Messengers of Flight Along the Sidewalk of Life - The Real Story of Lizards & Birds, You & Me

(This story is an unexpected continuation of the one prior: Hidden in Holes-Hope for the Heart.)

Two days after seeing the bird feed her babies in the wall and wondering who owns the eyes that hide in the sidewalk hole, I came upon half of a small blue egg during my near-daily walk. A sign of new feathered life lay in the grass near the concrete's edge.

I wished for a camera then realized a few yards ahead was the hole in which life hides. Just as I thought this, something darted into the dark. Eyes, I've assumed of a lizard, had glimpsed me.

I walked on wondering if lizard asks, "How did I end up crawling earth?" Does it remember eons ago that its flying kin gave up their wings over time?

I was reminded of all souls before birth before we give up our wings and choose life on earth. Once we get here we tend to forget our wings and the heart's freedom in flight. We construct walls and like the life in the concrete, we retreat.

I once knew someone who thought people, especially many politicians were reptilian. Being the former owner of "Iggy" the Iguana as well as one who loves animals, I didn't like reptiles being dismissed this way.I also had hope for people, even politicians.

Arriving home, I grabbed my camera and drove up the street to take the above photos. I mindfully approached not wanting to frighten the life and there it was.

The lizard allowed me a photo. I thanked it and blessed it. Inside I smiled. It was kin to the lizard Mystery befriended from our second floor window this time last year. Just after the flood, this little meeting of two would convene on the roof on either side of the window. The lizard masculine in my mind hung out with our cat, the symbol of the feminine in eons past. Even then I wondered if lizard on a cellular level remembered that once it could fly. I imagined the lizard asking 'Do you know the secret of flight?' and Mystery conveying, "The secret is inside."

One Christmas Iggy did fly. As I walked past our Christmas tree, he flew from my shoulder into the tree and from those limbs of green I like to never have retrieved him.

Hidden in holes cellularly within or in Iggy's case a tree, lies the heart's wings, flight's memory.

********

On Wednesday this week, I hurriedly walked prior to the predicted rains. For the third time in the past year near the church on the corner, I found a pile of light bulbs. Like the prior times, I picked this little stack up and thought, 'Now here's a story.'

"Discover the power of Jesus," they read.

Yet the story had not come.

Placing the light bulbs in my pocket, on I walked. Overnight rains had washed twigs, mud, rock and leaves to the curb and over the metal grates along Natchez Trace.

The first grate I came to I uncovered with my bare hand. As I neared the next one, I wished for a glove. There lying crumpled at the base of a shrub was a brown, clothe glove damp but ready for use.

I uncovered each metal grate along Natchez Trace wondering what passers-by thought if they even they even noticed the small, smiling gray haired woman squatting at the street's edge with dripping clods and clumps in her hands.

I had learned this art from Judy my 70-something neighbor who does the same thing around our street. I smiled realizing I truly didn't care what others might think which for a Southern woman from my family was really quite a feat. I was transported to the past first to sandboxes then to the memory of ooze as we walked in the ditches on my grandmothers street. After the rains mud covered our feet. My heart was happy.

Making my way homeward, I came to the cracked sidewalk. No sign of life darting to hide. Had the lizard been swept away by the overnight rains?

Just as I got to the block before my street's turn, there lay a little blue egg unopened among large landscaping rocks. What to do? I looked for the nest from which it might have blown then gently placed it under a nearby butterfly bush. I had to get home yet I couldn't leave. I held it and said, "Tell me what to do?"

"Take me home. Take me home and remember I am a symbol of the new. I hold the new man.
I hold the new you."

Moments later I sat writing this piece the little blue egg tucked inside a clothe heart near my own heart mindful the next day I would return it to the base of the butterfly bush.

Butterfly, birds, lizards and Mystery messengers of transformation for you and me.

*************

This morning the realization came that for the past six days, I had been given the pieces to a story in reverse, the story of love and rich life here on earth.

