Does place matter?

Years ago I was asked if place mattered, if a place could make you happy. Now, I don't believe anything outside myself is responsible for my happiness. I do know that certain people or situations can certainly broaden my smile, and other experiences can make a smile difficult to form. However, if I were not human ever, then I'd have to say place or anything else did not matter at all because I could be happy all the time no matter what.


I just happen to be human also. I have some very human moments, and just what a kick they happen to be.

What I've been discovering is just how unnecessary it is to get dramatic about how things look. For instance, Tammy and I no longer have phone service today. I smile anyway and want to see how clever the universe is in getting me the information I am to know today. God knows, the one thing the universe does not need to communicate with me is a phone. I'm waiting to hear from a future employer, but it won't be by phone now. I have some of my artwork at a new store, and the owner was going to call me today about selling them there. Well, it won't be by phone.

This has offered me another opportunity to be less available in the "normal" channels. I won't go into why the phone was disconnected because every human involved with the situation has a different story, and the stories don't matter. None of the stories matter. None.

So, back to a place making me happy... I moved to Taos only knowing Tammy. Why did I move here? Don't know that one completely, just know that it felt good. It still feels good. It feels right. I look back on who I was being in McKinney, Texas, and I not only don't recognize that person, but I truly don't like the memories I have of her.

I used to party a lot on the square. There was always drinking and eating going on there. That's what we did. At the end of the day it was always about where we were going to go that night and who we were going to drink with. That's how I remember it. I haven't had a sip of any alcohol whatsoever since my birthday party in late September. I didn't drink much in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where I lived before arriving in McKinney. As a matter of fact, I don't think I drank like that since I had been in college.

Steamboat and Taos have both been very spiritual places for me. Taos even more so. The level of art is escalated here. I feel that goes hand in hand, at least it does for me. My art is a form of spirituality for me. It takes me to a place I can't go to in any other way. What's interesting though is that I moved out here with no art/sewing supplies whatsoever. I keep stripping down my material life. It's fascinating because I'm learning how to live life totally differently. I thought I was going to come out here and do energy work and not be an artist when what I have done is use my energy in my latest art creations. My energy here is so profound that it knocks me off my feet sometimes. The energy in Taos is palpable. I feel the shift in my own energy since moving here. I'm discovering that this is the case with most people. What takes people years to transform in other places occurs here within days. That's how it's been for me.

Does Taos make me happy? I make me happy. Taos resonates with my energy though. Taos and I are one sometimes. I don't need to do energy work here. I am an energy billboard here. No matter what I do or say or have or be, I am all that's necessary right here, right now. I have it all within. I've never felt this way until moving here. It's a complete package of peace and tranquility wrapped up so nicely.

When I explain to people here how I've been feeling, they nod their heads. They tell me welcome home. They embrace me. This is something I've not experienced before. I used to be very careful with what I said because I was tired of the strange looks or the constant questions. Here, I hardly even finish a statement when the person I'm speaking with agrees with me. Sometimes I can't finish a sentence because it's just not necessary. Words aren't always essential here. It's the unspoken understanding, the smile, a gentle hand on the shoulder, that makes me realize that this is the only place I can be right now for the growth that I've gone through, the relationships I've developed, and the peace I've embodied. With everything stripped away, I can only see the trust I have in the Universe. I am totally taken care of with or without a phone. Phoneless, I must put myself out there to talk to those I need to face to face. What a concept! I have to look in their eyes while giving and getting information. I make connections with them that I couldn't possibly do on a phone or through emails.

My life here has centered around human contact while totally sober. I've learned to adjust my body to the different energy here. I feel things so much stronger. I feel people who aren't even here physically. And in Taos, those feelings are normal. I don't have to explain myself here. I am where I belong right now. I have the prospect of having a future boss that is phenomenal in the loving people department. I have the ability to go to work and not have a single thing matter as much as radiating compassion and understanding to every single person I encounter. This is what I'm here for right now. This is all that matters at this moment. To love no matter what. It's really easy to love when I'm being loved, and now I'm doing it when the" being loved" is disguised as something else.

So today begins another new way of showing up in this fantasy called life. I've adapted to not having a car, and now I'll do it with a phone that acts as a timepiece. I am grateful. I am just so grateful to see how beautifully the magic will unfold today.

And, yes, place does matter.

It's now safe to love.

Today was my first visit to Santa Fe. It won't be my last. I awoke with such bliss, and I knew something magical and wonderful was going to pop for me today. It did. It was such a great surprise, and it was life altering.

