Tag: meditation

While You’re At Home…

On By adonkumentaryIn love, yoga2 Comments

Hey there y’all — during this time of uncertainty, I want to urge y’all to take time to connect with yourselves. It’s incredibly easy to get sucked into the news cycles, (not that you should be uninformed…but it’s also a risk of becoming addicted to and overwhelmed by it, so take breaks) and if you’re like me, your routine, schedule, rituals, and finances have all spun out into the abyss.

But please don’t lose yourself in it. Take the time — MAKE the time — to turn your phone off, go for a walk outside, hike in the woods, chop some wood, plant some herbs, play frisbee with your dog, or do some yoga.

Speaking of yoga…I know there’s a ton of content out there — like a TON of videos — so I don’t want to add to any burnout, but for anyone who might be interested, I do have two little online yoga classes available on YouTube. For years, teaching yoga was my full-time job and although I rarely teach these days, it does remain a part of my routine (which yes, is off kilter right now but dammit, I’m trying to stitch something resembling a schedule together).

Here’s the first: a 40-minute vinyasa class for y’all who want to get sweaty.

 

And here’s the second: a 20-minute gentle yoga (with a curious baby Bodhi!)

 

And finally, while I’m sharing videos, I made one just the other day of myself reading my latest book, “Will You Be My Val-Equine?” with my donkeys as little helpers. For y’all who’ve got kiddos home from school, I thought they might enjoy!

 

Happy social distancing, y’all. Please, please, PLEASE take care of yourselves. Slow down when you can. Breathe deep. Relax your shoulders. Unclench your jaw. Unfurrow your brow. Check in with your loved ones. If you’re struggling with your mental health, reach out for help. Times like these, people may not be able to afford their medication. Job loss, financial stress, isolation, etc can be incredibly triggering. But also, y’all who are doing alright, check on those who you know might be struggling. Remind them that they’re not alone. Ask what you can do to help. Though we may not be able to embrace each other right now, we are still all in this together. We can’t forget that.

Much love.
Jess

Afternoon Pause

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, summerLeave a comment

It’s a typical late-Texas summer on an early, weekday afternoon where leaves hang completely still from the treetops. The chickens have dug small holes outside of their coop in which to rest (the dirt beneath the surface being much cooler than anywhere else they may find) while the ducks drift gently in their pond with their heads tucked into their feathers. Little naps. Flapping bugs hop through the grass—pops of glittery movement in an otherwise motionless yard.

I’ve been sitting on the floor for some time gazing aimlessly out the window with gratitude for a working a/c in my house. I keep wondering if the ducks will wake or if the chickens will grab a skipping bug as it passes. I wonder if the donkeys will emerge from the barn but even they’ve foregone grazing under this afternoon sun and opted, instead, for the shade and coolness of their stalls. I suppose even I’ve been frozen for a while—perhaps time on this afternoon has simply paused.

I take a long, slow breath and as I exhale, I lay back and place my hands over my heart. I stare at the ceiling fan above and try to focus on one blade and follow it around and around, but I keep losing track. I can feel the beat of my heart in my hands. It’s wonky. It’s always wonky in heat like this. So I breathe deeper and more slowly, hoping that will calm her down. Ba dum, ba dum, baaaa dum dum. Ba dum, ba dum, baaa dum di dum dum. 

I‘ve learned to take advantage of quiet, still moments like these in an effort to find the same kind of calmness within my brain and being by trying to visualize various things depending on what I need or what’s going on. I’ve described some of these images before—things like purposefully pushing boulders down mountains in an effort to establish new grooves in the thought process. Streams of light that swirl into my body as I inhale and carry out the dark as I exhale. Muscles relaxing and releasing over the bones that support them, even the tiny ones around my eyes and ears. Lately I’ve been walking down a long hallway, slamming doors of busy thoughts as I pass while focusing on the dark end which I can’t quite make out yet. 

But anxiety is several doors pouring open at once, their insides tumbling and scattering all over the floor. Before you can even think about receiving the satisfaction of slamming the door shut, you must shuffle all the pieces back into their places, careful that you’re picking up the right stuff and not accidentally mixing up this door’s thoughts with the contents from the door across the hall that just spilled open, too. And when you’ve finally, meticulously stacked all the screaming thoughts back into their boxes and arranged them just so, two more doors with even louder and more fragile thoughts burst open. 

It’s then that I lay down in the growing pile of crashing thoughts and chatter and close my eyes into an even smaller, darker hallway with smaller, more finicky doors—a sort of inception of my own coping mechanisms. 

Over and over I do this until the darkness swallows me.

Dizzy, I open my eyes quickly. The room is bright with afternoon sun. The ceiling fan spins around and around and again, I try and find one blade, but can’t. I take in a deep breath and stand as I exhale. The ducks are splashing in the pond. The chickens are pecking through the grass. The donkeys are out in the pasture, heads down and tails flicking. 

