Sunday, April 6, 2014
Saturday, April 5, 2014
PPP's
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
So Long, Swami
Monday, March 31, 2014
Puppy Pile!
This is a happy story. The mama to these chubsters is named Jasmine. She was in a shelter about to be euthanized when, at the 11th hour, someone saved her. She's being fostered in an excellent home...the one in which she gave birth to 6 puppies. The almost 4 week old pups are all thriving. I went to visit today to help with one of their feedings. Their mama is kinda petite and can't quite keep up with their big appetites so they are receiving supplemental food about 3 times per day. It was so sweet to hold them and try to get them to slurp up some of their food. It's kinda a messy endeavor! And then to watch them pass out one by one in a pile...well you know what that does to a person!!!
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Normal?
Well, the other evening I was taking a shower and perched just at eye level on the top of the shower stall facing me was a banana slug. As I've written, I have a BS infatuation going on so when I saw it I immediately smiled and started talking to her. Now I may have been making this up but I swear she was responding to me. No joke. Like she was listening or something...I kept up my end of the conversation with words but she kept hers up in BS language which I am new to learning! Anyways, I kept splashing water on her and she seemed to like that and even turned her body as if to say; "this spot...get this spot." I know, I know!
Then today as I was thinking about how normal that seemed to me I started laughing at what a relative term that is.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Cake Recipe!
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Covered CA, My Booty
Snowing Petals
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Snail mail
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Poison Oak Away!
Monday, March 24, 2014
An Ode To Daydreaming
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Flower Beauty
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Liza: The Next Chapter
Anyways, the decision to take Liza in yesterday afternoon was strictly a logistical one. I was at my sisters and heading in the direction of the vet...a combo that had been hard to orchestrate given where I now live. Liza was covered with a towel inside a plastic tray. I hadn't seen her except once briefly soon after she passed. I put her in the car, began to drive away and while doing so lifted the towel...
Oh my. I put my hand on that little black furry body that I know so well...and miss so much...and just cried. It's amazing how much memory is stored in touch...
I cried a good part of the way to the vet office...even considered taking her home for the night...but that would have been too hard in some way. So, I took her in. The vet tech who had come to my house with the vet to euthanize Liza was there. I felt blessed at the time it happened that they both were so compassionate, kind and heart-full. And the vet tech was all those things again yesterday. We, along with a second tech, had a great conversation about the grieving process...how it's different for each of us and what we need each time, depending on the particular relationship, can change. One spoke of sleeping with her pet's ashes for a few nights after bringing them home. The other joked about how many boxes of ashes she has at home and how she's told her parents that if she dies before them she wants her ashes to be spread together along with her animal companions. I very much get it...the tenderness of losing our Beloveds. My day was absolutely made richer by the exchanges with both women and it softened my experience of grief.
I cut some of Liza's fur yesterday. I brought it home and let Simon smell it. It was very interesting to watch him as he took a long time to be with it. And it didn't occur to me until just this moment of writing that he actually seemed a little "off" today and that possibly he was having his own process regarding Liza? Being the big hearted guy he is it wouldn't surprise me.
Reminding Us All
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Dahlia Pimp!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Done Been Sheared!
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
So Much Love
Monday, March 17, 2014
I went to a site where there was a q and a forum with what sounded like a group of hunters and killers...important distinction right there. Anyways, they were talking about baiting bobcats with turkey calls...and all the ways around getting away with killing bobcats...and the tone in which they talk about the animals...I really am not against hunting for food. I'm not sure I could actually do that myself but I'm ok if it's done "humanely." But, the way these folks were talking about killing just because they could...just broke my heart. Sometimes I really dislike being a human.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Bubble Landia
Friday, March 14, 2014
Nap Time On the Deck!
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
The Swami
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Too Fast?
Monday, March 10, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Love Thy Neighbor?
I live in a quasi remote location in the northern CA hills. It's remoteness lends itself to some version of a wild west mentality. People don't abide by "normal" laws. The property was also once home to a commune back in the 60's. So, that also lends itself to drawing "outlaw" kind of characters. The property itself is mostly still wild with the exception of the maybe 15 dwellings (might be a stretch to call some of them houses!) Anyways, given that the property itself and the surrounding area is still relatively undeveloped, there are wild critters in close proximity. If you know me or read my blog then you already know how I feel about animals...
