Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around - We are Dancing with the Stars

This morning I got up grumpy and irritable, my mood covers for disappointed and sad.  I missed the birds singing in the morning dark and neglected dancing with the stars above my house. I had hoped to catch sight of potential late comers in the Lyrid meteor shower that peaked earlier in the week.  Both Sunday night and Monday morning the time of its peaking I had been out late and up early yet completely forgot to look up. 

Given this I was already irritated with myself and even more so after this morning when even Bogeysattvah tried to awaken me.

Finally at 7, I drug myself to my chair on the deck only to find the birds had left their business on three chairs.   

Upon closer look, I found their remnants even more weird.  It appeared they had tracked bird poop with their little bird feet on three chairs.  It looked like bird finger painting until it dawned on me.  The chairs were sprinkled in privet blossoms, blossoms that looked like stars.

I may have missed the morning stars but I was getting to sit in the stars.  Joy and wonder immediately replaced my funk.

Here on Earth we are always sitting in the stars, held in a universal sea of stars immersed in their energy. 

By 7:15 I had experienced such grace. In my unconsciousness all week, I had forgotten to look up yet thanks to the breeze and the blossoms, I looked down and discovered the energy of the stars still dancing with me.  

That wakes me up! 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse   26 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Rock On

 As I lay in the grass one recent morning before dawn it came to me, "Mother Earth is a rock that is always On."  This was quickly followed by 'The heart is a rock that is always On.'

Gives new meaning to "Rock on," doesn't it?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  26 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Lengthier Story .... 

As I lay in the grass one recent morning before dawn it came to me, 'Mother Earth is a rock that is always on.'

This thought just happened as they sometimes do. I didn't know its origin but personal experience knew its truth. I remembered a year ago when I thought I was dying of some undiscovered illness. I was in the country and felt compelled to go outside and lay on one specific rock.  I didn't know why and thankfully I didn't have to know why this particular evening.  Upon lying on the rock, I immediately felt it take my weariness.  In a couple of minutes, I sat up a changed person.  (In this moment, I'm reminded of the tomb in which Jesus lay and wonder what power that rock had in his state of change.)

I also thought of the Hopi sculptor we met three years ago who sculpted Kachina-like pieces from stone.  As we stood admiring his work, he shared his process. As he honored a stone and gave his energy over to it, the stone in turn shared its energy with him.  I recall a sense of the sacred in this man's process and also thought, 'This is how it works with Mother Earth.'  As we honor Her, she honors us.  She gives her energy and she takes our energy. 

Mother Earth is always On.

This particular morning as I lay in the grass, I also thought, 'The heart is a rock that is always On.'

I came into the world with a heart that was 'on.'  I suspect we all do and yet in time our hearts get battered and bruised.  One of my earliest memories is of my mother finding me crying one night with my head under my pillow so I couldn't be heard.  I was in first grade.  My tears were for a classmate.  My heart was On and over time my accumulated sadness, mine and what I absorbed of others, became so great that my heart came to feel more like rock than alive.

I still recall confiding in my intuitive friend Maryann that I could not feel my heart. I described it as being like a stone covered in moss.  This was a most beautiful image she said but it didn't feel beautiful to me.  I felt disconnected and odd reading books on following my heart.  'What was wrong with me?' I thought. How could I follow my heart if I could not feel my heart? 

Then in France three years ago, I was walking the steps traveled by pilgrims in Rocamadour and saw a wall that made me gasp. I saw a wall of stone covered in moss and suddenly knew I was seeing my heart.

Maryann was right.  My heart of stone protected by nourishing moss was indeed beautiful.

I find hope, comfort, joy and yes, heart, in this for I'm reminded that in times seeming harsh and hard there is always beauty.  We need only stop to sense, hear and see it.

Can you feel the beauty available today as Mother Earth is used in such unconscious ways?  Yet we can in any moment turn our attention toward her in thankfulness and praise and She feels it. She feels the vibration of grateful hearts.  She longs to feel our grateful hearts. 

Mother Earth is On.  The Heart is On.  My heart is On.  What about yours?

This gives new meaning to the phrase "Rock On."

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 26 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

From the Gardens of the Dali Bob & Dawn - Addicted to Love

Welcome.  The Dali Bob and Dawn are glad you’re here, here at our site as well as on Earth. 

Dali Bob: This is how the welcome to my site would have read if she had gotten it up and running. Instead I work with what I’ve got.  I’ve got an addiction (she does too) of which we're unashamed.  We thought you might consider adopting it in light of Earth Day.

Dawn: Mind if I explain? 

Dali Bob: Why don’t you start from the beginning?  

