Scotchguarding Hearts

Remember Scotchguard the product used on our mothers and grandmothers furniture to repel our childhood spills and stains? Tuesday night I could have used a can or two or three to protect the many folks at my nephew's basketball game. Pre-game warm-ups would have included spraying all our hearts to repel what lay ahead. Actually I could have used a case or two or three, one for the team, another for friends and family and at least a half case for me.

His team lost in the tournament's final 1.2 seconds by one point after having led the entire game thanks to a call that should have never been made. A referee who had hardly blown his whistle all night decided to see if his worked. Anyone with basketball knowledge knows you don't make a call especially for an event that didn't occur in the final second of a game when the outcome hinges on the call. You let the teams play ball.

Afterward as we solemnly stood around many with tear-streaked faces I was reminded of how I wish I could take away pain. I did intervene as one teenage girl said, "Don't cry" to a cheerleader who was weeping. I, this stranger, very clearly looked at the cheerleader and said, "You cry all you need" then looked at the consoler and said, "This is very sad." I suspected what the non-cryer was really saying to her friend was "Stop crying before you make me cry."

That night, I awoke several times thinking of my nephew. Each time, I did all I could do. I sent him love and prayers of comfort. I know scotchguarding life isn't recommended, wise or really possible, but I have wanted to ease his pain for fourteen years, since he was four and his parents divorced.

He and his teamates are getting a necessary, but painful lesson. As the first sentence of the book "The Road Less Traveled" reads: Life is difficult. Reading this in my mid-twenties prompted a light bulb experience for me. I was unhappily married to someone who should have remained my friend but became my husband. I cried close to constantly torn over divorcing, feeling so alone. Coming upon this sentence in Scott Peck's book, truly did illuminate something I had known since I was very young but had never had confirmed by an outside source. Life is difficult.

It's easy to say "life's difficult" it's the processing of the difficulty that seems challenging. We as a society don't appear to be doing so well in that department. We use pills, food, tv, shopping, the computer, fill in the blank ______ with your favorite activity for zoning out, to keep from feeling, especially feeling vulnerable, sad, powerless and afraid. This takes me back to Tuesday night's game.

The heartening thing in the heartbreaking loss was just about every young man who walked from that locker room was or had been crying. In a world, especially here in the South where men are suppose to be tough and in control, these young men's tears were a testament to change, a hopeful new time in which men no longer hide their feeling side.

My nephew was immediately met by his middle brother and his father who hugged him, not just a sideways, pat-on-the-back-don't-really-touch-me-cause-I'm-a- guy hug but a full more than six seconds, I'm-so-sorry hug. My sister and his older brother followed then my mother whose forehead comes to Christian's chest. That's when I witnessed a moment I hope to never forget. Granny Dean looked up at Christian and said something then he looked down and kissed her on the forehead.

Seeing my nephew at eighteen unafraid to hug, cry and kiss his Granny in front of God and everybody as 'they' say as well as my extended family allowing themselves to be visibly moved was truly a beautiful unexpected gift for me. After having felt like I was the alien in my family, being the only crier, I knew these people were my tribe.

So here it is, a full day and going into a second after the loss at the game and the death of a dream. Other dreams will die today nearby and even far away. The beauty of life is that in the dying, seeds of new dreams have already been planted. In time, with talking and tears, friends, family and faith seeds sown now will emerge as new dreams, hopes and possibilities. Life will still be difficult and life will still be unfair. We get to choose whether we'll sit on the sidelines or continue to play despite the lost dreams and bad calls.

With this in mind, I realize even if I could repel life's stains and pains, I wouldn't. The scotchguarding of hearts and lives would certainly mean no pain, but it would also rob us of the depth of living that comes with feeling, being connected, caring and sharing our entwined lives.

To paraphrase Shakespeare (I believe), "It is better to have played the game and lost than to have never played at all." I smile knowing my nephew and his team mates will in time bounce back from having played and lost.

In the meantime, to all the boys becoming young men in our world, never be ashamed of your hearts. Your hearts are needed now more than ever. Never fear feeling for feeling is how you know you are not scotchguarded. In the short run, life can hurt like heck. In the long run, the hurt is eventually repelled. Just like the ball on the court, you bounce back. You realize you're still around and you very much alive.

-Aunt Dawn! The Good News Muse, 03/04/10

Grace is a Verb

"It is good to be alive."

