Just in Somewhat sheepishly, Exxon makes $11 billion
As the population of Planet Earth is just about 7 billion people – what can be said about this single first quarter profit of ONE oil company! Questions? Investigations? How much more will THEY take?
Contrasts Re-Awaken Similarities and Possibilities
The days or weeks leading up to another blog entry always make me antsy to write yet I don’t have a clear focus or topic to write about. It was a similar feeling and process I experienced when preparing for the taping of my television program from 2004 to 2007. I would get lots of clues and messages but it took time to see their relevance before the final piece was laid in place.
This past week fits into this same category and now I enjoy the game of revelations that goes along with the emerging clues. Today is the day to put “pen to paper” so to speak. And as part of the writing I want to share the unfolding of clues that has taken place. Notice the diversity and commonalities that emerge, do you see the theme!
Clue 1: Last Tuesday and Wednesday I began remembering the trip my former husband and I took to Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1996. Several very powerful memories kept surfacing until one stood out more than the other. (I will share that story later in this posting.)
Clue 2: On Wednesday I also receive a new message from the Hathors by Tom Kenyon. Here is a very short excerpt that now has a more profound meaning for so many.
We now wish to address the question of a new creation for those of you who may find yourself in the aftermath of a natural or manmade disaster, such as an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or destructive weather patterns.
If the destructive force is strong enough, the perceptual markers of your former reality may no longer exist. Your home or place of business may no longer be there. You may find yourself dealing with shortages of food and water, and there are any number of variables that can come together to create a state of shock and overwhelm.
We wish to be very clear in what we are about to say. Shock and overwhelm in the face of disasters are a natural mammalian response, and if you are to transcend and transform the moment you must reach upward to higher dimensions of your own existence, your own being, to those realms of consciousness that are beyond time and space….... (from Transition States of Consciousness)
Clue 3: Today, April 29, 2011 (4+11+4 = 19 = 1 new beginning) was the Big Day . The marriage of William and Kate takes the British Monarchy into brand new image territory – the king-to-be marrying a commoner along with a significant softening of age old rigid traditions. Some commentators called it “the day the UK came out of mourning for Princess Diana, breathing life back into a nation!” I was awake at 4:20am and prompted to get up. I didn’t! I waited until the push was stronger, finally getting up at 5:10am to turn on television where I am staying. I had missed the service so had to be happy with the ramblings, cut-ins of the service and location interviews. Then around 6:00am CNN and others started cutting back across the Atlantic to reporters in the South showing the incredible tornado damage done in six southern states. At one point I even saw split screen images of “the wedding and the devastation” – such contrasts!
Clue 4: Last night I took my Medicine Bundle out of hiding. It was time for the bundle to share a night on the Mother Earth. So I placed all the sacred stones and items on the land and did prayers and blessings. This morning with music of the native flute in the background, I did a short meditation and pulled some medicine cards for additional clues. Skunk-Reputation; Blue Heron-Self-Reflection; Weasel-Stealth revealed themselves. (Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson). Reading the descriptions I took the messages/relevance shown for today.
Clue 5: Then later in the warming sun I checked the new seedlings in the garden, got my hands dirty in the soil and became aware of “dialogue in my head” moving the clues of information around to create varying story lines and revelations…..Contracts is situations, intimate connecting with strangers because of disaster, life and death, physical and material loss and spiritual rebirth.
So what is the message within all these clues!
From Apathy to Empathy
First and foremost the human experience is bound to contrasts as a way of finding the middle ground. The goal if one could look at it this way, is to find the middle path, the harmonious balance between the contrasts, at least for a little while. It is also in our human nature to get complacent or lost if we stay in that middle and balanced place for too long without some conscious awareness. People and situations are taken for granted, apathy can set in or creating too much action and/or anger to make change for the wrong reasons or in the wrong way.
