Monthly Archives: December 2023

Least Light

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 21, 2023- Least light, across the northern hemisphere, is not a nadir.       It is an anchor, along with its mirror counterpart, most light,across the southern realm.    It offers us the hope of resilience, in the minute-by-minute lengthening of daylight.     It brings us the sights, sounds and feels of nature taking a rest, before it burst forth anew.    It offers us the vision of Mother Earth in a balancing dance with our nurturing Sun and her sister planets, with their own moons, even as the Sun prepares to rage for another eighteen months.                                       I had the pleasure of ringing in the solstice, this evening, as Galactogogues, a Prescott band, launched their first album, at our venerable Elks Theater. The family group-mother Meg Boehrman and her three adult children, along with their extended family, drummer and violinist, have kept local fans on our feet, during many performances at the Raven Cafe and some of Whiskey Row’s more genteel bands. It took me a bit of time to feel enough a part of things to get up and dance, but it happened. A friend, Ken, was inspired by my efforts and danced a bit, in his own space, for a few minutes. Someone else, with whom I recently had a dispute, was also there, but I am done with letting anyone’s presence deter me from following my heart. Meg, in the midst of being greeted by the social elite, told me she was glad for my presence. That was inspiration enough to get up and be a part of things.

Now, getting ready for a night’s rest, before the last day of school for 2023, I am listening to the inspiring, and formidable, Buffy Ste. Marie, offering her vision for the future, through songs that propel a 24-Hour Online Dance. I will not be dancing, but will sleep well, knowing that people like Buffy are charging forth, for the betterment of humanity.

https://www.google.com/search?channel=frsc&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Mister%2C+Can%27t+You+See#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f5ce7752,vid:E7f_Tk5bD40,st:0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7f_Tk5bD40

On Boundaries

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 20, 2023- One of my online writer friends posted, this morning, on the subject of boundaries. Going over both the setting of one’s own boundaries, respecting the boundaries of others and handling those who invade one’s safe spaces, she sparked my own review of past and present behaviours in this area.

When rebounding from Penny’s passing, I gave vent to delusions of having feelings for a couple of women. The first, gently and firmly set me straight on the matter, we parted on civil terms. She is still a friend- and thankfully, is happily married to a fine man. The second is also still one of my best friends, here in Prescott, having set her boundaries early on.

Then, there were those who invaded my space: A homeless man, who did not ask for much more than rides here and there, and assistance with getting established in another town. I was able to help him, and after a year or so, he dropped off the radar screen. A few years later, a well-meaning friend tried to “fix me up” with a woman, who had serious emotional issues and who quickly turned out menacing, even using her thoughts to try and wreck my life-health-wise and in terms of employment. I lost my job, while she had parked her RV in a public area, a block from my apartment. Curiously, on the day that I was fired, she got in the rig and drove away. I cut off all contact with her, have recovered and am living nicely. There was a disturbed young man, who messaged me, continuously, for six months, often sending up to 50 voice messages a day, most of which I deleted, though I listened and tried to understand his issues. I cut off contact with him, after he sent a message attacking the memory of my late wife. Finally, there was the African entrepreneur, who initially appeared to be making a good faith effort to build a life for himself and his family. I connected him with agencies and organizations that could offer real, constant assistance-but he became attached to asking for more money from me-for matters that were not directly connected to the initial investment. I cut him off completely, after about four months of begging on his part.

Now, I have strong, enduring friendships, in a good many states and Canadian provinces, and in three other countries. There will be, I’m sure, more to follow. I have strong feelings for a good woman, who I met two months ago, and am taking care to honour her boundaries and not coming across like a bull in a china shop. The fact that we are an ocean apart makes this a bit easier, but when I see her again, the same respect will continue.

Boundaries, like other aspects of a disciplined, organized and centered life, ensure that one may live in happiness and success.

No Doldrums This Time

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 19, 2023-

When my day starts with a message from the human being I love most dearly,

when my efforts on behalf of a group of children are acknowledged and appreciated,

when I am able to listen to a presentation by a highly-esteemed spiritual teacher,

when my little nest egg continues to show the security that enables me to live in service,

when many of those I also love dearly continue to show up in this humble life, and provide affirmations,

when I can honestly say that affirmations from within myself arise much more readily,

when I see that at least some in power are acknowledging, and working towards relief of, the pain being meted out to the homeless (both military veterans AND civilians), the dispossessed from the Global South, the victims of the Lahaina fires, the refugees in Gaza, the refugees in Darfur, those who suffered losses in weather-related events this week, those displaced in Iceland,

I feel no doldrums, this December.

Inside Out

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 18, 2023- A spiritual leader among First Nations peoples referred, at a meeting this evening, to the difference between religion and spirituality. He noted that spirituality comes from within a soul. Religion, as it is often practiced, is an external force that is either voluntarily adopted by the soul or is imposed on it, by prevailing social forces. He further noted that it does not have to be this way, pointing to those religious teachers who stress leaving the adoption of their Founder’s teachings up to the individual, through an emphasis on individual investigation of truth. This places the responsibility, in my view, where it belongs. Force only works as long as it is applied. When it is removed, those who have lived under a yoke, so to speak, will go off on all manner of tangents-including campaigns of force all their own.

