Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Earth is Magic - The Gospel According to Lily & Me

One afternoon recently 8 year old Lily came home with me. Actually Lily would say she's 8 1/2 since she asked if I knew the following day was her eight and a half birthday. 

As we got out of the car, I noticed something on the dash.  Upon taking a closer look, I saw it was a bee, a honeybee.  I held the bee in my palm and asked Lily if she would join me in honoring it. 

As the two of us stood in my backyard at Templeton's grave, I told the bee we loved it and thanked it for coming to Earth.  I then asked the other bee souls to come from the stars and take this bee's spirit home with them so it could rejoin its tribe.  I asked the bees to continue joining us here on Earth. 

We then placed the bee's body under a leaf at Templeton's headstone. Lily asked what would happen to the body and I replied it would return to the Earth. 

I didn't do this ritual with Lily because she is a child.  This is what I do with every living creature when I come upon an animal or bug that has died whether it's in my yard or along a neighboring street.  I wished I had told this dear child though the full story of why I honor the animals this way.  I sense and believe the bee or any animal held in love will take into the Earth the vibration of love and appreciation felt toward it. And I believe its spirit takes the same vibration into the stars.

Later that night I regretted not asking Lily if there was anything she wanted to say to the bee.  My forgetting to do so I suspect was triggered by her initial concern as to the bee stinging her as well as my not knowing what she might think of  'Aunt Dawn's' ritual. Would she think it odd or strange?

The next day while rummaging through a summer journal I came upon a drawing Lily gifted me as I hurriedly rushed out the door of her family's home to get to an event. 

When she first gave me this gift, I was quietly stunned by all the gray hair not to mention my stern expression.  I quietly wondered, "Is my hair really that gray or did she just not have a brown crayon to add a few strands here and there?' 

My concern was short lived after seeing the phrase written on my blue and green shirt. 


"The Earth is Magic."
 
Lily knows. The Earth is magic. We are magic.  Life on Earth is meant to be magical. The honoring of the bee and asking its star kin to help it find its way home is part of that magic. We know this truth when we're young even if it's for an oh-so brief time.  Some people especially artistic souls hold this truth into adulthood and never let it go.  Others like myself come back around to it later in life.  Unfortunately many forget and only glimpse magic while watching a movie.  Many I fear never remember what they came to Earth knowing.  

I wonder at times if some entity or person(s) controlling the world want us to forget what we know? Of course if this is true I suspect they've forgotten what they once knew.  

Fortunately as long as there is Nature and children, poets, artists and folks filled with wonder there's an opportunity to remember the Magic. 

Imagine the shift of remembering. 

We and Earth are magic.  
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 23 September 2012

Leaf Love

As Fall arrives and Sun's angle shifts, shadows of leaf love fell on my journal one recent morning as I sat outside. 

For a year I've photographed patterns made by shadows not knowing why, just knowing the dance between light and objects has captured me.  I've longed for others to be likewise captured.

This particular morning as I pondered the interplay on the page, "We may never pass this way again" sang through my mind.  In that moment I got it. We will never pass this way again.

I don't know if I was internally AWOL in science class or if this information just wasn't taught well but it's only been in the past year or so that I've gotten the continual movement in which earth, sun and moon are engaged.  Through experiencing Science class in my yard, I have sat mesmerized by Sun's always shifting arch as it interacts with the growing, dying plants and trees around me.

We will never pass this way again nor will this moment come 'round. 

In this moment, I get to choose the pattern I hold in relation to life on Earth.  In this moment, I choose the pattern of an open heart so when shadow's fall, I am a holder of Love's light in darkness. What about you? Do you choose the pattern of Love or Fear? 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 


Saturday, September 22, 2012

Breaking Light - The Heart


As I sat down moments ago to post the prior story, I happened to look left and notice the rainbow of light coming from my friend Judi's note card of one of her paintings as it sits near my window. The painting is titled "First Alchemy."

To me the round vessel into which the tears fall represents the vessel of the heart.  The heart is made to bend light but first we must let tears fall.  I spent much of my middle life with a hard heart due to the pain it had felt and held.  Now I let tears come with joy because I get to live alive and awake (most of the time) on this beautiful planet Mother Earth.  This doesn't mean I don't know heartbreak.  Already this morning my heart has broken open while reading of the abuse of walking horses ridden competitively in Shelbyville, TN as some are brutally trained and of the present dolphin hunts in Taifi Japan where thousands of whales and dolphins are slaughtered each year.

Yet I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the animals are here to wake us up to the power of love that resides in our hearts. They come here voluntarily and are part of my rainbow. In knowing this my sorrow turns to joy for their engagement here.  In turn offer my heart engaged.

The sun has now shifted and the prism that was momentarily on the card is no more yet the alchemical vessel of the heart remains.

I share this image and my truth with you not to say it is true for you but to share the image and ask: What does this beautiful image say to you?