Although there are many situations to mention I am just taking a few. At the beginning of the Iraq War, probably 97% of people had no idea it would still be going 10 years later, with no true end in sight! Unless one is in the thick of it, apathy and non-caring takes over. It is on someone else’s land. The earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding and massive destruction and loss of life in Indonesia (12/26/2004); Gulf Coast, USA (8/28/2005); Haiti (1/12/2010); New Zealand (2/22/2011); Japan (3/11/2011) now takes on new meaning, empathy and consciousness in this country. Katrina hit hard and is now close to forgotten, unless you were very personally effected and still trying to get back together. The recent mid-west flooding continues as the spring snows melt. And then yesterday (4/28/2011) a massive number of tornadoes ripped through the South completely wiping out entire areas and the loss of life rises. “It looks like a war zone!” It looks like a 3rd world country!” “Everything has completely changed!”
Now all of these people and departed souls are connected by and through the consciousness thread of Unity in Tragedy through the Uprising of Spiritual Awakening for the New World of Light Integrity Living. Read it again if you didn’t get it the first time! Mother Nature holds no favorites. Even the poorest regions of the US are wealthier than many 3rd or 4th world countries. In a split second contrasts are wiped out, taking each one to find the core of what is important, what is real, what is lasting or what is not! The physical rebuilding in all of these cases is huge. The spiritual rebuilding is even more crucial, even larger and will be the transforming force of all that comes behind. These are the lessons and these are the gifts shared.
Footing the Bill!
One of the first things that will come to the front after the initial shock has passed will be about “where is the money going to come from…..we have an economic crisis!” Now let’s see if this country has and is ready for a new or renewed brand of politician who takes initiative for social and financial greed and change. Who will really use the insane amounts of $$$ they raise in the “name of campaigning” for real, tangible projects instead of recycling it through select corporate boardrooms and the like. It is time to Walk the Talk in a completely new way and no-one can immune themselves from this movement ahead. This type of action will get the votes they seek, guaranteed!
Haiti – A Lesson from Mission Dollars
This trip to Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1996 was amazing for me and I was not new to travel. I had lived in Europe for five years in my twenties, traveled the world as a Stewardess with British Airways and had my own wholesale travel company before the advent of the Internet. This trip awakened and tested my spiritual resolve, beliefs and depths. My husband and I were part of a group of eighteen clergy and lay people at the invitation of the International Department of the Mission Department of the Presbyterian Church. We were there to see how effective change was happening, if at all and how effective or not where mission monies being spent and on what types of projects. So many stories to tell….but this one was profound…..as it is about contrasts!
Black and White
Our bus pulled up in front of a new, white building with lovely landscaping. The white exterior was sparking in the sun and my first thought was “this is so out of place here!” Our Host greeted us warmly and chatted as
we toured the new clinic, wonderfully funded by several congregations in Pennsylvania. “Leave your mark in concrete” he suggested. My husband was thrilled at the opportunity. After a short stop we were scheduled to visit the pastor of a small church in another part of the town, in the bario, there would be a short service of welcome.
The church was an old, rundown, grey block square building with no doors or windows, just openings. Apart from enough seats for those present, a podium and a table, there wasn’t anything else. The pastor was pleasant and quiet. The music, besides voices, was provided by a man sitting straddling an old box speaker without the actual speaker. Just a hole with four pieces of metal nailed to it. He twanged the metal and there was music! A large Creole Haitian woman caught my eye. She was dressed in a bright dress with matching head wrap, she seemed to be someone they all respected.
The service ended, we all milled around and then started to leave. The woman came up to me as I stood alone to the side. “Viens, viens avec moi!” she asked several times. “Come with me” she was asking. Years ago I spoke really good French, although it was very out of practice, I understood her French/Creole words. I started to follow her. Tim asked where I was going and I response “I have no idea!” He joined me.
We started towards their village although this is a very questionable description to use by our standards! Another group member, Doreen asked to join us and so we disappeared though the rabbit warren of shacks of tin, wood, cardboard or whatever, seeing penned pigs, a chicken or two, dogs here and there. We kept going, winding further into this amazing place. Although the paths and floors of their homes were dirt, all was very orderly and clean, as though they respected what they had.
We finally came to the only block building, we entered at her request. There were two rooms. The first one had a table and two chairs, that’s all I noticed. The walls were adorned with pages from magazines, as though for decoration. We entered the second room, it was smaller, two small windows and a double bed. Don’t remember anything else. Lying on the bed was the blackest man I had ever seen! The woman’s skin was much lighter in comparison. He was delirious, he was mumbling continually. “Il est mon mari. Il est malade! ” she said He is my husband, he is sick!
