Karmic Nectar

MY FIRST BLOG

Today it is in the low 80’s and there is a sky filled with sun. A perfect birthday for Karmic Nectar!…. I have actually wanted to blog for some time now. I have a collection of advice, karma, laughs, irony and creative visualizations stuck in my head that my friend Tami has been urging me to let loose for the past several years.

It is a bit intimidating, though, to reveal yourself to the world (even if I can’t see you). I have been told that I would be a great sales person because I am so passionate and motivate others to achieve what they want. I do feel passionate about what I believe in. I know I can help people or at least lead them in the right direction. But, I don’t want to shove it down any one’s throat. So, here it is in my (uncharacteristically) passive/aggressive way….. the portal through which I bequeath my passions: Karmic Nectar.

Music I Am Obsessed With Today

Gotan Project’s “Diferente” on the “Lunatico” album – I love ANYTHING that they put out…..

David Gilmour’s “This Heaven” on the “Live in Gdansk” album

David Gray’s “Nos Da Cariad” on the “Life In Slow Motion” album

Elliot Smith’s “Son Of Sam” on the “Figure 8″ album…

Cloud…

Marci sent me a picture yesterday with the following caption:

“Clean and relaxed.. happy horse – he is great today !‏”

She went out yesterday to be with him. She wrote that he was so happy to walk briskly with her and stand in the sun looking at the trees. Life is good for Cloud…

Speaking of great animal stories, a friend of mine sent me the following link. You must watch it – unbelievable….

http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/the-orangutan-and-the-hound/1356710375

Music I Am Obsessed With Today

Doves’ “Catch The Sun” on the “Lost Souls” album

Fort Knox Five’s “Once Again” on the “Music For Cocktails (Silver Edition)” album

Sting’s “La Belle Dans San Regret” on the “Mercury Falling” album

Jamiroquai’s “Picture Of My Life” on the “A Funk Odyssey” album…

My Hair Loss Story

I washed my hair Monday night like I always do in the shower. I then applied my conditioner and gently combed it through with my big pink wide-toothed comb before I rinsed it out. And, as I always do, I slowly turned my head to look at the comb in my hand and scanned it for strands of hair which have come out in the process.

Nothing. No hair…

I then rinsed the conditioner from my hair and looked towards the drain for the hairs that didn’t come out in my comb, but get nudged out in the final rinsing process.

Nothing. No hair swimming towards the drain…

I can’t believe it. It’s finally over.

I stand there in disbelief and smile. I am so excited to tell Stan and Leo at the appointment that I have the next day at Kindle and Boom for a color, highlight and cut.

I arrive at 10:45 where I am greeted by beautiful Caroline at the front desk.

She tells me that she will let Stan know that I am here and I gleefully make my way towards the closet to grab a gown while I wait.

Stan comes to get me and asks me how I am. And for the first time in over a year I tell him, “fabulous”! This salon that was once such an oasis for me had become a painful reminder of the hair that I was constantly losing. Chair after chair filled with women and their piled up mass of foils and thick hair. But, today I felt calm again… Like the storm was over…

Read more…

Music I Am Obsessed With Today

Jamiroquai’s “Little L” on the “A Funk Odyssey” album

RJD2’s “Ghostwriter” on the “Deadringer” album

Theivery Corporation’s “Hare Krsna” on the “Radio Retaliation” album

Massive Attack’s “Splitting The Atom” on the “Splitting The Atom” album

President’s Weekend

We awoke Friday morning and went downstairs to eat breakfast. Our kitchen window faces Marsh Hill Road. This is the road that all incoming traffic takes to the entrance of the Wisp resort. There hadn’t been any traffic going up Marsh Hill Road all week. Friday morning was different. They were coming…..

Our back-home, next-door neighbors, the Saffers, arrived Friday morning as well. They rent a place a few doors down from us called “Margaritaville”. The place is decorated in Jimmy Buffet, island style and has a flag that hangs outside that says, “It’s 5:00 Somewhere….”. They pulled into town and met us on the slopes around 11:00.

