Yes, I am known for my courageous spirit and actions. This had been an almost deliberate climb more deeply inside. i will share more in the future about my intention, my aim for a totally vulnerable life and new capacity for deep love. For today i merely want to say hello from this place of calm and peace where i just rest without the deep fear that has tormented me forever.

What does OASIS conjure up for you in your life?

The sun has begun to rise again in my sky. Three weeks of deep transformation, followed by six plus more of deep processing and integration. No, I was not depressed but how often someone’s deep “work  is mistaken for the d word.

It all began on my birthday, the 31st of January in New York City… I began to crash through illusions and into the grief of their loss. I coughed and wheezed violently for ten days and wasn’t sick. More and more of the unmourned began to enter into my night and then my day. All night I would dream, endless dreams and then during the day I needed to rest from the unslept night. I didn’t feel depleted, but rather just had no reserve of energy to expend on anything that drained my spirit. Anything that was not for my highest good did not happen.

I am back in my life and I am altered. In the past this sort of an “interlude” might have frightened me, but not this one. Who knows about the future ones, right? Ultimately we only know about now ¦this moment and this experience. What I can say is merely that I am so grateful to be alive, exploring my present and how I will express that in the world that we all one with.

Respectfully and intimately shared.

I arrived after the six-minute drive, parked on wide-open Hollywood Blvd, grabbed my brand new pink mat and found the front door. That mat had been paying rent in the trunk of my car for at least two years, and still had the tags from Marshall’s hanging from the black band.

The “studio” is the sweet living room of a very traditional Hollywood bungalow from the 1920′s, actually the home of Clara Bow. You could feel how much had happened in this excellent place. There were already five lovely twenty-somethings on their mats ready to go. I laid the “pink lady” out far to the left and took off my socks. Get the picture of this overweight, ancient woman struggling to the floor? We were subsequently joined by two other twenty-somethings, one male and now 8 women.

After the first simple moves and a few OM’s I knew I was in trouble. Downward Dog was not happening for me. This was either going to be a night of humiliation or deep humility, if I could allow it. My first thoughts were to gather my things and slip back out to Hollywood Blvd. I chose not to do that, and to just do what I could of the mudras and sutras and poses. I sat quietly a lot. I was quiet with eyes closed more than open, but most of all I was happy to be there. There was no one to compete with, no place to go other than inward. My body was engaged, my heart was centered and my soul happy to be just where it was, home with Clara Bow, a silent film star of the 1920′s.

P.S. Since that night, less than a week ago, I have taken some steps. The group teacher is now my private teacher, and I have a little baby yoga practice i.e., downward dog is a puppy, and tree is a sapling. I plan to keep going to the group class.

Jim introduced me to Alice about three years ago and I began lunching with her every few months. I love Alice! For years I’ve searched for a role model, if there really is such a thing, to match my style of aging.

Alice lives independently in a senior apartment building where she can walk to and from stores and services. She is little, actually a tiny woman, maybe 4 foot 8 and weighs about 11 pounds. Her dressing style is really stunning… mostly from consignment shops and she never throws a thing away. Last night for her birthday she had on black silk slim pants, a gorgeous bronze metallic blouse and fabulous gold earrings. Often when i pick her up for lunch, she is wearing a blazer and shirt with the collar and cuffs turned up.

Alice laughs!!! She finds life a delight and engages in spirited conversations. Her resilience is palpable and i would say she lives with an enormous light turned on in her soul. My friend Alice has no pretensions… what you see is what you get. She is open with her generosity and gratitude. Surely one day Alice will just not wake up from her night’s sleep and then she will be lighting other realms.

In the Spring of 2009, I shared Easter Sunday with Alice. We went to Church with Jim and the three of us took communion together. A friend of ours is a Minister at this Church and as the three of us stood huddled and hugging he was totally focused on our Alice. She looked up from her tiny stance with sweet tears rolling down her cheeks as Reverend Tim embraced Alice with his love and his words. I cried too.

My love for Alice is almost not understandable. She is certainly not some mother substitute nor a substitute for anything… she is just Alice. I feel this purity in myself when we are together. we laugh like girlfriends, chatter like pre-teens and appreciate each other’s journey.

This is the purity that I wish for all at this time of celebration and love. Happy holidays and a bravo New Year.

Blessings, Harriett

The other day I was on the phone with a friend in New York City. She can see a sliver of the Hudson River from her perch on a high floor, and spied a little tug boat mid-river pulling a rather huge barge. It totally caught her attention, and an old curiosity about how those little boats can do what they do came into our conversation. I’m sure someone could give us the science of it, but the real question for this blogger is that it doesn’t seem reasonable for such a small boat to do such a large thing. How often have you looked at something and instantly misjudged or misinterpreted the possibility?

