Kom me naar buiten allemaal
Dan zoeken wij de wielewaal
En vinden wij die muziekant
Dan is zomer weer in’t land!
Dudeldjo klinkt zijn lied
Dudeldjo klinkt zijn lied
Dudeldjo en anders neit.
Oh, it feels like Springtime inside and outside. . . the birds are singing, my heart is expanding out so far I feel like bursting!
I had to edit and update this post. Here is what I originally said: “I am so excited that Van Jones is now in a position to help to implement some of his green economic policies. He was appointed “Special Advisor for Green Jobs” by Barak Obama on March 16th. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is taking over Van Jones’ position leading Green For All. Here they both are talking about the direction of that organization, and now,the direction of our country.”
The video that I embedded became outdated, however. Also, as of September 5, 2009, Van Jones resigned his position in the administration after heavy attacks from the right wing. I am very disappointed. Here is a video of his at the Powershift 2009 conference in Washington DC speaking to young people about hope and change:
So what do I do? Stay present – be present – exist. Live. Allow. Allow. Allow. It’s OK, I must reassure myself. I must be gentle and compassionate with myself. Allow myself to blossom. Allow that intellect that does exist within me if I just allow it.
I remember the flow from so long ago. The confidence. It’s funny – I feel the block as I begin to focus – it feels like a physical/energetic block that stretches between my left temple and my intestine or maybe my pancreas on my left side. Some of my intellectual recovery will involve physical recovery. I know the direction I need to go to allow more flow. . . more and more. A trickle, then a stream, then a torrent. In some areas of my being I believe I have allowed the flow. I feel healthy. In other areas I have barely begun to allow. But it is OK. It can’t be about self denigration, about blame. It must be gentleness, compassion, love. Suzie, it is OK. Be faulted. Be exactly who you are. And then feel the warmth and support around you as you are. Allow that warmth and support. Allow it. Let it cradle you. Let yourself melt into your own tears. Release. Let it go. Let it go. Grieve. Grieve. You know it is OK. Give yourself the time you need to grieve. You don’t need a reason. You don’t need to explain. Let the world hold you now. Take the time you need. Have faith in Life. Allow. Allow. Allow.
You see how it is coming. You see it. You are allowing it. It is not perfect. You are not perfect – yet maybe it and you are perfect because it is. Is. Allow. Allow. Allow. Help me to let go. Let go . Let go. Let go. Let go. Allow. Allow. Allow. Allow. Allow. Allow – my thoughts quiet a little. Allow – calmer and calmer. Allow – I can hear the fan of the pellet stove and the sound pattern of the flame. Allow – I hear my own breath. Allow – I see the light outside – a morning light muted by the clouds and the snow coming down. It’s coming down. It is morning. It is snowing. I am inside writing and listening to the pellet stove which is trying to warm the room. I look up and see the pictures of my kids and my friends on the wall. I am so lucky. So blessed. It is almost Christmas. I am late in my preparations, as usual. But it is OK. It is good. It is not about lots of presents anyway.
Today is my day to write – to begin to unwind that which needs to come out – is it me – is it a blockage – is it something more? What does that mean, anyway? Let it go. Don’t delineate. Don’t define. Allow. Allow. Allow. Organize it later. Let it tumble. Let it emerge how it will. You don’t have to control it.
Love. I am so very blessed. I am afraid of it. I don’t know what I mean by it. Surrender. Complete surrender. It brings out my fear of hierarchy and abuse – resentment – fear of being hurt and hurting. Fear. Fear. But this is anything but fear. It is a giving. A giving of self. Surrender that does not diminish, but magnifies and multiplies. The energy is more, not less. We become one and yet we are each ourselves even more deeply than before. Reaching down down down to our roots until we find our common ground. Reaching up up up and opening our senses – all of our openings, physical and non physical – opening all orifices, all pores, all abilities, all senses. Opening to allow it all to enter and then, twirl us around into the next swirl – the next pattern, the next commutation, the next structure, and we cannot control and yet we are it. How is it that we are available for the new pattern that the river requires? Yet be in contact with the earth. . . are we connected to the Earth? Are we connected to each other? What does “each other” mean? How is this vision connected to me sitting here in front of the pellet stove watching the snow outside? Can I do both? Can I open open open open open open until I no longer exist? I am the movement. . . I am the river . . . and I continue my day as I sprinkle salt on the sidewalk in front of my house and wonder about all of the yard work that has yet to be done around the house. What is the relevance of this bill I have in front of me? If I don’t write that check for the electric company, maybe eventually they still will turn off my electricity even though the flow – the flow – allowing – allowing – the silence – the silence – the incredible lightness – it is all perfect. Even my electric bill is perfect. It seems that there is a connection between not paying my bill and the electricity being turned off. That is what I have learned. You hit a billiard ball with your stick and that ball causes another to move. Cause and effect. It sure seems to work. Causal mechanisms sure seem to exist. You do this, and that happens. You step out over the side of the cliff and you fall. I would like to fly. But maybe I am not ready to fly yet. My intellect tells me that I will fall. But what about Faith? If you have Faith you will Fly.
