The Guardian

     I crouched beneath the tall grass along the edge of the parking lot. My ears twitched back and forth uneasily and I whimpered. Just a bit because, truthfully, I was terrified. I had barely made it across the double-lane highway alive and the men yelling at me didn't help.
     Big, smelly men banging tailgates and leaving horrible fumes clogging my nose as they roared off in white trucks with huge tires. I knew what a truck bed was and theirs were cluttered with strange looking objects that were nothing like the wood or hay bales I was used to seeing. The beds of these trucks looked like torture chambers so I for sure wanted to stay away from them. I couldn't imagine getting stuck in there.
    "Hey, pooch, come here."
     A low, gruff voice was calling but I scooched back further. Every time the man moved forward, I retreated, watching him with alert eyes. I'd been told I had a strong gaze so I did my best to look tough. Near as I could tell, men weren't to be trusted. They would just as soon give you a smack as pet you. But, oh, I was so hungry my insides were rigid. I don't know how long it has been since I was dropped out of the truck near the highway, but long enough to feel like I was starving. Yes, I know I look grown up but I'm still just a pup, only five months old, and I don't have any idea how to feed myself.
     You might be wondering how I could know all these people words and understand voices. But I guess I was born this way. I don't know if I'm different or not. I'm just me. I do know that it's probably because I am here for a reason. I was born with a purpose. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure I will recognize it when it happens. I chose this life, but all of that pre-birth wisdom is sort of murky like that puddle I drank out of a while back. This life hasn't been quite what I expected.

     I was born in a dusty stable along with five brothers and one sister. Mom was really good to us. I loved it the most when she would lick me all over after breakfast and then let me snuggle up under her chin. That was prime territory so I made sure to eat first, shoving the others aside, and then squirm up to her face. She was great and I felt so safe.
     But then, one day I was yanked away from her while I was still having breakfast and thrust into the arms of a huge man with nasty breath who held me out by the scruff of my neck. He turned me one way and then another, cocking his big round head. His tiny dark eyes were tucked deeply into folds of red flesh behind a bulbous nose traced with blue lines. I made the mistake of looking down and got so scared I peed. It was a long way to the ground. The man just laughed and shook me a bit. I figured I should be as still as possible and maybe he would take me back to Mom.
     "She's a quiet one, eh?"
     "Yup, best in the bunch. The other little bitch yaps all the time."
     "I'll take her."
     I saw the men shake hands and the one holding me walked over to his big blue truck and sort of just dropped me onto the hot metal of its floor. I kept quiet. I saw some straw int he corner so I hustled over as fast as my stubby legs could carry me but I still wasn't real steady so I wobbled and fell a couple times.
     "She old enough?"
     "Sure. She's six weeks. Plenty old. Gotta get rid of the rest so that I can put their mum back to work."
     Then, before I knew it, the truck sputtered then roared, and wild wind was swirling around me, dust up my nose making me sneeze, as we zoomed off down the bumpy road. I heard a howl in the distance and I returned Mom's cry, but I don't think she heard me. I had been stolen and I knew that was the last I'd see of Mom. I tried to stay in the corner all curled up, though the vibrations kept sliding me out of it. I whimpered in my solitude and wondered where I was going to end up.

Anyway, things didn’t get much better from there which is why I have become pretty darned suspicious of men. But I kept watching the door of the big building because Wolfie told me that I would find my purpose here. Wolfie is the name I gave to my instinct, that inner knowing that tells us what to do, gives advice and generally tries to keep us alive. Like how it told me to be very quiet whenever Big Man came around and he might not notice me, especially when he was smelling like the brown bottles scattered around the trash can. Big Man named me Tough Nut. You would probably refer to me as stoic and aloof, and, oh yeah, wise beyond my months. Thus, the lack of trust in males.

~ to be continued ~ 

Part 2 Posted August 16th -- keep checking back for more of the story.

