Sage for Our Country

If I could have gone to DC this week, this is the event at which I would have most wanted to be present.

http://www.voicingouropinions.com/2009/01/gw-bush-sage-cleansings/

Jill Bolte Taylor

In case you haven't already seen it, here is a video that has been going around the net for a few months. It is facinating.




If you want more details, you can go to youtube and search Jill Bolte Taylor. The longer interviews with Oprah are great.

A Well Lived Life

I just got news that Utah Phillips crossed over in his sleep last night. As far as I know, it was a peaceful passage. Thanks, Chris Chandler for letting us know.

Are We Really This Greedy?

I have been working with the Law Of Attraction since before I had a name for it. The essence of the Law is that we are in some way responsible for everything that comes into our lives. ( Living and working with it is a little more complicated than that, but that is because we make it so.) In theory, this means that GW, the war in Iraq, the mortgage crisis, etc. are manifestations of our consciousness. Of course, so are beautiful music, flowers, great food and all the other things that we love. One of the ways that I have been using this information is by becoming aware of what I give my attention to. Because of that, I have given this story the least amount of attention that I could manage. I have focused on a good outcome for everyone involved. While it seems that there has been a positive resolution for the family involved, I am still appalled by the sheer greed of the corporation I usually refer to as 'the Evil Empire'. It appears that the corporation had to become fearful of the negative publicity it has been receiving due to the major media finally picking up the story and publicly shaming it before it was willing to reverse its direction in this matter. In reading the company's comments, I couldn't find anything that remotely says that the people directly responsible feel any regret toward what this family has been put through or that they are taking steps to make sure that this does not happen again. I wonder how many other people have been treated this way and the media either never found out or did not report it. At any rate, critical mass as to what our society will put up with in the amount of greed targeted toward individuals in such a blantant manner appears to have been reached. I hope that other corporations which have been engaging in this behavior sit up and take notice. In the meantime, I am sending am email to my congressman asking that he consider introducing or supporting legislation to stop this.

Soundtack to this post: Stephen Taylor's Better World

A New Blog

David LaMotte, one of the coolest people I know, has recently started a blog. Check him out here:

http://lowerdryad.wordpress.com/


He is a wonderful singer/songwriter who is about to hang it all up to become a student of peace studies in Brisbane, Australia.


He has too many great songs to pick one as a soundtrack.

The Message

"I don't like his music and I sure don't agree with most of what he said, but anyone should be able to walk down the street in this country without being shot."

This is what said my father 27 years ago upon hearing about John's death.
(Of course I told him that he most likely heard John's music every day and started naming some songs. He decided that he did like the music after all as long as someone else was doing it.)

I have to marvel at the irony that so many of our most peaceful people have such violent departures from this planet. I think that may be one of the ways in which they go on teaching us. John was certainly a great teacher/messenger. His message continues to be heard even though he physically left long ago. Maybe it still rings so clear because he left after he had stated it as clearly as he could and, having no more to say, exited in a way that put a big exclamation point at the end.

It is up to us to imagine the world the way he did.

No need to name the soundtrack to this post.

Manifestation Happens

If you have been reading this blog for very long, you know that I have been studying the Law Of Attraction for the past few months and trying to consciously implement its principles into my life. Basically, you have to get clear on what you want and allow yourself to have it. It sounds simple but it takes practice. If I create my world then I have to take responsibility for everything in my life, even those pesky back-up beeps. I'm still working on that one.

For quite some time now, I have wanted a kayak. Women who paddle a lot have fabulous upper bodies. I can always use more upper body strength for what I do for a living and I don't particularly like working out. When we moved into this house, I knew I had a good place to store a kayak so I started looking for one on craigslist. I did not really want to buy one, I wanted to barter for one. I had a couple of 'nearly got one' experiences. Yesterday it happened. I manifested a kayak!!!! I am very excited and can't wait to take it out on Town, I mean, Ladybird Lake.

The thing I like most about the kayak is how it came to me. I am serious when I say I manifested it. I also say that about the house we live in, which is a mansion compared to the place we moved into when we first moved back to Austin five years ago. We have moved three times since then, each time to a better place than the one before. This house is a quantum leap from the first one. It took five years to get this house but only a few months to get the kayak. Both times, I was very clear about what I wanted and just waited for it to come to me in the way that it came. The rent on our house is a couple of hundred dollars a month less than what we thought we would have to pay for a house with a lot less yard for Lani. I got exactly the car I wanted in the same way for a little less that what I thought I'd have to pay as well. That took less time than the kayak. I think that was because I was more focused on it.

