This I Know For Sure...

This morning I have a ZOOM meeting with a few people from the church that I attend. I was invited last week by one of the sweetest voices that I haven't heard in a very long time. All attendance has been cancelled of course since the pandemic began. What I noticed right when I heard her voice was a lift in my physical heart, it brought a deep knowing and smile to every part of me.
I've missed seeing, sharing and hearing from these people that I have grown in community with there since I was a little girl. They are my family too. They love me. They know me.
I have felt that positive surge and joyful anticipation for a few days now and this morning I get to see them, talk with them and I know already that it will be good. It will be goodness. It will be filled with love and joy.

How do I know this? I know this because I have learned to trust in love and it's ever present presence. I know what love feels like and I am deeply blessed because of it in my life.  Over and over again I have experienced this love in my lifetime and know that it resides deeply in everyone of us and never dies. Sometimes is is dormant. Sometimes we lose sight of it. Sometimes we don't FEEL it anymore, especially in the midst of so much loss, pain, grief and fear... but it is still there.

Love is a voice, a memory, a smell, it is the life blood of our hearts. It fuels the very breath that allows us to even exist and do all of the things that we do. For me, love, that one small thing creates purpose, passion, reasons for why we even try sometimes, it surges through, it perseveres, in our thoughts, in our words, in our actions.

Today, I am choosing love. I am trusting that it will rise up from my heart, into my mind and filter through my hands, voice and with every step I take and in every decision I make today.
In gratitude and with all the love that I have been able to receive in my life, I return it to all of you! For without it I can do nothing and with it I have everything I have ever needed.

Love is hope.

Love Always,
Denice

Being Transparent...

This week has been a week.. To all that is good, holy, solid and full of incredible amounts of depth and grace I pray!
I really don't even have words to tell you the truth. I am feeling EVERYTHING in ways that I have never felt before. Even as I write these words my physical and emotional response in mind, body and spirit are struggling to wrap themselves around something that I truly don't think can be attained just now. I think what can be attained right now, for me personally, is to just feel it all and hold fast, pause... in doing that it makes me super uncomfortable but what I am noticing is that being uncomfortable is part of all of this too.

I am holding a spiritual space for the state and health of our world, country and humanity. Holding space in prayer, by listening deeply, by creating a safe place for anyone to share or process their own feelings. Being a vessel for others, feeling compassion and witnessing where they are at with true empathy, not with words, talking, advice, guidance or fix it plans, this can get really heavy but I feel it is just as important as what is happening on the front lines in our world right now. People need and want to be heard and seen, and we need to see, listen and acknowledge their pain at every level. We can all do that. This is where I will begin by being transparent and vulnerable.
There is so much grief, fear, despair, anger, violence and anguish surrounding everyone that the vibrations of our entire world are shifting. I don't mean that in a loopy wild hippie kind of way, I mean that in the most authentic and truest witness of all that is encircling us, it is palpable.

Many of you know me personally, some as an acquaintance, some from wherever our paths have crossed, maybe some of you are reading this for the first time and want to know more about this lady, maybe some could care less and that is all good, but however this lands and whomever is wanting to know more, this is my clear and present self, transparent and vulnerable, an offering of sorts. I'm going to trust my intuition today. Bare with me, I am treading water too.

I am a woman. A person of deep organized and holistic faith. I am a teacher and guide for others with their mind body and spiritual wellness. I am an herbalist. I am a writer. I am a healer. I am a maker. I am a partner, mother, daughter, sister, neighbor and friend, a native Mainer. I am a 20 year veteran Navy wife. I am an "A Unit" to my husband's law enforcement family, dispatchers, brothers and sisters in blue and just this week, a mother of a brand new law enforcement officer/sheriff deputy.

There are no colors in any of these roles, identities or labels if you will, but the later one makes my whole self surge in its entirety with fight or flight response for love and concern of my own tribe and family. What a time to begin I thought as my son drove into the fire, following in his father's footsteps and the desire of his heart. Yes, I thought again.. what a perfect time to begin. He will be the new standard, the new foundation we are all crying for, taking all that is good, in the midst of witnessing all that is intolerable, tragic and archaic, learn a better way and bring it home to our communities. This is my prayer.

