However, when it comes to decisions as a collective body, say a country, we are swayed on a daily basis by fear and guilt.  We have fear of economic demise, fear of global calamity, fear of terrorists, fear of disease, and fear of each other.  We have guilt for all the perception of wrongs that went before us…which, in reality, were perfection.

Let us get past the fear of the phone ringing at 3 am, the disappearance of our retirement funds, the demise of our health care system and explore the possibilities of electing a leader.  He/she does not need to have “the plan” and all the answers.  Surely with the multi 1,000’s we have on our government payroll, the expertise is there.  What we need is leadership.  What we need is inspiration to step up, stand up and speak out; to be present; to be stronger and better than we were.

What is life, both individually and collectively, asking of us?  We do not need another flavor of what has gone before…we don’t have time for that.  What we need is out of the box leadership and inspiration…we can figure out the details. 

On a more personal note, I have been waiting for a great epiphany to tell me what was next in my own life.  What would my impact be on the world?  While I was waiting, I worked at staying open, blank and present for the great message to come.  I just knew “my assignment”  would be a life-changing, paradigm-altering message or legacy…my grandiose and lasting mark on the world for all time.

It has slowly started to come to me over these last few weeks that I just might not have a starring role.  I may not be a Madame Curie, Maya Angelou or Mother Theresa.  When I ask what the world needs from me instead of what I want for my life, which of course would be a leading role, the answers look quite different.  It could be that I have always been doing my life’s work without any thought, effort or divine message.

My life auditions to date have yielded me many, many roles:  Editor, Writer, Aerobics Instructor, Business owner, Consultant, Food and Beverage Director, Director of Sales, many mid-level management roles, Board Member and other volunteer opportunities too countless to remember, much less list, Friend, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Mother…and the list goes on and on. 

Perhaps that is it.  My impact on the world may be the unending moments in the Now, in the Present, to the thousands I have had the blessing and priviledge to instruct, lead and influence.  Simple: no headliner soloist, but a supporting role.  Moment to moment; day to day; year to year.  A lifetime of one small, rare and sweet opportunity at a time.  How simple; how powerful; how blessed. 

Jacquie

It is weeks like this past one that remind me why we live in and love northern Michigan.  Why we are able to put the long, dormant, cold and dark winter behind us so quickly.  Raking my yard yesterday where there was two feet of snow only days ago to find my tulips and daffodils, planted with such optimism last fall, three inches tall already!

 My first spring/summer experiences of Michigan in the mid 70’s astonished this six generation native Texas…everything grows so fast…you can literally watch it.  It is almost comical, especially to those who do not live here all the time, to see the first day when the thermometer tops 50 degrees.  The shirts come off, the shorts go on and flip flops replace the boots. Bikes, roller blades and Frisbees come out of the basement and everyone that can possibly be is outside.

 I am as guilty, or blessed, as the rest.  The top on the Miata went down, two days in a row, and those of you who are familiar with my summer rating system know the quality of the summer season is determined by how many top-down days we have…we are off to a great start! Quite often on a sunny, but cold, day in February/March I would position my car by the lake in way that the sun shown on my face; I would crank back my seat and “sun bathe”.  One of the great all-time feelings is that first day when the sun is on your face and it is really warm…for real this time

I have often equated the phenomenon to that of childbirth.  During the angst of the labor and delivery process, having more children is the last thing you would consider…shooting the person who assisted you in getting there would be higher on the list.  The moment it is over, however, and you make the first eye and skin contact with that brand new, so freshly created little miracle, you find yourself in awe and wonder and so ready to do it all over again.

As we suffer (I am speaking personally here…I know there those of you who love winter most) through the long and dark of it to immerge into those blissful days of sun and warmth, it is all forgotten, and of course we will do it all over again next year.  The contrast makes it all that much sweeter.

Experiencing life in a climate of severe winters is the ultimate contraction/expansion exercise.  Contracting during the winter is so very natural…just as the bears crawl into the cave and hibernate, it is my instinct to retreat, curl up, hunker down and go dormant.  The contrast then of the first week of warmth is the most blissful expansion from the hairs on my head to the nails of my toes and deep into every cell; I feel warm and joyful, blessed and exuberant.  I am as alive as it gets. Just as the release feels after the deep stretch, it is one of those Ah Hah moments that is so delicious and so precious. Ahhhh…I have made it!

Jacquie

Every now and again it happens, when you look up, take notice and realize something has changed.  It may be the alignment of the planets, a shift in cosmic consciousness, or, more simply, just a damn fine week.