I did not think this as the sun sank in the sky. Although Jerry took photos, I lay in bed, achy and tired.

My friend Paula in Blacksburg once said whenever she wasn't feeling well, she practiced surrender, early and often. I've since thought as I've moved from resisting naps to relishing them that surrender through napping is highly underrated, probably a leftover from our emphasis on productivity and not "wasting" time.

Through the bedroom window, I saw what may have been the most beautiful sunset of my life yet I was aware I could not take it in. I thought of travels past to Yellowstone, Big Sur and Glacier National Park surrounded by vistas so grand yet having the sense I had a wall between me and the beautiful land.

Then without my really knowing it, the wall slowly vanished, but not by the flipping of some switch or Universal remote control. On second thought, maybe it was a remote controlled by the unseen hand of the Universe for the wall began to yield as my father began to die.

Actually it started just prior to his diagnosis. I didn't know it at the time. The Universe, my sub-conscious, call it what you will served up two scenes in my sleep as if to say, "I'm gonna help you out here." In the first my father sat at a potters wheel his hands around a vessel where he worked with clay. What made this scene most strange was he was covered in clay from head to toe. I only knew it was him, because his were the eyes looking at me from the moist brown earth. The saddest, tear-filled eyes I had ever seen looked out at me while he was encased in clay.

A few nights later, a second scene arrived. I sat alone in a nightclub, ribbon-like smoke swirled around me. On stage in a lone spotlight was a man dressed in a white suit. He sang. He sang one line "Grace is a verb" over and over again.

I laid these scenes to rest in the pages of my journal where I excavated them from time to time, turning them over in my mind. It was more like I wrestled with them off and on. These dreams haunted me in a way.

It never occurred to me to tell my father of the dream where he was covered in clay. He had had his own wall with which he lived. A revelation of the dream-sort at least from me would be met with something gruff and condescending. I had learned building walls indirectly from him. He learned the skill I suspected at a really young age to keep his own father at bay.

Walls beget walls beget walls until if one's fortunate opportunities arrive that usher in the fall.

The last time I saw my dad mobile and walking on his own was a Friday. I had just learned he was having seizures, a sign the cancer had found a path to his brain. I dropped what I was doing and went to see him and my mother. I spent the night, stayed until late morning the next day and left while he was taking a nap. My mother told me later that when he got up he asked for me. Upon learning I had returned to Nashville, he said, "Shit" or "Damn" something I was not accustomed to my father saying all that often. I've since wondered if he had something to tell me and if so what might he have said. Was I about to glimpse the man behind his wall?

The next week as he lay in bed, I sat beside him acknowledging things he had done for me or given me. As the days progressed, I sang to him, sat and held his hand. I thought I had done it all, but it wasn't until after his death that I realized I never fully let down my wall. I never completely exposed my heart with him. How is it something so simple could not be said? Fear of judgment kept me from saying, "I'm so sad" to the frail man held hostage to a bed, the man who was still my dad.

On two occasions early on, I caught him looking at me. For seconds that seemed minutes, our gaze locked, the walls were down, and his were the saddest eyes I had ever seen. I missed an opportunity to say, "I am so sad. How are you?" and instead heard myself make the most random of comments about something non-threatening like food.

Then while reading through journals months after he died, I came across the scene dream about my father's eyes. I immediately knew those two times, those were the eyes looking out from the clay, looking out at me and in real life I could only say, "Do you want anything to eat?"

I then read the second scene and realized in his last weeks, I had been getting opportunities to experience grace, grace as an action like speaking, sharing and showing my heart, grace as a verb. How could I have been so blind to the most beautiful and obvious of these opportunities?

I wonder to this day what my father would have said to me that morning if I had stayed. Then the thought crosses my mind, 'Maybe the Other Side is just another dimension of Here'
and I hear: "Open your heart in a way I did not. Love life, love nature, love people and don't hesitate to show them your heart."

That's one reason I write then share on this blog, I'm excavating my heart which for so long has felt like a rock.

The following morning after the beautiful sunset above and four years after my father's sunset, I could joyfully feel and say, "It is good to be alive" for grace wasn't a verb just as my father died. Grace is a verb offered continually each day.

