DIVISIVENESS

The snow was coming down hard about 8AM, but it didn't last long and there is not much on the ground. My chickens are out and the sheep are still able to graze. But, more snow is forecast for this afternoon and tonight, and we could end up with several inches. I am ready- I guess.

The chaos in the world is distressing. There seems to be much individual pain. Also, in my extended family, there has been a tragedy, and there has been unexpected illness, of a serious nature, in a close relative. Many of my friends are dealing with illnesses. It is a stressful time for many folk. Yet, people are not letting these events get them down. They are dealing with their pain head on, and moving on.

It seems that no matter how bad the chaos gets, individually or globally, folks are beginning to see the growing light. We want to grow. We want to love. We want to experience oneness.

I am impressed and somewhat disturbed by the polarization that is occurring politically. Individuals and whole countries are demonized in the main stream press. People are catching on, but we cannot help but be influenced by the barrage of misinformation that engulfs us.

It is difficult to avoid divisiveness. I have to admit, I am amused by the ridicule, one of the political parties is experiencing. Their clown car of candidates makes for amusing reading. Yet, I live in a neighborhood fairly evenly divided between the parties; I don't think, any of my neighbors, support the extreme views of these candidates. Some of these folks are the most loving, kind, people I know. Belief systems vary between people, of the same and different, parties; the people are essentially the same.

I don't want to contribute to divisiveness. I want to see through the superficiality of peoples temporary beliefs, to the person they really are. Ridicule creates defensiveness and forces people to retreat to the worst aspects of their egos. We don't want that.

We have a highly competitive culture that likes to see things in black and white terms. People have to be right or wrong, higher or lower, good or bad. This current polarization can't last. When people get caught up in fear, they can manifest the worst aspects of their egos. Political parties like to play on fear, it is a powerful tool for manipulating people. To make it worse, the main stream media is controlled by people who benefit by chaos and divisiveness.

We can rise above it. We can know, truth has to exist, separate from the conflict. We don't have to take sides.

All we can really do is work on ourselves. As we learn to love ourselves, we will quit seeing our own egos projected on the world. We cannot see what 'is', until we get out of the mire of our own egos. We don't have to try to teach our neighbor. We don't have to correct the person next to us. It is only ourselves we need to work on. What the world needs is our love. The more we love ourselves, the more love will flow out of us. We are one, we help everyone, by loving ourselves.

Working on ourselves doesn't mean learning anything. It means unlearning. It means we are as perfect and innocent and loving as the day we were born. We can be who we really are, beings of love. It is difficult to accept, but deep down, I think we know it. When we meditate, we can find that place of quiet, that is LOVE.

More and more people, are realizing, the only solution to any problem is LOVE.

Love and Peace, Gregg

THE CLEANUP AND RECOVERY

We had the greatest Thanksgiving. I believe everybody had a good time. Some people might have thought I had too good a time. I was really into celebrating.

We had sixteen people for dinner and a couple more came for desert. Our six children came, all but one of the spouses [had to stay home with an aged dog] and six grand sons and a grand daughter. We had a wonderful raucous, noisy, good time and excellent food. We had a deboned turkey rolled around the dressing, and our usual Thanksgiving menu of creamed onions, yams, mashed potatoes, gravy and rutabagas. Jamie made apple pie, pumpkin pie and key lime pie.

Now is the time for the big cleanup. Jamie is doing most of it. I am mildly disabled. Well, I had better pitch in.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I will remember this one for years.

Love and Peace, Gregg

NATURE AND THANKSGIVING

The subject of Monday's blog was on self-acceptance; that Evening I went outside and stood on the deck. The Sun had just gone down and the Moon had just broke over the horizon. The mixture of twilight and moonlight caused the naked trees and the rail fence to glow as if they had their own radiance. It was awesome. It was amazing. It was enriching, yet there was some loneliness. The loneliness is that I don't feel that I can share the experience, I am not enough of a poet.