As I wander back to my office, I wonder how many versions of me might still be laying in piles of thoughts with their eyes closed? I wonder if there even exists a hallway that can be silenced? Or maybe that’s not the point? 

Thoughts for the next pause, I suppose. For now, the afternoon is alive once more and so too is my need to return to it, spilled contents and all.

20190805_161738-01.jpeg

 

Softness

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, life, meditation3 Comments

I’m sitting in my spot—the one in the far, left nook of the couch by the window that looks out towards the donkey’s barn and pasture—as my coffee cools and the night is swelling into its final, heavy moments before the prick of dawn. I spent the fifteen or so minutes before this trying to meditate without much success. Meditation for me looks more like a whack-a-mole game of trying to silence my internal dialogue. Relax your face, I tell myself. Soften your shoulders. I don’t know how I’m going to respond to that angry email I’ve let sit in my inbox for a day. I guess it was my mistake that got me there, but it was a mistake nonetheless. And I owned it. But the world seems so unforgiving these days.

Relax your throat. Deep belly breath. Notice the crickets outside. Mistakes are supposed to help us grow. We are supposed to embrace mistakes as learning opportunities so that every day, we can do just that much better. But that email. The failure. The broken glass on the floor with me standing over it. In many ways, I’ve always been clumsy. 

Soften your eyebrows. Unclench your jaw. Imagine your breath is a jellyfish gently propelling itself through darkness. I’m sorry, I’ll say, I misunderstood. Because I truly did. I thumbed through my notes which I remember jotting down with what I later learned was incorrect information. My cheeks get hot and red when I realize I’m wrong and a giant hole opens up around my heart which swallows it into a pit of shame. 

Whack-a-mole. Whack, whack whack. So I abandoned my not-so-quiet spot on the floor, made myself some coffee, and settled into my couch nook.

I take a sip of my coffee which is mostly cool now. My brother makes fun of me for preferring room-temperature coffee. I don’t like hot coffee and I don’t much like cold coffee either. Hit me with that middle ground. This makes me smile because my brother never pokes fun with harshness, only silliness. He’s appalled at my coffee preferences and habits (because I also do this thing where I’ll make a whole pot of coffee, only drink one, cool cup form it, and spend the next three days pouring my morning coffee from the same full pot I brewed days ago instead of making fresh coffee). But he never makes me feel bad for it. He just laughs about it which in turn, makes me laugh. Actually, his recognition of my (albeit strange) brewing practices makes me feel seen.

Dawn will break any moment. To me, the anticipation is exciting every single morning. Sip. Breathe.

I recently finished watching the Amazon Prime series, “Good Omens,” which is based off the novel written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It’s a fantastic read (and wonderful listen if you’re an Audible subscriber) and I’m happy to have found that the television series is just as remarkable as the book. They did a phenomenal job adapting the story for the screen. I highly recommend.

I bring this up because there’s a moment in the television series where the angel, Aziraphale, sighs and says, “I’m soft.”

tumblr_psdjoekJai1sfp43vo1_400

Since finishing the series, I think about this moment often. 

I’m soft, he said. I’m soft. 

My chest still feels hollow and empty as my shame is berating my heart somewhere else that I can’t see, but boy can I feel. I absolutely loathe making mistakes. I hate letting others down, of course, but I also know that a misstep means the beast of self-consciousness is fed. I close my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“I’m soft,” he said. And he said it with a sigh. With a release. With a surrender. 

Softness. 

Softness, I think, is porous. My big donkey, Bunny, keeps relapsing with what’s called “white line disease” because her hooves are soft and porous. It’s been raining nearly non-stop for months which hasn’t allowed her desert-evolved-hooves to dry out and bacteria thrives there. Only in dry, open, and clean air can white line disease start to heal. The hooves need to harden and in hardness is protection. 

Maybe I’m soft. Maybe that’s why the monsters of doubt, anxiety, and depression thrive in my being like bacteria. My face feels so hot. I hate screwing up. How could I be so careless?

I take another sip of my cool coffee. The blackness outside has shifted into navy blue. Ron Swanson, my rooster, perches on the fence and crows—a deafening break of silence. 

I’m soft, I realize. I’m soft. 

I picture Aziraphale’s face and try, too, to surrender to the idea. I let go of the tension in my face, my shoulders, even in the muscles between my ribs. I let out an audible sigh. Ron Swanson crows again. 

But softness is what allowed Aziraphale to become sympathetic to the human race and even, I think, fall in love with them. Softness is how Aziraphale was able to connect with and find a partner in the demon Crowley, ultimately saving the world through their camaraderie. Softness allowed them to see one another. 

crowleyandaz

Softness is why my brother making fun of my coffee habits doesn’t hurt my feelings. He sees me as a person with unique traits and I receive the comments as being seen as an individual. Softness is our ability to see one another as humans with strengths and weaknesses. With talents and flaws. With complex histories and room for growth. Softness connects us, it doesn’t block us out. Heck, softness is why I got into donkey rescue in the first place—because those long ears and thoughtful eyes passed through the netted walls of my soft heart and found a home in there and I never, ever, wanted to see another donkey suffer.

