Letter From Mother Earth

Email from a small blue planet:
Desperately seeking anyone willing to listen.
This is mother earth calling humanity…is there anyone out there? Repeat…is anyone there?
You have sacked my treasures, burned my kingdoms, soured my waters, maimed, injured and utterly laid waste my vast resources…
Is anyone there…
You have wreaked havoc on my sacred forests and set traps and snares to catch my prized animals. You have shot pure acid into my atmosphere and generated tons of toxic wastes that will not be diluted even a million years from now…my veins, the rivers of this planet are tainted with every poisonous thing known to man.
Are you hearing me?
You have put wealth and fast moving machines ahead of the sacredness of life and family, neglect, poverty and illness run unchecked through my humankind.
You have justified wars without cause, and hatred without basis, you have turned a blind eye to the starving, the destitute, the old and the infirm. You have raise up generations that have no value for life, who see no sacredness even in the breath of their own parents or children, you have allowed the massacre of millions simply because they live in places you never heard of and have no interest in.
Are you there? You can't hide you know I hear your ever breathe! You can't run away, you can't escape the TRUTH of what you have done.
I gave you speech in the hopes that you would become the keepers of my kingdoms and that you show respect to she who bore you, but no…now you have no use for me, you would rather play with your fancy machines, drive over my face in you pollution vehicles, watch endless hours of meaningless tripe on the Television, turn up the volume, turn out the fact, turn a blind eye…well, guess what you have put yourselves in danger!
Ah, now I see you are listening…you didn't like that did you? TRUTH hurts! Especially when you know that you should be doing something about it…some of the children are starting to awaken, they see clearly what is coming,
This nice mother you have, this 'little blue planet' as you so fondly call me is very ill, any day now it will become apparent that either you all must begin to work to get me healthy or someone better find another place to live! There is no more time left to work on solutions, all of you should know what needs to happen, that is if you would take a good look around you,,, when was the last time you actually took a walk with nature? No I am not suggesting that you run out to one of those Natural Food places and start buying supplies, I am suggesting that you should go touch the face of this dear old mother of yours, feel the earth, look at your sky, see what you have done!
Ah, are you uncomfortable? Too bad, so am I! My forest have been ruined and I need some fresh air, my rivers, lakes, oceans and streams are polluted and I desperately need fresh water. There are land fills bulging with your endless disposable this and that’s and quite honestly it makes it difficult for me to redistribute soil where it is so desperately needed.
In once lovely Africa there is no safe place for many of my creatures, and in some places there not even the humans are behaving as if they had a brain.
What is it going to take for all of you to take a day to just be with me, look at me, speak with me, and begin to dialogue with me in meaningful ways? Would the world as you know it come to an end if everyone just took a full 24 hours and tried to learn about all the things you could be doing individually to help me? Sorry lot of offspring you all are can't even help out your old mom when she needs tending to!
How much longer are you going to continue to let the haters of this world keep on making hate, how much longer are you going to pretend that everything is alright?
This is the letter of a desperate and albeit old woman, and I demand to know what you intend to do! Enough with meetings and reports, enough with organization and affiliations, enough with all of things that you think will work! How about this for an idea, everyone just sit down for one day

Official Google Blog: We can't wait for Earth Day

Official Google Blog: We can't wait for Earth Day

The Secret? or Life A Work in Progress

Somewhere in my memory I hear the voice of my step father's mother, she was the only grandmother I ever knew and she had a tremedous impact on my life as I grew up, and even well into the 70's when I had a family of my own already. She would hear of some tragedy or other and her eyes would crinkle at the edges while they filled with tears of compassion then she would state rather matter of factly,"Ah, life! It's just a work in progress, we poor humans live out our given years and then we step out of this form into another, just like the sanp of our fingers, it is so fast!"
