Song

The nurturing love of the Goddess never ceases

Her bountiful gifts never come to an end

They are new every morning, new every evening

Great is your faithfulness, Goddess

Great is your faithfulness

Miracle in San Diego

This seems like it might be a really long post but here I go anyway (took 18 minutes).

About two years ago I signed up to host international students. The lists kept getting e-mailed of all the students that needed a place and for some reason I rarely felt attracted to any of the names.

My husband and I had gotten married a few months earlier and were enjoying some honeymoon time as well. We were talking about possibly having a child soon and although I wanted very much to be the mother of his child, I had some very serious doubts about being a mother.

I had done tons of therapy to work through the way my "daughterhood" went. It just seemed to work out pretty traumatic, especially the ages 6-17 or so. I felt very alone in those years and even though I know my mother loved me she also had some pretty serious depression and anxiety that was undealt with and that made her emotionally unavailable, critical, angry, spiteful and volatile. She also seemed to compete with me in my teenage years and unable to respond to my emotional needs. She felt the need to constantly be right, prove and reprove it and set up situations where she could prove that once again. Offering to help me with homework was a trap to create an opportunity for her to flex her academic muscles while belittling my relatively unformed ones.

Needless to say there was a sense of self-confidence I very much lacked as a woman. It took me many years in therapy, self-reflection and prayer to get to a place of being able to hear and nurture my own emotional needs. I felt insecure as a female and also as an adult female. I was afraid that I would be a bad wife and never form a healthy relationship (which I overcame partly with my supportive and loving husband's help). I was particularly afraid that I would be a bad mother if I were to have a girl.

That summer the list was sent out and on it was one name that stood out to me, Alessandra. Without thinking twice, for the first time ever, I sent an e-mail to the foreign student organizers saying that we would host Alessandra.

A few days after I found out that my beloved dog Mimi was dying of cancer and I would need to put her down to relieve some of her suffering. Plagued by thoughts of self-doubt I tried to cancel hosting Alessandra, thinking that I needed to devote time to caring for my dog of 8 years and not knowing how much of a host mom I would be while mourning her death.

But the reply came from the organizers that, alas, they had no one else available to host and anyway Alessandra's friend was going to be living nearby and they wanted to be close to each other. I felt like I could not back out now.

But I was so filled with insecurity that I could not sleep that night. Alessandra's mom had sent me an e-mail saying hello with picture of their family and they all looked like movie stars and very happy. Looking at that picture I felt that our little home and my insecure life would be inadequate.

Bravely I wrote again to the organisers, particularly because that night I couldn't sleep until 3 am saying that I could not take Alessandra. But I also prayed. I told God all my worries and fears but I kept hearing The Voice that I should host her anyway. Despite this guidance I sent the 3 am e-mail but did ask upon sending it that God's will not mine be done.

Alessandra did come to stay with us. She was wonderful and darling and we loved her and cared for her and picked her up at the trolley station and walked her to the bus stop. In the mornings I would walk to the bakery and buy her favorite sweets and sometimes I would make her dinner so that she could eat when she came home after a full day of exploring San Diego with her friends. I would check in on her when she did her homework and drive her to the beach fro walks together.

Several times she said I was a good mom and a perfect mom. I could not believe it because she had nothing but good things to say about her Italian family and her own mother so I know she knew GOOD MOM!!!

Mimi did die while Alessandra was here but she walked through that part of it together as one would with any family member.

When Alessandra left we both cried and a week later I found out that I was pregnant! This was a miracle, especially when we found out that it was going to be a baby girl. We decided to name her Alessandra and I felt that I was ready and capable of being her mother. I was also willing.

My friend Talia suggested I write a song for her and we did. Here is the song and HOW the song came into being is the subject of my next miracle post.

Miracles HAPPEN EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! WOHOOO! PRAISE GOD!

Miracle in Sofia

When I was 22 I went to visit Bulgaria, where I was born,  with my boyfriend at the time. We traveled to Sofia, stayed at a hostel, went to the black sea where we got an awful digestive infection and then made it home to Gabrovo, the city of my parents' birth and where much of mu childhood took place.

We stayed with my paternal grandmother who raised me when my parents emigrated and I was left behind. I have a special connection with this grandmother. In a sense she rescued me and she was also capable of giving me a quality of love and nurturing and understanding that I never quite could get from my parents.

