Ah, Catholicism...I learned that it wasn't for me because I think one should intuitively connect with the religious perspective of one's true spirituality. For example, what could I have possibly done, pre-pubescently, that I needed to be forgiven for when adults were committing atrocities? If anybody needed to be in confessional, it was some of those inhumane creatures in human skin meandering the earth. Also, why was an intermediary (like a priest) or a structure (like a church) necessary to commune with the divine? The underlying logic seemed to make sense to others; it just never did to me and I made no secret of it (much to the distress of my mother & sisters who must've surely thought I was going to burn for it!).

So, I began to find my own meaning of things through many religions, beliefs & theories. I really don't remember anything that I was told about God (or the Goddess). I have found my own evolving and organic connection with creation...as I think it should be.

 

Hey! My first Bodhi-Blog! Although I wasn't planning on any kozmic activities (just mundane data organization) and had no intention of doing research on the Mayan Calendar yesterday, that's where I ended up. 
 

I looked at Calleman's info and the Tzolkin: it was 7 Ik (wind). Interesting...my Cherokee medicine is that of the North (wind). I looked at the 20 interactive online Tzolkin icons of the time wheel, circling around them with my cursor arrow...which should I choose? I started to select one from the bottom, but circled the wheel to the top and clicked...a window popped up saying, "Ik-wind-north." Hmmm, I thought...maybe I was intended to ponder this today.

The dialog box indicated that Ik is a spiritual day sign. I read the description of the "wind people"...the dreamers, the planners, the disseminators of information, the great adapters with minds like a cool breeze or like a hurricane...I read it in amazement for it was a description of me.

I reflected upon the 13 heavens, the Mayan time period of creation (7 days + 6 nights, see The Nine Underworlds of the Cosmos) and Calleman's reported historic events over this period. The internet is credited with attaining punctuated equilibrium during the 7^th day (1992-2011 CE). This struck me because, around 2000, I tried to explain my feelings about being between 2 specific "places" in time. I didn't know when it started or when it was ending, but I knew we were in the middle. It was also like a vast ocean was behind us in the distance and you could hear a large wave approaching that you were supposed to ride...somewhere...and you needed to be ready to hop on when it hit your heels (yeah, who knows if they understood what I was talking about. Did I?).

I called the time period the millennium window and realized later that, whatever this short time period was, some folks had said that it started in 1992. I said I didn't know when it ended...duh! Mundane reality had made me dense! I did know... and have ever since I was a kid; it's the long time period: 2011! I used to draw a picture of it all the time. I called it The Dawning:

2011 - The Dawning (on-the-fly re-creation)

a representation of my inner self from elementary through high school

 

Drat! Now, I've dislodged myself from my chillin' alpha-theta state. Ok, back to the heavens, the yin & yang, masculine & feminine, dark & light, ebb & flow, birth & death, etc. To me, the cosmic days and nights are like the breath of the universe: blowing life into the lungs of existence by the sacred day and inhaling our essence to know us in the material form by the sacred night. It reminds me of a prayer:

It fills us and also devours us (hmm...that's true across the board, from rainfall to oxygen! But, that would be another topic). So, by being ever caressed, we are always connected and completely engulfed by the dominant energy pattern that is.

(Incidentally, I'm blogging today, 8 Akbal, which I just figured out is also the cyclic time of my physical birth: HA! Akbal...the inhabitants of the void, the clarifiers of the life-road, the bringers of the Dawn...)

 

That would be "Ancient Technology & Invention." It was at a university and the professor was the son of missionaries posted in India. First, you had to be able to find the classroom (it was an open area in the woods, so I had these 2 trees on the road-side of the forest that I used as landmarks). When you found the place where class was going to be, you had to learn how to use physics (cone of percussion) to hit 2 rocks together so you could create a sharp-edged tool (a hand axe). Then, we used deer antler to etch out arrowheads from obsidian.

Then, it was time to get serious. Some of us volunteered to go fan out and collect dried vegetation from the woods (straw, grass, etc) and others stayed behind. We made a pit kiln and updraft kiln with straw, mud and...I think it was dung! I can only remember the facial expressions of the people in the hole: they were the ones that stayed behind. We came back with straw ‘n stuff and they were in a pit doing the grape stomp, smashing the straw & grass that we were collecting into a muddy mixture (see? This is why you volunteer in the first call out). It might have been dung, because there was something about dung holding heat and whatnot (I can't remember. If I had been in the pit; however, I surely would have). We had previously made some clay items and we put them in the kilns. Of course, we had to create fire, too (I prefer using rope to play the fire stick like a fiddle; you can create better friction than moving the fire stick quickly between your palms).

Everyone had chosen a project item that he/she wanted to create: the med student smelted ore and made bronze scalpels, the aikido student (Thor) made an axe, the other women were making baskets under the apple tree, and, of course, a female such as myself was making iron ornamental weapons, specifically, a wrist and finger knife in Turkana Tribe fashion. The finger knife stays hidden in the palm until you flip it up and use it (they're illegal now).

