Our saving energy - An Excerpt

When the woman that he thought he loved got married, he felt the wrenching within him. He dreamed obsessively of her in that white dress of tradition, the traditional smile and sweaty palms, the excitement barely contained within the confines of the bodies eager for their new lives. She was tan, with her long brown hair carefully coiffed for the occasion, and her favorite ginger and orange-colored lipstick was in and out of her bag. What did that mean to him, when she got married? She seemed happy, her new man seemed nice, solid. He did not want to acknowledge that holding on to her in his mind was a way of keeping himself a little boy, an adolescent who doesn’t want to give up or share his toys, of changing that image of her in his mind, from “his” to being her own beautiful self in full flight, smiling as she skimmed her own ocean of memories, making them more beautiful in her happiness.

What did this thinking make him, but a little boy who didn’t want to grow up? War had shaped his mind, now. He was trying to learn beyond this, to remember his love of some of the learning in school, the excitement he felt in science some days, when the experiments went just the way he thought they would and he found a new way to understand a relationship of chemical dynamics. Girls, women were the same. He was the same, but he was struggling to understand this. Little by little he was learning to guide his mind into accepting this chemical way of thinking of everything. His old girlfriends especially gave him a starting point, because they had been his salvation when he came back from the war, with the star bursts in his brain that flashed to reveal not the tenderness of faces so much as the heat and grit and blood and the smell of fear. He craved the flesh, the touch, the taste of skin he loved, bathed in the smell of rose soap, or the fresh cotton scent of soft sheets. These were not “love,” he knew, but his way of thinking of them was only slowly opening itself to the panorama of memories which went beyond his wartime, his adolescence as a boy bursting with the sexual hormones which dictated his life.

He was slowly beginning to see how the energy of war slows our mind down, creates a drag like a quicksand. When his body was on alert, active to that point of everything being focused into a white-hot point of survival or die, he felt fully alive – yet he knew that was a primal sense, not the sense of Michelangelo coming through that creation of David. Why make war? Smelling blood was primal, throwing up when seeing flesh torn and dried, bones broken like sticks, faces afraid, was a way of remembering what it is to be animals, vulnerable as humans.

We are on our own. Yet never alone.

Sometimes, simply Beautiful

Our Progressive Growth

Recently I watched a CNN segment about the “recycled” Long Performing Arts Center in Austin, Texas. Clips showed comments from the architects, and pictures, before and after. I was inspired by the quick dose of reality where imagination and creativity produce something new which builds upon the old in a way that enhances the “eternal memory image” of both. The archives of Austin and of performing arts, including the performers and all appreciators, will be influenced by this creation, and from what I’ve seen and heard, the influence is beautifully positive and inspiring. Builders recycled 95 percent of the material from the Palmer Auditorium and reused it in creating the Long Center.

I’ve learned through living, and from what Spiritual Philosophy has defined for me, that growth and change are two of the most difficult maneuvers that our minds have to deal with. And that we can wrestle with the confusion and perhaps short-lived thrills of “producing” for years on end, as we labor to enhance our life, our survival skills, and our lifestyle.  I understand better than ever why our “fear of survival” becomes our most negative influence until we know ourselves well enough to trust the progressive pattern of growth and change that is our inherent design and begin to consciously support that momentum as change and growth. Good parents are role models for all of us. They are the ultimate Producers!

I’ve been reading Jonah Lehrer’s book, How We Decide. Here’s two bits from the chapter on The Predictions of Dopamine:  “Even when we think we know nothing, our brains know something. That’s what our feelings are trying to tell us.” Yet, as he writes, we can’t coast on these cellular emotions. Neurons need to be continually trained and retrained for their predictive accuracy to stay consistent.  Our emotions and feelings teach us, as thinking minds, as we are open to learning, to listening.

Another news story was about a hospital in Iowa that is saving money by going back to traditional methods. The reporter interviewed the hospital administrator as they strolled the halls, talked with a young woman whose baby’s delivery was imminent, and they spoke about the exact cost savings that were showing up as they followed this plan of “progressive growth.” They cut back on machines when they determined how to maximize the use of fewer and use the funds for other things. Guttenberg Municipal Hospital's CEO, Kim Gau reported that she experienced a revelation when she noticed a shift in mind-set at the hospital when managers no longer viewed quality as a to-do list item, but instead they began to regard continuous quality as part of the hospital's everyday culture.  

This is what I am experiencing as I study Spiritual Philosophy in the world as I know it, and as I remember and live. I can get overwhelmed by "to-do lists" and feel very behind in what I want to produce in a day. When do I feel happiest and most at peace? When I'm experiencing the joy of satisfaction: thinking, when thinking of my family, in communicating with someone with joy, sharing life stories (whether a moment or more), in laughing at life's little curves, in watching the ballet of butterflies. Listening to the music of life. Flavors, sleep, scent. Joy. Compassion, communication, commitment, truth, love, equality, humility. To feel good about all I create because I know myself truly, which means I keep learning, puts a to-do list in its place. And it does have a place!

By progressive growth, I now mean following a plan to create externally what supports us and our positive-life-support internally.  The recycling project in Austin – the eureka moment, the architects said, was when they realized they could re-use so much of what was the old landmark.  Tons and tons of steel melted down and re-used, the cost of materials cut by 70-80%? Not just a few dollars, this price tag, but a crowd-pleaser all around. Crowd-pleasers all around support the Ethical Values which make up our internal design.

