The full length LunaVida video : D

I'm not ashamed to say it: Please share the CRAP out of this video! This is MY video of my chocolate business and it is all about thriving community!! Please watch and share!!!! And stay tuned for our kickstarter launching July 1st! This Monday! We will have links to the kickstarter on our website:www.lunavidaraw.com as soon as they become available!! Spread the LOVE!!!!

What's up LunaVida?

I'm not ashamed to say it: Please share the CRAP out of this video! This is MY video of my chocolate business and it is all about thriving community!! Please watch and share!!!! And stay tuned for our kickstarter launching July 1st! This Monday! We will have links to the kickstarter on our website:www.lunavidaraw.com as soon as they become available!! Spread the LOVE!!!!

Role Call

This is my LunaVida Love Prayer ((((((( <3 span=""> 

We are at this incredibly pivotal time in our world. There is definitely a clear call being made for us to wake the fuck up!!! Many of Us have been feeling this call. I've been feeling this call & talking about it, and talking about it and talking about it. It's TIME TO TAKE ACTION!!! I AM OF WOMEN & THIS IS MY PERSONAL CALL...LUNAVIDA IS THE VEHICLE FOR MY MISSION!!! LUNAVIDA IS CREATING JOBS IN OUR COMMUNITY for many working single mothers. LunaVida is about passion and creativity in an environment that fully supports women in thriving and being impactful on our community. My aim is to lovingly launch  women Into their full depth of personal expression. Let's make space for all the many different parts within ourselves as women and allow our relationships with men to begin to flourish, so community can thrive.  

I enact my mission through my work & offerings of the work of others @ Tending Moon. My intention behind Tending Moon is to ignite the momentum with which to set women aflame through community support and resources. This movement will empower us all, men and women, in connecting more deeply with one another, feeling our roots & coming back to the richness & bounty of the kind of love found only in community.   

In working more intentionally with my daily spiritual practice & deepening my journey & lessons, it has become increasingly more clear to me that I as a Woman & more importantly, in my mind, as a lesbian in my community, must publicly & actively recognize, honor & hold space for the Men in my life, community & the world.  They have asked. I vow to listen.  Community is made of Men & Women.   

So here I am, calling on all of you, my community that I love, for I cannot do this without you. We need to gather community in order to create more community.  The ultimate goal is to realize our connection. 

When our tending to others extends, overlaps enough, & balances with the tending of ourselves we are able to embody & create true communion, or : "Intimacy with my community," in the words of Jenny Macke.   

When we are able to finally look around & see each other on one level because we are all looking each other in the eye & feeling each other through our hearts, we will experience powerful effectiveness in our lives & in the trajectory of the future of our children & our world.   

THIS IS A CALL FOR ACTION!!!  FIND WHAT YOU LOVE THAT ALSO POURS MORE LOVE INTO THE WORLD & TAKE ACTION!!!  In the words of my beloved goddess~ "sistar" Molly Brock, "Let's get IN FORMATION and REAL- eyes our collective power." 

Perfect.

A dear woman friend of mine, in my circle, a strong part of my support system in fact (along with her amazing husband, also a dear friend of mine) came over to drop her daughter off for a play date with my youngest today. Truth be told, this is a daily occurrence for us. Our kiddos live at each others houses. It's beautiful and amazing and is true community, at it's best. What we adults get out of this arrangement is reprieve, peace of mind, support, childcare, shoulders to lean on, sounding boards, companionship, fun, love and so much more.

That's not even what I'm here to talk about though. So many women in my life currently are on the same plane with me. We are churning and processing and growing and shining and breaking down and building up and sacrificing and letting go and giving in and learning to love and being witnessed and ultimately stepping into our feminine power, together. But we are in chaos at the moment. And as my dance teacher says, we must engage with chaos. I forget what her exact words were yesterday. She said it perfectly. So perfectly that I knew it was truth, because I felt it. The only way to myself was into the chaos. I was so surprised when we were dancing Sunday, that the wave I was most comfortable with was actually chaos. Of course. Of course it was. It's the only thing that ever made sense to me; that nothing makes sense. That's how my life was as a kid. Chaotic. Confusing. Ungrounding. Out of body. And I was the only one. I was the only one that nothing would work out for. I was the only one broken beyond repair, because I came in that way. I was the only one flawed to the point of being inappropriate just in that I dared to exist. I would be trying and failing my whole life. Just like my parents. Just like my stagnant unloved family. That's what chaos feels like in me. These different pieces of myself fragmented and fighting. Alone they might make sense but together they are such a disjointed and uncomfortable repertoire of emotions and energetic sensations that self retribution is the only possibility that I can see in the moment. Oh I know that space well.