I don't do drama. I hate gossip and I try very hard to not run with the nuttiness, talk without action and I do my best to hold fast when everything around me is out of my control, I am a pretty simple person, but I too want to be heard and seen. Witnessed. Acknowledged. Not in the social media circus kind of way or big, loud extremism. I want to be seen in how I navigate this shit storm with what we have left after each day, as a family, a community, small business and after every 10,12 & 14 hour shift is done all while holding fast to what we value as families, as a state, country, world once this war torn time is behind us. I want to be seen in how we will begin to heal each other.

How will I begin? Today it will be in my silence, in my prayer, in my invisible action. I believe that sometimes my inaction, not to be mistook as apathy creates a safe space and balance for others. Those others numbed by their essential duties, those others that have to go back into the fire everyday.
I couldn't do what they do, in the front lines on that level, but by being here and "not going there" I create a pause and place that is not angry, hostile or grief laden but one that steady, healing, supportive and full of love. I believe that is essential.
I am a privileged white woman from a small town and island on the coast of Maine, but I am an anchor in this storm. I am breathing kindness and I am love in action. I am here, I am listening and I see you too.

"and the greatest of these is love..."
Always,
Denice

What's Next?? What's Next??

Good Morning!
Awake early today, but not unreasonably so. Seems my body clock has adjusted to puppy time zone and to my surprise Matt(hubby) was already up and Miss Willow was already being tended too. A blissful moment as I realized this was a first.

This Saturday will be seven weeks of being a single early morning dog mom to Miss Willow. Matt's evening shifts have always left me my early a.m time to myself, for writing, pondering, reading, praying or whatever else shows up in those wee hours. Adding Willow to the mix wasn't too much of a shift except for six of those seven weeks I haven't had as much freedom to do those kinds of things fully and have been up far earlier then my past life would have allowed for.  Lol.. B.W.(before Willow), was there such a time?? :)

It felt good to lay their for a little while. I listened to the birds from a different slant around the house. The sun was shining through the bottom crack of the room darkening shade and the whirr of the mini fan near Matt's side of the bed was still going. Summer's coming.

Lying there I thought about the day ahead. The last couple of weeks we have been in garden mode, yard mode, puppy mode and the last couple of days, birthday mode with our youngest turning 24!! Twenty Four! It can't be true.. but so it is, time just kinda flies doesn't it. So, with all of those pieces in place and seemingly behind us I thought... What's next?

What's next? Mmmmm... Too many things I'm afraid sometimes. I'm getting kinda tired of "task mode" and could use a little space, some retreat time to just enjoy the fruits of our labor, watch things evolve a bit, have a little dreamy time to wonder or be creative, to read, walk or get my cruiser non gear bike on the road.. get the kayaks out... pause.

I am definitely THAT person in our relationship. THE CREATOR OF THE PAUSE. My dear Type A has no off switch and for some reason just can't seem to relax when he's home. He touts that the "work" relaxes him, but I differ in that thought. I think the task being finished relaxes his inner list, but it just never ends... To my reply... UGH!! What's next is his first, middle and last name in that department and after a while, this creative, maker, dreamer gets a little undone, cranky and resistant to anything MORE.. so I have to draw a hard line. Well, I think it's a hard line, but he just looks up, sometimes... from whatever he might be doing like hammering the nails back into the deck(insert eye roll) and states... "well if I don't do it, it'll never get done."
Mmmm.. his statement is entirely true and we both know this, but... then my reply is usually, "well, if you get hit by a bus this afternoon, will it matter? Followed by, "Let's go do something else, anything else!"

So, this did actually happen in real time today and I can attest to you now that the pause will be happening around lunch time. The motorcycle is ready to go, Willow takes a three hour nap in her crate and we will NOT be doing anything else except creating a pause before we even think or talk about, what's next!

