March Doldrums

There comes a time in a Northern Michigan March when I am a bit disagreeable. I’m stuck in the doldrums.

One moment, the very thing to do is get up and out. To turn my face to the sun, if I’m lucky, and move; move anywhere as long as my back is to winter.

But still, it is winter here in the North. We know to not be fooled. Some of our worst winter storms come in March. And so, beware you novices to Northern winters. As often happens immediately after that urge to move, you will find yourself being sucked into the couch with the duvet up to your chin. Like Mars, the Roman God of War, March can easily do battle with your desires.

I’ve seen March days so stunning I’m flying a kite over an open field with the warm sun on my face and breezes that feel almost tropical at my back. And I’ve experienced March days so cold the creek is frozen over. Most often though, the warm but heavy March snowstorms are what take me down. One day, I’m thinking I’ll not have to move another bit of snow from the driveway. All that remains will surly melt. The next day I’m thinking maybe I’ll have to finish my winter travels to and from the garage in 4-wheel drive.

Oh, March! Your “In like a lion and out like a lamb” is nothing more than a traitorous saying designed to give us hope but, instead, slaps us silly and walks away laughing, leaving us licking wounds in a pile of slush.

Let's Do Better

I've been away for awhile. I lost my precious pup, Jersey, in October and after 15+ years with her by my side, I felt paralyzed.

We are at the tail end of Fall and here in Northern Michigan everything is slowing down. I still manage to sit on the front porch with my morning cup of coffee, watching the stars twinkle out as dawn approaches. But it's quite a bundling I have to do to make that happen. Over my flannel pajamas goes a down vest and then a fleece jacket. A hat on my head, mittens on my hands and wool socks on my feet complete my ensemble. It's not pretty but it works. One cup of hot coffee and I'm ready to come back in. But it's a morning ritual I'm reluctant to give up. Perhaps the chair will stay on the porch all winter this year. We'll see. Come on over. We'll share a cup. On the mornings that the stars are out, it's really quite spectacular.

Now that we are a few weeks away from elections here in the U.S. I can't help but scream...Let's Do Better! Every year the election process gets uglier as candidates run less on their political views and more on attempts to scare us. The fearful banter that was floating around earlier this month has not dissipated and I'm talking to more and more people who are worried about their future.

Let's do better...

Let's create some space. Let's make room. Let's create some reserves in our lives. Let's do better at living with less instead of suffering in order to live with what we think we need. If it feels overwhelming to count the number of things we own, we've got too much. The less we want, the less stressed we become.

Let's all be super, super productive for a short period of time and then go play, rather than "putting in our time." Let's create a community of people who are having fun, enjoying life and happy.

Let's refuse to be scared. Let's turn off the TV, turn off the radio, turn off the internet and drastically reduce our time with these distractions. If you don't like what you hear or see in the media, do something about it. Otherwise, listening and watching with no action diminishes us. As someone who makes her living using the internet, I have come to appreciate it immensely. But I've also learned that too much time in front of the TV or on the internet drastically reduces my creativity. While we're at it, let's go paperless.

Let's test our assumptions about everything. Chances are that a lot of what we assume is not true.

Let's choose to do the things that give us pleasure without suffering.

Let's focus on what is important. Once we decide for ourselves what is important and not what the unimportant and negative people in media tell us, we can use our own filter. And that's empowering.

Let's let go of perfectionism. Everything we do is perfect in the moment. We don't have to micromanage our lives or those who want to help.

Let's stop being busy. Let's breathe. Let's create a life that is full of joy and cheer.

Let's make the upcoming holidays truly thankful occasions without the pressure to do it all, buy it all, and make it all while hosting numerous events in order to include everyone.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone!

Love and Hugs
d

Cut It Out!

This July, in fact this summer, has presented us with weather I associate with Northern Michigan and Ontario at its best. Daytime temps have been mostly in the upper 60's to upper 70. Evenings and nights bring perfect sleeping temperatures of mid-40's to mid-50's. I've been able to be active instead of sluggish during the day and sleep well each night. BIG, BIG Thanks!
While family obligations keep me closer to home than I would like, I've been able to escape twice this summer on fishing adventures. And to add to the great summer temperatures, this has been a notable fishing year. The catches have been more plentiful and bigger than I've seen in several years. 

Cut It Out!

