in awe of the mystery

fireflies and four-leaf clovers

hunting for the four-leaf clovers as a kid, firefly tails make gold rings, the magic I so wanted to believe in as a child. . . .

a sunlit silence

From The Abyss by Theodore Roethke

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;
Too close immediacy an exhaustion:
As when the door swings open in a florist's storeroom
The rush of smells strikes like a cold fire, the throat freezes,
And we turn back to the heat of August,
Chastened.

So the abyss
The slippery cold heights,
After the blinding misery,
The climbing, the endless turning,
Strike like a fire,
A terrible violence of creation,
A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;
Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,
The burning lake turns into a forest pool,
The fire subsides into rings of water,
A sunlit silence.


I especially love this line: "The burning lake turns into a forest pool."

words: strong enough to break a heart

people need people

cantaloupe

One summer during my college years, I ate almost nothing but cantaloupe and the great tacos sold, in those days,  on the streets of the Maxwell Street Sunday Flea Market.  In those days, people would haul a backyard barbecue grill to Maxwell Street and just set up grilling meat for their tacos. Then the city issued some regulations that shut down those street corner tacos.

This particular summer, however, very tasty, street-food tacos on Sunday and then cantaloupe all week long was about all I ate.

I did not decide to lose weight. I just loved cantaloupe. And dad would buy me all the cantaloupe I wanted.

Think like a Tree

I dwell in possibility . . . .

I dwell in Possibility – (466)

By  Emily Dickinson  

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

an exceptionally positive, joyful mother

When my daughter's father and I separated, my attorney asked me to agree, and thus pay for, a custodial evaluation by a child psychiatrist.  The way such evaluations work is that each parent spends time with the psychiatrist and the child, so the doctor can observe each parent's parenting. Even though we took him to court twice to get my ex to just show up to see my child psychiatrist, expert witness, he never did. I dutifully showed up for several sessions with my ex's expert witness, a child psychologist.

Get this. The child psychologist, the guy paid for by the father of my child, had me come in several more times than my daughter's father. In one of our meetings, that guy took Katie's developmental history from me. Midway through that interrogation, the kind I had already been through with my own expert witness, I said "Wait a minute, if you think he and I parent equally, why are you taking her developmental history from me? If you actually believe he has been just as involved in her care as me, he would know the answers to what you are asking me."

The interrogator said, seemingly unaware of the implications of what he said, "I don't think your husband knows all of Katie's developmental milestones. I think if I took her history from him, he would answer all my questions but likely make up some answers to look more involved."

I said "Are you hearing yourself?"  He noted in his report that I was defiant and resisted his authority. He had no authority over me, the fool.

I loved talking about my baby, though, so I kept on answering his endless questions.

He asked "what was her first word?"

Katie's first word, at least the first one I identified,  was a garbled attempt to say Snuffleupagus, a Sesame Street character she loved. The guy pressed me, saying 'but what was her first clear, real word?"  It was 'da'. I think 'da' is the first word of more babies than not. I think he thought I was downplaying the fact that Katie said 'da' before she said 'mommy'. Nope. I was bragging about my smart baby. It was way smart that her first intelligible word was five syllables.

My child psychiatrist watched me hang out with Katie two times, in his office. First he took me into his office alone, asking his receptionist to keep an eye on Katie, who was less than two at the time. A receptionist for a child psychiatrist probably keeps an eye on kids all the time. Katie began to cry when she heard I was leaving her. I said, repeating it three times, "I will come back for you." And then I suggested she introduce the receptionist to her Smurfette. That effort to distract her succeeded. She held up her filthy Smurfette to show the receptionist and the doctor and I slipped out. And then I did come back for her as promised.

The Smurfette. Her dad had given it to her. It was one of those dolls one might win at a carnival for throwing balls or something. It had painted on face and clothes, buttons for eyes and was stuffed with straw. So it could not be cleaned.  Every mindful parent knows you don't give babies dolls with buttons for eyes. They could choke on the buttons.  I never bought Katie a doll that could not be cleaned. Most of her dolls could be tossed in the washing machine.

She did not learn about Smurfs with me so she must have learned about them during her visits with her dad. And as much as I disapproved of those risky buttons, I saw that my baby clung to that Smurfette, saw that it was filthy because she kept it with her always, because it had come from her dad. I saw that she missed living with him. I saw that the Smurfette represented her dad and I let her play with it until it fell apart.

He actually once accused me of making it dirty deliberately.  He never got that it as a junky toy and inappropriate for her age.