A few months ago my land mate told me that our neighbor shot and killed a bobcat. My heart broke upon hearing that news. For me it's one thing to kill an animal if you are going to eat it. But this bobcat got killed because it killed this guys chicken. Again, to my way of thinking if you are going to keep chickens (there are also some sheep) out here where there are wild predators then it is incumbent upon you to secure those chickens or sheep. End of story. Yesterday I ran into this fellow walking down our road with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He, another neighbor and I were having a "conversation" of sorts. He mentioned that he had been out to kill another bobcat but had been foiled when someone drove up and scared it off. I said to him: "doesn't another bobcat just move into the dead bobcat's territory?" He replied: "yeah, but you get about a two month period in between." There isn't too much logic in that thinking process. I think it's not about bobcats and chickens but rather about there always being some sort of "other" that's perceived as an adversary or enemy. And how does that way of thinking ever change? I absolutely do not know. I'm aware of my mind making him the "other" so perhaps it's just a continuum. That said, my heart still breaks when there is seemingly senseless killing.
Friday, March 7, 2014
No Nudies!
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Ouch
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Wow'd
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On another topic of "exposure"...
You Need Husband!
Friday, February 28, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Door Art?
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Note To Self!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Trippy Art
... made with fingers only!
http://www.thisismarvelous.com/i/79-Fingerings-by-Judith-Braun-Remarkable-Drawings-Created-With-Nothing-But-Fingers-Dipped-in-Charcoal
Sunday, February 23, 2014
She's Back!
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Once Upon A Fox
Friday, February 21, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Thoreau On "Work"
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
An Interesting Book
I am reading a book written about him called; The Man Who Quit Money
It offers stimulating food for thought. At a minimum he pushes us to consider life WAAAAAY outside the box. He might even be revered in a different culture.
Check out how he speaks of his vocation:
"I'm employed by the universe. Since everywhere I go is the universe, I am always secure. Life has flourished for billions of years like this. I never knew such security before I gave up money. Wealth is what we are dependent on for security. My wealth never leaves me. Do you think Bill Gates is more secure than I?"
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Elvis
Monday, February 17, 2014
Smelly Good
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Under Consideration
One of the gifts of living in a "first/developed" world is that we often get to have lots of choices about things. One of those is our health. When confronted with an "illness" some of us get to think about what methods of healing we might employ and not just rely on western medicine as the one and only means of addressing health concerns. (that is IF we have the money to pursue "alternatives," of course.) Nevertheless, there is a "cultural norm" if you will that is deeply embedded in western medicine and also in some complimentary modalities as well. Often, something is made an enemy...cancer cells, bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. And more often than not the treatment is to destroy the enemy. While I'm not suggesting that is wrong, I get really curious about other ways these matters could be approached. So, with that wondering in mind I got out a box of some of my essences to review how they work. I'm sharing them below. The word bacterial can be swapped out and replaced with viral or fungal. See what happens for you when you read these.
B-1: Restore the body's environment to balance when its imbalance is creating a corresponding bacterial imbalance. They also restore the body's environment to balance once a corresponding bacterial imbalance is present and impacting the body.
B-2: Restore a state of appropriate balance within the living bacterial organisms so that they may once again relate to and interact with their larger host organism (body) in an appropriately balanced and environmentally sound manner.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Robbed
Friday, February 14, 2014
Vicious Rumor!
a $40 million dollar home together...instead of the news that they were breaking up.
Phew.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Hermie
Monday, February 10, 2014
Old Fashioned Activity!
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Almost Invisible!
Friday, February 7, 2014
Both Ends of the Continuim
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Not Guilty?
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
S L O W!!!
She was also sharing that when people tell her to hurry up, which they have done her entire life, she actually has to go slower. She said: "If I go any faster than my top speed, I wobble...literally!!!"
I fell out on that one. She is my number one candidate for being a board member of The Slower Life Movement, for sure...and will be receiving a Slower Life Movement t-shirt with "Born Slow" on the back!
