MORE ON SEPARATION

This probably won't be a long blog, it is already 2:15 PM. Then I don't know how things will turn out. Jamie and I had a lengthy discussion this Morning, then we went to town for shopping and got milk at the Amish.

I have several things to say about our separation at all levels: our bodies from our minds, our minds from our spirit and ourselves from Nature.

Let us begin with our separation from Nature. When we began to see ourselves as separate, from the usual processes, of Nature we began to exploit the Earth, rather than look for the best way, to live in harmony with Her. We began to see the Earth, as an unlimited source of goodies, rather than a living being, eager to care for us. What we lost mainly is WISDOM.

When we quit listening to Nature we gave up any hope of being wise. We fell in-love with that part of our mind, that is capable of taking things apart, without reference to the whole. We are like the small child, who takes apart his grandfather's intricate time piece, scatters the parts across the floor, tries to reduce the small parts into smaller parts in anyway he can. Then he wonders what time it is. He doesn't know what he has done, because he never stopped to 'see' the whole. He did not appreciate the function or the process.

Modern Science started out with observation. The Scientific Method can be described as structured observation. Does not observation include understanding the whole before tearing things apart? Despite our childlike wish to examine all the parts, the scientific method held itself together, fairly well, until the influence of money and power.

Some of the Ancient Greek philosophers taught that everything was energy. One of the philosophers postulated the existence of atoms and wave lengths. They knew of the potential energy that lay within the atom. They were attempting to understand, what we think of, as reality. Would they have tampered with the atom if they had the tools? I don't know. I can't know enough, but we did.

Albert Einstein, among many others at the time, warned against a headlong production of an atom bomb. Why did we do it? Separation on many fronts. Separation from each other, as people, we thought it was okay to kill a bunch of folks across the ocean, because they were labeled an enemy. Separation from observation of the whole: we went ahead with something we did not know enough about.  {A separation from the solid Scientific Principle of Observation}. Without the pressure of money and power, coupled with rampant paranoia, would we have done it? I will leave folks to argue whether it has been a worthwhile endeavor.

There is wisdom in the way Nature works things out. There is wisdom in all the processes of Nature. Our ability to manipulate natural processes, far outweighs our wisdom.

Would most of the pesticides and herbicides exist today, if we could think outside our economic boxes? Would we have created GMOs? Would we have made plastic from petroleum? Plastic was made from hemp before it was made from petroleum, hmmmmmm wonder what happened? Which industry was backed by big money?

This is just an introduction to the discussion, I would like to have, about the consequences of  separation. It is late and I have afternoon chores to do. Let us see what Wednesday brings.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

SEPARATION

 

It was chilly yesterday! It didn't get out of the 60s. That is rare for the middle of July. It is supposed to be pleasant today with highs in the 70s F. Then the heat is going to return; it is forecast to be 90 tomorrow.

I am late getting started. I went to Mora this Morning and since I returned, I have been doing this and that, and not settling down to do my blog.

I can't say I don't have things to blog about, I have been thinking about things all week. I am experiencing a little resistance. Oh well, this is one of those things that I have been thinking about.

All my life, I have wondered why so many of the philosophies, and especially spiritual traditions, taught us to ignore, subjugate or rise above the body; with emphasis on the bodies pleasures. There are a few exceptions.

Christianity denied sex, except for procreation, and that denial still stands in the minds of many Christians. For several centuries of the church's history, the denial of the body extended to all of Nature. Nature was considered evil and although medicines were obtained from Nature, often the procurers of such remedies had to be careful of their reputations, unless they be charged with witchcraft. The denial and separation from Nature is still a powerful force in today's modern world, although most are not aware of the origin.

In the Eastern traditions, the denial took the form of rising above the body, as if one could not be part of body and spirit both at the same time. It is understandable to recognize one would have difficulty knowing, our spiritual reality, if we were focused only on our bodies. However, learning to focus on something other than our bodies does not require denial of them.

Perhaps, it is thought that the ego is an attachment of the body. One could argue that, as the ego was originated to protect our fragile bodies after the original separation. However, the ego has developed into a force that tries to keep us isolated [protected] no matter what our minds are doing. The ego loves to evaluate and judge. It has no trouble extending itself, to what we may think of as spiritual realms, and there is nothing worse than having ego in our spiritual learning. That lends them null and void and predicts a troubled individual. Pride, in spiritual growth; what a contradiction!

