Acceptance

Today I was just noticing how adapting a mood of perception helps s person slide right into the phase of livelier partner. Feel the whole process taking shape.

Acceptance is the final grace note of Elizabeth Kubler Ross' five stages of grief.

We can experience it in that concert flowing with the musicians, but also simpler experiences as well. Once we come to accept that this person who did something made a conscious choice and we are supporting it. Then agreement sets things into motion, acceptance opening doors.

We are happy when they played some of our favorite songs and we are happy when they come up with an unusual expressions of what we created,

We accept the gift o those who died and at the same time celebrate the adventures of those who survive. We need to plan clearly now and launch into the waves.

Once we have acceptance we can open up to the coming experiences and see what happens, and we sense the flow is much smoother. Same happens when a career path dies. Open up and accept opportunities and let love shape what comes next. Something totally unexpected might be perfect.

Now that we have reached acceptance some things just seem to fall into place and the execution is sweet. Acceptance lets us accept the gifts presented to us effortlessly and use then efficiently. No regrets, no anger, no disappointment. Just doing.

Then comes the realization. Why didn't we do it this way from the beginning? We might have too much philosophy, too much thinking, and not enough doing. In the doing we shine. Yes, it is simple, elegant and powerful. Accept, and do.

I Want My Heaven Now

I find it interesting that so many people care whether there is an afterlife and speculate about what it is like. My view is that I will find out when I get there. Meanwhile, I just want to enjoy this life.

These thoughts are not directed at any one religion, but rather all religions that concern themselves with the afterlife.

I can see how for some people it would be a real letdown to find out that after all these years of working and keeping up a house, looking after a family, spending 60 plus hours a week cultivating a career path that you drop dead and find out that there is no next life.

Of course some people adapt the point of view that it's OK if everything is out of whack here, because after we die, it will be better there. Some people are so certain of that that they will hurry their own death along to get there faster.

Not me.

There are certain moments here on earth, in this body, when we can get a taste of pure bliss. I don't know that any afterlife can top an orgasm. Maybe some people will try and argue that there is, but I still say that we won't know until we get there.

Are there other sublime experiences to be had in this lifetime? Yes, I can think of a bunch. Can you? If we can repeat those a bunch more times, we get to have heaven on earth.

Let the other people debate what heaven might be like. I am too busy looking for all the joy that is possible here. For some reason, I just got a vision of some BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, a summer salad, a cold micro brewed beer, and yes, that is another heavenly experience. I would make a longer list, but I need some sleep.

Yes, I want my heaven now.

Small Food, Big Food

Half a billion eggs from just two farms have been recalled because of the recent salmonella outbreak. Although they are packaged under a variety of brand names, the recent problem has been traced back to just two farms that produce half a billion eggs.

What kind of farm is that? Interesting how egg cartons frequently picture a barn and chickens running around in the yard. That's the kind of places our chickens and eggs used to come from, but nothing that looks like that picture will produce a half a billion eggs. That's similar to the images of cows in grassy open fields with a barn and a farmhouse in the background, where much of our diary and meat comes from cattle that actually live much more confined lives than that.

Those of us who can remember as far back as the 1960s and 1970s know that massive recalls of contaminated food because of illness and death were a very rare event.

However, since the 1980s, it has become almost commonplace. Beef, chicken, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peanuts. Lots of foods have been recalled for contamination.

How did this happen? Two main reasons. One, larger farms and processing plants kept getting larger while many small family farms, slaughterhouses and processing plants went out of business.

Two, politicians let lobbyists persuade them that industry could do a good job of inspecting itself, even though the FDA was created and government food inspectors were hired about 100 years ago because of public concern over the quality of food processing facilities and slaughterhouses. These recent outbreaks of food borne illnesses certainly indicate that need more food inspectors, not less.