We arrive here whole like the egg, dropped from the Universal heart's nest. Most of us land in rocky places unaware that above us hovers the butterfly bush. In these hard places, heartache, disappointment and trauma covers our hearts and who we are, stopping the flow like the mud covered grates. We forget our winged selves and like the lizard we hide, feeling vulnerable, fearing the eyes of life and light. Then through gentle hands or kind words, the mud is lifted. We feel a shifting, a stirring of our wings. We've the opportunity to experience the current of love (for some the 'power of Jesus' as the light bulbs read). This Love if we receive it breaks open the egg, allowing our hearts to take flight. This is how it was meant to be, fear and hurt when we're receptive are part of the path to becoming free.

As I completed the paragraph above and thought it was time to return the little blue egg to the butterfly bush, I heard a slight crack. I took the egg swaddled in feathers from the heart-shaped pouch. For 24 hours I had kept the egg safe. Now the pouch was damp. The story was complete and I had accidentally broken the egg. I wept as I took it out. A crumb of a dried rose petal from my father's funeral was stuck to the egg. I had once carried rose petals in this pouch.

I cried and cried. The me that loved mud between my toes as well as climbing trees held hope that somewhere between home and the butterfly bush I would find a robin's nest in which to place the egg.

Life seeped from inside the egg, like the life in my heart flowing from my eyes reminding me of the new me, the me that finds joy in vulnerability. If I someone who's lived decades with a walled heart can fly, there's hope for the lizard and humankind.

Love through Life's story pours from the cosmic egg.
Receive.
Let your heartbreak open.
Let your heart break open.
Fly. Be free.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 28 April 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Hidden in Holes-Hope for the Heart

Recently I've been to Starbuck's repeatedly. Well, four times in two weeks which
for me is comparable to a 'grande' and for many not even a 'tall.' I've sat in the
drive-thru watching the bird that enters the wall.

Yes, a little brown bird, a sparrow I think, has a nest in the wall in the adjacent building. Yesterday it swooped down to the pavement below, pecked fervently at a cracker tossed out, then carried bits to the open mouth visible at the cave entrance.


Similarly two consecutive mornings this week as I've ran, I've glimpsed a sunning lizard dart into the dark beneath chunks of broken sidewalk. Every time it spies me before I spy it.

Birds and lizard.
Life hiding within the holes of hardness.
Hardness protecting life.

Hope for the hardened heart.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 23 April 2011

Out of the Blue, What Did I Find? Two Mary's and Andrew Birthed at St. Joseph's and Patterns Divine

After posting a brief piece about the blue Mary missing Joseph and stopping by Starbucks to check on the bird in the wall, I made my way to the Earth Day Celebration in Centennial Park last weekend.

In minutes, I spied Andrew whom I had never met but immediately knew was a contributor to a continuing story. He stood at the corner of McDonald's by the park selling “The Contributor” the monthly newspaper sold by the homeless and formerly homeless. I had already bought April's issue. What caught my eye was the poster Andrew held, a poster of not one, but TWO blue Mary's!

Two winged Mary's prayerfully presided over a geometric design created by exquisite blue drops falling from the heavens. The symbol reminded me of the childhood Spirograph toy introducing kids of the 70’s to geometry long before I was intimidated by it in school or heard of sacred geometry later in life.

As I continued to look at the poster, I saw the Mary’s praying over a Dream Catcher, like the one hanging in the corner of my living room. I knew immediately that I wanted to purchase Andrew’s art. I told him of the story I had just written and of learning through a friend’s quick response that Joseph was the saint of many things, none of which I could recall in the moment except the saint of the dying.

To this Andrew said, “I was born at St. Joseph’s in Memphis.”

Inside I smiled and thought, 'St. Joseph is the Saint of Birthing as well.' I remembered my prior story alluding to Joseph as representing the masculine and men of the world being called from the shadows. Andrew’s comment reminded me that men give birth.

Then I was reminded again that men give birth, as Andrew took from his bag, a portfolio of shapes he had collected from trash. With a knife he had turned trash into stencils, stencils into patterns and patterns into art.

As he turned page upon page, I immediately recognized in this young man’s tool kit, the geometric patterns I see that come turning and swirling from the universe at night or before morning’s light as well as phrases I hear.

I’ve tried reading books to understand what I’m seeing yet as someone who learns visually and experientially, I’ve been unable to make sense of these Seeings until witnessing Andrew’s sign. Unexpected and out of the blue on Earth Day and Easter weekend, the work of a young man tuned into other realms helped me finally understand the images I’m given from other realms.

