St. Paul, Minn Sept. 1 2008

When people wonder what I am so upset about, these are the words that inspire me:

PRISONERS OF THE CAMPS

JULY 1, 1937 MARTIN NIEMOELLER, CHURCH DISSIDENT LEADER, ARRESTED Martin Niemoeller, one of main opponents of Nazi racial ideology in the Lutheran church and one of the founders of the oppositional "Confessional Church," is arrested. He is sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1938 and spends the next seven years in concentration camps. After the war, Niemoeller's condemnation of bystanders to Nazi policies will become a call to early action. His words: "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist - so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat - so I did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew - so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."

As those of you I most love know, I am very angry at the way the Right Wing has seen fit to abuse the constitutional rights of those who do not agree with them at the Royal .... er.... Republican Convention.

Is it surprising or disappointing to you that so little of what is happening is hitting the main news? Well, I guess if there is no glitz, flash, or pizzazz appeal, it doesn't get covered.

The waters, the leaves

I don't know where spring went. I think it slipped in and away between the last snows and the torrents of rain that have made the rivers swell around here. Walks up the hill draw our eye downward to our feet, our fingers lift the lush leaves of the plants, and we find flurries of tiny blooms that promise an assortment of berries, come the season. A month ago, as I was in Nebraska with my ailing Dad, BiL told me of a sighting of a wolf and a golden eagle on the same afternoon.
I might have known the signs, as I might have known the signs of my Dad's passing, but was I in denial, that I did not see? The lessened eating, the determination on his part that he would "never get out of here," the seeing of things he could not explain.... I thought it was all from the infection, not pre-death.
He passed, in the earliest hours of the morning following his birthday party. (He'd told my sister that it wasn't much of a party.)
From then on life has blurred, I often lose track of what day it is, I hurry along on one day, collapse inward the next.
Walks on the hills have helped me tremendously, as have a couple journeys on water in my kayak. BiL is steadfast in standing by me, whatever my demeanor at the moment.
The eagle and wolf were doing the work of cleaning up a mule deer carcass, the doe apparently having fallen of old age. I was up there today, admiring the bones, the darkened flesh, the empty eye sockets. It is graceful. It is in balance with earth, as I seek to be. A storm is trying to birth from the west but I think it is drawing north now.
A couple days this week a small hawk came and sat on our front railing. Both times I was the only one to see it. From the size, I think it to be a sharp shinned hawk. To see it up close is stunning.
If I did not believe in the power of our web of existence, I would think I was going crazy right now. Instead I mark the unique and rare as welcome companions to this time of transition.

Time off

It is, after all, the weekend, and I have to retrain myself every time I get a day off from the work I do, the work that is so much from my heart. I remember long ago, experiencing job burn out, closing my eyes to sleep and seeing the steam and water pipes of the packing house behind my eyelids before dozing off. This week it took a full day for me to drop the emotional link to the folks I get to work with.

Before I left work Friday I was already wishing I could stay longer to see a couple of people in the hospital one last time. I knew better. Yet I felt torn. I could not stop thinking about them through dinner with friends, nor through a concert later in the evening. The next morning I felt a little better. Sore joints in my hands told me I needed time off to physically recover from the rigors of the week. I was not able to be very productive, and that's fine. I realize that I need to let down time be down time, and not try to cram a days worth of cleaning into it to justify it. I did some light dusting and some serious art work. I read. All of this helped me 'let go'.

Today was even better. I slept in and it felt wonderful and nourishing. Again, I put in some glassworking time, and later in the day, was able to take a snowshoe walk with BiL. I always grumble a bit as I am putting on the gear, but once I get over the inertia (as BiL calls it) I am always delighted to be crunching along on the snow. Letting my eyes refocus on the distant snow covered hills and peaks relieves my stress in indescribable ways.

Tomorrow we may even ski. BiL tends to be an obsessive worker in his teaching, but he is also pretty incredible at knowing when to manage some break time. My thanks to him.

Live well.

I can hardly believe it has been so long since I've last checked in here. Wow. I am married now. That's huge news. But in reviewing my last entry, I want to write that I am continuing to learn from my hospice and palliative care peeps.

Imagine this, that you suddenly see the end of your personal tunnel. What do you do? Who do you call upon? And how does all of this touch those who are close to you? The answers are as many as there are individuals. Some of you reading this already have more than theoretical answers. For the rest of us, we can only suppose.

More to come.

Surfacing into the yellow leaves

Our household has been alive with swirling energies, as my bodyworker cohorts would say. The winds these days seem to mirror the movement of furnishings inside our home,necessary to make way for our flooring re-dos. Is it just coincidence that as our household foundations have been renewed, I've been experiencing the need to reaffirm my inner grounding?

