The Power of Gratitude

All of us appreciate when someone expresses gratitude to us, and when we express gratitude to others, we put in motion a good feeling that always comes back around. Thanking someone else for what they did for us can make their whole day sometimes. We all have our work to do and in the course of a day, how often do we really express appreciation to each other? I mean sincere appreciation, not just thanks and duck out the door. When we know we have done good work for someone and they take the time to acknowledge us, it can make our day. And we can make their day.

What a simple, yet powerful act, and we all have the ability to stir up these wonderful feelings in ourselves and others. When we express gratitude to others, they are, in turn, inspired to express it to others.

Knowing that others appreciate us is important. Of course we all work for money because that is the medium of exchange in our culture. And yet, it really stirs up good feelings when gratitude is expressed.

This same energy exchange works with people at work, people we have intimate relationships with, business dealings with, casual acquaintances, and those in spirit. Express appreciation for our various caregivers whether they work in our doctor's office or the stores where we shop.

So even from a selfish point of view, if you would like other people to treat you like that more often, treat other people that way more often.

Extend those feelings to your spirit guides as well. They help us by advising and protecting us. That is their job, but we really keep those channels of communication open, like a dialogue, a two way street with them when we do.

Some people's concept of prayer is that you engage in it when you want something. No. It is good to say thank you to your spirit guides, ancestors and angels every day.

Think of it this way. If you have a friend who only calls you when you want something, you will tire of getting their calls and not want to answer. So if it goes both ways, then you have a good friendship. It is the same way with spirit guides, ancestors, angels. Take a few moments every day to thank them for all the good things that are happening to you. Everything. Who do you think gives you good ideas and accurate instincts? Who helps keep things running? Who helps keep you healthy and safe? Who helps us get more out of life?

Thanksgiving to me has always been the best holiday because it is so simple. We get together with family and friends to share a good meal, some conversation, some games and music and just appreciate each other's company. What a great way to spend a day!

We have always invited some people in addition to family to join us and lots of other people have this tradition as well. Years ago, when I moved around the country a lot for business, people would always get orphan dinners together. That was a word they used for all of us who were transferred in from some other place just for the job and had no family or friends there. So a bunch of us would get together, everyone would bring some food or beverage to share and we would have a good time hanging out that day.

It is in our nature as people to want to enjoy social relations with others, the same way as it is in our nature to help other people.

So enjoy your holiday and know that I appreciate all of you. Every one of you have added something to my life just by your presence.

And I look forward to seeing each of you again whenever you feel that the time is right.

May you all enjoy much light, love and happiness every day, and especially now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

How to maintain good energy when times are difficult

I have always felt that there is good energy in the building where I live. Now I know why. Recently one of my neighbors told me that long ago, the local hospital was just a couple of blocks from here and so this building was built as housing for the nurses who worked there so that they could live within walking distance. No wonder I always feel lots of good juju here.

There is now a large sign more than 6 feet tall out front advertising the property for sale.

Every day I wake up, I express gratitude for having another day. I also express gratitude for being able to live here and affirm that for today, and for as long as it lasts, I will be happy to be here. When the time comes that someone else buys the property then I will know whether I can stay or have to move. Since I cannot afford to buy the property, that decision is not within my hands. I maintain my peace of mind by affirming that I am happy today. Other decisions will be made in the future.

Sometimes it is hard for us to stay in the present at times like these. I know that some of my clients have had difficult transitions finding new jobs after being laid off, or getting out of problem relationships and finding new ones.

We have to remain confident that there is a solution for us, even if we cannot see it right now. Sometimes it takes time, and sometimes we may not be able to see it because our attention has been focused elsewhere.

In the bigger picture of our lives, sometimes we need to take a step back and reflect so recognize why we are where we are and where we are going next.

What did we get out of being here? How did our life change for the better? What is the next thing for us to do? Do we have a plan for our progress? Do we have a burning desire to change our direction?

Each time we come to one of these important transitions, we have an opportunity to choose again.

As we look back, note how the choices we made then were made with the best information we had at the time. We acted on it in a way that made sense to us. So now we act with the information we have now. At each birthday, we look at our future through the lens of experience and wisdom we have acquired since our last birthday, and then we apply that going forward.

The current situation of my possible move has motivated me to really start a deep house cleaning so that if and when I need to move, I am only taking with me what I really want and need, and also rediscovering things that it would be good for me to either use again, discard, give away or learn from again.

Staying calm, staying present, we are able to enjoy each day and able to make the best of every opportunity in life.

Enjoy the playful spirit of the Summer Solstice this coming Monday. Savor the beauty of the longest day of sunlight in the year, and celebrate in whatever way you feel best.

Guidance to Grab a lead and Go for It

When we need to make changes, we frequently alternate between moving as fast as we can and taking time to look everything over.

