Citizens of America

During his traditional holiday rant my dad bellered

"In MY day, the newspapers called people citizens! The Citizens did this, The Citizens said that...Now they all call us CONSUMERS!"

Hmmm, the old bird actually gave me pause for thought on that one.

Once Upon a Time...

The term fairy tale brings to mind a children’s story, but the truth is that these tales are in fact, parables of history.

Some feminist researchers have interpreted these tales of “the persecuted heroine” as a negative influence on young girls, citing that the women in these stories need a man to “save them.” While it is true that this could send the wrong message to our youth, a deeper meaning behind these tales points to the liberation of women, and leads to a beautiful concept of harmony and balance. It is a spiritual teaching that calls out to us from the ancient past. It is a lesson that will not die, even though it has been suppressed, repressed, persecuted, attacked, and twisted for centuries.

In olden times, it was common for all religious teachings to take the form of parable. We all know that the New Testament stories of the shepherd and his flock are not lessons in animal husbandry. They are parables for religious teachings.

Fairy tales are the same. In order to decipher them and find their message, we need only grasp the concepts behind the Olde ways, and remember these people and their history.

The fairy Tales and children’s songs that have survived over the centuries tell the story of the persecution of Pagans by the European Theocracy, and preserve a history that would otherwise be lost, if spoken of openly.

Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel are examples of oral folk stories that carry the hidden history of Earth Based Matriarchal world view of pre Christian Europe. These maidens were pricked with needles, subjected to evil spells, fed poisoned apples, demoted from places of status, or condemned to servitude. The maiden in the parable is not of the thousands of women who were burned, or tortured by the church; the Maiden is the symbol of the BELIEF SYSTEM that was under attack.

The “Wicked Step Mother” is the character who enters the story and wreaks havoc in the formerly peaceful life of the maiden. The stepmother is a woman of great power and standing who wants to take over, and supplant herself in place of the maiden. She loathes the maiden, and everything her spirit represents The stepmother is the symbol of the violent censorship of the rising patriarchy. She is not the real mother, The Great Mother, The Earth Mother, she is a false mother, who is trying to step in and take over.

The Maiden draws her wisdom from her connection to nature. This is the basis of all Matriarchal religion. It is a theology built upon observation of the natural world and the cycle of the seasons. Often these tales tell of forest animals or forest people, like dwarfs or fairies, who come to her aid, when the stepmother attempts to harm her.

When you read a tale of a young maiden, being poisoned, or locked away by the wicked step mother, while she waits for her hero to save her so that they can take their place as king and queen, you are hearing the history of how patriarchy wiped out matriarchy, and how the "mother church" sought to destroy the theology of The Divine Couple and usurp their sovereign rule. The message is everywhere, once you learn to see it.

The core message is always the same: The kingdom is in ruin, even nature is dying, and all will be destroyed unless the Maiden frees herself from the clutches of evil, often in the form of a step mother, witch or wolf. Once she calls upon her allies of the forest, her prince appears and they live happily ever after. Its not that he saves her, but that she holds true to the purity of her values. This is what drives him to seek her out.

When we look at the old hero myths, we always find that the hero seeks the maiden at the tree of life, where he is rewared with the fruit of knowlege. (The apple, pumpkin, basket of fruit for grandma, etc are all symbols of this idea.) The reason for the hero is simply that Earth Based religions work in harmony with the Prime Biological Imperative: to mate and create new life.

This passing on of DNA is our link to eternity. Its natures way. So its not a question of the helpless girl being saved, its a matter of the maiden holding on to her values, and thus she and the prince are both rewarded with the gift of each other, the result being that the kingdom comes to life again and they all live happily ever after.

Rumplestiltskin and the Grail Story of King Arthur both require the seeker to “Name the helper.” In other words, the seeker must be aware of a secret truth before the wish is granted. This secret is what makes the failing kingdom whole again.

The Little Mermaid enters a pact with the witch and attempts to conform (grow legs and walk on land) in order to unite with her prince.

The Three Little Pigs must unite and build a house strong enough to keep the wolf at bay.

