"you are strong" by carrie hart

"You are strong"

Today, I wish to tell you of your strength. You are very strong. You are powerful and full of talent and capability. You have all of the strength that you need to handle what is flowing toward you in life. All of the challenges, all of the obstacles to be overcome. You can handle all of it.

And the thing to know about your strength is this: the more you face your challenges and respond to them, the stronger you will become. The more you hide from them, the weaker you will become.

First, believe. Believe that you are capable of handling your life. Feeling the victim is very disempowering. When you begin to feel sorry for yourself and fall into a pattern of blame, blaming circumstances, other people or even yourself, you are giving away your strength.

Strength lies in responsibility. Take a look at what life holds in this moment. Take a clear and calm look, not full of blame and bitterness and certainly not full of fear or doubt. Just a calm, cool assessment. This is how things are today. And then, take a deep breath and act, act out of a deep conviction which you feel inside, out of the center of truth and peace which resides within.

It takes courage to directly deal with life, to accept what is without anger or blame and then set about doing what you need to do. But every time you fill yourself with courage and act, you will grow stronger, and then it becomes easier and easier to be the strong and capable person you truly are.

Every time you pretend, every time you deny what truly is, every time you run and hide from what has come your way, you grow weaker. But even then, even if you have done this in the past, it is not too late. You still have within you the power and strength you need to do what you must do. It is never too late to show the world who you are.

It is never too late for courageous action and truth, never too late to correct your direction. You are enough for your life, and you are surrounded by help. And when you look at life in the clear light ofday and choose courageous and honest action, all of the energy around you becomes charged and aligns itself with you. Your truth reaches up into the greatest power that exists and empowers you to act upon it, fully and nobly.

You are strong.

Here is a little prayer for today

Today, I feel courage running through my body. I am full of power and it surges through me.

Today, my eyes and my mind are clear and calm. I see life for what it is right now and I feel the flow; I am a deep part of all that is.

I embrace this moment right now, fully and completely. I embrace who I am and where I am, exactly as things are. I feel my own strength growing as I acknowledge my place in the world and reach down into my own personal truth for the rightness which is there.

I am strong. I am powerful. I am full of truth. I am.

***by carrie hart

be blessed and be blissed

"in the bubble of present-moment bliss".

This is not the final destination, not for me. It is a stop along the way. I will eventually move on, and when I do, I might not make it back here again. Or maybe I will be blessed to stop here again, on a different pilgrimage around Turtle Island (North America).

Either way, this moment right now is what is happening. It's where it's at. I slowly look around, and I see every plant as uniquely and distinctly alive. I hear a soft whooshing, like the whisper of God. I hear rhythmic, melodic bird songs. I see moss on trees that has been growing for many decades. I feel enveloped in a giant bubble of present-moment bliss. Nothing and yet everything exists outside this moment, this time-stroke, at this crossroads where I am sitting and meditating.

As life goes further along, I find myself falling under frequent reveries, spells of meditation, where I sit down and absorb the full, sweet-tart awareness of life. I follow my thoughts like a child exploring a stream. I totally tune in to the surrounding sounds and movements, the scents in the air. I don't do drugs or drink. It's just a natural thing that happens when I sit still and focus on grounding and centering myself in who I truly am. 

 

My life has moved on and moved on and moved on, over and over again in recent years. I will not lay down roots for the rest of my life...yet.I can tell the journey will continue. So I will visit other stops along the way, and enjoy each one to the fullest in the present moment, and the moments will collect and flow like a river. A beautiful river, the river of your life, 

if you can stay in the flow that is right for who you are, and stay aware in the present moment.

In the moment, the present moment, the silence I first encounter and the lack of electronic stimulation is strong in my awareness. Gradually, I realize what I've been tuning out, as the space fills up with all those sounds that I usually tune out. Not to mention bird song and wind, I can also hear many other sounds that come together like a symphony or a jam rock solo. Space...or the voice of God?

I look around at my life, at where I am actually sitting, and I think about all the places I've been in life. Some I've called home, others just a way station along the way. Is this the nexus of my journey? I think about the impermanence of it all, yet what remains permanent is my soul, the part of me that flows along, observing and interrelating. 

I like to appreciate where I am and who I meet, right in the moment that I am there, because many times I have experienced sudden endings and movings, and then the person or place is seemingly out of reach forever. But if you love it to the fullest, it becomes part of you somehow, and then you can enjoy it whenever you recall it, by reminiscing and 

honoring the past in your celebration of the present moment.

