Monday, July 29, 2013

the librarian and the mountain

Dear relatives  

today I was fortunate enough to be given a beautiful story at our library by the head librarian  she has just returned from a trip to Africa with her family   on her trip they climbed a mountain

she shared the story of her discovery with me and what I want to share with you is how she opened it
it is extraordinary and her simple words are a gift I would like to give to you even as the mountain gave to her


she said:

"I didn't know that reaching the summit was not the goal until I didn't make it."


I gift her words to you as a present and a vibration from the mountain to her heart from her heart to mine and mine again to you in an unbroken song of joy


she also gave me the gift of trust    she said that of all the people she knew ( and she is a librarian and has lived her her whole life) she knew I would "get it" really get it

what a compliment and also feedback that even here, gently and thoughtfully being who I am is being supportive of other people in their hearts and in their own journey we are doing our lives differently but together
cool

tomorrow more for you from the library
mb

Saturday, July 20, 2013

The blessing way

Dear Relatives
I've been in Dallas for the past few days. Actually McKinney TX. I came down after being hired to help open a clinic and consult for dentistry.

I am so grateful for the Lake, the land and the air where I live in Pipestone.  I am grateful for the immediacy of the Spirits there. It is much much different here. It is like it was like driving into a wall of stress and fear when I got here. There is so much it take much effort to find the earth here. To feel the tiny thread of the heartbeat that they live on top of here.

It's like being in a spiritual desert.

I call on you and the wind the earth the water to come up and bring forth a stronger presence in this place. In me to carry to walk through and to continuously renew and strengthen through my own hands and breath. So that I can live, so that in the vibrational wake of my day is an imprint of kindness that cannot be overwritten.  To strengthen the vibration of the earth.  Being here is like being awash in disconnect. Wherever you are today. Go out and touch the earth and thank her for her life. For the gift of life. For the gift of freedom from stress and disconnect.

I understand a little better how ineffectual prayer and a day of living without holding this intention can overcome the soul of a human being.

How is it that we shift the inertia that creeps through the concrete, the stores, the exhaust?  It is simply by setting our own feet on the earth, on the path and choosing. It is by choosing with our day beginning to hold the fire, the heart in our own heart and being attentive. It is not about depending on what is outside. But by emanating from inside us that which is life, and love, itself in our own self.

I no longer think of changing others. Only of benign attentive with my day. And I know that the greater part of this earth and it's water and its living things hold that way as well.  I know now having  come back here that I matter. That it makes all the difference in all the world how I hold me.

It is with great joy that I greet the day and all life here.  That my habit since I was a child of seeing the blessing way. Of holding that blessing way in my day from beginning to end is all that matters and it makes all the difference in the world when I do.

I love this place not because of what it has temporally become but for the deeper thing that it is.  It is our home and I embrace it even as I embrace myself and my life and yours

May the love of the water in me the everlasting vibration be present in me and in the trail that I will leave here.

Bless you bless the children who seek their life on this earth.

Mb

Monday, July 15, 2013

Qigong Daymares

Good morning Relatives

what a great weekend we have had and the week is so beautifully beginning  
a very cool thing happened  well more than one cool thing   I want to share with you some coolness

I helped out at the depot next door over the weekend   they had to be out of town so I took my book and went over to keep the shop open for sat and sunday hours    on saturday  the coolest family came in

it was two women and a young man   so three generations  a mother her daughter and her grandson  and they were amazing   so I am passing on their amazingness to you      they were from quebec  they were Anishinaabe and they spoke their native language and a bit of french as well    it was cool  to listen to the beauty of their words    they looked around the shop and purchased a few things like sweetgrass and kinnikinick  and some beads  

it was wonderful to see the generations of peacefulness and depth of kindness between them    after purchasing the beads the grandmother turned and right there gave them to her daughter  handed them to her and looked in her eyes and loved her   it was beautiful  
they were on their way to sundance   I cannot think of a better group of generations of love and giveaway to have dancing at the beginning of the worlds year

the next day a whole group of family people came in randomly and accumulated  they were here in Pipestone for a family reunion   they were so interesting and diverse    the boys ages 6-late 20's were interested in the dreamcatchers that were for sale and hang up over the shop on a wire   we worked together to take down about 4 or 5 of them in all as they picked them out   it was very cool that they wanted dreamcatchers for their bedrooms

one boy the 6ish one did not want a dreamcatcher he wanted a slingshot   LOL  who at age six did not want a slingshot!   and his mom did not push him or argue or try to change him   he told me that he did not dream  he had no dreams ever  and I laughed with him and said that is good to sleep so soundly
then he said well I had a dream today in the day   his mom urged him to tell it to me and I asked him if he wanted to and he said yes

so he said he fell asleep in church which made me laugh even harder and i told him I used to as well and he said he had a dream  in it he was walking around the hotel where they were staying   (which is the Calumet, the one where the Thai women are trying to make a go of it and where I teach qigong) and he said he came to the door of the fitness room   ( where we have our qigong class)  and he said that as he got to the door it opened and a big brown horse came out   it was there to visit with him and he got on it and when he kicked it to get going with the ride  he kicked out in church whoever was next to him and he woke up!