So comes March the month when my grandmother was born, of course the year was 1880 and the times were much different then. She however never lost the magic of life, the hundred and one little sparks that make life magical were always just behind the twinkle in her eyes when she told a story, or reprimanded myself or one of her other 33 grandchildren. She was a constant teacher, never being too busy to stop and tell a story, weave her magic and then move one. When I first became her grandchild I was somewhat freightened of this lovely silver haired woman in patchwork skirt and silk ruffled blouse, with hair braided to her knees, woven with beads and ribbons. She was magic, living, talking, singing, walking, gardening, cooking she was always so full of life that she fairly twinkled in a special light.
It was my grandmother that first introduced me to the idea of Leprechan's! Little folk, Fairies, Dwarfs and the like. One day while my mother and new step father were off on their honeymoon she took me for a walk in what she called the "wee people's forest". It was there that I first remember seeing toadstools, and fairy rings in the damp moist earth beneath the pine tree that surronded her farm. In the dark dense soft floor of the forest my grandmother pointed out tiny little paths amoung the leaves that led to holes in the trees, or tiny crevises in the rocks, "There" she would say "that's a sure sign of the wee people." And at night when the fireflys filled the air with childish delight she would declare that the faires were flying off to a meeting unde the great pines! In the morning I would hurry out to look for toadstool rings, a definate sign that some wee people had held a meeting there during the night! It was wonderful stuff, the stories of my childhood. My heart holds dear those times of believing in 'magic' and the unseen world of the wee people.
Now of course as an adult, even though I hate to admit it some of the precious times of life then have slipped away into the recesses of my mind and remain now only as memories.
Life is a work in progress, that's certain, I can't help but wonder though how many of us really know that. Recently as those of you who read my blog often know my husband and I have helped out friends going through some tough physicall and emotional things and I can honestly say that the uncle in the situation is oblivious to anything but his own ego! The neice, who is my friend is much more aware and awake following her brush with death. So today I am musing about in my mind wondering if we wouldn't all be better off if we could hold on to the fantasies of our youth, if we could stay connected to the magic in life so that we could see things in a more open and aware fashion. Yes, I know that all human beings must grow into adults, but wouldn't we possibly be better adults if the wonder and merriment of our youth never left us?
My grandmother never changed, in all the long years of her life she never lost the connection to the magic side of things, she was always able to live with such abandon, such happiness that everyone who met her loved her! She could light up a dull conversation by making all of us remember the times when we believed whole heartedly that fairies, gnomes, dragons and damsals still lived in a realm that we could neither see nor enter, she could open the door at a moments notice to the side of life that made it special and real! She was self sufficient all of her life, 100 years of life...she grew her own vegetables, fruits, and raised her own chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits and never made a meal out of a can of anything unless of course she had put it up in the last season! She walked miles every day, feeding livestock, caring for her gardens, hauling water from the lake, making bread, churning butter and yet I never recall that she ever complained about a thing! She had a love for life that was insurmountable! She held fast to the fantasy, the belief of other beings in a realm right here beside us, she heard voice when the wind blew, and could tell whether the rain would come by walking barefoot on the ground.
Age didn't seem to touch her in the way it does the rest of us, she was the same in my eyes on the day she died as she was on the day I first met her. There was something about her belief system that made life a journey worth taking, it was brand new and the same all in one instant! She taught everyone who crossed her path something about life, how to cope, to be stallwart in conviction, how to manage when everyone else was going broke, how to trim a tree, or clip a hedge, how to make the gladiolas bloom twice and the tomatoes bear fruit right up to the first heavy frost! She made life fun, and most important she made life exciting! When she said it was a work in progress she meant it!
Wouldn't it be wonderful if on this Saint Patricks Day just for a moment all of us could believe! Don't you wonder how much it would change us if we weren't so caught up in the living of life, making ends meet stuff that we could actually see a firefly and think it was a fairy? I have to tell you that some part of what she taught me still keeps me going after all these years, at times I actually am able to believe in small people, secret pots of gold and the rainbows that lead us to them! However, I am ashamed to say that I don't believe as often as I should! Grandmother told me once that the secret fountain of youth was real, that all one had to do was believe in the unbelievable and hold on to the magic of life and everything would be wonderful!