When I started working with the Law Of Attraction, it was all about my financial situation and things that I wanted. It is becoming more a way of life with me because it works on all levels. I am becoming much more aware of my thoughts and the thought patterns that govern my life. Once I become aware of a thought pattern, I can usually figure out how it is affecting me and make an effort to transform it into a pattern with which I am more comfortable. I look forward to attracting more wonderful people, things and feelings into my life.

Soundtrack for this post: Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary 'cause I'm gonna be rollin' on the river real soon. Feel free to substitute Tina Turner's version if you like.

Bloggers for Peace

I'd much rather be for something than against something. Being against anything just takes too much energy that could just as easily be used to further a good cause or attract something that I really want in my life. I will go to peace rallies but not to antiwar protests. Sometimes, it is hard to tell the difference between the two. I will leave if peace making becomes war protesting.

I followed a link on Taexalia's blog to this site:http://bluepyramid.org/peace/. I like the idea of blogging for peace. I also like the idea of a million of almost anything.

If I could add a soundtrack to this post it would be David LaMotte's Peter(What I Said). Follow the link. It is near the bottom of the page.

More blooming things

The park is still in in bloom and the colors are changing every day. This was 3 days ago.

I'm rich,rich, RICH!

Richer than I ever thought possible. I am talking about US dollars here. I am in top 0.001% in the world of income attained in 2006. How did this happen?

I have been reading the Abraham-Hicks books on the Law of Attraction for the past couple of weeks. I first started reading about these books on Christine Kane’s blog.
Then I saw referenced to them in several other places, including Joe Vitale’s e-book, Spiritual Marketing. It has become my practice over the past few years to pay close attention to anything that is presented to me multiple times. So after seeing a dozen or so references to these books, I ordered one.

As soon as I began reading Ask and It Is Given, I began to feel happier and happier. I was smiling all of the time. Stephen came home in a grumpy mood because of a situation at work and I could not ever bring myself to feel bad for him. I knew that he was feeling bad and I did sympathize but I could not feel bad with him. He is smarter than your average bear so it did not take long for him to figure out that I was on to something. He went to the Abraham-hicks.com and began to read. Then he ordered another book and several tapes. In just a couple of days, he was able to put positive intentions in his mind about how he intended for his days a work to play out. Each day has played out pretty much the way he has intended.

Like almost everyone I know, we want more prosperity. We have been practicing that intent for years now. Intent can be a tricky thing. Attention to anything attracts more of that thing. You have to be careful or you will be paying attention to not having prosperity than you are paying to having it. You also have to be careful about what you perceive to be your reality. This is where the rich part comes in. I just checked the Kiva.org website to see if I needed to edit any loan profiles. On the home page, they feature a lender. The featured lender when I checked was a woman who made a reference to the global rich list. It sounded intriguing. I went to http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and found that I am the 107,565 richest person in the world! And that I am in the top 0.001% of the richest persons in the world. It would be very hard to feel impoverished knowing that you are in the top 0.001%. Therefore, my reality is that I am very wealthy by world standards.

This Law of Attraction stuff really does work.

Epiphanies

I went to my first meeting of my first writers group yesterday. One of our assignments was to write fro 10 minutes on an epiphany or awakening we had experienced. Here's mine:

Most of my life had been spent doing what needed to be done, almost all of it for someone other than myself. I went to work every day so that my children would have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, clothes on their bodies and all the other things that kids need.

Than was the only way I knew to live. Everyone I knew went to work every day and fit all the rest of their lives around their work schedules. All of my family did it. All of my friends and acquaintances did it. I had never seen any other life style.

Then in 1988, I went to the Kerrville Folk Festival. Everyone lived in tents at the festival. It was impossible to tell who was a highly successful business person and who just barely got by at first glance. I made friends from all walks of life and never knew what most of them did "for a living."

The first few years that I attended the festival, I made no attempt to make contact with any of these friends outside of the festival. Each year I would wonder who I would see from the year before. After a couple of years, several of us formed out own camp and I started getting notes a few weeks prior to the festival letting me know what to bring. Gradually, I began to spend non-festival time with some friends that I had met there and began to see all the kinds of ways in which they live.

I was fascinated. I told one friend that I thought it was brave of her to make here living writing and singing her songs. She replied that she considered it much braver to go to work at the same job every day.

Spiritual Circle Cinema

We just became members of Spiritual Circle Cimena. This means that we get a feature film and three shorts delivered to us for keeps each month. Last month the big prize was the Secret. This month we received ananimated short called The Danish Poet which we both loved.

