SOME NEW YEARS WISHES

It is another cool Morning, a couple degrees below zero F. The Sun just arose and it is shining brilliantly. All and all it is a beautiful Morning here on Laughing Water Farm.

I have a wish or a dream that the peoples of the Earth discover their oneness with Her. That we just stop what we are doing and look around and ask ourselves, "What are we doing here?" Can we see the Earth as a living organism in its own right? Can we see the Earth the way we are trying to understand ourselves? Most of us understand ourselves as an intelligent energy {soul, spirit} that has a body. We are beginning to understand ourselves, and identify ourselves, as the energy or spirit and not our bodies. Could we see the Earth in the same way, as the body of a spiritual being?

I wish we could see ourselves as guest of this Earth Being. We live on her, she takes care of us, she meets all our needs. I wish we would honor Her as our loving Mother. I wish we could see how we have mistreated her, wounded her and disregarded her. I wish we could see how we could help heal the wounds we have created. I wish we could see how to restore her to her pristine state.

I wish we could find our natural place as part of this Earth. I wish we could quit fighting Earth's Nature. I wish we could quit fighting Her and trying to dominate and control. I wish we could find a way to accept the place that is here for us. A place of oneness with our surroundings. A place of joyous, peaceful existence.

I wish we could honestly ask some basic questions about our existence. Who are we? What is our purpose? Are we suppose to be learning something; what? Where did we come from? Why do we feel [or act] like aliens on this beautiful Earth? We have mulled over these questions for thousands of years. Where has our religions and philosophies gotten us? Why are we still insane?

I wish we could ask these questions with fresh minds, without preconceived ideas from dead religions and philosophies. I wish we could ask these questions without thinking we know the answers. I wish we could ask these questions and listen for the answer from our heart and not our ego-tortured minds.

I wish we could realize that the world, we see, is our creation and as good or bad as it is, it is ours. We can have the world we want. I wish that, at this very moment, we would all decide we wanted a world created by our decisions to love. It is that simple: choose Love.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Love and Peace,  Gregg

A MAGIC TIME

It has been mostly Sunny these last three days but the cold has been creeping back in. It was -2.2 F this Morning, not too cold for this time of year. It is a little bit of a shock because it has been above normal lately. It is forecast to be below zero the next few Mornings.

I remember this time between Christmas and New Year as a magical time. A time of coasting through the aura of the holidays. When I was a child, there was a gathering at my grandparents house almost every night. Relatives who arrived for Christmas lingered on until New Years and the young folks were on vacation from school. I spent six years at the University, so even as an adult, I was on vacation at this time. [I say adult, rather than young adult, because I was 23 before I started college. I completed my BA degree in four years and two years later went back to graduate school. I got married after my freshman year, had my first child after my sophomore year and bought a house. The economy was much better for young people in those days. I can't imagine someone having children and buying a house while attending college in today's economy.] [I debated whether I should erase that, last off the subject, bit or put it in brackets. Brackets won- now more brackets]. Our most compelling task is to see what kind of gourmet meal we can devise from leftovers.

This has always been a magical time for me. It is a time where on the surface I coasted through fun filled days; yet, yet, there was some assessment going on. I have never been one for New Years resolutions. I wouldn't wait for New Years to make an important change. However, the tradition exist for a reason. The holiday season marks the end of one time and an issuing in of another. Whether it is the new calendar year or the new seasonal year, with the return of the Sun, a new beginning is in process.

I like to think of reaffirming my intent rather than specific resolutions. I have been very aware in the last few years how I create my future with my thoughts and feelings. I have known about it intellectually for many years; but seeing it and being aware is another thing. I don't know how it is for everybody else, but for me it has been a gradual process of emotional relearning. Understanding it intellectually is a first step, letting go of those old patterns of thoughts and feelings are another thing. Why would we hang unto an old pattern of feeling when we have determined, beyond doubt, that it creates negativity in our life? How many times do we have to experience pain before we say enough? I know that many of us have felt locked into these old patterns even though we knew we were being crazy.

What if we were to take the position that everything we have learned about ourselves, our culture, our country, our families, everything, is imbued with untruth. We see everything through a perceptual mask that was laid down by a myriad of judgements. These judgements told us what we should be seeing, not what was there to see. This modifying and programming of our seeing took place before our memory and continues to this day. Our seeing occurs in a stimulus/response fashion. We see, hear, or feel something and it excites a pattern that has already been laid down. We don't know how to see with 'new' eyes.

We have had breakthroughs. Some of us have realized we were prejudiced and saw race, politics, religion, sexual orientation etc. with new eyes. It can be greatly uplifting to realize we have been blinded by a judgement. Seeing afresh for the first time is a marvelous feeling.

The biggies, the prejudices mentioned, are easier to spot in our perceptions of the world. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of others, we have, that we never notice. It has to do with everything in our perceptual world and that means everything we experience.

What do the biggies have in common? The change in our perception had to do with love and acceptance. It was allowing ourselves to love what we earlier thought was beyond our love. I think if we examine these patterns carefully we will see that they have to do with what we decide we can love and what shouldn't be loved. What if we decided not to exclude anybody or anything from love.

How about this as a resolution? What if we make it our intent to love at every level of our consciousness? What if we decide that love is the key to the problem of our perceptual dysfunction? What if we became so aware that we could see where every thought and feeling came from and we could ask ourselves, "is this love?"

Always, we can ask ourselves, "Is this Love?" We hang on to an illusion; an illusion created by separate minds that embraced fear. We are beginning to question the reality of this illusion. Every time we invite love into our minds we weaken the illusion for ourselves and our neighbor. Can we imagine reality might be love? Let us make it our intent to find out.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

POST CHRISTMAS GLOW

I heard Jamie rattling around in the kitchen awhile go. I resisted shouting out, "Hey, doing dishes is my job". Yes, it was confirmed she is doing my dishes. I am thankful. Although, I am basking in the glow of a great Christmas celebration, I also, have the aftermath of too much celebration.

We had seven at the table last night, a smaller group than usual. We had great food, great wine and a jolly time. I do want to help Jamie with the clean up and I don't have any burning issues to write about, so I think this blog will be brief.

It is now about ten minutes later, it is true nothing is coming into my mind to write about. I am very peaceful. I can sit here and have no thoughts. My state is peace and love and joy are available to me.

It occurs to me that peace is our natural state. How would our world change if we were all peaceful at once? Isn't it possible that we will achieve this? Couldn't we let go of everything but love and know our oneness? It seems more than possible to me at this moment.

Join me in this moment and let peace, love and joy spread around our globe.

Love and Peace, Gregg  

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It is hard to believe it is Christmas Eve. Time flies for this old man. When I was young we always had lutefisk on Christmas Eve. I don't know how the tradition started as it came from the German/English side of the family. My father's side, Norwegian/Scotch Irish, wouldn't touch the stuff. I tried to convince Jamie that we should follow the lutefisk tradition, we tried it a couple times. She was mostly disparaging. She had rude things to say about this delicate dish. We have had oyster stew for Christmas Eve dinner these last several years. We all love oyster stew.

 It looks like we are going to have a brown/green Christmas. Our snow has melted away and the forecast snow of the last few days hasn't materialized. We have had rain with a little snow mix off and on. The tradition of lights and general merriment is a good thing this time of year. I don't know if we are more overcast than usual but we have only seen the Sun for one and a half days this last month.

We have our big family get together on Thanksgiving. That is when our kids and grand kids get together and celebrate. Christmas we have a mixture of relatives and friends from the neighborhood over. We have a great dinner and a very jolly time. This year Noah and Naomi will be here and four friends who live near by.

My chores are much easier now that the chicken coop is within a short walk from the house. I have hardly seen the sheep since the snow melt. They are roaming around the pasture looking for green sprigs that were underneath the snow. I don't miss the snow. Sure it is nice to have snow for the holidays, but we generally have four and often five months of continues snow cover. I don't mind having a break.

Many of us are trying to give up the past. We have come to believe that real peace and joy comes from being in the present without encumbrance of  past thoughts and ideas. It seems that giving up angers and resentments from the past can be accomplished by forgiveness. A forgiveness ritual might be performed again and again but eventually we get over the hump and the anger or resentment doesn't come to mind anymore. There are little behavioral things and thought patterns developed in the past that are harder to expunge. We might not realize how much we might be a slave to past patterns. These can be little emotional triggers. Things that make us gloomy or cause minor irritation. Harder to discern is how we irritate others with some behavior that comes from some judgement we carry from the past.

We can give ourselves a break from all that past flotsam and jetsam. We don't need it. The Holiday Season is also the end of the year. Time for renewal. Let's convince ourselves that we deserve to be at peace. Let us accept the idea that Peace, Joy and Love are our birthright and any aberration from that state is folly. When we find ourselves in less than a holiday spirit it may be an intrusion from the past; let it go.

In this moment, there is only Love.

Have a very, very joyous Christmas!

Love and Peace,  Gregg

OUR FLIGHT FROM NATURE

I mentioned that I would write more about our separation from Nature in this blog. Now I am having second thoughts. It is such a huge subject and we have been doing it for a long time.

It is not a new phenomena. The Cedars of Lebanon were destroyed to build temples. Gilgamesh ordered forest to be destroyed because he thought they contained evil spirits. The early Christian Church demonized people for worshiping Nature. People were accused of witchcraft and killed, even though they may have discovered an herbal cure for some affliction. All our cures came from Nature. When was the herbalist on safe ground and when were they in danger of being accused of witchcraft?