All the modern problems and controversies in agriculture revolve around one thing. In making farms into factories, shortcuts are necessary in order for fewer people to produce more food. In the worst case scenario, that pressure produces people like the guy who ran the peanut warehouse and shipped moldy peanuts even though he knew they were moldy. In the best case scenario you can have someone working very hard who simply does not take the time to wash up between chores.

Perhaps we should consider whether smaller might be better in farming. How can two farms produces a half a billion eggs?

Supporting small family farms, organic farms, and producers of heirloom foods through CSAs (community supported agriculture is buying a subscription for a farmer's produce) and farmers markets is increasingly popular. Sometimes, smaller can be better than larger. Even taking small steps in that direction as consumers will make a difference, both to us and the farmers.

Tastes Good Too!

My sisters have long made a habit out of shopping for their produce at the farmers market as a way of both getting high quality, interesting foods while at the same time supporting local farmers.

I do buy locally grown fruits and vegetables too, but I am not eager to get out of bed early on a Saturday when I don't have to.

You will notice that even the chain grocery stores will have signs up when produce is local. Personally, I am not so concerned about organic. For some items, I will go for it, but for some, I am not willing to pay a lot extra. To be certified organic a farm must be doing everything organically for several years, and I would see more sense in spending the money on organic leafy greens than say, potatoes or bananas. Just my opinion, of course.

I think that if you consider that some of these farmers who are taking the time to cultivate heirloom vegetables and different varieties are doing so on a smaller scale on a family farm, they are paying a lot more attention to what they grow and how they grow, even if it is not certified organic, and I think that is a good thing.

Most important I think is when you buy produce at the farmers market, the income goes directly to the farmer, and that helps them to make more profit.

One of the added bonuses is that at the farmers market you will find heirloom varieties, and vegetables and fruits that have surprising tastes, colors and textures.

That's a great added bonus for supporting local farmers and helping to keep jobs in the American economy. Every little bit helps, and it tastes good too!

Pizza and Peanut Butter

I saw a post from someone asking if they knew of a place that had gluten free, lactose free, vegetarian pizzas. I thought to myself, wouldn't it just be easier to order something else? I mean what is a pizza without the bread dough, meat and cheese? Then again, I am the kind of guy who will opt for a glass of ice water if the only kind of beer you are serving is something called lite or light. No matter which way you spell it, it can't pass for a beer around me.

Oh, I know, the poor people with allergies still want to eat something that looks like their favorite food. And some people just want to be seen drinking something that looks sort of like a beer.

All this leads me to wonder though. Is this some sort of evolution or aberration going on? From the time I was a kid eating peanut butter sandwiches until about ten years ago or so, I never heard of people who were allergic to peanuts or wheat.

Is it that these were in existence all this time, but everybody thought it was something else? Or is it that so many additives have been added to all kinds of foods that this stimulated new allergies?

I don't know. I think it is just another one of those weird things that is happening in our world. Curious how something like peanut allergies or gluten allergies just all of a sudden pop up on the radar. Curious to see how that happened or how it will evolve.

Soft Summer Solstice

It felt appropriate to spend part of my Summer Solstice planting in the garden, then taking a relaxing bath.

The herbs are growing nicely and it is wonderful time to stop and give thanks for all of the wonderful healing energy they bring us and all the ways they add flavor and health to our lives.

The longest day of sunlight is also a time for gratitude for all that we have received. A time for gratitude for the people in our lives. A time for gratitude for health, love and abundance.

A time to light a candle and relax with a glass of wine and reflect on the polarity between this and the shortest day of the year.

In Shakespeare's play, this would be the magical night of the Midsummer Night's Dream. In Europe, May 1 is the first day of summer. Here they call the Solstice the first day of summer. Most years that seems too late, but this year, with snow until May, it feels like we just started summer.

In the fullness of life, there is much to be grateful for now. The wheel is turning.

Food for Thought

I was listening to someone speaking on the radio the other night, and I heard a perspective that I had not considered before.

