h e l d

my little sister and me...

i've been away,
and i'm off again, this time on a goddess retreat for six days.
here's where I've been, and here's where I will be:
wrapped up in safe arms.

i've been with my tribe of those who look like me, and it has moved me profoundly. i'm going to be with a tribe of women, most of whom i haven't met before.


i'm leaving this space open for it to be whatever it needs to be.


and i'll leave you with a gem sent to me by my dear friend sarah, when i was struggling with ALLOWING things to be...

Always
Let Go
Live
Observe
Willingness
Inhale / Exhale
Not Perfect
Growth


in bright and dear blessings,
from love and returning to love,
Leonie

Interview with a friend

My dear friend Donna gave me the idea of taking some time out, and doing some interviews on my blog. Divine timing as always. Gentleness is Leonie's key word lately. Chris pulled a card of Keri Smith's 100 Things to Do a few days ago. The answer: Do Nothing. Good advice.

I'm flying off to be with my family for a few days. Feel free to read the below interview over and over again. You'll get something different out of it each time.

My first "interview with a friend" is with my dear friend Dave.
Someone asked me to describe him and my response was this ~
He is a nordic prince on a journey of self discovery.





* What is your understanding of "joy is an option"?

You don't actually need any external conditions to be happy. Some people take this to an extreme by maintaining an ascetic lifestyle to prove their happiness is not attached to their material conditions. I don't believe this is necessary; you can be happy as a millionaire or a pauper, with many friends or with none, it all depends on YOU. Money can corrupt, poverty can lead to despair, friends can become enemies and loneliness can cause misery, but just because they CAN doesn't mean they MUST. No matter what your conditions, you are capable of joy. It is a decision each person makes, and masked beneath their concious impediments - "I will be happy once " - is an understanding of the all-encompassing and divine nature of our minds. If these concious impediments are allowed to melt away, joy radiates through. It is not a fire we need to stoke, it is an inner radiance from which we only need remove the clouds shrouding it.

* Startrooper Dave, what is your mission here on earth?

To inform the universe's internal discource by experiencing that which is unique to the David Jorm perspective. I guess, put another way, it is to improve the conditions of the whole world by being me. The world is a better place for me being here. My mission is to make it as much better as I possibly can.

* Your life is infinitely creative. Tell me how...

My biggest creative outlet is writing software. To most people this is not a creative process, but it really can be. Sometimes I like to reflect on the world as a gigantic interconnected set of cogs, and a few of those cogs are ones I created at the keyboard. It is like being able to create something which influences the physical world without being a part of it; some ephemeral and inconstituent force which acts upon things but is invisible to them. Maybe I have a god complex :)

* What is your understanding of a "tummy smile"?

When you smile so deeply and earnestly it radiates out every pore of your body. It's like you're a little model made up of spherical smiley faces and your tummy is one of those spheres.

* What is your BIGGEST dream you dare to dream?

That I can do and be absolutely anything. That is the ultimate dream I suppose, to realise that whatever mental barriers I setup to what I want to do or be are entirely illusory. It is easier said than done, but if you mock your own barriers frequently enough, they start to stop coming back for punishment.

* Tell me five reasons you love you...

1. I never cease to amaze myself with what I can do, no matter how much I doubt myself.
2. I like to do good deeds in secret and if something unpleasant needs to be done, do it openly to someone's face. I think that is totally cool.
3. I have no fear of speaking to a crowd. If anything, the crowd feeds me. I don't know why I love that about me, but I do. Meekness is overrated.
4. I have forged my own path in the world and I have no fear to be me, no matter what anyone else says or thinks.
5. My cat loves me. There is no higher endorsement.

* What always makes you laugh?

