Meanwhile the Goldenrod

Recently I have begun to appreciate more deeply and more consciously how perfect it is that change is part of our design to grow as evolving consciousness. I know of several people who have died in the past few weeks, people who were close to friends of mine. As each person has shared their perception and feelings about the sudden changes in and of life, I have thought more about what I have learned in my life, so far, about change, about life and death, about the joy potential of living each moment.  As my parents lived their deaths, they helped me to learn about my own beliefs about life and about death (change), and about what commitment to life means. Each thought, word, and action is a symphony within itself that reverberates as our life imprint. (Sound empty, like so many “campaign” words?) Keep thinking. Do you really believe that?

Each dose of a drug my parents’ doctors prescribed, for example, came with its own provenance – it s own realm of creation, intention, purpose, and potential effects. As I researched and read labels to better understand the world of pharmacology, I became more aware of my own beliefs about “the unknown” and my own strength of mind to know that knowledge gained is power to be used through the freedom we each have to choose and to improve the quality of our life through our choices. I understand now, that this is the same pattern of change I began to learn, accept, and live in relationship to food, water, and all manner of ingesting and inhaling. Think, choose, do – as we gain knowledge, our behavior will change, IF we are growing. We will feel differently, happier, IF we are growing. We will begin to know our own strength, and the equal strength of others as human beings, to choose and to Do.

What will happen if “we” don’t take this, don’t do this, as recommended?

What could happen if we do?

How do I feel about these thoughts and potentials of reality?

“We have to follow the rules.” Who made the rules and why?

What are we being loyal to and why?

What motivates me to change?

Am I afraid or excited about change?

Do I know and trust my Soul and Spirit mind beyond my physical mind? 

How do I feel?

Since I’m fifty years old now (! – actually, we triplets have always multiplied our age by 3, so that makes me 150) and both of our parents have died, I have a different reference point than even a few years ago. The motivation to learn more, to share more, to trust more in the gift of the Spirit mind that we are given to help guide us as we are open to learning and growing (changing), is a deep, deep river of energy that is as calming as the ocean can be to the mind that loves to hear the wind, to see the sparkles of light dancing off of the waves, taste the salt of endless travel in experienced water that remembers power and the purity of light and movement.  Little glimmers of fear that I feel in moments of “what if”, I recognize now as eternal seeds of promise given to me as invitations to “let go” and trust, know love, enjoy the spontaneous energy of life itself, always creating. 

I just had notice from a County official about overdue property taxes. At first I was confused.  What? With that, a slight glimmer of fear of, oh no, I don’t have that! Then, the calming of – simply take the steps of thinking, communicating, resolving. The choosing and doing that life is made of.  As we learn and grow as a mind, with love as our guide, we begin to civilize ourselves. Most parents know this well! The step-by-step creating of day-by-day life is what makes a life, builds a legacy of energy that lives on. As I watch the news (which I do a lot), I am so conscious of the different energies we present as the world and which we choose to focus on. This morning, as part of the CNN Heroes updates, I heard a story about an Afghan woman who moved back to Afghanistan after living in the US for 38 years. She moved because, as she said, she wanted to show the world that all Muslims are not terrorists. She opened a school for Afghan girls.  http://www.raziasrayofhope.org/about-the-foundation.html  $300 educates one Afghan girl for one year. That puts dollars into another perspective.

This is an example to me of one woman, and all of those she has magnetized (inspired) to support her cause of positive change for humankind, who has chosen to commit her efforts to change and growth by DOING. “Change is growth; therefore, if we are open to change we will always grow. Once we accept change, the only requirement for growth is the commitment that we must make to the doing.”  (Bridges of Consciousness, ix-x)  As I’m reading Kathy Oddenino’s second book, Bridges of Consciousness, I’m thinking of all of these things. I’m reading another phrase I read once – “the illusion of death does not change what is.” I am so grateful to have chosen to expose myself to the knowledge of who we are as consciousness – to challenge my mind to think beyond where I have thought before.

As we talked about death and change, a friend asked me how I know that death is not terrible (as I haven’t experienced it). My answer was that I have learned, so far, and through studying Spiritual Philosophy, that I create my own reality and through my physical experience I live each pattern of change and growth as a spiritual being – so what happens (as I create and experience life, change) as I live and change, day by day, through all interaction and relationships, teaches me that all change happens in the same ways. We get better at it at the most profound levels, if we can recognize the value of change for us. Loss is real as change happens, but what we gain through understanding of energy that we share and that we are encompasses loss the way a wonderful warm hug from a mother or friend or lover does in the moment we feel the love shared.

