As We Rise So Does Earth - Ascending and Descending

Upon encountering the zipper spider, I knew it was time to put into writing what I sensed when I found these objects on a morning walk nearly two years ago.

I have looked for the zipper spider around my front door nearly daily this summer. Last year a landscaper with whom I was consulting saw it at my front door and told me what it was. I was smitten and have thus looked, truly nearly every day, to no avail until Wednesday's Autumn Equinox.

Here in Nashville my plants are thirsty for rain. While attaching the hose to the rain barrel, I saw my friend hanging from the oak leaf hydrangea.

I immediately associated the Zipper Spider with opening. That's when I thought of these objects from some time ago and how they are related to this time in which we find ourselves, this time in which we are rising.

*******

I walk my neighborhood streets just about every weekday. On this particular walk, I glanced down to see a white feather reminiscent of a spiral path. I saw it and knew I was seeing the spiral of ascension or rising to a new level of vibration and being.

Then within a couple of steps I saw the spiral earthworm and knew I was being reminded that as we rise, Earth rises. Yet to fully ascend we descend as well. In the descent, we allow to rise the often repressed, denied stuff of this earth walk, the sorrow, shame, anger, and fear. Honoring through feeling these often labeled dark emotions frees us and them.

We rise carrying less of the shadow of our individual and collective past.

Those who are willing to engage this descent can also invite the suppressed experiences and emotions within the land, animals, and plants to rise and be felt. Consciously honoring and asking Earth's energies to be turned into love, peace and light sends healing ripples through the quantum field.

Then in the next block all within a few steps of each other, I found ribbon, chord, a rubber band and a piece that looked like a zipper pull. These simple objects used for closing, wrapping, containing and tying were untied, broken and cut. They conveyed a potent message.

New Times have opened.

After writing the above, I read that the zipper spider is also called the writing spider or Argiope. The argiope symbolizes New Realms or the opening of New Dimensions. (source The Animal Speak Pocket Guide)

New Times have opened! 

I feel such joy in this. 

This potent energetic time in which we rise is the entry to New Realms. Some fear the world's end. I place my attention on the New Realms opening as we traverse the spiral path joining heaven and earth as a Great Shift occurs in the Universe.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 25 Sept. 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Four Simple Words

She said, "I'm sorry." I replied, "Thank you."

The young woman on the other end of the phone had no idea how much her two simple words meant to me, but I knew. I actually said to her, "Thank you. Thank you. It's okay."

I had just experienced back-to-back encounters in which my trying to do the "right" thing ended up being a frustrating thing. I buy really good (ie. holistic and as chemical free as possible and thus expensive) food for my cats. The store at which I buy it has a monthly discount day. I rushed over on what I thought was the correct Wednesday only to find I was a week late. I had waited for this specific day and even penciled in (yes, I still use a pencil) a time between clients to weave my way through the new Nashville traffic to get discounted food. I was angry at myself and unfortunately the person assisting me could only say, "It was last Wednesday. It's always been this way. Don't you want to be on our email list? It's always the second Wednesday."

I realized driving home that I actually became irritated with the salesperson because she seemed stuck on repeating "It was last Wednesday."

That same week, I went to the pharmacy to ensure they had a particular drug in stock that I was going to need for a heavy metals test. The drug was unusual so I thought it wise to stop in and inquire before my doctor faxed the prescription. To my surprise, they had the drug I needed. The following week as my doctor prepared the prescription, I even called to ensure they still had it. (I've never done something like that.)

You can imagine my surprise to walk in and find the faxed prescription was on the head pharmacist's desk where it had spent the day because he didn't know what it was....and he hadn't asked his associate (with whom I had twice spoken). I had given them all day to fill the prescription and now had fifteen minutes which was not enough time for the medication to be compounded.

I became impatient in this situation as well and explained that I had ensured not once but twice that they had the drug. Now I had to leave without the drug and postpone the test until the following week. I became irritated with the pharmacist who I've known for years and drove home realizing I just needed to hear two simple words from both he and the salesperson in the pet store.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry that happened."

"I'm sorry you came on the wrong day."

"I'm sorry I didn't think to ask my colleague what DMSA is."

 For me, as a feeler, just a simple, "I'm sorry" would do.

