Stardust Organics

Emerging from Trauma

2008-06-06T06:40:00.004-05:00

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

2008-05-12T20:06:00.001-05:00

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

2008-02-11T15:01:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-29T20:31:00.000-05:00

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!"

2008-01-21T07:20:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-17T06:08:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-14T09:42:00.000-05:00

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

Perfection

2007-10-24T04:55:00.000-05:00

When it no longer makes any sense to you to live only for yourself, something mysterious and utterly liberating will occur. You will discover that this life, your own life--with your own memory, lived in your body, with your very own thoughts and your very own emotions--will suddenly make perfect sense. The "you" who you are right now will be recognized as being perfect as it is. It will become obvious that you are in exactly the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, doing the right thing--just as you are.

Andrew Cohen

Mindfulness

2007-10-22T09:14:00.001-05:00

Mindfullness is not paying more attention but paying attention differently and more wisely--with the whole mind and heart, using the full resources of the body and its senses.

Peace

2007-10-21T04:39:00.000-05:00

Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say "Wait until I finish this then I will be free to live in peae." What is "this"? A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of a debt? If you think that way, peace will never come. There is always another "this" that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only "the hope of peace some day."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Waiting

2007-10-18T04:45:00.000-05:00

Most of us spend our entire lives trapped--trapped and sufocating in a kind of limbo--trapped because, without even knowing it, we are always waiting. And that waiting is an experience of almost unbroken tyranny. We are trapped by the movement of time because we live in a constant state of anticipation--waiting, endlessly waiting, for the future to arrive. We live in this way because we believe that in the future our lives will somehow be better that they are now.

But there is a way out. And that way out is an absolute relationship to time. An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting.

If we truly want to be free, simply through the sincere contemplation of what an absolute relationship to time means, we can liberate ourselves from the prison of waiting that we have chosen to live in. You see, in this contemplation, it soon will become clear that there is nothing to wait for. In fact, what will eventually reveal itself is the profound recognition that there is only one moment--and this moment now always is and could only ever be that one moment. Indeed, when we discover this for ourselves, we will know without any doubt that there never has been anything to wait for--including even the experience of recognizing that there was nothing to wait for! When we see this clearly, we simply stop waiting. And when we stop waiting, everything changes.

An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting absolutely for anything more to occur in order to fully be.

Andrew Cohen

embracing heaven and earth

The Glory of God

2007-10-17T03:23:00.000-05:00

What is the glory of God? What is the defining expression of that which transcends yet includes all things?

The glory of God is the shattering realization that everything is always perfect. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things at all times, in all places, through all circumstances. Even earthquakes, disease and bloody warfare--that's all the glory of God too. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things as they are. You see, from an absolute perspective, the eye of the Self sees only God and makes no distinctions whatsoever. Heaven and hell, good and evil, everything known an unknown, seen and unseen are all recognized only to be different expressions of that one inconceivable mystery beyond name and form. Beyond all pairs of opposites, the glory of God is all there is -- just absolute, incomparable perfection.

Andrew Cohen

the liberation teachings

embracing heaven and earth

To be free

2007-10-11T04:49:00.000-05:00

When we recognize ourselves to be that which is uncreated, the perpetual striving to become ceases. That's when our perspective undergoes a radical shift. In an instant it becomes deep, vast and limitless. The radical transformation that is Enlightenment occurs when we recognize ourselves to be that which is created and that which is uncreated and never move from that realization. It is only the knowing of the that which is uncreated in the midst of creation that makes it possible to be free in this world.

Right Relationship

2007-10-10T05:15:00.000-05:00

We will never be able to perceive the true and right relationship of all things as long as so much of our attention is devoted to maintaining and sustaining a painfully separate sense of self. But once we are no longer invested in maintainingthat sense of isolation and separation, then and only then will we be able to directly experience what it means to seeclearly. In order to experience what it means to be awake, in order to be able to see clearly for ourselves what the truthactually is, we must liberate ourselves from the insidious need to always see ourselves as being separate.

Andrew Cohen

heaven and earth

fully awake

2007-10-09T06:13:00.000-05:00

It doesn't matter if thoughts come and go, it doesn't matter if feelings come and go, and it doesn't even matter if ecstasy comes and goes. The only thing that matters is not moving, remaining completely at ease and being fully awake.

The Primacy of Earth

2007-10-03T04:08:00.000-05:00

The Earth is not a dead body, but is inhabited by a spirit that is its life and soul. All created things minerals included, draw their strength from the earth spirit. This spirit is life, it is nourished by the stars, and it gives nourishment to all the living things it shelters in its womb. Through the spirit received from on high, the earth hatches the minerals in her womb as the mother her unborn child.

The late fifteenth century German Benedictine Monk

and Alchemist Basilius Valentinus

Beauty

2007-09-29T04:16:00.000-05:00

Of all psychology's sins, the most mortal is its neglect of beauty. There is, after all, something quite beautiful about a life. But you would not think so from reading psychology books. Again, psychology fails what it studies. Neither social psychology, experimental psychology, nor therapeutic psychology find a place for the aesthetic appreciation of a life story. Their tasks are investigation and explanation, and should anaesthetic phenomenon pop up in any of their material it will be accounted for by a psychology that is without aesthetic sensitivy to begin with.

That longing in the human heart for beauty must be recognized by the field that claims the human heart to be its province. Psychology must find it s way back to beauty, if only to keep itself alive.

The Soul's Code

In Search of Character and Calling

James Hillman

Real Power

2007-09-28T04:03:00.000-05:00

I ARISE TODAY
THROUGH STRENGTH IN THE SKY;

LIGHT OF SUN
MOON'S REFLECTION
DAZZLE OF FIRE
SPEED OF LIGHTENING
WILD WIND
DEEP SEA
FIRM EARTH
HARD ROCK

-from Faeth Fidala (Deer's Cry)

A perfect Whale Watch

2007-09-26T04:05:00.001-05:00

On Monday I had the opportunity to go on a whale watch. It was a perfect day for such a thing. Warm and sunny, bright and clear. I have actually never been out to sea and I felt alittle uncomfortable. The trip out to where the whales were gathered took about an hour. I wasn't sure if we would even see a whale. Finally the boat slowed and we arrived at this famous whale watching spot. It seemed like alot of minutes went by, then I heard an excited commotion from the front of the boat. There were whales!! Over 8 in this pod. Later we would see more, almost 20 altogether. These whales are breathtaking, to say the least. The tour guide spoke about what is known and unknown about them. I was mesmerized, present and in awe.

I was amazed to hear that all male whales have their own songs, that they take all year composing and then use to attract females. They even go so far as to steal other songs!!

They are sweet and wonderful, gentle giants of the deep. The whales that we saw that day were all Humpbacks.

What a great day! What a perfect day!

Full Blown Garden Beauty

2007-09-24T05:46:00.000-05:00

The garden is rich with diversity

With plants of a hundred families

In the space between the trees

With all the colours and fragrances.

Basil, mint and lavender,

God keep my remembrance pure,

Raspberry, Apple, Rose,

God fill my heart with love,

Dill, anise, tansy,

Holy winds blow in me.

Rhododendron, zinnia,

May my prayer be beautiful

May my remembrance O God

be as incense to thee

In the sacred grove of eternity

As I smell and remember

The ancient forests of earth.

Chinook Psalter

illusion

2007-09-21T05:11:00.000-05:00

We often hear teachers of Enlightenment confidently inform us that what we are seeing is not real. To describe this state of affairs, they insist that much of what we perceive is an illusion. This can be very difficult to understand. Indeed, it is confusing when we are told that we're not seeing things clearly, we're not seeing things as they are. So what does it mean when teachers of Enlightenment tell us that most of the time what we are perceiving is not as it appears?

If something is illusory, it means that it does not exist. It means that what we are perceiving has not independent self-existence outside of our own mind and field of sensory experience. It means, therefore, that what we are experiencing is something that we are creating with our own mind and senses and then projecting upon the world around us. Most of us, even though we're rarely aware of it, live a great deal of our lives very much lost in and distracted by psychological and sensory perceptions that have no objective reality.

What creates this almost perfect continuity of illusion, this unreal stream of thought and sense perception? It is the endless craving, the endless wanting, for personal gratification.

embracing heaven and earth

Andrew Cohen

We are Nature

2007-09-18T04:45:00.000-05:00

We know ourselves to be made from this earth. We know this earth is made from our bodies. For we see ourselves. And we are nature. We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature. Nature weeping. Nature speakingof nature to nature.

The red-winged blackbird flies in us, in our inner sight. We are the arc of her flight. We measure the ellipse. We predict its climax. We are amazed. We are moved. We fly. We watch her wings negotiate the wind, the substance of the air, its elements and the elements of those elements, and count those elements found in other beings, the sea urchin's sting, ink , this paper, our bones, the flesh of our tongues with which we make the sound "blackbird, " the ear with which we hear, the eye which travels the arc of her flight And yet the blackbird does not fly in us but in somewhere else free of our minds, and now even free of our sight, flying in the path of her will.

Susan Griffin

Competent to belong in the World

2007-09-17T03:42:00.000-05:00

Something will have gone out of us as

a people if we ever let the remaining

wilderness be destroyed, if we permit

the last virgin forests to be turned into

comic books and plastic cigarette

cases; if we drive the few remaining

members of the wild species into zoos

or to extinction; if we pollute the last

clear air and dirty the last clean streams

and push our paved roads through the last

of the silence, so that never again

will Americans be free in their own

country from the noise, the exhausts,

the stinks of human and automotive

waste. And so that never again can we

have the chance to see ourselves single,

separate, vertical and individual in the

world, part of the enviroment of trees

and rocks and soil, brother to the other

animals, part of the natural world and

competent to belong in it.

