The Good in Us. We Deserve to Thrive. (Plus another chapter)

 

The Good in Us. We Deserve to Thrive.

Remember that song I Believe? It begins: “For every drop of rain…” We can’t print many words from song lyrics, so I trust you’ll remember that song. Hint, “a flower grows.”

It’s hard to maintain a positive attitude, isn’t it?

First on my list right now is this: "Keep the White House free of dictators living there."

Think of it this way:

The Republican Presidential Candidate got his trial sentencing delayed until after the election. If he wins, he will have Presidential immunity. When his term of office is over he will be up for grabs again regarding sentencing. Do you think he would let that happen? There are words in the wind say he wants to be President FOR LIFE. (And according to the Rolling Stone Magazine, he has his people at strategic positions in the swing states. Hum. What do you suppose that means?)

That's a dictator folks!

I don’t care where you are on the abortion issue (Well, I do care, but I’m keeping my mouth shut). Vote for Kamala Harris to keep a dictator out of the white house, then address the abortion issue.

Do you think a woman has a right to her own body, or should the government decide?

Do you like the way the Supreme Court is set up?

Do you think the US ought to send any military equipment into wars outside the US? Remember the Vietnam War? Great protest movements helped grind that to a halt.

Remember the Iraq war? We ended that after 20 years.

Do you believe that we should support our NATO allies?

Do you think it’s OK to insult people who do not have children?

Do you think it’s OK to insult people who have a different Faith than yours?

What happened to the separation of church and state? Is it all right with you to let that go?

Should we argue over climate change or work together to see that everything within our powers is done TO KEEP THE EARTH INHABITABLE TO HUMANS?

Do you think the ones with the money ought to run our country or that people without children should NOT run for office?

Do you think that childless people don’t care about the future?

Do you want internment camps?

Do you think it’s OK for a man who is running for President to say that women are fat and ugly—but he wants their vote?

Do you think it’s alright for a man who is running for President to believe it’s his right to grab the women he considers pretty by their private parts?

Remember the Divine Right of Kings?

Do you think it’s OK to place a man in the white house who wants to abolish our two-term Presidential system? What about the ones who come after him? That edict would still be in place.  Our Republican Candidate won’t live forever—unless he knows something we don’t know.

Do you think our Republican Presidential candidate is a Messiah? (I’ve heard of a more loving one.)

Are we OK with our country being run by corporations and that the rich can run the show, or that one man can throw millions into a Presidential campaign to help determine the it's outcome?

Is money speaking for us?

Do you believe that we the people have a voice?

Keep the Present Republican Candidate out of the White House and then address those concerns individually.

We can do it.

This Candidate must win by a landslide, or he will never believe he lost.

If you can’t stand Kamala Harris, grit your teeth and vote for her anyway. WE DO NOT WANT A DICTATOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

We are good people. We deserve to thrive.

Do we remember that we have the power to make changes, advance civilization, and get along with each other?

I think so.

"Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, its the only thing that every has."--Margaret Mead

WE CAN DO IT--PEACEFULLY.

 

"My wife's cat," says one reader.

 

 

And now dear ones, from an earlier time when the living was easier and the air was fresher, the sun brighter, and the heart lighter—like 14 years ago. It’s an excerpt from my book.

Thank you for reading so far. I love all my readers.

 It’s strange, I am getting a good number of hits on this site, however most are from out of the U.S. I guess they don’t like me so well here in my homeland. It must have been something I said.

  

 

 34

 On the Road

 When Daughter Dear was on maternity leave and her son was two months old, we set out for an eight-state road trip.

We rented a van and loaded Bear into the back and Peaches in the front. The baby had the seat behind us, and thus we took off—limited only by the needs of a two-month-old. It was the best vacation of my life—to do what we wanted, when we wanted, and stop when we felt like it. 

I had heart palpitations after going up and down a Colorado mountain too fast, coupled with an area in New Mexico that held both a mental institution and a Prison. Both DD and I felt odd, and my chest hurt all night. Don't ask me to explain it; it seemed like something was in the air, something negative. A person at our hotel told us that area wasn’t good.

