Blue Sky Roses

Rose red and roses white

Plucked I for my love's delight.

She would none of all my posies

Bade me gather my blue roses.

-Rudyard Kipling

There is a moment in the day of the brain that is a crack between worlds. It happens when you are first waking up. A moment when you are not quite all awake, not quite sleeping. It is a place where imagination and reality can blend.

It is one of these moments when I see the roses. Blue roses are impossible. Genetic analysis shows there is no possibility of a blue rose, though people are still trying. Yet I find them everywhere. They are are on clothing, dishes, pillowcases and jewelry. Various cultural meanings of the blue rose include impossible love, and royal blood.

I love all kinds of real but imaginary things like this, blue roses, unicorns and dragons. So in my mind's eye but with physical eyes still closed as I wake up, I see blue roses made of clouds. 

What an amazing world of manifestation we live in today! I look on the interweb, and quickly find clouds and sky cloth, and order a piece of it for five dollars.

 When it comes in the mail a few days later, again I look in the interweb, and find instructions on making cloth roses, and multiple designs and ideas.

I make my roses with five inch wide strips sewn into tubes, gathered on one side. There are many ways of forming the rose. Generally roll it more tightly in the center and fluff them out toward the outside. 

Some techniques fold and twist to form individual petals, others just make a continuous spiral. I finished off the underside with a circle of iron on denim patch.

(A very special blue rose:)

Into the Infinity of Indigo

Indigo is my best color, if you can call it a color. To most, it appears to be just a deep blue purple, but indigo has an aura of the mystic in its lore. The truest description of indigo I can give is of the sky on a cloudless and moonless night. But what we are really seeing there, is pretty much infinity. If we could focus out that far, we could see back to the beginning of the universe, if there is one. The night sky is completely filled with light! 

Yet indigo, and the night sky, appears almost black. Indigo is awakened black, the undark darkness come alive. A more honest black, one that calls you in, rather than trying to hide something from you like black does.

 So to me, my favorite color, indigo, is an entire rainbow of light, seen far, far, away. 

Sometimes it makes me think of children's colored clay, when you mix all of the colors together and wind up with murky purplish. Indigo is an entire heavenly realm, appearing as an endless receding background in a light show with no darkness, only light upon light upon light.

Indigo opens up like a fan, and all of the colors are shimmering in there, only on a higher frequency of light, in a more exalted form. Have you ever been a room with all blacklights and florescent posters? The indigo universe is like that. The realm of true indigo is not very worldly. But we catch a glimpse of it here and there. 

If you look deeply into cobalt blue glass, you will find bright blue spot, with a hint of pink, someplace where the light shines through. Other parts of the glass will swallow up much of the light, appearing almost black. This is a good way to experience indigo. 

Another great way to enjoy indigo is on velvet, or the velvety richness of those so called black flowers, which I've seen in pansies and tulips and petunias.

Indigo is the only true black in a universe with all light. For a while it was the only black I used in my art, for that reason. But black is a useful illusion on earth, and in art.

Use indigo for that feeling of deep meditation, mystery, and spiritual peace. Introspect the universe within. 

“Indigo food vibrations are: blackberries, blue plums, blueberries, purple brocoli, beetroot, and purple grapes.” -Tae Yun Kim 

(Are you 'an indigo?')

 

Living with Dihydrogen Monoxide

Dihydrogen Monoxide is a colorless, odorless chemical compound, also known as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydric Acid, or simply 'water.'

Seemingly ordinary, water is one of the most fascinating and complex elements known to science.  Water puzzles and intrigues scientists. According to the usual behavior of molecules, water should exist in a gaseous state at temperatures that humans are comfortable in. No one knows why it doesn't. You may have been taught in school that elements have three states; solid, liquid, and gaseous. But to date, water has been discovered to have hundreds of states. 

Water is not simply water. It is sensitive to who and what is around it. Maybe that is why water is associated with our feelings and emotions. Then there is the amazing work of Dr Emoto. He and others have shown that water is sensitive even to your thoughts at a distance. 

In one experiment, water was placed in bottles labelled with sacred symbols of various spiritual traditions, as people walked by merely seeing them. The water changed, structuring itself on the molecular level into elegant and lovely patterns in response to the thoughts of the people walking by. Our bodies are, after all, mostly water. The water in our bodies is constantly being imprinted with the patterns of our thoughts, for the better or worse.