As we tune into our spirit guides who are intimately connected to our survival instinct, and they serve us well, and that is where we get that inkling that this path would be better for us than that one. Or that spending time on this is better than that.

It is where that voice comes from that says it is time to get back in shape. So even though we might feel like being laid back again, we decide it is time to get up anyway and get a move on.

When once again choosing our next move along the career path, spirit guides are the voices that suggest this or that is our best choice.

A deck of tarot cards can be very useful in these rapid fire situations that we find ourselves in. The cards can react rapidly and point us in the right direction. Once again, of course, it is our choice what direction we want to take.

We see the energies moving in the areas around us. There is that swirling energy that
suggest to us wonderful choices are available if we will just stop and make use of them.As these options get straightened out,

So we find out parth again and settle into a groove,then we tade note and act, and once we have moved in the direction where we seeour greatest opportunity and we start gettig traction with them, we feee more assured, Our instincts will guide ups to our most productive opportunity. This can mean utilizing an approach we had not seriously considered before.

And yes, these new approaches are revealing ssuccess or at lest promise of success.

Now the immediate need is to take it our for a road test. How well does the idea fly. It can get to a point where we don'r recognize it as our own, but still it works, and we carry on with it and it gets better, Once we think it over, take a lead and jump on it. This shifting around and chaos will shift our next success into great.

Right now it is messy. People restless. they are hunting, Soon will come openings staffed by performers who really want it to happen. Necessity is the mother of invention once again.

Closure

Sometimes there are chapters of our lives that cry out for the proper ending. We feel incomplete or out of sorts unless we can put things in perspective through some word or action that lets us feel that we have completed our work in that part of our life, or said what we really wanted to say in order to let go and move on.

For lack of this aspect of completion, a person could walk around feeling ill at ease in their own skin. Until they reconcile their feelings with what happened, they often may be out of sorts in their dealings with others who had nothing to do with the reason for their upset.

Of course, it is best if you can reach this closure with people in real life who were involved in the events or situation. That is often optimal.

However, sometimes, the person with whom you would like closure is dead, or lives far away, or for other reasons you choose not to contact them.

In that case, closure can be done ritually, through special ceremonies. In one case, I assisted a woman who needed to put to rest her grieving over a miscarriage that had happened a number of years earlier. After the ritual, she found peace with that issue for the first time in years.

In another case, a person needed to release a grievance over an injustice from years before. In another case, a person simply wanted a meaningful ritual to say farewell to a parent who died when they were not there.

I was also present one evening when a person performed a ritual act to signal closure to his old career.

When we do such things, we can experience a feeling of peace that we have acknowledged that a significant part of our life has ended and we say farewell to that as we prepare to begin our next chapter and set out on our next adventure.

Is there an area of your life that you feel needs closure? Have you ever thought about addressing that in a ritual context?

It is a powerful and life affirming act. It can also help us draw wisdom and compassion from those life lessons.

This is a powerful form of alchemy and an act of magic that we perform to transform sadness into a creative force, and bring peace from chaos, to bring understanding and compassion from confusion and hurt.

If you have a feeling that such an act of closure is needed, then the time is now. There is even love among the ruins of what once was, and that is always left to the gleaners who know how to find value and nourishment in the parts that have been left behind.

And it is always the survivors who are the beneficiaries, although the ghosts will often take the ritual as their cue, and take their leave, finally breaking their earthly bonds and moving on. Ghosts are not just spirits of the dead who have not crossed over. Relationships and careers have ghosts too, and sometimes these cast long shadows, until our fires cast enough heat and light to burn them away.

Love, Heat and Passion

It has been said that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Upon first hearing this, many people think that this cannot be correct. After all, love and hate would seem to be the two opposites. But there is a lot of energy in these two. Ray Bradbury, the great science fiction author, notes in Zen and the Art of Writing that there is as much zest in what you hate as in what you love, and either can produce enough energy to inspire great stories and great writing. Deep feelings from any perspective can breathe life into a point of view. Powerful reserves of feelings can animate and illuminate.

Now it is easy for us to recognize the passion in a relationship expressed as energetic lovemaking, romantic interludes and excited playfulness, but there is another side to that same source of energy. It is the dark side of romantic love that often finds expression in words that lead to regret, and the regret, in turn, becomes surrender.

Doesn't that often seem the case with couples who have mercurial relationships but stay together? They still have a lot of energy and they still care deeply. They care enough about each other to express deeply felt emotions. On the surface that may seem contradictory, but think about it for a moment. Two people may have very different opinions on a subject or very different concerns over an issue, but they still care enough to get excited, frustrated or angry and that forms the basic energy from which they argue. And isn't it true that often after a heated disagreement that the couple makes up, forgives each other and reconciles with passionate lovemaking?

