Friday, December 21, 2012

Remember Who You Really Are? - Solstice Time

Remember who you really are?
You're a child of the Universe,
You, you're a star.

You're the tree rooted
  yet stretching so tall
You're a divine flower
  opening to all.

Filled with whimsy, play and delight.
We are god seeds.
We are the light.

We're here with a purpose, a plan so divine
Small mind cannot hold it.
See with new eyes.

All that has happened
  is meant to be.
All that has happened,
  now sets us free.

The heartache, the lessons
  help us unfold
The greater story we're living.
It's time to be told.

So look over the years
  in the patterns you'll find.

Clues to your being.
Keys to your life.

We are here open hearts
  in this time so ripe.
Filled with potential in this Solstice Time.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse,  21 Dec. 2012
written 12/2006 



Thursday, December 20, 2012

Imagine the Shift of the Turning Times - Inspired by Ben Franklin, the Pleiades, Liberty Bell and the Constitution



What did our forefathers know that we’ve not been told?

(I’ve postponed sharing this information because I feel inadequate to carry a message involving history.  Now I realize all I am to do is tell what I was shown and the hunches that followed.  You discern if any of the images and messages resonate with you.)

The weekend of this fall’s autumn equinox, I awoke seeing the Pleiades, the star cluster I look forward to in winter’s sky. These seven stars shown so clearly I thought I was outside.  I was elated until I realized I was in bed in the middle of the night.

Then I was shown another scene.  Against a gray background, black silhouettes of telescopes revolved around me. I sensed I was seeing an astronomy tower of old.  Then I was shown the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin came to my mind.

I lay in bed wondering if these things were linked.  I knew nothing about Ben Franklin beyond his experiment with the kite and key.   

The day prior I had just confided in a long distance friend that I’ve never been able to comprehend what I read. Because of this I have felt mentally inferior all my life.  Being able to memorize facts for tests, I did well academically but retained little regarding history.  I now know I learn through experience something for which our education system was not set up. 

This particular morning, I noted what I was shown along with my first impressions then I went to the internet.  In the seconds it took to type a few words and click search, I realized this information somehow fit together but I had no idea what it meant. 

The first reference that got my attention regarded the Liberty Bell.  Called the Independence Bell in Ben Franklin’s day, it was rung when he went to England to express the colonists’ grievances to the King.  This was just one of eight times Franklin crossed the Atlantic in his life long before the speed and ease of today’s travels. 

I was stunned to learn Ben Franklin only went through 2nd grade yet became a printer, scientist, inventor, statesman, politician, author and the country’s first post master.  He started a fire department, organized the first library and became the Minister to France.  He learned five languages and played three musical instruments.  This man called the First American whose many discoveries are integral to our lives today had an immense curiosity and willingness to ask questions. 

I felt a particular affinity for Franklin upon learning he authored “Poor Richard’s Almanac” a precursor to the present “Farmer’s Almanac.” This inexpensive paperback in the last two years has become my gardening Bible with its charts for planting based on planetary and moon influences. 

Most intriguing was information regarding Franklin’s belief in other beings in the stars.    His interest in the Native Americans, as well as legends of the Iroquois confederacy resulted in one of his best-selling pamphlets, the Iroquois creation story of  Sky Woman.  This story describes Sky Woman’s coming to Earth and birthing the human race.  Reading this brought tears to my eyes. 

I thought of the many Atlantic crossings Ben Franklin made and wondered if his openness to Native American belief was somewhat influenced by his own personal encounters with star beings during those eight long crossings?  Was he imbued with heightened creative energy from the stars?  What messages might he have received influencing his discoveries, attitude and knowledge?  

I then read that Franklin developed relationships with the members of the Lunar Society, a small group of men in England who met on the Monday nearest the full moon to discuss new scientific ideas, technology, innovation, metaphysics and philosophy.  These men became the fathers of the Industrial Revolution.

Was it by coincidence, intention or grace that these men met each month on a Monday, the day of the week derived from Moon Day.  They supposedly met near the full moon so it would light their way home.  What inspiration or illumination came from meeting beneath the energy of the moon near its fullest and then walking home by its light? 

I found myself wondering what our forefathers knew that we’ve not been told?

Where did the Pleiades fit into what I was shown?

In May 2011, two long distance friends visiting me shared how some Native Americans thought certain souls came to Earth from this star system. This stirred my interest and I began to look for them in winter’s night sky.  My first personal experience with the Pleiades was in January (2012) after my partner and I held a ritual at one of the starting points of the Trail of Tears. As we returned to our car, I happened to look up and saw the Pleiades overhead.  I sensed we were being quietly watched over from these stars above us. 

The particular morning of my on-line search I found “in the ancient world, in places of great power and influence, monuments were built aligned with the Pleiades. The Washington Monument is aligned with the Pleiades.” 

I found sites suggesting that the whole of Washington D.C. is laid out based on aligning buildings and monuments with certain star systems.  Sites I later came across insisted this held demonic intent. 

