My son made this casting years ago, then as with what happens with treasured items, it ended up in my office on a shelf. Today as I chose to start writing my blog again it seemed an appropriate find to be rediscovered.
I love writing my thoughts and ideas. I love sharing thoughts and ideas with many of the people I work with and meet. Combining the two however, writing and sharing, have in the past seemed scary or dangerous. It is like putting your heart on the table hoping no one will think it is something to attack, eat or kill. I guess growing up in a household as a young girl, with a father that hunted, would support those images in my mind. after all in many cultures the first thing to be cooked and consumed after a hunting expedition is the heart, to feed the hunter.
None the less, I just finished a writing course with the lovely Kirsten Moeller who wrote the book Waiting for Jack. I realized in listening to her that This fear, or dilemma was present for everyone who really has something to share with others. Whether I am to write a book on the spiritual side of weight loss, one my big loves Typography, or just teach any number of things I am putting myself out there in to the world with an opinion or viewpoint that may not be something everyone is open to. Okay....got it! Now what? Shut up, put my fingers on the key board and write. So...here I am again!
Much has happened over the last year that brought my life, and many of the things I hold about human beings to a screeching halt! I have never felt so stopped before in my life. Rising above it all with my upstate NY, Annie Get Your Gun kind of attitude was no longer useful and I could not even access it. My business was slow, too much time alone to think and dwell is never a good thing for me. So what was going to support me in moving forward and ungluing my feet from the ground.
Writing? Art? Meditation? Walking? A combination of it all? It was and at times still is uncertain. However, the one thing peeking its head around the corner, nervously tipping into my world again, are my friends and communities. Not the ones I typically would participate in like business or colleagues. It is that group of people who have been waiting for me to figure out what was really important to me. What is showing up is a step back into family, and longtime relationships. Learning to laugh in the company of old friends who know you and are generally standing next to you when you really mess up. It is cutting down our holiday tree with my son and good friends. It is learning to share again with the one man who is dearest to me.
Sometimes, we need to lay low, let life go by, and then find out how to reinvent ourselves. So this claw is one of the Beaver. For me the Beaver builds, tears things apart, and rebuild again. When they build their damns across waterways, the action of the water stops, overflows the damn and it all falls apart again. The Beaver creates constant transformation of the physical world, its home and its environment.
Hmmm??? Interesting. As I have started to move forward the first thing I have done is begun to transform the physical space around me. Cleaning closets and drawers, toting books being thrown out to book bins, enrolling the family to complete old house projects such as rehanging pictures, finishing trim work from remodeling efforts and so on. Literally the old adage of getting one's house in order has taken on a new meaning.
What creature is a metaphor for where you are in your life right now? Take a look. Learn about them. Put some of their habits and lessons into practice and see what changes for you.
And in the mean time...spent time just being. That is where the magic can begin again and again.