While living in Steamboat a couple of years ago, I did breathwork with a female shaman, Cyndy Clemens. We did it for a year and my visions during each session built upon each other until finally by the end of the year, it came to a conclusion, or so I thought.

I was led through a life I had lived in 1547 as an Indian maiden and was in love with a warrior who was killed in a battle. I was on the battlefield at the end of the fight, holding him when he died. Cyndy had told me that now it was safe for me to love. At the time of the session it was 460 years after my Indian lover had died, and it was now safe to love. How 'bout that one?

My friend, Tammy, and I had an appointment at a healing facility in Santa Fe today, and when we pulled up to park outside the building, the address was right in front of us. It read: 1547. Now, most people might have blown that off or not even have noticed, but for me everything is to be paid attention to. It makes for a magical life.

I went into the office with Tammy, had the interview and the tour, and before leaving turned to the acupuncturist, Emily, who ran the place, and told her a little more about me. The difference was that when I spoke this time, I saw myself as that female Indian. I felt her love for this man. I knew her courage for continuing her life and her passions without him by her side, and what that did for me was make me stand taller. My words were firmer, clearer, and more determined because for the first time I could feel within me just who I am. I told Emily and Tammy what I could do and what I had to offer as if for the first time I truly recognized it in myself. The love that Indian woman had for her man welled up in me and filled me with such potency that I felt I could've said anything amazing about myself and it would've been true. Raised as a southern Catholic girl with three brothers, this was a totally different experience for me. I have never spoken (or felt) such conviction for myself or my gifts.

This was something so far out in left field that I couldn't have figured out how magical my day would've been if I had tried, but for some reason that doesn't keep me from doing just that. I still get hell-bent on trying to figure out things, and all for nothing because it's always so much more amazing than I could possibly imagine. And this happened today, and changed my life and altered my soul. I stood up for me, for who I am, for what I am able to do with such incredible ease and love. And love.

For me, it always comes back to love. In 1547 it was an Indian warrior. Right now... Well, right now is so very different. I love many. My heart is so full. My love overflows. There is a beautiful man that I write stunning prose and poetry with. I allowed him in. I told him I'd go deep with him, and then deeper, and then deeper still. I have. I have traveled to places with him that I've never gone before. Over and over I excavate those deep wounds that I've held onto for years. Once uncovered, those painful, deep-seated emotions release, and let me tell you, it's been painful, agonizing, and torturous, but, and here's the really big but -- I want to get rid of the shit and live my life to the fullest. I want to stand on a mountaintop, raise my voice to the heavens, and sing the song that only I can.

So, here it is. I desire a man who I can be so open, so purely me, so laid bare, and no matter what his response, I love and accept me anyway. I choose to declare my worthiness and my love for the god within me by showing up as the being I am, especially through my energy, my words, and my actions. I choose purity of my heart with openness and honesty. And I choose this no matter how the man shows up.

I've never said this before. I've never felt so strongly about this before. Connecting with you has led to some very deep excavations because the truth is that I want a man in my life who shows up like you have. When I read your messages to me, I realized how I have shouted a vibrant yes! to the universe and claimed myself worthy of a mirror like you.

And, my precious friend, I offer to you what you have to me. I too, am a great listener. I too, fully open my divine heart to you and welcome you in because I am your mirror, and I so love what you're looking at. Whew! Thank you for opening me up to that discovery.

This man lives far from me, but distance does nothing to diminish what we feel for each other and what we can feel of each other. I can be in a meeting or out to dinner, and I can feel his energy merge with mine. I've been in a room where heated conflict arose, and once I began to feel him with me I could only smile and look at the dynamics in the room as a dance I chose not to jump into. Instead, I remained in bliss.

I sit with him and euphoria rises. Meditation or yoga has never brought the kind of peace within me as I feel when I allow him in. It's a beautiful ride downstream with a heart so full of joy that nothing interrupts the flow of it. Often I've wondered what it could possibly be to have a man like that in my life not only like we experience each other, but also in the physical. Wow! I'm not sure I'd ever get dressed again...

It is safe to love now. I didn't know that apparently when I got married a hundred years ago. Otherwise I wouldn't have married my mirror -- someone totally emotionally unavailable. We became good business partners, but never dove below the surface. Didn't even know that a man would want to look at my body while making love until my Aspen pilot showed up 6 years ago. The first time we were alone in a hotel room the lights were on, and he undressed me very slowly. I never heard the word beautiful so many times. He loved every inch of my 48 year old body. No, he adored it. He worshipped it, and for the first time I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might not be hard to look at. I hadn't known that before.