A point the speaker was making was that for a long time now in this country we have thought that bigger is better when it comes to farms. Fewer people produce all of our food now because of modern machines, pesticides, fertilizers and the other modern inventions. Achieving the economies of scale has created a number of hotly debated topics.

In order to be more efficient, things like huge barns have been built where thousands of pigs or chickens or cattle are kept in close quarters, force feeding them and not letting them run loose and exercise, making it efficient to get them to the weight for slaughter more quickly. Large operations like this also produce tons of waste per day, filling whole reservoirs in heavily concentrated areas.

Out in the fields where row crops like soybeans, wheat and corn are grown, efficiency is enhanced by huge doses of pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and large equipment, which makes it possible for a few people to raise food crops on hundreds or thousands of acres.

The questions of the wisdom of genetic engineering and modern farming methods have been written about elsewhere, and it is easy to find more details if you wish.

The question of size alone is the part that strikes me as a new perspective. There is a current movement which you have heard about that favors supporting more local farmers, both organic and non-organic, with the idea behind it being that food that is grown closer to home will be fresher because it does not have to be transported great distances. And if the local farmers are managing a smaller plot of land, some of the better tasting produce might also be a result of their careful attention to all the things going on with their land, large and small, and that is how they get their results, tending a smaller operation and watching it very closely.

Right now lots of people are concerned about jobs, particularly the aspects of job security and meaningful work. Maybe it was not such a bad idea when most farms were smaller and it took more people to grow enough food for everyone. There are smaller farmers now who make a good living because they are known for the quality of their produce, honey, meats and dairy. There are quite a number of smaller vineyards all over this country producing good wines.

High quality goods can come from small operations where the owner has an active role in the process and a local crew of people helps tend to the work.

I, like you, get my food and drink from a number of sources, large and small. A combination of all these sources will continue to be needed.

This example poses the question for each of us about when is it good to be big and when is it good to be small?

Whatever your business is, do you want to grow it in a way that you run it personally, and it is only as large as you can handle? Or is your dream to franchise it, or hire others and delegate it to them, or simply grow it to a certain size and sell it?

Size does matter. Each of us will have to answer that question for ourselves, and each kind of business has different factors that contribute to our considerations about optimum size. How is our quality of life affected by these decisions?

Making a living by doing something we enjoy is the optimal situation, and that certainly is influenced by the answers to these questions.

Driving Our Vehicles

I was in the doctor's office this morning, waiting to see the nutritionist. I've got to monitor my foods more closely and lose weight because I have diabetes.

Everyone going to a doctor's office has a problem with their body, it's just a matter of what part. We all have bodies and we all have things that need to be fixed periodically.

Sort of like our cars. They may run smoothly for a long time. Then one day you start to notice the brakes aren't working like they usually do. They squeal and take longer to stop.

Sort of like that with the other vehicle we use to get around in. We are cruising along smoothly when we notice that we used to exercise more than we do now or we are eating too many carbs, and suddenly our blood sugar numbers are spiking and not coming back down.

So we have stop and out some new brake pads on it, like a low fat diet. Of course, it is never that simple. We also have to have a low carb diet for greater fuel efficiency. Sort of like instead of just getting new brake pads, you now have to get new rotors and whatever those other expensive parts are they put in.

With our cars, we have to remember to change our oil, keep air in the tires, keep pads on the brakes and gas in the tank.

But sometimes we forget to do those same things with our other vehicle. I am not ready to trade this one in yet. I have some parts that still work real well, and still have a lot of mileage left on me. So it's time for some maintenance.

Kind of interesting to think of treating both vehicles the same. Sometimes it seems more like we think of body maintenance as a sudden occurrence that is unexpected, rather than planned maintenance.

Green Dreams

Green dreams include renewable energy, locally grown, healthy foods, recycling and things along those lines. Green dreams include creating work that celebrates life. Green dreams include creating new kinds of work and new opportunities. Green dreams also include ways of making a living that work for everyone.

