Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Star Gazers

Like astronomers of old, the stargazer lilies have just bloomed, many of their faces tilting skyward. Who of us hasn't searched the heavens for the Dippers or Orion's Belt?

May we in these times turn our gaze toward Mother Earth, to the roots of the lilies, where they as we will return to rest. May we tune our hearts toward her. Star gazers, Earth lovers.
-Imagine that Shift! Dawn, the Good News Muse
30 June 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Marry the Heart - My Rose Ceremony (Cliff notes version)


"If you think of the rose,
you will become the rose.
If you think of the nightingale,
you will become the nightingale. – Rumi
(found on my friend Kay’s facebook page)

This sweet little miracle caught my eye Saturday afternoon.

I had silently feared the climbing rose we’ve so neglected had bloomed for the last time around Mother’s Day when three blossoms suddenly made an appeearance on it’s barren, bug eaten leaves and limbs. I thought of my siblings and me, my mother’s three offspring. This happened last year too. Three little roses arrived on Mother’s Day, no more, no less. Then the bugs took over. It’s unusual for us to ignore nature’s things but roses have not been our forte especially in light of the fact that we haven’t found anything organic for taking care of the rose-related bugs(or so I thought).

Three Falls ago when my mother who’s never been significantly sick had sudden surgery, the climbing rose blossomed. One tiny bud unfolded on the August day of her surgery. That’s when I first sensed it was a messenger. The bud immediately reminded me of my father, my father who had died the year prior. He had wanted roses for his funeral. We bought a beautiful pall filled with red ones. (Petals from the roses at his grave were included in the dried ones I left in various places while traveling in France last year.) I thought of my father that August day. That one rose was a sign my father was still with us. I took the rose to my mother the next morning without sharing what it had meant. I didn’t share my heart easily then especially with family.

This climbing rose, my burning bush, always offers signs at significant times. Why did I think it was dying? I should have known it would not let me down. I, one of the most technologically challenged people I know, had the hour prior submitted an entry to the “Host Your Own Show” contest on the new Oprah network. I learned of the contest earlier in the week and navigated a labyrinth of feelings from panic that Oprah would take something I said in the video from
me legally until the ‘end of the Universe’ as the fine print read to fantasies of interviewing guests before recording a video and actually pressing “Send.”(To read of the entire labyrinth which is pretty funny of course to me….fast forward down to the story that follows by the same title.)

Throughout the entire ordeal, I knew despite my fears what I needed to do. Whenever I get excited about something, I’ve this way of leaving my inner self. (Why do I worry of Oprah betraying me when I’m balready betraying myself?)

I sat down with a photo of Templeton, my Muse, who taught me about deep love as she died two years ago. I listened then.I finally listened Saturday.

I looked at a photo of Templeton and knew my torment wasn’t about being on tv. It was about being me, opening my heart, my heart that so easily closes when hurt.

I pressed “send’ then walked outside and immediately saw the little red bud, my soul’s sole bud on the climbing rose.

It was the most beautiful moment. I saw the rose. I saw myself, my heart covered in orbs of morning rain, and smiled. I immediately got my camera and happened to find an unopened bottle of organic, oil based spray and yes sprayed first, photographed later then thanked and thanked the rose, not because this is a sign that I’m going to win but because it’s a sign that it is time to open my heart like the rose once again.

I laughed because I may not watch the Bachelor or reality shows on tv, but I was being offered in an even better reality, a rose, my very own rose ceremony standing in my Nashville driveway. The heart of the Universe, my heart said, "Marry Me.”

I left a tiny feather at the base of the rose in gratitude for it affirming my spirit's taking flight.

Roses like the heart thrive despite negligence and minimal care. I’ve pondered this since hearing years ago when someone just returned from Slovakia told me of the flourishing roses in war torn villages. I thought of it again in Conques , France a town of such beauty where roses climb walls everywhere with so little room it appeared for their roots in the soil.

Just as miraculous is the fact that the Universal heart, neglected, hurt, betrayed, having suffered so over the centuries continues to open and reopen allowing love to bloom forth repeatedly.

Maybe this is why there’s such betrayal in the world. Betrayal provides us choice. Will we stay open or re-open after pain or will we close and shut down?

Can we keep our hurting hearts open while they’re breaking? I believe this is why we are all here.

May we like Rumi said: Become the rose. May we like my friend Kay added: Become the New Story.

-Dawn!The Good News Muse 28, June 2010
* Only two days later the bud was in full bloom. Four days later, a beautiful spider web had been woven using one of the petals as an anchor for the web. I thought of Spider Woman, Grandmother Spider, the Creatress called by many names and the beautiful web that is our lives in these times, these times of marrying the heart. Blessed be.




Marry the Heart - My Rose Ceremony (the longer version)

If you think of the rose,
you will become the rose.
If you think of the nightingale,
you will become the nightingale. – Rumi
( found on my friend Kay’s facebook page)


This sweet little miracle caught my eye Saturday afternoon.

I had silently feared that the climbing rose we've so neglected had bloomed for the last time around Mother’s Day when three blossoms suddenly showed up on it’s barren, bug eaten leaves and limbs. I thought of my brother, sister and me, my mother’s three offspring. This happened last year too. Three little roses arrived on Mother’s Day, no more, no less. Then the bugs took over. It’s unusual for us to ignore nature but roses have not been our forte especially in light of the fact that we haven’t found anything organic for taking care of the rose-related bugs(or so I thought).

In the Fall of 2007 when my mother who’s never been significantly sick had sudden surgery, the climbing rose blossomed. One tiny bud unfolded on the August day of her surgery. That’s when I first sensed it was a messenger. The bud immediately reminded me of my father, my father who had died the year prior. He wanted roses for his funeral. We bought a beautiful pall filled with red ones. (It was petals from some of them that I left in various places while traveling in France last year.) I thought of my father that August day. That one rose was a sign my father was around. I took the rose to the hospital the next morning without sharing what it had meant. I didn’t share my heart easily then especially with family.

