Category: Posts

Christmas 2017

No decorated tree, no wreaths, no gifts to share (no money to purchase any b/c half the house taxes came due in November). My simple string of color lights are already off the windows in preparation to the move to another town. No snow, no Santa hats, a red turtleneck in deference to the season, but no shower today since the electrical outlet in the bathroom doesn’t work & I simply don’t feel like braving the icebox room for other than quick bathroom functions.

Our Christmas menu is turkey tenders from Schwan’s; we hope for gravy in the package. Also a bag of their mashed potatoes. No hot rolls or stuffing. But we do have a cheesecake defrosting!

This adobe house has reached its heat peak today – low 50’s with electric heaters valiantly chugging in three of the huge rooms. Its heater has not worked for two years. I wear a hoodie as I prepare pizza slices for lunch – which I don’t want, but nothing is defrosted & not much will defrost in the cold. I have taken out some hamburger for dinner later…will have to shave the brick to try & cook it. By then the heater will have rendered cooking tenable.

My roommate sits in her room watching musicals on Turner TV. The cat is the only spirit here who’s independent of the cold, going in & out on his own.  I hold the computer in my lap for its heat value & watch videos, or read books, or maybe will rent an Amazon movie later. (Have my eye on “Priceless,” a hero story.) I watch the alternative blogs, all alight with Trump’s Executive Order & I offer gratitude each time I see another aspect of the story. The Khazarian mob is deadlocked. They’ve arrived in their corner & will not be permitted an exit. Will forgiveness follow? Will we advance enough along the Holy Way to find how to do this, after all the whack-a-mole hammering we’ve received? Centuries of abusive taxes, explosive wars, damage to humanity – women & children destroyed, men broken…take this as far as you dare.

My room is a cardboard paradise. My possessions reboxed & stacked, awaiting the strength of my spine to move into a borrowed vehicle for transport; the bank accounts emptied into pockets of a new landlord & Visa. The comfy, lighted massage studio is empty except for one chair, the dragonfly curtain replaced with dark brown, no light now, no warmth, no hot towels or soft music. The perfect meditation space if you seek focus in darkness & tolerate cold well.

If I have made this sound sad or anything other than practical (a what-it-is scenario), this is your emotion offsetting the situation here. There is a wondrous, tangible gift to me on the eve of the newest of years. My Christmases have for a decade been sere as old leaves. A student sent me a scarf last week, a new hanging for my new space. I missed the Christmas decoration exchange in town and the hen party Chinese Exchange…tho our fiestas (one commercial, one for our residents) were lovely. I read a poem at the latter & helped to hand out maps & sell posters at the former. I am complete with the town.

I invest no sentiment in holidays. To me, they are liquidly transparent days because love doesn’t need a special day or time to be shown. Seeing them as fixed calendar dates only, allows the celebration of their truth to express in my life all the time. My morning walks are filled with gratitudes spoken aloud, my evening climbing-under-the-covers times are filled with prayers of thanks that the day has passed & another awaits, a tomorrow to express lovingkindness once again. In between, I watch the sunlight rediscover the world & the moonlight bestow its blessings in its unceasing ritual, full to none, each month.

This lack of sentiment has freed me from “schmaltz” & heretic empathy. It delights me instead to find miracle & blessing in every stalk of grass, every sighting of a deer in a yard, every wave rising from the ocean to meet my eyes in joyous, frivolous bubbling.

I believe in a wordy kind of love, one which expresses along my right arm, the one skilled in writing. I believe I, among all in the world, am blessed with this altered view & the ability to experience it in such a way that it is shared with you now.

My life is at another pivot point. My meridians stretch from here to wherever I may extend them outward. My hopes are realized in the new-future Politik which will emblazon the Light on Earth so symbolically reborn. I am freed from this dark, cold, sad place. I did all I could to help change up its energy, but six months later, there is no appreciable change of manner or idea. Even with cleaning, this house is unclean. I can straighten every surface, but this adds no comfort & no heat. I no longer serve here as it is of no worth.

Instead, I have been gifted with a clean, bright, sparkle of a home. I have an upstairs/downstairs, layers & levels to live upon. I have furniture coming next Friday – one chair to sit upon, one twin bed, a small table with two chairs, a desk where I can write, write, write. Another town where my talents may manifest in helping as a volunteer, in enjoying the company of familiar faces, in spending my time instead of owing it out in unfulfilled commitment.

A new place, uninhabited for a year, so cleansed of energy. I can invest mine. I can re-set my life to a new compass point. I can choose & select what surrounds me. I can make another statement about my life, rebirth my focus & consciousness.

I’m just in time for the new world to bubble up from the ancient hot springs below the crust.

A new world for me!

The best present of all!!

 

1

Receptacles

Note to Self:

So, I’m unsurprised to be up & writing at 2 a.m.

I spent a lot of money today. The notch in my credit card required me to blow on it so it won’t melt my wallet down.

Worth every penny! I will seek to drop all anxiety around my expenditures. Living in a stretched zone of money has consumed my energy far too long in my life. I’m simply not ready for it to take me over again.

For as much as I have had abundance, I presume upon its continuance. I am proof to Youniverse – perhaps the exception proving the rule…which reverses the rule at once.

