The Speculative Life

Intent To Act

2011-09-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

Our world needs healing.

What action will I make today to heal us?
What action will I make today to make peace?

Every day.
One action.

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

2011-07-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

“Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Closer.”
Just take 60 seconds right now and think of what secrets you are keeping. Are they about you? Are they about someone else? About something that happened?
Why are you keeping it a secret? Why do you decide to reveal a secret?
Do we keep secrets because we’re ashamed of something? Because we’re protecting someone? To retain power? Have power over someone? If someone asks you if you want to know a secret, do you automatically say yes?
The lines from the Beatles’ song refers to having kept a secret about loving someone and now telling the person. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were talking about a romantic feeling that many of us have experienced. We have a great feeling of love for a person but we don’t share it right away perhaps because we don’t want to be rejected and the feeling in the meantime is delicious. Keeping this secret doesn’t seem to hurt anyone.
But what about political secrets? Is Bradley Manning being tortured by the US government? If so, why? Why do we not know this? The face of the US must be saved? At any cost? Why did the US government not tell us the real reason they illegally invaded Iraq? We could go on and on with the secrets.
Has Momar Gadhafy been murdering his people? Why is the US concerned with this situation, the situation in Egypt, in Iraq, Afghanastan, and not in Gaza, not in the Congo, not in many other countries around the world? Not poverty and suffering in our own country.
Now, Wiki Leaks is outing all the governments. What a relief. We can now be more informed citizens.
I began writing about Wiki Leaks and how it makes me think about the nature of and process of, and purposes of keeping and revealing secrets. The shame, the fear, the joy, the deliciousness, the sense of power that motivates us to keep them. Political and personal secrets, the aspect of protection of whom from what? Not being able to be informed citizens when governments keep secrets from us.
But I told myself, “You’ve written about that before. Government doesn’t want us to be informed citizens. Informed citizens are death to government.”
Unable to write what I wanted, I tore it up the paper.
Then Tunisia happened, Egypt. The earthquake in Japan, the tsunami, the destruction, the loss of life, the radiation. Libya, Bahrain, Yemen. And all those unnamed and unacknowledged disasters all over our world.
I am stunned. I turned the news off. Each day I try to listen to a little. I can’t. What’s happening?
We are more than the “citizens of the world” that Virginia Woolf identified herself as. We are all one. You are I and I am you and we are all together. How to think together, work together. What shall we do?
Why was the IAEA’s 2008 report that Japan’s safety measures for nuclear plants was lacking not revealed. Does it have to do with the face of Japan? How Japan wants to be seen, including being seen financially viable?
What about Raymond Davis the so-called American “diplomat” who killed two Pakistanis in Lahore? First, the US government said he was a diplomat, then a private citizen, then a “diplomatic functionary”, a security contractor from a Florida based firm, connections to Blackwater? Why was he in Mozang, Lahore?
Yes, this is all old news. But what ever happened to all these events? Anything? We can simply substitute names and places for the present. Now we have an horrendous incident of mass murder in Norway. It’s impossible to keep up with the secrets and the disturbing news of our world.
I hammer on this theme: we are citizens. We need to know the facts of what our governments are doing so that we can decide what we want them to do in this so-called democracy. Since Wiki Leaks has begun revealing governments’ secrets, it seems more and more everything the U.S. Government says is a sham, a public relations opportunity.
It seems as if all the people at the top levels of political power are basically in cahoots financially and deal behind each other’s backs and under the table to acquire as much power as possible while neglecting the populace, our health and well-being. Spending billions of dollars on war and slashing funding for entitlements and education. No one mentions these two elements in the same sentence, as if there is no causal relationship. The U.S. Government, my government, drops the iron curtain that separates the two, implying an absence of relationship. It can make you crazy. Our world is like a large scale 1950’s Hollywood “shoot-em up.” White hats and black hats. Except now it looks like nobody wins.

Power of secrets? Who has the power? Teller? Keeper?

Watch the Spin: "Transitions" responsible for military suicides?

2010-10-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

US Military wonders: why so many suicides in the troops?
“Transitions” are the missing puzzle piece

Suicide is a profound act surrounded with sadness, desperation, loneliness, anger and unanswered questions. It is difficult to talk about personally and as a statistic.

Last night driving home from work I heard a special segment on NPR stating that the U.S. Military has been struggling to understand why so many soldiers are committing suicide. Now the Army has come up with a clue. Transitions. Apparently they found that 79% of suicides are committed in the first three years of service. And, the report said, besides the obvious factors of multiple deployments, and the stress of war, there seem to be no predictors of who is most at risk for suicide. Until now. "It's all about transitions,” the report said.

The report highlighted a mother who lost her 19 year old son to suicide when he was ordered to take home leave after being in Iraq for a couple of months. Connie Scott talked about her son, Brian Williams, arriving home at Christmas time to face his mother’s new house, her new husband, and his fiancée’s revelation that she was in love with someone else. Connie Scott said she could see that Brian was in terrible pain and at risk for suicide but she didn’t know what to do or how to help him. When he was set to return to Iraq, there was a sense of lightness about him, she said, and she felt relieved that he would be okay. But the next day he had taken his life. Maybe if he had stayed in Iraq with his buddies and not come home, his mother said, his buddies could have helped him with the loss of other soldiers he knew, and taken care of him. Then would have survived all the losses.

I believe his buddies would have taken care of Brian. But who knows what would have happened if Brian had not come home? The fact that he was sent home after two weeks in Iraq suggests to me that he had terrible experiences in the military and the military couldn't help him.

Suicides are horrific. But they are not The Problem. The problem is war. The destruction and desecration of everything that lives, cultures, infrastructures, land, air. Suicides are a symptom of this problem.

Does the military want to be able to predict who is at risk so they can stop suicides? Why? On the surface the answer seems obvious that they care for the troops. But I can't help thinking that it's public relations more than caring about the soldiers. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) has become a common word since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Why is the military not talking about this as a problem? Why is the report being vague and euphemistic by calling the horrors of war “the stress of war?” Why did NPR not talk about the problems that war creates? Every man and woman who goes to the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk for PTSD and harming themselves and others.

As difficult as it is, we need to come out of denial about war; face the hideous realities of what these young women and men experience, what war is doing to their psyches and their souls, take stock of what our U.S. government is doing everyday around the world and speak up about it. The responsibility is ours. This means the media. The U.S. media needs to get a grip, get courage and lead the way. Let's focus on the real problem of war, and not pretend that fewer or smoother, or no transitions for a soldier will cure the symptom of taking one's own life, or that suicide is the problem.

Initiation

2010-09-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

the oily feather flap
the leather black flap
of raven
silent delicate dips
of yellow-breasted
red-headed finches
the serene circling,
tireless gliding
of hawk

I stretch my arms
like a scarecrow
waiting as I have my whole life
for your landing

my eyes widen as you glide toward me
my arm dips
with your sudden weight

talons curl into my flesh
my arm shakes
the thrill of you on me
but I dare not turn my head

you stretch a wing
ruffle feathers
and side-step up my arm
hop and flutter to the top of my head

lowering your breast
feathers press my hair
soft heat and blood permeate my scalp
a warm rush as
you melt into me

I raise my arms
bend my knees
and push off
oily feather flap
soft by our ears
black leather flap
of our shiny wings
take us up,
up
into the flock

My Killing Community:Credentials to Speak

2010-03-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

Recently I sat at our annual holiday family dinner with people from fourteen to ninety-two years old. Some of the people in their early twenties and thirties were American born and some were recent immigrants from Yugoslavia.

We were talking the state of the world, especially the U.S. occupying Iraq. The conversation was getting heated between those justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq and those opposed.

“What would you do, as head of the government, if someone in the world had something you needed for survival, like oil or water, and wouldn’t give it to you?” My nephew asked me.

“Talk. Use diplomacy.” I said.

He leaned over the beautifully set dining room table toward me. “What if that didn’t work?”