While my friend dropped off her daughter this morning we checked in briefly with one another. She mentioned her perfectionist nature coming up as she dives into being let go of her job and deeper still to see what lies beyond. Perfectionism. I am familiar.

As a "person with OCD" for lack of a more dignified way to say it, I have long danced with the issues of control and perfectionism. As you well know they take on many forms. When I was a kid the first time I recall my OCD appearing was around the time when my mom was in the hospital when my Dad left. The Grandparents for some reason decided they would sleep in my room. This sent me into inward hysterics. I already had started a little ritual of making my bed before I went to bed, making sure the covers and blankets were p-e-r-f-e-c-t. And then ever so painfully carefully I would lower myself onto my bed in a manner that would hopefully not disturb the blankets in the SLIGHTEST!! And GOD forbid if they were nudged or shifted! So you can imagine the 4 alarm fire that was going off in my little 9 year old mind and heart. These grandparents who I do not recall interacting with us much at all during their stay. I do remember they wouldn't let us go play with our friends in the neighborhood. It was like being in prison for us, in our kid minds at least it was. Especially because this was one of the scariest times in (I will speak for myself here) my life. I am grasping lately how deep the unnerving and disturbance went that day my Dad left. I lost both my parents that day. What I had of them. What a crazy immense overpowering feeling of the fucking bottom dropping out from under you.

AHHHHHH, it feels good to get that out.

So, back to perfectionism. What I realized during this conversation I had the other day was that as an adult, I had come to the conclusion that I must not have an issue with being perfect anymore because my house is so often driving me insane with cleaning and organizing needs and my brain then says, there are so many things that would be in order if I were in fact a perfectionist, so I must not be one anymore. But just in that moment I realized, no, in fact, I do still have that alive in me. A large part of what holds me back from getting things done and being more efficient in my life is that I drag my feet and get really overwhelmed just thinking about wanting the outcome to be PERFECT.  So much so that I become frozen and may end up just doing nothing.

That was a new one for me. I can so clearly see how perfection gets in my way. I am exploring this, churning it, kneeding it, cleaning it, nurturing it, and finding human decency and love toward myself AND others! In a messy, awkward, silly, crazy, beatiful way. Until later when I share more on this journey,

Blessings.

A LOVE LETTER.

I am learning a lot right now. Ha. That's a bit of an understatement. I amuse myself. Today I was revisiting one of my all time favorite books, LOVE by Leo Buscaglia. Ahhhhhhhhh. Breathe it in. That man was one beautiful human being. That book was one of the many that really became a life line from the past to the present for me. And here I am at the birth of dawn with my business LunaVida (so proud I am) and we are creating love notes for our chocolates. So I pulled out this lovely gem. Actually. That's not the truth. Sorry about that. Really what happened was, I went to find it and it was not where I thought it was. So I went looking for it. This book called LOVE. Yes, I thought about it too. I read into EVERYTHING. So I chuckled when I realized I was hunting around my room and my house looking for LOVE. Hee Hee. Anyhow. I did find it. In a pile of my doula and lactation consultant training info. Now I thought that was mighty appropriate actually because hey, I pour a lot of LOVE into my work. That's what it's all about, right?  Exactly.

Aaaaanyhow, so the book. Leo was talking about how we have to LEARN how to love. We have to learn. Hmmmmm. Isn't that interesting. I think ages ago I would have argued this point but now at the ripe old age of 36, I have come to the space of understanding that LOVE really is active. It's one thing to have the feeling of love. It is a whole other ball o' wax to LOVE someone. Ding dong! I'm literally just getting this as I write.

Fuck I love writing. Seriously. Do yourself a favor. Write. Do the WORLD a favor!! WRITE!! WE NEED TO HEAR EACH OTHER!