Green dreams also include living in a way that keeps us in touch with nature. Green dreams include harmonizing our energies with those of nature. Green dreams finds power in work with, rather than against.

Green dreams include visions of the future in which simple pleasures provide what we need. Green dreams include legalizing the well known weed.

Green dreams include sustainable living and at the same time, a way of living that we want to sustain. Green dreams include spirituality that celebrates nature and our nature. Green dreams include life not just as it is, but as we would like it to be.

The Aroma, Sight and Taste of Pleasure

Since there is not really a yard at this townhouse, the garden is a number of containers. This year, we focused on planting vegetables and herbs rather than flowers. Just in more of a mood to be practical.

This week, the cucumbers bloomed with these beautiful bright yellow flowers. The pepper plants have these little white flowers. The tomatoes, of course, have little yellow flowers.

A friend, once upon a time, kept picking all the little yellow flowers off the tomatoes figuring that would make them grow bigger. Then she asked someone why her plants never got tomatoes.

Basil has not yet flowered, but it is expanding into some wonderful big leaves. Chives and parsley are exploding with growth like their own little fireworks show. Oregano is just expanding slowly and steadily. Green beans have filled their allotted spaces and the bush beans, as they call them, will in not too long a time, be providing us with a delicious harvest.

It is a life lesson to watch these seeds and starter plants take a little while to acclimate to their new homes. Their flowers last for a little while, but there is much happiness in knowing that each flower will soon become something good to eat and will become dinner one evening. Sometimes it just takes a little while, and we have to let it flower and provide us with nourishment on its own schedule. They take a certain amount of time, and that is just the natural order of things.

A little earth, a fair amount of water, not too much sun, and life expands. We bring our spirit out to play with the plants and help tend the garden. We nourish the plants and then the plants nourish us. We help each other. Flowers nourish the spirit with their bursts of visual joy, but they are not the only viewing pleasure. There are all sorts of green shapes is the other plant leaves. And then there is the pleasure of the palate, which comes after the color and the aroma. Satisfaction comes in waves. Life affirming, simple, beautiful waves.

There are many different pleasures in life, and this is one of them.

Choices and More Choices

Too many choices? 7 Cups shows a person with many choices. Having choices in life is good. We can choose different careers, places to live, different lovers, different hobbies or activities. But sometimes when we so many that we are overwhelmed with our choices, we can become lethargic. It becomes hard to choose.

I'm sure some of you have heard similar stories about immigrants going shopping in supermarkets for the first time and having so many choices of brands of products that they don't know where to start. Sometimes having less choices or more stark contrasts in the choices makes it easier for us to choose and act. Artists, for example, create with found objects when they cannot afford all of the best tools and supplies, and often produce amazing results. Many a time, I have improvised a meal with foods, herbs and spices I had on hand, without planning the ingredients and created a tasty meal. Men typically have a different approach to their wardrobe than women. Men may have less items and wear the ones they love best all the time, until they are worn out. Women seem to like to have lots more choices with many items being worn only rarely.

That also happens in other areas of life. When you are out of work and looking for a job and you start looking at everything, it becomes bewildering. If there is nothing in your field, you start applying for everything, and your focus is gone.

Daydreaming can produce good results as a creative incubator. So after the free flow of ideas, you want to carefully consider all your options and choose as well as you can.

There also comes a time to make your decision. If you have many choices, there are ups and downs to each choice, but at some point you just have to choose. Remember that not choosing is also a choice.

Interesting how that choice manifests in the 7 Wands, where the person who has been working hard in their garden is now looking upon his work and knowing that he will be able to reap the fruits of his labor.

The choice in 7 Swords is that the mischievous character is stealing other people's swords while they sleep so that they cannot fight when they get up. He keeps his sense of humor as he disarms his adversaries.