I also remember to give thanks and feel gratitude. It makes everything sweeter, even if I need a few minutes to get over some disappointment or anger. After I get over it, I come back to my Center, and focus on gratitude. These things make the journey a lot more blessed.

In Honor of Gary Snyder

In Honor of Gary Snyder


by kiyonah thundersong

written October 08, 1993

oh to be alive
 on a mid-october morning...
walking down a shady path,
barefoot, hair loose,
pack on shoulders,
sunshine, changing leaves,
rocky gorge in the Appalachians...

gurgle and shimmer of an icy creeks waters,
stones and moss underfoot,
singing inside...
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel,
hawk in the blue sky above,
dancing in th morning air...

eating wild mushrooms,
drumming in the sunshine,
at one with the world,
complete, whole, content, serene...
a bullfrog speaks to me
from someplace unknown.
i laugh and speak back.

home is where my heart is,
and home is right here...

my very first Rainbow Gathering

My favorite Gathering was probably my very first one, the Cumberland Gathering in the spring of 1993. OM Valley from Cincinnati also had a big presence there with their Bliss Kitchen (music all the time, usually Grateful Dead on banjos and mandolins) and their hand built Kid Village playground. i had no idea what Rainbow was, and i went there on a "camping trip" that my boyfriend promised me i would love and never forget.


so we drove down winding country roads thru eastern central kentucky, where all the dripping caves and shady hollars are. well, you can imagine my bafflement and surprise to be greeted by the most beautiful Rainbows, with dredlocks, muslin and calico clothing, all kinds of funky jewelry, people of every possible description including straight looking people and old folks, all up in the parking lot, yelling "welcome home!", "we looooooove you!" "you're beauuuuutiful!" over and over again, trying to outdo each other and breaking up into laughter and silliness, jumping on each others backs for piggyback rides and stuff. i was amazed. the Rainbow Flag was there, saying the family that prays/plays together, stays together. also an Earth Flag. lots of colorful banners with raps and advice, and flags to the shitters and kitchens and stuff. i felt i'd arrived in a different country, all of a sudden!


so i put on my boots and shyly gathered my pack up, trying not to look anyone in the eyes, but study them without them seeing me do it. they were so open and sweet. running up and demanding a hug and then kidnapping the person, spiriting them away to get high in a nearby tent. i had never smoked ganga, so i had no hunger for it, but i was very curious.


i walked down the trail slowly, marvelling at the natural wonders in the treetops, with blue sky peeking thru, the rocky creeks, the sharp curves where i had to grab a tree to not go off a cliff. i felt i was crossing a threshold into another world. there were little camps all thru the trees, like an ewok village in star wars. drums. heavenly scented smoke, children giggling.


the first place we arrived was at the kitchen, to even more welcome homes and hugs. i'm sure my eyes were shining very brightly by now. i forgot all about my pack and just dropped it, so i could wander around. the culture shock was so strong, within my own culture, that i will never, ever forget it. i was reborn that day.


that night, the bonfire was beautiful. i saw dragons and faces of ancestors and so much else in the embers of the bonfire, and i had never tripped yet. whenever someone stoked the fire, embers and sparks showered upward into the clear night sky, to the moon and the stars. the heartsongs literally made me lay on the ground and cry so hard. i cry now just remembering it. a beautiful sister was drinking wine and yelling "I....FEEEEEEL....FREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!" over and over again. cool old men sat around playing guitar and reminiscing about the heyday of acid rock and psychedelia. god, it was great.


the food was mainly 12 bean soup with cornbread, and it was so delicious that my mouth waters remembering it. also, the Hare Krishna were there with their bells, their storytelling, and their sweet delicious food. they threw flowers on the fires that made the entire area smell like heaven. they did cartwheels and told stories and make everyone smile. at night, the dudes in the kitchen, Scooter and crew, made tons of pizzas in a clay oven, and pretzels with chocolate, and fudge brownies. Scooter made sure to put some for me in a little hole in the ground with a stiff piece of earth over it, because i could never get in line fast enough, before it was all gone. what a sweetheart. he also carried my pack out of the gathering for me, all uphill, and i gave him my favorite turtle bead, because my name was Turtleheart at that time. last i heard, he still has the bead in his medicine bag.

wisdom and wanderlust

"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of

miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual

journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and

humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground

at our feet and learn to be at home."