What I thought more interesting is that in today’s culture, the word star evokes actors, musicians and athletes not heavenly bodies of light.  Those interested in the heavens stars tend to fall into groups: Scientists and investors seeking to exploit bodies in space for minerals necessary for our technological devices, those looking to the star’s for Earth’s salvation, those looking to the heavens for religious salvation and those who are simply curious as to the night sky.  Many I fear live ignorant of the stars as I have until recently.

I concluded my morning’s search, my mind a tangle of information and feeling a mix of pressure around wanting to get whatever the message was ‘just right’ and curious as to these things shown to me.

The next morning I was given more of the story.  I saw what looked like a photo of a doorway, specifically the floor at the threshold. This was followed by a slowly spinning mandala of five-pointed stars outlined in black. One star was in the center and each point was connected to the point of another star.  The turning image looked like something from the Southwestern Hopi.

I watched and knew I was being shown that the turning stars offer a threshold for our entering a new space and time.   

The next morning, I sat on the sofa wrapped in a fog, coffee in hand, watching sunlight climb the trees. The Liberty Bell was on my mind.  Something felt missing regarding this piece of what I had been shown.   

Not being one to read the news, I picked up the weekend’s paper to distract myself or so I thought.  As I opened the local section, my breath was taken.  On page two was a small photo of a bell, a replica of the Liberty Bell being rung at a local celebration of Constitution Week.  The week prior had been the 225th anniversary of the adoption of the US Constitution.    

Before work, I delved into sites regarding the constitution and became even more mentally laden with information.  Each day that week I read about the Constitution yet nothing I read felt intuitively right in relation to what I had been shown.

Days later as Jerry walked through the room I asked, “Does the Liberty Bell mean anything to you?”

He only responded, “What does a bell do?”

In that moment I knew.  A bell sounds a tone and in a tone I also saw at one. The first thing I had read was of the bell’s being rung when Ben Franklin went to England representing the colonies.  Were the people “at one” then or more so than we seem today?  The bell did crack after all.  Was this symbolic of the challenge even then of being unified while maintaining and honoring individual differences?

I wondered, ‘If a bell makes a tone, can one be constructed to make specific tones?’ (I had totally forgotten of hearing church hand bell groups long ago.) 

I searched on-line and learned the Liberty Bell made in London was made to sound E flat.  I wondered if E flat in particular evoked a particular feeling or mood.  I searched E flat and found it is often associated with bold, heroic music.   

In one week, I had visions and intuitions regarding the Pleiades and astronomers of old, the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin, a threshold and the turning stars, Constitution Week and a heroic tone. What did I make of this?

It is heroic the founding fathers convened to discuss, debate and ultimately craft a document that held a vision for America and that families set out for the unknown by crossing the watery threshold of the Atlantic with the starry night sky for navigation.

Those before us won independence from England and became the builders of the outer structures in which our leaders convene. They crafted the political structure under which we’re governed and about which there’s such division today.

It is equally heroic that we as Souls have gathered at this time.  Like those before us, we too stand at a threshold to the unknown with assistance from the stars.  We have the opportunity to build a new structure born in independence yet requiring something possibly more evolved than independence. 

These times call for a new heroism founded in the curiosity of Ben Franklin and the willingness to ask questions without knowing the answers. Who among us is willing to be that curious, to suspend what we cling to and the beliefs we adhere to and dig deeper to ask more and better questions?

These times call for a heroism that doesn’t reactively vilify those who look or believe contrary to us.  We may celebrate Constitution Week, yet reacting in fear, judgment and anger suggests our constitution’s weak, our personal inner constitution.  These times call for an inner structure of courage, compassion and awareness. 

The tone that sounds today isn’t that of a bell but the greater conversation.  We each have the opportunity to consciously set our individual tone which impacts the greater tone.   

The Founding Fathers gained independence and created literal and political structures.  We’ve the opportunity to more fully realize our interdependence and support a new relational structure, one that joins the inner with the outer and realizes our interconnectedness with one another, Nature and all of Earth. 

Just as the stars were with our founders, they are with us assisting in the opportunity to use free will in relation to our hearts, minds and voices as we stand at a threshold to a new paradigm. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 20 December 2012

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Big Hearts - Sherpas Showing Up for Pain

Sherpa - a member of the Tibetan people living on the high southern slopes of the Himalayas in eastern Nepal and known for providing support for foreign trekkers and mountain climbers. (from Merriam-Webster on-line) 

Sonnenschein - German for sunshine.  (Reverso on-line dictionary)

(This 2009 Musing came to mind this morning.  As I sat down to repost it, I happened to look up Sonnenschein and discover it's German for sunshine.) 

2009- For over a year, I’ve pondered the concept of playing with pain and how to honor and feel the sorrows that flow through me and my life in a way that’s light and less heavy while not diminishing what I’m feeling.
 
As a therapist who encourages clients to create community with whom to share, my ponderings haven’t taken me past the pages of my journal. My internal community has been stumped regarding the possibility of playing with pain until recently.
 
During an impromptu road trip, I heard myself confiding the idea with a friend. Although this was a trusted friend, my sudden sharing wasn’t planned. I’m uncertain now what even caused me to blurt out my closely held thoughts and feelings other than we both have been navigating layers of loss, past and present. My friend affirmed the topic merited further thought as we pulled into Hohenwald, TN to partake of the Sonnenschein Festival, a yearly event promoting environmental consciousness and other local causes like the nearby Elephant Sanctuary and Summertown's Farm.

