around me had become more vibrant, and the plants were practically glowing with beautiful rich colors. (Doesn't show in the photos the same way I saw them that day.)

During our morning meditations near a spectacular willow tree, the animals in the area would join us, and we were surrounded by the sounds of nature. Then when we became still, so did they. It was an awesome quiet.  

The lessons?  Too many to list. A foundation was set, and I will be discovering the layers of lessons over the next few days, weeks, months. What I'd like to pass along:

The people in your life are the most important thing you have. Family, friends and community are a gift and are the best medicine you will ever have.

You are a miracle. After a hilarious illustration of our physical creation (which was one of the laughing so hard you couldn't breath segments), the message was that the odds of you being created and here on earth right now are pretty ridiculous. Treat yourself like the miracle that you are, and treat others like the miracle they are as well.

There is a magic in connecting to the earth/nature - work on that connection every day. Daily meditation is a must.

Follow your gut - use your intuition. Practice listening to that little voice. It is never wrong.

Put your whole heart and being into everything you do. We are here such a short time, make it count by being wholeheartedly and unapologetically yourself.  

Photos you ask?? Of course. I took around 200 photos (would have been more, but I didn't always have my phone with me), and I love them all, so choosing which to share was a challenge. Enjoy!

Dusk at Poco Diablo Resort

Mom ready for the Jeep tour

Enjoying the scenery

Group at the Stupa and Peace Park

Tour Guide Kevin explaining about the Medicine Wheel

Contemplation time

View from my seat at dinner at Mariposa

Another view from Mariposa

The awesome willow tree at Poco Diablo

More awesomeness

Beautiful skies

Oak Creek near Poco Diablo

Too many experiences to share them all, and this is only a very small taste of what the weekend held - contact me if you're curious and want to know more. Enjoy creating and participating in your own experiences.

Light, Love and Laughter

 

Learning to hit the curve....

So I started writing a much lighter post on a completely different topic, but this one kept writing itself in my head, so I finally gave up and let it come through....

Life throws curve balls. (With the All Star Game coming up on Tuesday, I'm going with a baseball theme.) I don't care who you are, curve balls are going to be thrown at you. They are hard to predict and keep you off balance. You give a mighty swing, miss and look ridiculous in the process. Or, you get a pitch that comes inside and doesn't break, so you duck out of the way and hit the dirt. You then get back up, dust yourself off, and stand in for the next pitch.  Other times, you get hit by a pitch. You recover as best you can, and then head to first trying to get ready for what comes next. (Sometimes you get nailed by a fast ball and your life gets turned upside down, however today, we are talking about the curve.)

This process of letting go of your old life and creating a new one is, well, not easy. On top of working out who you really are, dealing with all of the emotions and consequences of the impact your decisions make on other people in your life, you also get to deal with....

...the week where work has been crazy stressful, you've been working overtime, have had meetings and/or clients, so you've hardly been home during the week. The cat is not amused at the alone time, and you get up in the morning to find that she has barfed in one of the shoes you were going to wear. Or, when you just want to come home and collapse and curl up in a blanket, you find that she has barfed on the only blanket you have (see previous post as to why this is a problem...)

...or the week where on Sunday night you pay all your bills and realize you have $17.63 left in your checking account, your car is low on gas, the kitchen is low on food, and you don't get paid until Friday. Wait, there's a new reflexology client on Tuesday! No problem - you can put gas in the car now and buy food Tuesday night! And then Monday night the new client calls to cancel. 

There are weeks when everything runs smoothly and you move confidently forward. Then there are the weeks where you have no idea what you are doing and really wonder what in the world you were thinking.  

I have been living on faith since January. The message today is for anyone else who is working on challenges or making big life changes:

When it gets really hard, you have a good cry, sometimes throw a spectacular pity party for yourself, and, then, in my case, you go sit on the beach and reset. You talk to a good friend. You realize that most of the pitches you've been thrown are the curves where you just have to laugh at yourself or just get back up and dust yourself off. You say, "OK God, it's you and me. Let's see what's next."  And then you start paying attention to what's going on around you and really stop, look and listen.  

On a day where you are questioning, you realize that the radio station you are listening to has just played:  "Don't Stop Believing"  "Don't Look Back" and "Don't Stop Me Now"  (yes, this really happened).

A week that you are low on food and cash, a friend calls and invites you to dinner and sends you home with leftovers. The office has food brought in for lunch. The grocery store has a sale with ridiculously low prices on just what you need.