We must have had a natural order, at one time, when we experienced our oneness with Nature. It appears that many so-called pagan peoples were far more in touch with Nature than their Christian contemporaries. We can speculate that people who understand their place in Nature have a sense of their sovereignty and a skeptical view of human authority that makes them less manageable from their so-called civilized peers. When we study history, we are impressed that the major religions suppressed our connection with Nature. The religion, itself, wanted to be the authority on all things and did not want people to go directly to Nature for answers. It is puzzling that religion taught, God created all things, yet it pictured Nature as somehow separate. In many periods of history nature was pictured as evil.

Distancing ourselves from Nature is a common theme as far back in history as we can peer. We have had many people, who lived on Earth and were very close to Nature, and we probably still do. We could learn from them, but unless we are anthropologist and can observe with an open mind, the learning isn't particularly available to us.

Everything about our culture is separate from Nature. We live increasingly synthetic lives. Some of us live in little artificial capsules that could be transported to any planet in the universe and if we didn't have a window to look out of we wouldn't know it.

How do we discern what is real from what is synthetic? How can we discover what has been lost? I don't think we want to go back to being naked and running across the forest floor in bare feet. But, hey, that would be a nice experience and I have thought that there should be a place where we could do just that. It is obvious we are different from the other animals on the Earth, in that our bodies cannot exist without protection, except for certain tropical and semi-tropical areas.

It is not any inherent difference from the rest of Nature that is the problem. It is the disregard and contempt we have for anything natural that is the problem. It is a universal that native peoples of the world viewed Nature and the Earth with reverence. Our culture treats the Earth as if it is some alien form to be exploited as much as possible.

It is tempting to see technology as the problem. It is clear that we have become more and more alienated from the Earth with the  proliferation of technology. Yet, it is a two edged sword; technology can help us be more intimate with Nature as well as separate us.  I sit at this computer. I can communicate with people all over the world. I can explore the natural world. I can view my fellow creatures from earthworms to whales. Much of the knowledge of the Earth and Nature is at my fingertips.

Discovering what we have lost and reordering our thinking is a group project. I only know one place to begin and that is treating the Earth and Nature with love and respect. Why would we want to eat synthetic food when Nature provides us with a healthy product? How could we possibly think we know more than Nature? Do we really alter crops because we think they are better for us or does it make somebody more money? Why do we tear up the Earth and dispose of containers, once used, that would probably last a thousand years? How many times have we looked at a glass bottle and marveled at its heaviness and construction and then dropped in the trash or recycling? How can we stand by and observe a forest being destroyed for someones greed? How can we allow animals to be raised in an unnatural and often bizarre fashion just so some people can get richer? I could fill a book just with this kind of question. We have to face it. As a culture we are insane! Not a little crazy, but stark raving mad!

We need to understand that thinking with our brain without our heart has been a huge mistake. Logic as a function of brain activity, only, seems to lead to destruction; and it is not logic. Every decision we make must be made with our heart. Without love we are lost. And love must be real love; not love of money or power. We know what real love is, even if we have a hard time describing it.

Discovering who we are and learning to appreciate our authentic nature, and the rest of the natural order, is something we need to do together. We can reverse our suspicion and disregard for our Mother Earth. We can learn to love her as the Mother she is to us. That will be a beginning.

Happy Monday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

TRUTH

I am getting a very late start today. We had a schedule change that threw us off a bit. We went to town this Morning. We have been back for over an hour. Instead of blogging I have been excitedly watching, if our new gray water system, for our wash machine was working. When we put on the addition we lost our gray water system. Part of the addition was a new laundry room and the washer has been discharging into the septic tank. That is not the best idea if an alternative is available. Jamie has been the chief installer. She thinks I would not be able to navigate the crawl space under the new addition; she is probably correct. It works perfectly!

In Wednesday's blog, I said that we should not judge other people's paths nor should we preach what we think is the truth. I made the observation that we are all going to get to our destination in any case. Our life lessons will bring us to the conclusion that love is the only answer. Anything else causes pain of one sort or another. Any direction we go that is not loving will cause us enough discomfort that we will alter our course. As I mentioned in an earlier blog we can take the easier path or go through the brambles. We, all, will eventually get where we are going.

There are a few reasons why we don't want to preach our truth. Even if it is the Truth [with a capitol T], if folks aren't ready to hear it they will be turned away, rather than turned on. The last thing we want to do is alienate folks from a truth that may be helpful.

But the biggest reason is {and some of us have a hard time accepting this}; we don't know the Truth. We have discovered some things that work for us and we may have learned to 'feel' the truth. The more we are convinced, love is the only answer, the more intuitive we seem to be.

What can I say about Truth at this point in my evolution? I can say that love brings me better life experiences than fear. I can say that if I am going to pursue a life course, I want it to be imbued with love and free of fear. I prefer the concept of oneness over that of separation. I prefer cooperation over competition.

Wouldn't we better off if we thought of ourselves, as seekers of the truth, rather than holders of the truth? I think we are here to seek truth and we were shunted off that path by religion and the idea of authority. No being, in a human body, can know Source [God] any better than any body else. Our Great Spiritual teachers never claimed that they new God better than anybody else. Yes, they could see clearer because they could see through the illusion. They were not closer to God. They had a less dense cloud between them and God. If Source [God] is Unconditional Love, and we are surrounded by that Love, nobody can be closer to God than anybody else.

Many of us have given away the responsibility to know truth, to the authority of religion or some teacher or individual. To be truly free, we must take it back. We must find the truth in our own heart. The proof of Truth is that is true. You cannot know this, unless you live it.

We have been terribly misled by our religious and other institutions. They seduced us because they do contain truth but there is much error interwoven among their teachings. Any group that truly wants to benefit us and give us value, would not want to control us and certainly would not judge us.

 What seems to me, as a fundamental false teaching, was that Nature was dangerous and not to be trusted. We have been split from Nature for a very long time. I think we need to find ways to correct the split. Whether we like it or not we are one with Nature. How would life be if we quit trying to separate ourselves from Mother Earth?

I will have more to say about this on Monday. It is getting late and I have some afternoon chores to do.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

THE PATH

A beam of golden light is appearing on my desk. I can feel warmth on the back of my neck. After thirteen days of gloom the Sun is brightening our world. Thank you Sun!

Each one of us, on our sojourn through this world, may think we are on the right path. And it may be for us, but there is no right path. There are as many paths as people and they converge on the threshold of our destination.

We don't have the destination well formulated and agreement is hazy. I like to think of it as Oneness or Unconditional Love.

Jamie and I are no strangers to argument. We often peer at a subject from two different angles. Argument is when the people involved take the position that they are right and feel it is their duty to convince the other people. Argument may have a purpose when we are talking about easily verifiable figures, like; what temperature does water freeze under a given circumstance. Argument has no place in the discussion of our various life paths.

When the people involved, have open hearts and minds and they are searching for truth, then discussion is fruitful.

We may observe that our neighbor is on a stoney path and we would like to help. We cannot help if we assume his/her path is an error. He/she may have chosen a stoney path because it fit with what needs to be learned in this lifetime. We cannot know. We can be compassionate and ready to assist if asked. We can always offer help if we can do it without judgement.
  
The truth is true and needs no defense. The truth needs no defense against attack of any kind. All we need to do is live our truth as we see it. Defending it implies it is weak or untrue.

It doesn't matter what we feel our truth is: Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Scorner, Believer, Unbeliever, Nativism, etc. etc. etc. Our truth is our truth. Live it. We all have something to add to our understanding of who we are. We can enrich each other. We can discuss anything. Argument alienates. It delays Oneness. It delays the realization of unconditional love.

When we feel we have the truth and need to preach it to others, we either drive them away or brain wash them; only occasionally do we succeed at really teaching them. We need to discover truth for ourselves.

If we believe we have a truth and it is our mission to share it, we need to live it. Only speak of it when asked. When we live our truth, folks are attracted to us that want to learn what we know. If we believe in peace; be peaceful. If we believe in love; be loving. If we believe in joy; be joyful. What we hold in our minds and hearts will manifest. People who want to learn from us will ask.

When we take the position that we don't know, but would like to learn, we can join with the student and teacher and student can learn together. A teacher best teaches what he/she wants to learn.

I am going to dig up my copy of Plato's "Socrates." I need to reread it.

Love and Peace,  Gregg 

LET'S NOT DWELL ON THE WEARY WORLD

The twelfth day without sun! Yet, I am so grateful for the warmer weather and the melting of the snow that my disappointment at not seeing the Sun is tempered. Strange weather. For two months we were way below normal temperatures and these last two weeks we were considerably above normal. Tomorrow ushers in more seasonal temps.

I have had a busy Morning. I had a dentist appointment this Morning [routine cleaning]. Jamie does not feel well. Elijah brings these bugs home from school that circulate through the family. So far, I have been immune. I had to run some errands for Jamie. I went to the hardware store and then visited the Amish and got some milk.

I have been home now for an hour and now it is time I blogged. What to Say?

I think many of us get weary of waiting for signs that the new world is emerging. We know the old world has to collapse first. It seems to teeter and crumble, then it seems to get a second wind and it seems like it will go on forever. I don't know how many times I thought the economy was about to go down the drain, then it makes just enough of a turn around to keep limping along.

