Blythesong – Bliss through whatever may come

I’ve been sitting here wondering why Wine Shop sales fall off immediately after holidays.  There are obvious reasons, of course, that range from losing those New Year’s Resolution pounds to wanting to tighten the financial belt as much as the physical one.  There’s another, though, that I think is big and THAT is The Bleak, Dark Winter(you just felt a chill, didn’t you?).  There are a few weeks during our year that just aren’t holiday-y.  A few are in August, but who notices then?  The others are these January days–so long–so cold–so dark–so unlike anything fun.

Well, I’ve decided on a solution(or resolution), at least for me.  I’m sharing because it might strike a chord in you and give you a great idea for a resolution that will stick and grow…maybe into a whole new interest.  I’m going to concentrate on studying(and drinking) one varietal of wine for a month.  After January, I’ll move to another varietal, or maybe appellation.  From there, perhaps I’m move to fortified wines. Ok, it might all fall apart by spring, but by then I won’t care!  I’ll have early plantings!  For now, it will give me a reason to try something new and exciting, maybe filled with bubbles or with warmth.  Whatever, it will lend beauty, texture and substance to my days and a shred of determination to my resolutions.

Here are some ideas and choices that I’ve seen around Mora’s Fine Wines.

Llopart is a personal favorite of mine.  Cava is basically Spanish Champagne which, not being made in Champagne, cannot carry the name. It is gently pink, not too sweet, goes with anything or nothing at all!  From here you could go through Cavas, or sparkling wine from anywhere but France, or just  progress to Champagne!

While many people think Rose is just for summer, Rich and I both love Rose and will drink it throughout the year.  With the last few Summers’ burst of the Rose market,  many more Roses have come in to our universe.  Laporte has a beautiful deep salmon color and a serious heft of Rose greatness.  It is made of Sancerre.  To my palate it is less sweet, with mid-range body, and beautiful balance.  The area it comes from runs from the white cliffs of Dover(how can you not love that), through Champagne onto Chablis.  It is simply lovely and along with chocolate, entertained me through the last blizzard.

With the wide variety of Roses available, you could easily spend far more than a month exploring.

Ok…. I’m a little heavy on the pinks……Something serious?

Are you seeing the word play on this label?…If you see Kay…  However funny the name and label are, the wine is every bit as serious.  This one is big!!!!  It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Syrah, and Primitivo.  If you see Kay is bursting with warm fruit flavor(and alcohol).  Drink this one at home around the fire or movie.  Eat a good dinner.

While this isn’t an expression of a single varietal, it does show what fun serious blends can be.  If you don’t want to limit yourself to  perhaps, Cabernet Sauvignon or the like you can try blends that are comprised primarily of this varietal and study how the expression varies with the choice of companion varietals.  It’s all for fun.

And let’s face it…..for fun, there is nothing better than…….

…bubbles!

I love bubbles and I love Taltarni.  We all know why it can’t be “Champagne,” right?  But do we care?  Nah!  This is beautiful.  It was awarded 90 points by Wine Advocate(if we cared), and won the award for “Australia’s Best Sparkling Rose” in the Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships(ahhhhhh, the training!).  Yes, it is filled with petal and salmon color.  Yes, it is  made of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier.  But what do I like best about this bottle of joy?  Taltarni cleanses the palate as few other sparklers I’ve encountered.  For a winter gathering of two or twenty, this will keep the party going in the gentlest way.

Well, that was fun.   I hope I’ve given you some ideas for a resolution we can all accomplish and a way to outlast these cold dreary days and nights.  Please remember you are always welcome at Mora’s for browsing, tasting, or some great recommendations!

