Once in a Very Blue Moon

Dear Relatives
I learned along time ago when I was a kid in Amarillo Texas that if it was snowing it was warm!  It snowed all day yesterday and I watched the wind blow from east to west.  It twas lovely.  At night when I take my old boy Marshal Valentine out to go pee ( I know some of you can relate to needing to go in the middle of the night!) we listen to the silence and to the beauty in the night sky and the soft snow reflecting the light.   it is often then that I reach out again to think of and extend my care solidly towards our family at Lame Deer.  just like the new way of being each day that we learn as we transition through the seasons and each day of trying life on.  The snow is so soft and so willing to fill in the dents that we make in our path.  Encouraging us to begin again. begin again.

this morning one of the guys from the hook and ladder company came and plowed out my driveway   He moves the big Cat around the yard with the ease of a ballet dancer, the heart of a lion, and the finesse of a neurosurgeon.  As he finished I went out and handed up to him his christmas bag of homemade cookies.  he grinned and asked me how my hands were.  He regularly threatens to "put me over his knee" for overdoing.  He held my hands and looked me in the eye and we wished each other a good and healthy new year. As I looked back at this man who is a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, friend of many, and new friend of the grandmothers I was so happy to make a good strong agreement for the coming year. it will be a great year !!

Today is last full moon of this year    it is also a blue moon  which means it is the second full moon in the month.   I know that many of you have wanted me to close up the house and wonderfully and generously offered for me to come and stay with you so that I was warm and so that I could heal in closer physical proximity to your gentle hearts.  I have been so grateful for these offers of care and genuine generosity.  Thank you so much relatives for your love and willingness to care for my body.

Yet i stayed   I stayed here at the Center of the East and West Gate to endure the winter and the change in the moon and the offering of water from the lake and the night songs of the stars and to watch the planets align in the night sky over the house.  I stayed so that we can have a good heart beginning here at our Center.  I stayed so that the Spirits will know that we are willing to do our part and willing to endure the temporal discomfort to be on time for the pouring of the water, the end of a year and the beginning of the new year.    It is so important to hold steadfast and with great Joy in the time of transition.  it is so important that we are present when the moon comes up and looks down over the land.  When the water runs from here in the spring down to the sea it will tell the sea that we were here. That this house is alive and working to heal and center and love each and every thing that each molecule that spent time here touches.

Summer is a pause

Fall is the in breath

winter is the pause

spring is the out breath  

tonight relatives I will go out in the middle of the night under the full moon with the dogs and we will walk the land   we will put out song and prayer and tobacco and corn meal for the Spirits, for the Ancestors, for the Land.   we will make the turn of the season prayers here at the Center of the East and West Gate for the coming year

I also will ask the Spirits to put their effort into the drawing of the raffle ticket for the house and this place on New Years day.  On January 1st 2013 will be drawn minnesota raffle ticket number 030451 for the house  I ask relatives that you hold that number and out loud present it to the spirits with a very specific request that it be the number drawn from the raffle pool as a winner  that we win the $100,000.00 that I dreamed about and the car   Please join me every day in asking the spirits out loud every day for this specific thing.    Minnesota Raffle ticket number 030451 to be drawn as a $100,000.00 winner january 1st, 2013 and also win the bonus car.   I know Relatives that you have believed in the love and prayer and healing that you have offered, and sent to me here at the house.  some have been able to give energy in the form of money and most all in the form of prayer.  WEll  I am healing and things are staying alive here  and we need money ! so now let us all focus that prayer energy and request towards the successful drawing of this number minnesota raffle ticket 030451 on january 1st 2013 for the $100,000.00 and the car

awesome!!!

well I am off to make tea and to write more on the book about Lame Deer

bless you Relatives   Hold this way  find your path  become more today than you were yesterday and less today than you ever were

in my heart you are as I walk the land
love and light shadow and song
mary

Enough Talk! Let's Fight!!

Relatives 
remember there is no special ingredient 

 on this day the wu-zi finger 

Skadoosh!

My prayer is;" that all would not forget, but remember what has trapped them and bound them and fed off of them and cost them their lives  that they would not forget and wipe away tears, that they would not drink ever again the draft of forgetfulness held out to them in the cup of illusion of the attachment to the fantasy of relation or spiritual enlightenment or pehnominonality, I pray that ALL would see that they own for them selves this life and its WAY, that they would remember that This Life Their LIFE is not for sale or for trade. I pray that they would NOT throw off the painful or niggling thing that like a splinter festers in the face of the illusion of the lotus eaters, that splinter is of the Heart of light that tries to release them from the enslavement of the temporal eaters that walk in this time and would consume them over and over.   I pray that they will be uncomfortable and ill at ease until they realize that the selling of their soul for a moment of phenomenon or pleasure of recognition or pleasure of acceptance or ego stroking that reveals the hand of the predator is no longer the hand they want to starve them, no longer an acceptable hand allowed to touch and soothe them into the fog of a lullaby death march.   I pray that they will see and Wake Up! and throw off the illusion of care and the illusion of false spiritual practice  and false relation  and false hope and false prayer that sucks out of them their own creative energy and heart path with this life   that the past that ensnares will flame in the light of this day and be consumed away from their very cells and breath. 

