A book for you for Solstice 2020

It’s been a long LONG time since my last post. Life took detours and several coast to coast road trips where my camera was busy but my soul needed solitude and silence. The Emotikin met up with elephants, micro, mini and even full size at many zoos across America. The micro elephants are portable, pocket-sized and are here to stay. And the Emotikin is ready to come back out to play.

In fact, I thought an elephant story would be next. And there is one coming which also includes a turtle. And then I thought finishing a fairy tale about a boy and a dragon would be next (it’s a story I started in 1998 but could only see the beginning and ending back then). The middle has been emerging since August. Stay tuned for more about that! But as it turns out, the Emotikin insisted she gets to go first. The paper-version is in the works, and so for now, I am giving you this gift of a virtual book thanks to the ease of Canva. Enjoy!

Eleven Brave Pinecones ebook cover
Click to view book on a full screen. Enjoy!

Feel free to share this link, watch it on Zoom with little kids in your life. https://bit.ly/BrvPnCnz

Happy Winter!

Follow me on Instagram @ShellyLFrancis for more frequent photos and my Fortitude blog. My current work life includes having founded Creative Courage Press, publishing books by remarkable authors with refreshing ideas. Together we’re creating courage for the complexity of being human!

Meaning within arm’s reach of beach blanket

Stacking my thoughts

I made Monday a Sunday.
Slept in. Dawdled. Worked only one hour.

Then I went to the beach by myself plus my soul and my snapshot machine. And beach blanket.

High tide was on its way in. So much for exploring.

My self said lets sit. No need to explore. We can see what we see from this spot on the rocks.

She was right. Our eyesight grew sharper with a short-sighted focus. What could we see in the sand and the gravel and driftwood from here? A lot it turns out.

Like flat rocks to stack, like thoughts on a shelf.

And blue mussel halves of size large and medium. Then lo and behold, a super small two-halves still-intact whole!

mussels-nested-DSC_0510 (600 x 399)

Add a half ancient shell with hole for a string to add to my collection back home, then a super small shell of the same kind, sans string hole.

Clear sandblasted glass then a green shard.

My eyes were having so much fun noticing, I mostly took pics with my mind.

I noticed how high tide comes in with so much stuff in the swells. It matches the muck in my mind that’s needing releasing.

The waves serenaded. The sun played hide and seek. The sand bugs jumped up and down in delight or delirium; it was hard to know what they meant in their popcorn-like frenzy.

Time slowed. Time passed. Sea slowed and did a 180 sans fanfare.

By the time dinner called I noticed the waves were clear of all stuff. So was my mind.

On the beach blanket

Blue Door Signs from My Soul

emotikin-bluedoor600

Blue doors have been my thing for a very long time. I’ve always claimed blue as my favorite color, sometimes periwinkle, sometimes cornflower. But blue. I’ve never had a blue door though I’ve painted blue walls.

I have a blue door in the alpine meadow of wildflowers where I go when I meditate really deep. It stands there, no walls, in the middle of the meadow, as if I’m supposed to go through.

But I couldn’t. I would sit down with my back against the door. I heard a laughing invitation to just walk around the side, that I didn’t have to go through. But I couldn’t. I was stumped.

Another time, not long ago, I landed in my meadow out of the blue. I opened the door. Beyond it was a dark midnight sky full of stars. I stepped through and soared through the stars for a bit, tethered to the doorway by a silver cord. I didn’t stay long.

A few weeks ago, I finally stepped all the way through, not just that door but a whole series of doors. I erased some hard parts of the past, walked down paths now easier to see and to choose. And I heard, “Trust and believe. Expect miracles.”

I didn’t expect what happened the very next day. I saw my blue door, live and in person, around the bend in an old country road, in front of a cottage for sale, with a tree swing out front. I screeched the car to a halt and pointed. “Look! A Blue Door!”  We sat there in awe. Then we got out of the car.

bluedoor-sq-600

bluedoor-opening600This blue door beckoned. It seemed to lead to a land of bliss and enchanted forests and talking trees and one friendly sit-on-your-shoe kind of squirrel. The cottage holds a piano, built-in bookshelves, and wrap-around windows with a view to the sea. Only a cane in the corner would have made it feel like our own Miracle on 34th Street. It seemed to say, here is your doorway to heaven. You’re welcome. Come in.

