Hola gorgeous Goddess!

This year, I’m participating in Reverb10. I’m also one of the contributing authors for it. Reverb10 is a writing project for each day of December & reflects on 2010 & manifests for 2011.

December 2:
Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

Me? Writing?

The excuses float in like debris on a wave.

Baby. Time. One handed typing. My sanity. I need to make money. The flotsam and jetsam of social media.

Today, it rained so loud and so long that I got cabin fever. The only thing to do was what all the other villagers do in our small tropical town. I gathered Mermaid Daughter in my arms and walked barefoot through the puddles that had become fast flowing rivers. I trolloped through the squelchy back paddock, through the mud carpark and down the tiny arcade into our one and only Main Street (Yes, that’s its name. We are an imaginative lot – but it is a tad better than our previous house on the aptly named House Circuit).

We ended up finding our way through the monsoonal sop to a friend’s spiritual store. We’ve been friends since high school, when our names weren’t Goddess Leonie & Akiah – instead, back then, we were Bony & Scruff. We might have had a name change, but we still call each other on our stuff.

“So how’s that oracle card proposal going of yours, Leonie? I thought you said you were going to finish it and send it out?”

I shrug my shoulders, and immediately cast my eyes elsewhere, instantly and overwhelmingly intrigued by dreamcatchers hanging from the ceiling.

I start The Mumble And Shuffle. It’s a fun dance move to do. “Oh, you know. I finished something else instead. #shuffle. I thought I might just make some money instead. I do enough already… #shuffle.”

“How on Earth are you going to fulfill your mission when you don’t send it out Leonie? You are very good at excuses making!”

“Ooh! Look! An IChing chart! How pretty! I didn’t know you had one of those!”

“You are very good at distractions!”

“I’ll buy it! Can you gift wrap for me?”

And then we both laugh. I bring home a gift for under the tree. I bring home a reminder that some days will go over my head, and on others, straight into my heart.

Write, Leonie. Just write. Do your work in the world and make it happen.

There’s soul work to be done, of course.

And practical changes too.

Changes like:

• Keep doing daily Artist Dates. Get out of the house. On my own. Let Mermaid Daughter & my love do their daddy-daughter dance. Give myself the space to turn inward and spill outward and turn up to the page.
• Resurrect my practice of writing on my iPod when I’m feeding Mermaid Daughter  to sleep & keeping her asleep instead of flipping between apps (Facebook & Twitter, Imalookinatyoo!)
• Keep my focus and intention clear by using my To Do List.
• Keep taking weekends off from pushing. Burnout is not hot.

And as for that Oracle Card Project That Shall Not Be Spoken Of?

All the push in the world only exhausts this creative mama. Right now, that project? It’s not ripe for the birth journey. When it is, it is.

In the meantime, there is just this extraordinary, full, well loved life. Just this woman and her words.

Waiting to see what will be born today.

All I need do is turn up.

All my love,