Hold Your Breath for the Count of Ten....

I've been quiet for a while. Easy to say there's lots going on, but, so what. Who's life is not a bit complicated right now? And I am not going to repeat all the cliches out there about all the garbage being dumped on us from all sides in an effort to confuse us and frighten us.

 Not being interested in being bombarded by much too much media information, I chose to be selective about what I read. It is possible that what I read may be false information as well, but, most of it is written sans emotion and flair. I am interested in facts. So I do focus on the science, I read the VAERS reports, I listen to all sorts of physicians and scientists, sometimes dumbfounded by what the media has missed or mis-represented, but, it is because this world has gotten very comfortable with altering the Truth. It's a sad fact. And no wonder people can't figure out what the heck is going on and tend towards the simplest answer. Too much mis-information, how can anyone know for sure what is right? You can terrorize people with too much noise, too much stimulation, physical abuse, mental abuse. Think Gitmo.  And we have had a bit of that this last year and a half. 

Yet some of us still stand in our truth. We still see the goodness available for us if we chose to shift our focus. When we know we have a limited amount of time on this gorgeous planet, why are we wasting it on those things we have little control over? Why turn on a TV rather than open a window? Go for a walk? Read a good 

Book? Enjoy a drive? Watch a sunset? Your time is all you have- is watching endless TV and reading the same stuff over and over what you really want to remember when you are at your death bed? Get out of your house! Go clear your mind at the beach, in the woods, on a mountain peak, wherever you can step back from the noise and just Be. Listen. Smell. Feel the natural world and get refilled. Being alone is not lonely, it is cleansing. Being quiet is a scarey thing only if you let it be. Hold your breath for the count of 10. There, you were alone and survived. It is that simple. 

As much as I have loved my media toys, I reluctantly set them down and walk away. I think back to when I wrote tons of letters to family and friends. It required thinking in the moment and sharing life. It was expression without a snapshot. I remember worrying about staying on the phone too long because it cost more. So you had to get all the important stuff said in a short time. The conversation were intimate and some times hard. Now, nothing is really private. Intimacy is an act rather than a personal event. What now?

 I find I need great compassion for those loved ones and others who drank the kool-aid and are now seeing the Truth. Doubt (is it really true) takes over fear (of death-the only guarantee) and then humility (am I wrong). Hard for your average American to take. But compassion is what is needed.

 "Forgive them for they know not what they do". There is a shift happening now. Some find it harder  to ask, "what if I'm wrong?" than to ask," what if I'm right?" and to answer truthfully. Yet both questions are important. And it takes courage to actually ask someone either question with regards to the present situation in the world. Both answers help to shift you, ever so slightly, to a more rounded understanding. I always say, " awareness is 50% of the cure". Many people don't even know that they don't know (the Truth). Yet, when you can offer them the opportunity to explore their own inner thoughts by these two questions, shift happens. And compassion prevails. And there is Light.

Turn off your FKG TV and do the research-TEN TIPS ON STAYING ALIVE

To say I'm angry, is just the old tip of the iceberg. I hate being angry and I dislike hate even more. But, I have been doing the research on many levels about our most recent flu outbreak-COVID-19. IT'S MINDNUMBING AND ONE-SIDED. SCIENCE KNOWS ALL.

There is a shitload of information. The one thing I find appalling and beyond belief is the lack of real information about prevention and reasonable preventative everyday things that we can do to help. Just yesterday the CDC finally updated it's site with hand-washing, isolation!(really, some of us must pay our bills, in other words, leave our homes to go to work-if we're not in the hospitality and travel business. Those people are trying to figure out how they will be paying for their life) and STOP HUGGING LOVED ONES!!!!

It was kind of the CDC to remind us-in fact-re-educate us in the art of Handwashing. Bravo!! And a special thanks out to Ellen DeGeneres for demonstrating early on the art of handwashing.