My child psychiatrist understood why I let my baby play with a doll with buttons for eyes at her age once I told him her daddy had given it to her. He admired me for my acceptance of that crappy doll. I never once suggested to Katie that it was a piece of crap.  I actually understood that her dad had good intentions when he gave it to her. He must have noted she loved Smurfs, seen that doll and bought it for her. Maybe they went to a carnival together. She was too young to tell me what happened when she spent time with him.

She moved on to Rainbow Brite, another cartoon character but a safe doll. Not a great doll. The head was plastic. I like handmade cloth dolls and machine washable stuffed animals. Rainbow Brite had a plastic head but a soft body and no choke risks.

So I talked to the shrink alone, then I go get my baby and we hung out in his office, which he had obviously set up for such evaluations.  On a shelf almost beyond Katie's reach, he had a magnetic pin holder covered with straight pins. Radar alert. Straight pins are not safe for babies.  There was also a ball on the shelf next to the straight pins. I pointed the ball out to Katie. At first, she grumbled, signaling that the ball was out of her reach. She was not yet talking, not quite what most consider talking. I encouraged her to stretch for the ball. I said "You can reach it if you try, stand on your tippee toes, stretch out your arm and you will get the ball."

She reached and picked up the pins but she seemed to understand the pins weren't for her. She came over to me and handed them to me. I said "Thank you, Katie. That's not for babies. I will hold them. Now go get the ball."

It took her a few tries but she got the ball and then bounced it around and eventually noticed the other toys.  I had pointed out the doll to challenge her, because it was a little high. When I saw the straight pins, I realized the doctor had set up the room to see how both Katie and I handled unsafe situations. Both Katie and I handled the 'danger' of the pins well. She was only about 18 months old but I am positive she handed them over to me because she instantly saw it was not something for babies. She might not have literally thought 'not safe' but she knew it was not a toy, not intended for her. I was so proud when she rushed across the office to give it to me.

I was on my best positive maternal behavior because I am not stupid. I knew that child psychiatrist was evaluating my relationship with my baby and would be testifying before a judge about it eventually.  And he was not stupid. He knew I was on my best behavior. But he also saw that Katie and I did have a positive, joyful bond. I didn't make that part up.

That doctor wrote that I had an exceptionally positive and joyful relationship with my child.

I floated in a cloud of happiness on that phrase 'exceptionally positive and joyful relationship' for days.

To feel everything deeply, as high empaths do . . .

I don't think it is a curse to feel everything deeply.

It is only a curse if you don't work to become conscious of who you really are.

I was in my forties before I began to know that much of what I felt was stuff I picked up from others.  Now sixty, I know I take on other people's energy. As long as I work to remember that all that I feel is not always my energy, I am okay. When I slip from consciously acknowledging what is going on within me, I tend to lash out unkindly, in a fruitless attempt to unload what I am feeling. All I have to do is pause, take a few soothing breaths and pay attention, asking "what is me and what is not?" and, poof, i am clear and grounded.

In moments of high charge, I don't always do this. I can be triggered into reactivity, as all humans do.  In such moments, I sometimes hurt people, including people I love.

A work in progress, that's me.

Roswell NM

In 1996, I took one of the best road trips of my life. My sister was finishing her MS in Education and wanted to teach in New Mexico. The way to get a job teaching in NM is to go to teacher job fairs.

My sister had a sixteen month old daughter. She had missed a couple NM teacher job fairs before she grokked the job fair situation. She was poor, having just finished a graduate program. By the time she had figured out what absolutely had to go to teacher job fairs in NM there were two left, several days apart. 

She discussed her options with me. Flying to NM and staying in hotels for ten to twelve days was expensive but she had to go to NM if she wanted a teacher job. What to do with her baby? She couldn't take her daughter without access to child care. These job fairs were not set up with day care for interviewees.  Maybe she was setting me up to make the offer I made.

I had a much larger and more reliable car. A Toyota Camry SE. 

I said that if she would pay for the gas and Motel 6's, which are reliably clean and affordable, I would pay for all my food and provide child care.  It wasn't child care to me. I liked hanging out with my baby niece. I like hanging out with any baby.

Nobody's fool, my sister immediately agreed.

I had reasoned that she had to pay to travel to and from NM, she had to pay for hotels. I reasoned I didn't have to go and my car and free child care had some value. And I reasoned that if I paid all my expenses other than gas and hotels, it was win win win.

And it was win win win. We had a great trip.

I let my sister plan the drives, where we would stop overnight. She read about a part of southwestern New Mexico that is said to be extremely beautiful. She proposed we go there and then swing back to Portales, which is an hour north of Roswell. She allotted only an extra 24 hours to drive six or more hours each way, with an overnight stay in this beautiful part of NM.

