Dear God/ess, My friend Sheila, Astrology’s Astrologer, and I went to the Grotto of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, Maryland, today.Ulysses came with us and as you can see in the picture, he was quite popular among the young people there.
Our Lady Gutalupe in the picture is the site of several major miracles in the recovery of Ulysses’ Cancer over this past winter. So to suddenly be visited by this group of energetic, athletic and happy adoring fans, who demanded to have their picture taken with Ulysses, felt like an omen of continued good health for this wonderful dog.
So I want to recognize this happy moment, and pause a moment to appreciate it.
Dear God/ess, The other day, I walked Ulysses to a popular downtown spot where there is always a water dish for the dogs who pass by. A woman was there, obviously a Lover Of Dogs. I told the Story Of Ulysses, as I do often, because I am gratified that he chose to spend a few more seasons in my adoring company. Our friend Jo-an recently passed due to a ravaging cancer, and for some reason, Ulysses did not die from his own ravaging cancer this past winter. So I tell Ulysses’ story, in order to give hope to people who love their animals.
This woman told me a story about her own dog who passed after 8 short years. She could not figure out why because she fed him only organic foods which she cooked herself every day.
The she realized the sad fact: She “treated” her lawn with chemicals to kill all the weeds, mainly the Beautiful Dandelion.
These chemicals could be killing her, as well. And her grandchildren.
This is not the first time I thought about this problem of chemical lawn treatment. It feels idiotic to me to decry the dangers in our environment when if every single person stopped treating their lawn, we would be much further along in saving Mother Earth than we currently are.
When we bought our beautiful farm 21 years ago, we were told that absolutely no chemicals had been used on the land for at least 10 years. So for at least 30 years, our land is rich in its own natural life force, undeterred by the stranglehold of “better living through chemicals.”
I would love to start a movement to stop the abusive practice of so-called Lawn Care. Dandelions are a powerful spring tonic and the flowers are rich in natural anti-oxidants. Even though I don’t drink alcohol, Dandelion wine is really an all around natural cure for whatever ails you, except, of course, for alcoholism.
Lawn care, after all, is an all out war waged against the beautiful Dandelion.
How crazy is that?
Let us pray for some Common Sense to the way we care for the animals, our children and ourselves as we live out the rest of our lives here on the Mother we call Earth.
Dear God/ess, Today we met an old friend of Tomaso’s and we had a refreshingly honest talk about our lives, especially the lives of this person and Tomaso and what they went through together over the years, especially 35 odd years ago.
The conversation reminded me of the old conscious raising days of the 1970′s: No idle gossip, just an honest assessment of where we used to be and how far we have come, as well as how far we still have to go, in a process of never arriving, simply enjoying wherever we happen to be.
I am also noticing more and more people around me being 60 something and older, sitting face to face with one another, trying to figure out their lives in relationship with each other and all the other relationships in their lives.
You don’t have to die in order to be reborn. We are always in a process of being and doing, of relaxing and producing, of ebbing and flowing.
There is no end in sight.
The day begins, and then it ends.
The dark night of the soul need not last forevermore. We need not hold on to the doubts we have always had about our lives.
Yes, we look back over a long life well lived. And yes we can learn to love all of it no matter what we’ve done or not done. We can change from a miser to a person who experiences new birth and a Life Of Love.
We can learn to lift up the sadness of the world through the eyes of compassion.
Dear God/ess, As I continued to contemplate the passing of our friend today, the Reverend Jo-an Glasse, I realized that Joan Adams and I had Jo-an on our radio show 9/28/10. Soon after, Joan decided to leave the show the beginning of 2011.
The topic of that show was “Death, Dying and Rebirth.” I had not taken the time to hear that show again– until today.
The replay of that show is at the top of today’s post.
The first thing that caught me by surprise was Jo-an’s larger than life laugh. Then I was taken by the expanded nature of the conversation.
I know that the subject matter of that show laid down the brick and mortar for the days and weeks ahead, as Jo-an suddenly fell ill and faced her own mortality.
Jo-an helps me face my own mortality, as I listen to her words.
