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Little Tiger’s Big Adventure

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Book-coverLittle Tiger’s Big Adventure is published and available for all to buy. It’s the story of a Little Tiger who follows his heart and finds adventure.

Little Tiger learns that you don’t have to travel across the world to have an adventure. Adventure is in your own neighborhood. You just have to look around you, have the courage to take the first step, and listen to the small voice inside you that says, “Let’s go on an adventure.”

Little tiger bookThis is a story for kids of all ages, from 5 to 95. It’s about adventure but also about facing your fears and taking the first step and the next. It’s about listening to the wisdom of those around you but mostly to the wisdom within you.

Watch for more little tiger news here and on a new little tiger website.

Click the button to buy Little Tiger’s Big Adventure.

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

One Message that Never Gets Old

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I created this video in 2011 at the end of a tumultuous year. It’s a tribute to Keesha soon after she died and a message of gratitude to all who helped me get through the last three months of that year. The song is from my friend Barbara McAfee and I am so grateful that she agreed to let my use it here.

The list of those I am grateful for has grown immensely and continues to grow.

KeeshaQH1

An Unexpectedly Thrilling Autumn Walk

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LeavesinWater

I like to walk around Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake, city lakes with paved paths and some dirt trails. Today I want to talk with the autumn leaves and listen for Keesha on the wind.

The leaves are a riot of red, yellow, and orange. We are in between the green expansive summer and the dark hunkering winter. It’s harvest time. It’s close to the day of the dead, all souls day, halloween. What ever your tradition, autumn is a time of deepening.

The wind is cool but not too cold. The geese and ducks trail their wings low over the water. The smell of someone’s fire teases a twang of longing from me.

I pause at a Cedar Lake beach where Keesha used to run while I smiled. The city reconditioned it. Less trees; more sand. Not as nice in my opinion. Farther up the dirt trail, the rocky area where I scattered Keesha’s ashes welcomes me like an old friend. I sit awhile, thinking mostly nothing.

Then I head back home.

As I near Lake of the Isles, I hear Michael Jackson’s Thriller blasting from speakers in a school yard. There’s a crowd of kids and adult-sized kids in zombie make up dancing the Thriller video choreography to the music. Hot cider for free on the sidewalk. I watch the zombies perform.

I cross the street and wander into Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark Bookstore. It’s the kind of bookstore where you plant your feet, spread your arms, lift your voice in joyous praise and deliriously declare, “I’ll take one of each.”

The women working there know the books, notice what intrigues you and make suggestions. One brings a toy to the counter. It’s two skeletons draped in black capes. She holds it up to the kids, arches her eyebrow at us adults and says, “I’ll turn it on but you have to dance.” She pushed the buttons and the skeletons do the boogie woogie. The kids dance. I dance. I look around the bookstore and all of us are dancing to the boogie woogie beat. I think this is not likely to occur at a Barnes and Noble.

I wander the stacks with my hot cider, browsing books – new fiction, Neruda poetry, non-fiction, a Kent Nerburn story, Elizabeth Gilbert’s new novel. I flip longingly through Dale Mulfinger’s cabin architecture book. He’s there. Talking, signing books. We talk cabins and I tell him I like his book. Secretly I wish he could transport me into one of those cabins he built so I could build a fire in the river stone fireplace, curl up with a blanket and some tea and read book after book.

Dharma, the 11 year old mixed breed dog with long black fur, pads up and nudges my hand. I pet her then keep exploring books. Soon I have a huge stack I carry in one arm. I remind myself this is not a library and slowly return books to their shelves. I pass Dharma again. She’s curled in a leather chair being slathered with affection by two women. “I’ll trade places with you.” I say to her. “Not a chance.” She says without even cracking a contented eye.

I leave and walk the paths homeward. I gaze up at the trees and the sky. The sun slants in at a sharp angle this time of year, kissing the autumn colored leaves. Half of the clouds are white and the back half in shadow.

I arrive back home and settle in with tea and a new book to keep me company.