Bubbles, realising something unfortunately befalling me is so miniscule in the scheme of things it is hilarious, witty satire and someone blowing milk out their nose. This made me think of a time I went camping with a borrowed tent. We tried to pitch the tent only to realise we were given the wrong poles - half the required length. The tent formed a dome about 20cms off the ground. My companion was very upset, but I didn't stop laughing all night.

rainbow journey

thank you for all of your love and good thoughts.

my uncle passed away this morning surrounded with love.

i talked to my mum, she has been so grateful that she could spend the last few days of his life with him. she sat with him and his son and daughter, and they all shared their stories of his life. they laughed a lot, cried a little. they teased him that next time he came back he would be a big vegetarian (he loves eating meat). he spoke a little about what he wished he had done differently, so they all sang frank sinatra "regrets" to him. he said he was a very lucky man. he was very much at peace when he died.

i just went and sat in the paddock. made a little altar with my tiny copper buddha, some crystals and some sacred incense i got when i was in malaysia. then i went and walked around with the ibis birds for a while. i found myself standing in a huge circle of their feathers. there was dozens of them. it was special.

and i was just thinking how i wanted to send rainbow thoughts out
to touch him on his journey,
and to all of my family... my mum, my granny, my cousins, my siblings ~~~
and i went outside and took this photo, and didn't even see until i put it on the computer...

can you see it?
the smiling rainbow?


(off to nap and be gentle... there is still a bit of pain in the peace...)

life is all of this

i found out yesterday that
my mother's brother is dying.
the last man in the tribe.

my mother left me a message
as she flew to his side.

i am in some shock.
i never expected the next to be him.

his wife died three months ago.
she couldn't bear cancer anymore.
i don't think he can bear to fight this alone.

i feel like this has opened a well of sadness in me.
this isn't just grief for him,
it is the grief for everyone who has gone before him
my grandad, my uncle, my brother, my step-grandad, my grandmother.
last night i fell asleep in pain and tears.

grief is a funny thing.
i said to chris as he held me softly:
the thing with grief is, you can't change the situation,
and you can't "work through it" like any other sadness.
you just have to sit with it, let it swill through you, and sift back into the ocean again in time.
the insights and blessings will come in time, but for now it is sometimes sadness and sometimes gladness.

last night i went to womens circle and i wept as i smudged myself with burning sage.
i painted a soft picture of my uterus.
i shared about my cyclone dream from the night before:
how a storm raged through my life, fused with extraordinary and strange happenings,
and i realised that it was the other strings of reality becoming visible and interwoven.
at the circle, i was given a small gift of a tiny copper laughing buddha. it reminds me so much of my uncle, ruddy man that he is, except he is smiling much more and saying to me: i'm going home leonie. and i realised that my uncle is buddha. we all are buddha. but soon, he will remember it and know it.

i talked to my sister tonight. she said:
you know, yesterday i cleaned my car for the first time since i bought it. and it felt so good just to do that, feeling the way i did.
i laughed. my sister and i, how connected we are.
i told her how yesterday i washed the dishes for the first time in a long time. and it felt so good, just to do that, feeling the way i did.

there is duality in my seeing,
i am living both in the spirit world of knowing it will be and is okay,
and in the human world of feeling sadness and grief.

i have crystals around me,
a copper buddha laughing with me,
a cyclone blows gently through me,
a grief well,
and a growing knowing.


i love you uncle alan. blessed be your journey.


love always, love is where i came, and how i journey, and where i return,
leonie





The little things?
The little moments?
They aren't little
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Lessons this week...

The Image Game

How do you see your friends?
Literally... as in an image?
If you could choose just one, what would it be...

Via the delicious iKat, I'm a'playing the Image Game.
She chose this picture as how she sees me, and I love seeing her vision of me...

