Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

There is a particular scene in the movie, Zathura, that came as close as anything has to my mental wanderings of what it would be like if my soul and my human self were to meet each other in the same moment.

At the end of the film, the “older”, (I say that gently, older compared to an adolescent), male character that has been battling the forces with the children, reaches out and touches the one brother on the shoulder, his younger, shadow self.

I wonder, is that what it would be like? A fun house mirror reflection looking upon itself?

I’m afraid you will have to watch it to see what I mean….(actually, it is a wonderful film, so I take that back, I’m not afraid to recommend that at all.)

I reflected today on that simple phrase: Do No Harm.

I realized it would be a lottery ticket for the human race.

If we were to all adopt that mantra, breath and live it, we could re-balance the world.

I had been driving home from a meeting and was thinking of the state of the world. Thinking about the fact that ‘griping’ does little more than add more negativity (believe me, I can ‘gripe’) and I thought of the pure wisdom in the phrase ‘Do No Harm’. Instant winnings.

I of course digressed, suppose we strove to do the right thing only it turned out to be the wrong thing? Where would we go to find a point of reference? Again my mind turned to the phrase: ‘Do No Harm’.

I’m not trying to be redundant, it is occurring naturally. It is so very, very simple. We don’t have to worry about right or wrong if we follow those three little words.

I sometimes am dragged down, beyond my own bent for believing in the positive, and become saddened at the horrendous things that occur against humans, against animals, against the planet. How naive we can be to think we know much of anything. This whole limitless; yet, maybe self-repeating universe beyond us, what is it that we think we know? Can we truly believe we know anything as we sit and breath and live and laugh and love as even one human being, let alone, one child, goes harmed in the same moment?

I’m not much about division. I think that as I lift the fork to my mouth in celebration of a good meal, there is someone, somewhere, that cannot do the same, and to me, it makes no sense.

I find my comfort today in the words: Do No Harm.

If we all believed and lived this, I think, a lot of the ‘bad’ would take care of itself.

Now there are so many ways we could distort this, I don’t think you have the time or the patience for me to go through the variations, so I leave us with the simple import.

Blessings.

Was it the case of all humanity being asleep when President Obama asked us: ….the red or the blue pill…?

Read more:

Some other site we never saw before worth reading

*btw: don’t even get us going on those of you out there that call President Obama, “Mr. Obama”, he achieves the highest office of the land and we can’t consistently give him the accolade of PRESIDENT? Please, we are asking all of you, stop calling him Mr. and stop calling the beautiful Michelle Mrs., it is time, call them what they achived: PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY.

NAMASTE.

Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole ‘IZ’ ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ HQ
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ltAGuuru7Q]
Take a moment.

What absolute beauty.

$1200 a year.

It’s a lot for some of us.

Suppose some of us could come together and sponsor a child?

We owe it to each other and to the future, to help the young ones. $1200 a year is much too much for many of us, suppose we had a network where 12 of us could come together and give $100 a year? Is it possible?

Sponsor a child

Imagine how you, I, we, could feel waking up each day knowing we have helped a child that maybe believed they were beyond hope?

Please, leave your comments and thoughts to help the innocent.

Our blessings to you.

I call it Micro-Hope.

It’s my word, I guess.

What it encompasses is trying to find a way to buy what we need from each other.

I have asked Shelley Seale, the author, for links to foundations/groups that we can help. She has supplied me with a link to her site: See Shelley’s Resources.

I am also attempting to amass links to individuals, women, families, children, trying to make a living. I will start small but ask all of you to stop in, share some links, and we will update accordingly.

Blessings.

Start Small:

Women and Fair Trade

Etsy and Fair Trade

Global Girlfriend

NonProfit Shopping

CRS Voices

We are at the beginning of amassing sites/references/resources to help one another. Please help us.

Namaste.

In physics, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the laws of physics in the observable world have the same form in all admissible frames of reference.

Now observe this photo of two little girls standing on the balcony of their home in Rafah, Gaza Strip – their observable world.
(more…)

New York Times: Green China Rising

Surface Earth is pleased to be a stop along the way of Ms. Shelley Seale’s virtual book tour.

Imagine for a moment, that you had a chance to be all who you are, not just all you could be and you seized that moment and never let it go. Perhaps then, you would know, what it is to step into not just Ms. Seale’s shoes, but the children, who continue to benefit from her love. Take a moment and reflect on this piece, a short quote from Ms. Seale’s book:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.

When have you become silent?

Can you even recall?

I wish I could, I wish I knew that moment so I could reverse it, I just know now, that it did occur and it stayed within me, my human being, but not within my soul. I read the words, the quote, Ms. Seale hand selected, Mr. King’s words: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent…”.

Begin to end?

Did we always have ourselves slated to end, is that how we became numb?

I can’t be numb any longer. I found Ms. Seale and her work by accident. I then stopped onto her site and was gifted with such charity of spirit, I will remain a fan from that day on.
Ms. Seale is a courageous humanitarian and author. She maintains a website: The Weight of Silence

She has been unrelenting in her efforts to spread the word on the plight of children in India who are homeless or orphaned for a variety of reasons. Her efforts are not exclusive to the children in Indian, her resume details her vast experience and efforts advocating for children also in the United States.

While we could extol her virtues for countless pages, we instead invite you to click on some of the links, read her works, read her blog, see the comments that are posted as she travelled on her journey and continues her journey.

Without further ado, Ms. Seale:

S.E.: How did you begin?

READ AN EXCERPT OF MS. SHELLEY SEALE’S BOOK: EXCERPT

JOIN THE VIRTUAL TOUR AND PASS ON AND ON AND ON, LET’S KEEP THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN HOMELESS AND ORPHANED FROM GROWING: PASS ON THE LIGHT

JOIN THE GROWING MOVEMENT, BE A PARTICIPANT WITH MS. SEALE ON FACEBOOK

Many times when asking for advice, some of us start out, not realizing we want our own opinion or belief confirmed.

Then, we become frustrated with the person speaking to us that we sought out to begin with, the unwitting victim.

Next time you seek advice, seek counsel from yourself first, ask:

what is it I’m hoping to hear?
what are the chances I will hear what it is I want?
Would it be better if I just recorded my own voice to play back the words as often as I desire?

-S.E.

Buy the book

Stop in for the Q & A with author and humanitarian Shelley Seale…..June 22nd; for further updates, check S.E. homepage & humanitarian updates.

How do we move forward?

Many of us don’t know where to turn.

Where do we go with the degrees we have earned and are paying on still? How do we counsel children, turned teenagers, soon to be adults, to make a living in the future?

The map is open.

Today, we turn you toward micro-loans. Many of you that often visit here are not immune to that term, it is people helping people, for instance: Kiva

Here at SurfaceEarth, it is our goal, to start an exchange by country/state/zip codes where we can help each other, it may be slow, reminiscent of snail mail, but suppose, we could achieve a web to truly help each other and catch each other before we fall?

Stay tuned, we intend to start that web and ask you to be a part of same.

Blessings.

Yawn.

Why must we be surprised?

Are we truly that narrow minded?

Were we born with blinders?

FoxNews: Russia says UFO saved Earth, ok, 100 years ago

Update: Churches and the love of God without walls

In the news, at least for some of us that still troll negative publicity, is the story of a Florida priest, sharing love with a woman.

Not a problem right?

Except that he made a ‘promise’ to not engage in certain types of love.

I wish I could condemn him, or his partner, but I can’t. I can say, it is easier that if you can’t uphold a promise you previously made that you graciously excuse yourself from same and explain accordingly. But life as we know it is not conducive to forgiveness.

Let’s pretend for a moment that this young priest came out, went public and said I’m struggling here, I took a vow of celibacy but I have found myself grappling with a whole different dimension of God’s love that I never knew I would need to grapple with, despite same, I’m grappling with it and ask your forgiveness, your understanding, your assistance to learn in which way to progress.

No.

Not possible, because social media really doesn’t allow for this does it?

I could go on and on, but I won’t, I would rather hear from you and ask that you pray for the priest and his loved one to find their way.

Blessings,

S.E.

Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009 (With Lyrics). Watch this now!

Bravo! I think we should all send her kisses! She has graced us.

Blessings,

S.E.

*See also: CNN

I went shopping for food. Attempted to pull into space but every time I did, another car pulled through the spot from the other side of the aisle. Ok I thought, let me back up and take another spot. Cars didn’t seem to wait so I gunned it and cut it quick.

Got the shopping done. Very peaceful and went out to car.
Woman starts to yell: “you’re kidding me!”
Cart was against her new or maybe just clean car, (no, not my cart!).
Oooh – she looked like she wanted a fight. I ducked in my dirty car very quickly because you see – I normally park by those little cut outs in the lot where you can load up the car and ditch the shopping cart in a secure area so it won’t be running amok in the lot. Now that’s not to say I’ve never been desperate and haven’t propped the two front wheels into the worn down garden intersection, crossing my fingers, hoping for the best and leaving. But you see the lady that was mad didn’t wheel the cart anywhere secure. She pushed it away from her car and the next lady to pull in had to stop the car, get out and move the car to clear room.

I thought, this is it – its about what we do with the shopping cart and how it affects those that follow.

Life can be just one shopping cart passing hands in good moments or bad but effecting the whole.

If I were to dream but then awake
yet hovered between the two
would it be the time awake
or time asleep
that was more true?

What is justice?

Justice, in simplistic terms, has been described as getting to the root of truth, both sides moving toward uncovering the light. Yet, that is not what occurs, rather, we have individuals, forgetting they have a shared mission, and we wind up with bi-partisan justice.

