Mother Nature

Another "surreal" moment when I heard the woman from the financial department of the Stillaguamish Tribe ask me what I needed to get started with my grant project. She was so supportive and said that the culture projects were the favorite part of her job.

Today driving back from Singing Feet at the Duwamish Longhouse I got that I can do my own illustrations for my Circle of Life mapping book! Now that it isn't a full color book I can do the line drawings. I actually have the energy to give it a try. It will save me a chunk of change and it will be my imagination that comes to life on the pages. I'm calling in the forces of enchantment to assist!

Amazing how it takes an earthquake for humans to look toward the elements in awe and wonder....and apprehension. It's time to renew relationship with the elemental forces which means being humble and honoring something larger than oneself and one's material possessions and ego identity. Nature is Mother of all.

Enchantment Happens

I just received a call from the Stillaguamish Tribe. They are interested in funding my Circle of Life project!!! This grant is a "capacity fund" that supports salmon and the Stillaguamish watershed. It focuses on outreach and education. So, my goal is to find Elders to tell personal stories that include their relationship with salmon and the watershed. Elders will be on the radio and if another grant comes in I can do an event and film. I am soooo happy!!!

Magical Moments

The plum tree is in full bloom exuding color and scent. Spring is enchanting.

My turtle book is now transformed into a mapping coloring book. It will engage one's whole brain body and inspire creativity inside out. People will use their imagination through listening to their sacred feminine. This book wants to go to Hawaii. And this is how I live my life...in the moment. No 5-year plan, no 1-year plan! Life is a flowing river.

So, why would I say that coloring books are sexy and they turn me on? Why? Because that was my experience. I opened my dragon coloring book and my eyes "popped" firing a larger system that sent "pleasure" chemicals throughout my whole brain body. This enchantment is sexual because it's charged with "fairy dust" particles.

Fairy Dust Day

Yesterday was a day filled with fairy dust. It started at 9 AM with a meeting at Bastyr College of Natural Medicine with an organic gardening instructor and the manager of the school's organic garden. We are establishing a partnership so the students can support the Sammamish Valley Grange garden. They wanted to see the site that afternoon. As four of us were standing in the Heritage Garden circle the winds picked up rather strongly. One of the women commented on it and I spread out my arms as if to fly...just like I did at Esalen on the large rock overlooking the waters. She and I acted like children. She said, "The spirits are happy." I love being with people who speak my language!

I received a call from Hawaii to discuss my Circle of Life class. That made me think/feel that I'd like to take my Turtle's Circle of Life book with me to have it available at the class. I'm looking at how that can be accomplished. I don't think I want a regular book. I need it to complement my class. I love coloring books...they are "sexy"...they turn me on! I love the artful designs that let me color in the open spaces as I choose. Coloring books are enchanting! I have one about Dragons!! I have more questions than answers regarding this Turtle book. How can my book and class support the whole brain body?

We had a productive meeting with Sammamish Valley Alliance. We are getting more focused and taking more action regarding the protection of our agricultural valley. I'm learning a lot from a woman friend who likes to do research. From her I learned about our new regional Food Policy Council out of Richard Conlin's office with the City of Seattle. I am so excited about this new system and will speak for 3 minutes at our city council to urge our city to get involved:

Richard Conlin, Seattle City Council President
Newsletter
http://www.seattle.gov/council/conlin

NEW REGIONAL FOOD POLICY COUNCIL APPROVED

On Thursday, January 28, the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) approved the creation of a Regional Food Policy Council. The Regional Food Policy Council (RFPC) will work with community, business, agriculture, and government partners to identify gaps in the region’s food system and develop integrated policy recommendations and actions that will help our region move towards a food system that supports healthy people and communities and environmental sustainability.

A local Acting Food Policy Council, with modest funding support from WSU Cooperative Extension and lots of volunteer energy, has been working for several years, and has been a very important partner in developing the Local Food Action Initiative (LFAI) and in the implementation work that has happened since the LFAI was approved by Council in May of 2008. Part of the work program for the LFAI has been to create a permanent Food Policy Council, as has been done in a number of other cities and regions around the US and Canada.

