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

GO THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

Go the whole wide world
just to find her

Good evening Relatives

its ten degrees in Pipestone    BRRRRRR LOL  it will get down to 3 degrees tonight   or I should say in the morning
saturday morning

I just finished watching the movie "Stranger Than Fiction" for I don't know maybe the 34th or the 50th time   and this time

This time  I saw two new things    
by the way I love the song that the hero plays
it is an amazing transition in the film
an amazing transition in the movie
in the character in more than one character  which in the end changes everything

here is the you tube link to the film clip

what is interesting to me is that when I first saw the film, I recognized this moment, I recognized why

why the film and its message was important why the transition that this man who is a mundane tax man makes is so important

but I didn't get it

not yet

not again and again and again

until tonight

harold hesitates when she asks him to play the song  he says not tonight maybe some other time and then he realizes that he may not have another time  and what does he do with that chance that is there in his hand and will never come again

our life does not come back when it is lost

the moments that you spent reading this post will never come again

you are living your life
I am living mine

but are we living it?   are we  ?

its very likely now or never

and what I got  if you will watch the movie before going on with the post I recommend it

even if you have already watched it   watch it again  even if you hate will ferrell don't let it stand in your way

watch it again

go the whole wide world  

go


go find her


what I saw this time was that Harold Crick the hero of the tragedy wanted to live

he wanted to live   he wanted it   he wanted to live
and I could feel it in him  that wanting  the pivotal moment when he understood suddenly that he was on an undeviatable path to his own death and that it was imminent  his death was imminent and he understood this and he in understanding that death was imminent he understood for the first time in his life that he wanted life

it was the first time I could feel that he wanted life  it was amazing

 it made all of the rest of it richer

realizing that it is important even when you know that you are going to die

 to want life

to want it   to want life

and what is life if not the moment each moment that you or I or we are in full awareness that not only is our life in our hands right now
but it is also ending
right now

and once ended
it won't
and doesn't
come back

and one of the reasons the movie works is that the hero is not greedy about it  he isn't bitter and doesn't waste time bitching about the end or destroying himself and his opportunities because they are going to end he doesn't natter on about it  he seeks counsel but ultimately he stands as himself in his own life and decides freely how to spend it and how to end it

he rejects despair and any power that death might have over him and as such his life

it becomes sweeter, more fragile yet stronger and more powerful it becomes so much more important to be present in it and yet not manipulate it to some false or tedious end

to have it and to go forward to his end as himself truly honestly and with a subtle passion that is unbreakable    it is a key thing this awareness  this actualization of and idea into a reality

that is what he discovers
that ideas can be actualized into reality and in finding that out he finds within himself that he is in the act of living his life as if it was and is precious as if he wanted it

living to have what he wants he finds within himself a willingness to die for someone else
extraordinary isn't it


and the second thing I realized or heard or got this time was that the writer, played by emma thompson realized that her scripting her storytelling her writing was actually being created in the real world  people were not affected by her story her imagination her committing to her own words and thoughts and direction they were controlled by it  they were designed by it and when she said they died  they died

she came face to face with the true understanding that she was truly playing God with her fellow man
and rather than shirk this or reject it or pretend it was nonsense or run away from it or rationalize it or ???&&^%$#@*&*!!~@# on an on and on

she decided to be a better writer because of it
and that is it isn't it
that deciding to be a better writer

you see  we can't avoid the FACT
the TRUISM that we indeed are the writers of our story
you are the writer of my story
and I am of yours
there is no avoiding it and no ignoring it or passing it off on someone else

you are writing my life
and I am writing yours
we are the authors

that is what we all can do
become better writers
or not
there was no question that the writing wasn't going to go forward nor that it wasn't going to make or break Harold Crick   there was no avoiding the reality of the truth

she just had to decide what kind of writer she wanted to be
and she didn't decide not to kill him because she couldn't bear being a murderer

she decided not to kill him because she saw in his self
the self he became when he responded to both wanting to live and knowing he was going to die
she decided that he was valuable
how interesting is that

it was a clarity  that is difficult for us to see in ourselves in our own lives  it has taken me years to come a little bit closer to this understanding and I don't mean intellectually or spiritually although certainly these things have helped me arrive at this place of transition where in looking at her in the movie I saw it I saw that she got it  and in seeing her get it what I really was getting was that I got it about me and about you and me and you    all of us  individually and altogether all at once are creating what happens to us
but really get it
get it so that like harold and like karen the hero and the writer the getting of it transforms the entire way that we make choice about the moments of our lives
the seconds on the clock
the seconds that are "watched"