Little Red Riding Hood is about not being fooled by the wolf disguised as the grandmother. It is interesting to note that the girl in the story wears red. The red robe was a symbol of the Essenes, worn by their highest ranking women priestesses. Jesus was a member of this priestly group, and there is a direct correlation between the traditional robes of the Essene women, and the robes worn by the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. Further, it must be noted that in olden times, a “Woman in Red” was a sign of a woman who held high office as a spiritual leader. The symbolism is ironically, quite different today.

The examples are ample enough to fill volumes of books. So rather than bore you with any more, dear reader, I will bid you good hunting as you seek the deeper meanings in the fairy tales you encounter, and live happily ever after.

Remember:

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away."

Iraq Pull Out

Words are such a powerful thing. The way we say things is just as important as the meaning behind the message. For example, telling guys "pull out" goes against the grain of the male psyche, even when its just a conversation about politics.

Maybe it would be better to ask them to "Ejaculate" our forces from Iraq.

That might get the boys excited.

Without Gays, Humans would be Extinct

I am not gay, nor am I scientist or credentialed philosopher. I am just an average woman who claims the right to think her own thoughts, and develop her own ideas. I don’t presume to ask that you agree with me, but I do hope that if you venture to read this, it will lead you to create some new thoughts of your own.

My hobbies involve animal rehab and mythology. A weird mix to be sure, but a mix that has led me to an interesting theory: The survival of the species is dependant on the Gay and Lesbian population!

The seed of this strange little thought came when I was blogging with a wonderful musician and poet, who happens to be gay, and I posed the following question:

I’m curious…
I have done a bit of study into what we call The Prime Biological Imperative: Which basically means that males are instinctively driven to spread their seed, and females are driven to find a long term mate, and that both of these contradictory strategies are used to ensure survival of the species.
When one is Gay, there must be question, deep in the mind, about giving up the ability to pass on DNA. In addition, I wonder which forces are stronger…the male drive to spread seed, or the female drive to pair?
One might assume that each individual hashes this out, but when I look at all the things we do, as an unconscious part of this imperative, I suspect that being gay does not free one from those instinctual bonds.
For example: I always tell women that the reason they wear make up, is not to look pretty, but because when a woman is sexually receptive, her lips and cheeks swell and redden. It’s a signal to men. Make up is just a tool to get seed spreading fella’s to pair up and hang around!
When a husband or wife separate for a day or two, for out of town trips or whatever, the male will always instigate sex on return. Why? Not because he missed her, but because he knows that, other males had potential access to her, and if he makes love to her, his sperm will kill off the other sperm.
There are many examples of this in scientific literature, but I have never read anything about how it effects the gay/lesbian population.
Any clues?

The response from my insightful friend was, “I can say from experience, the male gay culture is built around sex, and judgment of physical appearance is harsh. It’s a superficial culture.”

So I started thinking about homosexuality in the animal kingdom, and what role this plays in the survival and propagation of various species, and why it might be a “superficial culture.” If homosexuality exists in animals and humans, and has existed for all of history, then it must serve a purpose as a function of the Prime Biological Imperative (PBI).

There have been many studies, which show how we are sexually attracted to people with beautiful features. This type of visual selection ensures that only the best DNA is passed forward. The stereotypical male often puts little if any focus on “beauty”. So, since we know that a certain percentage of gay people do pass on their DNA, maybe we can surmise that this harsh “judgment of physical appearance” by the bachelor bonding groups, serves an important function in the overall survival of the species.

After all : “In animals in which “bachelor groups” form, such as bison, gazelles, antelope, sage grouse and Guinean cocks-of-the-rock, it is not uncommon for same sex pair bonds to form and last until one or the other member of the pair departs the relationship and breeds.” So maybe, that small percentage of the gay population that breaks off and breeds, is the key group that stimulates the striking beauty of the male physique.

You know what the girls always say: “All the good looking guys are either married or gay!” So basically, Gay men are the influence responsible for keeping all men attractive enough for women to be willing to mate with.

As for lesbians, I think there is a different PBI. I think that this goes WAAAAY back to our ancient ancestors. Very early societies were much like deer herds, where women and children formed the core group, while the males stayed off to the side in bachelor hunting groups, thus females would pair up as partners and parents. Women learned to rely on each other, trust each other and nurture each other, as only women can. Some found that they had little need for men.