I’ve pulled off similar stunts successfully. No stopping now,

For all my concern about being in flow, I am So. It isn’t me running dry, it is a country at large making huge suction sounds. May these be only the swamp running dry! If one cannot see just how manipulated we have been over the short generations of today, one must be wearing a patch over one eye & holding a hand up over the other.

In a generous society such as ours, where people give freely until their fear locks that flow, sadness strolls about finding hearts to roost within. This is, most emphatically, not my fate. I sit assured I am beloved by Source, spinning words like suns spin planets. Should I doubt abundance, I simply look at the varietyof colors found in the hairs on my chin.

I am in this existence, in a time of potential unmatched other than by the original primordial soup (the good swamp) from which all life sprang.

My generation has seen tech spring from tiny transistor radios & watches that miraculously show time, date, & how fast our hearts beat…to driverless cars & the approaching, powerful resource of Replicators. How can I deny abundance?

In the moment, I must redefine it for myself by asserting it is what I have acquired. I am not collecting dollar bills in second beggar position on Date Street by the stores. I’m definitely not starving in a time when so many actually are.

I may wriggle & squirm like a kid enforced in school, but it is always under the hand of knowing better to sit still, said Hand resting upon my crown to direct me to see only faith. I set guards of love & bumpers of laughter at the insanity of starving in a world where apple trees grow hundreds in a season & rain down to be gathered by squirrels.

It is that I have joined an army stocked with weapons of Mass Creation, shooting out enjoyment, creativity, delight, wealth & blessing.

Then I rise in the wee hours to detail the love in my life, the easy joys of polishing another’s hand-crafted vase. I have a chair in which to park my days, several pens to perform word surgeries, many ideas to perfect in description. I have a bed & a means to stay clean in body, I eat well, I stay strong in the physical, re-move myself from toxic situations & rediscover the beauty of life in the desert. I help me. I help others accomplish their goals. I learn, but teach just a bit more than that. I offer myself as a translator of skills to make the lives of others more productive, more accomplishing.

I Am that I Am, but I am that others are, as well.

From the Other Side:

We are all so excited for you & we wake  you to 2 a.m. alleluia ’cause 2 a.m. is a great time to grab your full attention, Little Sister, Big Master! We just had to say how much we love you & where & how you “do” your living. When one well runs dry, whether it’s the oligarchs or the faithless who have defiled it, we help you in inclination & desire to simply move to the next watering hole.

We, too, giggle that you think you are lost at sea in the driest of deserts, or cold in the land where even the water bubbles in fantastical heat just below the surface crust.

We laugh as you puzzle payments – not in cruelty that you are nervy about where it will manifest from, but in a head-shake at your silliness to doubt!

We guffaw with you as you lift your white wings to check the bottom-most feathers are still there.

We flock with you like starlings at dawn & sunset, in a dance of beauty, raucous soundings & waves across the sky. We wheel & clip & sing in your joy of independence & unfettered movement.

We will never let you fall, for we love you beyond gravity’s attempts to hold you down, far past what you think may be your “if not sold by” date, way past any human measure!

Now get this move on, girl. We’re out of the heavy lifting part, leaving that to you. But we’ve got the rest & so much more!

Love,

Us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0

Love Lessons / Life Lessons

My roommate pursued getting a dog against my notions that she is incapable of caring for one. (She barely walks, loses her balance at times & just had cataract surgery on both eyes.) She had a notion that a dog would sit quietly by her chair, raising his head for an occasional pat. She had always put her dogs in the backyard, so he would dwell out there 70% of the time in a peace passing understanding, communing, perhaps with the black walnut, or passing clouds. She pictured being greeted upon coming home, gratitude with being fed & all good things as such.

I pictured walks, walks, more walks, feedings, a whipping tail, enthusiasm, quick stops right in front of walking legs & all those things. Guess whose picture took precedence for real?

“Buddy” walked into our lives after being abandoned somewhere in the desert about 26 miles away. He found his way to a ranch house, ignored the cow dogs, collapsing in their yard with bloody pads, ribs defined by starvation, emaciated & dusty. Perhaps abandoned, perhaps lost, perhaps left behind or jounced out of a truck bed – we will never really know. He had to have the strongest will to live, crossing who knows how many miles of unforgiving desert scrub. He’s a Beagle/Basset mix (we guess). The ranchers cleaned him up, fed him & set about finding him a home. The grapevine hummed & the call came here.

I said, “No, I’m not taking care of him, he’s your dog.” I learned my lesson well with my last dog, who grew from the world’s cutest puppy to a 70-pound behemoth at seven months. My then-landlords looked unhappily at his steady “growth spurt” & started talking about other properties available for rent. The clincher was that he did not care to bond with me, rather holding me in a gentle contempt as he squatted all over the house, gazing serenely at the pictures hung on the wall. Although he retained his beauty, people recoiled & other dogs slavered for a chance to demolish him – even teacup chihuahuas. I know I’m no longer a dog person & only one dog walked away with my heart back in the 70’s.

Buddy made his entry, suspicious of doors, balking at the leash, peeing with impunity wherever he stopped, & regularly left “Lincoln Logs” on her dark rugs. Abandonment (such as going to the bathroom) elicited howls of dismay & wild circles upon reunion, less than minutes later. He ate all the cat kibble he could find, drank the cat’s milk & generally poked the cat mercilessly at every opportunity with invitations to “just come play!?”