Wallace Stegner

Heaven on Earth

2007-09-16T04:51:00.000-05:00

Mother, Father, God, Universal Power.

Remind us daily of the sanctity of all life.

Touch our hearts with the glorious oneness

of all creation.

As we strive to respect all the living beings

on this planet.

Penetrate our souls with the beauty of this

earth.

As we attune ourselves to the rhythm and

flow of the seasons.

Awaken our minds with the knowledge to

achieve a world in perfect harmony

And grant us the wisdom to realize that we

can have heaven on earth.

Jo Poore

Crises as Drivers

2007-09-15T06:59:00.000-05:00

Crises are generally seen as undesirable; they imply danger and potential misfortune. There are good reasons for this. A crises is a sign that the old ways are no longer working and something new is called for. In such times, there can be very real danger: if appropriate responses are not made rapidly, the old order may begin to collapse.

This is all too possible with humanity today. If we do not address the deeper spiritual issues underlying the many problems we face, it is very likely that civilization will fall apart.

On the other hand, any crisis, big or small, personal or planetary, also presents opportunity--something the ancient Chinese seemed well aware of. Their word for crisis, wei-chi, is written as a combination of two characters, one meaning "danger," the other "opportunity." The opportunity may not always be easy to see, but it is always there. It is the chance to remedy what is wrong and move on to a new way of being.

In this respect, crisis are a challenge--the challenge to recognize what is no longer working and seize the opportuntiy to learn, make changes, and progress. Thus, crises can play a crucial role in evolution.

Waking Up in Time

Peter Russell

The Active Principle

2007-09-14T04:30:00.000-05:00

"To every Form of being is assigned,"

Thus calmly spake the vernerable Sage,

"An 'active' Principle:--howe'er removed

From sense and observation, it subsists

In all things in all natures; in the stars

Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,

In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone

That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,

The moving waters, and the invisible air.

Whate'er exists hath properties that spread

Beyond itself, communicating good

A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;

Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

No chasm, no solitude; from link to link

It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.

This is the freedom of the universe;

Unfolded still the more, more visible,

The more we know; and yet is reverenced least,

And least respected in the human Mind,

Its most apparent home.

Wordsworth

Deep Peace

2007-09-05T04:59:00.000-05:00

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
of water flowing, rising and falling,
sometimes advancing, sometimes receding...
May the stream of your life flow unimpeded!
Deep peace of the running wave to you!

Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
which fans your face on a sultry day,
the air which you breathe deeply rhythmically,
which imparts t oyou energy, consciousness, life.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you!

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
who, herself unmoving , harbours the movements
and facilitates the life of the ten thousand creatures,
while resting contented, stable, tranquil.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you!

Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
which stay invisible till darkness falls
and discloses their pure and shining presence
beaming down in compassion on our turning world.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you!

Mary Rogers

Don't go back to sleep!

2007-09-04T05:04:00.001-05:00

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
Across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep!

Rumi

The Journey

2007-09-03T04:23:00.000-05:00

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice - - -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
'Mend my life!'
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations - - -
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do - - - determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

Healing the Whole

2007-08-30T04:26:00.000-05:00

....So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the tree
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion-put your ear
close, ad hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
Go with your love to the field.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is neightest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than
necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry

I AM THE WORLD

2007-08-29T04:02:00.000-05:00

I AM THE SONG, THAT RESTS UPON THE CLOUD;
I AM THE SUN;
I AM THE DAWN, THE DAY, THE HIDING SHROUD
WHEN DUSK IS DONE.

I AM THE CHANGING COLOURS OF THE TREE;
THE FLOWER UNCURLED;
I AM THE MELANCHOLY OF THE THE SEA;
I AM THE WORLD.

THE OTHER SOULS THAT , PASSING IN THEIR PLACE,
EACH IN HIS GROOVE;
OUTSTRECTCHING HANDS THAT CHAIN ME AND EMBRACE,
SPEAK AND REPROVE.

'O ATOM OF THAT LAW, BY WHICH THE EARTH
IS POISED AND WHIRLED;
BEHOLD! YOU HURRYING WITH THE CROWD ASSERT
YOU ARE THE WORLD.'

AM I NOT ONE WITH ALL THE THINGS THAT BE
WARM IN THE SUN?
ALL THAT MY EARS CAN HEAR, OR EYES CAN SEE,
TILL ALL BE DONE.

OF SONG AND SHINE, OF CHANGING LEAF APART,
OF BUD UNCURLED;
WITH ALL THE SENSES PULSING AT MY HEART,
I AM THE WORLD.

ONE DAY THE SONG THAT DRIFTS UPON THE WIND
I SHALL NOT HEAR;
NOR SHALL THE ROSY SHOOTS TO EYES GROWN BLIND
AGAIN APPEAR.

DEAF, IN THE DARK, I SHALL ARISE AND THROW
FROM OFF MY SOUL
THE WITHERED WORLD WITH ALL ITS JOY AND WOE,
THAT WAS MY GOAL.

I SHALL ARISE, AND LIKE A SHOOTING STAR
SLIP FROM MY PLACE;
SO LINGERING SEE THE OLD WORLD FROM AFAR
REVOLVE N SPACE.

AND KNOW MORE THINGS THAN ALL THE WISE MAY KNOW
TILL ALL BE DONE;
TILL ONE SHALL COME WHO, BREATHING ON THE STARS,
BLOWS OUT THE SUN.

I AM THE WORLD by Dora Sigerosn Shorter (1866-1918)

Unconditional Love

2007-08-27T03:58:00.000-05:00

Love is not something you do,

Love is a way of being.

And more than that.

It is simply being,

Being with another being, however they may be.

Holding no judgements, having no agendas,

No desire to control,

No need to prove your love.

No intrusion upon their soul.

Nothing but a total acceptance of their being,

Born of your acceptance of yours.

Unconditional love is not conditional approval of another's actions, irrespective of their effects on others. It is unconditional love of being behind the actions. It does not depend on the way a person thinks, feels, or behaves. It does not pause to assess whether or not another is worthy of affection. It recognizes that beneath all our various appearances and activities, we all want to feel loved. In this, we are all united.

Unconditional love recognizes that we are all, to some extent, caught in the belief that our inner satisfaction is determined by what goes on around us. We all feel the need for security, control, recognition, approval, and stimulation to varying degrees; we all feel threatened from time to time by things that seem to stand in the way of our fulfillment; and we can all make mistakes.

Waking Up in Time

Peter Russell

A Simple Prayer

2007-08-26T08:10:00.000-05:00

Invoking the powers of the universe or bestowing our blessing on the Earth or other beings is neither a simple benevolent wish nor an act of hubris. Rather it is an act of creative confidence. Emptied of the needs of our personality, our ego, or the demands of our society, we free ourselves to come into dynamic relationship with the whole universe. "May all beings be happy!"

Earth Prayers

Precious Moments

2007-08-24T05:21:00.000-05:00

All horses are capable of leading us to hidden realms of emotional intuitive, and creative vitality.

When we repectfully climb on their backs, walk beside them, or sit quietly in their presence, these animals interrupt the hypnotic effects of human conditioning, giving people unusually efficient access to forms of healing, perceiving, and relating they'd previously considered impossible.

Oneness

2007-08-23T04:28:00.000-05:00

We have not only to cooperate with the nature kingdoms, but we have to allow them to become one with us. Through this marriage, we are more truly human.

Destroyed Experiences

2007-08-20T04:16:00.000-05:00

Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed our behavior will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves.

R.D. Laing

What is going on?

2007-08-14T04:22:00.000-05:00

"All through school and University I had been given maps of life and knowledge on which there was hardly a trace of many of the things that I most cared about and that seemed to me to be of the greatest possible importance to the conduct of my life. I remembered that for many years my perplexity had been complete; and no interperter had come along to help me. It remained complete until I ceased to suspect the sanity of my perceptions and began, instead, to suspect the soundness of the maps."

E.F. Schumacher

Challenges

2007-08-13T04:44:00.000-05:00

"God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life."
Herman Hesse

Reality Check

2007-08-12T06:53:00.000-05:00

"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.

There would be; Fifty-seven Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south, 8 Africans; 52 would be female, 48 would be male; 70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white; 70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian; 89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual.

Six people would posses 59% of the entire world's wealth...and all 6 would be from the United States.

Eighty would live in substandard housing; 70 would be unable to read; 50 would suffer from malnutrition.

One would be near death; One would be near birth , One (yes, only one) would have a college education.

One would own a computer (a year ago, no one had a computer).

How could the wealthy 6 live in peace with their neighbors? Surely they would be driven to arm themselves against the other 94.. perhaps even to spend, as Americans do, about twice as much per person on military defense as the total imcome of two thirds of the villages.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent."

By Philip M. Harter, MD, FACEP, Stanford University School of Medicine.

The Earth does not belong to Us

2007-08-10T05:05:00.000-05:00

This we know-the earth does not belong to man man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Chief Seattle

Setbacks

2007-08-09T05:07:00.000-05:00

....but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new-create another heir
As great in admiration as herself.

William Shakespeare

Just Breathe

2007-08-08T04:31:00.000-05:00

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death.