So, the other chicks were sitting under the tree, all peaceful and cool and Thor, the med student & I were working like dogs. What I learned is that blacksmithing is hard work! I was on my knees over a pit, pumping a goatskin bellows to heat up the coals so I could get the ore hot enough to hammer into a shape on top of a piece of train track that I was using as an anvil. You had to take breaks and blow all of this soot out of your nose, geez! Luckily, I had brought some goggles with me (Thor would make sure I didn't forget a break, so he could use my goggles while I was gone). And, oh my goddess, the DEER FLIES! I'm very eco now; but, back then, I was slathered up with bug repellant (ok, it wasn't as bad as skeeters in Alaska, but still...). So, I got my stuff made and  sharpened the blades on a cinderblock used as a doorstop at my apartment and, of course, tested the blade on myself to see if it was sharp enough (why do people do that?).

After we had made all of our good stuff, we had a bonfire and played instruments out in the woods. The sun had set; so, it wasn't that easy getting fire wood and the prof made a point of only giving long axes to people who already knew how to use them (good call; it was dark). Deer flies: BAD! Fire: GOOD! So, we danced in the dark!

Finally, we had traditional class and did presentations of our work and I was able to demonstrate the use of the ornamental weapons. Depending on circumstances, I can see how these skills could be helpful.

I also learned that you can make beer by chewing on some corn and spitting it into a base concoction (the saliva helps get the fermentation going); but, the only people in class that tried it were the guy that made it and the professor.

Inspired, Sleepy, creative.

 

I actually have a button with a kid sitting alone at the edge of a couch with the caption "misunderstood." I feel like my life is an exercise in being misunderstood. I'm fixed and flexible. Perhaps, misunderstanding occurs because of my tendency to follow my own path, even when others try to put pressure on me to do otherwise (maybe to do more traditional thoughts/behaviors, whatever that means). I just don't seem to do what they want...what makes them comfortable. Hmmm...maybe that's not quite right. Maybe it's my tendency to follow what I perceive as others' paths, in the attempt to communicate more effectively because I see myself as then being on their playground (see? Fixed and flexible). But, I, apparently, start asking iconoclastic questions (not to be difficult; I just want to understand what the game is ~ are we playing baseball or astral projecting in the elsewhere of time/space?); and, the next thing I know, people are "unsettled."

I've gotten much better over the years at not freaking/creeping folks out, though (it was almost always unintentional). Now, in a conversation, I'm more critical in assessing what playground we're in (I know that sounded serious, but it really isn't an effort). There's only a problem if someone's active persona is really incongruent with the person's true essence/core. We all like to try out different personas and I tend to assume (even though I know better) that they're a good match to the inner person. So, I'll meet them on what I perceive as their playground (in my mind, the concept feels like, "Ok, that's where you're at. You stay there; I'll come to you..."). That's when people get unsettled. Case-in-point, I was introduced at a luncheon to a co-worker with whom I was making small-talk and I asked him what his hobbies were. He looked at me and very seriously said he was actually a serial killer and I instantly (and with equal seriousness) asked him what his preferred mode of kill was. Then his eyes got really big and he just stared at me. Hey! He figuratively stood right in that ball park and said, "This is where I play! Come on in!" So, I did.

Pic of Cecilia Donkor (2007) Cocoa Farmer

The potentiality of humanity. We are about to embark on the journey to the next cycle of existence. May we fully balance anahata so that we reach the even more enlightened states (because that toxic energy facilitated by the US regime post 9/11 dragged alot of people down to an ego-imbalanced 3rd chakra right when we're on the verge...).


It's like the t-shirt from northern sun:

I pledge allegiance to the earth,
One planet, many gods
and to the universe in which she spins!

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!
One universe, many chocolates!



Check out Divine Chocolate. It's carried in the US. I spoke at length with Cecilia Donkor last year at the DC Greenfest. She's a member of the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative in Ghana. She's 63 years old with 13 grandkids and they were able to send the first one to a university last year. This coop is really good for the women because they have their own salaries now and reap the rewards of their hard work (the chocolate tastes good, too!)

..that the time is now...

  That it was a critical world transition. It's when the truths came out (I knew they would). When humans really learned our weaknesses and strengths. When many of us started to realize that the big ball game couldn't be won with fear and hate; and a lot of people who thought they were only watching Team Blue Marble suddenly realized that they had been called out onto the ball field. That we are in this together! That there is power in unity, power in peace and power in love. That humans, en masse, finally began to understand what Chief Seattle was credited as saying over a century ago: that we are only a thread in the web of life and "whatever we do the web, we do to ourselves."
 


 

The famous "Earthrise" photo from Apollo 8 - the first of its kind to be taken by humans from space.

 

DDD...Dreamers and Doers Dimension. It's capital was called Phobos (like the Mars moon). It was a green place and I was a "dreamer."

Yesterday was a pale, overcast, windy day (just how I like it). This week was the Piscataway celebration of mid winter and there was the usual purification sweat a few days ago; but, I wanted to walk the land in isolation. It was a perfect time to commune with nature and the ancestors. I always meditate as I take the long path through the marshes (the back door) to Moyaone, the ancient land that was the center of the Piscataway Nation. It reminds me of how American democracy didn't work for peoples of color; yet, there were those who kept the knowledge and ways of the elders safe until such time that it could be passed on to the descendants.