It saddens me to see that somehow over the years this old world of ours has become far to 'REAL", now I am not saying that we should throw all caution to the wind and begin to act like children, but what I am saying is that a little of the magic of this life needs to sneak back in, and we need to help it! Life isn't supposed to be druggery! I know that hard work, and honest labor are supposed to reward us with all that we need, and that we are suppose to be content not to ever get what we want! The Judaic/Christian philosophy of life is work hard, work harded and be happy with what you have, but I am not ready to settle for that, and I hope dear readers that you aren't eaither!
Recently I heard about a book that has been making it big called 'The Secret!", well I have a news flash for you, the book is really nothing new, it is infact almost word for word a concept that rose to the forefront in the late 1800's and was espoused as "The Way to Live a Wonderful Life". Having read 'The Secret", I can tell you that there are some good, yes ever wonderful ideas in there, but guess what unless you have the heart and the mind of a child you won't believe any of it! The true secret to a happy life is simple...try a little magic, don't tell your children you are feeding them brocolli tonight tell them that they are having Fairy Trees, and that if they eat them all they will be able to see the wee people! The true secret ,to success is to believe in miracles, in magic, in the possibility that what we see and live is not all that there is, that right here in this space that I occupy on this seat there is an infinite number of finite worlds which we do not see, and can not imagine even if we tried.
The true secret is that if you can remember the monster under your bed when you were a child, or the tooth fairy, or if you have ever imagined that a fairy had danced in your yard and now in this moment you can recapture that feeling even for an instant you will have a better life. If indeed you do remember the magic of your childhood and can muster up the courage to share it with one or two of your children, or family, or friends than you have the ability to reawaken in them the same magic! And that dear ones is the true secret to a wonderful life.
This old world of ours is full of tragedy and hate, full of wars, and pestilence and arrogance that harms and hurts, and people who are users and abusers, this old world of ours is changing for the worse everyday not for the better, so try this simple remedy to give yourself and those around you a boost:
RX:
Take one part joy of childhood,
Wrapped in gossmer tight
Hold it to the rainbow
Till is gathers light
Then lift it up and looking close
You'll be amazed at what you see...
The eyes of fairy maidens,
There beneath a tree!
A toadstool ring, a gnomes home
Gather back the magic moon
Now look into the faces all around the room...
Hope does spring eternal, or so the story goes
It isn't wealth or riches, nor whom a person knows...
True riches spring from wonder, the kind found in a child
Sweet magic of believing other worlds and other beings
Lead us to a happiness of soul felt murmurings
Let's us be at peace again, out of place and time
Leads us back to fonder days once when life was kind
Gives us back our looking glass, our merriment and merth
Makes us the type of people who can save our earth! ep 2007

And as the old song goes, Joy, Joy to the world! Sweet people gather round, the fairy beings are dancing now, their tiny drums do sound and we are all one nation, one tribe upon the earth, no sound of guns now silenced, no weapons of distruction to harm the fragile ones, just joy and hope and wonder as PEACE comes tumgling down! Buffy St. Marie 1962

Methadone Kills..Choose Life

February blew into this year with winds of change, the face of the worlds weather is changing rapidly, more rapidly that we had thought. Violent winds, life taking events, freezing temperatures across the northern hemisphere and ice melting away in rapid quick fire sequences from the southern hemisphere!
As we thought in December, this old world that we know is all changing. Life on earth has always been a series of questions, how did it start, where did some of the life we know as fossils disappear to, what caused the ice age...the questions are as endless as the universe.
We all live in micro cosims of life, our family, our employment, our friends, our state, our country, our world but in this age of ever quickening communication speeds what we once thought of as unending is being stretched to the limits. A family member can be hit with personal tragedy thousands of miles away and yet we know it almost instantly via email, or phone, or cell phone, or pager, no longer do we have to wait days to learn that someone we love is in harms way, in a hospital or even dead. The world has become smaller and smaller in this lifetime. A letter once took weeks to reach Europe, now it takes only the breath of seconds from the time we type and hit the word send on our email. In such an age you would think that human beings would be more caring, more aware of the world around them, more connected! Alas that is not true.