Enjoy your day friends!! What is your go to pause? Share here in the comments below if you want or share the blog on social media with someone you think might need a little pause. Peace Always,
Denice

Doing Hard Things...

Waking up this morning on this beautiful island in Harpswell, Maine the air is sweet, thick, palpable.

The sun shimmering through the foggy leftovers of last nights heavy cloud covering has left a haziness over the wet grass and the birds were ecstatic in the trees.

I can smell the wild strawberries, the bursting lilacs from the front of the yard and the light salt of mid tide. It feels like a whisper from the earth and an assurance for my heart that all will be well.

The last six weeks I have gotten up so much earlier with the puppy then I usually would. 
Initially it was grudgingly, but it has become less so with each week that has passed. 
Witnessing the shift into spring with all her fickle glory has been a unexpected blessing. From the frozen ground, spring snow and ice to the first pips of every blade of grass, every flower, each returning perennial and every bud and leaf on the trees. I've been able to watch and connect with everything that surrounds our little haven on the hill here and I feel really grateful for that now. This pandemic has run parallel to this very opposite experience for me and has brought with it a beautiful distraction and groundedness.


The first month was tough, I admit I was reading the fine print of this little fur balls contract from the breeder wondering if I could return her and not be a total loser for doing so.. but then another day would pass, and another bird would sing a morning song so loud that you forgot you only slept four hours and aren't bleeding anymore from the razor teeth attached to the prancing demon at the other end of the leash.
God help me she is too cute!!

I think now, dear Willow and I have figured a few things out in this time, while she sleeps behind my chair this morning as I write. Our greatest lessons sometimes are taught to us in the midst of our struggles, and if I am patient those "ah ha" moments come in a quiet reveal when I least expect them.

Maybe mine came today. My lesson that I too can do hard things, a day at a time over the long term and emerge awake and alive with new life in the end of it. Today I felt encouraging to receive it, delivered in the fog and illuminated by the sun that made its way through the wake in the trees.


Smiling now in my heart now as we trudge through the routine of our morning, our new normal, together.

Willow trots along, does all her business and we both smell the sweetness and the hope of the new day, she smiles looking right back at me knowingly... we'll keep each other, and all will be well.

Have a good day peeps!!

Peace Always,
Denice & Willow Grace

Progress Not Perfection

It's Friday!! Not just any Friday, but THE Friday of Memorial Weekend!

Flags are out, the cemeteries are fully manicured and are in all their celebratory glory to remind us, to remember! To remember all those who have gone before us, but more importantly those who have served in our military, fought for our freedoms and instilled in us a grounding sense of who we are and where we come from! I am humbled and grateful on so many levels for their sacrifice and lives lived! Thank you!

This weekend also starts the planting season and the warmer side of Maine's recreational season. Summer is creeping up on us in a few short weeks and in so many ways it's looking very different for all of us this year. But, some things will remain the same, this is what I am clinging to and am watering in my own life moving forward.

Usually, all of these moving parts of the upcoming season are inspiring, thought provoking and a glorious space of time for us outdoor enthusiasts and planners, always in hope of good times ahead for all of us, even this year, in the midst of a lock down, quarantine, social distancing global pandemic. Who would have thought right?... Gloves on!

What's on your docket for the weekend and upside down summer ahead?

For me.. I've decided to hit the ground, praying I can maintain a slow and steady pace with forward momentum, as I have a controlled crash list of planting, pruning, tending, camping, cooking, building, preserving and cultivating that will hopefully weave itself organically throughout the course of the weekend, into next week and stretch itself out into the undetermined summer ahead. But for now, in the next few days, I'll be a full on, Mary, Mary quite contrary.. how does your garden grow dirt maven!

I'll possibly curse the days ahead when the yield comes in, God willing of course, and the blanching, freezing, canning and the like begin to happen in the heat of the humid, sticky summer..