This climbing rose, my burning bush, always offers signs at significant times. Why did I think it was dying? I may let it down but it does not let me down. I had the hour prior submitted an entry to the “Host Your Own Show” contest on the new Oprah network. I learned of the contest earlier in the week. I seldom watch tv, but Monday as the clock neared five I wondered who was on Oprah. (This is risky to admit the week of the contest, but no offense, Oprah, the last time I watched a nearly full episode of your show, Louise Hay was on. I should have been inspired by this woman who in her 80’s shared how she didn’t have her first book published until fifty or later. Nearly fifty at the time, this should have given me heart, instead it freaked me out. Louise didn’t. The young women in the audience with whom Oprah occasionally spoke were talking about things of which I had just written. I felt so far behind these eloquent twenty and thirty- somethings. I turned off the show feeling like such a failure thinking I am possibly one of the few women alive who Oprah actually made feel bad instead of good.)

Last week I turned the tv on as a break neared and heard, “Have you ever wanted to host your own show?” That’s when I had the feeling. It wasn’t goosebumps and tears, the usual bold GPS signal my body provides alerting me to my path. It was more of a drop of sorts in my heart accompanied by a thought that went, “I should look into that.”

A day passed before I googled Oprah. I read where winners would be selected for competition in a reality show. I may not watch much tv but I did see a few episodes of The Bachelor when Nashville’s Travis (now Dr. Travis of the Drs. Show) was doing his televised dating thing and I watched one recent episode of “Top Chef” featuring a local chef who once was my student in a pre-school. I sure didn’t want to be on a reality show with all that competitive who-can-you-trust stuff and I couldn’t imagine being away from the cats and Jerry while living with people. It’s hard enough being me living with me on some days.

The next morning I randomly picked up an astrology cd from a recent reading to listen to during a road trip. I listened to this person talk of my needing to stretch while meeting new people and traveling.

By mid-day I was convinced I, one of the least technologically-oriented people on the planet, had to make a video using my little digital camera. By bedtime, I had decided ‘no.’ The next morning Jerry asked, “Yes or no?” I said, “Maybe.” A cup of coffee later, “I thought, ‘Yes’ but by that night thought, “No.”

Friday morning I awoke prompted to check my numbers as in numerology. The more I did this the more I saw myself coordinating interviews with people I know who have launched beautiful endeavors in their lives and the world to wake us up to good news in these times. I laughed at myself witnessing my mind creating themes, noting questions that I hoped would inspire viewers to think in deeper, broader terms in relation to their personal life. (I’m really laughing now wondering how I would remember those questions with menopause mind.)

This was the beginning of my recording a three minute segment repeatedly, at least ten times. I intentionally didn’t look at competitors’ videos for fear I’d back out. I also didn’t read the section regarding what to include in the video. I didn’t notice it until I prepared to download my finished product. Then I read: Include your age. I re-record. Then I read: Include your profession. I re-record. Then I read: Include your location. To be a writer, you’d think I read and I usually do, just not fine print on computer screens while looking through a lens of fear.

After lunch, I finally began the downloading process so I could edit my backside literally from the beginning of the video since I’m filming this all on my own. Oprah’s site says the downloading process can take time so I really didn’t think anything of the fact that it took me 7 hours to download my part just to the editing program. I thought they meant it when they said it takes time. I even went out to dinner only to return home to find I had downloaded their sample, a guy surfing, repeatedly onto the editing site.

Sometime around ten that night, I noticed the one button on my own editing system that I had been overlooking all afternoon. (Sometimes the heroic journey is made hard by our own shortsightedness.) I pressed this one button and voila. I proceeded to the application portion of the process.

This became entertaining in that I was asked questions like: What games do you like to play? Give an example of your competitiveness. I didn't think I played games until I realized I love playing any game a kid is playing, except pretend war during which I insist on the role of UN peacekeeper.

Somewhere midst questionnaire I typed on the fine print again, more fine print I had not read and found that Oprah’s people have the right to anything I say on my video for the rest of the time in the Universe. Yes, it read, “the Universe.” Most of what I shared was a compilation of what so many folks talk about these days from Wayne Dyer and Jean Houston to Depak Chopra and Dewayne Elgin.

Just as I was feeling centered I suddenly feared Oprah would steal a line from my video. Now most people would think if anyone’s going to steal a line, wouldn’t you want Oprah to be the one? What’s wrong with me for being concerned that Oprah would communicate an idea to the world that zipped through my mind once upon a time? Ah, my ego and I went to bed uncertain about this venture.

The next morning I didn’t feel any more certain. I called a friend after not hearing from her by email. After not reaching her, I called another friend who puts things ‘out there’ creatively regularly. She knew my fear and shared a story that had been told to her once. Short version was: A wealthy man had his priceless shoes stolen. When he learned of the theft, he said, “Oh, I’ve created a thief.” Suddenly I got it, if anyone (even Oprah) betrays me that’s not my karma. (Oprah, I’m not saying you’re a thief! I think you are amazing. It’s just an example relating my fear.)

Throughout this whole ordeal of which you’ve patiently read, I had been knowing all day what I needed to do. Whenever I get excited about something, I’ve this way of leaving my inner self, my heart. I sat down with a photo of Templeton, my Mews, who taught me about the heart as she died two years ago. I listened then. I finally listened Saturday.

I looked at Templeton and knew this wasn't about being on tv, this was about being me, opening my heart, my heart that closes and disconnects so easily. I pressed “Send.”

I walked outside and immediately saw the little red bud, a soul, sole bud on the really eaten up climbing rose.

It was the most beautiful moment. I saw the rose. I saw my soul, my heart covered in orbs of recent rain and smiled. I immediately got my camera and happened to find an unopened bottle of organic, oil based spray and yes sprayed first, photographed later then thanked and thanked and thanked, not because this is a sign that I’m going to win but because it’s a sign that it is time to open my heart like the rose once again.

Then I sweetly laughed. I may not watch the Bachelor or reality shows on tv, but I was being offered in an even better reality, a rose, my very own rose ceremony standing in my Nashville driveway. The rose, my heart, said, "Dawn, marry Me.”

I left a tiny feather on the ground at its base in gratitude for it affirming my heart’s taking flight, a sign of my "Yes, I do. I do."

