life in the no fly zone

There have been many interesting things to observe of late, Gentle Reader. Just when things seem to begin to make sense, another vista opens up and yes, there’s more. Sense is a few steps farther away.

It may just be that after all this time my brain is able to parse what’s going on around it- after quivering like a jelly for months in recoil from what it was observing. Meditation has of course been a foundation and even though there is a fair amount of time spent in, oh wait a minute! That’s attachment or ill will or dammit how many breaths was it? there still has been some awareness dawning.

I realized at long last that given the history of this country, of western civilization in general, there’s no way around seeing the flaw at the heart of all of it. The inequity and cruelty we see all around us is not going away and until we all wake up a bit more we’re stuck in this roundelay of crap. The question is, beyond cleaning up one’s own act, as always, what is to be done?

I had three experiences back to back illustrating this, and amazingly enough I didn’t have images of myself smashing the other people’s craniums with a ball peen hammer. Progress!

I read something in an old book that said, Hostility does not need a response, and Be hard on the problem, not the person. So, in the midst of a harried day of errands I found myself in a farm supply store, talking to the salesperson about what I was looking for which they did not appear to have. In the middle of all this concerted conversation, a man (White and maskless) steps up in between the store employee and me (both masked, we’re going back into an ugly Covid tier here as we speak) and says, I need something for “x”. Proceeded to talk so no one could interject anything. Took a few minutes of time, which I was running short of. At long last he looked at me and said to the salesperson, Oh, she was here first and you were helping her, go ahead. I couldn’t help but laugh, and said, oh! you noticed! It dawned on me right there and then that this man was really completely unaware of what he was doing in the situation, how he was barging in and behaving as if nobody else had any business or concern that even mattered, and how what we had there was a text book case of White Patriarchal Privilege. It simply never occurred to him to question his assumption that HE and HIS WISHES were the only important thing. The employee was only there to serve him, and I was beneath notice. It didn’t even make me mad at long last, but it made me wonder just how this basic attitude can be addressed. You can attach any -ist or -ism to this behavior, like sexist, racist, on and on. It’s a bulwark of this society whether anyone wants to accept that or not. This person had no ill will or anything of the sort, but was operating on the set of instructions he’d been given. The sales person was tensing up a bit and I said, oh please. Go ahead, even though it really isn’t your turn. I’ll wait. He actually blushed a bit. I decided to count that as a successful interlude and thus armed went on to Number Two.

Number Two was a bit more menacing, given that it involved yet another….Man of a Certain Sort, who decided that he wanted to get gas at the pump he could, in fact, clearly see me driving into, almost completely, even though all the others were free. So he? guns his car and pulls forward quickly, almost running into me. (We might note that for both these interludes I was wearing my favorite 20th century Big Dogs t-shirt, with a St. Bernard in sunglasses bearing the words: BAD TO THE BONE. Just saying….) I stopped short of the final spot, honked my horn lightly to get him to actually make eye contact, which took a while. Pointed to myself, pointed to the gas pump, held up one finger (index, relax!) to indicate my spot in “line”, and just smiled a bit and kept looking at him. Thinking, do not ascribe motive here. Or pass judgment on this poor person’s IQ. Just pray that no one else in this crazy rodeo of a parking lot runs into you. He finally looked at me, with a rather dazed expression I couldn’t interpret, and backed up into his proper gas pump spot. Kindness is always better, even if it is mostly more difficult to maintain. Once you actually have to go outside, I mean. Feeling as though I had finally gotten past a sticking point of taking this a$$#0!ish behavior as anything other than a sort of mass, historical brainwashing and thus fortified to keep being kind while taking no shit, we got to this morning.

Hey! it’s a “holiday”/shopping opportunity today here. “Labor Day” which, when you think about it now, is kind of laughable. Especially since employers are now ranting about how people “don’t want to work anymore, unemployment is too easy.” Uhm, no. It’s that they no longer are willing to knock themselves out every day for a wage that they cannot support themselves on. But I digress. We were awoken shortly after the sun rose by gunfire, large caliber it sounded like, that went on for over an hour. Forgive me, Gentle Reader, when I say this is not OK. The fire danger right here right now is so intense that coughing wrong could cause a disaster. Hours of gunfire, random and constant, poses a real threat of conflagration. In addition, being awoken from sleep by prolonged rounds of gunfire is really not good for anybody. I found myself thinking about everyone on the planet who is being subjected to this, and so much worse.. As a result, with my newfound brave new attitude, a haze of exhaustion, and genuine curiosity I hazarded a post on the, yes, HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION facebook page, asking if anyone knew what all that was.

What I got was a response that said, we live in the country, people can do what they want. And, it’s dove season. I was already a bit stressed by my bank being inaccessible due to some sort of web crash, to be honest. That didn’t stop me from considering the following: A) There’s a sign at the entry way to this travesty of a development that says NO HUNTING. PRIVATE PROPERTY. B) The person who responded that “we live in the country” has a big sign on the road in front of her house that says RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD. This is about a half mile from us. C) We pay homeowner association dues as well, so if we’re in the country, what in the hell are those for? Also, doves as you may know are small birds. This sounded like AR fire (incredibly I can differentiate now, fun in the boonies). A corollary C1 might also be that there are many people in this whateveritis neighborhood who cannot, legally, bear arms or purchase ammunition. Ankle bracelets and all.