Both DD and I felt similar negativity in some areas of Hawaii, one of the reasons we wanted to leave. No heart palpitations there, though. I don't tend to get too woo-woo, but when woo-woo strikes, I pay attention.

Clearly, I have an altitude problem. That trip up and down the mountain showed me. Altitude, not attitude. Well, that, too.

 A young woman Neil knew from Nikon Inc. told me that if I had walked that mountain instead of driving it, I wouldn't have had a problem. 

That woman, a slight person who looked like a runner, climbed Mt Everest to the base Camp. Yes, she did. I was astounded. She said, "You climb high and sleep low." You climb higher than where you plan to sleep and then return to your campsite. That will help acclimate you to the altitude. 

While driving in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I declared, "I want to find one of those pottery shops…”

“Like that one?” DD pointed.

Directly beside us was the best pottery shop I had ever seen. It had rows of pottery, beautiful glazes and designs, dishes, pots, wall hangings, and those chocolate tiles Nina bought, carried to Hawaii, and left as the countertop of a bar in her Hawaiian Tiki Room.  

Coming home from that trip, we found ourselves 100 miles from Disneyland, DD's favorite place on the planet. Being that close, we had to go. We found a hotel with a shaded parking lot, and as we had a large van, we left the windows slightly ajar for the dogs, walked a couple of blocks to Disneyland, and partied hardy. At night the dogs came into the room with us.

After that Colorado Mountain High, I breathed a sigh of relief upon entering Disneyland, where I noticed a sign at the train station stating the elevation. I thought it said one foot. But when I checked the Internet to verify the elevation, a sign on the train station read 138 feet. Either way, I was comfortable.

 Little Boy Darling's first visit to Disneyland, at two-months old, was fun, and he liked the submarine ride where he watched fishes swimming past the port hole window.

We skipped all scary rides.

Once, for the heck of it, way before our grandson was a glint in anyone's eye, and after reading that the Cavalia Horse Show featuring exquisite white horses, a Cirque du Soleil sort of event, was being performed in Dallas, Texas, DD, and I flew there. A pond appeared in the sand on the floor of their mammoth white tent. After their horses had raced through it, splattering water and clearly getting wet, the water disappeared beneath the sand.  

Witnessing the love expressed between the horses and the trainer was worth the ticket price, and the girl who came racing into the arena at breakneck speed riding two horses, Roman style, almost had me on the floor.

After we had accrued numerous frequent-flyer miles and often asked to be bumped from a flight on purpose so we could earn more, DD and I used them to go as far as we could. That was to Niagara Falls, where a humongous amount of water separates the US and Canada.

We took the Maid of the Mist boat into the tumultuous mist on the American side. At that time, we didn't need a passport to cross the border, so we drove to Canada across the river to see the Niagara River fall from a different country.  On the Canadian side, we ate the best chocolate-covered pretzels at the Hersey factory and, by chance, saw that Madonna was performing that night at the Ontario Sports Arena. 

We had to attend that concert.

Our tickets were in the nosebleed section behind a column. From our perspective, we could see Madonna rise from beneath the stage. On giant TVs, we watched that woman sing while doing a handstand, and nary a muscle quivered from the strain of it.

Our seat companion, a young, enthusiastic fellow, had flown from Texas especially to see Madonna's performance, so the three of us were flying high. 

We fell in love with Canada—the people and their attitude. They gently suggest wearing seat belts: "Be protected, not projected." They also have "Traffic calming zones" in the city where drivers can pull over and calm down. Some ads alongside the road presented exquisite lawn plantings with the vendor's name spelled out in flowers. 

It was strange driving up to the falls; we traveled over the flat country following the Niagara River until, WHAP, an abyss. I had expected to hear a roar before arriving but only heard it when we were practically upon it. A good thing a native, not knowing the falls were there, didn't come along riding his horse at breakneck speed. 

But then the horse would have heard it.

