Healthy Social Life – quote – Rudolf Steiner

The healthy social life is found when, in the mirror of each human soul, the whole community finds its reflection and when, in the community, the strength of each individual is living. – Rudolf Steiner

hmmm… this quote hits home to me… I am learning with my community, those of us who study closely with the same Cherokee teacher, that when we come from a place of appreciating each other and our differences instead of judging each other, then we can really work well together to dovetail our strengths and passions — to truly ‘live’ in a beautiful way. ‘Walk in Beauty’ – that is how some native american tribes called it… “The Beauty Path” – this really speaks to me.

Oh Moth – poem by mare

In the winter of 94-95, I lived at a very remote, off-the grid center for agroforestry in Belize. I was there to slow down, to stop being a workaholic, and try to figure out the rest of my life. (I also signed up to help with fundraising for the center, but that never panned out.) Just months before, I had quit a job running an international environmental network out of Ann Arbor, MI. And I was extremely confused and wounded and Belize called to me. So I went. I lived for most of three months there with others in a large thatched roof, open air lodge with no glass windows, screens or walls, practically, and bunkbeds on the 2nd floor. Once the day was over, candles or flashlights were how one read at night. And to not use up my batteries in the flashlight, candles were the best option. This being the tropics, all sorts of fantastic night flying insects flitted around and occasionally a moth came too close to the flame. Hence this poem… from 1995.

 

 

Oh Moth

 

Oh moth – you have waxed your wings

one last time in the candle I lit for

reading

But now I read

your pain

instead

 

Is this the cost

of my savoring a few more pages of tale

and you

no more flit

you sacrifice wing and flight

and life

 

What other deaths,

what other loss

to create that candle, that wick,

the flame

is this nothing

must there always be this cost and I

TAKE

 

Would it be better

for the costs of light to be

unknown distant

irradiated fish miles from

my lamp

poisoned mountains of coal tailings

so far that no one

watches seedlings struggle

and fail to take root

people and plants

fingerlings fried before ever being lifted

from a stream bed

 

massive river obstructions -

dammed

salmon crying in

frustration

as they try to leap,

to taste their home,

and spend a final spawn

in peace

 

should we not call it

the grid of unconscious,

a constricting net of electrical lines,

choking the biodiverse

to homogenize

the land

 

will we wake to life of living

web of connections and tugs at my heart

strings in this moment of you, oh moth, your death

in my light

 

I choose to close

my book for the toll

taken

 

Jan, 1995 (rev 11/09)

belize

mare cromwell

 

Animal Spirit Guidance, Lizard

Animal Spirit Guidance
By
June K. Brown

Lizard

“Oh Wow!” This was my husband, Bill. “June, look at your shirt. A lizard just jumped on.”

I glanced down and sure enough, a baby lizard was hanging on the bottom of my shirt. “Eeeee!” I kind of jumped and then shook my shirt to make the reptilian hitchhiker get off of me.

“Boy… Some animal chick, you are! It’s just a lizard.”

With my heart racing a little, I said, “She just caught me off guard. This is the third time I’ve had a lizard jump on me today. You know what that means?” My husband shook his head, knowing that I was going to tell him whether he liked it or not. “It means that we can control our dreams.”

“You know I don’t remember my dreams.” My husband always says that. He dreams all night and then wakes up without any memory of it.

I rolled my eyes a little and said, “It doesn’t have to mean the ‘dream state’. It can also mean our dreams… as in goals. You know, like how you want to carve Tiki’s for a living and stop having to build cabinets for people? The lizard is saying that you can do that. That you have control of your dreams.”

“Yeah, but what about money and taking care of family and putting food on the table?”

This is the biggest concern for most parents. We feel bound to a life of misery. We feel like we have to do the stuff we hate, all the time, in order to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. Our kids need clothes on their backs and school supplies. If we have to take on work that makes miserable, so be it.

It really doesn’t have to be that way, though. Sure, maybe at first we get menial jobs to bring in the money. But, you can still work toward your dreams.

My sister works two jobs. One of them is at night, part-time. She doesn’t like it, but she has to pay her bills and take care of her three kids. She has always wanted to go back to college to get her Master’s Degree, but something always got in her way.