Meanwhile, the goldenrod we planted last week is urging its buds into bloom, and that makes me smile. Rain drips a bit after the hard rain (which was welcome), and the trees stand tall still as the seasons change, moment by moment. 

Awake

One more habit of thinking,

Lingering urges 

Baked from early childhood

And carried from days before,

I’m letting go,

Letting fly like the golden lit lanterns

Floating with all good wishes aloft.

Use your happy voice, my loving Dad said then,

And I remember now and again.

My smiling Dad, my laughing Mother,

My little girl wishes of waving wands,

Conducting the music

Of my spheres,

Gently waving the goodbye

Into new dreams. 

Lapses in Synapses Revisited

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.  Lapses in synapses. The aliens saw a box of infinity where Trudy saw a box of Cream of Wheat. Listening to the amazing space reports from journalists today as they shared the Mars information from scientists who were more animated than I’ve ever seen them, I celebrated with them. I didn’t jump from my chair, or shout with arms outstretched, but I felt their true enthusiasm and I smiled with each report I heard. I watched the images over and over, as the NASA engineers explained the decades-long and billion-dollar project, how incredulous they were that all went flawlessly. If I do nothing else in my life, one said, this will have been enough. Wow, the reporter said, that’s saying a lot. I thought about his words, the way he stood, his vibrating, smiling whole body. He likened the whole project and projections to the moonwalk, those giant images broadcast around the world AND in Times Square. Worlds connecting.

I listened to the reports that one man and the company he worked with proceeded with the project to include the descending imager even after the funds for that piece were pulled due to NASA budget constraints.  They paid it themselves – it was THAT important.  The pride that emanated from these scientists was palpable – in the commitment, the knowledge, the expansion of knowledge, the dedication, the teamwork, the RESULTS, the infinite potential of learning and seeing more of what it means to be human, to have life.  THAT’S what I’m talking about!

All the smiles, the pride and the giddy enjoyment of parachutes, craters, dust, robots, newness, brought back to my mind Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s play (1986 Tony Award) The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life In the Universe. I immediately pulled up clips and reviews via Google. With each one I read, I smiled more. I remembered more bits from the live show I saw eons ago at the Kennedy Center in D.C.  I laughed out loud as I read, and I remember howling with the crowd with tears running down my cheeks while listening in person.

How much we miss when we are afraid people will think we are crazy, Trudy said. That is a good thought to mull over. We will ultimately know the difference between the thoughts and actions that make us laugh as we share in our humanity and those that come from a dark fear of other beings of any kind, human, animal, beasts of the Southern or Northern Wild, “mud people,” ghosts, all manner of noisy things.

Never underestimate the power of the human mind to forget, Wagner and Tomlin wrote in one monologue. I add, never forget the power of the human mind to remember. To remember where we came from, beyond the corner of Walk/Don’t Walk, beyond the village of  our ancestors, beyond the small well-lit apartment, the suburban lawn and house with driveway and dogs, the farm where cows, pigs revel and the sun sets beautifully behind trees as if this is the only place on Earth.  Ours is a legacy to BE the intelligent life in the Universe, as we laugh at our ways, as we learn more, as we seek the knowledge to truly know why we have such lapses in synapses. When children tell stories, listen carefully. When older people repeat stories, listen carefully. We the people are called to Listen to the voices within us and celebrate, share the best of who we are. The energy of the interweaving of we are and the lives we share at all times of Earth, Nature, are singing to all who will listen. We are each responsible for aggressively eradicating ignorance as we open to the Ethical Values of knowledge which teach us at any age of life and time as we are open to learning to be love.

Exotica

I googled “exotica” and was amazed to find so many references, definitions – from a musical genre (1950s-60s Americana, musical “Shangri-la”) to a strip club near Toronto. I got curious because I read a quote somewhere recently which said that we humans are less interested in exploring the “intangible” to understand more than we are in retreating into what we think we already know and reinforcing those boundaries (beliefs). I’ve been thinking about that concept, and that led me to thinking about habits – my habits, our human habits. Which led me to thinking about thinking, again, and how little we encourage thinking – as going beyond where we think we have been before.

