“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.”
― Ellen Goodman
Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest
Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week. A random grab bag of delights!
Fall is in full swing now - the leaves are changing in earnest, the temperature is more manageable for me. Honest, I don't mind the sun, but I do love my rain and I wilt when it's warmer than the 70s. The transitions that have been on the precipice have started to ripple through the rest of my life. I worked from home this week a couple of days to start the process of dealing with some car stuff that needs taken care of. I signed an offer letter this morning. I updated and set up my home office again.
In the process of all this, what has been sparking my interest has been how sometimes when the time comes to let go how... easy it is. Like - it's hard up to the moment that it becomes clear that letting go is what needs to happen and then... freedom of release! There's a process to figuring out how/when/what to let go. It never seems straightforward and then the landing spot arrives and all the torment and trying to figure out falls away and... maybe it's the moment of clarity that the next thing is coming and space must be created for it? I don't know. But that's what has been where my attention has been at.
Medusa's Garden
When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
In the process of letting go and clearing away, sometimes it seems like things are happening too fast. Sometimes that's true, and sometimes things are going exactly as fast as they need to go.
I started meditating in earnest this summer. I am currently meditating between 20 and 40 minutes a day. My monkey mind doesn't always settle the chatter down, but somehow something is working. Something has changed. I've had people notice. They say things like, 'what changed? something changed!' and 'you don't seem like you're trying to climb out of your skin anymore... you seem... comfortable...' and 'the crease of worry between your eyebrows is gone...' I don't know what changed, but I know meditation is helping even if I can't put my finger on exactly what has changed.
Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads
What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.
Two hats knit, back to the scarf and I'm closing in on done with the raw wool project. I think I have one or two nights left of combing and carding the wool I bought this summer and not much more than that of spinning it up. Then I'm going to experiment with the discard wool. It may be that I use it around plants in my yard to retain water, but if I can use my hand cards to sort some of it out, and still be able to spin it, I'll do that... but based on an experiment the other night, I suspect I may let it go and see what I ended up with. :) Soon we'll know how much of the weight of five pounds converts into usable wool vs discard and lanolin and dirt! :)
Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life
Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
With the changing seasons, the changing schedules, the changing everything, the last two days I tried to get out for a walk while working from home. It was glorious to walk through the fall air - the recent rains have brought some of the cooler weather plants to life and so there was the smell of green and growing. It's fall, of course, and so there is also the smell of the leaves changing, which has it's own unique tang that I have always loved. And of course there are still something like 400 wild fires burning - it's not as evident, they're all smaller now, but the faintest hint of wood smoke hangs in the air still too.
Arranging a new schedule to go out daily whether it's walking through falling leaves, dancing through the rain (it sounds good now, but we'll see if I do that or decide maybe I'll stay in and do yoga on rainy days!?). I love this time of year. The release of all the things that have served us well but must now be released for much needed rest, lying fallow for a bit, and then the emergence of what comes next. <3