This seems like the material of delusion. But when you have a new experience, beyond the usual, how do you bring it into your old way of thinking? How do you integrate it into your world view? It comes to a point where you just can’t anymore. It is no longer a case of integrating new information into what you think of as reality. Your ideas about reality have to change. But during that period when your world view is changing there is a sense of the world falling apart. The world is falling apart. There is nothing to hold onto. Nothing is solid anymore. Then you begin to reconstruct. But it has to begin with silence. Silence. Silence. Then the world starts to come in again. The fire is still flickering/roaring. The snow is still falling. Dakota stands up and shakes, hoping that I may finish with what I am doing so we can go outside and walk together in the falling snow. The world still exists even though my standpoint has fallen apart on some levels.
It sounds like illness – this falling apart. But it is actually a supremely healthy response to a necessity for a change of direction. I hope that this same thing is happening to all of us on some level. The beginnings of a necessary shift that will save us if we let it. Allow. Allow. Allow.
Here is an interview with Michael Franti. What an inspiring human being he is!
People are already solving carbon footprint problems, community problems and economy problems through grassroots organizations and businesses. Check it out! I got these videos from Green For All.
“Omar Freilla and members of the Green Worker Cooperatives talk about their work to saturate the South Bronx, with worker-owned green businesses.”
” Orrin Williams and the folks at Growing Home demonstrate how urban agriculture is reconnecting people to their communities and the earth, and revitalizing Chicago.”
” Aundre Collins talks about his work with Solar Richmond, and how it has shaped his life.”
Here is a great vision.
********
Here is an excerpt from the web site for this organization explaining what the number 350 is all about.
“Where did this 350 number come from?
Dr. James Hansen, of NASA, the United States’ space agency, has been researching global warming longer than just about anyone else. He was the first to publicly testify before the U.S. Congress, in June of 1988, that global warming was real. He and his colleagues have used both real-world observation, computer simulation, and mountains of data about ancient climates to calculate what constitutes dangerous quantities of carbon in the atmosphere. The Bush Administration has tried to keep Hansen and his team from speaking publicly, but their analysis has been widely praised by other scientists, and by experts like Nobel Prize winner Al Gore. The full text of James Hansen’s paper about 350 can be found here.”
Check the main site out also: 350.org.
********
When I was little and I was riding in the car with my family, someone would see something and point to it outside of the car. I would look for it and often miss whatever was being pointed to before we had passed it. It became frustrating. I guess it was understandable. After all, I was the youngest. I might have been sitting lower in the car, or some other factor may have made it less likely for me to see whatever was going by. Over time, I think I gave up on trying.
As I grew up I began to rely upon other people’s points of view to see. I would go to other people to tell me what they thought, or I would go to a book to give me the truth of a thing. I had little confidence in my own vision. And I think the physical use of the eyes is just a more basic level of a use of the eyes that involves a higher use of the brain and spirit: vision, the ability to look forward and look with courage, foresight. . . and those are certainly related to discernment and wisdom.
It has been time for many reasons in my life for me to begin to use my own eyes to see. It is frightening. I don’t always want to see the truth. Just look at the entry I posted just a couple of days ago. Life can be very frightening. But I can choose to see, and then vision where I want to go and what I want to do, or I can ride along passively with the wave that I am already on.
Yesterday I was at a meeting with some of the people at the Alliance for Sustainable Communities. We were discussing the issue of mobilizing people towards change. One of the people said something then that really touched a chord for me. People aren’t going to go forward into a void. They need a vision of where they are going before they are going to leave an old paradigm, an old belief system about the way things need to be. Yes, it does look pretty bleak in our world today. The problems are so multifaceted and interconnected it seems like a straitjacket that we can’t get out of. But answers are blooming at the same time all around us. Why haven’t I even thought about that?
OK. The economy has some major flaws. There may come a time when we can’t rely upon the banks. Maybe the grocery stores may reach a point where they don’t have the ability to bring food to us from far away. Maybe many of us will be losing our jobs. Maybe gasoline may become too expensive. Maybe oil for heating our homes may become too expensive.
The political arena has had some real challenges for a long time. There has been so much corruption for so long, once you get into that system it seems that making changes becomes a continuous give and take of compromise where one hand is supposed to wash the other even though it should be so clear what is right and what is wrong.
The corporate world has been aiming at shareholder profits to the exclusion of everything else since that word “corporation” was first defined. We are seeing the results of that in the narrow focus on selling, selling selling and the ultimate use of the media to hypnotize our culture into buying buying and buying bigger and more.