I have been thinking about what it means to learn all of my life. I’ve learned a lot about learning!  What have I truly learned, beyond tons of information that can be gleaned from sources galore, present and past, always with new physical tools that we call technology? That unless we appreciate (use, understand) what we learn, then our knowledge never becomes wisdom. It never enhances our personality. When we truly learn something, we become excited, and we share some aspect of what we learn, if not at the information-specific level, then just because we are energy beings and our energy constatnly emanates from us in constant motion. Every thought becomes its own “reality show,” and the number of those engaged in that thought energy depend upon the collective strength of minds supporting and sharing that energy stream.  We can keep changing channels and see what the trends are. We choose! This is true about every aspect of our life, because we are energy beings!

The trends show us how the weather is – the emotional weather report, as Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and so many more have said. Then, what makes that emotional weather report? Spiritual Philosophy, like the ocean waves, reveals us to ourselves, if we look long enough – we begin to not only know what we’re looking for, but to understand what we see. The rhythms, the sounds, the smells, the smiles, the absolute power begin to coalesce into a conscious appreciation and understanding of “synesthesia” as the natural human design of experiencing our world and our reality- being Creative beings.

The floods in Pakistan, the mudslides in China and elsewhere, the earthquakes, the fires, all “natural disasters” are tragic in their many ways, particularly the human ways. They teach us to pay attention.  Earth takes care of business. How do we define “sensitivity”? An awareness of? I watch the news reports and the statistics give me new images of the human scope and scale of these changes as they accumulate. The Earth changes we will see as we are open to seeing the changes that have become part of our once familiar landscape. The CNN special on New Orleans Rising, what’s happening in New Orleans post-Katrina, is one great example.  Each example can show us the vitality in those who harness their energy and actively create changes, no matter how small the beginning. The dreams are big, the energy effects huge, even though at times the actual physical results may take time and more attention to notice.

These are profound lessons. Some bodies act as weather vanes. Arthritis can play a difficult tune in joints that intimately know the nature of air pressure, wind changes, barometric shifts.  These are not exceptions, simply examples to remind us that we are energy beings. When I wade into the water to swim, I feel the absorption within my cells instantly, and the way the water envelops me, then caresses my skin as I move. As I climb out I feel the differences in the air, in my breathing, in every step, until I adapt, dry, to the air as I remember it. My cells breathe as the bellows of the clouds that envelop me as I move. Kindness is never random. True kindness is persistent, consistent, truthful, firm in its energy presence. Healing. Like the Long Center for the Performing Arts, if I really think about it, I can re-fashion all my brain already knows and use it productively to create what I need now, enjoy the arts of life all the more. Creative minds show this every day. Quick lists are everywhere. What do they tell us about hwo we are and how far we've come? Revelations continue!

"If we think about any part of our life in fear, we are not living as an integrated thinking mind and loving emotions, which gives us the tools to plan and execute our physical lives with excitement and joy." (Spirit Consciousness, 288)

Cloud Dancing

Oh my Goodness!

Oh my goodness! I heard Shirley Temple exclaim from the television ad last night as I watched. Her smile brought mine, just because so many associations of “goodness” came to my mind in an instant. My favorite lately are the Geico ads, in particular the one with the drill sergeant turned therapist. They entertain me, and they cast a light of humor on the pathos with which we see our lives and also the art of “helping.” Which, to me, now means the art of Love.

Between house and office, clouds cover nothing but some part of the glare which reflects from my eyes. Beyond that the blue imprints itself into me and my tangerine-colored shirt sings almost with its sweet color, mingling threads of color with the peachy roses in the blue-swirl vase on the table with the red tablecloth and the sunflower place mats. Stacks of paper sit where I’ve put them, but oh these figs call to me with their perfect shapes, their perfectly ripe colors, and the absolute pleasure of their taste.

My friend runs in for a moment, having forgotten something he needs to travel, calling out, too, he left a present (sparkling mineral water) in the garage. I smile. Others call, and with each voice, each sound, I think of love, I remember love, I intend love to be my world. I read about Spirit Consciousness, the energy that creates us, what energy I am, and I want to leave this gift, to share this delicious chocolate drop of truth with each person I think of. Let this citrus burst spray, let this ripening begin, continue, and bloom. Some of the figs had fallen to the ground. Still, we picked hands full, and each has its fullness, its presence, and oh, its taste.

An Interview with Author Stacey Cochran

I met Stacey Cochran at an event introducing Lulu.com, a local print-on-demand company. I was and am inspired by his persistence in promoting, supporting, and expanding the causes and joys of writing and publishing and the importance of community networking. He's opened my eyes to some of the uses of technology tools for persistent writers.I read CLAWS 1!  Even though it takes a village, momentum has to begin with one human..

Stacey Cochran was born in the Carolinas, where his family traces its roots to the mid 1800s. In 1998 he was selected as a finalist in the Dell Magazines undergraduate fiction competition, and he made his first professional short story sale to CutBank in 2001. In 2004, he was selected as a finalist in the St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife Dr. Susan K. Miller-Cochran and their son Sam, and he teaches writing at North Carolina State University. His books include CLAWS, CLAWS 2, Amber Page, The Colorado Sequence, and The Kiribati Test.

Stacey is currently touring to help promote the release of his latest novel CLAWS 2, which is available as an eBook-exclusive through the Amazon Kindle store.

Paperback versions of the first novel in the series are available here: http://www.amazon.com/Claws-Stacey-Cochran/dp/1440495343

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MARGARET: So what exactly is a Blog Tour?

STACEY: A “Blog Tour” is the online equivalent of an author’s book tour. In a traditional brick-and-mortar book tour, a publisher pays to fly an author around the country (or world) to visit a number of cities and bookstores and libraries. The goal is to get the author face time with booksellers, librarians, and die-hard readers in order to help create word of mouth. Sometimes author events at bookstores lead to newspaper articles and radio or TV interviews in the local areas the author visits. All of this is meant to help sell books.

