Tennessee's legislature continues to use their time pressing for gun legislation known as open carry laws. If the law is passed we would join over thirty states to have some type of legislation regarding allowing guns in bars, restaurants, state parks etc.
In the last week, I've quit keeping track of the law's status for the truth is we are all "packing heat"- the power of love is the heat of the heart. It's pretty simple. Regardless of legislation and regardless of where we live, we each get to choose how and if we will use our heart's love.
With the flood a month ago, Nashville and Middle Tennessee in particular is presented with a beautiful opportunity, an opportunity money cannot buy. The rains broke open our hearts, blurring boundaries and lines as Democrats helped Republicans, youth helped the elderly, Christian helped Muslim, North helped South and somewhere I'm sure a tea party person or two helped a liberal and vice versa.
Out of our crisis we've increased connection crossing zip codes, race, gender, age, income and religion, our usual fear-based divides. Out of our crisis we've the opportunity to now consciously cultivate these new connections by carrying open hearts and choosing to act with the power of love.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Dusting off the Imagination
"Plant something. Feel the future."
The above quotes caught my attention in the past few days, the first while driving past the great Bert Driver nursery in Smithville and the second on my friend Stephanie's facebook page. Both reminded me immediately of a recent photo and story from my eighty something friend Russ.
Russ plants seeds as he dusts off his imagination daily by writing a poem something he's done for at least ten years. Prior to this, and still occasionally, he works with wood, making beautiful cutting boards, spreaders, and rattles. Russ patiently calls forth beauty from wood and words. (I personally know this takes patience. I drove to Russ' workshop for a brief period in the Nineties to try my hand at wood working. Wood was not my medium. I was impatient just as I had been with clay in the Eighties. Now I know its not the medium, it was patience I needed for I similarly get impatient with words although I keep at it with word working.)
Russ recently read poetry to a class of local elementary school children in his area. He read silly poems like Shel Silverstein's "Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me, Too" and told a story. He dusted off their young imaginations which I suspect were already collecting dust from our culture's focus on video games, tv and computer. Then as children delightfully do they began to ask questions like "What is that wire above your ear?" Russ told them about his cochlear implants for hearing.
As time came to a close.....well here are Russ' words as to what unfolded: "When the time was up one boy rose from the floor and came at me with a big hug. Then five more sorta charged at me, and then another until I think all of them had had their say. I was overwhelmed with this demonstration and wasn't sure what it was all about, but it made my day and probably my week and month - maybe even my year."
I immediately knew what it "was all about." These delightful kids were dusting off Russ' heart reminding him of the beauty of joy, love and appreciation. These children were captured by Russ and he obviously was captured by them because he returned home, to his wood shop, and made rhythm sticks for the children. He and his neighbor Rita then taught rhythm through songs of "old" to these kids. Remember "Twinkle, twinkle little star?"
Earlier this week at the school years end, these same children visited Russ and Merle's home for popsicles and a walk through their 'zoo' aka their yard filled with animal art made from rusty parts and assorted finds and a photo op standing on the bridge Russ made.
Earlier this week at the school years end, these same children visited Russ and Merle's home for popsicles and a walk through their 'zoo' aka their yard filled with animal art made from rusty parts and assorted finds and a photo op standing on the bridge Russ made.
Here they stand, young seedlings on a bridge in the present heading into the future, their imaginations fertilized 
with curiosity and wonder through art, nature, song and popsicles of course. These seeds will grow into the future of next week when one of these children spies a star and this time hums a song or taps a rhythm inspired by the moon. These seeds will grow into the future of a thousand tomorrows when an artist opens shop to sell his wares and a drummer plays her first gig or becomes a vet.
The alchemists of old wrote of the Great Work. I think this is the great work, old inspiring young and young inspiring old while planting seeds in the present that will grow and be felt long into the future.
It is time. Dust off your imagination and start a love affair with life.
-Imagine the Shift! Dawn, The Good News Muse May, 28, 2010
* Enjoy Russ poems and see his work at www.russpeery.com
** A camera was not available when the original hug took place. The hug was reenacted when Russ and Rita taught rhythm to the class. I supsect the reenactment was ever bit as loving as the original 'charge' as Russ called it.
Song for a Starling - In Memory of Men
I've been perusing journals to honor and reflect on my trip to France last year. Besides a thousand photos, I've journals of varying sizes in which I made notes.One line recently caught my attention, a question I had jotted in a tiny notebook the morning of my birthday which started in LePuy in what is called the Deep Heart of France.
