2021 was an amazing year. We discovered abilities we never knew we had.

Abilities born out of hardship, having much of life taken away from us, backing us into a corner, robbed of our plans.

We had to look around and see what we do have, what we can do.

The last two years have been about how to survive.  

And that’s what you did. You survived.  And you survived them well.  

Well done.

It took strength, grit, determination, intelligence, and a clever utilization of all the resources you could muster. You rose up and accomplished something you never dreamed you would have to accomplish.

It was painful, a years-long endurance contest, and yet you created goodness and found many reasons to smile.  You created them all. 

And now it is behind you.

Now we’re going to look ahead to 2022. The first week of January is when you’ll pick up your brush and paint the first brush stroke on your blank canvas.

How do you manifest a beautiful painting?

This week right now is for dreaming your 2022 into being.

2021 was all about What do I need to do to survive? 

2022 does not have to be more of 2021.  2022 can go way beyond a survival endurance contest.

2022 can be about dreams that come true. Don’t look to the world for permission. There is no “Dream-Come-True Licensing Entity” that’s ever been any good.

You are your own licensing entity. You are the one who gives yourself a license to dream and to paint those dreams into reality, to make them come true. 

Don’t limit your dreams by what other people dream.  Don’t limit your dreams by what you think is “possible”. Don’t limit your dreams by any concept that you have to “face reality”. You are the creator of reality. Always remember that and never let anyone take that away from you.

Right before the holidays, I helped someone negotiate a difficult $4 million deal.  I helped  another two give presentations that turned a difficult prospect around completely to close a $500 million deal. Now there was a celebration!  I also helped an executive inspire his team of 1,500 who were demoralized by too many reorganizations. Finally, I helped a mother repair her relationship with her daughter.  Beautiful tears of love and reunion.

I help people win.  

Far too many have losing as their default. They say things like, “Well, what can you do?  It always happens. Now I’m more reasonable in my expectations. Let’s see what 2022 brings…”

Losing is their default.  They lose before they even begin.

I work with people to make winning their default.

Winning has everything to do with what you believe. The second you believe you can, winning begins.  It’s the spark that ignites.

This week you are free to dream.  To believe. This is a beautiful week for reflection.

Create an abundance of dreams this week. The more dreams you have, the more inspired you will be.

Inspiration doesn’t come from other people, it comes from your own dreams.

Sit back, gaze out into the distance that no one but you can see, and dream.

What would make you deliriously happy for 2022? What would be absolutely “impossible” but totally fantastic? What about every area of your life, not just work? Let your dreams fly.

Forget “reality”. Imagine life as you want it, not as it is.  Lose yourself in day dreaming. Dream the impossible as long as it makes you supremely happy.

Dream it rich.  Dream it bold.  Dream it in color.

Dream and dream and dream. Imagine, imagine, and imagine.

Dream until you can’t stop smiling. 

Next week, you will pick up the brush and paint the first brushstroke on your canvas. All these dreams will create a magnificent palette with an enormous range of colors, richness for you to start painting a beautiful 2022, a year like no other, a year of being truly happy because you have dreams and you are painting them into reality on a canvas that’s as wide as you like.

Next year, I will get practical.

This week, I dream.

May 2022 be an amazing journey for you. Happy New Year.

With love,

Ingrid

This has been a year where many have felt hopelessly divided.

A relentless focus on differences divides us.  It puts common ground out of our reach.

Discovering similarities unites us. 

Unite does not mean uniform. Uniform means exactly the same as. 

Unite means come together.

From my work in 53 countries, I feel powerfully united with all of humankind.

That doesn’t mean I’m the “same as…” for there is no one the same as me.

We are each completely unique. There is not, there never has been, and never will be anyone exactly like you. 

You bring something to the party no one else can and no one else ever will.

As Dr. Seuss once said, “There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

Yet, the powerful similarities that unite our unique selves as humankind are tremendous, they are strong and endure beyond lost empires and civilizations.

