the road to damascus

good morning relatives

its new years eve    the last day of the calendar year 2013    it is my dads birth day and my day of origination  as I like to think of it  

I had the best dream last night   one about the spirits who began the beginning here long ago   it was of course told in kung fu drama story genre   it is one of my favorite story themes  we used to go on Friday nights to a little neighborhood theater once a month they had kung fu movie night and we watched jet li and jackie chan when they were still in china and very young   the stories and movies were great!  of course now we have the kung fu panda

anyhow in the dream I was looking over the masters shoulder as he worked with the four direction spirits and because I kept getting under foot themaster picked me up and set me off to the side and said sit here and wait until i come and get you  so i watched for a bit then got intrigued with what I was thinking and decided to begin writing my own story book   which of course then turned into a reality and world of its own and I had to knock a bad guy on the chin because he was hurting my mom and in doing so I spilled the soup and couldn't remember how the table setting went for the special in color drawing for that page in the book and was trying to remember how to set it up and couldn't just as I remembered I was supposed to be sitting waiting and also that no one can recreate what was we can only do what is now as it is and as we have changed it because we weren't sitting still watching and waiting were we ?  it was  good dream about beginnings  anyhow

the epilogue or final or third lesson from holding the fire between myself and others all things which is harder to do than one would think  have any of you tried it?  it is hard because it must be originally gently firmly but freely held each time and felt not copied or mimicked but each time itself between myself and all else   it is a practice that is worth practicing    I am also working on practicing the skill of not absorbing internal shock  which I learned about in the movie the legend of the shadowless sword   and I know ya'll thought I was just a kung fu panda girl  but no I watch many different masters and see what can be learned  anyhow the thing about internal shock  it can kill you  it can build inside or hurt organs  or cause inappropriate growth and I am not just talking about bitter or negative ideas here relatives    I'm talking about the samscaras  the seeds we sow inside that come on the air or are deposited in us when we ingest someone else's poop who like birds are pooping out the seeds from what they themselves ingested and if we are not careful then when we are talking with them and trying to impress ourselves or them or do our jobs or be polite or whatever we are swallowing what is happening when we should be standing still watching waiting holding the fire and definitely keeping our mouths shut

yesterday for example a customer at the stop and rob wanted to rag on obama about something and I cut him off at the knees and then he went on somehow to guns and deadly force and that he was coast guard reserve (definitely reserve cause he was old enough to be beyond vintage if you know what I mean) anyhow I reminded him that if he was coast guard he was trained in the use of deadly force and if so he knew that one does not threaten others with deadly force  one uses it or one does not use it
period

and that got his attention

and he said yes  one either killed with deadly force or one did not pick it up   and it is the training about what is when and why about the use of deadly force is so so far beyond whether or not one can shoot straight   it is about having the skill of knowing when in one billion instances or perhaps one tragillion thrillion godzillajillion one would pick up and use deadly force       he knew that thought but hadn't quite brought it into his daily world had he   no he hadn't he said with his eyes looking into mine there at the counter of the stop and rob     hmm   something to think about

this means that guns are for death only     and like the shadowless sword movie one must either choose to use that death for protecting what is precious or for killing  and believe me relatives there is a big difference and it has to do with that internal shock absorption thing and holding the fire and being clear in every moment and every breath that you are being you as a light of life original and unmoved by others agendas ( which is trickier to learn than you think)  and one never ever picks up a gun to threaten

what I am not sure this man knows yet is that we are ourselves with our words our thoughts our gossips our actions and inactions and our un weeded gardens of emotion or gossipy or spiteful or negative cesspooling selves  not only weapons of mass destruction we are instruments of deadly force

yep thats right relatives  you and I are instruments of deadly force

we are guns

and when we pick ourselves up  and we act and we say or not say and we think and allow to brood simmer stew or spew we are either  protecting what is precious ( which I can tell you from being at the fire at Lame Deer involves a lot of not acting or saying anything until it is clear how to diffuse or create clear freedom with no blood loss or bones broken or death in our wake)  or we are going to kill  something someone

an interesting thought isn't it ?

so back to the fire and holding it between myself and well myself  as it turns out that is what I got from practicing it consciously over and over is that holding the fire gave me a sense of my own preciousness my own value and my own being ness   so the power of three  you the fire and me  how cool is that

so now I see in the light of the fire, that I am precious  and that relatives will make all the difference in the world   and that gun I was talking about  well now it can protect me as well  which when i think about it is protecting you  and although it may not make sense to you that all this time  all my life I can have been dedicated to protecting you to giving and doing for you for all and left me out of it but I know because I have been inside of me that that is so  I did leave me out of it except as an instrument so to speak  kind of like being on the creators or life's surgical tray  and no wonder something was missing anyhow very cool   what is funny is that in the dream time the spirits showed me that I was too energetic too young long ago and when they sat me off to the side to wait and be patient I got distracted and missed something  which by the way in the dream they showed me was a little half purple and half yellow thingy like a flat minion and so like the prodigal child I went off on my own and almost blew my inheritance  almost  but not quite  as with most good stories  my learning and timing different from yours perhaps relatives and different from those spirits who knew and were ready to hold the four corners of our time and space different but perfect as the master knew when it set me off to the side and essentially put me in motion

lol
cool
my matter matters

and in feeling my own value for a couple of day s  or more  I forget how much time has gone by but I do notice the days are already longer  the afternoon sun is not as quick to leave the sky  
in feeling my own value  I felt an unlocking or melting within me  some small thin barrier opened between me and me   between my intrinsic value center in my brain core and my heart the thin but completely impervious barrier that separated my heart from my own life disappeared

and it was quiet   this change   no big fireworks or ah-ha moments  no surges of endorphin laced adrenaline mountains crossed or slid down  no dolphins swimming with me wearing crowns of glowing luminescent ancient atlantic jewels   nope  the thin and I know it was thin relatives because I have learned over the years the the difference between killing and protecting, between life and death, between held and not is nano-razor thin   infinitesimally unmeasurably thin onion skin like curtain shell wall steel trap went down   and it was so slow so close the two differences that still I can stand in the one and look back at touch feel the other   and for her I am grateful for getting me here for standing and showing me all along who I didn't want to be for not abandoning me to my own impetuous ignorance or do gooder self or to the past or to a fantastical future but for standing with me in now and holding me and the fire until i could see one more thing and take down one more barrier

