Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the Devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

~Joni Mitchell

This song was one of a few which used to run through my head in answer to an inner longing. It helped to shape my intent, my actions, aiding in the creation of my life in a beautiful canyon, with good friends and family, fun and vibrant community. Thanks Joni!

In an earlier Blog there was the mention of containers. From where do they come- not the container store. Containers are built of relationships…to others and the abstract, sometimes even a song.

The building of containers is a process of holding, playing, digesting which is not to be confused with spinning and projecting. One refines and defines while the other only maintains and eventually deconstructs.

We are stardust…

On some days this idea would sound fanciful, on others it seemed so viscerally precise.

Billion year old carbon…

Sounds less shiny than stardust… I don’t know that I can fathom a billion, but at times can relate to my inner plant, and plants are very close to dirt and basic carbon. I’m aware of being an amazing plant evolved into a mobile processing unit. My species have pulled up roots, we are on the move… It makes me feel very privileged, like winning the lottery. I like to share my fortune. They (plants) like that I can look after them with care. We are a close knit family the plants and I. We share our stories.

We are golden…

Not the object-gold as was the daughter in the story of King Midas as that would suck,

but golden.., like sunshine.

Plants like sunshine.

I’ve never really felt golden, I’ve been blue and I think that’s a start…

Caught in the Devil’s bargain…

Sounds fright-full.

And fear makes its own boxes.

Eating the apple-the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

As human beings.

Probably, but in spirit of reoccurring patterns.

I imagine the first time we sampled that apple was when we got mouths.

Lucifer-(Light bringer) AKA the Devil’s, bargain.

Lose the roots gain mobility and conscious reason.

Now unable to live on soil and sunshine.

Thus sentenced to having to continually seek food,

Rootless, and in delight of a crisp cool apple…

That was a good day.

Glorious and terrifying.

Container building is Sudoku of story.

We have got to get ourselves back to the garden…

I’m a free and mobile plant person. I have escaped/was thrown out of the garden fair’n square.

Why would I want back in???

At some point,

I found my answer to that question.

How about you?

First- Define the garden,

Why would one return?

I think that when… we have all answered that question,

A healthy sustainable planet will be sooo natural!

"When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, There is always the garden".~ Minnie Aumonier

Are we there yet?

Valuable fertilizers…

The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow. ~Author Unknown
…But not necessarily someone else’s shadow. ~Ro


I woke up this morning in a dream. My friend Danny Sugarman (used to manage the Doors, dead in real time,) was in my living room managing a heard of spinning, life sucking drama queens, one of which was my June, my mother-in-law, (also dead, but still fully capable of mischief and mayhem). Eyes still closed, I smiled as Danny ingeniously spun the spinners, sending them off in every direction. I marveled at his art form, it reminded me of the discipline of Aikido in which the force of the blow from an attacker is not stopped but sidestepped, then given encouragement to continue on and away. When the house was clear Danny stepped into my room and awakened me with a kiss…

In real time I woke with the smile and kiss still fresh…
I followed the kiss back into the dream…
Once again, I was impressed by Danny’s mastery of shadow herding.
With Jim Morrison as his mentor, one would expect nothing less than brilliance.
Grateful for the clearing and care I got out of bed enjoying the peace that wafted through like breakfast cinnamon rolls transmuting the stink of the week before.

In last week’s blog I touched on the wonder and divinity to be found in one’s shadow. I forgot to mention the part where shadow unchecked is the dragon locked in one’s closet, scorching relationships, sabotaging finances, turning valued achievements to shit. In gardening terms manure and ash are valuable fertilizers… but the drama generated by a shadow disowned is never pretty.

Ultimately, the undoings of the shadow makes people bitter, convincing them that something or someone other than themselves created their life’s sorrow and disappointment. Like “the butler did it,” it’s never the dumb-ass boss, lover, or other’s doings… most of life’s ugliness is handiwork of one’s own shadow seeking attention.

This week a wounded adult, left abandoned shadow for Ron and I to raise, or drown as we saw fit, much like kittens left in a box in the alley, only more passive-aggressive. What to do when a juvenile-adult parks their shadow at your door step, in a brown paper bag, covers it in gasoline, sets it on fire, rings the doorbell and runs…?

Cold hearted bitch that I am, I watched it burn knowing that like a phoenix that sucker would resurrect from the ashes and fly back home. But the smell had been lingering. Then Danny popped in. Thanks Buddy!