The question read: How can we get blackbirds to sing in America?
Yes, I learned during my trip that blackbirds sing in France. I heard them repeatedly. (My friend Vera says they sing in Germany too and I believe her.) On this particular morning, I sat on a curb outside our hotel at 5:00 am in a tiny triangle of a park filled with fairy roses. I cozied up against a pink cluster as the rising sun cast a similar pink in the sky. A blackbird was in its nest to my side. I could have spent all day there perfectly content on asphalt surrounded by roses and blackbirds.Instead I left tokens of gratitude, dried rose petals from my father's grave and a crystal bead, at the base of the rose bush then boarded our little travel van driven by dear Pedro for further ventures into France's Deep Heart.
It has been a year and I have not forgotten the singing blackbirds of France. Periodically I take out my little recorder and listen to the files I recorded of their song. My mind calls up the lyrical sounds even as I write.
Meanwhile home in Tennessee, I could not write with similar fondness of our blackbirds as this past Spring, blackbirds, starlings and grackles descended upon our bird feeders like never before. I initially wrote of this in "Loving Black and Blue."
After that Musing, words came to me which I quickly noted. I first titled them "Song for an American Starling ." I recalled them upon seeing the question: How can we get blackbirds to sing? These are the words that came to me.
I am so far away from home
Came here a stranger as families roamed
I feel so lost without a land.
Somebody help me, if you can.
The heart is deep and it is wide.
It carries pain I try to hide.
I'm looking for someone
to redeem these lonely sons.
Soldiers died in foreign soil.
War is hard and it is toil.
Yet the heart goes beating on
Blackbirds and sparrows were brought to this land by our ancestors as reminders of home. I sometimes wonder if our blackbirds don't sing because they are homesick, strangers here in this land.
Homesick strangers reminds me of a plaque I saw in Orleans Cathedral southwest of Paris. The plaque honored the half million Americans who gave their lives in two world wars and the 67,581 of them who died on French soil, their bodies never found, never returned to American soil. Yes in time they returned to Mother Earth, but I find myself still thinking about those men and wondering if their spirits aren't homesick like the blackbirds just on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
I also found myself wondering if the collective American soul fully grieved these losses. Let's be honest. We American's don't really grieve. The funeral is held and we're suppose to be over" it" when in truth the dark days, the days of missing, of loneliness have just begun.
I found myself wondering how this chapter of our history is connected to the lost or misplaced heart in our country as well as its continued impact on our world. Since WW II we have gone to war repeatedly not for the same overt reasons, yet war is war, lives are lost and grief still buried.
Hearts abound commercially in ads during certain holidays. Likewise we open our hearts relationally when we're "suppose" to feel loving during these times. Then heart's relegated to the sidelines. The grief locked in the stoic heart when it is far from home be it the blackbird, the soldier or one's own is a lonely heart.
How do we call the men of whom I read home?
Maybe it isn't the blackbird that needs to learn how to sing, but instead our hearts, yours and mine. Heartful singing, just as grieving requires a vulnerability we are not taught, a willingness to dive into our deep hearts and embrace our feeling selves as men and women.
No one said this to me while in France, but I felt the deep sorrow and grief the French have known as wars have ravaged their land. Yet I also felt their joy. I suspect they've been to the bottom of the deep heart where all feels lost, loved ones and land, and they found their way back to love and joy. This is so evident in their appreciation of beauty in valuing the soil, the animals and plants. They (or at least the areas in which I traveled) value living and they value the feminine.
Maybe, just maybe, if we allow ourselves to journey the path of heart, of feeling, we would sing the spirits home of these 67, 581 men. I imagine calling their hearts home to the soil of our collective hearts and in doing so free ourselves to discover the beauty of our deep American hearts.
Came here a stranger as families roamed
I feel so lost without a land.
Somebody help me, if you can.
The heart is deep and it is wide.
It carries pain I try to hide.
I'm looking for someone
to redeem these lonely sons.
Soldiers died in foreign soil.
War is hard and it is toil.
Yet the heart goes beating on
finding wings on many a song.
Blackbirds and sparrows were brought to this land by our ancestors as reminders of home. I sometimes wonder if our blackbirds don't sing because they are homesick, strangers here in this land.