There it was in blue and white. From the void, The Contributor dropping singular circles of energy as the Mary’s, embodiment of love, presided over the process of creation. The energy of the stars, dropping through blue sky into blue waters, waters that once covered land, seeding the soil and soul with fire, vitalizing Earth, nourishing the plants, energizing our food and if we allow it our hearts, our minds and lives.

Suddenly I realized Earth is a Dream Catcher, a receiver of energetic matter and pattern.

We are dream catchers, receiving energy made of pattern. We are pattern walking in the world, flowing rivers of blood and lymph, trees as lungs, hip bone connected to the thigh bone, constellations of light moving through a world of pattern.

In flower and food, our souls and bodies are fed by pattern, the same regenerative structure of the pattern in Andrew’s sign.

We are divine pattern waking in the world, born to relate in the pattern of love, yet often stuck in patterns of fear mirroring larger social patterns while living in the unfolding pattern of Mystery through Time.

We are pattern divine waking in the world in powerful, pattern shifting times, times that are of expansive, open and fluid energy. Granted free will, we each become Contributors as we choose how we’ll use our energy, relate to or with patterns in nature, in ourselves and in others and whether we’ll open to receive the patterns raining down from above.

Andrew and I parted ways Saturday both holders of signs. He stood on the street corner with another colorful creation and “The Contributor” in hand as I strolled through the park his sign of creation in mine.

Hours later as I made my way to my car, I noticed a name “Hermes” written on the arm of a large Magnolia. Not knowing my gods very well, I took a photo as a note.

Once at home, I immediately researched St. Joseph again. How could I forget?! I didn’t grow up Catholic, but even as a Baptist I knew Joseph was a carpenter, a builder. Among many other things he’s also the saint of social justice and the Universal Church.

How beautiful that Andrew too is a builder, a builder of divine art from designs found in trash and although I don’t know personally as to Andrew's situation I do know many homeless people are victim to our less than just society.

For days and weeks to come, I will be digesting the many grace-filled messages my Earth Day/Easter weekend experience.

Whether you worship Jesus who went into the down under to rise for the soul or the seed planted in the down under that rises from the soil, we are each male and female, carpenters and builders, the Joseph's of the world. And we are each Mary’s of the world, holding the energy and capacity for expanding, opening Love, the corner stone of the Universal church.

As divine pattern in divinely patterned time, may we all feel and recognize the pattern of Light raining down from above, the pattern of Light, the pattern of Love.

P.S. Thank you, Andrew, for finding your way to the corner Saturday. Keep designing your art !

P.S. While rereading this story, I realized I never looked into Hermes - the tree. Inside I smiled as I read on-line: Hermes was considered among a multitude of things the great messenger of the gods in Greek myth, a guide to the under world and those who cross borders reminding me of those I encounter at night and the inventor of fire (ah, energy).

Inside I smiled and outside I cried, part of my heart's joyful pattern in these divine times.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 27 April 2011

Blue Mary, Missing Joseph

This morning I recalled the Blue Mary I saw in stained glass at Chartres Cathedral outside Paris two years ago. This being for Christians the day after the crucifixion I consider her blueness a symbol of her sadness.

Then as also occurred to me a year ago at Easter, I thought of Joseph. Where on Earth was Joseph? Where are the sermons related to Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus?




I don't mean to be offensive to Mary, but churches and shrines are filled with images and sculptures of Mary and Mary Magdalene, their love, their grief, such sorrow.

Where was Joseph? What was it like for him to witness the loss of his son? Did he resort to hiding, disguising his grief like so many men and some women of today, ashamed of tears or hardened to pain? Did he feel inadequate to hold his personal pain let alone his partners?

Then I recalled while in Lyon's cathedral, Joseph stood on a lower level. He stood in the shadows on a lower level where work was being done with a young boy, I suspect, Jesus in his arms.

May the blue Mary's of the world find their missing Josephs and gently call them from the shadows, from the lower levels so the work of the healthy masculine and feminine may be done.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 23 April 2011

P.S. Upon posting this, a new friend shared a link about Joseph in the comment section. The link includes what historians think as to his absence as well as Joseph's being a Saint. And yet I still love the image of the blue Mary's and Sally's and Sarah's and Donna's and all the women of the world calling their Joseph, John, Tom, Dave, Bob and Joe from the shadows so the Masculine and Feminine can balance and be and in love be set free.

