Spirit Speak

Our beloved friend Missy passed to the other side this evening. She is 14 years old and could chase a green tennis ball endlessly. At the end she was surrounded by those she loved the most and wrapped in a warm blanket and even warmer love. She insisted that she would breathe her last breath by herself and that she would die as she lived. Full on… She did not want the decision of life and death taken from her, and so we gave her this gift. It was not easy. When you share your life with an animal friend it is usually inevitable that they will leave the building before you do.

My daughter, full of grief, wondered if she had done enough, loved enough, paid enough attention. We give what we can, we learn from our misgivings, and we move forward with the knowledge that we too are organic beings. Just like the tomato plant we spring from a seed, we stretch ourselves to the light, we blossom and grow, we are fruitful, we ripen, and if left on the vine long enough, we begin to wither, and finally to go back into the earth to begin the cycle once again.

Death is the final journey in this life. Sometimes it is quick and startling, sometimes it is long and drawn out, sometimes it happens when we are young and sometimes it happens when we are old bones; but happen it does… to each of us. This is why each breath that we breathe should be fiercely joyful, even if it is a struggle. We have earned the right to breathe, simply by our triumphant entrance through the perils of the birthing tunnel. We traverse the unknown; sometimes in joy, sometimes in fear, sometimes in wonder…We use the tools we are given or the ones we have unearthed by our own ingenuity and we live…we breathe… we chase the green tennis ball until our tongues hang so far out of our mouths that they drag on the ground…and still we do not give up…we are running towards our own humanity…our own evolution…And if we are lucky, in the end, as we enter the next birthing chamber, we will be surrounded by a warm blanket, and warmer love…Journey well, Missy. We love you.

It is hard to believe that yet another year is winding down. We are bundling up, putting on our rain boots, and carrying our bumbershoots. We draw inwards, we are more still, we gather the warmth around us and we wait for the rebirth of the sun. It is not coincidence that this is the time we, as a nation, communally reflect on all we can and should be thankful for. It is also a time to remember those who need our assistance to find comfort.

Maybe it is the cold, or the shorter days and darker nights. Maybe it is the end of harvest and brightness of summer. Whatever causes this moment of collective awareness of gratitude and the unanswered needs of others, it has the potential of releasing grief, uplifting spirits, and shared grace; if only for a moment.

We don’t need to change a life forever… sometimes offering a moment of ease and understanding will provide peace and comfort; a delicious warm meal, a mug of hot cider, camaraderie that lets us know that we are not on this planet alone and not expected to do it all ourselves. We, after all, each of us, only have this moment to make a difference. Each of our moments adds up to a lifetime. Some of our lifetimes are long and some are rather short, but the potential of greatness in humanitarian behaviors do not rely on the amount of time each of us is given on this earth plane. It relies on the depth of our love and compassion. Life insists that we break our hearts wide open, so that we, each of us, can be givers of grace. It is why we are here, yet so often, what we forget. Not because we are non compos mentis, but because we are so utterly human. Sometimes the little messages simply pass us by.

Let us pay attention in this season of repose, to the potential of our own greatness of generosity, ability to forgive, and capacity for being love in action. Let us recognize our sameness’s and honor our differences without judgment, prejudice, or lofty apathy. As the song goes, “let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me”.

In the beginning there was the word, before the word, we did not exist. Words have power… I don’t mean just the speaking or writing of them strung out in sentences, paragraphs, or novels; but the vibration of them as they enter into the energy of the universe. When we give voice to our thoughts, our ideas, our dreams, we can change the world…Ruin it…Save it…

We are keepers of the flame. Sometimes it is a smoldering ember, sometimes it is a fire blazing, chasing away the darkness, the boogeyman of our minds, until we are surrounded with the grace of possibility; the taste of vowels and consonants, dangling participles, verbs, adverbs, nouns, and pronouns. Why is my voice important? Because inside the words that I hear I am reminded that we are all on this journey together, walking steadily towards our own evolution, and becoming fully anthropos. My voice is important because it is your voice, speaking through me, with the cadence and rhythm of life.