To be soft is to be vulnerable and to be vulnerable, in my opinion, is to be brave. Knocking down the calloused walls knowing that the rawness behind it might be seen or judged by others takes strength. To recognize, admit, and own missteps with the intention of improving moving forward is something that as imperfect beings, we should all be trying to do. No one is perfect, so bust down that wall that you’ve built around the insecurity of not being perfect all the time—it’s not doing you any good.

I learned quickly as a novice gardener that the soil must be tilled, soft, and porous in order for plants to find strong rooting, ultimately allowing them to grow larger and hopefully, bear more fruit. So maybe if we till ourselves, allowing the surface to soften from time to time, we’ll experience growth in ways we hadn’t previously imagined. We’ll see each other as individuals with complex pasts and beautiful minds—that in our collective imperfection is infinite possibility for growth and connection. 

I’m soft. 

I’m soft.

I’m soft and for the first time all morning, I don’t have to remind myself to relax. Let flow, the feelings that rise. There is so much to learn and so much room to grow.

nuzzle

Roots

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, garden, gardening, letting go, life, meditationLeave a comment

It’s a chilly afternoon and I’ve finally decided to clear the weeds and old roots from the garden in order to prepare for a new, spring crop. My fall garden was a bust: I didn’t do enough research on planting in sticky, gumbo soil and we had a bizarre, hard freeze in mid-November which killed off everything weeks before I was planning to harvest. My fall garden yielded three green beans. Three.

I suppose it’s fine—I was travelling a lot last fall, so my chances of upkeeping a garden with the love and respect it deserved and needed were probably low. Plus, I haven’t built up a proper compost heap this time around. The odds have been against it and for more than two months now, I’ve let weeds and grass overtake my sad, little garden.

I pick a corner and kneel down to begin pulling up weeds. Dampness from the soil soaks into the knees of my jeans, but I don’t mind. I start by raking the stringier weeds with my fingers which are tangled loosely across the top of the bushier and more deeply-rooted growth below. Rake, rake rake. Dirt gathers beneath my fingernails and what was a chilly afternoon has become quite warm with my repetitive movements.

The repetitious motions of backyard gardening is therapeutic. Row by row, whether planting or clearing, there’s a natural rhythm that guides the process regardless of your being a seasoned gardener or not. Rake the loose weeds. Dig around the stubborn ones. Pull the deep roots. Brush away the leftover. Rake rake, dig dig, pull pull, brush, brush. Rake rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 

Bit by bit and breath by breath, I travel through my garden removing that which is alive with rapidly reproducing weeds and dead from poor management and unfortunate circumstance.

It’s a bit grim: the idea that death must occur and be grieved in order to make way for new life. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to move on from things of the past and how to start the healing (replanting) process. Like all people, I’ve had my share of heartache, hurt, missteps, and much like my garden, have fallen victim to poor management and unfortunate circumstance. Neglect. Distraction. Habitually pushing care to the back-burner. All that.

So here, squatting down in the mud and the weeds that are here because of my neglect, I imagine that the soil is life-giving light and the weeds are darkness, swiftly crawling across and covering the richness and space from which life, love, and nourishment sprouts. Rake, rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush.

Gosh, there are weeds everywhere. It’d be easier to just let the whole thing go, I doubt I’ll have time for a garden this spring, anyway. My hands are beginning to hurt and the dampness from the ground has spread past my knees and down my shins. For the first time, I notice my fingertips covered in tiny, red cuts from small spikes in the seemingly infinite growth and holy moly they sting. Why didn’t I wear gloves? It’s so hot out here.

My heart rate has risen significantly and I can no longer find my breath. I try counting, but can’t hold my attention span to the count of four anymore. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and find the app which is connected to the USB-sized monitor implanted in my chest, right above my heart. It’s recording all the time, but I’m supposed to report when I can feel abnormal things occuring, which is often and especially when I do things like squat down for too long. I sit back, butt in the mud, and lean against the small, picket fence as the app begins to record my heart’s rhythm which is heavy and fluttering. The space around me vignettes itself and my fingers and toes begin to go numb. 

I close my eyes feeling the wet ground absorb into my jeans and try again to find my breath. Rake, rake, dig, dig, pull, pull, brush, brush. One, two, three…One, two…One, two, three.

It’s like I can’t get the breath all the way to the bottom of my lungs: it stops halfway. I make a concerted effort to relax my gut, pelvis, chest, and eyes, and try to imagine sinking a little farther down into the wet ground. Instead of counting, I picture a jellyfish gently and repetitively pulsing through the water. My friend and teacher, Stacey Ramsower, shared this image with me recently and it’s since resonated quite vividly. I picture my diaphragm and pelvic floor moving in tandem in the same way a jellyfish propels itself through the deep: smoothly, rhythmically, and beautifully. Something about the image seems more accessible than the count right now. Blub, blub, blub she goes…soft, smooth, and infinite. 