First, it was that her kids were too young and she needed to be a stay-at-home mom. Next, it was that she needed to get a job because the kids were all finally in school. Then, she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. She was lucky enough to have a job where she could work from home on her chemo treatment days. She was given the all clear after a year of surgeries and treatment, but then the economy started it’s downward slope. Her husband’s work dwindled and she found herself looking for a second job. With one kid in college, one in high school and one in junior high, money is tight.

What did she do? Just this past October, she started an on-line college course! She dropped her hours at her second job from 18 to 10 per week. She hasn’t stopped doing what needs to be done for her family to survive but is still moving toward fulfilling her dream / goal.

My husband has started making his Tiki’s, preparing for the holiday market sales. He’s still building cabinets for people so that we can eat and has taken on some sub-contract work with another cabinet shop for a steady paycheck, and yet, he’s still working toward his dream / goal.

I am still writing, even though I have a plant nursery to deal with and four kids to take care of. My dream is to publish a novel, a children’s book and a book on Animal Spirit Guidance. As time goes on, I find that I’m carving out odd times to write. Now I get up an hour early every day to fulfill my writing goals. I eat lunch while pounding the keys. If my husband is working late, I head to my computer and start writing.

This isn’t easy. Your dreams are in your hands and, yes, you can control them. You can make them happen. Your future depends on you.

What’s your dream? Have you taken a half step forward? Ten steps? If you are struggling with this, meditate on lizard. See your dreams in your minds eye. Now see them coming into play. Don’t force it, just look. Where will you be when you achieve your dream? Now… go for it!

Moonmother

Abscission – poem by mare

ah — it is fall,  early Nov.. stunning streaks of yellow, gold, red and brown across the gaze, temperatures dropping, frost crispy underfoot in the early morn.. and it’s a bittersweet time for me. time for the gardens I tend to wish me well for the winter and I, I to crawl into my winter den of hiberation at the desk and internal ponderings of writing and other more subterranean bubblings.

this prompts me to share a poem I wrote in the fall, back in ‘96, at at time when I was far more caught up in sorting through my life dysfunctions (not that that habit has not stopped, mind you! ;~) just shifted a bit to less dysfunction and more fun, I’d like to think… )

oh, right, I was honored to have it published in a collection back in the late 90’s, a Baltimore – based poetry collection.

[Abscission is the botanical term for the process that a tree goes through when all the juices and nutrients in a leaf are pulled back into the tree itself to allow the leaf to then be spliced off and fall...]

 

Abscission

 

I do not know the struggle there is

when a leaf looses hold of the tree

to take its turn to the earth.

 

Whether the painting of the forest

streaks from the echoes of fights

to color between tree and leaf.

 

Or a calm, quick exit is cut, to say

“Farewell, I’m off”,

and the breeze embraces the trust of fall.

 

Does a tree wish a leaf well,

in the leaps of faith each shedding

takes in the dance of decomposing?

 

Shall I ever cross my parents’ threshold

for once, to say “Farewell, you are strong

and I am off”?

 

Or part a lover

with a “Thank you, you have given me much”

to cascade with joy onward?

 

Could I ever shed my fears as foliage painted

to turn and turn to dance in the shadows of light

and become humus under my steps?

 

mare

baltimore

1996

The Termite – Ogden Nash

The Termite
– Ogden Nash

Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

I think Ogden Nash does not get enough airtime. I love this man’s wit and use of words… shall put more up here as time permits. (and thank god, I don’t have any termites in my house! Nor do I have a Cousin May either.. phew. ;~)

David Eisenberg – Development Center for Appropriate Technology

I sent an email out to all of my enviro contacts on Friday morning this week. I just had to send it out and actually left a bit late to get to my gardening client’s. It is below:

Hello All –

I have a house guest this week – David Eisenberg, Executive Director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT). www.dcat.net <http://www.dcat.net>

David is here in Baltimore to push for greener building codes, work he has been leading for over 15-16 years. The annual mtgs that are held to change national building codes are being held in B-more this year, right now down at the Convention Center. He’s been telling me about their work and some big decisions being made at hearings today and tomorrow with his green code committee/s (sorry, I can’t give the particulars on the codes.. This was too early in the morning just now for my brain to comprehend such details. ;~)

David is one of the unsung heros of the huge effort to become more …sustainable in our nation and… I encourage any and all of you who have the time and any resources… check out David (and Tony Novelli’s website, David’s asst Director) to support this really, really impt work.  Www.dcat.net