People in Stone houses, shouldn’t throw glass…

You know what I mean… glass is fragile and shatters, stone is rigid and unbending…

When I was in my 20’s I purchased a brand new house that turned out to be formaldehyde toxic. After five years of chronic illness, a test on the house showed the toxicity. I was told to “get out”…  With my two young children in tow, I did get out, but the damage had already occurred to my immune system… Although in the early 80’s they did not understand, nor have the ability to tell me what had happened, in 2000, they did. An environmental specialist, medical doctor, discovered that my auto immune response from that five year exposure activated a killer T cell over production. Over time I had several other chemical exposures that re-enforced this army of killer T cells, who, when unable to find a true enemy, decides that one of my body parts is good practice in eradication and goes after a gland, an organ, a bone, an eye,…They do not discriminate and they are mindless killer’s.

One time my neighbor across the street on two acres, just for fun, got out his mondo sprayer, hooked it into his pond, and began spraying his property with a powerful herbicide, on a very windy day. He showed me in my organic garden! The over spray hit me while I was working outside. My first clue was not the odor of the herbicide, but the blood dripping out of my mouth from the tiny blisters that had formed there. By the time I got back into the house, stripped of my clothes and jumped into the shower, I had silver dollar size welts all over my body and couldn’t breathe. That time I ended up in the emergency room. My neighbor told my husband that I did not have the right to live where “normal” people lived. His ducks went into the pond and died from the poison…That neighbor did the best he could with the tools he had in his tool chest.

So we began looking for not so normal people, and we ended up on Whidbey Island, in Washington, where many chemically injured people end up and where mostly there is an ecological consciousness. This went well for 14 years on our five acre, green built Sanctuary until the property at the beginning of our private road was purchased by individuals that stripped the forest of its trees and put in a manicured and well sprayed environment. There is the use of something like round-up, (an herbicide which causes chemical castration) daily,  just in case a dandelion has the nerve to think about seeding there. At times the smell of pesticide is so severe that it is not possible to drive past their property with the windows rolled down. But, these neighbors do the best they can with the tools they have in their tool chest.

Our dream was to find a place that was safe from “normal” people and at the same time continue to be a part of the positive stuff in the universe. So after another four years of dodging this neighbors chemical bullets, we left our safe home of 17 years and made our exodus to New Mexico to 100 acres of pristine land and a house that we had been assured never had a pesticide or herbicide used anywhere in or around it….Oh, until, wait a minute, the day before we arrived with all of our life packed in the utility trailer, when the owner, who was storing their belongings in the garage, decided to place moth balls around the stuff to keep the mice away… Just moth balls right? They are not a pesticide, right?

This is straight from a USDA website…

Mothballs are made of white crystals of two very dangerous chemicals, para-dichlorobenzene (1,4-dichlorobenzene) and naphthalene. Both chemicals are solid at room temperature but produce very strong vapors. Mothballs are sold as flakes or pressed into cakes.

Both of these chemicals are fumigants and must be present in high concentration to be effective. Concentrations high enough to be effective for pest control is dangerous for anyone exposed to them.

Yes, dangerous for “anyone” but deadly to someone with an over production of Killer T cells. This unexpected exposure, without warning, without conversation, without thought, was like driving over a land mine booby trap. KA-PLOOEY, just like that…my life changed…again…Because keeping out a pest was more important than not damaging a life…So…from the moment of our arrival in New Mexico,  I have been ill. The dream, twisted…Weird illnesses that only the killer T’s can produce…All my lymph nodes swelling to the size of peach pits from my neck to my groin, causing excruciating pain…blood in my mouth… high speed tremors…painful, bleeding, rashes…liver malfunction…kidney malfunction..lung malfunction…acute vertigo…high blood pressure… My normal blood pressure is 90/60. Outside the house it is 90/60 inside the house it is 150/102…Rapid heartbeats, food that won’t digest because these Killer T’s now see the digestive tract as perhaps a “sneaky enemy”…and the list goes on… I kept trying to figure out if I was receiving other exposures, after all, if they didn’t consider moth balls a pesticide, what else might there be that I don’t know about? So besides the physical stuff, my paranoids have resurfaced as well. Is everything the enemy? What do I trust? I trusted the landlord, their word…