So when I get a call from the doctor's office reminding me of my appointment for the following week which I had already cancelled and said I would reschedule, I thought, 'Here we go again.'

I called the doctor's scheduler to remind her that I had cancelled and she had already called me back. That's when I heard "I'm sorry." I could tell from the tone of her voice that she wasn't just pacifying me. She truly was acknowledging her mistake.

I in turn said two words of equal significance in today's world. I sincerely replied, "Thank you."

The words we use and the tone with which we convey them is important even with simple statements like "I'm sorry" and "Thank you."

Imagine the shift in your personal life and thus our world if we each took the time to say "I'm sorry" when we or another has erred or "Thank you" to convey our appreciation.

Inside I smiled. Life provided a healing do-over.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 24 Sept. 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Joy Amidst "the Fall" - When Nature and Hymns on a Walk Conspire

During yesterday's walk, I came upon a dried, dead earthworm on the sidewalk. I cupped it in my palm for a moment before placing it in the grass. Then I came upon another. Earthworms stir joy in me and I found this exodus troubling. I'm accustomed to seeing earthworms on the sidewalk in Spring not Fall.

"For such as worm as I" sang through my mind. This line from the hymn, "At the Cross" implies we like worms are lowly and sinful. It was not good to be a worm back then. Yet earthworms area amazing and good. Earth nor we would be here without them.

I continued my walk thinking of being at the cross while listening to audio clips I recorded a year ago on Fall Equinox while hiking into the Grand Canyon. I had not listened to these since recording them. I randomly clicked on a file not knowing what I was about to hear except that it would be my voice. In this particular file I referred to the five bridges crossing Bright Angel Creek as we descended into the canyon. Then I heard myself comparing the five bridges with five crossings between Times, five times when life on Earth as it was known ended to start over again.

I walked and thought of Jesus and the crossing or bridge he created between dark and light. I shouldn't have been surprised to look down and see a bermuda grass crown of thorns in the middle of the sidewalk.

I had just read of Archangel Michael governing Autumn and hovering over Jesus in Gethsemane while assisting him in transmuting streams of hate and despair into currents of healing love.*

I lay the crown aside and walked a few more blocks before turning a corner. My pattern is to turn at  the third house up the inclining street. I got to the second house and looked down to find a host of earthworms, dead and dried, in many shapes like an early alphabet reminding me to listen to Nature's language.

I asked a man nearby if he knew whether the lawn where I stood had been sprayed. He told me landscapers had been digging earlier in the week.

This Fall migration reminded me of Earth's people today being forced from heir homes due to war and the corporate take over of African soil as businesses mine minerals to be used in our technology.

I bent down to more closely see the worms and realized one worm fragment had the tiniest of down feathers stuck to it.

Inside I smiled.

Needing to get to work, I gathered a handful of these beautiful beings and walked home. And yes, I stopped and got the "crown."

At my day's end, I sat with my treasures and listened. These creatures from the soil offered profound messages for the soul.

Earth and heaven are united.

Earthworm now flies....as can we.

Yet flying isn't superior to crawling. They are one and the same.

And the little fleck of down reminded me: 

Do not fear "down" - being down, feeling down, going downward.

(How often I've resisted down and judged myself for not being 'up.')

Down is ultimately the path to freedom and flight. Jesus traveled into the darkness we associate with down in order to shine the Light.

Grace had crawled from the grass in the form of earthworms and still grace lay before me in the form of the grassy crown. 

I felt the need to place the crown on my head. I did and immediately experienced it as the crown of harvest and celebration at this time of Fall. Then the thought occurred to me. What if humankind's "fall" was ultimately a beautiful thing meant to bring us to this Earthly place in Divine Time? What if the cross is now a place of crossing, a crossroads of sorts in which we each get to choose how we will use our energy and whether we will focus our attention on love or on fear so that rather than destroy ourselves and Earth this time around, we birth something unexperienced and new based in Love? What if the cross is now a place in which we realize the center is where up, down, in and out all meet together? Neither is more important than the other.

One of the first things my friend Wendy said to me years ago when we met was "The Universe is always speaking to us." 

The Universe IS always speaking to us..... through the stars and earthworms, through the grass and hymns of old. The Universe is always speaking to us through the quiet and simple, through the common and usually not so bold. 