What makes this virus so different than the usual flu? Not much, it spreads the same way, it attacks the elderly and immuno-suppressed the same way, it has the same symptoms. The big difference is it was wholey blown out of preportion in the beginning. We have little research on how rapidly and profoundly flu's have spread in the past. The example of  Wuhun is what it looks like when a small flu virus mutates and spreads in an area of the world that has a LOT going on. It is the hub of the chinese hi-tech research, scientific research ( alarm bells) and more:

 " three national development zones, four scientific and technologic development parks, over 350 research institutes, 1,656 hi-tech enterprises, numerous enterprise incubators and investments from 230 Fortune Global 500 firms" Focus on Wuhun-Government of Canada

Is it any wonder that the chinese scientific community was on it ? It was not contained because Denial was the name of the game. As we know the first chinese physician to  recognize the problem was booed right out of there early on and eventually succumbed to the virus (according to the news). We also know that when a quanantine was announced hundreds of people left the area (not knowing they possibly carried the virus with them). Common sense. Mass hysteria does that. 

And here is a really great statistic-it is predicted that 95% will survive.Compared to cancer:

Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually.

"Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The Global Burden of Disease estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer."

Okay, so I can go on and on. Here is what I do want to share. If you want to remain as healthy through this cytokine storm (the reaction that happens when the virus gets going in the body) there are a few things you can do.

1. Stop stressing-it decreases your immune system.
2. Stay rested
3. Wash your hands
4. Increase your Vitamin C-up to 2500mg a day or more
5. Get exercise.
6. Get out in the sunshine.
7. Be kind to one another.
8. Zinc tablets
9. Tonic water (quinine based)
10. Turn off the fucking TV and do you own research.

Growing older with Grace and Unconditional SelfLove

I am immeasurably happy. I am so grateful for this shift to what is really important today. When I decided to really go nuts over my hair and cut out the unreal, the face that shined through just filled me with self love. I finally, unconditionally love who I am. How did I come to this? When I look in the mirror I see a lifetime of learning. I see well earned smile lines. I see a sparkling minx in my eyes. I see a silver crown of hair that I have hidden from myself for 30 years of color.

It is like waking up to sunshine on your face on a cold day. I get it. I have got it to give. It is a totally consuming feeling of deep love within. As I sit here looking out at this beautiful space I get to call home, I am in Love with every tree, leaf, rock, bird and the blue sky. All the gifts right here in front of my face. And it fills me and I want to burst with gratitude. How lucky am I to have all that I want and more?!?!?

According to my stars I am here in service to mankind-I had my astrological chart read in college. I did not understand it for so long, yes, I am a nurse and life coach, but , what took a long time to realize is-where my purpose grows is not always evident and I may never know where I have impacted a life. Yet every act of kindness, every smile shared with a stranger has an impact. Every moment of calm in a storm offers a gift when offered from the heart. I spent so much time fighting this belief  being angry and hiding the sweetness of myself inside for fear of discovery. But no more. Service to humankind is about loving others beyond belief, beyond our pre-concieved, hallucinated viewpoint of others. So simple, just love. Find one small thing about another person you might rather dislike and smile and be kind. I find that this brings out the Angel in everyone, maybe not right then, but soon.

 I live in gratitude and love for every person who has ever crossed my path, for the lessons I learned and un-learned as a result of your presence in my life. I love you still.

 Just one tender act changes lives. 

A conversation with Self about drinking- while driving

I drove into Hood River (through White Salmon, down the hill, over the bridge, etc) today. As I was driving I started this conversation with my Self. It went something like this:

Self:  If  you're not addicted to alcohol, why do you drink?

I answered: That is a great question! I literally couldn't be happier, so, it's not that I am unhappy or depressed. I live by myself, so no one is leaving underwear on the floor or not cleaning the bathroom or doing their share of the dishes. That's enough for me to celebrate. I don't know, maybe I don't believe that it is so much an addiction as a habit. I know that some days I come home and all I want is a nice cold beer or martini because I have had a distressing day at work. Nothing I won't get over but until I do, I won't be relaxing or sleeping. It's like a short cut to comfort. And a habit-not an addiction. Other days, I sit in front of the fireplace and knit first or give the cat a good rubbing.

Self: Well, then, why not just quit? 

