Reclaiming Our Time (Hat Tip to Maxine Waters)

"I'm told not to age, I'm told not to wear, not to tear, not to let my life lines show, but grow old is to deepen. It is a privilege to be stamped by time." -CHANI 

I have the Deck of Plenty by Chani Nichols and the card above surfaces over and over for me, which is funny because that's a theme in my life: circles, loops, cycles.

I think about the cats a lot (they are constantly next to me when I pull my cards as part of my daily ritual) so I spend time being grateful for them as they are aging and finding their voices and comfort levels and when we fail - they insist it merits our immediate attention. 

They teach me all kinds of things, but mostly, gratitude for their presence and their love.

I have been considering loss a lot recently - the season, some recent events and developments in my life - loss has been at the forefront of my mind.  

We can have myriad responses to these moments of transition when things feel more unfamiliar and unsettling.

We can be fearful or we can stop, embody the moment, and truly be present - absorb it wholly, relish the whole experience for no other reason that you can. 

You are here, you are alive, and you are grateful. 

We can turn into the feeling that we run from, and befriend it: ask it what it is here to teach us.

Learn from it, feel it, heal it, and repeat.  We have choices. 

Every day we have choices to decide how we are going to do this life.

I choose to see this season of endings as a teacher, a clearing of my path before the next adventure begins, preparation for what is yet to come - more an enigma than ever for most of us right now.

To remain grounded, I tap into nature.

I am grateful for the trees, who exemplify for us how easy and natural letting go can be.

I am an October baby, and the changing of the seasons has always felt sacred to me. 

Now that I see that endings are so crucial to my learning curve, I see the poetry in death, autumn, the change of seasons, the allowing of the old to clear and make room for something new.

I am grateful for the trees.

I am grateful for the birds in the trees that sing and remind me of the beauty that is always around me, no matter where I roam.

I have also thought a lot about the 'gift' of aging - and I think about that phrase "Youth is wasted on the young."  I think the opposite can be true, too:  The gift of age (for me that is wisdom) can be often wasted on the folx who receive that time.  Another of life's paradoxes.

I guess the judgement about how we appreciate or use our time appears to another as a potential misallocation of resources, and nobody likes that from what I can tell.

The young undervalue the freedom and ease of life, those in midlife undervalue their wisdom and ongoing access to much of youth's ease with bodily movement (if they are blessed and not on the early curve of bodily wear and tear) those gifted time and age are not all choosing to access wisdom from the lessons to strengthen their lines, to help them get stronger, smarter, or improve.

Some people just don't do the thing that is needed to change things - let alone for the better.  It's hard to do. So many of us opt out of the lesson, the growth, and then the fun part after.

Rather, so many choose to let stay the missed opportunities, the missed moments to remedy what is broken, the lack of confidence to believe that it could be different.

It could be different.

If you wanted to do something to make it different.

The shadow side of American Exceptionalism is the American Lack of Worth - and it plagues us.

You are here, my love.

You are light made into matter made into a divine work of art that can also COMMUNICATE with other beings. 

Make art. 

Make love. 

Make music. 

Make laughter.

WE ARE WORTH THE EFFORT.

Whatever it is that you're not letting yourself do because it doesn't make sense?

It makes more sense for you to do something you think about often rather than to tell yourself over and over why you cannot.

You are pulled for a reason.

We are here for a reason.

The reason does not mean you are here to solve world peace.

You may just be here to solve your INNER PEACE.

What if your tending to yourself as the first person in your heritage to do it would change EVERYTHING about the future of the WORLD and your beloveds? 

Because it does.

We are the divine droplets of energy, G*D, the sacredness of this experience - spirit made flesh.

It's us.

We're the spirit made flesh.

We are sacred.

We deserve anything.

Everything.

The best possible things.

Like hope, faith, and love - we must CLAIM JOY.

Claim possibilities.

Claim it for ourselves.

Because we are worth it - and receiving that gift will ripple out to the world - a gift that goes on.

It is a gift that we are here.

It is a gift that we age.

It is a gift that we can mourn those who have left us.

It is a gift that we can receive the new life that comes in the morning.

It is a gift that we are here.

You are the gift.

I am so grateful that you are here, now, with us.

I am so grateful that we get this experience together.

I am so grateful.

I love you.

Xo,

Jax