This entry is part what is and a large dose of what is hoped!
(This is an edited journal entry.)
Control is a big thing.  It is a big issue.  I think that we go through our lives largely experiencing subconscious control of many aspects of our lives.  This is probably brought about by the collective unconscious, experience, ramifications, developing discernment and the like.  We may not even be aware of these except for trauma or more happily, changes in belief systems that bring all this into question.  While this might be a really great journaling topic, I think I’ll save it for a time when I am smarter.  For now I’ll let it catch energy and love.
What I am writing about here  are those issues upon which we impress conscious control.    For instance:

Personal
Weight
Finances
Technology(hah!)
Life partners

Business issues
Associates
Technology
Building maintenance
Your own sanity.

I’m not even going into creative stuff.

After having been retired for 8 months I started helping my husband with our phenom Wine Shop.  For the most part this is blissful.  However, there is a constant sense of the unknowing and attendant grasp to control.  This week all these little elves have found a mountaintop upon which too settle and play with us.
On Tuesday our entire system including our charge terminal went down for the whole day until 20 minutes after closing.  We spent the day making modifications to control the damage, purchasing plug-ins to overcome inconvenience and the like.  (Thank-you to all our wonderful customers who had cash.  And extra thanks to the sweet man who actually went to an ATM…no joke!)  Over our Italian take-out (who was going to cook healthy?) we spoke about how beautiful this moment was now that the technology thing was coming together.
The next morning I awakened to find that my debit card had been hacked overnight.  It was nothing big and easily taken care of, but yes, I lost it over the breakfast table for a bit.
After enjoying a great swimming lesson the next day (I swear the water was gliding around me as I was swimming within it), I was resting with the poodle and a cup of tea, when a text came from a business attachment.  During my tea break this person texted to request even more accommodations than we had been providing(and we are very accommodating).
So I started texting to take care of the situation.  And to control.

The next evening we learned that a valued friend would(because of guidance miscommunication) be leaving the area.

As we were driving home that evening, I mentioned that perhaps we were being given a message to let up with some of the control already!  With everything we were trying to control within the business, it wasn’t soaring.  Maybe we should release all to God and Spirit and trust that everything is working out as it should.  I do carry the belief that when everything seems to be falling apart it is often just realigning and finding its balance.  Maybe, I thought, we could just trust this for a while.
So we went home and enjoyed our salmon.
One hour later I was obsessing about….oh yes…my weight.  Does this control thing ever give up?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I think the control thing does give up…and this is the bliss and renewal part.  Sometimes we just have to pull attention away from what we are seeking to control(This is a big dose of Abraham-Hicks and probably Seth speaks…but it works for me) and bring it to what brings us joy.
For real.   We know that these happenings will occur.  For what it’s worth Mercury is in retrograde which I am told encourages technological mix-ups and miscommunication.  Perhaps our attempts to control are firing up Mercury more abundantly than usual.  In any case I do believe that joy is the answer.  Encountering this stuff with bliss(when emotionally available…and it’s not always for me) and seeking  joy brings such renewal of spirit and love and energy!
So I am going to internalize the great najowrimo focus on personal renewal and focus on joy and bliss.  Remember what we are within, we project externally.  I am giving up the control I can and resting in the sweet waters of bliss and joy.

I’ll keep myself posted on how this is going. 🙂

In Bliss and Peace and Joy!

©2017 Carolyn Mora

My goal for April is to (was to)…(might still be to) journal 500 words a day.

Although the najowrimo theme is personal renewal, I don’t know that I really want to follow a theme.  Really, for me, journal writing is a distinct form of renewal anyway and of re-creation.  So the act of reflectively setting pen to paper would seem in itself to be succeeding in that endeavor.  In writing of our dreams, happenings, challenges, days, we sift and release the art within memory to the colors of our days.  In fact, the re-creative aspect of journaling is so powerful to me that there are times, facets that I purposefully omit to keep them from grasping the power of the pen to page 🙂 .

I suppose then that journaling for me is not just documentary or art but also affirmation.  In the act of journaling I am saying:

“I am here. “  “I count.”  “I matter.”

My life is worth more than time, paper, pen.  I am worth opening my heart and recreating my thoughts, dreams, desires, observations on the page.  I am worth pouring my soul and tears out into ink and pulp to the world, for me to read this recreation back to myself.