Blub, blub, blub, through the blue.
Blub, blub, blub, held by water.

After a while and once the flapping wings of my butterfly heart calm down, I open my eyes and lean forward, placing my forearms on my knees. My fingers and toes prickle as blood begins to pour back into them and the world around is light once more. I submit the recording to my doctor and slide my phone back in my pocket. I figure I ought to be heading in to get some water and rest, but then something catches my eye. What is that?

I scramble to my hands and knees and crawl to a tall, bright green growth reaching from the weeds. I trace my fingers down the delicate stems and carefully pull up. Oh my goodness. I start to laugh.

20190218_091020-01.jpeg

I stand, holding the small carrot ball and look around. This bird’s eye view has allowed me to discover that several other plants have inched above the weeds reaching for sunlight, so one by one, I trace their stems and pull their roots gently from the ground.

20190216_174724-01.jpeg

Brave, little root veggies. My goodness, I had no idea anything could’ve survived multiple hard freezes and certainly not beneath the heavy darkness that’s blanketed their space for so long. They may be small and oddly shaped, but boy they are phenomenal (and cute!) I suppose small specs of light can indeed penetrate darkness. Maybe it just requires a shift in perspective.

—
I spent much of the rest of this day reclined on the couch with a big glass of water while imagining whole blooms of jellyfish pulsing together through the deep. How strange it must be to pulse endlessly through the darkness…strange but oddly encouraging. Blub, blub, pulse, pulse, on and on they go. Infinite, rhythmic movement.

I imagined the proverbial weeds that often stretch themselves across me and how somehow, someway, light manages to get through. Sure, sometimes, that light goes undiscovered for a while, but it’s there. It is. And certainly it’s worth the blood, sweat, and pain to pull back the darkness and make way for more light. Just start in a corner and see what happens. Darkness breeds in neglect. I’d say, get in and get your hands dirty.

Even if you don’t find anything the first few times you start raking, digging, pulling, and brushing, the process is still wonderfully meditative—the re-examination of a familiar space that’s gone untouched for a while is so helpful for growth. Afterall, you can’t start a new garden without first tearing up and dealing with the old, deceased one. In that death and chaos lies life waiting to bloom and be discovered. 

Moonlit Mind

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s the middle of the night. Last time I looked at the digital clock on my nightstand, it said “2:44” and that seems like hours ago. I’m laying on my back with the blanket balled up beneath my chin and my eyes closed, hoping that somehow, someway, sleep will take me. I know in my gut that it won’t, but I try anyway.

I do this more often than not—lay awake at night hoping for sleep typically without success. It’s a common thing for us to do, to have our minds flooded with fragments of every small memory, distant worry, running checklist, and distracting thought the second our heads hit the pillow: I know this because I see enough of my friends post memes about busy-minded insomnia to know I’m not alone. But damn, if it isn’t exhausting. I sigh, roll over into a fetal position, and open my eyes to see that it’s 3:30 now. One of my dogs must sense my movement because from across the room, I hear the tinkling of a collar.

At this point, the bed is no longer comfortable and the silence and darkness have become a perfect and chaotic breeding ground for toxic thoughts to pour from the pockets of insecurities that I carry around, so I slide out from under the blankets. It’s cold out here. Draped over the dresser is my flannel shirt which I grab and wrap myself in as I head into the living room. Tucker, the dog with the tinkling collar, follows me.

The floor glows blue in stretched out moonlight and is cold under my feet. I sit in my favorite spot on the couch and pull a throw blanket over myself. This side of the couch—my preferred side—is a perfect looking spot next to a window that faces the barn where my three donkeys are snuggled in, hopefully nuzzled together and not busy-minded like me. The thought of their thoughts makes me smile. Last week, my vet came out to perform Bodhi’s castration and as he was waking from his sedative, the vet told me he often wonders if donkeys dream. “They’re so smart, you know,” he told me in his gruff, East-Texas accent, “and I’m just curious what they must dream about. Surely they do.” I adored my vet before this comment but when he said that, my admiration for him leveled up. He gets donkeys. He wonders about their dreams.

He, my vet, was there the day Tink died. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had to call him out in an emergency. He was there within 20 minutes of our call and stayed until we said our final goodbye. At the time, I didn’t know him very well, but he hugged me tight when I crumbled and began to weep. I left smudged mascara marks on his brown vest. I think about that often.

The barn is blue in the moonlight and above it, a perfectly clear, cold sky twinkles with a few, bright stars. It’s been dropping down to the 20’s at night which for us here in Texas is brutal. The throw blanket tugs and I break my gaze with the barn to see Tucker nosing the blanket. Tucker will be 10 this year and for at least the past 6 years, he finds his way to me every single time I sit in my spot on the couch with a throw blanket and my legs curled up beneath me. I adjust myself and lift the blanket, allowing him to hop up and curl into a perfect dog ball next to my legs. I cover him with the blanket and he sighs. This is our assumed position.