The choice in 7 Wands depicts a person holding the high ground, able to defend his position, whether it is about sparring over ideas or protecting himself from attacks of other kinds. Once a person has chosen and takes action, they are in a good position to handle whatever is next. Choosing well and acting on it is well rewarded.

Everyday Luxury

There is pleasure to be had in every day things. Being conscious of every moment, I had another one of those pleasurable moments shopping at the grocery store.

What a simple pleasure it is to be able to simply choose a few fine things like some English Breakfast Tea, blueberries, bananas, sliced turkey breast, Braeburn apples, lettuce, sun dried tomatoes, almonds, rye crackers and mild peppers.

I am aware that there are people in the world who are struggling to get even a bowl of rice and beans for dinner.

What I have chosen is not extravagant, but it is a luxury. It is a luxury simply to be able to choose. It is a luxury to choose what I think tastes good and what I would like to have.

There are simple pleasures in our every day living. Do we actually take time to appreciate them?

Half Empty or Half Full?

When the blizzards hit hard out here, you can see effects almost immediately. Within a couple days, even the huge chain grocery stores start to have empty shelves where produce and bread used to be.

That is an instant reminder of how interdependent we are in this world. Other people raise and produce our food and send it to us.

Such sights inspire some people to advocate that everyone store tons of food for emergencies. Of course, having some extra canned goods or dried food on hand is always a prudent idea. How much? Well, the half empty glass people will advocate a couple years worth, but perhaps a few months worth will see you through the worst emergencies, since the groceries seem to be restocked to normal within a week. So the extra will get you through times of power outages, storms and short periods of unemployment.

Another suggestion that has merit is that of victory gardens. Back around WW2, people were encouraged to grow some of their own vegetables and fruits in their own yards for their own consumption so that more produce could be available to feed the troops. Lots of people did.

Even to this day gardening is the most popular hobby not only in this country, but in the world. There is a real joy and pleasure to seeing plants grow, nurturing them and then having vegetables, fruits and herbs from your own garden be part of your meals. Herbs that season your food or become tea add a lot of life to any meal.

If you are producing more than you can eat right away, you can share it with others, you can can, freeze or dry it. Even a small patch can produce a lot. Many people would think that the idea of having a garden rather than a lawn would be less aethetically pleasing, but that all depends on your sense of aesthetics. For most of the life of this country, manicured lawns were not the standard in front of every house.

So is your life half empty or half full? We must trust that the world will continue to work. Farmers all around the world will continue to produce food and these mutual exchanges will benefit everyone. My world view is not so grim as to think that this will all end suddenly one day.

My glass is half full when I work in my garden because I enjoy it. My trust that other people will keep producing is based on the simple truth that buying and selling are necessary parts of life is also a half full view of life. We all have to guy and sell something just as part of every day life.

The half empty view of creating a life where each person is capable of producing all their own food is a reality that will never be available to most people. Seeing the glass as half full is the only option that makes sense. Always seeing it as half empty makes for a grim view of life, devoid of joy.

Another

Watery Visions of the Future

Remember how not so long ago the people who advocated that we get more of our electricity from wind or solar power were regarded as wackos. Today, those people are regarded as visionaries and people are interested in developing more infrastructure to generate wind and solar power.

Now we come to another problem. Water. Doesn't it strike you as strange that the way that Los Angeles and Las Vegas get water is to have it piped from the Colorado River? Why haven't we set up plants by major coastal cities like Los Angeles to desalinate and clean up water from the ocean? It could be done on the east coast too.

Atlanta had a drought last year because the water levels from the Chattahoochee River were down. A pipeline from the Atlantic would not be nearly as long a pipeline as the Alaska pipeline that transports oil.

I would also expect that bottled water might be one of the next industries that will see sales go down. Two reasons. One, it seems wasteful to throw away a plastic bottle every time we take a drink. As far as filtering, a person can get something as simple as a pitcher with a filter or attach one to their sinks or, of course, in many refrigerators. Using a refillable container is much less wasteful and more cost effective.

