Originally posted January 8, 2016.
I love to bird watch. I used to walk to a patch of woods in a park near my house and sit with binoculars to see if I could see bittern. I never did see one. Even until this day.
I also wanted to spot a Baltimore Oriole. The first time I saw a Baltimore Oriole was 2 years ago when I was walking my dog, Sammy near the lake near my house. And when I saw that one, I actually saw three! All chasing each other in a thicket near the lake, celebrating spring! It was worth the wait!
I have been sewing since I was a little girl. I used to watch my grandmother, Muzzy, sew when she visited at our house. I remember when she taught time how to thread a needle and to make small stitches. My stitches will never be as neat and small as hers!
The first embroidery I remember making was a pillow case with “Muzzy” embroidered on it in pink floss with some flowers as well.
I have a nice stash of fabric I’ve collected. Sometimes I just go and look at all the colors and feel the textures and think of things I want to make.
This year I’ve been able to reconnect to making art quilts and dolls once again, first time in 15 years, I’d say! Uh, been a bit busy over the years!
I believe the our bodies hold emotional memories at the cellular level. I learned shiatsu and Jin Shin Do(r) Acupressure in the late 1990’s.
I worked as a shiatsu/acupressure practitioner for years out of my home and yes, people would have many emotional and spiritual experiences as the meridians in the body were awakened.
Reading is a passion of mine. In the summer, I used to ride my bicycle to the town library where I grew up. I now love my Kindle!
It took me eight years in all to write my first book, BirthTouch(r): Shiatsu and Acupressure for the Childbearing Years. I wrote a shorter workshop version when my son was 4 or 5 years old, when I was a self-employed shiatsu practitioner. I saw a lot of pregnant and postpartum women. My son is 21 now. I wrote the BirthTouch(r) version available on Kindle in 2011 and 2012, after I had practiced for several years professionally a psychotherapist focused on women’s perinatal experiences.
I love to go to the mountains. I love the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the Green Mountains in Vermont and the Rockies in Colorado I guess me and about a ga-zillion other people too!
I practiced Reiki professionally for three years at Mountainside Hospital when I worked as the MindBody Specialist in the Cancer Center there. Along with my other duties as a family counselor there, I was so fortunate to be able to offer this service once a week on Thursdays. It is a lovely memory, I wish I could do this once again professionally. It was very fulfilling and the people loved the peace.
I have three miniature poodles: Sammy, Dolly and Asa. They are lots of fun. The sure like to bark. Anyone have any solutions for this? We tried a Thundershirt on Asa (he barks the most..my sister says they work…) and the little things that presupposed to emit a supersonic noise but they don’t work. Sigh.
I used to write poetry when I was a teenager. Well, ok me and about ga-zillion other adolescents! But I loved to express myself with words and love words.
I was an English Literature major, as I loved to read and write so much. My favorite authors are still W.B. Yeats and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I also love to read natural history.
The last natural history books I read (I always read a group of books at a time!) were “H is for Hawk” by Helen MacDonald (a modern writer who trains hawks), The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd (written during the Second World, a snapshot of the natural history of the Cairngorn Mountains in Scotland) and “The Peregrine: The Hill of Summer and Diaries” by J.A. Baker (published in 1967 and a riveting account of the natural history snapshot of a small geographical area in Britain called the Chelmer Valley).
We read the poem, “Had I the Heavens Embroidered Cloths” by Yeats as part of our wedding ceremony in 1990.
I collect natural handmade art, such as ceramic art and fiber art. My home is decorated with things that are made with the human hand imbued with love and aspirations of the human heart.
I love being a therapist. I love my clients and the wonderful relationships we develop and I love to see the growth and I grow along with them.
I’ve been through some medical challenges in my life and these help me appreciate how it can be like for others, so Behavioral Medicine/Health Psychology is a passion of mine.
I love trees. I can feel the energy emanating from the trees and gather energy from their spirits.
I really want to let my hair go white/grey, but I’m a coward! I don’t think I’m going to look like those beautiful models with white/grey hair and perfect cheekbones! Maybe someday….
My husband proposed at Windows On the World, the restaurant that was on top of the World Trade Center
I worked on Wall Street in ny kate twenties and easy thirties. When I go back down to Wall Street, I cannot believe the changes. I miss the twin towers. Wall Street is cordoned off now. It was a different time back then.