We know the correct advice. It is hard to follow. If we just paid attention to the moment and celebrated every positive change we witnessed. We wouldn't be waiting. Besides that we would be happy and we would continue to create a pleasant future.

Many folks are like me, we are fascinated with the change and we observe, every day, the economic changes etc. which we think will predict the collapse of the system. It is not a good idea unless one can watch it without any ego involvement. Watching ice melt, when we are desperate for Spring can be painful.

I do pretty well at watching the old world wear down without suffering too much disappointment. I don't recommend it though.

We do better if we pull our focus away from the world at large and focus on our own lives. How can we bring more light in our own lives? What can we do to enhance our love for ourselves? How can we bring more love into the relationships around us? How can we give up our own fears and doubts about the future? It is much easier to improve our own life situation when we are not inundated by outside stimuli; especially the negative information coming from the collapsing world.

We are creators and we are responsible for the emerging world. That responsibility begins with our thoughts and feelings. Many times it doesn't feel like we have a choice about how we think and feel, but we do. Meditation helps. Learning how to immerse ourselves in the unconditional love of Source helps greatly. Try it. Open yourself to the possibility. Close your eyes and imagine yourself surrounded by the energy of unconditional love.

Don't be concerned about your own backsliding. We all backslide. As a group, humanity has passed the point of no return. Love eclipsed fear some time ago. We couldn't stop the New World emerging if we wanted to. Don't be concerned about not realizing paradise. We all will experience it. We can delay our individual awareness by stubbornly hanging on to the old world illusion. Let us not do that.

It is time to give up this heavy illusion made of fear. Consciously hold love in your life. Every time we have awareness of ourselves, our thoughts, our acts add love. We can make love our mantra. Love is all there is.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

CLOUDY WEATHER

We haven't seen the Sun since December 3rd. According to the forecast it was supposed to be Sunny this past Tuesday. We were all looking forward to it and mentioned it to several people on Monday. That night I looked at the forecast and noted that it had been changed to 'clearing'. Well it didn't clear and it has been overcast ever since. This will be the ninth day without Sun. That is a long time. I don't know how unusual it is. It seems a bit much.

I may not finish this blog until late Morning or early afternoon. I have an appointment for a haircut at 10:30AM. Jamie used to cut my hair but last year we discovered a lady opened up a salon in our neighborhood. She works from her home and is very good.

Today is the first day I will really notice the easing of my chores because of the new chicken coop. Although, we moved the chickens a couple weeks ago, I still had broilers in a second coop. Now I only have the layers and the sheep to care for.  For nearly forty years I trudged out to that hundred and twenty year old chicken coop a minimum of twice a day and often three or four times.

Cloudy weather doesn't have to mean a cloudy mood. On the world stage it has been more than cloudy it has been stormy for a long time.

{Back from my haircut} Now what was I talking about? How can we feel Sunny when it is stormy or dreary? There is a bright side; for instance with this weather we are having, it may be cloudy but it is several degrees above normal and the snow is melting.

The world stage is ugly and encouraging news is suppressed by those who want us to be fearful and dependent. But there are signs of change. Although the CIA torture report is ugly, it needed to come out. For most of us, who were paying attention at the time, it is not news; all those allegations were leaked. There will be many more shocking things coming out in the near future.

There is encouraging news, the light is shining brighter and brighter and is penetrating dark places. Minds are changing at every level. What do we do when the light is dim; we crank up our own light. We are in control of our own minds. We can choose how we think and feel. I know, sometimes we feel victims of events or others feelings. We are not! It may be a revelation that we are indeed free to think and feel as we wish. It is true. Many of us have been determined to keep our light high in every situation. Sometimes we fail; but we bounce back, we are determined to shine our light on the world.

We are the creators! Like it or not. We create our future with our thoughts and feelings. In a sense, what happens in the future is our wish for the future. Let us not weigh down our minds with negative thought of things to come. Our future will be ours according to our beliefs. We can only live this moment. If we fill this moment with light, that is what will be extended to the future.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

THE TYRANNY OF THE EGO

As we go through life we have our ups and downs. As we go through life we create or mis-create continually. Our creations come from our true selves, our mis-creations come from our egos.

Our egos enjoy comfort; but only if they can maintain control. Our egos are a tiny part of ourselves, yet they control too much of our experience. The ego is the part of us that always has to be right, drives us to competitiveness and always evaluates if we are better or worse than our neighbor.

Part of growing awareness is the knowledge that we are essentially one. Yes, we are unique as individuals, just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike; yet we share Oneness. We are not only created by Source, we are an integral, inseparable part of Source. When we are in a peaceful place we greatly appreciate that feeling of oneness with humanity.

When we begin to become comfortable with our Oneness, our egos become very uncomfortable. Our ego can only realize its function when we are feeling separate. The ego cherishes our feelings of separateness. Whenever the ego realizes we are listening to guidance from our true selves [the One or Source], it panics and plots to usurp power from our spirit or true self. The ego will have no other gods before it. The ego thinks it is you. It may seem preposterous that the tiny part of us, that we made to aid us in our separation, could have developed that much power, but it has.

If we examine it closely we realize its power is very limited. It is limited in the same way the cabal is limited in its attempts to maintain power over the people of the Earth. The cabal in its attempts to maintain power causes pain and confusion in the mind of humankind. Eventually humankind is destined to wake up and throw off the cabal. Their means of control are similar to the egos and at the base is always some form of fear.

Likewise, in the ups and downs of our life, we begin to see the egos tyranny. We begin to see our need to be right is hurting our relationships. We begin to see our need to evaluate everybody is as easily turned on ourselves and creates anguish in our being. We begin to realize that all judgement is a two edged sword, it slices deeper in our own heart than those we judge.

We come into the world with complete amnesia. We don't know why we chose to be born. We can guess that one goal is to learn to live in a functional way with the Earth and all the Earth denizens. We appear to meet people, and get into long term relationships with people, who can help us. Some of these relationships are a refuge away from the larger pain of the world. Some other relationships present continuous challenge to grow. Most relationships are a little of both, sometimes they are a refuge and other times a challenge.

When we examine the ups and downs in our life; whether it be relationships, careers, economic status etc., we find the tyranny of our ego. Our ego has difficult time allowing success outside of its idea of separateness.

The good news is the ego's control is fragile. When we are under its control it seems it's invincible; yet it can be amazingly easy to step away from it. When I say it is fragile, I don't mean we can underestimate it. It is tricky and has many layers. So, when I say it is amazingly easy to step away from; I don't mean it is easy to keep out of its influence. For instance, it makes us feel great to be helpful to others. We may donate money to charity freely. Yet the third or fourth time we write that check we might pat ourselves on the back for what a great person we are, the ego smiles. Many of us, who have been in service professions, have enjoyed the freedom of the ego's influence while engaged in our work. In our work we can easily understand and experience what oneness is; we get a glimpse or more than a glimpse of unconditional love. Then our egos seem to cause havoc in our personal lives.

The ego is a tiny part of us but it's goal in monumental. When it has been wreaking it's havoc it seems insurmountable. Yet, REMEMBER THIS, it is all in our imagination. The ego cannot keep us from being One; because we are already one. We don't need to achieve Oneness. We are already One.

We need to stop listening to it. It shouts in our ear. It whispers in the dark. It encourages us to have negative feelings. It wants us to judge ourselves and each other. The very reason the ego is lashing it's tail is because it is terrified it is losing. It is losing. We are waking up to Love. We are learning to love each other and our Earth. The ego know it's days are numbered.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

PRACTICE SEEING

This Morning I am going to go with Jamie to the Amish to get milk and then we are to do some shopping. I am under some time pressure as she wants to leave in an hour or so. That is plenty of time to write a blog, if one has any idea of what they have to say. I don't.

Next Monday I have a dentist appointment at 9:AM so I will have to work around that.

We managed to get eleven of the twenty-two broilers in the freezer. That was too many to do in one day for this old codger. We took a couple days off and decided to finish this week at a more leisurely pace.

I have often talked about suspending our beliefs. Our beliefs create a perceptual screen through which we see the world. We don't see reality. We only see the illusion that we create with our perception.

Suspending beliefs is a very difficult task. I am not talking just about the big beliefs; whether we believe in God, Source, Love, etc. I am talking about thousands, perhaps millions of little conclusions we have made since the day we found ourselves in little baby bodies squawking and mewing.

All these little conclusions [judgements] helped build the screen we individually and collectively see the world. 

It is not likely that we are going to be able to suspend all these beliefs and see what is really there. All through history a few people have managed it through years and years of meditation and a few unusual folks seemed to have the gift of seeing without an obvious struggle. Most of us are prisoners of our perception.

The promise is if we practice being in the present enough, we will stop time, our minds will be free of the time continuum and we will 'see'. I am sure it is true. I haven't done it.

What I can do, and what we all can do, is understand that what we see is the illusion created by our belief system. Further we can know that we can modify the illusion by choosing how we look at it.

We may not be able to suspend all the myriad beliefs that we have developed, but we can alter and thin the screen, we see the world through, by consciously deciding to see everything with love. If every time we are uncomfortable with the experience we are having, we ask ourselves "what am I not loving". Or "am I judging someone or something". When we begin to practice awareness; that is paying attention to what we are doing with the stimuli that we are picking up from the world with our senses, we will be amazed at the automatic conclusions we jump to. We will find this true with smells, tastes, sights, feelings and especially emotionally engendered feelings.