Our goal was to create the Food Policy Council on a regional level. A regional approach can combine the interests and representation of urban and rural people, and support making connections on the regional level between farm producers and urban consumers. The work of the RFPC can inform economic development strategies, protection of farmland, and developing food processing and marketing opportunities for locally grown food. PSRC, which is the planning group for four counties (King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap), and is governed by local elected officials from the region, is a great place to be the center for food policy development.

The Obama administration is very supportive of these kinds of efforts, and has launched a grant program specifically targeted at supporting Food Policy Councils. The City of Seattle has already received a $300,000 federal grant to support community organizations implementing the LFAI, and the experience and energy around local food issues in this area would make the Puget Sound Regional Food Policy Council a great candidate for a federal grant to advance its work. Members of the Acting Food Policy Council will work with my office and PSRC to structure the new RFPC and develop this funding source over the next several months.

Once the new body is established and funded, it will bring together representatives from across the food system, including those involved in production, processing, packaging, distribution, consumption, and food waste, as well as agencies addressing environment, housing, emergency preparedness, and economic development issues. This group will develop policies that will protect farmland, foster economic development, improve public health, and increase access to fresh, local food.

Healing Wave

I had that surreal feeling again. It happened after two hours with 82-year young Alma, Lummi/Yakima Native Elder. I had been interviewing her for a bio and her daughter and I had been laughing together at the dining room table. I don't know why I feel so connected to my Native American brothers and sisters.

As I was eating breakfast this morning (baked pear, walnuts and cinnamon with cold yogurt -- yumm!) a wave of grief came over me as I connected with the hardship these people had to endure at the hands of white people. So maybe all this has to do with healing this land, this Northwest corner and these people.

Perhaps the surreal feeling is contentment in doing what I came here to do. It's a new quality of love that is soft and mystical in its enchantment.

The Last Unicorn

Song By Kenny Loggins

When the last eagle flies,
over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars,
at the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest,
though she may be old and worn
They will stare unbelieving
At the last unicorn
When the first breath of winter,
through the flowers is icing
And you look to the north,
and a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying,
and would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear her laughter
It's the last unicorn
I'm alive....... I'm alive
When the last moon is cast,
over the last star of morning
And the future is past,
without even a last desperate warning
Then look into the sky where through,
the clouds a path is formed
Look and see her how she shimmers,
it's the last unicorn
I'm alive... I'm alive!!!!

Growing Local

My body told me recently...no, it demanded...that I eat an alkaline diet. I had gotten off balance again. It's amazing how good soups and salads are! I really like eating this way. One salad I love is dinosaur kale with avacado, lemon juice, sea salt and cayenne. It's as chewy as meat and leaves my solar plexus happy and light!

As I was researching healthy eating I found this in an article about Meridians:

Matter, which vibrates at a very slow frequency, is referred to as physical matter. That which vibrates at speeds exceeding light velocity is known as subtle matter. Subtle matter is as real as dense matter; its vibratory rate is simply faster. It is believed that two opposite ends of the spectrum--yin, the energy of earth and yang, the energy of heaven--combined with humans to create this vital force. I am being told/I am sensing there is another force involved. ????



I was at a Grange meeting and learned that the City Council announced an interest in annexing the remaining agriculture valley...that developers are interested in the land. I woke up this morning and wrote this article for our city paper. I have yet to define "incentives"...

Growing Local

The City of Woodinville’s Emergency Preparedness Plan must include growing local food. Why? Because we can no longer depend on factory farms to feed us due to climate change, terrorist threats, mad cow disease, and increasing costs of oil and gas.

A “growing local” food policy includes family gardens, agriculture areas, local small farms and farmers markets. A city’s emergency plan must hold this vision and support these actions so that its people will be fed in case of an emergency near or far.

What “growing local” incentives can the visionary planners of Woodinville offer its families in the Sammamish Valley so that we are prepared?

Working the land and growing local food is a labor of love that connects us with the land and with our neighbors. Growing local is good for one and good for all.

