I had to laugh~ then share

In a world where everything believed is basically upside-down, well, this seems strangely rightside -up to me... ~fun learnin'....

History? fun:
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=q4jm0jbwo2


f#@!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsdLVpZLp8&eurl

~POSTMANIA~

I’ve gone mental on doing my blog. It’s like, pause for a minute. Take a step away from the technology and upon return find myself a total ignorant as to how things work.

Now, I’ve never really gotten the beat of what ticks beneath developing software and the internet application that speaks behind the ins and outs of sharing info over the World Wide Web. No, I am a pretender. But then, we all are some where, aren't we.

Still, I want to play. And I think I have something to say. So try my hand at it when it suits me. Not nearly as much as I think I want to…

Procrastination is a bugger. It dresses itself up in busy mundane tasks of familiarity and whispers sweet-nothings that tell me there’s always tomorrow. I succumb to its charms. And another day passes…

The question isn’t really whether one choice is more valuable than another. I’ve learned long ago there are no ‘standard’ hierarchy of values, but rather the order each of designates according to what we believe most serves us.

The question for me then is, at the close of another ‘busy’ day, do I know myself any better, my children? Was I present? Did I laugh; feel deeply and happily enjoying my busy-ness? Or was the day fraught with inattentiveness, wishing I were somewhere else, in another time, when the all the tasks were done.

The thing about being a giver is that if you’re not sincere; in other words, attempt to give what you don’t have. It is a mark of maturity to recognize that the only thing we can ever share is ourselves.

I can’t begin to tell you how many years I lived in this kind of un-presence, where when ‘enough’ was done; there would be time for me… Today, it bores me. I prefer the peace that can only be found in total presence…

See, here’s what I did with the ‘keeping a blog’ thing, as I have with other things along the way:

It starts with making a compartment in my mind for said particular thing, putting a label on it of sorts, like “I’m a blogger”. Now naturally, whole lists of defining terms start lining up under the heading. All manner of expectations and criteria, complete with procedures to follow and necessary training flood in; exciting, complicating, confusing and actually hampering the actual production. And before I know it, and if I’m not paying attention, I could find the label ‘failure’ stamped in red across the whole show.

Now see. Nothings really happened here, just a mental exercise in busyness, a distraction from reaching in and being fresh in each moment, learning and understanding for simply the delicious experience that being joyously fully present when doing anything brings…

That’s what this little explorative exercise is all about, zeroing in the troops of my mind, previously delegated to expectations and other unnecessary constructs; and getting naked with my mind again, and exploring the endless little nooks and crannies that make me tick.

I am forever fascinated by what I find in my mind. This is, it turns out, what interests me. What turns me on... Would it interest others? I can’t know. And, I find, I can’t care… Am I a blogger? Who knows? I enjoy this…. and, Joy is what I’m about, after all.

~CLIFF-HANGER~

Now, this is my idea of schooling. fun-schooling that is : FUN, FUN, and more FUN!!!

Last month we joined a great group of family-learning based families for a day riding and laughing and sharing at Cliff’s Amusement Park
Here are a few pics from our yummy day:

We're totally doin' it again, this week

~Unschoolin'/Free-Schoolin' College For All~

We watched this fun movie last night. The title is Accepted. It's based totally in the free-schooling (formerly referred to as un-schooling, but for me a more specific and appropriate) philosophy, always coming at learning in a completely unorthodox way. But then again, that is what free-schooling is all about. There were some subtle as well as very direct messages that speak to what isn't working with the education system we've got now, which this movie addressed in a very funny and bold way. And of course the underdog wins out in the end, enlightening the so-called experts to a new way of viewing education. Plus all the student who weren't form-fitted for regular collage, found that their way of learning was not only perfect for them, but could help others as well. We all have something to teach...

link to learn more about the movie: Accepted

~BATTER-UP~

Isotopes baseball

I took this picture, the first of many at the baseball game,

which we went to with friends (a family also subscribed to the unschool philosophy).

We so enjoy them.

The Albuquerque Isotopes played the Nashville Sounds.

It was a good match (by my ignorant account anyway).

Our friends used to be from

Tennessee which added to the fun.

But the Isotopes won out in the end.

It was a great game and terrific fun with this yummy family.

The ball park also has a kids park area, for moms like us to take kids when they get restless.

The boys loved it!

Check out the slide show below.

Thanks Tina Dennis, Haley, Luke and Cade, for a great time!

