Shake Up

Today, an earthquake hit off the coast of Japan.  As I write this, a tsunami is hitting Hawaii; it is reported to be six feet high.   We never know when life will take a turn.  We never know when the next disaster strikes.  Trees crash, tanks roll, people rise-up.  Ocean water obliterates coastline, a rearranging of sand structures, island borders.

What are we worried about?  What issues are present when life changes rapid and out-of- one's-control? When the safety and survival of raw living with no shelter, no food, no water and no bathroom saturate the culture.

Recreation, a process where creation decomposes, breaks-down, corrodes.  Dismantled, whether by the natural aging process or the unnatural Act of God.  If we lose our jobs, lose our loved ones, lose our sense of self, lose our way home, each of us are called to adapt or die.

Adaptation means softening to the influences of change.  Fluidity, humor, awareness of the present moment, helps solve the dilemmas of where am I going to sleep tonight, how am I going to feed my children, when lost:  what is the best direction,  who am I now and how do I prove it?

Many of the global sacred writings share the wisdom of how every decision comes down to two answers Love or Fear.  We attend to our daily lives either through love or fear.  Bottom line!  One may argue that my assertion is not true.  So I guess this is my belief, my religious belief.

It seems to me our doing comes down to attitude.....attitude of Love or attitude of Fear...for the Love of Creation or the Fear of Death.  Even when we are called upon to adapt, to change our lifestyle, to open our hearts.

Sometimes recreation hurts, produces pain, induces suffering as the structures and relationships crash.  Somehow, the transformation cauldron bubbles and perks and stews.  Ready to spurt out bubbling mud just as the Earth does, producing recreated ground.              

Are you mad at God?

"But everyone is mad at God for something."

I heard those words while I sat in a lavender painted extra-bedroom that served as a healing room for a woman who claimed to work with angels.  I repeated what she said, "Everyone is mad at God for something?"

This statement did not compute with my mental capacity at that time.  I wrinkled my nose and replied, "What would I be mad at God for, he didn't do anything to me."

The notion that everyone is mad at God or Divinity had me puzzled.  If we, as humans, live in grace and faith, where is there room for anger?  Anger versus Appreciation, seemed to be a great name for a title bout.  It wasn't that I denied I had any anger at God, no, I was totally open to explore any hidden anger I held for any Deity.

I started to notice other people's anger at God, and then some of my clients started to confess to me that they had a deep feeling of anger at God.  A general 'pissed-off-ness' pervaded the stories told as I worked with my clients.  I looked more closely at this void I seemed to have for any anger at God.

When I moved to Nashville, I started working with a lovely woman who used a specialized light therapy.  It was during a session with her when I discovered that I too was furious with God.  As I lay on her sofa, breathing rapidly, as if I was reliving a piece of the deepest suffering, I said, "If it all ends in death, why be born at all?"

There it is was, here it is:  my anger at God.  If my life was to end in death, why did he create me in the first place.  It seemed like the cruelest of jokes, the meanest of tricks, the most illogical expression of creation.  Anke, the woman who worked with me, repeated the words I just said, "If it all ends in death, why be born at all?"

This morning, I am reflecting on the nature between Duality and Unity.  In duality thinking, of course we are separated from our Divinity nature.  Unity implies that the Divine and I are united.  We are one; we all are One.  However, reflecting back on a Logic Class I attended, which was mandatory curriculum as a freshman at Gonzaga University, an All or Nothing argument is not always the most sound argument.

Nothing versus Something, Duality over Unity, or is the true secret of creation in the lines of a song I have heard sung so sweetly, "Spirit and Nature Dancing Together, Victory to Spirit, Victory to Nature."  That creation is endless, never beginning, ceasing to end, just a commingling of energy and densities of matter.

Sake to me!

Why did I put a passionate guy talking about sake on my blog?

Do I know this guy?  No.
Do I like what he has to say?  Yes.

I first fell in love with sake when I lived out west.  I never had a bad experience with sake, and I found the warmth of the spirit served in Asian restaurants to be soothing on a winter day.  Since, I have learned that the best sake is served cold and it should be overflowing, with the extra alcohol caught in the saucer under the cup.  At least, this is what I was taught, I don't have proof to back it up.

My old teacher, Matayo, and I drank sake on days I came to visit him.  There were some years I wintered twenty-five miles away at a place called Oh My God Hot Well.  I would load up water bottles from several folks in camp.  I drove S-22 toward Borrego Springs on Tuesdays, filled up the ten and fifteen gallon containers with the sweet water from the Anza-Borrego State Park and visit Matayo.

He always had the type of sake which is better heated.  Matayo used a hot plate and a stainless steel bowl to swirl the sake, he used vice grips to take the metal bowl off of the flame.  The wind blew hard in the dessert, but we would strip down to our nakedness, drink hot sake, dialog, do a little art therapy, and talk about mastery.

Sake, a drink I savor when I toast my teacher, Matayo.

OBSESSIVES: Sake - CHOW

Welcome to Owyhee County, Idaho

Welcome to Owyhee County, Idaho

CRAB APPLE TREES

Yesterday, I ran a familiar route.  As I pushed up the hill on Bellevue Road, I noticed a crab apple tree with little red crab apples on the branches.  I reflected that I had seen this tree in its full cycle:  fall foliage, barren branches, full pinkish-white blooms.  The tree, now fruited, waits full ripening.

I grew up with crab apple trees in our yard.  My grandfather also planted a crab apple tree outside his bedroom window.  He told me the blooms made him happy.  Later, he complained about the over-ripe fruit on the lawn being messy.  

I have a six or seven inch scar on my back from a crab apple tree tin can.  I was around the age of five.  My dad and mom planted some trees in our yard, and they also had a pile of flagstone rocks piled ready to piece together for a patio.  My brother and I liked to climb the rocks and play explorer, and as I started to plant my imaginary flag, the flagstone flipped.  As the flat rock tipped, I fell back on a discarded can ripped open when my mom and dad planted the crab tree it contained.

Those flat stones were the same ones our family packed home from trips to the Owyhees.  The Owyhee Mountains, a backdrop to Canyon and Ada Counties in southern Idaho, bordering Oregon and Nevada, my grandfather, grandmother, mom and dad drove into the mountains on Sundays, and we all collected the flat puzzle like rocks covered with orange and green lichen.

My dad & mom made a patio with them, and my grandfather built his house with them.  He fixed them around the front of the house.  I remember how my grandfather, Lanus, mixed the mortar to a deep burgundy color.  He felt the color best brought out the hues in the stone.  He also created a fireplace inside.  This fireplace of Owyhee County rocks served two rooms, the living room and the dining room.  He made bench seats with the flat stones on both sides of this see-through fireplace.  My brother and I would play a game of spy, as we scaled the rock wall like James Bond.

As I ran in the vapid, humid weather, I wondered how long it took for my grandfather to collect all of those rocks.  I wondered if some environmental organization would now protest his rock hounding.  I ran by another crab apple tree and I thought about the bias cut scar thick and wide across the right side of my back.  I thought about how I never really think about the healed wound until I have sex with a new partner, and I have to explain away the reactions, the questions, the palpations and worry that some awful tragedy beset me.

There was no one to blame, accidents happen.  I could not hold the crab apple tree accountable.  Long ago befriending them, I used to eat the little sour apples to show my courage and bravado to my cousins and brother.  Now, I just look at the trees with admiration of the total cycle, flower to fruit and everything in between.

Saturn Opposite Uranus | Tarot.com

Saturn Opposite Uranus | Tarot.com

Does this explain anything?