Circle of Life Encounters

I'm developing a tough hide working with Native Tribes/people and the Circle of Life project. I was yelled at a couple times by an 82 year old I was interviewing. First she told me I was talking too loud when I spoke to her. When I asked her about her relationship with nature she said that was a very European question and that she doesn't worship creation...she worships the Creator. At that point I felt like walking out...but didn't. I thought I would not put her on the radio...but did. I hung in there and the cold temperature and closed body language that was present when I arrived was warm and open by the time I left.

Valentine's Day Caduceus

I gifted myself today with a room reservation for a summer trip/event so that I can assist in unifying parts of the whole.

After that phone call I received a call from my granddaughter! We had a nice chat and then I spoke with my grandson! This was the best Valentine gift ever revealing that love is stronger than conflict when hearts are willing. Increased space with my family is healthy. I invited them to the April Earth Day concert letting them know that I can use their help.



Caduceus Forces

Radiating solar flare
Hurling vibration
Through space
Quickening stillness
Attracting matter

Radiant current
Penetrates matter
High to low
Chakra to chakra
Degree by degree
Descending

Earth responds
Naturally
Wrapping around
In serpentine fashion
And design

Low to high
Chakra to chakra
Degree by degree
Ascending

Loving contact
Wholesome
Holy

Turning Winter

Cold dark winter
Silent stillness
Where is the sun?
Will it return?

Degree by degree
Warmth increases
Degree by degree
Color is felt
Degree by degree
Sound whispers
Degree by degree

Spring arcs into life
With potent creativity
Fertile productivity
Of green blessings
All around

Lummi Nation

I took two Native Elders to the Lummi Tribe Elder Program to have lunch and teach Circle of Life mapping. 15 elders were interested and engaged! I was surprised that no one talked about boarding school as a negative experience and there was no resistance to the project. In fact a couple of people who said they had to leave chose to stay and participate. There was curiosity and questions. Where was the lethargy I'd been runnning into? I went from elder to elder explaining the circle of life and how their story threads move with the natural seasons of the year. I was happy to tell them that their life is a sacred circle and it was gratifying to communicate with each one eye to eye. Anna Haala, Peace Elder, was very helpful. I stopped at the water to drum and offer gratitude...and was gifted a shell and bright white and rounded rock. We stopped at The Urban Longhouse to get a sense of that venue for a possible future event. The day was almost surreal -- a dream come true.

Let the Mountains Talk ~ Let the Rivers Run

Moms 4 Real Food met for the first time in the Sammamish Valley to raise our voices for healthy soil, healthy food and a healthy planet. We watched the ag documentary FRESH. Michael Pollan, one of the contributors in the film, is a hero and needs a pulpit!

Many of us met David Brower at John Denver's Windstar Symposiums. John Denver wrote this song for David.


John Denver - Healing time Lyrics
Album: Higher Ground


Let the mountains talk, let the river run

There's a wisdom here, there is much to learn

There's much to know, much to understand

In this healing time all across the land


You have heard my songs, oh so many years

You have left with me, washed away my tears

You have shared my joy, you have felt my pain

In this healing time, walk with me again


Through these darker days on this narrow line

Help me find my way, help me see the signs

I'm not afraid, I'm not alone

You have thought me well, you have brought me home


Let the mountain speak, let the rivers run

As the world awakes to the rising sun

In each brand new day, in our own rebirth

In this healing time on our mother earth


Let the mountains talk, let the rivers run

There's a wisdom here, there's so much to learn

In each brand new day, in our own rebirth

In this healing time for our mother earth

In each brand new day, in our own rebirth

In this healing time, here on mother earth

Erotic Turning

Driving to this library I saw a large pink flowering shrub in full bloom! It's an early Spring here in the West as Winter hits the East.

Earth turns
Arcing into Sun
Arcing away from Sun
Into - Away from
Into - Away from
Arc to arc

Melodic motion
Harmonic sound
Spewing spectral colors
of creation
In sympathetic vibration
Rounding out cycle and seasons
In degrees
Moment by moment

Time turning
Turning time
Ecstacy erotic
Through Nature round and full

Soul expression fertile
Channelled through psyche
Deep underground

The Pandora Party

The Tea Party has gathered and is making noise again. Where is the Pandora Party with eyes that say, "I see you"? Where are the people who believe in enchantment with Nature and one another? Where are the "cultural creatives"? It seems that we are all doing our own thing separate from one another. What will it take for us to unify as a "party"? It will take less Ego and more Heart! It will take new leaders and new Leadership of Light...a new political system where heaven and earth meet in the middle.