Here's how to play
1. Choose a search engine (I use Google Images) and click on “Images”
2. Choose a 5 random blogfriends (or not random, your choice)
3. Think of a word that you feel best describes your blogfriend
4. Do an IMAGE SEARCH on that word
5. Pick the image that best fits your pal & post it.

here's mine ~

Deni :: tender bean

Gail :: seeer

Lisa Marie :: jane austen

Sonya :: breaking open

Tine :: symbols

and iKat... how do I see you? like this: burst.

all in a lunch hour

my artist muse painting...
she comforts me and incites me into the WILD living.


all in a lunch hour today...

the first meditation group at work.
she leads us, and we plummet into deepness, gentleness,
the beauty of the dark.
she reads outloud a story of avalon.
i am there, breath by breath in, breath by breath out,
deeper into the story, deeper into the moment.

i fall into visions.
i look down and see a baby clasped at my breast.
by the time she calls us back into the room,
i am soaring as an eagle in the grand canyon.
it is hard to come back after twenty minutes
of the peaceful dark behind my eyelids,
and the sight that lies there.

then outside, we sat in the wind,
and we talked.
t a l k e d.
we shared about the hard bits, the empty bits, the uncomfortable bits ~
the scared, the sad, the guilt, the lost, the knowing and the unknowing.
all these bits, me and my dear friend spoke outloud to each other,
and the wind took them away,
like grit and sand being sifted from a green glass bottle.

that was all we needed,
just to say them outloud,
let them be heard,
and be taken away by the wind.

the hearing, the being,
the seeing, the saying,
the dark, and the gusty light,
all in a lunch hour.

all shades of the rainbow

and when you are feeling tired and worn,
a little bit confused as to where this is all going,
wondering when this valley of the wave will turn into a new lift,

i send you

... a new tranquil blue bedroom with wide open windows, where each night you wake up because of moonbeams and insights;
... baby rainbow cinos with hundreds and thousands and marshmallows;
... knowing that the steps are leading into a better way of being;
... the scent of herbs on your hands as you make your first smudge sticks;
... a friend who asks the whys and hows directly, unflinchingly, kindly;
... the miracle of witnessing dear friends flourish in their own growing magnificence {i see you j & d}
... the sweetness of curling up in bed with stars and crickets and a book.
... the perfect juicy plum.


someone sent me these.
thank you
xoxox

i send the love and gentleness back into the world,
to fall into the hands of who needs them right now.




other things that delight me right now ~

* the belief~inspiring story of the "buddha boy"
check out the beautiful gallery of photos {the link to it is on the
right of the article, called "Months of Meditation" ~ they constitute reason #188 why i want to go to tibet...

* the discussions of fear at pink coyote's place is enthralling, honouring and awakening.

* the poetry of purity by stefanie renee
thank you for sharing how to see things - not as shameful or too dreamy or mundane or ridiculous, but as all pure and sublime...

My heart becomes a wing, a torch, a promise

"I will not die an unlived life.


I will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.


I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible,


to loosen my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.




I choose to risk my significance,

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom

and that which came to me as blossom,

goes on as fruit."


by Dawna Markova



sonya, goddess and friend.
JOURNEY~woman.

Returning...

I have returned.

And perhaps in some way I have returned to myself.

My adventure away was lovely...
I learned so much on the management course, and particularly loved the bits on emotional intelligence, ego states and finding out I am an ENFP {Extraverted Intuition with Introverted Feeling}. Shockingly enough, I'm a feeeeeeelllleerrr.

For me, the big parts weren't really about the course.
It was the time away, alone~ness and interactions with new spirits.


moss grows there everywhere...

I had some divine times sharing with others. Highlights include ~
:: a morning tea chat turning into a discussion of god, buddhism and infinite love with the lovely j
:: hearing a diver's stories of diving in antartica and seeing the majesty of seals swimming
:: sitting in emergency ward with a girl who had been sitting across from me at dinner. her finger had been caught in a window, so we decided to have an "emergency ward adventure." i think we may just have been the happiest emergency ward attendees at 11pm. we giggled madly, talked about yoga and spirituality, and took an emergency kit of amusement with us: mermaid cards, stones, yoga books and the results of her latest shopping expeditions. i was kinda disappointed that she got attended to so quickly! an adventure indeed...


sweet, sweet incubation space...




