The Feather

Two weeks ago I found a slender black feather in my pocket, one of many feathers I've collected over the years. Rather than keep it, it felt right to let it go. I placed it in my backyard.

This past weekend while cleaning up after the rains, I spied in the pebbles at my backdoor the feather, still slender and black and oh, so beaten up, but still a feather.

I am grateful to this feather for reminding me that no matter how beaten we feel or become, our spirits weather the storm because our hearts hold the power of love.

-Dawn! Imagine, Embody and Embrace the Shift! 5/10/10

Mukti & The Bee - We are all One. We are Community

Recently I came rushing across my deck thinking I was late for a call and what did I find but a carpenter bee. No, not a carpenter bee burrowing into the wood siding or trim of my home but a dead one lying on a stepping stone at the threshold of our backdoor.

I picked it up, held it in my hand and cried. Yes, I cried because only days prior had I shared with friends during a conference call the trouble I was having killing the carpenter bees flying around the eves of my house and the deck railing. I felt like a murderer taking the life of a living creature even if in the long run its tunnels might threaten my home. I do not like feeling as if I'm a murderer.

The friend facilitating the call told of mukti, a concept of which she had learned while on retreat and wondering what to do in relation to the mosquitoes swarming about her. The teacher shared that saying, "Mukti" when killing the mosquito liberated it or freed it from this physical realm.

Later that day, a carpenter bee came round while we were sitting on the deck. I told Jerry of Mukti and suggested he try it. (Notice how I was avoiding killing the bee?) Jerry's attempts failed as the bee darted from the broom's reach. I watched quietly knowing the job was meant for me.

He went inside. I picked up the broom and took a deep breath. Half-heartedly saying "Mukti, "I swatted. I felt cold and detached, but I swatted, never getting the bee. I could not accept the murderer in me. The bee darted out of site as if it knew I was not committed to taking its life. I thought nothing more of this until I found the dead bee perfectly laying in the middle of the step at my door.

Thus in the aftermath of the recent floods, I wept with joy while holding this furry black and gold offering with cellophane wings in my palm. Nature is sweetly, so intimately involved with us in such simple yet profound ways if only, if only we stop, notice, listen. I held the bee and listened.

I held the bee and knew the end of life is just part of the cycle of life. I need the hardiness and the heartiness to realize that when life is taken, new life is given. This is part of the Great Cycle in the Great Mystery. This too is part of mukti for me.

I held the bee and remembered how the day prior I lay so very tired and exhausted on my acupuncturist's table. I asked if he thought I had a heart blockage. He quickly replied I was too opened hearted for a blockage. He left the room. I knew my heart for so long off and on had been blocked, at times feeling like stone from lifetimes of pain. I lay on his table in the dimly lit room, weeping and stating aloud that I wanted to clearly know my team for these times.

I now smile with great joy for the bee before me even as I write is part of that team. Its presence broke open, yet again, my heart reminding me that all of Nature is my tribe. Nature is my child. It reminds me that I murder my heart when I close it and don't allow it to feel.

Moments later during my daily meditation call for which I thought I was late, I held the bee and and was held by the bee and by my cross country friends as I shared. They too are part of my team. Ramapriya who initially shared of Mukti mentioned the aspect of bees in relation to our food and flowers but also community. Bees are highly intelligent social insects that cannot live without community. I thought but didn't say, "I don't think I have a honey bee."

After our conversation, I realized someone had called in on my phone. I redialed the number and got Rosie, Ray's wife, in Georgia. Ray had honey for me that he wanted to deliver as he was driving up to tend his area hives having lived in Middle Tennessee for many years.

I studied the bee. Was I actually holding a honeybee, pollinator of our flowers and foods and provider of honey, a reminder of life's sweetness? Was I being given a message that I/We must use the present challenge here in Tennessee to be community long after this crisis has passed and continue to bee community with one another and with Mother Earth as is evidenced by the rains, earthquakes, Iceland's volcanic eruption, the continued Gulf Oil spill and the deadly coal mine explosion in West Virginia?