💕 

 

       joshappytrails@gmail.com (copy and paste)

 

(Long ago we used to drink champagne and eat Oreo cookies in the hot tub. I wish we could do it again. And that you could join us.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time for a Renaissance

 

I remember a TV ad from the 60’s. It was a line drawing with no words just symbols like #&%##* coming from a woman’s mouth.  In retort flowers flowed from a man’s mouth. The woman glided to him and curled up in his lap.

 

That reminds me of another ad featuring more flowers. While tanks were shooting whatever tanks shoot, flowers came flying over from the other side.

 

That was the flower child era. Now, we throw insults, blame, lies, and innuendos.

 

I was embarrassed when I heard a Canadian say she would not live next door to an American.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because they don’t care for each other.”

 

Yes, we do.

 

On our street, we do. When my neighbor had a tractor for a week, he asked if I wanted any work done. I asked if he would pull out two wild lilac bushes that had gotten huge and so woody I couldn’t cut them with clippers. That tractor pulled them out easily, and they disappeared. He also took them to the recycle.

 

 Wow.

 

My neighbor to the rear cut our back 40 (not acres, we just call it that. It’s a strip behind the Wayback building, and another area that needs mowing. It isn’t visible from the street, but it is from my neighbor's property, for he lives behind a large field behind us at the end of his road.) He cut our grass with a Weed Wacker for he couldn’t get his ride-on mower in the back gate. I just went out one morning to let the chicken out, and it was cut. That was in spring when the grass was about a foot and a half high after all the spring rains.

 

Renaissance is a French word meaning “rebirth.” It refers to a period in European civilization marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom. The Renaissance saw many contributions to different fields, including new scientific laws, new forms of art and architecture, and new religious and political ideas.

 

Consider the possibilities.

Woo Woo Alert

 

Woo, woo, alert!

What if…

Money isn’t the issue in winning the election.

What if all the money in the world wouldn’t put Trump in the White House.

What if Jean Huston is correct in saying we are standing on the precipice of stepping into our Quantum Powers? We are, she says, in the middle of a time between going on with the way things have been, or entering a new Quantum Field.

Jean explains that Quantum Power is partnering with the Universe. This isn’t the Law of Attraction; it is being a partner.

Once, Jean asked Margaret Mead, the famed anthropologist living with her and her husband, why she was so lucky.

“Because I expect to be,” she said.

New science has emerged in the last few years about consciousness, epigenetics, genes turning off and on, NDEs all that tell us that “not only do we live in the Universe, the Universe lives in us.

Aren’t we tired of dragging around our little egos while being overwhelmed by the business of day-to-day living? We are in a state of entropy—meaning falling into chaos.

So, send your mind to graduate school.

We are the people.

I grieved for a couple of days, depressed to the point of snapping at everybody. It was the Trump threat, and to top it off, Elon Musk joined the fray and gave 45 million dollars a month to the Trump campaign. I was drawn into fear. And boy, are they going to beat the drum regarding that?

What if we didn’t buy it?

Yesterday, I listened to a promotional for another course—yep, it was Jean Huston’s—but boy, she gave it to us for 90 minutes. She said that we are the ones who we came at this time for a reason, that the Universe is a microcosm that comes alive with our life, and that we are the people to usher in a new day.

You are being called. The world needs goodness and intention.

We can drop our disbelief in ourselves. We have been caught in the web of the same old feeling that there is no way out and that we are running out of time. (Hey, I’ve stuck in the Second World War.)

We have a bigger message to give to the world—and the old operating system isn’t working. When we drop that, we will feel inspired, evolve, and expand. Then we will be able to manifest our vision.

 

One day when Jean and Mead were walking along a path, with Mead complaining that she couldn’t find some information she needed for a talk the following day. She had searched and searched and couldn’t find it. Not a few minutes later, a student walking toward them stopped and said, “Professor Mead, you probably don’t remember me, but I was a student of yours.”

“Oh yes I remember you, class of 1991, You didn complete your paper.”