I pray that ALL  will be protected and that the light of the fire held at Lame Deer and throughout the world will HOLD FAST to crack and crumble and disable and destroy the temporal predatory temple that has been created here all around each sincu and each living thing   

I call unto the life of the trees and the sparkle of the water  the oxygen in the air and the strength in the dirt  the motion of every living thing  I call upon all these things to shine forth in a great effort for all time remaining to destroy the greedy ones  to destroy the predators hold on the mind and vibration of this planet 

I call the innocence of the fawn, the great work of the bee, the comfort of the cloud, the heat of the sun, the song of the stars, the fin of the fish, the dream of the bear, the grain of the sand and salt in the sea,  I call on the Way of this Love and Great Life in Motion here on this planet  I call it forth to stand at my fire 

to stand at the fire of love from this day ever more and always linked together to dispel darkness and its waste from our earth to dispel your hold on the mind of the innocent life 

I trust the Light to know what is Dark  

I trust the Spirits to Discern and Divide and Destroy

I trust the Sword of Truth to Pierce the Heart and reveal its Fabric

in the light there is no dark and in the darkest place, the light shines brightest   

May no Sincu be left untouched by this prayer in All Time 

In All Breath

it is in the temporal that the eternal aspects are revealed  

it is in the face of greed and gluttony that the generous heart of service is quietly steadfastly held 

it is in the simple words of honest truth that the deceiver is again and again brought to light

I stand with All of These against Those whose words are false 

those whose words are intended to harm or to mislead

those whose gluttony would consume any and every part or particle of life from this planet from any and all living things here 

I call Them and HOLD them at the FIRE and Crack and Crush Them and their way under my heel

I will never give up

I will never turn back

I will never submit

I will bear the flame of freedom unto my victory

I will bear this flame in honor

I will sustain the glory of Life within my Nation

I will sustain the glory of Life within my Being

I will forsake all Idols and 

I will forsake the Idol of my Outer self

I will have the glory of my immaculate divinely conceived Self manifesting within me 

I AM freedom and

I AM determined to be freedom

I AM the flame of freedom and 

I AM determined to bear it to all 

I AM God's freedom and that is indeed free

I AM freed by his power and his power is supreme

I AM fulfilling the promises of God's kingdom

With Love in this fateful hour 

I place all Heaven and its Power

And the Sun with its Brightness,

And the Snow with its Whiteness,

And the Fire with all the Strength it hath,

And the Lightening with its Rapid Wrath,

And the Winds with their Swiftness along their path, 

And the Sea with its Deepness,

And the Rocks with their Steepness,

And the Earth with its Starkness, 

All These I Place

By God's Almighty Help and Grace

Between myself and the powers of darkness"

Forevermore

Christmas fortune cookies in a shattered mirror

Dear Relatives
its is a tough day here at the GMa house   its really cold.  which is becoming normal  it is however kind of fun to go out and break off an icicle for a coke when I need a special treat !  to me it is fun and it is thanking the spirits and the wind and the sun and the water for that beautiful way of giving for reflection and pleasure

I dont have much pleasure in my body right now  my hands that have been so wonderful and so talented all my life are killing me.  they hurt so much today   so much.  I spent hours over the last several days making christmas cookies for the guys who worked on the house   I have no other way to thank them for their generosity in this season of giving.  besides I have always loved cooking.  before I went to veterinary school I was a chef  soup and salad  but at home it was baking that I was best at.  baking is about putting love into the flour  mix and the timing  it is about love and heat  heat makes the final change that brings out what we are unable to do by just putting differences in the same mix   heat  brings a chemical change when we use our hands and hearts to work into the dish or the cookie or the bread an intention    an intention that is recognized by the specifics of the flour, eggs, butter, water, salt fruit, pepper, spice, leavening, and sugar

I am sure that flour is quite happy being quiet and perfect in its sack, and how could the perfection of an orange ever be improved on if you break open its skin, scrape its rind, crush its beautiful segments into juice ?  and salt  such a small powerful concentrated changer of hydration thrown into an environment that it is at once out of balance with and so small up against so much,  all these things sitting as they are in the kitchen dreaming their dreams of their oneness,  then along comes a cooks hands and in seeing what they cannot see inside themselves or around in their relation to other things pours and beats and whips and shapes them into something that without each other they cannot achieve.   and as the hands combine the nature of these temporal abilities into the mix that is set with intention and hard work encourages the individual natures of the parts to change, to come together for something that without each other they cannot be then the hands themselves change  the hands and heart of the cook become more than they were without the work.    when we work steadfast for a long time then the encouragement of that effort is felt and held by all we touch and although flour can be many things even glue  on that one day in that particular mix through effort and sustained steady gentle encouragement and finally into the oven   into the fire of change all that effort and intention coalesces,  it becomes what the chef desires through love to give away to others   it becomes a cookie

but it takes heat    it takes the fire to make the final change relatives

and it takes a pan that is willing no matter how much the dough cries as the heat gets more and more unbearable as everything changes  it takes a pan that will hold the dough in the fire to make the transformation into a cookie   

