DRIVEL

We finally turned on the air conditioner! We thought we could tough it out and originally the forecast for our area wasn't as hot as the cities. Yesterday it was supposed to stay in the eighties, it didn't, it got over ninety. I didn't sleep well last Night.

I am sorry to say I won't be able to blog today. I have some paper work to do in relation to selling this house [disclosure agreements] and I am preoccupied with some other drivel. I will explain in Monday's blog.

Have a great Friday everyone!

Love and Peace, Gregg

A VERY SHORT BLOG

We have had flocks of people looking at our house in the last few days. It looks like we are going to be able to sell at the listed price and soon. We haven't begin to find our new home. The area we want to move to is eighty plus miles away. We would like a condo or townhouse. We will have to spend some time traveling.

Jamie has been working like crazy getting ready for the move, mainly boxing up our huge book collection. Most of them we will give away. We can't take them all with us. We have book shelves in five different rooms plus a library (full wall) size one in a room we call the library. She has also gathered up tons of stuff to give to the second hand store.

I am just becoming awakened to the fact that this move is really happening. Right now my mind is filled with move related trivia. I need to do more research on what is available in the place we hope to end up.

I apologize to those hoping I might have something worthwhile to say. Perhaps on Friday.

Love and Peace, Gregg

I CANT STAND IT!

I don't think I can stand it! Do I have to crawl under a bushel basket and peer through a tiny hole to avoid experiencing the painful divisiveness in our world?

Come on now, if an administrative employee of the Obama administration had been asked to leave a restaurant because of who they worked for we [us liberals] would have had a hissy fit that one could hear from space. Yet we make a hero out of a restaurant that does it to the 'other side'? This is supposed to be a war of ideas not a war of personalities. Everybody deserves to eat and everybody deserves basic courtesy. Holding peoples beliefs against them is simply horrible.

If people have horrible beliefs our demonizing them just drives them further into their faulty conclusions. It makes it harder for them to think about what they believe and possibly question it.

The powers that be, the cabal or whatever you want to call them, have been using divisiveness and demonetization of the other to control us and keep us in our place for eons. Are we just going to fall for it?

Sometimes I think Trump was picked to be president, by the cabal, because he is the most divisive person they could settle on.

And in the meantime, who is paying attention to how our democracy has gone down the drain. How many people are aware that as long as we use computers, at any phase in our elections, we will not be able to trust the results. There are sixteen year old children who have broken into the pentagon computer system and we act as if our elections are safe as long as we use computers! Paper ballots and hand counting is the only safe way for now. Perhaps in the future we will find a way to use computers safely. Now is not the time.

But the worst thing about this divisiveness is that the empires war on the rest of the world continues unabated and who is paying attention? Yemeni children are still starving to death and dying of cholera. This was once an ideal, almost paradisaical, country and it is being destroyed by Saudi Arabia, with heavy support from the U.S. Why? Only for dominance. Yemen has a group of folks that tip toward Iran. Oh we can't have that. They must be evil! We better kill everyone in the country to keep Iran from having any influence in the region.

The United State Air Force drops over 120 bombs a day, every day, on the peoples of the Earth. It is not a hidden statistic, look it up! What for? Who are we protecting? Do you feel protected because people you don't know are being slaughtered? Oh you say, you can't do anything about it! Well we sure waste a lot of time demonizing each other and warring with other personalities instead of really dealing with ideas.

I have been an ultra liberal all my life and I have never seen my side be so crazy.

Hey! The greatest problem on this Earth has been our separation from each other. All conflict, all war, comes from the idea that we are separate. Let us not play into the hands of those who would exploit our divisiveness for power and money. We know how to help people see our side of an argument. We don't have to make an enemy of everyone who disagrees with us.

Well, I think the world looks so crazy because all that is hidden must surface and be dealt with. We must see what a painful world we made from separation and fear. Our history, past and present, has been deplorable. The behavior of our controllers will come to light and it is shocking. We will have a hard time seeing the truth as long as we are distracted by the flotsam and jetsam presented by the media as the truth.

On the bright side, whenever I have sense enough to keep my head out of the idiot box, I see much hope that folks are resisting divisiveness and are seeing a world of loving connection. Most people I know would agree with me that love is the only solution. We are able to make loving decisions.

