Nature

When I have time to read, often I read three or more books on the same subject. It was the librarians at Henry Ford Centennial Library, where my Mom worked, who opened me to the value of research. Killing time until Mom got off of work, the librarians, her friends, would ask what my interest was today and suggest I relax looking out at the fountain. Magically, three very interesting books on one subject would be set by my side. Time then became irrelevant.

The three books I am presently reading are:

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

The Inner Life of Animals by Peter Wohlleben

The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram

Like most people, I know from Disney’s The Lion King and Elton John’s song, we are all connected in a circle, a circle of life. If you are paying attention, like I am, you know there are threats to that circle coming from those who put profit ahead of ecosystems.

I am humbled to learn about the connections within our natural world, the balance, the dependencies that create a situation where life itself, survival, is a matter of adapt or die. This happens in Nature every hour of every day.

Most of you know I am all about living things; humans, plants, and animals down to the tiniest microscopic organisms. I reuse every plastic bag and still regret their existence.

I’m looking forward to the day when my husband helps to ban plastic from our lives.

Many friends have heard me say I wish we could have skipped the combustable engine and gone from horse-drawn carriages to hovercraft. I suppose hybrids are a start.

Living this long, I am grateful to see the environmental movement go mainstream, along with whole foods, and a higher consciousness about our carbon footprints. Lovely.

Author, Peter Wohlleben has lived close to Nature since childhood. Listening and observing the forest and its inhabitants. The country of Germany gave him a forest to manage. He observes it. He writes about his observations along with our human imprints as a reporter would report the unfolding of events. I learned what I didn’t know, I didn’t know. Now, as a result I am more open than before about what I don’t know.

Abram’s book, The Spell of the Sensuous, went pre-internet viral. It was so popular, high school and universities found multiple ways to use it. Beside his intention as a philosophical book, it found its way into psychology, natural sciences, media and communication, biodiversity and indigenous studies. This is a fine tool for finding our connection to earth.

I am both empowered and humbled, . . . glad to have had the time to read this summer.

I guess this is another silver-lining benefit of having to hide from the virus.

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Thank you.

Nothing To Do With Me

Pressure from other drivers

Blame

Opinions

Bullying

Guilt

Manipulation

Time-wasting People

Bigots

These have nothing to do with how you think. They don’t determine how you act.

Like all things that challenge us, they only have the significance you give them. They are dismissive whenever you choose, just like last year’s problems.

They grow on your fear.

They wither and die when you place your focus on something else. Turn away and affirm what you do want in that moment and the irritation is gone! As soon as you wish it so. You are the master, you have the power.

They may be part of bigger problems so many people are voicing now, and have been voicing for a long time; wanting to end the suffering. This is the humanitarian and political side of issues.

I speak of the personal YOU in this moment. The you who would prefer to relax, be free and loving. The you in your heart who wants to care.

This is inside work.

Get help if your irritation is big enough to feel out of your control. Help is everywhere, and in many forms. Be honest with yourself and with those you reach out to and the help will be there. Just remember: Nothing good is easy.

I’m not a therapist. Most people don’t need to be psycho-analyzed, certainly not by me.

They need connection, empathy, a sounding board, friendship.

My qualifications come from a lifetime of staying free by being aware of entrapments, like those listed above. I use may imagination in the moment to create the feeling I prefer to have soon after I feel pressured. Through use of my senses, at any moment, I can change whatever is happening by changing my thoughts, my perspective.

I practiced over time to get good at it and have it be as effective as picking up any hand tool. No one person taught this to me. I was pointed in a direction by my own intuition. As I walked an unconventional path, I let my awareness take-in increasingly more data. I used my imagination to stay free from stress and kept busy by using my creativity every day. Allowing these things to work for me got me the outcome I desired. Inside this bubble is happiness.

Yes, I deserve it. And you desire it. In the end, your relationship with yourself will be all that matters. While you are here realize happiness as your birthright.

Communication in The Wild

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I kept this in mind when I moved to Hawaii and realized the natives were speaking a form of pigeon English. At first I was appalled, having been raised in a highly literate family of lawyers.  Then, I remembered being in California years earlier and being told my upbringing in the Midwestern US gave me a funny accent compared to most of the English speaking world. Many people have altered the sounds of English words to suit the phonetic sounds they mimicked from adults. All children do this no matter where they were raised. Some have learned their sounds and accompanying associations from living in the wild. These highly sensitive peoples are just like you and me with a particular distinction. They are connected to the earth.  They do not destroy forests, pollute waters or endanger animals. They live with the oneness they feel with their environment.

Just like everyone else, everyday, I have to survive and thrive. In Hawaii I communicated daily using the street-wise pigeon English and accompanying Hawaiian hand gestures. I even had long red finger naiIs and waist-length long hair. Over four years, I was instructed to get a fresh fish at dawn straight from the beach-landing fisherman as long as I had one dollar and a newspaper to wrap it. I was told where to get freshly baked bread for a few dollars and for $35/night, my family alone could stay at the Boy Scout Lodge in Waimea Canyon, known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. It was breathtaking!  Memorable.