A Blog Tour on the other hand is done completely online. Instead of visiting bookstores and libraries, an author visits a number of prearranged blog sites in order to do interviews like this one to help generate word of mouth and interest in his/her book.

For my CLAWS 2 Blog Tour, I am visiting upwards of 30 blog sites between July 1 and September 30. It’s cost-effective marketing.

MARGARET: How well does it work?

STACEY: So far July has been my most successful sales month in a year. So the preliminary evidence indicates that it helps a lot. What’s been especially interesting is to see how the first book in the series CLAWS has seen a strong surge in sales. I didn’t really anticipate this because I’d never published a closely linked series book like this and toured for it. It’s interesting to note that the original book is actually outpacing the new release at a roughly 5:4 ratio. Folks are likely discovering me through the web and blog tour and its various 3^rd-party effects and are willing to give the first book a shot. Plus the first book is priced at 99 cents as an eBook, and the new release is priced at $2.99. The lower price point on the older title may be influencing its higher sales numbers.

MARGARET: Why the difference in price?

STACEY: Great question. Amazon Kindle incentivized a higher price-point this July by offering U.S.-based authors a 70% royalty rate if they listed their book for $2.99 or higher. The old royalty rate was 35%, and Amazon is keeping all books priced under $2.99 at that rate. So my motivation to bump the price of my new novel CLAWS 2 to $2.99 was based on the fact that I’d be drawing 70% royalty on all domestic sales. I basically would have to sell seven books at the 99 cents price and 35% royalty rate to match how much I make on the sale of one book priced at 2.99 and earning a 70% royalty rate. Like I said, CLAWS is outpacing CLAWS 2, but at a 5:4 ratio, not a 7:1. So I’m making much more money on the new book, even though it’s selling slightly fewer copies.

MARGARET: So what are the books about?

STACEY: CLAWS and CLAWS 2 are wildlife thrillers. Each book features a biologist Dr. Angie Rippard as the protagonist, but in each novel Angie is in a different setting and the books feature different animals as their focal points. Mountain lions in Arizona in the first novel; grizzly bears in Colorado in the second novel. Both books feature similar plots: a ruthless real estate developer has designs to develop a resort community too close to wilderness lands. This leads to animal attacks on humans, which brings Dr. Rippard into the investigation.

I have plans for a third book, CLAWS 3 to feature spotted leopards in the U.S., but I have not written it yet. My hope was that I would be able to sell the series to a major publisher, but that has not materialized. If I’m ever able to sell the series to a major publisher, I could probably turn out at least two more novels in the series. Maybe sell it as a five-book deal.

MARGARET: So how can we help?

STACEY: Well, it’s generous of you to offer to host me on your blog. If there are any readers out there who have good followings on their blogs and are reading this, you could drop me a line to let me know you’d like to host me. I still need to fill out my tour toward the end of September.

More than anything else, though, I need well-written reviews of CLAWS 2 on Amazon. And by “well-written” I just mean that the reviews need to be informed by actually reading the novels. I don’t mind a negative or critical review as long as it’s written by someone who read the book. In fact, reviews that point out areas for improvement can actually be very helpful.

MARGARET: Thanks for visiting, Stacey.

STACEY: Thanks for having me.

Context is Almost Everything

With the Shirley Sherrod, NAACP, and Tea Party stories, just to name a few, I’ve been emphatically reminded that context is almost everything. On NPR recently I heard a story about Art restoration that really made me think. As we’ve been learning about Ethical Values, how to unearth the deepest truths within us, to bring out the best always as our Being, we’ve talked a lot about truth and lying and about what it means to be “an original.”  A restoration of Thomas Eakins’ famous 1875 painting, “The Gross Clinic,” has been underway for a year in Philadelphia. The story of the restoration, the “ruination” which came from good intentions but perhaps a limited appreciation for context, and the energy (and money) that such attention can bring forth is a fascinating one, and to me it applies to every image we create of ourselves as well.

As some of the conservators say, it may be easy to say what’s “wrong” with a painting, but not exactly what is wrong, how can the damage be repaired, and what, in fact, has been damaged? Such knowledge requires a passion to Know, a passion for integrity and purity, and an appreciation of intention and the art of expression. At least I think so.

People have different opinions of what they like better – the painting before restoration or after. This reminds me of going to the ophthalmologist and the “is this better, or is this better” test. It’s important that we know what we like better, yet I also love those whose passion it is to restore the integrity of the artist’s intention. When we apply such an understanding of context to ourselves and our creation of life, of lives, it illuminates the value perhaps of opening our mind to our own greater eternal context as energy beings with an evolving consciousness.

Copying and truth relate to every level of our being and our actions. It is amazing to me to think about how we must reach a point in our own consciousness evolution to begin to think of ourselves as creators, beyond the miraculous creation of children, and then how each action that comes from each thought influenced by our emotions and senses can illuminate to us the color and feeling-tones that we are experiencing in that moment in Time and Space.

Conservators such as Mark S. Tucker, who restored Eakins’ painting, devote the time and attention to understand the effects of time (and aging) on a canvas. Think of ourselves as a canvas, a canvas made of layers of applications of color and grime which are truly energy fields which we’ve created through our experience as energy beings.

Interpretation may be relative to the interpreter, but patience and knowledge are an absolute necessity.