I stroke the shape of Tucker’s back and look back to the barn. Bodhi’s recovering beautifully from his castration. I’ve seen many donkeys castrated and it’s never phased me a bit, but seeing your own baby who you used to bottle feed under the knife like that is a whole other story. He’s a little fighter though, our orphaned donkey who tried to steal the Christmas tree. He’s already back to his same, silly shenanigans.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear a dog bark. Tucker tenses and from under the blanket, the shape of his ears perk. “Shhh,” I say to him, stroking his head, “it’s okay.” He sighs again and relaxes.

But is it? Is it okay? Who am I to know? Maybe a dog is barking because someone’s house is getting robbed somewhere. Or maybe someone has abandoned their dog and he or she is terrified and calling out for rescue. Or maybe that dog heard another dog who heard another dog and the bark chain actually started out in Louisiana somewhere because a tree fell down in someone’s backyard. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s okay.

I wonder if my vet was able to get the mascara smudges off of his brown vest? I haven’t been able to work up the nerve to ask him or to offer to buy him a new vest if he wasn’t able to get the stains out. I mean, in my experience, mascara comes out of clothes pretty easily, but what if? How can I know and why am I afraid to ask? And how is it that we can exist on the cellular level and a cosmic level all at the same time? Our cells are constantly regenerating and our imaginations can wander anywhere in the known (or unknown) universe. Isn’t that wild? How infinite we are? And so how, in our vastness, can insecurities about trivial things travel around with us everywhere we go? Why does it matter? Who cares about what other people think and why am I still worrying about a conversation that went badly with an old friend a decade ago?

Tucker sighs again and I realize my whole body has become tense. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath all the way to the bottom of my lungs. I hold it there for a few seconds, then sigh it out. I do this again, breathe in all the way, hold it, and let it go. I do this over and over and over until it’s quiet…until my muscles relax over my bones like jelly.  Mascara does come out of clothes. I know this. And sometimes, dogs bark for no reason and conversations go badly. It just happens. That’s okay.

The clock above the mantle says it’s nearly 4:30am and so I figure I ought to go ahead and get my day started. I pat Tucker on the rump, grab my coat and boots, and head out in the cold morning to feed the donkeys and muck their stalls. The moon is bright behind the trees leaving everything a glowing blue.

I breathe in deep, the air cold in my gut, and sigh it out in a small cloud that floats away towards the few stars competing with the moon’s gaze. Cosmic, indeed.

DSC09451-01-01.jpeg

 

Time for Silence

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I realize I’ve fallen into this habit of beginning my blog posts by describing something that I’m up to when my thoughts begin to twirl and tumble around some thing that I’ve been worried about, obsessing over, or working hard to accomplish and I think it’s because I do my best kind of pondering when I’m busy with something. Moving meditation, perhaps. Or maybe it’s because I am able to occupy some of the busier parts of my brain with a task, thus allowing room for the deeper, more thoughtful areas of my mind to stretch their limbs a little.

But as you may have read in one of my recent posts, ‘Magic Eye,’ things have been moving pretty fast around here lately and I suspect that the entirety of my conscious mind (even those deeper and more contemplative areas) are in a constant state of “all hands on deck!” It’s times like these that I have historically neglected my blog and writing in general so that I can focus on giving my mind a rest, slowing down, and practice being in the present moment a bit more: a mental cocoon.

The holidays don’t help, either. It feels like a madhouse out there. Everyone seems stressed out, on edge, in each other’s face about something, and just plain rude. I get cut off on the freeway more this time of year than any other and have to deal with angry emails and messages with ALL CAPS because someone wants to be VERY CLEAR THAT I KNOW THEY’RE YELLING ABOUT SOMETHING!!!

*sigh*

Because of all this, I realize that I must make the time for my own silence. Whether that’s turning my computer off for a while, finding a new set of trails to explore, or simply leaving my phone inside while I go out and hang with my donkeys, I’ve got to press a pause button and go tend to my mushy mind. Really, we should all be making our self care and self love a priority. Your car stops running when you don’t fill it with gas, so what are we all doing running around on empty? Burning out and getting angry, that’s what.

Go tend to your sweet hearts, y’all. Reflect. Ponder. Be still. Know that your contentment and peace comes from within. It’s there. You just have to find it.

Before I go for a bit, I do want to share something really exciting with y’all. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that I’ve been working on a children’s picture book that I wrote in memoriam of our dearly departed boy, Tink. (If you’re unfamiliar with Tink, you can read one of my previous posts about him here).