All this left me with a choice to make. I went back to the facebook page and said, yes, we’ve been here a long time too but the fire danger this year should be everyone’s primary consideration, keeping everyone up here safe and intact. ( I did not mention that it isn’t exactly hunting to blow a small bird to smithereens with an automatic weapon.) This entry got me two likes, which bucked me up enough to realize that my New Moon resolution was to at long last, while doing no harm, in fact take no shit. We’ll see how this goes.

It has just been strange lately to experience simultaneously a LOVE for ALL, and realize that there are individuals out there who seem impervious to love. SO. I decided to put that awareness on the back burner, it is what it is, none of us really knows what anyone else is feeling or thinking, much less what WE may be feeling or thinking….. and the task still is to go forth with openness and (at least an attempt at ) kindness. I think it’s working since so far nobody has shot at me!

Blessings and thanks, and please take care! Wear your masks, too. (The nonogenarian Betty White remarked at the beginning of all this that she had no patience with people saying masks were hot or uncomfortable. Try wearing a bra in August! she said. I do love her…..)

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heat

Or, perhaps, the flogging will continue until morale improves. It has been over 100 degrees fahrenheit every day for a solid month. Too hot for bees, even, so I have some anxiety about the fate of the garden this year. Anyway. After all the other fun and frivolity of the last several months, the heat and the, of course, HUGE fires have people walking around here like literal zombies. A quick survey of media will remind one, however, that the entire planet is engulfed in this sort of beyond challenging situation and it can be hard to know what to do in any way, shape, or form.

It’s been quite the endeavor, as we all know, to keep a minimal level of sanity not to mention engagement. Nothing is working, in terms of daily activities, the way one had become accustomed to. Let’s just say. I was intrigued, for example, to find out that in addition to potatoes and chardonnay, there are also no Rolaids to be found hereabouts. I did find a quite splendid ten inch tall silver colored elephant watering can, though.

HOWEVER. We’re not here to discuss Rolaids or watering cans, Gentle Reader. It’s more about how in the depths of all of this shift and disruption and sorrow and unknowing and yes, fear, we can still find a working pole star. I was beginning to wonder, myself.

It seems odd that we have to go all the way, sometimes, into pain and Incredibly Poor Repetitive Decisions before the light dawns. (Especially if you think you’ve already done that…..) In dealing with that pain, it is possible (after what can seem like armed struggle) to get to a place where the pain itself moves into second place in one’s awareness. Then, if you can ride that wave a minute, you get to a place where you see that what you THINK about the pain or whatever it is has a lot to do with your experience of it. Moving right along, you see that what you THINK was most often taught to you in your early life- so you may think/believe/whateveritis things without even knowing why, or that you do think those things. Then, the fact that the body itself is tense and hard and maybe even twitching around gets you to base camp, in a sense. You can, in fact, breathe THROUGH this pain. Keep breathing. Put the thinking down, leave your opinions way behind (especially if they are about you or anyone in your immediate vicinity), and then…..it’s quiet. Open. There’s light for a moment and that allows for perspective. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Then the exciting part starts, when all the room the old opinions and fears and attitudes took gets freed up a bit? new things appear. You don’t have to be afraid, really. We’re here to learn and try to enjoy as much as possible. Turns out enjoyment really springs from love. Love is the answer to whatever may be bugging you, and the thing of it is to learn more about love. What IS the loving thing to do in a given situation? Usually it involves at least a tiny bit of You realizing the Other is YOU, too, and You are Other and the real answer to daily problems and struggles is to work on the solution, not on rehashing or blaming or any of the other things we all so often fall back on. Which involves love and breathing which get you to action, which we or at least I often seemed to think was in starting place. But it starts with love.

Which is not to say that I love Bloviating Pustule (long may he stay away), or the guy who called me a nasty name when, after he asked me, I expressed a positive opinion about June 19 being a national holiday in the U.S. Uhm, no. Not even. I’m still disgusted with what the country I live in has done through the years of its existence, I don’t like it and I work as much as possible to change things and provide whatever redress there might be for all those who….well. Were treated with such cruel inhumanity it’s hard to know what would balance things. I include rivers in this category too.

I have realized, though, that when I ground myself and proceed with the idea that we ARE all one, it is easier to deal with the flashpoints of reactivity and rage and poor driving. It’s a fire not to be fed by getting sucked into it. It’s more a situation of allowing space instead of anger and blame, and it turns out you can too figure out how to ask someone who’s yelling at you, calmly, what it’s all about. If the situation doesn’t involve someone having a psychotic break or drug derangement, it changes things somehow when someone slows down and speaks, and it is my feeling, not to mention enormous hope, that more and more of all of us are going out doing exactly that. Respect can always be present and that is important. There’s a change, and it is, however it may look now, I think a positive one. The old ways of dominion and power and duality are moving away, and it really is up to all of us to remember that we ARE moving toward a better reality, one based on proper interaction of all energies from the smallest speck of cosmic dust to the smile of a dog. One moment at a time.

