The Arizona Mug

/in , , /by

On February 3, 2015, I bought a mug in a hotel gift shop. While I took my time choosing my favorite, the purchase was not in any way intended to be auspicious. It was simply that I was staying for a week-long training, and I needed something bigger than an espresso cup to drink my morning tea. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that day, and all that happened on it, marked the start of a seismic shift in the trajectory of my life. When I returned home, drinking tea from the mug became a daily ritual – a devotion of sorts; each sip from the slender rim filling my heart with gratitude, the tears pricking behind my eyes as I acknowledged the care of so many guides, angels and loved ones – human and otherwise – who’d met their soul appointments to help direct my path.

As my new life unfolded, my daily devotion continued, right up until about three weeks ago when, in an act of careless inattention, I took the mug out of the dishwasher and bashed it on the granite countertop.

While it was “only” a mug, I was devastated.

In a true labor of love, my husband got to work. A master-gluer since the tender age of 8 years old when his football held an impromptu meeting with his mother’s ornaments, he specialized in cosmetic repairs that bought valuable time between breakages and their eventual discovery. Yet, while he was miraculously able to restore my mug’s appearance, sadly, it was only partially teaworthy.

A scouring of the internet for souvenir Arizona mugs confirmed what I already suspected – this was not some mass-produced Starbucks collectible that could easily be replaced. I wondered if it might have been hand-thrown, but without another to compare it with, I couldn’t be sure. I could have kicked myself for not taking better care of it.

I had all but given up hope when, having scrolled through every mug design imaginable, I found one just like it on Ebay. It’s slightly squatter with a thicker rim than mine. It feels marginally heavier in the hand. The hand-painted design shows the sun at a different angle and a little farther away from the mountain; perhaps because it was painted later in the day. But it’s a true kiln-sister of my mug, and it represents so much.

As I resume my daily devotion, I add two sips of gratitude. One for the artist who made both mugs. The second for the stranger who listed one on Ebay, for just a klutz like me.

 

***

PS: If anyone happens to recognize the work and can put me in touch with the artist, I’d love to make a connection ❤️.

 

https://alicedaltonbrown.net

The Vision Board

/in , /by

Many of my clients have been noticing the change in the office behind me, and have been asking about our move.

And there’s an interesting story behind the place where we find ourselves, which – for a variety of reasons – I’ve been hesitant to tell. But those who’ve heard it have found both encouraging and uplifting, so I decided to share it more widely in the hope that it uplifts you too. 

Back in 2015, I was in the process of leaving my first marriage – a situation so painful, devastating and scary that one of my energy healers described me as “a seeping, open wound”. It was around then that an image appeared in my mind – of looking through an open window across a body of water to land in the distance, with a drape blowing in the breeze. I had no idea if the image was a picture I’d seen or a place I’d been, nor what it might represent for me, but somehow it offered me a feeling of hope, of possibility, and a new vision for life.

One of my clients at the time was a big believer in creating vision-boards, and while I had no time or patience for cutting out pictures from magazines, I instead began visiting galleries and scouring the art sections of homeware stores to see if I could find anything like the image in my head. It took about a year (and a new love in my life!) before I stumbled across an artist whose work came close, and when I researched more of her collection, I found it. 

The picture is called Long Golden Day and the artist is Alice Dalton Brown. I ordered a print and gave it pride of place in my newly decorated office. When clients asked me about it, I told them it was my vision-board: my vision of being able to work from home and look out on this view.

It took 8 years to do, but we did it. 

Why the picture came into my head in the first place, I really don’t know. But a hypothesis I like comes from Michael Newton’s book, Journey of Souls where he describes a process right before we incarnate, where the most important signs we need to pay attention to are imprinted into our minds to make sure we don’t miss them. I wonder if this image was one of these.

All this to say, when you get those little images or ideas in your head, don’t dismiss them. Hold them, nurture them, meditate on them and give them space to come into being. You never know what they might bring.

[Image: Long Golden Day by Alice Dalton Brown]

A Covid Thanksgiving

/in , , /by

It’s the day before Thanksgiving 2020.


In previous years I’d have been delivering after-dinner speeches on “Surviving the Holidays”, quipping that Thanksgiving keeps therapists in business. I’d be adding client hours to my calendar to accommodate all those in a state of panic at the prospect of spending extensive time with extended family. I’d be teaching a lot about boundaries. Role-playing “sorry that won’t work for us” conversations. And my old stalwart: bingo cards with customizable squares for grandad’s inappropriate remarks, sister’s drama-bombs, hooded nephews consuming two-thirds of the food without so much as a grunt of conversation, vegan nieces eschewing the nut-roast in favor of turkey, and martyr mothers insisting on doing EVERYTHING by themselves before collapsing in a pool of tears because they’re exhausted and nobody helped.


Yet the reason I could have fun with it was because despite the frenzy, the travel chaos, the over-buying, the over-eating, the food-comas, the green-bean casserole (yuck!) and all of the family drama, Thanksgiving has always been a celebration of gratitude. It’s been a time of coming together as family – biological, legal or chosen – to remember who we are, where we’ve came from, and the belongingness that bonds us as we muddle through this thing called life.


Since I didn’t grow up here, I’ve always had the luxury of being a curious observer, peering through the lenses of my clients and two sets of in-laws. And I’ve found that without the nostalgia for Thanksgivings past, I’ve never had to brace myself for the disappointment of Thanksgivings present.


Paradoxically, I’m grateful for that. This year more than ever.


Because this year, as we hurtle into the Thanksgiving season, we do so – not so much with gratitude – but rather with a hollow awareness of what and whom we’ve lost. What and whom is most important. What and whom we’d unknowingly been taking for granted.


And from that space of awareness, I invite us all to notice – perhaps for the first time – exactly what and whom is precious.


And then to hold it closely, and with both hands.