We offer tonight a quote, and will give you reference to the article, and invite you to not only share this with others, but to share with us your reactions. We hesitate at this moment to pontificate as to our views on this quote, before we hear from you…………….

Justice Texas style: make it end

We point you to a particular quote in the article, as follows:

“In 1998, Judge Keller wrote the opinion rejecting a new trial for Roy Criner, a mentally retarded man convicted of rape and murder, even though DNA tests after his trial showed that it was not his semen in the victim.

“We can’t give new trials to everyone who establishes, after conviction, that they might be innocent,” she later told the television news program “Frontline.” “We would have no finality in the criminal justice system, and finality is important.”

Gov. George W. Bush eventually pardoned Mr. Criner.”

NO FINALITY. I’M SORRY, I MAY JUST BE A BIT CONFUSED, WHY WOULD YOU WANT FALSE FINALITY OF ALLEGED GUILT? DO WE NOT LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY? HOW THEN DOES THE ABOVE QUOTE MAKE SENSE:

“We can’t give new trials to everyone who establishes, after conviction, that they might be innocent,”

No, of course not judge, we wouldn’t want to give the benefit of the doubt to innocence would we? Much tidier to just lock up the might be guilty.

Additionally, the article notes the judge is a devout Roman Catholic. Now I ask you, why not make some multi-level comments? Does not the Catholic church decry the protection of innocence?

Today, like most days, I wonder at this matrix we casually refer to as the internet.

It is the “net”, no?

Nets contain, don’t they?

I search for news and find myself circling myself. Whether by the words I use to start the queries or by my inept attempts to hunt, I find myself circular.

The crazy thing about remaining circular is that you may not always realize you are hitting walls, because the walls are soft and bend and seemingly appear to give flexibility to movement.

With that said, I ask you, how often do you step out of the box, out of the circle?

Now I realize, I may not hit the right tags for this post, often I do not tag just to antagonize the Gods, but I may not hit the right ones to hear from a big enough cross-section of YOU.

I wonder how long we will remain as we are, willing participants in someone else’s mode of being?

There is nothing, nothing I can add to this………………enjoy, courtesies of The Wild Pomengrante

Grassroots economics.

What does that mean to you?

Suppose it was so simple, that we could help each other?

Suppose you had a necklace for sale, and your blogging community joined around you, to get it sold?

Suppose you had a business you wanted to start, a venture, and we all joined around you and passed the word on and so on and so on?

If I was the beggar on the street, and collected one dollar from 250,000 people in the space of three days, they would have saved me, no?

Why can’t we all be the beggars on the corner and the ones stopping to drop a dollar? It starts now.

Suppose we picked up our own strength and helped one another?

What then?

Could it be the dawning of a new age?

AcrossThe Universe – I Want To Hold Your Hand
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQfRdn8wqi4]

Across The Universe – Strawberry Fields Forever (Movie Ver)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziToC3371NE]

When do secrets stop being secrets?

Is it when we speak them out out loud?

Does it require a certain number to hear or see them to remove the status of secret?

Highlight: postsecrets

When you live on the edge of the rainbow,

hanging on to the hue,

of purple,

or blue,

the gradation,

may not matter.

When you live on the edge of the rainbow,

it is moments,

seconds,

that define,

you,

your life.

When you live on the edge of the rainbow,

you hold on,

by nail,

by a thread,

by a handful,

if you like the color,

you have grasped.

When you live on the edge of the rainbow,

yours,

hang with you.

In my hand

I hold

the promise of today

which was the breath,

the blink,

of yesterday,

unrealized.

In my hand,

I hold,

the courage,

of a moment,

fingers curled,

ready,

palms warm.

In my hands,

I hold,

the tempo,

of a new tomorrow,

watch my fingers spread,

reaching to the horizon,

refusing to meet,

a dividing line.

In my hands,

I hold,

the spark of hope,

so tiny,

I dare not look,

to see,

if it exists,

but close my eyes,

against the

sand of time,

willing granules

to become affixed,

within my eyelashes,

so short these days.

I will,

the space of time,

to exist,

as I hold it,

in my heart,

and send to you.

Peace.

Surface Earth

What is the sound,

of one heart,

sighing?

One heart,

crying,

ripping,

tearing?

What is the sound,

can there be,

when no one outside of yourself

can hear it?

Or is sound,

an image,

something transfixed,

transported,

into gesture and face?

Can we hear the sound

of a heart breaking

in visual imagery?

Imagine this,

if you will,

falling,

through a moment in time,

when life becomes reversed,

when the difference,

between what is and what isn’t,

is no difference at all,

where there are no lines.

Imagine if you will,

having,

in fact,

the wrong look,

the wrong intonation,

the wrong laugh,

and imagine,

that is all it takes

to make you into

the other.

What is the sound,

of a heart breaking?

What does it mean,

to be the other?

Who must you be first,

where must you stand,

to call

another

of your brothers

or sisters,

the other?

May peace be with you.

Surface Earth

Amber Moon writes of how we can make the world a better place. She illustrates how we are graced enough to be able to grasp a moment, or what we might conceive as a small thought or gesture, which can have ripple effects.  I imagine the ideas she gives us to help are fibers which eventually weave together with enough action to create a blanket to cover the world in kindness.  I am inspired by what she has written.

It just so happens that after reading Amber’s post, I stopped in at the land of Gyspsy Heart, and found a piece on tactile art that she had done and the photos of the children that were blessed by her art.  Absolutely amazing.  If that is not kindness, than I don’t know how to define the word.

I feel blessed today to have read these posts, to turn around my direction of thinking.  Often, as Amber said, the sheer enormity of the things to fix in the world could make us feel there is nothing we can do….ah, how misdirected that is and how empowering to hold on to the belief, that change can be made with each small moment.

Peace & blessings.

I’m Alive,

and I know this,

because I think, I breath, I feel.

I feel.

What is feeling?

What is it to walk through life,

wondering if anyone else knows what you and yours are going through?

Does it matter to daily existence?

I think not, because if it did, there could never be human unkindness.

Peace.

The Resolution, Jack’s Mannequin

Hi there regular readers & friends.  For any of you that have any online stores, would you mind jumping over to the Surface Earth Store and giving me your thoughts on design?  It’s still in the process of being put together, but would love to hear back from a few or many!

Surface Earth store

Peace, light & blessings.

Surface Earth

To me, short of love and children, there is nothing sweeter than a book.

I was over wandering at Sanity’s Place and aside from artful conversation I found a lead on a new, fresh author!

Go check out this book

Peace, blessings & light to you.

I stood outside and looked up,

I could make out one star that seemed to glow, shine,

more brightly,

to me than any other.

I wondered at its size.

Then I thought,

can it see me?

I consider it a far off pinpoint of light,

yet,

it is a light that I can see.

Can it see me?

A piece of a pinpoint,

on this planet we call Earth,

not shining,

not giving any glow,

to light the vision of the night,

can it see me?

There are times,

most times,

between the spaces,

when we have,

I believe,

moments of gratitude,

singing,

in the open spaces

of amphitheaters

designed and built

both long before and after our time.

There are times,

I think,

perhaps,

within the moments,

yes, not in the spaces in between,

when our hearts swell,

and we know,

if we could only bag up and box,

the love before us,

there would not be one more thing we need to accomplish.

Have I shared with you,

the smile,

on a child’s face,

when they turn at you,

unexpectedly?

Have I shared with you,

the millions of times,

within my home,

we say,

I love you?

not to get something back,

but because it is.

Have I shared with you,

my mortal fears?

the understanding,

that our rights to love,

as humans

are fragile.

They are…..

parceled,

not by our decree, but by,

the whims,

ambitions,

egos of others.

I do not blame them.

Because to do so,

is to blame them,

for not having been loved,

this way,

the way that is beyond denial,

for those within its circle of warmth.

I wish for you today,

a better moment,

a better today, to build,

an even better tomorrow.

I wish that we,

as humanity,

would not let,

our brothers and sisters fail,

not now,

not ever,

but lift them up,

within our arms of collective consciousness.

Every child gone wrong,

every adult,

with a finger pointed at him or her,

is still the child,

no I don’t mean,

we excuse behavior that hurts one another,

i mean,

we raise a village,

we stop it before it begins,

Ubuntu.

Peace to you today.

let us know what we can do,

if you don’t,

well,

we will wish you had.

How to begin?

Sanity Found gave us a remarkable tribute, and within same, Amber Moon, made reference to the guide written on her blog, simple thoughts on Ubuntu.

Perhaps the only fair way to begin is to show you, our introduction to the word Ubuntu did not begin that  long ago.  In June of 2007, Surface Earth posted a piece on Ubuntu. It was an introduction, a recognition, that this word was new to us.

Back to the present, we were asked to share our vision, our experience of Ubuntu:

We would like to extend our congratulations to Surface Earth.  Thank you for your beautiful words and spirit.  You will be a fine addition to our Ubuntu team.  With this nomination you can choose or not to post our Ubuntu badge on your blog, but we do ask that you post a blog post article about what Ubuntu means to you in return.

First, Ubuntu to us means an all encompassing love.  It means love which has no division, no boundaries, it is the recognition that as the water feeds through the channels of the land, it is not divided, but of the same whole.

Stop.

Ubuntu means exactly what what was given and shared today, an expression of humanity, a lack of being afraid to stand on Humanity’s Team, to recognize ourselves in another or others.  And that is what occurred today.  I stand now, in the distant light, rays, of pure love that have come from people I don’t know, people that have no agenda other than to raise up their fellow man or woman or human or whatever we want to call ourselves.  This purity of spirit reached into my day, humbling me, asking, what more, what more, what more can be done?  Done, I mean, to keep this up, to keep up this compassionate web of caring, for all of you to feel as I do right now, full of belief in the love and goodness of my fellow people.