I laughed and said to him do you want to know what I see in your dream?  and he said yes

so I told him that I was Arapaho and we are the horse nation  we are horse people and wherever I go those horses go with me   then i told him that in the hotel in the room  the fitness room is where I teach qigong   and that qigong is about care  it is about self awareness about balance and energy that flows between all of us     to me I said that energy is being connected to you through the qigong and the horse of my ancestors  in your dream we are connected through time and space

how cool is that!

what a gift   what a gift this child  brings to us   to make the vibrations and the Spirits of our activities and our intention move through time and space

I wanted to share with you relatives so that you will see and understand that our practice  our qigong our daily activity and intention that we release with our hands and minds and words and breath  it creates motion and the spirits hold it and carry it  

and when we are sleeping   when we think the world is not active  (even in the daytime) the children are open to that energy   they are walking around the hallways of opportunity in our world   the world that you and I create on a daily basis and they will meet what ever is the spirit that we have made and left in our wake   in the wake of our opportunity and effort


someday I hope that all the horses of all the motion that come from my heart come to play with you relatives and your children and that like the Anishinaabe women and the son we can grow generations of beauty

is that not the purpose of the garden  

love love love
mb

Saturday, July 13, 2013

sunny side up

Good morning Relatives

it is a perfect day here in Pipestone at the Center of the East and West Gate    

I have begun teaching Qigong at the Calumet Hotel here in pipestone   they have a fitness center in the hotel  it is small but clean and beautiful     the hotel was bought 10 months ago by a Woman from Thailand and her two daughters   they are trying to make a go of it here on the Prairie    we met on occasion before my accident I would go for breakfast once a week  I could get a huge bowl of fresh fruit and yogurt for 3.50$  it was wonderful   that is where I met them   at breakfast months ago

then it was the girls mom who showed up one day in her car  in the winter to meditate with the stone buddha outside    our doing has evolved and now they have asked me to teach / offer qigong for the hotel guests and eventually they would like to see people from town find out about it and come to class

I began this week by teaching the girls and their mom 6 of the first 18 basic forms that I follow   and we also had a class on self respect and timing    the first lesson of class is showing up

how often we all do not show up after the ah-ha moment wears off or the fantasy wears into reality or the alarm goes off and we are hugging our blanket hating to trade it for the upright motion of getting up how there are so many more reasons to not do something than there are to do it   how many of us are willing to continue to show up and teach beyond that faltering first step or third step or forteenhundreth misstep?  how many of us persevere in our own lives?

it is or has taken me a long time to see that what a teacher really does when the student is late  or does not show at all   what the teacher does is understand or attempt to look beyond the obvious and see what is there   the only thing that I can teach is self respect  self caring  self compassion and self investment  I can continue to show up and show that they are worth showing up for  to be gentle and kind persistent in the essence of recreation

how do you example the choice of reaching inside yourself and pulling your own joy  your own value out into your day?  I cannot find it in her   I can see it   I can encourage it   but I cannot reach in side her and pull it out or force it with a stick or berate it into form    there is no impetus for the flower except that which comes from the seed     it is from inside of me,   inside of her,   inside of you

I can hold the idea that it exists   that self love   I can live it openly and carefully   I can not try to force anyone into the position of feeling, understanding, or developing their own self care,  I can only publicly show that I care for me  and that I showed up because they are worth that commitment to care as well

ideas are fragile     beginning shoots are tender      sometimes camouflaged by the chaff we hide our vulnerability with like straw piled over a winter rose     hold fast relatives  to the vision of the water of the lake inside yourself   hold fast to the essence of your own soul    hold fast to that vibration of joy  tiny as a seed pearl  and strengthen it    strengthen it before you strengthen any other   seek the places in your self and your own life where you are welcome and able to grow and be steadfast  find yourself and build yourself morning by morning until you have yourself and know your own worth there is no other thing that is worth doing for the world or your family or any other living or non living thing

which may sound narcissistic  LOL  but it is only when I see that I am worth getting up for  early when the sky is just waking up   when i see and understand that I am worth it   and that my act of getting up and doing the chores  loving the dogs and the mangy old cat  and then going to teach qigong is for me  for my own value in my day   that I am worth getting up for    that by doing what I said i would and making the effort  giving the gift of care followthrough and being on time  that I have added to my own joy about myself  