Roses like the heart thrive despite negligence and minimal care. I’ve pondered this since hearing years ago when someone back from Slovakia told me of the flourishing roses in war torn villages. I thought of it again in Conques a small French town of such beauty where roses climb walls everywhere with so little room it appeared for their roots in the soil.

Just as miraculous is the fact that the Universal heart, neglected, hurt, betrayed, having suffered so over the centuries continues to open and reopen allowing love to bloom forth repeatedly. We may let down the heart, but it does not let us down. Maybe this is why there’s such betrayal in the world. Betrayal provides us choice. Will we stay open or re-open after pain or will we close and shut down?

Can we keep our hurting hearts open especially while they’re breaking? I believe this is why we are all here. If we as Rumi said: "Become the rose" then we will as Kay added: Become the New Story.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 28 June 2010
(Photo: the bud two days later:)
P.S. Now four days later, a spider has used one petal as a connecting point for its web. Grandmother Spider, Spider Woman, She who is called by many names needs us awake and aware, our hearts, minds and hands, to heal the web of life.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Real Power in the Blood

(This story will inspire some and trouble others. Please try to read on if you're one of the troubled ones. -Dawn)

Today I'm cooking lunch while "There's power in the blood, power in the blood" sings through my mind. I don't know about you, but songs come through regularly, old ones from tv sitcoms, 80's disco hits and the more I try to make them go away, the more they insist they'll stay.

"Power in the blood" became imprinted while in church in early childhood days from what the "Smoke on the Mountain" cast refers to as the "blood medley." (Great show if you've not seen it.)

I'm cooking squash, # 3 and 4 plucked from the little raised bed, hearing "There's power in the blood." This time rather than let that one phrase continue through my mind, I sang on "..... in the precious blood of the lamb."

In church of course, the lamb referred to Jesus. Today I thought, "The lamb represents innocence." This is when the cascade started that some will find discomforting. I find profound.

I heard myself think, "The innocent children dying and being harmed, through torture, sex trafficking or enslavement....their blood is the blood with power in it."

"The blood of a cow, chicken or pig being inhumanely treated by agribusiness, led to slaughter for the monetary benefit of CEO's and shareholders, that animals blood has power in it."

"The life blood of Mother Earth gushing, gushing in the Gulf, killing dolphins, birds, fish, whales, impacting the National Treasure that is the Gulf, that blood, oil has power in it."

The blood of the vulnerable has great power in it because one day a man or woman is going to see that blood from a young girl's vagina whom he or she has just raped and Wake Up.

The CEO whose game plan crams domestic animals into concrete, dark, hot barns to fatten them for slaughter is going to wake up to the blood of those animals that is on his or her hands.

One day, one day soon I pray, an oil CEO will glimpse a dying animal on tv or better yet dare hold one in his arms and know there is a better way.

For weeks, I've wrestled with stories pertaining to the vulnerable because of the many email petitions I receive on behalf of children, impoverished people, the Appalachian mountains, lions, bears, wolves, domestic animals, the rain forrest and now the Gulf. The petition gets signed but the stories end up incomplete and in a pile on my desk because I cannot hold the tension of even thinking what's this all about.

Today I glimpse the reason. There is a gift in vulnerability! The vulenrable in our world, on our planet allow us choice. They are really the ones of strength! Through them we are offered the opportunity to either wake up to the highest, greatest capacities of our hearts and minds or to sleep.

One day, one moment, maybe now ... someone's stone, hard heart is just beginning to crack so the love within will begin to break free. Then like dominoes in a change, I mean chain reaction, the chains will break and loving change as we have not seen in centuries will break free!
-Dawn! The Very Good News Muse, 27 Juen 2010

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Marry the Earth

The abundantly blossomed flowering shrub down the street was the first thing I smelled this morning. I was walking, hot and sweaty, just wanting to get "walk" checked off my list when suddenly a sweet scent got my sensory attention. I stopped to take a smell. This woke me. The remainder of my walk was spent engaged with nature. I imagine and can some times feel a circle of sorts, an energetic cycle of giving and receiving between me and the trees, the neatly mowed yards and shrubs that line the sidewalk even on my busy Nashville street.

I returned home to see the first opening star gazer lily of summer. I had walked right past it in my earlier stupor. The lily and its kin will blossom over the coming two weeks if we're fortunate among the balloon flowers and calla lilies then they will return to earth for another year.

It seems like yesterday I was noticing the first bats flitting about in the dusk sky and lightening bugs, twinkling earth stars emerging from grass.

The brief lives of flowers and creatures provide us beauty. How is it we become anesthetized, our senses dull to the wonders of nature?

In childhood we see through eyes of wonder. Every thing is a first. Then as we approach the other end of life's continuum in our older years something similar happens. Our literal sight may diminish, but a gift of sight returns through the lens of wonder.

I'll never forget my mother a couple of years ago opening the back door to walk onto our deck one morning and exclaiming, "Look! The leaves look like rose petals strewn for a wedding." In a moment of transcendence, the ordinary became the extraordinary. I saw it too, a trail of fall leaves laid down an aisle awaiting a marriage.

Not long after this I stood in our backyard surrounded in fog under the full moon. I stood thanking the trees for sharing life's journey. I circled round and round as I thanked the tall trees, the old ones, the middle age trees and the small ones. And as I circled I heard: Marry the Earth.

It's not often that I share the things I hear. For me these messages are personal. I want to tend them, keep them to myself. But in these times, this is one I must share.

Marriage is connected to what I realized on my walk. When we initially fall in love, we see as children do, we see 'the other' through eyes of wonder. As the new fades and we think we've secured or 'caught' the other, our brain chemistry plateaus and finds a new normal. We then get relationally lazy, or at least I do. Gone by the way are the thank you's, the long conversations, the kind gestures. The early rituals that meant so much fall by the way. We get into ruts, fall into bad habits that are far from the wonder and curiosity that comes easily in the beginning.

Then for the few couples who stay together long enough, the lens shifts as couples age together or confront a crisis calling up an essence of remembrance of what they loved about the other originally. They return to wonder.

