.....treasure island

I spent part of beautiful Saturday afternoon with my daughter and a friend of ours 

at the Treasure Island Flea Market near San Francisco.

Treasure Island is an old naval base with a few homes and lots of empty buildings and an amazing view...and a flea market

don't ask

I didn't..

spoons

cool collars

an outfit made of different things taken apart and sewn together in a new way

no...won't eat any of this!

Spam...a food truck featuring Spam?

crystal energy

another budding designer

beautiful bangles

ahhhh, Bliss Dance

This blissful dancing goddess was the signature piece for

 Burning Man 2010 @ Black Rock City 

the artist is Marco Cochrane .

She stands 40 feet tall and weighs 7000 pounds,

at night she is lit from the inside by a complex array of l.e.d. colored lights..

now she dances on Treasure Island

in all her glorious colors she dances

beautiful Bliss

...a memorable day

making agreements.....

Have you read the book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements? I bought it and read it when it first came out a long time ago. I was so taken with the simplicity of what he shares that I gave it out as gifts to people I care about. I say I was taken with the simplicity of it, but really there is nothing simple about them for me.

Hah! Not so easy.

In the past couple of weeks the book keeps surfacing in my life...seeing quotes, dusting the book shelf and there it is, a friend mentioning it. 

 So I decided to sit down with it and read a little.

The agreement that jumped out at me was the third agreement...

Don't make assumptions. 

Oh, how I fall down on that one. It's not that I assume that things will go on tomorrow like they do today. I recognize that change can come in a split second. 

But I do assume things about people, who they are, what they will do, what they won't do. What they believe. 

I was with a friend I've known for many years. We travel the same circles. We were talking about our President and she said a truly racist thing. I was so taken aback that I was actually speechless. How did I not know this about her? 

I had assumed she felt we were all equal.

I know this man...a cowboy...seems hard as nails. Gruff. I didn't like him much. One day we saw each other and exchanged greetings. I asked how he was doing. He told me about having to have his dog put down. He started crying. And from there he moved on to talking about the loss of his wife and his estrangement from his daughter...crying throughout his story. He became a very soft and loving man right before my eyes, when I had assumed he was was hard and harsh to the core...

I am amazed out how often I misinterpret people I have thought someone was snooty or didn't that didn't like me, only to discover they are shy. Oh that someone had a full life, only to find out they were lonely. It goes on and on, my assumptions.

I even make assumptions about you, my readers and fellow bloggers. Based only on what you reveal on your blogs, or on comments, I have filled in the gaps with my own assumptions about your lives. 

I assume a lot with people I love too...that they will behave in a certain way. That they think like I do. How else could it be?...they are part of my tribe. But it isn't true...we very often have deep and divisive ways of seeing and doing things. 

My assumptions have caused some serious pain.

And so often I have built a dream around one of them only to discover they are on a totally different track. I end up angry and hurt when they don't follow along with my plans because I assumed that they want the same things as I do. I get upset because something I expected someone to do isn't going to happen, yet I had assumed they could have, should have done it, would do it, when maybe I never asked for what I wanted...or maybe I didn't express myself as clearly as I could have. Maybe they just didn't read my mind that day. 

Or maybe somewhere along the line I let them believe something didn't matter, 

when really is mattered a lot and I assumed that they would come around.

Maybe I spoke without integrity....out of my truth.

Maybe I wasn't impeccable with my words.

Ruiz says we have to ask questions. Lot's of them. And that we have to be impeccable with our own word so that people aren't making assumptions about us. He points out that we tell little lies or half truths here and there, not being impeccable with our word and that creates assumptions about us. About who we are and what we want.  

Oh how often I leave things out when speaking...maybe not saying what I think you want to hear, but often omitting what I know you don't want to hear.  

My life would be different had I not made some critical and incorrect assumptions...

or let others have them about me.

And then there is this ....Ruiz says to ask question until everything is clear... and then assume that the person answe

ring is being impeccable with their words. 

and Ruiz challenges us to take nothing personally. 

sigh.....

xo

,,,,a promise?

                      

Always, the strong carry the weak, the rich carry the poor, the healthy carry the sick, 
and the happy carry the sad. 

And whether or not they remember it, this was once their promise, 

to thank those who carried them. 