Green Juicing

A couple weeks ago, I started paying more attention again to what I eat ... and how much I eat (once more trying to focus upon quality rather than quantity). I love food, so I find myself 'falling off the wagon' repeatedly. I started focusing on healthy eating habits about 7 or 8 years ago (before that, don't ask), but have to repeatedly bring myself back to an aware state. Like many people, after I hit my 40s the weight gain was more rapid, and the subsequent weight loss much slower. After being stick-thin most of my life, this was a shock! Egads, you mean I have to actually pay attention to what I'm eating?! Crap.

Anyway, I have a healthy system established for losing the weight at a moderate pace, and it works well for me. But there was something that I had been wanting to try for a couple years to see if it would assist in healthy weight loss. And that would be Green Juicing. Not Fruit Juicing, although fruits can be a percentage of the juice, but rather maximizing the source of tremendous nutrients we can obtain through green foods. I like vegetables both raw and cooked, but with our soils depleted of nutrients, I wondered if juicing might not be a good way to obtain significant amounts of micronutrients. Because of my training, I was pleased to find that many Ayurveda practitioners were supportive of juicing within boundaries--like knowing your body type, your tendencies, and how to maintain balance within them. See Juicing in Ayurveda.

Enter our new Breville Juice Plus, as seen on the inspirational movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (I highly recommend this movie and it's available through Netflix); a friend had suggested the movie and shared her recent experiences with juicing on her blog - Annette's Asylum.

Now, Ron and I didn't want to go to the extremes that the two men in the movie did. But we did want to try a 3-day juice fast to kick-start healthier eating habits, and get us on our way with some inspiring results up front. And it provided that this weekend. Yay! We don't intend to get obsessive about juicing, but we are very pleased we bought a juicer. Every bit helps, don't you think? :-)

Here's to happy, healthy eating along with compassionate, peaceful lifestyle!

Obligation?

Because of a recent situation with my own mother, and synchronistically, the problems two friends are having with their mothers, and another friend with her sister, I can’t help but think about obligation. What do we owe to ourselves and to others? Where does expectation set up a house of cards ready to tumble around us? How do we balance helping others with maintaining healthy boundaries for ourselves? Where can we transform relationships into compassion-derived rather than guilt-driven? How do we provide care from a space of love instead of duty?

I am reminded of one of the verses from the Tao Te Ching: 

When the greatness of the Tao is present,

action arises from one’s own heart.

When the greatness of the Tao is absent, 

action comes from the rules

of “kindness and justice.”

If you need rules to be kind and just, 

if you act virtuous,

this is a sure sign that virtue is absent.

Thus we see the great hypocrisy. 

When kinship falls into discord,

piety and rites of devotion arise. 

When the country falls into chaos,

official loyalists will appear; 

patriotism is born.

~ 18th Verse of the Tao Te Ching of Lao-tzu, from Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

It seems to me that when we are expected to offer services, when we are pushed and shoved and guilted into behaviors, then the actions that were previously provided out of love become empty and tarnished with a dangerous, damaging energy. How do we provide kindness to ourselves then? How do we maintain the greatness of our heart energy?

I know there are no easy answers, and, certainly, every situation is different. With these thoughts, I also recalled a scene from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner -- one that has stayed with me for decades: 

Embedding is not available, but the short YouTube of this scene is HERE; Sidney Poitier playing the role of the son speaking to his father, and following is the script: 

"You listen to me. You say you don’t want to tell me how to live my life. So what do you think you’ve been doing? You tell me what rights I’ve got or haven’t got, and what I owe to you for what you’ve done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you’re supposed to do! Because you brought me into this world. And from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don’t own me! You can’t tell me when or where I’m out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules. You don’t even know what I am, Dad, you don’t know who I am. You don’t know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs! You understand, you’ve got to get off my back! Dad… Dad, you’re my father. I’m your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. Now, I’ve got a decision to make, hm? And I’ve got to make it alone, and I gotta make it in a hurry. So would you go out there and see after my mother?"

May we all find the spirit within to somehow retain or recover our ability to act from our heart, and not from tainted obligation.

another blog

For those of you who may be interested, I have started another blog called On the Gaia Path because I wanted to create a separate space in which to more deeply write into my relationship with the Divine Feminine. Some of the types of writing that used to appear here will be posted there in future. But, no worries, this one will continue as well.

Blessings!