Belly Button Musings on a Tuesday Night….

This process we call Life can never be “won”, only played from the authetic center of who I am, who You are. We stand in “this” moment … connected with all that has gone on before, all that is going on now, and with everything that is yet to come to this Planet. We are part of a colossal epic, whose story is measured in geologic time. Eons made up of star dust and processes that stretch back billions of years … which will continue on in its own fluid trajectory for billions more.

We are a conscious creation, hardwired to thousands of intricate layers of interdependent relationships which are essential for the creation and sustainability of Life in all its forms. Fungi depend upon bacteria, bacteria depend on enzymes, enzymes feed off of basic minerals and release their waste into their surroundings. We are Children of Gaea, awake in a realm of potential, possibility, creativity… of things being born, and of things dying. Delicate and perceptive, we travel a fragile journey with and in this Mystery of staggering Beauty.

It is the mind that creates separation, it severs the Soul from the rich soil of its Beginnings… It tricks us into “thinking” we are adrift, in disjunction with that which has both birthed and sustains us. Ask the Stone People, who are the Memory Keepers of this Place, about our story. Ask about the stories of all of the Children who have Risen in this place. They knew this World before even water was brought from the sky, before the oceans were born. Ask them about the intricacies of Balance, of the self-regulation of homeostasis that lies deep within the fabric of this World…. A World that creates consciousness in its many varied offspring…

I can only Stand mute before my Mother… squishing my toes into Her mud as my eyes and ears are filled with the cacophony of bird song winging overhead. I weep from the Fullness of a driving west wind against my back. And whisper a prayer of deep gratitude when listening to the heartbeat within my own chest….

We live in a Time of Turning. A Time of Shadow where ecological trajectories we have depended upon and taken for granted in our encultured way of life are beginning to skew and fall. We have depended upon natural resources for everything from aluminum foil to our houses. Electricity, transportation of goods and services, medical advancements, even the salt which sits meekly on our kitchen tables.

We are beginning, just beginning to observe “wiggles” in the large planetary cycles that drive the sustainability of Life for all Beings in this miraculous World we live in. It seems like news of extinction rates and changes in the climate regime, and deteriorating ecosystems reach our eyes and ears readily from information services. As human beings, this news can hit ones solar plexus like a sucker punch… and our survival instincts can respond with a wave of emotions triggered by adrenaline. We begin to feel endangered, with imaginings of what we observe with declining populations of other creatures such as the whale, the orangutan, polar bears, sea turtles, even in local deer populations. We should feel anxious. It is a normal response to environmental changes we have little control over.

I spoke with a women friend the other day who was feeling overwhelmed by the recent research analysis put out by the United Nations scientists this past week. Choking tears came easily, followed by feelings of fear for her children. She spoke of doubt, of not knowing how effective we can be as a species to turn things around through effective action on a global scale…. “Are we even going to be here in 12 years?”

My answer to that question is “Yes”, humanity will still be here at that time. What is being projected with ocean waters rising, is that tidal cities and settlements will be flooded. More erratic weather such as hurricanes, typhoons, tornados, heavy rain and snow in winter and drought will become the norm. With these changes come shifts in insect populations, disease vectors (such as ticks and mosquitoes), changes in plant physiology that will affect bird and other wildlife population food sources and migration patterns, as well as our industrialized food crops. We will have to adapt, as well as every other living being on the planet.

Adaptation takes time. I teach folks how to cook with the Sun using solar cookers. The energy is free and the cost for a solar cooker is reasonable. The challenge lies in getting folks use to the different texture of food cooked by the sun. Flour products such as brownies do not “crisp” up in a solar oven. They come out fully cooked, but the texture is softer, more crumbly than a batch made in a conventional oven. Not as gooey. It’s kind of funny to hear folks mention the texture….. it looks like a brownie, smells and tastes like one too, but it’s CRUMBLY!

We have such fixed ideas of what we find acceptable for both enjoyment and basic needs. Buy used clothes from a thrift store? Never! They are dirty or have lice…recycled appliances? Worthless, they are going to break anyway…Learn to repair items I own? Why? I can just throw it out and buy a new one at Walmart….endless avenues for adaptive behavior.

It takes a 500 foot, 8000-ton ship over a third of a mile to turn around in the ocean. A large barge may take up to 5 miles to stop after the brake is applied. It will take years, decades perhaps, to get the human community to adapt to the required specifications to turn around the current trajectory of global climate change. It is not going to be a speedy process…. AND, we keep having babies that put more pressure on Mother to provide them with food, shelter, clothing and education.