So I am not saying that anger, arguing, and heated disagreements are desirable states, or things to be admired. What I am saying is that in a deeply felt relationship, there will be disagreements, heated discussions and flare ups. People in passionate relationships feel emotions deeply and they express them. And both parties in a relationship can take turns being right and being wrong.

Energy can be transmuted. Anger can become affection and affection can become anger. And the shifting between them can melt opposition. These change when a person is able to shift their frame of reference to view their emotions through a different perspective and they can feel the emotions expressing differently. How else do people calm down when they are expressing too much energy and going off on wild tangents?

Although the idealist in us would advocate for the peaceful discussion and resolution of all differences, with couples easily agreeing on solutions, the rise and fall of passions will preclude that from always being the case.

Strange as it may seem, it is the cool end of the spectrum that finally signals the end of a relationship. When one or both of the parties no longer cares enough to even disagree, they are indifferent to making love, and they can just walk away, then they are withdrawing their energy so completely from the relationship that there is nothing left. Nothing left to fight over, nothing left to debate or discuss, nothing left to love, no care, no compassion, no kindness, no tenderness, no excitement. Just nothing.

When one partner can actually say to the other partner that they do not care what happens to them, then the relationship has been drained of all life.

Just as the presence or absence of our body heat is a sign of life, when the body of love cools below the level of warmth, it is a sure sign that life is gone and that the love, heat and passion that once electrified the space between the two people has lost all of its vitality, that is indifference, the opposite of love. When nothing is left to flare up, nothing is left to heal, no excitement is left in the loving, and neither cares to even discuss it, then the body of love has cooled below the temperature necessary for life.

The passion, heat, and love in a relationship are its breath, pulse, and heartbeat. Without them, there is nothing.

Give Me Patience, But Not Too Much

With our desire to manifest becoming more and more urgent, patience seems to be a step in the opposite direction. Patience is not easy for me.

Of course, this duality is always present. Sometimes the things we dearly want take a while to happen because certain things need to happen before we achieve our goal.

There are skills and arts that take time to develop, and so that is a form of patience. And these are necessary for success. You have to be good at something.

A related principle is that sometimes you hold things close to your chest until you are ready to share that heartfelt desire with the rest of the world. Sometimes the power of your dreams can be diluted if you talk about it too much.

At the same time, dreams must be shared with others if you are in need of their support.

Patience is sometimes that dull looking sharpening stone that brings a fine edge to the knife. Not glamorous, but necessary.

Then there are other forms of patience, like waiting for a call. That can really drive a person up a wall. To deal with the impatience, you simply have to let go and let the response come in its own time.

Although it seems like conflicting advice to act to manifest your dreams now and having patience, think about how these two seeming opposites fit together.

The Living & The Dead

This week someone asked for my help because a person they knew had been missing for several days.

After visiting places the person had been, touching some of the things he had worn, and then reading using the pendulum, tarot cards and runes in addition to just tuning in, I got a very clear hit that the person was dead and that it was violent, not a natural death.

Of course, this is not the message that his friends were hoping for. Yet, I sensed a sigh of relief as well as sadness.

The woman who was close to the man who was missing later confided that she at least felt free to accept the truth rather than stay stuck in the hope that he would return and that everything would be fine. Once she was able to be open to the other outcomes, she was able to begin her grieving process instead of being stuck.

Today, my reading was confirmed. He is dead and it was not a natural death.

Readings of this type and rituals for those who have crossed over are for the benefit of those who are living, the ones who are still here. Of course, we wish the spirits well on their journey, however the solace is most necessary for the survivors.

When people ask for the truth in a reading, it may or may not be easy to accept, depending on the subject. And sometimes when there is denial, it is not to say that the reading is wrong, it could just be that the truth is hard to accept.

The greatest mysteries of all are those of birth, death, life and rebirth. We may not always understand these changes and why people enter into them the way they do.

Those of us whose services are engaged to see, convey what we see and when a clearing, blessing or healing is requested, we do that for the benefit of all concerned. Understanding why a person did what they did may not always be easy to grasp or accept.

When we pause to acknowledge death, we are performing an essential act of being alive.

Soothing the Throat

This evening my throat was feeling a little raw, so I knew that I needed to do few things to address it. First was the old standby, gargling with warm salt water. Then there were cough drops, cough syrup and then a few mugs of hot tea.

A hot bath with Epsom salts, eucalyptus oil and hyssop oil really felt good as well. Then I felt like something a bit more gentle for the spirit would help as well, so I chose a biography of the author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton to watch, and kept getting these little surprises throughout when they featured comments by Buddhist monks he had dialogue with, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

There was also a sequence that made me smile when Merton's publishers said that they were not sure that his books would sell, and they were amazed at how well they sold. That shows a difference in the way commercial publishing works these days. Then, if the publisher thought that the author had something worthwhile to say, they would publish it even if they were not sure it would be popular. Today, the trend in publishing is to try and only print what is popular. But that does not always prove to be a winner either, because the public's taste can be fickle and ephemeral.

