I'm possible

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”—Audrey Hepburn 

I dreamed that a piece of the satellite fell  in my front yard. It didn't harm anything, plunging deep into the ground, connecting with the aquifer, which in turn spewed a fountain of water way up into the air.

Hyacinth growing on Lake George along St.Johns River, FL.

What is the meaning of this dream? Why did I have it at this moment in a life's time? Here's how I answered these questions.

Satellite piece?   Latest news all of which is pending - remnant of a pioneering venture

My yard? It's about a social reality which is green, flowering, and trees ready to harvest

Plunging deep into the ground? all of which is affecting me deeply

Aquifer?   at the source  of emotions

Spewing fountain of water? releasing of long repressed emotions in a positive way

I'm sure Freudians would have a different take on this, which might be an interpretation for them. But, for me, libido is not limited to sex, just as kundalini is not primarily a sexual experience.

However, I suppose I am using some interpretation from Jungian collective symbolism.

However, I decide all alone, the meaning of my dreams, as well as my life experiences. 

I decide all alone, how I will be, what I will do, and who I am. 

Of course there are some givens. Mine, therefore,  is to decide the relationship I will take to them.

Neither my mother, my father, my sisters, brothers, friends, enemies, colleagues, nor anyone else determines how I live. I can submit to their will in order to be loved, but it is I who decided to submit.

If I will to be or do and I have no support around me, I create the support from within. 

I find the money I need. I create the connecting story if others are involved. I make it happen. Impossible is not an option.

If it doesn't work out exactly as I have planned, the unexpected outcomes do not determine who I am, how I be, or what I do.

Let the satellite remnants fall where they may. I receive their impact into my heart with gratitude.

I willingly release expectation and anticipation of life being other than it is. 

I choose  to be the possibility of "Yes" to the way life is.

And you? How do you respond to new information - that which is going on in the world and in your life?

No Fear!

This hanging vine plant has been growing in this pot for six years. Just this year flowers began to bloom all along the vines.

We are waiting for the arrival of a severe rain storm. The wind is blowing gently, but wildly, and the sun comes out and goes behind the clouds as clouds swirl by. This isn't a hurricane, but the clashing of two fronts,  making the atmosphere susceptible to tornadoes. This was fine when all tornadoes came from the southwest and moved northeast. My home is down hill and safe from a tornado. But, these clashing fronts is a whole different story.

As I have become accustomed to doing, I am mindful of my relationship to the environment. Because this weather pattern is rather new in this immediate vicinity - new to me anyway - I am experiencing fear.

Fear of the unknown? Fear of disappointment? Fear of possible permanent separation? Fear of loss of love? Fear resulting from unresolved issues from the raging abandon of the wind?

The fear is not about the pending storm at all, finally. The pending storm is about what's going on inside of me as I am experience life right now.
 
While I write, I am listening to Joan Baez, who just began singing  "Riding Out the Storm...  like a ship safe at anchor". How synchronistic of this song to play at this moment. As a message arrives from Higher Self,  the storm is not gone. The storm's fury is still pending,  but the fear subsides.

This is not the direction I was initially taking this blog, but sometimes the wonder of it all finds its way into this space where unresolved issues threaten safety with their raging storm.

From my very limited experience with Buddhist meditation, I am reminded of this space of "NO FEAR" which accompanies or results from intense focus an orange dot.

Another image from the environment is this blog's photo. The flowers bloomed all down the vine after six years of growth - near death from drought, near drowning from too much rain, near freezing from the cold.  They bloomed earlier this year, they died, and new flowers are blooming now.  In addition, flowering on this type of vine is a delight I have never experienced.

These blooming flowers are also a reminder of this place of  NO FEAR" as this new storm blows its way through my home.

The storm will be blowing through, claiming a promise that it will pass when it has had its way. The plants, trees, and grass will be greener as a result.


How have you experienced "NO FEAR"?  Has it freed you to be mindful of and be able to attend to  your unresolved issues?

YES! To Whole Systems Transformation

Ripples from footsteps in a pool

As we move around here and there throughout the day, all the time, every day, we are creating waves of energy . These energy waves interact with others' energy waves.

There's no getting around it.

No one ever gets to live in total isolation from everything else.

Many of us are sensitive to the nature of these energy waves.

Now that I am very much aware of them and the fact that they intrude on others' and theirs on mine, I have been making a concentrated effort to meditate regularly to infuse my own energy waves with positivity.

People get physically  sick from negative energy pounding into our bodies and people heal and grow from positive energy  waving its way in and through the collective presence of energy waves around us. 

From my perspective, what's happening in the USA today is a great "NO" being announced to decades if not centuries of being pounded  by the energies of an economic system which oppresses and has the potential to destroy the world. 

While it appears at first that the great "NO" is negative energy waves, I say it is the opening up of a well spring of positive energies insisting on  a whole systems transformation of the way we use and distribute resources, human and otherwise.