How does this relate to marrying the Earth? Early in life, we are mesmerized by nature. Remember your first necklace made of clover or the first time you realized you could make horn noises on a blade of grass? Remember rolling down a hill, even a small incline, and trying to stand only to fall down again? Remember seeing your first June bug or image in the clouds? Mesmerized in the moment, we are married to Earth.

Then we grow up and become disconnected in a variety of ways. We are pushed way too soon to decide what we're going to become rather than being taught life is a continual becoming who we are. We are always becoming. Most of us are "educated" out of our bodies and spirits. We're taught to value the mind and even that is in a limited way. The concrete, asphalt and bright lights of city and urban life contribute to our separation from Earth and ourselves. Most times we don't even realize we're divorced from Earth and nature.

Then as with relationships as we age, this love affair with Earth is sometimes rekindled. My friend Russ in his 80's is a great example of this. He writes poetry often inspired by nature and Earth's turnings although he didn't start writing poetry until his 70's and until 50 he was a minister and administrator.

"Marry the Earth," the voice said to me. Let us in these times invite a sense of wonder and marry the Earth in our heart and our ways. She has held us at our best and our worst, in our sickness and health. She has loved us and cherished us. And although our choices and actions have created situations literally diminishing her while killing her children, the plants and animals, she is constant, continuing to provide all we need for life. Even in our death she accepts our bodies as they return to her.

My simple words seem so very limited compared to the beauty of her commitment to us. I now challenge you as the voice said to me, "Marry the Earth."
-Dawn, The Good News Muse June 2010

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Song for a Blackbird - In Memory of Men

I've been perusing journals to honor and reflect on my trip to France last year. Besides a thousand photos, I've journals of varying sizes in which I made notes.

One line recently caught my attention, a question I had jotted in a tiny notebook the morning of my birthday which started in LePuy in what is called the Deep Heart of France.

The question read: How can we get blackbirds in America to sing?

Yes, I learned during my trip that blackbirds sing in France. I heard them repeatedly. (My friend Vera says they sing in Germany too and I believe her.) On this particular morning, I sat on a curb outside our hotel at 5:00 am in a tiny triangle of a park filled with fairy roses. I cozied up against a pink cluster as the rising sun cast a similar pink in the sky. A blackbird was in its nest to my side. I could have spent all day there perfectly content on asphalt surrounded by roses and blackbirds.

Instead I left tokens of gratitude, dried rose petals from my father's grave and a crystal bead, at the base of the rose bush then boarded our little travel van driven by dear Pedro for further ventures into France's deep heart.

A year has passed and I have not forgotten the singing blackbirds of France. Periodically I take out my little recorder and listen to the files of their song. Their lyrical sounds come to me even as I write.

Meanwhile home in Tennessee, I could not write with similar fondness of our blackbirds as this past Spring, blackbirds, starlings and grackles descended upon our bird feeders like never before. I initially wrote of this in "Loving Black and Blue."

After that Musing, words came to me which I quickly noted. I titled them "Song for a Blackbird." I recalled them upon seeing the question: How can we get blackbirds to sing?

I am so far away from home
Came here a stranger as families roamed
I feel so lost without a land.
Somebody help me, if you can.

The heart is deep and it is wide.
It carries pain I try to hide.
I'm looking for someone
to redeem these lonely sons.

Soldiers died in foreign soil.
War is hard and it is toil.
Yet the heart goes beating on
finding wing on many a song.

Comfort found on a mountain high
With a woman's beautiful smile
She loves us now, she loved us then
When we were home among our kin.

Blackbirds and sparrows were brought to this land by our ancestors as reminders of home. I sometimes wonder if our blackbirds don't sing because they are homesick, strangers here in this land.

Homesick strangers reminds me of a plaque I saw in Orleans Cathedral southwest of Paris. The plaque honored the half million Americans who gave their lives in two world wars and the 67,581 of them who died on French soil, their bodies never found, never returned home. Yes in time they returned to Mother Earth, but I find myself still thinking about those men and wondering if their spirits aren't homesick like the blackbirds just on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

I also found myself wondering if the collective American soul fully grieved these losses. Let's be honest. We American's don't really grieve. The funeral is held and we're suppose to be over" it" when in truth the dark days, the days of missing, of loneliness have just begun.

I found myself wondering how this chapter of our history is connected to the lost or misplaced heart in our country as well as its continued impact on our world. Since WW II we have gone to war repeatedly not for the same overt reasons, yet war is war, lives are lost and grief still buried.
Hearts abound commercially and open relationally when we're "suppose" to feel loving during holidays like Valentines and Christmas. Then heart's relegated to the sidelines. The grief locked in the stoic heart when it is far from home be it the blackbird, the soldier or one's own is a lonely heart.

How then do we call the men of whom I read home?

Maybe it isn't the blackbird that needs to learn how to sing, but instead our hearts, yours and mine. Heartful singing, just as grieving requires a vulnerability we are not taught, a willingness to dive into our deep hearts and embrace our feeling feminine selves as men and women.

While in France I felt the deep sorrow and grief the French have known as wars have ravaged their land. Yet I also felt their joy. No one told me this, but I suspect they've been to the bottom of the deep heart where all feels lost, loved ones and land, and they found their way back to love and joy. This is so evident in their appreciation of beauty in valuing the soil, the animals and plants. They (or at least the areas in which I traveled) value living and they value the feminine. They know the deep heart.

Maybe, just maybe, if we allow ourselves to journey the path of heart through feeling, we will sing the spirits home of these thousands of men, call them home to the soil of our collective hearts and in doing so free ourselves to discover the beauty of our deep American hearts.

I think I hear the blackbirds singing.
-Dawn!, The Good News Muse, 19 June 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

* After writing this piece, I found that blackbird symbolizes primal feminine energies and that the color black symbolizes the feminine. Now I am certain our discovering our deep hearts allows our blackbirds to sing.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Magnets of Love

Remember experimenting with magnets in school by holding one under a piece of paper then placing metal filings atop the paper. Remember how the filings would collect around the magnet?


I’ve been thinking about fear lately in relation to that magnet. When the fear magnet runs ever so slightly beneath our awareness (the paper), we attract little filings of fear. I didn’t just randomly start thinking about this; I’ve had several days during which my energy mysteriously vanished and I've been grumpy and controlling until I finally broke down and had the proverbial break through.


