Wordless Wednesday
Weekly Photo Challenge: (Extra) Ordinary
To me, close ups always show the ordinary to be extra-ordinary.
Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: (Extra) Ordinary
Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place
Time to catch up with the Weekly Photo Challenges! There is no doubt where where I “go to get my groove back.” For me, that place is Amritapuri, home of Amma, my spiritual teacher, and my adult children- Sreejit, my son, Chaitanya and Akshay, my daughter and her husband. Amritapuri is located in Kerala, a state in south-west India.
Beauty above
Okra
Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place
Becoming Me in 111 Words
Army brat in a critical household
My heart full of anger
Alone and lonely
Why bother?
Conservative college student, trapped again
Rebel by school’s end
Discovering new worlds
Finding life!
Migrant farm laborer
From Florida to Washington State
Seeing racism up close
Ready to make a difference.
Married Al and had two beautiful babies
– was unprepared and overwhelmed,
divorce and chronic fatigue left me
feeling empty, alone, beaten down.
Enter Jean, Elaine and Pam
Learned to parent myself and my children
Mentors’ teachings will last forever
I am whole.
Enter Amma
In her music I find Joy
In her arms I find Home
In her mission I find Purpose.
Written for Dungeon Prompts: Becoming You in 111 Words
Wordless Wednesday
Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone
These were the instructions for this week’s Dungeon Prompt:
This week, let’s step out of our blogging boxes and shake things up. If you normally write poetry try writing prose. Or if you normally write freestyle poetry, try writing a sonnet. If you normally write in the first person, write in the third person instead. If you normally write about other people, write about yourself. If you normally write a hundred words, try writing eight hundred. If you normally write over a thousand words, try writing a haiku (without a thousand words of explanation).
I had no doubt which form of writing is out of my comfort zone; it is writing poetry. I thought about it for a short time and then concluded that this might be the week that I didn’t participate in Dungeon Prompts. When I shared that conclusion with my blogging friend Cheryl-Lynn at Traces of the Soul, she suggested I write a Tanka. Continue reading “Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone”
What is It?
Yesterday an interesting object caught my eye. I will show it from several views. I wonder how soon you will recognize what it is!
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These are pictures of a mushroom, one that is seven inches in diameter. All of the photos are taken from the top, except for the last one. Did you figure it out? If so, what was the number of the picture when you first realized it was a mushroom?
There are several of these growing in my front yard. I’ve had mushrooms in my yard before but they have always been quite small.
Wordless Wednesday
Live to Work or Work to Live?
“If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
While there are days when I am tired or discouraged that I may think that I work in order to be able to buy the things I need to live, I know that isn’t really true. I have no doubt that I live to work. I have been a psychotherapist since 1987. My primary modality is group therapy based on a developmental model that includes the concept of “inner children.” I believe that one of the most important elements in healing is for clients to learn how to parent those vulnerable “children” inside of themselves.
Most people start therapy because they are depressed and/or anxious. They may have learned to cover their pain with addictive behaviors such over-working, over-thinking, eating disorders or substance abuse. They frequently have trouble in relationships and often feel alone and lonely. Past traumas may cause them to experience flashbacks. They often have poor self esteem and think they are unworthy and will never be good enough. They may be very critical of themselves and others.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries
The shed in my backyard provides boundaries for all of the tools and gardening paraphernalia that I use. I also store the jars I use for canning there. But the shed was not always a shed. Until three years ago it was a 7′ x 7′ tree house!
I had the tree house built in the mid 90’s and slept in it from April to October for five years. The boundaries of the tree house protected me from wildlife and the rain. Even though it had walls, there was also a skylight. That gave me a sense of being part of the tree, the sky and nature in general. Returning to the main house for autumn and winter months sometimes gave me a sense of being imprisoned. My cells yearned to be outside and feel free again.
I was always a little nervous walking to the tree house at night. After all, I live in the inner city and there could be intruders in the backyard. The lock on the door provided a boundary that helped me feel safe once I was inside.
One day, when I walked to the tree house at bedtime, two very large raccoons were standing upright on their back legs, in-between the tree house ladder and me. There was no boundary between us. I turned around and walked back to the main house.
I generally don’t have problems with fear keeping me from doing the things I want to do, but knowing there was no way to create a protective barrier between those big raccoons and me put an end to my sleeping in the tree house.
Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries
Living, Learning and Letting Go 