~un-family~family FUN

Ok now, continuing on the family theme, we spent this memorial holiday weekend with members of our unschooling family. Saturday, we went to a sort of new-home celebration, bar-b-que with great friend/family. While the adults visited and prepared food, the children indulged in some serious swimming in the hot tub. These are the same folks we had over for super-bowl partying and whom we egg-spressed our Easter creativity with. Hours of family fun and learning and sharing. Lots of love and acceptance. So easy to be with them.

The thing about choosing to let all things; people, circumstances, situations, etc., be exactly as they are, resisting not what is but channeling that creative nature (that might be used up trying to be right or better or some competitive score), is that there is so much fresh, alive interest and ideas to share and learn about and try.

~In the family way~

This morning I have been thinking about my recent visit to Georgia where the luxury of doing nothing took the lead in guiding the day’s events. Lyn and I spent marvelous one on one time, uninterrupted by necessities… delicious... Lyn is the best. She really is an exceptional woman. She owns her own mind. I love it. She is open and generous and available and present. We spent exquisite hours of lavishly sharing our ideas and experience and insights and questions, luxuriously basking in each others minds. I feel expanded and alive with newness and fresh perspective as a result. Simply, as good as it gets. Thank you, Lyn.

I also had a rare chance to be invited into the mind-life of sixteen year old Kendall. She is beautiful young woman living the critical day to day, social life of the teenage world. What I found delightful was that as significant as this all was, she was yet exploring her inner world as she goes, and being willing to share it. I wonder how many teenagers do this sort of inner accounting, while they’re caught up in surviving with style and a semblance of dignity while levying for status and position. ~Few.

The teenage time-period, is a critical passage in life in which relationships with peers permeates all the choices we make. And the how well we do that often defines who we enter adulthood as. It is delightful to see such inquisitiveness and personal resolve at such a formative age. What a privilege to share. Thank you, Kendall.

The standard operating procedure in this family is one of ease and contentment; the kind that comes with harmony determined in advance.

Sometimes when you’re around a family, there is a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) sense of separate interests bumping up against each other, almost as if their union had been accidental, or at least incidental as each person was hitting the grind of making a daily life for themselves. (You know, kind of like companies you’ve worked for).

It made me think about what family is. So I consult the online authority and got these (plus too many more/same). Family is defined as:

 a social unit living together; "he moved his family to Virginia"; "It was a good Christian household"; "I waited until the whole house was asleep"; "the teacher asked how many people made up his home"

 primary social group; parents and children; "he wanted to have a good job before starting a family"

 people descended from a common ancestor; "his family has lived in Massachusetts since the Mayflower"

 class: a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents"

 an association of people who share common beliefs or activities; "the message was addressed not just to employees but to every member of the company family"; "the church welcomed new members into its fellowship"

 (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera; "sharks belong to the fish family"

 kin: a person having kinship with another or others; "he's kin"; "he's family"

 syndicate: a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Here’s what I’m thinking about family. Family is really a decision, (preferably a deliberate decision), for membership with a set of ideas and values, and not necessarily people per se. That set of values and ideas then create their own moral code, which then attracts its members.

Sure when we’re growing up, it seems that our family is what we’re born into. And without running off into a track of metaphysical philosophy, let’s say for discussion purposes, that we are, just a defined, born to a set of genetic characteristics and tendencies that make up our ‘family’.

Does that define us? How much? What portion of ‘family’ do we assign excuses for our lack of deliberate decision making about who we are, what our values are, what we stand for. It’s said that an unexamined life is a life not worth living (or something like that).

How deliberately are we about looking deeply into what we were ‘born into’ and choosing into what we feel is worthy of defining and/or assisting us?

I am a twin. I don’t know for sure what that means. Growing up it meant a certain kind of attention, a reference point to a specific and maybe special group membership. I was always aware that this was some kind of elusive idea that seemed to almost float around aimlessly until someone needed it to handle, I don’t know, slotting positions, I guess. But it’s not like there was a secret society that met once a month after mid-night in some covert location. There wasn’t really a group, just a feeling. Here’s what I learned it means for me. Looking deep within the construct and identity label of twin-ness, I came to understand that there was a kind of inner intimacy I learned and accepted as a twin that is core to who I am. I call it my womb-mate technology. It is an easy, natural part of my experience with others to sort of mind-meld with them so to speak … I found that I can know others quickly and well. It’s like an innate inclusion technique. I love them within this inclusion-meld, quite naturally accepting a certain wholeness and holographic connectedness. I’m sure this isn’t unique to me or twin-ness; it’s just how I wired it up. I felt this characteristic of mine, brought to my career as a counselor, a sort of cliff-note knowing that allowed me to feel at home, in-family with clients. And I did, developing a new definition of family.