Suddenly Monday evening I found myself crying, weeping uncontrollably as I scrubbed gummy residue from the hummingbird feeders. We initially had 7-8 hummingbirds vying for three feeders. In the past two weeks, one came around but seldom stayed to eat.


At the sink Monday night, I realized the residue was cooking oil, cooking oil I had lightly rubbed on the wires and hooks from which the feeders hang in an attempt to keep the ants away. Oil did not deter the ants, they trekked through it ensuring they got sugar water and the feeders got a coating of oil. I burst into tears of fear that I had not only kept the hummingbirds away but had harmed them unintentionally. I, someone who often feels like a mother to nature, cried and scrubbed. I then refilled and hung the feeders all the while asking aloud that the hummingbirds forgive me.


Afterwards I sat down, opened my journal and began to list the many fear-related burdens I had taken on over the prior days, fears I didn’t even realize I carried until they showed up on paper.


Over the weekend, I looked out a side window and saw a small black snake sunning at the threshold of the front door. This birthed two fears. What if I step on the little snake and accidentally kill it? (This fear replaced: What if I step on the little toad living at the front door?) I had no concern as to the snakes harming me. I was more fascinated by the fact that it was yet another animal showing up around my home and the symbolism of it being at the front door.


For days I feared the toad would end up in the watering can and not be able to escape. Now I had two animals to be concerned with when I walked out the door, a snake and a toad unless the snake ate the toad which was actually the second fear birthed in that moment.


Around this same time, I found three ticks crawling on my clothing. Ticks on myself can be removed. That did not bother me. Ticks on Mystery and Bogy my two dear cats, well that’s another story. They’re indoor cats and certainly aren’t prone to letting me check them for ticks. This mental filing: What if I bring a tick into the house that kills one of my cats? went straight to the big fear magnet.


I had just learned of the toxins we unknowingly bring into our homes thanks to an excellent CNN documentary about the chemicals on furniture and rugs as well as pesticides, etc on our shoes. I had been leaving my shoes at the door to decrease the risk of tracking things in that would harm Mystery or Bogey. (My floors are much cleaner too.) The thought of being a conveyor of ticks and potential death to my cats increased my burden. I did not want to trade my outdoor clothing for indoor clothing every time I entered the house.


Last but not least I’ve been trying to get the squirrels out of my bird feeders as they have found ways to move beyond the obstructions intended to keep them away. The most recent attempt has involved a hot sauce made from habanera peppers and soy bean oil that’s stirred into the seed and guaranteed not to harm the birds. I’ve compulsively watched the feeders fearing I’ll harm the birds anyway. The squirrels have stayed away but not the ants. They’ve swarmed one particular feeder stirring fear, my fear that the birds will be harmed from eating a ‘hot’ ant.


After noting the assorted feelings or filings involving ticks, ants, snakes, toads, birds and cats, I suddenly realized when the big magnet, the mother of all my fears, got activated and started attracting these other fears.


Last Thursday only one block into my usual morning trek, I noticed a bright red truck in the middle of the street. It wasn’t until I heard the noise that I realized what it was doing. A rope tied to its bumper was pulling a large evergreen shrub from the front of a neighbor’s home. The tearing sound sickened me. Condescending thoughts rained down in my mind toward the three young guys doing their job. The side of their truck read: We’ll do just about anything in your yard. I suspect they found this amusing. I was disgusted.


Much of my walk involved asking forgiveness for my judgment while feeling sad for the shrub and wishing someone could have been present to bear witness to its passing. I came to a place of peace with what I had seen until wouldn’t you know it thirty minutes later as I’m nearly home I arrive at the same house where the same truck is again in the street.


This time I know what is about to happen. I’m getting a do-over. I get to bear witness. Instead I glance at the second shrub, glare again at the men and walk into the street avoiding their ritual. Yes, I walked into the street as far from the shrub as I could get rather than do what I wanted.


I walked on in judgment, not of the men, but of myself for in that moment I wanted to stop. I wanted to walk to the shrub, place my open heart and hands before it and say, “I am so sorry. Thank you for your presence. I bless you and ask that you let go with ease.” This is the very thing I have been doing in my prayers and meditations on the Gulf. I envision the animals, marshes and life there that is dying there, passing with ease. Doing this hidden in the quiet of my home is different from doing so in public on my street.


I was so upset with myself for not taking advantage of this amazing opportunity. I knew what I wanted to do. Why did I walk on?


In that moment I feared ridicule. I feared being called ‘that crazy lady.’ The slogan on the truck read: “Will do just about anything in your yard” and I was not willing to do the one thing I really wanted to do which was be myself. Instead I not only ignored the little shrub, I betrayed and ignored me.


I hurriedly told Jerry at lunch how horrible I felt then I barred this event from my mind until Monday night as I made the list of fears.


This simple act of personally ignoring who I am had major consequences. It activated the big magnet beneath my paper thin sub-conscious setting me up to attract a myriad of mental filings, the feelings of fear in the days that followed. Living became a burden as worry consumed me and grumpiness became my mode. Allowing fear to prevent me from taking a risk in front of strangers caused me to temporarily forget who I am.


When I forget my magnet is love, compassion and presence, I loose my power. I loose energy for I am unplugged from my personal power source. I begin to live on auto-pilot and can literally feel a barrier go up between me and life.


Chronically ignoring who we really are leads to a forgetting, an ongoing amnesia so that we betray ourselves repeatedly and don’t even realize it. This amnesia causes us to forget our relatedness to our insides and our outsides, everything around us in the natural environment, our community and wider world.


This forgetting of the power of our true selves and relatedness culminates in big events like the Gulf oil spill, sex trafficking of children and the objectification of animals in agribusiness as well as ongoing daily missed opportunities to love, offer a hand, share a smile or yes, help another being, plant, animal or person, to let go and move on.


The moment on the sidewalk was a missed opportunity that I’m sure will come around again. In the meantime, I’ve a myriad of animals, toad, snake, ticks, birds, ants, cats as well as those two dear shrubs reminding me of who I really am.