We can only be controlled if we let are ourselves be pit against one another. Let us not do that. It is not necessary. We are One whether we like it or not. We can love each other despite our crazy ideas.

I know love will be there when all the craziness dissipates. Who wants anything but love?

Happy Monday everyone!

Love and Peace, Gregg

SAYING GOODBYE

It is a little cool for the first full day of Summer. When I got up this Morning, the house was warm and stuffy so I opened some doors and windows. Three hours later it was chilly and I closed them back up. It is almost noon and it is still in the mid sixties. It is forecast to reach 80 F. Hmmmm.

I am getting a late start because we had business with our Real Estate agent. He took some measurements and some pictures and we are getting things off the ground. He is very easy to work with, knowledgeable, friendly, competent and no B.S. [He reads my blog too] We couldn't ask for a better agent.

At one level I have no regrets about selling this place. Age has been winning the battle for body dominance. I need to let go. However, letting go has been very hard for me. I planted almost every tree in the yard, two of them from acorns. Some I dug up in the woods. I haven't counted them but I am sure there are over fifty. Some are so big I can't get my arms around them. I planted ten hard [sugar] maples I dug from the woods, small saplings. A few years later a friend gave me 7 or 8 soft maples. Those soft maples grow much faster than than the hard maples. They look like mature trees whereas the hard maples are still youthful in appearance.

I have been slowly saying goodbye. The flowers have been spectacular this year. The roses, peonies and iris are blooming wildly right now. We have a single peony I especially love. I will take a picture of it and put it on Facebook.

If you drop over unexpectedly don't be surprised it you see me with my arms around a tree having a conversation with it and then kissing it goodbye.

I am looking forward to living in a condo or a townhouse and leaving the upkeep to somebody else. I will have to get my exercise strolling down to the local coffee shop in the Morning and pick up the local gossip. I know I will like it. We have children and grandchildren in the area we want to move to and we never ever get to see them as much as I would like to.

I have to go outside and talk to the trees and plants. Perhaps Monday I will get back to a more traditional [for me] blog. Or maybe not.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Love and Peace, Gregg

MIDSUMMER'S EVE

It is a perfect day here on planet Earth. Warm but not hot and the humidity is lower than it has been. It is a nice day for Midsummer's Eve. Although tomorrow is the first day of Summer. Today is not listed as Midsummer's Eve. The source I consulted listed June 24^th. I will have to check that out. It is celebrated sometime between June 19 and 25 according to culture and the actual time of the solstice. I know some religions celebrate it, perhaps it is not recognized as a civil celebration anywhere in this country.

I am under some time constraints and can't really blog today. The realtor is coming to take pictures of the house and I need to mow the lawn among other things.

Well celebrate the advent of Summer when it works out best for you.

Love and Peace, Gregg

GIVING UP [SOME] DREAMS

The heat wave has broken. The humidity is still very high. Hopefully the air will dry out as the day progresses.

Jamie is constantly busy preparing for our move. If she isn't packing books she is finding stuff to give to the second hand store. Right now she is going through the canned goods and disposing of food that we canned twenty years ago and didn't get around to eating for one reason or another.

This move causes me to reassess my life. I suppose most others have to go through something like this as they age. As I don't have many more years to be on this planet, I have to give up dreams that I have held dear for many years. I have the usual dreams about this property that could never quite be fulfilled. We have a second well by the barn and I imagined building a stone pond and filling it with water. I imagined putting a windmill up and allowing the water to overflow creating a stream through the pasture which would adjoin to an existing pond.

I had many what I would call ordinary dreams about this farm, but my most powerful and persistent dream had to do with creating a healing/learning center to help people live on the Earth in a sane manner. I imagined a group of healers coming together to provide medical and counseling services to the neighboring community. I thought it would begin by providing medical services free of charge to people who were not being served by the community and grow from there. Back in the seventies I had a psychic tell me I was going to be involved in such a venture and that contributed to me hanging on to the dream. Part of the dream was having organic gardens to supply food for the group. I believed that Nature could provide the healing herbs necessary. I have written about this idea several times before. I will have more to write about it. I do think we need it. We are so painfully extended from the Earth.

This dream has been a powerful driver in my life and now in my 84^th year I must put it aside or do I?