The thing that came to me as I was standing there, was that I wrote on self-acceptance, without mentioning one word, about accepting our place in Nature. How can it be that we walk on the Earth, without knowing, more than a smattering, of our bodies connection with Nature? And what do we know of our Spirits connection with trees, flowers, lakes, birds and beast of all kinds? We get to know our pets, and are continually amazed at how some of them, e.g cats, dogs and horses, can read our minds. How about plants? How about rocks? We are in such denial, concerning our place in Nature, that it is like a whole new study. I know that many scientist have studied these things, for example Emoto's studies of how our mind effects water. Several people have looked at how our thoughts and feelings effect plant growth, but these studies seem to remain outside our common consciousness.

There was a time several years ago, that we cooked most of our food outside in the Summer. We had a kitchen wood range and we didn't want to heat up the house just for everyday cooking. We had a well pump outside and an outhouse, so we could spend much of our Summer outside. When we modernized, I hoped to spend at least one week every Summer living in a tent and camping in the backyard. I didn't.

I don't know how many thousands of years ago, we were encouraged, even enforced, to turn our backs on Nature. I imagine it coincided with the rise of male dominance and the suppression of women and the feminine principal. The major religions demonized Nature and the feminine principal. We desperately need to put logic back to service of the heart. We need to sink back into Natures arms. Our Mother will welcome us. Let us put an end to male dominance and the function of the mind separate from the wisdom of our heart.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! It is a wonderful time to appreciate Nature's bounty. Let us be thankful to our Mother. Thankfulness is a powerful state. Have you ever tried it as a mantra? It brings peace and love to the soul. When we connect with what we are thankful for our concerns drop away. I have been making a practice of reminding myself of what I am thankful for, it makes a difference. It is easy to switch your mind to what we are grateful for, whenever worry, or feelings of lack, try to enter.

Nature and the Universe are loving. They want to give us, what we want. Our minds are confused, and thoughts of lack and fear, prevent the good things we want from materializing. Thankfulness clears our mind of that kind of confusion, and opens us to receive the bounty of the Universe. Like attracts like. When we are thankful, we attract more to be thankful for.

A neighbor came over to visit. Have a great Thanksgiving! I will be thankful for the gathering, of my children and their children, and the great food and the general frivolity. I wish every one a Thanksgiving full of love and good cheer.

Love and Peace, Gregg

SELF-ACCEPTANCE

We are emerging from a weeklong cold spell. It is already 36.5 F, balmy for this latitude. It was 24 degrees when I went out to let the chickens out; the ice was thin enough on the sheep's water that I could break it easily.

In the process of discovering who we are, we need to learn self-acceptance. What self do we accept? The emerging self? The ideal self? Who are we? We need to accept, who we are, every moment. It is easier to talk about who we are in the abstract e.g. beings of light, pure immortal energy, etc. etc. We have learned from our spiritual mentors, and the great ones, who we might really be, but on the pathway to that realization, we need to accept who we are now, in these bodies, with all their peculiarities and limitations.

Let us look, for a moment, without any reference to spirituality. We are bodies. We are personalities. We are members of a community. When we first ask the question, who we are, we often jump to the ethereal, and leap over, what we experience about ourselves. We are in a continuous feedback loop with the rest of the folks in this world. We constantly get messages about who we are. But the feedback is social, cultural, and personal. It says something, but it is certainly not the final arbiter, of who we are. We are certainly not a summation of the world's opinion of us.

But who are we? We do have our own opinion of ourselves. The problem is, that opinion has been shaped by a very perverse cultural and social experience. At every stage in our development, people have tried to force us into one mold or another. We have been shamed, criticized, guilted, condemned and sometimes ostracized because we didn't quite fit the mold.

How can we see ourselves free from all that programming? How can we know ourselves, when we are full of others' opinions of us? How can we know our own feelings, from those borrowed from the culture, to protect ourselves? We wanted to be safe. We wanted to belong. How far did we run from ourselves to avoid censure?

Folks talk about being an authentic being; how is that possible after the programming we have endured since our birth?