All of the films are uplifting in nature. It is impossible not to feel better after watching them than before. A couple of them have been a little cheesy, but hey, doesn't everyone need a little velveeta once in a while?

Celebrating Al

I promised to write about Al Grierson, so here goes. Before proceeding, I want to make it clear to everyone who reads this that every word of this is being written with love.

Al was one of the most interesting persons that I have ever met. I am still learning from him after all these years. Every time I think of him, I am reminded of something valuable to me. He remains an outstanding example of how much a person can change if he really wants to do so. At different times in his incarnation as Al, he was a railroad worker in his native Canada, a newspaper editor, a Buddhist monk, a raging drunk and the "Poet Laureate of Luckenbach”. He was always a peace activist and labor supporter.

I met Al at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1995. He was at the worst part of his raging drunk phase. Luckily, it was almost the end of that phase as well. His behavior was so poor that he did not come around me for several years after he sobered up. I did not get to know the sober Al until I moved to Austin in 1998. He still did not approach me. I had to speak to him first. He had his young daughters visiting him that summer. Watching him interact with them was thing that drew me to begin a conversation with him. He was a wonderful father when he got to spend time with them.

Al was one of a number of friends who knew Stephen and knew me separately before we met. I remember talking with Al at ARTZ Rib House one night after my 18 day first date with Stephen. Al said, ”I would never have thought of the two of you together, but when I saw you, it looked so perfect.” Almost eight years later we are stilll proving him right. We went on to have a deep discussion about James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code.

Stephen and I were living in Hollywood, Florida when we started seeing entries about Al’s truck being found without him in a low water crossing near Luckenbach, Texas on a list to which we subscribed. It did not take long to figure out what had happened. Coming home from a gig at a local school, Al had tried to cross the low water crossing, which had water in it at the time. The truck stalled. Al stepped out and rode the flood into his next adventure. His guitar was found still in its case inside the truck dry and unharmed.

Not wanting to mourn by ourselves, we went around the corner to our friend Chris Chandler’s apartment. After breaking the news to Chris, we sat in his living room reminiscing and telling each other stories about Al for several hours. I remember Chris sitting on the floor. Every now and then, he would jump to his feet, spin around in a circle and say “Al Grierson” a time or two then sit back down.

Although, I miss Al, I am certain that he chose how and when to leave. He was only 52 years old but I had thought he was at least 10 years older. He was beginning to have health problems that would most likely have increased and had no insurance to get them addressed. His ride on that rushing wall of water added to the legend that he was becoming.

Al was a songwriter in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Utah Phillips .He wrote story ballads that contained chapters rather than verses. They went on and on but you were never quite ready for them to be over. His song Resurrection was recorded by Ray Wylie Hubbard on two albums. You can still get his music and can listen to it at AOL Music. Quite a few songs have been written about Al. My favorites are Al’s Ashes and Me by Chuck Brodsky and In the Texas Sky by Jack Williams. It seems that Al’s sister took some of his ashes to the Folk Alliance in Vancouver. Chuck and Jack got to thinking about traveling with the ashes and these songs happened.

Here is an excerpt from on of Al's songs. Enjoy.

"May you set your shoes to dancing

in the hour of your death

and meet it with the courage it deserves.

May your shadow pass in pirouettes

of such amazing grace

that the tears of those who mourn you

disappear without a trace

In a smoke that shapes their sorrow

to the fading of your feet

In a ring around the rainbow

where the circle is complete."

KIVA

Have you ever wondered what you can possibly do on an individual level to make a positive impact on global problems? I have. In fact, I think about it a lot. What can I, one person, do that will really make life better for people in other parts of the world? It seems that there are so many problems on so many levels that it is hard to figure out what to do about any of them. It is so overwhelming that most of the time, we don't do anything at all. One of the complex issues that we hear about a lot is illegal immigration. The solution, as far as I can tell, is to help people thrive where they are. If people have everything they need at home, there will be no need for them to immigrate to other countries, legally or otherwise. I was blog jumping just now. I went to one blog then started reading the blogs the first blogger listed. After jumping from blog to blog for a half hour or so, I found the Pondering Pig. One of the sites listed on this blog was KIVA. KIVA offers a way for anyone who has an extra $25.00 to make a positive impact on the lives of people in developing countries who are trying to make a living where they are by building their own businesses.