I was on a short list for a free ride in a island touring helicopter because they needed a second person for weight distribution or they couldn’t fly. I found a sense of belonging in a highly trans-ethnic island culture by being considered Kamaaina, meaning “of the island.”  Stop, drop your phone, center yourself and feel it.  Lets learn to fly by imitating the sensitivity of indigenous people to become more grounded in the earth. She is our home.

Summertime

Oh, dear old summertime. Many of us are hard at work with the rest of us at leisure. Oh, and what a leisure it is! After the pile of effort it took to keep ourselves warm during Winter, . . . we have realized our dream of Summer.

With COVID, our focus is directed inward. We can be with family, care for our home like never before; be very, very careful, practice a skill, explore the internet and read. Its as wide as your imagination.

I am continuously reading something. This year, during our family’s 43rd annual camping trip, I was reading, The Spell of the Sensuous, Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, by David Abram.

I understood, quite some time ago, how we are one with the world and the Universe.

This book describes how to be far more connected to Nature and every living thing in it. In his words, our eyes and the texture of our skin takes-in the nuances of the shifting wind and the nourishment of a rambling brook.

He goes on to suggest that we got the word, “rambling” from the nature of the brook itself. That we got the word, “wow” and “bang” from lightning and thunder. And that we operate at this sensitivity level.

Calling ourselves emotional has been a stifling label. We can set ourselves free from it. We are naturally sensitive, just as are the birds and the butterflies are sensitive. We get our sense of flying from all of nature traveling by flight.

David Abram, a summa cum laude graduate at Wesleyan University, he holds a doctorate in philosophy from State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Watson and Rockefeller Foundations and has a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

He has traded sensory information with indigenous people in Indonesia, Nepal, and the Americas. As an ecologist and a philosopher, his writing has influenced the environmental movement in North America and abroad.

This is his first book. Its lyrical, poetic, and intellectually embracing. It startles our senses out of habitual ways of seeing and hearing for a wider, fuller engagement with Nature.

He traces the steps of Rene Descartes, from the 17th Century; followed by Edmund Husserl in the early 20th Century, followed by Merleau-Ponty in more recent times. They all developed the idea that our earth is animated with life that flows to us and from us.

We are communicating with it and it is communicating with us. It’s a rich exchange.

Amazon has The Spell of the Sensuous. It is published through Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House, New York.

The Line

In this world, we have people, animals and plants, . . . insects, (oh, let’s skip by them).

Scientists have long been telling us that animals and plants are subordinate to us in self-awareness and the ability to feel satisfied. Not true. Some of you know where I may be going with this. But no, that is for another blog post.

Today, I am determined to write a special blog for fathers. Happy Father’s Day, to all you daddies. 

You know if you offend your dog, your cat, bird, or mistreat your plants they wither, they retreat.

So it is also with humans. We know nasty treatment comes in many forms. I know, you know you need to end it with your generation, now.

I say this fully intending to help. I pray I come across without judgement. If you feel judged, know I do my best not to judge.

On this Father’s Day dear dads, please be aware of The Line. The Line is not be be crossed. Every living thing has a line to stay within. When you cross it, you trigger that withering response, that retreat. 

Dad’s, you have everything a person can have in life. You have a family. That’s huge. It requires you trade your old life for a new life. A life of being good to your partner and children. Having a family is unlike anything else on Earth. You get what you give.

The plants do it right. Just look out over a field, . . . my empty lot next door.  Animals do it right. Watch the Animal Channel or read Nature, the magazine, The Sierra Club Magazine or Nature Conservatory. For more inside information read Peter Wohlleben’s books.

Get into it. Not only for your own sake, but also, for the reputation of Men. It seems someone, somewhere, worldwide, gave men the permission to slack-off. Not you, of course, but far too many men are sitting in easy chairs while their full-time working/at-home working partner does everything for them. Who died and made you KING. Gee whiz. Your partner does not want to have to ask you to participate in the life you created together. You need to get up and volunteer to help create and maintain it.

So much can be said, communicated in a kind and loving way. When an attitude changes and a positive, loving spin is applied to everything you say, it grows like the lawn you trim throughout the Summer. Ask for appreciation after you have given it. Then, watch how easily you get the appreciation returned to you. The respect and appreciation you deserve after your performance. Like your event, or your position on the field, you have a grand play as Dad.

Remember:

Every living thing has

a line you do not cross.

Your sensitivity is your strength.

Kindness is your tool.

The ball is in your hands.

What You Truly Want

There is a flow to your day. You may be proactive, in which case you have plans for your day; or, you may be reactive. Going with the flow, with whatever happens and reacting to it when it arrives. Both are viable. Either way, there is a flow to your day.

Those of you who tend to be proactive must often patiently wait for their idea to find the right time to live and breathe. So we, (I am proactive) must have a wider awareness of those people around us, what they are able to do and when. We need to work with them, work with time. Often time is needed for them to make it their own idea. With your ego in your pocket, you won’t care who takes the credit.

These people, those we need to work around often live in our house with us. They may be at our job, working with us. They are in town. They mean no harm. They are just not thinking the same way and so often impede our progress by default. This is one of those situations where applying love is best to do.

