Monthly Archives: December 2014

Current Events, Past Lives and Revolution

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“I love to sleep with the windows open,” she says, and her voice echos softly through the grass and the wind and the world

She lays her head down on a pillow of thousands of years.

Her experience integrates. Her lives mellow out all the lines of her soul.
She can coil around herself with a precise blend of ages. Of genders. Of races. She has seen how much those things can matter as humans shuffle on. Yet she knows it matters none, and the soul’s journey is all. She knows that you and I are everything at once, and that prejudices are nothing but a misplaced fear within. THEY ARE NOT REAL. They never were. But they brought a hurt that begs remembering.

Isn’t it funny how we teach ourselves and each other?
with loaded guns and loaded words that bring both a somber silence and a red rage
with abandoned children and caged animals and the sanctioned trashing of our only home

So much of this world runs through her veins that her identity becomes placeless. She has the Strega  in her blood. Tobacco blues and injustice in her blood. Europe sex and death in her blood. She contains the pain of lifetimes but can forget it all in a moment.

There is momentum in our secret selves that can bring us where we need to go. There is a wiseness deep within and you only need travel to reach that wisdom. The journey might be long and hard but it matters.

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How to Dispose of Stuff Properly: Intro and 5 Things You Can Do NOW

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This one has been in the draft box for a while! I’ve been too busy keeping us all alive (no joke, this life is about survival right now) and too tired to write much of anything, but proper “stuff” disposal is something I hold near and dear to my heart…I’m a little crazy about it (just ask my family)! And just a side note: I wrote this at 2am the night I went into labor with Amadeo (in October…). I just woke up, wrote it on my phone, stared at the moon, and then woke up John at 4:30am with a “babe, it’s time to get up, NOW!” He was born a few short hours later. I’ll write the story eventually!

~

I live a state that can boast it’s highest point is the state landfill. It’s often a joke told to people who don’t know it, but behind the joke is always a sense that we know how truly awful that sounds. We mask it, because we don’t want to see how we contribute to it.

This is a small introduction to a passion of mine- how to dispose properly of our stuff. It is so easy in the world many of us live in to just “throw it away,” when we don’t know what to do with it… (believe me, I am guilty of this, too!)…but what we put into our trash cans does not magically disappear once it leaves our doorstep. It might feel like a relief, but it is not truly off our hands- just another of our contributions to the huge piles of stinkin’ garbage that line the world over.

There are things we can do! We’re not talking drastic changes here, but small, practical things that we can implement in our daily lives to have less of an impact on our planet. All it takes is a little mindfulness and determination. I hope these posts will serve as a resource to you to learn how to get rid of your trash without trashing the earth!

5 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW:

1. Notice.

You’re obviously reading this post for a reason, so maybe you have already observed that a change can be made. I would encourage you to simply begin to notice what you put into the trash every day…and rather than never thinking of it again,  imagine where it is going and what the rest of the life of your trash will look like.

If you need some help imagining, view some of these crazy photos by Gregg Segal: http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/07/08/gregg_segal_photographs_people_with_a_week_s_worth_of_their_trash_in_his.html

2. Look at it with new eyes.

If you’re prone to throwing something away when you’re finished with it, try looking at it anew and deciding whether someone else may be able to get use out of it.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”

3. Recycle.

This might seem like a no-brainer to some, but it still hasn’t caught on in many places.

4. Compost.

Compost your food scraps. There are many ways to do this. Get fancy, or just start emptying them into a container of sorts outside, like I do.

5. Buy Less

We grow up surrounded by materialism and so, for many, it becomes part of who we are. I am of the philosophy “less is more,” and feel more comfortable and free to spend time on things I love when there is less stuff crowding me out. It’s exciting to buy new things, but keep in mind that new can quickly become old and add itself to that pile of crap in the corner of the room. Buy for quality, if you must have it!

It truly is a constant process of being mindful, but I firmly believe that as a people we can do a MUCH better job! I am nowhere close to perfect when it comes to this and it got much harder when we started a family, but I never stop trying! 🙂

When Comes the Frost

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Against the threat or thrill of frost

The crickets trill their last songs

They carry on

Through the hours of night, stretching their limits, that they may for one more day witness the dawn.

This is important- they sing.  They sing until death freezes them back into the slow earth.  They sing as if it is no thing that their time is brief.

They sing because all there is to do is sing- for the rain, for their nourishment,  for the sheer glory of sound and vibration.

They may even sing their sadnesses, but they do not waste time in silence,  worrying about what might be.

Lesson of the Day

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Finally I am one step closer to realizing these dreams of mine.

I open the computer to catch up on all the things I couldn’t type before that stayed written down in pen on the pages of yet another book, almost full. And so I’m typing, and these words don’t seem like me. They were me just a few days, a few weeks ago, but we change, I change, so dramatically.

I want to find the still point. I want to be that calm and sturdy version of myself standing in the swirling grasses of a stormy field. I am more than just this story, more than just all my stories. I am becoming, always, yet I know there is a part of me that is the anchor, that waits, transfixed, watching, silently urging me on. I want to catch up, to go stand next to myself and hug myself. I want to ask a zillion questions of that version of me, but I know that would defeat the whole purpose. The lesson is to be still. The lesson is to calm the frantic mind. The lesson is to let go and then let go of letting go and just LET GO.