Practicing Love & Rescurrection - Earth Day/Good Friday

This week I've been mindful of the beautiful symbolism of Earth Day and Good Friday being on the same day. May we practice the resurrection Mother Earth so beautifully shows us each Spring and evidence Love as she does throughout the year.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 22 April 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

"Mother, Forgive Us For We Know Not What We Do"

(This Musing was originally posted May 10, 2010 after Nashville flooded and as the Gulf continued to fill with oil altering ocean life life and animals in the numbers of which we will probably never know. Mindful that the one year anniversary of that explosion is today April 20, I recalled this piece and continue to wonder how many crises it will take to alter us and our lives so that we are aware and appreciative of Mother Earth's deep love expressed through her plant and animal kin.)

Over the past few months, a particular Bible verse has crossed my mind. Something close to Jesus’ words as he died, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" have periodically crossed my mind.

I’ve actually heard: "Mother, forgive us for we know not what we do."

I would think this odd except the words or prayer have come to mind as I've thought of the string of recent environmental crises the first of which was the earthquake in Haiti followed by those in Chile, Turkey, China, Mexico and recently in Chile again. During this time there was a deadly coal mine explosion in West Virginia, the volcano eruption in Iceland then the oil rig explosion and resulting ongoing oil leak in the Gulf. This was topped off most recently by the Middle Tennessee floods.

Yes, I have thought, "Mother, forgive us for we know not what we do."

I have ignored the words of my inner voice until last week. Within days of the deluge in Middle Tennessee, a friend sent me an article regarding deep oil drilling. I had naively assumed off shore drilling meant going however many feet to the ocean's floor and presto there one found oil just beneath the earth's crust. Instead I learn that once we get to the ocean floor, we have the capacity to drill into the earth 18,000 to 30,000 feet or the equivalent of three to six miles give or take a few feet. I have often used the phrase "raping the Earth" but the image of drilling into Earth’s skin 3-5 miles is staggering. We truly are penetrating Mother Earth, raping her to sustain our way of life.

And like so many Mothers she is patient, patient with her children as we argue, debate and yes, set aside one day, the coming Earth Day, to celebrate her bounty and beauty.

"Mother, Forgive us for we know not what we do."

It is quiet and I hear:
I do.
I do forgive you.
I am Love.
You are each love too.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 5/11/10
Reposted 4/20/11
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Elephant Said, "Let Fear Rise."

Sometime ago an elephant crossed my mind. No, I've not suddenly become Republican. I was walking through my living room when I thought of Ganesh, the elephant god considered by Hindu's to be the remover of obstacles. I've not become Hindu either.

Last Fall while in Sedona's Andrea Smith Gallery celebrating Ganesh's birthday with a golden iced cake, I saw and ate cake but also bought a scarf with elephant eyes peering through a leafy thicket. I was wearing that scarf when in a crystal clear moment Ganesh entered my mind accompanied by words, words that said:

"Of course, Fear has to rise. All the obstacles to Love have to

rise if Love is going to shine its brightest here on Earth.”

Suddenly everything made sense. Fear and Love have danced together throughout the ages. If you listen only to the headlines, Fear seems to be taking the lead on America’s dance floor fueled by everything from last summer’s bedbugs, the recycled fear of socialism, immigrants and government shutdown, the ongoing fears of bad weather and aging as well as loosing jobs, erections and the right to carry guns. The fear of flu comes ‘round each winter and not long ago Homeland Security created announcements for Walmart telling customers to report suspicious behavior in parking lots or store aisles.

Fear plays on the surface as many dance. The players of the instruments (drug companies, agriBusiness, lobbyists, politicians and much of mainstream media) go about their business, some dancing to the bank, many of them unconsciously dancing in fear too.

"Fear has to rise. All the obstacles to Love have to rise if Love is going to shine its brightest here on Earth."

This was the perfect message as I try to hold the big picture of these tumultuous times and the accompanying tension in my heart and mind. This grace-filled message reminds me that fear is not the problem. Fear is the signal that things are shifting. The paradigm of domination and separation that has for centuries prevailed in the world is loosing its grip.