-Wendell Berry, "The Unforeseen Wilderness"

Since June 2005, I've traveled at least 20,000 miles, from the Atlantic Coast of North Carolina to the Pacific Coast of California, and many places in between. It began as a journey into homelessness and ended as an arrival Home once again.

I’ve journeyed through wilderness and urban jungles, exploring realms both dark and light. I've realized the value of seeing this time of my life as a pilgrimage, an initiation, a rite of passage.This Hero's Journey has served me well, to reconnect me with the Earth and with Spirit, pushing and pulling me to heal my personal life, and strengthening my resolve to help restore the balance and majesty of our beloved planetary home.

The lessons of this journey were about survival, interconnectedness, faith in Spirit and the Flow, forgiveness of people who knew not what they did, growth in myself of qualities dormant for too long, and so much more. I began as an innocent fool, and emerged as a sage in training. When others held up the Light for me, I took hold of it and held it up for those who got on the trail after me, to help show the way.

Wisdom, Wilderness and Wanderlust. They've compelled deep and profound revelations about my true nature, about the purpose of my life, about possibilities, as I began to transition to a new phase of my soul's evolution. They've given me deeper understandings about life and love, and respect for the intimate interconnectedness of all life. I've learned about the road as a metaphor for the journey of life, like never before.

I've had to call on all my reserves of courage and endurance to overcome the obstacles along the way. The rewards have been times of soulful bliss in the midst of crippling darkness, a deeper radiance in the face of diabolical oppositions, an opening of my heart and expansion of my mind despite the lagging awareness of some of those around me, and a certainty that I am stronger and bigger than I know. These Hero's Prizes came to me after many months and miles of intense suffering and struggling to be reborn and to find Home again.

I have to honor myself and all pilgrims and soul survivors for enduring the journeys and rebirths. The Road has forced a lot of deep emotional stuff to the surface, which had to be processed and released. I had to be strong to understand, to correctly interpret, and to integrate my experiences. Without the understanding and release, I could not have transcended and carried on. Sharing my stories with you helps me to attain a profound integration of my being, going from woundedness to wholeness.

My Journey thru Wisdom and Wanderlust has been in all ways an experience of being fully alive. My heart and my soul have remembered Truth, given and received Love, been electrified and soothed and metamorphosed by Light. I was a caterpillar, now I am a butterfly. And so my journey Homeward continues...

keep your wild human funk alive

This is what I know. This wild human life is alive. No matter what the circumstances, our wild human lives are begging to be celebrated, cared for consistently, and cultivated to greater depths and higher vibrations, even when we struggle to hold on to sanity and serenity. I won't let any of this postmodern insanity in all aspects of life get me down. Not for long, anyway.


I know these things while I'm feeling bathed in the light of love and I'm living a well-loved life. My challenge is to connect the illuminated high points like dots on a map, across the terrains of darkness that I go through, and to be a beacon of light for myself and others, while going through that darkness. I think of it like a mental map I can show to someone on the same kind of journey, to help them survive and find their way home, too. And I can offer a wild human template to show them what is possible.


When life is turbulent, how can we reclaim the miracles of our wild human life? Embrace it and celebrate it and empower what we want to amplify and solidify. We take a breath, we step up, we bite into it, and we love it as it is. Sometimes it's sweet in the mouth and sour in the stomach, sometimes its sour in the mouth and sweet in the stomach.


Think about all the garbage we have to process in modern life, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We have to process it in all directions, from it's creation to it's decay and eventual recreation. Maybe it's time for an attitude adjustment or a major overhaul. Reduce, reuse and recycle in ALL ways on ALL levels. As old circumstances fade away, make good choices aligned with who you really are, be good and live good and bring in good. Live organic, eat organic, love organic, think organic. And when garbage comes in, find a good way to treat it and get it out of your life.


Maybe...maybe not. Life has darkness, and so I believe it serves some valuable function for growth and change. We can't get rid of it. It's part of the design and the balance of life itself. We can handle how we receive it and react to it, I think. Eventually master it by degrees, anyway. And then integrate it into the wild human tapestry of our wild human lives.


Every day in every way, everything in the world is simultaneously dying and coming alive. Which aspect do you focus on, as a wild human? I focus on both. Do you see the dying and the coming alive in your home, your clothes, your transportation, your friends and their lives, your thoughts and dreams, all of it? Now isn't that something? The rose is in the garbage, and the garbage is in the rose. Interdependent coexistence of light and dark, good and bad, wild and tame, free and imprisoned, beautiful and ugly, happy and unhappy, all of it.


