Have you been wondering where I’ve been? Yeah.. me too. I’m going to blame it on the winter. My body and my brain have gone into full hibernation mode. Well, maybe it was my brain and then followed by my body. I can’t find the energy to do much of anything lately. Seattle winters were supposed to be better than Wisconsin. Hmm.. I may just have to fly south for the winter from now on.

I haven’t been feeling very inspired lately. That’s why it was great the other night when our friends Ben and Mel had the idea to host a “Make Things Night.” At first I dragged my feet, saying, “I don’t know what to make..” Lame. I know. The idea was that it didn’t really matter– just make something! Turns out, that was exactly the pressure relieving kind of situation I needed. I have all these grand ideas.. all these plans. I build them up in my head before they ever hit paper. It was nice to just sit down and draw. I didn’t want to lug too much material over to their place, so I brought my box of pencils and oil pastels and a large pad of paper. Zack brought his box of clay that we’ve been using as weight on top of the refrigerator to stop it’s awful buzzing. It was great to see him sculpting again. Ben was inspired to do a watercolor of a robot (affectionately known as “Voltron”) and Mel followed suit with Zack’s clay.

In other news, I started going to yoga again.  I forgot how good it makes me feel.  When I got home, I pulled out a book recommended by my previous yoga teacher.  It’s called “The Breath of God” by Swami Chetanananda.  I swear I spelled that correctly!  I opened the book right up to an ironically appropriate section, as usual.  This book is full of relevant wisdom.  It reads:

People have a real talent for coming up with excuses not to do their spiritual work.  The point, however, is that you have to find excuses to work, instead of excuses not to.  That’s all.  If making excuses is your talent, then turn it around- everything is double-edged, and every talent cuts both ways.  So, use your excuses to make yourself work.  Find excuses to grow and to become a bigger person.

Despite the appearance of multiplicity in the world, there is only one essence to all things.  If this is so, then what you think of as problems and obstacles to your growing really are not.  What you think of as good and bad really are not.  There are only forces at work within the field of your awareness in which you must continually find your balance.  If you lose sight of this, then it becomes easy to fall into some kind of self-abuse: “Oh, I’m so weak, I’m so stupid, I’m so afflicted, and besides, nobody likes me!”  These can then become wonderful excuses for not working.

Understanding that life is holistic and that all things are ephemeral means that you are not attached to anything.  It means that you live your life as an expression of love and respect for the creative power that has given rise to this whole life experience.  It means, finally, that you give up your excuses.