In the book Who Cooked the Last Supper, Rosalind Miles states: “At no point in prehistory did women, with or without children, rely on their hunting males for food…Meat from the kill comes in irregularly and infrequently…women regularly produce as much as 80 percent of the tribe’s total food intake, on a daily basis…In the myth of Man the Hunter, he invents the family by impregnating his mate and stashing her away in the cave…But in contradiction to this Big Daddy scenario, a mass of evidence shows that the earliest families consisted of females and their children, since all tribal and hunting societies were centered on and organized through the mother. The young males either left or were driven out.”

So it makes sense that women would form same sex pair bonds to ensure the survival of each other and their offspring, and that men would create same sex pair bonds, focused on physical attraction, to ensure that they could get some access to that magical link to eternity called DNA.

What really amuses me about this little, amateur theory of mine, is that the social persecution of the religious homophobics to “convert” Gays, is also just a function of the PBI. Their misguided and judgmental efforts for conformity actually serve to keep the Gay DNA in the gene pool!

Now, I don’t know if my idea has any real merit, or if someone smarter has already thought of it, but I do know that we are all who we are for a reason, and that there is a divine purpose for everything.

What do you think?

Thanksgiving: A Native American View

by Jacqueline Keeler


I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.

This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.

Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead.

I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes.

When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry -- half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food.

These were not merely "friendly Indians." They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all -- the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving.

To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves.

Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people.

In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil.

I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism.

Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused.

Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.

Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux works with the American Indian Child Resource Center in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in Winds of Change, an American Indian journal.

Quiz: (for smart people only)

Q: The two preceding posts might seem quite different in voice and philosophy, but they are not. Can you figure out the connection?

Spirit Teacher

When we come across certain animals in our lives it can be an indication that they are put in our path to give us messages from Spirit.


"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.“

~Chief Seattle~

***Part of the Role for the two-legged beside whom Red Tailed Hawk flies is that as Guardian of the Earth Mother. To hold an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things, and will have an inner reverence for all life.

To be involved in making the world a better place, encouraging and educating ~Others~ to do the same.

Intelligent Design

Well, maybe he did darling, but I myself am intelligently Designed.

BRILLIANT !!!!!!

Sand + Lightbox + Orchestra + Korean Genius = AMAZING

This Google Video is Brilliant !

http://gvod.blogspot.com/#113177271659550883

Who would you be?

I came across a blog that asked women what man they would be if they could come back and live another life. Most of the responses were movie stars. (Imagine that.)

What was really funny, is that I posed the oppositie question to my husband. He found it quite difficult to think of an answer. For that matter, I struggled more too. Most of the women I admire overcame a great deal of adversity. It was a tough trick thinking of one whose life I would want to live.

I did eventually come up with a few names. What about you? Who would you be?

Vintage Magazine Ad - Ya gotta Love it!

Always a Good Read

Today I am adding
Adam Ash to my blogroll. Adam describes himself as "Your daily entertainment scout. Books, thoughts, laughs, and links from a lit-crazy NYC writer."

He tirelessly scours the net for thought provoking content, posting excerpts from books, mags, and rags, on politics, religion, feminism and sex. In addition, he offers a weekly dose of poetry to calm the soul and feed the spirit.

While some of his posts reflect on deep philosophy, often the content is racy, sexually explicit, and edgy.

It's not the kind of blog Aunt Bea would be reading to the ladies club in Mayberry, but for the rest of us, it's dandy literary candy!