May we use the present events in the Gulf and in these times as opportunities to remember in a deeper, potent, profound way who we really are, magnets for love.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 17, June 2010

P.S. On this morning’s walk along the same stretch of sidewalk near my home, I came upon a dead squirrel, a bumble bee that appeared to be dying and the wing of a mourning dove. I stopped, moved each gently to the grass and ensured the squirrel and wing were covered with leaves. I returned home and began to finish this story only to realize the beauty of the message in the morning’s dying things. Unlike the weekend when I was bound by fear, trying to control the loss of things I hold dear, this morning’s squirrel, dove and bee remind me I cannot control death. My only task is to be aware and present, to honor the life that was lived be it plant, animal or human and to honor the love that is within me.

Friday, June 11, 2010

The Personal Touch - Herb Vinegars

I gently tore the herbs, delicate round leaves of oregano and dainty stems of thyme, before placing them in bottles of white wine vinegar to steep for several weeks. I tore the leaves mindful that between my fingers I held growing things, aware when machines do this work, the washing, the tearing, the touching, we loose the human touch of personal, literal contact.

Machinery, modern convenience allows us so much more free time, with so much more 'done.' In my case, hundreds, no thousands upon thousands, of bottles of herb vinegars are filled and prepared to be trucked cross country to stores shelves while I'm washing, tearing and tucking leaves into jars.

Yet when machines do this work we loose touch with an inner awareness offered through our sensory selves - touch, smell, sight, sound, taste. We loose touch with a sense of relatedness, not only to green growing things, but to the parts of ourselves and our ancestors that remember digging, planting, tending, harvesting, chopping, tearing, savoring.

I gently tore the herbs, delicate round leaves of oregano and dainty stems of thyme, knowing when machines do this work I miss an appreciation for presence and process. When I live machine-like, I miss not only the growing things around me but the growing things inside me. I do not want to miss anymore of life.

The bottles of herb vinegars now sit atop a closet shelf in the dark. I remember them by occasionally dropping in to check on them. I am grateful. They allow me to remember the beauty of personal touch in Mother's nature and in my own nature. They remind me of who I really am, one who loves beauty especially in simple things.

Who are you? What do you love? What grows inside you?
-Dawn! Imagine the Shift, 11 June 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A Bug and A Beach Chair - Returning to Wonder

Early yesterday I walked out to check on the newly planted sunflower. This sunflower isn't from the seed packets purchased and planted this spring. Thus far those haven't made it past the enticing little green sprout stage the bunnies enjoy.

This particular sunflower traveled from my mother's home miles and miles away in a fern that I tried to winter over for her. The fern died yet from the basket of crisp, brown fronds a sunflower arose transplanted I'm certain by a bird, seed in its mouth from one of her feeders. That sunflower is now four feet high in my yard.

This particular morning I took a chair out, a beach chair bought years ago and placed it in the grass. Although I love my yard, I seldom actually sit in it. I sit on the deck and look at the green and growing things. I felt a need to be near the sunflower and other seedlings just planted.

Before sitting, I checked on the sunflower first and found a rainbow on one of its leaves. A tiny colored cousin to grasshopper, whose stripes resembled the fabric of the beach chair, sat on the leaf.

I was mesmerized by this exotic bug and the chair, the natural and man made appearing so similar, one resting on a green leaf probably to find eventual nourishment in the leaf and the other a resting place for me, on the green earth as I find nourishment in nature.

My mind quickly moved to the many colors of mold in our basement after recent rains, the yellow and blue flecks of tiny living color on wet storage cabinets and the orange on our concrete walls. Then I recalled learning that star dust left when a star is no longer contains the colors of the rainbow. A song from childhood went through my mind, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight" followed by "somewhere over the rainbow."

How curiously beautiful is this? The colors in the spectrum of the rainbow are found in the infinitesimal to the infinite, from mold and bugs to the stars, with us, people of all colors in between.

Over the rainbow is not 'somewhere.' It is here in the magical, color-filled fabric of earth and sky. It is beneath us, above us and all around us if only we awaken to wonder. May we be mesmerized by the Mystery and remember a level of beauty long forgotten yet still present like the sunflower seed surviving winter now growing in my yard, home to a bug, a beach chair and me.

For wondering: When was the last time you were filled with wonder?
-Dawn! the Good News Muse 9 June 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Friday, June 4, 2010

On Breaks and Beauty while Moodling and Imagining

How is it I so easily forget the necessity of breaks? Somewhere I got the idea that writing must be work, that I’m a story machine, turning out ideas that cross the production line of my mind. In truth I write and live best when nourished through rest, healthy food, dirt, a little red wine or in this case a latte. I forget the importance of what writer Brenda Ueland called ‘moodling’ –having intentional spaciousness in the day to wander and wonder. I had previously called this lazy and at times still do.

Recently I drug myself to a neighboring town as I promised I would, not the dragging part but the going, going to a local greenhouse followed by having a latte, part of my moodling and replenishing process. When I’m in production line mentality, I neglect my reservoir then suddenly find myself empty and needing days to recover and refill.

I was experiencing what my friend Maryann calls ‘fussy.’ She had just the day prior told me that when one’s fussy you either accept it or get more fussy. I should have known by virtue of her telling me this that I was being tipped off as to what lay ahead.

The day started with my sleeping an hour later than intended. I wasn’t really sleeping. I had thoughts, fully formed sentences circling my mind that I was too lazy to record, although the recorder was by my hand. When I did get up, I was angry. My anger hid fear, the fear I had missed a masterpiece offering itself up from the creative ethers.

The cable guy then showed up, early instead of late and left, job done, in record time. Instead of beginning my morning rituals, something felt off in my brain. I blamed this on forgetting my B vitamins the night prior. Unlike Ms. Ueland’s moodling which involves an open, receptive mind, I fussed and felt fuzzy trying to force a story to gel that in truth was and is still in the ingredients gathering stage in the kitchen of my mind.
The above cocktail left me disconnected. Disconnection I resist. The more I resisted owning the present, the greater my disconnect became. My inner fuss mounted knowing I was contributing to the quantum sense of disconnection and unawareness in the world. I can’t complain about people not getting ‘it’ whatever it is when I don’t get it, when I refuse to be just because my be-ing feels uncomfortable and out of my control.