As we think about The Joy of Health in our Spiritual Philosophy classes and we are led to ask ourselves questions such as, Do we live our truth or with a veil of lies?, I now come back to this story of restoration.  Lying is forgettable, we heard on Sunday at our class. Why? Truth is memorable. We build lie upon lie, layer upon layer as time goes by, unless our mind is prompted to love more, to be true to its convictions as an energy being with the intention of growth and change, of love truly. Shirley Sherrod’s past came to light via another who took a snippet of a video to use for his own agenda. Since then, she and the person who began the journey this way have branched into new media journeys and more. Sherrod has been given a broader platform to illuminate her past, her values, her interpretation of her life and choices and their consequences. She has exhibits (people) that have come to light to supplement her story of her life and purpose in this focus. Whatever we think of different personalities, our energy reveals who we are. The interpretations remain for those we encounter and their own level of thinking and living. Love, compassion, honesty, change as change relates to the truth of ethical values always wins out over the shadowy agendas of those whose motives are not as clear (pure). Convolution clouds the mind.

I listen to Kathy Oddenino explain her own convictions as she remembers experiences in her life – with bigotry, with lying, with cheating, etc. – and I think about what such conviction means to a mind and heart. Brave heart, strong mind, a way of using our body as the energy temple that it is, as we honor ourselves and our creation, moment by moment, from sperm and ovum joining to the moment we lose “consciousness” as a physical human being and live on as an energy being, to create again.

Restoration is indeed an Art, no matter how we look at it!

Herbie Hancock: The Imagine Project...........

 

More Summertime Cloud Studies - Alamance County, NC

The Truth of Love, and the Art of Subtlety

Recently someone asked me if my parents talked much about dying, in the last few months of their lives in particular. I’ve thought about this a lot, and especially as I continue to learn what it means to a mind to think more deeply, to listen more intensely, to enjoy the intensity of “still waters running deep.” Our mother was famously subtle rather than overt in her expressions; to her, subtlety WAS overt. There were always ways of making your point to those who were willing to listen. Subtlety is its own art form. As her children, we appreciated this about her, and also adapted it in our own ways and personalities. We developed beliefs about communication, about listening, and share pleasures and the occasional challenges of similar interpretations because of this. Our Dad was also subtle in his way, and in some ways simpler than Mother. Their personalities were interesting, individually and together. I write this not to analyze their personalities, but to express what the question about their communication about dying prompted me to think about.

My mother seldom wanted to even talk about “being sick.” She teased me sometimes about my passion for organic food, and yet over time, when we would visit, she bought certain things she knew I would like, and “approve of,” as she said. I began to learn, through our interaction, even more about listening, about the energy of love, about the subtleties that mean so much. I didn’t intend to judge when I didn’t want to eat packaged sausage which had chemicals I didn’t want to ingest. Yet, over time I began to learn the difference in the energy of knowing my own “truth,” and how loving myself through my own free choices, when “true,” also flowed into the smiling way of live and let live, still, honoring all. I continue to learn this, as I learn to know my own mind, to grow my own mind, to love better.

Mother wasn’t a complainer. She had a high pain tolerance, did not appreciate whiners, and always preferred that people “get on with it,” rather than belabor anything. This does not mean she did not appreciate the subtleties of one gesture, or the right word placed just so. She certainly did. Less was always better, but only when appropriately so – the truth will show itself and be known, simply.

We children would try to find out more from her about what her doctors said, after she had appointments. We would ask how she felt. We were concerned about her, didn’t want her to “suffer.” Even this word, “suffer,” has its associations so intensely from religious belief. Middle English, French, Latin – the words “to bear,” have a different connotation than to “suffer” in my mind. “Suffer in silence,” is a familiar phrase. As time passed, and we all lived the day to days, we helped each other to pay attention to the nuances, to support as we could, as we knew to do. My brother wrote a beautiful poem in honor of our Dad which included these words: “because I am his son, I go, called to attend to, Perhaps witness/the black presence of illness…  his world is breaking open, mine as well…. Do you see this? He points, because I am his son, I see these things…” Dad was not a complainer either, which explained why his confusion at incapacitation at the end was what did him in. He was a lover of life, of people. He loved birds, he loved the simple pleasures of cornbread in milk, fresh tomatoes and salt, even instant coffee as long as it was the right temperature for his palate.  To Dad, life is through when you couldn’t DO. He would marvel at “things” as they revealed themselves to him – feel this, he would say, pointing to a knot on his head. It would hurt, and he puzzled over what caused it. He would smile when given answers. Once I asked him, many years ago, are you afraid of dying? He looked at me horror-struck. No! he said. Why would I be? He lived the truth of his convictions. There was no room for fear. Mother’s faith was equally strong, though her mind explored thoughts differently, I think. They had both grown up in families whose work ethic was strong and whose communication about emotions was more physical than verbal. An orange and a new pair of dungarees for Christmas on a good year, Dad would say, smiling at the memory. There were intimacies expressed in ways only that family unit might relate to, until told. The time, the environment, the beliefs, the scenarios invite opening, appreciating, acknowledging the growth as we live. Dad constantly expressed how we had so much to be grateful for, especially a loving family, the sharing of lives. Not long before he died, when I was visiting him in the Nursing Home, he told me he had been talking to God – this meant dying. He said it in relationship to being ready to “go.” I’ve been talking to God about it, he said, with utmost humility, and that little smile.

