Magnets of Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Personal Touch - Herb Vinegars

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

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

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

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

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

Who are you? What do you love? What grows inside you?

-Dawn! Imagine the Shift, 11 June 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

A Bug and A Beach Chair - Returning to Wonder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For wondering: When was the last time you were filled with wonder?

-Dawn! the Good News Muse 9 June 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

On Breaks and Beauty while Moodling and Imagining

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

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

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

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

The cable guy then showed up, early instead of late and left, job done, in record time. Instead of beginning my morning rituals, something felt off in my brain. I blamed this on forgetting my B vitamins the night prior. Unlike Ms. Ueland’s moodling which involves an open, receptive mind, I fussed and felt fuzzy trying to force a story to gel that in truth was and is still in the ingredients gathering stage in the kitchen of my mind.

The above cocktail left me disconnected. Disconnection I resist. The more I resisted owning the present, the greater my disconnect became. My inner fuss mounted knowing I was contributing to the quantum sense of disconnection and unawareness in the world. I can’t complain about people not getting ‘it’ whatever it is when I don’t get it, when I refuse to be just because my be-ing feels uncomfortable and out of my control.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We live richest and deepest when nourished by beauty, wonder, imagination and creativity. Let's use these times to restore these ingredients to the kitchens of our personal and collective hearts and minds.

Imagine that Shift! Dawn, 4 June 2010

We are Stewards of a Jewelry Store

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

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

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

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

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

-Imagine the Shift!, Dawn, 3 June 2010

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

There's a Fountain Flowing Deep & Wide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Dawn! Imagine the Shift! 2 June 2010

I Sing You In On This Journey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 2 June 2010