'Project Birthday'

Alright, so I'm home, and have been now for nearly three weeks! Though I must say, it feels like less than that. As I explained in a recent email to a friend of mine currently living in New York, I feel as though it's taken me some time to re-adjust myself to the reality of returning to my Toronto life... 'My Toronto life', which is both comfortingly familiar in appearances, but obviously subtly (and not so subtly) different below the surface. If that makes any sense to anyone.

In any case, I am back here now, and though my days are often punctuated with pangs of missing my St Louis friends and the strange but beautiful time that we shared together this summer, I am finally starting to feel a little bit more settled here in Toronto. Naturally, I have also already devised a little 'personal project' for myself... I call it 'Project Birthday'. Basically, the fundamental goal of Project Birthday is for me to take the best possible care of myself (mind, body, spirit - all of it, all together, as much as possible!) so that on my birthday, which is exactly six weeks from today, I can celebrate how great I feel about myself and my life! The birthday element just sort of happened incidentally as I was devising this whole 'self care' project for myself and started thinking about timelines. As my friend Alison concurred when we were discussing this plan of mine over the phone the other day, six weeks is indeed an optimal length for a good project!

Speaking of my dear friends who have helped me to feel great about this undertaking, I must credit the lovely Devon with helping me to devise the one and only rule of Project Birthday and that is that there are no "rules". Rather, there are simply goals, dreams, actions and foundational principles. The fundamentals of Project Birthday include trying to be conscious of what I consume and how it makes me feel; Noticing that I feel better when I eat fresh and healthy foods, and drink in moderation, and do not smoke cigarettes at all. So that's an obvious goal. Project Birthday is also very much about 'me time': Yoga as often as possible, an attempt at a daily walk to and through High Park as long as the weather permits it, and of course, a conscious effort to stay connect to my 'Artist's Way' program that I began in St Louis.

I spent some time last week with a friend of mine who reads Tarot cards and one of the main messages that my cards had for me was that "the hidden truth is only found by looking within." So with that in mind, I am going to wrap up this extroverted exercise of sharing my life via my blog and get ready to head out for my daily walk to High Park. In closing, I wish to share with you a poem by Rumi that I opened my book to last night before I went to bed, it just seems so fitting right now...

Listening

What is the deep listening? Sama is
a greeting from the secret ones inside

the heart, a letter. The branches of
your intelligence grow new leaves in

the wind of this listening. The body
reaches a peace. Rooster sound comes,

reminding you of your love for dawn.
The reed flute and the singer's lips:

the knack of how spirit breathes into
us becomes as simple and ordinary as

eating and drinking. The dead rise with
the pleasure of listening. If someone

can't hear a trumpet melody, sprinkle
dirt on his head and declare him dead.

Listen and feel the beauty of your
separation, the unsayable absence.

There's a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it. Give

more of your life to this listening. As
brightness is to time, so you are to

the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue

and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.

(By Rumi)