I wanted to go to this beautiful part of NM. I love NM and had never heard of, much less seen, that it had semi-hidden, gorgeous places I had not yet seen.

they call me little buttercup

They call me little buttercup

Dear little buttercup

Though I may never know why

It's dear little buttercup

Sweet little buttercup

Dear little buttercup mine

My mom played the piano well. She could play many pieces, first try, by sight reading.

The piano was on the wall just outside my bedroom, in the dining room. On hot summer afternoons, at my nap time (so I was pretty young), mom would play the piano to encourage me to lay still in bed. I thought her playing was fantastic. I thought she was a great singer, thought she should be an opera star.

My mom played many songs with lyrics. She loved to sing. She sang with what she regarded as a operatic flourish, singing loudly and dramatically. She believed she sang quite well. Mom always said when she no longer had children to raise, she would join a choir.  After her second husband died, the one she left my dad for, she moved back to Chicago and in with one of my brothers. My brother had just gotten divorced and had custody of his two toddler sons. Mom moved in to help with the boys.

Mom's idea of raising kids was still grounded in sending children to Catholic school and getting involved in parish life. So she paid to send my nephews to the nearby Catholic school. And she joined the parish, doing what my mother always did masterfully. She lied. Mom was a masterful liar. She never made statements that were actual lies. When she joined that parish, she made a regular habit of saying her first husband had died and now her second husband had.  She never told anyone in that parish life of hers that her first husband died about fifteen years after she had divorced him and remarried. 

She took great pride, and this goes all the way back, in her claim that she had never told a lie. Her first husband had died and, in her mind, it was not a lie to say so just because he had died fifteen years after she had married in sin.  I knew, at too young an age, that lies of omission were often worse than outright lies. I trusted those lies of omissions. Some of her whopper omissions shaped, or, rather, misshaped me.

Whatever.  Mom was who she was.

My longwinded point is that when the boys got to grade school age and needed less hands-on supervision from her, she tried to join the church choir. Well, she did join it, only to discover that she did not sing very well, she was not regarded as a potential soloist, she could not sing from sheet music. She gave up on that choir quickly.  I wished then, and still do, that she had not given up. A church choir should accept any member of that church in its choir and let the human voices that show up sing. I believe my mother quit because she was confronted with the fact that her lifelong belief that she was a gifted singer and might have sung opera was an unwarranted fantasy and that realization pained her. Although I don't know. Mom, and no one else in my family of origin, ever talked about what they felt.  We were not a great family.

However. Today is her birthday and I want to remember some of my happy memories of my oddball mom.

One of my happy memories was her singing "they call me little buttercup". The whole time I have been writing this, I have heard her shrill, even shrieking but somewhat tuneless singing. I am sure she loved me but I think that singing was about my mom's longing for an audience. She never did it in cold weather. Only when the windows and front door were wide open, so half way up and down the block folks would hear her.

I loved that song. I loved having my mom give me private recitals. I always begged her to sing "Buttercup". She would begin her singing and piano playing session with "Buttercup" and finish with an even more dramatic, more flourished round of "Buttercup".

And I would lay in my bed, not sleeping, and believe myself to be a dear little buttercup. I believed my mother was wonderful. I felt much love for her. I believed she loved me very much.

I was so proud of her.  I thought her out-of-tune, loud singing was wonderful.

I'll never know why but she called me her little buttercup!  She loved me.

my baby brother has become legally blind

He can no longer drive. He can't see very well. He has no health insurance, although going blind did finally motivate him to apply. He has a low income and was eligible for his state's Medicaid. They told him it would take three or four months to kick in. HUH?

heartsore

I've been happy, sailing through the golden tunnel.

Just now, a friend brought up, talking on the phone, my daughter.  My daugher's birthday is in late June. This friend and I were scheduling a date and I said "I know June 26th is a Thursday because that's my daughter's birthday". That was okay.  Then my friend launched into a well-meaning analysis of something I had told her about my daughter. This something was a devastating episode in our shared lives, one that haunted our little family throughout her childhood.

I had told my friend only as one shares some of one's life stories from the past to get to know one another. This incident was traumatic.

I'm devastated

critical importance of kindness

kindness is an orientation?

This article, from The Atlantic, is pretty good. It reports on studies of married couples but there are useful insights into how subtle kindness can be.

I think kindness is an orientation of one's own being. If one assumes those one interacts with have a foundational orientation towards us of caring, then it is more possible to receive their behavior in a positive light, even when their choices appear unkind to us.