And if you can’t contribute anything financially.. You can send David good positive thoughts to support their work. Apparently the Home Builders Assoc and such partners work hard to find any of these greener codes.. Go figure. And if you know anyone in the Home Builders Assoc or want to call them and pester them about their resistance to green codes, more power to you on that level too. Here is their contact page on their website: http://www.nahb.org/page.aspx/landing/sectionID=156

The construction industry is one of the most environmentally consumptive industries and they have to comply with building codes. And the codes have only become more green because of people such as David, and he’s been at the forefront. And David’s group works on a song of a budget. Practically nothing. So, in these hard economic times, yes they are hard, we need to make sure that a group like David’s continues.

Okay, I’ll stop my plea there. ;~) David is also a beautiful poet and photographer and a wonderfully kind man with a huge heart. Thank you, David for all that you do for all of us in such humble ways… Thank you, Tony… too.

For the earth..
M

—

So, it is now Sunday am, and one of the codes that David was working on was voted against, 12 – 0. The second green code was voted down 10-2. And then an energy code that he supported also was voted down later on Saturday.

This very sad news gives me great pause. Great pause. It makes me wonder who is on the decision-making committees for the National Building Code work, for one. Are these people aware of how many people in our populace are very committed to a greener healthier future? Actually, maybe the truth is that many of us are quite scared about our future and know that we’re in the 11.5th hour in trying to shift how unsustainable patterns are. But we know we need to shift – in a huge way, shift.

Yet there are still so many pockets of decision-makers — too many, clearly — who still have not taken the climate chaos issues seriously. These are people who still see the bottom-line as solely a dollar-based, profit oriented, short-term, individualistic matter. It’s about their company profit. Their paycheck. Their personal welfare. Which in this economy is a very real thing. So many have lost their jobs, too many, and many of us  need to be looking out for ourselves, since it seems few others are looking out for us, especially the corporate system that lays people off as if they were tossing pennies out a window. I guess these corporate types are as scared as the rest of us too.. sigh.

David E. and I went out to dinner last night to have some good social time of just thinking and talking about other things other than the discouraging past few days that he just had with the code meetings. We went in a small quaint restaurant in a little community in Baltimore called Mt. Washington. There were guitars hanging on the wall that were well strung and just begging to be taken down and played. So we asked the owner and he said go ahead. He used to be a guitar blues singer back in the 60’s. Seemed to be a very gifted man. So David sat at the table and strummed out some fancy finger work and I pored over the menu and thought about how hard it is to try to work for environmental change at the level that David has been working for so many years, and still get up in the morning after such defeating days.

While David and I were driving over to Mt. Washington for dinner, I told him how I wished I could take our entire culture and throw it in a washing machine. The whole culture. Each individual would get their own snorkel or scuba gear to survive the thrashing and sudsing. But then once the whole cycle was finished, I’d pull the whole culture out and hang it up to dry in my basement as I do with most of my clothes (trying to save energy, you know, cut down on dryer use). And there, after all the dirt and caca (crime, drug abuse, hatred toward other social groups, power mongers, gang activity, etc, oh, yes, greed too…) was washed out and our culture dried on my clothing rack, I’d shake it off and then carry it upstairs to my front yard and release it. (Minus some lint too, you know things in the washing machine always lose some lint too ;~) And then I watch it go, out and out and over the entire nation. (Don’t even ask me what kind of detergent I would use. I’m really not sure. Clearly an environmentally friendly one, but beyond that I cannot say…)

It would be a better day.
Though, I’m not sure my washing machine could handle it. Maybe one of those new-fangled German washing machines could do it.

Ah…. ;~) Clearly the way I cope with all of these nattering nabobs of negativity that continue to shoot down good positive enviro efforts is through my wacked sense of humor…

“…heavy in my mind…” quote Virginia Woolf

“As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.”

—Virginia Woolf in A Writer’s Diary

sigh… this current 2nd book of mine which is so close to being finished, yet so far… is quite impending… where can I buy the time I need? where, oh, where is the time?  sigh.

