We Are Family

Mother Theresa said “When we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

I love that quote. Deep resonance.

Maybe it’s because my family is a distant sort of family in many respects but I just don’t get the whole family as supreme relationship thing. When people bring it up to me, what about your father/mother, your grandfather/mother (whatever) I say, “What? My bodies ancestors?” I’m all for the powers of DNA but the whole sentimental claptrap about families just makes me a little queasy.

Family, like religion, has caused divisiveness up the wazoo! Who needs the old, our family is smarter/better/bigger/wiser/weirder/more dysfunctional/ happier (whatever) than your family?

I guess family is the first, and all too often last, proving ground for unconditional love. I know it took me 50 years or so to come to truly love and respect my parents – about as long as it took me to come to truly love and respect myself I suppose. Children of course are easier to love unconditionally right from the get go but they have to go through the usual channels to get to that point with their parents so all is not a bowl of cherries there either. So I guess that initial proving ground stuff is what makes people wax eloquent about the family, in hopes of making it seem a bit more ideal than might actually be the case, but really…

Mother Teressa is right. We belong to each other. Can’t we get past the family thing (and the state thing and the region thing and the country thing and the religion thing and the political thing) and work a bit harder at owning the fact that we belong to each other?

To answer that you may want to read, A Dog’s Purpose (from a 6 year old) http://i.imgur.com/zhmrX.png

Have a wonderful weekend

Cowboys & Indians

After a scene with my neighbor in which he threatened to kill my dog, I was reminded again, after some inner work about it, that we are all just here to help each other to play this game we play. The stuff and people and situations that seem bad are only that by our own judgment. Same with the good stuff — just a judgment — and we know in the midst of judging something good or bad that the judgment is false. But we ignore that little voice that is saying, “you are just pretending this” and we generally go ahead and act on the pretense. At the end of the day it’s all just cowboys and Indians. What a hoot!

Need Legacy?

“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” Chuck Palahniuk

Well that sounds good. But forever? Really? Chuck Palahniuk is a writer and I suppose he expects his books to live beyond his years but forever? Really? What about when the sun goes out, will Fight Club still be living on?

I’ve been seeing a lot about legacy lately – I guess just noticing a lot about legacy. It seems to me the need to leave a legacy comes form a basic insecurity about who we are.

I come from a Mormon background and Mormons are big on genealogy. So we have all these names of ancestors on the old family tree. Names. Very few stories. And the stories are just stories. No story will ever be able to get at the essence of who a person was back when. Even the greats of history are but a fraction of themselves when summed up by even the most thoughtful historian or biographer and that fraction can’t help but be partly fiction. Peoples own writings may give a fuller picture of the person behind the words and sentences and paragraphs but I know from my own writing that it is still just a finite illumination, like a photograph which is briefly preserved for but a moment in all eternity. And yes, it can’t help but be partly fiction .

Legacy. On the old family tree I know that for a few generations some may pass on some colorful stories of my brief time here, my life has had some colorful and even notorious moments, but they don’t know me. I’ll be happy to be a simple brief footnote then pass into oblivion with the rest on that tree.

I don’t need to live on in human minds to live on. I will live on past my death just as everyone else will live on past their deaths. That just is. You may say, who can know what comes after death, we must be remembered for our lives. I say, as a medium I have sensed and talked with those who have lived on after death and it’s no big deal. Cats do it, dogs do it, my dad does it, we all do it.

When will we ever tumble into the security that we are living beings who are simply inhabiting a body at the moment. You are OK. I am OK. We will always and forever be OK whether or not we are accomplished or notorious or just another Joe in this human form. I want to just shout from the rooftops GET OVER YOURSELVES! You don’t need to worry about how you are doing. You are doing fine. Now get out there and enjoy your life. If you happen to produce something from that which will live on in minds for another generation or two, fine. Good for you. I hope you have a really good time producing it but it has very little to do with your worth. In fact nothing at all to do with your worth. In fact worthiness has nothing to do with anything at all.

You can stop trying so hard to live up to some trumped up idea of how you should live and how you should be and how important you are and what you have to leave behind. If you can do that – then you may open to a wonderful life that may even lead to the respect which is your due anyway. ENJOY!

Hissing at Badgers

The Lesson From Piss Ant Flat story has come to mind again due to a Post by Robin Easton The Power of Our Beliefs recalling some of her childhood issues. Her writing draws you right in and there you are in the moment with her and you just feel compelled to unleash your own story yet again.

So another story from the Piss Ant Flat pack trip has popped up in my mind. It is a story that was perhaps indicative of one of my careers to come.

It wasn’t a part of the trip I remembered, my focus being on the traumatic bit, but was brought back to mind 37 years later when I was visiting with one of the other girls and her mother who was the Girl Scout leader who had been with us. We were just sitting around in the kitchen catching up on the years and Mrs. Wood said, “The part of that trip I remember is when you hissed at the badger!”