I am not suggesting I am always kind but I strongly claim that I try to be, being the work in progress that I am.

stop acting so small

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

mental illness signals birth of a healer

what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hospital/

This link takes you to a fascinating article. The African shaman has written several books. A friend just told me reading the book "Of Water and Spirited" changed the friend's life. This shaman says that in his culture, when people have the kinds of experiences that get labeled mentally ill in our culture, their community believes the persons having the unusual experiences is readying his or herself to become a healer.

I knew the things that get labeled as mentally ill in this culture were completely misunderstood by this culture.

I have ordered 'Of Water & Spirit" and I want to read alll this shaman's books.

nature is the cure for everything

nature's bounty meets all need, can't meet man's greed

You are the form heaven takes, our souls fire-born

this poem is by my friend, Jeff Vander Clute.

You Are the Form Heaven Takes

April 13, 2014 at 5:59pm

In early April of my waking dream,
sitting beside the dancing waves, I see!
that you are the form heaven takes
to welcome me home.

Riding the secret currents of peace,
I float amidst Earth tones
through perfumed pure lands
and kiss the hand of pristine presence.

Behind the timeworn veils
we call you
  and me,
the unsplit source light shines forth
through facets of precious, polished stone.

Meaning:
Our soul was fire-born
to fly and fall end over beginning again
into the rippling seas of love,
for we are love.

Night dawns. What miraculous fortune
to wake up stargazing
in eternal cosmic embrace:
We are the self-reflecting mirror.

The constellations of your face
twinkle and reach down
through untold distances of time
to stroke the surface waters,

slipping at last unresisted
into the depths
to pluck this heart
now ripe.

Man on Fire . . .

I need some good cheer. Feeling a little glum. I love this song and especially love the variety of dancing.

Here are the lyrics:

"Man On Fire"

I’m a man on fire
Walking through your street
With one guitar
And two dancing feet
Only one desire
That’s left in me
I want the whole damn world
To come dance with me

Ohhhhhhhh

Come dance with me
Over murder and pain
Come and set you free
Over heartache and shame

I wanna see our bodies burning like the old big sun
I wanna know what we’ve been learning and learning from

Everybody want safety (safety love)
Everybody want comfort (comfort love)
Everybody want certain (certain love)
Everybody but me

I’m a man on fire
Walking down your street
With one guitar
And two dancing feet
Only one desire
That’s left in me
I want the whole damn world
To come and dance with me

(bah bah bah bah bah…)

Yay, yay. Come dance with me
Over heartache and rage
Come set us free
Over panic and strange

I wanna see our bodies burning like the old big sun
I wanna know what we’ve been learning and learning from

Everybody want romance (romance love)
Everybody want safety (safety love)
Everybody want comfort (comfort love)
Everybody but me

I’m a man on fire (he’s a man on fire)
Walking down your street (walking down your street)
With one guitar (With one guitar)
And two dancing feet (two dancing feet)
Only one desire (one desire)
That’s still in me (that’s left in me)
I want the whole damn world (I want the whole damn world)
To come and dance with me (come and dance with me yeahhhhh…)

Love created you like itself

Love created you like itself.  This is why you are the light of the world. From A Course in Miracles




The painting is by Henryk Ptasiewicz.

when doors of our souls fly open, love heals everything in sight

trust love one more time, & always one more time

it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature? lol

It's hard to read but if you click on it, I think it embiggens.

public breastfeeding solution

ecosophy: returning to indigenous reverence for sacred?

"The ancient Greeks were like many indigenous cultures have been, and like some still are, in their recognition of levels—individual, family/household, society, cosmos—as repeating the same patterns and principles as embedded living systems at different scales. As the perennial philosophy has it, ‘As above, so below’—now even becoming part of western science via the fractals and holograms increasingly used by physicists and biologists in describing nature.

Ecosophy can not only unite our separate categories of economics, ecology, finance, politics and governance, but can also unite science and spirituality, and bring human values into the entire human enterprise. In its core focus on wisdom, it must especially draw upon the feminine concerns with well-being, with caring and sharing.."

— Elisabet Sahtouris, evolution biologist and futurist

From Ecosophy: Nature’s Guide to a Better World in Kosmos Journal http://tinyurl.com/o7nb728

— with Meena Thakor.

if you think sex is nothing, you gave up too soon

If you think sex is nothing*, think about this: 

If every one experienced real tantric sex just once (when you transcend space and time and your whole being is profoundly healed and refreshed from deep immersion in the Source of Life) all porn, sex toys, fixation on appearances, and misguided obsessions would be obsolete.

A friend said this.

For me, what is described as tantric sex is transcendent sex, the only kind of sex that interests me. It is when two beings meet and try to connect with one another's radiant essence.  Anything less than this kind of sex should have another name. 

