The Tree, The Heart & the Hand of Mystery

I've passed this tree hundreds of times in the last fifteen years most always noticing the heart in its trunk.

It was only recently that I walked up close to stop and really see. The heart, mostly dark and charred probably struck by lightning, is bordered by what resembles two snakes, the guardians of treasure and sacred places in myth and story.

Reaching from the depths is a tiny hand of stubby bark-like fingers. The day I took this photo, the hand reached from a spider web as one finger pointed at me.

This day I also notice a yellow ribbon around the tree, not a statement of longing that a loved one at war return home, but a sign that the tree has been marked for extinction or trimming by power line crews.

The little bark hand reminds me of the heart, one's personal heart as well as the heart of the world and how they often reach for one another through strangers, family and events, often dark times, moving us to greater compassion.

The little hand beckons me to come sit in the darkness and learn rather than fear for in the darkness lives Mystery, the Unknown. In the depths, Wisdom waits.

I recall telling God after a traumatic speaking event in fifth grade that I would go to Africa, the Dark Continent, and do anything asked of me as long as I never had to speak in front of people ever again.

Much later in adult life, I suspected that instead of traveling to some far off country, my greatest mission was to go into the unknown regions of my personal Dark Continent, my unexplored heart-the sacred place inside of me.

Today I see this dark heart with the tiny hand emerging from the spider's web, calling me into the Unknown, to engage with the Mystery of these times and the Mystery that is my life. It is the hand calling me to have courage, the courage to enter my own dark insides and discern how they are connected to the greater web of life.

As for the yellow ribbon, I do not know the fate of this tree, but I do know it reaches out for us to come home for we are the ones who have been away. It reaches out for us to come home to who we really are so Love will not become extinct.

How do you experience or think of Mystery in your own life? How does the heart of the world speak to your heart? How do you consider your connection to the greater web of life?

Imagine the Shift if you allowed yourself to be called by the Mystery to an aspect of your own journey that you've avoided or set aside.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 15 November 2010

P.S. Later in the week, I met the man in whose yard the tree stands. Seeing my camera, he offered to take my photo and shared as well how he and his wife had already saved the tree from power line crews once. The energy of this couple balances those who raze trees seemingly thoughtlessly not appreciating their beauty or the fact that trees are the earth's lungs taking our CO2 and in turn giving off the Oxygen we need to breath.

A Report from the Wilds (of the Bathroom)

Dawn here, reporting from the bathroom where wildness just passed through. (No, not that kind of wildness.) The essence of wildness passed through me as Jerry showered. (Not that wildness either.) I erupted into a spontaneous cheer as he prepared for something new.

How often do you get cheered? How often do you get to hear someone clapping while spelling aloud your name followed by rounds of "You can do it."

In these times when folks more easily jeer than cheer, encouragement is medicine. Mood shifting and mind lifting without negative side effects. (Okay so folks may judge me. That's negative energy though for them, not me.)

I wonder how wildness will try to flow through you today?

-Dawn! The Cheering Good News Muse, 13 November 2010

For the prior story related to Wildness just go to the story that follows: "Men on Mowers" dated Nov. 12. For the Cheerleading Trilogy click on 2009 in the column to the right and go to October 31 . I'll continue to try to link stories. For now, I've wilder things to do.


For the trilogy inspired by Lily! and Halloween last year click HERE
Followed by "To Pee or Not to Have Peed" HERE
and "Costumes, the Betrayal of Portrayal of Essence" Click HERE

Men on Mowers & Mirrors- A Musing on Wildness

"We need the tonic of wildness. We can never have enough of nature." -Thoreau

What is it with me and men on mowers? No, they don't excite me like some modern day version of cowboys on horses. They incite me. Earlier this week while driving down the interstate, I noticed two men on mowers. Well one was on a mower and the other watched as man #1 mowed a swath of tall, swaying grass, grass formerly known as goldenrod, now arrayed in Fall's muted tans, browns and rusts.

I reminded myself that the man mowing has a job as does the watcher. That each of them will be able to feed and clothe their families because my tax dollars support this.

It is not my job to judge. Being outside on a mower may be their tonic as Thoreau referenced, but can't we come up with something other for men to do than chop down wild and growing things?

This pushes my buttons similar to people who mow weekly in summer not because their yard needs it but because it's part of some task list encoded in our cultural DNA from decades past when advertisers told us we needed well groomed yards (groomed of course by their mowers).
This summer I felt such tension as neighbors mowed dirt. Dust clouds swirled around them as they rode the range that is their yard and I kept my mouth shut.

Both instances push my buttons because I love wildness. There's a freedom in the energy of wildness that ironically, here in the "Land of the Free" we try to squash, contain and control.

How is it that we tame wildness whether it's in our yards or in children? Our educational system is considered successful if we turn unruly (spirited) children into good (well-behaved) ones.

Wildness is where inspiration, creativity and spirit lie yet we relegate it to Animal Planet or a stuffed head on a wall, to reality shows where folks compete to survive in the 'wild' or videos of coeds at the beach on Spring Break known as girls gone wild.

I'm reminded of learning in France that the grand cathedrals were usually built over natural springs, springs where people worshiped Spirit as the Goddess in nature. Thus began the containing of the wild as the patriarchy separated people from nature. The church got its money as the people were controlled and yes often educated intellectually by the church, learning to read and write, but disconnected from the education that comes from nature and being in our bodies and not just in our minds. The energy of wildness did not die.