I am looking forward to a life where I can wake up in the Morning and I don't have to go outside if I don't want to. We have lived here since 1975 and I had to tend animals everyday rain or shine, when I felt good when I was under the weather, I don't know what it would be like having a day stretch out in front of me that didn't have built in requirements, at least not from crowing, baaing and squealing creatures.

Yes! I am ready for a new phase of my life and yes I do have to give up the numerous big and little dreams about this farm, but I don't have to give up my ideas about how we can reshape how we live on planet Earth. I don't have to be physically involved in creating healing/learning centers. I can still write! I can still express my dreams for the Earth and humanity. Hey! There are many folks who are younger and very creative who have their ideas. Perhaps, something I say will contribute to their dreams.

Happy Monday!

Love and Peace, Gregg

AUTHORITY FIGURES

According to AccuWeather there was a massive thunderstorm building up in the West when we went to bed. We didn't get a drop of rain. We are supposed to get rain off and on this coming weekend. I hope so. We could use it.

As things get better, things look worse. I am talking about the world. All that has been hidden is being exposed. As the ordinary folks wake up and say “We don't want anymore of this nonsense, we know we can live in peace and love each other”, the shenanigans of the ruling class come to the surface. For centuries the vast majority of people have been manipulated and influenced to go along with the agendas of a group that only wanted power and money for themselves.

The practices of this encysted group will be shocking to many. People who seek money and power as a goal generally give up the idea of love as a satisfying objective. They seek to find, what love could give, through power and control. Of course it is always empty giving only momentary pleasure. Like an addiction the pursuit of pleasure demands more and greater input and in the end ls always empty. The extent that some of them went to seek pleasure in a loveless world will be very disturbing to the rest of us.

All this has to come out. It is part of our giving up of authority figures. We need to think for ourselves and trust our intuition. We know a loving decision from an unloving one. We have been fooled many times before but as we trust our own loving instincts we will not go along with the craziness any more.

It is happening, part of the awakening process is realizing WE DO KNOW! We do know love. We know that we are love and everybody we see is love. We have just covered ourselves with an ego created facade as if we need to protect ourselves. We got everything turned around. We didn't see that vulnerability was strength. When we look around us we can notice that those who are the most open and honest also are the strongest. We don't need to protect ourselves. What gets hurt besides our egos?

The old world is fading away, but as it fades, we must understand what it was based on. We must understand the deceit and how badly we were manipulated. We must realize the worship of authority figures has been very destructive.

As I have said many times before, we are by our nature, creators. We were manipulated to create the old world out of fear. We don't want to do that anymore.

We are beginning to create the new world out of love. Each of us needs to start with ourselves. We need to love ourselves. We must go within and feel the love at our center. Ask for guidance, it is available. As we connect with the love that we are we see the love in others. Love is infectious! When we hold the intent to be loving every moment we trigger loving response in those around us.

We are creating a world of love from the bottom up. The elite will be the last to give in.

So, we can see paradise around us by looking for only love. It is there. It is the only energy there is.

Happy Friday! Celebrate!

Love and Peace,  Gregg

POLARIZATION

And the clock strikes eleven and I arise from my meditative state. Well it starts out as mediation but evolves into a cat nap. I have had a perfect Morning. I awoke feeling great and have maintained that feeling. I have read some inspirational stuff on the internet that has added to the good feeling.

The dragon flies were swarming outside my window a few minutes ago. I wonder if that is why we don't have any mosquitoes. Ever since the fireflies emerged I have been expecting the little pest. They usually follow the emergence of fireflies. Over a week ago I was on my way to Mora and I stopped to ask couple of guys if they needed assistance, I thought they were having trouble with their car, they said, “If you can stop the mosquitoes from biting we would appreciate that.” I could see that they were being plagued by the little pest. There was not anything wrong with their car, they were trying to put up a sign. That was about a mile from here, one would think we would have them too. It is great to enjoy the yard and deck without needing to swat.

Are we really as polarized as the media, especially the social media makes us out to be? I have never seen it so extreme. The demonization of some individuals doesn't quit and it doesn't matter what they say, do, or believe. Whatever it is, it is wrong and the rest of us should be on the other side.