I have thought about what it means to die, and what it means to live. As I live and learn, particularly with the guidance of Spiritual Philosophy which builds on and around the religious foundation our parents taught us to illuminate the deeper roots of “thought made flesh (matter)”, I feel the strength of knowing more and more what it means to live, and therefore what it means to die. As energy, we live on – our memories live on. The idea seems simplistic, and yet the most beautifully simple and complex divine idea ever created. The original creation is life? How do we define life? As Kathy talked about her memories of nursing and asking patients what their beliefs were as they lay on their deathbed, I thought about all of this again. I have introduced myself again and again to the subtle and absolutely profound nature of change as the constant in our life, and the overt message does not escape me now: In Change we trust!  True thinking requires a motivation deep within us whose roots are love, and I understand more clearly than ever how we grow through the levels of fear-to-love as we live our many lives, even our mini-lives days and nights. How do we feel about “energy”? How do we feel talking about “energy”? Not just the solar power, wind power, turbine and nuclear, oil and the spill. The overt subtleties are there for us to appreciate, enhance, change, share as we become more aware. These are the gifts that keep on giving, despite what we do for a living, how many children we have, how much money we make or lose, what losses or gains we experience.

The dignity of life asks for honor, reverence, appreciation, love, which means communication, but not only in the ways we might want, or expect. Messages come in all ways. The key, I’m learning, is to know what message I’m sending, and to express consciously, beautifully, elegantly. Even if silly! The truth of love will be felt, and remembered forever. What’s left is there to build on, to shape as our own, to sculpt as we think, as we share, as we grow, as we think on our own.

Happy Independence!

Two days ago I went for an early morning walk around the neighborhood before the summer heat really set in. The breeze was gentle and the busy birds were fun to watch, as always. The shades of green in the thick underbrush as well as the tall canopies of trees were beautiful, and the dry ground and leaves caught my attention as I passed some places. A few dogs panted, a few managed some faint barks. Mostly I think they were hot, and curious. As I walked I thought of my Mother and smiled at her jaunty way of jumping into action sometimes. She would “gear up” to go, and then full steam ahead, tireless until her job was complete. A few tears slid down my cheeks as I smiled at the memories, and suddenly I felt her presence beside me in that same mode, just as she was, eager to be moving and with me. We laughed as we talked. She was delighted to be moving, free, and I am delighted to know we are energy beings and always “stay in touch.”

Also, we have another funny family story which relates to the saying, "I'm nearly dead"! I'll leave that one to your imaginations...Thanks, Mom!

Decatur Street Beat!

 

Durham-based Dixieland Band - A good time group! Heard them at Pittsboro's General Store in May. Thanks for the memory....

What Does it Mean to be a "Free Spirit"?

“The human challenge is to learn to be a free spirit, to cope with and to rise above what we experience in the physical world.”  (JOH, K. Oddenino, 381)

“All addictions are the result of the belief system that we have been involved with from the beginning of our life.” (JOH,326)

As I think about what it means to live and to learn as a human being, I’m grateful to my parents, to all mentors, for their motivation to teach, to share their lives and knowledge and wisdom gained through living.  The phrase “free spirit” has been familiar to me as long as I can remember. When I think about it and try to pinpoint how I’ve interpreted it from others’ descriptions, and what it symbolizes to me now, I’m amazed at the way we snag little bits of truth (energy units) which make sense to us long before our minds can truly articulate an expansive understanding of them. This tells me something about how our energy system is designed as sensory beings, and how our minds work too, as we’re stimulated by and through the experiences we create.


Recently I’ve been reading about the Ten Commandments, as represented by the ocean of Internet sources, and thinking about how they relate to the Ethical Values as Kathy Oddenino teaches through Spiritual Philosophy. As stated, the first four commandments relate to the relationship of the human being with God and the rest to the relationships between people. In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have repeated some of the commandments to one of the disciples and condensed them elsewhere into two general laws: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22:34-40. Looking back at the list of commandments from the Old Testament, then, I see a rule book of behaviors, the last six of which are what NOT to do. That tells me that we have the rules only because we do not know how to behave ethically. Ethically means we treat each other with love, truth, and equally as human beings, because we are created with the same energy sensory design and purpose.

I think about what freedom means to me. I know the energy fluctuations I have felt as I’ve lived my daily experiences, making choices, doing physical things. I know which feel good, when I’ve felt sad, which rile me up (as some of us say in the South), which bring deep joy within me, from the Universe that I am and that I share. Until I was taught to think of these fluctuations as Energy, I was often confused by the flux of feelings and sometimes did not know how to interpret them in a way that was inspiring, truthful, and therefore productive. I understand, too, how we can think we understand what it means to be “loving,” truthful, and equal, as an intellect, or as a person who believes we live our emotions on our sleeve, and not truly know what it means to be a free spirit. That’s why we evolve as a consciousness! The Ten Commandments, as written in history as this rule-book of behavior, are just that- a strict guide for wayward souls that needed a light to stay on the “straight and narrow.” The Ethical Values explain another level of what it means to “be good.” The trinities of Ethical Values open a searching mind to the harmony and rhythm of joy, of happiness, of sharing as the stabilizing energy which increases our power of learning as we continue to create and share our experiences.

As a teenager and as a young adult I floundered among rules and rebelled against many. Not because I wanted to “be a rebel without a cause,” but because rules as physical rules did not help me to know myself as an evolving energy being and therefore to know that I carried these beliefs with me as energy through lifetimes to learn, change, and grow as I recognized beliefs that no longer served me in living as a free spirit. Rulebooks that related only to what-not-to-do only went so far as physical guidelines. The “why” which created the need for such a rulebook is what my mind was looking for. That “why” was the energy I’ve lived throughout my lifetimes as a human being, on Earth, interacting and sharing with all other energy.  I’ve learned from Spiritual Philosophy, and the opening of my mind, that our greatest addiction is fear. I know this is true, because I can map my mind’s “eye” and the legend of my experiences as I remember them.  Metaphysical teachings explain the seven levels of energy as: Being; God; Truth; Knowledge; Energy; Creation; Human and Divine Relationships. As I think on these explanations I recognize how fears grow into phobias, how habits can reinforce superstitions and therefore beliefs whose origins become lost in the forest of our busy lives, how we can resist the joy and adventure of consciously learning to know ourselves simply because we have not been taught to think of ourselves as evolving sensory energy beings.