that difference between I was and I AM is so so thin  as to be the most silent deadly killer in our own race in our own time lifetime and temporal historical difference of time  and I think relatives that you know what I mean    in honor of my fathers birthday I will reference paul the apostle and his historic come to jesus moment on the road to damascus    remember that bible story   well he was one thing one moment and the next someone completely different   like helen keller when it finally percolated through the known into the unknown that communication in a pattern and with meaning was possible   yep old saul became paul and you and I relatives perhaps due to our sunday school teachers inability to think for themselves beyond the pale missed out on the real lesson of that story which was not what came after but what happened in that moment  when the trans parent impenetrable mind and heart became one with a new idea  an ah-ha moment

and it radicalized old paul and our biblical history was rewritten


so my newest thing for the year to come and I think will change all else after is that I too have had a on the road to damascus change in me relatives

i care about me

lol

finally   and not from a oh yeah like didn't you have that figured out before thing  and not like a oh no! does that mean she won't care about us now! thing and not like something that will not affect me or effect you because if you have paid attention relatives as I have to me then one thing about me as with PO is that there is no going back  there is no undoing the doing and yet going forward is with all together as one as we are so far

so i am excited about the new year  about what is to come  about this new found self value and self enjoyment and self interest  it is amazing    I have decide to learn sanskrit which should be amazing

oh and to love my dogs with no apologies which may not mean anything to you relatives but does to me  and the sticky wicket says about time mom

now isn't that just the face of enlightenment?

best to you relatives   good luck   I'm having a great day

love love love
mary

the fire of the night sky

Good Morning Relatives  

its a beautiful day here in the north country   the snow is so very white and at night when the dogs and I go walking the peacefulness is really hard to beat

so back to the lesson from the man wanting change   and thats not Obama  by the way   the lesson of keeping the fire in front of me  actively  consciously and with thoughtfulness   it is the closest I think I can get to what a Tai Chi master feels in readiness   I am not sure what normal regular human instances this presence is felt  or held   I tried to think of some instances and couldn't quite get it

I know that when I was at Lame Deer  holding the fire and the man there was so angry with himself and wanted to take it out on me I just held the fire  I didn't have any thought towards him  no negative thought and no positive  no rejection and no acceptance  just let him be him and didn't take on his space energy or agenda and didn't want to change it or in any way alter me for him  it was like being in perfect harmony with him actually  and I was steady and just me   it was so clear there in the light of the fire  

so one of the things that I am able to do is remember clearly and I clearly remember that place and although we use memory to practice to train ourselves and to learn we can't ever reproduce a breath  for it will not sustain us to hold a breath or to rebreathe the one we already did    think about this it is very important    we cannot rebreathe or hold a breath and get life  oxygen from it    but we can breathe again     holding is not static it is very dynamic   the mountain pose in Tai Chi is very dynamic very fluid    holding the fire is as fluid as the flame the wood and gasses and the heat and the ash all in transition all at one moment being the fire

so we recall to help us with learning to go again   to learn the principles that guide us along our way like learning to stand to walk to run  when we are running we are not robotically placing our feet and moving our arms  we are flying along and adjusting to terrain and environment ( think of running through the woods, or along a rocky shore, or dodging people on a beach) all the while keeping our goal in our thoughts  

same with holding the fire  

so when i went back to work I consciously remembered and held the fire between me and everyone every instance every conversation  and wow

wow  what a lot I learned about me  what a lot I learned about how and were and when I lost my way along the routes of gossip, or inappropriate energetics, or too much woo-hoo! or depressiveness or negativity or judgment or whatever  the palate of the human encounter is a plethora of emotion and activity just waiting for us to paint up our day

but the fire held me  it kept me centered as long as I kept it in focus  as long as I held it between myself and any and all others it held me also

and it was amazing  just an amazing day

and then

I got sick  lol  really really sick   physically  I woke up christmas eve morning with diarrhea and guts that felt like I ate ground glass     it was amazing    it was like being changed cellularly wooo  what a day  mostly spent in bed sleeping dreaming of really old things being redone  old encounters reworked old places different because I was different   and I got through it   and made it to christmas day made it back to work where the negativity really really wanted me to jump back on board and not hold the fire  it was tough relatives  heavy   heavy   heavy  and by the end of my shift last night I was exhausted  

this am  I am again better  I am rested and will again today work to put in place the habit the mindset the joy the doing of the sacred fire between myself and any and all    

if you don't know what a sacred fire is   what it feels like and how it feels to hold it  it is worth it to find out    I think I will try and teach that this year  

I'm worth it  your worth it and the change man is worth it  as is the lake the bears the falcons the hauls the beautiful jays the fish and the crawlers and the spiders and all things  the trees especially   we are all worth remembering this way and recreating it until we have it

and then relatives I believe we can fly

love love love and fire
mary

the price of gold and water

good morning relatives  


its really cold today   the high will be -2  right now it is -13  the dogs and I are making coffee and wiring on their rice to finish cooking   we have a fire going and Im listening to the UkeTubes christmas play list on the computer    

there is so much pressure in the air this year    its pressure on my tear ducts   its weird and relentless   like my eyes are leaking tears and my heart is melted all out my chest    

I thought about avoiding you relatives  i thought about what can I write that is uplifting or encouraging or insightful blah blah blah  LOL  you see every time I write I have to face that little ego buster door prize  and get back to writing for me writing what is  you see its always been my bent  my nature to seek the path through the snowy woods    why why why   how come  was and is how Mary is made  and the blog the writing began as an answer to someone asking me why and how come and continues still for that reason

so yesterday when a patron of the stop and rob where I work came by and flipped in one instant from being a regular after church god squad straight white male getting some gum then one instant later was a violent raging man who was throwing things and vomiting verbal trash all over the counter as I stood there stunned watching this display of violent violent overreaction to not getting the kind of change he wanted    over two pennies   I finally asked him to take his violence and leave  the store   and I turned away from him

and I think it was that relatives    the turning away from him that broke my heart somehow  

somehow in this season of giving and of joy whether manufactured or handmade or just simply expressed so beautifully by the snow and the light and the crisp crisp air outside    did you know that when i take the dogs out when it is this cold that the tears running across my eyes allow me to see perfectly without my glasses   thats a cool physics project isn't it  

somehow in this season of give and take this man accomplished something that is for me a terror   turning away from another being and shutting myself out from them