I answered: Well, I have before. And I could, but, not sure why I would. I rarely drink to excess (unless I am around my family and they love to drink together) I do my best not to finish a bottle of Champagne by myself-in the same night. And that is all I am going  to share on that topic. These days there is so much stigma around drinking and guilt. Typical of society to complain and attack the symptoms rather than address the deeper causes. It drives the mild drinkers underground and we tend to lie about it to our doctors. Who wants your medical records to say "drinks 1-5 drinks a day". People read that shit and can form an opinion.

Self: I can see this is an interesting subject for you.

I answered: Well, look around you. Everywhere you look there are vineyards, in fact pretty much every state grows grapes. There are thousands of US labelled wines. I gave up drinking it because it all tastes the same and it will NEVER be the wine that one can get in France or Spain, even Argentina. But, boy it is everywhere.  Whoa! I am way off on a tangent-sorry.

Self: Do you think you drink too much?

I answered: I do not. I have in the past, when I was sad, unhappy, frustrated and angry. I definitely tried to drown my sorrows, but after a while I resented the days I was missing because I was hung over. Self made unwanted time off. I could have been biking , cleaning, anything. Way to much time could be wasted being trashed all the time.

Self: What's changed? 

I answered: I see more. Sounds crazy, I know, but now I have time to actually see the world more closely. And I take more time to get out in it, many times alone, to just get a nature fix. I feel so much gratitude for the blessed life I live and have lived, even the sad times. They all brought me to where I am right now and this is good. Deserves a cocktail!

The end!

Fear and the Committee of Monkeys

I was reviewing my old posts and found one labelled, "Fear". When I opened it, I found that it was blank. Ya gotta love that!

I have so little fear anymore. I have faith. I have faith because all that fear and worry brought me nothing. I am not talking about the fear when hair on the back of your neck stands up or when your inner being says, "this is not right, step away", I am talking about all the fear created in falsehood by the ego. The fear that serves nothing. The fear of things we have no control over (even if we wish we did), fear of future events that may or may not happen, fear of a giant meteor crashing into the surface of the earth. Fear is the retardant of presence. Let me repeat that, FEAR IS THE RETARDANT OF PRESENCE.

We cannot practice presence while in a state of fear. Anxiety disorder is the inability to be present and the Ego's fine job of  broadcasting every little fear you may have ever had or may ever have in the future. Anxiety disorder is a result of not learning or being taught how to cope with ego mind.
I used to call it my committee of monkeys when I finally figured out that it was in my head. Oh the ego had a blast with me. I had the critic monkey, the bitch monkey, the doubt monkey, the monkey of unworthiness, the monkey of successful failure. I began to see them as little goblins on my shoulders, one on one side saying "oh, that was stupid" and the other side "who'd believe you".  Fear was pretty rampant and my steps back then were small, oh let me be truthful, they were teeny, tiny.  The funny thing is when I began to see the fear monkeys on my shoulders, they didn't have as much control of over my head. Some days I could just flick them off. And the more I flicked them off, the less they spoke negatively. Pretty soon there were only one or two of them and they were easy to control.
My mind started to get quiet. I started to meditate for short periods of time. I'd sit on the beach and just get quiet by listening to the birds and waves and smelling the water and feeling the breeze and the sand. When I concentrated on those things my mind relaxed. I felt immeasurably  more peaceful. Even my body relaxed. The committee started saying things like, "wow, this is so sweet". Yep, they began to enjoy this as well. And their language changed. The words they said were words of kindness and encouragement.

With practice I took this exercise everywhere in nature. I meditated on mountain ridges, snowy hillsides, in the woods, while snorkeling and scuba diving (just the getting quiet part), on road trips, sitting in front of the fire, standing in the rain and I welcomed the presence of the world/universe/God into my being. Rare is it that monkeys of old show up. By being present I have diminished the negative power of the ego. It is still there and works to remind me when I am in a negative place. But it no longer controls my thoughts. Fears worthiness in its proper place; there to protect me not consume me.

Bombshell? How long must we wait to recognize the War on Women.

Bombshell?

The bombshell is that woman are still being made small by mankind in America. Whether or not I stand politically with these women, I admire the strength and courage it took to stand up for the raping of woman by this type of " predator". Nassor, O'Reilly, Epstein, Ailes, Laur, Cosby, Weinstein, Trump, to name a few.  These are just the public ones. These are just the ones that got caught.We live in a country that rewards macho behavior, bullying, intimidation of women. We, "the most powerful nation in the world", have watched as women, strong enough to make it through "boot camp", be humiliated, raped, demoted, discouraged and eventually thrown out of the armed forces for being women. We have  seen actresses come forward risking everything to call out predators in their field of work. And this- women being forced to have sex with discusting old men to have and keep their jobs.