Here is an excerpt of his work:

"THE QUESTION is not really why do you blog? But, which blogs do you read? What blog community do you count yourself in? I think blogging is a quest for community more than expression. I blog to put what I think out there, but mostly to share what I read. Look at my blogroll, those are my faves. I grab from them and over a 100 other places to put the most interesting stuff in front of you -- and in front of myself. Of course I have my own predilections: I like sex, dope, books, philosophy, futurism; I hate Bush; so you're going to get a lot of that. I also go off on my own rants, like the bit about marijuana that starts my long post about it a few posts down. There's a bunch of bloggers I love and count myself among (even though they don't necessarily know me), and it's my sincere hope that in reading what you read here, you will eventually end up reading the bloggers I love, too"

Modern Medicine

I went for my annual physical last week. It played out like this:

Scheduled with receptionist who confirmed my insurance
Saw Nurse
Saw Doctor
Met with Doc. Assistant re: RX, and test scheduling
Sent to lab to have blood drawn by a nice chit chatty lady
Scheduled pap test with OBGYN receptionist
Saw OB nurse
Saw OB Doc
Pap sent to lab to be tested by someone I will never meet
A computer calls me to say my "Pap results fall within normal limits. Press 1 to repeat this message."
Sent to riverside hospital for mamogram
-Sent to in take person who keyed in my entire financial history
-Sent to waiting room 1
-Greeter takes me to waiting room 2
-Met with Mamogram tech
- Results are sent to a doc I will never meet
Sent to Saint Anns Hospital for X-Ray and Echo Cardiogram
-Greeted by Welcome desk
-Sent to sign in desk
-Sent to in take person who keyed in my entire financial history
-Sent to Echo cardio receptionist
-Met with Echo Tech.
-Echo results were sent to a doc I will never meet
-Sent to X-Ray receptionist
-Met with X-Ray tech
-X-Rays sent to another doc I will never meet.
Sent to third doc for sleep apneia test
-Sent to in take person who keyed in my entire financial history
-Greeted by receptionist
-met with nurse
-met with Doc
This doc schedules me for a sleep clinic at another location with other techs.
Took RX to pharmacy
pharmacist tells me the drugs my Doc ordered are not on the list of meds approved by my insurance company and that I should get on the internet, print off the list of approved drugs and take the list to my doc asking him to write a new scrip.

So far, we are up to 28 people, not including the insurance people, the sleep clinic people, or the computer who called me and gave me the only useful information so far. This list also excludes many of the behind the scenes people who work for these institutions.

Does anybody wonder why health care is unaffordable?

The philosophy of REDUCTIONISM that has spurred the advances of modern medicine has run amok. It has reached a critical mass of reducing everything within the system. Balance is the key to all things. Western medicine must balance itself with HOLISTIC principles and put an end to this insanity.

If all of these people were trained as holistic wellness providers, I would have preventative healthcare twice a month year round. Studies show that prevention care is less expensive and more effective than crisis care.

Whew! This one too me all day to write...

Wax Philosophic
By Kelley Bell

In old Europe, the individual was taught to believe that their personal worth was naught. They understood themselves to be insignificant parts of the whole. Just imagine a poor illiterate serf walking into one of the grand stone churches, during the middle ages. The massive scale of the walls, combined with the ornate trimmings, and holy reverence; the walls themselves spoke, loud and clear, to the impoverished masses:

You are tiny. You are irrelevant. GOD is ALL.

Behind this message, was the conflicting idea that each individual had a chance for redemption. The lowly serf could earn entry into the gates of heaven by taking a vow to Love God, by means of committing loyalty to the Church.

The Clergy taught these people that their lives were meaningless without God, and the Church was partially right. People who joined, found that there was indeed a spiritual component to life, that added a fourth dimension to the human experience. The dogma of the church brought meaning, order and hope in the form of entertaining stories and moral parable.

The Church served a purpose. It made it possible for the ignorant uneducated toiling masses, to enter the world of philosophy, and reap the rewards spiritual consciousness, without paying the price, of a lifetime of study. It also served a political purpose, as it used the pulpit to organize communities into coherent cooperatives of social order.

Along comes Renee Descartes, the mathematical philosopher, with his concept of The Mechanical Universe. The world, and everything in it, he argued, could be explained in terms of a machine, like a clock.

Clocks were a very new thing, and watching a clock tick off the seconds was an amazement; a changing force in society. Descartes mused on a Reductionist platform that turned the world on its ear. Illness was not a function of evil spirits infecting the unrepentant sinner in need of exorcism, but simply a function of a machine whose parts were broken. He did not need the church to explain the world to him; he claimed that he could figure that out for himself, through scientific observation of the machine.

This was a HUGE SHIFT for humanity, and a severe demotion for The Pope!