This is the place where I could throw up my hands and say, “I have no idea”. I am on this journey with you. Sometimes I feel I am close to my goal, and sometimes it seems to be, on the distant horizon.

But, I do have some ideas. I think we need to see self-acceptance as a journey. And a journey we can love. We got in this mess, because we inculcated a whole panoply of judgements and ideas about ourselves. We got confused about, who we are, because we accepted other peoples judgements, about ourselves. We get out of the mess, by backing up, and giving up the judgements.

The first step is to form, the intent, not to judge ourselves. In the beginning, we can't tell the difference between a self-evaluation and a borrowed judgement. The simple decision, not to judge ourselves, opens up new windows. Blame and guilt have never advanced human kind, individually or globally. Opening windows means letting the light in. Letting the light in means loving ourselves. The moment we decide not to judge ourselves, is the moment, we begin to love ourselves.

On our journey we will find ourselves behaving atrociously. Getting down on ourselves does not help; in fact, it insures that we will do something similar in the future. We need to accept that we haven't reached our goal. We will backslide. When we do, we can look at ourselves with love and acceptance. Yes, we erred. Error is only error, and is correctable, by lovingly accepting, who we are at this moment.

We have no understanding of how magnificent we are! We are all unique and amazing human beings. At some point in the future, we may see ourselves as great beings of light and pure immortal energy, but right now, we are in these pretty neat bodies. We might just think things are marvelous when we give up judgement.

Love and Peace, Gregg

A LITTLE ROUGH PATCH

Well Winter arrived suddenly here on Laughing Water Farm. Up until yesterday, we had a week of temperatures that didn't go below freezing, now the forecast is for a week of temperatures that won't go above freezing. The temperature dropped 30 degrees Wednesday night and we had snow flurries yesterday. We didn't get much snow, but there is snow on the ground just to the south of us.

I broke the ice on the sheep water yesterday and this Morning. The ice was quite thick this Morning [it was 21 degrees F when I got up]. Winter is official, when I have to start hauling water. The time is now.

The next few weeks may be difficult. The power of the dark may be diminished, but they are capable of causing serious trouble in their death throws. We are One. We can't insulate ourselves completely from the chaos or should we. We will need to be more alert than ever to negative thoughts and violent impulses. We need to remind ourselves continually that we are on a path of love.

If we think of humanity, as one mind, it is like we are in a final struggle, to give up our violence. The end result of separation is the turning against self. Humanity, as one mind is struggling with this; and, to some extent each individual is. If we reinforce our intent to embrace love and eschew fear and judgement we will come through this in relative ease. This will be, a period of temptation, to retreat to our egos, and see the world in terms of separation. We will need to remind ourselves of our oneness and our love for each other.

I don't think this period will last for more than a few weeks. We are learning rapidly. It would be wise not to draw any conclusions. What we think we see is probably distorted. Refrain from judgement, reject no one, everybody needs our love, regardless of how misinformed or misled they are. We will pass out of this craziness soon.

For some of us, the push to take refuge in our egos, may result in an increase of judgement of those closest to us. It would be wise to be alert to heightened tendency to be critical of spouses, children, and close friends. Again the solution is to remind ourselves to embrace love. With constant intent, we can program our minds to see love.

We, as a whole, are on the verge of great breakthroughs. New knowledge about our past, present and future is coming to light. We will soon see our history in a completely different way. Our origins will be known. It will be clear that we are not alone in the universe. We will soon give up any tendency to embrace the dark. Those who have sought and held power by embracing the dark will be held accountable. We will see that they cannot hurt us. We may not see it clearly now, but we will forgive them. We will see how desperately they need to be loved.

Yes, sometimes in can be darkest before the dawn; be of good cheer. Avoid divisiveness; embrace Oneness. Bless everyone we meet! Laugh, love, sing, dance, smile and see love everywhere.

Happy Friday!