I have been unable to stop crying since then and unable to stop feeling broken somehow    you see usually when someone comes in the store or on the street or wherever I am able to get a sense of them and come to a balance in how to relate to them  its like being on an ocean that ebbs and flows and we all navigate our little skiffs or punts or ocean liners or yachts along our way and interact pretty well  even if there are crashes we accept that  we struggle mightily with each other at times  but we can sense it  we can adjust and remake our connections so that the flow the circle the sphere remains intact

but he was a blank  like an animated thing with no affect  his words and his presentation didn't give any sense of anything to me and so I hesitated to engage with him over his money  I hesitated to accept his lead in providing what he wanted in the form of change manipulated by his desire  and that was when he broke open into this violent hateful thing right there in the store in front of me    something in side of me something little like the still small voice kept me from pleasing him and in doing so it cracked him open into a raging monster  

my supervisor told me that people forget that we are all engaged in an exchange that is a privilege not a right  that even in customer service there are limits to a customers rights and when that ambiguous line is crossed and they demand that a privilege change into a right they have crossed a line  its not uncommon relatives for people to be grumpy or angry or pissed when they cross that line and we or I hold it and they are left with what they didn't want   which is what they came in the door with

its like the man at Lame Deer  the one who tried to kill me at the fire in the night  he wasn't really trying to kill me he was trying to kill what was inside of him  what he carried around every day and if I had taken it when he thrust it at me over and over and over that long night in July back in 2012 if I had picked it up or got on his bus or taken it from him he would have killed me to get rid of it forever only it wouldn't have worked would it have relatives  it would only have perpetrated what he hated that he carried and it would have made it grow

I think that i didn't expect or think about until today that the fire at Lame Deer is the fire that is always burning all around us and between us even at the stop and rob    GMa Margaret taught me that we are remaking the world when we are in the lodge and the fire is the center of the intention of the Lightning Strike Beings  and thus we, when we are in the lodge are recreating our world   and in ceremony it is easy to remember to hold that fire    it is easy to remember to hold it between those who gather for like minded intentional work  the gmas gatherings   or in circle  it is also easy to remember to hold it between myself and one other either on the phone or email or in person   to hold that fire   but it has obviously eluded me until today that holding it out in the world  out in the parade of life amongst the situations and people that are the unseen everyday mortar between the sacred bricks of time spent in prayer it is in the mortar that the life the joy the doing is held together or it is lost  and yesterday relatives it wasn't that man who lost IT  it was me   I lost it and my eyes knew it and my heart and the hole in the holiness of my universe began to leak in a way that kept me from avoiding or from covering over or from ignoring this thing that was lacking in me  lacking and unfinished

the circle the sphere of connection is broken  is leaking like a great big sieve and it for me is intolerable to cut myself off from that circle  it is like my action flipped me into the place that is the mirror opposite from my intentional self

and as a veterinarian we used to say that we practiced medicine we didn't know it  and in our practice it is from our deepest most regretful unknowings that led to the most heart shattering mistakes that we found out whether or not we had the courage to be doctors or not  its not that you won't fail my friend and teacher taught me its what will you do when that happens that will make all the difference in the world   and yesterday i failed   relatives    and today I am looking at it  and I see again that all the practice all the work all the falling down or holding fast  all the strands that are on the loom making the weave are and did lead to that man and me and my little place of undone untranslated grace  i dint hold the fire  it didn't occur to me that being at the cash register is the same as being the fire keeper at the big ceremony at Lame Deer  and yet today I see that it is  

you see its like the price of gold and water  if water is going to in the future cost the same as gold  the answer is to devalue gold   to stop placing exclusionary limits, fantasies, attachments on gold    and so it is with the fire  with work  with ceremony  it is not to raise everything to a level of sacredness and hold it  its only to hold the moment  only the moment like that   no matter the moment  no matter the person no matter the exchange  to hold it  gently and without expectation of being followed appreciated rewarded or condoned  just hold it because that is the work that is the joy that is the doing  and it is even in the mortar and the grain of sand the nuance of breath between us  

thankx relatives  for listening  for helping me get back to the fire and helping me get back to understanding about the fabric of the universe   its not so hard to hold it  and to let others be what they may and to watch as someone vomits into the fire what they hate about themselves  but it took a long time to understand that it mattered to me  and matters to me if I hold me  intact and if I have love and compassion and grace and just hold the fire and be in ceremony  be in prayer be at Lame Deer and at the counter at the stop and rob all the time

I am grateful to the man  and to all the work I put into all the days of sussing out what was and why  its a good christmas present I think  to figure this out

peace on earth good will among men and keep the home fire burning

love love love
mary

I've go the tiger by the tale

Good Morning Relatives

well did you click on the link    I thought it was a good funny summary of basically encouragement to stop expecting the universe to fix every thing and to get off our duffs and just do ourselves each moment at a time  in a very humorous way that is

  what I also found very humorous which is a really hard word to spell by the way  is that after posting a "way to go" comment on the website where the link led I received a standardized email response from the author of the blurb  and it said that he was too busy to get back to me but that at some point in his busy ness he might find the time to get back to me but don't count on it as he was looking ahead to what was possible for him and was busy with all his speaking tours with life coaching those who paid him and also writing a book, however if I wanted to fly him to Paris or to my hawaiian retreat house/compound or to vail for skiing or to my tuscan getaway house he would be more than happy to contact me right away and would find the time to visit    lol  talk about manifesting a great future  I didn't even know I had a house in hawaii

lol
anyhow
its good to have a sense of humor about those we rely on to teach us that we need to save ourselves if we want to save our planet  or our retirement money or our souls   what ever it is that we value and think will endure  eh?  

by the way speaking of manifesting how many of you bought a megminions ticket?  I did  I had a great day and used the numbers off my vietnamese fortune cookie and got two numbers with the mega ball right  so won $5.00  which paid for the tickets   how funny is that!   it was worth the bowl of noodles that I enjoyed very much
what is the most interesting about the mega minions is that it is totally a clear present example of the power of one small act multiplied by millions    think about it    relatives     money the thought the promise of millions got everyone to chip in to create it   to make the winning pot  

I was in the grocery yesterday or it might have been the day before and was gathering supplies to make pickled garlic and jalapeños and carrots and it was about ten am and the store was full of gmas   shopping   and I was deciding on what vinegar to purchase and I over heard a little of two of them conversing about not being able to find the christmas spirit  which I didn't realize was on special in the weekly grocery sale flyer or might be on the shelf in the home canning aisle  so i like any good shopper waited for the rest of the story  then i felt guilty so I said to them sorry to overhear but I couldn't help it and what is it you are talking about

one of them said she had lost the christmas spirit somewhere and couldn't find it   the other said hers was kind of wavering also    and one gma looked all kind of dried up and crabby and the other one was a dead ringer for mrs clause all round and shiny    guess which one was the originator of the missing piece?  anyhow rather than suggest she go look where she lost her car keys last time as they both turned to me to expectantly to see if I knew where the missing spirit was,  I asked them when was the last time they had been outside?