I especially like the above quote because I believe transcendent sex is also healing sex. I believe sex has become degraded in this culture, trivialized. Many think sex is nothing but physical pleasure.  It is more than physical pleasure. It is sacred, should only be undertaken with people one has deep, reverent love for and with people one wishes to touch their radiance, their souls.

I have read that the proliferation of porn on the internet is damaging people's ability to have transcendant, sex. Or, maybe, just good sex.  I have never looked at porn on the internet, not once, not even a google. Geez, if I googled porn, I bet I'd get ads for porn as I surf other topics!

I heard a speaker at the OM (orgasmic meditation) extravaganza in Oakland talk about transcendent sex. She was hawking her book on transcendent sex. Listening to her was the first time I heard my kind of sex described, first time I learned that what I have experienced, and want in my sex life, happens to others.  That's what I want.   Transcendant sex. It's humans loving one in another at deep levels, an effort to touch the other's being. It is not ultimately possible to touch another being's being but it can be very pleasurable trying, to try to achieve energetic union.

Any other kind of sex amounts to animals rutting.  I've had that kind of sex. That kind of sex is nothing.

Transcendent sex can be scary because one reveals one's self and sees the other's self. That's scary. With love and trust, however, it is awesome.

If someone says 'sex is nothing', that someone is a broken being, damaged in his or her sexuality. And they likely are having sex with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Rutting like animals is not one of the reasons for humans to have sex.

*Someone told me, when I expressed an interest in resuming having a sex life after a period of celibacy, that sex is nothing. This person proceeded to go into sad, elaborate detail about how nothing sex was to hum and how I should not desire sex because it is 'nothing'. "Once you have it, it's nothing. It doesn't mean a thing." Maybe it's nothing if one has mechanistic, obligatory animal rutting sex. My kind of sex is not nothing. It's transcendance. Sacred. Reverence for the sacred in one another.

give up gluten: here some reasons why

how-gluten-can-affect-your-brain-gut-and-skin/

this world is gobmsmacking glorious

I just finished my tiny amount of tayberries. Tayberries are about twice the size of most raspberries, longer, not fatter.  They definitely have a distinct taste. I'd definitely eat all the tayberries, organic ones, I could get my hands on. I would also eat as many raspberries, blueberries and strawberries I can afford.

I have decided that each week at my farmers market I am going to buy one thing I have never eaten before.

I will start with beets. I have had a bite or two of beets. I do not like pickled beets and that's the only kind I ever have had.

I read recently that beets have many good things in them for diabetics. They aren't bad carb, like sugar. They are good carbs.

My market had red beets, yellow beets and pink ones last week. I will buy one of each color.

I want to savor as much of the abundant bounty of our commons, Mother Earth, as I can. Nature provides everything needed.

Although, to the best of my knowledge, nature does not provide any healing foods for the Type I diabetic, no food will provide the insulin my body no longer makes.

Before the creation of artificial insulin, the average life span for Type I diabetics after diagnosis was one year.

I try to eat everything I learn about that helps my pancreas stimulate some insulin. Stevia does. Chard does.

happiness can be . .

I don't like doing laps after the sun goes down. I have never gone swimming from 4:30 to 9 (not the whole time, duh!). In bleak mid-winter, I would not like doing laps after nightfall.

Yowsa. I went last Wednesday because my writer's group keeps me from swimming near noon. So I just wasn't swimming on Wednesdays, walking home from N. Berkeley to compensate. 

I like the walk and will continue it.

But, ta da!, the sun shines brightly at 4:30 p.m. and the pool is nearly empty, which I like.  I will probably swim at 4:30 more than just my writer's group day.   One group. I belong to another.

Yippee skippee. 4:30 swims in an almost empty pool, the sun still shining is happiness. Joy.

sun kissed from swimming

Lap swimming outdoors in any weather conditions is bliss. I like cold, rainy, even foggy days. I love how a mist will rise off the water, which is heated so it is slightly warmer than the air. I also love hot sunny days like today when the jump into the water feels freezing. Within a few strokes, the water is perfect and the sun is magic.

My whole body feels kissed by the sun. I love this feeling. Hours after I get out of the pool, I feel the sun's kiss on my skin: arms, legs, face. I think even my hair feels sun kissed.

Happy.

feeling chagrin

Now that I am eating only healthy, organic, unprocessed (unless you count any food prep work I personally do), losing weight steadily, exercise daily, carefully manage my diabetes and grow increasingly committed to eating healthy foods for the rest of my life, I feel much chagrin. Why did I wait so long to love myself? 