“Letter to My Daughter” – Poem by Maya Angelou

This poem has been circulating the web for a while and it is always a good reminder to myself about our strengths as women and how we need/can take care of ourselves. I love Maya Angelou. So, here it is on the blog now… “Letter to My Daughter” by Maya Angelou.     A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … enough money within her control to move out  and rent a place of her own,  even if she never wants to or needs to…  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …. something perfect to wear if the employer,  or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…    A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. a youth she’s content to leave behind….  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to  retelling it in her old age….  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….. a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …. one friend who always makes her laugh… and one who lets her cry… A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …. a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family….  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …. eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems,  and a recipe for a meal,  that will make her guests feel honored…  A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. a feeling of control over her destiny…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… how to fall in love without losing herself..  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… how to quit a job,  break up with a lover,  and confront a friend without;  ruining the friendship….  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW….. when to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY… EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… that she can’t change the length of her calves,  the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents.. EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… that her childhood may not have been perfect….but it’s over…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…. how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. . whom she can trust,  whom she can’t,  and why she shouldn’t take it personally…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW… where to go…  be it to her best friend’s kitchen table..  or a charming  Inn  in the woods…  when her soul needs soothing…  EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…. What she can and can’t accomplish in a day…  a month…and a year…

Ho’oponopono – Hawaiian Healing Practice

Kahealani Sisson Satchitananda – a woman on Facebook in the group called 31 Days HONORING THE DIVINE FEMININE…SACRED HEALING CIRCLE WORLDWIDE submitted this, this morning. Quite amazing wisdom… This is very similar to a practice that my Cherokee teacher taught me. Whenever I feel upset, it helps greatly to put my hand on my abdomen and take a deep breath and say from my heart: “I forgive myself for the pain I have caused.” Ah…the power of Self-Forgiveness.. the power… the healing…