It was also interesting that some people who knew Merton commented that people were not always happy with what he wrote when he spoke out about subjects like peace. He had the clarity of mind to point out that his church had no problem taking a hard line stance on abortion, because they see it as the death of a person, yet they took no stand against using nuclear weapons which could kill millions of people at a time.

There, of course, were also people who had to stretch themselves to understand how or why a Christian monk could find such common ground with Buddhist monks.

In some way, the peaceful spirit emanating from this story helped calm my throat as well. I finished off the evening with some classical music which was very soothing, and then it started to rain, which is always a healing sound for me.

There are a lot of ways to help soothe physical discomforts, using resources from within and without. Healing often works in mysterious ways.

It is important to do more treatments of this sort tomorrow as well, since I will be talking a lot Friday, Saturday and Sunday, doing readings and giving a talk. My voice is important in my work.

So this is a time of charging up the batteries for a large amount of activity, so that I am ready when I need to be.

Peace of Mind

There are many ways to get peace of mind. There is a certain feeling that comes to a person finally achieves something that was difficult for them to do. When something we have worked hard on proves out. Satisfaction.

There are also times when we feel vindicated because something we advocated or predicted came true.

We can also achieve peace of mind by simply not worrying about things so much. Sometimes what we worry about turns out alright and would have turned out alright even if we had not worried about it. Notice how the power of something that had us worried often dissipates quickly when we just quit worrying about it?

Another way to peace of mind is when we simply resign our self to a situation that is not of our liking rather than fight a tremendous uphill battle. Some battles are absolutely worth it, because a great wrong has been righted. But there are other battles that would not win us any great victory, maybe just the hard feelings of others. So maybe we get to feel vindicated, but we do not win any prize.

The wise person chooses their battles and avoids as many battles as possible if there is another solution.

Peace of mind comes through wise choices, not just sitting quietly. Meditation and reflection are good. So is conflict resolution. There are so many ways to get there that I am sure I will think of more as soon as I post this piece.

In a word I guess you could say that common sense makes peace as well as anything else. Peace of mind is not as difficutl to achieve as it might appear at times. We just have to remind ourselves to stay on track.

What Is Worth Knowing?

You know how it is some days when you log on to the Internet and there are stories everywhere about some over-hyped event or non-event or celebrity thing? Just think how much better off we would be if the media would simply focus on something else. I feel that media attention is often so ephemeral and geared toward short attention spans that it draws our attention away from things that really would benefit from more attention. Something or someone who seemed to take on proportions of incredible importance just a couple of weeks ago will not even be a footnote by the end of the year. And we see this cycle repeated over and over again.

Years ago, in one of his books Dr. Andrew Weil suggested as one of his steps to optimum health not only changing what you eat and getting regular exercise, but also fasting from the news. He did not advocate the news fast for forever, but for a period of time. The purpose of such a suggestion would be to allow a person to focus on being more conscious of what they are doing and also to reduce stress.

Knowledge can be first hand or second hand. First hand means that you actually know something to be true because you have experience with it. Second hand knowledge is when you know something is true because lots of other reliable sources agree on something and it agrees with other second hand knowledge, like knowing someone else who has been there and done that.

Most people develop a strong preference for first hand knowledge as they continue on down their path. Information that has been tempered by experience becomes far more valuable as we go on. It is one way of keeping your head on when you sometimes feel that you are drowning in a sea of information, most of it irrelevant.

Back to the Andrew Weil example. If we are paying attention to what we do, if we are changing our eating, exercise or peace of mind habits and we are noticing changes in our body, that is real knowledge that is coming to us.

If we are interested in learning more about a subject and we study or practice in that area every day, we are again acquiring first hand knowledge, experiencing breakthroughs, weaving that knowledge into our life.

If we are busy trying new ways to build our business, we are acquiring first hand knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

Acquiring knowledge is part of living. We all do it. As we follow our path and heed that which calls to us, that which makes our heart sing, discerning which knowledge is worth acquiring becomes more important. Do you find yourself increasingly aware of that? I know I do.

Altars of Acceptance

Someone recently remarked to me that she never saw so much Halloween stuff as she has in Colorado. She thinks that people go crazy over it out here, and she can't imagine any reason why since it is nothing more than a day for kids to get candy.

Of course, there is much more to it than that. although in many people's minds, it has been reduced to nothing more than trick or treating and costume parties, it has very deep metaphysical roots and it heralds an important turning in our lives every year. And that is why people really feel drawn to celebrate it for a month. Right now, this is the last of September and there will be corn mazes, hay mazes and pumpkin patches up through the end of October.