This past month we watched while a dear friend hovered between life and death in a hospital here in California, each day we came back home and wrote emails to her family letting them know each step of the way how she was, and we stood by in awe of modern medicine as she rallied, awoke from an 11 day medication induced coma and worked her way slowly but steadily back into this world.
It is an amazing age in which we live, every human being alive should be grateful for the technology that surrounds us, we should live in a state of pure gratitude for all the benefits that this era of swift communication, and medical technology has given us.
Our friend is out of the hospital now, but she has returned to live in her uncles home and he is unfortunately a legal addict. In this world there are those who really would have no part of it, in fact there are those who are so caught up in the games that they have learned to play that they have no time for even the smallest piece of gratitude, no time for anything but their own twisted and perverse desire to be the center of attention at all times. Our friends uncle is one of these people. There are in this world people who so cloud their minds with drugs legal and illegal that their only pleasurable moments in life are those following their favorite fix, or as we observed this week...the moments when the doctor provides that all important prescription to druggie Nirvana, the pain medication methadone.
We have had the sad occasion to witness the results of being allowed to wallow in self pity, while using others who had good intent as mere enablers. We have seen first hand the results of self love so strong that it utilizes the unaware, the weak and the would be helpful friends like pawns in a chess game.
At this point you are probably wondering what soap box I am on this month...here goes! The adverse affect of drugs in our society is at an all time high. A person who we know and care about has become so dependent on pity, and pills that he is no longer any earthly good to himself or to anyone else, and we fear that he is taking our friend who almost lost her life a few weeks ago with him. I became a care giver to the person in question when his niece was suddenly taken ill and hospitalized. Nothing that I ever learned in school could have prepared me for the two weeks of hell through which we have just passed.
We live in a society where there are too many physicians who are dead set on keeping their patients 'out of pain' and in which there are far too many legal drug addicts hooked on prescription medications which could easily be replaced with long walks, contemplative meditation and proper diet! Case in fact is our friend, a man who was once a professor of some standing at a University, a man who by his own brothers account has long used and abused friends, family and legal prescription drugs. We were called to his home by him late in the night, he told us he had fallen and couldn't get up...what he didn't tell us was that he had used nearly four times the amount of his methadone ( yes, given to him for pain...fibromyalgia he says) and as a consequence was high!
When we arrived at his home the front door was unlocked, and we found him not on the floor, but sitting gaily in his chair puffing away on a cigarette ( he has a $500 a month smoking habit) and laughing while watching a movie! He had managed to get up alright, get up and call half a dozen friends to come to his rescue!
All of this has given me a wake up call, when is too much medication OK? Who exactly regulates how many doctors he may be getting different medications from? And most importantly when was the last time that this human being took a good long look at himself in a mirror?
So I began to wonder how many people in the state where we live are given Methadone prescriptions every month, along with three or four other pain medications by so called Pain Management Clinics... the statistics that I have located so far tell me more than I wanted to know. On average, every household in the state has at least one family member on legal prescription pain killers, and every other person in the state knows someone who is legally high 24/7!
Outraged! That is how I feel! Totally outraged. Here is a man whose General Practitioner told me in front of her patient that he has " Debilitated" himself by his self destructive behaviors, he doesn't exercise, smokes two to three packs of cigarettes a day, over utilizes his prescription pain drugs, and basically has set himself on a course for death. In two weeks of doctors visits with this person never once did I hear any doctor suggest that he should be put in a rehab, given less pain medication and assisted in learning other ways to cope with his so called pain! The only doctor in fact who would discuss his problems was his GP and she told him that he had debilitated himself. She had tried ,she said, to tell him to go to physical therapy and work at strength building, she sent him to classes to learn to control his diabetes with diet and exercise, he didn't go, she tearfully related to me that she couldn't in good conscious apply for in home health care for him because he wouldn't do the things she asked of him.
In a society where there is so much information, and assistance to aide a person in being healthy, even with several illnesses it is beyond me that doctors can continue to dispense pills as if they are the answer to every pain!