Homesick strangers reminds me of a plaque I saw in Orleans Cathedral southwest of Paris. The plaque honored the half million Americans who gave their lives in two world wars and the 67,581 of them who died on French soil, their bodies never found, never returned to American soil. Yes in time they returned to Mother Earth, but I find myself still thinking about those men and wondering if their spirits aren't homesick like the blackbirds just on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
I also found myself wondering if the collective American soul fully grieved these losses. Let's be honest. We American's don't really grieve. The funeral is held and we're suppose to be over" it" when in truth the dark days, the days of missing, of loneliness have just begun.
I found myself wondering how this chapter of our history is connected to the lost or misplaced heart in our country as well as its continued impact on our world. Since WW II we have gone to war repeatedly not for the same overt reasons, yet war is war, lives are lost and grief still buried.
Hearts abound commercially in ads during certain holidays. Likewise we open our hearts relationally when we're "suppose" to feel loving during these times. Then heart's relegated to the sidelines. The grief locked in the stoic heart when it is far from home be it the blackbird, the soldier or one's own is a lonely heart.
How do we call the men of whom I read home?
Maybe it isn't the blackbird that needs to learn how to sing, but instead our hearts, yours and mine. Heartful singing, just as grieving requires a vulnerability we are not taught, a willingness to dive into our deep hearts and embrace our feeling selves as men and women.
No one said this to me while in France, but I felt the deep sorrow and grief the French have known as wars have ravaged their land. Yet I also felt their joy. I suspect they've been to the bottom of the deep heart where all feels lost, loved ones and land, and they found their way back to love and joy. This is so evident in their appreciation of beauty in valuing the soil, the animals and plants. They (or at least the areas in which I traveled) value living and they value the feminine.
Maybe, just maybe, if we allow ourselves to journey the path of heart, of feeling, we would sing the spirits home of these 67, 581 men. I imagine calling their hearts home to the soil of our collective hearts and in doing so free ourselves to discover the beauty of our deep American hearts.
* Click here to hear what for Veteran's Day I've retitled: "In Memory of Men"
* After writing this piece, I found that blackbird symbolizes primal feminine energies and that the color black symbolizes the feminine. Now I am certain our discovering our deep hearts allows our blackbirds to sing.
* After writing this piece, I found that blackbird symbolizes primal feminine energies and that the color black symbolizes the feminine. Now I am certain our discovering our deep hearts allows our blackbirds to sing.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Messages in the Mess
During my morning walk, I pondered how folks refer to the world as being in a 'mess.' I've heard the word mess used in reference to the Gulf Oil Spill, to the ongoing political dynamic in which we seem stuck blaming and passing the buck, to someone's marriage or status as in "you know he/she, well they're just a mess."
Now in Middle TN, we have our mess birthed by the May Day Flood. I do not mean this cruelly toward those who lost so many personal possessions as well as loved ones, but now we've mounds of belongings, personal and prized, headed to who knows where as someone decides where all the mess will go.
Our flood was the latest in a string of natural 'messes' beginning with earthquakes and volcanoes.
Maybe Mother Earth is saying, "May Day, May Day. What if this great mess which seems like the Mother of all messes, the mess of the ages, at least the recorded ages, holds messages for us if we are open to listen? What if Mother Earth really is crying out for us to wake up, to stop trashing her and referring to things as a 'mess' but to also start acting in ways that show our gratitude for this home she's given us?
The story below crossed my mind. It seems even more applicable now....
Lately on morning walks, I often wish I had remembered to bring along a bag in which to collect trash. Earlier this week while walking and wishing, I heard a honk from behind me. As if he had read my mind, Jerry stopped and yes, had a bag, one of our many cloth ones, in his truck. I grabbed one.
Within a half mile of foraging, this modern day hunter/gatherer had filled her bag with trash and carried a portion of a car fender in her free hand. This probably didn't qualify as legitimate foraging. Foraging implies hunting. I took no more than three steps from the sidewalk to pick up each item collected.
The most unusual of my finds were the smallest and largest objects, a tiny pink pacifier lost possibly by a strolled child and a car fender, black and plastic with a partial frame still attached on the backside.
Walking along, I studied the fender. Suddenly I realized its shape was that of a head, the metal frame being the open jaws of an animal. Curious as to what else I might discover, upon returning home I laid out my collection to find a telling assortment of things, a collage to our
petroleum-based culture.
