Spirit Speaks - On Looking Back and Fear

I procrastinate. My to-do list is never ending. I know "it" never all gets done at least in terms of dirty laundry, dishes and liter boxes. Yet the things on my list include stories noted but never written, piles made and never sorted and outdoor pieces bought but not sealed so they don't rust or quickly discolor.

Recently something finally moved me to undertake the later. I began sealing a table and wall hanging. Once I get started, I always wonder 'Why the wait?'  I was moving right along with this particular project and for some reason turned to find an unusual bug behind me. I greeted a black bug similar to a housefly but larger then realized it wasn't moving. I was ambivalent about picking it up. It reminded me of horse flies dodged while swimming as a kid. You only need be stung once to know how that hurts.

Yet greater than the fear of being stung was irritation. I was finally proceeding rather than procrastinating and didn't have time for a bug. I am prone to patience even with bugs including ones that are dead. I have bug jars throughout my home for escorting live ones outside. I was mesmerized with making Creepy Crawlers as a girl. And though I gave no thought to bugs during my 20's and 30's, I have returned to being mesmerized by them thanks to learning of beneficial bugs when I planted raised beds and developing a love of birds, many of whom depend on bugs for sustenance.

As one who values integrity and honoring life, I could not neglect this bug. I placed it in my palm and talked to it. I hoped its body still held Life's Light. I stepped a couple of feet to the nearby azaleas. There in the dirt was a wide, brown leaf, a perfect final resting place. I thanked it for coming to Earth and placed it on the leaf.

Then turning around to get back to work, my breath was taken by this large feather. I knew the Divine was acknowledging my having taken the time to honor the scorned yet beautiful flyish bug.

And as I held the feather I knew: "The bug represents things feared. If I choose I can hold in my palm the things I fear. Don't seal over them. Don't ignore them. Don't squash them. Don't neglect this opportunity."

I hold in my palm the things that frighten me.

What frightens me?

The vanishing of the big to the small from glaciers, elephants and lions to bees, butterflies, bats, and lady bugs in what many call the Sixth Extinction, the first that is manmade as far as we know.

What really frightens me?

That I will not fully listen and use my abilities to assist Earth, whatever my assistance might be.

What really, really frightens me?

That I will treat myself like many treat bugs. That I will squash and kill off who I am through ignoring and procrastinating listening to the small things in my life like learning to play the strumstick I've had for three years, not taking voice lessons nor fully learning French or returning to France. That I will continue to procrastinate tending the numerous stories tucked in those piles I need to sort and tucked within me.

The Divine arrives in my life in theses ways when I pay attention to the things in front of me. And therein lies another message because the bug and feather were not in front of me. They were both behind me. I am being told to...

Turn around. Look back. Tend what is behind me in the past. 

Resilience, reflection and personal courage are valued by many today, yet evidence suggests fear is highly medicated and looking back is avoided and ignored. Many believe fear is a weakness rather than normal and natural when stepping outside one's box, when expanding one's comfort zone by traveling new terrain without and within oneself. We are inundated with messages and ads not to mention upcoming political campaigns related to moving forward ie. not looking back.

Reflecting and listening to Life's chapters keeps one from getting stuck in the past contrary to what many fear.

I am grateful that allthough I procrastinate, Spirit never judges me but patiently provides messages through signs.

How does the Divine/Spirit/God/Direction arrive in your daily life? 
How do you listen? If not, what keeps you from paying attention? 
Do you reflect? 
How do you hold the things you fear? 
How do you relate to the past? 

An hour later as I finished my project I returned to where I placed the bug. The spot brought a smile to my face. The bug was gone. Whether a bird found it or the Light left within revived it, the bug was gone as I know my fears are when I consciously hold and reflect on them and when I make time to practice the things that call to me like the feather and the bug.

It is time to turn around and tend.

Dawn, The Good News Muse, 15 June 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

If you enjoyed this, this might also like "The Earth is Magic" or "Fly, Shoot, Be."

The Invisible World

Do you ever experience the invisible world surrounding you? 

The raised shades caught my attention as soon as I walked into my home. Part of our ritual when leaving for a few days involves pulling the shades down and ensuring the door to the room is slightly open. The shades were up and the door was tightly closed.

I asked Jerry if he recalled not lowering the shades.  He not only distinctly remembering closing them but also knew where he sat in the room after having done so.

That's when I realized not only were the shades raised but each one, ten in all, was raised to the same level. This was definitely unlike us. We are not perfectionists.

We puzzled aloud wondering if a neighbor had a key to our home or knew of a secret entry of which we aren't aware.

