Like the mighty cypress, may you be rooted in core earth energy and fed by the Great Flowing River today.
formidable woman: toward a culture of gentleness
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
21 Days Sugar-free
I have known for a long time that granulated sugar is poisonous in the body. I have also known that I should stop using it, but, even though I've abstained from sugar for years at a time before, I haven't been able to do so completely and forever. And for the last year and four months, I've been eating a healthy (and I use that term very loosely) dose daily in the form of cookies, chocolate bars (especially Snickers and Turtles), Hagen Das ice cream and Starbucks vanilla lattes. I mean, dark chocolate is good for me. Right? It has all those antioxidants and acts like morphine in the blood stream. Ahhh! The point.
Yes, I'm addicted. For thirty plus years, I have abstained from alcohol and other pharmaceutical mind altering drugs. Well, I did use anti-depressants for a couple of years, a few years ago until I gained twenty pounds and felt more depressed than ever. How is that helpful? Create a drug designed to alleviate depression but make the drug deaden your ability to have orgasm, give you insomnia and anxiety, and make you gain weight not to mention that you might kill yourself because now you are not only depressed but suicidal.
Anyway, I also eat a gluten-free diet and avoid dairy. There are very good reasons for those choices but that is a topic for another day. What I mean to say is that I have precious few feel-good, "take-me-away-Calgon" food choices left if I don't eat sugar. Well, there's still caffeine. Right? Wrong.
Caffeine and I itch and zing. Plus the dirty bastard picks me up like a roller coaster and drops me like a rock. So does sugar. So what? Every addict knows that's the whole point. UP! No matter how far down you have to go afterward, UP! or mellow, not feeling what you WERE feeling is what matters.
So for thirty years at least, I've known that I use sugar and caffeine as a substitute for alcohol. There's no shame in that. In fact, some wise individuals helped me learn how to use them as substitutes when I decided not to drink again. It worked along with lots of other interventions.
"Why quit doing what works now," you ask. Apparently, I'm being called through my body to a higher plane of existence. Do I go there voluntarily? No. I go there because what I was doing doesn't work anymore. Period. Despite five years of medically unexplainable debilitating fatigue (Oh! Sure. Docs have wrapped a name around it but can't find the root of it), despite unwanted weight gain and clear signs of allergic reaction (especially coughing) to the use of the two drugs together (sugar & caffeine), despite profound manic-like spikes and dips in energy, despite a bought with cancer and the knowledge I have that cancer feeds on sugar, I have been determined not to give up one more blessed thing until I have to do so. Did I mention I quit smoking too? You see how I might be resistant to letting go of these two VERY DEAR substances.
But, now I have to. Turns out I've had a low grade bacterial (and viral, but I knew about that one) infection for who knows how long. Bacteria and viruses feed on sugar. Coffee and sugar acidify the system. Foreign organisms thrive in an acidic environment. (Read Alkalize or Die: Superior Health Through Proper Alkaline-Acid Balance
). On top of that, I'd begun to be less and less able to breathe deeply (or even at all sometimes) without coughing and noticed that the "coughing fits" almost always followed (drum roll...) my morning, afternoon, and evening cups of straight-up, leaded, espresso-like coffee. Yes, I made the brew stronger and stronger with each passing week, buying special whole beans, grinding them fresh every morning to get the most flavor and, let's face it, kick!
Why quit 21 days ago? What's so life-changing about March 24, 2011? That's the day I had to begin a cycle of two, count them, two antibiotics to kill the bacteria I was so successfully growing. Not okay.
So I quit. Cold turkey on the sugar (still eating high glycemic index foods but not granulated sugar or honey, so give me a break!) and have weaned down to quarter-caff coffee twice a day. Whew! What a ride.
I'm pissed off in a flash at every indiscretion. It happened yesterday on the phone with a customer service representative from an organization I'd joined who refused to refund my money. I never do that. I'm the passive one in the back (mostly, unless I'm not and I'm in your face). My point is, my passion has surfaced and I can't think of a way to ameliorate it's whims. And maybe I shouldn't. Maybe all that fatigue was really me trying to hold ALL THAT back. And there's a lot. I mean I'm the locomotive off its tracks in my recent dream. I'm the gargantuan, red elephant in another charging.