I said go outside  go out in the snow and the air and let it fill you back up     go back to the origin  christmas was about love and both of you look like you have love in your lives so go back to the love and hold it  

the one that was a bit dry looked at me like I was from mars and the round shiny one immediately said its been ages since I went out and made snow angels  and she right then and there made plans to go make them    

then I asked about vinegar because I  figured one of them had at one point in her life made pickles and sure enough the round shiny one said if you are going to all the work to make pickles  get the heinz  the difference in cost is pennies and in the end it is worth the difference in the product

so I thought about it  about the difference in the good stuff and the generic and I thought it is worth it to go for the gold  to have the good stuff

I don't know what heinz does with their vinegars  but I know that when I was a doc and studying to be one and took pharmacology I learned that there is a difference in the products that were first manufactured to meet the rigorous standards to pass the tests and make it to the market  and make it in the market and then when patents wore off and generics were allowed the chemicals may be the same but the binders and the coatings and the fillers were not   something was different  and yes while the name brand may tweak us for all we've got to eek out the profitability they also have a product that doesn't tear up your gut or is 50% inactive because it is still bound up in its generic coating or binder or filler in the absorption area in our guts when it passes through on it s merry way down and out the tube so it may be present but it may not be effective

I think the first place we have to be effective with whatever to us is the seasonal spirit of joy is in our own selves in our own hearts  with love  the real deal  not the fakey stuff     I think the mega minion phenomenon is a great indicator that we all still actually have the real deal inside of us   sure there are plenty of those who pooh pooed the mega and like the grinch or the scrooge or the boogie man or Thai-Lung didn't go for the winning ticket  and held back   Not because they really didn't have the dollar and not because they were holding a budget course they committed to but because they didn't beleve in it and not only didn't believe in it, they actively believed against it in themselves   whew wheee imagine that believing against something in yourself or your life  

now imagine believing for it   believing one small act at a time all million kazilion mega minions of us that good that winning that joy that the christmas spirit is not only possible it is probable and it is inside of each of us and all around us  

how shiny do you think we would be?

i had a dream about love last night  I dreamed that there is a tiger that lives with me  he follows me around and when we are sleeping he puts my head in his mouth and wraps his big paws around me  believe me it was terrifying to feel in the dream time because I didn't know if he was going to bite me or kill me or worse  and it took quite a while to relax in his presence  but what came to me was that all of that terror and fear was not going to make any difference in him   he was steady in his knowing about what he was about and about me  so I learned to relax in his companionship and tigerly embrace  which was amazing

also in the dream one of my sisters  the second to the youngest came for a visit and we held each other and caught up on our care before she departed to her next life tasks  and then there was a friend who I realized that I loved as she was searching for her lost cell phone and asking me to hold little pink roses that had no centers and she was frantic about running off to her responsibilities so much so that she didn't realize that she could stay with me and my tiger and not have to be so frantic but she was focused on something else  so I watched her disappear and me and the tiger went back home and did the laundry

and as I watched her disappear I realized that love is something that flows into and out of us if we let it  if we don't reserve it for certain days or situations or relationships  it just is like the tiger with big teeth and claws and my head resting on the point of those teeth and the claws millimeters from my skin I can or could only see the tiger for what it could be and clearly can be or for what it was and is  the only thing that would change is me the tiger was already decided and enduring

so once again the only thing that can change is me  and I imagine the same is true for you  and the old ladies in the store  

the christmas spirit isn't one day or one thing is it  it isn't something you can lose or change or limit  it might be found at the grocery store but it won't be on the shelf or in the ads it is however something we can lock our doors against  and by that I mean the door of our hearts, relatives

in the grocery store with the two old gmas and me in the middle  snow angel or no angel  laughter or grumpy  the choice is mine  the day is mine  the snow is waiting and the pickles are definitely not generic and yes love and tigers live here at my house and sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't but that doesn't mean we don't believe in it all the same

love from me and the tiger

mb

read this and I will get back to you

http://vividlife.me/ultimate/41389/breaking-news-the-new-age-retires/

you are driving me up the wall, thanx for that

good morning relatives

its -17 degrees this morning    that is the temperature LOL not the wind chill      best to stay out o f the wind today

so change     change change transformation    we have an effect on what and who we are around
I've seen it in my own life   I can look back to a short timeline and see what my doing did in those around me and what their doing did in me   we created each other over time   and what were the ingredients I put in their pot and what did they put in mine and what did we filter or sieve out of ourselves ?    because we can  we can filter what we take in and we can make and active choice about what we put in others
we can be kind or harsh  we can be snide or encouraging we can gossip or turn away and choose to wait and speak the thing that creates rather than destroys   and which ever one we do the next time we come around to that place, and we will come around to it, that place and those people including ourselves will be what we put into it the last time it will bend and grow towards that input

today I can see that the world is malleable and I am a potter with hands in the clay and I also see that I want to be a good potter, a better writer, a happy human being  or is that human bean?  I never really knew that the world  my world was that subtle  or that affect able   its different to feel it in a big grand creation in the moment sort of way or in the epic failure crash sort of way   it is very different to feel it in the slow steady tendril sort of way

how cool is that

the wall
where I run smack into my lack of skills propelled by the force or fuel of my own emotional or cognitive immaturity and the frustration that comes when I am wanting to have and do more and not quite able to make it so is a pretty big wall and I think it is time I learned to expect the wall and to run up it rather than into it  perhaps that is what growing up means expecting there will be monumental places where I don't know what the … to do and don't have the skill to do it even if I knew