Perhaps one day in the not too distant future, we will hire engineers and construction crews to build desalination plants on our coasts near major cities to solve our problems with water shortages.

Maybe that sounds too visionary now, but then again, sustainable agriculture is now something we hear talked about more all the time, along with questions about the quality of our food sources and more inspections for food production facilities.

Maybe it is time for some of these watery visions to come true.

Constant Refinement

I am diabetic and have managed to control it for years through diet, exercise and medication. Then I stopped paying close attention because I was feeling better. Then I started feeling worse. Now I have to put an extra effort on my diet and exercise to get back on track. Those of us who have a chronic problem like diabetes we have to pay constant attention, but it is easy to lapse and forget when we are feeling well.

A recent check up reminded me that I have to refine my diet once again to really reduce blood sugar levels. That plus renewing my exercise schedule again. There is no shortcut. I simply have to make time for it. There was a time when I followed my plan more closely and got good results, then because I was getting good results, I let it slide.

I know what needs to be done, I just didn't do it for a while. So here I am this evening, preparing tomorrow's lunch so that I can stay on track.

Here I am going out for a walk every evening, and enjoying it.

Taking more medicines is just not what I want to look forward to. I am working my way off of them.

The Language of Illness

It is interesting when we look at the language we use to refer to illness. We "fight" a cold or flu, we "battle" with cancer. We "fight" heart disease. All this sounds like there is this enemy we do battle with, rather than our own body we are working with.

I work with my body to strengthen it and provide it more of what it needs. I pay attention to what I eat and drink and how and how much I exercise. When I do not pay attention to these things, my body gives me reminders. When I allow myself to become too stressed, my body gives me reminders to change my ways. I have come to embrace having a cold or flu as a few days to rest and rebuild and take time out of my regular schedule. Illness is not my enemy, it is part of the cycle of life, and it serves a useful purpose.

I am not just referring to colds and flu. I was born with a condition that required much surgery to correct. I had a heart attack 8 years ago, and at that time discovered I also had diabetes. It is something I have to live with every day. I had to make some adjustments to keep going. I am having to make more adjustments now. The principle of working with our bodies is true for these big things too.

I do not discount serious illnesses and cannot explain why some people who apparently live a healthy lifestyle would also get a stroke or heart attack or other disease. That is a mystery.

I remember Wayne Dyer talking about his own reaction to his own heart attack. "I remember thinking the sudden onset of the pain and the inability to get up off my bed. I remember thinking I am Wayne Dyer, Mr. Positive Thinking. I jog every day, I eat healthy, I love and take good care of my wife and kids, and I don't smoke or drink. Why am I getting a heart attack?"

I do feel that there are lessons about living that come with all illness. We may not always know what that is until much later, or maybe never. Still, we have to work with what we've got.

We have to work with our bodies. They are always in communication with us, but are we listening? Sometimes they have to derail our plans and activities in order to communicate something important to our minds and spirits. Notice the language we use to refer to our own bodies. It is telling us something.

Health Nuts?

It is interesting to observe how much of what used to be referred to as alternative has moved into the mainstream. Not so many years ago, people who shopped in health food stores were called "health nuts."

But since certain recent government administrations dating back to the 80s decided that we have too much govenment regulation, we seem to have a lot more problems.Back in the 60s & 70s for example, I do not remember that we had so many food recalls for e coli or salmonella causing millions of pounds of food to be destroyed because it was contaminated and people were getting sick.

Ah, who needs all those pesky food inspectors? So now we see health food stores all over the place, and many of them are very successful because people want more of what they sell.

Personally, it is just too expensive for me to go all organic, but at least some of what I eat is organic and I definitely read the labels on the foods I buy anad make the most practical decisions I can with my money. So I guess paying more attention to what we put into our bodies is not really nuts at all. And yes, I do think that hiring more food inspectors to check out the food processing plants would be a good thing for our govenment to do.