Even though my life is really very simple, I've been thinking again about simplifying, oh, just a little bit more. Yes, AGAIN! I have no debt. I coach through the 3rd Wednesday of each month and then I play through the 4th and occasional 5th week of each month. I live in the woods, where I'm up early enjoying a cup of coffee in the backyard while listening to the creek and the neighbors, all four-legged except the birds. My exercise routine is on my living room floor and the trails through the woods around my home, not at a gym. I eat simply, enjoying what I harvest as much as possible. If you were to invade my freezer right now, you'd find wild huckleberries, moose, wild raspberries, walleye, northern pike, morel mushrooms, chives, rhubarb, jumbo perch, caribou, lake trout, and venison. When I head out on holiday, I leave phone and computer behind. In fact, I leave electricity behind. In fact, I often leave the car behind, in exchange for boat or canoe.

In my 20’s everything I owned was harvested from the earth or the lakes and streams, uncovered at the Goodwill store, a yard sale, or my Mother's basement. In my 30’s or 40’s, I had the money and the urge to collect my own, brand new stuff. In my early 50’s all that stuff, especially the “brand new” stuff, started to wear out and I had no desire to replace it. Now, as I move in to the last half of my 50’s, it intrigues me that just a short time ago I saw every item and activity I'm about to oust as a necessity.

I've learned that the art of simplifying has two steps.

First, we must pitch those things that no longer serve us. It may be an item in our home, it may be an activity we do for shallow reasons, or it could even be a person in our life who at the worst drains us and at the best takes up our time. I will not tell you this is always easy. I will tell you that you already know what needs to go. Admit it.

Next, we must take what's left, those things that we love and enrich our life, and make them less complex. This is the fun part for me. I enjoy taking something important and meaningful to me, analyze it in order to understand the elements that really energize me, and then cut out all the fluff.

“Your Lifestyle should enhance your life, rather than spending your life enhancing your lifestyle.” ~Coach Thomas Leonard

Tidbits

The gifts of February in Northern Michigan come in tiny, tiny packages: a momentary sight of a deer before she heads back down to the creek where the snow is less deep and the temperatures are just a little warmer; a few snow fleas, just a few, to remind me that there is, indeed, life within all this stillness; a few more seconds of light each day; a glimpse of the sun over the tree tops at the southern end of my property before it dips again below the tree line; a few minutes more each week when the sky is cloudless. The world around my home is locked up, frozen. So each tiny change feels monumental. 

Once spring and summer arrive, my senses will be overloaded. I’ll take in more and therefore probably notice less. So now, I relish noticing the little things. In February, it feels luxurious to take in the tidbits, the morsels, doled out in my frozen world. I enjoy being reminded that the small things in life are as important as the bigger events.

So here are just a few tidbits from my February appreciation list:
• Fluffy warm socks, size BIG.
• A movie at a friend's house, in PJ's of course.
• The wonder of coming upon another’s snowshoe tracks deep in ‘my’ woods.
• Skipping around the house to my favorite songs.
• Wood fires.
• A good Manhattan, up!
• Sighting a downy, hairy, red-headed, red-bellied and pileated woodpecker in one day.
• The smell of sunflower seeds and cracked corn as I scoop the critter food into my bucket.
• My pair of old dogs.
• Northern Pike and Walleye from the freezer.
• Venison from the freezer.
• Moose from the freezer.
• Morel mushrooms from the freezer.
• Huckleberries from the freezer.
• Novels so rich they take the whole month to read.
• Ordering my annual supply of fishing lures from Lucky Strike Bait Works.
• Organizing the tackle box.
• Down in all forms (mittens, vests, coats and douvets).
• And…Lots of berry pies!

Happy Valentine's Day, All! Here's to letting the tidbits fill you up!

“When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmm, boy.” ~ Jack Handy

The Best Medicine

It seems to me there has been an unusual lack of sun in Northern Michigan this winter. It has felt exceptionally drab and dreary. My observation was confirmed last night on the evening news. 120 inches of snow makes for a lot of overcast skies. 

But wait! There are hints that something is breaking loose. This too-long quite winter is getting noisy. I hear a giggle coming from the woods around my home. Could it be the longer daylight is beginning to make a difference? I think so. It's starting with the red squirrels and the blue jays. They have always been the leaders. They're taking personally the job of waking up the woods. They've been here all winter. And just a week ago, they were scurrying and flitting about, quietly and seriously searching for food. Now they sit on the tree outside my bedroom window with no other purpose but to chuckle. By March, today's chuckles will become guffaws as everyone gets in on the act.