“Keep trying.” I said.

“That’s crazy. They have no right to not give us what we need.”
Although I was stunned by his attitude, I thought, it’s the same as our government’s, but expressed more forthrightly by my nephew.

Where does the idea come from that the U.S. Government is entitled to take whatever it wants from anyone at any price? Privilege? Ignorance? Arrogance? Military might?

At the heart of the matter lies the tacit assumption that it’s okay to kill people. We are participants in the take-it-for-granted killing. I’m talking about killing and violence as strategies to solve problems. In our country and others there is no question about whether or not killing is an acceptable strategy. It’s a government strategy of, “Whatever it takes to convince the people, that what we want to do________ (fill in the blank) is right.”

I no longer care what the details are in filling in the blanks because the details are supplied by the governments to make us, the people, agree to illegally invade and occupy Iraq, to kill Palestinians in Gaza, turn our collective backs on genocide around the globe. This strategy has a history and it’s called PR, public relations, or propaganda. Lying.

What if our first and only strategies were peace and diplomacy? What if in our communities violence and killing were unacceptable, illegal and the people who did it or ordered it to be done were held accountable? Why is it that holding people accountable is depicted by the Obama administration as not moving forward and therefore dismissed?

What if the billions of dollars we spend on the military each day went instead into creating peace, to educating our kids, providing healthcare to everyone? Our communities might look different.

How we see and understand community today is inseparable from politics. When it’s politically convenient the government, local or federal, paints community as inclusive. People are encouraged to talk about the positive values of community; it takes a village, the benefits of the extended family, community gardens, and Neighborhood Watch. We are encouraged to band together, take things into our own hands and make good things happen, safety and nourishment of our children.
But when that view is politically inconvenient community becomes exclusive and the notion of community is used by the government and their mouthpieces to shut people up and out.

“You have no legitimate right to comment because you aren’t in Iraq, because you aren’t on the police force and don’t know all the details, because you aren’t in the State Department or the CIA so you don’t know what’s really happening, and because you aren’t a part of those communities, you have no legitimate right or credentials to speak.”

Guess what? My legitimate credentials are that I’m a member of the human race and everything that happens to my people affects me and I’m a part of it all. My people are being killed with impunity and are killing with impunity. Everything that happens in our community affects us. We are not innocent bystanders. We are complicit in killing unless we object. Unless we speak out.

Oscar Grant was shot dead while lying face down on a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) platform on New Year’s morning, 2009 by a BART police person in Oakland, California. Chauncey Bailey, a journalist, was shot dead on August 2, 2007 in Oakland, California while investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery. And what about Lavelle Mixon in Oakland in March this year shooting dead four policemen and himself? What about almost sixty people being murdered in my country, the U.S.A., in the last month by rampage gunmen? What do you mean I have no credentials to speak?

Since I live in Berkeley, which borders Oakland, am I allowed to claim only this geographic community as mine to comment on? Community is universal, inclusive. Oscar Grant, Chauncey Bailey, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Darfur, East Timor, Gaza, Sri Lanka, mountaintop removal, rainforest destruction, Tibet are all part of the same Killing Community. Our community. We are its members. What do you mean we have no credentials to speak?

I’m tired of the words people use to legitimize killing. “They broke the cease-fire, they struck first, they are killing their own people, they are a danger to us, we can’t allow them to reject our rules for them.”

On the other hand, the words I want to use to express my feelings about the killing, the slaughter, the massacres, the genocide, the torturing to death, the starvation, the destruction of natural resources, the lack of universal healthcare, and the rape of women and children are outrage, horror, illegal, inhuman. But even these words don’t convey the profound dismay, anger, despair and sadness I feel as a member of our Killing Community.

The devil is in the details.

Does devil mean capacity to lie? Capacity to engender terror? Capacity to betray one’s soul, one’s integrity? Are we trading our collective soul for a return in oil, land, water, lumber, money, a pound of flesh? You may not trade my soul.

People use the details of a situation to argue about who has the moral upper hand. Examine the so-called legal, legitimate arguments for why it’s necessary to torture someone to death, to do extraordinary rendition in order to allow another government to torture someone, why it’s necessary to slaughter, why a government has the right to invade and take over a people in another country and bomb them into submission, starve them out, destroy their culture. Is it okay because the violence is collateral damage, expected, and accidental? All are litigious details.

While men and women in suits argue semantics, some person’s blood drips drop by drop into the earth they lie on, gushes from an artery, soaks their clothes, human dead bodies of adults, teenagers, children and babies and pieces of them are strewn about the earth, thrown into secret mass graves, and buried by family members. White phosphorus silently eats the skin of the living and dead. Yes, the devil is in the details.

But the devil is not an alien being. The devil is us. That’s how the destruction is happening. We have the capacity for betrayal of our souls and we’re exercising it. It’s me. It’s you.

What aspects of me shall I exercise? Fear, revenge, and domination, or can I exercise compassion, courage, and cooperation? We need to look to compassionate guidelines and international agreements to support us in seeing a more hopeful humane possibility. We need to study and practice peace and compassion.

You can’t see the forest for the trees is the sister of the devil is in the details. While governments argue the semantic details, of what constitutes torture, who is allowed to intervene on genocide and who isn’t, and what specifics constitute war crimes, people are being blown up. The trees, branches and leaves of semantic justifications, obfuscate the forest of killing.
The damn forest is lost. It makes me feel like screaming. KILLING living beings. Is it ever justified? And I don’t want a legal response. Get the picture. Smell the stench.

You don’t want to read about it and I don’t want to talk about it. But we must.
For the last two decades preschools and elementary schools in this country have been teaching “use your words” to children when there is a disagreement. Just because you can’t have everything you want, don’t resort to a physical altercation as a solution.

This apparently is a teaching only for the young because so soon as one becomes an adult, solutions to disagreements rapidly escalate and narrow to using force, military, psychological, and physical. Bomb them, threaten them, torture them.
On the other hand, perhaps the disagreement between Iraq and the United States may have been easier, more amiably, and equitably resolved if Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush took personal responsibility for their disagreements by engaging in a bout of fisticuffs together. They could have enjoyed taking responsibility for and the consequences of every blow struck. That would have been more to the point and the whole world could have rooted for their favorite fascist. I would have watched it. The market may have soared.

Let’s look at who we’re killing. The enemy. The one inside us or outside us? We’re exercising the enemy inside us when we kill and as we exercise our internal killer capacity, it gains strength. We’re killing compassionate parts of ourselves, growing noncompassionate power.

We become people without compassion, people without peaceful choices, people who can only exercise military and physical domination, we become rigid uncompromising and brittle. We suffer.

Do we really want to continue trying to create an empire through death and destruction? I will not trade my soul for oil, land, money, one ounce of flesh, or anything else.

Do we only have credentials to speak about our own local communities, our own countries, even though we are citizens of the world? And who decides if we have the credentials? Who will print our words in our newspapers? Who will post our words on their political blog? What government representative will answer our letters. Who will invite us to talk on the radio or television? ? We are all responsible.

Women in Afghanistan spoke up on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2009. They wore blue ribbons as a symbol of peace.
Virginia Wolf said, “As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” We can legitimately speak about everything that happens in the world.

In five days it will be March 8, 2010. Have we changed?

We need compassion for ourselves and for everything living. We need to figure out how to nurture life, ourselves, each other, our communities. We need to speak up, act up, write our opinions, and protest killing in every form. Especially now. Now in this country, in the powerful United States, now because it looks as if there may be an opening. A possibility for change, for a different way. A way of renouncing killing and committing to peace, to compassion, to negotiating, to generosity. We must speak at our dinner tables. It is our responsibility as humans. We all have the credentials to speak. And we must listen to each other. We can take compassionate action. Yes, we can, and we must.