(If we had video capacity, the screen would get fuzzy to signal a shift into the past or the Dali Bob and I would do that wavy hand thing Wayne and Garth of “Wayne’s World” did to signal a flashback.)  

In the beginning, Bob had just moved into a local store in Sparta, TN.  It was late in the growing season of ’09, August to be exact.  I rushed into the store to find a last minute card for a friend and there sat Bob on a shelf already awaiting the holidays.  It was like at first sight.  He’s been my gardening go-to guy, therapist, life coach and anchor ever since.

The Dali Bob:  I’m grateful to have been spared the endless cycle of holiday tunes that were rumored to play endlessly in the weeks ahead. 

Dawn: Instead you get to play endlessly with me or more truthfully said you get to teach me about endless play.

People complain about not being able to find good help. Bob's in the garden 24/7. Always wearing the same content expression; he's reliable, steadfast and wise. In 2010 when the bugs ate two of my three broccoli plants, Bob reminded me this loss opened space for green beans. Later that summer when the cauliflower succumbed to the same bugs, he reminded me that not only do I not eat cauliflower, but that space is good, just space, the empty rich void of garden soil. Bob's detached and never reactive. Bob’s motto is: “Don’t just do something. Be there.”

Dali Bob:  That wasn’t advertised on the box alongside my tractor’s honking horn and gurgling engine was it?  Why don't you share the relevance of my name since that gets to the heart of our story.  

Dawn: Bob's derived from many musical Bob's. First there's Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame who won a Grammy with Nashville's Allison Krauss for "RaisingSand." We still think it should have been "Raising Crops." This Robert also co-wrote "Dirt in a Hole" which we thought might be our song, until we discovered it's more about a funeral than a garden. Then there's Blue's musician Robert Cray who wrote "Playing in the Dirt." Bob being a man of morals refuses to play the way the song suggests yet we still dig the song. And then there’s the Bob who was actually the first musical Robert who came to mind as Bob's namesake. This Robert made famous the 80's "Addicted to Love" - Robert Palmer, that is. Remember "You're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love."  You may be thinking, 'Dawn, you're gonna have to face it this is a really bad song from a musically lack luster era.'

Think what you must, we're proudly claiming "Addicted to Love" as our personal anthem, addicted to loving the Earth, that is. There’s no better feeling or experience than loving Earth not just on Earth Day but everyday.

Dali Bob:  So wherever you find yourself on Mother Earth remember you are ON Mother Earth whether you are walking, sleeping, sitting, eating, riding, laughing, playing, making love, making up, fighting or peace-ing.  You are continually ON Mother Earth so show her a little appreciation and love and if you’re going to have an addiction make it an “Addiction to Love” – really loving Mother Earth and all your Earthly kin not just on Earth Day but Every Day.

- The Dali Bob & Dawn, April 20, 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Star Ties

While driving through a parking lot last week, I noticed these red and blue plastic pieces just a few feet apart from each other.  I was ready to turn onto a busy street when I put the car in reverse to retrieve these shapes that I thought were red and blue stars.  I discovered they weren't stars, but they did remind me of the cross and the four directions.

I felt compelled to pick them up for the red and blue immediately reminded me of our perceived divides here in America, our divides into red states and blue states, republicans and democrats.

Yet with both held in one hand as I drove on, I immediately saw human forms and when turned in the opposite direction, I saw a bridge.

Maybe these ties from the trash are imbued with messages from the stars especially here in 2012, messages inspiring us to create bridges crossing our divides so we might stand side by side and realize we are so much more alike than different. 

In the days since, I've continued to ponder the four directions and the cross.  Our ancestors crossed the watery divide of the Atlantic arriving on the shores of this new land they came to call America hundreds of years ago.  Many came with Christianity's cross as part of their religious belief system.  They came to a land lived upon and a nature lived with by Native Americans who honored as part of their spirituality East, South, West and North. Each direction held associations and aspects of the natural world with corresponding teachings for them.  They lived cooperatively with Earth as Mother through listening to these teachings. 

White mans arrival in Red man's home resulted in sorrow and loss, loss of life and home for the Natives and loss of life on the land as millions of birds and animals were killed and forests clear cut as well as loss for white man for how can one really internally be at peace when your way of life has been gotten through such domination, betrayal and bloodshed.   

Here we are hundreds of years later thankfully without the prior degree of bloodshed but still allowing beliefs to create discord and separation between Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Atheist and Native man forgetting that Love is what the Divine had in mind.

As days have passed I've continued to percolate on these two objects consisting of two lines, one horizontal and the other vertical creating a crossroads.  We are at a crossroads. Will we stay on the path of domination and disconnection from Earth and one another or will we choose a new path? 