How often do unseen and unknown walls keep us from taking in the beauty in nature? How often do risk and vulnerability keep us from showing one another our hearts? Imagine the shift in your life if your walls came down and grace was the verb in your journey.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 03/05/10

During Yesterday's Walk....the Deer and the White Rose

During yesterday's walk, I detoured and came unintentionally to the place where we had buried a fawn found dead by the roadside months prior. The earth in this area isn't deep enough to dig a suitable hole so we gathered twigs, leaves and greenery sufficient to cover the little dappled, body and placed her at the base of a small evergreen.

With time's passing, we've noticed the little lump under the tree decreasing in size. Two weeks ago, I walked past and thought, 'This is exactly how it's suppose to be.' We come from earth, we return to earth. The little pile continued to diminish.


Yesterday I walked to the evergreen and was shocked to find the earth was flat. Only twigs and leaves remained, undisturbed, still as we had placed them. No sooner had I thought, 'The deer is gone,' I heard, "My body may be gone, but I am still here." Bending toward earth, I replied, "Hi, sweet spirit of the Deer." As sure as I stood there, the deer stood by me.


I paused taking in the satisfaction and gratitude of having stopped that first day to do what was important, to shed tears yet feel great peace in honoring and burying a life.


Walking back to the roadside, I noticed a nearby soft drink can. For the first time in months, I had tucked a plastic bag in my pocket before leaving to walk. I bagged the can, then a scrap of cardboard which was followed by fragments of what looked like a fender from a wreck months ago. Like Hansel and Gretel following bread crumbs, I picked up trash working my way into the little wooded area adjacent to a neighboring pond. This small area covered in fallen leaves and sticks was dotted with glass bottles, brown, clear and green many containing dirt. These were not 'modern' bottles but old ones thrown into the pond some time ago and washed to land by the recent rains and melting snows. As my bag filled, I made two piles to later retrieve.


Typically I would collect trash with a sense of disgust and judgment for whomever unthinkingly left such a mess. This day I was happy to be part of a process. Oddly as I contentedly collected, I came upon a rose, a white artifical rose buried in the dead leaves, limbs and trash. I thought of purity and innocence symbols of the white rose as well as the young deer.

I flashed on the Mother's Day ritual from childhood, in which my sister and I would wear red roses pinnned to our dresses for church as would our mother, symbolizing that our mothers were living. My grandmother would wear a white rose symbolizing her mother's death.

Picking up the white rose, I thought of Mother Earth. Mother Earth as she was known in her vast wildness before we came along is gone. That Mother Earth is dead. I did not like this thought.

Then I knew. Mother Earth isn't dead. As with the deer, She is very much alive. She lives in my blood and my bones. She lives on. Everything that has been, that once was, still is just in different form. Everything lives on without, within.



During yesterday's walk, I found myself. I found myself in the Deer. I found the Deer in me. During yesterday's walk, I found myself. I found myself in Earth and I found the Earth in me.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 2/10

Comings and Goings of the Four-Legged Kind

How is it that during my morning walk Sarge, the neighborhood dog, who I've not seen since late last Summer shows up greeting me like I'm the one who's been absentee? I had left home minutes prior sensing that my friends had just put their dog to sleep, their dog whom I had seen last evening, to whom I said my good-byes and felt an ambialence about his leaving this world. Yes, his days were numbered. I just wasn't sure it was time to call his number, yet he wasn't my pet.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I stood engaging with a chunky robust, very delighted Sarge when it occured to me, Sarge's adoptive owner left him abruptly just about a year ago.

Kenneth, who gave us his excess hoes and rakes when we moved in, moved out of this world suddenly last March. Kenneth and his wife Mildred had adopted Sarge, ensuring he was loved and well fed. Soon after Kenneth's death, Sarge suddenly began hanging out in someone else's yard. In a very short time, he was another's dog and from all appearances still loved and well fed.

Spenser's passing reminds me our four-legged companions leave us yet Sarge's sudden presence reminds me sometimes they get left. In the between-times we are blessed to have one another here on Earth.

Life. It is a series of comings and goings. Moments arrive bearing gifts. Sometimes we take notice and other times we miss the gifting. I don't believe in accidents. Sarge gifted me this morning as Spenser did last evening. I pass the gift to you.

-Dawn!, The Good News Muse

Procrastination, Pie and the Road in the Rose

I had not intended to write. Actually I had intended to, just not about what follows. I was sampling the crust from a baking apple pie. The intended crust for the top turned into crumbles so I sprinkled them atop the pie rather than throwng them out. The next issue of Martha Stewart's "Living" will probably include a recipe for crumbly top pie.*

This is my second apple pie in two weeks the result of having come upon gluten and wheat-free crust at the grocery. Ya-hoo. The first one also had a organic topping and I don't mean organic as in au naturale although it was natural and organic in its own way. That top crumbled too. Like a kid with playdough, I rolled it all into a ball, got out a knife and sculpted little hearts I placed around the top.

