2012-05-20T04:13:04Z No Author Copyright 2012, No Author SPHPBLOG
I suggested the friend take on the task, since she was enthusiastic about the idea.

I fumbled at the fact that it did not seem a good fit for our evenings of deep conversation.

I worried that an afternoon of oohing and ahhing over “stuff” would take us away from our core purpose as a Circle of women focusing on leading lives that made a difference in the world.

I turned my attention to other things but the friend was persistent.
“It would be really great publicity for you,” she said, stopping me cold in my tracks. That idea had never occurred to me.
I thought I’d better sit down my bag of objections and look at it again. Could it really give Something Yet To Be national visibility? Did I WANT it? How could this small group of close knit women, less than 20-strong at the heart of it, rise to the occasion IF such visibility created a larger demand? Wouldn’t we be biting off more than we could chew?

And I heard my husband’s voice in my head. “Janet, it’s just a sweepstakes. You probably won’t get picked. What do you have to lose? Ten minutes? Not a big deal. Just do it.”

Except…. It was terrifying to think about an Oprah-sized launch. Being an inch worm was familiar but the soaring eagle? No way.

Bald fear lived underneath all the objections. So, I picked up the piece of paper and typed in the website, gulping and holding onto the imagined words of my husband , “Just do it.”
]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry110211-175932 2011-02-12T00:00:00Z 2011-02-12T00:00:00Z

Pam Slim,Escape from the Cubicle Nation,wrote in a November post about The Diné, what the Navajo call the crystal fire, the spark of life that keeps your body moving, that allows all your organs to work together in glorious harmony so that blood gets everywhere it needs to go, and food is digested and muscles and bones move when you tell them to.

It made me think of that OTHER crystal fire, the creative impulse, the soul, the breath of life. It is there all the time, all we have to do is reach out our hand and it is there.

So before I hunker down on this cold, wintry day and begin compiling all those boring pieces of paper for the accountant, I will light the three white candles on the table, say a silent blessing on the world, and move with ease and grace into the space of shuffling papers, taxes, and mundane realities. It is so much easier when I remember the sacred spark that lives in me.]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry110121-092800 2011-01-21T00:00:00Z 2011-01-21T00:00:00Z
At the end of 2010, as I began settling into my "new" office, I decided to reflect on years past as a first step to learning my intentions for the new year soon to arrive. I decided to take down the six maps that had been created during the intensives of Something Yet To Be. I spread them on the floor and just noted the words that jumped out at me. Mostly they were PARTICIPANT'S words and I wanted to see what they might tell me about how I BE in the world.

The sea of words were typed and then copied and placed into a wordle that created a lump in my throat. Gratitude and amazement wrapped like a warm woolen cape around me.

All I can say is Thank you to all the generous women who have given me the grace of their trust over the last two years.

If you would like to see it, click on the related link below.]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry110117-121108 2011-01-17T00:00:00Z 2011-01-17T00:00:00Z

My dreams the past two weeks have been VERY vivid and intense. They have been forcefully telling me about some thing things that are going on in the subterranean reaches of my heart, mind, and spirit. It is stuff that was not apparent by looking at the skin of my days or the hours in my body.

As the weather turned suddenly frigid this week, it felt like a good time to burrow in for a spell. I lit the candles, admired the tree, picked up piles of reading material and (true to my mother’s old habit of painting for the holidays!), bought a gallon of Mark Twain House Brown for the floor in my emerging office.

This afternoon, a message from Dr. Deb Kern via e-mail reminded me that the Solstice is coming. She outlined activities for the three days before Solstice and for the three days after. It made special sense to me this year. While the seasons in our lives usually change more slowly than the seasons of the earth, there are those times when life seems to be a whirl spinning out of our control. It isn’t quite that bad for me, just sort of busy and distracted from what really matters.