Actually, much of how I viewed family and what it meant to me, I carefully held up to the light of discernment. Much of it was revamped at this time. I sort of let the old, blood-related definition of family die in my mind; letting go of taking anything about family for granted and started with a level of innate respect for each person alive, having a unique contribution to my being as a whole. Family became an idea, and entity of union that one must chose for oneself by careful invitation.

Today I feel that each of my relationships is a deliberate invitation to be in-family with me just as I am; raw and true and skinned, sometimes scared and sometimes wise, but always in the inquiry of life we share together.

And you know what; I choose my blood-family after all. We each bring to the table a unique and powerful inner journey, which when shared, increases my sense of who I am. Which in turn, encourages me to continue to uncover potentials I left in childhood, but can use now with daring and trust.

~and the prestigious 'Mommy" award goes to the birthday girl...~

In forty-nine years of living this so-called life, I feel I am just beginning to really recognize the truly valuable and distinguish it from the simulated mimicry the ego mind busily bombards the thought-field with. Today is my birthday. In moments like now, I can only see the student in me.

It has taken nearly half a century to get there~ to the beginning of living. I spent the youngish-half of my adulthood teaching what I didn’t know, until I learned I didn’t know, and then realized that was square one: the only place from which I had a chance at any wisdom at all.

Motherhood is the course the universe offers for the souls who have a tendency to under-value and over-think themselves.

Here’ the story of motherhood curriculum in action…

It was coming up on sunrise, following another night rocking and nursing and comforting my infant son Lucas. I was simply cradling and nursing; tracing his perfect little features with my fingertips, memorizing each detail, overwhelmed with perfection and love, indelibly imprinting it in my mind.

I remember noticing in my peripheral vision that the sun was coming up over the mountain in the east. A new day dawning, as too, was a fresh view of my Self and motherhood, in a single miracle of total acceptance and gratitude. I was vaguely aware I was inside a miracle; part of something grand and infinite, resting in a sense of timeless now-ness, completeness.

I watched his tiny fingers reaching, touching, exploring their source of nurturing, cradled in love; as in my heart-mind with its tiny fingers explored the possibilities of endless Source… I was in awe. Still am. Never understood how someone as bent on a ‘get-it-right’ life, could still for moment and experience ‘enough’ in full-blown gratitude…

I can’t tell you how much, when I began my ‘spiritual journey’, I would draw from these miracle moments of nursing and awakening~ to give hope when I felt hopeless~ to surrender when the war-against myself was too much~ when the meaning of gratitude eluded me.

My birthday and Mother’s Day always fall right next to each other, if not on the same day. Duh! God-clue that motherhood’s my curriculum and paves the path to heaven…

«Inspired by motherhood.»

One can't really tell the story about motherhood until one knows it intimately; till there was no way separate out the mother and the child; the devotee and mentor, the lover and the friend… These labels, so apparently significant as individual titles of perhaps great epics in their own right prior to the immersion in motherhood, now meld together in a single life-giving meaning: Love.

The story tells itself, living in the memory-hearts of mother and children. With each uncontrolled outburst of laughter, tears, anger, and forgiveness, in the twinkling eye of inside jokes and the present awareness of unrelenting acceptance… Love.

Motherhood is the fast-tack to humility… and humanity. I think we can all agree on that.

My story of motherhood has its own unique signature, texture, colors, and materials. Yet placed within the great tapestry, we blend, beautify, bless and complete each other. With out my mother’s love before mine and the constant golden umbilical cord that threads together the continuity that love is life, each story of mother and child, is alone and crumbles.

We are part of the greatest love story ever written, living out the new discovery of life and meaning, generation after generation. It begs the question, “How many rounds do you suppose it will take till we can accept without reservation that the learning of our mother and hers before her and so on, precisioned birthing us into who we are in this world, and then perhaps not waist our precious mom-moments on reinventing the mom wheel?“ Just asking.

Ya know, at my age, the memory of resisting my mother and all she stood for and the way she did it, is very vague in my mind. It's like a story told by someone else, not lived by me. Perhaps that is the gift of forgiveness, motherhood and gratitude; the edges smooth over and only warm fuzzies seem real. Or it’s the some-timers…. I don’t know.

What I know is that I thought I knew what love was, in the sense of loving unconditionally, till I was up with my newborn for the millionth night in a row, and even as I doggedly, could not remember my own name, I realized there was no place, in no situation I would rather be, than in that moment, loving and comforting~ being with this child.