We each have answers. If we can learn to work together, we can put those answers together into a cohesive whole. It is too multifaceted for any one of us. That is why the answer lies in working together. We can re-create our economy, from the bottom up if necessary. There already exist cooperative banks. There are organizations that are active here in the Lehigh Valley which bring together local businesses who can and do attempt to support each other. There is a group involved in trying to get local farmers together with those who would buy food from them here in the Valley, restaurants, the local food coop which is forming, and other organizations as well. There are people in this area involved in farming which is not so dependent upon the use of pesticides and fossil fuels in other forms. There are many organizations through which people are coming together to solve all of these problems and others. We just need to get over our fears and reach out. And add to the visioning.
There is hope. There really is. Thank you all for helping me to have the courage to see. Please feel free to let me know what you think the answers are.
We all may die. I’m not just talking about each of us as individuals. Our species may die. Our world may die. Many high level systems are now changing very quickly in our biosphere. The oceans are acidifying with the absorption of more CO2. Huge lakes have been forming on the Greenland ice sheets and then disappearing through cracks to the area under the ice. The polar ice caps are melting. At some point all of these changes will accelerate as feedback loops lend strength to all of the changes and we reach tipping points after which any human intervention will be fruitless.
So what do we do? I have friends, wonderful people who dedicate themselves with every ounce of their extra energy to trying to find an answer; trying to figure out how to engage the appropriate key parts of the decision making machine of our culture, made up of corporate, governmental and grassroots populace. Where do we focus? What is going to work? How do we save ourselves?
I think back to what Mairead Corrigan Mcguire said in her speech to the University of California. Follow the link back to my earlier entry to watch the YouTube video, if you want. Here is an excerpt from that speech which begins at about 6:10 in that clip:
” We look out in the world today and there are so many problems. . . . and do we prioritize? Do we say, yes there is global warming, we’ve got to do something about it. Do we say, yes, there’s dreadful poverty. We’ve got to do something about it. Or do we say, well there’s nuclear weapons, we’ve got to do something about it? Do we say it’s time for no more wars? Do we say that it’s time that we say no to violence, no to war, no to nuclear weapons, or do we prioritize? Or do we simply have another drink and get on and enjoy our lives? I think we mix both. I think life’s for enjoying yourself. It’s for celebrating. And perhaps we need more music, more dance, more beauty in the world today. And you know, if the University of California is teaching its finest minds and its beautiful people to make weapons that are dropped on our brothers and sisters around the world, that’s a tragedy. That’s an insult to our humanity. That’s throwing back in the face of God the gift of life. But if the University of California has smart men and women, they are intelligent enough because they got to the University of California in the first place, they are intelligent enough to ask, is what I am doing beautifying life, or is what I am doing destroying life. And they were given free will. And they must make the choice. Life is all about using your intelligence, your imagination and your creativity and making a choice. So can we make good choices? Or do we make bad choices?”
If we each individually attend to our own lives and make each decision which is in front of us at each present moment with this question in mind, maybe we can save ourselves. I have a ways to go. Not all of my choices have the result of beautifying life. But I will continue to be as honest as I can with myself with each step I take. Sometimes those steps seem so multifaceted and complicated. Sometimes I begin to lose hope. But if I can turn these steps into a dance and use my faith in conjunction with my intelligence maybe this dance will bring me to where I want to be.
I spend a lot of time in a dreamworld. I always have. My imagination is very vivid and strong and it is a gift and can be a wonderful tool. Sometimes I believe that my imagination is open enough and wide enough to accept and thus receive more of what is. Maybe it is sometimes that way. But any tool can be used to expand or to contract. Any tool can be used in love or in fear.
I cling to my story lines often out of a sense of insecurity. I want the world to be predictable. I want to feel some sense of control. So when I am scared, those things that console me go around and around in my head. I comfort myself that way. But I also limit myself that way. I ask God, “Why can’t I feel your love?” I guess I need to let go of the surrogate love first. Let go of this pretend world.
This is a repeat of what I have said over and over again. But this is who I am. This is Suzie. My struggle may seem so simple and predictable to the people around me, but from within it feels impassable. Impenetrable. Patience, little girl. Let yourself melt into the smile.
It has been a long time since I wrote in this blog. I do want to check in. I guess I have been waiting for something that I could put together into some cohesive whole. Thing is, those cohesive wholes are eluding me the more I dive into life and cross check my own theories about things, my own pre-suppositions, assumptions. The more I take a chance and really start to open up to the people and places around me the more I find I really don’t know so much about anything. I thought I was getting a handle on all of this.
My friends tell me that once you begin to really be honest with yourself, (actually that part is my own words), the more you realize that you don’t really have a clue, but that’s OK. I feel like I have to know and understand. Otherwise it will all fall apart on me. But I guess the world doesn’t depend upon me for its cohesiveness. Maybe I need to let it go and learn to dance. Learn to fly. Learn to float. Something.
Thanks for reading. Hope to see you all on the physical plane.
SuzeMusic powered by
WordPress
This Custom Music Wordpress Theme by Kickass.
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).