today was also hard for me because I had to break an illusion and I had to take the ingredients that were presented to me in a loving way, and crush them, disarticulate them, and remix them into a mirror that could perhaps prevent another loss of life in a family.  it was not what was expected of me I am sure. but it is the work that was presented today and it is this work in our kitchens of our lives relatives that will change our world.  it is the work that crushes and consumes the illusion of loss and of the temporal trap of this life that frees both our lives and those around us to be what we ourselves are born to be  not, what others need us to be.  I had to try and be the fire that burns up illusion and sheds light into a temporal dark place   it is not my favorite thing to do  but it must be done  it is the work that tills the garden and changes the harvest  we have to have a better harvest relatives.   ever since i was little I have been the one to hold the mirror to the thing that breaks the illusion of our temporal waywardness     it has cost me relations with others  and I have thought all day about sharing this conversation on the blog  
so I decided to do it  to make the cookie and give it away

i received an email this am from someone I respect and whom has a strong love and heart and in my experience is strong enough to be the giver of this teaching for all of us  so I celebrate her willingness to be honest and to ask and to listen   I celebrate the opportunity she gave for all of us to learn from her life. this is her and my and the spirits gift to you today relatives   please chew on it and reflect in it and then go out and cook with it

Lets turn up the heat!

Hi Mary, 

                I think about you every day and pray for your wellness and ease in this life journey. 

Today is the XX year anniversary of my husband's death.  He died suddenly here at home, in the shower , in his birthday suit ; he passed on. My son and I did CPR but he never came back. He was my best friend and continues to be in spirit.         Our Granddaughter, YYYY, was born XX years ago on this same day.    

   I have a personal tattoo  question for you and hope it is ok to ask.   Both of our kids want to take some of their Dad's ashes and have the ashes put into a tattoo to honor him.   Did you do this with your sister's ashes ?  They both have tattoos already.  

    Please keep me posted about how you are doing.   

Love and Merry Christmas,

Date: December 23, 2012 10:50:03 AM CST

Dear GMa XX
thanx for the note and the prayers  today is a great day  I feel better today

anniversaries are always with us aren't they.  It sounds like you and he will continue to have a good and growing companionship.  One of my good friends also lost her husband exactly the same way  only it was 15 years ago. two years ago (13 after his death) he came to her in ceremony and asked her to let him go   let him have his next way and for her to go on with her life. she saw that what they had will always be but that there is more to do  and if she would release them both then they could continue on.  she is doing so finally and has healed  which is good  

about your granddaughter however I have a different thought altogether,  I would let my granddaughter have something more than that definition for her life. Her beginning belongs to her and the spirits not your husbands death or anything temporal.   it is hard enough as it is for a child to throw off or to outlive others memories and expectations that get put on them the minute they arrive.     don't define her with your and his past   let her define herself

as for the ashes and tattoos
what they do is for them to decide    also what I did with my part of my sisters bones is private for me  and not to be used to help others make decisions about their own choices

it sounds to me like they also are stuck in the past and missing the point of why they had a father in the first place  my memorial tattoos were to take away spiritual pain from my sisters burden of disease from her spirit and to make a commitment to live well now  to survive and to live a good life even in the face of trauma, loss, pain, shitty parents, and selfish hateful siblings that are the farthest thing from spiritual in their way of living and relating to this world.  my tattoos about her and the loss of my dog were about the transformation of death into life and about living every day the life I was given  not the one that others agendas or memories or expectations or limitations tried to put on me.  you might think about that for you and for them and for your grandkids     why is it that what you choose to relate to me about these children is about your husbands death? instead of their life  and why is it that they have grown up thinking the way to be close to him is by putting dead ash in living skin?

as for tattoos I would wonder why they want the ashes in their skin when they have their fathers DNA already in every cell?  perhaps they have forgotten? and this is what happens when we become caught in memory and fixing importance and attachment to things or clothes or bones or shells of memories that hold spirits   this is what happens to our children when we do not teach them that life is sacred and inside of each cell is the living gift of opportunity and when parents and grandparents don't let go of that life force and let us really have our lives.  

I see parents become addicted to that chi when children are being made and then as they grow and blossom rather than guide them and wonder at their own individual interpretation of life you eat it and hold it and control it and temper it and direct it and enmesh it in your own agenda.  then still addicted to that eating of chi and consuming and controlling after your children reproduce their children you continue the cycle of eating the child's chi  just like in little red riding hood,  over and over because you can only see them and relate to others about them according to your past and to the dead ends that only sustain what the japanese call the "hungry ghosts." grandparents and parents like this are being greedy and teaching dependance and a dead end cycle to that life that was given for its own unique purpose and blossoming.  that is what I see in your email  again that selfish temporal agenda in a family's training and in how a grandparent chooses to relate the world to their grandchild and how that grandchild is being trapped by an identity that she or he had nothing to do with.  it is a dead end for her and for them and for you   it is not an honorable thing about a body or a person that was here.  it is a dead end

so GMa XX if you want to change the world  take a good look at your own email to me and how you are relating to your family and change that  be brave be courageous to look at recognize and attend to changing your own disease in your own family that you have created.  be brave   you wanted you said this summer to learn from me  well   here is the first lesson and task  do this  suss it out in you and get rid of it   get rid of it for your granddaughter

 tattoos are permanent but not living like the DNA that your husband  already gave his children   obviously they have forgotten that their father gave them life  to live every day  and freed them from his own self and is willing to guide through the DNA structure but not to hold back or control
this is in their body and blood already  he can never leave them why is it that you did not teach them that    ???
the tattoo for me is about other things so I can give you this reflection  but not perpetrate the path you are on.