Imagine the Shift to hearing. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 23 Sept. 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

*From "Nature Speaks" by Ted Andrews. 

After writing the above I went in search of two other earthworm-inspired storie. I hope you take time to read it as well "Crawling Home - Finding Grace."  and "Class Isn't Over." 

And here's another story related to being Bright Angels.

Independence and Interdependence - The New Paradigm

Soundcloud audio link to story here https://soundcloud.com/dawn-kirk/independence-and-interdependence-the-new-paradigm

What did our forefathers know that we’ve not been told?

The weekend of the 2012 autumn equinox, I awoke seeing the Pleiades, the star cluster I look forward to in winter’s sky. These seven stars shown so clearly I thought I was outside.  I was elated until I realized I was in bed in the middle of the night. 

A color-composite image of the
Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey
Credit: NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech

Then I was shown another scene.  Against a gray background, black silhouettes of telescopes revolved around me. I sensed I was seeing an astronomy tower of old.  Then I was shown the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin came to my mind. 

I lay in bed wondering if these things were linked.  I knew nothing about Ben Franklin beyond his experiment with the kite and key.   

The day prior I had just confided in a long distance friend that I’ve never been able to comprehend what I read. Because of this I have felt mentally inferior all my life.  Being able to memorize facts for tests, I did well academically but retained little regarding history.  I now know I learn through experience something for which our education system was not set up.  

This particular morning, I noted what I was shown along with my first impressions and experience then I went to the internet.  In the seconds it took to type a few words and click search, I realized this information somehow fit together but I had no idea what it meant.  

The first reference that got my attention regarded the Liberty Bell.  Called the Independence Bell in Ben Franklin’s day, it was rung when he went to England to express the colonists’ grievances to the King.  This was just one of eight times Franklin crossed the Atlantic in his life long before the speed and ease of today’s travels.  

I was stunned to learn Ben Franklin only went through 2^nd grade yet became a printer, scientist, inventor, statesman, politician, author and the country’s first post master.  He started a fire department, organized the first library and became the Minister to France.  He learned five languages and played three musical instruments.  This man called the First American whose many discoveries are integral to our lives today had an immense curiosity and willingness to ask questions.  

I felt a particular affinity for Franklin upon learning he authored “Poor Richard’s Almanac” a precursor to the present “Farmer’s Almanac.” This inexpensive paperback in the last two years has become my gardening Bible with its charts for planting based on planetary and moon influences.  

Most intriguing was information regarding Franklin’s belief in other beings in the stars.    His interest in the Native Americans, as well as legends of the Iroquois confederacy resulted in one of his best-selling pamphlets, the Iroquois creation story of  Sky Woman.  This story describes Sky Woman’s coming to Earth and birthing the human race.  Reading this brought tears to my eyes.  

I thought of the many Atlantic crossings Ben Franklin made and wondered if his openness to Native American belief was somewhat influenced by his own personal encounters with star beings during those eight long crossings?  Was he imbued with heightened creative energy from the stars?  What messages might he have received influencing his discoveries, attitude and knowledge?  

I then read that Franklin developed relationships with the members of the Lunar Society, a small group of men in England who met on the Monday nearest the full moon to discuss new scientific ideas, technology, innovation, metaphysics and philosophy.  These men became the fathers of the Industrial Revolution. 

Was it by coincidence, intention or grace that these men met each month on a Monday, the day of the week derived from Moon Day.  They supposedly met near the full moon so it would light their way home.  What inspiration or illumination came from meeting beneath the energy of the moon near its fullest and then walking home by its light?  

I found myself wondering what our forefathers knew that we’ve not been told? 

Where did the Pleiades fit into what I was shown?

In May 2011, two long distance friends visiting me shared how some Native Americans thought certain souls came to Earth from this star system. This stirred my interest and I began to look for them in winter’s night sky.  My first personal experience with the Pleiades was in January (2012) after my partner and I held a ritual at one of the starting points of the Trail of Tears. As we returned to our car, I happened to look up and saw the Pleiades overhead.  I sensed we were being quietly watched over from these stars above us.  

The particular morning of my on-line search I found “in the ancient world, in places of great power and influence, monuments were built aligned with the Pleiades. The Washington Monument is aligned with the Pleiades.”  