“Ho’oponopono (making it right) is
a Hawaiian cultural practice that
incorporates various components to
realign the participant(s) with spirit,
mind and body or past, present and
future. Ho’oponopono’s intent is to
bring harmony into your life, to help
you regain cultural values of respect and
caring for one another, and to open
your eyes to a healthier life ahead.
The practice was “updated” by
Kahuna Lapaau (Hawaiian healer)
Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona (1913-
1992), who was named a “Living
Treasure of Hawaii” in 1983 by
Hongwanji Mission of Honolulu, and
the Hawaii State Legislature.
Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len has been practising
the updated Ho’oponopono since
1982.He was taught the process
by Morrnah.He was staff psychologist in
the forensic unit for the criminally mentally
ill at Hawaii State Hospital for several
years,where his technique of working
on himself rather than on the patients had
produced spectacular results. He has
taught the updated Ho’oponopono
around the world, and at the United
Nations several times. Dr Len has a doctorate
from the University of Iowa.
Dr Len maintains that Ho’oponopono
is really very simple. For the ancient
Hawaiians, all problems begin as thought.
But having a thought is not the problem.
The problem is that all our thoughts are
soaked with painful memories,memories
of persons, places, or things. The intellect
working alone can’t solve these problems,
because the intellect only manages.
Managing things is no way to solve problems.
You want to
let them go! When you do Ho’oponopono,
what happens is that the Divinity takes the
painful thought and neutralises or purifies
it. You don’t purify the person, place, or
thing.You neutralise the energy you associate
with that person, place, or thing. So
the first stage of Ho’oponopono is the
purification of that energy.
Now something wonderful happens.
Not only does that energy get neutralised;
it also gets released, so there’s a brand new
slate.Buddhists call it the Void. The final
step is that you allow the Divinity to come
in and fill the void with light.
To do Ho’oponopono, you don’t have
to know what the problem or error is. All
you have to do is notice any problem you
are experiencing physically, mentally,
emotionally. Once you notice, your
responsibility is to immediately begin to
clean, to say,“I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
Dr Len narrates an incident: “The
other day I got a call from the
daughter of a woman who is 92.
She said, ‘My mother’s had
these severe hip pains for several weeks.’
While she’s talking to me, I’m asking this
question of the Divinity, ‘What is going
on in me that I have caused that
woman’s pain?’ And then I ask, ‘How
is it that I can rectify that problem within
me?’ The answers to these questions
come, and I do whatever I’m told. So
if X has some pain and comes to me, I
say to the Divinity, ‘Please, whatever is
going on in me that I have caused
this pain in so-and-so, tell me how I can
rectify it.’ And I will apply whatever
information I’m given indefinitely, until
your pain is gone or until you ask me to
stop. It’s not so much the effect that
is important as the getting to the problem.
That’s the key.”
If you want to solve a problem, no
matter what kind of problem, work on
yourself. If the problem is with another
person, for example, just ask yourself,
“What’s going on in me that’s
causing this person to bug me?”People
only show up in your life to bug you! If
you know that, you can elevate any situation,
and you can release there, says
Dr Len. It’s simple: “I’m sorry for whatever’s
going on. Please forgive me.”
That’s the beauty of this, he maintains.
You don’t have to understand. It’s like the
Internet. You don’t understand all this!
You just go to the Divinity and you say,
“Can we download?” and the Divinity
downloads, and then you get the necessary
information.But because we don’t
know who we are, we never download
direct from the Light.We go outside.
Here are two ho’oponopono proven
ways to heal yourself (or anyone else)
of anything you notice. Remember that
what you see in another is also in you,
so all healing is self-healing.No one else
has to do these processes but you. The
entire world is literally in your hands.
First, this is the prayer Morrnah (the
creator of this new process) said to help
heal hundreds if not thousands of people:
“Divine creator, father, mother,
son as one …
If I, my family, relatives and ancestors
have offended
you, your family, relatives and ancestors
in thoughts,
words, deeds and actions from the
beginning of our
creation to the present, we ask your
forgiveness …
Let this cleanse, purify, release, cut all
the negative
memories, blocks, energies and
vibrations and transmute
these unwanted energies to pure light
… And it is done.”
Second, the way Dr Hew Len likes to
heal is to first say “I’m sorry” and
“Please forgive me.” You say this to
acknowledge that something – without
your knowing what it is – has got into
your body/mind system. You have no
idea how it got there.You don’t need to
know, either.
If you suffer from an addiction, you
simply caught the programme that is
making you that way. By saying “I’m
sorry,”you are telling the Divine that you
want forgiveness inside yourself for whatever
brought it to you.You’re not asking
the Divine to forgive you; you’re asking
the Divine to help you forgive yourself.
From there, you say “I love you” and
“Thank you.”
The “I love you” transmutes the energy
from stuck to flowing. It reconnects
you to the Divine. Since the zero state
is one of pure love, and has zero limits,
you are beginning to get to that state
by expressing love.When you follow
that statement with “Thank you,” you
are expressing gratitude.
You are showing your faith that the
issue will be resolved for the highest
good of all concerned.
What happens next is up to the
Divine. You may be inspired to take
action of some sort.Whatever it is, do
it. If you aren’t sure about the action to
take, use this same healing method on
your confusion. When you are clear,
you’ll know what to do.
In other words just say:
“I love you”
“I’m sorry”
“Please forgive me”
“Thank you”
That’s it! By creating a mantra of saying
those four things pretty much as
often as you can day after day and week
after week, you will quickly come to the
realisation that you can create your life
to be “right”.
The secret seems to be to say it from
the heart or mean what you say and
persist. Use the same four-phrase
process on any block that crops up. For
example, ask yourself ‘What am I doing
wrong that his/her medication is not
working?’ and repeat the four-phrase
process on every block that comes in
the way of full success.
Irrespective of the area in which you
notice an ‘error’ be it your or another’s
health or relationship issue – irrespective
of the nature of the problem – it
is up to you to start correcting or nullifying
it, and you do so by using the
four phrases as tools : by Loving yourself,
by Apologizing to yourself for your
wrong-doing and Forgiving yourself for
it (even if you don’t know what it is),
and finally by Thanking yourself for the
opportunity to create Good, as well as
to stop creating what is Bad.
The end result may not be as quick
as a steroid but practitioners seem to
agree it is surer and more efficacious
than one – no side-effects – no relapses.
And it can handle all your problem
areas, not health alone!!
A practitioner says: “I tried ‘the
process’ on my weight and although I
didn’t feel any different, I’ve lost a
pound a day for the last 14 days with
no change in diet or exercise habits. I
did the process on the couple upstairs
two nights ago, and they stopped arguing
almost instantly! My hip and lower
back pain that I’ve had for the last nine
years is gone after only three uses of ‘the
process’ on it.”
Blessings, Kahealani ♥ ♥ ♥”

…the “impossible” becomes possible – quote

“What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the “impossible” becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain.”

“One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.”

– George Wald