Here in the North, autumn is a sigh. A pause. A time to breathe the expansive growth of summer, let it settle and become humus. A time to remember the passing of our days and remember the gifts that the earth, our ancestors, and life give to us every moment. Today my gifts came from a walk by the lakes and an unexpectedly thrilling bookstore visit.

 

How Scuba Diving Taught Me to Be Still

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Keesha_StillnessIf your days are like mine,  you’re inundated by non-stop emails, text messages, phone calls. You’re bombarded by the noise of the world – news, Facebook, friends, family. Then there’s your inner world keeping up a non-stop multi-layered stream of thoughts, plans, dreams, memories, problem solving, new ideas. Pretty soon your attention can become so fragmented until you no longer have energy to focus much less take action.

What’s the solution? Practice stillness.

At first glance this is an absolutely insane idea. We’ve got so much going on and so much to do. Rather than buckle down and get stuff done, we’re supposed be still? Or in other words, do nothing?

It makes sense that we’d think being still is crazy. We’re taught that doing nothing means you’re lazy. It goes against our work ethic. Being still means you’re not being productive.

But spending time in stillness creates an oasis. It allows us to hear our thoughts, catch our breath, and gain perspective. It is the antidote to the stress and rush.

Meditation is one way to cultivate stillness. I meditate almost every morning and evening. I light a candle and settle into my posture. I tap the timer in the meditation app, hear the gong, take a deep breathe.

It goes well at first. “I am breathing in, I am breathing out, I am breathing in, I am breathing out.” But then my mind veers off. “I’m hungry. Should I have eggs or granola for breakfast? Did I buy eggs? Oops, I’m supposed to be meditating. Breathing in, breathing out.” And so it goes until the gong chimes and my practice ends.

Finding stillness is not so easy. So I created ways to help myself.

Years ago, I learned to scuba dive. On a trip to the Bahamas, the seas were really rough. Rough enough that our dives were canceled for two days in a row. The third day, the sea frothed with four foot waves but since we were only on the island a couple more days, we decided to dive.

As the boat rode the waves out to the dive site, I questioned my sanity. We anchored over the reef. I rolled off the boat into waves that felt ginormous and kicked my way to a bouncing buoy. A rope dropped from the buoy to ocean floor.

I let go and sunk under the surface, following the guide rope. During first five feet I felt like a piece of driftwood caught in a storm, the waters tossed me up and down. At ten feet below, I thought I must be getting used to the motion. By twenty feet I hardly noticed the movement and was excited to see the reef.

When I reached the sandy bottom sixty feet below the surface, I noticed the water around me was still. Colorful tropical fish swam lazily along the coral reef. Above me, I saw the boat careening in the waves but deep below the sea was calm and untouched by the turmoil above.

I had found stillness.

The chaotic frenzy of the boat still existed while I swam deep below. Just as the stillness of the depths existed while I was on the churning surface.

So it is within us.

Stillness exists within our depths and is accessible in every moment. We simply need to sink beneath the turmoil of our daily lives and wild minds to find it. It’s there whenever we need it.

Meditation is one practice that can help us become aware of the churning waves of our minds and find the stillness. But we can find stillness even when we are in action.

Look at dogs. They don’t get caught up in the zaniness that we do. Can you imagine a dog meditating? “Here I am lying in the sun. I am breathing in, breathing out, I wonder if any squirrels will come close today, oops, I’m supposed to be meditating.”

Sounds ridiculous. That’s because animals tap into stillness in every moment. Watch a dog chase a squirrel or a cat stalk a bird and you’ll see stillness in action.

I often visualize sinking below the surface of that rough ocean into the deep stillness sixty feet below during meditation. It helps me calm my mind and find that still point within.

Here are three ways you can get started:

  1. Meditate by noticing your breath. As you breathe in, say to yourself, “I am breathing in.” As you breathe out, say to yourself, “I am breathing out.”
  2. In the middle of a stressful day, see the demands as waves. Spend a few minutes visualizing yourself dropping beneath the waves into the still depths within.
  3. Notice nature and animals. Pay attention to something like a leaf and see what is unique about it. Watch a dog or cat closely for a a few minutes.