The first thing that caught my attention wasn’t an elephant or the environment, but a local tv station’s mascot. Snowbird, looking a bit alien in the near 100 degree weather, roamed the crowd. We quickly took advantage of this photo op.
 
This was one of many laughs that day, yet the one I remember most occurred at a table where three men sat, promoting learning opportunities with Gaia University. One of the men began to explain the process he uses to help people unload emotions. My friend and I, both therapists, jokingly said we thought there was a potential business in what he described. We created an imaginal business card that read: 

 “Got Baggage? We’ll Carry It. Emotional Sherpas for hire.”
 
Later I realized the profundity of that unexpected interaction.  Pain is lessened as we’re emotional sherpas for one another, not co-dependently thinking we must fix the other, but through showing up and listening, practicing presence as we trek through life together.  

Why is it so hard to call someone and say, “I’m in pain.” I'm an adventurer in travel but this level of sharing involves being vulnerable in a way I'm unaccustomed.  This involved being willing to traverse the space between me and another human being. I was afraid.   

Most of us hold pain closely, so closely it gets left in the dark of our insides never exposed to Sun's light or the heart's light. How beautiful this simple yet profound interaction occurred at a festival named for Sunshine? 
 
Thanks to my friend who sincerely held my idea and feelings as I took a risk, a bridge was created without and within, between her and me and inside me as we trekked between pain and play for the rest of the day.  
Imagine the shift if we became aware of the opportunities that surround us to be sherpas for one another. Imagine the shift if we took the risk to show up, practice presence and share our insides. 

December 18, 2012 - And then there are times when we as a collective are invited to show up and practice presence because an event is forced upon us so to speak.  This happened on 9/11 and has occurred again in light of the loss in Newtown.  After last week's shooting, I am even more convinced of the necessity of our being sherpas for one another and our human kin.  This event offers a stunning, beautiful opportunity for those of us of great heart to hold the sorrow and pain of the many affected.  May all of us of Big Heart consciously allow sorrow to flow through us, our personal sorrow as well as the sorrow of others.  

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 28 June 2009 and 18 Dec. 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

Rainbow People, Rainbow Bug - Here to Help in the Turning to Love

I awoke last week with this bug on my mind.  I photographed it on a sunflower in my yard in the summer of 2010.

Last week on two consecutive days in two different places I heard Pandora's box referenced. I was vaguely familiar with the story of someone named Pandora, a woman of course, being responsible for opening this box and when she did the ills of the world came flying out.  Eve tried the apple. Pandora lifted the lid.

I had never heard the final part of the story, the part related to the bug.  On both days, persons referenced Pandora opening the box (or jar) one more time.  And when she did a tiny bug flew out, a tiny bug that introduced itself as Hope.

Hope then flew into the world.

This morning I awoke early again with the bug from the sunflower and these thoughts going through my mind:  The bug symbolizes so many of us.  We are the Rainbow people. We often think ourselves  small but we are not.  We are Hope.  We come from the Sun and are of the Sun, the Sun of Love and Light. 

We are here for this time to help with the Great Turning to Love.

P.S.  Here's the 2010 story inspired by the rainbow bug.  A Bug & A Beach Chair-A Return to Wonder

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 Dec. 2012

We Are So Loved

Last week at midnight as my time zone entered 12-12-12, I lay on the small spot of grass in my backyard in Nashville under the winter field of stars.  And as I did I felt the stars lovingly lift Earth, drawing her and us into their arms.

We are so loved. 
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 Dec. 2012

Friday, December 14, 2012

Baguettes, Babies & Bread Pudding - Holding Love

(Have been thinking about the beauty of this experience and wanted to recycle it. -Enjoy, Dawn)
This morning I sensed babies as I stood in Provence Bakery with five baguettes cradled in my arms.

These locally made loaves of bread were headed to my kitchen to be cubed and soaked all day in a rich concoction that would eventually be baked to become bread pudding to be shared with others.

Yet in that moment, bread in my arms, I felt kin to the world's mothers, all women and men who hold and have held babies in the bend of their arms.

How is it that we get so far away from our first story of Love? How do we get separated from that first sense memory of being held in loving arms?

Our bodies remember what our minds forget. And this morning standing in the bakery, my body remembered the sense of shared love!

Awakened by my senses, I knew and felt love that in turn was energetically transmitted to those loaves of bread the way parents share love with held babies. That vibration of my love will go out into the world through bread pudding, my gift of food.

I imagine bread pudding, as well as this story, awakening a loving sense memory in all who partake of them.

Bread and story filled (field) of love feed us, allowing our bodies to remember what our hearts and the child once felt.

Remember.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse 15 December 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com
Coming later, a video inspired by Butterscotch Habanero Bread Pudding.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

The Grammy's & The Golden Ratio - Beauty on Broadway in Nashville Last Night

Just in case you haven't heard, Wednesday night in Nashville acts spanning the musical genres performed in the "Grammy Nominations Live Concert."  This marked the first time the event's been held outside LA. The Tennessean's photo this morning of hosts Taylor Swift and LL Cook J rapping one of Swift's songs made me smile.  (The news doesn't often make me smile.)