William Wordsworth

our fundamental relationship to life

2007-08-04T07:18:00.000-05:00

If we want to be able to see clearly, we have to be willing to look into our fundamental relationship to life. And when we do, we will discover the all-pervasive nature of desire. We will see that almost every action that we take is motivated by wanting for ourselves. Indeed, this "I want for me" is expressed in gross ansd subtle ways thousands of times every single day--when we look, when we turn our heads, when we reach out. Only when we see the movement of this complusive wanting, the way we perceive and interpret our experience will begin to change. There will be an awakening of profound depth and extraordinary clarity, and the is awakening will occur in direct conjunction with the recognition of the true face of desire.

So if we want to see clearly, we have to look into our fundamental relationship to life. We have to be willing to come to terms with the fact that, for most of us, it is based on what in the end, a very greedy and selfish wanting only for ourselves. Through having the courage to experience this fully, a door to another possiblility , another way of being, will open. In fact, as a direct result we will experience over and over again the always enlightening discovery that real happiness is found only when we want absolutely nothing.

The pain of wanting creates an almost endless experience of tension. And deep peace and profound sanity are found only when that tension ceases. The wanting and all of the tension inherent in it, which before we perceived as pleasure, we now recognize to be pain. This recognition has extraordinary significance because it is the beginning of a completely different relationship to life. It is the dawning of awakening.

andrew cohen
embracing heaven and earth

The Gravity of Love

2007-08-03T05:26:00.000-05:00

This blog is dedicated to my dear new friend, Amadon. Who is living proof that we can open so wide that the whole world can fit in. Thankyou Amadon

The parallels between the evolution of a star and the pattern we have traced in the evolution of humanity are intriguing. Not only do both show an acelerating pattern of development; the factors behind this acceleration are analogous.

Whereas a star's matter is pulled together by the force of gravity, a species such as ourselves is pulled forward by our search for a more satisfying inner state. Our minds gravitate toward inner peace. We may not at first see this to be our goal. Caught up in our material desires, we may believe it is comfort, security, or some other worldly satisfaction that we want. But the closer we draw to our own center, the clearer it becomes that , beneath everything , we are seeking inner peace and love. And the more we recognize our true goal, the faster we are able to move toward it.

In this regard gravity and love are not that different. Gravity is the attraction of mass for itself. It is a force that puls the physical Universe back toward its original unity. Similarly, love can be considered as the attraction of life for itself- the desire for conscious union with another. It is this that is pulling us faster and faster along our evolutionary curve toward a singularity in time.
Busckmister Fuller summed it up owetically in his revised Lord's Prayer: "Love," he wrote, "is metaphysical gravity."

Peter Russell
Waking Up in Time

A White Hole in Time

2007-08-02T04:11:00.000-05:00

The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Teilhard de Chardin

Maturity

2007-08-01T05:11:00.000-05:00

The distance between man and the gods is not all that much greater than the distance between beasts and man. We have already closed the latter gap and there is no reason to suppose that we shall not eventually close the former.

Ken Wilber

As we grow older, we admit that there is much we do not know and will never know. We become wiser about human nature, its virtues and its failings. We accept ways of Nature. We become less attached to our possesions; less upset by events of little consequence; less needful of others' appreciation. Many of us become better at living in the present. And some of us come to accept our own mortality.

A few of us may even come to know that we are free, that our well-being is not dependent on the world we perceive. These enlightened ones may release themselves from all their imagined
burdens and find true peace of mind. They may even complete their inner awakening and come to know the nature of consciousness as fully as we now know the world of form. These are the ones we call the saints and mystics-those whose lives have illuminated the history of humanity; the awakened ones.

At the moment, full maturity is still a rarity. But rather than considering such individuals to be exceptions, we should think of them as heralds. They are portents of what could lie ahead of us as our own inner maturity blossoms. They are also portents of what could lie ahead for the human race if we survive our troubled adolescense.

Both as individuals and as a species , we are heading in the direction of self-liberation.

A New Way of Seeing

2007-07-31T05:13:00.000-05:00

If being right is your goal,
you will find error in the world,
and seek to correct it.
But do not expect peace of mind. If peace of mind is your goal,
look for errors in your beliefs and expectations.
Seek to change them, not the world.
And always be prepared to be wrong.

Peter Russell

Hope

2007-07-30T04:52:00.000-05:00

"I am working for the Creation. I refuse to take part in its destruction."

Iroquis Leader
Leon Shenandoah

Happiness

2007-07-29T06:40:00.000-05:00

Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephermal, and subject to change.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The world...As we know it

2007-07-27T04:11:00.000-05:00

The world, as we know it, is coming to an end. The world as the center of the Universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved of the members of the in group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our comlacency are coming to an end.

Joseph Campbell

Homeric Mother Earth Song

2007-07-26T05:18:00.000-05:00

To Earth, Mother of All
Homeric Hymn XXX

I shall sing of well-formed Earth, mother of all and oldest of all,
who nourishers all things living on land.
Her beauty nurtures all creatures that walk upon the land,
and all the move in the deep or fly in the air.
O mighty one, you are the source of fair children and goodly fruit,
and on you depends to give life to, or take it away from, mortal man.
Blessed is the man you favor
with willing heart, for he will have everything in abundance.
His life-giving land teems with crops, and on his fields
his flocks thrive while his house is filled with goods.
Such men with just laws rule a city of beautiful women, while much
prosperity and wealth attend them.
Their sons glory in youthful glee and their daughters with cheerful hearts in flower-dances
play and fisk over soft flowers of the field.
These are the ones you honor, O revered goddess of plenty!
Hail, mother of the gods and wife of starry Ouranos!
For my song do grant me livelihood that gladdens the heart, and I shall remeber you and another song too!

Wonders happen

2007-07-24T04:22:00.000-05:00

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond you own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle
and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions....For the god
wants to know himself in you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The Longest Stride

2007-07-23T04:33:00.001-05:00

The human heart can go to the lengths of God.
Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now: The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move:
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
the thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us 'til we take
Then longest stride of soul men ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise is exploration into God.
Where are you making for? It takes
So many thousands years to wake,
But will you wake for pity's sake?

Christopher Fry,
A Sleep of Prisoners

Crushing Loss

2007-07-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

I have been away for a while. I have been coming to terms with a crushing loss. I have experienced loss of alot of things that I love my whole life. This time the weight of all of them seems to be bearing down on me. I say seems to be because my mind is a tricky thing. I am not sure if this pain is new or old, nevertheless it is paralyzing. I have been through enough to know that in time I will get thru this too, but for now I carry this burden everywhere. I am holding tightly onto my animal friends and the nature I live with, drawing strength from their beauty and steadfast presence. I consider myself among the most blessed to have them in my life.

Today I decided to rise and try again, there is no other choice but to do so. So here I am reaching out again in the world and daring to step up to my challenges and move forward. I will be posting my inspirational findings here again on a regular basis, hoping it moves and helps anyone else. To tell you the truth I am not sure anyone even reads these. I do, and that is enough. If they help or change me in anyway, it helps and changes us all.

Love Pamela

Presence

2007-06-28T04:41:00.000-05:00

"Are you a God?" they asked Buddha. "No" he replied.
"Are you an angel, then?" "No."
"A saint?" "No."
"Then what are you?"
Replied the Buddha, " I am awake."

Houston Smith

Two Sides of a Fence

2007-06-20T04:33:00.000-05:00

The realities of our day-to-day waking consciousness and of these moments of liberation are so different that it is almost as if a mental fence divided the two. On one side of the fence, I am caught in my mind--in my thoughts, my anxieties, my judgements, and my fears. I may on occasion recognize that this is all unnecessary, and that it removes me from the present moment, but such passing insights are seldom sufficient to release my mind from the grip of my conditioning. So deeply ingrained is my attachment to what I believe I should be thinking and doing, there seems no way over that fence. Indeed, for much of the time I have totally forgotten there is another way of being.

But when, for one reason or another, I find myself on the other side of the fence, it all seems so simple. It is clear that I need do nothing to feel at ease and at peace. I know I am at peace. And I know that nothing can threaten this peace, for it is an intrinsic quality of life itself, not something that can be created or destroyed. It seems obvious that all I need do is relax and simply let go of my fears. How, I wonder, could I ever have gotten myself so muddled and entangled?

Mahatma Gandhi put it very clearly:

Detachment is not apathy or indifference. It is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachment to our opinions: we want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others' needs and understand how to serve them.

The Great Healing

2007-06-19T04:41:00.000-05:00

There are people in the world, some of our brothers and sisters, who are "in the struggle" every moment of their lives. They never have a moment of off time, or personal time. They wake up every day and continue on representing the best of all of us. They speak out against the injustices and falsehoods that permeate our culture.
I have been priveledged enough to know a few. Harvey Arden is on the top of my list. He tirelessly shows up every moment of every day to do what is right. He lovingly, and expertly records the words and thoughts of some of the most important human beings that ever walked among us.
One of these dear souls is Leonard Peltier. Here are some of his words. He wrote these sentences on scraps of paper and passed them onto to Harvey from his prison cell,( where he is wrongfully held for almost 30 years now), to reach the rest of us. He shares will us his heart and soul and perfected vision of our potential.

We must each be an army of one in the endless struggle between the goodness we are all capable of and the evil that threatens us all from without as well as from within. Yes, we can each be an army of one. One good man or one good woman can change the world, can push back the evil, and their work can be a beacon for millions, for billions. Are you that man or woman? If so, may the Great Spirit bless you. If not, why not? We must each of us be that person. That will transform the world overnight. That would be a miracle, yes, but a miracle with our power, our healing power.
To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust, and hatred. We will have to teach our children--as well as ourselves--to love the diversity of humanity. To heal we will have to make a conscious effort to live as the Creator intended, as brothers and sisters, all of one human family, caretakers of this fragile, perishable , and sacred Earth. To heal we will have to come to the realization that we are all under a life sentence together....and there's no chance for parole.
We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin.