Okay, I'm back. Excuse me. But seriously, you need to hear my passion. And I AM passionate!! But back to Leo. I just really am in love with this new simple space of knowing. I see SO CLEARLY now how not teaching our children about daily work and routine and how to learn and grow cripples them. Because they become these adults who expect every goddamned thing handed to them on a silver platter! I am also referring to myself so please don't think I'm sitting here getting all judgy pants on you. Yes. I said that. Yes. We expect to just fall madly deeply in love and be whisked away into everything-is-perfect-always-and-forever (boring if you ask me) land. We expect that all we need to do is find that one person who we have this INTENSE connection with and love to bits - or whatever - and that's it. Everything suddenly works out and is perfect. But it doesn't happen. For anyone....but....we keep trying to make it happen for ourselves. In reality yes, intense connection, yes. But then......even after you're enlightened you still have to do the dishes right? Right. Thanks for being so agreeable ; ) Same same. Even after you are in love you still have to be actively loving this person. It's like setting up an account where you pay for some thing monthly, say, oh, I don't know ~ chocolate! LunaVida Chocolate, why not? Yeah. So you set up this monthly subscription (stay tuned by the way) and you pay for the first month and you get your first order and you are fucking IN LOVE with this chocolate. For reals. Seriously, go get some. But the next month comes and goes and your receive no chocolates. But you signed up for the monthly subscription and you paid for the automatic monthly payments ; ) And you LOVED the chocolate! But you didn't fill your account dude. You didn't work and save up that money, that exchanged energy (what if money were love? that would be cool huh?!) So you have this account filled with hard earned money but you haven't been properly tending to your world, to your bills, to your work, to yourself really. So your account is depleted. Both physically and on all those other juicy levels. Same thing with LOVE. You must constantly invest in it. Constantly be lovingly putting deposits of energy into it. Deposits of time spent on work, on our life work your prayerful work. And then you have plenty to give back too. Not to mention some super delectable, lovingly made, wonderfully healthy, chocolate delivered to your door monthly ( or more should you choose ~ options are nice, huh? ).

So yeah. There ya have it. I am learning a lot right now. Gladly. I get it. Okay, cool. My parents really truly did do me a huge fucking disservice by allowing me to go numb in front of the tv day in and day out. I'm not mad. I know. I swear a lot. But I'm just passionate because I am a parent now and smack dab in the middle of raising two incredible daughters and it is TOUGH!!! But so gaddamned good too. Fuck we are blessed. All of us. We are ALL blessed. We just need to break the ice around our hearts that come in the form of, "oh I'm too cool for that" or whatever our individual resistances sound like, and just fucking melt into love for humanity and one another. I am not talking about sex folks. Sex is sacred. So is love for one another and self. Sacred. It's time we pull our heads out of our video games and whatevers and just speak the truth from our hearts to one another. Yeah. Scary. This is the point where people get really squirmy. Fuck that. The time is NOW people. Speak. Your. Truth. That does not mean spew your blaming perspectives. No. That means "I feel......." That means self responsible language. Don't know what it is? Look it up! This is an AMAZINGLY resourceful time! We owe it to ourselves, our loved ones, our anscestors, our everyone to educate ourselves on all levels and learn how to step into love.

Let's pull ourselves out of plugged in land a little folks? I mean some of it is good and helpful right? It's incredible for networking. It's amazing for educating yourself and connecting with people. I could go on and on. And that is why we probably so easily slip into a relationship of mind numbing addiction with it. Close your computer love. Do us all a favor. Do yourself a goddammed favor. Do your LOVE and your LIFE a goddammed favor! Turn off your fucking phone for a while. Develop a goddammed schedule. That's what I'm gonna do. There are literally going to be times when I am not available. I know. I have kids. I'm gonna have to figure that one out and in this day and age with all the intense technology happening. There has to be a way to make that happen. I love them so much. Anyhow, my point is, if you are using technology, use it wisely. Use it respectfully. Use it lovingly. Use it usefully ; ). Use it though. Use it for what it has to offer for connection and healing and expanding love in this world. Use it. And love more. Amen. MUAH!

please administer love.