It took me nine years of investigation and internal wrangling, before I recognized the Baha’i Teachings as the Divine Message for this Day. Others are free to follow their own path, and I count, as dear friends, men and women of all faiths-from Fundamentalist Christianity to Wiccan, and in-between. Baha’is tend to know my heart better than most, my Christian siblings being an exception. My point here is that, like a house that is built by its owner, the spiritual fortress of a soul is best which fits the soul’s true needs-and only that soul can really know what those needs are. 

As we move forward, through a time that is fraught with challenges, and filled with opportunities, both scheduled and serendipitous, let’s remember to show reverence for one another’s dignity and worth. Let us be open to knowing another’s true heart-inside and out.

Awakening

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

December 17,2023- As I sit here, writing, I am watching a film, entitled “Awaken“. In this, First Nations people, from across British Columbia are talking about their memories, and impressions of their current lives. There is talk of how the elders have given them the tools they need to sustain their lives, of how they seek reconciliation and the ability to forgive their oppressors. There is a revelation of how connected they remain, to nature, to animals.

I will, as ever, be connected, in this coming 8 Universal Year- a year of action, both individual and collective, with the Indigenous people across North America, in the Philippines and in other countries that I will visit in September and October. Dineh and Hopi figure in this next year. So do Tohono O’Odham, Maya and Shoshone (in Nevada), Tewa, Towa and Keresan (northern Puebloan), Yakima, the various nations of Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast,and southern inland British Columbia and the Miqmaq, of Atlantic Canada.

I will be connected to children, youth and adults of all ages. I will be connected to women and men alike. Voices are getting stronger, and the people are awakening-a higher level of consciousness than the insipid term “woke” can ever signify. Where as the latter is a slogan, a cliche and a diversion, being used to distract people, by inflaming passions, the former-the rising, the increased understanding, will be deemed dangerous, by those who regard themselves as powers that be. 

The people rising is not a threat to those who sincerely want to help raise the standard of living, who truly value the input of those they serve, of those with whom they live. The people rising is only a threat to those who seek to dominate, to eliminate, to exterminate. Most of these are individuals and claques, whose consciousness is several steps removed from the lives of those they want to quash and destroy. The truly great leaders of history, and of our own time, have warned us, repeatedly, of this: Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perce, Frederick Douglass, Jose Rizal, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, John Hume, Rabbi Judah Magnes and Ali Abu Awwad, Tanya Tagaq and Autumn Peltier, Neville Bonner and Adam Goodes, Xanana Gusmao, Marcos Terena, Milagro Sala, Feliciano Valencia, Miriam Miranda, Wilma Mankiller. Many are the names you may not recognize. Search for them; learn of their efforts for humanity.

My small path will be concerned with the well-being of my friends and family (wherever they may live), Home Base community, state and nation-and across Planet Earth. Some self-care is always in play and my mahal na isa (dear one) is ever on my mind and deep in my heart. For all of us, though, the primary need is to stay awake, and look out for one another.

These are my thoughts, as I watch Awaken.

Here is another clip that expresses the sentiments in the above-mentioned film. https://vimeo.com/128567591

Perspectives

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Posted by on in distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 16, 2023- From where I was sitting, the painted scene could have been either looking downwards, towards the ocean, with a maelstrom in the middle or looking upwards, towards the cloudy sky, with a swirling snow cloud in its midst. When I got closer, it was the latter that was being portrayed. 

This was my first visit back to Raven Cafe at night, since the kerfuffle with a pair of disquiet people, in mid-November. Tonight, there was a sparse crowd, though Jillian Bessett and Chris Callahan, from Tucson, gave spirited and engaging renditions of both their original songs and covers of tunes by Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Big Joe Williams. It was peaceful. Before that, I had been in Rafter Eleven, enjoying Mike Lopez, of local favourites The Bourbon Knights, doing a solo set of covers. This was also delivered to a small audience. It’s always peaceful at Rafter.

I pondered, in the relative calm, how my own perspectives on life have changed, in the past decade. The clouds in the painting brought to mind how I was in fog, ten years ago-especially in the summer. A pair of voices of reason brought me gently down to terra firma. One of those voices was that of my spirit guide, who had departed this life two years prior. The other was that of the object of my misguided attention. After bouncing around a few more times, over the ensuing twelve months, I came back to Earth, by way of western Europe and Hawai’i, then strode a path alone-but with dozens, nay hundreds, of new friends.

My view has changed again, and with the encouragement of both human and spirit friends, the path to connecting with a precious and beautiful soul has begun. This time, there is no fog and my perspective is clear. This time, I go one step at a time.

Inextinguishable

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 15, 2023- ”I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya“- Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

The young boy, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, came up to me at the end of the school day, and with quiet confidence that I don’t recall him having, a year ago, asked if I remembered him. I did, and by name as well as countenance, though he said his name, for good measure. This has happened repeatedly, especially the past few years, as teenagers who studied under me as children, come up, remind me of who they are and recount their memories of elementary school, or middle school. Their stories are fresh in my mind, as well.