Leonard Peltier

Prison Writings
My Life is My Sundance
Edited by Harvey Arden

www.haveyouthought.com

Mighty Matter

2007-06-18T03:55:00.000-05:00

Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock you who yield only to force, you who cause us to work if we would eat.

Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untamable passion: you who, unless we fetter you, will devour us.

Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever new-born, you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.

Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurements reveal to us the dimensions of God.

Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.
Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart of that which exists.

You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate,the sap of our souls,t he hand of God,the flesh of Christ: It is you, matter, that I bless.

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The World is Weird

2007-06-17T06:36:00.000-05:00

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while; in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it."

Don Juan

Journey To Ixtlan
The Lessons of Don Juan
Carlos Castaneda

Waiting our lives away

2007-06-13T04:23:00.000-05:00

Most of us spend our entire lives trapped--trapped and suffocating in a kind of limbo--trapped because, without even knowing it, we are always waiting. And that waiting is an experience of almost unbroken tyranny. We are trapped by the movement of time because we live in a constant state of anticipation--waiting, endlessly waiting, for the future to arrive. We live in this way because we believe that in the future our lives will somehow be better than they are now.

When our relationship to life is based upon waiting, it's not possible for us to know what it's like to truly be alive--because no matter what we may experience in the present moment, we will continue to wait. We won't stop waiting even when we are truly happy because, without realizing it, we will already be anticipating its demise. And in the very same way, when we experience fear and insecurity, we will also be waiting--waiting for that unpleasant experience to come to an end.

You see, on the most fundamental level we are always holding ourselves back. Because of this, we are unwilling to truly give, unable to trust and rarely ready to wholeheartedly engage with life. Indeed, if we look deeply, all we will see is waiting ----waiting for things to change, waiting to let go. Waiting is the never-ending meantime in which our entire lives unfold.

But there is a way out. And that way out is an absolute relationship to time. An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting.

If we truly want to be free, simply through the sincere comtemplation of what an absolute relationship to time means, we can liberate ourselves from the prison of waiting that we have chosen to live in. You see, in this contemplation, it soon will become clear that there is nothing to wait for. In fact, what will eventually reveal itself is the profound recognition that there is only one moment-- and this moment now always is and could only ever be that one moment. Indeed, when we discover this for ourselves, we will know without any doubt that there never has been anything to wait for--including even the experience of recognizing that there was nothing wait for! When we see this clearly, we simply stop waiting. And when we stop waiting, everything changes.

An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting absolutely for anything to occur in order to fully be.

Andrew Cohen
embracing heaven and earth

Waiting our lives away

2007-06-12T04:16:00.000-05:00

Most of us spend our entire lives trapped--trapped and suffocating in a kind of limbo--trapped because, without even knowing it, we are always waiting. And that waiting is an experience of almost unbroken tyranny. We are trapped by the movement of time because we live in a constant state of anticipation--waiting, endlessly waiting, for the future to arrive. We live in this way because we believe that in the future our lives will somehow be better than they are now.

When our relationship to life is based upon waiting, it's not possible for us to know what it's like to truly be alive--because no matter what we may experience in the present moment, we will continue to wait. We won't stop waiting even when we are truly happy because, without realizing it, we will already be anticipating its demise. And in the very same way, when we experience fear and insecurity, we will also be waiting--waiting for that unpleasant experience to come to an end.

You see, on the most fundamental level we are always holding ourselves back. Because of this, we are unwilling to truly give, unable to trust and rarely ready to wholeheartedly engage with life. Indeed, if we look deeply, all we will see is waiting ----waiting for things to change, waiting to let go. Waiting is the never-ending meantime in which our entire lives unfold.

But there is a way out. And that way out is an absolute relationship to time. An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting.

If we truly want to be free, simply through the sincere comtemplation of what an absolute relationship to time means, we can liberate ourselves from the prison of waiting that we have chosen to live in. You see, in this contemplation, it soon will become clear that there is nothing to wait for. In fact, what will eventually reveal itself is the profound recognition that there is only one moment-- and this moment now always is and could only ever be that one moment. Indeed, when we discover this for ourselves, we will know without any doubt that there never has been anything to wait for--including even the experience of recognizing that there was nothing wait for! When we see this clearly, we simply stop waiting. And when we stop waiting, everything changes.

An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waiting absolutely for anything to occur in order to fully be.

Andrew Cohen
embracing heaven and earth

Bless You

2007-06-10T07:10:00.000-05:00

May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunshine on you and warm your heart till it glows like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come and warm himself at it , and also a friend.

And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you , like a candle set in the two windows of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm, and may the blessings of the rain be on you--the soft, sweet rain. May it fall upon you spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up and shed their sweetness on the air. And may the blessings of the Great Rains be on you, may they beat upon your spirit and swash it fair and clean, and leave there many a shining pool where the blue of heaven shines, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of Earth be on you--the great round earth, may you ever have a kindly greeting for those you pass as you're going along the roads. May the earth be soft under you when you rest upon it, tired at the end of a day, and may it rest easy over when at last, you lay out under it; may it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be off from under it quickly and up and off, and on its way to God. And now may the Lord bless you all and bless you kindly.

Traditional Irish Blessing

What do you see?

2007-06-09T08:26:00.000-05:00

What do you see?
A whole world.

And each thing of this world delicate, dry, coloured. Follow with our eyes your fingers stroking the earth. Dry earth, fine, crumbled hollow, fragments of many-coloured stone, often fragments of many-coloured stone, often fragments of vases from a crumbled world. Look carefully: a plant, just discernible, just protruding above the surface, minute, very delicate, many coloured-you can just tell whether it is dead or living. Observe what is more visible, the stones beside you, the grass. Each pebble, each stone, each blade of grass, perfectly set, shaped most distinctly, imposing its features like an individual, like a person.

The Greek Line
Pericles Yannopoulos (1869-1910)

...was a much admired prose writer who took his life by riding horseback to his grave beneath the sea of Salamis, near Eleusis, at the age of forty-one.

Dawn

2007-06-08T04:23:00.000-05:00

Listen to the salutation of the dawn,
Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our
existence.

The bliss of growth, the splendour of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well spent makes every yesterday a dream
of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

Sanskrit Salutation To The Dawn

Gardens and Man's Mind

2007-06-07T04:24:00.000-05:00

A man's mind maybe likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought forces and mind elements operate in shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.

James Allen (1865)
As A Man Thinketh

Zero Circle

2007-06-06T04:18:00.000-05:00

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Rumi

Visions and Ideals

2007-06-04T04:44:00.000-05:00

The dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers. It cannot let their ideals fade and die. It lives in them. It knows them in the realities which it shall one day see and know.

Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, propher, sage, these are the makers of the afterworld, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, wil one day realize it. Columbus cherishes a vision of another world, and he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it. Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it.

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environments; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

As A Man Thinketh
James Allen

Prayers of Appreciation

2007-06-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

At the Heart of the Earth Prayer is a sense of belonging. Belonging is the basic truth of our existence. We belong here. Life belongs here. Likewise, at the heart of gratefulness, in its deepest sense, we also find an expression of belonging. When we say "Thank you" we are really saying "We belong together." That is why we sometimes find it so diffucult to say "Thank you" because we don't want to acknowledge our interdependence. We don't want to be obliged. But in a healthy society that is exactly what we seek: mutual obligations. Everyone is obliged to everyone and everything else; we all belong together, we are of each other. In this awareness we are freed from self-preoccupation and only then, emptied of self, can we be filled with thanks. As Brother David Steindl-Rast tell us, "Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise--then you will discover the fullness of your life."

Within this human impulse to gratitude flow the vast cycles of universal reciprocity--for everything that is taken, something has to be given in return. If you merely take in a breath and stop there, you will die. Likewise if you merely breathe out. Life is not giving or taking, but give and take. This is the dynamic expression of universal belonging expressed in our thanksgiving.

In the midst of a pragmatic world in which we constantly ask ourselves how "useful" things are, these prayers may seem "useless." Yet perhaps the greatest gift we humans have to offer the rest of creation is our heartfelt appreciation. The ability to receive in thankfulness the blessings of life is an awesome quality. We alone on this planet can reflect on all that surrounds us and through our loving recognition the rest of the Earth achieves a deep fulfillment.

Earth Prayers
From around the World

Self Generating Liberation

2007-06-01T02:41:00.000-05:00

It seems that lately I am dwelling on what real freedom is, what is liberation? We all want it, it seems. We fight for it, we are proud of it. What is it that really holds us back from having it. The more evolved of us know for certain what the problem is.....the rest of us are just beginning to understand the real root of the problem. The real reason we do not feel free, or feel that our freedom is threatened is our own selves, sadly there is no way around doing the real battle....moment to moment.....choosing to be free.
Below is more inspiration from Andrew Cohen, a brother that stands a little farther along the path encouraging the rest of us to keep moving along.

To be ignorant means that we are complusively making the wrong choices in a blind and deeply conditioned way. To be awake means that we are constantly making the right choices. Why? Because we can see. Because we know what it is that we are doing and why we are doing it. And because we no longer want to make the wrong choices. When we no longer want to make the wrong choices, we have finally been purified of the desire to choose ego to choose separation. It is then that we begin to see directly for ourselves how the law of karma actually works.