I have a new flash for those of you who are like my friend...get up out of you wallow of self pity, take a walk, try putting out the cigarette and reaching for the crunch of a good apple! Get up out of your chair where you sit two feet from the TV, in a drug and smoke induced trance and try LIFE!
This whole sordid mess has made me wonder about the ethics of doctors who would rather hand out a prescription for legal pain pills than tell a patient to get up off the duff and join the living! How can we stand by and let pills become the end all for such things? I have arthritis, serious rheumatoid arthritis,twice I have face death head on, I am sixty one years young! I have an artificial tendon in my right leg, blood pressure that is sometimes dangerous and yes I take medication, but I also eat healthy, don't smoke, exercise, read, write, walk the dog, play with the grand kids, enjoy life and think about new ways to be involved in life everyday.
What happens to a persons physche that leads to a way of life that totally revolves around them and their next fix? Who should be held accountable for the thousands of people who are on three, four or more pain killers who might have a better quality of life if their doctor looked them straight in the eye and said, you need rehab? Is the money baron of the drug companies responsible, is the doctor? No! It is the person who decided what goes into their system, it is that individual who decides that smoking away $500 a month is more important than paying their mortgage and it is the person who decides to sit down, lay down and kill themselves slowly by doing absolutely nothing to help themselves...and it is those who are enablers and think it is alright for their friend to be so stoned on legal prescriptions that they disrupt a half dozens friends lives with calls for help when what they really need is to be locked up, dried out, and pushed into helping themselves.
I am outraged! Totally completely outraged that we have come to such a place in our society that this sort of practice of medicine is allowed. If I were a politician I would be on the street corners of America tomorrow publicly displaying the statistics for the legally drugged! I wish that there would be an outcry from people who know people like my friend! I wish that there was a magic bullet to take away the adverse affects of too many years of abuse of legal prescription pain killers...I wish that I had never known anyone who is so self absorbed that they can't tell the difference between real illness and drug overdose! I wish that I could change the laws so that all drug dispensers would have instant access to the names of those who are receiving legal pain killers from more than one doctor, and that doctors had to report every patient that comes in asking for an increase in medications to dull their senses before they could dispense the prescription. Of course none of those things will ever happen and thousands of people will continue to live in a drugged stupor induced by medications prescribed by multiple doctors who don't seem to care as long as their yatch is paid for!
For myself I choose LIFE! Living daily to the fullest of my potential, streaching my mind, my soul and my body for the sake of staying alive! I wish that there were some way to reach the depths of the minds of people like my friend and to infuse them with a zeal, a zest for life so that they could see that it is really worth the effort! Life is struggle, sometimes it is painful, and of course it isn't always easy, of course it won't always be what you wish, but it is real, it is earnest, it is wonderful and it can at times be tremedously rewarding! One need only reach for health, for strength, for involvement and suddenly life is BEAUTIFUL!!

The Dawn of Renewal

As the sun set on 2006 my husband and I both sighed in relief! It was a tremendous year, a difficult year, a year of overcoming obstacles, a year of renewing strenghth, a year of begining again to live life in the hustle and bustle of Long Beach. It was a year that saw us gravely critized for returning to the United States, we struggled to overcome the loses sustained in our migration to Israel and back and to regain our footing with the faith of our fathers and mothers. No one can understand the heartache that accompanies the trials that we went through in Israel, unless you have experienced the utter devestation of your spiritual beliefs by those whom you expected to be pure it would be difficult to explain what we have been through. It is a year and two months since we returned here and this past weekend we met a fellow who has gone through a similar experience within the Catholic Religion, a fellow traveler in the depths of what a soul knows and the contradictions that can come from those who profess to be the only true believers of their faith.
Never does it cease to amaze me that we could have been so blind to what the TRUTH was, daily when I wake I thank whatever divine being watches over our souls for allowing us to go through the valley of the death of our religious beliefs and then raised us up to a perspective from which we can clearly see that all religion is man made, we still hold tight to the belief in a divine entity from which we all sprange in some pool of souls many thousands of lifetimes ago, but we see clearly that most organized religion is truly not divine but only the sordid ideas of those who think themselves to be spiritual.