At any rate….part of me wanted to lash out and say “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” They told us that they had asked the handy man if he thought the mothballs would be “harmful” to me, before they placed them down,  and he said “no” so on his expert opinion, they applied the pesticide. They did the best with the tools that they had in there tool box.

Another part of me did not want to see the landlord embarrassed, hurt, or humiliated because of a failing in my body…my inability to be “normal”. How messed up is that?  That part actually ruled and I took the hit, without complaint. Why did I stay…I don’t know why…I didn’t want to whine…I didn’t want to fail…I didn’t want to go backwards I guess…I didn’t want to be defeated…But eight months later, several trips back to Washington to be treated medically, rent paid to NOT live there, and I just no longer want to be ill…or be dismissed for not being “normal”. I have learned this lesson…

I don’t know why I am not “normal”…I do not know why I am the canary, flying enthusiastically down the poisoned mine shaft…I don’t know why I have had so many chemical exposures that have caused so much damage and caused my body to over respond…

I also am not sure how I have lived for the past 30 years without using one pesticide, other than diatomaceous earth or peppermint, or one herbicide, other than chili peppers or corn gluten as a pre-emergent, or one chemical, literally not one. Bi-O-Kleen soy spray instead of WD 40…Ecover Hydrogen peroxide bleach instead of deadly chlorine… Enzymes to clean with instead of chemicals…Green products are so readily available for any chore…

So why do we continue to poison the planet? Ignorance is not an excuse when the information is there for anyone who takes a moment to do the research… Are your kidneys failing, do you have throat cancer, bladder cancer, breast cancer? What type of environment do you live in? Do your carpets out gas formaldehyde and benzene? There are 120 neuro-toxic chemicals in a typical sample of carpet. Toxic chemicals can be found in the fiber bonding material, dyes, backing glues, fire retardants, latex binder, fungicides, and anti static and stain resistant treatments. A list of these include: formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, the potent carcinogen benzene. Have your rugs and furniture been dowsed with flame retardant and gassed with pesticides on the boat before they are shipped here? Do your babies crawl on these rugs and sleep in these beds? Does your child have asthma? Or leukemia? Have you created for yourself a toxic environment that you believe to be safe, because why would they use these things and sell this stuff if it wasn’t safe? Did you know that flame retardants are banned for use in the State of California?  Are our European neighbors more intelligent than us? Because they banned the use of many toxic chemicals 20 years ago, while we, still are poisoning ourselves and our own loved ones…Does that make sense? Even Canada, just a hop, skip, and jump away has banned the use of garden chemicals…The products we use are safe…”Right? Why would they be on the market if they weren’t safe…Like Teflon Pans…or hornet spray…round-up, or moth balls…

We are a country, maybe a world, that walks slowly towards the suicide we commit each day that we poison ourselves and our planet with products we haven’t researched and things we deem “safe” because someone making a buck assured us it would make us happier, more beautiful, with less work, less effort…

We hold our noses and jump into the vat that has been prepared for us by the almighty corporate dollar. Only sometimes, we are making that choice for another human being, who doesn’t want to jump, who doesn’t want to die…just yet, because of something, somebody else chose to do that caused irreparable harm…Choices made for our  grandchildren and their puppies.