Do we really resist thinking? What does that say about our learning? I know I have resisted thinking, and therefore learning (changing). I know because I have learned about my habits and my motivations to change my habits. I know because I respect the value of love in honoring our best selves and how we therefore nurture learning (change) as we grow and become better thinkers. I’ve devoted my life to “Knowing thyself,” and I know the rewards are infinite (keep on giving). I know because I feel the happiness inherent in the wind as it caresses my skin (such as right now, with the patio door open and the birds busy and chirping in all manner of degrees and volume). I know because as lunch (spaghetti) cooks on the stove, I’m smelling the changing essence of those chemicals (garlic, onions, meatballs, tomatoes) as the heat encourages them to intermingle and it makes me salivate and smile.

Thinking is not just an intellectual activity – as I used to think. Thinking is sharing the joy of loving life as I explore relationships of all levels – birds, smells, spring greens, laughing with friends, asking questions and getting answers, leading into different spirals of energy expression. What next? Then the “next” reveals itself. Resistance isn’t good or bad – it’s resistance. It has its place, its role in the world we’ve created. Resistance to tyranny, for instance – good? Yes! If we’re motivated for good and expanding the change for “greater good.” We can determine those levels for ourselves, as we must. Resistance is a description of an energy expression, an action (or inaction). As we choose to live “for love,” we’re honoring our spirit of creation and inviting more love to share as we honor the abundance in our world, beginning in our cells’ expression and appreciation of life (celebration). Happy May everyone!

Acts of Energy Conversion

Ribs

Images

Racks

Roots

Skeletons

Christmas trees

Fish bones

Symbols

Raiment

Garment racks

Hanging

Radiation

Emanation

Expression

Sky

Light

Water

Wait

Be

Love

Fun means so much more when the Mind is Fed with the Truth of Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

“We can experience memory of past lives, future lives, and Earth in its evolution. We can see the levels of growth in ourself and others as clearly as we can see the steps of a stairway that we climb. Spirit energy is loving energy.  There is no fear, judgement, or blame to be heard or seen when we listen to our spirit self. In listening to our soul energy of past lives, we view the experience from our spirit energy, which is only once again loving and truthful energy that will clarify our soul lessons if we are open to listening.” (Love, Truth & Perception,245)

What does it mean to “grow and change”? I met Kathy Oddenino in 1990 or 1991, in Annapolis, Maryland, pestered by a friend until I agreed to go to a book class held at Kathy’s home. Kathy had written three books at that time. When I walked into her basement where the class was being held, a big group of people was already mingling and excited. Then, I usually preferred to stay quiet in a group until or unless I felt a security of “being free.”  (What does “being free, safe, protected” mean?) When I met Kathy minutes later, she reached her hand towards me and smiled with her mouth, her twinkling piercing eyes, and everything about her energy presence. I remember the moment vividly. I had never experienced that particular sensation before, though I didn’t have any words or much understanding of what such feelings meant. I began to read Kathy’s books, and when she asked me to work with her as she continued producing more books, I was surprised, grateful, and eager. Working with Kathy’s books was a perfect invitation for me to learn to free myself from old iron-clad beliefs and perceptions about myself and about life.

Love, Truth & Perception was the first book we worked on, and I have continued to read it over the years. I read it again over the last few months. Twenty years later, this brings me back to what does it mean to grow and change? What does it mean to teach growth and change? Watching the news last night and this morning about the beautiful and talented Whitney Houston, I think of this. As I listen to the stories about our human and American failures and successes, our excesses and struggles, our collective motivation to change and meet the systemic needs of our educational system, I think of this. I watch teachers of all kinds gather support, infuse enthusiasm into learning and “going beyond where we have gone before,” and I think of my beginnings of “learning.” Our mother taught us at home (in Nigeria) for first and second grades, before we went to public school in Memphis for a year. I learned, got through school, graduate school, taught English for a short time, and still am always interested in our collective perception of knowledge and what it means to “learn, grow and change.” I was not taught, until I began studying Spiritual Philosophy, that our greatest addiction is fear. Whitney Houston knew that her greatest “demon” was herself. Where does “growth and change” fit into our education? Our greatest challenge, invitation, and gift is to Know Thyself. How do we apply the knowledge we gather?