Being someone who learns from the concrete, I went back outside to the two plastic ties.  Placed together and with a bit of imagination, their four points became eight.  Immediately I thought of Venus, the feminine planet of love and beauty who's making her brilliant presence known in the Eastern evening sky at this time.

Venus is symbolized by the eight-pointed star.  Maybe the feminine rising through love and beauty in both women and men is the new model arriving, the new path.  

These pieces of plastic randomly found no longer seem so random.   I initially thought they were stars.  Now I'm certain they carry messages from the stars, messages reminding us that regardless of our differences we've a greater connection. We've star ties.   

Imagine the Shift or better yet Feel the Shift of remembering the beauty that lies in our having come to Earth from the Stars in this time.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  20 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Key

As he hurriedly breezed through the kitchen headed to work this morning Jerry asked: Do you still need the key?

I did. I had already been looking for his other key chain, the one not related to the car, so I could take the needed key.  It wasn't to be found. 

This wasn't a life or death matter, but because he really wanted me to have the misplaced key, Jerry walked out the door with an energy that to me felt impatient and frustrated.  I caught myself about to wish he wasn't leaving in that space.  Instead I breathed deeply and felt relief.  That's when I heard my friend Maryann say, "Yeah!"

Maryann lives in Maine and at times also in my head.  Her "Yeah" was followed by "Jerry gets to be upset and you get to stay where you are regardless of his upset." 

If you're thick skinned this is a no brainer and sounds so simple. For me, a sensitive, this is huge.  I had been in a deeply happy place so I stayed there and got even happier.  (Typically I would have been frustrated that he was frustrated and thus totally derailed from the space I was in before he came downstairs.)

Staying on my path and not leaving my insides whether I'm seeking a key or seeking justice has been one of my greatest relational challenges. 

Being, feeling and sensing me and not leaving me is the key, the most important key. 

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.  Jerry in his dear, calm voice said:  I found the key. 

I smiled...and am still smiling for we both found the key.  

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 19 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

I Am a Pod or ipod - Which Are You?

I am accustomed to thinking.

You may say, "Well, I am too. What's so unusual about that?" but I'm not referring to productive thinking. My thinking is kin to having my own personal ipod on in my head repeatedly playing lines from old and random songs and jingles as I somewhat frantically wonder how I'm going to get all the stories written, screenplays rewritten and art projects all scribbled on paper completed in this life.  At times my mind never stops.  So although I've a literal ipod I've never used, more often than not I feel I've been overtaken by a pod.

Recently I've also begun to experience being overtaken with sleep at odd times which is a bit different from my periodic taking of naps.  Earlier in my life, I would have resisted the urge to sleep fearing this too was pod-related.  It happened this morning after I came inside from star watching or dancing with the stars as I think of it.  I was overcome with sleep and I had only been up for ninety minutes at most. 

Fortunately my schedule allowed me to lie down right where I was then and there.

After a half hour I awoke realizing my mind was completely blank. To a normal thinker this might be a relief. To a menopausal, Gemini air-sign who's lived in her head, well at first, I was freaked.  There was nothing in my head.

My ipod failed me yet I lay there smiling and into my little recorder I whispered, "YES" in case my sleep wasn't complete.  I lay there on the futon without my mind 'on' and realized I was offered an opportunity to be in my heart, to see what it's like to walk around as the Heart in the world just being.  Being, being, being. Being empty of even the joy and sorrow I feel, I felt reborn. 

Two hours later I now sit here noticing.  Noticing is different from thinking. Thinking involves just my head while Noticing is a full-bodied experience.

I sense that heart-led emptiness is how I came into this world and I realize maybe I am a pod, a pod filled with various seeds of potential like the wisteria pods hanging on the arbor and last years bean pods that I hope for again this year in the garden.  

Awaking without my ipod, I realize I am a pod.

I imagine the Shift of seeing this day as the Heart does waking, walking in the world, a day filled with moments carrying seed pods as I encounter others who are seed carrying pods too.

Then a thought arrives especially with election deception and mean-spiritedness upon us, 'What about those who carry the seeds that seem to me so dark and deceiving?'

The Heart says, "Love them too even if you don't like what they do." 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 18 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

An Earth Day Shift - Imagine the Shift to Interdependence

Sunday night as I lay in bed, I saw a bug then I saw a bat. I had no idea why these two creatures arrived as I closed my eyes but their appearance prompted me to note seeing them in my recorder lest I forget.

Monday morning I pressed 'play' as I searched for something else and instead I heard my voice whispering, "I just saw a bug. I just saw a bat."