Love and Peace, Gregg

ON DISCOVERING WHO WE ARE II

Strange weather! It didn't cool off last night. It is still 55.9 F, but the temperature is dropping. According to the forecast, it will drop all day and it supposed to snow tonight. It was Sunny when I first got up, but now it is cloudy and windy. We are coming off a three day siege of rain. I took my rain gauge in when the temps were falling below freezing, so I am not sure how much rain we got, but I think it rained at least an inch last night.

Before I go to bed, I sit at the computer for about an hour, read a few things and play solitaire. Last night as I was sitting here, I felt something on my hand, I looked, there was a mosquito biting me. I squished it with my finger, then felt kind of bad that I unceremoniously killed this [perhaps] last intruder of the season. Mosquitoes on November 17^th, that is a record in my experience. I remember seeing one in October once, when I was out in the woods.

Discovering who are, should be an exciting adventure, once we rid ourselves of all our preconceived ideas from all the isms on the planet. Certainly some of the ideas must be valid; the core of religions do contain truth. Any idea we hear, read about etc. must feel right. It must be free of fear and resonate when we contemplate it. Each one of us must to this with all the thoughts we have about 'who we are'. If we do accept something, that turns out to not be true, we will know; that is good, that is learning. We can accept an idea, knowing that our acceptance may be temporary, we can avoid belief.

In our journey of discovering who we are, we must first accept who we are. Or, at least, who we think we are. Many of us on a spiritual journey, have traveled through the phase of 'positive thinking'. I certainly promote positive thinking, as opposed to negative thinking. Yet, it can cause a war in the mind, in the beginning stages. Most writers, on the subject, have some kind of diet they propose, where one attempts to have only positive thoughts. This is an excellent exercise, as it helps us see, just how prevalent our negative thoughts are. None of my sources recommended continuing this experiment, without going into the second phase, which was discovering how/why these thoughts were being generated.

We can not stay in the first stage because it amounts to suppression and creates a war between the conscious and subconscious parts of the mind. A war which the subconscious will win. Having a thought and letting it go, is what we want to do. Having a thought, and finding it intolerable or too icky and attempting to push it out of our minds, doesn't work. It will just be submerged, to our subconscious, and come back, more powerful, with several friends. There is an art to having a negative thought, looking at it, turning it over and letting it go, without attaching feelings to it. Attaching feeling gives it power and assures that it will return.

We address the question, why do we have these recurrent negative thoughts? In our growing up, we pass through a continuing stream of negative experiences, caused by the judgements of our caretakers, and all our social systems. We were hurt, embarrassed, abused, used and exploited. Our world was very imperfect. We make it through this gauntlet, only by suppressing some of the feelings of these experiences. These suppressed feelings, if not thought about and dealt with, become encysted as thought generators.

The key is forgiveness. When we forgive our transgressors, we release ourselves from these thought generators. Forgiveness, is more than just going through the motions, it is seeing that the perpetrator was, also, trapped in their drama and there is a knowing that we cannot really be hurt any way.

We will eventually realize, that we are not our bodies and we, also, are not our minds. At least, not our minds, as the collection of thoughts, that we associate with ourselves. I am getting ahead of myself. There will be more on this in a later blog.

What I want to talk about now, is the acceptance of who we are, with all of our supposed blemishes. When we went through the first positive thinking phase, we were comparing ourselves to an ideal that we incorporated from our culture. It wasn't a real person. We are what we are. In the Eastern meditation traditions, there is a stage where we learn to view our mind from outside our mind. From a point of oneness, we see our separate selves, without judgement.

Accepting of ourselves, means giving up all judgement of ourselves. We can't love ourselves, and judge and evaluate ourselves, at the same time.

I will be writing more about this. I am on this journey, with you, and I can't get ahead of myself.

Love and Peace, Gregg

MISCHIEF MAKING

It is chilly and rainy outside. It is warm and cozy here in the North Room, where I am sitting, with a cup of coffee at my elbow. I am peaceful now, but I have been disturbed, off and on, these last few days.