Well, I’m so very proud and excited to announce that my book, ‘Tink the Bravest Donkey,’ is finished, published, and now officially on sale! And best of all, 100% of the proceeds from this book are going directly to the non-profit responsible for saving Tink in the first place and bringing him into our life, Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue. With these profits, they can save more donkeys in need, just like Tink.

This is something that is so near and dear to me which I’ve poured my heart into and admittedly, getting it out there has me incredibly anxious. The world can be kind of a scary and often mean place for people who put their hearts out on display, but I’m braving my way through it as best I can. Afterall, that’s what the protagonist of my book teaches us: that we can all be brave and maybe, just maybe, that’s how we connect more deeply with one another.

If you’d like a copy, you can get yours here: http://www.donkeyrescue.com/books.html

(There’s also a link to it in ‘Links to my Other Stuff’ in the menu at the top of the page.)

If I don’t connect with y’all beforehand, have a wonderful holiday season. Be sure to make time for yourself. Take care of each other’s hearts. Be kind. Find silence. Try not to allow the callousness of the world to make you cruel or afraid…instead, try and find that strength and love that sits deep within your soul and give it permission to emerge with all the beauty and glory that you could possibly imagine.

NamasBRAY. ❤

 

 

Fly, Blackbird, Fly

On By adonkumentaryIn anxiety, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s not quite dawn and I’ve just finished leading a guided meditation which I do with a group of friends three times a week before the sun comes up. It’s never anything fancy, just fifteen or so minutes that we spend together trying to slow down and relax, utilizing the interwebs to connect digitally to share this time.

After the meditation, I pour a cup of coffee and sit for a while. Most mornings like these, Little Foot is still asleep and the donkeys haven’t brayed yet to let me know they’re ready to be let out into the pasture. The sun’s not peeked through the trees and the stillness in my living room is profound. I’ve written before about sitting with silence during this time (that post here) so I won’t go into that again. I do feel that silence and me are becoming more and more acquainted, though. It’s a welcome friendship.

I decide to go outside early—before the glow of the sun bounces off the dew in the grass. It’s damp and cool out this morning and hanging from the awning over my back patio, a black spider is wrapping something tightly on an arm of her snowflake-shaped web.

I shut the door behind me, a sound the donkeys can hear and they must be surprised by my early movement because Bunny brays, then Tink, then Tee and finally, my last adoptable donkey available, The Professor: a pre-dawn chorus. In their shed, I kneel down next to Tink to wrap his hoof and secure his boot before taking time to greet each donkey. They’re even more peaceful in the mornings which for donkeys, is saying a lot.

I’ve not much to say this morning. Several times over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started and then deleted many blog post drafts, none of which have become anything I’ve felt was worth a post. That’s not to say that nothing interesting is happening, in fact a lot is going on…large, life-changing events are happening within our family and to our ranch but because I’m an anxious mind with a tendency to be superstitious about things, I’ve refrained from revealing these changes in an effort to not jinx it all. What I will say has happened is that I’ve allowed myself to become consumed by and buried beneath task after time sensitive task and it’s forced me into reclusive mode.

Breathing deeply helps. Pulling in a long breath, holding it for a few seconds, and then sighing it out helps. Not losing sight of self-worth and refraining from placing self-value in the hands of others helps, too.

As I walk back towards the house, the sky just starting to turn purple, a flock of blackbirds soars overhead, their broad wings gliding effortlessly and I realize my skin is prickling. I close my eyes and draw in a long breath, all the way into the bottom of my lungs. The air is a bright light, swirling down my spine and spreading like spilled ink through my body. I hold it in, the light glowing brighter and brighter, my body relaxing in its warmth. I hold that alabaster peace with all I’ve got and then finally, I exhale and open my eyes.

A single blackbird squabbles in the sky. She is struggling to catch up to the rest of the flock, wings flapping frantically and clumsily, and I’m suddenly overtaken by fear that something’s going to happen to that bird. Why is she struggling so badly? Is she hurt? Eyes wide, I watch the straggler disappear over the trees and suddenly I’m panicking. I search the sky for any other birds but there are none. My heart races and my to do list tumbles down, across the ground in my mind’s eye—a ten-mile long scroll. Everything that’s hanging in the balance falls and shatters and the weight of the world itself lays down across my chest. Fly, blackbird, fly. Come on.

The donkeys are standing next to me now, calm and quiet, and so I take another long, deep breath. I hold it in, trying to visualize the movement of light again but my mind is racing so quickly that I can’t see a thing, just a blur of worry. I sigh and breathe deeply again. No light. My heart’s racing and my breath is shallow. One more time, I breathe deeply, hold it in, and finally sigh it out, cold and dark.

I scan the sky once more, but the blackbirds are gone. I lean on Bunny—it’s like she knows when I’m having a panic attack and knows that by being there, it helps. It does.