Stress comes to us when we don’t do something about it. So letting it go is counter-productive. The best thing to do is to take the thought of what you immediately think you’d like to do and change it by applying love to that thought. Doing this will have a softening affect and a more focused affect relative to the person you are trying to motivate.

Do you remember what Grandma used to say, “You get more with honey than you do with vinegar?” And, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater?” Sure you do.

Take love, compassion, kindness and the softest way you know how to be, straight from your heart and apply it to the situation. Your heart has an infinite abundance of love.

What’s in Your Secret Sauce?

The greatest compliment you can receive isn’t “great work!” or “that’s perfect!” It’s this: “How in the world did you do that?”

You are memorable when you use your creativity. Your imagination will get your creativity moving . . . love your imagination; be patient, give it rewards. Allow your imagination to feel real good so it will move, travel, flow and even soar beyond what you have ever imagined before now.

Grab ahold of your courage. You know you have it. Take that incredible imagined thing of yours and put it into action. Write, sing, move, build, figure out, or put together your idea. Show how it relates to the past. You will need to explain its use as a useful thing. Our world, full of people, is waiting for your offering.

Wow them with just your ideas. Be willing to execute by following their suggestions. Take it all the way to its end. Dont’s stop. Don’t talk yourself out of it. You already have everything it takes. It will lead you to places others can’t imagine. Why? Because they are NOT you. You have something that no one else has? Find out what it is.

Professors, professionals, bosses, peers want your secret sauce. You may not know what it is yet, but, I happen to know they want it and you have it. Our world needs it. It is possible you will feel validated by expressing it.

Over time, I wish for you the same grand compliment I received when I announced I was closing my 38 year long creative professional sewing business. “You can’t close, no one does what you do!” I was humbled by it, grateful to have had that effect on people.

Michigan’s Mom Sewing Services is closed but its focused energy moved into a vintage clothing shop on Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/Michigansmom

I could not stop it from moving further forward. At https://michigansmom.com/ you will see I am still doing Make-Overs with wardrobe consulting in custom packages.

And now, its blossomed into pashacoach.com

I am humbled this and amazed at how far it has gone.

Why Are We Here?

Is this the million dollar question or is it super obvious?

Some of us are constantly asking this of themselves.

Why am I here? Good question.

The answer is waiting for you, anxiously waiting for you. To find it takes little effort. Almost the opposite of effort.

Relax and have any tense areas of your body melt into the ground. Imagine a copy of your heart separating from your real heart and moving out of you, turning to face you. Feel the warmth, the all-encompassing love from it.

Before you send it out on its mission, attach a cable of communication from it to you. It belongs to you. Your cable to it is strong.

Now, wish it to fly away with the wind, out the window, and see where it goes. See your heart where it floats.

As it slows, as it starts to vibrate in space, notice what is all around it. As if you are watching a movie.

Feel the temperature and the surface textures. Hear the sounds and measure the light.

Now, who and/or what is there with you and your heart? What are you doing in that space? Does it feel even more expansive? Your cable becomes a beam of love.

Try this, it could calm you beyond anything you have known.

This is why we are here, to experience love.

Focusing Thoughts

I had a casual conversation with one of my brothers today that ended up with the idea of focusing thoughts. Yesterday, I had a long-time absent friend talk with me for an hour and the subject cumminated with focusing thoughts. Here are our thoughts.

Thoughts have started the creation of everything. Everything you see and hear started with a thought. Creating in the world, being the master creators that we are meant to be, requires a step two. Step Two: Action.

Creating that which you have thought of requires action. I can accept the theory of thoughts creating reality only if it has a feet-on-the-ground definition for how it works here and now in my daily life; a practical application.

We live here on Earth, although I can’t say we respect it enough. It’s all good to relax, get-in-touch with ourselves, meditate, reach a higher level of awareness, pray, and be holy.

I want a manual. I want the way for me to have my mind with its thoughts flow through my arms and hands and off the tips of my fingers and create my life into that blissful feeling of arrival. Seeing before me the reality of my focused thoughts.

I want to feel fully alive.

When I want to bring something into my life, into my reality, I focus my thoughts. The more often I think of it, the sooner it arrives and the longer it lasts.

When it appears in reality, I embrace it, bring it all-the-way in, full of gratitude for how this process works, full of wonder and awe.

Focused thought + action = my reality. How’s your reality?

Listen to Your Heart

Oh no; not again, pulled again where I don’t want to go. What did my coach tell me. She’s said it everytime, each time in a different way, I’ve got to get control. I can’t keep getting pulled off track like this. Now, breathe.

I know what I want. This doesn’t feel right. I want to be peaceful. I want to create the life my heart says is good, and pure and clear, and oh so right for me. Listen to your heart, listen to my heart.

I CAN SAY THIS! I will say it nicely . . . keep myself together. No one else lives in this body so I just need to be clear with myself and be kind.

See it clearly in your mind.

Wow, that was easier than I thought it would be. He seemed to appreciate what I said. I did put it out there without blame, shame or forcing anything. What a surprise when he kissed me on the cheek. Guess he really appreciated what I said. Guess I’ll be seeing him again. Wow.

http://pashacoach.com/