I did not want to write about it. I wanted to ignore it. I wished it didn't happen. What can I say? I read, in various blogs, that the dark were not over their mischief making. They advised, that we needed to be prepared, for some attempts to get the world involved in a major conflict. They are desperate. They are losing control. They will do anything to create chaos and conflict. So I expected it, but I was still shocked to my core. I am speaking of the events in Paris.

Regardless who gets blamed, it was caused by the same group, that has been engineering false flag operations, all over the globe. It follows their pattern to a 't'. It is the same game they have been playing all along. They create an excuse to go to war; the goal is control of the oil and world domination. Look what happened after 9-11. How many millions of people were killed or displaced? How much division, chaos, poverty, destruction and pain was created? Who was the beneficiary?

This will encourage the war mongers and those who are conflict oriented. We will have to put up with some screaming and ranting. There will be an attempt to create fear in our minds and the need to take violent action. The main stream media will go along, at least, with some of the attempts to arouse people's negatively.

It will be a pain in the tush to watch this again, but, they won't succeed. Our consciousness is too high, now, for this to work. We have seen what fear does. We know that violence, only begets more violence. We won't succumb. It may be helpful to observe it, as a cartoon show, that is going on under the frame of our regular life; strange, funny sometimes, and not to be taken seriously.

Despite the MSM, there is more positive goings on, than negative. Look for them. Folks are demanding peace all over the world. Peace is gaining, I know, it might not look like that. As long as the MSM, blares every violent act designed to keep us off balance, it makes it difficult to appreciate the love growing in the world. We don't have to pay attention to it. It is all part of the cartoon.

We need to pay attention to our self-talk. It is important to avoid negativity, when talking to and about ourselves. These events are designed to incite negativity in the mind. Remember, we are co-creators. We will have the world we want. Let us keep focusing on love. What is not love, is not real.

I think this event is, already, backlashing on the dark. I think we are too aware, to fall for it this time. I think it will have the opposite effect, as the one intended.

We will go along, doing our best, to love one another and find ways of being of service. We can't fail. We have a loving Universe supporting us. Smile, laugh, sing, dance, nothing will stop the emerging world of love.

I would like to continue the discussion of, discovering 'who we are', on Wednesday.

Love and Peace, Gregg

FRIDAY

It is a bright, Sunny, Friday Morning. There is still a glow around Fridays, even though I have been retired, for fifteen years. The work week is over it is time to celebrate! Not that I wasn't able to celebrate during the week, but the necessity of getting up at 5:30, to get ready for work, would have its effect.

What would it be like in a sane society? Would workers be herded every Morning to jobs to sustain their life? I was fortunate. Once I was out of college, I always had jobs I loved. I worked as Social Worker, a Social Work Supervisor, A Family Therapist, Social Services Manager and I provided Services, to the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, as an adjunct professor. There are always parts of a job that are a pain in the tush; but for the most part I loved working.

Before I went to college I did my share of work. Work that is WORK. I worked in warehouses, on construction, as a machine oiler/mechanic, and of course, I was in the Air Force for four years. Most of the time I spent in the Air Force, I enjoyed my work. I was an electronic technician and I kept radar sets functioning.

No matter what one does it can be rewarding. The construction jobs I did, that I call WORK, were enjoyable much of the time. Testing strength and body endurance can be rewarding. I don't think, the actual nature of the work on these jobs, was the problem. It was how we are treated. The more labor oriented the job is, the more we are treated like machines and the less dignity and respect given to the occupation. I wasn't engaged in that kind of employment long enough to get the feel of it. Later I met all kinds of folks who worked in these areas, who did so, with dignity and respect. No matter how mundane a job is, it requires a set of skills, to do it well.

I might be wandering off my point, if I had a point in the first place. {The Old Man Rambles} In a sane society would we force people, into schedules, that seem to be against our nature and biology? We are very adaptable and we do pretty well; but why is Friday so great? Isn't it because we are coming off a schedule that is not really humane? For whom do we force ourselves into these schedules? It always bothered me that we expected little children to get up before dawn to go to school. Are we training them to be slaves?

Can't we get societies work done, without treating some people, like machines or slaves?

