My space

I started realizing this morning that I have a morning ritual of sorts that helps ease me into my day instead of entering it in a rushed, stressed manner, my head already filled with must dos and how will I evers? I start my day in the kitchen with my prayer book, some of the Baha'i writings to help focus my day on the spiritual, and my journal to do my morning pages, and jot down my "to do" list, making sure that I include at least one thing that I love to do on my list.

This process lasts anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, depending on what I have going on in my day. It is almost always accompanied by a hot cup of water with lemon juice, to get my body moving.

Once I am done in the kitchen, I usually go open all the blinds to let the light flood into the living room. We live in a place that has a lot of very beautiful light, and it just feels wrong to me to not open the house to it from every angle, even if it does make the house warmer by afternoon.

Once the house is full of light, I head out back into the garden. I am not sure why I do this, really. I think it is because I like to be out in nature first thing in the morning. Feel the sunshine on my skin. Hear the birds. Feel connected. As usual, the sky is blue again today:

The back garden is looking inviting today. Unfortunately I have a doctor's appointment soon, so I will not be here to enjoy it until later this afternoon. Doesn't this just make you want to make yourself a cool drink and settle in with a book?

Once I had stretched up towards that blue sky, I headed back into my room to get to work. My room has the least light of any room in the house. It feels like a bit of a cave in ways. But it is my place to create, and I cherish it.

I am settled in to work now. I am working on writing and editing poems for a collection to send off to a few different publications. Getting even five or six poems together sounds small, but it is amazing how much effort it takes to get myself focused these days. It does, however, feel really good to be working towards something that has a deadline in October. And to be writing and editing my own poetry is sublime also.

I was thinking today about the space that I live and create in, which is why I wandered around snapping shots of my spaces. What do your spaces look like? If you would like to share, please post links to your images below, or jot me an email. If you write a blog entry about your creative spaces, post a link to your blog in the comments section, below.

I hope you all have a beautiful Wednesday! Here is me, in my space, wishing you a superb day of creativity in yours!

Eve of light

Photograph by Ariana Salvo. May not be used without permission.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.”  -Anais Nin

I came across this quote, which I love but have not read in ages, on Bahieh's lovely and inspiring website Soul Searcher. At sunset tonight the month of Nur or Light began. Being a Baha'i, my calendar has 19 months of 19 days in it, and each month has a title. I particularly like the month of Nur -- I think because it comes at the beginning of the summer as the light stretches out long and expansive from dawn til nightfall, and I can actually *feel* the advance of summer, which is my favourite season. 

Photograph by Ariana Salvo. May not be used without permission.

This has been an incredibly challenging last month, and I am ready for a fresh start, fresh ideas, and the potential for new opportunities to enter my life, so beginning a new month also feels like a weight has lifted, ever so slightly. 

I just started reading a new novel. It is called The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obrecht, and although I am only on page two, I can already tell I am going to love it. Interestingly, I was doing some research on the author, and found out that in addition to being the youngest best-selling author in the United States (she is only 26), she also lived in Cyprus for a while, loves Pablo Neruda, and says that a topic she likes to explore through her writing is how place influences character. Having grown up in Cyprus, owning every book of Neruda's poetry, and being equally fascinated by how place influences people and identity, I was amazed at how much I have in common with Tea. I was kind of wishing she were more easily contactable because she sounds like the kind of woman I would love to look up and invite out to tea! Since all I can find online is the information for her publicist, I am thinking connecting may not be all that simple, so I may have to content myself with reading her engaging new novel. 

Photograph by Ariana Salvo. May not be used without permission.

I have been thinking a lot about listening the past few days. Thinking about it, and trying to do it more. I have been trying to be more silent. To sit and listen after I pray. To take more time after waking up to soak up the sounds of morning -- the doves cooing on the eaves outside. The sound of the kettle boiling in the kitchen. The sound of my own breathing. I find that being silent more and listening to what is happening around me is also helping me to listen more internally -- to my higher voice, or heart voice. Tuning in, if you will. Trying to find the right frequency. 

I can't say I have found it exactly. At least not consistently. But I do think I may have felt momentary zaps of it over the last few days, like miniature electric shocks that come and are gone again so fast I barely register that they happened at all. Only I am registering it. And I am hoping that noticing those sparks and how and when they happen -- what I am doing, saying, thinking, and not doing, saying and thinking -- might help me to hone my internal frequency tapping skills so that I can get there more and more often, until maybe I reach a place where I can get a few whole minutes at a time of uninterrupted connection. 

It has rained on and off all weekend. I have been feeling pretty low on energy, and missing the company of my friends back in Canada who I seem to speak with less and less often, and so have been drinking lots of tea and doing a good deal of reading, writing and praying. It's interesting how making the decision to slow down and focus on listening, everything suddenly starts reflecting that state of awareness. It is as if the openness to receiving -- the willingness to walk, ever so slowly and gently through the space that is loneliness, and keep going even when I cannot see or understand where I am headed, invites the universe to send tiny messages my way. Like the beautiful bouquet of flowers that my mother brought home for me from the market that she placed in a vase on my writing desk. Or the call from one of my best friends this morning asking me to join her for breakfast at my favourite breakfast place (Orphan). Or this novel, which I have been wanting to read, and am on a waiting list for at the library -- risen to number 90 on the waiting list this -- that my mother came home from her trip to the bookstore with the other day. Yes, I am hearing things. Internally and externally. 

It has just started raining. The pitter patter is gaining momentum as I type, and as the Sunday night traffic dies down I can hear the sound of the wind moving through the oak trees. I love listening to the rain as I fall asleep. There are few things quite so calming, quite so perfect to lull me into a deep, dream-filled sleep. 

Photograph by Ariana Salvo. May not be used without permission.

Happy Monday! And may your week be filled with light.