I'm totally goose bumped, 

The Universe

xo

Happy Tuesday!

......time with Deepak Chopra

via his book, The Book of Secrets..


"The greatest hunger in life is not for food, money, success, status, security, sex, or even love from the opposite sex.  Time and again people have achieved all of those things and wound up still feeling dissatisfied.  The deepest hunger in life is a secret that is revealed only when a person is willing to unlock a hidden part of the self.  It's the inner person who craves meaning in life, the end of suffering, and answers to the riddles of love, death, God, the soul, good and evil.  A life spent on the surface will never answer these questions or satisfy the needs that drive us to ask them.  Finding the hidden dimension in yourself is the only way to fulfill you deepest hunger."


''However, if you decide to lead a consciously spiritual life, a change occurs.  The principles of the operating system, which means the rules of creation, become personal....let's take a look at how we can line up the universal with the personal.''


1.
Universal
..The universe is a mirror of consciousnesses.
Personal
..The events in your life reflect who you are.

The physical world mirrors a mind; it carries intention and intelligence in every atom.

2.
Universal
..Awareness is collective.  We all draw it from a common source.
Personal
..The people in your life reflect aspects of yourself.

We are one human being wearing countless masks.  When all the masks are stripped off, what reamins is essence, the soul, the divine spark

3.
Universal
..Awareness expands within itself
Personal
..Whatever you pay attention to will grow

By paying attention we add the creative spark, and that part of our experience, either positive or negative, will grow.  Violence begets violence, but so to does love beget love.

4.
Universal
.. Consciousness creates by design.
Personal
.. Nothing is random...you life is full of signs and symbols.

Consciousness looks at the universe and sees design everywhere, even if the spaces in between look disorganized and random.  For the individual, it's impossible not to see order...every aspect of life from the family outward is based on it. 

 Your brain is set up to perceive patterns (even an inkblot looks like some kind of image, no matter how hard you try not to see one) 

because it took patterns of cells to make a brain. 

The mind is ultimately a machine of making meaning, even when it flirts with meaninglessness, as the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries have done so well.

5.
Universal
..Physical laws operate efficiently, with least effort.
Personal
..At any given moment, the universe is giving yo the best results possible.

The expenditure of least energy, also called the law of least effort, covers human beings, too.  Certainly our bodies cannot escape the efficiency of the chemical processes going on in each cell, so it is probable that our whole being is wrapped up in the same principle.

Cause and effect aren't just linked, they are linked in the most efficient way possible.  

This arguement also applies to personal growth...the idea is that everyone is doing the best he or she can from his or her own level of consciousness.

6.
Universal
..Simple forms grow into more complex forms.
Personal
..Your inner awareness is always evolving.

Many religious people believe that God created the world in his image, which implies that creation had nowhere to go after that.  Scientists accept that entropy is inexorable.  Entropy still makes us grow old and nature has decided to evolve, whatever our opinions about that may be.

7.
Universal
..Knowledge takes in more and more of the world
Personal
..The direction of life is from duality to unity

Before Einstein, human beings thought that they were looking a Nature ''out there,'' as if through a plateglass window, trying to figure out out what external reality was doing.  We no realize that we are embedded in Nature, the observer changes reality by the very act of observation.  Despite the feeling of psychological alienation (the result of technology's outstripping our ability to keep meaning alive), the duality of man and Nature is shrinking with each successive generation.

8.
Universal
..Chaos serves evolution.
Personal
..The fragmented mind cannot get you to unity, but you have to use it along the way.

Unity is the hidden purpose that evolution is working toward,  Like the cosmos, the surface of the mind looks chaotic, but there is a tidal pool of progress at work beneath.

9.
Universal
..Many invisible levels are enveloped in the the physical world.
Personal
..You are living in many dimensions at once, the appearance of being trapped in time and space is an illusion.

Ultimately, the existence of multidimensional is irrefutable.  At the simplest level, there had to be somewhere that space and time came from during the Big Bang, and by definition that somewhere can't be in time ans space.  Accepting that you, as a citizen of a multidimensional universe, are a multidimensional being is far from mystical.

I like the idea of being a spiritual, multidimensional human, in sync with the Universe.

xo

......why?