Become familiar with stillness so you can access it even in the midst of your busy day.

Out of the Box Creativity

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Out of the Box Creativity

When we talk of creativity, we often mean art, films, stories, and songs, not a corporate world full of cubes.

I do create in those talked of ways – stories, essays, poems, and songs. I make videos to inspire. I create adventures like traveling through the Yukon then I write, speak and make videos about the journey. I feel creative writing this blog post and teaching others about the internet and social media.

But then there’s my day job. My work as a new initiatives project manager and consultant that I’ve often thought off as “just work”. It’s what I do to fund my creative adventures. Even though I’ve been an independent consultant most of my career, it’s the cubicle I’ve longed to escape from.

A few weeks ago, my project team pulled off a superhuman feat and made a deadline that was unexpectedly moved up three weeks.  As I drove home tired and basking in the glow of their success, I suddenly realized that managing people, projects and initiatives is also creativity.

Being able to work with different kinds of people, coach them to be fantastic, calm them when they get wound up, encourage them to shine, herd them to a successful finish and sit back and enjoy their success – absolutely takes creativity.

I look back at some of my projects – managing website implementations at Mayo Clinic, producing a 1000 person dinner fundraising event for HRC, coordinating a John Beargrease sled dog race checkpoint,  helping UCare get a health insurance product launched on the new health care exchange and I now see that it’s all creativity in action.

The lesson for me is that the walls we perceive are of our own making. We need only change our perception and our beliefs about ourselves and poof, our world shifts.

And that escape from cubicle nation, I’ve longed for? It begins in the mind. Creativity is wild energy that will not be contained in any box. It infuses life and flows everywhere. You simply need to open your senses and your mind and jump in.

Dragonfly Wisdom

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BWCA

Our campsite is on a lake in the BWCA where the only human sound is my breath. I climb down the hill to a little stretch of land facing a small bay, take my shirt off and sunbathe skin that rarely sees light.

Black dragonflies with white stripes and translucent wings of black lace ride the breeze over the water’s edge.  One flies to me and lands on my forearm. I feel presence and my mind shifts gears in the way it does when I communicate with animals. I open myself and silently ask if Dragonfly wants to communicate.

Dragonfly speaks, “Be still.”

I breathe steady, feel the earth under my feet and the dragonfly legs tickling my arm. Suddenly I am conscious of my whirling mind.

Dragonfly leaves. “You lost focus.”

“I know,” I respond and take a deep breath.

As I wrote those words in my journal, three dragonflies flew directly at my head, startling me. “Pay attention,” she says as she lands on my shoulder. The sound of their wings was like the crinkling of paper only faster and more delicate. “Don’t get so caught up in the words you forget to be here.” She flew off, circled over me, briefly landed on my knee, then joined the others to ride the breeze. 

Dragonflywisom3
I hold still and feel tears well up. “I’m listening.” One lands on my right arm, then a second. A third lands on my right shoulder. A fourth on my left knee. Amazed, I hold still. “A gift,” I murmur and I listen.

“We are healing your heart,” I hear as a fifth dragonfly flies into the left side of my chest – my heart – and bounces off. I feel a stab of joy.

“We are taking the pain. You have many layers.”

As I wrote these words in my journal, one dragonfly sat on my thumb, one on my belly, one on my heart, and one on my left arm. The one on my thumb watched the words take form on paper as I wrote. I felt approval and acknowledgement. They all flew off then two return to rest on my heart.

“Be still,” Dragonfly tells me again. “See from behind your eyes.”

My crazy mind calms and I think. “I have much to unlearn.” Then Dragonfly sings a song by my friend James Schattauer, “There is no wrong. There only is the learning to find that love is all we have to give.”

Silence. Then a whisper, “You are worthy. You are whole.” For a moment, everything within me comes to perfect stillness.