My room there was filled with beautiful energy ~ it was huge, and coloured cream. For the first time in my life, I really fell in love with cream. I felt like I was being held in a cream womb. It was soft and kind, earthy and love~filled. I find myself wanting to paint paintings dripping with cream. The bed was elevated, and looked out over the huge couch, through the wooden blinds to the sweeping pines and out to the lake. I discovered later that it was the bridal suite of the lodge... the universe was filled with blessings for me.



I heard only the beat of my own heart while in that room ~ it was incubation. It was only the third time I had spent away from Chris in our five years together. I spent the time retreating, journalling, opening the bay windows to look down to the lake. I don't know if I can describe what happened there, and I don't know if I need to. I only know that I did it for me, I heard it for me, and this time, that is enough.

My journal is filled with my days and moments. It speaks of the mountains and the waves, and it sings of them like a conch shell.



I learned again just how much I love Leonie company. I feel like my board has been wiped clean, and coloured cream. Ready to begin again, paint a new coloured life for me.


i feel new direction in me...
a deepening of my innate knowing of north...

I return and find myself wanting to paint all the rooms in my house cream, make a lake in my backyard, and clean the house out. Simplify into peacefulness.


the field outside my door...

I return, and want to write something beautiful on this blank slate of mine... i am on a detox of all varieties, following the book 10 days to better health. It isn't just about the food ~ it's about herbal teas, dream diaries, aromatherapy, stretching, breathing and meditation. I want to be all I can be. I want to reside gracefully and meaningfully in this temple of mine.

I feel clearer, I feel creamier, I feel in my womb. I walk the streets and I hear me.

graceful stumbling...

I've been having an emotional time lately.

I spilt to a dear friend last night, let the tears unravel and flow down my cheeks.

she said:

live in the mystery leonie. just trust it. grieve if you need to, but maybe right now you don't need to know all the answers.

as fate, luck, universe, divine timing would happen... i am off on a three day residential management course tomorrow... three days where i will not be in my usual pattern of living. i will be far from my lover, my house, my doggy, my computer, my friends, my emails. my usual "things." it will be my third night away in 4 and a half years that i haven't slept next to him. there will only be Leonie there, whoever she is and wants to be.

not sure who i'll be there...
maybe leonie the quiet
or
leonie the brave
or
leonie the doodler
or
leonie the interested
or
leonie the introvert
or
leonie the EXTROvert.

freed of all identity, habits, lifestyle. like a boat that has lost its mooring for a few days.
i think it might be just what i need for right now.
i wonder what i will find there.

* i am open to adventure *

~ i am open to my divine journey ~

# i am open to discovering what lies beneath this. #

{even though sometimes i want to dive back under the covers}

lovingness, and humanness,
beauty, delicacy, stumbling, grace,
Leonie

(miss you too.)

xoxo

Portraits of Leonie Monday

I've been trying to find one of those ding dang "Day of the Week Photo/Illustration/Art/Studio" competitions. And I couldn't be bothered trying to find a reason. So I proclaim Monday to be Portraits of Leonie day.

I need no reason other than there was a spectacular sunset last night; and I like my shimmering pashmina.
In the spirit of Portraits of Leonie Monday, I proclaim it to be the day of:
Dancing without any music;
Eating too much custard;
Not bothering to wash the paint of your hands;
Emptiness and overflowing.


"What IS too intense ?
Are we just perfekt in a WORLD that has lost it's Honouring of our SIZEd SPIRITS??"
~ by delia the grand

autumn.

alexander's leaf by paris
{photoshop editing by moi}

i can feel autumn around me.
it gathers around me like my old deep red bathrobe.
i fold up its collar to keep the cool from my neck.

hello autumn.

living here in the alpine city, summer feels odd, as though the heat is misplaced.
the cool autumn days of canberra feel natural. old socks, bathrobe, the layers.

it isn't winter yet:
winter is the dash from the bedroom to the shower,
the dash from the shower to crouch by the heater.
we follow heat around like missiles.

autumn.

hands cool against the keyboard. the dog's coat grows longer.
my friend paris emailed me a picture of his son's discovery of the first autumn leaf.
soon there will be great handfuls of them;
and then cascades of umber, orange, maroon, yellow,
enough to spin through and flick through and dance in.

i muse as the seasons change.
we grow older.
we fall in love deeper, with ourselves, with each other.
the soft rhythm of gaia is heard.

hello autumn, my fond friend.