I hope this helps you and answers your questions of me

I love you  and them   and I pray for you GMa and for them that next year will be an altogether different kind of day on Dec 23rd
love
mary

bless you relatives   

good luck with your children and grandchildren   

may your feasts this year be ones of true freedom and skill and love  true love 

not cannibalistic   eh?

be the cook  

be the pan 

hold the fire 

let go of your own greed it will not prevent pain or increase your life  it will only consume someone else's 

love always 

mary

a house divided cannot stand

Dear Relatives
 its one month since I fell   almost to the day  
this morning I woke up with severe vertigo    really bad pitching and violent movement from my body and perceptory system

I thought I was drunk but that wasnt possible  and then I thought maybe I just needed some water  but that didn't change it

I was a bit scared   I was pitching sideways and up and down and nauseous    I had no control over my interaction with the floor and my limbs  it was like they would disappear between where I wanted to go and where they would end up  

I was scared  for a bit    I sat down and put my head down and cried for a while   not sure why  it just felt like that was a good idea  to let the spirits know that I was really scared and tired    I've never worried about telling them when I am scared  or just plain worn out    I never feel relatives likethey are not right there with me. I always feel like I can completely trust them  it is the only place that I really am able to relax is in thier completeness  

I realized today that that vertigo was what made me fall down or over the stairs   that feeling of being suddenly and violently thrown sideways and having no ability to stop it or control my body impulses is what propelled me over the side of the stairs to the ground one month ago  nov 17th

I was glad to finally understand or connect my memory to something tangible  no wonder I fell   it was unfortunate that i was going down the stairs when it hit me    I had been putting up ceiling most of the day that day  and was finishing up and cleaning up and getting ready to make dinner when I started down the stairs  and I pitched over  I remember that weird violent throwing sideways and then in the air knowing I was in trouble  knowing I was in an unrecoverable place that was going to end badly

today it was there when I woke up   that odd drunkness and inability to control my legs and feet placement in relation to the floor and my trunk   when i started trying to get up and get to the bathroom and get dressed and go downstairs etc  I kept falling and pitching and moving without being able to stop it.  it was horrible  and a horrible reminder of my fall down last month

I was able to see the doctor today in pipsetone  she is a good doc  she looks me in the eye and listens  and she thinks and is present  so that is good   to be present and to listen is so important for all of us don't you think?

it is good to look life in the eye   no matter what it is we are looking at  if we look clearly and with acceptance we will be ahead of the game

anyhow I will have a CT on thursday   I have to wait a couple of months before I can have an mri on my head due to the new pins and plate in my right wrist.   the magnetics would disrupt the plate  so we have to wait for that

I will let you know what I find out   thank you for your words of love and care  I am glad to know you stick with me in this life   my life is and has been interesting and yet the most thing I value is knowing you  it matters so much to me that you are here along the way with me

this evening I am feeling not so scared   life is so full of unknowns   so full of events that we could never have predicted and with outcomes so extraordinary that even if we had been given a map we would perhaps have missed the turn  

I was talking to a GMa this weekend about holding the fire   we talked about how sometimes it is hard to figure out what the fire is  and hard to know what our position is in relation to that fire, either of  which would make it difficult to figure out how or what to hold.  and in retrospective vertigo is alot like not holding the fire   great uncertainty!!

we compared notes on our struggles with choice  this week   for her she was coming to an understanding about not smoking   for me it was about not spending money on christmas lights   it sounds a little funny to compare the two but they are the same   the same dilemma  just different carrots on the end of the stick

I asked her why she was considering not smoking and why she would stop   ( and this has been a process for her as mine is for me) and she said that she would stop because some part of her   one part of her wanted her to.   One part of her wanted her to not smoke

how cool is that    

It hit me so clearly     she was listening so attently and with such respect to herself that she could hear the cells in side of her that said no  please do not smoke   please  it is killing us  and we don't want you to

now having been a smoker my self  ( I was a two and half pack a day smoker when i was young I loved smoking!) I understand how hard that addiction can be to quit  and especially in this environment where we are not supported in listening to that small voice in us that says no    everything around us says to compromise,  give in, go ahead, indulge, it doesn't matter, override caution, you can recover, it is ok indulge indulge indulge    don't worry about wavering  don't worry about it  no one cares it is an overriding vibration in our world not to care, and that it doesn't matter and that its ok to walk away from the fire  someone else will attend it.  Really  will they ?  Im not sure the cigarette manufacturers are attending to my friends cells.  I'm not sure the christmas light people are worried about the money for my heat.