I don’t know what the lesson is I am supposed to be learning from all this…yet……But I do know this, if I am responsible for damage to another, even unintentional damage, I make amends…I do not excuse myself… and I ask forgiveness. If I am not forgiven I work towards reparation…If I did not do these things then I would not be walking towards becoming fully human… It is not about you…your stuff… your lessons… I can’t control those…but I can control my response…

There is a song by Emerson. Lake and Powell, (after Palmer left the band) called Lay Down Your Guns…Ken and I danced to it as our first dance song at our wedding, 24 years ago. Maybe this will tell you how not normal we really are…

The lyrics are…

Lay down your guns I come in peace
No need to run my friend into the trees
We’ve been through this so much before

But still we get it wrong

Lay down your guns and stand up strong…

And though the cut is deep
We can heal it, trust me and keep
Your spirits high
It should be easy now that we’ve talked it over
And God knows we have to try

Maybe stone can bend, not be quite so rigid, maybe glass can become a bit more resilient, a little less fragile…or maybe we can be more careful not to shatter it, and maybe we could try to understand how hard surfaces became that way…

Maybe not standing up for myself and just moving farther out of the world was the thing that just allowed my son’s landlord to walk onto the property they are renting and spray a potent herbicide on the scotch broom in the pasture where my precious four year old grandson plays…where they thought he was “safe”…no cars, no strangers, no danger… Fuck That…

I laid down my guns a long time ago…Now I am picking up my pen…

The day began warm and beautiful; stunning deep blue sky and slight billowing clouds…

There was a feeling of electricity in the air, literally. As the day wore on the clouds began to gather in earnest and the sky became a milky white, gray. Lightening began to strike in front of the house, thick as a tree trunk with

crackling branches.  It struck over and over in the same place with sparkling lights dancing inside the clouds and tremendous thunder. It felt a bit like the war of the worlds when the lightening began to move over the house. Then the house was sitting inside the dark cloud with torrents of rain splashing like ocean waves and wind like a hurricane. Lightening continuing to strike like giant lungs breathing fire…in…and out…

Then the cloud was in back of the house and the rain became a light patter, the lightening drew back up into the sky and a shaft of bright light wedged its way through the black clouds. That is when we walked outside, a bit excited with the electricity. As we stood breathing in the perfume of the wet desert, a rainbow began to form. Luminous at first but then it began to solidify; solid shafts of vibrant, electric color, as thick as a 300 hundred year old redwood tree. And as we stood inside the rainbow, right in the center,  another formed above it, complete from beginning to end. A double blessing, another promise…We inhaled the vibration of the color with each breath, in…and out…

And then we noticed a sound that had not been there before. We walked to the precipice and looked down into the canyon at the dried up arroyo…and there, wonders of wonders, was an impromptu river, 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep., rushing through the arroyo to the Rio Puerco. We darted down into the canyon to feel the grace of the moment. The power of it was breathtaking…and we breathed in that power…in…and out…

As we turned to go back up to the house, there between the rock faces was the sliver of the brand new moon. Another promise…

Later, lying in the utter black of night, I woke and looked into the sky…One meteor streamed past as big as the sun, leaving a long lazy tail before it blinked away…

Sometimes the storm builds…Sometimes it crashes black around you and there is fear and confusion…sometimes a light shines through the darkness and the colors begin to surround you…sometimes inside that light, peace begins to descend…sometimes the power of that peace allows you to see a new beginning…sometimes there is a promise of light after the darkness, color after the void, living water after a dry spell, a miracle inside the storm…

Sometimes, when you doubt who you are, what your part is in the grand play of life, how you fit into the puzzle, why it is you are here…sometimes when you are despondent, confused, unsure, even fearful; God speaks…God speaks…Sometimes very loudly…We just need to remember how to recognize the language.

The desert has started to bloom. Lying in secret underneath parched red sand, miracles are taking place, without anyone even knowing. In this arid desert one expects to see Cactus, Yucca, Sage Brush, Goats Head, and dessert grasses, but delicate and fragrant flowers are unexpected. These are the miracles. The ones that remind us to never take for granted the wonder of life.

