“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

~*~ Harriet Tubman ~*~

Dear Ones,

It is with joy, exhilaration, and grace, and a fair amount of leaping toward the stars, that I have finally made concrete moves in the direction of my dreams. Being bi-polar in the past I have charged in so many directions at once, the proverbial bull in the china shop, just like the Taurus I am, leaving broken dreams and confusion all around me far too often. But now… now, with decades of therapy behind me, medications that help, a diet that is even lowering the dose of the medications I need to take, my whole body changing, and losing weight, and my long held spiritual practices growing deeper and deeper and deeper, this well composted soul in which my roots now grow, at 58, as the sands of time have turned the earth beneath me to black gold, I have finally realized that this time I have prepared properly. I have been taking business courses for online businesses for the better part of the last year. And I have been gathering up into my apron all that I am and all that I have to offer and looking at what I might have to give to the world.

I am a simple, humble woman living a contemplative life with a number of animals, a very large and fast growing garden, and from the time I wake up I am praying, often out-loud, surely a river of prayer and thanksgiving are always flowing through my heart. With even the smallest thing I whisper thank you, and when I hold a tiny, blind sleeping pug in my arms, give a multitude of kisses to the new grey parrot just arrived, snuggle the other little ones, and feel my heart surging with love and joy as I think of my children and grandchildren, I do truly believe that I am the luckiest woman in the world. I believe most of us can find it in our heart to see our way to our own version of this. And no, it is not that life is always easy, or that past scars have not changed the shape of who I might have been, but now I can embrace it all for if not every single thing that has brought me to this moment occurred, I would not be the woman that is writing these words. And I love her. I love the woman I have become and am becoming. I bow in gratitude.

And so, armed with all that I am learning, I sat down and made a list from childhood on, even the smallest seemingly unimportant things, that seemed to rise in my mind as things that I have known or done in my life that I might have learned from, that might add to the nature, the color of what I have to teach and to give, to see what my material might be. And so chronologically I list a number of disparate and rather ill-matched items on this list, and some will be laughably insignificant, but they are what come to me in this moment. So, here I go, from childhood to this day…

* Animal lover from the get go, from dogs, birds, fish, hamsters, mice, bunnies, baby chicks, tiny turtles and more, with the dark shadows that colored my early childhood animals were my dearest loves, my saving grace, mostly the dogs, and 58 years later it is still true and far more deeply so, today.

* Horsewoman. From young on I loved horses dearly and at 10 years of age got more first horse who changed the whole course of my life for the next several years. I rode English saddle and was like a fish IN water. winning so many trophies and ribbons my mother had a closet full of them. I was also hospitalized 7 times in 2 years, the result of acquiring a very frightened former race horse, a fairly young gelding, who threw me hither and yon and how my mother survived watching me driven off in ambulances so many times I will never know. It got to the point that the trophies gathered dust, I grew afraid of the very animals I loved, and I moved into my next phase, theater.

* From young on I would listen to Barbra Streisand’s records over and over, memorizing them all and singing them, in private, at the top of my lungs. A 13 year old torch singer who, though I didn’t have a bad voice and would go on to be very successful in musical theater for many years to come, was no threat to Barbra and never would be. But theater, too, was a saving grace. My childhood had become so dark it was easier to be someone other than who I was. And I was good at it, and I acquired lead after lead until the fateful day when I had outgrown my age/talent range and while okay the parts would go to younger, more gifted girls. I had a nervous breakdown at 18 and my life would never be the same again. But I grew so much and think so fondly of those theater years and it was those experiences, as well as the trophies in the closet from my horse show days, that showed me that I was more than the abuse that I was surviving. Somehow, though life would be a roller-coaster ride for decades, those things would stand me in good stead.

* I married a wonderful man at 20, by the time I was 29 I had three children, 2 girls and a boy, and what I learned through those years, well, there is no greater, more monumental growth that giving birth to these small precious miracles that I loved and treasured with all of my heart, but by the time I was 30, with 3 young children, I began what would be decades of intensive therapy for the terrible sexual and emotional abuse I suffered from 4 to 18. As I write this I ask you not to feel any angst, I no longer do, and this is a puzzle to many, but all of the therapy and all of the life since and around then has taught me so much, partly that we are, like horse shoes, forged in fire and pounded on an anvil to be transformed into the shape we will become. Too, finally, we have a choice. We can let these experiences darken our world forever, be the albatross we carry forever around our neck, or we can let go the beast and begin to see who we are moving forward. Also, holding on to anger, shame, fear, and all the rest does not serve us, it can destroy us, and it has made for very hard times in my life, BUT, having survived these times, and even having to take medication and live a very different life than most people understand, has taught me that there is no one right way to be in the world, and that we can live a rich and fulfilling life no matter what we have survived, and who we are today.

There! Now there’s something I would like to write about and teach. There will be hard times, and yet more joy than you can imagine. And I am filled with joy. A quiet, peaceful joy, more than I can tell you. Yes, this will be a very important part of my work.