The Experiment: Day 113 ~ Naked Like A Hermit Crab…

I think this looks pretty much exactly like me as I have lived most of my life, staring out of my shell of anxiety and depression terrified, even as my shell got too tight and pinched and hurt I wouldn’t move. What has happened since I started this 365 day project 113 days ago, is nothing short of a miracle. Just doing these blog posts everyday, searching for happiness, trying to imagine that I could be happy, and wondering how and just trying every single day to find a spark of happiness. And it became a spiritual practice, getting up each morning and beginning to feel joyful about all the hours ahead of me in which to experience all the beautiful things I never thought possible, and many that I never even imagined. And then I started the ketogenic diet and started losing weight and feeling miraculously wonderful, and now I’m 3 months into it and just amazed at the changes with everything from my physical health to my emotional health. I could take the tight shell no longer so I shimmied and shook and stretched and of Lordy Moses I CAME OUT! I have shed the old way of being but haven’t quite found my way into a whole new way of living and being.

I feel so naked!

How darling are they? I have become so enchanted with them I decided to get a pair, a little gift for myself, companions for the new year, but I have to get my studio cleaned up and organized first. I have started writing a new book and it is serious for me, for the first time in a very long time, and I want everything to be just right. I am re-creating my working space. And what clinched it for me, really deciding that I actually would get hermit crabs, was this article, How To Play With Your Hermit Crabs. How delightful is that?

So now I am looking for a roomy new shell to inhabit. It will be bright and beautiful and far more spacious and it will have lots of room for happiness and joy all around, as if the shell is lined with clouds, no more sharp edges, a soft, comfortable, cushy, cozy place to rest and live and work in. Look, won’t I be lovely?

Just look how happy and adorable that little face is, and see how spacious the shell is that surrounds her?

(I keep wanting to put smiley faces all over this post!)

Who are your new spirit animals for the journey, and what kind of new world and surroundings are you creating for yourself in 2018? I’m just delighted with the idea of new little magical beings to share life with the pugs and I. I also intend to get a beautiful new Beta fish. I think his name will be Harold, it feels like a Harold is coming, but of course I have to meet him before I know for sure. I have always had one in my work space but my last one died before the fire and I never got another one. It’s time. And yet another way to invite more magic in this year.

I just have to share with you, as I close, a little piece of sweet magic I just experienced. I glanced up at the long wall of windows on the front of my studio, just around the corner from the wall where all the bird feeders hang. I have seen quite a lot of beautiful cardinal couples coming to the feeders and I have so loved seeing them, but as I glanced out to the beautiful red camellia bush I was startled to see that it was full of cardinals and they were all staring right in at me! We had a sacred moment of communion. It was a blessing. I felt it down to my toes. So much amazing beauty and grace has come to me from the simple act of hanging the five bird feeders and keeping the squirrels food going, taking more out two and sometimes three times a day.

I myself am a hermit, and I need a carapace, a cocoon around me to feel safe, but we have choice in the kind of home we will inhabit. Mine is looking more beautiful than I ever imagined it could. I am finally finding my way home…

 

 

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. playing with hermit crabs? now i’ve heard of everything!!! do they live in a big cage or what?

    and oh, this new book, hmmm, could it be about this blog and what it has meant?
    i sure wonder

    xo
    ka

    • Hello Darling Ka,

      You keep them in an aquarium. See here:

      https://www.wikihow.com/Care-for-Hermit-Crabs

      And Katya, I’m not going to be talking publicly about the book for some time. If I talk about it too soon I have an energy leak and it’s hard to keep up with it, but you might get a little something in an email when you least expect it! 😀

      I hope you and Tom have a lovely weekend. Hug him for me!

      M. xoxox

  2. This post makes me want to clap and say “yay”! What happiness and positive energy! I don’t know if I have a spirit animal- I will have to think about that…….

    • Ha Lorraine, yes, hermit crabs make me happy! 😀 Something about those bright eyes and funny little faces and the way they move, how could you NOT be joyful just watching them? I’m so excited to bring some in to join the family. Wonderful to bring other living things into your world!

  3. My new shell as I lose weight on the ketogenic diet is in my new smaller clothes. Partly due to cost and partly due to shyness about it, until just recently I have mostly continued to wear my large exercise clothing to the different classes I attend. But now that I have lost 25 pounds, most things just hang off me! So I have gotten a few new things. Many people did not really notice how much weight I have lost until I showed up in smaller clothing. It’s kind of funny that people just keep seeing you the way they always have. Some have been stunned that I look so different in clothes that fit. Of course I have received many compliments, but I also feel kind of exposed and vulnerable because now those people are really looking at me, and seeing me differently from before. It’s definitely an adjustment. I have been this smaller size in the past, but it has been several years and people do forget. I felt like I was going out on a limb wearing smaller clothes but it does actually feel better. Today I ordered myself a couple more pairs of pants that will actually fit instead of going around in my baggy jeans. 🙂

    I think your plans for new pets sounds like it will add additional vibrant energy to your space.
    Your cardinal experience sounds just beautiful!

    • Oh Joan that is SO wonderful, congratulations! I know you look terrific. I can’t imagine what that will be like. I have lost 25 pounds — after a nearly 2 month stall I am losing again thank God! — but I have so much weight to lose while you can tell I’ve lost some, especially in my face, I’ll have a long way to go before I look REAL different, especially since I used to have closets full of all sizes from going up and down and I would have had something smaller to go back into BUT I lost all my clothes with the fire and from kind donations from people pieced a wardrobe back together BUT I had gotten so big I live in caftans and loose flowy dresses and such and they are ALL big and I don’t know how to afford clothes as I go down through several sizes! I haven’t figured that out yet! I think when I lose a good chunk of weight I’ll buy some BELTS to take things in for awhile. I will have to be creative. And yes, once I get this studio all cleaned up and organized I will invite more life in! And yes, the cardinal experience was deeply touching… 🙂

  4. My spirit animals are smiley faces 🙂 I love them. They make me feel happy. I have them in my room and my coffee cup is a smiley face. I even have them on my fun page on Facebook. See I created my fun page so that if I felt down or sad I could start searching the internet for fun things or funny things.
    I need my quiet space too, to refuel.
    I’m looking forward to hearing more about your pet and your book. And oh yes, did you ever look up Cardinal Medicine? Looks like you got messages, but then you already know that.
    Much Love, Jean

    • Oh Jean! I absolutely LOVE that!!! “My spirit animals are smiley faces!” Ha ha ha! 😀

      And yes, a quiet space, to refuel. I play music once in awhile but really I prefer the quiet. I listen to the pugs breathing with their darling little snores, and I hear the birds singing outside and the silence just feels good to me.

      Oh Cardinal Medicine! You know I used to really be into spirit animals and I’m getting back to them. I will go look at Cardinal Medicine right now! Thank you so much honey! 🙂

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