Sure, we are spirits that temporarily reside in bodies; and sure, we may rise out of our bodies during meditation. We need reminders, that we are spirits inhabiting bodies, and not bodies that happen to have spirits. But, where in this equation is the idea, that we should reject or deny our bodies.

We cannot be preoccupied with body pleasures, at the same time, we are aware of our totality. Preoccupation with physical pleasure is just that; it is temporary and doesn't deny spirit anymore than preoccupation with spirit should deny the body.

All the the things we think of as evil or negative come from separation. Separation from each other and separation from ourselves; our minds are separated from our bodies and our spirits.

Go through the lists of negatives in your mind anger, jealousy, lust, greed, all fears, etc. Can you think of one that does not come from separation?

If we could see our Oneness, could we hurt each other? Could we allow and ignore suffering of the other? Would there be an other?

If we knew the Oneness of our mind, body and spirit, would we allow our mind to hurt our body? We do now, don't we? And we allow our mind to deny our spirit.

Learning to be separate from our bodies, blinds us, to how separate we are from Nature. AND that is a very, very serious problem. Most of our problems in science, agriculture and medicine, come from our blindness, to what is natural. Our first task upon The Awakening, is to re-connect with Nature.

I have much to say about this, perhaps I will revisit it on Monday. I have things to do. I haven't even washed my dishes yet and it is 1:22 PM.

Happy Friday. Celebrate and let us love all of ourselves!

Love and Peace, Gregg

JUST A NOTE

We had quite a thunderstorm last night. We got an inch and a quarter of rain and the lightening stuck the antenna that supplies our internet. Our internet has just come back up.

However, there will be no blog today, because our marvelous cleaning lady called, and asked if she could come today instead of tomorrow. She will be arriving soon and we will go to Cambridge to the Chinese restaurant; we will check out the thrift shop and do some grocery shopping at Aldis.

I will be back with my blog on Friday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

A RAMBLER

Another perfect Summer day! This has been the most amazing late Spring and early Summer. It has been a little too hot at times, but mostly, it has been ideal. It is 74.1 F at this moment. It has been down to the fifties at night, perfect sleeping weather. When it is nice like this, I forget about the three to five days in a row, where we might have excessive heat.

Everything is so lush! Which puzzles me. With so much natural food, why are the deer coming into the yard to dine on our perennial gardens? We probably have fifty Hostas planted in several different places. The deer have found most of them and have eaten them down to stalks. What is so interesting is that, we lived here for 42 years and had Hostas, most of that time, and this is the first time they have eaten them. Deer are interesting creatures. For twenty years they ignored my apple trees, then they tormented them for five years, now this year, they are leaving them alone. I am talking about young trees. They can't hurt old trees, except to nibble on low branches.

The deer may have given my Mock Orange the death knell. I love Mock Orange bushes. We are bordering zone 3 and 4. I planted a Philadelphus virginalis some twenty years ago. After 3 or 4 years it wasn't thriving. I moved it to a better location [more Sun]. It thrived, after a couple years, it reached about five feet and had a few blossoms. It should have bloomed profusely the following year. However that winter was open, meaning no snow, and very cold. {2001-2?} It was dead in the spring, however, it came up from the root. Ever since then, one disaster or another, would happen. Once, I backed over it with the mower. It takes a long growing season and a favorable Fall for the new sprouts to harden off, well enough, to survive the Winter. This Spring it looked good, it was a few feet high and it looked like it could make a comeback. Well, it was this year the deer decided it was a delicacy. If I plant another Mock Orange it will be a hardier variety.

We are trying an herbal deer deterrent. I will let you know how it works out.

We didn't make it up to visit my sister Sandy, on Saturday. We were hoping to lounge on the shore of Mille Lacs lake. I couldn't get my brakes repaired. The grinding noise continues and I don't think it is advisable to drive it more than I need to. I have an appointment with the garage for this afternoon.

Instead I mowed the lawn. I got half of it done on Saturday. I checked out the weather forecast for Sunday and it was supposed to be clear in the Morning with a chance of rain after 1PM. “Good”, I thought, “I will get the lawn finished on Sunday Morning” On awakening, yesterday Morning, it was raining. It rained or drizzled all Morning. It cleared up about 1PM and the grass was sufficiently dry that I could mow by 2PM. I was happy to have the lawn all cut at once.

I don't mind that the weather predictors get it wrong occasionally. They are spookily accurate most of the time. It is nice to know Nature has a few tricks up her sleeve.

