December 1, 2020

  

Greetings:

   I have been dumfounded to have come to a fearful intimidated stage of reality in my greater world's daily experience at an age of seniority that should be spent enjoying grace and repose. 

   What was all that curious and courageous learning and practicing and discovery of shaping one's personal existence about if an invisible threat can dominate with a certain chance of peril?

   Oh, those poor people out there suffering. Ah, the loyal mass of helpers and givers. The shock but not surprise at the greedy pushy, hateful desperate grabbing and accusing, blaming and rejecting ones who carry dis-ease. We are in the vivid reality of a universal Chance to Choose. 

   And now, may the real me please stand up and make a move toward self (expanded) improvement and stability? Will our homes be there tomorrow or will we be victims of the social rush to evict? Can our families stay well or must we navigate the medical morass to heal? Is there enough money (accepted symbol of energy exchange) to buy food? 

   It is not What we choose, but How we get through a bigger than life challenge. Make it through the labyrinth of possibilities, outcome ever unknown. 

   Who really cares? Yes, we are still here but the fun is missing. Turn this page. Will, Thought, Feeling, Action may be out of balance but we are inherently intact and have unlimited regeneration abilities (they say). Get going. Stand up. Refuse to fight the Other. Create anew. We mark the pathways with our souls. 

   If this is all 'the way it is supposed to be' for our mutual evolution, perhaps we have been reading the wrong book. 

All Love, Ann

Weaving Time

   It has been a long time since I have written here; so much is changing, the old doesn't seem pertinent but for sentiment or survival lessons learned.

   With distancing and self isolating, closing commerce, re-grouping, establishing protections and health techniques, the surface of living is an emerging conundrum. What? How? When? Why? Huh?

   A pandemic? Social unrest and human rights revolution? A struggle to understand lies versus imaginative projection? What is this 'Shift' in the human reality we are experiencing? Beyond a 'conscious evolution' predicted to bring balances to our extremes, this is a big feet-on-the-ground upheaval and life-skill challenge. We, of the safe middle class, are affected at the base of our lifestyles.

   Being a gardener has taught me to see in terms of seasons, years, decades. Being a parent taught me to see that everything is a stage.

   This stage in human culture and perhaps civilization itself is a frightening reality for those who treasure calm and organized living. We learned about war and famine, pestilence and epidemics and thought our goodness and willingness to make things better would do so. Haha as they say on social media. LOL. Surprise: we are all experiencing what the minority and victims have known. We are an entity of connection and dependence. IT is US. Now what?

No Tests Today

   

  Wooee, I am feeling the freedom of a Friday and coming weekend. Even though my days are all the same in my seniority retirement, the old school habit of getting to 3:30 on a Friday afternoon to celebrate is still deeply instilled. 

    There's nothing like escaping the building and crowd and having a happy walk home. Jumping puddles, ignoring cars, listening to other people chatter and laugh as they go along, avoiding aggressive dogs, hearing the birds, smelling the grass, greeting favorite trees, are heavenly luxuries after sitting inside in self-limiting captivity.

    That said, outside today at 10 degrees Fahrenheit has no attraction. I will sit in the sunshine inside my cozy little abode and wait for a thaw. 

   

      And remember and plan. 

                            Have a good morning!  

Family Lasts Forever

 I have been thinking of my father's parents, TG and Rose Hart. They lived in Lebanon, Missouri. Pampa made me a hutch for a black and white rabbit when I was four and we stayed with them during the war and my father was away in the Marines. My mother washed my hair with whisked up shaved ivory soap and egg white. Rinsed in cider vinegar and warm water.
  Later, during those wild growing up years, I would visit them in the summer. Lebanon was small enough for me to walk several blocks to the train station where Pampa was the manager. Trains would roar past. Cousin Elaine and I would run around causing havoc and ride on the switch engines with the engineers. Happy times.
   They had a big garden with cherry and peach trees, corn, beans and tomatoes. Something about their ease with the environment was so charming and is a treasure to remember.
  I roller skated on the sidewalk hopping over tree root lumps with clamp-on metal skates. Got tired of cutting corn off cobs for canning and snapping green beans.
  The house had many dark bedrooms and tall living room windows, a big front porch on the main street of town where the whole family could sit or rock in the swing and (kids) walk along the fat cement railing trying to get up the columns onto the roof.
  And the basement! Adolescent Mystery Dungeon Dream.
 My appreciation to grandparents everywhere!

