Wren

Last weekend we witnessed the launching of six or seven baby wrens. Six or seven because we lost count somewhere between the three on Saturday evening just prior to dusk and three or four more on Sunday morning. (Of course the Sunday morning departees may have been Saturday nights fledglings getting a do-over as on Sunday morning when we thought birds did not return to the nest we saw one leave then return and settle back in before being the last to leave.)

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

Each fledgling in a test flight of sorts fluttered from the nest to the deck or deck railing which then served as a runway to freedom. I loved how this one landed by the metal squirrel then looked up at it as if to say, "The world's no longer flat, you know." A bit like today's kids who arrive exquisitely alive and ready to fly. They know we're multi-dimensional.

Each wren until the last one used the deck as a runway. The last one was the one that left the nest then returned just as we were saying birds never return to the nest. The second time out, it flew between the rails and was suddenly air born toward a nearby Japanese Maple.

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

Why would anyone omit 'wren'? For now rather than allowing this to spin around in my head, I choose to watch the little bird again sharing its sweet pre-flight chirps followed by flight for I want to fly. I want to always be inspired by birds in flight as well as by their song as I feel its touch upon my heart. And I want to remember, we can always return to the nest, home.

Here's fourteen seconds of flight for you, for me and for the world that is here to be. Enjoy... and click HERE for the original story about the children's dictionary that's deleted 10,000 words many related to what they call Old Nature.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, July 2010

Earth's Texting - Blackberries and the Blackberry

I haven't quite shaken the fact that the Oxford Jr. Dictionary's latest edition is now minus

10,000 words many related to nature. Most disconcerting is that many of the deleted words are associated with the feminine and Mother Earth while many added are related to technology and celebrity

I haven't gotten over this and suspect I won't, but speaking of celebrity I have gotten back to life as I know and love it since Oprah's people didn't call last week. I made a blackberry cobbler. Actually I made two from berries a friend gave me and am now contemplating making blackberry wine.

While the cobblers cooked, curiosity prompted me to go on-line where I found that the gadget Blackberry was added to the dictionary while the fruit blackberry was, yes, dropped. How many children or adults for that matter risk thinking a blackberry is the rectangular thing with which you text not realizing these juicy orbs are texts from Mother Nature growing wild in rural areas this time of year as well as being grown by local farmers. (See localtable.net for Middle TN farmers with berries.)

When I was in college, I'd return home to pick blackberries with my grandfather, the one to whom it was hard to be close. Years later he still reminded me of the summer day we picked and picked. We filled our bag or thought we were until we realized we were leaving a berry trail as our bag had a hole in the bottom that was gradually getting larger. These experiences in nature activate our sensory selves in ways 'picking' a Blackberry in the store cannot.

For centuries here on Planet Earth, it seems we're challenged when it comes to holding the concept of both. We separate things and one another into good/bad, doing/being, thinking/feeling, city/rural, North/South, right/wrong, masculine/feminine or in this case Blackberry vs. blackberry.

I envision a world where we have both the blackberry and Blackberry. Both connect and nourish us, one to Nature through food and one to others through friendship. Both provide experiences of creating a bridge between our outer world and our insides, offering the possibility for greater love and awareness of life. Both offer text messages from loved ones and friends as well as Mother Earth.

We are surrounded by text messages from Mother Earth in the trees and bricks that become our homes, the gravel or asphalt that becomes our driveways, the potatoes that become our fries, the birds that sing, the rains that fall. I could go on and on.

Earth is texting. Are you listening? Imagine the Shift in our daily lives and around the world, if we began to text back with feelings of gratitude and appreciation to Nature and Earth for this beautiful place we call home.

-Dawn! Still the Good News Muse, 16 July 2010
Contact email: dawn@imaginetheshift.com

As for that blackberry wine, well that's another story......

Dreams Remembered - In Honor of Water

I awoke this morning as a tear from an unremembered dream rolled from my eye. I had gone to sleep last night hoping to awaken early to join with others around the world gathering in ceremony today and tomorrow for meditation and prayer for the Earth's waters. I had wished to be near the ocean, the big water.

Instead I lay in bed just before dawn, mindful this tear from my body's water is connected to ceremony, ceremony of the open heart and my personal big water.

I fell back to sleep but I did not forget. When I got out of bed, I made my way outside and sat on a bench looking over the yard unaware the birdbath filled with water was before me. I did not 'feel' like meditating yet, but I knew it was the thing to do. I held the Earth between my palms and repeated aloud: I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.*

As I settled in, I experienced the sense I was doing the very thing I needed to do. As I opened my eyes, a leaf in front of me caught my eye. Never going far without my camera, I took a photo and realized the water was reflecting the trees. I pondered how everything is a mirror offering opportunities for us to see.

