Last night, three women and I gathered to explore the AND.

The previous evening, one of us had shared the itchy feelings that swirled around living between two worlds, the duality, and what came with that. As I listened, the healing remedy came to me as an Essence. Integration.

Integration was the magic potion.

Integration, The Queen of AND.
We decided to meet on the full moon and get closer to its healing balm.

Last night, around a massive carved wooden table, as salsa music came in through the house's open windows, we wrote, spoke, and painted - really, we celebrated the AND.

We explored the dance of being in Community AND in Solitude.
Of Freedom AND Belonging.
Flying AND Nesting.
Generosity AND Boundaries.
Human Being AND Soul.
Acting AND Resting.
Aging AND Beauty.

As we talked and listened, a softening took place, a permission, an invitation. Pretty soon, a celebration.

Away from the convenience of black and white, we touched the taupe gray tenderness of the places where Wild meets Wise and Building meets Undoing. Slowly, I could feel the fingers of our lives interweaving naturally just as our "usness" shimmied pleasurably, happily taking more space. All the space it needed. Unapologetically and sacredly. Space for the AND, for all of who we are and have been - and will be.

There is peace in the AND. Healing, too.

***

As of February 1, I have two openings for new coaching clients. If you would like to add Clarity, Joy and Magic to your life, please email me.

The dark sky and the deep quiet slowly make way for the roosters, the orange-ing of the light, the trucks in the distance.

Soon someone might sing a song and I will put away last night’s dishes. Just as I did yesterday morning.

Because today is Sunday, the morning will be quieter.

Life has a strong rhythm, here. You can “feel” mornings differently from afternoons. Sundays from the week.

It reminds me of my childhood in France. Rhythms, rules of sorts. Things which I remember shunning and finding inconvenient (stores close on Mondays!) just as they fed me quietly,

When I moved to the US, I loved this lack of structure. Showers anytime, breakfast for dinner, stores open twenty four hours a day. That fed my Core Essences of Freedom, of Creativity.

And yet. I now find Peace in the rhythm. I find a restfulness in the occasional inconvenience of the structure. It no longer interferes with my Freedom. I no longer fight it.

My cells recognize it.

Being there is so big.

Being there for the hard moments, the moments when we can brainstorm options.

Being there for those times when we know we won’t solve anything because some times are unsolvable and “all” we can do is … be there. Allow a piece of our heart to carry a tiny fraction of the weight. Quietly. Humbly.

Being there for the transition moments. When a baby is born, a soul gets ready to fly, a newness is happening or a life-changing plane is about to take off.

Also being there to celebrate the big joys. The upleveling, the choosings, the silly-happies.

Being there sometimes takes work and it always takes the decision to do so. Even when it can be tiring, expensive, inconvenient or heart crushing.

What a privilege.