Archive for Qualities for the Future
Grandmothers Wake Up Call!
Posted by: | CommentsAs everything ‘heats’ up in a world preparing for change, I have had some deep questions about my own role in this. There are many ways I could help, or teach, or present others with options for a healthy future. As various ideas arose in me, I would explore them in my heart and mind to see which ones really caught fire. Some were close to that ignition point – just not quite there yet.
Recently I took a road trip to New Mexico to visit three different sets of friends. First I connected with a dear girlfriend from my childhood in Santa Fe. Much to my surprise and delight we were more natural and at ease than ever before. Even though more than forty years had passed, we had a very ‘in the moment’ relationship together. Yet, to me, it was also rooted in our childhood, in the Earth, at my roots. This stirred me deeply as the love and the warmth between us was so very real.
This warmth and love has happened with other best girlfriends from childhood, and it has re-grounded me to a past that is suddenly alive and well in the present! This is a sea change for me, and adds a depth to my presence I didn’t know I was missing! This has connected me back to the Farm, the Earth, and childhood in a positive, nourishing way.
Next I went to hang out in the loving presence of three Sisters Of Honua, my beloved Spirit sisters. We Sisters of the Earth are connecting, communing, and supporting one another for the sake of our Mother Earth and all my relations. Here, after the drumming, during the night, a fire started burning in me, a fire I had no words for yet.
Two hours North, I stopped and parked on the other side of a juniper, on the other side of a ranch gate, and waited for my friend to come get me. She arrived before I got the gate pulled closed over the rough, rutted ground. [There is no way for my low-slung ride to navigate the road to her home.]
Finally, after much bumping and twisting around on dusty roads, we could look down into a small valley and see the donkeys, a horse, the river, and the beautiful buildings she and her husband call home on the range! A year ago I built a labyrinth for her on this land and I knew we were going to walk it again in the moonlight as it was to be a full moon that night.
While waiting for the moon to rise, my friend pulled out an album and a DVD . Her sister had put together the story of part of the Suffragette Movement, the part their Grandmother played in giving Women the vote. We immersed ourselves in that story, really experiencing what our Grandmothers did, what they endured, and what it was all for. It was truly inspiring! I wanted to join them, to stand on their shoulders and make a difference in my world.
There it was! The fire in the belly had words, and it went like this. One of the wisest advisers President Obama lost was his Grandmother! He has missed and still needs that counsel of wisdom in Washington. Now all the Grandmothers need to speak to him and to all leaders everywhere! We have something to say that needs to be heard!
The time has come to speak our truth: about the food, about the water, about the seeds and the lands and about the children and grandchildren of our lands. We Grandmothers, and supporters of the Grandmothers, and supporters of Mother Earth need to SHOW UP in force. We need to BE WILLING to stop the madness. We need to TELL THE TRUTH from our hearts. We need to say to all the powers that be: “I will only accept the best from you!”
If not now, Women, then when? For if we cannot speak out now to stop the poisons, stop the killing, and start healing ourselves and our home there will be no tomorrow to do it in. This is the Grandmothers Wake Up Call! This is the right time for peaceful action. We have our Grandmothers shoulders to stand on. This is when we shine in all our power, so that there is an Earth to pass down to the next seven generations, and humans to live on it. This is why we are here at this moment on this Earth, our home!
I propose we meet in all the capitols of all the lands on Earth Day, April 22, 2012. I see us walking, riding, pedaling, flying, and car pooling to our capitols. I see us pushing baby carriages, pushing each other in wheel chairs, riding on floats, dancing great daisy chains, and singing our way to the capitols. Let us make a huge noise for life, joining together heart to heart in community to get this house cleaning done once and for all.
Roll up your sleeves, Ladies! It’s time to have some serious fun! And don’t forget to ask all those wonderful men in our lives along for protectors. The more the merrier!
Becoming Myself
Posted by: | CommentsI ran across a brief note to myself today, a sentence from a seminar I took awhile ago. “We are here to flourish and bloom!” What an interesting lens to look at my current life through and to look at what I want to create. January is a month for focusing on the theme for the rest of my year, and this little sentence may be a key to a change in emphasis for me.
As is true of many women, my family has been a primary focus in my life. First it was as a sister and daughter, then as a Mother and wife, and most recently as a Grandmother. These are roles though, not who I am. Sometimes these roles have created a time of blooming and flourishing; sometimes there has been strife and angst. After all of that though, they are still roles I play and have played, not the truth of who I am.
Speaking with a very dear friend today brought some of this into sharper focus for me. What if we cannot become as powerful and useful as we are supposed to be unless we are able to leave behind all those roles and push off into the unknown terrain of Wise Woman/Crone? Maybe the ties that bind me to a definite place in my family of birth and origin actually keep me from becoming myself? Can I step into my own wisdom and power as an elder if I do not loosen the tethers I have to the roles of the younger me?