No, I did not win the lottery, find my prince charming or have a great epiphany.  There were very quiet changes…some subtle discernments that I might have  missed in another place and time, but some I  have been seeking for a lifetime.

First, I noticed that I no longer define myself as a cancer patient.  Since my diagnosis on July 18 there has been a soft but discouragingly tenacious dialogue behind every activity in my day.  Let me give a few examples:  when I breathe the conversation with myself would be “Breathe deeper…you know cancer does not survive in an oxygenated environment.”;  when I eat, “You have cancer, you should not be eating that!”; when I think, “You have cancer, you must think good, peaceful & healthy thoughts…you can not afford to be stressed.”.  In case you haven’t thought about it before, breathing, eating and thinking take up alot of the day. My cancer conversation was a major voice in my day…and was constant…all day…everyday.  I would try to change the dialog to one of feeding and caring for a healthy body, but the cancer chatter was relentless and I found my thoughts difficult to control.  I am free of it!  I am just me again…attempting to do all of the things I have always set out to do…eat better, exercise more and stay grounded and connected. Just me caring for me.

Secondly, I am enjoying winter!  For those who know me well, it is common knowledge that I will do almost anything to find a warm spot, preferably a beautiful beach, to avoid winter.  It was a habit started while married to Emerson and living the retiree’s lifestyle.  We both had a strong preference for warm.  This new fondness for cold caught me totally off guard. I had not even attempted to embrace, but to merely survive the frigidity of northern Michigan in January;  it would be too absurd to even suggest it.  I am finding great comfort in the serenity that only the quiet insulation of multiple feet of snow can provide.  It is white, calm and peaceful.  I would never take time from the treasured outdoor days of summer for a long soak bath with a great novel, a movie everyday,  sewing, knitting, leisurely browsing on the Internet and reorganizing closets, files and storage.   I have found great pleasure in “hunkering down” and doing “inside tasks”.  The days are now getting lighter and longer and I am feeling some urgency to complete all of my projects before I am called to the incomparable beauty and grandeur of northern Michigan in summer.

The third thing I have noticed…and the most sought after of all…is that I have found my voice.  No, I have not been mute my entire life, exactly.  I have just never really been free to speak up for me.  I could be very vocal in speaking up for others.  Most of my free time as an adult has been dedicated to making the world a better place for others.  I have enjoyed volunteer work on issues concerning peace and justice, children’s rights, hunger, housing and poverty.  Speaking up for my own children was never an issue, but speaking up for me was always a challenge, on many levels.  Even being clear on what I would speak to was difficult…I had done what “I ought to” for so long, I had no idea what “I want to” would look like.  At some point in the last few months, there was a shift. My voice has shown up…and I feel clear on who I am and what I want for the first time I ever remember.  It is as though I have finally given validity to me and I am so curious and excited to see what shows up from that place of possibilty.  All I know today is that  I feel like jumping on the rooftop and yelling “Free at last, free at last…thank God Almighty, I am free at last!”

All of us humanoid types walk around in unique self contained, independent, yet strangely interdependent, containers known as bodies.  Bodies equipped with their own computer, navigational system, communication network, ability to reproduce, self heal and create original thoughts, emotions, music and art.

These bodies are designed to maintain, heal and fuel indefinately using the ample supplies found in natural abundance on the planet…this rock…this third rock from the sun we call Earth.  Even more odd is that these humans are gifted with not only intelligence and emotion…but total free will…the choice to design their own existence.

It is with choice the path of the spiritual seeker begins.  Spiritual seekers have a need to know what comes next.  What is it all about.  The idea is to transcend this human experience and return to the state prior to birth….to the state we will all return to after death…when our time in this body is over.  This path can be life altering in the most positive of ways.  It has the potential to enhance this human experience by giving great perspective on what is really important…that it is relationships more than stuff…intention and connection more than the production of results…heart more than mind…people more than things…that matter most.

As great as this potential is, there is also the risk of minimizing the human experience as being trite and a bit beneath the transformed spirit…as though we have evolved beyond that.  Since we are entering an election year in the the country on Earth known as the United States of America, I will use politics as an example.  There is an oh-so-fine line between becoming fully conscious or ascending into a state of unconscious disengagement.

As the election process does it’s wind up, let us all engage.  Like it or not, we find ourselves citizens of the most powerful and influential nations on the planet.  Action taken or not taken by USA effects the world.  We have the choice…and with it the responsibility, to change or perpetuate the course of things.  If we choose to be apathetic, “above it all” and disengage, the absence of our voice will have it’s own impact.  We will have lost the opportunity to make a difference…to create a new way of being; the opportunity to create a path of empathy, compassion and stewardship.  The opportunity to create a new paradigm for the world to be fully awake and conscious with maybe a chance for change before the tipping point.