....the Living Memorial Sculpture Garden

Lot's of years back I was looking for a labyrinth to walk between here and my sisters home in Klamath Falls, OR.  I was a member of the Labyrinth Society and went to their list to find one.  I printed out a map.  It is just a small wooden sign that alerts you to pull off the highway...After walling the lovely little Chartes Labyrinth, my companion and I started down a path to view the sculptures.  I had no idea how profound of and experience it was going to be.  The artist says everything a feel about war.

The Garden is one of the most holy places I have ever been. It's quiet there. I can hear whispers in the wind. The sculptures are alive and the tribe has gathered.

The place makes me want to kneel down and give thanks to all the men and women who have given so very much to this country. And at the same time I cry in anguish for my part in the American war machine and all of it's destruction.

Living Memorial Sculpture Garden

Weed, CA.

at the foot of Mt. Shasta

THE WHY GROUP

After all the deeds are done and the soldier goes back home, sits alone in front of a warm fire on a cold night having time to think his own thoughts, he may ask himself a few questions. "Why me?" "Why not me?" "why him and not me?" "Why war?" "why not war?" The WHY questions are endless.

Dennis Smith, Artist LMSG: Each sculptures has personal meaning for me in terms of life experience and personal incidents. Everyone who has experienced war seems to have a place in their collective heart which is malfunctioning. Maybe what we should do is find that place in the heart and have it surgically removed. Through the arts we have the means to peacefully consider violence and to ask questions as well as offer possible solutions. I don't think the purpose of art is to entertain, but to uplift, edify, and educate. After seeing "Bill" and Ted's Excellent Adventure," I believe the fate of the world might ultimately have to do with what happens in our history classes. Maybe our world leaders should start asking the young people what sort of world they want. . THE KOREAN WAR VETERAN MONUMENT While Vietnam Memorials  were popping up like mushrooms in the mountains after an August thunderstorm,  who remembered the Korean Vets? We did. The Pow-Mia This statue is for all those who have been wrongfully locked up. Imagine confinement, mosquitoes, leeches, rats, rotten rice, rotten fish, abusive guards, and little chance of survival. Hope is reaching for the will to "Hang On!" THE GREATEST GENERATION THE REFUGEES I stood beside the road at KHE SANH as the BRU Tribesmen were herded through the base and onto route nine to fend for themselves.  Our leaders had promised them protection; They were our allies and we let them down. A large percent of these people, men, women, children, the old,  and the very young never made it past the N.V.A.  I was also thinking of the Kurdish people during the Gulf War, and the treatment of the native American in "The Long Walk" or "Trail of Tears." COMING HOME  There are some things about which one should either say a great deal, or nothing at all. "Coming Home" is very special to me, and I can speak a great deal about it. It is not uncommon for Veterans to feel a lot of emotional pain upon returning home.  In this regard I am no different from any other retired warrior. I feel more fortunate than most because sculpture is a positive way for me to deal with this pain.  Being a part of the LMSG gave me an opportunity to speak in a good way.  I feel as if this expression is a giant leap forward in the process of "repairing my soul." http://www.opefe.com/living.html http://www.weedlmsg.org xo

....it's often so hard to forgive

...and it's especially hard to forgive someone who isn't sorry.

When we tell them the effects their words or deeds have done

and they still don't offer a heartfelt apology it can very hard to let go of the pain.

So we carry it around...sometimes for our whole lives.

Years and years ago, in my 30's, I wrote my estranged father a letter.  It wasn't an ugly or mean letter, it was just about my life around him.  There was a lot of pain.  He wrote back that it was all my mothers fault.  I laugh now, but at the time it wasn't funny.  I felt invalidated.  He denied all wrong doing.  He was a distant man, quick to anger, and I don't believe he ever liked me.  And his letter to me reflected that.  I know that a lot of things would have been different for me had he been a better father....and if I had forgiven him sooner. 

 I didn't know about the power of forgiveness then, but I've slowly come to realize how much it matters.  I thought for so long that forgiveness was for them, that somehow it meant it was ok what they had done. 

Now I'm coming to really understand that forgiveness is for me.

I've held on to many things in my life in order to take out the evidence of what had been done to me so I could show the jury of my peers... .''see, I'm like this because so and so did this to me...''...''see my wounds!  How could I be any different.''  ''What do you expect.''.  What I really should have been asking, and have asked of me was, ''How long are you going to keep hurting yourself?" 

