Life and Death Unite in my Spring Garden

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My Spring Terrace Garden Clean Up

Since my sister’s death I am often visited by her.

Have you ever had a dead person visit you?

It’s easy to explain it as wishful thinking. And, maybe it is? But the timing and unexpected nature of her visits lead me to think otherwise.

It can feel like she’s hanging out in the corner of a room witnessing my actions, (usually when I’m challenged by something or someone), and she chimes in occasionally to help center or advise me.

Other times, she suddenly appears as a large bird flying over head at a moment that would be meaningful to her. (Driving by her house, picking up my mom, leaving her thrift shop—The Very Sherry Boutique—now run by her best friend.)

The most intimate and recent way she visited was when cleaning up my terrace garden. (And, she had just flown overhead as mom and I drove out of the nursery the day before with new spring plants!) She always loved gardening!

I had many big brown bags from her thrift shop with The Very Sherry Boutique scribbled on them. I decided to use one to collect the dead plants that didn’t make it through the winter.

As soon as the bag was opened up and prepared to collect the prickly dried-out plants, there she was! But not at a distance, like usual. I could feel her steer my mind and body from the inside out.

• She reminded me of every tool I needed from inside, as not to make my usual multiple trips that traipses dirt through my apartment. I was so clear-headed.
• She directed me on how deep to dig the holes for the various plants, and I argued with her as usual, and she was right as usual. We giggled (as usual).
• She guided my hands when transplanting the young plants, tenderly splitting the root balls apart. She splits the roots a bit differently than I!

It was as if she wanted to feel the garden dirt through me.

She made me slow down, as not to miss the sensations my body was having. She reminded me that every moment of feeling life through my physical senses is fleeting. She reassured me, though, that death isn’t the end, but a new beginning.

She showed me that neither living or dying are absolutes. It is up to me to live fully enough—feel wholly enough—to bridge the gap between us. And so, I keep one eye open for her, and encourage my sixth sense to grow in the name of love. A love we did and didn’t share when she was alive.

Love is powerful. It’s an invisible gateway. It lasers through time and space, and is the most influential teacher of our Universe.

How have you experienced your loved ones after they’ve moved on? Please comment about it!!

 

The Measure of Reverence that Transformed Love

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If I knew then, what I know now.

A foundation of trust is what we most crave as children. With an alcoholic father and narcissistic mother, that craving was never nourished and a foundation was never laid. I’m sure I’m not alone in this alternative foundation.

The way this played out in my story is, uncertainty always plagued me in matters of love. “I love you” were words that floated through my senses with no anchor, no meaning beyond a pleasantry, no sense of knowing if it was true.

Recently, a measure of reverence has begun to build a foundation of trust within me.

A reverence toward the Universe co-creating my life, with a mystical deliberation, has deepened.

A trust that, what unfolds in our lives is in our best interest, even when it seems otherwise. And, the consequences that unfold when we don’t listen.

After my mom’s recent heart surgery, I brought her back to her senior home exhausted and exasperated. The surgery was unsuccessful. I tucked her in bed, shut out the lights, and made sure her roommate was OK in the dark so early in the day.

“Oh sure,” she says with a big smile, “I’m fine.” With relief, I gave her a big hug and said, “I like you so much!” And we shared a giggle of reciprocal gratitude.

A few weeks later, when my mom had recovered, she had the opportunity to repay the kindness. And more than this, repay a karmic debt. (if you believe in such things?)

Gut pain had mom’s roommate crying out in the night. Mom ignored the cry’s believing she was just being dramatic. In the morning, mom found her dead in her bed with, what we later learned was, a twisted colon that caused septicemia.

In my youth, mom had made the same nighttime turn-the-other-cheek decision, when my dad would leave her bed and slip into mine. He’d been arrested as a pedophile and she had two young girls in the house. She never once got up to check on us! (Here lays her karmic debt.)

This time, someone ended up dead, due to her inability to extend herself toward others. And, though she felt guilty about having done nothing, she showed no ability to feel concern, empathy or love when it was needed. Not then; not now!

As I see it, the Universe has provided multiple opportunities for my mom to learn important life lessons about acts of love. Each opportunity becoming more dire to coax her into taking action. She may not be listening, but I am.

I see now that her inaction, or inability to act out of love, is NOT due to MY unlovability. It’s due to HER love-abilities, or lack there of.