My request to us all is to keep seeking spiritually, but to not fast forward to life beyond this human earthly experience. Let us engage and do our work…correcting in ourselves and therefore the world what we know in our heart needs to be done.  Here and now.  In the present…with what is actual.

Kyle was born premature and with many physical issues.  His heart was not right and some of his motor functions were not right.  We first prayed for him to survive his birth.  We then prayed for him to survive the year.

Each year during our church’s “Live Nativity” all of the children would gather for the 5:00 pm Family Christmas Eve Service (read children are welcome!) and each play a role in the Christmas Story, complete with costumes.  It was not planned or rehearsed…just chaotic enough to have great energy and excitement.  Each year I would watch Kyle in his exuberance and wonder if we would see his sweet face next year.

Kyle could smile.  Kyle had several surgeries on his heart.  He would come to Sunday School and proudly show off his newest set of scars.  At one point he used crutches to support what his legs could not.  His physical condition was never a constant, sometimes up and sometimes down but his smile was as steady and reliable as the sunrise in the morning.

Kyle could sing.  As Kyle matured, his limitations diminished.  As he entered high school, his beautiful voice had developed into a great vocalist.  He was active in vocal music, both in church and school. I remember him specifically in Godspel.  My daughter Meagan sang the lead parts in Freedom Fanatics, a musical performed by the youth choir at church and my favorite memory is not of Meagan…but Kyle dancing with such joy and abandon.

Kyle lived in service.  Kyle served on countless youth mission trips in high school and as a counselor for those mission trips as a college student and an adult.  He taught in the special education department for a local junior high school and served as a church youth director.  His deep faith and jubilant message to youth was so authentic that his influence was effective,  heart felt and long lived.  I was struck by the fact that these youth had no idea that Kyle had ever had any limitations at all.

Kyle could write.  Kyle’s great love  of poetry led him to  active membership in the Poet Writer’s Circle.  There are many who were lucky recipients and/or subjects of his work.  Much of his writing reflected the struggles of a boy growing into a man…and a person addressing the pain and joys of his faith journey.

Kyle loved movies.  Any kind of movies.  He was an active member of the Traverse City Film Festival, serving as a manager for the past two years. ..I was fortunate to be on his team.

Kyle was funny.  From my first recollection of him as a young boy through to my last “chat” with him two weeks ago there was a theme of lightheartedness and humor constant…he simply loved to make people laugh! 

All of the above describe what Kyle filled his life with.  He loved people and they loved him.  My greatest lesson learned from Kyle was to live fully, with joy-filled abandon, throwing caution to the wind and not looking forward or back.  Kyle could have felt limited by his physical impairments.  He could have been angry  that he would never be a track star, football player or downhill skier.  Kyle’s life was never about what he could not do, but only about all of the amazing things that he could do.  He lived more in 28 years than most of us could live in 10 lifetimes.  He has touched me deeply and permanently and I feel honored and blessed to have had him in my life.

Jacquie

In retrospection, my resolutions have changed in theme from decade to decade.  It is as though the decades of my life have had different themes or concepts…thus reflected in my resolutions.

At the age of ten, which was my first resolution, I overheard my Mom and Mammy making resolutions while eating their peas.  I don’t remember their resolutions, but I remember wanting to be part of the process.  I resolved to be a better big sis to my younger brother and sister.  I am not sure I was any more successful at that resolution than any of the years to follow…but there is something of a cleansing in the simple act of resolving to do better.

As I grew older and more sophisticated, so did the style of my resolutions.  I progressed from just wanting to be a better sister and daughter to wanting to be smarter, richer and, of course, thinner.

 It has followed a pattern of sorts.  During my teens and twenties, I vowed to study harder, save money and be the kind of person my parents and Mammy would be proud of.  I was “capable” (how I grew to despise that word) of straight “A’s and the ability to be a perfect person.  Therefore, I vowed, year after year to come to the mark.  I did better some years than others…but never attained that level of perfection of which I was “capable”.

In my thirties, I was a wife and mother and the subject matter of my yearly decrees had subtle changes. I was now focused on being a perfect mother and wife (that perfection thing again). I would offer my two precious daughters all that a Mom could possibly bring to the table…wholesome, nutritious food, stimulating activities and endless quality time and attention from me.  My husband would have a sweet, productive and attentive wife that kept the perfect home while maintaining the perfect relationships with parents siblings and in-laws.