• We all like it when someone makes us laugh
• Smiles make us smile
• We love
• We like friends
• We like a good meal
• We love being understood
• We want people in our life we can trust
• We don’t like being lonely
• We don’t like losing people we love
• We bleed when we’re cut
• We are all trying

And so many more beautiful things that bring us to common ground.

We celebrate many things in this time. Spiritual, emotional, deep.

This week was our winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. Now we celebrate the return of the sun, the lengthening of the days.

And so it is with our spirits.

Darkness outside does not reflect the light in our hearts which burns ever brighter this time of year.

As our year comes in for a landing, we retreat to the open arms of those who love us, to recharge and regenerate ourselves. 

We emotionally and spiritually refresh and renew ourselves to create the rocket fuel for the hopes and dreams of the new year.

This is a magical time, the time to turn off the mind. To open heart and soul. To fill them with those invisible, even spiritual, qualities, like love and affection, that nourish our life force and enable us to create the future.

This is a time when communication becomes communion, when heart touches heart with the intimacy of deep welcome, affection and understanding.

These very beautiful life-giving forces are vital to our being causative.  They lift us up off muddy ground and put the wind beneath our wings so we can take to the air.

I wish you a most magical of seasons. May your body, mind and spirit, may all that is inside you, be deeply nourished and satisfied. Full. 

May you experience great joy from the many simple things that only happen in the magic of this time.

May your optimism blaze refreshed and radiant.

May love surround you as we welcome back the sun.

May you have a brilliant year ending – shining bright.

The world is waiting to see the light you will bring in the new year…

Love,

Ingrid

Today is World Dictionary Day and I am celebrating this day, which is also Noah Webster’s birthday!

Noah is one of my heroes.  He wrote the  1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, the very first American dictionary.  One of my favorites!!!  I use it ALL the time.

It was a HUGE undertaking.  I don’t know of anyone personally who has ever done anything this monumental.

A burning purpose impelled Noah.  That burning purpose was to preserve the religious and political freedoms of this very new country and its experimental form of never-been-done government, a Constitutional Republic (not a Democracy as so many people mistake). 

Noah believed that words are powerful because they’re our direct expression of ideas.  America was expressing very new ideas, ideas which defied tyranny and placed power in the hands of the people.  For the first time in history the governed became the governors.

Words were important.  They would be used to express “the American mind.”  They created reality.  They created the future.

Noah wanted us to understand every word in our Founding Documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Every word in The Federalist Papers, the series of essays that brilliantly explain our Constitution.  Every word spoken by our politicians and written in the newspapers. Then and now.

If you re-define words to mean less than they are…  If you manipulate terminology…  If you reduce literacy… You reduce intelligence.  You reduce the power of understanding.  You reduce collaboration.  You increase stupidity. 

You reduce freedom.

America was freedom.

America is freedom.

But could we define it?

Could future generations define it?

Could evil forces re-define it in ways to enable them to re-create tyranny?

Not on Noah’s watch.

He was meticulous with his definitions.  His definitions are powerful and glorious.  Complete.  Rich. They embody full concepts.

The great French philosopher Voltaire said, “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.”  This is one of the most useful things ever said, and I have turned many an “argument”  into a creative and deeply satisfying dialogue by doing just that.

I have studied every definition in these words, and so many others.  These words have gone from being superficial ideas I heard carelessly bandied about in social gatherings, to robust concepts that are now powerfully ingrained in my spiritual DNA.  I am grateful to Noah for them.  Possibly you find a word or two here of interest.  Warning:  there may be words within the definitions you’ll have to look up too.

Freedom

Liberty

Republic

Democracy

Constitution

Government

Spirit

Soul

Respect

Dignity

Honor

Did you know that Noah learned 26 languages in the process of writing this dictionary?  His purpose was to ensure that his derivations were as pure and true as they could be.

