Calendar Closes

The calendar year is closing.  With each close, there is a time for stillness.  Letting things, people, circumstances be as they are.  It doesn't mean you have to like how things are, it means you come to terms with it.  And release them.

You also release ways you have been this year, ways which have not been kind, ways you may have over-reacted, ways of unconsciousness.

It also means you hold dear those who are in your heart.  Close friends, family, people you adore and cherish.  People who are there for you, take the time to be in your life, laugh, cry and have fun with you.  It is those tender moments of kindness and compassion we all need so desperately.

I am sitting in the studio looking outside at the mountain range, taking in the beauty of the land.  A frontier of opportunities. Trees affirming the changes of the seasons.  Just a glance out the window.  Wildflowers sprouting up at the first hint of spring.  It is a glorious time and I am honored to be a part of it.

As the calendar year closes, another one opens.  What will 2016 be like for you?  What will you call in?

American Airlines and Cat Dander

A flight home from Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) to Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) was an eye opener.  Flight 5086 allowed a cat on board.

I do like cats.  At one time I had five of them.  A mother and her four kittens.  As I have gotten older, cat dander seems to bother me.  It causes watery eyes, nasal congestion strong enough for medication and a scratchy throat.

When I booked my flight with American Airline, no where did they state they allow cats on board. According to The Asthma Center,   About 5-10% of Americans are allergic to pet allergens. That lmeans between 16,000,000 and 32,000,000 people are the "most sensitive individuals" who "may suffer greatly from the slightest exposure to animal dander, and reactions to cat dander can be particularly explosive."

 
Cat Allergy Symptoms

Cat allergy symptoms range from mild to severe, depending on an individual’s sensitivity and the level of exposure to allergens. Those variables may also influence how quickly symptoms develop after exposure. Highly sensitive people can develop symptoms, including breathing problems or a rash, within minutes of touching a cat or entering a house with a cat.

Cat allergy symptoms may include:

• Sneezing or a runny or stuffy nose
• Facial pain (from nasal congestion)
• Coughing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and wheezing
• Watery, red or itchy eyes
• Skin rash or hives

http://acaai.org/allergies/types/pet-allergy

Immediately upon sensing the cat's presence, behind my window seat, I asked the flight attendent to move me.  Some fifteen minutes later, she moved me just three rows up.  There were several available seats on the plane a considerable distance away from the cat dander.

Buyer beware!  

An Open Mind

At the end of his talk someone from the audience asked the Dalai Lama, "Why didn't you fight back against the Chinese?" 

The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile, "Well, war is obsolete, you know." Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, "Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back ... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you."

History always repeats itself.  In thinking about the 'alleged' Isis, a friend put on a link on Facebook which resonates with how I feel. We do not know who is responsible.  


"There is a reason ISIL still want to appear so powerful, why they don’t want to acknowledge that the land they control has been taken from weak enemies, that they are pinned down by air strikes or that just last weekend they lost a significant part of their territory,” he said on The Project."

 Please listen:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/waleed-aly-hits-out-at-isis-over-paris-attacks-calls-them-weak/story-fn948wjf-1227611388541

Blank Page

The greatest destroyer of peace isn't mass murders.  It is more about the response to these mass murders.  Only yesterday, Paris experienced what we are told are political murders.  We have no idea who did this or why.  We do know what the media spews.  What government spews.  We have learned too well not to trust either.

Nearly everywhere people are discussing these horrendous acts.  They guess who did this and why.  They talk on and on about it.   It occupies the media day and night.  Government types become academic, decide what they will report and the sheeple repeat it.

This is the second time this year Paris has experienced recent killings. It is everywhere on the news day and night.  No where do citizens investigate what really happened.  They don't want to know.  They want to continue taking selfies, going to their favorite brewery and go about their business.  They don't look to the governments which got them in this mess in the first place.  And while their hearts ache for these unnecessary deaths, all will be forgotten until the corporate government media reminds them again to be in fear.

Once again more and more innocent people die because of lies.  Lies. The greatest destroyer of peace is indifference.  Indifference to the situations which allow these deaths in the first place.  My heart breaks for all these families.  I have hosted many over the years.  I wonder if any of my exchange students were killed, hurt or maimed.