Sensing that 'class' was not over, I continued to hold Nature's precious gift. There was something else I needed to hear. Walking through my living room, I looked at the bee. Time stopped and in one brief moment it was crystal clear. I got the most important lesson of all. I carry the murderer in me. (Bear with me.) Yes, in my own heart resides the heart of the murderer, the sex trafficker, the abuser, the animal torturer, all the many political lobbyists and CEO's whose businesses promote the raping of Mother Earth. I am them and they are me. We are all One. I knew this Truth with such clarity that I wish I could pass on to you.

I could reference facts about quantum physics and how we are all entangled and intertwined, but I would only be doing so to give scientific legitimacy to what I know, to what in an instant I knew.

In that moment, I felt total freedom and love. The stone was rolled away. Realizing and acknowledging my connection with the murderer was personal mukti for me, killing off an illusion I didn't even know I carried and liberating me from separation with humankind. I thought, 'This is how Gandhi, Joan of Arc, all the many Saints and Mystics and Mary and Jesus did it; this is how the Dali Lama and the Indigenous people do it. They knew, they know, they experience that we are all truly connected, we are all One. We are all Love.'

I am in awe of the simple, yet profound ways in which Nature communicates and relates. When I could not kill the bee, it came to me. It laid itself at my door offering an opportunity for me to wake up as to how nature works with us and how love works. When I could not kill the bee, it gave its life for me.

Life is beautiful. We are not here by accident and the bee was not at my door's threshold by accident. Thresholds signal entry points and opportunities. We are living in times of change and challenge. Middle Tennesseans have crossed a threshold to what many do not yet know. I do know the recent flooding has activated an outpouring of love, liberating us from our separateness while offering freedom to love our neighbors regardless of color, age, race, religion, politics, gender or status.

May we all die to our separateness and fully wake up to our Unity.

As for the little bee, whatever kind it bee, both provide sweet nectar, one to feed the soul and educate us as to our interconnectedness with human and Naturekind and the other to feed and nourish the body and model community for Nature is part of our team. Earth is part of our team. We are all here as a team. Blessed. blessed bee.

Imagine that shift! Love, Dawn 5/10/10

We're in a State of Emerge and See !

(This came to me initially when Nashville flooded in 2010.  It has again been on my mind with all that's unfolding on the East Coast. May all see.) 

At lunch, I glimpsed news coverage titled "Flood Emergency Update." The word 'Emergency' caught my eye because I immediately saw tucked within another word - "emerge." Then I heard myself saying, "Emerge N C" followed by "Emerge and see."

I love words. They are simple yet powerful keys available for us to see the possibilities in times like these.

Imagine what is being held here in what's called a crisis in Middle Tennessee if we can hold and use this as an opportunity to Emerge, to come out, to bring forth new ways of being, living and relating to one another and to Mother Earth. 

Every emergency offers an opportunity for us to emerge and see the patterns, people and things that really matter.

Emerge and See with Me !

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 5/7/10 and 11/1/12
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

As Waters Subside - My Prayer

The rivers and streams overflowed their banks, giving our hearts opportunity to overflow with love, giving our hands opportunity to work acts of kindness, giving our spirits opportunity to send prayers and meditations throughout Tennessee.

Now that the waters are subsiding may love and all its many tributaries, compassion, kindness and generosity, never subside from the shores of new connections, from the banks of the Universal heart.

-Dawn! Embrace the Shift to Love 5/7/10

Guys, Stop It! (or Where There's Lily, There's a Way)

(This story has been tinkered with for years then set aside in order to write something related to nature or my cats. Fear may be the real reason I've chosen pets and plants over people as a topic. Lily, as you'll soon understand, would say, "Aunt Dawn, stop it!")

Some time ago, I was hanging out at Lily's house with her parents. She and her sister were engrossed in a movie while the grown ups nearby talked and laughed. Suddenly we were silenced by "Guys, stop it!" Lily, sitting on the sofa still engrossed in her movie on the other side of the room, admonished us to tone it down. I personally thought, 'How cute' as we complied with her wish at least for awhile. Our volume gradually increased as was noted by Lily who shouted, "GUYS!" The four adults turned to see Lily standing on the sofa, hands on her hips and scowl on her face firmly but loudly commanding, "Guys, stop it." We did.