Noah meticulously wrote definitions for 70,000 words. It’s a big, fat dictionary.  Still in print, thank God.  You can get a hard copy of this dictionary on Amazon:  1828 Dictionary.  I find it particularly satisfying to feel its weight and turn its pages and greatly prefer it to the online version.

Keep in mind Noah had no keyboard, this labor of love was all by hand.  No electricity either.  Candlelight and quill pen.

This was a man who could truly get something done.

And what he did is a service to all humankind.

Little did he know that there would be a woman up in the hills above the San Francisco Bay almost 200 years later whose soul would blossom and whose spirit would soar, whose intelligence would become magnificent, as a result of his long evening’s work.  He may not have imagined me, but somehow he knew I would be there and gave this gift to me, as he gave it to you and all our future generations.

May we use it to preserve our religious and political freedoms, and for so much more.

Thank you, Noah, for this most magnificent gift.  And Very Happy Birthday!!!

Love,

Ingrid

It’s funny when you meet another soul on a journey of spiritual experience.  Quite a moment that is.

I spend a lot of time with people and I love it. On average I meet 40 or more new people a week and I enjoy the interchange with all of them.   By the same token, I enjoy solitude.

I like to run when it’s completely dark and experience the magnificence of night’s transformation into dawn, sunrise and then a glorious day.

No one is up when I am.  As I run, I float up into a spiritual serenity, bliss.  Reaching even exhilaration and rapture.  It’s ecstasy to see the beauty of this world uninterrupted. It’s a universe unto itself.  I don’t know if anyone else ever feels this way because no one ever talks about it. 

This morning was really special.  I came upon this cat.  I was running, the sound of quiet rhythmic thuds as my feet softly landed in the dark.  Owning the whole world.

This cat was sitting in the middle of the street and, in the solitude of pre-dawn night, he was owning it too.

I slowed down and approached, sensing whether or not he wanted me to come close, whether or not he wanted me to reach out and pet, and possibly massage behind his ear.

He examined me as I came closer. Found I was on the same wavelength. Invited me to come.

I gently pet while he walked back-and-forth, lightly rubbing against my legs.  He looked up from time to time, looking into my eyes searching for what was in my heart, my soul. What he found there was serenity and love, just as I found serene love in his eyes. He leaned into me.

It was quite a silent spiritual communion.

Alas, eventually I had to keep moving for when sunrise arrived, an agenda kicked in.

I gently said, “Goodbye” while rubbing the top of his head with one last pet. He looked up and slowly blinked both eyes, a cat’s special acknowledgement, a cat’s way of saying, “I see you.”  I gave a slow blink back and said, “I see you too. Have a good morning and hope to see you soon again.”  I took my leave.

As I ran along, filled with spiritual connection, I turned around and took this picture. There he sat, still looking at me.  Holding on to our connection.  Me too. We had a bond.  A profound moment.  Two souls who truly met.  A moment in time only he and I would ever share, would ever know.  And yet, we were both so much better for it.

I ran into his owner later and said, “I saw Winston this morning while I was running. We had a very nice time.”

She said, “You’ve got to be kidding! He doesn’t let anyone near him! He bites and hisses!  Don’t tell me he let you pet him!”

I said, “Oh yes!  For quite a while. It was quite nice.”

She looked at me like I was nuts.

I believe there’s a beautiful soul in each of us. We don’t always find or reach it in each other. Sometimes it takes a moment in the dark of spiritual serenity to find that wavelength that transcends all, reaches beyond all, and finds the soul in the other person.

It’s always there, but it’s not always visible to the eye. 

There’s a wavelength of the soul that sees.  That reaches.

We all have it.

May many find the beauty of your soul.

Love,

Ingrid

This is Ollie.  Ollie and I have passed each other many times in the neighborhood while I’m out walking and he is too.  Ollie trembles in fear and growls at you if you come close.

A number of years ago his lovely owner told me she was sad about it, but Ollie had always been this way.