My GMa friend, she listened to her cells   to the ones  the few or many or ?? however many in side of her that said please don't smoke  

she could and can hear them     and she stopped  for them  for herself    she stopped   for that one thing

how cool is that.  

that doing   that conversation we had  that choice for the cells in her  so saved me this weekend    believe it or not  it is has been up until this conversation, so very hard for me to be in the hardware store and to walk past the christmas lights that are on sale for half price and to keep walking.
All my life! it has been so very hard to not spend the money that I am trying to be so careful with on christmas lights    its easy to forget that i am cold when I am in the warm store,  it is so cheerful to have christmas lights,  and what a great price!!  I know though inside of me that I have been entrusted with holding the fire  that is set with the intention of the money and resources for the GMa house and not delude myself with distracting thoughts of satisfying some memory or fabricated idea of pleasure.  I have to not dilute the essence of the care that was given to me to entrust   as my GMa friend did not dilute the care of the essence of the cells she was entrusted to care for in her own body  and neither did she delude her self with a story about one more cigarette and its satisfaction

she listened to the small clear request and held it     I listened to the small clear intention of the support given here and held it   together we held it and in doing so we strengthened the vibration of holding the fire  holding the intention  holding the in the vibration in the ether for both of us  for each other and for all  

now when I stand and look at the lights I know that my friend is there with me and I know that when I don't buy them to satisfy that momentary gotta have this and it will give me that sensation I am having a merry christmas and we all know how important that is and I don't want to be left out of that feeling and I don't want to not have cheer, and on and on  so fast that distraction can go looking for any and every reason it can find to draw me away from the fire, from tending the fire I was set to hold.  and that delusion doesn't care what the cost is  it doesn't care that drawing me away from the fire, miss-spending that trust money or my friend smoking a cigarette will destroy unrecoverable cells, unrecoverable resources,  and so even though it will cost us an irreplaceable resource  it tugs at me, at her, all all of us standing there wherever we are and we wonder why there is such vertigo in the world around us?  such heartless ness in all the choices     I have wondered this for years  and struggled with this for years  and yet just this time have I seen that it is simply things trying to distract me from tending the fire.   I was never taught to tend my own fire relatives
I was never taught to listen to my cells and that it is not about right or wrong and it is not about good or bad  its about the fire,  my fire  about what mary is and who she wants to be and how she lays her fire everyday and then keeps it     and everything else is just not part of that fire tending  

my friend and life  the stairs the vertigo this house the donations the christmas lights  all of it  being at lame deer all of it   all of everything  has been teaching me to teach you that you are the fire

we are the fire   each of us  a fire  
and we simply choose to tend it or not   to hold it or not
and we get to choose how to set it  how to build it   and once we choose then we either keep it or not
and if I do this then it will matter to your fire  to hers  to the family at lame deer  it will matter so much more than any lights or any cigarette  

 and now I know that I am also standing for her  for her cells and her not smoking  we are standing together     creating a bond of trust  and listening and love and endurance across the night sky through the motion of the day  

we stand together at the fire   undiluted and un-deluded   in the simplicity of knowing what position we choose to take.

so relatives  this season, my conversation with my friend, the care you have sent, the trust I an to oversee, the challenges of temporal and physical disruption, the pain and confusion of healing, the violent and uncontrollable perceptional relations with my external environment, the illusive idea of winter and comfort and joy,  the battle with memory and pleasure and cellular respect,  the steadfast love of the spirits, and of going forward  forward to learn and become and give back so that you can not only go forward but far exceed anything I ever could understand or do.  that is what is moving here at the end of the year   that is what the winter season is for to listen  to wait or choose our position   figure out what is the fire  and what is your choice my choice our choice about relating to it     and stand simply take a stand  and hold it    

when our mind or our memories or our ego or our fear of feeling what we think is coming or our need for feeling again something that we had once and want over and over again pulls us and pushes us away from our own simple commitment to our own health or well being

 it can be tough

especially if we think we are alone,

 especially if we feel that at that moment we are alone  
we lose sight of what we value as fire,
 we lose sight of our own value to the fire itself.
I think we perhaps have never known that we are the fire and as such we are worth keeping

we can be distracted and change our focus, and once we change our focus we lose sight of what we came to do we begin to see that our choices can have us rolling across the water of life like a pitching deck of a ship  from one illusion of satisfaction to another   all the while our center is asking us to stop relying on the external input that is so violently at odds with that steady quiet place of holding the fire  


Grandmothers
Relatives
Freinds

you are a good fire
you are worth keeping
I am a good fire
I am worth keeping

keep your fire
hold your choice

endure
we are standign together

we are standing together at the fire

I love you so very very much
every day
and every night

thank you to the deck of the pitching ship of life for throwing me to this shore

mary

Drowning the Susceptible Heart

Greetings Relatives

Its approaching mid winter     Everyday is a little bit harder than the day before    its like climbing a mountain that imperceptibly gets steeper and steeper by the day.  