If you are in a time of change – or just need a few days of being intentional about the darkest days of winter – Dr. Deb’s outline might be just your cup of tea. If nothing else, take it as a reminder to pay attention to the world outside your little corner.
And remember: The moon doesn’t need us to do anything for her to shine her soft light on all of us. She just does…. Now isn’t that the best kind of gift?

To read her article...

Dr. Deb Kern

]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry101215-124009 2010-12-15T00:00:00Z 2010-12-15T00:00:00Z

It was one of those days… For some non-specific, intangible, catalyst free reason, the wires of communication between me and my husband were sparking – and not in a good way. He said something that should have been a simple statement, a sort of feather thing sent out with a little puff of air. But that puppy landed hard.

He said I don’t seem happy.

And I was stunned into a profound, “Say what???” Then I asked what would it look like (to him) if I were happy. Figured I was not doing it, whatever it was, and wanted to know how he would know it if he saw it.

Back and forth, round and round we went, getting deeper into that hole of “this cannot end well” known by married couples everywhere. At some point, the discussion ended and we went back to “normal” life. (And I will confess, I was still bewildered by the exchange.)

But life called and we shifted.

That evening, I went with some girlfriends to see “The Glow Project”, a movie I had read about a year or so ago.

Driving home, I GOT it, the thing my husband could not find words for in the man vocabulary. He meant I have not been glowing as much lately. There are a whole bunch of normal middle-aged life things that have been factors. Add in a summer of high heat and humidity, an environmental nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico and an economy that is stuck for the foreseeable future….. and well, you get it.

Being stuck on the train of shoulda/coulda/woulda, I was not quite Chicken Little with her frantic “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” But I had lost something that matters a lot to the man who holds me very dear. My inner glow of peace and contentment had faded to a barely visible ember.

I can’t quite tell you how it happened, but that hour in the darkened theater, listening to the stories of 15 women who thought they had lost their glow, I found mine was burning brightly. I came home refreshed and renewed and reminded that, yes, I still have it.

And my honey saw it right away.

If you or someone you know, needs a glow adjustment, visit:


Glow Project


]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry100809-135632 2010-08-09T00:00:00Z 2010-08-09T00:00:00Z

One thing for sure about gardening is that it teaches you something new every day. Take the daisies for instance. They live in four different gardens here, each with its own personality and micro-climate. The stand on the east side of the hot tub always blooms first, in rapid lushness in early June. Then, when the first storm of summer roars through, they give up quickly, falling to the ground without a whimper. The blooms are beautiful even as they arch their necks toward the sun the next day. It does not matter if they are totally prostrate, they reach for the light because they can.

The second stand to bloom is behind the summer kitchen/workshop. That clump is the “mother” position, the first place I planted the daisies after digging them out of Mother’s garden about 11 years ago. They stand like runway models, erect, proud and sure of their beauty, inviting honeybees to land oh so graciously on their golden centers.

While the others are in their glory, the last two daisy clumps wait for the perfect light of the solstice, their buds closed tightly, holding onto their promise until JUST the right moment. Only they know when THAT might be and they pay no never mind to what the other daisies are doing.

The daisies remind me of a quote I copied recently (without a note as to its source, sorry to say.) It reminded me, as the gardens do, to just take each day as it comes, to remember, "This is a perfect moment to take everything less seriously, less personally and less literally.” If I can keep hold of those words – when I take something too seriously, too personally or too literally – I will be in very good stead.
]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry100615-071107 2010-06-15T00:00:00Z 2010-06-15T00:00:00Z


Currently reading, “Centered On the Edge: Mapping a Field of Collective Intelligence and Spiritual Wisdom.” It is one of those deceptively simple little books. Less than 100 pages, many of them full page images that PULL you into them. Some have words, some just ARE there.