I walked him 4-5 times daily, foregoing my own health marches to drag & be dragged about town. He gazed longingly at all the mule deer, growled at the horses, attempted conversation with every dog in town whether on a leash or behind a fence & fell desperately in love with every human, close up or far away. He investigated every fourth rock, regularly scarfed up natural offerings of descriptions I can’t even attempt without a quiet revolt in my stomach. However, patience & the ability to make quick stops has resulted in his pottying outside about 75% of the time. He behaves on the lead until he doesn’t. He has turned into a good, dear, sweet, loving pet with a nocturnal bladder habit satisfied by poking his nose in my ear & banging his head on mine until I get up to walk him in the utter darkness between our town’s four streetlights.

Buddy leaves for his new (forever?) home on Saturday with a gent from down the street who drives a vintage Mercedes & plans to take him back & forth to Las Cruces each week. This gent’s last dog died in a car wreck, so I am not really reassured. He already has two large yard dogs adept at snarling while chewing cyclone fencing. But he is wealthy & can get Buddy fixed & cared for well. He really seems to have affection for our adorable little unmannered guy. He plans to hire an obedience trainer to iron out the tendency to stutter-step. Buddy won’t need much encouragement. He has the heart of a really good dog & wants nothing more than to have his head held at every opportunity.

Last night, we had our 1:11 jaunt, me in pj’s, an extra-large man’s baseball jacket, pink bedroom slippers, sans flashlight once again. He halted to listen for the stomping mule deer in our neighbor’s dark yard. I looked up at the black & diamond sky to see not one, but FIVE meteors flash by, like matches struck on the vault of Heaven. Five wishes granted for ten days of both frustration & the gentlest of love between us. This guy bonded to me.

I’m not sure who got the better of the relationship. I had a warm body-length pillow for those nights. He got peanut butter & bacon treats, regular meals, as much good water as he could hold & a workable familiarity with the entire town in four directions. Well, five, if you count the stuff he dug up to eat.

We all learned a lesson about age & finances & goal realities. Cussing morphed to cuddling, we have no more paper towels in the house…& Buddy doesn’t even know the change arriving on Saturday. May his life become one of close & in-kind warmth, relationship, joy, love, treats & all the walks his short legs & big black nose can handle.

Thank you, Buddy! Your adventure renews. May all your scents be rich & deep, all your people only interested in all the love you offer returned & may all your wishes also come true. You & I are both teachers, the only difference is the lessons learned.

 

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Guardians of My Galaxy

A morning letter & reply…to my guardian angel. “He” got some good lines in, I think!

Dear R,  Good Godly morning. Are you enjoying our Great Life Adventure these days?

Oh yes indeed, beloved, believing Carol. Indeed – actually, in word & deed – we all enact the script written long ago in joyous planning. All your Team is present for the ending, this ending – as we were for the first stages.

We watched you step forward towards into this darkness, laughing & singing & waving ‘buh-bye’ at us from the beach. We smoothed the parts of the path you could not see, as blank-slating erased us from  your active consciousness. We watched the forgetting happen as you were born. You walked into the Void, as all-encompassing as the sea & you have been surfacing ever since.

We filled your pockets with grace, little Way-Shower! We blessed your freshwater canteen. We warned off the fish which would have devoured you, even as we picked off the seaweed tangled in your hair. We created warmer currents to “steer you by.” We weren’t anxious, tho more than once, we all held hands to send you strength if you faltered or turned blindly about wishing a way out.

We knew how precious your life would become to others. We smiled when you were surprised by their recognition & acknowledgement. We cheered noisily on our side of the Veil & shook our wings at every triumph. We pushed extra hard if you suffered from perceiving lack and sometimes it was hard to make ourselves heard. We put color in your path if it all went gray on you. We sent tokens & songs & flowers & clouds, & we kept a careful watch of your efforts at loving.

It was never only me, Child, it was always “us” creating in harmony for you. Look at what you have valued to carry with you this far: seashells & pictures, stones & memories, feelings, sweet dreams. We fastened fins to your feet & water wings to your freckled shoulders & we helped you fashion that tiny point on your head to push you through the water faster.

We’ve pulled & pushed & propelled you forward. We are so excited to see you approaching that “farther shore.” Not for nothing do the old songs call life crossing the River Jordan, boating the River Styx, parting the mighty waters… You’re not dry yet, but we are waiting with warmed towels & hot tea!

So keep it up, dearest, most blessed, you’re the Vanguard of our earthly plans in the earthly plane. Stay oriented to the stars you so stubbornly sleep through, being a creature of morning, indeed.

We wait, each time you sleep, to see you pop into our reality once more. You regale us with tales of 3D life & your keen observations thereof. And we so enjoy these. That’s the reason you agreed to go – to find new stories. Did you know? That was the reason we let you go, to bring them back to us in your ineffable style & chuckling delivery. And, darlin’, never doubt that you do make us laugh!

There’s a bunch of us here who wait for your nightly appearances. We [figuratively] prepare big bowls of popcorn & plot your arrival trajectory, folding our wings up tightly so we can all fit in the room. We set the stage & wait for your stories of shipwrecks & triumphs. Mostly of late, you bring joy & delight & rueful observations. When we laugh, you find feathers!

