Category Archives: Spiritual

Some Shooting Stars Miss Their Mark

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

November 30, 2022- I was struck by the number of “Giving Tuesday” e-mails which returned today, saying they had fallen short of their goals; struck, but not surprised, by the news. While money is like water, and the amount in toto doesn’t change, the form in which it exists changes constantly. Snapping one’s fingers or thrusting out one’s hand does little, or nothing, to increase flow, when the supply in liquid form happens to be a trickle. I was the recipient of no fewer than 800 e-mails, over the course of Thanksgiving weekend. I gave what I consider to be a reasonable amount, during that period, and will continue, throughout the holiday season, to offer what I consider a reasonable amount.

There is another aspect to this: The very real consequence of constant bombardment, even by the most deserving of causes, is ennui; disinterest, the passing into White Noise of the message being trumpeted. At worst, it can even trigger opposition to the cause. None of these are what I want to see happen to groups like Sandy Hook Promise, Stand With Parkland, Mercy Corps/Haiti, Lady Freethinker, and World Central Kitchen. There is enough nefarious thought in the world, without bringing it to the fore.

I favour an appeal for volunteers as much, if not more than, the call for funds-as much as the mantra, “Money is our life blood”, or the cloying “Money pays the bills” may stoke the intellect. Human energy is equally beneficial, and the more local that energy, the better.

Shooting stars that aim to intensely at one target may well miss their mark. Sometimes,less is more.

72 and Change

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Posted by on in American Legion, Assistance, collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Slow Food, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

November 29, 2022- This morning, I woke seemingly clear-headed and well-rested, and yet a few faux pas came between the time I awoke and the time I alighted in my window seat, on the plane back to Arizona. They were nothing that apologies didn’t rectify, and the rest of the journey back to Home Base was uneventful. My seat mates, on the plane and in the shuttle from Phoenix to Prescott, were very pleasant; quiet but congenial. I enjoyed a Korean barbecued pork sandwich, with chicken noodle soup on the side. Knocking out what was left of last week’s cold was crucial-and yes, I was one of three people in the travel party who wore a mask in close-quarter situations.

It’s time to look at what the ellipse that is the tail end of 2022 and the first eleven months of ’23 might bring. Next week, I work four days and have my skin scan. There will be a heavy schedule, here in town, Friday and Saturday, with Indian Market and a few other events. Acker Night is Dec,9 and Post 6 Christmas Party, on the10th. After that, SoCal is calling, for 3-4 days, Dec. 12-15-following a Slow Food event in south Phoenix, on Dec. 11. Dec. 16-25 will be close to Home Base, with a few days afterward spent somewhere up north, barring any weather weirdness or Red Cross emergency.

That brings up January-September, 2023-and so far, I have no clear guidance from Spirit Guides as to what, if any, travel will take place during that time. Sept. 30-Oct. 1 is the likely time for Baha’i Unit Convention. After that, October-early November looks like Pacific Northwest, Alaska and some of the Asian Pacific Rim. THAT guidance is very clear. We know from last year that these signals can change with outside circumstances and shifting energy frequencies.

So- stay tuned!

Thankfulness Is A Heart Song

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

November 24, 2022, Grapevine- I remember, in years that my parents deemed “lean”, being quite happy with what had been given me on Christmas of those years. I recall being puzzled at Mom’s dismay about the quality of the gifts they had given. Life itself was quite enough, actually. All the things besides it were gravy. I told her as much.

Speaking of which, Thanksgiving 2022 is a wrap, at least the dinner part, here in DFW’s shadow. Yunhee made her first traditional American dinner, and it was stellar. Turkey, peppered mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce were a grand first effort. Korean sticky puffed rice replaced pumpkin pie and whipped cream, and is actually better for early afternoon.

I have read a couple of articles on “how to be grateful”, this morning. I most definitely agree with friend Andrea Cagan’s synopsis of gratitude (See Andrea Cagan, “Gratitude Shmatitude”, Andrea’s Writings, Thoughts and Inspiration) as best being more spontaneous, definitely not forced, or even rehearsed. Missing out on the tiny delights, from a small plant first shooting up through the soil to a child’s first steps or on the grander, a recovering patient’s doing, tentatively, what had been de rigeur prior to their mishap, is disaffirming. It is vital to one’s well-being to notice and appreciate all that life brings to the table.

When I was young, the usual lessons of “Please, Thank You and You’re Welcome” were imparted to us. One of my maternal aunts offered what I thought was a refreshing caveat- “Don’t ever fake being thankful. I, for one, will see right through it.” Therein lies the heart of true gratitude. Like love, on which it is based, gratitude is never vain or false; it is neither snide nor self-deprecating. It cannot be feigned. The flip side is, approaching life with a loving heart, one can see the value in just about anything, endure it and thus feel grateful for some element contained within it.