The rising of Fear signals that Love is rising too. Love is rising in the dance not to conquer or win but to show up and shine, waking up in America and our world to a degree it has never shone prior.

Fear is signaling the potential for a new level of awareness in the dance. Fear signals that over time increased consciousness has laid the ground work for these Times. All those who have bravely loved and died are part of the foundation on which the collective heart of the world now rises.

This message helps me see the times through a wide angle lens, to see all the many unfolding stories as part of a larger story as we are given the choice to shift from sleepwalking to awareness, from thinking we are separate to realizing our connectedness, from dominating Earth to appreciating and living in relationship to the environment and nature.

While pondering this dance, I suddenly knew: Fear fears we will do to it what it has done throughout time. That we will demand it pay, make it suffer and cause it pain. That we will in turn try to conquer and control it. Fear does not trust that Love doesn’t keep score, make demands or seek revenge. This level of Love makes no demands.

Love holds space for Fear to be loved too, while loving the frightened, especially those who don’t even know they’re afraid.

Then comes the rub, the obstacles to love have to rise in me too. A personal obstacle of my own is the ‘how’ of holding these times. I must release the desire to control how others dance, the Roves, Palins and Bachmans of our country, and instead lovingly hold my own inner dance knowing it is connected to the world’s ball room.

This is part of the Mystery of these times as we shift each in our own way from sleepwalking and reactivity to greater awareness. As we wake up, Love wakes up.

Let those of us who are heart specialists invite and embrace fear so it is held in the vibration of loving compassion and understanding.

Imagine Fear, vulnerable Fear, welcomed and held in the gentle arms of Love, the Great Remover of Obstacles.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 14 April 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

P.S. Synchronistic events and links often arrive when I'm working on a story. For example, when writing this I learned of Bridge Reynold's Deity Arts, cards and prints of Bridgets works including Ganesh.

Then yesterday upon completing this Musing, I'm in Wolf camera where I see a woman I had first seen there just over a month prior. As I downloaded pictures, she came by to visit then gave me her postcard with of course an elephant on it !!! Alice is an adventurer whose site had dozens of photos of wildlife and people from around the world. Visit her site at: alicesadventures.com

The Dream of the Businessman - Sing & Forgive

One recent morning, I awoke sobbing. I had dreamed of the creek at my grandparents’ in the country, the creek that flowed past their home and through the field in which their cows grazed. In the dream, my nephews and I made our way through a labyrinth of spider webs and wooden boards to emerge on top of a small platform by the creek. I loved this creek. It was the place in my childhood, where tadpoles turned into frogs and crayfish hid among the pebbles. This was where I first saw stones imprinted with tiny fossilized swimming, crawling creatures from eons past. Buttercups grew along the bank in spring, the same bank where in summer my grandmother would spread a pallet, country speak for quilt, where we’d eat sugar and butter sandwiches on white bread, to us a real treat.

These fond memories relate to nature along the creek yet I awoke from my dream crying. I awoke crying because we emerged from the labyrinth to find the creek was now a swiftly flowing river.

With the contamination and disappearance of streams for a variety of reasons, to see a stream that was now a river should have been a good thing. But it wasn’t. The river had a wood chip mill built alongside it. Water from the river was used to supply power to the chipper as all things wooden – old chairs, tables and planks - were shredded. At one point the shell of a black truck from the 1930’s floated past as I watched horrified.

My father stood on the platform. It was his parents who had owned this land. I looked at him and with urgency said, “We've got to stop this. I'll buy the land.”

With a profoundly sad look on his face, he told me regulations prevented this because once a mill was built on a stream the contract could not be reversed. I compassionately replied, “I know. I know. You did what you thought you had to do. You thought you had to sell the land to take care of the kids.”

I then entered a nearby board room where a businessman was releasing people, salt-of-the-earth people from this dear rural town, from their debts. This is at least how it initially appeared as the man outlined for each person the amount he could financially save them if they agreed to his terms. People were quite pleased he was there to help. I watched as they seemed asleep. In their trust they were blind as to how he was the one profiting from their predicament.