Hummm… The memory slowly, slowly swam to the surface. The three of us were rounding a switchback in the trail and inadvertently cornered a badger. It was hissing ferociously at us and we were petrified. It was pretty clear that if anyone moved we might be in big trouble. I knew exactly what to do. I leaned over to within 2 feet of his nose and hissed more ferociously than he was hissing. He found his own way out of the situation immediately! I hadn’t figured out what to do, I’d just known.

I don’t actually recommend hissing at cornered badgers but it worked for me. It worked because I “became” badger. I totally understood from that deep knowing that comes from being totally in the moment and totally in tune with badger.

Now I have a E-Book, An Introduction to Animal & Nature Communication, that explains how to become whatever, whenever, but at the time that stuff was not part of my learning, just my knowing. We all have that knowing built in. The trick of course is to trust and act on that knowing. That’s a very cool thing to learn if your trust is not yet up to hissing at badgers.

THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

I was just checking out the stuff in my google docs and found this offering from Don Miguel Ruiz. I suppose many have seen it before but some things are good to re-visit from time to time.

THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

Speak with Integrity
Say only what you mean
Avoid using the word to speak against yourself,
or gossip about others.
Use the power of your word in the direction of love and truth

DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY

Nothing others do is because of you.
What others say and do is a projection of their own reality,
and their own dreams.
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others,
you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

Find the courage to ask questions and express
what you really want.
Communicate with others as clearly as you can, to avoid
misunderstandings, sadness and drama.
With just this one agreement you can completely transform your life.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

Your best is going to change from moment to moment;
It will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.
Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you avoid
self-judgement, self-abuse and regret.

Author: Don Miguel Ruiz

Lesson From Night Heron

One of the many “dumb jobs” I’ve had over the years was as a Security Guard at Woodly Island Marina in Eureka CA It was not my great ambition to be a security guard but I had recently moved to Eureka from Salt Lake City, UT and was in desperate need of re-hydration. It rains a LOT in Eureka but I wanted MORE water. I lived on the beach with the rain and the wind but I also wanted to work where there were boats and more water and boat people and more waterwaterwater. I was really excited to land the Pinkerton job at the marina. God I loved it there. I was the lone security guard on the graveyard shift. The job entailed walking all the docks all night looking for anything that may be amiss. Nothing much happens most nights. It’s nothing, nothing, nothing then a boat is sinking or on fire or one of the people who lives on their boat comes home drunk and falls in the drink or the local escaped con would take our parking lot as a nice place to get some shut eye. Then nothing, nothing, nothing.

Some nights the water was like glass and as I walked the docks the reflection of the sky in the water made it seem I was walking in the sky itself. Some nights the water boiled with bait fish, the seals and other predators driving them to the surface in a frenzy. There were river otters that came to feed at night and raccoons and 6′ jelly fish andandand – It was an awesome environment in which to meditate and be astounded on an ongoing basis.

I have many stories about the marina but this story is about Night Heron. Had it not been for Night Heron I doubt I could have enjoyed the rest of the experience as I did. It was the first night of my training when I was introduced to this amazing bird. The man who was showing me the ropes (literally as well as figuratively in this case) was a Vietnam Vet. The defeated sort. He didn’t have a lot of excitement about life left in him. Not long after our training sessions he got fired for drinking on the job and I realized that the two nights spent with me were nights for him that had enforced an unwelcome sobriety. He also sniffed out the peace-nic in me. It was not a comfortable association.

He was not happy dragging me around but we walked the docks and he told me what he had to. At one point he just stopped and leaned on the rail of a ramp and pointed. I finally figured out that he meant me to look at the witchy looking bird standing absolutely still on a rock looking intently into the water. We watched and watched and the bird watched the water and watched and watched. I can’t say I got right into this watching the bird watching the water thing we were doing but after a few minutes the bird lunged and came up with a fish. It gave the fish a perfect flip, stretched out its neck and down the fish went. My God! Then the bird went back to watching the water and there we were watching the bird watching the water again. My trainer told me it was a Night Heron and he had seldom seen one miss the fish once it lunged. We watched some more. Sure enough the next strike, several minutes later, nailed another fish. We watched some more after that. I swear the Night Heron could stand there without moving for half an hour. EUREKA! I finally “got it”. I got a load of information in a nano second, all in a gift wrapped package from Night Heron. Information relayed in that way can be hard to pass on but it had to do with supreme patience, supreme centering, supreme focus, supreme skill, supreme being, and back again to patience.

This was all long before I had even heard of animal communication but I knew what I got and it was a very precious gift. The man I was with had given me the best job training I’d ever got anywhere by just standing there long enough for me to get the gift of Night Heron. He knew what was required to be able to endure the job and he passed it on in the best imaginable way.

It was such a privilege to have a job in which I could commune with Night Heron on a regular basis. Before I left that job I learned from many of the other creatures at the marina and I came to understand from them the sublime elements within life and death. I must try to relay more of these adventures here.

For now though, it is enough to honor Night Heron.