What am I going to do with all this energy, drive, and ambition that I've been drugging for so long?
Watch out, Baby. Here I come!
Yes, I'm addicted. For thirty plus years, I have abstained from alcohol and other pharmaceutical mind altering drugs. Well, I did use anti-depressants for a couple of years, a few years ago until I gained twenty pounds and felt more depressed than ever. How is that helpful? Create a drug designed to alleviate depression but make the drug deaden your ability to have orgasm, give you insomnia and anxiety, and make you gain weight not to mention that you might kill yourself because now you are not only depressed but suicidal.
Anyway, I also eat a gluten-free diet and avoid dairy. There are very good reasons for those choices but that is a topic for another day. What I mean to say is that I have precious few feel-good, "take-me-away-Calgon" food choices left if I don't eat sugar. Well, there's still caffeine. Right? Wrong.
Caffeine and I itch and zing. Plus the dirty bastard picks me up like a roller coaster and drops me like a rock. So does sugar. So what? Every addict knows that's the whole point. UP! No matter how far down you have to go afterward, UP! or mellow, not feeling what you WERE feeling is what matters.
So for thirty years at least, I've known that I use sugar and caffeine as a substitute for alcohol. There's no shame in that. In fact, some wise individuals helped me learn how to use them as substitutes when I decided not to drink again. It worked along with lots of other interventions.
"Why quit doing what works now," you ask. Apparently, I'm being called through my body to a higher plane of existence. Do I go there voluntarily? No. I go there because what I was doing doesn't work anymore. Period. Despite five years of medically unexplainable debilitating fatigue (Oh! Sure. Docs have wrapped a name around it but can't find the root of it), despite unwanted weight gain and clear signs of allergic reaction (especially coughing) to the use of the two drugs together (sugar & caffeine), despite profound manic-like spikes and dips in energy, despite a bought with cancer and the knowledge I have that cancer feeds on sugar, I have been determined not to give up one more blessed thing until I have to do so. Did I mention I quit smoking too? You see how I might be resistant to letting go of these two VERY DEAR substances.
But, now I have to. Turns out I've had a low grade bacterial (and viral, but I knew about that one) infection for who knows how long. Bacteria and viruses feed on sugar. Coffee and sugar acidify the system. Foreign organisms thrive in an acidic environment. (Read Alkalize or Die: Superior Health Through Proper Alkaline-Acid Balance
). On top of that, I'd begun to be less and less able to breathe deeply (or even at all sometimes) without coughing and noticed that the "coughing fits" almost always followed (drum roll...) my morning, afternoon, and evening cups of straight-up, leaded, espresso-like coffee. Yes, I made the brew stronger and stronger with each passing week, buying special whole beans, grinding them fresh every morning to get the most flavor and, let's face it, kick!Why quit 21 days ago? What's so life-changing about March 24, 2011? That's the day I had to begin a cycle of two, count them, two antibiotics to kill the bacteria I was so successfully growing. Not okay.
So I quit. Cold turkey on the sugar (still eating high glycemic index foods but not granulated sugar or honey, so give me a break!) and have weaned down to quarter-caff coffee twice a day. Whew! What a ride.
I'm pissed off in a flash at every indiscretion. It happened yesterday on the phone with a customer service representative from an organization I'd joined who refused to refund my money. I never do that. I'm the passive one in the back (mostly, unless I'm not and I'm in your face). My point is, my passion has surfaced and I can't think of a way to ameliorate it's whims. And maybe I shouldn't. Maybe all that fatigue was really me trying to hold ALL THAT back. And there's a lot. I mean I'm the locomotive off its tracks in my recent dream. I'm the gargantuan, red elephant in another charging.
What am I going to do with all this energy, drive, and ambition that I've been drugging for so long?
Watch out, Baby. Here I come!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
A Mantra for Tough Times
When you give voice to the truth within you, the angels also sing.
