Welcome, October!
As I sit to write this, a couple of thoughts are floating in and will not leave.  One is “time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future.” and the other is “a year from now nothing will look the same.” 
I contemplate both and realize that the message coming through is that each moment slips into the next, the future.  We can go along being in the moment doing this and that and without notice, we are in the future. We can daydream about our future, make lists of things that we want to achieve and do, yet until we live the present moment we do not arrive at our future.  Does our focus on the "lists" have us desiring the future faster?  Bucket lists are all the rage (you can google things to put on a bucket list or print off actual bucket lists).  Let me tell you that some people's lists are rather extensive, and I wonder if they want to cross each one off, or if they are creating a pie in the sky dream. Perhaps at some subconscious level, they feel the need to have a list just to keep up with the Jones. Those lists project our dreams into someday land and in a sense keep them alive and give us hope.  
Someday might never arrive. In the past year, so many have left this earth or have become sick, diagnosis: terminal.  It seems that old age is not the most common cause of life ending. I wonder if those who have left knew that time was slipping, or that what troubled them today would no longer cause them stress. There is always a reason to not grab the dream by the hand and make it happen now. Every trouble takes precedent in our life, front, and center.
In contemplating these deep thoughts, I am not melancholy.  Rather, it makes me realize that tomorrow is not promised to any of us, and how precious each moment is. I don't have a bucket list, and some days I wonder exactly how productively I spend my time. Each day is filled as I wish to fill it.  It must be so, for I am the one doing what fills my days.
Bucket lists or no, time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future! Make each day great, appreciate every detail, and understand that what you experience today will only be around for a short period.  Next year at this time, on this very date, you will be living a whole different life.
So grab your sweater and set off on as many adventures as you can this month.  Fill your time doing what you love.  Mostly enjoy this moment, the one you are in right now, for all on its own the future will soon enough be the present.

Namaste 
Marlene

Hello September!
There go the months we term as summer, and we step into the last third of the year.  We still have three weeks until Autumn officially arrives, but somehow the beginning of September seems to be the mark of change. 
My thoughts as we come into the month of September are rather erratic!  Nothing appears to stay in place too long before a new thought replaces it.  Leading me to believe that the month ahead will be one of rapid change for all of us.  UGH! Or YEAH! Depending on which side of the fence you are sitting. Are you ready for change or do you wish things to remain the same?
Recently I returned to a town that I had lived in for 28 years.  I was surprised how much things were the same even though I could see change all around me.  Just little things, but change none the less.  I have been gone for ten years, yet enough was familiar that I could make my way about easily. The heartbeat of the town was still there ensuring that life thrived there.
I thought about how most of us avoid change, but change always has a huge impact on our lives.  Change that takes us by surprise is the hardest to come to terms with, and on the flip side of that, change that we initiate can be hard as well.   It does not have to even be a big change to have an impact. Through all change, there are things that remain the same.  Inside each of us, we are still our soul, we can change the color of our hair, what we wear, where we live, or what we do, but within us, our heart still beats.  Our basic makeup does not change.  WE might become hardened by life and the changes flung at us, but deep within our heart still beats and carries us forward each day.    No matter what we change a piece of us remains true to us. 
As we slowly step into September, I ask that each of us steps into whatever change comes our way with gratitude. Gratitude that no matter what our heart still beats on and carries us through life so that we may live it to the fullest.  Don’t be daunted by what life tosses you, instead raise your chin and smile your brightest for you are amazing and stronger than what life can toss at you!
Namaste
Marlene
 

​Where life will take us we never really know until we arrive.  July started off with much promise and was quickly, for me, turned upside down when my ex-husband passed away in a motorcycle accident.  The heart retching cry of our daughter as she informed me will be etched forever into my heart and mind.  As a parent, all I wanted to do was wave a magic wand and fix it for her, make it all better.  No magic wand can bring someone back.
Each day is a roller coaster of emotions when something catastrophic happens in our lives.  We look back on what has been, and yet have to continue to place one foot in front of the other in a forward motion.  It can be so daunting even to consider moving forward or imagine how you can move forward.  Society while compassionate expects you to keep going.  And somehow each of us does.  It is not easy, every.  It does not matter what event brings a tsunami into your life picking up the pieces and finding normalcy takes time.
If you are going through a life, “tsunami” be gentle with yourself. Take each moment and day as it comes.  Have faith that you can survive. While you may never be the same person you were before the tsunami, you will be stronger, wiser and eventually know peace within your day to day. 
The deer picture above was snapped during one of our visits to my daughter.  Deer brings us this wisdom; you have the power to deal with challenges with grace. They remind us to heal our wounds with compassion, love, and gentleness.  As a mom, it showed me how diligently she watched over her twin fawns who were hidden behind some grass, much like I was doing with my child.  Giving them room to explore but every vigilantly protecting them as best she could.
As we gently slip into August, I wish for all of you a quiet, gentle month ahead.  May the summer days warm you with enough sun-kissed memories that should a tsunami hit your life, you will have them to reflect back upon and be a ray of love and joy in a gloomier moment.
Namaste
Marlene