As I walked home later that night I thought, 'We should run Lily for president.' This was in 2007 as the prior administration piled up the now trillion dollar debt thanks to the Iraq war, profiting companies with deep political connections. Lily's authority and attitude in my book were exactly what we needed.

Over the coming weeks I fantasized about creating "Lily for President" t-shirts and a website.
Of course, if anxiety kept me from writing this simple story, how on earth did I think I could create a movement?

Nearly three years have passed and Lily's spunk has not faltered. Last Fall she quietly went out one afternoon and taught herself to ride her bike without training wheels. Shortly afterward she began to learn to ride her older sister's bike.

The saying "Where there's a will there's a way" should be "Where there's Lily, there's a way."

We've continued to desperately need Lily's message of "Stop it." When the car honchos flew to DC in their private jets as we were bailing them out, I wanted to shout, "Guys, stop it!" When that CEO spent more money than all the folks in an entire third world country will have in a lifetime to redecorate his bathroom, I wanted to say, "Guy, stop it!"

Every time I heard Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman over the past year refer to 'death panels' as a means of scaring folks in relation to health care reform, I've wanted to say, "Girls, stop acting like those guys. Stop it!" Now when I hear of Sarah Palin firing up tea party crowds with her winking, folksy, gun referencing, gottcha rhetoric I want to really say, "Sarah, stop it!"

Lily's command seemed even more applicable in the recent months as politicians on both sides of the health care debate received hate-filled phone calls from voters on the other side.

I think of myself as kind and slow to anger , but these events ignite my inner-Lily. I imagine rising up, fierce and fiery in order to scare the bejeeesus out of these folks not to cause them harm but to get their attention. Then in an earthshaking, earth quaking voice, I would like Lily command, "Guys, Stop it! What are earth are you people doing? You can do so much better than this. Now stop it."

Of course what makes me think I would actually take on these people, when I haven't dared risk an interaction with my facebook 'friends' one who referenced attending a tea party to 'take back our country' and another being distraught that her tv reception didn't include Fox news.

I imagine Lily in one of her quieter moves nudging me and saying, "Hey, Aunt Dawn, you might want to start by taking on yourself. Stop being afraid."

And she would be right, right in more ways than one. This takes me back to the mid-80's when I went to Russia with a peace and reconciliation group. Little did I know there in was the problem. Everyone knows you can't reconcile and find peace with the Russians now, let alone in the Eighties. They were and are COMMUNISTS and SOCIALISTS, those two scary words tossed out by the right in relation to anything President Obama proposes.

Here I was returning home to Nashville a naive twenty-something desirous of sharing my encounters. I lined up talks, did a radio interview, wrote stories for my work and college-related papers and found most people curious as to what I had to say. Most people, but not all people. I wasn't prepared for one phone call and one letter received from two different people whose reactions were the same. Both in choice words suggested I did not love America, therefore I should leave the country. They verbally threatened me because my message of friendship threatened their belief system which needed an enemy.

These two interactions were part of the soup of my life prompting me to a great degree to give up my voice as well as my enthusiasm in regards to creating bridges between people of different cultures. I allowed two frightened people, a man and a woman to nearly silence me.

Lily I'm certain would say, "Aunt Dawn, you and all the folks who have been quiet for whatever reason have got to 'Stop it.' I'm not saying be hostile and angry, but you've got to find and use your voice in relation to these things. They are not going away."

I catch a glimpse of why I've been avoiding completing this story.

Lily's suggestion to start with myself would be right in another way. I think about the tea party folks and what possibly motivates them. I'm assuming they do not want change, nor do they want to be controlled (by the government) or to loose control. Well, bingo. Guess who else doesn't necessarily go running toward personal change, embracing it with great anticipation? Guess who else doesn't want to loose control nor be controlled? I need look no further than my mirror to find my kinship with these folks.

Quantum science has found that just like the threads of the spider web are all interwoven and connected, so are we. Therefore my resistance to the unknown and my fears of being controlled is connected to the resistance of the tea party folk. (It's becoming much clearer why I've procrastinated completing this story.)