You season our wisdom. You shake off physical life like a dog does water, & your tales of beginnings & endings bring the Mystery up close &  personal. We trust you enough now to just let you swim around at will & encourage you forward, always, always, always.

We watched & blessed the schools of others you swim with. When needed, we’ve helped you to separate from some to both their bereavement & discovery of freedom, same as you. You see these situations as changes of tide & circumstance & eventually as a flow of new opportunities for developing strength & well-being.

You surprise us still, you’re living the rainbow. You break the surface so frequently now as laughter lifts you from weather wars & crazed scenarios seeking to keep you under. Don’t believe in these, Carol, but believe forever in us, for you are our brave explorer, diving into a reality we never suspected.

We lift you in loving energy, a Gulf Stream of bubbles of grace. You have the navigation part in hand, a clear compass & barrels of fresh water to tap for your flow.

Don’t ever doubt us. We won’t fail to hold you up. And tho you may think it at times, you have no idea how long is forever. It’s not beyond our skills to keep candles alight underwater, so watch for these. Remember, every laugh is another match struck to light one. Your tidal lock is to us & our fix on you never wavers or loses the strength inherent in unconditional love. You are limitless as we knew you would be.

We’re kind of breathless for each installment. Popcorn’s in the popper, butter melting on the stove, fresh cheese by the grater. Our love is all we have & we offer it all to you,

Take this joy while it’s offered & sing Hosanna to your ocean. Permit yourself to flourish. You’ve mastered the dark now. As the shore awaits you, so do we!

Love,

R.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Passages

My roommate’s best friend stopped by today to pick up a decrepit rug which has lined the concrete carport for years. In fact, I’ve been somewhat amused to park my Volt on a rug for the past few months of living here. Her husband sat in the truck while we hefted the rolled-up rug into its bed. No longer shy in my crone years, I wondered aloud if he could help, but she said he’d injured his arm when their donkey decided to go left as he went right. This is the same donkey which brays loudly & thoroughly from his pen on the far corner of town. Many mornings, I hear this particular snorting, hoarse ‘call of the wild’ as I’m waking up. Fortunately, my timing seems to be opening my eyes just before the alarm. This donkey, however, was not the one who sang along with the Easter Service in April. That one was a different donkey who lives on the opposite side.

Just about every morning when I wake, after the donkey-calls, I hear someone banging their trashcans from atop the hill – which means the sound carries down & across our town-in-a-valley. Since the few of us who have trash pickup own a black plastic wheelie-bin, I wondered who had metal cans & why they’d bang them every single day at 5:30 a.m. I finally figured out it’s the horse that lives with the singing donkey beating his own drum, sending out a tattoo about breakfast now, please.

On the days I walk east, often there are two black dogs who clamber over the broken stone fence to rush me, snarling & barking, hackles raised. So much for the leash law – but we have no police here anyway to enforce it. I’m not an animal abuser, but I do sometimes wonder how much a Taser would cost, & if I could secrete it in my clown clothes worn for workout. Best not go there, tho, eh?

Living mostly off the grid does require tolerance for the unexpected outdoors. Like the cow sleeping on the road under the mailbox as her calf (or the back half of it) blocks the westbound lane. Or the brown horse making her way sidewise down a steep hill to come over for a scratch. Or the determined tarantulas crossing the street just in front of me, or the rattler in front of the post office steps after rain.

I love to walk in the morning. In Missoula, where I stayed at The Wilma for a short time, we had an old fella who’d stand at one end of Main Street to holler “HEY!” from about 5:45 to 6:15 every morning rain or shine. Amazing how sound carries at that hour. Perhaps this was his Sun Salutation.

Once I read about a man who put up a sign along the edge of his farm telling people that this was a farm, that animals lived here & his animals did what animals do, unashamedly, in “flagrante delicto” & not to be surprised at their activities, their smells, their unabashed enthusiasm for physical life in all its forms & functions.

(Which reminds me about the time I took my girl scout troop to the zoo where a monkey was delightedly pleasuring himself in his cage…we should have gone to the Snake House, I guess.)

Today I met a man standing in the field next to our B&B, with a coffee cup in one hand & a cig in the other, who smiled & said he was standing out there at dawn as he was trying to quit smoking.

So I guess this blog doesn’t really have a specific point, moral or story. I’m just telling you about my favorite time of day & some of its delightful surprises. I mean, any morning that includes all this deserves to be written about. Why not here?

I’m always talking about how wonderful it is to be able to paint, but just give me a thousand words & I’m happy.

 

 

 

 

0

Miracle Thinking – A Unity Talk

MIRACLE THINKING

When I am asked what I would like to talk about, often the words come from my mouth before I can plan them. When I asked if I could speak on 12/6, the question returned: “What will you talk about?” I immediately typed “Miracle Thinking.” Then I looked at my computer, and said to myself, “miracle thinking?”

But, ya know, I’ve been doing this for a while now. Of course I wasn’t always like this. Somewhere the switch flipped from negative to positive & it ain’t never going back. I know that now. Some years ago you wouldn’t have convinced me of any reality about positive thinking even with a hypnotist in the room waving a watch, saying “you are getting sleepy.”