Basic shadow rules;
• Shadow does not die.
• Like the many-headed dragon, no one can raise-up or kill off either their own or another’s shadow.
• Shadow is every bit as much fertilizer for the interior garden as animal manure is for the yard. Much like all fertilizers it needs to be properly aged or it does more harm then good by burning the crops and soil.
• Raising shadow- One starts by taking ownership.

Shadow Farming

When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The question I pose is… What is the garden you have been defrauding self of all this time in letting others do for you which should have done with your own hands? In relationships and life we all turn our back on some part of our inner ecology and decide not to farm that quadrant. It’s seductive to think that we are winning- by losing out in not taking responsibility for the aspect of self.

A well endowed to-do list is a relatively new addition to my life. The first 50 years have been steeped in family, philosophy, simple pleasures spiced with exploration and play in the depths of dimensionality. It’s been great. Now it’s time to grow up and give back.

So, I’m bloody boring these days, I’ve turned my tracking and mapping skills away from the rich deep water of the psyche and into the shallow end of USDA Organic rules and standards. The rules do not need me to either to make or break them but to hold them firmly in the light of their wholeness. Then to weave that forward into a vibrant container inclusive of the wholeness,.. the wholeness of the Organic producers, their production, and the employees who will monitor and verify it all.

It’s my karma yoga and takes me to the far edge and beyond my comfort zone.

At moments it’s even exciting, but it’s uber-geek paperwork which one can’t even boast about on Facebook; -Ro’s just completed a draft of an Organic Employee Notification. Woo Woo! I’m even okay with being that because for me it is the mirror work of; I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands, in that, I’ve let others handle the business of business. So I’m in the garden of USDA National Organic Program with my spade, and dig a bed, and it is exhilarating, frightening, and there are worse things in life than dying a geek.

Mapped along side the four directions as, North Mind, South Emotion, East Spirit, West Body, We stand in the middle of the circle facing one of those directions, I face East. The directions on either side are like right and left hand with most favoring one or the other. The direction at our back is home to the shadow. Interesting to note Carl Jung said that God lives in our shadows. For some I guess that is further incentive to stick with their winning game, maintain familiar drama and hope death takes them out before whatever it is they are avoiding taps them on the shoulder from behind…

The real bitch of it is, I started in the East… I never lost touch with the divine.

Connectivity of Now

"We cannot set limits on the versatility of nature; the limitations are in us."
Elsa-Brita Titchenell

So I’m working out my own limitations- around a map to support my nature without limits.

My nature is such that I need really good clean fresh food, exercise, mental and emotional stimulation and support… but there is this other less tangible thing…I need to feel connected to the bigger story. In mapping this, my mind keeps returning to the power of the present or ever expanding NOW.

There is a unifying current running through the now that transcends the fractioning stories of self.
One recent morning I walked into the kitchen where Ron was standing at the sink doing the dishes. Something cued me into the fact he was not in a normal state of mind, so I asked him; what was up? “They are dirty, then they are clean,” he told me holding the dish up to the sunlight in wonder. I had to smile at his enviable dish-bliss. Ron was not feeling bad about the usual suspects; money, someone else’s opinion, or his never ending to-do list, he just allowed himself to see and feel the beauty and even the renewability of dishes being dirty, then being clean. And he slipped quietly, joyfully into the simple bliss of knowing that in this moment life worked.

But Ron’s had some practice. He has built some containers so when the moment expands he can meet it.

Once in the middle of Nordstrom’s with our friend Debra, Ron and I fell into the now. It was a special event where early one morning, women came by appointment to meet with professional make-up artists. A piano was being played live, the women and artists were all into the art of being beautiful. Ron and I stood on the side just arms around each other enjoying the music. The quality of light shifted to a soft shimmer. We could feel the perfection and weave of every movement in the crowded room. There was a vibrant current flowing through it all. Ron and I moved the center of the hive where we found Debra and enfolded her into the wave. The guy working with her slipped in too. As the music played there was a giddy mischievousness matched with pure business flowing like sparkling Champagne moving out from where we were at the center into the store in waves. The energy sustained regenerating and full, we lingered forever... until it began to subside, then off to our day.

At first one might be aware of body, temperature, and breath, then noises like conversations, music, traffic, breeze, then there are subtler energies. The energy of the person next to you and the person beside them, following awareness out in concentric circles like ripples on the pond, never losing track of self always at center. It takes some practice but then again it might just find you. When it does, meet it, greet it,.. see where it takes you.