The weather heats up and you realize that none of the summer clothes you wore last year fit you this year (thank you healthy eating and walking for this "problem"). Then a friend shows up out of the blue with a couple pairs of shorts and some t-shirts she was given that she doesn't need and is passing them along.

You bump into something that knocks over a stack of books (which trust me, is easy to do around here) and a book catches your eye that you haven't read in a while. You pick it up, flip it open to a random page - and read exactly what you needed to read in that moment.

You go outside and a butterfly practically flies into you.  Later another one almost flies into your car through the open window. The butterfly is a symbol of transformation: "changing life to such an extreme that it is unrecognizable at the end of the transformation." It is also a symbol of faith and represents the soul.  (I see a lot of butterflies.)

Looking at the license plates around you while driving to and from work, you see the number 4 repeated over and over. And you realize you keep seeing 444 - which can be interpreted that Angels are with you. You look at the wonderful people in your life and realize that your close friends and family are the embodiment of the Angels the number 4 is representing.

The lesson: Keep getting up and dusting yourself off. Keep laughing. Stand in for the next pitch, make some adjustments, and eventually you'll get a hit. It does get easier. God, Spirit, Angels, Universe - whatever you want to call it - has your back. Look around you and you'll see the evidence.

Light  Love & Laughter

Can a washing machine be evil??

So one of the marketing points of my studio (other than the absolutely fabulous location) was that it came with access to a washer and dryer. Yes!! No going to the laundromat!  Never been to one, never needed to, and really was not looking forward to it.  

Property Manager tells me that in the garage used by my two neighbors (us studio people park outside) there is a washer and dryer, and the access code for the garage door is FRAN.  Great!  I'm running out of clothes since the big move, and I finally have a storage thing with drawers to put clothes in, so off to do some wash!! 

First Challenge:  Open the garage door.  OK. Should be simple enough.  Look at the key pad, and press each of the numbers enough times so it spells FRAN.  Nothing happens.  Try again.  Crap, nothing.  I'm now getting annoyed and angrily press each number once that happens to have the letters that spell FRAN.  This works.  Really?? You couldn't just tell me the code was 3726??

Second Challenge: Using the washer.  I look at the instructions, it seems pretty simple, I put in my clothes and soap, start it up, make sure it's going and then go back to my unit (leaving the stupid garage door open).   

Go back a little later to check on things - the light on the machine indicates it's in the rinse cycle, but nothing is happening. I open the lid and see a basket full of water and my clothes just sitting there.  Hmmmm.  Close the lid.  Nothing.  Press the stop/start button. Press it again.  Washer starts to drain, but no spin.  And it sits there, with my sopping wet clothes after it finishes draining. 

Hmmmm.  I look at the instructions again and it says something about the "lid lock" needing to be engaged during the spin cycle.  I close the lid and try the stop/start button again.  The machine starts all over again and starts filling with water - No!!!  Stop!!!  Then the "lid lock" light goes on, so I'm thinking OK, I guess my clothes are getting washed twice. Come back in a while and my clothes are floating in water again NOT SPINNING.  So to outsmart the stupid machine, I change the dial to SPIN/RINSE, hoping that will work.  The lid lock light comes on and the machine starts to spin! 

Hooray!  Except - when it stops spinning, the lid lock light is still on, and guess what? THE LID WON'T OPEN.  Really?  So then I try the start/stop button again, and the machine starts filling with water AGAIN, and I can't open the lid because the damn lid lock won't let me!!!  GIVE ME BACK MY CLOTHES!!!  Of course, neither of the neighbors who share this machine are home, so I can't ask them what the secret is to using the damn thing.  And it just sits there blinking its lights at me.  

Finally, and I can't even tell you what combination of things I did, the lid lock light goes out, the lid will now open, and I can rescue my soaking wet clothes from the washer.  Sheesh!!!

Third Challenge: Using the dryer.  After my experience with the washer, I was almost afraid to put my sopping wet clothes in the dryer.  Wrung them out as best I could, threw them in, closed the door and, thankfully, there was no fucking lid lock, turned it on and watched for a while to make sure it didn't set my clothes on fire or something.  Came back a while later, and guess what?  The dryer is not evil!  It just dries your clothes!!

The next day I ran into my neighbor - I asked about the washer and she says "Oh, yeah, the washer isn't working right, so I take my clothes to the laundromat to wash them and then bring them home and use the dryer."

That would have been good to know....

The lesson?  Get to know your neighbors, and ask about things before using shared appliances.  

Light, Love & Laughter