I owned and rode horses for about ten years in my life and that was the introduction to me to mindbody healing/healing on a mind body level. I started when I was about 25 and continued until I was about 35. I was in school before Title IX, when sports were mandated to be available to girls in the public schools as well. I had never found anything physical that I felt like I could actually DO. And horseback riding was a physical challenge that used both my heart, mind and body. It took me longer than most people, I think, to learn. But learn I did and became a decent rider, not the bravest one, certainly jumping and cross country were off limits to me! But a decent enough rider to have fun. I felt like my body became integrated and the learning helped me grow on emotional levels!
During those years, the relationship I developed with my horse, Mugsy, can never be replicated. I owned him from when he was 3 until he was 10. Sadly, he broke his leg badly when my son was 9 months old..so long ago, but it feels like yesterday. I miss him every day. Sometimes I dream about him and we are riding in the Ramapo Reservation and I can smell the pine trees, feel the cold air on my face. And then he is gone. I will see him at the Rainbow Bridge someday.
Mugsy was beautiful, an Appaloosa, called a snowflake Appaloosa, shiny chestnut with a white blanket with what looked like shiny chestnut snowflakes on his blanket.
I had a Dalmation named Flika for many years, maybe seven years. I used to live on 30 wooded acres. I walked in the woods every day when I was pregnant and then even afterwards with my son in various packs. Flika was always with us.
Flika was very protective of me. People..well, men, used to hunt on the outskirts of our property. They would stand right outside the property boundary signs – we posted our property, like you’re supposed to – but one day there was a hunter – at least six feet tall, all in camouflage, even his face as covered in camouflage, so it was pretty spooky. He had a huge rifle with him. I was walking our trail with my dog. He stood right outside my property line, with his rifle. Yes, he did have his hunting license attached to his back so I could record it if I wanted to. But he was facing inside my property line to shoot inside my property line. WTF? Anyway, my Flika ran up to him, barking, and pinned him up against a tree. I called her away, wondering , goodness anything can happen in these woods. He just looked at her and at me. I said, very politely, as I did not have gun but he DID, Sir, this is private property, He just said, Well, I’m not on it, I’m outside it. I shrugged and walked away. Wondered how he felt about looking at my back.
I believe there are signs in nature we can read and use to interpret meaning in our lives.
I believe in totem animals.
I believe in a benevolent universe.
I worked on Wall Street for seven years in database management. I managed the database department of a major international bank. Sometimes if there was a system failure, we’d be there all night long. Glad those days are gone, but they were good to me while they were happening.
Right now I’m reading a thriller series by William Kent Krueger. Great entertainment during my convalescence.
I worked in a Partial Care Center for persons with severe and persistent mental illness (SPM) and that opened my eyes to the plight of people who aren’t able to function in society and their families and the suffering.
After being a psychotherapist for many years, I can be cynical as I’ve heard so many stories and witnessed what people do to each other… which I need to watch this tendency and consciously feed and nurture my positivity.
On the other hand, after being a psychotherapist for many years, I have had the honor of witnessing the deepest positive motivations and striving and commitments and love within individuals. This has been a wonderful experience for me, that I keep in my emotional and spiritual foreground.
I love to garden and have made the best of my rocky, shady and deer-laden area!
There will often be like, oh, 30 turkeys in my back yard traveling through their wooded paths through my neighbor and my yards, pecking away.
I see a fox travel through my property almost every day, going along his pathway.He is beautiful, I wish people wouldn’t kill for their pelts.
One time I was walking in the 30 Acre Wood by my former house with my dog Flika, and we came upon an enormous bear, stuffing his nose into a fallen tree, maybe getting honey from a hive, I think. He wasn’t far from us. Flika charged at him, barking, I called her back. He stood way tall, looked up, right into my eyes. I immediately dropped my eyes to the ground. Stood still. Began to back away slowly, with my eyes down. He watched me. I kept backing away. I rounded some trees and turned and started to walk away slowly. Kept walking, I looked back, he was watching. I kept walking. Got some distance between us. Walked more quickly. Got more distance between us. Began to run like hell when I was nearer to our house and charged in the back door!
I am blessed to be considered part of the birth and postpartum community in New Jersey and in the wider United States as well.
I am blessed with supportive close friends, who reached out and helped me during my convalescence this fall.
I am blessed with a kind and loving family. I am blessed to be one of four siblings and enjoy their support and companionship! I am blessed to have a wonderful husband and celebrated 25 years of marriage in 2015! And triply blessed to have a kind and wonderful son!
Happy New Year to All!
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