Reality Shows - Jack & The Magic Beans

Reality shows. Reality shines all around us.

I felt like Jack, famed for meeting up with the giant after climbing the magical beanstalk, when I came across these blue beans while shelling a handful from my little raised bed recently. I had never seen blue beans and upon closer look found these fascinating.

Reminiscent of an Impressionistic painting, Monet appeared to have had a hand in the tones and shading of these worlds of blue. Little oblong whorls mirrored the lines etched in my palms becoming more visible it seems as I personally whirl through time. I couldn't bring myself to eating all three beans. I saved one yet the two eaten became part of me as I became part of their universe and sun and soil that had birthed them.


I love patterns, colors and interconnectedness so visible in the small things of nature like the beans and the yellow flowers newly discovered this year on our yard's edge. Their centers look like honeycomb and in turn provide the sweetness on which area bees feed and make honeycomb.


The spider's web on my balcony this morning and the moth on the wall outside my door yesterday fascinate and peek my curiosity.


How is it many people today are more likely fascinated by reality shows than by the shows reality displays? How is it we've gotten to this place where so many have come to rely on tv, entertainment and the news to define what they consider reality?

We each have the opportunity to access our inner Jack; our magical beanstalk is the path through life where reality shows. Reality shines all around us.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 31 July 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Biking through Time

A girl on a bike rides the circle around the campground across the river.
A rooster crows as a horse whinnies.
Wet clothes tossed across the bed of a truck dry as the sun heats up.
Summer cicadas shake their rattles in the tree tops as air conditioners begin their hum.

Driving into the mountains of North Carolina yesterday, I recalled how not that long ago there were no interstates nearby, no asphalt roads winding over or through the mountains.

Footpaths marked routes of transit as star paths marked Earth's transit.

We are the girl on the bike circling round the Universal campground as the rooster of Time crows "Wake Up."

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 30 July 2011

Love Divine

All of Nature, Love Divine
Soothes the heart, calms the mind.

As we open, love will last
Healing hurts of the past.


-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 27 July 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Walking with the Divine

The leaves rustle
A mourning dove coos
Lilies have risen
as the bean blossoms turn
their faces sunward.










A neighbor walking his dog stops by to say hello and spies two tomatoes, red and ripe, I've somehow missed.

Surprise garlic I thought had died from two years prior watered yesterday now stands its flowering head held high.

Waters of joy splash along the shores of my heart as hand in hand I walk with the Divine.

=Dawn, The Good News Muse 25 July 2011

The Shaman Tree

The shaman tree its arms reaching skyward
call on heavens energies.

It roots stretching deep
call up earths energies.

Heaven and earth united
before me
above me
beneath me.

I am in awe and blessed.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 25 July 2011

Tomatoes and Flight

Tomatoes from my garden ripening on the window sill allow me to take flight.

I can't physically survive on the meager amounts grown in my garden, but something internally is so satisfied. Tending Earth my soul thrives, my spirit flies. I am fed.

Tending Earth I am grounded and present, a participant in bringing forth Earth's fruits.

Some people feel the pull of space flight. I too am drawn to space flight, the flight taking place in the space I call inside.

I never imagined thanking the humble tomato for that experience but I do.

Tomatoes, thank you.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 17 August 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

The Blueberries Heroic Journey

(I initially wrote this two years ago after having made blueberry jam. I think of it each year when blueberry times rolls around. Enjoy!)

In the beginning were the voids, twelve to be exact, little universes unto themselves, content yet alone. They sat atop the counter yearning occasionally for something more.

Nearby sat berries, a large tribe of blueberries successfully having made their heroic journey from seed to bush to bowl. Most of them, prepared to meet allies and adversaries on the Road of Trials and Adventures, excitedly anticipated the crossing of another threshold in the journey.

Thanks to the hand that stirs, one summer Saturday, the berries found allies in sugar and pectin. They formed a community. This holy trinity did not forget as on all heroic journeys there were trials to be faced. The first was the trial by fire. Many of the berries balked. They feared loosing their individuality. They recalled the courage and tenacity on which they relied to survive prior adversaries, the birds, bugs and rain that tested them in their earlier life.

In their blueberry souls, they knew to become something greater they had to yield to their circumstances, be changed by the fire. In this bubbling cauldron that was for now their life, they joined with one another as well as their two new allies. In sixty seconds, magic was made. On the firey altar in the kitchen, the berries gave themselves to the sweetness of the sugar while allowing the pectin to change their substance. From thin to thick, they were altered.

The heroic adventure continued as the hand that stirs all poured this newly married mixture into the voids. Just as they relaxed thinking the journey was over, they found themselves immersed in an unexpected baptism of sorts. They found themselves in hot water. Some cried it was unfair to go to a watery grave after such a short life. Little did they know this final hurdle would ensure their longeivity.


After fifteen mintues, that seemed like forever, the hand that stirs all things gently lifted each jar from the fire. In gratitude, as the jars cooled each gave a grateful little pop, twelve tiny steel drum sounds signaled completion.

Twelve tribes, all the same, yet used in different ways over the coming months, some to be spread on breads, others to sweeeten meat and some to be given as gifts. Each berry, a boon from the soil, blessing the soul, a lone orb of sweetness, now part of the greater whole. Each jar an alchemical testament to the magic of yielding to the fire.

Each void an opportunity to.....

.....begin again

- Dawn Kirk, The Good News Muse
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

(Thanks to Joseph Campbell who so beautifully outlined the heroic journey in story and myth also applicable to people, communities, the planet, and yes, blueberries.)