The other night I watched the tv show A Gifted Man, a recent favorite. In this episode, a mother crazed with grief and anger because of the death of her young daughter, blames neurosurgeon Michael Holt for the fact that his testimony is responsible for the young arsonist going free. High drama ensues at the free clinic (previously run by Holt’s ex-wife, family physician and now ghost who “haunts” him), and at a critical moment Holt calms the woman by saying something like, what if what happens when we die is not what we think? What if those we love are around us, watching us? If your daughter was watching you, what would you want her to see, watching a man die or doing the right thing? The distraught woman begins to cry, overcome by the thought, the sadness, and her anger melts away. The plot turns. As I watched this scene play out, I thought about the moment that Michael Holt chose to say words he had probably not thought many times, and I imagine never said aloud. That moment is the moment we change our world, our internal world opens a little more, because we change our thinking.

“Our magnification of energy allows us to become aware of the spirit realms within us and to consciously use this power within our life.” (220)

Recently I attended my niece’s wedding in Texas. A full day or two - a beautiful wedding and wonderful reception (great food, celebration, dancing with my siblings, my cutting-edge young cousins, my niece – four years old and flower girl, beautiful in her navy blue party dress and in constant motion on the dance floor, spinning on hands and patent leather shoes, dizzy in the flashing lights and parquet floor, and all the joyful bodies doing their thing as we do on such happy occasions. I got the last seat on the charter bus back to the hotel. Beside me was one of the groomsmen, whom I had not met. We struck up a conversation, beginning with, and how did you meet the groom?  Quickly, we spoke about love, marriage, commitment, honesty, friendship – the stuff of life. In the short bus ride (20 minutes?), we spoke honestly about what it means to make choices, and to live with consequences. He said he’d married 30 days ago; he said he and the groom, friends since college, are both honest, straightforward people, and they both appreciate what it means to be friends, to keep friendship alive. Arrival at the hotel meant the end of our conversation, yet the moments are memorable, imprinted in my brain – because it’s such a pleasure to celebrate the joy of unions and families and friends being together, and to meet thinking minds that so easily and directly acknowledge the heart of life, what relationships mean to us, what love is.  Each moment matters.

Love, Truth & Perception refreshes my mind screen with this fact-  and getting to the heart of my thoughts, feelings, and memories of all I have lived, what I have learned as I’ve lived. The patterns of the Ethical Values of our Spirit, the soul energy of mind and emotions and experiences that make us who we are, our physical body which is the joy of our spirit in action as we honor what it means to be alive as energy beings. The book is a guide to what it means to grow and change, and offers constant ways to explore the infinite internal frontiers of our internal energy.  “Single” as I am in life, a triplet by birth, I understand more clearly than ever the ladder-rungs of love and the designer-lessons within each of us primarily because of Kathy’s books. Fun means so much more when the mind is fed the truth of internal love – when we are hungry for it. We can consciously enjoy and explore those patterns as we interact with each other, first with and in love. Communicating is an art that must not be lost, and we must read such books (as Love, Truth & Perception) to honor and expand ourselves as we learn to love. If you are curious about our Spiritual Heritage (beyond our religious traditions), and feel the real urge to honor all you are as a whole being guided as a Soul by your Spirit self – read Kathy’s books! Join forces as seekers of knowledge, and let’s keep the dance going!

The Click of Stop-Time

The watch fob,

The click of stop-time –

Each moment matters.

Flick the crimson ascot,

A hint of peach scent

And cream, sharp sweet

Punch of cognac swirl-

Watch the clock wind and unwind.

How I remember the breeze

Through that window

Beneath the big oak trees.

You know what I mean,

Cool rain and the great umbrella

Dripping long after

We kissed beside the

Blooming gardenia with the

Fountain full of angels.

"The embryo is the Word of God"

I've been reading Richard Grossinger's book Embryos, Galaxies, and Sentient Beings. Here is the description from his site at North Atlantic Books: "Why is the universe conscious? What kindles mind inside matter? Why do fundamentalist sciences and religions never ask these questions? This sequel to Embryogenesis deals with the theoretical issues brought up by Embryogenesis, including: the relationship between thermodynamics/entropy and the emergence of life; a speculative set of embryogenic principles for all creatures on all planets in the cosmos; an explanation and critique of Intelligent Design and a proposal for a more dynamic psychospiritual theory of creature development; a series of alternatives to genetic determinism; a discussion of the relationship between consciousness and matter; an interjection of 9/11 (which occurred during the writing of this book); and many other topics."  