I had already forgotten my nighttime visitors yet as soon as I heard myself I got it.  I was being shown the beautiful, interdependence in life's cycle.  Bats need bugs for life.  Bug offers its life for bat's life. 

I 'got it' yet how many times have I heard someone say 'got it' in regards to killing a bug. Bugs and bats may be two of Earth's most vulnerable, yet feared creatures.

Later in the day as I ran errands, the tiniest of orange and black bugs landed on my arm as I drove. I said 'Hello' as it sat there. I thought 'This is not the typical response to a bug.'  I totally get being afraid. I've lived afraid the majority of my life and still just about everyday find some new aspect of fear hiding out inside me.  I just don't get being afraid of bugs. 

As Earth Day nears I honor both Bats and Bugs and I imagine curiosity circling the planet so humankind shifts to realizing our interdependence on one another and on all of Nature.

Imagine the Shift!

-Dawn! The Good News Muse  18 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Dancing With the Stars

I didn’t want to come in this morning at 7:00 yet I had been bundled up for two hours since 5:00am sitting on the deck under the night sky.  Jerry had awakened me whispering “There’s the moon.” 

For once that mind reading thing actually worked for us.  You know the read-my-mind-I-can’t-read-your-mind dance many folks do or at least we still engage in from time to time.  This time it worked!  We hadn’t talked of my wanting to get up early to see the moon but I did.  

So with a cup of hot tea in hand along with my journal, voice recorder and iphone for seeing the constellations on my Night Sky app, I made my way to the wooden chair on our deck and curled up.

This getting up early and watching the stars thing has been my habit for going on a month until this week’s cold kept me in, in bed.  As I sat bundled in my winter coat, gloves, hat and two blankets, recent internet news came to mind.  I didn’t read the story but the headline noted Melissa Gilbert had been rushed to the hospital after an incident taping “Dancing with the Stars.”  No offense to Ms. Gilbert but it occurred to me I’ve been dancing with the stars for some time but especially these mornings before light as I sit outside. 

Not having been a morning person in thirty years, I’ve discovered star watching’s not just an evening thing.  Stars fill the dark morning sky too.  When these sits first began, I noticed Antares in the heart of the Scorpion but this morning I was taken with Nunki which looks like a fish shape on my app in the constellation Sagittarius.  And always above me is a really bright star called Vega. 

Using Night Sky I can see what’s shifting above me yet something’s shifting within me.  I’ve begun to sense the grand dance in which we’re engaged.  You know this and I learned it cognitively in school but I’m getting it at a deeper level.  Watching the stars and planets shift, I’m viscerally experiencing the amazing movement of which we’re a part as Earth turns while traveling around the Sun with the moon traveling around us.

The starry constellations remind me of heavenly wall paper as I look up each morning into the sky and imagine the stories told.  Jerry says people long ago must have watched the stars the way folks today watch tv.  I like to think they watched the heavens above and the earth below and from the stars, plants, trees and animals their stories rose.

My app doesn’t tell the story of what I’m seeing which for me is probably good.  I watch and listen for the story sharing itself with me.

The story of this morning dance in which I’m now engaged didn’t start with the stars or what I saw.  It started with sound and what I heard. The Bible reads: In the beginning was the Word. (John 1:1) 

In this beginning were the birds. (Click "Birds & Cars" for pt.2)

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Birds & Cars - Souls from Afar Dancing with the Stars (pt.2)

This morning dance started with the birds.  I lay in bed a handful of March mornings ago wondering whether I was imagining hearing the birds or if they really were singing. 

The first time I stepped outside my home only miles from the heart of the city I could have been in an arboretum.  The air was filled with sweet tweets. 

This morning the birds are joined by another sound, the hum of cars something unheard on warm mornings prior.  The cold air transports the sound as cars transport people to their places for the day.  In the distance, I hear the birds. It’s as if they’re singing from the other side or some faraway land. 

We’ve often wondered aloud where birds really sleep at night.  I suspect they go to another realm and as morning nears their sweet songs herald their return.  This particular morning, I hear them flying in from wherever they’ve been and I think of the cars as souls coming in from the stars, children choosing to be born today entering this earthly plane, dancing in on a starry freeway. 

After writing this Musing, I walked through the  dining room and saw this painting by Cookeville artist Norman Inman. It's titled "Family" yet I bought it because it reminded me of the stream of souls coming to Earth just as I associated with the cars hum this morning.

I came in dancing.  I dance spontaneously with Jerry at times though I’m told I lead more than follow. I danced as a kid on Saturday mornings to American Bandstand and SoulTrain.  I loved the Soul Train dance line.