I forced myself into the car with the first goal of going to the bank. If this proved successful, I might venture further. I drove and recalled a friend who said recently that anytime she was home more than three days she got weird. I was 2 and ½ days into alone and aware this might be my version of her weird.

Fuzzy and fussy, I made it to the bank to find a local artisan’s wood carvings on display in the lobby. Mushrooms, sunflowers and an eagle carved with a chainsaw then sanded revealed beautiful patterns inherent in the wood. I left the bank and called the artist to learn his work is made from trees he finds already down in the woods or along the roadside. Awareness of beauty helped shift my fuzz and my fuss.

An hour later I sat having a hard time drinking my latte because it was so beautiful. It was a work of art. I don’t know about you but it wasn’t until late in life that I realized the value of beauty and I’m not talking hairstyles or manicures though I’m not against those things.

I’m referring about the beauty of seeing a fern bursting from a seed in the froth of my coffee, the beauty of continuing to look and seeing angel wings. I’m referring to the angels around us with beautiful spirits, like the young woman, a stranger (I suspect a kindred spirit) who offered me a sample sip of her Italian soda as I was debated what to order or Jay and Phil at the nursery who share growing tips that often apply to plants as well as people. I’m referring to the beauty of dirt under my fingernails, a bluebird, potato blossoms, the earthy smell of life in a greenhouse and lines of light in a begonia leaf similar to the lines in the wooden sculptures at the bank.

Life is a work of art and in this case my canvas was a latte. I continued looking at the frothy photo upon returning home and in doing so saw a wave, the oil geyser at the ocean’s floor and a gull. I recalled my earlier thought of the production line in my mind. Production lines like the one in the garment factory in which my grandmother worked or even the production lines in today’s fast food chains allow us to turn out a lot of stuff, the same, repetitive, at times useful, but often uncreative, unimaginative stuff. This isn’t inherently bad but it carries risk. As forcing myself to machine-like turn out stories without filling my reservoir lends itself to an internal dryness and disconnect, production line lives without awareness can narrow our vision, dull the imagination and diminish the capacity to see the beauty and possibilities around us.

Oil was once a new story, filled with possibility that allowed us amazing, imaginative achievements. I honor the minds birthing those achievements. It is time to imagine and give wings to a new story, to ride a new wave that incorporates beauty and creativity in our lives so we reconnect with Mother Earth, ourselves and one another rather than live disconnected lives within and without.

We live richest and deepest when nourished by beauty, wonder, imagination and creativity. Let's use these times to restore these ingredients to the kitchens of our personal and collective hearts and minds.
Imagine that Shift! Dawn, 4 June 2010

Thursday, June 3, 2010

We are Stewards of a Jewelry Store

Life is sweet. This past weekend, I discovered I own a jewelry store filled with gems from which six year old Lily made assorted rings, bracelets and necklaces for friends and me. Now when I look at my yard or the neighbor’s, I smile recalling Lily’s creations from clover.

This morning as I admired my neighbors “store” I realized Earth is a jewelry store. We are surrounded by gems and treasures freely given by Mother Nature. Do we actually receive these gems? Do we really stop to accept and take in the beauty offered us on a myriad of levels?

I appreciate the flowers and the birds and most all nature especially when everything’s going my way ie. the squirrels aren’t eating all the bird seed and the weeds aren’t taking over the flower beds. (The squirrel just outside the window to my right must have heard me because literally the second I wrote the prior sentence, I heard a swooshing noise and looked out to see a mound of expensive seed on the ground and the bottom of the feeder open with a squirrel atop the mound.) I knew that feeder needed repair when I hung it this morning, but I had more “important” things to do.

I think of myself as appreciating nature, yet when I hurriedly eat I miss an opportunity to receive, to savor the crunch, the texture, the taste of vegetables newly grown from Earth. I say I appreciate nature, but if I get mired in despair over our mistreatment of animals and the environment I miss out on an opportunity to complete a cycle sitting at my heart’s door. I miss an opportunity to feel gratitude to the animals for continuing to come here. (Last night while watching coverage of the continuing Gulf oil spill. I wept tears of gratitude and sorrow as I looked at brown dying marsh land and a beautiful dead bird. I said aloud, "Thank you, thank you for coming here. I have been negligent in appreciating you. I am grateful, so very grateful for you.") Every time I drive by a dead animal on the roadside and go straight to sadness I miss an opportunity to feel joy toward this animal and its kin for continuing to show up here on Earth as a participant in the web of life. Every time I angrily sign a petition to stop insensitive corporate farming practices, I am not only energetically generating an opposite response from someone else but I am forgetting to feel grateful that the cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, wolves, panthers, bears and lions are here to begin with. (I will sign the next petition in gratitude.)

The animals keep arriving here to wake us up to the beautiful web of life in this jewelry store filled with clover and so much more. We are stewards of gem-filled Earth, surrounded by gems of joy reminding us of the greatest gem within us all, the gem of the heart.*

-Imagine the Shift!, Dawn, 3 June 2010

*The heart truly is a powerful gem of untapped resource and energy. The electromagnetic field around the heart is approx 5,000 times greater in strength than the field produced by the brain according to HeartMath Institute researchers. Using a magnetometer, they found the heart’s field radiates 8 -10 feet outside the body. To learn more go to www.heartmath.org

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

There's a Fountain Flowing Deep & Wide

Recently a friend on facebook messaged me: “You’re deep” in response to something I had written on-line. I didn’t quite know how to respond but I did and she in return shared that she was sitting on her porch by candlelight listening first to the rains then to her fountain.

Her comment was in response to my having shared on-line something I learned that evening from a talk I had happened upon by a professor of astrobiology while having dinner in a local coffee shop. I had previously learned that only 4% of the Universe is actually known and the other 96% is called Dark Matter. This parallels the fact that scientists know what goes on in about 4% of the human brain while the remaining 96% is yes, dark matter.

During the talk, the professor spoke of this and added that there are 100 trillion known stars in our solar system which interestingly parallels the number of cells in one’s body. He also shared that he had a middle school science text from the mid-50’s in which the authors stated there were 100,000 known stars.