Yes I am single but still, I am learning to love better. In one of my last text message exchanges with Megan, she called me a taker and I cannot tell you how much that stung my heart. But part of me was worried that it was true. And now I see that it was. I know I can't be with Megan. There is a lot of grief that I have processed and maybe still some yet. I will always love her deeply. She will always be my first wife. But I was a taker in the sense that I was more worried about what I was getting out of the relationship then how well I was supporting and loving and holding up my partner. In fact, it didn't even occur to me. Do you know why? Because I didn't even know that kind of dynamic existed in romantic relationships. Totally fucking new concept to me. It was not modeled to me as a kid. You know the story. But I am learning now and that is the only type of partnership I will ever be in ever again; one where we are constantly filling the pot with love. Constantly. Even when things suck and things are flared and someone is breaking down and the other someone is showing an extremely ugly part of themselves. I want to hit the stop button and return to love. But I am learning how to do that. I met and saw and was reintroduced to such insanely ugly parts of myself when I was with Megan. It was one of the absolutely most painful and absolutely most intensely beautiful and loving relationships I have experienced. But in the end the pain, anger and at times perhaps hatred took over. I am very grateful for that experience now but it has taken miracles prayers and then some to get here. 

MW = LOVE

Friends, one of the women that I most look up to in this world is Marianne Williamson, a spiritual leader in our country (but she travels all over). She is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I am SO grateful for her presence in my life through books, lectures, TED talks, and through my relationships with other beloved people in my life who align with her teachings, which are all based on The Course in Miracles.

It is a dream of mine, a vision if you will, that I will be granted permission to include some of my most favorite quotes of hers inside the packaging of my beautiful, love filled, spirit made, chocolates:

www.lunavidaraw.com

I wrote a letter to her about this very thing:

• 
  
• 

  I don't know if you personally even look at these and I don't know if you ever answer them but I just wanted to say what an amazing role you have played in my life. I was at the end of my rope when I was in my late teens, early 20's. Depressed, suicidal, completely anxiety ridden. And one night I was out late on a run and I passed by a bulletin board with a flyer for a women's therapy group. I was very familiar with the whole world of self help and therapy. I had been interested in it since I was a kid. And I often heard of the many positives of being in a group setting for therapy. But as a painfully shy child and teenager there was no WAY I wanted to consider that, until I had to. So I did. That began my 2 1/2 year relationship with that circle of women in a therapeutic group. Most of them are still in my life. My friend Terry led that group and she is who introduced me to your work. Before reading your books I was completely turned off by any semblance of a word that related to Christianity. But through your words and also the books of Paul Ferini, I opened my eyes to my relationship with God again. There were times when I would be madly desperate for some crumb of stability and consistency within myself. Some sort of calm and groundedness. Some feeling of being in my body. And I would realize I was pressed up against the glass of my being looking out instead of resting back and realizing, this whole time, I have been sitting in the palm of God's hand. Totally safe, totally supported, and totally loved. This is what your work has helped me come to understand in myself. And the journey continues.
  

  I am writing not only to thank you (deeply) but also to ask your permission for me to use your quotes on the packaging of my raw chocolates.https://www.facebook.com/LunaVidaRaw
  I have big dreams for this project including being able to sponsor one single mother from my community per year and do something like pay for school for a year or pay for childcare for a year or somehow really help her take some steps forward into her future. That is my goal. Anyways, it would mean the world to me to be able to use your quotes on my chocolates. My chocolates are made with spirit as are your words!

  ~ Lisa Tenney.

  
  

  

                                       Marianne Williamson

  
  

  Prayers, blessings, gratitude and love! 

Bootcamp

Today I understand child abuse. I don't condone it, I don't act on it. I just understand it. It has been one of those mother fucking days. Need I say more? Okay, I will. I have raging PMS for some reason. Perhaps the cleanse I am on and detoxing? Whatever the reason. If my 10 year old spends one more day telling me all the things I am doing wrong I am going to rip her arm off and beat her with the bloody end! That is a quote I got from one of my exes mothers years ago. I have never used it on my children but I love that quote because the particular mother who spoke it was a righteous mama who was FULL to the brim with LOVE and you better bet your britches a whole lot of it was tough love. But what came across, even in her colorful threat? Love. Always. I'm trying to remember that. Part of why I am so reactive to my children is because I love them so much. But my god it is hard to feel cut down by someone day after day. Shit man. Is this adolescence? Fuck. I might need armor and rubber padding and stuff. Love love love. Remember love. I think right now I will remember my pillow and slip into dreamland. Fuck this shit. Love.