Meanwhile also occurring last night a couple of miles west on Broadway, the Parthenon was packed for another event - The Golden Ratio art performances by VSA students that were the result of Hendersonville high school Christian Kissinger's senior research project.  Kissinger's project this fall collaboratively brought together college students, VSA students locally and from east and west TN and long-distance in Athens, Greece!

VSA is an international non-profit creating opportunities for people with disabilities to learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts. VSA TN started in 2002. (I knew none of this until last night.  I just happened to see an internet announcement about the program and was curious. My curiosity was truly peaked while sitting at home thirty minutes before the program I came across a random sheet of paper a year old on which I had written: What is the golden ratio really?  I grabbed my keys and dashed out the door.)

The hour long program covered "The Golden Ratio" in relation to the arts - music, dance, poetry and mask-making.  With the assistance of MTSU students, VSA participants performed at Athena's feet.  (In case you didn't know it, Nashville has the only replica of the Greek Parthenon in the world. Our Parthenon is home to an art museum as well as a replica of Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom.)
 

This was an exceptional site as six teens and young adults with Down's Syndrome performed a dance with a teacher from Vanderbilt's Dayani Center.  Special needs students from Overton High School drummed and used shakers and electric xylophones to make music.  Two profound poems were read accompanied by students signing from Nashville's School for the Blind. And the hour was capped off by the presentation of masks made by VSA students in East and West TN along with a mask made by VSA students in Athen's Greece.  Just imagine disabled students unaccustomed to being included making music, dancing and sharing poetry and art all under Athena's wise eyes.

Encaustic Minotaur Mask, VSA Athens
I have so much to learn about the Golden Ratio or Phi as it's also called.  It is appears in the proportions of the human body, animals, in plants, in DNA, in solar system, in art and architecture, in music, etc.  One of the poems referenced the phi's role in beauty. I'm far from understanding the mathematics of phi but I totally get it at another level, a deeper heart, soul and body level.  I totally get its beauty.

Nashville Wednesday night evidenced beauty not bought in a store, as the Grammy's and the Golden Ratio brought together genres, groups and most importantly people of different walks through creativity. As well-known musicians collaborated and fans celebrated award nominations,  down Broadway students from all levels of education as well as disabled and able-bodied were sharing their creations along with a creation from Greece. Gathered along Broadway we were bearing witness to collaborative creativity and the beautiful knowledge that we are more alike than different. 

The arts create bridges crossing what seems like great cultural divides like nothing else can.

Thank you Nashville, Christian, the Muse and musicians, Athena and those wanting to learn all around the world.  You are part of making this an amazing time in which to be alive!

This is truly Good News!
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 6 December 2012

* VSA is an international non-profit founded in 1974 by Jean Kennedy Smith to create opportunities for people with disabilities to learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts. VSA Tennessee was started in September of 2002 and is made possible in part through funding from VSA arts, under an award from the U.S. Department of Education, and generous contributions from our sponsors and volunteers.

Of Guys, Guns and Gas

(Renewed gun legislation talk on Nashville’s Capitol Hill reminded me of the piece below initially written in 2010.  This morning I discovered I never posted it.  So here’s an updated Musing from the comic in my shadow as to something deep that some will find extremely threatening and others will judge as shallow.)


Either I’m just awaking or I haven’t kept up with the news, but many Americans seem to have become obsessed.  Many corporations, lobbyists and politicians fearing loss of power have found a way to make millions and maintain power while stirring our fear of one another as many have become gun obsessed.

As of the November 2012 election, seventeen states now have constitutional amendments regarding the right to hunt.  In 2010 Tennessee joined this group.  Ironically the right to hunt wasn’t actually threatened but the pro-gun campaign was so slick and good that some of my non-hunting, non-packing friends voted “Yes” to the amendment because they thought hunters were about to loose their right to hunt.  

Now the 'battle' as it's called is over whether business and property owners should be allowed to ban employees and the public from bringing guns stowed in locked vehicles onto their properties.

Amidst all this talk of guns, I was reminded of a gun reference from my childhood.  Often when a male member in the family had gas, the phrase was used, “He shot his gun.” I don’t recall that phrase being associated with the females, but of course being a female I may have blocked that out.  And I don’t know the origin of this phrase just that it was periodically used.

This prompted me to wonder if somewhere around adolescence this shooting of the bodily gun gets shut down and traded for a need by many men to shoot a literal gun.

Think about it.  Some folks laugh when a two or three year old 'shoots his gun.'  It's less socially acceptable at least outside the home when these noises come from an adolescent. 

Thus I'm proposing one root of the gun issue is connected to a man having to disown his insides and in turn stifle his bodily experience resulting in the disconnection from his body and a sense of true potency.

Think about it.  Food goes in and gas comes out.  Fear goes in and the guns are brought out.  Guns are brought out because men, the traditional protectors of family, feel unsafe and vulnerable.  Unfortunately still in our society, a man’s labeled feminine when he owns his vulnerability and wants to talk things out.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not anti-guns or anti-hunting.  My intent is not to oversimplify things or make light of serious matters.