something that is taught to us over and over you are what you think  the world is created by you, I, me, we every day

we make it up as we go and so it goes and she got it and it was not just her that got it it was me as well

and it took all this time and everything in my life and my doing and pursuing and this movie over and over to get it  to find it to go the whole wide world
so can you get it?
can you understand and find it
find that knowledge
will you go the whole wide world just to find her  yourself

the power of your own life of wanting it of having it of having the truth that you are writing you are creating me my world and I am creating yours

how about that

so like the guitar practicing
in the movie to make the movie work they got it really fast
and the thing is that the faster we get it the more life we have to have
there is no time to waste relatives
its now or never
for you , for me, for us

like digging for the gold of your heart and mind and life keep going  keep practicing keep going

you will find it

I will find it

we can find it and when those two things come together  wanting to live and understanding that what we think how we think what we create with our minds our hearts our words our intentions our design really does change our world  me for you and you for me

will you go the whole wide world for me?
do you think that I will for you?
do you want me to?

I want you to
I want to live

even though I know that I am going to die
even though i know that my death is speeding towards me
I want to live
I want to with my life go the whole wide world for you

when we want them to people die
when we want them to people live
including and especially ourselves
each for the other

so
go the whole wide world to find her

yes

watch the movie
what ever it take s

love love love
Mary

comfort and joy

Good Morning Relatives

It was full moon yesterday  perhaps saturday and today as well    it also was the one year anniversary of when i fell over the stairs and crushed my wrist and dislocated fractured and ripped my opposite shoulder  

happy to report that there were no accidents this Nov 17th or on saturday   and for the full moon I lit a fire and made prayers to thank the Spirit of the Moon for patiently and consistently reflecting the sun back to us even when we try to get in the way

it is perhaps the most forgotten thing in my life that the temporal sneaks in front of the eternal and blocks out the light

one of the main things that I learned over the past year was lean financial management   I also learned to ask for and to receive without fear or guilt help from the many generous hands that shared their own abundance with me so that I could make it through the physical transition necessary to begin again to hold my own reins  

thank you  thank you for your gifts your advice your prayer your laughter and your funny unkindnesses when they also happened   for in every bit of black there is white and vis versa   thank you for responding   I am also thankful to myself for responding

the house is much warmer this year   the insulation was finished  and it makes a difference    so much so that it is unlikely after all that any additional heat will be installed upstairs    heat rises as we know  and this house is shaped as one of the pipe makers lovingly says like a big milk carton   so the heat from the main floor continuously pours through to the upstairs

I had an interesting dream last night  I dreamed that one of my old friends from veterinary school and I were once again in the position of mourning the death of her dear dog Jim   it was so painful to relive that loss   we grasped each other so tightly in an embrace of pain shared between hearts that did not want to let go of this beautiful fragile elegant dogs life once again   in the dream I told her I do not know if I can go through this again and my soul felt like it would fall away and not return

it is always interesting to me to be an observer of myself in a dream  and always when I am in one I am also observing  it is the perfect yogic event the observer witnessing consciousness and the animatory activities that our being-ness is capable of in spirit and in the interdimentionalness of the nuances of existence    

I am not sure what existence is really  take for example the moon  and the light of the moon   is the light of the moon the sun? or the reflection that is bent from a rock and thrown through space or is it the optic neuron that perceives the cast reflected and bent light or is it the mind that conceptualizes and gives meaning to the above or is it the moon herself  an entity that allows us to feel her to be pulled by her i s it her reaching into and around us which is the light ? is it the ah ha moment  is that the light of the moon?

so what is dreaming but being with my being as it is being anywhere and any when and any how that it can will or has been     it is to me most excellent that I am able to remember after returning to this time and space with all of its dead and dampened and restrictive cloaked and narrow parameters any of what occurs beyond it borders   I am grateful for this as there have been many times that the only thing that kept me from leaving this place was that in the dreamtime I was able to leave it  and so when I was here in the midst of whatever enduring painful confusing thing I was comforted by the knowledge that when i closed my eyes to sleep I would either rest which is so important to being a part of this world or I would leave and in leaving I would find that I would not be lost but found and that was a comfort as well

and so when I was losing my soul in the pain of loss held in embrace by the mirrored pain of my friend in the dreamtime what struck me as an observer was that the pain was able to be felt and exist in its true form which is also necessary in order that it be cleansed but that it was in the embrace of two simultaneously creating comfort   it  the pain  was because of it s existence which must be felt and is when shared in the embrace of arms that are not of its origin the creator of a deep and true comfort

