Something of the Marvelous

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." 
- Lao Tzu

"Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself."
 - Annie Leibovitz 

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." 
 - Aristotle

The Doorway...

Of all my experiences in this life... the one that I continue to return to and enjoy more with each passing time is the most simple of all experiences. I love to lie on the ground.

I love to lie on the ground and stare at the vast open space that is the sky. I lie there watching the clouds and sometimes the sky becomes so bright that I can barely stand to open my eyes. Even when they are closed, I can still feel the powerful presence of this space that surrounds me in all directions... This vibrational and encompassing sacred space. 

Lying on the ground and watching the sky is a completely different experience from standing and looking up. Each time that I lie down to the bare ground I feel this overwhelming sensation of succumbing my entire being to the soil below me... of resting my bones and being cradled by my nurturing mother, the Earth.  I feel as though I am some vulnerable creature that is exposing myself to the elements and the wild nature of this world, yet rather than being fearful of what could approach me I am accepting of all possibilities. I feel safe in my mothers arms.

I've begun to feel that it is becoming more increasingly important to me to make an effort to spend some time each day watching the sky. I think what captures me the most is the constant change, every single second looks different than the last and every day provides a completely new scene and experience.  The sky will never again look exactly the same as it did yesterday and never again will it look exactly the same as it does today. It's always changing effortlessly and constantly. Sometimes I just lay there smiling with tears streaming down my face at the absolute beauty of it all. How wondrous and magical that I am blessed to exist in this amazing Universe. 

I couldn't say that I believe in miracles because every moment feels like a pure miracle. I honestly feel this way... just watching an anthill could make me feel as though every little living parting of that ant hill is a complete miracle. It's all just life and it all just is.  It is absolutely amazing and I refuse to ever take it for granted and get lost in the sorrows of my own little life.  Once we realize that we are all connected... not only to every human being, but to EVERY THING... that's when we begin to feel a lot less lonely and see that our personal problems aren't quite as immense as we once thought them to be. Sure, it's easy to get caught up in that game with the ego, in fact, it can be difficult not to... but I think that's why I am so enamored and in complete awe with the sky. When I look at every thing I see "God", but to me... when I look to the sky it's like looking into the eyes of God. The doorway... When I walk through that door I am reminded of my place in this Universe and that it is more significant, powerful and lasting than my ego ever would allow me to believe... let alone to know.

So this is my encouragement to you...
Look up to the sky and if you have a moment then lay down too.
Breathe it all in and Love it all out.
Every single moment is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. How will you spend it?

Beautifully Bizarre

Lately I've had this feeling that nearly everyone I meet, I've met before. In a very strange way, their faces seem familiar to me. It's almost as if I've met with them in another time and space, not that we've known each other deeply but just that we crossed paths at some point. The best example that I can give is that I just began working a new job in a city that I've never lived before where all of the people are new to me, yet I feel as though almost every customer that walks in and comes to the counter I have met before and the same goes for many of the people that I work with and for. It's as if I were to say " I know you from somewhere, have we met before?" I say nothing, but I still have this strange feeling so very often. Not with every single person, but so so many that it's just odd and I can't help but to constantly notice it with each working day as I interact with such a mass amount of people.

Today I experienced the feeling of Deja Vu while I was on my lunch break at work. I sat at the bar and ate whilst a family seated next to me enjoyed their lunch. The father of the family was speaking, at the moment I honestly can't even remember what he was speaking of... But it struck me that I had felt the entire scenario before, sometime in my life experience I had felt this whole scene in life; the atmosphere, the food, the family. It was almost as if it were all predestined, as if I had dreamt it the week before and now it was all coming to past and somehow in the wild glimpse of the moment I had caught it and realized that I created it.  