I’m Having a Moment…

You know those moments? Those moments when everything becomes very, very clear in some unaccustomed way? I am having one of those moments. I just finished dusting and cleaning mirrors. A room perks up when you pay it some attention. I am sitting having cupa and as I look around I find myself focusing on each thing in my room and finding it dear. My cat is one I always find so dear on so many levels that I can hardly contain it. That is how dear each of my things in this room is feeling to me now. As I let my mind range further every thing in my world is that dear. That cup, that pan, that pebble. Dear beyond what I could stand to be aware of all the time.

My neighbor and good friend lost some use of her right arm yesterday. When I talked to her then she was still in “mind numb” space. Frozen there. I suggested she get to the hospital. We are in a very rural place with rudimentary medical facilities. She is from Boston and has no use for our 2 doctors and the PA or two that man our hospital. She always goes to St. George (our idea of the big city) to get any medical issues seen to. She was frozen in a helpless sort of “what now” place. When I talked to her this morning she was in a more active but overwhelmed space with “what now” scenarios. Yes she had gone to the hospital and her blood pressure was through the roof. When I called she was wearing out google and trying on options like how to get an appointment at the Mayo Clinic, should she go back east etc. Her energy was frantic. She is going to the hospital today to get her blood pressure checked again. I asked that she call me when she gets back so I can give her an in person Reiki session to help get her energy into calmer space.

As soon as we got off the phone I sent calming vibes then called back to see if she would like me to go with her to to the hospital just so she’d have some calmer energy in the car. She sounded much better. She will be ok on her own.

So I got up and dusted, re-heated some tea, sat sipping it and found myself finding every material thing in my life so exquisitely dear. Dear in a way that is fully present, not dear in a way that I would find the need to cling. It’s a moment. A precious moment.

Choices

I had a wonderful Christmas with The Grand kids & Co. and a wonderful time in Christmas recovery. It’s now the end of the long New Year weekend and I suppose it’s time to think ahead a bit. I don’t make a habit of thinking ahead – much prefer the present moment – but still, I’m ready to think of some possible changes.

I don’t generally stay in one place for too long. Six years is about my max. I’m not into the whole travel thing but I do like moving my home from time to time and experiencing new ways of living a life. I grew up in Ogden, UT where the great outdoors “grew me up”. Hiking in the mountains fishing the streams and sleeping out under the stars all summer – skiing all winter – it was a wonderful life in a wonderful way but somehow I never fit in. I found later it was just a cultural thing but it took some experience of the larger world to find that there are places on the planet that I fit perfectly. After even more experience of the larger world I find that I fit anywhere – it was just an uncomfortable thing within my understanding of myself that made me feel I didn’t fit within whatever environment I found myself.

I have lived in the Midwest, Northern CA, Southern CA, The Northwest and the Southwest, and in London and Oxford. I loved all of those places but the Midwest which just served to show me how much I loved all the rest. Each place holds to it’s own cultural values and I find as I live in each I take on some of those values as a comfortable cloak which can be worn or shed at will when I move on.

While living in different places I have done different things with my time. I have been a wife and mother, musician, teacher, sales rep., retail clerk, security guard, cook, temp, and mentor to teens. I loved something about each job I ever had & I really didn’t like some things about some of the jobs I had.

But back to the here and now. I have been in Kanab, UT now for nearly six years and I’m getting itchy feet. My dilemma is that I love it here and have everything I need. In the past I have moved partly to take the next step toward getting everything I wanted and needed – things like a paid for house with all the pet fencing required and the little comforts for me, room to roam, either culturally or actual wide open spaces, delights for the eye and heart etc. but here I am now with all I require and I’m perfectly content. This has never happened before. Hum…

So I am considering my choices about what to do with my time and my heart now that I am not driven so much by necessity. How fortunate that makes me. I think I’ve just overwhelmed myself. Still, I’m not concerned with making choices. I know from past experience that at some point the spirit will move me in a direction that will be irresistible and I will go effortlessly where ever it leads.

So. That was fun! Now back I go to the present moment.

One Truth

I found this quote thismorning from one of my tweeps @naturalmind

“There is only one truth that no mouth can utter; the rest are just stories about the same old tale…” – Yosi, the poet

Well there you have the crux of the matter; “one truth that no mouth can utter”. In trying to get to the crux of the matter (of all that is) we tell our stories to each other in an attempt to get at that one truth which will banish suffering and bring peace and real understanding to each individual. The most fortunate among us see and feel it and try to help others to see and feel it but our stories can, at best, be but a spark which may or may not ignite the knowing of true essence in another and at worst lead people down yet another garden path. If stories worked to achieve real personal understanding the great religious literature from all cultures would have long since enlightened everyone on the planet and we could eliminate discussing this stuff, yet here we are forever going on about the nature of our reality. It’s pitiful and funny – funny like the universe is funny.

…did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

OK I’m on a Mary Oliver kick. Her poetry just speaks to every fiber in me. I hope some of you find her work as enchanting as I do.

The Swan by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?