One quote got my attention in my last reading: "The embryo is the word of God." He write about the creation of sentient beings, including an explanation of how each stage of creation, from neural tube through levels of an evolutionary "grid," the embryo expresses the characteristics of that level that it has grown into. This makes me think of what I've learned from Spiritual Philosophy about the design and pattern of all creation - we create ourselves as cellular beings (energy) from the level of growth (evolution) that we have grown into; thus, we begin "where we left off" in terms of our consciousness levels(s).

The pattern is consistent in every act of creation - moment by moment, life to life.

I feel the triggers and sparks in different different energy fields, a bit like firefly sparks lighting up the grids I've lived, created, experienced and have designed to explore as an energy explorer (human being). I am asking what I don't know, what I want to know, how I know what I know and think I know, what mines there are as I tiptoe down the cleared dirt road. It has been cleared but not paved, which actually I prefer. (This is the way of the Original Thinker.) What flowers bloom - it's raining today! Happy New Year!

Evolution :)

Adaptations of "the scream,"
image overlays
to happy moments of carefree
thoughts as clouds drifting
in a blue sky.
You and I are drifting, often wordlessly
dancing slowly, smoothly,
effortlessly in a gentle spin of time,
weaving a web of what will also be
shining strings of light to guide each of us
further in our own time

If you want peace, first Know Thyself.

When we think about what we want out of life, in life, we all have wants and goals, a need to love and be loved, to create. We need to express ourselves. Throughout history we have carved our names, symbols of our presence, of what we can see and what we, as a mind, are trying to understand.  We want to go beyond where we have been.

We start as an infant, pulling ourselves up.

During Thanksgiving I saw my four-year-old niece, who fancies herself a Cinderella for now – and she is a princess. She is charming, pretty, and has a presence, a sense of herself in the world as being entitled to all that is within her magical kingdom – everything she can imagine can be delightful and pleasing, exciting beyond description. She has her questions too. Shoes are not living things, she says with a big smile to her brother, Jack (13), when he tells her his shoes have names and talk to him.

We want life to make sense. As I listen to the news I hear the many ways we are trying to put the pieces of the puzzles of our collective lives together. Along with the heroes, large and small, there are shadows of princes and princesses, kings, queens, jesters, wannabes.  Sex abuse among young boys, kidnapping of girls, trying to pin down the “truth” of our affairs, integrity, character, harassment, courage, strength, love. Getting to a new true level of peace and understanding requires that we understand ourselves better, more deeply, more simply so that we can accept and acknowledge the complexity of our creation as we experience our physical lives.

I’ve been reading Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. He quotes Jobs: “It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.” (343) Jobs’s self-described “spiritual partner,” Jony Ive, described his design philosophy this way: “Simplicity … involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simply, you have to go really deep. … The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.”

Why don’t we do this more with our “human design”?  I’ve also been reading Paul Johnson’s book, Socrates: A Man for our Times. Socrates, as I relate to the personality shared, always operated using his intuition, as Jobs strived to do, yet also was inspired and guided to understand the philosophy of how men (especially, yet also women and children) thought, what motivated men to think, speak, act as they did. The delight of life is in the living. Creating as its own activity, the constant nature of us as human energy beings, began with thinking. Sharing our thoughts and feelings is one of our greatest gifts – as sensory beings, and also as a collective being. As a society we are most moved by the personal triumphs we experience – overcoming adversity to triumph through sharing love, in the form of food, listening, services, experience. This IS sharing the love and truth from our heart and the wisdom of our soul, beyond the sharing of physical possessions or needs. These gifts accumulate within us as love, as the Ethical Values which enhance every other experience we share as human beings.

I’ve been studying Spiritual Philosophy for most of my adult life. I was taught religious philosophy as a child, and encouraged to use my mind, to learn, to eagerly anticipate all of the opportunities life has to offer. I love to hear, to learn, how other minds respond to and create opportunities to live and learn (such as Steve Jobs). When I examine my life of 49 years, I can clearly see many of the cycles of complexity I’ve lived to get to the simplicity of “knowing thyself.” Knowing thyself continues to unfold its eternal beauty with each day that passes, as I am open to its exploration and discovery.  As I know myself, I am more open to others and how they experience life.

While at my brother’s family’s home for Thanksgiving dinner, they invited each of us at the table to share what we are thankful for. I had not been at their home for Thanksgiving dinner before, and I was happy to be there, to appreciate how they spent the day which has always been a day of happiness and being together for our family. I loved listening to each person express how they felt and thought in that moment of appreciation.  These moments go beyond our “everyday moments” to raise our consciousness of each other and the value of carving time in our busy lives to acknowledge the gifts of sharing life and love and how we learn.