Since my shadow is connected to the universal or collective shadow, I must tend my own shadow and own the many ways fear hides out in me.

Lily, whose name is one of the flowers associated with Mary the Mother of Jesus, would have a special message to us women. I can see her frown while adamantly saying, "Girls, Stop it! She would really take us to task reminding us we are the ones hardwired to care, to care for others, the environment, the plants and the animals. We are the gender taught to be concerned with relationship. We are vehicles for love.

Before she parted she'd look at me and say, "Instead of scaring the bejeesus out of folks, Be Jesus or Be Buddha, Be Mary just make sure you realize you're here to Be Divine."

It's really that simple. Let's stop fearing and more importantly...let's start loving! Imagine that or better yet start that!

For those curious as to how I could go on.....let's....

Stop treating Earth, nature and animals as objects and start being grateful that all of Creation is here to be in relationship with us.

Stop treating your body as an object and start looking at how you really relate to your body and being grateful it is the container in which your spirit lives.

Stop ignoring the foods you put into your body and the way animals and plants are treated.
Start with finding a farmer's market that sells local produce and grass fed, kindly treated cows and chickens for meat and eggs. Go meatless one day a week and don't enter the doors of a restaurant that sells a 16 ounce steak. That is obscene.

Stop contributing to the hobby of shopping in this country and start getting out. Walk, meet your neighbors. Be friendly to folks you meet. (I wrote this before the May Day Flood which ultimately prompted folks to wade out and meet neighbors who rescued them, cooked for them, lived with them in shelters, took up collections and donated in a myriad of ways for them!)

We must stop letting fear separate us and instead start owning our blind sides, our ignorance, our tendency to label those we don't really know. We must stop wringing our hands and instead use them for love, hold a child, plant a seed, feed someone hungry, wave to a stranger, help someone in need. We must stop being ignorant and instead get informed. Let's learn to use our will in creative, conscious ways!

I could go on but for now I'll stop and invite you to imagine Lily, hands on her hips saying "Stop it" to you. What would you stop? And what would you do instead? Imagine, Invoke and Embrace that Shift!

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 5/5/10

Love Will Track Me Down

I have after much procrastination begun to reflect on time in France last May followed by hiking into Havasu Canyon with a friend in June. Part of reflecting involves reading my journal from the months following my travels. In pages and computer files I find things like this note found seconds ago:

Last Friday upon arriving in the country, I proceeded to have four glasses of champagne. At a wedding reception that may not be a lot. If you're wanting a buzzz that may be not be a lot. If you’re 110 lbs on a 5’2” frame, that's a lot. Me? I was avoiding feeling.

Now here it is Sunday evening, standing at a sink of just washed dishes, with Jerry only gone fifteen minutes and I think: I could open another bottle of champagne.

I immediately and unexpectedly hear: “Dawn, there is nothing you can do to make me stop loving you. I am like your mother. I will always love you. I will never stop loving you.”

I spent the weekend in prevention mode. I weeded the garden. Typically I call this tending, something I find deeply satisfying. In near 100 degree mid-day sun, it’s torture. I read or better conveyed I called out words as I looked at them on the page. This too I find deeply satisfying usually but not when I’m avoiding writing my own words. And I slept something that’s also usually satisfying but not when done in the name of avoidance. I was reading, weeding, drinking and sleeping all to avoid weeping.

In the past, I’ve talked with a friend about developing the capacity for sacred weeping and how the world needs people, men and women with heart, who are willing to be the alchemical vessels for sorrow in the world. At the time this idea first arose, the former president was in the White House and I considered showing up at the White House to weep for him, for what I imagined were his own unwept sorrows and all the things hidden in his shadow ofwhich he knew not.

Now I think, ‘Who was I to think I could do that for him when I’m avoiding that for myself?’

There’s something about this voice at the kitchen sink that is deeply comforting, profoundly loving. To know I am loved. That I can run to the ends of the universe and there is nowhere that Love won’t find me. Love will track me down. Love will be there even if I’m found weeding on Mars, drinking on Venus, reading on Jupiter and sleeping on some far flung Milky Way star.
Love will stalk me and patiently talk with me on my time not hers.