I work with the ones close to the end of their lives by choice. The past week has brought transition for more than one of them, and today I am feeling the grief. I know it is an expectation of working with this population, yet each time it hits, I am awed, amazed. How incredible the quality of connection these ones have, despite the body's weariness. I am overwhelmed with the preciousness of the time I was able to get to know them and be with them, not because it has come to an end, but with the experience of how deeply even this short time together impacts me now.

I know that, for my own inner protection, I could choose to distance myself from these people as I work with them, but I deliberately choose instead to meet them with the same vulnerability and clarity with which they greet me. Yes, it pains more deeply that way to say good-bye, but I would not want it any other way. They receive the gift of presence that I offer with no reservations. They inspire me to do the same.

So today I turn inward, seeking quiet to better hear all they taught me. I'll walk and let the golds, yellows, reds, and greens minister to me, drawing me back up again.

Holy smokes:doing unto others

The fires are burning outstate, but we are safe here. I know none of us are alone in our experiences, and am more convinced of that lately. To explain, here are some excerpts from recent emails between me and another soul searcher:

This one is from me....
"Last night I went to a neighborhood dinner, and found out that a poacher (uncaught) had slain and taken the head of our only resident bull moose several months ago. I was feeling anything but considerate and gentle! So I told BiL last night that I was going to put my will out there, that the poacher be blinded and crippled to 'correct' this human flaw to the earth. I knew I could not bring the moose back, but I wanted to do what I could towards stopping the poacher from ever doing such a thing again. BiL tried to talk me down from my high horse, saying that teaching is another way of correction and that anyone can learn a new way; anyone can change their ways. I doubted there was hope that such a person could really change their ways.

This morning, I talked with Phillip our minister while we were setting up the booth ... and I asked what his response to all that is. He said I was right in asking the earth (that's where I got the 'correction' idea vs the 'justice' idea that originally vexed me when I first heard a rumor about a moose killing a couple weeks ago... I went out and stood barefoot on the ground and asked it what the answer was, and in its way it said "correction, not justice").

He also said wisdom I ask is wiser than us, and to stipulate the details of the correction is probably not gonna help. In fact, he said, and this is what really got to me and I'd love to know what you think about it..... What I would be stating to the universe with my "blind/cripple intention" was the belief that learning can only be done in the most maiming and excruciating ways. Hmmmmmm..... so even tho I was stipulating that I would want no harm be done to anyone but the perp, I would still be setting something into motion that I really would not want to happen. I think he's right. I never thought about it that way.

So tonight .... I am putting forth the intention of the correction being done, as soon as possible, in the wisdom of the earth.

Now, if you choose to put any time into this, what do you think about the story above? What are your views? I have a feeling I am gonna get some teaching about right and wrong being illusions, after all, and yet, we are here by choice, and aren't we supposed to know some rules that apply to all? Or is it all really about letting go? But come on, how can you let go of everything yet still say you love the earth and all her critters???? And the biggest trick of all is to love the poacher and not his actions, right? Or is it?? "

My email guru responded:
" This is just my observation, coming from me where I stand these days. The first answer is, this Moose killing is not about what it says about the poacher, but what it says about you, especially your response. In other words there is nothing going on outside of you/us, the reason we are here is not to love and protect our mother earth, but to become fully conscious. In other words your killer instinct has been revealed, part of the real you has been revealed, so you are not only this sweet loving, kind, helpful, considerate little girl, but you are also this witch who casts evil spells upon people you dislike.

This is not even about you loving the poacher and hating his crime, this is about your true nature being revealed and seeing that in the grander scheme of things, there is really no difference between you and the poacher, no separation, you are one and the same person in that you both have unconscious sides to you where you do things without really understanding the broader implications to your actions.

I don't think we are here to become good or enlightened by choosing the correct path, join the right group, practice healing arts, we are here to experience. I put a period after that word for a reason. We are here to experience. We are here to experience.

Has that line sunk in yet? Through the natural process of experience we become enlightened, but never good. Enlightenment is the perpetual learning process we go through until eternity. Good and bad are just earth bound polarities, they do not exist outside of each other, they are one and the same thing.

The poacher did nothing bad on the cosmic scale, he/she experienced the poaching and learned and still is learning from that experience, it was supposed to happen so that he/she could see a part of themselves and so you could respond and see a part of yourself as well as countless others.

.....Oh and how much of your curse would be revenge? and if you go through with it be sure to dig two graves after enacting it. "


Me again.... so while I was feeling like I'd just been given a breath of understanding, he flies this next one by me:

Again Rox, this is a great lesson for you and just for a new perspective for you I took your paragraph about the curse and changed it for you to see what it would feel like to read it that way, here it is,

So I told BiL last night that I was going to put my will out there, that me and the poacher be blinded and crippled to 'correct' this human flaw to the earth. I knew I could not bring the moose back, but I wanted to do what I could towards stopping the poacher from ever doing such a thing again and from me ever wanting to put a curse on anyone again and I knew that this would do just that, teach us both a good lesson. And the great thing is that after we are both crippled and blinded, we can both get electric wheel chairs, meet in a clearing and have a demo derby, trying to find each other so we can crash into each other to show which one of us is ultimately right. Bil could film it and it would at the very least win top honors as the America's funniest home video. If one or both of you were killed, it might even win the Darwinian award.