My fourth decade of life was to take a different tack.  I have always claimed that if you want an unparallelled growth experience, get a divorce.  Maybe it was the wisdom gained from forty years on earth, maybe divorce or maybe it was just growing up.  For whatever reason, the theme of my resolutions changed, yet once again.  In my 40′s I simply resolved to live with dignity, grace and awe-filled joy.  I would be happy…today…with things all just as they were…no improvement necessary.  I no longer strived for perfection. I simply enjoyed the imperfections of the perfect gift I had been given…the gift of life and the experiences of living it in this human form.  I realized I had earned nothing; controlled the outcome of nothing.  What liberation.

As I now am entering the last part of the 5th decade I have decided to return to my resolution habit.  I had abandoned the tradition for the last 5 years.  I am now viewing them as a chance to state my desires during the next year.  I am not trying to control, or even be attached to outcome, but merely state what it is I would like to see show up this year.  To speak it is to set a powerful force in motion.  It is to affirm that I am interested in fully living my life in the year to come.  It is merely saying, “Yes, I am in!”

Jacquie

This blog will be a weekly edition posted by noon each Monday.  It will be, at the current time, ramblings, musings and observations of life in transition.

The idea for this blog is the result of 5 weeks in Maui. Five weeks with an intentional open and expanded heart, the blank canvas of mind and attention and curiosity about the possibilities.  It has been time spent in fellowship with my favorite people.  Ten days with my oldest daughter, Meagan and her fiance Ryan and three weeks with treasured friends from At Ease Technologies, Cynthia Zaal, Robert Pettaway and Michael Mead of Houston, Texas.  Michael was my first sweetheart at the ripe age of 14 and is still the one whose presence I enjoy most.  We were joined the final week by Dr. Philip Rothenberg, by self definition a recovering M.D., whose generosity of spirit, love and knowledge provided me with reason, clarity and courage in the search for my own path through cancer treatment options.

In contemplating the next and possibly the final stage of life, I find myself with no attachment to the anchors that drove me in stages past:  responsibility, accountability & duty.  My moorings have been cut…I am 27 again with all of the options and none of the burden and pressure twenty-somethings feel to create a productive life.

The contemplation as been tempered and defined by recent divorce, death of a father and cancer.  Any of these can serve as a monumental opportunity, but collectively have provided beyond an opportunity…and more of a mandate for change.  There is very little motivation for growth when love is rich, the bank account is full and you are in a state of health and wellness.  Disappointment, despair, death and failure create the catalyst and energy for change;  change equated to the opportunity for growth, creation and development…for the birth of a new paradigm

To let myself be open for the possibility of growth, creation and the development of a new paradigm for my life has required some new skills.  The most most important is the ability to let myself simply be…be quiet, still and empty enough for what is to be next to have the chance to appear.  I attribute this area of growth to two main resources that crossed my path…totally without input, desire or direction from me:  Gerard Schwind and At Ease Technologies. I am noticing that as I need teachers, the teachers appear.  I do not have to find them…I just have to see them as they come

I spent 18 months with Gerard Schwind, MSW.  When I describe my counselor as one who deals in rigorous honesty (sometimes brutally so), I can see him nodding and smiling in affirmation.  When I began to see Gerard, I carried my name on a 3 x 5 card and the day I met him I had spent 20 minutes trying to decide which tomato was the best one to buy.  He showed me the path to finding me…gathering up all the pieces of me I had left scattered along my way until nothing of me remained.  He taught me many things, but, quite simply, he taught me to see a shovel for what it is and call it a shovel.  I had been seeing and calling it a teaspoon.

At Ease Technologies came into my life three days after Gerard sent me on my way.  I have learned so much in my 21 months doing their work that I can only touch on it here and promise one day to do an entire edition on their technology.  I have learned and practiced the ability to let go–of everything;  especially my mind, thoughts, ego and patterned reactions.  Letting go of the stresses that have been accumulated and stored in my body for a lifetime has opened up vast amounts of space…new space for love, creativity and spirituality.  The work has given me the skill to watch, or witness, my decisions, options and reactions as a third party would, providing clarity not before experience by me.

I will touch on these and endless other topics as the weeks of 2008 open before us.  I close 2007 with such intense feelings of blessing and gratitude for all that I have been given.  I look forward to 2008 with, as Michael Mead would say, the curiosity of a child…and the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.  I hope that all of you stay with me on the maiden voyage into 2008 and beyond…where none of us have been before. 

Jacquie