That was an understatement! Just one look told you that! I was drawn to the bed and reached down to touch the man’s arm. He was on fire! His skin was swollen, spongy and boiling hot to the touch. I couldn’t image what it felt like! “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, je suis pret! My God, my God, I am ready! He kept saying over and over. His wife started talking to us and I caught on to most of what she was saying but my mind was with her husband. I remembered the clinic and saw Red! Back to the man! I sat on the bed because it felt right. Held his hand and spoke to him because it felt right. I also felt he was so close to leaving, to dying, his body energy was shutting down.
Tim was standing next to me and Doreen next to him. The wife stood at the end of the bed. Tim was so uncomfortable yet wanting to do something. I turned as he looked at the woman and said “I know you will not understand the words I say but I would like to say a prayer for your husband!” She smiled and nodded, she did understand! In the time we held hands and Tim saying his prayer a bubble of light and power came over us. There were no other sounds, there was nothing else except the five of us. As was usual, Tim’s prayer was long winded but it was perfect, it came from the depths of his heart. He stopped talking and we just stayed there, in this bubble of light.
Suddenly noise broke the silence and voices were getting loud. Lionel, our tour leader entered and spoke to the woman. Haitian by birth, Lionel had been saved by Amnesty International many years earlier, when imprisoned in the dungeons of the Palace, the very palace we had had tea in days earlier. Fortunately, he was a living victim of Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier’s reign of terror. This trip was his first to Haiti since those days.
The woman told him her husband had been lying there for three days, he had been very sick and she was afraid he would die. Lionel asked why she had not taken him to the new clinic. She shook her head and explained. It was not for Haitians. They have no money. It is not welcoming to people like us! I was furious as I had already figured that out. I insisted that Lionel arrange for the men to take him to the clinic. A young man working at the clinic kept saying “they know it is there, it is their fault if they don’t go!” Wrong!
Eventually the man was taken to the clinic and we went off the follow the scheduled events. I was still upset by what had happened and what I saw! No one else seemed to care!
At the end of the day we returned to the clinic to clean up before the long trip back to the hotel. On the way to the bathroom I caught sight of a man in a wheelchair with a nurse and another woman standing beside him. Slowing and straining to listen I heard “I don’t know why they brought him here, there is nothing wrong!” I looked again, it was the same man but he looked completely different. I tried not to show surprise.
Minutes later after looking for Tim I made my way back to the bus, through the garden. In front of me was the nurse pushing the wheelchair. They stopped in front of Doreen and the young man from earlier. As I walked by, I stopped, touched the man’s arm and asked “Vous etre bien maintenant!” Big eyes looked up at me and a smile shone through. He gave a slight node and I kept walking.
Two nights later, our last night and we all gathered for a debriefing and celebration. Going around the table everyone had a chance to share something of their journey. It was Doreen’s turn. She shared and then just as she finished she turned to me, smiled and told the group there was something further she needed to say. Giving a brief outline to remind all of the time she was referencing.
Looking directly at me she began “I have something to tell you that you need to know. When we were standing on the path you spoke to the man and then walked off…..he turned to us and with a smile said “Elle a ete mon ange” She was my angel! “(excuse not having the correct accents)
I was moved to tears, humbled and knew it had all played out for many reasons. The good intentions of mission monies and how they are spent often miss the mark completely and are for the givers to feel good rather than to completely benefit the receivers. The clinic, so pristine and perfect was an “unwelcoming white elephant” in the small community. The staff couldn’t understand why people they knew were sick would not go there. After this instance I did hear “through the grapevine” there had been changes and staff were now working to make the clinic an open and welcoming place for everyone, not just those who fit the right profile.
The contrast came in the meeting of the black man and a white woman innocently becoming the light of awakening where color, possessions, culture and financial status had absolutely no power or place.
As you reflect on our world, there is much for us to do!
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After spending nearly six weeks away visiting my sons and their families and being blessed by so many joys and memories (see previous posting) I am now back on the West Coast in Northern California, at present house and pet sitting for dear friends. Next week I head to Mt Shasta once again to spend a good portion of the winter, if not all of it and beyond.
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