It is hot, but as they say, it’s a “dry heat”. But I think 98 degrees is hot… whether it is dry, or wet. And the no see-ums are blood sucking vampires. Last count I have 36 bites. I think they are one of the plagues let loose by Pandora. There aren’t many things I swat at; mosquitoes, fleas, and big biting flies.  Now no see-ums have made my bad list!

The spiders are out in force as are these smaller bugs that look a lot like scorpions without a curly tail. I catch them all and put them outside. Sometimes Kali Cat catches them and sometimes Yoda catches them before I have a chance to rescue them.

Last night there was fire in the Sky. Up over the ridge, even though the skies were clear, there was a long sheet of lightening that never moved but kept pulsating over and over for several hours. No rain…No clouds… No thunder… Just lightning.  It looked a bit like a giant fire fly.

Two lizards scale the house everyday and stare at me through the window. I finally got their message. Let go of that which is not serving you; like the tail that releases when caught by a predator. Detach, let go, adapt, dream on, master the art of perception. These are the gifts and the messages of lizard energy. Move into the next chapter of your life without the encumbrances of the old. This is a clear message. I see it. But, at times, it is easier to see the path than to walk it.

This morning I woke up to the smell of smoke. When I looked out the window there was a forest fire burning on the other side of the Pedneral. Smoke from a fire a couple of hours away, billowing in the canyon.

On a you tube video I saw a bird covered in oil, dying…I heard greedy men unwilling to take responsibility.

The things we say, the things we do, and the things we think, have long reaching arms like smoke on the wind or oil in the water. We may not think they do because for us they are a snapshot in time. But the vibrations that carry them along the waves of forever can alter life as we know it in a heartbeat. We must take care. We must move through the world with careful intention. We must understand that an action of ours may have an undesirable consequence for an innocent. And if it does, we must be willing to take the responsibility of that action. Whether it is a devastating oil spill in the Gulf, a fire started by a cigarette, a littered bottle broken on the side of the road where a child walks, pesticides and herbicides used arbitrarily, without reading labels, that damage people’s lives, kill birds, animals, beneficial insects, and contaminate ground water, an unspayed pet giving birth to unwanted animals that will starve and be wounded, a hateful word that devastates a fragile soul, an unthinking action that breaks a faithful heart.

There are many ways to die and they don’t all end in the completion of life.

This is a soap box for me. Often perception of one is not the perception of another and so truth is difficult to determine. Someone can believe one thing and some else can believe the opposite, and for them the truth is what they believe. But there is a difference between belief and knowledge, and I know what I know. I know that people who do damage are somehow damaged on the inside, themselves. I know that people, who believe they can poison their own little piece of the planet without damaging the whole, are deceiving themselves.  I know that ultimately, we will not progress or evolve until we understand radical forgiveness even for those who do the most damage. I struggle with this forgiveness, and so I struggle with evolution.

It is true, we do not inherit the world from our parents, we are safeguarding it for our children and their children. So one day they have the opportunity to walk through the desert and witness the miracle of a wild flower straining, against all odds, out of parched earth, towards the sun, victorious, if only for a day. For many, that is a lifetime.

My Mom…

My mom, Beryl Maude Graham, was born 87 years ago in Brighton, Sussex.

She was ill as a child and was in the hospital for several years. They did not expect her to live. However, her indomitable will was stronger than the illness, the excepted cruelty of the hospital nurses, and the inhumane rules regarding visitation from her family.

When she was 17 she weighed 82 lbs. She worked in a pet shop, drove a horse drawn bread wagon, and lifted as much weight as the men who worked with her.  She married a French Canadian soldier during World War 11. He was killed when his tank drove across a mine field. She had just given birth to a daughter; breech birth during a blackout bomb raid. She has many stories of bombs, powdered eggs, food rations, and hardship. Underneath all the stories is the pulse of courage and grace.