When we make the wrong choices over and over again, a karmic momentum is created. It's the accumulated momentum of having made unwholesome choices consistently over a long period of time. When we have chosen selfishness and separation hundreds of thousands of times, it eventually becomes a powerful momentum, a momentum that is actually self-generating. When it becomes self-generating the momentum begins to usurp the energy of the personality, ultimately taking control of it, propelling it forward in time. But the point is, we created this momentum. We created it by the choices that we made over and over and over again. That's why we so often say, "But I couldn't help it. It literally appears to be happening by itself, but only because of all the momentum behind it that has been accumlated over time.

the liberation teachings of
Andrew Cohen
Heaven and Earth

A Sudanese Prayer for the growing season

2007-05-31T08:11:00.000-05:00

A pattern of piety toward the Earth pervades the rites of a Sundanese clan. The sanctification of the forestand the friendliness and fertility of the earth were prayed for prior to the year's commencementof tilling the soil. The Keeper of the Clan Lands "makes right" the Earth as he stretches his armsout toward the forest and rivers, beseeching their goodness and grace and honoring their spirit:

O Earth, wherever it be my people dig, be kindly to them. Be fertile when they give the little seeds to your keeping.Let your generous warmth nourish them and your abundant moisture germinate them. Let them swell and sprout, drawing life from you, and burgeon under your fostering care; and soon we shall offer to you the first-fruits of your munificence, first-fruits of millets and oil of sesame, of gourds and cucumbers and deep-meshed melons.

O trees of forest and glade, fall easily under the axe. Be gentle to my people.
Let no harm come to them. Break no limb in your anger: crush no one in your
displeasure....

O rivers and streams, where the woodman has laid bare the earth, where he has hewn away the little bushes and torn out the emcumbering grass, there let your waters overflow. Bring down the leafy mould from the forest and the fertilizing silt from the mountains. When the rains swell your banks, spread out your waters and lay your rich treasures on our gardens.

Conspire together, O earth and rivers: conspire together, O earth and rivers and forests.
Be gentle and give us plenty from your teeming plenty. For it is I, Lomingamoi of the clan
Idoto, who speak, Keeper of the Clan Lands, Warden of the Forest, Master of the Clan.

Wonders Happen

2007-05-30T03:53:00.000-05:00

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions....For the god wants to know himself in you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Face Everything and Avoid Nothing

2007-05-29T04:48:00.001-05:00

This past holiday weekend, I meditated alot on what Memorial Day really means. What are memorializing? The individuals who gave up their lives, in hellish circumstances, so that we could maintain our lives with the special liberties we established our country with? Which brought me to the thoughts expressed below. What does being free really mean? Could it be the real sacrifice made by those memorialized is that they provided us with the oppurtunity to finally face and embrace real freedom.

What does it mean to face everything and avoid nothing? It means we have to ceaselessly inquire into the true nature of what it is that is motivating us to make the choices that we make. Do we have the humility to face into the aggressive and frighteningly selfish nature of many of our own actions? Do we have that kind of courage? Because if we refuse to face the darkest parts of ourselves, we will never be able to transcend them. Only if we truly want to be free more than anything else will we find the integrity of interest that will enable us to face everything and avoid nothing, no matter how diffucult or challenging it may be.

But facing everything means facing everything, not only our darkest impulses. Facing everything means that we dare to face wholeheartedly into the infinite depth of our own Self,
a depth that reveals a mystery so awe-inspiring that it simply cannot be imagined. Facing everything means facing inot our own infinite potential. But more often than not, we're simply not prepared to accept that which our mind cannot comprehend. Always living in denial of our darkness and ever fearful of the overwhelming brightness of our own unexplored heights, the inevitable result can only be mediocrity.

Peter Russell
Waking Up in Time

The Glory of God

2007-05-27T06:58:00.000-05:00

What is the glory of God? What is the defining expression of that which transcends yet includes all things?

The glory of God is the shattering realization that everything is always perfect. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things at all times, in all places, through all circumstances. Even earthquakes, disease and bloody warfare-- that's all the glory of God too. The glory of God is the inherent perfection of all things as they are. You see, from an absolute perspective, the eye of the Self sees only God and makes no distinctions whatsover. Heaven and hell, good and evil, everything known and unknown, seen and unseen are all recognized only to be different expressions of that one inconceivable mystery beyond name and form. Beyond all pairs of opposites, the glory of God is all there is--just absolute, incomparable perfection.

embracing heaven & earth

the liberation teachings of
andrew cohen

Crises and Opportunity

2007-05-24T04:22:00.000-05:00

Crises are generally seen as undesirable; they imply danger and potential misfortune. There are good reasons for this. A crisis is a signal that the old ways are no longer working and something new is called for. In such times, there can be very real danger: if appropiate responses are not made rapidly, the old order may begin to collapse.

This is all too possible for humanity today. If we do not address the deeper spiritual issues underlying the many problems we face, it is very likely that civilization will fall apart.

On the other hand, any crisis, big or small, personal or planetary, also presents an opportunity-something the Chinese seemed well aware of. Their word for crisis, wei-chi, is written as a combination of two characters, one meaning "danger," the other "opportunity." The opportunity may not always be easy to see, but it is always there. It is the chance to remedy what is wrong and move on to a new way of being.

In this respect, crises are a challenge-the challenge to recognize what is no longer working and seize the opportunity to learn, make changes, and progress. Thus, crises can play a crucial role in evolution.

There is a real opportunity nestling within our global crises: the opportunity to develop a new mode of consciousness- a new way of seeing and a new mode of consciousness-a new way of seeing and a new way of thinking. This could be the new evolutionary adaptation waiting to emerge. Not, as we have seen, a biological adaptation; there is no time for that, and even if we could genetically re-engineer ourselves, it would not hit at the heart of the problem. What the crisis is driving us toward is inner change, a transformation into truly wise human beings, no longer fettered by self-centeredness. It is driving us toward a new perception of ourselves, a new sense of purpose, a new way of being.

Peter Russell
Waking Up in Time

We are all one

2007-05-21T03:39:00.000-05:00

Long ago
the ancients say
this land was free
and we shared it all
with the mountains and the sea
the birds and the trees
we lived in peace
long ago
before those others came
and built fences
by cutting the trees
dug mines
by cutting the earth
removed her blood
the oil that lies within
formed long ago
like us
who lived in peace

the birds sang less
without the trees
the land became dry
without the birds
to plant the flowers
and we too became quiet
watching our mountains die
listening for the birds
that no longer flew-
but still we lived in peace

what sustained us
through all those years?
the nights of silence
and the songs of the frogs

for we know
as the ancients said
this land will again be free
and we will again share it all
with the mountains and the sea
the birds and the trees
for we still live in peace
and we wish you the same
for we are all one

The Bribri
Indigenous Costa Ricans

Sunday Morning Meditation

2007-05-20T06:57:00.000-05:00

As we are together praying for peace, let us be truly with each other.

Let us pay attention to our breathing.

Let us be relaxed in our bodies and our minds.

Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves. Let us maintain a half smile on our faces.

Let us be aware of the source of being common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion--towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters, all nourished from the same source of life.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us pray for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth. Amen

Thich Nhat Hanh

Green Guru

2007-05-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

Located in the state of Karnataka in southern India amidst forests and flowing rivers is an 800-year-old matha, or Hindu monastery. Known ast he SondaSwarnavalli Samsthana,it continues the ancient tradition of Adi Sankaracharya, the greatest exponetof Advaita Hindu philosophy.
Traditionally, the head of the matha is also a leader to the residents of the region in other ways. The present head, Shri Gangad-hareshwar Saraswati Swami, has gone beyond his prescribed duties to take on social and enviromental issues confronting the Sonda region. This vision has earned him the title of 'Hasiru Swamigalu' -- the green swami.

Despite India's rich spiritual heritage, globalization and the speed of development are distancingIndia from the roots of its wisdom, which lie in a deep reverence for nature.
Now, this spiritual leader is teaching people to see god in trees, forests and rivers once again. "Swamiji believes that the current disconnect between nature and religion is due to a misunder-standing of spiritually, inappropiate industrialization and stiff competition for survival in urban contexts.

Within a year of being named the leader of the matha, at the young age of 21, the swami led a six-day procession on foot along the Bedthi river to mobilize people to protest against a dam and a hydroelectric project that would have submerged most of the abundant forests of the region. Almost50,000 people gathered at the end of this procession and the government had to withdraw the project.

To the residents of Sonda who are mainly agrarian Brahmins, the swami is an inspiring fiqure, urging them to act to protect their natural environment. Everyone is welcome to join his movement regardless of their religious beliefs. Muslims and Christians respect him.

Over the years, even the government has begun to recognize the extent to which he inspires the hearts of the people. Environmentalists rely on him for his support and for the calm, apolitical quality he brings to the conservation movement.

His students, who come to get educated at the matha, learn about agriculture while tending its farms, and when they graduate they either become priests or return to farming, carrying with them a deep reverence fo the green gods of this earth.

www.swarnaganga.org
Story from Posiive News Hong Kong

Thought

2007-05-18T04:49:00.000-05:00

If we want to be free, it is essential that we begin to question the fundamental beliefs that our relationship to thought is based on. As we will eventually realize for ourselves, our potential for Liberation is, in the end, entirely dependent of kind of relationship that we have with thought.

If we sincerely aspire to be liberated from the tyranny of ego, from the nightmarish existence of the separate sense of self, then that liberation rests on the explosive recognition that thought is not self, that thought is only thought. This discovery--that thought has no inherent significance except that which we choose to give it ---is the essential insight on which liberation from ignorance and unenlightenment depends.

Heaven and Earth
the liberation teachings of
Andrew Cohen

The Blessing and the Burden

2007-05-16T04:14:00.000-05:00

We must understand that there are two ways we are free to follow, as we choose--the positive way or the negative way...the spiritual way or the material way. It's our own choice--each of ours and all of ours.