The Rain Comes Down and We Consider Revolution

2010-01-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

January 18, 2010 Martin Luther King Day

The rain comes down in great loud sheets this morning as I stretch on my living room floor. Lady Sparkles watches me from her chosen place near the front door as Martin Luther King’s voice magically flows from the radio and fills the room and my mind. It is his anti-Vietnam War speech.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.”

King quotes John F. Kennedy’s 1962 prediction. It has become our reality. We exist in the present as our past’s future. Our governments make violent revolution. They pull the triggers and drop the bombs everyday.

Do we not have the strength, the courage, the creativity, the compassion to make choices for peaceful revolution? What does it take? Why is the U.S. Government engaged in murdering people all over the world? The journalist Allan Nairn says that the Obama military machine that spans the world is set on “kill.” Obama is not changing the setting. Why? Why is our vision so obscured? Can we be this stupid?

Now the wind whips huge wet drops in a maelstrom against the houses, roses, cars, earth, everything that exists and the kumquat tree waves its arms crazily scraping against the window as if to crack it open and come inside where it’s safe.

I cannot imagine what it’s like to be an unsafe citizen of Haiti now after the huge quake in the earth and the continuous political aftershocks that are Haiti’s history since 1804 when they were the first black republic to declare their independence. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be a citizen of Afghanistan seeing the U.S. military murdering people. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be a citizen of Iraq and watch the destruction of civilization, familiy and friends. I cannot imagine what it's like to be a citizen anywhere in the world where a foreign country is occupying my land.

I am a citizen of the world and my U.S. government is occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, and indirectly Gaza.

I cannot imagine what it will take for my congress people to say no to killing. I cannot imagine what it will take for all of us, citizens of the U.S., to say no to killing.

Is the first step to acknowledge that corporations control our government? Or, is the first step to acknowledge that all individuals have a voice, that we must use it, and we must say no to killing?

I look out at the storm and consider that perhaps it doesn't matter what's first. Just that we take a determined step toward peaceful revolution. And keep stepping.

What if?

2010-01-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

What if Mr. Obama had gone to Copenhagen as a representative of the people of the U.S.?

What if he understood that all the people in the world are part of the same family?

What if we understood that we are all in the present together and that we need to make decisions about the planet that will benefit all living things?

What if we were all committed to thriving and sustaining life?

What if politicians made a living wage and didn’t receive money from anyone else?

Tipping Over the Edge

2009-12-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's the seemingly smallest detail that nudges one over. In this case it was President Obama's use of one word that tipped me over the edge of silence into the realm of expressing frustration and anger.

This month, December 2009, Obama gave a speech in which he said we need to be "nimble and precise in our use of military hardware." Nimble?

Quick, light, agile and deft. Quick, clever and acute in understanding.

It's not only the meaning, it's the sound of the word "nimble," the feeling, which is benign and almost fairy-like.

What does it mean to couple this word "nimble" with "military hardware?" Is it a linguistic balancing act to make us feel that everything is okay?

Are we supposed to be lured into the belief that killing people and destroying their environment is a quick light and deft action? That it takes a light maneuver to accomplish destruction? Or, is it using this benign and light word to lead us away from the brutal reality that our military is killing people who live thousands of miles away from us in order to "protect us?"

Ask yourself, when was the last time you even heard the word used? Using the word "nimble" was a conscious choice. I was shocked and angered to hear it used in this way.

I am angry that politicians use words to manipulate our feelings and beliefs. To lead us away from inconvenient truths.

Engaging in wars is not in any way a light experience, nor should it be described as such or insinuated that it is. It would be more useful to see the body bags of the dead returning and see the numbers civilians, everyday of people, we kill in Iraq and Afghanistan and to listen to what the families of the slain are saying. This is horrific to contemplate because it is horrific. Seeing the consequences of our actions we might be more inclined to speculate and talk about why our government is in other countries waging wars and why so many people around the globe dislike and fear us. Maybe we could move toward truth. Perhaps toward compassion. Perhaps we can take more compassionate actions to foster peace and to terminate our determination to build empire.

Is Seeing Believing?

2009-04-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you want to be seen and sometimes you don't.

Take the Leap: Grace Speaks

2009-02-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings, my dears. The New Year’s here. I’m snuffling your ear.

Do you like my poem? Woof.

I’m sorry my New Year’s message is late but my two-legged’s been having trouble translating what I’m telling her. The human brain doesn’t easily catch the drift.

This is my New Year’s tip. You realize you’re listening to a dead dog. Ha ha ha. I’m only dead in the way that I dropped my body. I changed. But I am here in full fine form finally. Bigger than life. What does that mean anyway? I know, but it’s a koan for you. Woof!

Love. That’s the deal, seal. Nada mas.

You got to love. A person. An animal. A being.

All different kinds of love. I’m talking about them all in the largest, most expansive, the deepest sense. In the smallest daily way.

Every day my person put her palm on my flat head, “Good morning, Gracie.” She said. She’d gently rub the points of my ears with her fingertips. “You’ve got the softest little ears, and look at those cheeks.” She’d stroke my cheek spots and squeeze me.

My younger person curled up with me on the floor every evening. “Goozie, I love you.” Then she’d tell me all about what happened at school, especially things that made her feel badly. She played soccer with me in the back yard, giggling, running, and kicking the ball. “I got you. I made a goal. Woa, great dribbling, Goozie. Give that back.”

Loving another being connects us-- to them and to ourself. A oneness. I’m not a guru, but it’s true. We feel at one with ourself and the universe, if only for a second. That’s all we need to begin, a second. It’s worth going for. After all, if we have a choice, why not choose love? Make the leap. Abandon your self.

Plus, our love moves us to work for the loved one. I loved taking care of my people. Working for them. That’s the deal. We’re here to work for each other. It feels good.

I worked for my family, my two sweet ones. Keeping them safe, loved, cared for, having fun, reminding them of the present. I felt joy whenever I saw them. I gave them joy and giggles and someone to care for in return. Wag wag wagging.

They worked for me. They gave me shelter, food, water, joy, kept me safe, and loved. They cared for me deeply. We were connected. Although we each had different relationships, love unified us. Even though I dropped my wonderful body, we’re still deeply connected, as you see. I trot after them everywhere they go. Woof.

Love connects us. Love is a joy. Connection can lead to compassion, which is part of why we’re here, I think. Part of our work. Being at one with someone can take us to instant exhilaration, to joy, as well as instant compassion for their suffering, which we are moved to relieve.

Picture our world in which all humans acted from love and compassion. Woof!

My companion, Soft Tone, used to throw balls for me really far in the distance and I ran so fast and leapt up in the air and caught them. What a feeling! I flew through the air and snagged the ball right out of space. I held it with my teeth and felt it on my flat tongue. Sometimes I’d squoosh it between my teeth. It tasted like Soft Tone’s scent and the wind.

I’d gallop back and drop it in front of her. If she didn’t pick it up, I’d bark or grab it back. I didn’t think about it; I was just one with myself, my person, the ball, the space, the earth, my muscles, the flying, my intent to catch, the universe around me. When we’re one with ourself, we don’t think about it. We just are.

And when love comes, when compassion happens, it shoots through us like leaping for a ball, a wag of the tail. It’s automatic and it’s deep. It happens. In that moment we are One. With the air, the earth, the ball, the universe, all living things--One Heart.

When Soft Tone saw me leap and fly for the ball I could tell by the way she stood still watching and by the smile that emanated from within that she felt it too. That moment.

“Wow! Gracie you are so beautiful. You just do it and then you have such a huge smile and you want to go again.”
She loved me. A miracle.

This is not an intellectual exercise I’m describing. I’m a dog. Woof. I’m giving you instructions on leaping. For love.
It’s not just words.

Connect with a person, a blade of grass, a flower, a cat, a bird, a rock, whatever it is, you’re on your way. Connecting opens the passage.

Connecting leads to Heart. We have a million opportunities each day. Leap!

Let me know how it goes. It's up to us.

I hope you like the photos.