She packed up her new born baby, my oldest sister, and immigrated to French Canada, Quebec. The family of her young soldier husband didn’t want her. She didn’t speak their language and wasn’t accepted as their son’s bride. She was 20 years old. During a visit to New York she met my Dad. When they were married my Mom began the lifelong task of raising him. We, the three girls, were the by-products of Dad’s zest for life. Mom was enormously patient, kind, loving, and strong willed and still is. Dad thought he was the boss…We all knew the truth. Deep down, so did he.

We grew and we grew. My oldest sister is 12 years older than me. Mom had nine miscarriages and one tubal pregnancy. My egg came from her one good fallopian tube.

My middle sister is 5 years older than me. I am Mom’s youngest child, and maybe the biggest pain the ass. OK…My oldest sister was a bit of a pain in the ass as well. Middle sister was almost perfect. Almost…

I was a tad bit defiant. OK…Maybe I was a rebel; Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. But sex is natural, rock and roll is a lifestyle, and drugs were experimental. I still have sex, still sing rock and roll, and left the drugs behind 35 years ago.

When we were young and experiencing growing pains and difficult moments, Mom would hold us and say “cheer up chicken, it’s only forever”. What is a moment of pain inside eternity?  If we suffered heartbreak and emotional aches she would tell us to “pull up our socks”, get busy, scrub the floors, do the dishes, purge the pain… It always worked; we always came out stronger.

My dad passed a couple of weeks before their 40th wedding anniversary. Mom was 65.

The definition of herself began to alter. She was now one half left of a whole. We, her daughters, were terrified she would leave us as well. Always our example of strength and courage, what would we do if she was gone? We missed our dad terribly, but Mom has always been the person who defined us, and from that definition each of us grew into the women we would become. The ones we are now.

In the past 10 years Mom has had surgery on the arteries in her legs from ankle to groin, fell and shattered her pelvis, fell and broke her hip. She has heart issues, blood pressure issues, gastro-intestinal issues, and eye problems, but she still works in her garden eight hours a day, sews and quilts, reads five books a week, and cooks her grown-up grandkids favorite food. Today when I called her to say Happy Mother’s Day, she asked if I was behaving myself. I answered “of course I am”. She said “Beverly, you are speaking to your mother”…

On this Mother’s Day, what I want you to know Mom, is that you have always been an example for me of courage, humor, audacity, and humility. Lately you have also been an example on how to get away with being a pain in the ass.  I might not make 87 so I am going to put this into practice now. Although you did it with quiet grace, you taught me how to be full of “piss and vinegar”. My husband and children have you to thank that I grew to be tolerant, compassionate, generous, strong-willed (another word for stubborn) and competent. They can thank Dad for the incorrigible, sneaky, part.

I love you Mom, thank you for my life.

“Cheer up chicken, it is only forever

Tomorrow is gonna be another day

I don’t want to hear you ever say never,

Cheer up Chicken, that’s what Mama would say.

Cheer up chicken that’s what Mama would say”

Sky left today…Back to Whidbey Island, Washington.  I miss her already. I am sitting in the room where she slept and feeling around for her energy… The sweetness of her…The strength of her…The will of her…The goodness and kindness of her… Her life force…I have to admit that there are tears traveling down my face and I am feeling a tad bit sorry for myself. Ok… I’m sobbing. Although this exile of mine is an active choice, the words to that 80’s song are running though my head; “alone again, naturally”… Boo Hoo Babe, Buck up!

As my eldest daughter; Sky and I, have traveled many roads together. She is strong and passionate, a bit tilted, a lot of fun, and loves the rocks. One day they will speak to her as they speak to me. Her dog, Buster, changed my mind and heart about Pit Bulls as a breed. He is the most amiable, jovial, and respectful individual I have ever had the privilege of sharing space with. He has really smelly farts, which makes him not perfect…Thank the stars! Not for smelly farts, for non-perfection.

The wind… Who knew that it could make sand feel like thousands of red hot needles poking wherever bare skin is exposed. Even though it was 75 degrees, long sleeves are not optional attire. Mandatory… Unless of course micro-derma-abrasion was on the list of things to do today…and yesterday…and the day before! Hmmm…Maybe I will go out and lift my face to the wind… might remove the lines that seem to be deepening in this parched, yet charged, atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong. I love this place. It is so beautiful, energetic, and spiritually alive.