My boyfriend of those years was my second ever love but he was somewhat mentally ill, depressive and abusing marijuana.

When it was time for our flight back about a week later, I wasn't ready to leave but I was very conflicted because he was putting a lot of pressure on me to go back with him, taking it personally that I wanted to stay (he felt he needed to go back for the start of his school trimester) and pulling his manipulative withdrawal tricks when I mentioned it.

But my grandmother was in her 70s. She lived with my parents in the USA and she was only very rarely in Bulgaria. It felt like if I didn't take this chance to be with her and revisit some very special moments in my favorite city Gabrovo, the home of my entire blood line, then I may never get the chance.

Thus conflicted, my boyfriend and I left for Sofia to catch the scheduled flight back to London where we would stay with a friend for a few days before flying on to New York. I felt responsible about having made these arrangements for us to drop in on her and didn't want to change them now or back out or make my boyfriend half to change his flights or have him stay with strangers. I prayed for a sign that I would do the right thing, that I would know what to do. Looking back now it seems it was a matter for the heart versus a matter of the mind but at the time it seemed a very hard decision to make and I felt if I left my boyfriend and went back, he might break up with me. But while we were in Sofia walking around foraging for breakfast in the capital that morning, I stepped away from my boyfriend to go to a store and I ran into my mother's best friend from child hood, right there on the street. And I was alone. I thought she was an angel. I knew she must be the sign I had been praying for. In our greeting hellos - she hadn't seen me since I was a child - I described my situation. Her response was that having the freedom to travel as we please was one of the reasons herself and my parents had worked so hard to leave communist Bulgaria. So that the children would have a better life and the freedom to do what they want.

I knew that was my answer. We said goodbye and I went with my boyfriend to the airport. In line I was so tense I actually had an orgasm when I told him that I will accompany him to London and stay there with him at my friend's house but four days later when it was his flight for New York, I would return to Bulgaria.

He sulked but I did just that. Returning was a life-changing decision. Not only did I get to enjoy some deep and special alone time with my beloved grandmother in her home and the home of my refuge when my parents, as I thought then, had abandoned me, but I also got to spend time with some friends from childhood and make a very special friend who to this day guides loves and supports me on my artistic and personal journey as I do her.
All in all it was a miracle and I am very grateful.

Magic Report 2014

Last week I woke up with rage. I think it was a Wednesday. I went to my usual yoga class and I felt it. Two young girls were chattering loudly in our studio of about 15 silent people. Imagining a less-than tranquil shavassana I grumbleb furiously to myself. After waiting a few minutes for them to settle in and they continued, I took a few deep breaths I walked to the door, opened it and said audibly but calmly, “there is a sign here that says, ‘thank you for not talking.’” One of the girls stared at me in disbelief and the other one said. “Oh, OK.” They were quiet the rest of class and left me to a peaceful shavassana.
Throughout the yoga class I had mind chatter about this. Was I too mean? Nah, I was in the right. When did I get my backbone back? I used to be stand –up-in-your-face confrontational for many years and then I turned into a pushover. I would try to “be Ok with it” when something bothered me to “stay calm” when it gnawed at me inside for days. But today, this seemed a truly assertive move, while being polite. I hate that word assertive. It has ass in it. Anything with ass in it can’t be good, makes one feel foolish. Assertive can mean self-confident or forceful or aggressive. I would much rather the word imply the inherent nobility and courage required to honor self and others rather than the insinuation of being pushy and that respecting and protecting your own needs and those of others in a pre-agreed upon space is somehow undesirable.

“Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest—thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the under wood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated.”
—Beau Christopher Taplin ‪#‎TodaysMantra‬

Blessings and Grapefruits

Today I wobble between inspiration and despair but at least I am writing. Mostly inspiration. There are so many business ideas, so many ways to make a difference, so many ways to get busy saving the world.

From my mojo blog to my dating book, to revolutionizing the mortgage industry, a miracle blog, I am full of creative ideas.

Jonathan Fields talks about building a revolution, not just a business. What his work has shown me is that, for there to be deep fulfillment,  there must be a greater cause beyond just the traditional business model and making money. There must be a greater cause for greater contribution in order to gather the momentum to rally people against a common injustice or outdated no-longer useful practice, towards a more useful and productive way of consumerism.