A friend of mine who saw us together pulled me aside and told me that she could tell how much he loved me. I was shocked. Really? Just like that? This beautiful man could possibly love me? Really? She said that she could tell just by the way he looked at me. And, I had to admit that I adored seeing me through his eyes. For the first time in my life I had a lover who believed in me, heard me, and loved it all. He still does. He held my hand until I was able to let go. I have let go. I'm still soaring because of who I've become because of him, and I see no reason in the world to stop loving this man no matter who else is in my life.

I find it fascinating to see how relationships have gone for me since being single, and I love saying that I'm single. I've sculpted a life of simplicity since singledom. It allows great mobility and freedom. I can create myself anew every day. I can fine-tune my wants and desires at every turn, and I can do it without taking anyone else into consideration. I can say yes to me over and over and over. Is this being selfish? You bet, and it's about damn time! I say yes to honesty and openness. I say yes to unconditional love and gratitude. I say yes to these beautiful men, and to the others I have not written about. I am so grateful to what they each have brought into my life because I'm loving the moments immensely. Every text, phone call, Facebook comment, etc. is a love note. Every single one. Every word, every breath is an opening up to divinity. It's a widening of who I am, of who we all are. It's another chance to say yes to each other and to be able to break open another heart a bit wider and let the love in. That's all there is. That's all there is.

Just thinking...

There's just nothing like a porch and some chairs to get me to thinking. Really, it doesn't even take that. I think anyway, much to my chagrin. Thinking is way overrated. Thinking is truly the least productive thing I do. Thinking is what gets me into trouble most of the time. It leads me to judging people and coming to really stupid conclusions. Thinking trips me up when I'm in my studio. It prevents me from letting the flow of words come through easily or the creative ideas for fabric magic to occur.

The thinking that leads to conclusions then leads me to ending relationships. I am not one to hold onto baggage. I delete emails daily. I throw away easily, and I give away anything that hasn't been touched recently. I purge. I excavate and delineate. I think I must come from a long line of Shakers. I live simply and without clutter.

Now recent visitors to my studio may disagree with me, but if you only knew what I once held onto in my 1200 square foot studio, you'd know I had pared down greatly. Even the family I lived with in Steamboat would be surprised at how much I have purged.

I find that excess does not serve me well. I live lightly, unencumbered, unattached, and totally free to go wherever my heart leads. Right now it leads me here still in McKinney on the square with a new studio and a new place to sell my wares and my book. On the square. I love being able to say that. I wrote about a square in my novel and now I'm living that experience.

If it's all right now, all this moment ONLY, then how could I have possibly written it and then lived it? Didn't it all happen simultaneously?

I'm also discovering that all the men I've been with throughout my life are all interconnected. I look at one, and see another. I hear one's voice and hear another's. What does it mean? Because I think so much, I've come up with a conclusion. Since I'm the common denomenator, then all of them must be mirrors of me. Since I live in a universe that has this law of attraction, I must be attracting to myself physical reminders of all that I've been thinking.

This thinking that I've been doing has led to experiments that have led to changing my thinking, so that I concentrate more and more on only those thoughts that make me feel oh so good. This part has been fun. I've let go of more baggage. I've thrown away that suitcase that held my desire for control. I now have my hands free for enjoying the grip of an airplane yoke, the nubbiness of Dupioni silk, the soft texture of newly-washed puppy hair, and the absolute freedom of air flowing around and between fingers that have nothing to hold onto.

I've discovered how light air feels, and I don't give it much thought at all.

my birthday

Today is my birthday -- again. Thank you to all who celebrated with me. I am so grateful. I've had the time of my life here in McKinney. I mean that with great sincerity. It's partying, networking, moving and shaking like I've never seen before in my life. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've worked my ass off with still so many other things left to do. I've accomplished so much and feel there's still so many more things to fulfill. I've danced and sang, and I still feel there's so much more to sing and dance about. The more I do, the more I want to do. The more I experience, the more experiences I want.

I've awakened after a very deep sleep in my marriage, and then my two short years of cocooning in Steamboat. It was truly an amazing healing process with the shamans I worked with and the family of friends I played with. I am so very, very grateful because when I moved to this town little did I know what the pace would be like on a regular basis. Fast speed has been the predominant speed. Steamboat for me didn't even know that pace existed.

It was slow, especially on the snowy mornings when I would scrape my windshield and brush the feet of snow off my car. (Okay, sometimes inches, but still...)