Life, even recovering from an illness or mourning the senseless losses of innocents to war and personal rage, contains within it the admonition to do better, to break out of the prison of self. Therein lies the greater blessing, that true thankfulness is a heart song.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

Cactus Flower to Yellow Rose

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

November 22, 2022, Grapevine- A 1:45 a.m. wake-up, for a 3:15 shuttle, leading to a 7:15 flight from Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth, is not on my frequent travel schedule. It is also far from the hardest of itineraries, as I imagine any veteran of a Belem to Manaus to Leticia packet boat trip along the Amazon, or a joyride from Punta Arenas to the Ross Peninsula, or even a trek to the summit of one of the great peaks of the Himalaya, Andes or Northern Rockies, would attest.

It is, however, something I have mastered, along with nine other travelers, who joined me in packing a van that made it in perfect time, from the campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (where a twenty-minute search of three stops yielded the two travelers sought.) There was scant traffic, once two more passengers boarded the shuttle, in Prescott Valley and Groome’s driver got us to Sky Harbor on time.

Other than a few uptight, suspicious people in an airport coffee shop, and in my row on the plane itself, there were no hiccups between Phoenix and my secondary home. I retrieved my luggage fairly quickly and took my first ride in a Tesla. The car is not quirky; I’ll say that much, and the time may well come when the brand has no more association with Fascism than does a Volkswagen. It rides very smoothly.

Now it’s time to relax, get rid of the rest of the cold that has bothered me-along with 3/4 of the people I know in Arizona- and bask in my little family’s presence.

A Non-Starter

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 21, 2022- Both of us are respectful of electricity and its power, being careful to avoid mishandling the pair of battery jumper cables. Friend was glad to hand off the task of attaching the cables cables to me. I did so, easily enough, but when I started Sportage and tried the same with the problem vehicle- crickets. As a “door is ajar” warning sound continued to ding, even when all doors were closed, I suspect a short in the wiring. I gave friend a ride to a place of lodging, and he will resume dealing with the matter tomorrow morning, hopefully with help from his insurance carrier.

This was nearly the last task to occupy me today, before my flight to Dallas, early Tuesday. The day mostly consisted of accompanying a 10-year-old student from one class to another. She is soft-spoken around adults, but is very much independent and seemingly in charge of her disability, rather than the other way around. The day went well, and her teacher asked me to consider taking on the task full-time. While it might be better for a younger, female paraprofessional to do the job day-to-day, I am not ruling it out for the second semester.

The last task was to conduct a Baha’i study of social action formulae. We came close to finishing the unit, but my purpose is to generate meaningful discourse, which indeed came out of our study of three sections. leaving two to examine, next Monday evening. This will mean my birthday dinner will be an early event, which I prefer anyway.

After a bit of packing for tomorrow, it was early to bed- with joy at a productive day.

Thunderbird

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, Community, distraction issues, Education, Entertainment, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

November 20, 2022- As I sat with two young siblings, in a friend’s apartment, they began drawing and then painting, images on cloth canvas squares. The kids did marvelous depictions of Pokemon characters and yin/yang symbols. My friend asked if I wanted to do a canvas of my own, which sounded like fun. I did a free-style depiction of a prehistoric bird, using a few colours: Red torso, black beak and legs, yellow tuft and green head. I would be surprised if any actual bird looked like that, but it was a nice, light activity.

It did get me thinking about the thunderbird, a common mythological creature of North America, ascribed by Algonquian-speaking peoples in the Pacific Northwest, eastern Canada, the northeast United States and the Great Lakes region, with thunderous wing-flapping and the ability to hurl lightning at giant serpents and other underwater creatures. It was said that thunderbirds ruled the land and sky, whilst serpents and underwater panthers shared the underworld. I heard about thunderbirds, growing up, and while they remain fanciful, the colour scheme has a polyglot, rainbow quality (Northwest) or has blue-black feathers.

The mythological nature of the beast, in turn, reminded me of the superhuman powers that we sometimes ascribe to actual creatures-even to the microbial level. I have fought a hard, but somewhat manageable, cold, over the past four days. It is at the point now, where it is subsiding and there is only a smidgen of mucous, itself clear. This is what I refer to as change-of-seasonitis, and it has usually showed up, around late October. My ailment has none of the symptoms attributed to COVID-19, and does remind me, pure and simple , of other bad colds I’ve had this time of year. The thunder is subsiding now,thankfully, and with a good rest and hydration, I will be fine for Tuesday’s flight.

Delivering, not Sniveling

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

November 19, 2022- I walked carefully into the American Legion Post general meeting, about 15 minutes before it actually started. Wearing my face mask, as vestiges of my cold could put others at risk, I took my usual seat, and was surprised, though hardly discomfited, to find every other seat at the normally half-empty table well-occupied. The full hall meant that there would be a fairly intense discussion of various items, and there was. My voice being still scratchy, I spared the gathering of my opinions, agreeing with much of what others said, anyway. At the end, all were treated to a rich and flavourful home-baked enchilada pie and salad items.

