So...

So, this is the dawning of what many have been pointing to during my life as some kind of hugely important date, December 21, 2012. Apparently, it marks the end of the Mayan calendar, and for some, the potential end of the world.

When I was a teenager, this date sounded so far away and the mention of it could bring about interesting conversations, to which, I have now been exposed to prolifically, ad nauseam, and whose conversational thread no longer holds me spellbound or quivering, ‘the end of the world?!’—well, for some things I certainly hope so, but for many things—well, it depends.

Perhaps this date has been one huge pacifier hanging over our collective heads—if you don’t like what’s going on in this world, well here is a date in the foreseeable future when it’s all going to change! No worries mate, we’re almost there now!

And, I now have children of my own who have lived with this promise all the more importantly because it is coming at a time in their lives when they have yet to live long enough to see the predictions of all societies and their religions, even the historically venerated ones like (fill in the blanks here with any society or religion you particularly resonate with)—that make predictions that don’t apply to anything or anyone. So, what will we all be doing on December 22, 2012? The day after one of the most pointed to dates of hysterical historical imaginatively anticipated culmination?

Well—hopefully… I will be here and you will be there and the world will still be rotating on its axis, or so they tell us, and the sun will still be appearing to come up even though we will be turning toward it, or so they tell us, and the time will be measured five hours ahead and a day behind some of my loved ones in other parts of the world, or so they tell us, and there will be no more and no less water on the planet, or so they tell us, and there will be rates of birth and rates of death, or so they tell us, disasters, or so they tell us, acts of heroism, or so they tell us, plagues, disparate acts by mankind and nature, or so they tell us… So, when will we stop listening, and start creating? Maybe on December 22, 2012, those of us still fortunate or unfortunate to still be here (as it is a subjective worldview for sure), maybe, we will become the new Mayans and create a calendar of our own which designates a time for thinking, and thereby creating how our own worlds (notice the plurality as this is paramount to this conversation with more than one of us) should carry on…instead of listening to ‘others’ about how it is already.

How? Well, if I am still here, I intend to turn off the radio, the television, the computer, the cell phone, the ‘noise’ and bask in the silence of my own mind and meditate on what it is that I can do, think about and focus on to help my world be one I would like to see continue. From that date forward I shall begin to write my own ‘ecosophy’ and take a ‘deep ecological look’ into my own interior space to see what might be lurking. I did not say I would think about what I ‘believe’…as belief is a seriously dangerous thing in an ever changing world and is especially detrimental if you are hoping to locate new possibilities that are paramount to creating anything new. So, to begin with, I will throw out all beliefs and simply start over and replace ‘I believe’ with ‘I think.’ Beliefs are almost always based on ‘what they tell us’ and seldom on what ‘we as creative actors’ might begin to ‘think about’ that can birth heretofore unseen (and, thereby a new) positive action in my world view. I am committed to this action. December 22, 2012 is a Saturday, which might be something of a new Sabbath to be one day out of seven when we devote our lives to ‘simply thinking’ and actively ‘not listening’ to the rest of the world…and, for those who can will it even further…go for it…when you reach seven out of seven…I do believe you will have achieved ENLIGHTENMENT and help bring about ‘the world’ everyone intuits might be a better place than this one. It’s inside all of us; we’ve just been distracted with ‘what they tell us.’ To ask the question my birth father always asked me, ‘Who are they, anyway?’ Okay, Pops, it’s time to think about it! Meanwhile,I don't believe I love you, I KNOW I do.

Okay, I am Back--But, Only to Share My Garden

The following is a letter written to my youngest daughter, who is a long way from home right now--she asked me to share it with my professors, I thought I would go one better, and share it with the world... Garden notes for Kasey

(This story is inspired by the memory of a 92 year old woman we bought our home from and whose rosebush I call by her name. Since my daughter is not here to see this year's blossoms, and is meanwhile blossoming from a distance, I wrote her this to let her know that she, like Mrs. Langley, is never far away from my heart, which heart she painted for me many years ago and now sits on a sacred space next to an owl done by Austin (the sculptor, same name as my son)that represents my father and grandfather and a crystal candle holder that represents my mother and grandmother, and inside of the crystal is a lite candle I light every day for every one in hope they will receive the same love my Kasey so freely gives.

I’ve really enjoyed Mrs Langley flowering in our garden this spring. Prolific and outstanding displays of yellow, morphed into orange, then red, as if…growing into some volcanic leftover of a woman who lived here many years, I honour her spirit, and, ours. I feel you blossoming from afar; it is sometimes a tortuous unfurling of life’s deepest mysteries, only to go all dark and undiscovered each new day. Such is life, kissing consciousness, returning unto unconsciousness, then erupting at the sight of metaphorical snakes or being stabbed by archetypes deep within the circle and possibly never even known by us, but witnessed by others in their own conscious, then unconscious, reacting or erupting selves. What a pattern it is, continuously rounded, coinciding, colliding or circuitously avoiding, repelling, propelling intentionally or not. I honour what I cannot change, but sometimes that which I can, I protect too ferociously. Unchaining one’s self from dependency upon others is wherein we learn the most about our kindnesses and our ability to create chaos. Many days I create kindness, but how suddenly that is forgotten by the ‘other’ when chaos comes at my beckoning—as it must. There is a time to stir the pot and a time to take it off the fire, a time to clean it and a time to put it away completely. Sometimes, the pot needs replacing, but if you buy it right, it will last the duration providing the house does not burn down entirely. Keep the extinguisher close to your heart! Guard the pot you cook with to feed your soul, your-self, your body—adore it, as much as I do you—it is your garden. I just now recognized the ownership from Mr to Mrs, how subtle it is to have avoided my conscious gaze before now. In these understandings you are so far ahead of me into a future I hope you will take me with you and hold me with your loving memory, always, with the ‘stability of mobility’ that returns, like Karma (the name my grandchildren call me). I shall be like these flowers of Mrs Langley’s to you one day, in your face, shouting all my loveliness as if it never went away, as it will not, thanks to the garden in your own mind I see every time I see you, Thank you!

Kasey, you are a bright spot in my garden, and you are here in displays of paintings you have rendered just for me, objects of artistic affection, and plainly rendered with your mind loving me, how divine is that? It is amazing! Swans hovering over my garden seat as well as my bath tub

whilst I sit with Birdling’s Flat rocks and do energy work on a nation, no on a world full of people swooning from crazy aches and pains not worth mentioning. I laugh my Buddha laugh and the neighbours are all excited again, to live, the death cycle is broken momentarily, but shall come again, and then, life persists. Wow, such a simple cycle, life/death/life. I like the sandwich and have faith I shall eat all of it. I am so voracious! What a strong feminine rising archetype, I am, and yet, a gentle wind on your face, enjoy it all, and you do, you goddess, you are blessed with the ability to navigate duality with grace. This is what it means to be holy, nothing less, nothing more, but the acceptance of all things without tearing down the structures in front of your face, soft gazes, with icy blue understanding behind layers of bliss, watery, bliss, life/death/life, it is the trinity of conscious thought that leads us safely through the unconscious navigation toward the next event.

And, whatever that is—I shall be inside the garden waiting, watering, and waiting, Mrs. Langley and me, erupting through the life/death/life cycle of the seasons in anticipation of our spring together, over and over, round and round, as it shall be, because we live and love one another and as many others as allow it.