Blessings and thanks. Take care of yourselves!

watching Rodan

In addition to slavishly watching fire maps, power outage warnings, weather reports and evacuation listings, we found ourselves watching the movie Rodan the other evening. Yes, from when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and yes, from the era of Monster Movies Starring Godzilla and various other giant reptiles and moths menacing Japan.

The description of the movie went like this:

“A bug eating Pterodactyl flies out of a coal mine and wrecks Japan with sonic booms.”

At a news conference in the movie, a scientist is asked what he thought caused Rodan to hatch at this particular time. The Partner immediately spoke up. “The Electoral College“.

This did make me laugh in the moment but it also had a rather eerie and menacing ring of truth. I mean: bug eating, flies out of a coal mine, wrecks things with extra loud noises? I leave it to you, Gentle Reader, to ponder.

Meanwhile, here we are in the Fire This Time. People are having to evacuate twice this time, for totals of up to five evacs for the past couple of fire years. The acreage is staggering, and we’re about 15 miles away from a real doozy of a blaze. Post traumatic stress is in your face here everywhere, we’re all in tears unexpectedly and nobody can breathe. The upside to it is that at last, most people are wearing masks. The dime finally dropped, given that counties up here are on various levels of lockdown because of the (big) jump in COVID cases. There’s even a bit of tut tutting and glaring at those individuals wearing MAGA hats or No Hablo Libtard shirts, pushing their way to the front of whatever line one might be in, maskless. (Really! A man did that to me a week ago, turned and glared at me, and I said, age before beauty, dude!) It’s harder to cope with the Valiant Mothers tugging their kids around, maskless- there’s really no response to, I’m a rebel! Not wearing a mask!

So. I’ve been thinking back to early Spring, which seems now like another geologic age. The flowers were extraordinary this year, profusely blooming and extravagantly colored. It got too hot too fast and the garden didn’t do all it might have but we’re still getting tomatoes and chilis so that’s a good thing! The animals around here have pretty much made this property their homes now, deer, turkey, who knows who else, and it’s actually really fun walking around seeing all the places various and sundry bed down. The birds are laying low in all the smoke but in the evenings they cover our front garden, and the squadron of lizards darts around among them. In spite of the fact that we haven’t seen the sky for more than three days in the past several weeks, and in spite of the fact that everything seems bound to burn to a crisp, AND in spite of the fact that it feels as though it may never rain here again….the natural world supplies the energy and sustenance for the heart and soul required to keep going these days. The Spring was almost saying: Look! don’t despair! What’s real IS real, and what isn’t, isn’t. Fear not. We CAN be peaceful and happy, here and now. We CAN believe in the power of actual truth, real beauty, love and understanding. And, of course: believing leads to manifesting. Surrounded as we are by the wild world here, it’s not impossible to believe that real change is coming. The earth itself is drawing it forth. All we have to do is BE. BEING links you to what IS, distances you from the pushes and pulls of the individual concerns, the ego, the fears that keep everything shut down. As a friend says, this ain’t for the faint of heart. But it IS for the HEART. There’s still a big huge beating one all around us and we can help it live. Fear not!

Also, if you’re in the benighted U.S.? PLEASE VOTE.

As always, blessings and thanks! Take care of yourselves and each other, as well as the random squirrels.

a rain of bivalves

Adding to my joy, Gentle Reader!!!! WordPress has instituted a “new editor”.  Perhaps I am a dinosaur but really? I JUST WANT TO WRITE.  I DON’T NEED CLEVER BLOCK LAYOUTS.  Anyway it is another challenge to this little bear’s brain, but I figure, what with the success I had with our doctor internet “portal” after it got changed and whammo, there appeared to be no way in hell to do what I wanted…and I managed to close my eyes, breathe and say: ok, point me to it! and suddenly  found the right thing to press…there’s always hope.

Anyway, I digress.  A friend in Canada reported that after a recent rainstorm she went out into the yard around where she lives and found: an intact clam. She lives a LONG way from the beach.  As do we.  And? The Partner found a fossil clam in our yard. The world is full of wonders.  One has to think, though, about the actual suction involved in getting a clam from the beach to a few hundred miles inland.  As it turns out, this seems to replicate the state of my brain now, although sadly no one has reported finding it in their yard.

While comfort and support can be found in words, be it Martin Luther King Jr., Cornell Wilde, James Baldwin, HH the Dalai Lama, or even Winnie the Pooh, and while we know we all gotta rely on our hearts and souls first and foremost to navigate? At the moment I cannot seem to get away from the wrenching nausea the past few days have elicited.  Try as I may I cannot forget all the history I have witnessed, the hopes raised… it is a huge effort to stay in the now, watching essentially WORSE AND MORE OF IT.  How many more times? What are those in power even thinking? and I use the word thinking very loosely.  I mean: I’VE been shot at by police, had them shoot windows out of my apartment, kick the door in….all kinds of things that happened back..er…in the 70’s.   From marches and murders, Watts to Rodney King, it has all been something watched in a kind of suspended disbelief, like, surely this isn’t really happening, except it is and bummer for you it’s in YOUR neighborhood. (Sprightly Dinosaur takes a bow).  The underpinnings of things in this country seemed horrible but one had hope, and worked, for change- you kept on, kept trying, kept working for change.  There was also the possibly deeply naïve thought that, change happens, right? Surely SOME of it has to be good.  Also one worked on one’s own interior development and this can make a person think that, hey, it will help! Do no harm, do the best you can, help others, be a steward not a consumer….and yet now? I find myself, who used to have extended dialogues with people pondering shooting down police helicopters about how important non-violence is, the need for a perspective, now completely understanding that people are pushed to the brink after another 50 years of this crap and thus, things are going to get broken.  So now I have to reread William T. Vollman’s Rising Up and Rising Down.  Which is an endeavor.

