It usually begins with a heaviness, a feeling that you cannot focus.  Visually you are overwhelmed, your space is full of stuff, and this is reflected in your mental state.  Our inner landscape is nourished by our outer landscape; and the two coexist in symbiosis. 

Over the course of a day, we jump from one thing to the next, and suddenly, you have a stack of mail, a cup of coffee that has been reheated several times yet remains full – and is cold once again, forgotten in the microwave.  You see your valiant effort to stay on top of the clutter, evidenced by an abandoned broom in the corner.  Dust bunnies have accumulated under furniture, and it’s as though you can feel cobwebs forming in your own mind.  Your to do list remains unchecked, and all because your surroundings are in chaos – sometimes we’re so bogged down by the chaos we can’t even make the connection!

And suddenly, like a mania, you spring into action.  “I NEED TO CLEAN NOW.”  That’s what I heard that day.  I sent my husband and my toddler out for a few hours to enjoy each other and bond, and as the front door clicked shut I stood in the middle of it all and let my mind’s gears begin to turn, faced with the task of taking charge of my living space.  And I knew that nothing else would get done, that this stagnant yet chaotic state would continue until I picked up, decluttered, and cleaned.

They say that “cleanliness is next to godliness.”  However you understand godliness, whether it’s a blissful state or an actual deity, it’s easy to see why this phrase was coined.  The beatific satisfaction of knowing all is right often results from an organized and clean home.  Things are in their right place, easy to find, reducing wasted time.  Systems automatically appear out of the chaos.  Inside, this resets our creativity.  Chi (or Qi) is flowing. 

Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin.  I often start with playing some soothing music and lighting a candle. Then proceed by picking up things that are not where they belong (a very familiar concept for parents of young children!)  Just starting somewhere, by putting things in their proper place, gets it going.  Follow your instincts.  Usually the last phase is the actual cleaning of surfaces, such as wiping down furniture and mopping the floor.  By this time, your space is so much more open and free that giving it that last bit of sparkle is incredibly rewarding.  Choosing natural cleansers and aroma therapeutic scents (I’m currently in love with Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products) makes it a multi-sensory experience. 

At this point, with still my soothing music and candle lit and soothing scent filling the entire place, I still had a little time left before my family returned from playtime, and starting rearranging some knick knacks and adding decorative touches to my work.  It was almost unbelievable that just a few hours before, I hardly knew where to begin!  Now I was having so much fun with my renewed energy (not coincidentally related to the reinstating of order in my home) that I wanted to do more!  Instead, I put on a cup of tea, took a deep breath of my clean and fresh smelling surroundings, and sat down and enjoyed the moment.

And as I took it all in, sitting on my couch, sipping a cup of tea with full awareness, I had to laugh.  The one place I had forgotten to address was the microwave.

As the front door opened, I dumped the cold remains of that cup of coffee down the drain and smiled to myself.  My daughter walked in, happy, exhilarated from play, and I was ready to give her my full attention.  I was ready to give my life my full attention.

"I Need To Clean Now"  October 23, 2009:

rhonna del rio-ascolese with elizabeth wagstaff williams 

I’m always so aware of water and its power on a day to day basis in my work, yet I don’t always take the time to drink water myself!  After a recent invigorating yoga class, we were told by the teacher to drink lots of water for the rest of the day as our bodies did their natural work of flushing out all of the toxins we had stirred up and needed to release.  I bought a bottle before I left the studio, and it tasted so amazing.  I envisioned the water working with my body, carrying away what was no longer needed, and rushing into the still pool within me that had, unfortunately, grown stagnant.  It felt great to no longer be a stagnant pool inside, but to feel hydrated by a river, rushing and moving within me.  I was a conduit for what I implement on a daily basis in my work; literally practicing what I preach! 

In Feng Shui, the element of water gets most of the attention.  When we consider the elements, it is usually the first one that comes to mind.  Why is this?  The concept of water is so powerful because of its associations.  It’s connected to intuition, peace, harmony and tranquility in its still form, and with flow and abundance in its moving form (yes, that would include cash flow).  The spectrum of blue is usually associated with the water element, naturally.

I hasten to add that still water is not always synonymous with stagnancy; as stated above; still water is associated with intuition, peace and tranquility.  For this reason, still water has always resonated with me especially; but as in nature, both tranquil and rushing water have attributes that can benefit us.  It is only the extremes that can stifle or drown us, or our energies.

Water has the ability to transform; this is evident in our bodies, by incorporating it into a space, or even witnessing its undeniable power in nature.  I’m also reminded of the book “The Hidden Messages In Water”, by Masaru Emoto.   His book was based upon the premise that water responds to beautiful words, intentions, music and prayer offerings.  Could we also have the ability to transform water?  Is it possible to have a symbiotic exchange with water?  With no other element is it more apparent.  Watch a plant spring back to life after getting a much needed watering.  Imagine your own body, cell by cell, doing the same thing.   Think about your body after a day at the shore, calmed and relaxed simply by being exposed to the ionic charge of sea water, what our own bodies are composed of by as much as sixty percent!  When we think about the effect the moon has on the tides, it’s also no wonder that the full moon has such a pull on us.  It’s simply our own internal tides shifting with those of the moon.

