{"id":2372,"date":"2015-04-26T18:56:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T22:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2015-04-26T18:56:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T22:56:37","slug":"hope-among-the-birch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2015\/04\/26\/hope-among-the-birch\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Among the Birch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2015-04-18<\/a><\/p>\n

They say that following the last Ice Age the robust and weather-hardy birch would have been among the first to re-colonize ice ravaged landscape. In botanical terms, it\u2019s known as a pioneer species.\u00a0 This fact alone makes it perfectly fitting that I found myself among the birch at Green Mountain at Fox Run<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in view of fabulous Okemo in Ludlow Vermont.<\/p>\n

\"2015-04-18<\/a><\/p>\n

I agreed to accompany my sister but it was increasingly clear the more I read of GMFR the more I couldn\u2019t wait to get there myself. \u00a0I\u2019m no stranger to issues with weight and I\u2019ve spent the better part of the last seven years developing life strategies but the weight\u2026remained.\u00a0 From their website:<\/p>\n

\u2026Over the past four decades, Green Mountain at Fox Run has helped thousands of women end weight loss struggles with eating, exercise and body image, make long-term healthy lifestyle changes and lose weight permanently\u2026<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

We were part of a four day \u201cintensive science based program\u201d centered around food, movement and mindfulness.\u00a0 Our group was a dozen and a half women of varying backgrounds, sizes and stages of life.\u00a0 I refer to them as the most phenomenal group of love and mess I\u2019ve ever met.\u00a0 They completely filled my heart for so many reasons and though we\u2019ve vowed to keep in touch even if I never hear from them again they will remain in my heart.<\/p>\n

\"2015-04-19<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent the entire past week trying to process my experience last weekend and it has been extremely difficult.\u00a0 The amount of knowledge was staggering, the ah ha moments just kept coming, the movement was diverse and fun and yes you could actually walk the next day, the thought provoking, look inside and discover what serves you and what doesn\u2019t moments were like streaming video.\u00a0\u00a0 And the food was incredible and delish.<\/p>\n

I thought for a split second that I might be able to do \u201ca post\u201d on the experience but it\u2019s impossible to boil it down to just one post.\u00a0 There is just too much to share that is legacy related.<\/p>\n

I have to start with the staff.\u00a0 How the hell do you interview for kindness? These are experts in their field with the highest levels of education but at the core they are women helping women.\u00a0 They will fly their hand to their heart in a minute at someone\u2019s tiniest success.\u00a0 They will engage at yet another moment\u2019s notice with anyone showing the slightest bit of courage.\u00a0 They will pop out of their office at the slightest hint of someone in need, whether they are a mother or not they all have that \u201cmother hearing\u201d. \u00a0Hell they will jump up and send a hug your way if that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take to cement your first ah ha moment (my sister can attest). As I watched the weekend unfold I came to realize that these were also women with their own\u00a0stories turned into incredible legacies.\u00a0 They know like they know of what they speak. And so you can\u2019t help but trust the integrity of their word, THAT<\/strong><\/strong> cannot be contrived. \u00a0They define living life the way you want your story told. Brava.<\/p>\n

Oddly, one of the biggest things I took from this weekend was one of the tiniest things you can do each day, pause.\u00a0 I learned about the natural pauses that occur in almost everything you do.\u00a0 Thousands of times a day you breathe in, breathe out.\u00a0 There is the tiniest pause at the top of the inhale and the bottom of the exhale.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never considered this you should for it can stop you from any number of things.\u00a0 Not that I remembered to pause this morning as my mother told the same damn story about the time himself brought the dog to her apartment and she (the dog) pooped in the living room\u2026.agghhhh.\u00a0 Let it go already\u2026 both of us clearly have work to do I laughed on the way home.<\/p>\n

Another important natural pause occurs when you\u2019re eating.\u00a0 It is physically impossible to keep at a breakneck pace without pausing, even if you\u2019re starving.\u00a0 Not that I\u2019ve ever been accused of breakneck speed when eating, you didn\u2019t think I heard your eyes roll\u2026.did you?\u00a0 Many times you will actually put your fork down and then pick it up again without taking advantage of the pause.\u00a0 What I can be accused of is not paying attention until I\u2019m at shaky, sweaty, hangry, gotta eat or someone will get hurt.\u00a0 You knew it was coming, you\u2019ve seen it.<\/p>\n

There is irony in my not being fully aware of the pauses in my life as most of these posts are categorized as pause points.\u00a0 Yes I\u2019m paying attention now.<\/p>\n

Suffice to say that over the next few weeks I hope to further process and share what happened on that mountain, as my sister would say, so that you can understand that I am not the same person for having gone to explore what might have been a new \u201cdiet\u201d (no such thing, don\u2019t let\u2019em tell you otherwise) and come back validated in my work of the last seven years with hope for an incredibly bright and creative future.<\/p>\n

\"File<\/a><\/p>\n

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees\u2026.Karle Wilson Baker<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They say that following the last Ice Age the robust and weather-hardy birch would have been among the first to re-colonize ice ravaged landscape. In botanical terms, it\u2019s known as a pioneer species.\u00a0 This fact alone makes it perfectly fitting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[596,601,390,598,600,599],"class_list":["post-2372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-company-of-women-2","category-pause-points","tag-ordinarylegacy","tag-birch-trees","tag-gratitude","tag-green-mountain-at-fox-run","tag-okemo","tag-transforming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-Cg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2374,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372\/revisions\/2374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}