As the photo shows, I had an assortment of modern day 'pacifiers,' a myriad of food related ways in which we potentially pacify ourselves from candy, beer and soft drinks to the more health conscious water and nuts. I'm not anti-eating or any of the above food stuffs, but it only took a moment to realize my mess held many messages.
Seen symbolically the jaw-like frame represents the dying industrial beast we've collectively created consuming without consciousness as to what we put into our bodies as well as into Mother Earth and the atmosphere.
Of course, most everything I collected was packaging. Only a short time ago, foods were packaged in their skins and peels which were often eaten for nutritional value. (Now we buy vegetable washes to remove chemicals from the peels and place them in garbage disposals or garbage cans.) From magazine covers and runway models to boxes and containers, we've become a packaging oriented society. Outer's been valued more than inner.
The products my imaginal animal in the photo consumes makes me also consider what we now produce and how we value production. We formerly valued the hand-made. We needed it for survival whether it was crafted, quilted, grown, sewn or thrown (as in pottery). More recently we've valued the technical, which allows me to write and send this story around the globe in seconds. The hand-made has morphed into the hand-held ie. the cell phone, computer and gaming devices through which we text, twitter, facebook with friends in this dimension and face-off with x-box creatures from other dimensions.
The value of products is determined by how much a share of stock increases which is connected to cheap labor (from those worlds away) and materials (from earth) rather than how inter-connected something is to the web of life or its true nutritional value if it's a food product in the case of my collage.
As I thought I had exhausted or seen all the messages in the mess, I realized the deeper message. What if the imaginal beast is spitting out what it no longer wants, not just spewing packaging into landfills, but saying, "Enough. Come on, people, quit competing and controlling. Get cooperative and creative. Get out of the package of small mind. Break open the package of your unused capacities."
Then I got another level of the mess. My car fender beast is black, representative of our shadow (unconsidered actions) but also symbolic of the void from which all new form arises when we marry consciousness and creativity thoughtfully.
I like to think the tiny pink pacifier represents the birthing and rising feminine energy present in men and women as we open to learning from one another and working relationally and collaboratively.
The treasures in my trash or the messages in what I considered a mess reveal the Old Story giving birth to the New Story which is the Whole Story, not a story of black and white or good and bad, but a beautifully evolving story. Through our unconsciousness we've participated in being the beast and through consciousness we can listen and birth another part of the story.
Imagine the shift if next time you take a walk, you foraged for the experience awaiting you. Take time to see what's beneath the obvious. Listen to your experience for in every seeming mess, there's a message and to me that is very good news.
P.S. Learn more about deeply seeing the New Story with Jean Houston through Social Artistry, a new paradigm for the leader in each of us especially needed in these times.
Middle Tennessee poet Russ Peery forages for experience on daily walks then writes about it. Check out Russ at http://www.russpeery.com/
Now in Middle TN, we have our mess birthed by the May Day Flood. I do not mean this cruelly toward those who lost so many personal possessions as well as loved ones, but now we've mounds of belongings, personal and prized, headed to who knows where as someone decides where all the mess will go.
Our flood was the latest in a string of natural 'messes' beginning with earthquakes and volcanoes.
Maybe Mother Earth is saying, "May Day, May Day. What if this great mess which seems like the Mother of all messes, the mess of the ages, at least the recorded ages, holds messages for us if we are open to listen? What if Mother Earth really is crying out for us to wake up, to stop trashing her and referring to things as a 'mess' but to also start acting in ways that show our gratitude for this home she's given us?
The story below crossed my mind. It seems even more applicable now....
Lately on morning walks, I often wish I had remembered to bring along a bag in which to collect trash. Earlier this week while walking and wishing, I heard a honk from behind me. As if he had read my mind, Jerry stopped and yes, had a bag, one of our many cloth ones, in his truck. I grabbed one.
Within a half mile of foraging, this modern day hunter/gatherer had filled her bag with trash and carried a portion of a car fender in her free hand. This probably didn't qualify as legitimate foraging. Foraging implies hunting. I took no more than three steps from the sidewalk to pick up each item collected.
The most unusual of my finds were the smallest and largest objects, a tiny pink pacifier lost possibly by a strolled child and a car fender, black and plastic with a partial frame still attached on the backside.