My reverence to the Universe—my mom’s roommate being a central part of that—for repeating history for me to learn, has transformed me from the inside out. It has given me a foundation to trust love.

From a giggle of reciprocal gratitude to sharing the words I love you with my partner, I feel a stir of deep deliverance. Because it’s finally anchored in being lovable.

A measure of reverence, toward something bigger than my story, transformed the consequences of my story. Thank you dear Universe. Thank you dear roommate.

How has your reverence for a world bigger than your own shaped your life?

 

 

 

Mom, Sherry and me.

The Cold Aftermath of Rage

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Mom, Sherry and me.Most people believe that the mind body connection affects the quality of their life beyond basic survival. But they don’t necessarily understand how it works?

In my experience, mind body awareness hasn’t always stopped the ill-affects that their misalignment causes. Life happens, pressures mount and boundaries are crossed. But mind body awareness does offer a healing path back into alignment.

It’s been a year since my sister died and my mother’s care has been fully under my charge. And mom’s like a big dog. You know the type, they lean on you when they feel comfortable with you. But if you’re not careful, the dog will literally knock you over!

Enraged one night by mom’s constant interruptions, to help with things that she was completely capable of doing herself, I snapped at her! Then, I vented some more to a friend, went on a power-walk, and wrote my last blog on entitlement.

All in the effort to channel my rage constructively!

Yet, I woke up the next morning and couldn’t step onto my left leg. It just buckled under my weight. Rage had thrown my sacrum out of alignment!

An undeniable misaligned force created an annihilating internal twister that literally dropped me to my knees.

The chiropractor put my skeleton back into place, but the pain has taken weeks of TLC to diminish. Weeks of quiet contemplation were needed to thaw the ice storm of rage that left me frozen.

Let me explain the mind body connections here…

The sacrum’s fused vertebrae creates tremendous support for the body. No surprise that the lack of support in my life landed there. But here’s where it gets interesting. The left side of the body reflects our relationship with our self. Opposite the right side, where we shake hands, reflects our relationship with the outside world.

What this means is, I wasn’t supporting myself in the situation.
And, I was blaming mom for my own short comings.

Mom’s not going to change. I have to change!

I have to say “no,” with no apologies, when l feel leaned on unnecessarily.
I have to say “no,” no excuses necessary, when I can’t support her weight.
I have to say “no,” in the name of self-love, before I get knocked over.

It is said that, under mad is sad; under anger is grief.

I grieve the loss of my sister. No doubt, this adds to my situation.
But more in the spotlight here is, I grieve the absence of a tender-hearted, self-reflective mother.

The hard truth is, I don’t WANT the mother I have. And this has made me sad my whole life, and mad when pushed to look at it. But I now realize, I have the mother I NEED. And this newfound understanding makes me glad to call her my mom.

My aversion to say “no” to people, in fear of disappointing them, outing them, or losing them, has enslaved me since… forever. I need my mom, this particular mom, more than I have ever realized. To learn to say “no.”

Thanks mom.

The Boundaries of Tough Love

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“As age creeps in we become more of who we’ve always been.”

This was my father’s warning before his death. And, as my mother ages, it’s truth is undeniable.

Mom’s need has no limits. Her self-care has never started; and, I suspect, her self-respect was lost a long time ago. Tough unconscious pride remains in the wake of her shameless acts of entitlement.

As the last one standing in the family to care for her, I think often about why this is so.
Why has everyone close to her died?

Of course, there are medical reasons for every person’s demise. But stress is the root of all dis-ease. And, emotional distress is what exhausts our immune system, making use unfit to fight dis-ease. They all died young.

My deep dive into this subject is prompted by not wanting to be next!

I write these words feeling just, yet cruel.
But I write unbridled, because I believe the boundaries that save me, carry the same salvation for mom.

She, for example, can make a phone call on her own behalf, yet she doesn’t.
She can exercise restraint with her diet to avoid diarrhea, yet she doesn’t.
She can pick up after herself in consideration of her roommate, yet she doesn’t.

So everyone around her has to see to her needs. Or else, they have to clean up the financial, physical or emotional consequences.

But how is living her responsibilities for her, really helping her?

As a kid, friends used to call me and my sister slave-children. Because we had so many chores after school, we’d miss after-school playtime more often than not. It taught us to be responsible, but it taught her to be dependent.