Thank you for all the gifts of encouragment and prayer and money  and herbs and electronic work from Eleanor and Evie  hank you   without it I think Id be in a much tougher spot  so thank you  very very much

my arms are really painful if I do repeptitive things  so typing comes at a cost  LOL

I got my bed made  its so nice to have clean sheets   today I was able to scoop the kitty box with just one hand  that is a big I'mprovemtn! He is not super fond of the snow  he keeps an eye on me during the day and at night   who would think a kitty would be a fusser

everyday I think of GMa Margaret and Pauline and the folks a Lame Deer  everyday I ask the spirits to watch over them and I do my best to let Pauline Know that I am there and that you are also Relatives  watching in the night sky to see that the children are safe  

this week my dog Wickett seems to know just when I am too tired or too unsure if It is worth getting up  and she cries and cries and chirp barks at me until something changes in my head  something in my brain pops open and I get tup just like that and go and see her   she wants to give me love and to make sure that I know she is there always paying attention tohow I feel even from the kennel outside she can tell

I know that I am not the only one who struggles to get up   I know that this will not be last time I will come face to face with the small heavy choice that tries to pin me down and yet is so quickly and so easily overthrown with that little burst of love showing up insistently refusing to be ignored. this is the darkness that Pauline talked about comes at night to Lame Deer and takes away the future of the children in the form of gambling and drinking and alcohol and hopelessness  this is what she asked that we stand against with her. I only hope that if it is at my house then that means it has left hers.  That would be something wouldnt it relatives.  that would be worth falling down the stairs for.

everyday we must somehow roll back the darkness from which all light comes,  we can help make sure like Wickett does for me, that each heart remember not its own sorrow or pain  or its own fear  but to be able to hear and feel and see each others value and worth in the faces and hands and voices that are around them.  are you surrounded with love relatives  ?  can you feel it  do you show it and give it every day?

people want to know sometimes why indians are susceptible to alcohol or depression or why did I fall down the stairs? or why is life hard

I dont know

but what I do know is that we I  they  are just as susceptible to love   to care    to laughter and a helpign hand that carries the trash out tot he street or lifts the groceries in the house

we are they are I am just as susceptible to a kind word or someone who helps us go for a walk and comes and scoops the dog poop  or helps with folding clothes  or brushing each others hair

we are susceptible to love relatives  

we are just as willing to drown in joy as we are in pain

it just seems funny that alcohol is more available than love relatives  

how many get togethers during this holiday season will be come over and exchange love and service parties?  will you give your friends a glass of wine? or a coupon for a walk and tea?  will you give them memories of thepast only ? or the commitment to come and help dust or clean up the yard?  what kind of gift will you give relatives?

what will you feed the susceptible heart?

 I got some homeopathic medications in the mail  and some herbs  and it took me two days to get the little tiny lids open and then to twist the little caps and carefully make the pills come out correctly so I did nt ruin them and could take them properly

I cried from the frustration  from the laughter of it  those tiny little caps and twisting dispensers   the pain medications from the hospital had child proof lids  LOL  well they turned out to be broken arm and wrist proof for a while

but what did I do ?  I held those little vials and cried and accepted the love  the thoughtfulness that put together that care  I accepted the intent and it kept me going till I could finally get them off and take the pills  

if helping me got you to give something of your self  continue it and give some more to those around you  it is unfortunate that the house in the winter needs money to be finished so the heat is practical, but there is so much mor eot give and so many that it can be given to.  can you do that  can you give one thing or two  a kind word  open a door  go to the laundry mat and fold clothes for others    have a hair brushing party     do something everyday and write me about it so I know that we got up together today and made this a little more accessible

lets drown each other in love today relatives

lets make sure that we touch each susceptible spot in ourselves and in each other with care  and outloud thoughtfulness  and help someone  anyone in your house  in your neighborhood  at your groceriy store  with something

give away some love today relatives   give enough tha t it reaches me in pipestone and smothers those wonderful family memebers of ours in Lame Deer

my fingers have typed out all these keystrokes for you today    no matter that it hurts  no matter that it willtake me a cuple of hours to recover  it is the best I can do to give back to you  to tell you that I love you and that giving care  to your susceptibleness is the most important part of my day

Toksa
mary

pigs in a blanket

It's snowing

tonight it will be -11 degrees here  that will be a 43 degree drop in the temperature   isnt that amazing?

I just took the dogs on a walk  they love to go and they are so pretty running through the snow and the weeds   we saw squirrels and a pheasant and bunnies and deer tracks    everyone has been busy in the night

storyteller going for a walk 

I have been busy as well  today I am washing the sheets on the bed and will change them out  it will take me all day to accomplish this task   they are nice strong flannel sheets and I have many blankets that go on top of them    the weight of the work is what takes so long   my wrists get tired and my forearms are so sore at the end of any task that it is really funny   so how do I look at it ? as a miracle   to think that I can move them at all after falling 8 feet and bouncing and landing on my face   and shattering my right wrist, and fracturing my left shoulder in two places  it is truly a miracle that I can move my arms at all  so it is with meditative joy that I take as long as it takes and work steadily with rest between effort like the resting beat of the heart to do the chores until they are done   it is interesting that the responses to me being cheerful have been such a mirror of how others see and or need to see the events around them    we are connected you and I   Relatives   we are the same being so how you see things affects me   and like throwing off old clothes and old worn out stinky blankets Im going to throw off some accumulated judgements and thoughts today.