Walking along, I studied the fender. Suddenly I realized its shape was that of a head, the metal frame being the open jaws of an animal. Curious as to what else I might discover, upon returning home I laid out my collection to find a telling assortment of things, a collage to our
petroleum-based culture.As the photo shows, I had an assortment of modern day 'pacifiers,' a myriad of food related ways in which we potentially pacify ourselves from candy, beer and soft drinks to the more health conscious water and nuts. I'm not anti-eating or any of the above food stuffs, but it only took a moment to realize my mess held many messages.
Seen symbolically the jaw-like frame represents the dying industrial beast we've collectively created consuming without consciousness as to what we put into our bodies as well as into Mother Earth and the atmosphere.
Of course, most everything I collected was packaging. Only a short time ago, foods were packaged in their skins and peels which were often eaten for nutritional value. (Now we buy vegetable washes to remove chemicals from the peels and place them in garbage disposals or garbage cans.) From magazine covers and runway models to boxes and containers, we've become a packaging oriented society. Outer's been valued more than inner.
The products my imaginal animal in the photo consumes makes me also consider what we now produce and how we value production. We formerly valued the hand-made. We needed it for survival whether it was crafted, quilted, grown, sewn or thrown (as in pottery). More recently we've valued the technical, which allows me to write and send this story around the globe in seconds. The hand-made has morphed into the hand-held ie. the cell phone, computer and gaming devices through which we text, twitter, facebook with friends in this dimension and face-off with x-box creatures from other dimensions.
The value of products is determined by how much a share of stock increases which is connected to cheap labor (from those worlds away) and materials (from earth) rather than how inter-connected something is to the web of life or its true nutritional value if it's a food product in the case of my collage.
As I thought I had exhausted or seen all the messages in the mess, I realized the deeper message. What if the imaginal beast is spitting out what it no longer wants, not just spewing packaging into landfills, but saying, "Enough. Come on, people, quit competing and controlling. Get cooperative and creative. Get out of the package of small mind. Break open the package of your unused capacities."
Then I got another level of the mess. My car fender beast is black, representative of our shadow (unconsidered actions) but also symbolic of the void from which all new form arises when we marry consciousness and creativity thoughtfully.
I like to think the tiny pink pacifier represents the birthing and rising feminine energy present in men and women as we open to learning from one another and working relationally and collaboratively.
The treasures in my trash or the messages in what I considered a mess reveal the Old Story giving birth to the New Story which is the Whole Story, not a story of black and white or good and bad, but a beautifully evolving story. Through our unconsciousness we've participated in being the beast and through consciousness we can listen and birth another part of the story.
Imagine the shift if next time you take a walk, you foraged for the experience awaiting you. Take time to see what's beneath the obvious. Listen to your experience for in every seeming mess, there's a message and to me that is very good news.
-Dawn!, the Good News Muse, 5/20/10
P.S. Learn more about deeply seeing the New Story with Jean Houston through Social Artistry, a new paradigm for the leader in each of us especially needed in these times.
Middle Tennessee poet Russ Peery forages for experience on daily walks then writes about it. Check out Russ at http://www.russpeery.com/
Monday, May 17, 2010
Fleur de Lettuce
I've known Jay for nearly a year. On the linear time continuum, he's a fairly new friend, but on the big Time continuum it seems we’ve always known one another. Jay owns a nursery, but he also trades his eggs, or better said his hens’ eggs for my blueberry jam. This weeken
d he surprised me with this beautiful head of star romaine lettuce.
Upon arriving home, I took it out of the bag and oddly thought of thetower of Babel
As I continued looking, I saw theFrench fleur de lis or in this case the fleur de lettuce.
Wait, to be truly honest after the tower and before le fleur, I stood in my kitchen and said aloud, “This symbolizes a penis rising out of a vagina.” I nearly edited that because it seems so strange but that is what I saw and said.
Now I look at the photo and see how I came up with a tower. I see structure, leaves layered upon one another like floors of a building reaching skyward, kin to our modern day multi-storied towers, from which we look out surveying the kingdom, modern man’s way possibly of still trying to reach or be God.
I also realize how I saw the male and female anatomy in the lettuce. I was seeing the masculine and feminine and there’s nothing actually strange about that. We don’t talk of food in this way, but this is how we are fed. Like the feminine, a seed lies in the soil, the stuff of Earth’s womb, receptively receiving until it is time, like the masculine, to take action. The star romaine models a balanced masculine and feminine birthing fruit from a joint endeavor.
us and lettuce.