The roots of the holiday go back to ancestral times. All of our ancestral times. As far back as caveman days people have felt that it is important to honor the dead and use special ceremonies to mark their passing, remember their lives, and wish them well on their way to the next world.

Why wouldn't they? Birth and Death are the the two gateways we all have to pass through. Our families and friends are always the ones at these gateways. They help celebrate when we arrive, and they help mourn when we leave.

In modern times, as many people have left folklore and ceremonial ways slip from their grasp, some cultures have retained them powerfully, contributing universal traditions that still resonate and help people heal from their grief while wishing the spirit on to what's next for them.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance were the names that Elizabeth Kubler Ross gave to the Five Stages of Grief. Making an altar for the one who has crossed over is a powerful way to get to acceptance.

Birth, death and rebirth. Our gateways. Our inescapable gateways. The certain markers of our journey. These are the portals we pass through, and we cannot choose otherwise. So our only choice is to recognize the gateway for what it is.

We either make altars then warm ourselves at the bonfires, or we carry more weight than we need to for many years to come.

So this is how it happened. Some people chose to lose their grip on the ancient ways and only remembered to serve refreshments to the mourners and those who come to give solace and bring light through the storytelling and the music and the prayers. Except over the years they forgot to do all the other things and just served refreshments.

The refreshments are a wonderful seasonal taste that reminds us of the sweetness of life, after we have done our rituals.

Whether they are large or small, elaborate or simple, we need to make our altars. We need to honor those who have crossed and send them through the gateway on waves of our good energy. Those who make their altars enjoy their peace better than those who do not. It is at the altar that we find acceptance. It is our time and place to express our grief. It is a far more wise, powerful and ancient root ritual than simply giving candy to kids.

Here today, we can feel the strength and beauty of these ceremonies through the Mexican festivities known as the Day of the Dead. The Celtic equivalent, called Samhain, which gave birth to Halloween, are both celebrated on the same day of the year. Two powerful ancient cultures that have continued to set aside time every year to ritually remember their dead in the same time frame as giving thanks for the harvest, and preceding the time when families and friends are drawn together to celebrate and welcome in the future.

Why should we still pay attention to these holidays? Who does not know someone who has died? Who has had trouble acknowledging their grief, letting go of it and moving onward? We need to release their spirits so that they can move on, and we need to release ourselves so that we can move on.

Although the primary focus is on people we know who have died this year, people sometimes use these same ceremonies to say farewell to an animal who was an important part of their life as well.

Rest

Like most other people, I use my computer all the time. Email, my blog, my website, different sites that I am on, like Facebook, some smaller listings and sites that I check into once in a while. Using all these things to try and promote my business, research information, connect with people, look for leads. These are things I do for my self, to develop my own business, my reading and healing business.

Then at my day job, I am always on the computer doing the company's work. Plus in various assignments over the years, on the phone at the same time.

This past weekend, I decided to rest. Unplug as much as possible and rest.

Checked the email a couple times, checked my lottery tickets, went to the farmers market, cooked, walked. Read a book. And slept.

By the time it was Monday morning again, I was more rested than I had been in a while. It felt really good.

There is so much we need to do, especially if we are growing our own business. That feeling that we always need to be on top of things, doing this that and the other or else we might miss something.

Some people have recommended that I start Twittering and doing a few other things online, but I just have not got around to it yet.

Being unplugged was really restful. I keep a pretty strong pace most of the time, working the day job Monday through Friday and working fairs and festivals on weekends.

Right now I am making my schedule more simple, more efficient. I am pruning the less productive events from my schedule and instead concentrating on booking more private appointments.

Unplugging and resting are very rejuvenating. My plan includes having more of that in my schedule too. It feels very good. Well rested helps a person be ready for what has to be done next.

Sometimes we fall into that trap of thinking that if we are not always busy, we will miss something. But it all comes back to love and fear. If we love what we do and stay focused on our vision, taking some quiet time becomes a plus, not a minus. Being constantly busy may be rooted in fear. It always comes down to love or fear doesn't it? Choose love.

Common Bonds

When you walk in old neighborhoods where people have created gardens in their yard, they are almost always glad to talk about it. You stop and comment on an unusual flower, a particularly beautiful specimen, how well their tomatoes of zucchinis are going, and suddenly you find yourself in a conversation with a stranger. How easy that is.

If you know a bit about gardening yourself, you might pick up some new ideas or useful tips, and they might ask you questions. The really fascinating thing is the dynamic. When you ask people about something they are interested in, they open right up, and their is an opportunity for a pleasant experience.

So, of course, we are not all gardeners and we all don't want to talk about gardens, but extend this principle into other areas of interest. Often, when our interests are very specialized, we find ourselves going to meetings or events centered around this topic.