a good boy waiting for life to be kinder

Remember that in the circle we ask for what we need and we give what we can

last summer I asked a GMa to teach the young people that come to her house about the circle of reciprocation.  She supports and gives to them and "teaches" them in their efforts to gain an education and a foothold on life. she feeds and houses them, helps them with homework or studies, and supports their economic foothold in the college age time of developing their life.  she asked me what could she do to help support the GMa house here in Pipsetone.  What I shared with her was this  

there is no secret ingredient

do not make the mistake of only teaching to take and look forward  to these young people   If you do not teach them to reciprocate and to give back to the circle that has and is sustaining them then you are teaching them to burn like an endless fire of consumption rather than create  the heat of recycling energy

I asked her how important the GMa house was and is to her and she said it was extremely important and that she hears the spirits speak to her about it and that she knows that this work is so very important to her personally.  She has come here and seen and felt for herself that this house is for her and for the people.  She assured me that she gets it. so I asked her  put out a bowl on the table where you eat and feed these young people   put out a bowl and a little note that says for the GMa house  and when they ask you what it means tell them.  Simply tell them  about the house and what it means to you and ask them to give to you  to give back to you $1.00 or $5.00  the cost of a coffee or a beer or a movie   ask them to put that in the bowl   and to give of them selves back to that which matters to you.  

Three times since last fall she and I have spoken and three times I have said put out the bowl.  simply ask them to sustain what has sustained them   teach them to give back    

medicine wheels are everywhere

dont wait and don't falter  give now a little bit  give what you can and do it until the need is finished  then you will have taught them that every little action can add up    each thing that gives back is sustaining that brought them to that place .  you will have taught them that you will speak up for what is dear to your heart and that it is important for them to give to what matters to you even as you have given to what matters to them.   if you do not teach them this way of thinking and giving and doing now    now while they are being trained for their future then it will not be a part of their future   it will not be a part of their fabric  and then the cloth that they weave will have holes in it and the clothes that they create from that fabric will not wear well and will not break down into sustainable support for the next weaver

the world right now has been made in the image of the seller to the consumer  not the give and receiver  it has been made in an unsustainable manner      for every mile that we drive with our cars do we put back in the earth one barrel of oil?   for every gallon of water that we drink do we put back in place the filter that will provide the next drink? for each bag of groceries do we make sure that one square foot of earth is free from trash so that it will grow food for a cow or for a lettuce?   if we do not choose to teach  those who are within the reach of our own table, including ourselves, to give back  to look and to recognize what has sustained us and what is and has provided us with the life that we are freely given to use each day to the end of our own choosing  then how long will it take for that life to run out?  how many lives will it take being lost before we have the gumption to ask that those sitting at our table give back to what matters?

are we there yet?

Still after all this time there is no bowl on the table    no teaching the children to understand that the food and money and opportunity come from a mentation, a heart and mind that recognizes the importance of the opportunity that those young people represent.  She has yet to teach them that they are not the only opportunity present!!!  it is perhaps just as if not more important to teach them to turn around and sustain what sustains them.   You   we I must teach that if we do not sustain what sustains us then in the end all opportunity will cease.   GMa's ask that the world around you sustain you.  that it sustain me  that this house be sustained.  Brush aside fear or judgement or habit  brush them into the trash like so much debris and get down in the mud dig up the pearls and make bricks out of this opportunity.  

Otherwise we are teaching selfishness   we are teaching consumerism  we are teaching judgement  we are teaching ego


You know we ask the spirits for things   we ask for care, for healing for grace, for food, for heat, for money, for comfort in death, for joy, for understanding, for ???????  we ask  and they give

but what do we give   do we give all we can  do we ask for what we need?   GMas call me and ask what can I do?  and I say  put out the bowl  

Story driving

put out the bowl   everywhere you go  put out the bowl  ask that what sustains you be sustained  

ask that what sustains you be sustained  

include everyone in that opportunity  

Lewis and Clark and thier dog 

include everyone in that opportunity

if you decide for someone that they are not worth asking then you are using them to mask your own faltering thought

If you are waiting for me to come and ask then you are missing the point of you

how much do you want the spirits or life to falter when it comes to you ?

if you are not giving all that you can then why do you expect others to?

if the circle that we are creating is based on not asking and not being willing to receive and not being willing to give all that we can  then how much will that circle accomplish ?