Suddenly I realized I knew our visitor. The shades were meticulously raised just as I suspected the man who lived here for eighteen years would have done. Mr. Stewart had been to visit. Of this I was certain.  Mr. Stewart was the man who designed and built the dear house in which I live. I have often wished for his return. I wondered if his birthday was near.

Thank to the internet I found Mr. Stewart's obituary. I look at the area obituaries just about every day. One of those days in 2006, my breath was taken by his death notice. Mr. Stewart died the day after Christmas. My breath was taken similarly this day as I scanned the funeral home piece that was still accessible. His birthday was May 12. We came home to precisely raised shades on May 15.

We sat in our sunroom that day certain Mr. Stewart had been there. Just in case he was still around I welcomed him and shared my deep regret in not seeing him after he moved to Murfreesboro. And I joyfully thanked him for the beauty he imparted to this place.

Clarice and Jimmy Stewart were people of love and joy. I work in the yard and feel the love they imparted in the plants and the trees and the love they received. I walk through the house that was once theirs and I feel them. I experience them in the tin kitchen cabinet doors etched with tulips and hearts. I see them in the note taped inside one of those doors. Their handwriting shows the Fahrenheit temperature translated according to the wind chill.

A portion of the Stewart's garden I now tend.

Then I read the remainder of the obituary.

Mr. Stewart had three adult sons. Each died prior to him. I knew he lost two sons but something about reading this impacted me in a way it had not affected the me from even ten years ago when we first met.

How did he go on after outliving three adult children?

As religious people, I suspect their faith sustained them yet intuitively I knew other sources of comfort for Mr. Stewart. The Stewarts lived close to the Earth. Neighbors talk of how they were in the gardens daily planting, digging and clearing. Mr. Stewart also worked with wood. As he walked us through the house the day we met he showed me figurines he had carved. They were on shelves in the very room surrounded by windows.

A Hopi stone carver once told me of the reciprocity between the stone and himself. As he honored the stone and gave it his energy, it in turn shared its energy with him.

The great stone that is Earth offers its energy to us. When I garden consciously in love and "want to" rather than duty and "have to" I feel the sharing. My mood when heavy or sad is always lifted. My heart feels joy.  I'm fairly certain something similar happened for Mr. Stewart as he worked with wood and dirt.

My sunroom shades now remind me to open my inner shades and remember...

An invisible world surrounds us. 

It's in the stars, the Earth and Spirit. 
It offers itself to comfort, bring joy and love. 
An invisible world surrounds us.

I am open to it. Are you? 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 9 June 2015 

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Forgive Us For We Know Not What We Do - Prayers from the Flood

(I've been going through pieces I wrote after Nashville's 2010 "May Day" flood. This is one of those pieces on the anniversary of the rains and though these prayers are five years old for me they are today the same.)

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

To be honest, I've heard something kin to his words:  "Mother, forgive us for we know not what we do." 

I would think this odd except these words have come to mind as I've thought of the string of environmental crises. In 2010 this included the earthquake in Haiti followed by those in Chile, Turkey, China, Mexico and then in Chile again. During this time there was a deadly coal mine explosion in West Virginia, the volcano eruption in Iceland then the oil rig explosion and resulting ongoing oil leak in the Gulf. This was topped off most recently by the Middle Tennessee floods.

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

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

"Mother, please forgive us for we know not what we do."

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

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

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

The day after I stood in my kitchen making hamburgers and remembered the bull. I thought of all the cattle that give their lives for us. I thought of the mega-corporations making their billions while raising cattle so inhumanely, cattle that become fast food burgers and 16 ounce steaks.  (Watch the movie, Food Inc. if you haven’t!)  It occurred to me as never before that cattle come here in love and give themselves to us so we might have their 'strength.'  We are given the gift of choice as to how we will use that strength. 
Contrary to what many people think of cats, they have long represented the rising of the feminine offering protection. They have for centuries been considered guardians and represent deep understanding in the natural world.  Yet they were killed thousands upon thousands in the coliseums of Rome and burned and drowned with their (usually) female owners accused of being witches in Europe and New England.  Today they are still neglected, abused, tortured and hunted as trophies with their heads hung on walls.

How is it humankind collectively so neglects the love animals come here with? How is it we don't protect them as they protect, care for and nourish us?
"Mother, Father, Creator, we do not realize the gifts of your children the Animals. Forgive us for we know not what we do.  May we shed our ignorant, arrogant ways like the snake sheds its skin.  May we wisely use our strength and capacity to protect all your creeping, crawling, flying, swimming, walking, four-legged, feathered, furry, slimy, scaly, and yes two-legged kin.