I had another recent experience like this, on Thanksgiving Day, to be exact. At the gathering I attended I met a woman for the second time, who moved to LA from another city in the East about half a year ago.

She is closer to my age than most friends of mine, and she was quite determined to talk and get to know me. For those who know me well, I can sometimes push back hard on that. At any rate, I surrendered to her friendly spirit although at first blush she didn’t catch my deepest curiosity. Well, lo and behold that didn’t last long. She had just returned from a nine-day trip where she had flown around the USA to five cities to attend five different Leonard Cohen concerts. Bless her, she had really caught my attention and with great humility I acknowledge I had indeed judged her “cover.”

Blessings …

Well, Saturday turned out to be movie night with my dear friend Jim Curtan who is the absolute king of the flicks. That is another blog that I want to dedicate to this very special and gifted friend of mine.

This film had been calling since its release, but I could never quite make the timing work for me. Secretly, I think I didn’t want to see it alone. That in itself is unusual since, as a only child, I have been going to movies solo since I was seven years old.

I was prepared to be emotionally sand papered by this film. Precious is this shockingly abused sixteen-year-old girl living in the heart of New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Instead, I was totally touched by the depth and dimensions of the human spirit. This film was uplifting! We walked out of the theater with jubilant hearts. The film had more than vanity performances by Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Mo’Nique. Each gives an amazing performance that steals nothing from the core of the main character. How often are we able to be in someone’s “movie” in that way?

This movie is film at its best. You have certainly had this experience where the images and the feelings linger…. where they have found a home in your psyche. Precious has found me. What has touched you lately?

Love and blessings…

What was so hard to swallow and gave me indigestion? During the four days I was away for a marketing boot camp I had the strangest symptoms. I entertained that coffee on an empty stomach was the culprit, or that I didn’t have enough water… even such an “evolved being” like me can be so blind-sided. Frankly, this was not a place i should have been, and it was giving me big indigestion!!!

How many times has this happened to all of us? I had an opportunity to do this program, the price was very right, and I would get to spend four days with a good friend in a beautiful place by the ocean. Oh, and I might pick up some marketing tips, as we move slowly through this downturn into a “new ” economy.

The “indigestion began almost immediately… I was in the wrong place at the right time. I am who and what I am, and only want to be more of that. My gifts are not promotional, they are of service. My nature is not to go out after business, but to respond to what comes to me. Offer me a gig and I will make it great, because that is what is harmonious with my nature. There must have been one little place where I had not accepted this… well at least until the big meltdown on Saturday afternoon.

If you know me, well then you know I don’t hide under things like my “story” of a challenging early life, an incestuous mother or abandoning father… or behind age either. I believe that we are all given different gifts and talents and that our work is to be true to that and live those gifts fully. I simply quest now for “what wants me”. What was I thinking?

Blessings to all…

WOW!

I don’t want it to sound like the diary of an 11-year-old, and yet I just want to be myself. Some days that may mean I sound just like an 11-year-old, or a 90-year-old, but it is all from this being called “Harriett.”

I am a woman who looks everywhere for the signs of life. I take them in, process what I feel, and then talk about it or not.

So, I welcome you to my blog: WiseWoman Speaks. I honor each and every one!

Blessings…

But I am starting NOW! If some of these entries touch a chord, I am honored. These writings are the personal triggers that stir me; they are not philosophies or guides by which to live your life. The questions that you ask yourself are as profound as mine are to me. I want to hear yours too!

Last week I saw a sky more beautiful than any I had ever seen. It was such a paradox, of course, since life is always like that. I had been in San Francisco for a special man’s celebration of his 70th birthday and was driving on Route 5 through the central valley of California, returning to Los Angeles where I live. At best, it’s a long and dull ride, and the tendency is to push the 70 mph speed limit to 85 with no thought. The rains had started in the night and by now they were torrential. Gale force winds added to the landscape as I held tight to the wheel of my 2001 GTI VW.

The drive was much slower than usual, often under 50 mph. The rains and winds varied their force every 10 minutes or so. It was a stressful drive with no chance of losing attention to my job of steering. The rain lessened, the wind smoothed it’s edge, and the sky brightened a wee bit. There to my right (which would be west), was the most gorgeous skyscape I had ever seen: clouds that looked like another set of hills on top of Nature’s natural set; colors from sand to umber painted the sky.

The learning for me (one more time) is the beauty that can emerge from chaos, over and over again.