Dream A Little Dream With Me!

What is your dream? What is it that brings you so much joy that you can’t wait to get up in the morning and causes you to stay up too late to keep working on it? What makes your heart sing? What would you go to the ends of the earth to keep doing no matter who tells you it’s ridiculous or a silly, foolish waste of time? For me it’s writing.

I created my first book in third grade. That first taste was all I needed to set me on the road in search of the “Holy Grail” – how to break into the mysterious world of publishing. With numerous files of short stories, manuscripts, poems, and articles to my credit, it feels like my search is nearing a conclusion; the grail less mysterious and within reach. My book, Feather Gifts for all ages, is now entered in “The Next Top Spiritual Author”, a competition that has unexpectedly drawn over 2000 contestants world-wide.

Writing is my meditation and gift to the world, something I feel I came into this world to do. My passion was only strengthened when a high school guidance counselor tried to discourage me from my dream of being published, toward something he called “more substantial.” Fancying myself as a female version of “John Boy” from the long-running series The Walton’s, I persisted and the Universe, God if you will, carried me...

For many years I gave my written works away as gifts while studying whatever I could about how to be a really good writer. I self-published a newsletter for four years, submitted a few things to newspapers and magazines, and did manage to get some small pieces published. Then fifteen years ago, I began telling stories to children as a promotion at a Native American arts store where I worked in Madison, NJ.

I was out walking, wondering what to do for the story hour, when I found myself experiencing nature in a different way. I attribute this change to my exposure to Native American beliefs that everything has a living spirit, a prevailing theme in Feather Gifts and other manuscripts.

During the store promotion, I started telling my own stories out of respect for Native traditions that their tales are told only by Native people. I received invitations to tell at outdoor education centers, community centers, churches, scouting events, and schools. In my spare time, I sketched feathers and the idea to write Feather Gifts was born.

Years later, I was encouraged when a series of events led me to Ardath Rodale, late owner of Rodale Press, Chief Inspiration Officer of Prevention Magazine, and founder of Hillside School in Allentown, PA. Mrs. Rodale loved the book and by the time of her passing had purchased 30 copies printed on my home computer. I now wonder what may have happened if the relationship with Mrs. Rodale had continued.

I sold several more home printed copies here and there and was ready to print professionally when I discovered that the program I had used for layout was too old to transfer to modern equipment. Undaunted, I hired a graphic artist to re-create the book. Entering the contest seemed like the next natural step when I received an email from James Twyman, author and founder of the competition, who promised ongoing support, education, and exposure for the duration of the competition.

What’s most important to me is that my work will inspire you and bring you closer to loved ones and our earth to experience more joy, beauty, and fulfillment. My goal is to also send books to Native and other under-funded schools.

Round One of the competition (four rounds total) is largely dependent on popular vote between March 30 and May 3, 2010. PLEASE BECOME A PART OF THIS INTERNATIONAL EVENT BY SUPPORTING ME WITH YOUR VOTES!

And please, whatever it is, awaken your dreams and follow your heart. It may sound cliché, but it’s never, ever too late!

Many Blessings and Dreams,
Robin

Coming Soon!

The days are flitting by as I and about 2000 talented authors prepare to launch our audio and video pitch to become the Next Top Spiritual Author! Right now all I can reveal is that soon you will be invited to register to vote on the Next Top Spiritual Author website. On or before March 29th I will post specific information about their site and my personal author ID and URL so you can cast your vote for my book "Feather Gifts"! Stay tuned! Voting begins March 30th!

Meanwhile I'd like to share a recent experience that feels somehow related to all this excitement!

I was in yoga class with my mat situated so I could look out the window as I moved through my salutes to the sun. Across the street, on a high chimney, sat a single blackbird. My practice turned into a communication of sorts with the small bird.

In our daily readings and chants we have been focusing on Lakshmi, the goddess of abundance. As I stared at the tiny creature on the chimney, I felt a certain melding with Lakshmi and the bird itself, who for the sake of this post I will call "She-bird". She-bird sat there against a robin's egg blue sky, with no choice but to let her dark feathers drink in the warm sun that beamed down on her. It was just there for the taking. She-bird turned her head this way and that, surveying her immediate territory of asphalt and brick, then beyond to the treetops that were visible in every direction. I imagine her gaze found the nearby Delaware River and distant mountains with no thought of lack or concern for what to eat or where to go next. She-bird innately practiced, from birth, what I've worked for years to re-learn...the essence of "being". She-bird stayed with me, perched on that chimney, until just before "shivasana" the ending pose of yoga. I turned away for an instant and when I looked back she had flown into her bountiful world, but her message remains.