I think we’ve all been that blackbird. We’ve all fallen behind, despite how hard we’ve worked. We’ve all been alone, watching the rest move along with ease. I want so badly for that blackbird to catch up to her friends, to the rest, so she doesn’t feel so alone but then I realize that maybe she’s making her own path. Maybe being separated from the rest, misunderstood and a bit clumsy, is just who she is right now. And that’s okay because at least on this morning, she’s still moving forward.

I hug my sweet donkey, her breath steady and mine now too, and with my gray pajama pants tucked into the tops of my work boots which I slipped on without socks, I walk back towards the house where I’ll sit on my couch with a second cup of coffee for just a bit longer, waiting for the sun to come up.

Snapchat-449408377-02.jpeg

Silence

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized7 Comments

It’s not quite dawn and the only sound I hear is the low buzz of the running refrigerator from the kitchen. Peering out my front window which has two, furry moths on it side-by-side, I’m watching the blackness beyond my front porch, waiting for the spaces between the trees that I know are there to fade into orange as the sun comes up. Right now, it’s darkness. I remember a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog called “It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn,” and here I find myself again in the deepest part of the night and in the deepest part of my mind, waiting for the sky to fade into light.

One of the moths stuck to the window rotates and flutters its wings—a morning stretch, perhaps. In a few minutes, I’ll be hopping online to lead a guided meditation with a group of friends which I do three times a week. I find meditations to read aloud or I write them myself sometimes. There’s accountability in having a group—all of us just people wanting to slow down from time to time, but always finding excuses not to. Today, we’ll be doing a meditation that focuses specifically on healing. I sip my coffee.

There are many things on my mind right now (as is the case with everyone I know) and lots that I feel I want to say…but on this deep, dark morning, the quiet is comforting. It is still utter blackness outside and I want it to stay that way for a little while longer. Maybe just today, the sun can wait a few more minutes before silhouetting the trees in her warm, orange glow.

Moments like these, I feel like silence becomes more than just a lack of sound. Right now, it feels like silence is sitting next to me on the couch, watching me reach the bottom of my coffee cup. Silence is like a stranger without a voice that perhaps makes us uncomfortable because she never responds when we ask her questions or throw ideas her way—but as I’m sitting here with her, I actually think that’s her beauty. Shadowy silence is fine to just sit there and keep me company. She’s there to surround me and always eager to blanket the busyness of my mind when my thoughts start swirling too quickly; I just have to give her permission. She never judges, she never expects…she just is. 

Beyond the trees, I can see the faintest shift in the darkness. A graying is opening up behind the trees and soon, I’ll see the shapes of the leaves. That’s what new sunrises always deliver: shifts, changes and opportunities to see a little more clearly. I take the final, cool sip of coffee sitting at the bottom of my cup and then place the mug on the table—a loud knock in this gravitational silence. She accentuates everything.

Deep breath in. Hold it. Sigh it out.  

Deep breath in. Hold it. Sigh it out.

Both moths quickly flutter away now, leaving an oddly clean and bare window, and a truck drives down the gravelly road outside—its tire-crunching and engine rumble flooding in the fading darkness. Silence no longer sits curiously on the couch. She, along with the night, fluttered away on the backs of those two, furry moths.

I take another deep breath and ready my notes for today’s meditation. The gray will soon be blue and it will be a new day. Whoever you are reading this, I hope that this day brings you some peace even in the chaoses that life can carry. If you get the chance, invite silence to join you for a little while. There’s profoundness in company with whom you can just sit, not saying a thing. 

NamasBRAY.

20170915_195629-01.jpeg

Lightning Shows

On By adonkumentaryIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last night leading up to midnight, I spent the better part of an hour out in the shed with the donkeys watching the sky. Our little area of Texas was having what I thought at the time was a heat lightning storm—something we cherish down here in the south. Lightning pulses behind heavy clouds in a humid sky, sometimes reaching out in bolts and grand, illuminating flashes during these storms. They only seem to happen when we’ve spent several days with high temperatures hovering around 100 degrees.

While I was out there, I got to wondering what causes heat lightning so when I came inside some time later, sweaty and draped in small spider webs I’d picked up on my walk back, I Googled heat lightning only to find out that heat lightning doesn’t exist. We’ve made up that phenomenon! That information can be found here: What is Heat Lightning?

I love the weather channel.

Even so, these lightning shows are stunning to behold. Their never ending flashes become meditative after a while, especially without the anticipation of thunder. I put these lightning events on the same level as a good fire whereby you can sit for hours staring into its ever changing light and there, no two people will regard them in the same way.

The best stories are told around fires. The best thoughts are conjured during lightning storms.

I thought about how, way back when I first moved here to the ranch and the months following, I was so lost. If you’ve only recently started following this here ranch life adventure, then you may not know that donkeys found me…not the other way around. King Ranch and I had bought a property and said property came with a donkey. I thought about how when we moved here, Little Foot was a mere 4 month old infant: tiny and fragile and I was a 4 month old mother with no idea what I was doing. We didn’t know a single person within 250 miles and even the nearest grocery store was a half-hour drive.