I am fifty-three this weekend. I turned the new number last night in a bar dancing with friends. Tonight I did the same thing with more friends and more fun. At one place there were disco lights flashing and every single person dancing on the dance floor was dressed to the nines in black. There were many pairs of boobs that didn't move. With my jeans and t-shirt on, I went through that tight circle of black high-end fashion plates and danced with abandon. I laughed and hugged and threw my arms wide open. I flung my head back and laughed. I shook my hair and moved my feet wildly. Those black suits/dresses just looked at me. I didn't have a care in the world. I danced with a man who mirrored my actions. We went crazy. And it was the best fun I've had. I let go and danced. I danced as if no one was watching, but I saw many pairs of eyes on me. I danced anyway. I had a hole in one knee while surrounded by designer black wear. I danced anyway. I was sober, coherent, and alive. I especially danced anyway.

I then went to where I knew I was with my people, a place where there were no designer wear, especially in black. There were jeans and t-shirts and I was grabbed and squeezed, kissed and hugged.

I work hard. I usually work seven days a week even, so to play this wildly for two days in a row, is just downright decadent.

But today is my birthday, and I deserve it. I also deserve to go to bed with my love's arms around me. I deserve to have him nearby so when the hour approaches meal time, he can walk through the spa door and pick me up in his arms and plant kisses on my mouth like he used to. I deserve to have him here with me, to sleep all night with him, to wake up with him, to eat regular meals with him. He used to tell me what a great cook he is. I left the state before he could prove it to me. He also told me he'd give me a massage. We never got to that either. Me being naked always led to something else.

Today is my birthday, and I deserve to wake up in the morning with him lying next to me and kissing me awake. I deserve to be able to look into his eyes more than once a year. I deserve to have him near me, to work with him nearby, and to dance with total abandonment in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by Armani suits and Vera Wang dresses. I deserve to be in his arms and melt into him because that's what I came here for. The trip I'm on now includes him, and I intend him near me because I can, because that's what I desire, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am awesome without him here, and to have him near would make it all that much more full and magical and amazing.

And I deserve it.

leap and the net will appear -- but where's a great massage therapist?

Oh no, another type/delete day. I prefer the ones where I sit before my laptop and move forward without a thought about anything I'm doing. I love being able to go wherever that place is when I write from the heart. My mind shuts off and my fingers fly on the keypad. I love those times. I feel so refreshed and energized afterwards. I feel invincible. There's just nothing I can't do, baby.

I've rearranged the space today, making room for my daughter's and my computers and printers. This is our command center. This is where the billions are made. This is where the action happens, the ideas flow, and excitement grows. Yes! I say YES! What else is there to say? If you're not saying yes, then what are you doing?

What can I do today that would scare me?

I didn't always ask myself that. As a matter of fact, I did everything possible to keep from being scared. It was a mission. When I'd lay my head on my pillow at night, I'd check off the family members and pets who were also calling it a night. Once everyone was accounted for, I would say a prayer of thanks and then beg for another day of the same for tomorrow. Yikes! What an awful way to live. I was always on the lookout for catastrophe. What a bill of goods I sold myself for years.

Then I learned to leap. I found that flying through midair without knowing what was below is the most amazing place to be. I've also discovered that a net always appears. It's a beautiful thing.

I've also rearranged myself -- again. I've put some of my things on etsy.com. My site is called jillluigs.etsy.com. I've only put a few things there so far. I have sooo many things yet to list. I'm going through boxes and boxes of things I've carried around and am now willing to put out there for sale, some for the first time, some for lower prices. I'm cleaning out to make room for the new in my life. Thank God for etsy.com!

Of course, this means actually going through boxes, locating things I've made, taking pictures, writing descriptions, uploading pictures, setting prices, and redoing my site. When I had this great idea, I thought it'd be a piece of cake. Somehow today my upper back is so sore like I've been through a major battle or something, and all I've uploaded so far are five things. I have so much more to do. It means going through a lot of boxes too. Did I mention that already? Since I've moved in with my daughter 5 months ago, I have revamped, re-situated, revised myself and my things so many times. And here I go again. Those who knew me in Steamboat thought I went through many changes then. Oh, you ought to see me now. Every day is a new Jill. I wake up surprised I still answer to the same name.

This afternoon has been spent in the command center, typing, scouring the internet, learning new marketing skills, befriending new people, answering emails, writing articles for ezinearticles.com, blogging, and stretching my shoulders. Where's a good massage therapist when I need one? I would pay one million dollars for the massage of my life right now. And when you make billions, what's a million?