It's happening on Wall Street. It is evident in the overthrow of governments world-wide.  Organizations as well as corporations are experiencing the crisis of needing to change the way they operate.

It has taken awhile for the major contradiction to become obvious, but I can hear and see it out there now.  No more time to complain abou the need for change and what needs to change . No time left to attack change agents and leaders because they aren't super heroes flying through the air to save us all.

Will a movement as strong as that in the 60's and 70's emerge to fuel the transformation?

Depends on individuals collectively making passionate positive focused waves of energy.

Makes me want to sing folk songs *where have they gone?)- and yes, dance with Zorba (tell me I don't have to go all the way to Greece to dance with him)!

Can you hear and see the great "NO" to the status quo - and the great "YES" to a whole systems transformation?

Finding Your Heart Song

At USAF air show in Wichita,TX

Bless me with your laughter.
Enchant me with your song.
Your joy is my sweet sunshine.
Shine on!
  Dorothy Mendoza Row

On my very recent trek to Oklahoma to visit family, I became keenly aware of the presence of the wind blowing across the plains. This is the same wind that creates dust bowls and is the guiding force behind raving ice storms in winter. However, during my visit, I experienced this ever present wind as laughing and singing its joy filled song. This wind replaced the overbearing heat of the sun with pleasant air on my skin. I enjoyed just breathing.

One Saturday, during my visit, I had the privilege of spending a day in retreat with three other wise women. I say "other" because that day I slowly began to really experience myself as among them. The day was a rare blessing of that sense of belonging instead of being the eternal outsider of such a circle of wisdom.  This was refreshingly humbling.

The land around us had recently been ravaged by a forest fire. Conna, whose home sits on this land, told the story of the wall of fire approaching her house. The fire didn't get the house. Perhaps she, who also walks with the ancestors of this land,  was protected by the wind's direction.

She and Jan, the facilitator of "Finding Your Heart Song", the reason for my coming to this circle that day, is a genius when it comes to group process. With that and her 25 years experience facilitating community renewal with native American Indians in Canada, the day had no chance to be other than a kairotic moment in a life's time.

Pat shared her poetry, which I imagined as the delightful laughter of the wind weaving the sunshine gently in and through us.

I am feeling that the heart song we all found that day was the song of the wind itself. As Greg Mortensen  was taught by his Afghan guru to "listen to the wind" for wisdom, perhaps that is where we will find our heart song - or its updated version.

I will return to that day in my memory and listen to my heart song being carried by the wind straight to my heart and out through my voice. I did some bit of listening that day. I heard "Joy is Here.  Here is Joy" - a breathing in and a breathing out of the magical wind that glides across the plains in Oklahoma.


When is a time you were trying too hard to "listen to your heart? (Pat's departing words to me)

Wondrous Sunset Reflects Family Visit

Sunset September 25, 2011, Marlowe, OK

My son, grandson, and I drove home to Oklahoma from the World Championship Horse Show in Ft. Worth to their  home in OK. My son helped me set up living quarters in the camper outside their house. This visit was a rare occasion, one I have been wanting to do. I miss connecting with family, even envy friends who get to spend time with their children and grandchildren often.

 After my grandson was in bed, I made my way out to the camper, excited to be sleeping outside under the stars - another thing I enjoy and haven't done for years . The luxurious pop out camper has a metal roof and zipper flaps to open to a screened in view of the vast night sky.

I had left an overhead light on and when I opened the camper door and stepped inside, I inhaled a swarm of "noseeums", a southern colloquialism for tiny fruit fly like bugs named so because they are not necessarily visible to the average eye. I went back to the house to get a wet towel to swish them away, did so, then found my way in the dark but bugless air, to bed, a bit leery now of this venture.

Exhausted from a pricelessly precious weekend with family, I fell right to sleep.

The next day, accustomed to living in Florida where bugs are a way of life, I cleaned out all the nooks and crannies of the camper - anywhere a bug might hide. I was determined to enjoy this chance to breathe the fresh air and feel it on my skin.
.
The rest of the day was a whirlwind day with the rest of the family returning, unpacking, and grandson's soccer game. Delightfully exhausted again, at the end of the day, yet really unable to sleep from the miracle of spending time with family, I sat in the bed  watching the sun set and listening to the coyote's howl and cows moo in the near distance - and the practice bombs exploding on the Army base.

All day, hot and sunny as it was, the skies held a shapely array of cumulus clouds.  As I watched the sun set, I realized that I was watching an extraordinary sight. The combination of the atmosphere and the now distant clouds in the west were painting a marvelous art form in the sky.

I grabbed my camera and shot until the sky was totally dark and the stars appeared at the top of the sky through the screened in camper.

I rested on my back and stared at the stars, reflecting on the visit so far, eagerly anticipating an upcoming tomorrow.

Will it be wonderful?  The sunset said it all.

When is a time you felt the beauty of the dance of nature painting a reflection of your Soul?