I know this isn't a typical blog. I don't feel like getting into anything heavy and I don't feel particularly profound. Well I never actually do, any profundity, whatever that is, is by accident.

All that I know, is to live my life in the most loving way possible. Love everything. Forgive anything that displeases and have a kind word for everyone I meet. It's the way to be HAPPY.

Love and Peace, Gregg

DYSFUNCTION

 

It is a gorgeous Morning! It was hot and muggy yesterday but it cooled off last night and dryer air moved in. I said Morning but it is already after Noon. I am getting a very late start. I spent the Morning becoming reacquainted with the dysfunction of the World. I know, I advise against focusing on the horrors of the world, because we grow what we focus on, and we don't want that.

Can we become aware of how crazy the world is without giving the craziness energy? As individuals we are going to do it anyway. We are going to focus on the crazy world until we are convinced of its dysfunction. I am convinced that the dysfunction is so complete and unsustainable that a collapse is unavoidable. It helps, to be aware of it, in order to give up our own dysfunctional beliefs.

Imagine a teeter totter in our minds, one side is weighted with love, the other side fear. Can we look at the negativity of the world without putting weight on the fear side? Can we see the negativity and use it to reinforce our intent to make only loving decisions? I think we need to ask ourselves that question.

I won't go into what I was reading. It doesn't matter. The dysfunction of the projected illusion, the collective ego as it were, the world reflected by the main stream media, is profoundly dysfunctional. Power and money motivates everything, whether it be science, medicine, agriculture, archeology, anthropology, education, you name it.

Oh sure, the people around us can be sane. We can look around us and see nothing but loving people. Yet the systems we work in, whether it be medicine or communications, is driven by profit to the extent of everything else. Yes, we can attempt to be functional in a dysfunctional system. We can make loving decisions even when the protocols in your profession require dubious decisions. It may not be easy and it may cause strain.

Everybody finds themselves in different bubbles of reality. It may be bizarrely crazy in our place of employment and we may have quite pleasant relationships with our family and friends.

The big issue is how can we conduct our lives, in a way, that gives energy to the loving elements and not the fearful side? As part of Source we are creators. We can't, but create, with our perception. We help bring into reality [the shared illusion] that we focus on.

When the teeter totter, in our collective minds, tips to love we will begin to see the emergence of the World we long for. How do we help bring it about? We focus on the love we see in our lives. We become familiar with how our minds work and make only loving decisions.

We need to give up our pet beliefs and we must stop bowing down to authority figures. We all have the truth inside us. Our intuition, will tell us, truth from fiction. We need to practice listening, again some form of meditation is very helpful. Feel for the love inside, lets make all our decisions with love.

We don't have long to wait. The old tired world is about to collapse.

Hey! Have a great Friday! Celebrate!

Love and Peace, Gregg

BURGEONING OF NATURE

As I mentioned Monday, the weather can change over night, it was still pleasant Monday but Tuesday it got hot. It was 88 F at one point. It actually wasn't too unpleasant, if you stayed in one spot and didn't do much. That was me. I did the basic chores, letting the chickens out, getting eggs, doing dishes, otherwise I sat in a chair on the porch and drank water and took a couple naps on the porch cot.

Noah visited and we had good conversation and settled most of the worlds problems. Well at least, we identified them.

I was surprised when I went out to let the chickens out, to note that both their feeders, one for mash and one for corn, were empty and their water was down to dregs. I am usually a better husband than that. However, I know they were not lacking because they had food yesterday. I never used to give them water on the inside of the coop in the Summertime. It is just in the last few Summers I have been doing that. If they have water we have the option of not letting them out of the coop first thing in the Morning. There may be a reason; a violent thunderstorm or we want to be away in the Morning, and for some reason, we don't want to let the chickens out. It never happens though, I always let them out as soon as the dawn predators, are no longer lurking. We have had foxes, great horned owls and possibly coyotes lurking around after Sunrise. I usually let them out about 8 AM. There is less egg laying out, also, if we don't let them out at the crack of dawn.

This is a Summer where we wouldn't have to feed the chickens at all. Everything is so lush. The flora and fauna are exploding! It is a miracle of growth around here. We have swans nesting on ponds. I haven't seen any cygnets yet, but I have seen hundreds of goslings. The pheasants and the turkeys have big broods. A simple drive to Mora turns out to be a spectacular adventure. I saw a Scarlet Tanager on the drive to Mora Monday. I know they are not rare, but I don't get to see them often, I love the contrast between the deep, rich red and pure black.