I can take a hint. I can make my own sunshine. So each day I will sit quietly and let the laughter come to me. I’ll let it bubble up from the bottom like a long-suppressed, runaway spring. I’ll let the corners of my mouth turn up and the fizzy turn into involuntary giggles. I won't turn back. I don't even need something to laugh about. All it takes is a willingness to risk losing a little control. Laughter is free. And it takes nothing away from the seriousness of other activities. We don't need to delay laughter for an earned day off.

Can I become as contagious as those rowdy jays and disruptive red squirrels? Can I pull in the curious who will be unable to leave me without their own little chuckle? I hope so. The jays and squirrels have brightened my surroundings and broken the long silence of winter. I'm eager to pass it on.

Take some time each day to laugh out loud and let the gifts that laughter brings come to you. Then snatch up those gifts and giggle at what has presented itself. The world outside you and the world inside you will appreciate it.

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities." ~Jean Houston

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face." ~Victor Hugo

"Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit." ~Author Unknown

"When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other." ~Alan Alda

Labor Day

Our Annual After-Labor Day Community Picnic

Labor Day marked the beginning of the end of tourist season here in Northern Michigan. The crowds have diminished. Our fair-weather friends have gone home. For those of us who live here all year, it is the time to lean back in our chairs a little, throw another log on the fire, take a deep breath and a sigh of relief, and once again enjoy the company of those friends and neighbors we lost to the summer frenzy of living in a resort community.

The Drought

It's August and I'm stunned to feel my clothes getting a little tighter. But surly I'm not putting on my winter layer of insulation already. I must be having a highly sensitive month. One of the constants in our lives that, due to my sensitivity, seems to have a profound effect on me is the weather. So until it rains here in Northern Michigan, which it has not done in over a month, I'm just retaining water. My body is simply responding to this dry spell by becoming the camel.
Yeah, right! Pass the marshmallows, please.

It's Not Fair

I can't believe that on August 5, our regional fair began. It's not right! Growing up in this area, my recollection of the fair was that of the autumn bounty and harvest. That people and animals were comforted by the cool, crisp days and nights at the fairgrounds. We wore a sweater when we went over for evening dinner. Today, the fair near my home is experiencing drought conditions and record heat. I have not visited yet and I hope for rain before I roam the grounds to choke on the dust.

I expect this is all about money. The fair has become another summer attraction for the many tourists who flock to Northern Michigan. In the days of my youth, the fair was a time to celebrate the end of sumer and that hectic tourist season. It was a time to visit with neighbors and take advantage of the delicious meals the local churches cooked up each evening. Each church had their specialty dinner and over the course of the week I could taste them all.

Did I mention that I could ride my bike to the fair? And that a pass for the week was a reasonable way to enjoy meeting my friends and taking in all the different activities each evening? Today I must drive to the outskirts of town and wait in line to be directed to my parking spot in a dirty, dusty field. I can only afford to visit one day so I miss many of the activities that are spread out over the course of the week.

And dinner at today's fair is carnival food. Oh, I enjoy a good corn dog and Gibby's French Fries once in awhile. But it's a far cry from the fried chicken, hot roast beef sandwiches, fried fish, homemade pies, real mashed potatoes, locally-grown and harvested vegetables and local dairy milk that I enjoyed each night at the fair of my youth.

 

Sweet, Sweet March! It's Maple Syrup Time!

One of my favorite quick changes in a Northern Michigan March is the rise in temperatures during the days that launch the maple syrup season, when maple sap runs through the sugar bush to strategically placed sugar shacks. In the very old days, native people cut a hole in the Sugar Maple. They attached a wood shaving on the bottom of the hole in order to direct the maple sap towards a bark container. Later, sap dribbled into covered metal buckets or pails. Today, most sugar shacks are equipped with sophisticated plastic tubing. The maple sap follows the tubing from tree to tree and ultimately into a storage tank. At the sugar shack, the sap is boiled down until it becomes maple syrup.

Maple syrup is a true treasure because the maple sap can only be collected during the cold and brief six weeks from early March to mid-April. And, on average, a Sugar Maple will yield 40 gallons of maple sap each year, which boils down to only one gallon of maple syrup.

I'm looking forward to my annual spring binge; namely, maple syrup on my morning pancakes, waffles and French toast, maple syrup drizzled over cooking bacon and breakfast sausage, maple sticky buns, maple glazed carrots, maple butter, and the traditional March treat, hot, thick maple syrup drizzled over snow.

How Low Can You Go?