The desert has started to green up…So many shades of green you would not have thought possible, contrasting against the red and white rock and deep blue sky. Takes my breath right away! Oh…no… That’s the wind… robbing me of breath as I walk Jack, face down, cheeks stinging, almost crawling…Jack is my anchor. Yoda is burrowed deep down into my shirt. Every now and then she pops her little tiny head out and then fixes me with the evil eye… I tried to dissuade her from joining us on this walk, but she has to have her own way! My perfect companion!

Easter…

For the past thirty years in Washington I have always either been the music or the minister for Easter… So I invited New Mexico into my home to celebrate the renewal and resurrection of life with me. A few people came. Some I knew…Some I know now…

I met a man, whom if I closed my eyes, and didn’t hear the depth of his voice, I would have sworn was me, myself. I wondered what my words were doing coming out of his mouth… Kind of creepy, but we were finishing or beginning each other’s sentences. I think that if conventional people were listening to us, they either would have rolled their eyes…or committed us…to…you know…WU WU land! That is where I am headed. New song… Goes something like this…

“I’m going to WU WU land; maybe I’ll see you there!” You gotta be willing to shed your skin…and to make your breath… a…prayer!” I can’t help it! I think in rhymes!

So that’s it, except someone stole my license today when I was shopping in Santa Fe at one of the several organic grocery stores. The store called me and said they found it in the trash in the women’s bathroom. Probably whoever took it found the 4’11”, 100 lbs, thing daunting… So tossed it…Lucky for me… AND a very drunk driver pulled out in front of me by the Abiquiu Lake. There is no cell service up here, to call TOO TOO DRUNK, so I followed safely about ¼ mile behind him, going 40 in a 65 zone. Sheesh! Drink and STAY PUT!

On Good Friday, Sky and I were driving into Santa Fe and all of a sudden came to a screeching halt. A fatality accident had happened 12 hours before and was still being investigated and cleared so the roads were backed up for miles. Three people lost their lives, and they were still laying, under white plastic, on the hi-way. They died under a billboard on the freeway that said “There is a fine line between your family and a drunk driver”. The driver of the car had 17 DUI’s. All the passengers of that car were killed, the people in the other cars he hit, survived.

It is not simple, living inside this skin. Our choices are not always rational, healthy, or unselfish. We damage ourselves and sometimes, many times, each other… We do not always consider the consequences…Sometimes, we don’t give a damn. Yet our actions are always ripples in a pond. We always affect the whole.

And in this time of resurrection and renewal…we rise again, we open our eyes, we breathe in the air, we thank God we’re alive… We have survived… We rise again…

And that is the beauty of it.  Life continues because of us… or…in spite of us…

It was 75 degrees today, and the wind blew 75 miles an hour. It was a bit like being in a Dyson vacuum. You don’t feel the heat when the wind is a cyclone and I did not realize I was getting sunburned as I dug in the red dirt. I finally had to abandon my work as I had a hard time remaining upright in the wind. However, the last chore I decided to do was to line the outside of the house and garage with Cayenne Pepper to keep out the mice and other beasties. As I was walking back towards the front door I thought to myself, “hmmm… I have sand in my eyes…” Ha! IT WASN’T SAND…And it was just getting started. It was CAYENNE PEPPER! I stood very still, blinded by the Cayenne, wondering what to do. The wind was blowing so loud that I didn’t think Sky would hear me if I called, but I started hollering for her and feeling my way closer to the door. She finally flung the door open and said “What have you done now, Mother!”…She escorted me to the bath room where I ran my face and eyes clear with cold water. Sheesh! You’d think it was my first time on the planet!