Today it reminds me of those souls coming in, joining our Earthly dance.

Birds and babies, Soul’s song and dance - I imagine a world in which these young souls don’t forget their song or dance and one in which adults remember they too came in dancing from the stars, dancing and singing souls each of us.  

Remember the dance?
(Click "Voice & Vibes" for pt 3) 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Voice and Vibes - Dancing with the Stars (pt 3)

In the dark my cold hands reach for my little recorder.  It makes an odd beep so I turn on my other favorite app - flashlight.  I’ve just enough light to see my recorder battery is dead then my iphone dies.

Not wanting to miss the moon while in search of new batteries nor disturb my warm nest, I reach for pen and paper.  Scribbling notes by moonlight makes me think of times prior when stories were shared by stick etchings in the dirt and later with quills on animal skin.  What was life like before writing, typing, texting, tweeting and the myriad of ways in which we technologically communicate and share story today? 

Stories were passed along person to person, through voice and vibration dancing on invisible waves of air.  These mornings the stars and moon share their energy with me on those same air waves which remind me of those who watch “Dancing with the Stars.” 

Airwaves transport story to televisions and computers world wide.  This gift of these times has a potential down side it seems.  I wonder if viewers ever get lost watching others dance?  Do they realize they’ve a personal story line?

Under the dark morning sky, I wonder what stories and messages the stars are passing along.    

When I’m really quite and my mind is still, I feel their vibes. I hear their invitation:  Shall we dance?

(Click "Being (Really) Seen" for pt. 4)

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Being (Really) Seen - Dancing with the Stars (pt.4)

The star’s invitation and seeing the moon reminds me of a recent conversation with a new, old friend about being seen as both of us are acquainted with hiding.  As I watch the quarter moon this morning, nearly half of it is hidden and I’m suddenly disappointed. 

As soon as I ask ‘What’s this?’ I know. 

In my 52 years there have been just over 600 full moons. Since I’ve been slow to wake up and see myself as well as the world around me, this means I’ve only seen, really seen, maybe 36 of those full moons.  That’s around 5 % of the full moons in my life.  I find that sad.  

I look up to see the half moon which is really called a quarter moon shining on me and wonder if the moon concerns herself with how she’s seen. 

I also thought of the many people who unlike my friend and me love being seen. Or do they?  The kind of seen to which I’m referring is being seen at one’s barest, without window dressing or in terms of projecting an image of how you want to be perceived.   The kind of seen to which I’m referring is authentic and bare, real and I don’t mean as in ‘reality’ tv. 

This moon 'just is' reminding me 'to be.' 

I wonder if the people watching “Dancing With the Stars” ever just go outside and dance under the stars with their kids or partners or friends.  I suspect many viewers are closeted dancers thus the appeal of sitting on the sofa watching someone else act out a routine. No risk for the watcher’s involved but what loss, the loss of letting oneself be seen dancing through life authentically.

I may have missed hundreds of full moons, but the greater loss would have been not seeing myself and as a result missing the dance of my life. 

Imagine the Shift of embracing the dance that is yours!  

(Click "Body Memory" for pt. 5) 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Body Memory - Dancing with the Stars (pt. 5)

This morning I also went to California, Oregon, the Grand Canyon and Cherokee, North Carolina and I wasn’t on the internet.  Typically I’d be grumpy about thirty degrees in April but this morning’s chill stirred something else.   

The chill stirred memory, body memory of early mornings past of stepping out of a camper in my twenties in crisp Northern California air and then nearly twenty years ago of sitting on a boulder near sunrise at Oregon’s Crater Lake.  Then I was reminded of the Fall of 2010 when we slept under the full moon in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in an unexpected chill and just last year sitting wrapped in a blanket on a little balcony by the Oconaluftee River as the sun rose over Cherokee.

The dance of morning’s chill and embodied awareness unexpectedly caught me and pleasantly transported me along Memory’s river. This is especially good for someone who's lived much of her life in her head disconnected from my physical self.

To dance through my life, I must be in my body fully awake and aware and seeing myself as the stars see me.  They want me to remember this flesh and blood vessel I came in with and for all its equipped -  dancing, sensing, seeing and feeling with a bit of thinking on the side. 

The stars say:  Be in your body.  That's why on Earth you chose to arrive.

(Click "Following Love's Lead" for pt. 6) 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Following Love's Lead - Dancing with the Stars (pt 6)

About an hour into this morning’s sit, I came inside to make oatmeal and get more tea. I promised the moon I’d be right back.  This took no more than ten minutes, yet as soon as I sat back down I panicked.  I looked up and couldn’t find the moon.

