Nichobella

Prompt: plan a garden ...

This slip of paper arrived in my life yesterday.  I thought: this is a perfect mantra-seed for me right now.  Then I thought:  what if it's a perfect prompt for everyone else as well?

**

Say you had a fertile growing space about seven foot square - all fluffed-up and ready to go.

what strange and mysterious blooms

would you be happy to welcome,

learn from, and share with other

sentient beings

?

 

(turning the plot into a cannabis grow is cheating.  and I mean that on a number of different levels.)

 

 

Prompt: do this throughout the lunation

The Sixth Chakra relates to vision/perceptual prowess.

this includes in equal measure:

what we see and how we perceive it

and

what we project of our internalized visions

.

since we're bombarded by visually based information and its counterpart

and tend to feel at least partially 'helpless'

(or perhaps giving up too much personal agency and its attendant power)

in the face of all we've witnessed of the whirling world

by the end of any given day and evening

we're going to SLOW DOWN

even more

because now we're in a sratosphere of deep space

there is no linear time

or absolute gravity

this. is.  Mind.

let's treat it with the respect and awe

it needs to reclaim

.

Every day, take a picture that relates to your visual perception within that day.

keep it separate from all the other pictures

you take for similar or disparate reasons.

this is a project.

give it a file or an album or some other storage category that means when you take/or look at your daily pictures that is ALL you are perceiving.

this is how we'll figure out (I'll be doing this too)

what we are perceiving at a blink level.

by the end of the month you'll see

what's 'really' going on with your blink-time perceptual energy.

**

pick one of the following, or since it's all so slow, go for both if you've got the space and time.

Tape together two sheets of letter sized paper.  Make sure they're the same weight if not exact duplicates

(i'll be using copier paper and taping them together with dark purple washi tape)

Every day - glue-down JUST ONE thing.

follow the same loose-eyed/no-brain approach

described above in relation to picture taking.

TAKE EACH DAY AS IT COMES

do not plan a picture

or an abstract idea

or what you currently believe to be important

or necessary.

At the end of the month you'll have a collage

that speaks your own secret language

about what's really going on

perceptually

at a slow and trusting level.

Pro-Tip:  take just a small swipe of a glue stick to adhere your pieces if that's feasible.  That way you have flexibility as the matter of placement begins to reveal it's own unique narrative as your tuck and tear and explore afresh with each new addition.

**

AND/OR:

(i want to do this one, too, but I also want to get my garden planted

and continue immersing as much as possible

in the mindblowing (and extremely visionary)

class I'm still taking.  so we'll SEE.

**

Find an indigo or very deep purple ground cloth within your fabric stash.

If you usually iron everything

before you work

don't do it this time

and conversely:

if you usually don't

find a way to create a steam dewrinkling system over a boiling pot of water or take your cloth into the shower with you and let it dry on a perfectly flat surface, with a few smooth-outs along the way.

or, y'know.   locate your iron - wherever it is - and press the fabric.

here's why:

we're going to give our existing over-extended mind-perceptions a bit of a break.  Whatever you usually/habitually/feel you absolutely MUST do in order to begin stitching speaks to the brain-hemisphere we most rely upon and, hence, tend to ignore in terms of letting it rest and have a break.

this month:  Whatever feels most NECESSARY to your mind may benefit in the long run from having a few questions asked on its behalf.  Find out if your mind is happy.  Not in the top dead center sense of happiness but more specifically:  Is your mind happy with the way you treat it?  Ask your mind to give you a one word answer to the question:  How do you feel right now?

see how honest

your mind is capable of being to its least receptive audience:

Y-O-U

.

Mind is very quick and easily engaged with something new.  Especially when the newsness fits into something

we habitually do in a different [habitual] way.

stitching is extremely tactile and connects us to our heart center via its energy pouring through the so-called lesser chakras in our palms into our work with cloth, needle, and thread.  There's a third component, of course, within the miracle-magic of hand EYE coordination.

For this particular ongoing prompt

you are adding HEART to Mind.

this can get confusing for people.

The will attempt to 'replace' their mind with the perceptions

that bloom in Heart's ether.

conversely

Mind enjoys replacing Heart.

we're told to do as much

practically from birth

and everybody likes to succeed.

**

Every day select something from your stash that speaks of your internalized perceptual visioning in the moment of selection.

**

Once you've decided where to place your fabric on any given day, stitch it JUST ONCE into position.

the reason should be visually obvious within the half cycle/full moon point.

Mind is greatly enhanced with an ongoing maximum of flexibility.

the story of tactile heart's eye-hand coordination

will require as much shifting overlaps and redefined edges

as your mind will make

in the process

of discovering itself

in this way.