Though I missed Farmers Market and Zeke’s, this week, also due to wanting to heal as completely as possible, before Tuesday’s flight and out of consideration for those in fairly crowded situations, the day was busier than I had initially planned. The ton of laundry, including the bed linens, finally was properly washed and dried. That took close to three hours. A hokey version of “Van Helsing’ palye din the background, with the vampire slayer taking on a Man-Fish (or a man in silly fish mask, with a Central Casting monster voice), and freeing the young adult daughter of a distraught couple, from Fishy Boy’s grasp (all this, despite VH’s having been skewered, at least three times, by Mr. Fish, or one of his minions).

In the early evening, I returned to Rafter Eleven, for the first time in about five weeks, to find that Dawn & crew have added lunch and dinner items to their Bill of Fare. It was a great delight to my palate, to have Chicken Pot Pie for an actual solid dinner. This brings Rafter into the “Dinner and A Show” level, and made listening to the jazz trio that much more enjoyable. I will be over there more regularly, once back from Dallas.

There Are Oils for This

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, Family, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 18, 2022- I got sick, in the process of working in a Special Needs class, the previous two days, most likely a result of going full-speed ahead on other projects, earlier in the week and the ubiquity of sick children, sent to school for any of a number of reasons.

The treatments (self-administered) came hard and heavy. Following the guidance in do Terra’s “Modern Essentials”, a regimen of Oregano Oil in water, a mix of digestive blend and cellular complex blend in another glass of water, Life-long Vitality Supplements, Red Yeast Rice, ProstaStrong and Lutein, separately taken over the course of the day, has helped knock out the Nasty ( bad cold, and definitely not showing up as COVID).

Essential oils, used properly, have enhanced my overall health and have made my early 70s a lot more life-affirming and engaged than might otherwise be the case. There are also the examples of my parents, who did not avoid work because of illness. This was true of them, to a fault, and the same shows up in me. This bout of common cold is one of those 4-or 5-year things, but as always it is a sign telling me to slow down. By the time Tuesday’s flight to DFW is imminent, I fully expect the cold to be done and over with-so the regimen goes on, in the interim- as does a good night’s sleep.

There are essential oils for just about any ailment.

Impersonal

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

November 17, 2022- I am honest; I would have preferred to stay at Home Base and rest. The issue is, though, that other people on the crew are very sick. Those who have a gift of mindfulness. and a level of health that is above walking wounded status, needed to be on deck today. There will be a reserve group covering for me and another regular paraprofessional, tomorrow, when I have a regular meeting in the morning and teammate has a family event.

The children, whether sick or not, are here. This is not just true of high maintenance or difficult to manage children. Parents have their own schedules and the kids themselves don’t want to stay home. That speaks well of the school as a whole, and of the program in which I am presently working, even in the throes of rebuilding.

Kids have always been devious at times, unruly at other times and appreciative, tender-hearted at still other times. Perhaps this is all part of learning which path is the right one. In any case, it is always best to take the worst behaviours impersonally, though certainly an aspect of that learning is being called to account for transgressions!

One child, given a basketball, shot a few baskets and then decided to let the ball roll down, across the parking lot and into the small clump of trees. Once the ball rolled to a stop at the fence that separates the property from a mobile home park, he decided he had seen what we wanted to see and came back to where I was waiting, with one of his classmates. This time, he figured it was a good idea to go back inside. Indeed it was!

We have come far, from the bad old teacher days of corporal punishment; from the bad old administrator days of using two Behaviour Modification Programs that conflict with one another and the bad old student & parent days of claiming that “just about anything goes” is enshrined in the First Amendment. There are still vestiges of each of these miserable philosophies, but they have lost cachet here. A student who throws a meal tray will face parent or grandparent, at days end-and there are, thankfully, no defensive parents in this group. They expect the children to follow instruction.

Misbehaviour is impersonal, usually, vis-a-vis the victims. These kids are impulsive and in-the-moment. So, we go on, looking for clues as to the hook behind misbehaviour.

A Whirlwind Is Still A Force of Nature

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 16, 2022- There are two competing children in the class where I am working today, tomorrow and Monday. They don’t particularly like one another, the one being fun-loving, feisty and given to salty language and the other grasping, yet surly at the same time, and given to thought-salads, asking for one activity, then going on to another, and another, within a span of two minutes. Both are capable of mayhem, yet the first child will explode, execute the mischief and calm down within a 2-3 minute timeout. The other, in my opinion dangerously over-age for the classroom, does not struggle much, fortunately, but stores his insolence, taking it out on the teachers and classmates-at random moments.

We have a protocol that has one staff member sitting close to the second student and gently bringing him back to his seat when he gets up to see what mischief he can cause. The first child basically just wants to dance, fairly gracefully, and do the assignments given-but in her own way, Both could be nurtured in good work habits, if a 1:1 could be arranged for them. A whirlwind, as destructive as it tends to be, is still a force of nature, energy that could conceivably be turned into a beneficial power source-though admittedly, the technology that would make that feasible is a long way off. We are closer to harnessing the strengths of even the most unruly student, but we need to overcome a paralysis of will in education, especially in public education. It will take a massive amount of energy, from parents, educators and community-at-large, especially the business community, to replace the drive towards homogeneity with a culture that once again values innovation and individual initiative.

I will have more to say, after tomorrow’s events. Yet, a whirlwind is still a force of nature.