I think that is what I am learning that somehow I don't have to know how to do everything and that somehow life is elastic enough to be happy [despite the fact that I am part of the whole which means I don't have the whole skill set] that I am here and part of the whole  wholeness

as I stand here and look back and see wall smack falling ness and ahead and see wall up doable new heightness I think I can do that   I can run up the wall instead of into it and I think I haven't got it quite

yet

I ran into a wall like that last year in the spring with a friend of mine     she is my oldest friend   I think we met in second grade   and last spring we were both and both of our lives were in big transition  and there was frustration and need for something  need for something from each other only

neither of us were quite able to be there in the way that was good  or in the way that was Yet who we would be a few months later when we got through a little more of our transition  

so we crashed   right into the wall of unable to do what either of us needed from the other at the moment and we both fell back from each other and silence ensued   between us   and that great wall that we ran into loomed   and it loomed  it loomed so long that I finally stopped being surprised and afraid that it was there and then stopped being angry that it was there and then stopped being bothered by trying to decide if I should make it permanent and go around it and pretend that beyond it my friend and thus myself did not exist  because of course I exist and of course she does and it was after all just a wall that was built out of our own stuff and if that is so then we would journey past it over it or around it and go on

thank life that was not the only wall of silence I had encountered in my life    thank life it was not the only time I fell off of something and something broke   thank life that I was awake enough to understand that there was and is more in the mix than just me and my a and in-a bilities  more than her and her a and in-a bilities and more than what life was trying to get out of either or both of us

it wasn't always pleasant  the silence   and sometimes I would test out the  waters to see if anyone was biting yet  and then I would go back to work on me  and what I was learning  

and Ive been learning these things:

dont sweat the small stuff

meaning that intentional negativity is different than not being perfect
{and by the way relatives we don't need intentional negativity to get ahead, we just need better budgeting skills (which is a different conversation)}

not being perfect  is confusing because even though I never wanted to be perfect it was demanded of me by me and others  but really it wasn't perfectionism, it was convenience and similarity and expectation  it was like asking a baboon to be a giraffe and a lake to be the earth that holds it.
perfection was really just someone wanting me and me wanting me and perhaps wanting in a way that was timely something that was at that time not possible and sometimes not even doable ever

take my job for example:
the translation in my cells from intention to fruition is sometimes not quite 100%  I have trouble with change and with math  I have trouble adding the most simple sums ( and you can forget about complex ones!) and it results in small errors on occasion if there are lots of factors  i.e. I am tired i.e. Ive worked more than four days in a row i.e. there are 10-15 people in the store and three behind the counter and 6 outside with gas and I am answering to all of them at once and with math!

just can't translate into exact change for me   so I have come to understand that in the Grand Scheme of Things  the small stuff is not the change  or my drawer being off by $1.23  at the end of the day  the small stuff is whether or not I am going to be pleased with my day over all and who I am when all is said and done   it is whether or not I am going to beat the crap out of me for not being perfect when i already know that I am not perfect especially with math

it also helps me figure out if I am working at a place that is a good fit for me  did I choose to work where I would be respected?  where it is understood the nature of the business means that if we can keep it together and dance the edge of as many customers in and out the door as possible without making big expensive gross errors and have reasonably treated them and each other with respect so we will all feel like coming back tomorrow and in the process have not torn down the house,  then we have accomplished business

and in that big effort sometimes we are out of certain cigarettes, sometimes we are out of certain ice cream bars, sometimes certain papers run out, and some times I count change wrong or add up the dollar lottery scratch offs wrong or forget to keep a void ticket

but in the mix

in the big effort,  what I see is that there is trust    we have trust  between us  all of us the store, the customers the employer and the employees  all of us   meaning that Im not going to get beat to death if I make an error  meaning what they are looking for is an overall positive effort  and if I work there long enough then it becomes apparent that if I bring in the door a negative effort  they will get negative results that begin to look like a pattern of intent rather than just random humanness.
and If I bring in positive effort then things are clearer and happier and the random humanness sticks out more because it becomes glaringly different!  but that doesn't make it bad or me bad
and that is the small stuff

that random humanness that is so glaringly present so sore thumbish when we are standing in the sacred,  not because being human is bad it is just different it is just lacking something some things different in each of us when we hold that humanness in the embrace of our innate divineness

how cool is that

life is a big mirror and the store is as well  and the reports that are kept as feedback to track how we do, where our human mistakes are showing up,  help them see if I am bringing in negativity which compounds into patterns of big mistakes, or if I am working shifts that are not good for me, i.e. too many in a row or the wrong time of day, or if I need a bit of education and new skill or if I am just a pretty normal gal working in a relatively normal way and on a steady regular learning curve
the tracking helps me and them see that I am normal

who would have ever thought that I was normal besides me ?

so how is it that sweating the small stuff about being a human being became so oppressive?  how is it that compassion and the peace that passes understanding got passed over?

there have been times that I have been in the wrong place  in relationship with people who are expecting perfection from me just because I happen to have some skills and some insights and some wherewithal's that were outstanding and unexpectedly amazing or so very different than they might be able to be, they wanted that amazingness and what it brought but they also wanted me to be all the un-amazing things they took for granted.   they expect me to be an all round perfect gal    and Im not

I can't be its not in my clay

any of you who have read this blog more than once know that grammar and I are not best buds LOL and my brain is not the same as others and did I mention I am really really non intuitive when it comes to math?

and trust me at age 54 it is not for lack of trying or lack of taking classes or trying to apply myself  it just does not stick some of it  its like oil and water,  its like pulling teeth, or beating a dead horse for me    ( remember how hard it is to get through the quartzite and reach the pipestone?)  and it is not that I am not wanting and haven't wanted to be a good friend, citizen, companion, teacher, doctor, ceremonialist, etc…..    its that there are somethings I am good at and some I am not  some things I learn easy and some are like pounding granite with wet noodles  

but my goal my eagerness is to become and to develop and somewhere along the way I let someone sell me the idea that my eagerness to become like the acorn reaching to the oak or the larvae coalescing into a butterfly  somewhere along the way someone sold me the idea that if I was eager to please I would succeed  and that if I failed even microscopically I was worthless

that sucks

because there are some things I fail at not microscopically  I fail epically  and usually its the things that others can do as easy as tying their shoes  with velcro  easy  for me can be massively non intuitive

and trust me relatives I have felt worthless so many times    too many times

and I have to say that it took all this time to chip away enough of the granite fog to get an inkling into the idea that perhaps there was a better answer than being perfect  perhaps there were people who wouldn't or weren't so needing for me to be perfect and weren't so threatened when I wasn't  perfect

and I spent so much time, energy, emotion, and skin pounding on those great walls that for others were not even ant hills

and I thought there shouldn't be walls     but of course there are walls    for all of us  your walls are not the same as mine and it is ashes ashes we all fall down isn't it?

