Every Day is Small Business Day - Inspiration from 1907

"When I begin the day at my inner altar, my day is altered and my vision changed 

so the sacred is more likely seen in everything."

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was designated Small Business Saturday yet every day is Small Business Day for me. I love supporting individuals in this way. Stimulating their economy usually stimulates my heart's economy and its currencies of love and joy.

While visiting local businesses in Eastern Iowa's small towns over the weekend, I was taken by this miniature book at LeClaire Antiques in LeClaire (home I also learned to "Archeology" owned by Mike of Mike & Frank seen on The History Channel's "American Pickers.")

"The Daily Altar" lay on a lower shelf of a glass case.  I randomly opened it and was further captured upon reading:

"Make the very corners of my life centres of spiritual loveliness." 

Hundreds of miles and days later, I revisited that paragraph today and another line gets my attention: 

"help me fill up the vacant places in my life" 

In the morning's quiet of my daily altar time, this passage stirs me again yet differently.  We're well into the season when we're encouraged to fill even more the vacant places of our homes with stuff and our bodies with food, while many have no homes nor food and I think, 'No more filling up!' 

This book dated 1907 was written in a time when vacant places were abundant. Homes weren't filled nor were bellies, yet I suspect many experienced 'enough.' The countryside wasn't filled with sprawl and people weren't unconsciously fed fear through mainstream media. 

I ponder the mystery in this.  No space is really vacant.  Things aren't as they appear.  Winter tree branches outwardly empty and barren of leaves hold life stirring in their veins preparing them for spring. 

No space is really vacant.  Quantum science now tells us the unseen energy of dark matter comprises what we think of as vacant space all around us. Possibility lies in vacancy.

Then I read: 

"Make me a wise gardener"

Ah, this is what I most desire to be a wise gardener of my time, my heart and mind, my body and its energy. 

And as the seed grows in the dark matter of Earth, I desire to see wisely and compassionately into the dark matters on Earth, to see into the shadows of greed, consumption and environmental disconnect and any roots of such that lie in me.  I desire to consciously relate to the places and spaces appearing vacant, to feel and be filled with the energy of conscious creation. 

When I begin the day at my inner altar, my day is altered and my vision changed so the sacred is more likely seen in everything.

This small book over a hundred years old found in a small Iowan business reminds me we are each in our own way small businesses, uniquely created, here to go about the business of being ourselves. Come to think of it, that's no small thing. 

-Dawn! 1 December 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

* And check out Nashville's Small Businesses at Hillsboro Villages monthly art walk today from 5-8. Bring a non-violent toy to donate and get your photo taken with Santa.  Check out the new Kay-Bob restaurant's grand opening at 6 just down 21st. Music, art and free samples. Bring 2 cans of food for 2nd Harvest and get $2 off you meal.  See Friday night's opening of  "23 years of Peace in the last 1,000 years" at Scarritt-Bennett and Saturday's Porter Flea, the Handmade Holiday Market (East Park community Center Noon to 8p),  the Local Table Holiday Market at downtown Farmer's Market Sat. night just down capital hill from the monthly ART WALK. 

It may be winter but shoots of creativity, art and love are sprouting all over dear Earth.

Reclaiming Touch Thanks to an Owl and Words

The softness of flannel sheets this morning reminded me of the down of an owl I held at the side of  the road recently.  The soft fur, I was surprised to find close to its body, acts as insulation ensuring warmth. I didn't know it at the time but something about the owl's down awoke my sense of touch.   

Later that day when I reached to stroke Bogey my cat's fur I knew this in my fingertips and then again when I drove along gently pulling my hair.  My sensory self was awake as I had not been prior to the owl.

The feel of flannel this morning awoke that sense again. 

Of the millions of tiny nerve endings just below the skins surface, we've 2500 nerve receptors per square centimeter in the hand or @ 1,000 per square inch if I'm doing correct math.  The point is this is a LOT of nerve endings gifting us with touch, our tactile sense.

How is it the word tactile refers to touch yet it's kin in appearance with tactic and tactician words connected to the military, war and strategy?  How is it our instrument of touch, the hand, is also connected to killing and war?