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

About my two legged kin.....Week upon week the church doors are flung open and filled are the pews. We say we love God. We sing we love God, while millions of children in lands far away and right here at home are God. They are God sleeping in the streets, looking for bread. They are God trying to wake us up to our interconnectedness. So many are hungry, homeless and orphaned due to war, illness and poverty leaving them vulnerable. And yes, they are God trying to find a way in, into our hearts to see if we can be broken open, be made vulnerable to the situations of others.

On Sundays, we say we love God, we sing we love God. Yet the rest of the week God's name is used politically and in the courts to draw lines, deem what is right or wrong and further create separation, fear and hierarchy.

"Father, forgive us for we know not what we do." 

Here we are continuing to live what is often called the greatest story ever told and the story is far from over for the story was and is ultimately about Love. Our hearts, minds and hands are the vehicles of that love.
Long after church doors are closed, help us keep the doors of our heart, the real church, open. Keep us open to the many opportunities for healing and for love in these times in this present crisis here at home so we in turn feel and show compassion for those in places far away.

Our hearts have been broken open and made vulnerable by the washing away of what so many called home, by the washing away of what we've called security, by the washing away of loved ones. In our vulnerability we are now part of the family of man, kin with those who live vulnerably day to day.

May our hearts not close once this crisis has passed. And when they do begin to close in judgment and fear give us wisdom to know and grace to call one another out, to call out our open hearts even when they're tired, hurting and afraid so we may be full participants in this new yet old story being told, a story of love, of loving one another and of loving Mother Earth, Nature and all her kin.

Father, Mother, Creator, forgive us.

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

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

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 5/11/10 and again 05/01/15

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Emerge and See - Remembering Nashville's Flood

(This came to me initially when Nashville flooded in 2010.  It has again been with me again in light of Nepal.)

At lunch, I glimpsed news coverage titled "Flood Emergency Update." The word 'Emergency' caught my eye because I immediately saw tucked within another word - "emerge." Then I heard myself saying, "Emerge N C" followed by "Emerge and see."

I love words. They are simple yet powerful keys available for us to see the possibilities in times like these.

Imagine what is being held in this crisis if we can hold and use this as an opportunity to Emerge, to come out, to bring forth new ways of being, living and relating to one another and to Mother Earth.

Every emergency offers an opportunity for us to emerge and see the patterns, people and things that really matter.

Emerge and See with Me !

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 5/7/10 and 5/01/15
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

All is Light Changing Form - An Earth Day Vision

I determined not to work this Earth Day in order to give myself time to reflect on the past twelve months since Earth Day feels like my birthday. I typically use my May birthday as a day to reflect on the year prior, read my journals, and look through photos. I also took Earth Day off because I have been exhausted. This weariness of body, heart and soul is connected to the experience in my yard the day after Earth Day last year. 

Last year, on this day I watched a raven eat a baby robin from its nest. I had been a witness to the robin couple diligently building their nest cupped in the branches of the leafless crepe myrtle two feet from my kitchen window. An upstairs window gave the perfect vantage point to seeing directly into the nest. I knew when each blue egg was laid and I knew when each little life came into this world. I would awaken and pray fervently in the middle of the night during last spring’s stunning rains and I energetically imagined shielding the mother and her children as she hunkered over their growing little bodies. I developed a whistle to which the parents would respond and hop to me to eat meal worms and peanut chips I tossed them when the ground was too cold for worms to emerge. I had a relationship with these robins. 

Cognitively knowing that what I witnessed was part of Life’s cycle did not help my broken heart. Being told the raven possibly ate a weaker one didn't help either. 

For me, this experience was shattering especially as one who is sensitive. I journaled. I met with friends who are intuitive and I went into what I call my Joan-of-Arc mode. I placed a scarecrow created of my clothes, my hat and a wig under the nest. I personally sat vigil nearby hidden for two weeks as the raven returned daily in the early morning and late afternoon. When I could not be present, my dear neighbor Jo sat in my hidden place. 

One evening after a session with an intuitive friend who helped me piece together what I was living, I came out to my car and there sat the raven on a limb on my neighbors driveway side. It was head high and urgently talking to me. In retrospect I wish I had stood before it and listened. Instead I was “on.” I shooed it away and I never really gave myself time to listen or feel (anything but rage) until yesterday. 

Yesterday I reread my journal from that time, reflected, listened and felt.

Mid-morning, I walked into the front yard and impromptuly decided to dig. Getting dirt under my nails revives me on all levels. 