I am worth the very best creation of my life.

And it is a beautiful thought for me that this creation be on the page.  The page has for so long been the therapist, the stalwart best friend, the angel, the wizard.  The page has helped me through tears and strife and has celebrated without boundary.  Perhaps most of all, the page has always been safe and sacrosanct (I love the way that word is put together.).  It has been it’s own universe.  Well, perhaps more,  it has been my universe. And when all is written and done isn’t it quite sweet and comfortable to have that one safe space that is ours alone?

…Ok, this was not (after editing) 500 words, but I got it up here…yay…and sometimes that is the bliss of a goal achieved.  Sometimes, tho’, so much more is waiting to come out of the achievement. In peace and bliss the road will go ever on.

©2017  Carolyn Mora

Just this morning our landscapers were removing a couple of long suffering Cypresses from our front yard.  I love trees and suffer when we have to send a few to their reward.  This morning I remembered a line from a poem I wrote as a young women…

“The trees are my grandfathers and I can’t stand to see them die…”

I pulled out a folder of old stuff I’d saved hoping to find the poem.  I didn’t, of course, but I found a stash of my angst-filled, love lorn verse(some of it quite good).  I also found the following.  It is from a couple of decades ago.  It’s about fire….  It’s weird, but much better than I thought…..So I thought I would share this Bliss:

Shadowdance

I let you in through my window last night

So soon after the fire, the sick burnt wood smell,

The husky black clouds still smoldering above.

I raised the sash at the sound of wind chimes,

Laid a blanket over my sweater box and flirted with you

All night long.

At sunrise we drew the shades to hide you

From the circling helicopters.

Then we ran, full out, far deep into the barren wasteland

You newly laid.

And burrowed in the dirt that would cool your burning heart.

Sate your desire.

Until again your voice would find flame.

But I will rise with you then.

Clad in scarred bark and crumbling leaves.

Singing a funereal howling refrain to sand dunes and desert.

Dancing a swirling manic circle game;

A pavane for a dead garden,

A prelude for a seed.

© 2016 Carolyn Mora

I’m working on releasing toxins…stuff…regret from my life.  A blessing and affirmation came to me that I thought I would share.  Maybe it will resonate with you.

“I release from fault all those who I have been holding in my heart with blame.  I release myself from my own feelings of regret and fault for anything I’ve been pinning through these experiences and years.  It is all for the good and the journey.  I release all this with peace and gratitude and love.  May all be blessed!  My life is 100% my responsibility and I accept it with a heart full of joy!”

I also learned an exercise in Catherine Ponder’s book in which (and I did this half asleep last night so this may not be exact) we picture those we intend or need to forgive one at a time and forgive them.  This is very powerful and freeing!  I think I will go back and re-read it.

May God’s love be with you always.  Bliss in the journey!

©  2016 Carolyn Mora

Journal Day! (about the floor…Marty the Poodle has an affinity for socks, slippers, and stray shreds of paper)

I had the opportunity to take a retreat day today to journal, play guitar, meditate, and to just embrace the delicious!  I have had the most life-changing experience of affirmation and appreciation!  I want to share it with you!

I try to set an agenda(if you will) for my journal days.  I have kept a journal writing experience going since I was a kid.   I occasionally  scan the volumes and discard those that no longer hold meaning or hold only pain.  I know there are some who consider this a sin, believing that all should be saved.  I simply don’t agree. For me, my journals represent a record, yes, but also a way station in channeling to manifestation.  Writing is an act of bringing the interior to the light…sort of opening the windows of the soul to the sunshine.  The writing is the important part for me.  I do keep some volumes that are either artistically fun or “pretty” or hold content that may still illuminate a concern.  Gratefully these have whittled down to a few;  one of which being a fabric volume I have held onto(not rereading) simply for the cover page I created and some lists.