And the deer. I love them and they seem to be multiplying. We see fawns, singles, twins and even triplets frequently. Except for the fact that they have chosen this year to feast on the Hostas, we really enjoy their company.

Have other people noticed this? Or is it just in the bubble we find ourselves in? It seems like there is an energy in the universe that is causing Nature to explode. We are going through a period of greater intensity of cosmic rays. Could that have something to do with it?

Is it the tsunami of love we hear about? According to some folks there is supposed to be an increase of love on Earth that is to tip the scales, in the mind of humankind, toward love. The idea is that love and fear have existed, pretty equally, in our collective minds, for several centuries and a tsunami of love [or energy] from the Central Sun is to trigger off the awakening. Something is happening; more later.

I have to do my dishes then go to the garage. My van has developed a noisy rear brake. I don't think it is metal to metal. It may be the warning plug some brake bands are equipped with. I would like to get the vehicle fixed before Saturday as we have a gathering to attend, at my Sisters, on Mille Lacs lake.

Love and Peace, Gregg

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

 

It is a cool beginning to July. It is quite pleasant, it is 10:20 AM and it is just over 70 F. It was in the low 60s when I got up. We had a week or two of temperatures that were above normal, but it seems to be shaping up to be a cool Spring and early Summer. Although, this is Minnesota, the weather could flip flop overnight and we could have temperatures in the nineties.

We had a very pleasant day yesterday. Five of my six children, their spouses and children, gathered at the cottage on Big Marine Lake as part of the 4^th of July celebration. We visited them. We had a great time! I love our family gatherings.

The cottage has been in the family since 1940. My Grandparents bought it in conjunction with their second oldest daughter and her husband. I spent much of my early years there. I learned how to sail. We had a succession of sail boats; some authentic and some converted row boats. One of the most memorable was an old duck boat we equipped with a mast and sail. It flew across the lake, but with a jury-rigged centerboard, it could scuttle sideways too.

We spent many hours fishing on the lake, walking in the woods and cooking out at our favorite spot. Many birthday parties and other celebrations were held there. Somethings I remember vividly. When I was ten years old, we spent a few days out there with our Mom, and my Dad commuted to work. We did not have electricity or a portable radio [they were rare in those days]. My Dad arrived and announced that the War was over [VJ Day]. It was so exciting and such a relief. The war occupied my life from 6 years old to 10. No more rationing. No more air raid drills. Of course, in those tender years, I did not know we were on the threshold of endless war.

My Aunt and Uncle moved out of state [early 1950s?] and my Grandfather bought out there interest. My grandparents had nine children, seven which had survived to this point. Some had numerous children, of their own, and the cottage was a Summer haven for many years. It was a great place to get away. There was no electricity or running water. We got our water from a pump shared by two other cottages. They did have an old electric generator installed that was used when there was large gatherings. Many of us preferred to use the kerosene lamps.

The original cottage was a grand affair. A beautiful Tiffany lamp suspended by a fine retractable brass chain over the dining room table, a hand crafted ash cupboard full of Royal Dalton and Haviland dinner ware. Beautifully made kerosene lamps on brackets suspended from the walls with mirrored glass reflectors to focus the light. Two kitchens, a Summer kitchen, with a sink and a wood range and a regular kitchen, also with a wood range. It was characterized by rustic elegance.

Over the years the cottage lost some of its original elegance with attempts at modernization and just wear and tear.

Sometime in the late 1970s the original cottage burnt down. It was replaced on the same footprint but it paled compared to the original.

The Cottage passed to their surviving children at my Grandparents death. I can't remember how it all worked out but after my Father died, my brother, Garth and his Wife and my brother Michael, bought out the remaining family interest in the cottage. They purchased it with an investment in mind and hoped to sell it. With the crash, and then swings in the real estate market, this hasn't happened. There are plans afoot, I don't know if they will or should materialize.

Visiting the cottage brings back many memories. I moved here in 1975 and my connection with the cottage was lost. I had my own piece of paradise in the country, and it was now 70+ miles away, rather than the 30+ miles it was. 1940 to 1975, 35 years of my life, it was of significance.

We spent many Fourth of July's at the cottage.

Have a great Fourth of July. Let us celebrate our liberation from all our negative beliefs. Let us celebrate our freedom from all our craziness. Let us celebrate the freedom of everyone on Earth.

Let us celebrate, that we are all shining beings of light, worthy of all the love of this great Universe.

Love and Peace, Gregg