The first thing I noticed in the dirt by the driveway were 6-7 tiny down feathers. In the past year I learned from Gary my hair guy that down falls from the mother's breast when she's laid her eggs. Previously I thought it meant a bird had died.

"New life is here" and I was being told to lie down. 

Lying down in the middle of the day is challenging for me even on Earth Day. It suggests I’m not being productive. This societal, tribal, familial message is hardwired into me. Yet I knew to ignore this message was to ignore listening. To ignore listening was to ignore the Divine directive shouting through Nature to me.

I gathered the feathers, placed a sheet in the grass and lay upon it. As I felt myself sink into Earth, I saw a butterfly made of fuchsia light. The butterfly then turned into a hawk. Then I saw the head of a rose breasted grosbeak. I knew I was being shown the grosbeaks are near. They migrated through our yard for the first time last year just after the baby bird was eaten. 

Seeing the butterfly turn into a hawk, I knew Everything is Light changing Form - Everything even people, past and present, judged as horrible, they too are Light Changing Form. Mentally I know this yet being shown this helps me “get it” in my depths. I needed this message in relation to the raven and the robin to assist in my healing. 

And this morning as I sat outside I looked up to see a male rose breasted grosbeak at the feeder. I saw its black, white and rose coloring and thought, ‘Black and White rose together.’ 

What if those of us, black and white, rose together? Imagine the glory of that? What if we moved beyond our internal and external opposing black and white positions of good and bad? What, just what, might rise from that? 

The one thing I had not done was look up the symbolism of grosbeak. I went inside to find “Animal Speaks’ and read: 

Grosbeak represents the healing of the heart. 

To me this is divine perfection and grace? 

I stumble, resist, ignore, procrastinate and delay, yet the Divine through Nature shouts, "Dawn, I am a partner in your heartbreak and your healing if you listen and allow. New life is here!!!"

As I hold this message personally, I invite you to listen to the part of this experience that resonates with you.

New Life is here. 

Everything is light changing form. 

The heart can heal. 

Nature speaks. 

And imagine our collectively "getting" that Everything is Light Changing Form. Black and white are rising together. Divisions, fear, separation, judgement, and violence are diminishing. New life is here as we are experience the healing of the heart, the individual heart, the racial heart, the collective heart and I believe the Earth’s Heart. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse  23 April 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Guns, Gas and Guys

Tuesday night before hearing Stevie Wonder, we had dinner at a new Nashville eatery whose outdoor dining space happened to face the Music City Center.

There I sat eating my taco while reading the huge banners for the NRA convention. The one that got my attention read: "9 acres of guns and gear."

Nine acres of guns and gear.

I shouldn't be surprised. Tennessee's legislators have been eaten up with gun bills over these last few years. (Growing up in the country, 'eaten up with' something meant usually chiggers or ticks. I don't think I've ever used that phrase but it seems appropo here.)

In the 2010 election, TN voters even got in on the act thank to smooth maneuvering by the pro-gun side. The right to hunt wasn't threatened yet an amendment voters voted on made it sound like hunters were about to loose their guns. The campaign was so slick I had some non-hunting, non-packing friends that voted "yes" because they feared hunters were truly about to loose their guns.

Money and manipulation (that stirred fear) got that bill passed.

At present legislators have passed a bill allowing guns in parks. This bill will pass unless Governor Haslam has the courage and wisdom to veto it. We've guns everywhere except the legislative building of course. (I find that a bit odd. Are they afraid a tree hugging, pacifist is gonna bring in a gun and suddenly turn violent? They're probably more afraid of one of their constituents come to think of it.) 

Amidst all the goings on with guns, I was reminded of another possibly country phrase related to guns in my childhood.  Often when a male member in the family had gas, the phrase was used, “He shot his gun.” I don’t recall that phrase being associated with the females, but of course being a female I may have blocked that out.  And I don’t know the origin of this phrase just that it was periodically used.

This prompted me to wonder if somewhere around adolescence this shooting of the bodily gun gets shut down and traded for a need by many men (and now women) to shoot a literal gun.


Think about it.  Some folks laugh when a two or three year old 'shoots his gun.'  It's less socially acceptable at least outside the home when these noises come from an adolescent.

Thus I'm proposing one root of the gun issue is connected to a man having to disown his insides and in turn stifle his bodily experience resulting in the disconnection from his body and a sense of true potency.

Think about it.  Food goes in and gas comes out. Similarly Fear goes in and the guns are brought out.  Guns are brought out because men, the traditional protectors of family, feel unsafe and vulnerable.  Unfortunately still in our society, a man’s labeled feminine when he owns his vulnerability and wants to talk things out. 