It's All About Pearls

Moi through a prism

In St. Augustine, down one of the alleys off St. George Street, there is a little pearl shop.
The owners are from Poland and Michigan.

They have a beautiful story about how they happened to come to own the shop.

For years, they came to St. Augustine for vacation and would visit the shop - and buy a pearl necklace or other hand made creation. For fifteen years they did this.  The woman had a fine collection of jewelery
 which she loved.

They talked about how they'd like to own the shop and discussed it casually with the then owner whenever they were in the shop.
.
When the owner actually did decide to sell, he made them an offer - one which they did not refuse.
They sold their home in Michigan, found one near St. Augustine, and opened the shop.

All the jewelry is made there on site by the owners.

Randy through a prism

This story is important, not because someone successfully had a business dream come true.

this couple loved the pearls and they loved the creations of pearls. They were happy enough with their life in Michigan and their vacations to Florida. When their casual desire to live what they loved fully appeared, they grabbed the brass ring on the merry ground to live what they love.

We all have our passing desires which we have passed off because what we are doing is okay enough.

Some of us have known exactly wherein is our bliss and have followed it to its fruition.

Some of us have been fortunate enough to have always lived what we love.

Yes, it is about taking a "Yes" relationship to what we have. But, there is more. It's about opening the doors to beauty in a life's time.

Chris through a prism

What's your story about living the life you love?

Kenya: Life Lessons from Risk

New tracks in process. Taken near Concord, MA

An African-born colleague and I finished teaching a Village Leaders Institute in Western Kenya.  We returned to Nairobi, via a night bus.  I, being the only white face on the bus, was very grateful for having a team mate with me, in the middle of the night when some military looking men with guns stopped the bus, entered, and began searching bags.

Of course, these men were going to search my bag, which was a light blue suitcase, obviously not local. The men shouted some orders at me, which my colleague translated as orders to open my bag.  I was new to Kenya, and new to military intervention, (except for being punched in the gut by a billy club and hosed during a demonstration in the 60's - pointed guns not included.)

I was very naive, I admit, and with little common sense, to say the least.  But, my politely direct  response to this "bully" with the gun was, "I will be happy to open my bag at the American Embassy if you would like to view the contents."  My colleague, almost unable to breathe, whispered, "Give him the key!! Let him have your bag!!"

However, while he was saying this and I was searching for the key, the man with the gun pointed at me, changed his mind about having to see the contents of my bag - or anyone else's - and left the bus ordering the rest of the  men to do the same.

Within the next few seconds, I realized I could be shot, or at least beaten. As they left the bus, I caught my own breath, wondering if they were going to shoot the whole bus. Sheer terror held us all prisoners in those few moments before the men drove away.

The bus started to move again and we continued our journey to Nairobi and then onto another bus to our training center in Kamweleni, Machakos District.

While we were riding through the dark, somewhat reflecting on the experience, my colleague let me have it with his perspective on how I reacted.

Later, I learned  he was in Kenya without a passport because he was in political exile and I had really put his future among us at great risk. When I learned this,  I was even more mortified.

This information about my colleague may or may not have been true. I haven't been able to confirm it today as fact or legend. The possibility of its being true is the reason I have not mentioned his name. I also want to add that he was an exceptional young man, admired by all.


Dang that pride of mine. It wasn't an attachment to my belongings, but the injustice of it all - leftover passion from the 60's revolution days.  It could have  meant real problems for my colleague , should they notice we were connected. It could have been serious for everyone on the bus.

At the same time, maybe my intuitions and reactions were on target in that moment. One never knows.
But, some forty years ago, some women were still considered dumb broads in general. (No self-depreciation to be inferred here - merely a forgiven recollection of modus operandi at the time.)

I can only say now, that something strange and powerful was in charge that night.

When we arrived in Kamweleni, I was still shaking inside.  Relieved that we were safe, we wanted to share the success of the Village Leaders Institute and our terror filled encounter.

Living and working in  Kenya held diverse experiences. Watching people enlivened with new hope and possibility  brought balance to the affect of the less desirable experiences.

Those less desirable times each held a blessed life lesson which is much more valuable than rewards and recognition.

As I reflect on my journey through this life's time, I recall many moments before and after Kenya that I would rather not have lived. The decisions needed were more than I would prefer, given the opportunity.  Never was it a matter of right or wrong.  An occasional decision between right and right is  relatively easy for the most part. It is these decisions between wrong and wrong that tend to be put in a box to be forgotten.

They do come back eventually, expecting resolution and opening a door to self-forgiveness.
There will be impossible decisions still to make and  lessons still to learn as the journey continues.

What do you recall as a moment you made a decision, which held you in life or death suspense ?

9/11

Libeskind's original master plan for the World Trade Center site

I was ready to publish another blog, when I remembered it is the 9//11 remembrance time of year. Everyone will be sharing their stories, especially this year, about their experience of the day.

I was a guidance counselor at the time. The preschool teacher came into the office and announced with a definite aura of frenzy, that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. Of course, the TV in the office went on just in time to see the second crash.