Lama Surya Das
Being Southern Baptist and baptized twice as a child, becoming agnostic as a young adult, returning to Christianity in mid-life as an Episcopalian and then as a Methodist while processing through formal discernment about becoming a traditional Christian minister led me to abandon all of the above and seek an alternative spirituality.
Engaging in the study of the Human Energy Field, becoming a Licensed Massage Therapist, and integrating that body of knowledge into my work as an artist-educator is my ordination. Helping myself, the planet, and others heal is my ministry.
I don’t know about you, but walking the human path of ordinary days is challenging enough for me. Between birth and death, I will walk many roads, each with its own landscape. But in these economically, environmentally, and politically tough times it is easy for me to be convinced that remaining centered, not allowing apparent pitfalls and distractions to rob me of a fearless life full of joy and contentment is impossible.
"What do you mean 'apparent pitfalls and distractions?' My problems aren’t apparent. The problems of the earth aren’t apparent. They’re real," you say.
That’s just my point. Yes, the experiences we have are real. We are having them. Incomes fluctuate or disappear, bodies become ill, accidents happen. But beyond all that, beyond the noise of those experiences and the passionate responses we allow them to evoke in us, is another reality. The Reality.
That is “the truth within” of which Lama Surya Das speaks.
The Truth is that we are not merely our physical bodies. We are much more and the influence we have as beings on the planet reaches far beyond our bodies. Our thoughts have power. What we focus upon changes the apparent reality we eventually experience. Whatever I am thinking about strongly becomes my meditation and therefore my prayer because it sets up a certain vibration within me to which other like vibrations are attracted.
In other words, if I walk around all day harboring anger, I am producing in a real-time, physiological way, negative vibrations in my body, in the physical space around me (my auric field), and on and on into the atmosphere in the same way a light beam never stops. It is simply not enough then to make a supplication to God to bless the one at whom I am angry. If I vibrate angry (let myself hold onto the energy that is angry), I emit and attract angry or some other negative vibration of the same quality.
The Truth is that we are not merely our physical bodies. We are much more and the influence we have as beings on the planet reaches far beyond our bodies. Our thoughts have power. What we focus upon changes the apparent reality we eventually experience. Whatever I am thinking about strongly becomes my meditation and therefore my prayer because it sets up a certain vibration within me to which other like vibrations are attracted.
In other words, if I walk around all day harboring anger, I am producing in a real-time, physiological way, negative vibrations in my body, in the physical space around me (my auric field), and on and on into the atmosphere in the same way a light beam never stops. It is simply not enough then to make a supplication to God to bless the one at whom I am angry. If I vibrate angry (let myself hold onto the energy that is angry), I emit and attract angry or some other negative vibration of the same quality.
The only way any God can help change that vibration is for me to summon, focus upon, and then resonate “the truth within” which is of the Highest Vibration, BECAUSE I have free will. If I want to hold on to the energy of anger, Great Spirit will not interfere. But if I desire to release and move the energy to a higher vibrational level, Great Spirit Moves to help make this happen. This allows the Highest Vibration (which is God) to change me from the inside out, remembering for me, through me who I Truly Am.
It is a quantum shift. The problem didn’t arise from the apparent level, so it’s no use me trying to “solve” it from the apparent level. I have to choose to enter the non-physical dimension and trust the mystery of its workings. Using a mantra is one way to do this.
A mantra is to meditation as the gadget is to a web page: an easy way to get where you want to go in order to achieve a task. These sacred words of extreme power have been used for millennia to shift energies for the Highest Good in the individual practitioner and in the atmosphere. It is not necessary to focus on the literal translation of the words. In fact, it is not advisable, as the purpose is to lift the mind-body-spirit out of the literal world.
It is a quantum shift. The problem didn’t arise from the apparent level, so it’s no use me trying to “solve” it from the apparent level. I have to choose to enter the non-physical dimension and trust the mystery of its workings. Using a mantra is one way to do this.