P.S. There are many petitions circulating right now to stop the dolphin and whale hunts. Learn more by watching the film "The Cove", checking out Sea Shepherd on facebook. I think CNN recently covered this also. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 22 September 2012

Autumn Balance




Light is here on this day of balance, the period when night and day are equal. 

May we be aware of the balance of head and heart, intellect and feeling, joy and sorrow, being and doing, heaven and earth, above and below, inhale and exhale. 

For as we each restore our inner balance, outer balance is renewed. 

Mother Earth and all of Nature feels this restoration. 

Breathe and Shift to Balance. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 22 September 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

Bug Gifts - Healing in the Web of Life

While soaking up some Vitamin D and reading a book on the deck at lunch, a brown and orange butterfly the size of a quarter landed on the edge of my book. This winged beauty sat looking at me eye to eye for ten minutes.  I have never been face to face with a creature like this for so long. 

I was certain its big, black eyes asked: Are you my mother?

Aloud I replied, "Of course, I'm your Mother."  It continued to look at me and I realized in my big, black rimmed sunglasses covering not just my eyes but a third of my face I really did look like its mother.

I recalled Ho'oponopono the Hawaiian prayer of healing and said aloud to this dear being, "Please forgive me for all the pesticides that have affected and killed your kin. Forgive me my hesitance and fear in speaking up and out on behalf of Mother Earth and the animals. Forgive my ignorance, my not knowing until late in life the facts about chemicals and corporations impacting life's web" 

Then I added, "I love you. I am sorry.  Thank you. "

All along the butterfly never blinked or looked away.  And when I finished, it flew.  This bugs willingness to commune with me gifted me in such a beautiful way.  I believe I gifted it too.

Acts of forgiveness no matter the size bring healing to the broken threads in the web of life. 
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 21 September 2012

This link Ho'oponopono will take you to just one of many sites explaining this prayer of reconciliation.


Thursday, September 20, 2012

Mary's Way

Today I entered the Universe. I had closed my eyes when unexpectedly the veil of dark parted and I found myself in the stars.  The first time this happened, I was at the Garrison Institute outside NYC on Mary's Way.
 
Today as I watched a fuchsia eye appeared and I realized the Universe was in the middle of the eye.  For years I've heard references to the Divine Feminine but I've not had a personal connection with this phrase until I began seeing things.  I now know this as the eye of the Divine Feminine.

As I continued to watch, the eye of purply-pink became a rose, a rose in the Universe of stars. 

I watched and knew we are living in the time of Mary's Way, the activation of great compassion and Love.  We have assistance arriving from the stars and arising from the Earth.  Some may think this is not of God.  For me, it is divinely intended and we each decide to what degree we will awaken and live from the Heart, Mary's Way, the way of deep compassion and love.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 20 September 2012

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

She Sells Seashells

"She sells seashells by the sea shore."

This tongue-twisting line came to me as I recently walked the beach.  At first I thought if I were She I would not want to profit monetarily from seashell sales.  I would share not sell Earth's offerings.  Yet I have not walked in her sandals. 

Today I find myself curious as to the details of her days and the back story of this one line window into the life of She.  Did this early female entrepreneur sell seashells to support young children at home or elderly parents for whom she cared? Was the money made used to buy bread or to keep a roof overhead ?  Was the seashore her assembly line and seashells her means of pulling herself up by her sandals? Or  was hers a gypsy, nomad's soul collecting the refuse of shell remains, garbage to the many yet treasures to her?  Was she an early recycler who saw the beauty in that day's throw aways?

The seashore is now miles and hours away and I am not She.  Yet I walk the seashore of my soul while offering words, words to unlock worlds, worlds forgotten and longing to be recalled and known.  

In this way, She and I are kin calling those around to remember and see the beauty etched in simple things. 
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 18 September 2012

Monday, September 17, 2012

Imprints of Love

(Written Sunday Sept.16, 2012)

Hundreds of miles up the interstate away from the ocean gulf where I spent time last week, I now sit on a mountain that ocean once called home.  In my hand I hold a rock imprinted with shells, evidence of ocean's walk on this land millions of years ago.

We argue politics and parcel out power while ignoring, neglecting and denying there's a process unfolding on Mother Earth that is so much larger than we.

Last week before leaving my friend's ocean house for the last time, I placed in the water off her dock a bouquet of zinnias, black-eyed Susan's, fairy roses and lavender from my Tennessee home.  Flowers have traveled with me through many times and lives and it just felt right to leave these in the salty waters far away from their origins.

Many miles away I now imagine millions of years away someone finding the imprint of flowers on land that was once the Gulf as I've found remains of ocean life around my landlocked home.

Shells, flowers, ocean, mountain - all imprints of love. If we could only come to appreciate our shared origins and the imprint of love on all people and things the great gulf between us, I believe would cease.

Imagine the Shift.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 17 September 2012



Sunday, September 16, 2012

Last Moments - Leaving the Nest

Osprey on far right middle limb.
 (Written Tuesday September 11, 2012.)

