Date Archives January 2011

Acts of Love – Take 1

January 31, 2011 10 Comments Travel

Along the cobblestone streets of Miguel de Allende, I am struck by the kindness I see – between parents and children, lovers, friends, old and young. I know there is no panacea, and there are angry and thoughtless, wounded people everywhere, but it seems that the more I notice acts of love, the more I see of them. I plan to continue capturing photos of people reaching out to one another, touching, caring, connecting. I hope you too will start noticing this wherever you are, and be inspired to share these stories of human decency.

Colores de San Miguel de Allende

January 28, 2011 0 Comments Travel

Some of you have asked for more photos of picturesque San Miguel de Allende, so here are a few … enjoy!

rooftop plants — along Francisco Gonzales Bocanegra, Colonia Guadalupe, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

San Miguel de Allende: First Impressions

January 25, 2011 15 Comments Travel

The full moon hovered large and bright above the mesas, accompanying my pre-dawn shuttle van from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, like a friendly blessing to my farewell to winter and the start of my trip to San Miguel de Allende, in the central “Bajio” region of Mexico.

I had visited San Miguel 37 years ago when living for six months in another nearby Spanish Colonial city, Guanajuato. While I knew that it and I had changed, I was eager to discover how.

The most marked difference (besides the increase in cars, technology and availability of U.S. goods) is being a Baby Boomer in a city that attracts my ex-pat contemporaries. Instead of being footloose college-age kids, passing through hostels and swapping stories of cheap eats and travel plans, there is an extraordinary community of accomplished, creative people (heavy on the female gender) who have made San Miguel their home, full or part time.

My Santa Fe friend, sculptor and jeweler Karen Wight, has made her full-time home here for five years and invited me to stay in her spacious house/studio in Colonia Guadalupe, a traditional neighborhood in easy walking distance of everything in the city.

Having a local friend always enhances the experience of a new place, but Karen’s many established connections, interests and community engagement, rocketed me into the middle of a vibrant movable feast of food, friends, music, dance, literature, art and general socializing.

While Santa Fe is renowned for many of the same attributes as San Miguel – art, culture, architecture, fiestas, markets, alternative therapies – the difference for me is the genuine openness and welcome I have received here; unlike anywhere I’ve been.

In just four days, I have attended to two private parties and several cantina meet-ups where conversation and tequila flow freely; met almost every vendor at the Saturday organic market at Parque Benito Juarez, and numerous shop and gallery owners (ex-pats who have created businesses here); added more than a dozen personal contacts to my address book of people I want to know; and participated in an annual 10k walk – at the beginning of the 9-day pilgrimage of the faithful to San Juan de Los Lagos – to raise awareness and support for ending domestic violence.

I have visited the baroque-gothic cathedral, La Parroquia de San Miguel Archangel (the tall spires in this photo) and found a favorite food stall at the Jardin across the street with tasty chicken tacos and fries for less than $2. I have walked many of the cobblestone streets and sat in cafes, danced to live music, watched the sun set over the distant arid hills from rooftop decks; visited the public library (“biblioteca”) with its mural-rich rooms and elegant stone courtyard; and taken many photos of the colorful buildings for which San Miguel is famous. I have stayed out late and risen early to the adamant crowing of neighboring roosters. So far, I have found nothing disappointing and am enjoying every minute.

As fund-raising expert, tour guide and botanical illustrator Dianne Aigaki confirmed for me at a small gathering last night, “There is a plethora of phenomenal people in San Miguel.” Her decades-long experience in and out of San Miguel is that it attracts those who want to get back on track from wherever they may have gotten off years ago, or those who are following their creative dreams, or women of a certain age for whom San Miguel offers close friendships and a safe, ready-made social scene.

No doubt, being in a foreign country offers a sense of solidarity and potential for deeper expression or reinvention, but I suspect there is much more… and I intend to find out.

I am trusting in La Luna, which sent me off from Santa Fe in the fullness of the feminine, to guide me in this adventure. Please stay tuned!

San Miguel de Allende offers women a safe, supportive, friendship-oriented environment and ready-made social scene. Patricia Barakat and Karen Wight pose in front of one of many colorful stores.

Two Weeks, One Carry-On

January 16, 2011 0 Comments Travel

Travelsmith Road Tester, Aysha Griffin, with her Eagle Creek carry-on rolling bag, ready to board the Eurostar from London to Paris.