then the dream switched

I was part of a crew who were planting inside a building  inside a home with tall room and walls of windows that looked out over the green and let the light in    so beautiful  so amazing and we were cleaning up and replanting   which is different than replacing     and I was told to put so and so trees here and there and the leader who was what movie directors like to show as a tall strapping fortyish guy who was good natured and easy going  just the kind of girl I would like to go out with  he was directing our little crew and where he wanted  the planting just so was not going to work  there was an instability in the ground  in the fabric it self  and if we planted there then the entire floor would fall away  so I showed it to him  how the layer of our existence was only about three feet deep and too much digging and manipulating would make it drop away  altogether

so he moved me and my plants over closer to the window in front of a row of tufts of grass that were blooming and I began to arrange and divide and set out the little plants and then i laughed at him and he pushed me and I tickled him and he laughed and tickled me and before I knew it we were rolling on the ground tickling and laughing until we were exhausted and giddy and tearful   with joy

the tickling and laughing and tears made joy  

and as I was watching this I noticed all the plants began to bloom and the mosses divide and green up   and I realized that what I saw there in that place  what I wanted to bring home and say thank you to the moon  the light the  pain of death the embrace of friends and the work of human togetherness and the tickling   what I was able to bring home through time and space was not the shadow of the temporal on the moon  but what she is able to do with that shadow

create comfort  and joy  

somehow I will do this thing     this creation of comfort and joy    using the parameters of circle practice  there is no resin that we cannot do this thing

thank you relatives for an amazing year     go and find someone to hold you and you hold them and cry hard    cry very hard and say what is painful out loud  while you hold each other so tight  and then rather than muck about it what ever it is   or nattering on   ring the bell on that event and stop it

let it be fully   then stop it    

then with that person tickle and laugh and giggle and roll around until you cry  from joy   and then again stop

stop and ring the bell  

hold in time and space the sacred creation of comfort and joy like a capsule that cannot be broken

and there you did it   you and your unknown companion did it  together with no remorse left over and no negative vibrations seeding the world

life bless us all
eh?
love love love
mary

Santa Clause's Garlic

Well Good Morning Relatives

I feel better today    I've been fighting some sort of flu thingy achy tired hot prickly head exhausted thingy  and last night sometime in the night I had a big fever and it left my body   clearer lighter and a bit tired but not sick any longer

kind of like struggling with self don't you think?   one time I heard someone say I've been sick and I am well now  so I'm calling in well today and won't be back to work

eventually we have to decide what our work is and if we are going to do it and if we are going to stop nattering on about what it creates around and in us  LOL  do you trust your work relatives?  is your work what you make? or what makes you?  no matter the work that question is applicable and it turns not on the type of work but on the hands and heart and mind that engage it   my father taught me that when a perspective changes everything changes   ( not the body or the work or the environment or the ???)  the perspective  changes everything   and in the book Light on the Path it talks about our work and our perspective

there is always doubt in one form or another  there is always a little fear and in those times it is easy to give myself over to the flow of the river  but if I am standing in the wrong river  ( and what I mean by river is the flow of my mind and my perception)  and if I am letting go so that my mind is blank and my life non responsible  (as if this would save a drowning rat lol  having its eyes closed) if I am holding my breath  the breath of my souls engagement  then I am not living  I am stagnant I am cumbersome and filling up with silt  covered up with weed  not the yummy healthy kind that brings minerals and iron to water  but the clingy suffocating trash catching kind that suffocate and bury my soul beneath the subtle pull of what I think of as the current of the dead

how is one radical?  radical is one small thing over and over shifting the stream to a slightly different course    I don't know how many times at work I tell myself over and over  each person is a real person each engagement is to because of me and who I am  to be clear and honest and one to one  over and over and over and over and over and over and over again never ever the same   never ever the same  why is that
why do that in a stop and rob connivence store as a cashier making minimum wage for hours on end?  