One of my doctors asked me, this past week, what was going on with me when I got to my all time high weight and just stayed there for many years, I told her my truth. I was not aware that I was morbidly obese. I knew how much I weighed. I knew what size clothes I had to buy.  I still have two pairs of old sweatpants from my all time high weight. I keep them around because they have pockets to put quarters when I do the laundry, but also because I love wearing those super baggy pants, love being reminded of my weight loss.

I gave away all my high weight clothes long ago, like 8 years ago when I lost the first wave of my weight loss. I believed that hanging onto my old 'fat' clothes would send a message, perhaps unconsciously to my self indicating I knew I was going to regain the weight so I should keep those old fat clothes. As soon as I thought that, I got rid of the ASAP.

I also bought some clothing that was too small for me, incentive to lose.

And, somehow, I managed to hang onto a few pieces of clothing from long, long ago before I became morbidly obese.  I became morbidly obese in my early thirties.  I weighed 146 pounds after I gave birth to my daughter in June 1982. 146 for a 5'6" woman isn't skinny but I am also very full bosomed and I had just had a baby.

Alternatives to big pharma drugs

There is almost always an alternative in nature for the things chemical drugs supposedly provide.

Why don't more doctors get active in alternative, natural healing?

toasted berries on the flour-less pancakes?

Take some berries, place on parchment paper on a baking sheet, bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  You can add a touch of honey but blueberries don't need it. I like the tang of a sour strawberry. If you roast strawberries, which I did this morning for my banana-egg pancakes, you can put them hot on the pancakes. Warm roasted berries on the flour-less pancakes or cold:  delicious, gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy free.

I usually roast more berries than I can eat in one sitting so I store them and eat cold roasted berries. I think sugar-free roasted berries are healthy 'jam'.

my pendulum says . . .

I have a pendulum I treasure because it was gifted to me by an elder in the Spirited Work community, the founder of Spirited Work.  Spirited Work was an eight year experiment in Open Space Technology community. We met for four-day weekends, four times a year, in cycle with the seasons and using Angeles Arrien's book The Four-Fold Way for the themes of our gathering. We met using Harrison Owen's Open Space Techology during our retreats but the whole community connected using Open Space throughout the year.  It was a nadir in community life for me and I miss it.

Of course I have great reverence and respect for its visionary creator. So of course I treasure the pendulum she gave me.

My pendulum is not giving me answers I want.  I've got the gimmees again.  This time I don't want stuff. It is quality of relationships and community that I want. Gimmee gimmee.  Want want. I know that wanting unleashes negativity in me, prodding me to focus on what I don't have instead of what I do.

My pendulum indicates I will not find the love I long for. Darn. Change the questions but what questions? Trust?  Meditate?

Wah. Gimmee gimmee.

Gosh, I guess I qualify as an elder these days. The woman who gave me my pendulum is in her eighties, though. A wise crone.  Although I also qualify as a crone, albiet not a wise one. I have one whisker on my chin, like any aging crone/witch should.

tell your stories

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

- Anne Lamott

tayberries, kale, strawberries, tomatoes, rainier cherries

plus peaches, maitreya mushrooms, eggs from pastured chickens, avocados, sorrel, 3 small peaches, organic local asparagus and a piece of polenta w/kale from the organic baker at my farmers market

I remembered, half way home, and it's only about 3 blocks altogether, that I wanted chives. I didn't go back. I felt lazy in the moment of decision but I have a date later, so I was marketing as early as possible.

I was going to do one quart of garlic and chive fermented asparagus and one with ginger. In the instant I decided not to turn back, I decided I'll settle for two quarts of garlic-flavored fermented asparagus.

How did I miss how easy it is to ferment, or pickle, vegies?

I asked what tayberries are. The vendor said they were a hybrid from raspberries and ollallaberries.  Joking I said "So they are genetically modified?!" as I handed him my five bucks for the tiny basket of tayberries. He could see I was kidding around. He good naturedly said "Well, they are hybrids, but hybrids aren't genetically modified. Hybridization happens naturally in nature and crossing plants is not the same as genetically modifying them."

My tayberries might be the largest berries I have seen other than strawberries.  I bought the tayberries as much for the name as for their purplish pink plumpness.

And the foods I bought were just a few of the many other fruit and veggies on sale. What a glorious world. Think about it. I could also have bought organic blueberries, apples, spring greens, all kinds of lettuce, chard, potatoes, beets, fennel, summer squashes of many kinds.  I was tempted to buy some zucchini but I am in a food rut.