Then I recall Jay said this was a star romaine. I went in search of the star and there it was on the part of the lettuce that had been nearest Mother Earth. I think of stars as being of the heavens and the Universe, but stars are energy and light. This makes me truly smile. The stuff of the stars lies in the dark, in the dark earth providing energy for the growth of the plants, nourishing our bodies and minds.
The beautiful head of lettuce, just as the fleur de lis, is truly perfection, light and life. The star romaine reminds us that we may seek God in the heavens, but the energy of the Divine is as close as our feet, loving home to us, providing the foods we eat.
Regardless of how we got here, Nature speaks a language that if we listen deeply we hear, a language of perfection, light and life found in the lily, lotus, lettuce and us.
It is not Babel. It is beautiful.
d he surprised me with this beautiful head of star romaine lettuce.
Upon arriving home, I took it out of the bag and oddly thought of the
As I continued looking, I saw theFrench fleur de lis or in this case the fleur de lettuce.
us and lettuce.The beautiful head of lettuce, just as the fleur de lis, is truly perfection, light and life. The star romaine reminds us that we may seek God in the heavens, but the energy of the Divine is as close as our feet, loving home to us, providing the foods we eat.
It is not Babel. It is beautiful.
-Dawn! Imagine the Shift! 5/17/10
Friday, May 14, 2010
Nashville - Our Moment in Time
Nashville made it to "Time" magazine this week as "The Moment" of the week. I'm not ungrateful for the coverage, but I've a different perspective as to their referencing our city being destroyed.
Yes, the losses are deep and many - homes, possessions, businesses, churches, musical instruments, crops, pets, wildlife, trees and lives have been lost. The depth of loss is nearly unfathomable but Nashville and the surrounding communities were not "destroyed" as the story referenced. We will only be destroyed if we allow it, if we ignore the amazing energy present here.
Think about it. Nashville is the Athens of the South, home to the Parthenon and Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. We are home to educational institutions including Fisk, Nashville's first university opened in 1866 and Jubilee hall built expressly for educating African Americans. We were integral to the civil rights movement. We are Music City, home now to a myriad of genres and musicians. We are the hub for numerous publishing houses. We are the Buckle of the Bible belt. We are home to many of the Lost Boys of Sudan and a multitude of immigrant groups. And last but not least, this summer three art-related venues host the amazing glass works of artist Dale Chihuly.
Nashville is home to creativity, voice, faith and ultimately the heart. Loss only robs us of this if we allow it to.
Yes, we have been immersed in water and we must take time to grieve. We have like Mr. Chihuly's glass been through the fire. But if we allow the tears in our hearts to fall, the fire in our hearts will rise and Nashville will a play an important role in the rising of the heart in this world in a most beautiful, miraculous way.
Hold with me the grieving, rising heart in Nashville as we meet the unknown in love and in hope without fear. This truly is our moment, our moment in Time.
Yes, the losses are deep and many - homes, possessions, businesses, churches, musical instruments, crops, pets, wildlife, trees and lives have been lost. The depth of loss is nearly unfathomable but Nashville and the surrounding communities were not "destroyed" as the story referenced. We will only be destroyed if we allow it, if we ignore the amazing energy present here.
Think about it. Nashville is the Athens of the South, home to the Parthenon and Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. We are home to educational institutions including Fisk, Nashville's first university opened in 1866 and Jubilee hall built expressly for educating African Americans. We were integral to the civil rights movement. We are Music City, home now to a myriad of genres and musicians. We are the hub for numerous publishing houses. We are the Buckle of the Bible belt. We are home to many of the Lost Boys of Sudan and a multitude of immigrant groups. And last but not least, this summer three art-related venues host the amazing glass works of artist Dale Chihuly.
Nashville is home to creativity, voice, faith and ultimately the heart. Loss only robs us of this if we allow it to.
Yes, we have been immersed in water and we must take time to grieve. We have like Mr. Chihuly's glass been through the fire. But if we allow the tears in our hearts to fall, the fire in our hearts will rise and Nashville will a play an important role in the rising of the heart in this world in a most beautiful, miraculous way.