Monday, February 3, 2014
It's Good To Get Perspective!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
A Reminder From a Thought-full Friend
>And what did you do on earth?< I descended daily into the hush – if only for a moment, but sometimes for blessed hours at a time. I followed the shimmering threads which lured me into the night, full of wonder at all that was unfolding. I opened myself wide to gratitude, to the delight that there was anything at all, much less pink-petaled peonies and generous handfuls of red berries, the incredible sweetness of things, or the way dawn and dusk could reveal my own new thresholds, how a walk by the sea can change everything, and that I could be so well loved, and love in return, that I could dance on earth’s forest floor and say “yes” to life from the belly of sorrow. >And what was the best of it?< I was saved by beauty again and again, the golden glimmer of sunlight across wet pavement revealing a luminous world, and the stone ruins of churches and monasteries, with their arches of ancient longing holding ten thousand prayers, ten thousand paths to hope. >And what would you have changed?< Only perhaps to have worried less about what might come, which never did in exactly the way I imagined. And to spend less time in front of screens, offering more of myself to the elements of wind and rain and mud, to roll with playful abandon in the wet grass, the way dogs do. >And what will you do now?< I will reach across the veil and whisper the word “remember” to anyone who will listen.
"Remember" by Christine Valters Paintner
Feral-ish!
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Bed Head!!!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Fox Friendly
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Gift of The Day
Monday, January 27, 2014
Quaker Speak
The Clearness Committee
A Communal Approach To Discernment
From A Hidden Wholeness
by Parker J. Palmer
Many of us face a dilemma when trying to deal with a personal problem, question, or decision. On the one hand, we know that the issue is ours alone to resolve and that we have the inner resources to resolve it, but access to our own resources is often blocked by layers of inner “stuff”—confusion, habitual thinking, fear, despair. On the other hand, we know that friends might help us uncover our inner resources and find our way, but by exposing our problem to others, we run the risk of being invaded and overwhelmed by their assumptions, judgments, and advice—a common and alienating experience. As a result, we often privatize these vital questions in our lives: at the very moment when we need all the help we can get, we find ourselves cut off from both our inner resources and the support of a community.
For people who have experienced this dilemma, I want to describe a method invented by the Quakers, a method that protects individual identity and integrity while drawing on the wisdom of other people. It is called a “Clearness Committee.” If that name sounds like it is from the sixties, it is—the 1660’s! From their beginnings over three hundred years ago, Quakers needed a way to draw on both inner and communal resources to deal with personal problems because they had no clerical leaders to “solve” their problems for them. The Clearness Committee is testimony to the fact that there are no external authorities on life’s deepest issues, not clergy or therapists or scholars; there is only the authority that lies within each of us waiting to be heard.
Behind the Clearness Committee is a simple but crucial conviction: each of us has an inner teacher, a voice of truth, that offers the guidance and power we need to deal with our problems. But that inner voice is often garbled by various kinds of inward and outward interference. The function of the Clearness Committee is not to give advice or “fix” people from the outside in but rather to help people remove the interference so that they can discover their own wisdom from the inside out. If we do not believe in the reality of inner wisdom, the Clearness Committee can become an opportunity for manipulation. But if we respect the power of the inner teacher, the Clearness Committee can be a remarkable way to help someone name and claim his or her deepest truth
The Clearness Committee’s work is guided by some simple but crucial rules and understandings. Among them, of course, is the rule that the process is confidential. When it is over, committee members will not speak with others about what was said and, equally important, will not speak with the focus person about the problem unless he or she requests a conversation.
Guidelines for facilitating Clearness Committees at retreats:
Facilitators assign members to committees. But before doing so, ask each focus person for a confidential list of any persons he or she especially wants to work with or feels unable to work with. Promise focus persons they will be given as many names from the first list as possible, and none from the second list.
At a retreat, focus persons are asked to reflect on the following three areas:
• a concise statement of his or her problem, even if it is not clear—this process can work as well with murky issues as with clear ones;
• a recounting of relevant background factors that may bear on the problem;
• an exploration of any hunches the focus person may have about what’s on the horizon regarding the problem.
This is done so that the focus person can present their problem orally to the committee at the start of the session in a concise but helpful way, ten or fifteen minutes maximum.
Clearness Committees last two hours. A detailed schedule is provided to all committee members before the process begins. When fifteen, and then five minutes remain, someone on the committee needs to notify the others, for reasons explained in note 9 below. Committee members for whom note-taking enhances attentiveness may take notes, turning them over to the focus person before leaving the room. This helps guarantee confidentiality and is a great gift to the focus person, helping him or her remember the questions and answers in the hours, days and months to come.