As the wind died down, Sky and I took Jack and Buster for a walk. Yoda of course rode in her sling across my chest. Sky and I walk with faces down scanning the ground for rocks… Yesterday we walked a dried river bed and found so many rocks that we left them to pick up on our return. After we carried them as far as we could I left Sky and hiked back up to the house to get the truck. Love that four wheel drive!

Today we determined to only collect small rocks. Sky has gone quite “ROCK MAD” I am afraid…I don’t know where she gets it. OK, OK! …I do know where she gets it but is has taken me 50 years to collect thousands of rocks. She is trying to catch up in a few short weeks. I keep telling her we can’t bring in the entire mountain, desert, State of New Mexico…As we were walking today she scooped up a large clear rock and asked “Mom, what’s this?” I cocked my head and gazed at her for a long moment. I did not want to make her feel stupid by telling her it was a rock…Sheesh! What did she think we had been collecting all these days? Filling our pockets, tying bundles in our coats, stashing in Yoda’s sling… jelly beans? Anyway, I finally said “Sky… that’s a rock”. I won’t repeat the caustic rejoinder she flung back at me…

I do love rocks and I have collected since I was 4 years old. My dad used to take us agate hunting when we were young and I have stones and mineral specimens from all over the world. At first I just loved them for how they looked and felt. But several years ago they started whispering their names in my head; that is how I began to learn their metaphysical qualities along with their chemical makeup. It could be because I became still enough to hear them. I used to not be able to be still. Actually, when I was very young, four, five, six, I knew how to be perfectly silent, perfectly still. I believed I could make myself invisible.

As I grew I became a bit like a whirling dervish; in constant movement, filling up all my spaces with motion, sound, and doing! Every moment became my only moment. And so I never rested, never took a vacation or a day off; barely slept. I was driven to do, learn, accomplish. I was a candle wick that was lighted from both ends. I think maybe I did this, always busy, in action, creating a clammering inside my head, so there wasn’t enough room or space for me to listen to God, the Devine, Source, Mother/Father, First Light/Vibration; whatever you name that which is always with us when we are still enough to acknowledge, to know, to be one with. And so I had to find a new discipline and I had to re-learn how to not do; just be. This is what I am learning now…perhaps I will embody peace that is at the center of a hurricane…

Here is the balancing act… Being still on the inside does not necessarily mean being still on the outside. Sometimes to be still on the inside we must release all the pent up energy/stress that our bodies are experiencing so our minds can open to the void and get rid of all the chatter.

It has taken years. I am not there yet, but I am no longer an embryo. My heart has formed and it beats steady and strong. I hope I get this being organic thing down before I move back to spirit…

Sometimes I look out the living room window and hear the theme to “The Good, Bad, and the Ugly” in my head…Doodle lu dle lu, la, la la….…

When I first started this blog it was to help myself muddle through what being inside a human body means for me…a chance to see on paper some of the things that come out of my mouth…At first I did not allow comments to my mental meanderings because a comment could pass judgment and I wanted the words simply to float on into the ether without being judged for them, or by them…After much deliberation with my posse, you know, the ones that live inside my head, I have decided to risk judgment, or ignore it, on the hopes that what anyone shares will too, float into the ether and help us collectively muddle through our own humanity. Be kind, be thought filled, stand inside your truth…That is my constant mantra…I don’t always get it right. When I don’t there is always a lesson; sometimes a bright light lesson, sometimes a “dark night of the soul” lesson.  There is always a lesson. And on either side of the lesson there is always some type of movement.  Sometimes it is like stepping out into the abyss, but sometimes it is like stepping into a warm and loving  embrace.

As Alex sings in the movie in Madagascar…“We’ve got to move it…We’ve got to move it, move it…” If we are not in motion, if our neurons aren’t firing, if our molecules aren’t spinning, we have stepped out of our own building.

Even inside our stillness, the place where we hear God Speak, there is movement that reminds us to breathe and to open; to feel joy and be grateful. Life renews and resurrects, and is constantly forgiving. We are forever spirits…We are forever love…