why is grace reserved for pain   why is prayer reserved for church or for need  why is kindness not the mortar between our bricks  why what I think i am talking about is authenticity    yet some would say that authenticity is being who one is even if who that is is inanimately disconnected from the soul   and i suppose that is so  

but we are women and men of action  we are living beings  we are fueled by the eternal fire of life and so because we have choice we choose   we choose living death or living life   with every breath which never until this moment has been drawn or expelled   is the breath I breath out going to make you sick relative when you inhale it after I have taken it in and then let it out with ? a curse, gossip, derision, negativity, fear of lack, ridicule, …….  what is it how is my breath shaping the world?  how is my breath doing inside of you relatives?  and how is yours doing inside of me or your neighbor?  is it life giving? or is it poison?  it is of course up to you to me to us   and thus like the trees around us and other living things the breath is filtered  it is cleansed  and yet only the human was given the ability to transform it to taint it to change it and its molecules   so relatives how is it that we take care of this great gift  this great love that is entrusted to us?  hmmmmmm?  how is it that we do this  well I can tell you its not magic and its not spiritual or religious  it is however decidedly kung fu ish  and it is totally Kung Fu Pandamonious

and when we work towards our selves as ourselves  if we are working and gardening and cutting and pasting and sewing and stitching and laughing and burping and garfing   we are remaking our world in the image of ourselvesand there will come a time that we will fall into an "illness" a funk a fever an ache a sickness why is that  it is not reasonable to think that we are not exposed to things that can make us sick  it is not reasonable to think that we in the reanimation of our selves will need to slough that which was dead with in us  and this the body does with inflammation pus fever and many many signs of the work it takes an organism to clean house  

in the night I was at a market visiting with people who came there  and It was interesting trying to decide where to park the mini  there was a woman who followed me from table to table  she wanted me to bring her garlic to polish her silver ring  I wasn't wanting to give her my garlic as it was difficult to come by  so I asked the chef at the place we were sitting and others eating if he had any  and he said only the kind that santa brings  it was in a round plastic container dried and mixed with seaweed   and I wondered win was it that santa started giving that in the place of the real living thing and then I wondered it santa had changed suppliers to keep up with demand which made me wonder about the purpose of demand and how it creates fear of lack which I was sick with and then i thought poor santa  what have we done to him and to all the children?  what have we done?   and while I was worried not about my garlic but about why I was more concerned with lack than giving or abundance I realized she only needed one little clove of which i had many   and as I reached to peel it and give it she was on to other things and I was left to hold the garlic and smell it on my hands  at which point I looked up and asked the owner did I order any food? and she said yes  you ordered bran and a peach   after which giving to me my food a young man came and put his arm around me and he said I chose to stay here     I chose to stay because of you and I chose to shed pain and live in peace and in a clear heart   I knew then when he touched me that he was an innocent and that he had or was contemplating ending his life and that somehow what is saw or felt between the little space of our lives together it made him change his mind  it made him believe  oogway says we only have to believe   santa is real if we believe and there is plenty of garlic if we believe if I believe it can change one life and is not one life worth everything?   he hugged me with his long white arm and as he did he filled me with light that even now as I write you I can feel inside of me  then he said i love you  and strangest of all things I believed him

then I woke up   no longer sick  no longer achey and no longer covered in sweat

so what would master oogway say   I see you have found the sacred peach tree of heavenly wisdom  so why are you upset?  Noodles not Noodles? you are too concerned with what was and what will be   yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift  

that is why they call it the present


santa clause gave us all garlic today relatives   enjoy the peach and I do recommend bran for the constipation of stuck thinking LOL

life is a mirror   look clearly  without smoke  gently but honestly  and try to trust the big picture as you pick your nose hairs

love love love
mary

Better Nate than Lever

good morning Relatives

well it has been a while hasn't it   I had a journey to the south southwest to vista some Gma's and to do ceremony  it was a wonderful gift from them and the Spirits  from the road and the hands that gave and facilitated the journey  thank you thank you thank you  wopila tiospeye which means thank you family

thank you to the raven and the skunk and the fly and the spider  thank you to the bear and the water and wind and the grandmother earth the grandfather sky the star nation the trees and the stones   thank you thank you thank you

and bless sally fields for her tender heart

well what a morning it has been already   I spoke on the phone with a usaa rep who was so helpful in coordinating my bill for the insurance and beyond that helpful in expressing and conversing with me in a way that showed me that he has like myself and others been traveling the road of the heart  the road of the people who believe in love  who believe in the idea that negativity can be drained away and in that draining comes the opportunity to fill and regrow with love  to recondition to a new purpose our minds our hearts our bodies our being ness and thus the effect and affect that we have on our world and our universe   we create the world every day relatives   we make it so as caption picard would say