This week, as I was walking, and Ollie and I were about to pass yet again, I realized that I had accepted all this as inescapable reality.  

She had said it with so much conviction, and Ollie had growled so convincingly, that I had, without even thinking about it, accepted our distance as a way of life, the way things always had been and always would be with Ollie.

But, somehow, this week, this moment in time was different.

I was unexpectedly struck by something.  I looked at Ollie and his cuteness and suddenly I could feel what he was feeling.  In all its terrible force.

I thought, “Oh, God, Ollie!  I know what it feels like to be this afraid and it feels terrible.”  I was all at once filled with a powerful love for Ollie.

That impelled an immediate and dramatic reversal in my decision about “reality”.

I looked into Ollie‘s beautiful brown eyes and sent him a telepathic message:  I think you are so very cute.  You absolutely do not need to be afraid of me.  I am your friend. Only pure friendship here.  I would love to pet you.  It will feel really good.  Come on over and I will.

Ollie came right over to me. I reached down and started to pet the top of his head and behind his ears.  The fur on the top of his head is unbelievably soft.

Ollie loved it, especially being scratched behind his ears.  I sensed with my fingers all the places he like to be petted and we had several minutes of joyful communion.  We were both absolutely delighted.  

When I stopped to take his photo you can see the eagerness in his eyes to get back to it.

What you can’t see in this photo is how energetically and vigorously Ollie was wagging his little tail back and forth.  Once we started, neither one of us could get enough!   I was laughing and I swear Ollie was smiling.

I looked up and his owner was beaming at me. She was radiant.  She said, “In all of his 12 years, that has never happened.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier woman.

It made me think about how important it is for me to maintain an independent frame of mind. People are always telling me about “reality”. Sometimes I accept it without inspection. I did for years with Ollie.

This beautiful encounter with Ollie made me realize, yet again, that if reality isn’t the way I like it or the way I want it, I can do something about it.  Create a new reality.  Ollie created this new reality with me.

I also believe that people, animals, all living things, that we’re all capable of levels of communication that we haven’t even begun to explore.

People are so caught up in the traps and tangles of spoken communication, just trying to get themselves understood with words, that there’s very little exploration of the elegance of all the layers and carrier waves involved in carrying our thoughts to each other and from others to us.

It’s a fascinating field for exploration, much to be done.

I believe intention is telepathically transmitted. I can pick up someone’s intention in an email, a Facebook post, a look, the length of time it takes them to respond … There are so many signs and clues.  Thoughts and messages are carried in many ways.

I don’t think I’m special. I think I just pay attention and don’t invalidate my own perceptions.

I’m not alone.  If you haven’t seen this video of Anna Breytenbach, it’s worth a look:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvwHHMEDdT0&t=119s

I think we broadcast our intentions loud and clear.  And I think Ollie could hear me.  I made myself heard through his fear so he could clearly see a friend in me.   Ollie “heard” me.

It’s another kind of communicating.  It’s another kind of listening.  It creates a new kind of understanding.

I love understanding.

And I am ridiculously happy to have this new friendship with Ollie.  Isn’t it the most marvelous thing to make a new friend?

Wishing you great understandings, however they are created, and great friends, however they arrive into your life.

Love,

Ingrid

Our dreams. Your dreams.

Love,

Ingrid

I know people like this.

It’s not that they’re flashy or trying to attract attention. No, no, it’s nothing like that.

It’s that, I’ve never met anyone like you quality. It’s that feeling of, Really, someone like you is real?

It’s a, You are such a beautiful surprise.

It’s a, I’m so happy I met you, and to think I almost didn’t!

With flowers it’s a, I love looking at you. With people it’s a, Please stay a little longer.

I hope your life is people-filled with the artists of life who inspire thoughts and feelings just like that.

Love,

Ingrid

I live in more of a cottage than a house, not so much in size, but in experience.  Cozy.  A feel of comfort, warmth and relaxation.  A place for easy reverie.

