buried treasure genetics of a trailer trash pirate

Good morning relatives 

its still winter here in Pipestone   we are having alternate days of sun with high winds and snow flurries  lots of time to write, read good books, and make cheese grits 

It's been a great week here at the center of the east and west gate   I am learning to take out my trash  and also that "mamma didn't raise no trash" lol 

some of you may not know that on my dads side of the family  my dads dads relatives were buccaneers for the queen of england back in the day  then they became KKKlaners till they ran away from the law to Indian territory where my granddad met my grandma and followed her family from the reservation to texas  quite the adventure! too bad we don't have any of that treasure left but we still have as I have found out this week the ability to seek and hoard treasure   genetics are wacky good at directing us! and obviously if pirates and kkkers can adapt and morph into yours truly then I can transform me can't I?

yesterday I was asked to email a thought or a poem or a saying  or a meditation or a prayer that uplifted or i think what they meant was helpful to me   they asked for one that I returned to and not to think too hard about it well its not hard for me to think  its what I do

but I try and out grow what I think and other than the entire kung fu panda movie of course   I thought it would be good to write what I have discovered most recently and share that    so you see already I was thinking about it too hard or perhaps not hard enough to just pick something that was easy and redundant  I don't like redundant thinking because it teaches me to disregard the new ness of me in the day  
so here is what I sent 


there are many things that encourage me   the most recent is a thought that came to me when I woke up one morning and found that all the negativites that were possible in my life were lined up in my head and wanting to take control of my mouth my brain my face and my blood pressure!

I found myself starting to voice them,to indulge in them, as if that would make things better, NOT!  and like an observer viewing myself becoming what I don't want I thought I've seen me do this before and I don't like it  I gave up on thinking that I would ever live a life in which I would not have the crabbies so I thought if you struggle with something for a long time and don't get any where then rather than beating my head against the door again and again expecting different results, I thought lets try a different door (very kung fu panda!) 
so, I accepted that I felt the way I did  negative about my life on occasion
and I with no emotional engagement let my voice name out all the things that I was ready to smash my life over or tired of   clearly and concisely said them (without the action or emotional engagement phase)
I sat with them  for a minute and then I realized that because I could envision them so clearly I had obviously held on to them secretly inside myself as if saving for a rainy day   
as if they were treasure 

and I realized that the only way I could not have them run and ruin my day was for me to not invest in them   and it is a bit sneaky of me to lure them out into the open and then chop their heads off but it was the best thing to do  
I 
wanted
not 
to have 
them run 
me  and 
even if they were valid when I picked them up the truth was actually that they ambushed me in the dark when I was sleeping and when I woke up what I wanted was not what they had planned, ( I realize that I am talking about me as if I am us against them but it I am an eventual expression of my intention desires habits and repressions and expectations aren't I  so the best way to not let those things run me to ruin is to also recognize that I am not them they are expressions and learned behaviors and impulses  much more different than ME 
and their realness  their tangibleness was obviously up to me it is up to me whom I identify myself as 
it is up to me what I invest in enough to act on 
it is up to me how skillful I am 
so back to the negativities that wanted to own me;
 no one else in my life apparently collected these things, these thoughts. Whatever they were, no one else even noticed, and rather than turning that thought ( the thought of no one else noticing them ) into one about abandonment and the rabbit hole of despair and poor me i.e. a pity party  which finally after all these years felt like castor oil in my mouth  ( for those of you who have never tasted castor oil, trust me it is super nasty)  I stopped and watched the rabbit hole dive down in front of me like a gaping wormhole waiting to transport me to a planet Janet that I did not want to inhabit.   and that distance  that distancing that separateness, helped me pause,  I noticed that I had the ability to see them to define and collect them  like lining up all my treasures  but not live them   living them was a choice,  and when in the split second I realized that I had a choice in whether or not to live them I wondered also if I could do an about face and reconfigure the part of me that collected them.  
just for a rabbit hole entrance second I noticed that I hesitated when it came to jumping into the treasure pile of yuck and out of that nanosecond came the pick that I applied to my brain like the lock that held my future i opened it . 

I realized two simultaneous things  don't you love when that happens  that I had collected these thoughts and these were treasures that I didn't want and that I was valuable in my ability to see them as abhorrently aberrant from the me I choose and i was also wonderfully astute in collecting them.  whoooo hoo! awesome captain hookness!

so I let them go or rather what I really did was take my life out of them watched them turn to dust and dissipate

and the day continued as itself without my mental or emotional savings account bashing me inside of it and funny thing it was a great day
then I made a transformation choice inside of me to honor the parts of me that notice my life is sometimes harder than I wish and I asked that part of me that is so good at collecting negativity then burying it like treasure, to continue to sweep it up but rather than hold it as buried treasure, or be mad at me for being able to spot it thank you relatives, or think my life is not valuable because it contains the good the bad and the ugly, 
now I  put out the treasure trash after I remove my life force from it with gratitude every night and i tell my also part of my past righteous christian koolaide drinking relatives that they can take a chill pill  we are perfect in our imperfection as human beings  and love is not what is manifested only if we have no worries  love is what comforts our worries and holds us in joy like the treasure we are when our worries come along

so my quote is: trash doesn't grow self love, don't treasure it

love love love 
Mary

the road to damascus

good morning relatives

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

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

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

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

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

and that got his attention

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

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

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

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

we are guns

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

an interesting thought isn't it ?

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

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

lol
cool
my matter matters

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

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

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

and it radicalized old paul and our biblical history was rewritten


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

i care about me

lol

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

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

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

now isn't that just the face of enlightenment?

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

love love love
mary

the fire of the night sky

Good Morning Relatives  

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

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

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

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

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

same with holding the fire  

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

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

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

and it was amazing  just an amazing day

and then

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

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

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

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

and then relatives I believe we can fly

love love love and fire
mary

the price of gold and water

good morning relatives  


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

love love love
mary

I've go the tiger by the tale

Good Morning Relatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

how shiny do you think we would be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

love from me and the tiger

mb

read this and I will get back to you

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

you are driving me up the wall, thanx for that

good morning relatives

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

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

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

how cool is that

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

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

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

yet

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

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

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

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

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

and Ive been learning these things:

dont sweat the small stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

but in the mix

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

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

how cool is that

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

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

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

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

I can't be its not in my clay

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

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

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

that sucks

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

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

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

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

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

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

do you see what I mean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

still friends still capable of driving each other up the wall

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