In my food rut, I eat the same few things. My variety comes from the amazing bounty of summer fruit.

more on apple cider vinegar's health benefits

12-reasons-why-apple-cider-vinegar-will-revolutionize-your-health/

apple cidar vinegar: miracle health food

amazing-uses-and-healing-powers-of-apple-cider-vinegar/

I eat (drink) some apple cidar vinegar daily.

Typically, I add a tablespoon or two apple cider vinegar with water, dash of cayenne, dash of stevia, and some lemon. I drop slices of lemon in my water bottle.  I have come to love this drink.  I only drink water, my custom spice blends of chai with coconut milk and this apple cider vinegar drink.

I dropped coffee. I don't really like coffee without cream. I initially gave up coffee to lose all the cream I was drinking.  I never just used a 'splash' of cream.  I don't like the taste of plain coffee.  However, I have been reading that coffee has several benefits. So I might try coffee again. I could try it with cocomilk, eh?

We'll see about the coffee. In the meantime, I am loving my apple cider vinegar drink.

a no-brainer

If we live in a loving universe, it should be a no brainer to believe that nature has provided us with what we need to be healthy and happy, to have all needs met. Not all wants, but all needs.

It angers me that we have allowed Frankenstein corporations take over human culture in a drive for wealth and power.  Frankenstein corporations invest millions, even billions, in drug research. We, the people, through our governance systems, should be investing millions, and billions if billions are required in understanding how food can heal, how we can heal the rape and damage done to the earth.

Food is the way to health. I am sure of it. Food and an awareness of the goddess-course, or love, or spirit or whatever one chooses to call the supersensible.

Of course the Loving Cosmos has provided for all our needs on this planet. Let's get those needs met with reverence for the sacredness of nature, the way indigenous cultures always have.

I see Western culture very slowly catching up with indigenous cultures.  "New Age" beliefs are basically what indigenous cultures have known for millenia.

a good hug

"The average length of a hug between two people is 3 seconds, but researchers have discovered something fantastic. When a hug lasts 20 seconds, there is a therapeutic effect on the body and mind.

The reason is that a sincere hug produces a hormone called "oxytocin", also known as the love hormone. This substance has many benefits in our physical and mental health, helps us, among other things, to relax, to feel safe and calm our fears and anxiety.

This wonderful calming is offered free of charge every time we have a person in our arms, when we cradled a child, cherish a dog or cat, we're dancing with our partner, the closer we get to someone or just hold the shoulders of a friend."

I don't remember where I picked this up. I try to attribute any quote.

I recently got a great hug. The man wrapped himself around me and hugged me hard. It almost hurt. I almost felt my breath get squeezed out. It felt great, though, because he was showing me he cared, that he loves me.  I had just told him something, a story from my life that left me feeling raw, vulnerable, crazy, damaged. I cried. The more I cried, the harder he squeezed.  It was great.

flour-less pancakes

This recipe fits my anti-inflammatory nutrition goals. I am having this for brekkie.

I am supposed to eat about half protein and half fruit or veggie for breakfast. And I am suposed to eat protein as soon after I get up as possible.  I often have an egg and a banana. Mushing them and turning them into pancakes will be welcome variety.

Guess I''ll cook them in coconut oil. Olive oil doesn't really go with 'pancake', eh?

when will I be loved like this?

it's raining men

Three men asked me to go out with them today. Asked today.  Each of these men are acquaintances I barely know for whom I feel no wish to take the acquaintance beyond friendship. So what did I say?  Nothing.  I did not acknowledge the invitations.  "Let's go to Jupiter's, have a drink and shoot the breeze."  I could be mistaken. That invitation might not have been a 'date', just two acquaintances going out. 

Jupiter's is a pizza place a block or so from where I live. It seems like a dingy bar to me. I don't drink. I don't eat gluten or dairy, central pizza ingredients.  I wanted to say "Jupiter's?  Ugh. No way."

Instead, I acted like I had not heard him.

The Jupiter guy has asked me to go out to eat with him several times, to go to movies with him more times than I can remember. I wonder if he stepped up to a place serving alcohol to see if booze would interest me.

I think he said 'let's shoot the breeze' to appear nonchalant but maybe he wasn't asking me on a date.

Another guy from one of my storytelling groups asked me to meet him for a drink, suggesting 'the bar scene' in Oakland.

I have almost never gone to bars.  Very briefly in college, I hung out with another coed who liked gin and tonics. I'd go along because she would plead with me to keep her company. I even said "Why don't you just buy gin and tonic and drink here? She did not flirt with anyone. She was not in that bar on the prowl. Maybe she was an alcoholic.