Reverie is that beautiful state of mind of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts.  I find it blissful.

Small house, large garden.   Many flowers, many birds, lots of singing, hummingbirds definitely.  They like to fly from tree to tree and often to my roof.  They gorge on little summer plums from the plum trees.

Butterflies, lots of lavender, large, fat bees, frequent deer, occasional raccoon and skunk, the baby skunk so cute, I wouldn’t have asked for skunk, but waddling little baby skunk are adorable.

Many tall pine and several redwood trees that tower high above me, lots of other trees I don’t know the names of, lots and lots of blue sky, wide blue highways for fluffy white clouds to travel slowly in their graceful caravans.

Brick patio.  Cats chasing, playing, wrestling, running and jumping about playfully.   Wind chimes.  Music.

My house was built sometime around 1940.  Back in the day, well before there was a Bay Bridge connecting us to the City, San Franciscans took the ferry across the Bay to summer homes in the hills.  Mine was built as a summer home.

Spiritually I feel very close to the architect.  He thought through light, space and lots of windows for fresh air.  There are many parts of the house where I can feel his love. 

I was stunned to find that on the Summer Solstice every year, happening two days from now, the glorious sun sets in the exact center of my living room window, lavishly creating a front row center seat for the most spectacular sunset of the year.  Filling my living room with a striking splendor of sunset colors.

I have a group of architects as clients and I was telling one of them how extraordinary this was.  He said, “The Mayans figured it out.  So did your architect.”

He also told me that what must have happened was that my architect spent time here when it was just a tree-filled hill, spending all day here, studying the changing light and designing the cottage so light would fall in the bedroom in the morning and travel around the hill to the patio for the day, ending the day in my living room sunset.  Filling the day with light.

He told me how much care, how much loving precision, it takes to create that.

I wish I could thank this amazing architect.  He designed a place of great reverie.  In my mind’s eye I can see the early San Franciscans, filled with gleeful anticipation, taking the ferry across the Bay to arrive here. The great sense of release, relief, comfort and relaxation that greeted them here.  How in the mornings they woke to sunlight peeking through their bedroom window.  How they savored their sweet summer days on the patio and how they sat joyously together in the living room around June 20^th, just like I do now, enchanted, filled with the same wonder I feel, absorbed in the dazzling and glorious, and rather miraculous, annual sunset spectacle.  How they abandoned their cares behind in the City, and came here to relish the freedom of light, garden, sky, birds and bees, the joy of reverie.

Emily Dickinson wrote a beautiful poem about reverie:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do,
If bees are few.

Here there is much lavender.  Many bees.  Much blissful reverie.

Thank you, Architect.  You created something sacred. You created something timeless.

Love,

Ingrid

I go for walks every afternoon. Some days I wonder what would happen if I just kept walking. 

I live in a place that has woods, trails, crooked streets, stairways and paths that go on for miles and miles.  And in these glory days of Spring, I walk through an infinity of flowers, many growing wild and free.

I stop to smell their heavenly scents.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Robert Louis Stevenson. He’s one of my favorite writers. Not so much the books he wrote for his son, Kidnapped and Treasure Island. But his poetry, essays and other books, especially on travel, like his essay called, “Walking Tours.”

In the 1800s Walking Tours were very popular. People spent weeks and even months walking.  Can you imagine?  They walked all around Europe, exploring the nooks and crannies.  RLS’ descriptions of his walking tours are very enticing, not to mention humorous.

Walking is a whole different way to experience travel.

I compare it especially to today. We have machinery to get us where we want to go.  We measure success by how fast we get there.  Not by the scent of the roses along the way.

Hiking is also big here.   I don’t find there to be much difference between hiking and marching.

I do enjoy hiking and have done quite a bit of it.

But what I’m talking about here, what I’m enjoying a whole lot these days, is strolling, and ambling.  It’s a whole different experience.  In 1828 Noah Webster defined strolling as a wandering on foot; a walking idly and leisurely and ramble is to walk without restraint.  It’s a I wonder where this path goes … let’s take it and find out.