The first page of text resonated with me because of the group process and because of our ongoing women's leadership circle. Jacob Needleman writes:

“ I believe that the group is the art form of the future… Every great culture has created forms of sacred art that were needed in order to transmit and… to discover by experience the truths which were necessary to absorb into one’s life… In our present culture, as I see it, the main need is for a form that can enable human beings to share their perception and attention and, through that sharing, to become a conduit for the appearance of spiritual intelligence.”

It is easy, too easy, to minimize the influence we have on each other’s lives, too easy to dismiss the impact that can occur in one act of genuine listening. I used to think, when I was a reporter, that I had some special gift that made people tell me things. Well, I might, but so do we all. It is the act of listening, without judgment, with simple curiosity and open-ended questions. There is a hidden gift to simply meet people where they are.

A few years ago, I had a co-worker who complained endlessly about how unfair things were, about how frustrated she was in trying to do her job (perfectionist that she is, she was never satisfied with her own work). I grew tired of the complaints but somehow found the grace to ask one day, “Are you happy here?” She was taken aback and paused in mid-stream. “Why do you ask?” she said, with her head cocked like a robin on the lawn. “Because you keep telling me all the things that keep going wrong.” She sat there a few seconds and then replied, in a completely different tone of voice, “I’m not sure.” The conversation ended shortly after that AND her complaining fell to practically nothing.

Learning to live with our own imperfection is the trick. How often have you (like me!!) hesitated to take a step toward another person or a goal or a different future? How often has the hesitation been rooted in uncertainty about where to begin, how to begin, or fear that we can’t see how to get from point A to point B. So we just sit and do nothing. At those times, it helps me to remember another quote from the book I am reading. As Myron Kellner-Rogers said,

“Start anywhere and follow where it leads.”

To me,that is where the magic is: being at the edge, not sure where to go or how to go but simply, in quiet faith, beginning. For me, that is the basis of spiritual intelligence and of deep, ageless wisdom.

So, what do you need to start?


]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry100609-100524 2010-06-09T00:00:00Z 2010-06-09T00:00:00Z
Standing in the Spring

It has somehow become natural to me to live by the Celtic calendar instead of the Gregorian one. Like the wise women of olden days, I respond to the changes in the light. A natural rhythm with the earth has led me, without any design or intention, to divide my year into two main cycles: the dark time and the light time.

The dark time begins at the end of October, when the gardens are put to bed, the last tomatoes have been canned and the hardy pumpkins and winter squash are resting under the cover of the porch. Six months ago, without design or intention, I went deeper than usual into my fallow space of quiet stillness. I thought it would only be for a few weeks, through the holidays and into the beginning of the new year.

But two months became four and then four months turned into six. People would ask when the next group was starting and I had no answer. After a bit, even I was beginning to wonder what was going on. Where was my ambition? When would I get back into the swing of things? What was wrong with me?

Not much, as it turns out. Just an apparent need for a long, quiet spell of listening to the inner wisdom that is easily lost in too much busyness.

For six months, I read, I wrote poetry, I journaled. I began a host of projects that stayed stuck in the first blush of activity. I re-connected with family, deepened new friendships, and stayed close to my Something Yet To Be sisters. I began to focus on my body, recognizing that the energy I have taken for granted for decades was shifting.

One at a time since last fall, I have embraced new forms of practice. Monthly Reiki treatments were first. Then came full body massage once a month. In March, I went to Isla Mujeres in Mexico for a women's retreat. Coming home, I found the yoga teacher and class that is right for me.

So now, with spring and its abundant light, I am emerging refreshed and renewed, standing tall as the regal irises that fill my vases this week. It is good to be back.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry100528-083254 2010-05-28T00:00:00Z 2010-05-28T00:00:00Z

Got the last cantaloupe of the season from the garden this morning and it is beautiful, so unexpected for the last week of September. But then, everything about the melons this year turned out to be a surprise.

I didn’t plant them. I didn’t water them. I didn’t weed them. They showed up in the front flower bed mid-summer, waving their scalloped leaves in the area between the summer lilies and the autumn sedum. They looked healthy and since I tend to be a live and let live sort of person, I decided to just leave them alone and see what developed.