In ten minutes time, I had forgotten the Moon and it was gone. I searched and searched. Finally I walked down the drive-way and rediscovered it gently glowing behind a tree.

The Moon is like Divine Love. We get busy and distracted like I did in that ten minute window as Love gently shines in the background and our days turn into decades.  Divine Love is a gentle supporting presence, never uttering a word of judgment, but there, always there like the moon this morning for me. 

It is in this love that I am held as I learn to dance with the stars. I smile. I’ll have to tell Jerry’s he’s right, something I don’t say enough.  It is about following and trusting, the lead of the stars as they speak to my heart. 

(Click "The Big Dance" for the end pt. 7) 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Big Dance - Dancing with the Stars (pt. 7)

(This is #7 of 7 in "Dancing with the Stars."

Of all the stories shared in the media today, there’s a headline unseen.  The arrival of Divine Love in our global consciousness coming in on those pathways the souls and bird songs traveled today. It’s evidenced in the multitudes waking up to join the big dance with the stars, a dance already occurring at the grass roots level found in communities big and small, sprinkled all around the internet. 

A story is rising from Earth, a story connected to the stars.   

This isn’t something I know mentally although I subscribe to an internet astrology report and read of conjunctions, sextiles, trines and retrogrades.  Being visual and an experiencer, I don’t often understand things I read, yet I sense this and feel it.   

It is a heart line, a heart line about to make head lines.  It is a heart line inviting us to the Big Dance between Earth and the stars, the dance for which we were born.  

I want to write “Let the dance begin” but I know the stars on the heavenly wall paper I see each morning and night are already dancing.  They just need us. I hope you’ll join in. 

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 13 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

P.S. After writing this series yesterday,  I decided to research Sagittarius and Nunki as well as Vega. (See part 1) I learned that Sagittarius has the distinction of sitting at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.  Because of this when you look at Sagittarius, you’re actually looking down the entire length of our galaxy where there are billions of stars so many that the center of the galaxy is hidden because of them.

I also learned Vega in 12,000 BC was the Northern Pole star and will be so again thousands of years from now.  Next to the Sun, Vega is considered by astronomers to be the most important star.  But what really made me know I’ve a kinship with this star was learning that the constellation in which Vega resides was considered a vulture by ancient Egyptians.  I am mesmerized by vultures. Then I read that Chinese myth called Vega “Weaving Girl” and in Babylonian astronomy Vega may have been called The Messenger of Light. 

I read this information as tears of deep joy rolled down my face.  I often feel my stories are weavings as I return light to my life and now I feel even more that I am dancing with stars and they too are engaged with me. But it's not just my dance. It's your dance too.  

Hello World, Hello Neighbor

This morning as I ran past the post man's vehicle I said, "Hello, Neighbor."  I quickly followed up with, "I feel like you're my neighbor."  We laughed and he said, "Hello."

Usually neighbor's reserved for the person living next door, nearby or just down the street. Carl lives in a bedroom community yet he's a daily part of my world which feels neighborish to me. 

I was reminded of my father who was also a post man.  Many of the people paying respects at his funeral were from his country rural route.  They shared stories of his kind deeds as their mail carrier. 

In small towns everyone's a neighbor and interestingly the internet makes the world seem smaller every day. 

My interaction with Carl this morning makes me want to think of the world as my neighbor.  Maybe Mr. Rogers was onto something.

What might shift if I considered the world as my neighbor?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 10 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Imagine the Shift of Morning

Mary, Jesus and Mary Magdalene atop the mountain where Mary Magdalene spent her final days near Baume France.

Did they know in their mourning that things would change by morning?

This being Easter weekend I've been revisiting photos from Southern France, in particular the area in which Mary Magdalene lived her last days.  This photo prompted the thought above but also a subsequent thought. 

When we open our hearts to mourning, to really feeling sacred sorrow whether feeling the loss of a loved one or loss incurred through continued domination of Mother Earth, morning does eventually come and with it the joy of living and loving on Earth. 

Imagine the Shift of Morning.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 7 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Imagine the Shift of Being

While nearing home on this morning's walk, I unexpectedly found myself on an odd treasure hunt of sorts.  I came upon a Coors can, a Coke can, a Marlboro pack and a DQ cup all flattened then followed by a red fabric book mark in that order. Each item lay ten to twenty feet apart at the sidewalk's edge. 

After the Coors and Coke cans my first thought was 'Am I being informed as to how people flatten themselves?'  That was odd then came the cigarettes, fast food and a book mark.