Joan Adams wrote to me today after hearing the show again, and was blown away, as well. That show perfectly describes our philosophy of what it means to live, grow and flow into the opening at the close of our lives.
Another eye opening revelation came today when I realized that Jo-an’s voice was not recorded widely, if at all. Naturally, those who were married by her or had a funeral done by her may have video-ed those occasions, but they are in private hands.
So this radio show is possibly the only public interview we have of Jo-an. I was divinely guided to have her on the show. Blog Talk Radio did the rest.
Dear God/ess, One of the wonderful things I have learned by writing prayers, and this lesson came to me spontaneously and automatically, is that I don’t need to know or have proof of why things happen, like illness, pain or crisis.
Yes, it is human nature to need proof and even statistics for the events and experiences of our lives. And when challenges arise, we all tend to want to find reasons that point to something we did or did not do to make “it” happen. People might think if they “Come To Jesus,” for instance, nothing “bad” will ever happen again. And when it does, God/ess is secretly held up as the Power that let them down.
“God is a Creator, not a custodian,” someone recently told me.
Real healing seldom occurs if we try and reason our way out of a crisis, an illness or a death.
Real healing only happens when we give up the need to know WHY, the ultimate addiction of human-kind.
Surrender to What Is. Surrender to the Universal Intelligence. Surrender to God/ess.
The act of surrendering is not a rational process, but is a mystical and radical transformation. The Leap Of Faith comes to mind, because leaping into the unknown defies our rational mind. We must develop blind courage to undergo such an adventure.
Releasing the need to know immediately brings a cheerful light into our collective heart. It also brings us immediately to this wonderful moment, the only moment there is. In this releasing and letting go, old wounds, resentments and the need to play victim vanish.
Dear God/ess, Old Baxter, friend of Mukunda, who just turned 13 last week, slipped his tether up on the hill and ran for freedom to the river.
Tom woke me up to tell me to bring a lead for Ulysses, who was the one who found Baxter stuck in the mud in the cold water. Then Ulysses picked a fight with him. From Hero to Buffoon in the space of five minute’s time.
I took muddy Uly into the house, prepared some Miracle Drops for Baxter, and went to help Tom hoist the dog up the river embankment to safety.
To the God/ess of Ulysses and Baxter and all the dogs of this world, hear this: we humans are willing to crawl around in the mud to save your lives. And even though Ulysses wanted to pick a fight with you, dear Baxter, in reality he’s the one who saved your life.
Earlier, Tom and G were going to go swimming at the Y, but G called at the last minute and canceled. Did G save your life, dear Baxter?
In reality, a whole orchestration of helpers synchronized to save your precious life.
When Mukunda was in his prime, he’d go visit Baxter on the hill sometimes three times a day. Once in a while, Muki ate Baxter’s food, but mostly he went for the comradery. Then when Ulysses joined our family, Muki and Uly went up to visit Baxter together.
One Easter, Ulysses stole an Easter Bunny toy from Baxter. Six weeks later, Baxter broke his tether and came down to our house looking for his toy. When I saw him running up the lane with bunny in mouth, looking over his shoulder to see if Ulysses was following, I immediately called his mistress.
I said, “Your dog is brilliant! He remembered where his toy bunny was for weeks and when he got away, came down to our house looking for it.
“Never underestimate the memory of a dog for his toy.”
Dear God/ess, On this beautiful Thanksgiving Day, we look back over the year and give thanks for all of our answered prayers. We give thanks for the unanswered prayers, too.
Where were we one year ago? For all of us prayerfully reading Prayer To Heal and commented, you can track your odyssey by looking back over your comments, here.
Read your journals. A journal is a reflection of your unique journey through this lifetime.
This day is the beginning of a season of joyful communion and also is a time to pull inwardly as we track where we’ve been and now envision the next leg of our destiny. The nights grow longer and we can use this “time” to contemplate the moments which expand to encompass all of eternity. The short days and ever lengthening nights are now ours for the creation of inner resilience and courage. These moments in time last until the Solstice when the days grow longer, again. What a miracle!
Use this time for your solitude. Resist the distractions of materialism, and empty yourself of all anticipation of future events.