I found sites suggesting that the whole of Washington D.C. is laid out based on aligning buildings and monuments with certain star systems.  Sites I later came across insisted this held demonic intent.  

What I thought more interesting is that in today’s culture, the word star evokes actors, musicians and athletes not heavenly bodies of light.  Those interested in the heavens stars tend to fall into groups: Scientists and investors seeking to exploit bodies in space for minerals necessary for our technological devices, those looking to the star’s for Earth’s salvation, those looking to the heavens for religious salvation, the curious and those who consult the heavens for astrological insight. Many I fear live ignorant of the stars as I have until recently. 

I concluded my morning’s search, my mind a tangle of information yet curious as to these things shown to me. 

The next morning I was given more of the story.  I saw what looked like a photo of a doorway, specifically the floor at the threshold. This was followed by a slowly spinning mandala of five-pointed stars outlined in black. One star was in the center and each point was connected to the point of another star.  The turning image looked like something from the Southwestern Hopi.

I watched and knew I was being shown that the turning stars offer a threshold for our entering a new space and time.   

The next morning, I sat on the sofa my mind wrapped in a fog, coffee in hand, watching sunlight climb the trees. The Liberty Bell was on my mind.  Something felt missing regarding this piece of what I had been shown.   

Not being one to read the news, I picked up the weekend’s paper to distract myself or so I thought.  As I opened the local section, my breath was taken.  On page two was a small photo of a bell, a replica of the Liberty Bell being rung at a local celebration of Constitution Week.  

Before work, I delved into sites regarding the constitution and became even more mentally laden with information.  Each day that week I read about the Constitution yet nothing I read felt intuitively right in relation to what I had been shown. 

Days later as Jerry walked through the room I asked, “Does the Liberty Bell mean anything to you?” 

He only responded, “What does a bell do?” 

In that moment I knew.  A bell sounds a tone and in a tone I also saw at one. The first thing I had read was of the bell’s being rung when Ben Franklin went to England representing the colonies.  Were the people “at one” then or more so than we seem today?  The bell did crack after all.  Was this symbolic of the challenge even then of being unified while maintaining and honoring individual differences? 

I wondered, ‘If a bell makes a tone, can one be constructed to make specific tones?’ (I had totally forgotten of hearing church hand bell groups long ago.)  

I searched on-line and learned the Liberty Bell made in London was made to sound E flat.  I wondered if E flat in particular evoked a particular feeling or mood.  I searched E flat and found it is often associated with bold, heroic music. How perfect is that.

It is heroic the founding fathers convened to discuss, debate and ultimately craft a document that held a vision for America and that families set out for the unknown by crossing the watery threshold of the Atlantic with the starry night sky for navigation. 

Those before us won independence from England and became the builders of the outer structures in which our leaders convene. They crafted the political structure under which we’re governed and about which there’s such division today. 

It is equally heroic that we as Souls have gathered at this time.  Like those before us, we too stand at a threshold to the unknown with assistance from the stars.  We have the opportunity to build a new structure born in independence yet requiring something possibly more evolved than independence.  

These times call for a new heroism founded in the curiosity of Ben Franklin and the willingness to ask questions without knowing the answers. Who among us is willing to be that curious, to suspend what we cling to and the beliefs we adhere to and dig deeper to ask more and better questions? 

These times call for a heroism that doesn’t reactively vilify those who look or believe contrary to us.  We may celebrate Constitution Week, yet reacting in fear, judgment and anger suggests our constitution is weak, our personal inner constitution.  These times call for an inner structure of courage, compassion and awareness.  

The tone that sounds today isn’t that of a bell but the greater conversation.  We each have the opportunity to consciously set our individual tone which impacts the greater tone.   

The Founding Fathers gained independence and created literal and political structures.  We’ve the opportunity to more fully realize our interdependence and support a new relational structure, one that joins the inner with the outer and realizes our interconnectedness with one another, Nature and all of Earth.  

And just as the stars were with our founders, they are with us assisting in the opportunity to use free will in relation to our hearts, minds and voices as we cross the threshold in a new paradigm.  

-Dawn, The Good News Muse
17 September 2015
first posted 20 December 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Goose Feather that Got Me to France

Just over a month ago, I was arriving home from the most spontaneous trip of my fifty-six years thus far. In a span of two weeks, I decided to board a plane to go to Chartres, France for a conference with Ubiquity University.