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. ~Chinese Proverb

What a strange winter it has been so far in Northern Michigan. We only have two inches of snow, which we acquired just last night. And we have not had any snow on the ground since around the first of December. As I waked through the woods each day, the paths made by me and the dogs are so very clear. And the paths made by the deer are even more evident. Without the snow and with the undergrowth dormant, the earth around me is experiencing low-level stress. It's sad. The stress is nothing the earth won't survive, but it's there. And the impact on vegetation will last long into this new year.

So as I walk, I think why would it be any different for us? We all know immediate and sudden stress when we experience it. Our body rises to a challenge and prepares to meet the situation. But lasting low-level stress can sometimes be elusive and go unnoticed for a long time until we find ourselves, like the little patch of earth around my home, exposed. Signs that we have low-level stress in our life often manifest in the form of feeling constantly hurried, moodiness, allergies, and sleeping problems. The earth around me this winter is definitely having a sleeping problem.

Some of the common causes of low-level stress are relationship problems, crammed schedules, a minor health problem as simple as a sore body part or a change in vision that has not been addressed yet, and constant but subtle noise. These can be little things, but they eat away at us each day.

I've said it many times. And at the risk of being overly repetitive, I hesitate to say it again. But you all know me well enough to forgive my rants so here it is. Resolutions tend to cause stress. So if you're going to make one in 2007, make one to reduce the low-level stress in your life. As 2007 unfolds, take a stand:
Leave loads of open space in your schedule.
Allow yourself to be imperfect.
Get more than enough sleep.
Notice your little thoughts and make them good ones.
Solve little problems quickly.
Breathe deeply.
Tend to a little patch of earth around you. You both will benefit.
And blow the stink off by walking the path less traveled.

Have an outstanding 2007.

As I like to do, I thought I would share with you a quote or two about the topic. So I went on a quick search for quotes about stress. Oh my, there's a lot written. So here's a little reminder for each month of the upcoming year.

January 2007
The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on. ~Elbert Hubbard

February 2007
Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. ~Etty Hillesum

March 2007
Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down. ~Natalie Goldberg

April 2007
Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow. ~Douglas Pagels, These Are the Gifts I'd Like to Give to You

May 2007
The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. ~Author Unknown

June 2007
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. ~Will Rogers

July 2007
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. ~J. Lubbock

August 2007
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. ~Milan Kundera

September 2007
Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. ~John De Paola

October 2007
How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterward. ~Spanish Proverb

November 2007
Loafing needs no explanation and is its own excuse. ~Christopher Morley

December 2007
There is precious little hope to be got out of whatever keeps us industrious, but there is a chance for us whenever we cease work and become stargazers. ~H.M. Tomlinson

The Lost Is Found

I've been lost twice in the last week. Yup, one day I got in the car thinking I knew where I was going and I proved myself wrong. On another day, I decided to take the dogs for a walk in an area I'm not very familiar with and I got all turned around. I came out far away from where I thought I was and far away from the car.

I have a bit of a reputation for this. Friends are often hesitant to ride or walk with me. I wander and I explore and I experiment. And I allow myself to be distracted by the new environment. And so while I'm very immersed in the present, all that is new around me, I lose track of the past (where I came from) and the future (where I think I'm going).

So I rather like getting lost. When I'm at home in Northern Michigan, getting lost means I keep walking or driving until I find a two-track that leads somewhere. In Northern Ontario, where I visit often to fish or paddle, I can easily be lost for a whole day or more.

Getting good and lost means I must relinquish all attempts at being in control of my situation and any need to know where I am, where I might be going and what it will take to get back to where I began. In this state, nothing matters but my current surroundings and I am more fully able to immerse myself in those surroundings and let go of what has been and what is to come. “Lost” becomes and attitude that breaks any psychological barriers. And my body responds to that attitude.

There are some cultures, mostly island cultures, which simply don't have a word for the experience of being lost. But for those of use who do “know” lost, there's an attitude shift to work through. So here it is. The price we pay for the freedom of being lost is to be vulnerable. The gift we receive from the freedom of being lost is new, unexpected and random things like unforeseen circumstance, interesting people, and odd surroundings. It stimulates us. If we pay the price of vulnerability, we can let go of being threatened simply because we are lost.  We learn to not waste our energy panicking about the direction we should take.

Current theory from the mathematics of quantum physics indicates that we should be able to remember the future as easily as we remember the past. This theory helps me understand that getting lost is not really lost in the traditional sense; it's lost with the knowing that the future will find me.