I’m concerned about the twisting of truth, epidemic these days as powerful corporations and their lobbying arms try to turn descent gun-carrying, meat-eating folks against descent animal-loving, vegetarian folks.     

Lobbyists and politicians who benefit from this manipulation measure their potency in terms of the billions of dollars they reap by stirring fear.  They’re strategically using these times to their benefit while trying to convince the common man that it’s for his benefit.   It appears they’ve done a good job especially in this time when the American citizenry is blending as never before and white folks especially white men are declining dramatically in proportion to the population. 

Everyone wants to feel safe.  Most folks want to feel potent or good at something from one's contributions at work or caring for one's family.  Many have been convinced they're not safe and that potency lies in guns rather than stepping outside one's stereotypes and comfort zones and getting to know strangers.  

Real potency starts with owning one’s insides.  Until the internal stuff of our insides is as valued as the external of our appearances and looks, we are vulnerable. We will be easily manipulated and made to feel fear until we connect our thoughts, feelings and actions. 

The greater vehicle for increased safety isn't found in a gun.  Increased safety is found in connected body, mind and heart which in turn is willing to relate not retaliate and respond rather than react.

Even though it would increase harmful greenhouse gases, maybe if men (and women) needing to prove their manhood with guns returned to regularly shooting their bodily guns we’d have less violence in the world.  "Shooting ones gun” freely and loudly might be the best start at real self-defense. 
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 6 December 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Bill Murray and Magic in the World's Will Call

Back Story: The "New York Times" December 2nd interview with Bill Murray referred to Mr. Murray as the "folkloric equivalent of a leprechaun or fairy godparent."  The interview prompted me to dig around in my blog for one of the Musings Mr. Murray inspired in 1996. First posted last year, I reread it this morning and was once again stirred.  How are you stirred? 

"We are at this time in history standing in the Will Call of the World."  

When was the last time you felt stirred?

Fifteen years ago today my personally being stirred had landed me in Chicago alongside my partner and three young nephews. Actually the five of us didn't land we had driven to Chicago under the guise of going to museums. Our real intent was about to be made known at high noon.

Christian, Matthew & Kirk before they knew we were going to the game.
At Noon (moments from now as I write) we were at the United Center for a Chicago Bulls game with the Orlando Magic. This was in the height of Michael Jordan's career during a time in which Chicago had a waiting list for those wanting the option to buy season tickets. Three months prior, I had gone on a ticket finding mission and was ultimately promised tickets through a player's grandmother. When I doubted the goodness of this gift she repeatedly reminded me "Ask and you shall receive" and "Honey, you just have to have faith and trust." That faith and trust took us on a ten hour road trip with three little boys none of whom knew the real motive for the trip to our destination.

I was hungry, hungry to create a fond memory for my nephews as they lived through their parents painful divorce. I was hungry because I had allowed my heart to be open and stirred.

Joseph Campbell in outlining the hero's journey talks about how the hero in every story receives an initial Call, a call to step beyond one's comfort zone or cocoon.  I stood waiting for our tickets (my nephews thought we were getting souvenirs) in the Will Call area of the United Center when I heard my name called. The hurried crowd parted as an official came toward me. Assuming I was a con artist, he told me to take my children and leave. There were no tickets for us. I calmly asked him to tell the player that his grandmother said she would be sure the tickets were there.

Tears rolled down my face as my nephews excitedly quizzed me: Do we have tickets for the game? Are we going to the game?

At that moment unbeknownst to me there was another open heart, a heart willing to be stirred in the United Center's Will Call area. Suddenly through my tears I saw a ticket extended toward me.  It's owner had a voice I immediately recognized, a voice that said, "I'm so sorry. I only have one ticket left but I want you to have it. You have to stop crying before you make me cry."

Bill Murray hugged me and fled. There's much more to this story. Suffice it to say, the grandmother, our original angel in disguise, was right.  

What matters most fifteen years later for me is my remembering that heart, my heart that was originally stirred in the midst of such pain.  I want to glimpse, remember, embrace and return to her.

How open is your heart? How hungry are you to be engaged, really engaged in the messy, deep, rich, beautiful, painful journey of this thing life?  How do you experience being stirred? I"m not referring to the stirring that goes on politically these days as corporations and politicians try to stir our fear of one another and co-opt our hearts.  When was the last time you allowed your heart to be opened to be stirred by compassion to anothers need?

We are at this time in history standing in the Will Call of the World.

The Heart is calling, calling to to be remembered through you, through me. How will we answer?

Imagine that Shift.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 25 Feb. 2011
and 4 December 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Friday, November 30, 2012

Rhythm & Pattern Flows Through our Veins

( I wrote this a few weeks ago and have been mindful of it this week as I've noticed specific birds arrive in my yard for winter and then feed at the same time each day.. Similarly in the Universe we just experienced a lunar eclipse thanks to Earth's being suspended right in the middle of the sun and moon. From the small to the unimaginably large, both birds and these universal bodies remind me of the deep, beautiful ongoing rhythm and pattern outside and beyond clock time.) 

Rhythm and pattern of Nature's kind
Meant to illuminate heart and mind.

Yet in our world artificial abounds
As clocks and calendars shout time all around.