if there is one thing that these girls need to know is that they are worth it   they are worth getting up for    the task they have undertaken by coming to straight white america conservative old school cowboys and indians town is that they are right in the middle of a seed patch that is resistant to change   a crop of people so invested in perpetrating their own strain that they see any diversity as an invasive weed and do their best to stamp it out    these girls have already talked about the unwelcomness they found here and how that conservative fear,  piled on top of the huge undertaking they are in the midst of with the hotel is becoming overwhelming  

 they are slipping relatives   their hearts are flagging    strengthen them relatives  by strengthening yourself    build a better world in your own house and home and body so that they can see and feel that encouragement  

these girls are young they are naive but they are sturdy  and they can grow if encouraged

 it is an amazing thing to live in a small town   it is the same as a big city but everything is more readily visible so immediately felt
  but  on the other hand like the wall of an eggshell which to the egg white and yolk inside seems so rigid and so strong and so unbreakable   it is thin   the wall of the old school here is thin   it is breakable  it is only one layer again and again perhaps but not mountains on mountains

  these girls and their mother  hold them in your heart relatives  encourage them by living your joy  by committing to you first thing  every day     first thing  give the morning to yourself and the day to the girls   like giving the love and care of the night sky to the children at Lame Deer  every night we say our prayers and hold them in the care of the positivity that you made in your day

every day we weave the blanket that covers the night sky and influences the children in the night   it is the same in the first light of morning    when we get up and stand up for our own selves  for our own joy and care and strength  then we have begun the day and set the tone and it will ring out across into every water vibratory thing that is present in this earth

Dr Emoto  set about to discover the essence of water   the scientific proof that our won vibration can change the molecular form of water    what can come from that can come from you relatives  inside of you is the water that will eventually be drunk by every living thing on this earth    if you align the vibration of your won water inside of you each morning then that water will carry that memory out  into the world  and like the Lake it will eventually recycle through the lives of every living thing

these girls need to hear you ring out for you just like the children at Lame Deer need that vote of care and commitment to protection as night descends the vibration of self care and love every morning

so we are teaching qigong   and doing our best to remind them that they are worth it
that if only one thing at the beginning of the day is set in the firm footing of love  of commitment  if one thing is steadfast in that ode to joy   then the day is won    the town is defenseless  the world is changed  and that willingness to  bring care and responsibility and hard work to life is a little bit steadier in these girls

the only way that they can live is if they have the space to do it   to take that space here on the Prairie means more than recognizing what was, it takes more than rooting out the old,  it takes replacing it with the extraordinary beauty of ordinary joy of life, the shining gold of the seed of life that awakens each morning with the sun

yesterday in the late afternoon I heard the squeal of a cars brakes and the impact of a crash  it was quickly followed by the sound of emergency vehicles making their way across town to the encounter     I was astounded    I realized that it was the first accident that I was aware of happening since I moved here a year ago June     the first crash     I live in a town where car accidents are as infrequent as winning lottery tickets  

I wonder if the vibration of change of the qigong has unsettled things just enough where the perspective of the usual shifted enough that it generated a crash   a release of the tension between what was and what now is  

enjoy your morning eggs  relatives  enjoy the crack of the shell

its funny that inside that shell   that rigid barrier is the sunny side up   it all depends on how you cook it

love love love
mary

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

rock and water

Good Morning Relatives

Its a beautiful day here in Pipestone     the morning is crisp   and clear  

I went to Duluth last weekend  it was lovely to see Lake Superior and to see the people who were gathered for Dr. Emoto's visit.  He spoke about water and about how it is in every living thing   he also talked about how our vibrations affect water and its vibrations affect us

as I listened what I also heard is how many crystals do you need to see before you believe what you are seeing  

it has been many steps to today    many undoings in my cells  in my brain  

yesterday I began peeling the old wall paper off of the walls in the downstairs living room here at the Center of the East and West Gate     underneath was the original plaster and lath that was put on these walls back in the late 1800's  

it was still holding  still doing it s work and it had character   which was and is that of rock

today I will continue to peel off the old paper  and ready a corner for the stone that will make the base for the woodstove here at the house  

winter is coming  

summer is here

spring is gently moved on to another place in the planet

peace   world peace  is here in side of me    

I spoke with one of my dear friends yesterday and her words and thoughts helped me shift again the alignment of my own crystals  my own water  

be the being that you are  

be the being that I am

i have arrived finally into the place in which I exist  and after years of heading this way along the way I realize I AM the way  

I am grateful to you relatives   to you for your love  your rockness and your being

be the being that you are  

be the panda
be the one that you are without the secret ingredient

love love love
mary