Reading Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks fits in here, too. I'm amazed and fascinated by how she relates, for example, the superstitions so strongly held about hospital care in the first half of this century, particularly in the Baltimore area, i.e., Johns Hopkins. Hopkins himself founded the hospital as a place that would offer care for those could not pay for care, of any race, creed, religion, and including children, especially orphans. Scary stories of "colored children being snatched in the night," in the dark, dangerous streets of the hospital area, gathered many beliefs together and enhanced the ignorance of such fear into an incredible example of why knowledge (communication) is a gift of power. Images persist and grow through ignorance, and the communication of knowledge, through compassion of sharing and learning (love), goes a long way to eradicating fear and inviting love. This affects each mind, each following generation. I remember dreams and visions I had as a child, of caravans of tribes rumbling down our small hallway in the dark towards our bedroom. To begin to know the origins of these fears as ancient beliefs, which can be changed once we know how, is truly a gift that affects all generations.

The Art of Food

An - Asian fusion in Cary, NC
A treat to celebrate my beautiful niece's high school graduation - desserts to live for! A perfect follow-up to The Voracity blog link I posted on facebook yesterday.....Ahhh, the art of food....

The Flowers Respond

I had a dream about lucid dreaming. I googled the term, then “Wikipediaed” (these new relations make me think of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel Clockwork Orange – layered of course with graphically memorable images of Malcolm McDowell and more), and scanned the information, history, ideas, scientifically-accepted thoughts, etc. This brought Clockwork Orange to mind again…and not in a good way. I hadn’t thought about this book in many years and now, twice, a reminder: this dream within a dream, and my cousin’s book report which I read.  In my dream were many layers of dream and reality, in which I was being shown the reality of the dream, and the reality of what is, as shown by all waking moments. Sound obtuse? Not if you had been in my dream! As I reflect upon Sir Ken Robinson’s TED address (see earlier link) and his inspiring message about creative teaching and learning, I think of lucid dreaming and my dream this morning. We’re so programmed to ridicule, to deny, keeping silent about our infinite thoughts and dreams rather than being taught to explore them as the energy they are, part of us as energy, which makes them infinitely more interesting. We’re used to pontificating rather than communicating (sharing), controlling rather than listening. In my mind, during my dream and upon waking, I felt myself expanding, with the optimism and hope of listening more carefully, more compassionately, more usefully. I felt the shift of energy as I awoke, the way the physical energy focus felt – like placing my feet solidly on the ground, feeling the earth “move under my feet.” I turned on the TV to watch Holmes on Homes, and heard him say, I didn’t build this house, but I’m fixing this house!, as he proceeded with his teams to take care of each layer of problem they found to fix a solid structure without the risks that preceded him.  I listened to the water run as I filled the sink. I listened to the birds as I opened the door from the sunroom. The heat of the sun increased, and I watched the flowers respond.  Then I sent an email about Kathy Oddenino’s upcoming Joy of Health class, in which she wrote about Why do we expect to be sick? We can learn to know we are energy, even if we haven’t been taught this from our conscious beginning.

 We listen, we hear, often we judge – we already know that, we don’t want to hear that, we wish we didn’t have to know that, etc. It’s amazing how we have crafted our thinking selves. What inspires us? We have poured ourselves (and therefore our money) into building the systems we live with and struggle to support. The ones that sail on (fewer and fewer) we seldom think about. In yesterday’s NY Times was an article about the Human Genome’s promise and progress to date, 10 years past the mapping. We are complex beings. One conclusion is that in some respects, taking a good family history yields more helpful data. Our continuing stories reveal who we are at every level, if we open our mind to our eternal nature. As the Gulf Oil spill continues to present the current pictures of our challenge, we are invited to learn, to know, to respond, and also to acknowledge, again, that if we turn away and act like “that’s not me,” we are consciously declaring that we prefer to be ignorant and irresponsible; unfeeling. We prefer to live the meek or dragon role in the myths of our childhood, pretending that they are still only fairy tales, not images from our own minds as we reflect the reality we create.  So much for my own pontificating, programming, ignoring! The complexities of us are simply beautiful, once we know who we are.

Conception(s)

"We cannot conceive of the reality of timelessness."  (JOH)

I’ve been thinking on this concept since I read it recently in The Joy of Health. This is how I began: We cling to time as we resist change. We cling to what we think IS, or what we want IS to be, because we fear change. First, we fear changing our perception (belief), which would then…motivate us to change our behavior.  This is why we identify so intensely with the physical world around us that we experience any loss with fear (not knowing/loving self).

Our perceptions of right/wrong are related to or dictated by time more than we know or accept.  We can see how we create and how easily we accept change as “time passes.” Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” As I live my life (age), and as those I know and love change, I am encouraged to more gently, graciously, appreciate this gift, this art of life and how precious such love is. I remember little gems from my father as they flash into my mind’s eye: excitedly talking with him when I was a child, clamoring for his full attention (as I saw it) because what I had to say was all-important and really all There Was in that moment. I remember his expression as he patiently listened, even as he continued tinkering with his project of the moment. I remember his nodding as he listened, every now and then looking out the window. I remember his comment as he watched the birds, which he loved to do: I wonder why that bird keeps coming back to that one spot. I remember stopping for a flash, looking where he looked, maybe seeing the bird, then diving back into the well of thought I’d been whipping up for him to taste. Where was I? He smiled, continued listening patiently, inviting my attention to the bird, to the air, to the quiet. He might answer directly too, but mostly the point was he listened, and he invited me to listen more deeply.