It’s helpful for me to remember a friend who was also a cop.  At first my inclination was to stay away, after all: POLICE. Nonono. But he turned out to be someone with a huge heart and a searing insight.  The last time I saw him, he was undercover investigating a White Supremacist Militia group that also specialized in methamphetamine, and that made me fear for his safety.  It was not a good thing when he disappeared from the places I usually saw him. The lesson there was you can not have an idea of what a person is like until you interact with them. Period. This being true across the board, it really makes you wonder how people justify all the prejudices and assinine attitudes they have…until the next really awful realization dawns and that is: This entire country has been built upon just those prejudices and it is, really, far from a level playing field.  The deep holes are arranged Just So. White Privilege is something that happens every single day, and even White people are irritated when someone pulls that crap on THEM. I’ve seen this more than once in the Costco Pharmacy line, and people really get teed off when they hear me laughing. Others, of course, don’t have the luxury of even having an attitude. The Partner looks at me sternly in such moments because HE has never had this dawn on him, having known it from the jump.  Plus, living where we do is an every day, all day, demonstration of said fact.

As usual, what is to be done? Jeeez. I’m aware that the loss of joy and focus is integral to any, shall we say?, defeat.  Eric Bibb’s song, I heard my angel sing, speaks to this: “I saw an old devil walking my way, he said Heaven’s closed, go home and don’t pray”. There’s a way in which all of this is illusory of course, but the pain is nonetheless real.  My hope is that the frustration and sorrow we feel can be seen as temporary and mobilized into energy to make the change that must happen, by ALL of us.  If we are to survive at all.  I still believe in this as possible.  The false duality must be dispensed with, power over has to go, and economics have to be on another entire body, not just another foot.  These are all really big shifts, and who knows how long the planet is going to wait for us to quit screwing around?  Anyway, blessings and thanks to you all! Be safe and nourish your joys, as they feed your soul, which helps us all. (I think anyway…..)

 

(However, a caveat to the unwary.  Antifa, which isn’t even an actual “group”, has been designated a terrorist organization.  Despite the fact that this isn’t something that can be done by….an official in the White House…what it does mean is that you, anyone you know, or don’t know, can now be arrested, charged with terrorism, and be sent…to one of the many hells on earth we taxpayers support.  It’s easy to  think this is nothing, or “fake news” or any of the other malarkey we tell ourselves, but it isn’t.  This kid of thing has been happening and now it can be even worse.)

fugues and refuges

I thought more than once about writing here of late, and thought, well, hmm. If everyone else’s inbox is like mine, since many bloggers are posting many times a day, maybe it’s not the right thing to add to the excess verbiage. The old patterns, life and otherwise, have seemingly disappeared, and the urge to “do” is lessening by the moment. The fugue enters here and then, at about the fifth musical sentence therein, there’s a big spacious area which, even though it seems to be surrounded by fearsome beasts, really isn’t. Or at least, not completely. Exploration takes a new direction!

So, of course, finally I succumbed to the lure. It turns out that we all feel pretty much the same things now and that in itself creates an energy and lift, and thus: Hope. Ready, Set, Write!

One thing, maybe the main thing, that is comforting now is how much really wonderful behavior we see manifesting, the bravery and love and heart. Nature is throwing all the beauty at us she’s got, at least up here, and there is so much bird song to be heard that you can’t help but be full of joy. Still, one is also quite continuously reminded of Samuel Johnson’s observation: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. We have several poster-child quality examples of this before us in the moment.

And really? One more belligerent, obese individual stuffed into something that looks like the American flag, carrying an assault rifle? to protect their right to…what? Inflict their germs and attitudes on everyone around them? All in the name of patriotism, country and whoknowswhat? It makes me very sad on many levels, even as I know the only response is to Love, and extend kindness, even if it is bound to be refused in the moment. I actually had to tell such a person (actually on several more occasions than this example, too. It makes going out, that one time a week, SO much fun, what with the Lysol we carry and the gloves and all the rest of it), in our hot spot of a Post Office, to move his unmasked six inches from my face self, and get on the marked spot six FEET away showing where to stand. His response was, it’s not real, I’m an American and I can do whatever I want, You Got a Problem with THAT???? I looked at his American flag t-shirt. I looked at him- poor, angry, fearful man. At times like these I really wish I was taller- perhaps foolishly I think it might make someone less inclined to attempt such silliness. ANYWAY. He did not move, this guy. I smiled (through my mask) and said, Sir! I fully support your right to have and express an opinion. But. You don’t get to disrespect me, my family, and everyone else, by potentially giving me a life threatening disease. It’s really pretty simple. And temporary if we all cooperate. He moved.