Note to self... pull up the summer tide chart because the ledge crawling at high tide here is a blissful baptismal renewal when those days are hot and intolerable. I can not wait for that! Nothing better then the ocean to cure all that ails you! My all time favorite thing of summer, says this old mermaid.

I'll post another entry once things are underway, but for now my goal will be simple... even in the midst of my grand plans, mapped garden plots and piles of seeds and starts.. My goal will be to remember.. that it's ALWAYS the process that heals me in everything I do. So in this too.. progress not perfection for our weekend, my garden, the summer ahead and with every daily choice in my life.

This is where I will begin.

Happy Memorial Day Gang!

Peace Always,
Denice

Imagine...

Today, if you could close your eyes and imagine a time in your life that you could magically go back to, where would it be?

Like a prayer, close your eyes and imagine that time, that place, what does it look like? Feel like? Smell like? The only thing you can bring with you is the you you are now. Where would you go?



Half asleep, lying in my twin bed that is shored up against the log cabin wall closest to the waters edge. I am at our camp on the New Meadows River, 10 years old, it is early summer.

The windows, screened ran all along the outer wall of the enclosed cabin porch and had old rod iron arms that stretched and lock them open. On this night they are partially open. The air is thick with a foggy mist, not over salt laden like home on Great Island, but wet enough so when you walked down the hill to the outhouse your nighty and skin were damp from it.

Lying in bed the only light on in the camp was the one beside my fathers chair where he sat, feet up, reading the newest paperback thriller from Bookland and listening to the RedSox game on the transistor radio to the left of his chair. That light illuminates the rafters above my head, casting shadows in the corners making the spider webs more iradesent and somehow larger then the daytime.

Dad's chest clearing cough was comforting, he was always there and falling asleep was easy.

Eyes still closed... I explore the world around me, almost always outdoors. At 10, I can be anything I want to be as long as I am not in the way of the dailiness of the house hold. I have finished my chores that are posted and expected to be done without asking and am off to busy myself with any variety of things.

I am a mermaid, if the tide is high in the alcoves of the brackish water. Canopies of tall oaks and maples surround me as I swim off the ledges transforming from mermaid to harbor seal back to a little girl. I can hear my voice echo with the smallest of whoo hoo's, it is peaceful here.



I am a writer, at my little desk that my niece now has in her downtown apartment. I am writing stories, secret diary entries, comic strips, letters, poems and if I am at a loss, transcribing long stanzas from old books that mom would buy from antique shops or estate auctions. It is fun and feels very collegic.


The writer becomes a secretary at a real estate office, "Baribeau Real Estate, how can I help you?" This memory, I am bouncing around in my father's truck, running his errands with him and am awe struck by how much fun it would be to have a phone at my little desk and pretend I was that fancy secretary too!  Then the secretary turns into a bank teller with extra deposit slips tucked in my drawer that Dad would let me take along with a bank pen when we went there as well. After hours the writer, the secretary and the bank teller would become an artist. Collage, coloring and painting materials would all come out and nothing was off limits.

Closing my eyes and imagining a time like this, even just for a few minutes brings a joyful remembrance and a peaceful calm in a time that is uncertain. At 10, I didn't know what was going to happen from day to day either. I was safe where I was as long as I was home and lived within the confines of what others, mostly the ones that I trusted and could count on deemed important and for my safety. The rest of the world could fall away and I wouldn't have known any different.

Today we do know all about the world, all the options, all the scenarios, worse case and best. But the knowing of it doesn't seem to help right now. We can watch the news till our eyes fall out but it doesn't seem to help much or make anything better for us today.

So, my simple practice today will be, not to stick my head in the sand, but to just close my eyes for a while, imagine myself in some other time or place, embrace the feeling, the sights and sounds that surrounds me there and bring them back here, to share.


Where will you go? Share this with someone who you feel might need to read it too if you want.

photo credit: judygarlandasdorothy.com

"We're not in Oz anymore Dorothy"... but that's ok, because for today I'm going to imagine that there is no place like home and home for me is to be 10~

Happy Friday Gang!

Cheers,
Denice

Realize and Remember...