On the note of dreams, I've had this wild thought lately that perhaps these strangers that I see in my dreams are people that exist in the waking world. Perhaps even, these people who in waking life seem so familiar to me... I have met in a dream?  Or beyond the dream realm (which is SO mysterious and wondrous in itself), I could have even graced these souls in other lifetimes which my memory can not recall. Some things feel so deeply interconnected to us, without ever having directly experienced it. It's as though we've already lived through it before. 

I won't dive too deep here... But this is just a little slice of what's been on my plate lately.

 Life is infinitely interesting and so beautifully bizarre, it's such a wild ride.

Grounded in the Sky...

It's been quite some time since I've visited this part of the web... but here I am again. 

I hope that all who follow this blog have enjoyed a beautiful summer, although it isn't quite over just yet.

My reasoning for my absence is that I've been tucked away in my little cottage planning something most beautiful and wondrous to share with others. What I am doing, although sometimes tiring, has been an adventure that has helped me in life with planning and organizing along with communicating with others.In the past few months I have met so many loving and giving people, who are willing to share this adventure with me and help in any way possible. 

I remember several years ago when I saw so much of the ugliness that is in the world. I lived in the city and where I had lived my entire life, seeing and eating the same things every day. Every where I went I encountered incredibly obese and dimwitted people. I felt like there was no one like Landon and I around, although we do make wonderful hermits.   But one day you realize, that if you exist and you think the way that you do then there must be other individuals out there like you. You begin to meet them and things begin to look up, there are others like you. The beauty of this is that more and more people are joining you every day. 

We are beginning to think on a universal level...more every moment.

I like to keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds.

Staying rooted to memories of the past and carrying on traditions, but thinking perhaps spiritually in a new light with a more open heart and mind. I am trying to be the change that I wish to see you in the world and I am also seeing the change I wish to see.

Don't get caught up in the ILLUSION of what is happening.

It is all happening right now, life is happening. 

...................

.........

.....

...

 Bringing you out of the clouds and back to ground...

I'd like to mention my current project, the Good Vibes Gathering. 

A free arts and music gathering on the land that I live on in Pine Mountain.

:)

Enjoy the season!

tiny little speck in the Universe...

It's been a while since I've logged into blogger... but here I am! 

Everything is still beautiful on our tiny little speck in the universe.... So beautiful that I often forget to attend to this blog.  Life is constantly moving, every breath feels like a new opportunity.  A new experience. Each moment is sacred and magical... life is so strangely amazing.

Just the other day I watched one of the grasshoppers molt and change from a beautiful red and purple color to black. It looked as though it were pumping blood into it's wings, which began shriveled up and ended in proper form. 

I've watched these grasshoppers grow since they were tiny in the spring...

And I remember first noticing them when we moved here last year in July...

Oh,

Life. 
:)

Citizens of the Earth...

"Don't let is bring you down.

It's only castles burning,

Find someone who's turning,

And you'll come around."

-Neil Young

oooooohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm................ shanti..........shanti.......... shanti.........


 Life has taken us for a few whirls and spins lately, apart from the usual.
Landon and I have been faced with death more in the past two weeks than possibly our entire lives combined. I've always been quite cozy with the thought of death. Not that I'm morbid or dark or think of death often, but that death is simply a part of life, something that is inevitable.

Many of us choose an idea or story to believe in, as to what will happen to us after our death.
Some may choose to put their faith into the idea of heaven, that their afterlife will be better...
Others may choose to believe in reincarnation, that their next life will be better...

I choose... Well, I choose not to choose.  Why should I come to a final decision on this matter, after all, I will never really know.  So why focus on it? Why worry myself with my "next" life? If such a thing even exist... It seems to me that so many people in western culture devote so much of their lives to the act of worrying about death and whether or not they will be damned to a bad place or sent to a place with golden streets for eternity... It is of my belief that we deserve neither. And what's so great about golden streets anyways?