During the week, Jean Houston one of the presenters said to the group, "Tell your stories. Tell your stories over and over."

I don't recall the context of Jean's saying this but I felt as if her words were meant specifically for me. So here I sit reflecting on the events that led to this sudden trip, another round of my Hero's Journey and the unfolding story of my time on Earth.

*******

In early February I came across an email sent to Jerry (who doesn't do much emailing) about a conference call with Andrew Harvey one of the speakers for a program in Chartres. I was already familiar with Andrew's work from prior workshops and books yet I was drawn to the February 12th call not to mention curious as to the emails coming to Jerry's seldom used address rather than mine.

So I listened and knew I was suppose to be doing so when one of the speakers was Jim Garrison, a man I interviewed in 2008 on a Nashville radio show I co-hosted for the newly formed WRFN-Radio Free Nashville.

Weeks passed after the February call. I missed the March and April calls yet in my journal I now find "Chartres" periodically noted in the margins as if I was contemplating something I wasn't consciously considering.

In April I had dinner with my friend Maryann. We've kept this ritual for years as she comes to Nashville to see clients. This particular dinner she asked if we had any trips planned. I said no. We travel fairly spontaneously (another reason I shouldn't have been surprised by France).

Maryann is an intuitive. Her forehead wrinkled a bit as she asked somewhat confused, "You're not going to Europe?"

With my own wrinkled forehead but no confusion I replied, "No" while placing her comment in the Maryann-really-got-that-one-wrong file. Although I've traveled and love travel, I had no desire to go to Europe and didn't give her question any more thought until I saw the billboard.

Three weeks later while hurrying down Nashville's busy West End, one of the rotating billboards read "Chartres" when I glanced at it. I did a double take only to find the advertisement had moved to another ad.

'Am I to go to Chartres?' zipped through my mind.

I knew in reality the ad was more than likely for Charter-something yet in that moment I knew I saw "Chartres." It was easy to discredit what I thought I saw. I was ambivalent about returning to France. I recalled the sadness from six years prior when I was there. I did not want to be surprised by sorrow like I was then while walking and weeping through French towns remembering what I felt there prior. (That trip convinced me of past lives.) I wept tears of profound sadness and joy as we traveled in the south of France for a week visiting sites of the Black Madonna, Mary Magdalene and Sarah, a saint to the Romani people. Upon arriving in Chartres during that visit, I longed for the greenery of the south of France. I didn't want to be surrounded by the concrete and asphalt around the cathedral. I wasn't even taken with the stained glass for which the cathedral is known.

Yet after the billboard I did wonder. I wondered yet reasons for not going stirred in my mind. Not only was I apprehensive about returning, I didn't have the money to go, and I didn't feel my best.

May arrived and I received an email about the upcoming call related to what would be occurring in the stars while the group was in Chartres. I could at least find out about the heavens without making the trip.

I listened to that call and sensed a inner hmmmm when I heard . 'Was I to go to France?'

I read my notes from the call to Jerry. He listened but asked no questions. I shelved the possibility.

In the meantime, I spent the rest of May recovering from a sudden bout of Epstein-Barr virus activated by a potent herb I took for something else.

The June 11th call came around a month later. This time Jim Garrison spoke of the Greek stories of which he would share daily during the conference. A deeper HMMMMM resounded in me. I read my notes from the call to Jerry and said, "I miss being a student."

A couple of days later he asked, "When is that conference in France?" (He thought it was in the Fall.)

The trip was now just under three weeks away and his passport as I feared had expired. We quietly wrote the trip off as renewing a passport required weeks.

The following day while outside working, I came upon a bug, a large black bug that appeared dead. Actually it was behind me and as I turned it got my attention. As I held it I knew I was being told to hold the things of the past, that are behind me, like my experience in France. I placed the bug under the azaleas nearby then turned around to again find behind me a large down feather.

I've many feathers yet had no idea what this one was other than down. I later wrote a friend who made suggestions then as I read her response I intuitively knew I had been given goose down. A quick on-line search confirmed what I thought. I looked up the symbolism of goose in "Animal Speaks" and read: "The call of the quest and travels to legendary places."

I excitedly, hesitantly told Jerry, "I think we're going to France."

He didn't jump for joy but he was open.