Lets imagine a world, where folks get up in the Morning, and look forward to their work. A world where everyone is appreciated, for the gift, that they have to give the rest. A world where gifts are not ranked or judged. A world where all are seen as equal contributors to society. Would that be so difficult? We didn't come to this planet Earth to be slaves. How would it be if we loved each other?

We wouldn't have to give up our Fridays. We still need a day to celebrate!

Love and Peace, Gregg

ON DISCOVERING WHO WE ARE

I am getting a late start and I won't be finishing this blog until afternoon. We had a change in schedule and I will be busy most of the Morning. Some three hours later;  is now 1:20PM. Oh well, we will see what I can come up with.

I have been thinking about discovering who we are. I could write a great deal from the literature. We can read what our spiritual mentors say, and there many people who have speculated. But, what if we want to discover for ourselves; what would it be like to function without the incessant prompting of the ego? What would it be like, to automatically see through the disguises people wear, to the pure spirit they really are? How can we see love everywhere?

I would guess that we need to embrace Oneness before we can 'see'. How can we appreciate, who we are, when we still think we are separate? If we want to experience who we are, rather than peer through a foggy glass at someone else's idea, we need to get our own act together.

We have much more invested in separation than we realize. Our separation has been reinforced continually from the time of our birth. Instead of seeing Oneness, there has always been the Other. Our minds love to evaluate and in our separated state, evaluation leads to judgement.

My conclusion is, we have to give up judgement, in order to 'see'. If you are like me, you are on this journey. One of the discoveries we make is that we have to give up judgement of ourselves, to effectively be free of judgement of others. That means we need to be, so free of judgement, of ourselves, that we see only love when we look inward. This is where, giving up the past, and being in the moment, becomes crucial. Again, if you are like me, a whole myriad of thoughts flood the mind, to remind us of what rapscallions, we have been. We can be going along, happy as a lark, when something reminds us of something we did, or didn't do, twenty years ago, and be filled with shame or guilt. Reminders of our inadequacy and unworthiness come in all shapes and sizes; but, they are always referencing the past. When we experience one of these events the temptation is to suppress it, hammer it down or hide from it. However, to get over it, we need to feel the feeling, understand it's meaning and FORGIVE, ourselves and all others involved. If you have any idea that forgiveness frees the other, give that up! Sure to some degree, the other is freed from our judgement, but the main beneficiary is the forgiver. All our judgements big our small reinforce separateness. They create a wall around us keeping us from knowing ourselves.

If we constantly remind ourselves we are ONE. It will help in navigating our daily experience. Every time we criticize ourselves we cast aspersions on the whole of human kind. Every time we judge one person, we judge all.

As long as we live in this illusion of separateness, we see the protective shell around people, that they have erected to protect them. These shells are thick and thin, cloudy or transparent, our real selves peer through the barrier to the 'other'. The more we love ourselves, the thinner and more transparent our shells become, and the better we can see through the shells of other folk.

I know I am getting better at disregarding the barriers of others. More and more I can look beneath the surface and not react to the disguise. It is true that the slings and arrows of others do not need to hurt us.

The afternoon chore time is on the horizon and I need to quit. I want to say much more about this; it is time for us to appreciate who we are.

Love and Peace, Gregg

A NEW MONDAY

Another beautiful Morning on Planet Earth. The Sun is streaming in my windows giving a promise of all good things.

I wasn't very happy about losing my blog on Friday. I was relating the story to one of my favorite daughters and she harangued, “Haven't I told you a million times that you should use a word processing app and copy and paste to your blog. That way you won't lose it. It will be in the your computer.” I may be paraphrasing, but it was something like that. I hate to admit. I don't even know how to cut and paste, something that today's ten year old appear to do. Hey! I am one of the oldsters, I didn't see my first TV until I was thirteen and we were one of the first in our town to get one. I can learn. You can teach an old dog new tricks. In fact I am using the OpenOffice app right now.