The “instant gratification” concept that we are so accustomed to (such as the brawling seen by some in the black Friday rush) is what we know we must go beyond. Such chaos is not acceptable to a collective that consciously aims toward “peace, love, and understanding.”  Reading Kathy Oddenino’s Love, Truth &Perception this morning, I marked this: “Our soul and spirit seek acknowledgment.  We can only give and receive that which we are conscious of as real within ourself and our life.” The energies of love, nurturing, caring, support are an art unto themselves. I’ve taught my intellect to analyze life, experience, information. I understand how this teaching is only one level of learning. There is an end to that road, when the intellect is controlled by ego beliefs that have accumulated throughout my soul experience. Without love, we create conflict which leads to war, in the same way that roadblocks begin in our internal energy grid (nervous system) which can lead to disease. Then we must dig deeper, through the complexity to get to the simplicity of our design. Our design is the energy of Ethical Values – the courage to push on, the joy of sharing life and love in its minutiae, the laughter of a princess whose world is her pearl. To know thyself as I know another in the moment of truth – the best self invites the best self from another, and our best self, our spirit, is always loving. I’m grateful for learning, for all who teach me, every moment.


Reading Carl Zimmer's review of Steven Pinker's new book prompted me. The Better Angels of our Nature? Why not write a Ph.D. thesis on human nature? If we want to know peace, first Know Thyself.

Bones, Whitaker, Wall Street, and Our Collective Memory

As I watch the news report constant images of the changes, and the challenges of and to change, every day in our world, I think about how we create collective images of ourselves through our cultures that are part of our personal and therefore social identity.  If you’re a fan of the show Bones, as I am, you may remember Dr. Temperance Brennan, the scientist on the show whose passion, among others, is anthropology – the behavioral patterns of life, of course including human life.  She defines people’s behavior in anthropological ways – such as when Booth’s girlfriend gives him a tie, Brennan explains to him that she has entered into a new level of relating to him, i.e., entered into a “social contract.”  I love the script for this show and the dynamics of the cast of characters because they’re an interesting and very different bunch of personalities who manage, through their work, to unite with the same focus of solving mysteries that lead to catching criminals. Solving of mysteries requires an open mind, and a passion for discovery, for new knowledge. The characters display this well, and often in a humorous way. Knowledge can be “heavy” (challenging) for us at times when our mind has been accustomed to dessert, snacks, rather than the art of the whole meal and its many benefits (internal/external interactions).  I love a good laugh, and I also love knowledge. I appreciate the way different personalities develop and share laughter and knowledge. As the evolution of television shows and advertisements show too, we are constantly seeking to stimulate our minds, our multiple senses. But what are we learning and how are we using this knowledge? As I heard one young man say in recent news from “Occupy Wall Street,” we as a country have gotten off track of focusing on being our best selves not just for our own selves but as a country. (paraphrasing).

Because my mind has always has a place for certain types of trivia, I “automatically” remember and relate to certain cultural references that are part of my conscious memory bank.  I remember scenes from the Poseidon Adventure film which we saw as kids as vividly as if it were yesterday. I remember lines from films that I enjoyed watching 25 years ago. I have favorite commercials on television that change as new cycles of marketing change. I don’t forget the ads though. They remain in my fond-memories bank. As I’ve learned more about memory and what memory means to us as a human being (eternal energy), I think about different memories of my family, all those I love. Scenes, senses expand as different memories are stimulated in my memory nodes in my brain. I remember the scent of frangipani leaves in our back yard when we were children in Nigeria, the bright blooms and the silky white leaves. I remember expressions on our pet monkey’s face. I remember the handle of the machete that our gardener used. I remember the bloodshot eyes of the friend we called Carpenter.  I remember balling my finger into a fist as I lay in the crib, squinting my eyes into shimmering shades of light as I awoke from sleep.  So much to remember once we begin to appreciate memories and share in the thrill of what they mean to us as evolving energy beings. While watching Piers Morgan interviewing Michael Moore and many others “Live from Occupy Wall Street,” I heard Moore say if you’re a citizen you have to be involved. That’s the job of a responsible citizen. To add the word “responsible” ought to be redundant, but I understand more clearly than ever that our lessons in any given life create for us opportunities to learn to love – ourselves, others, life, growth, change, evolution.  