A mantra is to meditation as the gadget is to a web page: an easy way to get where you want to go in order to achieve a task. These sacred words of extreme power have been used for millennia to shift energies for the Highest Good in the individual practitioner and in the atmosphere. It is not necessary to focus on the literal translation of the words. In fact, it is not advisable, as the purpose is to lift the mind-body-spirit out of the literal world.
So, the next time you find yourself clogged, befuddled, tense, or simply undone try this:
Wherever you are simply begin by intentionally turning your mind away from thinking about “the problem,” and begin to sing or chant the following mantra: Om Mani Pedmé Hung. Om Mani Pedmé Hung. Om Mani Pedmé Hung.
It is a Tibetan mantra, the divine mantra of unconditional love and compassion. The words literally mean “the jewel in the lotus.” Make up your own tune or say it in a rhythmic, patterned way. Try doing this for as many minutes in a row as you can manage. Even one minute of chanting can make amazing, palpable shifts in your perception of and experience of your world.
It is a Tibetan mantra, the divine mantra of unconditional love and compassion. The words literally mean “the jewel in the lotus.” Make up your own tune or say it in a rhythmic, patterned way. Try doing this for as many minutes in a row as you can manage. Even one minute of chanting can make amazing, palpable shifts in your perception of and experience of your world.
Reference:
Lama Surya Das, Broadway Books, New York, 1998.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
A Light of Great Beauty
I have been revisiting the Course In Miracles 3rd
as a tool for morning meditation. Occasionally, when I settle back into stillness, I begin to "hear" a straightforward communication from my guides. I do not hear an audible voice, but instead a stream of coherent thought occurs. This is how Helen Schucman, the author of the Course describes her own experience, as merely taking a sort of dictation. Much of the follow thought I offer is as a result of my twenty year study of the Course and how its teachings have integrated my spiritual understanding. However, this "block" of teaching I received is written here exactly as I received it during my meditation and is not contrived or composed as an essay might be. To my knowledge, there is only one direct quote from the Course in this teaching and it appears in quotation marks and is from Lesson 31 on page 48 in the Workbook for Students. It is a particularly pivotal lesson in my own spiritual growth process, one to which I often turn for changing my mind and calling forth the "Holy Instant."
as a tool for morning meditation. Occasionally, when I settle back into stillness, I begin to "hear" a straightforward communication from my guides. I do not hear an audible voice, but instead a stream of coherent thought occurs. This is how Helen Schucman, the author of the Course describes her own experience, as merely taking a sort of dictation. Much of the follow thought I offer is as a result of my twenty year study of the Course and how its teachings have integrated my spiritual understanding. However, this "block" of teaching I received is written here exactly as I received it during my meditation and is not contrived or composed as an essay might be. To my knowledge, there is only one direct quote from the Course in this teaching and it appears in quotation marks and is from Lesson 31 on page 48 in the Workbook for Students. It is a particularly pivotal lesson in my own spiritual growth process, one to which I often turn for changing my mind and calling forth the "Holy Instant."You will notice that the pronoun "I" is used in the first paragraph as the voice of the ego self and in the second paragraph as the voice of the Teacher. In the Course, the teacher's voice is identified as The Christ. When I dowse to discern whose voice is coming through during this dictation, my guides indicate that it is also the voice of The Christ.
Now you know, if you have been reading my blog, that I have great doubt, even resistance to current religious context for The Christ. Nevertheless, the teachings of The Christ do form the foundation for my spiritual understanding and my studies have shown, along with direct knowings like this one, that the same Great Wisdom that spoke through The Christ has also spoken throughout history, incarnate in many teachers, and continues to speak in the present day to and through those "who have ears to hear" and courage to speak.
So, it is with deep gratitude and profound humility that I offer to you what has been give to me. Perhaps the Truth of this teaching will be of value to you as well.
August 27, 2010
Meditation Dictation
It is not my job to change the world I see because the world I see is illusion. It is only my job to correct the errors I have made in my perception of the world I see. What I think I see may not be so. I set down the burden of decision. It is not my job to decide what is so and what is not so. I have only to look on All Things with Love. That is enough. I do not have the eyes of Love. But there is One Who Loves who will see through me for me if I will let Her.