Thoughts for the Day

I saw something online last night about everyone having a bottom line largest fear they carry: abandonment, failure, fear of the unknown, judgment, etc. and how to recognize when a button is pushed and you react automatically in defense or protection when it is not necessarily a real threat. Interesting. Self awareness is so important in moving along in maturity. And yet, how do we know even being 'aware' is real awareness? Humans are inside being human. 

So thinking about the things that set people on their out-of-perspective reactions is a way to see what we are all afraid of. Distrust is a big one. Being unappreciated is a resident fear. Not being relevant. Being overpowered. Missing out on the essence of Life. Becoming lost in the mass of humanity. Dis-ease. On and on. Feeling the loss of personal power and meaningfulness is a great motivator toward the activation of deflective action, or giving up.

Some are fighters and would rather be nasty than give up. Others are come-back kids. They may feel defeated from time to time but can rally with humanitarian strength and faith. Look inward, learn, and go forth with some stubborn resilience!

Garden of Life

I have this book coming out. It is emerging slowly and mysteriously, a branch of my journal meanderings, and may never be seen by another human. Do I dare share it? 

How do you rate creative products? Is this new idea redundant or life changing, trite or intriguing? Times are changing and the wave of longing for positive, less conflicting elements in our experience has grown into a surge of activity. I am all for the Shift and the new awareness of collective and individual consciousness. I am working in the fields of stabilizing healthful living. I have my challenges and usually manage to achieve my modest goals. But what a frightening choice it can be to expose one's inner inspiration, hopes and ideas, to a world still filled with challenge and disparagement. Good luck with that!

How do you explore the land of the Ideal and graceful Unknown? Cautiously and with care. Once the paint is on the canvas many unexpected images can emerge to all and sundry. We learn from ourselves and endeavor to share with understanding and respect.

Dream on, fill the pages with hope, find like-minded friends and strangers. We grow together in all levels of mind and matter.  

Don't Believe, Be

  "Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see," was a saying in the 'show me state' of middle America where I grew up.Too many points of view cloud the landscape of reality; can it be possible to take it all as Truth?

   Beliefs form, we accept some, we encounter other points of view, then hold steady or grow our mindset. Each individual has a mind. Where do these thoughts, beliefs, insights come from? What is the meaning of thought? Who knows the real truth of anything? Steady as she goes.

   A civilization can be mislead as to its own healthful point of view. Many outlooks and practices and value judgements make up the whole. Seeming clashes of choice occur in the philosophical development through the days and the decades. Feeling compromised or vulnerable to opposing attitudes about what is 'right' can make a populace unsteady and bring out the fears and distrust of 'other'. Fine-tuning toward compromise can create a pathway to tread but it dilutes the individual essence of the original insights. Working together becomes difficult when beliefs are taken too seriously and given too much room to determine the direction of experience. Clarity and shadows merge; thought becomes a mess of confusion.

   Some individuals want to explore. Others hold to what they know and feel safe in. Why not have room for all possibilities in a culture? Why try to influence others? How to find a higher point of view that excludes the necessity of collision of choice? Some current undercurrents of philosophy in our culture have evolved to believe, to Know that it is not only possible but necessary and inevitable that the next step in human mind development is happening individually and in large numbers Now.. We are choosing to grow. We are recognizing ourselves in others. The refusal to allow defeat, the belief in benevolence and balance in natural living have reached a point of becoming in material reality. 

   See the shadows and acknowledge them and grow into the heart. Fill the dreams and the mind with beauty and hoped-for discoveries in daily life. Build a firm foundation for the worlds we inhabit. Give the future your confident faith. Beyond any particular belief system, thought orientation, leadership, or instinct for survival, the grace of the Lifeforce we all share can be felt, appreciated and celebrated.