Sharing My Song of Kindness

It is Wednesday and Jamie once again invites us to wish and to share. WishCasting's question this week incidentally is, "What do you wish to Share?"

I’d like to share a little story with you about kindness.
I love to sing (if you’ve read any of my posts, you kinda know that already). I joined a wonderful choir last fall and it was wonderful. We did an awesome Christmas performance and I felt good about my singing ability.

This past Monday was the second choir practice of this season. Now, I have not studied music very much and am still learning how to read music. In the beginning when we are learning the new music, it is pretty tricky for me and I have to really listen hard to pick up what I have not yet learned how to read. I struggle. It is hard.

We have a few new choir members. One of them sang a solo that just about blew me away (she was handed the piece of music at the beginning of practice). Her well-trained voice gave me chills.
I began to have that old familiar feeling of doubt overwhelm me.

You know, that snotty little diva saying, “Hmmmph, you’re never going to be able to sing like that!!!! What are you even doing here??”
But, I shooed her away and maintained my strength and tried even harder.

I even spoke to another choir member (who is a piano teacher) about getting together for a tutoring session. She helped me last year and happily agreed to assist me again.

On my drive home after practice, that diva tried out some new lines on me “You think you can sing and write songs? You can’t even read music!”
And I fought back tears. But, I told her to shut the hell up.
As I was wiping the tears away, I saw her out of the corner of my eye.
No, not the Diva (she’s not Real!!) but a lovely young deer at the side of the road.
Just standing there, looking at me. I slowed down, afraid she might jump out into my path but she just stood there and leapt away after I passed her by.

A couple of years ago, I was seeing a lot of deer. I love seeing deer. I am completely honoured and awestruck. On my 40th birthday, I saw 10 deer!!! It was the best present ever!

Deer are a symbol of gentleness, kindness and unconditional love and acceptance. Deer are sattvic. When ever I see deer I am reminded to be kind and gentle with myself, to stop being too hard or judgmental. This is what deer are meant to remind us.

So, aside from that little story, I also want to lovingly and with gentleness share my voice, my very own beautiful voice, that is virtually untrained and can’t read music voice; my kind and unique and so full of emotion voice; my voice that loves to sing just for the love of singing and because it feels sooo right and good!

Even more motivation to get that cd DONE!

Life in the Slow Lane!

No thoughtful creative writing or deep profound meaning here today folks. Just a plain and simple wish for the luxury of high speed internet!! I love blogging and surfing around reading everyones wonderfully inspiring blogs, but man it can be such a challenge without highspeed internet.

We live in an area where it is still unavailable (hard to believe, but there are still such zones). And we simply can't afford the cost of sattelite... even those usb modems are too costly for us....

Downloading or uploading pictures takes forever and all those great YouTube vids people are always posting, well forget about it. Sometimes I can watch them while I'm on my lunch hour at work, where I have occassionally caught a glimspe of an Adorable Rabbit over at Ordinary Enchantment.

And, I can only dream of PodCasts

What I need is highspeed internet or a lap top to drop into my lap. If I had a lap top, I could at least access highspeed although I would be giving up the comfort of my home to do so and therefore would really much rather have affordable highspeed access here in my home!!

That is all.

I Am Learning

What do you wish to learn?

That is Jamie’s Wishcasting Wednesday question for today.

Well, there are soooo many things that I wish to learn… I’ve been trying to narrow it down a bit and well, that’s rather challenging. So you know what? I’m just going to make a list! :-)

Top Ten things I would like to learn:

1. How to change a tire. I’ve (touch wood) never HAD to do this and I occasionally have this nagging fear when I head out on the highway, that I’ll end up with a flat and not have a clue how to fix it.
2. How to take really great photos and use all the functions of a good camera.
3. How to make bread… I’ve always been to afraid to try and I know it must be easy enough. I've actually never used yeast before.

Wait…just a dog-gone minute here...I can’t believe this but... I am actually going to abandon this list!!!!!!! ((GASP)).

What I’d really like to learn is to be more focused and self disciplined. To finish the projects I have already started. To get off the computer today and start completing some Very Important work(see my two most recent posts for details on said work).

Check out Shamsi’s post. She says a lot of what I wish I had been able to articulate. And in reading her post I started to see that I AM actually learning how to become more focused. It is a process and it may be slow and actually involve work on my part, but I AM learning to recognize my patterns of sabotage and self defeating practices and stop myself from chasing after every whim and fancy.

And it ISN"T easy! It’s easy to chase and leap and dance after every desire.

It’s hard work (on so many levels) to sit still and focus myself to complete that which I KNOW will bring me into my true, blissful self.

It’s hard work, and I’m learning that I can do it!

Adjusting My Focus and 31 Things I Enjoy

In my last post, I talked about the fact that I have no problem with beginning projects…it’s the completion that tends to challenge me.