Then just for fun I turned on the video to see what I was seeing. To my surprise there was movement visible on film that wasn't visible to my naked eye. The trees above waved at me or maybe it is the water? I thought , 'All of Nature waves. Do we see?' (the 20 second clip's below)

There are so many things invisible in Spirit's world, visible to us as we slow down, take our time and develop the capacity to more deeply see and listen.

I watched my little film clip again and suddenly realized: These ripples, whether you call them Spirit or Quantum fluctuations of energy, remind us our prayers are carried around the world on the wind and word, on the wave of vibration.

This is the ceremony of the heart and mind that we are remembering in these times on this day. We are remembering the Unremembered Dream of Who we really are and how all Nature joins us. What a beautiful shift to be living and loving in Time.

-Dawn,The Good News Muse 11 July 2010

*Dr Masaru Emoto's site about the vibration of water is found HERE.

Love's Gone Viral !

Last week after learning to 'tweet' one of my first messages was: What if love went viral?

I don't know a lot about internet lingo or trends but I did think going viral in the case of love would be a good thing. I tweeted my message and thought of it often. I wasn't referring to infatuation love or the love usually displayed in movies and tv. I was imagining the love of compassion, a deep, I'm-gonna-embrace-the-oil-company-CEO's-and-politicians-who-continue-to-not-get-what's-going-on-on-Mother Earth love as well as a keeping-my- heart-open-although-its-been-repeatedly-hurt love. I was referring to Big Love going viral.

Yesterday the word viral showed up again on my radar screen as my doctor called to say I've a couple of viruses hiding out deeply in my body which explains the fatigue I push through periodically. Unlike viral in internet terms where things are very much out there and seen, my viruses have been hiding out.

Then it occurs to me love has already gone viral. It's in every heart although it's hiding in some, for we're all Divine inside. This divinity may not be easily seen due to folks actions and our propensity (or at least my propensity) to judge, but love is present even in the hardest appearing of hearts as well as the hardest appearing of times. We've not noticed it. We've been too busy, too myopic, too unimaginative to see it, hear it and call it out.

For example, Love rose up in Nashville on May 1st as the rains fell. Folks reached out, offering their homes, help, belongings and money to those impacted. Yet love rose up with an opportunity to be seen in other ways as Mother Earth gave her distress signal "May Day, May Day" interestingly on what's called May Day.

Since then when I hear someone refer to a nearby river as "ugly" due to fallen trees, appliances and tires now piled up in our waterways, I've two thoughts. The first is 'Oh, please don't call the river ugly.' Our words carry vibration and the rivers don't need the energy of the word, ugly.* Our waters are still beautiful. Let's think of them this way. Let's give them our love and appreciation.

The second thought is 'The flood only magnified what we've been doing to Mother Earth for decades as we've become less thoughtful to our impact on her as we mindlessly consume, use and throw away these things never thinking as to where 'away' really is.'

I don't often state the above because I'm sensitive to the grief of those who lost so much yet the Nashville flood offered us a beautiful opportunity not only to wake up to one another but wake up to what we're doing to Mother Earth and offer her gratitude and thoughtfulness.

Love now continues to be viral in the Gulf, rising up in plumes of oil, showing up to awaken us to connect the dots and realize our relationship with all of Earth's waters. We're being presented an opportunity to energetically send our compassion to Mother Earth, her waters, the animals, plants and people of the area as well as those with BP, Transocean, Haliburton and government who are culpable in this.

Love is viral, trying to be seen by us on streets in your town and mine, in Appalachia's mountains and Native lands everywhere, in homes far and near, in what's unsaid between us and those we say we love. Love is quietly and persistently viral offering us an opportunity to really wake up, to open our hearts so love may go visibly viral, not just in times of crisis, but daily as we raise our awareness and realize our interconnectedness with Earth and one another.

Love, like the rising feminine in the prior story, is all around us summoning us to wake up.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse at Imagine the Shift, 10 July 2010

*Read more on the vibration our words carry in relation to water by clicking here.... Dr. Masura Emoto's site.

How Can the Feminine Rise When My Cats Are Sleeping?

I recently saw in "Animal Speaks" a reference to lions representing the "rising feminine."

Now I know Mystery and Bogeysattva aren't officially lions, but I think of them in this way especially as Mystery hangs across chair arms or even my knee like a lioness on a limb in a jungle tree. Actually my cats, like big cats and domestic cats, lay around and sleep a lot.

This got me to thinking. Maybe this is why the feminine's taking so long to rise. Cats are napping way too much. I also began to notice that when mine awake, Mystery lies when not in a "tree" most often at thresholds, literally between rooms of our house while Bogey plays with feathers I've been gifted and he's discovered.

He further gifts me as he plays, reminding me to play and take flight just as Mystery reminds me the Mystery truly does lie at every threshold that we allow ourselves to cross into the Unknown.