As I wrote these words in my  journal, four rested on me and a fifth circled my head. A spider crawled onto my belly and I jump. Two dragonflies stayed with me. Loons sang from across the lake. I felt settled, calm for the first time in a long while. Then a sweat bee stung me. “Pay atention.”

Dragonfly continues, “There is joy all around you, in this very moment. It is within you. You must spend more time in stillness and in nature. There is too much noise, too much busy-ness.  You may think our flying is busy-ness. It is not. We do not think. We just are.” Dragonfly quiets.

Dragonflywisom1

In the stillness, I hear the lake softly brushing the rocks. Dragonfly zips across the water then returns to perch on my arm, looking intently at me with her multifaceted eyes.

“Now I am resting on you, my wings spread in the warmth of the sun, feeling you translate this knowing into words you humans understand.”

Other Dragonfly voices chime in,
“And I am on this rock.”
“And I am hovering over the water.”
“And I am coasting on the breeze.”
“None of us think about it. We just act.”
“Your hand moved so I moved. I didn’t think about it first.”

As I wrote these words in my journal, a dragonfly perched with it’s front two legs on my journal, peering at my words as I wrote. Another rested on my arm, gazing intently at me and chewing her mosquito lunch loudly. These have yellow and red markings on their wings.

I asked Dragonfly a question. “Humans talk about needing to move from reacting to responding so we can be more conscious in our communications. What’s the difference?”

Dragonfly answers immediately. “You are here to master your emotions and your mind, both beautiful tools of the Divine. As you gain mastery, you can create what you dream. If you let your emotions or your mind do the dreaming and the choosing, you are reacting. When you learn to let your spirit lead, your soul responds using your emotions as a guide and your mind as a creative tool.”

“It seems so complex!” I sigh.

“Not really. You make it so because you try to understand with your mind.” Dragonfly states.

As I wrote these final words in my journal with a dragonfly on the thumb of my writing hand, riding the waves of my words as I wrote. I felt her approving nod. She flew off and I knew the conversation was over.

I close my journal, feeling peaceful. My heart wide open. Rising, I face each direction offering a pinch of tobacco in gratitude for the gifts of Dragonfly. With the sun still high on this long summer day so close to Solstice, I climb the hill back to the campsite.

Dragonflywisdom4

Unique Like Everyone Else

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Misfit_Conf_2013

It’s one thing to write about vulnerability or speak about it.  It’s completely different to live it. Everyone at Misfit Conf 2013 lived it.

Sure the Misfit speakers shared practical advice. But more powerfully they shared their vulnerability in stories from their lives.

Stories about walking away from success to live a meaningful life, about a father’s weaving his community together over the years, about unexpectedly finding family, about escaping poverty and violence, about brushes with death.

There were other stories too. Outside of the conference I talked with people, at first asking the “what do you do” question but often diving deeper into conversations about creativity and living with intention and meaning.

Yet I found myself intellectually engaging but hesitant to reveal too much, to let my guard down.

It’s one thing to have deep intellectual conversations. It’s way different when you let your heart enter the conversation and bust down barricades and allow the unfettered you be present with another. That’s vulnerability.

But there was one conversation with one woman that shifted the rest of the conference for me. As we talked, I let those little social facades we erect at conferences drop away and I talked from my heart. In a few vulnerable moments, I talked about the past few years with too many endings, too much loss, too much grief. I told her that one of the gifts of being at Misfit Conf was realizing how much healing I had yet to do, that I still felt broken.

She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I don’t know you but one of my spiritual principles is that each of us is whole and complete.” She looked softly at me, “You are whole and complete as you are.” I teared up and something inside of me softened.

The gift of being vulnerable and of allowing another to be vulnerable with you is deeply healing. In that vulnerability is the core message that every single one of us is a unique, whole and complete human being. We don’t have to try to be anything else.

Maybe that’s at the root of Misfit. The idea that you don’t have to fit yourself to anyone else’s idea of who you should be. It’s not about conforming to society’s or anyone’s expectations or about being the next best tech wonder or marketing genius.