I had $100 my dad had given to me for Christmas. It had been in my wallet since Thanksgiving. I wanted to spend it on something special, something that I would feel good about owning for a long time. When I found KIVA, I knew that it was the place for the money to go. For my $100, I was able to loan money to 3 women from Mexico and Central America. One is selling tamales to support her children since her husband lost his job and headed to the US to look for work. She needs equipment and supplies. Another sells cakes to support her self and her children since losing her husband. She also needs equipment and supplies. The other has a grocery store, which she needs to expand so that she and her husband can support themselves.

As a small business operator myself, I certainly realize just how much a little cash at the right time can mean. I invite you to go to KIVA.org


So that you can share in this opportunity. 95% of the loans are repayed. It is recommended that you divide the money you want to loan between several business owners so that if for some reason one of them cannot repay the loan, you have not lost all of your investment.

All the voices

Chuck Pyle calls them his posse. Jim Patton claims to have at least 27 voices in his head. We all have them. The problem is, which one to listen to at any given time. If they wouldn’t all talk at once, life would be so much easier.

You know what I mean. There is the voice that says,” That cookie sure would taste good.” And the voice that says, “Hey, I thought we were trying to lose a few pounds” followed by “it’s just one cookie.”

Then there are those voices that offer advice and we just don’t listen. They say, ”This is not a good idea” but we have already told someone we would do something and don’t know how to get out of it. Sure enough, it turns out to be something we feel that we would have been better off not doing. Of course, if we don’t do it, the guilt voice chimes in loud and clear.

There are times when I am better at selecting which voice to heed and which ones to tell to shut up than at other times. I ask which one best serves my greatest good at this moment. That one usually gets louder if I get very quiet. Then I listen carefully to whatever it has to say. It hasn’t been wrong yet.

A Heads Up

This is a heads up to everyone to read Christine Kane's blog today. She writes one of my favorite blogs and her take on our "resolution" tradition is not to be missed.

Have a great New Year and be safe.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

As I write this I am listening to John Edwards speaking from Iowa. I agree with so much of what he says. He is speaking of each of us taking responsibility for where we are and what we as individuals and as a country can do to facilitate positive changes in our world. I have been waiting for some time for him to announce his candidacy for president. A few days ago, the following email was forwarded to me. I am posting it here so that anyone who sees it can take whatever action he/she wishes:

For the past two years, we've worked together to build an America
that lives up to its promise -- one where we all share in prosperity
at home and one that shows real moral leadership around the world.
I'm proud of our successes fighting poverty, supporting working
families, and standing up for what we believe.
Now, we have a big decision to make -- and I do mean we.
I'm getting ready to take this effort to the next level - to bring
Americans together in all fifty states to tackle the big challenges
facing our country, from poverty and lack of health care, to energy
and global warming.
But this is our effort, and we can only succeed if we're all in it
together. So before I make a final decision, I need to hear from you:
Are you ready?
If you're ready to take this to the next level, and launch a renewed
national effort to change America, send me a note and let me know:
JohnEdwards@readytochangeamerica.com
If you have friends or family who share this vision, I want to hear
from them too. Please forward this on to anyone you know who might
want to join this big new effort.
I believe we can run a totally new kind of endeavor -- one that puts
our ideals into action, and puts the hopes and dreams of the American
people above the personal ambition and play-it-safe strategy of
traditional politics.
I can't promise you where this will ultimately lead. But I can
promise you this: if you're on board, we'll launch a renewed
commitment to change our country from the bottom up. We'll always
speak from the heart. And together, we'll reach out to millions of
people to let them know it's still okay to dream big dreams, and do
everything we can to make them real --because that's what America is
all about.
So the only question is: Are you ready?
If you want to take this effort to next level, send me an e-mail and
let me know:
JohnEdwards@readytochangeamerica.com
Stay tuned: I'll let you know what we decide early next week.
Happy holidays, and may it be a bright new year for all.
Your friend,
John
PAID FOR BY JOHN EDWARDS
If you would like to unsubscribe from email communications sent by
John Edwards, please visit this link:
http://www.readytochangeamerica.com/unsubscribe.html

The Antidote

In my last post, I wrote about the effect that BigBox retail is having on our communities and the world at large. It is easy to gripe and complain about what someone else is doing to us, to our way of life, to the environment. They are always up to something. One of my favorite quotes is from Walt Kelly’s Pogo who said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.” In other words, there is no they. We are all creators of our world and we all play a part in whatever happens to it.

How, then, do we change the things we don’t relish? It is hard to even know where to begin. It is very easy to feel so discouraged that we just give up and don’t try to do anything at all to facilitate change. I think the best thing to do is to be conscious of each choice we make, whether it is paying cash or paying attention.