Then the man gave me a document, a piece of paper that held two things in writing granting me debt relief. I didn’t even know I had a debt but I immediately knew I could do the things required of me.

One line read: Sing: “We Rejoice in Earth” a song I did not know but certainly knew I could sing. The line at the bottom of the form read: Owed: Forgiveness. All that was required of me was to sing and forgive.

Weeping, I turned to the businessman and said, “Oh, but I do, I do forgive you. I do.” He looked at me in disbelief as I could hardly get out the words. Between intermittent sobs and gasps for breath, I told him I practiced a meditative prayer honoring the fact that we are all connected and in our unity I am part of him as he is part of me. I could find it in my heart to forgive him of everything.*

I awoke from the dream.

In childhood, I was witness to nature along the creek. In the dream, I witnessed the acts of human nature, acts resulting in inventions like the truck that floated past as well as the acts of using others and their allowing themselves to be used for another's gain. I’ve benefited from these acts and have also been pained. So many of these acts and decisions, like the contract with the mill on the river, cannot be reversed.

Humankind, like my nephews and me, has made its way through the labyrinth of life to this place where the creek of time is now a swiftly moving river of all creation. How many businessmen or men like my father have impacted the river of creation with decisions based on short-term gains for themselves or to care for their children, without thought as to the long-term impact on their children’s lives and health or to the interconnected web that supports us here at home on Earth? How many of these businessmen are now politicians or CEO’s connected to lobbying groups, men unconsciously fueled by fear, trying to gut the EPA while playing on people’s fear, salt-of-the-earth people who trust without thinking? How many businessmen line their pockets exploiting Earths’ resources, precious metals, trees, coal and petroleum or even now consider how they might exploit potential metals on the moon? (Yes, a Silicon Valley group aspires to mine the moon in the coming years.)

I’ve harbored such anger at what mankind has done to Earth and how Nature is treated and mistreated, neglected and used for human benefit without appreciation. I’ve held such anger and despair that at times I didn’t think I could continue living on Earth.

So often I’ve wished for all the money in the world, all the money in the world to buy back the land like I desired in the dream. How many lotteries have I wanted to win so I could buy the remaining fields and forests as well as clear the land of homes of man so Earth could be restored? I cannot buy back the land.

How beautiful then that the businessman provided the answer to my grief as well as his own plight and redemption. The businessman gave me the key to healing and resonance with Mother Earth in these times. The slip of paper offered me held the two acts needed for our redemption, actions coming from the spirit of the human heart.

Singing and forgiving we buy back the land, first the land that is our heart, for how we treat the outer land parallels how we have treated or ignored our inner land. Through reclaiming the heart’s land, we reconnect with the outer land, the land that is Mother Earth.

Singing and forgiving we buy back the land. We awake from the dream of separation to our unity. Singing and forgiving we energetically reverse the contracts that have negatively impacted the web of life.

I need You. The businessman needs you. Earth needs You. Whether you’re a singer, dancer, drummer, laugher, lover, wherever your joy and creativity lives, you are needed at this time. Don't wait until Earth Day!!!! Let's rejoice in Earth. Let's forgive the businessman for his lack of awareness as to his relationship with Earth, the impact of his actions on the land, air, water and animals and the future health of his children I ask you, your neighbor, your family to join me uniting humankind, to redeem us, to pay off our debt by singing, by rejoicing in Earth and by forgiving ourselves for our ignoring and not appreciating the myriad of ways in which Mother Earth supports us.

We bear witness and yes, those of us of heart may still grieve. It is time to forgive and sing. From this place Mother Earth feels our compassion, our partnership and we re-knit the torn threads in the web of life while just maybe healing and waking the businessman, waking the businessman who gave me this beautiful dream.

Please join him and me

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 11 April 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

* To learn more about the meditation or prayer form that I described to the man in my dream, click here - Ho'oponopono. I do not have this perfected, but I do know when I practice this simple prayer of "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I thank you" I and my part of the greater web is healed and at peace.

I Love It !!!

This time yesterday morning, I was panicked and frantic. Company had arrived and I found myself unprepared. Their arrival, anticipated for some time, sent me into the kitchen hurriedly opening cupboards while simultaneously flipping on the stove top eye. The hummingbirds had caught me unaware!