I don't see this degree of polarization in the folks around me. Is it possible the polarization is encouraged by the same folks who have been slicing and dicing us all along? Keeping folks fighting with each other is the age old tactic of those we refer to as the cabal.

It is just a clown show and we can ignore it. I read other things that make me think the awakening is gathering steam. We don't want anymore war. We don't want anymore us and them. We want to work together to bring everybody's life up. We know we can!

Living as if we are some kind of separate beings is getting more and more absurd. How do we teach people to appreciate Oneness? Everybody at some point in their life experiences it. Perhaps as a small child they feel oneness with members of their family. Perhaps they were in groups where they felt as 'one'. Many groups encourage this feeling but it is often in opposition to another e.g. sports.

Regardless of our religion, philosophy, or lack of such, we all come from the same source. Whether we look at it biologically, spiritually, whatever, we were all shaped the same and took our first breaths is a similar manner. At what point did we decide we were separate?

Some of us see the source as Nature, some say God. Is there a difference? I see the only difference is the appellation we apply to the source. Whether we see it as Nature or God, the difference comes with how we see it. Seeing Source as Love makes all the difference.

Everyone has to discover what Source is by themselves. Guidance helps. Many folks have discovered through meditation that they have a place inside them of peace. Deep peace. It is easy to see it as love.

I have been in and out of atheism, agnosticism and explored many isms. I have read the text of most of the worlds religions. As a therapist I have talked to people who have had near death experiences and I have used hypnosis to explore the possibility of reincarnation.

At some point I came to accept that the Great Creative Energy that everything emerges from is Unconditional love. And Love is the only energy there is. It would be nice to agree on a name for this Source, but we should not quibble about it. I am comfortable about using the name God, others are not. It doesn't matter we can change our perception we can't change the Source.

Our Oneness comes from the realization that we all come from Source. We are one with Source and therefore each other.

Let us not get seduced by divisiveness. We can have the world we want. We just have to admit that we do love each other.

Love and Peace, Gregg

LOOK UPON A FORGIVEN WORLD

It is almost 1:0 Clock and I am just getting started. We went to town and the Amish first because Jamie had an appointment for physical therapy. She badly dislocated her shoulder over a year ago and it is still giving her problems. I usually doze off in my chair when I come home from town. We will see how this works out.

Well it is twenty five minutes later and I am not doing so well. I did doze off a little in my attempt to meditate.

I wish I could wax eloquently about the state of our world, but what is one to say about the cartoon show that passes as a legitimate government? Underneath the weird veneer I think folks are really waking up and deciding a different world is possible. It is hard to see if one indulges in the output of the mainstream media.

The crazy world that we are passing out of was created by the most fearful aspects of our collective egos. It hasn't been all bad certainly, in my 83 years on planet Earth I have lived through some magnificent times. There have been stretches where peace reigned and an honest effort was made to improve the lives of all. But even in the most peaceful times, there was the background awareness of the grinding of the military industrial complex. Periodically folks were convinced that an enemy existed and innocent lives were lost or shattered so a few rich could get richer.

It always starts with the demonization of a people or their leader. We have seen it happen several times in the last fifty years. The Middle East has been largely destroyed. God help a country that has oil. There is always one or two countries in South America that undergo this demonization. They generally have oil or are competing in the drug trade. Do you think the factions of the US government that were involved in the drug trade during the Iran/Contra issues of the Reagan administration ever got out of it? What do you think Afghanistan is about? I will leave that to historians.

All that I am sure of, is that it is not working anymore. What doesn't seem to be working, is that, try as they might, the cabal [or whatever] is no longer able to whip folks up into a war frenzy. It is really true the consciousness of the people has risen and will rise further. Talk to the folks around you. See if you can find anyone who is willing to support the killing of folks somewhere else in the world.

The only tool the warmongers have in their box is fear. And they are experts at using the many faces of fear. They cannot control us if they cannot make us afraid. The most effective cure for fear is love.

We will create a new world with our love centers and we will learn to put our egos away. We will tuck that terrified part of us in its crib, pull the blanket up under its chin and tell it we don't need it anymore. We made our egos to celebrate our separateness. We now want to celebrate our oneness.

It is true we are going through an ugly time making the transition. Let us make it easy on ourselves by avoiding the invitation to demonize any person, country or group. Be aware when an invitation to be afraid is dangled in front of us.

