Wednesday, July 31, 2019

❌ SEALed With a Kiss 😘


In this photo, (shot last Saturday by my awesome 27-year-old former nanny charge who was visiting from Minnesota), there are literally tons of elephant seals behind me.


Elephant seals appear to be just lazy lumps laying around on the beach. And it is true that they are nearly immobile for most of their time on land. But 90% of their lives are spent swimming gracefully in the water where they can cover 60 miles in a day and dive over 5000 feet deep.

I have felt a bit like the beached seals recently. They go here to mate and molt. This involves a lot of posturing, making funny noises and is quite an exhausting process for them.

Although I am not mating, I have been creating a new life and this has involved posturing (LOOK AT ME —check out what I am doing!), and making funny noises  (I suspect much of what I have been trying to communicate has sounded as silly and/or incomprehensible to many of you as seal barks and snorts!) and it has definitely been exhausting.

I have also been taking some deep, dark dives into emotional waters recently while trying to avoid being consumed by my inner sharks. I'm looking forward to gracefully swimming to wherever I am meant to go very soon.

 As for molting, like the mythical Selkies who their shed their skins to transform from seals to humans, the messy process I have been undergoing while creating Sparks & Leaps feels like it is becoming transformational and magical.



Not magical as in “abracadabra POOF” with a magic wand where transformation takes place in a flash. 💥

More like a slow painful alchemical process that involves a lot of molten heat.

I, of course, wish it was quicker and easier, but my understanding is that no true transformation happens like that.

Fortunately, it feels like I am nearing the end of the torturous part. Whether my leaden lump is ready to become a SPARKly nugget of gold, and I begin making quantum LEAPS or I at least change into fools gold and my baby steps start to cover more ground, I am cautiously optimistic!

If you are also feeling like things are a little too hot for you (and I don't mean this summer's heat!) or you feel like an awkward seal out of water, maybe you are also in the midst of a transformative change!

We are all, always, in the midst of change, so if there is a transformation you would like to have occur in your life, it might help to consider the possibility that whatever is happening is actually for your benefit.

It can't hurt to shift that perspective and you never know what might happen!


On 7/7, I committed to playing the game of Sparks & Leaps every day until I turn 60 (45 total days) on Facebook. I know many of you are not on that playground, so let me know if you are curious what I'm up to there and I can send you some copies of posts —they are kind of like mini blogs.

Otherwise, I will send you my love, SEALed with a ❌. This ❌, serves as both a kiss and an ❌-spot.❌-spots are one of the key features of the game of Sparks & Leaps and you will be hearing more about them.

In addition to wishing you a Happy Black Moon/Super Moon/ New Moon, I also send you my best wishes for a lovely Lammas/ Lughnasadh (8/1 & 2 or 8/7 --depending on whether you celebrate the pagan or astrological date).

Translation for those of you who don't celebrate any of that, but are curious : Black Moon is the second New Moon in a month, Super Moon is closest to the Earth in orbit and Lammas/ Lughnasadh is the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. Is a time of celebrating the first harvest.

OR if you are in the southern hemisphere, perhaps you are celebrating Imbolc/ Candlemas and Grounhog's Day!

Since my Groundhog's Day Sparks & Leaps attempts at new starts have looked more like the middle of that GHD movie than powerful magic, I'm going to see what kind of first harvest I might glean from the mirror holiday of Lammas!

And if this is sounding more like seal snorting and barking to you, then please just accept my wish for a happy August!


Tuesday, July 2, 2019

🍰Not like this...🚶‍♀️


I wish there was a sturdy, straight, short bridge going safely over the gap between my old story and my new one. I would also like to be totally luminescent -- filled with light and love as I dance gracefully across.

Despite all of the things I have doing to be as responsible and creative as I know how to be regarding practical obligations (putting in the hours for income generating jobs as well as frustrating entrepenurial dead ends), bizarre random complications and challenges  (such an overflowing abundance lately), and many more activities in the way of self care and spiritual rituals, ( including massive purging of physical and metaphysical stuff I do not need); the above description of my passage is far from accurate.

I am baltering (Balter - To dance artlessly without particular grace or skill but usually with enjoyment) through the murky muck!

It's not a cakewalk, but there is a certain sweetness and mysterious beauty about the often dark and confusing territory found in these in-between places. AND there is an abundance of joy and magic as well. (Is it just me or are there more and more crazy cool synchronicities happening all the time?!)

This paradoxical mix, which I call "The Land of &" and Charles Eisenstein calls "The Space Between Stories", is not just showing up in my current personal world. It is also true of the larger "Marvelous Messy Middle" (SARK's name for this place) we are occupying collectively. Perhaps you are hanging out in some paralell universe like this too right now.

If so, I invite you to balter with me!

On this day of a Solar Eclipse (not visible here in USA) I am taking the ashes from my recently burned old journals (old stories) to the sea. I will flirt with the waves alongside my trusty young adventurer friends (internal children and two very real little boys) and dance with wild abandon.

Lots of change happening (partially what dictated brevity of this post) AND lots of wild magic!


I went to this favorite spot last week (it is a windy vortex on top of huge rocks with a view of the sea) and added a favorite quote to the photo.I can't find who originally said it, but it feels especially true right now!