This is first draft gang, i’m sure I’ll be back to write some more, but I can only write from the heart, the editing skills come from my very loud ego, and I’m ok with silencing that loud partner.

Namaste.  May you be good to others.

Bizzare, right?

How could they possibly be related?

Well, maybe falling through the Rabbit Hole.

For now, I say, because I saw Flash of Genius today and cried.  I cried for so many reasons.  I cried because I am an attorney and I know I have advocated to settle because litigation costs would be insurmountable for my client.  I cry because i witnessed how a good man, watched his marriage and family get destroyed, because others refused to acknowledge truth.

But before I cried watching Flash of Genius i cried because I saw previews for The Changeling.  Am I confused?  Because I posted some time ago about a book, The Stolen Child, and because of my love for Irish history, my love of the lore of the Faeries, I felt The Stolen Child was important.  But the book itself humbled me to believe I knew what was important and what was not.

So I sat, waiting for Flash of Genius to begin, and had a preview to The Changeling which, if you have read, the Stolen Child, or perhaps other works, it would not be a bizarre topic for you.  If you have lived untruths forced upon you by what you believed to be law abiding, good people of society, and have been harmed because of it, then you also know what i mean.

What it means is the disillusion of truth.  Those in power preying over the good that live in truth.  And it bothers me on deeper levels because my Grandfather was an executive of Ford.  But i can only pray, he would not have done this to that man and his family. He is passed now, so I may have to wait to ask.  On another level it bothered me deeply because I am an attorney and was disgusted by what I saw in regard to the attorneys on behalf of Ford.  I spoke to Mary during that film and said please, please don’t let me be them.  But I’m judging now, aren’t I?  Ugh.

I cried. Just in the previews, I cried.  And they also had to slam us with The Soloist, let’s save that discussion for another day.

All I can say is, truth resides within, if you cannot follow your own good heart, there is no sense looking to others.

Man is distorted, I don’t know why, it makes no sense to me individually, I’d rather let the guy who cuts me of pass safely than curse him out.  But, I’m going to suffer myself, and watch The Changeling, knowing it is true and it exists today, knowing that to speak out, is often to condemn ourselves and those we love.

But, what, I ask you, because I no longer know, is,what is the point of silence?

May God and your heart guide you.  May God not be what institutions teach you, rather, may God only be what resonates when the soul and heart meet.

I pray for you.

Surface Earth

I can’t decide on the title, I could write three thousand more headings.

Here it is, I need to share this with you,

we live in the year,

2008.

(You sure this is not 1978????)

Did you know that?

And in 2008 it sometimes seems we have learned nothing.

We have become the arbiter of what is acceptable within the beds of consenting adults.  We have chosen to focus on a very small area:  whether people of the same sex are allowed to love each other.

Yes, you heard that right.  What we are talking about is ability of people to be allowed to FREELY EXPRESS LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER.

Let’s repeat that:  FREEDOM TO LOVE.

Now I’m not patronizing you, I repeat this to drill it into my own head that it could actually be true that God loving heterosexual human beings think they have the right to determine the course of love for the rest of the world.  (Oh, did I mention?  I’m God Loving and a monogamous, loving heterosexual.  Aren’t I lucky?  Arent’ I special?  Guess God must have chosen me.)

The point is, educated, allegedly loving individuals, citizens of the most free of societies, or so they herald, are actually, yes, seriously, contemplating to amend the Florida constitution to tell people, to mandate, to enact into law a prohibition against love.

Yes, that is what we are talking about, prohibiting love.

No God I have ever believed in ever considered that a possibility, two rules, remember, the essence?  Love God and Love your neighbor.

Whew.  Sorry, I’m pretty upset.

I want to know where the exit door is from this Society gone mad.  No, I don’t mean checking out, I mean escaping from the collective illusion.

Here, let me tell you what’s going on.  Received, via another, yes, my allowed and legal love, an email, copied below for you to read and digest:

“Dear all – yes this is a direct appeal for money to help a worthy cause.  It is sad that we have to spend good resources to fight for basic human rights in the US in 2008.

A worthy cause – run by a good friend I’ve known for several years.  Please help!

Kind regards,”

*****

Begin forwarded message:

From: ******

Date: 1 October 2008 9:15:31 AM

To: ********

Subject: Hello from Florida

Dear Friends,

I’ll be right up-front about this - this is an appeal for $$$.  (No, not for me.)

I hope you know I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.  Please read on and I will explain why.

There is a poisonous amendment to the Florida Constitution on the ballot this November known as Amendment 2 – the so-called “Marriage Protection” Amendment.

Yes, they’re at it again.  The right wing is using fear of gay people to try to win another election.  But they may have over reached this time.  They claim it’s about “gay marriage” but Florida already has multiple laws banning same-sex marriage.  What they’re really after is engraving discrimination into the Florida Constitution and the elimination of domestic partnership rights and benefits which are offered by several counties (e.g. Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach), municipalities and employers (think Disney) here in Florida.

The good news is that to amend the Florida Constitution the proponents need a vote of 60% + 1 to win and we need 40% +1 to send it to the trash bin where it belongs.  Polls show both sides are within 2% of the magic number.  We have seen that once we explain the negative consequences to all Florida unmarried couples, especially seniors who would be forced to choose between sharing health care and receiving government benefits, our numbers go up.  The key to our victory will be in getting the word out to as many people as possible.  That’s where you come in.

Florida Red and Blue, the group I have been working for since July, was formed solely to defeat this amendment.  As many of you know I have worked on a few campaigns in the past and I must say I am impressed with the sophistication of Florida Red and Blue.  We are using all the latest tools to fight this battle.  Included in our arsenal are TV ads which are already “in the can” and have been tested with focus groups with off-the-charts positive results.  The reason the ads are so effective is they tell real stories of real people and how they would be affected if Amendment 2 passes.  The TV time has been booked and all that remains is the money to run the ads.  All our other expenses and overhead are covered from now until Nov. 4 so every dime we raise from now on will go directly to getting these ads on the air.

Please help with a contribution of whatever you can afford,  It’s easy; just go to our web site www.SayNo2.com or send a check to Florida Red and Blue  12864 Biscayne Blvd., Suite 314 North Miami, FL  33181.  There are just 5 weeks left until the election so the need is urgent and immediate.

If this amendment is defeated here in Florida it will send shock waves across the country.  The Republicans have used this tool in the past (remember Ohio 2004) and they will keep using it until it no longer works.  If we can stop them here it will be a real turning point.  But most importantly we will preserve the limited rights and benefits available under domestic partnerships for all unmarried Florida couples and keep the government out of the private lives of individuals and families.  When government tries to make these kinds of decisions we end up with travesties like the Terry Schiavo case.

Thanks for your help.  I know there are many demands on us all these days so it’s important to choose where our dollars will have the most impact and do the most good.  Beating Amendment 2 in Florida is one of those places.  [-------] And for more information on the amendment, go to www.SayNo2.com. There you can read articles,view videos, make a contribution and find a list of our supporters like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Patricia Ireland, NOW, the NAACP, AFL-CIO, etc.

Thank you most sincerely for your support,

******

PS – if you have any friends in Florida make sure they know to vote No on Amendment 2.  You’d be surprised how many people don’t know about this with all the attention going to the presidential race.”

UPDATE:  WE HAVE RECEIVD PERMISSION TO POST THE AUTHOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION FOR THE ABOVE QUOTED EMAIL:

dougsternyc@netscape.com

(954) 734-0171

SO THAT’S IT FOLKS.

A CHANCE TO ACT FROM THE SOUL, TO ACT FROM OUR HEARTS.

DOESN’T SEEM THAT DIFFICULT, DOES IT?

PEACE AND NAMASTE.

surface earth photos, copyright – 2008

A rose by any other name…………………………………

-surface earth, copyright 2008

GRRRRR, OUR SURFACE EARTH DESIGN, SHE IS READY, BOOTS ON………………….

YOURS,

SURFACE EARTH

my night ended, looking at flowers still opened,

just one above,

how funny,

it looks of the day.

My day started,

early,

and in one point

of that early transition,

i had a moment of grace,

i saw for some reason,

a small fleck of color,

perhaps,

i would have thought a weed,

in another given moment,

but i stopped,

crouched down and looked

at the color curled into itself,

i asked my child,

with me,

at the time,

come here,

see this color,

and the flower opened,

seen as I did,

below,

perhaps the camera quality cannot give you the sensation,

we saw,

in the early hours.

CNN reports this morning on a widow with a teenage son who skips meals to give her son more food and has no resource to buy him clothes.

I looked in this article for a contact to reach out and could not find one.  Perhaps one of you will see what I could not.  Maybe it’s as simple as writing to the reporter who covered the story.

Another thought came to me, she reportedly lives in Vista, California.  There must be a family near there that can donate clothes an older boy has grown out of or a group that can share meals.  There must be ways we can still reach out and help one another, even when most of us no longer have enough money, let alone “extra” money.

***UPDATE:  AS OF 10/4/08, WE ARE TRYING TO OBTAIN THE EMAIL ADDRESS FOR THE CNN REPORTER, WE CALLED A FEW DIFFERENT NUMBERS TO TRACK HIM, WE HOPE DURING REGULAR OPERATING HOURS BEGINNING MONDAY, WE CAN TRACK HIM DOWN AND HE CAN HELP US FACILITATE WAYS TO DONATE TO THE FAMILY HE HIGHLIGHTED IN NEED.

STAY TUNED.  WE WILL APPRISE AS SOON AS WE KNOW.  PEACE TO YOU.

Ok.

Breath.