As I listen to a friend’s disappointment about the outcome of an application, another’s intense adventure in a new job which requires full focus and adjustments with high stakes, as I continue the daily maintenance of a life – a house, a body, a mind, a pool, a car, a tree, a flower, I remember the power that guides us as energy in motion. We’re encouraged to fight (do not go gentle), to rage against what we feel are injustices, and we interpret, express this “fight” in many different ways – some violently, some persistently, some gently, some quietly, etc. I appreciate the drama of passion as the power of love and creation – birth and death as cycles of change as the best example. Firmness, dignity, growth, humility – as an Ethical Value passion is paired with discipline and knowledge. I understand this more clearly now. Passion, in its pure joy of creation, seeks, savors, and requires the knowledge of discipline and the structure of us as energetic beings. This is how we know and expand our power – to share, to love, to feel compassion, to enjoy the pure freedom of choice, will, and intention in our life, despite the challenges that may come (what dreams may come!) Our choices reveal our intentions, and in every expression, always visible as energy, our attitude about change as our most intimate internal relationship.

Over the Rainbow

We’re used to testing ourselves based on “trust everyone and everything” until proven “wrong” (innocent until proven guilty), or skepticism (“prove it”). Reading The Joy of Health again, I understand better now how we learn through opposites. As I think about and review my experiences up to now, I can see why and how I made the choices I made at different times and “crossroads.” When I think about the reality that “we do the best we can with what we know” at any given moment, I recognize how wise it is to feed ourselves the knowledge that helps us to “grow big and strong” as a mind. This is the same as truly appreciating (living, choosing, sharing) food as fuel for our physical body as we live each moment of every day. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it. Yet obviously it isn’t, or we wouldn’t have the level of disease experience and the constantly revving research and development and treatment engines that we have come to believe are essential for us to survive. When we know what’s good for us, we do it? Countless examples come to mind. The tobacco industry’s internal memos ever so slowly came to the collective surface as we reached a level of change in public behavior about the fact that smoking dramatically raises the incidence of diseases. How long did this take, and with how much cost? I smoked cigarettes for years, beginning in high school. (Happily, I gave it up years ago and my cells are happier for it, as are those I am around!) My parents didn’t smoke and were amazed that I did, encouraged me to stop.  Yet, I continued, off and on, for years. Why? It’s just an example to me of so much of our collective behavior and how we resist change, we resist thinking more deeply about the energy of our lives in motion and the ripple effects of our energy in motion as we live, breathe, eat, drink, laugh, dream, heal, die.  I still hear people say, everything that tastes good isn’t good for you!  That belief definitely could use a software update! And, this medicine isn’t working for me, there must be another that I can use. There are always alternatives.

The BP Gulf oil spill is another example in which I recognize how we aim to show ourselves how, seemingly despite our best intentions sometimes (we tell ourselves), “accidents happen.” As we begin to look at the causes and effects at each level of interaction (cause and effect), “accidents happen” is not enough of an explanation. Why? What can be done differently? Why did each cause happen? What were we thinking and why? What does each event tell us about our thinking and our true intention. Because we haven’t understood that we are energy beings first and matter second, we tend to think of who to blame (persecute, who will “pay”) first, not what were/are our true intentions and are we happy with the results.

“Only we know, on a subconscious level, if we are being true to that Higher Energy of ourselves within us as our personal guide.” (The Joy of Health)

How do we determine what is “best” for us? First, knowing that we want the best for ourselves is an important thought and energy focus. I did not always use this thought energy – Often I didn’t truly know what I wanted, or denied it.  I resisted learning. Why? I did not resist all learning. I loved certain information, certain people, full moments (which I didn’t know then to call “energies”). What level did I resist and why? What I resisted vehemently when pressured was change – changing my image and attitude about myself. Why? I did not like to be controlled (as I felt it then), yet the beliefs I held on to internally if not consciously, were the fetters I used to control my own thinking and feeling. Is an advanced level of thinking knowing what’s best for us and acting (choosing/living) in harmony with that energy of love? When we deny ourselves as an energy being (disavowing our mind, harboring negative emotions, abusing our senses), we react as animals cornered, or kept in a cage  - we must learn that the cage is our own beliefs.

Spiritual Philosophy teaches us that we are energy first, matter second – we’re encouraging ourselves to open our mind and consciously use our energy of thought as a Universal force of Good – i.e., being guided by the Ethical Values that are our internal design, not swayed by the small minds’ (ego) winds of change. Our physical identity as we are growing into “knowing ourselves” is not attached to a physical association of any role except that of a human energy being, first.  We’re patterned to be successful. What does it mean to each of us to be “successful”? Our country’s founding fathers (note, fathers, not mothers) honored their intention in a commitment to the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A friend years ago told me, You speak as though you know what you want, but you do not act as though you do.  I remember this often, and now that I have grown into loving the life that I live – this is very different than seeking to live the life I love.  Whatever our commitment is to ourselves, as a human being, we must know that we have one, and nurture ourselves with that knowledge. How do we do this? We each choose our ways, and enjoy them, must nurture them, share them. This is how we honor our creation and expand our infinite pleasure.

We Have to Change Our Industrial Model of Education.....!