“While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.”
~Maya Angelou 

Disappointment can throw me for a loop. Probably a collective thought for many. What I conjure in my mind and what reality shows up with at my door can lift me to heights of squirrelly head time, turning over old hurts and unresolved conflicts in my heart that have absolutely no business in any current moment, day or situation. 

"What did you expect?"

That question, I've asked myself so many times in quiet reflection after the fact, and now after many, many years of inner work and navigation I pause when I ask it. I pause because I know better now. 

I have learned that to have expectations of myself or others is a direct bulls eye aim for disappointment and damn... it happens every time, I hate that!  

Figuratively speaking of course.. from my contemplative sleepy state this morning, forgive me for over sharing.. :) My only expectation last night was to sleep, and look at the hot mess I've become from that little gem! (insert eye roll). Onward!!

Perusing through some of the open tabs on my computer this morning, I was inspired by the quote above. What a powerhouse spirit Maya was and still is. Her life and what she shared with all of us resonates far and wide.. and will forever no doubt. Sometimes I expect that level of presence or return in my own life... not today though :) 

The simplicity of her visual message was all it took to shift my current mindset and change the course of every moment I share today, with myself, my loved ones, the earth, my work.. and boil it all down to, I am just tired. No big thing.

The puppy was up and down last night,(but I have a puppy!!). My "sugar free" peppermint ice cream didn't settle well, wired me up like a ten day clock around midnight just the same(but I thoroughly enjoyed that ice cream).  Her quote tempered me, helped me shift course and come back to the moments of this day and this time.. One simple truth is powerful! We are powerful. The one thing we do today might cause that shift for someone else~funny how that works. 

So, if I'm feeling a bit sensitive today, I don't have to accomplish much, I can take it easy a bit.. it's not the end all, be all of my life.. ( I have a life, I am healthy, I have a bed.. and a puppy!!)  I just don't hang very well when I am tired. 

Today, I will, Keep it Simple..

For today, when my inner spirit is all like.. let do this and this and this... my mind and body can look at her sidelong and nod their collective heads.... mmmmm, no.


I think we are all kind of tired. Tired of the collective "this", and that's ok too. 

I am certain, without a doubt that all of the HomeGoods, TJMaxx and HobbyLobby signs that tout, "Let's Stay Home" will collectively be in the clearance bin come June 1st. Ha! 

To end... 


"Ripples in the ocean from one beautiful stone plunged high and deep, roll on forever until they meet the shore they are destined to touch.." 
This morning, Maya, your ripple touched my shore and I am grateful. Thank you. 
~my reflection above, divinely inspired, of course. 

So, today, I am choosing to press my RESET button.. Flush my expectations of what could have been, should have been, last night, this morning or yesterday and tired or not, try my very best to see what is in front of me the way Maya describes above. 


My only expectation today will be of myself. 

To witness God's creations that abound and surrounds me, shine light on them and say thank you.


Happy Monday Peeps.. 

Cheers! 

Denice 

Pickling Ferns & Milking Oats..

A quick post today as the sun is shining, snow is on the horizon for tomorrow and it's Mother's Day on Sunday.. a lot of to do's on this quarantine Friday where one day really doesn't feel like any other but we are trying really hard to pretend that it does, so here's the scoop!

Yesterday we had a little luck in the fiddlehead department. Found a few here and there, worked hard for them but ended up with just under 2lbs cleaned. We/I decided to try some pickling instead to put them up this year. We usually blanch and freeze them, but pickling is just a couple extra steps and if there are extras we could still freeze some or save them for dinner over the next couple of nights! Score!

I was so excited when I saw the first little cluster!! We have gotten them up north but are trying to stay closer to home of course and had been on a mission.. Matt inquired with a friend too and he set us off in the right direction! Super grateful for that because fiddlehead grounds are hard won secrets just like fishing ones, so I just picked a few. :)

Will report back in two weeks when we can try the tiny harvest!

