ask

ask and it is given: learning to manifest your desires

a new book that recently found its way into my life
whoa.
it's the most amazing thing i've ever read
the premise, the content, the manner in which it got written
all of it fascinating
i have fantasies of *manifesting* a crateload of them
and sharing the abundance of amazing wisdom
so maybe i will
the information in this book has helped me piece SO much together
the world makes a lot more sense to me now
... again

The Appalachian Forest

yesterday we all (except for aaron who was flying away to california) went over to our friend mary bartlett's house (that she shares with her daughter lily). she's gentle, wise, and so much fun. she's been gardening and growing her own food for about 30 years. we're all very excited about coming to know her better.

so we showed up at her house to help out in the garden. yesterday was on the biodynamic calendar a root day so we were planting beets, turnips, onions, carrots, potatoes... i think that's all.

what an awesome day we had! there was much camaraderie and love shared on the little hillside garden behind her house.

we're planning to participate in the garden tending regularly this season to help us grow our connection and relationships with mary (and hopefully with lily), learn from her experience, and participate in growing a good portion of our own food. woo-hoo!

she loaned me a few books before we left, one of which is The Appalachian Forest, A Search for Roots and Renewal by Chris Bolgiano.

the inside flap of the cover says:
"In the coves of southern Appalachia are fifteen hundred species of flowering plants, including more kinds of trees than in all of northern Europe. here are bewildering nuances of biodiversity, with mosses, fungi, spiders, salamanders, mussels, fish, birds, and people like none other on earth. Searching for home, we moved into one of the grand old mansions of the planet....

"The Appalachian Forest describes a place once rich with old-growth woodlands – American chestnuts ten feet in diameter, tulip poplars more than two hundred feet tall, warblers and wild turkey abundant beyond imagining – whose landscape has been systematically devastated by cutting and mining. Comparing the past and present land and people of this region once known as The Great Forest, Chris Bolgiano finds the promise of ecological recovery.

"More than a biological overview, the book explores mountain life and its many contrasts, such as generations of human poverty amid a wealth of natural resources. The mountain farmers, Cherokee, foresters, biologists, bear hunters, and grassroots activists that Bolgiano comes to know all define a part of the diversity of her Appalachian home.

"Meticulously researched, yet lyrically personal, The Appalachian Forest reveals a powerful message: the need to preserve mature, connected forests for the benefit of all living things in this great wilderness – including people."

oh wow. i think this is the book i've been looking for. perhaps it's been looking for me as well. thanks to mary b for bringing up together. i'm so excited to let this book help to introduce me to the history of this place i'm learning to love to call home. i'm excited to let this book help me proudly call myself one of the inhabitants of this land.

i'm drooling in anticipation.

cultivating stillness

"to meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer the universe. i call it stillness, but it is a jewel of many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love." -eckhart tolle

the power of now is amazing.

i'm overcoming some of the painful stories i've come to tell myself. and remembering some of the beautiful stories i've had as a young'n and at various other points along the way. down with down, up with up.

on the more physical plane, there's now a little community blossoming in our little home in culpeper, virginia. there are seven adults and one asher baby living on the third floor of the medical arts building, a few blocks from downtown. (just about 3 blocks from the amtrak station if you're thinking about visiting...)

there's also 90 acres in nearby etlan that we're planning to build and garden on this summer. hopefully we'll have lots of work parties and events in the warm months for y'all to come out to. nudge. (:

and we're going to some hot springs on a visioning retreat next week to figure out how to fit all of our dreams into the span of our lifetimes. or something like that.

secretive is passe

so, i'm on a journey of what i'm calling my renaissance, a returning to myself and a rejuvenating of my... well, my je ne sais quoi. a characteristic of mine that accompanied and supported my passion, my love, my innocence, my trust of and belief in life and magic. my anti-cynicism maybe.

this journey is following one of a different nature, one where i was moved to find ways to be able to recognize, identify, and name my needs and my opinions. through my adventures in community living (with special assistance from working with the consensus process and from friends like becky and aaron) i realized that i wanted to be able to play a more active role in my own life and shape the decisions made around me. an amazing, wonderful, empowering venture into self-expression that eventually left me with more criticism and bitterness than i wish to carry with me. i got into a place of distancing myself from the fabric of the world and overseeing and scrutinizing what was going on around me.

now i'm working on finding a balance between being able to acknowledge my critique to help me pursue what i want, and also being able to, as byron katie says, love What Is.

on our trip cross country, our caravan stopped at the one world everybody eats cafe in salt lake city. definitely a highlight of the trip. you get fresh, healthy, organic, local food and you choose how much to pay for it. there's always a free dish that no one pays for. and you can always trade for your meal. one way to trade is to exchange an hour of meditation or prayer. anyway, on the wall there was a poem by sri chinmoy, one line of which felt relevant for this lesson i'm learning: "I am happy because I do not try to convince others."

as a part of this whole process i've been realizing the ways i'm secretive and sometimes deceptive. i think that part of that je ne sais quoi that i've distanced myself from is my vulnerability. and in this journey of learning to communicate i'm hearing in a different way than before what i've always been able to hold back by staying in the shadows. now that i'm trying to make myself more present to and a part of the conversation i don't want to find myself holding my tongue. i do want to divulge who i am in juicy and nervous-making ways. i want to take risks because i believe in life. i want to proclaim and embrace.