I walked quietly along the boardwalk, watching the geese, ducks and heron on the Potomac River with Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home, in the distance and emerged in the clearing, facing the Tree of Life where Chief Turkey Tayac is buried. I watched the tobacco prayer bundles that we have been tying to the tree for years sway in the breeze. Then I said a prayer over Chief Turkey. He is one of the people that kept the knowledge and ways of our elders safe and I honored him for such an act by placing a sprig of grain on his memorial for he left the breadcrumbs so that I could find my way home again...

Like Allisun, that would be school (HA! I'm allegedly getting a joint-PhD in human factors engineering and psychology). I've taken all the qualifying exams and just have to do the dissertation. I started with modifying a graphic interface to monitor sattelite anomalies and  then completely changed my mind to focus on women's issues of empowerment in math and tech.

For the research, I was just going to pull some golden ratio, drumming and sulbasutra stuff out of history, but my niece thought I should also talk about the burning times and how that changed the landscape of feminine spiritual & mental power. Wow...after a little research, I realized it was heavier than I thought.

Anyway, I'm torn between finishing the mainstream degree first and doing what I know I'm gonna: be a naturopathic doc. I'll make a decision on that in March.

yeah, Allisun! We've gotta finish this school thing so we can focus on the way more important stuff!

I remember the leaves in autumn...all piled up under the trees and the crinkly sound they made when I kicked them.

I remember:
- listening to the creek behind the trees in the back of the house.
- that mother kept the washing machine on the back porch; it was one of those with the
      rollers on top to press the excess water out.
- the rooster liking ketchup on his food (he was like a clock at 6 am every morning).
- pulling the cat's tail, getting scratched up & crying, and doing it all over again.
- drawing cartoons about dogs.
- walking with my sister to the well to get water.
- picking blackberries in the woods (no dessert is better than blackberry dumplings!).

Oh see, now I'm all nostalgic and have to break out in a verse of Little Big Town: 

...give me a tin roof, a front porch and a gravel road...and that's home to me...feels like home to me ~ I feel no shame, I'm proud of where I came from; I was born and raised in the boondocks ~ one thing I know, no matter where I go, I'll keep my heart and soul in the boondocks...

bramble berries

 

 

022008 10:36 pm 30 degrees F ~

Today is 6 Ix (jaguar, the night sun). It's dark and quiet. Seems like nothing's going on; but, there's a break between winter storm watches, so I'm standing on the porch in the current snow watching the lunar eclipse. The sky is completely clear now (unlike the earlier overcast)...Orion is in the west and Luna's reflected sunlight is almost completely blocked by the Earth. Also in the night sky, about 1,000 miles west of Hawaii, a missile was reportedly launched a few minutes ago to make its 80-second ascent to destroy the toxic fuel canister of the ever-rogue spy satellite, USA-193, 130 miles above (at a collision speed of over 22,000 mph).

...a busy jaguar night ~

The dialog and feedback from others.

It's like an inner journey via the ultimate journal which everybody shares; so, your epiphanies are accelerated by worldwide ideas & feedback that you would've never gotten otherwise.

Wild! It made me really reconnect with who I am. I see now that I had my creative "tentacles" furled and had limited myself out of emotional self-preservation; but, that really was constraining and not preserving at all. Now, I am...unfurled.

 

So, I was watching the Fox news on Monday and UFO docs have been declassified (http://www.bluebookarchive.org/). Naturally, there have been sightings in the Washington, DC area. There was a sighting in 1952 by folks at Andrews AFB. That's near where I (well, and the Goat-man) live.

Yeah, I haven't seen'em, but the Goat-man has been seen a lot in the town of Bowie (that's where I'm from and where my sisters saw those lights in the sky and little boot prints in the snow). Hmmm....

Incidentally, wikipedia mentions that the Goat-man has also been associated with the old Glenn Dale Sanitarium and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (it's so weird to see stuff with which you are intimately acquainted on the web). Both places are a stone's throw from Bowie. I've driven their dark roads many a night. The rumor has always been that experiments were done at the center (HA! that's why local country folks would say that, if you catch an animal back there, you shouldn't eat it). I've been a guest in the staff apartments at Glenn Dale (nothing but the night sky out there); but no "thing" ever approached me on the empty fields. I would, however, look in my rear-view mirror frequently when I drove through at night (which was usually after some esoteric conversation with my sisters about demons and what not...but that's another story).

Of course, there are many secrets in the woods...some natural, some not...my oldest sister and I were driving through the old homeland forest one day and started to drive down a path, only to be met by a soldier who emerged out of nowhere to tell us we couldn't come back there (that was creepy; where'd he come from???).

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking: I wonder how many other UFO sightings are correlated with Goat-man reports?

When people passionately attack my views, not out of my misperception of some construct, but because my views don't align with theirs. I don't like the behavior that, because a bunch of folks agree and I don't, something must be wrong with me. Oh, what specifically comes to mind is the idea that there is one way to do something just because "that's how we've always done it." My defensiveness usually ends up as annoyance.