Hmmm. Quite amusing and interesting when you aren't too attached. Quite agonizing and emotional when you are. Great Spirit must be extraordinary to have created all of this, to allow it and sustain it to continue, and to love and to care about every molecule in Creation. Just think about that.


How can you as a wild human create a heritage for yourself, based on values of celebration and reverence of life as it is, including and embracing all of it? How can we make choices so that we smell, touch, taste and feel what is balanced, healthy and just, even while system-busting and subverting the dominant paradigms? Or even while dealing with unevolved people with no appreciation of our wild humanness?


Reverence. Like poetry in motion as wild human life. The essence of wild human life. Hitchhiker poetry. Outlaw poetry. Down in the blues poetry. Wilderhumans uniting in the woods poetry. The poetry is life itself. Sometimes written down, sometimes sung, sometimes acted out. In reverence. Spiral slacker, gutterpunk, neotribalistic, green anarchistic, hip hop spoken word, insane buddhist, peaceful native american, seasoned elder, fearless youngster, poetic reverence.


Embracing all of it, including the pain and the scars. Those details of the poetry give the wild human story of your life character and depth. Even the shame and the dying and the apparent failures and shortcomings. All of it is heroic. All of it makes me cry and shout with joy at the same time. My soul has a thousand tattoes about the adventures I've experienced so far, and my mind is covered with the grafiti that tells the stories...


Wild human reverence is big enough to fit around both the beauty and the hell of this world. It's also small enough to fit in your pocket. By carrying wild human reverence with you, you can stay awake and aware and creative in how you relate with what shapes your world. When I am upset, I go hide up in the treetops and remember who I am and what my wild human life is about, and I embrace it. I step slowly and carefully when crossing such terrain, so as not to get hurt too badly, and as soon as the coast is clear, I run and smile and be happy again. Such is life.


How you do anything is how you do everything. So what about that? Hmm? When YOU get overwhelmed, angry, apathetic, lost in the insanity, who and what helps you to relight your wild human fire? How do you increase your capacity to self-ignite and electrify yourself to life again? Sometimes I feel like I'm crossing the Swamp of Neverending Sadness and if I give in to it, it will suck me down and under. Only then will the enemy have won. So on I go, streaming tears and thunder struck with grief sometimes. Eventually, I come up the bank and into the forest and life is ok again.


The secret is to keep your wild human spirit IN MOTION. Your spirit needs to have actions that are relevant, meaningful and somehow significant, however small. Like grafiti that says "THIS IS VANDALISM FOR IT'S OWN SAKE".. This is Wild Human Life FOR ITS OWN SAKE and no other. Ha!


WAKE UP. RISE UP. LIVE!!!! Face your challenges and opportunities by rooting down deep into your wild human peace. If you don't have wild human peace, then strive to find it or create it. It will soothe you in the darkest times and help you to exude your truth. Carry it into all your taproots and branches and leaves and seeds and fruit. A tree is known by it's fruit. Send your roots deep into the earth and reach your branches up into the sky and make your wild human fruit juicy and soulful.


Be a home for all kinds of wild creatures. I'm in love with the family of racoons that live in my yard and tall trees. A mom, dad and three beautiful babies. They look like a cross between a cat, a ferret and a koala bear. They are fascinating, so intelligent and aware and beautiful like bandits with their face masks, climbing face first down those tall trees, hiding in the v-crooks watching me as I watch them. Wow.


When your wild human self awakens to another day, remember to define and refine your conscious actions and attitudes, and bring a little attention to the unconscious ones. Choose your habits and have-to-do's with all the conscious intention you can muster!!! Take time to wake up, at least an hour or two--be alone with your coffee and the breeze so that your thoughts can settle and you can "get into character" to face the day if necessary--" character" is the you that you wish to become and to be, or it's who you are before the world imposes it's paradigms on you.


In this time of humanity's great transitions and changings, wild humans are not to be afraid to shine. Like the light of the world. Like a beacon down a dark trail guiding pilgrims home to what is real and what has value and meaning for those with whom it resonates. So many souls need it and long for it. I receive letters every day that show me this.


We've got to keep our wild human phunk alive as we compost this dominant paradigm of conspicuous consumption, hierarchy and power, demand and waste, distraction and meaninglessness, disconnection and acrimony. In it's place, we wild humans grow a fertile culture of connection with the Earth, with each other, with Spirit, with our true selves. We express this in our relationships with ourselves, our people, our places, our values, our choices.