If we have the conclusion that there is a reality created by an unconditionally loving Source and we are blocking the experience of that reality with our perception, then it behooves us to alter our perception. The best way to do that is to determine to see everything with Love.

We can do it. We will do it.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

AN EARLY MORNING

I was up before dawn and in the waning moonlight I saw a deer in our front yard. She was a  few feet from the blueberries. We planted them several years ago and they have failed to give us a crop, because the deer like them for browse. I watched her, she didn't nibble on them this time. I have intended to cover the blueberries with netting but then I don't, until it is too late. The deer have big appetites and we have several young apple trees that are denuded of branches as far as they can reach. One apple tree, a Honeycrisp, is a favorite food, I did net that tree because they can reach the very top and there would be nothing left of it, if I didn't.

I got up before dawn [which is not that early in this latitude] because we have a big project to complete. I had hoped to get my blogging done before now, 9 AM, but one thing and another caused delay.

We have twenty something broilers to be made ready for the freezer. A broiler is a chicken raised particularly for that purpose. We raise a breed that doesn't have all the chicken qualities bred out of them. They are free range and they travel all around the yard looking for bugs and scratching in the flower beds. The chickens raised commercially have all the chickenness bred out of them they are little factories for putting on weight. They walk from their feeder to their waterer and not much else.

We have contemplated vegetarianism but we are omnivores and we accept it. However, we cannot accept how contemporary farming has reduced animals to meat factories. All animals deserve a free and dignified life and a painless, terror-free death. The art of providing animals with a dignified departure has been known for thousands of years.

I decided some years ago that if I was going to eat meat I needed to take responsibility for the process. I would be happy to give up the task to someone else, but for now it is mine to do.

It is very possible that humanity is evolving towards vegetarianism. That would be fine with me. I have thought a great deal about it and in a future blog I will discuss it further.

Regardless of whether we eat meat or turnips we need to do everything with love. Who can say that plants are less sentient than animals? We raise food crops with the same insensitivity to their true nature, as we do animals. We disregard Nature at every turn. Is not Nature the reflection of Source? We need to rediscover Nature. We need to see how we are Nature. We need to immerse ourselves in our natural surroundings. We cannot make the best decisions while separate from nature and each other.

Love and Peace,  Gregg 

WE HAVE SUN

As the Sun was coming up, I was doing the crossword puzzle and drinking a cup of coffee. For a reason, I don't remember now, I stood up and looked out the window. There, prancing around in front of the new chicken coop, was a hen, she must have been locked out all night. I went outside in just a t-shirt and sheepskin slippers*; I opened the door and tried to coax her into the coop. She had other ideas; after dodging me a few times, she ran into a large lilac bush and I couldn't chase her out. At that point Jamie drove in the driveway [she had taken Elijah to school]. First thing she said was, "Are you having a stroke or something standing out here without a jacket?" She heard me say something and she said, "Who are you talking to?" I said, "I am talking to a chicken".

She helped me chase the hen out of the lilac bush. I was able to catch the hen against a fence. She didn't seem the least for wear after being out all night. I tossed her in with the other chickens. Last night when I closed up the coop, I noticed the little door, that the chickens go in and out of, was almost closed. The door is right at the end of the roost and a chicken must have banged into it. At least, that is my best guess as to how she got locked out. We will have to find a way to fasten it open.

Chickens survive cold very well. It was 10 degrees F when I was out there this morning, it may have been a few degrees colder in the night. Surviving our numerous predators is a bigger problem than the cold. Foxes and coyotes patrol our neighborhood most nights; then there are owls, skunks and raccoons. I think the skunks are in a cozy den with their tail over their nose, but I saw a raccoon yesterday. We have never had problems with raccoons eating chickens despite there prevalence in the area, but other people claim they have.

I was remarkably comfortable out there this Morning in a t-shirt. The Sun was out! I don't think we have had bright Sun lately. It is wonderful.

Most of us who have learned something about enlightenment, and are hoping to be enlightened, practice being in the moment. We have learned, that focus on the past, dredges up guilt and other kinds of pain that we can't do anything about anyway. We can only forgive ourselves and others and let the past go. Furthermore, we have learned that focus on the future can bring anxiety and dread. Sure we have desires and we should anticipate their fulfillment. Dream about the future and dream big, but don't dwell there. We can only live in the present.

We create life as we go along. Some of it we create because we haven't relinquished thinking about the past and some we create out of fear of the future. However, even if we are successful in being in the moment most of the time, life has a mind of its own. It comes to us every day fresh and new asking us to acknowledge and live it. It occurs to us that everyone around us is creating and the totality of humanity is creating, we are all one and our moments are much more than just our creation.

We will realize that the totality of our creation is something to celebrate. Now, however, as we practice being in the moment we are sometimes flummoxed by the events of our lives. We wonder, how could this be happening? We need to learn not to fight life as it comes to us day to day. Peace comes from being in the moment and surrendering to it, not fighting it. Of course, we change the things we can. We don't keep our hands on a hot stove. We don't let life push us around. But we don't try to push life around either.

Unless we were raised in an ashram by perfect parents, we were taught we needed to control things. We were taught to think with the part of our brain that controls. Intuitive thinking and leading with the heart were seldom honored. Thinking was primarily fear based. Life was scary and the future unpredictable and we had better be careful.

We are much, much more controlling than we realize. Being in the moment-right now- the eternal present- means giving up control. It means accepting what is. Most of us experience this state only during meditation. When we quit meditating we are back to business as usual. But we make progress. Sometimes it is like wearing away a stone, but we are gradually giving up control and letting life be life.

When we finally accept the universe is love, and it is only our peculiar perception that says otherwise, we will be able to live fully in the moment. Source is Unconditional Love. We are One with Source. We cannot go wrong in surrendering to Love, We cannot go wrong in surrendering to the moment; to life itself.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

*P.S. Yes, I did have pants on. When I reread this [much later], I thought, "could a reader think I had nothing else on but a t-shirt and slippers"? Probably not, but just in case.

DECEMBER

I am getting a late start. I had to run an errand this Morning. It was cold, almost 10 below zero F. I had to go out first thing and break the water for the chickens. The water, in the chicken coop, won't freeze until it gets below -5 F or so. It just had a thin layer of ice on it.

We had a great Thanksgiving. All six of my children and all but one of my grandchildren were here. We had a sumptuous feast. It took me all day Friday to get the dishes done. I wasn't any ball of fire. I would do a batch, do the chores, do another batch, take a break, do another batch, take another break and so on until late afternoon. It was about five o'clock when the last pot was scrubbed clean.

It seems like a long time ago now. Time is strange, it goes so fast and the past seems to become distant, fast too. Does that make sense? The days fly by and yesterday seems a long time ago. Yet, all of that is variable; sometimes a moment drags on. I think we are changing our orientation to time.

Time flies, except when we are waiting; it may then drag. Then it can do both at once. I don't know how that is possible. Yet, last Winter I was aware of time flying by faster than I had here-to-for experienced it, yet Winter lasted and lasted and lasted. I know it was a long Winter but my perception extended it.

This is a much earlier Winter than last year. I was still grazing my sheep last year at this time. Winter didn't hit us until the second week in December. This year, we have already had three weeks of Winter. I don't think we are going to have the grueling Winter we had last year. But then, I an not the world's greatest prognosticator.

As I said I am not great at prognostication, but I will go out on a limb and predict that this December will usher in lasting changes in our world. I would not be surprised if our banking system breathed its last gasp and was replaced with a new more functional system. I don't expect this to be accompanied by much chaos. The change will be applauded.

I also expect some significant change in global consciousness due to the revelation of knowledge that has been long suppressed.

In early January I will report back on these predictions.

I don't have much to say today. We are going to change the world by changing ourselves. Each one of us must love ourselves enough to become a dynamo of love overflowing on those around us. Things will change from inside out. First we must love ourselves, then those around us. Our communities will become more inhabitable. Our children happier. People will be freer. If we are willing to see everyone as a part of Source, at the core a being of light, no matter how confused and alienated from their real self they are at the moment, we will leap ahead in global consciousness.

Right at this moment we can bring paradise around us by envisioning it and insisting it be so. Any one of us can do that right now in our little sphere of influence; even if that sphere of influence is only inside ourselves.

Let all our decisions be made with love.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

THE BIG CLEANUP

We had eighteen for dinner yesterday. We had a great feast and a marvelous time. I am thankful for the wonderful family we have. This Thanksgiving celebration is a memorable one.

It looks like every fork, knife and spoon has been used and there is a mountain of plates, saucers and platters. Plus all the pots and pans; as chief dishwasher I have my work cut out for me.

I have washed one batch of plates and I have another soaking.

There will be no regular blog today. I hope you find one of my old blogs worthwhile.

I wish all a great holiday season.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

GIVING THANKS

We got the chickens moved into their new coop on Monday evening after dark. I have moved chickens from one coop to another many times. We raise replacement pullets in one place and move them to the main coop, when their old enough; it happens every couple years. It is generally only a few, but I am well experienced in how to move chickens without much fuss or muss.

Chickens cannot see well in the dark and if they are familiar with you, i.e. their caregiver, one can generally pick them off the roost one at a time, put them in the carrier, without much trouble.