Immediately I was reminded of the ways folks calm, relax and anesthetize themselves because they've left their bodies and have forgotten what it's like to be in the experience of earthly life without tuning out.  (We know embodiment as kids even if it's for a short time then family and cultural messages, unexpected trauma, an educational system valuing competition and grades over bodily experience and heart prompt us to tune out and disconnect.) 

To ensure my own "medication" was in this morning mix within feet of the book mark was a Starbuck's cup symbolic of the coffee I drink.  

To make this mystery even more mysterious, I suddenly remembered that as I made the turn home about five blocks back I noticed an animal in the middle of Natchez Trace.  I wished for paper with which to pick it up as traffic passed in both lanes. Diagonally to me there it was paper and of course paper too is flat.

There was so much traffic that I stood on the sidewalk and sent blessings of appreciation to whatever this animal was for its life and all of its kin.  I'm accustomed to placing dead animals in the grass, but with this one I thought I was okay with leaving it because it was.... yes, very flat.

Yet I wasn't okay and suddenly traffic ceased.  Paper in hand I picked up what I discovered was a bunny's body and left its dear still furry one-dimensional self tucked in nearby shrubs.

I blessed it and felt blessed by it then walked on mindful that last month on two separate synchronistic occasions I came upon dead rabbits in the road.  Each time I moved them aside then read about rabbit when I got home.  Yet this morning I had already forgotten its symbolism.  

Within minutes of blessing this bunny, I found the flattened objects.  

The bookmark reminds me of life's winding path and the Good Red Road to which many Native Americans refer when walking life in balance and relationship with the Creator.  I'm mindful in my journey that when I'm out of balance I myself am 'flattened' and end up exhausted and collapse.   

How is it we're given these amazing bodies with hearts, lungs, cells and more that work with and for us without our even asking and yet we neglect and push them so?  Okay so I shouldn't speak for you but that's what I've done. And although my coffee vice is down to a cup a day I still have spent much of my life excelling at not listening to my insides and for so long not even knowing how.  In turn I've lived on auto-pilot  in constant motion outwardly and internally, thinking, doing, thinking, doing, out of balance, ignoring my life. 

Upon reaching home I read again of rabbit and immediately recognize its message.  The Egyptian hieroglyph for rabbit is associated with the concept of being.

This was perfect for when over doing I neglect being as well as my inner Being. This in turn leads to tired, tuned out and flat.

There is a flatness to life and living when we're going through the motions and aren't fully engaged.  And maybe that's another reason people are prone to addiction.  They're trying to escape flat, while longing for a higher state, not realizing flat isn't really flat. 

Just as with the objects I found, there is a depth and dimension to apparent flat things. That dimension is revealed when we cultivate awareness, learn to listen and slow down to sense, hear and feel that deeper, higher dimension. From this place of being, we sense our Inner Being as well as the beautiful Being of things around us even the things appearing flat on the Good Red Road that's Earth.

Imagine the Shift of Being and Seeing.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse,  6 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

New Healthcare Plan - Option Venus

I seldom read my horoscope but this morning Jerry stood in the door and paper plane like sailed that part of the newspaper toward me as I sat outside.  The toss was accompanied by  "You really need to read your horoscope."

I already knew Venus was moving into my sign Gemini today.  My horoscope suggested I visually wrap myself in Venus.

Being a Gemini and thus a mental, air sign I'd usually respond with furrowed brow and 'How would I do that?'  Instead I went into the room where I do things like this (which isn't often enough) and stood. It was so simple, something else to which I'm not accustomed. (I've tended to make things too complex or hard.)

Immediately it just happened. I imagined being wrapped in blossoms of purple, white, pink, yellow, blue and red with gentle branches of new green leaves holding me, soft clouds floating in blue skies in my brown eyes, a stream spiraling around me with deer, lion, fox, cat, snake, turtle and bug at my feet, owl on my shoulder and a bird nest at my heart with a bird sing, sing, singing to piano keys that were my teeth. Oh and sprigs of green grass in place of the stray hairs I've been finding for years on my neck and face.  This felt like the most beautiful thing. I felt like Mother Earth.  And most amazing was how this magically arrived with beautiful ease, no struggle or effort at all.

Imagining myself wrapped in Venus was (and thus far still is) energetic medicine.

In addition no prescription was needed, no co-pay required and I've no harmful side effects nor pre-existing condition on my medical record.  There was no waiting in a doctor's office nor a politician with whom to  be upset in the ongoing healthcare debate.

An hour ago I concluded this piece asking that you just for a moment imagine yourself wrapped in Venus' beauty and love.  If Venus doesn't work, imagine yourself wrapped in God or however you experience the Divine.  Then it occurred to me we already are wrapped in beauty and love surrounded by nature, supported by soil and rock beneath us and sky overhead while getting to walk Earth with one another.