Hold with me the grieving, rising heart in Nashville as we meet the unknown in love and in hope without fear. This truly is our moment, our moment in Time.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 5/14/10
www.imaginetheshift.com
www.imaginetheshift.com
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Cinderalla had Glass Slippers. I've A Wicker Dresser - The Dynamics of Good Will
Earlier today, I left Gil's office. Gil is my acupuncturist, a dear young man who only has to check the pulse on my wrist to tell me things about my physical, emotional and soul self that I think no one knows but me. Gil gently smiles, at times slightly tilting his head with an even slighter frown, and shares what he feels in my energetic pulse. There is comfort in hearing aloud what inside I know.
I had not seen Gil for several weeks until last week's rains. No, I did not see him because I had been directly traumatized by the rains. I saw Gil because my body physically responded to everything. Suddenly my shoulders and back were like rock and my neck was in pain. I was so energetically depleted at times that I could hardly get out of bed. Even the guilty voice inside my head could barely whisper that I should be out lifting loads, passing out food or tearing out drywall. My body called a halt to much of my doing. I was forced to be. I prayed, meditated, sent love to strangers and animals. I called to check on those who crossed my mind and I was blessedly forced to take care of me.
My chiropractor saw me not once but twice. A massage therapist who I synchronistically met pummeled me brutally but lovingly and I saw Gil and did so again this week. (I never care for my body to this degree. There's always an energetic excuse. Not enough money or time are always the top two and that must change because I've come to realize in a deeper way that the way we care for ourselves often mirrors our care for Mother Earth, but that's another story.)
Today as I left Gil's office my phone rang. Judy my neighbor had found a white wicker dresser. For nearly two years, I have been looking for a used white wicker dresser with six drawers. Judy has done all the seeking. My neighbor and personal shopper has regularly scoured yard and estate sales and the newspapers looking for that dresser. There have been a couple of near finds but the price or height have kept me from committing. Judy has kept looking.
Today Judy tells me Good Will may have the dresser I'm seeking. I thank her and tell her I'll look another day. She persists and calls back. In minutes I am driving to Good Will with Judy to look at a dresser something that once upon a time I really wanted. Yet this day I don't quite have the word for what I feel. How can I want a piece of furniture when in the flood so many have lost so much? How can I be potentially happy when so many are so, so sad? I think of the verse: "Ask and you shall receive" as well as the energetic dynamics of intention. How can a power Divine busy his or herself with me and a dresser when there are so many more important needs?
Yet I am happy because I know to resist looking at this dresser blocks something important. I am quietly, excitedly thinking this may be 'the one.'
As we navigate side streets, Judy tells me the dresser isn't in the best of conditions. I lower my expectations, but walk in and for fifty dollars find the dresser I've been seeking waiting there as if to say, "What took you so long? Cinderella got her shoes. You've got me."
If Gil had been checking my pulse at the time, he would have felt my joy. He would I suspect have said, 'Your heart is strong" for I was happy. Yes, I bought the dresser but more importantly I was happy because my open heart accepted a gift for which I had been asking.
When the heart is strong and I don't mean strong as in controlled and hard, but strong as in alive, awake and real, we can accept whatever comes our way even a wicker dresser for which previously I would have felt guilty accepting as others suffered.
This is why I had to go to Good Will. To not do so, would block my heart's energetic capacity to receive good will. To not do so, would have stopped a cycle set in motion nearly two years ago, a cycle of which a stranger of good will passed something on which was discovered by my neighbor of good will. I now set a new cycle in motion as I in good will pass this story on to you in the internet ethers.
I am reminded of my friend Diana saying, "I say 'yes' to everything I think of. I don't do everything. But I say 'yes,' because someone in that moment may need the energy of my 'yes'."
So I joyfully say 'yes' to this dresser and all it represents because my receiving completes a cycle. I joyfully say 'yes' and accept this dresser because I feel its rightness in my heart, soul and mind. I joyfully accept this dresser (it's beginning to sound like we're getting married) because there is reciprocity in the Universe and I know my joy will be felt streets and zip codes away by someone who in this moment is feeling sorrow. And joy and acceptance are vital in the midst of loss and deep levels of change.
Later I will joyfully haul this dresser home in a truck even as other Tennesseans have their lives rearranged and their things hauled away for my joyful "yes" will ease the rearranging of their lives as they make space for the uncertainty of what's next.
This story could go on and does as I smile realizing the local Good Will evidenced repeatedly throughout Middle Tennessee these days raises the energetic Good Will around the world for we are all connected.