My first mistake. The chicken that was closest to me was a rooster. I picked him up and he started screaming as only a chicken can do. I put him in the carrier and he continued to complain bitterly. One would swear he was being murdered. Well roosters give warning to the flock. When they are outside and they see a hawk, they give a call and all the other chickens run for cover. So all the chickens cleared the roost and hysteria broke out.

It wasn't going to be the easy job that I anticipated. I went back in the house to let the chickens settle down. Jamie volunteered to go with me. It was clear we were going to have to catch chickens rather than just pick them off the roost. Fortunately, they had settled down when we got out there and we were able to pick five or six off the roost before hysteria broke out again. Chickens are much easier to catch in dim light, so even though we had to chase some down, we were able to catch them rather quickly and we made the move in two trips. This wasn't a big operation. It was only thirty chickens.

It actually went pretty well, it just wasn't what I envisioned sitting in my arm chair creating the event. The chickens are cozy in their new environs. They are adjusting well. I won't be able to let them out for a few days as they will try to get to their old home.

I am thankful the chickens are settled in their new abode and I have to walk less than fifty feet to the coop rather than one hundred yards. It will make Winter much nicer.

What do we have to be thankful for? We can be thankful, that after thousands of years, we see that we have been kept apart so that a small group could have power over us. We have been carefully taught that people are higher and lower. That some deserve more. That some deserve less. That some groups are dangerous; that some are our natural enemies. We have been taught that our wonderful Mother Earth is limited in abundance and not trustworthy. We have been taught that we have to fight and compete for everything worthwhile. We have been taught that everything is limited.

We can be thankful that everything we have learned about fear and divisiveness is untrue. We can be thankful that we are beginning to see through the age old manipulations and that we are individually sovereign but 'one'.

We can be thankful that we are seeing that the media attempts to keep our attention on fear. Fear is the method of control.

We can be thankful that we see, that any attention to fear, takes our attention away from the our innate love for each other.

We can be thankful for the love that is flooding the Earth, thinning the illusion and helping us awaken.

We can be thankful that we know all humanity is one. We know that our natural state is to be in love with each other and all we have to do is to quit listening to fear to make the transformation.

We can be thankful that the vast majority of the Earth's population knows that love is the only answer and it is only a few folks who have garnered power for themselves that attempt to keep us in darkness.

We can be thankful that one person who awakens has many times the power of one who stays in darkness. One person who holds his light high illuminates the hearts and minds of hundreds or even thousands in dim light.

We can be thankful that love cannot be limited. Love cannot be squelched. Love can only expand. Love cannot be denied. Love is the solution for everything.

We can be thankful that we are realizing we must give up our war with nature and must give in to our love for Mother Earth. We are at our core in-love with Nature. Nature is Love. It is only fear that has alienated us from the Earth.

We can be thankful that we are recognizing the Earth is a Being. A being as we are beings, created by Source. The Earth is the Mother of our Physicality and shares our Spirituality. She loves us absolutely and unconditionally. She gives us everything we need. We only need to give up our fear induced learning to see this clearly.

This Thanksgiving let us raise our voices and glasses to ONENESS. Oneness is Love. Isn't it wonderful to be in-love with Mother Earth and Each Other?!

Love and Peace,  Gregg



 

THANKSGIVING IS COMING

Our brief span of normal temperatures are over. Temperatures were slightly above normal, actually, highs in the low forties F. We were so used to it being twenty degrees below normal that it seemed like a heat wave. Looks like it is going back into the cold.

We are inured and it is okay.  It helps one learn acceptance. We used the two relatively warm days to finish the chicken coop. Well I should say Jamie did. She did most of the work. My part begins. I need to move the feeders, waterer and most importantly the chickens. I may move the chickens tonight if it works out. They need to be moved at night when I can just pick them off their roost. I need to do it as I am their familiar one. They panic if they don't know you. Then we have to move the two feed cans from the barn. They weigh between 150 and 200 pounds when full. Feed has to be kept in cans, we use galvanized garbage cans, the mice will have holes chewed in the feed sacks in a very short time. In fact we need to keep the empty sacks in a can too. When I first started raising chickens I just folded the empty sacks up and put them on a shelf. I found them mouse chewed when I wanted to reuse them.

We are undergoing Thanksgiving planning. Jamie has the preparations honed down to a 'T'. She has learned how to prepare the traditional Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time so that her whole holiday isn't taken up with cooking. She galantines the turkey; that is she takes it off the bones and rolls it up with the dressing inside, in the freezer it goes. She has discovered how to prepare and then freeze ahead of time; rutabagas, cranberries, even mashed potatoes. I am forgetting a couple things, and then she just needs to roast the turkey and heat up the other stuff. Pies are baked the day before. It is still a tremendous amount of work but she is able to spread it out over several days.

This will be the first Thanksgiving in many years when all my children will be present. Noah has been in California pursuing an acting career. I have six children; Laura [53], Stuart [51], Matt [49], Andrew [46], Noah [36], and Naomi [35]. We will gather here, with their spouses and children, and have a great celebration. I think we will have eighteen in all.

 I love Thanksgiving. The idea is so much bigger than the holiday. In my personal life I have found that the two things that bring me the most peace are forgiveness and thanks giving. When ever I am down, troubled, ill at ease, in any way not happy, if I ask myself, "What am I not being thankful for?" and/or "Who haven't I forgiven?" I will see the pathway towards peace. Failure to forgive is like a sack of stones weighing down our consciousness. Failure in thankfulness is being blind to our fortune.

It takes some people a long time to understand forgiveness. They stubbornly hang onto the idea that forgiveness is for the other. They hope that, not forgiving, will bring justice. They have yet to realize forgiveness is strength. It doesn't make one more vulnerable. Forgiveness frees the mind and paves the way for oneness. Refusing to forgive, self or other, causes a heaviness of spirit that often leads to depression. If there was one word to describe the path towards love and awareness it would be forgiveness.

In our culture we have learned to focus on what we don't have. It is a keystone of materialism. It is easy for folks to pine for what they see as a lack and miss out on all the great thing around them. This holiday reminds us of all the things we have to be thankful for. Let's not wait for Thanksgiving to be thankful. Let's remember it always. Next time things are not quite perfect let's turn on our thankfulness and bask in the warm glow.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

ANOTHER FRIDAY

Wow! Time is flying for me. I have said this before. I am used to it, but it seems like it is really speeding up more. It will be Thanksgiving pretty soon and then December and the Christmas season. Maybe Winter won't seem so long after all. It was more than six below F last night, now it is twenty three. We are looking forward to the warm up that is predicted for this weekend. A little snow might even melt.

My sheep found the big bales I had delivered. It makes my chores more pleasurable. I had ten or twelve bales of old hay, some of it had a little mold and much of it was more like straw than hay. I had to sort through it to find something they would like. They didn't like any of it very well. They crowded around me, hoping I would produce something magically, every time I went to the chicken coop. The chicken coop is surrounded by pasture. It is hard to walk through sheep that are crowding around your legs. No, I wasn't prepared for fifteen inches of snow and the end of grazing.

We have settled into Winter. Once one adapts, it is rather nice. It is a good time for contemplation and reading. I need to go outside enough to take care of my animals and I don't do much in the form of Winter recreation. I do like cross country skiing but I haven't tried it in many years.

I will be eighty on January 24th. For some reason that benchmark has been significant. The only other time I took note of a birthday was when I was fifty. Suddenly I wasn't young anymore. I have been looking forward to being eighty. It doesn't seem old, it just seems amazing. How does one get to be eighty when they are still looking forward to growing up?

In a real sense I am still looking forward to growing up. Doesn't it irritate you when you still act childishly? I don't like it when I still permit reactions that are purely ego driven. Jamie and I are both dominate personalities and if the truth were spoken kind of "know-it-alls". Although we fundamentally agree on most things. We often perceive from different polarities. I was aware, after a little squabble, that I would like to express irritation without the other reacting, then when they react, it is their fault. Hey can't I express some ego childishness without getting a reaction? I guess not. Maybe when I am eighty I will be grown up.

This is the time when we are all growing up. The influx of love on the planet forces us to bring our craziness to the surface. We made a conscious or unconscious intent to become unconditionally loving beings [in other words-grown up]. To be open to the love that is engulfing us, we must let our egos have a subordinate place in our lives. We must learn to let our hearts lead. We can begin consciously by keeping love foremost on our minds. It will become automatic.

It doesn't help to dwell on our failures to love. It doesn't help to figure out why we behaved like jerks. The origin of those ego buttons are often too buried for easy recovery and it is not necessary to uncover them. What does help is forgiveness. Forgive, forgive, forgive yourself and the other. We will find those buttons disappear if they are not used.

I have to go out in Winter Wonderland. Happy Friday!

Love and Peace,  Gregg

LIFE ON PLANET EARTH

I had two very large bales of hay delivered for my sheep yesterday. The sheep went through two and one half bales last year. These bales are even larger; if it is not enough I can get more. I found that these large bales are the easiest way to feed sheep and one doesn't have to go out there every day if something comes up. My hay man [who is also my plowman] brings them over on a truck, and unloads them with a bobcat like vehicle, with a forklift. He drops them right over the fence.