While outside these walls in the green and the gold
another story unfolds, another story is told.

Of rising and living by shoot and by sun
Revealing through Nature, undivided the One.

Not subordinate, nor over
  but with, hand-in-hand
  heart-in-heart,
  minds together
Human and land.

This rhythm, this pattern that flows through our veins
Brings awareness, abundance so peace might reign.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 30 November 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Words + Action + Heart = Magic

Let your words like sparklers shine light and glow. 
Let them bring life, so love may grow.

Let your actions lift up all those around.
Those near and far feeling blue, feeling down.

Let your heart's door open with genuine care
For yourself and for others you find waiting there.

For this is the magic, we're here to live.
This is the magic, we're here to give.
To lift up the planet so all can sing 
So through the Universe Love's freedom will ring. 

Imagine your words lighting the dark of another's night.
Imagine your actions lifting others. 
Keep your heart's door graciously open to yourself and to others. 
Do this and a Magic will begin resonating within you, between you and others and around our vast Universe. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  14 Nov. 2012

Monday, November 19, 2012

Lions of Light - A Vision from Last Night

Last night I saw lions of light.  As I lay in bed, I was suddenly in the Universe.  In the stars appeared the face of a lion. Its mane and features were outlined in faint white lines of energy's light.  Then to the right of the male appeared a female lioness, her face was similarly outlined in what I knew was energy's white light.

Two lions male and female symbols of courage, strength, loyalty and honor showed themselves in the stars. And I knew I was being shown the presence of the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine arriving in this time.

Never before have we had this degree of opportunity for both masculine and feminine energies to be present on Earth in partnership, strength, vulnerability and balance within each of us and between each of us.

These lions and lines of light are making themselves available to us to awaken the lines of light of which we're made so we may carry the energy of the lions and their courage, love and strength.

Imagine the Shift this brings.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 19 November 2012



Thursday, November 15, 2012

Green Life Ignites Life



I spent much of a recent Fall weekend with an angsty feeling inside.  The plan was to freeze and dry herbs something I had been reading about on-line.  This was the plan yet my inner gears resisted as an unidentified sensation churned within me.  

I stood at the kitchen counter eating leaves of parsley and basil, sprigs of rosemary and ripe cherry tomato orbs.  A month ago this would have brought me great pleasure yet this particular day I just wanted to cry.  Suddenly I got it and I wasn’t even trying to figure ‘it’ out. 

A thought went through my mind: ‘This is good-bye.’
 
In that kitchen moment, I suddenly realized I can dry, freeze and package my herbs, can tomatoes and keep the green ones in the dark so they ripen later yet in that moment I knew through all this doing I was only prolonging the inevitable.  

I was in the midst of an ending. I know, I know it also marks a beginning but it is an ending all the same.  I must let go.  And to fully let go I stand in two worlds in the present.  I open, embrace and lean into the unknown of what is unfolding while honoring, loving and appreciating what has been --- summer’s gifts of herbs, spiders, tomatoes, butterflies, bats, bugs and hummingbirds. It’s similar in Life’s Kitchen, this continually being in a place of stepping into the next moment while leaving the prior moment all in the moment. 

I pulled myself away from the kitchen counter and with a hot cup of tea sat outside in the chill surrounded by changing leaves.  As I did this, from my being arose the remembrance of joy, the joy I’ve come to feel when holding and tending the dead animals that find their way to me.  

Suddenly I realized this same joy is meant for saying thank you and good-by to the garden plants and herbs. What a shift I experienced remembering the gift that comes with honoring and feeling the joy of engaging with the green world. If moments prior I had resisted listening within I could have easily gotten stuck in an unnamed experience, disconnected from myself  and become grumpy for the day. What I was initially labeling angst and unease would have kept me from an epiphany.  

Tea finished I went to my little raised beds and began to gratefully clip tomato vines and place them in the composter. This endeavor associated with dying was imbued with living. My energy shifted and my mood lifted as I loved green and growing things. 

Those vines, considered dead to some, now lie alive with Love’s energy preparing for the coming Spring and I am at peace. I am at peace knowing their composted green bodies hold Light that will again ignite Life. 

I am at peace as Winter begins for the process of loving green life ignites Life’s Light in me.  

-Dawn the Good News Muse, 14 Nov. 2012

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Partners for the Patriarchy - Keeping Watch in New Times

After Tuesday's election I decided I, the non-tv watcher, need to watch more tv, specifically FOX so I can understand what is driving the anger, fear and hate of so many good people today.  As I've now listened to Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller and have seen what the Koch Brothers actually look like a vision I had this time last year has been on my mind.  It was the second in a series of three visions all at October's end. The first vision involved being in the Universe and seeing a heart made out of stars in the American flag where the fifty states are found.  This is what followed two days later. 

*****
Two days after seeing the heart and flag of stars, I found myself in the Universe again.  Usually I float along in awe of all the stars but this time I realized something was different. The stars were minimal.  In the distance was a man’s face made of lines of light, a man appearing pained and frightened. 

As I moved toward the face, I realized this man had the saddest, most terrified expression I had ever seen. The only thing close to this was my father's face once in a dream and then in real life as he sat in bed looking at me in his last weeks on Earth. 