Now, think about setting your own intention when dealing with water.  Before guzzling your next much needed glass of water, offer it an intention or a prayer.  Think of Masaru Emoto’s water crystals that have been exposed to beauty.  Have a relationship with water – it can go both ways. 

We are supposed to drink one half of our body weight in ounces of water, every day.  Are you doing this?  For example, a woman weighing 120 lbs. needs to drink 60 ounces per day.   And if you are drinking other beverages, such as coffee or soda, you need to add an equal amount on top of the required daily amount (for instance if our 120 lb. woman has a 10 ounce cup of coffee, she would add 10 more ounces to her 60 ounces = 70 ounces per day).  

In your home, you can incorporate water into your wealth sector in the form of a fountain, using blue colors, a fish tank or aquarium.  Don’t overdo it though, because too much of any one element can cause imbalance in any sector of the Ba Gua. The best approach would be to find out which element a particular area represents and find the element that nurtures and grows the element representing that particular area of your home or office. 

But, in terms of drinking water, especially because most of us don’t drink enough, it’s possible that the more you drink, the more you’ll find your body asking for it.  In Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa’s book, The Eight Human Talents, she says that if you want to attract more money into your life, drink more water.  I beleive in this because when we are healthy we think our best and do our best.  After I finished the bottle that I purchased after my yoga class, I drank lots more water that day in an effort to gain the full benefit of the detoxification and rejuvenation process.   It was as though I had drained the dirty, stagnant pool of water within me and allowed the rushing, dynamic, abundant flow of water replenish it.

And there I was, reunited with the beautiful, still pool of shimmering water that I have come to realize needs tending.  The still pool within me, where I go when I need a moment of peace, tranquility or to tap into my intuition.

Perhaps we really can have a relationship with water.  Drink more of it – it’s good for you!

"Drink More Of It – It’s Good For You! "  September 29, 2009:

rhonna del rio-ascolese with elizabeth wagstaff williams 

When one has a moment of inspiration, something happens.  The inspiration takes hold and all areas of our lives have the potential to be touched by it.  The inspiration may have been something so small, that if we weren’t tuned in we might not hear it, or perhaps even discount it.  The whisper of the muse, the feeling you can get from a song, a certain turn in the weather, a call from a dear friend, catching a moment between strangers – the list goes on.  But what one deed triggers can be infinite – just like those commercials where one good deed begets another. 

Feeling invigorated by my trip to Austin, I decided to resume and return to my yoga practice.  Out there where the sky goes on for miles, it was like gulping lungful after lungful of air, all the perceived shackles of stress around my diaphragm released and my body remembered the last time it felt that way.  In that expansive place on my way home, I decided I would get myself to a yoga class at my earliest opportunity. 

And yes, I returned home and resumed the rest of my life – it would have been too easy to ignore the spark of inspiration, the tiny voice inside me that was testing its new microphone -  “hello?  I thought we were going to yoga!  hello?  testing…one, two, three…”, as part of what I realized on my mini retreat was that I don’t take enough time to water my own garden, especially as the mother of a toddler.  Heeding that voice inside, recognizing it for what it was – the voice of inspiration – I checked the schedule at Exhale (formerly known as Sacred Movement) in Venice, California. 

On the way there, I could have made several excuses, all leading back to what becomes routine: not committing to meet your own needs.  The voice of inspiration can easily be drowned out by the strum and drang of the daily grind: schedules, bank statements, traffic, phone calls…being an introspective person by nature, it would be very easy for me to retreat into the haven of my own home and not venture out unless it was absolutely necessary.  “It’s necessary”, the voice inside me said.  I drove on, past an accident, glancing at the dashboard.  I anticipated being late; perhaps I should turn around?  I tuned back in.  “It will be fine – I’m halfway there.  What would it be like if I gave in now?” 

Tuning in is another intuitive tool I use all day, in my work and personal life.  How would it feel?  Our own guidance systems often hold the answer.  “Get there.  It doesn’t matter how.  You need to do this now.”  I drove on.

I made it there, and stepped into class.  I met eyes with the teacher in a silent apology and hand gesture for being late and she silently communicated her welcome with a smile.  I unrolled my mat and settled into my practice. 

Of course, I’m grateful to the teacher, Keri, who taught the class, who reassured me without words that I had come to the right place and encouraged me to leave the noise behind as I stepped onto the mat.   But in an effort to acknowledge my part in this, to empower myself, I feel proud of myself for showing up.

As the noise clears, I realize all the areas that are touched in my life by simply following my bliss.  My family, career, friendships bloom.  My home flourishes as inspiration ripples out from me in the form of integrating more beauty and harmony.  Balance appears, tangibly and intangibly, inside me and manifests outside of me, in my work.  My intuition, a muscle in an of itself, strengthens and finds the courage to ask for more, to speak louder for what it needs, getting me back to another class.  I expand outward, feeling bliss grow like petals on a lotus flower.  I remember what I loved about my practice before I became a mother and had to learn to give of myself.  I was learning to strike a balance, yet again, between give and take.