So the question is whether this cottage for sale, this land of bliss, this tree swing, this door, this meadow with room for a horse and some chickens, is supposed to be ours.  It sure feels like a soul sign. It sure feels like a miracle.

I do know, at the least, that this real-life blue door is a sign from my soul to pay attention to miracles. To pay attention to gifts that come out of the blue. To open the door and walk through, with courage not fear. With hope, not with doubt. With wonder and more wonder and more wonder yet, and some patience to wait for the answer to “I wonder what this all means?”

I don’t know the answer. Not yet. We’re doing some work called Logistics and Research. That hard human work that makes miracles happen for real. Or at least invites the result. Accepting the invitation to a miracle takes as much courage and work as you can muster, it seems.

And I’m waiting to see if the sign was a “Yes, this is your home.” Or if it means something else. Trust and believe can mean anything. But I do believe in blue doors. And I believe that miracles might have a different answer than the one I first thought of. I don’t know the answer. Not yet. I just hope I am asking all the right questions so the right answer will come when it’s time.

Trust and believe.

Fingers crossed.

 

Finding the seeds of ideas

The other day as I was walking home
I found these green pod things.

Seed pods?

Aliens?

Seedpods?

It was getting dark, so I brought them inside for a better look.

What were they?

I wondered if those spiky spiny things were good or not.

Like anything, it depends on how you look at them.

Three of a kind

I wanted to look at them up close. Roll them over. See them from all sides.

Like little ideas.  Seeds of ideas.  Good or not?

Juggling ideas

Do you weigh your ideas,
or stack them up against one other?

Bigger?

Do your ideas turn into worries
and get heavier. Bigger?

Anxiety?

Do some ideas just overwhelm?

Or maybe they’re good, growing stronger.

Cradle them

I decided I liked these ideas.

We all did.

We each took one

My family each took an idea.
Tossed them around.
Wondered what to do with them next.

Wait and see, we decided.

Wait and see.

So we waited.
One day and one night.

And the seed-idea seed-pods dried up.
Seeming sad to no longer be green.

But guess what?

Those pods had a plan.

See

Shriveled up seedpods
turned into teapots
and poured out a
hundred new baby ideas

like stars in a sky
made for wishing.

A galaxy of new ideas sprouted

A galaxy of new ideas!

Wonder what will come of those?

 

One who walked the logs before me left a sign…

Spiral to center

One who walked the logs
before me
left a sign
saying
move inward
inward
and in
deeper
still
within
then
outward
again.

High tide calmP.S. I marvel that today’s high tide is so calm and wonder at the metaphor.

 P.P.S.  This one who walks on logs throws logs for labradors who love them:

One who walks the logs

Ocean loving labrador

Happy water doghappy water dog!

My soul showed up at low tide

My soul showed up at low tidePerhaps it’s only when you feel deserted by the ocean,
as if the water receded along with your hopes,
and even the moon seems gone…

Reflections of a soul

that your soul shows up with a story,
as upside down as it seems.
Find brimful meaning and truth
while the tidepool steeps her saltwater tears.

Her head in the clouds of low tideSoul wonders
which view you might choose.
“Girl, put your head in the clouds.”

I dreamed of my grandmother last night. She had come for a party.

gretchen-posterized

In my dream, she looked taller and thinner, and wore her pearls,
The way she might have chosen to look as a glamorous grandmother.
In my dream, she said “I left my car down the street, like last year”
and handed me the keys, meaning, “Please park the car for me.”
I don’t know what party I was having in my dream. I’m glad she came.

This is the Emotikin who lived with her at the nursing home
for the last six months.
She’s a Fairy Tale Fairy wearing butterfly wings,
with a spool of pink thread as a bracelet,
(because she taught me to love fairy tales and sewing)
and she’s dancing.
I wonder where it went when she died?
Perhaps it went with her.

gretchen-bella-book-posterized