Guatemala to Mexico

It's my last night in Antigua, Guatemala. In the morning I head to Mexico.

I'm not really sure how to explain the strange love affair I had with this city.

The way I fell in love with the sky and the clouds on the mountains and volcanoes.

The two brothers who run the hostel I stay at, the way one of them says over and over "Mucho gusto Bird, Mucho Gusto"

The cats and the bunny who hops around the place

The loud streets even, the bumpy stones all over them, the way you can really feel yourself walk.

The food in the market.

 The food in the morning, either pancakes or egg sandwiches, I never knew I liked either.

Tamar, the woman I lived with. The way she would decorate herself and others, putting feather headbands on everyone, encouraging all of us to see our own beauty.

The earth lodge, a little haven in the hills that saved me one night.

Lunch with an unexpected soul sister from Alburqurque.

The smiles and love of the kids I met.

All the unexpected souls I met and interviewed, the one's who shared bits and pieces of themselves with me.

One's who reflected things I knew and didn't know where there in my heart.

The colors, and the smiles of people on the street.

Some love affairs are brief, it feels I've been here for a strangely long lapse of time and yet at the same time it feels I am moving so quickly. 

But I trust, I accept, to fall in love with a place and the people, but also know there is more to explore.

Today I went to this weaving workshop in a town next to here, I couldn't decide if I should head to Xela or just head to Mexico, but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye to Raul, I skyped a friend and he told me, "don't make the decision, let the decision make you."

It was getting late and if I wanted to head to Xela I needed to leave soon, some girls said they were going to a weaving workshop and I said I want to go, and did. Left Raul a note to book my shuttle for the morning and left, the decision became simple.

It was nice to see all these beautiful patterns this woman made, she talked about the ceremonial aspects of it and then we watched this beautiful little girl show us how it was done. It was amazing to see her tiny hands and arms work the large object that contained the weaving.

I've received so many unexpected gifts.

I want to write more about the three weeks I've spent here and I'm just not sure how to.

It's been a wonderful blessing to rest, create and be in. To be inspired, to learn and to grow and work on the Wish Book in. To experience that wish come to fruition and see all the angels who supported.

I call in more magic for Mexico, ask that I am lead, guided, protected and that I may find beautiful communities to document, share and create in.

More wishes to collect and more videos to make that inspire.

May I be a tool.

May everyone love their dreams.

May you know how special you are.

May you paint and feel everything with your whole heart.

Remember what you have is now, and the future is your place to plant your own seeds to grow.

It's all blank canvas.

I'm so grateful to all the support in my life on this journey.

L'chaim.

Here's to life and all of it's surprises.
the message i received from this book in the market the other day:

sometimes i don't even understand the forces, but i just keep hearing the same thing;
to just
Show Up.

openness

this morning I am listening to this:
http://soundcloud.com/ivymeadows/sagitari

This lulling dream music over and over.
It's one of those creations in life that just makes me feel so so much.
I love that humans have the capacity to create such beauty through art and music, it blows my mind.

Lately I have been coming in contact with so many beautiful souls here, I didn't expect to stay in Antigua this long, but I also didn't feel any rush to move on.
It was sort of just like, yes, this is where you are going to stay for a bit.

I've been thinking about the echoes we leave, the ripples on lives. The small things that people can say or do that can stick with you for so long. The big things, the way everything we experience depends on our perception of them and how everything has an effect thats greater then zero. How we change those perceptions, how we view ourselves, our relationships, our lives is all in our hands really. I think perception is really the one and only factor we can control.
Openness.

That is my word of the day, openness to whatever it is that comes.
Allowing all the questions to exist, all the fears but not getting stuck in them.
They are just there.

What does it mean to live your life entirely in your heart?

i read this quote the other day " trust your heart above all else and never worry about consequences."
i think the main thing I am learning continually is we never know whats right for the other guy, only what is right for us, and if we can drop all of the stories or voices that aren't ours in our hearts or heads we can move more freely, but its about changing conditioning. Unlearning, forgiveness and serious acceptance of the self and encouragement. We have to be our own best friends.

This video was taken a few days ago here, I was really inspired by this girl who had a tatto on her foot she got with her best friend who had passed recently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHMFmHQVd1M&feature=youtu.be

I dont think any of us can actually avoid heartache, we can only figure out how to deal with it. How to ask for support, how to get the lesson from it, how to love ourselves more deeply and forgive everything.

And the next thing is showing up, man really showing up fully when your heart asks you too.
I think thats a most recent wish of mine, to show up fully with how I feel and not run away from my own truths. Even if they don't make sense to me, I dont think love or life can always be rationally understood. There is a freedom in showing up, regardless of the outcomes.



I am still collecting wishes and documenting, I really want to head to Mexico next, because I hear there is amazing Magic in Oaxaca that I really want to document. I feel this pull there and I want to see what ripples can be found, how I can also be an instrument in some way and work with people and kids.

here is some magic from my journal, wishes and such;

here are some more vidoes here,

last few days to raise funds :)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/courtneybird/the-wish-book-central-america

every little bit counts 

i loveeee you

breaking open

the other day i heard that we can get insight into ourself when we experience misery or heartache.
It's like the heart breaks open and we are able to go into it.

today i feel my heart breaking a lot, ive decided not to turn it off, i think the only way out is through as they say.
so through i go.
into the deepest parts of my heart.
healing is a process, and all i can think about, is how did i get to this point?
if i create my own reality, how and why is what I keep asking?

i think of dark and light.
i think of trust.
i think of losing everything to gain anything.
i think the darkest hour always comes before the dawn.
i think all is in divine order even when i cannot see it.

i think of these faces as blessings

:

this man told me about how everything that happens good or bad is from above, so be happy :)

i listen to this music:

http://soundcloud.com/ivymeadows

i will be moving again soon.

thank you california chapter.