Grace

The Unexpected-- Openings: Grace speaks

2008-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

This is a photo my two-legged took of a burrowing owl. After my two-legged, Soft-Tone, found these owls at the Marina, she visited them every day until they left in late spring. This was after I had passed on. I tell you things about us which will help you to understand my story.

Three hundred sixty-five days of every year Soft-Tone and I walked, ran, and played ball. She took me every day. I was always the leader, I ran ahead.

Sweet-One, (My two-leggeds have many names.), said, “It’s ‘cause you’re an Aries, doggie, that’s why you always have to be in front, right?” She’d laugh and I’d smile and wag.

I liked leading. I go ahead to scout, to sniff things out, to decide if it’s okay to go forward, find the news from other dogs, find balls, and because I love running. I love being ahead and seeing everything that’s happening. That’s who I am.

Rain, sun, fog, wind, mud, freezing, scorching heat, whatever the conditions, we were out there. I remember only two times my whole life when the weather was beating us back that I thought I might want to get out of it.

One of those mornings we were out at Point Isabel, a park for dogs to run free, swim, get in competitions of tail angles, Alfa Competitions the two-leggeds call it. We were the only ones out there and that always made Soft-Tone laugh out loud. The wind and cold rain were slashing horizontally against us.

“Wow! It’s wild out here, Gracie. Soft-Tone said excitedly and laughed. “It’s wild!” And she threw her arms wide open to the wind and rain and let it beat her face and her chest. I was impressed.

After about fifteen minutes, she looked at me—my tail and my head—my whole body was down, sort of retracting. She said, “Gracie girl, you’re not having a good time. It must be extreme if you’re crouching like that. Let’s go, girl.”

We turned around and I perked up and pranced a little because I knew we were leaving the gale winds. I even plumed my tail. I smiled.

I loved when my Sweet-One took me with her places. Staying alone at home wasn’t for me. I hated it. I felt lonely. So when she opened the back of the station wagon one Saturday morning and my Number Two, her daughter, Gentle Hands, came too, I was thrilled. I never cared where we went, just that we were together. Every outing was an adventure. I leapt in.

We were driving to San Francisco. I was looking out at the water and feeling happy to be together with my pack. Suddenly I lost my balance and fell into the side of the car. I couldn’t stand up. I started to shake. I didn’t know what was happening. Every time I tried to stand I tipped over.

Soft-Tone heard the sound and looked in the rearview mirror. “Gracie, what’s wrong? Shit, I can’t stop.”

“Mom, what?” Gentle Hands said.

“Look back there and see if you can see what’s wrong with Grace. It looks like she can’t stand up.”

We were approaching the Bay Bridge and there was no pulling over or stopping. Soft-Tone kept talking. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll get over the bridge and we’ll see what’s going on. It’s okay sweetie.”

Gentle Hands was reaching through the barrier, petting me and encouraging me to stay lying down because even sitting I fell over.

When we got into San Francisco Soft-Tone parked, opened the back hatch and watched as I stood up and jumped out onto the pavement. I shook myself and was a little unsteady but not much. I felt better.

“Let’s see you walk, Gracie.” Soft-Tone watched me. I trotted around, sniffed, collected news. I felt fine. A little stiff.

She felt my body. Ran her hands down my spine, my head, legs, tail, chest. She squatted in front of me, looked in my eyes and kissed my nose. I loved that. I felt her worry and Number Two, my soccer partner, my charge to protect, I felt her worry the strongest. Gentle Hands. I also call her Sweet-Names because she called me many sweet names, love names.

“You seem fine, Gracie. But something happened. I’m going to ask the vet.”

I think I was about nine in two-legged years then. For the next four years, imperceptible at first to all of us, I began slowing.

Hey, I tell you I am a filled-with-energy, love to run and play being. I’m always ready to go. Every moment is exciting and unknown. I still feel that way. Slow, was not something I knew.

So, I didn’t know I was slowing. My black muzzle was showing a little grey, my brilliant tan points: my eyebrows, epaulets, my cockatiel cheeks as my Sweet-One called them, were fading. But no one noticed or said anything. I think sometimes when you love someone you don’t notice something that you don’t want to see. Because she loved ME.

When Soft-Tone explained the incident to John, my doctor, he said the incident was probably arthritis. I had been taking arthritis tablets for a couple of years. They were yummy and I think they helped. But Soft-Tone knew that the car incident wasn’t arthritis. She told John that but as he checked me he said there was nothing else.

“She has a slight heart murmur,” he said, “but that wouldn’t cause this. I think it’s the arthritis.”

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you every creak and crunch I acquired during those four years, but it became harder to jump into the back of our station wagon. I weighed fifty pounds. Soft-Tone began researching ramps; phone calls, store visits, Internet, tried this and that.

One morning I was standing waiting as she opened the back hatch and she said, “Okay, Grace, I’ve got a new idea. Come back here.” We walked ten feet away from the open hatch. “Okay, we’re going to run to it, you’re going to jump and I’m going to help you leap.”

That sounded fun. I took off, I launched and in mid air I felt her sweet arms and hands encircle my middle and continue to support me and encourage me forward in my trajectory. That was our new strategy. I loved it. The feeling of jumping. With her help I could still do it. We did it every day.

At the Marina there are beautiful narrow dirt trotting paths that go up hills so at the top you can see all around the Bay, almost three-hundred sixty degrees. There are beautiful dirt trotting paths that lead down to the water. We loved going up and down these every morning. Of course I ran ahead down them and took detours hoping to sniff a rabbit or hear the squeak of a ground squirrel and tear after it. Yummy.

But somewhere in those four years after the car incident, Sweet-One and I changed places. One day we were walking down one of our favorite paths and I stopped and sat by a big outcropping of pampas grass while she continued down to the water. She thought I was detouring for a squirrel.

As I sat, the beautiful silvery tan plumes blew in the wind above my head. I tipped my nose up sniffing and thinking; my tail is majestic like these pampas plumes.

I had stopped about two thirds of the way down the hill. I waited. At the bottom Sweet-One turned around as usual to come back up but unexpectedly I was not leaping after a rabbit or running close to catch up after a side exploit. She saw me sitting.

“Gracie! Oh my gosh. I’ve never seen you stop or sit. You’re waiting for me aren’t you?” She walked up to me. “It’s too hard on your haunches to come all the way down this hill and go back up? I’m so sorry. What a fabulously clever girl you are to wait here.” And she hugged me. But I felt her sadness.

Sweet-One observed me from then on in a way she hadn’t before except to sing my beauty. She talked to me about what she saw. “Gracie, I think you’re not hearing the way you used to. Now I see you hear a normal sound but your ears perk up and you sometimes put your tail between your legs as if you’re hearing something scary. You come and put your nose on me or lean into my legs for protection. Something you’ve never done before except when you hear the street sweeper. Sometimes you don’t seem to hear someone coming up the steps, or at the door. I love you.” She hugged me.

I am a great lover of balls. When Gentle Hands was two and a half she learned from her mom how to throw a tennis ball for me, how to tell me to drop it, and how and when it was safe to pick it up again.

Often I grabbed the ball back after I’d put it down. I’d put it down in front of the two-legged’s feet, but I’d keep my muzzle down two inches at most away from the ball. I didn’t move a muscle. Only my eyes moved, watching the hand. I’d wait until the hand got almost to it and then I’d snatch it. Sometimes I got the hand too. I was quick and it was fun. But the two-leggeds didn’t like it much. Gentle Hands’ mom taught her how to get me to move farther away from the ball, how to be Number Two Alfa. It took a while. It was fun.

I loved soaring through the air to catch a fly ball, catch a line drive, a ball on the bounce, it didn’t matter. I never missed. People at Point Isabel joked about how the Oakland A’s could use me on their team.

I began missing the ball. Sometimes it bounced off my teeth. I didn’t know why. It was very frustrating and unsatisfying. It didn’t feel good. “My sweet Gracie. I think you’re not seeing the way you used to.” She’d hug me and pet me and toss me another ball, close up. Sometimes I still missed it.