Mom never had to take care of herself. She was taken care of.

As a coach/trainer I highlight the importance of living with appreciation for one’s own abilities, and gratitude for the abilities of others. I believe that discipline, of any kind, is a delight, when appreciation and gratitude are present.

The absence of these qualities creates resentment, shame and depression.

I ask myself when emotionally exhausted, am I resistant to help mom because I’m resentful? Am I foregoing gratitude?

My answer, after much soul searching is, because I appreciate my own self-care, I can have gratitude for mom’s struggle to exercise her own self-care. She’s not too old to dial a phone, eat properly, consider others, or love herself, unless we make her so.

This may be the greatest lesson in both our lifetimes. For this, I am grateful.

 

Tammy Unicorn Onesie

Belonging isn’t a Place, it’s a Feeling

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Tammy Unicorn Onesie

Like one of Santa’s elves, my typical Christmas is spent driving 100’s of miles in a rent-a-car sleigh filled with presents. Christmas carols are sung from NYC to the Catskill Mountains, then onward to NJ, where I’d land at my sister’s house for Christmas dinner.

But when my sister died this year, so did my Christmas dinner landing.
Within that loss, was the magic every holiday promises.

I’ve chased “belonging” in my family of origin my entire life. But truth is, I’ve always felt like an outsider. What I didn’t realize was, this chase had blinded me. “Belonging” isn’t restrained for only the place I’ve called home.

This Christmas, I tried to gather with my sister’s family, but to no avail. Disappointed, but not defeated, I found solace in having my first Italian Christmas dinner with my boyfriend’s family.

So, in frigid temperatures that made my sinuses freeze, off I went in my rent-a-car sleigh for a round trip songfest to the Catskill Mountains and straight back to NYC!

When I arrived in the mountains, I come to realize my frozen sinuses were more than a cold head. My body now ached from head to toe.

Cousin Deb gives me a long overdue hug and says, “I’m so happy to see you!”
It’s been 2-years—preCOVID—since we last hugged. I say, “It must be nice to see another face besides your husband and child’s.”
They live off the beaten trail on a beautiful mountain property. She says, “No. It’s you. I’ve missed YOU.”

This was the first stir of “belonging” in a new and profound way.

I stay 2-nights, till Christmas morning. Sick, with what I later learned, was the flu. (My first flu ever! Ugh!!)

Not once during that time did cousin Deb or her family make me feel unwelcome due to my unexpected illness. She took such good care of me. Medicine, constant fluids, food prep, blankets, and a unicorn onesie to keep me warm (a special offering from her daughter Becky) we’re in continual flow!

Late Christmas morning I hug cousin Deb goodbye with tears in my eyes. My heart gripped, like I was leaving a home I had just found—I felt unconditional belonging here—as I pull out of the driveway.

As the black sheep of our perspective families, through the years cousin Deb and I compared notes and sympathized with each others stories. But until now, that bond had kept me an outsider. Perhaps, with my family unit dismantled I felt the opening that was always there to feel the “belonging” I sought with my cousin Deb?!

Upon arrival in NYC, I’m told that my illness would make the guests at my first Italian Christmas uncomfortable. And, of course, I didn’t want to make people sick. It only struck me, because it was in such contrast to cousin Deb. I wanted to “belong” with my boyfriend’s family.

Here’s the thing… for years, I was so wrapped up in what I didn’t have, I didn’t see what I did have. I went from chasing “belonging” with my birth family to my boyfriend’s family. And, all the while, belonging had always been there with cousin Deb. I never had to chase it, I simply needed to see it.

I am so grateful to cousin Deb (Ken and Becky too) for loving me up for Christmas. In sickness and in health.

Do you have a Belonging story? Who was it with? Share!
Happy New Year!!

What is Good Sense?

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First of all, good sense lives in your body. Your mind is the messenger.

You know how it feels to be unhinged?

Your body twitches; your mind haunts. Fear is your emotional guide.

You “will” yourself to think positive. But, you “feel” possessed.
And, you are. From the inside out, unresolved, misaligned, uncertainty breaks you, with no strings attached to find your way back.

Anxiety’s fear overwhelms the whisper hope holds.