In the vision, I gradually moved nearer the face.  As I did I began to gently float  into middle of the stars making up this pained man's face.  As I did, the face slowly fell apart and disintegrated.  I found myself in a Universe absolutely filled with stars.  

I knew I had seen the diminishing, pained and frightened patriarchy, the system that for centuries has been in control.  The man represented not just men, but the part of us all that is frightened of losing control, afraid to really sit still, be vulnerable and exposed.  I also knew I had seen the unspoken sadness and terror of the patriarchy that’s filled with grief and regret for what’s been done to Earth and others directly and indirectly in the name of competition, control and conquest.  (It's hard if not next to impossible to express grief and regret when one can't be vulnerable and has lived life impermeable. I know. Although I am someone of great heart, I know.  The one thing I didn't do with my father in his dying was open myself to express my regret and grief because I was unwilling to be vulnerable.)

Two days later I found myself in the Universe again.  In the four years I’ve experienced traveling like this, never had three experiences been so close together. 

This time I traveled rapidly unlike anything prior.  I zoomed through space and as I did I saw the faces of many, many animals. Their eyes and faces made of energy often come to me as I float among the stars but never this many or this quickly.  I wondered if I was speeding to the edge of space or returning from the beginning of time. The last face I saw I recognized.  A fox came and stayed with me as the vision ended. 

I went straight to my copy of “Animal Speaks” and read about fox.   Immediately I knew why fox had stayed. Ted Andrews writes that there are 21 different kinds of foxes found throughout the world and that the “Card 21 in the tarot deck is The World, a card reflecting a new world opening up, that the process of creation is beginning. It reflects that the world is growing into new patterns that will be beneficial.” 

This fit perfectly with the first vision days earlier in which I saw the energy of creation being pulsed to us through the stars and the grid laid for the new consciousness of love.  This world of new patterns speaks to a model of relationship based in cooperation, community and compassion for all arriving as the patriarchy is dying. 
The Dying Patriarchy
The face of the dying patriarchy had immediately reminded me of a presentation I heard at Belmont in the Fall. The title “Death Watches: Keeping Company with Men Waiting to Die” intrigued me. I sensed I was to hear this talk yet had a scheduling conflict. Just prior to the presentation, a client who had never cancelled called with an emergency.  This wasn’t an accident. 

I rushed to Belmont and found a seat just as Tucson writer Nancy Mairs accompanied by her husband George was invited to speak on their work with men on death row. 

What? I had come to hear a talk on how we keep company with the dying patriarchy. I thought the title was a metaphor since the talk was presented in the business school.  This wasn’t what I expected yet I knew I was to be there.  

The speaker shared of corresponding and spending time with Eric, one of several men she had come to know on death row. 

She and her husband are a powerful testimony to profound forgiveness and compassion. Despite having lost a foster son to murder, they do not support the death penalty. In Mrs. Mairs words, “Somebody’s dead. Why would I want anyone else dead?” 

She told of the heartlessness of the system and the disregard she experienced looking into the flat gaze of men on a clemency board as she spoke on behalf of a man sentenced to die. She referenced the childhood traumas of the men she had known including the absence of nourishing touch in their young lives. 

I found myself thinking about the patriarchy, the hierarchical system of separation and control that has contributed to the neglect, abuse and sense of powerlessness creating the pipeline funneling so many into our prisons and death row. I found myself thinking of those who profit financially through the stock market from these prisons. 

So many of our systems are broken because the patriarchy is broken and cannot admit vulnerability and shame. When vulnerability cannot be admitted or shown, it’s nearly impossible to touch and be touched.  Like so many on death rows and in our prisons, the patriarchy has been deprived of nourishing touch. 
There is grace and beauty in this time of such brokenness as we hold the fertile soil for new patterns represented by the fox and the flag of love in my visions. 

I found myself wondering if a new world of patterns of compassion and relatedness are being ushered in, what does a death watch or keeping company with the patriarchy as it dies look like? 

In one of his correspondences Eric wrote, “I need a hug.” 

I suggest as part of the new pattern the dying patriarchy needs a hug, not a hug affirming the wrong that has been done, but energy extended in compassion that says we see your fear, your isolation and sadness and we will not retaliate or shame you. 

Although I like to envision the greedy, controlling powers of today asking forgiveness, I realize the patriarchy does not have to ask forgiveness for me to extend forgiveness. Extending forgiveness as the Mairs do is part of the new pattern. 

Another aspect of the new pattern is honoring the gifts of the patriarchy. In the first vision I saw an American flag in the Universe. If not for the patriarchy, I would not have seen a flag nor be in America right now.  I am not condoning what happened to the Native Americans or slaves, nor any of the pain at the hands of the patriarchy, but the patriarchy got us here. Hosts of souls from times past have brought us to this amazing place in time.   

I am grateful to the Eric’s of the world who have given their lives as souls caught up in our broken systems. I feel gratitude for Eric’s ancestors taken from their home generations ago and brought to a new land. I thank them and ask for their forgiveness. 