We were sitting on the deck, Jerry was mid-sentence recounting something yard related when I suddenly jumped up and shouted, "They're here." A good sized emerald hummingbird sat on the barren oak leaf hydrangea branch and I was off and running to the kitchen (truly) opening cupboards first to find the best pot for boiling the sugar water on which they feed and second to try to remember the location of the many feeders we hang through summer, the suction cups by which they hang, the little ant motes that usually keep out the ants but not the bees. Hummingbird feeding like keeping the raccoons out of the bird feeder is for us at least high maintenance but this did not stop my exuberance.

Feeders found and sugar water cookin' I shouted: I love it! emphasis on all three words.

We've my nephew Christian to thank for lovin' it. Now nineteen and not prone to such exclamations, when he was fourish he would randomly and often shout, "I love it! to the simplest of things. Over these many years, we've discovered we, two fifty-something adults, are imprinted and prone to exuberantly shouting "I love it!"

This hummingbird induced exuberance gives me pause to ponder the places where such energy is found in our society? My first thought produces a cringe. It's of football and how during my first and only one of two Titan's games a multitude of years ago, a fan behind me yelled "Kill em" quite exuberantly. Mid-April Lady Gaga fans will fill downtown and I'm certain something kin to exuberance will be found there. And it won't be the 'kill em' kind. At April's end, the Music City Marathon will find exuberant participants and fans alike lining the streets of Nashville.

What's so exuberance inducing about hummingbirds for me? I love Nature. This time of year in particular is like homecoming. All my children come home as flowers, hostas and ferns emerge from Earth's depths and the hummingbirds return.

Just last weekend, I saw penned on my calendar for this month: April 10th, 2010-Hummingbirds returned. They have returned this year on the very same weekend.

In the swiftly changing technological world in which we live, there is a constancy residing in Nature, the constancy seen in January's migrating Sandhill Cranes, April's hummingbirds and green leaves and October's turning leaves.

Nature whispers: Listen. This is the stuff of miracles. It's all there inside.

I LOVE IT ! What about you?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 10 April 2011

Addicted to Joy

Is it possible to be addicted to joy? If so, is there actual harm in this?

Here are my day's joy makers. May they bring a smile and prompt you to take a sip of your own joy and if not you may borrow a sip of mine.

Joy is tucking seeds into little earthen rows (with Bob's help of course).

-- blankets of brightly colored flowers at a local nursery.


--Mystery and Bogey checking out the bag of newly arrived lady bugs before they're placed in the garden.

--Finding homemade tomato and peach salsa still edible from last fall and eating it of course.

--Seeing and smelling the symphony conductor from Musings past blossom into its full lilacness. (Then discovering baby Siberian irises have spread beneath the lilac from a patch a foot away.)

--Sunset reflected in red wine.

--The moon above in a star filled sky.

I wish for you a gentle shift to joy this Spring and if joy's addictive we can start JA.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse - 8 April 2011

When Marshmallows, Tacos and Tunes Meet - The Currency of Goodwill

Thursday night the Mas Tacos, Por Favor food truck had a line at least thirty people deep at "Imogene and Willie's" first "Supper and Song" of the season on 12th. The Bang Candy cart also open nearby was where I had earlier in the day learned of the evening's events. I had stopped to get a ginger-rosemary natural soda and box of homemade marshmallows from Bang. Yum!

This was after venturing into Berry Hill's See Spot Eat bakery to buy treats for the Westie next door whose folks just brought new human life home. Hopefully a squirrel, martini and Vandy shaped treats will help allay Poppy's concerns as to sharing new life with a baby.

That evening I went by Imogene and Willie's to get a taco and hear Carl Broemel, the 'song' portion of "Supper and Song" and instead found the line. I was hungry yet torn between wanting to hear Carl (just because his most recent album was titled "All Birds Say") and wondering if the little bat that flies through our yard would make an evening appearance. To hear songs from an album named for birds or possibly see a bird or a bat which isn't quite a bird were my choices. Bats and bugs (we've just gotten 1,000 lady bugs to put in the yard to help with pesticide free mite and aphid control) won out over waiting in line.