in ceremony with the gmas the spirits showed them how easy it is to come together as perfect individuals standing in a circle to create anything when it comes to prayer manifesting reality  it is very simple  very easy to create a reality   not a fantasy but a truth  a now   and it is also just as easy to let it slip away or to let it be overcome by the inertia of negativity ego or pride or greed   or bitterness or anger  
we all walk with what we hold within ourselves and we all reach for our life with hands that are moved by the intention of our hearts   it is our hearts that we access or fill or recreate into the driving engine behind what we do  

when I heard the phrase open your heart it just bounced off my brain  LOL for years it bounced off my brain my mind my physicality  

lOL  how funny is that    open your heart  

remember in the CS Lewis book the voyage of the dawn treader  which is one of the Narnia books which is a great series and which was made into an excellent film   it is a great teaching that story  about opening the heart   everyone sees blatantly what comes when Eustace opens his heart  and the lion of the inertia of love cuts away his thick scaly dragon greedy outer shell exposing the loving boy inside   but does everyone see the subtle choice and manifestation of Lucy and Edmond and Caspian also choosing the left or right that makes all the difference in the end?  do they see that those choices come from love and from a long path of choosing first fred or ego or hate or revenge or pride or ignorance from trying on as some of us do and have done the clothes that our ancestors wore that made th world that is collapsing around us?  do you I we see that when at last faced with themselves in the mirror which is all the "island of evil" is  it is ourselves at our core in the mirror face to face with our worst fears or our most tangible negativity  it is when they looked in that mirror they chose
they chose freely and clearly and truly the love  

love and no matter the cost  love

even as we saw in Harry Potter  he was not the magical boy who lived  he was the boy who lived through seven years of change and choice and trust and learning and mistake and ego and hormones and loss and massive amounts of opportunity and choice  to become the one who said its ok take me and do what you will  not blithely or stupidly or innocently or with abandon  but with intention and love  with care with true freedom

and thus it is that better nate than lever is awesome   remember the far side card where the two stone age guys are trying to move a great rock and the lever is not yet invented and along comes Nate and he picks up the rok and moves it   so relatives better nate than lever

all around us is the coming together of the medicine of intention   the small medicine of how you live your day and move your hands from your heart   trust the over all   trust the process hold the fire in you and let the negativity drain away and be what is healthy and restored  be and become love and togetherness and lack of war and lack of greed and lack of pride   become

it took a long years to participate in ceremony as I have witnessed  to learn to hold while letting go    to invite the Spirits in and to let go yet hold while they work  and make and give the medicine and the joy that we have asked for and called into being    I am delighted to say that I have seen this in action and it enlivinens my heart to know after all these steps that the Jade palace exists  that climbing the steps doing the training and understanding at last that while there is no secret ingredient there is a culmination of the many into one in the one

love love love my dear relatives
mary
all you need is love

falling into winter

Good Morning Relatives

it is fall here in Pipestone   the leaves are turning and letting go and the weather is in transition   this morning was spent separating the debris that was collected from the land and construction from the wood that is still usable   making two distinct piles away from the area where the snow cat works so that the driver has an easier time with pushing the snow in large piles without having to avoid too many things and also it makes the yard much tidier  

I built a wood rack outside the back door out of scraps of wood and steel  and am spending part of my new work money on wood for the winter  the stove is almost ready inside  we are waiting on the rubber boot for the metal chimney and then the last sections of chimney and the support will go on and it will be ready for firing and warming the house  

the wood I am buying from a family that takes care of two boys  their grandsons   their daughter had congenital kidney disease and passed away leaving the boys with no family  not sure where the dad was or is  it seems there are alot of single mothers and multiple single mothers in this town  and area  it is weird to not understand why this happens   what are the children learning ?   anyhow  the boys help the grandparents who take care of them cut and load wood  and I would rather my money goes to them than someone else who might have a nicer truck or do wood as a side line   it is important I think to make sure our resources go to those who benefit the most from them don't you think   ?     with this family like at my house every penny counts  and there are no frivolities with spending  the boys are respectful of their grandparents and listen and ask permission to branch out with thier actions which is respectful

it is nice to know that the small amount of money I can earn by working a little bit will go to heat not only my home but theirs  makes the work lighter

the grass is not growing any more  and the perennials are closing down and getting ready for the winter already the ground is tighter  it seems

the turkeys are back  they are making their rounds every day looking for water and food   it is nice to see them making their way around the property  

yesterday evening i heard the geese going over    

it will be a good winter for writing and beading and listening to the silence of the snow

best to you relatives as you ready yourselves for the season change

mb