You yourself are the one who must decide. You alone--and only you--can make this crucial choice. Whatever you decide is what you'll be, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. You can't escape the consequences of your own decision. On your decision--yes, on your own personal decision--depends the fate of the entire World. We are the only species destroying Mother Earth!

You must decide. You can't avoid it. Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.

Did you think the Creator world create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?

My Grandmother once told me to understand that every person can have a good heart, a heart big enough to change the world! She said the Great Spirit wouldn't give us something we couldn't handle!

Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World.

Did you think you were put here for something less?

Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota & Nakota Great Sioux Nation

White Buffalo Teachings

Inner Evolution

2007-05-15T06:25:00.000-05:00

One area where we may see some of the most exciting developments is the exploration of human consciousness. We still know very little about how sensory perception leads to awareness and how ideas come into being. We have very little understanding about our feelings, or about the ways in which our attitudes affect our perception and behavior. And the inner self, that most intimate aspect of the conscious mind, remains as mysterious as ever.

This is the next great frontier: not outer space, but inner space. Moreover, research and development in this area is more than just an option; it has now become an imperative. .....The crises in which humanity now finds itself demand that we undergo a fundamental shift in consciousness.

Our power to change the world may have made prdigious leaps, but our internal development, the development of our attitudes and values, has progressed much more slowly. We seem to be as prone to greed, aggression, shortsightedness, and self-centeredness as we were 2,500 years ago, when the Greeks were extolling their ethical philosophies and the virtues of self-knowledge. Many good words have been spoken over the intervening years; but how many have been lived?

If we continue our evolutionary journey, it is imperative that we now make some equally prodigious leaps in our ability to transform our minds. We must wake up and develop the wisdom that will allow us to use our new powers for our own good and for the good of all.

This is the challenge of our times.

Peter Russell
Waking Up in Time

Happy Belated Mothers Day!

2007-05-14T04:10:00.000-05:00

At some point yesterday, in the middle of all of my doing things... I realized it is Mothers Day! I didn't even mention it on my Blog...hmmm..What was I thinking?! Who knows. But here is a belated Mothers Day wish for all of us Mothers, including our great Mother Earth. I wish that we will see the Most Great Healing promised in all the holy books and prophecies of peoples everywhere. I pray and wish that we see it in our lifetimes and that finally real peace reigns for all of our sons and daughters and that we can all finally embrace the magnificience of who and what we are and all that we have and that finally we start to create from the pure joy we feel at having a life here on Mother Earth.
Happy Belated Mothers Day to Mothers Everywhere!

A Mother's Day Poem to Ponder

As a newborn babe I crawl from my mother's womb
And stand on wobbly legs in the new world,
Wash the new body that has just been
So tenderly born from a lifetime of labor,
And walk to stand before the fire.
I raise my face to your infinite sky
And feel your touch of grace:
Your gentle raindrops kissing my skin,
Your singing wind that moves the trees,
The hot breath of your dancing fire,
Your wet, rich earth beneath my feet
O Spirit, I recognize you now:
My father, my mother, my unseen lover--
You've been here always in all things,
In all things has your spirit lived for me,
From all things has your spirit loved me.
Through all things has your spirit touched me.
And never was I left alone, nor could I be
In this truer world of holy people
And living stone.

Rochelle Wallace

Unnatural Creations

2007-05-13T06:51:00.000-05:00

Unnatural Creations?

Many think that humanity's creations are not natural in the same way as the results of biological evolution are. Why is this? We do not consider a beehive to be less natural than a bee, a beaver's dam less natural as a beaver, or a bird's nest less natural than a bird. Why should creations that come through the human mind and hand be any less natural?

Why do we think a lamppost is less natural than a tree? It is true that they were created in different ways. One is a product of biological processes, the other a design of the human mind. One is a living system and the other inamimate. We may judge one more beautiful than the other. But are they any different in the eyes of the Universe? Both are experiments in design. Both result from eons of evolution.

The different way we perceive many human artifacts stems from the effects they have on the world. When these effects do not seem to be in harmony with the rest of nature, we regard them as "unnatural." But the resaon they do not harmonize with nature is that the thinking that governs their creation and use is not in harmony with the rest of nature. Believeing we are masters of nature, rather than agents within it, we often use our unprecedented creative potential for our own ends, resulting in actions that do indeed separate us from the rest of nature. As a result, our creativity may frequently be misguided. But it is not unnatural.

Peter Russell
Waking Up in Time
Finding Inner Peace in Times of Accerlerating Change

An Exploitative Consciousness

2007-05-12T07:27:00.000-05:00

One of the most damaging consequences of looking to the world to satisfy our inner needs is that it results in a competitive mode of consciousness. Perceiving that our surroundings are limited in what they can provide, we compete for the things we believe will bring us happiness--fame, success, friends, promotion, power, attention, and money. Such competition is wasteful:

- It leads us to produce things that no one really needs.

- It encourages shortcuts in the name of financial expediency.

-It promotes blinkered thinking and shortsightedness.

- It causes us to care less for the earth than we do for our own well-being.

- It puts us in competition with Nature herself--insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides keep other species at bay so that we can more easily, and more profitably, accomplish our own ends.

We use---or perhaps one should say abuse---our surroundings, other people, and even our own bodies in our quest for greater satisfaction. This is the root of our exploitation of the world: the attitudes and values that come from believing that inner well-being is dependent on what we have or do. Money, power, and other things that people often blame are not the root causes; they are simply symptoms of a deeper underlying error in our thinking.

Everyday I pray that I am able to overcome these attitudes, all they are bringing are suffering for us all.

peace and love
pamela

A little Poetry

2007-05-11T05:03:00.000-05:00

Last Night As I Was Sleeping
by Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt--marvelous error!---
that a Spring was breaking out in my heart. I said:
Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming
to me, water of a new lifethat I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,I dreamt--marvelous error!---
that I had a beehivehere inside my heart.And the golden
bees were making white combsand sweet honeyfrom my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that a fiery sun was givnglight inside my heart.It was fiery
because I felt warmth as from a hearth,and sun because it
gave light an brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that it was God I had here inside my heart.

Patterns in Nature

2007-05-10T06:53:00.000-05:00

The Japanese philosopher Soetsu Yanagi states that "nature depends on pattern." "To divine the significance of pattern," writes Yanagi, "is....to understand beauty itself."

Pattern is a summing-up of a view of nature. Via pattern we see nature at its most wondrous. In a sense, an age without good patterns is an age that does not look at nature carefully....Pattern may be compatred to a spring of water that can be drawn on eternallly. To provide a source of imagination that never dries up--that , for me, is true beauty. Through patterns, the world and our won hearts are made beautiful....Pattern ....obeys (natural) laws....It is .... a hynm to nature's mysterious power. In pattern man gets a view of a mighty world transcending man.

In Yanagi's eyes, pattern is a transcendent experience of Nature

The Way of the Earth
T.C McLuhan

"The Aristotle of Japan"

2007-05-09T07:38:00.000-05:00

Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714) was a great teacher. He has been called the "Aristotle of Japan" as well as "the grandfather or forefather of macrobiotics." Nearly three centuries after his death, Kaibara Ekken, regarded by his contemporaries and later generations as " a major figure in Japanese intellectual history," in the words of religious scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker, feels like a familiar presence.

This spirit of Harmony exists not only in human beings but also in birds and animals and in plants and trees. Animals play, birds sing, fish leap, and plants and trees flourish, bloom, and ripen. All have this spirit of harmony....

The expansiveness of heaven and earth which is always replete before us is a source of great joy--the light of sun and moon; the continual return of the four seasons; the beauty of various landscapes; the changes from dawn to dusk in clouds and mists; the appearance of the mountain; the flow of the streams; the rustling of the wind; the moisture of the rain and dew; the purity of the snow; the array of flowers; the growth of fresh grass; the flourshing of trees; the diverse life of birds, animals, fish and insects. If we constantly appreciate this varied beauty of creation, our spirit of harmony will be ceaseless by expanding our mind-and-heart, purifying our emotions, cultivating a moral sense, enkindling joy, and washing away all regrets from our heart. This is called being in touch with the mysteries of heaven. This means by contact with external things our inner goodness is aroused.

Kaibar Ekken
In his essay
Way of Contentment

Healing the Whole

2007-05-08T04:27:00.000-05:00

During this time of great imbalance on planet Earth we may feel ourselves torn between the priorities of healing ourselves-resolving our own inner spiritual or pschological problems-- and attempting to cure the social and economic ills that beset our culture. While each of us undoubtedly has much inner work to do do, this attitude misses the main point of Earth Prayer. It continues to view the individual as somehow separate from the rest of the world. But if we accept that we are totally part of this living Earth, then we must recognize that isolated health is an illusion. Healing ourselves and working to resolve the contradictions in the human-
Earth ecology is the same work.

Have a great day, and do what you love!
Pamela

Can you handle it?

2007-05-07T03:25:00.000-05:00

This book...White Buffalo Teachings...was and is a highlight of my life. I helped to put this publication out to the world. I feel very proud of that, and I feel the responsibility of deepening in the wisdom held within the book. I use it to inspire myself whenever I feel a little overwhelmed. Healing the Earth is holy work, there is no question. It is the Great Healing we are all in need of, after all, our Earth is a reflection of our love for our Creation. It is a holy responsibility and our birthright.
Pamela

"We must understand the two ways we are free to follow, as we choose--the positive way or negative way...the spiritual way or the material way. It's our own choice--each of ours and all of ours.