and thats just it  we all fall down  we all soar  and we all have things we are good at and things we are not so good at  and our color our education our money status our size our spiritual whereiwthall our what ever is no advantage one way or another and does not imply that we have all our ducks in a row or even that we have heard of ducks or could teach them to row  if we had a boat that did not actually leak and in that case were close to or on water not in a virtual desert looking up at a wall

do you see what I mean

I haven't seen it    not for years and years  until now  smack down on my back looking at the sky wishing I could figure out what happened between my friend and I

I remember what an old friend of mine said to me once, " You've been hanging out with the wrong outfit." and some of it is that I have hung out with people who are rigid and unforgiving and unable to bear my humanness and the reflection of their own in me  and at jobs that were the same and so I have over time learned to hang out with different outfits  but eventually I also had to change
to change me
small change
adds
up

when my friend and I ran into our wall last spring and we fell back from each other there was a lot of good  we both were changing we both were running full head on into our future and wanted the other to be there for ourselves

there was a lot of old shit too   obviously there was because neither of us ran up the wall  we smacked it and fell back

but what is so very cool about my old friend and I is that we have something between us that endures  and that is willing to keep us meandering down the road until we find that all the planets are in alignment and we reach out and touch each other and there we are again

getting up  and not taking the wall personally or each others humanness
she's the right outfit and guess what so am I

and we are driving each other up the wall
instead of into it
finally
lol
and we don't sweat the small stuff   but what is very cool about getting older and actually slowly and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y growing is that at our indestructible core we are growers  we are suck it up and survive it girls and we are loyal and we are friends

still friends still capable of driving each other up the wall

thanx relatives
enjoy your day
I appreciate you
love ya
mean it
mb

living in the vacuum

Good Morning Relatives

its a sunny but very cold day here in Pipestone    the dogs are playing after their breakfast    the cat is napping in the sun   the turkeys are finding the warmest places to hang out and I am having coffee

there is so much going on   Im learning about balance  and about remembering that my life at home  my time that is not at my job is as valuable as my time spent for work is     when I was a student as a child school had set hours    when I was in school as an adult  classes had set hours   when I worked 9-5 jobs there were set hours    then when i began working in the ambiguous world of doctor on call the set ness of hours went away    and then when i owned my own practice I was rarely not at work  

somehow the profession warranted all that value  all that focus and energy and give away of my life to it and frankly it almost killed me  

while I was working diligently I thought that the system  the government  the retirement investments etc… was doing their part  to take care of me  of us  like in school    we go to school and our parents  for the majority of us were working and covering all the other ends  and the administration the outside authoritative world was built and operated in such a way that it took care of us while we were doing other things    it was a barter system  built to help to maintain balance to make the gathering the town the city more sustainable in a larger system  a system that was I suppose intended to make things available for barter that we otherwise could not make ourselves or obtain like tea from china cinnamon from ceylon or fresh vegetables from california cheese from wisconsin and plays from new york

we made trades  and got things and enjoyed meals  time reading or taking in or exercising or relaxing or watching sports or listening to an ensemble    

and that I think is and was cool   a good trade     but somewhere along the way it seems there was a shift towards giving too much of our free time  our personal lives for money  for professional goals or fantasies on and on   the time constraints of things became unconstrained  kind of like the cell phone went from a safety conveinece to the ultimate robber baron of personal private space

so who stems the flow ?

I watch us myself my coworkers ( of which I am the oldest by at least 30 years) and others pouring our lives into the outside the other than the home and personal world  

how did I notice this  ?

how is it that a person who was a doctor now stop and rob cashier recognized an unhealthy insidious pattern in herself that she was taught trained and spent years participating in?

its easy  sort of   could've been easy

I kept waking up with a numb hand, arm, shoulder and pain in my thoracocervical junction area    and I was way too tired to do very much at home other than write occasionally and read and do laundry (work clothes of course, and animal and heat chores)  


yep I woke up unable to feel my arm       or was way too cranky at work   or was way too involved in the trauma drama that people brought to work and tried to leave with me    ugggggh

so rather than just get stuck in a  rut of complaint I thought I would see where I was allowing this to happen to me   and I looked back over my work schedule and found the lure of money  the lure of companionship?  social time,  pleasing others,  pleasing authority,  and a willingness to not value what I was doing at my home  

you see I want to be a writer, well I am a writer but I want to be a published writer one who makes it in that world  (what ever that means LOL)  so I spend my time when I am not doing other things or avoiding the fear of success etc  or working at the stop and rob or being afraid of getting to the end of the book and no one will want it    on and on the predators come from within to keep me from this personal goal    

so when I thought about it honestly and without avoidance,  I was subtly but clearly giving away my energy and time to too many things and it was leading me to the numb arm and hand

the lifeless life

well been there done that relatives  and got the t-shirt  twice  lol

the lifeless life  my arm was reminding me about it  

so I looked at my long standing old fear which translated into avoidance of telling someone in authority over me what it is that I want  what it is that I am willing to accept   I realize by now that making my "Wishes" known to management in a positive and friendly manner lasts only until the next staffing crisis and they come back to me and say Mary can you come in two hours early?  Mary you have two days off in a row here and can you work just a four hour shift  its not all day  or the next thing I know I am working six days in a row because when one schedule week ends and the other starts on a different piece of paper graph it appears there is a break when there is not   so the trying to be helpful or pleasant and not make waves or take on the weight of resisting refusing not fixing or helping with what they are wanting from me

whomever they are      

becomes for me very very difficult  

in thinking about this  in reviewing it in my life here on paper I see  get an inkling  of the fear the underlying motivations of not wanting to not fit in  not wanting to be seen as "negative" what eve that means for each person, or wanting approval, wanting to matter  in a good way

these emotions   flashes of people and their thoughts fears and "weaknesses"?   not sure it is a weakness  or if it is just as of yet an untrained muscular area in our personal functional psychic physique    

its an area in ourselves in myself that is not yet trained   sort of like not being potty trained I think   when we are not yet potty trained we tend to shit on ourselves, and in places that are socially and hygienically unacceptable and it leaves us vulnerable to ridicule, punishment, self abasement, and ultimately shame poor self image and on and on   when it is just shit it smells too much for people to use it for much or profit from it being deposited in an "inappropriate" manner place or time so most of society tends to really push for us to become mature, adult, grown up in our shit depositing habits until it is almost an involuntary thing for us to control our bowels and elemenations and we actually even outgrow the wonder, enjoyment and praise seeking behavior of the two, three, or however old child who says look! I made a deposit and my pants are clean!  