Mostly, remember to love. Everyone of us has some group; family, friends, fellows of some kind and we have the opportunity to contribute to them, with love, at every moment. We can focus on creating paradise around us. Oh, you know we can do it!

Let us not focus on the craziness at least don't add any emotion. Laughter is safe. We tend to perpetuate what we focus on if we do it with emotion. We need to Love, Love, Love and learn to look upon a forgiven world.

Love and Peace, Gregg

KINDNESS

I am getting a late start and not for any particular reason. I have been sitting here musing about this and that. Jamie has been going through our books and selecting and boxing those to donate. We have boxes of books on organic gardening and raising livestock the small homestead way. I forgot how dedicated we were to learning how to live off the land. We did for several years.

We went through several periods where we were lacking in what most folks take for granted. We had no running water, we heated our water and cooked on a wood range. We had a pump a few feet from our door and a privy a little further away.

Most of the time our life was unhurried and rather elegant. Jamie created the elegance and she was a genius at creating a masterpiece out of what may have been rather unpleasant. We lit our house with kerosene lamps and candles. We usually had enough money for kerosene.

One day we had company. We were out of kerosene and had no candles. During the afternoon we sat at the dining room table and talked. While Jamie was talking she was also dipping string [wicking] in melted wax. We melted down the used candle stubs and added a little paraffin. As the evening wore on and the light became murky, Jamie had made six candles which were lit. We didn't miss a beat. The company hardly realized what had just happened. Thanks to Jamie's ingenuity our evening turned out great. I have many stories about our life living without the usual resources. Perhaps I will write a book.

Going through the books invited me to muse about the past but I also mused about the present and our struggle here on Earth to be the people we want to be. I have been focusing on being love in every moment. However, one could also focus on being kind in every moment. Isn't kindness love in action? Are not kindness and love inseparable? It may be easier for some folks to focus on being kind in every moment. Love can be abstraction. It can remain in the mind as a wish for the best without having an obvious action. At least that is what I am thinking at this moment. I will think of kindness and love as being the faces of the same coin. I think that will help me.

I mowed most of the lawn yesterday. It was the highest I have ever seen it. It looks nice although I have to take the weed whip around the flower gardens. I need to get out there now as it is clouding up and it may rain. I don't want to put off the little mowing I have left. [I call it little but what I have left is the lawn size in some suburbs]. We have a big lawn. Much of it is orchard and I have contemplated adding it to the adjacent pasture, however I haven't had much success in protecting the trees from the sheep. I have had sheep ignore apple trees for weeks and then go after them ravenously. I know it can be done. Most sheep are not good at reaching high and if the tree is mature enough only the bark needs protecting. In most cases sheep won't eat bark, but I had one that would. He acted like a goat. Now goats are a different story. I would never have the temerity to think I could protect an apple tree from a goat.

I got to wind this up and get out on my mowing machine.

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

CELEBRATE!

Love and Peace, Gregg

OUR TEACHERS

I am blogging early this Morning because I have a doctors appointment. I have had this sore place on my heel for a couple months. I can't see it but when I touch it, it really hurts. Plantars wart? I decided it is about time to get it looked at. I don't need more than age to handicap this old man.

We had a thunder storm roar through this Morning about four or five. Lots of lightning and thunder; only ¼ inch of rain. It is quite pleasant out now, cloudy and in the low sixties. My lawn looks like a hay field. I have been busy with other things when it was dry enough to mow.

I continue on my path to love in every moment. No matter how determined we are we find that we can be jostled out of this consciousness. My main obstacle is my tendency to react automatically. At least it seems automatic. There is time to make another decision even if it is only a millisecond. I am learning. I am getting better and better at not reacting. Sometimes it feels like wearing a way a stone, but if I look back I have made significant progress.

If we can make the leap to seeing our fellow beings as teachers, progress becomes easier. If we are surrounded by fellow reactors they are there to help. They provide us a mirror as well plenty of practice. Seeing everything as an opportunity to learn and the folks around us our teachers, makes it easier to stay in loving place. And when we fall out of it, which we will, it is easier to regain.