Whether or not this sort of thing is a building block for a more harmonious society, is something we’re about to find out. It’s hard, and pointless, to argue with someone toting an assault rifle. Each time something like this happens, the ability to stand in hope gets a little stronger and perhaps that is the real lesson of the moment. Or any moment…..

To distract myself from Thinking about all the Things I can’t Do A Thing About, I made a fruit pizza. The Partner likes these better than pies, so what’s not to love? Basically you make a soft pizza dough with the normal amount of yeast and flour, using a bit more water, avocado oil, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1/4 of salt, and after a short rise, putting it in the refrigerator. After another half hour to forty minutes (or even overnight), take it out, punch it down, let rise again. Then, shape, place on whatever baking thing you use, brush melted butter over it, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar, layer fruit, drizzle with honey, bake for 15 minutes at 500 f. This works really well with soft fruit like fresh figs, peaches, and berries.

I am grateful, as always, for all who read me! May we all stay in harmony and readiness for the new world we are to build. Blessings and thanks!

 

embodying Newtonian mechanics

And that would be me doing that, Gentle Reader. Adding to my joy is WordPress’s new theoretically improved format experience. Somehow I can’t see how making you indicate you want a paragraph in a separate step each time you want one…..but. Ahem.

It’s been a long float in the Sargasso Sea, essentially. When you hear the adage about, unless you’re as motivated as a man with his hair on fire to find water, don’t start the process of whatever we might call it, but is essentially contacting the “one who knows”. It really DOES burn you entire and I suppose the only really strange thing is how long that can take. Especially when you think you’re actually doing just fine.

Of course, that doing fine is the constant running from your devils to which you have become accustomed. When that stops at long last, be prepared for some prolonged down time. So, as I continue to be a body at rest staying at rest, the following can be reported.

Spring really is beautiful. I’d never been up close enough to deciduous trees to see that it all begins with PINK. The tips of the branches have leaf rosettes that are the most amazing shade of pink, and the distance on the hills shimmers with it. With all the rain, the grasses have grown and are practically fluorescent, so the sight of pink pigs sailing through and baby goats toinking up from them is pretty spectacular. The Dog takes me (drags, actually) on lengthy expotitions to find poop spots….preferably with views. This has given me an amazing chance to see the wildflowers as they sprang up and finally! FINALLY! to identify which were shooting stars and which were saxifrage before the blossoms revealed their identities. I’m finding that this smaller world, which really is much larger than the “regular” one in truth, is just fine and I leave it less often and with more dismay. Still, one must provision one’s family and there is the monthly trip to the Dog Fan Club for dog food (last visit, the owner asked the guy waiting on us, as if he were giving an instruction, did you give him a treat? and the guy rolled his eyes and said: THREE. Charm, you know.) which is usually very enjoyable. The grocery store even becomes manageable when it is visited with less frequency. It’s all in how you look at it, of course, because in so many ways reality is fluid and in your eyes only from moment to moment. This is why, I suppose, the instruction on the search for the one who you know what’s is: keep your attention focused on the highest good, most light filled and loving paradigm you can.

Getting better at that, yes, but there ARE exceptions. Now that I have my “federally restricted” driver’s license, it’s even more fun than usual to perform routine tasks at the bank and elsewhere because people look at and say things like, are you a felon? and stuff like that. The level of distrust and paranoia among the citizenry of this country is astonishing, and fortunately I was able to laugh (a little. Cry a little too.) at my most recent interface with same. The bank I expect to be weird because banks are, at their heart, rather evil institutions- I mean, they have YOUR money, which THEY use, and you have to practically whistle a tune from an extraordinary orifice to get them to give it to you. No, the Post Office is where this week’s donnybrook was.

I have been sending my remedies out into the world for about twenty years now. One thing this means is I do know how to pack things, so they don’t break for the most part- in fact only twice in this whole time. The other day I went to mail two remedies to people and dogs, and ignored the bell that went off when I saw the words “delivery may be delayed in case of emergency”. No emergency here, thought I. WRONG. One package got diverted to the deep south when it was going to the east coast because it had been scanned…..and…..looked SUSPICIOUS. Marked fragile and all, too. When, in desperation, I went to the post office to enquire a Very Officious Post Mistress told me that most likely my MIA package had broken and contaminated other packages. After being scanned. Naturally there was a long line behind me so everybody in town heard this, more or less. I said, drawing myself up to my full tiny height, contaminated? I HARDLY THINK A BOTTLE OF HUMMINGBIRD ESSENCE IS GOING TO CONTAMINATE ANYTHING. AND IF IT BROKE IT’S CAUSE YOU GUYS BROKE IT WHEN YOU OPENED THE PACKAGE EXPECTING TO FIND AMMUNITION. Because this is an issue flower essence people contend with: the dropper bottles we use seem to remind postal scanners of bullets. And of course, only one bullet at a time gets mailed, right? Totally logical! I received a package from a fellow practitioner in Spain that took two extra weeks to arrive and was in total tatters when it did, because….it looked like…….and of course it had to be ripped open…and then…..and so on. There were intakes of breath, murmured whaaaaat’s, stunned silence from OPM, and of course me starting to laugh. A lot like the time in NAPA when I was on quest for fixative for rear view mirrors and the guy said, it’s called fixative for rear view mirrors. The Post Mistress naturally did not like my tone. Fair enough, I didn’t much care for hers either. She said, well you ADMITTED you mailed a BOTTLE. Luckily, standing by the list of proscribed mailing items, I said, gee. That’s not on here and how come nobody has ever mentioned this before? Also, although they both start with “b”, I did say bottle and not..well, you know. This is my teeny business, I said, and you are causing me distress and costing me money. Do, please, do what you can to expedite this process. I left feeling out of sorts but managed to remember that the last several months of walking through emotional/thought form ballistic gel has given me the ability to say, UH? we don’t need no stinking attitudes! so I assumed all would be well. Eventually. Saw pigs, goats, hawks and an incredible jasmine plant on the way home. All good.