Traveling light is an art… and a great relief once you master it. With excess baggage charges and the inconvenience of schlepping more than one piece of luggage, it’s smart to feel in control and have only just what you need to embark on your next adventure. As travel guru Peter Greenwald says, “When it comes to the airlines, there are only two types of luggage: carry-on and lost.” I prefer to carry on.

READ ARTICLE >>>

Check Out Magellan’s Rolling Bag Sale!

How To Plan A Trip

January 14, 2011 0 Comments Travel

When planning a trip, do you: spending years pouring over guidebooks and reading relevant books and articles? Hire a travel agent or book a tour? Spend countless hours online researching? Or, simply taking off without a plan? There is no right way.It’s a matter of what works for you, the destination, and available time and budget. But no matter how you plan (or don’t), the important thing is to, finally, GO!

As an independent traveler, I like to think I am spontaneous and, for short vacations to a singular destination, I usually am – just book flight, lodging (and, sometimes, rental car or other transportation) and see what and who shows up. But when it comes to prolonged travel with numerous destinations and/or involving others, I do considerable research for best deals on flights, places to stay; gaining familiarity with places I hope to visit, and attempting to make local contacts beforehand. This is a time consuming process that I enjoy, enriching the anticipation as well as appreciation once I am under way.

Whether ponderous or spontaneous, I find a great trip requires planning enough for peace of mind and accomplishing some goals, while leaving lots of time and space for chance encounters and Serendipity to surprise and delight. Having been a traveler since my teens, when I first started hitchhiking across the U.S., I’ve developed a certain confidence and ease in the pleasure of the way I travel, alone or with others. Since many of you are also travel aficionados, and a few have been kind enough to ask,”How do you do it?” I will chronicle my upcoming trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, slated for January 20-March 22, 2011. READ MORE >>>>

Who Says? How To Stop Arguing For Your Limitations

January 11, 2011 0 Comments Passion & Joy, Relationships

“Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours” – Richard Bach

All day long, in one communication and another, I heard dear friends use emphatic statements to describe “how it is,” as if they were speaking the absolute truth, like:
“It’s really hard to…” find a publisher, a place to rent, get away, land another job, leave a relationship, find the time, get organized, etc. “I must be in the wrong place.” “You can’t expect to…” “That’s just how it is.”

WHO SAYS?

I can hear my parents’ voices raising that question time and again, when I’d insist, “it’s really hard to…,” “it must be a mistake,” “I can’t just do that!”, “that’s how it’s done,” and so on. I have them to thank for that lesson in Mindfullness – questioning not only the status quo and “authorities,” but encouraging me to think for my self and not make excuses.

I can’t say I never fall into that kind of mind-numbing, matter-of-fact phraseology, but I know that upon questioning, “Who Says?”, or (in Byron Katie’s words, “Can you know that’s absolutely true?”) the nonsense of it becomes clear. Insisting on limitations, road blocks, lack of alternatives, is a way to stop our selves, to justify “no reason to try” or consider options and possibilities. We overwhelm ourselves with what we believe is an insurmountable challenge. We collapse into escape, fantasy or smallness rather than experiencing the joy of creatively making our way through to satisfying conclusion. Once we believe any idea to be set-in-stone, we become as hard and inflexible as rocks.

Such statements are no doubt born of fear; fear of failure, loss, embarrassment. Fear always contracts and limits. The heart yearns to open up, the mind loves to find solutions and the body to breathe deeply. So, I can trust that whenever I declare “how it is,” my body will respond either in tension and contraction, or relaxation and expansion.

When I hear myself saying or thinking, “I/you can’t…”, “It isn’t…”, “There’s nothing I can do…”, I sometimes remember to ask myself: Self, does that thought feel deadening and self-justifying, or is it exciting and enlivening? I hear my parent’s asking, “Who says?” And I just have to laugh at what a stubborn little girl I can be sometimes… and my girlfriends too.

New Years Benediction – Surprise Yourself!

January 2, 2011 0 Comments Passion & Joy, Relationships

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. – Neil Gaiman

I’m wondering: How might I surprise myself? How might you?
What, at the end of this year, might you be delighted you did differently, better, more lovingly and successfully, with good madness?

What would surprise and delight you?

As you move through this year, perhaps take note of ways you surprise your self. It would be fun to hear of them in a year from now!