The meeting begins when the focus person breaks the silence, and gives a brief summary of the issue at hand. Then the committee members may speak—but everything they say is governed by one rule, a simple rule and yet one that most people find difficult and demanding: members are forbidden to speak to the focus person in any way except to ask honest, open questions. This means absolutely no advice and no amateur psychoanalysis. It means no, “Why don’t you…?” It means no, “That happened to me one time, and here’s what I did…” It means no, “There’s a book/therapist/exercise/diet that would help you a lot.” Nothing is allowed except real questions, honest and open questions, questions that will help the focus person remove the blocks to his or her inner truth without becoming burdened by the personal agendas of committee members. I may think I know the answer to your problem, and on rare occasions I may be right. But my answer is absolutely no value to you. The only answer that counts is one that arises from your own inner truth. The discipline of the Clearness Committee is to give you greater access to that truth and allow you to have a personal dialogue with it—while the rest of us refrain from trying to define that truth for you or guide that dialogue.
What is an honest, open question? It is important to reflect on this, since we are so skilled at asking questions that are advice or analysis in disguise; e.g., “Have you ever thought that it might be your mother’s fault?” The best single mark of an honest, open question is that the questioner could not possibly anticipate the answer to it; e.g., “Did you ever feel like this before?” There are other guidelines for good questioning. Try not to get ahead of the focus person’s language; e.g., “What did you mean when you said ‘frustrated’?” is a good question, but “Didn’t you feel angry?” is not. Ask questions aimed at helping the focus person rather than at satisfying your curiosity. Ask questions that are brief and to the point rather than larding them with background considerations and rationale—which make the question into a speech. Ask questions that go to the person as well as the problem—for example, questions about feelings as well as about facts. Trust your intuition in asking questions, even if your instinct seems off the wall; e.g., “What color is your present job, and what color is the one you have been offered?”
Normally, the focus person responds to the questions as they are asked, in the presence of the group, and those responses generate more, and deeper, questions. Though the responses should be full, they should not be terribly long—resist the temptation to tell your life story in response to every question! It is important that there be time for more and more questions and responses, thus deepening the process for everyone. The more often a focus person is willing to answer aloud, the more material the person—and the committee—will have to work with. But this should never happen at the expense of the focus person’s need to protect vulnerable feelings or to maintain privacy. It is vital that the focus person assume total power to set the limits of the process. So everyone must understand that the focus person at all times has the right not to answer a question. The unanswered question is not necessarily lost—indeed, it may be the question that is so important that it keeps working on the focus person long after the Clearness Committee has ended.
The Clearness Committee must not become a grilling or cross-examination. The pace of the questioning is crucial—it should be relaxed, gentle, humane. A machine-gun volley of questions makes reflection impossible and leaves the focus person feeling attacked rather than evoked. Do not be afraid of silence in the group—trust it and treasure it. If silence falls, it does not mean that nothing is happening or that the process has broken down. It may well mean that the most important thing of all is happening: new insights are emerging from within people, from their deepest sources of guidance.
From beginning to end of the Clearness Committee, it is important that everyone work hard to remain totally attentive to the focus person and his or her needs. This means suspending the normal rules of social gathering—no chitchat, no responding to other people’s questions or to the focus person’s answers, no joking to break the tension, no noisy and nervous laughter. We are simply to surround the focus person with quiet, loving space, resisting even the temptation to comfort or reassure or encourage this person, but simply being present with our attention and our questions and our care. If a committee member damages this ambiance with advice, leading questions, or rapid-fire inquisition, other members, including the focus person, have the right to remind the offender of the rules—and the offender is not at liberty to mount a defense or argue the point. The Clearness Committee is for the sake of the focus person, and the rest of us need to get our egos to recede.