I won't try to reproduce what I wrote, and lost, on Friday. I was contemplating the age old questions, “Who are we?” and “Why are we here?” I do have my answers; but, I would like to see a gathering of folks discuss these questions without reference to any religion or philosophy.

It seems that any idea derived from religion or philosophy plugs up the reasoning process. Of course, the idea could be freeing and not limiting. However, most beliefs limit knowledge; they become stopping places. We cannot answer these questions if we borrow heavily from our preconceived ideas.

It has been postulated by our spiritual mentors, that we do know everything already and it is a matter of remembering. What if we could get people together, and meditate for awhile, and see what we come up with. No idea would be considered a truth and all ideas would be attacked. I use the word attack. I can't think of a milder sounding word to indicate an idea, turned over and and over, and thoroughly discussed.

We need to answer these questions for ourselves and not rely on old programming. I think the only belief we can hold that is not limiting, is Love.

I will bring this discussion up again. This blog is an experiment. Do I really know how to copy and paste? I don't want to take a chance on another Friday debacle. My nerdy children are at their own homes.

One note before I close. We have a new dog. Last year, August 3, 2014, our dog Rosie, who had been with us for more that fifteen years, died. It was very peaceful. She found a Sunny spot outside, curled up, and gave up her spirit. She was a poodle/yorkie mixture.

We received a call from a person who was referred to us by Rosie's groomer. This poodle/yorkie mix dog needed a new home. She belonged to an elderly couple. He had a heart attack and died and she had Alzheimers and went to a nursing home. The dog was being cared for, by a relative, who couldn't keep her. She is four years old, has all her shots, and has had good care. They were only a few miles a way; Jamie went over and picked her up yesterday. So far, she is a perfect addition to the family. Her name is Tina. We may rename her.

Okay, the great experiment begins. I will attempt a copy and paste.

Love and Peace, Gregg

NO BLOG TODAY

I wrote a blog, and was on the last line, when I accidentally hit some key and it disappeared. It was a great one, too. It was on discovering who we are. I can't figure out how to get it back. I just can't do it again. It is after One PM and I have much to do.

I am sorry, but it must be perfect, perhaps I am not ready to have that discussion.

Have a great Friday. Celebrate!

Love and Peace,  Gregg

WILL WE EVER BE ABLE TO SEE

We discussed perception before. The basic idea is that we see what we are programmed to see. How can we get out of this programming? How can we clear out minds, of all the little beliefs and ideas, so we can see what IS?

All our philosophies and religions compete for dominance, but none can contain the truth, because they ask the mind to become reprogrammed. They require the mind to see according to their invented truth. Truth is what IS. Truth is never based on agreement. We may agree about a truth; but, truth will never be an agreement.

As soon as we attach a name to a philosophy, religion, any ism, we have already lost the truth. Truth can not be locked into captured ideas. Truth is what is seen with the uncluttered mind.

How can we begin to 'see'? Is it so difficult to accept that we know nothing? Is it so difficult to start learning anew?

Let us take a look at ourselves. We all have got descriptive names. We are children, women, men. We are different colors and nationalities. We find ourselves in different 'belief groups'; religions, philosophies etc. We call ourselves different things; machinist, farmers, social workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, scientist, etc.

Every description locks us into certain thought patterns, some imposed from outside, and some, accepted as the norm for the group. We become imprisoned in ways of thinking. If we are doctors we are in this pen, if we are teachers we are in this pen, if we are environmentalist we are in this pen, this goes on and on. We can be in several pens at once.

Each pen demands a conformity to some basic ideas about what IS. Of course, nobody can see, what 'is', if they stay locked in their pen. As long as we feel, we need to accept the ideas, that join the group in the pen, we will not 'see'.

It is quite a dilemma! From the time we are born we are programmed to see what our parents, teachers and other 'superiors' see. Then we join identity groups and further our imprisonment. We want to be accepted. We want to be beloved. We want to belong to something. We are not aware, of what we are giving up, when we accept others perception of reality.