There are many things I can say about what I see on the news, but I think, I will ignore what I have heard and have seen.

Rather, I want to get back to basics here.

I think the world is becoming inverted.

What do I mean?

I think what we have known is about to change in ways we cannot imagine.

I call it:  flatline.

And I pray that what comes after is what we can live with from the best part of ourselves.

In the meantime, I’m going back to basics, stocking up on canned foods, designing vegetable gardens and rainwater collection systems.

And yes, making room and welcoming friends and family without a place to go.

May God Bless us All.

What can you make for dinner from what you have?  Those potatoes growing roots, perhaps?

Vegan Potato Soup

Updates:  I added too much wheat flour to the soup and destroyed it. Note photo below:

And now looking at the photo of the cans, I wonder why one of the four tomato cans has turned its back on the camera?  Hmmm, could of sworn wasn’t like that before……………..

Open Letter to God now updated

In a nutshell,

what truly would fit?

Is there something I can share,

impart,

that you yourself,

have not thought of?

Yes,

grammar is but a tool

to help bridge the gap

in communication,

and I will flout

those rules here.

Yesterday,

did it matter,

how your hair looked?

what car you drove?

who said what about you?

If so,

you live,

still,

within,

what I would call,

a bubble,

a protected, lovely bubble,

that is no different,

than an oxygen tank.

There is a limit.

I don’t mean to bring you down,

and in fact,

I believe the great deal of you that visit

more than once

know that automatically.

What I am trying to impart,

is that,

life,

is but a knock away.

For some of us,

it can be a knock that resounds as a winning lottery ticket,

or the sense of doom,

before the knuckles fall,

but it is fallible

and ever present

unless

we

decide

otherwise.

If I am rooted in faith,

external conditions,

well,

they can try,

can’t they?

But then,

isn’t it up to me,

as to how,

insidious,

they become?

**May you be blessed and protected today.  Namaste.

-Surface Earth

There is nothing I can add to what Sorrow has said in her post:  It matters.

I invite you to go back and read her post again and then spread the word of her Labryinth shop, the shop is selling love and generosity to help others.  Go take a peek.

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

–Edmund Burke

Dear Ones:

We are not in a point of life where we can give money to those in need.  What we can do is invite you here, place your needs or petitions, if you want by location, in case of local help, but that is your choice entirely.

We will try to turn your email or comment requests into posts and some day a workable map-type web where people within localities can help each other and we can truly live a human community.

Pass this around.  All are welcome.  Evidently, we cannot vouch for the requests we will receive, we just ask you be guided by your heart.

The following is lifted entirely from Enreal’s site:  (BTW:  I WILL ANSWER ENREAL BELOW).

An interesting meme delving into the lives of other bloggers… so technically it is a YouYou and a way to “pick your brain”

The rules are:

• Choose whose brain you want to pick.
• Ask a question about what you always wanted to know from that person, never mind whether it may be indiscreet – so be cautious
• Tag (with a TrackBack) the person

Oh, yes, and of course answer the question that you were asked, more or less detailed

The answer to my question is no… I never wore braces when I was young. I did however wear really funny looking glasses.

Now my questions…

1. Ray… have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a different century? Which would it be?

2. Gypsy Heart… what led you to painting…( thank God for your gift)… if you could imagine doing anything else as good… what would it be?

3. Zenuria… I know of your travels and adventures… if you could have an ideal set of circumstances where you could travel and see the world… where would you go first?

4. Sorrow… what’s the first thing you would do if you became president?

5. Glaize … If you witness one natural phenomenon what would it be?

6. Cordie… If you won the lottery what is the first thing you would do?

7. Sanity… this is gonna have to be a good one… if you could spend one hour in someone elses shoes… who would it be and what would you do?

8. Spaz… Imagine living in the future… what would you look forward to?

9. Surface Earth… With all the awareness you bring to us readers… all the empathy you show… all the beautiful words you share with us… what is the one message you would leave us with?

Now to all those whom I tagged… I have come to know you well through your words and time has definitely weaved us together… through the last couple of weeks I have met new friends and read beautiful essays and works of art… I am blessed… I wish to ask all of you… What does the world look like from your view??

Benafia

Dumakey

Amber

Smith

Michael M

Wow I went a bit crazy with the tagging… have fun… can’t wait to hear your answers…

“Surface Earth… With all the awareness you bring to us readers… all the empathy you show… all the beautiful words you share with us… what is the one message you would leave us with?”

Enreal:  I don’t know the “one” message.  If I was compelled to leave but one, it would be “love”.  I know you are not suprised by that.

The lack of love, for ourselves, is what causes the majority of issues in this world.  I believe, if we could be kind to ourselves first, we would find it easier to be kind to others.  The problem presents itself that we are born here, with different feelings, different language skills and are “corrected”.  The process of correction erodes our natural ability to act only from love and joy.  We then spend, if we are so blessed, the remainder of our days here, unlearning, again, and again.

I would say, look not with your eyes, but with your heart, and always, with kindness.

May God bless you in this and every moment.  May you never forget, we are part of the whole.

I was wondering, and am still wondering, how we shape our answers.

I tried to figure out if there is a way to out fox myself.  If I could pose my question in such a way that I could trick myself, then maybe I might find a different answer.

The way we post questions creates our world.  It is difficult to get beyond our own perception.  We may try to trace the origin of our perception, i.e. childhood, to find out where it has gone from there, but we then still move forward from the same point of origin.

I think, maybe, I am understanding the idea of the empty vessel.

This is a difficult subject.

Let me start again.

I am trying to express something that to me goes beyond words.

It began with a thought I had, every time I do a search for answers, a Google search, a search in the book store, a search by queries, verbally to people I meet in alleged real-time, my subconscious has already framed the questions to find a channel of answers.

The question then becomes, how do I get beyond myself to reach the pure channel of information or am I already in it?  As long as I have this other, this human self, that speaks for me, thinks for me, writes for me…will I ever truly know what lies beyond my own sphere of perception?

Namaste!  Thanks for the fireside chat.

I thought today, driving home,

ah,

sigh….the art of letters.

I don’t know how many of you can comprehend what I mean, and I certainly do not mean that from either an intellectual, emotional or spiritual capacity, I mean…….well, let’s see how it unfolds.

I mean,

the edges of my sweater, a black one of course, bought by my daughter for me, clearance Calvin, stretching across the mid-span of my palm, or in reverse, the outerside of the top of my hands, not quite at my knuckles.

I think, of fires, whether mine or others, and the timelessness of time before the advent of copiers and fax machines and cell phones you could carry without rupturing your back and the internet, remember the blue screen of seemingly nothingness?

And then bam:  the virtual world and no way to turn back.

So it made me think,

ask,

remember “letters”?

You took some paper,

maybe loose leaf,

maybe left over paper and you began

the bravest of us,

started on that creamy

stationary that was stashed in a drawer for the most important of occassions.

We sat,

we thought,

we looked around,

we walked away,

we came back,

we wrote,

and wrote,

and crossed out,

then tried to not make it look like a cross out,

and oh please,

don’t get me started on “white out”,

they actually changed the brush for a sponge foam type thing

that does not work,

and we wrote.

We often started again,

the first letter to the left or right of us,

and began again,

realizing we had more cross outs

than readable spaces,

and this would repeat itself,

over several moments,

hours or days…

but we thought,

we reflected and man

we waited before sealing the envelope and sticking on that stamp

that was not ever escalating

and walking somewhere

to find the blue metal beautiful box

on the corner

calling our name.

Some of us even circled it several times and then walked away,

pocketing the letter,

folding it,

saying,

you know,

maybe some other day.

But we did not hit send,

we didn’t have the ability to have our impulse cross out our heart.

I’m missing letter writing my friends.

I want to use that blue box on the corner,

I want my time to dream between the spaces.

Abundant blessings to you.  I send my heart out within an envelope and am happy to wait for a return!

Peace.

How was I to know, the journey began within and ended within?

I really didn’t.

It began so many years ago, do I dare to bore you?

I can if you want.

If you are sitting there flicking around looking for something, anything that takes you away for a moment,

take a moment and come back to yourself.

Sometime ago, Enreal tagged me here for a “tag”, “link”, I am never quite sure of the “nomenclature”, for a series of shared favorite quotes.

I thought, and I thought and I thought.  And I realized, the quotes I like best are the ones that happen spontanouesly in the day, the ones, most often born of innocence, out of the mouths of babes they say.  I continued to think.  Then, the other night, I received an email from a group I read and there they were, three beautiful, pristine quotes and I knew those are the ones I wanted to share.

Enreal, thank you for keeping me thinking.  Without further ado………..

“When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinitie.”

-William Blake

“We count our miseries carefully, and accept our blessings without much thought.”

-Chinese Proverb

“When we settle into the present moment, we can see beauties and wonders right before our eyes…”.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

—-Blessings

Dear Marian:

I share here, your artistic success:  The Witch of Portobello, by Marian and the Gang

To the rest of the community, this is in part, a response to an earlier post of mine, an invitation of Paulo Coehlo, a truly cool Brasilian writer, inviting emerging film artists to participate in the interpretation of one of his books:  See prior link here

Blessings.

SE

I have to believe

I gotta believe

I do believe.

In bigger, and better, and all encompassing.

I believe,

you and I,

have taken a turn being each other,

and only,

turn away,

because of the recognition of pain.

I salute,

the quiet dignity,

as a woman,

in worshipping in a belief in Islam,

quietly,

turned,

five times a day.

I believe,

in the repetition,

of the Catholic prayers,

and rejoice,

in the Catholic,

yes,

the ones,

on the wild,

holy rolling,

healing masses,

singing free.