[am coming up with slow month long project oriented prompts straight out da gate because this center's both my wheelhouse and the place I found consistent solace and peace throughout my challenging childhood and coming of age.  It's why ... the story of my life ... is JUST a story.

BUT

having overtaxed and thus thoroughly misunderstood, both the purpose of Mind as well as the ongoing mechanics of authentic 'survival'

I know this month is going to take me places, as the saying goes.

at the moment I'm preparing

by adding the metaphorical equivalent of a surfing leash

to my lower-case mind

.

shaka

Prompt: hear existing Blue afresh

Find something Blue that you created in another time and head/heart/world space.

Sit quietly with your creation.

hear what it might be telling you

in a new way or through a different frame of reference.

The pics in this post come from a healing&holding cloth I made about 15 years ago.  Originally it was a personal healing meditation I began after I was first diagnosed with Graves Disease.  Then it led an unexpected traveling offering of love kinda life to be incorporated in a total of 89 different therapeutic situations involving people such as myself, who were thrust into the world of human trafficking by their mother.

there are scary numbers of us.

that person in our life should never

and yet too often do

so i have innumerable sisters and brothers from that same Other kind of mother.

It's a particular kind of primal wounding that cuts very deep

and nearly everyone (especially women) who hears about it

reflexively judges the survivor - or otherwise tries to immediately silence us - for having the temerity to speak such an uncomfortably ugly truth straight out loud without qualm or a sense of personal shame.

so I am proud

as well as humbled

to stand for something else

about being female

and quite thoroughly broken into little pieces

from which I've reassembled something

relatively functional & loving.

just reunited with this cloth after a two month time frame of going our own way.  For once I won't have to re-attach anything due to subconscious/anxious twisting when the memories got more congruent and started fusing together.  In the most recent iteration of Blue Whirled's healing life - it spent some time with each of the four Dive participants who will visiting my field as & when throughout this growing season in order to participate in a  'waaaaaaay socially distanced flower essence apprenticeship of sorts. 

an amazing development

and so they have been pondering all the red - that originally was placed as a counterbalance to the 'waaaaaaaaay too much Blue energy that Graves tends to embody at the pragmatic & symptomatic levels - as seeds of a Root chakra nature.  They have been actively rooting their sown seeds of hope that Blue might embrace them in all the ways I know it will.

And we have zoomed a time or five

and I have learned what they see

and what rises up to be healed

and what blue means

to a half-step generation

I didn't know very well

if at all.

before this thing began

and magic was swift to follow

**

truest blue truth ever:

I'm so glad my tangled and carelessly scattered roots leave me open

and fully aware

of how many different things

the word Family

can mean.

love travels, as i always used to say.

I personally dream of a world where it travels a lot more freely

and without quite so many certainties

and mandates

about who is entitled to it

from us, specifically

and who is instead somebody else's

'situation'

to be dealt with

somehow

.

until that better world arises

from the ashes of this one

we will just have to keep on

rockin' it

.

final two prompt responses

The days are blending together since I've been spending so much time outside, navigating some long overdue Blue work, and just kind of traveling through/within blue in the staring into space sense of things.

i have both a lot and absolutely nothing to say.  All these years in MA knows good and well today's balmy sunshine is a fluke rather than how it's gonna be for awhile.  But it's still spring.  And I'm still sucked in.  And happy. 

because all my friends are coming back.

(today I found lush colonies of chickweed forming at the very edge of the field garden ...)

 

I can speak truth to power, period.  I can speak from the heart without ceding to the belly when under emotional duress.  I can speak comfortably with the landscape as a way to release attachment to the personal belief humans should less rather than more of that. 

I will speak at greater legnth when those seeking my counsel clearly wish to receive it.  I will speak from the place of deep trust I've been heard accurately by those in need of any given piece of information/clarification I'm able to share.  I will speak of love more frequently especially when that's the water I'm swimming in.

***

I can speak of my emotional and psychological damage without inflicting ancillary damage on someone else.  I can speak to myself in the spirit of providing good counsel rather than underscoring the victim archetype.  I can speak to others without feeling it's my job (even/especially when listeners might not agree and expect/feel entitled to such things) to make sure they're comfortable and copacetic with any given truth that needs to be voiced. 

I will speak to myself as tenderly as I wish others would speak to me.  I will speak more clearly and consistently in my written journals rather than considering the practice a self-indulgent relic of the past.  I will speak to myself in dreams, as I did last night. 