The lesson (for those of us who are poor learner and wheel re-inventors) is not without repetition opportunities; ‘important’ phone calls interrupted by skinned knees and “I love you, mommies”, deciphering the secret code behind the relentless questions, to find my child had discovered something they liked about themselves, they didn’t know how to champion~ being their champion~ and sometimes keeping their secret, the moments when you poignantly
realize that you don’t need anything about this child to be different than it is, or to change in anyway for you to love without reservation…

This is the stuff we live for ~completion~ Love received by being given fully…

~Ummm~ the joys of motherhood ~Yummy~

~There's a mom somewhere in there~

All the ideas I came into motherhood with, have, one by one left the nest. Reality ushered in a different scope, one that required humility to participate. I remember when Randi (grown up in pic) was a baby; when a cold virus collapsed the roof on me as a mom… Oh, god, the crying of the helpless~ (Yeah, I’m talking about me here) It’s such a painful, hopeless feeling, forcing me to do what I was sure I would never do, (self proclaimed atheist at the time) to eek out that beckoning prayer (“God, have mercy and take over”) while dialing the phone for my own mother.

Yes, you guess it. She knew exactly what to do. (She must have got the manual with her babies).

Being a mother teaches me who I am undercover, forcing me to interpret and respond from a place of love to situations where only fear seems available to me. I am astonished by the miracle I witness…

I just spent a grown-up-girl week with my sister Lyn in her yummy Lyn world of wisdom and freedom, motherhood and family, meaningful conversation on walks and sit-ins and movies and teenagers. (more about this visit with pics later)

She sent this marvelous presentation which I have posted below for you to share with me. From a mother’s stand point, it’s absolutely complete… enjoy…

From Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author:

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in

disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three

almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three

people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid

of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell

vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor

blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors

closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip

up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves.

Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at

its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible

except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me

now. Pene lope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on

sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood

education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and

Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But

I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like

memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on

the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they

taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then

becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that

it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds

well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a

stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his

sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on

his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time

my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of

research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-

shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you

must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I

remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful

books on child development, in which he describes three different

sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-

quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there

something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong

with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically

challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he

goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes

were made. T hey have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When- Mom-

Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad

language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The

times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover.

The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling

out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I

responded, "What did you get wrong?". (She insisted I include that.)

The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and

then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all

insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons

for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while

doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly

clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.

There is one picture of the three of them , sitting in the grass on a

quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and

1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about,

and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing:

dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little

more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and

what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought

someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now

I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they

demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The

books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I

was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound

up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more

than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books

never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Change of mind could change the world~

I stumbled upon this street art picture, this morning. I liked it, so I'm sharing it with you.
Seeing it got me thinking about the experience of having people with signs sitting out on the street, in front of stores, on sidewalks at freeway exists. How do we feel about it? I’ll tell you, when I first encountered this (I was a flower child at the time), you didn’t see it very much. Actually, what you saw at exits back then, were hitchhikers. (That’s another post entirely) Anyway, I wondered what happened to these people who would sit on street corners and hold a sign that said ‘hungry-please help” or “will work for food”, or my favorite, “will be president for food”. I pitied them. I noticed a desire to avoid, I felt ashamed.

Now, someplace in the course of my own growing up, through my coming to honesty with my own mind and beliefs and choices that shaped my life, I began to respect these people I once pitied, for the lives they created for themselves, exactly as they were.

Who am I to decide that one lifestyle is more worthy or worthwhile than any other. Also, as I got really honest with myself, the kind of honesty that left me with 100% responsibility, I came to understand the interconnectedness of all of us.

The world I see is the out-picturing of my mind (mind as one). I made a deliberate choice to see through the eyes of love and gratitude, and more often than not, I do. So I can now and respond with ability and honesty. I guess I am no longer afraid of my mind, and subsequently, what seems as others…

So, I see this picture I stumble on today, as a reflection of the heal-the-world part of our one-mind… And it’s nice to see.

«Don't play with fire, play with reality.»

Life in our household has, in part, left the building, ~World of WarCraft is the cyber reality who’s presence looms within our home.

Now, one can’t say that this isn’t a good thing. I observe from a front row seat/ batboy-waterboy perspective. What I see is what, for the players, is seemingly more ‘real’, than anything outside of it, for hours on end. Log-in equals a dimension shift in reality, a sort of slider effect. (Remember the series?) If you look at where one places ones attention as being where one experiences reality at any given moment, reality takes on a very shadowy texture.