The worst destroyer of peace is also the inaccurate report telling us who is responsible.  There are those who will do the investigative journalism.  Some will disappear.  Some will die suspiciously.  It is rare that any of it will reach the main stream media.  They are owned by the corporations who have clandestine relationships with government.

It is well nigh time for honesty.  For truth.   But until the critical masses expect more, take an active role in citizenship, the same thing will continue.

 A blank page.

Rethinking Veteran's Day

This government has no interest in celebrating peace. They would rather spend money on public relations campaigns to enlist more soldiers. They want to show you how to be a man, how to be a woman. They will glorify the weapons used and tell you how important you are to the country. They will even deliver a flag at your funeral. Should you survive this atrocity, you won't have a job to come home to, you do have a good chance of leaving your limbs behind. Health care? Good luck.  

This government cares about extracting natural resources, dominance and making money for the corporate government and the military industrial complex. I cannot thank the veterans of the wars post 1950. My heart goes out to them because they were duped. They were put in harm's way because of lies their government told them.  

Recently, I had the occasion to go to a meeting at our county's administration complex. Security was installed, similar to what they have at airports now. I walked through once, protesting the entire time. Nearly everyone had the same comment, "everyone is doing it." Everyone is doing it? So we are mere cattle to the slaughter exposed to radiation and who knows what else. But this is the government we have allowed.  

Citizenship requires participation. Commitment. A critical mass. Until all of this changes, our people will be put in harm's way and our civil rights eroded. I don't want to celebrate Veteran's Day. I want to protect all of them like a mother protects her child. I want to celebrate peace.

Saving You

All too often there comes a point in one's life where things just cannot continue.  You can't continue, you refuse to continue walking the same path.  It isn't just the neediness of those around you, the people who slam the door in your face, the forgotten birthdays, the lack of engaging.  It is seeing the hit and run messages, the last minute connections, the intensity all around you.  You feel enormous compassion, absolute kindness and you remember yourself in the equation.  You wonder why you allowed it to continue this long.  You say.  STOP.

Within each of us is an aspect of self-leadership.  Sometimes we access it, sometimes we are running too hard and too far away from it to realize it.  A friend recently inquired "why don't people engage?"
It was hard to respond to him without hours of discourse.

"Because they can," I said.

"There is too much focus on the self and not enough of it.  How is that for an answer?"

It is all in the balance.  Sometimes we muster the courage to revisit a painful event.  That happened with a friend this past weekend.  A well known abductee.  A UFO abductee.  He has not been able to even view the film depicting his life, his story much less return to the area where this occurred.  Until this weekend.  Those events are stories for a time when it is no longer so painful to remember.  This weekend, along with a few of his friends, he visited the site of his world renown abduction.  Courage as Dan Rather, so eloquently reminded us.  Courage.

For all of us who muster the courage to create a new path, engage with another, give a hug for no specific reason other than to feel close, I say COURAGE.

Leaves continue to fall as the rains wash away what no longer serves each of us.  Will you find a way to be your own self-leader?

I hope and pray you find a way.  Because the ultimate task is really simple.  It is all about.  Saving you.

November

This has always been one of my favorite months.  From early on, birthdays at our family home were really special.  My Mom let us pick what we wanted for dinner.  I always chose roast beef, mashed potatoes, peas (love them) and a chocolate angel food cake.

Finances were limited then, but Mom always made sure we had a gift.  I never cared much about a
present - still don't; I did appreciate having my family together.  That, for me, was always the gift.

Birthdays in my home when my children were living there were even more special.  I celebrated the entire day with them - morning to night.  Even though my children are at a distance now, their birthdays mean the world to me.  I am grateful they have mates who continually honor their birth.

The month in which someone is born is significant.  November welcomes the letting go of the year's past activities and experiences.  As the chlorophyll decreases, our energy does as well.  We don't have to work so hard.  It is a time of reflection.  A time to go within.  A time of nothingness.  I like that.

No thing.  Nada.  Devoid.  As is.  November.