We see most clearly the fact that all human kind is precious, and that war, hatred,destruction of life, and of earth is the end result of years of teaching that we are all different and therefore not equal. We see also that no one religion is totally true, that religion itself is formed by the men who first put to paper what they concieve as their idea of what a divine entity would want from human kind. At the same time it is evident to us that what we have in the world now in the way of religion and religious belief systems is no longer working.
Ah, you might say...are we advocating a new "religion", to which we would answer absolutely not, the last thing this old world of ours needs is any more holier than thou humans running around.
No, what we are advocating is that we begin as human being to look at what all this beliving has gotten us, what all the rituals, the must do' and must not do ideals have begat!
What we see now is that it is a time of a new dawn on this planet, perhaps the last great new dawn that human kind will ever see.
If you are still reading then we would like you to do one thing for us...sit down tonight with your family, your friend, husband, lover, wife whoever inhabits your home and for one solid hour talk to each other about what you really believe, if you believe, why you believe and how this influences how you go about your life. Ask yourselves these three questions and answer them in writing, honestly without worry about what anyone but you might think of the answers:
1. If I left my religion behind this moment and thought on my own about what I really know of life outside of that box what would I say?
2. If I have a set of beliefs taught to me by someother human being how do I know that these beliefs are true?
3. If I chose to set down on paper a statement of the things that rule my behaivor in public, at home, with friends, with family, at work or school how would I measure up to what I had been taught?
Once you have done that take a long walk, go out into the street and simply walk in silence, not talking to anyone but yourself for an entire hour.
Now go back inside and without sharing with anyone look at the answers to the questions and see if they have changed after your counsel with yourself.
What my husband and would like to see happen is for people to begin to take personal responsibility for their belief system and to feel free to pick and choose what fits them, sort of like shopping for a new home. Did you know that 98% of all new houses purchased resemble the old house the people just sold? Think of it...if you were raised in a religious belief take time to reaccess if it now fits your lifestyle, more importantly if it truly serves your spiritual needs.
We have come to understand that human kind is searching for their own spirits grounding, that the old system of going to church, synagogue or Mosque, Temple or other religious edifice is no longer serving the need of most peoples spirits.
We feel as do many spiritually knowledgeable individuals that it is a time when human kind needs to seek out and grab hold of what is TRUTH to them, a time to let go of what doesn't work any longer and begin anew to listen to that part of us that is spirit and to embrace change.
Those of you who know us understand that we have gone through a tremendous change in our physical lives as well as in our spiritual lives. We have come through a deep valley of travail, learning and suffering that has made us reacess what it is that the creator being, the divine spark that piece of us that is holy truly desires of us!
We are simply asking that those of you who read this blog try an experiment, that you begin to try to listen to your own spirit and to learn more than what is represented as true by your particular religious system. We want to you reach outside of the predetermined box and at the same time delve into your inner self, to learn what it is that causes you to desire to be more than you thought you could be, and that you take time to commune with that within you which is spirit in order to live in a more comfortable, more loving and caring fashion.
Mother Earth, Gaia, had under gone a complete transformation in the last 24 months, she has been through horrific times and she is beggin us to grow and change with her so that we can continue to exist.
Enough of wars, and egos, enough of thinking one soul better than another, we must begin to live in harmony with each other and with the earth if we are to survive.
You will not hear any predictions from us of disaster, or the end times, but what you are going to hear over this next year is that we need to reawaken that which we have lost, the spirit, that small piece of each of us that is divine must be brought to light. Examine yourself, think about what we are saying, if you were going to buy a new house you would most probably, ( remember the 98% chance) buy one that looks similar to the one you are moving out of...makes you wonder doesn't it? Well here is the thing, there is no longer any time for us to continue perpetuating empty religious beliefs filled with man made dogmas...NO! The time has come for all of human kind to awaken from the spiritual apathy that grips our souls and begin to search for what is TRUTH, that divine piece of what makes us unique, and to live our lives in a fashion that sees all other human life a precious and valuable...that's all, just trying to wake you up a bit.