Later that day I read further in "Animal Speaks" and learned goose can also be related to having assistance in one's writings. Was that why the goose feather found me? Maybe I was being given help in my writing (which surely I need) and we weren't to travel.

Yet I kept thinking 'What if? What if the conference comes and goes and we've not even tried to get a passport?' We agreed that getting a timely passport appointment would be a sign.

I found a number on-line for getting an urgent appointment in Atlanta. One would think I would have called that number immediately. Did I? No. I waited until the next day, a Tuesday, and made the call. There was availability at 10:00 am the following Monday. Jerry and I never take Mondays off together unless we've a vacation. Yet that specific Monday we were taking off from work to hike. We were actually free the day of the available appointment.

Was this another sign?

I pressed the key pad to hear if an 11:00 or Noon time was available that Monday. The next available time was four days out and too close to the trip to accept. When I returned to the prior 10:00 time it had already been taken.

My heart sank. I had rejected our opportunity because I didn't want to get up early enough to be in Atlanta at 10:00am. I felt devastated. I put out feelers to everyone I could think of including a friend who suggested I call my congressman. I did and learned the staff member who might be able to help was away until Thursday.

I left a message and received a call from her Thursday morning. Within thirty minutes we had an appointment Monday at 8:30 in Atlanta.

All the reasons I shouldn't go suddenly to France circled my mind in bed that night: We don't have time to prepare. I wasn't fully recovered. I had forgotten my French. I hadn't read any of the books on the suggested reading list. I usually give the cat and house sitter sufficient notice. I would have to cash in retirement money. No wise investor would do that. And I reminded myself that just because we had an appointment didn't mean we would get the passport.

Yet to give in to these fear-based rationalizations meant ignoring Maryann, the billboard, the hmmm, having Monday off and Nature's messenger, the goose feather.

The passport appointment lasted all of 30 minutes and we were home by the afternoon.

The wait began and I began to reread my journal from 2009. In it I saw notations where Chartres, this city of concrete and asphalt where I did not want to initially be, was one I did not want to leave two days later when my group left. As I read notes from my prior trip, I knew we were going to France.

Four days later Jerry's passport arrived. Seven days later we boarded a plane.

We crossed the threshold from our Ordinary World as Joseph Campbell calls it in the Hero's Journey and embarked on the Road of Trials and Adventures. This trip our trials were few and our adventures many. (Actually my trials are usually more of my own making due to mistrust aka fear.)

Synchronocities, always a sign I'm on my soul's path, continued during our trip.

And I walked around Chartres thinking and saying aloud to Jerry, "We're suddenly in France, aren't we?" It all unfolded so quickly I didn't fully believe at times we were there.

Now we're home and I reread my notes and look at photos to get a felt sense of my having suddenly returned to this land that broke me open in a beautifully, unexpected way.

I reflect on my experience to return to that felt sense of following the "bread crumbs" placed before me, to ponder why I resisted and feared? I retell this story to you and to me because Jean's words resonated with me.

In today's busy world it is far too easy to forget the signs and synchronicities weaving themselves through my life and possibly through your own. It is easy to get caught up in the news of the day, what's next to be done or loose time reading the passing comments on social media that I don't listen to the stuff of my life...the many layers and planes, the planes of Then woven through the Now.

Through reflecting and remembering my trip, I see the patterns within me and in the bigger picture of my life.

As I continue to listen I am reminded the Hero's Journey begins with what Joseph Campbell refers to as The Call which the hero usually resists. I smile since my "call" was literally "three calls - three conference calls."

Reflecting on the past, I'm reminded of Nature's engagement as the goose offered its feather and animals arrived with messages throughout my trip. 

How do you receive messages? What is your relationship with the world of Nature? 

As I wrote this I searched the meaning of goose on other sites and read: When goose totem appears you may be embarking soon on a journey (physical or symbolic) with others for a collective purpose. 

This was another reason goose appeared for 100 of the most amazing people from around the world convened at Chartres that week, creative, innovative, inspiring people open to listening and being more alive in the world. 

I've not known how or where to conclude this story or at least this part of it. I realize it has no end yet I've knowings that I experience as Truths thanks to the goose feather and France.

One of those Truths is the Universe is always speaking to me through the nature made and manmade and through unexpected interactions and encounters. My challenge, opportunity, and fortune is to stay wake, open and be willing to follow.