And of course, whaddaya know? The package was delivered this afternoon. I am trying to hold this episode in my mind now when I feel all the ….ick….that comes from the current state of this country. If the post office can do it, it can be done. We’re not going to stay in this murk forever. The same is true for all of us in our individual experiences. It takes some doing but you can expand your horizons to include all the light you can, and cannot, see. One step at a time. Eventually I will have to start springing into action (the garden is literally tapping its foot out there, for example) but for now, basking in the light will do.

Blessings and thanks as always.

aside from soccer

It’s been a very good thing that the World Cup has been on because otherwise? Recent events might have been almost undealable with, minus the distracting flow of the juxtaposition of luck, skill, politics, and byzantine rules.

It’s been tough sledding for us earthlings, and the fraying nerves and fear and tension are all visible in the outside world.  So too, though, is a depth and kindness, which, given where we are, is quite encouraging.  This being kind of an Epicenter of Ugh, and all, the more prevalent occurrences of kindness and restraint are striking.  Not that it isn’t still a bastion of  oxymoronic white supremacy which is ever more sickeningly mind boggling and seems to be on the ascendancy when one is feeling badly.  But.  The necessity of remembering that unity is real and duality is an illusion seems to be gaining ground even if it is in a bit by bit fashion.

Given the expeditionary quality of life now, every experience sort of requires a new way of looking at it.  New in the sense that as a human on earth we may not have always looked at things in their entirety, which is to say we are each part of a huge, colossal whole, which actually has sentience and thinks (for lack of a better word, Gentle Reader.  It’s HOT here and the brain does not do well over a prolonged period) for itself.  There is a motive power in all this, a cohesion, which we have, in this culture and world as I see it anyway, been separated from for….ages.  It’s not top down, in short, and far from it.  So every experience and relationship which has been structured in that way is up for dismantling whether we like it or not.  And life being what it is, we’re all presented with these little challenges from time to time.

In that vein, I’m happy to report that progress is possible and things do get better, especially when you don’t have a fixed image of what that is or might be.  My most recent challenge of this nature came upon me when I was already reeling from last winter’s brush with homelessness, and various other decisions that had to be made based on actual reality and not what one wished it was.  This most recent Learning Experience involved “Family” and Death.  And long standing resentments along with fictionalized histories and a large serving of guilt gravy.  Manifesting into shape many of my deepest fears and scraping open so many old wounds it seemed impossible.  The Dog just looked at me in a worried way, and the Partner reminded me that in the big picture, none of it really had much to do with me at all even though it appeared that it did. (Really? sometimes he is just SO IRRITATING.  Being right all the time and all.) In an almost funny mix of mistaken identity (on every level) the thing unfolded and I felt at times as though I just couldn’t do it this time.  But then? It became clear that all of it was, essentially, a story, and one in which I could choose to participate.  Or not.  And that decision had to be made on what IS, which is that colossal cosmic reality, and not on the top down story, which was the mistaken identity happy roundelay.  A rather new experience, really.  Not easy.  But totally doable.  It did involve a lengthy view of just how other people had seen me which was, of course and in this case especially, a bit challenging. (OK, I cried a lot) Then it involved the realization that all of it, and I do mean ALL OF IT, was in essence a story, and since it was a story that did not truly include me, I could wish it well and say good bye.  And rest in the flow of that colossal, cosmic reality knowing that however things look, there is something behind the apparency and that something sustains throughout, no matter how it turns out or looks.  In the midst of the pain and conflict, I saw for absolutely sure that the essence of things really is love.  Whether it is received or not, kind of irrelevant.  It just IS.  When you have negative experiences while you are “growing up”, it can lead you to believe things that are simply not true, many of which revolve around your supposed “badness”.  The world is full of people acting out of all that pain and misunderstanding, much of which is fomented of course on a political level, but nonetheless.  It is possible to stop doing that and just step into the open space that reveals itself.  Then you see what happens.  It helps if you have a dog.  Just saying.

Blessings and thanks and may we all continue to step into the real from the unreal, and turn the lights on for everyone.

in the waiting room

There’s a reason and purpose to everything, so they say and I tend to agree.  Also that thing about one door closing and a window opening and the intervening time in the waiting room being hell.  Of course it’s all in how you look at it.