We’re all Misfits because we are individually whole and complete. I can’t remember where I’ve heard this saying, but it fits, “I am unique like everyone else.”

It takes courage to crack the shell of conformity; it takes vulnerability to live life fully as a bone fide misfit. And when you live it, you are free.

Deep Learning

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VictorSaadEverything about Victor Saad exudes passion. His eyes gleam. His clear voice rides the waves of hope, rising with joy as his eyes sparkle. You can’t listen to Victor without being inspired.

Victor created his own Masters – 12 experiences in 12 months – the leap year project. He recruited fellow leapers, shared what he was learning on his blog, wrote a book for his dissertation and staged his graduation at TEDx Chicago. Now he’s on fire to change higher education with the Experience Institute.

I met Victor in Fargo during Misfit Conf. During his talk, he told us that the last month of the year was the most critical for deep learning. It was the month he spent reflecting and writing. He found that it was in reflection that his learning deepened and took hold.

Robin's Egg When I left Fargo, I spent the day at Buffalo River
State park and remembered Victor’s words.

I walked the prairie and the woodland trails with the sun warming my face.I watched an ant carry his heavy load across an anthill.

I found half a blue robin’s egg and wondered where the tiny fledgling soared now.

I lay on my back in the prairie grass and watched the clouds tiptoe across the vast prairie sky. I laughed as two young deer bounded through the woods, running for the fun of it.

Buffalo River State Park praireI took photos. Napped in the breeze. Did not think of much. Let the wash of silence tumble the words of the weekend until a few polished nuggets stood out.

We live in fast times and conferences are great ways to take leaps. But like Victor, I’ve found that my deepest learning comes not during the conference or in the middle of an experience, but later, in contemplative times.

Time best found in the stillness and silence of wild places.

Laura D'Ambrosio - Misfit Conf

 

I’m Really a Misfit

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misfit_conf_3 I was the geeky, weird kid with glasses who sat alone on the playground, head buried in a book, too unsure and shy to play with the more socially astute kids. In many ways, despite all I’ve accomplished as an adult, I’m still that kid. Especially when I put myself into uncertain situations like a conference.

There are lots of people I don’t know but want to talk with about their ideas and mine. But that little kid in me wants to disappear into the wall or get busy with my smartphone. My blood rushes in my ears as I hear awkward words tumble from my mouth. I mentally slap flat hand to forehead.

Conferences also include listening to people speak. I love hearing stories but after awhile, all the words and everyone’s energy starts to feel like static.

So I ducked out.

The critic in my head growls at me for stepping away in the middle of a pretty cool event and snaps at my self esteem threatening a massive shame avalanche.
But during this conference of misfits, I’ve heard that the answer to problems is to create. To live intentionally. To take risks that could change my life or even the world. That deep learning comes from reflection. That you need to do the drudge work, get your butt in the chair and write. To get your art, your story, your work out there.

So during my rejuvenation time away from the conference , I reconnected with a poem I created maybe 20 years ago. She’s grown a little since then so I trimmed her up and offer this little piece of my body of work to you.

Cement Contemplation

Stealing moments
like the little girl scrunched
on the hard step
of an old school stairway
used to do.

Not hiding,
choosing

to invest in stillness

and contemplate
the moss
growing peacefully
in a crack of cement.


misfit_conf_cement

I’m a Misfit

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misfit_conf_1Fargo, North Dakota. Where the vast prairie starts and you can see the curve of the earth on the horizon. Not the place you might think of for a band of merry misfits to meet and talk about changing the world. But here I am at Misfit Conf with AJ Leon and 40 other misfits.

AJ’s story feels familiar. He left a job as a remarkably average financial executive to lead a remarkable life being a writer, a nomad, and doing work that matters.

I write, I nomad when I can and I’d rather be using my talents and skills doing work that matters – to me and the planet – than working in a remarkably average cube. When I connected with AJ, even my molecules said yes, here is a kindred soul.