Well, the girl said that she went on to Graduate School, and I have been studying whatever right then, Mead needed.

Mead grabbed her and said, “You’re coming home with me.”

She’s lucky because she expects to be. (That core belief overrides her complaining. See, a little complaining won’t push our good away from us. We can stop feeling guilty about it. But don’t turn into a complainer.)

We can expect that Trump will not win this election. He will not be in the White House.

Jean used Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave as a model for the Nature of Reality—of which we know little. Long ago, Plato proposed that we all live in a cave behind a wall, and what we see are only shadows cast by the fire. We think the shadows are real. However, they are only illusions.

If we crawled out of the cave and looked back, we would see the real things. But at first the light is so bright it hurts our eyes, and we are tempted to turn back.

Don’t go back, no matter how bright the light is.

I am finally getting it. Evil is upping the ante because it is afraid it will fail.

It behaves the way our minds behave; in fear, our brains spill chemicals and put us in flight or fight mode. In time, too much cortisol can weaken our hippocampus, change our brain chemistry, and create a craving for the next high, the cortisol and adrenalin rush.

We can become addicted to it. Notice how we keep looking, listening, and reading about what happens daily in the political field. The ones who think Trump is stupid look for more to make us laugh at him. The others say, “That’s my boy.”

They’ve got us.

Women have been known as carriers of the light. Don’t ask me where I got that—long ago. Of course, the powers that be knew women had power; why do you think they punished or burnt women for the simple act of using their intuition or trying to heal with natural products, a placebo, or positive thoughts. Horrors.

Why do you think they kept women uneducated to the point of keeping books away from them? Why do you think they kept them from voting? Why do you think they kept them barefoot and pregnant? The men went to prostitutes for their jollies, then defamed them for being sluts. They grabbed women, molested them, and victimized them because they could. And women’s work? It used to be that a man wouldn’t touch a dish, a dish pan, or sweep the floor. Change a baby? Horrors.

Let’s follow our calling and say, “We’re mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore.”

You can’t use our biology against us. We can bring forth new life, but our bodies are ours.  We will share our bodies under our own terms. Controllers, Priests, and Kings have, since the beginning of recorded history, kept women subservient and interfered with their reproductive rights. They drummed women out of votes, religion, education, and realistic paying jobs.

The buck stops here.

Are we going to keep a rapist, a bully, a liar, and a cheat out of the White House?

 How dare he and his cohorts treat us with contempt.

What if we don’t care how much money people or candidates have? We are the people. We can talk, we have pens to write, we have a voice, and we have a vote.

We need our sisters.

Women, we can do it!

 

“When you stop operating from an old operating system, you will feel inspired, evolving, and expanding, and you won’t feel overwhelmed.

‘You will be able to manifest your vision.”—Jean Huston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Write a Sad Story and People Will Buy It."

Really?

Sure, we like drama. We mainly want it when sitting by the fireplace, snuggling with the dog, reading a good book, or watching a movie. We can have a good cry or thrill to the music of young lovers. Does boy get girl? We can shudder while we identify with our hero snowshoeing across the 40% below zero Tundra while being stalked by a Polar Bear in competition with a pack of wolves, all vying for his tender flesh. OMG, the hero slipped into the icy water—that's sure death in that temperature. 

But in life, most people say they want to be happy. That's my wish and that of most people I know. Writing is a therapeutic experience, so I am encouraging you to write your own story.

Writing about your life is better than an after-death life review, for you can choose the moments. 

Last week, I talked of spankings, and my heart ached when I got a response from a reader who said she cried with her brother after he was whipped with a belt or a rubber hose to punish him for wetting the bed. Something he couldn't control. (She buried all three of those torture devices in rabbit holes.) Those parents would be too ashamed to go to a therapist. Whoa. I have a good friend who got whipped by her mother with a leather belt with the buckle out. I don't know for what. Being there, most likely. She grew up to marry a man that also hit her. She didn't spank her children, though. One day, she threatened her son, and he yelled, "Child abuse! Child abuse!" 

She laughed and hugged him.