MY question is "ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?"

God Bless the women who put their faith in men  like these. May you never allow your daugthers (your 4 year old, 8 year old, 13 year old, etc) to be alone with them. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. If it feels uncomfortable, you better believe your intuition it is.  Trust it. Walking away and being wrong is better than being right and living with the humility  that hundreds of young women and their mothers, live with after their trusted physician fingered them regularly for years. NASSAR.

 It does not matter what your politics are or what color you are or what race, somehow there are American men out there who  think they have the right to abuse their power and the women/ children who have been minimized in their presence. Not okay!

Imagine all the women in our "civilized society" who find this acceptable because they  don't have a voice. Maybe you even know one. That friend who always looks put together and smiling, yet you (in your female intution) know that something is not right. Maybe you see a bruise or you reach out to touch her and she flinches. What are you doing to protect her? What are you doing to support her?

We live in a time in history where we have been promoted to tear each other apart. We want to be clones of the Kardasians. We want to look like Stepford wives. Why? Because of the mixed messages we are getting from the media moguls. "If you don't have great legs and a tight ass, you just are not enough." "Thin is in". Spanks-does anyone find this an odd name for something that squeezes you up tight and is immensely uncomfortable? Who are you? Not what you look like, but, who are you?

 And not much has changed in women's history from the 1916's, when women protested for the right to control their bodies, the right to chose to have children and to not have them, their right to vote, to own businesses. They were thrown in jail and went on hunger strikes. The very sad thing about this, "most powerful country in the world", is we as women, were behind the rest of the world when it came to women's rights. In 1840, the Kingdom of Hawai'i's  universal manhood and women's suffrage was introduced. It took until 1919 for women in America to be able to vote. It wasn't until 1954 that we became recognized as equal, able to vote, hold office, access public services and own our own business (with our husband as co-signer). And, yet, here we are just exposing this total injustice 65 years later. No country in the world should be more embarrassed.

Time to step up sisters. If you feel it, trust it-you are not dead yet. Talk to your sisters, talk to those men out there who respect and honor you. Be the voice for those whose voice has been silenced. This country has been run by money and men for long enough, time to let women bring peace to the country.

Women leaders in the world?

 Jacinda Arden,Michelle Bachelet, Joyce Banda, Anna Brnabic,
 Maria-Loise Coliero Preca,Angela Merkel, Katrin Jakobsdottir, Margaret Thatcher, Sheikh Hasina and so many more.

Where are our women of strength and power? Who's voice do you follow? Men, money, war, sex  trade, and dominance are not family values. Find who is speaking the language of peace and follow them. Don't step back, step up. It is time.

My Paradise in the Woods

The sun is out!! Everything seems to sparkle after days of rain, fog and quiet. The red of the pine needles is redder, the lush green of the moss is brighter, the sun striking the treetops majestic. I couldn't be happier.

I live in my own manifestation. On my vision boards over the years, there has always been a  cabin in the woods, down a hill, in the mountains and with a deck. There were windows, large windows letting in the view and the light. All for my own pleasure and enjoyment. There is a circular drive. There are animal prints in the snow in winter. I have hummers that come to my feeder and Stellar Jays to the suet. The wind blows through the trees and it hums all around me. 

On rainy days the outdoors are loud. Millions of tiny drops of water, some falling great distances, fall all around me. Every surface offering  subtle drumbeats, adding to the orchestra of sounds in nature. It feels like I'm standing in a forest cathedral without a roof. The tops sway and in doing so change the music of the drums. 

What I have learned in this short interval of living here is how small I am in the big picture. How amazingly lucky I am to be able to be a living part of this experience. I breathe bigger here. I breath in the rain, the top of the trees, the fog, the breeze and I can feel its healing power all the way to my toes. I do this every morning and every evening along with my thanks to the universe for the gift of living  in this paradise in the woods.