‘Tis the season to fill yourself with tranquillity by the simple act of prayer and meditation. In these moments, as you expand into the quiet times, you come to know the true meaning of Grace, not by reading about it, not by discussing it, but by experiencing it.
This season IS an exercise in Grace and the quiet contemplation of the Love we have in the here and now.
After those years of blackout alcoholic drinking, I got a GED and went back to school, got nursing degrees, and thought I was keeping my drinking under control, the great alcoholic delusion.
But the truth of it was, I was a binge drinker and suffered from 4-6 drunks every year with maintenance drinking in between for 30 years.
I put the cork back in the bottle for 6-9 months at a time, but always returned to my drinking behaviors, each time a little closer to self-destructive consequences.
I never got a DUI and was never arrested for any other reason because of alcohol, but plenty of my alcoholic friends were.
One day I knew I had enough and found the answers as to how to stay sober, one day at a time.
Finally, I have reached a level of emotional sobriety that Bill W. discusses in his wonderful essay entitled “Emotional Sobriety,” which says quite simply that dependence on people, places or things is not the way of an alcoholic who Truly is in recovery.
This is a very important ingredient of my sobriety today.
Dear God/ess, Today is a good day to practice “Easy World.”
Julia Rogers Hamrick, in her recently published book, “Easy World,” says one of the ways to pinpoint where your mind and heart resides is to recognize the symptoms of “Difficult World.” Julia will be on MoonMooYou: The Collective Wisdom tonight, 11/23/10 at 6 PM/EST!
My guiding star, and you all probably have another one, is the presence of impatience, resulting in judgment, lack of compassion and mindless hurry.
We have 100% control and responsibility over which world we choose to reside in.
Difficult world is wrought with knee jerk reactions and loveless perception, and therefore never brings anyone happiness.
Easy world synchronizes with healing breath and breathing, with radiant peaceful love, and as we consciously choose this reality, and make this way of thinking a habit, the more we see that our entire essence is nothing more or less than Love.
Why do we need constant reminders to stay rooted in Easy World? Why can’t we suddenly arrive and never again slide back to unconscious, linear, left brain reality?
This Pray To Heal Blog is one example of a daily (now sans weekends) gentle reminder to make each moment a quiet adventure of the heart.
Ulysses feels the love that emanates from all of you here on this blog and elsewhere. His tumor is almost gone and this is a miracle of resting in daily prayer and learning to receive–baby step by baby step–the power of Unseen Forces.
Let us remember that Ulysses always lives in Easy World, whether he has a tumor, or not.
Dear God/ess, I will have to ask all of you to continue your prayers for Ulysses.
While doing our Customer Service performance yesterday, Tom took Ulysses to the Vet for a followup appointment. Another biopsy taken from the swelling surrounding the area around the penis revealed cancer cells.
Now that the Customer Service gig is over, I have a few days to commune with Ulysses. When I think about a scientific diagnosis of cancer and the weight of these words, I feel a need to defy the heaviness of the scientific and rational mind that comes up with such a diagnosis to begin with.
Perhaps a blending of an intellectual and creative mind with that of the ability to perceive the Universe through the Eye of the Soul is a way to begin the healing process.
Therefore, the healing of Cancer, or any other life threatening disease, which is impossible in the physical world of reason and logic, becomes completely possible in the world of prayer and Mystical Grace.
In the process of healing self, Ulysses or anyone else, we must transcend the limitations of reason alone and connect with the inner realms of mystical perception and reality.
What a beautiful opportunity to begin again!
I remember the story of Dr. Ella Kilgus, creator of the Mechano, and her retreat on the Atlantic Coast at the turn of the 20th century. She did Mechano Neural Treatments, renamed Mechano Magic by the nurse healers who receive it, fed good food to her patients, who then relaxed on long spreading porches overlooking Old Oak and the sound of the breaking, healing ocean waves.
I think of Dr. Ella as I go about communing with Ulysses and giving Mechano along with prayerful breath in the days and weeks ahead.
I believe it is possible to defy a diagnosis and embrace the possibility of mystical communion with Light and Love.
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