Women's Circles and vaginas.

I have finally come to the place and space in my life where I am ready to delve into facilitating women's circles. This has been a long time coming. I am starting off by offering a weekly circle that I am referring to as a study circle because we are learning together about our cycles, menstrual, moon, all of them and the vagina. I must know more about the vagina! Yes I'm a lesbian, but that's not what this is about. I mean, it is. But it isn't.



                                          Guess what these little beauties originally came from?

????

TahDah!! 

Check THAT mo'fo's!! Oh. You still don't get it. Maybe this will help....

                                                                         There she is. 

                                          Going back to our ROOTS! That's what I am doing. 

"Each month when a woman bleeds, she fully enacts her power." ~ Kisma Stepanich

I love my period. I love bleeding. I love it. I love what it stands for. I love that my body knows this rhythm, this timing, this pattern, this relationship. I love it. I love you. I love vaginas and I want you to love yours and ALL the fucking AMAZING things it does!! AMAZING!! Love it, cherish it, honor it. Don't let assholes near it ; ) Seriously. Don't. You know what I mean. No disrespecting so-and-so gets near your heavenly, beautiful, amazing, powerful vagina! Vaginas are to be loved and loved only. Yes, including when they are stretched beyond any reach of the imagination while birthing a baby! Love love love! Nothing less. 

Amen. 

What is the one thing I should always be mindful of as a parent, that I learned in therapy? To pay attention to age, stages of development and anniversaries. These energies are alive and well within us stored, percolating, churning, growing, sitting, spinning, burning....they are there whether we are consciously aware of them or not.

I cannot ignore that my sweet 10 year old daughter is the same age I was when my mom broke in half.

My mom has lived in so much pain. I'm not sure for how long. All her life? I just want to stop that pain for her. That's all I've ever wanted. It's so twisted when it's your parent you are caring for. So twisted. When you are a little kid concerned for your parents life.

I don't want to deny any more that my mother struggles with mental illness. Denying that truth has helped me create my own special hell that I am just now crawling out of.

In facing this truth, I must also divulge my own mental illness. OCD is the bitch that I dance with. I know it's all about self protection. I get it. It's so hard to move through life when OCD has you immobilized. Even though I am a high functioning person with OCD ~ I don't think anyone knows who I haven't actually told myself. Up until recently this wasn't many people at all but I see how taboo OCD is and how misunderstood it is. I don't typically flip a lid when someone makes fun of OCD but I would be lying if I didn't say it stings a little. I might want to crawl back inside myself a little more for the moment. It's scary having such weird oddities about oneself and be worried that someone might notice. Ugh.

Well there you go. Didn't know that was gonna come out. By the way, my mom doesn't have OCD. I won't go into her story right now. I want to bring the conversation back to my daughter and my relationship with her as her mother. It's tough going right now but I am continuing on and really opening to all that needs to be seen and healed. Fuck if it isn't painful as all get out!! Shit fuck fuck shit!!!!!!

I love my kids, I love my mother, I love my family, my sisters, my dad. I love them.

Showing up.

“There are women who make things better... simply by showing up. There are women who make things happen. There are women who make their way. There are women who make a difference. And women who make us smile. There are women of wit and wisdom who- through strength and courage- make it through. There are women who change the world everyday... Women like you.” 
― Ashley Rice

Sometimes half the battle is simply showing up, and how little credit we give ourselves for this. In a world with an over abundance of choices, opportunities, paths or roads, taking note of what we really show up for reveals so much. And sometimes we are asked to show up again and again in really hard situations that are either painful or maybe involve more trust or faith than we have danced with before. These spaces can bring us to our knees. They can set our soul shivering with fright. But look at all of the times we still show up! Everyday of our lives we are asked to show up in little or big ways. We show up for ourselves and we show up for others. I am in deep gratitude for the women (and men! But this one's for the women!) in my life who are showing up for themselves and showing up for me and helping me to create my lifework and contribution to my community and the world. Ultimately this work is about the collective. It is about me and you and all of us and our reflections onto each other and out into the world. What do we want this to look like? What are we willing to see? How do we show up for even more? How do we show up for ourselves with deeper love and gratitude? How do we show up for each other with more vulnerability and open heartedness? Dance with me. Let's find out. 