Will we make these changes in time before multiple major planetary cycles shift and create cascading environmental trajectories to our demise? I don’t know…..Death comes to all things on this Planet. Close to 99.9% of all species created by Mother have gone extinct.

We have now entered the stage of the “sixth largest mass extinction” this Planet has experienced… largely due to our own hands. We purchase items that continue to deplete our natural resources: palm oil in cosmetics and food products; metal demands for cars, infrastructure needs, industrial and household goods; timber for paper products and lumber; etc. The list of wants is endless, and Mothers cupboards are becoming bare.

I now walk under “ochre-colored skies”, although they may appear blue above my head. Ochre is the color of iron oxide, one of the most common minerals found on earth. There is much evidence that yellow and red ochre pigment was used in prehistoric and ancient times by many different civilizations on different continents…all over the globe. In death, red ochre represented a return to the earth or possibly as a form of ritual rebirth, through the blood and the Great Goddess. Yellow ochre is associated with gold, considered to symbolize the eternal and indestructible…

So in short, I walk under ochre-colored skies for the Great Remembering of the indestructible rebirth of Life on our planet, of my connection to Her through my blood and bone and to my continued Honor and Respect to the greatest of all Goddesses, Gaea Herself.

I drove to an old orchard today to collect heritage apple, pear and plum shoots. It is located in a wildlife area managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The orchard was planted about 130 years ago when the area was first homesteaded. I have passed this Grove innumerable times on my way to view wildlife and migratory birds who come into the area… I have often stopped to sit under the shade of these grandmother trees and even pick their fruit on a hot Autumn day. I am committed to planting trees. My favorite venue is to plant trees for food and medicinal value to both wildlife and human beings. That impetus lead me to this Grove today. I plan to root and plant viable shoots from these Grandmother trees.

I am beginning to “age” in my own lifecycle now. I just turned 65 this month of March and am raising my eyes and my inner Vision to embrace this last quarter of my life. I am releasing objectives and ideas that no longer fit into my younger paradigm. Cultural norms that I no longer need to carry, dross paradigms of youth and beauty, social roles I no longer need to partake in. I entered the edge of the Grove in Song, with respect, honor and openness to their existence and their Medicine. I carried a pouch of tobacco, offering a good sized plug to the Grove at their perimeter. I spoke to them of my Intent, to harvest live twigs unadulterated by the fire blight which has hit our beloved Valley these last 2 years. I spoke of more children, their children, in the hope of sprouting roots to the twigs I collected…. I spoke of the Vision I have of growing food from their branches for other living Beings. The multitude of other Beings who may need their nourishment during migration in the surrounding Hills and Mountains long after even I am gone…

These “Women of the Grove” are some tough hombres, rooted to Stand as Witness to the changing times in which we live. They have Stood, neglected and un-tended for decades on end. Their bodies are torqued and twisted with branches that continue to reach up, throughout innumerable seasons, to the turning of the Sun and Moon and star studded skies. They have Watched and Witnessed thousands of birds winging overhead on their yearly migrations. They have talked and communed with the Eagle, Hawk, Wolf, Coyote, Badger, Bobcat, Mountain lion, Marmot and Skunk. Within their hollow trunks resounds the Sigh of all Living Things. Dead trunks embrace like thighs, bright strips of living cambium… Rising now in the colors of red and oranges which speak of Sunrises, Sunsets and Dragons…. They carry with them in their ancient age, the blood of Dragons.

I spoke to them of my own fears of aging… and then I wept. Uncertain of the future that stretches before me, of a World now Turning beneath my feet. I asked for their Blessings, their Medicine and Knowledge that will carry me into this next moment, and the next…They let me Sing to them, offer each one Sacred tobacco, and to caress their bodies. Gnarled boles with dead and dying tissues, hollowed centers used by small animals as nests…. They allowed me to touch the Fire that lay in shallow inclusions along their trunks, warmed by the Springtime sun and fed by the melting, receding snows. Sugars rushing from their deep roots to feed that which still lives…“You will also bend as we have,” they spoke to me, “used up by the Creative Vibration from which you were birthed. Bearing young, and Ripening from the force and heat that lies within your veins”. They added, “You Stand now, as Witness in a Time of great Shadow. Stand and Hold….Hold to what you find to be True. Stand and Hold….with all that is Good, All that Speaks of Balance and Wholeness. Do not fear the death that comes to Us all… rather, Rejoice. For your blood and your Life Force is of Dragons!”

Oh my….. Blessed Be Me, Blessed Be You, ….. Blessed Be …. Everything In Beauty.   March 30th, 2019