-Dawn! the Good News Muse - 4/23/2010

Of Happiness, Great Mama and Lives Past and Present

Happiness is....

Last evening after a very hectic day, I sat outside feeling at home inside myself, at home and happy and thought, 'Happiness is .......

- watering my newly planted squash, tomatoes, beans and potatoes as they poke their little green heads up through Mother Earth.

-noticing the pink glow in the distant sky.

-trading a jar of my homemade blueberry jam (from Bernie's organically grown blueberries in Fly, TN) for fresh brown, blue and white "home laid" (not corporation made) eggs that now sit in a bowl in the fridge.

-seeing a fox trot through the yard.

-the smell of dandelion wine as it ferments. Now there's a longer story.

-taking an accidental nine mile hike and enjoying it.

-finding nine mice, felt ones, stashed in Mystery and Bogey's hiding places.

-buying purple, gold and blue gem-like glasses on sale at Pier 1 after restraining myself months prior.

-being connected to someone I love miles and miles away as we simultaneously watch the moon.

-hearing my neighbor Judy eagerly ask: "Do I have anything you need?" and my surprising us both by responding, "Yes, a lot of love." (I'm unaccustomed to "outing" myself at this level, but I need a lot of love as I witness what we unconsciously do to Earth, Nature, Animals and one another in the name of progress and often greed.)

On this day, Earth Day and every day "Happiness is........." what to you?

Of Mana and Mama

In the nine-volume series "Religions of the World and Ecology" Leslie E. Sponsel in "Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community" writes: Traditional Hawaiians believed a mystical force called mana permeates everyone and everything, including people, plants, animals, fish, stones, landforms, sea, wind, clouds and rain. Prayers, chants, dances (hula), offerings and rituals are among the ways of channeling mana and communicating with the spirits. Thousands of diverse spiritual beings exist...."

The above reading was compiled by Peggy Rubin as part of my daily meditation through Jean Houston's Mystery School. I read this and thought, 'Yes, a mystical force does permeate everything. Mama permeates everything. Mama, the word connotes a sweetness to me. Mama reminds me of love that sacrifices, not in martyrdom or a look-what-I've-done-for-you attitude, but in a selfless I give and I give, I care and I care thus I share and I share kind of way, because the more I do this, the richer I am. Great Mama surrounds us.

I hear my own Mama calling down the long hallway of my childhood home, the one she stills walks every morning. I hear her calling to my siblings and me, "Come on kids, time to wake up."

The Great Mama now calls down the long halls of Time, calls to us all, "Come on Kids, Time to Wake Up."

The Poppy and Lives Past

I walk out this morning, mug of coffee in hand, and sit on the point of land that juts from my yard in the country. I did not intend this. I walked out to put bird seed in a near-empty feeder. After doing so, I walked to the point and sat down on the ground. In front of me was a lone poppy giving all it had to the surrounding chicweed, sedum and pebbles. Tears came to my eyes.

I was transported to Conques, an old French village, where I spent a few hours on my 50th birthday. We arrived by bus in a slight mist. It was all I could do to sit through lunch as I felt compelled to visit a distant monument on the pilgrim's path visible outside town. I ordered something simple then while others in my group went to explore the old church in town, I headed out of town. Not far down the road over a short wall, I saw a path. Knowing time was limited and feeling drawn to the overgrown area below I wound my way down.

I sat my back against this little tree surrounded by poppies and growing things that reminded me of my home in Middle Tennessee. I sat leaning against this little tree knowing I had lived here prior, that I had loved Nature here and let Nature love me. I sat supported by earth and this little tree knowing what I had learned here allowed me now to live and love in Tennessee.

I've only shared this specific story with one person since my trip. It is private and it's not every day I talk about past life feelings. I've no desire to be judged or argue, prove or disprove whether we've one life or many. All I know is this morning as the poppy 'outs' itself I do likewise. It doesn't matter if we've many lives or one. What matters is my heart's alive and I am witness to the poppy whether in France or Tennessee. What matters is, as Mama calls, I am awake and aware of the simple beauties in life, for it is in the beauty of nature that magic is revealed and we are taught how to really wake up and live.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 04/22/2010