Knowing: Four

Four

“Hey, are we still meeting for dinner tonight?”

“Sure, I can be there about 6 p.m.  Where do you want to go?”

“Not sure.  Let’s decide when you get here.”

“Okay, see you then, Carol.”

I’d met Carol at a local UFO Conference.  A slender, blond woman with a nicely coiffed bob from South Africa looking older than her fifty years.  Living in a country where apartheid was the main stay wasn’t easy for this free spirit. Her pasty white skin and angular facial features made her stunning with her model’s figure.  

She lived forty-five minutes over the mountains to the northeast in Cashiers (pronounced cash – ers).  Carol spoke about numerous encounters that night at the conference. Held in a state-of-the-art senior center, the conference was packed.  Many stood outside the doors hoping to hear something. 

An accident on the narrow road to Carol’s home meant not only would have to wait to use the restroom, but that I would be late for dinner.  There was no cell phone tower in this remote area.  

She greeted me instantly as I pulled into her driveway.  Her daughter was away for the night so it was a good opportunity to talk. There was so much I wanted to know about her encounter, her sightings. 

Spending a few hours with this eclectic woman was like dining with a butterfly.  I kept wondering where and when she would land. If she would land.  I think it was her high energy that attracted UFOs to her home. There was much I wanted to know.

Almost immediately, I was whisked to her garden. She was bubbling with stories about seeing them land, only to take off again.

The garden was mystical, magical, Yoda-like. Eerie. She couldn’t wait to tell me about the waterless stream on her property.

“I dug the creek myself.  Some neighbors came by to help.  Look at it.  There was no water here and now it is abundant. After seeing the spaceship and setting my intention, the water appeared one morning.  A splashing brook."

She ushered me into her more than comfy home which doubles as a hair cutting salon for her day work and left to prepare our meal. We had discussed going out to a restaurant.  When I arrived, Carol said she preferred to make dinner.  I hadn't eaten all day.  Since I hadn't tasted South African food before, I was excited to eat. 

After a few minutes, she appeared from behind the tiny bar in her tiny closet sized kitchen.  A plate with four hind quartered chicken was served.  They had been roasting for some time. She didn't use spices.  That was the entire meal save for dry red wine. Not being much of a drinker, I took a sip and left the glass on her bistro table on the deck where we were eating.

“Do you live here alone?” I asked.

“Yes, I was married for a little while.  It didn’t work out but I got her” she said pointing to a ten year old child’s picture.

“She is lovely” I said.

“I saw it right there, through the slider” Carol said pointing toward the woods.

An hour later, her friend met us on the balcony. Her friend stayed while she spoke.  Carol softly retreated to the chaise. 

As the evening faded, I thanked my new friend for the tour,  for sharing her experience and I left to go home. I was starved. 

The evening sky was full of bright white lights everywhere I looked.  More activity than a planetarium. I was driving the Highlander slow, often pulling off to the side of the road in wonder so I wouldn’t miss anything. Taking astronomy in college helped; I wished I had my textbook next to me.

The lights leapfroged from east to west, then south to north. I had seen them before off my front porch in the same vicinity in the sky though the thick forest often made it difficult to follow. 

Then the sky lights vanished as I followed the circuitous road into the forest canopy.  Reaching the bottom of the basin, I turned left to Webster Road which followed the Tuckaseegee River to the highway.  I was the lone car on the road. For the entire trip.

I hadn’t gone more than a couple hundred feet before I saw it. Almost immediately, I turned my head looking all around me. Where was everyone?

There wasn’t a car in sight until I made a u-turn to turn south.  With my speed deliberately slowed  ensuring my safety, I was able rubber neck everywhere.  Suddenly there were two medium sized white sedans behind me.  One was in the fast lane behind me, the other white car was one-third of a mile behind me in the slow lane.  Despite my slower speed, neither white vehicle appeared to get closer to me. 

Something made me look up.  And there it was!  I didn’t want to take my eyes of it, afraid it might disappear.  But I turned around to check the location of the white sedans.  It was uncanny that we were the only vehicles on the road for miles.

Knowing: Three

Three

It was like that when I moved to the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina the spring of 2001.  

My home was atop a knoll in the Nantahala National Forest, known for its ragged mountain tops, dense forest, abundant rivers and lakes, some of whom are man made. Surrounded by white pines, oaks, and hemlocks, the area is also home to abundant rhododendron, mountain laurel, flaming azalea and myrtle. Alongside the road flowered Solomon’s seal, red elderberry and black eyed Susans, black bear, white-tailed deer, wild boar and turkey are rich in number. This is Davy Crockett country.

The Great Smoky Mountains were everything my Dad said they would be. In the mornings and evenings you could often see beautiful blue mist he had long spoken of in this diverse biosphere. Even the sunset was surreal.  Purple clouds with plucky orange interspersed and scalloped mountain ranges, one after another.

Knowing: Two

Two

I think to know God is to be open to all kinds of possibilities. 

In primitive cultures it is said people who have never seen a ship are not able to see one even though others can.  Even when it is pointed out through through eyes of a culture who knows what a ship looks like still deny its presence.  They did not know what a ship was so how could they know one even existed, much less be able to see it? 

Belief systems play a huge part in what we believe possible.

Knowing: One

One

            Have you ever seen God?  I mean really see him?  Or her.  

             I feel God every day.  Not in the Judeo-Christian way but in a knowing.  In the azure sky, and sunlight dancing off the ocean.  The mother fox feeding her kits in the thicket. In my heart. 

