How do we create a sense of ease and gracefulness as we work

me, in Tenerife, Canaries, between sessions

Today started out smooth but soon turned into overwhelm. Here's the situation that I see many people who are being activists (for any cause) face...We are pulled in so many directions at once. Should I go on facebook and go through people who want to be friends and say yes and then look at comments and respond to each one...or should I make write a new blog post...or should I make phone calls (especially because I'm someone for whom phone calls are 2nd best to face-to-face...and emails just don't carry the nuances that I want from a conversation...or should I do some work on planning the next, in my case, Roundtable for the project I'm on...or should I make phone calls to people who've supported Birthing The Future in the past and see whether they want to become members for the year or give a donation...or should I just go to the gym sit in the greenhouse and go through the strawberry plants and find ripe strawberries to eat...hmmm.

The dilemma for myself - and many of you - is how do we control the input of stuff coming at us while, at the same time, using our gut/intuition to prioritize the day and respond to just what feels necessary to respond to. I read once that 2 of the most high stress jobs are not the ones you ordinarily think of, such as fire fighters and surgeons, but secretaries and chefs/cooks in a restaurant. Why? Because they do not have control over what comes at them. Other people have control over their attention and time...Of

at a Birthlight Conference in England

course, I'd put mothers (or fathers doing real full-on fathering) in this category..."plate jugglers", an elder wise woman friend in the birthing movement in England told me decades ago. That's what mothers do. The problem is, babies, young children, and our own soul, don't operate at the same speed as our mind. They move and respond slowly...mmm.

Pause...breathe...go outside and sit in the greenhouse and pick through the strawberry plants for ripe red berries. Yum...did that. That helped...Then came back in and put on some Lavendar oil (I find Young Living the best of all oils and can contact me if you want to know why...suzannebirthing@gmail.com), couldn't find Peace and Calming. Took several homeopathic Calm Forte too. My nervous system was just too "up-leveled" from working with Sam, my intern to learn more about facebook and working with it.

Molly and Kinjah a few years ago

It's quiet. Sam had put lovely jazz guitar music on but I couldn't take the pace of it, so she's working with
 interns. That's one of the differences between myself and my 16 year old grandson, Kinjah and his friends (he and Molly, his mom, live with me) and Sam and my generation. They seem to be able to run at a higher frequency and speed as they multi-task. I can do several things at once, but I get quickly overwhelmed by new things to learn...

Breathe...stand up and stretch a few yoga stretches...Yes...mmm. did that...

Just to remind myself that
winter's over at my place...

It's a beautiful spring day, yes, spring at last. Our last snow was 10 days ago!  I'm blessed with so many good things and I'm thankful, always. So no complaining, Suzanne...I have enough food to eat and I can get up and walk away from this computer whenever I want, assuming I remember to and can tear myself away from whatever task I'm involved in.

So...here's the thing: not only do we need to find some way to select that which we pay attention to and that which we don't, but we who are working in activism need to pace ourselves since we're usually not getting paid. This morning my small social security check arrived and it was short $110, because they went and mistakenly took out that amount to cover Medicare deduction (it's a monthly thing but I'm not supposed to pay because my income is low)...so call the social service office, leave a message and then wonder, Do I cross that item off of my list of things to do today or not, since I haven't actually spoken to the woman in charge and don't even know whether she'll get my message...

What I do each day bears no resemblance to the money that comes into the nonprofit. I learned that long ago, working for myself, as I've been doing since 1975, when Molly was 5 - except for a 9 month stint as a freelancer with a research company...Truly, the money that comes in is in no way connected to the output of work I do. So I have to remind myself fairly regularly to reach out to those who do support Birthing The Future to tell them I need something.

Ah yes, speaking of need. My donated (to the nonprofit) wonderful 1992 Honda is really on her last legs. The driver's side window won't roll up or down, it just hangs there, half in and half out, kitty-whampus-like. No fun when I'm driving at any speed over 40 or when it rains or snows. And this weekend I'm driving the 3.5 hours up to Crestone, Colorado, at the foot of higher peaks, 9,000 feet, to work with Rick, my editor friend on putting together the loose "script" of assembled great clips from the film project. So what to do about this windown and, bigger yet, my sweet car, whose previous owner, from India, named her Lakshmi....

DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A LOW GAS CONSUMPTION FINE CAR TO GET OVER MOUNTAIN PASSES WAITING TO BE DONATED TO A NONPROFIT, FOR A TAX DEDUCTION? Sorry, I didn't mean to yell! Do let me know if you know someone with a car for us...

Back to where I left off.  So, practicing making the days flow more gracefully, by attending to a few things and not trying to do anything I don't need or want to...of course, the phone rang and I needed to pick it up because it's Ali, one of our housemates. Sure enough, her sweet doggie got cut up on barbed

Our irrigation "ditch", flowing
once more...and the dark
beneath the light.

wire swimming in the irrigantion ditch behind the house, and she's off to the vet to get it sutured and asked me to take out the garbage to the street, cuz the truck's about to come and she forgot...LIfe...
Pause...breathe...drink a glass of water, not sips, most of the glass. It's so easy to dehydrate at this altitude....Done!

You might take a few sweet moments to sit somewhere lovely and consider the question: How do I prioritize what is truly important for me to respond to or do, from what seems urgent, from what niggling little things need to be done and you might as well get them out of the way now...

me, on a beach on the California coast

So much of my life is about connections to people - creating, supporting, maintaining, re-connecting when I've lost touch...and I follow the principle of serendipity, that things come into my life at the right time and for a reason, though I may not know what the reason is at that moment. Working from intuition and following outside cues of things that arrive on my doorstep, in my email box, on my facebook accounts - both my personal one and the Birthing The Future one...I have to quickly assess, Do I handle this or that right now or put it aside. And, if I choose to put it aside, where do I put it, which pile? Get my drift?

Because we're still little kids
who love, and need, to play

So, with that, I'll end this blog entry, my second ever. I'm going to lie on the floor and do a little more yoga stretches and twists and breathe and then go back to working alongside Sam on finding the very best clips from the filmed material from Tenerife...because she leaves tomorrow morning and I want to have a rough assemblage of bit and pieces from the interviews to bring up to Ricks to string a very loose rough cut together...to which, after it's really edited down and everything is in the right sequence, we'll add still photos, blank screens with written text, music...That I love...the creative part.

because the flowers remind us...

Til next time, I leave you with the thought that there are millions of us across the world who, at this very moment, are working on behalf of what needs to be done - small and large - on this planet, in our community, in our family...in our own life and for our own precious body.

We are not alone, not ever...of course, spiritually that's true. But also in terms of the work we do in the world. Remember that. And remind me, when I forget. There's always nature...there's always our breath...and the paradox of how small and insignificant we humans are in the grand scheme of life working along at it's own perfect pace...and how important each one of us is, paradoxically.

Love, Suzanne
Durango, CO