“ALL WE ARE SAYING”

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
                                                                                             Abraham Lincoln

In 1979, along with two close friends, I staggered out of the movie theater. We had just watched “The Deer Hunter”. No one spoke. We proceeded to a café. Gently, we found words. “At least this is an anti-war movie.” My friend Robert had been to war. “No, it isn’t. This movie stirs up young men.”

John Simon, film critic, agreed: "For all its pretentions to something newer and better, this film is only an extension of the old Hollywood war-movie lie.” Robert shared a personal war story and then lamented: “These films fuel men to blindly accept military commands.“

Only fifteen years before “The Deer Hunter,” Americans were on their knees in prayer. Across America, the response was instantaneous: “NO” to war. By 1970 some 4 million students protested the National Guard’s killing of Kent State students. Over 900 American universities and colleges closed during the subsequent student strikes. 40 per cent of the American population participated in the anti-war movement.

Chants rang out: “Hell no! We won’t go! We don’t want your stupid war!” “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” When we marched, we KNEW we had a VOICE. We knew that America needed one: “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” 

In 1974, Holly Near belted out “It Could Have Been Me” to a packed auditorium. The audience was stunned, hushed. Teardrops fell. We sat remembering. We sat in hope, a trembling hope, but hope enduring. Peace was still the answer.  http://youtu.be/CadP4dRemYk 

It was a long moment in America’s history, but it came down to simple equations.

There are Americans who believed in going to war. They believed in Government calling the shots. Overnight, a flowering force of Americans sprung up saying, “We WILL NOT go.” WE do not believe in governments who send their children to die in war.

It was a time of voting with your conscience. It was being a part of something noble that did not hang back. It was a moment of taking a stand...standing for something bigger than our personal lives. It was being at risk for a better world. It was the quintessential ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY.

This organization was made up of The Civil Rights Movement: universities and colleges, parents, those sickened by war, flower children, The Women’s Movement, doctors, lawyers, clergy, Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, administrators, meditators, Yogis, journalists, artists and musicians.

The media broadcasted the war AND America’s discontent. Everyone was on stage. Protesters were being graded. A force drove those seeking peace. It was more powerful than any division. We stood as ONE FORCE. WE made a difference.

This moment took root. New life grew. Where were you, dear Reader? How did this TRANSFORMATION impact YOUR life?

GATEWAY TO THE POSITIVE

                                                                                             Photo-Yose-Bierstadt

It is easy to look around and notice what’s wrong. It takes practice to see what’s right. Positive energy heals, conducts love, and transforms. Choose positive energy.

                                                                                                Melody Beattie

                             

Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised.

                                                                                                 American Proverb

“The reprieve from everything negative that these animals offered me was enormous. I was feeling very apart from nature. I had lost my fascination with people. Being so close to the horses and alpacas was really special.”            

                         Lauren Grabelle, quoted in Unlikely Loves by Jennifer S. Holland

This week got off to a blazing start. When I was in Africa, I fell in love with the Chimfunshi sanctuary and I met amazing people, including beautiful ebony-skinned ones. I wondered if, in my lifetime, Hollywood could embrace this beauty. Imagine my delight when Oscar winner Lupito Nyong’o’s moving speech on black beauty went viral, empowering others to step out of internalized racism and into a new standard of splendor. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/lupita-nyongo-delivers-an-incredible-speech-on-beauty-i-prayed-to-god-for-lighter-skin/story-fn907478-1226846866664 

What allows you to move in positive ways? We are in constant transformation. Let me introduce you to Nick Ortner helping us “tap” our way into transcendent tipping points and to Ryan Eliason, whose mission is: “empower 20,000 social entrepreneurs with mindset shifts and tangible business skills needed to make a positive impact in the world.”

When I need a hit of the positive, I dip into nature’s beauty: flowers, rocks, mountain views. When not writing, working, being with animals or engaged in soulful conversations, I occasionally look to what new offers the television industry has.

My criteria: Is it affirmative? Does it model good values? Is it inclusive? Recently, three shows made the grade: “The Fosters”, “Parenthood” and “Switched At Birth”. They feature families honoring diversity and who are lavish with amends. Actors who might be overlooked are celebrated, with no culture or race upstaging the other. Oscar winner Marlee Matlin shares that in "Switched at Birth," she gets to be herself. It is a beautiful new cultural fabric that we are weaving. We have raised the bar.

Not only did Lupito Nyong’o move me to tears, but also my heart leapt up with a client’s watershed breakthrough. As an activist, my client got caught in a breakdown of “us against them.” Old conditioned bias sabotaged her efforts.

Through her leadership development, this client committed to ending her negative speech and angry outbursts. She cast new stones upon the water. No longer muttering, she is making a solid leadership stand for women caught below the poverty line. Aligned with her values, she teaches organizations to do their leadership development work first. Slow down and do your own work.

We toasted her 20-year project completion that celebrates the feminist movement’s positive impact and her philanthropy on behalf of shared wealth. She offered what helped in 2013: “Many things, equine-guided leadership, a horse named Lilly, meditation and moving up the scale.”  http://namasteglobalvision.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/NamasteDeclaringNewFuture-3%20copy.pdf 

Isn’t it amazing what can we can accomplish in this new movement to step into the positive?