For example.  Keeping the yurt clean is something that has to be kept in perspective.  You’d literally have to clean every surface every day to maintain a dust, web, and dirt free situation.  So even a former clean freak such as myself has to see reason….part the first of proper waiting room viewing: Here we have a Sisyphisean task no matter what.  Let’s roll a small river rock instead of a boulder every day, whaddaya say?  And so it happened that when something fell off the butcher block and I had to remove everything from the storage shelf beneath it for retrieval purposes, not only was it an opportunity to clean the surface (oh boy!) but also to marvel at the organization I’d managed to reach down there already with all the spinners and pyrex baking dishes and juice squeezers and….to find a chip from a soufflé dish that had been languishing unused for some time.  Said soufflé dish was mended toot sweet, and something positive came out of a waiting room-esque situation.

And so it was that the grueling week just past allowed me to remember the waiting room protocol more than once, because? At long last the Mac died.  Not a good thing in many ways but an eventuality that had been heading my way for a long time.  In one of those Typical Twists of Fate, I’d actually had a good month work wise so I was able to, with a modicum of nausea, wend my way to Best Buy and get another laptop. Everything else will have to wait indefinitely now, but there it is.  I wrestled with whether this was even necessary and realized that my hermit agoraphobe manifestation was starting to take over so it had to be made to see reason and sit down. It probably helped some that the guy who sold it to me looked like Fox Mulder, too. JUST SAYING.

The big challenge, of course was that, not having the exchequer to fund another Mac, we’ve now entered the long dreaded world of Microsoft.  For extra fun, all the backing up I did on my cute little external drive? is useless because Microsoft doesn’t speak Mac Journal.  So everything I had? is gone.  I’ve managed to remain fairly calm, even through the already made customer support call about why my this or that wasn’t budging and can somebody please tell me about left and right made me rather apprehensive. SIGH. Obviously this was also meant to be and while it is already a big pain in the tail it’s somewhat liberating.  I’m telling myself anyway. I have absolutely no idea what to do about all the photos I used to have access to, but am expecting that Time will Tell.  Anyway we will have to live without any exciting vistas until the messenger arrives from another part of the empire to explain what to do.

When I read a quote today from dogen Zenji, it made sense. “Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.”  At this point I must be pretty frigging enlightened, Gentle Reader, because I am becoming intimate with things previously unknown, unimagined or thought of or supposed, and it feels pretty close to the “all” category.  And, while my crash land into Word World is a bit off putting, it IS also in the category of, here’s something to learn.  Our quotidian situation continues to be precarious but in the midst of everything we had definite evidence that love and non violence do work in the end.  We started out here with one, count him, ONE hummingbird, who we named Tyrant.  For obvious reasons.  I’ve put a feeder out every day for eight years now and we’ve watched the small scale squabbles and what not from our window.  But now we’ve got over a dozen hummers at the feeder all the time now, a never before occurrence in my hummingbird dossier, and the other night they were actually sharing- two birds per hole in feeder.  The Partner said, see? they’ve started to cooperate with each other because they trust you- they know you’re there watching and protecting them.  And there, Gentle Reader, it is in a nutshell.  I had the oddest image the other night while deep in Inappropriate and Frightening Thought About the Future.  Of Jesus.  Not my usual, let’s just say.  But I thought about how one often opens one’s heart to another and by Being there, helps the other person simply Live.  Suddenly I saw Jesus standing there saying, my message is simple.  FOR CHRISSAKE DON’T BE A DICK.  I thought I heard the Dalai Lama giggling in the background for a minute, too.  So.  There it is.  Feed the hummingbirds, don’t yell at customer service, take everything as an opportunity to learn and little by little all that time that used to be sucked up by meltdowns turns to an ability for appreciation of the moment at hand.  Whatever it may be surrounded by- like, say, multitudinous click (and/or dick) protocols. Or the miracle of finding a chipped piece of dish.  In spite of the very real difficulties and looming enormities, somehow things always do work out and often it hinges on how we make it through the times in the hellish waiting rooms.  The fact that this isn’t particularly what we were told was important doesn’t change it, either. Sometimes that moment in the HWR is all there is and sometimes there are really a lot of them-  to the point where it appears never ending.  That, I think, is where healing comes in, and more on that another time.

Blessings and thanks as ALWAYS. And, the Dog is in fine fettle, thank you for asking.  I have started calling him Dr. Dog again because the other day when the Partner had hurt his wrist and cried out in pain and we rushed back in to attend to him? I said to Dog, you will probably have to lick his wrist and make it better.  Which he most patiently sat and waited to do, even though the Partner at first said, what are you doing? you’re too close! Which caused me to remember my instruction, marvel at Dr. Dog JUST PERIOD, and let the Partner know that healing was at hand so hold that paw out.  And what do you know? It felt better right away.  Once again, there it is.

the love project continues

And, probably, we need say no more.  But when the cursor allows it, we spring in to action and TYPE.

On the one hand, things appear to be hurtling toward hell in a handbasket.  On the other, essential reality and truth are seeping ever farther into the picture rendering the handbasket a bit smaller each day.  I mean, for the most part, I think things will turn out just fine, the News of the Day aside both political/personal, and personal.   There’s not much point in grousing, after all, however NECESSARY it may seem.