For the love of love!

Sometimes when I have a bad day I start thinking that I have too many bad days and I get down on myself for not being a happier, peppier, more outgoing, perfect person that all the bad stuff bounces off of. But then I remember what my best friend Moon says and I relax around myself. Given both of our childhoods it makes sense, "It's amazing we're not crack whores." she says. Ain't it the truth. On days when I feel small AGAIN or I'm stuck in shame AGAIN, I can make it SO much easier on myself to shift into a less painful space if I take a minute to remind myself just what I have been up against. It's not to carve out a victim stance for myself. Been there, done that. This new way of acknowledging truths serves only to help move my process along. Naming certain challenges in my life and expressing when it is hard (when done with clarity, intention and a whole lotta self love and self responsibility) can take HUGE pressure off of me and allow me the s-p-a-c-e to be human and from THERE I find my strength, my compassion, my wisdom, my will power, and lo and behold~ my love for the rest of humanity is there as well. Who knew ; )

Love yourself. Love humanity. Good plan.

permission to love yo' beautiful self!

What do I do when I feel teeny tiny small? I slow down. I breathe deeper. I get cozy. I go within. I reach out to my favorite cozy lovey people and rest with them for a phone call. And I write. And sometimes I paint. Maybe I will paint tonight.

Most of all I will spend my day loving these parts. Even if I am only able to love the tip top outer edge of the shadow of these parts. I will start there. I will give myself permission to love myself. Yeah, I know. It sounds weird. I have to at times give myself permission to love myself. We all have weird little fucked up rules we live by because of our upbringing or some traumatic experience or maybe even a misunderstanding as a kid that has never been cleared up. That's one of mine.

Just in case you need it~ and because sometimes I need an extra helping of this~ here is a sprinkling of extra love filled PERMISSION to LOVE YOUR SELF~ all of them ; ) MUAH!

HSP's

For my HSP friends:

HSP is Elaine Aron's acronym for Highly Sensitive Person. This is a post from her today:

Dear HSPs,Sorry this is late. You will read why--travelling. And I guess this is a travel issue, although this is a good season to stay home, too. Longer days mean more time to be in nature, where we do downtime best (besides meditating or resting in bed). If you work during the day, consider taking a long walk after dinner or make your dinner a picnic. Walk home in moonlight around the dates of June 23 and July 22. Even far from any light you can see your way with full-moonlight.

Such a good reminder! When I come home from work I often make a beeline for my pajamas- in the fall and winter. Spring and Summer light and warmth keep me in daytime clothes longer. 

And then there's tonight. I went out for a much needed ladies night with another doula sister of mine. I have accepted oldness. It's cool. it's midnight and I'm home from my wild night out. You know what? I had to choke down the mead. My body simply does not like alcohol at all anymore. It was nice to be around people in public in a party, chill out mentality, but there's so often that meat market mentality too. It really wasn't that bad at all tonight, but enough to where I was totally cool with being home by midnight, in my pajamas, writing to you. Going out and getting drunk does not appeal to me like it used to and tonight is the first night that I have actually been able to grasp that. It's not much for me. It's not about avoiding it because I'm scared of the social scene. It's about having done this all before. A lot. And I'm fuckin' over it. Maybe I am getting old. I look forward to the process. In the meantime....

You know what is so fucking cool about that? It's that I choose to be here. I choose to be cuddled on my bed with my sweet puppy writing to you after my not so crazy night with my doula sister. And that makes me so happy. It makes me happy that I am getting older and to the point where it is totally cool if you don't want to party hard. It's expected. Not like I don't have other vices. It's not about that. It's particularly alcohol and that scene I want to avoid. I want more from connection with people than that. Don't get me wrong. A lot can happen on a dance floor. But I want to intentionally meet people in a space of connection