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.

Receiving Signs

Saturday night I lay in bed so weary and worn I asked aloud for a sign. I usually make my requests quietly in the pages of my journal or telepathically in my mind. In this particular moment, I loudly demanded a sign. I was tired in my core and in the moment didn't even know for what kind of sign I was asking or why. 

Sunday I awoke feeling like new and thought of the prior night's cry. I also recalled how before going to bed, I lay in the grass for the first time in a month. Communing with Earth, I felt at peace and connected yet by the time I made it to bed I just about shouted my request. Was feeling better my sign? 

Later in the day I drove to the country where I've a home surrounded with gardens. (The original owner was a Master Gardener.) I arrived with hesitation due to the two nights of twenty-degrees we had just experienced. With the same energy with which I demanded a sign, I had also begged the angels over my property to protect the emerging life there from cold's harm. I had telepathically demanded that the flowers remember the sun held in their roots as the freeze took hold of the area. 

I feared the emerging flowers would be frozen. Mrs. Stewart, Clarice as she was known, planted a variety of daffodils and I so wanted to see them this year. Truthfully I longed to see them this year. 

Acceptance and non-attachment are tricky for me. I wanted to be okay with frozen foliage, but frankly I didn't want to feel the sadness that mushy, limp daffodils and hyacinths would stir. 

I arrived to see Jerry unpacking his backpack and airing his tent from a weekend trip. I was happy to see him but I see him every day. I was happier to be greeted by the guests I only see once a year. Flourishing daffodils, bluebells, hyacinths, and trilliums all showed their colorful heads about the yard. Even now tears of joy come to my eyes as I type this for these precious beings only arrive once a year for such a short time. These aren't the flowers in the grocery or florist's shop. These are living entities with whom I've had a relationship for eight years. They were loved by the woman and man who planted them and are equally loved by Jerry and me. 

I walked around seeing "my sign" everywhere. The forsythia was in all its yellow glory. The lilac blossoms were thriving as were tiny bleeding heart blossoms, lily of the valley, Easter lilies, peonies and columbine. And the spiral of lavender bushes that looked dead over winter showed signs of green! 

These beautiful blossoms were my sign. My prayers of protection had been heard by the angels and spirits I experience in this place. 

I started not to share this story. My inner judge said, "Who am you to pray over plants when people are hungry, homeless and sick? Do the flowers really need your prayers?" 

They may not need them but they love them. I feel that just as I felt them loving me as I sang to them yesterday. And I know I need their joy in this world of guns, fracking, fighting, sex trafficking, GMO's, animal abuse, ecological degradation  corruption, hunger, homelessness, and such neglect. I need to feel the joy they bring me. I need to feel my prayers are heard just as I need their sweet scent in my face intermittently as I type. 

I only cut flowers in my yard when I feel a sense that I'm suppose to do so. Yesterday as I walked about I heard from the ones desirous of returning to the city with me. I sang and clipped as today I write and cry tears of joy as this bouquet of aliveness sits across from me. They remind me I am the Master Gardener in my life whether I'm offering prayers of love and care for me, my home or others or I'm pouring out my heart's love as I lie on the earth or dig in the dirt. Ultimately it is all about Love. 

Love, Love, Love, Love, Love. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 30  March 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Enjoy the beauty of these seven varieties of daffodils.

Mystery's Messages in the Small Things

In mid-November as I was pulling out of my driveway, this leaf fell from the sky to my windshield as a light rain began. I immediately thought, "Love fell from the stars" and took this photo.

This was and is beauty to me especially since astrologically I am in my Venus Return. At the time of this photo, Venus and the Sun were together and I had just that day asked that all old emotion in me be excavated so I could be clear of everything holding me back from being my purest, truest self.

I received exactly what I requested. In the two weeks that followed, I was regularly awakened in the night feeling the rising up of emotions I had suppressed since childhood. I was navigating the Underworld within me.

Two weeks later, I looked down to see this heart shaped burning bush leaf on the rug to my morning writing space. It took my breath. I still have this leaf.

I knew Nature so loves me and I knew Love resides in the above and the below.

Pay attention to the small things.

Mystery's messages lie therein.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 19 March 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com