I believe,

in the coverings,

of the women,

I  have known,

and have seen,

of Jewish faith,

yes,

covered,

and not so much,

some mainstream,

perhaps,

in belief.

I believe,

in the Celts,

that danced,

under the full moon,

while still worshipping the sun.

I believe,

in the way,

my heart,

my soul,

soars on its own,

with the beauty,

of full blown

gospel singing.

It

is

not just belief,

it is knowing,

certainty,

being,

ok,

with embracing the unknown.

This I share with you.

Knowing,

I could as easily,

ask to be part of a Gospel Church,

as a Roman Catholic,

I could ask to be divided,

on the side of a curtain,

covering my head,

my arms,

past my knees,

I could ask,

to be fully wrapped,

yet,

embracing a God,

within me,

as I bow,

scraping myself upon the ground,

not in subjection,

but in praise,

and in hope, and in love.

I ask us to remember tonight,

the words brothers and sisters,

have no

racial,

cultural,

geographic,

political,

familial,

nor economic bounds

It is simply,

the divine within,

willing to see,

the divine

within others,

the ever flowing love.

Once seen,

never forgotten.

Peace be unto you.

Come along to the new page:  Take Back America

Jon in on the flow of discussion for a full today and the today’s to follow.

Knowledge as defined by Merriam-Webster online includes the awareness of something, being familiar with something and the cognition of facts.

Many times, if things do not fall within our knowledge, we automiatically presume the “things” to not be true or to not exist.  Funny, isn’t it?

Would it not be just as easy to presume that what we don’t know may have as great of a chance of existing as not exisisting?

For instance, why is the idea of life beyond our known Earthly world so hard for many to fathom?

Today, it takes headlines because a well known, much followed former Astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, publicly speaks that the government has been covering up the existence of other life forms for at least six decades.

Shocking?

No.

What seems more shocking to me is that we could honestly believe that we are the only living beings, race of people/intelligent life/etc. in the vast unknown of space.

See also:

Fox News

I want to post something simple today.

Thanks and gratitude for my life.

This is a simple post in many ways, but I want to share, I begin…

I give thanks for the ability to receive love.

I give thanks for the ability to understand love.

I give thanks, for each part of my body, my mortal shell, that operates at its best efficiency.

I give thanks, for the numerous markets near me, to pick and choose, what shall land on my family’s plate.

I give thanks, that I can share my earnings to other family, beyond my immediate circle.

I give thanks, for the state of mind, that allows me to keep earning.

I give thanks for the ability to walk out the door, go to a store, and buy essentials that make my life easier.

I give thanks for the ability to smile in the face of adverse circumstances.

I give thanks to remember that I smiled in just such circumstances.

I give thanks for the ability to use my fingers to play across this keyboard.

I give thanks that I can stand, sit, dwell, hear and ask to pray for those that are without hope.

I give thanks that I live and was born within a county that does not stone people for adultery.

I give thanks that I can stop here and ask all of you to use the power of word and the power of prayer to hope, that only God, and not practicing mortals, decides the fate of the nine in Iran sentenced to die by stoning for alleged adultery.

I give thanks that I have the courage to ask you to stop what you are doing and send a positive prayer to the universe to save those people, our brother and sisters.

I give thanks that someday we become united again, outside the dictates of society.

I give thanks that you took a moment of your day to stop in.

Peace to you.

S.E.

I feel like writing tonight.  Not sure what will land here, but I felt like sharing, or would it be, unburdening?

I have had some really interesting dreams lately, the angels teaching me about pieces of rainbows and how to turn them to heal.

A repetitive dream about escaping from one world to the next, sneaking out through a porthole, that forgive me, was I believe a toilet bowel, the deal was, I had to have faith, dive in and let myself be flushed away.  The thing is, my consciousness, and my self, however you define it, came out from the other side.  And then it happened again and again and again until I awoke near 5 and say ok, enough of that, bring me back to the rainbows.

The rainbows are fast and furious in my mind.  If you go back to the beginning of many of my posts, there was a desperate, desperate search…I needed, wanted, demanded the answers.  Could that be the lawyer in me?  And then, it stopped, and it stopped, without my doing, by the immersion in silence and in nature.  Now, I’m not telling you I had to be in the middle of the woods, I could have been on a busy street, on a stoop, lucky enough to have a pot of geraniums at my side, but I needed to be.  And I found I could not “be” in the continuous cycle of putting on a face.  Whoever that other is, that seeks to say, hey, hey – aren’t I cool, aren’t I loveable?  Let me show you, you will see.  Well, she went somewhere else, age, you ask?  Perhaps.  And if so, blessings.

The point being, there is a quiet solitutude that has nothing to do with loneliness.  That may be because I am fortunate enough to be withn reservoirs of love, or is that because, becoming aware, I stepped within reservoirs of love and decided to stay put?

That’s it.  Sin-e.

Best of blessings, peace, wholeness, and undoubtedly, self-healing to you.  Faith can move a mountain.  I have always had a problem with it, until I got out of my own way, and realized it was true.

Live from the heart.

Live honest to you.

You’ll be ok.

Peace.

Where do we begin when we sit separate; yet, never apart

in this Divine Matrix

of energy?

I wonder at times,

why I write here,

and then wonder again,

why not?

I share with you to night, a small sliver from a beautiful, beautiful book:

(an excerpt of an excerpt)

Poem by Phillip Lopate

We who are

your closest friends

feel the time

has come to tell you

that every Thursday

we have been meeting,

as a group,

to devise ways

to keep you

in perpetual uncertainty

frustration

discontent and

torture

by neither lovng you

as much as you want

nor cuttng you adrift.

Your analyst is

in on it,

plus your boyfriend

and your ex-husband;

and we have pledged

to disappoint you

as long as you need us.

In annoucing our

association

we realize we have

placed in our hands

a possible antidote

against uncertainty

indeed against ourselves.

But since our Thursday nights

have brought us

to a community

of purpose

rare in itself

with your as

the natural center,

we feel hopeful you

will continue to make unreasonable

demands for affection

if not as a consequence

of your disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective.

For the absolute beautiful narrative leading up to and including this piece, pick up and read:

Anne Lamott

“Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life.”

Peace to you.

What is the story that you have not told?

Is there only one?

Is it the story that creeps upon you in the darkest part of the night,

or the one,

in the full light of the Sun,

that glares at you,

on your way to work,

daring you to deceive it?

Do you have a story untold?

One that would free your heart,

if only,

for a moment,

you were the breath

of air

that lit

the

embers

of the fire?

the most profound thing

I have heard in awhile,

is…

“there really is no Earth,

it is only dressed up,

as the Earth.”

anonymous, 5 years old

Today,
I draft a contract to myself,
one you may find amusing,
resourceful or contemplative.

I begin…

Today
I honor myself
as I did
before I knew either
the definition
or
the spelling
of honor

Today
I honor myself
as a child
with the face
turned
to the
Sun

Today
I honor myself
and forgive
my past
lack of realization

Today
I honor myself
and forgive
my past
perceived
mistakes

Today
I honor myself
and forgive
you
for what
I thought
or
think you
have done

Today
I honor myself
and covenant
that if I cannot think with love
I will neutralize
my thoughts
and think
without judgment

Peace to you today. You are beautiful.

Tonight,
I need to offer prayers for those I know,
and those I have come across.

Recently,
I have met,
and have known,
spiritual people,
battling odds.

I ask tonight,
that you join me,
and offer up loving intents,
not focused on their issues,
the lack,
but on the positive,
to imagine and visualize
the people I speak of,
as
whole
and beautiful
and healthy.

Think healthy,
think whole,
think loved.

I thank you in advance.
You are beautiful souls.

Peace be unto you.

I think I get it now.

I understand the positive, positive and positive bent of some of my fellow bloggers.

I finally get,
to focus on negativity is to beget negetavity.
No two ways about it.

Love resonates at a higher level.
If we embrace moments with the reflection of love,
we actually
engage
an
alchemic
change.

Hard to swallow,
because really,
who wants to believe
themselves
responsible
for the lowest moments of their lives?

Reverse,
suppose we learn we are,
and then can
unlearn
the negativity?

Peace.

Sometimes
there is nothing
left to say
you go hollow
empty
beyond reason.

Yet,
is it a bad
place
to be?

The space in between?

Have you ever felt
the moments
when they stretch
when time defies logic
in fact
when “time” is not
even present?

When it, you, life, just is?

Belief Net: Orbs?

New York Times reports: The Risk to Children in Myanmar

I read this article today and it hit me, yes, of course, the children are not just lost, without loved ones to protect them, but now in a further position to be exploited.

What can we do?

Children are children without geographical boundaries.

All children are our responsibility to raise up, as we will be theirs, in our older years.

Resources:

Feed the Children

Unicef Organization

Bloomberg online

Save the Children

Global Giving

I share mine with you

I inadvertantly deleted beautiful comments when switching and administering my site!

Sorry guys!

Surface Earth is taking a time out.

Bless you one and all.

Namaste.

FoxNews, tongue in cheek, presents to us, or provides a channel to us, to hear a different perspective on Jesus’ alleged lineage.

Of course, I am only one reader, and hear sarcasm between the lines, as FoxNews reports on the Director, Paul Verhoeven’s, view and account of the possibility of Jesus’ lineage.

Now, I am not without sympthathy as to how such a view could be upsetting to untold millions, but if we are strong in our faith, then we can receive, process and decide for ourselves, yes? Different points of view, so long as they do not oppress, hurt, incriminate or falsely accuse, must be heralded, no?