It was still snowing and had been since Tuesday… The conditions on the mountain were still good, but nothing could compare to the past week. More people were arriving as the day went on and the lift lines started to form. We all met at the peak around noon and for a moment the clouds parted  a little and the blue of the sky was revealed….

We made a huge pot of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread for the kids Friday night and then the 6 parents went out to Santa Fe Grill. We sat at a table in the bar that had a fire going and drank margaritas and cosmos and I ate gluten-free, beef nachos….

Knowing we would never find a parking spot because the traffic into Wisp was so backed up on Marsh Hill Road on Saturday, Mark and I decided to walk across the street to the resort. The powder was quickly becoming packed down and pushed off. Spoiled from being the only people here all week and not having had to wait in one lift line, I was not as eager to take on the mountain today. My heart was just not into it. Shelley and I left the mountain to go to a coffee shop called Traders.We sat and talked for over an hour enjoying our vanilla chai’s. Mark called me while we were there and told me he wanted to take me for a drive…. He would pick me up at Traders in 10 minutes.

Mark picked me up and had Billy in the car. We took off towards Swallow Falls State Park. Swallow Falls is a beautiful place that we had been to several times before with the kids when we come here in the summer. There are hiking paths that lead to beautiful falls. I had never been there in the winter…

On the way to Swallow Falls we spotted some steer right off the side of the road that were feeding at a hay bale. I had to get out and take their picture. They were so huge and intimidating with their horns and massive size.

I had to eventually get back into the car. Mark honked the horn because I was outside talking to the steer in the falling snow without a coat. I didn’t want to leave – they were so incredible to watch.  He also didn’t want to get hit. We were stopped on the side of the snow covered road. It was narrow and slick and he didn’t want anyone to plow into us….

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snow…

The weather reports started last Wednesday, February 3rd. The Blizzard of 2010 was going to start on Friday. We would have headed straight to our house at Deep Creek for a weekend of boarding, but our house was being rented Friday through Monday…

It started snowing around 10am on Friday morning. Montgomery County announced that schools would be letting out early. Coincidentally, “Dear John” (the new movie which is the adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel – same author as “The Notebook”) opened on Friday also and every teenage girl at my kids’ high school was going directly to the neighborhood theater for the 12:00 noon show. I picked up my 14 year old daughter and 3 of her friends from school and dropped them at the movie.

The snow continued to fall and our area was quickly becoming a winter wonderland… News of the impending blizzard had sent the masses to the grocery store who were quickly clearing out the aisles. I picked the girls up from the movies and we went straight to store to buy goodies for them: pizza, ice cream and Doritoes! We all headed back to our house for a night of snowed-in fun. We built a roaring fire and our next door neighbors came over for Bloody Marys and Pictionary.

Can you guess what it is? Person, Place or Thing?

Meanwhile, Marci and Nichole were at the barn making preparations to get “snowed in” there all weekend. Well aware that a huge snowfall was going to make getting to the barn next to impossible, they brought food, computers and bedding to the barn office at the Gate Lodge Farm (which is the farm at the entrance to our farm, Calleva) to hunker down for the weekend. The horses would, of course, need to be fed and looked after (at both farms) and they wanted to be there also in case of an emergency.

It snowed for 24 hours. Crazy snow. Tons of snow. Half our neighborhood and 80,000 people in Montgomery County lost electricity and heat. Snow reports totalled 32 inches in suburban Washington (where we live). Airports were closed, Metro stopped running and no one was on the road. Mark shoveled us out on Saturday and we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood.

We bundled up and took our dog, Billy for a walk. With all the sidewalks snowed in we had to walk in the middle of the road. It didn’t matter, though because there were no cars. So beautiful….