Going back further, I have met some of the people I knew as children, in Hopi and Dineh, now in their thirties and forties, over the past five or ten years. One, who recently passed on, after a long illness, was man of great integrity, in addition to being a talented artist, producing colourful and detailed prints, even whilst bedridden. Each of them, even after enduring unbelievable heartbreak and personal setbacks, one after another, have kept the flames of hope and of love for family alive, in their inextinguishable hearts. These are the true heroes in my life.

This notion may be extended now, across the Pacific Ocean, to the friends I met in October. Each of them has also experienced more heartache and loss in a month, at some point in their lives, than I have endured in a decade. Yet, they still go forward, and largely in acts of service to others. Their spirits, too, are inextinguishable.

I am ever grateful to the Divine, and to my spirit guides, for all those who have come my way, and for those yet to appear.

Burdens

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Poetry, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 14, 2023-

A beloved soul recognized,             

that I recognized

the pressure under which she lives.

Another dear soul revealed that he has a challenge

to face,

and will need to make considerable changes

in his life.

Some youth are looking at themselves

and trying to find their paths,

as all youths must,

until their dying days.

The choices we make,

the burdens we cast,

or to which we cling,

determine the arc

of our lives,

and the lives of those we love.

We also choose,

whether they are burdens

in the first place,

and if we are burdens

to ourselves, or

to one another.

Fast Re-fashion

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

December 13, 2023- ‘Fast Fashion, churning out large volumes of low-cost, low-quality garments, loaded with toxic synthetic dyes, is polluting the Earth’s water more than any other industry, save pesticide-heavy agribusiness’. -The Good Trade: https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/what-is-fast-fashion/

The presenter at the school where I am working, today and tomorrow, represented the College of Agriculture, Life & Environmental Sciences, at the University of Arizona, Tucson. The college has a department of Fashion Science & Technology, and has devised a way to re-fashion used athletic team jerseys. The U of A football team gave their used jerseys to the DFST, whose students, treating the jerseys as fabric, reworked them into purses, fanny packs, shawls and even caps.

Here is a site that provides tips on how this may be done in a DIY manner: https://www.sewhistorically.com/how-to-refashion-clothes-beginners-guide/. My thoughts go to not only the landfills of this country, but also all the trash piles in emerging economies. I hope some of my Filipino friends read this, as well as friends in African countries, Brazil, India-and any other nation, each of which deserves the same quality of life as those who are clad in the products of Fast Fashion. 

Re-fashioning is not a panacea, but it will go a long way towards cutting down the abysmal waste that derives from mindless discarding of fabric-right up there with plastic, as a scourge.

Reiterations

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

December 12, 2023- My horoscope for today says I will reveal my true colours. Truth be known, I’ve been doing that for some time. Historically, I am the world’s worst liar. So, even though I have said a lot of this before, “Double-Twelfth” is a good day for reiteration, to begin wrapping up the cosmic year that started with “Double-First”, a year of introspection and casting out remaining demons, for many. Ahead is a year of action, of putting thoughts into observable energy.

I have been active this year, certainly, and having mentioned those events and processes elsewhere, let me say that next year-the next two years, at least, will see even more of this. After some thought and comparison of costs and routes, yesterday, I am revising my route to an area that is on the itinerary for next Fall ( I will talk about the location on this platform, when it is prudent), to be prefaced by a two-week stop in the Philippines. Unless I hear from friends in Phil that this is not advisable or necessary, that is the plan.

My true colours just reflect love. What I feel for my angel in the spirit realm will never fade. Last week, I got a message from her, that my feelings for a woman now are perfectly acceptable before the Divine-and that I should treat that lady like a queen. It is true that love is the basis for all life-so the colour of love is my most basic hue.

I’ve been tripped up by grief and rebounding, especially for a few years after Penny’s passing. I’ve been hobbled by deep-seated attitudes and fears about myself, that have been brought to the surface and let flow out. Baha’u’llah wrote that love should not blindly lead to error. My thought is that such “love” is not the true kind. Now, in maturity, I see myself as a worthwhile human being-and get a lot of affirmation from those around me, in real time and online. Now, in maturity, I am no longer anxious or overbearing about expressing myself.

That brings up the matter of anxiety in general, and of the need for giving others room to work out their issues-and live their lives. My friends, especially my most beloved, deserve time and space to take care of their personal work. My son, and those I love as if they were my own children-and grandchildren, deserve the confidence and trust that I place in them, to show just how they will move forward. What I offer one and all is that confidence and trust. If you fall down, brush yourself off and go forward-keeping the lesson learned in mind. If you need a hug, it’s here. I will not, though, stand idly by and let you wallow. We are all better than that.

Ahead is a year of building-of a stronger Faith community, of reassurance for members of an extended family (and thus two stops in Carson City, next July) and of another extended family member further north (and thus a stop in Victoria, the same month), of fulfillment of promises both recent and of longer-standing, and of increasing my level of self-confidence-though not to the level of callousness or arrogance.

It’s time to go and tie up a couple of small loose ends-every day has a few such matters. All happiness on “Double Twelfth”, my friends.