To what are you called? What do you feel tugged to do? How do you feel tugged to be? 

Do you jump in, vacillate or at times resist? How do you receive messages? 

What is your relationship with the world of Nature? 

How does the Universe/God/Spirit/Higher Power try to engage with and speak to you? 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 25 August 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Our Golden Home

At first I thought the shell lying at my feet was a peanut shell. (I broke my rule last week and fed the squirrels some peanuts in the shell.) Curiosity got the best of me and I picked it up to find this gilded casing had been the home to something, something that may eat my plants or tree leaves in the months to come or something that may have already been food for a bird.

What I do know is this shell once held life and my first thought was 'I hope this is symbolic of me!'

For this golden home I now hold in my palm reminds me of my home, this physical body of mine and the life within that I take for granted and forget.

Just last night as I lay in bed with my hand on my chest, I realized I was feeling the beat of my heart - the steady beat of the organ rhythmically thumping inside me. It has been with me all along, yet in fifty-six years I have not stopped to really take this in. Really take it in.

How have I neglected this golden home of my body that has held me, heart, spirit, body, mind and soul?

This golden home in my palm reminds me as well of my earthly home - Mother Earth as I think of her. I am connected to her. How is it I take my body more for granted than the Earth?

Some people spend more time focused on Earth issues while others spend more time tuned into their body's issues. I live more tuned in to dirt, water and trees than to the dirt and water of me.

These are wonderings I will ponder in the days ahead. For now, what I know is I want to imprint within me this golden home with the dirt heart on its shell. I want to be reminded that my body and this Earth are golden homes in which and on which I live.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  24 Aug. 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Of Soles and Souls (After the Morning's Near-Accident)

The first thing I do each morning is ensure the bird feeders are filled and this time of year the hummingbird feeders as well. This morning I took fresh sugar water outside and promptly stepped on a feeder part that I had left on the ground the day prior. A metal point punctured my flip flop and made contact with my bare sole just as I stepped down. Fortunately somehow I avoided puncturing skin and as is not uncommon for me kept right on with my outside tasks without checking my foot.

As I walked about the yard, I began to feel the subtle physical repercussions throughout my body. The angle in which I stepped in order to avoid a major injury could be felt in my hip, back, and neck. And interestingly the discomfort in my right foot was mirrored in my right hand which now had a similar discomfort.

I marveled at the interconnectedness of my body and how an event with my foot could be felt in so many places. 

I came inside to ice my sole and take a remedy to prevent bruising. I hoped a temporarily cold sole would prevent a bruised and hurting one come tomorrow. 

The connections in my body reminded me of the connections related to Mother Earth's body. What we do to the Earth or don't do through negligence or ignoring comes back to haunt us whether through present disasters with the Animas River that's now running orange with metals and toxins that were stored from mining decades prior or the cancers sourced in environmental toxins.

I sat and pondered my foot and sole and root and soul. 

To harm or affect the root of something affects all else. 

And to "get to the root" of something takes time and space for considering. Whatever one finds at the root, often creates tension, discomfort and initially at least more questions than answers. 

In trying to prevent a bruised or hurting sole, my temporarily cold sole also reminded me of bruised, hurt, cold souls in today's world as well as those of the past who still impact the present because of what they did to the root of something or because the root of their distress was never addressed. (I think of the impact of the Great Depression still on generations today evidenced through addictions born out of family histories in which one's ancestors never dealt with the consequences of the Depression and its trauma.)

I have more questions than answers in today's world, yet I know bruised, cold, hurting souls need to be heard, deeply heard, even if they don't care about hearing themselves. They need those of us who can to bear witness and hold what they are doing to Mother Earth's waters, soil, air, plants, animals, and people. They need those of us who are willing to hold great compassion for them and for ALL and to hold the better questions as to what is driving them to treat Nature and others with such disdain, violence, and hate. 

Not paying attention caused my accident this morning yet listening allowed me to make connections and hear the deeper story in this simple event. 

Not paying attention has gotten us to where we are in this time yet listening (without reacting) can just possibly allow us to hear at a deeper level what's trying to emerge through souls that have been bruised over time.

Listen. Be curious for what's going on at the root...of your sole, your soul and all souls.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  12 August 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com