While I craft ornaments, shop virtually, and wrap holiday gifts, I feel inspired by love; yet, in the quiet spaces between tasks, I feel engulfed by the belief that I am unloved.

A familiar feeling that grazes the surface of my everyday life. But right now, under the shadow of the plague that killed my sister, it is rising into full force.

I have COVID again.

I’m isolated at Christmas time, for the second time. Canceling holiday gatherings that had crafted a sense of belonging into my first sister-less Christmas.

After a week, I eagerly test again, only to find that I’m still COVID positive.

A pendulum inside me swings between extremes—my greatest fears and greatest hopes. I’m unhinged.

It feels like everyone is moving ahead. I can’t keep up. I’m afraid of losing everything that matters to me.

Alone, and uncharacteristically lonely, my mind desperately spins. I try to figure out how to fix this recurring sense of unlovability. But the only thing I come up with is, who to blame and why I have the right to feel if. Neither, of which, help me feel better!

I need to silence the haunting voices! Separate from my story!!

Balance asks us to relax into the emotional body, with the same degree of attention, as we express the emotional mindset. Extreme outward emotion opens a deeper path for inward resolution.
Tao Principle

Exhausted, I prepare an epsom salt bubble bath. I slip into the elixir. My world slows down. My aching head slides under the water. Instant silence.

The water feels soft on my skin. The warmth cocoons me, except for the parts that break the surface into the cool sharp air. I hear a bass beat from music, without a melody, as if it were a heart beating. My thoughts stop. My body’s soothed.

I keep my ears submerged in the silence until time disappears. (This was a long bath!)

When I rise out of my wet cocoon I feel like myself again. My joy de vive is back. What had been “unhinged” is now “aligned.” I feel a peaceful vulnerability. Like Bambi standing up for the first time.

I wonder if the unloved voice will resurface?
I stay in my body’s senses and listen. I return to my Christmas preparations, witnessing and reining-in mindset relapses. And, in the doing, that peaceful alliance grew stronger.

Your body’s an energetic antenna that can steer the mind’s attention. You hold the reins for change.
Tao Translation

Delighting in sensations, lift us out of our shadow worlds. They usher us into an expanded world. A world where belonging, hope and love live in the space between tasks.

Thinking emotions—understanding your triggers and causes—manage them. Changing emotions asks you to deliberately feel something else—sense the life you want through your whole being—so mind and body unite.
This is Good Sense!

Mind body alignment is self-love that aligns your world.

May the quiet magic of the season cocoon you in the soothing heart beat of Love.

Comment with an aligning anecdote or response.

Expanding Family with Holiday Sparkle

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Holiday festivities can lose their joyful charge as you lose family members. But when you expand your family’s traditions you can expand your family circle. And, you recharge that joyfulness beyond the limitations you’ve known.

Arts & crafts united my family at the holidays. Crafting unique ornaments each year became a loving competition between my mother, sister and me. We would learn from each other—share our selves—and craft belonging into our family.

The rest of the time, my father’s alcoholism and pedophilia were daily concerns that kept us squelched, distanced from each other. But at Christmas time, we could rise above it, if only for the season.

Crafting ornaments gathered the women of our neighborhood around the same table, acting as both a survival antic and artistic outlet. Each of us in our own imaginations, creating beautiful offerings, sharing sweet treats and savored dreams. It was magical. This is when I felt the safest and happiest in my youth.

These were delightfully intimate moments where the synergy of life all came together in perfect harmony. Even, and especially, when the world around us wasn’t there yet.

In fact, I’ve always felt that arts & crafts offered women the survival skills needed to create a new and improved life. It asked us to be visionaries and problem solvers. We created something out of nothing, with a finite degree of skill and supplies.

It also gave me a sense of grace. Presenting hand-crafted ornaments that expressed my light was, and continues to be, important to me. It shows gratitude for life, even if the life being lived feels flawed.

Offering my ornaments shows love for everything that is good—a rising above short-comings and offenses.

Now, with my sister gone in Covid’s wake and my mom hampered by health limitations, I feel an even greater pull to the safe-haven of arts & crafts. Beads and gems, needles and string, pliers and cutters, surround me as I create Enchanted Icicles that catch the light and magnify what’s good in the world.

Through the holiday season, I’ll gather friends, stretch my imagination, and infuse each crafted icicle with love’s magic. And to expand my family even further, I’ve decided to offer these Enchanted Icicles to you!