And I feel gratitude for the patriarchy for participating in this great drama unfolding on Earth and in the Universe.  I am grateful to the systems that have gotten us to this place and I ask forgiveness for standing on the sidelines so often in judgment and criticism. 

The greatest challenge of this New Time may be forgiving and loving the patriarchy, hearing it through what’s not being said and providing nourishing touch rather than retaliating or withholding presence.  If this system of control and conquering is honored, it will be laid to rest in love and less likely re-emerge on a planetary scale in times to come. 
About the Animals
For two months I’ve puzzled over why the many animals showed themselves to me that night.  Previously if I saw a specific animal in a vision, I would often have an earthly encounter with that animal shortly afterward or hear of a related discovery in the news. 

I’ve remained puzzled as to why they showed up one after the other that night until preparing this post when I realized it's through the animals I’ve been shown my own pattern and thus freed to experience a new pattern.  
I have heaped criticism upon the patriarchy for its mistreatment of nature and the animals.  I judge the patriarchy for being hard hearted yet the animals have shown me my own hardened heart.  

Over the last three years the animals have been showing me my pattern of closing my heart (with frightening ease) and turning away or disconnecting in despair when pained.   

I recall the first dead birds that I came upon and the rigidity of my hands and arms as I tried to hold them. I knew I was to hold and honor them but I could not feel anything.   The animals kept arriving until finally tears came.  My heart finally broke and then I felt anger that was more kin to rage as hostile thoughts tiptoed around the edges of my mind. I would read news stories and wish I could inflict pain on those who abuse, torture and misuse animals of all kinds.  

The animals kept coming and I finally realized the honor I was being given. Whether standing on the roadside or in my yard, I am being given the privilege of bearing witness to an animal’s living and dying. I’m gifted with a time to share gratitude for that animals presence here on Earth and ask that they and their soul group feel healing as their spirit returns to the universe.  I am being gifted with an opportunity to not just love that animal but open my heart in love to the part of the patriarchy and all who kill and wound animals out of their own woundedness and closed, hurt hearts.

The animals have shown me my pattern of closing my heart due to sorrow, pain, despair and hate.  Yet through their death they have shown me a richer pattern, the experience of feeling gratitude, joy and love for life here on Earth. The animals willingly come to Earth to participate in our lives, yet they are quiet participants, not hoarding, killing or arming themselves.  They do not seek revenge but offer themselves to us so we might come to more fully be all we are created to be.  

In this new time may we realize our partners in the heavens and here on earth and bring forth the highest and best of who we are through the love and wisdom in our hearts and minds.  (And in this new time may I see and hear all the ways that even the men and women on FOX news are my partners in this new Time!) 

Sincerely, 
Dawn Kirk
The Good News Muse, (8 November 2012 and 31 December 2011)

Thursday, November 1, 2012

One

Golden leaves and golden Sun
May I with you become One. 

 -Dawn, The Good News Muse 1 November 2012

Feed Your Dream, Fire


Feed your dream, Fire.
Yes, your dream.

Your glowing embers have awaited this time.
Your glowing embers remind me of mine.

I offer my heart. 
There's a world we can feed.

A world longing to remember how to dream, how to be.  

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 1 Novembere 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Nature Uniting US, Elections Dividing US

(Originally posted two years ago yesterday, I came across this piece written days before the Nov. 2010 election as Middle Tennessee was recovering still from the May Day flood.  Now days prior to another election those in the Northeast begin to pick up the pieces of their lives.  How is it we allow crisis to connect us and elections to divide us?  Who really wins?)
October 30, 2010

The six month anniversary of the May flood nears as we find ourselves on the cusp of an election. I’ve been pondering these two events, one of nature, one of humankind. 

Not so long ago, one brought us together uniting us, offering an opportunity to bridge political, religious, racial and economic divides while one more recently intentionally separates us by playing on these divides.
In both, images were and are used to motivate us. During the time of the flood and immediately afterward, images prompted us to reach out and show compassion. Good will flowed as strangers helped one another.

The beneficiaries were individuals, families, communities and ultimately the human heart as we were Tennesseans at our best, baptized into a greater understanding of people around the world who have lived through natural disasters.

More recently in the weeks leading up to the election, commercial images have been used to serve up attacks, perpetuate untruths and stir mistrust in an attempt to manipulate and separate us, to get us to forget the lessons learned and experiences shared during the flood. Money flows while business and political bedfellows help one another buy America. The beneficiaries are special interest and lobbying groups and many corporations.

I’ve never really cared for the phrase ‘acts of God’ used in insurance policies referencing acts of nature such as the flood. I don’t believe in a God that ‘acts’ in this way. Yet I am mindful there is a grace to these events for they shake us and for a time awaken us empathically and remind us of what’s really important.

Crises remind us on a deep level that we are more alike than different whereas our present election system thrives on getting us to forget these differences.

Regardless of who wins Tuesday, we each have the privilege of deciding how we hold the lessons from the flood. In the privacy of our insides, we each get to decide what governs the territory of our individual heart and mind. We can choose to remember or forget the connections made and lessons learned in May.

Regardless of who wins Tuesday, we each get to decide whether to live from a place of greater awareness and love or to live in reactivity and fear.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 30 Oct. 2010 and again 31 Oct. 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com