so we go on from this into our teens or youngling stage and we have been trained to seek approval, good toilet behavior progresses into good job with school way to go for cleaning your room or doing your chores or helping grandma or your dad change the tire (do dads do that any more?)  to seeking approval from the peers at school, or the teachers, or the coach, or the crowd at the basketball game and we grow into children, young, adults that seek approval   and also get hooked on the rewards that are handed out when we perform perfectly for our audience, our teachers, our parents, our pastors, our coaches, our trainers, our masters

and thus we do not become masters of our selves   of our own destinies    yes we are in charge of it no doubt  but we are not Masters  

and it is important you say to teach our children not to shit on themselves and to make good grades and clean up their room and to be thoughtful  yes it is
 but it is also important to teach them  i.e. me teach me  you teach you now that we are beyond parents
it is important to teach ourselves that our life energy  our time our focus our doing is valuable   it is valuable when no one is looking or handing out money or scoobie snax or praise or reward  
we are valuable on our own
and our little decisions about what to do with our time and energy pile up like tiny flakes of snow into a drift that eventually buries our lives in nothingness if we do not pay attention to what we are choosing and why  
why do you go in the toilet?
why do you sit and read or help carry in food from the car?
why cut the grass?  why wear clean clothes and how much energy and time do you spend cleaning them ?   why hang out with people who you seek praise from?  are they fun? really  is it fun to be so dependent on others opinions?
do I go to work because I am avoiding my home life?
what ever the reason that I don't stand up for my own free time and choice of energy balance social interaction money and sense of contribution  what ever the reason that I make the choice that I do if I have been trained to react rather than make a choice and if I persist in reacting rather than making a choice about my life and my time then I am most likely going to be sucked dry of my life into the profit that collects in someone else's pocket
and then eventually I will be a discarded shell of a person that even I don't want to live inside any longer
and either I will sink into the wall of the consuming world and become part of its structure  or I might in a burst of accumulated rage against myself and the life sucking world around me strike out at that world

and it would be with no clear plan or a ability to follow through to a different end and like a fire cracker  my energy would expend itself and then be lost  and I would be left with the clean up

because I didn't realize there are alpha dogs out there,  there are queen bees,  there are ants in charge,  there are human beings who are trained and or born to be predatory and who do and will suck the life right out of me as fast as I serve it up to them on my want to please platter

and because I didn't really realize  

until i was older LOL  like really older

that I had to watch out for myself  

that I had to take good care of me     really take good care of me and I mean way beyond how to wipe my ass so that I don't end up with stinky shorts  

way beyond eat your vegetables and comb your hair

I have to take care of me and value me  and see the joy in my day    and create joy for me in my day  

there is no trade for joy  

there is no buying it

or earning points for it   that someone will rebate you and handful of joy for

it truly comes from working your own life  my own life  my own self respect and gardening in my own little plot with my own little hands  

it truly comes from that

so why all these long complex deep thoughts and conjectures  relatives

because finding the nidus of what makes me tick and reprogramming the part of me that translates into who and how I am when I am the farthest away from my center in my day gives me confidence in my performance  it gives me confidence and comfort in the knowledge that I am not screwing my self out of my own life LOL

I have a friend who plays classical guitar  and not just at home but in a guitar orchestra    she does this because it pleases her     it pleases her to make this guitar sing  and to combine it with others  she revels in the joy of music and voice and she practices  hours and hours of practice every day  she does small things at the core of a music piece over and over until her hands have the memory of the movement and her ears and her breath and her body are all trained and practiced and combined into this wondrous organism of guitar music   she does it because it pleases her

she likes to be a part of the great guitar orchestra and to be there as an voluntary presence with trained involuntary contribution to this great effort of musical expertise and joy

and thats what I m talking about relatives

you see I thought growing up that I was going to become a part of the great joy of life and all of us working together to this great amazing harvest of the garden

and I believe that we are and we can be and it is worth it

and I believe that what makes me a valuable cashier at the stop and rob is because I understand that at my core I am more valuable if I give to me as much as to them  if I value my own time and work nd play and effort and if I do not trade my life for tomorrow or for a paycheck or an ira account or for pleasing the alpha dog    I am more valuable if I am in balance   and value me  as much as I value making correct change or mopping the floor or being kind to the customers etc…..

so I have to find the sustainable me  

I have to think it through because I am an adult  Im past the mindless training stage of my life   undoing takes effort and work but gives me joy because I already know that when i learn this thing that is at thend of these long complex traverses into thought and resultant human action  when like my friend I spend the time unthinking and undoing and redoing then I find the music that I can play without thinking  without worrying that at the end of the day my arm is going to be numb and my mind dissatisfied and lost or lonely    

we are complex  we are beautiful we are amazing and we sell ourselves short by trading mindless work for mindless praise  

dont do it

but don't undo it by being violent with yourself or others        remember kindness matters  and all the time that is not spent cleaning up a violent outburst or recovering from the damage to you and those around you  can be spent just enjoying and holding onto that person who cares for you the most

yourself    

myself

I will be kind when i tell my boss no more working more than four shifts in a row     and when someone anyone asks me or calls me to see if I can come in early  rather than focusing on pleasing them or the money I will take a few minutes to think it through and see if it pleases me and my work in my own life

because if my life does not please me  then I won't sustain it and ultimately they will lose a really good employees and I will lose a really good chance to exist