Okay! What do we do now? If all this is true; that's scary. It means we know nothing. Yes, it is scary. All through history, when somebody stood outside a pen, and offered to open a gate, they were stoned, crucified or ostracized. It is indeed scary, accepting the idea, that all our precious ideas about reality may be wrong.

We need to look at our own situation. How have we bought into ideas, just because they were the norm of the group? What do we accept as true, without any personal verification? How has our self-interest played into the beliefs that we hold? How has status, power, authority, etc. influenced our beliefs?

Until we look honestly, at the origin of our current beliefs, we are not likely to grasp, the need, to give them up in order to 'see'.

The good news, is what is there, still IS. Nature is there in all its magnificence! Our perception, changes the reality, as we see it. Our perception doesn't change what IS. We will always think we are seeing reality. We don't recognize, we see reality, according to our beliefs.

The solutions have remained the same. We have been told to give up the past. We have been told to be in the moment. We have been told to empty our minds. We have been told to see nothing but love. There have been many, many teachers over the ages. They have all taught pretty much the same thing. Until now, not many people have been able to grasp, what they were saying; or if they could grasp it, they couldn't do it. How may people have been able to give up the past?

Something is happening! We have been flooded with teachers. There is a powerful urge to break through this barrier and 'see'. We know we can't learn, to love, as long as we are locked into our pens. We know, we will never know, who we are as long as we stay in prison. There is a powerful force propelling us towards freedom. We want to wake up! We are shaking our heads, trying to clear our minds. We are rubbing the sleep from our eyes. We desperately want to know, who we are.

We are beginning to 'see'.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

SHEEP

The Sun is out! There are a few clouds, but it promises to be a beautiful day. I am writing early today, we are having a new ram delivered sometime after 10AM.

This Spring we bought five hair sheep [adult ewes]. If you don't know about them, they are sheep that have hair instead of wool, otherwise they are the same as wool sheep. We did get some ram lambs, but they were half woolies. It became clear that the woolies were genetically dominate. The ram lambs, we got, are pretty fuzzy, and I am sure, will require shearing.

We have been raising sheep, off and on, for over forty years. We originally hoped to raise sheep that produced wool for handspinners. That kind of wool, usually long and colored, does not have a special value on the regular market. In order to make it work, we would have had to create a market. That is not our cup of tea. Still the shearer would come out, shear our sheep for free and hand us a nice check. They would come out, even if we only had three or four sheep. About twenty years ago, the price of wool dropped dramatically, and we had to pay the shearer to shear the sheep and got nothing for the wool.

We have four sheep that need shearing and Jamie likes the wool for various projects. We wanted to get more sheep but didn't want to burden ourselves with the shearing. I was hesitant to use one of these crossbred rams for breeding. It may have worked out okay, or I may have ended up with more sheep that needed shearing. The opportunity came up to get a 100% hair sheep ram. One of our neighbors got one and decided they didn't need it. 

If everything works out, we will have lambs sometime in April; perfect timing for this climate.

I took a break, did some chores; it is now overcast, but still a marvelous day. It is amazing how things work out. I couldn't find a hair sheep ram within easy driving distance. I didn't want to drive 150 miles in my little truck. I resigned myself, to using one of the crossbreed rams, for a sire. However, I kept procrastinating from getting him, from one pasture to another. It would require going out after dark and hope the sheep were in the barn and lock them up. They go in the barn at various times, but they don't do it, at ones convenience. I had November 1st as the deadline for this to occur. And what to you know, my neighbor e-mails me yesterday, and wants to know if we wanted to buy a hair sheep ram. The universe orchestrates things perfectly.

There are so many things to be grateful for, at a personal level, being aware of our gratefulness, can make an ordinary day into a great day. Expressing our thankfulness to a loving universe, everyday, brings much light into our lives. As we learn to express our thankfulness, we see more to be thankful for. As we increase the light, in our own consciousness, we increase the light in the consciousness of human kind. We are waking up from a long sleep. We are in for some surprises. It is likely that most of what we believe to be true, is not.

I need to go. My sheep lady arrived.

Love and Peace,  Gregg