So I think, Mr. Verhoeven’s views should at a minimum be reviewed with an open mind. Perhaps we could start with this objective viewpoint:

1. We know more today than we knew yesterday; and

2. We know less than we will tomorrow.

The other day driving to Court, I replayed the song: Let it Be from Across the Universe. Then I began to think of my routine prayers from childhood: Our Father and Hail Mary.

As I repeated the Hail Mary after several times, I began to smile, quite wide in fact, when I got to “Mother of God”. If Jesus is the Son of God and Mary is the mother of Jesus, then she is also the Mother of God?

Well, I enjoyed this hyperbole.

So when I see someone brave enough to come out and spin a different version on Jesus’ lineage, I say why not?

What’s the harm, really?

Faith begins and ends within each of us, the tenants are beautiful guidelines, but should never be used as the ultimate guidance on love or kindness and certainly, never used to oppress.

May the Divine bless all of you.

Namaste.

I watch now on CNN, the explanation for keeping a plant within a temple to gain evidence for four years to have a case for prosecuting or stopping what many of us would call the abuse of children.

I digress, because it is not how I anticipated starting my post.

I am here now though, and will continue.

I hear:

“Why don’t many of these women (a/k/a children) run away”?

Well Larry, they don’t know what is outside of the walls. I mean no disrespect Larry, but please, when the world was flat, it was flat, to suggest otherwise was heresy. I still get looked at kind of funny when I suggest we may not be the only living beings in the universe/galaxy/dimensions of time.

So what am I going on about?

De-hu-man-i-za-tion.

Dehumanizing.

I need/want to understand how anyone does this, dehumanizes another. Perhaps, I need to be in their shoes. I prefer to not be, to be honest, who would want to live through that distorted, yet, real experience of the world?

I can tell you, we dehumanize, daily.

We get angry at people in traffic, not knowing why thery are oblivious or rushing, instead, probably calling them names.

We get angry when someone’s card doesn’t work in line at the foodstore.

We get mad when someone dares to question a price, (yeah, right, you kidding me? many more of us know, thirty cents makes a difference these days)

I get mad seeing these idiots in Texas abusing young women, and I want to know, when did the deception of reality, faith begin?

I no longer proscribe to any given religion, because I don’t believe in the one true, right religion, I only believe in the following:

dignity

compassion

love

respect

If that could be my religion, I could adhere to it, I cannot condemn, I cannot say other loving humans should not be saved, etc., etc., etc.

I know, we all contribute to what I call de-humanization.

What I want to know is, will we contribute to stopping this societal nightmare?

Slumber
Envelops me
Its knotty
Gnarled veins
Disguised
As time
Creeping
Slithering
Tip
Tip
Toeing
As
Otherwise mine

Soft
Velvet
Fingers tracing
The Navaho existence
Of the planes
Of my
Cheeks
Standing
Against the sky

Except

When

They

Don’t

Falling
Pray
Prey
To this
Mortal
Immortal
Existence
Playing bingo
With time

God’s Vision

Is only limited

by the sight

of our own eyes

Tranquility

creeps

the ivy on the vine

forgotten

but for a few

the car travelling

an unknown path

feet taking

around a corner

the eye

willing to see

what was not seen before

but tranquility

ah

it almost pardons itself

excuse me,

is this seat taken?

Don’t criticize yourself

there may already

be

a long line

of people

behind you

unable themselves

to look within the mirror

I turned my head

And You were gone

I hear sounds around the realm of me

I don’t know what they are

What You are doing

Yet

I claim

To know You

Better than anyone

But I can’t feel

What would happen

If we surrendered

To the world around us

If we hung our heads

And just admitted

That it was not for us to see

But since

We don’t know

It’s not then pretend,

is it?

I make rules

And regulations

On Your speech

When I defend others

Whose rules?

Not Jesus

I lift from my seat typing those six letters

Lord hear me

If I could explode the world would tremble

If I gave even a percentage

Of what happens inside of me

Even witnessed a moment

Of how

I want to scoop

Up the pain

In the world and tend to it

A gardener

In an untended basket

I want my hat pulled low

My brim to the Earth

I want to bow in thanks

I want to dance

And tell You

Celebrate

When my feet hit Your contours

I want to say

I am sorry for being ashamed

Of

Being alive

I am sorry

I apologize for who I am

that would bow

to You

Yet

kiss the dandelion

peeking out

between the cement slabs

The Lord God

is beautiful

He lives within

the valley of my days

He stands

watches

and wrings His hands

as I

set the water to warm

fingers crossed

and stuff

the sink

with a handtowel

as the stopper

stopped long ago

as I take one of ten

of a pack

worn

and sink them into the water

and two of four

of a pack

and sink them

too

and

rub

the Dove

I wish organic

soap

beneath the trickle

and say

how wonderful

how divine

I have withstood time

I have taken

the necessities

of a woman in business

and parceled them to

and

within

a value pack

and have further

elongated

the value

beneath my tap

I have laid

the efforts of my days

against the cracked

tile of the tub

and

have thrown

in

upon

within the graying water

the rest that

keeps me whole

setting it

wringing

it

along the path

of my legs

my feet

that raise

me

each

day

I’m reading now Anderson Cooper’s, Dispatches from the Edge, A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival.

I find it surprisingly self-effacing.  I want to share with you a short piece therein that spoke to me (pp. 103-104):

“Here they treat the worst cases first.  That’s what TV wants as well.  The illest, the greatest in need.  It’s a sad selection process that happens in your head.

‘That child’s bad, but I think we can find worse,’ I say to myself, deciding whose suffering merits time on TV.  You tell yourself it’s okay, that your motives are good — at the moment you might even believe it.  But later, alone, lying in bed, you go over the day and feel like a fraud.  Each child’s story is worthy of telling.  There shouldn’t be a sliding scale of death.  The weight is crushing.

They die, I live.  It’s such a thin line to cross.  Money makes the difference.  If you have it, you can always survive, always find a place to stay, something to eat.  For the first few days in Maradi, I’m not even hungry.  It’s not just the heat, the dust.  I’ve become disgusted with myself.  My body fat, my health, my minor aches and pains.  I brought with me a bagful of food — cans of tuna and Power Bars — but the thought of eating anything makes me want to throw up.  That changes, of course.  After a couple days I forget why I’m depriving myself.

They die, I live.  It’s the way of the world, the way it’s always been.  I used to think that some good would come of my stories, that someone might be moved to act because of what I’d reported.  I’m not sure I believe that anymore.  Once place improves, another falls apart.  The map keeps changing; it’s impossible to keep up.  No matter how well I write, how truthful my tales, I can’t do anything to save the lives of the children here, now.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQNpEET9WqQ&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=0]

You have asked me

In no uncertain terms

To broker a deal

Against a sky with no moon

I have sifted

The moments of my time

Against the hourglass

Never fashioned

I bowed my head

Never

Only once

And allowed the definition

Ok regular readers…you know I always change templates, it’s like moving furniture. I need to give this a go and see what’s what…I will go back to the original format (huh? which one is that?), but in the meantime, let’s try out the new WP format.

Quadriplegic man about to be booked for “fleeing”?

Reading the story reveals a photo of an officer dumping the man from his wheelchair as he was about to be booked. I am wondering, was he still fleeing?

Come on, give me a break. What, did Jimmy Neutron design the wheelchair? Attempt to elude an officer? Ok, ok, I know nothing about the officer attempting to arrest him, he may have been “speed-challenged”.

Onward:

High frequency devices drive children from stores: UK

Limbaugh as McCain’s best asset (pay attention to first three letters, he’s not doing McCain a favor)

Ok, ok, I’m just playing, but I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see the headlines on the news. I understand why Polar is banning television in the campaign.

Take a look at any of the major news media sites, look at the margins, the size of the pages, what they decide is the headline news for a planet filled with billions.

Go ahead, tread lightly, you may not come back the same.

Have you heard me lately?

I think the old me, may need to be recycled.

I still call you Lord.  And no, I don’t think it’s simply habit, I think it is recognition.

Yet, I know you don’t judge.  Not me, not yourself, not anyone.

I wish to emulate the fluid peace I resonate on hearing, My Lord, within my head, or is it within a place I do not yet know?

I believe, there is more to be seen, heard and known, than we can yet incorporate as third dimensional beings.

Thank you.  I’m still on the journey.

Peace.

Yesterday I heard a commotion.

I was unsure as to what the sounds were. Yes, I presumed the noise to be birds but I could not identify what was going on. I stopped and listened and heard separate cadences.

Then, I saw a raven chase my hawk out of its tree. They swooped, I thought they might go within an inch of my head, but they didn’t. I was mesmerized because the day before, I walked out the door and a sea of birds flew over my head, like a symphony, defining my view of the sky. I ran for the camera, the new batteries I put on were on the blink. So I stood and watched.

This came back to me as I watched the raven chase the hawk, and saw two of the raven’s friends in the background. Bodyguards? They chased that hawk right out of the safe haven of the tree it fled too. Later that day I took the bread I could no longer find a recipe for to mask or revive the staleness. so I took some bags and went outside and placed piles of ripped bread upon the ground in different gathering places.

Today, again, the three ravens sat. I could not see them at first: caw, caw, caw. Space. Silence. Caw, caw, caw.

One sat within the tree, the other joined and the last swooping above on its way.

I went out later. No sign of them. In my head I repeated: caw, caw, caw. I turned the corner and there the leader sat, and repeated it back to me.

Resources on Ravens:

Raven, by Susan Morgan Black

Symbols of the Saints

Heather Blakey on Squidoo: Ravens

Integral Options Cafe: Raven

There is never a moment

I do not feel

The fleeting joy

Of the smile of your face

The curves of your cheeks

The lift to your eyes

For whatever else

We have been born to

It is not the promise

Of an earthly tomorrow

Warning:  not for the faint hearted.