2 days of prompt responses

quick and dirty just to catch up with the prompt:

I can speak truth to the dwindling power within myself that represses, repackages, and re-aligns my personal and observational reality.  I can speak from my heart without losing bite or bark when it's needed at a collective level.  I can speak fluently when under duress and create more peace and less volume.

I will speak to myself quietly and with care.  I will speak of what matters to me irrespective of what's on trend.  I will speak of difficult subjects from a place of ease and surety that truth is more valuable than maintaining static quo.

***

I can speak truth to power, period.  I can speak from the heart without ceding to the belly when under emotional duress.  I can speak comfortably with the landscape as a way to release attachment to the personal belief humans should do less rather than more of that.

I will speak at greater length when those seeking my counsel dearly wish to receive it.  I will speak from the place of deep trust I have been heard accurately by those in need of any given piece of infromation/clarification I'm able to share.  I will speak of love more frequently - especially when that's the water I'm swimming in.

**

not really in the studio today.  Have been outside almost constantly.

new prompt: Can & Will

Now consider your projection range and intentionality:

Take five days to write out three sentences beginning with

I can speak ...

and

I will speak ...

train your 5th chakra's 'ear' in terms of understanding the difference that word choice makes

within your inner landscape.

and if it doesn't

what does that mean to you

?

***

Here's what I wrote a bit earlier:

I can speak truth and experience liberation rather than uncertainty or fear.  I can speak truth so my own ears and heart feel the power of word as a nurturing and protective force field.  I can speak truth without deciding in advance why I'm doing so or where, within truth's nature, I need to leave blank spaces or unmarked exit points due to someone else's fragility zones and other receptive side routes.

I will speak truth fictionally even when it makes me squeamishly self-conscious about how the words/story might be received.  I will speak generously with myself - time and focus wise through my journal writing for Deb's class.  I will speak out loud to the elementals and plant energies as an ongoing practice. 

***

 my day 5 entries for the hearing prompt:

I allow myself to hear anguish beneath insensitivity.  I allow myself to hear the jubilation in a friend's voice, just because we're talking together.  I allow myself to hear more woodland birds I still have never seen.

I wish to allow myself to hear the calls of specific healing herbs who wish to be considered in a new and/or more organic way.  I wish to allow myself to hear our garden bell more actively any time it rings.  I wish to allow myself to hear my inner capacity for rippling silence.

[revelation of a tree spirit in the field last summer. we were most unnerved at first.  am going out soon to sprinkle ladies mantle/cathedral quartz elixir all around the trunk and surrounding eco-sysem.]

4th day prompt response

I allow myself to hear with all channels open as I move into the deep-marriage stage of completing [my novel].  I allow myself to hear the details of my neighbors' lives without judgement or personalization.  I allow myself to hear our various seeds' languages rather than simply vibing with them at a color ray level. 

I wish to allow myself to hear the windchimes and bells on our property a lot more attentively and as an active of ongoing co-creative prayer.  I wish to allow myself to allow myself to hear the co-creative web's evolving growing instructions with infinite care.  I wish to allow myself to hear what hurts at the belly of my jokes, so I can remove the sting before I speak/disconnect from Heart.

***

Happy Equinox.   I did the sunrise meditation offered by Deb Soule as part of the energetic prelude the official Beginning J and I have some things planned.  Later the two dive captains will arrive to drum and announce themselves to the field energy as Guidance Systems for the participants who will be co-creating flower essences here over the coming months.

Yeah that's right.  Me in mentor mode is apparently just like me in all my other modes.  I wasn't sure about that when this whole endeavor first kicked off.  I kept walking around thinking or whispering to myself:  I'm a mentor.  I have to act like one.

what does that mean? 

but then I realized they both

expected me to act like I always act  - because that's a big part of why they hoped I'd agree to be involved.

and they told me, word for word, something I've said to both of them

about any number of life challenges and questions marks:

 

it's all about the leveling-up

because somebody's gotta.

so it might as well be us.

 

i look at those three sentences.  They say so much more than the words' meanings at the superficial glance level.

 

3rd day Prompt response

I allow myself to hear spring even while seeing winter.  I allow myself to hear cooperation and love's hopefulness in moments when pain and confusion seem to be the only currency.  I allow myself to hear sentience all around rather than simply trusting or 'knowing' it's there.

I wish to allow myself to hear more in my memories that are generally visually based.  I wish to allow myself to hear less power in words of spite and panic that somebody feels less than unless they do what they can to share the toxicity.  I wish to allow myself to hear the exact syllables of collective sentience carrying itself through air, water, fire, & earth.