What’s a miracle? The Spanish word for sight is “mira”, so could a miracle simply be a different way of seeing things? I think it must be. I know once I move out from the surprise, kind of back up with the camera, a really wide angle emerges. When I can get the panoramic view, I have it made. The water changes to wine with a snap! And with all my experience, I’m still surprised to drink from the glass.

Sometimes miracles happen even when I’m clearly not in a state to anticipate them. When I graduated massage school in 1996, I was living with a woman named Nancy. I came later to call Nancy my roommate from hell & she kindly reciprocated by proving that out to me in no uncertain terms. Of course, Nancy was one of my best teachers.

Nancy knew a woman named Ruth. Ruth lived in Montana & wished to open a community for women healers. I had spent five months living in an intentional community in upstate New York & I loved the idea! And I felt I was a healer, hey, I just graduated massage school, yea?

Nancy & I shared a lot of fear & upset on that trip from Albuquerque to Montana. I had a vehicle; she didn’t. She sprained her ankle two days before we were to leave, I could climb on top of the car to pack stuff. She was getting unemployment while I had no visible means of support, having just graduated from being a starving student, to being a starving graduate. So after living together for six weeks in a room in Missoula, Montana, I finally got a job. In my LIFE, it’d never taken me six weeks to get a job. I knew Nancy was running really low on any desire to have me around and our disagreements were escalating. That second day I came home from work, which was third shift waitress at a diner, she said she wanted me packed, out, and gone by noon that day.

I listen to my Divine Planners & even then, I had had an inkling that things were going poorly enough that this might happen. Did I bring on an eviction with thinking those thoughts? Maybe. But my antennae were out & I had investigated renting a room. I just needed more money than I had in hand at that moment. Later, getting thrown out of our little apartment would become the best thing in the world for me, but in the thin moment of her telling me to be gone by 12 & slamming the door to go visit Ruth while I packed, I considered my options. I had $35 that I had made in tips over the two nights I’d worked. I’d given Nancy $5 toward what I owed her – totally a token payment, but I was six weeks without any cash & feeling pretty needy.

When I looked into renting that room, I found out I needed $130 to move in. So, I had $30. Now, one week earlier, before I’d scored my waitress gig, I’d written to a friend in Jersey to ask if he could spare $50 to help me buy gas so I could look for a job.

I was muttering to myself while I packed; I figured I at least had enough on hand to find a campground to stay in. After about ten minutes of mushing my stuff into big gray tubs, there was a loud knocking on the door. I was already aggravated, & got even angrier as I yanked it open, figuring Nancy’d forgotten her key, wanted me out on this abbreviated timeline & now was making me stop packing to let her in. I was astonished to find the FedEx guy outside who handed me a cardboard envelope & that signature device they use. I scribbled my name & ripped open the tab of the envelope. There was a $100 bill inside from my friend; no note, no words, just a Ben Franklin from someone I had not been the kindest to when I last saw him. So how much money did I have? How much money did I need? And I love telling this story because each time I do, I am beautifully assured that the universe loves me enough to rescue me from myself. And up until that moment in time, becoming homeless was my biggest fear in life.

Miracle thinking gets easier each time a miracle happens. I stopped calling it “universe” & started calling it “youniverse” right then.

Randy Peyser has written a great little book called “The Power Of Miracle Thinking.” It’s a book of stories, anecdotes & ideas about how to get over yourself by reaching out for the best that is out there every time. I’m happy to say that just about everything in here is something I’ve practiced at some point. I have had miracles greet me at every turn & I make so many wrong turns my GPS stutters its directions.

Randy’s first notation is choose to be #1. The Japanese call it “Ichiban.” Number one. Are you number one in your own mind? And if you’re not, I hope you feel really guilty whenever someone says, “Well, you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.” Because that is so TRUE! If you are not coming from a position of personal power that is rooted in personal worth your GPS probably isn’t going to work well at all.

From this internal strength & worth, from this place of belonging in the youniverse, you can ask for anything. If it’s right for you & if the timing is right for you, and if you have asked for it from a deeply felt understanding that it IS God’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom, it’s yours. Where is that worth & worthiness in you? If you had to understand it in the form of a standardized measurement, would you be living at 100%? Yes? No? What percentage are you living at? If you’re at 50%, how do you feel when you get half a miracle? Not me, baby. Recently I was at a dinner & when the hosts said they were having a raffle based on our ticket numbers, my first reaction was a mild, “wonder what I won.” My number was the first called & I won two tickets to ClearSpace Theatre.

Which leads to another of Randy’s premises: youniverse never says “yes…but” We say yes but all the time. We say, “Oh, sure I’d like to win the lottery, but that’ll never happen to me.” Or “I’d love to meet a terrific person in my life, but I don’t want my heart to get broken again.” 50% anyone?

You can’t find a miracle sitting in your easy chair, eating Doritos, watching TV & wishing for something different. Sorry, but you need to get off your duff & get out there & happen to life like you’ve wanted life to happen to you. You’ve gotta find the miracle you want by offering yourself up to it. And you have to allow the miracle. How many times has someone offered you something terrific & you’ve said, “oh, no, I couldn’t accept that!” I can’t tell you the number of times someone’s told me they’re hurting & could really use a massage so I say, “sure, come see me.” And I never hear from them. Of course the first reaction is money; but even when I say, just come see me, no charge! No call. It’s not an insult to be offered a gift. It’s often a need in the giver to even offer it out. I have had to retrain myself to simply say, “Why Thank You So Much!” when I am offered a gift in this way.