They grew out of the bed and into the lawn, so I mowed around them.

They set three nice looking balls of fruit and as they got larger, I checked them once a week, twice a week if there was a lot of rain.

They kept growing even as the days got shorter.

I kept lifting them up gently and smelling them. If there is another way to check for ripeness, I don’t know it. So I picked and sniffed and laid them back in place until, one by one, they were ready in all their deliciousness.

The last half of the last cantaloupe sat on the sink, its seeds arrayed in four rays of ripeness, demanding that I admire their voluptuous beauty. They somehow made me think of all the friends I have had in my life. Each one of them has lived inside my heart. Some have remained there, some have gone into the compost pile as situations and circumstances took us in different directions.

As I scooped the seeds into the compost bowl, I whispered a little prayer for all of us, “May your friends be as numerous as the seeds inside a ripe cantaloupe and may they bring their sweet nectar into your life when you least expect it.”

Cantaloupe to compost to cantaloupe, blessing to friends to blessing.
]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry090928-130923 2009-09-28T00:00:00Z 2009-09-28T00:00:00Z

Every labyrinth I have ever walked has some distinguishing feature and often some distinctive memory.

There was the one on a remote farm in the mountains of North Carolina where I walked in my bare feet with my brother and sister-in-law. There was the living labyrinth made of corn planted in the winding circles, half maze, half labyrinth. There were no secret twists and turns, just the sense of being lost among the cornstalks like Dorothy and her meeting with the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.

The path in the labyrinth in Rochester where I walked in September was nondescript gray driveway gravel, the kind you can find in so many parking areas. The “lines” of the labyrinth were brick laid down two by two, in alternating directions. One set looked like an equals sign (=) and the set next to it looked like the number ll. Row upon row, hundreds or thousands of pairs of bricks.

Walking in the path, it was obvious that Canada geese had been there before me – and that they had been there often. There were shiny, bright green droppings fresh with morning dew next to dried yellow crumbles, more mustard than grass, bleached by the sun. Walking this path required a different kind of attention. I needed to be present to the “calling cards” around me if I wanted to avoid carrying goose goo back to the car.

Arriving safely at the center of the labyrinth, my eyes rested on the flat stone there, etched with the image of a loon – the favorite bird of the man whose family built the labyrinth. And I thought of all the female leaders past and present who have been described as being crazy as a loon, lunatics, etc. Joan of Arc burned at the stake, crazy Sarah (Abraham’s wife) who laughed when the angel told her that she would bear a son in her old age, the unsuspecting innocents called witch in old Salem, Mass., of the suffragettes who insisted women deserved the vote.

They were not deterred by being called looney, but still today, so many of us are afraid to walk a path that will take us “outside the norm “, whatever that may be.

Leaving the center of the labyrinth to circle my way back out to the entrance, I noticed the feathers, gray and white, littering the ground. One by one I picked them up, struck by their variations in color and their similarity to the varied colors of the hair of old women. There were big feathers of gun metal gray, some silver shot, others thin wisps of white from the goose underbelly. And I thought of my favorite metaphor for women working together – a flock of geese on the wing, sharing the journey, sharing the lead position.

I was struck by the similarities between this path and “normal life.” Walking, we often find ourselves picking our way around piles of poo. No life is free of some sort of mess. It shows up for each of us in some form or another, but all too often we turn away rather than deal with it.

And in quitting, we lose all the hopes and dreams and bright green possibilities that are alive in that moment.

As I approached the end of the path, the spot where I began, there was a final feather. I picked it up and it left a thin green streak on my hand, fresh evidence of life abundant in all its messy glory.
]]> http://www.somethingyettobe.com/newblog/index.php?entry=entry090920-051228 2009-09-20T00:00:00Z 2009-09-20T00:00:00Z