Stunned, I watched  blankly with everyone else.  Within a minute or two, I gathered my wits and attended to the preschool teacher, returning with her to her room full of toddlers who, even though they didn't have a clue, were nevertheless paralyzed with fear by the shocked responses of the teachers and assistants.

We sat in a circle, on the alphabet rug. I listened while each told of their reaction to the TV scenes.  All were scared. I worked with them until they relaxed a bit and recovered a sense of trust in being where they were.

I was, of course, especially concerned that the teachers and assistants regained their balance in order to continue the day.

During that time, the Principal made an announcement, knowing that parents would have already called their children's cell phones, in panic, and there would be a teacher or two with the TV on, too.  They were invited to ask for help if they needed it while processing with the students. Then, the day proceeded, TV on full time.

My own personal response was wondering how my son, his wife, and my grandson had fared, as well as friends who work in that neighborhood. Rob was working on a set right there in the plaza.  No cell phone at the time, I had to wait to get home that day to make the calls.

During the next few weeks, I spent a considerable lot of time counseling children and speaking with parents.  Several children had been watching it at home, had family in NYC, and were experiencing 9/11 as if they were actually there.

I attempted to sort out, with each, the difference between actually being there, and actually experiencing its impact while watching TV.  Children are naturally empathic, I believe.

In truth, I believe that it is as natural as breathing. It hides itself as we are wounded by even normal life experiences, but definitely with traumatic life experiences. 


Not one person, was not affected by 9/11. It was a global tragedy - a traumatic event that has influenced major decisions since that day.

In 2008, I visited the gaping hole that remains. The intensity of the energy of emptiness there was overwhelming.  I asked myself, "What will it take to fill this hole that has been left in the hearts of everyone."

Recovering and teaching empathic connection might just be what the world needs at this time.

What was your 9/11 experience?  How has it affected your ability to empathize?

Shadow is cast by Sun

As a youngster, there was a tropical storm in upstate NY. Dad took my brothers and I to the top of Paris Hill. His car, mostly because of the wind velocity,  didn't have enough horse power to make it up the hill. After several tries, each one head starting further away from the hill, the car was finally able to get up the hill. 

When we arrived, we piled out, full of anticipation catalyzed by Dad's enthusiasm.  We all raised our arms out like angels and experienced the strength of the wind and our own strength in resisting it.

Dad, who was not one to talk to us much at all, surprised me when he announced, "Feel that power?  That is God!"
 
I must have been impressed enough  to have remembered that experience for more than half a century.

Since we three children, who I remember as being very young,  were not blown away or struck by flying debris, I checked the archives for storms in that area around that time.

Tropical storm winds at the end of August 1949 were recorded, reporting no known damage. (And Wow!, I learned there were a few hurricanes in the '50s which hit NYC.)

This year, at the end of August,  the hurricane named  Irene, a thousand miles wide,  headed right up the Atlantic coast. Driving winds and rain created havoc all along the way. In its wake, I am reminded of that storm in 1949 and remember my father's words. 

Hurricanes! Tornadoes! Flooding,! Drought! Earthquakes!  Tsunamis! Wildfires!

We all appear to be standing present to the shadow of God these days with increasing intensity. I have learned from experience, that they all come with the blessing of change in some form or another, although it may not be obvious at the time.

There is a sunshine presence of God that cast these shadows. How will you name the face of the Sun ?

Enough with the inner journey already!

New growth on juice orange tree in the yard

Except for Zumba in the morning and dinner with Dick, I spend most of my day alone. I am co-chair of a not-for-profit organization in North America (AAP) which takes up some time. Otherwise, I am  writing,  or cleaning, reading, or meditating to the music,  (and veging out with reruns, of course!)

The inner work has been important and the healing consistently providing new strength for being a co-chair. However, a shift is occurring and I am becoming aware of a desire to respond to the world around me. It's like a magnet - or being a teenager with puppy love.

I thought about going back to work in a new after school program - 2 two hours a day, four days a week, but just couldn't bring myself to fill out the update to send in. I will not do what I do not love anymore.

I made gluten free oatmeal and almond flour chocolate cookies for myself. I made chocolate drop cookies for Dick. I prepared and canned 8 pints of jalapeno relish and packed four quarts of them whole, and froze some other hot peppers.

Then, I began a painting on a canvas I had stretched four years ago. It is the missing link on this vast and deep spirit journey I've been on. The reason that it is the link is this. It gets me creating scenarios for how I might once again live a life of service with meaningful purpose - how to serve the healing of the ecological disasters of our time, contribute to  political systems transformation, shift perspectives on the distribution of resources, join in on the new forms of education needed for our children!

As I paint, scenarios flood into my imagination with the same vengeance as have been memories of yore. How refreshing this has been.  My paintings will not be famous, nor will I. But, I experience happiness while painting a picture and creating a scenario for social change at the same time.