My yoga teacher then read a quote about Lakshmi. "She is one whose object and aim is to uplift humankind." Without knowing it, She-bird did that for me. She reminded me that during this contest and in life, there is nothing to do but to drink in all that is laid before me with joy and gratitude. There is no need to be concerned about what to do next, but to simply follow the natural rhythms. I can look beyond my immediate surrounding to the boundless hills and endless sky...Abundance!

In the spirit of She-bird, may these words uplift and carry you into your day where ever you are.

With Gratitude,
Robin

Rainy Day Monday, but the Sun Shines Here!

Wow! Is it Monday again? This has been such a full week, so much to do to get ready for the "Next Top Spiritual Author" contest! Ideas are flowing and I'm learning so much! Some moments feel like a luxurious free-fall while others feel like I've jumped off a cliff! Oh, but either way the landscape is breathtaking!

Someone once told me, "Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway." Is there some dream that half thrills, half scares you? Do you get a heady rush just thinking about that dream; not sure if life is daring you or pulling you back into your shell? I invite you...NO! I DARE you to stick your neck out. Take a long look around and if you feel like diving back under cover, put one foot in front of the other and keep going! Never look back.

A dream is just a dream until YOU make it reality! Come on...I know you can do it!

Love,
Robin

Birth Days

I’ve had at least a hundred birthdays since that first early May 14. No, I’m not one hundred years old yet, but my birthdays have changed and become something different from what they once were.

My mother always said I was so thoughtful to wait until eight fifty-five a.m., giving my Dad enough time that Saturday to have some breakfast before returning to continue wearing a path in the linoleum floor of the waiting room. Those were the days before dads were allowed into the delivery room. The nurses had barely finished giving me my first bath, when I earned the title of “apple-cheeks” and “pork-chop”, due to my plump red cheeks and rather noisy appreciation of baby formula. Years later my face would glow in the same apple-red shades, when my mother giggled while sharing my prior nicknames with one or more of my teenaged friends!

As a child, weeks before my birthday, I’d sit down and write out party invitations to my little friends. When the day arrived, eight or so girls all dressed in their best dresses with crinolines underneath, would file into our house. Each one carried brightly wrapped gifts in all shapes and sizes and my eyes bulged as I wondered what treasures might be hidden inside them. We played games like, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Pins in a bottle, and had scavenger hunts. There were the usual birthday cakes, balloons, candles, and not-so-usual absence of ice cream. My mother believed that canned fruit embalmed in sugary syrup, then embedded in Jello was a healthier choice than ice cream – another cause for my apple-red cheeks to return when I saw the looks on the faces of my half-dozen or so disappointed friends. Each year I would beg to have ice cream and each year my mother would insist that fruited Jello was the next best thing to a fresh picked apple.

Not long before my twelfth birthday, I fell under the spell of peer pressure and was compelled to give up asking for dolls as birthday gifts. When one by one I put the many dolls already in my possession up on high shelves and hid them in closets, I secretly felt I was betraying some of my best friends. I could barely look into their blue glass eyes without my own eyes tearing up.

After the last of the dolls was safely tucked away I told my mother I wanted to invite boys as well as girls to my birthday party. On the school bus, my girlfriends and I plotted how we would instigate a game of Spin-the-Bottle. Somehow word got out and it seemed the boys looked forward to it as much as the girls. I invited Bill, one of my first pre-teenage crushes.

Bill had a big inviting smile and was my height, a plus for a shy girl who was often taunted with nicknames like “Jolly Green Giant” or “Tree”. A girl who had not yet learned to appreciate what it means to be “looked up to”. Bill had a medium blond brush cut and I remember he wore a green plaid shirt that set off his blue eyes. Somehow the sparkle in those blue eyes suddenly seemed a bit more enticing than looking into the eyes of my dolls.