A few years ago, I came to this analogy about the sliding effect while watching forgiveness reformat my life. It felt completely natural, whatever shifts were made, like being there all along, no residual angst. Yet in a hindsight review, I could not reasonably connect the dots as to how a situation congested with guilt and shame, anger or resentment, could transform itself to one of unity and love, teeming with genuine care and kindness… How did it get that way? Slide………..

Deciding for forgiveness seems to be the portal….. Peace of mind, the new world. Forgiveness divulges openness, where becoming takes a side-line to being. Point of view becomes Spirit-view… Here’s what revealed itself: Seeking anything outside oneness, including ‘spiritual-ness’, is the domain of the ego mind. Plain and simple.

Yet, being present, in Love with ‘what is’ without reservation or interpretation, but openly encountered in the here and now, is all that is needed. It is the heartbeat of the real, here. It allows for love to focus itself, which envisions the world in a completely different, very essential way. The characters might all seem the same, but everything about them is essentially different to the ‘slider’/ experiencer. Presence of love/Self is experienced beneath the time/space materialization of the seeming ‘real’ world.

Just thoughts… ~Love~slide~

hhmmmmm... Quinn...there's a bit of Quinn in all of us.

I love it when I feel so delicious... Everything is right....

I love watching the show, playing roles like mom and chauffeur and friend and confidant … Cole’s good friend Quinn, from Las Vegas, has been visiting during his spring-break from public school. They display tremendous respect for each other while being goofy and inquisitive and creative together. Check out this film they made as a case in point

Quinn has been full of questions about the life of the ‘unschooler’. Its been fun to share with him. Here's a yummy, useful quote in describing the unschooler,that I loved: “Unschooler: one who learns from life and love and great books and late morning conversations and big projects and eccentric uncles and mountains and mistakes and volunteering and starry nights - not from dull textbooks and sedative lectures and interfering homework."

It has been fun to observe this young man ‘observing us. life is so much fun, yes?

~fantastic, fun, fabulous friends~

I was fortunate to spend a little time in full, rich deep conversation with my dear friends Pam and Joe. They are ever observing and investigating and healing their minds and lives. It is a breath of fresh air to be with them and share our lives. Thank you Joe and Pam. Check out these pictures from our time together.

Hey, while we were enjoying being with each other, our yummy friend Brian joined us, and later Jolyn. Great Friends!!! Brian and Michelle are extended family as far as my family is concerned. The boys consider them their god-parents. And we love them dearly. Bri and Michele each flew into Albuquerque to spend time with Lar while the rest of us have been out adventuring… So, it can’t be acknowledged enough that a fabulous time was had by all. Also, on this note… I am so very grateful that as it turns out, Brian was with Lar when he got the call that his father was transitioning. Of course the universe would orchestrate it so that a comforter and friend could share the sense of loss associated with the passing of a loved one. Thank-you Brian. We love you.

2007 sister's all for one ~one for all

Now for the sis- retreat recap:

First off, can I just mention what a tremendous group of women we are? Such extreme depth and willingness for honesty and communication, it constantly inspires me to revisit what I think I know about myself and life, re-evaluate and reload…fuller, richer, more aware. The sense of humor, unique to this entity called sisters, is full-bellied and relentless, leaving me with aching sides and lightened mind… And, as we proved yet once again, we are fearless, courageous, and fun, adventurous expressive gals. Lyn sponsored an ATV tour and each of us took the saddle in style. Check-out the pics below:

~Wedding bliss~

Here’s a picture of Tyler and Amy~ taken up, up and above in a hot air balloon where we performed a marriage ceremony for them~ another yummy experience amidst the other lovely adventures. In my role as a metaphysician and minister, I have had the opportunity to facilitate some really fun and powerful and unusual and unique ceremonies … I am so very grateful and blessed… Thank you Amy and Tyler and everyone else that participated in this event. It was a ball… (I think I have a video of the ceremony on its way to me… I’ll post and share it when it arrives…)

Zero-degrees of separation: the adventure of life~

Inspiration strikes like magic. Sometimes waiting for it is exasperating. But I got no talent on my own. So I wait and work on my willingness to be intimate with inspiration ~or avoid. My environment always supports the level of my mind. All I have to do is look around at what seems to be going on around me’ and I can see the texture and nature of where my mind is on a particular topic. Today’s topic is blogging. The resistance amuses me. I got notin’ without inspiration, yet inspiration has never failed to show up when I have… So, as always, its all me…
The past few weeks have been delightful, engaging and bordering on the spectacular …. How do I capture that?…. It seems that to just begin, any which way, is a good start. I know inspiration can do something with my willingness …