***

yesterday I got the wording on the second part 'incorrect' but that gave me some stuff to think about.

the true power of word for me right in this season of my life is most clearly recognized when the speaker and listener deem each one to be of equal consequence both as broadcaster and receiver.  But, really, I mean each individual word and how they are strung together as well.  When both speaker and listener are in that kind of fully conscious communication headspace.

that's where the magic happens.

***

I am finding this exercise SUPER powerful at a personal level.  Am settling into a routine with it.  After I start a new post with the previous day's entry, I close the lap top and write today's entry on its lid. 

Am going for three affirmations written for each part of the exercise. 

I have been whispering my responses just under my breath as I write them down

tomorrow I'm going to use a normal speaking voice, now that I realize that, too, would be  a great exercise.

Seriously.  Do this prompt if you aren't already.  It will bring calm and steadiness and inner connectivity.

***

Yesterday afternoon I took a break from writing and found wonderful stuff in my email pertaining to Deb Soule's upcoming class.  Above you see her working quietly in the Avena gardens.   .happy sigh.  Everyone in this workshop who's showing themselves is some version of a me.

and we have Deb and all the other illuminated women to guide us.  it's almost too much.  but at the same time incredibly stabilizing.

First Deb sent out a Spring Equinox meditation and ideas for creating and energizing an Equinox altar.  The photo of her personal exemplar was deeply moving to me.  The simple and simply elegant space with just the right Things and placement.

Then we received the pdf for the workshop's journal. 

it is soooooooooo beautiful.

was so busy looking at the various pages' decorations, lunar artwork, and visual prompts inspiring numerous ideas of how I might color things in as I go, that it didn't occur me until it was completely printed:  I was too excited to double check printing orientation and printed everything in landscape mode.  But.  words are my friends, comforts, and eternal guidance system.  I'm gonna be journaling at length, I'm quite sure.  So I thought I'd grab a blank book from my stash and use it with the half pages pasted in place at appropriate intervals. 

then this morning

I woke up in a 6th chakra place (this happens every morning.  But today it was actually relevant

and of pragmatic use)

and also sacral lust of a kind.

I wanted, needed, absolutely HAD to have the journal pages printed in portrait mode so I could properly admire and infuse myself with them as I worked on whatever's to come. 

emrie and the beads she ordered.

i needed and HAD to have.

So I printed it out and am so glad I did.

I even have a shiny starman blue storage pouch to keep things organized and in one place.

2nd day prompt response

I allow myself to hear the languages Jim and I speak that are most representative of who we are.  I allow myself to hear what I most need to tell myself.  I allows myself to hear love whenever it is offered to me.  I allow myself to hear truth in the midst of confusion.  I allow myself to hear the still inner voice that says:  draw a boundary.  do it right now.

I wish to allow myself to hear the running water in the stream, irrespective of weather, for a week beyond the Equinox.  I wish to allow myself to hear a greater absence of critical/cynical inner thoughts.  I wish to allow myself to hear the quiet dignity of a considered opinion rather than reactive buzzwords.  I wish to allow myself to hear that the universe knows me by my sacred name.

***

somebody asked:  but how do I begin?

just sit down and let it happen.  Soften your thinking/verbal-based brain the way a visual artist learns to soften their eye.  If words are super hard for you, you can draw something but TRY to learn how words are power-adjacent rather than power-erosive.

The Power of Word is Real.  Give yourself this month's time to treat it with dignity.

If you 'write' by blurting out whatever comes -

do less of that.

try mindful communication instead.

If you freeze up whenever it's your turn to speak

or you're accustomed to telling yourself you have nothing of value or meaning to contribute within any given conversation

ask yourself why.

ask yourself what would happen if you felt too safe to freeze.

(hint:  seek out your heart center for that answer)

work with it.  And yourself.

gently

in the spirit of Blue.

***

Part of the value of writing out prompts that begin (or for that matter, end) with the same words:  after you've done it for a day or two your mind will begin to automatically anticipate and respond to those words more freely and without concentrated effort.

If words are easy for you

make how you relate to your gift

less facile

less sure of itself

more open to mystery

more representative

of the words inside

that always seem to have trouble

emerging in the right order

so you tend to let them go 'for later'

when there's more time

when you can think more clear

when you somehow feel more, rather than less, ability

to 'know what to say'.

***

people say to me ALL THE TIME both online and in walking around life (this has been going on for decades)

"I'm not like you.  I don't automatically know what to say."

so truth to power:

neither do I

I just refuse to let that stop me

from figuring out what needs to be said

and saying it.

that's my 'secret' -

I just freakin' use my words, rather than not.

my weakness

is that I don't generally tend to acknowledge

to myself or anyone else

that this ability

is in and of itself

a gift.

so I'm doing that now.