People are always seeking to connect that way. One of the beauties of gardening though is the simplicity. You don't have to go anywhere special, you just have to take a walk. Another beauty is that it is simple. When you are stopping to admire someone's garden, they may strike up a conversation if you don't. You are already complimenting them on their work, and everybody enjoys that.

Perhaps one other idea is as simple or universal. If you are walking your dog, other dog owners will usually be interested in talking about dogs.

How many ways can you use this idea? How much joy and peace do we spread in the world when we simply connect with other people with whom we have a common bond?

Our Schedule as a Garden

Sometimes the key to greater success is knowing when to quit something as well as when to start. For example, during this year, I took a careful look at which of the fairs and festivals were producing the best and worst results for me, and that made it easy to decide which events to keep doing and which ones to erase from my schedule.

While I considered the fact that this would leave some openings in my schedule, I decided that I would be comfortable with those open days, using some of the time to investigate other opportunities plus just allowing some downtime for rest and for fun.

I had a feeling that there were other opportunities out there, but sometimes my schedule was just too full to check them out, and sometimes the events that were filling up my time were not productive.

So here I am, half way through the year, and this strategy has produced better results than the previous year.

I am also in the process of cleaning out my email address book and reconnecting with people, and this effort is already bearing fruit, although I still have a long way to go.

Networking and brainstorming with other people has been a valuable part of this process, providing valuable inspiration and ideas.

It is a trap that we can fall into to think that if we are busy all the time that we will get the most results. That is only a partial truth. Being busy is good, but not all things are worth an equal effort.

Managing your schedule like tending a garden. Plant beds need to be weeded (Wait a minute! Not those weeds!) and pruned (trimming off the dead branches) in order to provide more room for new growth, and watered (giving your friends a little nourishment) so that they have material to create with when they draw down the sunlight and weave it into new greenery, flowers and edibles. Yes, it is even easier to find a few spots where we might even add a few more flowers now, and isn't that delightful? Just for the sheer variety of color, texture or fragrance.

It's easier to recognize what needs to be done using this example, isn't it? We can keep our schedule full of the activities we have been doing, and it is not until we stop and consider where our greatest growth has come that we recognize our next best area to focus on.

Our bodies are gardens, our schedules are gardens, our connections are gardens. Tend them and enjoy the beauty that flows and the results you receive.

Gardening With My Neighbors

I live in a small apartment building, and I know most of my neighbors. Everyone is friendly and we hang out a bit and stop to talk when we are coming and going, or at least to say hello.

It is a small building and there is just a small bit of dirt outside the backdoor, not big enough for anyone to call a yard, but enough room to plant a few things in the dirt plus room for a container garden.

One of my neighbors started by clearing the ground, and planted a few vegetables and flowers, then another planted a few flowers and some culinary herbs. I tried growing plants in my apartment last year, but that didn't work, so I brought out the flower pots I had and some potting soil. Tomorrow, I will go and get a few more plants, I am thinking that there is no such thing as too much tomatoes and basil in the summer. Other neighbors have pitched in and helped with the planting, and now there is this beautiful little garden and a table and a few chairs for people to sit and have a drink.

Sort of an impromptu community space that everyone is creating together. No one is in charge of anything, no one is organizing anything. Everyone is just doing something. All of this is in a space that would be no bigger than what a lot of people would call a small sized patio.

So we have this beautiful little common area where people just hang out and socialize and it really adds a lot to living in this place. It doesn't always take much to make friends with your neighbors. Maybe I am just lucky to have nice people for neighbors, but I think all of this just happened because everyone is just open and friendly with each other. Moving into this building was a really good choice. Nurturing the community spirit is a really enjoyable experience.

It is amazing what you can do with a small space,creative thinking and cooperation.

A Surrealistic Life

Every day, it gets easier and easier for me to see this world as some kind of alternate reality I am just visiting.

For example, we are witnessing the worst oil spill in the history of the planet, which will muck up beaches and fishing for quite some time to come, killing untold numbers of birds and fish and making it impossible for some people to make a living for some unknown period of time. After all, the fishermen won't be able to fish, and not many people would want to eat what they are catching.

Yet, there are blowhards and wing nuts who somehow managed to get their own radio shows who can be heard saying that this is really no big deal, that this kind of thing happens all the time and nature will just clean it up.

Maybe the people who talk like this should be treated to an all you can eat buffet of freshly caught shrimp and fish from the Gulf Coast.

I'm no longer surprised by these corporate execs who will stop at nothing to increase their profits. Remember that buy who got busted last year for shipping contaminated peanuts even though he knew they were contaminated? He should be fed peanut butter sandwiches from that batch.

Then over on the other side of the planet, we have another bizarre series of events where one ethnic group is busy killing people of another ethnic group, just because they are different, and just because they are there.