This afternoon procrastination prompted me to make another pie. Actually I'm uncertain it's truly procrastination since often working with my hands, tending, be it vacuuming or cooking inspires me. Today while thinly slicing each apple I thought of women around the world cooking at that very moment, some in earthen ovens outside and others in kitchens filled with appliances, all of them connected in the preparing of food. I thought of the apple, how woman was tempted by the apple and how during college while working at camp I told a some story of the apple, not the Eve story, but in the telling also cut the apple horizontally to reveal a star, a symbol of Venus, planet of beauty and love. That wasn't the story I told either I'm quite certain thirty years ago.


With pie in the oven, I was inspired to call my cable company something I had also procrastinated doing after my bill doubled. I assumed as with the roofer that this too would be a hassle.* Forgetting the flow is always around and I'm the one that's AWOL, I mustered my patience and called the toll free number. Within two prompts I got past the auto-woman and found Erica, who five minutes later had me signed up for the same service plus commercial free radio for less than what I had initially paid.

Before hanging up, I shared my gratitude for her helpfulness and patience as I had in far too much detail explained why I didn't want the multitude of services offered. I concluded with, "Have a good day" the phrase offered by cashiers in check out lines. I've previously wondered do they mean it. I meant it. Maybe they do to.

Having said good bye, the smell of pie caught my nose and the site of the last Valentine's rose caught my eye. Over the days, I've been photographing them, gifts from Mystery and Bogey, at different angles. Early on they reminded me of a woman, the petals like folds of the labia (can I say that on-line?) reminded me of the womb and the mystery, the place of darkness leading to life and light.


Today though I notice the spiraling of petals and am reminded of the journey of life, how we go round and round. If we're not paying attention life can seem like the same thing day after day. With presence, each going round offers something new just as I noticed looking even more closely at the rose. Each petal has velvety red veins.
Removing a petal from one of the wilted five, I see the veins come from the center outward. They look like branches stemming from the trunk of a tree. Did the tree inspire the rose or the rose inspire the tree? Maybe it was mutual. Nature knows a reciprocity we seem as a whole to have forgotten.

Maybe the spiraling road in the rose will remind us of acknowledging one another whatever our pace as we make the rounds of life, some spiraling into the darkness while others are emerging, all part of the Mystery. And may we imagine and notice in each turn of life, that life like the rose and the apple, and the star in the apple as well as the interactions with strangers in kitchens worlds away, in grocery lines, on phone lines and yes, in crumbly top pie, life is ultimately beautiful and sweet.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 02/10

*Click Nov.11 for more on "Living" with Martha...titled "Sucked in by Beauty" and click

Feb. 14 for the story on the flow and my roofer.

Where is Your Heart Right Now in the World?

A high school friend with whom I've recently connected on Facebook shared with me that his son was his heart walking around outside him in the world. I may have the quote just a tad wrong, but hopefully you get the amazingly beautiful essence of what he meant. Phil's comment was so profound I couldn't forget it. I found myself wondering what form my heart takes in the world outside me.

Then it occurred to me while watching the birds this morning. My heart walking around outside me in the world, is the world, but in particular the natural world.

This is why I feed the birds, deer and foxes nearly as well as I feed myself and find great joy in doing so.

This is why every day I click the 'donate food' box on the Animal Rescue Site. Corporate sponsors of the site do the donating. I just click the box.

This is why I sign every petition I receive related to halting aerial helicopter hunting of wolves in Alaska or more recently the wolf-killing derbies sponsored by a sporting good stores in Idaho.

This is why I request petitions related to safeguarding the rainforests and stopping Mountain Top Removal from care2 .

This is why I'm an avid user of cloth bags, not plastic, and reuse jars for canning.

This is why I hug and talk to trees, catch bugs in my home in a little jar then release them outside where they're food for a bird, part of the cycle of life, versus just squashed by my hand.

This is why I use a hav-a-hart trap to catch the mice in my basement seeking shelter from the cold as well as the neighbors cat rather than a trap that kills them.

Nature is my child. Nature is my heart walking around outside me.

