BREATHING SPACES
Co-Creating Well Being of Body, Mind, Heart, and Planet …..One Breath At A Time
Wildly Free Elder
Aging with vitality, grace, self love and compassion, along with a huge dose of humor, is our greatest accomplishment. After all, getting older is something many will never experience.
The Japanese say – Shi Bui – which translates as the beauty of aging.
Rather than being a fall away from beauty in all of it’s meanings, aging can be the revelation of beauty, the time when the inner radiance becomes visible for all genders.
Shining from the inside out our natural presence is honored by finding dignity, reverence, belonging, resilience, humor and wholeness – from within.
Not domesticated nor……READ MORE ON OUR NEW WEBSITE: WildlyFreeElder.com
Wildly Free Elder – The Artistry of Aging places attention on shifting the present mainstream narrative on aging, providing resources, and building a global community for connection, collaboration and artistry.
Please join our community by signing up for blog posts, submitting an Elder Spotlight or blog post article in alignment with WildlyFreeElder, or joining our global Conscious Aging Conversations via Zoom.
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Created by Gaye Abbott, Natural Passages Consulting, August 7, 2020
EARTH ROOTS – Living An Embodied Life
(Written1/21/2018 and Revised 5/8/2020)
Written more than 2 years ago now this piece surfaced as I was looking through my writings. Though the current pandemic has changed some of this dynamic I observed then, the time is now ripe to NOT go back to this mindless rootlessness that so many live in their daily lives.
After a week away house-sitting for my oldest son in Sacramento I arrived back in my home sanctuary overlooking Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I sat next to the creek where the water coursed down rocks to reflect on what I had experienced in the middle of the city in my time away. My reflections then….
There I found the sidewalks and streets most often paved over burying any connection with the surface of the earth. Noise and lack of kindness abounding in the disconnection to what gives us life.
Though trees lined the streets, yards contained flowers and other plant life, and a few parks were sprinkled here and there (often with paved pathways), most often I observed city people staying to the man-made surfaces and transportation with cell phones in their hands, technology all around, rubber soled shoes blocking the earth energies and noise everywhere.
Watching life versus living life.
Disconnection to the earth, to others, and actually to themselves. A disembodiment so profoundly present that the energy was wildly chaotic – over stimulation blasting nervous systems.
Sadly, my strong sense was that many have gone numb to even sensing this change in their bodies and minds.
Yet, we are interdependent with the very elements that create and sustain us. The elements that we cannot live without. The elements we have taken for granted. The elements that have been relegated to other.
I understand more clearly now why there is a revival of creating city and roof top gardens and making parks more available to every day use and recreation. A hunger for connection to something vibrantly alive, real – not virtual – energetically sustaining.
Beauty unfolding in front of us and within us.
Perhaps it was just me – a nature girl in the deepest parts of my being – but I am willing to bet those leading city based lives who don’t take time out to walk barefoot on the earth, wrap their arms around a tree, see shapes and colors come and go in the sky and clouds, place their nose close to flowers and herbs, talk to the animals and insects and generally touch home base on a daily basis are losing a significant part of being human.
I am speaking of Earth Roots here. When we lose our roots – our deep innate connection to the skin of this planet – we lose ourselves, it is just that simple.
Roots burrowing into the earth, activating deeper potential – beyond the normal, beyond the habits. An energetic and heart awareness of something holding and grounding each one of us into our lives.
To a creative lifetime purpose we have come in with.
A purpose of being that has been lost somewhere amidst the scattered attention on meaningless distractions and transitory “things”. Leading to deep inner sorrow, a sense of being “lost”, un-grounded, and dosed with habitual mediocrity.
Do we trust when we are off course? How do we even know if we don’t have roots to ground us in our daily lives. To give us someplace to come home to. To navigate from like a GPS that is forever there for us without the technology.
Can we find our way “home” by our senses?
That natural way of being that hears the trees breathe, takes note of the wisdom the creek teaches as it flows over the obstacles in it’s path, completely enraptured with the exquisite softness of moss, in a state of awe and wonder watching the miracle of a bee next to the hummingbird, soothed by the song of a bird nearby, aware of earth energy that pours from the soles into the soul.
Collapsing down onto the Earth in praise that we, as humans, have been given these roots to wake up!