Here I sit my last few moments on this deck, a deck on which I've spent a myriad of moments alone and with, in silence and  conversation while writing, reading, watching, sunning, eating and drinking. I have spent a multitude of hours in communion here. 

On the first day of this our last trip an osprey, a juvenile, sat in the nearest tree.  It sat all morning, calling, probably calling 'Come feed me' the wildlife specialist said. I had called an area sanctuary in case this particular bird needed rescue.

It sat out in the tree for most of the morning, flapping about, stretching its wings in bird yoga it seemed. The specialist said more than likely it had just left the nest.

Meanwhile back on this deck, I have sat for most summers over the span of twenty-five years. I first came here two days after leaving the nest of a marriage to a man who was dear but should have remained my friend.  I said "I do" to him before learning the value of saying "I do" to myself.

Like the young osprey, I came here free yet uncertain still wanting to be fed.  Over the years Ole River's salt water, the sun's path, bird kin and human friends have fed me.  Yet it has only been in the last few years that I've realized how to more fully feed myself, how to let down the gates within and let experience in.

On this last day, the osprey calls but it is nowhere to be seen.  It has left the tree and is further down the island.  It has surely left the nest but not the salt water from which it will be fed.  

On this last day, my friends and I prepare to leave this nest, this place of so many shared moments and though we will I suspect return to the water we will never return to this exact place. 

This moment reminds me this is how each moment of life really is.  Plans are made with quiet expectations yet no guarantees.  This is life - precious, poignant, beautiful and bittersweet. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 11 September 2012


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Change, Non-Change...Good News

I first visited this place twenty-five years ago. In that time little has changed.  In today's world this lack of change soothes my soul.  In my inner world, much has changed.  Twenty-five years ago I didn't fathom the soul I had to sooth.  

Non-change in change.  Asleep. Awake.  Finding my soul to soothe.  Good news.
-Dawn, the Good News Muse  12 September 2012

Love Rocks On






Recently at an auction I noticed this heart on the back of a rocking chair. The woman who sat in this particular chair knew the woman whose home was being auctioned.  She  had died suddenly leaving her husband and friends behind.  I was there as an on-looker but my heart was gifted and lifted through connecting with two women past and present, one whom I will never know but was glimpsing through stories shared by her friend.

Down through the days and the decades, through story passed along, Love rocks on.

Imagine the Shift.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 12 September 2012







Friday, September 7, 2012

Imagine the Shift to Connectivity



Leaf patterns on part of my yard swing remind me that once this board held limbs and leaves.  It now serves as a screen of sorts for nearby leaves while holding my limbs as I swing.

Limbs, leaves, trees, me
Quantum connectivity.

Imagine the Shift of becoming increasingly aware of the interconnectedness of all things.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse,  7 September 2012

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Does Sun's Light Speak to You?

What is it about sunlight, be it rising or setting that speaks to me?

It reminds me of my own coming and going,
the cycle of my days,
the cycle of my life.

Does Sun's light speak to you?
If so, what does it say?


-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 6 September 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Joy - Imagine the Shift





I offer you joy.
Imagine the Shift to receiving.

-Dawn, the Good News Muse
7 sept. 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Angels


Angels watch. Angels see, knowing more than you and me.
Will we wake up, fulfill our part?
They need us now. Open your heart. 

- Dawn, The Good News Muse, 6 September 2012

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Happy

At times I judge much of societies lack of depth as people in constant motion move on to what's next and next and next. 

This morning I watched a bee move from the small yellow annuals the size of a quarter to the white chive blossom and on to the purple azaleas.  At each flowering stop, I wished for my camera.  As my mind like the bee traveled from shot, to shot to shot, I realized in this way I am kin to the American consumer about whom I complain quickly satisfied by a purchase only to tire of it and head out to shop and shop and shop.

The photo I eventually took. 
Finding and feeling deep satisfaction takes time as experience is layered with texture, taste and quality.

The bee flew on to other experiences while I in that moment and still in my housecoat stopped.  I sat down on the damp deck to watch, to experience, to be. 

I had no major insights or epiphanies yet I felt so happy and in that moment it was more than enough to feel happy, just me and flowers. 

In this moment now moments away from the morning I still smile.  It is more than enough to feel happy. 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 5 September 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com


Pearls & Worlds - Unavailable in Malls

After the night's rain, I came upon these pearls in Nature's jewelry store, each a world unto itself.  These pearls are unavailable in malls. They are not found on Craig's list or e-bay.  Yet to those holding the currency of imagination admission is free to Earth's world of wonder.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  5 September 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Web


There is a web connecting us all made visible through tears in times calling for great compassion.



This is one of the secrets we came here knowing. 

Remember.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse
4 September 2012
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Spider



Spider crawling 'cross my hand
Reminds me of man's walk on land.
Gentle Weaver threatening none
May I like you with Earth be one.

 
-Dawn, The Good News Muse,  1 September 2012