The hay bales are about one hundred yards from the barn and I am going to have to trudge through the snow with a bucket of grain to entice the sheep to follow me to the bales. When we get the chickens located in their new coop, my chores will be much easier. The present chicken coop is over one hundred yards from our front door and I have been taking that path, at least twice a day, every Winter for nearly forty years. Last Winter began with a wet heavy snow that formed an ice highway out to the coop. I go topsy-turvy a couple times in a typical Winter. Last year was horrendous. It was Jamie's idea to move the chickens to the newly vacated goat barn which is about fifty feet from our front door. We would have had the conversion completed by now if it wasn't so cold. The forecast promises warmer days next week. I resisted the change, ever so mildly, because I need the exercise in the Winter and I don't like making concessions to an aging body. Oh well, life on planet Earth. 

In a normal year it gets above freezing everyday, this time of year, and if it snows it doesn't last long. In my nearly four score on Planet Earth I have known only one Winter when it snowed this early and didn't melt until Spring. I hope this isn't the second time. Underneath the snow, there is still some excellent green grass in my pasture, I was hoping my sheep could graze a little longer. We will soon be getting to the time when it is normal to be snow covered. If we are going to have a melt it needs to come soon. Of course, there is that elusive January thaw to hope for.

I do my blogging in our new addition, we call it the North Room. It has two large windows facing East and one facing North. The light streams in the windows in the Morning and it is extremely pleasant to sit here and compose my blog. Most of the year, I do my morning chores when I first get up, and I would still be doing that if it hadn't snowed. As it is, the chickens are not eager to go out, they have plenty of food and water, so I go out late Morning. I let the chickens out. There is not much for them to do. Some of them go to the barn and scratch around. There is an area where I throw out the kitchen waste. Both the chickens and the sheep keep that area carefully patrolled. Nothing goes to waste on Laughing Water Farm.

It is 29.8 degrees F. That is like a heat wave compared to what it has been. I am going to go out and lead those sheep to their new bales.

Keep loving every moment of your lives.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

WHAT DO WE KNOW

I wasn't going to say anything about the weather. Complaining is not good for my consciousness. I can be in wonder, though. I am. We have been right at or below the record low for cold since Friday and the forecast for this week doesn't show much improvement until the end of the week. We are missing out on all that wonderful global warming.

The meteorological explanation for the cold is rather simple. A hurricane in the Pacific cycled far North and pulled down the cold. It has happened before and will again. I am not a scientist. I am well grounded in the scientific method and observation. All knowledge must start with observation. We can't create viable hypotheses without sound observation.

We need to question what we think we know. We find ourselves accepting science in  the same way we accepted religion. Which is paradoxical, don't you think? The idea of science is that is is grounded in fact and does not accept any ideas that are not grounded in fact. Yet most of us accept popular scientific conclusions as fact without the foggiest notions of whether they are true or not. Very much like religion. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it. We need to trust, that people who study these things, know what they are saying.

However, we must nor deny our own observations. I have a background as an electronic technician [air force]. I repaired radar sets. There are many aspects of electricity I don't understand but I can observe how it works. I am a gardener. I don't understand everything about the manufacture of chlorophyll but I can see it working.

Everything about our natural world is amazing and fills us with awe. We can capture understanding through science but we never know everything there is to know. Science is very controlled, and often accurate guessing, but it is still guessing. The proof is always in the observation. Is the guess working out? An hypothesis is a guess. A theory is a collection of hypotheses that were proven. It remains theoretical. There is no final proof. It is always evolving  as we understand more. Treating science as religion means we don't understand either one.

We have always had the contamination of ego. That is one reason why skepticism and peer reviews are so important. When the ego belongs to a great scientist, in a powerful academic position, skepticism can be squelched and peer reviews superficial. In the fields of anthropology, archaeology, psychology and to a lesser extent geology, ego has played a large part in what we have considered truth. There are still many, false assumptions we have, that date back a hundred years or so. We are learning. The further away science gets from mathematics, the more likely contamination can occur.

In our present day we have the contamination of money plus ego. If somebody can make money off of it. It doesn't matter what it is; medicine, agriculture, health, manufacture, climate, etc, we can't trust the research. Our god has become money and all science has become contaminated.

This is not something new. We have been manipulated for thousands of years. Our beliefs have been imbedded in our consciousness. We are at a time when everything must be questioned. Awareness is awareness. It means seeing truth. Many of our cherished beliefs are going to be turned upside down.

Do our beliefs fit our observations? If not, do we need to change our beliefs or observe more deeply and fully? We must not abandon our observations and accept others conclusions without having our own understanding. There is nothing wrong with trusting folks who know more about a subject than we know, but we must be very wary if it goes counter to our own observation.

We all have inside us an ability to sense truth. This is not well developed in most of us because we have accepted what has been spoon fed by society and culture. We do need to start looking inside to discover who we are. We have a much greater recognition of truth and understanding than we are aware of.

We will discover that truth is always love. They are inseparable. All is one. Truth is never divisive. If we focus on love and continue to appreciate our oneness the coming upheavals will not be so traumatic. Be prepared to shepherd folks who are temporarily shattered by the challenge to their belief systems. We need to go back to the root, immerse ourselves in Nature and just observe. We don't need to make conclusions.

Love and Peace,  Gregg 

COLD MORNING

It was 1degree F when we got up. My memory thermometer said it got down to 0.7F. My weather calendar indicates the record low for this date is 0 degrees F in 1919. The record high is 71 in 1990. The normal high is 42F. We will be lucky if it gets into the twenties. It is 10.2F right now.

We celebrated Naomi's 35th birthday last night with a nice dinner and a little red wine. Her birthday was on the twelfth but she had to work. I put some music on. Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends was playing and I remembered that I received that album for my 35th birthday. Wow! 45 years ago. The music still sounds good.

My brother and sister and law were over to our house for a party and as they left, Arlene [my sister in law] said, "We got you bookends for your birthday". They were leaving and I didn't clarify what she was saying. I thought she meant things to hold up books. I thought it was kind of a strange present, especially since we had a large library style bookcase.

A few days later, I received the album. I was overjoyed with the music. That was 1970.  I quickly acquired the other albums they had out. 1970 must have been a pivotal year for me. That was the year I left Wilder Child Guidance Clinic to go into private practice. For a going away present they gave me Abbey Roads. One of my senior colleagues suggested I get ear phones and zone into the music. I did.

Bookends and Abbey Roads opened up big door for me and in marched; Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Grateful Dead, James Taylor, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Willy Nelson et al. I have to stop trying to list them as I know I am forgetting a couple of my favorites. The music of that era blew my mind and opened me up.

The music described the times and portrayed the pain of the world but it was also very hopeful. It gave dignity to struggling mankind and hinted that paradise was possible.

One may ask, "What did you listen to before that?" I listened to all kinds of  folk music. Some of it Irish, English, American, Country. I loved Josh White, Burl Ives, Ledbetter, Woody Guthrie and many others.

Ideas for this blog are not suggesting themselves to me. So much of my blogs are the same. I reassure folks that things are okay and the world is not as bad as it looks. Some of the stuff I read is similarly reassuring. I sometimes get impatient. I want to see real change. I don't want to just listen to promises.

My impatience doesn't last long, because I do know we are on the verge of entering paradise. How do I know? I listen with my heart. I just know. I know all our minds are together and we are beginning to bring heaven forth upon this Earth. Let me quote something from a blog I read before going to bed last night: "If you want a peaceful world, picture a peaceful world. Your pictures are that powerful. Picture a world of goodness and mercy, and behold, it will arise. Instead of storming about the state of the world, bless it. Instead of rigorously trying to overthrow the world, picture a world you would love with all your heart, and that is the world that will appear before you. The world has been amazing how it has absorbed your slings and arrows. Now the world looks for a new appraisal from you, and it will follow your thoughts. You can't get off the world- while you are here- so be a cheerleader and so change it without fanfare, and My Will be done." This is a paragraph from a blog called, "Heaven Letters"

Sounds like good advice.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

WINTER RULES

What happens when the low temperature hovers around freezing for weeks, then suddenly the high temperature is in the low teens F.? What happens when the Earth is still soft and unfrozen and it is suddenly covered with fifteen inches of snow?

Saturday we were enjoying Autumn. Jamie planted the garlic and Noah and I dug the potatoes. High temperatures were in the forties F. Sunday we scurried around getting things done ahead of the storm. Monday, I made only one visit to the animals. {I couldn't see the sheep} Yesterday we cleared snow. But first- we got a telephone call from a neighbor telling us that our sheep were across the road in the church yard [a place for lost sheep?].

Something really scared them because my usual docile sheep were very wary of me. Even a bucket of grain, would not relieve them of their anxiety. They would follow us a little way and then bolt back. They acted as if they were afraid to cross the road. Noah was the hero of the day. If it wasn't for him the sheep would have joined the church by now.

We got the sheep back in the yard. They wanted to get back in the fence. We opened a gate, that they have never used before, and they weren't about to go through. They walked back and forth several times before they recognized the opening and went in. I will never disparage the intelligence of another creature. All animals are good at what they are good at, and often outshine humans in particular areas. That said; sheep are much less observant than many animals. Once they are convinced they can't get out of a fence, they don't try, and they won't even notice when an opening occurs. For the farmer that is a great trait. Goats on the other hand, notice everything. They will find an opening in a fence five minutes after it occurs.