I have a spiritual household.

By that I mean, anything goes.

You can believe,  you cannot believe, you can have no opinion…but the idea, the gossamer whisper of faith and the beyond, will meet you at every turn.

I believe, just so you know, (little foreshadowing there), that the Virgin Mary, Mother Mary, Azna, has a sense of humor.

I believe this because I think she does not have an ego and therefore does not have the same scale, weight to taking herself seriously.

Tonight, in the kitchen, a few of the kids and I were kidding around, mimicking, being silly.  They ran down the hall and I heard one imitating me, saying, Oh, Blessed Mary.

Well, considering the laughter had taken the place of the call to clean moments before, I took things into my own hand.

I grabbed my little figure of Mary, (without hands I am afraid, the youngest, well, it’s a long story, suffice to say he thought he was helping both me and Mary), and the cheap carved nativity scene (one piece, all in one, carved out for better handling), — wait I digress.  See, I always wanted one of those really big loud life-like yard/lawn nativity scenes.  You know, the kind you could step up to, sit with, have a chat, move them around:  in other words, total control  of the beginning Biblical scenes.  So this little carved out piece, well, it was put up for Christmas and didn’t come down because well, it was modified control on my part.

So there I am, Mary without hands in one hand, (no-no pun intended) and the nativity scene in the other, and I ran down the hall, and chased my children up the stairs, yelling, sinners, repent, clean, clean, clean.

Suffice to say, it only resulted in more laughter.

But it made me think, I truly believe in my heart, in my soul, in my older, wiser and often buried intelligence, that Mary has a sense of humor.

Other sources in the belief religion, faith and Mary may in fact have a sense of humor:

Looking for Mary, Beverly Donofrio

Anne Lamott, pick any book

Justice Denied

She remembered the day clearly, looking up on the wall and seeing a D+ on the line next to her name for Constitutional Law. She also remembers years later seeing that same professor in Passaic County, Chancery Division.

She remembered his almost bald head on his too thin frame, smug, supporting the public interest group that would bring democracy to the mountain. She knew in that moment the right answer to his mantra.

But it was years before that, he said to her, “You’re like a monkey on my back.” And she sat there staring at some cheap print of constitutional parameters sitting on the wall, looking at this man who had placed a D+ on her efforts. She packed up her book bag, slammed her blue locker and called her father and told him that was it, she was leaving. And why not? Why wouldn’t he understand? When she handed him the entry she had done of the suicide note narrative, submitted after typed at 3:0O a.m. at the urging of her roommate, “there’s a fiction contest, deadline’s in the morning, submit something.” So she sat at the computer, a dot matrix printer, and typed a two page note and put it in an envelope and her roommate took it and placed it in a slot. A short time later she received a call, she had received second place. Only she knew that she hadn’t really tried. Then again, maybe she had, maybe she just let it go.

She stood in the kitchen of her father’s home sometime later, facing the end of her college stint, and showed her Dad the piece she had written that got a second place, her father read it and said, “Anyone can practice law, not anyone can do this.” He encouraged her to get a Masters in Creative Writing or Journalism, but she didn’t. Now it was eleven years later plus three years of law school, plus one year off, ok, so it was fourteen years, and she still had done nothing about it.

She was an idea girl without definition, she could complete nothing. She liked to believe it was because she saw all the sides of the same story, and on a good day, a charitable day, that would line up and be true but within the parameters of normal society, that would be procrastination, the inability to complete, to have true vision, to see and produce.

So she packed up her bag and was ready to head to the train station, the rest of her grades were absolutely fine for the first semester where she was one of the only day law students actually working on what was perceived as a cutting edge law brief of economic loss rather than sitting there and reading her text during the study break before first semester finals. The overnight stints at the diner with the student drunks were an afterthought.

She picked up the phone in the hall before heading out, managing to actually get her father on the phone, she wonders today how much he remembers, does he remember what she does? But she pictured him there, behind the glass topped desk, set on a slight angle, flanked by two windows in a nondescript but expensive town out in the boondocks as other lawyers would later describe it and rue the day they had. Had by the country bumpkin. But she saw him there, his cuffs still battling with his wrists, fasted tight by cuff links, he had not as yet lost the gold plated Mickey Mouse cuff links she and her brother had bought him on a long ago trip to Disney World, so she saw him sitting there, pages thrown in front of him, lines holding, other attorneys at that time working for him, hanging on his word, envious and contemptuous at the same time, they knew they didn’t have his essence but wanted to be around him all the same, and she saw the secretary, one of them walk in to get his attention, waiting silently as he pontificated on the phone, gesturing, she must not have had to try so hard because after all he actually picked up the line, she wasn’t put on eternal hold, told to try again later. She told him, choking, to the master, the man who aced night law school with two small children working in a garden apartment and working three jobs, part-time in Newark without gloves in the dead of winter following the Newark Riots, a white man sent to do was it a dirty or a clean job, he had a breifcase full of checks. It is only now she realizes that she never asked him if they were given what they were due. He reached for the phone and there she sat captured, how would life panned out if she had not dialed him first as she always did? Years later, faced with an even more prophetic situation, his wisdom she would regret to the end of her days when she felt he was more than human and had all the answers. She would wonder how life would have played out differently if she could have stood on her own two feet. If she could have blown air into the soles of her Doc Martens-if she could have for a moment pretended she was Marilyn Monroe and not cared who watched. But she called him as she did then and continued to do for more than a decade until she realized it was no longer fair to either of them.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I got my grades.”

“And?”

“I got a D in constitutional law.”

“How about the rest?”

“I did fine.”

“Ok, it’s first semester, this is what the books are written about, it happens.”

“I’m leaving this isn’t for me, I’m going.”

“No,don’t.”

“But you don’t understand, a D, I did the best I could, I studied, I was interested.”

“No, you don’t understand yet, it’s subjective.”

“Subjective?”

“It depends what mood he’s in, what’s going on.”

“What?”

“A D is not a D, a D is only a reflection of a moment.”

Ok so that’s not how he actually said it, but that’s how I now take it to mean… is that I was no Lady Liberty, torn between the law of liberty and the perversion of truth.

Ok, ok, so now what? I want to leave, I don’t fit in here, yes, I listened to you, I didn’t shave my head like I wanted to before entering law school, you said, wait, you will be different enough.

I did not yet understand the mortar of those walls, the pacts made between generations to keep the money in the family no matter what the means, I should have understood, we were not wealthy, we were not poor, we were that weird blend of still new Irish immigrants that knew what it was to come from nothing.

So I agreed with him, I didn’t walk down to the Peninsula of Newark, that strange hub where the trains come and come and leave from anywhere and everywhere with a whole race of people, generations stuck in place with millions traveling through, finding a way in and out when the others sat there in rot with dashed dreams, graduate programs, languages, wealthy families and friends left behind. Now they had the concrete, the dirty sidewalks, the people who had so despaired that they could not even respect those that lived with them, on the same streets, sharing the same fates because none of them wanted to to resemble their neighbor.

So I agreed. I would not take the train back to Hoboken or the City, I would not. I would put my books back in the locker, “locker”, oh, I would put my books back in the locker and agree to go see my professor.

Postcript-

He asked me why I was a monkey on his back.

I had the sheer pleasure of kicking his and his colleagues’ butts years down the road.

Ok, I’m a semi-veg girl….so, note, this piece will be slanted.

CNN reports, FDA approves cloning 

Ok, let me think this one through.

Now instead of having “live” farms of “food” we will have cloned farms of food.

I suspect this should not bother me.

Unless, I believe there are souls involved in the process of cloning.

Oh yes,

let me step back,

I might have to go on a limb,

and say,

there are souls involved in meat consumption.

Stutter,

stutter,

pause,

back,

ok,

whatever.

So,

let’s suppose,

animals

have souls,

let’s suppose,

if,

we clone them,

the clones  then too have souls.

what then are we ingesting?

do we really,

truly,

wonder why

the crows

or turkey buzzards

would have their

way

with us

when it is

simply

what we have done to them?

Outside of the box:

The Island

Never Let Me Go 

I don’t most days know
What
The answer is
Or what
The answers
May be.

I do know
Though
That you
Have to keep on getting on.

There isn’t any easy exit
From this
Unasked entrance.

You
Have
To
Breath
And be
Because anything less
Is not as much
As you deserve.

Taken from another day…..strolling through drafts……..

Did you ever want to expand a moment?

Hold on to it?

Let it linger?

I have.

I do.

Sometimes, I open my refrigerator and decide I can make something with whatever is inside. I call this, the long moment. The long moment (or short) of seeing what is or isn’t in the refrigerator. I try to stop myself from thinking what would happen if the world as we know it stopped tomorrow and my underground shelter was not stocked….with that blockade in mind…I proceed.

The Long Now….

Open the refrigerator…look around (sorry, I’m a veg kind of girl, but if you’re not, you are more than welcome to throw in your meat at anytime…)

Grab some Veg broth, I used some organic tonight, but it was a bit heavy, roasted vegetable taste almost, so I added 8 oz of some alleged pure water

of course, a bit of sea salt and ground pepper

set a frying pan with water

walked away

now what?

ok, celery, zucchini, carrots, red peppers, squash, tomatoes, parsley, arugala…hmmm……

back to the pot, hmm, veg broth smelling kind of strong….quick take the two left over tomatoes, chop and dice and throw in as I go, little more sea salt and pepper….

oooo, garlic and red onion, set another small pan, add some olive oil, heat, simmer, waaaaaaaa-la! simmer, simmer, simmer…

big frying pan with water still trying to boil, no lid in house to top it, so it’s gonna be slow and affect the recipe….

back to the counter and looking at the vegs….

ok, The Long Soup.