I have heard my friend play her guitar and she is great at it  not the best or the worst  not the key pin in the world of guitars  but she is beautiful because she is present  she shows up for and as herself  and I know that the ultimate sound of that orchestra would be less if she was not there  I can tell this because she is so amazing on her own

and that's it  I am amazing on my own and when i showed up at work or in the company of others that amazing ness made a contribution that all my life made those who could seek my contribution again and again  but what took me so long to learn is that when i am not amazing for me at home in my own personal privateness    then I run out of amazing out there in the world

and like others have before me I began to flail about because my joy was overextended and my arms were numb and my mind exhausted and my skills resorted to violence which really sucks  but is not so surprising when we look at our lives our culture and what we witness and see very day that when we are overwhelmed at the end  of our rope we become violent

so what do I hold onto   to keep me from being violent  to hold me to kindness until i can get my home practice up to speed?  because unlike my friend in the volunteer guitar orchestra and like most adults or human beings over the age of two I am unable to take a break from the great on stage ness of our lives and go to the betty ford center for sacred centered ness and be reintroduced into my regular world life through a series of really excellent 1/8th, 1/4, 3/8ths, 1/2 way houses so that I can learn to interact with the world and maintain my practice   and truly i have no desire to live in a monastery

how do I hold onto this nidus of kindness when I go back into the world today, tomorrow?  until I get it until I am practiced against all forces in the presence of all the alpha dogs and dog trainers in the tide of discontent in the real world  how do I do it?

I think I'll start by going and vacuuming,

let me know what you think Relatives

what you think

enjoy your joy in your day  
best
mary

Call To Prayer

Grandmothers  Relatives good morning  thank you for your time 

I am writing on behalf of My GMa Margaret Behan this morning    we have been visiting on the phone and this morning she asked for prayers for Diane Spotted Elk

Diane's son Alex [Whom I met on the ride home (the journey back to Lame Deer) and again at the Gathering at Lame Deer],  Alex was killed a few weeks ago 

he was 18 years old   

he was drunk which is a crappy and unfortunate  reality in many lives, Cheyenne, American, European, Asian etc....  many of us are addicted to things that take hold of us  even though we are not always caught in that grip of being something other than connected to our sacred selves      it happens to us all so I ask compassion for him and his family in holding the reality of this event and what is coming from it, I ask for compassion for him, his mother, and Margaret and all each of us in our own addictions or fears that get ahold of us and we lose our way  he lost his way and while he was drunk he was killed  it is a terrible testimony to both the fragility, the preciousness, and the horror of life in todays world.  he was a good boy, I remember him and his loss is a devastating thing.

They think his death was caused by a man who is a drug dealer  he may have ran him over in the night while Alex was walking on the road and left him for dead and he died    now the daughter his mother Margaret's relative is trying to find out about what happened they are trying to see if there is enough evidence for the tribal leaders, the law enforcement entities to hold this man and make him accountable for this death    But it is messy 

it is very difficult as we all know to stand up against a system that is profiting more from drugs, alcohol, money and integrity abuse than from the beautiful lives of our children, our sisters and brothers, our Aunties, Uncles and our Elders    

all of our cultures suffer from addictions and those who profit from addictions existing in our lives ( addiction to money, power, technology, clothes, drugs, food, alcohol, sex, perfection, exercise, work) whatever the addiction  we all have to face it in ourselves and in our own cultures and homes  it is this that helps us to see that we are one people we are all together needing to support the standign up against this social pattern in our own and for others lives 

GMa Margaret asked for prayer for Diane Spotted Elk and her family as they speak out against this in thier lives and community    I ask you please to prayer for them and also for yourselves and each of us for each other   we connect not with judgment but with strength and firmness    

one of the things that makes GMa Margaret so precious to me is that she has never asked me to think of her as perfect, or as someone who has not struggled with addiction. With trying to figure out how to let go of the past, how to have a presence in the present. A living life that will make a future that is sustainable.  she like me and I am sure other humans, has suffered from addiction, from fear, from lack of leadership in her community, from anguish and helplessness over the reality of the historical tragedies of the past in her culture, and the overwhelmingness of what to do now today on the reservation, in her own life,  her family and when possible in the public arena.  she has never been perfect or asked me to think that she is or was  but she has not let this dissuade her or count her out   she does not buy into the idea that she has or had to be perfect or know everything to matter  and Grandmothers neither do we have to be.  she keeps on getting up and learning both from her mistakes and her successes and she keeps going.  She goes for all of us  not only for herself   but she also taught me that she had to first learn to pray for herself before she learned to pray for others.  

Relatives I have spent time with you and we have learned together and prayed together and worked and fallen down and gotten back up   now I am wanting us to act as a unit for this woman for her family for all of our families 

we just have to stand up today and do today      we have to live and pray and speak and let our self know first and then those in our immediate space know  no matter what yesterday was,

 today I matter, today living with sacred respect for me and my time and my love and my heart and my life matters   it matters  today  and it matters that Diane Spotted Elk fight for justice for her son, that she honor his being, his life and that she ask those in authority to respect integrity and honesty rather than profit or convenience  Being drunk may have taken his life, but it should not also take his death or the integrity and love of his mother, his family or from us for him.  

 Margaret lives this with her life, she examples it    let us do this as well  let us simply and strongly live as an example with our lives today, today, today   of our sacred respect for our own life, no matter what and those lives in our reach   

even as the moon shows us every month in the night sky that when this world blocks out the light  if we persist and we hold on to the light and we push away that which tries to take our sacredness from us and those lives whom we share either at work, at home, in our neighborhood or simply standing on the earth at this time   we can hold on to our sacredness and say no in our prayer in our intention and we can ask the Spirits to come and to hold this sacredness for Diane and her family and all our families   

I am writing to you to ask for this to ask you to hold this prayer in your day in the night and as many days as you can for this woman and her heart and her family  to show her that we are her family as well   that the loss of one more child is too many 

thank you for your time   

please if you accept pass this prayer on to others   I have not put every email address I have on here because it gets too much and some people feel it is not personal if it is sent enmass   I respect this and so am asking you if you accept please discuss and connect this prayer to the other grandmothers that you know (and grandfathers!) and connect with this effort 

you may email Margaret if you like  margaret Behan <gettay55@yahoo.com> to show her your support and to offer her your prayer for her family and our family 

this is something that we can do   to change our world I believe 

thank you 

love love love 

mary

GMa Margaret and GMa Judith

Me and the Gmas at the lake