A box elder tree fell down on the fence, sometime this Summer. I wasn't too concerned about it, as I said, the sheep won't necessarily notice it for several days and it looked like a big job removing it. Well, they found it, probably, before the storm. Not exactly the best timing for us human caretakers. Again, Noah came through, and cut up the tree and repaired the fence.

This Morning, was the first Morning, I had to do the chores under the Winter rules. I had to go down the basement and find my water jugs and I had to get the toboggan from the garage. No more using the hose. I will be hauling water until Spring. It is one of the earliest times I have had to begin hauling water. The earliest was the year of the Halloween blizzard. I have often been able to use the hoses until Thanksgiving time and into December.

By Friday I will be into the Winter routine and I won't be mentioning Winter [hopefully].

I found all the activity good for my body and spirit. When one is my age, it is good to discover one can do those things. I am not saying, I had no negative reaction to the sudden onset of Winter. I found it discouraging. Winter is long when it starts this early. However, I discovered acceptance. With acceptance comes peace. If we can't change something, we can still find ways to love it. Weather always gives us good lessons in acceptance.

We are soon to experience upheavals, on the world stage, that will disturb many people. Some of our cherished beliefs will be challenged. We will need to be alert to the needs of the folks around us. Some will need reassurance. Many folks will be looking to those, who seem at peace, for understanding. Many of us, have not paid too much attention to the crumbling of our institutions. Things could happen fast. A whole new idea of leadership will emerge. The new leaders will be folks who do not see people as higher or lower. The new leaders will KNOW everyone is equal; not just proclaim it.

In the meantime, we can only stay in the moment, and love it. If we maintain, that we are here to find love. We will. All is well.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

AND WINTER ARRIVETH

I don't know if there is any such word as arriveth; Winter has arrived, however, and with considerable determination. This is my eightieth Winter [I will be eighty on January 24th], so I have seen Winter's arrival in all different forms. Last Winter was one of the longest and most miserable Winters I experienced. Yet, we had plenty of warning, there were several one to three inch snowstorms, that fell and melted, before the final blast, in early December, that made Winter permanent.

When we have sudden Winter, this time of year, people recall the great Armistice Day blizzard of 1940. I was five years old and attending first grade [I skipped kindergarten]. When we got up in the Morning it was warm 40F. We resisted wearing heavy coats, if we didn't have to, and my Mother let us go to school in sweaters. We had a long walk. We called it a mile, in those days, but it was eight city blocks. It started snowing about nine o'clock. By Noon, they decided to send the kids home. I remember walking through raging snow to get home. It was probably in the 20sF by then, it got much colder that night. I can't separate my childhood memory from all I have heard since. The folks who were old enough, to have first hand reliable memories, would be pretty old. I know many people were stuck downtown as the streetcars quit running, my Grandfather was one of them.

I don't know how they forecast weather in those days. I know they had telecommunications and the AM radio stations fed information to each other. Our severe weather, generally, originates West of us and often we would hear broadcast that would be tracing a storm across Montana and the Dakotas. I don't know why the 1940's storm was not predicted. I know that several duck hunters lost their lives because they couldn't get off the lakes or reach shelter.

Now we know about a storm's coming days before it arrives. It still has an element of surprise. Yesterday was quite pleasant. The temperature must have been close to 40F. We bustled around, getting things done, we didn't want to do in the snow. We had a chicken roost, in the barn, that we moved for the new chicken coop. I raised broilers in the barn, in the past, and we are reusing the door and the roost. 

No matter how much we prepare, a sudden change in the weather is a surprise. I haven't been out to see my animals yet. The chickens are fine. They have plenty of food and water and they wouldn't go out if I invited them. There is probably six inches of snow on the ground now and we will probably get six more. I need to look through my old bales of hay to find something suitable for the sheep. I haven't got any new hay for them yet. The pasture is still in excellent condition and I was hoping I could keep them on pasture for a few weeks yet.

We have canned goods on the shelf and three freezers full of food. We could survive for a long, long time if we got snowed in. Unfortunately, one member of the family has a job to go to. Naomi is a nurse and she is working nights. Hopefully, she will be able to get out of our driveway and then find that the roads have been plowed.

For us folks who don't have to go anywhere, it is kind of cozy. It is a lesson in peace. When we stay in the moment, and don't agonize over what may be in the future, it is wonderful {filled with wonder}. The snow is beautiful. We have a shelter belt of pines, spruces and firs about 200ft from my window. I have watched the trees slowly change to their Winter garb.

No matter, the storm we go through, there will always be love and beauty to focus on. The world is going through a storm, as the consciousness of humanity is pulled by the tsunami of love, yet is reluctant to give up the old ways of seeing. Those, who have been in power don't want us to see anything new. They don't want us to contemplate oneness. They don't want us to see a world without war. They don't want us to see a world of peace. They don't want us to recognize we are all brothers and sisters. They don't want us to see that all is love.

We can't resist it! The world of love is pulling us in. We all need to give up our little fears and give up our resistance to seeing love everywhere. Love cannot fail. Let us turn our faces to love.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

WINTER COMETH

It is a cool drizzly day. It is 36.6 F and feels much colder. Jamie is out in the garden harvesting the Brussels Sprouts. She has been back in the house a couple times complaining of the cold and looking for gloves for her freezing fingers. I am sitting here, warm and cozy, at my computer. Our grandson, Elijah, is sitting behind me playing on his iPad.

I was outside earlier to do the chores and I am going to need to go out and dig potatoes this afternoon. The window is closing on our potato digging time. If the forecast holds out the ground will begin freezing next week. Every year we go through this. We pass up nice Sunny weather in October and find ourselves in the most miserable situation digging potatoes in snow or sleet.

There is still a little snow on the ground from the dusting we got Wednesday night. For some reason it makes it feel colder. It has been colder than this several times in recent days and it didn't seem so bad. Every year it seems like a switch is thrown and it suddenly seems Wintery. For us it happened a couple days ago; the combination of wind, temperature, and lack of sunshine suddenly announced we were in a new weather phase, the introduction of Winter.

Don't read this as a complaint. I celebrate these experiences on Planet Earth. Once I get out there digging potatoes [or whatever] I enjoy it. The pain is in the anticipation and the actual doing is always much easier than I imagine. Digging potatoes is like mining for gold. Every spadeful is filled with wonder. Exposing those beautiful white, red and purplish globules to the light is amazing. One never knows if they are going to get two, three or dozen potatoes from a plant. We don't have an ideal place for storing potatoes. Our basement is too warm. They will only last to the first of the year. We either can what we can't store or we use a friends root cellar.

Having canned goods on the shelf, a freezer full of beans, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and potatoes and sacks of onions in the cellar gives one a warm feeling and makes the coming Winter seem cozy and welcome.

It is all love, isn't it. Love captured in the form of a potato or Brussels sprout. Our Mother's gift to us guaranteeing us a safe and loved filled Winter.

Have you ever contemplated how many people spend their lives doing things that have nothing to do with our day to day welfare? Do you realize how little work there is to do if we are only interested in being happy? By happy, I mean, safe, healthy, well fed, well housed, surrounded by beauty; each one of us, free to share our gifts with each other. If we loved each other and took care of each other, we would not need the weighty corporate structures of insurance companies, banks etc. Millions of people who shuffle papers or click computers, keeping tabs for the for-profit world, could do what their hearts mean them to do.

Can we envision a world that would be for-service rather than for profit? We each carry with us a great gift to share with the whole. Soon after we are born we are programmed to fit into a for-profit world [usually not our profit]. Our gifts become deeply buried or are expressed as a hobby. Of course there are many fortunate ones who found ways of service that fit their gifts. There are many teachers, nurses, physicians, social workers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc, that are doing exactly what they want and fulfilling their gifts. But often, they have to work in corporate or government structures that are stultifying and limiting.

What if our society was for-service and non competitive? Can you imagine the freedom? A simple example. A tiny percentage of our population grows food for the rest of us, in this for-profit world. If everybody who enjoyed getting their hands in the dirt cooperated and contributed we could feed ourselves with very little labor, for each individual involved, and it would be a labor of love. The food would be healthy and nutritious. There would be no more poisons foisted on us by corporate agriculture. 

Let us contemplate what the world would be like, if we loved our Mother Earth and loved and cherished each other. This is our natural state. We are creative beings, part of and indistinguishable, from Source. When we let go of that part of us, that separates us from one another, we will see clearly how we can contribute to the whole. We will see how we can make a for-service world work. It will be fun work. It will be a great joy.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

WHERE ARE WE?

It is a drizzly Morning. It is the kind of day that one would want to stay in and curl up with a good book and a cup of coffee. It is 37 degrees F and it is threatening to snow. The Winter deniers among us are forced to see reality. I was out this morning to feed my young chickens and I let both flocks out to enjoy the inclement weather. They don't seem to mind; they leaped out of their coop with seeming alacrity. 

When we look at the crumbling world order, it is hard to keep our bearings. Looking at the election results yesterday, one would guess, most folks don't know what is best for them. People get seduced into voting for a candidate that represents one of their fear induced ideas. It doesn't matter. We are progressing. The collective mind of human kind is turning toward the light. Angry stances are softening. Age old grievances are coming to the surface, but they are attenuating. Folks are realizing that violence solves nothing. If we had a media that showed what was going on, rather than the fear engendered propaganda we are exposed to, we would see that humanity is improving. Folks are on the verge of recognizing their oneness.