I’ve also listened to several interviews with Mark Whitaker, Managing Editor of CNN Worldwide, on his new book, My Long Trip Home.  What a fascinating story.  I especially appreciated how he explained going back and interviewing, talking to, people from his early life and family, asking questions about events and people. Initially many of the answers he got were things like, I don’t really remember that.  As he continued asking questions, details began to emerge. Memories revive as we are prompted to think, to remember.  A friend told me recently that she heard someone say People just don’t want to think! As she thought about this comment, she said her experience shows that it isn’t that people don’t want to think, but that we don’t necessarily know how to think. Questions prompt us to think as we remember the lives we have lived. The Ethical Values which make up our human design as spiritual beings are the grid of energy that guides us once we open our mind to learning and appreciating the absolute power of energy as our potential to create through love and the often challenging dynamics of growth and change as a human family. “Living in the moment” doesn’t mean forgetting what has gone before or what will come next – to me it means becoming ever more conscious of All That Is!

What a Wonderful World, beyond the "Formidable Pause"

I am driven to go beyond the undeniable power of Pinter’s “formidable pause,” that is, to go beyond the power of the invisible menacing as the only force which carries us in the ocean of our living dynamic. This is a level of energy that we learn to recognize within us, and then to “harness,” consciously use as a power of Good. This is another image of the creative powers we’ve immortalized in our fables and comics and epics, theatre of life of all kinds. For me, this is one more description of the “shift in consciousness” each mind is seeking and is designed to grow into as its mature self, being its best consciously creative (Ethical) self. What a wonderful world this is! Cue Louis Armstrong  and one more version by Jenny and the Grayman Band. Why not love?

Unfolding

Suddenly I saw in one new moment

Of clarity

How each knot in my string

Has been made, which have held fast

To be and hold the beads

That bejewel me,

Which have unraveled,

Purposes untold or no longer needed.

I dreamed last night of

Another me, several interacting,

One a young thin man, tall with long blondish hair

And a trimmed beard to match. A collector,

One only recently used to opening

His doors to parties of interested

People who traveled his path,

Often not knowing what they were looking

For until proximity made itself known

And there, a right turn beneath some old flowering

Tree leaves, was the well-worn, ancient road

Now reopened for treasure-sharing.

Going Gentle into Morning

Talking with my

Womb brother today, a seashell sound

Of whispering love in simple

Daily words like cars, school, soccer,

Beach, axle, poem-

oh, how cells sing when we let them,

hear them.

Post-hurricane here, high heat there,

Blue sky prevails, and, in Dad’s immortal words,

Time marches on!  Energy interweaving in rainbow

Colors even as flood waters rise in tv news,

Families coming together even as strangers

Find Nature’s awesome power beautiful,

Eternal. One Vermont woman slipped into what had been

A small creek, they said, and now was raging rapids. No one

Said how or why she slipped in, simply that her body was

Found downstream in the morning as assessments

Were made. I think of her, a stranger’s pull

as she changed her human energy form, water-borne.

Godspeed, and paddle well, the soul knows when to sleep

And what we are born for, family trees, the fruit of love.

The Nature Principle

The nature principle

Applied when we went outside

And with those dull blades

To branches that seemed to ask for pruning.

We went, urged by our need to be

Outside, tending the grounds,

Disposing of scraps that

Feed other organisms

Into rich, sifting dirt,

And, as always, find other

Things to prune, to notice, acknowledge,

To appreciate, pick up. We’d been pruning

Some trees lately, and this time moved on

To the next in lateral line.

Each has revealed

Glittering lines

And substance, age

In a few rocks buried at the stem, root, trunk.

Each invites our excitement, sometimes

Movement, transplant. So exciting to feel that

Energy of Earth, from tree and intertwining

Branch and all succulent growth that grabs on

So much it tells me of my own succulent patterns

And blooms and weeding needs. It’s beautiful to know

The woodcutter’s strength too – what comes from

Foraging until the life is known, creeping, crawling, or the sheer

Energy itself of growth.

What does "imperative" mean in relationship to change?

