Emerging from Trauma

No one emerges from trauma unscarred. Having been severely traumatized, it becomes the work of at least a lifetime to denormalize the trauma--to recognize it for the aberration it is--and to begin to reinhabit your body, your senses, your mind, to reinhabit relationships, to reinhabit a world you perceive as having betrayed you.

During the massacre at Sand Creek ("I can hit the son of a bitch. Let me try him") two women and their children were able to escape, but they soon realized that they were lost. They took refuge in a cave too shallow to hold off the cold. Late at night a large wolf entered the cave, and lay next to them. At first they were frightened, but at least they were warm. The next day the wolf walked with them, resting when they rested. Finally one fo the women said, "O Wolf, try to do something for us. We and our children are nearly starved." The wolf led them to a freshly killed buffalo. They ate. Walking with them for the next few weeks, the wolf found food fro them when they were hungry, and protected them from humans and nonhumans. At last he led them to their people, the Cheyenne, and after receiving food, he disappeared.

Things don't have to be the way they are.

What do you do, how tired do you get, when each day you struggle against an entire culture based on the normalization of trauma-inducing behavior? There is no sanctuary.

I have my poison: you have yours. Name it. Walk away from it.

A Language Older than Words

Derrick Jensen

Coming Undone

Only when we give up the fragile hold we have on our illusions and come apart, then we can begin to see the truth, surrender, and begin anew.

Baron Baptiste

Shifts in persception

As notions of environment shift, we notice environment differently. It becomes more and more difficult to make a cut between psyche and world, subject and object, in here and out there. I can no longer be sure whether the psyche is in me or whether I am in the psyche as I am in my dreams, as I am in the moods of the landscapes and the city streets, as I am so deeply in the music. Where does the environment stop and I begin, and can I begin at all without being in some place deeply involved in, nurtured by the nature of the world?

The Soul's Code
James Hillman

Helplessly Distracted

Like pictures in a photo album, when seen objectively, thoughts in and of themselves are recognized as being nothing more than abstract representations of historical events. Ceasing to make the pivotal error of believing thought to be inherently real instantly reveals the truth--that who we are always has been free from and prior to the awareness of thought. This profound discovery is the birth of a radical awakening from the endless dream of ignorance and unenlightenment that so much of human life is an expression of.

Lost in and helplessly distracted by thought and the arising of thought, most of us spend our entire lives alienated from our own depths and, as a result, often experience a puzzling sense of separation from the world in which we live. It's important to understand that unrecognized compulsive and mechanical identification with thought leaves no room in our awaremess for anything other than thought. And it is the unquestioned assumption that thought is self that creates the seamless continuity of a painful illusion, which, for too many of us, literally defines the very life that we live. In the sincere quest for emancipation from that which is unreal, sooner or later thought will be revealed to be what it is--utterly empty of any inherent significance.

Andrew Cohen

"YES!"

When you cease to live for yourself, when you give everything you have and everything
you are for the sake of the whole, that's the end of it. It's the end of you as you've known yourself to be. It's the end of becoming. It's the end of having a problem that you need to overcome. It's even the end of striving for Enlightenment. It's the end of all of that and the beginning of an unconditional rsponse to life that says "YES!" and that only gives.
When you stop trying to get anything back for yourself, you will find yourself immersed in an unending revelation of perfect Liberation here and now---always and forever being who you already are.

Andrew Cohen

flawless compassion

When the true Self is able to freely express itself, only then will the depth of our humanity reveal itself in all its fullness and glory. In that individual who has freed himself from the distortion of the personal, that impersonal depth can be instantly recognized as flawless spontaneity, overwhelming compassion and fearless clarity.

Andrew Cohen

Greetings in the New Year

It is a New Year. The past year was so full that I have trouble putting it all in perspective. I dove deep into my experience with Horses. I got my own horse....definately one of the main highlights. Recieving him was unexpected and completely surprising. I was asked if I wanted him. He has a chronic lameness and requires special care. He is perfect for me. He has alot of challenges ahead of him, but he has me and I have him.

I lost one of the horses in my care to Colic. That was one of the most awful experiences I ever had. Montana will be fondly remembered always!

My business grew, as well as my gardens and confidence! I am stepping into this New Year energized and happy that I am able to do what I do. The learning is inspiring enough. The evidence is overwhelming. Nature knows what it is doing. Any of my Native friends would say that. I am excited that I have something that I can do to help restore balance.

I look forward to delivering a New Year of new inspiring blogs and photos and products that serve to heal our soil...where all that is manifest comes from.

peace and love
pamela