My ex liked to go to bars. When we first dated, I would go but gradually I stopped. After we were married and had moved to his hometown, he met an old friend of his at his friend's hangout bar. This friend was definitely an alcoholic and I thought my ex was.  Then again, I am such a teatotaler that I tend to judge most drinking as a sign of alcoholism. Anyway, my ex and I went to a bar and he ignored me to talk to his old friend. I had suggested he go on his own but he said that wouldn't look right to leave his wife home. The friend didn't bring his girlfriend.  So I sat at the end of a dark bar ordering one G&T after the next until I was hammered. Really drunk.

Gradually, I noticed a man old enough to be my father next to me. He bought me a couple drinks, but not to flirt.  When I told him I didn't really like gin, vodka, whiskey or any booze in particular he said he had good news for me. He said alcoholics all have their favorite booze. If you don't like any booze, I wouldn't be worried, he said, about being drunk now. I had expressed concern that since I was quite drunk, maybe I was an alkie. He actually asked me lots of questions, like a screening for alcoholism.

up is down and Mad Hatter tea parties.

I see steep rises in the polarization of opinion.  Not just with Republicans and Democrats, although the way that American prisoner of war is being villified in the press seems exceptionally low. And it's not just Repugs.

I see steep rises of opinion between people.

Increasingly, I hear people taking absurd, if not irrational, positions and doggedly sticking to their absurdities without hearing any reason.

Maybe it's me. Maybe everyone is making sense and I am deluded when I think I have a sensible take on anything.

It's like the whole world is having a Mad Hatter tea party.

¡Pronto llegará el dia de mi suerte!

¡Desde antes de mi muerte, seguro que mi suerte cambiará!

¡Ojala!

fat women R desirable but in secrecy & shame

I went to the Orgasmic Meditation Extravaganza.  I did not participate in many of the many events because I was pretty sick that weekend. I had paid so I tried to go but I didn't last long any of the times I showed up.

One day, I found the quietest, least occupied corner in the whole, very noisy building* to eat my raw salad. All the food on sale at the event had gluten, or dairy, or sugar or combos thereof. I always bring my own food nowadays.

Now I have had many men offer to OM me, including some very attractive ones. But I know there are many men who would never in a million years offer to OM me. OMing is not having sex but I think many, if not most folks attracted to the OM movement are really trying to date in a hipper, more contemporary pattern. It's dating. So there are males, males I consider predatory, who will only OM and date that small percentage of very attractive women that most men want.


So I was sitting in an alcove under a stairwell eating my salad, trying to decide if I had the energy to stay for the afternoon.

At this event, there were rooms set up for OMing and I had a few men offer to OM me. I always get some OM offers when around OMers.

I think I can pick off those men who are only interested in the most attractive of all women. Such a woman was sitting hearby me. She was very beautiful, very slim, fashionably but hipster-ly dressed with cascading blonde hair, perfect make up. She was close to fashion model or movie star hot.  I don't know why but I took one look at her and knew she OM's with her sexual partner only.

One guy, also attractive but not as hot at the gal I am writing about, came up to her and asked if she would like him to OM her. she politely turned him down, telling him she had a partner and she only OM's with him.

If that guy was looking for the experience of OMing, I would have done just fine. A clitoris is a clitoris. But he was looking for a hot woman to date after he OM's her.  He didn't even look at me.

There are a lot of men that don't see fat women. I mean they really don't see them. I see them. I see them going blank when I enter their field of vision. The man who asked the gorgeous woman across from me is such a man. I am certain he did not even see me. He does not registered fat women.

Although having said all this, I am getting close to being not-fat. My body mass index is no longer in the obese range and is approaching healthy range.  I notice more men paying attention to me, asking me out, attracted to me. I almost hate men for not loving me fat but willing to condescend to me as I slim down. Not quite, but almost.

There were several men in the building who had offered to OM me at the OM Extravaganza so I didn't need that guy who would only approach the top hotties. Fuck him and fuck all men who erase fat women. And fuck men who do not invite fat women to meet their friends and family.]

Just imagine going to a New Year's Party with a non-hottie fattie. I'm not ugly. I'm just not thin.  I notice being shut out of someone's life, like when they only see me at coffeeshops but never ask me to do anything with them, especially, horrifically, to do something where, horror of horrors, other people they know might see they have a fat escort. Not even a girlfriend. Some males who make clear their complete sexual disinterest in my fat body will still not be seen socailizing with me as a pal.  It might reflect negatively on their image in the world. Fuck them.

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives

There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of Spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild Darling!

At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face into mine.
Breathe into me.

Close the language-door,
and open the love-window.

The moon won't use the door,
only the window.

--Jelaluddin Rumi, 13th century