Contrary to what you may think, I am not anti-guns or anti-hunting.  My intent is not to oversimplify things or make light of serious matters. 

I’m concerned about the twisting of truth, epidemic these days as powerful corporations and their lobbying arms try to turn descent gun-carrying, meat-eating folks against descent animal-loving, vegetarian folks.     

Lobbyists and politicians who benefit from this manipulation measure their potency in terms of the billions of dollars they reap by stirring fear.  They’re strategically using these times to their benefit while trying to convince the common man that it’s for his benefit.   It appears they’ve done a good job especially in this time when the American citizenry is blending as never before and white folks especially white men are declining dramatically in proportion to the population.  

Everyone wants to feel safe.  Most folks want to feel potent or good at something from one's contributions at work or caring for one's family.  Many have been convinced they're not safe and that potency lies in guns rather than stepping outside one's stereotypes and comfort zones and getting to know strangers.  

Real potency starts with owning one’s insides.  Until the internal stuff of our insides is as valued as the external of our appearances and looks, we are vulnerable. We will be easily manipulated and made to feel fear until we connect our thoughts, feelings and actions.  

The greater vehicle for increased safety isn't found in a gun.  Increased safety is found in connected body, mind and heart which in turn is willing to relate not retaliate and respond rather than react. 

Even though it would increase harmful greenhouse gases, maybe if men (and women) needing to prove their man/womanhood with guns returned to regularly shooting their bodily guns we’d have less violence in the world. "Shooting ones gun” freely and loudly might be the best start at real self-defense.

In the meantime, I wish we could be eaten up with courage. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse11 April 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

If You Love It Enough, Anything Will Talk to You - Booker T. Washington

Yesterday April 5th was Booker T. Washington's birthday and I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes that comes from him.  

"If you love it enough, anything will talk to you."

Mr. Washington was talking about Big Love, not I'll-love-you-if  love. 

Usually when I hear this I think of traffickers, the men and women who enslave 27 millions girls around the world and sell their bodies in the sex industry. Can I love these soul-less seeming men and women who take young girls (and boys) lives so horribly?  

Most days I can. I can love these soul stealers because their souls were stolen at some point or they wouldn't do what they do.  (I use Ho'oponopono a Hawaiian shamanic practice that I learned through Jean Houston and Peggy Rubin to energetically hold traffickers in my heart and hands while asking their forgiveness for my negligence, ignorance and all ways that I have contributed to the shadow they carry that is connected to me.)

Yes, it would be different if one of these people actually sat down to talk with me.  Could I hold space for this person, take the time and prove I am trustworthy? I hope so and I don't know. Could I love them without my own agenda if they continued their ways? 

"If you love it enough, anything will talk to you." 

Can I love politicians enough and imagine them talking with me?  I'm not talking about 30 second sound bites on tv or slightly longer interviews on FOX or MSNBC. I don't want to see any more come-to-Jesus, God-forgave-me pop culture interviews in which these individuals say they've changed then it's back to business as usual.  

Imagine them really talking to us, with us, coming clean, sharing their motivation for getting into politics to begin with then selling out to greed, power, the machine.  Can we make time, hold space for discussions of this Nature?  Wall Street and the powers that be might cry, "No! Time is up.  There are votes to cast, sides to take, deals to do, money to make." 

If we don't have time to really look at how we be, mankind's time may be nearing "up."  

"If you love it enough, anything will talk to you." 

Do I have time for Monsanto?  Can I love this business with its hands all over our food, trying to control seed and thus us and our health?  Can I love this business that hides behind a mask of saying they're for the American farmer?  That's a big one and yet just last week I used Ho'oponopono in relation to Monsanto.  I have ignored for most of my life how my food is grown. My ignorance is connected in the greater web to Monsanto's ignoring on a deeper level the long term ramifications of their money-making endeavors using genetic modification, toxic chemicals and such.  

What might Booker T. Washington, a planter, scientist, inventor and artist himself, say to us about Monsanto?  I imagine his encouraging us to hold these entities lovingly as this peanut farmer does his plant in the Colquitt, Georgia mural "Spirit Farmer" by Winnipeg artist Charlie Johnston. 

I imagine him saying, "If you love it enough, anything will talk to you." 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 6 April 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

1. There are many sites regarding the shamanic prayer/healing/forgiveness practice of Ho'oponopono. Please check them out as I've linked the story above to only one.

2. And learn more about Monsanto here

3.  Here's more also on Colquitt's amazing murals.