As I started writing today, I grabbed that volume remembering how I had established the practice of devoting a couple of pages at the beginning of the month to lists.  I thought it might be fun to resurrect this, so opened the book to analyze it.  As I looked at each list page(there were six a month!!!). I found myself less impressed than memory implied.  But upon realizing the volume was from May of 1990, I thought I would read through to see how I was doing back then.

What I’ve saved from that volume

What a revelation greeted me!  The pages were so sad.  My goals were really obsessions.  Nothing seemed to be working for well for me.  I was in a job that afforded me a couple of wonderful friends but much pain.  I really hadn’t grasped hold of my life and lived.  After noticing scratch marks on the side of the page I remembered that my moods spiraled so that I made a mark on the side of the page to see every day where my mood was.   Reading it left me with one brilliant effect.  I began to realize just how far I had come in these 25 years!  And really if I’d been asked yesterday morning what I’d done I would have been sure that it wasn’t much.  But reading those pages let me take stock of my life to see how very much I have accomplished.  It allowed me to acknowledge myself!  In seeing the life I have lived these years I am filled with joy and gratitude.

We really don’t acknowledge our accomplishments, endings, beginnings, good days with the energy we might.  I know that I am always concerned with the goal still hanging, the pounds sticking on, all the ways I should be working to improve and develop.  In all of that I forget to bask in the glow of the work done so far, the journeys still to come, the moments of bliss, the occurrence of miracles.

I read somewhere that there is a circle of productivity wherein sitting back and acknowledging achievement or the end of a project is every bit as important as planning and executing it.  I notice now that sometimes (often) I am so taken with the goal, with the imperative to achieve it NOW that I paralyze myself and do nothing.  Then of course I make no progress, have no fun, defer joy.  If this is something many of us suffer from(and it really is a form of suffering and perhaps disowning the self), maybe we could all make a concerted effort to notice an achievement, bid a fond farewell to a goal no longer needed or appropriate, revel in a moment of bliss!  Even more important, maybe we can allow ourselves to more fully embrace and embody our journey through projects, goals, lifetimes.  Perhaps it is in the living of the moment that the boundless eternity is unleashed!

Peace and Bliss in the journey!

© 2016, Carolyn Mora

Cheat Night…one week away….Maybe I’ll start with this…HaHaHaHaHhahahahahahahah!

Hi. This is a quick one. I had my “cheat night” last night. Lest anyone (especially me) think that I’m becoming too clean I should say that I look forward to cheat night almost from the time the current one is over! Yesterday’s experience, though was a bit odd for me.

I had a great cardio session. I made sure to take my supplements earlier in the day(which made me a bit queasy.). I was all ready to dig into some Italian! Oh yeah. Rich and I decided to go to Pasta Pasta in Port Jeff. We sat at the window seat. It was lovely. We had unfortunately forgotten to breathe the wine we were going to bring so we bought some there. First of all the food was great!. We shared Cavatelli as an appetizer. Then what did I have? Salmon. With vegetables. I always eat salmon with vegetables. It was beautifully done and I do love salmon, but I have to get my cheat night priorities straight! Then, the bread. They do the most obscenely brilliant bread ever. It is crusty and positively soaked in some primeval butter mixture. It is heaven for a carb deficient bod. I ate the crust and very little of the bread itself. REALLY! I so have to get the cheat thing together! The wine was lovely.

So what was the mixed joy?

When we got home and into bed to watch tv, I realized I had a headache. I took a couple of Aleve(and it was fine). But then I realized that I really wanted the wine we were going to bring! I was sad about wine! Pretty weird! Rich offered to open it but it was late and we would have had to sacrifice half the bottle so we didn’t.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who experiences such feelings on a cheat night, but still I’m trying to understand them. The wine thing certainly goes to being a wine geek-ette and knowing I’m drinking only one night a week. But the rest. Why can’t I just relax at my cheat dinner and eat with impunity? It’s a question whose answer will, I hope, will present itself. For the rest I’ve already decided what my next cheat night will be. Uhuh. It will probably be next Thursday(our best fun night). I am going to scour Rich’s store for the best wine I can find and we are going to feast on PIZZA! Uhuh! Pure dining sin in a circle! I’ll think of it as a sort of cheat night deprogramming for me. It already feels good. And I have a whole week to think up toppings!