Water can be charged with vitality, or dull and 'dead' depending on conditions. One theory of why certain populations in remote corners of the world, such as the "healthy Hunzas" live such long and heathy lives, involves the water that they drink. 

These populations have in common that they all drink structured water from mountain snowmelt.  Water in your fresh squeezed fruit or veggie juice is already structured water. 

The health benefits of fresh juice are well documented. One reason why the raw food diet is such a powerful healing modality is indeed that it is mostly structured water rich foods, still carrying a healthy charge. 

It is possible to structure your water, the water in your body, the water in your food, the water you drink. Saying grace, blessing the food, does this. 

You can charge the water with crystals or other methods. You can label your water bottle with positive affirmations, or hold your glass in your hands to make Reiki water. 

Water is used as a carrier in energy medicine such as homeopathy, and the branch of homeopathy that I practice, the Bach flowers.  In both, the physical substance is imprinted in the water and dilluted and redilluted until in some remedies, there may not be even one atom of the physical substance left! Yet each time you take the imprinted water, the INFORMATION is transmitted. 

(What water to drink?!)

"Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine." ~Slovakian Proverb

Do Plants Suffer When We Eat Them?

"It's always either love or a call for love"- Course in Miracles

I often hear great intellectual exertions about plant suffering from meat eaters. They might consider it takes more plant killing to be a meat eater. But if this is an authentic and heartfelt question, I will respond. 

I have long been on a veganish path. Plants nourish me, heal me, and yes, speak to me. I am an everyday state of mind, shamanic healer. One modality I use is flower essence remedies. These are made in close cooperation with the plant devas, or plant souls. You float the flowers in a clear glass bowl in the sunshine to transfer the medicinal information from the flower to the water.  (Not all plants wish to help us. Some really love us and want to be involved with us, and some really don't really give a hoot about the humans.)

The plant kindom (yes, kindom, not kingdom, a realm of relatedness) has evolved a consciousness that is in some ways different from our usual one. I'm trying to find words here... Like when I'm lying in the grass and nibble some, the grass doesn't say ouch, it says a chemical taste type thing. Plants are much more evolved than us critters, chemistry wise, (see the work of Michael Pollan, the Botany of Desire.) 

Their desire, no, that's an anthropogenic word for it, their agenda, goes on a different axis, through time. Their sense of being present is on a sort of genetic network or whole ecosystem matrix. That sounds too geeky. Just like you do not talk to a beautiful woman by looking at her breasts, you be present with plants by speaking with their lineage, their deva, and less by looking at their body. When you pick herbs in the wild, you ask the grandmother plant of that place, or the biggest oldest one.

When I'm there in the grassy meadow, surrounded by the forest, the grass is like the fur of a huge Mother Earth. Plucking a bit of it does not cause any distress on anyone's part. When you lose a hair, you do not notice it. But if all your hair starts falling out suddenly, as with the Earths forests, you bet it gets noticed! 

Human science that purports to hear plants 'screaming' is contaminated by the fact of our observing:  Plants, like humans, other animals, crystals, etc, register and respond to OUR thoughts and feelings around them. Their bodies, evolved to grapple with Earth conditions, automatically repair damage, just as ours do, and in both cases it goes mostly unnoticed. When skin cells slough off, we do not mourn, or feel guilty, or suffer.

Most plants are group beings. When you walk in the forest here, there stand large stumps grown over completely by bark, still alive, fed, and connected to the other trees and the forest. Underground, the mushrooms form a network that selectively feeds, waters, and balances the needs of the networks and cycles of the roots of all the plants. It is a community. We do not hurt plants by eating them as long as we keep in harmony with the agenda of the whole system, and honor their lineage.

Basil Pesto

"Holy Basil is a great longevity super herb, it's got a female energy, 

it's considered a beauty food."-David Wolfe

Mothership Kitchen Pesto:

One of my favorite eating times of the year is when the basil grows. This fragrant delicious traditional medicinal cooling mint loves the sunny hot days. I also partner the basil in equal handfuls with the leaves of parsley, another highly respectable traditional plant medicine food. 

And plenty of fresh garlic to taste, need I say more? Fresh raw garlic is so awesome. The key to the garlic breath problem is simple: make sure everyone gets some pesto!