The universe is a friendly loving place. When we see it otherwise it is because we are shaping it for a particular lesson. We are always surrounded by the folks that will best help us learn whatever the lesson might be. Of course, the lesson might be to sever all connection with them. On our spiritual journey we will learn to love everybody but not necessarily associate with them.

As our life unfolds, if we see everything as a situation we are creating for our learning, we get a quite a different perspective. It is our thing, we can put our judgement and anger aside. We can see what to put aside as something we don't need to deal with now and what we need to tackle. When we know it is our thing it is surprisingly easier to deal with. We always have the choice.

We are free. We can always choose something else!

I need to get ready to go.

Love and Peace, Gregg

HAPPY MONDAY

After a rainy weekend we awoke to brilliant Sunshine. We did have a period of Sun yesterday in late afternoon and we sat on the deck watching the birds visiting the bird bath. Today is emerging gloriously. A beautiful day on planet Earth.

Naomi and Elijah came to visit on Friday. Elijah is still here. He is behind me listening to some noisy thing on his lap top. He is very easy to take care of. We had a great Friday but a major disappointment Saturday. We were anticipating going to a Grandson's graduation party Saturday. Jamie felt sick on arising. We hoped she would feel better as the day progressed but she got worse. I noticed she didn't eat supper Friday. I thought she might have gotten a flu bug but she thinks it was a reaction to a herbal medication she took. As the day wore on yesterday she felt better and she is okay today.

So life goes on giving us different experiences. This Morning the coffee maker wouldn't work. It is a fairly new one too. Life seems to have a mind of its own.

I learned as long time ago that I could be happy despite the things that were happening around me. Every once in a while life seems to challenge that proposition and I have to do some inner work to experience my peaceful center.

It has been a more difficult lately partly because of our pending move. The larger world doesn't enter in too much. It is so marvelously crazy but not amusing enough to be comical. A person visiting from another planet might find it funny.

I see so much hope in the people around me. There is so much love radiating from the people in my family and the folks who I meet. There is a great awakening in progress. It is in striking contrast to the pictures and noise coming from the television.

When we are feeling happy, like I am this moment, it seems remarkable that we would ever be otherwise. After all we just have to be loving every moment. Well I know it is not always as easy as it sounds. I have just come out of about a week long funk. We have to be watchful of how our minds can attract fear thoughts. A teeny fear thought can grow into a preoccupying monster if we are not careful. Suddenly all that stuff, that is always occurring around us, can become ominous; soon paranoia may reign.

Ahhh peace, love, and joy. Oh does the future ever look different when you observe the world from this perch.

Maybe we should start teaching meditation or some kind of centering in grammar school. Being unhappy seems to be such a waste! We all carry happiness inside us. Look past all the junk, and hey, were happy.

When we are happy, we are not greedy.

When we are happy we don't want to fight.

Happy people don't want war.

Happy people want to spread their happiness. They want to care for those who have needs, whatever they might be.

Let's be Happy today!

A good thought for Monday.

Love and Peace, Gregg

IT COOLED OFF

It is only 66 F and it is late Morning. It was in the mid fifties when we got up and we had to close all the windows and turn on the heat for a few minutes. It was cold in the house. Wow! What a change That is Minnesota.

Our weather quit flirting with drought and now we have plenty of moisture. Our lawn is exalting in it and celebrating by looking like it has never been mowed. I have too much to do, to mow today, and tomorrow we will be gone. Maybe Sunday, it will be really long by then.

Our old biddies are cranking out more eggs than we can eat. We will load up our next visitor with several dozen to take home. This year the chickens have been eating our Hostas. They started doing it last year and I put a cage around one of them that they were demolishing. Then they quit. This year they are more aggressive. We have had a Hostas and chickens for over forty years. I wonder what the change is about? I think they have backed off a little now.

My mind is preoccupied by all kinds of chores that need to be done. Tomorrow, we plan to go to a Grandson's graduation party. I have to make this a short blog as I really need to get some other stuff accomplished.

Have a great Friday! I know the world does not look too great. But under the surface important changes are occurring. The dark is retreating. I know it doesn't look that way. The infection is just coming to the surface. It is not as bad as it looks. Love is curing up the infection. Hold on to your conviction that love will win out and remember to give intent to love in every moment.

So to reiterate, “Have a Great Friday.” Celebrate!

Love and Peace, Gregg