spiritual

It’s not cool to be giddy about Christmas and the holidays.
I KNOW!
I get it.

I’ve already confessed that the shopping gives me a buzz,
as do the white twinkle lights…
And the tree smell,
And the carols,
And just the general festive energy.

But I get THOSE looks from THOSE people,
the ones that want me to put a lid on my joy.
It is ridiculous, and frivolous,
And it makes them uncomfortable.

But why should I?!
Why should any of us let others dictate our happiness level.
EVER.

I get that the whole commercialization of Christmas
has gotten insanely out of hand.
Yet…

I can’t help but smile when I see whole families in those awful
Christmas sweaters,
Kids on Santa’s lap at the mall, 
The gorgeous, giant tree at the Grove,
houses with lights, 
there’s one at the end of our block that looks like Christmas barfed lights and reindeer all over it, and damn it, I still smile when I come around the corner!

The store windows get me too!
I have several friends who put great thought and immense creativity
in their store windows, so I know what goes into those mini masterpieces.
The ones in NY take the cake, but take a walk down LaCienega,
or Melrose, or even in (gasp) Beverly Hills.

They make my mouth drop in wonder and amazement,
Then I look next to me and there’s a little kid, with a peppermint candy stuck in his hair, holding his grandmas hand, with his mouth agape too.
I can see our reflections, and I want to burst out laughing…

Just as a pinched face lady briskly walks by, not even turning to look,
but shaking her head just the same.
REALLY lady!?
Don’t be our buzz kill!
Don’t dictate and judge our joy!
It Christmas!

Have a peppermint candy.

XoxJanet 

Two Saturday mornings ago at Yoga, Diana* kept repeating a phrase,
and as she did, it worked its way through my fuzzy, lazy, Saturday morning brain.
and it has continued to do so.

I receive ALL blessings.

Think about that one.

I receive…ALL blessings.

It started with my head, my brain, and I said “Oh Yeah, 
I do that”!
Then a few minutes went by as it percolated down to my true, true heart
and another “Ah ha”!
I absolutely DONT do that”!
And I know I’m not alone.

Why are we so stingy with the blessings we allow ourselves?

As I let it really sink in over several days and numerous meditations,
I realized that my blessing allowance was similar to my Christmas
shopping…only in reverse!

Instead of the “one for them, three for me”! that I was experiencing
and wrote about in “December Shopping Maniac”,
I could be a real Ebenezer Scrooge when reaching into
my bag of blessings.

I have MANY, MANY! Don’t get me wrong!
It’s not about counting the ones you have,
although that is a practice I HIGHLY recommend.
It’s about allowing yourself to continue to receive.
And therein lies the rub.

After careful consideration,
Here’s where it occurred to me I might be stingy with my blessings:

The blessing of patience,
I’ve been praying for that one since the 80’s!
Sometimes I’ve got it, I’m freakin Mother Teresa,
mostly I don’t, my hand are in tight fists, and I just won’t allow myself
to be blessed that way.

The blessing of financial abundance has alluded me for yet another year,
not that I don’t have enough to live, because I do.
But the blessing of a career that provides real relief from financial worries.

I receive ALL blessings.

The blessing of peace of mind.
A life without worry.
Why are we so damn stingy with THAT one?!
What is our/my attachment to that 3am appointment 
with dread and anxiety?

I receive ALL blessings

The blessing of time.
More time for sleep.
To take walks.
More time to laugh.

The blessing of letting other people do things for me.
Ohhhh that’s a hard one! 
Stingy,stingy,stingy!

I receive ALL blessings

I wrote it on the bathroom mirror to remind myself. I know I’ll see that at least twice a day!

Take a few minutes,
What blessings do you need to work on allowing?

XoxJanet

* DianaLang.com

“All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.”
– D.H. Lawrence

Man! I don’t know about you, but I’m a dreaming machine!
Seems every night I’m having these epic, vivid dreams that make my waking life pale by comparison!
I blame that giant full moon energy,
Or the Chinese food.

Last night, I was piloting an ATV (all terrain vehicle) 
through some kind of wild ass desert obstacle course….brilliantly I might add, 
and fast! 
Really,really fast!
I want to say recklessly fast…but it wasn’t.

If you know me, that kind of speed doesn’t surprise you at all,
I love to go fast!
There I was, cautiously confident, (is that possible)?
Careening through the desert on an ATV wickedly fast,
something I’ve never done in real life!
(God bless the guy who’d give ME the keys to an ATV, dream or no dream)!