You yourself are the one who must decide. Whatever you decide is what you'll be, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives. You can't escape the consequences of your own decision. On your descision--yes, on your personal decision--depends the fate of the entire World. We are the only species destroying Mother Earth!

You must decide. You can't avoid it. Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.

Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?

My Grandmother once told me to understand that every person can have a good heart, a heart big enough to change tthe world! She said the Great Spirit wouldn't give us something we couldn't handle!

Know that you yourself are essential to this World. Believe that! Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are deperately needed to save the soul of this World.

Did you think you were put here for something less?"

Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe
of the Lakota, Dakota & Nakota Great Sioux Nation

White Buffalo Teachings
www.haveyouthought.com

Lawns and Your Global Footprint

2007-05-05T06:53:00.000-05:00

Below you will find Safelawns.org Blog for May 1, 2007
It may be of some interest to you, if you are caring for your lawn this year.

May 01, 2007

Lawns and Your Global Footprint

Americans are finally waking up to what may well be the largest environmental challenge humanity has ever faced: the fact that we have reached the carrying capacity of the planet to recycle our wastes. It is a challenge involving ecological, economic and sociopolitical issues and regardless of where blame for the burden on the environment is placed – whether a particular nation, or agricultural system, or natural variation itself – the problem remains nonetheless. It is observable and it is serious. We all need to reduce our "carbon footprint" which is the amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide our individual lifestyles are responsible for.

Faced with this, every one of us wonders what we can do slow down what seems an inexorable slide toward an unpleasant future for our descendents. The problem is so large, that whatever we can do seems insignificant. But NASA researcher Christine Milesi managed to put some hard numbers on to one personal solution we've been talking about here on safelawns.org : namely, how you take care of your lawn affects your own family's carbon footprint.

Here’s some of what she found out:

How much turf is there? According to the NASA analysis, there are 31,630,000 acres of turf in the USA (almost 50,000 square miles). That is larger than Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Indiana, or equal to all the New England states put together (if you only include the southern half of Maine). In fact the state of Turfiana is the 32nd largest in the Union. All those yards and parks and golf courses add up!

How much water does it take? Irrigating all that lawn to an optimal state for growth would require about 200 gallons of water per person per day, depending on where you are and if you pay attention to the weather. Like gardens, lawns grow fastest with about an inch of water a week. If you subtract the amount contributed by rain and adjust that for the regional variations in humidity and evaporation, the average need is about 184 gallons per day per person. If you ignore the weather and just put on an automatic sprinkler, the figure rises to 238 gallons. That is a lot of water, especially in the arid parts of the country, which would fall at the top end of the spectrum.

Is Organic Better? Lawns, as it turns out, can be a boon in the fight against climate change and water pollution, but not all lawns are equal. Milesi found out that all that turf captures quite a bit of carbon from the atmosphere, a whopping 37 billion pounds per year if you mow high and leave the clippings on the surface (two key elements of organic lawn care). If you remove the clippings, that number drops by nearly two thirds, and if you send the clippings off to the landfill, then there decomposition actually makes climate change worse because it produces methane which is even worse than carbon dioxide.

What’s more, their study found that leaving the clippings in place made it possible to cut applications of synthetic fertilizers nearly in half, which means less runoff into streams and ponds, less groundwater pollution, and savings both in the energy needed to manufacture those fertilizers (also a climate change issue) and in the expense of cleaning up our water supplies.
To read the original article on Milesi’s work on the NASA website, visit http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Lawn/printall.php

Notes & References
Milesi, C., S.W. Running, C.D. Elvidge, J.B. Dietz, B.T. Tuttle, R.R. Nemani. (2005) Mapping and modeling the biogeochemical cycling of turf grasses in the United States. Environmental Management 36(3), 426-438.

a small note

2007-05-04T04:25:00.000-05:00

Today the forecast is BEAUTIFUL! Have a great day everyone, do what you love and enjoy yourself!
peace and love
pamela

Some of our own Invasive Weeds on Planet Earth

2007-05-03T03:54:00.000-05:00

So here are some of our worst weeds;

Blackberry. Perennial; spreads by underground stems; canes can grow 20-30ft. in one season.

Deep Rooted Weeds

Bindweed. Perennial; spreads by rhizomes, but seeds can lie dormant for 50 years before sprouting. Roots can penetrate 10ft. into the soil.

Dandelion. Perennial; reproduces by seed and roots; forms deep taproot.

Mallow. Annual or biennial; reproduces by seed; forms deep taproot.

Nutsedge. Perennial; spreads on tubers as deep as 18 in.

Thistle. Annual or biennial; and perennial; reproduces by seed; grows from deep, wide-spreading roots.

Shallow-Rooted Weeds

Purslane. Annual; spreads by seed or reroots from stem fragments. Easy to pull or hoe.

Spurge. Annual; spreads by seed. Easy to pull or hoe.

Rampant Reseeders

Creeping bellfower. Spreads by seed and deep-seated creeping rhizomes.

Groundsel. Annual; spreads by seed; often several generations in a year.

Yellow Oxalis. Perennial; reproduces by above ground runners and seeds. Seed capsules can shoot seeds as far away as 10ft. away.

Annual Grasses

Bluegrass. Annual (some perennial); sets seed rapidly in cool weather, often before plants can be pulled.

Crabgrass. Annual; spreads by seeds and rooting along the stems.

Perrenial Grasses

Bermuda grass. Perennial; spreads by rhizomes, aboveground runners. and seed.

Kikuyu grass. Perennial; spreads by rhizomes, aboveground runners, and seed. Few chemical controls effective.

In the Lyceum we are taught that all pests and invasive weeds are messengers. They are indicating an imbalance in the soil. It can be fun and challenging to solve the mystery of what is that particular message your soil to giving you. But like in the book "The Little Prince" with discipline and steadfastness you can achieve elimanating these culprits from your garden forever.

Have a great day!
Pamela

Litte Prince Wisdom

2007-05-02T04:09:00.000-05:00

Indeed, as I learned, there were on the planet where the little prince lived-- as on all planets--good plants and bad plants. In consequence, there were good seeds from good plants, and bad seeds from bad plants. But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken. Then this little seed will stretch itself and begin--timidly at first--to push a charming little sprig inoffensively upward toward the sun. If it is a only a sprout of radish or the sprig of a rose-bush, one would let it grow wherever it might wish. But when it is a bad plant, one must destroy it as soon as possible, the very first instant that one recognizes it .

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something that you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear throught it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabls are too many, they split it in pieces.....

"It is a question of discipline," the little prince said.....

The Little Prince
Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Elder's Meditation of the Day

2007-05-01T04:25:00.000-05:00

"Each of us must know in our minds and believe in our hearts that even though we are different, you are like me and I am like you."
--Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA

One of the definitions of humility is having an awareness of one's own character defects. To recognize and acknowledge that one has imperfections is being humble. We should never pray for ourselves unless by doing so it would help another person. To have self-importance puts self first and this is not humble. We each have strengths and we each have weaknesses. Both the strengths and weaknesses are sacred. Life is sacred. We learn sacred things from weaknesses also. Therefore, all lives are developed through trial and error, strength and weakness, ups and downs, gains and losses- all of these are part of life and life is sacred.

A Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse

2007-04-30T03:57:00.000-05:00

The Seventh Generation is now open us. Every generation is the Seventh Generation, and each generation has its special task, it's Instructions. Ours is global healing through World Peace and Prayer. That is this generation's task. That is my task...and that, my friend, is your task too. Our instructions from Wakan Tankan tell us to promote global healing, to teach peace and harmony to the many Nations of Mother Earth and to begin both a Great Healing and a Great Forgiving.

We must teach all the Peoples that Mother Earth is not a resource, but the very Source of Life itself. Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will overwhelm us.

So our generation has been put here to save all future generations. That's why we hold this World Peace & Prayer Day each year since 1996, because two years before that the White Calf Buffale Calf was born among us as a Sign both of Warning and of Deliverance. In a Prophecy, we were told we would be the key people to re-educate our relatives, teaching the medicines of balnace and harmony that our Mother Earth needs to survive. That's why I say that we are at a Crossroads, each of us and all of us- a Crossroads predicted in our Prophecies.

We ourselves stand at the very Crossroads of understanding the positive and negative influences that affect all Life yet to come. We ourselves--you and me and all of us---must make the right decision on behalf of the Seventh Generation.

But we have little time.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse

19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe
of the Lakota, Dakota & Nakota Great Sioux Nation

Corrected link for Codex petition

2007-04-28T07:30:00.000-05:00

Friends here is the corrected link for the petition to stop Codex...read article below and stop Codex from taking anyway our rights on this issue.

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/action/step3/petition-letter.shtml

Continuing the Urgent Message of Yesterday!

2007-04-26T04:14:00.000-05:00

Today's blog is the same as yesterday. This whole issue makes me nervous. I will continue to post this until April 30th. I hope we are able to avoid this horrible outcome. It would seriously cramp our style as a people.

Best Regards,
Pamela

PLEASE PASS ON! EXTREMELY URGENT!

2007-04-25T03:51:00.000-05:00

Subject: 4/30: The End of Vitamins, Organic Food, Holistic Health… This issue is HUGE! Nothing like this has ever confronted us before!

Read the facts below, and you’ll see that CODEX means The END of Vitamins, Supplements, Organic Foods, AND ALL FORMS OF HOLISTIC HEALTH CARE.

These would be outlawed except those things approved by the FDA as something that can be prescribed by a medical doctor. You will be unable to get most vitamins. Those you would be able to get prescribed by a doctor will only be in minute doses. As stated in the facts below, the World Health Organization estimates that Three Billion people could die from just the vitamin and supplement component of CODEX!

