Let It Be Sung

 

 

 

Music can boost the brain's production of the hormone dopamine. This increased dopamine production helps relieve feelings of anxiety and depression. Music is processed directly by the amygdala, which is the part of the brain involved in mood and emotions. It reduces stress” – North Shore University Health System

I am a person who needs background noise, music preferably.  I read that music moves the amygdala/our lizard brain (the most ancient [art of our brain.  This part of the brain involves emotions, mood, and is directly affected by stress.  Music, then, goes to our most personal, primal, areas of the brain and can work magic with anxiety or stress.  It affects our mental health in positive and spiritual ways.  It connects us to “the all”.  The kinds of music we listen to, immediately affects our whole being.  The emotional reaction to music is either positive or negative depending on the type/genre of the music.  Some of today’s music has such negative lyrics that listening to it causes negative reactions within us.  If the lyrics are positive, dopamine is released and we receive pleasure and react positively.  Music is one of the most positive interactions that happens.

My partner does not like music.  I honor that and use headphones so that my music does not intrude.  I have eclectic tastes in music.  Some music triggers me, my grief, and immediately moves me into sadness when I hear a song that is randomly played that reminds me of my time of great grief.  To others, the music that triggers grief in me may not, at all, trigger anyone else.  I know it does, so do not actively choose such songs.

My favorite songs are not necessarily connected to the singer.  It tends to be the words that I look for.  I tend to want to hear positive songs, songs that move me, songs that cause me to want to create, to dance, to sing.  I am emotionally connected to music so I choose music that matches my mood sometimes, and, sometimes, I choose music to alter them. 

She     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1uqfO2-oJA&list=FLfp5zF_wRLe8G7vIXng07Dg&index=1

Let Go Of Your Plans     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm2jp_17wgA&list=FLfp5zF_wRLe8G7vIXng07Dg&index=4

Sacred Ground   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwenrLsAk_U&list=FLfp5zF_wRLe8G7vIXng07Dg&index=7

My Soul Song -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJLSkopnxj0&list=FLfp5zF_wRLe8G7vIXng07Dg&index=11

You Are Enough     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX3lvwks7NU&list=FLfp5zF_wRLe8G7vIXng07Dg&index=22

 

 

Somewhere Between Survival and Thriving

 

 

 

“We have all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes the perfect form for the maximum efficiency and effectiveness for its journey. And while the universal force of gravity gives them a shared destination, the expansive space in the air gives each snowflake the opportunity to take their own path. They are on the same journey, but each takes a different path.
Along this gravity-driven journey, some snowflakes collide and damage each other, some collide and join together, some are influenced by wind... there are so many transitions and changes that take place along the journey of the snowflake. But, no matter what the transition, the snowflake always finds itself perfectly shaped for its journey.
I find parallels in nature to be a beautiful reflection of grand orchestration. One of these parallels is of snowflakes and us. We, too, are all headed in the same direction. We are being driven by a universal force to the same destination. We are all individuals taking different journeys and along our journey, we sometimes bump into each other, we cross paths, we become altered... we take different physical forms. But at all times we too are 100% perfectly imperfect. At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey. I’m not perfect for your journey and you’re not perfect for my journey, but I’m perfect for my journey and you’re perfect for your journey. We’re heading to the same place, we’re taking different routes, but we’re both exactly perfect the way we are.
Think of what understanding this great orchestration could mean for relationships. Imagine interacting with others knowing that they too each share this parallel with the snowflake. Like you, they are headed to the same place and no matter what they may appear like to you, they have taken the perfect form for their journey. How strong our relationships would be if we could see and respect that we are all perfectly imperfect for our journey.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

You can tell women who are perfecitonists with huge disparity in how they feel about themselves and what they put out there foir others to see.  It is comparable to it being said  that commedians have huge hurt wihtin and, yet, seem to be the most jovial.  Like a woman who plants a smile on her face and yet she has a sad story to tell.  To be human, it means to not be perfect, ever, but to be beautifully imperfect with blurred lines of “enough”, ‘goodness’, successful, so that thete is some grace in our lives.  Being imperfect is to have grace.  We have grace because we are compasssionate with ourselves.  We strive to do “better” in cases where we may have wished to be so.  But, perfect?

Perfect is said to be free from fault, to be free of defect, to be sdaintly.  I have met people who carry some of these traits, as far as I know.  We do not ten to look at people’s dark side, unless we have a huge one, ourselves, and then we look for what we see as our faults, in others. 

Women tend to express “not enough”, and tend to exaggerate what they sense as their personal shortcomings.  This tends to come from something said, or someone criticizing us, when we were young.  Society has also vaused a deeper sense of not enough because it is big business to sell “enough” to us. 

We have grown up afraid of judgement or disapproval from others.  Women who grew up with helicoptre parent(s) (parents who placed too high of expectations, tend to never feel “good enough”.  It is a pervasive thing in our lives that is hidden messges in even our culture.  We do not see it all as  old myths and ways of being, from the past, that we help perpetuate.  We do.  We judge and criticize other women according to how we feel about ourselves.  We see someone do what we think is ‘fail’ and we forgt about the awesomeness between fialure and perfecton – that state of trying an ot mastering, but are not given credit foir the trying.  That is where beauty lies. 