Part of the reason for this is a lack of focus. I often lack focus because I am interested in so many different creative pursuits and I want to do them all. Right. Now. And so, I have come to recognize that I need to proceed with a bit of caution when my attention is grabbed by every shiny, sparkling, creative opportunity that comes along and say "Whoa! Wait a minute. Is this truly something I can afford to spend my energy on?"

Other wise I get spread too thin and quite frankly, I prefer a more concentrated me. Less water, more juice! Except when it comes to drinking habits, then I’m all for more water, less juice… (See what I mean? My focus, she wanders off….)

Which brings me to my point (you just knew it had to be coming).
The Artist’s Way (TAW)… I had intended to join a group of Bloggers that began to work through TAW a few weeks ago. Go here to read all about it.

I have a great love of Julie Cameron's Artist's Way and have worked through the book before, but have never completed it, (although I did write about it here) which is why I thought that joining this group would be a great activity for me.

As much as I love the idea of doing this, it is one of those items which I just can’t afford to place my focus upon, just now. There simply isn’t room between my yoga and musical practices (which take priority) to follow the daily requirements of morning pages and find the time to do and then blog about the weekly assignments.

All that being said, I am totally cheerleading for those bloggers who are working through TWA . My BB (blogger buddy) Kavindra quite wittily writes about her aversions to TAW here. So creative, talented and funny this lady is, check her out!

Another extremely creative blogger, Serena Lewis has a lovely post and she is managing to follow and do her homework too. In fact, her post inspired me to (although I am not committing to follow along weekly) at least make a list or two. Because, well I just enjoy making lists so darn much.

So, randomly and in no particular order here is my list of 20 things that I enjoy!

1. Snuggling with my Fishguy
2. Cuddling with my Sugar Plum little girl (who just turned 8 years old)
3. Eating fresh ripe peaches yummy!
4. Singing
5. Playing my guitar
6. Getting together with loved ones around a campfire to sing and play guitars
7. Swimming in da River
8. Being naked… outdoors
9. When I am struck with the inspiration to write a new song
10. Dancing around the house
11. Going dancing at a night club with some girlfriends
12. Painting with watercolours
13. Having hot and steamy sex (I never see this on anyone’s list. Is it TMI?)
14. Facilitating yoga classes
15. Puttering around the house in the evening while listening to music and having a glass of red, just rearranging and organizing shelves or books or countertops etc. just to make things pretty and homey, without any urgency or schedule restricting me
16. Going out for sushi
17. Getting together with old friends I haven’t seen in ages and staying up way too late talking
18. Being at the river
19. Stroking a cat on my lap
20. Reading with my girl
21. Blogging!
    
    Okay, so that’s 21, but I could not very well leave out blogging, on my blog! I just wrote this list and out of curiosity, I decided to dig out my notes from about 18 months ago and compare the two. So, here is my old list.

• 1. Sleeping in, a day in bed
• 2. Singing
• 3. Songwriting
• 4. Going out for dinner
• 5. Going out for sushi
• 6. Getting together with friends
• 7. Swimming
• 8. Dancing
• 9. Going to see a live band
• 10. Playing guitar
• 11. Painting
• 12. Working with clay
• 13. Drumming
• 14. Cooking
• 15. Scrapbooking
• 16. Yoga
• 17. Browsing bookstores and libraries
• 18. Browsing downtowns
• 19. Making love
• 20. Writing stories

I found ten common things on the two lists, so I think it's pretty obvious what I enjoy the most!! What things do you enjoy doing?

Wishcasting Wednesday!

"What do you wish to begin?"

That's Jamie's question for this Wishcasting Wednesday.

Hmmm.Well I fell in love with the Goethe quote long ago, many will be familiar with…..
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it

Begin it now."

I remember being at a “stuck “point in my life when I first came across that little gem and it gave me a kick start. Since then, I’ve returned to that wisdom again and again and got myself started on many roads to adventure and fulfillment.

Lately, I’ve been feeling “stuck” again. I feel as though I’ve really got the beginning thing down pat… it’s really more the following through with and continuing on with the projects I’ve begun that I need to work on. Especially my music. There is this one project in particular that I began some time ago…. And it taunts me and teases me with the unkind words “You’ll never finish this”… and there are other projects too, scrapbooks, yoga newsletters for my students, paintings, greeting cards, things I’ve started and left after the initial enthusiasm has worn off (which doesn’t take long for me).

So my issue is that I’m a great starter, but not such a great finisher.
Today I wish to begin completing some projects which I have begun. One project in particular (the taunting one!) is a children’s c.d of songs and stories which I began working on as a karma yoga fundraiser project for the daycare centre where I work. Sigh!!! I really need to get this done!