Even now your joy, your heart's smile touches hearts miles away. We are in this together, this beautiful experience called life. May we all in our hearts say, "Yes" to Good Will.
I had not seen Gil for several weeks until last week's rains. No, I did not see him because I had been directly traumatized by the rains. I saw Gil because my body physically responded to everything. Suddenly my shoulders and back were like rock and my neck was in pain. I was so energetically depleted at times that I could hardly get out of bed. Even the guilty voice inside my head could barely whisper that I should be out lifting loads, passing out food or tearing out drywall. My body called a halt to much of my doing. I was forced to be. I prayed, meditated, sent love to strangers and animals. I called to check on those who crossed my mind and I was blessedly forced to take care of me.
My chiropractor saw me not once but twice. A massage therapist who I synchronistically met pummeled me brutally but lovingly and I saw Gil and did so again this week. (I never care for my body to this degree. There's always an energetic excuse. Not enough money or time are always the top two and that must change because I've come to realize in a deeper way that the way we care for ourselves often mirrors our care for Mother Earth, but that's another story.)
Today as I left Gil's office my phone rang. Judy my neighbor had found a white wicker dresser. For nearly two years, I have been looking for a used white wicker dresser with six drawers. Judy has done all the seeking. My neighbor and personal shopper has regularly scoured yard and estate sales and the newspapers looking for that dresser. There have been a couple of near finds but the price or height have kept me from committing. Judy has kept looking.
Today Judy tells me Good Will may have the dresser I'm seeking. I thank her and tell her I'll look another day. She persists and calls back. In minutes I am driving to Good Will with Judy to look at a dresser something that once upon a time I really wanted. Yet this day I don't quite have the word for what I feel. How can I want a piece of furniture when in the flood so many have lost so much? How can I be potentially happy when so many are so, so sad? I think of the verse: "Ask and you shall receive" as well as the energetic dynamics of intention. How can a power Divine busy his or herself with me and a dresser when there are so many more important needs?
Yet I am happy because I know to resist looking at this dresser blocks something important. I am quietly, excitedly thinking this may be 'the one.'
As we navigate side streets, Judy tells me the dresser isn't in the best of conditions. I lower my expectations, but walk in and for fifty dollars find the dresser I've been seeking waiting there as if to say, "What took you so long? Cinderella got her shoes. You've got me."
If Gil had been checking my pulse at the time, he would have felt my joy. He would I suspect have said, 'Your heart is strong" for I was happy. Yes, I bought the dresser but more importantly I was happy because my open heart accepted a gift for which I had been asking.
When the heart is strong and I don't mean strong as in controlled and hard, but strong as in alive, awake and real, we can accept whatever comes our way even a wicker dresser for which previously I would have felt guilty accepting as others suffered.
This is why I had to go to Good Will. To not do so, would block my heart's energetic capacity to receive good will. To not do so, would have stopped a cycle set in motion nearly two years ago, a cycle of which a stranger of good will passed something on which was discovered by my neighbor of good will. I now set a new cycle in motion as I in good will pass this story on to you in the internet ethers.
I am reminded of my friend Diana saying, "I say 'yes' to everything I think of. I don't do everything. But I say 'yes,' because someone in that moment may need the energy of my 'yes'."
So I joyfully say 'yes' to this dresser and all it represents because my receiving completes a cycle. I joyfully say 'yes' and accept this dresser because I feel its rightness in my heart, soul and mind. I joyfully accept this dresser (it's beginning to sound like we're getting married) because there is reciprocity in the Universe and I know my joy will be felt streets and zip codes away by someone who in this moment is feeling sorrow. And joy and acceptance are vital in the midst of loss and deep levels of change.
Later I will joyfully haul this dresser home in a truck even as other Tennesseans have their lives rearranged and their things hauled away for my joyful "yes" will ease the rearranging of their lives as they make space for the uncertainty of what's next.
This story could go on and does as I smile realizing the local Good Will evidenced repeatedly throughout Middle Tennessee these days raises the energetic Good Will around the world for we are all connected.
Even now your joy, your heart's smile touches hearts miles away. We are in this together, this beautiful experience called life. May we all in our hearts say, "Yes" to Good Will.
-Let's Imagine that Shift! Dawn 5/13/2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com
dawn@imaginetheshift.com
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