Read more…

Music I Am Obsessed With Today

The All Seeing I’s “Beat Goes On” on the “The State I’m In” album

Cosmos Sound Club’s “Les Chrysanthemes” on the “Hotel Costes, Vol. 3″ album

The Herbaliser’s “Goldrush” on the “Very Mercenary” album

Peak Potentials or How I spent 2 1/2 hours at Starbucks today

I met Nichole at Starbucks today so we could go over some apparel that she wanted to order from me for her business. I sell imprinted sportswear and promotional products (anything you can put a name or logo on) and Nichole has created a business/passion/way of life called Equiscovery www.equiscovery.com. She runs Equiscovery out of the farm that is a stone’s throw from where we board Riley.

Equiscovery is “equine-assisted life coaching”. The website encourages you to “Create a true partnership… Discover your strengths… Achieve your goals”. I knew that Nichole was doing some amazing things up the road. We see each other on occasion and she has recently been there for me over the past few months when I have had some “horse emergencies”. I have also been hearing a lot about Nichole through my fabulous “new” friend Marci (the one who showed me how to heal through my energy session with the horses on Monday).You should visit Nichole’s site and follow her blog about Layla – a wild mustang from Nevada that was “gifted” to Nichole. Her blog follows Layla’s journey as Equiscovery “gentles” her… Their hope is to create a documentary about wild mustangs in America and to visit Nevada in the hopes of finding Layla’s herd and go back to where Layla came from…

We talked for a while and picked out some great apparel… the conversation turned quickly to the ideals and experiences that we both are fueled by: our life journey’s and the people we connect with, being true to who you are, finding strength in yourself and others (and animals) and (not to sound too cliche, but…) “walking the talk”.

She told me about Peak Potentials Training and the courses and camps she had done through this program. Peak Potentials’ mission is “To educate and inspire people to live in their Higher Self based in Courage, Purpose and Joy”. They specialize in “Inner world principles for real world success”. It sounded fascinating and intimidating… She had completed the “Train the Trainer” course, “Wizard Training Camp” and “Enlightened Warrior Training Camp”. Her stories were inspiring…. She told of one course where she was given a speech and she was to learn it, feel it, become the author and then get up in front of 600 people and present it as if she were that person. Nichole’s speech was Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.

On her way up to the stage, Nichole found herself becoming calmer and more grounded rather than nervous… When she stood in front of 600 people she began to speak and told me it was as though Dr. King was next to her… She said the speech poured from her and it resonated with the audience so, that after it ended the applause and energy threw her back a couple feet. A woman in her 50’s spoke to Nichole up on stage. Sobbing, she said that she had been at that speech – all those years ago. And that she was perched on her father’s shoulders while she watched Dr. King’s historic words. Her father had died 2 weeks after that and she hadn’t felt her father’s presence until now, while she watched Nichole declare the same message….

A year or so later Nichole was at another Peak Potentials Training camp and a guy asked if he could take a picture of Nichole. She asked why and he said that he had a “mentor board” that he filled with pictures of people who inspired him. He told Nichole that he had seen her in a previous course – the one where she recounted the “I have a dream” speech. He said he went to that seminar as a last ditch effort… that he felt worthless and had thought about killing himself before he attended the course. He told Nichole that she had inspired him with that speech and it touched him so much that he never forgot it…

Clearly, there is a reason why things happen.

2009 was a tumultuous year for me. I had no idea why it was happening… my days were an emotional struggle for me. I decided to write this blog and expose myself and everything I had been through because I knew there were people out there that were going through the same thing – people that I needed to affect. To help.

Every day I meet someone new (via this blog) from all over the world… You can affect other people. Open yourself up. In the words of Marci, “Just Be”…. “Grow”.

Music I Am Obsessed With Today

Collective Soul’s “How Do You Love” on the “Youth” album

Doves’ “Lost Souls” on the “Lost Souls” album

Depeche Mode’s “Little Soul” on the “Sounds Of The Universe” album

*today is a soulful day