It is like another nightmarish chapter of the mess in the Balkans that we watched unravel in the 90s.

Being a more playful spirit myself, I cannot imagine why some people's idea of fun would be to run around killing people. Why not have a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n roll?

Have fun, make money, start businesses, invite people to party with you. Enjoy a fair, festival, concert, a cool swim on a hot day. But, hey, but that's just me.

I do my best to live in an alternate universe. That other universe sure is messy.

Memorial Day Reflections

Memorial Day is a time to remember and honor our military veterans who have died in service to our country. It is important to have a strong military force in place to defend ourselves.

Ironically, this weekend two important milestones relate to this particular holiday. As of this weekend, 1,000 members of the military have died in Iraq, and we have spent one trillion dollars on that war. All of which, in my opinion, was unnecessary. There was no good reason to wage a war in Iraq. What have we actually purchased with those 1,000 lives and one trillion dollars?

How would I define a justifiable war? When Pearl Harbor was attacked, we rose up in self defense. People agreed that we needed to get up and defend ourselves. Private industry mobilized to support the military. Women worked in factories while men went off to fight. People accepted rationing as necessary. Everyone pulled together for a victory, and so there was one.

We did not win a decisive victory in Korea or Vietnam, I think because that unity that existed in World War 2 was missing. There was no unanimous agreement that we should be in those wars. During the Vietnam War, there were major public protests to end the war.

Why were there no such massive protests against the Iraq War? Because there has not been a draft since Vietnam. When we were all likely to be drafted to go and risk our lives in Vietnam, both the young men and many of their friends and families protested. During the Iraq War, there is no draft and all of us are not likely to go there and risk our lives unless we volunteer to do so. That leaves many people to simply ignore it.

With all due respect for the courage and dedicated service of our military men and women, the milestones pose very pertinent questions. Why do something we do not have to do, as individuals or as a country?

When the subject of providing health care coverage for all citizens, one of the objections is that we could not afford to do that. Some people object to increasing unemployment compensation even as many American businesses have moved their operations to countries where they can hire cheaper labor.

Yet, if all that is too much for us to afford, how do we find the money to pay for a Vietnam War or and Iraq War? it seems to me that if we can find a million dollars in our budget to create a war in Iraq, we could find money in our budget to provide health care for everyone, provide educational opportunities for everyone at a reasonable cost, and provide the safety net of unemployment compensation. A trillion dollars could buy a lot more life affirming things.

We should still maintain a military for self defense. For example, why not have them guard our airports and train stations, and public spaces?

In another development this week, more troops were sent to the border areas to try and prevent drug gang violence from becoming as common here as it is in the Mexican border towns. But there is a practical solution there too. If we were to simply legalize drugs, there would be no traffic for the cartels to fight over, and their reason for being would evaporate overnight. We could bring an end to that violence without using force.

I suggest that we reflect on the wiser use of our resources and make decisions which will contribute to peace. I know that some may say that these suggestions are too idealistic, but think about it. Instead of buying a war in Iraq, we could have bought health care, education and a safety net for our neediest people. And we can defuse another war by simply changing one of our laws, swiftly ending a wave of murders, tortures and corruption. Seems like a better buy to me.

So let us honor our military people by bringing them home from unnecessary wars and using our power to take better care of our own people.

Magic Mushroom Medicine

Chemist Albert Hofmann discovered LSD in 1938 but didn't take his first trip until he accidentally took a taste of it five years later, in 1943, opening a whole new era of drug research.

It should be noted that shamans all around the world had been using various hallucinogenic plants for healing purposes for millennia. But the discovery of LSD opened a new chapter on clinical research into hallucinogens. One of the first uses of it was to treat various forms of mental illness, including alcoholism. Then when the military and CIA discovered it, they tried using it in various covert experiments, which may or may not have been combined with psychic experiments, known as the MK Ultra Program. Whether or not one set of experiments led directly to another or whether they were tangential, there were subsequent experimental programs, including what is known today as Remote Viewing. Although the world had heard of Hofmann's research, the military experiments were not known to the public at that time. The linkage between hallucinogenic drugs and the expansion of the psyche have long been linked.

And then came another group of people who became very excited about the possibilities of hallucinogens. The exuberance of people some of those early researchers like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later to become Ram Dass)was scorned by various regulators and by other people in academia. In this same time period came the books of Carlos Castaneda, who gave much of the American reading public their first exposure to the subject of shamanism and the use of various "plant allies." Hallucinogens became the recreational drugs of choice for a generation of young people, and given that, serious further research came to a halt for decades.

40 years later, things look different again. Today, researchers are excited about the possible uses of hallucinogens in treating depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder. Johns Hopkins Medical School, University of Arizona, Harvard, New York University, the University of California, Los Angeles among others are now researching the usefulness of psilocybin, which is found in certain types of mushrooms, in treating these disorders.