A View From the Last Day of 2010

January 1, 2011 8 Comments Relationships

Almost every day for the past 10 years, (except when I’m traveling), I have woken to this beautiful view; sometimes bathed in apricot and peach colors of sunrise and sometimes, like on this brisk winter morning, dusted with snow. Almost always the piñon and juniper-covered hills are outlined by the blue backdrop for which New Mexico’s skies are famous. Every morning, as my mind shifts from the realm of dreams to self consciousness, I am reminded of the “Big World Out There,” beyond my own thoughts and feelings, immediacies, concerns, duties and habits; beyond, even, my own mortality.

I know I am very lucky to sleep in the safety, warmth and comfort of a well-built home, to open my eyes to “my mountain” and to be reminded daily of the beauty and majesty of nature. I am also fortunate to have the eyes to see this, the mind to make meaning of it, the body to rise and stretch and consider what I want to do with the day ahead.

Being self-employed for the past 26 years, I know there are days when I’ll “get a lot done” and others when I’ll wonder where the day went. But, inevitably the day passes and, no matter what joys, sorrows, discomforts or challenges I encounter, perceive or dwell upon, I sleep and wake to a new day.

Since we mark these passings with a calendar, the end of a year and beginning of another have created traditions and rituals. Probably like you, I like to take some time to reflect on what I have learned and how I’ve changed in the year past, and envision what I’d like to create in the year ahead. For me, 2010 has been marked by a deeper understanding and practice of Appreciation… for my self, and for every aspect of my life.

This year, I have let go much of my former ambition and sense of accomplishment in terms of money, and have found that the more I appreciate the moments of awareness and connection, the easier money flows to me. I have let go much anxiety and fear around it, substituting every financial transaction with love and appreciation. It is a practice to reprogram decades of delusional control, but very satisfying. Consider that in the financial realm, appreciation means to grow in value.

I have weathered some loses and disappointments – in myself and others. I have accepted the reality of What Is and been bold in moving on and appreciating my ability to end relationships with people whose perspectives or actions are not supportive; or to love them all the more for standing in their truth and challenging me, with love, to better know my own heart and mind.

I mark my years by my travels (never as much as I wish!). In 2010, I went to Playa del Carmen and Cozumel to escape last January’s cold; to my niece Maggie’s wedding in New Hampshire in September — a gloriously fun reunion with family I cherish, and while there drove to Vermont to spent a delightful day with Roberta Shafer, my beloved ninth-grade teacher who I hadn’t seen since 1972; I flew to Denver in October to spend a long weekend with my dear friend Anne at her new home; and spent 10 days in New York City with high school friends I’d reconnected with thanks to Facebook; visited with my housemate from 27 years ago, Joel, and his family (his wife, Neonilla, and I are planing a trip to Turkey in Sept. 2011); attended travel writer events with Swiss-based writer friend Anita Breland, and “social enterprise” day at New York Entrepreneur Week; enjoyed time with the talented Tree Elven; and, at the “Other Israel Film Festival,” I made a business connection that holds some promise.

In a summary of the year’s accomplishments, I closed three real estate deals and published a few articles, spent a lot of time online learning about social media, created the complex website for GreenRoads Realty, updated the related eZine, revamped my personal website, edited some articles for Your Life Is A Trip and cultivated a precious friendship with Judie Fein, and created this new blog close to my heart. I also began practicing yoga again, after many years, and have been encouraged by the success of my friend Maia Duerr’s Liberated Life Project. Throughout, I grappled with chronic discontent and the sense I should be doing something more, something different. Finally, in November, I broke through to Appreciation… a place of joy I wish for everyone.

What’s next? I’ve made a commitment to doing what I most love in 2011 – writing and traveling, coaching businesses and individuals, and facilitating workshops. I am letting go of the activities that have sucked my time. I am focusing on what I most love, albeit through a number of related prisms.

It has not been a “easy year” for me or anyone I know. The systems we thought would work for our lifetime have self-destructed or are unraveling. It is a time of uncertainty and change, full of new potential. I am grateful for this year, for the clarity that has come from it, and for the support of generous-spirited friends and my partner of 26 years who, knowing me better than anyone, stated, “You are a writer and you love to travel. Why don’t you just do that?” So that is what I intend to do in 2011.

When I awake on the first day of 2011 and see my mountain, it will be with the surety that whatever this year brings, I will welcome it. To experience this life and recognize my power to create and in-form reality is awesome. That it took years to recognize this means nothing to a mountain.

Thank you for joining me on this journey to inhabiting our dreams! “Happy New Year!”
I would love to hear what you learned in 2010, and what you intend for 2011. (Please leave your comments below).

With enormous gratitude for your presence,
Aysha