I decide to cut strips and start with the celery, throw it in as I go….

nope, pasta water still not boiling…

I cut carrots very long, throw in…..

pasta water still not boiling….

sea salt and ground pepper…..bit of crushed up parsley…..

oooohhhhh, red pepper, slice long and throw in as I go….

hmmm, garlic, can’t slice it long, but can pretend with oval slivers….

this is the Long Now Soup,

no noise,

no tv….

just creating…..

smell the soup….

Wow, must have to cook longer something is definitely off,

young child walks in,

decides to throw in the long pasta (spaghetti, etc.) into the pan pre-full boil.

Ok, let’s go with it.

Let the pasta begin to boil.

1/4 red onion left, slice….and throw in.

I feel like I’m in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Next?

Pasta nowhere near ready.

Hmmm.

Small glass of red wine for the cook?

Back to the drawing board.

Nope, don’t want the yellow squash nor the green zucchini, just not fitting with the long look today.

Stare again.

Lift lid.

Salt, pepper. Oh yeah, another small long sliced glove of garlic.

Ah.

Pasta off pan. Strained.

Now what?

Tried to tie it in knots to lightly fry to float on soap. Wrong pasta. Would sink to bottom. Hmm, open fridge, left over vegetable pureed broth in fridge, slosh into frying pan, add argula, garlic and red onion previously simmered, throw a baking pan over the top since there is no matching lid.

Walk away.

Come back.

Now what?

Lift lid to soup pot.

Smell.

Slightly bland.

Throw in contents of pan.

Close lid on soup pot.

Walk away.

Return to sprinkle with small amounts of ground pepper and sea salt to taste.

Oh yeah, I smashed the long spaghetti into smaller pieces, but still arguably long pieces before throwing in the pot.

Walk away.

Come back.

Hmmm, still not quite right.

Rifle through holiday basket given from italian deli, 28 oz can of whole peeled italian tomatoes, throw in, walk away.

Come back and mash.

Repeat several times: also: sea salt and ground pepper to taste.

The Long Now.

It’s still simmering.

Who says you can’t elongate time?

I had a dream two nights ago and recalled when I awoke that there was a jaguar. I’m not sure how or when I recalled more, maybe within the dream itself.

A black jaguar was suddenly near me, upon me, and I had to wrestle the jaguar, subdue her and the only thing I could do in the end was place my hand or was it only a finger within her mouth to keep her from biting. I looked around, where would I bring her? If I released her would others be harmed, I seemed to look out a door into a vast outside world, searching for a place, or perhaps for help.

Yet, I am not sure how much my “waking” consciousness shaped this dream. I felt a battle of wits, I felt she (was it he?) was in essence more powerful, but allowed me to use my mind or spirit to subdue her. It was a wrestling match no doubt. As even in my dream, I had no idea how to tame the power of the jaguar without hurting her; yet, it was not an option, to hurt her, I needed to do better.

In the end, it was my inability to communicate in a universal language which made me need to subdue her.

The jaguar came back again by the way….this time, just walking through, not quite prowling, but majestically walking, knowing she had a space in my mind. She came back the very next night and stayed with me through the day.

I am not sophisticated in dream lore or animal lore, but this is too present to ignore.

I started to search and found some interesting information on having a jaguar appear in dreams:

Messages from Animals

Sam’s Spirit Guide

I welcome any further links or resources any of you may have.

Namaste.

Have you spent time justifying the existence of your dislikes?

For instance, someone treats you without courtesy in the work environment, do you find a way to rationalize that behavior?  Rationalize your dislike of that behavior?  Do you say, “that’s ok, he/she must be having a bad day?”

I do that.  I try to see things from a whole perspective.

Yet, I realize, that does not mean I have to accept such behavior.

I do not have to give my time unlimited to anyone that asks or demands.

It is ok to not answer my phone.

It is ok to not be available for every call that comes in regardless of what I may be doing.

It is ok to need time to find an answer or to arrive at the fact that I may not have a suitable response.

I can choose what to do with my “present moments”, rather than allowing perceived external forces allegedly decide for me.

I can whoop and holler with liberation, liberation of self, not because I don’t want to be kind or giving, but because it is essential to be kind and giving to ourselves also and not to sacrifice self for others at high costs.

It is ok to define our world and to determine what we will accept within our moments.

It is ok to realize that we are all individuals and that we are allowed to be individuals, along our own defining path, while allowing time for others.  Helping others, being available for others though should never mean sacrificing our passions and our beliefs.

There is no reason we should not allow ourselves the power to be.

Have a blessed New Year.

I was reading a touching piece on The Wild Pomegranate. Grace shared with us both the love she shares with her daughter and her daughter’s need for healing right now.

I posted this piece to ask anyone stopping by to take a moment and read Grace’s post and leave a note there with any resources for healing you may know about. For instance, Tumel (whose url address I don’t know) left several sources for Grace to read, including one regarding the power of raw food diets to aid in healing.

Whether we meant to or not,

whether it is what we set out for,

or not,

it’s too late,

we care.

We care about our blogging friends,

and their friends,

and their families.

So, if you have a moment, drop over to Grace’s place and see if you have any links or resources you could leave there in regard to healing.

Namaste, have a peaceful day.

Did you ever have a moment, when you have realized, there is more than what you see?

I use the word “see” expansively.

It could be a person you are talking to, otherwise regarded as arrogant, but you sense something else beneath the surface, and then without warning, the person is there, alone with you unexpectedly, a break in a meeting, telling you about what haunts them, a bad time in life, something they don’t want repeated, but for some reason are now telling you.

It could be a busy day in an urban park when your ear picks out a violin playing from an open window nearby.

It could be the scrape of the branches against the gray sky, pieces, leaves hanging on despite the seasons. Then, a sound, a movement, the branches populated by birds you would have otherwise missed.

Perhaps this is why I often enjoy silence, in order to see.

Hello.

I hope the holidays have found you all well.

If not financially, then physically.

If not physically, then spiritually.

Regardless, we wish you well.

Our holiday was chaotic and blessed.

I was hoping for some paints in the stocking, but alas, the Divine does not want me painting right now.

Until then, I share, the “Unfinished”.

In my line of work,

I am asked,

is it proper to say, “Merry Christmas?”.

Over the last few years,

I have Christians tired of not heralding their holiday.

They are tired of saying Happy Holidays.

Today with them, I say: Merry Christmas.

And Namaste.

MotherWinterMoon: the photo is for you.

Peace & blessings to you all.

I had a dream last night of rainbows.

I was somewhere within the sky looking ahead and remember exclaiming at the beauty of the rainbow. At first, I thought it was only one, the secret upside down piece of rainbow I had seen in the sky recently. It was a day of huge bird activity, flying back and forth, swooping, playing, chattering, singing and I stood transfixed looking up and around and watching the birds lead me to find a piece of an upside down or backward rainbow in the sky. I thought of getting a camera but knew I would never forget.

So there I am in the dream last night, thinking, “Oh, there is that rainbow, I get to see it all now.” I looked more and saw it was not upside down and I was somehow standing across from it so that if I walked forward I would be within it’s half circle of light. Looking closer, I saw that there was another rainbow beyond, then another, then another. It occurred to me in my dream that I was dreaming and it was not the upside down rainbow.

I can still see it now with my eyes open. (No, I don’t understand how I can be typing and still have such a real visual image somewhere on my mental or spiritual horizon.)

Part of me believes there were four rainbows and I was going somewhere. I remember a feeling of such great elation. I wonder though if the dream stopped, if I had become too much back into my daily self and there were more than four rainbows, if in fact they were endless.

ok, ok…

Dr. Suess is on, his x-mas glory…………….

I’m a Christian by birth and habit………….

but I must say,

I’m a child by choice.

I just love how that sour old guy (The Grinch) travels up the mountain and back down and up and down and threatens to crash only to be saved by the innocent, never to be messed with gorgeous souls of the children.

I’m taking an Electronic Break, I just need to see The Grinch.

Peace to you tonight.

Healing Prayers.

I saw on NorthEastern, Channel Two News….an epidsode, an exchange with Hugh Downs and the author/protaganist of a book called: The World’s Greatest Treasurery of Health Secrets.

Sadly, the top hits I came across in my research all gave back negative “scam” infomercial information.

Yet, much of what I heard discussed on the program resonated with truth.

Thoughts?

Yes.

I was and am horrified that police, the custodians of our morality, would place a young girl in a cell with men and leave her there to be abused and tortured.

I am also appalled that the men within the jail or prison would be no better than the police that placed her there.

This is what I mean, it never begins and ends in one place, in one moment.  We sow the seeds.

I can only pray.

BBC Reports 

CNN Reports 

The Daily Telegraph Reports 

We are all a part of this shifting paradigm that causes this to occur, the jailers, the jailed, the young girl who we as society are charged to protect….we all do this together.

How do we then figure out a way out of this together?  That is the question I am asking you today.

Words.

Sometimes words must only be what we feel.

Not what is expected.

That’s not to mean we don’t have responsibility with our words.

Rather, it means we have responsibility with our words to ourselves, to not self-edit to the point of expectation.  I never have problem with editing to ensure that there is no intended harm, the harm that ensues though, unintended, is what I speak of….words which pour from us unheeded; yet, on second glance, could have a separate disparate impact on an unintended audience.

You see, I am a believer, a follower of the unedited.  I write, save to correct typos most of the time, but I write with my heart and or soul pouring onto the page.

There are times I do not.

I throw out an article, knowing how I feel about it, but not setting it forth, because for some inexplicable reason it is more important for me to see how you feel.

So welcome.

I treasure your thoughts.