Somewhere around a month ago, we broke ranks and went off on a new adventure in living-learning- adventuring- embracing- assimilating. I can’t really describe the context of what the shift was, but I note it by the energy of ‘trust’ that permeates the family system. It’s not just an increase of trusting one’s Self (or better, the One Self) as whole, it is marked also by the absence of otherness… still, I can only hope to point to the experience of trust and freedom and allowance, for there are no symbols to accurately articulate it…

What might look to many as a family vacation, to radical unschoolers as merely ‘doing business the RU way’, to this one it has been a coming to-gather of pure in-joy-meant.

The physical destination was Utah, the internal location: here, now.

I'm calling it what “zero-degrees of separation” looks like…

We hung with innocence and bliss, laughs, enjoyment and commitment, with risk and courage and togetherness in the form of Lucas and Becky and Noah and Egan. Early morning prayers and power-talks to games and loves and restful belonging, we experienced all the elements of good family relations. See the film below…

One of the fun days took place at Hogle Zoo. We had a great time! Here’s a little film strip documenting the fun…

In the mist of this family encounter, the fingers of togetherness reached out to include extended family. Gary, (my first husband/love) and his beautiful current family/love, through their arms and home open for visiting and bonding; Randi and Lucas with their dad and brother/sisters. See the pics that follow, marking that yummy time…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch of Danét, the sisterhood of the traveling feminine, met for a sleepover in the enchanted cottage spirit-space of the eternal goddess Patricia. Those attending were my Self, Patricia, and the candor and courage goddess; Nan Richel …. Oh, how we laughed… and cried and shared and admired and became more….

And, oh so yummy… We got the opportunity to hang out with Clay and his now love/partner, Shaurice, we had a delicious time with warm heartfelt conversation and being together, filled with children’s laughter and banter… ah, what bliss…. Children we share from seemingly ‘past’ relations, all in attendance… see pics below

I want to say how much I love and respect Clay, (Cole and Parker’s dad). We met in spirit, defying all physical constructs to what ‘relationship’ was ‘supposed’ to be and let spirit rip. We knew somewhere, somehow, we had made an agreement together that we were meant to fulfill, so we set about allowing that to happen (often with resistance on my part- but also much faith and courage). Always faith, innocence and love’s purity took the lead through difficult passages and Clay remained the embodiment of these, forever teaching love’s tenacious flow. Thank-you Clay.

Oh, the day beckons and I feel moved to answer… I’ve hardly begun the expression of this past month’s adventures, so this will be the first of however many entries …

ah, yes sweet peace

This morning I am thinking about my sisters and the magnificent honor it has been to be involve with such tremendous women. Each has taught me about myself in so many ways. We have an annual sister's retreat. This year's is just around the corner and each year I am astounded to see my womanhood identities through the perspectives of these marvelous women and have a 'frontrow' seat to each one's growth as student and teacher of living life fully in a myriad of ways ~always alive with beauty and generosity. I am blessed and grateful... I can tell I've got another blog share about sisterhood welling up for sharing and I'll show up when it does... This am I'm thinking particularly about my sister Keri. It is her birthday today. She has been such a rich source of love and forgiveness and blessing. Below is a poem I pulled of of my archives which came to me as a perspective that she and I have so often shared. We share a common reverence for our Creator and totally connect from seemingly different spiritual genre's yet recognize as the same ultimately in truth. I share that poem now...

The Faces at Braga

In monastery darkness
by the light of one flashlight
the old shrine room waits in silence

While above the door
we see the terrible figure,
fierce eyes demanding, "Will you step through?"

And the old monk leads us,
bent back nudging blackness
prayer beads in the hand that beckons.

We light the butter lamps
and bow, eyes blinking in the
pungent smoke, look up without a word,

see faces in meditation,
a hundred faces carved above,
eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.

Such love in solid wood!
Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence
they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.

Engulfed by the past
they have been neglected, but through
smoke and darkness they are like the flowers

we have seen growing
through the dust of eroded slopes,
then slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.

Carved in devotion
their eyes have softened through age
and their mouths curve through delight of the carvers hand.

If only our own faces
would allow the invisible carver's hand
to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.

If only we knew
as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,

we would smile, too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.

When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.

If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carvers hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers

feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.

Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration

to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver's hands.

~ David Whyte ~

~T A D A !~

Tina'sshawlshrug ~in the making~