Our knowledge base of the outer has expanded vastly in only a few decades. I thought of the accordion style paper fans I use to make. It’s a bit like thinking we live on one fold only to learn a dozen folds are available. The story is much deeper and wider than thought.

I considered how the story of our universe expands, yet the storylines of our personal universe the inner story especially in times of stress and change seem to contract and become increasingly rigid. Even those of us who claim developing awareness get sidetracked in terms like good guys and bad guys. We get stuck in the details of who did what to whom in our microscopic family stories and our larger national news stories.

As I sat with all this, a song crossed my mind. As a child in Sunday School we sang, “Deep and wide. Deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.”

I hummed this song and thought of how the fountain of knowledge and creativity has been accessed by minds throughout time to expand our story of ‘out there.’ Now is the time for tapping into the divine fountain of love flowing deep and wide, a fountain filled with the stars of love, a fountain desirous of our using it to expand our inner story and our relational stories.

I sat at my computer smiling about this when I noticed two other comments on-line. A girl friend who obviously does her math noted that given the above figures our brains would then have 4 million stars. Another chimed in “What a great cosmic gig!”

As a teenager I always wanted to be in a band, but this gig was greater than any band I danced to on Soul Train. This was the Soul train, the one for which our souls are here in these times.

I still smile weeks later while writing this thinking of how we are all Rock Stars on planet Earth, the Rock Star! I smile knowing there is a fountain that flows deep and wide. It is filled with water and fire, tears and passion opening the hardest of hearts in these times.

I smile realizing how both scientists and my girl friends are engaged in the expansive, the big story of discovery, creation and imagination. And I smile knowing that my friend whose comment sparked this story by initially writing “You’re deep” is deep too. Sitting on her candle lit patio listening to water is one of the beautiful ways to tap into the fountain.

My prayer is that just as we’ve grown our knowledge of the stars, we will expand the inner story, the story of the heart’s fire. May that fire burn away our limiting beliefs and labels so we shine with love on the Cosmic Soul Train of these times for we are all deep, living deep story in these times, the deep times.
-Dawn! Imagine the Shift! 2 June 2010

I Sing You In On This Journey

Last week I unexpectedly gave myself numerous gifts on my birthday. I stimulated the economy of good will, gratitude and joy. The gifting started with my telling everyone it was my day and thanking them for being here on Earth. I didn’t exactly tell everyone, but I did tell most folks I met that day starting with my chiropractic ‘family’ and ending with a shout from my car to a friend in front of Whole Foods who I had lost track of a year prior.

In between these exchanges, I told the woman at Wild Birds Unlimited where I buy bird seed that I appreciated her sharing this journey with me and was especially grateful she cared for our feathered kin. I likewise told the two young women at the cat shop where I make purchases that I appreciated their being part of my bigger community here on Earth at this time and thanked them for the many cats and kittens for which they find homes not to mention having found my dear little Bogeysattvah there the year prior. I felt like an emissary for Mother Earth sharing gratitude with her kin as they care for her children.

I felt pure joy. It was in the midst of this joy that I gave myself another gift. I spontaneously invited my favorite family and a girlfriend over at 8:15 to sing in my birth. The plan had been to enjoy a quiet French meal with Jerry at a local restaurant. Being a Gemini, plans change. The singing idea like a shooting star crossed my mind in the middle of a massage. I came home, made two calls and what unfolded was beautiful. Actually my friends thought they were joining me for cake, but quickly jumped on board when they heard my request of them.

At 8:00 Wednesday evening, seven of us including Ella and Lily, ages 9 and 6, told the real story of my birth how I arrived here on a star and a flying animal from the Harry Potter series. Then at 8:15 the group sang me into being introduced first by Lily’s surprising three second introductory soprano solo of “Aunt Dawn” and Ella’s trumpeting my arrival on a blade of grass. It was like hearing church bells and angels at the same time. My only regret is I didn’t record it so I could replay it before falling asleep at night.

I in turn sang their names to them in gratitude for their joining me on this journey.

After champagne and cake, we called my mother and sang a thank you to her. There were cheers and hoorays of “You did it.” “Way to go.” “You delivered.”

This was especially important to me because earlier that morning she had shared the cliff notes of my birth. I’ve known for a long time that she lost so much blood during the process that not only did she have to have an emergency transfusion from my father but that she really didn’t want to have much to do with me for several days. Heavenly angels, two aunts and a grandmother, Earth angels, loved on me in this time.

In this recent retelling I grasped a new detail as my mother shared how the morning of my birth she knew she was going to have me that day. She said she walked up the street, a slight incline toward her parents home, dressed in her pink maternity blouse and skirt telling neighbors with excitement and anticipation that she was going to the hospital to have “her baby.” I was her first. She had been given no information on childbirth and was totally unprepared for what lay ahead. How many women of her generation lived in a similar vacuum without knowing it?

Twelve hours later, she didn’t want to ever have another baby. I have heard these facts prior. I have imagined her trauma. I have felt sad for me. I have felt sad for her. Yet in this retelling, I heard for the first time my sweet mother’s anticipation and elation along with her innocence turned to deep disappointment and pain.

And though her heart is resilient and she grew to love me dearly and have two other children, our cheering and celebrating her over the airwaves was a healing gift offering my mother a new experience on a personal level.

I also imagined afterwards that it was a gift on a quantum or larger level, a healing of threads in the invisible web connecting people around the world who have experienced such sudden loss of innocence and as a result carry fear, disappointment and a resistance to life.

Now days later, I still the hear the voices of my friends to me and me to them and us in turn to my mother tingling and tickling the web connecting us as its threads vibrate and shine with joy.

And as I sang my friends in to join me, I sing you in on this journey. Hear me singing your name then spinning around or snapping my fingers for good measure because you are needed and wanted here. Mother Earth and her children, the animals, the green and growing things, the blue and flowing waters, the soaring sky need you and so do I. As I shared with so many last week, I thank you for being here on Earth during these times. Thank you for what you do to make Earth a more loving, harmonious place. Thank you for joining me here in Heaven on Earth. Love, Dawn and Mother Earth
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 2 June 2010