One day she said, “Grace, maybe I can get some help for you so you don’t have to suffer. I’m going to journey.”

I had lain on the rug many times when she lay down and journeyed to the spirit world and when she danced and sang. Now, she journeyed to my spirit to ask permission to do healing work for me. The spirits can offer information and help but the journeyer must get a person’s permission to work for them.

The information received is sacred so one must think about whether or not to share this information and if so, why and what part of the information may be shared. Is there a purpose for sharing?

What I’ll tell you now is a compilation of several journeys Sweet-One took to talk with my spirit about healing me. Many aspects are not appropriate for me to discuss so I omit them.

She journeyed and found my spirit who looked different than I do. After a greeting Sweet-One said, “I really want to relieve Grace’s suffering.”

“She’s not suffering.” My spirit said.

“But she doesn’t hear accurately, and she gets scared. She has a heart murmur, the vet says.”

“It’s all stuff-stuff of getting old.” My spirit said.

“I feel like I’m falling asleep.” Sweet-One said.

“Maybe you need to take little naps like we do.” Spirit said.

I rolled over laughing and whapping my tail on the floor. I find the spirits very funny.

“Do you want me to work on you to cure your hearing?” Sweet-One asked.

“No.”

My Sweet-One could not believe her ears. She was shocked. A lengthy discussion followed about why not.

“It seems like you’re suffering because in not hearing accurately you’re fearful.”

“Yes, but this is the way we go. Things deteriorate on the way to death. It’s a natural process.”

“But it’s my job to alleviate suffering.”

“I can see you have a lot of compassion for Grace. You can do the work if you want to.” My spirit said.

“But I want to do what you want.” Sweet-One said.

“You may be doing it for yourself,” she said. “I’m ambivalent. And just so you know, I’m fine.”

“But you seem to be coming to me a lot and asking for reassurance because you’re scared.”

“That’s true,” spirit said. “You can do anything that is loving. I believe this is a loving gesture you’re making. But it’s good to think about this.”

So Sweet-One thought about what my soul told her. She was still shocked that my soul told her, “No.” She had just assumed it would say, “Yes.”

In thinking about it she realized that she was suffering seeing me suffer. She wanted to stop her suffering and mine. It dawned on her that she needed to separate her will from the situation.

She journeyed after that to learn how her will might get in the way of her healing work. She kept thinking about it. One and a half months later she journeyed to my soul again for a teaching on her will and was instructed.

“You can watch me.” My soul said. “I love you.” They floated down a stream together in a canoe watching life happen. “If you watch, you won’t use your will so much. It will just flow.”

A few weeks later she journeyed again. She told my spirit that she realized something. “I know I don’t want Grace to die. I will be so freaked out. I’m frustrated that I can’t understand what’s going on with her. I realize I’m very frustrated and scared.”

“She’s with you all the way. You can just be with her. She loves you and is tuned in to you.” My spirit said.

“But I don’t understand what’s going on with her.” Sweet-One said.

Sometimes two-leggeds are dense. It’s curious. I think they’re not properly equipped to embrace life. But my Number Two, Gentle Hands, understood, maybe because she was young. By the time she was three years old and I was a teenager we knew each other pretty well. She sat and talked with me my whole life. She told me everything.

“Just sit with Grace. Be with her. She just wants to be with you.” My soul said. “She’s talking to you all the time.”

Sweet-One realized she felt helpless. Helpless to relieve my suffering. In the face of that and not understanding, her impetus was strong to do something. Finally, she understood.

From that moment on Sweet-One changed. It would be eight months before I passed. She slowed her walking so that she walked with me, not ahead. She talked with me all the time we walked. She sat with me often and talked with me. She listened to me. She looked into my eyes. And she stroked, petted me and sang my praises. I was in heaven.

She came into rooms I was in, sat on the floor by me and talked with me. These times with my Sweet-One were as joyous as when I was swimming out for a ball she threw into the Bay when I was younger. And these times were different. She really placed her being with mine. It was beautiful. Unexpected. Our relationship, our bond deepened. She was totally with me. The communication was visceral. An unexpected gift of love and pleasure.

When I think about it, my finding her when I was lost on the street was unexpected. I didn’t expect her to say, yes, to keep me. For her, too, I was unexpected, as was her acceptance of me. That my soul said, no, to her request to heal me was unexpected and shocking for her. The stroke I had in the car was unexpected. The unexpected offered so many openings. Look where it took us. To joy. To a teaching about will and healing. To deep pleasure between us. To unfathomed love. All unexpected.

I tell this story to encourage opening to the unexpected. What may seem at first adverse, may, if you open to it, bring unexpected gifts. To joy in each moment. To deep pleasure. To unfathomed love.

I thank you Sweet-One, for making it possible for me to write this.

Grace

Start the Big "R" Relationship...Grace Speaks

2008-05-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, finally I'm back. This is a photo of where Soft-Tone, my two legged, and I walked every day. It was spring when the red-winged blackbirds are singing and flying everywhere. Here, they were flying up from the stacks of haybales the Marina uses to delineate the off leash area for people like me.

The hay bales are great to get the latest news and are distributed end to end around the area. Soft-Tone liked to run on top leaping from one to the next.

Since you know me a little from the previous post, let's jump into the details of getting connected.

Relationships in the Middle World, where you live now, are generally assumed. Unwritten rules, protocol. If you are my friend, a certain kind of behavior is assumed from both of us. If you are my dog, a different but still particular kind of behavior is expected and assumed.

But relationship is an interactive phenomenon we can't assume, or take for granted. If we do, we lose the essence. An opportunity to open. To aquire knowledge. To receive and offer love. Licks. Caring. Relationship is sacred.

How do we get connected? Listen. Listen to the alive beings. Do you have four-legged friends? Two-leggeds? Trees? Plants? Sniff them. Lick them. Circle them. Rub them. Touch them with your nose. Sit with them. Walk with them. Watch them.

Introduce yourself. Ask permission to converse. What are they called? Spirits of all beings have information. You may ask for information. Do you want knowledge? Ancient knowledge. Knowledge of the world, how it works. Help with important issues in you life? I sound like a magic elixir salesperson. Woof!

The spirits of beings living and of those of us who have passed over can give you knowledge, advice, solace.

Let's start slowly. Find a tree you like. In a quiet location. The best will be where there's no human foot traffic. Look at the tree. Notice how beautiful it is. Introduce yourself silently or aloud. (This depends on whether or not you're from California. Woof!)

Tell the tree you'd like to have a conversation and would that be okay? If the tree says, no, you can ask why? Perhaps you can have a conversation some other time. If yes, sit down and ask the tree about its life. What's it doing? How long has it been here? What is its life like? What's its purpose? How does it feel? You can ask anything.

Sitting quietly, talking and listening I predict you will hear surprising things. Let me know if you like.

Yes, I'm teaching you how to connect with spirits. You must be polite, introduce yourself and not assume anything. You don't have to go rushing up, jump into its arms, and start licking it. It will know you're excited about talking with it. And, don't worry, if you converse silently, no passersby will see anything unusual. Slowly, slowly you begin getting connected, beginning a relationship.

Here's a tip. Notice the tree's appearance: its bark (woof), its foliage, its colors, texture, scent. Admire it.

Don't you wonder what and who its seen and heard during its life? What about rarthquakes, sun, rain, hrrricanes, snow, ice fog? How do those feel?

Can you imagine how many living beings we walk by each day? This is making me think of how many rocks and plants I peed on during my life in the Middle World. I had a friend at the dog park, Harry, an airedale. If he saw me pee, he'd trot over and pee on top. Then I'd trot back and pee on top. I loved playing Alpha-Alpha with him. Now I'm in a different state of awareness. The poor plant.