 

what is YOUR often-ignored/improperly recognized blue gift ????

[knowing when to hold your tongue doesn't count, in the context of this suggestion - especially if you're female.

we're all very good at that.

but I think most of us 'play along'

rather than authentically

changing the play.

I feel super-strongly about this:

we as women have GOT to get ourselves together enough

to stop lying  'for the greater good' of ostensibly playing nicely together

so I might speak on this again sometime this month

but usually I decide

why bother.

however

that's not blue

that's really funky-lookin' yellow-orange.

not true

not blue

so we'll see ...]

 

answering questions marks

Blue is READY for us!  Ready to hold sky, ground, and any other backdrop we may need.  Blue supports our psychic and energetic branches - what/who/why we seek TO REACH (and how ...) as well as what/who/why we yearn TO RECEIVE.

Today's post is in answer to some questions about yesterday's prompt.

(one thing Blue has done here in my own life is throw open the gates of my email program.  Yesterday I had three separate "have been wanting to write you for a couple months because I have a few questions" emails.  Additionally Cheryl asked an excellent question in comments on the SLI blog that invoked my inner sense I ought to write a post about it.  I don't know how to get it all lined up yet.   But I'm going to meditate with my favorite piece of blue apatite and then - we'll see.)

One of the questions I've gotten a few times since Blue revved its engines boils down to:  which blue stone.

My preferences for blue that needs coaxing, solace, and/or personal assurance we are indeed prepared and ready to speak/listen at our highest available vibratory frequency:  Blue Lace Agate.  The stone itself will more than likely let you know (through losing physical and energetic vibrancy) when its time to level-up to Blue Celestite.

What about Magic?  Blue Apatite.   Because it boots the energetic signal of everything else seamlessly, and without you needing to work any additional boosting juice.  Blue Apatite is incredibly 5-d as well.  

 What is a Blue equivalent for Rose Quartz? (the person who asked seemed both startled and embarrassed when I praised the question as excellent.  Why, she asked.  And I said: because I'm still not sure of the answer between two. So I'm applying critical thinking and the 5 & 6th chakras really like that.  It gives them something to do beyond Already Knowing.

Larimar - which I also very much associate with our collective Earth Star chakra.  Far more readily and affordably available: Blue Calcite and LIGHT blue flourite.

Flower Essences?  Chicory/Raddichio for re-distributing an over-abundance of blue.  Calendula to lend a 'top note' to work/personal reconfiguration accomplished with Chicory.  Also a wonderful tune-up/daily maintenance tool for leaders of whatever kind, especially if they're impatient/sharp-tongued but no longer consider that sort of thing a super power.

Borage if you find yourself 'stuck' - or merely ponderous - along the bridge to the upper chakras.  Or have needed to repair/rebuild it.  (Borage is inherently a Heart center essence.  But it's the perfect shade of sky-based out of the blue Spirit color.   It's also a direct gateway to Cobalt and Bowie's electric (i tend to think of it as 'starman'...) blue.

I figured this out by fooling around with my watercolor paints.  and from there turned it into a color mediation to feed myself whenever I fall out of Blue alignment or feel

I don't understand [yesterday's] prompt

I'm going to post my own responses throughout the week  - but a day behind.  I'll also type what I wrote for clarity's sake.  Decided to write on lime green paper because it's such a spring/vibrancy color energy and also because it made the sky blue ink of the pen turn turquoise.  That's my fave blue after sky-tints.

I allow myself to hear compatible female voices.  Voices of unfamiliar/uncomfortable dissent, if only for perceptual balance. Bird song.  Wind in the trees. Music I like.  Quiet stillness.

I would like to allow myself to hear more of what disturbs me from a place of compassion. I would like to allow myself to hear "I love you" without wondering if the words truly hold meaning for the person saying them.  I would like to [ed note:  forgot 'allow myself' for this one.  this wouldn't be about 'allowing' on either end of the equation.] hear more stories from people who enjoy hearing mine. Okay.  Now I see I switched over to yellow and just started putting in my order to the cosmos.  So I'm just gonna add in 'allow myself' to the last two.  In both cases that indicates a need for scrutiny from/of the heart bridge.

I'd like to allow myself to hear more evidence of a thriving landscape beyond my property line.  I'd like to allow myself to hear silence with a different ear. 

I don't exactly know what that last sentence means.  Yet.   It came from Blue and i wrote it down.

today I'll meditate before recording my second day's answers.