The lightning continually flashed across the sky, highlighting the shapes of the clouds and reflecting off the large eyes of my three donkeys who watched the sky with me intently. I thought about how many times I wanted to run away—back home to Houston where I knew people, where I had a support system. I missed my parents and my friends and my local watering holes. And although Houston is so congested and humid all the time, I missed her familiarity.

But Houston didn’t have my donkeys. I watched the way their ears shifted and twitched with little sounds that flicked about. I thought about how now, being two and a half years into this ranch life, Little Foot has had the opportunity to grow up with dirt under his fingernails and donkeys at his side. They’re very protective of him. I remember when Little Foot was just learning to walk, how Bunny and Tee would follow closely behind him, their noses right behind his little, wobbly back. Even now, when he’s out there with me running and jumping, they’re always by his side.

The lightning rolled on—a pulsing, electrical heartbeat stretching across the sky. I got the sense that the snaking and slithering bolts were beginning to reach down into my own chest, wrapping their light around and into the chambers of my beating and tender heart. It’s been over two years since we moved here and in many ways, I feel as lost as I did then—like I’m constantly searching for something but just can’t find it. I’ve described to King Ranch lately that it’s like I’m in a biplane circling the same, cloudy destination but can’t land because I can’t see it yet.

Bunny was leaning on me by this point and I suspect it’s because she felt my apprehension. She always does this: leans her weight into me when I’m thinking too hard. Maybe it’s her way of telling me to slow down which, I feel like a lot of people have been telling me to do recently. And I know I need to but I struggle because something….something….is tugging at my insides. I just don’t know what.

More clouds appeared and the bolts became harder and harder to see, only dull flashes pulsed in the distance and so I decided to abandon my post and go inside to research heat lightning. When I discovered that it’s a made up concept, I wondered to myself if that invisible landing spot which I’ve been circling is a figment of my imagination. Perhaps like the “heat lightning” being far-travelling lightning from a far away storm, my own apprehensions are far-travelling anxieties from a far away shift in my own recent past…residual stress from everything in my life changing in the past two and a half years.

Or maybe, indeed, change and shifts are somewhere on my own horizon. By now, I’ve learned that there’s a lot to be said for the feelings that poke and prod in your gut—that intuition is a real thing, if given a chance.

Either way, there is wisdom in the shifting skies. If it’s been a while, you should sit outside and look up for a while. It reminds you how vast the universe is and a reminder that the same vastness is inside you. Just as there are storms and heat and fierce winds and mysteries in the skies, so too are there in you. They’re worth beholding from time to time.

So are donkeys. They’re always worth beholding 🙂

20170726_093148-2

Rain Thoughts

On By adonkumentaryIn Uncategorized2 Comments

It’s pouring outside. Like one of those real, north Texas, springtime storms that we haven’t had many of this year. I think about how many of my blogs last spring and the spring before were stories about hunkering down in these storms of epic proportions: the kind of storms from which tornadoes and old, forgotten childhood fears spiraled. But this year’s been different…only a handful of noteworthy systems have moved through our little town, most of which have been more wind damaging than anything. 

I’m also laying in my bed right now, typing this blog post on my phone with my right thumb because my left arm is wrapped about a sleeping, slightly snoring Little Foot. He’s started chatting in his two-year-old sleep recently, mostly about dinosaurs, cars, and sharing and it’s downright adorable. I wish, so badly, that I could see his dreams. What do the colors look like there? I wonder how many more times Little Foot will sleep curled up next to me. That’s one of those things I won’t realize it’s the last time until way after the fact. 

The plants outside must be thrilled: their roots are probably chugging the draining water with fury because it’s been that long since they’ve had a drink that wasn’t poured by me and we all know that water from a hose just isn’t the same. I hope that this storm refreshes my struggling garden and peps up the lawn a bit. We thrive on these storms and in their absence, everything’s just seemed…I don’t know…a bit off. Everything has been so tense and tired and stressed out. 

I know there’s a cliche metaphor in there: the whole, “can’t have a rainbow without the rain” concept. Which I mean, it’s true and I love that idea, but what I’m laying here thinking about isn’t what lies on the other side of this storm. I’m thinking about how much we need it and how much I’m loving this rain… The kind of rain that will take days to fully soak into the ground. How grateful I am for the fury of this storm upon us because I think everything needs a good wash out from time to time. A good cry. A purge of the build up that happens when it’s too hot and heavy for too long. 

There’s a meditation technique I learned once where you close your eyes and focus on one sound that you hear at a time. The rain. Little Foot’s heavy breath. The clock ticking in the bathroom. The chimes clanging outside. My own pulse… Can I really hear my own pulse right now? Or do I just feel it that heavily in my temples? 

Pitter-patter, inhale-exhale, tick-tock, clang-clang, thump-thump. 

It’s pouring outside and right now, I want it to last forever.