These schools are using money from private non-profit foundations to fund the research. During the last 40 years the growth of hospice movement, the broad acceptance of meditation practices, and perhaps the growing success of the medical marijuana movement are all contributing to a more receptive environment to this type of research now.

How many times have we seen this pattern in history, when the first people to advocate a new concept are ridiculed, then later validated.

Several years ago, I was listening to an interview with another advocate for hallucinogens, Terence McKenna, who had gone in a bit different direction than Leary. In fact, you might say he sort of extended the early work, as one of the people who also championed traditional shamanic substances, such as ayahuasca, which has also become quite well known in the last couple of decades.

McKenna, who was a serious student of the subject, but also quite witty, answered the interviewer's question about the value of hallucinogens. I am paraphrasing from memory here. McKenna said, "We can talk about enlightenment for the next hundred years. We can put it on cereal boxes and milk cartons. But the only thing I know of that can make a person's consciousness stop and turn on a dime is a psilocybin mushroom."

Like marijuana, we appear to be approaching a time when hallucinogens will be seen not only as a recreational drug or a spiritual sacrament, but also as a powerful healing agent.

Drafting Peace

I was looking at some old photos from the 1960s today on a website, and that prompted some thoughts on what happened then.

For example, there were some huge peace demonstrations to end the war in Vietnam back then and I participated in many of them myself. Why? Simple. Back then we had the draft, whioh meant that every male over the age of 18 was required to register and having done so, you could be ordered to report for duty in the army and sent to Vietnam. Guys I knew were dying in Vietnam as soon as the summer we graduated from high school. And for what?

The simple fact of the draft gave both young men and their parents cause to be concerned, and brought many to the demonstrations.

Many people, when considering the question of whether they would be willing to die for Vietnam, decided that they would not. Eventually, popular opinion caused our politicians to end the war.

Which brings us to the present day. There were no massive demonstrations when either of the Bushes were launching wars in Iraq. Why not? Because there is no draft, so all young men are not in danger of being shipped to Iraq to face possible sudden death or permanent injury. If there was still a draft there would have been large protests.

Support is stronger for the war in Afghanistan because the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 had training camps in that country, and there is a lot of agreement that retaliating against them is the correct thing to do.

When we don't have a vested interest in an action or series of events, we are less concerned about how it turns out. If we don't personally have to go and fight in a war, then how it goes is somebody else's problem.

At the root of that activism and idealism in the 60s was a very personal interest in making the world a better place. We cannot control what everyone else in the world does, but we can control what we do. I still look forward to a time when we are not involved in any war with anyone.

Here is a related thought. If we consider terrorists to be enemy combatants then we are elevating a handful of deranged suicidal people to the level of worthy adversary.

If we were to treat them instead as criminals to be tracked down, the violence would be smaller and more contained. If coordinated police and military forces tracked down mad bombers, saboteurs, kidnappers and murderers and treated them as such, they would have a much harder time portraying themselves as heroes.

Another current example is the horrendous spate of killings by the drug cartels in Mexico who are fighting for the rights to be our illegal drug suppliers. So now there is talk about lending military aid to the Mexican government to try and end this carnage. However, legalizing drugs would end the carnage more quickly and efficiently than a fleet of helicopters and battalions of soldiers.

Apprehending criminals rather than declaring wars could be a better way to do what needs to be done. So we can act in our own self defense and work toward peace at the same time. We can do it.

Tranceportation

To get to there from here, sometimes we have to let our mind walk out in front of us. If we can just let go and relax, our mind can travel and bring us back information, impressions, imprints for the future.

I find that tarot cards work very well for this. So does drumming, dancing, taking walks. Simply engage yourself in one of these activities until your consciousness is free to wander.

Pull cards and make a spread, or keep pulling cards until you something clicks and you find that one image or a cluster of images sets your mind off traveling. The journey takes on a life of its own and does not need to be directed.

With drumming, just find a rhythm that feels right and keep going with it. The rhythms will create passageways to other realms.

If you dance for a half hour, your body will lead your mind out of whatever it is stuck in. It is best to use instrumental music because lyrics could set your direction, and you want the freedom to let the movement shape your journey.

Walking also works well. After a while, the physical motion is automatic and as you simply notice different things in your surroundings, your mind will wander in different ways than your body.

Why use trance? It can carry you to places that you will not get to simply by thinking about them. Trance can make you aware of things on a different level. There are certain realms that you have to be relaxed to enter.

Use trance for transportation, and you will be moved on many levels. These will heighten your ability to pick up psychic impressions and bring you a peaceful feeling. Trance has the ability to be both stimulating and relaxing at the same time.