Kick off your holiday at: https://bodylogos.com/icicles/
Join my Expanding Family! Enjoy the goodness and grace of hand-crafted Icicles!

Love is more than crafting stuff. But, crafting ornaments, and the like, has offered me a path to rise above disappointment, fear and uncertainty. A path that when united with the right people has led me to a magical life all year round.

The holiday is a time to offer thanks to each other. A time to light the way for us all to embrace what’s good and just and heart-based. Delight in what is, share of your self, and visualize a life you can’t wait to live!

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Healing Treasures of Pain

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There are times that we choose pain and times that pain chooses us. When we’re chosen, it’s easy to feel victimized, and we are. But to heal, I believe, one needs to find the gift within the pain.

Being open to pain’s healing is like having a gift that keeps on giving. I was recently elevated out of a childhood pain of parental abandonment. One of those low-grade emotional conditions that you just live with and may not even name as pain. Instead, you may live in avoidance of its squeeze.

Avoiding pain’s squeeze, unfortunately and inevitably, catches up to you.

I met a man about a year ago at a favorite cafe whom I felt uncomfortable around. You know that feeling when your gut churns, your eyes squint, and you take a step back. Through the past year he was a regular customer, so I put a polite smile on my face and gave him the benefit of my doubt.

Well, I will be more trusting of my gut’s instinct moving forward.

While my boyfriend, Anthony, was chatting with someone else one evening, this man leaned into my breathing space and started asking questions about my fitness. He quickly shifted his commentary to my sexy, sophisticated, presence. The most beautiful in the cafe.

If this were my boyfriend whispering these intimacies, I would lean into his love and devotion. But, in this case it felt over-indulgent and self-serving. My brain froze. No words came to change the course of this man’s momentum.

As I shift uncomfortably in my seat, he slides his hand up my side and cops a feel of my right breast. A blatant uninvited intrusion of my space, body and relationship with Anthony, disguised in a gesture to steady me on the bar stool. But, let’s be clear, I needed no steadying.

Rather than stating my boundaries, all I could do was excuse myself. I moved to the other end of the bar until he left.

This moment of freezing is scary. It’s the same freeze that happened repeatedly in my childhood when my father inappropriately came into my bedroom at night. I felt, and feel, helpless, alone and terrified in these moments.

Different than my childhood story, in my adult story, the freeze is what scares me. This man’s conduct was inappropriate, but not threatening my safety. In these situation it’s easy to dismiss creepy disrespect, and instead, judge my muted self-respect.

I shared the incident with a woman who, unbeknownst to me, had had a similar altercation with this man. The story spread and an owner/bartender heard the report. My next visit there, my boyfriend held an outdoor table for us, because the man was inside at the bar.

What happened next blew my mind!

The bartender came out and confirmed the story. As it was told to me afterward, he returned inside and slid the man’s check in front of him. The man slid it back to him saying, he didn’t ask for a check. It was slid back in the man’s direction again and this time paid.

When the man exited the cafe I jumped up, now unfrozen and prepared, to tell him that he’d made me uncomfortable and set a clear boundary. But that’s not what happened!

The bartender followed him out and stopped him just outside the cafe’s dining area.
The man was asked to not return.

Soon after the bartender returned to his post at the bar, a gentleman friend stuck his head out the door and said, “There’s a seat in here for you Tammy.” When we went inside, a group of people ushered me into a love cocoon. I felt treasured.

I was stood up for, protected and loved by all of them. I was offered the cocoon my family of origin couldn’t offer.

I say to the woman, who had had the same experience, that I was intending to speak to the man and practice standing up for myself. She said, “I understand that, but can you accept being stood up for and feel safety from that?”

My whole life has been about developing mind body strength. It has served me well. But the self respect, love and trust gained by this strength isn’t to separate me from the respect, love and trust of others.

The pain I carry around from my childhood was just made lighter by letting others in. Not by becoming more independent and self-entrusted. I’m learning that it also takes strength to depend on others and trust they’ll be there. I am healing and I treasure these moments pain has constructed and amplified.

I would love to hear from others who have lived with a similar ‘freeze’ response to disrespect.

 

The Hidden Treasure in Pain

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As I embark on a second tattoo I am often asked, “Why would you put yourself through so much pain?” As I listen for my answer, I’m flooded with various images of painful activities that I’ve chosen to endure. I retort with, “Pain is temporary, but the ‘result’ is forever.”