The image of that line though still brings a smile because the line as well as the entrepreneurs bringing people together consisted primarily of young people, young people mingling and making connections. This is the stuff of thriving community and creativity and where creativity thrives, lives tend to have more meaning, purpose and harmony and less violence and poverty of spirit. I've no study or statistics to confirm this. I just know it and suspect you do too if you're reading this.

The image of smiling faces in line makes me smile, yet the never ending line sustains my smile, the never ending line of the circle of goodwill. This circle like the slinky of my childhood days spirals out energetically from each of us touching and affecting all with whom we come in contact.

Tune into your preferred method of receiving 'the news' and you're likely to hear references to the continued economic crisis, avoiding an economic crisis or the remaining potential for economic crisis. All the while, another currency is being exchanged, a giving and receiving of goodwill when we're awake and aware to the spiral, the slinky-like never ending line we share.

We've the opportunity to exchange the currency of goodwill at all times. Mother Earth and Nature do this beautifully and continually which spirals me back to Thursday night.

While the crowd gathered to hear Carl sing from "All Birds Say" I sat on my deck where at 7:30's curtain call, the bat flew through flying South to North the warm up act for a later debuting tiny screech owl that arrived and sat under our arbor.

Wherever people meet, be it over marshmallows, tacos and tunes or through loving and caring for Nature, there lies the potential for the currency of goodwill, the currency that can alleviate poverty of spirit and purse.

Imagine the Shift in remembering that you too are part of the slinky of time. How will your energy spiral through this day in your life?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 9 April 2011

P.S. Check out the links above as well as Facebook for Bang Candy, See Spot Eat, Mas Tacos Por Favor, Imogene & Willie's and Carl Broemel. And watch for future updates as to how the lady bugs fare.

Gifts of the Animals

(I reread this 2010 post this morning prior to going to the local fairgrounds to help with the puppies rescued by ARC (Animal Rescue Corps) earlier this week in a puppy mill in rural Warren County - 12o puppies in all I believe. I felt compelled to go after meeting the ARC folks last night synchronistically at dinner. Although the following was written last May, the message may apply more now than ever. - Dawn.)

Friday evening I went to the public square to hear the symphony in a free concert graciously gifted to Nashville as the symphony hall had flooding problems. It was a gift for me in a way I never expected. As we spiraled down into the parking garage, I noticed a drawing of a bull’s head for the level in which we parked. I walked up the stairs and emerged onto the square to look down and see etched in the granite the figure of yes, a bull's head. Around it the word "Strength" was etched once on each side forming a box around the figure.

I remembered noticing the only other time I had been at the square a lion's head at the opposite end with the word "Protection" etched around it. I had been called to jury duty that day and took a photo of the lion as well as of the snake and lion figures around the top of the courthouse. Symbolically the snake has many meanings. I choose those related to wisdom, healing and transformation. The music played and I wondered how many noticed our companions the bull, the lion and snake offering strength and protection, wisdom, healing and transformation, traits carrying vital energies needed in any time but especially for Nashville and the world in these times!

The day after I stood in my kitchen making hamburgers and remembered the bull. I thought of all the cattle that give their lives for us. I thought of the mega-corporations making their billions while raising cattle so inhumanely, cattle that become our fast food burgers and 16 ounce steaks. (Watch the movie, Food Inc. if you haven’t!) It occurred to me as never before that cattle come here in love and give themselves to us so we might have their 'strength.' We are given the gift of choice as to how we will use that strength.

Contrary to what many people think of cats, they have long represented the rising of the feminine offering protection. They have for centuries been considered guardians and represent deep understanding in the natural world. Yet they were killed thousands upon thousands in the coliseums of Rome and burned and drowned with their (usually) female owners accused of being witches in Europe and New England. Today they are still neglected, abused, tortured and hunted as trophies with their heads hung on walls.

How is it collective humankind so neglects the love the animals come here with ? How is it we don't protect them as they protect, care for and nourish us?

"Mother, Father, Creator, we do not realize the gifts of your children the Animals. Forgive us for we know not what we do. May we shed our ignorant, arrogant ways like the snake sheds its skin. May we wisely use our strength and capacity to protect all your creeping, crawling, flying, swimming, walking, four-legged, feathered, furry, slimy, scaly, and yes two-legged kin."

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 1 April 2011