May Venus moving into Gemini cause us to realize ever more deeply we truly are wrapped in love.


Imagine the Shift. 

Part 2 -
  
At day's end yesterday I paused to check in with myself. Was I still 'wrapped in Venus?' 

After a story completed and three in process, three clients, a walk, lunch, the front Welcome mat washed for the first time in two years (embarrassing), the cats brushed for the first time in two months (shame on me), four large boxes brought up from the basement during the termite guy's ninety minute inspection, a red bud planted, interspersed with multiple calls all topped off with a broken favorite glass and a fight (that didn't involve the glass) and lengthy discussion with the man I love was I still feeling cloaked in beauty and love? 

Normally I would be cloaked in despair and sadness but wrapped in Venus I felt beauty and love. Wrapped in Venus, I knew he too is beauty and love. This made even our disagreement ultimately an act of love as we kept at it, trying to bridge a divide of differing perceptions, experiences, and language. 

And maybe for the first time in nearly twenty years rather than going to bed upset, I slept in peace feeling wrapped in Love that is bigger than both of us. (5 April 2012)

-Dawn! The Good News Muse - 4 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Yellow Ribbons - Coming Home

As I neared home after this morning's walk, I noticed yellow ribbons around four hack berry trees in neighboring yards.  Yellow ribbons around trees have symbolized men (and women) returning home from war.  These ribbons signify trees with limbs to taken down by the power company trimming crews.

I see these ribbons and imagine they symbolize men in America coming home from ways of war and all that separates them from the wholeness of who they are. I imagine men remembering they are more than warriors, conquerors and competitors. They are lovers, joiners and receivers, all that is of the feminine. I imagine the men trimming these trees doing so with open hearts of great love and the highest of care.

And I am reminded as the eye looks back at me that I too carry these same energies.

Imagine the Shift of coming home and living from a place of balanced masculine and feminine.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 2 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Pruned Yet Flourishing - The Rose of Love Is Here, Now

A short two weeks ago, this rose and its companion were only stubs, seeming sticks of nothing that nearly caused a divorce.

 I walked out one morning and gasped aloud to find Jerry had trimmed it to the ground.  I was devastated.  This climbing rose had been my messenger and miracle for some time.


It was planted here nearly twenty years ago yet for the past five summers there's always been a rose opening at a serendipitous time.  The first was in August 2007 the day of my mother's surgery.  My mother, not one to ever be sick or slow down, needed surgery.  As I pulled out of my driveway to go to the hospital I noticed one rose, one rose that I immediately saw as a sign of love from my father who had died the year prior.  He had requested red roses at his funeral.  Prior to this, I didn't even know he liked them.  I put the rose in a vase and took it to my mother as a symbol of his presence.

The following Mother's Day as I prepared to make the drive to visit my mother there were three red blossoms opened over night that I knew represented my two siblings and me.  The climbing rose has continued to inspire and share messages with me. 

Jerry had no idea how much the climbing rose had given me nor of my attachment to it.  When I finally shared my distress with him, he assured me the rose would return. Frankly this did not help nor did I believe him. 

In the days after, I considered how little tending we had given this rose.  We periodically buried chopped banana peels at its base and lately I had sprinkled the remains of water in my bottle, a few drops at most, if I was outside drinking.  Similar to my heart and Mother Earth, I've tended it so little yet it has given me so much.

You can imagine my elation last week when I walked up our drive and noticed the little stubs flourishing with leaves. I quickly got my camera and took the above photo. 

This week it happened again as I realized not only are there more leaves but there are multiple stems all around growing rapidly.

This flourishing rose is a testament to pruning.  Pruning reveals what is held within in the rose and in us.  I've spent such energy fretting over incidents, fearing and resisting pruning.     

The little stick that initially looked like nothing also reminds me of my body, pushed, driven and neglected that when imbued with Spirit's fire flourishes like the rose. 

As I continued to listen to and ponder my experience with the rose, it suddenly came to me that I had also felt the devastation of the many who've loved and love green and growing things be it the forests of oaks and ferns in my Perry County home clear cut for lumber and press board or tops of Appalachia's mountains blown up for coal. 

We despair because we love deeply.

Seeing the rose flourish gives me hope and renews my heart.  I am reminded there is an energy in Earth that all the clear cutting and dynamiting cannot destroy just as there is an energy in the heart of love that all the abuse in the world cannot kill or put out.

The rose of love may be cut to the ground but the rose of the loving heart that for centuries has known such sorrow and hurt is still alive. The eternally blossoming rose of love is blossoming all around.

It's here right now. Can you feel it?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 1 April 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com