For now what I know in the wild ramblings of my mind is men on mowers mirror the part of me, my own energetic wildness, that I sensed was chopped down in childhood. Men on mowers remind me of how in turn even now I control wildness in myself when I forgo coloring a strand of hair fuchsia or turquoise out of concern for what others will think.

Yet I also recall times when imbibing of the tonic in nature or oddly while shopping awakens my insides, stirring that energy of old. Memories of the tonic of wildness make me smile as I recall rolling down a grassy slope not that long ago, dancing to my favorite band not caring what others think or buying not one but two halter tops for my fifty year old body or just this Fall laying in the bottom of the Grand Canyon naked in the Colorado River.

I don't know about you, but I need, I want, I desire the tonic of wildness to help me remember who I fully am. I want to drink daily from the tonic of wildness to keep the energy flowing in the Land of the Free that is inside of Me!

Imagine the Shift if you did one wild thing today. What would it be?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 12 November 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Witnessing & Remembering - Nature Leads Us Home

Enjoy three small stories and a video inspired by Nature reminding us that contrary to the saying, "You can never go home", we can return to the home within over and over again.

A butterfly floats past.
A brave butterfly at October's end.
The sun sinks out of site
Today will never be again.
*****
As I hurry through the kitchen I spot a tiny praying mantis like bug, the size of child's fingernail perched on the heart shaped woven basket, a beautiful basket made in Linden, not far down the road, my hometown.

I take this tiny being and place it outside or at least I try. It refuses to crawl off my hand.
We come back in.

I ask it where it wants to go and hear: "With you. I want to be with your heart."
This could be a problem. I'm headed for the car.

Then I realize it needs to go to the area of our yard where we buried Templeton.

I place my hand on the Earth in front of a grave marker and this once hesitant creature quickly crawls away.

*****
This Summer we witnessed the launching of six or seven baby wrens. We lost count somewhere between the three on Saturday evening just prior to dusk and three or four more on Sunday morning. (We questioned our count after seeing one bird leave the nest and then return.)

Throughout Saturday afternoon, the wren parents perched in trees and props throughout the yard while loudly calling coaxing the children to come out.

Each fledgling in a test flight of sorts fluttered from the nest to the deck which then served as a runway to freedom. One landed by the flat metal squirrel then looked up as if to say, "The world's no longer flat, you know." Like today's kids who arrive exquisitely alive and ready to fly, they know what adults forget. We are multi-dimensional.

Each wren until the last one used the deck as a runway. The last one was the one that left and then returned. The second time out, it flew between the rails and was suddenly air born toward a nearby Japanese Maple.

I caught its flight with my camera. While doing so, I wondered if wren was yet another of the words deleted from the latest version of the Oxford Jr. Dictionary. I checked and found my suspicion correct.

Why would anyone omit wren?

For now rather than allowing this to spin in my head, I choose to remember wren, wren sharing its pre-flight chirps followed by flight for I want to fly. I want to always be inspired by birds in flight, bugs on the ground, sun in the sky. I want to remember we can fly and yes, we can always return home, to home deep within.

*****
For this we long.
To feel at home.
The butterfly, the sun, the bug, the wren.
Flying, setting, crawling, flying away again.
Showing us the way.

Here's fourteen seconds of flight for you, for me and for the world that is here to be. Enjoy... and click HERE for the original story about the children's dictionary that's deleted 10,000 words many related to what they call Old Nature.- Dawn! The Good News Muse, 8 November 2010

Nature's Texting - The Animals in the Rocks

My mother first taught me to see animals in things. Nearly three years ago as she lay in a hospital bed, awaiting her second surgery in six months, we watched tv. Actually the only channel we watched showed a steady stream of landscape images, images of flowers, rocks and trees. At first I didn't see them. She'd say, "See that bear in the rock" or "Look there's a cat" and I'd quietly chalk her creative visions up to one of the drugs she was taking. As I softened my focus and quit trying so hard, I too began to see them. It was a beautiful thing, my mother and I there in her hospital room in a vulnerable time finding animals emerging from nature unexpectedly.

Today I found a dolphin's meditative face in landlocked TN (in a rock of course). Last month I saw a fox.
How many treasures are hidden in Nature awaiting those who see?
- Dawn! The Good News Muse, 2 Nov. 2010

Nature's Texting - Young People and Trees

(Today, Nov. 2nd, I intentionally opted out of watching tv and instead opted for hiking.)

The photo doesn't clearly show it, but many of the older trees along this trail have been felled by a storm since I was last here. I was initially disappointed until I realized sprinkled all around me were young evergreens of various sizes. reminding me of the young ones coming up behind us.

The young ones, the youth, so many, so loving, so honest and wise. Knowing they are out there allows me to more easily embrace the shifts of today. =Dawn! The Good News Muse - 2 Nov. 2010

Nature Uniting Us, Elections Dividing US

(Although this is written with Middle Tennessee’s May 1^st flooding in mind, it applies to anywhere there’s a crisis or natural disaster uniting us juxtaposed to elections dividing US.)

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

Not so long ago, one brought us together uniting us, offering an opportunity to bridge political, religious, racial and economic divides while one more recently intentionally separates us by playing on these divides.

In both, images were and are used to motivate us. During the time of the flood and immediately afterward, images prompted us to reach out and show compassion. Good will flowed as strangers helped one another.

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

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

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

Crises remind us on a deep level that we are more alike than different whereas elections seem to thrive on getting us to forget these differences.

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

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 30 Oct. 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com