Bodies die and decay yet I am alive. Do not look with the body's eyes. They cannot see. Only I can see Truly. Beyond the veil of flesh and appearances shines a Light of Great Beauty. Do not hold it bound. You cannot. But you can choose not to see. That choice does not dim the Light at all. You are the Light and not the darkness, "not the victim of the world you [have] seen." Let the moment come when All That You Are is all that you see.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
when i get to the other side
 |
| THE DRESS |
Last week, I went to lunch with daughter #1 who is getting married next October. She wants to get married in Italy. Mr. Friendly has been struggling with that request, understandably. It's really far from here and you can't drive there not to mention the (ahem!) cost. Note to 50-somethings: save your money! Last July, daughter #2 got married. Mom was alive then. She could not attend the wedding, but she bought THE DRESS. Daughter #2 was a vision in it and Mom was delighted to gift it to her.
When Mom died, she left me a small inheritance. Since daughter #1 has been talking wedding in Italy, I've been saying, "And Mom will spring for the dress!" That felt right and fair and I know Mom would be doing that herself if she were still in her body and had her hands on her check book!
Back to Mr. Friendly and the balking. Daughter # 2 visited San Antonio week before last for my birthday. Over dinner I said, "We have to talk wedding with your sister. I need details." So, she and I grilled Daughter #1 over chips and salsa. Daughter #1, who NEVER drinks at all, had two Coconut Margaritas (yuk! but like I said, she's not a drinker). Daughter #2 had two real Margaritas. I had too many glasses of iced tea. But we got to the crux of it: Daughter #1 is worried that she'll send out the "save the dates" and Mr. Friendly will flake and not actually spring for the Italian wedding.
Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. And you're wondering what this has to do with Mom? Back to lunch last week with Daughter #1. It dawned on me that the price of a dress might go a long way toward a trip for two to Italy (did I mention that THE DRESS was a vision?). I mentioned this possibility with some trepidation as Daughter #1 has a clear vision of what an Italian wedding looks like and I wasn't sure that the dress could be forgone.
I worked up my courage and after lunch, I ventured the plan: I (Mom and Granddaddy too, to be fair, as he died 29 days after Mom last year and also left me a small inheritance) will give you the same "dress-money" as we gave your sister, plus a little so, no matter what, you can go to Italy and get married there.
She loved it. She said, "That feels really good (knowing now she can go and if Mr. Friendly cowboys up for non-essentials like a dress, a photographer, a small reception, so be it).
As soon as I told her, tears began to stream down my face. As I said, "I know Mom will like this too," I began to bawl and so did Daughter #1. The whole truck filled with super-powered love, the kind that swirls and lifts and zooms around. I began to shake. I knew Mom was there and dancing a jig! Daughter #1 hopped out of the truck, renewed with hope of her dream coming true.
Now that's a grandmother's dream too, right? So, just in case I had any doubt that Mom was totally "IN," on the way home the scent of Pine filled the truck. That's the scent she and I agreed her Spirit would have, if she had a choice. I'd sensed it over and over again, first on the morning of the day she died and then for weeks after her transition, but I haven't sensed it for some time now until that day last week. Wow. I began to cry again, these tears a brew of bitter-sweet melancholy and joy. I do miss her so.
Even though I have not sensed the aroma of her Spirit much lately, all sense that I do get of her is deep peace and assurance. Last night I was aware of her Spirit in meditation. I was feeling down. I spoke to her, asking for "help." A few seconds passed and then a song by Walela
came to mind from a CD I'd given her a few years ago and which I played some during her memorial: "And when I get to the other side, I'm gonna put on my wings and fly...." Wow. I wasn't thinking of that song at all and then there it was in my head, just that line. I smiled. "So, did you put on your wings and fly?" I asked. The thought, "yes, yes I did" came back. "Good," I said, "Good." "Can you hear me?" I asked. The thought, "yes, yes I can." "I really need some help," I said. The thought, "I am here, but I am not The Christ. Pray to The Christ." Ahhh! She's still working on me from "the other side" and she's still here for me as she always said she would be.
Apparently, the veil really is very thin.
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