Secular Humanism was born from this idea. Secular Humanism is a Renaissance era philosophy of self-realization. It. advocates reason over religion, centering on the values, capacities, and worth of the individual. Scientific thinking flourished from the seed of this radical new worldview. Modern Medicine departed from spiritual shamanism, and turned to the mechanics of the body, looking at each piece and part of the machine. The philosophy of Reductionism took hold in the Age of Reason.

The Wax Argument was Descartes proof that "what I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind." He describes a piece of wax, its shape, smell, color, etc. Then he heats it with a flame. The wax changes, but he realizes that even though it is now liquid, it is still wax. His senses are describing something completely different from the solid, yet in his mind, he knows that it is still wax. Therefore, he concludes that he cannot use his senses to interpret the world. (Thus, we have the famous term, "To Wax philosophic.")

Descartes would love the more modern experiment where a scientist created a pair of glasses from two prisms, which caused him to see everything upside down. After about a week of wearing his Prism Spectacles, his brain figured out a way to reinterpret the data, and he suddenly began to see everything right side up, even though he was still wearing the glasses! When he took them off, his brain made him see everything up side down again. Slowly, over a period of days, individual objects, like cars and trees would flip back upright in his topsy turvy vision, and then eventually the whole world righted itself again.

What does this tell us about the way we perceive the world? It should tell us that our perceptions could be flawed, that nothing is concrete. It should teach us to question and test all of our beliefs, and then test them again.

The time has come for humanity to once again test its topsy turvy views, and turn things up side down. The mechanistic thinking of Descartes was wonderful in its era, and led us to where we are now. But what was once hailed as a grand new view of the universe, is now just another flawed system of thinking. Modern medicine would not exist without Descartes, but a mechanist view of the body is now revealed to be an oversimplification of living systems. The old mechanics of primitive machines have been replaced with nano chips and lasers. The world has changed, as it must. We must change with it. We can no longer hold on to our Reductionist, Mechanistic views, any more than the people of the Middle Ages could hold on to their supernatural views.

Plato's Theaetetus defined knowledge as “justified true beliefs”. One cannot be said to "know" something just because one believes it. A sick person, who believes he will get well, just might recover, but that does not mean that the belief is responsible for the healing. The belief lacks justification. Knowledge, therefore, is distinguished from belief by justification. We must use this questioning and justification principle to solve our problems, and that means reevaluating everything we believe.

I believe that we stand now at the beginning of a new age, a time when we are embattled in a war of ideas, struggling to determine which ones will stand up to Plato's Theaetetus, and which ones will diminish. Letting go is hard, as Galileo and Bruno could attest. These progressive thinkers were imprisoned and burned at the stake for daring to challenge the model of the cosmos promoted by The Church. The Church felt threatened, because such a shift of ideas would diminish its power. So the Church fought back. The violence we are seeing today mirrors the violence of the Inquisition. The people in power fear new ideas because they know that the power base will change. They cling to the old and push extreme fundamental views with violent fervor. It is violence based on fear.
We fear change. We fear the unknown. We fear any idea that threatens our beliefs. It is part of the human condition. Just as the abused child will emphatically defend the neglectful parent, society also clings to what it has known, without regard for what is best.

Religion has fought against the forces of secular humanism for centuries, to the benefit and detriment of us all. Both models have served humanity, and both have failed. Both have limitations. Here lies the dichotomy of the human condition. While we fear change, we also have a deep drive to expand our minds, solve problems, and go beyond all limitation. Maybe that is why we cling so desperately to God, for death is the ultimate limitation, and in our minds, we must transcend.

Systems Theory and Quantum Physics will be the next step of transcendence. Systems Theory teaches that we are all part of the whole. The tree can not live without the birds who eat its fruit, the bees who pollinate the flowers, the worms who till the soil, or the oxygen breathing mammals that surround it. The tree can not be seen as a mechanical thing in a Reductionist model. It must be seen as part of a huge interdependent living system. Quantum Physics teaches what the things in the system are made of, at a sub atomic level. Here we learn that everything is made from the same basic stuff: Atoms and electrons, and energy. We learn that this energy is not solid, not static, but dynamic. We learn that matter is not even a thing at all, but a probability, and oh, how that changes our perceptions of the world!