Then I realize maybe this napping thing isn't such a bad thing. Nearly every time I stop pushing myself, listen to my body and actually take a nap I get a message related to the rising feminine. I see or hear something summoning me as Jean Houston recently said and it's not something to be placed on my 'to do' list. There's usually a message in my napping just like Mystery and Bogey carry messages whether napping or awake.

The feminine is rising. It is all around us, summoning us in a myriad of ways. All we need do is tune in whether we're napping or awake and learn to listen be it with our literal ears and eyes to the things that touch our heart strings or to our body as it speaks.

Imagine and embrace the shift of listening with this new level of awareness today! This could help us cross the Threshold of the Mystery unfolding in these times!

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 8 July 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Peaches & People - Yes, We Can!

As this years peaches await canning, I'm reminded of how last summers were married with garlic, jalapeno, lime and sugar. I thought often of President Obama's slogan, "Yes, we can" as I canned. Tomatoes became sauce, blueberries became jam and the peaches - salsa.
Canning, like changing any system be it inner or outer, government, corporate or family, is a process requiring time and patience. When done best, there's thoughtful awareness not only to the ingredients but to the containers and water temperature and lest I forget to the cook or cooks (in a business, family, community or country).

My first peaches of last summer were what cooks on my family tree would call mealy. Until I sampled the first one, I had never actually tasted what that meant. A few bites into the dense mush of several provided a clue to what lay ahead - questionable salsa and my episodic personal denseness.

I proceeded to watch myself proceed, not to a chair to consider options, but into the peeling and chopping required to dismantle an entire large box of peaches. I didn't even take 30 seconds to back away. I consciously ignored the part of me that was witness to the me that was on autopilot.

The Iroquois spoke of considering the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. I consider myself thoughtful but I didn’t even take seven seconds to stop and notice what I was noticing. I was dense and compulsively moved on to what was next.

In retrospect I didn’t stop to evaluate my options because the auto-me didn’t want to waste money or time. I had this particular afternoon to make salsa and that's what I was going to do. I was in control and nothing was about to stop me. (It also never occurred to me that the seller would refund my money or give me new peaches.)

Aware my primary ingredient wasn't the best, I charged on filling the jars before placing them in the boiling water. After the required minutes, I placed each jar on the counter to cool, awaiting the little pops that signified a successful canning process.

The tops did not pop. Popping is a prerequisite for storage. This meant I’d be lucky to keep them in the fridge for 3-4 weeks max.

The salsa tasted okay but would not last. I quit.

I awoke the next morning and returned to the market where the seller gave me fresh peaches and I tried again. I peeled and diced, refilled my jars, mixing some old with the new and ‘bathed’ the peach creations not once more but twice. One can only imagine the heat as three pans of water filled with jars were brought to boiling not once but twice in one day before all the tops finally popped, mission accomplished.

Interestingly I never personally popped because my inner boiling point was tempered by the watchful me, amused that I could have possibly circumvented this ordeal had I gotten new peaches from the start.

As I now ponder what to do with this summer’s first peaches, I’m mindful we are all cooks in Earth’s kitchen. How many of us really take time to consider the impact of our actions seven days into the future let alone seven generations? Let’s get real. Do we even think seven seconds most times? We can say we’re in a hurry and don’t have time for this level of thoughtfulness yet time is all we have. Cooks prior not taking time but engaging compulsively in autopilot has gotten us into repeated fixes historically.

When I’m living thoughtfully, awareness is simple and takes no time. Yet all too often I show up dense as in the kitchen that day. Just as I ignored the me that witnessed my not listening, how often are our personal plans "cooked" while ignoring intuition, that still small voice suggesting something be tried in a different way? Do you like me with the peaches, insist on your way, on your time table? How many CEO’s craft business plans knowing something's mediocre like the peaches but it’s done anyway? Which cooks at BP ignored the fact that a sufficient ER plan would require more research ie. time and money? How much legislation like my first round of salsa is not the best or long lasting, but it gets passed so men and women can move on to what's next on their congressional to-do list?

We are all cooks in Earth’s kitchen in this amazing moment in time. This time is part of our process as a collective and as individuals.

Having patience and taking time to live awake and aware allows us to learn from our engagement even if it is engaging for an entire weekend unexpectedly as I did with the peaches. I learned.

Living awake and aware can engage and change our internal system, the system of the heart and head, in the blink of an eye or in the time that it took me to back away from the chopping block and ask for a moment, ‘What are my choices here?’

Living (or cooking) awake and aware inside creates a ripple effect all around, positively charging Earth's kitchen for massive awakening.

If we can in the boiling pot of these times live and love with greater personal awareness, we will wake up to engage with ourselves and others in deeper, higher ways. Individuals with varied talents and beliefs will magically mingle like the peaches, garlic and peppers birthing a new creation, a salsa of initiatives and endeavors.

