JaiKaur: Women's Grace, Grit & Gratitude

This week, my 6 siblings and I, living literally coast to coast, are gathering in the middle to celebrate our parent’s 56 years of marriage as well as my father’s life of 80% of a century, as my youngest daughter loves to tell him.  Preparations for this occasion began last winter in the hope we could gather the 3 generations, no small goal in today’s busy busy lives. With the aid of computers, google calendar, conference lines, and a bit of compromising summer schedules, every single member of our family will be together, the ultimate gift for a man whose definition of family often was “all together”.

In the process of coming to agreements for the weekend celebration-the location, the activities, the menus-even when we would have the conference call for these discussions!-ghosts of childhood past mixed with the differences in lives chosen as adults.  We not only learned (more…)

A plan to visit a friend in Vermont for the 4th of July weekend fell through and my daughter and I were faced with recreating plans.  My daughter of 12 years wanted to go to real fireworks and I wanted to go to the ocean, not having been for months to my favorite of all the earth’s elements.  We had tickets to whale watching based in Provincetown and a couple of days free from any obligation of merit.  A quick call to find out if the dog sitter was available-yes!-and we had a spontaneous recipe for a 4th of July holiday celebration!

We made preparations and went to bed early  figuring that taking off by 6 am would ensure a place to park in Provincetown. Of course, (more…)

A common theme in conversations these days is the rapid pace of changes, both personal and wordly, some chosen and some unwanted and many challenging in some way to deal with.  When asked for my wisdom on how to deal with the challenges of change, I speak of transitions being hard for most folks…and that creating ceremony offers ease to our human dislike of change by inviting elements other than our mind to the process of change.

So when something’s time is up-be it a relationship, habit, job, or place to live-it is important to consciously honor how what is leaving-whether it be our choice or not-has blessed our life.  Doing so allows us to (more…)

We are living within amazing and powerful transformations of the foundations of how life on our planet is ordered with all that calls Earth home affected, essentially requested to transform. We have valued the intellect at the cost of the spiritual, the seen world at the cost of the unseen world, and having learned the wisdom of these choices, we are being expanded into more wisdom and beauty. We are being asked-really, demanded-to bring about more balance into our world through reclaiming and revitalizing our relationship with our spirit and soul….to live less by the belief that the divine is separate from us and to embrace in ecstasy that we are the divine embodied.

As women, we are ambassadors for humanity and divinity through our innate powers of creativity, sacredness, and sensitivity. As women, (more…)

It is that time of year when we allot a day to the honoring of Mother, using flowers, food, and perhaps our presence to show gratitude for the women who honor the sacred trust of tending, guiding, and nurturing the young -and not so young-for the world. In recent times, we have expanded our notions of mothering to include those who nurture others through compassion, consistency, and care as well as those whose role in a family is Mom. Yet, we have not so much expanded our active support for the mothering role, still subscribing to beliefs from an age when Father knew best and Mother (more…)

As I look out my window at the again-falling snow, our wood stove and fireplace keeps us warm, a fresh stock of marshmellows awaits us for roasting later. I love the cozy feeling that comes from being safely inside a warm dwelling while Mother Nature is expressing herself, something she is doing very much so these days. I have grown to love New England winters, their days of more darkness offering me more opportunity to dwell within myself.

My daughter and I recently went to “Avatar” the 3D movie released in December 2009 and I came out of the movie theater again reminded of (more…)

It has been a few months since this blog has received my attention, a combination of a “tween” home on summer break, working on new projects for my business, and enjoying the summer once it showed up in late July. Gratitude for your patience with my summer slow-down….

For the past few summers, I have longed to make pilgrimage to northern Michigan, more my home while growing up than the many towns and houses we lived in. Both my parents were born and raised in this little town of Cheboygan, (more…)

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure-and unexpected adventure-of hosting a guest on my radio show who is brilliant in her field, insightful, powerful, and quite provocative. I was looking forward to being with her again 15 years from the time we had first met, curious as to where our years had taken us. Little did I know that our radio show experience would have me living a blog I wrote a few month ago titled “letting go of figuring it out”.

For those who listened to my May 28th BlogTalkRadio show, you may know where I am going with this. My moment of truth came when my guest questioned me for throwing an herb into my compost pile, scolding me as wrong and insensitive to do so. This was one of many in a series of questions that had a cat and mouse (more…)

One of the things I have learned about my life is 1. answers do come to the questions I ask of the universe and 2. sometimes I need to do something physical to get out of my head in order to hear-feel really-my answer. And so, on this fine May day, I took myself, my ipod with mp3s that I have been meaning to listen to-omg is that one truly from 2007?!-to rake up oak leaves buried in the grass over winter. Good focused physical exercise that would allow me to engage my conscious mind so that other minds could speak to me.

The question awaiting an answer was how to craft a business that delivers my passion for women’s impact -our grace, grit, and gratitude-while being….. (more…)

I have been off my game lately, a little more absent-minded and a little less with the joys of the day. At first I thought it was simply the changes brought about by the side effects of winter hibernation-too many carbs and not enough exercise-that was making me sluggish in getting together with the energy of spring. Or, I would blame the energetics of living in a world distressed by it’s economy serving as a wake-up call to grow up. However, as I sit here in my parents home and all that being here calls upon my emotions, I must honor the wisdom of what my tears are telling me…that loss is less about the words we use to talk of it and more of how it challenges us, even those who believe themselves ok with impermanence.

I am being brought back to the powerful workshop of grief and how important the work of grief is to growing compassion, first for ourselves and then the other. To our minds, feeling our sorrow is the antithesis of what it believes in and so we (more…)