I'm saying that if you can learn not to take any relationship for granted, you will be ecstatic because you will exist in the present moment. Not to assume because when you assume, you're out of the moment. I remember being ecstatic every moment I was in the presence of my Soft-Tone. Unless she was cross and raised her voice. Then I was out the back door. But that didn't last.

It takes practice. I think continuous practice for humans because you're always on to the next thing while you're still doing what you're already engaged in.

Beginning a relationship with the spirit of a living being, not human, you begin a big "R" relationship. Because you begin to take your place in the universe, experience your interconnectedness to all living beings. Your birthright.

I've gotta go. Take a leap. Try it.
Grace

Speaking of Spirits; Let's Get Connected--Grace speaks

2007-12-24T08:09:00.001-08:00

Picture me , my nose pointing to the sky, talking, barking excitedly, twirling in circles, smiling past my ears, my eyes sparkling to the stars. I'm howling. Into the deep night, into the universe.

Finally, I'm writing on my two-legged's blog. Yes, it's me in the photographs on the blog.

I'm so excited. I've heard my two-legged talk about how we met thirteen years ago. She says I found her. I did. But she said, "Yes." She didn't have to.

I was trembling, slinking along the sidewalk in front of her house. I had flattened my beautiful black bushy tail up under my belly. I was terrified, on the street, escaped from a bad situation. She pulled up in her car. I stopped and looked at her. When she saw me, she turned off her car and didn't get out. I was freaked out and didn't know where I was. I felt desperate and began following a guy down to the corner. I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to get safe, I think, but I didn't know how. I was eleven months old.

She got out of her car but when she saw me turn around at the corner and trot back, she got back in her car. Was she afraid of me? She was avoiding me. Something about her caught my interest. I stopped in front of her house and waited.

After a few minutes she got out of her car carrying her groceries and walked past me up the sidewalk and up the steps to her porch. I followed her. Her essence wafted warm and friendly. She set the groceries down and sat on the top step. I stood next to her. I felt good being near her. She looked straight in my eyes and said, "I have been thinking about getting a dog, but I'm not ready yet." She emphasized "have." I lapped her cheek. She said, "Well, okay, you can come in just for a minute."

It was weird inside--all closed in. No sky, no trees or earth to sniff. No cats or canine news. It smelled strange, sort of dead, not like something had died, just weirdly not alive. But so many things smelled like her. It was confusing. Disorienting. Still it was strange and I couldn't see the sky or smell the outside clearly. It was a closed feeling and I wanted to bolt except that she kept talking to me in such a kind way.

She showed me all around the house talking softly to me the whole time. "This is the kitchen, doggie. It's okay, you don't have to be afraid. I don't think you've ever been in a house; have you?"

I heard a song, then a screetch. There were birds in her house! One of them talked like a two-legged! She showed me where they were and I sniffed around the metal cages. She said, "This is Zeus, and this is Rip and Tig." I would come back and look closer at them later.

We went in every room and I sniffed everything. Then she took me out back behind the house. It was all grassy, trees, plants, and great squirrel and cat and bird scents. It was quiet; no cars or street sweepers. The sound of street sweepers terrifies me.

I hadn't planned on telling you all this, but it's pouring out and I think it's good if you know who I am, a little bit at least, because I was just going to leap into the whole spirit world thing and that might have been too much. You'd probably think, "Who is this crazy canine saying all this spirit stuff?"

This way you can get to know me a little and perhaps it'll help you understand some of the things I'm going to tell you. It's hard to contain myself from leaping in though: I'm so excited to be able to talk, finally. My two-legged never knew this but I called her, Sweet Scent, Kind-One, Soft Tone, Smiling-One, Hugger, Funny One, Gentle Hands, Steady Palm, Angel.

Don't get the wrong idea. She wasn't an angel all the time, but neither was I. Perhaps there'll be more on this later.

She called her friend on the phone as I sniffed the kitchen floor. "I found this dog and I don't know what to do. She's really skinny and scared. She looks like she's been on the street for a while. She's really cute."

What her friend said was, "You've been talking about getting a dog, so here she is." Angel discussed this a while, hung up, squatted down and opened her hands to me. I walked over. She stroked my head. Her palm flattened on my head. She left it
"Okay, you can stay for a few days while I look for your people."

I was relieved but I was scared, too. I never wanted to see those people again. They were not my people. I had vowed I would not ever see them again. Never.

That was the beginning of a life long partnership with Angel. Finally. We were connected. It was meant for both of us. But neither of us knew it yet. Oh, there's so much to tell. But I'm I'm going to stop here and consider what I want to say next.

Grace

How Are We Wired?

2007-09-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

Can a person exercise compassion and simultaneously wage war? What do you think?

Outside Politics and Into the Portal: A Joyous Journey Begins

2007-04-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

When I began this blog I wrote about portals, what they are and how to access them in one's daily life.

Now let's go deeper. What about learning a core shamanic practice? The practice of "journeying."

"Journeying" refers to an altered state of consciousness that some call trance. It is a technique of travelling to non-ordinary reality to communicate with spirit helpers, especially teachers and power animals, primarily to get answers to questions and for healing.

These helpers are viewed as compassionate beings concerned with helping people solve problems, restoring harmony to the individual and to the world. For thousands of years shamans have journeyed to the spirit worlds to get help for others--healing and information. Shamans have traditionally been the people who "journey."

Years ago shamanism was systematically wiped out by many religions and governments around the world. Perhaps because shamans communicate directly with the spirit world, and are thus, outside heirarchies and outside politics, they were perceived as a threat to religions and governments.

But now, with the resurgance of shamanic practice, people other than shamans may learn to "journey." The opportunity to learn how to "journey" for oneself is a sacred gift.

One way a person may learn this ancient practice of "journeying" is by studying with with a shamanic counselor. Although derived from shamanism, the ancient practice of healing and divination, shamanic counseling is different. Unlike shamanism, in shamanic counseling there is no patient to be healed, and the counselor does not "journey" on behalf of the client.

The salient difference is that the counselor teaches the client how to "journey" on their own behalf. The clent learns how to "journey" to non-ordinary reality and with the assistance of spirit helpers they meet there, the client finds their own answers. The client learns a method of problem-solving based on "journeying."

Shamanic counseling is the radical practice of giving the reins to the client, or perhaps it is more accurate to say, "teaching the client to ride with the horse." The shamanic counselor teaches clients how to "journey" to solve their own problems--to find guidance from a compassionate source.

The compassionate beings that inhabit the Upper and Lower Worlds of non-ordinary reality are seen as experts, and in a series of sessions, the counselor teaches the client how to communicate with them directly. From an information exchange point of view, communicating directly with these beings is akin to obtaining information from a library of infinite primary sources. From an experiential point of view, communicating directly with the compassionate beings is thrilling and astounding.

In their "journeys" the client may ask questions about important issues, practical life difficulties, life's mysteries, about problems that the client has worked on but hasn't yet resolved. The client may ask anything and will receive answers.

After the client has mastered the procedures, the counselor encourages the client to practice "journeying" to the Upper and Lower Worlds to seek teachers and power animals. When the client feels comfortable "journeying" alone, they have accepted the reins and ride with the horse. They're on their way to experiencing a relationship with a radically different cosmos. A relationship in which they direct their path in a new way, bringing humane and compassionate solutions and actions to their life and to the world we live in. Compassion starts here. Outside politics. A joyous "journey" begins.

I'd love to read any comments you would like to make on this post or any of the other posts. At the bottom of each post there's a place called "Comments." If you click on that, you can write a comment in the box. When you finish, click on "Publish." That sends the comment to my email address. It does not show up on the Blog. If you'd like your comment to show on the blog, please let me know that and I'll post it under "Comments."
I look forward to hearing from you.

c Alesia Kunz

2007-04-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Compassion In Action: Let's Get Real

2007-03-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Media reports chaos: war, torture, killing, lying, profiteering from others’ misfortune, systematic neglect of people and the environment--all touted as necessary problem-solving strategies by governments around the world. Unpleasant surprises pop up. The U.S. government using a chemical weapon, white phosphorous, against Iraqi people and secretly spying on U.S. citizens. Genocide in Darfur. Displacement and death in Lebanon, Gaza, and Israel. The U.S. government continues making proclamations about Iran that look similar to those it made to justify invading Iraq. In attempting to censor the press by expanding the Espionage Act of 1917, the U.S. government attempts to curtail citizens’ first amendment rights, and has eliminated the right of Habeas Corpus for non-citizens. Ours is a problem-studded universe. A political maelstrom in which combat strategies abound.