Only 30 people were invited by AJ and Melissa Leon to this conference. We each wrote a short essay about why we want to be part of this event. I wrote about freedom. I have the freedom to live a remarkable life with every choice I make. Freedom starts with knowing who I am.  Freedom is choosing to venture into creative, new, vast spaces that often feel uncomfortable. For awhile. Then you grow.

Looking out at the horizon, these Plains are so vast, the land feels like an ocean. Kathleen Norris says,

The Plains are not forgiving. Anything that is shallow—the easy optimism of a homesteader; the false hope that denies geography, climate, history; the tree whose roots don’t reach ground water—will dry up and blow away.

Being in Fargo, where the plains begin, under this immense sky, is the perfect place for a band of merry misfits to venture deeply into creative ways we can change our world for the better.

My Digital Detox Week

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Have you looked up from your computer and realized you’ve been online for hours and accomplished nothing? But you had been following the scent of an ever changing interest from one website to another. Or catching up on super cheery posts and photos of your Facebook friends. Or responding to emails.

I have. And a few weeks ago I felt like my digital life had taken over. I realized I had a lot of activity, but little substance to show for it. It felt like I was addicted or had developed techno-ADD. My attention span was the size of gnat and I often felt tense. I just wanted to shut down and unplug.

Problem is my work requires being online with a computer. I couldn’t simply shut down. But if I couldn’t cut my self off completely, what could I do?

I thought about the detoxes I do for health every Spring and Fall. Where I eat simply and cleanly for a period of time to rest my body and reset my appetites. Why not apply this concept to my digital life?

So I decided to do a digital detox. For one week, I would withdraw from social media and limit my online time to what what essential. When I used my laptop or went online, I would be mindful.

It took a little preparation to set up this digital detox and here’s what I did:

  • Notified my Facebook friends that I’d be offline for awhile. I really wanted to deactivate my Facebook account for the week but I can’t without affecting the Facebook pages I run.  So I made a very public commitment to make myself be accountable.
  • Set up an out of office notification on my emails that told people I would check email and respond only 2-3 times per day.
  • Downloaded two apps called Freedom and Anti-Social. Freedom shuts down your internet connection for however many minutes you want. It’s too easy to have a question while writing, jump onto the interwebs to seek an answer and lose an hour following some trail. I am using Freedom as I write this. Anti-Social shuts down your access to social sites like Facebook. I use Anti-Social when I need to do research but don’t want the distraction of social sites. I actually find Freedom more useful for my purposes.
  • Set up blocking on my Android phone. Blocking allow you to turn off all notifications without shutting the phone down. When it’s active, the phone does not make any noise or blink for every incoming call or text or app notification. I have it set up to automatically block between 9pm and 8am. But at any time, I can activate full blocking.
  • Cleaned up my email. I had over 2000 emails sitting in my inbox. Before I started the detox, I deleted, archived and labeled all my emails. I also set up some rules and automation in Gmail to make future work easier. I got this idea from Leo Baubauta’s great post on email habits.

I also made commitments. I wanted to shift my attention away from the addictive digital world to the tangible real world. Here’s what I committed to do:

  • Talk with people rather than text or email. I value connection and love conversations where I can see the sparkle in someone’s eyes. A friend’s gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice tell as big a part of the story as her words. In person, I can hear the laughter overlaid on words that I might have bristled at had they been in an email or text.
  • Create rather than consume. I love to learn. But it’s too easy to keep learning and learning and postpone sharing what I’ve learned.
  • Get outside and move. Being around nature is the best detox I know. So is moving my body whether on a walk or a yoga class or skiing.
  • Read engaging books. Reading an intriguing novel or a provoking work of non-fiction takes your full attention. Very different than skimming level of attention it takes to read a bullet point online article.

Life is already calmer. Ah.

Meditation

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Meditation is not just about sitting on a cushion paying attention to your breathe. It’s about cultivating a sense of inner peace.  It’s about focusing more on each moment as it occurs.