Be beautiful, be free, be true to your wild human self, and be blissed, because you are.

it's all about the motion

How do you hold steady as a wild human? People who live in a state of relative motion, living on the road as they seek out a home base, are aware of the need to hold steady amidst constant change. But even rock solid lives are besieged with transitions these days, and even stable people need to stay steady. These transitions in our personal lives are connected with transitions in play on a planetary scale, as habitats, weather patterns, animal species and entire ecosystems are on the move. Even the trees themselves are on the road as their seedlings take root ever farther north, chasing the climates that soothe their souls.


How do you as a wild human hold steady, when your soul is on the move, seeking home and stability? I'm not just speaking of geographical motion, but also of economic, political and even spiritual motion, as we stare into the gnarley eyes of collapse all around, and as we play our hands, with each new card dealt holding the possibility of volatile change. A lot of shuffling and stirring these days. Me oh my. None of this motion is like a simple move in a U-haul, no no, this is vague and looming and crunchy with uncertainty.


There is a lot going on "out there", as well as "in here" that could cause one a lot of distress...Where is all of this going? Are we doomed as a species? What happens when the last penguin boards the bus to oblivion? Is the last human next? I know these are heavy questions, but even the corporate mass media, always rushing to capitalize on the latest fears, are asking some pretty heavy questions of late.


I think that the gift is right there within the curse. We can do numerous things with our fears, doubts and concerns--feel anger, resentment, or hopelessness- -but I propose that as wild humans we go into appreciation, gratitude and wonder about the complexity of what it takes to pull off all the shifting that's going on. Just one small example could be all the beauties, problems, and complexities of the Rainbow Family on all levels. We could get angry and resentful about cop interference, persecution from all directions, stuff like A-camp and wrecking crews, etc. Or we can feel gratitude for the Rainbow Family itself, and appreciate it for all that it is, and feel wonderment at the incredible counterculture that it is.


If it is all about the motion--keeping life and spirit in motion while holding our souls steady through the changes so that we don't deconstruct- -and if movement permeates our existence on all levels--then we as wild humans can instigate movement into what we'd prefer to experience. And we CAN take the shortest path, though not usually the path of least resistance. When we are beset by bad feelings about facing this world as it is and is becoming, then we can allow ourselves to be moved by those very feelings into GRACE.


Grace is a very powerful state to be in. I also call it being in the flow. Have you taken your daily dose of Vitamin Be Here Now??? It requires blind faith sometimes, and acting "as if" it will all work out, even when you know that is not possible. Grace is dynamic--everchangi ng--,and supportive of hope, and urging to all of life to create and to move forward. Grace is the flow of energy and events that mediates between our immaturity and our power, like when we drive on "autopilot" while high and while talking on a cell phone and not crashing. Grace, wild human grace, is what carries the motion of our lives forward through our personal and sociocultural evolutions. It's an energy and an attitude we carry with us whenever we can remember to. I sometimes think of it as Jedi Mind Tricks.


We have often heard that the journey IS the destination, and the ends ARE the means, but how do we apply that to the drone of our daily, to-do-list oriented lives, with our goals and unfinished projects and so forth and so on? There is definitely joy in a sense of completion and accomplishment, but the joy is so much fuller when each moment has an opportunity to reflect it.


It's often hard to remember, but each moment of life is complete, in and of itself. Each moment reflects a blip on the heartbeat screen of creation. It glows with the possibility of living in the sanity and beauty we know is on the tips of our souls. We don't usually see the next blip coming, but it comes, packing another shining opportunity. If that last moment we went through fell apart into fear or anger or self-loathing, well here comes another chance to acknowledge grace and being here now, as we flow into the next moment.


What did you create in the moment you just experienced, if anything? It doesn't matter what the label for it is--a grassroots movement, a hippie music festival, caring for a child or parent. What matters is that we do trust the flow and the grace to carry us forward into each proceeding moment, each sacred, joyful, annoying, persistent, brilliant moment as it flows one after another. Do you broadcast vibes of stress or peace? Hatred or tolerance? Opposition or connection? Unconsciousness or awareness?

Generate a world you know is possible through what you as a wild human create in this moment. When you miss a moment or two, its ok, you can return to wild human awareness in the next moment. It's all about the motion, the flow, the dance of life.

There is where the strength and the magic reside, to hold all the questions and answers, the mysteries and wonders, the doubts and the facts, that hurtle us ever forward into the unknown.