I suppose that I am rambling on and should get to the point, if I have one...
The point is, that we should stop mourning and worrying over death.  It's natural, and in a way, it can be beautiful.  When I imagine dying, I like to think that I will be thrown into the ground. No casket, just my body deep in the ground for all the living organisms to feed off of. The beauty in that is that my death is feeding life.  It seems to be one beautiful circle to me, but that's just me...
But you see, my view of dying is so simple. You can feel sad about it, but really it's just part of what happens here on earth. And once we come to terms with it, and learn not to be fearful all the time, we can begin to enjoy LIFE.  Just living, breathing and BEING. 

When you begin to really live life. You realize just how precious and amazing it is.
You understand how easily it can all go away.


Lately that understanding has become a bit more clear than usual.
Two weeks ago our second chicken was killed. This time by a possum (the first one by a fox, I suspect)  It's quite a gruesome scene to encounter and really turns my stomach into knots.
I'm not sure which is worse, hearing your chickens scream and knowing that one is being killed or actually seeing it dead, head in the possums mouth.  It was a strange night.

And now, just two weeks later, we are dealing with a mice problem at the bakery. They've came and decided to set up camp. We had no idea what they or we were in for... Assuming there were only a few (and having no choice but to do this) we set up traps.  I won't say how many we caught, but let's just say it is quite a bit and it is a disturbing thing to do.  The last thing I want to do is provide (unknowingly) a home for mice and then massacre them... But realistically, the bakery could be shut down- and at the moment, that is our 'livelihood'.  This past Saturday Landon checked the traps and found a mice that had his leg broken in the trap but was still alive.  I'm sure you know what came next... he had no choice but to kill it.  Well, he did have a choice... The other option was to let it run around injured with three good legs and continue on it's journey... But once again, we are in a terrible situation, which I wish had never happened... But it is happening.

Killing that mice took a lot out of Landon. I know that is was a very difficult thing to do.
(Here I am saying this, personally knowing people in the military that have killed human beings)
But for us, killing a cockroach feels weird. You may be thinking, "Well, you were going to kill your chickens, anyways."    Yes, I was- but I was going to eat them too. And it would have been very quick, without any stress beforehand.  And it's a damned shitty feeling when you've been taking care of these animals and feeding them everyday, and something comes and takes that away from you and your left with nothing.

The possum scared the hell out of the chicken, and killed it. That left the chicken very stiff, and we could not eat it. We cleaned it and left it to the dog and cat- who also didn't care too much for it.
Two weeks after the possum came (in the night), on the same day that Landon had to kill the mice, we came home to chicken feathers covering the entire yard. We tracked them and found our first chicken injured and stuck under some brush. Her leg was badly hurt and she couldn't walk on it at all, we checked under her wings and a portion of skin was missing... A fox had tried to take her, but to no success.  I searched for the other hen by tracking feathers, which led me back into the woods around a series of fox holes... So, the other chicken was lunch. 

I feel so naive, only being suspicious of the creatures of the night and never considering that the fox would come out during the day. So there you have it, one injured chicken left. Too injured to pay money at the vet and too injured to allow to live (and be terrified alone in the coop at night)...
So, as you may have guessed... Landon had to end her life, and this time, we buried her.
We both cried a lot that day, and it's strange the way we do that.
I have never seen Landon cry like that before.
There were so many emotions and it's hard to explain the way we felt, we weren't crying because of emotional attachment to the chickens, but because of what they had to go through. One by one being taken away by creatures with sharp teeth.  I am forgiving to those creatures, because I know they just want food- but Landon feels a lot of anger towards them that is hard to make disappear. 

I tell myself that this isn't just our territory. This is the home of the fox, the possum and the coyote too. And we are all in this together, we are all just trying to live and survive.
Which is why it's such a strange thing to deal with. Those chickens were ours, but they weren't really.
Ultimately, nothing belongs to us. The land does not belong to us, no matter how many sheets of paper says that it does. We are simply citizens of the earth, we are ALL playing the same game- whether we choose to accept that notion or not.


And so I chant, Ohm...shanti...shanti...shanti
My prayer to the universe