The days are over when I go traipsing through the villages again or attempt to coordinate another retreat. But, my imagination is on a roll and something new is in the forming - something that includes being happy, as well,  - is bound to result.

Where have  you been drawn to responding to the crisis the world is in right now?  What is the key to this happening?

Heart of My Heart

From my birthday, even dead, they are a wonder

I heard a song on the TV a week or so ago that I remembered from childhood:"Heart of my heart" meant friends were dearer then. Too bad we had to part. I know a tear would glisten, if once more I could listen, to that gang that sang "Heart of my Heart:.

 

My friends and I knew it by heart (!) and performed it in the little shows we'd put on in the neighborhood.

Then, on Pandora,  I listened to Emmy Lou Harris singing, I Will Dream -- "In my imagination, you are my true companion...". It struck me that this was more of a song sung by Soul to the listener, rather than the listener to a lost love. It was for me at this moment, any way.

Then,  a short while later, I heard Emmy Lou again, this time singing  All You Have is Your Soul, by Tracy Chapman. I began to listen to this call from the deeps of my  heart. I began to be mindful of the message in these and each song I heard for the next few days.


On a TV rerun of one of the early Bones (my favorite vege out show), in the song toward the end, in the background, the words were, "...Bring on the wonder. Bring on the song.  I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long...."


Each of the songs I am hearing are awakening memories of yore, both fond memories and those I would rather not have lived - and others along this spectrum.

I wake up in the morning and snippets of images of yore come in with  a vengeance. So, rather than wake up and spend the day grieving needlessly, I created a little ritual  of affirmation for each. I let it come into the screen of my partial waking, remember it, acknowledge its impact, give it a hug and a kiss, thanking it for its appearance and the lesson I learned from having lived it, and send it on its way.  


Some amazing stuff has been coming in to say, " Hello," before moving on to its place in the orchestra of my life's time. 


I am all these memories of my life's time, and I am more than these memories - all their physical, emotional, mental, spiritual relationship to me.

I am well ready to heed  the call from Soul to allow its presence, from within the deep center of my heart, as my true companion.

Photography by Jeri Umble, from her garden

Change When it all Turns to Minutia!

Tree that survived wounding early in life. Look at it today!!

Seven of Pentacles Reversed

Getting mired down in the details of a projects. Feeling there is room much to do alone, so you stop working altogether. Tired of waiting for goals  to manifest. Working too hard without taking time out to enjoy the benefits you are receiving. Spending too much time going over the details and not enough time enjoying the journey.

That was me. Yes, indeedy! And a lot of other people of whom I know this to be true.

B-U-R-N-O-U-T!!

Definition:  Time to get away, step into the pure heart space wherein abides the essence of Spirit's presence.

When there is nowhere to go.  it seems impossible to  feel that others' spaces and activities are not imposing on a  need to sit and listen to the music of nature's sounds - take time to smell the roses, so to speak..

Someone is always mowing a lawn, trimming a hedge, blowing away leaves, or doing some form of construction. Motor noises constantly, TV blaring, air-conditioners running, motorcycles on a poker run, air boats hunting alligator. ..............

With no special  person to share a common jaunt into the world of Spirit, that leaves only solitary space and time. Solitary Space and Time is a very special friend.

These all used to be a problem - an excuse to keep on doing the same old same old. Every relationship was an I-It relationship, to put it in Martin Buber's terms, and I was there to use and be used.

But know I have another good friend called Heart Space.  Heart Space holds a knowing that what is drawing me to it  outside myself abides there  inside and is calling for attention.

"Baby doll, if you no pay attention, you get yourself mighty sick," comes the cry from  the "silent voice of knowing" .  

Body begins to communicate the silent voice's messages with all sorts of aches and pains,  accidents, diseases, and attacks - increasingly more intense with each attempt to communicate.

I didn't pay attention, even with all my training and daily disciplines of paying attention. Finally, my bodily  heart said, "I am tired of this. Change what you are doing - and your relationship to it, - quit pretending you can endure this minutia driven job -  or I'm shutting down and taking you down with me!"

So here I am three and a half years later, and one heart failure later. If I fall into the same old pattern of shoveling the minutia until every bone in my body aches, I begin crying without sadness and I take a lot of naps.

Something new has stepped into support my new decision to go with the flow,engage in what makes me happy and has purpose to me,  take it slow,  pay attention to my own anguish over beginning to drown in the minutia.

I am grateful for that support, for the gently flowing tears, and for the imposed time to close my eyes and dream. I honor that support. I am able to change what I am doing and how I am relating to the one life I have to give . I am grateful for this tired out heart for hanging in there with me  when I fall into the old pattern.

Are you paying attention to that silent voice - your intuitions.?  Are you heeding the warnings your body is sending?  It isn't just real for me, or some people. It's a reality for everyone. Please take the time to pay attention. Take time to process and change.