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Copyright by Gaye Abbott 5/8/20, Natural Passages Consulting
GAYE ABBOTT lives and thrives in Northern California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she communes with hummingbirds, flowers, plants and wild things. Communing with nature is her favored activity along with ecstatic dance, Wisdom Healing Qigong at sunrise and sunset, volunteering in her community, laughing out loud and enjoying her family and friends with great appreciation and gratitude!
SURRENDER DOROTHY!
“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again”
~Robin Wall Kimmerer
First of all let me apologize to any Dorothy’s out there for targeting you. You were not meant to be singled out!
One of my very favorite movies of all time is The Wizard of Oz. For whatever reason whenever I hear the word “surrender” I see the Wicked Witch of the West riding her broom in the sky with the words “Surrender Dorothy” miraculously spelled out of the cloud formations.
Little did this very naughty witch realize that “surrender” allows and precipitates all kinds of possibilities to come into our lives, as opportunities and allies that would never have emerged if we did not simply let go and find the hidden power in our own vulnerability.
These days the global pandemic affecting millions of people and economies, as well as planetary shifts, essentially demands that we surrender and acknowledge there is, at the deepest level, no control or certainty. For most this is a vulnerable place where our deepest primal fear of death resides.
We all have woven a tapestry of identity that is familiar, and for the most part comfortable for us. During challenging times part of the tapestry comes apart and normally we simply “repair” it and go on with our lives.
However, at this time you may have felt that someone pulled hard on one of the threads of your tapestry identity and it all came undone at once.
Perhaps we could call this time on our planet “The Great Unraveling”.
Dorothy in the Oz story ended up being empowered by surrendering to her own innate wisdom, intuition, resiliency and power, and that of her loyal companions. But it didn’t come without great disorientation and fear.
After all her entire identity and home space shifted all at once! She was forced to see her life from a different perspective and to join with other companions whom she grew to trust.
I see this happening now with so many doing acts of kindness, compassion and donating time and skills to others in need and to our planets health. A global community becoming more consciously connected and innovative.
The power to transform is embedded in challenges such as we are currently experiencing. Even within the ordinary daily ups and downs on the roller coaster of “normal” life. Where something seems to be taken away there is always a new possibility or opportunity for change that emerges in right timing.
Opportunities to surrender and let go seem to be so numerous these days it is easy to be overwhelmed. We are so intimately connected that a lot of what you may be experiencing is the global fear, grief and at times panic that is affecting us all at some time or another.
In other words, others emotions and energy. It is important to know this and release what is not yours, as well as face your own simply by acknowledging and then letting go, instead of “something to be worked on”. Allow this opening and release to transform your inner world and perspective.
Re-weave your tapestry to reflect your innate sense of belonging and the embodied artistry you are here to express.
Three weeks ago within a 2-day period I experienced a lay off from my job, a necessary move during sheltering at home, and a dear friend hearing her cancer had progressed.
In those moments I realized clearly that I had choice. Just a breath away was the potential for an active surrender – a dissolution of patterned boundaries and an emptying out.
This conscious decision, amidst all the inner voices directing to mobilize and attempt some control of the situations, allowed the unfolding of circumstances that could not have been planned for, or even seen the possibility of, if staying contracted in fear, doubt, worry, anxiety and re-action.
How does it feel to surrender control and certainty…..and trust the unfolding?
Spaciousness, freedom and release where alternate possibilities emerge with a shift in perspective….
and strength, knowing and resiliency reside.
A return to trusting the unfolding of life.
I now live on 20 wooded acres near to the South Yuba River in Nevada City, California, have been accepted for unemployment benefits, and my friend has heard more hopeful news since the day we talked about having a more intimate relationship with dying,
Yes, these are challenging times. Yes, they take all of who we are, and are becoming, to meet and navigate. Yet our world is ripe for a consciousness shift on so many levels and in so many domains. All within cooperative connection with others, and communing with the natural world through our senses.
With surrender comes opportunity partnered with vulnerability. This has the potential to transparently unlock possibilities for change and increased well being.
With letting go comes a new found strength and resiliency that has been there all along.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
Are you ready to surrender?
