CURRENT MISSION

loving life and making a difference

ABOUT ME

I'm 47, mother of an 18-year old and a couple of half-fledged books...and excited to be embarking on a new phase in life.

PHILOSOPHY

Being primarily an artist, my approach is a visionary and experiential one.
My intent is to inspire others also to reawaken their inherent authentic vision, that we can truly begin to create Heaven on Earth as a harmonious interweaving of many ‘paths with heart’. And have lots of fun as we do.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Haven't yet!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

none yet ~ but I was a wwoof host for quite a while. This brought many amazing people into my and my son's life.

Interests

creativity, spirit, nature, dancing, songwriting, dreaming, staying young inside while getting wrinkly outside

• books
• dancing
• vegan
• walking
• reading
• painting
• magic

Music, Movies, and Books

Into the Wild
the Be Good Tanyas
The I Ching

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

swam with a turtle off the coast of Hawaii

Teach, Learn, Share

I became vegan after listening to a visiting vegan and seeing the truth of what he said...I want to always be open to learning from others.
As for what I have to offer, here's the beginning of chapter one of my book:

In beginner’s mind we have many possibilities,
but in expert mind there is not much possibility.
...So, if you can keep your beginner's mind
forever, you are Buddha.
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

This is a book for beginners ~ that is, for people with beginner’s mind.
‘Beginner’s mind’ doesn’t mean stupidity, or a lack of depth. It simply means
being as fully present as you were when you first saw the world; with no preconceptions
or projections, just openness, fascination and awe. If you can engage with the Zhouyi ~
and with life itself ~ in this spirit, then you can truly begin to shift your consciousness.
In real terms? You can dive into a joyful communion with all of the challenges,
magic and mundanities of existence.

im/perfection
Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.
Harry Truman

Some years ago, I was talking with someone about the idea of honoring the gua through the turning of the seasons, a path I intend to follow in my next book.
Since we were in the high-summer time of Lammas, which I equate with the energy of wood/wind,I suggested that a good way to connect with this would be to create prayers of thanks, blessing
and intent and hang them high in the treetops where the wind could take the words and disperse their essence, in the spirit beloved of Tibetan prayer flags.

With great enthusiasm, my friend grabbed a felt-tip pen and immediately wrote his prayers on some scraps of spare material,
roughly stitched some string to the top and went off to find a tree.

Meanwhile, though inspired by his direct-action approach,
I thought I’d put a bit more love and care into my prayers.
Really think deeply first about them, and try penning
different versions until I got it just right.

As for the felt-tip, that was obviously inappropriate for anything
hanging long-term in all weathers: I’d get some fabric paint instead.
And it would be even lovelier if the material had some color to it; I’d dig outmy notes on natural dying, something I loved the idea of but hadn’t yet been successful at, and really work it out this time. Perhaps I could even sew on beads and feathers and make them really special!

But...other busyness took over, and I never followed through on all this inspiration. Sometimes I think of what’s left of my friend’s humble, roughly created prayers, the felt-tip words long washed away but the scraps of fabric probably still hanging by a thread snagged on a branch somewhere under rain and stars.

This was a great lesson for me on the value of walking your talk even if you stumble;of not being paralyzed by the need to be perfect. So, with each suggestion made in this book for connecting with the Zhouyi, with your inner truth and its outer, worldly reflection, I first suggest how it can be done in the simplest, most pared-down way. Then follow invitations to enrich and deepen the experience ~with the proviso that if any of it feels ‘too much’, or leads you to decide not to do it at all until you can ‘do it all’, you just return to the unadorned simplicity of the original idea.

more on www.returntotheway.org