One of my favorite singers, Kelley Hunt, sings “These are the days, they are the best days of your life.” Meditation and other tools can help you let go of rehashing the past or planning the future and live your best days right now.

So what can you do?

  • Pay attention. Use all your senses and notice where you are right now. Color, sounds, temperature, movement, light, touch – it’s especially gratifying to do this outside.
  • Start and end each day with gratitude. Think of three new things you are grateful for. Write them down.
  • Try novelty. Look at a familiar object or a flower and list everything unique about it.
  • Meditate. Spend some time slowing down your fast paced mind. It’s like an antidote to cultural and technology ADD.

 

A Simple Meditation to Get You Started

Here’s a short introduction – completely free. Try it for three minutes every day on your own or use the audio clip for a longer experience. And let me know how it goes.

I’ve created a Meditation Basics eBook document that has some great background on meditation, the benefits of practicing and some simple ways to practice.

You can also listen to a Meditation Basics Audio Clip for a guided full body relaxation and short meditation.

Read and Listen

Download the Basic Meditation eBook

To listen to the meditation on this site, click the play button:

Or download the audio clip here Basic Meditation Mp3 Audio

To download on a PC: right click the link above and click “save target as”
To download on a Mac: control-click and click “save”

Simple and Free

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laura

Every day I strive to live life to the fullest. For me, living fully is rooted in freedom and simplicity. Fed by curiosity and nature. And expressed creatively in both solitary and collaborative ways.

But it’s taken quite a journey to get here.

I started my first consulting venture when I was 24 teaching people and companies how to use technology. I’ve loved much of the work I’ve done. Anywhere companies needed change or new systems, I analyzed, recommended, wrote and trained. I know the TSA routine at the airport too well.

My business consulting funded many adventures.

I’ve journeyed to Machu Picchu and the sacred mountains of Peru, the summit of Kilimanjaro and the top of many a Rocky Mountain.. I’ve witnessed a both a cheetah and a lion capture dinner and had an memorable encounter with a green mamba. I traveled solo deep into the Yukon with Keesha, my Siberian Husky . My tent has been my home for countless advenrues around North America.

Exploring my inner world earned me an MA in Theology and the ability to be a spiritual director, a forgiveness counselor, and a Tellington TTouch practitioner in training. I’ve studied with medicine people around the world, learned non-violent communication and equine assisted coaching. Along the way, I’ve told my stories on blogs, in speeches and videos.

Traveling expands my understanding of others and myself. I’ve learned that when we listen to the voices of nature and our own heart, we can tap into universal truth and find the stillness within.

But a number of events tumbled into and out of my life. Changes in the economy led to changes in the way I worked. I felt trapped, tethered to a cube, just putting in time.

So I started asking myself the question Steve Jobs asked himself every morning:

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

My answer was no. And no. And no. I decided to make a change. To be free. To live more simply. To share with others.

On a sunlit Autumn day, I left a beige cube, stepped out into the crisp clean air and declared to the trees, “I’m free!” Even if I continue to work for big companies, I know I’m free.

Free to share what I have learned from all my explorations through these articles, stories and new consulting services.  I hope you enjoy my stories and that in some small way, my words help you cultivate freedom and simplicity in your life.

Love Life Because Life’s All There Is

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I read a book about werewolves. Not my usual material.

In the story, the werewolf eventually accepts that he has to live as this monster. He comes to love his life as it is. He lets go of the big questions and just lives.

I’m there.

I’ve explored the metaphysical questions. Chased elusive clues down many paths. After all that, I have no solid answers. What I found surprised me.

I’ve dropped the questions.

I gave up wishing life were different. Explaining away suffering today for a glorious life as spirit. I now take little solace in hearing “her spirit is still with you” after a loved one dies. Maybe it’s true. But that being no longer lives. We no longer can touch or hear or taste or see. And it’s that sensory experience that makes life exquisite. And how we engage the world.

I believe what we will remember at the end of life is the love we’ve shared with others and our sensual memories. A song. The aroma of a wood fire or a pine tree. A lover’s touch. The sweetness of a fine wine. And the snapshot visions of our lives and loved ones.