Even though the course seemed impossibly treacherous, I was making
all the hairpin turns and steep hills easily…just at breakneck speed!
Isn’t that an analogy for what’s going on right now?
Some days seem impossibly treacherous to navigate,
Some people do too! Ha!
yet we do, and each situation just speeds by,
Each day just a blurry memory.

Also, in this dream, the course kept changing! 
What?!
I’d look up ahead for a sec, 
get lots of bugs in my teeth, cause I’m grinning like an idiot,
see a pretty clear path, 
and then it would change before I got there,
to something ridiculously twisty, or steep, or filled with rocks.
Completely unexpected!
Just like Life…right?!

We all seem to be navigating things, even though we can’t for the life of us
see where we’re going, or what comes next.
It’s just too fast and furious to take it all in,
This wild and wooly full moon energy.
But we’re making things happen,
We’re making our dreams come true.

I personally love that I was getting outdoors and having all that exercise…
cause it ain’t happening here in the real world,
on account of the fact that it’s the holidays and
I’m consuming copious amounts of Toll House Cookies.
I’m optimistic that dream activities burn extra calories…right?

Can’t wait to see where I go and what I do tonight,
In the dusty recesses of my mind 😉

Please share your adventures.
Xox Janet 

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”
– Dr. Seuss

In an interview he did in 2007, Peter O’Toole, that beautiful, blue eyed, scalawag actor, was asked the question, “What do you want written on your tombstone”?

He leaned back and told the story of his beloved tattered leather jacket.
He said it was soaked in sweat, covered in blood, Guinness and cornflakes?!
Which of course made it his favorite.
Eventually it went to the cleaners.
It came back with a note pinned to it, that all these years later still made him chuckle.
It read:

“It distresses us to return work which is not perfect”

That’s was his answer, and I couldn’t agree more!
Because otherwise, what’s the point!?

When I leave this mortal coil, I want to be “distressed.”
I want to show I’ve lived.
That perhaps it wasn’t a pure and “perfect” life, but dammit! It was a life well lived!

Just like his jacket, I want to be worn in, with the wrinkles and scars to prove it.
I want to be covered in sweat, and dog hair, with smeared lipstick and wine stains.
…Maybe even cornflakes!

I want unpaid parking tickets in the pockets.
Along with a motorcycle key and a wad of foreign currency.

I want the leather to smell like a combination of caramel,tobacco, Shalimar, and coffee,
I want it left on the back of a chair in George Clooney’s suite in a Paris Hotel.

I want to remain perfectly imperfect.

Then I want to be “returned to sender, postage due.”

How about you?
Xox

I had a dream last night about being a snowflake.
I was with all the other snowflakes, waiting in line to fall to earth.

It was very noisy, because us snowflakes are a chatty bunch.
We have to get it all out before we jump. 
All the gossip the complaining and the bad snowflake jokes,(they are the worst), because after we leave the cloud, we are required to remain silent.

Everyone is laughing, chewing gum and eating Red Vines, as snowflakes do, man! there’s a lot of excitement in the air.

What I can remember the most, is looking around and admiring,
well, really, I was envious of everyone else’s design.
There was such a display of individuality that it blew my little snowflake mind!

Every flake seemed to be showing their best crystals.
One was really pointed, great right angles, and deep cuts.
Another had more rounded edges, with huge cut out sections.
(Someone had obviously run with scissors)!

But what I noticed above all was that the design was a perfect match to their personality.

The outside totally matched what was inside.

What strikes me now, as I’m thinking about it, was that I was unable to see MY design. I was unable to myself.
There are apparently no full length mirrors at that point in line.

As I looked for a shiny surface, so I could catch my reflection; I began to notice I was being looked at with the same degree of admiration by the other flakes – but of course, even though I had no idea what they saw, I liked THEIR designs better than my own.

I wanted to go back to the “snowflake drawing board” and just make a couple of revisions. I was inspired. No one told me we could make a nip there, or a tuck there.

I had no idea we could be as bold as what I was observing around me.

As I got closer to the front of the line, I suddenly had this realization:

I WAS special,
I had done this many times,
I had fallen as rain,
I had pelted the earth as hail and sleet,
But now, HA!! 
Now I got to be a snowflake!
One of a kind,
Sparkling, crystalline, and magnificent!

All of the sudden things began to hush, we all became more present and very serious. We all ditched our gum under a table, gave each other big hugs, making sure not to smear our sparkles, and with a minimum of fanfare, but filled with great pride,

…We jumped. Look for me!

Merry Christmas Loves,

Xox