I am still learning to be a good receiver & that being in receivership doesn’t mean I’m bankrupt at all. Need some practice? There’s an exercise offered in the Abraham writings by Esther Hicks where Abraham recommends writing fake checks. He says to get your abundance muscles going, work them out by using an old checkbook to write yourself a check for some wonderful amount, say, a million dollars. Then focus your attention on what you would do with a million dollars. Next day, write a check for two million. What’ll you do with that? Make a list! I got up to about 16 million before I simply got tired of giving away money. By then, I had the idea well-fixed that I wouldn’t be keeping much of it, so I figured I was copacetic with the idea. Do this! It will awaken your abundance in a real way that’s also a feel-good, fun exercise! There’s a story told that one night in 1990 when Jim Carrey was a struggling young comic trying to make his way in Los Angeles, he drove his old, beat-up Toyota to the top of a hill. While sitting there, broke, looking down over the city, and dreaming of his future, he wrote himself a check for $10 million, put in the notation line ‘for acting services rendered,’ and dated it for Thanksgiving 1995. He stuck that check in his wallet – and the rest, as they say, is history.

By 1995, Jim had seen the tremendous success of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Mask and my personal favorite, Liar, Liar. His per film fee at that point had escalated to $20 million.

Visualize what you want. Sit still & feel how it feels to have what you want. World Peace? High-heeled sneakers? New golf clubs? How does it feel to be pulling those puppies around the golf course right now? Empower the feeling to bring it alive. Love the idea into being!

Always think in terms of this or something better. When I found the apartment I’m living in, the landlord said he had a few more people to interview before offering it, but he’d be in touch. Well, I felt pretty strongly in my gut it was mine – it’s the ideal size, it had absolutely everything on my list but one thing – remember the list, people? And when I make a list, I include everything on it. I even use a steno pad so I can have two columns. Still, when he said he had to talk to others, all my doubts rose up – did I make enough money? Was I ever going to get my own place? Apartments aren’t easy to come by near the shore, they’re either outrageously priced for a single person or simply not available. As I drove away from this gorgeous place what came into my head was the phrase: “this, or something better.” And I felt great again. I didn’t know what could be better than having an apartment over Derrickson Creek with everything I wanted, but I knew that it would have to be really spectacular. And I was comforted by that thought: Wow! What could be better? All right!

Another story: when I realized I wanted to travel cross-country, I wished for a van. I made a list of everything the van would have. The last requirement was that it be blue b/c I’ve always wanted a blue car. I had a small inheritance from my Mom to use. I focused on the van, I prayed, I visualized myself driving it, sitting up there over the road… no van. Weeks passed & the summer was ending & I had to get on the road soon and…no van. So I reviewed the list. I erased the “blue van” from it. Within a week I had a maroon van & the prior owner was a short man, so I didn’t even have to adjust the driver’s seat.

If you are stuck with a picture of something you don’t want, or if you are experiencing a health challenge, don’t hesitate to ask the Big Eraser to come in. My sister experienced this. When a loved one she knew sustained terrible, disfiguring burns, she went to see him in hospital. He passed away from his injuries, but Teri was left with an awful image of someone she dearly loved. One day when she just couldn’t seem to get this picture out of her head & was again choking up about it, a huge pencil came into her mind, turned itself over & rubbed out the image top to bottom. She never experienced saw her dear one that way again & remembers this person as the beautiful spirit he was. Youniverse will take care of you!

Bring Joy into your alignment with life. Youniverse likes a good target; make it easy to find you. “Hey, over here, good things! Yeah, me! I’m the one living rightly, I’m the happy person who found the pony in the room full of manure…c’mon down, I’m SO ready to be gifted by your presence.”

The best part is youniverse always has a bigger plan for you than you have for yourself. It isn’t about having the right answer so much as it’s about asking the Right Question. Lighten up & just do it: live your joy in life, don’t dip your happiness into the misery of another – that’s like getting the candle burning & dropping it into the sea.

If all this sounds like the impossible dream, stay awake.

So, take a deep breath & listen with both ears as I finish the story I started at the beginning of this talk. Here’s how one miracle fuels another. In the room of the house I stayed in after I left Nancy, there were many things Youniverse gave to me. A calendar of Ansel Adams photos – breathtaking. Books & cassettes which had been abandoned. Most intriguing to me was a pair of really good sneakers, but I’m a size 8 & these were 9’s. I kept them anyway, thinking maybe I could just wear two pairs of socks. These were expensive sneakers, well made, very sturdy. But after I’d been at the house for a few weeks, one day the phone rang & it was my dear friend, Ed & his good friend, Jerry. Ed asked me how much longer I was going to stay in Montana. I told him I had no plans to return – but what I didn’t mention was that it was only ‘cause I was mortally embarrassed to have made such a mess by moving there. Here I was waitressing the midnight shift, barely getting to do any massage. I couldn’t face going back to ABQ to tell my friends how much I had disappointed myself by leaving there. But when Jerry said “Ed, tell her WHY you called” and Ed said, “Carol, I have cancer. I want you to come back to work on me.” I simply said, “Ed, I’ll be there in two weeks.” And I started packing once again. I had lots to think about on those 1,100 miles. And I got to travel back through some of the most beautiful country these eyes will ever see, down through Utah’s Moab Valley, visiting Canyonlands & Arches National Park.