The deadline for public commentary on this is 4/30/07! The big pharma corporations behind this commissioned a report at the cost of $800,000 to suggest that CODEX would not affect the USA – it’s a lie, and we must stand up and be counted now!

The Law of 2: Here’s a simple strategy that can work. Democracy Now is a major news program that will cover this issue accurately if enough of us write to them demanding their coverage. So if each of us emails this out to our list, and then calls two good friends who you know care about holistic health issues and SPEAKS to them on the phone, and gets their commitment to: Ø

Email Democracy Now and Ø Sign up on the petition, …then 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, 16, 32, 64, 128… by the 25th iteration, we will reach more than 33 million people. That number would more than save our food, vitamins, and holistic health care! Here is the link for Democracy Now: mail@democracynow.org (Demand their coverage of CODEX and send them the facts below in the body of your email.)

Here is the link for the petition: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/action/step3/petition-letter.shtml Remember – we must each get two or more friends to take action if this is going to work. CALL your friends and get their commitment! Thanks! Following are some facts: We only have until April 30 to stop the elimination of vitamins, supplements, and organic foods.

Check out this Orwellian nightmare: Ø CODEX sets limits on dangerous industrial chemicals in foods that will allow incredibly high amounts of these toxic chemicals. Ø In 2001, 176 countries got together, including the USA, to ban the 12 worst POPs – Persistent Organic Pollutants. 9 of the 12 worst are pesticides. CODEX brings back 7 of the 9 forbidden POPs that all these countries agreed should be banned.

We would be unable to stop the importation of these foods from other countries – the United States would have to allow them. Ø CODEX makes the majority of current day nutrients, vitamins and minerals “illegal” – literally. Ø CODEX mandates that ALL food be irradiated, unless it’s eaten locally and raw. This includes organic foods. Ø

The new organic standard will allow farmers to use growth hormones, veterinary drugs, antibiotics, etc on animals. Ø Under CODEX, every dairy cow in the world must be treated with Monsanto’s Bovine growth hormone, RGBH. Ø Every animal on the planet used for food must be treated with antibiotics. Ø

A regular law can be overturned or repealed by another piece of legislation. But as long as we’re a member of the World Trade Organization, (WTO,) once CODEX is signed into law, it can never be repealed or overturned. So we must be certain the United States never becomes CODEX compliant. Ø

On April 30, 2007 the FDA will close the public comment period on CODEX. The National Nutritional Foods Association, (NNFA,) has members that include not just health food stores and manufacturers, they include Pfizer, Merck, Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Chemit, Eastman Chemical, Glaxo Smith Kline…

Counsel for Responsible Nutrition, (CRN,) has the same members. These pharmaceutical companies have even commissioned a report at the cost of $800,000 which says it won’t impact the United States.

Everything is fine. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep. The petition that we can sign is not a common petition that is just saying “all of us want such and such” that they can dump in the waste basket.

This petition is a Citizens’ Petition that is actually a legal challenge against the US Government. It states that we want hearings of fact and redress. This is a revised petition that supports a lawsuit that includes protecting our rights to vitamins and minerals. Under the Get Involved link at the top, there is a link to Email Congress. In that email, please tell them that we want a Congressional briefing, and that we want Rima E. Laibow, MD, to brief them.

A shining peaceful day

2007-04-23T04:33:00.000-05:00

Good Morning,

Another beautiful day is arriving. High 70's! It is so relaxing and glorious! I hope wherever you are you are experiencing gentleness and peace.

My thoughts are drawn back to our Native brothers and sisters. My appreciation of my life, of my right to my life and of our Mother Earth came about with their help. As far as I am concerned I owe them my life. I like to bring their thoughts and hopes and dreams to the world, whenever possible. It keeps my experience here very very real. Here are some words from a noted Alaskan Poet and Writer.

I recall with startling clarity and longing every detail of the land, the river, the people....Alaska mesmerizes my spirit, and I finger the thoughts like beads of prayer. I still feel the crush of the last bed of wild violets in the Aleutian hills where one day I flung myself down in a rapture, knowing who I was, what the wild violets meant. Alaska is my talisman, my strength, my spirit's home. Despite loss and disillusion, I count myself rich, fertile, and magical.
I tell you now. You can go home.

Mary Tall Mountain
Koyukon Athabascan writer and poet

Have a great day!!

Some more News Please Read!

2007-04-22T06:20:00.000-05:00

We only have until April 30 to stop the elimination of vitamins, supplements, and organic foods.

CODEX sets limits on dangerous industrial chemicals in foods. And those limits are incredibly high.

In 2001, 176 countries got together, including the USA, to ban the 12 worst POPs – Persistent Organic Pollutants. 9 of the 12 worst are pesticides. CODEX brings back 7 of the 9 forbidden POPs that all these countries agreed should be banned. We would be unable to stop the importation of these foods from other countries – the United States would have to allow them.

CODEX makes the majority of current day nutrients, vitamins and minerals “illegal” – literally.

CODEX mandates that ALL food be irradiated, unless it’s eaten locally and raw. This includes organic foods.

The new organic standard will allow farmers to use growth hormones, veterinary drugs, antibiotics, etc on animals.

Under CODEX, every dairy cow in the world must be treated with Monsanto’s Bovine growth hormone, RGBH.

Every animal on the planet used for food must be treated with antibiotics.

The World Health Organization, (WHO,) estimates that just the vitamin and mineral guideline alone, when it goes into global implementation, would result in 3 billion deaths – 1 billion through starvation, and the other 2 billion would die from preventable diseases that could have been avoided or cured though using supplements, etc. The global population is something like six and a half billion people currently.

A regular law can be overturned or repealed by another piece of legislation. But as long as we’re a member of the World Trade Organization, (WTO,) once CODEX is signed into law, it can never be repealed or overturned. So we must be certain the United States never becomes CODEX compliant.

On April 30, 2007 the FDA will close the public comment period on CODEX. The petition that we can sign is not a common petition that is just saying “all of us want such and such” that they can dump in the waste basket. This petition is a Citizens’ Petition that is actually a legal challenge against the US Government. It states that we want hearings of fact and redress. This is a revised petition that supports a lawsuit that includes protecting our rights to vitamins and minerals. The National Nutritional Foods Association, (NNFA,) has members that include not just health food stores and manufacturers, they include Pfizer, Merck, Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Chemit, Eastman Chemical, Glaxo Smith Kline… Counsel for Responsible Nutrition, (CRN,) has the same members, and lots of Multi-Level Marketing companies. These pharmaceutical companies have been seeing the profitability and growth of vitamins and supplements. So they’ve been buying the supplement companies up. And they are supporting CODEX to effectively eliminate our access to vitamins and minerals. Why? Because long-term illnesses and selling people pharmaceuticals for life, etc, is much more profitable than a healthy population. These organizations are supporting CODEX and trying to convince us that CODEX is not a problem. All they have to do is keep us asleep until CODEX is passed. They use a report that they commissioned at the cost of $800,000, which says it won’t impact the United States. Everything is fine. Don’t worry. Go back to sleep. Every email, fax, and phone call to Congress counts as 13,000 constituents because they estimate that if you emailed, there are 12,999 others who would say the same if they knew, or if they were not too lazy or otherwise wrapped up in their own lives to do something. So that’s power folks. So your action counts hugely! Congress has one rule – “Get reelected.” Currently most all Congressional members are completely unaware of CODEX. So we must make them aware that we care enough to speak up in mass and demand that it be thrown out. Here’s what you can do: On the www.healthfreedomusa.org website, there is: 1) A video that you can watch to educate yourself. 2) There is a link just below the video to sign the Citizens petition. 3) Under the Get Involved link at the top, there is a link to Email Congress. In that email, please tell them that we want a Congressional briefing, and that we want Rima E. Laibow, MD, to brief them. 4) Also on the front page is a place to sign up for their email list. When you sign up, they promise not to give your information to anyone, but they will email you with updates when it is important for us to take action. If you’ve read this far, you know how important this is. Please take the steps above AND pass this along to your own email list. Further, since many people will not even read something big and scary like this, please pick up the phone and start calling your friends to inform them on how important it is for all of us to speak up. Congress has tried to trash the organic standard year after year. It is only the result of 40,000 people emailing, calling, and signing petitions that they have backed down to the extent they have. It is only through people demanding what is reasonable that we have a 40-hour work week, worker safety rules, environmental protections, and any semblance of social justice. The only way a democracy works is if each of us speaks up. Peace, Cole

A bit of News

2007-04-21T08:23:00.000-05:00

Shep Ogden to Lead National Campaign for Natural Lawn Care

Organic gardening pioneer Shephard Ogden has been named executive director for SafeLawns.org a new national effort to help Americans learn how to grow their lawns using natural products and techniques.

Mr. Ogden founded Cooks Garden, one of the nation's premier seed and supply companies, in 1983. He has been an author, lecturer , comsultant and market gardener for 30-years and his five gardening books are sold throughout the world.

Ogden will champion the health, social and economic ad-vantages of organic lawn care. "The chemical solutions that have been sold to homeowners over the last 50 years are clearly antithetical to the health needs of Americans and are no longer the best way to achieve a beautiful green lawn. Chemical companies have spent millions persuading us that we need a chemical solution. But we want to let American families know they have been sold a poisoned bill of goods."

Lawns currently cover 40 to 50 million acres in the U.S. and mostare grown with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. A growing body of research finds that synthetic chemicals are known to pollute soil and water and cause health problems for humans and animals. The resources and short informational videos available at www.safelawns.org will be geared toward promoting natural alternatives.

Green Living Magazine
A Practical Journal for Friends of the Enviroment