We have to laugh at this kind of thing Rox, because we humans are such wingdings in our humaness sometimes. If we take it too serious we end up creating even more karma.

See, there is no separation. Putting a curse on a poacher is like putting a curse on the entire world.

I think about all the mental pictures I created over my lifetime, secret mental pictures of people who I think have wronged me, getting their just deserts. This was done in my subconscious, secretly in the back of my head. The thing is that that's no different from what you were contemplating. It's just another atom bomb being tossed into the cosmic pond to see what ripples it makes, thinking we are not living in that pond, but we are.

Try not to get down on yourself or the poacher, because he/she did you a big favor revealing a side of yourself you were unaware of before. I don't try to be good or right anymore, it's futile. I just watch myself closer to see what other side of me I was unaware of.

Wow. I wasn't thinking of my 'correction intention' as a curse, but really, what else is it?

I know that every reader of this blog does not agree with the principle of 'experience' being the point of life, but I tell ya, what my friend wrote rang SO true for me! I have always had the idea in the back of my mind that whatever I do or think will come back and affect those I love.... and I think he is right. I mean, I would be fooling myself to think that I could 'will my way' out of what my intention (you can certainly read that as blessing or curse) would do in the big picture. Like the pond, if it affects part, it affects the whole. There is no getting around it.

This really brings home the Do unto others as you would have done unto you" teaching of Christ. Have I ever thought of myself as having a killer side? A curse throwing side? Nope, but I do believe the power of thought (Christ spoke of people committing adultery or murder in their hearts being as potent as the deed itself, and I've always thought that statement applied to the validity and power of thought). And now I think I get it. I think my friend is right. It really does matter that I pay attention to my response to what is going on. And I can truly thank the stupid moose poacher for bringing this all to light. He is not the first individual that has shown me my sharp edges, and I doubt he will be the last. I just am thankfully not in daily practice of coming up against these people, so I loose track of the bigger vision of things.

As my minister Phillip said, I can agree with the wisdom of earth to make her correction in a gentle way, and I can safely add, "expedient".

This feels better to me. What does this have to do with fires? Well, I will not add my intention to potentially make them worse.

What do you think? I'd love to know.

Too much for one life?

These days, I feel strangely inadequate to hold all the things I'd like to, emotionally. I mean, I know I must be missing people. I write letters and send stuff to people voraciously when I miss them, and I made several trips to the post office in the past week. I've been writing like crazy, too. Nothing serious or marketable but blogging, catching up on my commitment to share our travel stories with folks. I have a marketable idea, but it seems the hardest thing in my world for me to send the query letter.

Perhaps it is this feeling of my world stirring up and me being part of the great wooden spoon. Or shall I say, oar? Anyway, before BiL got here, there was a massive interior repainting that we both are very happy to view each day. But once you make an improvement everything else begins to beg its shoddiness be revamped. The carpets are really looking frayed. My breathing does better in a rugless environment. So now we are looking at replacing the carpeting with wood flooring, and with that, replacing the bathroom carpetings with porcelain (in a stone finish). And the garage cannot be neglected. Its conglomeration of boxes and tools is patiently asking that we put in some shelves to tidy IT up.

I could just say no. But then we'd have that awful un-feng shui thing going on.

Well, BiL at least, seems to be happiest with his life in a sense of evolution. So the house is going along with that. I will, too, for the present. I like to think that a more organized garage will give some of the un-fs features of my glass working room a place to go, too.

I have heard "As above, so below" and in my life it is often "As inner, so outer". My body has dealt with congestion for years, and now that is clearing with wiser diet and clearer air. Is it any wonder that my home is following suit and coming into a more creative order?

I keep reminding myself of that on the days when I feel so overwhelmed that I don't know which contractor I should be calling next.

And all of this comes back to the fact that I cherish it all, every moment of it, really. It's not just the evolving of the household, but the growth and development and downright blooming that I see in all my loves. BiL is facing and managing tremendous changes in his personal and family life, my grand kiddos are each immeasurably beautiful souls, my kids who are no longer kids blow me away with the way they live their lives, the challenges they meet with more grace than I ever thought I had myself after many more years. Even my dad is handling the not so kind things his age has dealt to him with patience and resolve that surprise those of us closest to him.

We have more hot days than we should this time of year, but the nights offer reprieve and when the rains come they are that much more precious and instill thanks in everyone. And Thanks is a great place to be, to pray from, to love from.