The night after I’d returned, I drove over to La Montanita for some health foods for the larder. A woman was sitting barefoot in the parking lot, begging everyone to give her shoes. “They took my shoes,” she said to me as I walked by. “What size?” I asked. “Size 9,” she replied. “Just a sec,” I said. And walked back to the van to get those sneakers.

I like to think Youniverse offered me the opportunity to be her miracle.

Think love, think empowerment & most of all, think MIRACLES!

Thank you.

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Not Too Wordy – Just Some Ideas

I’ve lived most of my life between my ears. And much of that life has been lived between the covers of a book. As a child, I rode The Black Stallion with Walter Farley’s Alex for years. I hunted clues with Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins. In the past couple of decades, I’ve befriended Jack Reacher, Bob Lee Swagger, Kinsey Milhone, Claire Randall, Diana Bishop, Sheriff Longmire and so many others. I read so much, I finally wrote my own book to contribute to the effort. Riding The Light was published in 2013 & Amazon still seems to be carrying it.

The thing about being an author is people read a whole lot faster than authors write! Storytelling resides in an altered state where nothing else plays in. It takes hours of focus & maintaining a “voice.” So if the story isn’t telling itself, there does not seem to me to be a way to coax it out. Force is definitely out of the question.

Many stories have begun telling themselves to me, but wandered off somewhere after a few pages. Once I got to eight chapters of a tale before the characters abruptly dispersed to other sections of the universe. I set out treats, played soft music & kept pens with paper handy all over the house…to no avail.

Creativity rises from a fountainhead which is subject to inexplicably low tides. I can scuff along the beach & pick up the tracks of where it has been, but it’s difficult to call it in on the ebbtide.

So when life gets to me, or so-called friends get at me, or dull routine buries me in the sand, I reach for pen/paper & get busy. It seems I can live life one-handed if I need to. Words are the one true truth to love for me…so glad you’re enjoying these alongside!

Loveya.

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Mind-Slip

In the last days of this year’s August, the world’s energetic disposition became stronger. Some would even say stranger.

For me, it became clearer. I mean a personal, scintillating clarity. I am becoming someone other than my working title, “Massage Therapist.”

This kind of personal clarity works startlingly well at my age when so often my eyes want to glass over at the repetitive conversation, the total lack of discourse.

I walked the “up” route one day. I had my dictation unit with me & I recorded my thoughts as I walked. I was lost in the new-minted daylight that moved all around me in a dance of its own making. I made a left where I usually make a right, hardly believing I was taking on another hill, this one in town.

As I reached the crest, I recorded, “A poem is like a communion wafer, moments on the tongue, drenched in Divinity that needs to be told.” This portentous but predictive thought trailed off as I reached the top of the hill. Standing to just the other side was a slender man in a long robe. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at our Union Church (built 1892) with the fiscal help of our [then] local madam. (It was not to occur to me until I reached home that this was Sunday morning.)

Sometimes here on the backroads of New Mexico, a pilgrim will pass through town. One rainswept day, I saw a man pulling a red, white & blue crucifix with a wheel mounted on the bottom, head down, striding along the shoulder of Highway 152. In the roads near Chimayo, it is not uncommon to see bare-chested men flogging their backs with whips. Or men with thick knee pads “kneeling” their way along the road to the small miracle Church.

In the moment of starting downhill, finding & turning off my recorder, focusing on this man’s profile, I lost all rational thought. I took him to be a holy man passing through, leaning over a wrought iron fence to study an old Episcopal Church. When he turned to face me, I realized in a rush: “he’s dressed in the vestments of a priest.”

He walked forward to greet me, hand outstretched, a mild face overtaken by glasses. He remarked how nice it was that the weather had cooled & he was comfortable in the ceremonial layers. He mentioned he comes up to Hillsboro on Sunday to say mass at the old church. I admired his dedication as the only way to achieve a goal. We discussed what volunteers bring to lives. I lifted my index finger mysteriously & played him the poem just recited. He asked if I wrote it (a common question tho one would think too obvious to be anything but a conversational gambit.) I nodded, smiled, as free & open in conversation & aspect as I have ever felt in my life.

There was somehow a purity in this introduction, a sharing of what is divine to each of us.

As parishioners came up the hill, I impulsively grabbed the hand so recently shaken & kissed the back of it before saying goodbye & walking on.

 

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Local Roads

 

I feel like a solid rock sometimes, the indissoluble solid, mid-creek. Every once in a while, karma … or grace … approaches with a large lever & sets me into motion.  “The Lever” frequently is preceded by the sound of metal dragging across rocky ground: It foretells change.

I let this Lever upend me to where I live now. I moved from the ocean to live in the elbow of Percha Creek. In the running stream of consciousness that is my life, I taste everyone else’s. As they taste me & mine…it’s something Biblical (at least for me.) So, as it is with water, I am everywhere, as all of us are.