As science explores these realms, new ideas will filter into our shared perception of reality, and alter our belief systems. Our prism spectacles will not only turn things upside down, but inside out, and upside in. We will accept science as a way of explaining the Universe, and with this knowledge, we will again ask the age-old questions: Why are we here? What is our purpose? What is the origin, structure and meaning of life?

When we do this, we will find new answers, answers that will, (hopefully,) promote a peaceful cooperative, for a sustainable environment, with reverence for the human need to be part of a community. We will create new spiritual beliefs, built upon the synchronicity of science, and the epiphany of human experience. We will restructure our communities by replacing hierarchal models of control, with philosophies that flow in harmony with nature. This is the feminine principle. It is a model for humanity that tells us that we are part of the universe, just as the universe is part of us. It teaches that we are no more or less important than any other living thing, in spite of our limited point of view.

The time is near when we must leave the house of Our Father, and venture into the world on our own. We must find our own path, build our own home, give birth to new ideas, and watch the world evolve once again.

Thought for the Day

"As Joseph Cambell said, “Follow your Bliss”. Exploration has risks, and I think they are worth it. But as I mature, I realize the memories of a thousand adventures mean little without friends and family to share your excitement."

-Garnet of The Glittering Muse

Elder's Meditation

"The honor of the people lies in the moccasin tracks of the woman. Walk the good road.... Be dutiful, respectful, gentle and modest my daughter... Be strong with the warm, strong heart of the earth. No people goes down until their women are weak and dishonored, or dead upon the ground. Be strong and sing the strength of the Great Powers within you, all around you."

--Village Wise Man, SIOUX

The Elders say the Native American women will lead the healing among the tribes. We need to especially pray for our women, and ask the Creator to bless them and give them strength. Inside them are the powers of love and strength given by the Moon and the Earth. When everyone else gives up, it is the women who sings the songs of strength. She is the backbone of the people. So, to our women we say, sing your songs of strength; pray for your special powers; keep our people strong; be respectful, gentle and modest.

Oh, Great One, bless our women. Make them strong today.

(My thanks to The Magical Maggie for passing this on to me and my blogger friends.)

The Great Rudy Round-Up

I stepped on to my back deck with my little Rudy Bird on my shoulder, like I do every afternoon, to gaze at the trees, take in the air, and enjoy a moment of quiet serenity before the "Hour of Chaos" begins.

Every mom knows about The Hour of Chaos: The kids spring off the school bus, friends run through the house like a horde of midget Vikings, homework is protested, the kitchen is raided, snacks are served, puppies get loose, messes get made, rough housing resumes, boo-boos are band aided, and then I have to put on my commander hat and get it all under control before the hubby gets home.

The game is for the children and I to be sitting quietly at the table, going over schoolwork or doing a craft in a very "Ozzie and Harriet" sort of way when Daddy walks in the door. Picture the Cat in the Hat, and you will then comprehend "The Hour of Chaos."

So, I'm on my deck, "zenning" on the calm before the storm, when a gust of wind whooshed, and took my Darling cocktail by surprise. Rudy has never really learned how to fly. He sometimes flaps his wings and hops about, and even occasionally glides from his perch down to the ground, but flying? No, he has never gotten the hang of THAT whole business.

The gust hit, he spread his wings for balance, and it took him aloft like a kite in a hurricane.

"Squalk SQUALK!!!" (Scientific Translation: Mommy! HELP! I'm FREAKIN OUT HERE!)

He landed, rather clumsily, I might add, way up atop my neighbors roof, looking like Wiley E. Coyote testing his new Acme Flying Kit.

I ran out the gate after him, and of course, let my puppies get loose in the process. They burst into the street. The school bus arrived, and all H#ll broke loose.

Kids are streaming off the bus, puppies and children are running amok, traffic is stopped, the bird is squalking, and I am doing my best impression of Barney Fife.

I like my neighborhood, and all my neighbors, save for one or two. But dear Rudy ended up on the worst of all possible spots. This was the house that I'm sure you remember: the one all kids know, the one with the grumpy old man who hates kids and pets, and any sort of disturbance. Its that guy who turns out all his lights on Trick or Treat night, and pretends not to be home. It was the house of Boo Radley, and it seemed, no one was home.