Yeah…I’m a wild one…

Hope everyone is have a peaceful and blissful day. Thanks!

So here I go into my second week. What do I want to change? What do I want to keep? Most of all…how do I feel?
Amazingly to me, I do feel good changes. I have noticed of the past couple of days that my body feels different, better, but not in a way that I can put a finger on. I’ve only dropped a couple of pounds at most, but parts of my body feel tighter, actually my butt and thighs. (The gut, I hear, is the last to go). I feel happier and giggle more than I had been. My energy seems to be coming back. I had my second cardio session and a weight session already this week. Basically I do feel better. Countering this, however, is fatigue(still). But at the same time I am totally ready to start setting down some goals for the coming week! I think there is a tendency to become complacent as a week is completed, yes? Accountability is a great motivator. So, tired or not, here I go!

• I would like to get in 4 cardio sessions this week.
• I’ve gotten off bread.  This week I’ll give up my Goddess dressing for some flax oil and lemon juice.
• I want to show improvement in my blood tests, so I’m adding Lecithin granules to my shake.  Lecithin is said to help lower cholesterol(though this is not proven).  I think my endeavor is a good time to test this.  I’m also adding Red Yeast Rice supplements.  My vitamin person told me that this is the one supplement people have voiced proven results with.
• Since I’m trying to cleanse and I need to get InTo a yoga class, I’m getting my butt to at least one Bikram class.  The sweat will cleanse and the experience will feed one really funny post!
• I will come back from date night tomorrow without a hitch and get right back on my quest!

And really I am looking forward to being less tired and more alert.  I’m also looking forward to cheat night tomorrow night!  Gosh I’m excited!!!!!

This is funny!  I published this post and lifted it to Facebook with the statement “How do you all feel…”  Suddenly I realized something very important about this second week.  I am still very keen for this experience and I feel not a single molecule of fear creeping in!  This is phenomenal!  Yay!

Thanks for reading!

Bliss in the longing and peace in the journey.

(I’ll write Days Five and Six later)

I’ve done it! I’ve been clean for me for a week! I’m so happy and so proud of myself!

Happy Dance Here…..

Quick notes about Week One:

I’ve dropped almost two pounds.
I got in only a couple of cardio sessions(but that is on the increase).
I’ve changed foods around a bit.
I’ve added some supplements(I’ll write about that later this week.).
I enjoyed my cheat night on Thursday and got right back on track the next day.
The scratches on my legs haven’t gone away yet(Thank you Irish/English skin.).
My energy level is coming back slowly(I don’t know exactly what that is about yet.).

What(I think) I’ve learned this first week:

I’ve learned that I do have determination. Last night Rich decided to make pasta around 9:30 for dessert. I love pasta. I really wanted to dig in and I didn’t! I have stayed my course. And I think that is very important. I wrote about how we have to trust ourselves. I’ve learned much about that already. Of course everyone has an opinion about what I’m doing. They are all different opinions. Many of them are informed. But, guess what? They don’t agree! This tells me to listen to myself, research for my own answers and live out the journey, yes?

I’ve learned a funny lesson too. I love wine. I realize that one of the most difficult and bothersome parts of this endeavor is forgoing wine. I do enjoy it on my night off. But that’s it. I miss my dinner wine more than anything. I just enjoy the nose, the color, the ceremony. It makes me happy. I’ve always thought that really no one else drinks wine daily, that it is a special occasion or going out thing. Boy was I wrong! The comments I’ve heard this week sing a song that the wine and spirits business has a vibrant future!

Remember, sno-cones are very clean!

And after this first week, so has my Clean Eating experiment! I think I’ll be settling in about some aspects this week. I’ll be adding more exercise and hopefully gain a little more energy! I’m looking forward to every new day!

Thanks for reading!
Peace and Bliss