not much

snow business

it is going to be -11 degrees this evening here in Pipestone

how much does it matter to you what the spirits have given to you from this house? from the Pipes, from the travels I have and do make to give all that is given to me to you. I have said before that you called and the spirits answered.  you asked that myself and this house and these pipes come and we showed up.  I have been traveling to this place since I was born.  and I am delighted to love you and meet you and be here with you and for this great circle.  All i have I have given to this great circle and will continue.   but I have to give and act in a sustainable manner.  so for me to understand this I had to be stopped.  And also to stop doing for you and ask you for what I need. Not just for heat and not for physical reasons that can be justified by an accountant or a consciousness but because the asking and the giving and the action must be from a sustainable perspective.  It has to be done in a way that changes everything in the present while preparing the resources for the future.  If we grow a one time big crop of high dollar food that takes the ground years to recover from ( i.e... nuclear power and waste)  then we have made a non sustainable choice.  and the bible teaches us that  giving pearls to swine is not just stupid it is wasteful  so shall we ask the spirits to eliminate the swine?  shall we stop giving the pearls? or shall we get the people out in the mud working together to clean up the system?

the beginning house was not sustainable

I say we clean up the system  I say we learn to give not from acceptable loss   but  from a commitment that refuses to not be fulfilled, from a trust that asking and including all as one will not only meet this small need but create a way of communicating and interacting that will actually change the world.  You can do this that easily. Everyone I meet here and everywhere I have been knows about the panda, the house, the GMas, the work and the blog. I do this because I am still holding the fire at Lame Deer, and because like GMa Margaret I know that the prayer is still being delivered.

It is time for me to ask you to learn to go out in the world and talk about the GMa house, the pipes, the panda, the commitment to the now and the future, that we go out and ask for what we need from everyone that we know  

kitty in his winter outfit

we must take the circle practice out into the world
we must with everyone we meet and in every arena   ask for what we need and give what we can

if you go to church take your bowl to church and stand up and ask them to fill it
if you are saving for an inheritance call that relative and say what is more important? heat and the sustainable gift of the house or a large cant take it with you chunk when you die?
Is it more important to put non sustainable toys under a christmas tree or to give something that cant be measured like the original gift of christmas?

where are the pearls  ?
what is the mud?
are you making bricks or pigs out of your relatives friends and life?
think about it

are we handicapped or handicap able?

I am asking you to change    to change not because I need heat and the house needs work  

I am asking you to change so that we have a different world  so that it adds up to bricks not pigs in the mud


so
put out the bowl
it is going to be -11 here tonight

love and light shadow and song

Please send more long romantic letters; they burn so well

mary

bed time Story

good evening Relatives
thanx for taking good care of you over the weekend.  It is an extraordinary winter here in the north  not much precipitation  and we have had some nice warm days

A Gma came out on sat to check on me and to supervise the help with organizing the house. One of the local pastors organized some guys to come over and help with moving furniture and boxes.  Four guys and an elder from the hook and ladder firemen company here in town came over sat afternoon and they rearranged things so we could use the bookshelves and hutch, we also set up the dining room table and I've been going through boxes putting things away  I think by christmas it will look quite a bit like a real house.

they were great guys  cheerful and kind it was a great day  then GMa D and I dug outside (well she dug) and we planted daffodil bulbs for the spring  I put the ashes of one of my old dogs Story Teller with the bulbs   while she was fixing the soil and the bulbs I sat on the ground and talked to the bulbs and to Story  I told them about each other  how he was a good boy who came from a bad home and always was kind and needed the beauty and softness of flowers  he had suffered so before he lived with me that his mind cracked and we never could quite get it right before he passed away.  Now he would protect the flowers and watch over the house and never be too far from me or the other dogs   he would keep the bulbs for their long sleep and they would use his bones for strength while they grew and made  a new beginning for the spring  I asked the earth to hold them and comfort them together  and the wind to bring water and clarity and when it was time the sun to draw them out together into a gentle future.  It was a good day

an extraordinary day really   to place love and care and community and healing both with the boys and the house and me and also the flowers and the earth and Story Teller   what a gift it was for Gma to visit and to give of her time and joy   a beautiful day

when we put things in the ground or build our day  or lay out clothes or silverware or food   when we make the bed or sweep the yard or settle each other int o the car  that is the time to make the prayer for gentle care  for telling each element about what is being done  about who and what we are  to tell how we enjoy that which is here for us  the sunlight in the window  the dew on the grass, the moon so bright watching over us as she travels through the night sky    as we make our clothes ready  let us wrap them in blessings of care and beauty  let us pave each others paths with songs of love and thoughtfulness  that any and all whom we touch or visit with or who are touched by any of the same earth and breath we are breathing  that their hearts beat with kindness and joy  that they see and emanate the steady care that keeps us every day

make the day one of care   each action touches another   each movement brings something that will be given away over andover again throughout time  from your life to another on through the centuries Relatives  that is how far your thoughts and your hands and the care in the simple work travels on and on

bless you relatives for taking care of you  of each other  of the earth  of the water and the wind  thank you for loving Story Teller  his heart was so broken when I found him  let us heal it by comforting the earth that he now sleeps in  let us heal his heart by taking care of the wind that will brush the flowers he grows

let us again and again heal and love all that is and was

bless you relatives  bless your hair your heart your hands in comfort your end of day thoughts and the time of laying aside all work to sleep   bless you and your dreams and your night breath and the beauty that will greet you with the dawn  bless you relatives 

sleep well relatives
your in my heart and my caring arms
love
mary