I would like to send out a warm greeting to all of my readers, without your attention and kind comments, I would feel odd putting this much time into such a labor of love. Writing is not like the trees I plant, or the seeds. I can go back a year or two after a plant-in and see first-hand what miraculous changes are afoot in the forests that I am helping to re-create. When I return after five years, I can enjoy stretching out under the shade of a small tree, or watch as the creatures enjoy the new habitat, but when you read my words in Romania, Slovenia or Sierra Leon, how can I wrap my head around the changes that makes possible? I can see birds lading on the branches of trees that I have planted, but the supportive words of my posts are invisible, except for the structures in your life that make sense and give support to you. Perhaps my words rustle in your mind like leaves shifted by wind or perhaps they wake you up like the call of the jay-bird. Because we are separated by space, even when my words try to convey a hug to you, your ears may hear it like a bubbling brook or a torrent of snow, sliding down a mountain.
I have been deeply involved with the pagan holiday, sharing greetings and giving thanks for all the disembodied spirits who find their way to my consciousness during this time of year. Those who have come before and paved the way for my life, the human ancestors as well as the animals and microbes that make my world lush and beautiful. I have also been forgiving and laying to rest hostilities that I have felt toward people who left nothing but a raw deal and desolation in their wake. You know, without the removal of forest cover over such a vast area, I might not even have the opportunity to plant trees like I do now. One of my greatest joys is to make right some of the damage that they have done, so for giving me that opportunity, I wish them well on whatever journey they are on now. I forgive them for their lack of knowledge, their limited perspective and for the results of their ignorance. I'm sure that I have mine as well and one day, perhaps only after my own passing of the veil, I would like to be remembered and forgiven for my shortcomings.
There is nothing we can do to undo the pain that has come before our time, but from this day forward, we can learn to live in new ways that will first do no harm, strengthen the fabric of life and in time, perhaps, we will learn to speak truth to power in new ways that liberate others from the oppression of old ways. In the pagan calendar, this is the time for starting anew. The seeds of who we want to become are planted in the fertile soil of our sub-conscious and will have the winter to begin to swell and take root. This moon will take this blog over twenty-thousand views. That is nearly 1/5 as many contacts as I had during my ten year career of going door to door, raising money and awareness of issues for Citizens for a Better Environment. (CBE) Instead of only talking about ecology and environmental issues, I get to stretch my legs a little with this blog. It soothes my own soul to know that it is so well received. As my journey continues on this Earth, I hope that my readers will visit the "donate" site at Paypal or use snail mail to send a little green energy my way. I have spent my lifetime trying to pay close enough attention to be able to teach important information and ways of knowing that are hard to place economic value upon. Paying it forward, as some people call it, enriches us in so many ways, I hope that one day it will be something we all do as a matter of course. If we all give what we can, the sharing economy will take care of us all. As I write, it is a bit like a world-wide trust game.
You may have had an opportunity to do trust falls at summer camp, perhaps a leadership training course or other personal development workshop. When I first learned to spot people, they showed us how to not exactly "catch" a person who is in danger, but to protect their head and make sure that if they do fall, (which is inevitable when taking risks) it would be as gently as possible. Once we learned to break a person's fall, we graduated to a point that was quite empowering. We would line up in two lines facing one another, (using six or eight people) the person doing what we called the trust fall would stand on top of a four foot tall post or tree stump, crossing their arms across their chest. The people who were to "catch" them would prepare by holding their arms out and let the person up top (who stood looking away from us) know when we were ready, then the person on the stump would lean back and fall down into our arms. Life is a lot like a trust fall. Knowing that there are people ready to catch us when we fall is critically important to doing what needs to be done. There are no Lone Rangers, we are all part of a worldwide family, put here to love and support one another. With a bit of luck and a whole lot of blessings, my words will fall on ears that need to "hear" what I say. Making the world better one tiny act at a time, is perhaps the only way to tackle the multi-faceted problems that we face today.
Occasionally it may feel like one is falling backward into an abyss, but rest assured, there are those who have spent their lives training to "catch" us and protect our vital organs. We may end up bruised and battered along our unique paths, but someone will always be there to bind up our woulds, spread the healing salve of compassion on our scratches, scrapes and even our broken hearts and sometimes all it takes to find those folks is to trust. Blessings on your journey and may all good things find you!
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| Leonardo Da Vinci gave us wings to soar! It just took a while to make his "dream" reality. |
There is nothing we can do to undo the pain that has come before our time, but from this day forward, we can learn to live in new ways that will first do no harm, strengthen the fabric of life and in time, perhaps, we will learn to speak truth to power in new ways that liberate others from the oppression of old ways. In the pagan calendar, this is the time for starting anew. The seeds of who we want to become are planted in the fertile soil of our sub-conscious and will have the winter to begin to swell and take root. This moon will take this blog over twenty-thousand views. That is nearly 1/5 as many contacts as I had during my ten year career of going door to door, raising money and awareness of issues for Citizens for a Better Environment. (CBE) Instead of only talking about ecology and environmental issues, I get to stretch my legs a little with this blog. It soothes my own soul to know that it is so well received. As my journey continues on this Earth, I hope that my readers will visit the "donate" site at Paypal or use snail mail to send a little green energy my way. I have spent my lifetime trying to pay close enough attention to be able to teach important information and ways of knowing that are hard to place economic value upon. Paying it forward, as some people call it, enriches us in so many ways, I hope that one day it will be something we all do as a matter of course. If we all give what we can, the sharing economy will take care of us all. As I write, it is a bit like a world-wide trust game.
You may have had an opportunity to do trust falls at summer camp, perhaps a leadership training course or other personal development workshop. When I first learned to spot people, they showed us how to not exactly "catch" a person who is in danger, but to protect their head and make sure that if they do fall, (which is inevitable when taking risks) it would be as gently as possible. Once we learned to break a person's fall, we graduated to a point that was quite empowering. We would line up in two lines facing one another, (using six or eight people) the person doing what we called the trust fall would stand on top of a four foot tall post or tree stump, crossing their arms across their chest. The people who were to "catch" them would prepare by holding their arms out and let the person up top (who stood looking away from us) know when we were ready, then the person on the stump would lean back and fall down into our arms. Life is a lot like a trust fall. Knowing that there are people ready to catch us when we fall is critically important to doing what needs to be done. There are no Lone Rangers, we are all part of a worldwide family, put here to love and support one another. With a bit of luck and a whole lot of blessings, my words will fall on ears that need to "hear" what I say. Making the world better one tiny act at a time, is perhaps the only way to tackle the multi-faceted problems that we face today.
Occasionally it may feel like one is falling backward into an abyss, but rest assured, there are those who have spent their lives training to "catch" us and protect our vital organs. We may end up bruised and battered along our unique paths, but someone will always be there to bind up our woulds, spread the healing salve of compassion on our scratches, scrapes and even our broken hearts and sometimes all it takes to find those folks is to trust. Blessings on your journey and may all good things find you!
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