Free Audio Surrender Guidance: It is advised that you find a very comfortable space and position to listen to this guidance on surrender. Either lying down with support for head/neck and low back or sitting in a comfortable reclining chair that feels safe and puts you at ease, or a sacred space in nature. If you have an eye mask or a soft piece of cloth you can place over your eyes to relax them and block out distraction, then do so. Give yourself this gift of time devoted on behalf of your own well being, and that of others whose life you touch.
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Copyright by Gaye Abbott, Natural Passages Consulting, 4/22/20
GAYE ABBOTT lives and thrives in Northern California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she communes with hummingbirds, flowers, plants and wild things. Communing with nature is her favored activity along with ecstatic dance, Wisdom Healing Qigong at sunrise and sunset, volunteering in her community, laughing out loud and enjoying her family and friends with great appreciation and gratitude!
She is available for guidance/energy sessions via phone, Zoom or Skype. Contact via the “Contact” tab on this site. Two hands at my heart…..
Content Within One’s Own Nature
“There is no greater calamity for a nation, or for an individual than not finding contentment with one’s own sufficiency.
There is no greater mistake for a nation, or for an individual, than to be covetous.
Hence, when one is content within one’s own nature, one will always have enough.”
Lao Tzu – The Tao Teh Ching, #46
Were you aware that picking too many flowers in the Spring from a fruit bearing tree will yield little fruit in the Fall?
Though common sense for most this is a metaphor for the senseless use and waste of our natural resources out of a deep discontent and unconscious egocentric gratification that permeates humans on this planet.
Take and use only what is yours – what you truly need – only what fills you with joy.
Gift the rest and appreciate it’s beauty from the flow of generosity.
When we gaze out into the world – outside of our own inner dialog, filters and standards – do we clearly see and embrace the blessings that contribute to what our life is now and always becoming?
Or do we gaze out from the contracted space of depletion and “not enoughness” always taking action from a scarcity consciousness that never, ever allows the sacred into our heart.
The Swedish proverb, “Enough is as good as a feast.”, reflects on contentment – whether as an individual or a nation – as pivotal to halt, reverse and shift consumerism, unconscious and short sighted use of our planets resources, and the ugliness of racial, ethnic and religious fanaticism leading to tensions, hatred and violence.
Finding contentment within one’s own sufficiency or “enoughness” is powerful. It is an inside job and a community intention.
The striving for more is replaced with compassion in action taken on behalf of the well being of all life – enough.
What a different world we would love in…..
….if we simply lived our life as enough.
Copyright Gaye Abbott, 9/19/19
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Other Blogs by Gaye Abbott:
Nature Does Not Hurry
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Lao Tzu
Is there ever a reason for hurrying through our life moments? Only to get to the end of our embodied time here having forgotten we are the artist immersed in our own creation.
In a recent painting class the teacher taught us to step away from the canvas, walk around the room for a bit, then come back and see with a new perspective.
The everyday pace of nature unfolds slowly and with purpose, though sometimes it seems to humans there are sudden storms, hurricanes, earthquakes,, fires, trees dying or species disappearing.
What we don’t perceive is the conditions for these changes have been slowly building and changing hidden from us as we focused our awareness away from natural cycles and rhythms.
Aging brings us the wisdom of slowing down, sometimes because our physicality demands it – but more often we notice the vast richness, depth and beauty of life is missed when our minds are caught in the web of a goal.
Natural unfolding – and the trust of it – reveals far more than goal orientation and hurry.
When a woman is in the first stages of giving birth, or a flower is still in bud, the natural unyielding laws of nature prevail.
Any attempt at hurrying those natural processes can destroy a life, or lives, waiting at the threshold to emerge.
If we merged with nature, as many indigenous humans have, and accepted her rhythms – instead of attempting to control, change or dominate – the natural cycles would carry us into the womb of life unfolding and the mystery and wisdom we seek.
Gaining trust never involves hurry. Relationships take time to evolve and unfold. They take attending to like an infant newly born or a tree just planted.
At some point as we rush through our life experiences focused on what is next we are faced with our own mortality.
Rushing something sooner than it is ready to be birthed means not listening to, or aware of, the innate impulses giving birth. Instead we exert our will and accept meeting others perceived expectations or our own – loosing ourselves and the precious moments of our life.
Life artistry never hurries. It always waits in the spaciousness of the moment….
before making it’s presence known. Be surprised!
Gaye Abbott, 7/14/19
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