When we question local and world leaders about the absence of compassionate strategies, we receive a myriad of answers based on the assumption that this is the nature of existence. When we suggest strategies for humane solutions, we’re told either that we don’t have all the information and therefore, that we don’t understand, or that we’re traitors for disagreeing with our governments’ policies. We’re often told that the information we need is classified. Cutting off access to information about what our governments are doing denies us the opportunity to act responsibly, to check misuse of power. A cosmology of chaos, fear, and secrecy is constructed. A political cosmology that discourages us from taking action, from being responsible participants in our lives.

Thousands of years ago many cultures had the view that a deep harmony structures all existence. An ordered existence in which people, animals, plants, and elements work together in harmony to solve problems. Even today Indigenous, religious, Buddhist, and shamanic communities use compassion as a core principle in solving problems--compassion in action.

All around the world shamans have carried on the ancient tradition of compassion in action through their effective healing and divination practice. But some religions and governments systematically wiped out this method of problem-solving by jailing and killing shamans. Is it because there are no religious or governmental intermediaries between the shaman and the source of compassionate strategies?

Although Buddhism is different from shamanism in many respects, the practice of compassion is core. In Tibet Buddhism was an essential element of the culture, as shamanism was in communities around the world. In 1959 there were more than 6,000 monasteries in Tibet. Within twenty years the Chinese government had destroyed all but eight, and had tortured and killed over 100,000 monks and nuns.

We can offer many hypotheses for the destruction of these and other communities the world over, but it appears that because it is outside politics, compassion is seditious.

Compassion is a neutralizer, offering different perspectives. Compassion counterbalances impulses of greed, domination, and fear. The more compassion fills us, the more we may be willing and able to seek kinder non-combative solutions to our personal, local, national, and world problems. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is an example.

While governments cut off our access to information, compassionate practices encourage us to ask questions and interact in a world of infinite information, thus, offering us the opportunity to discover humane strategies and to take responsible action on our own behalf. Agency in our daily lives.

“Journeying” like a shaman to the spirit world for compassionate strategies, and thinking like the Dalai Lama won’t guarantee cessation of death, destruction, torture and war, the cynical strategies of world governments. But we can exercise our individual choice and try. Taking action can set a wave of compassion in motion, making war and destructive strategies more unsavory, thus, more difficult to employ.

Sometimes we spontaneously feel compassion. Seeing an old person struggle to cross the street, an injured animal, a person with no shelter. Global atrocities. Many of us have felt the deeply moving experience of someone expressing compassion toward us. It is an instantly transforming moment filled with grace.

We can also do specific things to activate our compassion-- think about it, talk with others about it, meditate on it, let ourselves feel, study one of the compassionate ancient traditions, start our own. We can join the beings that are devoted to helping one another solve problems, restoring harmony and health to them and slowly perhaps, to the world.

The opportunity is available to experience a radically different cosmos. A relationship in which we direct our path in a new way, bringing compassionate solutions and actions to our lives and to the world. We can continue an ancient tradition of compassion in action. The newly elected U.S. Congress has this opportunity. Will they stand up and speak compassion? Make compassion public.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and on any other posts. If you'd like to comment, click on "Comments" at the bottom of the post. Then write in the box. When you're finished, click on "Publish." That sends your comment to my email address. It does not show up on the blog. If you would like your comment to show on the blog, let me know and I'll post it in the "Comments."
I look forward to hearing from you.

c Alesia Kunz

Jumping In: The Spirit World

2007-03-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

What about we just jump in? Into the world of spirits.

What is the spirit world? It's a world where spirits live. People and beings who used to live in the Middle World, where we live now, who have passed out of this world into another. Our grandparents, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, dogs, cats, trees, plants. All inhabit the spirit world.

We can talk with them. And they wish to talk with us.

The most incredible information is that the spirit world is inhabited by compassionate beings. All the spirits are compassionate beings. I have learned many things from this world but by far the most important for me is compassion. Each time I enter the spirit world I am shown compassion. As a result, my compassion blossoms. With every contact I make, the color of my compassion spreads and deepens. It is a remarable gift.

c Alesia Kunz

2007-02-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

Collaborating with the Wild: Portals in Nature

2007-02-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

Entering portals in nature. Sheri Tepper, in her science fiction novel, Grass, uses the ordinary plant, grass, as the central image, the portal into a mystical, real, thrilling and terrifying world. All kinds of grasses cover the earth like a sea-- currents waving and undulating seductively on the surface, hiding an underworld teeming with beings. Are they predators, victims, the hunted, or the hunters?

"Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grasses--some high, some low, some feathered, some straight--making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet..."

The reader and the writer move through the portal of grass into a world of compelling, frightening, poignant relationships between humans, unfamiliar beings-- Peepers, Hippae, Hounds, Foxen-- and a plague. Humans and the environment.

Grass, like all books are, is a portal into other worlds. With each page we turn we move deeper and deeper into a fantastic landscape that provokes a visceral response. When we close the book, the green stuff that grows as lawns and on hillsides is no longer a benign prettiness, but a numinous pulsing sentient entity. We have been changed by moving through the portal.

Interacting with Nature can be like reading the novel. A complex experience, different for different people. Delicious, wonderful, terrifying, gross, soothing, provocative.

I invite you to take a chance. Walk into Nature. It's wild. In our daily material life, collaborating with Nature, like reading, is a pathway into a different world. But unlike reading a novel, collaborating with the wild is opening to the world of spirits. Moving into this world takes focus and intent. Every element in Nature is a potential portal into the world of spirits. Do we want to pass through a portal, deep into the wild, into Nature? It's a serious and thrilling step. It's worth thinking about.

If we want to collaborate with Nature, we've got to have the intent to communicate, and the focus to do it. We've got to talk. Talk with some element, force, being of Nature. Wild beings. Images of the Divine.

Communing with Nature isn't a new idea. Rather, it's newly out of fashion. Communing with the elements of nature is ancient and modern (shamans world wide for tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples all over the world, American Transcendentalists).

So, how does one talk with spirits of Nature? We do it all the time. We can talk silently or we can speak out loud. Let's take a flower, for example. Stopping to look at a flower. We notice it. We admire it. We appreciate its scent, the form of the leaves, the colors, the textures. We may even talk to it. "You smell so sweet." If we're with someone we might invite them to appreciate it. "Wow, smell this!" We're communing, talking with that flower. This is a way in. A beginning. Greeting the portal.

If we're serious about going further, really wanting to know the flower, we pursue that intent, and go deeper. Just as when we want to get to know a person, it means spending time with that being, talking and listening. It requires a committment.

Talking is often easier than listening. Listening is complex. What is the language of wild beings, anyway? Can we understand it? Often we need to enter an altered state of consciousness in order to hear what Nature has to say. Why? Because we're listening to a spirit. The spirit of the flower. We need to enter their world in order to have a two-way conversation. Like picking up the telephone. Both parties need to be on the phone. Or, Instant Messaging, if we want to be connected at the same time. Or, in telepathic communications, often people open themselves at a synchronized time to transmit and receive, putting themselves in an altered state in which they share intent and focus. It's an agreement and wish to collaborate.

Collaborating with a spirit of the wild is like collaborating with a person in some ways. Getting to know them is important. Getting to know them gives us information about whether or not it's a good match. And, the being we want to work with must agree to work with us. Just as in collaborating with a person in the material world, we wouldn't just say, "I choose you," and expect that person to agree. That would be rude and presumptuous. It's the same in Nature.