X- + X+ = XXXXX = exponential fire. All X's have circles around them....orbs. Were there orbs in Avatar? I will have to see it again and look for orbs. I also want to look for any references/images to Light. I hope the next sequel takes us higher and not lower with more of the same violent conflicts. I want to see more mystical enchantment...it's good for our One Soul!

You Fill Up My Senses

A couple of songs are singing me. One I learned as a child in Sunday School when I took Jesus as "my saviour."

I'm so happy here's the reason why
Jesus took my burdens all away
Now I'm singing as the days go by
Jesus took my burdens all away

Once my heart was heavy
With the load of sin
Jesus took the load
And gave me peace within

So now I'm singing
As the days go by
Jesus took my burdens all away

(Jesus is Light...no?)

Another song singing me is:

You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like a mountain in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean....

Soooo romantic. What is romance without nature? It isn't!! Romance is the warmth this planet is starving for. Warmth that lifts and lightens heavy loads. Warmth that connects. We are so serious and so...."adult"? Dark stagnation - depression - is not adulthood! We need a new word for this quality of romance. Sanskrit has 96 words for love...I'm sure one of them would work.

Conflict

I am learning how to be in conflict and move through it so that relationship is sustained. I learn to be more grounded in my communication. I learn to ask more questions for clarity. I prefer warm friendship over cold hostility. The positive and negative patterns that I engage in and learn from are very valuable. It's an opportunity to create new patterns that require the softening of egos and the expansion of hearts. It's good to practice new ways of being in conflict -- being in relationship.

I called a business this morning and told them my negative feelings about a couple of situations. It felt good to be honest within myself and with them. One can express disapointment with civility and respect. The whole relationship doesn't have to be destroyed.

Neurons Firing

Energetic orbs relate arc to arc. These arcs are electromagnetic and attract or repel. Attraction is light and upward in spiral; repulsion is heavy and downward in spiral. Relationships include both postive and negative exchanges and one learns to steward some and let go of others. When a spectrum of tone, color and temperature is set anything outside that spectrum will collide and bounce off. When there is harmony and spiritual intimacy there is merging at different levels and to different degrees. Intimacy creates its own appropriate boundaries carrying degrees of color, sound and temperature. This dance would make a very romantic and fantasiatic movie. When there is a shift from the dominant downward spiral to the upward spiral magic will lift the human species and we will meet in air (spirit).

I see many of the same people at the library day after day. Do we smile and greet each other? No. When I reach out to one or another there is usually a cold reception. Where is the warmth? Where is community spirit? How does love and connection replace fear and separation?

Tracker interfered with a webinar yesterday. He breaks federal laws and the FBI needs to do a trace or whatever they do to these criminal types. Tracker lives by his own rules/laws...or so he thinks. No one lives outside divine order and justice.

A couple of times this week I went to bed and heard those noises in my brain. I have described the sound as the stripping of wires. Last night I was watching a TV show about the brain and I saw brain function and heard the sound of my brain! The description via TV was "neurons firing". Is that "firing" the same fire that lifts me in peace and happiness? The same fire that separates ego suffering from divine grace? What is this fire? Is it electromagnetic?

Hot Air Balloon

I woke up feeling round like an orb. I was floating. I woke up happy and light.

I have written about hot air balloons before...I have no idea when or in what context. That is how it is with me...I forget detailed information. I am more attuned to roundness of inspiration rather than details. It's a non-linear orientation.

As a round orb I run into people. If there is entanglement and disagreement I can get pulled down with them. But if I stay centered and focused, knowing/speaking my truth, I stay afloat and let the consequences happen.

My devotion is in the lift and not the effects. My focus is staying upright and bouyant. This applies to the food I eat, the words I speak, and actions I take, the relationships I choose. I am responsible for my roundness.

So, I must have an inner fire that keeps me bouyant. I tend this core fire.