Also, on the home front this morning I thought it might be fun to share another fun piece. A few months back, a friend shared with me that her children and her were discussing sustainable choices in milk. They have a farm along with a milking cow or two, but the girls were discussing more so about plant derived milks and which of those would be the least impactful to our environment. Kids today!! :) Anyway, Almond was out! The steps to grow almonds, water, land, time etc was well beyond sustainability so they moved down the list.. Rice, coconut, hemp, oat.. From what I remember of the conversation they made a few of those options at home so they could try them.. (that process could be another blog post in and of itself, more on that later.) I'll be brief.

After all of the experimenting they decided that OATS, aka Oatmilk was the winner. I of course wanted to hear all of the details on how they did what and the process of it all.

So, that being a few months ago, I too have been making my own quarts of this very creamy, sustainable and always fresh available milk. It's so easy and it's really very good! I sweeten it just a bit with maple syrup and voila!! Milk. :)

I love the idea! I love the goodness that runs full circle with it. But mostly I love that two very intuitive, smart young little girls had the freedom and access to this whole idea and its process. They thought well beyond the cooler at the grocery store and to them, it's just no big thing, this is their normal! Well done Mom!! #erinonthefarm

Have a blessed weekend everyone & Happy Day to ALL those Mothers in the world~ But most
especially to mine! Love you Mummy!!

Cheers,
Denice

New Beginnings Till The End...

Somewhere along the line, way back in time I evolved as a self proclaimed beginner.

I love to explore, do creative things and am always open to what something could be... the possibilities are endless! This process is almost always apart of my dailyness. It's not a bad thing, I can't really help it and honestly I don't really want to. It's kind of who I am.

On the other hand, my follow through isn't always great. Not on every level, because I do get a lot of things accomplished, they are just not the things that are important to some or are not on the never ending preverbial list.. Oiy!!

Spring Seedlings

But, I have found that if you leave me alone long enough and don't distract me with some other thing that has no baring on my own circular process or thinking, I get to the finishing of it in my own way and in my own time.

This pandemic and full time isolation at home with a linear minded partner is a bit of a challenge. For both of us.

Ginger Chili Lime Shrub

Most of the time I roll into the day with new plans, ideas, concoctions and then he wakes up... haha.. plods along, follows his list and in a very orderly fashion gets his own things done. I melt into the ground at the thought.. :)

Unfortunately, in the very best way, I think I drive him nuts most of the time. He is very sweet and quiet about it as a rule, but he continues to try to organize me and keep me tucked neatly into a box and I continually bust out all over the place.. (house being the box...)

When I am home or we are home together, my blooming, decocting, eclectic projects, piles and creative messiness sprawl about "the box" and he makes it his mission to follow around behind me putting everything away, ordered in some way and swept up, a bit too many times I'm afraid. I tell him to leave it but somehow he just can't..

Naan Fiddlehead Pizza

Homemade Naan

It is a choreographed dance we have crafted over 32 years of a life together, it works for us, but in small bites.. not pandemic levels!!

We are both relieved I think when he has to go to work at his essential job and we can take a much needed break from all that dancing! Phew! :)




Enters... the puppy!!

Willow's First Ride

Now he is outnumbered.. Thank God! I have an ally! There is no putting this little lady in a box and she even
throws up and poops in the car! Chews the legs of the tables, chairs, shoes... runs a buck eighty with razor sharp teeth straight for your bare legs and it's either rangle that girl or make sure you've got plenty of band aides.. Zoomies we call those bursts of crazy.. anyone with a dog knows what these are.. Zoomies are wild and random and full of life!! They make all three of us excited, breathless and scared all at the same time and it's wonderful after the dust settles and we can relax or take a nap.

Post Zoomies

I'm grateful for Willow, our little furry and I am grateful for my dear one and all of his attention to detail. There's no one I'd rather do this life trek with!

But for now, my messy new ideas, random projects and piles pale in comparison to Zoomies, throw up and poop so I get to fly under the radar for a while..

Have a great day!!
Denice

Favorite Dance Partner