owl & crow

stephanie anderson ladd

Blogging without flogging and remembering to breathe

Twitt

p1013873Hi! I’ve been trying to get to this blog for a week, but I’ve been too busy living large, and I refuse to make this my ball and chain. I was delighted, in fact, to find there is a movement called Blogging Without Obligation, or, as I like to think of it, Blogging Without Flogging. I’m still struggling with why am I doing this anyway? Does anyone care? And I’ve come to the conclusion it doesn’t matter who reads this or how many people read this; it’s a way to have a voice and it’s a way to connect and to create, and if it’s just for me and I’m shouting into the wind, so be it. I’m willing to let it evolve and see what comes…

So, about living… since Chloe has been out of school for two weeks now, we have had quite a fun-filled vacation so far. A visit from Diana and Elena, which was a welcome reprieve from the reality of needing to generate more income and find a new home come September, kept us going for a full week. We made a quick trip to Beaufort, second oldest town in North Carolina, and rife with ship and pirate lore.

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From there we took a safari tour of Shackleford Island, where a herd of 120 wild horses roam (descendents of horses who swam to shore 500 years ago from Spanish galleons who dumped them overboard to lighten their load or else swam to shore from sinking ships). After hiking the 9-mile long, uninhabited island and getting to view these beautiful creatures up close, including two newborns, we spent the rest of the day picking up seashells and swimming in the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the sound on the other. And then home again, home again, jiggety jig.

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We ushered in summer on the Solstice by taking a  3-hour canoe trip down the Haw River, not far from our home. It was a little more arduous than we girls (Diana and Elena in one canoe and Martha—my brother-in-law’s adorable girlfriend—and me in another) had bargained for, but Rob loved spending his Father’s Day canoeing his daughter down a lazy river. Bill, my brother-in-law, paddling with Martha’s son, Talis. and Rob, paddling with Chloe, made it look easy (damn their early days spent on all sorts of boats).

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The visit with Diana and Elena ended too quickly, and no sooner was I back into reality than panic threatened to set in: We only have two months before Matt and Andrea come back from Greece to reclaim their house and for us to find a new home (it’s so important for me to find one I love) as we continue to build our new life here. I am having to work on TRUST. I am having to remember to EMBRACE THE CHAOS, which is the antidote to panicking. I am waiting for my professional license to arrive and meanwhile I am working on BEING more in the moment, living with the uncertainty, and doing what I can, when I can. Breathe, I remind myself, just breathe.

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This entry was posted by on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 11:05 pm and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

I am in a stage of new beginnings, of starting over on the other side of the continent from California, where I spent 38 years of my life. Moving to North Carolina was a bit of a shock to my system. Not so much culture shock but the shock of transplanting myself and starting over as a therapist, artist, and wild woman. I had to figure out how I was going to do it differently than I had been doing it. Because I knew I needed to change the way I worked outwardly to match the way I was feeling and moving inwardly and make it more playful, and at the same time, deep and meaningful. I knew I wanted to work with women primarily, to help them find their way on the heroine's journey to wholeness. I knew I wanted to bring more creative expression to my work because that was what was working for me--a way to bypass all the analytical thinking, perfectionism, and psychological paradigms largely created by men, and find more more intuitive ways of Being, Creating and Flowing with Life, in keeping with the Divine Feminine. I like working with the triple goddess: maiden, mother and crone, which describes the three stages of life as well as inner states of being--the innocent/adventurer; the nurturer and active doer; and the wise being who has the advantage of overview and doesn't care as much what others think of her as long as she is being true to herself. The triple goddess is found in most all cultures and traditions and helps us move out of dualistic thinking patterns and find our way to a more integrated and balanced way of life. As I forge a new path, I want to connect with women all over the world, to help women own their power, and to both explore and offer tools for self-discovery and self-care. Creating my interactive e-book, "In the Lap of the Goddess: Connecting With the Divine Feminine," and my Goddess Temple e-courses based on the workbook are my offerings, a way to share with women the knowledge and wisdom we all hold within us, reflected in the goddess throughout history, across time, and in every corner of the world.

Comments

One Response to “Blogging without flogging and remembering to breathe”

  1. marjean says:
    June 26, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    I just found your blog and I am enjoying it very much. Thanks for pointing me to Blogging Without Obligation. I’m a new blogger myself (about three months) and already I am feeling that posting is something I have to do, therefore it is loosing some of it’s appeal. Time to step back and write only when something inspires me.

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