Liveliness | Bonnie Barnard - Part 6

Home » Liveliness

Space that Regenerates and Enhances Healing

All space is not created equal. I am aware of this as I am in the process of renovating an empty condo and making choices that directly impact my soon-to-be living space. I try on colors, textures, woods, prints, within my mind and feel into the energy combination of each choice. In my bedroom and meditation space I want tranquility. No televisions, no computers, and colors that relax. In my office I am looking for vitality, movement, and design choices that encourage and energize my creativity. The kitchen feel I’m going for is a bit funky and the living room inviting. With my focus on space, I picked up a new magazine named Experience Life and read an article on space. Finding the writer’s conversation aligned with what I know, I want to share her article on Healing Space. 1. Windows that look out to nature have healing properties. In a Pennsylvania hospital, a study was done in 1984 comparing patience who had undergone gallbladder surgery. Half in recovery had...

Experiencing Writer Incontinence

Yesterday morning started with shopping at the downtown Phoenix Farmer’s Market. Individual tables with tented fabric overhead are set around a funky coffee shop that serves farm fresh breakfast and sells few grocery items that are regionally unique. I begin at the Pichuberry booth, my favorite fruit, now for a few years. The table has a clear clam shell container with samples, so I peel back a thin skin, hold the bottom bud and pop the bright yellow-orange firm fruit into my mouth. My Saturday morning ritual has begun. The next table is by Grindz, a local Scottsdale company that specializes in raw chocolate. I buy their raw zesty lemon bars for my upcoming week’s breakfast. Onto produce tents where I nosh a few samples — this week’s special is melon — honeydew, watermelon, and something yellow I don’t recognize but love, then I pick up my grass fed eggs. I walk by the street musician who is playing an electric guitar singing original songs. I can’t help myself, I...

Freedom FROM and Freedom IN

This past weekend we celebrated the Fourth of July, or our nation’s independence FROM King George’s rule. Our country’s founders declared a new country, a new congress, and a new way of doing governance. A new way grew out of an old idea that no longer fit. We do this all of the time. Everyday individuals decide to become sober as there is a rub between the addicted self and the emerging desired new. There is a past FROM which liberation is the desired goal. Likewise individuals graduate FROM a college or university as an accomplishment has been made and a status change is underway. These are examples of Freedom FROM. The old is in the past, it is being left behind, and the new is being created with each choice, guided by internal wisdom and a lot of seeming serendipitous lure. The focal point of Freedom FROM is circumstance or behavior that is being left behind. To have Freedom IN means the ability to be free regardless of circumstance. This...

Waiting for Baby James

My daughter’s family is growing. She has an active, powerhouse of a 20 month old toddler whose favorite words are “no” and “da-da.” She lives with her fiancé’ and 20 month old daughter in a two bedroom condo. The living room looks like a bomb of toys and stuff animals exploded on the blue carpet. The Little One is learning to pick up after herself, but it is slow going. This is my daily job description: picking up, washing, making, cleaning up, playing, walking and tending. The picking up and washing are pretty much the same: clothes and dishes. The making consists of three meals plus snacks, the playing and walking are done with The Little One and the tending is to my daughter who feels like she has a bowling ball plus the bowling alley sitting on her bladder at all times. We are awaiting the birth of baby James. He was first due on my grandmother’s birthday, February 23. Then, the date was moved to...

This Too is Holy

One of my favorite teachers, Emma Curtis Hopkins, speaks of the Presence of God as the Go(o)d we are seeking. The God or Good is all there is, seeking me as I am seeking It. Her teachings recommend denying anything unlike the Go(o)d of God as being Real in anyway. This is True; High Truth. However, since All is God, then there is no opposite. All is God. I am called to deeply love that within me that doesn’t feel good, comfortable, joyful, and yet is equally a condition for the unfolding of my Soul. Last week I experienced three solid days of pure, non-stop terror. I’d met depression several times; this wasn’t that. It was far too sharp an energy to be complacent. My insides felt raw, frozen, uncontrollable terror. I experienced panic, fear, angst, paralyzed, anxiety. The sensations, almost debilitating, required lots of breathing and Self Love at a depth I hadn’t yet known. I didn’t try to deny this inner state, push it away,...

Walking, Races, and Postcards

It is Seafair milk carton boat racing Saturday at Greenlake in Seattle Washington as friend Matt and I dodge pirates, children, and temporary floating devices to make our way back to our cars. To the right is a lake filled with children racing with announcer Chip Hanauer, Seattle hydroplane 11 time gold cup winner, narrating the action. To our left is a row of booths. One booth stands out and Matt and I make our way toward it. We meet entrepreneur Robb Anthony who as a freshmen dreamed of receiving a mail box full of postcards. Thirty would be enough to take away his painful loneliness, he shared with us. Yearning for the thirty and knowing they weren’t coming he decided to give them instead of receive them. Armed with postcards, he began writing to other freshmen. Overwhelmed by volume, he enrolled other students in his vision to remind people of their value. This concept birthed the non-profit Postcards from Farr Away (PFFA). Approaching his table we see a pile...