Gifted

This is my grandson, Brandyn, Rob's first born.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

So many toddlers today were born with gifts and talents already developed. I began to see them a few years ago when I was a guidance counselor. These children did not fit into the norm - even outside the boxes - of a classroom environment. When we screened and tested for learning disabilities, more often than not, they showed up in the gifted range, but then not served because of their seemingly poor progress and/or behavior. 

Their giftedness was subtle and there were only a few like this.  One first grader was totally knowledgeable of medieval times. His mother and father insisted that he had never been even remotely exposed to anything that had to do with medieval times. The boy was able to draw castles, festivals, farms, and people with ability way beyond his biological age of development. 

Today, there are many children like this. I don't believe there just seems to be more because of youtube. They are among the children we all know and love.

My children and grandson in the picture seemed to be born with a sense of rhythm. They followed the beat of the music with their feet and clapping even before they could walk. Patty-cake was party-time! None of them fit into the norms of the classroom.  

 All of my children and grandchildren have a giftedness about them. None of them  graduated with honors. In fact, getting them through school was a miracle. But, all of them are giftedly talented in some way or other. The school system called these children "shadow children". They fell through the cracks of public education. These are the children for whom, as a counselor,  I spent a majority of my time and energy.

BUT, these children today, just toddlers now - or maybe they are even six, seven or eight- are definitely destined to be a challenge to the norms of public education. Something has to change when students in a classroom are as sophisticated as the teachers and definitely have little time for sequential minutia nor have the social skills to be polite about it

I am supportive of  alternatives to the present system. We knew forty years ago and more that a new and functional education was needed. Home schooling is one of the answers - an environment where parents can work together with their children to pursue these talents and passions they are born with - taking time to teach the social skills they forgot to be born with - accessing teaching methods that address the tedium of  learning reading and math skills. 

For myself, burdened with a miserably high IQ in a time where that was but an interesting bit of news,   I could have spent my whole life just dancing to the music. I would have been totally happy for this whole 67 years! 

What is my giftedness? What's yours?

On Laughter, Connecting, and A Reunion

Kathy Curtacci Thompson st Stonehenge

May we meet in

the center of a laugh

So we can

remember who we truly are

In beloved joy

Just call me a

friend.

From Pearl “Drops of Aloha” 
JR Coleman








My high school 50th reunion is coming up next year.  Those kind of events are always awkward. People gathering who knew each other way back when, but know nothing about each other now. An "in group" gathers to ease their own anxiety and there is laughter which the rest get to notice. Then there is the conversation with  someone who looks like no one you ever met,  and there you are without your glasses to look at the name tag. Or the person who is sharing a memory or you sharing a memory of which there is no recollection by the listener.

After the memory sharing, there has to be a moment in time when everyone gets to introduce each other as who they are today - beyond the grandchildren, what they did with their lives,  and plans for retirement. (Of course, by this reunion, there is likely to be some sharing of the meds we take and why we take them.)

One of the classmates created a page on face book and we're getting to interact before the reunion. I have really been delighted, even surprised by who my colleagues are today.

The picture of a classmate at Stonehenge was accompanied by her sharing an article she wrote about her visit to Salisbury, England. I am so grateful for her sharing who she is- and it is a great preparation for my journey to Europe next summer.

The poem at the beginning here was written by one of my classmates. I do  not remember him as a poet, artist, or otherwise spiritually orientated. Yet, this is one of the most sensitive images I have ever read.

This is so different than the memory I have of him, that I am wondering if my elder moments have gotten the best of me on this one.

I have discovered this to be true, less dramatically,  in interactions with other classmates as well.

I went to the 40th reunion, hell bent on presenting myself as the person I had become.  I spent a lot of time as a teenager hiding my social anxiety in spirits. I can honestly say, and could also say ten years ago,  that is no longer the case.  Now, I just hide or abide!!

Well, at that reunion, when it was time to introduce myself, I started with, "When I was in high school, I was a slut." The laughter which broke out as a result urged me on into a monologue accompanied with much laughter.  I felt really connected with these strangers, the same human beings who I spent five days a week with for many years. We met in the center of a laugh.

Afterwards, I was embarrassed, for exposing myself so honestly. I felt like that a lot in high school. I suspect most of us did. It wasn't about actions, big make out that I was. It was about preoccupations,  feelings, and self-perception.

I have enough training and experience in psychology to know that what I was saying was not about actions. It was about being a  self-conscious, not yet fully formed Self. And there I was, forty years later, finally confident enough to strut my stuff like never before.

Because of classmates with whom I have shared the journey into the world of Spirit over the years, without even knowing one another, I really am looking forward to this 50th reunion.

It will be more like a gathering of the clan, here on the other end of a life's time.

I hope there is dancing at this reunion. It will be a most appropriate ritual of Being who we are.

How have you experienced laughter as a source of connecting you with others?

Returning to the World

One of those rarely noticed  flowers I saw along the path that I think about often

While in Kenya, in one of the coastal district villages, I experienced an encounter that made a lasting impression on me. There in  this plush jungle village, filled with nutritious food that could be picked from a tree or greens pulled up by for its leaves and roots, was a woman sitting by the road. Not only did she have her lethargic and dehydrated  child  at her breast, the clinic was directly across the road.