The children gathered with fear in their eyes. The other neighbors all came out to see what was amiss.

"Should we get a ladder?"
"What if HE comes home?"
"Oh, of all the places that bird could have gone!"

We decided to wait while the children chased the puppies. "Maybe he will fly down."

Maybe, that is, if he knew how to fly.

For two hours, we waited, as a parade of onlookers came and went. One man said "You know, I could marry a woman like you. I love the constant drama around your house."
"Uh, Thanks, happy to entertain."

No one had Boo Radly's phone number or knew how to contact him. AND NO ONE wanted to climb on the Radley Roof.

Finally, as the sun began to set, I knew that I could wait no more. So I did what any sane person would do...

I panicked and called 911!

"911 Emergency."
"My bird is stuck on my neighbors roof."
"Um, This is the Sheriff Ma'am. We aren't trained for bird rescues."
"It's The Radley House."
"We'll send a squad car right away."

The Sheriff arrived, we extended the ladder, and the crowd watched with anticipation as I wobbly assended, wondering if I would succeed or end up ass-ended.

Just then, Boo Radly came out! He had been in there all along. He strode across the lawn like a rhinoceros in his bathrobe, commanding to know that was going on.

The Sheriff intervened, and soon Boo and the Sheriff are working together like Laurel and Hardey to steady the ladder and save the bird.

Amazingly and to the delight of all, our quest succeeded, the bird was saved, the puppies corralled, the children calmed, and we did it all before my hubby got home.

Boo even helped put the ladder away, bless his heart.

The Winds of Change

Change is the only constant.

In The United States of America, the winds of change are beginning to howl.

A new era is approaching. An era that will challenge the constitutional principles on which this country stands.


Be ready.

Our country has been led by "The Ol' Boys Club" for the past two centuries, but women, and people of color are infitrating the power structure, and influencing policy more than ever before.


This shift is part of the natural order. It will bring a much needed balance to the lop sided, agressive, ethnically abusive, patriarchal history our country.


The voice of the people will be heard. The values of a multicultural tapestry will be woven deep into the fabric of our laws.

Women will offer a matriarchial kindness and motherly wisdom to our policies.

It will change the face of our nation.


In the long run, it will be a positive change.

But be ready, for change does not often come without strife.

Who Said this?

"I know that spirituality is never serene; meditation never silent; peace is never peaceful."

-Pete Townshend, from his blog: The Boy Who Heard Music

Nicely said Pete.

Urgent: Take Action Now

If you are against cruelty to animals, please click
HERE and follow the links to sign the petition.

WARNING: Link shows graphic photo of Dog Abuse.

Thank You

Culture of Life

Let’s say that we decide to promote a “Culture of Life.” We value life, we protect life, and we work hard to cure all human disease and illness.

Let’s assume that we are successful in this venture; that all our walk-a-thons and telethons and fundraisers enable our talented Scientists and Doctors to find cures for every known malady.

Human kind achieves its goal; the utopian ideal of perfect health and immortality!

Then what?

Massive over population, food shortages, eco systems being wiped out as billions of people swarm the planet like a plague of locusts.

Past wars over oil and religion will be remembered as petty skirmishes when compared to the epic battles over water, land and food.

Population growth is already at an alarming rate. Over fishing in the oceans is at the point where even the most common food fish are on the verge of extinction. Rain forests are disappearing. Entire cultures of people are starving.

If you read the Natty Bumpo stories about the early American frontier, you will note that the author describes the autumn sky as being “filled with so many migrating birds that they blocked out the sun.” I have never seen a sight like that. What I have seen is that each year the migrating flocks become smaller and smaller.

In China overpopulation is such a serious problem that laws are in effect, restricting each family to only one child. The results are tragic. Baby girls are killed, aborted, or abandoned by the thousands.

Folks, if you really believe in a culture of life, then you must think long term.

The actions we take now will determine the future for all mankind.

Live a life of passion and service,
and when your energies wane,
Welcome Death,
for it is the door that makes room for life anew.