one of my favorite quotes from a movie is from harold and maude. maude is showing harold around her little house filled with elements of her fully lived life and they come to something hanging over the fireplace. a cane or umbrella or something like it that maude used to use as defense in all the protests and rallies she would go to. but she tells harold "i don't need the protection anymore. i embrace!"

i wrote a snippet about beginning "a thousand names for joy" by byron katie on november 6th. i continue to not be so sure about it. the tone still turns me off but i do appreciate learning more about and incorporating what she calls The Work.

then here i am in virginia staying with my wonderful friends mary, nexus, and rannie -the finders- and i wander among their collections of books browsing titles and reading descriptions. (one of the greatest things about living in community has always been the pooled resources, including giant libraries of books begging to be read. yum!) well, i came across this book called "radical honesty: how to transform your life by telling the truth" by brad blanton. sounds relevant, no? so i pick it up and browse to get a feel for it and it turns out that a big part of the message feels very similar to the byron katie book but with a VERY different tone. samples from each that are making similar points in their different ways:

"when the mind believes what it thinks, it names what cannot be named and tries to make it real through a name. it believes that its names are real, that there's a world out there separate from itself. that's an illusion. the whole world is projected. when you're shut down and frightened, the world seems hostile; when you love what is, everything in the world becomes the beloved. inside and outside always match – they're reflections of each other. the world is the mirror image of your mind."
-"a thousand names for joy: living in harmony with the way things are"

"bullshit is a highly technical term used throughout this book. ... bullshit is any abstraction from experience your mind makes and assigns value to. 'you don't love me,' or 'those people are angry,' or 'this is ugly (beautiful, good, bad, important, etc.)' all are interpretations of reality. bullshit is a sales pitch for an interpretation of reality that comes with any interpretation of reality. all interpretations of reality are bullshit. freedom is not being dominated by your own bullshit."
-"radical honesty: how to transform your life by telling the truth"

as i said in my entry on the 6th, i'm laying aside my cynicism, and embracing what they have to offer.

so here's my attempt at making a frank, intimate, transparent, and embracing blog post. so far it feels pretty liberating. and tiring! (especially since it;s taken me so long, it's late at night, and i just woke up asher with my computering. now he's sitting in my lap, watching the screen and my fingers as they move across the keys, with occasional glances at and grabs for his toes. okay, nighty night time before he wakes up too much.)

asher's fam

yesterday aaron, asher, and i left bonton, new jersey where we stayed over the weekend visiting the lovely karin and lisa. we drove straight through to chesapeake, virginia where aaron's family lives. they've known we're on the east coast but they weren't expecting us. surprise! asher got to meet his grandmother kathie, stepgrandfather phil, uncles justin and nick, and great uncle terry. (expect family snapshots soon) next stop is north to richmond to visit the last uncle to be met, good ole uncle luke. then on up to culpeper to see mary, nexus, and rannie, those beautiful finders friends of ours.

asher update: teething is getting to him and making him restless, especially at night; he's grabbing everything you put in front of him, including a most impressive two-handed apple grab today and lots of giggles as it rolled around on the counter when it got away from him; he's still the smiliest baby i've ever met; last night he looked like was about to take off crawling because he's fully up on him arms and wiggling and pushing with his legs, but he only ended up taking a couple small scoots backwards. life with baby could be completely different any day now.

i'm borrowing a book called a thousand names for joy by byron katie from karin. i'm not sure about it yet, the tone can be off-putting. but i've heard so much about her and something i flipped to in the book was very relevant to what i'm going through and looking for clarity about so i'm giving it a shot. laying aside my cynicism, embracing what she has to offer.

the fifth sacred thing

good book

bj just finished reading this, and i finished it a few weeks ago. i had started it a few years ago, but for one reason or another, didn't get very far. but recently, a friend mentioned it and said how it had really opened some things up for her. so i took the opportunity to give it another shot, and i'm very glad i did. i loved it. and now i want to be a witch... no seriously.

the book is written by starhawk, a well-known figure in the bay area. she teaches permaculture, earth-based spirituality, wicca/magic and activism among other things. i met her while i was in new orleans last year working on a community garden project. but i hadn't read anything of hers, nor did i really know much about her. now i sort of regret that i didn't take more opportunities to talk to her and learn more about her projects and philosophies.

the book is a utopian/dystopian fiction set in san francisco and california in 2048. it is 20 years after an apocalypse and san francisco has emerged and rebuilt as an ecotopian society existing in resistance to and at the margins of a fundamentalist/totalitarian state.

one of the things i thought was really interesting and well done, was the plausibility and relevance of the depiction of both the utopian and the dystopian elements. the good stuff was really inspiring, and illuminated for me compelling possibilities: personally, socially, and philosophically. the ugly stuff seemed prescient and all too realistic; echoing current trends here in the u.s. like increased erosion of civil liberties, the rise of fundamentalist christianity, and wide-scale environmental destruction.

overall, i really recommend it. especially if you're looking for a good novel that sucks you in and makes you want to keep reading. and if anyone wants to borrow a copy, ours is available;)