I feel you coming to a close.

show em what we hide

show em what we hide

that line is coming from a song my friend just sent me from his new album.
so good.

i am listening to music and writing next to a fire outside under the full moon.
the fire goes out every so often and my dad puts more wood on, the crackles burst and as i move closer I wonder if any embers will jump out at me.

they don't though and i continue to look at the moon in the sky as she climbs a little higher each time i look up at her.
She's such a perfect lamp in the sky and I recall the sunset just a few hours ago.
Foggy pastels and smeared blurs of murky light pinks, blues and yellows.

so much has changed and yet nothing seems to have changed at all.

As i drove home today blasting music to soothe my ears and heart, I felt this heaviness, this curiosity, am I in the same place I found myself a year ago?
what patterns have been repeated, what forward momentum have i even made?

My dad leaves me to the fire and blows out candles in the dinning room, the smoke hangs heavy in the air swirling for a few moments, the fire out here is larger then before.

I remember the sweat lodge a few weeks ago, the large fire before we entered the womb, the way i was already sweating.

I got home and thought of my list of "twenty things that ground and center me" that I made after my last meeting with Debby.
I thought of number 4 or 5 "walking outside/in nature" so i jumped back in my car and took myself to the hill with a path that revealed the sunset around it. I'd have to run to make it around its large hump to see the horizon.
I took the path and started running, I was crying before I even got there, so much had happened in a year and yet i felt the pain of all the loss and confusion that had come with it- even with all the beauty and magic.
I ran and ran through the little dust path, a rabbit ran in front of me and I said "hello rabbit- you little good luck symbol".
I kept running and something told me to slow down, to still in my body.
As i finally turned a corner I found the sky a bright light pink on the horizon, the sun was covered with clouds but they made these beautiful edges of pink and gold around the shapes of them. One looked like a big blob of heart. I sat in the clearing and just pulled my legs into me. The ground was surprisingly soft and i found the largest ant/beetle I'd ever seen sitting next to me.

I sat there for awhile and searched for a soul that I could connect to on that hill besides myself. I spoke to my brother for a few moments but could tell he was busy, at an aquarium with friends, I could imagine his light hearted self enjoying the jelly fish.
Then I talked to a soul sister in Austin, she was preparing for a moon ceremony, she told me about her truths, what this new moon was revealing to her.
I asked her about how she dealt with shadows, with the feelings that i felt were coming up for me, why I felt in the same place, with more of the same confusion.
She told me to really look at it, but find that inner child, really reach out to it, regardless of anyone else involved not needing approval or justification from those sources either, but what does that child need and want. After all the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves.

The fire is burning out now, my dad forgot to turn off the fountain as I can hear water continually tumbling in the distance.

I unloaded some of my stuff in my old room, I went into this tiny room I have, full of old art and pieces of past chapters of my life. I found a small cardboard box from someone who was very close to me, a white rolled up paper in it.

the logs fall on the fire and the water is slowly stopping now.
everything slowing down.

the note said;

"Sometimes life presents
us with situations similar
to a spiral on a snail shell,
where from one perspective
it may seem like we're
repeating ourselves, but
if you look from further out
you can see that things are
different, and that
g r o w t h     h a s    o c c u r r e d ."

thank you beautiful note, coming back to me right when i need you.

(btw, any LA friends, I have been doing body therapy with this amazing woman out here, if you have any interest contact me, or contact her at debby@debbyjay.com)

Personal Space

I met with Debby on Thursday after a surreal night. I was exhausted and overwhelmed.

I felt into my body. I unloaded things that had accumulated there. She asked me what it would feel like to create space around me, to protect myself.
I told her I would have a lake around me. All this water. She said "like you're on an island."
I repeated over and over "this is my space, and your not allowed in it without my permission."

Things can come in so quickly and unannounced sometimes. Sometimes I feel like an observer, a deer, who watches silently, unsure if they should move or stay.

Debby wrote on a card for me a sort of mantra:

truth.

We always have the choice to stay or go.

I'm really beginning to work on making these choices for myself, remembering the idea of allowing it to be for the highest good of all, but that I am included in that most importantly.

I have the choice to do what serves me.

The week  before that I had met with her in New York over skype.

New York was a little slice of joy, bliss and creativity.

That place always is.

Over our skype meeting she had me do different exercises where I observed things in the room, observing how they affected me, on whether or not I liked them or agreed with them.

Instead of allowing them to draw me in energetically, I'd let them come to me and just observe the effect.

A good thing to use in other situations.

Practice, practice.

I felt my body held by the chair that was carrying me. She asked me to feel it on my back. To feel its support, it was like a giant hand holding me.

I flew the other night in my dream, I became lucid and decided I wanted to fly. Was so liberating in a way. I could only not fly anymore when I came back down and tried to take people or things with me.

I thought of the bird I visualized in Debby's office, the way it flapped around its cage frantically, so afraid and hurt, I saw myself open the door and nurture it, telling it that I would never hurt it the way I did again. We must be so gentle with our hearts, souls, minds and psyche's.

Here are some uplifting images from New York.

Life has many contrasts.

I'm trying to figure out less in my life, not get so worried about decisions.

In New York Debby said to me " You'd be surprised at how much of life you don't actually have to figure out."

For some reason hearing that from someone else was such a relieving- "oh yes moment."

(If you're interested in meeting with Debby who is a great teacher you can find her at debby@debbyjay.com and debbyjay.com )