Begin by loving the self that you are

"Developing awareness is the most exciting, creative gift that man can present to himself. It allows you to see the world with new eyes. It allows you to appreciate that which is usual, that which is new, that which is old, and that which is different. It broadens the perspective of life from a singular focus of self, to a multiple focus of All That Is." (JOH, 138)

Watching older people as they make their way to airport terminals and gates, so carefully, and, most, so gratefully, moves me to tears sometimes. Just now, watching a vibrant youngish woman dressed to dazzle, guiding two older women, perhaps sisters, I smile as they wait for the cart to take them, as they climb aboard, the younger woman sitting at an angle so she can hold an arm of each as the friendly driver turns and begins to move the cart in the other direction. An older man, limping but strong and strong-willed, has lived this self-confident role of finding out what needed to be known - directions, time, details to help be efficient - still taking care this way, and clapping the back of an employee who answered his questions.

Appreciation can never be overrated.

There is no appreciation like the way we might fully feel ocean waves, wind, remembering childhood moments of pure innocence, singing, softening each node's intimate opening into the shallows full of life it takes true looking to see. Tiny life notes. I think of my handsome nephew, my view sitting next to him as we ate - his scruff of chin growth, his eyelashes light-colored, long and heavy, like a butterfly lifting over slate blue eyes.

"I'm not smart enough to understand what she writes," someone tells me when I ask if they have read Kathy Oddenino's Joy of Health book. I'm shocked by this, from this someone who has such gifts, such a caring and grateful heart and appreciative mind in so many ways. As I listen to my niece talk about her classes, I hear the way she perceives that Health is being taught, or learned. Some learn a lot, some nothing. Health and History class may be among the least popular, the least interesting to the most. I hear another grad student speak of her nursing job, her pleasure and sadness in working with the children in pediatric oncology - and her eagerness and hope to be part of the continuing research to "find a cure." She truly cares. I can't help but think, Yes! We must first only begin to remember the food, air, and water which revive our very souls, the complex cells within us.  We are energetic beings. I try to remember my 15-year-old, my 21-year-old mind, then 25. How do I "see myself" and my education now? I reflect on the way we perceived education in our history  - the Renaissance, the Greeks, the times before radio, television, the orators of old, the King and I-tutors. We have degraded learning into a primarily physical focus, another subject - "types of learning and techniques of learning." What does knowledge truly mean to us? How does it serve us? What does knowledge do for our minds? Our health? Why do we learn? Is it fun?

Travel Time

Beauties

Watching the news these days I’m almost mesmerized by the scenes. Rushing, flooding water, raging fires, buildings reduced to rubble with people standing at the periphery just staring with the profound weight of that shock evident in their faces and bodies. Lately I’ve gotten into this rhythm of reading and being urged to find books that help me understand the reality of what I’m watching, what we’re experiencing at these grand scales. The book I’m reading about the Atlantic Ocean has even more meaning now, with the Gulf of Mexico’s Oil spill - the aerial views of the currents, the multiple reflections of the surface sheen and the heavier crude oil at other depths; the gannet’s oil-soaked feathers. I remember some of those beaches well. We have spent many family vacations at Gulf Shores, Pensacola, Seaside, Gulfport, Apalachicola. (I met a photographer named Richard Bickel while visiting St. George’s Island years ago – take a look at his beautiful black-and-whites of the Bay area.) The white sand and blue water is always memorable, beautiful, and made more so by the memories of hurricane-force winds and tar debris blown onto other shores with rain. So many ways we’re reminding ourselves how everything is connected, and that everything is Energy. The cooperation between agencies, between neighbors, between friends and family is always more evident and real in such disasters, and this is a gift to be reminded of anytime.

Another wonderful book I’ve been reading now, recommended to me by my cousin, is Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature by Kathleen Dean Moore. Once I started reading I wanted to know more about Moore, so looked her up and found out about her Spring Creek Project, among other things. I was delighted to find her emphasis on “the philosophy of nature,” as this emphasized the poetic beauty of her lovely expression and experience as part of nature. In the section I read recently she quoted Rachel Carson, one of her heroes: “Those who dwell . . . among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, Rachel Carson believed, ‘ are never alone or weary of life.” (68) Moore believes this too. In this section she writes beautifully about floating in her kayak on a small one Memorial Day in the mountains. The water was cold, the air colder, the fog rose and the colors disappeared as the silver world wrapped itself around her like a scarf suffused with light. She felt herself becoming part of the evening, suffused with the light, the dark, the quiet, the brightness. “There are no edges in this world,” she wrote. “The water, the snow, the bear, the memory of the blackbird, the urgent growth of the lily are all one beautiful, mysterious thing, and we are part of that one thing. How, then, can we ever be alone? That’s what I was thinking about, out there on the water, and how odd it was that when Rachel Carson wrote those brave, true words, she was a frail woman, dying of cancer, surely weary, surely alone in the dark on the frayed edge of the Atlantic. But maybe there was a moon that night, a waxing moon, fat and yellow. Maybe moonlight rode the leading edge of the surf at her feet, and when the surf slid back to sea, maybe the moonlight sizzled with that sound of sand on sand.” (68-69)

I love how she expresses this…becoming aware of all nature, including herself, as one.

Yesterday was a day I felt I lived in a ragged rhythm. After a wonderful sleep, the day started slowly. I’d had plans to work/play more in the yard, cleaning and tending to the flowers and more, but by the time I began, the heat and humidity were intense and my energy was no longer motivated by that activity. I’d wait, I decided. Each thing I began it seemed I trailed off as momentum faded. Interesting to be conscious of this energy change. I put my feet in the cold water in the pool, lay back on the hot brick, and let my mind sense the clouds, the breeze, the heat, the flow. Mother’s Day reminders bring my mother even more to mind, and I am sharing that cloud sense with her, with my siblings, and more. It was a great interlude, the cold feet, hot brick, cloud sensing. When I went in again, there were beautiful cut flowers in the bright blue vase on the table - irises to write home about! We sat outside for a while as the evening cooled, remembering orators of old, and childhood pleasures. There are no edges in this world….