The Clearness Committee should run for the full time allotted. Don’t end early for fear that the group has “run out of questions”—patient waiting will be rewarded with deeper questions than have yet been asked. About fifteen minutes before the end of the meeting, someone should ask the focus person if he or she wants to suspend the “questions only” rule and invite committee members to mirror back what they have heard the focus person saying. If the focus person says no, the questions continue, but if he or she says yes, mirroring can begin, along with more questions if they should arise. Mirroring does not provide an excuse to give advice or fix the person—that sort of invasiveness is still prohibited. Mirroring simply means exactly what the word suggests: reflecting the focus person’s language—and body language—giving him or her a chance to say, “Yes, that’s me” or “No, that’s not,” though no response is required. In the final five minutes of the meeting, the clerk should invite members to celebrate and affirm the focus person and his or her strengths. This is an important time, since the focus person has just spent a couple of hours being very vulnerable. And there is always much to celebrate, for in the course of a Clearness Committee, people reveal the gifts and graces that characterize human beings at their deepest and best.
Remember, the Clearness Committee is not intended to fix the focus person, so there should be no sense of letdown if the focus person does not have his or her problems “solved” when the process ends. A good clearness process does not end—it keeps working within the focus person long after the meeting is over. The rest of us need simply to keep holding that person in the light, trusting the wisdom of his or her inner teacher.
The Clearness Committee is not a cure-all. It is not for extremely fragile people or for extremely delicate problems. But for the right person, with the right issue, it is a powerful way to rally the strength of community around a struggling soul, to draw deeply from the wisdom within all of us. It teaches us to abandon the pretense that we know what is best for another person and instead to ask those honest and open questions that can help that person find his or her own answers. It teaches us to give up the arrogant assumption that we are obliged to “save” each other and learn, through simple listening, to create the conditions that allow a person to find his or her wholeness within. If the spiritual discipline behind the Clearness Committee is understood and practiced, the process can become a way to renew community in our individualistic times; a way to free people from their isolation without threatening their integrity; a way to counteract the unhelpful excesses to which we sometimes take “caring;” and a way to create space for the spirit to move among us with healing and with power.
NOTE: People who wish to make significant use of the Clearness Committee process are urged to read Chapter VIII, “Living the Questions,” in Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2009). There you will find detailed, step-by-step guidance, as well as a DVD with footage of the author teaching the process to a group. The Clearness Committee is a powerful method that is both simple and demanding. Done well, it is a positive experience for everyone involved. But done poorly, it can cause hurt and even harm. So a deep understanding of its principles and practices is essential to using it responsibly. People who want an experiential immersion in the process — which is, of course, the best way to learn how it works and how to offer it to others — should peruse our retreat calendar and learn more about our programs, many of which offer the Clearness Committee experience.
xox
Formation may be the best name for what happens in a circle of trust, because the word refers, historically, to soul work done in community. But a quick disclaimer is in order, since formation sometimes means a process quite contrary to the one described in this book----a process in which the pressure of orthodox doctrine, sacred text, and institutional authority is applied to the misshapen soul in order to conform it to the shape dictated by some theology. This approach is rooted in the idea that we are born with souls deformed by sin, and our situation is hopeless until the authorities "form" us properly. But all of that is turned upside down by the principles of a circle of trust: I applaud the theologian who said that "the idea of humans being born alienated from the Creator would seem an abominable concept." Here formation flows from the belief that we are born with souls in perfect form. As time goes on, we subject to powers of deformation, from within as well as without, that twist us into shapes alien to the shape of the soul. But the soul never loses its original form and never stops calling us back to our birhtright integrity.”
Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Nuts
Art Project
Friday, January 24, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Don't Be Still, My Beating Heart!
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
When ceramic artist Dick Lehman traveled to Japan for an exhibition in 1999, he was astonished by his host's parting gift: four broken ceramic cups that Lehman had thrown in the trash just a few weeks earlier. Under his host’s covert care, the cups were recovered, repaired with silver, and made even more beautiful than they were before.
Kintsugi, translated as "gold joinery," is the ancient Japanese craft of mending broken pottery with gold-filled resin. Modern Kintsugi artists use a variety of materials to decorate the scars from a repair.
"In the West, we usually expect a thing to be repaired so you can't tell it's broken," says Lehman, who now incorporates Kintsugi into his own work. Using copper powder or gold leaf to mend his pieces, Lehman hopes his repairs communicate a sense of history and care. He writes, "Kintsugi artists believe when something has suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful."
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
PTL, Sister!
Memory Loss...LOL!
Saturday, January 18, 2014
For All You Lapsed Catholics!
My friend, Stephanie, had this link on her blog and I lifted it cuz It got me so tickled.
Electronic Rosary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1SPXy460g