Boy, they sure knew a lot about walking back in the 1800’s!  I sure would have liked to amble with either RLS or Noah.

And I’m loving it these days.  It’s a going slow enough to drink in everything around me, discovering immense sources of pleasure in the small things you miss if you’re moving fast.

Like these roses in the picture, the impossibly delicate pink, the millions of brand new buds, hiding, waiting to burst into dazzling flower. They smell as good as they look.  It’s not something you want to rush though. I linger with them until I’m thoroughly intoxicated.

My neighbors march past me. They’re energetic.  Vigorous.  They’re not strolling.  They’re marching.  I enjoy their energy, the way they energetically tackle the hills in my neighborhood.  It’s all smiles and warm greetings.

But these afternoons are moments in my life where I enjoy the world going by and feel no need to keep up.  I work fast throughout the day.  And then I go slow.

Slows slow allows me to notice and drink in the world. The beauty of the sky. The beauty of the clouds. The intricate design of tree trunks. The deep purple petals of flowers never before seen. The scent of pine and jasmine.  The soulful eyes of squirrels stopping to check out the scene.  The songs of individual birds.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a lot about the joys of walking, and of sitting by the fire at the end of the day, watching the flames, enjoying his “journey into thought”.

It’s truly this journey of feeling all my senses come alive, and the joy of thought, that refreshes my spirit every afternoon.  Each day completely different.  Discovery of new flowers, new views, new clouds, new breezes, new intoxicating scents.

I wonder what would happen if I just kept walking …

Love,

Ingrid

On my early morning run it was dark, the lights in Oakland and across the San Francisco Bay were twinkling, the light was gradually changing to dawn’s early light.

An unusually large full moon reflecting on the San Francisco Bay created magic. A woman walking her dog was standing at the top of the hill, looking with wonder at the moon.

I stopped and stood next to her and looked up and out across the Bay.

I said, “It’s an incredible time of day.”  She said she thought so too.

Then I told her what the return to light means to me.

She said, “It’s my favorite time of day.”

Then a moment of thoughtful silence.

She said, “I like to get completely away from people.  This is the only time I can do that. I’m tugged and pulled in so many different directions, there’s so much noise in the world and much of it isn’t happy.”

I said, “I totally know what you mean” and we talked about how beautiful it is to get back to the serenity of your own universe, to what’s true, important and beautiful, the beautiful universe where we are nourished by our hopes and dreams, where we can create a new reality.

The mood of the conversation was of complete beauty and serenity. Complete understanding.

At the end of this very brief conversation she looked a little blown away, she looked happy, radiant.

I said, “I hope the rest of your day is as beautiful as it is right now.”

She thanked me profusely, like I had given her something grand.  She also looked and sounded totally surprised.  It made me so happy.

As I continued my run I was pondering, puzzled, but why was she so surprised?

Possibly we don’t very often encounter real substance in our interactions? 

We are all capable of great substance. Of conversations that means something.  I do believe the world is hungry for real conversations, real friendships, real love.  It’s a beautiful moment when the sleeping giant within us wakes up.  When we make a simple yet deep human connection.  When we talk about things that are important and we see true understanding in the other person’s eyes.  When their eyes smile at us.

I run into her from time to time.  We greet each other like warm friends. I don’t know her name. It doesn’t matter.

She always says, “Where is our moon?” and we look in the sky until we find it.  She always calls it, “our moon.”  It makes me so happy that she does.  Our moon.  We share the moment, not saying much but rich with warmth, pleasure and understanding.

Birds sing a morning symphony as we go in separate directions, united by the magic of the moment.

Wishing you many moments of deep human connection and great beauty with the many wonderful people in this world who share the longings of your heart.  May you find fulfillment in their eyes and they in yours.

Love,

Ingrid