My favorite recipe uses a lot of walnuts too, a great tree plant food with good fats for humans. I always soak and usually dehydrate the walnuts ahead of time. That way I can eat more walnuts! The process removes growth inhibiting compounds in the nuts which taste bitter and not good to eat too much of. (Nuts are the best fat! I'm nuts about nuts.)

So you grind, blend, or food process:

A bunch of basil

A bunch of parsley

A huge heap of walnuts, soaked or soaked & dehydrated

Garlic, fresh ground, to taste

Half to a whole lemon, juiced

Olive oil, not too much, added a spoonful at a time

Tamari or your favorite salt or salty condiment, to taste

Serve over noodles or cooked grains. (Serving suggestion: sprinkle a little nutritional yeast on the noodles too.) I have found a wonderful kind of flourless noodle made from multiple organic whole grains and beans that are sprouted to make the noodles. So I slip a few of those under my pesto. Just to have some excuse to eat a big pile of yummy pesto!

(Put a lemon slice on top and your leftovers will stay fresh in the fridge)

Lets Co-create and Own Our Reality

"Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits."-James Allen 

Do we create our own reality? Well if I'm happy and successful, sure! Right?

 But seriously, sure. We have a choice in what we pay attention to, what thoughts we entertain, and what our attitude will be toward things that happen over which we seem to have little or no control. This is yoga.

But what about all those suffering people over there? Is that their karma to be in that mess? It is an important question. If it is their karma, I am off the hook, they were bad, they are being given a chance to learn a lesson. I'm not being judgmental, it is just none of my business, right?

I don't think so. I have come to realize that if some one is hurting and I know about it, it is MY karma too. Everything is connected. How to help is a little trickier. From out over here, I can see cycles and patterns that perpetuate their suffering, but what is much harder for me to see is MY cycles and patterns.

Every day is a joyous new adventure. I meditate on how I might fulfill my life's purpose, and also how I might be of greatest service to all life everywhere forever. Oftener than not I hear that the best thing I can do is clear my own energy field, that is, remove the proverbial log from my eye instead of trying to fuss over that little splinter in yours. 

So I just let myself feel that stuff, noticing that mirrors are everywhere I go, reflecting my own stuff back to me, both the kind I like and not. I own that I may create my own reality to some degree, but where I draw the line, is to not then assume that suffering people create their reality. 

Lets co-create and own our reality instead. My attitude is, if I know about problems in the world, those too are mine to help with. It's shared karma. 

A Peaceful Heart

“Why is patience so important? Because it makes us pay attention.” ― Paulo Coelho

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”― Aristotle

Time passes differently with a peaceful heart. We are so smart, so efficient. We can measure the very large, the very small. We can dice up time and spend it as if it were money. The dysfunction of our money system has infected our thinking about time as well: there seems to be never quite enough, and we consider the accruing and saving of it worth pursuing as an end unto itself.

 Time is money, we say, but we run around feeling short of both. How is that possible in this society awash in material things and 'time saving' devices? Could it be our attitude? Caused by an error in our thinking?

We don't know what to do with ourselves as we wait. It is as if being alive doesn't count when you are in line or slow traffic. Our skill at delaying planned gratification twists up in knots, punctuated by spasms of over consumption. Neither works to fill our need for tenderness connection and love. We continue to feel needy in a deep and primal way.

Impatience is one of my worst habits! So I am cultivating the practice of blessing and sending love to others in line or in traffic. That helps me feel I am fully present even in situations I had (foolishly) thought of as 'wasting time.' 

There are other kinds of time cultural time that humans have had in the past. From back when clock time was not very important. People harmonized their rhythms with more natural cycles of sun and moon, season and weather. Mostly in today's world we exalt in the mechanical achievement of an almost complete divorce, of what we do, from natural cycles of  Earth time.  

Some people can not or will not fit into modern time rules. We judge them to be disrespectful for being late or slow, for stopping to smell the flowers. But is it also being disrespectful when we are impatient with them?

People who are anxious about the scarcity of time have worse outcomes after a heart attack, compared to people with a mellow 'whatever' attitude, who recover better. Could it be there is a benefit from having a peaceful heart?

“And sure enough, even waiting will end...if you can just wait long enough.” 

― William Faulkner