Look to the stars

We've had some clear cold days and nights here on the Central Oregon Coast. One of my favorite things to do is star gaze. There are times when the Milky Way is particularly clear, vast and breathtaking to behold. There are many places in the world where the human populated areas make the night lights so bright you can't see many stars. But, here on the coast on clear nights, you can see forever! I love it when a shooting star happens. For many years I have been a student of the ancient peoples and their art and ruins. I devour any books I find with pictures and information on the great gathering places our ancient ancestors constructed that seem to be heavily design for star gazing and marking the movement of the heavens in relation to earth. To our surprise, we have discovered their knowledge of the heavens and cosmos was far advanced of what we think they should have been able to know. It occurred to me the other night while looking up into the heaven that making eye contact with these patterns of lights in the sky could be very important to the evolutionary journey we humans are experiencing. I have spoken in past posts of stars in our bones. The very matter, the elements, that makes up the cosmos, also being in our physical bones and flesh is now being confirmed by scientists. But what if there are codes embedded in our DNA that are being switched on due to starlight exposure and the movement of the cosmic dance of the stars? What if there is a "little timer" set within our very DNA (especially within the so called "junk" DNA) that is affected by our awakening, our consciousness, our self-reflectiveness, our wondering and new awareness, our "a-ha" moments? What if the increasing vibrational frequencies we are able to achieve when we focus on positive thoughts and feelings more often than fear and doubt, anger and hatred; what if when we choose compassion over judgement, love over indifference; what if all our choices to dance and laugh and sing rather that choose our old, past "poor little wounded me" dark places, what if this is switching on an irreversible transfiguration in our species, one person at a time? What if?... I don't know about you, but maybe I'll be devoting more of my time to star-gazing, just in case it means something like that.

Here comes the sun!

After low, these many days, we finally get some sun! It seems we have had one storm right after another, so when even a small amount of sunlight peeks through the clouds, my soul is on it like bees to honey. As if on cue, a surprise arrived in the mail today to help celebrate the sun. One of my customers sent a thank you gift of a Rose window she made. As soon as I hung it in the window, the sun took this as an invitation to wow me.

I have been thinking that perhaps this is a way the Universe is waiting for the invitation from our species to expand to a higher frequency of being, just waiting for us to notice and say yes to the possibilities. When there seems to be fear and worry all around, either about the war or terrorists, the economy spiraling downward, or even what poor Britney is up to now, these are all distractions that can take us from our joy. What I find when I am busy creating and playing and enjoying myself, I feel I'm vibrating at a higher frequency. This , in my opinion, is what is necessary for the whole human race and for the entire planet, our solar system and beyond, from a cellular level outward: that we maintain a higher frequency long enough to reach the evolutionary jump point that is our destiny! You know how magnetic love can be, how attractive joy is. We all want to go that way. There is a great pull going on for our attention. Will it be the petty little tyrants that want to drag us down with their fears and angst or are we going to reach for the stars? Remember, we are made of stars, so as long as we don't get distracted we have to choose for the stars...It's who we are!

What would Love do?

I watched quietly over the months she lived next door to our little shop, observing her comings and goings. Single mothers have a lot to contend with and she seemed to do her best to give her little son a happy, safe home. She kept to herself, so I never heard her story. As each of the holidays approached she did her best to decorate and celebrate with her child. She had Halloween decorations which ended up blowing into the bushes. For a while, there was a king sized mattress and box springs with a "free" sign on it parked outside the door. I worried that all the rain coming down would make it unsuitable for anyone to sleep on. I found myself entertaining little "ninja thoughts," ok, they were judgements, about how trashy things were looking around her door. She bravely tried to decorate for Christmas putting little snow flake decorations in the tree in front and somehow the tree didn't look as sad and lonely as the little house appeared. One day, about two weeks ago she very quickly moved out, leaving unwanted "free" things in little stacks under the tree. As one wind storm after another blew in, these little stacks of cups and saucers, a coffee maker and other "left-behinds" began to become broken, unsightly and trashed. Each day I became more and more focused on the trash, and less and less compassionate towards the one who had left in such a hurry. Finally, this morning as I sat in my parked car beside the curb and very near the mess, I found myself praying a silent prayer for the whole, sad scene, both outside and within. In the quiet of that moment, Grace descended upon me and I heard the words loud and clear form in my heart-space: "Kathryn, what would Love do?" Instantly I knew what needed to be done. I donned a pair of work gloves I had in my car and got a black plastic bag and cleaned up the whole area. With each shattered piece of glass, tea cup shard and half buried Halloween decoration, I drew a heart around this lonely little place and around the dear soul who had last lived there. I knew the best and only right thing I could do was help a sister in need do what needed to be done, that she herself was, for whatever reason, unable to do. I found waves of love go out from me and surround this place. A little beauty wanted to blossom where Love had created a space.

I am in gratitude for all the ways I have been supported through the hard things I have had to do in my life. When the chips were down, I always had many helping hands to get me through it. I realized it made me obligated to give back, to "pay it forward" for someone else who may have needed just a little more support than she had. I just hope the next time there is an opportunity to reach out and be love in action, it doesn't take me so long to get a clue...sigh

Faithful waiting and tending has it's rewards

There she was, just waiting for me to notice. Each morning when I have fixed my one, perfect cup of coffee, I make the trip to the window sill to see if the orchid has bloomed. I have been waiting for a good 3 months from the time I noticed that the strange looking tendril that had begun to grow, didn't look the same as the other ones that were air roots. I don't know much about orchids, nor do I particularly remember when this one became a member of the household. (I think it came when friends came to visit Cindy before she died, which was five years ago.) This poor little plant sat for a long time on the window sill. I would water it faithfully, but it never grew or seemed to change, or in any way respond to my ministrations. I one day moved it to a window overlooking the ocean and from that time on, the leaves, all two of them, began to imperceptibly grow. So, every day as I went to look out at the world with my one, perfect cup of coffee, I would talk to the orchid and try to encourage it. After a while it looked like it needed a bit bigger pot of bark. I decided to put the new plastic pot inside of a delicious maroon colored pot to dress it up a bit. I remembered my brother, who is a genius at growing orchids, once saying that you put the water in the outside pot and the orchid would take the water in from the bottom. So, anyway, I did that. Soon the orchid began to put out this tendril and I thought that since it was growing way out beyond the rest of the other more "naralie"looking tendrils, that it had to be a flower stalk. Sure enough, little buds began to appear and little by little and ever so slightly they plumped up. Watching this dear little soul has helped me learn a little bit more about patience. There is no way to make this thing move along any faster, it has just taken it's own sweet time. Then, just yesterday, it happened. Almost when I wasn't looking, it unfurled one of it's buds and surprised me. It's the faithful waiting and careful tending, somehow deep inside knowing that what I do matters, that one day does show up and delight. I found that I didn't go about this with the usual approach of reading up on or taking classes and fortifying my faith with some outside illusion or expertise. I just believed that if I paid attention and loved this little mystery in a pot, that one day, the little shy soul would open up and sing her song. I guess this is how some of my best ideas come about too, by just doing the faithful tending and care, waiting with an innocence and a surrender to the process. I wonder if any of you have noticed that about people or projects, ideas or notions that you believe in that one day when you least expected it, surprised and delighted you with beauty, or awesome wonder? I think that is possibly how it works with The Creator, too. I'm almost positive that we each have caused THE HOLY ONE, from time to time, to blurt out: "O My God! Awesome!