We recently moved buildings at work and I moved into an office. I have never been a fan of plain white walls. In my own home I have pained a majority of the walls or have the wall covered with photos and paintings! I feel like it breaths life into my home! Now that I have my own office at work, I have the same urge of creating an environment that exudes positive energy! Especially since I spend most of my days/hours at work.
It took several days... ok, more like a couple of weeks here and there during my breaks to put up the Tree of Life! It took me several months prior to that to pick the right color for the tree! Then with a labor of love putting up the flowers of the tree just right to create this beauty! Everyone asks me, "did you paint?", no it is a decal put up one flower at a time. The interesting part, it was painful when I started with the trunk of the tree. It did not want to stick to the wall very well and constantly was peeling back off the wall. I was pretty dishearten for the first week or so, trying to figure out how I was going to make it stay on the wall! Darn cheap paint. I suppose, similar to my own recover in Al-Anon. I was disheartened in the beginning trying to figure out how I was going to make my life more manageable and help what I learned stick!
After fretting for a few days, I reached out for help and several friends made some suggestions. I had to work with the limitations that it is a wall at work, but within some healthy boundaries I did find a solution with the help of a friend. It worked wonders! With the reborn hope, I started to slowly add the flowers to the wall. It was rewarding to watch the tree blossom over time. As it started to take shape, my excitement grew quickly and I was eager to put the final touches on the tree! I can relate to that joy and excitement to come to a point of accomplishing something that feels good in my own recovery. What I have to remember is to continue to carry that joy and excitement for life and continued accomplishments into each day. Just because one activity has been completed, life continues to grow and rejuvenate around me. My tree of life wall decal is done, but if it was a real tree, it would eventually shed it's flowers, live through the winter, and then in the spring continue to grow bigger and healthier with new flowers. I want that beautiful cycle for my recovery. The continual of shedding the layers of grief, anger, resentments, and sadness that plague my mind and heart. I am grateful I have many seasons and opportunities to enrich the soil around my tree of life and continue to reach for the sky filled with hope!
I've mentioned that I love a good adventure! My home
state has so many wonderful things to do and see, that I've not even
scratch the surface experience all those wonderful places and things.
Yesterday a dear friend and I embark on a road trip to the southern part
of our state to explore a "live" limestone cave that was discovered in
1974! What a fascinating story this cave has endured! This was my first
underground tour of this unique mineral and formation landscape. It was
beyond breathtaking! Due to the tens of thousands of years it takes to
grow the various stalactites (icicle like formations) and stalagmites
(formations reaching up from the ground) and how fragile these nature
made creations are, there are only guided tours available. The state
purchased the land in 1988 and made it a state park, which was the
ultimate goal of the two discoverers and the owners of the land in their
mission to protect and provide stewardship to the land.
We had a nice drive down, in fact we arrived earlier than we expected!
The volunteer offered us to take an earlier tour, which we agreed
too. The whole experience was a little bit of information overload, as
I'm still trying to process all of it today. There were a lot of "rules"
before we entered this sacred place. Being pretty much a rule follower,
I was trying to remember all of it! Yikes! I did not want to be
responsible for ruining this beautiful world! Ha! It was explained that
they work really hard to study how to keep this living wet cave healthy.
I will trust they are doing the best they can in keeping this magical
world preserved, while still providing the opportunity for the world to
experience a fraction of it's existence. The fact that these formations
were created over hundreds and thousands of years each with a single
drop of water. Miraculous! I certainly have a deep respect for what our
Mother Earth can create. I will be back to absorb more of these miracles.
I had many "favorite" parts of the tour
underground, but the one that keeps coming to mind is when we were down
near the mud flats at the bottom of the cave. The tour guide told
us to all be quiet and listen to the heart beat of the cave. As the
special lighting, that was installed, shone as a back light against many
of the soda straw stalactites, it demonstrated the liveliness of the cave, the
water. As everyone held their breath, you could hear the drip, drip,
drip echo throughout the cave. Wow, that was powerful! I could of
easily stood there for hours listening, feeling, and breathing in the powerful
energy of this beautiful cave. However, the tour was on a schedule and we were hustled off to the next portion of the cave to quickly. I felt it was all a little rushed, but was still worth the experience. A little disclaimer here; I'm grateful they have created a paved path (for ease of visitors and
to help protect the cave from our existence) and the lighting
through out the cave that they turn on as we enter the different
sections. I am not a fan of the complete dark or small spaces. So this
was a wonderful way for me to experience this world that I would not of
normally ventured. I'm so grateful for the chance to walk a similar path
the two original discoverers walked without having to pull myself
through a small space with my fingers and toes! No thank you!
One
of the "rules" was no cameras. WHAT!? My camera is my third arm! So
since I can't share visually what I saw, they do have a video on the
website of the experience and some history. The video is nothing like the real experience, but it will give you an idea.
After our tour we had a picnic lunch in the park. It was very peaceful. My friend and I had a wonderful conversation, as we always do. Always sparking new ideas neither of us had even considered! One discover we had of ourselves was that we compliment each other in our strengths and weaknesses. She has an uncanning willpower to exercise daily and eat extremely healthy! Having the unwavering discipline for the physical/external of her body. However, she honestly admitted to being a little lazy with her emotional/internal care. I immediately felt, Oh my goodness! I'm the complete opposite! I believe this is one of the reasons we have always been drawn to each other, we are both very in tune and have an awareness of ourselves, but in such different capacities! I always a learn a lot when I spend time with this dear friend. It also always feels very laid back with no pressure when we spend time together.
After we left the park, we stopped off at a used book store to pursue. We both found a couple of treasures that we just couldn't live without. Then we concluded our day at a Tamale place that was voted one of the city's best! After having dinner there, I would have to agree completely with that vote. Yum!
It was a wonderful day!
"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."
