Attitude of Gratitude: day 3

I sit here in this unseasonably warm day, enjoying the breeze and all the colors rattling in the air and floating down in the breeze and I am grateful:

1. The constantly shifting beauty of this world that is always present, always patient, and always forgiving.
2. True connections - the kind where two people stand, and share, and make eye contact without thinking of what they are going to say next or where they have to be.
3. The tears that fall when I see unjustified acts of violence perpetrated against innocent humans going about their business or standing up for their truth. It hurts me deep to my soul and it is through that hurt that I know that I am alive and capable of love.

Wild Sacred Journey: day 4

Some days are filled with precious treats that may not look like much to another person. I am coming to learn that it all depends on your perspective. Are you looking for magic, miracles, and treasure? Are you seeing what's in front of you with wondrous and gratitude-filled eyes?

This morning, I was surprised by a beautiful English rose, still closed and smelling delicately. Gifted to me from a garden and a heart. It is so fragile and delicate that just looking at it brought me back to all that is worth loving and caring for in this world. Throughout today, it has slowly opened, becoming more fragrant and yet even more vulnerable... more fragile. And that makes it precious and noteworthy, all at the same time.

Then, later this afternoon, I was gifted a piece of the first harvest of ginger - also a gift from the garden, watered and fertilized with love, given from the heart. There are few things more precious and miraculous than fresh ginger. If you've never had a chance to have some, you're missing out! Ginger takes a long time to grow. You plant it in soil, deep down, and then wait until you give up all hope it will grow... and only then will you start to see shoots. Then it takes more time and more care. But when you harvest it, it is tender - no need to peel, no stringy quality. Just crunchy, sharp flavored, with beautiful colors of yellow, pink, and green, covered in a glorious coat of dirt.

Today is one of those days - filled with small gifts that ripple out much larger than they are because of the love, care, and tenderness they represent. And I see them because I choose to look for wonder and miracles, with gratitude.

Welcome to your Wild Sacred Journey (day 1)

As we can all agree, life is a journey and it takes us places that were unexpected. When I started Fertile Ground Yoga about three years ago, I used a free website because I had no overhead and wasn't even sure this was all going to work. I was coming out of an 8-month period where I had to move every two months. I was only teaching a few classes. I doubted myself and my ability to do this.... whatever this was. 2013 was ending and 2014 was beginning and I took a leap of faith.

The journey of these last few years has brought me to a place I would never have imagined. I have now been supporting myself solely teaching yoga for a little over a year. I am teaching about 10 classes per week (give or take a few). I have led workshops, daylong retreats, and even several weekend-long retreats. I set my schedule. I maintain my website. I come up with material and try and network... when I remember to. It has been challenging and rewarding and so many other things. Every part of running this business has brought up my limiting beliefs. And I have faced some deep-seated fears about finances and being good enough. And I have grown: in confidence, in scope, in experience.

Last Fall, I answered a call from deep within that I hadn't even known I had and began a two-year Integrative Energy Medicine Training. As I began, a little voice inside me knew that this program and saying 'yes' to this new path on my journey would cause me to outgrow the Fertile Ground of my original business. I was right. It has taken a year of being present to the ever-increasing clarity of who I am and what message I am walking on this Earth, but at this time but I am finally ready to announce my new business name: Wild Sacred Journey.

In all of this change, I am still me. In fact, I am more me than I have been in a while. And my hope for this journey is that is brings me back, again and again, to being more myself. I have reached deeper places of knowing the limitless, sacred spirit that resides in this body, And I have reached deeper levels of compassion for the limited-but-still-wondrous human form that I have for walking this journey. And I have a stronger connection to the wild heart that holds space for the intersection of these two truths. Yoga is a journey of going deeper and deeper into ourselves to find the hidden treasures of this life, and what's the secret to growth and cultivation and fertile soil, but this wild, wondrous, sacred journey.

I hope you will continue to join me in practices, meditations, retreats, and other offerings. Information about me can now be found at wildsacredjourney.com

For the month of October, I am celebrating this change by posting one blog a day of something I saw or heard or experienced that reminds me I am on a wild sacred journey. Join me?