Today I got a taste of being of service when my neighbor Davis and I spoke about the car I lent him for months and then let him buy with non-interest payments. He repeated once again how he didn’t know how he could thank me, that he was praying for me every day. I told him that in an exchange such as this, both are blessed, the one receiving and the one having the capacity to give.

I remember the car sitting for months parked across the street. It was my first car I ever owned, a wonderful car I drove for years and paid off. I loved that car and often spoke to it. Once I got my new Lexus  I didn’t need it anymore and it looked sad and downtrodden hanging out by itself.

I tried posting several ads but the people who came to test drive it didn’t come back. I felt the pressure to sell it but in reality there wasn’t really a financial reason to do so. Thankfully. One day I posted for-sale signs on it and waited another month. I kept getting this little feeling to wait. So I waited.

One day I was yet again coming back from a walk with my new baby and saw the car parked there. I thought to myself that I am ready to let it go and that I would post another ad but I didn’t because that little voice told me to wait.

In the meantime my neighbor Davis from Uganda living across the street had a grapefruit tree in his yard which I would eye, desiring fresh grapefruits for my morning juices. One day I knocked on his door and said hello. We made acquaintances and I asked him if I may pick his grapefruits and he said of course. Several weeks passed and I was happily picking grapefruits and on occasion would see him and wave.

When he called for the car, I knew exactly who he was. He asked to test drive it and I just gave him the keys, busy with our new baby girl. Something told me to just let him drive it. My heart went out to him when he explained that it took him two hours to get to and from work by bus and that he was looking for a new job and he needed a car desperately.

So I let him drive it. And I didn’t worry about it. I figured when he was ready he would pay me for it. He changed the battery and kept driving it. He said he wanted to buy it and could we meet. So we met and he asked for a payment plan because he had spent his savings on one of his three daughters in Uganda who needed heart surgery. I was already prepared to let him just drive it and I told him he could drive it until he could pay and he can just pay the insurance $35 a month for now. He faithfully left the money under my front door mat every month and eventually after some months he got a steady job and was ready to start making payments.

The business woman in me wanted to charge him interest but a little voice told me not to. So I offered him a fair price of $3500 and 13 payments of $250 a month plus the insurance so a total of $285 which he said he could easily do.

So he has made two payments so far and before that he drove the car for two or three months. Whenever we speak he expresses his heartfelt gratitude but what I feel is blessed to have been able to be in a position to really truly help someone who needed it and appreciated it.

I feel so blessed by this miracle I want to continue operating my life this way. I would like to focus on service and contribution and get compensated for my creativity and special gifts of sensitivity, listening to Spirit and musicality. I would like to share these gifts with the world.

I am shifting my focus from production to meaning. Wayne Dyer calls this the afternoon of life. But I am 36 and am I already in the afternoon of my life?

I know I am on the right path because I feel the fire in my belly again. I am creating again, I feel powerful and unique again, I trust in the Universe and my gifts again.

I am still confused about many things such as why it was so difficult for my mother to allow me to differentiate and I also have compassion for the people who raised me. They had to craft coping mechanisms in order to survive communism and the humiliation, shame and abuse that was prevalent and widely accepted as normal. They had to create grandiose personas. My mother is the know-it-all fail and mistake proof always right academic version of narcissism, my father is similar in his refusal to admit or apologize for mistakes, but he also has millionaire proclivities. Ha!

And where does that leave me, my friend Ana once asked when we were discussing the inability of our narcissistic parents to see us, relate to us, or allow us our individuality and separateness. Well, it leaves us without Fathers. And Mothers. Or at least with leopard-print white and dark bullet-whole type paper- thin mannequins of them, hollow, physically there but mentally and emotionally checkered and scrappy. And it leaves us working harder to find community, support, self-esteem and self love. But we can get there, with a little help from our friends here in this world and our Guides and Angels and God in the world beyond.

Thank you Spirit for the opportunity to be creative, to have friends, an enjoyable life and may it be a life of deep contribution and service. May I be what I truly am. May I find the courage, the support, and the self-compassion to be the artist that I truly am.  Amen.