My twelfth May 14th finally came and for the first time I shared cake and fruity Jello with the small crowd of girls and boys. When it was my turn to spin the bottle I made my birthday wish, and hope of all hopes, my wish was granted. The bottle pointed toward Bill! When our soft young lips met I thought there would never be a birthday so sweet as that one.


Once I was grown, the date of May 14 still held an air of celebration, although usually without all the fanfare. I had accompanied many of my friends on their twenty-first birthdays as they proudly showed their I.D. and purchased their first six-packs of beer and quart bottles of Boone’s Farm. In case you’ve never heard of it, Boone’s Farm was the fruited Jello of wines back then. And cheap enough that those making minimum wage could afford it. When my day finally rolled around I went to the store by myself. I walked down the chilly isle until I found just the right thing to christen my coming of age…a whole half-gallon of mint chocolate-chip ice cream! Jello no more! Crossing over the threshold into the infinite wisdom of adulthood, I knew that traditional birthday “food”, while maybe not so good for the body, is essential nourishment for the soul. Now that was a birth day!

As soon as possible, not long after my official birthing into adulthood, I broke the barbaric, peer-driven spell of my childhood. It was September. I was twenty-six, newly married, and stood in the midst of the cardboard boxes I’d carried with me into my new home. I picked through those boxes looking for long buried treasure. Finally I found the one marked “dolls”. I gave each long, lost friend a hug, as I pulled him or her one by one from their hiding place. Ceremoniously, I bathed each one and gave them all fresh new clothes and hair-dos. They were officially dubbed my doll “collection”. Their pink painted smiles gleamed and I swore I saw one or two of those blue glass eyes wink at me. That was a birth day!


After a few dozen May 14ths had passed, my soul longed for that air of celebration to permeate my life, to stay with me for more than just one day a year. What was it that made that one day on the calendar so special? Yes, it was fun to have others celebrate the event of my birth with special festivities. But I wanted to capture that same special feeling so that it lingered long after the birthday candles had been blown out and the friends had gone home.

One August, during the period when my marriage was dissolving and I had no idea what my future held, I kneeled on the couch staring out into the chaos of a gushing rainstorm. My mood inside matched the chaos of the storm outside. Suddenly I was flooded with the inspiration to do something I’d never allowed myself to do before. I kicked off my shoes, ran out, and launched myself feet first into a large puddle that was forming in the yard. I tilted my head back to let the drops pour over me. I jumped up and down, laughing and splashing in that puddle as the stormy mood dissolved into that puddle. That was a birth day!

Early on another September morning I decided to take a drive to the ocean shore. As I walked solo to my car, the fall chill reminded me of my recent breakup. The sun peeked through the clouds now and then along the way and by the time I arrived at Bradley Beach it was a balmy sixty-eight degrees. I padded through the warm sand, dipping my feet in the surf and mindlessly scanning for shells and other gifts from the sea. I felt the power of the ocean inside of me, rising, swelling, full, and ever changing. Then I was like the sand being endlessly washed over and marveling at what was uncovered or let go of with each wave of tears. The breeze brushed and tousled my hair, kissed my cheeks, and brought the taste of salt to my lips. For a glorious three hours I left footprints in the sand to be sent back to sea in the rolling waves. The most precious treasure I unearthed that day was a deep sense of being present, being really there without my head swimming in worrisome thoughts of the past or the future and I found a deeper connection to some unnamable, invisible companion, who I realized was always with me. Even though my official birth date was in May and this was September, I was fully in the experience of another birth day.

The following year, I was immersed in a training that involved digging around inside myself to find more of the inner gifts that no May 14th, up to that point, had revealed. It was March and I arrived at the training center in Canada to find Lake Simcoe solidly frozen. On the second day I could see from the main conference room, that a crack had opened up across the smooth surface of the ice-covered lake. As each of the eight days passed and the temperature rose, more cracks appeared and opened the lake to the sun's warmth, mirroring the way that I and my classmates were cracking open to the long-hidden aspects of our true selves. On the last unusually warm day, I knelt by the lakeshore in the sunshine, holding my hands in the water...a baptism of sorts for a heart that was continuously rebirthing itself. As the ripples calmed and the water returned to stillness, I leaned over and saw my reflection, backed by a clear blue sky, there in the completely thawed lake. That was a birth day!

Thanks to all who have celebrated May 14ths and my other birth days with me. I wish everyone I know, and everyone I will never meet, many, many birth days!