            Studying at Cornell and later public health in a medical school taught me to quantify everything.  Replicate every experiment.  Stratified random sampling is the ticket. My professors promised that. But why?

            Not everything can be measured by the scientific method.  When my mother came to me in a dream telling that cold January morning that she was dying didn’t come with a measurement tool. My mother was healthy. Even when my brother called that morning to tell me she passed I knew there was more to knowing God than what we could reproduce under a controlled experiment.  She did have a broken heart has her husband had passed a number of years before her.  Missing him overwhelmed her. 

I knew I was pregnant before the laboratory tests confirmed it.  Tuning in to the body mind is like that.  Working in concert, listening, feeling.  It was helpful to have a scientific evaluation.  But most assuredly in the months to come, my knowing would have been confirmed with a huge belly and lots of activity.

Loving

April 1st, spring, summer and fall;
the untouched natural world;
energetic and positive people;
loving, eclectic friends; people of all ages;
follow-through, commitment, people who get it done;
watching the sun rise and set, high and low tide, and a salt marsh filled with water;
mountains, rivers and oceans;

yoga, mindfulness, spiritual growth;
sustainable and simple living;
protecting the environment, marine mammals
indy movies, foreign flicks, cinematography, and community radio;
local, organic cuisine and ethnic foods;
baklava and angel food cake with chocolate icing;
flying lessons, swing dancing, kayaking;
poetry, writing stories, and writing about the the environment and social justice;
Wendell Berry, Paul Hawken, Emerson, and Howard Zinn;
Ideas.

Savannah: Chapter One (continued)

We talked for a while as I stood beside the door to his office peering in.

I invited him to a few things in the community; a dance, more environmental meetings, and a book talk.  We had coffee together.

From time to time I would pop into his office to say hello. 

Last year I ended a relationship with a man who taught me a lot about what was acceptable for me in a relationship.  It completed when I was ready to be more emotionally available to myself.

My kids were grown and the three of us lived in different states now. I was living in the south, my son and his family in Washington, D.C. and my daughter and her husband who recently moved to New Hampshire.

A couple of years ago, I was returning home late and driving the long road up the mountain I had a thought that would forever change the way I saw myself. 

“No one will know if I get home safely.

That thought bothered me for a couple of years.”

 In time I can to realize I would know and that is all that really matters. This time I was coming home to myself.  It has been a long road, with unexpected twists and turns. I was not in a relationship. I realized after I ended the unfulfilling relationship last year that I had been disconnected from myself more than I knew. I spent a lifetime taking care of everyone else.  If I didn’t return home when the kids were home someone would notice and do something about it.  It was different now. We had all grown up.

On a recent holiday visit, with my children, their spouses and my fifteen month old adorable grandson, my daughter remarked that I was becoming more eccentric. 

“Yes, I suppose I am masquerading as a regular Mom.  There are so many injustices and I feel a quickening of the earth to right them.  It’s like we have to sit up and get it now.  Time has run out.  Seeing the UFO last summer said it all. Besides, I am not one to follow the crowd.  I don’t much like rules.  Many of them don’t work for the people we are becoming.”

I appreciate how long it takes all of us to grow.  Because I see my own slow rate of growth, I can more easily understand others.  We either  come from a place of fear or we come from a place of love.  It is either a choice or a reaction.  I guess I have reacted long enough.”

Snow came early to the mountains this year.  The Farmer’s Almanac told us this would be a more mild winter.

“Mild alright.  In compared to what?”

“I wondered whether HAARP was adjusting our frequency and vibrations again and causing this change.”

 The kids arrived a few days before Christmas this year.  We spent just thirty-six hours together when the weather report changed our visit. 

Western North Carolina was anticipating nearly a foot of snow.  Washington, D. C. was expecting a pelting and New Hampshire would receive over a foot.

I sure wasn’t happy about this.

“How could this be.  I worked so hard to prepare for their visit?”

Before 7 a.m. the following morning, everyone was gone.  The next three days I spent removing the glorious powder.  All plus eight inches of it. 

I had gone outside to do some light shoveling when I noticed unusual tracks.  I had seen a red wolf two days before the snow.

It came up from the bank.  The first thing I saw was the newly brushed cinnamon tail.  Then it disappeared only to come back with a full presentation from the side.  It wasn’t a fox, too big for a coyote. 

I went online and it definitely looked like a red wolf.  What was my animal totem telling me?

Maybe it was living a suburban existence that made me want to protect the natural habitat.  I felt instantly a part of the community because I wanted to be here.

I saw the corporatization of our world in the larger cities and towns.  I saw the egoic and self-serving behaviors of Washington, D.C. and the enormous building attesting to the power elite there.  I thought about the beautiful transportation systems in the places I had previously lived and wondered why the rest of the United States was so ignored. It all felt so overwhelming.  I felt like we were going down the toilet and nobody was working together to stop this.  Where are the social movements?  Why don’t people protest in D.C.?

As a Sociology major in college, Cornell and Rutgers to be exact, I can be the observer. I love our earth and our people.  We are here to serve one another, to take only what we absolutely need and to leave a path for others to follow and nourish themselves. I like being around people like that.

The Cage Bird Speaks

Dr. Maya Angelou is a remarkable Renaissance woman who is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature. As a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, she continues to travel the world, spreading her legendary wisdom. Within the rhythm of her poetry and elegance of her prose lies Angelou's unique power to help readers of every orientation span the lines of race. Angelou captivates audiences through the vigor and sheer beauty of her words and lyrics. Source: http://mayaangelou.com/

Please enjoy her interview:

http://samuel-warde.com/2013/03/10-questions-for-maya-angelou-video/