One of my favorite thinkers and authors on the world situation and how each of us can make a difference in it is John Perkins. His book Confessions of an Economic Hitman is a must read. It has spent 59 weeks on the New York Times best seller list. He is the founder of the Dream Change Coalition, an organization that came into being after John was told by a South American shaman that the world is how we dream it and that having dreamed up a nightmare, we must now change the dream. I encourage everyone to visit http://www.dreamchange.org/ and learn more about what we can do to change the dream.

BigBox

The following post was inspired by a situation with my sister. She is in a very fearful place right now with her financial situation. Fearful enough to take as a client a company which

has applied BigBox marketing to the massage business. Fearful enough to become very upset with me when I expressed my objections, thus providing me with yet another opportunity to decide who I want to be in relationnship to the situation. I have had quite a struggle with it. (The photo from http://www.jibjab.com/ )

Bill had a hardware store. He had bought his father out when he retired. The hardware store had been on operation in this town for more than 45 years. Bill wasn’t rich, but he made a comfortable living and provided a needed service to his community.

Then the BigBox opened on the outskirts of town. People found that they could get the things they usually bought from Bill at a much lower price than Bill could offer on the same items. Everything was so cheap at the BigBox. Pretty soon, Bill went out of business and filed bankruptcy as well.

Joe bought Bill’s house at auction for a fraction of its worth. He had been going to build a house for himself and his family but Bill’s house was very nice and it was so cheap. Besides, it was a good investment. Joe figured that in a couple of years, he could double his money on the house and use it to buy more investment property.

Since Joe bought Bill’s house, he did not need the services of Bob, the local contractor. Bob also did not to get to hire Jerry and George to help him build the Joe’s house. This also was a blow for the local lumber yard and plumbing supply business who were still in business because BigBox Home Improvement has not come to town just yet.

Jerry decided to go fishing. However, when he got to his favorite fishing place, the creek was full of trash. Several BigBox plastic shopping bags were caught in the trees. Cans, bottles and other debris had washed downstream from the BibBox parking lot.

Out of desperation Bill and his wife both took jobs at BigBox making minimum wage for 30 hours a week. They signed up for food stamps to feed their children. They use the county clinic for medical care. It doesn’t look like they will be sending the kids to college as planned so they will most likely work at BigBox, too.

Their old customers kept making their purchases at BigBox. At first, they could get everything Bill used to have but, little by little, that changed. BigBox only stocked the things that sell the fastest and at the most volume, so the special things that Bill used to keep on hand because he sold a few of them a year and he knew that his customers really needed them are nowhere to be found. Some of them don’t even exist anymore because BigBox did not see fit to set up manufacturing in China to make them and the small companies that made them here are gone because they could not compete with the slave labor wages that the companies BigBox buys things from can get away with overseas.

Two local grocery stores and several clothing stores also went out of business after BigBox came to town. If anyone in town minds that all their clothes look alike and that they don’t have as much variety in food choices as they used to, nobody says much about it. After all, everything at BigBox is so cheap.

They do gripe about taxes going up due to the clinic being suddenly busier than before, more kids needing free school lunches and more families needing food stamps. Few people see the connection between their higher taxes and the fact that everything at BigBox is so cheap.

Just when the catapillar thought its life was over....

it turned into a butterfly.













In one of my favorite books, Letters to a Young Poet, Ranier Maria Rilke describes our fears as dragons guarding our most perfect treasures. The dragons are waiting for us to become our shining selves by [Photo]confronting and overcoming our fears so that they may experience true joy and turn into princesses.

Fear has a negative connotation for most of us. I tend to view it as a protector and a powerful messenger. It protects us from situations that could cause harm to us and to those around us in fundamental ways. We fear getting too close to a flame because it burns. Anything that we fear has something to tell us, so I try to look closely at things that scare me. I’m not talking about scary movies. I ‘m referring to self-limiting ideas that manifest as fear. We all have them. They are usually so ingrained that we don’t even realize them until someone points them out to us. A friend will say “why don’t you…..” and we say “because……” Whatever follows “because” is the name of the dragon. The best friends I have had throughout the years are the ones who refuse to let me feed the dragons by making excuses for myself or for anyone else in my life. I am more grateful than I can express for the presence of these friends in my life.

I have become aware of many dragons in my life. Some have become beautiful princesses and others are still around breathing fire and waiting for me to shine for them. I look at each one to see if it will reveal its message to me. Sometimes I get the message and sometimes I don't. Good thing I have had mostly patient dragons.






I was introduced to Rilke by Ray Wylie Hubbard in his song, The Messenger. Thanks, Ray.
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