Most alarming to me was observing that no one was paying any attention to the suffering of this mother and child. I walked up to her and knelt down so our eyes were level with each other. She seemed not to notice that I was there even when I said, "Habari". I looked closely at the infant at her breast. The skin of both was laying over bones, with no fat whatsoever, and very little muscle. I thought perhaps the infant was dead and the mother too weak to cross the road to the clinic.

She was not able to get up and walk with me across the road.  I summoned two young men standing close by. They carried her to the clinic steps and put her down.  I caught the attention of someone in white - nurse or doctor, I didn't much care. The voice in the body dressed in white curtly informed me that we would have to wait our turn.

There was no one else waiting at this clinic.

Not being one to stir things up in a strange place, I sat for awhile while the man in white went about his business.  Finally, I went inside, determined to have him acknowledge this obvious suffering. I also let him know it was getting dark soon and I needed to be on my way to make it to my destination.

He and I carried the woman and her baby, still at her breast, into the clinic and onto a table covered with a white sheet.The building was rudimentary. There were windowed cupboards full of supplies.  The man said he was a doctor and had been there for twenty-five years, emphasizing his history there with, "I've seen it all!".

It's as if he had read my mind and the questions it was asking about his apathetic demeanor.

He pronounced the infant dead and predicted that the woman would soon be dead, showing me a festering wound on her leg. The doctor said, "It is a snake bite and that she was already in a weakened condition when it bit."

I asked him,  "How might she have come to be so weakened?"

His reply was a lengthy monologue about the multiple causes that might result in her emaciated condition..  I listened to him tell of the extent of physical problems he had encountered in these 25 years in this jungle and of the many he had trained who had left to seek better wages.

He said his wife had left because, "She couldn't take it anymore." What I learned, as he talked,  was she couldn't take a sense of not being able to cut down the amount of physical ailments - and she feared for the health of their two children.

I thanked him for his dedication and for sharing his saga with me, said my good-byes to the doctor and the woman,  and walked on down the road to my intended destination.

I was on my way to train village residents to work together on their community's development. I felt, like the doctor, that what I was doing was worth my life.

But, as I walked down the road, I felt my whole self-story fall apart, leaving all purpose behind, It was like stripping myself of my clothes as  I went. I was feeling more like the doctor's wife.

When I arrived in the village,I was  greeted with  welcome enthusiasm. I took one deep breath, realizing that fortunately I had not actually left my clothes on the road, and was suddenly so grateful for people in this world who respond to human suffering with such hope.


when have you encountered the hopelessness of human suffering and then experienced the signs of hope beyond hope, and then experienced a renewed sense of purpose?

Do I Choose to Own the Truth?

Full moon July 2011. Like a focus in the haze of whirlwind frenzy.

Reordering business cards from Vistaprint, for an organization to which I belong, ended up nowhere - no one had the password. I thought this had been done in April when we all agreed to do it.  I had a self-imposed deadline to meet. The card only had our name and the website contact info. Communication with Vistaprint led nowhere. I opened a new account, designed a new card,  and ordered new card, and received 500 cards of very low quality.  The cards would be an embarrassment to the organization.

I had submitted an invoice to the treasurer and asked her to not reimburse me. I attempted to contact Vistaprint again, with no success. By this time, clerical skills not being one of my natural talents, I was not thinking straight and was flustered.

I didn't write down the password for the new account, so I opened another account, designed a new card with large print, and sent it off.

Then I went to Staples with one of the original cards. They said they could produce a quality card and the total would be three times as much as the original order from  Vistaprint. I ordered them and could pick them up asap.

When I got home, it dawned on me that the organization is in the process of creating a new website and the info on the business card would be useless very soon.  I was able to cancel the order at Staples.

Thoughts ran through my mind about how I could erase the whole series of events which began with somebody asking me where the $20 was going to come from in  the budget for the year. This was frustrating as well, because $20 is not much to ask for anyway, let alone its contribution to  our purpose for existing as as organization - and we had already agreed.

I realized that I had not stopped to think through at each obstacle I encountered. I had forgotten to check my intuitions about why this was not working out easily. It was a simple task I was doing. And here I was with 1000 cards - useless cards come September - to own up to responsibility for their existence.

This all was happening during the Casey Anthony trial conclusion. I had not been following the trial closely and was grateful for the opportunity to see the final stages. I could see that there was not much evidence one way or the other (I ask myself, "Who is to say I have these 1000 cards here on my desk?" - except that I have just written about it in this blog).

I put myself in her shoes - into her poor choices - into her inability to own truth and live truth. (I really was drawn to blocking out the whole business card whirlwind from my memory and creating for myself, a big lie about the whole thing).

I know there is no comparison of a few business cards to a small child's life - but there is a correlation when it comes to owning up to the poor choices we make.   I get to live with what to do with these useless business cards - and pay for them myself.  Casey has to live with her poor choices related to the fact that her beloved child is now dead.