On the positive side, a lengthy sojourn of weed pulling and clipping and advancing into the impenetrable center of the garden (where I found blooming camellias!) did not result in career-ending back pain.  The asparagus plant has sprouted again, the plums are  looking strong, the peach is in full leaf, the pomegranate is leafing out AND the fig tree has both leaves and the initial early First Fig forming.  Clipping errors on rose bushes became propagation projects.  The grapes are legion, and the Fo Ti  has taken a grip on things that will take some time to unravel.  My laziness will have to be set aside so at long last, the roots of same can be tinctured in September (which is about when I’ll probably find them, too) and provide us with medicine which was, of course, the initial idea.  I think it’s called Hou Shou in TCM, a kidney and overall longevity remedy, which right about now seems quite appropriate. ( Otherwise, a word to gardeners: Fo Ti is a great plant but it’s like kudzu.  One little sprig will take over everything and I do mean everything.)  There’s still plenty of excavation to be done prior to planting the actual vegetable garden but it all seems, in this moment, Promising.  The black rufflled hollyhocks survived the winter so I am looking forward to blooms…..and sunflowers……oh boy!!!!

Also? the Partner hooked up the turntable for my birthday and I am once again reunited with my (large, sigh) record collection.  It’s almost…..overwhelming.  I mean, it’s been eight years here and….well. The dust situation is daunting, and the heat has burnt up two CD players already, but: MUSIC.  I’ve yet to find Coltrane and Bob Marley but they are in there, T. Monk, Bach, dance music of every description, in every language almost, oh! and! SALSA! which I have also not found yet….but.  Look out neighborhood, all I can say.  No longer do I have to satisfy myself with blasting out pow wow music and Femi Kuti from the car!!!! The Dog is adjusting fairly well, too, especially considering this is the first he’s ever heard of this sort of exact thing.  We’re listening to the Rolling Stones and he’s stretched out on the floor, head cocked and smiling.  And now? the tail is wagging and he and the Partner are dancing.  He also appears to have decided that I’ve had Quite Enough Time to Write This Whatever It Is and Someone Has To Go Outside When The Song Ends…..

So.  Setting aside  fears of disaster (although really- so much has happened already by this time I should know better), which are actually intrinsic to being human and thus can be assigned a proper size,  there continues to be reason for cautious optimism.  It really does come down, over and over, to choosing open over closed, love for all over #@@$$@@##!!!.  and also, when the mind spirals into the panoply of how many ways things can go sideways? Just turning around and facing the opposite direction.  Where you can actually See.  Which is, I think, what Creator (however called and named) wants us to do.

Blessings and thanks! as always.

 

 

 

hope springs eternal

Upside down but there it is.  Hope, and cake.  A totally decadent Julia Child flourless chocolate thing, just chocolate, whipping cream, eggs, a little sugar and rum, vanilla.  A raspberry sort-of-coulis underneath with a honey simple syrup.  And yes, it was for my birthday.

WHICH I ONCE AGAIN SURVIVED.  Quotidian notwithstanding.  And even though I fell into a bit of a mood-hole today, all is very well, and we even got out of it without bringing in a backhoe for extra fun.  We’re clearly in a time of change, Gentle Reader, which is thorough going and leaves nothing untouched.  That can be a good thing when it’s the old callused habits that get scraped off, even though in the moment one is thinking, ouch? OUCH? THIS AGAIN? ANYTHING BUT THAT…..and if is of course yes this again because dear heart you did not deal with it before.  All those things we all become entangled with in life as we pass by that we shouldn’t dally with, old relationships, old shapes we wanted to squish ourselves into……not to mention the moving storehouses of everyone else steaming by with hooks, barkers, enticing offers…..  And of course it turns out that the way out is through, right? Oh, goody.  But it also turns out that a heart oriented personal system of not doing anything to someone else you wouldn’t want them to do to you does work.  Even if what it does is make that Other dump you like a hot potato, or alternatively make you realize that “one should never be where one does not belong”, or, perhaps most challenging, make you realize you’re here now and it IS what it IS.  And you, darling little speck of light and energy, are one piece of a very big thing, so do try not to be the tail wagging the dog.

There’s a lot to getting along in this life and a big part of it is not-doing.  So, it’s a good thing indeed that it is Spring and in my ongoing not-doing epic, the garden now needs attention and I can just say, well, kid! go pull weeds! later for all that other stuff and DO quit worrying about whether the whatever it is got mailed/done/answered/ordered/handled.  First project will be cleaning the Dog’s Bathroom which is now the entire garden area.  (Why is there nothing productive to do with dog poop???? This seems like a huge oversight on someone’s part.)  Second will be figuring out a less byzantine system of seedling organization than last year.  Not that the color coded pots weren’t fun but the handwriting on the “key”….well, it got wet and then Somebody Chewed It…..so it was the usual  I guess we’ll see what this is in a week or so……..the Partner was VERY not amused.  And, given the enormous amount of love and support and being there he provides? The least I can do is make it possible for him to know what…well, what it IS.  And, apparently the Universe is saying, what it IS? is go wash dishes and I’m going to insert this picture here no matter what you think.  It is a really good picture, sort of a words to live by thing, and now….off to it! Blessings and thanks.