Touch wipes tears away.
Touch pulls the trigger of the gun as well as the bomb dropped by a remote plane.
The touch of a held hand conveys "You're not alone. I'm here."
The touch of an angry hand conveys control, instills fear.

How is it a multitude of modern hands today may be more aware of the touch of metal and plastic on keyboards and touch screens than skin? What are the potential long term consequences of typing and texing unaware of touch?

Touch holds the capacity for such healing and harm.

Likewise the word 'down' has so many associations other than the soft feathers I felt. How often today do we hear the stock market's down or the economy's taken a down turn?  There's 'down' as in unhappy and down as in the opposite of heaven, the hell I grew up fearing as a child, and last but not least 'down there' code for penis and vagina.

And now as Fall concludes much of Nature goes down for awhile, entering the mystery of dark Earth, for rest, rejuvenation and eventual rebirth.

I am grateful for this Mystery coded in nature, words and the birds, especially the owl, waking me to the sense of touch in my fingertips and the power of words. It's down brings me home to who I am.

(And although I'm not a huge football fan the words: Touch Down will never be the same.)

Imagine the Shift of waking up to how you use your hands and the sense of touch, of living life aware of the power in and at your fingertips.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 29 November 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

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ilisten, iconnect, itouch

Thanksgiving morning I awoke thinking of Steve Jobs and all he did for the world.  This might have made sense or at least not been unusual if I were an 'i anything' kind of person. My cell phone's over four years old, my preferred pad's a pad of paper and I still have a land line.

Yet I awoke thinking of Steve Jobs and my neighbor Wendy. I had dropped in on Wendy two nights prior.   I had gone out at 6:30, now long after dark, to lay to rest my raised beds.  It just didn't seem right celebrating Thanksgiving and the fruits of the earth without first bringing closure to my tiny garden and honoring its presence in my life. That's when the seed was planted that I should turn the corner and walk up the street to wish Wendy a Happy Thanksgiving. 

We first met in the fall of 2005. I consulted with her about getting dental braces. My father's cancer worsened and I never followed up.  Fast forward six years. I decided to see her again but she had left the prior practice.

After tracking her down, I made a second appointment six years later and learned in the intervening years that Wendy had become my neighbor and we had multiple common connections including dear three legged cats.  

I debated spontaneously knocking on her door.  I don't typically drop in on people except for my 'adopted' family now a few streets over and Judy across the street.

My intuition overruled present societal protocol. I listened. I walked. I knocked and Wendy came to the door albeit apprehensive. Think about it. Today when someone knocks I suspect a solicitor or someone casing the house before a potential break in.  People simply don't visit anymore.

I didn't intend to go in. I was happy standing at the door just saying have a good holiday but Wendy insisted I come in.  We sat in the floor, enjoying wine and talked as her dear cat of whom I'd heard gave me the honor of loving him.

Thanksgiving morning I lay in bed realizing I am an i-something person.

i listen
i connect
i touch

My neighbor and I enjoyed a spontaneous fifteen minutes of face to face, voice to voice, heart to heart connection that still at least for me has a richness that texting, tweeting or even face booking can't quite match.

Whether i knock, i phone, i touch, or text, tweet or get linked, most importantly I realized whatever I do iopen and ilove.

What about you?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 28 November 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Green Living Thanksgiving

Sometimes while writing, I toss paper scraps to the floor where I later pick them up to recycle.  Recently I picked up two sheets on which there was empty space.  Should these be cut into squares and reused for taking notes so I'm careful to not waste this paper and indirectly a tree?  I really just wanted to toss them into the nearby garbage can.  If I do will I feel guilt for not taking ten extra steps to recycling?  In the quiet, I realize I'm to choose the reuse or recycling options only if I can do these in love and not with the heaviness from doing so tired and begrudgingly. 

When I recycle out of have-to, I'm only contributing to the greater quantum level of have-to, force and control while making myself feel guilty and compulsive.