If we can allow the heat of these times to awaken us to the dense beliefs that create auto-pilot and allow the heat to burn away the fear underlying our reactivity, our friendship circles will be varied as exemplified by Bill Peach (yes, that is his name) who recently wrote on Facebook "I have a strange circle of friends--9 like Sarah Palin, 10 like Fox News, 17 like Michelle Obama, 20 like the Franklin Rodeo and 40 like Arrington Vineyards."

Maybe it’s not so strange. I don't know Bill personally but in the kitchen of his life, I suspect he values the ingredients of diversity and as a cook has an openness and willingness to dialogue and understand.

Just like my jars when canning, especially last summer’s thrice boiled peach salsa, we are in hot times and things may get hotter. Let's more fully awaken and creatively use our hearts and minds to come together and not just believe we can but live "Yes, we can" not because we have to but because we love what's cooking in our lives in these times. Imagine that shift!

Dawn! The Good News Muse, 6 July 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

*Click HERE for my favorite blueberry story...The Blueberry's Heroic Journey.

**Click HERE for Bill Peach's blog.

***I didn't intentionally stage the peaches above in a bag from Jean Houston's Social Artistry Leadership program. I noted this synchronicity after completing the story. Jean teaches new forms of creative leadership honoring the leader in everyone while savoring cultures rather than creating monoculture. Engage your social artist at www.jeanhouston.org

The Birds & Words - Let's Come to Our Senses!

Yesterday, thanks to my friend Kristen, I made my first tweets. After recovering from the mortification of accidentally sending notices to everyone on my email list inviting them to tweet, I finally sent one. (I assume it's called sending.) Not knowing tweet-etiquette, I sent three. One of them read: Are we becoming birds or remembering we already are? Regardless let's not forget their sweet sounds.

I really meant this. I felt myself drawn into tweetdom, reading others tweets, scanning articles referenced by folks I'm following. I could feel myself being sucked into this new universe and away from the one I love, nature.

As evidence of this sucking process my morning walk did not occur until 2pm. A few blocks from home, I noticed a bird singing its heart out it seemed just to me in a nearby tree. I stopped. I love bird song, but there was something different in this experience. I could literally feel the vibration of notes stirring my heart, moving in my chest. I noticed this feeling and thought of my prior tweet and this bird's melody being felt by me.

Then this morning I awoke to an email regarding the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. The link reported that 10,000 words many related to nature like dandelion, heron, acorn, lavender, wren, and willow were being replaced with BlackBerry, voicemail, celebrity and database etc.

An official with Oxford University Press said changes in the world are responsible for changes in the book. This person was quoted as saying, “When you look back at older versions of dictionaries, there were lots of examples of flowers for instance. That was because many children lived in semi-rural environments and saw the seasons. Nowadays, the environment has changed.”
 

Excuse me !!!!

Don't get me wrong. I am all for inventiveness. We need a ton of that right now to deal with the Gulf and so many things. Thanks to the spirit of discovery we've homes. We've America, airplanes, this medium through which we're communicating.

Yet just as we have the above gifts or blessings, without awareness and balance, every invention or discovery has a downside, a potential curse. Ask the original Americans, the Natives. Look at the Gulf of Mexico or into our bodies filled with chemicals sprayed onto our crops and lawns. Yes, the environment has changed because we have forgotten. When we forget the relational, our interconnectedness everyone is impacted.

But wait !!!!

What if the words omitted from a dictionary allow us, the adults, to remember! To remember that we are walking dictionaries of explanation and exploration, with capacities to teach children how to touch the earth, appreciating flowers like dandelion, poppy and buttercup and recognize their patterns which are foundational for all our inventions. What if words omitted from this dictionary allowed us to teach children about the messages offered by the animals, leopard, doe and wren and their traits as well as the vibration of our interconnectedness like I felt with the bird! What if not seeing cauliflower or melon in print allows us to teach children what cauliflower and melon are and the magic of creation from a tiny seed in dark soil. What if the fact that monk and nun, two of the omitted words, teaches us to honor our inner monks and nuns and we in turn teach our children for monks and nuns in centuries past listened, tended and nurtured the mysteries of Spirit and Creator's creation - Nature!

What beauty! In the absence of words, we become the teachers sharing the messages and experiences of our first teachers, the birds, the animals and plants! And we in turn are taught as children help us remember our senses and Experience at a deeper level than a word on paper or a computer screen!

It is time to come to our senses! Let's discover a society and story that holds both, BlackBerries and blackberries as well as the computer tweets of two legged friends and the sweet song of our feathered friends. Let's hold the new and the old with awareness and balance. Please live this shift with me!

-Dawn! the Good News Muse at imaginetheshift.com 1 July 2010

Click HERE for the link to the story on the new edition dictionary referenced.