Another statement from this same slip of paper is equally intriguing. “The extent that the world is working is the extent we are stepping into our power.” Applied to the previous ideas, this speaks to me of allowing my deeper, wiser self to emerge and be as powerful as I can sense her to be. I have gifts and talents that can be of use in the world and they have remained under the proverbial bushel for fear it would make someone else seem ‘less’ or take the spotlight off of one of my own.
The ‘everyone else comes first’ idea is from a time when we didn’t live this long with as much health as we have now. In many ways we are on the very edge of the known Universe looking into an unknown future. It occurs to me that we are the elders that have the life skills, the time, the health, and the wisdom to step fearlessly (or not so fearlessly) into what CAN be instead of what has already been.
Dream your dream of how the world can look and feel! Allow the juiciness and passion of the best Earth has to offer us fill your thoughts, and picture a future we can all prosper in. What have you learned by living that allows you to see into a future of beauty? What didn’t work and what brought you gifts beyond expectation? Where is love found and how do you and I cultivate our lives so that each one of us flourishes and blooms? Create a vision of healthy foods, clear, clean water, and vibrant communities that care for the Earth we live in. Dare to breathe in these possibilities above all others, and we can go there together.
We each know the qualities and attributes that are present inside us that give our lives deep meaning, joy, and beauty. We also know that these are the very things that create a peaceful and prosperous world for us – regardless of possessions, position, and cold hard cash. Now, finally, this is what is important in my life. I have lived long enough and lived through enough situations that I do not fear being ‘thrown out into the cold’ so to speak. Been there; done that and I’m here to tell you it’s just another curve in the road. Wait a minute and this too will change.
My true power is within, and I have been funding it all of my life – with all of my life! Now I am ready to claim what I am, and use all the power that I have, to help create a world flourishing and flowering with the best that we have to give. Walk in beauty, my friends, flourish and bloom.
Happy New Year!
Posted by: | CommentsA Happy New Year to you! It’s the end of a year and the end of a decade. All of the planets are direct (no retrograde planets – not even Mercury!) It’s the end of a Lunar cycle as the moon is in the last quarter and is waning. This is a good time to be very still and become clear about what you want to release , let go of, weed out of your life. This is also a time to ask yourself what you want to take with you into the next year and the next decade.
The ceremony I do tonight calls up my gratitude and joy for the lessons learned in 2010, honors all the pieces and parts I am leaving in the old year and then I write them on a piece of paper which I burn (safely). The smoke carries them into the past.
Now I write what I want to acknowledge, receive, explore, and create in the new year – a manifestation list. I write it in my journal so that I can look at it and read it during the year. I also throw very tiny pinches of sacred herb into a flame as I read each item out loud. This smoke carries my words into the future.
Next I light a new candle and I do a reading for the New Year: with Runes, Medicine Cards, and/or Sacred Path Cards. Any Personal Oracle will do in whatever combination works for you: I Ching, tea leaves, Angel Cards, etc.
This is another way to bring in the New Year…and it deepens the New Years Eve experience into something that contains a lot of personal awareness. When no time is taken for self examination, course corrections, and allowing beliefs to change, we are in ‘default’ mode. That means the same-old-same-old on into the future. That is going to become very uncomfortable from now on! Right now rapid change is inevitable so we might as well go with it and surrender as fast as possible.
Calling in what you want in the New Year has two parts this year. Right after mid-night (or first thing in the morning of January 1st if you go to bed early) I read my manifestation list; then again 12 hours after the first new moon (night of Tuesday January 4th or the morning of Wednesday January 5th). Remember to say the list out loud and breathe after each item.
As you know, when steering something you are constantly making corrections with the steering wheel or tiller. Remember to do the same with your life’s journey. Steer it to avoid the potholes, the speed bumps, and that cliff up ahead! Keep your eyes on both the destination and the moment. Change only happens in this moment so make very good use of it. That’s what will finally deliver you to your destination, or not!
So Happy New Year! Remember that all is sacred. Here is a poem sent to me by a very dear friend and I want to share it with you. It is from the book I Send a Voice, by Evelyn Eaton, 1978:
Great Spirit,
Whose voice we hear in the winds,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
we would restore what greed
has taken from the Earth.
Great Spirit,
we are blind and deaf,
Open your eyes to us
that we may see.
open your ears in us
that we may hear compassion
open your compassion in us
that we may have compassion
upon the Earth.
upon our Mother Earth.
Great Spirit,
may our feet walk gently,
may our hands respect her,
may we learn the lessons
in every leaf and rock,
may our strength restore her.
Great Spirit,
When we face the sunset
when we come singing
the last song, may it be
without shame, singing
‘it is finished in beauty,
it is finished in beauty!’
—
