Lisa Tilson

Wow, I haven’t written a blog post in a month and a day, well, two days if you count February 29th. I think it is time to step it up a little bit. No wonder no one comments!

Today I had the realization that I have been on the verge of for a couple of weeks. Are you ready? My highest purpose has to be bigger than me. I know this sounds simple, and theoretically it is, but in practice… no, it is not simple.

Having a purpose that is bigger than you means that you answer to that purpose, not to you and your ego. For example, my marriage. Justin and I are happily married, everything is going fine and then wamo, month 10 into our first year and we are looking at the baby idea. Now, if the baby thing was about me, or about Justin, we would have had an argument that went something like this:

“Justin, I want a baby.”

“Wow hon, I don’t think I am quite ready for that yet. I have just started my masters, last week I retired from the company and I am feeling like I finally have some time to really explore who I am.”

“Well ya, but I really want one. I feel ready. How come you get to have the final word?”

“It does take two to be parents hon, and I don’t feel like I am prepared to fully take on that role.”

“Alright, well, I am not interested in watching my cycle anymore, so if you don’t want to have a baby, you will just have to go without sex.”

Ouch. Ego’s clashing, claws out we might have just gotten one step closer to a divorce. If we have a purpose, or third thing, in our marriage that is bigger than us, then we can avoid hurting eachother in discussions like this. For Justin and I, we are still discovering and defining exactly what our third thing is, but we have decided that to make any decision we must first ask the question: will this bring us closer in our marriage. This is how the conversation really went.

“Hon, I think we need to have a conscious discussion about weather we want to start trying or not. I feel like we have been careless in watching my cycle, and I don’t want to get pregnant out of carelessness, even if we are ready.”

“I have been feeling the same way. Since we have started working with Don (a buddhist monk) and I have quit work, I feel like I have a pretty full plate with school and my own spiritual work. I don’t think I am quite ready, maybe in a couple of years?”

“A couple of years? Ack! I am soooo ready now. I feel like we could manage… I don’t want to be old when we have kids” (looking back on that now… this is me whining a bit - understandably.)

“Remember what Don said? (He mentioned that he had never seen two enlightened people have children together) I want that. I want to be those parents”

*I’m thinking - enlightened? But that could take years!

“I agree… I want you to feel like you have had the time to do what you need to do, but I don’t really think we need to wait two years. ”

“We are quick learners. But I want to finish my degree.”

“Okay. I agree that having a baby right now would be hard on us with the current circumstances. Can we revisit this conversation in a year?”

“Yes. A year would be great.”

I have a tendancy to think about me, and my needs, where Justin has a tendancy to be a little bit more global. He wants to provide a secure home with parents that are as karma free as possible for a child. Where thought I normally think along the same lines, I am feeling the maternal instinct, which makes me impulsive. I recognized when he mentioned Don’s comment that I was not thinking about our well being as a couple, nor was I thinking about the well being of a child coming into a stressfull home, no matter how maternal I am feeling. So I shut up and answered to our purpose as a couple: What is best for the marriage?

As I mentioned, today I realized that my highest purpose is bigger than me. Along with our purpose as a couple, I have my own purpose - to serve the earth and to serve the people on it by contributing to an elevated state of consciousness. This morning I had to get up really early and go downtown for a tv spot about our green wedding. I was being really victimy about how long it was taking, and how late we were in the schedule. As I tried to express my feelings about it to Justin I realized that I was being asked to go on TV so that people will be inspired to serve the earth. This opportunity was directly aligned with my purpose and I was whining about having to sit and enjoy my book for an extra hour! VICTIM!

After this realization, I felt torn between the way I had been carrying on - and the need to maintain it to try and justify my irritiation, and relaxing my grip on what I wanted to be completely humbled by what I really wanted. Eventually, (thank god before we went on tv) I dropped my ego trip and was truely humbled by the idea that our little wedding was something that inspires people to go green.

I get it. It’s not about me.

It has been a great week and I am feeling pretty fired up. On the top of the list is that I get to teach some yoga! For the next four weeks I will be subbing Rai Kaur’s Class for her every wednesday night, starting tonight. It has been a long time since I’ve taught, I can’t wait to see what lessons sitting in the Golden Chain will teach me this time. I feel like my connection to the teachings has become more subtle. I don’t feel called to prepare a lecture like I used to, I feel more interested in seeing the teachings speak for themselves through the yoga.

Next, it looks like I have a chance to be part of the happyfrog blog team attending the Green Living Show at BC Place this weekend thanks to my friend Daveo. (With the bonus of a free ticket!) I guess that is why I passed it by in the dozen promotional emails I recieved this week urging me to go buy tix. Hopefully my work hours will allow me to get a bit of play time in for this show. It would be great to get a bit of experience and exposure in such an inspiring atmosphere.

Then, (!) Isabelle called from Granville magazine to see if she could interview Justin and I for her urban agriculture article. This is exciting for us, because we get to do it as a couple (if we can find the time!) Last time I spoke with her, she interviewed me for a local food piece she was doing for an American magazine (which is being released in March by the way). Being the sole interviewee gave me a chance to develop my own voice on the subject of local food and low impact living, as it is normally Justin who articulates a lot of the concepts. This time, as a couple again, we will be able to give a more balanced idea of what happends in our garden. Yay growth!