I know now that what I held on too gave me what I thought was an excuse for my crazy and often self-destructive actions.  Often doing the same things over and over again but expecting different result.  Keeping me in constant victim mode.   

I would often preface my reasons for what I'd done, or didn't do, to myself or someon e else with, ''well my dad emotionally abandoned me, yelled at me, didn't like me...was often cruel to me...So I do, did, or think this way...''  My hurt and disappointment and anger at him, and my desire to make him say he was sorry was big...and I didn't want to let it go.  I also recognize now that those grudges and angry feelings I hold on to prevent me from moving forward into my light.  They are like weights. 
People can and will hurt us.  But we don't have to take it in and hold on to it .

And there is this...when I am in judgement, my heart is closed.

Forgiveness for me rarely comes overnight...not for the old wounds...the ones that are so much a part of me......A lot of forgiveness is about self love, and finally getting to a place of not wanting to carry that icky around anymore.  

I always believed there was something lacking in me that kept my father from wanting to be my dad...

it took a long time to see that it was about him...not a deficiency in me.

 xo 

....ignite your fire

I have been invited to participate in a telecast viewing of a seminar/workshop.  It's called Ignite Your Fire.  The facilitator is Margaret Lynch. 

She is a personal development coach who uses the

 Emotional Freedom Technique..

EFT, a modality I was introduced to by Bettina Fleming 

who uses it in her ministry at 

The Positive Living Center in Oakhurst. 

The workshop was about standing in our power.

Men and women.

Knowing what our soul is calling to.....and freeing ourselves from past scripts and pronouncements that aren't our truth, but what we have taken in order to survive the tribe we find ourselves in,

 or were born into when in reality we are not that person at all.

It was about what magnets we are for what we want when we are truly 

awake to our souls desire....

the focus is largely about what magnets we become 

when we step into our power.  

That what we are seeking is also seeking us.

It is about that power we have when we are connected to our souls calling.

 I do believe we are put on this earth to exchange our gifts...

that we all have a purpose.  

Knowing what that is, and owning it is what gives us flight.

The days I have spent with this group of women has been enlightening.

I was inspired by the women and men who were at the live telecast and even more so by the women in the room with me.  

I know I always come back to this.  

The wonder of the women I know.

But I can't help it.

They are moving forward.  

Healing themselves a little at a  time and in leaps... 
and want to share what has worked for them.

I admire them for their energy and commitment to doing their part to make the world a little better in some way.  A little more beautiful.

They are healers, artist, writers, ministers, organizers, and these are their second jobs. 

Some of these women, my sister/friends,  have been through some BIG stuff...

and not only survived it...but come to the other side still believing in humanity.

It's big stuff.

They inspire me.

The workshops theme song...

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves, 

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

 Actually, who are you not to be? 

You are a child of God. 

Your playing small does not serve the world. 

There is nothing enlightened

 about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 

We are all meant to shine, as children do. 

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. 

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

 And as we let our own light shine, 

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

 

----from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson.

I've been busy.....

celebrating the divine feminine...

“I Am She”

by Maggie Pym

“I am eternal woman,

the feminine aspect of life present 

at the foundation of this earth.

"I am all women - the Madonna, the Magdalene,

the Virgin, the Crone.

"I am the nurturer of life and its destruction,

the Mystery of Birth, Life, Death, Rebirth;

the Eternal Cycle.

I am the Vessel that holds all Wisdom.

Know me and you know the Secrets of Creation.

“Nothing is strange to me.

No distortion repels me.

All that is, can be purified through my love.

“I am all-knowing, all-wise, all-patient.

Throughout Eternity I wait to be brought again to life.

To fulfill all hidden prophesies.

“Only fire brings me to life.  The fire of Divine Love."

I am SHE.”

Bent But Not Broken

~~~

The Courage to Heal

~~~

Someone To Tell It To

Silver and Gold

my friends

Oh My Goddess

~~~

Sometimes It's Hard

The Bird Goddess

with Janet Morita's

watercolors

Timberline Gallery

Oakhurst, CA.

Art Hop

Saturday April 12

1 - 4 pm

xo