This is not cynicism. I feel too much joy. This is not new age woo hoo. I’m too practical for that.

It is about living fully today. With whatever life is doling out at the moment. It’s about acceptance and compassion and even forgiveness. It’s about being wildly alive and reveling in your humanness. In all of your senses.

And that is the root of joy.

Gifts often come from obscure places. This one from a fun, but surprising book called The Last Werewolf.

As the werewolf says, love life because life’s all there is.

Beneath the Waves

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Patti Griffith’s “It Don’t’ Come Easy” never fails to bring tears to my eye. It’s like this song is the perfect bait for buried grief and longing. One night,  I was listening to this song as I got ready for bed, tears streaming down my face.

My whole life was in turmoil, waves crashing all around me. I had lost my partner, left my house, my family, my community, my job. My stuff was in storage and I was living in a room I rented from some good friends. Now Keesha, my Siberian Husky and best friend was dying.

As Keesha neared the end of her life, she refused to be inside and lived in a tent in the backyard, returning to her wild roots. I slept in the tent with her just like we’d done on so many cross country camping trips. As the November Minnesota nights grew frigid, I’d crawl inside the tent clad in flannel pajamas and long underwear, pull my wool hat over my ears, wiggle into my down sleeping bag and stroke her fur.

When she died, I wanted to cross that rainbow bridge with her.

But I’ve learned that if you take the path through the pain, not fight it or try to rush it, it does get better. And it did get better. I used every single tool and skill I’ve ever learned to forgive, heal and keep going from that life storm.

So I let the tears wash over me and through me. Dove deeply into the waves because that is the best and cleanest way to get past the breaking surf of grief and into calm waters. To feel it fully and let it go.

We all get tossed into the churning waters of life. May these words and Patti Griffith’s song make it a little easier to dive under the waves until your storm passes.

 

 

Fly Away

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By Laura D’Ambrosio

a robin
flew into the window
and fell
birds do that sometimes
knock themselves out
shake it off
fly away
this one shook it off
flew back into the glass
wings flapping
beak snapping
he smacked into the window
again
and again

I watched him
phone in hand
wondering
should I call her
give this
one more try

silly bird
shake it off
and fly away

Just a Nice Day

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By Laura D’Ambrosio

The ocean has always been soothing to me. Somehow the surf, the salt spray, the pelicans skimming the blueness, gulls torpedoing in for dinner, the grit in my toes, the abundance invisible beneath the surface, the sheer, vast, power of the sea call me home to myself. I crave, no I need, the sea and seek out beaches as I travel.

On Newport Beach after a long day with a client, my brain boiled with questions and worries. I walked slowly, my head down. As each wave curled over the sand and snuck back into the sea, sandpipers skittered at the edge of the foam and little bubbles popped on the wet sand. The bubbles are the trail of live seashells burrowing back into the cool, moist sand to avoid being washed out to sea or drying out on the surface. Maybe they are also frantically avoiding the long beaks of the sandpipers.

I paused, the frigid Pacific bathing my feet as my shoulders sought the sun’s warmth. The questions about my dwindling retirement account, the desert dry business climate, family agonies, and my own future slowed a little, just enough for my poetic mind to fire. “There’s got to be some philosophical meaning here. Some spiritual lesson I’m supposed to learn.” The writer in me longed to make sense of it all.

Maybe it’s how each of us needs the dark, moist times of our lives to grow, I pondered. Or I can write something about cycles and circles, rhythms and flows, fear and safety. Even the tired old “bury your head in the sand” cliché floated through my mind.

Then I got it. There is no overarching spiritual meaning, no philosophical analogy to be found, no deep lessons. Just the sun warming my skin, the sea creatures avoiding being lunch to a sandpiper, the surf rolling and crashing on the beach, the gulls and pelicans hunting as they skim the waves. And me, walking.  And now, paying attention.

It’s just a nice day. One moment of life. I kept walking.