Finally, I hope to start working on my podcast again in the near future. The technical issues from last time appear to be resolved (although a new, exciting and huge release from Wordpress could put a damper on my widgets…) and I am ready to try again, time permitting - afterall it is about time to start seeds indoors.

That’s about it for my update, ideally this month will bring more frequent posts!

Blessings,

L.

I spent most of today outside of my box expanding my horizons. I went to my first web conference (my first anything conference) called Northern Voice 2008.  There, I learned things about blogging and social media on the Internet that I don’t entirely understand the basics for. I went alone (which means I had to make friends with people I wouldn’t normally get the chance to be around and thus have a really hard time relating to with such a basic technical awareness!).  Next, then I came home to update my blog software, only to find myself learning command line, of all things! I will talk more about command line in another post as it is its own little box.

Northern Voice is a conference about the voices of the web, blogging - live, video, micro and otherwise, pod-casting (weee!), social media, wiki, tagging, stats etc. Today’s schedule had two streams: either spend time in the 101 section learning about each type of media or attend the random sessions of interest pertaining to the media. Myself, having never had formal instruction in any of the above, decided that it would be best to establish the basics. Wrong. The basics meant: why should you blog? what is a podcast, what is a wiki? was therefore, believe it or not, below my skill set! So, I hit up the instructors for pod-casting tutelage on the lunch break and learned how to fix my broken podcast, which now works but is incredibly slow to upload due to the formatting of the file (I believe). Tomorrow I will learn about how to make that more efficient. To be honest, if the only thing I come away from this conference knowing is how to get my podcast up on my site, I will be more than happy. My one suggestion would be that they have 200 level courses for those who want to develop basic skills in the function of their media of choice and consequently make the sessions longer.

Tomorrow there is a whole gamut of things on the NV08 schedule, I am mostly interested in the future of social media (for Yoga West) and getting published (book to blog or blog to book). Then I have a choice, I can stay for the afternoon events, or I can go to the library to participate in a workshop on fantasy writing called “Possible Worlds”. Since I will have enough to run with on the blogging front I think it will be time for a break for computers - writing workshop it is then.

I am going to go and rest my brain, here’s to renewed zeal for the blogosphere!

L.

Justin’s and my bikes were stolen this morning at 6:00 am from our appartment garage.  Please, if you see them, call 911.

I vaguely recall a Yogi Bhajan lecture that compared persuing a spiritual practise to digging a hole. He said that if you constantly start new holes, you never actually get there. So, if you want to get there, eventually you have to pick a hole and stick with it. This makes complete sense. Physically, the earth is round, and so any hole, if dug perpendicular to the earth will evenutally end up in the center, thus all holes leading to the same place. Theologically, most religions and spiritual practices come down to roughly the same principals, its just about the story that suits you best. This is not to say that occasionally you won’t hit bedrock and have to call for a larger shovel, it just means that if you stick with one, eventually you will get there, and some therefore, are slower than others.

The hole also brings to mind the tag line from the film “What The Bleep Do We Know?”, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?, which of course brings to mind Alice in Wonderland (another story all together, or should I say hole?) Anyway, back to the tag line. Today I considered the question deeply. I have some pretty strong, double blind study style evidence that proves to me that a lot of things are possible, for example, astral projection or the ability to see, feel and interact with energy. I say prove to me, because the evidence is such that I understand it, others may or may not feel the same way. Everytime I get a hit of this, it strengthens my belief that perhaps there is even more to be seen out there.

Where am I going with this? Well, I have been trying out different spiritual tools, and today I am curious about the moon and its effects, and in the same vein, the planets. From my research, I have come to understand fairly competently the moons effects the ocean, and how the phases of the moon work, simple science. Furthermore, I can understand that if the moon effects the ocean, planting according to the moon would effect the growth and yield of your crops (Its no secret, its all over the farmers almanac.) However, there are a lot of people who invest in the idea that the moon effects people, their energy and the outcome of decisions, plans, ideas etc. I have definately experienced full moons that are out of hand, nothing going according to plan, people not communicating and whatnot. In fact, I find more and more that at least the full moon makes quite a significant impact on my life - it definately effects my menstrual cycle. So what about the other phases?

Today I found some information that states the best time to start an endevore, is on the new moon. Immediately, the podcast came to mind. The podcast did not come together last week weekend, not at all. Full moon. The full moon is a little intense for most new ideas, the energy being a little bit overkill (that makes sense, I was I little bit… shall we say, busy?) And what about this weekend, the waning quarter: banishing energy… getting rid of negativity, bad habits. Technically the New moon is the best time for this new project. Shall we wait?
Reasons why waiting would be a good idea:

1. I’m not even done writing yet (I can see why other podcasters invite contributers) and I haven’t even been lazy about it.
2. I don’t completely understand the technical aspect (will I ever?)
3. I got an intuitive hit during the Reiki Share tonight that I should wait.
4. The moon.

Reasons to dive in and air this weekend:

1. I said I was going to.
2. …

I am not one to take something as the word of god until I have really tested it out in my life, so this moon idea still needs to marinade for a while. Hmmm. Three to one then. It looks like I need to follow my intuition instead of waiting until Saturday at midnight like last weekend. I am going to wait. I’m going to give this moon thing a try.

On the bright side, I can blog more this weekend!

PS this weekend I am changing the website to: www.lisatilson.com. We will, however, be redirecting traffic from this URL, so both will work.