The word “imperative” came up last week in our Spiritual Philosophy “tutorial.” We were talking about what motivates us to change, and how we resist change until we reach our own internal urge or motivation – until we are “ready” for change.  I just looked up the word “imperative” in the dictionary, prompted by a friend when we talked about the meeting afterwards. The definition that gets my attention the most is “unavoidable.”  As I’ve studied Spiritual Philosophy for the last 20 years, I have come to understand and appreciate that the mind resists change until we expose ourselves enough to the experiences we create for ourselves to learn – AND we are satisfied and clear that we are learning in ways that are visible and that we are able to express, to articulate in our own unique and spontaneous ways. Words that relate to food, to senses on many levels come to my mind – we savor our learning, our experiences – like the slow taste of rich chocolate, say molten lava cake, when the temperature and texture are perfect, the taste is divine, and the memory seeps into our taste buds and cells and into our history forever.

We come into lives with a blank slate of a mind simply because we are eager to learn, virgin in our design to always move forward in growth and change as a consciousness. Our minds are then patterned by our old beliefs and how we respond to the environment we have chosen for ourselves internally and externally. As we grow and expose ourselves to experiences beyond the womb, beyond the playground, and journey into the forest and field and skyscrapers of the world we have made, we can learn to sift as we learn to savor, to consciously choose as we know what feels good and why, in the best possible (most expansive) way. Energy is real.

For me, learning to celebrate love in its many expressions has been a great challenge and the greatest gift. As I’ve broken down my resistance to love (fear) by knowing myself more through the knowledge of our human design as energy and matter, I’ve felt the life of the world in ways I did not remember or may not have imagined in a way that was clear and “knowable.”

Nature takes its Course

So, as I, a human

On the wing,

As birds remind me,

From hummingbirds’

Tiny busy accelerated life,

To the furry birds just hatched

In the porch ferns...

Only a few clusters of days

And a black snake wraps

Around the porch post,

Slinks across and into the fern

Where the perfectly made

Little nest is nesting,

Makes a meal

And retreats.

I saw the lumps,

Admired the snake,

Then had to chase

And, sadly, kill it.

Nature takes its course.

Summertime Snaps

You Go, Ellen (and thoughts on Energy, Big Waves, Family, Events)

I went to Houston for my (summa cum laude!) niece’s high school graduation this weekend and got a wonderful dip into the world of families and graduating seniors. The buzz of youth at that age and the excitement of their moving on is an infectious palpable energy. My niece is pretty AND smart, and we were proud of her and her classmates as they awaited their turn to walk across the stage and exit into another phase of life. The visit brought to mind my Dad’s mentioning many times that none of his family ever attended any of his graduations. Each time we went to such an event, he mentioned this, with a smile and with the pride of sharing such a time with the honoree. My nephew, in Alabama, graduated two weeks before. When I talked with him and asked how he feels about finishing high school and getting ready for college, he said, I’m definitely ready. I’ve only been waiting twelve years for this…  Each milestone we reach has its own significance for us. I remember high school graduation very well – it had more significance as an “event” than my graduation from college. Our class of 33 (at Hillcrest in Nigeria) was scattering to places around the globe.

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I had four books with me in my carryon bag: Bridges of Consciousness (Kathy Oddenino); The Wave (Susan Casey); Industrial Evolution (Pittsboro local Lyle Estill); and Bird Cloud (Annie Proulx). An interesting combo platter, and I ate well from each one. I’ve long been fascinated by the ocean, big waves, and surfing, especially the big-wave surfing. Last year I read a fantastic book about the Atlantic, so when I saw The Wave it seemed a perfect follow-up. The personalities of the surfers and what they learn and know about the elements, particularly the wind and the waves and themselves, is fascinating to me, as is the history of the science of wave-studying. Waves seem so simple, yet they are the most complex pattern in Nature. I learned something while reading about the internal wave, which I got very excited about because this offers another image to me about the energy of us as living energy beings and the collective consciousness we create and live. Energy streams of us throughout time are always part of us, and we change them as we evolve as a consciousness. When conditions are exactly right, energy forces come together to create a freak wave – other wave patterns may be hidden until gathered by this Giant force to be released as a collective force which is stronger and more impressive than its smaller relations.  I’m no scientist, nor am I a surfer, but I love how our minds thread information into knowledge through experience, and the passion of those who feel the life within each experience that calls them. Spiritual Philosophy teaches us to Know Thyself, and each fascinating piece of information about wave dynamics, passion, and personalities in relationship to Earth elements, teaches me more about the reality of energy, which begins internally. More to come on Industrial Evolution, Bird Cloud, passion, and the Elements…