Reason #1347 why I love him...

my two favourite boys


We were sitting in the grass by the lake,
watching the ravens and the sparrows and the rowers gliding past,
sharing chips and thoughts and a Saturday noon in the shade.

He said to me:

I was having a shower this morning,
and I thought of a lion in Africa walking through the grass.
You know, you see these things in books and in documentaries,
but you forget that it exists, and has a life too.
I realised right at this very moment,
there is a lion walking in the grass in Africa,
BEing, just like me.

healing

monday.
my shoulders hunched tightly.
yelling at the computer.
swearing. foul words.
letting OUT my temper. not reining it in. not letting it slip away.
letting it all hang out.
it isn't pretty.
not pretty at all.
and once you get that low, it is easy - so easy - to continue on the swearing, frustrated, angry streak. i swear at the car making mysterious sounds. i get furious.
it is the ego and the unhealed making a big appearance.

then i wonder why i've been feeling rigid and stiff these last few days.
why stuff is all held IN THERE, in a triangle across my shoulders and neck.

at my desk, i muse questions from juliana. she asks me further about a vision i had of a yin/yang tattoo beneath my belly button. she asks me of how i use masculine/feminine energy to deal with different situations every day. i have no idea how to answer her. i began a convuluted and philosophical answer, but wipe it, because i don't believe in it. i have learned greatly of the importance of honesty when stuck these last few months.

in the hallway at work, nick probes my shoulders with gentle hands, and implores my soul with gentle words:
what is under this leonie?
what are you feeling tense about?
responsibility? whose or yours?

he hugs me, this young soul brother of mine, telling me to remember the inner smile, giving me a meditation to do on releasing anger and releasing being serious.

i return to juliana's questions, and nick's hands have helped me release something. the words come trickling out. the realisations follow. i gasp as i type ~ the questions have helped me find the answer.

my vision was a symbol for me of the inner marriage ~ yin/yang, masculine/feminine energies in me. i knew i wanted to develop a deeper sense of this marriage.

i began to see my behaviour of the last few days: it was my wounded masculine energy, reacting in anger, violence, frustration and pain.
i began to see my recent violent dream of men's souls hurting in the light of insight.

my masculine side hasn't always had a positive role model. when i become frustrated, it can leap out of me, swearing and fuming in sharp bursts of energy. solar flares that burn. usually i tame it with my peaceful feminine side, but it has been raring out of me lately, demanding my attention. this afternoon it spoke its truth with me: my masculine side needs healing.
masculine energy does not need to be angry. that is not its true essence ~ it is only a distortion of it.
it bears great many gifts and lessons for me to utilise when i come to learn from and heal this fractured part of me.

i spoke to chris this afternoon in the car:
i want to share with you. please do not judge this. i want you to hear me.
i feel strong in asking for what i want.
i share with him. and he responds deeply and sweetly, acknowledging the anger and acknowledging the healing. he asks:
would you like me to paint that yin/yang symbol under your belly button in henna?

it is all i need.
i lay on the bed, chris leaning over me, painting me. yin~yang under my belly button. a sun on my left wrist. a moon on my right. an ankh on my left foot. a masculine symbol on my right. each an ancient symbol of masculine and feminine.
as he paints, i speak in myself:
i release anger.
i release anger.
i open my doors for healing this part of me.
i open my doors for healing this part of me.


i know that it will. the vision has spoken. dear friends have assisted me in translating its message. my lover understands.
and most importantly, i can feel it. i can feel joy in my heart for hearing the cry of that masculinity in me that was asking to be healed.

i am here, and i am ready to hear you.



love,
Leonie,
who is still learning how to love all parts of herself,
and BE all parts of herself.


P.S. i'm so glad i married me. i married shiva and shakti in me, now witness the loving entangle of their healing.