Knee High

I heard corn is supposed to be knee high by July. Well, here we are and this one is shoulder high!! woohoo! Astronomically tall are the Sunflowers. I hope the birds will love them.

My little tomato plant is fairly pathetic and so are the little pepper plants but lordy lordy we're gonna have us some cukes, beets, mustard greens, and potatoes!!

Maasai Joy

This photo did it for me. A new bicycle is in my near future. I've already got the route to work down!!!!

Photo by Chris Minihane

This is the one. An Electra D21. They call it Flat Footed Technology so you can actually ride sitting up and don't have to hold yourself up with your toes at a stop sign. With a congenitally fused vertebrae in my neck, this will be perfect because I don't have to look up. I'll already be up!!

Of course what another part of me craves is a motorcycle. I'm going for the better choice for my body, long and short term. Damnit.

Kisses

This great site could keep you going for days. Today I Found Out  The link will take you to one of the questions with answers "Why do we kiss?"  Sometimes I get lost in this site. It's one of my (I'm sure it's considered socially, financially, and spiritually unproductive by some) favorite joyful and relaxing pastimes.

1977

An old friend of mine came into the store with a Radical Woman Leaflet from the 1977 Gay Pride March. What a stroll down that lane of memories. I showed it to a few people and they seemed surprised that I play guitar and wanted to know what I had played or what the scene was about. Being that I have a severe case of CRSS (Can't Remember Shit Syndrome) I, of course, had no idea. But I do remember that it was a couple of years before I stopped drinking and drugging myself into other worlds and it was the year before I bought a 1978 Honda Civic off the lot. I was the only person in my immediate family to ever buy a brand new car. 1977. 10 years after I graduated from High School. Wow. I really did a lot between graduation and gay pride. Was married, divorced, moved to Oregon and then Washington, walked from Paris to Marseilles and spent 3 months in Paris, had innumerable jobs including tree planting and working in the Weyerhauser nursery, driving a semi from coast to coast over a months time, living for a year in a cabin 4 miles up a dirt road with no water or utilities, and a washer in a hospital laundry. Jeez, and that's just the tip of the employment and adventure icicle. I have an an extraordinary life. Thank you, Universe, Loves, Children, Acquaintances, Angels and all the moments that create all the moments. I am blessed and eternally grateful.

Healthy Yummy Chocolate

One of the key areas of research into the benefits of chocolate consumption is its effect on cardiovascular disease. Much of the benefits are attributed to its high content of flavanols, a type of polyphenol - antioxidants found in foods like cocoa, tea, berries, and wine. A growing amount of recent research suggests that:

• Chocolate flavonols are especially important in protecting against damage to cholesterol and the lining of the arteries.
• Chocolate flavonols prevent the excessive clumping together of blood platelets that can cause blood clots.
• Frequent chocolate consumption is associated with a nearly 40% reduced risk for heart disease and a 30% reduced risk for a stroke.

New Data:

To investigate the relationship between chocolate consumption and brain health, a group of 60 older people (aged 72.9 ± 5.4 years) without dementia were studied in a double-blind clinical trial. The participants drank two cups of hot cocoa per day for 30 days and did not consume any other chocolate during the study. One group consumed a high flavonol hot cocoa and the other group consumed a lower flavonol version.

At the beginning of the study and then again after 30 days the particpants were given tests of memory and thinking skills, as well as had ultrasounds tests to measure the amount of blood flow to the brain during the tests.

What these researchers and others are showing is that as different areas of the brain need more energy to complete their tasks, they also need greater blood flow. This relationship, called neurovascular coupling, plays an important role developing dementia and/or Alzheimer's disease.

Of the 60 participants, 18 had impaired blood flow at the start of the study. Those people had an 8.3-percent improvement in the blood flow to the working areas of the brain by the end of the study, while there was no improvement for those who started out with regular blood flow.

Focus

Another piece made with the help of Bedrock Industries. Recycled blown glass shard re melted, cut, grooved, and wrapped to create the pendant. The beads are jasper and glass and the chain is brass.

I've really been into using bronze wire. This one is wrapped in it. I think I'll try to find bronze chain.

Practice

Two whole days in the studio. Some new tools and reverberating excitement. Along with my reaching in to understand shame resilience, worthiness, and whole hearted loving and living, I've come to realize, in a much deeper way, that art, creativity is my spiritual practice. Simultaneously, I've realized that spiritual practice is a key to joy and my own authenticity. I suppose that a lot of people already know this. Maybe. Maybe not. Oh man, I sure have a tendency to compare and judge myself. This makes me smile to see. 

There was a question. What do I think the difference is between self awareness and self love. Maybe I just found the answer, eh? To see that I compare, is awareness. To smile and love myself for seeing, that's the love thing. 

Hustling for worthiness is how I lose myself. Believing in it, is how I'm found. These days I feel like I'm welcoming my Self home.

Photograph by Katrina Keifer

Dappled Light

The Cave has been an absolute haven and I love it. Still, there is starting to be a desire for more Light. These have been the times when shadows have made themselves known. Shadows, the places where the light has an obstacle and the places in me that show themselves so they can be touched and, hopefully, loved, accepted, deemed worthy.

There was a time when I thought of myself as the moon. The light on my surface always coming from someplace outside of myself. Not that I didn't have a Light of my own. I just thought of it as this burning heat deep within me that never made it to the top, to the edges, was never seen by another being. Part of me, I think, still has that perception. The shamed part that doesn't reflect my worth, that has a voice that sounds kinda like Gollum. She's been a lot quieter in the past year or so. Maybe it started about the time that the sleeping, hiding, wandering children that live within me as me, were seen. Glorious day. I am enchanted by their beauty, wisdom, and strength.

Today, on my walk on paths near my studio I found this remnant being consumed by the earth. I burst out laughing from joy.

Images From A Walk In The City

So lucky to be able to walk/hike just a few blocks from the Cave. This day was exquisite. And the beauty to be found there was in every single being from rock to water drop and the humans and canines in between. I kept following trails, lost and not caring and not alone and not afraid. Path after path of daydreaming journey while witnessing as many wonders as I could. Then sitting for a moment by the sweet brook tumbling through and finding it's song a meditation bell and voice easing me into stillness. With each breath there are murmurs of who I truly am and what is really important. Then, without knowing direction, I found myself again close to the Cave. Home. Smile of recognition and peace.

Shiga Garden Newlings

Sunflower beginning to peak through the nest of leaves that have been preparing for her.

The first Nasturtium opens. So splendidly alive.

Universe Stuff

Someone shot people at SPU today. Crap.
There are chicken bones in the courtyard outside my front door
The sweet peas grow exponentially, almost as I watch.
Chickadee babies become fledglings right before my eyes.

I thought my childhood was chaotic and it was. Seriously, not just my childhood. All of it. Powerfully convoluted, unkind, alive, and random. Every single moment an entire story of creation. Today I see it's just life being genesis and nobody knows what's going to happen next.

There is a dream in me, still, that I will understand Peace and accept the pandemonium of it all. Accept the ways it exists in the Universe and in my Self and, with that recognition, love and forgive us all. Maybe, if I get it right, forgiveness won't even be necessary.

Illegal Spaces

I do not have a designated parking place. Some nights I come home from workage and the only place to park is a space that will be illegal before I go to work the next morning. When that happens this picture, but bigger, becomes the desktop on my computer so I am reminded to find a space that will be legal in the morning. That's ok. Caves were never meant to be someplace where cars need to be parked. And Saturdays are fabulous because Sunday is a holiday from illegal parking.