More Walls

I had another run in with someone today. I keep hitting these walls with people. Am I that difficult to get along with? The interesting thing is that I am willing to take responsibility for my part of the disagreement/misunderstanding but they are too busy blaming and being defensive to see their part in the drama.

My style is to go with the flow and this doesn't work for people. I change my mind a lot because my feelings change a lot. That is not a good business style but it's my style. I call it process....Life is a process for me. For others Life seems to be something you control.

There is nothing that I will not let go of in order to uphold the way I am in process with Life. If others can't work with me or relate to me...so be it. Life is always moving on and I move with it. How simple it would all be if we would just say to one another, "I'm sorry for the confusion. Let's start anew." That would mean letting go of the old...why is that so difficult?

Lady Ga Ga

I heard Lady Ga Ga in a TV interview with Barbara Walters. She says she is androgynous and has both male and female lovers. Leave it to human ego to define a word through its limited lens. A lens that filters light of awareness from lower chakra vibration. Androgyny is inner relationship of Mother and Father; heart and mind; right and left brain. There is much more to learn from this light of awareness.

Reclaiming the Feminine

The Woman in the Shaman's Body
by Barbara Tedlock, PH.D.

Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine

Dreaming is a powerful force. it allows us access to the past and helps with autonomy for the future. Dreams are the closest thing to shamanic journeys that all of us experience; indeed, "spirit messages," or prophecies, can manifest themselves to anyone who pays attention to their dreams. If we learn to be more mentally aware in our dreaming, we can become more open to healing images. As we do so, we move beyond a perception of dreams as static entities, mythic texts, or landscapes and toward an understanding of dreaming as a spiritual process of transformation within the poetic landscape of the human soul. page 118


As we come to understand that shamanism worldwide is based on the emotional power of the entire cycle of birth, life and death we cannot help recognizing that women warriors and prophets, like midwives and healers, are following important shamanic pathways. In these transcendent roles, powerful women are able to draw on both the feminine and masculine dimensions of shamanism in their minds and flesh, truly exemplifying the woman in the shaman's body. page 269

When I talke with Buryat shaman Nadia Stepanova in Ulaanbaatar, during the Fifth Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Research, she told me that while the Soviet campaign against shamanism had never been very effective in silencing all of the healing shamans, it has, however, seriously disrupted traditional clan rituals. As a result, it was now the duty of all consecrated shamans to compare their memories of prayers, songs, and rituals so that they could restore as many of the pre-Soviet shamanic ceremonies as possible. During the conference she actively encouraged the Buryat and Mongolian shamans in attendance to share their memories of the rituals for the Thirteen Northern Dieties, spirits of the mountains, cliffs, rivers, woods, lakes and islands. She also told me that she hoped one day to find a way to have shamanism officially recognized as a religion. page 275

Warm Fire

I awoke to the image/thought of a man I know. He was wearing a tight cap. He, too, wears crown chakra.

Love is tangible...it's like a warm fire. It invites one in to settle and be at peace. Warm fires nourish.

I was listening to Kidz Tunes on TV last night while working on taxes. It made me think of my children and grandchildren and that was sad. Sad that I was not integrated and present within myself to be Mother to my children (at age 19?) so many years ago; and now its sad that I don't have connection with my grandchildren. So, I had to go deeper into the Truth of this story. The Truth is I've been Mother to my self. I've nurtured my little girl and her ego thread that weaves through spiritual, emotional, mental and physical bodies. I have had to be that warm fire mothering for her.

Recently I was thinking about conflict and feeling its hard edges. All of a sudden the hardness dissolved and melted away. That is how easy it can be for ego to let go of suffering. It's a simple releasing of that which one holds on to. That letting go is also tangible.

When children don't get what they want they act out and sometimes break things. When teenagers don't get their way they act out in destructive ways. When adults hold on to childish ways they act out and destroy systems. The pattern is the same. What does it take for a child to mature into adolescence and then to adult? Time? If one believes in reincarnation all children will eventually be mature adults.

To mature one needs to have an evolving relationship with one's own chemistry and thus hormones. We are not meant to be driven by adolescent hormones all our life. We are meant to mature and evolve. This requires an inner Mother...and Father.