So what is the ‘result’ I am searching for?
And, am I any different than you?

The burn of my tattoos results in a shared celebration of my life story and values; the ache of my muscles from a workout results in my ownership of grace and power; the lingering buzz in my head after 100’s of miles on a motorcycle results in knowing that I’m a survivor.

Pain magnifies, amplifies and actualizes a desired result. If you allow it.
Pain also magnifies, amplifies and actualizes the fear of more pain. If you allow it.

It’s so easy to complain about our pain. But complaining is what causes the suffering. After considering our pain’s request for our care, can we look a little deeper?

When we realize we’ve chosen our particular pains—created the life we’re living—we see that there’s a pleasure that all pain leans on, or we wouldn’t have chosen it.

Together, pleasure and pain create a flow. Like death and rebirth. Allow the current to flow between them—refrain from bracing against the fear of more pain—and you simply become the mid-wife to a deeper pleasure.

I’m not talking about a kinky fetish where pain is a turn-on. I’m talking about pain as a turn-off to living a full life.

Bracing against pain keeps you in pain. Appreciating pain as a journey into your heart, soul and conscience imparts self-knowledge.

The same lesson is shared in mind and body.

The pain in my heart from losing my sister to covid results in knowing the depth and beauty of my love for her; the frustration of being distracted by my monkey-mind results in creating conscious change in my mindset; the uncertainty that surrounds my aging mother’s care results in learning how to prepare for my own aging needs.

Allow the pain and you allow the pleasure. A hidden treasure that results in a sacred appreciation for the ups and downs of your life. An appreciation, l believe, we are all searching for to be happy.

Pain defines pleasure by being opposite in nature. Pain also delivers hidden treasures by swimming with the current through it. Hold course to find your deeper you.

Feel. Heal. Live. Explore. Love. Change.

 

Rings of Engagement

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Five-days beaching with Anthony at the Jersey Shore led us to rings of engagement. Two floating rings—a silver ring for friendship; a gold ring for love—now hang from our ears. We’re engaged in a 1614 Corinthian quote, “All that we do be done in (friendship and) love.”

The playful division of an earring pair on the Asbury Boardwalk expanded into a conversation around what to call them. As we walk away with our purchase I say, “we have friendship-earrings!” pause… “They’re like wedding rings,” Anthony shouts. I reply with, “Well, how about engagement rings.”

Together we engaged in all that Asbury offered: waves, sand and salt air; food, cocktails and classic cars; Springsteen, The Stone Pony and Frank’s Diner. We brought friendship and love everywhere we went. People commented on the delight they experienced through us.

Then after check out, on our final stroll through the boardwalk boutiques, a bracelet caught Anthony’s eye engraved with our Corinthian quote. We begin our trek back to NYC with the bracelet in tow, delighted by our journey’s magical unfolding.

Our first vacation, without friends as chaperones, united us in the principles of friendship and love, symbolized through jewelry.

Not with traditional rings wrapped around fingers that lead to promising your SELF to another. But rather, rings floating from ears that lead to promising your FRIENDSHIP and LOVE to another. A code of conduct versus a promise of coveting.

We returned home just in time for my 60th birthday party. I’m surrounded by old and new friends. I realize that every relationship in the room has asked me to stretch my SELF to honor friendship.

These relationships have stood the test of time and change. These friendships all carry the unspoken ‘silver’ promise to align in the best interest of each other with respect for differences. This promise makes for deep friendships that don’t need day to day tending. And, can survive months or years of distance without dissolving.

I think about the principles of love and what is the unspoken ‘gold’ ring promise?

Different from friendship, I think that love reflects an interest in day to day tending?

Wanting to engage with each other in the mundane to grow; rising above fears to engage with each other as individuals to mature; and, living free to frolic in life just for fun, to keep birthing depth into unity.

Perhaps, love asks us to stretch our SELF beyond respecting differences, to find the common ground within differences. This promise makes for a union that evolves each individual into their life purpose. A purpose with wings that fly beyond our union to offer our light to the world.

Our silver and gold pirate-like rings dangle with the delight of choosing one another to help sculpt us into our greatness.

This is about allowing our self to be touched, changed and elevated by another.