It is in the falling and rising that there is worthy things.  It is between being knocked down and waiting until the coiunt of 9 before getting back up to give it our all, that there is something heroic and wonderful.  It is about those who quietly nodded their heads and thought “me too”. Beauty is there between the self-loathing and felt success.  We know thus all by heart.  None of us has grown up unscathed. 

I love women who trip over their own danged selves and burst out in laughter at themselves.   Beauty is between the fall down and the moments before we get back up and give it another go.  It is in women who are willing to admit what they sense as their imprfections and yet are there being cheerleaders for women who come behind us and we oipe to keep  them from feeling like they have failed.  My imperfections are before I write a blog and I sense a need to encourage others.  It is in me when I see a sisterfriend not make it, that I realize “there but for the grace of god go I”.  Beauty is in the moments where we rush to comfort another, because we know how she feels.  It is there in women who accept that lif is a whle bunch of sensed “failures” but refust to see that and instead see them as reasons to give it another try another way. 

We ae all uniqueky flawed in some way.  Our heads seem to be storage tanks for ‘everydangedthingweeverdidsince birth that stains us from the insideout”!   We have to fight the foe of critical inner voice that wants us to stay maleable, that wants us to fail, that chides us for even trying to do new things.  By understanding that life has been a whle lot of new things to try and/or must be done, that reveals the  true self.  It is a revoutionary act to stand up for ourslves, to affirm ourselves and others, to choose to love the Divine Feminine in each other.  Forget what others define as “enough”, that we are still sitting here in front of a computer shows we are enough.  We have not given up the war.  We are the women who refuse implied and impressed judgments of others.  They only know your bits and pieves… we know our depth of ‘ivercming and attempt to thrive.  Thrive on, sisterfriends.  Thrive on!

©Carol Desjarlais 3.30.22

 

 

Spring Is Sprung

 

 

 

Daffodils are about to blossom.  They are my “it is finally Spring” hope.  I am being drawn out of my winter comfort to “do” things outside.  I love to go outside and hear the birds welcome morning, and, yes, Spring.  The pussy willows must be springing somewhere around so the bees will soon be stumbling from their own lethargy to come out of the hives and dup their leavings from the long winter (which means waxy little splotches on everything). I have some dumping of my own to do.

I leave for Alberta on April 1^st, for my first Spring foray “home” to take care of business, to spend time with my daughter and granddaughter.  I have something big to look forward to there.  I am doing a wine and whimsy night at my daughter’s salon, on the evening of the 2^nd.  I have a long list of what I must fit into my vehicle; everything from easel, to tape; paints, examples, music to set the mood, and ger myself up to do “social” again.   

I have been going out on to the patio through the day and night and a slumping gazebo has tried to dampen my spirit.  I have swept up the juniper spills, (a never-ending job) taken everything decorative out from under the collapsed canvas of the gazebo, have pulled last years stems out of my flower pots, finally gotten to the far reaches of where the highest drifts were and picked up Baby’s hidden treasures (I will never let her go to the furthest reaches and do that again for a while season).  Decisions about a new gazebo have to be made and I am tending to just let happen what happens out there where I usually have my makeshift art studio.

I need to finish taking down Christmas things, need to do something with my front door gnome since she is still wearing her bedraggled Christmas rags, and bring out some “Springy” decorations to replace the emptiness of winter leavings from the front flower garden.    I need to bring out my spring vases and decorations to replace gaps in the house decorating.  Dusting off the far reaches of the house where laziness simply did not go. 

I am all ‘gungho’ about planting seedlings in egg cartons and getting them going as soon as I get back.  I want poppies this year.  I know the California poppies will be everywhere like they were last year and I loved the wild flower look to the flower garden area.  I want to do something with the table that sits by the wall of the garage and sinks a little further into its warped top (probably moreso due to the rocks I have piled on there).  I have a sense of urgency to have that area spruced up and things sorted out there.

I have to do something about the “pellet stove” dust that has filtered into everything even though we have air filters in every room of the house.  The Bee man blows out the filters often but to no avail.  It will be nice to throw open the doors and windows and let sunshine in. 

My soul needs some cleaning and dusting as well.  It feels bedraggled.  It needs some ‘outside’, out in the mountains, on to the prairies, down by a river, into a forest kind of activities.  It needs some edification of fresh air and new sights to see.  It needs to feel close to Mother Nature’s heartbeat and to plunge my hands into soil to connect with her.  My spirit needs freedom from four walls and a space and place to heal.  I am heading to the mountains this morning, to a friend’s claim, to seek and saturate myself in an activity that almost feels holy to me.  Spring is in the mountains and the sweet musky smell of Mother earth draws me in.  I am going on an adventure today.  It will help me switch my body, mind, heart and soul into spring’s hope and cleansing.

Spring has sprung, are you springing with it?

©Carol Desjarlais 3.29.22