She will be paying for her poor choices, whatever they were,  in a way that may be too painful to face. Her defense patterns, so obvious by the trial's end,  may just have her blaming anyone else for her present circumstances and more than likely concocting even another great story in her mind.

For myself, and my whirlwind of mindless energy spent for nought, with a misplaced focus, I can own it, pay for it, learn a lesson and laugh at the wasted energy in my actions.

Maybe Casey will be fortunate enough someday, to own this event in her life's time. In the meantime, no one need be concerned about her being in prison and suffering- her life will be a living hell of one pathological lie or another to cope with the pain of the reality she simply does not have the capacity to accept.

I am very grateful that my mindless acts this week in no way compare to a dead child. Nevertheless, they have provided a channel for empathy of those who act mindlessly - and for the importance of mindful discipline.

When is a time you have been embarrassed by your mindless whirlwind of poor choices? 

What practices have you learned in order to be more mindful?

How do you remember to employ them when you need them the most?

Will You Remember?

The candle lighting corner of  a Coptic chapel in the heart of St. Augustine. 
The candle I lit  was for the success of a new course that was soon to make its debut.

From philosopher Jonathan Zap:

"An extremely effective and grounded magical practice is to identify your big dreams, the missions you really need to accomplish in this lifetime. The test of a big dream comes from asking yourself, 'Will I remember this well on my death bed?' If you have a big dream, you will probably find that to accomplish it will require a minimum of two hours of devoted activity per day."

This quote catalyzed a long reflection on the big dreams I've had in my life's time. What occurs to me most prominently is that I have experienced what I would consider a huge  portion of earth shattering unexpected outcomes. I can do a great PR job on the many dreams that have come true, but they have all been accompanied with many, many set backs-  and brick walls even-  along the way. I wouldn't have missed it all for anything,of course,  and as Bob Dylan puts it, "Its All Good".

What will I remember on my dearth bed?  Emotionally overcharged events, yes indeed.

I will remember that I spent most of my life learning to own my mistakes, yes, but especially my uniqueness as a gift that I finally lived. I will be remembering the day I learned to love me being me. Maybe I will remember the event where it finally sunk in or maybe I will remember the journey from that point on.

I have met many unforgettable  people, some who have a huge list of dreams come true and make a lot of money because of them. I have met many unforgettable people who have no special claim to fame.   What they all have in common is a style of being present to the way it is without pretense or expectation. I have felt free to be me in their presence and have felt their freedom in being who they are, where they are, and what they are.

I want to be at death's door having left that presence behind in the lives of those I have encountered. I want to leave the feeling with them that they are free to be in every sense of that energy.

Since this philosopher suggests it means spending at least two hours a day on being present with that energy within myself, I still have a lot  of practicing to do, I know.

I have no other dreams than that this earth full of people can know this freedom. It is the heart of alleviating human suffering, whether it shows up as abject poverty or manic depression.

 Is it time to ask yourself, 'What is it I will be remembering  on my death bed?'  

Cat Tales

Has Beau Bear Gone to that Great Storm Drain in the Sky - or Not?

Beau Bear's left haunch was obviously suffering . He was limping, eating at his leg, twitching, and occasionally had a full body spasm. His inability to walk on his hind legs increased. X-Rays and blood tests resulted in him showing up as healthy as a kitten - a fine feat for an old man of a cat!! 

Nevertheless, he got to the point where I would have to pick him up and take him to his litter box, take him to his food bowl, take him to his hidey hole, and put him on my lap.

While de-fleeing the house one Sunday, I had him on the chaise on  the porch with me. Not fearing that he would run off, I let him rest on the chaise.  Out of nowhere he leaped off the chaise, tore down the stairs, across the lawn, up the street, and climbed down into his favorite place - the storm drain on the corner. A bright white light seemed to be surrounding him.

He was gone for at least two weeks, when I got a call in California that Beau Bear had come home, none the worse for wear. He left again and returned three days later when I got home. I kept him in the house to observe him. He appeared to have improved. When I put him outside, he didn't tear off, rather hung around his two mates -Bo Cephus and Bo Tres. He came back at night, rather skittish, left, and hasn't been seen since.

I hope he isn't in the storm drain because it has been raining "cats and dogs' for three days.

Maybe his behind will heal and he won't be traveling along like a rabbit without a hop.

Maybe he has left this earthly plane, but returns occasionally in hopes of one more boiled shrimp.

Maybe he has gone into hiding to spend his final days gracefully and peacefully.

I have also wondered if perhaps his return visits are my denial defenses and chronically overstimulated imagination caused by missing him so much it hurts. 

He has been my "main man" for many years. When I die, perhaps my ghost will hover, too. People will talk of sightings of the old broad on Lake Street, calling for her beloved Beau Bear in the dark of the night from the railing of her porch!!!

Tell me a cat tale!