“Don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman

Lessons From The Creek

Everything is in flow here in Northern Michigan. Buckets of water have flowed off the snow-covered roof. That water, along with the melting snow banks is finding its way down the hills to my driveway. I no longer walk to the mailbox, I wade. The maple sap is flowing too. Drive by a good stand of sugar maples and you'll see them all connected with plastic tubing, ultimately leading to the sugar house where the steam is rising. And the creek in my backyard is bursting over its banks.

In the 14 years I've live on the creek, it has taught me many lessons. One of the most important is the nature of flow.

Flow is not always the shortest path. When the creek encounters resistance, like a rock, a downed tree or the dam the beavers are building just down stream from me, it does not go through that block. The creek is not concerned with keeping the path short. It goes around, over or underneath the resistance as a way to stay in flow. Yes, over time, it wears down the resistance, but that's not its primary concern. So like the creek, when we take the path of least resistance, we too flow.

The creek is always moving toward lower elevations, downhill, rather than fighting the uphill battle. Now going downhill does not have a particularly positive ring to it. But image how wonderful it could be to reach your every destination without effort.

We've all experienced flow in our lives. Athletes call it being in “the zone.” Those that meditate talk about being in the gap, the space, between thoughts. As my friend, Dave Patrick of Healthy Enterprise says, “We all know when we are in flow. Everything is effortless. We're on purpose and we have total alignment between our vision and values. And we're taking right action to move forward, focused on the now. I think we're in agreement that if feels pretty darn good!”

Whether we are standing in a creek or we are experiencing flow internally, it does feel pretty darn good. And we are better able to take direction based on “hints.” The more we are not flowing, ticked off, disappointed or frustrated, the more we tend to grab for reason and logic. Reason and logic might save us in an emergency, but they never move us. These “hints” I call intuition. And when I'm in flow, I hear the hints.

Is your vision something you mentally design and, if done right, leads to flow? Perhaps. But it might take more than a few tries to get it right. I like to believe that vision is something that comes to you when you are in flow? My suggestion—go stand in a creek!

"Everything flows; nothing remains." ~Heraclitus

What's not flowing in your life? Money? A relationship? A major transition? If you've not taken me up on my complimentary coaching session offer, maybe now is the time. That's a “hint,” my friends. Take it!

The Freedom in New Beginnings

It's March. Here in Northern Michigan, the days are getting longer with the occasional taste of spring-like weather. And the light of the day is different. It seems to have more color to it. There are two grouse in my front yard. They have emerged from the snow-covered woodpile after three long months. On my daily walks with the dogs, I'm noticing more mouse tracks across the snowy field by my home. The grouse and the mice are certainly vulnerable. Brown bodies on a snowy white background make them much easier prey. Yet they are free.

What is so frightening and at the same time so wonderful about a new beginning? What excites me is the freedom inherent in every new beginning. What scares me is that I am vulnerable. Yet I can't separate the two. If I'm to be free, I'm to be vulnerable. I become energized by the possibility of freedom that a new beginning brings. When I seek to lessen my vulnerability by trying to cover all the contingencies, I actually diminish my freedom and the new beginning becomes too small for me.

Freedom is our original motivator. As a child, I was driven by freedom. Freedom incited learning to crawl, walk and feed myself. Freedom was in my heart when learning to ride my bike, swim, or read a simple book. Without a strong desire to be free, there would have been no sense in placing myself in such vulnerable situations where I’d likely failed numerous times before I succeeded. As a child, any endeavor we attempted was successful if we achieved a little more freedom for our efforts.

Now, as adults, we often give the vulnerability part of a new beginning more importance and weight. Thus we feel the freedom a new beginning will bring and then immediately weigh it against our vulnerability and lose our orientation. In doing this, our new beginning becomes a much smaller endeavor that no longer represents freedom but, instead, security. We diminish our endeavor to the point where it no longer serves us and, in the process, lose a little more freedom.

Our lives and work must envelop freedom or they come down to nothing more than a means of providing.

"People frequently say to me you're such a free spirit! Aren't spirits made to be free? We are all free spirits. We must choose to practice freedom." ~Sark

"We must determine whether we really want freedom--whether we are willing to dare the perils of...rebirth... For we never take a step forward without surrendering something that we may have held dear, without dying to that which has been." ~Virginia Hanson

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of fear is a freedom." ~Marilyn Ferguson

"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable." ~Madeleine L'Engle, "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art"