And as my friend has already experienced or will do so when his son encounters the bumps and bruises of living, I hurt with what I see being done to nature. Frankly it's more than hurt. I weep over how we treat animals and the natural world. Yet now I also take heart because there are people of heart, not just women, but men of heart too, who recognize their hearts in the world wherever that might be.

Just this morning I heard an interview with Sacred Activist Andrew Harvey as he spoke with the founder of Earth Fire Institute, a forty acre sanctuary in Idaho (home of the wolf derbies) where wolves, bears and other animals indigenous to the area live safely and are honored and loved.

I know at least two other people who transport little bugs to jars for safe passage outside rather than to the trash and have so many friends who are tree hugging, wolf loving, petition signing souls.

Thank you, Phil, for sharing your experience as well as allowing me to share it. We may not have taken or had the opportunity to learn from one another in school, but it's never too late to learn from one another now.

To you dear reader, I ask: Where is your heart right now in the world?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse - who occassionally rants rather than musing

** Good News: You can click on any of the highlighted words in the story above to learn more, send free cat/dog food to a shelter and yes, sign petitions at no charge ! This is Good News.

Good Help and Good Pine Aren't Hard to Find

"Life is a mystery. Hopefully we are not too busy to miss the vital clues."
-from "The Return of Merlin" by Depak Chopra

I learned through email that last Sunday was not only Valentine's but also the New Moon which happened to begin an Aquarian cycle. The email suggested since Aquarius relates to the future that this was the perfect time to raise one's energy and get unstuck. One of the rituals suggested involved placing greenery such as pine in one's home to assist in the process of inviting in the new and clearing out the old.

What a beautiful idea. Prior to taking a walk, I stated that we should look for a few sprigs of pine we could place in our home. The walk began. We've a nearly two mile path we take, walking to a certain home in the area then turning and following the same path back most times. Sunday was no exception. Early on in the walk, Jerry said, "There's pine" only to realize as we neared it was cedar.

We walked and talked, got to our turn-around having forgotten the pine until for some reason we looked down and we were literally standing on several twigs in the road. They had fallen from two large branches that were now on the ground torn by a heavy snow from nearby trees.

We hit the jackpot. We had not only twigs, but branches that we walked home with one under each arm. Once home, I tucked pieces of pine around the front door and window as well as in the back by Venus our outdoor fireplace and around the bench near our bird feeders where we often sit. Jerry placed branches in each room inside then we held a ritual invoking the new.

Days later, I'm still curious as to how moments prior to walking out the door, I placed an intention to find pine twigs then literally walked over them. Fortunately they found me, me standing on them while returning home.

How is it I ask for something then so blatantly miss it? At times I stop the process of things coming to me through procrastination stemming from a bad attitude based in not-so-helpful beliefs.

My website references my desire to be the Good News Muse, but this Muse often finds she has bad attitudes. Here's what I mean..

For months we've needed a few minor home repairs. It's been so long it's a bit embarrassing. The story at least for me goes 'good help is hard to find' or maybe it's 'affordable good help is hard to find' and if I find it I'll have to rearrange my schedule which will be a hassle and then the person probably won't show up on time or do the job 'right.' This being the case, I had procrastinated calling anyone until prompted by weather rumors of big rain a month ago.

It was a Wednesday when I finally called Leonard, the roofer we had used eight years prior, to see if he could come by and check our gutters which had been popping away from the house, not a good thing rain or no rain. I didn't know if he was still in roofing let alone remember me.

How happy I was to find Leonard was still in business and recalled exactly where we lived. He offered to come out later that day. By Noon, the gutter situation had been assessed, and the source of a ceiling leak discovered along with two other potential leaks. He agreed to return the next day. As we stood and caught up on life over the past eight years, I asked if he knew a painter since many of our windows needed sanding and repainting around the trim.

By the following afternoon, not only were our gutters reattached and the leaks fixed, but the trim around the windows was sanded, caulked and painted as well as the door all for an extremely reasonable price. Equally as satisfying was the sense we had reconnected with an old friend.

These two small but important vignettes remind me of the New Testament directive, "Ask and you shall receive." How often do I get in the way of receiving the very things for which I've asked? How often does busyness or bad attitudes keep me from seeing and hearing the Mystery, the Mystery, call it God, Spirit, whatever you choose, that desires our engagement, the Mystery that needs our engagement in order to make itself known in the world?

If good help and good pine aren't that hard to find, what else is right before our very eyes?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 02/17/2010