Entering into the wild is thrilling. Many people have had the experience of snorkling. Picture being under water next to a reef, revelling in the brightly colored schools of fish surrounding you. Suddenly a black eel slips out from a reef in front of your face. In a flash of thrill and fear you realize that you are in their world. A wild different world. Or, when you're in the woods and you come upon a bear, or when the earth and everything around you is shaking out of control in an earthquake, you know you are in the world of Nature, a wild place.

Entering the wild, entering portals in Nature is mind expanding. Communicating and learning from wild beings, spirits of Nature, is an experience that can change you forever. If you choose to proceed, it may seem difficult at first. Listening to and hearing from the spirits of Nature is easier for some people than others. Be encouraged. Keep trying. They appreciate our efforts. Intent and focus are crucial for every kind of entry and collaboration with the wild.

c Alesia Kunz

Images of the Divine

2007-01-23T12:49:00.000-08:00

Everything that lives is an image of the divine. An expression of magnificence, and beauty.

We experience the divine on a daily basis, if our language reflects our reality. Let's look at paradigm cases of how we express our experience. Bring to mind hearing someone respond to something they see, hear, smell, taste, feel. "That's heavenly; that's divine." And guess what? "That's out of this world!" Common expressions, common experiences.

Nature offers infinite images of the divine. All plants, the earth, the air, animals, insects, birds, fish, fire, water. All of these manifestations of magnificence, of sentience, are potential portals.

Have you ever been transported by the scent of a rose, a hyacinth, narcisscus, rosemary, oregano, pine? Heavenly. Where do you go in those seconds of experiencing olfactory bliss? Do you remember being transfixed as a child watching ants work, spiders, snakes, a ladybug, a bee collecting pollen, a lightening bug at night? Amazing, yes? Where did you go?

Have you been transported by the flames of a fire to somewhere in your mind, you don't know where? Coming back to consciousness we realize that we've been somewhere else. At any moment we can go to an ocean beach and see people staring at the water. Often we hear people say, "I can sit for hours watching the ocean."

So, how do we collaborate with elements of Nature, images of the divine, in order to move into the spirit world?

c Alesia Kunz

Portals, What Are They?

2007-01-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Windows, doors, gates, entrances. Openings to something. Openings to other worlds. Worlds of information, worlds of animals, worlds of plants, worlds of science, medicine, art, music, sports, drama.

We choose to enter portals all the time whether they're in the material world or the virtual world. Every time we swim in the ocean, every time we walk into a new building, every time we learn how to do something, we're entering a portal in the material world. Every book is a portal. Whenever we open one, we're entering a portal into a virtual world, whether it's fiction or nonfiction

Portals are real in the sense that they are entrances to other worlds. But are the worlds beyond the portals real? How can we tell? In the realm of books, nonfiction purports to be about material world truths, facts. We still choose to believe it or not based on our experience in the material world. It gets a little dicey when we read about physics, black holes, and the Bermuda Triangle. There's a lot we don't know, and nobody knows.

What happens when we read fiction and we find ourselves weeping, laughing, terrified, elated, hopeful, or desolate? Is this experience real? Where does the experince that evoked our emotions take place? We might say we're employing Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief" when we open the book. Does that change anything?

In shamanism the practitioner travels through portals, that open to the spirit worlds. The practitioner learns the ancient methods of "journeying" to the worlds of the spirits for help: information and healing. The shaman brings the information back to the world she/he lives in, the Middle World, and assists in being a bridge for the spirits to come and heal people. Shamans have done healing and divination work for tens of thousands of years. Do we believe this? It doesn't matter because the healing is the evidence.

So what about these worlds of spirits?

There are so many accounts of people having near death experiences who describe finding themselves "on the other side," the place where souls or spirits go when the physical body is dropped at death. It seems the person's spirit or soul has temporarily crossed over into the world of the spirits. Spirits of people who have died. Perhaps there would be vastly divergent accounts of these experiences if they were what we call someone's "imagination." But, the accounts are strikingly similar. That suggests that a spirit world may exist.

This is the same phenomenon exists in accounts of shamans' journeys to the spirit worlds. Shamans all over the world recount strikingly similar experiences. In his book, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy, Mircea Eliade, scholar of history of religion, describes the practice of shamanism over two and a half millenia all over the world. These shamans could not have known what other shamans were doing on the other side of the world.

In the first post I said anyone can access portals to other worlds. Spirit worlds.

In Louise Erdrich's novel, The Birchbark House, the protagonist, Omakayas, a young Ojibwa girl, encountering bear cubs, addresses them as "little brothers." She plays with them until suddenly she is flipped on her back and pinned by the mother bear who is breathing "on her a stale breath of decayed old deer-hides and skunk cabbages and dead mushrooms." The girl knew not to move, but when she closed her scissors, she cut a piece of the sow's fur by mistake. She calls the bear, "Nokomis," grandmother. She apologises and continues to explain why she is playing with the cubs as the mother sniffs her. There is a long passage about their communication. Omakayas has another bear encounter and talk which when her grandmother hears about it, she knows Omakayas is a healer.

In this instance the portal was opened by Omakayas addressing, acknowledging, and talking with the bears. She talks with other animals, their spirits, and receives information from them. It's interesting in her speech she acknowledges the animals and herself as part of the same family.

We can access the spirit worlds by acknowledging them. Accessing the portals. Do I mean talking to animals and plants? Yes. But talking is only a part of the process. We must listen. We must learn to listen. We can talk with spirts of people, animals, and plants that are living, and that have died. This act of acknowledgement opens the way.

Contacting the spirit world is available to everyone. One of the main entrances is through images of the divine.

c Alesia Kunz

Portals Into Other Worlds-- Are They Real?

2007-01-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

For many years science fiction writers and readers have been fascinated by portals, opeinings to other worlds. Is it the fantasy element, transporting without moving, curiosity about what's on the other side, imagination in action, or something else that feeds our fascination?

The worlds portrayed through portals are generally fantastic. Worlds where magic happens, worlds in the historic or mythic past, future worlds, or worlds with different cosmologies.

Public school English classes in the U.S. have been offering reading experiences about portals to students for over fifty years. "The Veldt," published in 1951, written by Ray Bradbury is an example. In this short story parents have set up a play area for their children inside a portal in the house. It is a virtual reality, a jungle. The parents are warned by their psychologist not to allow the children to spend too much time inside where all of the children's wishes can manifest. The parents begin to worry that something strange is happening and the psychologist tells them to shut it down. But, when the parents threaten to shut down the portal, the chidren beg, the parents succomb. The children invite the parents in,and lock them inside where they are slaughtered by the jungle animals who have come alive. Wow!

But perhaps it's not only being virtually transported into fantastic worlds that fascinates us. Perhaps we have real world personal knowledge of portals. Perhaps this knowledge lives in our cells, a Jungian collective unconscious memory of the experience.

The experience of openings to other worlds. Spirit worlds.

Thousands of years ago people all over the world were in contact with the spirit worlds. Often their lives often depended on it. They contacted the spirits to find food and shelter. These people are our relatives, our ancestors. We have memories.

As the world moves more and more into material consciousness, we need legitimate frameworks within which to exercise and understand our other-than-material experiences. Also we need ways to save and honor our traditions. Science fiction, inadvertantly, is one of these frameworks. It legitiizes our relationship with portals. We can say, "It's speculative fiction," and no one will look at us as if we're strange. Except insofar as to read science fiction, one might be strange.

Shamanism is another such framework. An ancient tradition in which the shaman journeys through portals to other worlds to get help to do healing and divination. The shaman journeys through a portal into the spirit world to receive help from the spirits. For tens of thousands of years people all over the world have done this work. There is a movement today to preserve and continue this work. The practice of shamanism is growing.

What's really fantastic is that anyone can access portals to the spirit worlds.

c Alesia Kunz