Books can be a Lever, as can movies & other creative works. For me, it’s been serial walkabout which has most changed my life. When the wind spoke in one ear only, I knew it was the way to turn when time came to leave.

Right now, I hear birdcalls, water running over rocks too big to put in my pockets, I hear the metal stanchions of the bridge quietly flexing.

With nothing but these in my awareness, I now also hear faint chimes of bells & bamboo, footsteps crossing behind me & a dog panting. These are bleed-throughs from a parallel time-stream, the “when” that these happened not mine to directly perceive. Yet they swell my awareness. So much is possible over magical running water.

Straight ahead of me rises a wall of sheared & shattered rock, sliced by centuries, a southwestern sculpture garden in the vertical.

To believe this now-miniature creek – Percha Creek – wore through this eternity of rock jumble is farcical, fantastical! Yet, since the glaciers left long ago, since the ocean formed & filled & fled, this creek has had full charge of wearing out the walls I look at, wearing them smooth & carving these edges. If there is a song from rock, there is only a chant in sharp whispers here.

Vegetation is sparse & spiky, clinging to a dust of soil & worn-down pebbles with scrabbling roots. Along the ridgeline, the yucca plants display their seed-stalks, like so many feathers in a headdress. The mesquite provides some variation to already roughened texture.

As I sit, balanced on a tiny chair & leaning one leg against the fence, lap desk astride, the sun beats down on me. The sun is the reason I am out here, as well as some sweet isolation & nature quality time. September offered itself on the breeze in last night’s windows. I want to be brown again for my birthday, coming soon.

Elsewhere & everywhere, the world wears itself into existential frenzy. Friend’s ships sail in different directions, one to sea & one to land. But here & now, I am aware of only the love that created this earth & this water to bring them to this harmonious co-existence. The shapes all interact & indwell with each other far from the tiny world of my perceptions. I am not of centuries; I am now. There is only this moment.

I’m ready.

 

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Breathe Peace Into It

Whatever happens today, breathe peace into it. When an event takes you out of body, breathe yourself back in. Put your feet back onto the ground which welcomes them with love. Be an Earthling for a day, admire the air for being available. Regard with attention, the life around you: avian, amphibian, ambient.

Let sovereign morning order your day. Just as the sun rises steadily into a sky ready to embrace it, let your day embrace you, offer you food, lay sustenance over you with abundance on top.

Bring forth what is best inside you – even if the effort seems false or lacking, or even a pretense.

For me, it is the habit of excellence I wish to acquire, and sometimes I need to start low while aiming high. I’d like to think it’s just a matter of skill & “beginnery” but it has been more. I haven’t been interested enough yet. I have professed interest & claimed interest & pretended it. Now is a time to practice it.

I have been alive a long time to just be finding out that I am so. I was a human being in many other life iterations just in this spacious lifetime. I was a student, a secretary, a mom, a wife, a food worker, a massage therapist. All seemed mutually exclusive, yet all were me.

Only occasionally did I choose time for self-care. Indeed, it is in my latter years that I’ve perceived self-care as a good idea. Now & here do I actually see in active tense; I observe with the intent of interaction. I admire, I enjoy, I watch, I smile & laugh about the activity that goes on in background to sustain me. I am humbled by the arrangement of the universe around my needs & my perceptions of both of these.

If I slip down a detour that looks promising & feels right for a moment, I still need to examine it for what I want to express with my life. If it does not meet this standard, I need to abandon exploration. I’m required to abandon the limiting thought for the next, better thought. In this way, I breathe my peace into it.

You get what you give. Make your habit giving & giving back. It doesn’t have to come with balloons, wine & roses or in a Cartier box. Turning over a lousy feeling for the good one underneath is enough. Smiling to refute a frown is a great beginning. Then look at what’s causing any frown. Smooth it off the surface even as you remove it from the elsewhere, wherever that is.

To tune into who you are, it is needful to tune out all the rest of it. Like emptying the lungs of even the reservoir pocket of air at the bottom of each exhale, it is scary, it can feel life-threatening. But just as the air is always there when you’re ready to replenish, your self, that which might be called your soul is always there when you reach for it. If you have lived a life in & of this country, you may have to talk it back in from a distance, or allow the organics of it to re-root in your psyche.

You need to put down the barriers & walk outside of the boundaries where you have been “saved” for so long… I minded less than others putting down my phone & turning my computer into a simple communications device. I lived a long time simmering in my own silences which are now familiar & comfortable. I am one of those old women walking along the side of the road chatting with themselves, given away by my gestures. But it’s a private conversation & I’m enjoying it. The definitions of mental health need to be enlarged to include all the tools we claim we live by, if you want exclude people like me. What’s crazier than un-inhabiting the exact speck of time you are standing in by partaking of the past that created it & the future which will spring from it, through media which is ultimately damaging to the physical construct it claims to support? In other words, when you are watching a crimson & light sunset, why answer your phone?

Getting back to some connection with Nature has been my impetus for conscious, focused improvement. I learn there is no other way to be & be self-aware. My boundaries have all shifted into another “place entire.” I am allowed now, freed from schedules. I find myself unrestrained by hours I do not arrange, to think & to be whom I have planned for all along – even when I didn’t know I was planning anything much.

Each time I breathe, I breathe peace into it.

 

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