Needless to say, the journey I took over the following ninety minutes transported me beyond the brief and chaotic journey I took to get there in my car.  In connecting with myself, in meeting my own needs, I cancelled out the other noise that daily life tends to turn up, and had a dialogue with inspiration.  I went within and gave inspiration my full attention.  I gave myself to myself.  There’s no greater gift. 

The benefits of this gift are enormous.  Just like those commercials – except the exchange is between you and yourself.  But when you do this, everyone around you benefits. And this good deed is passed along to anyone that has the good fortune to cross your path when you do exactly what your heart tells you to do in any given moment. 

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  - Anais Nin

"It Doesn’t Matter How.  You Need To Do This Now"  September 22, 2009:

rhonna del rio-ascolese with elizabeth wagstaff williams 

I recently took a trip to Austin, TX over a three day weekend to visit a friend who moved there in the spring.  It was a very quick, encapsulated visit; while it seemed there wasn’t always enough time to catch up and visit, the energy vortex in that particular city didn’t lend itself to feeling rushed or “out of time” the way it often does here at home in Los Angeles.  I realized this when the trip came to an end and I was quietly sitting in Austin Bergstrom Airport, waiting for my flight back home.  I had a moment to write in my journal, having come out of my friend’s “space” – or even her new home city, so to speak, and back into neutral territory – the airport. 

It was then, that in a flash I found myself in a very comfortable, very familiar and extremely inspiring position, both literally and figuratively.  Many people understand the appeal of traveling alone, of being in two realms at once, the feeling of owning yet another part of our world when you visit somewhere new – and the bittersweet joy of parting with a new friend and knowing that you are going back home.  You are still in the city you are about to leave behind, but the airport is somehow there and not there, all at once.  They are almost cities unto themselves, portals that link two cities across countries or continents.  As I wrote in my journal, digesting all of this deliciousness, I felt the pulse of energy around me; I was in a living, breathing cell built of glass and metal, listening to the soundtrack of travel, of life, of humanity.   And as I slowly, metaphorically savored my final moments in this new city, I sensed that impalpable thing you feel when you’ve met someone you’re going to know for a long, long time.  That’s how I felt when I said goodbye to Austin.

The city itself seems to have a surplus of oxygen; though it was hot, and I often had to replenish what I had lost through sweating with gallons of water, I felt energized, uplifted, refreshed.  The airport seemed a reflection of that; besides the eye opening nature of the trip and what I experienced there, the airport itself was like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.  It was absolutely synonymous with how I was feeling – weightless, joyful, unrestrained.  It was as though the airport told me where to go – here’s where you get your ticket, here’s where you go through security.  I met smile after smile – it took me less than 10 minutes from drop off at the curb to sitting at my terminal waiting for the plane.  AND, I had a bag to check!  This was red carpet treatment, coming from an L.A. gal.   It was as though the entire city was saying “yes” to me.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes. 

Austin Bergstrom Airport is architecturally very interesting. Airports also have their own special energy; think of how you feel in a cramped, stressed terminal of some of the more poorly designed airports.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s not that the city sees more traffic, but perhaps that the actual structure of the airport just lends itself to chaos and commotion, delayed flights, and confrontation.  (Can anyone say LAX?)  Maybe it’s a bit of both; but anyone can tell you that Los Angeles has its fair share of spaces that inspire awe and reverence and solitude as well.

Spaces speak to us; for some, it is subtle.  You walk in and feel claustrophobic, or you walk in and feel immediately at ease.  Is it the soaring ceilings, the ambience, the scent, the sounds, or is it something even more intangible?  There’s no one answer.  Spaces are as unique as people, and depending on the situation, spaces – just like people – have moods.   Moods can change or be changed.  Structures and spaces have needs as well.  And that’s how I communicate with space, with the tools I have. 

Sometimes a room will inform me that it needs an object moved, an area enhanced.  In Feng Shui, I use this information to change the mood of the space.  When I’m designing a structure, or an addition to an existing structure, I can sense/hear/feel what needs to be higher, or lower, or to be just so.  Intuition is invaluable in these situations; that’s the incongruous beauty of feng shui, or even architecture - of breathing life into what seems like something that’s exactly the opposite of alive. 

It’s not an easy thing to explain, but we all have intuition; we’ve all felt that feeling when we walk into a crowded, chaotic airport and to just know that you’re screwed.  We dive into the collective chaos. 

And on the flip side of that, I hope you’ve also had the experience of going somewhere new, walking into a space for the first time, and hearing without ears, hearing with your senses, hearing with your eyes, as quiet as a distant whisper or an Austin evening breeze through the leaves, on the wings of cicadas chirping in the night:

“Yes.”

"Yes" September 16, 2009:

rhonna del rio-ascolese with elizabeth wagstaff williams