Lupito Nyong’o

HOW YOU GONNA SING THAT SONG, BABY, IF YOUR VOICE IS OUT OF TUNE?

I used to think vibrations were positive energy.

“Thinking” was the first clue that I was not quite onto the scent of the thing. I had made progress and yet, things kept falling apart. Recently, I worked with this remarkable teacher/healer. Now I’m singing a different tune.

Before one is a good teacher one is a good student, experientially, humbly and ongoingly. If life is a journey, it is worth dipping ourselves into its nourishing waters often, revitalizing, becoming more who we “be”. The journey? Move into light, love and our true vibration. Release the rubble.

When I was five years old, family, neighborhood and community conditioned me. When I went to college, I found new world-views. My journey to freedom began, voyaging into more and more of my authentic self. However, nothing quite prepared me for this cosmic shift, attuned by God’s Tuning Fork, realigning myself into the universal echoing sound. 

Our American culture knows that good practicing cranial osteopaths keep body and spine aligned. A friend trusted her husband when he was racing cars because he kept them attuned to an impeccable purr. When a dinner hostess calls our attention, she taps her spoon on a fine crystal glass. We hear that lilting, lovely tinkling sound. “Ping”. We are each a crystal glass. And before we morph into our “Ping,” we need to attune to the one true sound.

Many of us are mavericks, high-level performers going for the gold. Others do our due diligence on paths to a better life. Sometimes we are moving so fast that what life throws at us lingers inside cellular fissures, repositories for our gunk. This gunk is not in tune. Its jarring vibration rips off our ping. We are not aligned to our one true sound.

What was my vibration in my first training session? Cheerfulness sprinkled with dissonance. Oldie Gunky tunes loitering around. Ancient life impairment causing me to sing off-key. “Phlat” vibrations mixed with honeydew “pings”. But do my work I did, clearing, cleansing, releasing, giving forth, affirming, shifting, singing, warming up the vocal chords, acting in good faith, moving on and into the best that life has to offer.

Tuned up, aligned, new things are happening. Light, happy things. I am now in synch. I dissolve glop into Light. Once I struggled and now I’m free. It’s the resonance of “Ping.” 

People in recent weeks stop me, feeling drawn to me. Old friends wonder what I am up to. Maybe they are seeing a new light in my eyes? “No, it’s your vibration,” she told me. “They are attracted to your vibration.” Thanks to being with one of God's Best Tuning Forks, I am tuned in and turned on.

Don't we all want to be that shiny crystal glass that Pings, calling attention to something grand? With new tools for my journey, I remain in natural vibration. Join me, this grand New Year, in getting your “Ping” on.

CEREMONY

In ceremony the pictures of my heart could be seen without my having to speak much about them, and I sighed with relief at being deeply known.    

                                                                         Kissed By A Fox by Priscilla Stuckey

January 1, 2014 is a gift I still am receiving. A blessing to sit in circle with friends tucked in our respective places of nature, engaged via the modern miracle of media conferencing. As a gift, Andrea tells this year’s story in A New Start. On our call, she said, "We always get a do-over;" I felt a chill. We all get a do-over; none of our best efforts gone awry trashed? We all get do-overs. That is the beauty of January 1. 

I have been in the business of granting others and myself do-overs. But, I was unprepared for my recent do-overs. Ready to ramp up reorganizing my work life, I was halted. Move in a new direction something deep inside urged. Friends and mentors told me to write poetry and stories. I told them that my life is serious; I have obligations. Writing needs to wait. Not so said the poems and stories that flooded in. In my holiday blog, IT IS ALL ABOUT THE BREATH, I did write of my trip to Sacred Camel Gardens. It was interlude.

That is what my life begged for, more interludes. What is an interlude? "A short piece inserted between the parts of a longer composition." 

I had been in the practice of giving forth my best contribution in answer to needs requesting to be met. Somewhere in the middle of a sentence, a hand was placed over my mouth and that practice curtained. 'Receive more give less,' was the message. Huh, I thought I was both receiver and giver. Not so was the reflection back. 

New Year's Day, a wealth of gifts, all unexpected pours in. My neighbor’s best Vegetarian Pazole. My niece and nephew and families present additional holiday gifts. Home late, I discover a gluten free brownie hanging like an ornament on my door handle. A host of fire logs on my back porch just because she told me. Add to this being whisked off the following day by another friend to our favorite Indian restaurant gifted more with Tibetan incense, to start the New Year off right. My heart is full from New Year Day Ceremony and the accompanying cornucopia.

This magnificent interlude: gifts prancing in from all fronts, a compelling break from old life, in the midst of its vast do-over, is this bridge to 2014. I said, "yes" to these gifts like the little Shih Tzu, who stayed with me recently, shyly creeping down the hallway when invited in for a cuddle. It’s like that you know; receiving is delicate business. It is an unbridling interlude to new life.

That is how my new year is progressing. How about yours? I don't know what 2014 holds. It is clear it is secured and full of abundance.