Attempts at creating war in the vulnerable spots in the world, e.g. the Middle East, are failing. War is the only way the cabal could continue in control. Without war their banking system fails. They cannot generate enough revenue, to keep in control, without keeping the war machine cranked up.

It doesn't help to keep our eyes focused on the crumbling world. We won't be able to see our way. Each one of us, needs to focus on our day to day life. We need to focus on our experience as it passes in front of us. Our happiness lies in finding love in every moment of our experience. Our salvation lies in our happiness.

By focusing on the love in our day to day experience, we cause it to grow. We create an envelope of love around us. Remember, like attracts like. What you focus on grows. We don't want to waste our time looking at the crumbling world. By focusing on the love around us, we can watch the New World of Love emerging.

Happiness is a state of mind, we can always reach. Even when we are deeply down in a pit of despair, we can find something to be thankful for. Thankfulness opens the gate to happiness. We can always find something to be thankful for, even if it is, only, that we can take a breath without pain; or if breathing hurts-well that is a tough one- but even then, I know we can see something to be thankful for. It is amazing how fast we can climb our of the pit when we conscientiously look for something to be thankful for.

 It comes down to the fact, that we have a world to create and we don't want to create a world that is characterized by our pissing and moaning. That would be very much like the world we have now.

We want to create a world that recognizes our oneness. We want to create a world where everybody feels loved and appreciated. We want to create a world of plenty, where no one experiences lack. We want to create a world where everyone can express their gifts freely and fully. We want to create a world of Peace and Joy.

The good news is it is happening. The more people get behind the creation, the faster it will manifest. We are all needed. Let us begin with ourselves today! Let us expel all negative thought. Let us greet everyone with love. Let us find things to be thankful for. Let us feel our thankfulness, arise in our beings, to create happiness and love. Laughter, joy, love and peace participate in the creation of paradise.

Remember our contribution is important. We are all equally powerful beings. At every turn of our day, let us remember to keep our minds focused on Love.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

REACTIONS

I, no longer, look at the past and wish I could have been different. I know, everything fits into the perfection of our evolution. Everything has its way of moving us forward. If I was one to want things different, I would wish for different or no reactions to people or events.

How many times have we reacted to what someone said, or did, and made our life miserable or hurt someone's feelings? How many times have we experienced a moment, an evening, an event ruined because of our's/other's reactions?

Most of the time we realize the reaction was uncalled for. Yet, we might be puzzled. Why did we react so strongly? The reaction can be an outburst, spraying negativity on everything and everybody or it can be internal, a gripping of our own soul with negativity. In either case, it always affects everyone.

What is that all about? We are going along just fine and something is said that puts us in hell. Why?

We have all developed layers, around, what we think is a fragile core. We will discover it is not fragile at all. At our core we are unconditionally loving beings. We are incapable of being hurt. However, some time after birth we identified with our fragile bodies, and everything in our culture led us to believe we needed to protect ourselves from the outside. We were taught, that we were separate entities, vulnerable to harm. We learned that being vulnerable was dangerous. We are just beginning to learn that vulnerability is our strength.

We, all, had different experiences and we, all, developed different types of layers for protection. These layers have one thing in common; when poked they have an immediate and automatic response.

What can we do about it? We need to accept, we are responsible for our reactions. However, responsibility is not guilt. Responsibility is not blame or fault finding. Awareness is the name of the game we are in. Awareness is the key to our evolution. We need to become aware that we have these layers. Some of us need to look at our lives and understand, how and why, we developed these defenses; others, of us, can learn to become more exposed and let down our guard without much exploration. In either case, acceptance of who we are, right now and the willingness to look and see, what is happening is crucial. Our reactions are automatic. We can't stop a reaction once it is triggered. We can, however, look to see what was causing it and realize we do not need that defense.

Self examination is never, never self-blame. We must be sweet and kind to ourselves. We must be abundantly forgiving. We built up these layers in the first place because we were afraid we were not lovable. Attacking ourselves just proves it. Discovering we are lovable is a key part of awareness. We are infinitely lovable.

Many of us, on looking back at our lives, have realized that our defenses have diminished. If we have been pursuing a path of embracing love, we may see we have made remarkable progress. Others, may have chosen life partners to hurry their evolution, their respective layers may be antagonistic. If we find ourselves in relationships where we are often 'poked' it may be an opportunity, we created, to grow.

We are all on different paths and we are all growing. All of us. Love is always the only solution. When we love ourselves sufficiently, we will let our defensive layers melt in the light, of the love, that surrounds us. It is always there. We will discover we are not vulnerable. We are great beings of light and love.

Love and Peace,  Gregg  

HALLOWEEN

It was 21 degrees F when I got up this Morning. I had to break the ice on the outside water buckets for the chickens. It is a quite a dramatic turn down in the weather and a reminder that Winter is coming.

Everything in the world and national economic news is going in the opposite direction of my prediction, Wednesday. In fact, quite pointedly so, as if to say, "I'll show you". Well, we won't know which way things are going until the first or second week in December. I will revisit  the crystal ball then.

Halloween used to be one of my favorite Holidays. It has gradually faded. Where we live we rarely get Tricks or Treaters. Our friends, in this neighborhood, are not big celebrators of Halloween. My extended family is, and my Son, Stuart, has a great party every year. We live about 85 miles from them, which is a little too distant for an Evening party. We have a Grandson {Elijah 6} living with us, so we have some festivity. We will carve a pumpkin and of course, eat the candy that we bought for the Tricks and Treaters that didn't show up. There, presently, is only one family in our neighborhood who have young children. I am sure they will visit.

It is sometimes hard to rise above the negative vibrations of the world. Wow! The news can be awful. It is a spectacular waste of energy paying attention to the fear and negativity, rampant in the world. We can let go of it as soon as we are aware of it entering our mind. We are needed to shine the light. What we focus on will grow. We need to focus on the love we find, as we go about our daily lives. With a little practice we can switch our minds in a loving direction no matter where we find them.

The bad news in the world causes a strain, it affects our personal relationships. It can cause tension and arguments where none would exist. Any percentage of attention we give to the negative vibrations will drain our energy. We need to rise above it. We need to remember that love is the only solution for everything.

It is turning into a beautiful day. The Sun is shining brightly. Let us celebrate! Let us create a most fantastic day! Look for the Love. All is love.

I need to go to town and buy a pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

PREDICTIONS

Despite the fact that our mentors tell us our salvation lies in keeping our minds focused on the moment, we like to see if we can peer into the crystal ball, now and again.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am a world watcher. I have been observing the national and world economic system teetering on the brink for a long time. Forty years ago it looked like it was on the verge of collapse. It has become a joke among some of my friends. We have been expecting some kind of financial disaster for so long it has become a source of amusement. The numbers have not added up for a long time, and it has been especially shaky, since Nixon removed us from the last vestiges of the gold standard. Since then, we have proven that fiat money can work. Or have we? Forty years is not a long time.

Anyone can find a prediction that agrees with them; you want it to stay the course, there are plenty of those predictions. Do you want the stock market to go through the roof? There are those, too. Are you expecting a collapse? There are many of those.

I weed out those that have written a book and are sticking to their preconceived ideas. I ignore those that are heavily ideological. I don't give much weight to the doomsayers and the fire and brimstone folks.

Then there are the people who are just fascinated by political economics. They don't seem to have an agenda, they share what they are seeing. I don't know that I am qualified to say there is a consensus, but there are a few major points they are making.

The U.S. is essentially bankrupt. The big banks still have trillions of dollars in bad paper that can't be redeemed. The Fed has been funneling billions a week to prop them up. This supposed stimulation has only stimulated the Wall Street gambling casino and has not aided the economy as we experience it. The last vestige for support for the dollar is oil. When the oil producing countries stop insisting on dollars [this has begun] the dollar will begin its collapse on the world market. 

The real wealth of any economic system is the labor of the people. Labor has been outsourced to China and the third world.

Fiat money works fine until faith in it starts to waver. As long as the issuer, whether it be a bank or government, seems to have the resources and willingness to back it up, nobody questions it. The first attack to the credibility of a countries money, is when creditors demand, something other than a monetary instrument, to settle debts or for trade.

The United States government, nor its big banks, have a sizable amount of precious metals.

Gold and other precious metals have been flowing to China, Russia and elsewhere for several years.

Europe is, also, shaky, they are heavily indebted to the World Bank and are more in need of rescue than being in the role of rescuer.

The United States is heavily indebted to China, Japan and others. Will they keep accepting our paper? Where is the breaking Point?

The BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are forming their own bank. They are creating a monetary system that stands alone, separate from the The Fed and the World Bank. They have enough gold to issue a new monetary unit based on gold.

These are a few of the factors I could list. I am sure I left out several equally important items.

The rumblings, that appear right now, imply that the world economic system is about to hit a brick wall. The dollar will collapse and there will be a short period of world wide deflation. The world's currencies will be reset led by the issuance of a gold backed currency from the BRICS nations.

I don't know if any if this will happen. If it does it will be good. It will signal the end, of the dominance of the cabal, and the ushering in of a new age.

I just thought I would share what I have been reading and hearing. Our salvation remains in keeping our attention focused on the moment. We need to find happiness in our day to day activities and love every moment.

Let us keep holding our light high. Imagine the world of love emerging.

Love and Peace,  Gregg