Beneath the suppose to, have to and need to I hear: Whatever you do, do it in love.  The tree from which this paper came doesn't grow because it has to. It does what it came here to do because that's what it loves in all its tree-ness to do.

This creates such a shift. I pick up the scrap of paper because that's what I love and love doing.

How often have I run myself ragged trying to get it all done, be a good steward of Earth, recycling, composting, not wasting, donating, saving seeds, signing petitions.  Anytime, at least for me, when these things are done with have-to, I'm fueled silently by fear.

In the quiet, I realize more important than being a good steward of the environment is being a good steward of my inner environment, my heart's energy and presence. If I'm an awake, aware steward of my insides, then my outer actions are born from a greater awareness.

Maybe this is really what's meant by "green living." Green's not only the color of tree leaves in Spring but the color of the heart chakra's energy.

This makes me smile inside.  Whatever I do, however I be, if I "be" in love I'm more likely to "do" in love too.

I Imagine the Shift of more and more people this holiday practicing green living from the inside out and the green change that brings.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 23 November 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

This Morning's Vision

Early this morning I sat outside (very unusual for me). The trees overhead reminded me of the brain's neural networks, the web of the internet and the unseen energetic field through which we're all connected.

At 4:00 I had laid in bed trying to decide whether to get up, when I suddenly saw a similar scene with a much grayer sky.  In my vision, the face of a wolf appeared in the tree limbs and came toward me. Wolf symbolizes many beautiful things but in this instance I thought of it is a teacher. 

Then into my mind came a song line from church long ago.  I heard: "I love to tell the story of unseen things above."

Over the past few years the unseen above has been revealing itself to me showing me how the animals, trees and plants come here, how they are my teachers, waking me up to my life and informing me of these Times.

* Other than coffee, what wakes you?
* Who are your teachers?
* What's nearby even now with a lesson just for you?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse,  22 November 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

I Imagine A World Like My Tomatoes

These five little orbs lined up on the counter top prior to becoming a salsa caught my eye and imagination this morning. They've lived on the window sill for some time, their varied shapes and sizes reminding me of people and how we are loved. We are so loved and cared for by earth.

I look at them and am inspired.

I imagine a world in which all colors and shapes of people are honored and appreciated.

I imagine a world in which we all grow entangled and entwined peacefully, like my tomatoes this summer wrapping their vine arms around one another ignoring the neatly arranged placement I created to keep them separated.

I imagine a world in which we're thankful not only for our food, but the wisdom offered by our food and by our fellow man even those appearing so different from us on the outside. For on the inside, just like my tomatoes, we're all alike.

Imagine the Shift of taking the time to really experience food this Thanksgiving.  Listen for the little, big lessons you are fed.    

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 20 November 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

"It's the End of the World as We Know It"

I love synchronicities like I experienced this week with a long distance friend. I told her of my waking recently in the middle of the night so very happy and suddenly realizing the Mayan calendar had ended. She referenced stories of fear she had heard in relation to 2012 and people talking of the world's end.

As I pulled into the grocery parking lot (yes, I had been talking on the phone) I said, "It's the end of the world as we know it but that's a good thing. It's a time of change in so many ways."

This is a friend I've known for going on twenty years. We talk maybe 4-5 times a year. We said our good-byes and I went into the grocery with "the end of the world as we know it" humming in my mind.

Thirty minutes at most later, I came out, loaded the car and turned on the radio. NPR was concluding their 'letters' segment with a listener's response related to an earlier R.E.M. interview I had missed. I knew R.E.M. was retiring but honestly didn't know for what they were musically known. I'm the person who knows the songs but not necessarily the singer and yes, sometimes not the correct words. As a child I thought "Angie" (the Rolling Stones) was "I lay in jail."

As I pulled onto Hillsboro Road, the interviewer said, "We'll leave you with this......"

"It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine."

I love when synchronicities affirm messages or hunches. I don't have to have them confirmed but it sure makes me smile inside and out.

It is the end of the world as I've known it. Each and every moment I choose love and openness even when sad or apprehensive, fear subsides and I feel fine, actually more than fine.

-Dawn! The Good News Muse 20 November 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com